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NEW YORK, May 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Gross Law Firm issues the following notice to shareholders of Volta Inc..
Shareholders who purchased shares of VLTA during the class period listed are encouraged to contact the firm regarding possible lead plaintiff appointment. Appointment as lead plaintiff is not required to partake in any recovery.
CONTACT US HERE
https://securitiesclasslaw.com/securities/volta-inc-loss-submission-form/?id=27026&from=4
CLASS PERIOD: August 2, 2021 to March 28, 2022
ALLEGATIONS: The complaint alleges that during the class period, Defendants issued materially false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (1) Volta had improperly accounted for restricted stock units issued in connection with the business combination of Volta Industries, Inc. ("Legacy Volta") and Tortoise Acquisition Corp. II; (2) as a result, the Company had understated its net loss for third quarter 2021; (3) there were material weaknesses in the Company's internal control over financial reporting that resulted in a material error; (4) as a result of the foregoing, the Company would restate its financial statements; (5) as a result of the foregoing, Legacy Volta's founders would imminently exit the Company; (6) as a result, the Company's financial results would be adversely impacted; and (7) as a result of the foregoing, defendants' positive statements about the Company's business, operations, and prospects were materially misleading and/or lacked a reasonable basis.
DEADLINE: May 31, 2022 Shareholders should not delay in registering for this class action. Register your information here: https://securitiesclasslaw.com/securities/volta-inc-loss-submission-form/?id=27026&from=4
NEXT STEPS FOR SHAREHOLDERS: Once you register as a shareholder who purchased shares of VLTA during the timeframe listed above, you will be enrolled in a portfolio monitoring software to provide you with status updates throughout the lifecycle of the case. The deadline to seek to be a lead plaintiff is May 31, 2022. There is no cost or obligation to you to participate in this case.
WHY GROSS LAW FIRM? The Gross Law Firm is nationally recognized class action law firm, and our mission is to protect the rights of all investors who have suffered as a result of deceit, fraud, and illegal business practices. The Gross Law Firm is committed to ensuring that companies adhere to responsible business practices and engage in good corporate citizenship. The firm seeks recovery on behalf of investors who incurred losses when false and/or misleading statements or the omission of material information by a company lead to artificial inflation of the company's stock. Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes.
CONTACT:
The Gross Law Firm
15 West 38th Street, 12th floor
New York, NY, 10018
Email: dg@securitiesclasslaw.com
Phone: (646) 453-8903
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SOURCE The Gross Law Firm | https://www.whsv.com/prnewswire/2022/05/11/shareholder-alert-gross-law-firm-notifies-shareholders-volta-inc-class-action-lawsuit-lead-plaintiff-deadline-may-31-2022-nyse-vlta/ | 2022-05-11T10:06:57Z |
NEW YORK, May 10, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Weiss Law, a national shareholders' rights law firm, is investigating possible false and misleading statements , accounting and reporting practices and breaches of fiduciary duty and violations of the federal securities laws by the Board of Directors and certain Company officers of Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX) ("Netflix" or the "Company") concerning the Company's growth and customer retention, leading to a significant stock price drop after Netflix revealed in April that it had lost more than 200,000 subscribers.
If you own Netflix shares and wish to discuss this investigation, or share information which you have, or if you have any questions concerning this notice or your rights or interests, visit our website at
https://www.weisslaw.co/news-and-cases/nflx
Or contact:
Josh Rubin, Esq.
stocks@weisslaw.co
(212) 682-3025
THERE IS NO COST OR OBLIGATION TO YOU
Netflix's share price plummeted from approximately $597.37 in January to $226.19 at the end of April, after revelation that: (1) Netflix was exhibiting slower acquisition growth due to account sharing by customers and increased competition from other streaming services; (2) it was experiencing difficulties retaining customers; (3) that the Company was losing subscribers on a net basis; (4) its financial results were being adversely affected; and (5) the positive statements about its business, operations and prospects were materially false, misleading, and lacked a reasonable basis.
Weiss Law has litigated hundreds of stockholder class and derivative actions for violations of corporate and fiduciary duties. We have recovered over a billion dollars for defrauded clients. For more information about the firm, please go to: http://www.weisslaw.co
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SOURCE Weiss Law | https://www.whsv.com/prnewswire/2022/05/11/shareholder-alert-weiss-law-investigates-netflix-inc/ | 2022-05-11T10:07:05Z |
800 companies from 29 countries will present 'over 8,000 products' for 5 days from May 23 to 27.
SEOUL, South Korea, May 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- 'SIMTOS 2022' (The 19th Seoul International Manufacturing Technology Show) will be held for 5 days from May 23 to 27 at KINTEX 1 and 2. SIMTOS, which has chosen the exhibition theme of 'Back to the Basics', plans to go beyond the limits of online (non-face-to-face) exhibitions and faithfully perform its original function to provide an optimal marketplace for exhibitors and visitors.
SIMTOS 2022 organized '7 Consumer-Focused Technology Pavilion' reflecting future technologies and smart manufacturing trends. In KINTEX 1, focusing on 'Cutting' and 'Digital Manufacturing', there are Metal Cutting & Die-Mold Tech Pavilion, MaterialㆍParts, Controls Tech Pavilion, Robotics & Digital Manufacturing Pavilion, Toolings & Measuring Tech Pavilion, Additive Manufacturing Tech Pavilion.
In the 'Metal Cutting & Die-Mold Tech Pavilion,' where metal cutting machine tools, manufacturing & processing technologies and molding processing technologies will be displayed, D oosan Machine Tools, HYUNDAI WIA, HWACHEON MACHINERY, FANUC, MITSUBISHI ELECTRIC AUTOMATION, etc. will participate. In addition, in the 'MaterialㆍParts, Controls Tech Pavilion', where materials, driving parts, and control technology necessary for production and manufacturing will be displayed, SIEMENS, HEIDENHAIN, etc. will participate. In the 'Robotics & Digital Manufacturing Pavilion', the products and digital manufacturing solutions of Delcam, Universal Robots, and KAWASAKI ROBOTICS will be displayed.
In the 'Toolings & Measuring Tech Pavilion' companies related to tooling technologies such as YG-1, KORLOY, WALTER, and NIKKEN will participate to introduce tooling technologies such as cutting tools and processing conditions. In addition, Mitutoyo Corporation, Hexagon, MARPOSS, etc. will display measuring equipment and measuring technology that can inspect the quality of processed products. In the 'Additive Manufacturing Tech Pavilion', where materials which is used to make by laminating metal or plastic and 3D printers will be displayed in KINTEX 1, Insstek, Stratasys, etc. have confirmed their participation.
In KINTEX 2, there are 'Metal Cutting-Off & Welding Tech Pavilion' and 'Press & Forming Tech Pavilion', where you can see the overall production and manufacturing process along with metal processing technology. In the Metal Cutting-Off & Welding Tech Pavilion', TRUMPF, Bystronic, AMADA, etc. will display equipment and solutions related to metal cutting and bending such as laser processing machines. In the 'Press & Forming Tech Pavilion', automated equipment and technology for forming materials related to press for sheet material processing will be displayed.
In this exhibition, 50 companies from Germany, Italy, Mainland China, and Taiwan will set up national pavilions in KINTEX 1 and 2, providing Korean companies with opportunities to build overseas networks.
Beyond simply viewing the products and technologies at SIMTOS 2022, you can find out the 'Product Information and Industry Trends' as well as the 'Information about Customized Solutions' through various additional events such as the ' Matchmaking4U(Domestic and international Buyers business matching platform)' and 'SIMTOS 2022 International Manufacturing Innovation Conference.' In particular, at the 'SIMTOS 2022 International Manufacturing Innovation Conference', which will be held for 3 days from May 24 to 26, 22 sessions will be in position to present new insights and paradigms of manufacturing innovation to production and manufacturing officials.
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SOURCE SIMTOS 2022 | https://www.whsv.com/prnewswire/2022/05/11/simtos-2022-largest-manufacturing-technology-exhibition-korea-will-be-held/ | 2022-05-11T10:07:12Z |
GAITHERSBURG, Md. and SUZHOU, China, May 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Sirnaomics Ltd. ("Sirnaomics", stock code: 2257.HK), a leading biopharmaceutical company in discovery and development of RNAi therapeutics, announced today that it will present the latest developments on its GalNAc-Liver-Targeting platforms and a progress report on its GalAhead™ technologies and programs at the TIDES USA 2022 Conference. TIDES 2022 is taking place May 9-12, 2022 at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston.
Oral Presentation Details
- Presentation Title: mxRNA™: Miniaturized RNAi Triggers Composed of Single Oligonucleotides
- Presentation Segment: Oligonucleotide Discovery, Preclinical and Clinical
- Presenter: Dmitry Samarsky, PhD, Sirnaomics Chief Technology Officer
- Time/Date: 9:00am – 9:30am ET, Thursday, May 12, 2022.
- Location: Hynes Convention Center, Room 102
Dr. Dmitry Samarsky, Sirnaomics Chief Technology Officer, will provide an oral presentation data demonstrating mxRNA efficacy in primary hepatocytes (in vitro) and in mice (in vivo). He will also present results of a 26-week study in non-human primates conducted with the candidate molecule for Sirnaomics' frontrunner GalAhead™ therapeutic program, targeting coagulation Factor XI, and report on progress made with other therapeutic programs based on the GalAhead™ platform.
For more information about Sirnaomics' presentation, visit the event website here.
About Sirnaomics
Sirnaomics is an RNA therapeutics biopharmaceutical company with product candidates in preclinical and clinical stages that focuses on the discovery and development of innovative drugs for indications with medical needs and large market opportunities. Sirnaomics is the first clinical-stage RNA therapeutics company to have a strong presence in both China and the United States, and also the first company to achieve positive Phase IIa clinical outcomes in oncology for an RNAi therapeutics for its core product, STP705. Learn more at www.sirnaomics.com.
CONTACT:
Investors:
Nigel Yip
Chief Financial Officer, China, Sirnaomics
Email: NigelYip@sirnaomics.com
Media (US):
Alexis Feinberg
Tel: +1 203 939 2225
Email: Alexis.Feinberg@westwicke.com
Media (China):
Bunny Lee
Tel: +852 3150 6707
Email: sirnaomics.hk@pordahavas.com
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SOURCE Sirnaomics Ltd. | https://www.whsv.com/prnewswire/2022/05/11/sirnaomics-present-latest-developments-its-galnac-based-liver-targeting-platforms-galahead-programs-tides-usa-2022/ | 2022-05-11T10:07:20Z |
Provides Impetus for Digitalized Industrialization in Hong Kong, Brings Advanced Equipment Setting the Stage for Growing Global Operations
HONG KONG, May 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- SML Group ("SML"), a worldwide leader in digital identification technology and solutions provider, today announced the launch of its Technology Innovation Development Center ("TIDC"), a first-in-Hong Kong Radio Frequency Identification ("RFID") inlay Research & Development (R&D) center and production hub. The new center is part of SML's strategic long-term plans as it seeks to develop the technology ecosystem to power increasingly global operations that involve a growing pool of customers transitioning towards a digital-first future where every item will be tagged with a digital ID across markets.
With this center, SML will be empowered to grow its business operations globally and help customers in their pursuit towards a sustainable future. Wilson Chan, Chief Operating Officer of SML, said: "This center will enable SML's expansion into strategic industries and thrive in a future where every item will have a digital identity. SML will work towards efficiently producing RFID tags that meet the highest standards of brands across industries."
In a global market characterized by uneven quality of RFID inlays, an integral component of the RFID tag that carries item-level data, the center will allow SML to improve quality control by standardizing performance and enhancing reliability throughout both the R&D as well as the production process. The center demonstrates SML's ambition to secure a leading role in enhancing inlay standards across the industry.
Setting industry standards, offering assurance to clients and ensuring quality
As a market leader that embraces technology development within the retail manufacturing sector, SML, with a new technology development center, will look to construct an end-to-end quality control system elevating industry standards and offering quality assurance for its clients.
A state-of-the-art center will import hi-tech machinery and bring in latest technologies to produce RFID inlays with high levels of throughput at a much higher efficiency. With the industry's innovative machinery and testing facilities from Germany and Finland, the center will be able to produce a RFID-enabled hang tag from 7 steps to 1, a significant improvement. Ultimately, the center will enable SML to increase its annual production levels via a streamlined manufacturing process to meet the growing demand for RFID products.
TIDC will also include a multiple-point performance checking system that will communicate with RFID inlays on a wide frequency range and help check the inlay's overall performance to improve quality levels. In addition, the R&D laboratory will allow SML to design and test RFID inlays. TIDC will also seek to enhance the productivity and reliability rates of the manufacturing process of RFID inlays.
Boosting digitalized industrialization and grooming talent in Hong Kong
Dr. Sing Wong, Director of RFID TIDC said, "TIDC will take part in accelerating the adoption of automated industrialization in Hong Kong. We will implement AGVs (Automated Guided Vehicles) to transport goods, ranging from raw material to finished goods, to maximize manufacturing efficiency."
The center will also create local demands and provide training grounds for RFID professionals, while attracting renowned industry experts to establish standards of excellence. Dr. Wong added, "We are determined that the center will serve as an incubator for aspiring RFID talent who will represent Hong Kong among the global growing workforce within the Digital ID industry."
With a view to contributing to Hong Kong's efforts to achieve the digitalization of commerce, SML has chosen Hong Kong as the first site for its inaugural technology center. In the coming years, SML will look to expand its operations to other locations and is planning to launch R&D centers in other regions to provide innovative technology that brings benefit to the industry.
About SML
With a presence in over 20 countries, SML Group is the global end-to-end RFID and brand identification solutions provider, delivering proven results and rapid ROIs to brands in the new era of retailing. We offer innovative Inspire™ and EcoInspire™ labeling and packaging products, high-performance RFID tags and encoding services across industries. Our proprietary software Clarity® is the only item-level RFID solution that is engineered and deployment-proven for vertical retailers and brand owners with stores. As an invaluable partner of brands, SML is committed to developing tech-driven solutions that power brand transformation and prosperity. For details, please contact us.
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SOURCE SML Group | https://www.whsv.com/prnewswire/2022/05/11/sml-launches-its-first-rfid-technology-center-hong-kong/ | 2022-05-11T10:07:26Z |
Bringing the most advanced video and photo capabilities to a smartphone with 4K 120 frames per second (fps) slow-motion video recording on all lenses[ii], combined with seamless game streaming and immersive music listening
- Offering the world's first true optical 85-125mm zoom lensi
- 120fps high-speed readout image sensor for all three rear lenses to never miss the moment.
- Cinematic video expression with true 4K 120fps, up to 5x slow-motion video recording.
- Real-time Eye autofocus (AF) and 20fps AF/AE burst shooting in HDR on all three lenses, providing pictures with the richest color and contrast
- Livestreaming with "Videography Pro" or "External monitor" feature applications[iii]
- 120Hz display delivers exceptionally smooth graphics performance and 240Hz high-speed touch scanning rate puts game players in complete control of the action
- "Game Enhancer" can be used to fine tune the image and audio settings and supports livestreaming for real time content sharing
- About 50% Brighter[xix] 4K 120Hz HDR 21:9 wide display and Real-time HDR drive
- Further enhanced front facing Full-stage stereo speakers and high-quality sound recording with "Music Pro"
- Powerful 5,000 mAh and long-life battery for longer use[iv] with Snapdragon® 8 Gen 1 Mobile Platform
- Corning® Gorilla® Glass Victus® and with IP65/68 water and dust resistancexxv
- Plastic free packaging[v], with about 50% less package size compared to previous models[vi]. Reduced CO2 emissions by up to 36%[vii] per unit compared to conventional packaging-sized transportation
SAN DIEGO, May 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Sony Electronics Inc. today announced the new Xperia 1 IV smartphone, developed specifically for those looking for the very latest in smartphone technology including cutting-edge imaging technology, advanced gaming capabilities, and an immersive entertainment experience with a brighter HDR display and powerful audio features, all wrapped in a compact and modern design.
"Xperia 1 IV is an exciting continuation of our Xperia series. At Sony, we believe creativity has no limits and our new flagship model, the Xperia 1 IV, is born of that philosophy," said Yang Cheng, Vice President, Imaging Solutions, Sony Electronics Inc. "Xperia empowers users to become creators, and every facet of content creation can be handled by Xperia 1 IV."
Image Sensor and Optical Zoom for Next-Level Videography and Photography
Xperia 1 IV features three lenses; a 16mm ultra-wide lens, 24mm wide lens, and a new unique true optical telephoto zoom 85-125mm lens, to give creators the ability to capture a wide range of content.
All lenses have a 12MP "Exmor RS™ for mobile" image sensor with a readout speed of up to 120fps. This capability allows the device to record at 4K 120fps for up to 5x slow-motion video recording, Real-time Eye AF and Real-time tracking with every lens[viii]. The Xperia 1 IV also combines depth information, using the 3D iToF sensor, and AI (artificial intelligence) based subject detection for precise and accurate AF and tracking in low light. Additionally, ZEISS optics have been calibrated specifically for the Xperia™ smartphone. The ZEISS T* coating contributes to accurate rendering and contrast by reducing reflections for all rear camera lenses.
The front camera is also equipped with a new 12MP "Exmor RS™ for mobile" image sensor, which is a larger image sensor than the previous model. It enables noise reduction in dark scenes and selfie shooting in 4K HDR.
Create Incredible Video Content
Xperia 1 IV provides unparalleled video capabilities. Based on direct feedback from video creators, Sony developed its "Videography Pro" feature, which centralizes settings for video. This allows users to easily adjust settings such as focus, exposure, and white balance – even while recording.
Users can capture and playback fast-moving scenes and slow-motion video at up to 5x due to the device's ability to record in 4K 120fps video on all its lenses. Capturing smooth, shake-free video is easier than ever thanks to the latest Optical SteadyShot™ with FlawlessEye™[ix]. The Xperia 1 IV also supports Eye AF technology and object tracking for video, allowing the user to keep sharp focus on the subject and spend more time composing their shot.
Sony's newest smartphone also features 4K HDR multi-frame shooting for video recording[x], which allows videos to be recorded with wider dynamic range without losing resolution. In addition, the Xperia 1 IV allows for seamless zoom from its ultra-wide-angle to telephoto perspectives for even more creative freedom.
Livestream Anytime, Anywhere
The Xperia 1 IV improves the quality of live streaming, while simplifying the process. The device enables "Eye AF" and "Object Tracking" when using Videography Pro while livestreaming to YouTube™ and other social media platforms. Alternatively, users can stream high-quality video from a compatible Alpha™ camera[xi] while using Xperia 1 IV as an external monitor[xii]. When paired with Sony's Vlog Monitor, users can livestream content by using the rear cameras.
Photography with Technology from Alpha™ Cameras
The Xperia 1 IV combines a powerful optical telephoto zoom lens with beautiful bokeh and advanced autofocus technology to deliver stunning imagery. Xperia 1 IV enables Real-Time Eye AF and 20fps burst with AE (auto exposure)/AF in HDR on all three rear lenses to capture portraits for both people and animals, even when photographing fast-moving subject and in challenging shooting conditions. In addition, the Xperia 1 IV uses AI white balance to capture and correct colors under challenging lighting conditions, delivering true to life results.
Cinematography Pro Powered by CineAlta
The Xperia 1 IV allows the user to create cinematic-looking content with ease. Using the Cinematography Pro "Powered by CineAlta" feature, creators can record movies with similar parameters and color settings that professionals use. All rear camera lenses enable 4K 120fps high frame rate and up to 5x slow-motion shooting. In addition, with new multi-frame shootingx now available even for cinema recording allows videos to be recorded with wider dynamic range without losing resolution.
The Ultimate Mobile Gaming Experience
Advanced features for gaming include a 120Hz display, 240Hz motion blur reduction and 240Hz touch-scanning rate. In addition, the game enhancer feature includes L-y (low gamma) raiser, audio equalizer and voice chat optimization to provide an immersive gaming experience. The Xperia 1 IV is optimized with the Qualcomm® Snapdragon Elite Gaming™[xiii] for superior gaming performance. It also has a "Heat Suppression power control" (H.S. power control) function that suppresses performance and battery deterioration due to high temperature of the terminal even during gameplay when connected to a charger.
The Xperia 1 IV simplifies gameplay sharing with the "RT record" function that allows a user to record about 30 seconds before pressing the button. When using Game Enhancer with the new Xperia 1 IV, players can also livestream their gameplay to YouTube™. A gamer can check their audience's comments even during live streaming, so the gamer can communicate with them at real time.
The new Xperia 1 IV also facilitates better live streaming via a PC. It mixes all sounds including, the player's voice, game music and the voice chat with other players, and sends it via a single cable connection to a PC.
Xperia 1 IV has been chosen as the official device for the PUBG MOBILE E-sports Global Tournament 2022.
Listen to Music Authentically
The Xperia 1 IV has been engineered to deliver a truly authentic listening experience and implements audio tuned in collaboration with Sony Music Entertainment. The Xperia 1 IV features new Full-stage stereo speakers with a new driver and enclosure design that outputs more power and improves low frequency and bass sounds. The speaker can also playback "360 Reality Audio (360RA)" sound. Its unique hardware decoding optimizes sound quality when listening to music properly encoded on TIDAL and nugs.net[xiv]. It is equipped with "360 Reality Audio Upmix" that converts stereo sound sources into multi-channel sound sources like 360RA[xv]. It also supports DSEE Ultimate, which can improve the sound quality of streaming services to close to high-resolution sound quality. The Xperia 1 IV will also support Bluetooth® LE Audio, via an upcoming software update, to reduce the sound delay to less than that of a conventional Bluetooth® connection when listening to content.
Meet Professional Recording by Music Pro
A new music recording function "Music Pro" enables professional-level recording with just the Xperia 1 IV, using unique cloud processing. Music Pro up-converts vocal sounds recorded with Xperia 1 IV as if it was recorded in a professional studio, allowing the user to record full-scale songs at home or on-the-go. The cloud processing removes unwanted noise from the recorded sound using sound source separation technology. It then reproduces the frequency response of Sony's high-performance condenser microphones while producing reverberation similar to that of a professional studio[xvi]. When singing and playing an acoustic guitar simultaneously, Music Pro can separate the vocal and guitar sounds and mix them at any balance. Sound recording and editing is free of charge, while cloud processing for high-quality sound is subject to a monthly fee.
Exceptional Immersive Entertainment
Boasting a stunning 4K HDR OLED 120Hz Refresh Rate[xvii] display, and no notches to interrupt the view on the 6.5" 21:9 Wide display[xviii] the Xperia 1 IV offers a uniquely immersive viewing experience. The display on Xperia 1 IV is about 50% brighter[xix] and includes Real-time HDR drive[xx] for improved visibility of both bright and dark areas, even in over-exposed environments.
The X1™ for mobile engine brings BRAVIA HDR remaster technology to everything the viewer watches. Even streaming content will have more contrast, color, and clarity. In the realm of cinema, watching a movie with Dolby Atmos® is an immersive experience with multi-dimensional sound flowing above and around. Now the viewer can experience Dolby Atmos® sound tuned in collaboration with Sony Pictures Entertainment.
Performance and Design
Xperia 1 IV features the Snapdragon® 8 Gen 1 Mobile platform, which works on 5G sub6/mmWave[xxi] and Wi-Fi 6E[xxii], with 12 GB of RAM, 512 GB of ROM and a microSD card slot. The Xperia 1 IV includes a 5,000 mAh battery with up to a 3-year long life[xxiii] and quick charge that gets to 50% battery in 30 minutes[xxiv] and has wireless charging capabilities.
The Xperia 1 IV has IP65/68[xxv] water and dust resistance and uses Corning® Gorilla® Glass Victus® on the front and back.
Xperia 1 IV's signature super flat, super matte design comes in black and purple and blends minimalist style with premium quality materials and craftsmanship. It features a dedicated ergonomic shutter button, with an embossed finish for enhanced usability.
Road to Zero
The Sony Group has set an environmental plan "Road to Zero" aiming for zero environmental load by 2050. As seen previously in our previous model, Xperia 1 IV uses zero plastic in the individual packagingiv by using paper as the packaging material that directly wraps the product itself. There is about 50% less packaging size compared to previous models with no charger and cable accessories, which reduces the shipping weight reducing CO2 emissions during transportation by up to 36%[xxvi] per unit.
Pricing and Availability: Xperia 1 IV & Accessories
The matching "Style Cover with Stand" has the same innovative and modern design as the smartphone – it has a built- in stand, is made from anti-bacterial material[xxvii], and is designed to fit perfectly in the hand. The Style Cover with Stand will be available on September 1, 2022 for approximately $35.00 USD. The Style Cover and Stand will be available in two colors: black and purple. Purple will be available exclusively at www.electronics.sony.com.
The Xperia 1 IV will be available in on September 1, 2022 for approximately $1,600.00 USD. It will be sold unlocked in black at a variety of Sony's authorized dealers throughout the United States. Purple will be available exclusively at www.electronics.sony.com. Pre-orders for both the Xperia 1 IV and the Style Cover with Stand will begin today, May 11, 2022, at 11:00 am EDT.
For a limited time, customers who pre-order Xperia 1 IV starting May 11, 2022, will be eligible to receive Sony's latest WF-1000XM4 true wireless noise cancelling earbuds with purchase (a $280.00 USD value) [xxviii].
For detailed product information, please visit:
A product announcement video on the new Xperia 1 IV can be viewed HERE.
Updates for Xperia PRO and Xperia PRO-I
Both Xperia PRO and Xperia PRO-I will receive a software update that will enable the new Live Streaming feature being released in the Xperia 1 IV. In Xperia PRO, Live Streaming will be available through the External Monitor function. In Xperia PRO-I, the Live Streaming feature will be available through the External Monitor function and Videography Pro. In addition, the External Monitor function in Xperia PRO and Xperia PRO-I will also be enhanced with Wave Form and False Color capabilities. These updates are planned for July 2022.
Exclusive stories and exciting new content shot with the new Xperia 1 IV and Sony's other imaging products can be found at www.alphauniverse.com, a site created to educate and inspire all fans and customers of Sony α - Alpha brand and imaging technology.
About Sony Electronics Inc.
Sony Electronics is a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America and an affiliate of Sony Group Corporation (Japan), one of the most comprehensive entertainment companies in the world, with a portfolio that encompasses electronics, music, motion pictures, mobile, gaming, robotics and financial services. Headquartered in San Diego, California, Sony Electronics is a leader in electronics for the consumer and professional markets. Operations include research and development, engineering, sales, marketing, distribution and customer service. Sony Electronics creates products that innovate and inspire generations, such as the award-winning Alpha Interchangeable Lens Cameras and revolutionary high-resolution audio products. Sony is also a leading manufacturer of end-to-end solutions from 4K professional broadcast and A/V equipment to industry leading 4K and 8K Ultra HD TVs. Visit http://www.sony.com/news for more information.
[i] Xperia 1 IV features a periscope camera for continuous optical zoom and 120fps read-out sensor. Verified by Strategy Analytics' SpecTRAX Service against the published camera specifications for over 20,800 smartphones. Correct as of the 11st May 2022.
[ii] All rear lenses.
[iii] Please use this feature by following the terms of use and the requirements related to live streaming determined by the live streaming service you use. Depending on the live streaming service you use, the conditions and specifications for live streaming may be added or to be changed unexpectedly. Live streaming restrictions may apply.
[iv] Simulated result by Sony Corporation, based on actual usage profile using the same type of battery and USB charging. The life span of the battery depends on your usage.
[v] Packaging refers to the individual product box, as well as components such as in-box trays, spacers, wraps and sleeves.
[vi] Using a genuine Xperia charger and cable is recommended. Sold separately. Availability may vary.
[vii] Xperia 1 IV HK Variant. Percentage may vary by variants.
[viii] Some performance restrictions may apply.
[ix] This feature is available for the 24mm lens and the 85-125mm lens
[x] Video recording restrictions may apply. Available resolution of 4K 30fps.
[xi] Camera compatibility may vary.
[xii] Sony's interchangeable lens camera or compact digital camera with UVC support are recommended.
[xiii] Qualcomm and Snapdragon are trademarks of Qualcomm Incorporated, registered in the United States and other countries, used with permission.
[xiv] Third party terms, conditions, account, and fees may apply. Service availability may vary by market. The Tidal subscription has a duration of 3 months.
[xv] Some features may not be available for all services and contents. The effect may vary depending on the contents.
[xvi] The Studio tuning is applicable only for vocal. Music recording, editing and trial of Studio tuning (up to 100MB within the first month) are free of charge. Studio tuning requires a paid subscription. The costs for monthly subscription and availability may differ depending on market.
[xvii] Display refresh rate may vary according to settings, contents, and applications used.
[xviii] Display ratios may vary based on content formatting.
[xix] Compared to Xperia 1 III. Display maximum brightness may vary according to settings, usage and contents.
[xx] Applicable for HDR10 contents viewing only.
[xxi] Network availability may vary depending on country, carrier and user environment.
[xxii] Dependent on market availability, compatible equipment and network.
[xxiii] Simulated result by Sony Corporation, based on actual usage profile using the same type of battery and USB charging. The life span of the battery depends on your usage.
[xxiv] We recommend using genuine chargers and cables as XQZ-UC1 (charge and cable bundle). Availability may vary.
[xxv] This device is water resistant and protected against dust. All ports and attached covers should be firmly closed. Do not put the device completely underwater or expose it to sea water, salt water, chlorinated water, or liquids such as drinks. Abuse and improper use of device will invalidate warranty. The device has been tested under Ingress Protection rating IP65/68. Sony devices that are tested for their water-resistant abilities are placed gently inside a container filled with tap water and lowered to a depth of 1.5 metres. After 30 minutes in the container, the device is gently taken out and its functions and features are tested. Note this model has a capless USB port to connect and charge. The USB port needs to be completely dry before charging.
[xxvi] HK Variant. Percentage may vary by variants.
[xxvii] This material is antibacterial but not antivirus. There is not guaranteed effect on viruses such as COVID-19. Antibacterial effect based on JIS Z 2801 testing.
[xxviii] Offer valid on purchases 5/11/2022 - 8/28/2022 for U.S. residents 18+ with purchase of a new Xperia 1 IV smartphone from a participating Sony authorized retailer. Offer not combinable with other offers and not redeemable for cash. Specifications, availability, prices, and terms of offer are subject to cancellation or change without notice.
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Sony upgrades mobile content creation with the Xperia 1 IV. The new flagship creator smartphone utilizes both 5G Sub6 and mmWave for faster communication, and pro-quality photography with an optical 85-125mm zoom.
NEW YORK, May 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- B&H is pleased to announce the release of Sony Xperia 1 IV smartphone. This entry into the smartphone category delivers the connectivity and imaging capabilities required by professional photographers, videographers, and social media content creators. Outside of content creation, a brighter display should be well received by mobile enthusiasts who enjoy video streaming and mobile gaming.
Utilizing its professional photography knowledge and engineering in the camera space, Sony equips the Xperia 1 IV with three rear lenses (wide, ultra-wide, and telephoto), as well as a 3D iToF sensor. Among the new camera features available with the Sony Xperia 1 IV is the ability to shoot slow motion 4K video at 120 fps across all the rear cameras. The telephoto lens now is also capable of 85-125mm optical zoom, and everything utilizes genuine ZEISS optics with ZEISS T-coating.
Sony XPERIA 1 IV 512GB 5G Smartphone
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1702930-REG/sony_xq_ct62_xperia_1_iv_512gb.html
Key Features
- GSM/4G LTE + 5G Sub6/mmWave Compatible
- Rear Triple 12MP Cameras & 3D iTOF
- Telephoto with 85-125mm Optical Zoom
- All Rear Lenses Shoot 4K/120p HDR
- Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 Mobile Platform
- 512GB Storage Capacity + 12GB of RAM
- 6.5" 4K HDR 21:9 120 Hz OLED Screen
- Micro-HDMI for DSLR Streaming/Monitor
On top of expanding the entire camera system, Sony incorporates advancements to appeal not just to professionals, but also mobile gamers and prosumer smartphone fans alike. The 6.5" 21:9 CinemaWide 120Hz 4K OLED screen is now 50% brighter, streaming videos and games more enjoyable. It also provides full-stage stereo speakers and a larger 5000mAh battery.
Outside of content creation and entertainment, Sony supplies the Xperia 1 IV with some of the latest in smartphone connectivity and processing technology. The former Xperia 1 III flagship offered 4G LTE and 5G Sub6 network connectivity, which the Xperia 1 IV retains, but now with the addition of blazing fast 5G mmWave support and mobile speeds that allow for stable livestreams, fast uploading, and sharing large 4K videos and RAW stills. The smartphone also comes with the advanced Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 mobile platform, a generous 512GB of storage, and significant weather and physical protection with IP65/68-rated water and dust resistance, as well as Corning Gorilla Glass Victus on the display.
Sony Xperia 1 IV 5G Smartphone | First Look
https://youtu.be/0tMei0u5QOQ
Learn more about the Sony Xperia 1 IV at B&H Explora:
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/videos/mobile/sony-upgrades-mobile-pro-imaging-with-the-new-xperia-1-iv-smartphone
About B&H Photo Video
As the world's largest source of photography, video, and audio equipment, as well as computers, drones, and home and portable entertainment, B&H is known worldwide for its attentive, knowledgeable sales force and excellent customer service, including fast, reliable shipping. B&H has been satisfying customers worldwide for over 48 years.
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Contact Information
Henry Posner
B&H Photo Video
212-615-8820
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/
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STOCKHOLM, May 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Board of Directors of Swedish Match AB recommends that the shareholders of Swedish Match accept the offer.
Background
This statement is made by the Board of Directors (the "Board") of Swedish Match AB (publ) ("Swedish Match" or the "Company") pursuant to Section II.19 of Nasdaq Stockholm's Takeover Rules (the "Takeover Rules").
Philip Morris Holland Holdings B.V. ("PMHH"), an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of Philip Morris International Inc. ("PMI"), has today announced a public cash offer to Swedish Match's shareholders to transfer their shares in Swedish Match to PMHH (the "Offer"). Under the terms of the Offer, PMHH is offering SEK 106 per Swedish Match share in cash (the "Offer Price"), which values the issued share capital of Swedish Match at approximately SEK 161.2 billion.1) The Offer Price represents a premium of approximately:
- 39.4 percent compared to the closing share price of SEK 76.06 on May 9, 2022 (the last day of trading prior to market speculation regarding a potential public offer for the Company)2);
- 39.7 percent compared to the volume-weighted average trading price of SEK 75.86 for the shares during the last 30 trading days ended on May 9, 2022 (the last day of trading prior to market speculation regarding a potential public offer for the Company)3); and
- 46.6 percent compared to the volume-weighted average trading price of SEK 72.33 for the shares during the last 90 trading days ended on May 9, 2022 (the last day of trading prior to market speculation regarding a potential public offer for the Company)4).
1) Based on all outstanding 1,520,714,190 shares in Swedish Match, i.e. excluding 4,285,810 shares held in treasury by Swedish Match.
2) Representing a premium of 11.6 percent compared to the closing price of SEK 95.00 on May 10, 2022 (the last day of trading prior to this announcement).
3) Representing a premium of 31.7 percent compared to the volume-weighted average trading price of SEK 80.51 during the last 30 trading days ended on May 10, 2022 (the last day of trading prior to this announcement).
4) Representing a premium of 43.4 percent compared to the volume-weighted average trading price of SEK 73.94 during the last 90 trading days ended on May 10, 2022 (the last day of trading prior to this announcement).
The acceptance period of the Offer is expected to commence on or around June 23, 2022 and expire on or around September 30, 2022, subject to any extensions.
Completion of the Offer is conditional upon, amongst other things, PMHH becoming the owner of more than 90 percent of the total number of shares in Swedish Match and the receipt of all necessary regulatory, governmental or similar clearances, approvals, decisions and other actions from authorities or similar, including from competition authorities, in each case on terms which, in PMHH's opinion, are acceptable. PMHH has reserved the right to waive these and other conditions for completion of the Offer. PMHH has also reserved the right to extend the acceptance period and, to the extent necessary and permissible, will do so in order for the acceptance period to cover applicable decision-making procedures at relevant authorities.
At the written request of PMHH, the Board has permitted PMHH to conduct a confirmatory due diligence review of Swedish Match in connection with the preparation of the Offer. In connection with such review, PMHH has received certain information concerning Swedish Match's financial performance for the first quarter 2022. Swedish Match will today announce this information through a separate press release. Except as set out above, PMHH has not received any inside information in connection with such review.
Swedish Match has retained Goldman Sachs Bank Europe SE ("Goldman Sachs") as financial adviser and Mannheimer Swartling Advokatbyrå as legal adviser in relation to the Offer. KANTER Advokatbyrå has also assisted Swedish Match with certain legal advice related to the Offer.
Goldman Sachs has, in its capacity as financial adviser, provided an opinion to the Board that, as of May 11, 2022 and based upon and subject to the factors, limitations and assumptions set forth therein, the SEK 106 in cash per share to be paid to the shareholders of Swedish Match in the Offer is fair from a financial point of view to the shareholders of Swedish Match. The full text of the written opinion of Goldman Sachs, which sets forth assumptions made, procedures followed, matters considered and limitations on the review undertaken in connection with the opinion, is attached to this statement. Goldman Sachs provided its opinion and advice solely for the information and assistance of the Board in connection with its consideration of the Offer and not to the shareholders of Swedish Match. The Goldman Sachs opinion is not a recommendation as to whether any shareholder of Swedish Match should tender their shares in connection with the Offer or any other matter. Goldman Sachs's fee as financial adviser is contingent on the size of the Offer consideration and whether the Offer is completed.
In addition, SEB Corporate Finance, Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB (publ) ("SEB Corporate Finance") has also, at the request of the Board, provided an opinion according to which the Offer is fair to Swedish Match's shareholders from a financial point of view (subject to the assumptions and considerations set out in the opinion). The opinion is attached to this statement. SEB Corporate Finance will receive a fixed fee for providing the opinion, which is not contingent on the size of the Offer consideration, the acceptance level of the Offer or whether it is completed.
The Board's evaluation of the Offer
Since its listing in 1996, Swedish Match has created a growing business, through consistent execution and significant investments in its portfolio of products, brands, and markets. With a stated vision of "A world without cigarettes", Swedish Match's efforts in smokefree products have proven to resonate with consumers who are seeking attractive and less harmful alternatives to cigarettes. Swedish Match is the market leader in the U.S. nicotine pouch category with its ZYN branded offering. Swedish Match is investing for the future in support of the growth for its U.S. nicotine pouch business, as well as in nicotine pouches and other product categories across markets.
In assessing the merits of the Offer, the Board has considered the long-term growth prospects of the Company as described above as well as the risks and challenges associated with executing against these prospects. These risks include possible negative impacts on the Company and its business as a result of the highly competitive markets in which the Company operates as well as the constraints that existing and new regulation regarding, among other, things tobacco excise taxes, nicotine pouch federal (and further state) taxes, marketing, packaging, warning labels, ingredients, product approvals, and the introduction of new products may put on the Company and its business.
The Board has analysed the Offer using the methods normally used for evaluating public offers for listed companies, including Swedish Match's valuation in relation to comparable listed companies and comparable transactions, premiums in previous public offers, equity analysts' expectations regarding Swedish Match and the Board's view on Swedish Match's long-term value based on expected future cash flows. The Board has also taken into account that the Offer comprises cash consideration, which, subject to completion of the Offer, provides the Swedish Match shareholders with a de-risked opportunity to realise value from their investment in cash in the near future and at a meaningful premium to traded prices of the Swedish Match share.
Having concluded this assessment, the Board believes that the terms of the Offer recognise Swedish Match's long-term growth prospects, taking into account the risks associated with the realisation of those prospects.
Under the Takeover Rules the Board is required, on the basis of PMI's statements in the announcement of the Offer, to make public its opinion of the effects the implementation of the Offer may have on Swedish Match, specifically employment, and its views on PMI's strategic plans for Swedish Match and the effect these may be expected to have on employment and the places where Swedish Match carries on its business. PMI has in this respect stated that "PMI recognizes that the employees and management team of Swedish Match have built a highly successful business with an excellent track record, and PMI has the utmost respect for them. PMI's current plans for the future business and general strategy, as described above, do not include any material changes with regard to Swedish Match's operational sites, or its management and employees, including their terms of employment. Swedish Match has a complementary organization with a talented, dedicated workforce, excellent culture and a strong base of skills in Sweden, the U.S. and across the world. PMI would intend to nurture this talent and provide additional opportunities as the companies grow together. Importantly, PMI intends to provide compensation and benefits consistent with Swedish Match's current programs, including the Profit Sharing Foundation in Sweden. In addition, PMI intends to preserve and develop Swedish Match's operational presence in Sweden, where much of the Company's skills base is located, as well as in Richmond, Virginia, the site of the head office for Swedish Match's U.S. Division. PMI has no plans to divest the Lights business." The Board assumes that this description is accurate and has in the relevant aspects no reason to take a different view.
Based on the above, the Board recommends that Swedish Match's shareholders accept the Offer.
The resolution to make the above statement has been supported by all board members except for Pär-Ola Olausson (appointed by the union IF Metall).
Pär-Ola Olausson is of the view that Swedish Match has the competence and the experience to remain independent in the long-term and that the terms of the Offer do not reflect the long-term fundamental value of the Company.
This statement shall in all respects be governed by and construed in accordance with substantive Swedish law. Disputes arising from this statement shall be settled exclusively by Swedish courts.
Stockholm, May 11, 2022
For more information please contact:
Johan Wredberg, Director Communications and Media Relations
Telephone: +46 730 27 93 43
E-mail: johan.wredberg@swedishmatch.com
This information is information that Swedish Match AB (publ) is obliged to make public pursuant to the EU Market Abuse Regulation. The information was submitted for publication, through the agency of the contact person set out above, at 7.45 a.m. CET on May 11, 2022.
Goldman Sachs Fairness Opinion, dated May 11, 2022
PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL
Board of Directors
Swedish Match AB
Sveavägen 44
SE-118 85 Stockholm, Sweden
Ladies and Gentlemen:
You have requested our opinion as to the fairness from a financial point of view to the holders (other than Philip Morris International Inc. ("Buyer") and its affiliates) of the outstanding shares, quotient value SEK 0.2465 per share (the "Shares"), of Swedish Match AB (the "Company") of the SEK 106 in cash per Share to be paid to such holders in the Tender Offer (as defined below) by Philip Morris Holland Holdings B.V. ("Acquisition Sub"), a wholly owned subsidiary of Buyer, in accordance with the terms set forth in the press release issued by Acquisition Sub on 11 May 2022 (the "Offer Press Release"). The Offer Press Release provides for a tender offer for all of the Shares (the "Tender Offer") pursuant to which Acquisition Sub will pay SEK 106 in cash per Share for each Share accepted. The Offer Press Release further provides that, following completion of the Tender Offer and subject to the satisfaction of the requirements of the Swedish Companies Act, Acquisition Sub intends to commence compulsory redemption proceedings for all outstanding Shares not purchased pursuant to the Tender Offer, as to which compulsory redemption proceedings we express no opinion.
Goldman Sachs Bank Europe SE, Sweden Bankfilial and its affiliates (collectively, "Goldman Sachs") are engaged in advisory, underwriting and financing, principal investing, sales and trading, research, investment management and other financial and non-financial activities and services for various persons and entities. Goldman Sachs and its employees, and funds or other entities they manage or in which they invest or have other economic interests or with which they co-invest, may at any time purchase, sell, hold or vote long or short positions and investments in securities, derivatives, loans, commodities, currencies, credit default swaps and other financial instruments of the Company, Buyer, any of their respective affiliates and third parties, or any currency or commodity that may be involved in the transaction contemplated by the Offer Press Release (the "Transaction"). We have acted as financial advisor to the Company in connection with, and have participated in certain of the negotiations leading to, the Transaction. We expect to receive fees for our services in connection with the Transaction, all of which are contingent upon consummation of the Transaction, and the Company has agreed to reimburse certain of our expenses arising, and indemnify us against certain liabilities that may arise, out of our engagement. We have provided certain financial advisory services to the Company and/or its affiliates from time to time for which our Investment Banking Division may receive compensation. We also have provided certain financial advisory and/or underwriting services to Buyer and/or its affiliates from time to time for which our Investment Banking Division has received, and may receive, compensation, including having acted as book runner with respect to Buyer's $1,500,000,000 bond issuance in October 2020. We may also in the future provide financial advisory and/or underwriting services to the Company, Buyer, and their respective affiliates for which our Investment Banking Division may receive compensation.
In connection with this opinion, we have reviewed, among other things, the Offer Press Release; a final draft of the statement of the Board of Directors of the Company in relation to the Tender Offer to be issued on 11 May 2022; annual reports to shareholders of the Company for the five fiscal years ended 31 December 2021; certain interim reports to shareholders of the Company; certain other communications from the Company to its shareholders; certain publicly available research analyst reports for the Company; and certain internal financial analyses and forecasts for the Company prepared by its management, as approved for our use by the Company (the "Forecasts"). We have also held discussions with members of the senior management of the Company regarding their assessment of the past and current business operations, financial condition and future prospects of the Company; reviewed the reported price and trading activity for the Shares; compared certain financial and stock market information for the Company with similar information for certain other companies the securities of which are publicly traded; reviewed the financial terms of certain recent business combinations in the tobacco industry, high growth consumer industry and in other industries; and performed such other studies and analyses, and considered such other factors, as we deemed appropriate.
For purposes of rendering this opinion, we have, with your consent, relied upon and assumed the accuracy and completeness of all of the financial, legal, regulatory, tax, accounting and other information provided to, discussed with or reviewed by, us, without assuming any responsibility for independent verification thereof. In that regard, we have assumed with your consent that the Forecasts have been reasonably prepared on a basis reflecting the best currently available estimates and judgments of the management of the Company. We have not made an independent evaluation or appraisal of the assets and liabilities (including any contingent, derivative or other off-balance-sheet assets and liabilities) of the Company or any of its subsidiaries and we have not been furnished with any such evaluation or appraisal. We have assumed that all governmental, regulatory or other consents and approvals necessary for the consummation of the Transaction will be obtained without any adverse effect on the Company or on the expected benefits of the Transaction in any way meaningful to our analysis. We have assumed that the Transaction will be consummated on the terms set forth in the Offer Press Release, without the waiver or modification of any term or condition the effect of which would be in any way meaningful to our analysis. We have also assumed that the terms set forth in the offer document that will be published by Acquisition Sub in connection with the Transaction will not differ from those set forth in the Offer Press Release in any way meaningful to our analysis.
Our opinion does not address the underlying business decision of the Company to engage in the Transaction, or the relative merits of the Transaction as compared to any strategic alternatives that may be available to the Company; nor does it address any legal, regulatory, tax or accounting matters. We were not requested to solicit, and did not solicit, interest from other parties with respect to an acquisition of, or other business combination with, the Company or any other alternative transaction. This opinion addresses only the fairness from a financial point of view to the holders (other than Buyer and its affiliates) of Shares, as of the date hereof, of the SEK 106 in cash per Share to be paid to such holders in the Tender Offer pursuant to the Offer Press Release. We do not express any view on, and our opinion does not address, any other term or aspect of the Offer Press Release or Transaction or any term or aspect of any other agreement or instrument contemplated by the Offer Press Release or entered into or amended in connection with the Transaction, including, the fairness of the Transaction to, or any consideration received in connection therewith by, the holders of any other class of securities, creditors, or other constituencies of the Company; nor as to the fairness of the amount or nature of any compensation to be paid or payable to any of the officers, directors or employees of the Company, or class of such persons, in connection with the Transaction, whether relative to the SEK 106 in cash per Share to be paid to the holders (other than Buyer and its affiliates) of Shares in the Tender Offer pursuant to the Offer Press Release or otherwise. We are not expressing any opinion as to the prices at which the Shares will trade at any time, as to the potential effects of volatility in the credit, financial and stock markets on the Company, Buyer or the Transaction, or as to the impact of the Transaction on the solvency or viability of the Company or Buyer or the ability of the Company or Buyer to pay their respective obligations when they come due. Our opinion is necessarily based on economic, monetary, market and other conditions as in effect on, and the information made available to us as of, the date hereof and we assume no responsibility for updating, revising or reaffirming this opinion based on circumstances, developments or events occurring after the date hereof. Our advisory services and the opinion expressed herein are provided solely for the information and assistance of the Board of Directors of the Company in connection with its consideration of the Transaction and such opinion does not constitute a recommendation as to whether or not any holder of Shares should tender such Shares in connection with the Tender Offer or any other matter. This opinion has been approved by a fairness committee of Goldman Sachs.
Based upon and subject to the foregoing, it is our opinion that, as of the date hereof, the SEK 106 in cash per Share to be paid to the holders of Shares (other than Buyer and its affiliates) in the Tender Offer pursuant to the Offer Press Release is fair from a financial point of view to the holders (other than Buyer and its affiliates) of Shares.
Very truly yours,
GOLDMAN SACHS BANK EUROPE SE, SWEDEN BANKFILIAL
SEB Corporate Finance Fairness Opinion, dated May 10, 2022
To the Board of Directors of Swedish Match AB
The Board of Directors (the "Board") of Swedish Match AB ("Swedish Match") has requested the opinion of SEB Corporate Finance, Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB ("SEB Corporate Finance"), as to the fairness, from a financial point of view, to the holders of shares of Swedish Match ("Shares") of the offer consideration of SEK 106, in cash per Share, (the "Offer Consideration") proposed to be paid to those holders of Shares that tender their Shares pursuant to a public offer (the "Offer") by Philip Morris Holland Holdings BV, an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of Philip Morris International Inc. ("PMI"), which Offer is planned to be announced on or around May 11, 2022.
In connection with the presentation of this opinion, SEB Corporate Finance has, inter alia, reviewed a draft, provided to SEB Corporate Finance on May 10, 2022, of the press release describing the Offer (including the terms and conditions of the Offer set out therein) (the "Draft Press Release"), certain publicly available and other business and financial information relating to Swedish Match (including annual reports for the financial years 2020 and 2021 and the interim report for the first three months of 2022 and certain reports prepared by equity analysts) as well as certain financial forecasts and other information and data which were prepared by the management of Swedish Match and provided to, or discussed with, SEB Corporate Finance, and that Swedish Match has directed SEB Corporate Finance to utilize for the purposes of its analyses (including extrapolations based on certain alternative assumptions prepared and provided to SEB Corporate Finance by the management of Swedish Match). In addition, SEB Corporate Finance has held discussions with senior members of the management of Swedish Match concerning the businesses, operations, financial position and prospects of Swedish Match.
Based on the documents and information reviewed by SEB Corporate Finance as described herein, SEB Corporate Finance has performed discounted cash flow analyses of Swedish Match. Furthermore, SEB Corporate Finance has considered certain financial and stock exchange related information regarding Swedish Match in comparison with certain other companies with similar operations and other transactions that SEB Corporate Finance considered relevant in evaluating Swedish Match and the Offer. SEB Corporate Finance has also reviewed the historical share price and trading activity of Shares on Nasdaq Stockholm and has performed such other analyses and studies as SEB Corporate Finance has deemed appropriate for rendering this opinion.
SEB Corporate Finance has relied, without independent verification, upon the accuracy, completeness and reasonableness, in all material aspects, of all the financial and other information and data publicly available or provided to or otherwise reviewed by or discussed with SEB Corporate Finance and SEB Corporate Finance has assumed that no information material for the evaluation of Swedish Match's future earnings capacity or for SEB Corporate Finance's assessment of the Offer and the Offer Consideration has been omitted.
With respect to financial forecasts and other information and data provided to or otherwise reviewed by or discussed with SEB Corporate Finance by the management of Swedish Match, SEB Corporate Finance has been advised by the management, and SEB Corporate Finance has assumed, that such financial forecasts and other information and data (including extrapolations thereto) were reasonably prepared on bases reflecting the best currently available estimates and judgments of Swedish Match management as to the expected future financial performance of Swedish Match and the other matters covered thereby. SEB Corporate Finance has also assumed that such financial forecasts and estimates provided by the management of Swedish Match to SEB Corporate Finance have been provided to, and reviewed by, the Board with the understanding that such information will be used and relied upon by SEB Corporate Finance in connection with rendering this opinion.
With respect to the publicly available research analysts' estimates relating to Swedish Match reflected in such financial forecasts and other information and data, SEB Corporate Finance has assumed that they reflect reasonable estimates and judgments as to, and are a reasonable basis upon which to evaluate, the future financial performance of Swedish Match and the other matters covered thereby. SEB Corporate Finance further has assumed that the financial results reflected in the financial forecasts and other information and data utilized in its analyses will be realized at the times and in the amounts projected.
SEB Corporate Finance has not conducted any due diligence in order to verify, and has assumed, the accuracy, completeness and reasonableness of, the information received or reviewed by SEB Corporate Finance, and it has not made any independent evaluation or assessment of the assets and liabilities (contingent, off-balance sheet or otherwise) of Swedish Match or any other entity, nor has it made any physical inspection of the properties or assets of Swedish Match or any other entity. SEB Corporate Finance has assumed that the Offer will be consummated in accordance with the terms set forth in the Draft Press Release and in compliance with all applicable laws, documents and other requirements, without waiver, modification or amendment of any material term, condition or agreement, and that, in the course of obtaining the necessary governmental, regulatory or third party approvals, consents, releases, waivers and agreements for the Offer, no delay, limitation, restriction or condition, nor any divestiture requirements, amendments or modifications, will be imposed or occur that would have an effect in any way meaningful to SEB Corporate Finance's analyses or this opinion. Representatives of Swedish Match have advised SEB Corporate Finance, and SEB Corporate Finance has assumed, that the final terms and conditions of the Offer will not vary materially from those set forth in the Draft Press Release. SEB Corporate Finance is not expressing any opinion with respect to accounting, tax, regulatory, legal or similar matters and it has relied upon the assessments of representatives of Swedish Match as to such matters.
This opinion does not address any terms (other than, from a financial point of view and as of the date hereof, the Offer Consideration proposed to be paid to those holders of Shares that tender their Shares pursuant to the Offer) or other aspects or implications of the Offer, including, without limitation, the form or structure of the Offer, the form of the Offer Consideration or any terms, aspects or implications of any shareholders', non-competition, non-solicitation, non-hire or non-disruption or other agreement, arrangement or understanding to be entered into in connection with or contemplated by the Offer or otherwise. SEB Corporate Finance's assignment does not include expressing an opinion on the underlying business decision of Swedish Match to effect the Offer, the relative merits of the Offer as compared to any alternative business strategies that might exist for Swedish Match, including whether any other transaction would potentially be more favorable for the holders of Shares, or the effect of any other transaction in which Swedish Match might engage. Furthermore, SEB Corporate Finance has not been asked by the Board to, and it did not, participate in the negotiation or structuring of the Offer or explore the possibility of any offer from another party as regards Swedish Match or any part thereof. SEB Corporate Finance also expresses no view as to, and this opinion does not address, the fairness (financial or otherwise) of the amount or nature or any other aspect of any compensation to any officers, directors or employees of any parties to the Offer, or any class of such persons, relative to the Offer Consideration or otherwise.
SEB Corporate Finance's opinion is based upon current market, economic, financial and other conditions as in effect on, and upon the information made available as of, the date hereof. Any change in such conditions or information may require a revaluation of this opinion. Although subsequent developments may affect this opinion, SEB Corporate Finance has no obligation to update, revise or reaffirm this opinion. This opinion does not include any assessment as to the prices at which Shares or any other securities will trade or otherwise be transferable at any time, including following announcement or consummation of the Offer.
Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB ("SEB") is a leading bank in the Nordic market and offers Swedish Match and other clients various financial services, including providing and arranging loans. Furthermore, SEB has operations within securities trading and brokerage, equity research and corporate finance. In the ordinary course of business within securities trading and brokerage, SEB or any of its affiliates may, at any point in time, hold long or short positions in, and may for its own or its clients' accounts trade in, Shares and other securities issued by Swedish Match.
As a result of its position in the Nordic market, other parts of SEB, apart from SEB Corporate Finance, are at any point in time, engaged in business with Swedish Match, and SEB Corporate Finance has provided, and may at any point in time provide, financial advice to Swedish Match regarding other transactions. As the Board is aware, SEB, including SEB Corporate Finance, and its affiliates in the past have provided, currently are providing and in the future may provide investment banking, commercial banking and other financial services to Swedish Match and its affiliates unrelated to the proposed Offer, for which services SEB and its affiliates have received and expect to receive compensation, including, during the past two years, participating in a credit facility of Swedish Match. Although SEB and its affiliates have not provided investment banking, commercial banking and other similar financial services to PMI during the past two years for which SEB or its affiliates received or expect to receive compensation, SEB and its affiliates may provide such services to PMI and its affiliates in the future, for which services SEB and its affiliates would expect to receive compensation.
SEB Corporate Finance will receive a fixed fee for this opinion, irrespective of the outcome of the Offer. In addition, Swedish Match has agreed to reimburse SEB Corporate Finance's expenses and to indemnify SEB Corporate Finance against certain liabilities arising out of its engagement.
SEB Corporate Finance's advisory services and this opinion are provided for the information of and assistance to the Board in connection with its consideration of the Offer and does not constitute a recommendation as to whether the holders of Shares should accept the Offer or how any such holder of Shares should act on any matters relating to the proposed Offer or otherwise.
Based upon the foregoing and such other matters that SEB Corporate Finance deems relevant, it is SEB Corporate Finance's opinion that, as of the date hereof, the Offer Consideration to be paid to those holders of Shares that tender their Shares pursuant to the terms of the Offer is fair, from a financial point of view, to such holders.
This opinion shall be governed by and construed in accordance with substantive Swedish law and any dispute, controversy or claim relating to this opinion shall be exclusively settled by Swedish courts.
Stockholm, May 10, 2022
SEB Corporate Finance, Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB (publ)
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The company is highlighted for winning employee engagement and creating a great culture for its workplace.
VIENNA, Va. , May 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- GenNext Media, dba Surefire Local (www.surefirelocal.com), the leading all-in-one marketing intelligence platform for local businesses to attract customers and grow profits efficiently, announced today the company has been recognized as one of the nation's best workplaces by Inc. Magazine.
Inc. Magazine's annual list of Best Workplaces 2022 recognizes the leading companies winning employee engagement and creating a great culture for their workplace. Thousands of best-in-class companies competed to make the Best Workplaces list, agreeing to employee surveys that determined which participants had the most satisfied teams, including employees' stance on management effectiveness to employee perks, and wellbeing. The companies named to Inc.'s prestigious Best Workplaces list are those who excel at finding and keeping the best people.
"Our mission from day one has always been to provide our customers with world-class software that they love and rely on every day. That mission can only be achieved if you have the absolute best people working to deliver on that promise each and every day," said Chris Marentis, Founder and CEO of Surefire Local. "I am immensely proud of our entire company and the culture we have built at Surefire Local."
There are many testaments as to why Surefire Local earned the recognition of being one of the nation's best workplaces. First and foremost, is the company's adoption of a dynamic work-from-anywhere culture that empowers employees to work their best way. The company's leadership team encourages a transparent and collaborative work environment that inspires employees to think without borders and to push new initiatives they believe will better the company. And most importantly, from an employee well-being perspective, the company provides employees with a suite of no-cost insurance benefits, unlimited paid time off, and monthly virtual and in-person events to bring everyone together to celebrate collective accomplishments.
About Surefire Local
Surefire Local provides the industry's most complete all-in-one marketing intelligence platform designed to help small and medium-sized businesses make online marketing easier so they can grow profitably. Through its flagship product, Surefire Local Marketing Platform™, locally-focused businesses of all sizes can remove digital roadblocks hindering growth, gain insights, and take action to attract and engage new and current customers through measurable, multi-channel marketing.
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SOURCE Surefire Local | https://www.whsv.com/prnewswire/2022/05/11/surefire-local-named-inc-magazines-annual-list-best-workplaces-2022/ | 2022-05-11T10:07:55Z |
STOCKHOLM, May 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ --
Highlights for the first quarter
- Sales and operating profit from product segments increased on the back of continued strong momentum for the US smokefree business.
- Group sales increased by 10 percent to 4,892 MSEK (4,455). In local currencies, sales increased by 2 percent for the first quarter.
- Operating profit from product segments increased by 1 percent to 2,115 MSEK (2,092). In local currencies, operating profit from product segments1) decreased by 7 percent for the first quarter.
- Within the Smokefree segment, ZYN nicotine pouches in the US continued to gain market shares on a sequential basis and demonstrated solid sales and profit growth. In Scandinavia, sales grew strongly on an underlying basis, while operating profit declined reflecting higher market investments and an unusually high result in the prior year period.
- For the Cigars product segment, sales and operating profit declined on lower volumes and higher production costs when comparing to the exceptionally strong first quarter of the prior year. Swedish Match increased its cigar market share2) sequentially relative to the fourth quarter of 2021.
- For the Lights product segment, impressive performance for matches drove robust top-line development. Solid operating profit despite steep price increases on input materials.
- Group operating profit amounted to 2,024 MSEK (2,354). The prior year period included a settlement income of 300 MSEK.
- Profit after tax amounted to 1,493 MSEK (1,780).
- Adjusted earnings per share3) increased to 0.98 SEK (0.97). Earnings per share for the quarter decreased by 13 percent to 0.98 SEK (1.12) with the after-tax effect of the settlement income in the prior year period amounting to 0.15 SEK per share.
1) Excludes Other operations and larger one-time items.
2) Based on MSA distributor shipments: Mass market cigars (excluding little cigars) in volume terms.
3) Excludes larger one-time items net of tax.
For the full report: www.swedishmatch.com/Investors/Financial-reports/Interim-reports/
Swedish Match telephone conference
A telephone conference will be held today, Wednesday, May 11 at 2:00 p.m. (CET), (1:00 p.m. UK time). At this time we will review and comment on the results. Participants will include Lars Dahlgren, Anders Larsson, and Emmett Harrison.
Listen to the telephone conference: www.swedishmatch.com/Investors/Presentations/Webcasts-and-audiocasts/
Telephone conference presentation: www.swedishmatch.com/Investors/Presentations/
Contacts:
Lars Dahlgren, President and Chief Executive Officer
Phone +46 8 658 0441
Anders Larsson, Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President Group Finance
Phone +46 10 139 3006
Emmett Harrison, Senior Vice President Investor Relations
Phone +46 70 938 0173
Johan Levén, Investor Relations and Business Analysis Manager
Phone +46 70 207 2116
This information is information that Swedish Match AB (publ) is obliged to make public pursuant to the EU Market Abuse Regulation and the Securities Markets Act. The information was submitted for publication, through the agency of the contact persons set out above, at 08.15 a.m. CET on May 11, 2022.
This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com
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SOURCE Swedish Match | https://www.whsv.com/prnewswire/2022/05/11/swedish-match-interim-report-january-march-2022/ | 2022-05-11T10:08:01Z |
SHENZHEN, China, May 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Tencent Music Entertainment Group ("TME," or the "Company") (NYSE: TME), the leading online music and audio entertainment platform in China, released a year-end report for the China digital music industry in 2021. Developed by the TME Research Institute, the report describes the Chinese music landscape in 2021 and highlights key developments using TME's industry-leading insights and data analysis capabilities.
Download Link: https://yobang.tencentmusic.com/pdf/DigitalMusic2021.pdf
The report is composed of three sections that provide a complete overview of the music industry from different perspectives. The first section describes a new evaluation methodology that uses five parameters to analyze the music industry: industry productivity; new content consumption; leading artists and songs variability; ecosystem diversity; and content crossover capacity. The second section discusses four industry trends in 2021, while the third section supplies a review of the year's top songs and artists.
A vital industry with booming scale and increasing variability
Productivity, which is a core evaluation index, reflects the industry's vitality. In 2021, China's music productivity set a new record in terms of scale and speed. According to the report, the number of new songs in 2021 reached over 1.14 million, representing year-over-year growth of 53.1%. Moreover, newly-launched music attracted more user attention, with listening growth of 9.3% and listening share expansion to 24.3%. The number of new musicians rose 41.2%, indicating a trend that indie musicians can increasingly create and distribute original music works of their own. More than 100 musicians achieved at least 500 million annual streams, reflecting the increasing variability of the industry, which brought vast opportunities to more musicians and contributed to the long-term vitality of the industry's development.
In addition, genre diversity was greatly enhanced in 2021. In terms of rap, R&B, electronic music, rock, and folk music, the number of songs that received more than one million streams increased by 4.5%, with prominent growth in the rap and electronic genres. Chinese traditional cultural music and global pop music also enjoyed a recognizable increase in popularity, with the listening volume of the former rising 26.2% compared to that of 2020.
Crossover with other content forms also led to improvements in the music industry's vitality. Apart from movies and comics, music crossover penetrated into business marketing, recording 206 commercial songs with brand cooperation agreements by TME in 2021, with average annual listening volume of over 6.82 million.
Improving music quality, and providing superior user experiences
The report provided observations and analysis of widely-discussed topics in the industry, and shed light on the future outlook, serving as an insightful reference for music professionals. The report pointed out that the development of the Internet has lowered the requirements to enter the industry, as musicians have more opportunities to create and distribute music. With this change, music platforms need to integrate resources and data to support music creation and musician cultivation. As of July 2021, the number of musicians who had earned an average monthly income of more than RMB10,000 on the Tencent Musician Platform increased eight times compared to the same period in 2020.
Facing unprecedented growth in music creation, the industry started to consider how to build up a high-quality music ecosystem. The report indicated that music labels should shift their focus from quantity to quality in music creation, while music platforms should introduce advanced technologies for content distribution and user recommendation. Through such efforts to seek strategies that benefit the ecosystem, the industry will achieve healthy and sustainable development.
With this attitude of embracing more cutting-edge concepts, the music industry also tapped into the use of non-fungible tokens (NFT) in 2021. TME pioneered NFT initiatives by introducing NFT vinyl records, 3D digital collectible figures and others, providing new ways for interaction between musicians and fans.
TME is dedicated to providing leading insights and advisory to China's music industry. By driving innovations in products and services, TME will continue to empower musicians, enrich user experience and fulfill social responsibilities. TME is committed to using technology to elevate the role of music in people's lives, to promoting the healthy development of China's music industry, and to optimizing the music ecosystem.
About Tencent Music Entertainment Group
Tencent Music Entertainment Group (NYSE: TME) is the leading online music and audio entertainment platform in China, operating the country's highly popular and innovative music apps: QQ Music, Kugou Music, Kuwo Music and WeSing. TME's mission is to use technology to elevate the role of music in people's lives by enabling them to create, enjoy, share and interact with music. TME's platform comprises online music, online audio, online karaoke, music-centric live streaming and online concert services, enabling music fans to discover, listen, sing, watch, perform and socialize around music. For more information, please visit ir.tencentmusic.com.
Media Contact
TME.PR@icrinc.com
+1 (646) 992-2986
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SOURCE Tencent Music Entertainment Group | https://www.whsv.com/prnewswire/2022/05/11/tencent-music-entertainment-group-releases-year-end-report-china-digital-music-industry-2021/ | 2022-05-11T10:08:08Z |
SHANGHAI, May 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The9 Limited (Nasdaq: NCTY) ("The9"), an established Internet company, today announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary NBTC Limited and Kyrgyzstan enterprise SolarCoin LLC (hereinafter referred to as "SolarCoin") have signed a Purchase Agreement (the "Agreement") regarding a block chain computing center in Kyrgyzstan, pursuant to which The9 will obtain 31.5MW electricity capacity for the deployment of its 7,500 Antminer S19J Bitcoin mining machines contributing approximately 675PH/s hash power. The parties are looking forward to complete the construction work and have the computing center powered on around the end of July 2022. The expected electricity cost of the computing center is US$0.05/kWh.
According to the Agreement, The9 will acquire the ownership of transformers with a capacity of 31.5 MW along with the supporting low voltage equipment, plant and its internal supporting facilities (high voltage excluded), network equipment as well as the right to use the high voltage equipment and land in perpetuity.
About The9 Limited
The9 Limited (The9) is an Internet company based in China listed on Nasdaq in 2004. The9 aims to become a diversified high-tech Internet company, and is engaged in blockchain business including the operation of cryptocurrency mining and Metaverse celebrity social platform NFTSTAR.
Safe Harbor Statement
This announcement contains forward-looking statements. These statements are made under the "safe harbor" provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as "will," "expects," "anticipates," "future," "intends," "plans," "believes," "estimates" and similar statements. Such statements are based upon management's current expectations and current market and operating conditions and relate to events that involve known or unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, all of which are difficult to predict and many of which are beyond The9's control. The9 may also make written or oral forward-looking statements in its periodic reports to the SEC, in its annual report to shareholders, in press releases and other written materials and in oral statements made by its officers, directors or employees to third parties. Statements that are not historical facts, including statements about The9's beliefs and expectations, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement, including but not limited to the following: The9's goal and strategies; The9's expansion plans; The9's future business development, financial condition and results of operations; The9's expectations regarding demand for, and market acceptance of, its products and services; The9's expectations regarding keeping and strengthening its relationships with business partners it collaborates with; general economic and business conditions; and assumptions underlying or related to any of the foregoing. Further information regarding these and other risks is included in The9's filings with the SEC. All information provided in this press release and in the attachments is as of the date of this press release, and The9 does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statement, except as required under applicable law.
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SOURCE The9 Limited | https://www.whsv.com/prnewswire/2022/05/11/the9-limited-solarcoin-kyrgyzstan-cryptomining-company-signed-contract-purchase-computing-center/ | 2022-05-11T10:08:14Z |
The casual fashion and lifestyle brand has tapped NewStore to replace its existing native app experience
BOSTON and HAMBURG, Germany, May 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- NewStore, a modular, mobile-first omnichannel cloud platform for retail brands worldwide, today announced Tom Tailor has launched a NewStore Consumer App. The casual fashion and lifestyle brand now offers a premium mobile shopping experience designed to increase customer engagement and drive sales. Tom Tailor customers in Germany can now download the app on both iOS and Android, and the brand will roll it out to additional markets soon.
Founded in Hamburg, Germany in 1962, Tom Tailor is rooted in an effortlessly casual style, which serves as the inspiration for its family of product lines. The brand offers a range of clothing and accessories for men, women, and children, as well as a home collection that features linen, bath, textile, and pillow products. Tom Tailor's entire catalog is available on the app, which gives customers a magazine-like shopping experience via its beautiful, interactive, and intuitive UX.
"Mobile sales are a key business driver for Tom Tailor, but to truly capitalize on this channel we had to upgrade our consumer app," said Hendrik Reuter, Director of eCommerce and Consumer Engagement, Tom Tailor. "We chose NewStore because its solution is simply better than anything we've seen. Our new app puts the experience of a flagship store in our customers' hands."
Through NewStore Studio, the app content management system, Tom Tailor has all the tools it needs to maintain a modern and engaging app. The brand will also benefit from the fact that NewStore Consumer Apps have been proven to increase engagement by 2.5x and drive conversion rates 7x higher than a traditional website. Additionally, because NewStore seamlessly integrates with Scayle, Tom Tailor's ecommerce platform, it is easier than ever to keep the app up-to-date and provide accurate, real-time product and inventory information.
"Consumers are more mobile-minded than ever, so brands like Tom Tailor have to think beyond traditional ecommerce and brick-and-mortar," said Stephan Schambach, Founder and CEO, NewStore. "By building a native app that complements Tom Tailor's digital and physical channels, NewStore has given the brand a powerful new way to interact with its most loyal customers."
With NewStore, Tom Tailor has access to a full-featured mobile commerce platform that includes dynamic product lookbooks, enhanced product discovery, and simple category and product navigation. The solution also features built-in cart rules, filter attributes, dynamic stock levels, push notification capabilities, and much more.
To learn more about the NewStore Consumer Apps, and to request a demo, visit: https://www.newstore.com/mobile-retail-experience/
About Tom Tailor
Tom Tailor is an internationally active, vertically oriented fashion company that focuses on so called casual wear and offers it in the medium price segment. An extensive range of fashion accessories expands the product portfolio. The company thus covers the various core segments of the fashion market. The TOM TAILOR brand is sold through the retail and wholesale segments, i.e. both through the company's own mono-label stores and through retail partners. As of May 11, 2022, these include 421 TOM TAILOR stores, 166 franchise stores, 11,150 shop-in-store partners & trading partner multilabel. In addition, the collections are sold via the company's own online shop and via major ecommerce platforms. The TOM TAILOR brand is thus present in over 35 countries.
Information is also available at Home - TOM TAILOR (tom-tailor.com).
About NewStore
NewStore provides Omnichannel-as-a-Service for retail brands worldwide that want to accelerate their digital transformation. Built for speed and flexibility, NewStore allows brands to easily deliver amazing shopping experiences that store associates and consumers love. Its mobile-first, modular cloud platform includes POS, order management, clienteling, inventory, and native consumer apps. NewStore customers such as Burton, Faherty Brand, G-Star RAW, Marine Layer, Scotch & Soda, UNTUCKit, and Vince benefit from the most complete, global omnichannel retail solution available. The company is backed by General Catalyst, Activant Capital, and Salesforce Ventures. Learn more at www.newstore.com.
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SOURCE NewStore, Inc. | https://www.whsv.com/prnewswire/2022/05/11/tom-tailor-launches-newstore-consumer-app-drive-digital-growth/ | 2022-05-11T10:08:20Z |
Foreclosure Starts Remain Unchanged from Last Month; While Completed Foreclosures Decrease 36 Percent from Last Month
IRVINE, Calif., May 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- ATTOM, a leading curator of real estate data nationwide for land and property data, today released its April 2022 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report, which shows there were a total of 30,674 U.S. properties with foreclosure filings — default notices, scheduled auctions or bank repossessions — down 8 percent from a month ago but up 160 percent from a year ago.
Illinois, New Jersey and Ohio had the highest foreclosure rates
Nationwide one in every 4,580 housing units had a foreclosure filing in April 2022. States with the highest foreclosure rates were Illinois (one in every 2,241 housing units with a foreclosure filing); New Jersey (one in every 2,292 housing units); Ohio (one in every 2,585 housing units); Indiana (one in every 2,660 housing units); and Nevada (one in every 3,043 housing units).
Among the 223 metropolitan statistical areas with a population of at least 200,000, those with the highest foreclosure rates in April 2022 were Greeley, CO (one in every 1,237 housing units with a foreclosure filing); Cleveland, OH (one in every 1,326 housing units); Elkhart, IN (one in every 1,531 housing units); Fayetteville, NC (one in every 1,639 housing units); and Chicago, IL (one in every 1,851 housing units).
Those metropolitan areas with a population greater than 1 million, with the worst foreclosure rates in April 2022, aside from Cleveland, OH and Chicago, IL were: Philadelphia, PA (one in every 2,196 housing units); Indianapolis, IN (one in every 2,268 housing units); and Riverside, CA (one in every 2,366 housing units).
Foreclosure starts remain unchanged from last month
Lenders started the foreclosure process on 22,286 U.S. properties in April 2022, just down slightly from 22,360 last month but up 251 percent from a year ago.
Counter to the national trend, states that had at least 100 foreclosure starts in April 2022 and saw the greatest monthly increases in foreclosure starts included: Massachusetts (up 133 percent); Colorado (up 95 percent); Minnesota (up 59 percent); Indiana (up 39 percent); and Washington (up 24 percent).
In looking more granular, those counties that had the greatest number of foreclosure starts in April 2022 included: Cook County, IL (759 foreclosure starts); Los Angeles County, CA (652 foreclosure starts); Harris County, TX (429 foreclosure starts); Maricopa County, AZ ( 331 foreclosure starts); and Philadelphia, PA (277 foreclosure starts).
"The extreme difference between foreclosure starts and foreclosure completions in April might be the beginning of a trend," said Rick Sharga, executive Vice President of market intelligence for ATTOM. "Record levels of homeowner equity should provide financially distressed homeowners the opportunity to sell their homes prior to a foreclosure auction, meaning we should continue to see fewer foreclosure completions. While it may take several months to determine if this is actually what's happening, it seems like a real possibility in today's low supply/high demand housing market."
Foreclosure completion numbers decrease 36 percent from last month
Lenders repossessed 2,830 U.S. properties through completed foreclosures (REOs) in April 2022, down 36 percent from last month but up 82 percent from last year.
Those states that had the greatest number of REOs in April 2022, included: Illinois (417 REOs); Pennsylvania (266 REOs); Michigan (187 REOs); Ohio (150 REOs); and California (148 REOs).
Those major metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) with a population greater than 1 million that saw the greatest number of REOs in April 2022 included: Chicago, IL (347 REOs); Philadelphia, PA (149 REOs); New York, NY (128 REOs); Detroit, MI (64 REOs); and St. Louis, MO (53 REOs).
Report methodology
The ATTOM U.S. Foreclosure Market Report provides a count of the total number of properties with at least one foreclosure filing entered into the ATTOM Data Warehouse during the month and quarter. Some foreclosure filings entered into the database during the quarter may have been recorded in the previous quarter. Data is collected from more than 3,000 counties nationwide, and those counties account for more than 99 percent of the U.S. population. ATTOM's report incorporates documents filed in all three phases of foreclosure: Default — Notice of Default (NOD) and Lis Pendens (LIS); Auction — Notice of Trustee Sale and Notice of Foreclosure Sale (NTS and NFS); and Real Estate Owned, or REO properties (that have been foreclosed on and repurchased by a bank). For the annual, midyear and quarterly reports, if more than one type of foreclosure document is received for a property during the timeframe, only the most recent filing is counted in the report. The annual, midyear, quarterly and monthly reports all check if the same type of document was filed against a property previously. If so, and if that previous filing occurred within the estimated foreclosure timeframe for the state where the property is located, the report does not count the property in the current year, quarter or month.
About ATTOM
ATTOM provides premium property data to power products that improve transparency, innovation, efficiency and disruption in a data-driven economy. ATTOM multi-sources property tax, deed, mortgage, foreclosure, environmental risk, natural hazard, and neighborhood data for more than 155 million U.S. residential and commercial properties covering 99 percent of the nation's population. A rigorous data management process involving more than 20 steps validates, standardizes, and enhances the real estate data collected by ATTOM, assigning each property record with a persistent, unique ID — the ATTOM ID. The 20TB ATTOM Data Warehouse fuels innovation in many industries including mortgage, real estate, insurance, marketing, government and more through flexible data delivery solutions that include bulk file licenses, property data APIs, real estate market trends, property reports and more. Also, introducing our newest innovative solution, that offers immediate access and streamlines data management – ATTOM Cloud.
Media Contact:
Christine Stricker
949.748.8428
christine.stricker@attomdata.com
Data and Report Licensing:
949.502.8313
datareports@attomdata.com
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SOURCE ATTOM | https://www.whsv.com/prnewswire/2022/05/11/us-foreclosure-activity-april-2022-declines-slightly/ | 2022-05-11T10:08:27Z |
ARLINGTON, Va., May 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Venture Global LNG and PETRONAS LNG Ltd. ("PLL"), a subsidiary of the Malaysian state-owned oil and gas company, PETRONAS, announced the execution of a new 20-year Sales and Purchase Agreement (SPA) for the purchase of 1 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Venture Global's Plaquemines LNG facility. With this agreement, Venture Global has now announced 20-year sales for 16 MTPA of the 20 MPTA nameplate capacity at Plaquemines LNG.
"Venture Global is proud to begin a new, long-term supply partnership with PETRONAS, a world renowned and experienced leader in global LNG engineering and operations," said Venture Global CEO Mike Sabel. "This contract represents a significant expansion of our existing customer base in Asia and we particularly look forward to PETRONAS bringing our competitive, lower carbon energy into Southeast Asia, a region with rapidly growing gas demand."
PETRONAS Vice President of LNG Marketing & Trading, Shamsairi Ibrahim said, "PETRONAS looks forward to the long-term LNG partnership with Venture Global which will support the growth and accessibility of natural gas. With the growing demand for energy security, the addition of the new volume certainly enhances PETRONAS' global supply portfolio and demonstrates our support of the energy transition towards a lower carbon future."
About Venture Global LNG
Venture Global is a long-term, low-cost provider of U.S. LNG sourced from resource rich North American natural gas basins. Venture Global's first facility, Calcasieu Pass, commenced producing LNG in January 2022. The company is also constructing or developing an additional 60 MTPA of production capacity in Louisiana to provide clean, affordable energy to the world. The company is developing Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) projects at each of its LNG facilities.
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SOURCE Venture Global LNG | https://www.whsv.com/prnewswire/2022/05/11/venture-global-petronas-announce-sales-purchase-agreement/ | 2022-05-11T10:08:34Z |
Wpromote named one of Inc.'s best workplaces in the Extra Large Business category.
EL SEGUNDO, Calif., May 10, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Wpromote earned a place on Inc. magazine's annual Best Workplaces list for the fourth time, following up 2022 wins as a Best Place to Work in both Ad Age and Glassdoor. The Inc. list features the highest-scoring American companies across multiple industries, identifying businesses that are creating exceptional workplaces and company culture.
Wpromote's focus on upending standard practices in the agency world that deprioritized employee well-being has resulted in significant talent acquisition gains for the business, which has expanded to 750+ employees in the past year. That has corresponded with substantial business growth overall; Wpromote was also recently named Adweek's Fastest Growing Digital Agency and Campaign's Digital Innovation Agency of the Year.
After collecting data from thousands of submissions, Inc. selected 475 honorees this year. Each company that was nominated took part in an employee survey, conducted by Quantum Workplace, which included topics such as management effectiveness, perks, fostering employee growth, and overall company culture. The organization's benefits were also audited to determine overall score and ranking.
Mike Mothner, CEO and Founder of Wpromote, points out that "every agency is asking the age-old question: what can we do to make our clients successful? Where we differentiate ourselves from the competition is the answer: by making sure our people are fully supported, positioned to keep growing, and excited to take risks. That's how we build tech solutions, decide on new services, and build our workplace. What's best for our people is best for our partners."
"Not long ago, the term 'best workplace' would have conjured up images of open-office designs with stocked snack fridges," says Inc. editor-in-chief Scott Omelianuk. "Yet given the widespread adoption of remote work, the concept of the workplace has shifted. This year, Inc. has recognized the organizations dedicated to redefining and enriching the workplace in the face of the pandemic."
About Wpromote
Wpromote is a digital marketing agency that helps our clients Think Like A Challenger: from enterprise brands to fast-growing digital disruptors, we believe that the right marketing strategy can help every business connect with customers. We combine best-in-class expertise and proprietary technology to drive profitable growth for leading brands like Whirlpool, TransUnion, Zenni, Adobe, and Frontier Airlines. For additional information, visit http://www.wpromote.com.
Contact: Jessica Brunner, jessica.brunner@wpromote.com, (310)321-4434
About Inc. Media
The world's most trusted business-media brand, Inc. offers entrepreneurs the knowledge, tools, connections, and community to build great companies. Its award-winning multiplatform content reaches more than 50 million people each month across a variety of channels. Its prestigious Inc. 5000 list, produced every year since 1982, analyzes company data to recognize the fastest-growing privately held businesses in the United States. For more information, visit www.inc.com.
About Quantum Workplace
Quantum Workplace, based in Omaha, Nebraska, is an HR technology company that serves organizations through employee-engagement surveys, action-planning tools, exit surveys, peer-to-peer recognition, performance evaluations, goal tracking, and leadership assessment. For more information, visit QuantumWorkplace.com.
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SOURCE Wpromote | https://www.whsv.com/prnewswire/2022/05/11/wpromote-continues-2022-workplace-awards-run-adds-win-inc-magazine-best-places-work-2022/ | 2022-05-11T10:08:41Z |
XIAMEN, China, May 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- A news report from China Daily:
As a city that hosted the ninth BRICS summit in 2017, Xiamen in Fujian province launched a serial event on April 28, aiming to showcase the special commodities and humanities of BRCIS countries – China, Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa, as well as the huge opportunities and opening-up of the large Chinese market.
The serial event is seen as an important supporting event for the BRICS China Year in the field of economy and trade, which is designated to give full play to the advantages of both online and offline platforms to boost consumption.
The online platform, which relies on the online CIFIT (China International Fair for Investment and Trade), displays BRICS countries' products and latest information, and is connected to major e-commerce platforms for the sales of BRICS products.
The Xiamen cross-border e-commerce industrial park created an 800-square-meter service center for products from the BRICS countries on the offline platform. Over 700 products from BRCIS countries have been collected so far by the center.
In addition, by the end of May, the service center plans to host a livestreaming sales event with featured products, cultural customs, economic and trade exchanges, and product circulation with China and the other four BRICS countries.
The event is also seen as a favorable opportunity for representative Xiamen enterprises to engage in import and export trade with BRICS countries.
Xiamen ITG Group Corp, for example, signed a cooperation agreement with Klabin SA, a Brazilian company, at the launch ceremony.
In 2021, Xiamen ITG Group Corp's import and export volume with other BRICS countries totaled $3 billion, which deepened China's cooperation with other BRICS countries in fields like commodity circulation, currency circulation and economic information circulation, as well as powered the international and domestic dual circulation.
Seeing this event as a new start, Xiamen will step up efforts to deepen cooperation in economy and trade sector with BRICS countries, and improve the city's internationalization.
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SOURCE China Daily | https://www.whsv.com/prnewswire/2022/05/11/xiamen-launches-brics-event-further-deepen-economic-trade-cooperation/ | 2022-05-11T10:08:47Z |
SHENZHEN, China, May 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- ZTE Corporation (0763.HK / 000063.SZ), a major international provider of telecommunications, enterprise and consumer technology solutions for the mobile internet, today announced that it has launched its Axon 40 Ultra, a masterpiece demonstrating an advanced upgrade in Under-Display Camera (UDC) technology and pioneering the technology of multi-camera computational photography. Equipped with the brand new Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, the ZTE Axon 40 Ultra is "designed for the spectacular", manifesting the ultimate form of a smartphone with excellence in all three aspects of screen, image, and performance.
New-Generation UDC Technology Offers Spectacular Images in Every Glance
As the pioneer of Under-Display Camera technology, ZTE is continuously leading the evolution of the full-screen trend. Based on ZTE's previous world-leading UDC products, the Axon 40 Ultra, as the third-generation commercial product with the upgraded UDC technology, has achieved great innovative breakthroughs. Moreover, with a fully integrated screen, the ZTE Axon 40 Ultra has managed to present the ultimate form of full screen.
For the Axon 40 Ultra, a 400PPI density has been applied to the UDC area of the screen while the whole screen is equipped with a blue diamond arrangement, presenting an even better visual integration effect. Meanwhile, the industry-first independent pixel drive technology is also adapted to ensure that each pixel unit is driven by a separate pixel circuit, enabling an even clearer screen display. The circuit adopts distributed transparent wiring, which eliminates the aggregation of circuits on the edge of the screen of the UDC area, providing an even smoother image. Also, the UDC Pro screen display chip is further upgraded with the integration of the MRC algorithm upgrade, intelligent pixel enhancement, and intelligent display optimization technology to create a more accurate and synchronized display. With the newly upgraded flawless full screen, ZTE Axon 40 Ultra can provide an even more immersive experience and offer spectacular imagery at every glance.
Meanwhile, the front camera image quality has also been greatly improved. The ZTE Axon 40 Ultra is equipped with a 16-megapixel front UDC, which can reach up to a 2.24μm large pixel infusion effect, generating greater light sensitivity for the UDC area. The Selfie Algorithm 3.0 uses in-depth learning AI technology to reduce noise and is capable of real-time calibrations of images under different light environments such as intelligently defogging or using anti-glare, to greatly improve image clarity and transparency. Meanwhile, the Smart Makeup function can even further enhance the image quality of facial shots.
Flagship-level screen configuration creates even more excitement. ZTE Axon 40 Ultra is equipped with a 6.8-inch AMOLED large screen that supports 1116*2480 resolution FHD+, with a peak brightness up to 1500nit, 100% coverage of DCI-P3 wide color gamut, 10bit color depth, and 1.07 billion color extreme display, delivering extreme color effects and clarity. Also, this spectacular large screen fully supports 120Hz intelligent high refresh rate and 360Hz touch sampling rate. Additionally, the 1440Hz high-frequency Pulse-width modulation (PWM)dimming function can effectively reduce the screen flicker in dark scenes, which, in combination with the TUV Rheinland low-blue-light Eyesafe certification, provides ultra protection for eye safety.
Three-Primary-Camera Trinity System Offers Spectacular Shots at Every Angle
While the full screen allows users to "see the spectacle", the primary cameras of the ZTE Axon 40 Ultra have been fully upgraded to a three-primary-camera "trinity" consisting of a 64-megapixel humanity camera, a 64-megapixel ultra-wide-angle primary camera, and a 64-megapixel periscope telephoto primary camera, which is the best triple-camera system in the industry. Fueled by multiple, exclusively powerful computing photography functions, the three-primary-camera system further enables ZTE Axon 40 Ultra to be the flagship smartphone to "capture spectacle".
The 64-megapixel humanity primary camera and ultra-wide-angle primary camera are equipped with two Sony IMX787 sensors, introduced to the industry in the ZTE Axon 40 Ultra. Such a setup can achieve dual full-pixel omnidirectional focusing, enabling focusing to be faster and more accurate. Specifically, the 64-megapixel humanity camera adopts a 35mm equivalent focal length, with a 7P lens and a large aperture of f/1.6, providing a hardware-level optical blur effect. The ultra-wide-angle primary camera adopts a 16mm equivalent focal length with a 4cm AF macro, combining both wide-angle and macro functions, to achieve an ultra-low distortion on the curved surface. The periscope telephoto primary camera adopts a 91mm equivalent focal length with a 5.7x optical zoom function from wide-angle to telephoto. Equipped with Steadicam-level full-system image stabilization, OIS optical image stabilization + EIS image stabilization enables great performance for every photo.
Computed photography is upgraded even further. Unlike other smartphones equipped with three primary cameras of the same pixel, the ZTE Axon 40 Ultra is the only smartphone in the industry that supports 8k ultra-high-definition recording with all of the primary cameras. It is also the only three-primary-camera smartphone in the industry equipped with a snapshot function with all of the primary cameras, making it possible to capture objects in motion through its own Customized Adaptive Shutter Algorithm. Last but not least, the ZTE Axon 40 Ultra is the only three-primary-camera smartphone in the industry that supports preset focusing with all of the primary cameras, allowing users to manually preset the focusing distance before shooting, further reducing the focusing time.
Furthermore, the super night scene video function has been further enhanced. The unique AI videography algorithm can improve the brightness of the picture, enhance the resolution when shooting videos in dark areas, reduce noise, and truly restore color information. Meanwhile, ZTE Axon 40 Ultra is equipped with multiple night sky photography feature modes such as Smart Moon, Star Photography Algorithm, and AI constellation, providing users with superior night photography. Alongside the humanistic image color system, and rich humanistic filters such as Bresson black and white filter, film filter, etc., ZTE Axon 40 Ultra helps users to experience a ton of fun photo shooting with a variety of photography and videography scenarios.
Hardcore Performance and Magnificent Aesthetic Offers A Spectacle for Every Second
Designed for spectacular performance, ZTE Axon 40 Ultra is equipped with the flagship configuration of the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, UFS3.1, and LPDDR5 RAM. On top of this, this flagship device features VC liquid cooling technology for maximized performance, with the total heat dissipation area of the nine-layer heat dissipation structure reaching 36,356 mm2. Asisted by the new dual-channel enhanced VC liquid-cooled vaporizer, the thermal conductivity of the waterfall-type fast heat conduction design can be largely increased by 400%. The heat absorption ability of the Aerospace-grade micro-nano-cavity graphene phase-change vapor chamber has been increased by 140%, and its thermal conductivity is 300 times better than before, fueling ZTE Axon 40 Ultra for its quick heat dissipation and smooth performance.
For an even better gaming experience, ZTE Axon 40 Ultra is also equipped with Snapdragon Sound, DTS audio stereo dual speakers, X-axis linear motor, and 90/120 high frame rate, providing the users with a greatly upgraded audio and operation experience. On top of that, ZTE Axon 40 Ultra fully supports hardware encryption, with an independent safety chip incorporated, in order to better protect system safety.
In terms of outlook, ZTE Axon 40 Ultra features a sleek and aesthetic integrated design, manifesting the spirit of elegance. It is designed with a 71-degree super-curved waterfall surface design, alongside a 3.9mm super-deep bending degree, which makes the device more comfortable to hold. Meanwhile, an industry-first rear-camera frameless glass design is applied on the back of ZTE Axon 40, which perfectly "hides" the metal platform surface. This new flagship provides two options of colors-the Chinese Ink and Dunhuang Orange.
Starting May 13th, the ZTE Axon 40 Ultra will be available for sale in Mainland China.
Media Contacts:
Margaret Ma
ZTE Corporation
Tel: +86 755 26775189
Email: ma.gaili@zte.com.cn
View original content to download multimedia:
SOURCE ZTE Corporation | https://www.whsv.com/prnewswire/2022/05/11/zte-axon-40-ultra-officially-launched-china/ | 2022-05-11T10:08:56Z |
Remodeling your home is a big decision, and good countertops make all the difference. Top Priority provides the materials and installs countertops that can turn a house into a home.
President and Owner, David “Chino” Haynes, has been in the countertop industry for 30+ years. Chino shared that good countertops are like “the cherry on the cake.” We got to take a look inside a kitchen that Chino’s team worked on. The kitchen was beautiful and had brand new countertops that created an open feel.
Top Priority is “one of the only companies in Hawaii that have what’s called a dry shop and wet shop” and they are also “100% digital.” Chino explained, “when the project manager comes out to template your kitchen, to cutting, it gets digitally cut...we can do practically any edging you can imagine.” The edging in this kitchen was seamless and had an undermount sink feature.
Homeowner, Allison Burgess, shared, “they have such state-of-the-art technology with their equipment that they used. Their finishes are just beautiful...it always comes up better than I expected.”
Her house had a major transformation, and now her kitchen looks clean, bright and light. She had a large island installed in the kitchen, as well as seamless quartz wrapped around the hood over the stove. “They did it really beautifully, you can’t see any edges at all. It looks like it's one piece...it looks like it was bought that way.”
Chino emphasized the pride that they take in their work. “Our customers are our top priority, we want to make all our customers happy, and just make sure that the final product is what they dreamt of...we can bring it to reality.”
To see how you can create your dream home, call 808-638-3838 or visit: toppriorityhawaii.com
Interested in featuring your business or organization? Email IslandLife@kitv.com
As Miss Hawaii 2019 & 2020, Nikki was a representative for the Aloha State and was highly involved with the community as she promoted the importance of service. Nikki is the host of KITV's entertainment and culture platform, ISLAND LIFE. | https://www.kitv.com/island-life/business/turn-your-house-into-a-home-with-top-priority/article_828b5d72-cfeb-11ec-b8b3-2314fbd29aed.html | 2022-05-11T11:35:23Z |
Getting lost in a good book is a great pastime, and with so few bookstores left, Village Books & Music at Ward Village is a welcome escape!
Presented by Ward Village and Hawaii State Federal Credit Union, Village Books & Music is a bookstore that fundraises for Friends of the Library Hawaii (FLH) and supports the state’s 51 public libraries. Executive Director for FLH, Nainoa Mau, loves seeing people’s reaction when they come into the bookstore. “I think a lot of people would be surprised at what we offer...we have anything from a 25 cent POG, to a $1000 piece of art...We have CD’s, DVD’s, maps, puzzles, games, postcards, and then of course the books and music, vinyl records and books in about 80 different categories.” Everything in the store is donated from the community, public libraries, or from publishers.
During the pandemic, many of the public libraries were closed, but Nainoa confirmed, “The libraries are definitely open! You can walk into a library, you can borrow books, you can use the computers...”
The libraries and the bookstore are important to the community because, “a lot of young families rely on libraries to get books. Kids go through books at a really quick rate and so having just that resource for children, for early childhood literacy, getting kids to read and reading to kids, really starts their education.” Village Books & Music hopes to provide those resources and to get people reading.
Coming up on June 11- June 19, FLH is bringing back their Annual Book Sale! This will give Hawaii residents an opportunity to browse a wide selection of books and media. “Our books are reasonably priced and were here to promote literacy and our public libraries... it’s all about getting books back into the community.” The Annual Book Sale will also be at Ward, across the street from the Village Books & Music (in the former Pier1 Imports Store).
To find out more about Village Books & Music or the FLH Annual Book Sale, visit: flhhawaii.org
Interested in featuring your business or organization? Email IslandLife@kitv.com
As Miss Hawaii 2019 & 2020, Nikki was a representative for the Aloha State and was highly involved with the community as she promoted the importance of service. Nikki is the host of KITV's entertainment and culture platform, ISLAND LIFE. | https://www.kitv.com/island-life/extra/get-lost-in-a-good-book-at-village-books-and-music/article_dc47932a-cd8a-11ec-9607-6f47b4432ba9.html | 2022-05-11T11:35:29Z |
PALOLO VALLEY-- Micronesian students in Hawaii are confronting a disparity of outcomes. That's according to a new study out of University of Hawaii.
The research spotlights racial profiling and notes that Micronesians, though representing 1 per cent of the overall population, made up a quarter of the arrests for violating the 2020 stay at home order.
Micronesian students face another daunting statistic: that between 2013-2018 only half of Micronesian students who started high school, graduated.
"Micronesians pay state taxes. They deserve to have their children graduate from public high schools in Hawaii," UH Professor Jon Okamura said. He and others involved with the new research are appealing for more resources to fund education and access.
One Kaimuki high school student told KITV he believes in keeping a positive mindset in the face of opposition.
"Sometimes it can be hard especially for us Micronesians when we get treated a certain way if they knew we are from Micronesia. But I feel it's up to that person to change the whole narrative and the perception of them by treating everybody with the same respect," Katchin Betiru told KITV.
Katchin suggests public schools switch up the narrative as well, with more vocational opportunities as a part of public education.
"That's one thing Kaimuki should have. Auto-shop. I want to learn to fix cars. I want to learn as many life skills. So it can help me after high school," Betiru said.
Do you have a story idea? Email news tips to news@kitv.com
Jeremy Lee joined KITV after over a decade & a half in broadcast news from coast to coast on the mainland. Jeremy most recently traveled the country documenting protests & civil unrest. | https://www.kitv.com/news/micronesians-tackle-disparity-of-educational-outcomes/article_e9cd235c-d104-11ec-9131-9bd5cd3d7c5d.html | 2022-05-11T11:35:35Z |
WEDNESDAY
Laramie Tai Chi and tea: Meets at 1:30 p.m. at the north end of the stadium in Laramie Plainsman Park, North 15th and Reynolds. For more information, visit laramietaichiandtea.org.
Ivinson Medical Group women’s health prenatal education: 5:30 p.m., Ivinson Memorial Hospital in the Summit Conference Room. Learn more or register at ivinsonhospital.org/childbirth.
THURSDAY
Caregivers for loved ones with Alzheimer’s/dementia: 3 p.m., meet for coffee, pie, understanding and comradeship at Perkins Restaurant & Bakery, 204 S. 30th St. For more information, call 307-745-6451.
PFLAG Laramie meets: 6:30 p.m., St. Paul’s United Church of Christ, 602 E. Garfield. Guest welcome. For more information, email pflaglaramie@gmail.com.
Second Story Book Group discusses “Come Fly the World” by Julia Cooke: 6:30-8 p.m., via Zoom. Call 786-877-3912 or email taninel@bellsouth.net for information.
Stitching the Past Together creative aging class: 6:30-8 p.m., Albany County Public Library large meeting room. Students will learn memory-based storytelling through beading techniques in this free course. Register at acplwy.org or at the circulation desk.
FRIDAY
Free stress relief clinic: Noon to 1 p.m., Laramie Plains Civic Center Phoenix Ballroom.
UW Planetarium presents “Extrasolar Planets”: 8 p.m., UW Planetarium. Just a couple of decades ago scientists could only speculate if planets existed around the other stars of our galaxy. Today, an abundance of diverse worlds are cataloged each day. Tickets $5; $3 for UW students, staff and first responders; free for children younger than 5. Call 307-766-6506.
SATURDAY
University of Wyoming graduation ceremony: 8:30 a.m., UW Arena-Auditorium, undergraduate ceremony for the colleges of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Engineering and Applied Science and School of Energy Resources.
Free stress relief clinic: 10-11 a.m., Laramie Plains Civic Center Phoenix Ballroom.
University of Wyoming graduation ceremony: 10 a.m., Buchanan Center for the Performing Arts, for the College of Law.
University of Wyoming graduation ceremony: 12:15 p.m., UW Arena-Auditorium, for master’s and doctoral students from colleges of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Business, Education, Engineering and Applied Science, Health Sciences and Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources.
UW Planetarium presents “Out There: Extrasolar Worlds”: 2 p.m., UW Planetarium. For thousands of years, mankind thought that the Earth was the center of the universe. Thanks to our curiosity, imagination and urge to explore, we now know that planets like ours are nothing special in the cosmos. Tickets $5; $3 for UW students, staff and first responders; free for children younger than 5. Call 307-766-6506.
University of Wyoming graduation ceremony: 3:30 p.m., UW Arena-Auditorium, for undergraduate ceremony for colleges of Arts and Sciences, Education, Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources and Office of Academic Affairs.
UW Planetarium presents “Liquid Sky Pop”: 8 p.m., UW Planetarium. Enjoy a custom playlist of music from today’s pop artists. Tickets $5; $3 for UW students, staff and first responders; free for children younger than 5. Call 307-766-6506.
MONDAY
Walk With a Doc: 1:30-2:30 p.m. at the Washington Park west shelter No. 3. Bring walking shoes and a friend. For more information, email questions@ivinsonhospital.org.
TUESDAY
Alcoholics Anonymous meets: Daily at various times in person or on Zoom. For more information, call 307-399-0590 or visit area76aawyoming.org or aa.org.
Survivors of Suicide Support Group: Meets from 5:30-6:45 p.m. at Hospice of Laramie House, 1754 Centennial Drive.
Women for Sobriety meet: 6:30-8:30 p.m. via Zoom. For meeting details, email 1093@womenforsobriety.org.
WEDNESDAY
Prayers & Squares Quilting Group meets: 9 a.m., Room 1 of Hunter Hall at St. Matthews Cathedral.
Free stress relief clinic: 1-2 p.m., Laramie Plains Civic Center Phoenix Ballroom.
UW Planetarium presents “Wyoming Skies”: 8 p.m., UW Planetarium. What’s up in the sky around Wyoming? Tickets $5; $3 for UW students, staff and first responders; free for children younger than 5. Call 307-766-6506.
May 18
Laramie Tai Chi and tea: Meets at 1:30 p.m. at the north end of the stadium in Laramie Plainsman Park, North 15th and Reynolds. For more information, visit laramietaichiandtea.org.
Ivinson Medical Group women’s health prenatal education: 5:30 p.m., Ivinson Memorial Hospital in the Summit Conference Room. Learn more or register at ivinsonhospital.org/childbirth.
May 19
Caregivers for loved ones with Alzheimer’s/dementia: 3 p.m., meet for coffee, pie, understanding and comradeship at Perkins Restaurant & Bakery, 204 S. 30th St. For more information, call 307-745-6451.
Stitching the Past Together creative aging class: 6:30-8 p.m., Albany County Public Library large meeting room. Students will learn memory-based storytelling through beading techniques in this free course. Register at acplwy.org or at the circulation desk.
Relative Theatrics presents “The Nesting Instinct”: 7:30, Buchanan Center for the Performing Arts. Part of the Playwrights Voiced series, this play by Tom Bruett is directed by Sean Coyle. For more information or tickets, visit relativetheatrics.com.
May 20
Albany County CattleWomen meet: 11:30 a.m., location tbd. Visit wyaccw.com in the week before the meeting for location and more information.
Free stress relief clinic: Noon to 1 p.m., Laramie Plains Civic Center Phoenix Ballroom.
Relative Theatrics presents “Twenty-Two”: 7:30, Buchanan Center for the Performing Arts. Part of the Playwrights Voiced series, this play by Erin K. Considine is directed by Isa Jackowich. For more information or tickets, visit relativetheatrics.com.
UW Planetarium presents “Science of Sci-Fi”: 8 p.m., UW Planetarium. Everyone loves a good sci-fi movie, but how much is science and how much is fiction? Tickets $5; $3 for UW students, staff and first responders; free for children younger than 5. Call 307-766-6506.
May 21
Free stress relief clinic: 10-11 a.m., Laramie Plains Civic Center Phoenix Ballroom.
UW Planetarium presents “Hot and Energetic Universe”: 2 p.m., UW Planetarium. The planetarium documentary “The Hot and Energetic Universe” presents with the use of immersive visualizations and real images the achievements of modern astronomy. Tickets $5; $3 for UW students, staff and first responders; free for children younger than 5. Call 307-766-6506.
Relative Theatrics presents “Burst”: 7:30, Buchanan Center for the Performing Arts. Part of the Playwrights Voiced series, this play by Rachel Bublitz is directed by Kim Lockhart. For more information or tickets, visit relativetheatrics.com.
UW Planetarium presents “Liquid Sky Throwbacks”: 8 p.m., UW Planetarium. Stranger Things meets Guardians of the Galaxy — 1980s nostalgia addicts unite! Enjoy a custom playlist of music from yesterday’s top artists. Tickets $5; $3 for UW students, staff and first responders; free for children younger than 5. Call 307-766-6506.
May 23
Alcoholics Anonymous meets: Daily at various times in person or on Zoom. For more information, call 307-399-0590 or visit area76aawyoming.org or aa.org.
Survivors of Suicide Support Group: Meets from 5:30-6:45 p.m. at Hospice of Laramie House, 1754 Centennial Drive.
Women for Sobriety meet: 6:30-8:30 p.m. via Zoom. For meeting details, email 1093@womenforsobriety.org.
America Sewing Guild Laramie Chapter meets: 7 p.m., United Methodist Church, 1215 E. Gibbon St. Please enter through the lower east door off the parking lot.
May 24
Prayers & Squares Quilting Group meets: 9 a.m., Room 1 of Hunter Hall at St. Matthews Cathedral.
Free stress relief clinic: 1-2 p.m., Laramie Plains Civic Center Phoenix Ballroom.
May 25
Laramie Tai Chi and tea: Meets at 1:30 p.m. at the north end of the stadium in Laramie Plainsman Park, North 15th and Reynolds. For more information, visit laramietaichiandtea.org.
May 26
Caregivers for loved ones with Alzheimer’s/dementia: 3 p.m., meet for coffee, pie, understanding and comradeship at Perkins Restaurant & Bakery, 204 S. 30th St. For more information, call 307-745-6451.
Stitching the Past Together creative aging class: 6:30-8 p.m., Albany County Public Library large meeting room. Students will learn memory-based storytelling through beading techniques in this free course. Register at acplwy.org or at the circulation desk.
May 27
Free stress relief clinic: Noon to 1 p.m., Laramie Plains Civic Center Phoenix Ballroom.
May 28
Free stress relief clinic: 10-11 a.m., Laramie Plains Civic Center Phoenix Ballroom.
May 30
Alcoholics Anonymous meets: Daily at various times in person or on Zoom. For more information, call 307-399-0590 or visit area76aawyoming.org or aa.org.
Survivors of Suicide Support Group: Meets from 5:30-6:45 p.m. at Hospice of Laramie House, 1754 Centennial Drive.
Women for Sobriety meet: 6:30-8:30 p.m. via Zoom. For meeting details, email 1093@womenforsobriety.org.
May 31
Prayers & Squares Quilting Group meets: 9 a.m., Room 1 of Hunter Hall at St. Matthews Cathedral.
Free stress relief clinic: 1-2 p.m., Laramie Plains Civic Center Phoenix Ballroom.
June 3
Fried Shrimp Dinner fundraiser: 5:30-7:30 p.m., Laramie Elks Lodge 582, 103 S. 2nd St. Cost is $16 for members and their guests. Seating is limited, so call for a reservation, 307-742-2024.
June 5
Unexpected Company Senior Theatre presents “Three Doors to Death ... or the Choice is Yours”: 3 p.m., Alice Hardie Stevens Event Center. Tickets $12 can be bought at the Eppson Center for Seniors or Laramie Plains Museum Carriage Gift Shop.
Have an event for What’s Happening? Send it to Managing Editor Greg Johnson at gjohnson@laramieboomerang.com. | https://www.wyomingnews.com/laramieboomerang/announcements/whats-happening/article_5172d607-f201-5982-94fa-32b55f11665f.html | 2022-05-11T11:39:56Z |
Boomerang Writer
Laramie City Council will discuss the allocation of more than $242 million for the city’s operating budget over the next two years.
Police and fire services, recreation, planning and administration are some of the areas where money will be dispersed once the budget is approved.
The majority of the budget is earmarked for capital construction, which will include road work and water and sewer infrastructure projects. The total for projects in this area comes to $116 million, which still may not be enough to complete all of the work as planned.
“The city is experiencing supply chain issues coupled with a significant price inflation which is driving up construction costs,” said Chief Operating Officer Malea Brown. “We would like to apply for critical infrastructure funding to supplement these increases on projects.”
One of the projects of concern is the city’s expansion of Bill Nye Avenue in cooperation with the Wyoming Department of Transportation. The city’s portion of the project costs has increased by more than $6.4 million, Brown said.
Overall, sales and use tax collections in the city are down about $1.5 million so far in fiscal year 2022 compared to the $33 million collected the previous year. The city expects to receive more money from the Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds, the American Rescue Plan Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
The budget allocates about $4 million a year for city administration services. There also is a 3% increase in pay for city staff ahead of more market-driven adjustments to address staffing shortages.
The water fund comes to about $48 million in FY 2023 and $20 million in 2024. For the wastewater fund, the totals are $32 million and $10 million, respectively. There also is $9 million set aside for the replacement of outdated city vehicles and emergency equipment.
The proposed plan outlines a total of $1 million annually for the next two fiscal years to pay for various city programs at the request of the departments. The suggested increases include about $1.6 million for general operations, $270,000 for public works operations and $170,000 for civil litigation costs at the City Attorney’s Office.
There also will be about a $118,000 increase for fire services including training and EMS equipment, and $92,000 for police services including new ballistic vests and legal services.
The city had a preliminary meeting about the proposed budget Tuesday and plans to meet again at 6 p.m. tonight and again May 24.
The city also wants public input on the budget throughout the process. Residents can send questions or comments to City Manager Janine Jordan at 307-721-5226 or jjordan@cityoflaramie.org; Brown at 307-721-5223 or mbrown@cityoflaramie.org; or to Administrative Services Director Jennifer Wade at 307-721-5224 or jwade@cityoflaramie.org. | https://www.wyomingnews.com/laramieboomerang/inflation-supply-chain-to-impact-city-projects/article_8e3af3b8-b98f-5188-9a26-26f87401b750.html | 2022-05-11T11:40:00Z |
Boomerang Writer
For Special Olympics athlete Nick Winn, the program is about more than just winning medals. Which should mean a lot, since he’s earned 158 of them.
Winn, who is 29 years old, began competing in the Special Olympics in 2007. Over the years, the Laramie man has competed in nearly every sport the program has to offer, ranging from swimming to snowshoeing to softball.
“I get to see my friends, cheer teammates on, and it just means a lot to me,” Winn said. “Without Special Olympics I probably wouldn’t have all that I (do). It keeps you motivated.”
Special Olympics is a nationwide program that facilitates sports training and competitions for people with intellectual disabilities. In the state of Wyoming, there are roughly 2,000 participants, with about 150 on Team Laramie in children and adult age groups.
Having spent years in the program, Winn has built friendships with athletes from around the state as well as in Laramie.
In addition to area and state competitions, the program offers opening and closing ceremonies and team banquets. The athletes and coaches work together to provide an encouraging, laid back environment with a group that Winn said operates like a family.
“I can’t really single any athlete out, honestly,” said Crystal Gonzales, the coordinator for team Laramie. “They are all really good. If something’s off, they try with their actions and their words to be able to pick you up.”
Winn said that in addition to being able to pursue his love for sports, the environment has been instrumental in allowing him to practice social skills and sportsmanship. Each athlete must sign a code of conduct to compete, which builds accountability and responsibility.
In recent years, the program also has been an exercise in patience for athletes and volunteers who’ve faced dwindling resources in addition to cancellations caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
While the team has still competed in area games, state competitions have been conducted virtually as a safety measure. For many athletes, this means missing out on the social aspect that makes Special Olympics so meaningful.
“(We’re) really trying to get people more motivated to get back out competing, training and practicing,” said Bobby Casey, vice president of programs for Special Olympics Wyoming. “(We’re) trying to get people back to their old ways instead of being stuck inside.”
Despite smaller numbers, Winn said there’s still a great group of athletes competing on the local team, especially in swimming. He just brought home two gold medals and two silvers from a meet in Cheyenne.
Winn has stayed busy throughout the pandemic outside of the program as well. He volunteers at AAA Recycling & Salvage, and in his free time enjoys fishing, camping, watching movies and attending community events.
As the athletes continue to compete through a challenging time, the program is looking for more volunteers to help expand the variety of sports offered, Gonzales said. There are six consistent volunteers in the program, but ideally there would be enough to assign two people to each sport.
The program also needs coaches for powerlifting, swimming and bowling, among others. The greatest challenge is finding people who are willing to undergo the necessary online trainings for the position and stick with it consistently.
“Everything we do depends on volunteers,” Gonzales said. “If we don’t have enough volunteers, we can’t offer certain sports.”
People who volunteer with the program are highly committed to keeping it working, often filling multiple positions at once, she said. In addition to coordinating and fundraising, Gonzales coaches the bowling team.
The group also works with community partners such as the University of Wyoming Police Department and Albany County Sheriff Aaron Applehans to recruit more volunteers.
For athletes and volunteers, the work pays off when the group can get together to compete and simply enjoy one another’s company.
“I just love it,” Winn said. “Not many people like me have this opportunity.” | https://www.wyomingnews.com/laramieboomerang/news/all-he-does-is-winn-laramie-athlete-has-earned-nearly-160-medals-competing-in-special/article_47159dd5-c4d3-5042-8642-a2fe7800b419.html | 2022-05-11T11:40:00Z |
SHERIDAN — The Wyoming Legislature’s Revenue Committee will spend a portion of its interim session considering whether to increase the state’s cigarette tax for the first time since 2003.
During its first meeting of the interim in Lander April 28, the committee voted to create a bill draft to be considered at its next meeting in September. The draft will have a placeholder number, with the actual amount of the tax increase to be determined during the September meeting, legislators said. Ideas shared at the April meeting ranged from increasing the tax by a few cents to doubling it. Currently, the tax sits at 60 cents for a 20-cigarette pack.
The state cigarette tax was first implemented in 1951, when it was $0.001 per cigarette or just two cents for a 20-cigarette pack, according to an April 7 memo from the Legislative Service Office. Since then, it has been raised on several occasions. Most recently, it was raised in 2003 to the current rate.
Wyoming remains behind most other states in its cigarette tax rate and is currently tied with Virginia for 44th lowest cigarette tax, according to a January 2022 report from the Federation of Tax Administrators. Only Georgia, Idaho, Missouri, North Dakota and North and South Carolina have lower cigarette tax rates.
Currently cigarette taxes run the gamut from 17 cents for a 20-cigarette pack in Missouri to $4.35 for a pack in New York, according to the FTA.
While he doesn’t feel the need to approach a New York-level of taxation, Sen. Stephan Pappas, R-Cheyenne, said he felt the time was right for the increase.
“I’m interested in bringing tobacco taxes higher to curb usage of tobacco,” Pappas said. “…I think we ought to think about raising them to a point where it becomes difficult for our youth to purchase them…I, for one, believe we should increase it. I’m to the point where I think we should double it. But again, we can discuss that number at a later date.”
Similarly, Richard Garrett — the Wyoming and South Dakota state government relations director for the American Heart Association — said the time is right to enforce a “meaningful” cigarette tax.
“If you do consider…an amendment to the existing tax, I’d urge you to make it a meaningful one: a tax that will deter young people in particular from adopting… a habit that can impact their health for the rest of their lives,” Garrett said. “Our research shows us a meaningful tax truly does have an impact on reducing tobacco consumption by teenagers, in particular.”
According to a 2020 National Institutes of Health report, every 10% increase in the price of tobacco is expected to decrease tobacco consumption by 4%.
Marguerite Herman, legislative liaison for the League of Women Voters, said a decrease in consumption would lead to a significant increase in public health.
“There’s an argument to be made that…the real payoff is the number of adolescents who do not start to smoke (and form) a lifelong addiction with huge health impacts, and a big impact on the public health costs to the state of Wyoming,” Herman said.
Smoking can cause cancer, heart disease, strokes, lung diseases, diabetes and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Smoking also increases the risk for tuberculosis, certain eye diseases and problems of the immune system, including rheumatoid arthritis.
In addition to the positive health impacts that could come with a tax increase, the change could be financially beneficial for the state as well.
Cigarette tax revenues are currently distributed 85% to the state’s general fund and 15% to local governments, and both would see an increase in funding if the tax was increased, said Josh Anderson with the Legislative Service Office. According to a 2021 report of the Department of Revenue, the cigarette tax resulted in $13.03 million to the general fund and $2.30 million to local governments in 2021 alone.
The proposed increase to the cigarette tax will be discussed again at the revenue committee’s next meeting in Casper on Sept. 14 and 15. | https://www.wyomingnews.com/laramieboomerang/news/committee-mulls-hike-for-cigarette-taxes-for-first-time-since-2003/article_0686943e-98b3-55f0-9eab-cdfe9ddeed7b.html | 2022-05-11T11:40:01Z |
CASPER — Protesters gathered outside the Casper Police Department on Friday, calling for a reduced sentence for a man who pleaded guilty to shooting someone he suspected had sexually abused an underage relative.
Olinza Headd was sentenced in April to 17 to 20 years in prison for the January 2021 shooting, pleading guilty without a plea agreement to a charge of manslaughter.
Some demonstrators held signs with messages including “Heroes deserve parades, not prison,” “Protect kids not criminals” and “Penalties for the pedophiles, not the protector.” Across the street, a woman sat in a car holding a sign to the window that read, “Set Lin free.”
The crowd passed around a plastic jug, collecting cash to go towards Headd’s attorney fees. Headd’s sons asked attendees and passing people to add their names to a petition for lowering his sentence.
Valenta Headd, Olinza’s wife, said she last saw him on Tuesday. Since then, he has been taken out of the Natrona County Detention Center and is presumably on his way to prison. But she doesn’t know where.
“They didn’t give me any information,” she said at Friday’s protest.
Headd’s sentence means he could be in prison for the maximum time allowed for a manslaughter conviction: 20 years.
According to an investigator’s affidavit in the case, Headd shot Eugene Hogan III three times with a 9 mm handgun on Jan. 13, 2021. Hogan, who was never prosecuted, was unarmed and in a bedroom at Headd’s daughter’s apartment, court filings say.
Medics declared Hogan dead at the scene about an hour after the shooting, according to the affidavit.
Four days later, Headd stood up after a Sunday service at his church and “publicly announced he shot and killed a man,” the affidavit states.
Headd spent 81 days in jail in Natrona County on a $150,000 bond after being arrested in February 2021. Jail records show he was booked back in after receiving his sentence in April of this year, waiting to be transported to prison.
He originally faced a second-degree murder charge, which carries a minimum sentence of 20 years and a maximum of life behind bars. The charge was later amended to voluntary manslaughter.
Court records show Head filed to appeal his case a week after sentencing. He is set to represent himself.
Friday’s protest was attended by around 25 people at its peak, most of whom didn’t know Headd personally. They’d seen his story on the news, or on social media, and said they were outraged by the prison sentence.
A few said they would have done the same thing in his position.
“I think they need to give him a trophy,” said Tom Mahrer. “I believe in our judicial system, I really do. But when it comes to harming family members, anger and emotion take over.”
Protesters said they wanted to see harsher sentences for sex crimes, like minor sexual abuse. Several talked about their own experiences with sexual assault, or said they had family members who struggled to heal from assault because they lived in fear of seeing their assailant while they walked free.
Valenta Headd said ideally, she’d like to see her husband’s sentence reduced to only his time served, meaning he could get out of prison immediately with no additional time. He had no prior criminal history, and was not a violent man, she said.
Theresa Gilbert, who knew Headd from Rock of Ages Church, said she was shocked at the sentence. Headd is a good man who supported everyone he knew, she said.
“The justice system failed this man,” said Lexy Ward. “As a community we have an obligation to have a say in that.”
The crowd walked around the block, passing buildings housing county offices, circuit and district courts and the police department’s parking lot. They stood on the corner of Center and First streets, holding up signs and yelling “Free Olinza” and “Justice for Olinza” to drivers in rush hour traffic. Several honked, or gave thumbs up. One passenger leaned out and asked what was going on, and later met the group down the block to sign the petition.
Andre Harper, one of Headd’s sons, said all of the response from the community — both online and in person — has been in support of Headd.
As the protest entered its second hour, Casper police employees began streaming out of the department’s headquarters. A few stopped to talk with protesters, but all declined to sign the petition. Keysha Donner said she understood they’d chosen the location not in protest of the police, but to actually show support for the department.
“I can’t imagine the work that they do, to go and arrest these people, the horrible things that they see,” Donner said. “Just to have it put in court and get a plea bargain or worked down to this or that.”
A GoFundMe page was set up last May to raise money for Headd’s bond and attorney fees, which the organizer said were causing his family “extreme hardships.”
The organizer, Keith James, alleged in the fundraiser’s description that one of Headd’s relatives was “being inappropriately cared for and molested.”
James could not be reached for comment on Friday.
“When nothing was being done about it, matters were dealt with in a more personal fashion,” the description reads.
K2 Radio News reported that Headd said in a hearing that he confronted Hogan about the molestation allegations.
“I did lose control. I hate that I had to be the one to end that man’s life,” he said, according to K2. “But somebody else would have if he kept touching people’s children.” | https://www.wyomingnews.com/laramieboomerang/news/dozens-protest-sentence-in-2021-shooting/article_ed84b138-941e-566c-9aa4-301fdb5dae68.html | 2022-05-11T11:40:02Z |
Powell Tribune
POWELL — Jenny Catone and her kids thought it would be fun to head to Yellowstone National Park’s East Entrance for the season opener. They were so excited about their first adventure in their new-to-them vehicle that they left Powell at 7 p.m. the night before the gates swung open.
“We got here last night about 8:30 and slept in the van,” she said with a happy smile and showing no ill effects from the experience.
They wanted to get to the gate to experience sunset, but chores slowed their departure. Early that morning, Catone saw a dark shadow moving toward the family van parked near Yellowstone’s famous wooden sign.
“I was just kind of looking out and I just saw this black form,” Catone said. “I was like, oh my God, it almost looks like a gorilla.”
Her children, Tommy, Lily and Sophia, thought she was making it up, Catone said.
But the bear was close, as they soon smelled. The bruin was in serious need of a bath, they said, commenting on the large, stinky beast sniffing around outside the doors of the vehicle. The sight ended all outdoor exploration until sunrise.
“Nobody was going to the bathroom,” Catone said, adding, “I slept with bear spray on my lap.”
Their arrival would have allowed the family to be first in line for the season opening during Yellowstone’s 150th anniversary celebration.
Catone wasn’t sure of the rules for parking in front of the gate, so they used the wide pull-out to wait for a sign. That sign was Stacy Boisseau and her crew passing them to take the first spot in front of the locked red-and-white swing arm. It’s the fourth year in a row the family was able to get the coveted spot.
Being first in line is serious business for the family.
Boisseau was coy with their schedule, attempting to protect their travel secrets. But she failed to swear Catone to secrecy, who said Stacy had arrived around 9:30 p.m.
Shortly before 8 a.m. the next morning, the Boisseau and McIntosh family piled out of their two vehicles and proceeded to get group photos.
“It’s a family tradition,” Boisseau, a waitress at the 8th Street at the Ivy restaurant, said while pouring a cup of steaming hot coffee from a thermos in the back of their over-packed SUV.
By the time Jeff Moynihan, the lead recreation fee technician on this end of the park, radioed headquarters that the gate was officially open, the line of trucks and cars waiting for their chance to get into the park snaked around the curve into Shoshone National Forest. He has been living at Yellowstone since shortly before Christmas, forced to snowmobile to work — at times at the North Entrance adjacent to the Roosevelt Arch.
Moynihan is originally from Massachusetts and being a park ranger runs in the family. His parents both worked for the National Park Service’s Cape Cod National Seashore. He got his start at Cape Cod, then moved to Wyoming for his new job in 2021. It wasn’t easy. With snow already blocking the road to his new home at the entrance, he was forced to make several trips carrying his gear by snowmobile, his first experience in over-snow travel.
“I made like five trips back and forth from Cody to the entrance. And then, throughout the winter, it was just a really great experience getting to learn to snowmobile for the first time with the great rangers we had out here with us for the winter season,” Moynihan said.
Through the winter Moynihan experienced quite a few wildlife sightings, including a great gray owl.
He’s excited for the end of the month when the road across Dunraven Pass will finally be reopened. The road is tentatively scheduled to open May 27, pending snow-removal operations, he said.
“I’ll finally get to go to Mount Washburn and hike up there,” he said.
Constant trips across the park were exciting for the new full-time employee.
“We’re ready and we’ve got everything set up to go,” Moynihan said as he prepared for his first customers of the season. “The main thing in the spring, as always, we have Sylvan Pass over here. Conditions are variable every day. If it’s a sunny spring day, a lot of snow starts to melt that loosens up the pack. So there’s avalanche danger.”
He also pointed out the many events scheduled for the park’s 150th anniversary.
“It’s big year, with lots of events going on,” Moynihan said.
Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon was on hand Friday at Old Faithful to help kick off the celebration.
“You can feel the magic of this place and why people said we need to preserve this,” he said for news crews covering the event.
The world-famous site became the first national park in the U.S. on March 1, 1872, when President Ulysses S. Grant signed the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act into law.
Officials, including Park Superintendent Cam Sholly, opened the newest exhibit in the park: The Tribal Heritage Center. The facility is one of several initiatives commemorating the anniversary — part of a larger effort to work with tribes to expand their presence and better represent Indigenous connections to the park during its sesquicentennial celebration.
“Yellowstone’s 150th anniversary is an important moment in time for the world,” Sholly said. “It’s an opportunity for us to reflect on the lessons of the past while focusing our efforts to strengthen Yellowstone and our many partnerships for the future. I applaud and share the vision of Secretary Haaland and Director Sams on our responsibility to more fully engage with tribal nations to honor and learn from their ancestral and modern connections to Yellowstone.”
The park will host and participate in a wide range of activities to commemorate the 150th anniversary, according to a recent press release.
“The park has conducted substantial outreach to Native American Tribes, inviting them to participate directly in this anniversary. Multiple Tribal Nations will be present throughout the summer at Old Faithful as part of the Yellowstone Tribal Heritage Center project,” the release said.
Regional tribes are also coordinating with Yellowstone to install a large tepee village in the park near the Roosevelt Arch in August, where tribal members will interact directly with visitors about their cultures and heritage. The University of Wyoming College of Law and Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources will host a symposium marking the park’s anniversary May 19-20.
The two-day event is open to the public both in person and online and will feature prominent figures from the National Park Service and elsewhere within the Department of the Interior, including numerous Yellowstone-associated Native American Tribes.
They will be joined by a host of academics, scholars, scientists, and other participants. The historic event will explore the goals, successes, and shortcomings of the park over the past 150 years and look to the future to examine key issues it now faces. | https://www.wyomingnews.com/laramieboomerang/news/east-gates-swing-open-for-new-season-at-yellowstone/article_40438dfc-1065-5505-96f4-f1b7535c80ea.html | 2022-05-11T11:40:16Z |
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.” | https://www.wyomingnews.com/laramieboomerang/news/grizzly-399-s-cubs-face-life-or-death-crossroads/article_bab3af35-387b-5d24-9c3e-c00d90f295b4.html | 2022-05-11T11:40:22Z |
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 committee woman 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 with 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.
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 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/laramieboomerang/news/laramie-county-gop-disappointed-by-state-convention/article_bcfdf174-9b3a-5d7e-a998-d1b417dc47f5.html | 2022-05-11T11:40:28Z |
...HIGH WIND WATCH IN EFFECT FROM THURSDAY MORNING THROUGH THURSDAY
AFTERNOON...
* WHAT...West to southwest winds 30 to 40 mph with gusts up to 65
mph possible.
* WHERE...Ferris/Seminoe/Shirley Mountains, Shirley Basin, Central
Carbon County, North Snowy Range Foothills and Laramie Valley.
* WHEN...From Thursday morning through Thursday afternoon.
* IMPACTS...Mainly to transportation. Strong cross winds will be
hazardous to light weight and high profile vehicles, including
campers and tractor trailers.
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...
A High Wind Watch means there is the potential for a hazardous
high wind event. Sustained winds of at least 40 mph, or gusts of
58 mph or stronger may occur. Continue to monitor the latest
forecasts.
&&
University of Wyoming law professor Ken Chestek has announced he’ll run as a Democrat for District 13 in the state House of Representatives.
The seat is held by longtime Rep. Cathy Connolly, D-Laramie, who announced her plans to retire after 14 years in the Legislature, according Chestek’s announcement. The Boomerang was not able to reach Connolly for confirmation and comment by press time.
“There’s nobody who can replace Cathy Connolly, but somebody needs to succeed her,” Chestek said, adding the local Democratic Party needs to keep the seat. “We need a strong Democrat to run.”
Chestek’s campaign slogan is “policy over politics.” He noted that he would use his law background and reach across the political aisle to bring bipartisan, policy-based solutions for residents.
“I really don’t like the political tenor of the last few years, where all the arguments are ad hominem attacks,” Chestek said. “I won’t engage in that discussion, but I do love policy discussion.”
Some of his top priorities are mitigating climate change, protecting public lands, strengthening primary education and protecting reproductive health freedoms.
“We have to plan for the future that exists, not the future that we wish would be,” Chestek said of protecting the environment.
He hopes to help move the state away from depending on fossil fuels while also maintaining the coal industry by encouraging alternate uses of the commodity that don’t release greenhouse gases.
He also talked about the importance of promoting campaign finance rules and restrictions on donations as a method to get dark money out of politics, a project he’s been working on for six years.
“I’m really excited to get out there and meet people and talk and listen,” Chestek said.
The filing period for candidates opens Thursday and runs through May 27, with the primary set for Aug. 16. | https://www.wyomingnews.com/laramieboomerang/news/laramie-dem-to-seek-house-district-13-seat/article_b1de6839-5e11-57b0-a5c8-3b02f62693a3.html | 2022-05-11T11:40:34Z |
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People's Rep'c of Guinea-Bissau, Republic of Guyana, Republic of Heard and McDonald Islands Holy See (Vatican City State) Honduras, Republic of Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region of China Hrvatska (Croatia) Hungary, Hungarian People's Republic Iceland, Republic of India, Republic of Indonesia, Republic of Iran, Islamic Republic of Iraq, Republic of Ireland Israel, State of Italy, Italian Republic Japan Jordan, Hashemite Kingdom of Kazakhstan, Republic of Kenya, Republic of Kiribati, Republic of Korea, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Republic of Kuwait, State of Kyrgyz Republic Lao People's Democratic Republic Latvia Lebanon, Lebanese Republic Lesotho, Kingdom of Liberia, Republic of Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Liechtenstein, Principality of Lithuania Luxembourg, Grand Duchy of Macao, Special Administrative Region of China Macedonia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Madagascar, Republic of Malawi, Republic of Malaysia Maldives, Republic of Mali, Republic of Malta, Republic of Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania, Islamic Republic of Mauritius Mayotte Micronesia, Federated States of Moldova, Republic of Monaco, Principality of Mongolia, Mongolian People's Republic Montserrat Morocco, Kingdom of Mozambique, People's Republic of Myanmar Namibia Nauru, Republic of Nepal, Kingdom of Netherlands Antilles Netherlands, Kingdom of the New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua, Republic of Niger, Republic of the Nigeria, Federal Republic of Niue, Republic of Norfolk Island Northern Mariana Islands Norway, Kingdom of Oman, Sultanate of Pakistan, Islamic Republic of Palau Palestinian Territory, Occupied Panama, Republic of Papua New Guinea Paraguay, Republic of Peru, Republic of Philippines, Republic of the Pitcairn Island Poland, Polish People's Republic Portugal, Portuguese Republic Puerto Rico Qatar, State of Reunion Romania, Socialist Republic of Russian Federation Rwanda, Rwandese Republic Samoa, Independent State of San Marino, Republic of Sao Tome and Principe, Democratic Republic of Saudi Arabia, Kingdom of Senegal, Republic of Serbia and Montenegro Seychelles, Republic of Sierra Leone, Republic of Singapore, Republic of Slovakia (Slovak Republic) Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia, Somali Republic South Africa, Republic of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Spain, Spanish State Sri Lanka, Democratic Socialist Republic of St. Helena St. Kitts and Nevis St. Lucia St. Pierre and Miquelon St. Vincent and the Grenadines Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Suriname, Republic of Svalbard & Jan Mayen Islands Swaziland, Kingdom of Sweden, Kingdom of Switzerland, Swiss Confederation Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan, Province of China Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic of Thailand, Kingdom of Timor-Leste, Democratic Republic of Togo, Togolese Republic Tokelau (Tokelau Islands) Tonga, Kingdom of Trinidad and Tobago, Republic of Tunisia, Republic of Turkey, Republic of Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda, Republic of Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom of Great Britain & N. Ireland Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe | https://www.wyomingnews.com/laramieboomerang/news/local_news/arrest_record_and_police_calls/may-11-on-the-record/article_76f30529-66e3-56c4-ab11-af5250a5c6a1.html | 2022-05-11T11:40:40Z |
BLM wants to hear about wild horses, land management
If you have any concerns about how the Bureau of Land Management plans to deal with land issues involving areas used by wild horses in our state, now is the time to speak up. A protest period ends on June 6.
BLM announced Friday it has prepared a proposed resource management plan amendment and a final environmental impact statement for the Rock Springs and Rawlins field offices. The materials are available online at eplanning.blm.gov/eplanning-ui/project/2009946/510.
These proposed tweaks come, in part, as a response to a 2013 U.S. District Court of Wyoming consent decree in a case called Rock Springs Grazing Association v. Salazar. Ken Salazar had been secretary of the Interior Department, the parent agency of BLM, under President Barack Obama.
The legal settlement stemmed from the Rock Springs Grazing Association's lawsuit against the BLM about "wild horses on private lands within the checkerboard land pattern of ownership (alternating one-mile sections of public and private ownership) issued as part of the land grant for the transcontinental railroad," the agency noted. "This amendment addresses the issues and concerns raised during scoping and will resolve wild horse management conflicts within the planning area while promoting balanced multiple use."
According to BLM, the planning area is some 2.81 million acres. BLM manages approximately 1.9 million acres of "surface estate" there, while much of the rest is private land.
You can contact Kimberlee Foster, the Rock Springs field office manager, at 280 Highway 191 North, Rock Springs, WY 82901. The phone number is 307-352-0256.
Transportation Commission awards $26.6M for projects
The Wyoming Transportation Commission awarded almost $26.6 million for seven Wyoming Department of Transportation construction projects, WYDOT has announced. The actions took place at the commission’s April 21 business meeting, and these projects are mostly funded with federal money, according to the state agency.
Cheyenne-based Knife River got the OK for a $4.6 million bid on a project involving paving, chip seal and other work on 10 miles of U.S. Highway 20/26 in Fremont and Natrona counties. In Fremont County, the commission approved a $821,079 bid with Lander-based High Country Construction for grading, fencing, signage, drainage, paving, erosion control and other work on about three miles of U.S. 287.
Clearance for $824,378 goes to Advanced Electrical Contracting, in Sheridan, for a project involving electrical work, paving, sidewalk work, curb and gutter, drainage, grading, striping and other work on approximately 1/10th of a mile of U.S. 30/287 in Albany County. The same company gets $359,266 in a project in Laramie County involving electrical work, striping and other work at the intersection of Wyoming highways 212 and 219.
Afton-based Avail Valley Construction-WY was awarded a $6.37 million bid for “hot in-place recycling,” paving, bridge rehabilitation, chip seal, grading, signage, guardrail and other work on almost 20 miles in Sweetwater and Uinta counties, including Wyoming highways 150 and 372.
The commission awarded a $10.2 million bid to Cheyenne-based Reiman for a project involving structure work, grading, paving, fencing and other work on almost 1.5 miles of Wyoming 433 in Washakie County.
In what WYDOT noted was the only out-of-state bidder to be awarded a project in April, Intermountain Slurry Seal from California got a $3.3 million bid for a project involving paving, chip seal and other work in Albany, Carbon and Laramie counties. | https://www.wyomingnews.com/laramieboomerang/news/local_news/worth-noting/article_36d6af60-78b3-513c-8105-2c8788a0ae31.html | 2022-05-11T11:40:47Z |
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. | https://www.wyomingnews.com/laramieboomerang/news/prosecutor-seeks-to-drop-new-charges-in-corner-crossing-case/article_c984adaf-f651-58db-8891-4ce71f21d06e.html | 2022-05-11T11:40:53Z |
Jackson Hole Daily
JACKSON — After a few years of backcountry bedlam that included fistfights and horses being swept down the Gros Ventre River, officials and shed hunters alike said the start to the 2022 antler hunt was a success.
Wyoming Game and Fish Department and Bridger-Teton National Forest law enforcement officials did apprehend and charge one group of people with violating winter wildlife closures and hunting sheds before it was legal. But they wouldn’t provide details before the case goes to court.
Raena Parsons, visitor services manager for the National Elk Refuge, said law enforcement officers wrote a handful of tickets, mostly for trespass on the refuge and speeding. Officers also wrote tickets for illegal collections of antlers on the refuge.
Antler collection is not allowed on the National Elk Refuge, save for the Boy Scouts who collected sheds a week before the season opener on the Bridger-Teton National Forest.
The number of elk refuge violations ticked up from 2021 when refuge law enforcement officers wrote seven tickets, but down from 2020’s almost 80.
“I think there’s still confusion about what is permitted where,” Parsons said. “Possession or collection of antlers on the refuge is illegal.”
Confusion may be due to changing policies around hunt organization, like the new method of lining up at Teton County Fairgrounds.
But Parsons, like other officials, said the unified 6 a.m. start time was a success.
“It works a lot better for us,” she said. “There’s not people out there with headlamps in the middle of the night.”
Jayce Giampedraglia, one of a group of hunters who met on a Challis, Idaho, cross-country team, said his fifth year hunting for sheds on the refuge was a welcome change from the chaos and peril he first encountered. Five years ago, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department allowed people to start picking up sheds at midnight.
“There’s these big old gopher holes. They’re huge,” he said of the ground in the national forest. “In the dark you can’t see them.”
The change this year to a unified 6 a.m. start time, both for the start of the shed hunting season and the opening of the refuge road to access the Bridger-Teton National Forest lands just north, was much smoother, Giampedraglia felt.
“It’s a lot better,” he said.
Changes were initiated after a chaotic 2020 shed opener that saw people get into fistfights, throwing down over the contrast between a noon start time for the antler hunt and a midnight opening of the Bridger-Teton National Forest. Some antler hunters wanted to keep others from picking up sheds early. Law enforcement officials were inundated with calls.
In 2021, Wyoming Game and Fish changed the start of the shed hunt to 6 a.m. And the Bridger-Teton National Forest changed the opening of its winter closures to the same time under a temporary order. This year, the Bridger-Teton formalized that under a new standing rule and Game and Fish stuck with the 6 a.m. opener.
A caravan of between 250 and 275 cars was led down the Elk Refuge Road shortly after 6 a.m. Sunday. Shed hunters spilled out of their cars near trailheads off of Flat Creek Road and Curtis Canyon thereafter.
Teton County Sheriff Matt Carr said things were relatively quiet, other than a call out for Teton County Search and Rescue after a rider fell off a horse near Curtis Canyon.
South Jackson Game Warden Kyle Lash said he did receive a few tips that he’d follow up on future years. But he said the early morning apprehension was the “only incident” he’d heard of.
Todd Stiles, Jackson district ranger for the Bridger-Teton, said one shed hunter called the event the “superbowl of antler hunting.”
“I definitely saw that down here,” Stiles said, reflecting on how much more of a show the shed hunt is in the Jackson Ranger District than the more remote Blackrock Ranger District to the north, where he previously worked. “There are definitely people who took it very seriously.”
Shed hunters felt positive about the way the Jackson Police Department queued things up at the fairgrounds. For the first time, the department assigned people a place and time to show up based on when they registered vehicles.
Jase Romrell, of Star Valley, appreciated the change.
“I feel like the lineup was the most organized that it’s ever been,” he said. “I think they’re onto something with the numbering system.” | https://www.wyomingnews.com/laramieboomerang/news/unified-start-to-2022-shed-hunting-season-a-success/article_d6661ae3-9dc3-52df-9de6-dfbe824630bd.html | 2022-05-11T11:40:59Z |
Well, now we’re getting somewhere.
A while back I wrote here that I wouldn’t know an Oath Keeper, a Proud Boy or a white supremacist if he were sitting across the breakfast table from me.
And yet we’re told, by our president no less, that people like that are the biggest threat facing our country. They’re worse than open borders, drugs streaming into our country, rampant big-city crime and the prospect of war with Russia.
I’ve been a Republican for decades, hung around newsrooms where politics and politicians pop up regularly and even lent a hand covering several sessions of the Legislature back in the 1980s.
In all that time I never met one white supremacist. If someone was a Proud Boy, well, it would be news to me, and I’ll be darned if I know what they’re so all-fired proud of.
And until recently I couldn’t have told you the name of a single Oath Keeper if you threatened me with a “ghost gun” you built in your basement.
But last week Rep. Liz Cheney’s spokesman said she wasn’t going to attend the big Republican state convention in Sheridan because party chairman Frank Eathorne is an Oath Keeper who was in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. She wasn’t about to attend a convention with a guy like that in charge.
Apparently, and I’m new to this, the oath that Oath Keepers keep refers to the oath police officers, members of the military and politicians like Cheney take to support and defend the U.S. Constitution. No problem there.
But, according to the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center, Oath Keepers also believe in conspiracies (!), sort of like Democrats and most of the media believed in that whole debunked Russian collusion conspiracy crock when Trump was president. You remember that cock-and-bull story.
According to a story on WyoFile, a onetime member of Oath Keepers from Cody called that group “a fairy tale here” that was little more than “a presence in a computer 12 years ago.”
Some threat.
There was obviously more to Cheney’s decision not to attend the convention than an aversion to Eathorne. The party that voted to not recognize her as a Republican anymore might not have let her in the door.
According to the news coverage, there was plenty of action at Sheridan even without our eye-of-the-hurricane congresswoman in attendance.
On Saturday, party members voted 225 to 63 to not seat all but three of Laramie County’s 37 delegates. So they all got up and walked out. That’s the largest delegation in the state, out the door over an alleged rule violation in balloting at their March county convention.
And most of Natrona County’s delegation, the state’s second largest, was also deep-sixed in a flap over dues not paid since 2019.
Rodney King asked the famous question, “Can’t we all get along?”
Apparently not.
So the two largest groups of Republican delegates were shown the door. But there were no fist fights or profane emails urging anyone to commit suicide. So, under-represented Laramie County Republicans like me can at least feel good about that.
I now have a senator with no committee assignments and a county party minus 34 of its normal convention delegates. This is getting ridiculous.
To punish Laramie County Republicans for possibly disenfranchising some convention alternates in March, all but three members of the delegation get disenfranchised now. Go figure.
Resolutions were passed to disband the EPA, the Bureau of Land Management and the Department of Education – boilerplate, yadda-yadda-yadda Republican fever dreams that nobody’s going to get down off their horse to read.
The amazing thing is how little any of this affects the lives of most of us. In the photo of our delegates walking out of the convention, I didn’t recognize one face.
State party politics is sort of a hobby — like spelunking or flying model airplanes — with little connection to everyday conservatives who just want smaller government, fewer regulations, lower taxes, secure borders, less crime, inflation relief and a whole lot less of this “woke” insanity.
You’d think Wyoming Republicans could reaffirm those priorities in a 10-minute Zoom call. | https://www.wyomingnews.com/laramieboomerang/opinion/contributed_columns/conspiracy-theorists-you-say/article_edf738be-d5db-592d-8a70-5a609dd1a703.html | 2022-05-11T11:41:05Z |
In January, and again in April, your elected officials voted to drastically change the zoning of residential properties in such a matter as to do away with single-family residential areas by making them multi-family residential areas.
They also changed the zoning in existing moderate-density areas to higher-density housing.
The changes were done under the radar of residential property owners. The city did this action because of a rather mistaken belief that rezoning residential neighborhoods would provide additional living quarters for a few people, and thus partially alleviate a perceived housing shortage in Laramie.
It is obvious there was little concern about the negative impacts for existing property owners in the rezoned areas.
When it became evident that a group of people wanted further discussion of the issue and wanted the council to delay the decision of Ordinance 2044 until the community could be properly informed of the pros and cons of the changes to the traditional character of their neighborhoods, the council first defeated a motion to delay the final reading of the ordinance, and then voted 6-3 to pass the ordinance.
It seems quite evident that the six council representatives from Wards 1 and 2 did not want the effects of the ordinances to be known lest the opposition from land owners in their wards become extensive.
It is noteworthy that a non-city effort to inform property owners in Ward 3 of the potential consequences to their residential areas caused many of them to contact their three council representatives. These three then voted against the ordinance.
This concern is very significant in that only about a third of the property owners in Ward 3 received a fairly detailed account of how Ordinance 2044 could change their properties and the character of their neighborhoods. Had more property owners in Ward 3 been properly informed about 2044, the opposition could have been significantly greater.
This strongly suggests that had residential property owners in Wards 1 and 2 received the same information about Ord. 2044, the ordinance may have been defeated.
The people of a community can’t be involved in their city government when they don’t know what their government is doing.
While it is not practical for the government to offer detailed information as to most of its routine actions, there are some issues that are so important as to warrant an extreme effort to inform the voting masses of the pros and cons of proposed actions. Once input is obtained, it needs to be weighed extensively before any final action is made.
This letter is meant for people who want to know to what extent the city government has the legislative power to alter existing rules about residential properties and what the public can do when destructive conditions are enacted.
As a concerned resident, I am willing to offer my thoughts about ordinances that have restructured our residential areas, and I will provide you with ways to gain further information.
You can contact me at laramiediscussion@yahoo.com. Please bring this letter to the attention of others who may not be aware of the recent actions by the city as related to its drastic restructuring of the zoning in residential areas.
Hugh McGinley
Laramie | https://www.wyomingnews.com/laramieboomerang/opinion/letters_to_editor/destructive-rezoning-continues/article_e206b5c0-a6fb-5459-964f-61d02f73225c.html | 2022-05-11T11:41:11Z |
...HIGH WIND WATCH IN EFFECT FROM THURSDAY MORNING THROUGH THURSDAY
AFTERNOON...
* WHAT...West to southwest winds 30 to 40 mph with gusts up to 65
mph possible.
* WHERE...Ferris/Seminoe/Shirley Mountains, Shirley Basin, Central
Carbon County, North Snowy Range Foothills and Laramie Valley.
* WHEN...From Thursday morning through Thursday afternoon.
* IMPACTS...Mainly to transportation. Strong cross winds will be
hazardous to light weight and high profile vehicles, including
campers and tractor trailers.
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...
A High Wind Watch means there is the potential for a hazardous
high wind event. Sustained winds of at least 40 mph, or gusts of
58 mph or stronger may occur. Continue to monitor the latest
forecasts.
&&
The man who stopped the Keystone pipeline yet approved the Russian pipeline?
The man who continues to keep the border open allowing unvetted people into the country, bringing disease, death and human trafficking to Americans as well as stealing our tax dollars?
The man who overturned the pro-American policies of the previous administration so he must beg our enemies for more oil?
The man who made the world more dangerous with the foolish decision to suddenly withdraw from Afghanistan?
The man who called people in the military “bastards?”
The man whose family cartel is in bed with China and wants to revoke the tariffs on China that protected American businesses?
The man who’s responsible for the highest inflation rate in 40 years?
The man whose approval rating is 33% overall, 26% of independent voters and 26% of Hispanics?
The man whose colleague paid for a false dossier that lied to the American people and never denounced it?
The man whose vice president was chosen because of race?
The man who wants to spend trillions of dollars on things he promised to do as Obama’s vice president?
The man whose vice president encouraged people to fund bail for criminals to be released from jail?
The man who surrounds himself with destructive progressive liberal Democrats whose policies are anti-American?
The man who belongs to a political party that wants more power and doesn’t care about democracy or the average American?
Interestingly, I think President Biden is a victim of his own political party. We all know that he’s a weak-minded, feeble man who was shoved into the presidency under questionable circumstances. The fact that Biden is malleable makes him a target of their deceit and foolish policies.
We’ve witnessed ridiculous comments and absurd behavior from a man whose best skill is reading a script. It’s sad, but devastating and destructive to our democracy. | https://www.wyomingnews.com/laramieboomerang/opinion/letters_to_editor/whos-the-real-traitor-here/article_4467c6a5-68e6-596c-8567-a4288429a803.html | 2022-05-11T11:41:18Z |
CHEYENNE – Despite an objection by the Laramie County district attorney, the trial of a man accused of killing a local 2-year-old and putting his body in a dumpster was reset for a second time Monday afternoon.
Following a motion filed by state public defender Diane Lozano and public defender Brandon Booth on behalf of Wyatt Dean Lamb, Laramie County District Judge Steven Sharpe reset the jury trial for Feb. 6, 2023.
Lozano and Booth argued they needed more time to find particular experts, including a forensic pathologist, which they said is “crucial” to Lamb’s defense. The severity of the charges, the “voluminous” amount of evidence and a shortage of attorneys in the Office of the State Public Defender also contributed to their request for more time.
A jury trial in the case was initially set for Jan. 4 of this year after Lamb pleaded not guilty last August. The trial was later reset to Aug. 2, 2022.
Laramie County DA Leigh Anne Manlove objected to the continuance. She said the state had filed its pre-trial memorandum – a summary of the prosecution’s planned arguments and potential witnesses – in December, and that they were ready to go to trial.
In an interview Tuesday, Manlove said she also objected to the continuance because she believes the decision to push the trial to early next year may privilege Lamb.
“I will not make a plea offer in that case, and Mr. Lamb wants a plea offer that gives him an opportunity for parole, and I won’t do that,” Manlove told the Wyoming Tribune Eagle. “So the concern I have is, depending on how elections go, what if I’m not the district attorney and my (successor) agrees to give him parole?”
Manlove said that, for a 15-month-old case, she doesn’t see much difference between her requested continuance to December 2022 and the defense’s request of Feb. 6, 2023. She said she thinks Lamb’s attorneys believe it’s in their client’s interest that Manlove is not district attorney when his case is resolved.
A phone call to Lozano was not returned Tuesday afternoon.
Second term?
“They hope it’s somebody who will agree that he can have the possibility for parole, and I won’t do that, because this is a tortured, murdered 2-year-old who was thrown away like garbage, and the strength of the state’s case is such that there should never be a plea offer in this case that gives Mr. Lamb an opportunity to get out of prison,” the district attorney said by phone.
Manlove is up for re-election in November, and her current term ends in January 2023.
She told the WTE on Tuesday that voters would know whether she planned to run for a second term on May 27, the filing deadline for state, county and municipal candidates who wish to be nominated through a party’s primary.
Manlove was elected in November 2018 and began her first term in January 2019.
The district attorney has faced a barrage of criticism from contingents of the Wyoming State Bar, as well as Laramie County circuit and district court judges and some former employees. This was first reported last June, when the Office of Bar Counsel filed a formal disciplinary complaint with its Board of Professional Responsibility alleging mishandling of certain cases, inappropriate dismissals of cases and a toxic work environment fostered by Manlove.
This was followed by a second formal charge against the district attorney, which was filed in October.
After an eight-day hearing this past February, the three-person panel appointed by the BPR recommended Manlove be disbarred for allegedly violating multiple rules of conduct for attorneys.
The disciplinary case is ultimately in the hands of the Wyoming Supreme Court, which may not make a decision for several more months.
Hearing
Judge Sharpe noted early in Monday’s hearing that the outcome of the November election was an unknown.
Manlove asked if Lamb’s trial could be scheduled for December, and if Sharpe did not have time for it, that the jury trial be reassigned to another Laramie County District Court judge.
Manlove said during the hearing that she’d asked prosecutors around the state whether they’d be willing to take on the case. She told Sharpe none were.
During Tuesday’s interview, the DA attributed this to a statewide shortage of prosecuting attorneys.
Lozano, during the court hearing, said a domestic violence jury trial in which Lamb is the defendant had already been reset to Feb. 20, 2023, by Laramie County District Judge Catherine Rogers.
Should Lamb be convicted of murder or child abuse, any potential sentence would likely “engulf” that of a domestic violence conviction, Lozano said. She added that Lamb did not want to go to trial in the domestic violence case.
One legal expert said Tuesday he had never heard of an upcoming election being cited as an argument for a court to schedule consideration of a case during a certain time period.
“It was the first that I ever heard of something like that,” said the University of Wyoming’s Darrell Jackson. A former local and federal prosecutor in the Washington, D.C., area, he said that front-line prosecuting attorneys do not tend to turn over even when their boss leaves.
“For all of the high-level first-tier officials like that, their line doesn’t necessarily change just because they change,” Jackson said. “They usually have a cadre of attorneys working underneath them.”
Nonetheless, there are valid reasons for the government to oppose delaying a trial, according to Jackson, a UW professor of law and director of the Prosecution Assistance Program. With the passage of time, evidence can get lost, or may be hard to keep track of. And people’s memories fade.
“With each day, people’s memory gets worse, and with each day, evidence (is more likely to have) problems,” Jackson said by phone Tuesday. “With each continuance, the percentage and likelihood of those issues coming up gets bigger and bigger and bigger.”
The case
Lamb pleaded not guilty in August to first-degree murder, as well as to 10 felony counts of child abuse with injury.
The murder charge carries a maximum sentence of life in prison or death, with each child abuse charge carrying a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison or a $10,000 fine.
There was no discussion of bond at Monday’s hearing. Lamb’s bond was set at $1 million cash in the murder case at his initial appearance last June, and he remains in custody at the Laramie County jail.
The 2-year-old victim in the case, Athian Rivera, was reported missing by his mother, Kassandra Orona, at around 1 p.m. on Feb. 19, 2021. His body was discovered around 3 that afternoon in a dumpster just outside an entrance to Orona’s apartment, located in the 400 block of Desmet Drive.
The toddler died from brain swelling caused by blunt force trauma, restriction of oxygen or both, according to a probable cause affidavit filed in the case.
Laramie County Coroner Rebecca Reid determined Athian died between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. on Feb. 19. His body was wrapped in a fitted bedsheet and a blanket, which were inside five black plastic trash bags, according to the affidavit.
Forensic pathologist James Wilkerson noted “scattered blunt force injuries over much of the body,” including multiple contusions and abrasions, as well as burn marks on the toddler’s genitals, upper legs and groin area consistent with a handheld torch found at Orona’s apartment, according to an autopsy conducted by Reid and Wilkerson.
Wilkerson issued the autopsy report, signed on May 6, which ruled Athian’s death a homicide. He advised Reid that the cause of death was cerebral edema with herniation, with three contributing factors: blunt force injuries, suffocation and thermal injuries. He said Athian was the victim of “non-accidental trauma,” according to the affidavit.
Wilkerson also observed complete or partial collapse of a lung or lung area, which he said was caused by suffocation or manual strangulation.
The autopsy, conducted Feb. 20, 2021, was observed by two detectives with the Cheyenne Police Department.
Lamb was identified as a suspect in Athian’s death by CPD on Feb. 23, 2021. That is when the department announced it had recommended charges of murder and aggravated child abuse against Lamb to the Laramie County District Attorney’s Office.
Bond conditions set in March 2020 in a separate case by a Laramie County Circuit Court judge prohibited Lamb from having contact with Orona and from being within one block of her home, according to court documents. Lamb was charged with felony strangulation of a household member, misdemeanor property destruction and interference with a peace officer after an incident involving Orona.
On March 4, 2021, Lamb entered a denial to two bond revocation accusations filed by the state, including that he violated his bond conditions in the strangulation case by living with Orona since August 2020.
WTE assistant managing editor Jonathan Make contributed to this report. | https://www.wyomingnews.com/news/local_news/despite-objection-by-da-child-murder-trial-pushed-to-early-2023/article_2f0395de-ed63-5be3-8b59-b8d01ab2d6cf.html | 2022-05-11T11:41:24Z |
Recently arrested by the Cheyenne Police Department:
Fiona R. Andrews, 22, transient, for misdemeanor theft (shoplifting, less than $1,000), interference wit h a peace officer without injury and fraud (another’s credit card, less than $1,000) at 8:35 p.m. Sunday in the 1700 block of Fleischli Parkway.
Andrew Thomason, 37, of Crook Street for misdemeanor public intoxication at 4:15 p.m. Sunday in the 200 block of Dillon Avenue.
Lawrence C. Meneghini, 33, of 13th Street for misdemeanor driving under the influence (combination drugs and alcohol, first in 10 years), possession of marijuana (less than 1/4 ounce) and failure to maintain lane/unsafe lane change at 1:37 a.m. Sunday at the intersection of Logan Avenue and East 19th Street.
Andres Navarro, 24, of Waco, Texas, for misdemeanor driving under a cancelled, suspended or revoked license, and on misdemeanor warrants for failure to pay and failure to appear at 10:30 p.m. Saturday in the 800 block of Logan Avenue.
Neoganae O. Presbury, 18, of 28th Street for misdemeanor public intoxication at 2:21 a.m. Saturday in the 200 block of West Lincolnway.
Jarod J. Munoz, 26, of 10th Street for misdemeanor refusing to obey, resisting arrest and public intoxication at 2 a.m. Saturday in the 200 block of West Lincolnway.
Justin H. Turner, 38, transient, for misdemeanor DUI (controlled substance, first in 10 years) and reckless driving at 1:45 a.m. Saturday at the intersection of Nationway and Ridge Road.
Heather J. Edwards, 38, of 18th Street for misdemeanor DUI (alcohol, first in 10 years) and failure to maintain lane/unsafe lane change at midnight Saturday at the intersection of Carbon Avenue and East 13th Street.
Bert A. Pierson, 50, of Luther Place for misdemeanor refusing to obey, possession/use of a controlled substance and public intoxication at 11:49 p.m. Friday in the 4500 block of Ridge Road.
Dominick J. Green, 31, of Ames Avenue on a misdemeanor warrant for failure to pay at 2 p.m. Friday at the intersection of Pioneer Avenue and West Lincolnway.
Ronald L. Carpenter, 50, of Lincolnway on a misdemeanor warrant for failure to appear at 12:50 p.m. Friday in the 1600 block of Snyder Avenue.
Jared A. Halley, 39, of Missile Drive for misdemeanor DUI (controlled substance, second in 10 years), possession of marijuana (less than 1/4 oz.) and giving false identity, and on misdemeanor warrants for failure to pay and probation violation at 3:10 a.m. Friday at the intersection of Reed Avenue and Deming Drive.
Sean M. Footh, 31, transient, on a misdemeanor warrant for violation of a protection order at 1:31 a.m. Friday in the 1400 block of West Lincolnway.
Adrien J. Reyes, 25, of Meadowland Drive for misdemeanor joyriding (unauthorized use of a motor vehicle) at 12:48 a.m. Friday in the 3800 block of Cheyenne Street.
Carrie E. Porter, 45, of Savage Drive for misdemeanor DUI (alcohol, first in 10 years) and expired or improper registration at 6:50 p.m. Thursday in the 100 block of North Greeley Highway.
Gabriel A. Valdez, 31, of Cherry Street on two misdemeanor warrants for failure to pay at 5:19 p.m. Thursday at the intersection of East 15th Street and House Avenue.
Deandreya J. Olivares, 20, of West Leisher Road on a misdemeanor warrant out of Platte County for failure to pay at 2:28 p.m. Thursday at the intersection of East Lincolnway and North College Drive.
Albert C. Reeh, 33, of Cheyenne Place on a felony warrant out of Natrona County for sexual battery at 5:15 a.m. Thursday at the intersection of East Lincolnway and Big Horn Avenue.
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Recently arrested by the Laramie County Sheriff’s Office:
Maurice A. James, 37, of Kay Avenue for misdemeanor theft (shoplifting, less than $1,000), on a felony warrant through Laramie County District Court for a civil violation and on a misdemeanor warrant for failure to appear at 11:24 a.m. Sunday in the 200 block of Walterscheid Boulevard.
Jose E. Martinez, 30, of Randy Road for felony aggravated assault (threaten with weapon) and misdemeanor DUI (alcohol) at 12:02 a.m. Sunday in the 2300 block of Persons Road.
Sean L. Carson, 56, of Chimney Rock Loop on a misdemeanor warrant for probation violation at 6 p.m. Friday at the Laramie County jail, 1910 Pioneer Ave.
Justin E. McMartin, 44, transient, on a misdemeanor warrant for probation violation at 3:54 p.m. Friday at the Laramie County jail.
Ann M. Mandros, 48, of Green River on a misdemeanor warrant for failure to appear at 3:54 p.m. Friday at the Laramie County jail.
Alex D. Sandoval, 22, of South House Avenue on a misdemeanor warrant for probation violation at 3:54 p.m. Friday at the Laramie County jail.
Willie F. Young III, 42, of Casper on a warrant for felony motor vehicle theft (greater than $1,000) and misdemeanor fleeing/eluding at 10:34 a.m. Friday at the Laramie County jail.
Anthony L. Myles, 38, of Willshire Boulevard on a felony warrant out of El Paso County, Colorado, for failure to comply at 9:24 a.m. Friday at the Cheyenne-Laramie County Probation and Parole Office, 1934 Wyott Drive.
Nikko V. Johnson, 28, of Prosser Road on a warrant for felony aggravated assault on a pregnant woman with a weapon and/or with serious injury and felony domestic battery (greater than two previous convictions in less than 10 years) at 1:40 a.m. Friday at the Laramie County jail.
Cody E. Kelly-Coe, 32, of Lingle on a misdemeanor warrant for failure to appear at 7:50 p.m. Thursday at the Laramie County jail.
Matthew J. Coon, 43, of Gering, Nebraska, on a misdemeanor court order at 1:23 p.m. Thursday at the Laramie County jail.
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Recently arrested by Wyoming Highway Patrol:
Matthew R. Guitron, 36, of Fort Collins for misdemeanor DUI, open container in vehicle, speeding (6 mph or more), possession of a controlled substance (powder, 3 grams or less) and possession of a controlled substance (plant, 3 oz. or less) at 6:17 p.m. Saturday at mile marker 5 on northbound Interstate 25.
Erica L. Kimberling, 41, of Clearlake, California, for felony possession of methamphetamine and misdemeanor failure to maintain a single lane, expired registration, possession of a controlled substance (plant, 3 oz. or less) and possession of a controlled substance (pill or capsule, 3 grams or less) at 12:35 a.m. Saturday at mile marker 374 on eastbound I-80. | https://www.wyomingnews.com/news/police_blotter/police-blotter-5-11-22/article_529e7c7a-fbb4-59de-8b1a-d8aed8e62e2f.html | 2022-05-11T11:41:30Z |
There’s nothing sadder and more useless than a single dirty artificial flower next to a cemetery fence. Someone left this flower in memory of a person who mattered, and here it is now.
In Cheyenne, where wind is the soundtrack to everyday life, there are plenty of flowers next to cemetery fences. I walk a lot and have pondered this often. There are flowers of every size and color, many faded and bedraggled with wind and weather.
Sometimes the flowers are just outside the fence, but most often the wind has blown them right up against the inside of the fence. A couple of times in the past, I’ve picked up a pretty flower and stuck it into the top of the fence as I walked by, so it could be enjoyed.
A few days ago, there was a bouquet of orange roses on the ground. I put it into the top of the fence near 23rd and Pebrican, and the next day, it was still there. I pulled a few more nearby flowers through the fence and put them next to the bouquet, and without really deciding to, I found myself beginning to create a floral garland at the top of the fence.
I worked on the garland here and there over five days. It was wonderful to see something lovely begin to emerge, one dirty flower at a time. As I worked, I thought, this is to honor those who have passed on in the cemetery, and it’s also in recognition of those living who cared enough to bring flowers to lay on the grave of a dear one, only to see their kindness undone by the Wyoming wind.
On the third day, I realized I needed to be more organized. I brought a bag to hold flowers and my brother’s wire cutters, because some flowers were in duct-taped bouquets. My brother, who passed away in 2020, was the last of my immediate family. His birthday was May 3, and so my efforts became about remembering him, as well.
Of course, it was technically vandalism. In yarn bombing, which you can see in Denver, people wrap poles, trees and fences, among other public and private objects, in colorful knitting and crocheting. I started thinking of what I was doing as flower bombing. On May 4, it occurred to me that I had started on May 1 – May Day. I didn’t choose it consciously, but it is certainly an auspicious date to start a flower-bombing project.
A couple of people honked as they drove by, others stopped to chat. One man asked if I could create something similar on the fence next to where his mother lies.
The last touch was a pink butterfly, also pulled through the cemetery fence. As I contemplated the finished garland, I found all those different ragged flowers, which would never work in a carefully planned bouquet, together created something I found touching and more beautiful than I had expected. I saw it as an affirmation that the random and useless bits of a life that don’t seem to fit with each other can yet come together to make something wonderful.
A lot of things, like human life and flowers on top of fences, are pretty temporary. But some other things, like beauty, and people caring about each other, will never fade, nor blow away in the wind.
(Note: I finished the project, took pictures and wrote most of this on May 5. When I went by on May 6, the flowers had been taken down.) | https://www.wyomingnews.com/opinion/guest_column/robertson-wind-blown-flowers-transform-cemetery-fence-into-memorial/article_442e5104-a717-56ce-8483-d51b98e1f019.html | 2022-05-11T11:41:36Z |
Here he comes!
Is former President Donald Trump’s upcoming visit to Wyoming going to generate the biggest political crowd in the state’s history?
Over 20,000 people are expected. The event will be held outside in the parking area, rather than inside, which has a limited capacity of 10,000. The rally is Saturday, May 28, in Casper at the Ford Center. With that size crowd, it will be the biggest political event in our state’s 132-year history.
Much to Republicans’ chagrin, up to now, the existing records for political turnouts in the state belong to Democrats.
On March 7, 2008, Barack Obama talked to a huge crowd at the Arena-Auditorium in Laramie. I tried to find out how many people were there, but could not. The place could hold 16,000 people back in those days. Since 2014, the reduced capacity is 11,600.
Incredibly, Obama left Wyoming and spoke to 84,000 people at Mile High Stadium in Denver at his next stop.
Former U.S. Sen. Al Simpson, former Wyoming Gov. Mike Sullivan, and former UW history professor Phil Roberts all had trouble recalling if they had seen a crowd that large before in Wyoming.
The biggest event that I have seen was the huge crowd in Casper for Sen. Ted Kennedy promoting Teno Roncalio in 1972. Roncalio was in the fight of his political life against Bill Kidd. Roncalio ultimately won that race.
I was part of another huge Casper crowd supporting George W. Bush naming Wyoming’s Dick Cheney as his vice presidential running mate. Coincidentally, I spent most of the time in the press area, chatting with newsman Britt Hume, who loved coming to Wyoming.
Dick Cheney also hosted a big rally early in this century at the Casper Events Center that would have neared the 10,000 mark.
Perhaps the biggest rally up to now was on Sept. 25, 1963, at the fieldhouse in Laramie with President John F. Kennedy. The young president, who barely had a month to live, talked about conservation to the crowd of 13,000.
Worland author and historian John Davis attended that Kennedy rally. He recalled how funny it was for Wyomingites to hear JFK tout the benefits of “soderash” to the chuckling crowd.
Jack Speight of Cheyenne was head of the Young Democrats for Kennedy in 1963 when JFK spoke at the old fieldhouse. It was a packed house celebrating Kennedy and Sen. Gale McGee. Speight later was chairman of the state Republican Party in 1973-74.
Jim Hicks of Buffalo was a cub reporter in Casper when he covered that AFL-CIO event, which featured Kennedy. Hicks says he cannot recall how many people were there. “It definitely was a sellout,” he said.
Prior to that, Hicks also attended a visit by President Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s, but said it was a short stopover.
Former Gov. Mike Sullivan recalled a crowd of about 5,000 that attended an event for President Bill Clinton during his “western swing.” It was at the Cheyenne airport.
“My recollection was Clinton’s appearance was a significant increase from the 40 who showed up when Kathy Karpan and I announced our support for Clinton about six months earlier!” Sullivan recalled.
Greybull native Diana Schutte Dowling says Trump’s upcoming visit reminds her of a 1954 event: “Big Horn County Republicans announced Vice President Richard M. Nixon would pass through Greybull at 8:45 Saturday morning Oct. 23. Nixon would be traveling between appearances in Cody and Worland and had agreed to halt briefly at Greybull’s stoplight and wave to any well-wishers who might gather there. If that political gathering was the biggest in the history of Greybull, no one reported it,” she said.
Wyoming Republican Party officials have spoken about this month’s Trump appearance in Wyoming since December, although the details have been slow to emerge. The time and exact venue were announced last week by the former president. Trump has endorsed the campaign of Republican Harriet Hageman in her GOP primary race against U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney for Wyoming’s lone U.S. House seat.
“It will be a tremendous honor and incredibly exciting to have President Trump visit with us, and it will no doubt be the largest political event in Wyoming history,” Hageman said in a prepared statement. “I am grateful for President Trump’s support in my campaign, and I look forward to seeing him in Casper.
According to an event listing on Trump’s website, people wishing to get tickets for the event may register by cellphone. Only two tickets will be given per cellphone number. Doors for the event are scheduled to open at 11 a.m., and the rally is scheduled to begin at 4 p.m. | https://www.wyomingnews.com/opinion/guest_column/sniffin-will-trump-rally-be-the-biggest-political-crowd-in-wyoming-history/article_d4d7f9ae-c597-5cf9-8338-db8ee665adf0.html | 2022-05-11T11:41:42Z |
Contrary to Roberta Bergin's assertion that the Democrat Party "are telling us that CO2 is bad for the environment," the party is doing no such thing. In fact, the party would not be saying anything about CO2 had it not listened to the scientists who study climate.
These scientists never asserted that CO2 is bad for the environment. They have acknowledged many times over that a certain amount of CO2 in the air is natural. In this case, the dose makes the poison.
Prior to the industrial revolution, the atmospheric concentration of CO2 was about 280 parts per million. It is now 419 ppm. Research shows that concentration begins to affect human health at 426 ppm. Carbon dioxide is heavier than oxygen and will suffocate humans if there is too much of it in the air. To see this in action, look up the Lake Nyos limnic explosion of 1986.
We in the Citizens Climate Lobby work to build the political will to get excess carbon out of the atmosphere. Worldwide, we emit 43 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year. Emissions from fossil fuel companies account for 89% of that 43 billion, which means humans are collectively responsible for only 4.73 billion tons.
Most of that 4.73 billion comes from developed countries, such as the United States. If we can convince Congress to regulate fossil fuel companies, we could reduce that impact considerably.
The Citizens Climate Lobby approach will reduce carbon emissions by 40% over 12 years without passing the cost along to consumers. Other companies pay their lobbyists millions each year to convince Congress to give them what they want. CCL is all-volunteer. We lobby because we care. | https://www.wyomingnews.com/opinion/letters_to_editor/group-works-to-get-excess-co2-out-of-atmosphere-protect-our-health/article_e9ca414c-179a-569a-af10-4600c3c5652f.html | 2022-05-11T11:41:49Z |
BUFFALO — On Johnson County’s most remote stretches of land, across the sagebrush sea, Greater Sage-Grouse finish the most consequential part of their day before most humans have had their coffee. As the day’s first light breaks, the male bird, with its distinctive tail feathers and puffed-out white chest with two yellow air sacs, is working to attract a female grouse for mating.
To make the characteristic call that can only be described as the sound of an object hitting water, the male grouse fills his air sacs, so they rise near his head, and then they deflate and fall toward his feet. Over and over again.
“That water-drop sound, it does carry,” said Bill Ostheimer, supervisory natural resource specialist for the Bureau of Land Management’s Buffalo Field Office, from the driver’s seat of his government-issued vehicle. “You’re supposed to be able to hear it from a mile away.”
And Ostheimer would know.
He’s been an audience to this song and dance for 18 years. Each year, in March and April, he and other BLM employees and sage-grouse stakeholders wake up in the early morning hours to count males on active leks (breeding locations) in northeastern Wyoming, under the direction of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.
The goal is to avoid disturbing the high-strung bird, which means parking the car at least a dozen yards away. Ostheimer is aided by binoculars and experience, counting what could look to the untrained eye like blobs in the still-dark morning.
Ostheimer said that after moving into a supervisory role, he gave up most of his field work. But he’s held onto his lek counts. To generate the most accurate count, Ostheimer will visit the same leks three different times, at least a week apart.
The two rituals — male birds strutting and singing to capture the attention of females and Ostheimer visiting the site to count them — are both tied to the bird’s survival.
When Ostheimer started his career as a wildlife biologist 30 years ago, he was a “large carnivore guy.”
In his experience, the species most closely related to sage-grouse, as far as management needs go, is the grizzly bear.
“They both kind of need the same thing, which is big, wild country, and they need us to leave them and their habitats alone,” he said. “If we could do that, then both of those species are just fine.”
The Endangered Species Act gives the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service the ability to examine species and categorize them as threatened or endangered, which then brings certain protections and requires that the federal government make plans for their recovery.
Sage-grouse have been petitioned for listing under the ESA at least 52 times since 1983, according to Fish and Wildlife, though a provision in the federal budget prevents the agency from doing so. U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyoming, previously told the Bulletin that the rider is in place to allow state management plans, such as those in Wyoming, to succeed without the influence of the federal government.
Their populations are cyclical, rising and falling, though scientists believe weather and climate play a role.
Advocates for the species’ conservation attribute this loss to decimation of sagebrush habitat due to energy development and wildfires.
Still, landowners who care about the bird can and have employed best management practices. Ostheimer pointed out some of those en route to a lek, including reflectors on fences so the birds don’t fly into them. And because so many people care about this bird and its survival, experts count them.
Cheyenne Stewart is Game and Fish’s Sheridan Region wildlife management coordinator and a member of the Northeast Wyoming Sage-Grouse Local Working Group. Game and Fish monitors a lot of animal populations, including both game and nongame species, using survey designs based on the biology and behavior of each species.
Sage-grouse lek counts have been part of Game and Fish attempts to monitor the species since the 1940s, said Nyssa Whitford, the agency’s wildlife geographic information system analyst. The methods the department uses today date back to the late 1990s.
The method used for counting sage-grouse, Stewart said, is unique. That’s because the bird’s behavior is unique. Sage-grouse have high site fidelity, meaning they are very likely to return to the lek they attended the previous year. These leks are also in roughly the same location each spring. Both of these factors make it possible for those monitoring the species to take an accurate census, Stewart said.
Like the once-every-decade U.S. Census that counts the country’s human population, a wildlife census means counting each animal present. This method isn’t used much, Stewart said, because it only works for species with high site fidelity, such as sage-grouse.
Wyoming has roughly 1,700 occupied leks, and 335 of those are in northeast Wyoming, Whitford said.
“State partners, federal partners, NGOs, private citizens, consultants and different companies all work together to monitor sage-grouse leks in the spring,” she said. “It’s a monumental effort with that many leks.”
Game and Fish has a handbook of biological techniques. It advises that participants visit the lek in April and May, during peak breeding season, between 30 minutes before sunrise and an hour after. Those who count are asked to visit the same lek three times, roughly a week apart.
Western states that monitor and manage sage-grouse have mostly similar counting methods, Whitford said, though Wyoming’s wildlife managers are adamant about visiting leks at least three times. Other jurisdictions might not have the staffing for that to happen, she said.
There are a few reasons that Game and Fish continues to monitor sage-grouse in this way, Stewart said. Because researchers have been visiting leks year after year, multiple times, the agency has been able to build an impressive data set that shows long-term trends.
“That’s also pretty unique to sage-grouse,” Stewart said. “There are a lot of species that we don’t have that ability to have long-term trends, where the methods stay consistent.”
Monitoring sage-grouse during lekking is also the option that is least likely to disturb the bird, she said. It’s not on the winter range, where they might be stressed, nor is it interrupting nesting or brood rearing.
Lek data are used to assess population trends, changing habitat conditions and impacts of disturbance, according to the Game and Fish handbook. Lek locations are also incorporated into GIS layers to guide future development and habitat management decisions.
The sage-grouse counting process purposely leaves out a party vital to the mating ritual: the female.
The object of the male bird’s attention is not counted as part of the official Game and Fish count. Part of that, Ostheimer said, is because the males, with their bravado and bright white chests and large feathers, are easier to see. Females are smaller than their male counterparts, and they blend into the sagebrush steppe.
Game and Fish, in its sage-grouse counting handbook, says that females are difficult to accurately count because of their “secretive nature and cryptic appearance.”
Stakeholders have been debating the state of sage-grouse for a long time. Studies show that its populations are cyclical, so downswings are normal, though advocates for the species worry that there haven’t been many upswings.
For Ostheimer, in his 18th season visiting leks, the decline is apparent.
He knows that it was 18 years ago, because his wife, in the passenger seat, was pregnant with his now 17-year-old daughter.
Sitting over the ridge in their Jeep, Ostheimer saw and heard the dances and songs of 75 male sage-grouse accompanied by 15 females.
On that same lek, “my high count was eight last year,” he said.
People often accuse him of overstating the loss, he said.
“All I can tell you is what I’ve seen,” Ostheimer said. “That is a precipitous loss of sage-grouse out here.”
But, there is still hope.
“If we can keep them here and take the impacts away, get the energy infrastructure out, get our busy selves off the landscape, and if there’s still birds out here, then we have a chance because we’ve got a stock of animals that can repopulate the landscape,” Ostheimer said. “If they go away completely, we can’t get them back.” | https://www.wyomingnews.com/rawlinstimes/news/birds-dance-humans-count-in-hopes-of-saving-grouse/article_a26ed43e-470a-5bd1-917d-90d8ab061170.html | 2022-05-11T11:41:55Z |
State legislative consideration is moving ahead for a renewed attempt to help ensure there is sufficient electricity at low rates to help attract virtual currency miners to Wyoming.
Following an April 25 hearing in Casper of a committee of state lawmakers where testimony was heard about deregulated power zones, the process has begun to start discussions through an informal sub-panel of legislators.
Members of the working group, which could be upgraded to a subcommittee, come from both legislative chambers and major political parties, said Rep. Mike Greear, R-Gillette. According to legislators including Greear, those participating are Rep. Chuck Gray, R-Casper; Rep. Danny Eyre, R-Lyman; Sen. Chris Rothfuss, D-Laramie; and Sen. Bo Biteman, R-Ranchester.
Greear chairs the House Minerals, Business and Economic Development Committee and helped oversee the hearing last month of the Joint Minerals, Business and Economic Development Committee.
At that hearing and during the work ahead, stakeholders will discuss how to advance or refine the proposals in Senate File 71, which died in committee during the Legislature’s budget session earlier this year.
The goal of the new informal group is to try to break a stalemate between those who want to allow the establishment of deregulated zones, and electricity providers and their allies who fear that carving out a market for any company to serve could undermine stability in the state’s power market, possibly raising prices for retail customers.
An initial action item in the process is to hold a technical meeting of stakeholders before the joint legislative committee next meets June 27-28.
Such a subcommittee can “hash out some for the issues” and, based on his previous experience, “it seems to work pretty good,” Greear said.
If the subcommittee can “come up with a good solution on it, we’ll push it forward,” he said of the crypto energy group and how the minerals committee could advance any proposals. “They need to find a way to make it work.”
The Wyoming Public Service Commission is helping to coordinate the initial meeting of the technical working group, according to lawmakers. Everyone could meet this month, although details do not appear to have been finalized, legislators said.
“My understanding is it’s a public meeting,” Greear said of his expectations for when the PSC convenes the gathering. It’s “designed to have a conversation around the issues.”
To get the participating legislators’ expenses compensated and paid for the day at the PSC, Greear said the virtual currency energy group could wind up being considered a subcommittee of sorts, perhaps under the aegis of the Legislature’s minerals committee. | https://www.wyomingnews.com/rawlinstimes/news/crypto-power-issue-gets-informal-panel/article_f05bf854-31f3-54a8-835b-aa156d41b257.html | 2022-05-11T11:42:01Z |
For expecting mothers in Carbon County, an exciting milestone has taken an unexpected turn into one of added stress and fear.
Memorial Hospital of Carbon County announced last week that it would stop offering labor and delivery services because of financial issues, leaving local parents at least an hour or more from the nearest medical facility that delivers babies.
“It’s hard to put my thoughts into words,” said Marissa Shives, who had planned to have her baby at Memorial Hospital of Carbon County in two months. “It’s a grieving process and stressful time at the end of my term. I’ve lost trust in the health care in Carbon County.”
The loss of services, which go into effect June 16, comes as a blow to rural Wyoming patients who already deal with difficulties in accessing basic health care because of the remote geography of the state.
“Wyoming is limited in terms of options for pregnant women,” said Jacqueline George, a doula who is based in Medicine Bow but offers her services around the state. “It’s already difficult for some people to get to hospitals.”
Even for mothers who prefer to have a home birth, options in Carbon County are limited because of availability and laws that restrict certain types of home births, such as a breach or twin birth, George said. It also can be necessary to send mothers to hospitals if they have certain health issues, complications or need medications.
There are only 17 midwives registered in the state of Wyoming, with nine of them actually based in neighboring states such as Colorado and Utah, according to the Wyoming Board of Midwifery.
The cancellation of birth and delivery services at Memorial Hospital of Carbon County was a last resort option to save money after the hospital went through a period of extreme financial hardship brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, hospital CEO Ken Harman said during a Friday Facebook Live session addressing the decision.
Staff at the hospital exhausted a host of other options, such as cutting positions and terminating contracts, before making the final decision to cut the service was made.
Having to halt delivering babies was a difficult and heartbreaking decision for hospital administration and staff, and is a last-resort option, Harman said.
“We have individuals here at this organization who are devastated,” he said emotionally through tears. “I’m personally devastated. I apologize to the community that we are in this situation. I truly wish we were not.”
The hospital operated at a $2 million deficit last year and saw a period of financial loss happen faster than ever in his career, with a 40% reduction in cash reserves, Harman said.
Because of staffing issues, the hospital has had to hire traveling nurses who come into the community to work for short periods of time. Harman also cited large cost increases in nursing wages as the main source of the financial stress. Before the pandemic, the cost to get a traveling nurse was around $65 an hour. Now, it’s more than $200 an hour.
On top of that, the hospital was only providing for roughly 60 deliveries a year, making that service a source of financial drain. Hospitals in more populated areas could see a birth rate between 15 and 20 deliveries a day, he said.
Losing trust
For many women, having a strong relationship with their doctor or midwife is central to feeling confident about the prospect of having a baby. For those in the same situation as Shives, this confidence is being stripped without much notice.
“Dr. (Jennifer) Motley is a great asset to this community and she’s been with me through a loss and now a successful pregnancy,” Shives said of her local doctor. “Now she won’t get to see the baby we’ve watched grow on a screen together and I have to put trust in someone I’ve never met.”
Shives now plans to have her baby at Ivinson Memorial Hospital in Laramie, which could be a similar path other Carbon County parents take.
Since the Rawlins hospital announced its decision, Ivinson has been making preparations to have more demand for delivery services.
“We know we have the capacity for more and we want to support Carbon County as much as we can,” said Ivinson Chief Nursing Officer Nicole Rooney.
In June, a newly constructed Women and Children Center will open at Ivinson, offering larger, updated delivery rooms, a new triage room and family waiting rooms. The hospital has been able to manage staffing issues with the use of traveling nurses and has recruitment and training programs in place.
The two hospitals have been in contact about how they could collaborate to offer services to parents. Though no plans have been solidified, Ivinson may consider bringing some services to its outreach clinic in Saratoga, Rooney said.
It takes roughly 90 minutes to drive to Laramie from Rawlins along a section of Interstate 80 that is often closed or impassable because of snow and wind in the winter.
“During our winter months it is almost impossible to get out of town safely,” said Teresa Leroux, a Carbon County woman whose daughter is expecting a baby. “This is putting mothers and their unborn children in danger.”
Harman said the emergency room staff at Memorial Hospital of Carbon County would be prepared to deliver babies or possibly facilitate transfers to Laramie or Rock Springs in emergency situations. For Leroux, this option pales in comparison to the presence of what she called the “top-of-the-line” delivery staff the hospital lose.
“How is an ER doctor and their staff going to handle emergency (delivery) situations?” Leroux said. “They are already overwhelmed with just your everyday emergencies.”
A rocky future
Even with the closing of the unit, other women’s health services will still be available at Memorial Hospital of Carbon County.
Moving forward, the hospital is working to build more sustainable nursing programs to avoid problems like this in the future. One of these initiatives includes a scholarship training program for nursing students.
To close the Facebook Live session, Harman asked residents to continue supporting the hospital so that it could survive financially.
“We need you. Want to be here,” Harman said. “We’re changing the culture here and really trying to do this right. I apologize for having this happen, but we need your help.” | https://www.wyomingnews.com/rawlinstimes/news/delivery-dilemma-carbon-county-mothers-uncertain-after-hospital-cancels-labor-services/article_f1d3f892-2516-59aa-8ee6-8aa4b52d3f31.html | 2022-05-11T11:42:07Z |
CASPER — A Laramie County woman is suing the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation and one of its officers after being accused of growing marijuana on her hemp farm, court filings show.
Debra Palm-Egle and her son, Joshua, were charged in 2019 with growing and intending to deliver marijuana after DCI agent Jon Briggs said samples from their Albin farm were above the legal THC limit in Wyoming.
THC is the psychoactive chemical that gives marijuana its high. Hemp, like marijuana, is also a cannabis plant but has much lower concentrations of THC.
Their case was dismissed less than a year later after the court found there wasn’t enough evidence to proceed.
Palm-Egle filed the lawsuit against Briggs, DCI and the Wyoming Attorney General’s Office in April in Laramie County. It was moved to federal court on Tuesday, since it deals with a claim of civil rights violations.
The farmer was a vocal proponent of hemp legislation passed in 2019 that allows Wyoming residents to grow and possess the plant as long as its THC content is below 0.3%.
The Wyoming Supreme Court found in 2021 that Briggs had lied about an exchange he had with one of Palm-Egle’s contractors, who had provided three test results showing legal amounts of THC to Briggs while the officer was executing a search warrant on the farm.
Briggs testified in a hearing that he remembered the tests as possibly showing an illegal amount of THC.
The suit alleges Briggs lied in an affidavit used to obtain a search warrant for the farm and had begun investigating the Palm-Egles based on insufficient information.
Court filings state the investigation started after Briggs received a tip from a neighbor who “had a hunch” that marijuana was being grown on the farm after seeing a greenhouse being built there.
Palm-Egles maintains the November 2019 search of her farm and DCI’s seizure of around 700 pounds of hemp were illegal. The prosecutor in the original case, Assistant District Attorney David Singleton, was publicly censured last May by the state bar for failing to correct what he knew was false testimony. Singleton was appointed as a part-time hearing judge to the Cheyenne Municipal Court in the fall.
According to the complaint, two claims Palm-Egles filed with the state were rejected in May and September 2021.
Now, she’s asking for $250,000 in damages — the standard amount for tort claims under the Wyoming Governmental Claims Act. In addition, she’s seeking around $55,000 for attorney fees and court costs from the initial case. Other damages could be awarded if she wins the suit.
Attorneys for Palm-Egles and Briggs, as well as DCI Director Forrest Williams, did not respond to requests for comment on Wednesday. | https://www.wyomingnews.com/rawlinstimes/news/farmer-sues-dci-over-drug-charges/article_c86e797b-1302-5439-8275-fb1298d9c5db.html | 2022-05-11T11:42:13Z |
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.” | https://www.wyomingnews.com/rawlinstimes/news/grizzly-399-s-cubs-face-life-or-death-crossroads/article_8206218f-0bd7-5e25-a717-02e6241c926a.html | 2022-05-11T11:42:20Z |
...HIGH WIND WATCH IN EFFECT FROM THURSDAY MORNING THROUGH THURSDAY
AFTERNOON...
* WHAT...West to southwest winds 30 to 40 mph with gusts up to 65
mph possible.
* WHERE...Ferris/Seminoe/Shirley Mountains, Shirley Basin, Central
Carbon County, North Snowy Range Foothills and Laramie Valley.
* WHEN...From Thursday morning through Thursday afternoon.
* IMPACTS...Mainly to transportation. Strong cross winds will be
hazardous to light weight and high profile vehicles, including
campers and tractor trailers.
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...
A High Wind Watch means there is the potential for a hazardous
high wind event. Sustained winds of at least 40 mph, or gusts of
58 mph or stronger may occur. Continue to monitor the latest
forecasts.
&&
Carbon County Visitors’ Council is celebrating the contributions of Wyoming’s travel and hospitality industry to the local economy as it prepares for the summer tourism season.
As Wyoming’s second-largest industry, tourists spent more than $4 billion in the state last year, including a significant local impact. In Carbon County, tourism in 2021 accounted for:
• 1,580 local jobs supported by travel and tourism
• $5.6 million in local tax revenues
• $2,180 in local and state tax revenue per household
Held annually in May, National Travel and Tourism Week encourages communities and businesses across the country to champion the impact of travel and what it means to jobs and economic growth. The Carbon County Commissioners recognize NTTW and signed a proclamation to highlight the importance of the travel and tourism industry on a local level.
“In Wyoming, travel brings in roughly $243 million in tax revenue,” said Leslie Jefferson, CEO of the Carbon County Visitors’ Council. “It’s important that as a state and industry, we all come together to raise awareness on the value travel holds for our economy.”
The travel, tourism and hospitality industry in Wyoming employs a diverse workforce that includes lodging facilities, guest ranches, outfitters and guides, restaurants, attractions, retail businesses and gas stations, while it also supports related sectors like agriculture, construction and finance.
To learn more about the significance of Wyoming’s tourism industry, visit wyomingcarboncounty.com. | https://www.wyomingnews.com/rawlinstimes/news/local/tourism-a-major-economic-driver-for-carbon-county/article_87fb722d-337a-57d3-b770-7f9cd8e15b4e.html | 2022-05-11T11:42:26Z |
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. | https://www.wyomingnews.com/rawlinstimes/news/prosecutor-seeks-to-drop-new-charges-in-corner-crossing-case/article_871e1786-86a2-59b1-ad80-49cefa46a731.html | 2022-05-11T11:42:32Z |
Cindy Clancy had successfully moved her Paint horse, Takoda, through several challenges at the Fly’n O Ranch. But the horse wasn’t keen on moving through a large, green tarp draped in the corner of the ranch’s indoor riding facility.
Every time she moved him in position, he refused to budge.
Clancy was patient, reassuring Takoda everything was safe. But the 10-year-old gelding was as stubborn as a toddler refusing to leave the candy aisle. She walked him from side to side, showing him there was nothing to fear.
Eventually, the two put their heads down and walked through the cut sections of the tarp challenge. It’s all about building trust, she said.
“This is a challenge that he won’t get exposed to (on a trail),” she said. “The challenge helps him trust me to take him through it.”
Several horse owners from across the region were at the Fly’n O Saturday to build better relationships with their horses.
The training at the ranch east of Powell was provided free by the Shoshone Back Country Horsemen — something they do every year with the help of noted horse trainer and saddle maker, Ron Ostrom. After the tragic loss of his brother, Daniel, during a horseback outing 26 years ago, Ostrom dedicated his life to helping others build trust between riders and horses.
“This builds a relationship between the horse and the rider so that when they encounter something on the trail, whether it’s a grizzly bear, or a flying feedsack,” Ostrom said, “the horse looks at the rider and says, ‘What do you want me to do,’” versus their natural instinct to run off.
Ostrom and his brother were riding in Crandall in the spring of 1996 looking for antlers “like we did when we were young,” he said.
The horse and rider went over a snowdrift, but the horse lost its footing. It fell and rolled over the top of Daniel. They finished the ride, but Daniel later complained about a headache.
“We didn’t know anything was wrong at the time,” Ostrom said. “By the time we got him life-flighted out of there and to Billings, it was just too late.”
The accident changed Ron’s life. He wanted to turn the life-altering event into something positive.
He spent the next few years of his life training with law enforcement mounted patrols from Los Angeles to New York and following experienced cowboys into the backcountry, hoping to combine his experiences to teach horsemanship to area riders.
His training eventually led to the business, as he found a serious need across the West.
Last year he helped train more than 1,300 riders both here in Powell and on the road.
“Last week I was in Utah (training) a mounted patrol police outfit,” he said.
But Saturday was a free community event “so we can keep people riding and going to the mountains where they all want to go right and have a safe trip.”
Riding organizations like the Shoshone Back Country Horsemen and the Boot & Bottle Riding Club in Cody assist by donating to help with expenses for the training opportunities for their members. Ostrom is also a member of the Back Country Horsemen.
Yet another positive coming from Daniel’s tragic accident is the Dano Youth Camp. The nonprofit organization provides eight-day backpacking wilderness adventures to teenagers in the Park County area.
“Our camps seek to promote and foster character qualities in campers such as responsibility, courage, compassion, loyalty, honesty, friendship, persistence, hard work, self-discipline, and faith,” according to the group’s mission statement.
To be eligible to apply, campers must be 13 years or older. Camps are filled on a first-come, first-serve basis, with a priority given to Park County residents.
“Our camps are unique in that we provide the equipment (tents, backpacks, camping gear, food, etc.) needed for the trip. The only requirement of the campers is to fill out the appropriate paperwork, make a commitment to the time frame, bring a few personal items, and be prepared for summer fun!” the group advertises.
There is no charge to participate.
To help keep the camp going strong, the Shoshone Back Country Horsemen sponsored a raffle for a retired saw decorated with a mountain scene painted by Powell Middle School art teacher Jane Woods. The group brought in $1,000 through the raffle, and all proceeds are being donated to the camp.
Woods dedicated the saw to two of her former students, Shelby and Danika Fagan, who are members of the organization that clears more than 100 miles of mountain trails per year. The idea was brought to the group by former president Dale Olson, who passed away last year before the project could be finished. James Seckman, of Powell’s Seckman and Thomas CPAs, won the saw and funds from the raffle will be presented to camp officials in a June ceremony. | https://www.wyomingnews.com/rawlinstimes/news/trust-is-key-in-horse-rider-relationship/article_137e1b57-31fe-54a9-9efb-849f510ae4eb.html | 2022-05-11T11:42:38Z |
Recovering from some of pandemic, Wyoming jobs picture is mixed
There was mixed economic news from the state Friday when it comes to jobs in Wyoming. And a similar pattern was observed in Laramie County.
The good news is that, between the fourth quarter of 2020 and that same three-month period at the end of last year, 7,017 jobs statewide were added, for 2.7% growth. Total payrolls rose by an even greater amount, up almost 11% to $382.5 million.
The downside? “Despite the recent job growth, employment has not returned to pre-pandemic levels,” said an announcement from the Research and Planning section of the Wyoming Department of Workforce Services. “Total employment in fourth quarter 2021 was down approximately 9,300 jobs from fourth quarter 2019.”
The takeaway for one of the experts who wrote the report?
“The big picture is recovering from the pandemic job losses,” David Bullard, a senior economist who has been with the Research and Planning section since 1996, said by phone. “We’ve still got a ways to go. But things are improving.” He noted that overall, during a period of time spanning decades, the state’s trend is to usually have job growth.
In the final three months of last year, the state’s No. 2 economic sector, leisure and hospitality, had the biggest gain in jobs, adding 2,555 positions, or 8.0%. Energy is the No. 1 industry in the state. Mining, including oil and gas, gained 840 jobs, or 5.8% growth, the state reported.
Laramie County gained 1,304 jobs, for 2.8% growth. Total payroll increased by $54.5 million, an 8.7% boost.Employment grew in 16 of Wyoming’s 23 counties, the state found.
Employment in Converse County rose by 428 jobs, or 7.5%, for the biggest percentage rise among all Wyoming counties. Total payroll grew by $14.9 million, a whopping 17.7%. “Large job gains were seen in mining (including oil & gas; nearly 300 jobs),” the report said. Teton County added 1,369 jobs, a 7.3% gain, putting it No. 2 among counties in percentage increase.Carbon County had the biggest percentage decline in jobs, followed by Niobrara County, Bullard said.
UW announces spring commencement programs
A member of Wyoming’s congressional delegation, a renowned mountain guide and author, and the University of Wyoming’s president are keynote speakers for UW’s spring commencement ceremonies May 14.
They will be joined by three student speakers for ceremonies in UW’s Arena-Auditorium.
UW is scheduled to accord degrees upon 1,451 undergraduate students, 418 graduate students, 65 College of Law students and 43 School of Pharmacy students.
Each ceremony is scheduled to last about two hours, featuring a keynote speaker, student speaker, a reading of all graduates’ names and presentation of diplomas to each student. The ceremonies will be broadcast live at https://wyolinks.uwyo.edu/2022SpringComm/.
The first ceremony, set for 8:30 a.m., is for undergraduate students graduating from the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, the College of Business, the College of Engineering and Applied Science, the College of Health Sciences and the School of Energy Resources.
The College of Law ceremony is at 10 a.m. in the Performing Arts Center.
The ceremony for master’s and doctoral degree recipients starts at 12:15 p.m.
Beginning at 3:30 p.m., another ceremony is for undergraduate students graduating from the College of Arts and Sciences, the College of Education, the Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources and the Office of Academic Affairs.
Meier announces bid for second term
CHEYENNE (WNE) — Late Friday afternoon, Wyoming State Treasurer Curt Meier formally announced by email that he is seeking re-election to the office he won four years ago.
The former Republican lawmaker said he is seeking a second term because he is committed to implementing an unprecedented level of financial expertise and professionalism in the State Treasurer’s Office for the people of Wyoming.
“It has been an honor to serve the citizens of our great state as Wyoming’s Treasurer, and it is my desire to continue providing effective leadership, solid returns and excellent service in managing the people’s investments,” Meier said.
Meier won election to his current post in November 2018 after serving 24 years in the Wyoming State Senate, and was sworn in as Wyoming’s 31st state treasurer on Jan. 7, 2019.
In the first three years of his term, the office’s investments grew from $20.12 billion to more than $25.05 billion. Those accounts provided hundred of millions of dollars each year to Wyoming’s general fund to address both essential and special interest needs of Wyoming taxpayers, while also bolstering the state’s education and workers’ compensation funds, according to the release.
“My goal has always been to keep government taxation and spending at its lowest possible level so that the private sector can thrive without needless government interference or burdensome taxes,” Meier said.
Girl taken from Alaska found in Gillette
CHEYENNE (WNE) — U.S. marshals and Gillette Police Department officers on Friday afternoon found a child kidnapped from Alaska earlier this spring.
The recovery followed the arrest of the noncustodial mother in Gillette, according to a U.S. Marshals Service announcement Friday.
While the child was not found with the mother at the time of the arrest, it was located later.
Autumn Wilson had been arrested April 19 on charges of custodial interference and kidnapping.
Wilson then was turned over to the Campbell County Sheriff’s Office pending extradition to Alaska.
“This case is a great example of what can be accomplished when law enforcement agencies work together,” said Randall Huff, U.S. Marshal for Wyoming. “We are very thankful this child was rescued unharmed and will soon be returned to the family.”Campbell commissioners OK pay raises, but not for selves
GILLETTE (WNE) — Those holding public office or running for elected positions in Campbell County have more at stake this election season.
Campbell County commissioners voted 4-to-1 this week in favor of raises for elected officials, upping the highest such salary to $145,000, the highest allowed by Wyoming statute. However, they agreed to keep their own $37,500 part-time salaries the same.
Commissioner Colleen Faber was the lone vote against the resolution. For the past 12 years, elected officials in Campbell County had their salaries capped at $100,000.
Legislation from earlier this year increased that threshold for elected officials to $145,000, or that of a Circuit Court judge.
Under the approved resolution, the county attorney will be paid $145,000, the maximum amount allowed by law, making him the highest paid official. The rest, other than the county coroner, will see a raise to $135,000.
They will also continue to get benefits available to county employees in addition to their pay.
The raises will take effect Jan. 1, 2023, and last through Dec. 31, 2026, which makes those running for county seats in this year’s election eligible for the upped rates once elected or re-elected.
Auditor Racines to seek second term
SHERIDAN (WNE) — Wyoming State Auditor Kristi Racines is pursuing her second term in the role.
“This office is important to this Republican party and important to the people of Wyoming,” Racines said. “During the last 3 ½ years, we walked our talk of fiscal accountability daily, with every step. We scrutinized every line item, every entry, every dollar.”
The state auditor is the chief accountant and payroll officer to the state. Racines, a licensed Certified Public Accountant and experienced auditor, was elected to the role in 2018.
Racines said she has promoted transparency during her first term. During her first 30 days in office, she produced and turned over six years of state expenditure data that had been previously unreleased due to litigation. She also launched wyopen.gov, a site that gives residents easy access to the state’s expenditure information.
Racines said she was proud of all she had accomplished and is looking forward to continuing that work into a second term.
“The last few years have been hard: hard on our businesses, hard on our families, hard on our bank accounts,” Racines said. “It’s more important than ever to maintain Wyoming’s fiscal health and think mindfully about our future. We have a job to do…I’m asking voters to let me do my part to move Wyoming forward.”
Racines, a Republican and fiscal conservative, received 73.2% of the vote during the 2018 general election against Democratic candidate Jeff Dockter. She is currently the only candidate who has announced her intention to run for the auditor position this year. | https://www.wyomingnews.com/rawlinstimes/news/worth-noting/article_8f5ab3c2-1f88-5c7a-b8b1-b81a54a8cb1b.html | 2022-05-11T11:42:44Z |
Regional ranchers are advocating for the passage of a federal bill calling for increased cash negotiation in the cattle market as beef prices soar but the payment for cattle remains stubbornly low.
The issue, said Brett Crosby, a cow-calf rancher and commodity market analyst, is a concentrated market with an increasingly rigid price structure and a growing lack of competition.
Four big meat packers – Cargill Inc., Tyson Foods, JBS USA and National Beef – control more than 80% of the nation’s beef supply. The four packers have together made formula trading the standard in the market, over negotiated cash trade.
The road to today started in 1999, when the U.S. Congress made mandatory price reporting the law of the land. The practice allows for open, transparent price discovery and universalized access to market information for ranchers.
But it also allowed for a new way to price cattle.
Using the information provided in the livestock mandatory price report, packer companies have based most of the market on formula pricing, creating a more universal price for cattle in replacement of a negotiated price between a feedlot and packer operation.
“When the (Livestock Mandatory Reporting program) went into effect, it gave packers a huge data set,” Crosby said. “They started using a formula. They just told feedlots, instead of negotiating for the cattle every week, we’ll give you the average price.”
The method had some merits at first, Crosby said.
Alongside increased efficiency, the formula also gave incentive to ranchers to breed cattle with good carcass characteristics, creating a more standardized level of quality cattle within the market.
But today, the practice is cannibalizing the industry, Crosby said.
Up to 80% of all cattle are purchased under formula pricing, while only 20% are negotiated between a buyer and seller. A number of plants now purchase their inventory exclusively through formula pricing.
“Without intervention, the trend is expected to continue until negotiated trade in at least one major region is virtually eliminated,” Crosby said.
With negotiated trade decreasing dramatically, the industry not only has far less competition, but the negotiated market, upon which formula prices are based, is also far more vulnerable to manipulation, keeping payouts artificially low.
Accurately priced formula trade relies on the accuracy of the prices reported to the market, and discrepancies are beginning to be seen. Ironically, accurate data relies on the negotiated trade, the practice formula pricing is eliminating. In some regions, negotiated trade is less than 10% and is not a significant enough sample size to ensure an accurate price for cattle.
But cattle feeders are stuck with it. In an already thin market, smaller farmer- owned feedlots have little room to negotiate.
“It all trickles down to the cow calf guy,” Crosby said. “If the feedlot doesn’t make money, they can’t bid much for cattle here. For those of us who bring cattle to a feedlot and sell them, the formula trade is the only way a little guy can sell cattle. You don’t get a choice; you don’t get to say no. You have to commit your cattle on a Tuesday, and they’ll say you’ll get whatever the Nebraska average price is [for the coming week].”
According to Jess Peterson, a rancher in Eastern Montana and the executive director of U.S. Cattlemen’s Association, this dynamic puts local cattlemen, who typically have a higher quality cattle than other U.S. regions, at a particular disadvantage.
“Folks in Wyoming need a competitive market for their cattle, but the meat packer will utilize lesser quality cattle so they can put pressure on quality cattle and use that leverage to lower the prices,” Peterson said. “Higher quality cattle are best procured in a cash agreement. If you’re going to utilize the current system, you need to be active in the cash market. A portion of the cattle need to be purchased on a cash basis.”
Leo MacDonell, a Montana rancher who sits on the board of directors of the U.S. Cattlemen’s Association, said the current market has resulted in “sweetheart deals” between major packers and lower quality markets.
Some ranchers have seen their profit decrease by upward of 300% in recent years, MacDonell said.
It helps, Peterson said, to think of a cattle lot like a vehicle lot. A company selling vehicles wouldn’t keep many customers if they didn’t make room for negotiation.
“You don’t keep a car lot running very long if you’re not honest about pricing,” Peterson said.
Regional ranchers see a possible solution in the Cattle Price Discovery and Transparency Act of 2022, co-written by Nebraska Senator Deb Fischer and Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley. U.S. Sen. Cynthia Lummis is a co-sponsor of the bill.
The primary purpose of the act is to require that a minimum percentage of cattle be bought and sold through negotiated cash deals, creating a transparent pricing mechanism and thereby ensuring a more competitive price. The legislation also contains multiple provisions giving ranchers and feedlots more market data, such as the number of steers being processed by a packer, giving sellers more leverage in negotiations.
“Right now, we don’t know how many they have going into processing in the next few weeks,” Peterson said. “If you know how many cattle packers are processing, you can base your price on the demand.”
Some may view it as more red tape, making a complicated market even more complicated, but Crosby argues the bill just fixes existing regulation.
The legislation is currently being considered by the Agriculture Committee and is expected to hit the floor of Congress this month.
Peterson said the impact of more accurate cattle pricing will prove a boon to local communities.
“Any amount of increased value will go right back into the economy,” Peterson said. “It’s a stimulus package.” | https://www.wyomingnews.com/rawlinstimes/news/wyoming-cattle-ranchers-seek-relief-in-thinning-market/article_e74366aa-9d32-5a98-9072-4b32cbb6cd73.html | 2022-05-11T11:42:51Z |
I was excited to see her. I passed through the double doors, down the hall and into the dining room. I knew lunch should be almost done, so it would be a great time to have a nice visit.
Tiny and frail, she was sitting at a table in the middle of the room — alone. I walked up to her, smiled and said, “Hi, did I miss lunch?”
I knew it would be a surprise, not because I hadn’t told her I was coming, but because her memory could only hold thoughts for about 10 minutes before they disappeared.
Since she moved into the assisted living facility, I had traveled six hours from my home to visit her every chance I could. Every time I told her when I would be there. Every time when she saw me she would clap her hands, unfold a full-face smile and react as if I was the biggest surprise she had ever received.
This time was different. She looked up from her plate with no excitement or surprise. Confusion crinkled her face as she raised her hand and used a pointed index finger to paint a circle in the air around my face. This emphasized the comment she was about to crush into my heart.
“I think I know you, but I don’t know your name.”
I knew this day was coming: The day that dementia would win, the day she would no longer know me.
It was her finger in my face that flashed my memories of a mom who would shake her finger with a strong, “no, no, no” when I toddled over to touch something breakable or dangerous.
The finger that she raised in my face when at 13, I whined and complained that I wanted to be older and do the fun things my siblings could do. Her finger shook in my face as she told me to never wish my life away — it would pass way too quickly on its own.
It was the finger that tickled the tummies of my babies and tapped the noses of her great-grandchildren.
It was the finger that adjusted the oxygen machine levels for my dad as he was dying.
It was the finger that always added power to her lectures that began with, “Let me tell you something,” and ended with a profound proclamation of her opinion about life.
It was the finger that pointed to her entire family as she aged reminding us that we were not the boss of her.
I froze. I couldn’t breathe. The painful crack caused by watching the mom I knew disappear broke deeper through my heart.
I reached for her finger, folding it in so that our hands clasped together. She was always proud of her hands. She informed everyone that her doctor said she has very young hands — much younger than the nearly 90 years she was. Her nails were always manicured and the rings she was so proud of sparkled on her delicate fingers.
I helped her stand and told her I would walk to her apartment with her. The lump in my throat was thick with fear. I wondered if she was gone forever, if I would always be a stranger, a visitor that occasionally stopped by.
I chatted about the weather and how good she looked while arm-in-arm we walked the hallway to her apartment. She sat in her chair by the window. The topic changed to her bird feeder and the number, color and size of the birds visiting her that day.
An hour had passed when she looked away from the birds and matched her eyes with mine. Her blank stare turned to a smile, she clapped her hands and her eyes twinkled as she said, “I’m so happy you are here!”
I hugged her, burying my tears in the shoulder of her shirt and told her I was happy too. In that second my mom was back. She knew me!
The month of May brings Mother’s Day, her birthday and a lifetime of memories. I can still see her hands as she raised that finger to my face and reminded me to not wish my life away. In my heart, I always wished her life would last forever.
I will honor her wishes and do the best I can to enjoy life, not rush time and I will forever be happy that she was here.
Pennie’s Life Lesson: Hold your mom’s hand- there will come a time when you can’t. | https://www.wyomingnews.com/rawlinstimes/opinion/guest_column/i-am-happy-she-was-here/article_4331d04f-e32c-54fb-a8dd-a3084d11ac8e.html | 2022-05-11T11:42:57Z |
Love passes understanding.
I try not to be sentimental, but I also try to love.
In my 78 years, I don’t know any human way to comprehend unconditional love, except through the quiet resilience of mothers.
What it can mean is simple:
For a mother, you don’t have to be great.
You don’t have to do well.
You don’t have to be anyone you wish to be …
You just have to BE.
Because that is enough.
Mothering is not easy … and it lasts for a lifetime.
Sometimes, we sense that we are not up to the task. Sometimes, we sense that we have done something wrong. Sometimes, we sense that we don’t fit the world we were born into or the children born to us.
And then there is someone who sees in us a treasure, which is real.
It doesn’t even matter to a mother if we are handsome or successful or even accepted by others. We just are and it is enough — enough to surmount the criticisms of society, enough to overcome the disadvantages of birth, enough to say it doesn’t matter how you succeed or fail, I love you.
Just being is enough. It’s enough for a mother’s love, and so it is for many fathers.
The gift of Mother’s Day is remembering the resilience of unconditional love. It is an immense gift to know that someone loves you and finds the treasure in you just as you are!
A friend in IT asked: “Am I worth being loved, worth being cared about in spite of what I’ve done?
The religions of the world profoundly say, “Yes!”
Perhaps it’s in leading us to a meaning for our lives. Perhaps it’s in knowing that we were created by a power beyond us. Perhaps it’s in remembering someone’s love. Perhaps it’s in the sacred words of scripture.
There are so many languages that can speak to our souls. It’s not just a hug when we need it most. It’s not just listening to our heart’s pain. But it’s all the words of sacred texts and all the inspirations of the spirit and all the rituals of renewal that tell us that we matter — just because we are.
Jesus said it simply in Matthew 6:26: “Consider the lilies of the field and the birds of the air, they neither sow, not reap and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”
Part of the problem for us in feeling loved at the core of our being is the linear thinking created by the “computer world.” When we think black or white or either/or, our limited minds cannot take in even the possibility of unlimited love.
All our electronic means of communication get more and more sophisticated, and yet we cannot FEEL loved by them (only frustrated or powered up).
And so we lose touch with our humanity — our sorrows, our questions, our souls.
When the secretary general of the United Nations, Dag Hammerskjold, felt in conflict with his inner life, he didn’t give in to fear or feelings of inadequacy, but he did write:
“I don’t know Who or What put the question, I don’t even remember answering. But, at some moment, I did answer ‘Yes’ to Someone or Something and from that hour I was certain that existence is meaningful and that, therefore, my life in self-surrender had a goal.” | https://www.wyomingnews.com/rawlinstimes/opinion/guest_column/mother-s-day-the-questions-that-are-answered/article_ba44565d-33df-5ebc-a303-a7ea91ba53d0.html | 2022-05-11T11:43:03Z |
There are a few pearls of wisdom from Mom that, no matter how many miles and years pass, still ring as clear as if she just said them.
Aside from standards like “your face will freeze that way” or “make sure to never be caught without clean underwear,” Florence Lisa Johnson — aka Mom — was a lot like Forrest Gump’s own dear mother. She always had a way of putting things so we’d understand and remember.
“The next time I catch you, you’re drinking the whole thing.”
This is one of my favorites, first said when I was about 12 years old. As many can probably guess, Mom’s reaction was induced by the serendipitous juxtaposition of myself, our refrigerator and a near-full gallon of ice-cold milk.
Caught white-handed with the jug to my lips, mom promised that would be “my” milk until it was gone. Then came the deal: Instead of fighting with me to stop drinking out of the bottle, I’d have to finish what I started. If she caught me again, I’d have to sit there and “finish it off.”
No problem, I thought in my cocky little know-it-all way. I can get pretty thirsty.
The test of Mom’s resolve didn’t have to wait long. I heard her exclaim from behind a couple of days later.
“Ah-ha! Caught you!”
Sure enough, I hadn’t learned my lesson, but that was about to change.
“Finish it,” was the order.
The main problem with that was I had just cracked open a brand spankin’ fresh and full gallon of moo juice. She caught me about three gulps in.
On my way to the table I went to the cupboard for a glass.
“You didn’t need a glass before, why do you need one now?” mom said. “Leave the glass. Sit.”
Still sweaty from a rather vigorous and lengthy session of street football, I was tired, hot and thirsty. Oh so thirsty. I really wanted water, but reached for the milk first because it was cold.
As Ron Burgundy in “The Anchorman” would confirm a few decades later, “Milk was a bad choice.”
In hindsight, I realize she knew there was no way a 12-year-old boy could drink an entire gallon of milk in one sitting, but she certainly didn’t let on at the time.
What I could do, however, was try until I was so sick I never wanted another drop of the vile stuff. And certainly vow to never risk drinking straight out of the container again.
At least for a little while. I’ll admit the episode didn’t exactly cure my penchant for drinking straight from the bottle, but I never did it again unless the bottle was nearly empty anyway.
Fast-forward a few years and you’ll find me back in that same kitchen, this time with best friends Kevin and Kelly.
We’d just come home from junior high school and some sort of practice (athletic or band, it escapes me now) and like most teenage boys, were starving more than those people in Africa that Mom and Dad used to tell us about when we wouldn’t finish dinner.
On this day, we were in luck. Mom had been baking! Better yet, she wasn’t home!
Without a moment to consider that maybe — just maybe — Mom had made those three full sheets of fresh gingerbread for some reason other than to feed us after school, we dug in.
It took us about four minutes to devour all three large, flat sheet pans of the soft, warm confection. We were just gathering up our backpacks to leave when I heard it again.
“Ah-ha! Caught you!”
She looked at us, at the empty pans, then at us again. Expecting a tongue-lashing, imagine our surprise when mom just started laughing.
Relieved, but confused, we asked what was so funny.
“It’s going to be fun watching you three make some more gingerbread,” she said.
There was no way mom could physically make us do anything, yet we could instinctively sense that disobeying her at this particular moment just wasn’t an option.
Mom sat there and patiently gave us instructions while we clomped our way clumsily through her kitchen. She was patient and encouraging, but wouldn’t let us stop until the last tray was out of the oven.
The gingerbread, she said, was for her Sunday School students to make candy houses with. Objectively, ours was probably the worst gingerbread ever made, but it’s still one of my most sweet memories.
Now, if only we’d had a gallon of ice-cold milk to wash down all that gingerbread. | https://www.wyomingnews.com/rawlinstimes/opinion/staff_editorials/what-mothers-teach-we-never-forget/article_86832fc0-f0e0-5694-b4d7-7d3099d2dbd7.html | 2022-05-11T11:43:09Z |
CHEYENNE – Travis Romsa didn’t expect a chance to start his head coaching career to come so quickly.
After spending three seasons as an assistant on the Burns football team, Romsa was officially approved as the Broncs’ new head coach Monday. The 2014 Burns graduate is replacing Brad Morrison, who resigned from his post earlier last month. Morrison coached the Broncs to a 15-19 record over four seasons.
“Growing up here and playing football for Burns – this is an honor for me,” Romsa said. “I didn’t expect it to happen so soon, but I’m glad it did.”
Romsa didn’t initially plan to get into the coaching ranks following his playing career at NCAA Division II Chadron State. He had flirted with the idea of becoming a graduate assistant with the Chadron State football team, but instead decided to move back to Burns and work on his family ranch. It wasn’t until he was approached by Morrison to take an assistant position with the team that he joined the coaching staff.
The former offensive lineman earned first team All-American honors in his final season at Chadron State. He was a two-time Class 2A all-state selection and was named the state’s top lineman his senior season.
“We’re really excited to add him as our next coach,” Burns athletics director Barry Ward said. “Travis has a real understanding of the kids and community, and a pretty high understanding of football.”
Romsa said he’ll continue using schemes the Broncs have used in the past, but the offense could see some new formations. His experience and familiarity with the program will serve as a huge benefit, especially with some stability and continuity that’ll remain in the program, Ward said.
“It’s a great thing for the kids. I think Travis will come in and put his stamp on things,” Ward said. “He’s going to hit the ground running because he already knows the kids and knows positions. He’s had a front row seat.”
The Broncs are bringing back a handful of seniors next season, players Romsa has been coaching since he stepped into his role as a coach. He’s been a defensive coordinator and has worked with the linemen.
The relationships with the athletes are arguably the biggest highlight for him as he steps into his new position.
“These kids are amazing, and I was able to watch a lot of them grow up, but when it came to coaching, I kind of had to flip that switch of being a friend to becoming a coach,” Romsa said. “I’ve been able to build relationships with them, and I’m excited to get back to it and see what they bring this (upcoming) season.” | https://www.wyomingnews.com/wyosports/high_school/burns/burns-alum-romsa-tabbed-as-next-broncs-football-coach/article_cc062f18-5921-534a-8ff6-7ba2970f3e32.html | 2022-05-11T11:43:15Z |
CHEYENNE – Katie Thomson enjoys a challenge.
The Cheyenne Central senior knows that’s what she’s going to get when her college track career starts. On Tuesday afternoon, Thomson signed her national letter of intent to compete for NCAA Division II’s Colorado Mesa University.
“I love pushing myself and seeing how hard I can work and how good I can do,” she said. “So, I’m looking forward to that.”
Thomson had a handful of schools to choose from – the University of Wyoming and Austin Peay were among options. The Grand Junction, Colorado, campus was the most appealing.
“I kind of had a hard time picking what meant the most to me – whether it was track or school, or some other things that I had thought about, but in the end, Mesa was the best fit,” said Thomson, who will study to become a physical therapist. “They just have such good opportunities for me, especially with track. I’m just excited to be there.”
Thomson has helped the Central girls capture six consecutive state track championships – three indoor and three outdoor. Finding most of her success as a jumper and in hurdles, she’s taken a leap in all of her events over the course of the year. It’ll benefit her as she competes in the heptathlon for Colorado Mesa.
“I’m been working harder at getting better at all of my events instead of focusing on just one,” she said. “In previous years, I’ve had a lot of focus on jumps, and the other stuff has kind of been a side drill. But this year, I’ve kinda really focused on everything. So, I may not be placing first in one event, but I’m placing higher in others, which is something that’s been hard for me to wrap my head around, but it’s important.”
Cowley signs with Mount Mercy
Roree Cowley was nearly committed to Jamestown Community College in Jamestown, New York.
But a week before she was expecting to make a decision, Mount Mercy University reached out to her. She decided she would test the waters. Two weeks ago, Cowley visited the Cedar Rapids, Iowa, based school and immediately knew that’s where she wanted to play college basketball.
Cowley signed with the Mount Mercy on Tuesday. Mount Mercy is a NAIA Division I program.
“I kinda wanted to wait to keep my options open. Earlier this year, I wasn’t getting much college attention … but I’m very glad I waited and those options opened up,” she said. “It was definitely big being closer to home than New York – which is a stretch. The coach felt like family, the team felt like family, and with the smaller campus, it wasn’t like, I don’t know what I’m doing.”
The 5-foot-7 wing ranked second on the Lady Indians with 7.0 points per game and tied for a team high with 3.9 rebounds, while her 1.9 steals were second on the roster. She was named to the Class 4A East Conference second team last season.
Cowley adopted a leadership role for the Indians this season, which was one of the many hats she wore throughout the season. That, and her competitiveness, will help her be successful at the next level, she said.
“My team this year – we knew we were going to do whatever we could to push ourselves to where we wanted to be,” said Cowley, who will study optometry. “I think I’m pretty good at always wanting to push people to be their best.”
Warner inks with Arcadia
The biggest thing for Kelsi Warner was finding a program that would scratch her competitive itch.
She was able to find that with Arcadia University, where she signed to continue her volleyball career. Arcadia is located in Glenside, Pennsylvania, where Warner visited in March.
“I really fell in love with the coach there. She’s really driven and wants to build a competitive program, and that’s really what I’m interested in,” Warner said. “In the end, Arcadia just felt it was the best for me.”
Warner led the Indians in aces and assists, while also tallying 33 kills and finishing second on the team in digs as a setter. She missed her junior campaign with Central after deciding to compete with a club team out of Fort Collins, Colorado. Because of COVID-19, the club season was played in the fall, which meant the two schedules conflicted.
Coming back for her senior year, she had to establish herself as a setter that the Central roster wasn’t used to. While taking on other positions isn’t out of the question, she hopes to do the same and establish herself as a setter for Arcadia – an NCAA Division III program.
“(The coach) mentioned some hitting, she has a pretty big recruiting class this year, so we’ll how that plays out,” said Warner, who has plans to get her pilot’s license. “She mentioned having me play some other positions, but I’ve been a setter since about seventh grade.” | https://www.wyomingnews.com/wyosports/high_school/cheyenne_central/cowley-thomson-warner-sign-with-schools/article_4d2760c6-506e-5e20-94e2-7fab609719b8.html | 2022-05-11T11:43:22Z |
The Laramie High girls soccer team might rank among the youngest in the state, but their results this season don’t reflect a team that is short on experience.
The Lady Plainsmen wrapped up the regular season last week at 11-4 overall and 8-4 in Class 4A East Conference action, good for a second-place finish.
This success might’ve been a surprise to outsiders — the Lady Plainsmen don’t have a single senior on the roster, and hadn’t finished higher than fourth since 2017. Second-year LHS coach Justine Tydings, however, saw the potential.
“I always knew they had these opportunities within them,” Tydings said. “These young ladies have played together pretty much their whole lives, so I wouldn't say it's a shock, but it's been neat to see how they've overcome some obstacles.
“They're very resilient, and they're open and willing to try new things. It's been neat to be around them, because they have a lot of fun energy and they enjoy being around each other.”
Just how far they’ve come this season will be put to the test this week, with the No. 2 seed Lady Plainsmen set to begin play at the 4A East Regional on Thursday at 1 p.m. against No. 7 seed Cheyenne South.
Laramie’s ability to adapt throughout the year spurs optimism that its 2022 success will carry over into the postseason.
“I would say it's their resiliency and ability to stay positive,” Tydings said of what’s impressed her most about this year’s group. “We don't have a ton of depth, and every single person has played multiple positions. They've stepped up big for their team in moments where maybe they were playing out of position or in a new position.
“They're very open to taking on those challenges. They go with the flow of what's happening and the challenges of each day or practice, and they've risen to the challenge of all the opportunities that they've been given.”
Junior midfielder Alexio Lucero and sophomore forward Mercedes Garcia are tied for a team-high with seven goals on the year, followed by junior midfielder Allison Beston with four. Lucero also leads the Lady Plainsmen with six assists.
Tydings points to Lucero and Garcia as two of the primary leaders for LHS, with sophomore goalkeeper Mckenna Barham — who has 71 total saves and six shutouts this season — also stepping up in this regard.
“We don't have any seniors on our roster, so they're kind of our upperclassman leadership,” Tydings said. “They're probably the most vocal leaders for the team, on and off the field, but then I would also say Mckenna Barham in the goal.
“She's only a sophomore, but she's finding her voice. She's getting more and more comfortable in the net, and is able to organize our defense. We've had a ton of success because she's a confident player, and she builds that confidence with her defensive line, as well.”
The Lady Plainsmen will have recent history on their side heading into Thursday’s matchup at Cheyenne East, having won both meetings with South by a combined score of 6-1, but they aren’t taking their opponent lightly.
A first-round exit at last year’s regional tournament provided a learning experience for many of Laramie’s returning players. So, as the Lady Plainsmen enter the postseason, they do so understanding the urgency and importance of each contest.
“South is one of those teams that gets better and better throughout the year,” Tydings said. “I think it's a game where you have to be prepared from the first whistle. We have to be able to establish the style of play we want, and not let South dictate the style of play they want.
“The growing experience came from our first regional appearance last year when we were knocked out by East. That's pretty fresh in our team's memory, so we have that awareness to take it one game and one opportunity at a time. We're going to start with South, put out our best effort that day and hopefully we get the result we want.” | https://www.wyomingnews.com/wyosports/high_school/laramie_high/young-lady-plainsmen-look-to-carry-success-into-postseason/article_30fd0674-fb9d-5628-b353-db140af71836.html | 2022-05-11T11:43:28Z |
CHEYENNE – Reed Thompson doesn’t feel the same pressure to excel in track and field that he feels on the football field and basketball court.
Make no mistake, the Pine Bluffs senior wants to post the best results he can and help his team finish as high in the standings as possible. However, the fact track isn’t one of his best sports helps him take a free and easy approach that yields results.
Thompson won both long and triple jump at Saturday’s Southeastern Wyoming Athletic Conference Championships in Pine Bluffs. He leapt 41 feet, 6½ inches in triple jump and 20-3 in long jump. Thompson also cleared 5 feet, 6 inches to take second in high jump, and helped the Hornets’ 4x100-meter relay team finish second.
Those results earned him Prep Athlete of the Week honors from WyoSports’ Cheyenne staff.
“I put a lot more pressure on myself during football and basketball seasons because I feel like I have a lot bigger job to do in those two sports,” Thompson said. “I use track to stay in shape for football and basketball. It gives me an opportunity to compete with myself and others and stay in shape throughout the year.”
Thompson’s triple jump mark is his personal best in that event. His long jump distance is his best of the season and matches his personal record. His high jump height matched his season-best, but is five inches off his personal best.
“His long and triple have slowly gotten better and better from week to week,” Pine Bluffs track coach Dustin Lee said. “Before the season, I would have said triple jump was his thing and the event he was most successful at, but long jump has crept up there.
“It’s been really fun to watch him surprise himself and us by going a little bit farther every week.”
Thompson credits coaching from Brian Anderson for helping him beat his previous best triple jump mark by 8¼ inches Saturday.
“He told me that I was landing straight-legged on my second and third phases instead of having my knee bent,” Thompson said. “He thought I could get to 43 (feet) if I started landing with a bend. I had one jump that felt really big, but I scratched because I was about a half-inch over the board.
“I was happy with how I jumped, because that’s going to give me a good seed going into regionals.”
Thompson had been struggling to get in the 20-foot range in long jump, but posted a season-best 20 feet, 1 inch at the T-Town Qualifier on April 29 in Torrington. Saturday’s SEWAC meet was his first since that mark, and he was again able to improve upon it.
“His take-off point has gotten better,” Lee said. “He’s learned to get a little bit more vertical in that jump. It’s a horizontal jump, but physics tells us we have to get up in the air first to get out there a little ways.
“His take-off has gotten better. He’s not very quick, but he’s fast when you give him a chance to build a head of steam. And then he has pop at the end.”
Thompson only started high jumping last season. He thought he might be good at the event because he had started dunking during basketball games.
He won the first meet he entered, and set his personal-best mark of 5-11 the following week.
“It’s difficult sometimes to go from horizontal jumping to going vertical,” Thompson said. “The first couple times in high jump are difficult because it takes a while for my body to adjust and start getting in the air.”
Thompson placed fourth in long jump and fifth in triple at last spring’s Class 2A state meet. He’s excited about getting back to Casper and competing in his three individual events. Long and high jump are both on Friday, while triple jump is Saturday.
“That will give my legs time to rest and adjust,” Thompson said.
Lee is convinced Thompson can reach new heights.
“He needs to have the confidence he can do it,” Lee said. “I think he’s getting there. I think he does all of his sports because he really enjoys them, but I think he likes track because he can take a somewhat laidback approach to it and just compete with himself.”
Others recognized for their efforts include:
n Madisyn Baillie and Sydney Morrell, girls track and field, Cheyenne Central: Baillie, a junior, won both the 100-meter hurdles (15.63 seconds) and high jump (5 feet, 1 inch) at the Wiseman Invitational in Torrington.
Morrell, also a junior, won the 400-meter dash (1 minute, 0.17 seconds) and 1,600-meter run (5:18.21).
n Marik Cummings, boys track, Cheyenne East: The junior won the 100- (10.83 seconds) and 200-meter (22.42) at the Wiseman Invite in Torrington.
n Alexis DePaulitte, girls track, Pine Bluffs: The senior won the 800- (2 minutes, 49.69 seconds) and 1,600-meter runs (6:15.36) at the Southeastern Wyoming Athletic Conference Championships.
n Taylor Gebhart, softball, Central: The senior struck out 13 hitters in a seven-inning complete game victory over Wheatland.
n Kiara Kershaw, girls soccer, East: The senior goalkeeper stopped eight shots while allowing just one goal to help the Lady Thunderbirds beat Cheyenne South and Laramie.
n Taliah Morris, girls track and field, East: The sophomore won the 100- (12.32 seconds) and 200-meter dashes (25.56) at the Wiseman Invite in Torrington. She also helped the Lady T-Birds win the 4x100-meter relay.
n Richard Prescott, boys track and field, Central: The junior won the 110- (15.56 seconds) and 300-meter hurdles (41.54), as well as triple jump (41 feet, 4½ inches) and long jump (21-2½) at the Wiseman Invite.
n Carson Rabou, boys track and field, Pine Bluffs: The senior won pole vault (11 feet) and the 110-meter hurdles (16.96 seconds), and took second in the 300 hurdles (42.36) at the Southeastern Wyoming Athletic Conference meet.
n Trista Stehwien, softball, East: The junior went 10 for 10 with three doubles, a triple and three RBI to help the Lady T-Birds go 1-1 on the week. | https://www.wyomingnews.com/wyosports/high_school/prep_athlete/relaxed-approach-helps-pine-bluffs-reed-thompson-shine/article_cc503024-ae2b-5158-9739-ef5ca583cebf.html | 2022-05-11T11:43:34Z |
Regional Overview
The weather has it all this week: rain, wind and a temperature roller-coaster. At least snow is relegated only to the high country. Today is a warm day, but it cools Friday. The weekend looks pretty good, though, with mostly mild temperatures. Such is May in Wyoming where the weather oscillations continue. Thunderstorms enter the weather forecast now, too, but mostly along the northern and eastern edge of the state. Breezes pick up starting Thursday and have that daily rise and fall, peaking by midday. The longer term forecast is for a possible warming trend coming next week.
Ranking Categories
H (One fish) – to ensure fish dinner, go to the local grocery store
HHHHH (Five fish) – toss a line and get a fish; the fish aren’t picky
Granite, Crystal and North Crow reservoirs
HHH
The buzz: The fishing continues to improve and all three reservoirs are in good shape. The trails are drying out, but check in at the visitor’s center for an update for the best routes to bike and hike this early in the season.
Suggested bait, lures and flies:
Nightcrawlers
Salmon eggs
Powerbait
Spawn sacs
Mepps
Lil’ Jakes
Bead head prince nymphs
Leech patterns
Chironomid patterns
Bead head buggers
Sloans and Absarraca lakes
HH
The buzz: The action is improving, although it’s still on the slow side. The trick is to get out when the wind wanes, which is typically in the mornings and later in the afternoon or evenings.
Suggested bait, lures and flies:
Nightcrawlers
Salmon eggs
White plastic jigs (for bass)
Powerbait
Pole Mountain
HH
The buzz: The fishing is on the slow side with the cooler weather. Expect to hike to get to the fishing. The U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service snow measuring station along Crow Creek is free of snow as of yesterday. Trails at the Happy Jack Recreation Area are still mostly a mix of mud and snow. They may be suitable for hiking and running, but mountain bikers should wait a while since use too early can result in long-term trail damage.
Suggested bait, lures and flies:
Small worms
Spawn sacs
Blue fox vibrax
Bed head copper Johns
Red chironomids
Leech patterns
Bead head prince nymphs
Laramie Plains lakes
HHH
The buzz: The fishing continues to improve across the basin. The best action is reported at Meeboer, but anglers report good action at Lake Hattie, Gelatt and Twin Buttes. The action is slower at Alsop.
Suggested bait, lures and flies:
Nightcrawlers
Salmon eggs
Kastmaters
Mepps
Olive scuds
Bead head pheasant tails
Hothead leeches
Renegades
Laramie River
HH½
The buzz: The runoff is slow due to the cool weather. This allows for some decent angling on the river. Now is the time to get out, before the river gets high and muddy.
Suggested bait, lures and flies:
Nightcrawlers
Panther martins
Hot head leeches
Bead head pheasant tails
Rubberlegs
Halfbacks
Small wooly buggers
San Juan worm (red)
Snowy Range
H
The buzz: There’s still lot of snow in the high country, but some open ground is appearing at the lower elevations. Access to the cabin area at the Wold property is still not advised due to some significant drifts. At Keystone, near Rob Roy Reservoir, as of yesterday there was a total of 228 inches of snow so far this season according to Don Day Jr. at www.dayweather.com. This is a 3-inch increase from last week. As of Tuesday morning, the U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service snow measuring station reports 49 inches at Brooklyn Lake, a 6-inch decrease from last week. The report showed 32 inches of snow at Cinnabar Park, a 7-inch decrease from last week. The report at Sand Lake on the north end of the Medicine Bow Mountains was unavailable but was at 75 inches last week. The measuring station at Medicine Bow Peak, at an elevation of 10,500 feet, reports 88 inches, a 1-inch increase from last week. At North French Creek, on the western side of the Medicine Bow Mountains, the report was unavailable but was at 74 inches last week.
Suggested bait, lures and flies:
Nightcrawlers
Panther martins
Rapalas
Salmon eggs
Chironomids
Bead head prince nymphs
Small wooly buggers
North Platte River and Encampment River – Saratoga Valley
HH
The buzz: The upper North Platte River has yet to rise significantly, but the runoff has started. Flows at North Gate and into Saratoga fluctuate with the weather, but there’s plenty of fishable water yet, before the runoff gets going in earnest.
Suggested bait, lures and flies:
Rapalas
Panther martins
Rogue foam stoneflies
B1 Bombers
Fluttering stoneflies
Flash fries
Bighorn buggers
Supper buggers
Beldar buggers
North Platte River – Grey Reef
HH½
The buzz: The Grey Reef is fishing well with the flow still around 500 cubic feet per second. That means wade fishing is possible although most of the action is from drift boats. The trick is to get out on a calm day.
Suggested bait, lures and flies:
Blue winged olive mayflies
Rock worms
Leeches
Egg patterns
San Juan worms
Brown bite me buggers
North Platte River – Miracle Mile
HHH
The buzz: The Mile is fishing well with flows around 1,500 cubic feet per second. Look for the slower pools for the best action.
Suggested bait, lures and flies:
Blue-winged olives
Midges
Rock worms
Glo bugs
Scuds
Hot head leeches
Red San Juan worms
Wheatland Reservoir No. 3
HHH
The buzz: The fishing continues to pick up, while the catching is sporadic. The fish make it worth the wait with some real large fish being landed.
Suggest bait, lures and flies:
Nightcrawlers
Mealworms
Little Cleos
Rapalas
Thomas cyclones
Scuds (olive and tan)
Bead head nymphs
Orange blossom specials
Leech patterns
Glendo
HH½
The buzz: The reservoir is at 85 percent of capacity, and will likely rise when the runoff picks up. For now, all boat ramps are available and the walleye fishing continues to improve.
Suggested bait, lures and flies:
Leeches
Nightcrawlers on worm harnesses (gold and silver blades)
Rapala spinners (perch and minnow patterns)
Hawk Springs Reservoir
HH½
The buzz: Anglers are picking up a few walleye and catfish, but it requires some patience to get that fish on the hook. On the other hand, the crappie fishing is good to very good.
Suggested bait, lures and flies:
Leeches
Nightcrawlers with worm harnesses (gold and burnt orange blades)
Rapala spinners (perch, minnow and rainbow patterns)
Magic bait (for catfish)
Uncle Josh’s dough bait (for catfish)
Grayrocks Reservoir
HH½
The buzz: The action is slow for walleye, but anglers report catching quite a few smallmouth bass and crappie.
Suggested bait, lures and flies:
Leeches
Nightcrawlers with worm harnesses (gold and burnt orange blades)
Rapala spinners (perch, minnow and rainbow patterns)
Reservoir levels
Alcova – 98.0% full
Boysen – 82.1% full
Guernsey – 21.3% full
Glendo – 85.5% full
Grey Reef – 84.8% full
Keyhole – 69.9% full
Pathfinder – 62.4% full
Seminoe – 33.6% full
River flows
North Platte River near Colorado state line – 945 cubic feet per second
North Platte River above Seminoe Reservoir – 3,140 cfs
North Platte River near Miracle Mile – 1,508 cfs
North Platte River at Grey Reef – 499 cfs
Encampment River near town of Encampment – 792 cfs
Laramie River – 50 cfs
Boat ramp openings
Glendo Reservoir: All ramps are open.
Guernsey Reservoir: All ramps are open.
Boysen Reservoir: All ramps except Lakeside are open.
Seminoe Reservoir: All ramps are closed except North Red Hills #3. | https://www.wyomingnews.com/wyosports/other_sports/community/fishing-report-for-may-11-2022/article_510bf7e2-038a-5188-bdf0-f83a2480e951.html | 2022-05-11T11:43:40Z |
CHEYENNE – Header Cory James Bomhoff of Cheyenne and heeler Jace Rourke of Gillette picked up a pair of top-5 team roping finishes at the Wyoming High School Rodeo Association’s stop in Gillette.
Bomhoff and Rourke finished fifth in Saturday’s rodeo by stopping the clock in 13.48 seconds. They were second Sunday (6.79 seconds).
Kaydence Bartlett placed third in pole bending Sunday (21.06) and seventh in breakaway Saturday (7.17).
Bull rider Brenson Bartlett of Cheyenne is second in the WYHSRA’s season standings in bull riding with 80 points on the year. Saddle bronc rider Colby Smith of Burns is fourth with 60 points.
JR. HIGH RODEO
Farella, Thompson punch tickets to the NJHFR
CHEYENNE – Cheyenne’s Juddy Farella and Trigg Thompson will be going to the National Junior High School Finals Rodeo next month.
Thompson and heeler Kaycee Kosmicki of Yoder won the Wyoming High School Rodeo Association’s ribbon roping title with 99 points. He also was second in light rifle shooting and fourth in boys breakaway. He will compete in all three events at nationals. This is his second trip to the NJHFR.
Juddy Farella won the boys breakaway roping state title, and was second in boys goat tying. This is Farella’s first NJHFR berth.
Farella placed second in boys breakaway roping aggregate standings at the state finals in Gillette. He clocked in at 3.31 seconds in the first go-round. Farella and Thompson took fourth in team roping.
Carpenter’s Stesha Tidyman was sixth in barrel racing at 30.07 seconds in the aggregate. | https://www.wyomingnews.com/wyosports/other_sports/rodeo/prep-rodeo-team-ropers-take-second-in-gillette/article_e0e89602-0d69-5767-a529-9a2bbd7abc4f.html | 2022-05-11T11:43:46Z |
Biden sees bigger role for US farms due to Ukraine war
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden wants to put a spotlight on the spike in food prices from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine when he travels to an Illinois farm to emphasize how U.S. agricultural exports can relieve the financial pressures being felt worldwide.
The war in Ukraine has disrupted the supply of that country’s wheat to global markets, while also triggering higher costs for oil, natural gas and fertilizer. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said its food price index in April jumped nearly 30% from a year ago, though the index did decline slightly on a monthly basis. Americans are also bearing some pain as food prices are up 8.8% from a year ago, the most since May 1981.
The trip to Illinois on Wednesday is an opportunity for Biden to tackle two distinct challenges that are shaping his presidency. First, his slumping approval rating has been dogged by high inflation and his visit will coincide with the release of the May consumer price index, which economists say should show a declining rate of inflation for the first time since August.
But much more broadly, it’s an opportunity to reinforce America’s distinct role in helping to alleviate the challenges caused by the war in Ukraine. The trip follows a similar pattern as Biden’s recent visit to an Alabama weapons factory highlighted the anti-tank Javelin missiles provided by the U.S. to Ukraine.
“He’s going to talk about the support we need to continue to give to farmers to help continue to produce more and more domestically,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday. “Just as we are providing weapons, we are going to work on doing what we can to support farmers to provide more wheat and other food around the world.”
The Democratic president plans to announce three policy shifts to help U.S. farmers, according to the White House. These include doubling funding for domestic fertilizer production to $500 million, greater access to farm management tools for plant and soil needs, and efforts to increase the number of counties eligible for “double cropping” insurance so that farmers can reuse their land for planting in the same year.
Biden noted in remarks Tuesday about inflation that Ukraine has 20 million metric tons of wheat and corn in storage that the U.S. and its allies are trying to help ship out of the country. This would help to address some supply issues, though challenges could persist.
Several House Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, met with Biden on Tuesday after having visited Ukraine. They warned that the food shortage meant the consequences of the war started by Russian President Vladimir Putin would extend well beyond Ukrainian borders to some of the world’s poorest nations.
“It’s going to result in a hunger crisis, much worse than anybody anticipated,” Massachusetts Rep. Jim McGovern following the White House meeting.
An analysis this month for the center-right American Enterprise Institute by Joseph Glauber and David Laborde noted that countries in the Middle East and North Africa are mostly likely to suffer from the higher prices caused by grain shortages.
There are limits to how much wheat the U.S. can produce to offset any shortages. The Agriculture Department estimated in March that 47.4 million acres of wheat were planted this year, an increase of just 1% from 2021. This would be the fifth lowest amount of acres dedicated to wheat in records that go back to 1919.
Biden will be traveling with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to Illinois. After the president speaks at the farm, he will go to Chicago to speak at a convention for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/05/11/biden-sees-bigger-role-us-farms-due-ukraine-war/ | 2022-05-11T11:47:37Z |
Congress faces limitations on abortion as test vote expected to fail
WASHINGTON (AP) — After fighting for decades over abortion policy, Congress is about to run into the stark political limits of its ability to save — or end — the Roe v. Wade protections.
President Joe Biden has called on Democrats to enshrine the nearly 50-year-old Supreme Court ruling into law after the disclosure of a draft opinion that would overturn the landmark decision that declared a constitutional right to abortion services.
But passing bills is easier said than done in the narrowly split Congress — reflective of a deeply divided nation.
A test vote Wednesday in the Senate on a Democratic bill to protect access to abortions is expected to fail, blocked by a Republican-led filibuster.
At the same time, Republicans led by Sen. Mitch McConnell face similar political problems trying to ban abortions nationwide, even if they wrest control of the chamber in next fall’s midterm elections.
Instead, whatever the Supreme Court decides on Roe v. Wade in its final opinion this summer almost guarantees a new era of political fighting in Congress over abortion policy, filibuster rules and the most basic rights to health care, privacy and protecting the unborn.
“All of us will have to answer for this vote for the rest of our time in public office,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer ahead of Wednesday’s action.
In recent years, abortion access debates in many ways have come to a standstill in Congress, a political draw, as lawmakers faced the limits of trying to move public policy beyond the historic Roe v. Wade court decision. Bills would routinely come up for votes — to expand or limit abortion services — only to fall along typically party line votes or be stripped out of broader legislative packages.
But the Supreme Court’s conservative 6-3 majority, solidified during the Trump era, has ignited an urgent shift to the forefront in Congress.
McConnell stunned Washington when he said “it’s possible” to see a national abortion ban.
The Republican leader has been a key architect of the Supreme Court’s solid conservative majority, engineering rapid-fire confirmation of three of Donald Trump’s nominees in just four years and changing Senate filibuster rules to push past Democratic objections.
In an interview with USA Today, McConnell recently said, “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.”
But on Tuesday McConnell acknowledged that if Republicans become the majority in the Senate they still are unlikely to have enough votes to ban abortion outright.
“The widespread sentiment in my conference is this issue will be dealt with at the state level,” McConnell said. He said Republicans won’t have the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster.
Likewise, Democrat Brian Schatz of Hawaii said for the other side, “I think we have to be explicit and tell the truth, which is, we don’t currently have the votes.” Still, he said hopefully that if voters elect more senators who favor abortion rights, “we will put this into federal law.”
Both parties face enormous pressure to convince voters they are doing all they can — the Democrats working to preserve abortion access and the Republicans to end it — as they race toward fall when control of Congress is at stake in the elections.
The congressional campaign committees are fundraising off the abortion issue, and working furiously to energize voters who are already primed to engage when such a long-running and important issue for millions of Americans is at stake.
The two Republican senators who support abortion access — Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who faces her own reelection in November, and Susan Collins of Maine — have proposed a separate bill that would counter the Supreme Court’s action.
But both senators, who voted to confirm most of Trump’s justices, are expected to stick with the Republican Party this week and block the Democratic bill as too broad.
At the same time, Democrats have largely panned the Collins-Murkowski effort as insufficient, leaving no hopes, for now, of any compromise.
And rank-and-file Republicans distanced themselves from McConnell’s initial remarks, saying an all-out national ban on abortions is not something they can deliver.
“The reality is is that you would never get that done here,” said Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D.
Democrats are unconvinced that Republicans, who have fought for years to deny abortion services, would give that fight up now and let the states decide.
Democrats believe Republicans are “running scared,” Schumer said, afraid of what they have unleashed, with polls showing most Americans want to preserve some access to abortion.
It was McConnell who blocked Barack Obama’s choice of Merrick Garland to fill a Supreme Court vacancy at the start of the 2016 presidential campaign, leaving the seat open for Trump to fill after he won the White House.
And even though McConnell insisted Tuesday there is “zero” interest among Republicans to change Senate filibuster rules to make it easier to pass an abortion ban, it was the GOP leader who orchestrated the Senate rules change to allow 51-vote threshold to confirm Supreme Court nominees.
“Republicans have worked day in and day out for decades on end to overturn Roe v. Wade,” said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.
More likely is that both parties will try to chip away at the issue — Republicans tightening access to abortion at the national level, while Democrats work to shore up the availability of medicinal abortions and other related services.
“There are multiple fronts we can move on,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.
In the House, where Democrats have the majority, lawmakers approved the Women’s Health Protection Act last year on a largely party-line vote once the Supreme Court first signaled it was considering the issue by allowing a Texas law’s ban on abortions to take effect.
But the bill has languished in the Senate, evenly split 50-50 with Democratic control because of Vice President Kamala Harris’ ability to cast a tie-braking vote. Unable to mount the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster, a test vote failed in February, with one Democrat, Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, joining Republicans to block the bill’s consideration.
A similar outcome is expected Wednesday when the Senate tries again to pass the legislation, which would put the guaranteed right to abortion into law.
It’s the first of what Schumer promises will be repeated efforts to show voters where the parties stand.
“This is no longer just a abstract exercise: Now we know women’s rights are at stake,” Schumer said. “So this vote is the first step. We are going to keep fighting.”
—-
Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick and Kevin Freking contributed to this report.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/05/11/congress-faces-limitations-abortion-test-vote-expected-fail/ | 2022-05-11T11:47:44Z |
Florida school yearbook on hold over LGBTQ protest photos
Published: May. 11, 2022 at 6:11 AM EDT|Updated: 1 hours ago
LONGWOOD, Fla. (AP) - Students at a central Florida high school were told they won’t get their yearbooks until they’re censored.
The principal at Lyman High School says one page is out of compliance with school board policy. It shows images of students holding rainbow flags and a “love is love” sign during a protest of Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Act, otherwise known as the “Don’t Say Gay” law.
The law signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis bans classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity in grades K through 3.
Students at the school in Longwood planned a protest at Tuesday night’s meeting of the Seminole County School Board.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/05/11/florida-school-yearbook-hold-over-lgbtq-protest-photos/ | 2022-05-11T11:47:50Z |
Crash on I-81 in Augusta County cleared
Published: May. 11, 2022 at 6:21 AM EDT|Updated: 1 hour ago
AUGUSTA COUNTY, Va. (WHSV) - UPDATE: According to VDOT this crash has been cleared, both lanes are now open.
The Virginia Department of Transportation is reporting delays on I-81 in Augusta County following a tractor trailer crash near mile marker 206.
The north left shoulder, left lane, and right lane are closed. Officials say traffic backups are approximately one mile.
This is a developing story.
Copyright 2022 WHSV. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/05/11/tractor-trailer-crash-augusta-county-causes-delays/ | 2022-05-11T11:47:58Z |
US inflation might have dipped last month from 40-year high
WASHINGTON (AP) — After a year of soaring prices for gas, food and other necessities, inflation may have eased slightly in April from a 40-year high, the first slowdown after seven consecutive months of worsening price increases.
The government is expected to report Wednesday that consumer prices jumped 8.1% last month compared with a year earlier, according to a survey of economists by data provider FactSet. That would be down from the 8.5% year-over-year surge in March, the highest since 1981.
The forecasted drop in annual inflation, if it occurs, would add to other signs that consumer inflation may finally be peaking. Month-to-month price increases are also easing, along with some other inflation gauges.
Yet the April rate would still mark the second-highest inflation in four decades and an ongoing burden for families, especially lower-income Americans. And it would be only a modest step in a likely long and arduous road back to the mild 2% inflation that the Fed has set as its target level. Many economists expect annual price increases to settle into a 5% to 6% range by year’s end, a historically high level that will probably exceed average wage gains.
“It’s too early to declare victory,” said Jose Torres, senior economist at Interactive Brokers. “It’s not going to get any worse, but it’s still at an uncomfortably high level.”
Beyond the financial strain for households, inflation is posing a serious political problem for President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats in the midterm election season, with Republicans arguing that Biden’s $1.9 trillion financial support package last March overheated the economy by flooding it with stimulus checks, enhanced unemployment aid and child tax credit payments.
Biden sought to take the initiative Tuesday and declared inflation “the No. 1 problem facing families today” and “my top domestic priority.”
Biden blamed chronic supply chain snarls related to the swift economic rebound from the pandemic, as well as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, for igniting inflation. He said his administration will help ease price increases by shrinking the government’s budget deficit and by fostering competition in industries, like meatpacking, that are dominated by a few industry giants.
Still, new disruptions overseas or other unforeseen problems could always send U.S. inflation back up to new highs. If the European Union decides, for example, to cut off Russian oil, gas prices in the United States would likely accelerate. China’s COVID lockdowns are worsening supply problems and hurting growth in the world’s second-biggest economy.
Earlier signs that U.S. inflation might be peaking didn’t last. Price increases decelerated last August and September, suggesting at the time that higher inflation might be temporary, as many economists — and officials at the Federal Reserve — had suggested. But prices shot up again in October, prompting Fed Chair Jerome Powell to start shifting policy toward higher rates.
This time, though, several factors are pointing to an inflation peak. Gas costs, which soared in March after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, fell on average in April and likely slowed inflation. Used car prices are also expected to have dropped last month. Automakers’ supply chains have unraveled a bit, and new car sales have risen.
Another factor will be how sharp price increases from a year ago affect the new inflation calculations. The prices of many goods spiked last spring as the economy reopened and a surge in demand overwhelmed supplies. But this year, monthly price increases for many goods have been slowing. That may have effect of easing the year-over-year inflation rate.
Furniture costs, for example, had jumped 1.8% just in March 2021 and 2.1% the next month. Yet this March, furniture rose only 0.6%, potentially lowering year-over-year inflation.
Excluding the especially volatile food and energy categories, economists have forecast that so-called core prices jumped 6% in the 12 months ending in April, down from 6.4% in March. That would be the first such slowdown since August. Overall inflation is also expected to have slowed from March to April.
While food and energy have endured some the worst price spikes of the past year, analysts often monitor the core figure to get a sense of underlying inflation. Core inflation also typically rises more slowly than the overall price increases but can also take longer to decline. Rents, for example, are rising at a historically fast pace, and there is little sign of that trend reversing anytime soon.
The unexpected persistence of high inflation has caused the Fed to embark on what may become its fastest series of interest rate increases in 33 years. Last week, the Fed raised its benchmark short-term rate by a half-point, its steepest increase in two decades. And Powell signaled that more such sharp rate hikes are coming.
The Powell Fed is seeking to pull off the notoriously difficult — and risky — task of cooling the economy enough to slow inflation without causing a recession. Economists say such an outcome is possible but unlikely with inflation this high.
In the meantime, by some measures Americans’ wages are rising at the fastest pace in 20 years. Their higher pay enables more people to at least partly keep up with higher prices. But employers typically respond by charging customers more to cover their higher labor costs, which, in turn, heightens inflationary pressures.
Last Friday’s jobs report for April included data on hourly pay that suggested that wage gains were slowing, which, if it continues, could help ease inflation this year.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/05/11/us-inflation-might-have-dipped-last-month-40-year-high/ | 2022-05-11T11:48:04Z |
US Interior to release report on Indigenous boarding schools
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — The U.S. Interior Department says it will release a report Wednesday that will begin to uncover the truth about the federal government’s past oversight of Native American boarding schools.
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced an initiative last June to investigate the troubled legacy of boarding schools, which the government established and supported for decades. Indigenous children routinely were taken from their communities and forced into schools that sought to strip them of their language and culture.
Catholic, Protestant and other churches also led some of the schools, backed by U.S. laws and policies.
The Interior report was prompted by the discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves at former residential school sites in Canada that brought back painful memories for Indigenous communities. Haaland has said her agency’s report will identify past schools, locate known and possible burial sites at or near those schools, and uncover the names and tribal affiliations of students.
The first volume of the report will be released Wednesday. The Interior Department hasn’t said how many volumes were produced.
At least 367 boarding schools for Native Americans operated in the U.S., many of them in Oklahoma where tribes were relocated, Arizona, Alaska, New Mexico and South Dakota, according to research by the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition.
Children at the schools often were subjected to military-style discipline and had their long hair cut. Early curricula focused heavily on vocational skills, including homemaking for girls. Some children never returned home.
Accounting for the number of children who died at the schools has been difficult because records weren’t always kept. Ground penetrating radar has been used in some places to search for remains.
The boarding school coalition has said Interior’s work will be an important step for the U.S. in reckoning with its role in the schools, but noted the agency’s authority is limited.
Later this week, a U.S. House subcommittee will hear testimony on a bill to create a truth and healing commission modeled after one in Canada. Several church groups are backing the legislation.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/05/11/us-interior-release-report-indigenous-boarding-schools/ | 2022-05-11T11:48:11Z |
6th-graders ‘traumatized’ after anti-abortion video shown in class, parents say
LAS VEGAS (KVVU/Gray News) - Parents of middle school students in Nevada are outraged after they said their students’ teacher showed an anti-abortion video in her classroom that featured a dramatized reenactment of the abortion procedure.
Sixth-graders told their parents that their teacher showed them the disturbing content in their reading class at Thurman White Academy of the Performing Arts, a magnet school in Henderson.
The parents said that their students “are now traumatized,” so they are reaching out to Clark County School District employees, demanding answers, KVVU reports.
The YouTube video parents referred to showed a group of young performers in a faith-based performance group on stage, pretending to be an unborn fetus. At one point, the performers writhed and screamed in pain while pretending to be terminated by a doctor.
“He’s just so stressed and upset and uptight about it,” said Haleigh Isbill, one of the parents of a 12-year-old student. “He was so bothered that, like, he doesn’t even want to be in the same room when we talked about what happened.”
Isbill said “she cannot express just how upset she is” because she said the content was inappropriate for the classroom.
“It’s not an indictment on her beliefs even. It’s ‘don’t show that to our babies.’ That’s inappropriate for public school,” Isbill said.
On Monday, parents said the video was so disturbing, it would have even required a trigger warning for adults.
In an email to the teacher, Isbill wrote, “As a parent of a child in your care, I was horrified to find out that you are showing him videos about your religious and political anti-choice agenda.”
Thurman White mother Elaine Edmiston said her 12-year-old told her about it as soon as they got in the car when she picked them up from school Thursday.
“They talked about this weird video they saw in reading class about abortion, and automatically, I was like, ‘Wait, what? That’s odd.’ And they said it was about a readers theater assignment,” Edmiston said.
The video in question has nearly 100,000 views on YouTube.
Parents worked to describe the video.
“The way the doctor was referred to as, ‘Oh no, not that guy again. We don’t like him. We don’t feel safe, but we know you’ll love us anyway. You’ll take care of us.’ And then, ‘Oh, it’s that doctor. What is he doing, Mommy?’ And then they all started screaming, making faces,” Isbill said.
“Like, it burns, it burns!” Edmiston said.
“Like, holding their faces and like bending over and just really emotionally getting into this, writhing, and it’s super disturbing as an adult,” Isbill said. “They’re not even teens yet.”
She said their students are in different classes, but they both saw the video.
“They have the same teacher for reading, two different periods. But she gave them the same curriculum in both classes. They both watched the video. They both saw it,” the parents said.
Isbill said she is only speaking to the media because she is concerned for other families and hopes this does not happen again. She is concerned about the bigger picture.
“How many kids went home and didn’t talk to their parents about it and didn’t say anything because maybe they just thought it was normal? Because it was presented, and it was presented by an authority figure,” Isbill said.
Edmiston said the timing of it is particularly troubling, as students continue to deal with mental health impacts from the pandemic shutdowns.
“To show the part of the video where the children are actually pretending to be a fetus or a baby and they’re screaming about pain, as if... it’s heart-wrenching, as if they’re being tortured. And they’re watching children do this? Especially during a year when we’re just trying to get back on our feet after being home last year,” Edmiston said.
Both parents said their kids said the teacher did not present any other sides of the argument regarding abortion.
Regardless, they said they also feel abortion shouldn’t have been brought up to begin with in a sixth-grade reading class.
The two concerned mothers said they emailed the teacher, the school principal and the district superintendent on Friday.
In that email, Isbill wrote, “We are a multifaith household, and we do not appreciate your input.”
Isbill said she received a message from Thurman White Principal Matthew Jackson on Monday at 5:35 p.m.
She said the message reads, “Recently, we became aware of a video shown to some students in a classroom that was not reviewed properly. The video included subject matter that is not conducive to the social-emotional needs of students. We are making changes to the review process to prevent this type of incident going forward.”
Copyright 2022 KVVU via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/11/6th-graders-traumatized-after-anti-abortion-video-shown-class-parents-say/ | 2022-05-11T12:44:37Z |
Arizona plans to execute 1st prisoner in nearly 8 years
PHOENIX (AP) — An Arizona man convicted of killing a college student in 1978 is scheduled to become the first person to be executed in the state after a nearly eight-year hiatus in its use of the death penalty.
Clarence Dixon, 66, is scheduled to die by lethal injection Wednesday morning at the state prison in Florence for his murder conviction in the killing of 21-year-old Arizona State University student Deana Bowdoin. If the execution goes ahead as planned, he will be the sixth inmate to be put to death in the United States this year.
In recent weeks, Dixon’s lawyers have made arguments to the courts to postpone his execution, but judges had so far rejected his argument that he is mentally unfit to be executed and had no rational understanding of why the state wanted to put him to death.
Dixon declined the option of being executed by the gas chamber — a method that hasn’t been used in the United States in more than two decades — after Arizona refurbished its gas chamber in late 2020. Instead, the state plans to executed him with an injection of pentobarbital.
The state’s hiatus in executions was driven by an execution that critics say was botched and the difficulty of finding lethal injection drugs.
The last time Arizona used the death penalty was in July 2014, when Joseph Wood was given 15 doses of a two-drug combination over two hours. Wood gasped more than 600 times before he died.
States including Arizona had struggled to buy execution drugs in recent years after U.S. and European pharmaceutical companies began blocking the use of their products in lethal injections.
Authorities have said Bowdoin, who was found dead in her apartment in Tempe, had been raped, stabbed and strangled with a belt.
Dixon, who was an ASU student at the time and lived across the street from Bowdoin, had been charged with raping Bowdoin, but the charge was later dropped on statute-of-limitation grounds. He was convicted, though, in her death.
In arguing their client was mentally unfit, Dixon’s lawyers have said he erroneously believes he will be executed because police at Northern Arizona University wrongfully arrested him in a previous case — a 1985 attack on a 21-year-old student. His attorneys concede he was in fact lawfully arrested then by Flagstaff police.
Dixon was sentenced to life sentences in that case for sexual assault and other convictions. DNA samples taken while he was in prison later linked him to Bowdoin’s killing, which at that point had been unsolved.
Prosecutors said there was nothing about Dixon’s beliefs that prevents him from understanding the reason for the execution and pointed to court filings that Dixon himself made over the years.
Defense lawyers have said Dixon has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia on multiple occasions, has regularly experienced hallucinations over the past 30 years and was found not guilty by reason of insanity in a 1977 assault case in which the verdict was delivered by then-Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Sandra Day O’Connor, nearly four years before her appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court. Bowdoin was killed two days after the verdict, according to court records.
Another Arizona death-row prisoner, Frank Atwood, is scheduled to be executed June 8 in the killing of 8-year-old Vicki Lynne Hoskinson in 1984. Authorities say Atwood kidnapped the girl, whose body was found in the desert northwest of Tucson.
Arizona has 113 prisoners on death row.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/11/arizona-plans-execute-1st-prisoner-nearly-8-years/ | 2022-05-11T12:44:45Z |
Biden sees bigger role for US farms due to Ukraine war
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden wants to put a spotlight on the spike in food prices from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine when he travels to an Illinois farm to emphasize how U.S. agricultural exports can relieve the financial pressures being felt worldwide.
The war in Ukraine has disrupted the supply of that country’s wheat to global markets, while also triggering higher costs for oil, natural gas and fertilizer. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said its food price index in April jumped nearly 30% from a year ago, though the index did decline slightly on a monthly basis. Americans are also bearing some pain as food prices are up 8.8% from a year ago, the most since May 1981.
The trip to Illinois on Wednesday is an opportunity for Biden to tackle two distinct challenges that are shaping his presidency. First, his slumping approval rating has been dogged by high inflation and his visit will coincide with the release of the May consumer price index, which economists say should show a declining rate of inflation for the first time since August.
But much more broadly, it’s an opportunity to reinforce America’s distinct role in helping to alleviate the challenges caused by the war in Ukraine. The trip follows a similar pattern as Biden’s recent visit to an Alabama weapons factory highlighted the anti-tank Javelin missiles provided by the U.S. to Ukraine.
“He’s going to talk about the support we need to continue to give to farmers to help continue to produce more and more domestically,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday. “Just as we are providing weapons, we are going to work on doing what we can to support farmers to provide more wheat and other food around the world.”
The Democratic president plans to announce three policy shifts to help U.S. farmers, according to the White House. These include doubling funding for domestic fertilizer production to $500 million, greater access to farm management tools for plant and soil needs, and efforts to increase the number of counties eligible for “double cropping” insurance so that farmers can reuse their land for planting in the same year.
Biden noted in remarks Tuesday about inflation that Ukraine has 20 million metric tons of wheat and corn in storage that the U.S. and its allies are trying to help ship out of the country. This would help to address some supply issues, though challenges could persist.
Several House Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, met with Biden on Tuesday after having visited Ukraine. They warned that the food shortage meant the consequences of the war started by Russian President Vladimir Putin would extend well beyond Ukrainian borders to some of the world’s poorest nations.
“It’s going to result in a hunger crisis, much worse than anybody anticipated,” Massachusetts Rep. Jim McGovern following the White House meeting.
An analysis this month for the center-right American Enterprise Institute by Joseph Glauber and David Laborde noted that countries in the Middle East and North Africa are mostly likely to suffer from the higher prices caused by grain shortages.
There are limits to how much wheat the U.S. can produce to offset any shortages. The Agriculture Department estimated in March that 47.4 million acres of wheat were planted this year, an increase of just 1% from 2021. This would be the fifth lowest amount of acres dedicated to wheat in records that go back to 1919.
Biden will be traveling with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to Illinois. After the president speaks at the farm, he will go to Chicago to speak at a convention for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/11/biden-sees-bigger-role-us-farms-due-ukraine-war/ | 2022-05-11T12:44:52Z |
Bob Lanier, NBA force who left big shoes to fill, dies at 73
(AP) - Bob Lanier, the left-handed big man who muscled up beside the likes of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as one of the NBA’s top players of the 1970s, died Tuesday. He was 73.
The NBA said Lanier died after a short illness. The Hall of Famer had worked for the league as a global ambassador. The Athletic reported in 2019 that Lanier was being treated for bladder cancer.
Lanier played 14 seasons with the Detroit Pistons and Milwaukee Bucks and averaged 20.1 points and 10.1 rebounds for his career. He is third on the Pistons’ career list in both points and rebounds. Detroit drafted Lanier with the No. 1 overall pick in 1970 after he led St. Bonaventure to the Final Four.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said Lanier was among the most talented centers in league history, and added that his accomplishments went far beyond what he did on the court.
“For more than 30 years, Bob served as our global ambassador and as a special assistant to David Stern and then me, traveling the world to teach the game’s values and make a positive impact on young people everywhere,” Silver said in a statement. “It was a labor of love for Bob, who was one of the kindest and most genuine people I have ever been around.”
Lanier went into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1992. But his boat-size shoes got there ahead of him, with a display of his bronzed sneakers in the shrine.
He was known for wearing size 22 shoes, although that was disputed in 1989 by a Converse representative, who told The Atlanta Constitution that Lanier wore size 18 1/2.
“The 22 he was reputed to wear was a Korean size,” shoe rep Gary Stoken said.
Not contested was the abundantly clear fact that his feet were big.
“A lot of people can put both feet into one of my shoes,” Lanier told HOOP magazine.
Born Sept. 10, 1948, in Buffalo, New York, Lanier starred in college at St. Bonaventure, where he averaged 27.6 points and 15.7 rebounds in three seasons. The Bonnies made it all the way to the Final Four in 1970, but Lanier had injured his knee in the regional final, and St. Bonaventure lost in the national semifinals to Jacksonville.
Lanier overcame a litany of orthopedic injuries, dealing with shoulder, back, elbow, hand and toe problems during his career. But that didn’t prevent him from earning his place among the top NBA centers of his era. After being named to the all-rookie team in 1971, he averaged at least 21 points and 11 rebounds for each of the next seven seasons. Lanier was an eight-time All-Star and the MVP of the 1974 All-Star Game.
He remains the Pistons’ franchise leader in scoring average at 22.7 points per game, beloved in Detroit for both his fierceness and friendliness.
“As fierce and as dominant as Bob was on the court, he was equally kind and impactful in the community,” the Pistons said. “As an ambassador for both the Pistons organization and the NBA, he represented our league, our franchise and our fans with great passion and integrity. We extend our heartfelt condolences to Bob’s family and friends.”
Lanier could beat opponents from the inside and the outside while ruling the boards. Although Abdul-Jabbar had a more famous hook shot, the sky hook, Lanier’s was very much a weapon.
“Guys didn’t change teams as much, so when you were facing the Bulls or the Bucks or New York, you had all these rivalries,” Lanier told NBA.com in 2018. “Lanier against Jabbar! Jabbar against Willis Reed! And then (Wilt) Chamberlain, and Artis Gilmore, and Bill Walton! You had all these great big men and the game was played from inside out.”
As exceptional as Lanier was, the Pistons won only one playoff series with him. He played 64 games or fewer in each of his last four full seasons with Detroit. In February 1980, he was traded to Milwaukee.
Lanier averaged fewer minutes with the Bucks, but he was part of Milwaukee teams that reached the Eastern Conference finals in 1983 and 1984, the final two seasons of his career.
He also served as president of the players’ union during the final years of his career, with Silver saying that he played “a key role in the negotiation of a game-changing collective bargaining agreement.”
Lanier was Detroit’s career leader in points and rebounds before he was passed by Isiah Thomas and Bill Laimbeer in those categories, and his single-game franchise record of 33 rebounds was topped by Dennis Rodman.
In 1995, Lanier was an assistant coach for the Golden State Warriors, then took over as coach on an interim basis after Don Nelson resigned. Lanier went 12-25, and the Warriors found another coach after the season.
Lanier won the NBA’s J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award for the 1977-78 season for outstanding community service. Following his playing career, he helped start the NBA’s Stay in School campaign and participated in other outreach for the league.
“There’s so much need out here,” Lanier said. “When you’re traveling around to different cities and different countries, you see there are so many people in dire straits that the NBA can only do so much. We make a vast, vast difference, but there’s always so much more to do.”
___
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Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/11/bob-lanier-nba-force-who-left-big-shoes-fill-dies-73/ | 2022-05-11T12:44:58Z |
Congress faces limitations on abortion as test vote expected to fail
WASHINGTON (AP) — After fighting for decades over abortion policy, Congress is about to run into the stark political limits of its ability to save — or end — the Roe v. Wade protections.
President Joe Biden has called on Democrats to enshrine the nearly 50-year-old Supreme Court ruling into law after the disclosure of a draft opinion that would overturn the landmark decision that declared a constitutional right to abortion services.
But passing bills is easier said than done in the narrowly split Congress — reflective of a deeply divided nation.
A test vote Wednesday in the Senate on a Democratic bill to protect access to abortions is expected to fail, blocked by a Republican-led filibuster.
At the same time, Republicans led by Sen. Mitch McConnell face similar political problems trying to ban abortions nationwide, even if they wrest control of the chamber in next fall’s midterm elections.
Instead, whatever the Supreme Court decides on Roe v. Wade in its final opinion this summer almost guarantees a new era of political fighting in Congress over abortion policy, filibuster rules and the most basic rights to health care, privacy and protecting the unborn.
“All of us will have to answer for this vote for the rest of our time in public office,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer ahead of Wednesday’s action.
In recent years, abortion access debates in many ways have come to a standstill in Congress, a political draw, as lawmakers faced the limits of trying to move public policy beyond the historic Roe v. Wade court decision. Bills would routinely come up for votes — to expand or limit abortion services — only to fall along typically party line votes or be stripped out of broader legislative packages.
But the Supreme Court’s conservative 6-3 majority, solidified during the Trump era, has ignited an urgent shift to the forefront in Congress.
McConnell stunned Washington when he said “it’s possible” to see a national abortion ban.
The Republican leader has been a key architect of the Supreme Court’s solid conservative majority, engineering rapid-fire confirmation of three of Donald Trump’s nominees in just four years and changing Senate filibuster rules to push past Democratic objections.
In an interview with USA Today, McConnell recently said, “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.”
But on Tuesday McConnell acknowledged that if Republicans become the majority in the Senate they still are unlikely to have enough votes to ban abortion outright.
“The widespread sentiment in my conference is this issue will be dealt with at the state level,” McConnell said. He said Republicans won’t have the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster.
Likewise, Democrat Brian Schatz of Hawaii said for the other side, “I think we have to be explicit and tell the truth, which is, we don’t currently have the votes.” Still, he said hopefully that if voters elect more senators who favor abortion rights, “we will put this into federal law.”
Both parties face enormous pressure to convince voters they are doing all they can — the Democrats working to preserve abortion access and the Republicans to end it — as they race toward fall when control of Congress is at stake in the elections.
The congressional campaign committees are fundraising off the abortion issue, and working furiously to energize voters who are already primed to engage when such a long-running and important issue for millions of Americans is at stake.
The two Republican senators who support abortion access — Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who faces her own reelection in November, and Susan Collins of Maine — have proposed a separate bill that would counter the Supreme Court’s action.
But both senators, who voted to confirm most of Trump’s justices, are expected to stick with the Republican Party this week and block the Democratic bill as too broad.
At the same time, Democrats have largely panned the Collins-Murkowski effort as insufficient, leaving no hopes, for now, of any compromise.
And rank-and-file Republicans distanced themselves from McConnell’s initial remarks, saying an all-out national ban on abortions is not something they can deliver.
“The reality is is that you would never get that done here,” said Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D.
Democrats are unconvinced that Republicans, who have fought for years to deny abortion services, would give that fight up now and let the states decide.
Democrats believe Republicans are “running scared,” Schumer said, afraid of what they have unleashed, with polls showing most Americans want to preserve some access to abortion.
It was McConnell who blocked Barack Obama’s choice of Merrick Garland to fill a Supreme Court vacancy at the start of the 2016 presidential campaign, leaving the seat open for Trump to fill after he won the White House.
And even though McConnell insisted Tuesday there is “zero” interest among Republicans to change Senate filibuster rules to make it easier to pass an abortion ban, it was the GOP leader who orchestrated the Senate rules change to allow 51-vote threshold to confirm Supreme Court nominees.
“Republicans have worked day in and day out for decades on end to overturn Roe v. Wade,” said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.
More likely is that both parties will try to chip away at the issue — Republicans tightening access to abortion at the national level, while Democrats work to shore up the availability of medicinal abortions and other related services.
“There are multiple fronts we can move on,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.
In the House, where Democrats have the majority, lawmakers approved the Women’s Health Protection Act last year on a largely party-line vote once the Supreme Court first signaled it was considering the issue by allowing a Texas law’s ban on abortions to take effect.
But the bill has languished in the Senate, evenly split 50-50 with Democratic control because of Vice President Kamala Harris’ ability to cast a tie-braking vote. Unable to mount the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster, a test vote failed in February, with one Democrat, Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, joining Republicans to block the bill’s consideration.
A similar outcome is expected Wednesday when the Senate tries again to pass the legislation, which would put the guaranteed right to abortion into law.
It’s the first of what Schumer promises will be repeated efforts to show voters where the parties stand.
“This is no longer just a abstract exercise: Now we know women’s rights are at stake,” Schumer said. “So this vote is the first step. We are going to keep fighting.”
—-
Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick and Kevin Freking contributed to this report.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/11/congress-faces-limitations-abortion-test-vote-expected-fail/ | 2022-05-11T12:45:08Z |
Deeds advances to General Election, will face incumbent Sen. Stephen Baldwin
LEWISBURG, W.Va. (WVVA) - Republican candidate Vince Deeds has won the Primary Election for the 10th Senatorial District. This District includes Greenbrier, Fayette, Monroe, Nicholas and Summers Counties.
Deeds will now go on to face incumbent Sen. Stephen Baldwin in November. Baldwin ran unopposed.
While Deeds took 70 percent of the vote in Greenbrier County, his race in Fayette County wasn’t as easily secured. Republican candidate Mike Steadham took the lead in Fayette County with 71 percent of the vote. Deeds trailed with 21 percent. Steadham also held a majority of the votes in Nicholas County; however, Deeds pushed throughout the night, adding Summers and Monroe County to his list of victories. In the end, with all five counties reporting, Deeds pulled out the win with nearly 49 percent of the vote. Steadham trailed with 42 percent.
Moments after hearing the news of his win, WVVA spoke with Deeds, who shared how he plans to prepare for November.
“What we hope to do and what we plan on doing is building a consensus,” he said. “Go back to the different areas that we are running in in all five of the counties and build a consensus and build a team of people and get on those common issues...”
“There’s a lot of work to be done,” he continued. “There truly is, and, you know, it was a busy time for the past several months, but we are excited. We believe we have a strong message that resonates with everyone...”
Deeds retired from a full career with the West Virginia State Police and is now a full-time pastor at Sanctuary Baptist Church. We also works in the Greenbrier County Courthouse with the Prosecuting Attorney and helps the Greenbrier County Board of Education with various safety and security issues.
Copyright 2022 WVVA. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/11/deeds-advances-general-election-will-face-incumbent-sen-stephen-baldwin/ | 2022-05-11T12:45:15Z |
Del. Honaker wins Republican race for 46th House District
LEWISBURG, W.Va. (WVVA) - Del. Mike Honaker, who currently represents the 42nd House District in West Virginia, has a chance to move to the 46th District after winning the Republican race in the Tuesday Primary.
The 46th District of the West Virginia House of Delegates makes up parts of Greenbrier and Pocahontas Counties. In Greenbrier County, Honaker took the lead with 65 percent of the vote; however, his opponent, Karen McCoy, took Pocahontas County with 80 percent. This large lead wasn’t enough for McCoy and Honaker was announced the winner with 51 percent of the total vote.
Following his win, Honaker told WVVA that he is excited to have won the primary and now be the Republican nominee for the General Election in November.
“Obviously, you don’t get to this point by yourself,” he shared. “There’s a team of people that worked on this campaign and I am so grateful for all of them.”
Honaker was appointed to the 42nd District by Gov. Jim Justice and says he feels it’s important to represent those who he already represents in Charleston. He says his campaign is about finding and retaining freedom.
On the Democratic side of the 46th District race, candidate Paul Detch took the win Tuesday night with 67 percent of the votes.
Detch and Honaker will face off against Del. Adam Burkhammer in November.
Copyright 2022 WVVA. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/11/del-honaker-wins-republican-race-46th-house-district/ | 2022-05-11T12:45:21Z |
Florida school yearbook on hold over LGBTQ protest photos
Published: May. 11, 2022 at 6:11 AM EDT|Updated: 2 hours ago
LONGWOOD, Fla. (AP) - Students at a central Florida high school were told they won’t get their yearbooks until they’re censored.
The principal at Lyman High School says one page is out of compliance with school board policy. It shows images of students holding rainbow flags and a “love is love” sign during a protest of Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Act, otherwise known as the “Don’t Say Gay” law.
The law signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis bans classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity in grades K through 3.
Students at the school in Longwood planned a protest at Tuesday night’s meeting of the Seminole County School Board.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/11/florida-school-yearbook-hold-over-lgbtq-protest-photos/ | 2022-05-11T12:45:28Z |
Man with no flight experience lands plane after pilot incapacitated
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (WPBF) - After the pilot suffered a medical emergency, a passenger with no flight experience landed a plane with the help of an air traffic controller, who guided him through the process of safely bringing the plane in.
Robert Morgan, an air traffic controller, was reading a book outside the tower on break around 12:30 p.m. Tuesday at Palm Beach International Airport.
“There’s a passenger flying a plane that’s not a pilot and the pilot is incapacitated, so they said we need to try to help them land the plane,” Morgan said.
Morgan was certainly the man for the job, with 20 years in tower control. He is also a flight instructor with around 1,200 hours under his belt.
“I just feel like it was probably meant to happen,” he said.
Morgan had never flown the specific plane model, a Cessna Grand Caravan, so he used a picture of the cockpit to understand the specifics the passenger was working with.
“I knew the plane was flying like any other plane. I just had to keep him calm, point him to the runway and tell him how to reduce the power so he could descend to land,” Morgan said.
Morgan took over and was able to talk the passenger through a safe landing.
“Before I knew it, he was like, ‘I’m on the ground. How do I turn this thing off?’” he said.
Together, Morgan and the passenger had pulled off the impossible. They met on the tarmac and hugged it out.
“It felt really good to help somebody, and he told me that he was going to go home tonight to see his pregnant wife,” Morgan said.
Officials haven’t released the name of the passenger or the pilot.
The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the incident.
Copyright 2022 WPBF via CNN Newsource. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/11/man-with-no-flight-experience-lands-plane-after-pilot-incapacitated/ | 2022-05-11T12:45:34Z |
Most Great Barrier Reef coral studied this year was bleached
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — More than 90% of Great Barrier Reef coral surveyed this year was bleached in the fourth such mass event in seven years in the world’s largest coral reef ecosystem, Australian government scientists said.
Bleaching is caused by global warming, but this is the reef’s first bleaching event during a La Niña weather pattern, which is associated with cooler Pacific Ocean temperatures, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Authority said in its annual report released late Tuesday that found 91% of the areas surveyed were affected.
Bleaching in 2016, 2017 and 2020 damaged two-thirds of the coral in the famed reef off Australia’s eastern coast.
Coral bleaches as a heat stress response, and scientists hope most of the coral will recover from the current event, said David Wachenfeld, chief scientist at the authority, which manages the reef ecosystem.
“The early indications are that the mortality won’t be very high,” Wachenfeld said on Wednesday.
“We are hoping that we will see most of the coral that is bleached recover and we will end up with an event rather more like 2020 when, yes, there was mass bleaching, but there was low mortality,” Wachenfeld added.
The bleaching events in 2016 and 2017 led to “quite high levels of coral mortality,” Wachenfeld said.
Simon Bradshaw, a researcher at the Climate Council, an Australia-based group that tracks climate change, said the report demonstrated the reef’s survival depended on steep global emission cuts within the decade.
“This is heartbreaking. This is deeply troubling,” Bradshaw said. “It shows that our Barrier Reef really is in very serious trouble indeed.”
Last December, the first month of the Southern Hemisphere summer, was the hottest December the reef had experienced since 1900. A “marine heatwave” had set in by late February, the report said.
A United Nations delegation visited the reef in March to assess whether the reef’s World Heritage listing should be downgraded due to the ravages of climate change.
In July last year, Australia garnered enough international support to defer an attempt by UNESCO, the United Nations’ cultural organization, to downgrade the reef’s World Heritage status to “in danger” because of damage caused by climate change.
But the question will be back on the World Heritage Committee’s agenda at its annual meeting next month.
The Great Barrier Reef accounts for around 10% of the world’s coral reef ecosystems and was named because of the extensive hazards it posed to 18th century seafarers. The network of more than 2,500 reefs covers 348,000 square kilometers (134,000 square miles).
Coral is made up of tiny animals called polyps that are fed by microscopic algae that live inside the reefs and are sensitive to changes in water temperatures.
The algae provide the reefs with their kaleidoscope of colors and produce sugars through photosynthesis that provide the coral with most of its nutrients.
Rising ocean temperatures turn the chemicals that the algae produce into toxins. The coral turns white as it effectively spits the poisonous algae out.
Heat stress beyond a few weeks can lead the coral to die of starvation.
The latest bleaching is an unwelcome reminder of the differences in climate change policy among Australian politicians.
The conservative government seeking reelection on May 21 has less ambitious emission reduction targets than the center-left opposition is promising.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s Liberal Party aims to reduce Australia’s emissions by 26% to 28% below 2005 levels by 2030.
The opposition Labor Party has promised to reduce emissions by 43% by the end of the decade.
Morrison was widely criticized at the U.N. climate conference last November for failing to set a more ambitious target.
The environmental group Greenpeace Australia Pacific said in a statement the extent of the latest bleaching was “another damning indictment of the Morrison government which has failed to protect the reef and exacerbated the problem through its support of fossil fuels.”
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/11/most-great-barrier-reef-coral-studied-this-year-was-bleached/ | 2022-05-11T12:45:41Z |
New day, same forecast
Sunny skies and highs in the 70s and 80s are expected once again
Today is setting up to be another beautiful day as high pressure remains in control. Temperatures will rise into the 70s and low 80s with sunny skies once again.
We will stay dry with mainly clear conditions tonight and temperatures will be seasonable with lows in the 40s and 50s.
Tomorrow will bring similar conditions. Mainly sunny skies are expected with highs in the 70s and possibly the low 80s for some of the lower elevations. Some more clouds will move in overnight and we may see a few isolated showers developing late as a low-pressure system approaches our area.
Some scattered showers are possible at times throughout the day on Friday. Highs will be a little cooler in the upper 60s and low 70s Friday afternoon. The best chance of rain comes on Saturday and we may see a few thunderstorms in the mix as well.
Some scattered showers and possibly a thunderstorm will continue into the beginning of next week. Temperatures will stay in the 70s for most throughout the first part of the week as well. Make sure to stay tuned and catch the latest on WVVA.
Copyright 2022 WVVA. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/11/new-day-same-forecast/ | 2022-05-11T12:45:48Z |
Ukraine cuts Russia gas at 1 hub, underlining risk to supply
ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine stopped the flow of Russian natural gas through one hub that feeds European homes and industry on Wednesday, while a pro-Kremlin official in a southern region seized by Russian troops said it would ask Moscow to annex it.
The remarks could be another sign of Russia’s broader plan for Ukraine as it tries to salvage an invasion that has so far gone awry — amid concerns that the country may remain a source of continental and global instability for months, or even years, to come.
After his forces failed to quickly overrun the capital, President Vladimir Putin shifted his focus to the country’s eastern heartland of the Donbas. But one of his commanders has suggested that Moscow’s plans are broader, saying it also hopes to take control of the country’s south and cut it off from the coast.
“The city of Kherson is Russia,” Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of the regional administration installed by Moscow, told Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency. He said regional officials wanted to make Kherson a “proper region” of Russia.
WARNING: Some videos used may contain graphic content.
Russian-installed authorities don’t always speak for Moscow, but last month, Stremousov ruled out returning control of the Kherson region to Ukrainian authorities.
Kherson borders Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, and its capture was one of Russia’s most important successes in the war.
In 11 weeks, the war has played out on battlefields in Ukrainian towns and cities but also in energy and financial markets, as Ukraine’s allies in the West have sought to deprive Russia of money needed to fund the war with sanctions and energy embargoes.
The immediate practical impact of Wednesday’s gas cutoff was likely to be limited since much of the gas can be directed through another pipeline, gas analyst Zongqiang Luo at Rystad Energy said.
Preliminary flow data suggested that was already happening, though Russia’s state-owned giant Gazprom indicated some drop in supply. It said it was sending gas supplies to Europe through Ukraine in the amount of 72 million cubic meters, apparently down 25% from the day before.
The move highlights the broader risk to gas supplies in the war and holds symbolic significance as the first time Ukraine has disrupted the flow westward.
“Yesterday’s decision is a small preview of what might happen if gas installations are hit by live fire and face the risk of extended downtimes,” Luo said.
He added that the interruption would also make it harder for European countries to refill underground storage for next winter and would “hasten Europe’s plans to move away from imports of Russian gas.”
The European Union has sought to reduce its dependence on Russian energy, phasing out its use of coal and considering doing the same for oil. Gas presents a more complicated problem, given both how much Europe uses and the technical difficulties in sourcing it elsewhere.
It was not clear if Russia would take any immediate hit, since it has long-term contracts and other ways of transporting gas.
On the battlefield, Ukrainian officials said a Russian rocket attack targeted an area around Zaporizhzhia, destroying unspecified infrastructure. There were no immediate reports of casualties. The southeastern city has been a refuge for many civilians who have fled a Russian siege in the devastated port city of Mariupol.
Russian troops also continued to pound the last redoubt of Ukrainian resistance in that city, its defenders said.
The Azov Regiment said on social media Wednesday that Russian forces carried out 38 airstrikes in the last 24 hours “on the territory” of the Azovstal steelworks.
The vast steel mill, with its network of underground tunnels and bunkers, has sheltered hundreds of Ukrainian troops and civilians during a monthslong siege. Scores of civilians were evacuated in recent days, but Ukrainian officials said Tuesday that some 100 civilians could still be trapped there.
The wives of two Ukrainian soldiers defending the mill met with Pope Francis on Wednesday and asked him to intervene to help arrange for the troops’ evacuation. One, Yuliia Fedusiuk, said the troops were running out of water and have no food. She said she understood some civilians, who are relatives of the soldiers, remained in the mill.
Meanwhile, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy suggested in his nightly address that the military was gradually pushing Russian troops away from Kharkiv — the country’s second largest city, and a key to Russia’s offensive in the Donbas.
He said his troops had driven Russian forces out of four villages near the city.
As his forces appear to gather steam in a nascent counteroffensive, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba voiced what appeared to be increasing confidence — and expanded goals — on Tuesday. He suggested to the Financial Times newspaper that Ukraine could go beyond just forcing Russia back to areas it held before the invasion began 11 weeks ago.
Kuleba’s statement seemed to reflect political ambitions more than battlefield realities: Russian forces have made advances in the Donbas and control more of it than they did before the war began. But it highlights how Ukraine has stymied a larger, better-armed Russian military, surprising many who had anticipated a much quicker end to the conflict.
Meanwhile, the British Defense Ministry said Ukraine was targeting Russian forces on Snake Island in the northwestern Black Sea, in an effort to disrupt Moscow’s attempts to expand its influence.
Russia has sought to reinforce its garrison on Snake Island, while “Ukraine has successfully struck Russian air defenses and resupply vessels with Bayraktar drones,” the ministry said on Twitter. It said Russian resupply vessels had minimum protection after the Russian Navy retreated to Crimea after losing the flagship of its Black Sea fleet.
Satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press show fighting there.
But the statement warned: “If Russia consolidates its position on (Snake) Island with strategic air defense and coastal defense cruise missiles, they could dominate the northwestern Black Sea.”
Ukraine’s natural gas pipeline operator said it would stop Russian shipments through a hub in a part of eastern Ukraine controlled by Moscow-backed separatists because of interference from “occupying forces,” including the apparent siphoning of gas. It also complained about interference along the route last month.
Benchmark European gas futures seesawed Tuesday and Wednesday on the news, meaning consumers may face higher energy bills — at a time of already rising prices.
Higher prices would benefit Russia, though it has massive foreign reserves now thanks to the rapid rise in crude oil prices in recent months as global travel and business resumed in the wake of mass coronavirus pandemic lockdowns.
The hub in question handles about a third of Russian gas passing through Ukraine to Western Europe. Russia’s state-owned natural gas giant Gazprom put the figure at about a quarter.
The move came as Western powers have been looking to ratchet up economic pressure on Moscow and bolster Ukraine’s defenders. The U.S. House of Representatives approved a $40 billion Ukraine aid package Tuesday.
U.S. officials and NATO have expressed concerns that Russia may be digging in for a protracted conflict as the war grinds into its third month with little sign of a decisive military victory for either side and no resolution in sight.
The Atlantic alliance is also waiting to see whether Sweden and Finland, two key Baltic Sea neighbors of Russia, would announce plans to join NATO — in what could be a serious blow to Russia.
___
Gambrell reported from Lviv, Ukraine. Yesica Fisch in Bakhmut, David Keyton in Kyiv, Yuras Karmanau in Lviv, Mstyslav Chernov in Kharkiv, Lolita C. Baldor in Washington, Kelvin Chan in London and AP’s worldwide staff contributed.
___
Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/11/ukrainians-make-gains-east-stop-russian-gas-one-hub/ | 2022-05-11T12:45:54Z |
US Army soldier killed in bear attack on Alaska base
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU/Gray News) - A U.S. Army soldier has died following a bear attack that occurred during a training exercise at Alaska’s Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson.
Base spokesperson Erin Eaton wrote in a press release that while training in an area west of the Anchorage Regional Landfill, a soldier was attacked by a bear and died from the injuries, KTUU reports.
The 673d Security Forces Squadron initially responded to the incident, and Alaska Wildlife troopers are still searching for the bear involved in the attack.
Base officials said more information about the incident will be announced as it becomes available, and the name of the soldier who died will be released pending next-of-kin notification.
Copyright 2022 KTUU via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/11/us-army-soldier-killed-bear-attack-alaska-base/ | 2022-05-11T12:46:06Z |
US inflation hit 8.3% over past year, slows from previous month’s 4-decade high
WASHINGTON (AP) — Inflation slowed in April after seven months of relentless gains, a tentative sign that price increases may be peaking while still imposing a financial strain on American households.
Consumer prices jumped 8.3% last month from 12 months earlier, the Labor Department said Wednesday. That was below the 8.5% year-over-year surge in March, which was the highest rate since 1981.
On a month-to-month basis, prices rose 0.3% from March to April, a still-elevated rate but the smallest increase in eight months. Consumer prices had spiked 1.2% from February to March, mostly because of a sudden jump in gas prices triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Nationally, the price of a gallon of regular gas has reached a record $4.40, according to AAA, though that figure isn’t adjusted for inflation. The high price of oil is the main factor. A barrel of U.S. benchmark crude sold for around $100 a barrel Tuesday. Gas had fallen to about $4.10 a gallon in April, after reaching $4.32 in March.
Beyond the financial strain for households, inflation is posing a serious political problem for President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats in the midterm election season, with Republicans arguing that Biden’s $1.9 trillion financial support package last March overheated the economy by flooding it with stimulus checks, enhanced unemployment aid and child tax credit payments.
On Tuesday, Biden sought to take the initiative and declared inflation “the No. 1 problem facing families today” and “my top domestic priority.”
Biden blamed chronic supply chain snarls related to the swift economic rebound from the pandemic, as well as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, for igniting inflation. He said his administration will help ease price increases by shrinking the government’s budget deficit and by fostering competition in industries, like meatpacking, that are dominated by a few industry giants.
Still, new disruptions overseas or other unforeseen problems could always send U.S. inflation back up to new highs. If the European Union decides, for example, to cut off Russian oil, gas prices in the United States would likely accelerate. China’s COVID lockdowns are worsening supply problems and hurting growth in the world’s second-biggest economy.
Previous signs that U.S. inflation might be peaking didn’t last. Price increases decelerated last August and September, suggesting at the time that higher inflation might be temporary, as many economists — and officials at the Federal Reserve — had suggested. But prices shot up again in October, prompting Fed Chair Jerome Powell to start shifting policy toward higher rates.
This time, though, several factors are pointing to an inflation peak. Natural gas prices, which soared in March after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, fell on average in April and likely slowed inflation. Used car prices are also expected to have dropped last month. Automakers’ supply chains have unraveled a bit, and new car sales have risen.
While food and energy have endured some the worst price spikes of the past year, analysts often monitor the core figure to get a sense of underlying inflation. Core inflation also typically rises more slowly than the overall price increases and can take longer to decline. Rents, for example, are rising at a historically fast pace, and there is little sign of that trend reversing anytime soon.
The unexpected persistence of high inflation has caused the Fed to embark on what may become its fastest series of interest rate increases in 33 years. Last week, the Fed raised its benchmark short-term rate by a half-point, its steepest increase in two decades. And Powell signaled that more such sharp rate hikes are coming.
The Powell Fed is seeking to pull off the notoriously difficult — and risky — task of cooling the economy enough to slow inflation without causing a recession. Economists say such an outcome is possible but unlikely with inflation this high.
In the meantime, by some measures Americans’ wages are rising at the fastest pace in 20 years. Their higher pay enables more people to at least partly keep up with higher prices. But employers typically respond by charging customers more to cover their higher labor costs, which, in turn, heightens inflationary pressures.
Last Friday’s jobs report for April included data on hourly pay that suggested that wage gains were slowing, which, if it continues, could help ease inflation this year.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/11/us-inflation-might-have-dipped-last-month-40-year-high/ | 2022-05-11T12:46:14Z |
US Interior to release report on Indigenous boarding schools
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — The U.S. Interior Department says it will release a report Wednesday that will begin to uncover the truth about the federal government’s past oversight of Native American boarding schools.
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced an initiative last June to investigate the troubled legacy of boarding schools, which the government established and supported for decades. Indigenous children routinely were taken from their communities and forced into schools that sought to strip them of their language and culture.
Catholic, Protestant and other churches also led some of the schools, backed by U.S. laws and policies.
The Interior report was prompted by the discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves at former residential school sites in Canada that brought back painful memories for Indigenous communities. Haaland has said her agency’s report will identify past schools, locate known and possible burial sites at or near those schools, and uncover the names and tribal affiliations of students.
The first volume of the report will be released Wednesday. The Interior Department hasn’t said how many volumes were produced.
At least 367 boarding schools for Native Americans operated in the U.S., many of them in Oklahoma where tribes were relocated, Arizona, Alaska, New Mexico and South Dakota, according to research by the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition.
Children at the schools often were subjected to military-style discipline and had their long hair cut. Early curricula focused heavily on vocational skills, including homemaking for girls. Some children never returned home.
Accounting for the number of children who died at the schools has been difficult because records weren’t always kept. Ground penetrating radar has been used in some places to search for remains.
The boarding school coalition has said Interior’s work will be an important step for the U.S. in reckoning with its role in the schools, but noted the agency’s authority is limited.
Later this week, a U.S. House subcommittee will hear testimony on a bill to create a truth and healing commission modeled after one in Canada. Several church groups are backing the legislation.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/05/11/us-interior-release-report-indigenous-boarding-schools/ | 2022-05-11T12:46:22Z |
17 hurt in school bus crash in North Carolina
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WBTV/Gray News) – Crews have responded to a crash involving a school bus in south Charlotte Wednesday morning.
Multiple units are on scene, including the mass casualty bus, officials said.
There were three vehicles involved in the crash and 17 patients, officials said. Two vehicles hit the bus.
According to Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, 40 students were on board the bus that was heading to South Mecklenburg High School. District officials said they are hearing reports of injuries but they don’t know the extent of them or who specifically is affected yet.
Officials said the bus driver was pinned and has been freed by members of the Charlotte Fire Department. They added they are currently coordinating with hospitals to take patients to multiple locations.
One person had life-threatening injuries, one other person had serious injuries and 15 children had minor injuries.
Copyright 2022 WBTV via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/05/11/17-hurt-school-bus-crash-south-carolina/ | 2022-05-11T13:18:58Z |
Arizona plans to execute 1st prisoner in nearly 8 years
PHOENIX (AP) — An Arizona man convicted of killing a college student in 1978 is scheduled to become the first person to be executed in the state after a nearly eight-year hiatus in its use of the death penalty.
Clarence Dixon, 66, is scheduled to die by lethal injection Wednesday morning at the state prison in Florence for his murder conviction in the killing of 21-year-old Arizona State University student Deana Bowdoin. If the execution goes ahead as planned, he will be the sixth inmate to be put to death in the United States this year.
In recent weeks, Dixon’s lawyers have made arguments to the courts to postpone his execution, but judges had so far rejected his argument that he is mentally unfit to be executed and had no rational understanding of why the state wanted to put him to death. Late Tuesday night, Dixon’s lawyers asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review lower-court decisions that denied his request to postpone the execution.
Dixon declined the option of being executed by the gas chamber — a method that hasn’t been used in the United States in more than two decades — after Arizona refurbished its gas chamber in late 2020. Instead, the state plans to executed him with an injection of pentobarbital.
The state’s hiatus in executions was driven by an execution that critics say was botched and the difficulty of finding lethal injection drugs.
The last time Arizona used the death penalty was in July 2014, when Joseph Wood was given 15 doses of a two-drug combination over two hours. Wood gasped more than 600 times before he died.
States including Arizona had struggled to buy execution drugs in recent years after U.S. and European pharmaceutical companies began blocking the use of their products in lethal injections.
Authorities have said Bowdoin, who was found dead in her apartment in Tempe, had been raped, stabbed and strangled with a belt.
Dixon, who was an ASU student at the time and lived across the street from Bowdoin, had been charged with raping Bowdoin, but the charge was later dropped on statute-of-limitation grounds. He was convicted, though, in her death.
In arguing their client was mentally unfit, Dixon’s lawyers have said he erroneously believes he will be executed because police at Northern Arizona University wrongfully arrested him in a previous case — a 1985 attack on a 21-year-old student. His attorneys concede he was in fact lawfully arrested then by Flagstaff police.
Dixon was sentenced to life sentences in that case for sexual assault and other convictions. DNA samples taken while he was in prison later linked him to Bowdoin’s killing, which at that point had been unsolved.
Prosecutors said there was nothing about Dixon’s beliefs that prevents him from understanding the reason for the execution and pointed to court filings that Dixon himself made over the years.
Defense lawyers have said Dixon has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia on multiple occasions, has regularly experienced hallucinations over the past 30 years and was found not guilty by reason of insanity in a 1977 assault case in which the verdict was delivered by then-Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Sandra Day O’Connor, nearly four years before her appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court. Bowdoin was killed two days after the verdict, according to court records.
Another Arizona death-row prisoner, Frank Atwood, is scheduled to be executed June 8 in the killing of 8-year-old Vicki Lynne Hoskinson in 1984. Authorities say Atwood kidnapped the girl, whose body was found in the desert northwest of Tucson.
Arizona has 113 prisoners on death row.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/05/11/arizona-plans-execute-1st-prisoner-nearly-8-years/ | 2022-05-11T13:19:04Z |
Most Great Barrier Reef coral studied this year was bleached
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — More than 90% of Great Barrier Reef coral surveyed this year was bleached in the fourth such mass event in seven years in the world’s largest coral reef ecosystem, Australian government scientists said.
Bleaching is caused by global warming, but this is the reef’s first bleaching event during a La Niña weather pattern, which is associated with cooler Pacific Ocean temperatures, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Authority said in its annual report released late Tuesday that found 91% of the areas surveyed were affected.
Bleaching in 2016, 2017 and 2020 damaged two-thirds of the coral in the famed reef off Australia’s eastern coast.
Coral bleaches as a heat stress response, and scientists hope most of the coral will recover from the current event, said David Wachenfeld, chief scientist at the authority, which manages the reef ecosystem.
“The early indications are that the mortality won’t be very high,” Wachenfeld said on Wednesday.
“We are hoping that we will see most of the coral that is bleached recover and we will end up with an event rather more like 2020 when, yes, there was mass bleaching, but there was low mortality,” Wachenfeld added.
The bleaching events in 2016 and 2017 led to “quite high levels of coral mortality,” Wachenfeld said.
Simon Bradshaw, a researcher at the Climate Council, an Australia-based group that tracks climate change, said the report demonstrated the reef’s survival depended on steep global emission cuts within the decade.
“This is heartbreaking. This is deeply troubling,” Bradshaw said. “It shows that our Barrier Reef really is in very serious trouble indeed.”
Last December, the first month of the Southern Hemisphere summer, was the hottest December the reef had experienced since 1900. A “marine heatwave” had set in by late February, the report said.
A United Nations delegation visited the reef in March to assess whether the reef’s World Heritage listing should be downgraded due to the ravages of climate change.
In July last year, Australia garnered enough international support to defer an attempt by UNESCO, the United Nations’ cultural organization, to downgrade the reef’s World Heritage status to “in danger” because of damage caused by climate change.
But the question will be back on the World Heritage Committee’s agenda at its annual meeting next month.
The Great Barrier Reef accounts for around 10% of the world’s coral reef ecosystems and was named because of the extensive hazards it posed to 18th century seafarers. The network of more than 2,500 reefs covers 348,000 square kilometers (134,000 square miles).
Coral is made up of tiny animals called polyps that are fed by microscopic algae that live inside the reefs and are sensitive to changes in water temperatures.
The algae provide the reefs with their kaleidoscope of colors and produce sugars through photosynthesis that provide the coral with most of its nutrients.
Rising ocean temperatures turn the chemicals that the algae produce into toxins. The coral turns white as it effectively spits the poisonous algae out.
Heat stress beyond a few weeks can lead the coral to die of starvation.
The latest bleaching is an unwelcome reminder of the differences in climate change policy among Australian politicians.
The conservative government seeking reelection on May 21 has less ambitious emission reduction targets than the center-left opposition is promising.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s Liberal Party aims to reduce Australia’s emissions by 26% to 28% below 2005 levels by 2030.
The opposition Labor Party has promised to reduce emissions by 43% by the end of the decade.
Morrison was widely criticized at the U.N. climate conference last November for failing to set a more ambitious target.
The environmental group Greenpeace Australia Pacific said in a statement the extent of the latest bleaching was “another damning indictment of the Morrison government which has failed to protect the reef and exacerbated the problem through its support of fossil fuels.”
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/05/11/most-great-barrier-reef-coral-studied-this-year-was-bleached/ | 2022-05-11T13:19:10Z |
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.
Mangelsen and a handful of fortuitous fellow photographers were silent, save for the clicking of camera shutters. 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 people momentarily heeded the guidance. 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. If they choose, instead, to stay on the path that runs near humanity, they’ll likely be caught and killed.
Independence, risks
Last 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.
She has been 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.
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. 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. 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.
Expenses
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.”
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.”
WyoFile is an independent nonprofit news organization focused on Wyoming people, places and policy. | https://www.wyomingnews.com/news/local_news/grizzly-399-s-cubs-face-life-or-death-crossroads/article_a17914e5-5929-5aea-b2cc-3faa15ee76a1.html | 2022-05-11T14:07:49Z |
Apple to discontinue iPods after 20-plus years
Published: May. 11, 2022 at 9:15 AM EDT|Updated: 1 hours ago
(CNN) - The device that helped Apple change the entire music industry will soon be just a memory.
Tuesday the tech giant announced it was discontinuing the iPod.
The digital music player was first introduced back on Oct. 23, 2001. It was the first portable MP3 player that could hold up to a thousand songs.
The device redefined how people bought, enjoyed and shared music.
The iPod eventually underwent several upgrades and variations.
It started to lose popularity as smartphones took over as the main source for listening to music on the go.
Now Apple says its newest iPod touch will be the final iteration of the device.
You can buy them online and at stores for $199 while supplies last.
Copyright 2022 CNN Newsource. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/05/11/apple-discontinue-ipods-after-20-plus-years/ | 2022-05-11T14:49:58Z |
Escaped inmate Casey White back in Alabama after being captured in Indiana
LAUDERDALE COUNTY, Ala. (WAFF/Gray News) - Escaped inmate Casey White is back behind bars in Alabama after 11 days on the run.
Vicky White, the former corrections officer assisting him in the escape, died as the result of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, a coroner confirmed. Her cause of death was ruled a suicide.
In a press conference with Lauderdale County Sheriff Rick Singleton, he said Casey White and Vicky White were captured in Evansville, Indiana, after a police chase ended in a rollover crash.
The U.S. Marshals Service said when Casey White came out of the car, he said, “Please help my wife. She just shot herself in the head, and I didn’t do it.”
The Evansville Police Department released body camera and dash-camera footage from the police chase and crash involving Casey White and Vicky White.
Video shows Casey White being detained moments after the Cadillac crashed. Video also shows law enforcement pulling Vicky White out of the car.
GRAPHIC WARNING: Videos in this story contain content that may be disturbing.
Vanderburgh County Sheriff Dave Wedding said in a news conference that Casey White told investigators their plan was to open fire on law enforcement. They were carrying four handguns and an AR-15 rifle, along with $29,000 in cash, officials said.
Wedding said he was thankful the chase ended the way it did.
“Sometimes people may call that an unnecessary action, but that action may have saved many of my deputies and fellow law enforcement officers’ lives,” he said. “That’s why I represent the sheriff’s office. I want to bring my people home, and I don’t care about the fugitives’ lives if it protects my people’s lives.
According to Wedding, Casey White and Vicky White were staying in a motel less than a mile away from the Vanderburgh County Sheriff’s Office.
Authorities say they paid a man to book their stay. He will not be charged.
Casey White was arraigned at the Lauderdale County Courthouse Tuesday night. He was then transferred immediately to the Donaldson Correctional Facility in Bessemer, Alabama.
Singleton says they have got a “dangerous man off of the street.”
“Casey White will not see the light of day again,” Singleton said.
He adds that there is no evidence at this time that anyone else was involved.
On April 29, the inmate and the former Assistant Director of Corrections were reported missing.
Vicky White and Casey White left the Lauderdale County Detention Center at 9:30 a.m. allegedly heading to the courthouse. Vicky White said she was taking Casey White to a mental health evaluation and then to seek medical care because she was not feeling well. Singleton later confirmed there was not a scheduled mental health evaluation.
Inmates told authorities that the two had a “special relationship” where Casey White received extra privileges, all from Vicky White. They first met in 2020 when Casey White was in Lauderdale County Jail. When he was moved to prison, they remained in contact. He returned to Lauderdale County Jail earlier this year.
Casey White was serving a 75-year prison sentence for attempted murder and other charges at the time of his escape. He was awaiting trial in the stabbing of a 58-year-old woman during a burglary in 2015. He could face the dealth penalty if convicted.
A warrant for Vicky White was issued May 2, charging her with permitting or facilitating escape in the first degree.
Authorities discovered Vicky White had bought a 2007 Ford Edge days before the pair ran off. She was also seen days before shopping for men’s clothing at Kohl’s and sold her house for below market value.
“This escape was obviously well planned and calculated. They had plenty of resources, cash, vehicles. They had everything they needed to pull this off,” Singleton said.
One week later, the 2007 Ford Edge was found in Bethesda, Tennessee, after it had apparently broken down.
A Ford F-150 was left abandoned at a car wash last week in Evansville, Indiana. The manager looked at the surveillance video and believed he saw Casey White. The video also showed Vicky White pick Casey White up from the car wash in a Cadillac. The U.S. Marshals were called in.
From there, the U.S. Marshals started narrowing their focus on Vicky White and Casey White being in Evansville, Indiana, where they were found on Monday.
Lauderdale County District Attorney Chris Connolly wants justice to be served.
“His capital murder case is set for June. Plan A would be to try him for June, but there are a lot of moving parts between then and now,” Connolly said.
Copyright 2022 WAFF via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/05/11/escaped-inmate-casey-white-back-alabama-after-being-captured-indiana/ | 2022-05-11T14:50:05Z |
Hyundai recalls 215K Sonatas; faulty hoses can leak fuel
Published: May. 11, 2022 at 10:31 AM EDT|Updated: 15 minutes ago
DETROIT (AP) — Hyundai is recalling more than 215,000 midsize cars in the U.S. - most for a second time - because fuel hoses can leak in the engine compartment and cause fires.
The recall covers certain 2013 and 2014 Sonata sedans, many of which were recalled for the same problem in 2020.
The Korean automaker says in documents posted Wednesday by U.S. safety regulators that a low-pressure fuel hose can crack over time due to heat from the engine.
That can cause fuel leaks and increase the risk of a fire.
Dealers will replace the hoses. Owners will be notified starting July 5.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/05/11/hyundai-recalls-215k-sonatas-faulty-hoses-can-leak-fuel/ | 2022-05-11T14:50:12Z |
US overdose deaths hit record 107,000 last year, CDC says
NEW YORK (AP) — More than 107,000 Americans died of drug overdoses last year, setting another tragic record in the nation’s escalating overdose epidemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated Wednesday.
The provisional 2021 total translates to roughly one U.S. overdose death every 5 minutes. It marked a 15% increase from the previous record, set the year before. The CDC reviews death certificates and then makes an estimate to account for delayed and incomplete reporting.
Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, called the latest numbers “truly staggering.”
U.S. overdose deaths have risen most years for more than two decades. The increase began in the 1990s with overdoses involving opioid painkillers, followed by waves of deaths led by other opioids like heroin and — most recently — illicit fentanyl.
Last year, overdoses involving fentanyl and other synthetic opioids surpassed 71,000, up 23% from the year before. There also was a 23% increase in deaths involving cocaine and a 34% increase in deaths involving meth and other stimulants.
Overdose deaths are often attributed to more than one drug. Some people take multiple drugs and inexpensive fentanyl has been increasingly cut into other drugs, often without the buyers’ knowledge, officials say.
“The net effect is that we have many more people, including those who use drugs occasionally and even adolescents, exposed to these potent substances that can cause someone to overdose even with a relatively small exposure,” Volkow said in a statement.
Experts say the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the problem as lockdowns and other restrictions isolated those with drug addictions and made treatment harder to get.
Overdose death trends are geographically uneven. Alaska saw a 75% increase in 2021 — the largest jump of any state. In Hawaii, overdose deaths fell by 2%.
___
The Associated Press Health & Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/05/11/us-overdose-deaths-hit-record-107000-last-year-cdc-says/ | 2022-05-11T14:50:18Z |
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HONOLULU (KITV4) - Breezy trade winds continue today with mostly sunny skies. Windward and mauka seconds may see brief isolated showers with some cloud coverage. Highs 81 to 86. Trade Winds 15 to 25 mph.
Tonight, partly cloudy and breezy with scattered showers for windward and mauka areas, isolated showers leeward. Lows 66 to 71. Trade winds 15 to 25 mph.
Stable and relatively dry atmospheric conditions persist across the Hawaiian Islands. Breezy trades will continue to transport some low clouds and brief, isolated showers mainly over windward and mauka sections this week. The winds are forecast to weaken and shift out of the southeast later this weekend. This may allow for a warmer weather pattern early next week.
Small Craft Advisory now in effect until 6 am Friday
Short-period surf will dominate east facing shores this week with seasonally normal heights, followed by a slight downward trend over the weekend as trade winds weaken. A couple of small moderate period northwest swells will move through the island chain today through the rest of the week, keeping below seasonally normal heights along north and west facing shores. Surf along south facing shores will remain small today and into tomorrow. A couple of small, long- period south swells may give south face shores a small boost late Thursday and into the weekend.
Do you have a story idea? Email news tips to news@kitv.com | https://www.kitv.com/news/local/wednesday-weather-breezy-trades-with-windward-clouds-and-brief-isolated-showers/article_b4efed8a-d137-11ec-bf36-1f4584bf287a.html | 2022-05-11T16:08:15Z |
Broadway High School Ag Teacher wins school, county awards
BROADWAY, Va. (WHSV) - As the school year winds down, educators in the Valley are recognized for their efforts throughout the year. One Rockingham County agriculture teacher has collected three honors recently.
Broadway High School’s Janae Pettit was named Teacher of the Year at the school level, and the 2022 Lucy Simms Educator of the year for the county.
Pettit has been an educator for seven years and says she is humbled and grateful for the opportunities to inspire students each day.
“I’ve had students who have found a passion like my own and gone on to be agricultural education teachers as well and so that’s a little extra sweet. But regardless just seeing students be successful at something they love that they found in our program, just makes it all worth it,” Pettit explained.
Students agree Pettit has helped fuel a deeper interest in a career in agriculture through FFA events, and her unique style of teaching.
“One of my favorite things is probably just the fun that she brings she always fun games. One of my favorite games that we do in this class is Silent Ball where we throw a ball around and if you fail to catch the ball, then she asks you a question and you can still continue to play if you get the question right,” ninth-grader Ayla Janney said.
Pettit says she and her colleagues teach 185 students across the department, and she will now compete for the Virginia Region 5 Teacher of the Year award.
Copyright 2022 WHSV. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/05/11/broadway-high-school-ag-teacher-wins-school-county-awards/ | 2022-05-11T16:12:38Z |
Dog found with note, tied to fire hydrant ready for adoption soon
GREEN BAY, Wis. (Gray News) – A dog found tied to a fire hydrant in a Green Bay neighborhood earlier this month is expected to be ready for adoption by the end of the week, according to the Wisconsin Humane Society.
The 6-year-old mixed breed named Baby Girl was left tied to a fire hydrant with a backpack full of her favorite toys and a heartbreaking note from her owner, citing struggles with medical complications and being unable to care for the dog.
The veterinary team at the humane society said Baby Girl has canine diabetes, which causes elevated blood sugar.
They said in a post on social media that her future adopter will need to work closely with a veterinarian on a dietary plan that will include at-home insulin injections, adding that her medical needs can be expensive.
Baby Girl is described as an affectionate and energetic pup who would do best in a home without cats or small animals.
The Wisconsin Humane Society said it will allow adopters from out of state, though it is not equipped to transport animals.
Check the Wisconsin Humane Society’s website daily if you are in a position to adopt Baby Girl as it has a first-come, first-serve process.
The humane society showed compassion to the dog’s previous owner, saying it was evident how much she was loved.
“She expressed her gratitude and happiness knowing Baby Girl would be finding her next loving home soon,” the Wisconsin Humane Society said of the dog’s prior owner.
While giving up a pet can be traumatic, the humane society wants people to know they can bring an animal to the shelter directly if they need to say goodbye and find them a new forever home.
Copyright 2022 Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/05/11/dog-found-with-note-tied-fire-hydrant-ready-adoption-soon/ | 2022-05-11T16:12:44Z |
Man with cane shot, killed while being harassed by teenagers, police say
Published: May. 11, 2022 at 11:01 AM EDT|Updated: 1 hour ago
HOUSTON (KTRK) – Police in Houston are investigating after they say a group of teenagers shot and killed a man behind a Walmart on Monday night.
A witness told police that four girls and two boys were harassing a man, who swung his cane at the teens to defend himself.
The group began to leave, but police say one of the boys turned around and shot the man in the chest.
He was taken to the hospital where he was pronounced dead.
None of the suspects have been caught. Police don’t know their motive, as the man was not robbed.
Anyone with information in this case is urged to contact the HPD Homicide Division at 713-308-3600 or Crime Stoppers at 713-222-TIPS.
Copyright 2022 KTRK via CNN Newsource. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/05/11/elderly-man-with-cane-shot-killed-while-being-harassed-by-teenagers-police-say/ | 2022-05-11T16:12:50Z |
Liberty University, Jane Does settle lawsuit over Title IX cases
LYNCHBURG, Va. (WDBJ) - Liberty University has settled a lawsuit against the school that claimed the university made serious errors in its handling of harassments, sexual assault, rapes and pregnancies of students and employees of the university.
The complaint, filed in the Eastern District of New York, included the testimony of 12 Jane Does. The majority of the plaintiffs identified as students of Liberty University. Others were employees of Liberty University.
The lawsuit, which was filed in 2021, alleged wrongdoing by the university going back to 2005.
It claimed Liberty University created an unsafe campus environment, saying it “has intentionally created a campus environment where sexual assaults and rapes are foreseeably more likely to occur than they would in the absence of Liberty’s policies.”
WDBJ7 reached out to Jack Larkin of Gawthrop Greenwood, PC, the attorney who represented the Does, for comment on the settlement.
“The terms of the settlement are confidential in nature and there’s really nothing I can say about it beyond that the parties to the suit have resolved their differences, and the matter is settled,” Larkin wrote in an email.
WDBJ7 has reached out to Liberty University for comment.
Copyright 2022 WDBJ. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/05/11/liberty-university-jane-does-settle-lawsuit-over-title-ix-cases/ | 2022-05-11T16:12:56Z |
Mega Millions ticket bought in Timberville wins $1 million
TIMBERVILLE, Va. (WHSV) - Somewhere there is a ticket from Tuesday night’s Mega Millions drawing. It may be in a glove compartment somewhere, or it could be in someone’s wallet. Wherever it is, that ticket is now worth $1 million.
It was bought at the 7-Eleven at 325 South Main Street in Timberville, according to a press release from the Virginia Lottery.
The winning numbers for the May 10 drawing were 15-19-20-61-70, and the Mega Ball number was 9. This ticket matched the first five numbers and missed only the Mega Ball number. That wins Mega Millions’ second prize of $1 million.
This ticket is one of only two nationwide to match the first five numbers in Tuesday’s drawing. No ticket in Virginia or anywhere else matched all six numbers to win the $86 million jackpot, so the jackpot grows to an estimated $99 million for Friday night’s drawing.
Whoever has the winning ticket has 180 days from the drawing date to claim the prize. The Virginia Lottery advises that before doing anything else, the winner should immediately sign the back of the ticket to establish ownership. When the person is ready to claim the million-dollar prize, they should contact the Virginia Lottery.
Mega Millions drawings are held Tuesday and Friday nights at 11:00. Drawings are streamed live at www.valottery.com. The odds of winning the $1,000,000 prize in Mega Millions are 1 in 12,607,306.
Copyright 2022 WHSV. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/05/11/mega-millions-ticket-bought-timberville-wins-1-million/ | 2022-05-11T16:13:02Z |
Missing 13-year-old girl found dead under ‘suspicious’ circumstances, police say
BEAVERTON, Ore. (KPTV/Gray News) – A missing 13-year-old girl was found dead under “suspicious” circumstances, the Beaverton Police said late Tuesday.
Beaverton police officers responded to the scene around 3 p.m. Tuesday. The body of Milana Li, 13, a sixth-grader, was found near the Westside Trail in Westside Linear Park, KPTV reported.
Police said Milana was last seen at her apartment around 4 p.m. Sunday evening. Milana’s mother reported her missing around 1:10 p.m. Monday, according to officers.
Aadil Mohamed saw police on scene early in the investigation
“I saw like a bevy of cops in a circle, seems like they were doing a search,” Mohamed said. “I was very surprised to see all the police here. I had to connect the dots. They were being very quiet about it all, but it was very surprising.”
Beaverton police detectives said they are investigating this case.
Copyright 2022 KPTV via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/05/11/missing-13-year-old-girl-found-dead-under-suspicious-circumstances-police-say/ | 2022-05-11T16:13:09Z |
New Mexico wildfire advances in Rocky Mountains foothills
(AP) - The largest wildfire burning in the United States was heading toward mountain resort towns in northern New Mexico on Wednesday, prompting officials to issue another set of warnings for more people to prepare to evacuate as the fast-moving fire picks up momentum.
Fire officials said the blaze was racing up slopes and along exposed ridge lines while tossing embers into the air that were carried ahead of the fire by gusting winds. After growing more than 50 square miles in a single day, the fire has now charred more than 370 square miles of tinder-dry forest since it started last month.
Two more days of windy and dangerously bone-dry conditions are predicted before the winds are expected to ease on Friday. The winds have often made it too dangerous for aircraft to dump water on the fire and lay retardant to slow its advance through extremely dry Ponderosa pine forests in the Rocky Mountains foothills.
“This is tough firefighting business right here,” fire Incident Commander Dave Bales said in a briefing. “This is not easy, especially in the fuel types were in, in the Ponderosa pine, mixed conifer, even down into the grass. When we can’t fly aircraft, when we can’t get people on the direct edge of the fire, when it’s spotting over us, that’s a huge concern for us.”
Crews were mostly concerned about the potential for the massive fire to spread farther north toward small villages in the Rincon Mountains and rural towns that include the skiing and outdoor resort communities of Angel Fire and Taos.
Firefighters were working to protect buildings overnight around the towns of Mora and Holman, where Highway 518 north to Taos was closed because of smoke and fire danger. Authorities stressed there was no immediate threat to communities near Taos but new alerts for evacuations were issued for some locations.
“Coming up toward Taos, Black Lake, Angel Fire, there is the possibility with the models we are running that those areas are going to see fire,” Todd Abel, a fire operations chief, said Tuesday evening.
Crews have been trying to direct flames around homes on the northern and southern ends of the fire — bulldozing firebreaks, putting up sprinklers, clearing trees and raking pine needles. More than 1,800 firefighters and support personnel are assigned to the blaze.
A federal disaster already has been declared because of the blaze, which is partly the result of a preventative fire that escaped containment after it was set in early April to clear brush and small trees so they could not serve as wildfire fuel. That fire merged with another wildfire several weeks later.
Crews also were battling smaller fires elsewhere in New Mexico and Arizona.
___
Associated Press writer Scott Sonner contributed to this report from Reno, Nevada.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/05/11/new-mexico-wildfire-advances-rocky-mountains-foothills/ | 2022-05-11T16:13:15Z |
The tiniest babies: Shifting the boundary of life earlier
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — Michelle Butler was just over halfway through her pregnancy when her water broke and contractions wracked her body. She couldn’t escape a terrifying truth: Her twins were coming much too soon.
Dr. Brian Sims entered the delivery room and gently explained that babies born so early likely won’t live. He told Butler he could keep them comfortable as they died.
But she pleaded through tears: “Give my twins a chance to survive.”
And he did.
Until recently, trying to save babies born this early would have been futile. Butler was in the fifth month of her pregnancy, one day past 21 weeks gestation. That’s seven weeks earlier than what doctors once considered “the lower limit of viability,” the earliest an infant could possibly survive outside the womb. But over the last half century, medical science has slowly shifted that boundary downward.
And that’s made viability — a word many associate with the abortion debate — key to decisions about desperately wanted babies at the very edge of life.
Growing numbers of extremely premature infants are getting life-saving treatment and surviving. A pivotal study in the Journal of the American Medical Association this year, which looked at nearly 11,000 such births in a neonatal research network that is part of the National Institutes of Health, found that 30% of babies born at 22 weeks, 56% born at 23 weeks and 71% born at 24 weeks lived at least until they were healthy enough to be sent home home if doctors tried to save them.
Those gains happened gradually and quietly as the notion of viability got a lot more attention in the abortion arena. Viability is mentioned 36 times in the initial draft of the leaked majority opinion by the U.S. Supreme Court that would strike down Roe v. Wade. The decades-old abortion ruling says the Constitution protects a woman’s right to an abortion before viability, a standard Mississippi argues is arbitrary.
But viability has nothing to do with the vast majority of abortions; more than 99% of abortions occur at or before 21 weeks, according to federal statistics. So although viability is central to abortion law, the crux of the argument around the procedure comes down to disagreement about whether and in which cases someone should have the choice to terminate a pregnancy.
Meanwhile, viability is a growing real concern for those who care for premature babies as science keeps moving the line lower and lower.
And in this realm, too, it’s ethically fraught.
Beyond the risk of death, babies at “borderline viability” are highly susceptible to disabilities such as cerebral palsy, cognitive impairments, blindness and severe lung problems. Often, parents and doctors face a heartbreaking question they must answer together: How do they decide what to do?
“There’s a lot of things we can do, a lot of interventions,” said Dr. Barbara Warner, a newborn medicine expert at Washington University medical school in St. Louis. “Should we do them?”
In the case of Butler’s twins, the answer was yes. Curtis and C’Asya Means came into the world on July 5, 2020, at the University of Alabama hospital, each weighing less than a pound and small enough to fit in an adult’s hand.
Their divergent paths reflected both sides of extreme prematurity.
C’Asya lived just one day. Butler keeps her ashes in a tiny pink-and-silver urn.
Curtis became the earliest surviving “micropreemie” in the world – teething, trying solid foods and tooling around the house in his walker.
‘A SLOW EVOLUTION’
Each year in the U.S, about 380,000 babies are born prematurely, or earlier than 37 weeks of a typical 40-week pregnancy. About 19,000 arrive before the third trimester.
Babies born so soon faced bleak prospects until the latter half of the 20th century. That’s when incubator technology evolved, neonatology became a specialty and two medications began to be widely used: steroids during pregnancy to speed up fetal lung development, and synthetic “surfactant” given to babies to keep their airways open.
“I don’t think I could point to a single new technology or new medication or approach that has been the driver of keeping infants alive at these really low limits of gestation,” said Dr. Elizabeth Foglia, a neonatologist at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “It’s just a slow evolution” that cascaded into “a sea change.”
For many years, the “edge of viability” remained around 24 weeks, she said. During her pediatric residency from 2006-2009, “those were the patients that were sort of the earliest we would intervene and the patients we were most worried about.”
Nicholas Hall’s twins, Graham and Reece, were born at 25 weeks in 2006. Graham spent his 45-day life connected to a breathing tube, getting nutrients through an intravenous drip. “He could never rest,” said the Bloomington, Indiana, dad, who with his now ex-wife started a nonprofit to support parents called Graham’s Foundation.
Reece survived. But she spent 119 days in the NICU, needed emergency surgery for a buildup of fluid in her brain, and came home on oxygen. She still has a hearing problem called auditory processing disorder.
Complications remain common even as three decades of research show a progressive increase in survival rates for babies born at 22 to 25 weeks. Care for these babies also remains intense.
Even today, up to a year in the hospital isn’t unusual for micropreemies, and costs can run into the millions of dollars. Most of these infants spend time on ventilators, are warmed in isolettes and get fluids and nutrition through tubes. Their skin, as delicate as a burn victim’s, needs meticulous care.
Hospitals have differing practices on when to provide this sort of care to the very youngest micropreemies, which leads to varying survival rates. One survey found that about six in 10 U.S. hospitals actively treated 22-week babies in 2019, up from 26% in 2007. The data doesn’t include the few surviving babies born during the 21st week of pregnancy.
“If you’re an institution that’s fully committed to resuscitation at 22 weeks, then studies show pretty clearly that just by virtue of offering the full spectrum of intensive care, you are going to be more likely to have babies who survive,” Foglia said.
TINY FIGHTER
Sims, a neonatologist who is also a pediatrics professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, said it would have been “perfectly reasonable” not to try to save Butler’s twins. In such cases, whether to resuscitate or continue lifesaving care is a shared decision between parents and the medical team.
“But even when we don’t try anything, a baby that’s trying to live will show you that. You’ll see that the baby’s trying to take a breath,” Sims said. “We support the babies that give us those signs.”
As soon as Curtis and C’Asya arrived, Sims gave each a little bit of oxygen. Curtis’ heart rate quickly rose. His smaller sister didn’t respond as well. Other medical measures for the twins, such as ventilators and surfactant, couldn’t compensate for her immature lungs.
“They told me it was up to me to make the call” about withdrawing treatment, Butler said. “I actually was praying silently to myself. God came to me and told me, ‘If you give me C’Asya, I’ll give you Curtis.’”
Butler cradled her daughter for hours after she died. It was the first time she held her.
Curtis stayed in the NICU for nine more months. Butler made the 90-minute trek from her home in rural Eutaw to Birmingham several times a week. She read books to Curtis and often held him inside her shirt so his skin touched hers.
Curtis went home tethered to oxygen. Butler, a single mom with two older kids, made sure the levels didn’t drop, gave him medicines five times a day and regularly set his feeding pump to dispense the right amount of food into a tube in his stomach.
More than a year later, Curtis is down to one medication for high blood pressure and two inhalers. He can be unhooked from oxygen for an hour a day. At 22 months old and around 20 pounds, he’s an active toddler who crawls, pulls himself up and plays with his older sister and brother.
When Butler woke him one morning, he fussed and fumbled with the feeding tube that still provides much of his nutrition.
But soon he was scooting his walker around the kitchen and curiously opening cabinets as Butler scrambled eggs, one of a growing number of soft and pureed foods he can now ingest.
“Wanna eat-eat?” she coaxed, offering a tiny bit of egg.
He eagerly popped it in his mouth, then smiled and grabbed a much bigger helping from her plate.
BITTERSWEET PROGRESS
In the future, doctors expect more micropreemies like Curtis to survive.
One reason? Saving them will become more accepted and common. Last year, the influential American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists updated its recommendations to say steroids before birth may be considered if resuscitation is planned at 22 weeks. Previously, the measure was not recommended for babies that young.
And down the road, scientists are working on lifesaving equipment tailored to smaller bodies and an artificial womb they hope could someday grow a fetus outside of a person.
Such advances are sure to deepen ethical dilemmas.
“There always will be a limit of viability. Where that limit is may change over time as technology evolves and our ability to care for less and less mature babies evolves,” Foglia said. But wherever that limit is, “survival may be possible but not guaranteed. And survival without disability is certainly not guaranteed.”
Hall said doctors shouldn’t keep trying to move the viability line down until they can truly reduce the long-term medical problems associated with extremely premature babies born today.
Cori Laemmle of Fort Wayne, Indiana, who gave birth to twin boys in 2020 at 22 weeks, said decisions about whether to treat such infants should consider the individual circumstances and be guided by a question: “Are the interventions going to do more harm than good?”
Washington University’s Warner said everyone needs to think about how the babies might suffer.
This was why Laemmle and her husband decided to let one of her twins go — he was crashing with a collapsed lung. The other twin responded well to treatment. He’s now getting speech and physical therapy and hitting the usual milestones in all areas but speech.
Doctors are hopeful that Curtis Means – he has his father’s last name – will also continue to thrive. Dr. Brett Turner, his pulmonologist, now sees him every two or three months to manage his ongoing lung disease.
“As he grows … those visits will slowly all be able to be spaced out,” Turner said. “Hopefully, he’ll require fewer and fewer doctors to care for him.”
At home, his 35-year-old mother spends less time tending to Curtis’ medical needs and more time just hanging out with him.
One afternoon, she pulled Curtis out of his walker and into her arms. He grabbed at her face. She kissed his hand. She pulled down his Winnie-the-Pooh shirt, and they touched palms in a high five.
Butler, who is studying to be a cosmetologist, envisions Curtis going to school in a few years and becoming a doctor someday.
But as he grows, she always wants him to remember the twin who will never see such a future.
“Anytime he has a party, it’s going to be about her too,” with both names on the cakes, Butler said. “I mention her name every day for him, to let him know he was a twin and ‘your twin is your angel.’ And when he gets bigger, I’m going to get him a necklace where he can keep her ashes with him.”
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/05/11/tiniest-babies-shifting-boundary-life-earlier/ | 2022-05-11T16:13:23Z |
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