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An electric vehicle charging station could soon exist every 50 miles on some of Oregon’s main highways.
The Oregon Department of Transportation announced Friday it would direct $100 million over the next five years to growing a network of charging stations for cars, trucks and SUVs. Some will charge even medium-duty vehicles such as delivery vans. Electric vehicles built before 2016 have an average range of 100 miles on a single charge and today, get an average of about 250 miles, according to the Plug-in Hybrid & Electric Vehicle Research Center at the University of California, Davis.
The state Transportation Department itself won’t be in charge of installing or operating the stations, but will contract with private companies to build them, according to a news release.
The money comes from a mix of federal and state funds, but the bulk of it comes from the 2021 federal infrastructure bill.
Of the $100 million, about two-thirds will go to building charging stations every 50 miles on seven major corridors. Those include Interstates 5, 84 and 82, U.S. Highway 26, U.S. Highway 101, U.S. Highway 20, and U.S. Highway 97. Each charging station will have at least four ports, and be built so that more can be added over time.
There aren’t yet estimates for how stations will be built because costs vary depending on the type of charger and where they are installed, according to Matt Noble a public affairs specialist at the state Transportation Department.
“We’re confident that this $100 million investment will be able to build a backbone network every 50 miles across the seven corridors,” he wrote in an email.
About $36 million will go to building out charging infrastructure in rural areas and cities, especially at apartment complexes. Noble said the department will meet with stakeholder groups during the next two years to figure out what needs are and where the stations would be best located in rural and urban areas.
The state Transportation Department set a goal in 2021 of tripling the number of electric vehicles in Oregon by the end of 2023, and of expanding the statewide electric vehicle charging network in the state 10% by 2025. There are currently about 2,100 electric vehicle charging stations in Oregon, according to the Oregon Department of Energy.
The Transportation Department will be going after billions of dollars in federal grants for additional charging infrastructure that will work for heavy-duty electric vehicles such as commercial trucks and buses, according to the department’s press release. | https://www.heraldandnews.com/klamath/with-federal-investment-seven-oregon-highways-to-get-charging-stations-every-50-miles/article_bd75b245-8953-50da-964e-d48d60aba0bd.html | 2022-05-09T22:50:49Z |
Man who went missing near covered bridge found dead By Mike Sunnucks Herald & News May 9, 2022 2 hrs ago Comments Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Save Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Save Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Save Tags Covered Bridge Oregon Lane County Trending Now 64-year-old woman arrested at alleged illegal marijuana farm Judge rejects arguments against Central Oregon irrigation pipeline project CAT burglars: Theft rings target catalytic converters across the country Tribes remember those gone, missing Study: Oregon sees worrisome rise in fentanyl use Latest e-Edition Klamath Falls Herald and News Read the latest edition of the Klamath Falls Herald and News. Local Survey As mask mandates come to an end in Oregon, how will you use them in future? You voted: Will never wear one again Will wear masks in busy places, like airports and stadiums Will wear if experiencing symptoms Will wear if requested by friend/store/municipality Vote View Results Back | https://www.heraldandnews.com/news/oregon/man-who-went-missing-near-covered-bridge-found-dead/article_13996e20-6c2f-5d0b-a697-a9d966bc2ecc.html | 2022-05-09T22:50:55Z |
The state court case of Linn v. Oregon has involved a stake of a billion dollars and turned on a subtle interpretation of state law, but it ought to cause Oregonians to reflect on the meaning of … value.
The value, that is, of their state lands.
The case Linn County v. State of Oregon and State Forestry Department is being fought (it will no doubt be appealed to the Oregon Supreme Court) over whether the state owes 15 counties about a billion dollars – no small consideration by itself.
Here’s the basis for the claim.
In 1931 the Oregon Legislature passed a law setting up a program to expand state forest operations (then just a couple of decades old). The state Forestry Board was allowed to obtain land from counties, whether by gift or purchase or other transfer. In voluntary agreements, as long as the land would be used for “[g]rowing forest crops, water conservation, watershed protection, [or] recreation;” these tracts would become state forest lands.
The counties would be compensated. Since some of those lands would be leased, or the state would get other payments for their use, the counties would by law receive from the state “5 cents per acre annually and 12½ per cent of all revenues received from said lands.”
State laws controlled how state forestry was supposed to manage its lands, but the basic rule was, “The board shall manage the lands acquired pursuant to this act so as to secure the greatest permanent value of such lands to the state.”
Beyond that, the details have been up for grabs.
Differing benefits
Lands used for water conservation, for example, aren’t likely to generate as much immediate income as lands used for forestry. How the lands are used reflects how much money the counties receive.
The counties maintain that if the state had managed the lands for the highest payout, they would have over the years gotten about a billion dollars more than they did.
What exactly, precisely, was this deal between the state and the counties? Was it a contract or something a little less formal?
That can matter, because contracts legally often are taken to have a long shelf life, and their terms can (in some cases) supersede laws. Or were these agreements just administrative actions, which could be altered over time?
That’s the core issue in the new Court of Appeals decision. The court distilled the matter this way: “For the purposes of our analysis, the dispositive issue presented by defendants’ seventh assignment of error [there were other issues the court didn’t specifically address] is whether the board’s obligation to manage certain forestlands ‘so as to secure the greatest permanent value of those lands to the state’ … is a term in a statutory contract between the state, on the one hand, and various Oregon counties, on the other. Plaintiffs say yes; defendants say no.”
A billion dollars rests largely on that obscure point.
The decision was almost a split-the-difference matter, in that it held that a contract of sorts had been made and the counties did have a financial interest they could seek to protect in court. But the court also ruled, “We treat a statute as a contractual promise ‘only if the legislature has clearly and unmistakably expressed its intent to create a contract.”
The reason for that is simple reason: The acts of one legislative session ordinarily cannot bind those of another session in the future (just as a future governor typically can reverse actions taken by a previous governor).
Court’s view
The court also didn’t accept the counties’ argument that the state had committed to managing the lands in a specific way, that “the greatest permanent value” necessarily equated to the highest immediate payout to the counties. Maybe “permanent value” implies a different kind of management.
Here we come to what, for most of us, should be the core of the matter: What does “greatest permanent value” mean?
A state administrative rule says it “means healthy, productive, and sustainable forest ecosystems that over time and across the landscape provide a full range of social, economic, and environmental benefits to the people of Oregon.” Several benefits are listed – timber production, fish and wildlife environments, protection against flooding, recreation and more – but actually managing the lands means balancing these objectives.
How best to balance those benefits is also a matter of time and conditions. The best use of the lands may have seemed far different in 1931 than in 2021, or how they may seem decades from now.
This is the sort of messy calculation that, strange as it may seem, politics should help resolve. It sounds like another useful subject for this year’s gubernatorial campaigns to address.
Randy Stapilus has researched and written about Northwest politics and issues since 1976 for a long list of newspapers and other publications. A former newspaper reporter and editor, and more recently an author and book publisher, he lives in Carlton. | https://www.heraldandnews.com/state-s-billion-dollar-timber-case-might-be-better-resolved-by-legislature/article_dae0a9cd-1692-5a90-931d-c73ba7219203.html | 2022-05-09T22:51:01Z |
Arizona high court tosses push to disqualify GOP lawmakers
PHOENIX (AP) — The Arizona Supreme Court on Monday rejected an effort to disqualify three Republican lawmakers from this year’s ballot because of their alleged roles in planning or attending the rally that led to the unprecedented attack on Congress on Jan. 6, 2021.
The ruling means U.S. Reps. Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs and state Rep. Mark Finchem remain on the primary ballot. Gosar and Biggs are seeking reelection and Finchem is running to try to become Secretary of State, Arizona’s chief election officer.
The lawsuits filed on behalf of a handful of Arizona voters alleged that Gosar, Biggs and Finchem cannot hold office because they participated in an insurrection. The lawsuits cited a section of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution enacted after the Civil War known as the “disqualification clause.”
The justices ruled that alleged violations of the disqualification clause are not grounds for challenging candidates’ eligibility for office under Arizona law. The decision upholds a ruling by the Maricopa County Superior Court.
None of the lawmakers are accused of participating in the actual attack on Congress that was aimed at halting certification of President Joe Biden’s win over former President Donald Trump.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/05/09/arizona-high-court-tosses-push-disqualify-gop-lawmakers/ | 2022-05-09T22:51:00Z |
‘I’d do anything to get it back’: Jeweler gives woman’s wedding ring to the wrong person
MUHLENBERG CO., Ky (WFIE/Gray News) - A Kentucky woman is on the hunt for her wedding ring after she says her jeweler mistakenly gave it away to the wrong person.
Jessica Piper had a lot to smile about this past Mother’s Day.
She spent it with her family, the sun was shining, but something was missing. Her wedding ring.
Piper told WFIE she took it into her jeweler for a small repair and never saw it again.
“My husband went in and said, ‘I’m here to pick up my wife’s ring,’ Piper said. “And they said, ‘We don’t have a ring. Someone picked it up.’”
They filed a report with Kay Jeweler’s and got the local authorities involved.
“After the investigation through the jewelry store, we figured out one of the employees just made a mistake,” Piper said.
A $6,200 mistake, leaving Piper without her most special piece of jewelry, and a stranger a whole lot richer.
“They gave our ring to someone trying to pick up their own ring,” Piper said.
Instead of bringing the ring back in to correct the mistake, Piper says the man kept it and sold it off.
“We were told that he took the ring home, and I guess he and his wife separated or divorced, and he sold it through Snapchat,” she said.
Piper said she didn’t even know what or how to feel next.
“Shocked, and nervous, scared thinking someone’s done us wrong,” Piper said.
So she took to social media trying to spread the word. With over 1,000 shares on her Facebook post, she’s hoping someone may find it.
“Everyone’s devastated, and everyone’s always asking me about it,” Piper said. “Social media’s been my biggest supporter.”
Her left ring finger feels extra bare without it this month, as this weekend was her and her husband Cody’s anniversary.
13 years together, four years married.
“We’ve been together since I was in eighth grade,” Piper said. “We got together when I was 13, so we’ve been together half my life.”
Her ring was a symbol of their many years growing up together, and she hoped to have it until they grew old.
“I would love to get it back. It means so much to me,” Piper said. “I said our vows over it, and I intended to have it until I was no longer on this earth, so I’d love to get it back. I’d do anything to get it back.”
Copyright 2022 Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/05/09/id-do-anything-get-it-back-jeweler-gives-womans-wedding-ring-wrong-person/ | 2022-05-09T22:51:09Z |
Shenandoah Volunteer Fire Company gives water safety tips
SHENANDOAH, Va. (WHSV) - Saturday’s drownings in Page County offer a reminder of water safety heading into the summer months.
“The biggest thing is plan your trip, let somebody know where you’re going, how long you’re expected to be gone,” Captain Dustin Lucas with the Shenandoah Volunteer Fire Company said.
This time of year, water safety is something important to remember for all ages.
“With anything you know you need to plan your trip accordingly, always have a life vest that’s on or readily accessible, even like a cell phone with communication in a dry bag where you can call for help if you get stranded or lost on the river and we always recommend like some high visibility clothing to where you can be located,” Captain Lucas said.
Another big factor to consider is the weather conditions expected in the area.
If it’s cold outside, the water will be even colder and storms can cause the rise of sea level above the normal predicted tide.
”If it’s anticipating storms all evening like if you’re gonna plan afloat this evening at 2 o’clock and they’re calling for severe thunderstorms throughout the evening it’s probably not advisable to try that,” Captain Lucas said.
The Shenandoah Volunteer Fire Company has a swift water rescue team that primarily serves Page County for rescues and body recovery.
”Any life-saving medication that you take or you feel you may need, just simple stuff like sunblock and simple stuff people don’t think about and you know the environment ... you can get dehydrated pretty quick on the river so we recommend you taking a cooler full of drink you know Gatorade, water,” Captain Lucas said.
Captain Lucas stresses the importance of letting others know your plan so they can alert first responders if you don’t show up when expected.
“The biggest thing is plan your trip, let somebody know where you’re going, how long you’re expected to be gone,” Captain Lucas said.
Copyright 2022 WHSV. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/05/09/shenandoah-volunteer-fire-company-gives-water-safety-tips/ | 2022-05-09T22:51:15Z |
GRAND TETON NATIONAL PARK — Two of the beloved, embattled grizzly bear cubs took the lead, pushing down through the still-snowy flank of Signal Mountain ahead of their famous mother, grizzly bear 399.
The grizzlies — five, in all — poked through the timber at 8:42 a.m., ambling across Teton Park Road and proceeding down to the receded shoreline of Jackson Lake. They came through the trees less than 100 yards from where Tom Mangelsen expected. The 76-year-old Jackson Hole photographer has practice patterning the movements of the 26-year-old matriarch bruin of Grand Teton National Park, a bear he’s tracked since she started raising her litters roadside in 2006. He also knew where to head for the shot.
“They’ll go this way,” Mangelsen said. He flipped a U-turn in his Ford SUV, pointed toward Jackson Lake Dam, and eased to a stop where the grizzlies, framed by the Teton Range, padded down the snowy shoreline in view of a roadside pullout.
Mangelsen and a handful of fortuitous fellow photographers were silent, save for the clicking of camera shutters. But word spread quickly.
Within a few minutes, a caravan of photographer-filled vehicles that had been staged nearby rolled into view. Soon there was a frenzy: scores of photographers and tourists jostling for a close look.
Tyler Brasington, a Grand Teton bear management ranger who waited at the dam, had experience with “bear jams” here. He predicted the swelling crowd would next glimpse the grizzlies near “John’s Pond,” just above the dam.
“They’ve come through there before,” Brasington said of the bears. “That’s a very difficult area to manage a jam, just because there’s no place for people to pull off.”
Less than a minute later, the five grizzlies ascended from the lake, crossing the road exactly where the ranger predicted.
“We can all stop right here,” Brasington told frantic photographers and grizzly-watching passersby.
A few folks momentarily heeded the guidance. But most proceeded onward, following five grizzly bears. For the next hour the crowd kept growing, cameras clicking and memories amassing as the fivesome swam the Snake River and the cubs dutifully played their parts: adolescent, charismatic animals, wrestling in view of the highway.
Those same youngsters, accustomed to admiring throngs and adept at putting on a show, will very soon arrive at a perilous crossroads. Turn toward the unfamiliar remote expanses of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, and the up and comers might just carve out a living. But if they choose, instead, to stay on the path that runs near humanity, they’ll likely be caught and killed.
Wednesday’s sighting might be one of the last times bear 399 and her cubs are visible together as a family unit.
“They’ll still potentially be traveling together for another week or two,” said Dan Thompson, who oversees large carnivore management at the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. “Anytime between now and June, when breeding starts, she’ll really kick those 2-year-olds out.”
Once that happens, the independent subadult grizzlies will be on their own, facing a number of factors stacked against them.
Wildlife managers have been clear: the subadults will lose the special treatment afforded to their mother, the subject of an intensive around-the-clock surveillance and conflict-reduction operation during 2021, a year when the famous sow spent more time on private land than within the protective borders of Teton Park. Due to their upbringing in a national park that attracts 4 million-plus visitors each year, the subadult bears also lack a fear of humans. Worsening their prospects, the youngsters know to associate ranches and residential yards with food, the result of deliberate wildlife feeding and unsecured livestock feed and apiaries the famous brood of bears managed to get into.
In short, after a lifetime being conditioned to misbehave, the bears will be suddenly subject to a wildlife management regime that is more prone to kill problem grizzlies than to relocate them.
“It would be tough to relocate them successfully,” Thompson said. “The only other option is, they would likely be [killed].”
That jibes with the long-term trend. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ultimately calls the shots on what becomes of federally threatened grizzly bears, but the Wyoming Game and Fish Department makes recommendations about their fates, and lays out the numbers on captures, relocations and removals in annual reports. A decade of data in those reports show that the number of grizzlies captured has been stagnant, at approximately 40 animals annually. But the agencies have generally moved away from relocating bruins that do get trapped. Between 2012 and 2016, 34% of trapped grizzlies were killed, according to WyoFile’s calculations made from agency data. But in the five years since, fatal outcomes were more likely: 55% of captured grizzlies were put down.
“We’re learning from our management actions in the past,” Thompson said. “With the potential and amount of human injuries, and worse, we’ve had the past several years, we’re just very reluctant to move a bear involved in a conflict, especially after October, but even into September.”
The reason fewer bears are being relocated during hunting season, Thompson explained, is public pressure. There’s “no data,” he said, that suggests a moved grizzly is more dangerous to people or less likely to survive in its new environment.
“It’s just not tolerated anymore by the public,” Thompson said.
Wyoming Game and Fish intends to take the lead in managing bear 399 and her offspring if and when those bears depart Teton Park this year, together or independently. That’s a departure from 2021, when the state agency pulled back its on-the-ground management during the family group’s extended stay in southern Jackson Hole. The federal government dispatched its own wildlife officials instead, running up a big bill in the process, according to Fish and Wildlife Service’s grizzly bear recovery coordinator Hilary Cooley.
“We spent $60,000 last year, the Fish and Wildlife Service in Jackson,” Cooley said. “We can’t do that, and we shouldn’t. We’ve got 2,000 bears in the Lower 48 states.”
Ardent 399 admirers feel otherwise. The extraordinary sow — the oldest-known female with cubs alive today in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem — is widely considered an ambassador of her species, and she’s a force attracting legions of tourists who bolster the local economy. Fans argue that the famous bear, her progeny and other habituated, roadside grizzlies do deserve continued special treatment.
“The bears are the draw, in my opinion,” Rochester, New York photographer Tom Knauss said from the road shoulder Wednesday. “The peaks are nice and all that, but people come to see the bears — they really do.”
“To euthanize them,” he said, “would be a big mistake.”
Knauss called for the Park Service to “rethink” what it takes to keep bears with 399’s bloodlines alive. Officials could strategically place road-killed ungulate carcasses in the national park, he said, to dissuade their departure. That’s an idea his partner, Ricki Swanson, thought was wise.
“We feed the damn elk on the [National Elk Refuge] to keep them out of town,” Swanson said. “All the things they say they can’t do because it’s not natural, they’re already doing.”
Knauss and Swanson were not ready to write bear 399’s four 2-year-olds off, but other roadside spectators took a dimmer view of the youngsters’ prospects.
Roadside grizzlies should be managed to preserve viewing opportunities for the public, Alpine resident Walt Ackerman said. “They should be considered golden ambassadors of their species,” he said, “and that should transcend boundaries and transcend agencies.”
He recognized that’s not the reality, however.
“They’re doomed,” Ackerman said of the subadults. “And the reason they’re doomed is because the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the park — and this is my opinion — has made it obvious that they’re trying to kill the next generation of roadside bears.”
Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team data suggests that bear 399 descendents, which learn to tolerate people, fare poorly relative to most grizzlies, Thompson said. Research focused on the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem’s grizzlies shows that survival increases steadily with age: 61% of cubs survive their first year out of the den, while 68% of yearlings monitored make it through year two. By the subadult life stage, annual survival rates spike to 85% and some 95% of adult grizzlies survive any given year, according to the research.
A study team “parentage analysis” suggests there are “16 to 17” individuals that are “known or likely offspring” of bear 399, not counting her current litter, Thompson said. Of those bears, five were captured and killed as a result of conflict — most recently, Grizzly 962, a 4-year-old female from world-famous sow’s previous litter. Two more bear 399 cubs were killed by vehicle strikes. “One to two” more died from undetermined natural causes, he said.
Only four of 399’s known offspring that have been captured — less than a quarter — have no known conflict history, Thompson said. Four more were captured and relocated as a result of conflict. Three of those bears whereabouts are unknown, he said, and the fourth, a female from the same litter as 962, is now a problem bear that’s frequenting residential areas in Red Lodge, Montana.
“What’s going on [with 399], it’s not a good scenario for her and for other bears,” Thompson said. “Having grizzlies walking through downtown Jackson doesn’t help grizzly bears as a whole.”
Red Top Meadows resident Cindy Campbell, a longtime grizzly bear activist, said she’s focusing her energy on the silver linings of the bear 399 clan’s wanderings. The five-grizzly family, she pointed out, more or less beelined it for ranchland in southern Jackson Hole after emerging from the den over Easter weekend. There were no reports, she said and Thompson confirmed, of the grizzlies getting into human-related foods.
“Let’s celebrate small victories,” Campbell said. “Maybe it’s not so small that her and her family just spent however many days in the [southern] Jackson Hole valley with zero conflicts.”
Another cause for optimism Campbell perceived was increased public awareness and a policy shift. Bear 399, she said, has been a catalyst for change, encouraging residents to tuck away bear attractants and motivating the Teton County Board of Commissioners to require bear-proof trash cans and dumpsters throughout Jackson Hole.
“Grizzly 399 came through town on a white horse and said, ‘This is screwed up, that’s screwed up,’” Campbell said. “And in the last year, our community stepped up, to a certain degree.”
There’s a new initiative, Jackson Hole Bear Solutions, that’s providing free bear-resistant trash cans, livestock feed containers and electric fencing to residents who request it. Ackerman, the Alpine resident, helped get that program off the ground, convincing the nonprofit Wyoming Wildlife Advocates to take it on.
“It’s an effort to try to solve some of the problems,” he said. “It’s better than doing nothing, and nobody was doing anything.”
Mangelsen, meanwhile, is also contributing to the chorus calling on wildlife managers to change plans for handling the subadult grizzlies once they strike out on their own. The fivesome’s behavior, he contended, should not necessarily be construed as “conflict,” just because they access human goods left out for the taking.
“It used to be like three strikes,” Mangelsen said. “Saying we’re not going to tolerate one strike now, that’s a pretty lousy way to manage a species on the endangered species list.”
But Thompson said the problem-bear policy was never so simple. Relocation is never predetermined, he said, and there’s no concrete number of grizzly bear blunders managers condone — even if their tolerance of missteps has diminished.
“Twenty years ago you could maybe move a bear, even within the recovery zone, and it could find a vacant home range to make a living as a young bear,” Thompson said. “But the likelihood of that now is very low.”
Wyoming’s large carnivore manager repeated his preliminary plans for bear 399’s offspring.
“If any of those bears are involved in a conflict involving food-rewards or something like that,” Thompson said, “I do not feel it’d be appropriate to relocate them.”
WyoFile is an independent nonprofit news organization focused on Wyoming people, places and policy. | https://www.wyomingnews.com/wyomingbusinessreport/industry_news/environment/grizzly-399-s-cubs-face-life-or-death-crossroads/article_af7aaeea-cfe7-11ec-b8f4-2f8a5e9ac175.html | 2022-05-09T23:25:56Z |
SHERIDAN — Laramie County lost the bulk of its representation at the Wyoming Republican Party state convention Saturday morning. After nearly two hours of procedural maneuvering and debate, the body voted not to seat all 37 delegates from the state’s most populous county.
The lack of delegates from the county meant Republicans from that area had a diminished voice in the remaining business of the convention, including consideration of state bylaws, resolutions and platforms.
Following the vote, the Laramie County delegation filed out of the Sheridan County Fairgrounds Exhibit Hall, placing their delegate credentials on the head table as they left. Some delegates from other counties cheered or applauded.
Dani Olsen, chair of the Laramie County Republican Party, said the decision to target her county and its delegates was a “bullying” tactic resulting from the county’s contentious history with the statewide party.
Laramie County supported Natrona County when efforts began to limit that county's delegates as well. Olsen noted county delegates who supported Laramie County Saturday now fear retribution from the state party and those who sought to punish Laramie County for rules violations at its county convention, where its delegates to the state convention were chosen.
“We’ve set a precedent now,” Olsen said. “That the state party can target counties it disagrees with or doesn’t like.”
The vote not to seat the Laramie County delegation — which would have included 37 individuals, the most for any county in the state — followed after nearly two hours of debate and procedural motions.
Saturday morning, motions were made to amend the state Republican Party’s credentials committee recommendation, which proposed seating 285 delegates for the convention, a number that included only three delegates from Laramie County.
Other delegates called for the five individuals in leadership positions within the Laramie County party to voluntarily turn over their credentials and not participate in the convention.
“I would urge the top five in leadership to take accountability for the failure to do their job,” Sheridan County’s Bryan Miller said during the debate.
Olsen said she and the other leaders in the county party opted to turn over their credentials with the hopes of giving the other delegates from Laramie County the opportunity to have their voices heard during the convention. But, a vote to seat the remaining 32 delegates from Laramie County failed, with a tally of 119-157.
In the end, the delegates from Wyoming’s 22 other counties voted to support the original recommendation from the credentials committee with a simple voice vote.
Following the vote, Laramie County delegates gathered outside the exhibit hall discussing the morning’s events. Many noted the state party ignored rules violations by other counties, choosing only to punish Laramie County. Similar arguments had been brought up in the credentials committee meeting Thursday.
“They’re picking and choosing which bylaws to enforce and which not to in order to reach the outcome they want,” Olsen said.
Nathan Winters of Laramie County spoke on the floor of the convention, noting a decision not to seat his county’s delegates would likely create an even more acrimonious future between the county and the state party.
While three delegates from Laramie County could still participate in the convention, following the vote, most stood outside and it was unclear whether they would rejoin the event.
This story was published on May 7. | https://www.wyomingnews.com/wyomingbusinessreport/industry_news/government_and_politics/gop-expels-most-laramie-co-delegates-from-convention/article_90451a74-cfe7-11ec-9b58-8be89e83e405.html | 2022-05-09T23:26:02Z |
Carbon County Prosecutor Ashley Mayfield Davis has asked Carbon County Circuit Court Judge Susan Stipe to dismiss a second round of indictments against three Missouri hunters whom a jury found not guilty of corner crossing.
Mayfield Davis filed the motion to dismiss criminal trespass and trespassing to hunt charges against Brad Cape, Zach Smith and Phillip Yeomans on May 4, according to court documents. The judge has not yet signed an order dismissing the new charges as requested, but is expected to next week, a clerk at the court in Rawlins said.
A Carbon County jury found the three men, plus companion John Slowensky, not guilty on April 29 of a 2021 corner crossing incident at the Elk Mountain Ranch owned by North Carolina resident Fred Eshelman. Just before the trial started, Mayfield Davis served three of the men with a summons to appear at an arraignment on similar charges, but relating to a hunting excursion in 2020.
Mayfield Davis wants that arraignment canceled and the 2020 charges dismissed.
“The essential facts in this matter were considered by the Jury,” the motion reads. “Therefore, rather than submitting the same evidence to another Jury, the State believes a dismissal would be in the interest of judicial economy and would ask the Court to dismiss the Information [charges] without prejudice.”
Without prejudice means the case could be filed again.
Corner crossing is the act of stepping from one piece of public property to another at the common of two private pieces, all arranged in a checkerboard pattern. The hunters, in both 2020 and 2021 instances, said they never touched Eshelman’s private land when they corner crossed during the two hunting seasons.
Their trial for the 2021 incident lasted three days. A three-woman, three-man jury found them not guilty of criminal trespass — and an alternate charge of trespassing-to-hunt — in fewer than two hours. The defendants did not testify.
In her motion, Mayfield Davis laid out a timeline for the second round of charges — those for the 2020 incident she now wants dismissed.
The prosecutor’s office first alleged the 2020 trespass on April 13, 2022, before the trial on the 2021 incident began, the motion says. The office filed those charges in response to the hunters’ request to dismiss their 2021 case.
The information from 2020 corner crossing was to be used, and was used, in the trial for the 2021 incident, the motion says.
Just before jury selection began in last month’s trial, a Carbon County Sheriff’s Office deputy served three of the men with summons for new charges. It asked them to appear at a June 6 arraignment in Rawlins.
Mayfield Davis’ latest motion asks that the judge vacate that scheduled arraignment.
The men killed one elk in 2020 and two elk and a deer in 2021, court documents state. Eshelman’s Iron Bar Holdings owns the Elk Mountain Ranch that stretches across more than 20,000 of Carbon County’s Elk Mountain.
Across the West, some 8.3 million acres of public land are “landlocked” by any definition that corner crossing is illegal. A separate civil case, brought by Eshelman, is being considered in federal court where federal public land access laws could come into play.
The checkerboard pattern of land ownership — a construct of the railroad building era — makes accessing public BLM and Wyoming School Trust land difficult without trespassing or corner crossing. The men used a Global Positioning Satellite map app to locate surveyed section-corner monuments before they corner crossed, testimony and evidence showed.
They documented each monument and crossing point digitally, according to court documents and testimony. In 2021, they used a fence ladder to climb over two T-posts — driven in the two separate Elk Mountain Ranch sections and chained together — to go from one BLM section to another without setting foot on private land.
Mayfield Davis argued that passing through the airspace above Eshelman’s property constituted trespass.
WyoFile is an independent nonprofit news organization focused on Wyoming people, places and policy. | https://www.wyomingnews.com/wyomingbusinessreport/industry_news/legal_and_courts/prosecutor-seeks-to-drop-new-charges-in-corner-crossing-case/article_9d098e70-cfe7-11ec-aca2-ef93a63e92b1.html | 2022-05-09T23:26:09Z |
Alabama fugitive Casey White and corrections officer Vicky White are in custody after a chase in Indiana, and she is hospitalized after shooting herself, authorities said late Monday afternoon.
The pair were taken into custody after their vehicle crashed in Evansville, ending a week and a half on the run, officials said.
US Marshals told CNN that Vicky White's injury was a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Her wounds are "very serious," said Sheriff Dave Wedding of Vanderburgh County, home to Evansville.
She is in "pretty serious shape," he told reporters.
No law enforcement officers fired any shots, according to Sheriff Rick Singleton of Lauderdale County, Alabama, where the pair fled on April 29.
A tip from the public led to the capture and arrest, he said. The tip came Sunday night, Singleton said.
The pair was located at a hotel and then a vehicle chase followed, he said.
Wedding said the duo were believed to have been in Evansville since May 3. "It's hard to believe they've been here that many days, but we're lucky that we stumbled upon them today," he said.
Singleton said the Whites, who are not related but believed to be in a romantic relationship, will be brought back to Alabama. Casey White faces murder charges.
"He will be in a cell by himself," Singleton said. "He will stay in handcuffs and shackles while he's in that cell and if he wants to sue me for violating his civil rights, so be it. He's not getting out of this jail again. I'll assure you that."
Singleton said, "I've always expected this outcome. I knew we would catch them. It was just a matter of time."
Most escapes from a county jail are spontaneous, he said. "This escape was obviously well planned and calculated," Singleton said. "A lot of preparation went into this. They had plenty of resources, had cash, had vehicles, had everything they needed to pull this off, and that's what made this last week and a half so challenging. We were starting from ground zero, and not only that, we started -- they got a six-hour head start on us."
Photos from Indiana car wash released
Earlier Monday, US Marshals released photos of who they believe was Casey White caught on a surveillance camera at an Evansville car wash.
It was the first time since he escaped a Lauderdale County detention center with Vicky White that he was reported seen.
Vicky White was not seen in the photos.
Investigators were notified Sunday night that a 2006 Ford F-150 had been discovered at a car wash in Evansville, about 175 miles north of Williamson County, Tennessee, where the 2007 Ford Edge the pair had been traveling in was found abandoned.
The owner provided the images from a security camera, US Marshals said in a release.
Marshals went to Indiana following up on the tip, the agency said.
Casey White is facing previous murder charges. A reward of up to $15,000 was offered for information leading to his capture, and $10,000 for information leading to Vicky White's capture.
New charges against Vicky White
In Alabama, new charges were filed against Vicky White in relation to Casey White's escape, the Lauderdale County Sheriff's Department said.
The allegations stem from her using an alias to purchase the vehicle used in the escape, a 2007 Ford Edge, officials said. The warrant shows Vicky White was wanted on charges of forgery and identity theft.
Vicky White, who was an assistant director of corrections for Lauderdale County, took Casey White from the county jail on April 29, saying she was taking him for a mental health evaluation, which authorities learned later had never been scheduled. She then said she was going to get medical care after dropping the inmate off because she wasn't feeling well.
Vicky White's use of aliases may have complicated the search, Singleton said Monday.
"If she was using her own identity, that would make it fairly easy for us to maybe find her," Singleton told CNN's Bianna Golodryga. "We do know she used a false identification to purchase a car here locally.".
After the capture, Singleton said he hopes Vicky White survives.
"We don't wish any ill will on Vicky, but she has some answers to give us," he said. "I have every bit of trust in (her). She had been an exemplary employee. I don't know if we'll ever know" what happened to change that.
Video footage shows the escape was well-prepared, sheriff says
Surveillance video footage of Vicky White taken before the getaway showed the level of preparation that went into the escape, Singleton said.
Investigators found footage of White shopping for men's clothes at a department store and at an "adult store," Singleton said, adding she "obviously had a change of clothes" for the inmate.
"It just tells us that it was very well planned and calculated," Singleton said. "Obviously she well-planned this escape down to a T."
Investigators earlier released video footage showing Vicky White at a Quality Inn in Florence, where she stayed the night before the escape more than a week ago.
The patrol car the officer and inmate took from the jail was found abandoned in a shopping center parking lot. Vicky White's jail keys, radio and handcuffs were found inside. Authorities believe the pair left the lot in a different vehicle: Vicky White's 2007 Ford SUV she parked in the lot the night before.
The vehicle was spotted on May 6 at a Tennessee tow lot. The car had been abandoned in the woods without any identifying information on the same day the duo escaped, indicating they drove about two hours north from the jail in Florence to Williamson County, Tennessee.
Authorities believe the vehicle may have had mechanical problems that prompted the abrupt stop in the area.
Vicky White, 56, and Casey White, 38, are not related. They have known each other since at least 2020 and had developed a romantic relationship, the sheriff told CNN earlier this week.
Prior to their disappearance, Vicky White had announced plans to retire and sold her home for a price well below market value.
She is no longer employed by the sheriff's office, the office said, adding while April 29 was her last day of work, her retirement papers were never finalized.
Officials share photos and up rewards
The pair might have been armed with weapons including an AR-15 rifle, handguns and a shotgun while missing, the US Marshals Service said.
The agency said Casey White threatened his ex-girlfriend and her sister in 2015 if he ever got out, "he would kill them and he wanted police to kill him." Authorities have warned the inmate's "potential targets" and taken measures to protect them, the Marshals Service said.
"He has some issues that he's on medication for, and when he's off his meds, I'm told he can be extremely violent," Singleton said.
The service also released several photos of Casey White and his tattoos as well as photo renderings of what Vicky White, who was blonde when she vanished, would look like with darker and shorter hair.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved. | https://www.kitv.com/news/crime/missing-alabama-inmate-corrections-officer-in-custody-in-indiana-after-chase/article_f610d932-4f24-5bd1-a973-2d45a25de46f.html | 2022-05-09T23:46:22Z |
LIHUE, Hawaii (KITV4) -- Police on the Garden Isle are looking to the public for help identifying a suspect caught on camera intentionally setting a grass fire near Lihue in late April.
The incident happened in the evening on April 26. According to the Kauai Police Department, security cameras showed a white Toyota Corolla pull up along Puhi Road outside of the Puhi Metals Recycling Facility.
Surveillance footage shows the driver get out of the car and set fire to a patch of dry grass on the shoulder. That person then gets back into the car and takes off.
Kauai firefighters responded to the scene and put out the fire before it could spread to any homes or buildings in the area. Investigators determined that no accelerants were used.
In a statement on the investigation, Investigative Services Bureau Assistant Chief Bryson Ponce said:
“It is crucial that we find these perpetrators that pose an unnecessary danger to our Kauai Fire Department personnel and neighbors. These types of crimes are usually carried out by repeat offenders who have no concern for how quickly these fires can spread through wind and dry grass. They rarely consider the tremendous consequences their actions pose to our island and personal property. We are fortunate that this fire was contained and extinguished before it could spread to a nearby residential neighborhood.”
Anyone with information about this incident is urged to call KPD Dispatch at 808-241-1711.
Matthew has been the digital content manager for KITV4 since September 2021. Matthew is a prolific writer, editor, and self-described "newsie" who's worked in television markets in Oklahoma, California, and Hawaii. | https://www.kitv.com/news/crime/suspect-caught-on-camera-intentionally-setting-grass-fire-on-kauai/article_57675f16-cfe0-11ec-b9c4-c758bfc08eab.html | 2022-05-09T23:46:28Z |
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Bridgewater advances to second weekend of ODAC Baseball Tournament
HARRISONBURG, Va. (WHSV) - The Bridgewater College baseball team is one of four teams remaining in the ODAC Tournament.
“I think we have been playing really good baseball all year and now everything is coming together,” said Bridgewater senior infielder Kevin Navedo. “All the little pieces are falling into place.”
The No. 5 seed Eagles swept No. 4 Washington & Lee in a doubleheader Sunday to claim a first-round series win. Bridgewater joins Shenandoah, Lynchburg, and Roanoke in advancing to a four-team, double elimination bracket this weekend in High Point, North Carolina. The winner claims the ODAC Tournament Championship and earns an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
“It’s one our goals that we have talked throughout the season is: learn from our mistakes, understand what it takes to be successful, and try to be playing our best baseball as we get into May,” said Bridgewater head coach Ben Spotts. “We’re fortunate right now we played well this past weekend and are excited to be able to continue our season.”
The Eagles have advanced to the second weekend of the ODAC Tournament for a second straight season. In 2021, BC went on the road and earned an upset win over Roanoke in the first round of the league’s postseason championship.
“We have a very veteran group that made a run in the playoffs last year so we know what this experience is like,” said Bridgewater junior infielder Jeffrey Snider.
Bridgewater boasts a 26-15 overall record. The Eagles are scheduled to play No. 2 seed and nationally-ranked Shenandoah Friday night at 7:30 p.m. at Truist Point in High Point, NC. The Hornets swept the Eagles during the regular season by winning both games between the two teams. To see the full schedule for the ODAC Baseball Tournament, click here.
Copyright 2022 WHSV. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/05/09/bridgewater-advances-second-weekend-odac-baseball-tournament/ | 2022-05-10T00:26:42Z |
Mississippi sues Favre, wrestlers, over welfare misspending
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The Mississippi Department of Human Services on Monday sued retired NFL quarterback Brett Favre and three former pro wrestlers along with several other people and businesses to try to recover millions of misspent welfare dollars that were intended to help some of the poorest people in the U.S.
The lawsuit says the defendants “squandered” more than $20 million in money from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families anti-poverty program.
The suit was filed less than two weeks after a mother and son who ran a nonprofit group and an education company in Mississippi pleaded guilty to state criminal charges tied to the misspending. Nancy New, 69, and Zachary New, 39, agreed to testify against others in what state Auditor Shad White has called Mississippi’s largest public corruption case in the past two decades.
In early 2020, Nancy New, Zachary New, former Mississippi Department of Human Services executive director John Davis and three other people were charged in state court, with prosecutors saying welfare money had been misspent on items such as drug rehabilitation in Malibu, California, for former pro wrestler Brett DiBiase.
DiBiase is a defendant in the lawsuit filed Monday in Hinds County Circuit Court, as are his father and brother who were also pro wrestlers, Ted DiBiase Sr. and Ted “Teddy” DiBiase Jr.
Ted DiBiase Sr. was known as the “The Million Dollar Man” while wrestling. He is a Christian evangelist and motivational speaker, and he ran Heart of David Ministries Inc., which received $1.7 million in welfare grant money in 2017 and 2018 for mentorship, marketing and other services, according to the lawsuit.
White last year demanded repayment of $77 million of misspent welfare funds from several people and groups, including $1.1 million paid to Favre, who lives in Mississippi. Favre has not been charged with any criminal wrongdoing.
White said Favre was paid for speeches but did not show up. Favre has repaid the money, but White said in October that Favre still owed $228,000 in interest. In a Facebook post when he repaid the first $500,000, Favre said he did not know the money he received came from welfare funds. He also said his charity had provided millions of dollars to poor children in Mississippi and Wisconsin.
Months ago, the auditor’s office turned over the demands for repayment of misspent welfare money to the Mississippi attorney general’s office for enforcement. White said in a statement Monday that he knew the attorney general’s office eventually would file suit.
“I applaud the team filing this suit and am grateful the state is taking another step toward justice for the taxpayers,” White said. “We will continue to work alongside our federal partners — who have been given access to all our evidence for more than two years — to make sure the case is fully investigated.”
The lawsuit filed Monday said Favre at one time was the largest individual outside investor and stockholder of Prevacus, a Florida-based company that was trying to develop a concussion drug. The suit said that in December 2018, Favre urged Prevacus CEO Jake VanLandingham to ask Nancy New to use welfare grant money to invest in the company.
The suit also said Favre hosted a Prevacus stock sales presentation at his home in January 2019, attended by VanLandingham, Davis, Nancy New, Zach New and Ted DiBiase Jr., and that an agreement was reached to spend “substantial” welfare grant money in Prevacus and later in its corporate affiliate PreSolMD Inc.
The suit said the stock was in the names of Nancy New and Zach New but was also for the financial benefit of Favre, VanLandingham and the two companies. The lawsuit demands repayment of $2.1 million in welfare grant money that was improperly paid to the two companies in 2019.
The Associated Press on Monday called a number once listed for Favre Enterprises and a recording said it was no longer in service.
Attorney General Lynn Fitch and Gov. Tate Reeves said in a joint statement Monday: “Our purpose with this suit is to seek justice for the broken trust of the people of Mississippi and recover funds that were misspent.”
Davis was chosen to lead the Department of Human Services in 2016 by then-Gov. Phil Bryant — who, like Reeves, Fitch and White, is a Republican. Davis retired in July 2019 and is awaiting trial on criminal charges in the misspending.
Brett DiBiase pleaded guilty in December 2020 to one count of making a false statement. He said in court documents that he had submitted documents and received full payment for work he did not complete. He agreed to pay $48,000 in restitution and his sentencing was deferred.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/05/09/mississippi-sues-favre-wrestlers-over-welfare-misspending/ | 2022-05-10T00:26:48Z |
Rising diesel prices drain local trucking companies
HARRISONBURG, Va. (WHSV) - Diesel prices are hitting record highs across the country.
V & M Trucking has been in the Messerley family for four generations, but due to the skyrocketing gas prices, labor shortages and shipping delays, they don’t know if they will make it to a fifth generation.
Neil Messerley said if it wasn’t for the fuel surcharge trucking companies use to cover the influx of diesel prices, V & M Trucking would no longer be able to operate.
Along with the sky-high cost of diesel, trucking companies are required to pay a separate fuel tax which is based on how many miles were driven in each state.
”We’re over-regulated, the taxes just keep going up and up and up, the trucks aren’t making any more money than they have been the last 20 years and the fuel is killing us all,” Neil Messerley, laborer at V & M Trucking said.
The Virginia average for a gallon of diesel as of Monday is $5.54, up nearly 30 cents from last week.
Messerley said with the continued regulations, taxes, and rising fuel prices in an already strained industry, it will be hard for many trucking companies to continue within the next few years.
”It’s just no fun anymore, but the fuel prices ... it’s gonna kill us all, it’s gonna put everybody out,” Messerley said.
Copyright 2022 WHSV. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/05/09/rising-diesel-prices-drain-local-trucking-companies/ | 2022-05-10T00:26:54Z |
US calls UN council meeting Wednesday on North Korea tests
Published: May. 9, 2022 at 7:12 PM EDT|Updated: 1 hour ago
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United States has scheduled an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council Wednesday following North Korea’s latest test of a ballistic missile that was likely fired from a submarine.
The launch Saturday was another sign of North Koreans leader Kim Jong Un carrying out his recent vow to speed up development of nuclear weapons.
The United States holds the rotating presidency of the council this month and a spokesperson for the U.S. Mission to the U.N said Monday it scheduled Wednesday’s meeting to discuss the North’s latest launches. North Korea has fired 15 missiles so far this year.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/05/09/us-calls-un-council-meeting-wednesday-north-korea-tests/ | 2022-05-10T00:27:00Z |
Residents might see low-flying helicopters during electrical inspections this month
St. Clair and Sanilac county residents might see low-flying helicopters during inspections of electrical lines.
From May 16 to May 23, ITC Holdings, Corp, an independent electricity transmission company, will conduct helicopter patrols of transmission structures and lines in much of southeast Michigan, including St. Clair and Sanilac counties, according to a company press release.
A spokesperson for the company said the helicopters will be flying lower than usual for the inspections, but this should be of no concern to residents.
The patrols are meant to provide an overall status of the overhead transmission system that is operated by ITC's Michigan operating entities, ITCTransmission and Michigan Electric Transmission Company, LLC.
The patrols are a North American Electrical Reliability Corporation requirement for ITC’s vegetation management program. The patrols also support proactive maintenance objectives, the company said.
They include inspections of all transmission structures and equipment, including monopoles, steel towers, wood poles, conductors (wires), insulators and other equipment.
The patrols are part of a larger inspection of nearly all of Michigan's Lower Penninsula that will take place from May 16 to June 3.
For more information about ITC, visit itc-holdings.com.
Contact Laura Fitzgerald at (810) 941-7072 or lfitzgeral@gannett.com. | https://www.thetimesherald.com/story/news/2022/05/09/electrical-inspections-slated-southeast-michigan-starting-may-16/9703283002/ | 2022-05-10T00:39:44Z |
Former youth minister charged with sex crimes to head to trial next month
A former youth minister charged with several sex crimes will head to trial next month.
William Wahl, of Port Huron, was scheduled for a plea hearing in St. Clair County Circuit Court Monday. Stephen Rabaut, his attorney, said it doesn't appear the case will be resolved via a plea deal.
St. Clair County Circuit Court Judge Michael West said he would see Wahl in court for his jury trial at 9 a.m. June 21.
Wahl is charged with two counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct victim younger than 13, two counts of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct victim between 13 and 16, distributing obscene matter to children, aggravated indecent exposure and using computers to commit a crime.
If convicted, Wahl faces a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.
Wahl is accused of sexually abusing four juvenile victims that he fostered a relationship with through The River church, St. Clair County Sheriff Mat King has said. He identified Wahl as a former youth minister at the church.
The alleged incidents took place between 2014 and 2021, when Wahl was over 17 years old and with victims ranging from 10 to 17 years old, St. Clair County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Cailin Wilson has said.
Wahl was arrested in January at a residence in the 1500 block of Palmer Court, King has said.
Contact Laura Fitzgerald at (810) 941-7072 at lfitzgeral@gannett.com. | https://www.thetimesherald.com/story/news/2022/05/09/former-youth-minister-charged-sex-crimes-head-trial-next-month/9701394002/ | 2022-05-10T00:39:50Z |
Aerial treatment to combat invasive moths starting in St. Clair County this month
Aerial treatments to suppress spongy moth populations will begin in parts of St. Clair County in mid-May.
Formerly known as the gypsy moth, the invasive pest damages trees and affects outdoor recreational activities and quality of life. The county has contracted with a licensed certified pesticide applicator to provide the treatments where spongy moths have reached outbreak levels, according to a county press release.
Exact application dates will be determined by weather and caterpillar development as spring progresses. To be able to spray, the average wind speed must be less than 10 miles per hour and relative humidity be more than 50%, the county said.
The county will contact residents when an exact date is known. Spraying will start in early morning and continue until completed.
More than 5,100 acres will be treated by an airplane flying low over the treetops, the county said. Updated maps showing the spay areas can be found at stclaircounty.org/caterpillars.
Btk, a water-based insecticide, will be used for the treatment. The insecticide is used in certified organic food production and has low impact on non-target organisms such as humans, pets, birds, fish and other insect species. Btk will only affect caterpillars that will feeding in the tree canopies at the time of application, the county said.
The treatment is fully funded by the county and there will be no cost for residents.
The county board of commissioners previously approved up to $550,000 for the treatments.
St. Clair County Finance Director Dena Alderdyce said based on estimated acreage, the treatments are projected to cost $502,453.
For more information, call (810) 294-4965 or email gypsymoth@stclaircounty.org.
Contact Laura Fitzgerald at (810) 941-7072 or lfitzgeral@gannett.com. | https://www.thetimesherald.com/story/news/2022/05/09/st-clair-county-begin-aerial-spongy-moth-treatment-mid-may/9701302002/ | 2022-05-10T00:39:56Z |
Vote for the Blue Water Area Athlete of the Week
Athletes in the Blue Water Area opened the month of May with a bang. There were hat tricks, personal records, school records and plenty of victories.
Now It's time for the latest Blue Water Area Athlete of the Week poll. We need your help to determine a winner.
Remember: Voting ends at noon on Thursday.
Last week's winner was St. Clair baseball's Jacob Turner, who threw a complete game with eight strikeouts and zero earned runs in the Saints' 6-1 win over L'Anse Creuse North on April 26.
Want to nominate an athlete for a future poll? Email Times Herald sports reporter Brenden Welper (bwelper@gannett.com) and let him know who had a stellar week.
Listed below are this week’s candidates in alphabetical order:
Callie Abair — Port Huron Northern girls soccer: Abair scored eight goals in three games (all wins) last week, including five during the Huskies' 6-2 victory over Port Huron on May 4.
Kenna Bommarito — Algonac softball: Bommarito went 6-for-7 with an RBI, home run and three runs in a doubleheader against Almont on May 4. The next day, she threw a complete-game shutout with three strikeouts in the Muskrats' 1-0 win over Macomb Dakota.
Hannah Fisher — Marysville girls track & field: Fisher broke a 40-year-old Marysville record with a time of 5:11.9 in the girls 1,600 meters at the Algonac Muskrat Classic on May 7.
Haylee Stockwell — St. Clair girls track & field: Stockwell placed first in the girls high jump at the Goodrich Invitational on May 6. She set a personal record with a distance of 5-02.00. That beat her previous record of five feet from two days earlier.
Sam Vitale — St. Clair boys track & field: Vitale won four different boys events during the Saints' dual meet against L'Anse Creuse on May 4: 800 meters (2:04), 1,600 meters (4:51), 3,200 meters (10:19) and 4x800 relay. Then at the Goodrich Invitational, he won the 3,200 with a time of 9:55.86 (personal record).
Contact Brenden Welper at bwelper@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @BrendenWelper. | https://www.thetimesherald.com/story/sports/2022/05/09/vote-for-blue-water-area-athlete-week/9698188002/ | 2022-05-10T00:40:02Z |
HONOLULU (KITV4) – The Shinnyo Floating Lantern Ceremony is going virtual again in 2022 as a precaution of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The annual Memorial Day celebration is the largest of its kind in the nation with numbers soaring to 40,000 visitors pre-pandemic. However, officials expect only a few thousand this year.
Co-chair of Shinnyo Lantern Floating Hawaii, Darlene Ferreira, says this is the time for Gov. David Ige to prioritize tourism and make a plan to rebuild our economy.
“The reason the number is going to drop from 40,000 to 5,000 is because of the Japanese tourism that the event brings. They fill up many hotels and come in with several full busses. For the Japanese that come, they feel so grateful to have the opportunity to float a lantern at Ala Moana beach," said Ferreira.
Director of Sales at Big Island Candies, Malcolm Murasaki says they saw an uptick of visitors during Golden Week but numbers were significantly lower than past years. They believe bringing back Japanese tourism is essential for state recovery.
“We really need them back as far as the state is concerned, not only just for business as a whole but especially for the state. Seeing what Waikiki should look like and to normalize thins back into Hawaii," said Murasaki.
Gov. David Ige is set to meet with the Japanese Prime Minister this week to discuss plans on economic development and to bring back Hawaii's largest international market.
This year’s interactive event – titled “Shinnyo Lantern Floating Hawaiʻi: Space to Heal” – is taking place over a 9-day period from May 27 – June 5 from 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Shinnyo-en Hawaii. The public can make reservations online. The reservations, for groups of up to five people, will allow for a 30-minute in-person experience to ensure safe social distancing, event officials said in a press release.
“With so many having suffered losses during the pandemic, we’d like to offer space, physical and emotional, for people to experience a sense of comfort and healing. With this year’s interactive experience on the Shinnyo-en Hawaii temple grounds, we’re offering the community an opportunity to write remembrances, prayers and commitments toward harmony and peace on lanterns and float them in a way that is reminiscent of a ceremony on the beach,” said Shinnyo-en Hawaii community relations liason, Rev. Craig Yamamoto. | https://www.kitv.com/news/business/shinnyo-floating-lantern-ceremony-going-virtual-again-as-covid-19-lingers-japanese-tourism-wanes/article_742f7732-cf54-11ec-a7f4-f739a091c7fd.html | 2022-05-10T01:32:37Z |
HONOLULU (KITV4) – One mom had an extra special reason to celebrate Mother’s Day on Sunday.
Harriet, a 9-year-old Linnaeus's two-toed sloth, gave birth to her sixth baby on May 5 at the Honolulu Zoo.
Since it will take several months before the gender of the sloth can be determined, the baby sloth has not been named yet.
Harriet has given birth to four females, Opihi (7 years old), Akala (5 years old), Tommi (4 years old) and Lolohi (3 years old). Her first male sloth, Pono, was born March 7, 2021. Their dad, Quando, is 19 years old.
Tommi, ‘Ākala and Lolohi were sent to other zoos. ‘Ākala lives at Pana‘ewa Zoo in Hilo, and has two little sloths of her own. ‘Opihi and Pono share an exhibit at the Honolulu Zoo with the two golden lion tamarins, near the front of the zoo.
The Honolulu Zoo participates in several of the Association of Zoos & Aquarium’s Species Survival Programs, which includes the two-toed sloth. Harriet and Quando are considered a genetically valuable pair for the program.
Two-toed sloths are nocturnal, sleeping 16 to 18 hours per day. Their diet consists primarily leaves and fruit. Baby sloths will with their mom for nine to 12 months, according to the zoo.
The lifespan of sloths in the wild is 15 to 20 years, but they can live much longer in captivity.
While they are usually caught sleeping, the Honolulu Zoo features a live stream of the sloth exhibit, Cam 1 and Cam 2. | https://www.kitv.com/news/local/baby-sloth-born-at-honolulu-zoo/article_53136036-cff9-11ec-b693-775ef1e7b8f0.html | 2022-05-10T01:32:43Z |
The Na'vi are back in the nearly wordless trailer for "Avatar: The Way of Water." And based on the new footage, we can expect the lithe blue folk to fight side by side (or against) humans for the safety of their vibrant world.
The Na'vi are back in the nearly wordless trailer for "Avatar: The Way of Water." And based on the new footage, we can expect the lithe blue folk to fight side by side (or against) humans for the safety of their vibrant world.
"Way of Water" is the long-awaited sequel to James Cameron's groundbreaking epic. It will premiere in December, 13 years after "Avatar" became a historic hit.
The teaser explores more of the fictional Pandora than viewers saw in the first film, though its brilliant blues and bioluminescence remain. At the end of the clip, Sam Worthington, who portrayed protagonist Jake in the first film, cryptically assures his distressed partner, played by Zoe Saldana, that "this family is our fortress."
The plot details of the new film remain tightly under wraps, but original film stars Worthington, Saldana and Sigourney Weaver are slated to return. Joining them are series newcomers Michelle Yeoh, Kate Winslet, Edie Falco and Oona Chaplin in key roles.
Back when it premiered in 2009, "Avatar" was an inescapable phenomenon. The film was lauded for its then-groundbreaking visuals -- it was one of the first films to be rendered almost entirely through hyper-realistic motion capture technology -- and environmental message. Upon its release, a CNN reviewer called it an "epochal" film and likened it to "Star Wars" (presumably Episode IV) and "2001: A Space Odyssey." It was ultimately nominated for nine Oscars, including best picture, and won three. | https://www.kitv.com/news/national/the-avatar-way-of-water-trailer-teases-new-creatures-and-aquatic-action/article_0ea30d3f-e4ac-5bcb-8873-ad9a03cbe073.html | 2022-05-10T01:32:49Z |
Senate passes bill to boost security for Supreme Court
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate passed legislation Monday to beef up security for Supreme Court justices, ensuring they and their families are protected as the court deliberates abortion access and whether to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision.
The bipartisan bill, which passed by voice vote with no objections, did not provide additional funding, which could come later. But it aims to put the court on par with the executive and legislative branches, making certain the nine justices are provided security as some protesters have gathered outside their homes. The bill now moves to the House for its consideration.
Protests have erupted in front of the Supreme Court Building and around the country after a leaked draft opinion suggested a majority of conservatives on the court are prepared to end the constitutional right to an abortion.
The Senate legislation is a technical change that allows Supreme Court law enforcement to provide around-the-clock security to immediate family members, in line with protection for some people in the executive and legislative branches. It was sponsored by Sens. Chris Coons, D-Del., and John Cornyn, R-Texas.
Cornyn said threats to Supreme Court justices and their families are “disgraceful” and attempts to intimidate the independence of the judiciary branch shouldn’t be tolerated.
“The House must take up and pass it immediately,” Cornyn said.
Passage of the legislation came as more than 100 people gathered Monday night outside Justice Samuel Alito’s home in Virginia, lighting candles and chanting, “Abort the court!”
Dozens of people also gathered over the weekend outside the homes of Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Chief Justice John Roberts in the Washington and Maryland suburbs.
Police have set up a tall fence and blocked off streets this week as people have protested in front of the Supreme Court Building, which is across from the U.S. Capitol. They have also shut down the plaza and steps in front of the building.
“Trying to scare federal judges into ruling a certain way is far outside the bounds of normal First Amendment speech or protest,” Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell said ahead of the vote.
___
Associated Press writer Michael Balsamo contributed to this report.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/05/10/senate-passes-bill-boost-security-supreme-court/ | 2022-05-10T01:58:01Z |
Straight-line wind and a confirmed tornado in Rockbridge County
Damage from storms Friday night, May 6th, 2022
FAIRFIELD, Va. (WHSV) - The National Weather Service in Blacksburg has confirmed straight-line wind damage and a tornado in the storms from Friday night in Rockbridge county. This storm did have a severe thunderstorm warning on it and this is the same storm that prompted a tornado warning in Augusta County. While rotation was detected on radar in Augusta county, the damage was from straight-line winds in Greenville, Lyndhurst and Waynesboro.
Here are the details from the storm survey:
Damage from severe thunderstorms can be worse than a tornado. In this case the straight-line wind damage was not just in a longer path, but was also stronger than the brief tornado.
Damage in Augusta County
Snapped trees can happen from straight-line winds.
PHOTO GALLERY
Copyright 2022 WHSV. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/05/10/straight-line-wind-confirmed-tornado-rockbridge-county/ | 2022-05-10T01:58:08Z |
WATCH: Pregnant store owner scares off would-be thief with air horn
OAKLAND, Calif. (KGO) – A pregnant store owner in California recently fought back against a would-be thief, and it was caught on camera.
The woman said she’s grateful for a piece of safety equipment that helped her fend off the suspect in Oakland’s Chinatown.
Eva Liu remembers the details of what happened inside her international shipping store April 25 like it was yesterday.
At around 1:50 in the afternoon, surveillance video shows the man walk toward a pile of packages seemingly with the intention of taking them.
That’s when Liu yelled out.
Liu, who is seven months pregnant, fearlessly grabs an air horn from off her desk and runs after the man.
“I couldn’t afford to be afraid because I wanted to protect those packages from the customers,” she said.
As she chases the man out, the sound of the suspect chucking the hand sanitizer at Liu’s pregnant belly can be heard.
As the man runs away, Liu deploys the air horn.
The sound scared the suspect away and also alerted the nearby volunteer security team, The Blue Angels, who flagged down Oakland police.
Thousands of air horns like the one Liu used were distributed through Oakland’s Chinatown in February 2021 thanks in part to generous donors and the Oakland Chinatown Chamber of Commerce.
“At the beginning people were questioning ‘Why should I carry air horns?’” Carl Chan, with the Chamber of Commerce, said. “But of course with a few incidents happening, like the one that you are seeing here it’s actually helping our small businesses.”
During a time when many violent attacks on the Asian American community have been caught on camera, this is an encouraging sign the air horns are working.
“So we were thinking not just distribute them in just Chinatown, but were hoping to distribute them to other communities as well,” Chan said.
Liu and her baby narrowly missed getting hurt by the hand sanitizer bottle.
“I was trying to protect my stomach so I turned, and it hit my ribs,” she said.
Despite her actions, she said the work is far from over to keep Chinatown safe.
“I’d like to see more police officers, especially officers that speak the language,” Liu said.
The suspect in Liu’s case has not been arrested.
Copyright 2022 KGO via CNN Newsource. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/05/10/watch-pregnant-store-owner-scares-off-would-be-thief-with-air-horn/ | 2022-05-10T01:58:15Z |
CHEYENNE – Laramie County Community College will host its spring commencement ceremonies Saturday, May 14, in the Recreation and Athletics Complex on the LCCC campus.
The ceremony will celebrate students that have completed their academic programs during the 2021-22 academic year, conferring more than 700 degrees to this year’s graduates.
“Commencement is one of my favorite days and reaffirms each year the great work we are doing at LCCC," Joe Schaffer, president of the college, said in a news release. "Seeing our students celebrate the completion of hard work and dedication is empowering and only makes me more excited to start another school year."
The college will hold three ceremonies on Saturday for their academic schools:
9 a.m.: School of Arts and Humanities and School of Math and Sciences
11 a.m.: School of Business, Agriculture and Technical Studies
1 p.m.: School of Health Sciences and Wellness
Graduates have a limited number of seats allocated for family and friends. For those unable to attend in person, LCCC will livestream the event. For more information on commencement, and to view the livestream, visit lccc.wy.edu/grad.
LCCC’s Adult Career and Education System graduation will also be held on Saturday, May 14 at 3 p.m. in the Recreation and Athletics Complex. Family and friends are invited to attend; no tickets or reservations are required for the ACES ceremony. | https://www.wyomingnews.com/news/in_our_schools/lccc-spring-commencement-scheduled-for-may-14/article_4f404673-d1f5-512d-8bd5-06a38a2daa7a.html | 2022-05-10T03:16:18Z |
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CHEYENNE – Laramie County Republican Party leaders said they returned from the state convention in Sheridan this weekend disheartened, but they have no plans to file a lawsuit.
Members of the county Executive Committee were joined by the majority of their delegates in a walkout Saturday, after the state Central Committee voted not to seat Laramie County’s 37 delegates. This upheld the recommendation by the state Credentials Committee, which had voted earlier last week 15-8 in favor of not seating the delegates due to Laramie County's violations of the bylaws related to delegate selection.
Although the chairwoman, state committeewoman and committeeman are guaranteed representation, they did not take part following the final vote.
“There was no reason to stay and fight with them, when they made it clear they didn’t want us there anyway,” Laramie County GOP Chairwoman Dani Olsen told the Wyoming Tribune Eagle on Monday.
However, she said her frustration lies not with the entirety of state party leadership following the votes, but Chairman W. Frank Eathorne.
“It would be an understatement to say that I’m disappointed with him, because he’s continuing to add to this divide within the party and is not willing to be a neutral mind to resolve conflicts,” she said. “Instead, he’s issued multiple false and inaccurate press releases about Laramie County, where he didn’t actually put any effort into figuring out if the statements he was making were true.”
The Wyoming GOP released a statement April 26 announcing the state Credentials Committee was tasked with reviewing the qualifications of all delegates, and to address the concerns that the Laramie County GOP convention did not follow county bylaws and procedures for the election of delegates to the state convention. It was alleged the local Republican convention had not taken nominations from the floor, nor did it nominate alternates through the correct procedure.
“Following Laramie County leadership’s admission of its failures to follow Bylaws in conducting the election, the State Republican Convention’s Credentials Committee will now review the matter and make a recommendation to the Convention body as to how many delegates from Laramie County will be seated,” Eathorne commented in last month's release. He did not comment Monday.
Olsen responded to the allegations and said the alternates were approved as a whole, instead of individually by the delegation, and were not listed in the order of votes by secret ballot. She agreed there was legitimacy to this claim, but she provided, at the just-completed party meeting, the minutes from the county convention showing nominations were taken from the floor.
State convention debate
Nonetheless, the county convention’s delegate nomination legitimacy was highly debated during the Wyoming GOP state convention.
The motion that was debated was brought by Rep. Clark Stith, R-Rock Springs, and it would have allowed 32 delegates from Laramie County to be seated at the state party's gathering. Olsen said five of the members of the Laramie County Executive Committee, including her, had already given up their credentials in hopes of allowing the rest of the delegation to participate for the weekend. She said it was a proposal introduced to her by Carbon County GOP Chairman Joey Correnti.
It did not change the outcome.
Laramie County GOP Vice Chairwoman Kylie Taylor said in an interview Monday that there was more than two hours of debate, which Olsen said included two delegates who were nominated from the floor from the Laramie County in opposition to the county's delegation being seated.
The state body voted 157-119 against the motion to allow 32 delegates from the county to be seated.
“I was incredibly disappointed and disheartened by the debate and the way that Laramie County was treated at the convention,” Taylor said. “I wish that we could have had the opportunity to fix the issue that was brought forth at the county level so that we could all still be seated, and had the opportunity to attend the convention. Unfortunately, that’s not what happened.”
Both Olsen and Taylor are concerned with not only the lack of Laramie County Republican representation at the convention, but with the precedent it sets.
Olsen said Sweetwater County challenged three other counties for violations, one of which was for the same reason Laramie County GOP delegates lost their seats. A complaint against Sublette County was for not allowing any nominations from the floor, and Olsen said it was brushed off by the Credentials Committee. She did not see it as a fair application of the bylaws.
Cook and Albany counties' delegations were challenged because they didn’t meet their notification requirements in the state party bylaws. Olsen said members of the committee decided not to take action because they concluded “those aren’t as egregious of offenses.”
She said she hopes this will not impact local involvement or dues payments, but she said she suspects it will be difficult to convince Laramie County Republicans to pay their share if their party representatives are unable to be seated at the state convention. If Laramie County's share of its dues is not met, delegate representation is automatically lost.
“A precedent has been set that even if you do pay your shares, if they don’t want to hear your voice, they’ll find another way not to seat you,” she said.
Both the Laramie County chairwoman and vice chairwoman, who said there are no plans to sue, said they want fairness in the system. Taylor said the local party will focus on Laramie County issues, and it is not its responsibility to police other counties' procedures.
The Laramie County GOP will hear feedback from local delegates on May 17 at the local Central Committee meeting, where formal action to respond to the state-level action may be requested.
“As Republicans, we should have more that unites us than divides us,” Taylor said. “And I hope that, going forward, we can address these issues before it gets to this level.” | https://www.wyomingnews.com/news/local_news/laramie-county-gop-leaders-return-from-state-convention-disappointed/article_8bbf7654-b717-51df-ab44-5d19355dbaca.html | 2022-05-10T03:16:31Z |
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Ferdinand Marcos Jr, the son of the former Philippine dictator, is on the cusp of winning the Philippine presidential election by a landslide, according to preliminary and unofficial results, taking the Marcos dynasty one step closer to the Malacañang Palace, 36 years after the family fled a mass uprising.
Marcos Jr has about 30 million votes compared to his closest rival, the outgoing Vice President Leni Robredo, who has about 14 million votes, according to a partial and unofficial tally of the Commission on Elections (Comelec), reported by CNN affiliate CNN Philippines.
Official results, however, could take weeks to be confirmed.
Known as "Bongbong" in the Philippines, Marcos Jr's rise is the culmination of a decades-long attempt to rebrand the Marcos family's name and image, most recently through social media, analysts say.
Marcos Jr is the son and namesake of former authoritarian leader Ferdinand Marcos Sr, whose 21-year rule was marked by human rights abuses and plunder of the state coffers.
The former senator thanked his supporters for their belief in him in a speech late on Monday.
"Even though the counting is not over yet, I cannot wait to thank all of you... to those who helped, to those who joined our fight, to those who sacrificed," he said.
During campaigning, Marcos Jr ran on a platform of "unity" and has promised more jobs, lower prices, and more investment in agriculture and infrastructure. Political analysts say Marcos Jr appeals to Filipinos tired of the political bickering and promises of progress and economic reform from successive administrations that many feel have failed to benefit ordinary people.
Opinion polls had him as leading by more than 30 percentage points in the run up to Monday's vote.
Marcos Jr's running mate for vice president is Sara Duterte Carpio, the daughter of populist outgoing leader Rodrigo Duterte. Many of their supporters are voting to see a continuation of Duterte's policies, including his controversial "war on drugs."
Partial and unofficial results show Duterte Carpio is also leading the race for the vice presidency. The vice president is elected separately from the president in the Philippines.
Robredo, who throughout campaigning positioned herself as promoting good governance, transparency and human rights, told her supporters on Monday, "we are not yet done, we are just starting."
"We started something that was never witnessed before in the country's entire history: a campaign led by people," she said, according to CNN Philippines.
Her grassroots campaign was driven by an army of citizen volunteers going house to house canvassing votes, and her rallies consistently drew hundreds of thousands of people.
Marcos Jr tied his campaign to his father's legacy, with his slogan "rise again" tapping into the nostalgia of some who saw the period under Marcos Sr as a golden era for the country.
Supporters of the Marcos family say the period was a time of progress and prosperity, characterized by the building of major infrastructure like hospitals, roads and bridges. Critics say that was an illusion and those projects were driven by widespread corruption, foreign loans and ballooning debt.
Tens of thousands of people were imprisoned, tortured or killed during the martial law period from 1972 to 1981, according to human rights groups. The Philippines' Presidential Commission on Good Governance (PCGG), tasked with recovering the family and their associates' ill-gotten wealth, estimates about $10 billion was stolen from the Filipino people. Dozens of cases are still active.
The Marcos family has repeatedly denied abuses under martial law and using state funds for their personal use. Campaigners say the Marcoses were never held fully accountable and victims of martial law are still fighting for justice.
Marcos Jr was 29 when his family were chased into exile in Hawaii following a People Power revolution that toppled his father's regime in 1986. Marcos Sr died in exile three years later, but his family returned in 1991 and became wealthy, influential politicians, with successive family members representing their dynastic stronghold of Ilocos Norte.
Journalist Maria Ressa, the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize winner and president and chief executive of local media outlet Rappler, told CNN a Marcos win shows "not just Filipinos but the world, the impact of disinformation on a democracy."
"He will determine the future of this country but simultaneously its past."
Marcos Jr looks set to replace President Duterte, known internationally for cracking down on civil society and the media and a bloody war on drugs that according to police has claimed the lives of more than 6,000 people. Despite his record on human rights and the Covid-19 pandemic, which made the country's hunger crisis worse, Duterte remains hugely popular domestically.
The election also has ramifications beyond the country's borders. With China and the US increasingly treating the Indo-Pacific as a staging ground for their global showdown, the Philippines will likely come under growing economic and geopolitical pressure, particularly as its territorial claims in the South China Sea overlap with those of Beijing.
Analysts say there is an opportunity for a reset of the Philippines' relationships with both major powers -- and the outcome of the vote could shift the balance of power in Asia.
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™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved. | https://www.kitv.com/news/national/ferdinand-marcos-jr-on-cusp-of-winning-landslide-in-philippines-elections/article_c9c1cbe8-14b6-5e55-bb3d-a09d9ba4789b.html | 2022-05-10T03:17:44Z |
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell slightly nudged the door open last week when he said "it's possible" the GOP could move to ban abortion nationwide.
Republicans on Monday quickly shut it.
"I don't think it's really an appropriate topic for Congress to be passing a national law on," said Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, a member of McConnell's leadership team.
"That wouldn't be my priority out of the gate," said Sen. Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri. "I think it would be better for states to debate this, allow it to breathe and for Congress to act where there's national consensus."
Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, the No. 3 Senate GOP leader, noted that the leaked draft Supreme Court ruling focused on allowing states to regulate abortion.
"I want to see the states have that opportunity and the authority to do so," Barrasso said when asked about legislating on the federal level.
The reaction of the Republicans -- pouring cold water on legislative action on abortion -- underscores the GOP's heightened sensitivity on the issue in the week after Politico obtained a leaked court draft and reported that a majority of conservative justices apparently were preparing to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling. Democrats, on the defensive ahead of the midterm elections, have seized on the issue in a bid to galvanize their base and rally around women's rights in a push to save their imperiled congressional majorities.
But Republicans are eager to keep the midterm debate focused on the economy, crime and border security, while recognizing that polls show a clear majority of Americans support keeping Roe even as their party may be on the cusp of securing a landmark victory on abortion decades in the making.
McConnell, last week, was keen to avoid getting drawn into a debate over abortion, instead training his fire on the unprecedented leak and calling for criminal prosecution of the leaker. But in an interview with USA Today, the Kentucky Republican mentioned generally that it's "possible" Congress could act to restrict abortion in the future. Yet he also promised he would not gut the Senate's filibuster rules to allow such a ban to pass with a simple majority, meaning 60 votes would be needed to act -- an extremely high bar to clear.
"If the leaked opinion became the final opinion, legislative bodies -- not only at the state level but at the federal level -- certainly could legislate in that area," McConnell told the newspaper. "And if this were the final decision, that was the point that it should be resolved one way or another in the legislative process. So yeah, it's possible."
Asked on Monday if he would put an abortion bill on the Senate floor in a GOP majority next Congress, McConnell didn't directly answer, instead pointing to his floor remarks where he said he would "never support smashing the legislative filibuster on this issue or any other."
"I addressed that earlier today," he told CNN.
Yet his comments suggesting action is "possible" quickly became Democratic fodder, as Republicans on Monday either signaled little interest in going that route or said simply there wouldn't be the votes to make that happen.
"It's about as possible as this vote we will take on Wednesday," said GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, referring to the Democratic push to codify Roe, an effort that is certain to be blocked by a GOP-led filibuster.
Several other Republicans were noncommittal.
"We're still debating that," said Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, a member of McConnell's leadership team. "I always believed the states should maintain that right, but we will see."
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia added: "Let's see what happens. I'm not going to get into what ifs."
Senate GOP Whip John Thune of South Dakota said he backs a ban on abortion with certain exceptions. But he quickly added that position may not be a consensus within the GOP and would not entertain the possibility that Republicans may seek action at the federal level.
"That's my personal position," Thune said. "That's certainly not a caucus position. I don't think we have any idea at this point about any of that."
GOP divisions over abortion exceptions
Several House Republicans hailing from states that have already passed or introduced anti-abortion bills said they think the issue should be left to the states.
Rep. Jodey Arrington of Texas, speaking to CNN before the draft ruling was leaked, said that he supports "defining life at conception, but ... I think it's the proper constitutional view to let the states decide what their values are in the decision on abortion." Arrington said he supports a Texas law that bans abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy and only includes exceptions for medical emergencies.
Meanwhile, when asked whether he thinks a GOP-led House would vote on a federal abortion ban, Rep. David Schweikert of Arizona told CNN: "I don't think so, actually, because it would undermine the argument that this should be done at the state level." Schweikert said he supports a newly signed Arizona law that prohibits abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy and includes no exceptions for cases of rape or incest.
And freshman Rep. Ashley Hinson of Iowa, who said she supports legislation in her state to ban abortions once fetal cardiac activity is detected that includes exceptions for rape, incest and to protect the life of the woman, said during a Washington Post live event on Monday that "ultimately, our states are prepared to make those decisions" on abortion.
"Obviously, every state is going to have a different outcome in terms of whatever that policy could be," she said.
Another reason why Republicans may be wary of trying to pass a federal abortion ban: They would have to come to a consensus on whether to include any exceptions. It's an issue that has previously tripped up Republicans, with House GOP leaders forced to pull a 20-week abortion ban from the floor in 2015 because of the provision related to exceptions for rape.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California, who is in line to claim the speaker's gavel if his party recaptures the House, has previously said he supports exceptions for rape, incest and protecting the woman's life. But not everyone in his conference, which has grown increasingly conservative, agrees.
"I think within the pro-life community, there are people that think there should be exceptions for rape and incest, for example, and in the life of the mother when that's in peril," Arrington said. "I understand the sensitivity about the exceptions, and I respect that. But to me, the only exception is if the mother's life is in danger."
Arrington said there is far more agreement in the GOP on other anti-abortion bills that fall short of a nationwide ban, from seeking to permanently prohibit federal funds for abortion to banning the procedure after the 20th week of pregnancy. There is also a stricter measure that would prohibit abortions once cardiac activity is detected has more than 100 Republican co-sponsors in the House.
However, those measures would surely be vetoed under the Biden administration. And, as Arrington acknowledged: "You still gotta get it through the Senate, which means 60 votes."
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™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved. | https://www.kitv.com/news/national/gop-dismisses-talk-of-legislation-to-ban-abortion-after-mcconnell-suggests-its-possible/article_26445902-a323-577d-b89f-d42054c94331.html | 2022-05-10T03:17:50Z |
Andy Warhol’s ‘Marilyn’ auction nabs $195M; highest for US artist
NEW YORK (AP) — Andy Warhol’s “Shot Sage Blue Marilyn” sold for a cool $195 million on Monday, making the iconic portrait of Marilyn Monroe the most expensive artwork by a U.S. artist ever sold at auction.
The 1964 silkscreen image shows Monroe in vibrant close-up — hair yellow, eyeshadow blue and lips red — on a turquoise background. It’s also the most expensive piece from the 20th century ever auctioned, according to Christie’s auction house in New York, where the sale took place.
The Warhol sale unseated the previous record holder and another modern master, Jean-Michel Basquiat, whose 1982 painting “Untitled” of a skull-like face sold for a record $110.5 million at Sotheby’s in 2017.
Christie’s said an unnamed buyer made the purchase Monday night. When the auction was announced earlier this year, they estimated it could go for as much as $200 million.
“It’s an amazing price,” said Alex Rotter, chairman of Christie’s 20th and 21st century art department. “Let it sink in, it’s quite something.”
“This is where we wanted to be, clearly,” said Guillaume Cerutti, CEO of Christie’s. “It proves we are in a very resilient art market.”
The proceeds of the sale will go to the Thomas and Doris Ammann Foundation Zurich, which put the painting up for auction. The foundation aims to help children with health care and educational programs.
Warhol created more than one image of Monroe; this particular painting has been exhibited in museums around the world.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/05/10/andy-warhols-marilyn-auction-nabs-195m-highest-us-artist/ | 2022-05-10T03:28:20Z |
Staunton senior scores memorable run on the diamond
Published: May. 9, 2022 at 10:36 PM EDT|Updated: 29 minutes ago
HARRISONBURG, Va. (WHSV) - Staunton senior Stephen Plaugher played in his first game as a member of the Varsity baseball team.
After joining the Storm as manager two years ago, Plaugher has become a key member of the team. Plaugher, who has an intellectual disability, uplifts his teammates and runs the scoreboard for the Storm.
Tonight, Plaugher was the leadoff hitter in the fourth inning, and he added his own run to the official record books.
We’ll have more on Plaugher’s story next week during the latest edition of WHSV Sports Presents.
Copyright 2022 WHSV. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/05/10/staunton-senior-scores-memorable-run-diamond/ | 2022-05-10T03:28:27Z |
Students organize march, walkouts across Virginia in support of abortion access
HARRISONBURG, Va. (WHSV) - More than 40 schools across the commonwealth and the Valley participated in school walkouts on Monday as part of the Statewide Student Day of Action for Abortion Access, organized by Generation Ratify Virginia.
This action comes after last week’s leak of the Supreme Court’s draft opinion to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Around the Shenandoah Valley, students from Turner Ashby and Eastern Mennonite high schools walked out and at James Madison University, dozens marched from the quad to Harrisonburg City Hall just days before the spring semester wraps up.
“People have been fighting for this for decades, and it’s sad that we have to keep doing it, but we will until it’s right,” Lexi Goltry, a sophomore at JMU said. “Keep bans off our bodies. It’s a woman’s right to choose.”
“Making sure that my rights are supported and sustained for the rest of my life and for my future children’s lives is way more important to me than that final will ever be,” Abby Dotson, a freshman at JMU who helped organize Monday’s march, said.
Sixteen-year-old Abby Garber is the state director for Generation Ratify Virginia and a student at Eastern Mennonite High School. She said over the past few days, she has been organizing the walkouts that happened across the state from her bedroom.
“We want to show that Gen Z will not become the post-Roe generation and that Gen Z supports abortion access,” Garber said. “We held walkouts to demonstrate just how large that support is and just how much Gen Z cares about this issue and what we are going to do to ensure that we continue to have statewide abortion access.”
Garber said that 20 of her classmates at Eastern Mennonite High School walked out together during lunch on Monday.
“We wanted to bring the protest to [students] and we wanted them to be the leaders because it’s time for youth to lead,” Garber said. “We’re the next generation.”
Other speakers urged people to reach out to local lawmakers, register to vote, or even run for office themselves.
“Seeing everybody here makes me really hopeful that that message was received and also the message of inclusion that abortion rights don’t only affect cis-gender females,” Dotson said. “In this country, they affect everyone.”
Copyright 2022 WHSV. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/05/10/students-organize-march-walkouts-across-virginia-support-abortion-access/ | 2022-05-10T03:28:35Z |
Uptick in COVID-19 cases around the Valley
HARRISONBURG, Va. (WHSV) - Across the nation and the commonwealth, some health districts are seeing an uptick in COVID-19 cases.
Jordi Shelton, with the Central Shenandoah Health District, said a number of factors could be contributing to the rise in cases, including waning immunity, highly transmissible variants, and getting together with large groups. She said this uptick is not unique to the CSHD, but it’s impacting many localities.
“We’ve experienced a rise in cases before. We have the resources to get through it and care for ourselves whether that’s vaccinations and boosters for that preventative care piece and accessing resources if you do test positive,” Shelton said.
She said you should also stay home if you are sick and monitor your symptoms.
The CSHD is aware of two new omicron COVID-19 variants, BA.4 and BA.5.
“The CDC is currently now working with national and international partners to continue monitoring the spread of the new variants,” Shelton said. “In the U.S., the CDC is aware of a few probable cases of BA4 and BA5, but none have been identified in Virginia at this time.”
If you have any COVID-19 questions, you can call the CSHD COVID hotline. Public health staff will be available to assist with COVID-19 questions and concerns Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. Call 1-855-949-8378 to be connected.
Copyright 2022 WHSV. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/05/10/uptick-covid-19-cases-around-valley/ | 2022-05-10T03:28:41Z |
15-year-old girl drives two wounded men to safety through Ukrainian battlefield
(CNN) – A 15-year-old Ukrainian girl drove two wounded men through battlefields to safety, despite being injured and bleeding herself.
Anastasia is a courageous and defiant teenager who is now recovering from her injuries in Lviv after helping the two men.
“They came under fire,” she said.
As her hometown of Popasna was pummeled by Russian artillery, she wanted to help the wounded men get to a hospital.
“The help was urgently needed, so as not to lose a lot of blood,” she said.
So she picked up the car and got behind the wheel.
They made their way across a bridge, desperate to get to a hospital in Bakhmut.
“We have a bridge, and we had mines there in a checkerboard pattern,” Anastasia said. “There was no way to get through. But I somehow made it. And further along there was the corpse of a woman.”
Soon after, a burst of machinegun fire raked the car.
“I was driving the car and then the Russians fired on us,” Anastasia said. “When they started shooting, the car stopped and then I started the car again and drove on.”
She continued to drive, even though she was injured and bleeding. Time for them was running out.
She also said the car stalled because the battery was hit by a bullet.
Ukrainian soldiers then showed up to rescue Anastasia and the two passengers.
They are all now recovering, thanks to the courage of the teen girl.
Copyright 2022 CNN Newsource. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/09/15-year-old-girl-drives-two-wounded-men-safety-through-ukrainian-battlefield/ | 2022-05-10T04:06:49Z |
3 children found dead, mother arrested
LOS ANGELES (Gray News) - The Los Angeles Police Department said they arrested a mother Sunday after her three children were found dead.
Police responding to the scene of an assault call Sunday morning said they found the three children unresponsive, and they were pronounced dead at the scene, the Associated Press reported.
Authorities have not said how the children were killed.
The mother, identified by police as 38-year-old Angela Flores, was booked on murder charges and her bond was set at $6 million, KNBC reported.
A second person, a juvenile, has also been arrested in connection with the deaths, KABC said. It is unclear what connection they have to the family.
Neighbors reported that they heard arguments coming from the home.
Copyright 2022 Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/09/3-children-found-dead-mother-arrested/ | 2022-05-10T04:06:55Z |
585K pounds of ready-to-eat chicken recalled; may be undercooked
(Gray News) - Approximately 585,030 pounds of ready-to-eat chicken breast fillet products have been recalled by Wayne Farms, LLC, the U.S. Food Safety and Inspection Service announced.
It is an expansion of a recall in April that originally included about 30,000 pounds of product. Customer complaints that the chicken appeared to be undercooked led to the recall, the FSIS stated in a news release.
Brand names on the items include Chef’s Line and Chef’s Craft. Photos of labels can be seen on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s website.
The following products are in the recall and were produced between Feb. 9 and April 30:
- 9-pound cases containing eight packages of 6-ounce “ALL NATURAL FIRE GRILLED CHICKEN BREAST” with “use by” dates ranging from 5/10/22 to 4/29/23.
- 9-pound cases containing 12 packages of 4-ounce “ALL NATURAL FIRE GRILLED CHICKEN BREAST” with “use by” dates ranging from 5/10/22 to 4/29/23.
- 6-pound cases containing 24 individual packages of 4-ounce “ALL NATURAL FIRE GRILLED CHICKEN BREAST FILLET” with “use by” date 3/5/23.
- 16-ounce zippered plastic packages containing “CHEF’S CRAFT CHICKEN BREAST FILLET” and establishment number P-20214 printed next to the 3/23/2023 best by date.
These items were shipped to distributors nationwide and further distributed to restaurants and retail locations, FSIS stated. The retail locations are in North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia.
Consumers were urged not to eat the products and restaurants not to serve them. They should be thrown away or returned to the place of purchase.
People with food safety questions can call the toll-free USDA Meat and Poultry Hotline at 888-MPHotline (888-674-6854) or live chat via Ask USDA from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. ET Monday through Friday.
Copyright 2022 Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/09/585k-pounds-ready-to-eat-chicken-recalled-may-be-undercooked/ | 2022-05-10T04:07:02Z |
6-year-old allowed to run full marathon
CINCINNATI (WXIX/Gray News) - Controversy followed the Flying Pig Marathon last weekend after a 6-year-old was allowed to run the full 26.2-mile race.
The 6-year-old’s family, numbering eight total, ran the race together and finished with the same time. The other five children are ages 11, 15, 17, 19 and 20.
The race has a posted age minimum of 18 years old.
Race organizers said they justified allowing the 6-year-old to race because the family has had a pattern of racing as so-called “bandits,” or racing without paying or following the rules.
Flying Pig executive director Iris Simpson Bush said in an open letter published Wednesday, “The intent was to try to offer protection and support if they were on our course (Medical, Fluids and Replenishment). Our decision was intended for some amount of safety and protection for the child. The family finished the race after the formal closure of the race course.”
Bush also said the marathon “takes the safety and security of all participants very seriously,” accepted responsibility for the decision and also accepted that “it was not the best course of action. Our requirement of 18+ for participation in the marathon will be strictly observed moving forward.”
The executive director’s full statement was posted by WXIX.
David Nelson has been a member of the Cincinnati Running Club since the ‘70s. He’s an avid local runner who believes a full marathon is too much for young children.
“I’m OK with young kids running 5Ks,” he said Wednesday. “I see that occasionally. And a lot of these races have these kids runs. That’s OK, too. But I just think a 6-year-old, even if you’re a kid prodigy, that’s too much.”
Nelson can only remember once he’s ever seen a young child run marathon distances. He says he’s glad race officials didn’t interfere and and feels the decision should be left up to the parents whether the child should run.
The story appears to have gotten national attention as well.
Kara Goucher, a two-time Olympian and World Championship runner, saying in part via Twitter on Wednesday: “I’m not questioning motivation or saying it is bad parenting. But as an Olympic athlete, I promise you this is not good for the child. Children are children. Let them run around, but as the parent you need to protect their growing bodies and their young minds.”
Copyright 2022 WXIX via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/09/6-year-old-allowed-run-full-marathon/ | 2022-05-10T04:07:10Z |
New Jersey 4-year-old found safe; Amber Alert canceled
Published: May. 9, 2022 at 4:56 PM EDT|Updated: 6 hours ago
(Gray News) - The Salem City Police Department said a 4-year-old who was the subject of an Amber Alert in New Jersey on Monday has been found safe.
Lincoln Walker was found in Delaware and will be reunited with his family, KYW reported.
No information about a status on a suspect was made immediately available.
Anyone with additional information can contact the Salem City Police Department at 1-800-843-5678.
Copyright 2022 Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/09/amber-alert-issued-missing-new-jersey-4-year-old/ | 2022-05-10T04:07:18Z |
Anonymous donor pays tab for college graduates in Texas
MARSHALL, Tx. (Gray News) – An anonymous donor picked up the remaining balances of more than 100 students who graduated from Wiley College this weekend.
According to a news release, the school’s president, Herman J. Felton Jr., made the announcement during the commencement ceremony, informing graduates they graduated debt-free.
“We are grateful for this anonymous donor who will assist the students in paying off their balances to Wiley College and help us achieve institutional goals of graduating our students with little to no debt,” Felton said.
The total balances owed to the college by the graduating class of 2022 is about $300,000.
Wiley College says it is committed to access and has reduced its tuition in the past years to $17,500, covering tuition, fees and room and board.
Copyright 2022 Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/09/anonymous-donor-pays-tab-college-graduates-texas/ | 2022-05-10T04:07:27Z |
April 2022 Student of the Month: Ashton Jessee
Published: May. 9, 2022 at 2:10 PM EDT|Updated: 9 hours ago
BLUEFIELD, W.Va. (WVVA) - On behalf of Cole Chevrolet and WVVA -- we would like to congratulate our April Student of the Month, Ashton Jessee.
Jessee is a student at Graham Intermediate School and his peers say that he is kind-hearted and always willing to help out.
Ashton says that he wants to help students enjoy their day while they’re at school.
“Well, I always wanted to help people, have a better mood and stuff like that,” said Jessee.
Congratulations Ashton!!
Copyright 2022 WVVA. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/09/april-2022-student-month-ashton-jessee/ | 2022-05-10T04:07:33Z |
Arizona high court tosses push to disqualify GOP lawmakers
PHOENIX (AP) — The Arizona Supreme Court on Monday rejected an effort to disqualify three Republican lawmakers from this year’s ballot because of their alleged roles in planning or attending the rally that led to the unprecedented attack on Congress on Jan. 6, 2021.
The ruling means U.S. Reps. Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs and state Rep. Mark Finchem remain on the primary ballot. Gosar and Biggs are seeking reelection and Finchem is running to try to become Secretary of State, Arizona’s chief election officer.
The lawsuits filed on behalf of a handful of Arizona voters alleged that Gosar, Biggs and Finchem cannot hold office because they participated in an insurrection. The lawsuits cited a section of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution enacted after the Civil War known as the “disqualification clause.”
The justices ruled that alleged violations of the disqualification clause are not grounds for challenging candidates’ eligibility for office under Arizona law. The decision upholds a ruling by the Maricopa County Superior Court.
None of the lawmakers are accused of participating in the actual attack on Congress that was aimed at halting certification of President Joe Biden’s win over former President Donald Trump.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/09/arizona-high-court-tosses-push-disqualify-gop-lawmakers/ | 2022-05-10T04:07:45Z |
Bahamas calls on US labs to help solve deaths of 3 tourists at resort
Published: May. 9, 2022 at 2:24 PM EDT|Updated: 9 hours ago
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Officials say samples extracted from three U.S. tourists who died at a resort in the Bahamas under mysterious circumstances have been sent to a U.S. lab to expedite results and help authorities understand what happened.
Bahamas Police Commissioner Paul Rolle said Monday that officials also collected samples from the rooms where the tourists were staying.
He identified the victims as Michael and Robbie Phillips of Tennessee and Vincent Paul Chiarella of Florida.
Chiarella’s wife, Donnis, was airlifted to Florida and remains in serious condition.
Their bodies were found Friday morning at the Sandals Emerald Bay resort in Exuma.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/09/bahamas-calls-us-labs-help-solve-deaths-3-tourists-resort/ | 2022-05-10T04:07:51Z |
Betting on Change: Horseracing long plagued with scandals and equine fatalities
A new federal law long championed by racing insiders hopes to make the sport cleaner and safer
PARIS, Kentucky (InvestigateTV/Gray News) – Long before a string of catastrophic horse deaths at a racetrack in California made headlines and a federal indictment of more than two dozen horseracing insiders rocked the sport, the owner of one of the most famed thoroughbreds was advocating for change.
In 1982, Penny Chenery, the owner of Triple Crown winner Secretariat, was calling for an end to performance-altering drugs in the sport. Horses, she told a Congressional committee, should run only “on their courage.”
It’s taken decades of scandal and the fierce advocacy of the hundreds of owners, breeders, veterinarians and others for the federal government to act.
The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) takes effect in July and is designed to improve the wellbeing of racehorses with a robust drug-testing program and a focus on equine fatalities at the tracks.
“[Penny] always told me that having a good horse gave you a platform to advocate for our horses. She certainly did. And I have tried to follow in her footsteps,” said Staci Hancock, a long-time friend of Chenery, who died in 2017.
Hancock along with her husband Arthur own Stone Farm in Paris, Kentucky and have long pushed for horseracing reforms through their nonprofit group Water Hay Oats Alliance.
“We want to watch the horses go out on the track and know that each one of those is being treated fairly,” Mrs. Hancock said.
Under the current structure, the regulation of horse racing varies state to state, with officials enacting their own rules and penalties for violations.
InvestigateTV analyzed records from racing regulators in 29 of the 38 states with live racing to dive deep into the current state of affairs and found that:
- Between 2017 and 2021, those 29 states have tallied at least 4,064 racehorse fatalities.
- More than two dozen trainers, who supervise the daily care and conditioning of their horses, have lost at least 10 horses in the past five years, including Robert A. Baffert, who trained Medina Spirit, the 2021 Kentucky Derby winning horse who later was disqualified.
- States have issued more than 4,400 sanctions against trainers and/or owners for drug-related violations during that 5-year period. In one case, the violations were so egregious that the trainer was banned from the sport until 2054 after eight of his horses tested positive for ostarine, a steroid-like drug that has no generally accepted medical use in racehorses.
The new law will make one set of rules for drug testing and penalties that applies in all states. It also will oversee racetrack safety in an attempt to prevent equine fatalities. Races themselves still will be regulated by the states.
“It’s a game changer,” said Marty Irby, executive director of Animal Wellness Action, a Washington, D. C. nonprofit that pushes for animal welfare laws. “The state-by-state patchwork is a tremendous detriment to the industry and to the horses.”
Not all racehorses will be covered by the federal regulations, as of now
But while many see this as the industry turning a corner, the law is not without its detractors.
The U.S. Trotting Association fiercely opposes the law, signed by President Donald Trump in December 2020, as a Constitutional overreach. It has said that its sport – harness racing – will not sign onto the federal oversight despite the objections from many of its members.
The law created an opt-in clause, allowing each type of horseracing to decide if their sport would fall under the federal regulations. Thoroughbreds, which run races with a jockey on their backs and participate in the Triple Crown, will be covered.
Standardbreds, which are the breeds involved in harness racing in which they pull a cart with a driver, will not, as of now. That means the regulation of harness racing will remain with the states.
The trotting association declined a request for an interview, saying the organization “has opposed HISA for several years now, and our position is widely known.”
In contrast, Steve Stewart, who breeds standardbred horses, has recruited hundreds of owners, trainers, veterinarians and others within the harness racing industry to lobby the trotting association to change its position.
“We need to be united with the thoroughbreds,” he said. “We’re all tied at the hip.”
The Hancocks and Steve and Cindy Stewart share a love of horses.
Both couples have been successful in their sports. The Hancocks have had two Kentucky Derby winners. Horses bred by the Stewarts have won harness racing’s highest honor, the Hamiltonian.
They live across a creek from one another in the idyllic rolling meadows of horse country in Kentucky.
And they share a passion to make their sports successful and clean.
In recent years, horseracing has been besieged by one scandal after another.
First there was the spike in fatalities among thoroughbreds at the Santa Anita track in California in 2017 that gained national attention.
Then came the federal indictment in 2020 alleging a massive doping scheme involving both thoroughbred and harness racing.
A year later, the winner of the 2021 Kentucky Derby, Medina Spirit, tested positive for a drug banned on race days and was disqualified. In December, the horse collapsed and died after training in California.
“Anything that the federal government has to get involved with means that you have not done your job,” Stewart said of the new law.
States issue thousands of drug-related violations each year, hundreds go to repeat offenders
When the starting gates opened at a race at Retama Park in Texas in 2018, Financial Top fell into last place, but not for long.
The horse charged down the rain-soaked track and past the other five horses to claim victory. But victory was short lived. A post-race drug test detected the banned substance clenbuteral in the horse’s system, Texas state racing records show.
It was trainer Adrian Huitron’s second drug-related violation in less than 10 days.
Since then, he’s been sanctioned at least a dozen other times by racing officials in Louisiana and Texas for drug-related violations, according to InvestigateTV’s analysis of 4,477 drug-related sanctions issued in 29 of the 38 states with live racing.
Huitron did not respond to requests for comment.
Nearly a third of trainers sanctioned had more than one drug-related violation. Nine have been sanctioned at least 10 times.
“The trainer who gets three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 positives. . . I don’t know if they should be in our game,” Mrs. Hancock said. “The sanctions don’t have teeth. They need to have teeth, serious teeth.”
States fined violators on average of $1,700 and/or suspended them for an average of 64 days, state records show.
After amassing three drug-related violations in a 12-day period last May, Louisiana racing officials last year suspended Huitron for a 6-month period that ended in April.
Huitron also has been sanctioned three times after his horses tested positive for clenbuteral and albuteral, bronchodilators that can help horses with pulmonary issues breathe easier. Both are banned in quarter horse racing.
The Association of Racing Commissioners International says those drugs that have “the potential of affecting the performance of a racing horse.”
Its use is allowed at certain levels in thoroughbred and harness racing, illustrating even the differing regulations among even horseracing breeds.
Of the 20 most commonly detected drugs that led to sanctions, all but three were considered by the international horse racing association as drugs that had a lower potential to affect performance.
But there are at least 299 sanctions for drugs that the association says have little or no therapeutic benefit to horses and have a high potential to affect performance, InvestigateTV’s analysis shows.
Among the class 1 and class 2 drugs detected:
- Methamphetamine, a central nervous system stimulant commonly called meth that has no generally accepted medical use in horses, was detected 39 times.
- Caffeine was found in 36 tests.
- Cocaine showed up in 33 horses.
- Morphine was detected in 23 cases.
- Fentanyl was found in nine tests.
Prior to 1968, it was illegal in virtually all racing jurisdictions for a horse to race while medicated, the American Horse Protection Association told a Congressional committee in 1982.
But medication laws began to relax after the 1968 Kentucky Derby winner tested positive for the anti-inflammatory drug phenylbutazone and was disqualified.
Phenylbutazone is banned in horseracing in every country except for the U.S., which instead imposes dosing limits. Even so, states have issued at least 824 sanctions related to horses testing over the limit for that drug.
Medina Spirit lost his Kentucky Derby crown last year after testing positive for a steroid, betamethasone, which is not allowed on race days in Kentucky.
At least 98 other horses have tested positive for betamethasone in the last five years, state records show.
Critics say the use of medication in horses on race day masks their injuries or illnesses, allowing them to run when they should be resting.
“It has become a race to the bottom where it’s a game of who can out cheat each other, all at the expense of the welfare of the horse,” said Irby, the animal welfare advocate.
There’s also concern about the drugs that are not being detected but are altering performance.
In March 2020, the federal government indicted 27 people in the horseracing industry on conspiracy charges related to performance-enhancing drugs that couldn’t be detected by screenings.
The people were caught, the government said, by tapping their phones. Many have since pleaded guilty or were convicted.
Today, there is no single source of drug-related sanctions, and some states such as Michigan, do not make public the names of trainers punished for violating medication rules.
Under HISA, drug testing and enforcement will be assigned to a single outside agency: Drug Free Sport International, a Kansas City, Missouri-based group that is used by the NCAA, the NFL, the NBA and other professional sports.
The law specifically called for the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency to take over drug testing. USADA performs drug testing for the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee and is considered the gold standard. And it publishes on its website the names of athletes who have been sanctioned for drug-related violations; Drug Free Sport does not.
But USADA and the board that oversees HISA couldn’t reach an agreement over the cost of the program.
“I don’t think the horse industry realizes the plight it is in, and it desperately needs the integrity of USADA to help shore up its sad reputation,” Mr. Hancock told the Paulick Report earlier this year. “Cheaters are still cheating, horses are still dying, and public perception is still worsening.”
The decision to hand over testing to Drug Free Sport was a “kick in the gut” to everyone who pushed for years to pass HISA, Irby said.
Drug Free Sport will take over testing and enforcement in January. Until then, states remain in charge of drug testing rules and regulations.
Hundreds of horses die each year during training or racing
Last year, Churchill Downs Inc., banned trainer Karl Broberg from entering races at any of its eight tracks after one of his horses was injured.
Rockandhardplace was declared lame after a race at the Kentucky track.
“A subsequent investigation revealed that there was no responsible representative of the trainer on-site to make veterinary decisions or to take appropriate steps to protect the welfare of the injured horse,” a representative from Churchill Downs told the Paulick Report last September.
By then, 22 horses that Broberg trained had died in the previous four years, state records show.
Reached by phone Broberg declined to comment, saying that he didn’t think horseracing would be portrayed “in a good light.”
In 2019, when he was the winningest trainer in the U.S., 10 of his horses either suffered a catastrophic injury or fracture that resulted in euthanasia. Two just dropped dead. Some of those horses had won more than $250,000 during their careers, according to Equibase.
Trainer Todd A. Pletcher also has lost 22 horses during those five years. Pletcher is a highly decorated trainer who was inducted into the horseracing hall of fame last year. Horses that he trained have won the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont Stakes. He had three horses in this year’s Kentucky Derby; the fastest of his group finished in fifth place, claiming $90,000.
But he’s been suspended during his career, including once in New York after his horse tested positive for a banned drug.
Pletcher did not respond to requests for comment.
No other trainers have lost as many horses as Broberg and Pletcher, according to InvestigateTV’s analysis of state records made available. They also have run horses in thousands of races during their careers: more than 18,100 for Broberg and 23,200 for Pletcher.
Since 2017, at least 4,064 racehorses have died across the U.S.
“That’s what we’ve been fighting against. Look, horse racing is, is a dangerous sport, really,” Mrs. Hancock said. “But that number is not acceptable.”
Nearly a third of the trainers have lost two or more horses during that time frame.
And 27 of them, including Baffert, have lost at least ten horses during those five years. During his career, Baffert has been in more than 13,000 races. Baffert did not respond to requests for comment.
Five trainers have lost 15 horses.
“The deaths . . . are animal abuse in our book,” Irby said.
There is not an official record of the number of racehorses that die in the U.S. each year.
Some states, such as Minnesota, won’t release the names of equine fatalities, citing privacy.
Many states’ records of fatalities are handwritten and hard to decipher. Only a few offered any details about what led to the horses’ death such as Kentucky and Illinois. Most states only provided a cause of death, not an explanation of why.
The vast majority of fatalities involve thoroughbreds or quarter horses. In the past five years, only 99 standardbred horses died, in large part because they don’t run as fast.
HISA is supposed to track equine fatalities from all states to watch for trends at tracks or among trainers in an attempt to prevent future deaths.
In 2019, when a cluster of horseracing deaths at Santa Anita in California brought a slew of attention to the issue, the number of horses that have died nationally decreased in both 2020 and 2021.
Even so, nearly 700 horses died last year.
“They’ve made some changes that have fortunately brought that number down,” Irby said. “Still, one horse death is one death too many.”
Some races have deadly consequences
Four-year-old thoroughbred Cheveyo won only one race in his career: on March 31, 2021 at Delta Downs in Louisiana.
During a race barely two months later at a different Louisiana track, he fractured a leg and had to be euthanized. He never crossed the finish line. After his death, Louisiana racing officials found an over-the-threshold amount of a muscle relaxer in his system.
It was the second time in less than three months his trainer had been sanctioned for a drug violation.
DW Carolina Flash, a 3-year-old quarter horse, fractured a leg during a race at Turf Paradise in Arizona in 219 and had to be euthanized.
A blood test revealed that the horse had nearly four times the allowable level of betamethasone in its system – the same drug that disqualified Medina Spirit, state records show.
Its trainer was fined $1,000 by Arizona racing officials for the drug-related infraction. It was only the fifth race DW Carolina Flash had ever run.
“It’s unacceptable,” said Irby, the animal welfare advocate. “The American people will not tolerate animal abuse, simply for someone to make a $2 bet. And these horses lose their lives at the end of the day.”
Among the 4,064 horse fatalities reviewed by InvestigateTV, 55 of them had failed drug tests at some point in their racing careers, resulting in drug-related sanctions against their trainers.
These examples illustrate the importance of the new law, advocates say.
“I think it’ll be better, better for everybody,” said Stewart, the standardbred breeder. “I think that we’re at the point where there’s too much dirty laundry on the line that you have to show it, and you have to get through it. And you have to deal with it.”
On a chilly spring morning, Steve and his wife Cindy visited one of their pastures on their Hunterton Farm where some of their brood mares and their days’ old foals were grazing.
When the couple opened the gate, the mares and foals swarmed to greet them. By that April morning, 97 foals had been born on Stewart’s farm this year.
“They’re our kids,” Mr. Stewart said. “Because they’re our kids . . . we’re all passionate about our children.”
The Hancocks also are so passionate about the welfare of racehorses that they repurchased their first Kentucky Derby winner, Gato Del Sol, from a breeding operation in Germany, fearing that he would be sold for slaughter.
The decorated horse died at the old age of 28 on the Hancock’s farm.
And that’s the way it should be for racehorses: they run; they feast on water, hay and oats; and then they retire to live to an old age, advocates have long said.
Man O’ War, considered the greatest racehorse of all time, died in 1947 at the age of 30. His grandson, Seabiscuit, also a highly decorated horse, died at the age of 14.
“In the old days, they used water, hay and oats. They didn’t use therapeutic medications. Their horses ran every week,” Mrs. Hancock said. “I think we can, you know, bring our sport back to where it was, during the days of Seabiscuit, Man O’ War, when it was the number one spectator sport.”
She and many others are betting on change.
Students from the Arnolt Center for Investigative Reporting at Indiana University contributed research to this story. They are Meredith Hemphill, Rebecca Benjamin, Olivia Bianco, Salome Cloteaux, Lizzie DeSantis, Maddie Maloy, Andy Manzur, Nathan Moore, Nic Napier, Alex Null, Olivia Oliver, Sarah Rashid, Haley Ryan, Nadia Scharf, Lily Staatz, Emma Uber, Lauren Ulrich and Lily Wray.
Copyright 2022 Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/09/betting-change-horseracing-has-long-been-plagued-with-scandals-equine-fatalities/ | 2022-05-10T04:07:58Z |
Biden signs Ukraine ‘lend-lease’ bill in rejoinder to Putin
WASHINGTON (AP) — Washington sought to portray a united front against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine Monday as President Joe Biden signed a bipartisan measure to reboot the World War II-era “lend-lease” program, which helped defeat Nazi Germany, to bolster Kyiv and Eastern European allies.
The signing comes as the U.S. Congress is poised to unleash billions more to fight the war against Russia — with Democrats preparing $40 billion in military and humanitarian aid, larger than the $33 billion package Biden has requested.
It all serves as a rejoinder to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has seized on Victory in Europe Day — the anniversary of Germany’s unconditional surrender in 1945 and Russia’s biggest patriotic holiday — to rally his people behind the invasion.
“This aid has been critical to Ukraine’s success on the battlefield,” Biden said in a statement.
Biden said it was urgent that Congress approve the next Ukraine assistance package to avoid any interruption in military supplies being sent to help fight the war, with a crucial deadline coming in 10 days.
“We cannot allow our shipments of assistance to stop while we await further Congressional action,” he said. He urged Congress to act — and “to do so quickly.”
GRAPHIC WARNING: Videos may contain disturbing content.
In a letter delivered to Capitol Hill on Monday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged Congress to act before May 19, when the existing drawdown funds run out. The Pentagon has already sent or committed all but $100 million of the $3.5 billion in weapons and equipment that it can send to Ukraine from its existing stockpiles. And that final $100 million is expected to be used no later than May 19, they said.
“In short, we need your help,” they said in the letter, which was obtained by The Associated Press. “The ability to draw upon existing DoD stocks has been a critical tool in our efforts to support the Ukrainians in their fight against Russian aggression, allowing us to quickly source equipment and ensure a sustained flow of security assistance to Ukraine.”
The resolve from Biden and Congress to maintain support for Ukraine has been lasting, but also surprising. Still, as the months-long war with Russia grinds on, the bipartisan showing for Ukraine will be tested as the U.S. and allies are drawn closer toward the conflict.
The House could vote as soon as this week on the bolstered Ukraine aid package, sending the legislation to the Senate, which is working to confirm Biden’s nominee Bridget Brink as the new Ukrainian ambassador. The House’s Tuesday schedule mentioned the Ukraine legislation, but it was unclear how firm that was.
With the president’s party holding only the slimmest majorities in the House and Senate, Republican cooperation is preferred, if not vital in some cases, for passage of the president’s strategy toward the region.
“I think we will be able to do it as quickly as possible,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said over the weekend about an emerging aid package. “We have great bipartisanship in terms of our support for the fight for democracy that the people of Ukraine are making.”
Despite their differences over Biden’s approach to foreign policy and perceived missteps in confronting Russia, when it comes to Ukraine the members of the House and Senate have held together to support the president’s strategy.
The lend-lease bill that Biden signed into law Monday revives the World War II era strategy to more quickly send military equipment to Ukraine. Launched under during World War II, it signaled the U.S. would become what Franklin D. Roosevelt called he “arsenal of democracy” helping Britain and the allies fight Nazi Germany.
Before signing the bill, Biden said “Putin’s war” was “once more bringing wanton destruction of Europe,” drawing reference to the significance of the day.
Flanked by two Democratic lawmakers and one Republican, Biden signed the bill, which had widespread bipartisan support. It sailed through the Senate last month with unanimous agreement, without even the need for a formal roll call vote. It passed overwhelmingly in the House, drawing opposition from just 10 Republicans.
“It really matters,” Biden said of the bipartisan support for Ukraine. “It matters.”
One of the bill’s chief Republican sponsors, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, said in a statement the measure will give Ukraine “the upper hand against Russia, and I’m glad America could act as the arsenal of democracy for this critical partner.”
Other measures, including efforts to cut off Russian oil imports to the U.S. and calls to investigate Putin for war crimes, have also gained widespread support, though some lawmakers have pushed Biden to do even more.
“While President Putin and the Russian people celebrated Victory Day today, we’re seeing Russian forces commit war crimes and atrocities in Ukraine, as they engage in a brutal war that is causing so much suffering and needless destruction,” said White House press secretary Jen Psaki. She said Putin was “perverting” history to attempt to “justify his unprovoked and unjustified war.”
Biden acknowledged his request for more in military and humanitarian aid for Ukraine would have to be separated from money he also sought from Congress to address the COVID-19 crisis at home.
Decoupling the two funding requests would be a setback for the president’s push for more COVID-19 spending, but a nod to the political reality of the Congress.
Republicans in Congress are resisting spending more money at home as the pandemic crisis shifts to a new phase, and Biden did not want to delay money for Ukraine by trying to debate the issue further.
Biden said he was told by congressional leaders in both parties that keeping the two spending packages linked would slow down action.
“We cannot afford delay in this vital war effort,” Biden said in the statement. “Hence, I am prepared to accept that these two measures move separately, so that the Ukrainian aid bill can get to my desk right away.”
As the now bolstered Ukraine package makes its way through the House and Senate, with votes possible soon, lawmakers are showing no signs of flinching. Countless lawmakers have made weekend excursions to the region to see firsthand the devastation of the war on Ukraine and surrounding countries, as more than 5 million refugees flee the country.
Rather than fight the spending overseas — as had been an increasingly popular viewpoint during the Trump era — some lawmakers in both parties want to boost the amount of U.S. aid being sent to Ukraine.
___
Associated Press writers Alan Fram, Lolita C. Baldor and Will Weissert contributed to this report.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/09/biden-signs-ukraine-lend-lease-bill-rejoinder-putin/ | 2022-05-10T04:08:04Z |
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Birthdays: 5.9.22
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Birthdays: 5.5.22 | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/09/birthdays-5922/ | 2022-05-10T04:08:11Z |
Death toll from explosion at Havana hotel rises to 40
HAVANA (AP) — More bodies were pulled from the ruins of a luxury hotel in Cuba’s capital Monday, bringing the official death toll of a powerful explosion at the iconic building to 40.
Dr. Julio Guerra, chief of hospital services at the Ministry of Health, said at a news conference that more bodies had been recovered in the last few hours. He added that there were still 18 people hospitalized for injuries from Friday’s blast at the 19th century Hotel Saratoga.
Search crews with dogs have been hunting through debris in the hotel in Cuba’s capital.
Before the latest update given by Guerra, the toll of dead was 35, and 20 injured patients were listed as being hospitalized.
The 96-room, five-star hotel in Old Havana was preparing to reopen after being closed for two years when an apparent gas leak ignited Friday, blowing the outer walls into the busy, midmorning streets just a block from Cuba’s capitol.
Several nearby structures also were damaged, including the historic Marti Theater and the Calvary Baptist Church, headquarters for the denomination in western Cuba.
Authorities said an investigation was underway to determine the cause of the explosion at the hotel, which is owned by Grupo de Turismo Gaviota SA, one of the businesses run by the Cuban military.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/09/death-toll-havana-hotel-explosion-rises-35/ | 2022-05-10T04:08:17Z |
Democrats want to boost Biden Ukraine aid plan to near $40B
WASHINGTON (AP) — Congressional Democrats are preparing a plan that would boost President Joe Biden’s requested $33 billion Ukraine aid package to nearly $40 billion, and a House vote is possible as soon as Tuesday, two people familiar with lawmakers’ thinking said.
In a retreat, Biden conceded that the package should not contain any of the additional billions he’s requested to combat COVID-19. Republicans, whose backing would be crucial to pushing legislation through the evenly divided Senate, have opposed adding that money to the Ukraine aid.
“We cannot afford delay in this vital war effort,” Biden said in a written statement. “Hence, I am prepared to accept that these two measures move separately, so that the Ukrainian aid bill can get to my desk right away.”
Biden said he has “nearly exhausted” his authority to continue shipping military aid to Ukraine, adding, “We are approximately ten days from hitting this critical deadline.”
Democrats have offered their latest proposal to the GOP.
“I’m focused on getting it done without extraneous matters on it, and getting it done quickly,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said of the latest proposal. He said the measure “may adjust some in the process.”
Details of the measure were described Monday by people who could speak only on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly. The House’s Tuesday schedule mentioned the Ukraine legislation, but it was unclear how firm that was.
Biden’s statement provided no details about the legislation, saying, “Congress is likely to pass it in substantially the form I proposed.”
Democrats’ movement on the proposal comes with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in its 11th week and showing signs of becoming a grinding, long-term war. Heavy fighting in Ukraine’s eastern and southern areas is causing widespread damage and significant losses on both sides, but the Russian offensive is showing few signs of progress.
Still, U.S. officials in and out of Congress have stressed that it will be critical to continue speeding assistance to Ukraine, whose forces are outnumbered.
Emphasizing the urgency facing U.S. officials, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said the Pentagon’s ability to send weapons systems and other equipment from Defense Department stockpiles to Ukraine will run out in about three weeks. The Pentagon currently has about $100 million in drawdown authority left from a $13.6 billion Ukraine aid measure enacted in March.
“Which is why we encourage Congress to act quickly,” Kirby told reporters at the Pentagon.
While Democrats say more spending to combat COVID-19 is also crucial, their plan to seek votes on a package omitting those funds underscores their thinking that rushing assistance to Ukraine is their top priority. A push for a separate pandemic measure would come later, Democrats say.
The officials said Democrats’ Ukraine measure would include $3.4 billion more than Biden had requested for defense spending and another $3.4 billion over what the president sought for humanitarian aid.
Biden’s request, which he sent Congress on April 28, asked for $20 billion for defense spending for Ukraine, the U.S. and their allies. It also requested $3 billion for humanitarian assistance, including to help feed people around the world who rely on grains and other food from war-racked Ukraine.
Backed by Democrats, Biden has asked Congress for another $22.5 billion to buy vaccines, treatments and tests so the country could be better prepared for future COVID-19 variants, and to help staunch the virus’ spread in poor countries abroad. In a deal with Republicans, Democrats agreed last month to slice that request to $10 billion, but the compromise was derailed over other disagreements.
With elections approaching and the public tiring of dealing with the pandemic, Republican support for added COVID-19 spending has flagged. Democrats hoped wrapping the pandemic money into the widely popular Ukraine measure would ease approval of the COVID-19 funds.
In his statement, Biden said Congress should send him the Ukraine funds “in the next few days. And then, I urge Congress to move promptly on the COVID funding bill.”
Unwilling to slow the Ukraine package, Republicans also want to keep the pandemic spending separate so they can use that measure for a fight over immigration that could damage Democrats.
The GOP wants to force a vote on a proposal to continue curbs on admitting migrants crossing the Mexican border for fear of spreading the pandemic, restrictions imposed by then-President Donald Trump.
With increases in border crossings expected soon, that proposal divides Democrats, with many reluctant to back Biden in ending those restrictions later this month.
___
AP writer Lolita Baldor contributed to this report.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/09/democrats-want-boost-biden-ukraine-aid-plan-near-40b/ | 2022-05-10T04:08:24Z |
Former NBA, Michigan State star Adreian Payne shot, killed
Published: May. 9, 2022 at 3:40 PM EDT|Updated: 8 hours ago
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Former Michigan State basketball standout and NBA player Adreian Payne has died in a shooting. He was 31.
The sheriff’s office in Orange County, Florida, said deputies responded to a shooting Monday morning when Payne was identified and taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Lawrence Dority was present at the scene, according to the sheriff’s office. The 29-year-old Dority was arrested on a first-degree murder warrant after homicide detectives interviewed him.
Payne played in 107 NBA games, averaging four points and three rebounds, over four seasons with the Atlanta Hawks, Minnesota Timberwolves and Orlando Magic.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/09/former-nba-michigan-state-star-adreian-payne-shot-killed/ | 2022-05-10T04:08:31Z |
Gas prices race back to near record highs
(CNN) - Gas prices are flirting with record highs again – adding to inflation headaches.
According to AAA, the national average for regular gasoline rose to about $4.32 Monday, a fraction of a penny shy of the all-time high set March 11.
Gas prices have climbed 13 cents over the last week and stand well above the recent low of $4.07 a gallon.
Diesel prices are also spiking, adding another blow to the inflation outlook.
The national average for diesel hit another record of $5.54 a gallon Monday, which is up 22 cents in a week and 49 cents in a month, according to AAA.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in late February sent prices surging as investors braced for oil supply disruptions caused by the war and embargoes on Russian energy.
The Biden administration responded by unleashing a record amount of oil from U.S. emergency oil stockpiles, announcing March 31 that 1 million barrels a day would be released for six months.
The ongoing effort helped cool oil and gasoline prices off for a bit, but the relief was fleeting and relatively minor.
Copyright 2022 via CNN Newsource. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/09/gas-prices-race-back-near-record-highs/ | 2022-05-10T04:08:37Z |
Handyman on the run after violent sexual assault of 70-year-old woman, police say
TULSA, Okla. (Gray News) – Police in Tulsa are looking for a handyman who they say violently raped a 70-year-old woman at her home, resulting in “extremely serious injuries.”
According to the Tulsa Police Department, officers responded to a call at the home Wednesday evening when the victim reported that her handyman beat her and sexually assaulted her inside her home.
The woman was rushed to the hospital with serious injuries to her head, face and body, police said.
Police are now looking for 40-year-old Elga Harper. A warrant has been issued for his arrest. Police said once Harper is captured, he will be charged with two counts of first-degree rape, first degree robbery, kidnapping, aggravated assault and battery, and assault and battery by means likely to produce death.
Detectives said while Harper has a beard in most photographs, they believe he likely shaved his face to change his appearance.
Police are asking anyone who sees Harper to call 911.
Copyright 2022 Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/09/handyman-run-after-violent-sexual-assault-70-year-old-woman-police-say/ | 2022-05-10T04:08:45Z |
Hip to be smart: ‘Jeopardy’ savors run of super champions
NEW YORK (AP) — As Mattea Roach, Amy Schneider and Matt Amodio can attest, it’s cool to be smart again.
“Jeopardy!” is on an unusual run of super champs. In the past seven months, each of those contestants has landed in the television game show’s historical list of top five winning streaks. Roach’s run of victories ended on her 24th game Friday.
The timing couldn’t be better for “Jeopardy!” — and the show’s fans know all about timing.
The show had been reeling last summer after it bungled the process of replacing late host Alex Trebek. Mike Richards was fired as both host and executive producer of the show after insensitive statements he had made on a podcast surfaced.
“It has really let people fall in love with ‘Jeopardy!’ again and forget about what happened to focus on all of these amazing contestants,” said Andy Saunders, who runs thejeopardyfan.com website.
Amodio, a doctoral candidate at Yale University, ran off 38 straight wins before he was beaten last October. He soon gave way to Schneider, the engineering manager from Oakland who was a fixture on TV over the holidays before her streak ended at 40. Roach, a 23-year-old tutor from Toronto, was the show’s youngest major champion.
They joined Ken Jennings, whose 74-game streak in 2004 has never seriously been challenged and high-stakes gambler James Holzhauer, who won 32 in 2019, in the “Jeopardy!” top five.
The show, which has aired regularly since 1984, changed its rules in 2003 to allow people to stay on until they lose. Prior to that, winners were capped at five games.
Ask Michael Davies, the show’s executive producer, why the sudden run of big winners, and you get a verbal shrug.
“I don’t have a simple answer,” he said.
The “price” for such long runs can be a string of dull games because the players are so dominant. Yet the winning streaks create strong characters in ways that are unusual for game shows. People tune in to root for or against them like they do for sports teams, said Saunders, who has worked in game show production.
That’s reflected in the ratings. The “Jeopardy!” audience is up 400,000 this year in an era most shows are shrinking, Davies said. The game averaged 9.4 million viewers a night during the third week in April, more than any program that week on prime-time television, the Nielsen company said.
“The people that win are the people who make the most attempts, the ones who are able to unscramble what it is that they’re asking faster than anybody else,” Davies said.
Schneider and Roach were notable for their impressive breadth of knowledge, and they were rarely wrong. Amodio was particularly adept at harder questions with a big monetary value and he sought them out first, pinning hopes on a “shock and awe” strategy that demoralized opponents.
Since he’s been producer, Davies said “Jeopardy!” has been trying broaden out the subject matter that contestants face.
“We’re trying to test excellence,” said Davies, who was producer of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” during Regis Philbin’s heyday. “We’re trying to test people on how much they really know. We don’t want it to be for people who know trivia. We want it to be for people who spend a lifetime reading books, acquiring knowledge.
“We celebrate facts,” he said. “We celebrate people who know things.”
Not all television viewers know this, but “Jeopardy!” usually tapes a week’s worth of episodes in a single day. That can help a champion who gets on a roll.
But after they lost, both Schneider and Roach pointed to fatigue as a factor.
“I do think that my last two games, I was maybe just out of it,” said Roach, who had to come from behind for her last win. “I was really, really tired. I remember yawning uncontrollably before playing my second-to-last game. From what I recall, I believe I was slower on the buzzer, I was not able to come up with responses.”
She’ll be back for the yearly Tournament of Champions, competing with Amodio and Schneider. Davies, a sports fan, wants to put more emphasis on the event that brings together each year’s best contestants, and to make sure it is held each year at the same time, in the fall.
“I think it’s pretty clear that this has been good for the franchise,” he said.
___
Television Writer Lynn Elber contributed to this report.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/09/hip-be-smart-jeopardy-savors-run-super-champions/ | 2022-05-10T04:08:51Z |
Hot Wheels launches new toy to inspire kids to push past perceived limitations
Published: May. 9, 2022 at 9:27 AM EDT|Updated: 14 hours ago
(CNN) - Hot Wheels is launching its first-ever remote-controlled wheelchair toy.
It was created in collaboration with five-time wheelchair motocross world champion and paralympic athlete Aaron “Wheelz” Fotheringham.
He’s known for performing elaborate tricks and backflips in his wheelchair.
In fact, the toy was crafted to mimic Fotheringham’s custom-built wheelchair and features a built-in action figure made to look like him, a remote control, and a ramp so users can perform his tricks.
Hot Wheels hopes the toy will inspire kids to push past perceived limitations.
The toy is available on Amazon.
Copyright 2022 CNN Newsource. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/09/hot-wheels-launches-new-toy-inspire-kids-push-past-perceived-limitations/ | 2022-05-10T04:08:58Z |
‘I’d do anything to get it back’: Jeweler gives woman’s wedding ring to the wrong person
MUHLENBERG CO., Ky (WFIE/Gray News) - A Kentucky woman is on the hunt for her wedding ring after she says her jeweler mistakenly gave it away to the wrong person.
Jessica Piper had a lot to smile about this past Mother’s Day.
She spent it with her family, the sun was shining, but something was missing. Her wedding ring.
Piper told WFIE she took it into her jeweler for a small repair and never saw it again.
“My husband went in and said, ‘I’m here to pick up my wife’s ring,’ Piper said. “And they said, ‘We don’t have a ring. Someone picked it up.’”
They filed a report with Kay Jeweler’s and got the local authorities involved.
“After the investigation through the jewelry store, we figured out one of the employees just made a mistake,” Piper said.
A $6,200 mistake, leaving Piper without her most special piece of jewelry, and a stranger a whole lot richer.
“They gave our ring to someone trying to pick up their own ring,” Piper said.
Instead of bringing the ring back in to correct the mistake, Piper says the man kept it and sold it off.
“We were told that he took the ring home, and I guess he and his wife separated or divorced, and he sold it through Snapchat,” she said.
Piper said she didn’t even know what or how to feel next.
“Shocked, and nervous, scared thinking someone’s done us wrong,” Piper said.
So she took to social media trying to spread the word. With over 1,000 shares on her Facebook post, she’s hoping someone may find it.
“Everyone’s devastated, and everyone’s always asking me about it,” Piper said. “Social media’s been my biggest supporter.”
Her left ring finger feels extra bare without it this month, as this weekend was her and her husband Cody’s anniversary.
13 years together, four years married.
“We’ve been together since I was in eighth grade,” Piper said. “We got together when I was 13, so we’ve been together half my life.”
Her ring was a symbol of their many years growing up together, and she hoped to have it until they grew old.
“I would love to get it back. It means so much to me,” Piper said. “I said our vows over it, and I intended to have it until I was no longer on this earth, so I’d love to get it back. I’d do anything to get it back.”
Copyright 2022 Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/09/id-do-anything-get-it-back-jeweler-gives-womans-wedding-ring-wrong-person/ | 2022-05-10T04:09:04Z |
It’s been a dry start to the week, & we look to stay that way a while!
High pressure to stick with us in the coming days
We’ve got a cool night ahead of us tonight, but we do look to stay dry! Low temps tonight will fall into the upper 30s and low 40s for most. While most of us will stay above freezing tonight, a few places could get cold enough for frost. If you have any sensitive plants, make sure to cover them up and bring them indoors!
A FROST ADVISORY has been issued for southeastern Pocahontas county overnight-early Tuesday.
With high pressure in control, we look warm and dry again Tuesday. Highs should hit the mid-70s to low 80s, and we should see plenty of sunshine. Low temps Tuesday night will be in the 40s under mainly clear skies.
Wednesday and Thursday should again bring mainly sunny skies and highs in the 70s and 80s again.
By the end of the workweek, we will see low pressure move back into the region, bringing a renewed chance of rain. While it doesn’t look like a wash-out, temps will be a tad cooler (in the upper 60s and low 70s) on Friday & Saturday and we look to see scattered showers...
Stay tuned!
BLUEFIELD, W.Va. (WVVA) -
Copyright 2022 WVVA. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/09/its-been-dry-start-week-we-look-stay-that-way-while/ | 2022-05-10T04:09:11Z |
K-9 finds 250 pounds of marijuana during traffic stop
Published: May. 9, 2022 at 3:56 PM EDT|Updated: 8 hours ago
STEELE, Ala. (WBRC/Gray News) – A K-9 in Alabama led officers to a huge marijuana bust Monday morning.
Police in Steele said K-9 Tara, who specializes in drug sniffing, alerted officers to a vehicle around 1:30 a.m. during a traffic stop on Interstate 59.
Police said approximately 250 pounds of marijuana was seized from the vehicle. Two people were arrested.
Officials did not provide additional information.
Copyright 2022 WBRC via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/09/k-9-finds-250-pounds-marijuana-during-traffic-stop/ | 2022-05-10T04:09:17Z |
Korean War veteran searching for love he lost 70 years ago in Japan
OMAHA, Neb. (KETV) – It’s a question we all ask at least once in our lifetime – what if you made a different decision or chose the other path?
Korean War veteran Duane Mann, 91, has had a great life but has one thing that stuck with him that he just can’t shake from his heart.
He fell in love with a woman when he was 23 years old, serving overseas in Yokosuka, Japan. Now, he can’t stop thinking about a choice he made in 1954.
The airman second class petty officer, who oversaw the military base aviation warehouse, spent his free time moonlighting at the Air Force NCO Club, fixing the slot machines.
That’s where Mann met Peggy, who worked as the hat check girl at the time.
“I really loved to dance,” Mann said. “She and I found out we could really dance together – I mean to where people would watch us – and gradually we fell in love. We couldn’t stop it.”
After 14 months of courtship, they had three months to plan their wedding before his Navy discharge.
Suddenly, though, President Dwight Eisenhower pulled all Navy personnel from Japan. Mann received papers he was going to be shipped back to the U.S. in one week.
“We didn’t have any time to get married,” Mann explained. “We were just trapped.”
Mann said he reassured Peggy that he would send for her, thinking he had enough savings at home. But when he returned to the states, he learned his father ran into tough times and spent it all.
Mann quickly found a good-paying job building highways throughout the Midwest so he could bring his love to America.
“I corresponded with her. I would get a letter a week,” Mann said.
After some time, Peggy’s letters stopped arriving in the mail and three months later, he received one final letter.
“In that letter, she told me she married an Air Force man and that she had lost the baby and that was just dead for me,” Mann said. “I was pretty well devastated.”
He later learned Peggy was still writing to him, but his mother had intercepted the letters and burned them.
“She didn’t want me to marry a Japanese girl. She wanted me to marry a girl from the church,” Mann explained.
Mann thought his first love was over, so he moved on. He had two marriages – one lasting 17 years, the other 47.
He has six children, 18 grandchildren and 6 great-grandchildren.
Even with all his happiness, Mann has never forgotten about Peggy.
“It began to haunt me more and more through the years. I left her standing there pregnant,” Mann said.
He shared the story of his search for Peggy on Facebook, with the blessing of his children. He hopes someone will recognize Peggy from the photograph he took in Japan.
The only clues he has is that she would be in her late 80s or early 90s and that she said she married a man in the Air Force from Wisconsin.
“The big thing that really makes it hard is that she thinks I abandoned her, and I just can’t get that out of my soul,” Mann said.
Mann hopes he can make things right.
“I would say, ‘I come to see you late in life. There’s one thing I want you to know – that I did not abandon you,’” Mann said if his path leads him back to Peggy after 70 years.
Copyright 2022 KETV via CNN Newsource. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/09/korean-war-veteran-searching-love-he-lost-70-years-ago-japan/ | 2022-05-10T04:09:24Z |
Lucy the two-nosed cow is celebrating her 15th birthday
MERRILL, Wis. (WSAW/Gray News) - This month, a famous cow named Lucy celebrates her 15th birthday.
Over the years, she’s attracted attention throughout central Wisconsin and nationally for her unusual nose.
When Lucy’s owner, Mark Krombholz, found her in the pasture just after she was born 15 years ago, he thought that she got kicked in the face. It was later on when he found out that she had two noses.
“We had the vet come out … she says that is bone structure there, she does breathe out of both noses,” Krombholz said.
Despite being different, Lucy has no problems with her health. The vet told Krombholz that Lucy was going to be a twin but the egg didn’t fully split, WSAW reported.
Lucy went on to have 10 calves of her own, none with a second nose.
“I received phone calls from all different places,” Krombholz said. “We were on some farm magazine, radio station, things like that in the morning. And TV stations in New York, and we were even mentioned on Jay Leno when he was still on ‘The Tonight Show.’”
He said she even caught the attention of other countries.
“She was in Pravda, a Russian newspaper, in China,” Krombholz said.
Krombholz said she’s still a normal cow, with some personality.
“She can be a bit of a diva, because she’s not afraid of people like that,” Krombholz said.
She goes to fairs in her own personalized ride and over the years her owner has gotten lots of offers for her. Krombholz said he got very high offers, but couldn’t take them.
“I wouldn’t trade her for the world,” Krombholz said. “I’ve been offered tens of thousands of dollars but, like I said, sideshows, they may drag her all over the country and after that what happens to her.”
Krombholz said she is part of the family. You can check out more pictures of on her Facebook page Lucy the Two Nosed Cow.
Copyright 2022 WSAW via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/09/lucy-two-nosed-cow-is-celebrating-her-15th-birthday/ | 2022-05-10T04:09:30Z |
Man beat tenant with brass knuckles when he was short on rent, police say
TULSA, Okla. (Gray News) – A friend of a rental property owner is facing charges after he beat a tenant with brass knuckles during a rent dispute, according to police.
The Tulsa Police Department said in a Facebook post that Brian Thomas, 21, accompanied the landlord to visit a tenant Thursday to collect overdue rent and drug money. When the tenant was short on rent, Thomas assaulted the tenant using brass knuckles then pointed a gun at the tenant and threatened to kill him, police said.
The tenant was taken to the hospital for his injuries. Police did not provide further details on his condition.
On Saturday, police officers located Thomas at his apartment and arrested him. Officers said they also recovered two guns and evidence of marijuana distribution inside the apartment.
Police said Thomas is a convicted felon. Thomas is charged with assault with a dangerous weapon, pointing a firearm with intent, threatening a violent act, gang related offense, and two counts of possession of a firearm.
Police said the investigation is ongoing. They did not yet say whether the rental property owner is also facing charges.
Copyright 2022 Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/09/man-beat-tenant-with-brass-knuckles-when-he-was-short-rent-police-say/ | 2022-05-10T04:09:39Z |
Man shoots his mom on Mother’s Day during fight over Xbox controller, sheriff says
WAYNE COUNTY, Ky. (WKYT/Gray News) – A man shot his own mother on Mother’s Day following an argument about an Xbox controller, officials said.
According to the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office, deputies received a call around 8:30 Sunday night that someone had been shot and was on their way to the hospital in Monticello.
Around the same time, Sheriff Tim Catron received a call that the suspect was at a neighbor’s house waiting for police to come get him.
When deputies arrived at the home, the suspect, later identified as 22-year-old Jacob Small, told them he had gotten into a fight with his mom, Amber Powell, over an Xbox controller. Small told police he had given the controller to her as a Mother’s Day gift.
Deputies said that when Powell was leaving the home after the fight, Small fired a rifle at the car, hitting his mother.
The sheriff’s office said Small handed over the rifle used in the shooting to the responding deputy.
Powell was taken to the hospital for her injuries. Her condition is unknown.
Small is charged with attempted murder, assault and criminal mischief. He was taken to the Wayne County Detention Center.
Copyright 2022 WKYT via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/09/man-shoots-his-mom-mothers-day-during-fight-over-xbox-controller-sheriff-says/ | 2022-05-10T04:09:45Z |
McDonald’s adds freebies, tarot card readings for Mercury retrograde
(CNN) - Do you want fries and a tarot card reading with your order?
McDonald’s has you covered.
This week, if you order medium fries through the McDonald’s app, you’ll get a free McChicken or McDouble. If the stars align, you’ll get a tarot card reading by astrology expert Madam Adam.
The fast-food chain is leaning into Mercury retrograde, a time astrology buffs will tell you is traditionally associated with confusion, delay and frustration.
The two-day deal is available Tuesday and Wednesday.
For a chance at a reading, you’ll need to post your Zodiac sign in the comment section of Madam Adam’s TikTok or Instagram posts announcing the Mercury retrograde deal.
During a live reading on TikTok, Madam Adam will randomly select a few folks for custom readings.
Copyright 2022 CNN Newsource. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/09/mcdonalds-adds-freebies-tarot-card-readings-mercury-retrograde/ | 2022-05-10T04:09:52Z |
Mississippi sues Favre, wrestlers, over welfare misspending
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The Mississippi Department of Human Services on Monday sued retired NFL quarterback Brett Favre and three former pro wrestlers along with several other people and businesses to try to recover millions of misspent welfare dollars that were intended to help some of the poorest people in the U.S.
The lawsuit says the defendants “squandered” more than $20 million in money from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families anti-poverty program.
The suit was filed less than two weeks after a mother and son who ran a nonprofit group and an education company in Mississippi pleaded guilty to state criminal charges tied to the misspending. Nancy New, 69, and Zachary New, 39, agreed to testify against others in what state Auditor Shad White has called Mississippi’s largest public corruption case in the past two decades.
In early 2020, Nancy New, Zachary New, former Mississippi Department of Human Services executive director John Davis and three other people were charged in state court, with prosecutors saying welfare money had been misspent on items such as drug rehabilitation in Malibu, California, for former pro wrestler Brett DiBiase.
DiBiase is a defendant in the lawsuit filed Monday in Hinds County Circuit Court, as are his father and brother who were also pro wrestlers, Ted DiBiase Sr. and Ted “Teddy” DiBiase Jr.
Ted DiBiase Sr. was known as the “The Million Dollar Man” while wrestling. He is a Christian evangelist and motivational speaker, and he ran Heart of David Ministries Inc., which received $1.7 million in welfare grant money in 2017 and 2018 for mentorship, marketing and other services, according to the lawsuit.
White last year demanded repayment of $77 million of misspent welfare funds from several people and groups, including $1.1 million paid to Favre, who lives in Mississippi. Favre has not been charged with any criminal wrongdoing.
White said Favre was paid for speeches but did not show up. Favre has repaid the money, but White said in October that Favre still owed $228,000 in interest. In a Facebook post when he repaid the first $500,000, Favre said he did not know the money he received came from welfare funds. He also said his charity had provided millions of dollars to poor children in Mississippi and Wisconsin.
Months ago, the auditor’s office turned over the demands for repayment of misspent welfare money to the Mississippi attorney general’s office for enforcement. White said in a statement Monday that he knew the attorney general’s office eventually would file suit.
“I applaud the team filing this suit and am grateful the state is taking another step toward justice for the taxpayers,” White said. “We will continue to work alongside our federal partners — who have been given access to all our evidence for more than two years — to make sure the case is fully investigated.”
The lawsuit filed Monday said Favre at one time was the largest individual outside investor and stockholder of Prevacus, a Florida-based company that was trying to develop a concussion drug. The suit said that in December 2018, Favre urged Prevacus CEO Jake VanLandingham to ask Nancy New to use welfare grant money to invest in the company.
The suit also said Favre hosted a Prevacus stock sales presentation at his home in January 2019, attended by VanLandingham, Davis, Nancy New, Zach New and Ted DiBiase Jr., and that an agreement was reached to spend “substantial” welfare grant money in Prevacus and later in its corporate affiliate PreSolMD Inc.
The suit said the stock was in the names of Nancy New and Zach New but was also for the financial benefit of Favre, VanLandingham and the two companies. The lawsuit demands repayment of $2.1 million in welfare grant money that was improperly paid to the two companies in 2019.
The Associated Press on Monday called a number once listed for Favre Enterprises and a recording said it was no longer in service.
Attorney General Lynn Fitch and Gov. Tate Reeves said in a joint statement Monday: “Our purpose with this suit is to seek justice for the broken trust of the people of Mississippi and recover funds that were misspent.”
Davis was chosen to lead the Department of Human Services in 2016 by then-Gov. Phil Bryant — who, like Reeves, Fitch and White, is a Republican. Davis retired in July 2019 and is awaiting trial on criminal charges in the misspending.
Brett DiBiase pleaded guilty in December 2020 to one count of making a false statement. He said in court documents that he had submitted documents and received full payment for work he did not complete. He agreed to pay $48,000 in restitution and his sentencing was deferred.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/09/mississippi-sues-favre-wrestlers-over-welfare-misspending/ | 2022-05-10T04:09:58Z |
No charges after maintenance worker shoots, kills 8-month-old puppy during service call, police say
ROSWELL, Ga. (WGCL/Gray News) – A family in Georgia said their 8-month-old German shepherd was wrongfully shot and killed during a maintenance service call, but police said the alleged shooter won’t face any charges.
Yordania Mejia and her family, along with their dog Luna, just moved into the Enclave at Roswell apartments a month ago. The family says the puppy was “big, but gentle.”
“[Luna] was raised with kids, and everybody knows dogs raised with kids are friendly,” Mejia said.
But a report from the Roswell Police Department tells a different story. According to the report, on May 2, a maintenance worker for the apartment complex told officers he asked the dog to be secured before he entered the unit. But he claims Luna then chased him down the stairs.
According to police, the maintenance worker used his handgun to shoot Luna “in fear for his safety.”
Police said there are no pending charges and that nothing criminal took place.
“He was doing self-defense?” Mejia questioned. “[But] he had not been [bitten], he wasn’t scratched, his clothes were not torn apart.”
Mejia argues she should have gotten a heads up about what time maintenance would service her home, that way she could have been there.
“They have somebody walking around with a gun, that shot my dog twice,” she said. “He left her there to die.”
Mejia’s children are scarred, and the family is devastated, maintaining that Luna was just playful, not dangerous.
“You can go around and ask anybody in that neighborhood that has seen us for the month I’ve been here, how [Luna] is,” Mejia said.
Tenants claim the maintenance worker has since been fired, but property management neither confirmed to WGCL his employment status nor its policies on staff entering units armed.
“They told me they were sorry, and they had fired him. But if he was right on killing my dog, why did they fire him? That’s what I don’t understand,” Mejia said.
Property management directed WGCL to their corporate owner, First Communities. WGCL is still awaiting a statement from the company. WGCL has also attempted to contact the maintenance worker and have not heard back.
Copyright 2022 WGCL via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/09/no-charges-after-maintenance-worker-shoots-kills-8-month-old-puppy-during-service-call-police-say/ | 2022-05-10T04:10:05Z |
Over 46,000 infant clothing items recalled due to ‘choking and laceration hazards’
(Gray News) - Over 46,000 infant clothing items from Wintry Water Factory have been recalled due to choking and laceration hazards, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
The recall names all Infant French terry jumpsuits, rompers, snap suits, baby dresses and bibs sold between August 2020 and March 2022.
CPSC said the garments have snaps that are able to detach as well as expose small sharp prongs, which pose choking and laceration hazards.
The following styles are affected: French terry jumpsuit, long-sleeve romper, summer romper, tank top romper, bubble romper, footed romper, long-sleeve snap suit, short-sleeve snap suit, Azalea baby dress, Oslo baby Dress, Juniper baby dress, Geneva baby dress, Merano baby dress, Kerchief bib and French terry bib.
The agency said it has received 29 reports of the snaps “detaching between the prong ring and the stud or socket piece,” but no injuries have been reported.
Images of the garments can be found on the company recall portal, where customers can submit a recall form for a full refund or store credit.
The affected items can be identified by the following codes on the labels:
- TX-JM-I-XXII
- TX-JM-VII-XXI
- TX-JM-I-XXI
- TX-JM-VII-XX
The products were sold on the company website and boutiques nationwide.
Copyright 2022 Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/09/over-46000-infant-clothing-items-recalled-due-choking-laceration-hazards/ | 2022-05-10T04:10:14Z |
South Dakota senator moves to roll back child mask mandates
Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) says, “Parents want to be in control.”
WASHINGTON (Gray DC) - Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) thinks children shouldn’t be forced to mask up. After talking to a concerned Head Start teacher from South Dakota, he’s working to roll back those mandates in every state.
Last week, the Senate passed a joint resolution condemning mask mandates for toddlers.
The measure passed with 7 Democrats in support: including both Democratic senators from Nevada and Arizona.
Sen. Thune believes it could be the sign of a greater shift in easing mandates around the coronavirus, and hopes it will pressure the Biden administration for more rollbacks.
“The toddler mask mandate is a good example of a government overreach at a time when we just don’t need this anymore, and parents want to be in control,” said Thune. “They’re tired of being told by the government how to take care of their kids.”
Joint resolutions express the sentiment of Congress. In this case, the resolution says lawmakers disapprove of rules requiring children in Head Start programs to wear masks and those rules cannot be enforced.
Notably, the resolution passed as the United States crossed a key mile marker: one million deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Copyright 2022 Gray DC. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/09/parents-want-be-control-senator-moves-rollback-child-mask-mandates/ | 2022-05-10T04:10:21Z |
PHOTOS: School bus seen teetering on its side in Ohio
Published: May. 9, 2022 at 10:34 AM EDT|Updated: 13 hours ago
CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO/Gray News) – A school bus in Ohio took a nosedive early Monday morning, causing it to teeter onto its side.
According to WOIO, construction work is being done in the area where the bus is tipped over.
Pictures show the front of the bus stuck in what appears to be a hole in the street.
WOIO reports that no students were on the bus at the time of the crash.
Copyright 2022 WOIO via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/09/photos-school-bus-seen-teetering-its-side-ohio/ | 2022-05-10T04:10:30Z |
Pulitzer Prizes award Washington Post for Jan. 6 coverage
NEW YORK (AP) — The Washington Post won the Pulitzer Prize in public service journalism Monday for its coverage of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, an attack on democracy that was a shocking start to a tumultuous year that also saw the end of the United States’ longest war, in Afghanistan.
The Post’s extensive reporting, published in a sophisticated interactive series, found numerous problems and failures in political systems and security before, during and after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot in the newspaper’s own backyard.
The “compellingly told and vividly presented account” gave the public “a thorough and unflinching understanding of one of the nation’s darkest days,” said Marjorie Miller, administrator of the prizes, in announcing the award.
Five Getty Images photographers were awarded one of the two prizes in breaking news photography for their coverage of the riot.
The other prize awarded in breaking news photography went to Los Angeles Times correspondent and photographer Marcus Yam, for work related to the fall of Kabul.
The U.S. pullout and resurrection of the Taliban’s grip on Afghanistan permeated across categories, with The New York Times winning in the international reporting category for reporting challenging official accounts of civilian deaths from U.S. airstrikes in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Pulitzer Prizes, administered by Columbia University and considered the most prestigious in American journalism, recognize work in 15 journalism categories and seven arts categories. This year’s awards, which were livestreamed, honored work produced in 2021. The winner of the public service award receives a gold medal, while winners of each of the other categories get $15,000.
The intersection of health, safety and infrastructure played a prominent role among the winning projects.
The Tampa Bay Times won the investigative reporting award for “Poisoned,” its in-depth look into a polluting lead factory. The Miami Herald took the breaking news award for its work covering the deadly Surfside condo tower collapse, while The Better Government Association and the Chicago Tribune won the local reporting award for “Deadly Fires, Broken Promises,” the watchdog and newspaper’s examination of a lack of enforcement of fire safety standards.
“As a newsroom, we poured our hearts into the breaking news and the ongoing daily coverage, and subsequent investigative coverage, of the Champlain Towers South condominium collapse story,” The Miami Herald’s executive editor, Monica Richardson, wrote in a statement. “It was our story to tell because the people and the families in Surfside who were impacted by this unthinkable tragedy are a part of our community.”
Elsewhere in Florida, Tampa Bay Times’ editor and vice president Mark Katches mirrored that sentiment, calling his newspaper’s win “a testament to the importance of a vital local newsroom like the Times.”
The prize for explanatory reporting went to Quanta Magazine, with the board highlighting the work of Natalie Wolchover, for a long-form piece about the James Webb space telescope, a $10 billion engineering effort to gain a better understanding about the origins of the universe.
The New York Times also won in the national reporting category, for a project looking at police traffic stops that ended in fatalities, and Salamishah Tillet, a contributing critic-at-large at the Times, won the criticism award.
A story that used graphics in comic form to tell the story of Zumrat Dawut, a Uyghur woman who said she was persecuted and detained by the Chinese government as part of systemic abuses against her community, brought the illustrated reporting and commentary prize to Fahmida Azim, Anthony Del Col, Josh Adams and Walt Hickey of Insider.
Jennifer Senior of The Atlantic won the award for feature writing, for a piece marking the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks through a family’s grief.
Melinda Henneberger of The Kansas City Star won for commentary, for columns about a retired police detective accused of sexual abuse and those who said they were assaulted calling for justice.
The editorial writing prize went to Lisa Falkenberg, Michael Lindenberger, Joe Holley and Luis Carrasco of the Houston Chronicle, for pieces that called for voting reforms and exposed voter suppression tactics.
The staffs of Futuro Media and PRX took the audio reporting prize for the profile of a man who had been in prison for 30 years and was re-entering the outside world.
The prize for feature photography went to Adnan Abidi, Sanna Irshad Mattoo, Amit Dave and Danish Siddiqui of Reuters for photos of the COVID-19 toll in India. Siddiqui, 38, who won a 2018 Pulitzer in the same category, was killed in Afghanistan in July while documenting fighting between Afghan forces and the Taliban.
The Pulitzer Prizes also awarded a special citation to journalists of Ukraine, acknowledging their “courage, endurance and commitment” in covering the ongoing Russian invasion that began earlier this year. Last August, the Pulitzer board granted a special citation to Afghan journalists who risked their safety to help produce news stories and images from their own war-torn country.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/09/pulitzer-prizes-award-washington-post-jan-6-coverage/ | 2022-05-10T04:10:37Z |
Queen Elizabeth to skip Parliament opening for the 1st time in decades
LONDON (AP) — Queen Elizabeth II will not attend the opening of Parliament on Tuesday for the first time in nearly 60 years, as she struggles with difficulties in getting around.
Buckingham Palace said in a statement Monday that the decision was made in consultation with her doctors and that the 96-year-old had “reluctantly’' decided not to attend. Prince Charles will read her speech, while for the first time her grandson Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge, will have an official role in the event.
“At her majesty’s request, and with the agreement of the relevant authorities, the Prince of Wales will read the Queen’s Speech on her majesty’s behalf, with the Duke of Cambridge also in attendance,’’ the palace said in a statement.
It will mark only the third time during her reign that Elizabeth has not opened Parliament. She previously missed the opening in 1959, when she was pregnant with Prince Andrew, and 1963, when she was pregnant with Prince Edward.
The state opening of Parliament is a centuries-old ceremony that marks the start of the legislative year. The pageantry traditionally begins with a coach ride to the Houses of Parliament, which is followed by the monarch reading the Queen’s Speech setting out the government’s legislative program to a joint session attended by members of both the House of Lords and the House of Commons.
But taking part also involves navigating stairs and other challenges for someone with troubles moving.
Britain’s longest serving monarch, Elizabeth last appeared in public during a service at Westminster Abbey to celebrate the life of Prince Philip, her spouse of more than 70 years who died last year.
Last week, the palace also announced that her difficulties would also prevent her from taking part in the summer garden party season. These events feature thousands of guests who sip tea on the lawn of Buckingham Palace or the Palace at Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh.
The guests are people from around the country who have all served their communities, and it is considered a great coup to catch an up-close glimpse of the sovereign. The queen is known to wear bright colors to make sure she can be seen.
The parties, which involve hours of standing around, walking and mingling, were set to return for the first time in three years starting next week.
Elizabeth, who also recently recovered from a bout of COVID-19, has spent much of the past two years at Windsor Castle, west of London, where she took refuge during the pandemic. She has kept working throughout this period, although most of her tasks have been carried out virtually, including meetings with ambassadors, health workers and schoolchildren.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/09/queen-elizabeth-wont-attend-parliament-opening-due-mobility-issues/ | 2022-05-10T04:10:44Z |
Russian ambassador to Poland hit with red paint at war cemetery
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Russia’s ambassador to Poland was splattered with red paint thrown at him by protesters opposed to the war in Ukraine, preventing him from paying respects on Monday at a Warsaw cemetery to Red Army soldiers who died during World War II.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova denounced the attack, saying that “we won’t be scared” while the “people of Europe should be scared to see their reflection in a mirror.”
Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau described the incident as “highly deplorable.”
“Diplomats enjoy special protection, regardless of the policies pursued by the governments that they represent,” he said.
Ambassador Sergey Andreev arrived at the Soviet soldiers’ cemetery to lay flowers on Victory Day, which marks the defeat of Nazi Germany by the Allies. The major Russian patriotic holiday was celebrated with pomp in a parade at Red Square in Moscow.
As he arrived at the Soviet Military Cemetery in the Polish capital, Andreev was met by hundreds of activists opposed to Russia’s war in Ukraine. Red paint was thrown from behind at him before a protester standing beside him threw a big blob of it in his face.
The protesters carried Ukrainian flags and chanted “fascists” and “murderers” at him, while some were dressed in white sheets smeared with red, symbolizing the Ukrainian victims of Russia’s war. Other people in his entourage were also seen splattered with what appeared to be red paint.
Zakharova said that “admirers of the neo-Nazis have once again shown their face.” She said that along with the removal of monuments to Soviet army World War II heroes, the attack reflected the “course for the reincarnation of fascism.”
Some Russian commentators suggested that the attack on the ambassador could prompt Moscow to recall him and ask the Polish ambassador to leave Russia.
The Polish government faced some criticism for not providing the ambassador with more security, allowing for an incident to occur that Russia could use to depict Poland as hostile to Moscow.
Among the critics was a former interior minister, Bartlomiej Sienkiewicz, who said he couldn’t understand why there wasn’t more protection for the ambassador when for weeks “you could feel how May 9 could end in Warsaw.”
Poland’s current interior minister, however, said Poland’s government opposed the ambassador against laying a wreath at the cemetery, and noted that police helped him to safely leave the scene. The ambassador had originally hoped to hold a Victory Day march in Warsaw, but national and city authorities opposed that — and some viewed his appearance at the cemetery as provocative.
“The gathering of opponents of Russian aggression against Ukraine, where the crime of genocide takes place every day, was legal,” Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski added. “The emotions of Ukrainian women taking part in the demonstration, whose husbands are fighting bravely in defense of their homeland, are understandable.”
Protesters also marched in Warsaw on Sunday evening to protest the war, bringing a tank on a tractor and parking it in front of the Russian Embassy. Since the war began on Feb. 24, images of Ukrainian tractors hauling off Russian tanks have been symbols of Ukrainian resistance.
The Soviet cemetery is set amid a vast park on the route linking the downtown to the international airport. It is the final resting place of more than 20,000 Red Army soldiers who perished on Polish soil fighting while helping to defeat Nazi Germany.
While Poland has removed some monuments to the Red Army in the decades since it threw off Moscow-backed communist rule, it has allowed the cemetery to remain undisturbed. Though Soviet soldiers defeated the Nazis, earlier in the war the Soviet forces had invaded Poland following a secret agreement with the German Nazi government, and carried out atrocities against Poles, including mass executions and deportations to Siberia.
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Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/09/russian-ambassador-poland-hit-with-red-paint-war-cemetery/ | 2022-05-10T04:10:51Z |
‘A Strange Loop’ earns a leading 11 Tony Award nominations
NEW YORK (AP) — “A Strange Loop,” Michael R. Jackson’s critically cheered theater meta-journey earned a leading 11 Tony Award nominations Monday as Broadway joined the national discussion of race by embracing an envelope-pushing Black-written and Black-led musical.
Jackson’s 2020 Pulitzer Prize drama winner about a Black gay man writing a show about a Black gay man earned nods for best musical, best leading man in newcomer Jaquel Spivey and best featured actress for L Morgan Lee, who becomes the first openly transgender performer to be nominated for a Tony Award. The show also was nominated for scenic design, lighting, sound, orchestrations, Stephen Brackett’s direction and John-Andrew Morrison for featured actor.
“I hoped my collaborators would be acknowledged. That actually, in a weird way, was much more exciting to me,” Jackson told The Associated Press. “Even if we hadn’t gotten any nominations, I would have been disappointed, but I also would have known how powerful the show has been resonating with people.”
Playwright Lynn Nottage had two reasons to smile Monday morning: Her book for the Michael Jackson musical “MJ” was nominated for best book and her play “Clyde’s” got a nod for best play.
“This has been a historic season for a multitude of reasons. There’s been a diversity of Black voices on Broadway in unprecedented numbers. Theater came back after being dark for almost two years and we made art while facing down COVID. And so this feels particularly good given all of the circumstances,” Nottage said.
Jesse Tyler Ferguson of “Modern Family” fame got a nomination for “Take Me Out,” as did Jesse Williams, the “Grey’s Anatomy” star making his Broadway debut. Williams thanked the audience for coming with him on a complex ride.
“This is my first time having this experience in the box, having experience on stage, and that fellowship, that dynamic, that partnership, that reliance we have with each other, that interplay with the audience is critical and something new to me. So it’s a thrilling ride,” Williams said.
Right behind “A Strange Loop” is a tie with 10 nominations each for “MJ,” a bio musical of the King of Pop stuffed with his biggest hits, and “Paradise Square,” a musical about Irish immigrants and Black Americans jostling to survive in New York City around the time of the Civil War.
The rest of the best new musical category includes “Six,” the corrective feminist take on the six wives of England’s Henry VIII, “Girl From the North Country,” which uses the songs of Bob Dylan to weave a Depression-era story in the Midwest, and “Mr. Saturday Night,” a reworking of Billy Crystal’s film about a bitter, old insult comic chasing a last laugh.
Two of the best play nominees are about economics — “Skeleton Crew,” Dominique Morisseau’s play about blue-collar job insecurity in a Detroit auto stamping plant in 2008, and “The Lehman Trilogy,” Stefano Massini’s play spanning 150 years about what led to the collapse of financial giant Lehman Brothers.
There’s also “Clyde’s,” Nottage’s play about a group of ex-cons trying to restart their lives at a truck stop diner, and “The Minutes,” Tracey Letts’ depiction of a small-town city council meeting that exposes backstabbing, greed and the larger delusions in American history. “Hangmen,” Martin McDonagh’s look at an executioner-turned-pub owner forced to grapple with his past when capital punishment is made illegal in the United Kingdom, also earned a best play nod.
One of its actors is Alfie Allen, making his Broadway debut and who got nominated as a featured actor. “I’m out having some pancakes, and I am having a lovely morning,” he said. The “Hangmen” ensemble has been welcoming, he said, like a family: “Everybody was just so supportive of each other, and I’m still pinching myself a little bit. It’s amazing.”
There were four musical revivals during the season, but only three got nominations: “The Music Man” which celebrates America’s soul with a traveling con man in a small Iowa town starring Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster, who each have two Tonys and were each nominated this time as well.
The two other entries in the musical revival category are “Caroline, Or Change,” Tony Kushner and Jeanine Tesori’s show that explores America’s racial, social and economic divisions in 1963 Louisiana, and “Company,” Stephen Sondheim’s exploration of a single person’s conflicted feelings about commitment, this time with a gender-switching of the lead character. That left “Funny Girl,” the classic American show starring Beanie Feldstein about the rise of a comic star of the Ziegfeld Follies, out of the running — it got only one nod, for Jared Grimes as best featured actor in a musical.
Grimes, a triple threat whose heroes include Sammy Davis Jr. and Gregory Hines and whose performance includes an electrifying tap dance number, took the traditionally white character Eddie Ryan and remade it as a young Black man.
“Eddie Ryan is a big leap for us in the direction of just understanding that we can be everything and anything. We just need a chance,” he said. “I like to think that we’re making good strides.”
Nominations for best play revival are “Trouble in Mind,” Alice Childress’ play about a Broadway play that explores the racial divide in the 1950s, “How I Learned to Drive,” Vogel’s Pulitzer Prize-winning memory play told by the survivor of childhood sexual abuse, starring two nominees: Mary-Louise Parker and David Morse and “American Buffalo,” David Mamet’s look at loyalty and greed set in a junk shop starring Laurence Fishburne, Darren Criss and Sam Rockwell, the latter the only actor in the play nominated.
The others are “Take Me Out,” Richard Greenberg’s exploration of what happens when a baseball superstar comes out as gay, and “for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enough,” playwright Ntozake Shange’s exploration of Black womanhood. That work also made history: Camille A. Brown the first Black woman to direct and choreograph a Broadway play since 1955 earned nominations in both categories.
Brown noted the amazing amount of Black playwrights represented this season and wanted to acknowledge another Black woman in her category: Lileana Blain-Cruz, who was nominated for directing a revival of “The Skin of Our Teeth.”
“I’d love to see more Black female directors get opportunities to direct on Broadway, more people of color sharing stories and just for it to continue to expand,” she said, on her way to celebrate with her mother.
The season — with a whopping 34 new productions — represents a full return to theaters after nearly two years of a pandemic-mandated shutdown. Many nominees talked about how they had worried theater might never return.
“I’m just so grateful, and also just so happy that Broadway is alive and well,” said Jennifer Simard, nominated for “Company.” “Because there was a minute there when I wasn’t sure we’d be back after the pandemic. So I am so grateful.”
Neither Matthew Broderick nor his wife Sarah Jessica Parker earned nominations for a revival of “Plaza Suite,” but Patti LuPone got one for “Company” and so did LaChanze for “Trouble in Mind.” Ruth Negga earned a nomination for “Macbeth,” but her co-star Daniel Craig came up empty. Tony-winner Phylicia Rashad got her first nomination in more than 15 years with “Skeleton Crew” and “Saturday Night Live” veteran Rachel Dratch earned a Tony nod in the feminist farce “POTUS.” One eye-raising decision was not to hand Katrina Lenk a nod for her work in “Company.”
The nominees for best actress in a musical nominees are Sharon D Clarke of “Caroline, Or Change,” Foster in “The Music Man,” Joaquina Kalukango for “Paradise Square,” Carmen Cusack in “Flying Over Sunset” and Mare Winningham in “Girl From the North Country.”
Joining Spivey, Jackman and McClure in the best actor in a musical category are Crystal for “Mr. Saturday Night” and Myles Frost, whose King of Pop in “MJ” was a moonwalking triumph. The best actor in a play category is dominated by the three leads in “The Lehman Trilogy” — Simon Russell Beale, Adam Godley and Adrian Lester. The rest are Morse, Rockwell, Ruben Santiago-Hudson in “Lackawanna Blues” and David Threlfall from “Hangmen.”
The Tony Awards will be held at Radio City Music Hall on June 12. The ceremony will air live on CBS and Paramount+ starting at 8 p.m. ET. Film and stage star Ariana DeBose will host.
___
National Writer Jocelyn Noveck contributed to this report.
___
Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/09/strange-loop-earns-leading-11-tony-award-nominations/ | 2022-05-10T04:10:57Z |
April 2022 Teacher of the Month: Ms. Katie Hincher
Published: May. 9, 2022 at 1:55 PM EDT|Updated: 10 hours ago
BLUEWELL, W.Va. (WVVA) - On behalf of Cole Chevrolet and WVVA, we would like to congratulate our April Teacher of the Month--Ms. Katie Hincher
Hincher is a teacher at Bluewell Elementary School.
She says she wants to make her lessons fun for the kids in her classroom to create a comfortable environment.
“I try to make things fun and create some fun lessons that help them feel comfortable. I was shy growing up and I still am quite shy. So I really try to pick those students out and give them some confidence,” said Hincher.
Congratulations Ms. Hincher.
Copyright 2022 WVVA. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/09/teacher-month-ms-katie-hincher/ | 2022-05-10T04:11:05Z |
Three transported to hospital for critical injuries after head on collision
Published: May. 9, 2022 at 6:07 PM EDT|Updated: 6 hours ago
BLUEFIELD, W.Va. (WVVA) - On Sunday, May 8, units from the Beaver Volunteer Fire Department (VFD) responded to a crash on Airport Rd.
Additional help was sent from Ghent VFD after the incident was updated to an entrapment call.
Once they arrived, Beaver VFD confirmed that two people were trapped in a vehicle and the jaws of life were used to get them out.
Coal City VFD was asked to assist with a landing zone for two air medic helicopters. The helicopters transported the three patients with critical injuries.
The Raleigh County Sheriff’s Dept. is handling the investigation.
Copyright 2022 WVVA. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/09/three-transported-hospital-critical-injuries-after-head-collision/ | 2022-05-10T04:11:11Z |
Two shot at Beckley Country Inn & Suites
BECKLEY, W.Va. (WVVA) - At 3:45 p.m. on Sunday, May 8, 2022, deputies with the Raleigh County Sheriff’s Office responded to a shooting at the Harper Road Country Inn and Suites. Several other departments, including the West Virginia State Police, State Police Special Response Team and the Beckley Police Department, also responded.
According to police, two gunshot victims were found on the third floor of the hotel. One individual was pronounced dead at the scene, while the other was taken to a local hospital to be treated for gunshot wounds.
Police have not released the victims’ names but are expected to do so after the families have been notified.
WVVA reached out to Sheriff Scott Van Meter, who says no arrests have been made at this time and that the investigation is still ongoing.
Anyone with information is urged to contact the Raleigh County Sheriff’s Office Detective Bureau at 304-255-9300 or Crimestoppers at 304-255-STOP (7867).
Copyright 2022 WVVA. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/09/two-shot-beckley-country-inn-suites/ | 2022-05-10T04:11:17Z |
US calls UN council meeting Wednesday on North Korea tests
Published: May. 9, 2022 at 7:12 PM EDT|Updated: 4 hours ago
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United States has scheduled an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council Wednesday following North Korea’s latest test of a ballistic missile that was likely fired from a submarine.
The launch Saturday was another sign of North Koreans leader Kim Jong Un carrying out his recent vow to speed up development of nuclear weapons.
The United States holds the rotating presidency of the council this month and a spokesperson for the U.S. Mission to the U.N said Monday it scheduled Wednesday’s meeting to discuss the North’s latest launches. North Korea has fired 15 missiles so far this year.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/09/us-calls-un-council-meeting-wednesday-north-korea-tests/ | 2022-05-10T04:11:23Z |
Former corrections officer dead, fugitive inmate in custody after police chase
EVANSVILLE, Ind. (WAFF/Gray News) - After 11 days, escaped inmate Casey White and former jail official Vicky White have been found and were arrested on Monday afternoon in Indiana.
According to Lauderdale County Sheriff Rick Singleton, Casey White and Vicky White were captured in Evansville after a police chase ended in a crash.
Vicky White was seriously injured due to a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to Vanderburgh County Sheriff Dave Wedding. Casey White has minor injuries.
WAFF reported Vicky White later died due to the self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Wedding said Vicky was driving a black Cadillac at the time of the chase.
An Evansville police officer located the Cadillac after authorities received several tips on a possible spotting of the two fugitives.
The 2006 Ford F-150 that was found abandoned at a car wash on South Weinbach Avenue in Evansville on Monday has been impounded.
“You don’t know who you can trust. I’ve never experienced a week like this in my career,” Sheriff Singleton said.
Singleton said there is no evidence at this time that anyone else was involved.
Over 100 investigators are working this case. Border patrol has been on alert since April 29.
On the afternoon of April 29, the inmate and assistant director of corrections were reported missing.
Casey White and Vicky White left the detention center at 9:30 a.m., allegedly heading to the courthouse.
In an update later that same day, Singleton said Vicky White was taking Casey White to a mental health evaluation at the time of the escape.
Singleton confirmed later that there was not a scheduled mental health evaluation.
During a news conference, Singleton said that Vicky White stayed at a hotel near where the getaway car was parked.
Video shows Vicky White at the hotel the night before helping Casey White escape.
According to WAFF’s independent investigation, the two had a “special relationship.”
To submit information regarding the Casey White or Vicky White, call 1-800-336-0102 or download the U.S. Marshals Tip App.
Copyright 2022 WAFF via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/09/us-marshals-search-indiana-escaped-alabama-inmate-corrections-officer/ | 2022-05-10T04:11:30Z |
Vandals deface Penn State landmarks over graduation weekend
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (WJAC) - Graduation weekend at Penn State University was marred by vandals.
The lion shrine is one of the big landmarks of the campus, and it was vandalized over the weekend.
“This is tradition. All the graduates come through and take their pictures,” said graduate Christy Parker.
Overnight on Saturday, Penn State police say vandals broke off an ear and splashed red paint on it. Vandals also sprayed graffiti on Old Main and the Hintz Family Alumni Center, a blow for students looking to celebrate their big achievement.
“I graduated yesterday, but we saw that the rain was gonna stop today. So, we were excited to come back into town and try and get all the pictures,” Parker said. “We walked down and saw that the lion had been painted and the ear had been broken off. It’s a little disheartening, especially for those of us that flew across the country to graduate this weekend.”
Penn State administrators say the shrine will be unavailable while restoration efforts continue.
Copyright 2022 WJAC via CNN Newsource. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/09/vandals-deface-penn-state-landmarks-over-graduation-weekend/ | 2022-05-10T04:11:36Z |
Woman arrested in deaths of newborns found in 1999, 2003, police say
GOODHUE COUNTY, Minn. (KTTC/Gray News) – Goodhue County Sheriff’s Office announced in a news conference Monday the arrest of a woman for the 2003 death of a newborn boy discovered deceased in Lake Pepin and the 1999 death of a baby girl discovered deceased in the Mississippi River.
Jennifer Lynn Matter, 50, of Belvidere Township, was recently identified through DNA as the mother of both babies.
Goodhue County deputies and Bureau of Criminal Apprehension agents took Matter into custody at 6:38 a.m. Monday at her home in Belvidere Township.
Matter has been charged via complaint with second-degree murder with intent, not premeditated, and second-degree murder without intent. Matter is currently in the Goodhue County Jail.
According to the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension Superintendent Drew Evans, the advancements in technology led to the advancements in the investigation of the deaths of the two babies.
A recent effort to learn about the babies’ parentage through genetic genealogy resulted in a lead that ultimately led investigators to Matter. Investigators obtained a court order to obtain a DNA sample from Matter, and BCA forensic scientists confirmed the match to both children using Rapid DNA technology.
The newborn baby boy was discovered in Lake Pepin at the Methodist Campus Beach in Frontenac, Goodhue County, on Dec. 7, 2003. The child had been in the water for a day or so before discovery.
A newborn baby girl found deceased on Nov. 4, 1999, in the Lower Boat Harbor of the Mississippi River near Red Wing, was also determined through DNA to be Matter’s child.
Matter is scheduled to appear in Goodhue County District Court on Tuesday.
“The tenacity of several investigators in our office to obtain justice for these babies and the perseverance by our community who assisted us in finding answers have led us here today,” Goodhue County Sheriff Marty Kelly said. “We pray today’s arrest and charges provide some closure to all of those effected.”
Copyright 2022 KTTC via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/09/woman-arrested-deaths-newborns-found-1999-2003-police-say/ | 2022-05-10T04:11:43Z |
Woman using in vitro fertilization to have late husband’s child
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV/Gray News) - A Tennessee woman who lost her husband to cancer in 2016 is using in vitro fertilization to have his child.
Josh Powell died in December of that year after battling a type of cancer called synovial sarcoma, a rare form of cancer that can come from different soft tissue types, such as muscle or ligaments. He was 27 years old at the time.
His widow, Fabi Powell, plans to have Josh Powell’s child using IVF, a type of fertility treatment where eggs are fertilized in a lab, according to WSMV.
Josh passed away about a month after the two got married.
“It was all very fast at the end,” Fabi Powell said.
She and Josh Powell planned their wedding just two months after finding out his cancer had taken a significant toll on his body.
“I will forever be grateful that we have those memories of our wedding,” Fabi Powell said. “It was the most special day of my life, and I know that he was the happiest I’ve ever seen him ... like in a wheelchair, in so much pain, but just showed up that night and had the biggest smile on his face.”
The two were planning for their future well before their wedding. When they found out the cancer was terminal and spreading, the couple started having some challenging discussions.
“That’s when we started having these conversations about what will life look like if you don’t get to stay here with me,” Fabi Powell said. “Having a family was something that we both wanted so bad.”
Before Josh Powell started his cancer treatment, he left behind everything Fabi Powell would need to start IVF and have his children, even after he passed away.
So far, she has gone through three rounds of IVF. It’s been a year and a half of procedures, and she’s still holding onto hope.
“I’m just praying really hard that at the end of all of this it will all be worth it, and we will have a little baby Powell to celebrate,” she said. “And we will have a little piece of Josh to live on forever.”
She hopes her story inspires other women going through IVF.
“My heart just goes out to anyone who has to go through this journey to conceive a child, because it’s such an emotional rollercoaster, and it takes such a physical toll on your body and your emotions,” Fabi Powell said. “And it’s financially insane the amount of money that it costs to hopefully one day carry your own child.”
Fabi Powell is preparing to start her fourth round of IVF.
“Hopefully, I could be pregnant sometime in August or September,” she said. “Which September is Josh’s birthday, so maybe it’ll be a birthday gift for him which would be so cool.”
A GoFundMe has been made to help pay for Fabi’s fourth round of IVF.
Copyright 2022 WSMV via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/09/woman-using-vitro-fertilization-have-late-husbands-child/ | 2022-05-10T04:11:50Z |
Woman wakes up to stranger’s dog sleeping in her bed
ATLANTA (WGCL/Gray News) - Imagine waking up in the morning and snuggling your dog, only to open your eyes and realize that the dog you are laying next to isn’t yours. That’s exactly what happened to one Polk County, Tennessee, woman whose story has since gone viral.
Julie Thornton Johnson says it’s normal for one of her three dogs to sleep in her bed. But one morning, as daylight creeped in, she awoke to find someone else’s dog snuggling up with her, WGCL reported.
Johnson said she had no idea how the dog got into her house, so she posted a picture of the pup to social media asking around.
The story caught the attention of the dog’s owner, Cris Hawkins, who lives a few houses down. Hawkins reached out to Johnson explaining that the dog, whose name is Nala, must have slipped her collar in the middle of the night and ran down the street, somehow making it into Johnson’s house and, eventually, her bed.
Both Hawkins and Johnson seemed amused by the situation, noting how comfortable Nala looked.
“Good luck getting her out of my bed,” she wrote.
Copyright 2022 WGCL via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/09/woman-wakes-up-strangers-dog-sleeping-her-bed/ | 2022-05-10T04:11:56Z |
Wordle answer changed to avoid fraught word, NY Times says
NEW YORK (AP) — The New York Times moved swiftly to change Monday’s answer to its daily Wordle puzzle out of fear that it would be seen as some sort of commentary on the debate over abortion rights.
The game, which became a sensation late last year and was bought by The Times in January, gives users six tries to guess a different five-letter word each day.
Yet The Times scrambled when it discovered that Monday’s word, which had been entered into Wordle’s computer program last year, was “fetus.”
The timing was particularly fraught given last week’s leaked report of a draft U.S. Supreme Court decision that would strike down a 50-year-old ruling governing the ability of women to receive abortions.
The appearance of “fetus” was “entirely unintentional and a coincidence,” the newspaper said in a message to readers on Monday.
“At New York Times Games, we take our role seriously as a place to entertain and escape, and we want Wordle to remain distinct from the news,” the message said.
The Times changed Monday’s answer to a different word, and a spokesman said that a “vast majority” of users saw that. But some people who had not refreshed their browsers saw “fetus” instead, spokesman Jordan Cohen said.
He would not say whether The Times had received any complaints about “fetus.”
Wordle was invented by Josh Wardle, a Brooklyn software engineer, as a gift for his partner and took off when he began posting it online. Players guess words and hone in on the correct answer as the game tells them if their guesses contain letters in the word of the day.
The Times bought his invention for more than $1 million and is revamping the technology to make sure every user is seeing the same word every day, the newspaper said. Cohen said millions of people play Wordle each day.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/09/wordle-answer-changed-avoid-fraught-word-ny-times-says/ | 2022-05-10T04:12:03Z |
WWE Hall of Famer accused in Florida DUI crash that killed 1
Published: May. 9, 2022 at 10:19 AM EDT|Updated: 13 hours ago
ORMOND BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Authorities say a World Wrestling Entertainment Hall of Famer is accused of killing a man in a traffic accident while driving under the influence in central Florida.
Tamara “Sunny” Sytch was arrested Friday night. She’s also charged with causing injury in a DUI crash and driving with a suspended license.
Ormond Beach police said in a social media post that the 49-year-old wrestler’s blood alcohol content after the crash was 0.28. That’s more than three times the legal limit in Florida.
The March 25 crash killed 75-year-old Julian Lasseter. Police say Sytch’s car plowed into a car stopped at a red light and pushed it into another car.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/09/wwe-hall-famer-accused-florida-dui-crash-that-killed-1/ | 2022-05-10T04:12:09Z |
Andy Warhol’s ‘Marilyn’ auction nabs $195M; most for US artist
NEW YORK (AP) — Andy Warhol’s “Shot Sage Blue Marilyn” sold for a cool $195 million on Monday, making the iconic portrait of Marilyn Monroe the most expensive work by a U.S. artist ever sold at auction.
The 1964 silkscreen image shows Monroe in vibrant close-up — hair yellow, eyeshadow blue and lips red — on a rich blue background. It’s also the most expensive piece from the 20th century ever auctioned, according to Christie’s auction house in New York, where the sale took place.
The Warhol sale unseated the previous record holder and another modern master, Jean-Michel Basquiat, whose 1982 painting “Untitled” of a skull-like face sold for a record $110.5 million at Sotheby’s in 2017.
Christie’s said an unnamed buyer made the purchase Monday night. When the auction was announced earlier this year, they estimated it could go for as much as $200 million.
“It’s an amazing price,” said Alex Rotter, chairman of Christie’s 20th and 21st century art department. “Let it sink in, it’s quite something.”
“This is where we wanted to be, clearly,” said Guillaume Cerutti, CEO of Christie’s. “It proves we are in a very resilient art market.”
The proceeds of the sale will go to the Thomas and Doris Ammann Foundation Zurich, which put the painting up for auction. The foundation aims to help children with health care and educational programs.
Warhol created more than one image of Monroe; this particular painting has been exhibited in museums around the world.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/10/andy-warhols-marilyn-auction-nabs-195m-highest-us-artist/ | 2022-05-10T04:12:19Z |
Senate passes bill to boost security for Supreme Court
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate passed legislation Monday to beef up security for Supreme Court justices, ensuring they and their families are protected as the court deliberates abortion access and whether to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision.
The bipartisan bill, which passed by voice vote with no objections, did not provide additional funding, which could come later. But it aims to put the court on par with the executive and legislative branches, making certain the nine justices are provided security as some protesters have gathered outside their homes. The bill now moves to the House for its consideration.
Protests have erupted in front of the Supreme Court Building and around the country after a leaked draft opinion suggested a majority of conservatives on the court are prepared to end the constitutional right to an abortion.
The Senate legislation is a technical change that allows Supreme Court law enforcement to provide around-the-clock security to immediate family members, in line with protection for some people in the executive and legislative branches. It was sponsored by Sens. Chris Coons, D-Del., and John Cornyn, R-Texas.
Cornyn said threats to Supreme Court justices and their families are “disgraceful” and attempts to intimidate the independence of the judiciary branch shouldn’t be tolerated.
“The House must take up and pass it immediately,” Cornyn said.
Passage of the legislation came as more than 100 people gathered Monday night outside Justice Samuel Alito’s home in Virginia, lighting candles and chanting, “Abort the court!”
Dozens of people also gathered over the weekend outside the homes of Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Chief Justice John Roberts in the Washington and Maryland suburbs.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki tweeted Monday that President Joe Biden “strongly believes in the Constitutional right to protest. But that should never include violence, threats, or vandalism. Judges perform an incredibly important function in our society, and they must be able to do their jobs without concern for their personal safety.”
Police have set up a tall fence and blocked off streets this week as people have protested in front of the Supreme Court Building, which is across from the U.S. Capitol. They have also shut down the plaza and steps in front of the building.
“Trying to scare federal judges into ruling a certain way is far outside the bounds of normal First Amendment speech or protest,” Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell said ahead of the vote.
___
Associated Press writer Michael Balsamo contributed to this report.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/10/senate-passes-bill-boost-security-supreme-court/ | 2022-05-10T04:12:26Z |
WATCH: Pregnant store owner scares off would-be thief with air horn
OAKLAND, Calif. (KGO) – A pregnant store owner in California recently fought back against a would-be thief, and it was caught on camera.
The woman said she’s grateful for a piece of safety equipment that helped her fend off the suspect in Oakland’s Chinatown.
Eva Liu remembers the details of what happened inside her international shipping store April 25 like it was yesterday.
At around 1:50 in the afternoon, surveillance video shows the man walk toward a pile of packages seemingly with the intention of taking them.
That’s when Liu yelled out.
Liu, who is seven months pregnant, fearlessly grabs an air horn from off her desk and runs after the man.
“I couldn’t afford to be afraid because I wanted to protect those packages from the customers,” she said.
As she chases the man out, the sound of the suspect chucking the hand sanitizer at Liu’s pregnant belly can be heard.
As the man runs away, Liu deploys the air horn.
The sound scared the suspect away and also alerted the nearby volunteer security team, The Blue Angels, who flagged down Oakland police.
Thousands of air horns like the one Liu used were distributed through Oakland’s Chinatown in February 2021 thanks in part to generous donors and the Oakland Chinatown Chamber of Commerce.
“At the beginning people were questioning ‘Why should I carry air horns?’” Carl Chan, with the Chamber of Commerce, said. “But of course with a few incidents happening, like the one that you are seeing here it’s actually helping our small businesses.”
During a time when many violent attacks on the Asian American community have been caught on camera, this is an encouraging sign the air horns are working.
“So we were thinking not just distribute them in just Chinatown, but were hoping to distribute them to other communities as well,” Chan said.
Liu and her baby narrowly missed getting hurt by the hand sanitizer bottle.
“I was trying to protect my stomach so I turned, and it hit my ribs,” she said.
Despite her actions, she said the work is far from over to keep Chinatown safe.
“I’d like to see more police officers, especially officers that speak the language,” Liu said.
The suspect in Liu’s case has not been arrested.
Copyright 2022 KGO via CNN Newsource. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/10/watch-pregnant-store-owner-scares-off-would-be-thief-with-air-horn/ | 2022-05-10T04:12:33Z |
The Biden administration and 20 internet companies are partnering to provide discounted high-speed internet service to people with low incomes, including those in rural communities.
The internet providers that agreed to offer subsidized high-speed internet plans include AT&T Inc., Comcast Corp., Verizon Communications Inc. and several regional companies.
An estimated 48 million households could potentially be eligible for the federal subsidy, called the Affordable Connectivity Program, which allows low-income households to cut their internet service costs by up to $30 per month, or up to $75 per month on Tribal lands. At that price, high-speed internet will be free for some households.
The White House defines “high-speed” as transferring at least 100 megabits of data per second.
The aid is available to households whose income is at or below 200% of the federal poverty level. People who qualify for government assistance programs including Medicaid, Federal Pell Grants or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program also qualify.
The roughly 1-year-old Affordable Connectivity Program is funded in part by $14.2 billion from the infrastructure package Congress passed last year.
President Biden has said for months that expanding high-speed internet access in rural and low-income areas is a priority for his administration.
“High-speed internet service is no longer a luxury — it’s a necessity,” the White House said in a statement Monday. “But too many families go without high-speed internet because of the cost or have to cut back on other essentials to make their monthly internet service payments. Lowering prices — including the cost of high-speed internet services — is President Biden’s top priority.”
Collectively, the 20 companies that are partnering with the administration offer high-speed internet services in areas in which more than 80% of the U.S. population lives, including nearly 50% of the rural population, according to a White House fact sheet.
What do internet providers get out of the deal? According to industry experts, the providers could benefit financially from getting more households signed up for internet service. More broadly, providers say are hopeful the subsidized service will help bridge the so-called “digital divide.”
Many rural areas, however, won’t benefit from service offerings until more infrastructure is built.
That’s where another portion of the infrastructure law comes into play. The law included $65 billion to build up the nation’s broadband network. This funding will go to states and territories for fiber-optic-cable projects and other internet infrastructure.
To help roll out its broadband initiatives, the administration is creating a new website, GetInternet.gov, to give Americans details on how to sign up for subsidies and find participating internet providers in their region.
The White House also plans to use agencies like the Social Security Administration to tell people about the new broadband subsidies. | https://www.heraldandnews.com/klamath/biden-internet-providers-offer-subsidized-broadband-to-low-income-households/article_15f148cd-b945-5a39-bc76-2c69f80c07d9.html | 2022-05-10T04:37:13Z |
The construction site of Klamath Community College’s Apprenticeship Center served as a backdrop for the kickoff of a community capital campaign organized by the KCC Foundation, featuring speeches by community leaders and donors late last monthFriday, April 29.
KCC’s community campaign goal is to raise $300,000 through local contributions – both small and large – by Aug. 30, to go toward equipment, student supplies, and construction costs.
The KCC Apprenticeship Center, slated to open by January 2023, will be the site for trades and manufacturing related apprenticeship programs, construction skills, fire and emergency response, criminal justice and law enforcement, commercial truck driving and heavy equipment training programs. The center is expected to serve as a central hub of workforce training, a key to regional economic growth and infrastructure development.
The project, budgeted in 2019 at $7.8 million, has increased to $11.5 million, due to supply shortages, inflation and other factors. The $2.6 million needed to complete the project will come through grants and donations.
Economic development
The April 29 capital campaign launch began with a luncheon, and two check presentations. Oregon State Rep. E. Werner Reschke presented $300,000 via Klamath County Economic Development Association (KCEDA). Additionally, a $100,000 donation was made by Greg and John Young for the Young family, in honor of the late Jim Pinniger.
“KCC is a critical asset to our community, and these selected projects align well with KCEDA’s long-term vision for enhancing the region’s economic vitality,” said Randy Cox, KCEDA director. “The funds we were able to share with KCC will enhance their state-of-the-art apprenticeship facilities, which will continue to put Klamath County on the map for education and economic opportunities.”
For John Young, former CEO/president of Hewlett-Packard, the development of the Apprenticeship Center hits close to home. His family moved to Klamath Falls in the 1930s, where he started his career as an electrical apprentice.
“We are glad to be able to be part of this, my dad was an electrician here for years, and I was an apprentice, so this is a very personal day for me,” Young said.
Getting loud
At the construction site, KCC Foundation Director Chip Massie welcomed visitors and provided context for the day while construction continued behind him.
“The Apprenticeship Center project really started over four years ago with a dream and a feasibility study,” Massie said. “We have raised nearly $9 million for this project. We need to raise $2.6 million more to complete the project, our goal is to do that over the next five months. We have been in the quiet period, now it’s time to get loud.”
Featured speakers included KCC President Dr. Roberto Gutierrez, KCC Foundation member Jean Pinniger, KCC Board Chair Kenneth DeCrans, current electrical apprenticeship student Sierra Alekseyev, John Young, Klamath County Commissioner Derrick DeGroot, and Rep. Reschke.
Dr. Gutierrez highlighted the importance of applying lessons from the past while moving forward with positive change. He cited the Winston Churchill quote, “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
Recalling Klamath County’s once dismal graduation rates, he listed the importance of tangible changes in poverty rates and general perceptions of the area directly tied to improvements in educational opportunities.
Current workforce projections indicate that over the next 10 years there will be a need to fill 2,400 construction and manufacturing-related positions in the East Cascades region alone. During the same time frame, the number jumps to 21,800 jobs needed across Oregon. Emergency services sector jobs are projected to need 1,400 in the East Cascades and 19,200 across Oregon over the next decade.
Economic answers
“There are companies that want to come here, but we have a tremendous shortage of housing,” Pinniger said. “The answer to that is to have a big building force, which is exactly what this Apprenticeship Center will do. In 10 years, there will be 1,800 jobs developed here, these people will be trained and certified here on this campus.”
Pinniger emphasized that if community members in the coming weeks get a letter or a knock at the door asking for donations for the Apprenticeship Center they should do their part for the community by welcoming them with open arms, and open wallets.
“For years people have asked me what is Klamath’s biggest challenge, and my answer has changed over and over,” DeGroot said. “We have started to accomplish some really great things over the last five years. Today Klamath is in a much different place than it was five years ago. We keep thinking bigger about what we can accomplish, and that’s what this project means to me. Today our biggest challenge is housing and workforce.”
The KCC Apprenticeship Center is on track to open by January. | https://www.heraldandnews.com/klamath/kcc-apprenticeship-center-holds-fundraising-kickoff/article_3e7a3509-c217-56c2-a350-0f877e88a48d.html | 2022-05-10T04:37:19Z |
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There are more problems for the increasingly problematic economy.
• Gas and diesel prices hit record highs Monday in Oregon and Washington state and are at or near national all-time levels, according to AAA.
• The stock market continued its bearish string of major sell offs Monday after the U.S. posted negative economic growth in the first quarter (-1.4%) and concerns about inflation and the impacts of interest rate hikes aimed at higher prices.
• Grocers, drug stores and consumers are facing serious shortages of baby formula resulting in empty shelves and caps on purchase quantities akin to past pandemic supply troubles such as for toilet paper.
As much as 40% of baby formula brands were sold out at U.S. stores in late April, according to market analytics from Datasembly. Some major stores that do have baby formula in stock are rationing sales.
“Due to increased demand and various supplier challenges, infant and toddler formulas are seeing constraints across the country. Similar to other retailers, we put into effect purchase limits of three per transaction on all infant and toddler formula to help improve inventory. We continue to work diligently with our supplier partners to best meet customer demands,” said a Walgreens spokesperson in a statement.
CVS Health is taking a similar path, limited baby formula purchases to three products in stores and online, according to spokesperson Tara Burke.
Target is limiting baby formula purchases to four items. A number of major grocery chains, who have raked in major profits during the pandemic and inflation wave, did not respond to requests for comments about baby formula shortages and rationing.
The scarcity of baby formula is the latest problem for global supply chains which have seen shortages of bathroom tissue, cream cheese, meats, auto parts and vehicles for sale.
There have been some recent major recalls.Abbott Nutrition, which makes major formula brands, issued a recall in February and shutdown production plant in Michigan after a baby died from a bacteria potentially linked to a batch of Similac.
The formula shortages have also resulted in some price gouging online.
Fresh rounds of restrictive coronavirus shutdowns in China — including major ports and economic hubs such as Shanghai — are also poised to result in more shortages and higher prices on shelves in Oregon and across the U.S.
The Chinese government shutdowns have resulted in hundreds of cargo ships, logistics centers and productions operations being put in limbo.
There are also concerns about whether the U.S. supply chain which has seen shortages of truck drivers, port workers and frontline warehouse and retail staff to get products on shelves.
Record high gas prices
The U.S. government will release new inflation numbers on Wednesday, May 11.
In March, the U.S. inflation rate was 8.5% compared to a year ago with higher energy and agricultural costs magnified by U.S. sanctions on Russia and other impacts of the war in Ukraine.
The Federal Reserve Bank raised its baseline interest rate by a half-point May 4 after a previous quarter-point hike. The hikes aim at the highest U.S. inflation rates since 1981 but could also slow lending including for mortgages.
Gas prices and diesel fuel prices both hit all-time records in Oregon on Monday, according to AAA’s Fuel Gauge Report.
The average price of gas in Oregon is $4.81 per gallon. Diesel fuel — which is key to farmers, truckers and other businesses — averaged $5.60 per gallon. Those are both record highs, according to AAA.
The state saw record fuel prices in late March after a spike in crude oil prices. Gasoline in some southern Oregon counties is now at or near $5 per gallon.In California, gas prices are approaching or more than $6 per gallon.
Washington state also posted all-time record highs for diesel and gas prices. AAA reports the average prices in Washington average $4.83 per gallon for gasoline and $5.70 per gallon for diesel.
Nationally, gas prices are poised to surpass a record high of $4.33 per gallon set in late March. Diesel prices did set a new record Monday of $5.54 per gallon, according to the auto club.
Stock market growls
Investors are also feeling the current economic pain.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 653.67 points Monday. The Dow is down 4,300 points this year or 11.8%. The S&P 500 was also down 3.2% Monday. The U.S. stock index is down 16.9% this year.
President Joe Biden is expected to talk about inflation Tuesday as the economy is poised to vex Democrats in the midterm elections.
The U.S. economy created 428,000 jobs in April, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That surpassed economists’ expectations of 380,000 jobs being added last month. | https://www.heraldandnews.com/news/local_news/baby-formula-shortages-rationing-record-gas-prices-stock-market-drops-add-to-economic-angst/article_d7df8900-e1f1-559f-898c-1642cd47b0d3.html | 2022-05-10T04:37:32Z |
Legal marijuana in California is as much as 40% more expensive than unregulated, unlicensed cannabis.
The price discrepancy is driven by high state taxes and levies on legalized marijuana, according to a new analysis by the Reason Foundation.
California’s state and local marijuana taxes and fees total 40% to 45% compared to 20% state and local rates in neighboring Oregon, 25% in Nevada and 30% in Colorado, according to the Marijuana Policy Project.
Higher prices for government-sanctioned marijuana also combine with so-called “cannabis deserts” in much of California and other states where conservative and more rural counties have restricted or banned legal drug sales and cultivation facilities.
Geoffrey Lawrence, managing director for drug policy for the libertarian Reason Foundation, said 80% of California’s local jurisdictions ban or restrict legal marijuana sales and growing.
“There are parts of the states where you do not have legal (marijuana) retail for more than 100 miles,” Lawrence said.
He said Oregon has one legal cannabis retailer for every 6,145 residents compared one legal marijuana location for every 29,282 residents in California.
Those “cannabis deserts” and high state taxes in California are driving demand for illegal pot sales.And that demand — along with continued cannabis prohibitions at the federal level and restrictions on recreational use in 32 states including Florida, Idaho, Texas, Wisconsin and Georgia — drives the scores of illegal cannabis farms and growing operations permeating far northern California and southern Oregon.
Police across the region say there are thousands of unlicensed, illegal cannabis grows on farmland and in clandestine indoor grows at homes and warehouses across the lower part of Oregon and the upper part of California.
Some of those cultivations stems from the region’s long history of underground and hippyt marijuana culture.
But Klamath County Sheriff Chris Kaber and other law enforcement officials say a number of the illegal grows are operated by Mexican drug cartels and organized crime syndicates who will staff them with undocumented and sometimes trafficked workers. Illegal grows can also have operations tied to hard drugs such as fentanyl, fake oxycodone pills and crystal meth.
Lawrence said Oregon has lower marijuana taxes and more accessibility to legal cannabis than California.
Oregon has a 17% state sales tax on marijuana purchases with an additional local levy of up to 3%.
Lawrence said his analysis indicates there is more demand for illicit marijuana in California than Oregon. “Oregon has been a lot more successful in transitioning people to the legal market,” Lawrence said.
Deep-pocketed legalization campaigns across the country have promised significant tax revenue stemming from government-approved cannabis.
In 2021, legal weed generated $3.7 billion in tax revenue in 12 states where legalization has been implemented.
The Los Angeles-based Reason Foundation found California’s $3.28 billion in legal cannabis sales 2021 translates monthly per capita spending of $6.94.That is far lower than Oregon which has $23.25 monthly per capita spending on weed for legal recreational use.
“If Californians purchased legal cannabis at the same rate as Oregonians in 2021, total sales would have amounted to $10.948 billion,” according to Reason’s report.
The libertarian group wants California to eliminate cultivation taxes and cut marijuana sales taxes from 15% to 10%.
The report also recommends finding ways to get more localities to ease bans and offer more access to residents beyond big cities.
Lawrence said Illinois’ legalization measures also restricts access allowing only 30 new cultivation centers for recreational use statewide.
A number of state legalization efforts throughout the country have been pushed by monied marijuana interests and corporate cannabis chains backed by hedge funds and private equity firms.High production volumes and high costs of market entry — including via taxes, fees and regulations — can restrict access for smaller and hometown growers. | https://www.heraldandnews.com/news/local_news/study-california-s-high-marijuana-taxes-cannabis-deserts-driving-illegal-grows/article_031c253c-147a-5406-857b-f7487195c191.html | 2022-05-10T04:37:38Z |
June Keawe worries if she'll have enough milk to feed her 11-week-old daughter Honey-June.
A shortage of baby formula, due to supply-chain issues and a recent recall from a major manufacturer, has mothers scrambling to ensure their newborns are well fed.
"I am panicking a little just in case I have to formula feed her cause there's like no formula available, but I'm going to try and breastfeed her as long as I can," she said.
The out-of-stock rate for baby formula nationwide is soaring -- now at 40%, according to product pricing firm Datasembly.
When asked what she'd do if the shelves remain empty, Keawe said: "We go back to the old-school way of evaporated milk."
But pediatricians don't advise that.
In fact, they warn mother's shouldn't feed their babies other types of milk -- including almond, soy and goat's milk. They also shouldn't water down formula to make it last longer.
"This is completely unrecommended," said Honolulu pediatrician Dr. Sheree Kuo. "This is very unsafe for babies."
She said alternatives could compromise the nutrition for your baby and not provide the calories, protein, minerals and nutrients that they need.
Feeding babies too much water can also lead to electrolyte imbalances, Kuo added.
Many retailers in short supply are now limiting the number of formula customers can purchase.
Breastfeeding advocate Patricia Ane of Hawaii Mother's Milk, said the nonprofit is also getting a lot of calls about milk sharing.
"I probably at least get several a day on wanting to find milk for their babies," she said. "That's scary if you don't have milk for your baby. You can't do a substitute."
Kuo advises mothers to shop around at smaller drug or grocery stores, purchase online at reputable companies or directly from the manufacturers and talk with pediatricians.
"This is you know a public health problem. Every baby deserves to be fed and have appropriate nutrition," she said.
And while homemade recipes for infant formulas may appear nutritious, Kuo said they're generally not safe and not recommended for growing babies.
Kristen joined KITV4 in March 2021 after working for the past two decades as a newspaper reporter. Kristen's goal is to produce meaningful journalism that educates, enlightens and inspires to affect positive change in society. | https://www.kitv.com/news/hawaii-mothers-scramble-to-keep-infants-well-fed-amid-shortage-of-baby-formula/article_2257adee-d017-11ec-afff-731215624d61.html | 2022-05-10T04:53:45Z |
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A pediatric hepatitis outbreak with mysterious origins is continuing to grow.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are investigating 5 deaths linked to the outbreak that includes 109 cases in 24 states and Puerto Rico.
And now, the State Department of Health reports a case could possibly be here in Hawaii.
Most of the infected children required hospitalization, and 8 needed liver transplants.
At Kalihi-Palama Health Center, Pediatrician Michael Walter says, Hawaii has a high prevalence for Hepatatis B and C in the Asian American Pacific Islander communities.
He says, Hep B is spread to a newborn if the mother is infected with the virus.
Dr. Walter says experts are exploring whether a type of adenovirus, that causes intestinal symptoms could be a factor in these new Hepatitis cases.
Doctor Michael Walter of Kalihi-Palama Health Center, "It’s hepatitis of Unknown Cause. So, it’s not really a variant, we don’t know the cause, Hepatitis will present in children with fever, vomiting, Diarrhea, jaundice, yellowing of the eyes and the face and abdominal pain, symptoms such as that.
“So, This type of hepatitis called Adenovirus 41,which typically causes gastrointestinal symptoms, vomiting, Diarrhea and for some reason it is affecting the liver. Dr. Walter says “Viruses are constantly changing just like we have seen with the coronavirus."They are constantly changing, evolving mutating, so we don’t know if this is due to a mutation or change, in the virus that causes typically a mild intestinal infection in most children, it could have mutated to cause this problem with the liver. "
“So most viruses are spread like a typical cold, thru saliva, droplets and contaminated materials, so if you cough and don’t’ wash hands well someone touches it and touches their nose and through the stool.
The Maui Child was hospitalized for several days with stomach pain and fever at the end of April. The D-O-H says, an extensive medical investigation was performed and they are waiting for lab test results to confirm a cause of that Hepatitis Case.
Do you have a story idea? Email news tips to CYip@kitv.com
Cynthia is an award-winning journalist who returned to Hawaii as an Anchor/Reporter/MMJ from Houston. She is a graduate of the University of Hawaii with a B.A. and M.B.A. DM her on IG @CynthiaYipTV to share stories. | https://www.kitv.com/news/local/mysterious-pediatric-hepatitis-could-be-in-hawaii/article_47f07a68-d017-11ec-ad9e-6b7acc9fed15.html | 2022-05-10T04:54:09Z |
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