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NAACP: Michigan attorney general must investigate Lyoya case
Published: Apr. 26, 2022 at 7:01 PM EDT|Updated: 37 minutes ago
(AP) - A civil rights group is demanding that the Michigan attorney general investigate the police shooting of Patrick Lyoya, warning the longstanding relationship between the county prosecutor’s office and Grand Rapids police could lead to bias.
The president of the Greater Grand Rapids NAACP says he personally asked Chris Becker to recuse himself but the Kent County prosecutor declined.
Cle Jackson says there are too many conflicts of interest. But Becker says he won’t give up the case.
Lyoya, a 26-year-old Black man, was shot in the back of the head by a white Grand Rapids officer after an April 4 traffic stop. State police are investigating the shooting.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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https://www.wvva.com/2022/04/26/naacp-michigan-attorney-general-must-investigate-lyoya-case/
| 2022-04-26T23:38:53Z
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NCAA President Mark Emmert stepping down no later than 2023
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — NCAA President Mark Emmert is stepping down after 12 tumultuous years leading an association that has become marginalized while college sports has undergone massive changes and been besieged by political and legal attacks.
NCAA Board of Governors Chairman John DeGioia announced the move Tuesday and said it was by mutual agreement. The 69-year-old Emmert will continue to serve in his role until a new president is in place or until June 30, 2023.
The move is not entirely a surprise. The NCAA remains the biggest governing body in college athletics, but it is has been under sharp criticism for years as too heavyhanded and even out of date with Emmert serving as the prime target.
Emmert has guided the NCAA through the most transformative period in the history of the more than 100-year-old organization. During the past decade, athletes have gained more power, benefits and ability to earn money than ever before. Amateurism has been redefined.
But Emmert has been viewed by some as not a catalyst for change but as an obstacle standing in the way — or at the least reactive instead of proactive.
“Throughout my tenure I’ve emphasized the need to focus on the experience and priorities of student-athletes,” Emmert said in a release from the NCAA. “I am extremely proud of the work of the association over the last 12 years and especially pleased with the hard work and dedication of the national office staff here in Indianapolis.”
The announcement comes one year after the board approved a contract extension for Emmert that ran through the 2025, a move that left many in college sports bewildered. Emmert’s yearly salary was nearly $3 million.
The NCAA has suffered a series of damaging court losses that peaked with last year’s 9-0 Supreme Court ruling against the association in an antitrust case. The decision undercut the NCAA’s ability to govern college sports and prompted a total overhaul how it operates.
Years after losing an antitrust case over the NCAA’s use of athletes’ names, images and likenesses, the association finally changed its rules last June to allow the athletes to profit as paid sponsors and endorsers. The move came only after state lawmakers passed laws to neuter the NCAA’s power, and with Congress unwilling to provide federal protection, the NCAA has been unable to regulate NIL activity with uniform rules — leading to fresh criticism.
Emmert was appointed to the job in April 2010. He had led the University of Washington and LSU prior to taking over in Indianapolis.
NCAA revenue has reached more than $1 billion per year under Emmert, primarily through the TV deals for the men’s college basketball tournament, and most of the money is redistributed to more than 1,100 member schools with nearly 500,000 athletes.
Still, the disparity between what the wealthiest schools bring in compared to what the vast majority of schools spend on athletics has made it difficult for them all to coexist under one umbrella organization.
NCAA member schools adopted a new constitution in January and are in the process of “transforming the structure and mission to meet future needs.”
“With the significant transitions underway within college sports, the timing of this decision provides the association with consistent leadership during the coming months plus the opportunity to consider what will be the future role of the president,” DeGioia said. “It also allows for the selection and recruitment of the next president without disruption.”
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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https://www.wvva.com/2022/04/26/ncaa-president-mark-emmert-stepping-down-no-later-than-2023/
| 2022-04-26T23:39:00Z
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Nurse turned teacher says school district wants her to repay her salary
CHILTON COUNTY, Ala. (WBRC/Gray News) - An Alabama-area school teacher is being asked to pay back tens of thousands of dollars the school district said it mistakenly paid her.
As reported by WBRC, a representative with the Alabama Education Association said an educator, who went from being a nurse to a teacher, recently received a letter from the Chilton County School District demanding she repays about $33,000 in salary that was given by mistake over the last several years.
Previously, a lunchroom manager Christie Payne made public a letter she got from the school system demanding she repays more than $23,000.
Payne said the school district told her that the system had mistakenly credited her for too many years of service after she was promoted.
The education association reports it is checking with other employees when it comes to other letters.
A representative with the school district said they could not comment on the situation due to employee privacy rights.
Copyright 2022 WBRC via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
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https://www.wvva.com/2022/04/26/nurse-turned-teacher-says-school-district-wants-her-repay-her-salary/
| 2022-04-26T23:39:06Z
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HONOLULU (KITV4) -- COVID-19 has impacted the way the home health industry offers services. One home health care company says business went up during the pandemic.
Home health care usually means an aide will help an older person with things they struggle to do for themselves, like meal prep, housekeeping, bathing, and tasks of daily living. But with the pandemic, the list of services has grown.
"We still do all that but are asked to do more," Tanya Fernandes, CEO of Ho'okele Home Care, noted.
Fernandes says that's translated to 20% to 25% more clients over the last two years.
"We've actually seen an increase in demand for homecare as a result of COVID," Fernandes said.
She says it's often adult children who make the call.
"Because the senior was at the home and was isolated, their children couldn't come visit, friends couldn't visit. The kids ended up hiring us to check on the parents," she explained.
That led to a request for more.
"We'd come do a wellness check. We started going grocery delivery and even helping them with technology so they could do virtual visits," Fernandes detailed.
Lockdowns at nursing homes deterred some seniors from going into a nursing home and having the family opt for home health care instead, she said, so the senior wouldn't be cut off from their loved ones.
It's changed the kinds of tasks home health aides are asked to do, she said..
"It's been interesting in terms of, it's a shift in the additional services we've had to offer. The challenge has become having enough caregivers to meet the demand," Fernandes added.
Do you have a story idea? Email news tips to news@kitv.com
Diane is KITV4’s weekend evening anchor and weekday reporter. She hosts the Aging Well series on Tuesday evenings at 5, 6, and 10 p.m. She is a mother, a cat owner, and a yogi.
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https://www.kitv.com/kakou/aging-well-covid-increases-demand-for-home-health-workers/article_467371b6-8b9f-11ec-a7cd-735aeffaaaa8.html
| 2022-04-27T00:47:43Z
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HONOLULU (KITV4) -- Brace yourselves for higher airfares, as airlines across the country, including here in Hawaii, start to see higher fuel costs.
On Tuesday, Hawaiian Airlines said in its first-quarter earnings report that fuel costs were up 216% in the first three months of 2022 when compared to the same timeframe last year.
The major cost hike is mainly due to the effects of the Ukraine-Russia war. Air travel demand also is at a much higher level.
Fuel is the second-biggest expense to airlines - just after labor. Typically, the industry tries to offset fuel costs with higher fares.
With air travel demand up because of the loosening of COVID restrictions, the airline industry hopes higher costs won't temper that demand.
Overall, Hawaiian Airlines reported a net loss of $130-million in the first quarter.
In a statement, Hawaiian Airlines CEO Peter Ingram said:
"Strong demand for leisure to Hawaii is poised to propel our domestic revenue to record levels as the effects of the pandemic are more muted now than at any point in the past two years. Based on these trends, we anticipate a resurgence of international demand as restrictive travel policies continue to loosen."
Duane Shimogawa has more than 15 years of experience in the media industry with stints as a reporter/anchor at several TV and radio stations, as well as newspapers such as Pacific Business News, Hawaii News Now, KNDU/KNDO-TV, and more.
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https://www.kitv.com/news/business/hawaiian-airlines-warns-of-higher-airfares-related-to-increased-fuel-costs/article_0d81e532-c5af-11ec-8e12-33e000115a53.html
| 2022-04-27T00:47:49Z
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Nearly 60% of adults and 75% of children have antibodies indicating that they've been infected with Covid-19, according to new data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The data come from an ongoing study of blood samples sent to commercial laboratories across the US.
At the beginning of December, an estimated 34% of Americans had antibodies showing that they had once been infected with the virus that causes Covid-19. By the end of February, after an avalanche of cases caused by the Omicron variant, that number had jumped to 58%.
"The highest jump in antibody detection was among children and adolescents," said Dr. Kristie Clarke, a pediatrician who led the study for the CDC.
By February, roughly 75%, or 3 in 4 children under the age of 18, had developed antibodies to Covid-19, according to the study. The lowest increase was among adults 65 and older; the CDC estimates that 33% of seniors have been infected with Covid-19.
It's unclear what these test results mean for personal or community protection against future infections, however.
"We still do not know how long infection-induced immunity will last, and we cannot know from the study, again, whether all people who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies continue to have protection from their prior infection," Clarke said Tuesday.
For that reason, the CDC says it is still important for all Americans to stay up to date on their Covid-19 vaccines, getting the recommended shots and boosters.
However, Clarke says, for people who have been infected within the past three months, "you may be able to wait on your second booster dose."
The estimates are pulled from random, anonymous tests of blood samples sent to commercial laboratories in the US. The testing measures antibodies made against pieces of the virus that causes Covid-19; these antibodies are not generated by the vaccines, so the testing is used to estimate what percentage of the population has been infected by the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
The CDC says the antibodies it measures for the study stay positive for at least two years after infection, so the study should be capturing infections that have happened since the beginning of the pandemic.
Clarke said that the CDC does not recommend that people seek out an antibody test.
"This is not something we recommend on an individual level," she said, "because it doesn't change our recommendation in terms of what you should do," like staying up to date on vaccinations and discussing other preventive measures with your doctor.
The study comes as more contagious new variants, BA.2 and BA.2.12.1, are dominating transmission in the US and causing cases and hospitalizations to rise once again.
CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Tuesday that the agency is paying close attention to Covid-19 cases in the Northeast.
"There are some areas of the country, particularly in the Northeast, where we're seeing a higher number of cases and we're starting to see some hospitalizations tick up," she said.
Walensky said health officials had not seen the numbers tick up as much as we might have expected earlier in the pandemic, "thanks to, I believe, a large amount of protection in the community" and from vaccines.
"But this is something that we need to watch carefully," she said.
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https://www.kitv.com/news/coronavirus/nearly-60-of-americans-now-have-antibodies-from-covid-19-infection-cdc-study-finds/article_c4402611-bff5-571f-a424-c2a86bd146c8.html
| 2022-04-27T00:47:55Z
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HONOLULU (KITV4) -- Court documents have revealed new details in the grisly Hawaii Loa Ridge murder of Gary Ruby.
Juan Baron, who has been charged with second-degree murder and three other felonies, has a bail hearing scheduled for May 5. His trial is scheduled to start on June 20.
In court documents recently released, investigators say Baron last entered the U.S. on June 26, 2018 on a B-2 visitor visa (tourist visa) with authorization to remain in the U.S. until Dec. 25, 2018. Baron did not depart the U.S. by Dec. 25, 2018, and has since been considered an "overstay" and therefore remains in unlawful status.
If Baron is released from OCCC for any reason, he would be transferred to federal custody. Once in federal custody, it would be within the federal government's purview to initiate removal/deportation proceedings against Baron.
Other details in the newly-released court documents say Baron made numerous attempts on Feb. 6 and Feb. 7 to trade Ruby's Audi A6 at Honolulu Audi and BMW showrooms. At both locations, Baron attempted to convince sales agents that Ruby was his uncle who lived in Texas. He also said his “Uncle Gary” was willing to remotely sign all documents electronically.
Baron provided sales associates at both locations with Ruby's vehicle insurance, using Ruby's personal email to transmit a copy of Ruby's Hawaii Driver's License, and ultimately presented the Audi General Sales Manager a fraudulently obtained certificate of title issued Feb. 7. This title was issued by the Department of Motor Vehicles Kapalama Satellite City Hall and named Baron as the registered owner.
Additionally, the sales deed for Ruby's house was purchased on HawaiiDeed.com, and Baron paid $478.53 for the transfer with Ruby's Mastercard, conducted entirely with Ruby's personal email address
Other new details included in the court documents:
- On March 8, investigators were contacted by an individual who dined with Baron and Scott Hannon the night before. This individual received a social media screenshot from a Waikiki bartender who had served the group on March 7 around 2 p.m. and since learned Baron and Hannon were criminal murder suspects.
- The individual informed police that after leaving the Waikiki bar, Baron and Hannon were at the individual's home from about 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Around 9 p.m. on March 7, Baron and Hannon related they needed to go to the airport to catch flights to the mainland. Baron was flying to San Diego and Hannon to Boston.
- Baron said he met Ruby online and the two began dating.
- Baron can be seen on video purchasing several bags of cement and an American Express receipt at Lowe's for the purchase of 440 pounds of Quikrete brand cement on Feb. 7.
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https://www.kitv.com/news/crime/new-details-revealed-in-court-documents-on-gruesome-hawaii-loa-ridge-murder-investigation/article_217e9de0-c5b5-11ec-b9e1-3733ad372f48.html
| 2022-04-27T00:48:01Z
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The Hawaii County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office charged 44-year-old Jennifer Conway with 16 counts related to her arrest on April 21. Details of the arrest were not released.
KONA, Hawaii (KITV4) -- A Kona woman is facing several charges for alleged drug and weapons possession after she was arrested at the Kona International Airport.
The Hawaii County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office charged 44-year-old Jennifer Conway with 16 counts related to her arrest on April 21.
According to Big Island police, a search warrant on Conway's luggage, car, and home, yielded 800 grams of suspected crystal meth, approximately 50 grams of suspected heroin, and approximately 2,700 fentanyl pills. Police said they also found two fake ID cards, and an unregistered .45-caliber pistol.
Charges include multiple counts of first, second, and third-degree promotion of a dangerous drug, attempted promotion of a dangerous drug, possession of drug paraphernalia, and being a felon in possession of a gun and ammunition.
According to court records, Conway was currently on supervised release for an unrelated felony at the time of her arrest.
Conway made her initial court appearance in Kona District Court on April 25. She is next scheduled to appear for a preliminary hearing on April 27. She is currently being held on $412,000 bail.
Matthew has been the digital content manager for KITV4 since September 2021. Matthew is a prolific writer, editor, and self-described "newsie" who's worked in television markets in Oklahoma, California, and Hawaii.
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https://www.kitv.com/news/crime/woman-charged-for-drug-weapon-possession-following-arrest-at-kona-international-airport/article_da28032a-c5a3-11ec-91dc-b3d4648c586a.html
| 2022-04-27T00:48:07Z
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24-year-old Kula fisherman who died in waters off Wainapanapa State Park identified | UPDATE By Sunshine Kuhia Smith Sunshine Kuhia Smith Assignment Editor/Digital Producer Author email Apr 25, 2022 Apr 25, 2022 Updated 4 hrs ago 0 Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Save FILE A 24-year-old Kula man has died after Maui Police found his unresponsive body Saturday in waters offshore from Wainapanapa State Park.He is identified as Matthew Brown-Chong Kee. The man was reported missing late Friday night after he failed to return from fishing earlier that day. Crews from the police department, Coast Guard and the family of the missing man began a search at about 2 a.m. Saturday morning. His body was found later Saturday about 50 yards offshore from the the state park. Witnesses say Chee's father pulled his body out of the water and onto a jet ski operated by a family member. Do you have a story idea? Email news tips to news@kitv.com Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Save Sunshine Kuhia Smith Assignment Editor/Digital Producer Author email Follow Sunshine Kuhia Smith Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today More From KITV 4 Island News Local The City releases 2021 holiday travel lane closures Updated Nov 18, 2021 News COVID-19 concerns remain as restrictions are lifted in Hawaii Updated Mar 21, 2022 Local Paubox awards scholarships to Native Hawaiian college students pursuing STEM majors. Updated Dec 21, 2021 COVID-19 Some experts say it's hard to predict when Omicron surge will fade in Hawaii Updated Jan 14, 2022 Local 45th annual Buffalo Big Board Surfing Contest celebrates family, fun, and Hawaiian culture; honors "Uncle Ants" Updated Feb 6, 2022 Local Honolulu halfway to 'green goal' of planting 100,000 trees Updated Mar 17, 2022 Recommended for you
Sunshine Kuhia Smith Assignment Editor/Digital Producer Author email Follow Sunshine Kuhia Smith Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today
Local Paubox awards scholarships to Native Hawaiian college students pursuing STEM majors. Updated Dec 21, 2021
COVID-19 Some experts say it's hard to predict when Omicron surge will fade in Hawaii Updated Jan 14, 2022
Local 45th annual Buffalo Big Board Surfing Contest celebrates family, fun, and Hawaiian culture; honors "Uncle Ants" Updated Feb 6, 2022
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https://www.kitv.com/news/local/24-year-old-kula-fisherman-who-died-in-waters-off-wainapanapa-state-park-identified-update/article_38a8def4-c452-11ec-b799-fbb30a7b8068.html
| 2022-04-27T00:48:14Z
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HONOLULU (KITV4) -- Low-income and moderate-income Hawaii residents may be eligible for up to $40,000 in an interest-free down payment home loan, the Honolulu Department of Community Services (DCS) announced Tuesday.
The DCS has $380,000 in HOME funds available for the rest of the year and is now accepting pre-eligibility inquiries for loans, Director Anton Krucky said.
Eligible households include anyone earning 80% of the area median income and lower. That means $77,350 for a family of two or $95,650 for a family of four. Loans will be awarded on a first come, first served basis, according to DCS.
“Homeownership is a critical pathway for families to achieve wealth, and this federal funding is an opportunity to avoid thousands of dollars in unnecessary interest payments over the life of a mortgage. We strongly encourage all qualified homebuyers to take advantage of this opportunity for financial stability for your ohana,” Krucky said in a press release.
Anyone who is interested in applying is asked to call the Loan Branch and speak with one of the City Loan Officers for an initial eligibility review. Eligible applicant would then apply with a first mortgage lender and work with a real estate agent of their choice, DCS officials said. There are no application costs for this loan.
To qualify, applicants must provide 5% of the purchase price as a down payment and complete an approved homeownership course. A home inspection is also required, according to loan program stipulations.
For more information, please contact the City and County of Honolulu, Department of Community Services, Loan Branch at 808 768-7076.
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https://www.kitv.com/news/local/honolulu-offering-interest-free-down-payment-home-loans-of-up-to-40k/article_53f8ec00-c5b3-11ec-bb23-eb56081d369e.html
| 2022-04-27T00:48:20Z
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WAIPAHU, Hawaii (KITV4) -- From Sid Fernandez to Kolton Wong, Hawaii has produced its share of major league baseball stars. But becoming the best takes hard work, and practice.
In teaming up with local Honolulu baseball enthusiasts, the Los Angeles Dodgers have now opened a brand new youth training ground.
The 10,000-square-foot warehouse was transformed into a state-of-the-art practice facility for Hawaii's up and coming.
"I think it just gives kids hope," explained Coach Donny Kadokawa. "You know, the hope to be the next Isiah Kiner-Falefa, Shanev Victorino. We're just trying to move the kids forward."
And In combining advanced sports technology with expert level coaching, the local partnership with the Major League franchise is sure to elevate anyone's game, no matter what their skill level.
Featuring an in-house weight room, open fielding space, and yoga studio, the opportunities for player development extend far beyond the dish.
In celebrating the academy's official grand opening, leaders with the collaboration say it's an opportunity to grow on both ends of the partnership.
"It's extremely exciting to come in and collaborate with all the local coaches, the local leagues, the local municipalities," added Dodgers' Training Academy co-founder, Aaron Trolio. "Just to be a part of baseball and softball is truly exciting for us."
With hopes of providing kids on the island the resources of the mainland, the Dodgers training academy is open for private, team, and special skills instruction.
Do you have a story idea? Email news tips to news@kitv.com
Erin found her passion in journalism from a young age, watching her dad on the news. He taught her the importance of meeting, learning, and sharing people's stories.
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https://www.kitv.com/news/local/major-league-training-facility-provides-opportunities-for-keiki-ball-players/article_ad8d0b9c-c56e-11ec-8c50-3fac1c6be800.html
| 2022-04-27T00:48:26Z
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MAKAHA, Hawaii (KITV4) -- Balloons and banners lined Farrington Highway at sundown.
Kuulei Lincoln, a friend of Michelle McPeek for over 15 years, told KITV4 she had just spoken to McPeek's younger teenage son on the phone.
"He just talked to us. And I sent my love and condolences and told them if they ever need anything just call me. He said ok and that he loves me," Lincoln told KITV.
That love and support in the community was a refrain at the roadside memorial here on Farrington Highway where Michelle McPeek died allegedly at the hands of her eldest son, 19 year old Joshua.
One close friend told KITV4 addiction had been in a factor in family life. She revealed that Joshua had recently completed the Hawaii National Guard Youth Challenge.
"I feel like you got to go deeper than that. Like more therapy. These kids can do Youth Challenge but they got to get more therapy," Evanna Graham told KITV4.
The gathering ended by the water at Keaau Beach Park where friends shared how they are remembering McPeek.
"Friendly. Loving. In good spirit, was very friendly lovable. Willing to give her last dollar to anyone," Lincoln said.
Co-workers from Waianae Store gathered, some who had only known Michelle McPeek through the last year.
"When I first started Waianae store, she was the friend who told me to apply, nobody knew what was going on in her life. She was always smiling," Vika Milo said.
"She's good people. Take care of your kids and anybody else's kids around," Graham added.
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.
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https://www.kitv.com/news/local/makaha-community-honors-the-life-of-michelle-mcpeek-at-a-sunset-vigil/article_2bcc21ea-c53e-11ec-89b8-6f50d6cffe3e.html
| 2022-04-27T00:48:32Z
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PORTLAND, Oregon (KPTV) -- Is anyone missing their pet pig? The Portland Police Bureau is searching for the owner of a pig that was found in traffic in the Powellhurst neighborhood early Tuesday morning.
Just after midnight, an officer was driving near the area of Southeast Division Street and Southeast 138th Avenue when she saw traffic slowing in front of her and appearing to drive around something in the road. The officer then saw the object was a pig.
Other officers came to help and animal control was called. Police said officers worked to contain the pig and keep him safe from passing vehicles.
There were a few short foot pursuits while officers tried to contain the pig. Officers used snacks, including Goldfish crackers and cookies, to keep him calm and contained. Police said the pig was not a fan of nacho cheese Doritos.
Once staff from the On Call Community Rescue for Animals arrived, police said it took a several few attempts and seven people to safely coral the pig into a crate.
Police are trying to track down the owner of the pig, who will be known as John Doe. If you are the owner or may know who the owner is, please call the shelter directly.
Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.
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https://www.kitv.com/news/national/officers-use-snacks-to-lure-loose-pig-to-safety-owner-sought/article_5f93cfed-06a6-507b-b8bb-ab358d2ceec9.html
| 2022-04-27T00:48:38Z
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A 118-year-old nun living in a nursing home in southern France has become the world's oldest living person, according to the Guinness World Records.
Sister André is also the world's oldest living nun and the oldest nun ever, according to a statement released by the record-breaking authority on Monday.
Born as Lucile Randon on February 11, 1904, Sister André has dedicated most of her life to religious service, the statement said. Before becoming a Catholic nun, she looked after children during World War II and then spent 28 years caring for orphans and elderly people at a hospital.
Sister André, who lives near the French city of Toulon, is also the world's oldest Covid-19 survivor. The Guinness World Records statement said she tested positive for the virus at the beginning of 2021, but recovered fully within three weeks, just in time for her 117th birthday.
In an interview with the French TV channel RMC Story on Tuesday, Sister André appeared to have mixed feelings about becoming the new oldest living person.
"I feel I would be better off in heaven, but the good Lord doesn't want me yet," she said, calling the title a "sad honor."
However, she also expressed her joy at being "pampered" by her family.
Sister André enjoys chocolate and wine -- and drinks a glass every day -- her nursing home, Résidence Catherine Labouré, confirmed to CNN on Tuesday.
When she turned 118 earlier this year, the elderly nun received a handwritten birthday note from French President Emmanuel Macron -- the 18th French president of her lifetime -- according to a tweet from the nursing home. There have also been 10 different Popes presiding over the Catholic Church since she was born.
Sister André became the world's eldest following the death of Kane Tanaka, a Japanese woman previously certified as the world's oldest person, who died at the age of 119 on April 19.
The title of oldest person ever recorded also belongs to a French woman. Born on February 21, 1875, Jeanne Louise Calment's life spanned 122 years and 164 days, according to the Guinness World Records statement.
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https://www.kitv.com/news/national/the-worlds-oldest-person-is-a-french-nun-who-enjoys-chocolate-and-wine/article_b12d0aca-159e-5a49-ad8c-5792e4442636.html
| 2022-04-27T00:48:44Z
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Venus and Jupiter will appear to touch each other in the sky at the end of the month, despite actually being millions of miles apart.
The two planets will appear closest together around 3 p.m. ET on April 30, with Venus 0.2 degrees south of Jupiter, according to EarthSky. The distance is less than the diameter of the moon, the space site added.
By May 1, the planets will have continued on their paths and look as if they are spreading farther apart from Earth's vantage point.
The Venus-Jupiter conjunction happens about once a year, but this year the two planets will appear significantly closer than they usually do, said Patrick Hartigan, professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University in Houston.
A conjunction is when two planets appear to touch each other in the sky from Earth's point of view, according to NASA.
The last time the two planets were closer than this year's conjunction was August 2016, although it was more difficult to see since they were close to the sun, according to Hartigan.
In the nights leading up to the conjunction, the moon will slowly become less visible as it transitions to a new moon on April 30, according to NASA.
Although the conjunction takes place at the end of the month, viewers can already see the two planets slowly creeping toward each other. On April 27, they will be 3.2 degrees apart, EarthSky said.
Mars and Saturn will roughly align north of Venus and Jupiter, according to EarthSky, meaning astronomers will be able to see four planets while viewing the conjunction. Alignment means the planets form a line between them, but do not appear significantly close to each other like a conjunction.
"Venus and Jupiter are typically the two brightest planets in the sky, so they can put on quite a show when they are in close conjunction. It is a beautiful sight and easy for everyone to see," Hartigan said.
How to view the conjunction
The early morning hours of April 30 and May 1 will provide great viewing opportunities, according to EarthSky, and you won't need a telescope to view them.
In the Northern Hemisphere, viewers should look along the southeastern horizon just as dawn begins to break, but while it's still dark enough to see some stars, Hartigan said.
Stargazers in the Southern Hemisphere will also be able to see the conjunction under the same conditions, except Venus and Jupiter will appear above the eastern horizon, EarthSky said.
Unlike in the Northern Hemisphere, Venus will appear above Jupiter on April 30 and below Jupiter on May 1 in the Southern Hemisphere, according to Hartigan.
Because the moon will not be illuminated, it will be easier to see the two planets nearly touch in the sky. That's as long as the sky is clear, since inclement weather would block the conjunction from view.
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https://www.kitv.com/news/national/watch-the-venus-jupiter-conjunction-at-the-end-of-april/article_33edb7b5-491a-5dde-a423-e3eafd83744a.html
| 2022-04-27T00:48:50Z
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CASPER — Oil and gas exploration could look different in Wyoming after the next legislative session. How it should change is still up for debate.
Even though many of Wyoming’s oil and gas reserves remain untapped, the planning, permitting and other upfront investments required to drill somewhere new can make those sites inaccessible to producers.
The federal government — which manages nearly half of the state’s surface lands and closer to 70% of its minerals — oversees a program intended to make such lands reachable.
In Wyoming, the Oil and Gas Conservation Commission typically safeguards the rights of both leaseholders and property owners by grouping lands into 640- and 1,280-acre drilling and spacing units. Companies must, for the most part, hold the rights to drill across the entire unit before they can begin producing.
Steve Degenfelder, land manager for Casper-based company Kirkwood Oil and Gas, on Monday walked the Legislature’s Joint Minerals, Business and Economic Development Committee through the distinction between Wyoming’s drilling and spacing units and federal exploratory units, a different type of drilling arrangement authorized by the Bureau of Land Management.
Federal exploratory units are much bigger than the average drilling and spacing unit — though they may eventually contain one or more — and often span tens of thousands of acres. They can be established in areas containing at least 10% federal minerals and are negotiated by the BLM, companies pursuing exploration and voluntarily participating property owners.
“You form it into one lease,” Pete Obermueller, president of the Petroleum Association of Wyoming, told the committee, “and it helps operators to be able to explore for and develop in areas they may not otherwise do it.”
The units come with time-sensitive drilling requirements meant to prevent companies from locking public resources, or resources owned by private individuals, into long, unprofitable contracts when exploration doesn’t go well.
But many in Wyoming — especially property owners — don’t think the program is working as it should. Complicated contracts have left some feeling frustrated and trapped. Profits from the wells that are productive don’t necessarily reach everyone. The arrangements’ built-in deadlines don’t always work to give participants a timely way out.
“There were an awful lot of mineral owners out there that did not get the bargain that they thought that they bargained for,” Heather Jacobson, an attorney from Douglas who represents many of the area’s surface and mineral owners, told the committee.
Despite general agreement that federal exploratory units need fixing, there’s not much consensus on what the state should, or can, do about it.
“This is a federal issue,” Jacobson said, “but we can try helping as much as we can.” According to Monday’s testimony, limiting the units’ acreage could reduce harm to property owners, potentially at the cost of producers’ willingness to go through the steps required to drill there.
Meanwhile, doing away with federal exploratory units entirely would mean fewer headaches for all parties — and fewer opportunities for new drilling in undeveloped parts of the state. More specifics and alternative ideas are still to come.
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https://www.wyomingnews.com/news/from_the_wire/experts-agree-oil-and-gas-exploration-needs-fix-no-consensus-on-how/article_5da2fd16-a6a3-5f81-be22-5ec2c5d53360.html
| 2022-04-27T01:00:27Z
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Jackson Hole Daily
JACKSON – Grizzly 399 and her four cubs have left Grand Teton National Park, taking a southern tack much earlier than officials and wildlife watchers expected.
“As far as we know, this is the farthest south she’s been this early in the year ever, and that does have us concerned,” Chief of Staff Jeremy Barnum said.
That “increases the imperative that she not get food rewards,” he said.
“The hope would be if she and the subadults don’t get food rewards, they’ll instead focus on natural food sources, which hopefully would lead them back up into the park,” he said.
Dan Thompson, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department’s large carnivore supervisor, confirmed this is the earliest 399 has left the park: less than a week after emerging from the den.
In the past two years, 399 and her cubs have ventured down into the southern part of Jackson Hole later in the year, getting into human-related foods two falls in a row.
The grizzlies’ more recent movements had wildlife managers and watchers concerned. Bears that repeatedly access human-related foods can get aggressive in trying to get to them, presenting a safety hazard for humans, and thus increasing the potential for more invasive management actions: hazing, relocation, and live or lethal removal.
Wildlife managers are currently focusing on conflict prevention, asking people in Teton County to lock up attractants like trash, beehives, compost and chicken coops.
But they have said more severe management options are on the table this year for the famous fivesome. That’s particularly true for 399’s cubs, which are expected to separate from their mother sometime this spring and have a history of accessing human-related food.
“Those offspring haven’t been taught how to forage naturally,” Thompson said.
399’s current southern foray comes a few months before July 1, when Teton County’s new wildlife feeding ordinance goes into effect.
It will require bear-resistant trash cans, and residents in areas outside of the town of Jackson will have to lock up other attractants. In the meantime, compliance is encouraged, but voluntary.
Kristin Combs, executive director of Wyoming Wildlife Advocates, worries the county is not ready for grizzly season.
“Absolutely not,” she said. “Not prepared at all.”
Nonprofits like hers, meanwhile, are trying to move the needle on locking up attractants. It has raised $200,000 to purchase 280 bear-resistant cans and offer some to residents at reduced costs. Thompson said the county is also in a state of “hyper awareness,” given 399’s recent history.
“I think that’s a good thing,” he said, also pointing to relatively low tourism in the valley as a positive.
Game and Fish is responsible for managing 399, her cubs and other bears outside the park. Last year, Game and Fish officials called in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to help them manage 399 and her brood.
But state and federal wildlife managers have said they plan to have the state agency manage the 399 situation this year, with feds as backup, if necessary.
With the celebrity bear outside Grand Teton, Thompson said, there haven’t been any issues so far. The bears have largely stuck to a Snake River drainage.
“They’re not in a bad spot right now,” he said.
But members of the public have been tailing the bears, and Game and Fish officials are on the ground monitoring the bears’ movement.
Thompson asked the public to not be “selfish or ignorant about these bears or any wildlife.”
“Give these bears space, give the wildlife space, give the people on the ground space,” Thompson said. “Don’t put yourself in a position that’s going to be bad for you or bears.”
To confirm 399’s location, Barnum cited data Thursday from the radio collars placed on two of the cubs last season. There’s a lag in that information – Barnum referenced data from the day prior – so it’s not clear where, exactly, 399 was at press time Thursday. But Barnum said the bears made their way out of the park along the Snake River bottom.
Grizzly photographer and advocate Tom Mangelsen said he had spotted them Wednesday evening east of Teton Village and had heard reports they had been spotted farther north Thursday.
“Hopefully she’s going north,” Mangelsen said.
The photographer also admitted he was a bit flummoxed by how quickly the bears had moved south.
“I didn’t really think she’d go far south,” said Mangelsen, who predicted otherwise. “The airport was about as far south as she’d ever gone that I’m aware of at this time of year.”
Thompson asked the public to continue to relay information to Game and Fish so the department can “act appropriately.”
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https://www.wyomingnews.com/news/from_the_wire/grizzly-399-cubs-leave-grand-teton/article_7feefa22-d4b7-5808-8a77-2db29d232dc3.html
| 2022-04-27T01:00:33Z
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CHEYENNE – The Cheyenne City Council gave its final approval Monday night to Get Bent, LLC, awarding it the city's only available retail liquor license.
The governing body, including Mayor Patrick Collins, voted 7-2 on the recommendation the Committee of the Whole made the week prior. An amendment to the motion was also added, which requires the applicant to provide proof of a full certificate of occupancy by Dec. 31 or else the license reverts back to the city.
While the mayor did not specify a reason for his "no" vote, council member Tom Segrave said he didn't vote with the majority because he felt the developer’s project did not align with the parameters set for the retail liquor license.
Qualifications included using all aspects of the license, restoring an area or building that is blighted and working under a faster-paced timeline. Segrave said although The Railspur met the timing criteria, and it would be located on the Reed Avenue Rail Corridor, it was not taking on the challenge of revitalizing an historic building.
Other council members said the recipients were providing just what residents desired.
“When I saw the presentation by Get Bent, I was reverted back to things I constantly hear from families in Cheyenne: ‘What are we doing for younger people?’” council member Ken Esquibel said. “And this concept appeared to me that it was one that was really going to bring younger people back down to downtown Cheyenne.”
Owners of Get Bent plan on using the license to transform the West Edge Collective building at 707 W. Lincolnway into a modern coffee house by day turned high-energy bar at night. The Railspur project will feature handcrafted cuisine from local food trucks, a package liquor store, and an outdoor space for events and music.
They were one of nine applicants left in the running for the license after Town and Country Supermarket Liquors and Billy Jack’s Pizza Pub withdrew from consideration. City Council members continually expressed how difficult it was to decide on just one proposal as entrepreneurs introduced their vision for breweries, entertainment spaces and boutiques – but just one could get the license.
This was due to the restrictions set by state law, which are based on population. The city of Cheyenne only saw its population increase enough to receive one additional retail liquor license this year.
Applicants, governing officials and community members all shared their frustrations with the stipulation, and said it wouldn’t be ignored. The City Council referred a resolution to the Finance Committee through its consent agenda that declared the municipalities of Laramie County agreed the current state statutes regarding the designation of liquor licenses are stifling economic growth. It further requests the Wyoming Legislature and its committees review, consider and adopt modifications to the laws.
A few entrepreneurs hoping to receive the license shared their support, but so did the developers of The Railspur.
“We will continue to stand with our colleagues in support for reform of these licenses moving forward,” Get Bent Manager Chad Willett said. “And I do applaud the council for the resolution, and really fighting that good fight.”
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https://www.wyomingnews.com/news/local_news/city-council-finalizes-award-of-retail-liquor-license/article_4f7e1469-a81f-5c3a-8abf-db6b8e34d288.html
| 2022-04-27T01:00:39Z
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...Near-Critical Fire Weather Today...
This is a special weather statement from the National Weather
Service Office in Cheyenne.
* WHAT...Near-Critical to briefly critical fire weather conditions
with low humidity in the teens to low 20s, elevated sustained
winds of 15 to 20 mph with occasional gusts at 25 to 30 mph
possible. Fuels remain dry in many areas, especially grasses.
* WHERE...High Plains of Southeast Wyoming, central and southern
Nebraska Panhandle, Laramie Valley, and Carbon County.
* WHEN...12pm through 8pm tonight.
* ADDITIONAL DETAILS...Fires starts and spreadibility could be
increased today under these weather conditions. Outdoor burning
is discouraged, especially during the afternoon.
1 of 2
The pond at the East Cheyenne Community Open Space. Photo provided on March 30, 2022, and taken by Jeanie Vetter, a greenway and parks planner at the city of Cheyenne’s Planning and Development Department.
The pond at the East Cheyenne Community Open Space. Photo provided on March 30, 2022, and taken by Jeanie Vetter, a greenway and parks planner at the city of Cheyenne’s Planning and Development Department.
Potential plans for East Cheyenne Community Park. Captured via screenshot on April 26, 2022, from the city's survey about this open space.
CHEYENNE – The city has a survey for you to take, by May 10, as it gathers feedback from the community about possible future plans for East Cheyenne Community Park.
Park planning consultants have put together plans showing concepts for future uses of the site, according to an emailed news release from the city. These concepts are based on a previous survey and an open house that was held in March, it noted.
The city will hold a second open house this Thursday, at Saddle Ridge Elementary School Gymnasium, 6815 Wilderness Trail. The event is from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. (Participants are advised to enter the building by using the school gym's entrance.)
The park, which is accessible to the public, is an open space and is new to municipal ownership. The property was purchased in April 2020 with sixth-penny sales tax funds approved by Laramie County voters in 2017.
"Let us know what you think! Join the City of Cheyenne Planning and Development Department and Community Recreation and Events Department to make important decisions regarding future amenities at the new park," Tuesday's email said.
East Cheyenne Community Park encompasses some 105 acres that are "bound by Whitney Road to the east, Pershing Boulevard to the north, private property to the west and the Union Pacific Railroad to the south." The address is 6017 E. Pershing Blvd.
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https://www.wyomingnews.com/news/local_news/survey-says-city-wants-your-input-on-e-cheyenne-community-park-event-slated-for-thursday/article_b6d174c9-71fb-5f69-b5bf-95a76d3cbc1f.html
| 2022-04-27T01:00:45Z
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CHEYENNE – If you drive along southern Wyoming's main east-west interstate highway in the winter, especially if you're in a big rig, you may experience some relief in the way of more parking and other enhancements when you need to pull off the road. And that may lead to a safer drive for all users of the road.
If all goes as expected – which is not guaranteed when it comes to construction projects in a time of supply-chain issues – vehicles could benefit starting this coming winter on I-80 between Rawlins and Laramie. That is due to what the Wyoming Department of Transportation calls its I-80 winter freight roadwork project.
This week, WYDOT announced that work on the project was set to have resumed on Wednesday. If all goes as planned, the work could wrap up around Oct. 31, a WYDOT spokesperson told the Wyoming Tribune Eagle by phone Tuesday. She noted that weather, supply chain kinks and other issues could play a role in the timing, however.
As the agency noted in a Monday release, the project "is expected to be complete in October 2022." The overall project first began in 2020, and the $20 million initiative is funded by a federal grant called Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development, or BUILD, according to WYDOT.
Once all the work is complete, there will be more parking spaces for semi-trucks, WYDOT has said. And there will be additional lanes for vehicles that need some extra time and distance to gather momentum to climb up what WYDOT described as steep grades.
“Climbing lanes help with traffic flow, especially on (such) inclines,” Tim Morton, who was WYDOT District 1 construction engineer at the time of his October 2020 remarks, has said about the project. “They also help prevent secondary crashes when I-80 reopens after an extended road closure.”
Construction crews have recently been gearing up to resume the road work project, the agency just announced.
The highway department said Simon Contractors has started work building almost 100 new semi-truck parking spaces in both the Fort Steele Rest Area (at mile marker 228) east of Rawlins and the Quealy Dome truck parking area (mile marker 290) west of Laramie. That would add a total of almost 200 new parking spaces.
In many things involving construction, there may be some short-term pain in exchange for longer-term gain.
The short-term hassles include that the "Fort Steele Rest Area, including parking areas, will remain closed during construction." And watch for flaggers directing traffic, reminded WYDOT. It advised not parking on the "on- and off-ramps in the Fort Steele interchange."
As always, the state agency also reminded, you should "watch for lane closures, reduced speed limits and other traffic changes" during the project. And, of course, you should "avoid distractions like cellphones when driving through work zones."
The good news when it comes to motorists on the highway itself is that, in the words of the state agency, "traffic on I-80 will see minimal impacts as crews start structure work and begin building climbing lanes on I-80." Still, WYDOT warned of the potential for "short lane closures in the eastbound lanes over Halleck Ridge (mile markers 250.5-252.5) west of Elk Mountain and westbound lanes between Cooper Cove and Quealy Dome (mile markers 279.5-281.5)."
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https://www.wyomingnews.com/news/local_news/wydots-i-80-winter-freight-road-work-resumes/article_d3dba64a-32db-5613-a562-83d842689249.html
| 2022-04-27T01:00:52Z
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LARAMIE — The University of Wyoming men’s rodeo team won the Central Rocky Mountain Region title for the fourth straight year about two months ago.
It took the Cowgirls a little longer to match their Cowboys counterparts — the final weekend of the regular season.
The top two CRMR men’s and women’s teams, and the top three individuals in each event, earn automatic bids for the College National Finals Rodeo June 12-17 in Casper.
The UW women scored enough points last weekend at the home Laramie River Rendezvous Rodeo for third place, and more importantly, stretched their slim lead over second-place Gillette College in the final CRMR standings.
The UW women’s 175 points were enough to boost the Cowgirls to their fourth consecutive CRMR team title in UW coach Beau Clark’s first four years at the helm of the university’s rodeo program. The Cowgirls tallied 2,560 points during the 10-event fall/spring season to give the team a 365-point cushion over second-place Gillette College, which did not score points in the final regular season rodeo. Just 35 points behind the Pronghorns was Laramie County Community College; Eastern Wyoming College was a close fourth with 1,938; and Casper College finished fifth with 1,915.
The LCCC women won the final rodeo with 245 points, and EWC was second at 210.
The Cowboys scored 800 points or better nine times in 10 rodeos this season, including 805 to finish the regular season Sunday afternoon. Second went to Casper College with 480, and LCCC had 400.
The UW men added to their overall national lead, breaking the 8,000-point level with a school record 8,350 points, easily outdistancing CRMR runner-up Gillette College by 2,680. Rounding out the top five for the year were LCCC with 3,730 for third place; Gillette College finished fourth at 2,640; and Sheridan College placed fifth with 1,780.
During Sunday’s final home rodeo, everyone on the Cowboys’ points team scored:
— In a season-long battle between teammates, Brice Patterson and Donny Proffit went ride-for-ride in the bareback competition. Patterson put up 83 points on his first ride, and just two points back was Proffit. During Sunday’s short go, Proffit first turned in the weekend’s top mark, scoring an 85 to briefly take the lead in the average. But not to be outdone, Patterson matched his teammate’s score to take over the average, winning by two points over his teammate.
“We just push each other so much just to be better. If Donny scores 90 points on a horse, I just hope I’m 91,” Patterson says of the friendly rivalry in a news release. “Just to dominate in the region this year like we did is just so special. It’s a clean slate for us at the college finals up in Casper, and I hope we can roll in there, be ready to battle and give it all we can.”
— Chadron Coffield put together two solid steer wrestling runs, recording the second-fastest times on both heads to finish as the bulldogging runner-up in the average.
— Saddle bronc rider Garrett Uptain won the opening round, then had the third-best mark in the short go to place second in the average.
— Cameron Jensen and partner Tanner Whetham, of Chadron State College, were fourth in the team roping average on the strength of tying for the second-best time in the opening round with two other teams. Jensen also won the opening round in bulldogging, but came up with a no time in the short go.
— Austin Hurlburt scored the final five points for the Cowboys by splitting sixth in the opening round of steer wrestling.
For the women during the home rodeo:
— Teammates Kelsey Lensegrav and Reata Beck came from the sixth- and seventh-seed positions to finish second and third in the goat tying average, respectively. Lensegrav won the short go with the round’s top time, while Beck was third in the finals.
— In the same event, teammate Taylour Latham split the top time in the opening round, but she could not get her tie to stay and had to settle for a no time in the short go.
UW non-points team members also performed well during the home rodeo. Makenna Balkenbush placed third in the breakaway roping average; Halle Hladky was the barrel racing runner-up; Stratton Kohr won the tie-down roping competition; and Natalie Leisinger placed fifth in goat tying.
For the season, the UW Cowboys did well in the final CRMR individual standings:
— Four UW teammates, led by Patterson, dominated the all-around, which goes to an individual who has scored qualifying points in two or more events throughout the season. Patterson totaled 1,915, followed by Uptain with 1,860; Jensen was third with 1,070; and Coffield placed fourth at 1,040.
— Sunday’s win gave Patterson the regional bareback riding title, and he also retained his lead in the overall national standings. Proffit finished second to his Laramie roommate in both the regional and national standings in a tight finish. Patterson scored 1,545, while Proffit put up 1,490.
— Uptain, the national saddle bronc points leader, maintained that position to win the regional title with 1,400, a nearly 300-point advantage over second-place Casper College’s Quinten Taylor. Uptain also finished third in bull riding with 460, while Sheridan College’s Coby Johnson won the regional title with 590.
— A pair of UW teammates swept the top two steer wrestling places. Hurlburt topped Jensen, with the pair scoring 585 and 490, respectively.
— Coffield placed first in tie-down roping with 540 to edge Gillette College’s Myles Kenzy by 50.
The only event the UW men did not have an individual placer among the top three in the region was in team roping.
The Cowgirls had two teammates place among the top three in the final goat tying standings. Riata Day was the event’s runner-up with 595, while Latham was just 10 back. Lensegrav was a close fourth with 510.
The Cowgirls did not finish among the top three in breakaway roping or barrel racing.
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https://www.wyomingnews.com/wyosports/rodeo/college_high_school/uw-sending-full-teams-to-college-national-finals-rodeo/article_6abd1b3f-e143-5240-a117-2311b616161f.html
| 2022-04-27T01:00:58Z
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https://www.wyomingnews.com/wyosports/university_of_wyoming/other_sports/celebration-of-life-service-for-joe-dowler-scheduled/article_4c895b5d-a009-5213-9ec8-10064ce1e478.html
| 2022-04-27T01:01:04Z
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LARAMIE — The University of Wyoming tennis trio of Ana Fernandez, Maria Oreshkina and Sophie Zehender received All-Mountain West accolades for the second straight season.
Oreshkina and Zehender were named to the All-Mountain West singles team and Fernandez and Zehender were named to the All-MW doubles team as a tandem when announced Tuesday by the league office.
Oreshkina, who was named to the singles team for the third consecutive season, joins Veronica Popovici (2011-14) and Magdalena Stencel (2015-18) as the only Cowgirls to receive all-conference accolades at least three times. Popovici and Stencel made the all-singles team four times during their careers.
Oreshkina went 5-2 in MW play this season, all coming at the No. 1 position. She tallied four victories over fellow all-conference honorees and was two points away from earning a fifth win before that match went unfinished. Oreshkina and Zehender tied for the team lead with 11 dual victories this spring.
Zehender notched her second-straight all-conference honor in both singles and doubles. She led UW with a 6-2 mark in league play at the No. 2 spot. In dual action, Zehender went 11-4 overall and was 9-3 in the MW at the No. 2 position.
Fernandez and Zehender were selected to the all-doubles team for the second consecutive season as a duo. They went 5-3 in league play at the No. 2 doubles spot, and went 8-6 overall in dual play this spring.
Wyoming has now had an All-MW singles team and All-MW doubles team selections in each of head coach Dean Clower’s 11 seasons in Laramie.
The Cowgirls begin Mountain West Tournament play at 1 p.m. Wednesday against Utah State in Tucson, Arizona.
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https://www.wyomingnews.com/wyosports/university_of_wyoming/other_sports/three-cowgirls-named-all-mountain-west/article_c77adfc2-5355-5697-8cbd-981a98012458.html
| 2022-04-27T01:01:10Z
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LARAMIE — University of Wyoming women’s basketball head coach Heather Ezell announced Tuesday the hiring of Brooke Atkinson as an assistant coach for the Cowgirls basketball staff.
“I’m excited for the opportunity and I look forward to getting started at Wyoming,” Atkinson said in a news release.
“I want to thank Coach Ezell for adding me to her staff. I’m excited to get to work and look forward to the challenges ahead.”
Atkinson comes to Laramie after spending the previous five seasons as the head coach at New Mexico State. She won 75 games with the Aggies and was the 2017-18 Western Athletic Conference coach of the year after she led NMSU to its fourth consecutive WAC regular season title. In 2018-19, the Aggies won their fifth-straight regular season championship and the WAC Tournament title, earning a trip to the NCAA Tournament.
At NM State, Atkinson helped guide seven student-athletes to All-WAC honors. Also under Atkinson, Brooke Salas was a two-time WAC player of the year (2017-18 and 2018-19) and was also being named the league’s defensive player of the year in 2018-19.
Atkinson joined New Mexico State after spending three seasons as an assistant at Colorado State. While in Fort Collins, Colorado, the Rams won three-straight Mountain West championships, including making an NCAA Tournament appearance in 2015-16. Prior to joining the Rams, Atkinson spent 2011-14 at South Dakota. In all three of those seasons, USD received postseason berths, including the Coyotes’ first-ever NCAA Tournament appearance in 2014.
Prior to arriving in South Dakota, Atkinson spent eight seasons (2003-11) on the bench at New Mexico State when the 2009-10 Aggies made their first postseason appearance in 16 seasons.
As a player, Atkinson played at Western Nebraska Community College (1998-2000) before closing with her final two seasons at Wichita State (2000-02). She graduated from Wichita State in 2003 with a degree in elementary education and earned her master’s degree in educational curriculum from NMSU in 2008.
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https://www.wyomingnews.com/wyosports/university_of_wyoming/womens_basketball/brooke-atkinson-joins-cowgirls-basketball-staff/article_2819e651-1ab3-5b3a-bf01-a75adba59c50.html
| 2022-04-27T01:01:16Z
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Police: Child dies of starvation, parents charged with murder
WARRICK CO., Ind. (WFIE/Gray News) - Two parents in Indiana have been arrested for murder and neglect after their baby died earlier this year.
WFIE reports the Warrick County Sheriff’s Office arrested Jakob Scott, 22, and Caylin Monroe, 23, on those charges, along with neglect of a dependent that resulted in death.
Authorities said their investigation began in February of this year after the sheriff’s office responded to a home outside of Evansville, Indiana, with reports of an unresponsive infant. First responders said the baby was deceased.
The child, Silas Scott, died of starvation, according to the sheriff’s office. His obituary said he was just shy of three months old.
Investigators report they gathered enough information to submit the couple’s case for review by the Warrick County Prosecutor’s Office.
Scott and Monroe are currently being held without bond.
Copyright 2022 WFIE via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
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https://www.wvva.com/2022/04/26/police-child-dies-starvation-parents-charged-with-murder/
| 2022-04-27T01:10:08Z
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Trial opens for ex-NYPD officer charged in Capitol riot
WASHINGTON (AP) — Body camera video captured a “rage-filled” retired police officer attacking one of the outnumbered police officers trying to hold off a mob of rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol, a federal prosecutor told jurors Tuesday.
But a defense attorney said another video from a different angle shows that former New York City police officer Thomas Webster acted in self-defense after a Metropolitan Police Department officer punched him first.
Jurors saw both videos at the start of Webster’s trial, the first among dozens of cases in which a defendant is charged with assaulting police at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Hava Mirell also showed jurors a photo of Webster holding a U.S. Marine Corps flag on a metal pole in front of the Washington monument before the riot erupted.
“He is smiling in that photo, but that smile would soon turn to rage,” she said during the trial’s opening statements.
The prosecutor told jurors they will hear testimony from Noah Rathbun, the officer whom Webster is charged with assaulting with the flag pole.
Webster shoved a bike rack at Rathbun before swinging the flag pole at the officer in a downward chopping motion, striking a metal barricade in front of the officer, according to Mirell. After Rathbun grabbed the broken pole and retreated, Webster “hunkered down,” charged at the officer and tackled him to the ground, where Rathbun began to choke from the chin strap on his gas mask, the prosecutor said.
Defense attorney James Monroe accused Rathbun of using excessive force and provoking Webster by punching him in the face.
“The government didn’t tell you about that,” Monroe told jurors.
Mirell said Rathbun stuck out an open palm to create space between him and Webster.
“But the defendant kept getting angrier and angrier,” she added.
U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, who is presiding over Webster’s trial, said during a bond hearing last June that he didn’t see Webster getting punched in the face on a video. The judge described Webster as an instigator.
“It was his conduct that sort of broke the dam, at least in that area,” Mehta said, according to a transcript.
Rathbun reported a hand injury from a separate encounter with a rioter inside the Capitol’s Rotunda. A Metropolitan Police Department detective, Jonathan Lauderdale, said Rathbun initially didn’t recall his encounter with Webster when he asked him about the incident. Lauderdale said other officers also forgot about key events from Jan. 6 amid the chaos.
“If I could forget that, I would,” Lauderdale testified.
Lauderdale acknowledged that he didn’t see Webster shove an open hand at Webster’s face during his initial review of the body camera video. He said Rathbun deserves “credit for showing restraint” based on what he saw.
The trial is scheduled to resume Wednesday with more testimony from prosecution witnesses.
Webster, now a self-employed landscaper, retired from the NYPD in 2011 after 20 years of service. He served in the Marine Corps in 1985, from 1989 before joining the NYPD in 1991. His department service included a stint on then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s private security detail.
Webster brought a gun when he traveled alone to Washington from his home in Florida, New York, a village in Orange County about 70 miles northwest of New York City. He wore his NYPD-issued bulletproof vest but says he left the pistol in his hotel room when he headed to the Jan. 6 rally where Trump spoke.
Webster faces six counts, including assaulting, resisting or impeding an officer using a dangerous weapon. He isn’t accused of entering the Capitol on Jan. 6.
“In his mind, this is a protest. He’s not taking over any Capitol,” Monroe said. “He’s there to have his voice heard.”
Monroe also has argued that Webster was exercising his First Amendment free speech rights when he shouted profanities at police that day. The defense lawyer suggested that Webster became upset because he saw others in the crowd who were injured and bleeding.
Webster’s trial in the fourth before a jury and the sixth overall. The first three Capitol riot defendants to get a jury trial were convicted of all charges in their respective indictments.
In a pair of bench trials, a different federal judge heard testimony without a jury before acquitting one defendant and partially acquitting another.
More than 780 people have been charged with riot-related federal crimes. The Justice Department says over 245 of them have been charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement. More than 250 riot defendants have pleaded guilty, mostly to nonviolent misdemeanors.
Jurors convicted two rioters of interfering with officers. One of the rioters, Thomas Robertson, was an off-duty police officer from Rocky Mount, Virginia. The other, Texas resident Guy Wesley Reffitt, also was convicted of storming the Capitol with a holstered handgun.
The third Capitol rioter to be convicted by a jury was Dustin Byron Thompson, an Ohio man who said he was following then-President Donald Trump’s orders.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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https://www.wvva.com/2022/04/26/trial-opens-ex-nypd-officer-charged-capitol-riot/
| 2022-04-27T01:10:14Z
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3-year-old girl shot, killed inside home in New Orleans’ French Quarter; 2 brothers detained
Published: Apr. 26, 2022 at 8:27 PM EDT|Updated: 27 minutes ago
NEW ORLEANS (WVUE/Gray News) - A 3-year-old girl was shot and killed in the French Quarter on Tuesday, according to the New Orleans Police Department.
Details are limited, but police say the toddler was found suffering from a gunshot to her body in the 400 block of Burgundy Street around 3:49 p.m.
She was transported to a local hospital and pronounced dead, officials say.
In a news conference shortly after the shooting, an NOPD captain said the young girl was inside of a residence when she was shot.
Two teen brothers were detained, approximately ages 18 and 19, the NOPD says.
Copyright 2022 WVUE via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
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https://www.wvva.com/2022/04/27/3-year-old-girl-shot-killed-inside-home-new-orleans-french-quarter-2-brothers-detained/
| 2022-04-27T01:10:21Z
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‘Chester Wilson Day’: WWII veteran celebrates 108th birthday
Published: Apr. 26, 2022 at 8:28 PM EDT|Updated: 42 minutes ago
LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT/Gray News) - A World War II veteran in Kentucky has reached a big birthday.
WKYT reports Chester Wilson celebrated his 108th birthday on Monday.
Lexington Mayor Linda Gorton wished Wilson a happy birthday and named Monday “Chester Wilson Day.”
The mayor said Wilson was born in Lexington and played baseball for his high school and the Bluegrass Minor League team.
Wilson also served on the USS Benevolence during WWII and has stayed active playing golf since turning 90 years old.
Copyright 2022 WKYT via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
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https://www.wvva.com/2022/04/27/chester-wilson-day-wwii-veteran-celebrates-108th-birthday/
| 2022-04-27T01:10:28Z
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Man convicted on 16 charges for distributing meth in drug trafficking organization
GREELEY, Colo. (Gray News) – A Colorado man was convicted on 16 drug charges for his involvement in a major drug trafficking organization in 2019.
According to the Greeley Police Department, an investigation into a large-scale drug trafficking organization operating out of Weld County Colorado took place. The investigation led to the arrests of multiple people, including 49-year-old Luke Braziel.
Braziel, along with other organization members, distributed about 28 pounds of crystal meth and heroin into Weld County, according to police.
During their investigation, authorities said they intercepted 14 pounds of those drugs before they could be bought by people in the community.
Police said Braziel was living at and distributing drugs from a home in Greeley.
With the help of evidence secured by multiple agencies, Braziel was convicted on multiple felony charges.
He was found guilty of 14 counts of conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance and 2 counts of distribution of a controlled substance.
A sentencing hearing for Braziel has been scheduled for May 23. He faces up to 32 years per count.
Copyright 2022 Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
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https://www.wvva.com/2022/04/27/man-convicted-16-charges-distributing-meth-drug-trafficking-organization/
| 2022-04-27T01:10:36Z
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Suspect arrested in Wisconsin homicide investigation
CHIPPEWA FALLS, Wis. (WEAU/Gray News) - The Chippewa Falls Police Department arrested a juvenile suspect in their homicide investigation into the death of 10-year-old Iliana Peters.
Chippewa Falls Police Chief Matthew Kelm said the arrest was made in the city of Chippewa Falls Tuesday evening.
Kelm said that the suspect was not a stranger to Peters, and was known to her. He said with the suspect is in custody and the public is no longer in danger. No other details were given about the suspect, including whether the suspect was related to Peters.
Police executed a search warrant at 422 N. Grove Street, near where Peters’ body was found.
Kelm said over 200 tips were provided to the police department, which were critical to the investigation.
The crime scene will be held by law enforcement for the time being, which includes the Duncan Creek Trail, the Leinenkugel’s Brewery parking lot and the wooded areas nearby.
The public is asked to avoid the area. Kelm said anyone with information that can help the case should call the police department’s tip line at 1-800-263-5906 through tomorrow.
After that, tips can be provided to the Chippewa Falls Police Department’s non-emergency line.
Nearly 20 federal, state and local agencies worked on the case in the past two days.
Copyright 2022 WEAU via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
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https://www.wvva.com/2022/04/27/suspect-arrested-wisconsin-homicide-investigation/
| 2022-04-27T01:10:42Z
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TERREBONNE, Ore. — Farmer Matt Lisignoli has enjoyed a good, two-decade run of growing Halloween pumpkins for Central Oregonians. Every October, his ranch is transformed into a carnival-like atmosphere, with train rides, a petting zoo and kids plucking pumpkins from a patch.
But while an increasing population means more customers each year, drought and other factors are taking their toll and threatening to put him out of business. Lisignoli, owner of the Smith Rock Ranch, said he just can’t grow enough pumpkins with limited supplies of water.
“The drought has redefined my operations and made me question my future plans,” said Lisignoli, who moved to Central Oregon from Portland in the 1990s. “I hope to continue offering this to Central Oregonians and other visitors, but until there’s better management of our resources, I cannot guarantee how long I can continue.”
Lisignoli is just one of the dozens of farmers and ranchers in the area forecasting losses this year amid the most severe water cuts in the region’s history.
The North Unit Irrigation District, which supplies irrigation water to Jefferson County, is delivering just 0.45 acre-feet of water to its patrons, a fraction of the normal 2 acre-feet.
Lisignoli sells his pumpkins at stores across the region, and on his farm near Smith Rock where families load pumpkins into wheelbarrows. If he can’t grow enough pumpkins, he will need to truck them over from the Willamette Valley, a costly proposition.
“The risks are soon to exceed the rewards of farming, and at that point, I will need to find another job with a stable and secure return,” he said.
Jos Poland, a 56-year-old organic dairy farmer outside Madras, contemplates what might be next for him if the drought continues.
“There are a lot of truck drivers needed these days,” said Poland, a farmer for the past 35 years. “Or we can file for bankruptcy.”
Poland said the only way he can turn a profit is to feed the cows with grass grown on his pastures. But without much water, there’s no way to grow the grass. So he has no choice but to buy grain and hay to feed his animals.
These commodities have doubled in price over the past year, he said, which wipes out any hope for turning a profit. His business is in survival mode, just trying to lose the least amount of money. In the off-season he sold 40% of his herd, leaving just 140 cows, in order to lower his feed costs.
“I have been doing this for 35 years, and my whole life I could predict what the future holds but not now,” said Poland. “We are just going a half year at a time. It is just new territory where we are at with this.”
JoHanna Symons, a neighbor of Poland, said she is also taking drastic measures on her farm.
The water shortage will only permit her to plant alfalfa on 200 acres of the 1,100-acre farm. On the remaining 900 acres, she will plant triticale, a cover crop, to prevent topsoil from blowing away. She also normally has around 5,000 cows but has trimmed the herd to just a few hundred.
The downsizing efforts are meant to lower risk in the face of rising costs, but it will cut her revenue this year by around two-thirds of normal.
“We have been in business for 23 years, and, man, I really want to do what it takes to stay in business,” said Symons. “But with the high cost of feed, it makes for a zero profit margin.”
In another corner of Jefferson County, the owners of Casad Family Farms are also planning large crop cutbacks this year. The farm typically produces 150,000 pounds of organic potatoes annually. This year, the owners are cutting that to just 10,000 pounds. In years past, the farm grew 150 tons of organic hay for Oregon customers. This year, it will only produce enough hay for the farm’s own animals.
Co-owner Cate Casad said the drought resiliency plan includes scaling back vegetable growing and focusing on the small-scale production of organic beef, pork and chicken.
“(With) holistic and regenerative grazing practices, we are maximizing the use of the little water we will have by establishing grazable cover crops and growing organic grains,” said Casad.
Without a lot of water, Casad said the plan is to add value to the products they can produce, so the farm will be shipping frozen meat products directly to consumers. Casad also produces hats as a second business to help supplement her family’s income.
The drought is having an economic impact on Jefferson County due to declining land values as prices tend to stagnate on farms that don’t have a lot of water, said Jefferson County Commissioner Kelly Simmelink. The impacts will spread throughout the entire tri-county area, he adds.
“It’s a trickle-down effect. It will impact farms and downtowns,” said Simmelink. “Generally speaking the people who operate these farms do their shopping in Deschutes County. Everyone has had to tighten their budget.”
Back at Smith Rock Ranch, Lisignoli is worried that even if the drought subsides, farmers will still face shortages because of the Deschutes Basin Habitat Conservation Plan, which guarantees increased water is left in the Deschutes River for the threatened Oregon spotted frog.
“The reservoir is releasing water faster than its filling, which is a bad scenario for producers relying on the summer flows,” said Lisignoli. “The drought doesn’t help, but the wanton release of stored water will have a greater impact.”
The shortages this year mean that there won’t be much production on his acres in the North Unit Irrigation District. He also has property in the Central Oregon Irrigation District, a senior water rights holder, so he will focus his pumpkin planting efforts there. But the higher elevation creates a freeze risk. He’ll sow his seeds and hope for good crop weather.
“Farmers are resourceful and work hard, but they are not magicians and cannot create water from thin air,” said Lisignoli. “Although I created my farm from an idea, I cannot continue to operate it based on dreams.”
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https://www.heraldandnews.com/klamath/central-oregon-farmers-rethink-operations-as-water-allocations-dwindle/article_06c720a5-7345-5bde-a841-82f66afa5085.html
| 2022-04-27T01:55:55Z
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Focusing on recycling, eliminating plastic straws, and introducing electric cars is not enough to solve our climate crisis. We need a comprehensive plan to stop contributing new greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere and reverse the legacy load of carbon we’ve already made.
Enter: Project Drawdown.
Last Friday, Sustainable Klamath hosted our yearly Earth Day event at the Ross Ragland Cultural Center. We had groups on site sharing information about various local sustainability issues and we showed the documentary film “Kiss the Ground,” which presents extremely valuable information on regenerative agriculture and its integral role in reversing climate change worldwide.
Regenerative agriculture describes farming and grazing practices that are in harmony with nature, such as no-till farming and closely managing the location and duration of animals’ foraging. Regenerative agriculture places its focus on the health of the soil, much of which has been stripped of its natural carbon sequestration ability and microbial diversity by the use of toxic pesticides, monocropping, over-grazing, and destructive tilling. This topic is especially relevant in the Klamath Basin, and though it is extremely important that we employ regenerative agricultural practices before we completely destroy the soil and lose the ability to grow food within the next 60 years, it is only one of many valid tactics we can use worldwide to reverse climate change and ensure that human beings stay off the endangered and extinct species list.
It can be overwhelming to think about the many problems that need solving when it comes to climate change. But thanks to the hard work of the people at Project Drawdown, we have a comprehensive roadmap that will lead us back to climate health by mid-century. And believe this: cities, universities, corporations, philanthropies, policymakers, communities, educators, and more are already implementing some of these imperative solutions.
Project Drawdown is a non-profit organization that was founded in 2014 which “seeks to help the world reach ‘drawdown’ — the future point in time when levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere stop climbing and start to steadily decline.” They are responsible for creating the 2017 New York Times bestseller Drawdown, which lays out their meticulous and ongoing research and top 100 scalable solutions that we can use worldwide in our current circumstances, with the technology we have right now. Some of the effective tactics Project Drawdown has identified include regenerative agriculture, education of girls/women, adopting plant-rich diets, refrigerant management, reducing food waste, restoring tropical forests, alternative cement, and abandoned farmland restoration – and the list is ever-growing.
According to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, if we continue with our current soil management practices and don’t make fundamental changes, the world may have only 60 harvests left. But if we take bold action now, we can rejuvenate our soil, which will help to ensure global food security, reduce erosion, improve nutrient cycling, provide vital microbial habitats, and pull billions of tons of carbon out of our atmosphere.
Last Friday, attendees of Sustainable Klamath’s Earth Day event were introduced to regenerative agriculture in the documentary “Kiss the Ground,” which also highlights the work of Project Drawdown. Both sources present vital information on how we as individuals and global citizens can work toward and attain a future in which we and our planet thrive.
Remediating our soil and healing our planet by employing hundreds of other tactics doesn’t have to be an impossible task. The research has been done, it is available, and we are capable. All we have to do now is roll up our sleeves and get to work.
You can find the documentary “Kiss the Ground “on Netflix, or at the Klamath Library – where Sustainable Klamath and Kiss the Ground Foundation have provided a DVD that will remain available for rent. Community organizers, teachers, schools, and homeschoolers can also access the documentary for free on the website at: www.KissTheGroundMovie.com/for-schools/
You can learn more about Project Drawdown, interact with their Table of Solutions, and download your free copy of The Drawdown Review at: www.Drawdown.org
If you would like to find more information on local sustainability, volunteer or donate, please visit SustainableKlamath.org.
Alissa Oliverson is the chair of the Sustainable Klamath, Solid Waste Action Committee (SWAC).
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https://www.heraldandnews.com/klamath/climate-crisis-solutions-and-resources/article_1b23a442-f052-5120-8d70-0f7956273b75.html
| 2022-04-27T01:56:01Z
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As wars rage, as cruelty shatters lives across the planet — as nuclear Armageddon remains a viable option for all of us — I think it’s time to claim some stunning awareness in this regard.
The human race is evolving in spite of itself — evolving beyond war, beyond empire, beyond dominance and conquest, and toward an uncertain but collective future. Indeed, I think most of us already know this, but only at a level so deep, so vague it feels like nothing more than “hope.”
There’s also another problem. Much of our world remains organized in a totally opposite way: committed, as Richard Falk puts it in his 2013 book, (Re)Imagining Humane Global Governance, to national policies “shaped by unimaginative thinking trapped within a militarist box.” Another way to put this would be: a de facto commitment to human suicide.
As long as there’s no serious, organized alternative to war, this is what we’re going to get, which, in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, seems suddenly clearer than it’s been since, oh, 1962 (remember the Cuban missile crisis?). As long as global order, global security, is allegedly maintained with bombs and bullets and bully-swagger — and various nuclear-armed enemies occasionally challenge one another for the right to control particular swaths of the planet — we’re hostage to an insanity we seem to have bequeathed ourselves.
What is power? This strikes me as the key question, and untangling ourselves from the wrong answer is the beginning of the creation of real peace.
When we think of power, the word itself commands that we carve the concept into something isolated and wieldable: a sword, a gun, a scepter. Power means power over. There is no basic concept of power — no word for power in the English language — that also means collaboration, collective participation: people working together, individually empowered at the same time that they are part of a larger whole.
Even when we examine the dark side of power — as in, power corrupts — the examination seems to hover as a warning rather than open up to larger awareness. Consider, for instance, this 2017 article in The Atlantic by Jerry Useem, titled (fasten your seatbelts!) “Power Causes Brain Damage,” which discusses a concept called “hubris syndrome.”
The article’s essential point is that people who gain a significant amount of power over others lose the ability to empathize with — or mime, as the article puts it — people in general, the lesser mortals who must follow the boss’s orders. This inability, it turns out, is serious. It isolates the powerful into their own stereotypes and egotistical certainties, which lessens their ability to make good, or even rational, decisions.
The idea is that we’re naturally connected and subconsciously “mimic” others: We laugh when others laugh, tense up when others grow tense. It’s not faking an emotion to fit in; it’s participating in — feeling — the collective emotion that fills the room. “It helps trigger the same feelings those others are experiencing and provides a window into where they are coming from,” Useem writes. But: Powerful people “stop simulating the experience of others,” leading to what is called an “empathy deficit,” which saps the powerful of most, or maybe all, of their social skill, leaving them, even as they generate endless obeisance, socially isolated souls.
The conclusion to be drawn here is that what is commonly thought of as power — power over others, a.k.a., dominance — isn’t power at all. It’s an illusion of power that weakens, and perhaps destroys, those who hold it.
So does this hold true beyond the personal level — at the geopolitical level? Among countries? Well, a “country” is a created, collective entity, and may well be bound to the concept of us vs. them: intoxicated by the need for armed self-defense and, occasionally, armed conquest. Richard Falk calls this “hard power”: dominance maintained by force and, when necessary, massacre.
Is something else possible — e.g., “a world order premised on nonviolent geopolitics”? Falk calls this “soft power” — the power of working together, respecting and valuing rather than fearing one another. The way I have put it over the years is Power With others rather than power over them.
And Falk makes a startling observation about how the world has changed since, in essence, the end of World War II. “Throughout the colonial era, and until the mid-twentieth century, hard power was generally e?ective and e?cient,” he notes. Heavily armed European nations tramped across the rest of the planet, claiming ownership where they felt they could.
But then something changed, beginning with India’s struggle for independence from Great Britain: “Every anticolonial war in the latter half of the twentieth century,” Falk writes, “was eventually won by the militarily weaker side, which prevailed in the end despite su?ering disproportionate losses along its way to victory.”
Their resistance was often nonviolent which “included gaining complete international control of the high moral ground.”
This is not a pretty story. The hard power didn’t let up; it simply lost, e.g.: “The United States completely controlled land, air, and sea throughout the Vietnam war, winning every battle, and yet eventually losing the war,” Falk writes, “killing as many as 4 million Vietnamese on the road to the failure of its military intervention.”
And despite its military dominance, despite the harm it inflicted, the U.S. has done nothing but lose wars for the last three quarters of a century. It created hell on earth for millions of people; it just didn’t get its way.
It has also failed to learn any lessons from its losses. The United States has refused to abandon its commitment to pointless militarism, as reflected every year in its grotesquely expanding military budgets.
But change is happening nonetheless. Soft power — power with one another — is our future ... if we have any future at all.
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https://www.heraldandnews.com/klamath/humanity-evolving-in-spite-of-itself/article_831f08a4-fec8-5992-a1c7-7ed983b0f253.html
| 2022-04-27T01:56:08Z
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RENTON, Wash. — For the better part of a decade, the first-round of the NFL draft has proved to be rather boring for the Seattle Seahawks.
Whether it was late opening-round picks that usually were traded, or not even owning a first-rounder, the opening night of the draft was regularly dull in Seattle.
Not this year. Not entering perhaps the most important draft for the Seahawks since the 2012 grab bag that landed Seattle a bounty of future stars.
Coming off the first losing season in a decade there is heightened pressure and expectation on general manager John Schneider and coach Pete Carroll that the Seahawks must hit in this draft, beginning with the No. 9 overall pick.
“There’s a lot of planning. A lot of thoughts that go through your head. A lot of different scenarios,” Schneider said. “We may pick at nine, we may not. We don’t know yet. We’re gonna do whatever we can to help this football team as much as we possibly can. It’s obviously exciting, but it’s not necessarily a place that you want to be drafting.”
If the Seahawks truly believe they are reloading and not fully rebuilding after an offseason of major changes, then coming out of this draft filling some significant needs seems to be a requirement.
Quarterback will be a focal point following the trade of Russell Wilson to Denver, which landed the Seahawks the ninth pick, along with a bounty of other selections. But Seattle seems set on giving Drew Lock, Geno Smith and Jacob Eason a chance at earning the starting job, and while a QB may be selected, it seems unlikely to be the choice at No. 9.
There are too many other needs.
Neither offensive tackle position is set. Seattle lost starting cornerback D.J. Reed in free agency. Pass rush seems to be a never-ending priority, especially in a new 3-4 defensive scheme.
And Bobby Wagner, one of the best linebackers of this generation, was released in a salary-cap move and signed with the division rival Rams, leaving one of the inside linebacker spots unaccounted for.
“There is definitely an excitement about this because there’s only so many things that can happen when you’re picking 25th or 28th and down there. There’s a million scenarios,” Carroll said. “This is not like that. It’s a little different.”
Under center
The last time the Seahawks selected a quarterback in the first round was Rick Mirer in 1993. The last time they selected a quarterback in any of the first three rounds was 2012 when Wilson was picked and became a 10-year starter.
At some point among Seattle’s eight picks a quarterback is likely to be selected. But in a year when there’s no clear options at the position in the top 10, it seems unlikely Seattle would use the No. 9 pick on a QB.
The better likelihood is seeing if someone like Matt Corral or Desmond Ridder is available late in the first or early in the second round.
End of the line
The last time Seattle had a top 10 pick came in 2010, the first draft under Schneider and Carroll. The No. 6 pick that year was used on left tackle Russell Okung, who started all 72 regular-season games he played for the Seahawks over six seasons.
Don’t be surprised if Seattle looks to find its next left tackle with the No. 9 pick.
Veteran Duane Brown remains a free agent after spending the past 4 ½ seasons in Seattle. The Seahawks seem hesitant to commit a lengthy deal to Brown, who will turn 37 before the start of next season.
The top tackles in the draft have all been linked to the Seahawks, including Mississippi State’s Charles Cross, Alabama’s Evan Neal and Ickey Ekwonu from North Carolina State. If one of those players is still available at No. 9 it’ll be very attractive for the Seahawks.
Cornering the market
If offensive tackle isn’t the choice at No. 9, it very likely could be cornerback. Seattle saw Reed depart for a bigger deal with the Jets, leaving Sidney Jones and Tre Brown, who was injured midway through last season, as the primary options.
Ahmed “Sauce” Gardner fits the size profile Seattle has sought in the past at 6-foot-3, but seems to be rising in mock drafts and could be gone by the time Seattle picks. Other possible early first-round options could be LSU’s Derek Stingley Jr. and Clemson’s Andrew Booth.
Whether the first pick is used on a cornerback or not, expect Seattle to take one or two in the draft.
Trade out
As is always the case with Schneider, a trade is entirely possible. The second day of the draft is likely to be loaded with talent and a trade down by the Seahawks to nab more second- and third-round picks might be the most likely outcome for Seattle. But top 10 picks have been rare in the past dozen years for Seattle so this could be the time the Seahawks finally use that first-rounder.
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https://www.heraldandnews.com/klamath/seahawks-face-crucial-draft-beginning-with-no-9-selection/article_4c162e3b-04bf-5fa8-a7a3-6e0168b1aa68.html
| 2022-04-27T01:56:14Z
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MEDFORD — A southern Oregon man was sentenced to federal prison Tuesday for assaulting a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) employee with a deadly weapon while the employee was taking photos of a campsite the man occupied on BLM property in Josephine County, Oregon.
Scott Dye, 56, was sentenced to time served and three years’ supervised release. Dye was in custody from the time of his arrest in June 2020 until his release after pleading guilty in December 2021.
According to court documents, on May 31, 2020, Josephine County Sheriff’s Office deputies and emergency personnel responded to an overturned school bus located on BLM property. Dye was identified as the driver and owner of the bus. On June 6, 2020, a BLM officer contacted Dye and told him he had 14 days to vacate the bus property.
From June 6, 2020 through June 16, 2020, Dye enlisted the aid of both BLM officers and civilians on multiple occasions to move his overturned bus. Throughout this time, Dye explained to witnesses he was being harassed and intimidated by local civilians who did not want him there. On June 15, 2020, multiple individuals threw rocks at Dye and told him that he needed to leave. Dye told a BLM employee he was being harassed and expressed his desire to remove the bus from the crash site and vacate the area as soon as possible.
On the morning of June 17, 2020, a BLM employee was travelling in a government vehicle on official business and stopped near Dye’s encampment to take some photos. After taking two photos, the employee heard the rear driver side window of his vehicle shatter. Realizing he was being shot at, the employee opened his driver door and entered the vehicle. As soon as he shut the door, a second round struck the steering wheel of the vehicle sending shrapnel into the employee’s hand. The employee also sustained minor abrasions on his ear from flying glass. The employee quickly departed the scene and called 911.
Less than an hour after the shooting, Josephine County sheriff deputies and BLM officers observed Dye walking on a BLM road near the encampment and detained him. Dye told the officers he owned the bus and was returning from a walk. When asked if he possessed any guns in the camp, Dye declined. Dye was eventually driven to and released in Merlin, and instructed not to the return to the bus. He was arrested again later the same day by BLM officers.
On the same day as the shooting, FBI and BLM agents executed a federal search warrant on the bus and surrounding camp site. They found a .223 caliber shell casing on the ground near the bus and an empty black rifle case and .223 magazine inside the bus near Dye’s sleeping pad. From the rear of the bus where the spent shell casing was found, agents observed a direct line of site to the location where the BLM employee’s vehicle was struck by gunfire earlier that day. A ballistics analysis later conducted by the FBI concluded that three shots were fired at an upward trajectory from Dye’s bus toward the BLM employee and his vehicle
On June 18, 2020, Dye was charged by federal criminal complaint with assaulting a federal officer, camping longer than permitted on public lands, and disposing of garbage on public lands. Later, on July 20, 2021, a federal grand jury in Medford returned a three-count indictment charging Dye with assaulting a federal officer; attempting to murder a federal officer; and using, carrying, and discharging a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence.
On Dec. 10, 2021, Dye pleaded guilty to assaulting a federal officer.
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https://www.heraldandnews.com/klamath/southern-oregon-man-sentenced-for-assaulting-blm-employee/article_bff394e1-20e5-5d8a-a586-d15f98c65416.html
| 2022-04-27T01:56:20Z
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https://www.heraldandnews.com/news/local_news/man-crawls-through-heavy-smoke-barely-escapes-3-a-m-fire/article_b29a8a4d-1b91-548c-a4bb-8478d70e7c29.html
| 2022-04-27T01:56:26Z
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United States of America US Virgin Islands United States Minor Outlying Islands Canada Mexico, United Mexican States Bahamas, Commonwealth of the Cuba, Republic of Dominican Republic Haiti, Republic of Jamaica Afghanistan Albania, People's Socialist Republic of Algeria, People's Democratic Republic of American Samoa Andorra, Principality of Angola, Republic of Anguilla Antarctica (the territory South of 60 deg S) Antigua and Barbuda Argentina, Argentine Republic Armenia Aruba Australia, Commonwealth of Austria, Republic of Azerbaijan, Republic of Bahrain, Kingdom of Bangladesh, People's Republic of Barbados Belarus Belgium, Kingdom of Belize Benin, People's Republic of Bermuda Bhutan, Kingdom of Bolivia, Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana, Republic of Bouvet Island (Bouvetoya) Brazil, Federative Republic of British Indian Ocean Territory (Chagos Archipelago) British Virgin Islands Brunei Darussalam Bulgaria, People's Republic of Burkina Faso Burundi, Republic of Cambodia, Kingdom of Cameroon, United Republic of Cape Verde, Republic of Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad, Republic of Chile, Republic of China, People's Republic of Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Colombia, Republic of Comoros, Union of the Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, People's Republic of Cook Islands Costa Rica, Republic of Cote D'Ivoire, Ivory Coast, Republic of the Cyprus, Republic of Czech Republic Denmark, Kingdom of Djibouti, Republic of Dominica, Commonwealth of Ecuador, Republic of Egypt, Arab Republic of El Salvador, Republic of Equatorial Guinea, Republic of Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Faeroe Islands Falkland Islands (Malvinas) Fiji, Republic of the Fiji Islands Finland, Republic of France, French Republic French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories Gabon, Gabonese Republic Gambia, Republic of the Georgia Germany Ghana, Republic of Gibraltar Greece, Hellenic Republic Greenland Grenada Guadaloupe Guam Guatemala, Republic of Guinea, Revolutionary
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https://www.heraldandnews.com/news/local_news/teen-girl-in-foster-care-goes-missing/article_7b7b8869-1c0b-56a7-87dd-ce0851ed6b8e.html
| 2022-04-27T01:56:32Z
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Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff greets people as they participate in activities on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Monday, April 18, 2022, during the White House Easter Egg Roll.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., chair of the Senate Finance Committee, talks to reporters at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 15, 2021. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff greets people as they participate in activities on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Monday, April 18, 2022, during the White House Easter Egg Roll.
Susan Walsh
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., chair of the Senate Finance Committee, talks to reporters at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 15, 2021. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, have tested positive for the coronavirus. Both positive test results were announced Tuesday, April 25.
“Today I tested positive for COVID-19. I have no symptoms, and I will continue to isolate and follow CDC guidelines. I’m grateful to be both vaccinated and boosted,” Harris said in a statement.
The White House said Harris, 57, had not been in recent close contact with President Joe Biden, 79, and First Lady Jill Biden, 70.
“Today, Vice President Harris tested positive for COVID-19 on rapid and PCR tests. She has exhibited no symptoms, will isolate and continue to work from the vice president’s residence. She has not been a close contact to the president or first lady due to their respective recent travel schedules. She will follow CDC guidelines and the advice of her physicians. The vice president will return to the White House when she tests negative,” said Harris spokesperson Kirsten Allen on Tuesday.
Wyden is also fully vaccinated, according to his office. The Oregon Democrat chairs the influential Senate Finance Committee.
“As part of routine testing, Senator Wyden tested positive today for COVID-19. He is fully vaccinated and experiencing minor symptoms. He is in Washington, D.C. and working from his residence while following CDC guidance to quarantine.”
The senior Oregon senator was first elected to Congress in 1980 serving in the U.S. House until winning a Senate election in 1996.
Wyden, 72, joins a prominent list of U.S. elected officials who have tested positive for COVID — many of those have been breakthrough cases among the fully vaccinated.
U.S. Reps. Pete DeFazio, 74, and Earl Bluemenaur, 73, both Oregon Democrats, announced earlier this month they had also tested positive for the virus.
“After waking up with a sore throat and out of an abundance of caution I took a COVID-19 test. That test came back positive. I am feeling well and experiencing only minor cold-like symptoms. I will follow CDC guidance and quarantine. I encourage everyone to get vaccinated and boosted,” Bluemenaur said an April 11 statement.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control reports there have been more than 80.8 million COVID cases and 988,700 deaths attributed to the virus nationwide.
In Oregon, there have been 7,485 deaths attributed to the coronavirus and more than 716,400 cases overall, according to the state’s health authority.
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https://www.heraldandnews.com/news/oregon/kamala-harris-ron-wyden-test-positive-for-covid/article_22be4e65-0d79-5fbf-8a83-a7b811a6b368.html
| 2022-04-27T01:56:38Z
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Freak accident: 7-year-old critically injured by falling tree limb, mother says
ST. MARYS, Kan. (WIBW/Gray News) - A Kansas girl remains in a medically-induced coma after her mother said a tree limb fell on her daughter’s head while they were walking to a local park.
Jenna Jones told WIBW that her daughter Quinlynn was walking to the park with her two brothers in the morning hours on April 23 when a 4-inch branch fell about 30 feet from an elm tree.
Jones said the falling branch fractured Quinn’s skull in two places; one was near a major blood vessel in the brain.
The second-grader was rushed to Children’s Mercy Hospital, and her mother said the doctors were initially optimistic about her recovery.
On Tuesday, Jones said her daughter’s recovery was a waiting game as doctors continue to wait for swelling near the fractures to go down. Quinlynn also remained in a medically-induced coma.
There were high wind gusts that morning in northeast Kansas, with reported gusts exceeding 50 mph.
A Facebook Group, Quinlynn’s Climb, has been created to update friends and family on her condition. A GoFundMe has been created to help the family cover medical expenses.
According to the online fundraiser, doctors told the family that the amount of brain damage Quinlynn will have is currently unknown. However, the bulk of the damage is in the language and processing area of her brain.
Jones said she doesn’t blame anyone for what happened to her daughter, calling it a freak accident. She said she appreciated how the community has rallied around Quinn and her family.
Copyright 2022 WIBW via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
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https://www.wvva.com/2022/04/27/freak-accident-7-year-old-critically-injured-by-falling-tree-limb-mother-says/
| 2022-04-27T02:43:23Z
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Half of US parents financially support their adult children, survey finds
(Gray News) - We all know that bills and other expenses can add up, especially since the start of the pandemic, and more young adults seem to be turning to their parents for some extra assistance.
A recent survey found that 50% of U.S. parents with a child 18 or older provide some sort of money to help them financially. And even up to 73% when their adult child is more than 30 years away from retirement.
Researchers said they surveyed about 1,000 adults who had at least one child 18 or older.
On average, parents who do support their adult children financially were found to be spending just over $1,000 per month. Costs like food, health insurance, rent and cell phone bills were some of the most common, according to the survey,
Parents of Gen Z adult children were also helping with tuition and other school fees, which were the most expensive among the categories at $631 per month on average.
Rent or mortgage payments were the second most expensive contribution, at $467 a month on average, according to the survey.
Researchers shared some other key findings from their survey:
- Half of the parents with an adult child provide them with at least some financial support. Twenty-six percent of these parents say they’ve had to provide more support since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Sixty-two percent of adult children living with their parents don’t contribute at all to the household expenses.
- On average, parents who financially support their adult children give them $1,000 per month for expenses like food, health insurance, rent, cell phones, tuition, and even travel.
- Parents who are still working and supporting their adult children spend 23% more on their children’s expenses ($605 per month) than they do contribute to their own retirement or savings ($490 per month).
- If their adult children needed financial help, one in four parents said they’d pull money from their retirement accounts and 22% said they’d delay their retirement in order to provide support.
Copyright 2022 Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
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https://www.wvva.com/2022/04/27/half-us-parents-financially-support-their-adult-children-survey-finds/
| 2022-04-27T02:43:30Z
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House 1/6 panel wants to hear from McCarthy after new audio
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol is redoubling its efforts to have GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy appear for an interview amid new revelations concerning his private conversations about the deadly attack, the chairman said Tuesday.
Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said the panel expects to decide this week about issuing a second request to McCarthy, who has declined to voluntarily appear before the panel. The committee is also looking at summoning a widening group of House Republicans for interviews, Thompson said, as more information emerges about their conversations with the Trump White House in the run-up to the Capitol siege.
The committee is racing to wrap up this phase of its work amid newly released audio recordings of McCarthy’s private remarks after the Jan. 6 attack, when supporters of then-President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol trying to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory.
In a Jan. 10, 2021, audio recording released Tuesday by The New York Times, McCarthy tells fellow Republican leaders that Trump’s far-right allies in the House are “putting people in jeopardy” with their public tweets and comments that could put other lawmakers at risk of violence.
Earlier, the Times reported that McCarthy, in conversations with House Republicans, had blamed Trump for the attack. The audio recordings released by the Times are part of reporting for a forthcoming book, “This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden and the Battle for America’s Future.”
Thompson said the committee met most of Tuesday deciding next steps on McCarthy and other House members.
“We will probably look at engaging some of the lawmakers by invitation at this point, and we’ll go from there,” Thompson said at the Capitol.
The panel had previously sought interviews from McCarthy and Republican Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, two Trump allies central to the effort to challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election that Trump lost to Biden.
All three have declined to voluntarily appear, but the committee has stopped short of taking the more dramatic step of issuing subpoenas to the sitting members of Congress to compel their testimony.
Thompson noted that the earlier invitation to McCarthy was sent “before this latest revelation that was reported on tape.” He told reporters that “in all probability” McCarthy would get another invitation.
At the same time, the panel is broadening its outreach to a potentially much wider group of Republican lawmakers who are now known to have played a more substantial role than previously understood ahead of the riot and as it unfolded.
‘We’ll make a decision on any others before the week is out,” Thompson said.
Republican Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama, a Trump ally who was with a group of lawmakers who met in December 2020 at the White House, has suggested he would appear before the panel. Brooks also spoke at Trump’s Jan. 6 rally before the mob descended on the Capitol.
Additionally, the panel is now eyeing other House Republican lawmakers reported to have been working closely with Mark Meadows, Trump’s former White House chief of staff, as they sought to challenge Biden’s win.
A handful of lawmakers’ names were included in testimony released late Friday as part of a court filing as the committee seeks access to Meadows’ text messages.
“We will probably look at engaging some of the lawmakers by invitation at this point, and we’ll go from there,” Thompson said Tuesday.
The panel is working swiftly to launch public hearings, which it hopes to both start and conclude by June, before issuing an initial report of its findings in fall.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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https://www.wvva.com/2022/04/27/house-16-panel-wants-hear-mccarthy-after-new-audio/
| 2022-04-27T02:43:37Z
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HONOLULU (KITV4) -- This year marks 25 years since Peter Boy Kema went missing on the Big Island in a missing child case that rocked the entire state.
Peter Boy was last seen in 1997 when he was just 6 years old. His parents, Peter Kema Sr. and Jaylin Kema, were convicted of manslaughter several years later -- found to have killed their son after years of abuse.
"It's not a way of raising kids. Kids need love and they don't need to be, and when you see something they need to speak up," said Hawaii County Mayor Mitch Roth. "It seems like we get these cases every so often. And I think the community just needs to be a little bit more aware and to report things like domestic violence."
Roth was the Hawaii County prosecutor at the time of the Peter Boy case.
On Tuesday, Roth shared with KITV4 a moment when he and Peter Boy's grandfather visited the site where the Kemas said they dumped their son's body into the ocean.
"We went through a lot of rain. And as we got through that site, it stopped raining, and there was a rainbow. And Peter's grandfather went to the cliff [and] said some words. [I] asked him what he said, and he came back and told me that he was talking to his wife and he made a promise to her. And Peter Boy's now in her hands. That was chicken skin moment for me. Something I don't think I'll ever forget for the rest of my life," Roth recalled.
Peter Boy's mother, Jaylin, died in 2019 of kidney failure. His father, Peter Sr., is serving a 20-year sentence.
And Hawaii lawmakers are hoping to prevent tragic incidents like Peter Boy's from happening again. They're pushing a proposal this legislative session that would help protect and ensure the safety for at-risk children.
House Bill 2424 was created after another child -- Isabella "Ariel" Kalua -- went missing in 2021 from her home Waimanalo.
Ariel’s adoptive parents -- Lehua and Isaac Kalua -- are accused of killing her. Both were indicted for murder, abuse, and endangering the welfare of a minor.
The bill would allow child welfare staff to continue checkups on children after they're adopted, if a complaint is filed.
Both senators and representatives are scheduled to meet in conference committee on Wednesday, April 27, to iron out details of the bill.
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https://www.kitv.com/news/crime/25-years-since-peter-boy-kema-disappeared-on-the-big-island/article_05a822c0-c5cf-11ec-bb20-fb6543ebc607.html
| 2022-04-27T03:57:49Z
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https://www.kitv.com/news/local/hawaii-native-tina-marie-finazzo-included-in-list-of-commutations-from-president-biden/article_ab9e2e44-c5d0-11ec-86fd-073350597d8a.html
| 2022-04-27T03:57:55Z
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HONOLULU (KITV4) - A decades-old case, referred to as the Hawaii Home Lands lawsuit, in Kalima v. State of Hawaii, will be settled by the State of Hawaii, Gov. David Ige announced Tuesday.
The settlement must be approved by the Hawaii State Legislature. If it passes, roughly 2,700 plaintiffs will have their claims paid through the settlement, amounting to approximately $121,481 per plaintiff.
The lead plaintiffs filed the lawsuit in 1999 alleging that the State Department of Hawaiian Home Lands had breached its fiduciary duty by not awarding homestead lots on a timely basis to qualified applicants. Applicants who qualified for the homesteads were required to be half Hawaiian, and could receive house, farm, or pastoral lots under 99-year leases that cost $1 per year.
Some of the individual beneficiaries who filed the suit were on the waitlist for decades, from Aug. 21, 1959 through June 30, 1988. The case had undergone trials on liability and the measure of damages, and two separate appeals.
The $328-million payment would cover claims, administration costs, litigation costs, and costs to retain a court-appointed Special Master to oversee and account for the funds.
“After weeks of intensive negotiations with the assistance of the settlement judge, the Honorable Gary W.B. Chang, the parties have reached a fair and necessary resolution of this longstanding case – for both the members of the plaintiff class and the State as a whole,” Attorney General Holly T. Shikada said. “We may now put 23 years of litigation to rest and, if funds are appropriated, move forward with implementation of the settlement.”
“This necessary resolution fairly compensates the Hawaiian Home Lands beneficiaries and brings this litigation to a close, but it is not the end of the story. I remain committed to developing and delivering homes for the Hawaiian Home Lands beneficiaries,” said Ige.
The lawsuit stemmed from Act 323, which the Legislature approved in 1991. Act 323 allowed the Department of Hawaiian Homelands (DHHL) beneficiaries to bring claims against the State for losses they incurred while on the DHHL wait list from August 21, 1959 through June 30, 1988.
The legislation created an administrative panel to adjudicate the claims, but legislation to extend the panel in 1999 was vetoed by Gov. Ben Cayetano. As a result, the bulk of the claims wans not adjudicated, and a class action lawsuit was filed in the First Circuit Court. The lawsuit has been in litigation since 1999.
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https://www.kitv.com/news/local/state-reaches-328-million-settlement-in-23-year-old-hawaiian-home-lands-lawsuit/article_9028b888-c5c5-11ec-a96a-0fbfc37515b1.html
| 2022-04-27T03:58:01Z
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Oklahoma governor signs ban on nonbinary birth certificates
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed a bill Tuesday explicitly prohibiting the use of nonbinary gender markers on state birth certificates, a ban experts say is the first of its kind in the nation.
The bill followed a flap last year over the Oklahoma State Department of Health’s agreement in a civil case allowing a nonbinary option. The birth certificate in that case was issued to an Oklahoma-born Oregon resident who sued after the agency initially refused the request. People who are nonbinary do not identify with traditional male or female gender assignments.
News of the settlement prompted outrage among Republicans, including Stitt, who along with fellow conservatives in a number of GOP-led states have been engaged in a culture war over issues like restricting LGBTQ and abortion rights that drive the party’s base in an election year. Stitt’s appointee to lead the agency abruptly resigned the next day, and the governor then promptly issued an executive order prohibiting any changes to a person’s gender on birth certificates, despite the settlement agreement. A civil rights group has challenged the executive order in federal court, but the state has not yet responded.
Many states only offer male or female gender options on birth certificates, but Oklahoma is the first to write the nonbinary prohibition into law, according to Lambda Legal, the civil rights group suing Oklahoma.
Currently, 15 states and the District of Columbia specifically allow a gender marker designation outside of male or female, according to the National Center for Transgender Equality. That number will increase on July 1 when Vermont’s new statute goes into effect.
“People are free to believe whatever they want about their identity, but science has determined people are either biologically male or female at birth,” said Oklahoma Rep. Sheila Dills, the House sponsor of the bill, in a statement after the bill passed the House last week. “We want clarity and truth on official state documents. Information should be based on established medical fact and not an ever-changing social dialogue.”
Oklahomans in 2020 elected the nation’s first openly nonbinary legislator in the country, Oklahoma City Democrat Rep. Mauree Turner, who said it was painful to have colleagues single out those who are gender diverse.
“I find it a very extreme and grotesque use of power in this body to write this law and try to pass it — when literally none of them live like us,” Turner tweeted the day the bill was debated.
Republicans in conservative states across the country have introduced several bills this year targeting transgender and nonbinary people. Oklahoma’s governor earlier this year signed a bill prohibiting transgender girls from playing on female sports teams, one of many such bans being signed into law across the country. Other conservative states, including Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee and Texas, have passed laws prohibiting gender-confirming treatments for minors.
The U.S. State Department recently announced it had issued its first passport with an “X” gender designation, marking a milestone in the recognition of the rights of people who do not identify as male or female, and expects to be able to offer the option more broadly next year.
Doctors and scientists say sex and gender are not the same thing. While sex typically refers to anatomy, gender identity is more an inner sense of being male, female or somewhere in between, regardless of physical anatomy, according to Dr. Jason Rafferty, a pediatrician and child psychiatrist at Hasbro Children’s Hospital in Rhode Island and a lead author of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ transgender policy.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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https://www.wvva.com/2022/04/27/oklahoma-governor-signs-ban-nonbinary-birth-certificates/
| 2022-04-27T04:15:37Z
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Arthur Aragon 1934-2022 Arthur Aragon, 87, of Cheyenne passed away April 22, 2022, in Cheyenne. He was born May 24, 1934, in Brighton, Colorado to Eqtiouio and Mary Aragon. He married Adelina on January 5, 1956, in Cheyenne. He was a Korean veteran, having served in the US Army. He was a member of St. Mary's Cathedral and was a 4th degree Knights of Columbus. He is survived by his children, Annie Saldivar of Scottsbluff, NE, Lena Grimm, Annette (Pat) Montoya, Jimmy Aragon, Paul Aragon, Stephanie Aragon and Beverly (George) Martinez all of Cheyenne, sister, Beverly (John) Lucero of Las Vegas, NV; 12 grandchildren, 16 great-grandchildren and 4 great-great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his parents; wife, Adelina Aragon; daughter, Carmela Aragon; and grandson, Isaac Martinez. He loved going to church and spent many years helping out the priests in the church. He loved listening to the Spanish radio station and was Jimmy Valdez's side kick on the Spanish radio station at KRAE. He loved reading the Bible, collecting hats, mugs and many cooking items. He loved all his kids and grandkids dearly. Those who wish may contribute to St. Joseph's Food Pantry. Visitation will be Wednesday 5:00-7:00 p.m. at Schrader, Aragon and Jacoby Funeral Home. A Vigil for the Deceased will be 6:00 p.m. Thursday in the Lakeview Chapel at Schrader, Aragon and Jacoby Funeral Home. A Funeral Liturgy will be 10:00 a.m. Friday at St. Mary's Cathedral with interment following in Olivet Cemetery. Condolences may be offered at www.schradercares.com.
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https://www.wyomingnews.com/milestones/obituaries/aragon-arthur/article_62c5cec8-a781-5e98-a5ca-bfcb3c027970.html
| 2022-04-27T04:55:38Z
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https://www.wyomingnews.com/milestones/obituaries/baker-john-s/article_7e9d44b9-4a81-5c4e-a822-21196193f3d6.html
| 2022-04-27T04:55:44Z
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United States of America US Virgin Islands United States Minor Outlying Islands Canada Mexico, United Mexican States Bahamas, Commonwealth of the Cuba, Republic of Dominican Republic Haiti, Republic of Jamaica Afghanistan Albania, People's Socialist Republic of Algeria, People's Democratic Republic of American Samoa Andorra, Principality of Angola, Republic of Anguilla Antarctica (the territory South of 60 deg S) Antigua and Barbuda Argentina, Argentine Republic Armenia Aruba Australia, Commonwealth of Austria, Republic of Azerbaijan, Republic of Bahrain, Kingdom of Bangladesh, People's Republic of Barbados Belarus Belgium, Kingdom of Belize Benin, People's Republic of Bermuda Bhutan, Kingdom of Bolivia, Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana, Republic of Bouvet Island (Bouvetoya) Brazil, Federative Republic of British Indian Ocean Territory (Chagos Archipelago) British Virgin Islands Brunei Darussalam Bulgaria, People's Republic of Burkina Faso Burundi, Republic of Cambodia, Kingdom of Cameroon, United Republic of Cape Verde, Republic of Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad, Republic of Chile, Republic of China, People's Republic of Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Colombia, Republic of Comoros, Union of the Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, People's Republic of Cook Islands Costa Rica, Republic of Cote D'Ivoire, Ivory Coast, Republic of the Cyprus, Republic of Czech Republic Denmark, Kingdom of Djibouti, Republic of Dominica, Commonwealth of Ecuador, Republic of Egypt, Arab Republic of El Salvador, Republic of Equatorial Guinea, Republic of Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Faeroe Islands Falkland Islands (Malvinas) Fiji, Republic of the Fiji Islands Finland, Republic of France, French Republic French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories Gabon, Gabonese Republic Gambia, Republic of the Georgia Germany Ghana, Republic of Gibraltar Greece, Hellenic Republic Greenland Grenada Guadaloupe Guam Guatemala, Republic of Guinea, Revolutionary
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https://www.wyomingnews.com/milestones/obituaries/briere-allysandra-jo/article_3c5177f2-a351-575d-94fa-f3feaf699bfc.html
| 2022-04-27T04:55:50Z
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United States of America US Virgin Islands United States Minor Outlying Islands Canada Mexico, United Mexican States Bahamas, Commonwealth of the Cuba, Republic of Dominican Republic Haiti, Republic of Jamaica Afghanistan Albania, People's Socialist Republic of Algeria, People's Democratic Republic of American Samoa Andorra, Principality of Angola, Republic of Anguilla Antarctica (the territory South of 60 deg S) Antigua and Barbuda Argentina, Argentine Republic Armenia Aruba Australia, Commonwealth of Austria, Republic of Azerbaijan, Republic of Bahrain, Kingdom of Bangladesh, People's Republic of Barbados Belarus Belgium, Kingdom of Belize Benin, People's Republic of Bermuda Bhutan, Kingdom of Bolivia, Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana, Republic of Bouvet Island (Bouvetoya) Brazil, Federative Republic of British Indian Ocean Territory (Chagos Archipelago) British Virgin Islands Brunei Darussalam Bulgaria, People's Republic of Burkina Faso Burundi, Republic of Cambodia, Kingdom of Cameroon, United Republic of Cape Verde, Republic of Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad, Republic of Chile, Republic of China, People's Republic of Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Colombia, Republic of Comoros, Union of the Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, People's Republic of Cook Islands Costa Rica, Republic of Cote D'Ivoire, Ivory Coast, Republic of the Cyprus, Republic of Czech Republic Denmark, Kingdom of Djibouti, Republic of Dominica, Commonwealth of Ecuador, Republic of Egypt, Arab Republic of El Salvador, Republic of Equatorial Guinea, Republic of Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Faeroe Islands Falkland Islands (Malvinas) Fiji, Republic of the Fiji Islands Finland, Republic of France, French Republic French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories Gabon, Gabonese Republic Gambia, Republic of the Georgia Germany Ghana, Republic of Gibraltar Greece, Hellenic Republic Greenland Grenada Guadaloupe Guam Guatemala, Republic of Guinea, Revolutionary
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https://www.wyomingnews.com/milestones/obituaries/lang-annabelle-m/article_2af6bddf-bada-5e4f-a7cd-b126dab6a797.html
| 2022-04-27T04:55:56Z
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https://www.wyomingnews.com/milestones/obituaries/pacheco-benito/article_d8b34034-9c8d-5184-9793-56d4134b011d.html
| 2022-04-27T04:56:02Z
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Muriel Jo Petsch 1938-2022 Muriel Jo Petsch, 83, of Meriden, Wyoming passed away suddenly at her home Friday morning, April 22, 2022. Muriel was born July 12, 1938 in Torrington, Wyoming, a daughter of the late Warren Howard and Charlotte Cereise (Lathan) Woodworth. Muriel graduated from Torrington High School and attended the University of Wyoming. She married Fred Petsch on August 29, 1958 in Torrington and made her home in Meriden where she proudly worked as a homemaker, caring for her home and her family. She was considered a spiritual leader and enjoyed sending daily devotionals via text messages to her family and friends. Muriel was also an avid knitter and quilter and she enjoyed sharing her talents and generosity with her family. She will be remembered for her faithfulness in caring for others and her love and devotion to family, especially her grandchildren. Muriel is survived by her children, Cindy (Scott) Ross, Rowdy (Tracy) Petsch, Sheri (John) Stellern, and David (Amy) Petsch; sister, Ann (Al) Peyton; 13 grandchildren, Garrett Ross, Katelin (Aaron) Courtney, Duell (Kayla) Petsch, Dalton (Melissa) Petsch, Zachary (Haylee) Stellern, Lindi Stellern, Sasha Stellern (Viren), Sierra Stellern (Patrick), Cosette Stellern, Fredrick Petsch, Isaac Petsch, Simon Petsch and Seth Petsch; and five great-grandchildren, Zayden Petsch, Colt Petsch, Gunnar Petsch, Riggins Petsch and Presley Jaconsen. She is preceded in death by her parents and her loving husband, Fredrick Lee Petsch. Visitation will be held on Tuesday, April 26, 2022 at 9:30 a.m. at the Albin Community Center with a funeral service to be conducted at 11:00 a.m. An interment service will follow at the Albin Cemetery. Donations in Muriel's memory may be made to Cheyenne Hills Church, Laramie County Fire District #3, Albin Community Center or Albin Baptist Church. Condolences may be offered to the family on-line at www.schradercares.com.
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https://www.wyomingnews.com/milestones/obituaries/petsch-muriel-jo/article_f833341e-af53-5f9f-8e48-1e6687878c0e.html
| 2022-04-27T04:56:09Z
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https://www.wyomingnews.com/milestones/obituaries/thompson-vanessa-jean/article_0ac8884a-1155-58bc-aa39-34d5fed70c91.html
| 2022-04-27T04:56:15Z
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Oregon Tech men’s golfer Mayson Tibbs and women’s players Payton Canon and Ashley Zhu earned all-Cascade Collegiate Conference honors at the conclusion of the conference tournament Tuesday at Eagle Point (Ore.) Golf Course.
Tibbs shot a pair of even-par 72s on Monday to share the individual lead heading in the final round, but stumbled to a 79 to finish in seventh place. Bushnell’s Andrew Webb won a three-hole playoff with British Columbia’s Russell Howlett for medalist honors after both finished at 2-over 218 for 54 holes. UBC won the team title with a 25-over 889, edging Lewis-Clark State by four strokes. OIT placed fourth at 927.
Canon tied for third in the women’s event, in which the Lady Owls placed second behind British Columbia. The Thunderbirds finished with a 36-hole total of 14-over 590, with OIT a distant second at 635.
Canon shot a 1-over 73 in the second and final round to tie UBC’s Grace Bell and Corban’s Delaney Rez. The Thunderbirds’ Elizabeth Labbe shot a 4-under 68 to win the title with an even-par 144.
OIT’s Quincy Beyrouty shot a 74 to place seventh at 157 and Zhu finished with a 76 for eighth at 158.
Prep softball
Lakeview 3, Modoc 1: Tyler McNeley allowed just one hit and one unearned run and struck out 15 in a complete-game performance as the host Honkers (10-3 overall) won the nonconference game Monday.
The only Modoc hit came on a triple with two outs in top of the seventh and the runner scored on an error.
Annikah Tacchini and Raven McLain each had doubles for Lakeview, which broke a scoreless tie with two runs in the fifth and added another in the sixth.
Crater 8, Henley 2: Maddie Sheadel homered as the visiting Comets won the nonconference game Monday.
Elizabeth Powell and Malia Mick each had two hits with a double for the Hornets (6-10).
Prep baseball
Lakeview 9, Modoc 6: The host Honkers (7-3) won the nonconference game Monday.
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https://www.heraldandnews.com/klamath/basin-roundup-oit-golfers-earn-all-conference-accolades/article_6190bdfe-908b-551b-94f2-540c422886d9.html
| 2022-04-27T05:30:29Z
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In a rare display of unity, all seven members of Oregon’s congressional delegation appealed to the U.S. Department of the Interior on Tuesday to renew a century-old agreement on managing wildfires in Oregon.
The agreement covers wildfire protection on federal land in western Oregon through financial arrangements, resource sharing, planning and joint activities. The area includes a patchwork of jurisdictions, with Bureau of Land Management forest bordering tribal, state, county and private timberland. The agreement helps to ensure that the wildfire and public safety response is coordinated across all boundaries.
“That arrangement has been a model of success and continues to this day,” according to the letter, addressed to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland. It was signed by U.S. Sens. Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden, and U.S. Reps. Cliff Bentz of Ontario, Peter DeFazio of Eugene, Earl Blumenauer of Portland, Suzanne Bonamici of Beaverton and Kurt Schrader of Salem. Bentz is the lone Republican in the delegation.
A wildfire protection arrangement between the U.S. government and Oregon dates to at least 1914. The current Western Oregon Operating Plan, which was signed in 2019, expires in 2024. The letter said the BLM has indicated that it wants to reduce the acreage covered. If the BLM reduced the scope of the agreement or the acres covered, it would lead to a disjointed wildfire response, according to Merkley’s office. That, in turn, could put more structures and lives at risk.
“This is of great concern to us because of the ongoing risk of catastrophic fires in our state,” the letter stated. “In fact, many of the areas included in the agreement were recently designated high-risk ‘firesheds’ by this administration.”
Native American tribes are concerned about a change proposed without consulting others, the letter said.
“The current fire protection arrangement has been a vital element of protecting Oregonians for over a century and we encourage you to renew the Department and BLM’s commitment to this effective, interagency approach,” the letter said.
With climate change and a continuing drought, wildfire seasons have started earlier in the West and lasted longer in recent years.
In 2020 in Oregon, the Almeda fire scorched 1.2-million acres and destroyed more than 5,000 homes and other buildings, with half in Jackson County. It was one of Oregon’s most devastating fires.
This season, fires have burned thousands of acres in Arizona and destroyed hundreds of structures in New Mexico, where thousands have been forced to evacuate. In Nebraska, one person died and three firefighters have been injured, according to news reports.
The National Interagency Fire Center’s latest report on April 1 said portions of central Oregon have a high potential for fire through June and that the risk will spread into central Washington and southwest Oregon in July.
Besides the threat, crews also face a shortage of firefighters. Politico reported that Forest Service applications for firefighting positions were down 50% in California and that the agency was also struggling to find crews across the West.
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https://www.heraldandnews.com/klamath/oregon-s-congressional-delegation-calls-for-renewal-of-firefighting-agreement-with-feds/article_cefe7d8e-a773-53f4-9cb0-187952e33ec6.html
| 2022-04-27T05:30:35Z
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Police and prosecutors are objecting to Oregon Gov. Kate Brown granting clemency to a convicted murderer who killed a teenage girl in 1994.
Brown commuted a life sentence for Kyle Hedquist, 45. He was released from the Oregon State Penitentiary by the governor’s clemency order on March 22.
Hedquist was convicted in 1995 of killing Nikki Thrasher, 19, to keep her from potentially divulging information about a string of burglaries. Hedquist was 18 at the time of the “execution-style” killing of Thrasher.
Marion County Sheriff Joe Kast and the Marion County District Attorney Paige Clarkson issued a public safety alert notifying the public of the convicted killer’s release.
They said Hedquist shot Thrasher victim “execution-style in the back of the head and dumped her body along the road” after she noticed a number of stolen items he had stashed at co-defendant’s home. Prosecutors contend Thrasher did not even know the items were stolen.
Hedquist tricked Thrasher into driving him to a rural location Douglas County and then murdered her to keep her from potentially talking about the stolen property, the county officials said.
He was convicted of aggravated murder and received a life sentence He also received prison terms for robbery and kidnapping for the stealing $3,000 at gunpoint from an Oregon Pizza Hut.
Hedquist was released April 15 and is living with a former prison chaplain in Salem.
“This case represents a shocking lack of concern by the Governor’s Office for the safety of our community, disregard for the transparency of any process and apathy toward the normal safety protocols for such an obvious risk,” said Marion County District Attorney Paige Clarkson. “A judge in an entirely different part of the state determined that this offender should never be out of prison and yet he is now living in our county without the proper safety assurances. Our community deserves better than what our state leadership foisted upon us here.”
Thrasher was roommates with the girlfriend of a man who conducted burglaries with Hedquist, according to Douglas County District Attorney Richard Wesenberg who opposed the commutation in a February letter to the governor.
Douglas County Sheriff’s John Hanlin also opposes the clemency. On Tuesday, he criticized the governor’s release of the convicted killer.
“I am absolutely opposed to the Governor granting executive clemency to Kyle Hedquist,” Hanlin said in a statement. “Kyle Hedquist conducted a very calculated, cold blooded execution style murder after realizing his victim, Nikki Thrasher, ‘might’ have accidently learned he was involved in a rash of burglaries. Under his own admission, Hedquist said he killed Ms. Thrasher to eliminate the possibility of her turning him into the police. He then dumped her body alongside a remote logging road. “
Thrasher’s family also told a Portland media outlet that they were not notified of the clemency decision.
The Democratic governor’s office did not respond to requests for comment on the Hedquist release from prison.
Brown has sought to increase the number of pardons and commutations for state inmates as part of progressive criminal justice reforms.
She hailed President Joe Biden’s Tuesday announcement of federal clemency and pardons for 78 drug offenders. Biden is also looking to increase the number of early releases of drug offenders serving lengthy prison terms.
Brown said in a social media statement that she backed Biden’s clemency efforts.
“We are a nation of second chances — and that means giving another chance even to Oregonians who have committed crimes that are incredibly hard to forgive,” Brown said.
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https://www.heraldandnews.com/news/local_news/execution-style-killer-of-teen-girl-released-from-prison/article_59b6e665-da23-54b8-ad22-27b52e5437b5.html
| 2022-04-27T05:30:41Z
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https://www.heraldandnews.com/news/local_news/police-find-missing-12-year-old-girl/article_0650be6b-a703-5685-9a20-3e322dffbba2.html
| 2022-04-27T05:30:47Z
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Augusta County offers grant aid to tourism-related businesses
VERONA, Va. (WHSV) - When travel slowed in 2020, many tourism-related businesses took a hit. Now that many are hitting the roads again, tourism is a focus for local government.
Visitors are drawn to the outdoor recreation options like hiking and camping, along with things like antique stores, breweries and wineries.
“We’re in a perfect spot in the Shenandoah Valley to highlight the mountains, the Valley... and we work with a lot of our Shenandoah Valley partners on that as well to market the overall region,” said Director of Economic Development and Marketing Rebekah Castle.
Augusta County is opening up a grant application to help businesses that are related to tourism.
“They’ve had a rough few years and we’re just looking forward to offering even just a little support to help those businesses as they’re coming out of that,” said Castle.
Marketing campaigns can receive up to $5,000, and facility expansion projects can receive $10,000. The county has $20,000 set aside for the grants for 2022. The application window closes May 13.
“It’s been really amazing to see them fighting through hard times and just to see the offering they bring to everyone here, as well as visitors,” Castle said.
To learn more about applying, visit Augusta County’s website.
Copyright 2022 WHSV. All rights reserved.
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https://www.whsv.com/2022/04/25/augusta-county-offers-grant-aid-tourism-related-businesses/
| 2022-04-27T05:32:59Z
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Camping spots start to book up as demand increases at Virginia State Parks
CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, Va. (WWBT) - As we start to see more signs of normalcy, folks are craving some adventure. For Virginia State Parks, that means hundreds of thousands of people flooding to campgrounds each year.
In 2021, the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation estimates that nearly 1.17 million people camped at a Virginia State Park. That is a 17% increase over 2020 and a 25% increase over 2019.
At Pocahontas State Park, they’re already seeing that influx of campers.
“As soon as the weather starts getting nicer, we definitely see an uptick in attendance and visitation,” Park Manager Nate Clark said. “We’ve had some busy weekends in April already.”
This year, with more people venturing out amid the pandemic, those numbers could continue to skyrocket.
“We’ve seen a lot more folks in the last couple years, a lot of new families, a lot new kids coming out and enjoying the parks and taking advantage of the opportunities that we have to offer,” Clark said.
Unfortunately, demand is up, and space is limited. If you check out the Virginia State Parks booking website, many camping spots on weekends have already been snatched up for the summer season.
“Regardless of the year, the weekends are going to be the busy times, especially on the holidays,” Clark said. “But if you’re flexible and you can travel during the week, you probably shouldn’t have any problem finding a campground in the system somewhere across the state.”
There are other options for overnight camping, which may help you save money on tents and other camping gear.
“We have camp cabins, and group cabins, and bunkhouses, yurts, so there’s a lot of different options for overnight stays,” Clark said.
“Yurts” are similar to huts or teepees and are one of the less popular options and still up for grabs on some weekends.
To book your spot at the campground, or to learn more about activities this summer, click here.
Copyright 2022 WWBT. All rights reserved.
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https://www.whsv.com/2022/04/25/camping-spots-start-book-up-demand-increases-virginia-state-parks/
| 2022-04-27T05:33:05Z
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Centeio has standout performance during JMU Spring Game
HARRISONBURG, Va. (WHSV) - Todd Centeio was the star of Saturday’s JMU Spring Game.
Centeio, a graduate transfer quarterback from Colorado State, threw for more than 200 yards and led three scoring drives in Saturday’s intrasquad scrimmage in front of 2,476 fans at Bridgeforth Stadium.
“He made some throws,” said JMU head coach Curt Cignetti. “That’s why we brought him in. He’s played a lot of football. He’s been in some big-time stadiums and been in some wars and he’s got it in him. I saw a lot of progress in him as spring went on. It was more just about him becoming comfortable in the system.”
Centeio tossed a 15-yard touchdown pass to Maxwell James while also putting together an impressive drive at the end of the Spring Game during a two-minute drill scenario.
“He getting more confident with the playbook and he’s starting to trust everybody,” said JMU redshirt junior wide receiver Reggie Brown.
Centeio is competing for the starting quarterback job at James Madison alongside redshirt freshman Billy Atkins and freshman early enrollee Alonza Barnett III. Atkins threw a 75-yard touchdown pass on the first play of Saturday’s Spring Game when he connected with Devin Ravenel on a wide receiver screen and he took it the distance. Cignetti has previously said the quarterback competition will continue into fall practice.
Copyright 2022 WHSV. All rights reserved.
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https://www.whsv.com/2022/04/25/centeio-has-standout-performance-during-jmu-spring-game/
| 2022-04-27T05:33:13Z
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EXPLAINER: What’s next now that Twitter agreed to Musk bid?
(AP) - Twitter’s acceptance of Elon Musk’s roughly $44 billion takeover bid brings the billionaire Tesla CEO one step closer to owning the social media platform.
The deal is expected to close sometime this year. But before that, shareholders still have to weigh in, as well as regulators in the U.S. and in countries where Twitter does business, before the deal is completed.
OFFER ACCEPTED, NOW WHAT?
The process is off to a good start for Musk, given that Twitter’s board has unanimously approved his offer and is recommending shareholders do the same.
Upon announcing the deal Monday, Twitter noted that the bid, which represents a 38% premium to the company’s closing stock price on April 1, is a “substantial cash premium” and would be “the best path forward for Twitter’s stockholders.”
When Twitter’s board adopted an anti-takeover provision known as a “poison pill” just 10 days ago, the move was widely seen as a telltale sign that the directors were gearing up to rebuff Musk’s opening offer or perhaps seek another suitor willing to pay more.
But the battleground shifted dramatically late last week when Musk disclosed he had lined up $46.5 billion — including $21 billion of his personal fortune — to pay for the purchase. Musk said other investors could contribute to the financing.
The locked-in financing not only underscored the seriousness of Musk’s pursuit, but also appeared to open the door to other large Twitter shareholders interested in hearing more about his plans for the San Francisco company.
The details of those conversations aren’t known, but Musk could point to a more than 20-year history building and running several businesses — most notably as the longtime CEO of Tesla. The electric car maker is currently valued at $1 trillion -- roughly 25 times more than Twitter.
“I think there is nothing better for Twitter than Elon Musk buying it and ideally replacing the board, and also doubling down on investments into products and new revenue-generating sources,” said John Meyer, a technology entrepreneur and investor. “Musk has the track record that he can do the impossible.”
It would be easy to see why other Twitter shareholders might welcome a shake-up, as well as an opportunity to cash out of their investment. Before Musk disclosed his 9% stake in Twitter earlier this month, the shares were trading below $40 — not that much more it its $26 price when Twitter went public in November 2013. Since then, the tech-driven Nasdaq has more than tripled, even after a recent downturn. Twitter has been a laggard because the company has struggled to consistently post profits while generating lackluster revenue growth compared to the two dominant forces in digital advertising, Google and Facebook.
Meanwhile, Tesla’s stock is now worth nearly 300 times more than when it went public in 2010. And after struggling to make money for more than a decade, the automaker is now extremely profitable with net income of $3.3 billion during the first three months of this year alone.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
As is customary once a company agrees to be acquired, the buyer gets to take a closer look at its books to make sure there aren’t any red flags that haven’t come up via the company’s public filings.
This step in the process isn’t likely to cause any obstacles for the deal, said Angelo Zino, tech analyst at CFRA.
“He’s acquiring this company, not from a financial perspective,” Zino said. “He’s going to do what he wants with it and he’s probably going to look to make significant changes to the business model of the company.”
WHAT SAY COULD REGULATORS HAVE?
Last year, Twitter generated $5 billion in revenue, with $2.8 billion from the U.S. and the rest earned overseas, Zino said. The Federal Trade Commission in the U.S., or the European Commission in the EU, are among regulatory agencies that may review the proposed Twitter buyout.
The main issues the agencies generally focus on are how the sale of a company could affect competition in an industry, or whether it violates antitrust laws.
These reviews can take months, or longer, but generally represent more of a potential hurdle when two companies in the same industry are combining, or in the case of a single buyer, whether ownership already has a large stake in companies within the same industry.
Neither Tesla, nor Musk’s other company, Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, are social media platforms, so antitrust concerns are not expected to arise when regulators review the deal, analysts said.
“We do not expect any major regulatory hurdles to the deal getting done as this soap opera now ends with Musk owning Twitter,” Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives wrote in a research note Monday.
WHEN DO SHAREHOLDERS GET TO VOTE?
The deal is expected to close in 2022, subject to the approval of Twitter shareholders. Twitter hasn’t announced the timing of a shareholder vote, though the company’s annual meeting is set for May 25, which could offer a convenient time to poll shareholders.
A company can elect to hold a shareholder vote at any time, even before regulators have finished reviewing a proposed takeover.
WHAT ABOUT TWITTER LEADERSHIP?
At this early stage, it’s unclear what will happen to Twitter’s current board or management team if the deal is completed, but Musk has made it abundantly clear that he believes the company has been poorly run. That assessment is a strong indication that Musk’s makeover will also include a purge of Twitter’s top ranks.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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https://www.whsv.com/2022/04/25/explainer-whats-next-now-that-twitter-agreed-musk-bid/
| 2022-04-27T05:33:19Z
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Florida governor signs bill creating election police unit
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill Monday to create a police force dedicated to pursuing voter fraud and other election crimes, embracing a top priority of Republicans after former President Donald Trump’s false claims that his reelection was stolen.
The new law comes after the Republican governor made voting legislation a focus this year, pushing the Republican-controlled statehouse to create the policing unit as states reevaluate their own election systems in the wake of Trump’s unfounded allegations.
DeSantis, who is running for reelection and is widely considered to be a potential 2024 presidential candidate, has both praised the last election as smooth and suggested more rules were needed to deter fraud, underscoring Trump’s lingering influence on Republican policymaking. Critics have deemed the law politically motivated and unnecessary, arguing that local prosecutors can handle election crimes.
At a bill signing ceremony Monday at a sports bar in Spring Hill, Florida, DeSantis justified the need for the new law enforcement unit and suggested that existing law enforcement may not be equipped or willing to thoroughly investigate fraud cases.
“Some of them may not care as much about the election stuff. I think it’s been mixed at how those reactions are going to be. So we just want to make sure whatever laws are on the books, that those laws are enforced,” he said.
Voter fraud is rare, typically occurs in isolated instances and is generally detected. An Associated Press investigation of the 2020 presidential election found fewer than 475 potential cases of voter fraud out of 25.5 million ballots cast in the six states where Trump and his allies disputed his loss to President Joe Biden.
Republicans nationwide have stressed the need to restore public confidence in elections and have passed several voting laws in the past two years aimed at placing new rules around mail and early voting methods that were popular in 2020.
The law creates an Office of Election Crimes and Security under the Florida Department of State to review fraud allegations and conduct preliminary investigations. DeSantis is required to appoint a group of special officers from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement who would be tasked with pursuing the election law violations.
Existing state law allowed the governor to appoint officers to investigate violations of election law but did not require him to do so.
The law also increases penalties for the collection of completed ballots by a third party, often referred to as ballot harvesting, to a felony. It raises fines for certain election law violations and requires that election supervisors perform voter list maintenance on a more frequent basis.
Democrats, the minority party in the state Legislature, have criticized the bill as a way for DeSantis to appeal to Republican voters who believe the 2020 election results were fraudulent, while the governor flirts with a presidential run of his own.
“DeSantis’ so-called election reform legislation is a continued attack by the Republican Party to generate public distrust in the integrity of our elections. The bill is unnecessary and a waste of taxpayer funds,” said Rep. Tracie Davis, a Democrat.
In late March, a federal judge struck down portions of a sweeping election law passed last year in a blistering ruling that alleged the state’s Republican-dominated government was suppressing Black voters, and ordered that attempts to write similar new laws in the next decade must have court approval.
U.S. District Judge Mark Walker overturned a provision of last year’s law limiting when people could use a drop box to submit their ballot, along with a section prohibiting anyone from engaging with people waiting to vote. He also blocked a section that placed new rules on groups that register voters, including one requiring that people working to register voters submit their names and permanent addresses to the state.
The DeSantis administration is working to reverse Walker’s ruling.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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https://www.whsv.com/2022/04/25/florida-governor-signs-bill-creating-election-police-unit/
| 2022-04-27T05:33:26Z
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Harrisonburg seeing unemployment fall
HARRISONBURG, Va. (WHSV) - The national unemployment rate has been on the decline. As of March, the national average hit 3.6%.
Harrisonburg is seeing trends that fall in line with the national average as well.
Local job recruiters are seeing an influx of people coming in to apply for jobs to get off of unemployment.
”We have them lined up ready to work so I mean we’re definitely seeing a huge increase in applicants walking in and out of the door,” Chelsi Hughes, district manager at Labormax, said.
The line to get into Labormax to apply for a job circled around the lobby and out the front door just last week.
“As of right now we are seeing multiple potential candidates in and out of the door, we are literally slammed nonstop with skilled, unskilled, entry-level candidates looking for employment,” Hughes said.
The pandemic led to many people being laid off or having to work from home, but from the looks of things at Labormax and the national average, people are ready to get back into the workforce.
“You can start work tomorrow, the minimum rate of pay is $15 an hour, everything is 15 plus,” Hughes said.
You can still see “now hiring” signs in many store windows, but the recruiters at Labormax say the more companies that offer open positions, the more the national unemployment rate will go down.
“We are the first stepping stone to companies in Harrisonburg and the surrounding area,” Hughes said.
Chelsi Hughes said there is so much interest they have a waitlist of people ready to start working.
“We have potential candidates ready to start, ready to work, and ready to join your team,” Hughes said.
Copyright 2022 WHSV. All rights reserved.
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https://www.whsv.com/2022/04/25/harrisonburg-seeing-unemployment-fall/
| 2022-04-27T05:33:33Z
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Pass urgent COVID funding or more will die, White House says
WASHINGTON (AP) — For much of the past two years, America has been first in line for COVID-19 vaccines and treatments. Now, as drugmakers develop the next generation of therapies, the White House is warning that if Congress doesn’t act urgently the U.S. will have to take a number.
Already the congressional stalemate over virus funding has forced the federal government to curtail free treatment for the uninsured and to ration monoclonal antibody supplies. And Biden administration officials are expressing increasing alarm that the U.S. is also losing out on critical opportunities to secure booster doses and new antiviral pills that could help the country maintain its reemerging sense of normalcy, even in the face of potential new variants and case spikes.
Japan, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Hong Kong have all placed orders for treatments and vaccine doses that the U.S. can’t yet commit to, according to the White House.
Months ago, the White House began warning that the country had spent through the money in the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan that was dedicated directly to COVID-19 response. It requested an additional $22.5 billion for what it called “urgent” needs in both the U.S. and abroad.
The Senate last month closed in on smaller $10 billion package focused on domestic needs. But even that deal fell apart as lawmakers objected to an announcement from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that it would end Trump-era border restrictions related to the pandemic.
The White House this week is mounting a push for doctors to get less stingy about prescribing the antiviral pill Paxlovid, which was initially rationed for those at the highest risk for severe outcomes from COVID-19 but is now more widely available. A 20 million-dose order placed last year by the government helped boost manufacturing capacity.
Paxlovid, when administered within five days of symptoms appearing, has been proven to bring about a 90% reduction in hospitalizations and deaths among patients most likely to get severe disease. Some 314 Americans are now dying each day from the coronavirus, down from more than 2,600 during the height of the omicron wave earlier this year.
The U.S. used similar advance-purchase agreements to boost the domestic supply and manufacture of COVID-19 vaccines, through what was known in the Trump administration as “Operation Warp Speed.”
Now, with a new generation of treatments on the horizon, the U.S. is falling behind.
Japan has already placed an initial order for drugmaker Shionogi’s upcoming COVID-19 antiviral pill, which studies have shown to be at least as effective as Pfizer’s treatment and has fewer drug-to-drug interactions and is easier to administer.
Because of the funding delays, officials say, the U.S. has yet to place an advance order, which would help the company scale manufacturing to widely produce the pill.
“We know companies are working on additional, promising life-saving treatments that could protect the American people, and without additional funding from Congress, we risk losing out on accessing these treatments, as well as tests and vaccines, while other countries get in front of us in line,” said White House spokesman Kevin Munoz. “Congress must act urgently upon return from recess to provide the funding needed to secure new treatments for the American people and to avoid this dangerous outcome.”
Complicating matters further are the long lead times to manufacture the antiviral and antibody treatments. Paxlovid takes about six months to produce, and monoclonal antibody treatments used to treat COVID-19 and prevent serious disease in the immunocompromised take similarly long, meaning the U.S. is running out of time to replenish its stockpile before the end of the year.
Last month the White House began cutting back shipments of monoclonal antibody treatments to states to make supplies last longer.
Administration officials declined to discuss specific treatments they are stymied from ordering because of contracting requirements.
The funding debate is also holding up U.S. purchases of COVID-19 vaccine booster doses, including an upcoming new generation of vaccines that may better protect against the omicron variant.
Moderna and Pfizer both are testing what scientists call “bivalent” shots — a mix of each company’s original vaccine and an omicron-targeted version — with Moderna announcing last week it hopes to have its version ready this fall.
The Biden administration has said that while the U.S. has enough vaccine doses for children under 5, once they are approved by regulators, and for fourth shots for high-risk people over 50, it doesn’t have the money to order the new generation of doses.
Earlier this month, former White House COVID-19 coordinator Jeff Zients said Japan, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Hong Kong had already secured future booster doses.
Republicans have shown no signs of backing down from their insistence that before supplying the 10 GOP votes needed for the COVID-19 funding package to pass the Senate, the chamber must vote on their effort to extend the Trump-era Title 42 order. That COVID-linked order, which requires authorities to immediately expel nearly all migrants at the border, is set to be lifted on May 23.
An election-year vote to extend that order would be perilous for Democrats, and many hope no such vote occurs. Many say privately they hope Biden will keep the immigration curbs in place or that a court will postpone the rules’ termination, but Republicans could well force a vote anyway.
“Congress would have to take action in order for the day not to be May 23,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said early this month that he expected legislation this spring that would wrap together funds for COVID-19 and Ukraine. Aid for Ukraine has wide bipartisan support and could help propel such a package through Congress, but Republican opposition has already forced legislators to strip out pandemic response funding once.
There are at least six Democrats, and potentially 10 or more, who would be expected to back the Republican amendment to extend the immigration order, enough to secure its passage.
Such a vote would be dangerous for Democrats from swing districts, who must appeal to pro-immigration core Democratic voters without alienating moderates leery of the increase in migrants that lifting the curbs is expected to prompt.
Republicans haven’t said what language they would embrace, but they could turn to a bipartisan bill by Sens. James Lankford, R-Okla., and Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz.
It would delay any suspension of the immigration limits until at least 60 days after the U.S. surgeon general declares the pandemic emergency to be over. The administration would also have to propose a plan for handling the anticipated increase in migrants crossing the border. Democrats expressing support for keeping the immigration restrictions in place have cited a lack of planning by the administration as their chief concern although the Biden administration has insisted it is preparing for an increase in border crossings.
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AP writer Alan Fram contributed to this report.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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https://www.whsv.com/2022/04/25/pass-urgent-covid-funding-or-more-will-die-white-house-says/
| 2022-04-27T05:33:39Z
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Profit Pump: 100 years after first patient uses insulin, out-of-pocket costs continue to climb
Manufacturers, insurance industry trade barbs while those with diabetes face impossible choices
InvestigateTV - Every day, usually multiple times a day, millions of people in the U.S. put into their bodies a substance that per milliliter is 60 times more expensive than a bottle of 2008 vintage Dom Perignon champagne.
Whether it’s drawn into a syringe, dialed up by a pen or dosed by an automatic pump, the chain of proteins known as insulin is required by those diabetes patients using it to stay alive.
For many patients, however, the cost of survival is at an all-time high — despite the life-sustaining drug marking 100 years of human use in January.
Pharmaceutical companies blame the cost on insurance companies and “middlemen” for not passing along savings, while those insurance companies and contractors say it’s the drug makers that ultimately set the price.
While lawmakers at both the state and federal level have attempted caps on copays or taken the companies to court over business practices, patients say many in the diabetes community are forced to choose between paying their bills or rationing their medication — and the results can be deadly.
‘It’s terrifying’
Megan Cornelius has carved out a sizable following on social media, but not about her job in tech start ups or life in Southern California.
Instead, her channel focuses on the diagnosis she received when she was 10 years old.
“I actually self-diagnosed myself,” she said, recounting how a childhood friend had received the news of having Type-1 diabetes and she recognized the symptoms in herself.
“I just remember sitting there crying and saying, ‘Can I eat pizza? Can I eat cake?’” she said.
As an adult with Type-1, she said she still must carefully consider what she eats each day, but it takes much more mental energy thinking about the financial implications of her disease.
“It’s terrifying, because in America, our insurance is tied to our jobs. If you lose your job at any moment, you could just be out-of-luck getting insulin,” she said. “If I got fired right now, next month, I might not have enough money to afford what I need to live.”
The financial strain and emotional toll led her to create a platform aimed at supporting other patients with diabetes by not only sharing tips on how to save money or navigate the health care system, but by reminding them they are not alone.
Cornelius said based on everything she’s learned about living with diabetes she considers herself lucky — because of her stature she only needs about a vial and a half of insulin each month, compared to others who may need five or more. With insurance her out-of-pocket cost for insulin is just $35 per month — and her insurance plan covers up to 90% of her other diabetes medications and supplies, such as her pump and blood-glucose monitor.
But that’s after she meets her $1,500 deductible, which she said she does in the first week or two of each January.
Without insurance, she said the list price for her insulin and the supplies for her glucose monitor and pump averages around $6,200 every three months. Add in other medications to help regulate her blood sugar, visits to the doctor and other supplies, and Cornelius estimates treating her Type 1 diabetes would cost nearly $50,000 if she were uninsured.
Even with her insurance, she estimates she pays up to $10,000 out of pocket each year to manage her disease.
She said she has experienced the fear of not knowing if she can afford it all.
“First time I was laid off from a job, literally, that was the first thought: ‘How am I going to afford to pay for my diabetes?’” she said.
Between the delay in unemployment benefits and the limitation of the affordable plans on the healthcare marketplace, she was stuck having to cobble together the cash for her medication.
“I found a ton of odd jobs to make it happen,” she said.
She added that thanks to her physician prescribing the maximum dose she would ever need per-day, she had some reserves of insulin as well.
“I had a little bit of a supply leftover so I could make it through until I was able to figure out what to do for insurance and how I could afford it,” she said.
Others in the same situation, however, are not always as fortunate.
The American Diabetes Association estimated in the summer of 2020, even as COVID-19 unemployment and wage-losses finally began to drift back down, more than 650,000 diabetes patients in the U.S. were still regularly rationing their insulin by skipping doses or taking less than prescribed. The ADA also estimated 3 million people were skipping blood glucose tests.
For diabetes patients reliant on prescribed insulin, but especially those with Type 1 diabetes, rationing the drug can be deadly.
When asked if she thinks people are dying because they cannot afford their insulin, Cornelius said there isn’t a doubt in her mind.
“1,000%,” she said. “I can think of a couple people on the top of my head that have died because of it.”
Prices Vary
What a patient pays at the counter for insulin varies greatly depending on if they are insured and what kind of policy they have, which pharmacy they are doing business with and which type of insulin they’ve been prescribed.
Three companies, Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk and Sanofi produce 96% of the world’s insulin for human use.
InvestigateTV looked at the hallmark insulin from each of the three major manufacturers: Humalog from Eli Lilly, Novolog from Novo Nordisk and Lantus from Sanofi.
Those brands were also the three most prescribed to respondents to an informal survey conducted by InvestigateTV in 2021.
Doses of insulin are measured in “units,” with patients needing a daily amount based on their body weight as well as additional, smaller doses to account for carbohydrates in food or mitigate blood sugar spikes.
For example, a patient weighing 160 pounds could have a daily requirement of 40 units, plus additional doses at mealtimes.
Humalog and Novolog are both short-acting insulins, meaning they begin to lower blood sugar about 15 minutes after a dose, while Lantus is a long-acting insulin and works to lower blood sugar throughout the day. While all three are available in easy-to-use pens, the cheapest option is generally for a vial, with the most common being a 10 milliliter vial containing 1000 units.
Depending on if they are Type 1 or Type 2, their body size, hormone levels or other factors, a patient’s needs can vary, though most require more than one vial per month. Patients who are particularly insulin-resistant, such as those with severe Type 2 diabetes, can use six to seven vials a month or more.
Online tools such as NeedyMeds — a nonprofit founded in the 1990s to assist patients who struggle to afford their prescriptions — show the range of retail prices patients might find at the pharmacy counter for a 10 milliliter vial of each of the three major brands.
Those amounts are similar to what an independent pharmacy InvestigateTV spoke with found when looking up the price of vials from their wholesale distributor around the same time.
List prices of these insulins have been on a steady march upward.
A congressional report looking at medication costs found list prices for a vial of Humalog, Novolog and Lantus have increased 1,219%, 627% and 715% respectively since the drugs were launched. Humalog, which has seen the largest over-time increase, entered the market first in 1996. Novolog and Lantus launched roughly a decade later, but introduced their products at a price similar to that of Humalog at the time.
In a 2021 informal, online survey posted to social media by Gray Media Group television stations, InvestigateTV asked respondents to share if they had health insurance and what type, as well as the total they pay out of pocket each month for insulin.
Those with employer-provided insurance, representing the majority of those answering the survey, reported paying an average of $173 a month. That category also had the widest range of responses, with some saying they had no out-of-pocket cost, while others said they pay up to $1,600 a month.
Those on Medicaid or Medicare reported much lower out-of-pocket amounts, averaging less than $100.
But data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services shows the programs — and ultimately taxpayers — have been paying increasingly high amounts per claim.
A few survey respondents reported they utilize Walmart’s ReliOn insulin brands, which cost $25 to $75 a vial, and others said they used biosimilars or “authorized generics” produced by the three major companies.
In a statement in response to a request for comment from InvestigateTV, Eli Lilly said its 2019 introduction of an authorized generic or “non-branded” version of Humalog, Insulin Lispro, has effectively lowered the price “down to what it was in 2008.”
“In the past years, we have introduced multiple solutions that have progressively lowered the out-of-pocket cost for Lilly insulin,” the company said in the statement.
[See Eli Lilly’s full statement below]
Novo Nordisk, which did not return InvestigateTV’s invitation to comment, introduced its own authorized-generic, Insulin Aspart, shortly after Eli Lilly did in 2019, according to industry news reports. The Food and Drug Administration also approved a biosimilar for Lantus in 2019.
While these less-expensive options exist along with older, more-basic types of insulin, pharmacists and providers repeatedly told InvestigateTV that doesn’t mean they are necessarily a better option — effective doses of older types of insulin can be difficult to calculate, and “non-branded” insulins and biosimilars may not be covered by insurance or even available at a patient’s pharmacy.
In an interview with InvestigateTV about changes to a federal drug discount program, Anne Webster, an Illinois nurse practitioner of endocrinology, said when one of her patients was forced to use an older type of insulin because of cost, she had concerns about his body experiencing more extreme high and low blood sugar events.
“It wasn’t my first choice for him,” she said.
In their responses to inquiries from InvestigateTV, Eli Lilly and Sanofi both claim they have programs and mechanisms in place to provide their products at a lower cost to patients, regardless of their insurance.
“We have a suite of innovative and patient-centric savings programs that have launched in recent years to help people reduce their prescription medicine costs,” a Sanofi spokesperson said.
But the dollar amounts patients see either on their insurance benefits documents or are asked to pay at the register at the pharmacy are still outrageous to Megan Cornelius, the California content creator.
When she was diagnosed as a child 25 years ago, she said a vial of insulin cost her family less than $50. Today, she said she sees that vial ringing up at $350.
“People can’t afford that, especially if they’re uninsured or under insured,” she said.
Instead, some of them are traveling to Canada or Mexico, where the same vials of insulin are available for purchase at a fraction of the price.
Even as someone who can usually afford her medication, Cornelius said she’s done it herself.
“I’m 30 minutes from the border to Mexico. I went to a wedding and stopped by a pharmacy afterwards,” she said. “I paid $60 for a pen and a bottle of insulin. It took me five minutes, and I didn’t need a prescription. So tell me why: A 30-minute drive, I can buy two bottles of insulin for $60, and here that will cost me $700. It’s the exact same thing.”
‘Cost’ depends on who you ask
While the list price of medications like insulin can be determined with a little research, what an individual patient may see at the cash register is determined by contracts and negotiations that are shielded from public view.
The path prescription medications take through the healthcare system from those manufacturers to the end patient has grown more complicated as “middlemen” such as pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) and wholesale distributors have entered the supply chain.
Manufacturers set a list price, known as a “Wholesale Acquisition Cost,” and sell insulin and other drugs to wholesale distributors, or in some cases pharmacies directly, either for the list price or at a slight discount. The distributors sell to pharmacies, and while there isn’t typically a large additional mark-up, distributors may use the original list price rather than the discounted price they received from the manufacturer.
In most cases, a patient purchases insulin at the pharmacy and pays an amount determined by their insurance — either a set copay or percentage of the list price determined by coinsurance, or the retail price charged by the pharmacy if the patient hasn’t met their deductible.
The pharmacy then sends a bill to the patient’s insurance and typically receives an additional dispensing fee.
If the patient’s insurance company contracts with a PBM, the insurer may get a rebate for the insulin, based on rebates the PBM received from the manufacturer and fees paid by the pharmacy.
The details of these rebates, fees and other aspects of relationships between PBMs, insurance companies, pharmacies and manufacturers are often opaque, but experts and lawmakers alike attribute much of the increase in what patients pay for insulin to these relationships.
So do the entities themselves — but each side points to the other as the problem.
Lisa Joldersma, senior vice president for policy and research for Pharmaceutical Research Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), said the industry blames high costs to patients on insurance companies not passing along the rebates they receive.
“Health insurers purchase insulin in quantity, they secure significant discounts,” said Joldersma, who focuses on public policy, state and insurance issues. “Unfortunately, too often they are choosing not to make those discounts available to patients at the pharmacy counter, and we think that’s just wrong.”
While she acknowledged list prices for insulin set by drug manufacturers continue to rise, she said the net price — what manufacturers ultimately receive at the end of the process — has plateaued and even decreased since the late 2000s.
“Our companies are delivering better insulin, more innovative, easier to use insulin than was available 15 years ago, actually at a lower cost than 15 years ago,” she said, but clarified: “When I say lower cost, I have to refer to the major purchaser of insulin in this country, which is health insurers.”
A study by the University of Southern California’s Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics indeed found that in 2018, while the list price of 100 units of insulin topped $25, the net price manufacturers received was less than $10. That gap used to be smaller.
However, a drug pricing investigation by the Committee on Oversight and Reform released in December 2021 claims the pharmaceutical industry’s stance is relying too heavily on the decrease in net price.
“A drug’s net price does not account for uninsured patients, who cannot access the benefits of rebates negotiated by payers and may pay the full list price for drugs. In addition, because certain out-of-pocket costs borne by patients are based on a drug’s list price, when drug companies raise the list price, patients may face higher out-of-pocket costs even as supply chain rebates lower the aggregate net prices of some drugs,” the investigation report reads.
In other words: When list prices go up, patients pay more — especially if they are uninsured.
Joldersma countered by noting more people in the U.S. have health insurance than ever before thanks to the Affordable Care Act, and she reiterated PhRMA’s view that the responsibility for high out-of-pocket costs lies with insurers and their intermediaries.
“The manufacturers do set the price; that’s absolutely true,” she said. “But manufacturers also deeply discount their products, and they do that because they want the products to be more affordable for patients, and again, unfortunately, the significant discounts that manufacturers offer and provide on insulin products are too often being held by insurers, and by their intermediaries, and they’re not being passed along to patients at the pharmacy counter, and we think that’s wrong and needs to change.”
The motivation behind the discounted prices, however, is seen differently by those in Congress.
Higher prices, higher priority
A Senate Finance Committee report on insulin commissioned in 2019 by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) found evidence that those discounts or rebates were often motivated by companies either seeking preferred placement on formulary lists — a list of prescription drugs covered by an insurer, often determined by a PBM — or to avoid retaliation by insurers and PBMs in the form of exclusion from formulary lists.
Based on documents provided by manufacturers to the Senate committee, the report found one example where the board of Novo Nordisk decided not to decrease prices because of the financial downsides and expected pressure from insurers and their “middlemen.”
The report states: “The company believed that its decision to decrease list price could upset payers, and that many in the drug supply chain (e.g., wholesaler distributors, PBMs, and health insurers) would be negatively impacted financially and could retaliate against Novo Nordisk.”
As with the production of insulin, the PBM market has three major players of its own that are specifically noted by the Grassley-Wyden report: CVS Caremark, Express Scripts and OptumRx.
The report found these companies have “significant marketing power when negotiating rebates.”
The result of that marketing power, Joldersma said, are lower prices for insurers but “mark-ups” for patients because that savings isn’t being passed along.
“You have an entity a powerful entity that is effectively buying a product on sale, 70% off, 80% off, and then turning around and asking an individual, who is paying premiums for their health insurance, asking that individual to pay 100% of the undiscounted price of the medicine,” she said.
The insurance and PBM industries don’t see it that way.
Savings: All for one, or one for all?
InvestigateTV reached out to AHIP (America’s Health Insurance Plans), a trade and lobbying association for health insurers, to ask about the claims raised by Joldersma and lawmakers.
In response, a spokesperson sent a link to a statement on recent legislation in the House of Representatives regarding caps on the price of insulin, as well as an information sheet on the industry’s position on “point of sale rebates,” or the passing-on of savings referenced by PhRMA.
“Health insurance providers are Americans’ bargaining power, negotiating for lower drug prices for everyone. That includes negotiating rebates for drugs and maximizing the impact for all plan enrollees by passing on those savings directly to patients and consumers through lower out-of-pocket costs and premiums,” the information sheet reads. “Big Pharma argues that those savings should not be passed on to everyone through lower premiums and lower cost sharing. Instead, they believe rebates should only go to patients at the pharmacy counter. While this may sound attractive — or even fair — on its face, what drug manufacturers don’t mention is that rebates are only available for some drugs.”
In the statement in opposition to a bill passed by the House of Representatives that would cap insulin copays at $35 for those with commercial insurance, AHIP placed the responsibility for the price of insulin squarely on the shoulders of manufacturers.
“Insulin prices are too high because Big Pharma alone sets and controls the price.”
But Beth Caveness, the pharmacist who shared the prices from her distributors for insulin, told InvestigateTV she and others in her field consider the proliferation of insurance companies utilizing PBMs to be the primary driver of the ever-increasing price of not only insulins, but all drugs.
“No matter what you fill, no matter what you do, they’re going to come up with a new way to take money from you,” she said, referring to not just patients, but business owners like herself.
Operating an independent pharmacy, she said she often takes a loss on insulin prescriptions in particular, because even after adding a standard retail mark-up, PBM fees erase any profit.
“We sell it to a patient and think we’re going to make $20, and then three months later, four months later, you find out that that pharmacy benefit manager takes about $40,” she said.
Dr. Steve Miller, the recently-retired but longtime chief medical officer for Express Scripts, argued PBMs like the one he helped lead are trying to reduce prices — that by negotiating with pharmaceutical companies on behalf of health plans, more patients get access to lower prices than they otherwise would.
“What we do is we negotiate against those manufacturers to try to lower that price for people that are lucky enough to have good insurance,” he said.
At Express Scripts, some plans are also eligible for what the company calls a “diabetes care value program” that Miller said further leveraged the company’s relationship with insulin manufacturers.
“We said, why don’t we take the money that you’re putting into patient assistance programs, or copay cards or giveaway stuff? And let’s buy-down the copay to $25 for everyone regardless of how much insulin they use, regardless of what branded insulin they use,” he said.
The result is a more predictable amount for those with specific insurance plans, but Miller admitted it leaves out those who don’t have any insurance or whose plan doesn’t meet the program requirements.
While the other individual PBMs, CVS Caremark and OptumRx did not respond to a request for comment, a spokesperson for the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association (PCMA) , a trade and lobbying organization for PBMs, contacted InvestigateTV after receiving word from member companies about those requests.
The spokesperson sent links to online materials, as well as a written statement:
“We believe the key to reducing drug costs is increasing competition, including for insulin products. Unfortunately, tactics used by drug manufacturers to avoid competition, including ongoing patent extensions on insulin products, are a significant barrier to getting costs down even further for people with diabetes.
PBMs have introduced programs to cap, or outright eliminate, out-of-pocket costs for insulin and have stepped up efforts to help patients living with diabetes by providing clinical support and education, which help patients maintain their insulin regimens and lead healthier lives.”
Miller also pointed back to manufacturers as holding the controls for the market.
“Only one stakeholder sets the price of drugs, that’s the pharmaceutical manufacturers. They could choose to quit raising those prices, and so and so the idea that the prices keep going up, and it’s being forced upon them is not true. If they want to sell the drug for a lower price, we would be thrilled to do that.”
Lawmakers don’t entirely disagree.
The Oversight Committee investigation notes similar points to both AHIP and PCMA, stating “the three insulin companies have engaged in strategies to maintain monopoly pricing and defend against competition.”
Both that report and the Grassley-Wyden report also reference the practice of “shadow pricing” with regard to insulin.
The lawmakers list examples of shadow pricing — where companies raise the price of a similar good seemingly in lockstep, virtually eliminating any price reduction based on market competition and often without the increases being related to inflation or the cost of producing the goods — by all three major insulin manufacturers.
In both reports, lawmakers also claim pharmaceutical companies are not spending enough money on research and development to justify higher prices. The industry refutes this by pointing to the new types and methods of administering insulin that have emerged over the last 15 years — including long-acting insulins, insulin pens and inhaled insulins — as evidence the drug has advanced like any other, — and again Joldersma, from PhRMA, blamed insurers and PBMs.
“Our manufacturers who are delivering insulin, better insulin than we’ve ever had before are providing substantial discounts that insulin to the insurance companies who are paying the bill,” Joldersma said, “and we think it is awful, that insurance companies are choosing to use those dollars to use those savings for things other than reducing the cost of being insulin for a patient’s diabetes is too important.”
‘We’ve got to hold them accountable’
While manufacturers, insurers and PBMs embody the 1968 episode of the animated Spider-Man series “To Catch a Spider/Double Identity” that became a viral sensation in 2011, patients with diabetes who are dependent on insulin are facing difficult choices.
“What happens to these individuals, they end up using expired insulin, they don’t take the correct amount of insulin, or they don’t take it at all, and then the physical consequences are, again are devastating in that regard,” said Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch.
Fitch filed a lawsuit in June 2021 against the three major insulin manufacturers as well as the three largest PBMs — a lawsuit that coming from a state attorney general was the first of its kind.
“There’s a scheme going on here, there’s a pricing scheme going on,” she said, “and we’ve got to make it affordable. And in order to do that, we’ve got to hold them accountable.”
Mississippi, squarely in the “Diabetes Belt” has one of the highest rates of diabetes in the nation. In the Mississippi Delta, where socioeconomic factors also limit access to healthcare, around 70% of counties have a higher rate than the national average.
Fitch’s interest in the issue holds personal value as well.
“I’ve seen it, I have lived with my child going through these trials and tribulations and challenges,” she said.
Fitch’s daughter was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when she was 13.
“It just breaks your heart as a mother, ‘What could I have done differently? How did I not see this coming?’” she said of the questions that flooded her mind at the time. “But, you know, diabetes just sneaks up and says, I’m going to go in, and I’m going to affect this child’s life. And it truly did.”
She said the financial toll was significant as well, and remains on her mind even as her daughter has become an adult.
“It’s been a tremendous financial drain. From the moment she was diagnosed to the age she is now,” she said. “It’s devastating from the financial side.”
InvestigateTV obtained documents from the offices of 11 state attorneys general where patients filed consumer complaints involving insulin against both pharmaceutical companies and insurers.
A patient in Maryland alleged price gouging in early 2020 after their 90-day supply of insulin increased from $340 in February to $1,100 in March as the COVID-19 pandemic gripped the nation.
“This is the same year, same insurance plan, same prescription, and same pharmacy. When I spoke with my CVS Caremark representative, he said the manufacturers had increased the price significantly within the last month,” the patient wrote.
Fitch’s lawsuit, still moving through federal court, accuses the insulin manufacturers and PBMs of violating the Mississippi Consumer Act, unjust enrichment and civil conspiracy.
“The reason behind the increase [in insulin prices] is a fraudulent conspiracy between billion-dollar companies known as PBMs and the Manufacturer Defendants,” the complaint reads.
The complaint references an April 2019 congressional hearing where the state claims the defendants themselves explain how their interactions have driven up prices.
Fitch’s lawsuit faces an uphill battle, however.
Others against manufacturers, such as the one brought by the Minnesota Attorney General, have been either thrown out or gutted in federal courts, because in many cases federal laws don’t allow companies to be sued by an undefined plaintiff — and many cases are written as being on behalf of the entire population, not a specific person.
Those named in the lawsuit have filed motions to dismiss, claiming lack of jurisdiction and failure to state a claim.
Miller, with Express Scripts, couldn’t address specific litigation, but said he feels PBMs are being unfairly maligned.
“We have a system that’s created these high prices. And we have both regulatory legislative, but also market forces that are driving it up, we believe we’re the force for good trying to drive that down,” he said, adding, “all those things conspire to work against the patient, and we feel like we’re one of those forces to actually trying to do the opposite, but are often being blamed for the cause of high prices.”
Capping conundrum
Other efforts to curb the sticker shock patients face at the pharmacy counter, such as copay caps, have been slow going.
Several states have implemented or are in the process of debating caps on out-of-pocket spending on insulin for those with certain insurance coverage.
At the federal level, the House of Representatives passed its $35 copay cap on insulin prescription copays for the commercially insured — originally part of President Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” plan — while on the other side of the hill Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Georgia) and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) have introduced and proposed, respectively, insulin price cap legislation.
Collins said in an interview with InvestigateTV that while caps are the primary topic of conversation on Capitol Hill, she does think more will need to happen to address insulin prices.
“I would agree that this is a far more complicated issue than just putting a monthly out-of-pocket cap on the amount that it’s paid for insulin, although that’s certainly it’s beneficial to many people,” she said.
“What I have found due to an investigation that was done when I was chair of the aging committee, is that the price of insulin is rife with conflicts of interest.”
The senator said those findings were similar to those from the Grassley-Wyden and Oversight reports: that manufacturers are keeping list prices high to be chosen by PBMs for an insurer’s formulary thanks to larger rebates, and PBMs not discouraging that behavior because their fees are based on a percentage of the list price.
Collins has not yet introduced her own bill, but according to Kaiser Health News has been selected along with Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-New Hampshire) to work on the Senate’s consideration of the House bill. Collins and Shaheen have previously worked together on insulin affordability legislation, but those efforts never saw a bill become law.
Manufacturers have in general been supportive of these attempts at capping copays for insulin.
A spokesperson for Sanofi, which produces the long-acting insulin Lantus, told InvestigateTV in an email: “Sanofi supports efforts to cap monthly co-pays for covered insulin. We also support legislation that results in patients paying less when they pick up their insulin such as requiring rebates to be shared at the pharmacy counter, requiring plans to cover insulin without applying a deductible, and prohibiting plans from imposing a higher co-pay than its net cost after manufacturer rebates.”
[See Sanofi’s full statement below]
Back in Southern California, Meagan Cornelius is skeptical of the effort in Washington, telling her TikTok followers the House bill is just “smoke.”
“They’re making people think they’re doing something, but they’re not,” she said in the short video.
Cornelius, who places the responsibility for the price of insulin squarely on pharmaceutical companies, said lawmakers should be more focused on regulations to reel in that industry, not legislate caps that don’t help all patients.
“Holding pharmaceutical companies accountable, putting caps on how they can raise prices, on the amount of money, they can actually make off a medication,” she said, listing what she thinks needs to change.
“The money their CEOs make is an unfathomable amount,” she said. “Cut that in half, what are you doing with all this money? Why do you need it so badly that you’re allowing people to die, just so you can have extra money in the bank? I don’t get it. I don’t get how someone can sleep at night with that.”
Justine Arens and Payton Romans provided research assistance for this report.
InvestigateTV reached out to the three major insulin manufacturers as well as the three pharmacy benefit managers referenced in congressional reports and lawsuits to address the claims made by various parties. Of those that responded, these were their full statements:
Sanofi:
List Price vs. Net Price
“Despite rhetoric about skyrocketing insulin prices, the net price (meaning the amount that Sanofi actually receives from a sale of its medicine after payment of any rebates or discounts on such sale) of insulin has been falling for seven consecutive years, making our insulins significantly less expensive for insurance companies.
PBMs have demanded rebates for pharmaceutical products for nearly two decades, and they are an engrained feature of our healthcare system. Since 2012, the net price of our insulins declined by 54%. Over the same period, the net price for commercial and Medicare Part D plans of our most prescribed insulin, Lantus, has fallen 62%, while average out-of-pocket costs for patients with commercial insurance and Medicare has risen approximately 60%. For all the focus by health plans and others on the growth of list prices, today, the average net price of Lantus is below 2006 levels.”
Sanofi Diabetes Access Programs
“We disagree with your claim that access to our patient programs are limited as we have a suite of innovative and patient-centric savings programs that have launched in recent years to help people reduce their prescription medicine costs.
• 100% of commercially insured people are eligible for co-pay assistance programs, regardless of income or insurance plan design, which limits out-of-pocket expenses for a majority of people between $0 and $10. These programs are available for those prescribed Adlyxin, Apidra, Lantus, Soliqua 100/33, and Toujeo.
• 100% of uninsured people are eligible for the Insulins Valyou Savings Program — regardless of income level — enabling them to buy one or multiple Sanofi insulins (Lantus, Toujeo, Admelog, and Apidra) for a fixed price of $99 per month, for up to ten boxes of SoloStar pens and/or 10 mL vials or 5 boxes of Toujeo Max SoloStar pens. Soliqua 100/33′s cash offer also allows uninsured people to pay as little as $99 per box of pens, for up to two boxes of pens for a 30-day supply.
• We also provide free medications to qualified low- and middle-income patients through the patient assistance component of the Sanofi Patient Connection program. Some people facing an unexpected financial hardship may be eligible for a one-time, immediate month’s supply of their Sanofi medicine as they wait for their application to process.
• Sanofi also volunteered to join the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Senior Savings Model which allows patients enrolled in participating Part D plans to pay a $35 or less co-pay for each 30-day prescription of a Sanofi insulin throughout the year.
The only people ineligible for our programs are those insured by federal programs, including Medicare and Medicare Part D, due to federal rules. Sanofi supports changes to these rules that would allow all patients to benefit from assistance programs.”
Pricing Allegations and Lawsuits
“We strongly believe the allegations have no merit, and we will defend ourselves against these claims.”
State and Federal Patient Out-Of-Pocket Caps on Insulin
“Sanofi supports efforts to cap monthly co-pays for covered insulin. We also support legislation that results in patients paying less when they pick up their insulin such as requiring rebates to be shared at the pharmacy counter, requiring plans to cover insulin without applying a deductible, and prohibiting plans from imposing a higher co-pay than its net cost after manufacturer rebates.”
Executive Compensation
“Sanofi executives’ compensation is not a factor in the Company’s decisions regarding the pricing of its medicines.
Consistent with our pricing principles, Sanofi sets the prices of its medicines based on their value, which includes considerations of the benefit to patients, compared to a standard of care; the reduced need — and therefore costs — of other health care interventions; and any increase in quality of life and productivity. We also consider factors such as the affordability for patients and any unique factors specific to the medicine, like the need to support ongoing clinical trials, implement important regulatory commitments, or develop sophisticated patient support tools that improve care management and help decrease the total cost of care.
Any price increases take into account these factors and also are limited to the projected annual health care spending growth rate — NHE — as estimated by CMS.
Moreover, Sanofi determines its executive personnel’s variable compensation based on a complex and multi-faceted set quantitative and qualitative criteria that account for both individual and company-wide performance and may include criteria related to research and development, new product launches, the financial performance of relevant business lines, organization and staff relations, and corporate social responsibility.”
Eli Lilly
Lilly is deeply committed to making insulin affordable for all people living with diabetes, regardless of income or insurance status.
In the past years, we have introduced multiple solutions that have progressively lowered the out-of-pocket cost for Lilly insulin. Today, anyone is eligible to purchase their Lilly insulin prescription for $35 or less per month, regardless of the number of pens or vials they use, and whether they are uninsured or use commercial insurance, Medicaid, or are enrolled in a participating Medicare Part D plan.
We have not raised list prices on any of our insulins for the past five years. To the contrary, we lowered the list price on our most commonly used insulin (Humalog) by 70%, bringing the list price down to what it was in 2008, by introducing our own non-branded equivalent and making it available to any health plan that wants to put it on their formulary.
Our solutions are making a real impact for people with diabetes. Despite rising deductibles, the average monthly out-of-pocket cost for Lilly insulin has dropped by 44 percent, to $21.80, over the last five years. This translates to $7-10 per vial and $2-3 per pen.
Lilly has been acting voluntarily to make its insulins more affordable for patients within our current healthcare system, but we also advocate for comprehensive solutions and public policies, such as passing through rebates directly to people who use insulin and limiting out-of-pocket costs, to move the U.S. healthcare system from a series of patchwork solutions to systemic change that helps people access and afford their insulin, and other lifesaving drugs.
None of our insulins’ active ingredients are patent protected, and we are not using patents to keep new entrants out of the insulin market. A follow-on version of Humalog has been on the market for four years. Lilly supports the use of generics and biosimilars to enter the market when patents rightfully expire. We also support removing regulatory barriers to allow such entry.
Scientists have made extraordinary strides in insulin innovation over the last 100 years, improving the lives of millions of people with diabetes. Lilly has pioneered many of the great advancements in insulin treatments, and our diabetes pipeline includes a once-weekly basal insulin medication that could eliminate daily insulin injections for certain individuals living with diabetes, and a “smart insulin” platform (glucose-responsive insulins that can sense sugar levels in the blood and automatically activate as needed throughout the day).
Until gaps in the healthcare system are filled, Lilly will continue to provide affordability solutions to people who need them. Anyone paying more than $35 per month for Lilly insulin can call the Lilly Diabetes Solution Center at (833) 808-1234 or go to insulinaffordability.com to learn more about our insulin affordability solutions and get help.
Additional facts on our Insulin Affordability Programs (also found on insulinaffordability.com):
Lilly has many programs that provide affordable insulin. In the past years, Lilly has introduced multiple solutions that allow people to purchase a monthly prescription of Lilly insulin for $35 or less, including:
• In 2020, we announced the Lilly Insulin Value Program, a co-pay card allowing people with commercial insurance or uninsured to buy their monthly prescription of Lilly insulin for $35. There is no application or enrollment process; interested individuals need only confirm they are over 18, a U.S. resident, and not covered by a government insurance program, and in a matter of seconds they will receive a copay card that they can download to their mobile device or print and present when they pick up their insulin prescription.
• Lilly and other manufacturers are contributing $250 million over five years to make our insulins available in the Senior Savings Model, allowing seniors in a participating Part D insurance plan to purchase their monthly prescription of Lilly insulin for $35.
• Lilly pays a 100 percent rebate to state governments to make our insulins available to millions of people in the Medicaid and VA programs.
• In 2019, we introduced a non-branded insulin, Insulin Lispro, at half the list price of branded Humalog. Insulin Lispro, which is the same molecule as Humalog, is now 70 percent off the list price of its branded counterpart.
Copyright 2022 Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
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https://www.whsv.com/2022/04/25/profit-pump-100-years-after-first-patient-uses-insulin-out-of-pocket-costs-continue-climb/
| 2022-04-27T05:33:46Z
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Shenandoah County Public Library to be expanded
EDINBURG, Va. (WHSV) - The Shenandoah County Public Library in Edinburg will be getting a major upgrade in the near future. The county library system is planning an expansion that would double the building’s size.
The expansion project has been on the county’s capital improvement plan for ten years, but now the ball is finally rolling on the project. The Shenandoah County Library Foundation has funded a preliminary design proposal.
The Library was built in 2000 and is 12,000 square feet. The expansion would add 12,000 additional square feet of space and renovate parts of the inside of the building.
“We’re looking at about a doubling of the building size mostly for public spaces, expanded area in the children’s room, and an expansion of our local history room and archive facilities,” said Sandy Whitesides, director of the Shenandoah County Library System.
Adding space for public meetings and the library’s cramped archive room is the primary reason for the expansion.
“Multiple community groups every week are coming in to use our activity room. That’s one of our spaces that is most limited in terms of having enough space for people to do what they need to do. Our Shenandoah room and archives are a constant draw both for local folks and folks coming from out of the county,” said Whitesides.
Whitesides said the library also hopes to get creative in the future with its expanded space and hopes to provide more resources for county residents.
“We hope it will be a place that people want to come to. We’ve got a lot of exciting ideas about flexible use space, small rooms for one-on-one interaction, and large rooms for groups to come in. Medium-sized rooms for regular programming,” he said.
Whitesides said the library also wants to create an outdoor reading garden for residents to use.
Another reason for the expansion is it will provide more space for people who have to come to the library to use its internet.
“What we’ve seen lately is people coming in and setting up on our tables and in our public areas with a laptop or tablet to do some reading or research. So in the building right now, you can get internet from anywhere but the spaces we have right now for people to use that internet on their own devices is limited,” said Whitesides.
Architects have already begun work on a preliminary design for the expansion that is expected to be available for public review late this summer. The library system is also hoping to get public input on what residents would like to see from the project.
Once the design is complete, the library system will work with the board of supervisors to begin the construction of the project.
Copyright 2022 WHSV. All rights reserved.
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https://www.whsv.com/2022/04/25/shenandoah-county-public-library-be-expanded/
| 2022-04-27T05:33:53Z
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Staunton Planning Commission meets about entrance corridor overlay
STAUNTON, Va. (WHSV) - Staunton City Council has been discussing the changes to their entrance corridor overlay ordinance.
The ordinance relates to how a sign looks, including the height, width, and the lights on the sign.
The Planning Commission met last week to discuss a potential carve-out of the ordinance pertaining to auto dealerships and businesses like them.
”Something came before council specifically having to do with car dealerships within one of the entrance corridors and so city council asked the staff to move forward with doing like a separate ordinance specifically for the car dealerships,” Brad Arrowood, member of the Staunton Planning Commission, said.
However, members of the Planning Commission would rather keep it all within one ordinance.
”Why don’t we just take their comments on what they’d like, and of course that’s important what people who have businesses here want, and work that into a revision of the whole plan rather than just doing specific carve-outs,” Arrowood said.
The Planning Commission hopes to have an ordinance ready to present to city council by June.
Copyright 2022 WHSV. All rights reserved.
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https://www.whsv.com/2022/04/25/staunton-planning-commission-meets-about-entrance-corridor-overlay/
| 2022-04-27T05:34:03Z
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Trump says he has no plans to rejoin Twitter after Musk deal
NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump said Monday that he has no intention of rejoining Twitter even if his account is reinstated following Elon Musk’s agreement to buy the social media giant for roughly $44 billion.
Trump told Fox News that he will instead focus on his own platform, Truth Social, which has been mired in problems since its launch earlier this year.
“I am not going on Twitter. I am going to stay on Truth,” Trump was quoted telling the network. “I hope Elon buys Twitter because he’ll make improvements to it and he is a good man, but I am going to be staying on Truth.”
Trump was barred from major social media platforms after the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection, with Twitter citing the “risk of further incitement of violence.” The decision denied him the megaphone he had used to generate media attention and speak directly to his followers, which had been integral to his political rise.
At the time, the former president had roughly 89 million followers on Twitter alone.
Musk, the world’s wealthiest person and a self-described free-speech absolutist, had said he wanted to buy and privatize Twitter because he believed it wasn’t living up to its potential as a free speech platform. It raised questions about whether he might reinstate Trump’s account as the former president lays the groundwork for another White House run in 2024.
Trump has continued to spread lies about his 2020 election defeat in speeches and statements since leaving office, and it is unclear how Musk would approach those statements if Trump were ever to return to the site.
In recent weeks, Musk has voiced a number of proposed changes for the company, including relaxing its content restrictions, and said he would be “very reluctant” to delete content and cautious of permanent bans.
After being kicked off social media platforms, Trump launched his own social media app and sued Twitter, Facebook and Google’s YouTube, claiming he and other conservatives had been wrongfully censored, even though posts by conservative commentators are routinely the most widely shared.
On Monday, he said he welcomed Musk’s purchase and told Fox News he didn’t see Twitter as his own product’s competition.
“Truth Social will be a voice for me,” he said. “And that’s something nobody else can get.”
At a rally in Ohio on Saturday, Trump also urged his supporters to join him on Truth Social.
“Go out and sign up now,” he told them. “Have a lot of fun.”
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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https://www.whsv.com/2022/04/25/trump-says-he-has-no-plans-rejoin-twitter-after-musk-deal/
| 2022-04-27T05:34:10Z
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Tyler Zombro makes remarkable return to the mound
Published: Apr. 24, 2022 at 9:51 PM EDT|Updated: Apr. 25, 2022 at 7:27 PM EDT
HARRISONBURG, Va. (WHSV) - Staunton native and Durham Bulls relief pitcher Tyler Zombro appeared in his first game in nearly a year, after suffering a serious head injury last summer.
In June 2021, Zombro was hit by a batted ball during a game against the Norfolk Tides. He was taken off the field in a stretcher and transported to a hospital in Durham.
On Sunday, Zombro was announced as the Tides’ new pitcher during their game against the Bulls. When he took the mound, both his current and former teammates applauded his incredible comeback.
Zombro worked around a leadoff double to toss a scoreless outing. Although the Tides fell 14-5, both teams celebrated Zombro and his journey back to the diamond.
Copyright 2022 WHSV. All rights reserved.
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https://www.whsv.com/2022/04/25/tyler-zombro-makes-remarkable-return-mound/
| 2022-04-27T05:34:17Z
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Waynesboro Public Schools to add six more electric buses to its fleet
WAYNESBORO, Va. (WHSV) - Waynesboro Public Schools will be adding six new electric school buses to its fleet later this year. The buses will be purchased through a grant from the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality which will subsidize the difference in cost between an electric bus and a regular diesel bus.
“We plan to order those this month and then there will be a 6 to 8 month wait time on them. We hope to install some additional chargers during that time and when those buses arrive we’ll incorporate them into our fleet with a goal of having mostly electric buses,” said Dr. Jeffrey Cassell, superintendent of Waynesboro Public Schools.
Back in 2020, the school division received two electric buses as part of a similar grant program from Dominion Energy.
Those two buses have now been in action for more than a year and the school division is very happy with them.
“The advantages of the electric buses is we don’t have fuel costs, there is no diesel fuel obviously and buses are not fuel-efficient they get about 5 miles to the gallon. They’re very quiet. There’s very little maintenance,” said Cassell.
Cassell said the financial benefits of the two buses have been significant over the last few months at a time when diesel prices have skyrocketed.
“It does help our budgeting considerably. The cost of school for a bus depending on the route and the distance is a few thousand dollars each year and that’s just costs we’re not incurring with our current two buses,” said Cassell.
Cassell said the division has been using the buses more and more because of their efficiency.
“I think it’s consistent with our goals at Waynesboro Public Schools of being environmentally friendly. We’ve got solar panels on most of our buildings now, we’re doing a lot of education work through our science programs on solar panels and we’re beginning to incorporate the electric buses in that process,” he said.
Cassell said that the higher costs of electric buses are a limiting factor for school divisions that are unable to receive grants to cover the difference but that long term it is a financial benefit due to reduced fuel costs.
“Now that we’ve got the buses and we have some data that we can use we’ll know our savings each year. So we’ll be able to predict out over the 12 or 15-year life of a bus what is the break-even cost when we pay more for an electric or a diesel bus versus what it ends up saving us in the long-run,” he said.
Elsewhere in the Shenandoah Valley, the city of Harrisonburg is hoping to receive a similar grant to get two electric school buses of its own.
Copyright 2022 WHSV. All rights reserved.
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https://www.whsv.com/2022/04/25/waynesboro-public-schools-add-six-more-electric-buses-its-fleet/
| 2022-04-27T05:34:23Z
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Graham soccer sweeps Marion in SWD match up
Published: Apr. 27, 2022 at 1:28 AM EDT|Updated: 16 minutes ago
BLUEFIELD, W.Va. (WVVA) - The Graham soccer teams hosted Marion on Tuesday at the East River Soccer Complex.
GIRLS:
Graham 7 - Marion 4
Ella Dales scored five goals, and Mallory Brown scored two.
BOYS:
Graham 5 - Marion 1
Ben Morgan scored two goals, Carter Nipper scored two and Dennis Thomas scored one.
Copyright 2022 WVVA. All rights reserved.
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https://www.wvva.com/2022/04/27/graham-soccer-sweeps-marion-swd-match-up/
| 2022-04-27T05:44:51Z
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Rachael Rife signs with Alice Lloyd softball & basketball
Published: Apr. 27, 2022 at 1:19 AM EDT|Updated: 24 minutes ago
RICHLANDS, Va. (WVVA) - Richlands High School’s Rachael Rife put pen to paper on Tuesday. She’s headed to Alice Lloyd College to play softball and basketball for the Eagles.
Copyright 2022 WVVA. All rights reserved.
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https://www.wvva.com/2022/04/27/rachael-rife-signs-with-alice-lloyd-softball-basketball/
| 2022-04-27T05:44:57Z
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Attorney for man accused of murder asks for mistrial in first day of jury trial
The attorney for a man accused of murder asked for a mistrial after the opening arguments of the man's jury trial Tuesday.
David Heyboer, the attorney for Dustin Tucker, said St. Clair County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Joshua Sparling asked the jury to override Tucker's presumption of innocence when he asked the jury to look at the crime through the elements of first-degree premediated murder.
"That is absolutely, totally contrary to law," Heyboer said.
St. Clair County Circuit Court Judge Dan Damman asked the attorneys to reconvene on the matter Wednesday morning.
Opening arguments began shortly after the jury was seated at about 3 p.m.
Sparling began with Tucker's own words from his police interview taken shortly after the slaying, in which he allegedly admitted to dragging Danielle Smith to the basement, hitting her head on the concrete and admitting that he was going to jail for the rest of his life.
Sparling said witness testimony and text messages with Tucker's associates will show that he concocted a plan to kill Smith in May 2021, and even created an alibi.
Smith, who was in a dating relationship with Tucker prior to her death, had become an inconvenience and threat to Tucker's current girlfriend, Sparling said. There were social media posts in the days before the killing involving Smith that threatened Tucker's relationship, he said.
"The defendant made a choice, made a choice to end somebody's life because she outlived her usefulness to him," Sparling said. "He made a choice to end somebody's life because he was worried about getting caught in a relationship that was ruining his current girlfriend situation."
Tucker went to Smith's Port Huron home, attacked her in the kitchen and dragged her to the basement, unlawfully imprisoning her, the prosecutor said. He then went back to his Port Huron Township home, grabbed a gas can and returned to Smith's home, he told the jury.
Sparling said Tucker found Smith taking a breath and moving before slamming her into the concrete.
Sparling said Tucker then gathered towels, covered Smith's body in gasoline and lit it on fire in an attempt to conceal the evidence.
Heyboer said Smith's death was not premeditated. There was a confrontation between Smith and Tucker that resulted in a struggle, and Tucker admitted he strangled her.
Smith was dead when Tucker dragged her into the basement, as is evidenced by the county medical examiner's testimony that she died of strangulation. Tucker did not imprison a live person, Heyboer said.
"I anticipate the evidence will show the jury this was not a premeditated, first-degree murder," Heyboer said.
Tucker is charged with open murder, second-degree arson and unlawful imprisonment.
If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Smith, 28, of Port Huron, was found dead on May 29, 2021, following a fire in a home in the 1800 block of Division Street.
Police later executed a search warrant at a home in Port Huron Township where Tucker lived before his arrest.
The St. Clair County medical examiner ruled the death of homicide, stating she most likely died by strangulation.
Contact Laura Fitzgerald at (810) 941-7072 or lfitzgeral@gannett.com.
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https://www.thetimesherald.com/story/news/2022/04/26/attorney-man-accused-murder-asks-mistrial-first-day-jury-trial/7444917001/
| 2022-04-27T06:21:08Z
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Clay Twp. influencer spreading joy, positivity through crafts
Clay Township resident Kristy Bottle has turned her passion for crafting into a successful business. Now, she wants to give back.
Bottle runs Kristy's Craft Room, an online craft store that sells wood cutouts. Bottle also runs a subscription service that sends monthly craft kits to subscribers, hosts Facebook Live events on her page and posts videos of craft tutorials.
To view her shop, visit kristyscraftroom.com/. Craft kit subscriptions are available for $36 a month under the "shop" tab. Individual cutouts range from $17 to $32. To view her Facebook page, visit facebook.com/KristysCraftRoom.
Recently, Bottle passed on to the semifinal round of the Barnwood Living DIY Hero Contest, a competition that allows voters to vote for their favorite artisan from across the country. The top vote getter receives $25,000 and a feature in "Make Magazine."
People can vote for free once a day or purchase votes to support the American Lung Association. The deadline to for the top four finalists is 7 p.m. Thursday. To vote, visit diyhero.org/2022/kristy-bottle.
Bottle said if she were to win the award, she will use the money to start a passion project of sending free craft kits to those who cannot afford craft supplies.
Bottle said crafting can be a therapeutic stress relief and gives people a sense of accomplishment.
"Creating just releases all that pent up stress and pent up energy and in the end you have something beautiful that you're proud of," Bottle said. "For some people, it gives them self worth and value, being like, look, I created this."
Bottle said she hosts free giveaways and posts tutorials using dollar-store items or items laying around the house to cater to everyone's budget.
If she does not win the contest, Bottle said she will still pursue her passion project of providing craft supplies to those in need, but it will take longer and be more difficult.
Turning a passion into a business
Bottle was a stay-at-home mother who re-entered the workforce with a typical nine-to-five job when she started searching for ways to return home. In late 2019, she launched the Facebook page to share craft tutorials with others.
The page quickly took off, attracting tens of thousands of followers. Bottle quit her job to pursue the business full-time. Last year, her husband, Tim Bottle, quit his full-time job to join her in running the business by helping to make the wood shapes and assisting with the business side.
The couple passed 100,000 followers on Facebook in January, and now have more than 123,000 followers. Kristy's Craft Room also has more than 2,200 followers on Instagram and more than 10,500 followers on TikTok.
They also have three employees to help make and pack supplies, run the backend of the business and coordinate photos, video and graphics.
Bottle said it was scary at first to take the leap into the business and do things such as Facebook live events.
"It took me forever to click that go live button because it's scary to be live on camera in front of people and you don't know if people are going to show up. You don't know what people are going to say, you don't know what people are going to think of you," Bottle said. "But each time I did, it got a little bit easier."
Bottle said doing the live events, being present on social media and running the business has given her a new confidence and encouraged her to be herself.
Kristy Bottle said she has always enjoyed crafting, and occasionally took her crafts to craft shows prior to the business. She grew up in a family with eight children, so her mother crafted both for the love of it and when money was too tight for expensive gifts.
Kristy and Tim Bottle said the community of people they have met through their business has been amazing. Tim Bottle said Kristy's followers have met up with each other to share ideas and craft supplies and send her extra craft supplies so she can send them to people in need.
They said they keep their page positive and fun. Kristy Bottle said people have messaged her to say they live alone or lack a social outlet and they like seeing her Facebook live videos as a way to experience something positive for a few hours.
"We're going to craft; we're going to create something pretty in the end, but we're going to have a lot of fun getting there," she said. "And that's kind of our biggest goal...to just bring happiness and joy to people."
Future plans
Currently, they run the business out of their home. One wall in the room where she tapes her Facebook live videos is decorated with her projects. Studio lights, a ring light and phone stand crowd the table where she makes her crafts.
Crafting supplies overflow from bins in another room in their home. Three wood-cutting machines, wood supplies, a new metal-cutting machine, mailing supplies and a packing table sit in a pole barn in their backyard.
The couple said they are outgrowing the space at their home and hope to expand to a warehouse space in the future.
Bottle said she also is planning to expand into metal crafts after the arrival of their metal-cutting machine.
Contact Laura Fitzgerald at (810) 941-7072 or lfitzgeral@gannett.com.
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https://www.thetimesherald.com/story/news/2022/04/26/clay-township-resident-kristy-bottle-turns-crafting-passion-into-business/7444877001/
| 2022-04-27T06:21:14Z
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KANEOHE (KITV4) - The Leonard's Malasada food truck was the target of an armed robbery last Sunday, and it was all caught on video.
A Leonard's representative who did not want to go on camera for fear of his life and the lives of his workers. The brazen armed robbery happened at 7 Sunday night when the truck was closing up for the day. The video from Leonard's from inside the truck shows the robbery happening at the Windward Mall parking lot.
The representative who KITV-4 spoke with says these robbers were decked out in armor and a handgun, meaning they were on a mission to possibly take someone’s life.
The Leonard's representative says 2 workers, a man and woman, locked themselves in the truck called 911. The robbers still managed to get in there by breaking the glass with their hands. Then they came back with a power tool.
“This is crazy it is unacceptable, for these guys to do this in the middle of Kaneohe. What kind of person does this to a malasadas truck?" says Sen. Jarrett Keohokalole. "They took the ladies purse. If you see something report it."
This is something very traumatic, we ask for the community's help in identifying these people," says Sgt. Chris Kam from Crimestoppers. "People talk, they have friends...we live on an island. People talk or have information. We manage to solve cases like this in the past.”
The Leonard's representative says, workers are scared to work, so the truck will not be able to open during normal hours.
Kenneth Lawson, Professor at Richardson School of Law says, “Now you have them robbing food trucks. And food trucks sadly for someone who is desperate with cash money can present a prime opportunity for criminals.”
Honolulu Police detectives have opened a A first-degree robbery case. No one has been arrested yet. Anyone with information should contact HPD or Crime Stoppers. If your information leads to an arrest, you could get $1,000.
Do you have a story idea? Email news tips to Cyip@kitv.com
Cynthia is an award-winning journalist who returned to Hawaii as an Anchor/Reporter/MMJ from Houston. She is a graduate of the University of Hawaii with a B.A. and M.B.A. DM her on IG @CynthiaYipTV to share stories.
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https://www.kitv.com/news/crime/armed-robbers-hit-leonards-malasadas-truck-in-kaneohe/article_7385bb7a-c5e0-11ec-bca2-739358b67ce3.html
| 2022-04-27T06:55:12Z
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https://www.kitv.com/news/crime/hilo-man-charged-with-possession-and-distribution-of-over-20-lbs-of-meth-ghost-guns/article_c973aae4-c5f2-11ec-afc4-cb1058178aa0.html
| 2022-04-27T06:55:18Z
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Four local businesses in Kailua started their Tuesday morning by sweeping up shattered glass outside their store fronts after burglars busted through them.
"They broke into the window, ran inside, grabbed the cash drawer underneath our register system and ran out with it. It was empty, we always leave it empty," said Shaun O'Connor, general manager of Aloha Salads, one of the eateries struck.
"We don't keep any cash here at night, so all they did was create a lot of havoc and a lot of mess."
The same thing happened right next door at Mexican food shop Paniolos, but there, robbers snagged a cash register containing $300.
Less than a quarter a mile away, burglars also took an empty drawer from Mahaloha Burger. A few doors down at Pieology, nothing was taken, but its storefront was vandalized like the rest.
Pieology's manager Kim Weir called the incident "an inconvenience" and said the store would open for business as usual. The other three businesses welcomed customers Tuesday as well.
Paniolos co-owner Tamara Valdivia is also a Kailua resident, who said she's noticing crime rising in the area.
"It's scary. I'm very sad because I have been here for a long, long time, many years, and I can see the changes and it used to be a place where you feel safe but it feels like it's not anymore," Valdivia added.
The brazen break-ins come a month after the restaurant adjacent to Paniolos, Mexico Lindo, was also burglarized.
Landlord Alexander & Baldwin says it is working with Honolulu police to support the investigation. O'Connor told KITV-4 he is discussing security improvements for the area with A&B.
"They are talking about increasing security, to doubling up the amount of people they have on patrol," O'Connor said.
"They have people on patrol every night, they're just gonna increase it."
If you have any information on the incident, you're asked to contact Honolulu police.
Do you have a story idea? Email news tips to news@kitv.com
'A'ali'i is a reporter with KITV. He was born and raised on the island of Maui and graduated from the University of Southern California with a bachelor's degree in Journalism.
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https://www.kitv.com/news/local/burglars-strike-4-kailua-eateries-taking-empty-drawers-and-hundreds-of-dollars/article_92116fac-c5c8-11ec-935e-ef0c54847cc2.html
| 2022-04-27T06:55:24Z
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https://www.kitv.com/news/local/ntsb-meeting-to-review-fatal-helicopter-crash-that-killed-six-in-kauai/article_aa05736a-c5d7-11ec-9841-13ac48209726.html
| 2022-04-27T06:55:30Z
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Honolulu's mayor signed a bill into law today that steps up enforcement of illegal short term rentals, and raises regulations and fees for legal ones.
The rules have been changed for what is now a legal short term vacation rental. Many hope it will give neighborhoods, like Lanikai, back to the residents who live there.
Lanikai is a popular place to visit, and along with Kailua, has had numerous illegal short term rentals providing places to stay.
Other bills were supposed put an end to that, but that has not been the case.
"We have an inspector that covers the area and 95% of the inspections are for short term illegal rental inspections," said Dept.of Planning and Permitting Deputy Director Dawn Takeuchi Apuna.
So Tuesday, Honolulu's Mayor Rick Blangiardi signed Bill 41 into law.
"Bill 41 goes a step further to limit short term rentals to resort districts. This will protect residential neighbor hoods and makes enforcement easier for the city," stated Honolulu City Councilwoman Esther Kiaʻāina.
One of the ways it makes enforcement easier is it requires all rentals to post registration information in listings.
In the past, legal short term rentals in resort districts like Waikiki, Turtle Bay and Koolina were not required to do that.
This is just one of the several other requirements for legal rental owners, along with paying a registration fee and yearly renewals.
"All of us, even though we are legal, we will have to register our properties. We will have to pay $1,000 to register and do 11-12 things just to register," said Paul Nachtigall, with Friends of Kuilima.
According to Takeuchi Apuna, those fees from legal renters and fines against illegal ones will pay for seven more field inspectors. Money will also go to software programs that will search the web for illegal listings.
"We absolutely intend to enforce this legislation. That is something you can count on," said Blangiardi.
Fines could be as high as $10,000 a day for owners. The city would also use enforcement on hosting platforms if there isn't compliance with individuals - to keep unwanted and illegal rentals out of residential neighborhoods.
"We can return back our residential communities to residential purposes, and zoning laws for they are intended to be," said Honolulu City Councilman Brandon Elefante.
The newly signed law will go into effect in 180 days, in the middle of October.
It also changes the minimum rental length legally allowed from 30 to 90 days for vacation properties located outside of approved resort districts.
While those inside the districts will have to pay more in taxes.
"We would have to pay the same as hotels, $13.9 dollars per $1,000 as opposed to our current tax rate which is $3.5 so it will quadruple our taxes. It is simply unfair for the resort properties," added Nachtigall.
While the requirements for legal short term rentals and enforcement of illegal ones have been set, the issue of tax rates is still being determined by another bill advancing through the Honolulu City Council.
Kiaʻāina adds she expects property owners in resort areas will end up paying more than bed and breakfast owners but less than hotels.
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https://www.kitv.com/news/local/oahu-short-term-rental-bill-signed-into-law/article_3c2af746-c5e3-11ec-9ed7-a340335fb88c.html
| 2022-04-27T06:55:36Z
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https://www.kitv.com/news/local/snorkeler-pronounced-dead-off-the-coast-of-kihei-update/article_ae53f340-c511-11ec-91de-13187eedd044.html
| 2022-04-27T06:55:43Z
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Oklahoma woman, 61, killed by pack of dogs, sheriff says
NEWALLA, Okla. (KOCO) - Authorities in Oklahoma are looking for a dangerous pack of dogs they say attacked and killed a 61-year-old woman.
Authorities say 61-year-old Anita Mears was killed in a vicious attack by a pack of dogs Sunday in rural Newalla, Oklahoma. The investigation started with deputies thinking they were looking into a stabbing, but the coroner’s office said Mears’ wounds were dog bites.
“Our heart goes out to her family. Life is precious, and it’s sad when we lose one, especially in this fashion,” Sheriff Tommie Johnson III said.
Mears’ own dog was found standing guard over her body.
“Ms. Mears’ dog was also injured in the attack. We believe that the dog was trying to protect her,” Johnson said.
Authorities say they don’t know where the dogs that attacked Mears are now. They are warning the public of what they call a dangerous pack of dogs possibly roaming the area.
“You talk about how in any rural part of the community, dogs, they get let loose out there and then they group up and they just run like pack animals. So, it is very common to see a pack of dogs running around,” Johnson said.
The sheriff’s office is warning people to stay away from any dogs they aren’t already familiar with, as they don’t want another tragedy. They ask anyone who sees a pack to call police.
Copyright 2022 KOCO via CNN Newsource. All rights reserved.
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https://www.wvva.com/2022/04/27/oklahoma-woman-61-killed-by-pack-dogs-sheriff-says/
| 2022-04-27T07:18:46Z
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Biden administration expands availability of COVID antiviral pill
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden’s administration is taking steps to expand availability of the life-saving COVID-19 antiviral treatment Paxlovid, seeking to reassure doctors that there is ample supply for people at high risk of severe illness or death from the virus.
Paxlovid, produced by Pfizer, was first approved in December. Supply of the regimen was initially very limited, but COVID-19 cases across the country have fallen and manufacturing has increased. The White House is now moving to raise awareness of the pill and taking steps to make it easier to access.
The White House said Tuesday it is stepping up outreach to doctors, letting them know they shouldn’t think twice about prescribing the pill to eligible patients. Also, the drug will now be distributed directly to pharmacies, in addition to existing distribution channels run by states. That is expected to boost the number of sites from 20,000 to more than 30,000 next week and eventually to 40,000 locations.
The administration used the pharmacy channel to boost availability of COVID-19 vaccines more than a year ago.
“Paxlovid will be widely available everywhere in America,” said Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House COVID-19 response coordinator. The drug and antivirals like it “are the key essential tools that we’re going to need to get through the rest of this pandemic,” he said.
Vice President Kamala Harris, who tested positive for COVID-19 on Tuesday, is taking Paxlovid after discussing it with her physicians.
Paxlovid, when administered within five days of symptoms appearing, has been proven to bring about a 90% reduction in hospitalizations and deaths among patients most likely to get severe disease. About 300 Americans are now dying each day from the coronavirus, down from more than 2,600 during the height of the omicron wave earlier this year.
The U.S. has ordered enough supply of the pills for 20 million people, which is estimated to last for several more months. The administration has warned that subsequent deliveries are dependent on Congress approving additional COVID-19 response funding.
“What we need to do is to help American physicians and nurse practitioners and others who can prescribe understand that we now have plenty available and anybody who is eligible, anybody who has high risk, should be getting Paxlovid,” Jha said.
He also encouraged people who test positive to contact their doctors to determine their eligibility for the drug that might prevent severe outcomes.
The Food and Drug Administration authorized Pfizer’s drug for adults and children age 12 or older with a positive COVID-19 test and early symptoms who face the highest risk of severe outcomes. That includes older people and those with conditions like obesity and heart disease, though the drug is not recommended for patients with severe kidney or liver problems.
The administration is also working to expand the number of test-to-treat sites that provide a one-stop shop for those with COVID-19 to get tested for the virus, consult with a medical professional if they’re positive and fill a prescription for Paxlovid on site. Currently there are 2,200 locations nationwide, and the administration hopes support from the Department of Health and Human Services, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and pharmacy companies will enable more sites to come online in the coming weeks.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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https://www.whsv.com/2022/04/26/biden-administration-expands-availability-covid-antiviral-pill/
| 2022-04-27T07:43:45Z
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Bridgewater’s Two-Sport Star: The Brett Tharp Story
HARRISONBURG, Va. (WHSV) - When it comes to being a college athlete, Brett Tharp is a true throwback.
“Tough, gritty, old school.”
Those are the words Bridgewater College baseball head coach Ben Spotts uses to describe Tharp, who is doing something rarely seen in modern day college athletics: excelling in two different sports.
“At first I was just looking for a school to go play football at and that’s what I decided to do,” said Tharp, who is a senior at Bridgewater. “I came here to one of Bridgewater’s last recruiting days and they really liked me so I decided to come here.”
Tharp continued: “And then over the summer I was playing summer (baseball) back home and I got in touch with Curt Kendall, the (former) baseball coach, and he came and watched me play a game and he said I could help them.”
Tharp has been a four-year member of both the football and baseball teams at Bridgewater. He registered 207 tackles, five sacks, and four interceptions while earning All-American honors as a linebacker on the football field. On the baseball diamond, Tharp is a two-way player who is part of the everyday lineup and serves as the Eagles’ closer on the mound.
“I love it,” said Tharp. “I am glad I decided to do it. I’ve had many opportunities to play both football and baseball here at Bridgewater and I’ve had many friends that I probably wouldn’t have made if I didn’t play two sports.”
Competing and excelling in both sports wouldn’t be possible if Tharp didn’t have cooperation and collaboration from both of his head coaches.
“From a football perspective, whenever the spring rolled around, Brett was always about baseball,” said Bridgewater football head coach Scott Lemn. “Basically, once football season ended, he became a baseball player.”
Spotts added: ““The expectation from me was always...during football season...play football and I don’t need to do anything other than just check in with (Brett) and say hi...and watch (Tharp) play on Saturday.”
While Tharp’s college football career is over, the Hardy County (WV) native is still competing on the baseball field where the Eagles are hoping to contend for the ODAC Tournament Championship. They’re currently tied for fourth in the ODAC standings.
“I am just soaking it up,” said Tharp. “Hopefully we can make a run into this postseason and go far.”
Copyright 2022 WHSV. All rights reserved.
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https://www.whsv.com/2022/04/26/bridgewaters-two-sport-star-brett-tharp-story/
| 2022-04-27T07:43:52Z
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Will Musk’s hands-off ideal for Twitter have broad appeal?
(AP) - Coming up with $44 billion to buy Twitter was the easy part for Elon Musk.
Next comes the real challenge for the world’s richest person: fulfilling his promise to make Twitter “better than ever” as a lightly regulated haven for free speech.
His vision for improving the 16-year-old company leans heavily on a pledge to make speech “as free as reasonably possible” on the platform -- a commitment that’s been celebrated on the political right and among followers of former President Donald Trump, whose account last year was permanently banned. For others who worry that Musk will give free rein to agitators who spew hate, lies and other harmful content, making the platform too toxic for advertisers and average users, Musk has offered few assurances.
“The extreme antibody reaction from those who fear free speech says it all,” he tweeted Tuesday
Many of Musk’s proposed changes reflect his own experience as a high-profile and outspoken Twitter user with more than 85 million followers and a swarm of pesky impersonator accounts that use his name and photo to promote cryptocurrency schemes. The statement announcing his acquisition of Twitter on Monday highlighted the need to defeat “spam bots” that mimic real users.
But what about Twitter’s more than 200 million other users who aren’t getting banned or flooded with spam? There’s still a lot of uncertainty about whether his ideas are technologically feasible and whether these changes would benefit most regular users, or serve some other purpose.
“He’s made it pretty clear he’s not interested in making Twitter a profitable enterprise,” said Joan Donovan, who studies misinformation at Harvard University. “It’s about the power and the influence of Twitter itself and its importance in our culture.”
Experts who have studied content moderation and researched Twitter for years have expressed doubt that Musk knows exactly what he is getting into. And some of the problems he has identified aren’t felt by most users.
“The spam bots, for him, are highly visible and somewhat personal,” said Donovan. “Most people don’t see a lot of these spammy accounts.”
And for those unhappy with the company’s crackdown on hate, harassment and misinformation, there are plenty of fledgling examples of “free speech”-focused social media platforms that have been launched in the past few years as Twitter antidotes, largely by conservatives. Many have struggled to deal with toxic content, and at least one has been cut off by its own technology providers in protest.
“This move just shows how effective (moderation features) have been to annoy those in power,” said Kirsten Martin, a professor of technology ethics at the University of Notre Dame. “I would be worried as to how this would change Twitter’s values.”
The fact that no other bidders emerged in public before Musk’s deal was a sign that other would-be acquirers might find Twitter too difficult to improve, said Third Bridge analyst Scott Kessler.
“This platform is pretty much the same one we’ve had over the last decade or so,” Kessler said. “You’ve had a lot of smart people trying to figure out what they should do, and they’ve had trouble. It’s probably going to be tough to make a lot of headway.”
Musk received an effusive, if highly abstract, endorsement from Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey, who praised Musk’s decision to take Twitter " back from Wall Street " and tweeted that he trusts Musk’s mission to " extend the light of consciousness " — a reference to Dorsey’s notion that “Twitter is the closest thing we have to a global consciousness.”
But others familiar with Twitter say they’re dismayed at Musk’s successful bid for the company.
“Twitter is going to let a man-child essentially take over their platform,” said Leslie Miley, a former Twitter employee who has also worked for Google and Apple. Miley, who was the only Black engineer at Twitter in a leadership position when he left the company in 2015, echoed doubts about Musk’s grasp of the platform’s complexities.
“I am not sure if Elon knows what he is getting,” Miley said. “He may just find that having Twitter is a lot different than wanting Twitter.”
The more hands-off approach to content moderation that Musk envisions has many users concerned that the platform will reanimate accounts that propagated dangerous conspiracies and harassment.
Wall Street analysts said if he goes too far, it could also alienate advertisers — Twitter’s chief revenue source. And it could make it harder to retain the San Francisco-based company’s more than 7,500 employees, some of whom are already voicing concerns about the possibility of a backslide on content standards.
In Europe, officials reminded Musk about a new law, the Digital Services Act, that will force tech companies to step up policing of their online platforms.
“Be it cars or social media, any company operating in Europe needs to comply with our rules – regardless of their shareholding,” tweeted Thierry Breton, the European Union commissioner in charge of the bloc’s internal market. “Mr. Musk knows this well. He is familiar with European rules on automotive, and will quickly adapt to the Digital Services Act.”
Musk’s takeover is not yet a done deal and still awaits the approval of a majority of Twitter’s stockholders. Twitter previously scheduled its annual shareholders meeting for May 25, but a regulatory filing Tuesday said the company will be convening a special meeting “as promptly as reasonably practicable.”
While there are likely to be some bumps along the way, there don’t appear to be serious enough obstacles to stop the deal, according to Charles Elson, director of the Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware.
Twitter or Musk can walk away from the deal if it’s not completed by Oct. 24, but if either Musk or Twitter is deemed responsible for the deal not going forward, they would have to pay a $1 billion termination fee, according to details of the transaction contained in a regulatory filing published Tuesday. The filing also showed that Twitter will drop a “poison pill” measure it had earlier adopted to defend against Musk’s takeover by making it prohibitively expensive.
Normally when companies go private, dissenting shareholders are forcibly cashed out. Some could challenge the stock price in court, contending that Musk should pay more, but that probably won’t hold up the sale, Elson said.
It’s likely that Musk would dissolve the current board and replace it with a new one that would agree with his management direction. And once Twitter is private, Musk will face fewer gripes from shareholders that often bring lawsuits, Elson said. Private companies also don’t face as much scrutiny from the Securities and Exchange Commission, which has been a finger in Musk’s eye for years, often because of statements he’s made on Twitter.
On Tuesday, shares of Twitter traded just under $50, below the $54.20 purchase price. Twitter will offer a glimpse into the health of its business when it reports its quarterly financial results Thursday.
Twitter’s constituents aren’t the only ones anxious about Musk’s $44 billion investment.
Shares of Musk’s electric car company, Tesla, have lost about 19% of their value since Musk announced his stake in Twitter, including about a 12% decline on Tuesday. Analysts say investors are fearful that Musk will be distracted by the social media company and less engaged in running Tesla.
“He’s going to be spending more time with another venture,” Edward Jones Senior Equity Analyst Jeff Windau said of Musk, who also runs SpaceX, The Boring Co., which digs tunnels, and Neuralink, a computer-brain interface company. “There’s a potential limit on the amount of bandwidth that you can apply to each of these companies.”
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Krisher reported from Detroit. O’Brien reported from Providence, Rhode Island. AP writers Barbara Ortutay in Oakland, California, Kelvin Chan in London and Sam Petrequin in Brussels contributed to this report.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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https://www.whsv.com/2022/04/26/can-musk-deliver-his-vision-twitter-questions-remain/
| 2022-04-27T07:43:58Z
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Daily aspirin provides little benefit, study says
(CNN) - For years, daily low-dose aspirin was recommended to prevent heart attack and stroke.
Scientists now say they see little benefit for most healthy people and say it may contribute to a risk of bleeding in your stomach or brain that goes up as you get older.
The latest recommendations are from the U.S. Preventive Service Task Force.
The group said people older than 60 shouldn’t start taking a daily aspirin for primary prevention of heart problems in most cases.
If you’re between 40 and 59 years old, the group leaves it up to you and your doctor to decide whether you should take a daily aspirin in specific circumstances.
If you’ve had a heart attack, a stroke or other heart or circulation problems and your doctor has put you on daily aspirin, don’t stop taking it.
Instead, talk with them about what the new recommendations mean for you.
The recommendations were published Tuesday in the medical journal JAMA.
Copyright 2022 CNN Newsource. All rights reserved.
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https://www.whsv.com/2022/04/26/daily-aspirin-provides-little-benefit-study-says/
| 2022-04-27T07:44:05Z
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Delta to begin paying flight attendants during boarding
(AP) - Delta Air Lines, which is facing another attempt to unionize its flight attendants, will begin paying cabin crews during boarding, a first for a major U.S. airline.
Across the airline industry in the United States, hourly pay for flight attendants starts when all the passengers are seated and the plane’s doors close.
Delta said the change will start June 2 on all flights.
In a memo to flight attendants, Delta’s senior vice president of in-flight service, Kristen Manion Taylor, said the new pay “further recognizes how important your role is on board to ensuring a welcoming, safe and on-time start to each flight.”
The rate of pay during boarding will be 50% of regular wages.
The change comes as Delta plans to increase the boarding time for single-aisle or “narrow-body” planes from 35 minutes to 40 minutes, which the airline expects will increase the percentage of flights that depart on time.
Manion Taylor said that after a test last fall, and getting comments from flight attendants, she promised not to impose the new boarding times without providing additional pay for the cabin crews.
Delta said the new boarding pay would be on top of 4% raises for flight attendants that it announced in March and which take effect later this week.
Atlanta-based Delta has successfully campaigned to defeat several attempts to organize its 20,000 flight attendants. The Association of Flight Attendants — which has been gearing up its latest organizing effort at Delta for more than two years but has not yet amassed enough support to force a vote — took credit for the boarding pay.
“This new policy is the direct result of our organizing,” the union said in a statement posted on its website. “As we get closer to filing for our union vote, management is getting nervous.”
The union represents flight attendants at United, Alaska, Spirit and about a dozen smaller airlines. Delta said none of those airlines pay their cabin crews for boarding time.
Unions represent between 82% and 86% of workers at American, United and Southwest, but only 20% of Delta’s 83,000 employees, according to a regulatory filing. Delta’s 13,000 pilots are represented by the Air Line Pilots Association. Flight attendants at Delta’s Endeavor Air regional-flying subsidiary are unionized.
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David Koenig can be reached at www.twitter.com/airlinewriter
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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https://www.whsv.com/2022/04/26/delta-begin-paying-flight-attendants-during-boarding/
| 2022-04-27T07:44:12Z
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Harris positive for COVID-19, Biden not ‘close contact’
WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris tested positive for COVID-19 on Tuesday, the White House announced, underscoring the persistence of the highly contagious virus even as the U.S. eases restrictions in a bid to return to pre-pandemic normalcy.
Neither President Joe Biden nor first lady Jill Biden was considered a “close contact” of Harris in recent days, said the vice president’s press secretary, Kirsten Allen. Harris had been scheduled to attend Biden’s Tuesday morning Presidential Daily Brief but was not present, the White House said.
She had returned Monday from a weeklong trip to the West Coast. The last time she saw Biden was the previous Monday, April 18.
“I have no symptoms, and I will continue to isolate and follow CDC guidelines,” Harris tweeted. “I’m grateful to be both vaccinated and boosted.”
After consulting with her physicians, Harris, 57, was prescribed and is taking Paxlovid, the Pfizer antiviral pill, her office said late Tuesday. The drug, when administered within five days of symptoms appearing, has been proven to bring about a 90% reduction in hospitalizations and deaths among patients most likely to get severe disease.
Biden phoned Harris Tuesday afternoon to make sure she “has everything she needs” while working from home, the White House said.
Harris, received her first dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine weeks before taking office and a second dose just days after Inauguration Day in 2021. She received a booster shot in late October and an additional booster on April 1. Fully vaccinated and boosted people have a high degree of protection against serious illness and death from COVID-19, particularly from the most common and highly transmissible omicron variant.
Harris’ diagnosis comes a month after her husband, Doug Emhoff, recovered from the virus, as a wave of cases of the highly transmissible omicron subvariant has spread through Washington’s political class, infecting Cabinet members, White House staffers and lawmakers including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Chris Murphy, D-Conn., tested positive on Tuesday.
Allen said Harris would follow Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines “and the advice of her physicians.” It was not immediately clear whether she is being prescribed any antiviral treatments.
The White House has put in place strict COVID-19 protocols around the president, vice president and their spouses, including daily testing for those expected to be in close contact with them. Biden is tested regularly on the advice of his physician, the White House has said, and last tested negative on Monday.
“We have a very very contagious variant out there,” said White House COVID-19 coordinator Dr. Aashish Jha on Tuesday. “It is going to be hard to ensure that no one gets COVID in America. That’s not even a policy goal.” He said the administration’s goal is to make sure people don’t get seriously ill.
Jha added that despite the precautions it is possible that Biden himself will come down with the virus at some point.
“I wouldn’t say it’s just a matter of time, but of course it is possible that the president, like any other American, could get COVID,” he said. “There is no 100% anything.”
Psaki said she “would not expect” any changes to White House protocols.
After more than two years and nearly a million deaths in the U.S., the virus is still killing more than 300 people a day in the U.S., according to the CDC. The unvaccinated are at a far greater risk, more than twice as likely to test positive and nine times as likely to die from the virus as those who have received at least a primary dose of the vaccines, according to the public health agency.
Harris’ diagnosis comes as the Biden administration is taking steps to expand availability of the life-saving Paxlovid, reassuring doctors that there is ample supply for people at high risk of severe illness or death from the virus.
In addition to her husband’s diagnosis, Harris was identified as a “close contact” after her communications director tested positive on April 6.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines “close contact” with an infected person as spending 15 minutes or more with them over a 24-hour period. The CDC says people with “close contact” do not need to quarantine if they are up to date on their vaccines but should wear well-fitting masks around other people for 10 days after the contact.
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Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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https://www.whsv.com/2022/04/26/harris-positive-covid-19-biden-not-close-contact/
| 2022-04-27T07:44:19Z
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Harrisonburg City Council approves previously tabled projects
HARRISONBURG, Va. (WHSV) - The Harrisonburg City Council met Tuesday night with a packed agenda. The council considered two significant developments that were tabled at its last meeting.
The first was a rezoning request from Holtzman Oil Corp to build the Northside Gateway Plaza, a proposed seven-building shopping center on the north end of the city. The property is on the city-county line at the intersection of Route 11 and Mount Clinton Pike.
This request was unanimously approved by city council despite city staff recommending denial of the project at the previous meeting, saying it didn’t match the city’s future development plans.
The proposed shopping center would include drive-thrus, a convenience store, a gas station, and an electric car charging station.
In a previous interview with WHSV, Owner of Holtzman Oil Bill Holtzman said the shopping center would provide much-needed development on the north end of the city and would be a win for the city and residents living nearby.
“The city will get an enormous tax base out of this facility and you have a lot of housing in that area, particularly to the east of it, to the southeast of it. You’ve got all those apartment houses up there and we would be very close, we would be within walking distance of all of those apartments,” said Holtzman.
The second development considered was a proposal from Turkey Properties LLC to build a 48-unit apartment complex on Chicago Avenue, across from Harrisonburg Refrigeration Service. City staff has recommended that project for approval and on Tuesday night, the council also gave its approval.
The council voted to approve a previously discussed rewrite of the city’s taxi cab ordinance.
“It would allow the operators to set their own rates. As the ordinance is written, city council has to set those rates and that’s not really effective for how operations work nowadays, especially as you see more people turning to options such as Uber or Lyft,” said Mike Parks, Harrisonburg’s director of communications.
There have been some minor changes to the newly proposed ordinance since it was discussed by the council in March.
“One of the changes we are looking at now since that last time we talked about this is reducing some of the signage, visible markings on a vehicle that the operators of taxi cabs traditionally have to put in place that can be very expensive,” said Parks.
The new ordinance would also allow taxi companies to display their rates on an app that could be checked by customers. After being approved by the city council, it will go into effect immediately.
For more information on the April 26 Harrisonburg City Council meeting, click here.
Copyright 2022 WHSV. All rights reserved.
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https://www.whsv.com/2022/04/26/harrisonburg-city-council-consider-tabled-developments-taxi-ordinance-packed-meeting/
| 2022-04-27T07:44:26Z
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Mount Crawford working on first ever comprehensive plan
MOUNT CRAWFORD, Va. (WHSV) - The town of Mount Crawford is planning for its future. The town’s staff is working with the Central Shenandoah Planning District Commission to create a comprehensive plan for the next two decades.
When complete it will be the town’s first-ever comprehensive plan. The town is now asking its residents to give their input on what they’d like to see in the future.
“Where does Mount Crawford want to be in the next 10 to 20 years? what’s the vision for the town and that’s really where the public engagement comes in. We want the public input from the citizens of Mount Crawford to help make decisions about what the next ten years will look like,” said Paula Melester, regional planner for the Central Shenandoah Planning District Commission.
Residents can provide input through a survey on the town’s website. There will also be two in-person meetings that residents can attend to share their thoughts on May 14th from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. at the town hall and May 19th from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the Mount Crawford Ruritan Club.
The town has already gotten feedback from some who say they want to make sure Mount Crawford maintains its small-town feel.
“Growth is good to a point but not too fast and it just depends on what kind of growth and what is projected to come into the town. I know that’s been a main concern of citizens, improving the town, growing a little bit, but not growing too much,” said Libby Clark, Mount Crawford’s town manager.
One item the town is prioritizing is improving transportation.
“Traffic and pedestrian planning, pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure, roadways, those are all big hot topics right now so we’ll be getting feedback from citizens on what they want, what kind of improvements they want to see in that regard,” said Melester.
The town also plans to conduct a transportation study to go along with the comprehensive plan.
“We have a lot of concerns with transportation, traffic in the town, walkability, bike-ability. So we’re working on another project as well with a grant process to talk about transportation as well that will also go alongside by side with the comp plan,” said Clark.
The town is working on a number of projects including a boat launch to access the North River on the town municipal property. It’s received a grant for the project and is hoping to receive another and begin construction this summer.
The town also recently annexed an old farm property on Friedens Church Road. The property is zoned for commercial development and the town is working to decide what kind of business it wants to bring to the area. Mount Crawford’s town council also recently approved a 69-unit townhome development on Parsons Court.
The town is still deciding how best to use the remainder of its $240,000 in American Rescue Plan funding.
“We’ll be taking a look at the water and sewer system at some point. I know that the water system definitely has some age to it so that will probably be a top priority of infrastructure as well as sidewalk needs as well,” said Clark.
The town previously used ARPA funds to give residents a $100 credit on their water bills and improve the town hall’s central heat and air conditioning system.
Those working on the comprehensive plan are open to ideas that could be included in the town’s future.
“Anything from development to infrastructure to community events, community resources, really anything that will drive the quality of life of living in Mount Crawford for the next 10 to 20 years,” said Melester.
Copyright 2022 WHSV. All rights reserved.
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https://www.whsv.com/2022/04/26/mount-crawford-working-first-ever-comprehensive-plan/
| 2022-04-27T07:44:33Z
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NAACP: Michigan attorney general must investigate Lyoya case
Published: Apr. 26, 2022 at 7:01 PM EDT|Updated: 8 hours ago
(AP) - A civil rights group is demanding that the Michigan attorney general investigate the police shooting of Patrick Lyoya, warning the longstanding relationship between the county prosecutor’s office and Grand Rapids police could lead to bias.
The president of the Greater Grand Rapids NAACP says he personally asked Chris Becker to recuse himself but the Kent County prosecutor declined.
Cle Jackson says there are too many conflicts of interest. But Becker says he won’t give up the case.
Lyoya, a 26-year-old Black man, was shot in the back of the head by a white Grand Rapids officer after an April 4 traffic stop. State police are investigating the shooting.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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https://www.whsv.com/2022/04/26/naacp-michigan-attorney-general-must-investigate-lyoya-case/
| 2022-04-27T07:44:39Z
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N.C. Rep. Madison Cawthorn cited for having gun at airport
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WBTV/Gray News) - U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R-N.C., was issued a citation by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department on Tuesday for bringing a gun to Charlotte Douglas International Airport.
Police say Transportation Security Administration workers located the firearm in a bag at a security screening checkpoint.
Cawthorn, 26, from Hendersonville, was identified as the owner of the bag with the firearm. Police said he stated the gun was his and he cooperated with officers.
The congressman was issued a citation for possession of a dangerous weapon on city property, which is a city of Charlotte ordinance.
Cawthorn was released, and police took possession of the firearm as normal procedure.
In 2021, Cawthorn attempted to bring a gun through security at the Asheville Regional Airport.
He was also recently charged with driving while license revoked and is facing multiple speeding citations.
Copyright 2022 WBTV via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
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https://www.whsv.com/2022/04/26/nc-rep-madison-cawthorn-cited-having-gun-airport/
| 2022-04-27T07:44:46Z
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NCAA President Mark Emmert stepping down no later than 2023
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — NCAA President Mark Emmert is stepping down after 12 tumultuous years leading an association that has become increasingly marginalized while college sports has undergone massive changes and been besieged by political and legal attacks.
NCAA Board of Governors Chairman John DeGioia announced the move Tuesday and said it was by mutual agreement. The 69-year-old Emmert will continue to serve in his role until a new president is in place or until June 30, 2023.
The move is not entirely a surprise. The NCAA remains the biggest governing body in college athletics, but it is has been under sharp criticism for years as too heavy handed and even out of date with Emmert serving as the prime target.
Emmert has guided the NCAA through the most transformative period in the history of the more than 100-year-old organization. During the past decade, athletes have gained more power, benefits and ability to earn money than ever before. Amateurism has been redefined.
But Emmert has been viewed by some as not a catalyst for change but as an obstacle standing in the way — or at the least reactive instead of proactive.
“Throughout my tenure I’ve emphasized the need to focus on the experience and priorities of student-athletes,” Emmert said in a release from the NCAA. “I am extremely proud of the work of the association over the last 12 years and especially pleased with the hard work and dedication of the national office staff here in Indianapolis.”
The announcement comes one year after the board approved a contract extension for Emmert that ran through the 2025, a move that left many in college sports bewildered. Emmert’s salary was nearly $3 million in 2021.
The NCAA has suffered a series of damaging court losses in the past decade that peaked with last year’s 9-0 Supreme Court ruling against the association in an antitrust case. The decision undercut the NCAA’s ability to govern college sports and prompted a total overhaul how it operates.
Years after losing an antitrust case over the NCAA’s use of athletes’ names, images and likenesses, the association finally changed its rules last June to allow the athletes to profit as paid sponsors and endorsers. The move came only after state lawmakers passed laws to neuter the NCAA’s power. With Congress unwilling to provide federal protection, the NCAA has been unable to regulate NIL activity with uniform rules — leading to fresh criticism.
Emmert has been called before lawmakers in Washington numerous times over the past two years. Attacking Emmert and the NCAA has become one of the few things that has united Democrats and Republicans during these divisive political times.
Emmert was appointed to the job in April 2010. He had led the University of Washington and LSU prior to taking over in Indianapolis. He replaced Myles Brand, who held the position for seven years before dying of cancer in 2009.
The job Emmert stepped into became increasingly more difficult as big-time college sports such as major college football and basketball grew into billion-dollar businesses.
NCAA revenue has reached more than $1 billion per year under Emmert, primarily through the TV deals for the men’s college basketball tournament, and most of the money is redistributed to more than 1,100 member schools with nearly 500,000 athletes.
Still, the disparity between what the wealthiest schools bring in compared to what the vast majority of schools spend on athletics has made it difficult for them all to coexist under one umbrella organization.
NCAA member schools adopted a new constitution in January and are in the process of “transforming the structure and mission to meet future needs.”
“With the significant transitions underway within college sports, the timing of this decision provides the association with consistent leadership during the coming months plus the opportunity to consider what will be the future role of the president,” DeGioia said. “It also allows for the selection and recruitment of the next president without disruption.”
In a lengthy interview with AP in August, just months after being hammered by criticism for the NCAA’s inability to provide equitable facilities and amenities for the men’s and women’s basketball players participating in the Division I tournaments, Emmert said he was still passionate about the mission of a leading college sports during volatile times.
“And I’m not surprised that people say, ‘You know, why isn’t this getting fixed? What’s Emmert doing?’” he told AP. “And people also, they want to look to somebody and say, ‘Well, fix this, damn it!’ And I get that. I understand. And I say it in the mirror sometimes. But the truth is, it’s a very complex system. I think we do need to find ways to fix that and streamline it.”
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Follow Ralph D. Russo at https://twitter.com/ralphDrussoAP and listen at http://www.appodcasts.com
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More AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/college-football and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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https://www.whsv.com/2022/04/26/ncaa-president-mark-emmert-stepping-down-no-later-than-2023/
| 2022-04-27T07:44:53Z
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Nurse turned teacher says school district wants her to repay her salary
CHILTON COUNTY, Ala. (WBRC/Gray News) - An Alabama-area school teacher is being asked to pay back tens of thousands of dollars the school district said it mistakenly paid her.
As reported by WBRC, a representative with the Alabama Education Association said an educator, who went from being a nurse to a teacher, recently received a letter from the Chilton County School District demanding she repays about $33,000 in salary that was given by mistake over the last several years.
Previously, a lunchroom manager Christie Payne made public a letter she got from the school system demanding she repays more than $23,000.
Payne said the school district told her that the system had mistakenly credited her for too many years of service after she was promoted.
The education association reports it is checking with other employees when it comes to other letters.
A representative with the school district said they could not comment on the situation due to employee privacy rights.
Copyright 2022 WBRC via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
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https://www.whsv.com/2022/04/26/nurse-turned-teacher-says-school-district-wants-her-repay-her-salary/
| 2022-04-27T07:45:01Z
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Amazon warehouse collapse probe finds worker safety risks
(AP) – U.S. regulators are calling on Amazon to improve its procedures for dealing with severe weather like hurricanes and tornadoes that could threaten workers at its warehouses dotted across the country.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration on Tuesday sent a “Hazard Alert Letter” to the Seattle-based e-commerce giant following the agency’s investigation into the deadly collapse of a company warehouse in Edwardsville, Illinois in December. Six people died and another was critically injured in the tornado strike.
The investigation raised concerns about the potential risk to employees during severe weather emergencies,” according to the letter sent to Amazon that OSHA made public.
The agency said its inspection found that, while the company’s severe weather procedures had met minimal federal safety guidelines for storm sheltering, the company still needed to further protect its workers and contract employees. The letter requires Amazon to review its severe weather emergency procedures but the company won’t face any fines or penalties.
In interviews with Amazon and contract workers, OSHA officials found some employees couldn’t recall ever participating in severe weather drills, or the location of the facility’s shelter. Kelly Nantel, an Amazon spokesperson, however, said employees receive emergency response training, which is “reinforced throughout the year.”
“OSHA’s investigation did not find any violations or causes for citations, but we’re constantly looking to innovate and improve our safety measures and have already begun conducting additional safety and emergency preparedness drills at our sites and will carefully consider any OSHA recommendation that we have not already,” Nantel said.
Amazon has noted workers at the warehouse, known as a “delivery station,” had little time to prepare when the National Weather Service declared a tornado warning on December 10. About 10 minutes before the tornado touched down, the agency said managers directed workers to go to a restroom in response to tornado warnings and other weather alerts.
But some employees unaware of the designated tornado shelter — a restroom located in the northern portion of the building — went to a separate restroom in the hard-hit south end, the agency said. All the injured and killed had taken shelter in the south side bathroom.
John Felton, Amazon’s senior vice president of global delivery services, had said in December that most of the 46 people in the warehouse headed to a shelter on the north side while a smaller group went to the south end, where the loading docks were located and delivery vehicles were parked.
“The tornado that hit our delivery station was extreme and very sudden, with winds that were much like the force of a category 4 hurricane, and we believe our team did the right thing, moving people to shelter as soon as the warning was issued,” Nantel said.
In the inspection, the agency said it also reviewed contractor safety and training records as well as the facility’s written “Emergency Action Plan.” Officials took issue with the plan, writing in the letter it “was not customized with specific instructions” for hazards expected at the Edwardsville site.
Though Amazon had posted evacuation maps at the facility showing the location of the designated shelter, officials found the written plan did not “specifically identify” the shelter’s location in the warehouse. Nantel said the company’s buildings have “emergency plans that identify exit routes and shelter areas.”
Separately, officials said a megaphone that was supposed to activate the site’s shelter-in-place procedure was locked in a cage and not accessible, resulting in managers verbally telling workers on where to take shelter.
“These tragic deaths have sparked discussions nationwide on the vital need for comprehensive workplace emergency plans,” William Donovan, OSHA’s regional administrator in Chicago, said in a statement. “Employers should re-evaluate their emergency plans for the safest shelter-in-place locations and prepare before an emergency to ensure workers know where to go and how to keep themselves safe in the event of a disaster.”
The agency has recommended Amazon makes its warning devices readily accessible, ensures all employees participate in drills for emergency weather events and include site-specific information in its emergency plans. It said it will also send hazard alert letters to three delivery service providers, who employed the injured worker and five of the employees who died.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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https://www.whsv.com/2022/04/26/osha-shortfalls-found-amazon-severe-weather-procedure/
| 2022-04-27T07:45:08Z
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Kidnapped California baby found, 3 suspects detained
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A 3-month-old baby who was kidnapped from his San Francisco Bay Area home was found Tuesday and three suspects were detained, police said.
The baby, Brandon Cuellar, was unharmed but was taken to a hospital as a precaution, San Jose Police Department officials said during a news conference.
“This incident is a parents’ worst nightmare. We are fortunate it resulted in a positive outcome,” San Jose Police Chief Anthony Mata said, declining to release details on where the baby was found or the identities of the three people who were detained.
The child was taken Monday from his apartment in San Jose by a man who was seen on video walking away with the baby in a carrier.
Police believe they have apprehended the man in the video, who was one of the three taken into custody, said San Jose Assistant Police Chief Paul Joseph.
Also detained was a woman who was with the child’s grandmother before the abduction, San Jose Police spokesman Sgt. Christian Camarillo told reporters.
“This was a person who was with the grandmother yesterday when they went shopping, she was present at the apartment complex when this happened,” he said. “There have been some inconsistencies with what she has told us. Obviously, drawing our attention to what she knows about this.”
Joseph did not provide details about the third suspect. Initial investigations indicated the abductors had a link to the family, he said.
“We know that there is some connection to the family, but we don’t know exactly what that connection is,” Joseph said.
On Monday, police released a video showing the man walking calmly down the sidewalk holding the baby carrier covered by a white blanket.
Camarillo told reporters Monday that the kidnapping was reported by the baby’s grandmother.
“According to the grandmother, she came home to this apartment. ... She took the baby in the apartment, went downstairs to unload some groceries,” Camarillo said. “In that short amount of time someone entered the apartment ... and left with the baby.”
Camarillo said the baby’s mother was at work when he was abducted.
“Dad right now is out of the picture. He is incarcerated. I don’t know, you know, whether that is going to play into this, but obviously we are going to talk to him soon,” Camarillo said.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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https://www.whsv.com/2022/04/26/police-3-month-old-california-baby-kidnapped-by-stranger/
| 2022-04-27T07:45:15Z
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Police: Child dies of starvation, parents charged with murder
WARRICK CO., Ind. (WFIE/Gray News) - Two parents in Indiana have been arrested for murder and neglect after their baby died earlier this year.
WFIE reports the Warrick County Sheriff’s Office arrested Jakob Scott, 22, and Caylin Monroe, 23, on those charges, along with neglect of a dependent that resulted in death.
Authorities said their investigation began in February of this year after the sheriff’s office responded to a home outside of Evansville, Indiana, with reports of an unresponsive infant. First responders said the baby was deceased.
The child, Silas Scott, died of starvation, according to the sheriff’s office. His obituary said he was just shy of three months old.
Investigators report they gathered enough information to submit the couple’s case for review by the Warrick County Prosecutor’s Office.
Scott and Monroe are currently being held without bond.
Copyright 2022 WFIE via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
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https://www.whsv.com/2022/04/26/police-child-dies-starvation-parents-charged-with-murder/
| 2022-04-27T07:45:22Z
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Videos show aftermath of film-set shooting, Baldwin reaction
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — The New Mexico sheriff investigating the fatal film-set shooting of a cinematographer by actor Alec Baldwin described complacency, disorganization and neglected safety measures in the making of the low-budget movie “Rust.”
Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza said Tuesday that he is waiting on a forensic analysis of the weapon, projectile, fingerprints and more from the FBI and state medical examiners before turning the 6-month-old case over to prosecutors to decide whether criminal charges will be filed.
“There is a degree of neglect. Whether that reaches the criminal level, that will be up to the district attorney to determine,” the sheriff told “Good Morning America.” On Monday, he released virtually the entire case file of the investigation after a live round of ammunition killed Halyna Hutchins and wounded director Joel Souza during rehearsal on Oct. 21, 2021. Filming for the Western took place at a ranch on the outskirts of the city of Santa Fe.
The vast trove of newly released law enforcement files includes lapel camera video of the mortally wounded Hutchins slipping in and out of consciousness as an evacuation helicopter arrives. Witness interrogations, email threads, text conversations, inventories of ammunition and hundreds of photographs round out the collection of evidence.
In one newly released video, a sheriff’s deputy arrives as medics attempt to attend to Hutchins inside a small wooden church where she was shot during a rehearsal in preparation for filming.
“Halyna, deep breath. There you go, good girl,” says a medic, urging Hutchins to take in air through an oxygen mask.
Outside, a medical evacuation helicopter lands in the desert. A law enforcement officer keeps watch over Baldwin, still in 19th century costume, as the actor smokes cigarettes from other members of the film cast.
The evidence was made public in response to media requests for records and as an effort toward transparency in the investigation. Mendoza, a Democrat, is running for reelection this year, with a competitive June primary.
Newly published documents show authorities have scraped cellphone accounts for text messages, images and audio files created by the cast, crew and munitions suppliers for “Rust.” Text messages recount two firearms misfires on the set prior to the deadly shooting, though none involved live ammunition.
Other videos show investigators as they debrief Baldwin within hours of the fatal shooting, talking with him inside a compact office — and rehearsal clips that show Baldwin in costume as he practices a quick-draw maneuver with a gun.
An attorney for Baldwin says the newly released files corroborate that the actor and “Rust” co-producer was careful with guns on the set.
“Mr. Baldwin welcomes this investigation,” said attorney Luke Nikas in a statement. “The information that has been revealed by the authorities demonstrates, once again, that Mr. Baldwin acted responsibly.”
Under questioning by two investigators, Baldwin says that as the gun went off, he was unaware initially that Hutchins would die and shocked to learn that he had been holding a gun loaded with live ammunition. Baldwin said in a December interview with ABC News that he was on set pointing the gun at Hutchins at her instruction when it went off without his pulling the trigger.
Baldwin told the investigators that the gun should have been empty for a rehearsal with no filming.
“There should have been nothing. It should have been a cold gun with no rounds inside or dummy rounds,” Baldwin says. “I take the gun out slowly. I turn, I cock the pistol. Bang, it goes off. She (Hutchins) hits the ground.”
Baldwin repeatedly says there were no prior problems of any kind with firearms on the set of “Rust.”
Those statements conflict with more recent findings by state occupational safety regulators, who last week issued the maximum possible fine of nearly $137,000 against the “Rust” film production company.
New Mexico’s Occupational Health and Safety Bureau delivered a scathing narrative of safety failures in violation of standard industry protocols, including testimony that production managers took limited or no action to address the two other misfires.
The bureau also documented gun safety complaints from crew members that went unheeded and said weapons specialists were not allowed to make decisions about additional safety training. Rust Movie Productions has indicated it will dispute the findings and sanction.
At least five lawsuits have been filed over the shooting, including a wrongful death lawsuit brought by Hutchins’ family against Baldwin and the movie’s other producers. The lawsuit on behalf of widower Matt Hutchins and his 9-year-old son alleges a “callous” disregard in the face of safety complaints on the set.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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https://www.whsv.com/2022/04/26/police-release-videos-probe-baldwin-film-set-shooting/
| 2022-04-27T07:45:31Z
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Severe thunderstorm leads to tornado in Augusta County
Hail, wind damage and a tornado in a storm in Augusta County
HARRISONBURG, Va. (WHSV) - The cold front crossing today led to quite the interesting afternoon in some areas of Augusta county. Due to sunshine this morning, that added instability to the atmosphere. There was also a stalled boundary that started lifting north in Augusta county which helped to trigger this one storm.
The storm was severe warned with a severe thunderstorm warning. It also dropped hail from Middlebrook to Waynesboro with heavy hail in Fishersville.
The reason we weren’t calling this a tornado despite the damage reports was because WHSV didn’t see the video until close to 6pm. The damage photos all sent in didn’t look like tornado damage. Remember severe thunderstorms can have winds of 60-110mph! So it wasn’t until multiple videos were sent in, that led to the NWS to conclude there was a tornado.
(More video of the tornado at the bottom of this page)
A private weather staion in Lyndhurst recorded a wind gust at 51mph and at the Amazon facility being built, a gust of 74mph.
POWER OUTAGES
The storm also lead to thousands of power outages due to down trees and power lines
The National Weather Service will conduct a storm survey on Wednesday. WHSV will continue to update on the results of that storm survey.
PHOTO GALLERY
Here’s another video of the torando from Jeffrey Walker.
Copyright 2022 WHSV. All rights reserved.
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https://www.whsv.com/2022/04/26/severe-thunderstorm-leads-tornado-augusta-county/
| 2022-04-27T07:45:38Z
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State lawmakers ready for return to Richmond for final work on bills
RICHMOND, Va. (WWBT) - It’s a full day for the Virginia General Assembly on Wednesday as lawmakers review 150 pieces of legislation that have been amended or vetoed by the governor.
“I’m so pleased with the progress that we’ve made, but we still have work to do,” said Governor Glenn Youngkin, (R) Virginia.
Youngkin amended more than 100 pieces of legislation. He made amendments to the controversial facial recognition legislation to require more training.
And one bill modifies what the definition of “marijuana” would be, making it a misdemeanor to have more than two ounces of it.
“We’ve spent a lot of time with two different JLARC studies figuring out the best way to legalize marijuana in a way that upholds safety and upholds fairness, and I don’t think his amendments do that,” said State Senator Jennifer McClellan (D) 9th District.
The governor vetoed 26 measures, including a bill that would’ve given localities the ability to take legal action against landlords that don’t address serious violations within a reasonable time frame.
He also vetoed a measure that would prevent operators of heavy trucks from using cruise control or compression release brakes when driving in active winter weather conditions.
“I think that there’s a general understanding that we’ve improved some bills with our amendments, and I expect there to be some discussion and debate about that, of course,” said Youngkin.
The General Assembly can override the vetoes and amendments with a two-thirds vote in both chambers.
Meanwhile, state budget negotiators for the House and Senate are still $3 billion apart. Republicans are pushing tax relief, while Democrats say it’s time to invest.
“We are at a unique opportunity to finally pay some of those bills off and invest in our children and our school infrastructure and in our people,” said State Sen. McClellan.
The Senate and House both gavel in at noon Wednesday.
Copyright 2022 WWBT. All rights reserved.
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https://www.whsv.com/2022/04/26/state-lawmakers-ready-return-richmond-final-work-bills/
| 2022-04-27T07:45:44Z
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US urges more arms for Ukraine amid fears of expanding war
TORETSK, Ukraine (AP) — The U.S. pressed its allies Tuesday to move “heaven and earth” to keep Kyiv well-supplied with weapons as Russian forces rained fire on eastern and southern Ukraine amid growing new fears the war could spill over the country’s borders.
For the second day in a row, explosions rocked the separatist region of Trans-Dniester in neighboring Moldova, knocking out two powerful radio antennas close to the Ukrainian border. No one claimed responsibility for the attacks, but Ukraine all but blamed Russia.
In other developments, Poland and Bulgaria said the Kremlin is cutting off natural gas supplies to the two NATO countries starting Wednesday, the first such actions of the war. Both nations had refused Russia’s demands that they pay in rubles.
GRAPHIC WARNING: Videos may contain disturbing content.
Poland has been a major gateway for the delivery of weapons to Ukraine and confirmed this week that it is sending the country tanks.
The potential effect of the gas cutoff was not immediately clear. Poland said it was well-prepared for such a move after working for years to reduce its reliance on Russian energy.
Poland also has ample natural gas in storage, and it will soon benefit from two pipelines coming online, analyst Emily McClain of Rystad Energy said.
Bulgaria gets over 90% of its gas from Russia, and officials said they were working to find other sources. McClain cited a Bulgarian deal to purchase gas from Azerbaijan.
Two months into the fighting, Western arms have helped Ukraine stall Russia’s invasion, but the country’s leaders have said they need more support fast.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin convened a meeting Tuesday of officials from about 40 countries at the U.S. air base at Ramstein, Germany, and said more help is on the way.
“This gathering reflects the galvanized world,” Austin said, adding that he wanted officials to leave the meeting “with a common and transparent understanding of Ukraine’s near-term security requirements because we’re going to keep moving heaven and earth so that we can meet them.”
After unexpectedly fierce resistance by Ukrainian forces thwarted Russia’s attempt to take Ukraine’s capital, Moscow now says its focus is the capture of the Donbas, the mostly Russian-speaking industrial region in eastern Ukraine.
In the small city of Toretsk in the Donbas, residents are struggling to survive, collecting rainwater for washing up and fervently hoping for an end to the fighting.
“It’s bad. Very bad. Hopeless,” said Andriy Cheromushkin. “You feel so helpless that you don’t know what you should do or shouldn’t do. Because if you want to do something, you need some money, and there is no money now.”
Russian advances and heavy fighting were reported in the Donbas, with one town, Kreminna, apparently falling after days of street-by-street fighting, according to the British military.
In the gutted southern port city of Mariupol, authorities said Russian forces hit the Azovstal steel plant with 35 airstrikes over the past 24 hours. The plant is the last known stronghold of Ukrainian fighters in the city. About 1,000 civilians were said to be taking shelter there with an estimated 2,000 Ukrainian defenders.
“Russia has drastically intensified strikes over the past 24 hours and is using heavy bunker bombs,” said Petro Andryushchenko, an adviser to Mariupol’s mayor. “The number of those wounded will be clear once the rubble is cleared.”
He also accused Russian forces of shelling a route it had offered as an escape corridor from the steel mill.
Beyond Mariupol, local officials said at least nine people were killed and several more wounded in Russian attacks on towns and cities in the east and south. Pavlo Kyrylenko, governor of the Donetsk region of the Donbas, said on the Telegram messaging app that Russian forces “continue to deliberately fire at civilians and to destroy critical infrastructure.”
Russian missile fire also knocked out a strategic railroad bridge along a route that links southern Ukraine’s Odesa port region to neighboring Romania, a NATO member, Ukrainian authorities said. No injuries were reported.
Ukraine also said Russian forces shelled Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city, which lies in the northeast, outside the Donbas, but is seen as key to Russia’s apparent bid to encircle Ukrainian troops in the Donbas from the north, east and south.
Ukrainian forces struck back in the Kherson region in the south.
The attack on the bridge near Odesa — along with a series of strikes on key railroad stations a day earlier — appears to mark a major shift in Russia’s approach. Until now, Moscow has spared strategic bridges, perhaps in hopes of keeping them for its own use in seizing Ukraine. But now it seems to be trying to thwart Ukraine’s efforts to move troops and supplies.
The southern Ukraine coastline and Moldova have been on edge since a senior Russian military officer said last week that the Kremlin’s goal is to secure not just eastern Ukraine but the entire south, so as to open the way to Trans-Dniester, a long, narrow strip of land with about 470,000 people along the Ukrainian border where about 1,500 Russian troops are based.
It was not clear who was behind the blasts in Trans-Dniester, but the attacks gave rise to fears that Russia is stirring up trouble so as to create a pretext to either invade Trans-Dniester or use the region as another launching point to attack Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the explosions were carried out by Russia and were “designed to destabilize,” with the intention of showing Moldova what could happen if it supports Ukraine.
Austin, the U.S. defense secretary, said the U.S. was still looking into blasts and trying to determine what was going on, but added: “Certainly we don’t want to see any spillover” of the conflict.
With the potentially pivotal battle for the east underway, the U.S. and its NATO allies are scrambling to deliver artillery and other heavy weaponry in time to make a difference.
German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht said her government will supply Gepard self-propelled armored anti-aircraft guns to Ukraine. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has faced mounting pressure to send heavy weapons such as tanks and other armored vehicles.
Austin noted that more than 30 allies and partners have joined the U.S. in sending military aid to Ukraine and that more than $5 billion worth of equipment has been committed.
The U.S. defense secretary said the war has weakened Russia’s military, adding, “We would like to make sure, again, that they don’t have the same type of capability to bully their neighbors that we saw at the outset of this conflict.”
A senior Kremlin official, Nikolai Patrushev, warned that “the policies of the West and the Kyiv regime controlled by it would only be the breakup of Ukraine into several states.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov cautioned that if the Western flow of weapons continues, the talks aimed at ending the fighting will not produce any results.
Diplomatic efforts to end the fighting also continued. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres met with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the U.N. said they agreed in principle that the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross should be involved in the evacuation of civilians trapped in the steel plant in Mariupol. Putin said Ukrainian troops were using civilians in the plant as shields and not allowing them to leave.
___
Gambrell reported from Lviv, Ukraine. Associated Press journalist Yuras Karmanau in Lviv, David Keyton in Kyiv, Oleksandr Stashevskyi at Chernobyl, Mstyslav Chernov in Kharkiv, and AP staff around the world contributed to this report.
___
Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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https://www.whsv.com/2022/04/26/top-russian-diplomat-warns-ukraine-against-provoking-wwiii/
| 2022-04-27T07:45:51Z
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Trial opens for ex-NYPD officer charged in Capitol riot
WASHINGTON (AP) — Body camera video captured a “rage-filled” retired police officer attacking one of the outnumbered police officers trying to hold off a mob of rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol, a federal prosecutor told jurors Tuesday.
But a defense attorney said another video from a different angle shows that former New York City police officer Thomas Webster acted in self-defense after a Metropolitan Police Department officer punched him first.
Jurors saw both videos at the start of Webster’s trial, the first among dozens of cases in which a defendant is charged with assaulting police at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Hava Mirell also showed jurors a photo of Webster holding a U.S. Marine Corps flag on a metal pole in front of the Washington monument before the riot erupted.
“He is smiling in that photo, but that smile would soon turn to rage,” she said during the trial’s opening statements.
The prosecutor told jurors they will hear testimony from Noah Rathbun, the officer whom Webster is charged with assaulting with the flag pole.
Webster shoved a bike rack at Rathbun before swinging the flag pole at the officer in a downward chopping motion, striking a metal barricade in front of the officer, according to Mirell. After Rathbun grabbed the broken pole and retreated, Webster “hunkered down,” charged at the officer and tackled him to the ground, where Rathbun began to choke from the chin strap on his gas mask, the prosecutor said.
Defense attorney James Monroe accused Rathbun of using excessive force and provoking Webster by punching him in the face.
“The government didn’t tell you about that,” Monroe told jurors.
Mirell said Rathbun stuck out an open palm to create space between him and Webster.
“But the defendant kept getting angrier and angrier,” she added.
U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, who is presiding over Webster’s trial, said during a bond hearing last June that he didn’t see Webster getting punched in the face on a video. The judge described Webster as an instigator.
“It was his conduct that sort of broke the dam, at least in that area,” Mehta said, according to a transcript.
Rathbun reported a hand injury from a separate encounter with a rioter inside the Capitol’s Rotunda. A Metropolitan Police Department detective, Jonathan Lauderdale, said Rathbun initially didn’t recall his encounter with Webster when he asked him about the incident. Lauderdale said other officers also forgot about key events from Jan. 6 amid the chaos.
“If I could forget that, I would,” Lauderdale testified.
Lauderdale acknowledged that he didn’t see Webster shove an open hand at Webster’s face during his initial review of the body camera video. He said Rathbun deserves “credit for showing restraint” based on what he saw.
The trial is scheduled to resume Wednesday with more testimony from prosecution witnesses.
Webster, now a self-employed landscaper, retired from the NYPD in 2011 after 20 years of service. He served in the Marine Corps in 1985, from 1989 before joining the NYPD in 1991. His department service included a stint on then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s private security detail.
Webster brought a gun when he traveled alone to Washington from his home in Florida, New York, a village in Orange County about 70 miles northwest of New York City. He wore his NYPD-issued bulletproof vest but says he left the pistol in his hotel room when he headed to the Jan. 6 rally where Trump spoke.
Webster faces six counts, including assaulting, resisting or impeding an officer using a dangerous weapon. He isn’t accused of entering the Capitol on Jan. 6.
“In his mind, this is a protest. He’s not taking over any Capitol,” Monroe said. “He’s there to have his voice heard.”
Monroe also has argued that Webster was exercising his First Amendment free speech rights when he shouted profanities at police that day. The defense lawyer suggested that Webster became upset because he saw others in the crowd who were injured and bleeding.
Webster’s trial in the fourth before a jury and the sixth overall. The first three Capitol riot defendants to get a jury trial were convicted of all charges in their respective indictments.
In a pair of bench trials, a different federal judge heard testimony without a jury before acquitting one defendant and partially acquitting another.
More than 780 people have been charged with riot-related federal crimes. The Justice Department says over 245 of them have been charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement. More than 250 riot defendants have pleaded guilty, mostly to nonviolent misdemeanors.
Jurors convicted two rioters of interfering with officers. One of the rioters, Thomas Robertson, was an off-duty police officer from Rocky Mount, Virginia. The other, Texas resident Guy Wesley Reffitt, also was convicted of storming the Capitol with a holstered handgun.
The third Capitol rioter to be convicted by a jury was Dustin Byron Thompson, an Ohio man who said he was following then-President Donald Trump’s orders.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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https://www.whsv.com/2022/04/26/trial-opens-ex-nypd-officer-charged-capitol-riot/
| 2022-04-27T07:45:58Z
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