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Teen dies, 14-year-old brother missing after being swept out to sea off Hawaii shore
HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow/Gray News) - A 16-year-old boy is dead and his 14-year-old brother is missing after they were swept out to sea off a remote Hawaii beach on Thursday afternoon, emergency responders said.
HawaiiNewsNow reports the search for the 14-year-old continues.
Officials responded to a report of multiple swimmers in distress around 3:20 p.m. Thursday in waters off Shipman or Haena Beach in the Puna district.
According to response crews, a father, his two sons and another adult were swimming when they were swept out by the current and high surf.
Investigators said the two adults and the 16-year-old were pulled from the water by helicopter.
Emergency medics said they immediately began CPR on the 16-year-old, as they began transporting him to the Hilo Medical Center. Life-saving measures continued at the hospital, but were unsuccessful. The victim was pronounced dead just before 5 p.m.
Police said an autopsy has been ordered to determine the exact cause of death.
A missing person case has been initiated for the 14-year-old boy, authorities said.
Firefighters said the beach is in an isolated area and that the group had hiked from Hawaiian Paradise Park.
Copyright 2022 KHNL/KGMB via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/08/14/teen-dies-14-year-old-brother-missing-after-being-swept-out-sea-off-hawaii-shore/ | 2022-08-14T21:20:06Z |
PITTSBURGH, Aug. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Fifth Season announced today that it is issuing a voluntary recall for a limited amount of its branded Crunchy Sesame Salad Kits due to the possible inclusion of an ingredient not listed on the product label. The Salad kit may contain a dressing packet that contains milk and egg, which is not declared on the label.
Consumers with allergies or sensitivities to milk, or eggs should discard the product. People who have an allergy or severe sensitivity to milk or eggs run the risk of serious or life-threatening allergic reaction if they consume these products.
To date, Fifth Season is not aware of any reports or complaints from consumers regarding this product. The products were shipped to OH, MI and NY between August 4th, 2022 and august 12th, 2022.
Fifth Season takes the safety and integrity of the products it distributes very seriously and regrets any inconvenience and concern this recall may cause. The issue was discovered in routine quality control protocols and the company is working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible.
Customers who have further questions about the recall may contact Rich Mosgrove or Hatie Gondoza by phone at 412-899-2268, Monday through Friday 8:00 AM-5:00 PM.
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SOURCE Fifth Season | https://www.whsv.com/prnewswire/2022/08/14/fifth-season-issues-allergy-alert-undeclared-dairy-eggs-crunchy-sesame-salad-kit/ | 2022-08-14T21:20:12Z |
Album review of Black Thought and Danger Mouse's 'Cheat Codes' NPR Published August 14, 2022 at 3:15 PM MDT Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Flipboard Music writer Jack Hamilton reviews the new collaboration album from Black Thought and Danger Mouse, Cheat Codes. Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-14/album-review-of-black-thought-and-danger-mouses-cheat-codes | 2022-08-14T21:43:40Z |
With virtual reality headsets, elderly survivors of the partition between India and Pakistan are getting 360-degree views of their long-lost homes — on opposite sides of the international border.
Copyright 2022 NPR
With virtual reality headsets, elderly survivors of the partition between India and Pakistan are getting 360-degree views of their long-lost homes — on opposite sides of the international border.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-14/encore-virtual-reality-brings-indian-and-pakistani-residents-back-home | 2022-08-14T21:43:47Z |
Remembering the day the Taliban took control of Afghanistan NPR Published August 14, 2022 at 3:20 PM MDT Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Flipboard Listen • 5:25 One year later, the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan has changed life for ordinary Afghans. Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-14/remembering-the-day-the-taliban-took-control-of-afghanistan | 2022-08-14T21:43:53Z |
On Sunday night, Saturn will be closer to Earth than at any other point during the year. The American Museum of Natural History's Jackie Faherty explains how people can view this phenomenon.
Copyright 2022 NPR
On Sunday night, Saturn will be closer to Earth than at any other point during the year. The American Museum of Natural History's Jackie Faherty explains how people can view this phenomenon.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-14/saturn-reaches-opposition-how-to-view-the-planet-at-its-best | 2022-08-14T21:44:00Z |
Following Salman Rushdie's stabbing at an event in western New York, NPR's Michel Martin speaks with the Chautauqua Institution's Emily Morris about the organization's role going forward.
Copyright 2022 NPR
Following Salman Rushdie's stabbing at an event in western New York, NPR's Michel Martin speaks with the Chautauqua Institution's Emily Morris about the organization's role going forward.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-14/the-chautauqua-institutions-role-after-the-salman-rushdie-attack | 2022-08-14T21:44:06Z |
Nebraska law enforcement requested Facebook messages of two women being investigated for an alleged illegal abortion. NPR's Michel Martin speaks with Upturn's Logan Koepke about data privacy.
Copyright 2022 NPR
Nebraska law enforcement requested Facebook messages of two women being investigated for an alleged illegal abortion. NPR's Michel Martin speaks with Upturn's Logan Koepke about data privacy.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-14/when-law-enforcement-wants-your-social-media-content-do-data-privacy-laws-hold-up | 2022-08-14T21:44:12Z |
Author Xochitl Gonzalez examines the role of race and class in society's preference for quiet in her essay in The Atlantic, "Why Do Rich People Love Quiet?" She discusses it with NPR's Michel Martin.
Copyright 2022 NPR
Author Xochitl Gonzalez examines the role of race and class in society's preference for quiet in her essay in The Atlantic, "Why Do Rich People Love Quiet?" She discusses it with NPR's Michel Martin.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-14/why-a-writer-doesnt-want-a-quiet-brooklyn | 2022-08-14T21:44:19Z |
Confused about inflation? You're not alone.
Inflation is, paradoxically, both incredibly simple to understand and absurdly complicated.
Let's start with the simplest version: Inflation happens when prices broadly go up.
That "broadly" is important: At any given time, the price of goods will fluctuate based on shifting tastes. Someone makes a viral TikTok about brussels sprouts and suddenly everyone's gotta have them; boom, sprouts prices go up. Meanwhile, sellers of cauliflower, last season's trendy veg, are practically giving their goods away. Such fluctuations are constant.
Inflation, however, occurs when the average price of virtually everything consumers buy goes up. Food, houses, cars, clothes, toys, etc. To afford those necessities, wages have to rise, too.
It's not always a bad thing. In the United States, for the past 40 years or so (and particularly this century), we've been living in an ideal low-and-slow level of inflation that comes with a well-oiled consumer-driven economy, with prices going up around 2% a year, if that. Sure, prices on some things, like housing and health care, are much higher than they used to be, but other things, like computers and TVs, have become much cheaper — so the average of all the things combined has been relatively stable.
Still with me?
All right, let's cut to today, and why inflation is all over the news.
When 'inflation' is a bad word
Inflation becomes problematic when that low-and-slow simmer gets fired up to a boil. That's when you hear economists talk about the economy "overheating." For a variety of reasons, largely stemming from the pandemic, the global economy finds itself at a rigorous boil right now.
Economists use two main gauges to track inflation in the United States, and while both eased between June and July, they're still near their highest level in four decades.
The Consumer Price Index for July rose 8.5%. The Personal Consumption Expenditures price index, which the Federal Reserve prefers, rose 9.8% in July from the same period a year earlier.
And here's where Econ 101 merges a bit with Psych 101. There's a behavioral economics aspect to inflation, where it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. When prices go up for a long enough period of time, consumers start to anticipate the price increases. You'll buy more goods today if you think they'll cost appreciably more tomorrow. That has the effect of increasing demand, which causes prices to rise even more. And so on. And so on.
That's where it can get especially tricky for the Fed, whose main job is to control money supply and keep inflation in check.
How'd we get here?
Blame the pandemic. And Russia's war on Ukraine.
In the spring of 2020, as Covid-19 spread, it was like yanking the plug on the global economy. Factories around the world shut down; people stopped eating at restaurants; airlines grounded flights. Millions of people were laid off as business disappeared practically overnight. The unemployment rate in America shot up to nearly 15% from about 3.5% in February 2020.
It was the sharpest economic contraction on record.
At the same time, the Fed implemented emergency stimulus measures to keep financial markets from tanking. The central bank slashed interest rates to near zero and began pumping tens of billions of dollars every month into the markets by buying up corporate debt. In doing so, the bank likely prevented a full-on financial meltdown. But keeping those easy-money policies in place over the past 20 months has also fueled — you guessed it — inflation.
By early summer 2020, demand for consumer goods started to pick back up. Rapidly. Congress and President Joe Biden passed a historic $1.9 trillion stimulus bill in March that made Americans suddenly flush with cash and unemployment assistance. People started shopping again. Demand went from zero to 100, but supply couldn't bounce back so easily.
Turns out that when you pull out the plug on the global economy, you can't just plug it back in and expect it to start humming at the same pace as before.
Take cars, for example. Automakers saw the Covid crisis beginning and did what any smart business would do — shut down temporarily to mitigate losses. But not long after the pandemic shut factories down, it also drove up demand for cars as people worried about exposure on public transit and avoided flying. Automakers (and car buyers) had whiplash.
Cars require an immense number of parts, from an immense number of different factories all around the world, to be built by highly skilled laborers in other parts of the world. Getting all of those discreet operations back online takes time, and doing so while keeping workers from getting sick takes even more time.
Economists often describe inflation as too much money chasing too few goods. That's exactly what happened with cars. And houses. And Peloton bikes. And any number of other goods that became hot ticket items.
How's the supply chain involved in all this?
"Supply chain bottlenecks" — that's another one you see all over, right?
Let's go back to the car example.
We know that high demand + limited supply = prices go up.
But high demand + limited supply + production delays = prices go up even more.
All modern cars rely on a variety of computer chips to function. But those chips are also used in cellphones, appliances, TVs, laptops and dozens of other items that, as bad luck would have it, were all in high demand at the same time.
That's just one example of the disconnect in the global supply chain. Because new cars have been slow to roll in, used car demand shot through the roof, which drove overall inflation higher. In some cases, car owners were able to sell their used cars for more than what they paid for them a year or two prior.
What happens next?
Prices and wages could be starting to ease, but will likely remain elevated for some time. For how long, and by how much, depends on countless variables across the globe.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine dashed hopes that prices would come down significantly in 2022.
The conflict has upended commodity and oil markets, driving up prices of food and gasoline around the world. That's compounding supply chain headaches, leading to further shortages of critical food items and oil.
Lockdowns in China earlier this summer, meanwhile, left the world's largest seaport essentially at a standstill. Corporations bear some blame as well, as many big companies have been raising prices to protect their profit margins.
And there's no telling what kind of new shocks — a resurgent Covid variant, a massive shipping container getting stuck in a waterway, a natural disaster — could set back progress.
There's no single government or central bank that can fix the inflation resulting from those global disruptions.
But central banks are doing what they can. In the United States, the Fed began raising rates in March by a quarter of a percentage point — its first increase since 2018 — and have since raised rates four times this year. There's no sign that they'll stop anytime soon.
When money becomes more expensive to borrow, that can take the heat off price increases and bring the economy back down to that nice, gentle simmer. Or so the Fed hopes. Its biggest challenge is to deploy interest rate hikes at a pace the economy can tolerate — raising them too much, or too quickly, would risk collapsing demand, which could derail economic growth or even cause a recession.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved. | https://www.kitv.com/inflation-explained-why-prices-keep-going-up-and-whos-to-blame/article_28f0c6ff-9a14-563d-b17a-4c8888fb9aaa.html | 2022-08-14T22:25:18Z |
A man shot and killed himself after driving into a vehicle barricade near the US Capitol Building early Sunday morning, US Capitol Police said.
The incident happened shortly after 4 a.m. ET, when the man drove his car into a barricade at East Capitol Street and Second Street. He then exited his car, which became "engulfed in flames," and fired several shots into the air, Capitol Police said in a statement.
He then fatally shot himself when authorities approached him. There were no additional injuries and the man's name was not immediately released, according to the statement.
"At this time, it does not appear the man was targeting any Members of Congress, who are on recess, and it does not appear officers fired their weapons," the statement read. "Our investigators are looking into the man's background."
DC's Metropolitan Police Department is handling the death investigation, the statement said.
US Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger declined to release the name of the man during a news conference later Sunday, saying his family had not yet been notified.
Manger added that the man had a criminal history from "over the past 10 years or so," but that there was no information to indicate motive and "no political ideology that we're aware of at this point."
Capitol Police are looking through security videos of the incident for more information on any possible intentions, the chief said.
Manger said no other weapons were found on scene, and that the only identifiable items remaining in the car in question were aerosol cans, which caught on fire shortly after the driver crashed into the barricade. The DC Fire Department is investigating whether the man started the fire himself, the USCP chief added.
Though Manger said that the USCP has taken increased precautions in recent days following threats to other law enforcement agencies, he said the force will not be adjusting the size of its presence at the Capitol in response to Sunday's incident.
"I think that what we have in place is adequate for now," he told reporters.
This story has been updated with additional reporting. | https://www.kitv.com/man-fatally-shoots-self-after-crashing-car-into-barricade-near-us-capitol-building/article_655a88ea-9642-51a0-911f-a5ac67b4f9e1.html | 2022-08-14T22:25:24Z |
Album review of Black Thought and Danger Mouse's 'Cheat Codes' Published August 14, 2022 at 4:15 PM CDT Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Listen • 4:27 Music writer Jack Hamilton reviews the new collaboration album from Black Thought and Danger Mouse, Cheat Codes. Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.keranews.org/2022-08-14/album-review-of-black-thought-and-danger-mouses-cheat-codes | 2022-08-14T22:26:08Z |
With virtual reality headsets, elderly survivors of the partition between India and Pakistan are getting 360-degree views of their long-lost homes — on opposite sides of the international border.
Copyright 2022 NPR
With virtual reality headsets, elderly survivors of the partition between India and Pakistan are getting 360-degree views of their long-lost homes — on opposite sides of the international border.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.keranews.org/2022-08-14/encore-virtual-reality-brings-indian-and-pakistani-residents-back-home | 2022-08-14T22:26:15Z |
When the Postal Service asked Rafael López to design a commemorative stamp representing Latin American culture in the United States, he knew exactly what to show: a mariachi band.
And he knew just one stamp was not going to be enough.
"The contribution of mariachi music is huge. We cannot just recognize it with one stamp. We need to create at least a series of five," the Mexican American artist told NPR at the launch this month in the Smithsonian's National Postal Museum.
"So I went back to the director and I said, what if we actually have five different musicians? You can't fit five of them in one little step. I don't think that's enough honor, you know, to mariachi music."
It's the first time a mariachi band is featured on U.S. stamps, according to the Postal Museum. And for some in the Latino community, it's recognition of how their heritage and culture are part of the American fabric. López himself splits his time between San Miguel de Allende in Mexico and San Diego, California.
He used his upbringing in Mexico City as part of the inspiration for the stamps, especially the band members and the vibrant colors that fill the stamps, which have an initial print of 18 million sets.
López said he wanted to put the focus on the features of the characters depicted on the stamps, leaving a non-descript background with the pastel-colored homes of Mexican antiquity.
"The background is very simple. It just resembles some kind of a Mexican town," he said. "But if you see it very closely, it's just like color shapes. And I wanted to pay focus on the actual expression of the singers."
The features López focused on were more passionate expressions made by those musicians at the height of their harmony. The faces of the band members compete for space on the stamps with their uniforms and instruments.
"They're beautiful uniforms, those Charro outfits," López said.
The centerpiece is the leader of the group, a violinist holding her instrument in her left hand and her sombrero in the right as she belts out her operatic ballads. López set that up by design.
"I love when a female mariachi singers are out there. I also wanted it to be center stage, and I just wanted also to have a little bit of variety, you know, that you can tell that not only is she very talented with the violin, but she can also put it down and just belt away a great song."
The creative process was not quick
It took two years of development before the set launched. Each stamp is priced at 60 cents and will carry on a cultural legacy forever.
The depictions of the band members comes from a long list of approved models, images and illustrations provided by the Postal Service.
But when one of the models became unavailable, López used his nephew's face to create the musician holding the vihuela — a stringed instrument that resembles a guitar.
"I said, ask your brother to take photos of different angles of your face and you pretend to be playing the violin," López said. "And after about 30 or 40 photos, I picked the best one."
Mariachi comes to life at the museum
López was not the only artist at the launch event.
Cañas y su Mariachi de Oro filled the museum's halls with music, entertaining visitors and volunteers. The five-piece band, based in Northern Virginia, played favorite pieces like Cielito Lindo and El Mariachi Loco Quiere Bailar, but the crowd of mostly families were wowed when the Pajaritos a Bailar slowly transitioned to a rendition of Baby Shark.
José Cañas, the guitarist and lead singer of the group, told NPR he's happy to see a band like his on U.S. stamps.
"Es un honor para nosotros," he said. It's an honor for us.
López said rhythms and beats of the music — playing in an institution of American history — are key to a great mariachi sound anyone can enjoy, regardless of whether they understand Spanish.
"Before you know it, everybody's celebrating life and patting each other in the back. So there's that universal quality that the mariachi music has that you just can't help but feel."
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-08-14/for-the-first-time-the-postal-service-features-mariachi-musicians-on-stamps | 2022-08-14T22:26:21Z |
Remembering the day the Taliban took control of Afghanistan Published August 14, 2022 at 4:20 PM CDT Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Listen • 5:25 One year later, the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan has changed life for ordinary Afghans. Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.keranews.org/2022-08-14/remembering-the-day-the-taliban-took-control-of-afghanistan | 2022-08-14T22:26:27Z |
On Sunday night, Saturn will be closer to Earth than at any other point during the year. The American Museum of Natural History's Jackie Faherty explains how people can view this phenomenon.
Copyright 2022 NPR
On Sunday night, Saturn will be closer to Earth than at any other point during the year. The American Museum of Natural History's Jackie Faherty explains how people can view this phenomenon.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.keranews.org/2022-08-14/saturn-reaches-opposition-how-to-view-the-planet-at-its-best | 2022-08-14T22:26:33Z |
Following Salman Rushdie's stabbing at an event in western New York, NPR's Michel Martin speaks with the Chautauqua Institution's Emily Morris about the organization's role going forward.
Copyright 2022 NPR
Following Salman Rushdie's stabbing at an event in western New York, NPR's Michel Martin speaks with the Chautauqua Institution's Emily Morris about the organization's role going forward.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.keranews.org/2022-08-14/the-chautauqua-institutions-role-after-the-salman-rushdie-attack | 2022-08-14T22:26:39Z |
Nebraska law enforcement requested Facebook messages of two women being investigated for an alleged illegal abortion. NPR's Michel Martin speaks with Upturn's Logan Koepke about data privacy.
Copyright 2022 NPR
Nebraska law enforcement requested Facebook messages of two women being investigated for an alleged illegal abortion. NPR's Michel Martin speaks with Upturn's Logan Koepke about data privacy.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.keranews.org/2022-08-14/when-law-enforcement-wants-your-social-media-content-do-data-privacy-laws-hold-up | 2022-08-14T22:26:45Z |
Author Xochitl Gonzalez examines the role of race and class in society's preference for quiet in her essay in The Atlantic, "Why Do Rich People Love Quiet?" She discusses it with NPR's Michel Martin.
Copyright 2022 NPR
Author Xochitl Gonzalez examines the role of race and class in society's preference for quiet in her essay in The Atlantic, "Why Do Rich People Love Quiet?" She discusses it with NPR's Michel Martin.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.keranews.org/2022-08-14/why-a-writer-doesnt-want-a-quiet-brooklyn | 2022-08-14T22:26:51Z |
Bluefield, W.Va. hosts BSU “Meet the Athletes” event
BLUEFIELD, W.Va. (WVVA) - Bluefield State University athletes saw a chance to meet with their community this past weekend.
On Saturday, Bluefield, W.Va.’s Chicory Square hosted the school’s meet-and-greet -- with the school’s cross country, football, soccer and volleyball teams all present.
The event served as an opportunity for locals to get a peek at who they’ll see competing in the upcoming school year, along with a chance to build relationships on both ends. And for some, it was a way to raise hopes of fan support in the upcoming season.
“You know, just getting a feel for the community and just introducing ourselves so they know like oh, maybe we’ll go watch them at a meet,” said Kevin Macias.
Bluefield State University’s football, cross country and volleyball programs are all set to kick of their seasons in early September. Women’s soccer’s first game is set for August 27th.
Copyright 2022 WVVA. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/08/14/bluefield-wva-hosts-bsu-meet-athletes-event/ | 2022-08-14T22:29:19Z |
Former Navy SEAL helps ring in start of Beckley football seson
BECKLEY, W.Va. (WVVA) - Former Navy SEAL Retired Special Operations Officer D.J. Shipley made the trip to Beckley on Saturday to dedicate Woodrow Wilson High School’s “Ammo Box” for the upcoming season.
A fairly new tradition, the team fills the box with parts of opposing teams’ jerseys throughout the year, before awarding it to a deserving player at the end of the football season.
Beyond Saturday’s dedication however, players and coaches agreed Shipley’s impactful speech would serve as great inspiration as the team moved into its football season.
“The game of football is just a snapshot of life,” said Assistant Coach Dave Ray. “There’s ups, there’s downs, there’s preparing.”
Shipley, who declined a one-on-one interview with WVVA, made plenty of comparisons from camaraderie and teamwork necessary to be successful in the military -- to the gridiron as well.
“We have to depend on the guy next to us to get the play going, and he has to depend on the guy next to him,” said Christian Burks, Senior football player.
“It’s nice to have all those guys behind your back and supporting you also,” said Jay Janes, Senior football player.
Shipley touched on everything from the numerous war-town countries he’d spent time in, to the intense amount of training and dedication necessary to be successful in any walk of life.
“I think they’re on the right path to understanding that they’re stronger together than they are separate,” said Ray after the speech.
Following Shipley’s speech on Saturday, players were able to ask questions of the 17-year veteran. They were then able to take photos with Shipley before heading off to review tape.
Beckley’s first game of the season is set for Aug. 26th at Riverside.
Copyright 2022 WVVA. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/08/14/former-navy-seal-helps-ring-start-beckley-football-seson/ | 2022-08-14T22:29:25Z |
Richlands’ “Back 2 School Bash” wraps up 3-day celebration
RICHLANDS, Va. (WVVA) - In Richlands, local students were treated to free school supplies, food and much more in the town’s weekend-long “Back 2 School Bash.”
The bash wrapped up Sunday after offering hours of free swim time, food and ice cream at Richlands Recreation Park. That’s following Saturday’s backpack giveaway -- as volunteers distributed more than 600 backpacks and supplies to local students at Critterville Park.
“You’re going to do the activities that we have for three days and you’re not going to have to spend a dollar. You’re not going to spend a dollar, you’re going to go home with a backpack, and you’re going to have a good time and your belly is going to be full,” said volunteer Mike Street.
Street added that there were backpacks left over following Saturday’s give-away, and that he and others will work to distribute every one to students who were unable to make it over the weekend. The distribution is not limited to Richlands residents.
Copyright 2022 WVVA. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/08/14/richlands-back-2-school-bash-wraps-up-3-day-celebration/ | 2022-08-14T22:29:31Z |
Wilderness first aid course offered online for the Two Virginias
BLUEFIELD, W.Va. (WVVA) - For some, outdoor excursions can be stressful if dealing with unique medical conditions.
WVVA spoke with Dr. Natalie Bonthius about the issue -- and her ongoing effort to educate people in hopes of alleviating some such anxiety. Through a virtual course, Bonthius said attendees are able to learn the proper ways to act, should a medical emergency arise while out in the wilderness.
“We go through a whole bunch of medical survival cases, based on true things that we’ve seen in the emergency department in true search and rescue calls, so we teach the most common incidents that we run into out there,” said Bonthius.
Upon completion of the course, participants will be able to receive a certificate, valid for three years after passing an exam.
Those interested in the course can find out more about offerings for the Two Virginias here.
Copyright 2022 WVVA. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/08/14/wilderness-first-aid-course-offered-online-two-virginias/ | 2022-08-14T22:29:37Z |
Police: 2 brothers dead after driver crashes into NC Hardee’s
WILSON, N.C. (WITN/Gray News) - Police say two brothers are dead after a vehicle drove into a Hardee’s in Wilson, North Carolina.
The Wilson Police Department says 78-year-old Jesse Lawrence, of Wilson, has been identified as the driver.
Police say Lawrence drove into the Hardee’s on Forest Hills Road Sunday morning around 9:47 and hit two victims. They have been identified as brothers Christopher Ruffin, 58, and Clay Ruffin, 62, both of Wilson.
WITN is told that Christopher Ruffin was pronounced dead at the scene, and Clay Ruffin was taken to ECU Health Medical Center in Greenville, where he later died.
Police say Lawrence was taken to Wilson Medical Center, where he was treated and released. There is no information on charges or what led to the crash, although police do not believe it to be medical- or impairment-related.
The crash is still being investigated and anyone with information is asked to call police at 252-399-2323 or Crime Stoppers at 252-243-2255.
Copyright 2022 WITN via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/08/14/police-2-brothers-dead-after-driver-crashes-into-nc-hardees/ | 2022-08-14T22:56:57Z |
MIAMI, Aug. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Innovative Eyewear, Inc. ("Innovative Eyewear" or the "Company") (NASDAQ: LUCY; LUCYW), a developer and retailer of cutting-edge eyeglasses and sunglasses designed to allow the users to remain connected to their digital lives, today announced the pricing of its initial public offering of 980,000 units consisting of 980,000 shares of its common stock and two accompanying Warrants to purchase up to 1,960,000 shares of common stock. Each share of common stock is being sold together with two Warrants, each to purchase one share of common stock with an exercise price of $7.50 per share at a combined offering price of $7.50, for gross proceeds of approximately $7.35 million, before deducting underwriting discounts and offering expenses. In addition, Innovative Eyewear has granted the underwriters a 45-day option to purchase up to an additional 147,000 shares of common stock and/or Warrants to purchase up to 294,000 shares of common stock to cover over-allotments at the initial public offering price, less the underwriting discount. All of the shares of common stock and warrants are being offered by the Company.
The shares of common stock and warrants are expected to begin trading on the Nasdaq Capital Market on August 15, 2022, under the symbols "LUCY" and "LUCYW," respectively. The offering is expected to close on August 17, 2022, subject to satisfaction of customary closing conditions.
The Company intends to use substantially all of the net proceeds from the offering for advancing its sales and marketing, expanding inventory, updating and producing in-store displays, developing new styles and sizes of the Company's smart eyewear, and for working capital and other general corporate purposes.
Maxim Group LLC is acting as the sole book-running manager in connection with the offering.
A registration statement on Form S-1 (File No. 333-261616) was filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), which became effective on August 12, 2022. A final prospectus relating to the offering will be filed with the SEC and will be available on the SEC's website at http://www.sec.gov. The offering is being made only by means of a prospectus forming part of the effective registration statement. Electronic copies of the prospectus relating to this offering, when available, may be obtained from Maxim Group LLC, 300 Park Avenue, 16th Floor, New York, New York 10022, at (212) 895-3745. Before investing in this offering, interested parties should read in its entirety the registration statement that the Company has filed with the SEC, which provides additional information about the Company and this offering.
This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such an offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction.
About Innovative Eyewear, Inc.
Innovative Eyewear is a developer and retailer of smart eyewear, which are designed to allow the users to remain connected to their digital lives, while also offering prescription eyewear and sun protection. The Company believes that traditional frames, no matter how attractive, do not possess the functionality that many eyeglass wearers need and want. Smart eyewear is a multifunctional product that addresses the needs of the optical, hearables and digital assistant markets. We believe that the Company's products are well positioned in this rapidly growing wearables ecosystem, with the mission to Upgrade Your Eyewear®. For more information, please visit www.lucyd.co.
Forward Looking Statements
This press release contains certain forward-looking statements, including those relating to the anticipated timing of completion of the offering and other statements that are predictive in nature. Forward-looking statements are based on the Company's current expectations and assumptions. The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 provides a safe-harbor for forward-looking statements. These statements may be identified by the use of forward-looking expressions, including, but not limited to, "anticipate," "believe," "continue," "estimate," "expect," "future," "intend," "may," "outlook," "plan," "potential," "predict," "project," "should," "will," "would" and similar expressions that predict or indicate future events or trends or that are not statements of historical matters, but the absence of these words does not mean that a statement is not forward-looking. These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding the intended use of proceeds, expected date the Company's common stock and warrants will begin trading, the satisfaction of customary closing conditions and the expected date of the closing of the offering. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements are set forth in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its registration statement on Form S-1, as amended from time to time, under the caption "Risk Factors."
Investor Relations Contact:
Scott Powell
Skyline Corporate Communications Group, LLC
Office: +1 (646) 893-5835
Email: scott@skylineccg.com
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SOURCE Innovative Eyewear, Inc. | https://www.whsv.com/prnewswire/2022/08/14/innovative-eyewear-inc-announces-pricing-735-million-initial-public-offering/ | 2022-08-14T22:57:02Z |
...FLOOD WATCH REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL MIDNIGHT MDT TONIGHT...
* WHAT...Flash flooding caused by excessive rainfall continues to be
possible.
* WHERE...Portions of south central Wyoming and southeast Wyoming,
including the following areas, in south central Wyoming, Shirley
Basin. In southeast Wyoming, Central Laramie County, Central
Laramie Range and Southwest Platte County, East Platte County,
Laramie Valley, North Laramie Range, South Laramie Range and South
Laramie Range Foothills.
* WHEN...Until Midnight MDT tonight.
* IMPACTS...Flooding may occur in poor drainage and urban areas.
Low-water crossings may be flooded.
* ADDITIONAL DETAILS...
- Heavy rainfall from slow moving thunderstorms.
- http://www.weather.gov/safety/flood
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...
You should monitor later forecasts and be prepared to take action
should Flash Flood Warnings be issued.
&&
The area around Walker Road and Manewal Drive, as shown via a Google-supplied online photo, screenshot taken on Friday.
CHEYENNE – Beginning at 8:30 a.m., Monday through Friday, Black Hills Energy will be performing routine maintenance on its natural gas main located at the intersection of Walker Road and Manewal Drive in north Cheyenne.
In order to safely conduct the gas pipeline work, it will be necessary to temporarily close Manewal Drive to through traffic, the electric and gas utility announced Thursday.
“We are working in close partnership the with city of Cheyenne planning division on the project," said gas operations supervisor Heath Kingham, in the news release. "The city will place digital signs at Yellowstone Road, near the entrance to Manewal Drive to remind drivers of the limited access.”
Residents living in this area will have access in and out of the neighborhood, as the week-long closure is limited to through traffic. Black Hills Energy reminds drivers to use extra caution near construction areas by reducing speed and watching out for workers. | https://www.wyomingnews.com/news/black-hills-energy-to-begin-gas-main-project-on-manewal-drive/article_56e83a20-644d-5237-8607-5fa98eff75cb.html | 2022-08-14T23:10:17Z |
SUBLETTE COUNTY — Retired trucker Kent Profit already knew he supported Wyoming House candidate and La Barge oilman Mike Schmid when he came out to Marbleton Park for bratwurst and drinks.
The Big Piney denizen was particularly fond of how Schmid traveled to Washington, D.C.. on Jan. 6, 2021, to join a crowd of protesters who gathered in support of voted-out former President Donald Trump. That gathering infamously went sideways — Schmid said he did not take part in the violence. Nevertheless, Profit just liked that he was there.
“He went down there to the cotton-picking deal, and stood up,” Profit said.
Toni David, who stood nearby cradling her Yorkshire terrier, Dolly, was equally appreciative of Schmid’s presence outside the U.S. Capitol on that day.
“I’m proud of the fact that Mike was there,” David said.
Schmid didn’t mention Jan. 6 when he gave brief remarks to about 15 family members, friends and townsfolk gathered at the park in support of his run against District 20’s incumbent Rep. Albert Sommers, R-Pinedale.
Schmid’s participation in the rally at the Capitol that led into a violent attack says a lot about the Republican faction he identifies with. It’s a camp of conservatives, aligned with Trump, who have appeal with some residents here.
Exactly who dominates and what defines the Wyoming GOP is in flux. There’s a wing of the political right, who fashion themselves as the “true conservatives,” that includes the 20 or so members of the Wyoming House Freedom Caucus and the “six pack” conservative members of the Wyoming Senate.
Tuesday's Republican primary will determine whether or not the statehouse tilts more or less in their favor.
Sommers — the current House majority floor leader who’s likely to be the next speaker of the House — is facing his first challenger in a primary since being elected a decade ago. The fourth-generation cattleman door-knocked in a Pinedale-area subdivision while Schmid picnicked, and says he saw the primary election challenge coming as soon as Legislature’s 2022 budget session adjourned.
“I thought a group was going to come after me,” Sommers said. “The group is the extreme far right, that’s how I wish to name it. Mike (Schmid) appears to have aligned himself with those (politicians).”
‘Real test’
In Wyoming, the test of Trump and candidates the former president has endorsed starts with the U.S. House of Representatives race, where incumbent U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney is being challenged by Trump’s hand-picked proxy, Harriet Hageman.
Despite raising record-breaking funds for a Wyoming congressional campaign, Cheney faces an uphill battle. Polling data suggests the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney trails by more than 20 percentage points in the race, though some analyses suggest the window is still open for a Cheney victory.
In Natrona County’s Senate District 29, Casper businessman Bob Ide has assumed the role of the Trump candidate who’s challenging incumbent Sen. Drew Perkins, R-Casper, who’s been in office since 2007.
Like Schmid, and Wyoming Republican Party Chairman Frank Eathorne, Ide was in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021. Photos and video show him close to the Capitol during the insurrection. Ide did not comment.
When it comes to Trump’s claim the election was stolen, Perkins, who’s an attorney, has stood behind determinations of judges from around the country, including judges Trump appointed who later dismissed his allegations of elections fraud.
“I think that when the votes were counted, President Biden had more electoral votes than President Trump,” Perkins said. “Were there irregularities, sure, but I’m still waiting for the hard evidence.”
Perkins doesn’t make much of how he and others are portrayed by more extreme challengers.
“These folks always say that they’re more conservative, and I just don’t buy that,” he said. “The biggest difference I’ve seen between myself and Bob Ide is that Bob believes that we shouldn’t be taking federal money. That’s an easy thing to say.”
The reality, the Joint Appropriations Committee co-chair said, is that Wyoming wouldn’t have the ability to upkeep its roads and keep the lights on in its hospitals without federal funds. In the current budget cycle, the Legislature appropriated nearly $2 billion of federal funding.
Big money
Relatively big money is pouring into the Perkins-Ide race.
The incumbent has raised $58,850, the most of all legislative candidates, according to his filings with the Wyoming Secretary of State. Ide, meanwhile, has cobbled together the second-most funds of all the candidates running for a legislative seat, with $56,220.
As a general rule this campaign cycle, incumbents are getting support from traditional places. Sommers, for example, has taken in donations from the Petroleum Association of Wyoming and Perkins has received donations from the Wyoming Mining Association.
Schmid and Ide were both recipients of donations from the Brophys, a wealthy Jackson family that has backed anti-establishment Republicans.
In Wyoming’s northeast corner, incumbent Sen. Ogden Driskill, R-Devils Tower, has raised the third-most money of all Wyoming legislative candidates. His challengers include Rep. Bill Fortner, R-Gillette, and Roger Connett, the former Crook County Republican Party chairman.
“They’re trying to out-conservative me, that’s the game they’re all playing,” Driskill said. “It’s an interesting deal, because I was Trump before they were Trump.”
Driskill described the so-called “six pack” of far-right senators who are looking to add to their ranks as ineffective and “bitter.”
“They talk about the establishment and the insider’s club, and there’s no such thing,” Driskill said. “The truth is, if you want to be an insider in the Wyoming Legislature, you actually learn how to work with the rest of your colleagues … You better figure out how to get the respect of at least 15 other people.”
Fortner, who had a falling out with the House Freedom Caucus, is looking to switch from the House to the Senate. Driskill described his opponent as a do-nothing Wyoming politician. Fortner didn't comment.
“What Representative Fortner has done is vote no on virtually everything under the sun,” Driskill said. “Voting no on everything doesn’t make you conservative, it makes you contrarian. You’re just opposed. Our job in the Legislature is to fix problems, not to be a bomb thrower.”
For the likes of Connett, one of his other challengers, Driskill’s track record in the Legislature is that of a moderate — despite his proclamation of Trumpiness. Connett thinks the incumbent senator is part of the problem, in a Legislature that’s “geared toward a national social justice agenda,” rather than the “conservative values of the people of Northeast Wyoming,” he said.
“We have, for the most part, a pretty conservative state — certainly this corner of the state is conservative,” Connett said. “And we don’t perceive our Legislature being the same way.”
Down-ballot effect
In Sen. Larry Hicks, R-Baggs' view, it’s hard to say which way the Legislature will swing as a result of Tuesday’s primary. Hicks faces no challengers this cycle.
“I think you’re going to see one place where Democrats may make any inroads and another place where the moderate Republicans make inroads and another place where the more conservative branch of the Republican Party is making inroads,” Hicks said. “I think we’re going to end up with a mixed-bag of results.”
Hicks predicted that some establishment lawmakers will keep their seats as a result of left-leaning voters changing their registration and crossing over. They might be doing it to vote for Cheney, he said, but there’s bound to be a down-ballot effect.
Those crossover voters, Hicks said, could give a boost to inclubents like Sens. R.J. Kost, R-Powell, and Wendy Schuler, R-Evanston. Rep. Dan Laursen, R-Powell, and R. Ray Peterson are challenging Kost, while Rep. Bob Wharff, R-Evanston, is looking to unseat Schuler.
Back at the Marbleton picnic, David, with the Yorkie, explained how Sommers was once her guy. Her longtime representative lost her vote partly because she liked Schmid. Another reason, she said, is she hadn’t heard Sommers vocally disapprove of Cheney, who’s staked her own political career on standing up to Trump.
“I haven’t heard, to this day, whether [Sommers] supports Cheney,” David said. “That’s an important item for me.”
Later that night at his family’s historic homestead, Sommers offered his views.
“I’m not going to condemn anybody,” he said. “Rumor ran around that I support Liz Cheney. I’m not saying who I’m voting for, but I’m not voting for Liz Cheney.”
WyoFile is an independent nonprofit news organization focused on Wyoming people, places and policy. | https://www.wyomingnews.com/news/elections/trump-s-big-wyoming-test-trickles-down-ballot-tuesday/article_ff49ed49-d5d1-5912-903c-a3b861063922.html | 2022-08-14T23:10:23Z |
ROCK SPRINGS -- The Broadway Theater is excited to announce the upcoming season’s line up. Last year’s productions were a success, bringing the venue back with a bang after losing a year to the pandemic. The staff and board for the Theater are thrilled to be bringing culture and the performing arts back to the community once again.
According to Maria Mortensen, Rock Springs Main Street/Urban Renewal Agency chairwoman, the season is a great mix of favorites and new events.
“The schedule has a wide variety of genres and shows that will appeal to a broad range of guests,” Mortensen added.
The 2022-23 season includes:
· Michael Martin Murphy (September 22, 2022)
· David Rogers (September 24, 2022)
· Jason Dea West (October 26, 2022)
· Jarabe Mexicano (November 1, 2022)
· Buffalo Bill’s Holiday Roundup (December 2, 2022)
· David Romtvedt - Basque Music & Poetry (January 14, 2023)
· Jack Wright's Tribute to Neil Diamond Superstar (February 10, 2023)
· LVDY (February 14, 2023)
· Bindlestiff Family Cirkus (February 25, 2023)
· Quarteto Nuevo (March 8, 2023)
· Utah Shakespeare Festival (April 4, 2023)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Martin Murphy - September 22, 2022
Michael Martin Murphey’s musical journey has taken many unpredictable paths over the past 50 years - topping the Pop, Country, Western and Bluegrass charts. He is best known for his chart-topping hits “Wildfire,” “Carolina In The Pines,” “What’s Forever For,” “Long Line of Love,” “Geronimo’s Cadillac”, “Cowboy Logic,” and many more across his 35 albums released to date. Murphey’s original songs have been recorded by The Monkees, Kenny Rogers, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, John Denver, Hoyt Axton, Johnny Cash, Tracy Byrd, Lyle Lovett, Jerry Jeff Walker, Dolly Parton, Johnny Rivers, Billy Ray Cyrus, and many others.
Murphey has been awarded gold albums for Cowboy Songs, Vol. I Blue Sky Night Thunder, and a Platinum single, “Wildfire”. He has been given the prestigious Charlie Russell Award for Western Heritage. He is a 5-time recipient of the Wrangler award from the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum and Cowboy Hall of Fame, and boasts awards from the Academy of Country Music, Rock Music Awards, Academy of Western Music Awards, Governor of New Mexico’s Outstanding Achievement Award, Outstanding Son of Texas Award by the Texas Legislature, and multiple from BMI.
David Rogers - September 24, 2022
Termed “a prominent guitarist” by the New York Times, and praised by The Washington Post for his “astonishingly florid” improvisations, David Rogers Fuses classical, jazz, and world music into beautiful, expressive and virtuosic performances. He has been called a “modern master” of the classical guitar’ by 20th Century Guitar. ClassicsToday.com has praised his “first rate instrumental artistry,” and the Lute Society of America Quarterly has called his technique “formidable.”
Jason Dea West - October 26, 2022
Jason Dea West is an American troubadour who sings what he lives and lives what he sings. Wests’ poignant lyrics are brilliantly blended with vintage country, folk and blues, and timely sensibilities. From epic guitar and harmonica instrumentals to humorous song as story, Jason never strays very far from the anarchic punk-folk roots of his beloved former band Barefoot Surrender and his celebrated current band Intuitive Compass.
Jarabe Mexicano - November 1, 2022
Jarabe Mexicano captures the nostalgic spirit of their border roots with their brand of "Bordeño-Soul," which honors the musical tastes and cultural influences of its members. Jarabe, which translates to 'concoction,' highlights the eclectic mix of genres they perform ranging from Mexican Folk, Rock & Roll, and Norteño/Tex-Mex to Latin Rock, Trio Romántico, and popular Cumbia. Their traditional Mariachi string instruments and
Norteño-inspired drums complement dramatic vocals in English, Spanish, and Spanglish, and shows how this multi-generational ensemble embraces change while still honoring the past.
As educators, cultural ambassadors and advocates for the arts, the Vilar Performing Arts Center raves that Jarabe Mexicano is “thought-provoking, heartfelt, and engaging." Both their “Fiesta En Familia” concerts and educational outreach program “Día de los Muertos: A Celebration of Life” aim to create a deeper and more inclusive sense of family and community, with a special commitment to underserved groups. Jarabe has also shared the stage with Louie Pérez of Los Lobos and opened for internationally renowned acts Gaby Moreno and La Santa Cecilia. The band is currently working on their upcoming third album, while their EP "Semillas" as well as their self-titled album "Jarabe Mexicano'' can be found on all streaming digital platforms.
Buffalo Bill’s Holiday Roundup - December 2, 2022
A live music presentation with exciting Wyoming and Western Songs about, Cowboys, The Oregon Trail, The Transcontinental Railroad, Lewis and Clark, Stories in Traditional Native American Indian Sign Language, Cowboy Poetry and World-Class Yodeling. Bill and Jo perform on the fiddle, banjo, mandolin, guitar with superb harmony vocals. This exciting concert length presentation truly tells a story about Wyoming and our proud Western Heritage.
"Buffalo Bill" and Dr. Jo (Flower of the Prairie) are winners of a Western Music Association Harmony Duo Award. "Buffalo Bill" is a WMA Male Yodeler Award Winner.
David Romtvedt - Basque Music & Poetry - January 14, 2023
David Romtvedt was born in Portland, Oregon, and grew up in Arizona. He received a BA from Reed College and an MFA from the University of Iowa. Romtvedt served as the poet laureate of Wyoming from 2003 to 2011. The recipient of a Wyoming Governor’s Arts Award, he has also been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Wyoming Arts Council, among others. He teaches at the University of Wyoming.
He is the author of several poetry collections, including No Way: An American Tao Te Ching (Louisiana State University Press, 2021); Dilemmas of the Angels (Louisiana State University Press, 2017); Some Church (Milkweed Editions, 2005); A Flower Whose Name I Do Not Know (Copper Canyon Press, 1992), chosen by John Haines for the National Poetry Series; and Moon (Bieler Press, 1984).
Romtvedt has published several books of prose, including Zelestina Urza in Outer Space (Center for Basque Studies, 2015) and Windmill: Essays from Four Mile Ranch (Red Crane Books, 1997). Also a musician, he plays traditional American dance music with The Wyoming Fireants Band and has received a Distinguished Service to Music Education Award from the Wyoming Music Educators Association. He, alongside Xabier
Irujo, translated the complete poems of Joxe Mari Iparragirre in The Tree of Gernika (Center for Basque Studies Press, 2020).
Jack Wright's Tribute to Neil Diamond Superstar - Feburary 10, 2023
Jack Wright’s tribute to Neil Diamond is a highly acclaimed national touring performance of the hit songs that have kept Neil Diamond in the hearts of his fans for more than five decades.
Jack captures the essence of Neil’s timeless multi-generational appeal through his interpretive singing and dynamic stage presence – without over-the-top mimicry. He connects with his audiences the way Neil always has. He sweeps us along a powerful spectrum of emotions into an authentic, sophisticated, contemporary Neil Diamond experience.
LVDY - February 14, 2023
LVDY (pronounced LADY) is a Colorado-based duo comprised of Kathleen Hooper and Aubrey Mable. Their uplifting sound and intimate storytelling is a delightful recipe of singer-songwriter, indie-folk, with powerful melodies and harmonies that speak to the senses. Love anthems weave in and out of their messages, with simple yet important reminders that we’re not alone.
LVDY’s debut EP, Electricity was produced by Dreamers Delight and arrived in February of 2019. During their first year of pursuing music full-time, the LVDIES were named the Best Folk Band/Artist by Denver’s renowned music and arts publication 303 Magazine and toured the country playing nearly 100 shows and festivals at renowned venues, including Denver’s famous Lost Lake, Larimer Lounge, The Marquis Theater and The Oriental, plus Rockwood Music Hall (NYC), The Hotel Café (L.A.) and House of Blues Chicago while gathering a dedicated and connected audience. LVDY has supported incredible acts like powerhouse vocalist LÉON, the incredible sister trio Joseph, Rising Appalachia and Morgan Saint.
Bindlestiff Family Cirkus - February 25, 2023
Since 1995, Bindlestiff Family Cirkus has traveled the world, bringing its unique hybrid of vaudeville, circus, Wild West shows, burlesque, and sideshow to theaters, clubs, colleges, and festivals, adding a contemporary twist to the grand traditions of American Circus. Bindlestiff Family Cirkus co-founders Stephanie Monseu and Keith Nelson have produced more than a dozen off-broadway shows, custom performances for special audiences, family productions, and sophisticated adult shows. Their dedication to the variety arts has made them famous among audiences and within the variety arts community.
Bindlestiff Family Cirkus offers a number of hands-on learning programs, from after-school programs to summer camp experiences. Students can learn to juggle, walk a wire, clown around, ride a unicycle, march on stilts or build a human pyramid. Outreach activities are suitable for all ages.
Quarteto Nuevo - March 8, 2023
Quarteto Nuevo merges western classical, eastern European folk, Latin and jazz with an organic feel that packs a wallop! Winners of two South Arts Jazz Road Tours grants, the ensemble has composed new movements for its Jazz Road Suite celebrating each state they visit! Known for engaging outreach, Quarteto’s master musicians create emotionally charged soundscapes with instruments and sensibilities that represent very different world cultures. Their unique instrumentation – soprano saxophone/woodwinds (Damon Zick), cello (Jacob Szekely), guitar (Kenton Youngstrom), and hand percussion (Felipe Fraga) – richly colors their wide-ranging repertoire.
Utah Shakespeare Festival – April 4, 2023
The Utah Shakespeare Festival was founded in 1961 by a young theater professor named Fred Adams. Adams envisioned a theater festival to entertain the millions of annual visitors to the nearby national parks.
The Festival is one of the oldest and largest Shakespeare festivals in North America and most of the Festival’s lead actors are members of the Actors’ Equity Association and come from all over the country, including Los Angeles, New York and Chicago. Famous actors that have appeared on the Festival stage include Harold Gould, Benjamin Bratt, Jeremy Irons, Bradley Whitford (NBC’s The West Wing), Matt Bomer (USA’s White Collar) and Ty Burrell (ABC’s Modern Family).
In 2000, the Utah Shakespeare Festival received the coveted Tony Award for America’s Outstanding Regional Theatre. The Tony Award is the most prestigious and sought-after award in live theatre—the equivalent to the Academy Award in film—and is presented by the American Theatre Wing and the League of American Theatres and Producers. The Festival was nominated for the award by the American Theatre Critics Association.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When tickets for each show are available, they will be announced closer to the dates of the performance and will be available at the Rock Springs Urban Renewal Agency office, 603 South Main Street and online. Season ticket packages for all 11 shows are available for $200 now. Keep following The Broadway Theater on Facebook and keep checking with their website at BroadwayRS.com.
Those who appreciate The Broadway Theater are encouraged to sign up for the Friends of the Broadway patron program to help support events.
“We’re really excited about the variety of shows we’ve scheduled so far,” URA Manager Chad Banks said. “There’s something for everyone. And it wouldn’t be possible without our patrons and many underwriters.”
Underwriters for The Broadway Theater include City of Rock Springs, Sweetwater BOCES, and Wyoming Arts Council.
The Rock Springs Main Street/Urban Renewal Agency is charged with the redevelopment of Downtown Rock Springs. As part of their mission, there are three standing committees – Business Development, Promotions and Arts and Culture. For more information on the program, contact the Rock Springs Main Street/Urban Renewal Agency at 352-1434 or visit their website at downtownrs.com | https://www.wyomingnews.com/rocketminer/broadway-theater-offers-a-variety-of-entertainment/article_2adcd8fc-ed75-5926-aa73-cef66f88a830.html | 2022-08-14T23:10:29Z |
.Monsoonal moisture remains over the region, and any thunderstorms
today are likely to feature heavy rainfall. Additionally, relatively
slow upper atmosphere winds will cause storms to be slow-moving.
These factors could lead to isolated flash flooding issues.
...FLOOD WATCH REMAINS IN EFFECT THROUGH THIS EVENING...
* WHAT...Flash flooding caused by excessive rainfall continues to be
possible.
* WHERE...A portion of south central Wyoming, including the
following areas, East Sweetwater County, Flaming Gorge and Rock
Springs and Green River.
* WHEN...Through this evening.
* IMPACTS...Excessive runoff may result in flooding of rivers,
creeks, streams, and other low-lying and flood-prone locations.
Flooding may occur in poor drainage and urban areas. Low-water
crossings may be flooded.
* ADDITIONAL DETAILS...
- http://www.weather.gov/safety/flood
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...
You should monitor later forecasts and be prepared to take action
should Flash Flood Warnings be issued.
&&
ROCK SPRINGS — A one mill levy for 2022-23 and 2023-23 fiscal years was approved by the Western Wyoming Board of Trustees during the meeting on Thursday, Aug. 11.
According to the supplemental materials included in the meeting’s agenda, the income from the one mill levy will be expended for the regular support and operation of Western.
“In the 1990 budget session, the Wyoming State Legislature authorized community college boards of trustees to levy a tax of up to one mill on the assessed valuation of the district for the 'regular support and operation of the college.’ This tax can be levied at the discretion of the Board following a public hearing which must be held every other year.
In June, 1990, the board first authorized the levy for the 1990-91 and the 1991-92 fiscal years. Most recently, in Aug. 2019, the board authorized the levy for the 2021 and the 2022 fiscal years.”
According to the agenda, the one mill tax was originally levied to allow the college to hire consultants to investigate problems with the physical plant, which included architectural work and construction management.
Furthermore, in recent years, the agenda states that the majority of the one mil budget has been used for programs such as plant improvements, athletics, insurance and lease payments, The Children’s Center, financial aid, selected student services and swimming pool operation.
“All seven Wyoming community colleges levy this one mill tax each year.”
There was also a public hearing held concerning the mill levy before the vote but no one from the public was present to speak. | https://www.wyomingnews.com/rocketminer/western-s-board-of-trustees-approves-one-mill-levy/article_ffaa834d-7e0d-5102-97ce-45b18e90bbe2.html | 2022-08-14T23:10:35Z |
‘I’m speechless’: Organization remodels home for 2 brothers who lost their parents
KATY, Texas (KPRC) – Two brothers in Texas who lost their parents and grandparents have a roof over their heads thanks to volunteers.
The last few years have been tough for 22-year-old Jaylan Gray and 12-year-old Julian after both of their parents and their grandfather died.
Gray said he had promised his mother he would take care of Julian.
“[I] try my best to keep him in check, make sure he doesn’t get in trouble, and make sure he’s loved,” Gray said.
The brothers’ previous home had been severely damaged in 2017 by Hurricane Harvey and then again in the 2021 freeze.
“At one point, I was just done with the house. I was ready to sell it at one point. It was too much weight on my shoulders. I couldn’t do it,” Gray said.
Disaster rebuild organization Katy Responds and countless volunteers stepped in to help the two.
Executive Director Ron Peters said the organization remodeled it in three months.
“There’s just no way they could’ve lived in it and probably would’ve never fixed it,” Peters said.
The home was also furnished by Lakewood Church, a megachurch located in Houston.
Gray and Julian got a tour of their newly renovated home on Friday.
“I love it,” Gray said. “I’m speechless, way more than we asked for. Completely grateful.”
Peters said that the organization’s mission is to help provide people with a safe place to live and not have to worry about their home.
“This is what we do. It’s hard work. It’s non-profit work, but it’s why we do it, is for those guys,” he said.
Gray and Julian are now ready to start a new chapter in their lives.
“It makes me so happy to see that there’s good people. I just like the way we’ve been treated. I didn’t think anything good would happen,” Julian said.
Katy Responds was created in 2018 and has worked on about 160 homes.
To learn more about the organization and donate, visit katyresponds.org.
Copyright 2022 KPRC via CNN Newsource. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/08/14/im-speechless-organization-remodels-home-2-brothers-who-lost-their-parents/ | 2022-08-14T23:59:17Z |
Police: 2 brothers dead after driver crashes into NC Hardee’s
WILSON, N.C. (WITN/Gray News) - Police say two brothers are dead after a vehicle drove into a Hardee’s in Wilson, North Carolina.
The Wilson Police Department says 78-year-old Jesse Lawrence, of Wilson, has been identified as the driver.
Police say Lawrence drove into the Hardee’s on Forest Hills Road Sunday morning around 9:47 and hit two victims. They have been identified as brothers Christopher Ruffin, 58, and Clay Ruffin, 62, both of Wilson.
WITN is told that Christopher Ruffin was pronounced dead at the scene, and Clay Ruffin was taken to ECU Health Medical Center in Greenville, where he later died.
Police say Lawrence was taken to Wilson Medical Center, where he was treated and released. There is no information on charges or what led to the crash, although police do not believe it to be medical- or impairment-related.
The crash is still being investigated and anyone with information is asked to call police at 252-399-2323 or Crime Stoppers at 252-243-2255.
Copyright 2022 WITN via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/08/14/police-2-brothers-dead-after-driver-crashes-into-nc-hardees/ | 2022-08-14T23:59:24Z |
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Final preparations for the Rockingham County Fair underway
ROCKINGHAM COUNTY, Va. (WHSV) - Tomorrow is the big day!
The Rockingham County Fair officially kicks off.
The fairgrounds were busy Sunday with last-minute preparations and set-ups to ensure a smooth opening day.
Much of the commotion at the fairgrounds Sunday was 4H and FFA kids bringing in their animals to the stables.
“This week I am showing three dairy cows, as well as a market lamb and a market hog,” Ayla Janney said.
Livestock was getting set up and cleaned up before their competitions this week.
“To get ready for the fair it’s a lot of work and preparation for it,” Janney said. “For the cows, it’s a lot more-I feel like- all summer.”
The showings and competitions can bring a lot of money to the families who raise these animals.
“I needed to make some money, and it’s a fun way to do it. Why not bring your livestock to the fair?” Natalie Craig said.
The fair is a big week for the kids showing and selling their livestock.
“I’m really excited about showing my cows. Showmanship is something I’m really passionate about for my dairy,” Janney said. “It doesn’t necessarily mean how your heifer or your animal looks, it’s on how you work with your animal. It’s something you can control and not necessarily you know the type of your animal.”
The fair fun officially begins at noon on Monday and runs through Saturday.
There will be rides, local vendors, livestock, and, of course, fair food.
This year’s grandstand entertainment is Dustin Lynch.
For fair tickets and schedules, you can visit the fair’s website.
Copyright 2022 WHSV. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/08/14/final-preparations-rockingham-county-fair-underway/ | 2022-08-15T00:27:40Z |
‘I’m speechless’: Organization remodels home for 2 brothers who lost their parents
KATY, Texas (KPRC) – Two brothers in Texas who lost their parents and grandparents have a roof over their heads thanks to volunteers.
The last few years have been tough for 22-year-old Jaylan Gray and 12-year-old Julian after both of their parents and their grandfather died.
Gray said he had promised his mother he would take care of Julian.
“[I] try my best to keep him in check, make sure he doesn’t get in trouble, and make sure he’s loved,” Gray said.
The brothers’ previous home had been severely damaged in 2017 by Hurricane Harvey and then again in the 2021 freeze.
“At one point, I was just done with the house. I was ready to sell it at one point. It was too much weight on my shoulders. I couldn’t do it,” Gray said.
Disaster rebuild organization Katy Responds and countless volunteers stepped in to help the two.
Executive Director Ron Peters said the organization remodeled it in three months.
“There’s just no way they could’ve lived in it and probably would’ve never fixed it,” Peters said.
The home was also furnished by Lakewood Church, a megachurch located in Houston.
Gray and Julian got a tour of their newly renovated home on Friday.
“I love it,” Gray said. “I’m speechless, way more than we asked for. Completely grateful.”
Peters said that the organization’s mission is to help provide people with a safe place to live and not have to worry about their home.
“This is what we do. It’s hard work. It’s non-profit work, but it’s why we do it, is for those guys,” he said.
Gray and Julian are now ready to start a new chapter in their lives.
“It makes me so happy to see that there’s good people. I just like the way we’ve been treated. I didn’t think anything good would happen,” Julian said.
Katy Responds was created in 2018 and has worked on about 160 homes.
To learn more about the organization and donate, visit katyresponds.org.
Copyright 2022 KPRC via CNN Newsource. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/08/14/im-speechless-organization-remodels-home-2-brothers-who-lost-their-parents/ | 2022-08-15T00:27:44Z |
People experiencing homelessness in Harrisonburg protest Sunday
HARRISONBURG, Va. (WHSV) - Some people experiencing homelessness in Harrisonburg were protesting for affordable housing and better shelter conditions Sunday.
“Affordable housing for everybody, because no matter if you have a good paying job or not housing is hard to afford. It’s gonna take three of us at the shelter for us to get a place,” Alex Dickey, who is currently experiencing homelessness said.
Dickey said they are looking for affordable housing because the shelters are not available enough to those that use them.
“Open Doors, they’re closed as of tomorrow morning we’ll have nowhere to go, and there’s nowhere we can put up tents because it’s not legal to do,” Dickey said.
Open Doors is a thermal shelter normally only opened for the winter months, but since the pandemic, they have remained open year-round.
“There are people having heat strokes; they’re having seizures in this heat, dealing with heat exhaustion,” Dickey said.
Open Doors began renting out JMU’s D-Hub in May for the summer, but since students will be returning to campus next week the shelter is now looking for another location.
“We don’t even have the basics of water, and anyone can end up homeless in any way,” Dickey said.
People experiencing homelessness are expected to be out near City Hall again on Monday morning as they continue to protest.
“I think part of what we’re trying to reach is getting people to realize what’s going on. We have to be outside by seven o’clock in the morning; we have to be back in the door by seven,” Dickey said.
In June of 2022, the City of Harrisonburg purchased property to create a permanent low-barrier shelter for adults experiencing homelessness.
Renovations are underway and Mike Parks with the City of Harrisonburg said they are expected to be complete in the later half of 2023.
Parks said the city continues to support Open Doors in finding a temporary location until the permanent building is ready.
Parks said on Aug. 22 at 8 a.m. at Council Chambers, Mayor Reed will host a forum asking any organization that can help Open Doors to come out and discuss how we all can work together to address this need in our community.
Copyright 2022 WHSV. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/08/14/people-experiencing-homelessness-harrisonburg-protest-sunday/ | 2022-08-15T00:27:52Z |
Wyoming Public Media hosts StoryCorps’ Military Voices Initiative
Update
StoryCorps has arrived in Cheyenne! Drop by to take a photo with the famous StoryCorps Mobile Recording Booth at the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens. You can also sign up to share your own story (virtual or in-person) and RSVP to attend our Opening Reception this Friday, July 22nd from Noon-2pm (open to the public). Enjoy refreshments and meet staff from StoryCorps and Wyoming Public Media!
StoryCorps, the national nonprofit organization dedicated to recording, preserving, and sharing the stories of people from all backgrounds and beliefs, announces its 2022 Military Voices Initiative tour, made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and undertaken in partnership with veteran service organizations across the country. StoryCorps will honor veterans and members of the military community in Wyoming by collecting their oral histories.
StoryCorps’ MobileBooth—an Airstream trailer outfitted with a recording studio—will be parked at the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens. The organization will offer both in-person (July 18th-29th) and virtual recording opportunities. If you are in the Cheyenne area, stop by for a photo with the famous MobileBooth, meet the StoryCorps team, and enjoy the lovely grounds of the Botanic Gardens!
Join us for a Listening Event
Wyoming Public Media and StoryCorps will host a special listening event and opening reception at the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens on Friday, July 22nd from Noon to 2 p.m. (open to the public). Join us for shared stories, refreshments, and Q&A. RSVP for this listening event here.
“The 2022 Military Voices visit to Cheyenne marks the fourth StoryCorps visit to Wyoming. Wyoming Public Media is proud to partner with this initiative that highlights the voices of Wyomingites.” - WPM General Manager Christina Kuzmych
Cheyenne Botanical Gardens
July 18th - 29th | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/wyoming-stories/wyoming-public-media-hosts-storycorps-military-voices-initiative | 2022-08-15T00:30:13Z |
Charlottesville working to lower greenhouse gas emissions
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WVIR) - Charlottesville is working to reduce its carbon emissions by 2030.
The city’s climate program is in place to provide potential solutions to cut greenhouse gasses here and in surrounding areas.
“This is something that needs to be happening globally, but at least at Charlottesville-level we can do what we can within our own community,” Climate Protection Program Manager Susan Elliott said. “The top three climate hazards that were identified are extreme heat, then increased intensity of precipitation and flooding, as well as changing seasonal patterns.”
This program started in 2006. Elliott says new reduction targets will result in a 45% drop in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.
The aim is to be carbon-neutral by 2050.
The largest sources of emissions come from two things: “All the power it takes to heat/cool operator devices within our residential and our commercial buildings. Each of these are about 30% of our emissions,” Elliott said. “About 30% is from our transportation.”
Elliott says sustainability is the key.
“So while it can seem pretty daunting to hear a 45% reduction or trying to get to carbon neutral, there are a lot of opportunities out there,” she said. “We’ve been making some good progress, and I think there’s a lot of opportunities still for us to continue going forward.”
A part of the program’s action plan is hearing all perspectives from the community. A community workshop is scheduled for Wednesday, August 17.
Copyright 2022 WVIR. All rights reserved.
Do you have a story idea? Send us your news tip here. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/08/14/charlottesville-working-lower-greenhouse-gas-emissions/ | 2022-08-15T02:01:44Z |
Lawsuit claims Gov. Youngkin received improper tax-free bonus in 2020
Published: Aug. 14, 2022 at 5:54 PM EDT|Updated: 4 hours ago
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WVIR) - Governor Glenn Youngkin is named in a lawsuit. It claims he received an improper tax-free bonus in 2020.
Youngkin was elected after having served as co-CEO of the Carlyle Group Private Equity Firm.
The lawsuit claims the whole senior staff received a major payout.
“When someone in high office is revealed to have gotten eight and a half million dollars and paid $0.00 in taxes, it’s an issue. It’s going to stick with him for a long time,” UVA Center for Politics Director Larry Sabato said.
Copyright 2022 WVIR. All rights reserved.
Do you have a story idea? Send us your news tip here. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/08/14/lawsuit-claims-gov-youngkin-received-improper-tax-free-bonus-2020/ | 2022-08-15T02:01:45Z |
NEW YORK, Aug. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- On Aug 15, 2022 (Shenzhen, China), Huion, a leading supplier of digital drawing devices in the world, launches a new pen tablet Inspiroy Dial 2 (the successor of Inspiroy Dial Q620M). After listening to feedback from users, Huion not only optimizes the design of the dial controller but also adds one more dial controller on the tablet, which helps to improve the productivity of users.
New Dual Dial Controllers: double users' efficiency
Inspiroy Dial 2 features dual dial controllers and supports the quick-access Windows Radial Menu. Users can easily program them to perform various functions, including zooming in or out on the canvas, adjusting the brush size, undoing, scrolling through the pages, adjusting the volume, etc.
The two dials that cooperated with the six-shortcut keys set will greatly facilitate users' workflow and lead to boundless creativity.
PenTech 3.0 & New Paper-like Surface: enhance natural pen-on-paper experience
Huion Pentech 3.0 reduces the retraction distance by 40%, which ensures precise positioning, stable pen nib, and accurate drawing. Its battery-free EMR technology can get rid worries of users about charging it. Huion Pentech 3.0 combines with the optimized metta surface (the friction level is up 20%, enhancing the surface roughness), providing users a feeling like writing on an actual paper.
Bluetooth 5.0: higher stability and compatibility
Both wired and wireless (Bluetooth 5.0) options are provided for users. Bluetooth 5.0 is designed for low power consumption and owns a more stable network transmission speed. Inspiroy Dial 2 has a built-in 1300 mAh big battery, enabling users to use it for 18 hours. Inspiroy Dial 2 is also compatible with different systems: Windows, macOS, ChromeOS, Linux, as well as HarmonyOS and AndroidOS for phones.
Today, tens of millions of people use Huion products to express their creative ideas around the world. To improve the drawing experience, Huion will continue to develop more innovative and practical products.
For more information about Inspiroy Dial 2, please visit:
https://www.huion.com/pen_tablet/InspiroyDial/inspiroy-dial-2.html
https://store.huion.com/products/inspiroy-dial-2
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SOURCE Huion | https://www.whsv.com/prnewswire/2022/08/15/huion-unveils-innovative-bluetooth-pen-tablet-with-dual-dial-controllers-inspiroy-dial-2/ | 2022-08-15T02:01:48Z |
MELBOURNE, Australia, Aug. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Orcoda Limited (ASX: ODA) is pleased to announce that it has entered into a Teaming Agreement with Teletrac Navman Group to integrate and cross-sell each other's products to their respective customers.
Orcoda Logistics Management System ("OLMS") and Orcoda Workforce Logistics System ("OWLS") are Orcoda's world-leading proprietary transport management systems for mobility optimisation. They book, organise, connect and optimise people, parcels and goods with the assets they travel in and on. The platforms manage asset logistics for large workforces and the transport fleets of our enterprise customers using true optimisation algorithms and Artificial Intelligence. The integration of OLMS via API to the Teletrac Navman platform brings significant advantages to their clients and ours, such as enhanced vehicle and workforce utilisation, administrative efficiencies, improved economics, risk reduction and better customer service.
With Teletrac Navman's global client base of over 40,000 companies and their substantial dealer network, Orcoda anticipates that this agreement will have a positive impact on revenue. The Orcoda and Teletrac teams are already in discussion with several potential new clients and we look forward to the new opportunities this will bring for both companies.
About Teletrac Navman
Teletrac Navman is a leading global telematic system and software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider leveraging location-based technology and services for managing mobile assets. Teletrac Navman's specialised solutions for fleet and asset management deliver greater visibility into real-time insights and analytics to help companies make better business decisions that enhance productivity and profitability.
- Teletrac Navman's technology currently tracks more than 500,000 vehicles owned by over 40,000 organisations on six continents, making it one of the world's largest fleet management software solutions providers. The company, headquartered in Glenview, IL, has offices in the United States, Mexico, United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia.
- Teletrac Navman is owned by Vontier, a Fortune 500 global industrial technology company which was spun off from Fortive in 2020. Vontier is focused on smarter transportation and mobility. Their portfolio is built on market-leading expertise in mobility technologies, retail and commercial fueling, fleet management, vehicle diagnostics and maintenance, and smart cities. Together, we are mobilising the future to create a better world. Visit Vontier.com for more information
Teletrac Navman Integrations Product Manager, Mats Dahlstedt, said: "We are excited about our teaming agreement with Orcoda. We believe there is significant cross-selling opportunities for Teletrac Navman and Orcoda with our integrated product solutions, from within our existing customer base worldwide and for bringing on new customers into our integrated solution. It is my belief that Orcoda's mobility optimization platforms and transport management systems are very unique and offer benefits to our joint customers."
Orcoda Managing Director, Geoff Jamieson, said: "Following Orcoda and Teletrac Navmans first contract win with our integrated telematics and mobility optimisation solution through a Teletrac Navman dealer, we are currently in active dialogues with a number of Teletrac Navman dealers and have a number of prospective customers with our integrated product solutions, and I am optimistic about further joint contract wins in the months ahead."
About Orcoda
Spokesperson available for comment:
Geoff Jamieson, Managing Director at Orcoda
E: gjamieson@orcoda.com
M: +61 4 17 778 862
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/geoff-jamieson-maicd-5456537b/
For more information please contact:
Susan Dobell, Marketing and Communications Coordinator at Orcoda.
E: sdobell@orcoda.com
M: +61 4 04 988 860
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SOURCE Orcoda Limited | https://www.whsv.com/prnewswire/2022/08/15/teaming-agreement-signed-between-orcoda-asxoda-teletrac-navman/ | 2022-08-15T02:01:49Z |
Updated August 14, 2022 at 9:46 PM ET
Salman Rushdie, the renowned author who was brutally attacked two days ago, is slowly recovering after suffering stab wounds in the neck and chest, his family says.
"Though his life changing injuries are severe, his usual feisty & defiant sense of humour remains intact," the author's son, Zafar Rushdie, wrote in a statement on Twitter on Sunday.
The novelist was taken off a ventilator and able to speak "a few words," according to his son. However, Rushdie remains in critical condition, he added, and will stay in the hospital to receive "extensive ongoing medical treatment."
Rushdie, 75, was poised to speak at the Chautauqua Institution in upstate New York on Friday, when a man went up on stage and repeatedly stabbed the author.
Rushdie's agent had previously said that the author had undergone surgery and suffered a damaged liver, severed nerves in his arm and eye, and could likely lose an eye.
Hadi Matar, a 24-year-old from Fairview, N.J., was charged with attempted murder and assault, New York State Police said. On Saturday, Matar pleaded not guilty, according to The Associated Press. He continues to be held without bail, police said.
The event moderator who was on stage when the attack happened, Henry Reese, was treated at a local hospital for a minor head injury and has since been released. In an interview with CNN's Reliable Sources on Sunday, Reese appeared with a bandage over a black eye.
"I'm fine," he said. "We should all be concerned about Salman Rushdie, not me."
Reese said he first thought it might be a prank parodying the death threats that have targeted Rushdie since 1989 after he published the novel The Satanic Verses, one of his most popular books. Iran's leader issued a fatwa against Rushdie, calling for his death over perceived insults to Islam in the book.
"I immediately thought it was someone making some kind of bad reference to it, not that it was actually a real attack," Reese said.
The event's theme stood in direct contrast to the violence that unfolded that day. It was a discussion about what "home" means in America.
"Mr. Rushdie and Mr. Reese were here to talk about home when it is asylum, when people are seeking a place where they can find safety," said Emily Morris, a senior vice president at the Chautauqua Institution. "And in this case, safety to pursue their voice in an environment that supports free speech."
Speaking to All Things Considered, Morris also said the event's organizers had a security plan for the event that was developed with law enforcement agencies.
"No one's second guessing this more than we are," she said. "And certainly looking at what we've done and what we need to do moving forward. And at the same time, keeping our focus on Mr. Rushdie and his continuing recovery as well."
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-14/salman-rushdie-remains-in-critical-condition-his-son-says | 2022-08-15T02:20:34Z |
100-plus artists contribute to Oakvale-area exhibit
CAMP CREEK, W.Va. (WVVA) - Camp Creek State Park and Riff Raff Arts Collective’s “Peak of the Bloom” celebration held a concert at the Camp Creek State Park Amphitheater on Saturday, with area-businesses and artists set-up as well.
Among those present was a traveling art exhibit based out of Oakvale. The “Collective Traveling Art Exhibit” featured 171 panels made by 133 different artists, with contributing artists ranging from 22 months through 97 years of age. According to Debra Williby-Walker, co-leader of the Oakvale Area Outreach Team, artists involved came from all walks of life and beliefs as well.
“If we all put our differences aside,” said Williby-Walker, “we could all come together and create a beautiful work of art and maybe make this world a better place.”
Other stops on the exhibit’s journey include the Pigment Sanctuary in Princeton, along with a number of schools in Mercer and Raleigh counties among others.
Copyright 2022 WVVA. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/08/15/100-plus-artists-contribute-oakvale-area-exhibit/ | 2022-08-15T02:59:52Z |
Carilion Clinic receives grant for mental health professionals at Fallon Park Elementary School
ROANOKE, Va. (WDBJ) - Fallon Park Elementary School will be getting more mental health professionals to work with students. It’s part of a grant award from United Health Care.
Carilion Clinic received $230,000 to help Fallon Park Elementary School students with mental health. The grant will cover the salaries of three mental health professionals to work with nearly 30 students in the classroom.
Carilion’s school based strategy consultant explained the grant comes at a time when teachers need an extra set of hands.
“The entire classroom will benefit by reducing those disruptions that really distract from learning and also take up a lot of teacher energy,” Heather Millar said. “Now the teachers can really focus on helping the students learn.”
The Calm and Safe Classrooms counseling program will help individual students who are struggling to manage their emotions. Millar explained the resources would only be available for students at Fallon Park Elementary.
“The students at Fallon Park, many of them live in economically disadvantaged families and a lot of times what comes with that is a lot of stress and maybe some trauma,” Millar said. “That really affects young kids in a way we previously didn’t really understand.”
United Health Care donated $1 million to non-profits across the Commonwealth. The CEO for Virginia Community Health Plan for United Health Care explained the pandemic highlighted a need for mental health resources.
“The pandemic has driven cortisol levels and levels of stress through the roof, so these types of grants have been set aside to make a pathway for us to partner with the community based organizations that are working really closely in communities,” Tameeka Smith said.
A Carilion Clinic psychologist will oversee the mental health professionals through Local Impact for Tomorrow (LIFT).
“It’s similar to a residency program where the mental health professionals will be overseen, they’ll be given direction and they’ll work directly with students who are really struggling to regulate their behavior and their emotions,” Millar said.
LIFT hopes to fill the positions during the upcoming school year.
Copyright 2022 WDBJ. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/08/14/carilion-clinic-receives-grant-mental-health-professionals-fallon-park-elementary-school/ | 2022-08-15T03:32:26Z |
Catch the moon this week with Mars up in the sky
(WHSV) - A much calmer week up in the sky versus an eventful one last week. Here’s what’s up in the sky this week.
MARS MOVES CLOSER TO THE MOON
Thursday overnight (August 18th), you can catch Mars and the Pleiades star cluster much closer to the moon. The moon, Mars, and the star cluster will all rise by 12:15 am Thursday overnight. Mars will be located to the lower left of the moon with the Pleiades star cluster to the upper left. These three objects in the sky will be close enough to share the same view with a pair of binoculars.
LOSING DAYLIGHT
We are continuing to lose daylight. This week we will chop off another 17 minutes of daylight. By August 22nd, we will have 13 hours, and 23 minutes of daylight and 10 hours and 37 minutes of nighttime. Sunrise will move from 6:29 am to 6:36 am. Sunsets will move from 8:09 pm to 7:59 pm. Sunday night (August 21st) will be the last time the sun sets after 8 pm until late-April 2023.
Daily Sunrise/Sunset Times this week:
ISS VIEWING (MOST VIEWABLE)
The International Space Station will only pass by once in the next week.
NEXT MOON PHASES
Copyright 2022 WHSV. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/08/15/catch-moon-this-week-with-mars-up-sky/ | 2022-08-15T03:32:28Z |
BEIJING, Aug. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- More than 78 percent of people from around the world believe the Chinese economy has injected vitality into the global economy over the past decade and has become the engine of the world economy, according to a joint survey conducted by CGTN Think Tank and the Chinese Institute of Public Opinion at Renmin University of China.
The survey interviewed respondents who are 38.64 years old on average from developed countries such as the U.S., the UK, France, Germany, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea and Singapore, as well as developing countries like Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Thailand, India, Pakistan, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa. Over half of the respondents have higher education, with 54.71 percent having a bachelor's degree or above, of which 15.22 percent are masters and doctors.
The survey showed that 91.46 percent of respondents from Africa spoke highly of China's economic achievements. Europe followed closely with a share of 81.6 percent, while North America ranked third with 78.09 percent.
People from countries in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) spoke highly of China's economic achievements. Meanwhile, 84.02 percent of respondents from developing countries have confidence in the Chinese economy, more than those from developed countries.
Hard work pays off
The overwhelming majority of respondents have a positive impression of the Chinese people, and 84.42 percent of African respondents and 71.18 percent of European respondents believe the Chinese people are hardworking and self-motivated.
China's gross domestic product per capita has increased from $6,100 to more than $12,000 over the past 10 years, which 76.65 percent of respondents believe is remarkable. In the survey, over 70 percent of respondents from five continents believe China is getting richer.
China managed to lift nearly 100 million people in rural areas out of poverty in the past decade, and the vast majority of global respondents believed the top two reasons for the historic achievement are that China's economy maintains rapid growth and that Chinese leaders are determined and firmly marching toward their goals.
In terms of the rapid technology development, the respondents are most impressed by China's 5G development, artificial intelligence and high-speed railway. In Africa, 73.87 percent of respondents were most impressed by China's 5G, and 55.28 percent praised the country's high-speed railway. In Europe, 52.77 percent of respondents were impressed with the country's progress in artificial intelligence.
A multipolar world
The survey also asked respondents about their opinions on the future world order. Around 6 percent of people around the globe believe the world would be unipolar in the future – dominated either by the U.S. or China – while 34 percent, the largest group, think a multipolar world is the most likely prospect, according to the poll.
The Chinese concept of "a community with a shared future," which emphasizes humankind as a whole and seeks a new path to avoid confrontation, was supported by 61 percent of those surveyed.
People from countries participating in the BRI agreed more with China's worldview.
Among the influences that the BRI has brought to their nations, "sharing development gains" (53 percent), "expanding the international market" (51 percent), "strengthening basic infrastructure" (44 percent) and "promoting cultural exchanges" (43 percent) are the ones chosen the most in the poll.
Only 8 percent said they believed their countries were subject to "debt traps" set by China.
Some 57 percent of the people surveyed agreed with the statement "China always treats human rights realistically and practically. Human rights should not be separated from the realities and developmental stages of any country. The rights to subsistence and development are the most basic," and 26 percent totally agreed.
Link: https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-08-14/CGTN-poll-78-34-of-people-believe-China-vitalized-world-economy-1cuXHRzRyq4/index.html
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SOURCE CGTN | https://www.whsv.com/prnewswire/2022/08/15/cgtn-poll-7834-people-believe-china-vitalized-world-economy/ | 2022-08-15T03:32:29Z |
3 injured in shooting at Six Flags near Chicago
GURNEE, Ill. (AP) - Three people have been hurt in a shooting outside an amusement park north of Chicago.
A spokesperson for Six Flags Great America said the victims were in a parking lot outside the amusement park in Gurnee when shots were fired from a vehicle.
The vehicle immediately drove away.
Two of the people injured were taken to a hospital for evaluation and one refused treatment, according to the spokesperson.
The park is located about 45 miles north of Chicago.
WGN News spoke with Laurie Walker and her daughter, Grace, who were inside the park when the shooting incident occurred.
Walker said they were waiting in line for the ‘Ricochet’ in the southwest area of the park around 7:50 p.m. when she noticed people running in a panic.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/08/15/3-injured-shooting-six-flags-near-chicago/ | 2022-08-15T03:43:08Z |
LOS ANGELES — Actress Anne Heche has died of injuries from a fiery car crash, a spokesperson said Sunday. She was 53.
"Anne Heche has been peacefully taken off life support," Holly Baird, a spokesperson for Heche's family, said Sunday evening.
The announcement came two days after Heche was declared brain dead from a a brain injury and severe burns after speeding and crashing her car into a home in the residential Mar Vista neighborhood last Friday, Aug 5. Heche was pulled from the vehicle as the building erupted in flames. She was rushed to the Grossman Burn Center at West Hills Hospital in Los Angeles.
Heche had been kept on life support in case her organs could be donated. In the U.S., most organ transplants are done after such a determination.
Heche is best known for her roles in 1990s films such as Volcano, the Gus Van Sant remake of Psycho, Donnie Brasco and Six Days, Seven Nights.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-14/anne-heche-has-died-her-spokesperson-says | 2022-08-15T03:54:11Z |
3 injured in shooting at Six Flags near Chicago
GURNEE, Ill. (AP) - Three people were hurt late Sunday in a shooting outside an amusement park north of Chicago.
A spokesperson for Six Flags Great America said the victims were in a parking lot outside the amusement park in Gurnee when shots were fired from a vehicle.
The vehicle immediately drove away.
Two of the people injured were taken to a hospital for evaluation and one refused treatment, according to the spokesperson.
The park is located about 45 miles north of Chicago.
WGN News spoke with Laurie Walker and her daughter, Grace, who were inside the park when the shooting occurred.
Walker said they were waiting in line for the ‘Ricochet’ in the southwest area of the park around 7:50 p.m. when she noticed people running in a panic.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/08/15/3-injured-shooting-six-flags-near-chicago/ | 2022-08-15T04:32:50Z |
BROOKLYN, N.Y., Aug. 15, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- First Street Foundation today released their peer-reviewed extreme heat model along with the implications highlighted in The Sixth National Risk Assessment: Hazardous Heat. The report identifies the impact of increasing temperatures at a property level, and how the frequency, duration, and intensity of extremely hot days will change over the next 30 years from a changing climate. The Foundation's analysis combines high-resolution measurements of land surface temperatures, canopy cover, impervious surfaces, land cover, and proximity to water to calculate the current heat exposure, and then adjusts for future forecasted emissions scenarios. This allows for the determination of the number of days any property would be expected to experience dangerous levels of heat.
The model highlights the local impacts of climate change by identifying the seven hottest days expected for any property this year, and using that metric to calculate how many of those days would be experienced in 30 years. The most severe shift in local temperatures is found in Miami-Dade County where the 7 hottest days, currently at 103°F, will increase to 34 days at that same temperature by 2053. Across the country, on average, the local hottest 7 days are expected to become the hottest 18 days by 2053.
In the case of extreme heat, the model finds 50 counties, home to 8.1 million residents, that are expected to experience temperatures above 125°F in 2023, the highest level of the National Weather Services' heat index. By 2053, 1,023 counties are expected to exceed this temperature, an area that is home to 107.6 million Americans and covers a quarter of the US land area. This emerging area, concentrated in a geographic region the Foundation calls the "Extreme Heat Belt," stretches from the Northern Texas and Louisiana borders to Illinois, Indiana, and even into Wisconsin.
"Increasing temperatures are broadly discussed as averages, but the focus should be on the extension of the extreme tail events expected in a given year," said Matthew Eby, founder and CEO of First Street Foundation. "We need to be prepared for the inevitable, that a quarter of the country will soon fall inside the Extreme Heat Belt with temperatures exceeding 125°F and the results will be dire."
The peer-reviewed First Street Foundation Extreme Heat Model will now be incorporated with Risk Factor for every property in the contiguous United States. Visitors to Risk Factor will find their Heat Factor alongside their Flood Factor and Fire Factor and can learn the specific risks to their property, today and up to 30 years into the future.
First Street Foundation First Street Foundation is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) research and technology group working to define America's growing climate risk.
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SOURCE First Street Foundation | https://www.whsv.com/prnewswire/2022/08/15/first-street-foundation-finds-an-emerging-extreme-heat-belt-will-impact-over-107-million-americans-by-2053/ | 2022-08-15T05:02:48Z |
CANTON, Conn., Aug. 15, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Kelyniam Global (OTC:KLYG), a maker of custom cranial implants, today announced results for its quarter ended June 30, 2022.
"Our strong sales performance in Q2 resulted in 20% growth over the same period last year, and 10% growth over the previous quarter. Sales from Finceramica's CustomizedBone® implant contributed to this performance and we expect the sales momentum to continue into Q3. Further, we are making good progress toward improving surgeon access to our product line through additional Group Purchasing Organization contracts", said Ross Bjella, Kelyniam's CEO. "2022 surgical activity is returning to historical trends so the Company expects to benefit from the upward trend in surgical volume with less variability due to new Covid variant transmission and the associated effect of delayed procedures."
The company also made significant investments in infrastructure, regulatory matters and marketing over the previous six months. These investments demonstrate the Company's pursuit of top line growth and the infrastructure necessary to support it. The company is funding the investments out of operating income and has not taken on additional debt.
Financial highlights for the six months ended June 30, 2022 and the same period in 2021 include:
- Total revenue of $1,469,354 compared to $1,224,059 for solid growth of 20.0%
- Gross margin of $1,186,419 compared to $ 944,463
- Operating Income of $ 38,394 compared to of $47,167
The complete financials can be found on the company's website at www.Kelyniam.com.
Kelyniam Inc., specializes in the rapid production of custom prosthetics utilizing computer aided design and computer aided manufacturing of advanced medical grade polymers. The Company develops, manufactures, and distributes custom cranial and maxillo-facial implants for patients. Kelyniam works directly with surgeons, health systems and payors to improve clinical and cost-of-care outcomes. Kelyniam's web site address is www.Kelyniam.com.
As a cautionary note to investors, certain matters discussed in this press release are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such matters involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially, including the following: changes in economic conditions; general competitive factors; the Company's ability to execute its service and product sales plans; changes in the status of ability to market products; and the risks described from time to time in the Company's SEC reports.
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SOURCE Kelyniam Global, Inc. | https://www.whsv.com/prnewswire/2022/08/15/kelyniam-global-announces-1st-half-results-outstanding-quarter-sales-momentum-into-second-half/ | 2022-08-15T05:02:50Z |
Updated August 15, 2022 at 12:59 AM ET
CAIRO — A fire ripped through a packed Coptic Orthodox church during morning services in Egypt's capital on Sunday, quickly filling it with thick black smoke and killing 41 worshippers, including at least 15 children.
Several trapped congregants jumped from upper floors of the Martyr Abu Sefein church to try to escape the intense flames, witnesses said. "Suffocation, suffocation, all of them dead," said a distraught witness, who only gave a partial name, Abu Bishoy.
Sixteen people were injured, including four policemen involved in the rescue effort.
The cause of the blaze at the church in the working-class neighborhood of Imbaba was not immediately known. An initial investigation pointed to an electrical short-circuit, according to a police statement.
Weeping families waited outside for word about relatives who were inside the church and at nearby hospitals where the victims were taken. Footage from the scene circulated online showed burned furniture, including wooden tables and chairs. Firefighters were seen putting out the blaze while others carried victims to ambulances.
Witnesses said there were many children inside the four-story building, which had two day care facilities.
"There are children, we didn't know how to get to them," said Abu Bishoy. "And we don't know whose son this is, or whose daughter that is. Is this possible?"
A total of 15 children were killed in the fire, according to Copts United, a news website focusing on Christian news.
A list of victims obtained by The Associated Press said 20 bodies, including 10 children, were taken to the Imbaba public hospital. Three were siblings, twins aged 5 and a 3-year-old, it said. The church bishop, Abdul Masih Bakhit, was also among the dead at the hospital morgue.
Twenty-one bodies were taken to other hospitals.
Mousa Ibrahim, a spokesman for the Coptic Orthodox Church, told the AP that 5-year-old triplets, their mother, grandmother and an aunt were among those killed.
Witness Emad Hanna said a church worker managed to get some children out of the church day care facilities.
"We went upstairs and found people dead. And we started to see from outside that the smoke was getting bigger, and people want to jump from the upper floor," Hanna said.
"We found the children," some dead, some alive, he added.
The country's health minister blamed the smoke and a stampede as people attempted to flee the fire for causing the fatalities. It was one of the worst fire tragedies in Egypt in recent years.
The church is located in a narrow street in one of the most densely populated neighborhoods in Cairo. Sunday is the first working day of the week, and traffic jams clog the streets in Imbama and surrounding areas in the morning.
Some relatives criticized what they said were delays in the arrival of ambulances and firefighters. "They came after people died. ... They came after the church burned down," shouted one woman standing outside the smoldering church.
Health Minister Khaled Abdel-Ghafar countered that the first ambulance arrived at the site two minutes after the fire was reported.
Fifteen firefighting vehicles were dispatched to the scene to put out the flames while ambulances ferried casualties to nearby hospitals, officials said.
President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi spoke by phone with Coptic Christian Pope Tawadros II to offer his condolences, the president's office said. Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, Al-Azhar's Grand Imam, also offered condolences to the head of the Coptic church.
"I am closely following the developments of the tragic accident," el-Sissi wrote on Facebook. "I directed all concerned state agencies and institutions to take all necessary measures, and immediately to deal with this accident and its effects."
Abdel-Ghafar, the health minister, said in a statement that two of the injured were discharged from a hospital while the others were still being treated.
The Interior Ministry said it received a report of the fire at 9 a.m. local time, and first responders found that the blaze had broken out in an air conditioner on the building's second floor.
The ministry, which oversees police and firefighters, blamed an electrical short-circuit for the fire, which produced huge amounts of smoke. Meanwhile, the country's chief prosecutor, Hamada el-Sawy, ordered an investigation and a team of prosecutors were dispatched to the church. He said most victims died of smoke inhalation.
By Sunday afternoon, emergency services said they managed to put out the blaze and the prime minister and other senior government officials arrived to inspect the site. Premier Mustafa Madbouly said surviving victims and families of the dead would receive payments as compensation and that the government would rebuild the church.
By late afternoon, caskets carrying the dead were transferred in ambulances for pre-burial prayers at two churches in the nearby Waraq neighborhood, as weeping women lined their path. Hundreds of mourners gathered at the churches for the funerals, before taking the bodies for burial in nearby cemeteries.
Egypt's Christians account for some 10% of the nation's more than 103 million people and have long complained of discrimination by the nation's Muslim majority.
Sunday's blaze was one of the worst fire tragedies in recent years in Egypt, where safety standards and fire regulations are poorly enforced. In March last year, a fire at a garment factory near Cairo killed at least 20 people and injured 24.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-14/a-fire-at-a-church-in-cairo-kills-41-people-and-injures-16-others | 2022-08-15T05:25:47Z |
LOS ANGELES — Actress Anne Heche has died of injuries from a fiery car crash, a spokesperson said Sunday. She was 53.
"Anne Heche has been peacefully taken off life support," Holly Baird, a spokesperson for Heche's family, said Sunday evening.
The announcement came two days after Heche was declared brain dead from a a brain injury and severe burns after speeding and crashing her car into a home in the residential Mar Vista neighborhood last Friday, Aug 5. Heche was pulled from the vehicle as the building erupted in flames. She was rushed to the Grossman Burn Center at West Hills Hospital in Los Angeles.
Heche had been kept on life support in case her organs could be donated.
The actress is best known for her roles in 1990s films such as Volcano, the Gus Van Sant remake of Psycho, Donnie Brasco and Six Days, Seven Nights.
She launched her career playing a pair of good and evil twins on the long-running daytime soap opera Another World, for which she earned a Daytime Emmy Award in 1991.
But it was her personal life led that led to perhaps even greater fame. Heche became a lesbian icon as a result of her high-profile relationship with comedian and TV host Ellen DeGeneres in the late 1990s.
Heche acknowledged the romance took a toll on her career, saying the relationship with DeGeneres led to her firing from a multimillion-dollar film agreement, and that she did not work in a studio film for a decade.
But that relationship led broader public acceptance of single-sex partnerships.
Heche was born in Aurora, Ohio, in 1969, the youngest of five siblings. She had a challenging childhood. The family moved around a lot. She said she believed her father, Donald, was a closeted gay man; he died in 1983 of HIV.
In her 2001 Memoir Call Me Crazy, and in subsequent interviews, Heche said her father abused her sexually as a child, triggering mental health issues which the actress said she carried with her for decades as an adult.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-14/anne-heche-dies-after-being-taken-off-life-support-spokesperson-says | 2022-08-15T05:25:54Z |
FBI testing leads to new findings in ‘Rust’ movie shooting
(CNN) - Actor Alec Baldwin is taking issue with an FBI report about the October shooting death of a cinematographer on the set of his movie “Rust.”
The FBI says the gun Baldwin was holding when cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was fatally shot could not have been fired without the trigger being pulled.
Baldwin’s attorney said Sunday that the report is being “misconstrued” and that “the gun fired in testing only one time – without having to pull the trigger – when the hammer was pulled back and the gun broke in two different places.”
The attorney added, “The FBI was unable to fire the gun in any prior test, even when pulling the trigger, because it was in such poor condition.”
Baldwin told ABC News in December he cocked the gun, but that “the trigger wasn’t pulled. I didn’t pull the trigger.”
The FBI forensics report says if the gun was cocked the trigger had to have been pulled for the gun to fire.
The Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office now has the FBI report as it continues its investigation into the shooting. Investigators will focus on how a live round of ammunition may have made it onto the movie set.
Copyright 2022 CNN Newsource. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/08/15/fbi-testing-leads-new-findings-rust-movie-shooting/ | 2022-08-15T06:06:28Z |
FBI testing leads to new findings in ‘Rust’ movie shooting
(CNN) - Actor Alec Baldwin is taking issue with an FBI report about the October shooting death of a cinematographer on the set of his movie “Rust.”
The FBI says the gun Baldwin was holding when cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was fatally shot could not have been fired without the trigger being pulled.
Baldwin’s attorney said Sunday that the report is being “misconstrued” and that “the gun fired in testing only one time – without having to pull the trigger – when the hammer was pulled back and the gun broke in two different places.”
The attorney added, “The FBI was unable to fire the gun in any prior test, even when pulling the trigger, because it was in such poor condition.”
Baldwin told ABC News in December he cocked the gun, but that “the trigger wasn’t pulled. I didn’t pull the trigger.”
The FBI forensics report says if the gun was cocked the trigger had to have been pulled for the gun to fire.
The Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office now has the FBI report as it continues its investigation into the shooting. Investigators will focus on how a live round of ammunition may have made it onto the movie set.
Copyright 2022 CNN Newsource. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/08/15/fbi-testing-leads-new-findings-rust-movie-shooting/ | 2022-08-15T06:37:32Z |
THE HAGUE, Netherlands, Aug. 15, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Murasaki, a game studio building decentralized games on the blockchain, has just closed a €1.5 million seed round led by Incubate Fund, one of the largest Japanese venture capital firms specializing in seed stage investing.
As Japanese and European serial entrepreneurs and developers operating out of The Netherlands, Murasaki is on a mission to disrupt the GameFi economy. We are currently witnessing a transformation of the gaming industry, with emerging technologies like the blockchain opening new doors and creating endless revenue opportunities for both players and creators. In true Web3 spirit, Murasaki aims to harness the power of community and make a future game engine available to anyone wanting to build blockchain titles.
One of the co-founders, Shunsuke Sasaki, is a serial entrepreneur and angel investor specializing as a game producer. In 2007, after two years, he left and founded Pokelabo Inc, a mobile gaming company. GREE, a Japanese mobile gaming giant, acquired Pokelabo in 2012 for $173.8m. Pokelabo produced some famous titles, such as SINoALICE, that are well- known worldwide. The core founding team from Pokelabo joins Murasaki to build multiple game titles.
With this €1.5 million investment led by Incubate Fund, Murasaki will be able to strengthen its commitment to developing the next generation of decentralized, community-powered games. Murasaki's Cyberstella, an NFT-focused game with a new take on the play and earn model, is set for release in early 2023. Meanwhile, an NFT and official token launch will follow the beta version release in late 2022.
Shinnosuke Murata, Murasaki's CEO and Co-Founder, said: "I was attracted to blockchain technology, which allows consensus building without racial or national boundaries, and founded Murasaki in February 2022."
"This investment round is incredibly exciting for us, as it will allow us to further develop our assets and optimize the beta version of Cyberstella, adding new features, worlds, missions and environments. We are also planning to develop a subsequent title as well. We can't wait for people to discover what playing a blockchain title is really like."
Keisuke Wada at Incubate Fund said: "We are thrilled to partner with the Murasaki team, formed by two experienced Japanese entrepreneurs, Mr. Murata and Mr. Sasaki, in taking on the Game-Fi challenge. We look forward to transcending national borders and pioneering an ever-evolving frontier."
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Contact:
Grigorij Richters
grig@filmsunited.co
+491732631512
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SOURCE Murasaki | https://www.whsv.com/prnewswire/2022/08/15/gamefi-company-murasaki-closes-15m-seed-round-led-by-japanese-incubate-fund/ | 2022-08-15T06:37:38Z |
DUBAI, UAE, Aug. 15, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Optasia, the leading Fintech services provider has been acknowledged as one of the top Fintech companies in Middle East, by the world acclaimed Forbes Magazine in its Middle East edition.
Optasia provides premium fintech services through its advanced AI led Originating and Credit Decisioning Platform. It enables instant access to financial solutions for millions of under-banked individuals and SMEs across Emerging Markets.
The company is listed among the best companies in the Fintech industry, according to Forbes Middle East in its "The Middle East's Top 25 Fintech Companies 2022" article, which is featured in the publication's August 2022 edition. Optasia's place in this highly prestigious list was obtained through its outstanding track record and exemplary performance, which was evaluated and rewarded accordingly by the Forbes' team of professionals.
"Earning a place in this prestigious list by Forbes Middle East is very important for us, since Optasia's performance has been evaluated and praised by the best experts in the financial field," stated Optasia's founder, Bassim Haidar. "We take this significant recognition as another steppingstone towards our vision, to provide financial access and inclusion for all."
Forbes Middle East list was compiled by the publication's team of experts after reviewing numerous business entities covering a wide spectrum, namely "companies that are applying technology to financial sectors including payments, insurance, blockchain and cryptocurrency, digital banking, investing and wealth management, and lending and personal financing." The full list, which is presented in alphabetical order with no ranking, can be found on the publication's website on this link.
Optasia currently operates in over 30 countries, mainly in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America.
About Optasia
Optasia (www.optasia.com) is a global FinTech company that provides airtime credit services, micro-lending services, and data monetization services through its AI technology platform. Optasia, with its fully integrated business-to-business-to-customers and SMEs ("B2B2X") AI technology platform, covers scoring, financial decisioning, disbursements, and collections to enable its distribution partners such as MNOs, mobile wallet operators, financial institutions (principally banks, but also some non-bank financial institutions), mobile money operators, and financial institution partners to provide comprehensive financial access to retail and SME customers.
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SOURCE Optasia (Channel VAS) | https://www.whsv.com/prnewswire/2022/08/15/optasia-among-top-25-middle-east-fintech-companies-according-forbes-middle-east-magazine/ | 2022-08-15T06:37:45Z |
YOKOHAMA, Japan, Aug. 15, 2022 /PRNewswire/ --
- With Computational and Applied Mathematics Expert on Board, UNIPLAT Will Continue to Strengthen Its Innovation to Support Researchers and Entrepreneurs Worldwide -
Unify Platform AG has announced that Dr. Maarten de Hoop, the Simons Chair in Computational and Applied Mathematics and Earth Science at Rice University, USA, officially joined the advisory board of UNIPLAT, the world's first (*) online platform specialized for researchers and entrepreneurs focusing on SDGs-related fields, as one of the senior advisors on August 15, 2022.
(*) Based on Google search results.
Logo:
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Photo: Dr. Maarten de Hoop
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Born in the Netherlands, Dr. de Hoop has worked in the USA since 1995. From 1992 to 1995, he was a Program Leader and Senior Research Scientist at Schlumberger Cambridge Research Center. He joined the Colorado School of Mines in 1995 where he was the Co-Leader of the Center for Wave Phenomena. In 2005, he moved to Purdue University as a Professor of Mathematics and of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, and became the Director of the Center for Computational and Applied Mathematics. He joined Rice University in 2015 and is currently the Simons Chair in Computational and Applied Mathematics and Earth Science.
UNIPLAT is delighted to welcome such a legend as a senior advisor and is excited to gain lots of sense of wonders from his insights and discoveries for the platform's development and innovation from now on.
"UNIPLAT is a transparent platform designed to facilitate researchers and entrepreneurs around the world to get exposure and connect with one another to accelerate research and its potential impact on industry and society," said Dr. Maarten de Hoop, responding to his new role as a senior advisor of UNIPLAT.
"For academic institutions, UNIPLAT provides a unique opportunity to simplify and expand enabling translation of discoveries into technology, startup creation, and commercialization on the one hand and funding research in laboratories with specific longer-term innovation goals on the other hand. The platform allows faculty, postdocs, and graduate students to directly interact with entrepreneurs, through presentations, proposals, and workshops, avoiding administrative overhead.
"I view of my role as senior advisor to generate ideas for developing programs for entrepreneurs supporting academic research, technology transfer, and for early-stage ventures specifically in machine learning, energy, and space science."
"It is a great honor to invite Professor Maarten de Hoop, a world-famous scientist, as an advisor to UNIPLAT. He researches and develops the prediction technologies for atmosphere, volcanoes, and earthquakes on Earth and many planets by edging deep learning. This is about a truly SF world. I am confident that the presence of Professor de Hoop, a prominent international space mathematics scientist, will give UNIPLAT members dreams and hopes," said Takahisa Karita, the co-founder, CFO, and COO of Unify Platform AG, the management company of UNIPLAT.
To read more about Dr. de Hoop's exceptional bio, please visit UNIPLAT advisory board page: https://www.uniplat.social/advisory-board#MaartenDeHoop
About UNIPLAT
UNIPLAT is the world's first (*) online platform specialized for researchers and entrepreneurs from all over the world to share their ideas and research projects, and gain support from individuals or institutions. Developed and managed by Unify Platform AG ( https://unify21.com/ ) which is based in Switzerland, UNIPLAT's mission is to accelerate the success of the SDGs.
(*) Based on Google search results.
UNIPLAT front page: https://www.uniplat.social/
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SOURCE Unify Platform AG | https://www.whsv.com/prnewswire/2022/08/15/uniplat-welcoming-new-member-advisory-board-dr-maarten-de-hoop/ | 2022-08-15T06:37:52Z |
Iran denies being involved in attack on Salman Rushdie
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) - An Iranian government official denied on Monday that Tehran was involved in the assault on author Salman Rushdie, in remarks that were the country’s first public comments on the attack.
The comments by Nasser Kanaani, the spokesman of Iran’s Foreign Ministry, come over two days after the attack on Rushdie in New York.
However, Iran has denied carrying out other operations abroad targeting dissidents in the years since the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, despite prosecutors and Western governments attributing such attacks back to Tehran.
“We, in the incident of the attack on Salman Rushdie in the U.S., do not consider that anyone deserves blame and accusations except him and his supporters,” Kanaani said. “Nobody has right to accuse Iran in this regard.”
Rushdie, 75, was stabbed Friday while attending an event in western New York. He suffered a damaged liver and severed nerves in an arm and an eye, his agent said. He was likely to lose the injured eye.
His assailant, 24-year-old Hadi Matar, has pleaded not guilty to charges stemming from the attack through his lawyer.
The award-winning author for more than 30 years has faced death threats for “The Satanic Verses.” Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had issued a fatwa, or Islamic edict, demanding his death. A semiofficial Iranian foundation had put up a bounty of over $3 million for the author, though it has yet to offer any comment on the attack.
Kanaani added that Iran did not “have any other information more than what the American media has reported.”
The West “condemning the actions of the attacker and in return glorifying the actions of the insulter to Islamic beliefs is a contradictory attitude,” Kanaani said.
Khomeini, in poor health in the last year of his life after the grinding, stalemated 1980s Iran-Iraq war had decimated the country’s economy, issued the fatwa on Rushdie in 1989. The Islamic edict came amid a violent uproar in the Muslim world over the novel, which some viewed as blasphemously making suggestions about the Prophet Muhammad’s life.
While fatwas can be revised or revoked, Iran’s current Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — who took over after Khomeini — has never done so. As recently as February 2017, Khamenei said: “The decree is as Imam Khomeini issued.”
Since 1979, Iran has targeted dissidents abroad in attacks. Tensions with the West — particularly the United States — have spiked since then-President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled America out of Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers in 2018.
A Trump-ordered drone strike killed a top Iranian Revolutionary Guard general in 2020, further fueling those tensions.
Last week, the U.S. charged a Guard member in absentia for allegedly plotting to kill one-time Trump adviser and Iran hawk John Bolton. Former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and an aide are under 24-hour security over alleged threats from Iran.
Meanwhile, U.S. prosecutors say Iran tried to kidnap in 2021 an Iranian opposition activist and writer living in New York. In recent days, a man with an assault rifle was arrested near her home.
Other denials from the Foreign Ministry have included Tehran’s transfer of weapons to Yemen’s Houthi rebels amid that country’s long civil war. Independent experts, Western nations and U.N. experts have traced weapon components back to Iran.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/08/15/iran-denies-being-involved-attack-salman-rushdie/ | 2022-08-15T08:07:55Z |
Purported thief leaves flyers asking for donations to stop stealing
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) - Police are urging people not to send money after San Francisco residents found flyers on their cars claiming to be from a thief who wants to stop stealing and asked for help paying their bills.
Marcia Saephan found a flyer on her windshield when she parked near the University of San Francisco. It read, “I don’t want to steal anymore! But I still have bills to pay. Can you help me please?” The flyer then lists three ways to pay: Cash App, Bitcoin and PayPal.
Saephan believes the flyer amounts to extortion. She says she was afraid that if she didn’t pay, her car could get broken into.
“I was actually a little scared, a little rattled. I didn’t know if they were going to come back to break into my car or anyone else’s car,” she said. “It was something I had to consider every time I came to work and actually adjusting the way I parked and where I parked. So, it did affect me, and it still does.”
Saephan says multiple cars had the same flyer. She says car break-ins around the area happen frequently, especially during the holidays.
Even though she decided not to pay, her co-worker who also got the flyer did send money.
Etay Maor, the senior director of security strategy at Cato Networks, is a cybersecurity expert. He said this type of crime involving crypto and apps is in some cases hard to trace.
“Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency based on a block chain, so while it’s impossible to know who’s behind a specific wallet, you can still follow traces and see which transactions reach which wallet,” he said.
PayPal confirmed the account included on the flyer is real. After investigating, the company is taking action to terminate the account.
“Any illegal behavior is a direct violation of the PayPal user agreement, and any violations of this nature will result in an account being terminated,” said the company in part.
San Francisco Police said this is the first time they have seen this criminal approach but confirmed the city is experiencing an uptick in auto burglaries. Police haven’t confirmed if the person behind the flyer is a suspect of any crime and urged people not to send money.
Copyright 2022 KGO via CNN Newsource. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/08/15/purported-thief-leaves-flyers-asking-donations-stop-stealing/ | 2022-08-15T08:08:02Z |
TAIPEI, Aug. 15, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Throughout 40 years in industry, Hi-Lo Systems, the leading global provider of IC programming solutions, has established the programming network with almost 30 service centers around the world, providing customers in more than 60 countries with the most prompt and efficient supports.
What's so special about worldwide programming service?
For starters, Hi-Lo's local services are highly customized and professional. In any of Hi-Lo's programming center, customers are provided with completed and comprehensive value-added services. Hi-Lo understands it as experience that various requirement result from different market conditions. For example, for customers from automotive electronics, Hi-Lo offers optional 2D/3D quality inspection to assure these programmed IC are well protected physically; moreover, Hi-Lo offers secure programming for IoT products to keep customers from hacking and intellectual theft; lastly, Hi-Lo offers inking/marking, exchange of packages, and exclusive area for advanced devices programming, such as UFS.
Second, it prevents customers from shutting down production line for any cause. In addition to regular maintenance and repair on purchased equipment and re-training on new operators, Customers of Hi-Lo's can receive prompt and thorough on-site service for troubleshooting and urgent technical support within 24 hours when needed.
Lastly, it can guarantee sufficient supply of needed parts and consumables. In addition to simply sell these parts to customers, Hi-Lo offers services such as supply chain management, procurement planning through completed local distributorship. Consequently, customers of Hi-Lo's make reliable procurement plan for cost analysis and as well avoid potential shortage of required materials or shutdown in production line.
Affirming its leading industry position, Hi-Lo pursues more than completed worldwide service, but also keeps its technological capabilities as innovative and reliable as the market demand asks. As the founder of TSMC Morris C.M. Chang once described, for a semiconductor company to prosper perpetually, it should not only go global, but also strive for world-class technology.
To deliver world-class technology in device programming, Hi-Lo must identify and recognize the industry trends and the pain points of the current solutions.
For instance, programmable chips in automotive electronics industry consists mostly of various MCU and high density memory IC such as eMMC and UFS so as to deliver complicated commands in sequence, accumulate constantly-changing data from driving and analyze, and then adapt to various situations in roads based on these information.
The most evident pain points in programming automotive chips are that the supportability for developing new devices is not efficient or comprehensive enough; as a result, the customers would face unbearable lead time or poor technical support. What's worse, even when these devices are supported, the programming time for high density memory chips are too long, severely diminishing the efficiency and capacity in production line and thus costing significantly in long-term.
Hi-Lo addresses such issues. With over 100,000 devices supported by its programmers and over 100 R&D members delivering new device development and technical supports, customers won't compromise capacity and quality in programming; moreover, Hi-Lo develops its exclusive programming core for high density memory chips, delivering three to four times faster in programming eMMC and UFS.
Hi-Lo believes every customer deserves worldwide supports and world-class technology, as they are shaping the world of innovation!
For more information about HI-LO, please visit https://www.hilosystems.com/
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SOURCE HI-LO Systems | https://www.whsv.com/prnewswire/2022/08/15/hi-lo-programming-supports-customers-everywhere-with-30-service-centers-around-world/ | 2022-08-15T08:08:04Z |
Change and disruption are all around us. TBD Media Group meets the leaders finding opportunity for positive change
LONDON, Aug. 15, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- In times of disruption, the winners in business will be those agile enough to respond effectively to emerging trends. As disruption affects the fundamental assumptions we have made about the world and economy, a new generation of leaders is stepping up to find and exploit these new opportunities.
Global Thought Leaders, a campaign by acclaimed production company TBD Media Group is bringing the stories of the world's most innovative businesses from across sectors to showcase their vision of the future.
TBD Media Group, which has built a reputation for providing a platform for the world's most important businesses to tell their stories, is highlighting the ways in which Global Thought Leaders are both responding to and driving change.
Paolo Zanini, Founder and CEO at TBD Media Group says:
"We face a future that is uncertain. Within that uncertainty we can choose to be pessimistic or optimistic. The Global Thought Leaders see opportunity in uncertainty. History has shown us time and again that it takes leadership to identify these opportunities early and be ahead of the pack in defining the landscape for others."
The Global Thought Leaders documentary series will provide valuable insights into how today's businesses are taking action to shape the future of the planet.
Companies featured in this launch:
Alluvial Agriculture Nigeria, Sysmex Astrego, Ecolab, Huesker Synthetic, Hyster-Yale Group, InterContinental Energy, Indena Spa, SAP SuccessFactors, StepStone Deutschland, UniqAir, vcita.
More information on the Global Thought Leaders Campaign may be found here: https://www.globalthoughtleaders.org/ and https://www.cbsnews.com/video/playlist/tbd-media/
About TBD Media Group:
TBD Media Group is an international, purpose-driven, media developer that helps companies, organizations and governments tell their brand stories in a human and direct way. Learn more at https://www.tbdmediagroup.com/
Media Contact:
TBD Media Group
Anna Berkman
Head of Marketing
a.berkman@tbdmediagroup.com
+44 (0) 7827701009
Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1875038/Media_Group_Global_Thought_Leaders.jpg
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SOURCE TBD Media Group | https://www.whsv.com/prnewswire/2022/08/15/meet-global-thought-leaders-taking-us-into-new-economy/ | 2022-08-15T08:08:10Z |
Below average temperatures continue
Scattered showers to start the week
MONDAY: Cloudy to start the day and mild with temperatures in the 60s. Scattered showers on and off throughout the day and cloudy, as the day will be more of a washout. Areas of patchy fog in the morning although some may stick around for the day, especially in the higher elevations. Staying mild with highs in the mid to upper 60s. Mild for the evening with temperatures in the 60s as scattered showers will continue for the evening and overnight. Patchy fog overnight with lows in the upper 50s to low 60s.
TUESDAY: Cloudy to start the day with scattered showers and mild. Areas of patchy fog early. Temperatures staying in the 60s throughout the day. Scattered showers will continue through about noon. Drying out some by the late afternoon and early evening. Remaining in the 60s for the evening with plenty of clouds. We may see a few peeks of sun late in the day into the early evening. Mostly cloudy overnight and pleasant with lows in the mid to upper 50s.
WEDNESDAY: A mix of sun and clouds to start the day and mild with temperatures rising into the 60s. Some clouds throughout the day. An isolated shower cannot be ruled out for the afternoon. Highs in the low to mid 70s. Evening temperatures falling into the 60s with some clouds. Partly cloudy for the overnight. Pleasant with lows in the mid to upper 50s.
THURSDAY: A mix of sun and clouds to start the day and mild. Temperatures rising into the 60s. Some clouds for the afternoon. Warm and comfortable with highs in the mid to upper 70s. A warm evening with temperatures remaining in the 70s. Some clouds for the evening and overnight. Pleasant overnight with lows in the mid to upper 50s.
FRIDAY: A mix of sun and clouds to start the day and warm with temperatures quickly rising into the 60s. Adding more clouds for the afternoon and comfortable. Very warm as highs will be in the upper 70s to low 80s. Mild overnight with lows in the upper 50s to low 60s.
SATURDAY: More clouds than sun to start the day and warm with temperatures in the 60s. Mostly cloudy throughout the day and very warm. Highs in the upper 70s to low 80s. Watching another system that will look to bring scattered showers and storms for the day. Overnight lows in the low to mid 60s.
SUNDAY: A warm start with temperatures in the 60s and more clouds than sun. Keeping the clouds around for the day and very warm with highs in the upper 70s to low 80s. Watching another system that will look to bring scattered showers and storms for the day. A warm evening with temperatures falling into the 70s and mild overnight with lows in the low to mid 60s.
As always, you can get the latest updates by downloading and checking the WHSV Weather App.
Copyright 2021 WHSV. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/08/15/below-average-temperatures-continue/ | 2022-08-15T08:21:02Z |
For a while now, it's seemed as if there's no role too absurd or outrageous for Aubrey Plaza to play: an Instagram stalker in Ingrid Goes West, a naughty nun in The Little Hours, a flesh-eating zombie in Life After Beth.
The character she plays in Emily the Criminal — an art-school dropout who masters the art of credit-card fraud — sounds almost low-key by comparison. But if this is one of Plaza's more straightforward dramatic performances, absent of her usual deadpan-comic touches, it's also one of her strongest. She holds us at nearly every moment of this engrossing Los Angeles noir, about a woman whose luck ran out long ago, and who decides to seize control of her life and livelihood.
Emily is technically already a criminal when we meet her: She has an aggravated-assault conviction on her record that's made it hard for her to find steady work, let alone pay off her $70,000 in student loans. She barely gets by making food deliveries and sharing a crowded L.A. apartment with two roommates. Plaza plays the character with an outsider's toughness — Emily grew up in New Jersey, and we can hear it in her accent — but also the shrewdness of someone who knows when to fight back and when to go with the flow.
That talent suits her well when a lucrative but illegal opportunity comes her way. Her task is to buy some pricey electronic equipment using a phony credit card, then slip out before the theft is detected. The merchandise gets picked up and resold, and Emily gets paid $200 — not bad for an hour's work. It's supposed to be just a one-time thing, but Emily is soon hooked and coming back for more.
The man who oversees this operation and takes her under his wing is Youcef, a Lebanese immigrant played by the charismatic Theo Rossi, from shows like Sons of Anarchy and Luke Cage. Youcef realizes that Emily makes a pretty good crook, partly because few people suspect her of being one. The movie tacitly acknowledges the racist and sexist assumptions that would give a white woman an advantage in this line of work. But it also keys us into Emily's feelings of fear, anxiety and exhilaration as she starts taking on bigger, higher-stakes jobs. Soon she's got her own little racket, printing the credit cards and arranging the sales herself.
As the work gets more dangerous, Emily realizes she's going to need more than the pepper spray in her purse to defend herself. The writer-director John Patton Ford, making a solid feature debut, skillfully ratchets up the tension at key moments, and Plaza is both vulnerable and fierce as a woman having to figure out her own fight-or-flight responses in real time.
One botched early job leads to a car chase that's all the more harrowing for being so realistically staged. Youcef guides Emily through every step of her enterprise, and Plaza and Rossi's chemistry deepens as their characters' initially combative relationship gives way to romantic sparks. Naturally, their emotional bond will complicate their business dealings in all sorts of ways, some more believable than others.
As things start to unravel, the movie's third-act plotting gets a little too ragged for its own good. But if Emily the Criminal isn't always successful as a genre exercise, it's thoroughly gripping as a portrait of a woman always operating in survival mode. It's telling that even with her new source of income, Emily doesn't take anything for granted and never stops working every angle. She keeps trying to land an interview at an upscale ad agency, where interns are expected to work full-time for free. She keeps her food delivery job, even though the pay is lousy and the benefits nonexistent. What millions of American workers endure day in and day out, the movie suggests, is no less exploitative than any of Emily's illegal activities. The movie may be called Emily the Criminal, but it reserves its harshest indictment for the society that made her what she is.
Copyright 2022 Fresh Air. To see more, visit Fresh Air. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-08-15/aubrey-plaza-plays-a-fraudster-in-the-mostly-engrossing-emily-the-criminal | 2022-08-15T09:10:49Z |
Lots of home cooks would be excited to get a book deal. In the case of one home chef, she got that opportunity at the age of 89 years old. Emily Meggett is from the low country of South Carolina, and NPR traveled to her home on Edisto Island to appreciate some of her cooking.
Edisto Island is a beautiful, quiet community of about 2,000 people, nearly an hour's drive south of Charleston. The roads are framed by massive oak trees draped with Spanish moss; there's a tang of sea salt in the air. Ms. Emily Meggett is known far and wide as the matriarch of Edisto.
I'm with her in her cozy home kitchen, where she's going to teach me how to make a local classic: shrimp and grits with gravy. As she chops up some salt pork to get us started, she recalls the first thing she remembers making as a girl. "Grits!" she exclaims. "And the salt pork right here."
Ms. Emily is a member of the Gullah Geechee people. Her community can trace their ancestry to West and central Africans brought to these shores and enslaved. In insulated locations throughout the coastal areas of the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida, they managed to preserve much of their rich culture, language, and music.
Her cookbook is called Gullah Geechee Home Cooking (get recipes for Benne Cookies, Red Rice and Chicken Perloo). Right now, Ms. Emily is focused on making her gravy: salt pork, onion, flour and some seasoning salt. That's it.
"You watch me every step of the way," she instructs, stirring the pot constantly with her favorite spoon. This virtuoso in the kitchen doesn't bother with a whisk. Still, her gravy is as smooth as silk.
"I'm from the old school," she says. "People add things, to see how that's gonna taste. But sometimes I think they jazz it up too much! This is tradition, how I learned how to cook it. Wash the grits. Wash your meat. Fry your meat. Put your onion in there. Put your flour in there, make your gravy and your seasoning. Nothing else. That's your tradition."
Some of Ms. Emily's other recipes are intensely local too, like her delicious benne wafers, sweet little cookies made with local sesame seeds. Benne seeds were brought over from West Africa by enslaved people and became an important staple in their hidden gardens.
Ms. Emily's family kept their own gardens at home, too. They grew their vegetables, beans and fruit; they raised hogs, chickens, and other livestock. They fished and hunted. "We even had our own rice pond when I was growing up," she says.
Ms. Emily's ancestors, like other enslaved people brought to the Carolinas, were expert rice cultivators. And rice remains foundational in Ms. Emily's cooking. She says if anyone's going to try only two recipes in her book, it's two Gullah Geechee staples: "Red rice and the Hoppin' John."
Gullah Geechee red rice is kin to jollof rice, a tomato-based recipe popular across western Africa. Her Hoppin' John is a little different than the version many folks know from Southern cuisine. Instead of being made with blander black-eyed peas, here they're made with nutty-tasting field peas.
Her beloved late husband Jessie grew up nearby too, in a two-room cabin that previous generations had lived in as enslaved people. In 2017, that cabin was relocated to Washington, D.C., where it's now on permanent display at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Ms. Emily, who friends around the island call "M.P.," recounts plenty of family stories as well as her own, complex history in Gullah Geechee Home Cooking.
"When I came along, I guess I was the last of the slaves," she says. As a teenager, she began babysitting the white children of the wealthy owners of local mansions as well as the children of Black workers at those houses. "When I went over to babysit, I got a dollar and 25 cents, from 8 o'clock in the morning until three in the afternoon. And that was in the 50s."
Not long after, her mother told her she had to choose: she could either work in the fields or find something else. She became a cook for some of those wealthy white families. One of those was the Dodge family from Maine — and Ms. Emily cooked for them for 45 years.
"When I went over to the Dodge house, a week's pay was $11 and 15 cents all week! And every year, it went up a dollar and three penny," she recalls.
"I started from the bottom of the barrel," she says emphatically. "Up to this time, I think I did good for myself and also my children because if I wasn't be taught what to do and how to do it then I couldn't have taught my children."
Those recipes are imprinted in her memory. "That's how I cook," she says. "I cook by my brain, and my hand and my heart."
Heart is a big word with Ms. Emily. She has always looked after Edisto. When the side door into her kitchen is open, folks know they can stop in for a plate of hot food. (Conversely, wherever she goes on the island, she is gifted with ingredients.) Cooking, for Ms. Emily, is about sharing history — and, as she says in her book, food is one of the most important ways we take care of each other. That was the whole impetus for her cookbook, she says.
"A lot of times, we has a treasure in our head," she observes. "And we will die and go to heaven, and take that treasury with us. And why can't we just share it with somebody else here? I'll get more out of that, to share it."
Gretchen Smith is the director of the Edisto Island Historic Preservation Society. She is thrilled that her good friend Emily Meggett is attracting so much attention with her cookbook.
"It's got so much more than recipes in the book," Smith says. "It's stories, it's anecdotes, it's the culture of the Gullah community, it's not just a cookbook by any means. And I think that's really what has ignited the interest in it."
In the meantime, the gravy's ready. Ms. Emily Meggett is emphatic about her gravy. "All right now, you see what I put in there," she says. "I didn't put no celery, no bell pepper, no tomato, no water."
At nearly the last moment, she sautees the shrimp in a separate skillet. They're done in just a couple of minutes, and she quickly folds them into the sauce. "If you make the gravy, and put the shrimp in there to cook, it makes it tough," she observes. After we take a bite, she says triumphantly, "See, you got the crunch of the shrimp." She's right. The shrimp are firm and meaty, with almost a bit of a snap to them still.
Finally, this tantalizing dish is ready — and you will never leave Ms. Emily's house without getting fed. "The whole entire world!" she laughs. "The whole entire world. It don't be a day pass by that somebody don't stop by here that don't get something to eat."
As soon as the shrimp and grits are ready, we gather over the kitchen table for a moment of prayer, holding hands in communion. Ms. Emily says grace — and then we feast, together.
Benne Cookies from Emily Meggett
Makes about 40 cookies
WHEN I WAS GROWING UP, I HAD NO IDEA HOW MUCH HISTORY WAS IN BENNE COOKIES. Also known as "benne wafers," benne cookies were just another sweet treat that we island folks loved to eat. In fact, I learned how to make these cookies at the Dodge House. A lady named Mamie Frances was the real pro, and she taught me how to make them just right.
As an adult, I found out that the benne seeds used for the cookie actually arrived to the United States with our African ancestors. Native to the African continent, benne seeds are often confused with sesame seeds. However, benne seeds have a much more distinct taste. They're nuttier, a bit smoky, and when toasted, they produce an intense, almost woody smell throughout the kitchen. Benne seeds have a rich history in the Sea Islands. Enslaved people cultivated these seeds in their own gardens, and eventually, white slave owners took advantage of their crop and started use benne seeds to produce cooking oil. Their road in the United States has been long and complex, but thanks to the preservationist nature of the Gullah Geechee people, they still grow across the Carolinas and Sea Islands today.
My benne cookies come from Mama, and she learned how to make them from generations before her. Thin and crisp, these cookies should be like wafers; you don't want them to rise.
1 tablespoon margarine or butter, or more as needed (butter can be used to toast the benne seeds, but it burns more easily than margarine)
1 cup (140 g) benne seeds or sesame seeds
1 cup (125 g) sifted all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup (1 stick/115 g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ cup (100 g) granulated sugar
¼ cup (55 g) packed light brown sugar
1 large egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Preheat the oven to 350°F (170°C). Grease two cookie sheets.
Melt 1 tablespoon margarine in a cast-iron skillet over medium heat and add the benne seeds, stirring to coat them—add more margarine if needed. Toast the seeds, stirring frequently, until fragrant and darkened a shade. Take care not to burn the seeds. Scrape onto a plate and let cool completely.
Sift the flour, baking soda, and salt together into a medium bowl.
In a large bowl, cream together the ½ cup (1 stick/115 g) butter and the sugars until well combined and fluffy. Add the egg and beat well. Add the cooled toasted benne seeds and the vanilla. Stir in the flour mixture.
Drop rounded teaspoonfuls of the cookie dough at least 2 ½ inches (6 cm) apart on one prepared cookie sheet. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes maximum, until golden brown around the edges. Remove the wafers from the cookie sheet immediately and place them on waxed paper to cool. Repeat with the remaining dough on the second cookie sheet, reusing the first sheet when it's cooled.
Red Rice from Emily Meggett
Serves 8 to 10
RED RICE GOES BACK TO THE OLD, OLD DAYS—THE DAYS BEFORE ME, MY MOMMA, AND HERS. Red rice is a beautiful, earthy one-pot rice dish that borrows from the traditions of my African ancestors. Sometimes called Charleston red rice, red rice really owes a great debt to the enslaved Africans who brought their knowledge of rice and vegetable farming to the United States. Here on Edisto, Wednesdays and Fridays were seafood days. We had shrimp or fish with red rice, so it was something to look forward to. Back in my day, you didn't use tomato paste and sauce, you used the tomatoes you'd planted in your garden. The tomato paste works just as good, though, and Gullah Geechee red rice is one of the best dishes you can enjoy. Now, red rice can be a tricky thing. If you don't have enough rice, it will come out like mush. If you have too much rice, you can add water, but the texture will be uneven. Early in the cooking, you want to use your spoon to feel the weight of the rice, and make sure it's cooking evenly.
Don't let this dish intimidate you—with well-seasoned vegetables, slices of sausage, and perfectly cooked rice, you've just about got yourself a meal. Oh, and when you put some fatback in there? Now you're talking.
½ pound (225 g) salt pork, cut into 1-inch (2.5 cm) chunks
1 large onion, chopped
1 large bell pepper, chopped
½ cup (50 g) chopped celery
3 smoked sausages (about 14 ounces/395 g)
1 (6-ounce/170 g) can of tomato paste
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1½ teaspoons Nature's Seasons, plus more to taste
2 cups (370 g) long-grain white rice, unrinsed
Fry the salt pork in a large pot over medium heat until browned, 8 to 10 minutes. Add the onion, bell pepper, and celery and cook until tender, 5 to 7 minutes. Cut the sausage into bite-size pieces and add to the pot; cook until lightly browned, about 5 minutes. Stir in the tomato paste and 5 cups (1.2 L) water and bring to a boil over high heat. Add the crushed red pepper and Nature's Seasons and stir. Taste and add more seasoning if needed.
Add the rice. Cook, stirring frequently to keep the rice from sticking until most of the liquid has been absorbed and the rice is tender, about 10 minutes.
If using a rice steamer, transfer the absorbed mixture to the steamer. Cover the steamer, and cook on low heat for 15 to 20 minutes, or until all of the liquid is absorbed and the rice can be fluffed with a fork. If using a pot, cover the pot and cook over the lowest possible heat, stirring with a fork as needed, for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the rice has absorbed all the liquid.
Chicken Perloo from Emily Meggett
Serves 8 to 10
MANY OF THE ONE-POT RICE DISHES IN THE LOWCOUNTRY AND THE SOUTH CAN TRACE THEIR ORIGINS BACK TO WEST AFRICA. There's jollof rice in West Africa, jambalaya in Louisiana, and here in the Lowcountry? We've got red rice and chicken perloo. Chicken perloo has a lot of the same western European and African cooking styles you find in dishes like Spanish paella and Ghanaian jollof rice. However, tender chicken, ambrosial stock, and perfectly fluffed rice make this a true Lowcountry dish.
6 tablespoons (90 ml) bacon grease or vegetable oil
½ pound (225 g) salt pork, cut into 1-inch (2.5 cm) chunks
1 cup (125 g) roughly chopped onion
5 cups (1.2 L) chicken broth
1 teaspoon Nature's Seasons
1 teaspoon poultry seasoning
1 pound (455 g) cooked chicken thighs, skin removed and roughly chopped
2 ½ cups (460 g) long-grain white rice, unrinsed
In a large, heavy-bottomed pot, heat 2 tablespoons of the bacon grease or oil over high heat. Once the grease or oil is shimmering, add the salt pork and cook on high heat for 1 minute. Pour the remaining bacon grease or oil into the pot. Reduce the heat to medium-low and cook the salt pork for about 5 minutes, until browned.
Once browned, remove the salt pork from the pot and set it aside. Leave enough oil to coat the bottom of the pot. Add the onion and fry for 1 minute. Return the cooked salt pork to the pot and cook the onion and salt pork together over low heat for about 5 minutes, until onion just darkens.
Add the broth, Nature's Seasons, and poultry seasoning and bring to a boil.
Once boiling, add the chicken. Cook for about 2 minutes, then add the rice. Adjust the heat to medium-low and cook until most of the liquid has been absorbed, 10 to 15 minutes.
If using a steamer, transfer the rice mixture to the top of the steamer, cover, and steam over medium heat for about 20 minutes, until done. If you're using the regular pot, continue to cook the rice mixture on medium-low heat for 20 to 25 minutes, until the rice has absorbed all of the broth. Once done, stir the rice with a fork, and serve immediately.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-08-15/for-this-89-year-old-gullah-geechee-chef-cooking-is-about-heart | 2022-08-15T09:10:55Z |
Soon after giving birth to a daughter two months premature, Terri Logan received a bill from the hospital. She recoiled from the string of numbers separated by commas.
Logan, who was a high school math teacher in Georgia, shoved it aside and ignored subsequent bills. She was a single mom who knew she had no way to pay. "I avoided it like the plague," she says, but avoidance didn't keep the bills out of mind.
"The weight of all of that medical debt — oh man, it was tough," Logan says. "Every day, I'm thinking about what I owe, how I'm going to get out of this ... especially with the money coming in just not being enough."
Then a few months ago — nearly 13 years after her daughter's birth and many anxiety attacks later — Logan received some bright yellow envelopes in the mail. They were from a nonprofit group telling her it had bought and then forgiven all those past medical bills.
This time, it was a very different kind of surprise: "Wait, what? Who does that?"
RIP Medical Debt does. The nonprofit has boomed during the pandemic, freeing patients of medical debt, thousands of people at a time. Its novel approach involves buying bundles of delinquent hospital bills — debts incurred by low-income patients like Logan — and then simply erasing the obligation to repay them.
It's a model developed by two former debt collectors, Craig Antico and Jerry Ashton, who built their careers chasing down patients who couldn't afford their bills.
"They would have conversations with people on the phone, and they would understand and have better insights into the struggles people were challenged with," says Allison Sesso, RIP's CEO. Eventually, they realized they were in a unique position to help people and switched gears from debt collection to philanthropy.
What triggered the change of heart for Ashton was meeting activists from the Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011 who talked to him about how to help relieve Americans' debt burden. "As a bill collector collecting millions of dollars in medical-associated bills in my career, now all of a sudden I'm reformed: I'm a predatory giver," Ashton said in a video by Freethink, a new media journalism site.
After helping Occupy Wall Street activists buy debt for a few years, Antico and Ashton launched RIP Medical Debt in 2014. They started raising money from donors to buy up debt on secondary markets — where hospitals sell debt for pennies on the dollar to companies that profit when they collect on that debt.
RIP buys the debts just like any other collection company would — except instead of trying to profit, they send out notices to consumers saying that their debt has been cleared. To date, RIP has purchased $6.7 billion in unpaid debt and relieved 3.6 million people of debt. The group says retiring $100 in debt costs an average of $1.
RIP bestows its blessings randomly. Sesso says it just depends on which hospitals' debts are available for purchase. "So nobody can come to us, raise their hand, and say, 'I'd like you to relieve my debt,'" she says.
Yet RIP is expanding the pool of those eligible for relief. Sesso said that with inflation and job losses stressing more families, the group now buys delinquent debt for those who make as much as four times the federal poverty level, up from twice the poverty level.
A surge in recent donations — from college students to philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, who gave $50 million in late 2020 — is fueling RIP's expansion. That money enabled RIP to hire staff and develop software to comb through databases and identify targeted debt faster.
New regulations allow RIP to buy loans directly from hospitals, instead of just on the secondary market, expanding its access to the debt.
Sesso says the group is constantly looking for new debt to buy from hospitals: "Call us! We want to talk to every hospital that's interested in retiring debt."
Sesso emphasizes that RIP's growing business is nothing to celebrate. It means that millions of people have fallen victim to a U.S. insurance and health care system that's simply too expensive and too complex for most people to navigate. As NPR and KHN have reported, more than half of U.S. adults say they've gone into debt in the past five years because of medical or dental bills, according to a KFF poll. A quarter of adults with health care debt owe more than $5,000. And about 1 in 5 with any amount of debt say they don't expect to ever pay it off.
RIP is one of the only ways patients can get immediate relief from such debt, says Jim Branscome, a major donor. Policy change is slow. Numerous factors contribute to medical debt, he says, and many are difficult to address: rising hospital and drug prices, high out-of-pocket costs, less generous insurance coverage, and widening racial inequalities in medical debt. The pandemic, Branscome adds, exacerbated all of that.
The "pandemic has made it simply much more difficult for people running up incredible medical bills that aren't covered," Branscome says. He is a longtime advocate for the poor in Appalachia, where he grew up and where he says chronic disease makes medical debt much worse. It undermines the point of care in the first place, he says: "There's pressure and despair."
For Terri Logan, the former math teacher, her outstanding medical bills added to a host of other pressures in her life, which then turned into debilitating anxiety and depression. Now a single mother of two, she describes the strain of living with debt hanging over her head. She had panic attacks, including "pain that shoots up the left side of your body and makes you feel like you're about to have an aneurysm and you're going to pass out," she recalls.
Some hospitals say they want to alleviate that destructive cycle for their patients. Heywood Healthcare system in Massachusetts donated $800,000 of medical debt to RIP in January, essentially turning over control over that debt, in part because patients with outstanding bills were avoiding treatment.
"We wanted to eliminate at least one stressor of avoidance to get people in the doors to get the care that they need," says Dawn Casavant, chief of philanthropy at Heywood. Plus, she says, "it's likely that that debt would not have been collected anyway."
One criticism of RIP's approach has been that it isn't preventive; the group swoops in after what can be years of financial stress and wrecked credit scores that have damaged patients' chances of renting apartments or securing car loans. (The three major credit rating agencies recently announced changes to the way they will report medical debt, reducing its harm to credit scores to some extent. However, consumers often take out second mortgages or credit cards to pay for medical services.)
"A lot of damage will have been done by the time they come in to relieve that debt," says Mark Rukavina, a program director for Community Catalyst, a consumer advocacy group.
Rukavina says state laws should force hospitals to make better use of their financial assistance programs to help patients. "Hospitals shouldn't have to be paid," he says. "Basically: Don't reward bad behavior."
Most hospitals in the country are nonprofit and in exchange for that tax status are required to offer community benefit programs, including what's often called "charity care." Depending on the hospital, these programs cut costs for patients who earn as much as two to three times the federal poverty level. But many eligible patients never find out about charity care — or aren't told. They are billed full freight and then hounded by collection agencies when they don't pay.
Recently, RIP started trying to change that, too.
RIP CEO Sesso says the group is advising hospitals on how to improve their internal financial systems so they better screen patients eligible for charity care — in essence, preventing people from incurring debt in the first place. Ultimately, that's a far better outcome, she says.
"We prefer the hospitals reduce the need for our work at the back end," she says. "I would say hospitals are open to feedback, but they also are a little bit blind to just how poorly some of their financial assistance approaches are working out."
Terri Logan says no one mentioned charity care or financial assistance programs to her when she gave birth. Nor did Logan realize help existed for people like her, people with jobs and health insurance but who earn just enough money not to qualify for support like food stamps.
The debt shadowed her, darkening her spirits. "I don't know; I just lost my mojo," she says. "But I'm kinda finding it," she adds. Logan's newfound freedom from medical debt is reviving a long-dormant dream to sing on stage.
Her first performance is scheduled for this summer.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-08-15/this-groups-wiped-out-6-7-billion-in-medical-debt-and-its-just-getting-started | 2022-08-15T09:11:01Z |
Iran denies involvement but justifies Salman Rushdie attack
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) - An Iranian government official denied on Monday that Tehran was involved in the assault on author Salman Rushdie, though he justified the stabbing in remarks that represented the Islamic Republic’s first public comments on the attack.
The comments by Nasser Kanaani, the spokesman of Iran’s Foreign Ministry, came more than two days after the attack on Rushdie in New York. The writer has now been taken off a ventilator and is “on the road to recovery,” according to his agent.
However, Iran has denied carrying out other operations abroad targeting dissidents in the years since the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, despite prosecutors and Western governments attributing such attacks back to Tehran. And while Iran hasn’t focused on the writer in recent years, a decades-old fatwa demanding his killing still stands.
“Regarding the attack against Salman Rushdie in America, we don’t consider anyone deserving reproach, blame or even condemnation, except for (Rushdie) himself and his supporters,” Kanaani said.
“In this regard, no one can blame the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he added. “We believe that the insults made and the support he received was an insult against followers of all religions.”
Rushdie, 75, was stabbed Friday while attending an event in western New York. He suffered a damaged liver and severed nerves in an arm and an eye, his agent Andrew Wylie said. Rushdie was likely to lose the injured eye.
His assailant, 24-year-old Hadi Matar, has pleaded not guilty to charges stemming from the attack through his lawyer.
Rushdie has for more than 30 years faced death threats for “The Satanic Verses.” Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had issued a fatwa, or Islamic edict, demanding his death. A semiofficial Iranian foundation had put up a bounty of over $3 million for the author, though it has yet to offer any comment on the attack.
Police in New York have offered no motive yet for the attack, though District Attorney Jason Schmidt alluded to the bounty on Rushdie in arguing against bail during a hearing Saturday.
“Even if this court were to set a million dollars bail, we stand a risk that bail could be met,” Schmidt said.
Matar was born in the United States to parents who emigrated from Yaroun in southern Lebanon near the Israeli border, according to the village’s mayor. Flags of the Iranian-backed Shiite militant group Hezbollah, along with portraits of Hezbollah and Iranian leaders, hang across the village. Israel also has bombarded Hezbollah positions near there in the past.
In his remarks Monday, Kanaani added that Iran did not “have any other information more than what the American media has reported.” He also implied that Rushdie brought the attack on himself.
“Salman Rushdie exposed himself to popular anger and fury through insulting the sacredness of Islam and crossing the red lines of over 1.5 billion Muslims and also red lines of followers of all divine religions,” Kanaani said.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, while not directly blaming Tehran for the attack on Rushdie, made a point to mention Iran in a statement early Monday praising the writer’s efforts in supporting freedom of expression and religion.
“Iranian state institutions have incited violence against Rushdie for generations, and state-affiliated media recently gloated about the attempt on his life,” Blinken said. “This is despicable.”
Khomeini, in poor health in the last year of his life after the grinding, stalemated 1980s Iran-Iraq war had decimated the country’s economy, issued the fatwa on Rushdie in 1989. The Islamic edict came amid a violent uproar in the Muslim world over the novel, which some viewed as blasphemously making suggestions about the Prophet Muhammad’s life.
While fatwas can be revised or revoked, Iran’s current Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — who took over after Khomeini — has never done so. As recently as February 2017, Khamenei said: “The decree is as Imam Khomeini issued.”
Since 1979, Iran has targeted dissidents abroad in attacks. Tensions with the West — particularly the United States — have spiked since then-President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled America out of Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers in 2018.
A Trump-ordered drone strike killed a top Iranian Revolutionary Guard general in 2020, further fueling those tensions.
Last week, the U.S. charged a Guard member in absentia for allegedly plotting to kill one-time Trump adviser and Iran hawk John Bolton. Former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and an aide are under 24-hour security over alleged threats from Iran.
Meanwhile, U.S. prosecutors say Iran tried to kidnap in 2021 an Iranian opposition activist and writer living in New York. In recent days, a man with an assault rifle was arrested near her home.
Other denials from the Foreign Ministry have included Tehran’s transfer of weapons to Yemen’s Houthi rebels amid that country’s long civil war. Independent experts, Western nations and U.N. experts have traced weapon components back to Iran.
___
Follow Jon Gambrell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/08/15/iran-denies-being-involved-attack-salman-rushdie/ | 2022-08-15T09:11:02Z |
Purported thief leaves flyers asking for donations to stop stealing
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) - Police are urging people not to send money after San Francisco residents found flyers on their cars claiming to be from a thief who wants to stop stealing and asked for help paying their bills.
Marcia Saephan found a flyer on her windshield when she parked near the University of San Francisco. It read, “I don’t want to steal anymore! But I still have bills to pay. Can you help me please?” The flyer then lists three ways to pay: Cash App, Bitcoin and PayPal.
Saephan believes the flyer amounts to extortion. She says she was afraid that if she didn’t pay, her car could get broken into.
“I was actually a little scared, a little rattled. I didn’t know if they were going to come back to break into my car or anyone else’s car,” she said. “It was something I had to consider every time I came to work and actually adjusting the way I parked and where I parked. So, it did affect me, and it still does.”
Saephan says multiple cars had the same flyer. She says car break-ins around the area happen frequently, especially during the holidays.
Even though she decided not to pay, her co-worker who also got the flyer did send money.
Etay Maor, the senior director of security strategy at Cato Networks, is a cybersecurity expert. He said this type of crime involving crypto and apps is in some cases hard to trace.
“Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency based on a block chain, so while it’s impossible to know who’s behind a specific wallet, you can still follow traces and see which transactions reach which wallet,” he said.
PayPal confirmed the account included on the flyer is real. After investigating, the company is taking action to terminate the account.
“Any illegal behavior is a direct violation of the PayPal user agreement, and any violations of this nature will result in an account being terminated,” said the company in part.
San Francisco Police said this is the first time they have seen this criminal approach but confirmed the city is experiencing an uptick in auto burglaries. Police haven’t confirmed if the person behind the flyer is a suspect of any crime and urged people not to send money.
Copyright 2022 KGO via CNN Newsource. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/08/15/purported-thief-leaves-flyers-asking-donations-stop-stealing/ | 2022-08-15T09:11:09Z |
Second fatal shooting this month near George Floyd Square
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - One man died and another was seriously injured in the second fatal shooting this month near the intersection where George Floyd died in police custody in 2020.
Minneapolis Police spokesman Officer Garrett Parten said officers found two wounded men Sunday afternoon near the intersection that was renamed to remember Floyd’s death.
One man died at the hospital and the other man’s condition wasn’t immediately available.
A week before Sunday’s shooting, Mohamed Omar, 29, died after he was shot in the same area.
Parten said the police department will likely increase patrols in the area after the two shootings.
The intersection known as George Floyd Square became a makeshift memorial after Floyd’s death and was officially renamed earlier this year.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/08/15/second-fatal-shooting-this-month-near-george-floyd-square/ | 2022-08-15T09:38:41Z |
Insights from Chen Liyu, SVP of Bairong Inc. on Banks to Moving from An MAU-Driven to an AUM-Driven Approach of Digitalization
BEIJING, Aug. 15, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Bairong Inc. ("Bairong" or "the Company", 6608.HK), a leading independent AI-powered technology platform in China, called on banks in China to speed up the digitalization of their wealth management businesses to meet the growing demand from the burgeoning middle-class families.
It is expected that the total assets of personal wealth management in China will increase by 10% annually from 2021 to 2025, according to a study published by McKinsey.
"With the fast development of AI, 5G, blockchain, and virtual technology, the finance industry should leverage cutting-edge technologies for the digital transformation, and it is imperative for banks to digitalize their wealth management business as the market is undergoing significant changes," said Chen Liyu, senior vice president of Bairong at a recent industry event in Qingdao, Shandong Province.
The digital capability has become a key driver for financial institutions to boost the wealth management business. The digitalization of services will spur the total assets of wealth management to increase by 25% to 50%, and help financial institutions grow their revenues by 15% to 30% and profits by 25% to 50%, according to a report by Boston Consulting Group.
As banks in China have been racing to transform their businesses with digital technologies, the monthly active users (MAU) have become the primary target over the past few years, and almost everything insides banks has been mobilized to reach the MAU target, including sales and marketing, operations, procedure, risk management, and organization structure.
"Over the next decade, the asset under management (AUM), instead of MAU, will become the primary target for banks in China," said Chen Liyu. "This change of target will bring significant consequences for banks in their strategic planning, sales and marketing model, operations management, and even corporate culture."
Facing the new trend, financial institutions will need to leverage digital technologies to expand the services, reduce reliance on star managers, enlarge customer coverage, and improve collaboration efficiency, which will help them reach both MAU and AUM targets, added Chen Liyu.
With the leading technology platform to empower financial institutions, Bairong is committed to supporting the digital transformation of China's financial industry. With smart analytics services and solutions covering the whole business process, Bairong's client base includes the majority of state-owned banks, regional banks, consumer finance companies and main insurance companies. By the end of the first quarter of 2022, the Company provided services to 5,900 FSP clients in China, including 3,501 paying FSP clients.
About Bairong Inc.
Founded in March 2014, Bairong is a leading independent AI-powered technology platform in China serving more than 5,900 financial services provider clients. Bairong was the largest independent financial big data analytics solutions provider in China. Adhering to the mission of empowering every financial services provider in China with smart and comprehensive data analytics, Bairong has built a cloud-native technology platform that supports the full business cycle of FSP clients, including data analytics, decision-making support and smart consumer operation solutions, enabling them to improve risk management ability, promote user activity and operational efficiency. Bairong also provides big data marketing and distribution services that enable FSP clients to reach and serve their target customers more effectively.
For more information, please visit Bairong.
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SOURCE Bairong Inc. | https://www.whsv.com/prnewswire/2022/08/15/bairong-inc-digitalization-wealth-management-is-imperative-banks/ | 2022-08-15T09:38:47Z |
HONG KONG and BEIJING, Aug. 15, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Madison Auction is excited to present 2022 Madison August Live Auction at 10 am (HKT), Saturday, August 20th in Hong Kong, the stunning 555 lots of which includes 407 lots of wines (includes 130 lots of Bordeaux, 211 lots of Burgundy, 33 lots of American cult wines, 16 lots of Champagne, etc.), 43 lots of whiskies, with a total estimate of HK$23,000,000 - HK$39,000,000.
This sale will be live-streamed on Madison Auction bidding platform (www.madison-auction.com/auctions) and the Madison Auction App (search 'Madison Auction' in the app store). Take advantage of the last few days to place online absentee bid via the bidding platform and app.
As the first Hong Kong based luxury lifestyle auction house, Madison Auction hosts auctions for the unique pool of high-net-worth clients from APAC and other regions. Madison Auction continues to accept consignments at 0% seller's commission throughout the year for upcoming sales.
In addition to Hong Kong, Madison Auction will also set up salerooms in Shanghai and Shenzhen, allowing more mainland bidders to simultaneously attend the auction via live streaming. And even more specifically, the Shanghai saleroom will be jointly hold by Madison Auction and FGA together, with various industry entrepreneurs, elites, enthusiasts, and KOLs to be invited to present an extraordinary auction experience.
407 Lots Wine (Lots 1 – 407)
Of these 407 lots of wines, about 30% are from Bordeaux, 50% from Burgundy, 10% from Napa Valley.
Steal a glance, you will see a beautiful Arnaud Ente collection that haven't appeared on market for a long time (Lot 207-211). Bizot has been one of the hottest items among Burgundy collectors, and there are quite a few lots from 2012-2015 vintages with perfect conditions (Lot 36, 37, 212-218).
Besides these splendid and bright young generations, this auction does not lack reputable classic wineries. There are couple sets of DRC assortments in original wooden cases (Lot 160 & 161), Contis from legendary vintages (Lot 177 & 191), and even a set in banded wooden case (Lot 355). Leroy is certainly the other top Burgundy; besides the most applauded Musigny (Lot 219 & 220), there is also one bottle of the rarest Corton-Charlemagne from 2008 (Lot 163), one of the greatest vintages for Burgundy whites.
Bordeaux lovers, there are many classic Châteaus in their best drinking windows, such as Vieux Château Certan 1989 (Lot 102). Several large formats, such as the 1985 Le Pin double magnum (Lot 84), will certainly add icing on the cake to your collections.
The 1999 Salon in original wooden case (Lot 145 & 146) or the Jacques Selosse disgorged in early years (Lot 376-379) may excite all Champagne collectors.
Napa fanatics, now Madison Auction presents to you the top producers in the 70s-90s, including the superb vintage 1994 (Lot 182, 370). Some other rare and collectible wines are 2007 Rayas Blanc (Lot 148), 1988 Soldera (Lot 71), Château d'Yquem 80s vintage assortment ((Lot 95), and SQN Mr.K (Lot 400).
43 Lots Spirit (Lots 408 – 450)
The highly acclaimed Sake Mujaku is extremely difficult to find on market, there are two lots of back-vintage (Lot 408 & 409) to all sake aficionados.
Also from Japan, highly-limited bottles from the most reputable distilleries such as Karuizawa, Hanyu, etc. If you are a Japanese whisky enthusiast, you may also appreciate「和馨」(Lot 442), Hibiki limited editions (Lot 447 & 448) such as Aritayaki (有田燒) and Kutani Yaki (九谷燒).
The full set of Edition No.1-No.6 (Lot 423), the Archival Series Folio 4 (Lot 422), and Diamond Jubilee 2012 Queen Elizabeth Anniversary (Lot 420) to complete the Macallan collection.
Recommendation
2011 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Assortment
Lot 160 | 10 Bottles, Banded OWC
Est. HK$ 320,000 - HK$ 600,000
- 2011 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Romanée-Conti Grand Cru (1)
- 2011 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti La Tâche Grand Cru (2)
- 2011 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Richebourg Grand Cru (1)
- 2011 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Grands Échézeaux Grand Cru (2)
- 2011 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Échézeaux Grand Cru (2)
- 2011 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Romanée-Saint-Vivant Grand Cru (2)
1999 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Assortment
Lot 161 | 12 Bottles, OWC
Est. HK$ 600,000 - HK$ 1,100,000
- 1999 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Romanée-Conti Grand Cru (1)
- 1999 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti La Tâche Grand Cru (3)
- 1999 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Richebourg Grand Cru (2)
- 1999 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Grands Échézeaux Grand Cru (2)
- 1999 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Échézeaux Grand Cru (2)
- 1999 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Romanée-Saint-Vivant Grand Cru (2)
DRC Assortments are always the hot but rare property in the auction, for those with the original wooden cases (OWC) are undoubtedly the Helen in the Trojan war! Vintage 1999 and 2011 are both collectible and drinkable for Burgundy, with only one beauty available each, it is time to move her heart.
1998 Domaine Leroy Musigny Grand Cru
Lot 219 & 220 | 1 Bottle | RP 96 | 585 bottles produced
Est. HK$ 260,000 - HK$ 400,000
The vintage 1998 is beginning to reveal its distinctive aromas and style of Leroy, a top Musigny producer known for its low yields and high quality. Hunt the true gems now.
2008 Domaine Leroy Corton-Charlemagne Grand Cru
Lot 163 | 1 Bottle | BH 93 | 1,510 bottles produced| Capsule: Perfectly waxed
Est. HK$ 65,000 - HK$ 100,000
Leroy Corten-Charlemagne shares its reputation with the same appellation of Coche-Dury. 2008 is a great vintage of Burgundy whites and well worth the price.
Domaine Arnaud Ente Mixed Lot (1)
Lot 210 | 4 Bottles+1 Magnum
Est. HK$ 30,000 - HK$ 55,000
2014 Domaine Arnaud Ente Meursault, Clos des Ambres (4)
2014 Domaine Arnaud Ente Volnay 1er Cru, Santenots-du-Milieu (1 Magnum)
A well-lauded Meursault producer in recent years. This mixed lot shall lead people on a fantastic journey to discover the charm of Arnaud Ente's Reds & Whites.
Suntory 「和馨」Blended Whisky
Lot 442 | 1 Bottle, Singe OC | Alc: 43%, Vol: 700ml
Est. HK$ 45,000 - HK$ 75,000
This blended whisky is aged in the old Mizunara casks from Yamazaki Distillery including a 1984 vintage, created by the 4th generation of Suntory's Chief Blender Shinji Fukuyoa. Only 539 bottles of this limited-edition masterpiece were released, and it is no longer available for sale.
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SOURCE Madison Auction Limited | https://www.whsv.com/prnewswire/2022/08/15/catch-glimpse-madison-2022-august-live-auction-wine-amp-spirit/ | 2022-08-15T09:38:52Z |
HONG KONG, Aug. 15, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- China Literature Limited ("China Literature" or "the Company", stock code: 0772), a leading online literature and intellectual property ("IP") incubation platform in China, today announced the unaudited consolidated results for the six months ended June 30, 2022.
Results Highlights(1)
- Total revenues were RMB4,087.2 million (USD609.0 million), compared with RMB4,342.1 million in the first half of 2021.
- On a non-IFRS(2) basis, which is intended to reflect core earnings by excluding certain one-time and/or non-cash items:
- Operating profit increased 8.2% year-over-year to RMB693.8 million (USD103.4 million). Operating margin increased from 14.8% to 17.0%.
- Profit attributable to equity holders of the Company increased 0.2% year-over-year to RMB666.0 million (USD99.2 million). Its margin increased from 15.3% to 16.3%.
- Basic earnings per share were RMB0.66. Diluted earnings per share were RMB0.65. - On an IFRS basis:
- Operating profit was RMB251.2 million (USD37.4 million), compared with RMB1,284.0 million in the first half of 2021. The year-over-year difference was mainly due to a gain of RMB1,076.8 million related to the sale of our stake in a joint venture in the first half of 2021.
- Profit attributable to equity holders of the Company was RMB228.5 million (USD34.1 million), compared with RMB1,082.7 million in the first half of 2021.
- Basic earnings per share were RMB0.23. Diluted earnings per share were RMB0.22.
Mr. Edward Cheng, Chief Executive Officer of China Literature, commented: "During the first half of 2022, the overall macro environment presented many challenges and put pressure on our industry. The volatility of the market forced us to adopt a more forward-thinking and flexible approach, and to explore a healthier and more sustainable growth trajectory. We took initiatives to optimize costs and improve efficiency, and sharpened our focus on key business and long-term objectives. Our operational efficiency improved significantly as a result. Non-IFRS operating profit increased by 8.2% year-over-year to RMB693.8 million, and non-IFRS operating margin increased from 14.8% a year ago to 17.0% in the first half of 2022.
At the same time, we released compelling visual content including drama series A Lifelong Journey (人世间), Life is A Long Quiet River (心居), The Wind Blows from Longxi (风起陇西) and Master of My Own (请叫我总监), the film Too Cool to Kill (这个杀手不太冷静), as well as a number of exciting animated series. Continuous release of high-quality content, particularly blockbusters, reflected the depth of our resources for transforming literary content into video and other formats, supporting our long-term strategy of IP adaptation to visual modes. In addition, as an important part of improving the content ecosystem, we enhanced our copyright protection and anti-piracy efforts, which were widely recognized by our writers.
We believe that the cultural industry in China has great potential. The short-term challenges have not had a deep impact on the general trend and long-term prospects of the industry. Our long-term strategy remains unchanged. We will continue to focus on the incubation, development and operation of good stories that can live forever."
Financial Review(3)
Revenues were RMB4,087.2 million (USD609.0 million), compared with RMB4,342.1 million in the first half of 2021.
Revenues from online business were RMB2,307.0 million (USD343.7 million), compared with RMB2,540.0 million in the first half of 2021. A further breakdown of this category is as follows: i) online business revenues from the Company's self-owned platform products were RMB1,763.1 million (USD262.7 million), compared with RMB1,880.7 million in the prior corresponding period, mainly as a result of a reduction in spending on marketing for user acquisition for our online business as we took initiatives to optimize costs and improve operational efficiency during the first half of 2022; ii) online business revenues from our self-operated channels on Tencent products broadly stabilized at RMB347.5 million (USD51.8 million), compared with RMB353.5 million in the prior corresponding period; iii) and online business revenues from third-party platforms were RMB196.5 million (USD29.3 million), compared with RMB305.8 million in the prior corresponding period, mainly as we suspended collaboration with certain third-party distribution partners during the first half of 2022.
Revenues from IP operations and others were RMB1,780.2 million (USD265.2 million), compared with RMB1,802.2 million in the prior corresponding period, among which i) revenues from IP operations were broadly stable at RMB1,731.3 million (USD258.0 million), compared with RMB1,740.1 million in the first half of 2021, and ii) revenues from the "others" category, consisting mainly of sales of physical books, decreased 21.2% year-over-year to RMB48.9 million (USD7.3 million) in the first half of 2022.
Cost of revenues decreased 5.5% year-over-year to RMB1,940.9 million (USD289.2 million), as a result of i) a decrease in amortization of intangible assets of content copyrights due to the high base effect in the prior corresponding period, ii) a reduction in platform distribution costs for our online businesses, and iii) lower content costs. The decrease in the cost of revenues was partially offset by an increase in production costs of TV, web and animated series and film along with the increase in revenues.
Gross profit decreased 6.2% year-over-year to RMB2,146.3 million (USD319.8 million). Gross margin was 52.5%, compared with 52.7% in the prior corresponding period.
Interest income increased 13.6% year-over-year to RMB68.9 million (USD10.3 million), reflecting higher interest income from bank deposits.
Other losses, net were RMB235.4 million (USD35.1 million), compared with net other gains of RMB901.1 million in the prior corresponding period. The year-over-year difference was mainly due to a gain of RMB1,076.8 million related to the sale of our equity interest in Lazy Audio during the first half of 2021. The other losses in the first half of 2022 consisted mainly of fair value losses of RMB372.9 million (USD55.6 million) resulting from the decreased valuations of our investee companies, partially offset by a fair value gain of RMB112.2 million (USD16.7 million) due to a change in the fair value of consideration liabilities related to the acquisition of New Classics Media.
Selling and marketing expenses decreased 17.6% year-over-year to RMB1,110.5 million (USD165.5 million), mainly as we reduced promotion and advertising expenses for our online business as a part of cost control and efficiency improvement initiatives during the first half of 2022. The decrease was partially offset by greater marketing expenses to promote our films and drama series. As a percentage of revenues, selling and marketing expenses decreased to 27.2% in the first half of 2022 from 31.0% in the first half of 2021.
General and administrative expenses decreased 12.2% year-over-year to RMB557.5 million (USD83.1 million), primarily due to a decrease in research and development expenses. As a percentage of revenues, general and administrative expenses decreased to 13.6% in the first half of 2022 from 14.6% in the first half of 2021.
Net provision for impairment losses on financial assets reflected a provision for doubtful receivables. In the first half of 2022, the provision for doubtful receivables was RMB60.5 million (USD9.0 million) on a net basis, mainly related to TV series and film projects.
Operating profit was RMB251.2 million (USD37.4 million), compared with RMB1,284.0 million in the prior corresponding period. Non-IFRS operating profit increased 8.2% year-over-year to RMB693.8 million (USD103.4 million), reflecting our successful efforts to control operational costs.
Income tax expense was RMB108.2 million (USD16.1 million), compared with RMB284.4 million for the same period of last year.
Profit attributable to equity holders of the Company was RMB228.5 million (USD34.1 million), compared with RMB1,082.7 million in the prior corresponding period. Non-IFRS profit attributable to equity holders of the Company increased 0.2% year-over-year to RMB666.0 million (USD99.2 million).
Key Operating Information
- Average MAUs on our self-owned platform products and self-operated channels increased 13.8% year-over-year from 232.7 million to 264.7 million in the first half of 2022. A further breakdown of MAUs is as follows: i) MAUs on our self-owned platform products increased 4.5% year-over-year from 114.6 million to 119.8 million, mainly driven by our strengths in high-quality content; and ii) MAUs on our self-operated channels on Tencent products increased 22.7% year-over-year from 118.1 million to 144.9 million, mainly due to growth in users for our free-to-read content.
- Average MPUs on our self-owned platform products and self-operated channels decreased 12.9% year-over-year from 9.3 million to 8.1 million in the first half of 2022, mainly as more casual users were attracted to our free-to-read content in the second half of 2021. Average MPUs remained stable as compared to 8.1 million in the second half of 2021.
- Monthly ARPU for our pay-to-read business increased 6.6% year-over-year from RMB36.4 to RMB38.8 in the first half of 2022, reflecting improvements in content operations, community features, and recommendation efficiency. These drove the demand of paying users for high-quality content during the first half of 2022.
- Average DAUs for our free-to-read business were 14 million in June 2022, compared with 13 million in June 2021.
Other Key Information
- EBITDA decreased 4.2% year-over-year from RMB626.9 million to RMB600.6 million (USD89.5 million) in the first half of 2022. Adjusted EBITDA increased 5.1% year-over-year from RMB708.9 million to RMB745.1 million (USD111.0 million) in the first half of 2022.
- As of June 30, 2022, the Company's net cash position was RMB6,555.7 million (USD976.8 million).
- Free cash flow* was RMB548.7 million (USD81.7 million), compared to RMB278.9 million in the first half of 2021.
- New Classics Media, on a standalone basis, recorded RMB966.7 million (USD144.0 million) in revenues and RMB208.5 million (USD31.1 million) in profit attributable to equity holders of the company in the first half of 2022.
Business Highlights
IP Creation
As we have mentioned before, the online literature business is where our quality IP content begins. We focused on fundamentals of our online business in our core pay-to-read business, and continued to strengthen our online literature IP ecosystem. During the first half of 2022, the number, quality and visibility of IP on our online literature platform continued to increase.
On the supply side, our online literature platform added approximately 300,000 writers and 600,000 novels, with an increase in word count of 16 billion Chinese characters. At the same time, we accelerated the development of high-quality content in specific categories by improving our system for incubation and operations. For example, at the beginning of this year, we identified through internal analysis the rising potential of science fiction themes, leading us to organize two science fiction writing contests and a series of activities, incubating about 20,000 science fiction works. A number of well-known writers in other thematic areas have also started to create science fiction. During the first half, a total of 12 Platinum and Phenomenal Writers on our platform started to produce science fiction novels, making science fiction the fastest growing genre on our platform.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the founding of Qidian.com under China Literature. We upgraded the brand of Qidian, and launched a new brand proposition of "every good book is a new starting point" and a brand mission of "good books never end" which are consistent with the Company's mission. With quality as the core, we will focus on the incubation of compelling online literature content and encourage content diversification to create a healthy ecosystem for writers.
While improving the quality and quantity of our literary IPs, we also implemented cost control measures, proactively reduced certain sales and marketing expenses, and shifted our focus from prioritizing short-term revenue growth to optimizing operational efficiency and cost structure. As a result, we gave up a portion of revenues during the current period, but we believe these measures will lay a solid foundation for the healthy development of our long-term business.
In order to protect the rights and interests of writers, we enhanced our efforts to combat piracy issues. We deployed artificial intelligence, encrypted watermarks, piracy detection and risk controls and bans to improve our copyright protection and anti-piracy capabilities, and continued to litigate against piracy sites and IP infringement. Our robust efforts to protect copyright and IP have been recognized by writers, helping to win their trust, and is an important part of the ongoing improvement of our content ecosystem.
Visualization of IP
Currently, IP visualization is the focus of our work. In the first half of 2022, we achieved remarkable results. Continuous release of high-quality content, particularly blockbusters, reflected the strong capabilities of China Literature in re-creating literary stories in visual formats, and supports our strategy of IP visualization.
- In the live action TV and film segment, we maintained a top-tier level of productions and launched several compelling new works in the first half of the year, including:
- The drama series, A Lifelong Journey (人世间). Adapted from the Mao Dun Literature Prize-winning novel by contemporary writer Liang Xiaosheng, this blockbuster series set an 8-year record for CCTV-1 prime time drama series ratings, topped all charts across the internet, and achieved results in both reputation and popularity.
- The drama series, Life is A Long Quiet River (心居). The viewership of this family drama series ranked first among local TV prime time drama series ratings nationwide in the first half of this year, and ranked second in the popularity ranking of iQIYI in the first half of this year, right after A Lifelong Journey (人世间).
- The drama series, The Wind Blows from Longxi (风起陇西). Adapted from the novel by Ma Boyong, this drama series was an innovative exploration of the theme of ancient spycraft, with a score of 8.1 on the Douban platform.
- The drama series, Master of My Own (请叫我总监). This romantic drama series ranked first for local TV prime time drama series ratings nationwide and ranked first in the list of hot drama series on Youku during its broadcast period.
- The film, Too Cool To Kill (这个杀手不太冷静). The film achieved a box office of RMB2.6 billion, ranking second in the 2022 Spring Festival box office.
- In the animation segment, we launched new seasons of Stellar Transformations (星辰变) and Martial Universe (武动乾坤). At present, the series Stellar Transformations (星辰变) and Martial Universe (武动乾坤) have had 4 billion and 3 billion video views respectively, and ranked No.1 in terms of the average video views per episode among newly released animations on Tencent Video at the time of their launch period in the first half of the year. According to data from Guduo, among the top 20 most watched domestic animation works released on Tencent Video in the first half of 2022, 11 were adapted from China Literature's IP.
- In the comics segment, we continued to improve production capacity, accelerate the process of IP visualization, and incubate top IP. Our joint project with Tencent Comics to adapt 300 online literary works into comics in three years is progressing well. Right now, over 170 adapted comic works have been launched on the Tencent Comics platform. Some titles have become blockbusters, such as Dafeng Guardian (大奉打更人), The First Sequence (第一序列) and Start with a Mountain (开局一座山).
- In the games segment, we strengthened our partnerships with quality game production studios. In the first half of this year, popular IPs such as Battle Through the Heavens (斗破苍穹) and The Naming of Night (夜的命名术) were licensed to game developers for adaptation. We expect to see the release of these adapted games in the next few years.
Commercialization of IP
In the first half of 2022, we continued to build a foundation for the business, shortening the conversion time from IP to offline products, expanding the number of IP and product types, and achieving breakthroughs in theme, product style and design. We focused on opportunities in consumer goods, fashion toys and offline retail. We achieved initial success by working together with upstream and downstream partners in the industry. For example, we licensed a single edition of toy sculptures of the theme character "Medusa" from Battle Through the Heavens (斗破苍穹), which sold out immediately after the pre-sale launch with a GMV of RMB5 million. In future, we will develop derivatives adapted from more IP content, such as Joy of Life (庆余年), Lord of the Mysteries (诡秘之主), The King's Avatar (全职高手) and Candle in the Tomb (鬼吹灯), and offer joint promotion for the launch of drama series, film, animation, comics, games and other content.
Overseas Business
We continued to promote cultural exchange and expand our international presence. As of June 30, 2022, WebNovel, our foreign language online reading brand, offered approximately 2,600 works translated from Chinese and approximately 420,000 original content works created locally.
Social Responsibility
China Literature takes account of its social responsibilities by promoting the development of good reading habits through social activities and public welfare projects in order to support the national campaign of "reading for all". During the pandemic outbreak this year, we donated several millions of membership cards to users in pandemic-affected areas including Shanghai, Shenzhen and Suzhou, allowing them to read a large number of works for free. On World Book and Copyright Day this year, we collaborated with the National Library of China, Shanghai Library, People's Literature Publishing House, Posts & Telecom Press and hundreds of other publishing units to promote nationwide reading. Our Qidian Reading App launched the "Nationwide Reading Month" campaign with 217 high-quality paid books available for free reading for the first time.
Outlook
Online literature has begun to show value and possibilities that go beyond print. The realization of such value will depend on our efforts. With online literature as the starting point, China Literature has gradually expanded to various media formats including drama series, film, animation, comics, games and offline merchandise. While meeting the diverse literary, entertainment and cultural needs of people, various works adapted from our original IP amplify the bandwidth of the original narrative and form a mutually reinforcing virtuous cycle. China's IP industry is still at an early stage, and will need sustained investment in IP development and creative talent. By strengthening our own IP resources, we hope to link with industry partners to create IP that spans the whole value chain, in the service of good stories that will live forever.
About China Literature Limited
China Literature is dedicated to building a deep and immersive intellectual property ("IP") universe for the Mandarin-speaking world. It incubates original IPs from its online literature platform, which are subsequently adapted on a range of digital entertainment mediums, including comics, animation, film, TV series, web series and games. The virtual world created by these digital offerings become an inseparable part of a user's daily life. China Literature creates and promotes IPs mainly through QQ Reading and Qidian, its leading online literature platforms, as well as New Classics Media, a renowned film and TV drama series production house in China. China Literature collaborates with Tencent, its shareholder and strategic partner, as well as other third-party partners to distribute and develop IP content and to enhance value of its IP. Many of the Company's online literature works have been successfully adapted into animation, TV series, web series, film and games, including Joy of Life, Candle in the Tomb, Soul Land, The King's Avatar and My Heroic Husband. China Literature's rich and extensive content library as well as its unparalleled capability and resources to adapt IP into various entertainment formats is a significant competitive advantage that lies at the core of its business model. For more information, please visit http://ir.yuewen.com/.
Contact
For investors / analysts:
Maggie Zhou
Tel: +8621 6187 0500 ext. 80605
Email: IR@yuewen.com
For media:
Vivian Wang
Tel: +852 2232 3978
Email: vivian.wang@christensencomms.com
Non-IFRS Financial Measures
To supplement the consolidated financial statements of the Company prepared in accordance with IFRS, certain non-IFRS financial measures, namely non-IFRS operating profit, non-IFRS operating margin, non-IFRS profit for the period, non-IFRS net margin, non-IFRS profit attributable to equity holders of the Company, non-IFRS basic EPS and non-IFRS diluted EPS as additional financial measures, have been presented in this press release for the convenience of readers. These unaudited non-IFRS financial measures should be considered in addition to, and not as a substitute for, measures of the Company's financial performance prepared in accordance with IFRS. These non-IFRS financial measures may be defined differently from similar terms used by other companies. In addition, non-IFRS adjustments include relevant non-IFRS adjustments for the Company's material associates based on available published financials of the relevant material associates, or estimates made by the Company's management based on available information, certain expectations, assumptions and premises.
Our management believes that the presentation of these non-IFRS financial measures, when shown in conjunction with the corresponding IFRS measures, provides useful information to investors and management regarding the financial and business trends relating to the Company's financial condition and results of operations. Our management also believes that the non-IFRS financial measures are useful in evaluating the Company's operating performances. From time to time, there may be other items that the Company may include or exclude in reviewing its financial results.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements relating to the industry and business outlook, forecast business plans and growth strategies of the Company. These forward-looking statements are based on information currently available to the Company and are stated herein on the basis of the outlook at the time of this press release. They are based on certain expectations, assumptions and premises, some of which are subjective or beyond our control. These forward-looking statements may prove to be incorrect and may not be realized in future. Underlying the forward-looking statements is a large number of risks and uncertainties. Further information regarding these risks and uncertainties is included in our other public disclosure documents on our corporate website.
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SOURCE China Literature | https://www.whsv.com/prnewswire/2022/08/15/china-literature-announces-2022-interim-results/ | 2022-08-15T09:38:53Z |
SINGAPORE, Aug. 15, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- China Online Education Group ("51Talk" or the "Company") (NYSE: COE), a global online education platform with core expertise in English education, today announced that the audit committee of its board of directors and the board of directors have approved the dismissal of PricewaterhouseCoopers Zhong Tian LLP ("PwC") as its independent registered public accounting firm and the engagement of Marcum Bernstein & Pinchuk LLP ("MBP") as the Company's independent registered public accounting firm. MBP will be engaged to audit the annual consolidated financial statements of the Company and its subsidiaries (the "Group") filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2022.
This transition was not the result of any disagreements or unresolved matters with PwC ,the incumbent auditor of the Company, and there are no matters with respect to this transition that need to be brought to the attention of the Company's shareholders.
Safe Harbor Statement
This press release contains statements that may constitute "forward-looking" statements which are made pursuant to the "safe harbor" provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as "will," "expects," "anticipates," "aims," "future," "intends," "plans," "believes," "estimates," "likely to," and similar statements. 51Talk may also make written or oral forward-looking statements in its periodic reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), in its annual report to shareholders, in press releases and other written materials and in oral statements made by its officers, directors or employees to third parties. Statements that are not historical facts, including statements about 51Talk's beliefs and expectations, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Further information regarding these and other risks is included in 51Talk's filings with the SEC. All information provided in this press release is as of the date of this press release, and 51Talk does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statement, except as required under applicable law.
About China Online Education Group
China Online Education Group (NYSE: COE) is a global online education platform with core expertise in English education. The Company's mission is to make quality education accessible and affordable. The Company's online and mobile education platforms enable students to take live interactive English lessons on demand. The Company connects its students with a large pool of highly qualified teachers that it assembled using a shared economy approach, and employs student and teacher feedback and data analytics to deliver a personalized learning experience to its students.
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SOURCE China Online Education Group | https://www.whsv.com/prnewswire/2022/08/15/china-online-education-group-announces-engagement-marcum-bernstein-amp-pinchuk-llp-us-auditor-companys-independent-registered-public-accounting-firm/ | 2022-08-15T09:38:59Z |
WUHAN, China, Aug. 15, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- DouYu International Holdings Limited ("DouYu" or the "Company") (Nasdaq: DOYU), a leading game-centric live streaming platform in China and a pioneer in the eSports value chain, today announced its unaudited financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2022.
Second Quarter 2022 Financial and Operational Highlights
- Total net revenues in the second quarter of 2022 were RMB1,833.2 million (US$273.7 million), compared with RMB2,336.8 million in the same period of 2021.
- Gross profit in the second quarter of 2022 was RMB309.0 million (US$46.1 million), compared with RMB306.5 million in the same period of 2021.
- Net loss in the second quarter of 2022 was RMB38.8 million (US$5.8 million), compared with RMB181.7 million in the same period of 2021.
- Adjusted net income[1] in the second quarter of 2022 was RMB23.5 million (US$3.5 million), compared with adjusted net loss of RMB145.1 million in the same period of 2021.
- Average mobile MAUs[2] in the second quarter of 2022 were 55.7 million, compared with 60.7 million in the same period of 2021.
- Quarterly average paying user[3] count in the second quarter of 2022 was 6.6 million, compared with 7.2 million in the same period of 2021.
Mr. Shaojie Chen, Chief Executive Officer of DouYu, commented, "During the second quarter, we maintained our focus on enriching our platform's content ecosystem and increased our investment and innovation in self-produced content. At the same time, we optimized our cost control mechanisms and carried out structural adjustments to enhance the quality of our revenue streams. We achieved substantial progress in this quarter, as demonstrated by our stable average mobile MAUs of 55.7 million and our improved financial performance, as our adjusted net income[1] reached RMB23.5 million. Going forward, we will remain committed to executing our business strategy in developing our game-centric comprehensive content platform by leveraging our deeper understanding of the preferences and characteristics of different user categories. Furthermore, we will continue to enrich our innovative tailor-made content in livestreaming, videos, graphics, and interactive communities. We will maintain our leading position in the traditional livestreaming industry by augmenting and developing our game-centric ecosystem and exploring new growth drivers to achieve sustainable and healthy growth."
Mr. Hao Cao, Vice President of DouYu, commented, "Our total revenue in the second quarter reached RMB1.83 billion and gross profit was RMB309.0 million, representing a gross margin of 16.9%. We also achieved adjusted net income[1] of RMB23.5 million. During this quarter, while we further invested into new business initiatives and self-produced content, we continued to optimize our operational efficiency and successfully implemented additional cost control measures. Our attention to operating efficiency has delivered tangible results with improved returns for each game, generating a sequential improvement of gross margin and a turnaround in our adjusted net profit in this quarter. As of the end of the second quarter, we have cash and cash equivalents, restricted cash, short-term and long-term bank deposits of RMB6,685 million. These abundant cash reserves will provide us with ample support to stabilize our core business operations as we navigate through the challenging macro environment. Looking ahead, we remain focused on enhancing our monetization capabilities and developing our operating model to improve operating efficiency as we strive to deliver long-term value to our shareholders."
Second Quarter 2022 Financial Results
Total net revenues in the second quarter of 2022 decreased by 21.6% to RMB1,833.2 million (US$273.7million), compared with RMB2,336.8 million in the same period of 2021.
Livestreaming revenues in the second quarter of 2022 decreased by 18.8% to RMB1,768.3 million (US$264.0 million) from RMB2,178.1 million in the same period of 2021. The decrease was due to the ongoing implementation of prudent operating strategies which primarily included the Company's adjustments to certain interactive features and related operations to promote the long-term development of its platform.
Advertising and other revenues in the second quarter of 2022 were RMB64.9 million (US$9.7 million), compared with RMB158.7 million in the same period of 2021. The decrease was primarily due to the continued exploration of new commercialization models by using a portion of advertising traffic that could have been directly monetized, as well as the soft demand for advertisements coupled with the resurgence of COVID-19 in China.
Cost of revenues in the second quarter of 2022 was RMB1,524.2 million (US$227.6million), a decrease of 24.9% compared with RMB2,030.2 million in the same period of 2021.
Revenue sharing fees and content costs in the second quarter of 2022 decreased by 27.2% to RMB1,314.7 million (US$196.3 million) from RMB1,806.8 million in the same period of 2021. The decrease was primarily due to decreased revenue sharing fees which outpaced the decrease in livestreaming revenues as a result of our effective implementation of prudent and ROI-focused operating strategies, as well as a significant decrease in copyright costs.
Bandwidth costs in the second quarter of 2022 decreased by 11.2% to RMB143.7million (US$21.5 million) from RMB161.8 million in the same period of 2021. The decrease was mainly due to less peak bandwidth usage for fewer purchased eSports tournaments, as well as lower per unit bandwidth costs as a result of improved procurement efficiency.
Gross profit in the second quarter of 2022 was RMB309.0 million (US$46.1 million), compared with RMB306.5 million in the same period of 2021. Gross margin in the second quarter of 2022 improved to 16.9% from 13.1% in the same period of 2021. The increase in gross margin was primarily due to the decreases in both revenue sharing fees and copyright costs as a percentage of total net revenues.
Sales and marketing expenses in the second quarter of 2022 decreased 43.2% to RMB167.5 million (US$25.0 million) from RMB295.0 million in the same period of 2021. The decrease was mainly attributable to the significant decrease in marketing expenses for user acquisition and decreased personnel-related expenses.
Research and development expenses in the second quarter of 2022 decreased 17.2% to RMB101.9 million (US$15.2million) from RMB123.0 million in the same period of 2021. The decrease was primarily attributable to the decrease in personnel-related expenses.
General and administrative expenses in the second quarter of 2022 decreased 11.7% to RMB90.7 million (US$13.5million) from RMB102.6 million in the same period of 2021. The decrease was primarily due to the decreased professional service fees.
Other operating income, net in the second quarter of 2022 was RMB20.4 million (US$3.0 million), compared with other operating income of RMB16.7 million in the same period of 2021.
Loss from operations in the second quarter of 2022 was RMB30.6 million (US$4.6 million), compared with RMB197.4 million in the same period of 2021.
Adjusted operating income in the second quarter of 2022, which adds back share-based compensation expenses, was RMB0.3 million (US$0.0 million), compared with adjusted operating loss of RMB165.1 million in the same period of 2021.
Net loss in the second quarter of 2022 was RMB38.8 million (US$5.8 million), compared with RMB181.7 million in the same period of 2021.
Adjusted net income in the second quarter of 2022, which excludes share-based compensation expenses, share of loss in equity method investments, and impairment loss of investments, was RMB23.5 million (US$3.5million), compared with adjusted net loss of RMB145.1 million in the same period of 2021.
Basic and diluted net loss per ADS[4] in the second quarter of 2022 were RMB0.10 (US$0.01) and RMB0.10 (US$0.01, respectively. Adjusted basic and diluted net income per ADS in the second quarter of 2022 were RMB0.10 (US$0.01) and RMB0.10 (US$0.01), respectively.
Cash and cash equivalents, restricted cash and bank deposits
As of June 30, 2022, the Company had cash and cash equivalents, restricted cash, short-term and long-term bank deposits of RMB6,685 million (US$998.0 million), compared with RMB6,643 million as of December 31, 2021.
Conference Call Information
The Company will hold a conference call on August 15, 2022, at 7:00am Eastern Time (or 7:00pm Beijing Time on the same day) to discuss the financial results. Listeners may access the call by dialing the following numbers:
The replay will be accessible through August 22, 2022, by dialing the following numbers:
A live and archived webcast of the conference call will also be available at the Company's investor relations website at http://ir.douyu.com/.
About DouYu International Holdings Limited
Headquartered in Wuhan, China, DouYu International Holdings Limited (Nasdaq: DOYU) is a leading game-centric live streaming platform in China and a pioneer in the eSports value chain. DouYu operates its platform on both PC and mobile apps to bring users access to immersive and interactive games and entertainment livestreaming, a wide array of video and graphic contents, as well as opportunities to participate in community events and discussions. By nurturing a sustainable technology-based talent development system and relentlessly producing high-quality content, DouYu consistently delivers premium content through integration of livestreaming, video, graphics, and virtual communities with a primary focus on games, especially on eSports. This enables DouYu to continuously expand its user base and enhance its user experience. For more information, please see http://ir.douyu.com/.
Use of Non-GAAP Financial Measures
Adjusted operating (loss) income is calculated as loss from operation adjusted for share-based compensation expenses. Adjusted net (loss) income is calculated as net loss adjusted for share-based compensation expenses, share of loss in equity method investments, and impairment loss on investments. Adjusted net (loss) income attributable to DouYu is calculated as net loss attributable to DouYu adjusted for share-based compensation expenses, share of loss in equity method investments, and impairment loss of investments. Adjusted basic and diluted net (loss) income per ordinary share is non-GAAP net income attributable to ordinary shareholders divided by weighted average number of ordinary shares used in the calculation of non-GAAP basic and diluted net (loss) income per ordinary share. The Company adjusted the impact of (i) share-based compensation expenses, (ii) share of loss in equity method investments, (iii) impairment loss of investments to understand and evaluate the Company's core operating performance. The non-GAAP financial measures are presented to enhance investors' overall understanding of the Company's financial performance and should not be considered a substitute for, or superior to, the financial information prepared and presented in accordance with U.S. GAAP. Investors are encouraged to review the reconciliation of the historical non-GAAP financial measures to its most directly comparable GAAP financial measures. As non-GAAP financial measures have material limitations as analytical metrics and may not be calculated in the same manner by all companies, they may not be comparable to other similarly titled measures used by other companies. In light of the foregoing limitations, you should not consider non-GAAP financial measures as a substitute for, or superior to, such metrics in accordance with U.S. GAAP.
For more information on these non-GAAP financial measures, please see the table captioned "Reconciliations of Non-GAAP Results" near the end of this release.
Exchange Rate Information
This announcement contains translations of certain RMB amounts into U.S. dollars at a specified rate solely for the convenience of the reader. Unless otherwise noted, all translations from RMB to U.S. dollars are made at a rate of RMB6.6981 to US$1.00, the noon buying rate in effect on June 30, 2022, in the H.10 statistical release of the Federal Reserve Board. The Company makes no representation that the RMB amounts could have been, or could be, converted, realized or settled in U.S. dollars at that rate on June 30, 2022, or at any other rate.
Safe Harbor Statement
This press release contains forward-looking statements. These statements are made under the "safe harbor" provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Statements that are not historical facts, including statements about the Company's beliefs and expectations, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties, and a number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement, including but not limited to the following: the Company's results of operations and financial condition; the Company's business strategies; general market conditions, in particular the game live streaming market; the ability of the Company to retain and grow active and paying users; changes in general economic and business conditions in China; the impact of the COVID-19 to the Company's business operations and the economy in China and globally; any adverse changes in laws, regulations, rules, policies or guidelines applicable to the Company; and assumptions underlying or related to any of the foregoing. In some cases, forward-looking statements can be identified by words or phrases such as "may," "will," "expect," "anticipate," "target," "aim," "estimate," "intend," "plan," "believe," "potential," "continue," "is/are likely to" or other similar expressions. Further information regarding these and other risks, uncertainties or factors is included in the Company's filings with the Securities Exchange Commission. All information provided in this press release is as of the date of this press release, and the Company does not undertake any duty to update such information, except as required under applicable law.
Investor Relations Contact
Lingling Kong
|DouYu International Holdings Limited
Email: ir@douyu.tv
Phone: +1 (646) 224-6934
Robin Yang
ICR, LLC
Email: DouYu.IR@icrinc.com
Phone: +1 (646) 224-6934
Media Relations Contact
Lingling Kong
DouYu International Holdings Limited
Email: pr_douyu@douyu.tv
Phone: +1 (646) 308-1475
Edmond Lococo
ICR, LLC
Email: DouYu.PR@icrinc.com
Phone: +1 (646) 308-1475
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SOURCE DouYu International Holdings Limited | https://www.whsv.com/prnewswire/2022/08/15/douyu-international-holdings-limited-reports-second-quarter-2022-unaudited-financial-results/ | 2022-08-15T09:39:01Z |
- EQONEX will streamline to focus on Asset Management and Custody
- EQONEX to proactively exit the crowded crypto exchange space, closing its crypto Exchange on August 22, 2022
- Exchange clients will have sufficient time to manage and close their trading positions and withdraw their assets off the exchange
- The Exchange closure will materially reduce the Company's cost structure and position the Company for sustainable growth.
SINGAPORE, Aug. 15, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- EQONEX Limited (NASDAQ: EQOS) ("EQONEX" or the "Company"), a digital assets financial services company, today announced that it is taking decisive action to streamline its operations and focus resources primarily on the businesses that offer the most potential for revenue growth and long-term financial sustainability: Asset Management and Custody. The Company will proactively exit the crowded crypto exchange space by closing the Exchange.
EQONEX Chairman Chi-Won Yoon recently outlined the Company's strategic priorities and intention to focus its resources on businesses where it has significant competitive strengths and can leverage its traditional finance expertise and experience. The decision by the EQONEX Board of Directors to accelerate its strategic plan and close the Exchange is in alignment with this strategic framework.
Closing the Exchange will improve the Company's financial position by materially reducing the high-cost structure associated with operating the Exchange, and free up resources to drive growth in the segments where it has significant competitive strengths.
The Exchange was launched during a period of rapid growth and competition within the crypto industry, and the market is now comprised of close to 300 spot exchanges, many of which share comparable features. Intense market competition and low margins, combined with the significant technological load required to ensure optimal performance has made running a profitable exchange increasingly challenging, especially in the current environment where crypto exchange volumes have fallen.
EQONEX's Asset Management business encompasses Investment Products and Bletchley Park, a fund of crypto hedge funds. The Investment Products business recently received approval from Germany's Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) for the issuance of an exchange-traded products, which resulted in the launch of the EQONEX Bitcoin Exchange-Traded Note (ETN) on the Deutsche Börse XETRA Exchange in July 2022.
In addition, EQONEX will be launching a Structured Products business in the near future that will offer professional investors and institutions exposure to bespoke crypto investments. The Company also recently announced several high-caliber, senior appointments to the Asset Management team to drive growth in Asia and Europe.
Digivault, the group's digital asset custody business, is in the unique position of being one of only a few digital asset custody providers to be registered with the Financial Conduct Authority in the United Kingdom. Digivault is a provider of choice for law enforcement agencies and recently became the first custody partner of poundtoken.io, the first British-Isles regulated and 100% backed GBP stablecoin.
The Company's focus on regulation and governance has also been a driving feature since its inception, and it plans to continue its efforts to secure regulatory licenses for its on-going businesses with the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission.
EQONEX CEO Jonathan Farnell said, "We are focused on opportunities that will drive revenue growth and position us for long-term success. Closing the Exchange will significantly simplify our business, narrow our focus, free up resources, and allow us to operate as a more efficient organization with capacity to aggressively go after market segments that offer the most potential."
"The recent extreme market volatility and declining trading volumes have added to the headwinds being felt by exchange operators. We take a realistic view that our exchange will not move the needle for us financially over the near-to-medium term. We don't see value in continuing to bear the costs of operating an exchange during what may be a prolonged market downturn. We have conviction that proactively exiting the crowded exchange space is the right decision to deliver shareholder value."
"Our Asset Management and Custody business, Digivault, have already made solid progress with the additional resources that we have allocated to them recently, and we are bullish about their prospects as we become an organization focused on these high-potential business areas".
EQONEX Chairman Chi-Won Yoon said, "Nimble and resilient companies can adapt and evolve to navigate market conditions and exploit opportunities. We are now firmly committed to the areas where we have the expertise and experience to serve a growing customer segment, and where we can ultimately deliver the most investor value."
"Digital asset custody and asset management businesses have high barriers to entry given their unique security, technology and regulatory specifications. We have already laid solid foundations for our businesses to thrive, and with increased focus and resources, we are well positioned to harness our competitive advantages and capitalize on market opportunities."
EQONEX's principal place of business will move from Hong Kong to the United Kingdom given Asset Management and Custody operations are predominantly UK-based, together with the majority of the Executive Management team.
Timeline for Exchange customers:
EQONEX aims to provide customers with sufficient time to trade out of existing derivative positions and withdraw assets from the exchange before it ceases operations.
- The Exchange will close for trading at 08.00 AM UTC on 22 August 2022. Clients should aim to close out their derivative trading positions during this seven-day window.
- Customers will then have between 15 August and 8.00 AM UTC on 14 September (30 days from this announcement) to withdraw their assets into another wallet. Withdrawal fees will be waived.
- The EQO token, being an exchange-only token that cannot be withdrawn, will cease trading with immediate effect. EQONEX will communicate with holders directly regarding their EQO balance.
- More detailed customer information is available at www.eqonex.com
About EQONEX
EQONEX Limited (NASDAQ: EQOS) is a technology driven digital assets financial services group that provides institutional grade infrastructure and a full suite of trading, custody and asset management solutions to clients. The Group's digital assets ecosystem has been designed to accommodate the needs of institutions and individuals with the same degree of regulatory oversight and security they are accustomed to in traditional financial markets. EQONEX's ecosystem primarily encompasses Digivault, a FCA- registered custodian, Asset Management which encompasses investment products, and Bletchley Park, a fund of crypto-hedge funds, and Brokerage which includes Structured Products, OTC and lending services.
For more information visit: https://group.eqonex.com/
Follow EQONEX on social media on Twitter @eqonex, on Facebook @eqonex, and on LinkedIn.
Forward-Looking Information
Any forward-looking statements in this press release are based on available current market material and management's expectations, beliefs and forecasts concerning future events impacting EQONEX. You are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties, as well as assumptions, which, if they were to ever materialize or prove incorrect, could cause the results of EQONEX to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements made in this press release speak only as of the date hereof and we disclaim any obligation, except as required by law, to provide updates, revisions or amendments to any forward-looking statements to reflect changes in our expectations or future events.
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SOURCE EQONEX | https://www.whsv.com/prnewswire/2022/08/15/eqonex-streamline-operations-focus-asset-management-custody-businesses/ | 2022-08-15T09:39:08Z |
GUANGZHOU, China, Aug. 15, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- MINISO Group Holding Limited (NYSE: MNSO and HKEx: 9896, "MINISO Group" or the "Company"), a global retailer offering a variety of design-led lifestyle products, today announced that it plans to release its June quarter 2022 and full fiscal year 2022 financial results before the U.S. market opens on Thursday, August 25, 2022.
The Company's management will hold an earnings conference call at 8:00 A.M. Eastern Time on Thursday, August 25, 2022 (8:00 P.M. Beijing Time on the same day) to discuss the financial results. The conference call can be accessed by the following zoom link or dialing the following numbers:
Access 1
Join Zoom meeting.
Zoom link: https://dooyle.zoom.us/j/87479825938?pwd=OVozeDBjNzhicDdiNnZsQTJhSnNNUT09
Meeting Number: 874 7982 5938
Meeting Passcode: 9896
Access 2
Listeners may access the call by dialing the following numbers by using the same meeting number and passcode with access 1.
United States Toll Free: 833 548 0276 (or +1 646 518 9805)
Mainland China Toll Free: 400 182 3168 (or 400 616 8835)
Hong Kong, China (Charge Fees): +852 5803 3730 (or +852 5803 3731)
United Kingdom (Charge Fees): +44 203 481 5237 (or +44 131 460 1196)
France (Charge Fees): +33 1 7037 9729 (or+33 1 7037 2246)
Singapore (Charge Fees): +65 3158 7288 (or +65 3165 1065)
Canada (Charge Fees): +1 438 809 7799 (or +1 204 272 7920)
Access 3
Listeners can also access the meeting through the Company's investor relations website at http://ir.miniso.com/.
The replay will be available approximately two hours after the conclusion of the live event at the Company's investor relations website at http://ir.miniso.com/.
About MINISO Group Holding Limited
MINISO Group is a global retailer offering a variety of design-led lifestyle products. The Company serves consumers primarily through its large network of MINISO stores, and promotes a relaxing, treasure-hunting and engaging shopping experience full of delightful surprises that appeals to all demographics. Aesthetically pleasing design, quality and affordability are at the core of every product in MINISO's wide product portfolio, and the Company continually and frequently rolls out products with these qualities. Since the opening of its first store in China in 2013, the Company has built its flagship brand "MINISO" as a globally recognized retail brand and established a massive store network worldwide. For more information, please visit http://ir.miniso.com/.
Investor Relations Contact
Raine Hu
MINISO Group Holding Limited
Email: ir@miniso.com
Phone: +86 (20) 36228788 Ext.8039
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SOURCE MINISO Group Holding Limited | https://www.whsv.com/prnewswire/2022/08/15/miniso-group-will-report-june-quarter-2022-full-fiscal-year-2022-financial-results-august-25-2022/ | 2022-08-15T09:39:14Z |
GLEN ALLEN, Va., Aug. 15, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Northstar announces the opening of its new campus and unveils a refreshed logo.
After extensive planning and design, supported by EDC for project management, UrbanCore as a general contractor, and Baskervill for architectural services, Northstar is thrilled to announce the grand opening of its new campus, located at 11501 Nuckols Road, Glen Allen, Virginia 23059.
The new location sits on more than 10 acres and includes a newly renovated 21,000 square foot facility that will house both Northstar Academy and Northstar Career Center (formerly named Career Academy). Future plans include the addition of a multipurpose gym and Community Center and an athletic field.
In addition to the opening of the new campus, Northstar is pleased to announce a refreshed logo. The refreshed look signifies a new chapter in Northstar's history and helps showcase a sense of unity and inclusiveness for the entire Northstar community.
This exciting moment for Northstar is funded by a Capital Campaign supported by generous donors from the community. To date, the campaign has raised $8 million.
Crystal Trent, Head of School, stated, "This is a thrilling step toward the future of Northstar. After 22 years in our enchanting train car building, we are excited about the possibilities this new campus affords our students and staff. This new home they so richly deserve. Without incredible support from our donors, who recognize the dedication and commitment of our faculty and staff, this milestone would not have been achieved."
Come visit Northstar on August 25th from 9:30-11:00 am as the doors officially open to the public with a formal ribbon cutting ceremony. All are welcome to attend.
About Northstar: Northstar promotes educational excellence and career opportunities for students with disabilities who have academic, physical, or social challenges. Northstar is licensed by the Virginia Department of Education and is a fully accredited member of the Virginia Association of Independent Schools. Northstar consists of two signature programs: Northstar Academy which serves students ages 5-22 (grades K-12); and Northstar Career Center which serves juniors, seniors and young adults. Learn more at www.NorthstarVA.org.
Northstar does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sexual orientation, or national and ethnic origin in the administration of its education policies, admission policies, programs or athletic and other school administered programs.
CONTACT INFORMATION
Northstar
Chelsea Vrabel
804-747-1003
marketing@northstarva.org
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SOURCE Northstar | https://www.whsv.com/prnewswire/2022/08/15/northstar-begins-2022-23-school-year-new-location-with-fresh-look/ | 2022-08-15T09:39:21Z |
TORONTO and RAMAT-GAN, Israel, Aug. 15, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Short Wave Pharma Inc. ("Shortwave" or the "Company"), a biopharmaceutical company developing patent pending psychedelic compositions and methods of delivery, is pleased to announce that it has signed a Clinical Trial Agreement (the "Agreement") with the Sheba Fund for Health Services and Research (the "Fund") and with Dr. Eitan Gur, Principal Investigator and head of the Sheba Medical Center Department for Eating Disorders (the "Center") and Mr Yoel Golbert, Co–Investigator at the Center.
Under the Agreement, Shortwave will be the exclusive commercial partner in an investigator-initiated, open-label, phase II study of the safety and feasibility of psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy for the treatment of anorexia nervosa (the "Trial").
The Trial, the first of its kind in Israel, recently obtained approval from the Israeli Ministry of Health and is preparing for participant recruitment.
In recognition of its financial support for the Trial, the Company will gain access to the Trial's data as well as a first right of refusal to commercialize any intellectual property generated from the Trial. The parties agree to cooperate in the future, and to positively consider a follow-on study by the Fund and the Center using the Company's psilocybin-based formulation and buccal film delivery system.
Anorexia nervosa is a life-threatening disease and a severe eating disorder that affects about 0.5-1% of the population. Of all psychiatric disorders, anorexia is a leading cause of disability in the U.S. and many other developed countries. When left untreated, anorexia can lead to severe distress, significant psychological dysfunction and even death at a 5-18% incidence with a high risk of suicide. It is a chronic disease with no approved pharmacological treatment.
Shortwave's patent-pending psilocybin-based formulation is designed to affect several receptors which play a part in anorexia nervosa through an expanded mechanism of action, and its proprietary buccal method of administration directly addresses metabolism related challenges and eliminates patient burden in this vulnerable population. Together, they constitute a cost-efficient approach for treating this complex condition.
ABOUT SHORTWAVE
Short Wave Pharma Inc. is an Israeli based biopharmaceutical company developing novel formulations of psilocybin and additional APIs, as well as customized delivery methods, to effect significant additional benefits for patients suffering from mental health disorders, neurodegenerative diseases, chronic pain, and potentially all other medical conditions where psilocybin is known to have a positive effect.
The Company has begun pre-clinical studies related to its anorexia nervosa product and plans to be ready for phase I/IIa trials in Q2 2023. Shortwave's leadership team combines years of experience in drug development and clinical research, accelerated regulatory pathways and pharmaceutical industry expertise. The Company's future programs include development of novel formulations and delivery approaches for chronic pain and neuro degenerative diseases.
ABOUT THE CENTER FOR EATING DISORDERS AT THE SHEBA MEDICAL CENTER
The Center for Eating Disorders is the largest center of its kind in Israel and provides care for patients over 18 years old dealing with eating disorders of various severity including anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder, a-typical anorexia and more.
The Center includes acute care units, inpatient and outpatient facilities along with a program for chronic and treatment resistant patients. It employs a multi- disciplinary staff including physicians, clinical dietitians, psychologists, social workers, movement, drama and art therapists and fitness professionals.
As Israel's top facility for treating eating disorders, it strives to address the need for safe and effective novel treatments.
Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1878051/Short_Wave_Logo.jpg
Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1878052/Sheba_Logo.jpg
For further information please contact:
Rivki Stern, CEO rivki@shortwave-pharma.com
Yoel Golbert, Co–Investigator Yoel.Golbert@Sheba.Health.gov.il
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SOURCE Short Wave Pharma Inc. | https://www.whsv.com/prnewswire/2022/08/15/short-wave-pharma-signs-clinical-trial-agreement-with-sheba-research-fund-sheba-center-eating-disorders/ | 2022-08-15T09:39:28Z |
KAHALA (KITV)- A Kaimuki family's two daughters say they are traumatized after witnessing a man skinny dip at a Kahala beach. Hawaii law says you can be topless, but not bottomless. Honolulu Police tell us there are no fully nude beaches on the island that are legal
The sound of the surf and the beach, are supposed to be peaceful. But not for two sisters coming to Kahala Beach near Kala Place. “We're still scared. My sister is still very scared. And we don't plan on coming back to this beach,” said Megan Kapule.
Five months ago, warning bells went off when Megan and Kiana Kapule were heading toward the beach's entrance. “This guy drove by and asked us if we needed a ride, “ said Megan Kapule.
They of course said no. But when they got to the water, things got even worse. “He approached us and asked us if it was a nude beach. We said no. Then he told us about himself and walked away,” said Kapule.
Fast forward to two weeks ago, Megan says it happened again. Same person, same place, same scenario, but different ending. “He asked us if it was a nude beach. This time he asked us if he could get in the water. We didn't expect anything of it until he took off his clothes,” said Kapule.
Megan is 21, but her sister, she’s only 15. “In the corner of my eye, I saw him getting undressed. When he saw my sister put her phone to her ear, he asked if she was taking pictures of him,“ said 15-year-old Kiana Kapule. “He smiled when he asked that. Which is kind of odd,” said Megan Kapule
“As he was naked he was trying to start a conversation with us. So my sister was looking at him, but try to block his lower area,” said Kiana Kapule.
Honolulu Crimestoppers says cases concerning nudity have their own specifics. “In general, if you're out in public and you're in fully nude, you fall under the indecent exposure law. But if you're nude and conducting some kind of inappropriate behavior, it would fall under sex assault 4. That’s in the event someone is alarmed or affronted by your actions,” said Crimestoppers PIO Sgt. Chris Kim.
The Kapule sisters say when the man got in the water, they called their parents and jetted out of there. But the open street, didn't make them feel any safer. “We saw him drive past us 3 times,” said Kiana Kapule.
The girls’ father says they did file a police report. HPD and Crimestoppers haven't gotten back to KITV4 about this case, or said if there are any others like it. The Kapule family just wants to get the word out. The two girls describe the man as having a greyish beard, being 5'6 to 5'8, with a large tattoo on his chest, and tattoos on his arms near his shoulders. If you have experienced anything like these sisters did, contact the police.
Do you have a story idea? Email news tips to news@kitv.com
Jefferson Tyler joined KITV after a lengthy stint in Reno, Nev. where he covered a variety of subjects. From wildfires to presidential elections, Jefferson takes pride in creating balanced stories that keep viewers’ attentions. | https://www.kitv.com/news/crime/kahala-beach-skinny-dipper/article_59a4ee4e-1c73-11ed-a5e9-df63aca571ac.html | 2022-08-15T09:55:15Z |
The Taliban are marking their first year in power. How do Afghans in the capital city of Kabul feel about this anniversary?
Copyright 2022 NPR
The Taliban are marking their first year in power. How do Afghans in the capital city of Kabul feel about this anniversary?
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-15/a-year-after-the-taliban-seized-power-what-is-life-like-in-afghanistan-now | 2022-08-15T10:02:39Z |
A number of historically Black colleges and universities are seeing an increase in Black students applying and enrolling after years of decline.
The National Center for Education Statistics reports these enrollments fell from 18% in 1976 to 8% in 2014. But in 2020, that number rose to 9%. HBCUs such as Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, have seen an increase in applications. At that school, the number went up over 60% in 2020 from the previous year, according to Data USA.
There are a number of factors behind the change — including boosts from famous graduates such as Vice President Harris — but some Black students and their families see a safer learning environment with these institutions.
Sherrille McKethan-Green, whose son Gideon Green is attending Morehouse, counts herself among them.
"I felt that after he graduated from college, he would have time to be a minority, but at Morehouse, he would be a majority," she told NPR.
The first HBCU was established in the 1830s, before the Civil War, giving Black Americans the opportunity to pursue higher education.
Walter Kimbrough, the interim executive director of the Black Men's Research Institute at Morehouse College, told NPR these schools were critical to the development of a Black professional group.
"Your teachers, your doctors, your lawyers, your ministers — they came out of that HBCU tradition," he said.
However, these schools are not immune to forces such as financial challenges and questions about whether affirmative action policies should still exist.
The pandemic has also affected Black student enrollment in overall higher education, according to an analysis by the Latino Policy and Politics Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, on the impact of COVID on enrollment among students of color.
But then a movement for racial justice caught the nation's attention.
Paulina Webber, an incoming senior at Dillard University, told NPR she saw more students choosing HBCUs.
"We saw the height of the Black Lives Matter movement, and then we saw students say, 'Hey, I want to go to a Black school. I want to be safe. I want to enjoy my time,'" she said.
Webber added that the shared experiences as Black people at HBCUs helps students to understand and navigate the world when they graduate.
For McKethan-Green, her son attending Morehouse is the culmination of a years-long dream.
"I got [him] a sweatshirt made that says 'Future Morehouse College Graduate' at the age of 3," she said.
He chose to apply only to HBCUs, and when he was accepted to Morehouse, she was overjoyed.
"He needed to be around people ... that had his best interest at heart and would also tell him that 'You're going to be great. You're going to be a success.'"
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-15/after-the-rise-of-blm-black-students-and-their-families-are-heading-back-to-hbcus | 2022-08-15T10:02:45Z |
For a while now, it's seemed as if there's no role too absurd or outrageous for Aubrey Plaza to play: an Instagram stalker in Ingrid Goes West, a naughty nun in The Little Hours, a flesh-eating zombie in Life After Beth.
The character she plays in Emily the Criminal — an art-school dropout who masters the art of credit-card fraud — sounds almost low-key by comparison. But if this is one of Plaza's more straightforward dramatic performances, absent of her usual deadpan-comic touches, it's also one of her strongest. She holds us at nearly every moment of this engrossing Los Angeles noir, about a woman whose luck ran out long ago, and who decides to seize control of her life and livelihood.
Emily is technically already a criminal when we meet her: She has an aggravated-assault conviction on her record that's made it hard for her to find steady work, let alone pay off her $70,000 in student loans. She barely gets by making food deliveries and sharing a crowded L.A. apartment with two roommates. Plaza plays the character with an outsider's toughness — Emily grew up in New Jersey, and we can hear it in her accent — but also the shrewdness of someone who knows when to fight back and when to go with the flow.
That talent suits her well when a lucrative but illegal opportunity comes her way. Her task is to buy some pricey electronic equipment using a phony credit card, then slip out before the theft is detected. The merchandise gets picked up and resold, and Emily gets paid $200 — not bad for an hour's work. It's supposed to be just a one-time thing, but Emily is soon hooked and coming back for more.
The man who oversees this operation and takes her under his wing is Youcef, a Lebanese immigrant played by the charismatic Theo Rossi, from shows like Sons of Anarchy and Luke Cage. Youcef realizes that Emily makes a pretty good crook, partly because few people suspect her of being one. The movie tacitly acknowledges the racist and sexist assumptions that would give a white woman an advantage in this line of work. But it also keys us into Emily's feelings of fear, anxiety and exhilaration as she starts taking on bigger, higher-stakes jobs. Soon she's got her own little racket, printing the credit cards and arranging the sales herself.
As the work gets more dangerous, Emily realizes she's going to need more than the pepper spray in her purse to defend herself. The writer-director John Patton Ford, making a solid feature debut, skillfully ratchets up the tension at key moments, and Plaza is both vulnerable and fierce as a woman having to figure out her own fight-or-flight responses in real time.
One botched early job leads to a car chase that's all the more harrowing for being so realistically staged. Youcef guides Emily through every step of her enterprise, and Plaza and Rossi's chemistry deepens as their characters' initially combative relationship gives way to romantic sparks. Naturally, their emotional bond will complicate their business dealings in all sorts of ways, some more believable than others.
As things start to unravel, the movie's third-act plotting gets a little too ragged for its own good. But if Emily the Criminal isn't always successful as a genre exercise, it's thoroughly gripping as a portrait of a woman always operating in survival mode. It's telling that even with her new source of income, Emily doesn't take anything for granted and never stops working every angle. She keeps trying to land an interview at an upscale ad agency, where interns are expected to work full-time for free. She keeps her food delivery job, even though the pay is lousy and the benefits nonexistent. What millions of American workers endure day in and day out, the movie suggests, is no less exploitative than any of Emily's illegal activities. The movie may be called Emily the Criminal, but it reserves its harshest indictment for the society that made her what she is.
Copyright 2022 Fresh Air. To see more, visit Fresh Air. | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-15/aubrey-plaza-plays-a-fraudster-in-the-mostly-engrossing-emily-the-criminal | 2022-08-15T10:02:52Z |
Updated August 15, 2022 at 4:53 AM ET
TAIPEI, Taiwan — China announced more military drills around Taiwan as the island's president met with members of a new U.S. congressional delegation on Monday, in a further sign of support among American lawmakers for the self-governing island Beijing claims as its own.
Taiwanese media showed the delegation arriving for the talks, but details of the meeting were not immediately released. The delegation was due to depart later Monday on a U.S. government plane.
The visit came less than two weeks after U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's trip to Taiwan, which prompted days of threatening military exercises by China, including the firing of missiles over the island and into the Taiwan Strait. Pelosi is the highest-level member of the U.S. government to visit Taiwan in 25 years.
China also sent warplanes and navy ships across the waterway's median, which has long been a buffer between the sides that separated amid civil war in 1949. China regards formal contacts between U.S. politicians and the island's government as support for its independence from Beijing.
Additional drills in the seas and skies surrounding Taiwan were announced by China's People's Liberation Army on Monday, the Defense Ministry and its Eastern Theater Command announced in a statement.
The exercises are intended as a "resolute response and solemn deterrent against collusion and provocation between the U.S. and Taiwan," the ministry said.
China's previous two weeks of threatening exercises prompted Taiwan to put its military on alert, but were met largely with defiance and apathy among the public.
In Taipei, Taiwan's capital, the chair of the legislature's Foreign and National Defense Committee, Lo, Chih-Cheng, met with the U.S. lawmakers and stated that, "Their visit at this time is of great significance, because the Chinese military exercise is (intended) to deter U.S. congressmen from visiting Taiwan."
"Their visit this time proves that China cannot stop politicians from any country to visit Taiwan, and it also conveys an important message that the American people stand with the Taiwanese people," Lo said.
China says it wants to use peaceful means to bring Taiwan under its control, but its recent saber rattling has emphasized its threat to take the island by military force. The earlier drills appeared to be designed as a rehearsal of a blockade or attack on Taiwan, forcing the cancellation of commercial flights and disrupting shipping to Taiwan's main ports as well as cargo passing through the Taiwan Strait, one of the world's busiest shipping lanes.
The five-member congressional delegation is led by Democratic Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts and is to meet with other government and private sector representatives. Investment in Taiwan's crucial semiconductor industry and reducing tensions in the Taiwan Strait are expected to be key topics of discussion.
The other members of the delegation are Republican Rep. Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen, a delegate from American Samoa, and Democrats John Garamendi and Alan Lowenthal from California and Don Beyer from Virginia.
A senior White House official on Asia policy said last week that China had used Pelosi's visit as a pretext to launch an intensified pressure campaign against Taiwan, jeopardizing peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and in the broader region.
"China has overreacted, and its actions continue to be provocative, destabilizing, and unprecedented," Kurt Campbell, a deputy assistant to President Joe Biden, said on a call with reporters.
"It has sought to disregard the centerline between the P.R.C. and Taiwan, which has been respected by both sides for more than 60 years as a stabilizing feature," he said, using the acronym for China's official name, the People's Republic of China.
China accuses the U.S. of encouraging independence forces in Taiwan through its sale of military equipment to the island and engaging with its officials. The U.S. says it does not support independence for Taiwan but that its differences with China should be resolved by peaceful means.
China's ruling Communist Party has long said it favors Taiwan joining China peacefully but that it will not rule out force if necessary. The two split in 1949 during a civil war in which the Communists took control of China and the losing Nationalists retreated to Taiwan.
Campbell, speaking on Friday, said the U.S. would send warships and planes through the Taiwan Strait in the next few weeks and is developing a roadmap for trade talks with Taiwan that he said the U.S. intends to announce in the coming days.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-15/china-announces-new-drills-around-taiwan-as-a-u-s-delegation-visits-the-island | 2022-08-15T10:02:58Z |
New coastal development and higher temperatures mean more people are vying for a spot along the nation's beaches, just as coastal erosion swallows up precious swatches of sand.
Copyright 2022 GBH
New coastal development and higher temperatures mean more people are vying for a spot along the nation's beaches, just as coastal erosion swallows up precious swatches of sand.
Copyright 2022 GBH | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-15/coastal-towns-are-making-it-more-difficult-for-the-public-to-get-to-the-shore | 2022-08-15T10:03:05Z |
Lots of home cooks would be excited to get a book deal. In the case of one home chef, she got that opportunity at the age of 89 years old. Emily Meggett is from the low country of South Carolina, and NPR traveled to her home on Edisto Island to appreciate some of her cooking.
Edisto Island is a beautiful, quiet community of about 2,000 people, nearly an hour's drive south of Charleston. The roads are framed by massive oak trees draped with Spanish moss; there's a tang of sea salt in the air. Ms. Emily Meggett is known far and wide as the matriarch of Edisto.
I'm with her in her cozy home kitchen, where she's going to teach me how to make a local classic: shrimp and grits with gravy. As she chops up some salt pork to get us started, she recalls the first thing she remembers making as a girl. "Grits!" she exclaims. "And the salt pork right here."
Ms. Emily is a member of the Gullah Geechee people. Her community can trace their ancestry to West and central Africans brought to these shores and enslaved. In insulated locations throughout the coastal areas of the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida, they managed to preserve much of their rich culture, language, and music.
Her cookbook is called Gullah Geechee Home Cooking (get recipes for Benne Cookies, Red Rice and Chicken Perloo). Right now, Ms. Emily is focused on making her gravy: salt pork, onion, flour and some seasoning salt. That's it.
"You watch me every step of the way," she instructs, stirring the pot constantly with her favorite spoon. This virtuoso in the kitchen doesn't bother with a whisk. Still, her gravy is as smooth as silk.
"I'm from the old school," she says. "People add things, to see how that's gonna taste. But sometimes I think they jazz it up too much! This is tradition, how I learned how to cook it. Wash the grits. Wash your meat. Fry your meat. Put your onion in there. Put your flour in there, make your gravy and your seasoning. Nothing else. That's your tradition."
Some of Ms. Emily's other recipes are intensely local too, like her delicious benne wafers, sweet little cookies made with local sesame seeds. Benne seeds were brought over from West Africa by enslaved people and became an important staple in their hidden gardens.
Ms. Emily's family kept their own gardens at home, too. They grew their vegetables, beans and fruit; they raised hogs, chickens, and other livestock. They fished and hunted. "We even had our own rice pond when I was growing up," she says.
Ms. Emily's ancestors, like other enslaved people brought to the Carolinas, were expert rice cultivators. And rice remains foundational in Ms. Emily's cooking. She says if anyone's going to try only two recipes in her book, it's two Gullah Geechee staples: "Red rice and the Hoppin' John."
Gullah Geechee red rice is kin to jollof rice, a tomato-based recipe popular across western Africa. Her Hoppin' John is a little different than the version many folks know from Southern cuisine. Instead of being made with blander black-eyed peas, here they're made with nutty-tasting field peas.
Her beloved late husband Jessie grew up nearby too, in a two-room cabin that previous generations had lived in as enslaved people. In 2017, that cabin was relocated to Washington, D.C., where it's now on permanent display at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Ms. Emily, who friends around the island call "M.P.," recounts plenty of family stories as well as her own, complex history in Gullah Geechee Home Cooking.
"When I came along, I guess I was the last of the slaves," she says. As a teenager, she began babysitting the white children of the wealthy owners of local mansions as well as the children of Black workers at those houses. "When I went over to babysit, I got a dollar and 25 cents, from 8 o'clock in the morning until three in the afternoon. And that was in the 50s."
Not long after, her mother told her she had to choose: she could either work in the fields or find something else. She became a cook for some of those wealthy white families. One of those was the Dodge family from Maine — and Ms. Emily cooked for them for 45 years.
"When I went over to the Dodge house, a week's pay was $11 and 15 cents all week! And every year, it went up a dollar and three penny," she recalls.
"I started from the bottom of the barrel," she says emphatically. "Up to this time, I think I did good for myself and also my children because if I wasn't be taught what to do and how to do it then I couldn't have taught my children."
Those recipes are imprinted in her memory. "That's how I cook," she says. "I cook by my brain, and my hand and my heart."
Heart is a big word with Ms. Emily. She has always looked after Edisto. When the side door into her kitchen is open, folks know they can stop in for a plate of hot food. (Conversely, wherever she goes on the island, she is gifted with ingredients.) Cooking, for Ms. Emily, is about sharing history — and, as she says in her book, food is one of the most important ways we take care of each other. That was the whole impetus for her cookbook, she says.
"A lot of times, we has a treasure in our head," she observes. "And we will die and go to heaven, and take that treasury with us. And why can't we just share it with somebody else here? I'll get more out of that, to share it."
Gretchen Smith is the director of the Edisto Island Historic Preservation Society. She is thrilled that her good friend Emily Meggett is attracting so much attention with her cookbook.
"It's got so much more than recipes in the book," Smith says. "It's stories, it's anecdotes, it's the culture of the Gullah community, it's not just a cookbook by any means. And I think that's really what has ignited the interest in it."
In the meantime, the gravy's ready. Ms. Emily Meggett is emphatic about her gravy. "All right now, you see what I put in there," she says. "I didn't put no celery, no bell pepper, no tomato, no water."
At nearly the last moment, she sautees the shrimp in a separate skillet. They're done in just a couple of minutes, and she quickly folds them into the sauce. "If you make the gravy, and put the shrimp in there to cook, it makes it tough," she observes. After we take a bite, she says triumphantly, "See, you got the crunch of the shrimp." She's right. The shrimp are firm and meaty, with almost a bit of a snap to them still.
Finally, this tantalizing dish is ready — and you will never leave Ms. Emily's house without getting fed. "The whole entire world!" she laughs. "The whole entire world. It don't be a day pass by that somebody don't stop by here that don't get something to eat."
As soon as the shrimp and grits are ready, we gather over the kitchen table for a moment of prayer, holding hands in communion. Ms. Emily says grace — and then we feast, together.
Benne Cookies from Emily Meggett
Makes about 40 cookies
WHEN I WAS GROWING UP, I HAD NO IDEA HOW MUCH HISTORY WAS IN BENNE COOKIES. Also known as "benne wafers," benne cookies were just another sweet treat that we island folks loved to eat. In fact, I learned how to make these cookies at the Dodge House. A lady named Mamie Frances was the real pro, and she taught me how to make them just right.
As an adult, I found out that the benne seeds used for the cookie actually arrived to the United States with our African ancestors. Native to the African continent, benne seeds are often confused with sesame seeds. However, benne seeds have a much more distinct taste. They're nuttier, a bit smoky, and when toasted, they produce an intense, almost woody smell throughout the kitchen. Benne seeds have a rich history in the Sea Islands. Enslaved people cultivated these seeds in their own gardens, and eventually, white slave owners took advantage of their crop and started use benne seeds to produce cooking oil. Their road in the United States has been long and complex, but thanks to the preservationist nature of the Gullah Geechee people, they still grow across the Carolinas and Sea Islands today.
My benne cookies come from Mama, and she learned how to make them from generations before her. Thin and crisp, these cookies should be like wafers; you don't want them to rise.
1 tablespoon margarine or butter, or more as needed (butter can be used to toast the benne seeds, but it burns more easily than margarine)
1 cup (140 g) benne seeds or sesame seeds
1 cup (125 g) sifted all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup (1 stick/115 g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ cup (100 g) granulated sugar
¼ cup (55 g) packed light brown sugar
1 large egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Preheat the oven to 350°F (170°C). Grease two cookie sheets.
Melt 1 tablespoon margarine in a cast-iron skillet over medium heat and add the benne seeds, stirring to coat them—add more margarine if needed. Toast the seeds, stirring frequently, until fragrant and darkened a shade. Take care not to burn the seeds. Scrape onto a plate and let cool completely.
Sift the flour, baking soda, and salt together into a medium bowl.
In a large bowl, cream together the ½ cup (1 stick/115 g) butter and the sugars until well combined and fluffy. Add the egg and beat well. Add the cooled toasted benne seeds and the vanilla. Stir in the flour mixture.
Drop rounded teaspoonfuls of the cookie dough at least 2 ½ inches (6 cm) apart on one prepared cookie sheet. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes maximum, until golden brown around the edges. Remove the wafers from the cookie sheet immediately and place them on waxed paper to cool. Repeat with the remaining dough on the second cookie sheet, reusing the first sheet when it's cooled.
Red Rice from Emily Meggett
Serves 8 to 10
RED RICE GOES BACK TO THE OLD, OLD DAYS—THE DAYS BEFORE ME, MY MOMMA, AND HERS. Red rice is a beautiful, earthy one-pot rice dish that borrows from the traditions of my African ancestors. Sometimes called Charleston red rice, red rice really owes a great debt to the enslaved Africans who brought their knowledge of rice and vegetable farming to the United States. Here on Edisto, Wednesdays and Fridays were seafood days. We had shrimp or fish with red rice, so it was something to look forward to. Back in my day, you didn't use tomato paste and sauce, you used the tomatoes you'd planted in your garden. The tomato paste works just as good, though, and Gullah Geechee red rice is one of the best dishes you can enjoy. Now, red rice can be a tricky thing. If you don't have enough rice, it will come out like mush. If you have too much rice, you can add water, but the texture will be uneven. Early in the cooking, you want to use your spoon to feel the weight of the rice, and make sure it's cooking evenly.
Don't let this dish intimidate you—with well-seasoned vegetables, slices of sausage, and perfectly cooked rice, you've just about got yourself a meal. Oh, and when you put some fatback in there? Now you're talking.
½ pound (225 g) salt pork, cut into 1-inch (2.5 cm) chunks
1 large onion, chopped
1 large bell pepper, chopped
½ cup (50 g) chopped celery
3 smoked sausages (about 14 ounces/395 g)
1 (6-ounce/170 g) can of tomato paste
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1½ teaspoons Nature's Seasons, plus more to taste
2 cups (370 g) long-grain white rice, unrinsed
Fry the salt pork in a large pot over medium heat until browned, 8 to 10 minutes. Add the onion, bell pepper, and celery and cook until tender, 5 to 7 minutes. Cut the sausage into bite-size pieces and add to the pot; cook until lightly browned, about 5 minutes. Stir in the tomato paste and 5 cups (1.2 L) water and bring to a boil over high heat. Add the crushed red pepper and Nature's Seasons and stir. Taste and add more seasoning if needed.
Add the rice. Cook, stirring frequently to keep the rice from sticking until most of the liquid has been absorbed and the rice is tender, about 10 minutes.
If using a rice steamer, transfer the absorbed mixture to the steamer. Cover the steamer, and cook on low heat for 15 to 20 minutes, or until all of the liquid is absorbed and the rice can be fluffed with a fork. If using a pot, cover the pot and cook over the lowest possible heat, stirring with a fork as needed, for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the rice has absorbed all the liquid.
Chicken Perloo from Emily Meggett
Serves 8 to 10
MANY OF THE ONE-POT RICE DISHES IN THE LOWCOUNTRY AND THE SOUTH CAN TRACE THEIR ORIGINS BACK TO WEST AFRICA. There's jollof rice in West Africa, jambalaya in Louisiana, and here in the Lowcountry? We've got red rice and chicken perloo. Chicken perloo has a lot of the same western European and African cooking styles you find in dishes like Spanish paella and Ghanaian jollof rice. However, tender chicken, ambrosial stock, and perfectly fluffed rice make this a true Lowcountry dish.
6 tablespoons (90 ml) bacon grease or vegetable oil
½ pound (225 g) salt pork, cut into 1-inch (2.5 cm) chunks
1 cup (125 g) roughly chopped onion
5 cups (1.2 L) chicken broth
1 teaspoon Nature's Seasons
1 teaspoon poultry seasoning
1 pound (455 g) cooked chicken thighs, skin removed and roughly chopped
2 ½ cups (460 g) long-grain white rice, unrinsed
In a large, heavy-bottomed pot, heat 2 tablespoons of the bacon grease or oil over high heat. Once the grease or oil is shimmering, add the salt pork and cook on high heat for 1 minute. Pour the remaining bacon grease or oil into the pot. Reduce the heat to medium-low and cook the salt pork for about 5 minutes, until browned.
Once browned, remove the salt pork from the pot and set it aside. Leave enough oil to coat the bottom of the pot. Add the onion and fry for 1 minute. Return the cooked salt pork to the pot and cook the onion and salt pork together over low heat for about 5 minutes, until onion just darkens.
Add the broth, Nature's Seasons, and poultry seasoning and bring to a boil.
Once boiling, add the chicken. Cook for about 2 minutes, then add the rice. Adjust the heat to medium-low and cook until most of the liquid has been absorbed, 10 to 15 minutes.
If using a steamer, transfer the rice mixture to the top of the steamer, cover, and steam over medium heat for about 20 minutes, until done. If you're using the regular pot, continue to cook the rice mixture on medium-low heat for 20 to 25 minutes, until the rice has absorbed all of the broth. Once done, stir the rice with a fork, and serve immediately.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-15/for-this-89-year-old-gullah-geechee-chef-cooking-is-about-heart | 2022-08-15T10:03:11Z |
People of Afghanistan's Tangi Valley celebrated the Taliban takeover one year ago. Now, what do they want from their government?
Copyright 2022 NPR
People of Afghanistan's Tangi Valley celebrated the Taliban takeover one year ago. Now, what do they want from their government?
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-15/former-taliban-fighters-are-waiting-for-the-de-facto-government-to-rebuild | 2022-08-15T10:03:18Z |
In the U.S., racing on gravel roads has become the dominant form of bike racing in just a few years. Organizers have prioritized diversity and inclusiveness in a way that other sports have not.
Copyright 2022 North Carolina Public Radio – WUNC
In the U.S., racing on gravel roads has become the dominant form of bike racing in just a few years. Organizers have prioritized diversity and inclusiveness in a way that other sports have not.
Copyright 2022 North Carolina Public Radio – WUNC | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-15/gravel-bike-racing-focuses-on-diversity-and-inclusion-and-its-popularity-soars | 2022-08-15T10:03:24Z |
Doug Ford, the provincial premier, was talking with reporters when he swallowed the bee. He promised to go straight to the hospital, and predicted that the incident would be funny later.
Copyright 2022 NPR
Doug Ford, the provincial premier, was talking with reporters when he swallowed the bee. He promised to go straight to the hospital, and predicted that the incident would be funny later.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-15/in-canada-the-leader-of-ontario-inadvertently-swallows-a-bee | 2022-08-15T10:03:31Z |
Seventy-five years ago, colonial India was partitioned into two new nations — Muslim-majority Pakistan and Hindu-majority India. There was a massive migration between the two — and bloodshed.
Copyright 2022 NPR
Seventy-five years ago, colonial India was partitioned into two new nations — Muslim-majority Pakistan and Hindu-majority India. There was a massive migration between the two — and bloodshed.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-15/india-is-celebrating-75-years-of-independence-from-britain | 2022-08-15T10:03:37Z |
Title X, the federal family planning program, was created in 1970. Advocates say it has always been underfunded, and that restrictions on abortion access means money is needed now more than ever.
Copyright 2022 VPM
Title X, the federal family planning program, was created in 1970. Advocates say it has always been underfunded, and that restrictions on abortion access means money is needed now more than ever.
Copyright 2022 VPM | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-15/its-been-more-than-50-years-since-congress-created-a-federal-family-planning-program | 2022-08-15T10:03:43Z |
Fighting at Europe's largest nuclear power plant, now occupied by Russia, turns a Ukrainian city across the river into a target for Russian missiles and a danger zone for a nuclear accident.
Copyright 2022 NPR
Fighting at Europe's largest nuclear power plant, now occupied by Russia, turns a Ukrainian city across the river into a target for Russian missiles and a danger zone for a nuclear accident.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-15/missile-strikes-near-a-nuclear-power-plant-in-ukraine-leave-residents-on-edge | 2022-08-15T10:03:50Z |
It's been a year since the Taliban seized power in Kabul. Threats against the FBI from Trump supporters are up. Fighting around a Ukrainian nuclear power plant raises fears of a nuclear accident.
Copyright 2022 NPR
It's been a year since the Taliban seized power in Kabul. Threats against the FBI from Trump supporters are up. Fighting around a Ukrainian nuclear power plant raises fears of a nuclear accident.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-15/morning-news-brief | 2022-08-15T10:03:56Z |
R. Kelly, the convicted sex-offender and disgraced singer, is on trial — again.
Jury selection begins Monday for the 55-year-old's federal trial in Chicago.
Kelly is charged with 13 counts that include creating and receiving child pornography, enticing minors into illegal sexual activity and obstruction of justice.
Kelly's obstruction of justice charge ties back to a 2008 child pornography case in which he was acquitted. The jurors found Kelly not guilty on all counts, which hinged on the fact that an alleged victim did not testify.
Federal prosecutors say that witnesses and their families were threatened and paid off by Kelly and his associates before the previous trial.
Now, the alleged victim from the 2008 case is set to testify.
Kelly isn't the only defendant and will be tried alongside his former manager, Derrel McDavid, and his former employee, Milton Brown. All three defendants have pleaded not guilty.
Kelly was already convicted in a federal trial in New York
Kelly was already found guilty in another federal trial last year.
A federal judge in Brooklyn sentenced Kelly to 30 years in prison in June. A jury found him guilty last September on nine counts of sex trafficking and racketeering.
Eight of those counts found that Kelly violated the Mann Act, a federal law that prohibits people from transporting others across state lines for the purpose of prostitution.
Federal prosecutors were able to prove that Kelly led a criminal enterprise that sought to lure women, boys and girls to him for his own sexual gratification.
Part of the charges stemmed from Kelly's marriage to the late singer Aaliyah, who was 15 when Kelly was 27. Kelly was convicted of bribing an official to grant Aaliyah a fake ID.
Several alleged victims of Kelly's sexual abuse shared their stories in the Lifetime docuseries Surviving R. Kelly, which debuted in 2019 and helped bring more legal attention to the accusations.
Kelly also faces state charges in Illinois and Minnesota
Kelly, who has also faced multiple lawsuits, is also dealing with criminal state charges in Illinois and Minnesota.
Kelly was charged with 10 counts of aggravated sexual abuse in Illinois' Cook County in February 2019. That case involves four alleged victims — three of them are minors.
In May 2019, Kelly faced 11 more felony charges of sexual assault and sexual abuse filed by Cook County prosecutors.
Then in August 2019, Kelly was charged with two criminal offenses surrounding prostitution and solicitation in Minnesota's Hennepin County.
The Minnesota allegations stem from a 2001 incident following one of Kelly's promotional appearances in Minneapolis.
After a teenage girl purportedly asked Kelly for an autograph, the singer included his phone number with the autograph. The girl was allegedly told to go to his hotel after she called the number.
She was offered $200 to dance for him naked, prosecutors say. Kelly had sexual contact with the teenage girl and took off his clothes, according to prosecutors.
A trial date has not been set yet for either of those cases, according to CBS Minnesota.
Kelly's federal convictions, trials and state criminal charges don't cover all of the allegations he has faced since the 1990s. A more detailed history can be found here.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-15/r-kelly-is-going-on-trial-in-chicago-after-being-convicted-in-new-york | 2022-08-15T10:04:03Z |
On Alaska's Yukon River, residents usually depend on catching salmon to eat all year. This year, a disruption in the supply of fish, in addition to inflation, is galvanizing a food crisis.
Copyright 2022 KYUK
On Alaska's Yukon River, residents usually depend on catching salmon to eat all year. This year, a disruption in the supply of fish, in addition to inflation, is galvanizing a food crisis.
Copyright 2022 KYUK | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-15/scientists-scramble-to-explain-why-western-alaska-wild-salmon-stocks-are-low | 2022-08-15T10:04:09Z |
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is calling for the Espionage Act to be repealed amid a federal investigation into whether former President Donald Trump violated that law.
"The espionage act was abused from the beginning to jail dissenters of WWI. It is long past time to repeal this egregious affront to the 1st Amendment," Paul wrote.
The statement comes less than a week after the FBI search at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla. Investigators took multiple sets of classified documents in order to determine if Trump breached a series of laws relating to top secret information. So far, he has not been charged in the investigation.
This is the first time in U.S. history that a former president has been investigated under the Espionage Act, but it's not the first time the law has been under scrutiny, experts say.
What the law is and how it holds up today
The Espionage Act was passed in 1917, a few months after the U.S. entered World War I. The original law made it illegal for people to obtain or disclose information relating to national defense that could be used to harm the U.S. or benefit another country.
That description has helped prosecute some spies, but increasingly it has been used to threaten or put to trial those who leak sensitive information, Sam Lebovic, a history professor at George Mason University, told NPR.
During the Obama administration, eight people were charged with leaking national security secrets to the media under the Espionage Act — more than all the previous administrations combined. At least six more leakers were charged during the Trump administration, according to Lebovic.
Over the years, press freedom advocates have grown concerned that administrations cherry pick what leaked information is deemed a threat to national security.
"Government officials leak classified information to the press all the time. That's how huge amounts of journalism happen," Lebovic said. "Most of it is let go and allowed to happen. Only the instances that really upset the government in power are the ones that are prosecuted."
Why some are calling for the law to be revised
Heidi Kitrosser, a law professor at Northwestern University, told NPR the danger with the act is that it's too vague and broad.
The law does not explicitly define what "national defense" is or what information could threaten it, she added. Although the U.S. has since created a classification system, there is still a lot of room for interpretation.
More concerning to Kitrosser, the law does not explicitly care about public interest or whether the leaker in question had good motives. That's why a broad spectrum of people can be under threat.
"If the act had a public interest defense, that would give us some kind of focal point around so that we could draw a distinction between somebody leaking information about abuse of a government program to the American media — versus someone storing highly classified secrets in a resort hotel," she said.
Sen. Rand Paul said the law was used to jail dissenters during WWI. Is that true?
Yes — but it would be difficult for the law to be applied the same way today, Lebovic said.
The anecdote referred by Paul has to do with an early section of the law that targeted people who spoke out against the war.
Roughly 1,000 people were jailed for criticizing World War I but that effort drew intense criticism, according to Lebovic. In 1920, lawmakers repealed the harshest censorship sections of the law. Over the coming decades, the rise of the First Amendment movement also helped protect dissident speech.
That being said, Lebovic said the Espionage Act still raises some concerns about censorship and dissent.
"There's been a shift in the way censorship works, that the government no longer censors expression or opinion or speech. It now censors information," he said.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-15/sen-rand-paul-wants-to-repeal-the-espionage-act-amid-an-investigation-into-trump | 2022-08-15T10:04:15Z |
NPR begins a celebration of sweat — what it's made of, where it comes from and what it smells like. Spoiler alert: most of the time it doesn't have any smell at all.
Copyright 2022 NPR
NPR begins a celebration of sweat — what it's made of, where it comes from and what it smells like. Spoiler alert: most of the time it doesn't have any smell at all.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-15/the-importance-of-sweat-we-need-it-to-keep-cool | 2022-08-15T10:04:22Z |
Threats against the FBI from supporters of former President Donald Trump have jumped, even as court documents related to the search of his Florida home are made public.
Copyright 2022 NPR
Threats against the FBI from supporters of former President Donald Trump have jumped, even as court documents related to the search of his Florida home are made public.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-15/the-search-of-mar-a-lago-leads-to-outrage-against-the-fbi-by-trump-supporters | 2022-08-15T10:04:28Z |
Soon after giving birth to a daughter two months premature, Terri Logan received a bill from the hospital. She recoiled from the string of numbers separated by commas.
Logan, who was a high school math teacher in Georgia, shoved it aside and ignored subsequent bills. She was a single mom who knew she had no way to pay. "I avoided it like the plague," she says, but avoidance didn't keep the bills out of mind.
"The weight of all of that medical debt — oh man, it was tough," Logan says. "Every day, I'm thinking about what I owe, how I'm going to get out of this ... especially with the money coming in just not being enough."
Then a few months ago — nearly 13 years after her daughter's birth and many anxiety attacks later — Logan received some bright yellow envelopes in the mail. They were from a nonprofit group telling her it had bought and then forgiven all those past medical bills.
This time, it was a very different kind of surprise: "Wait, what? Who does that?"
RIP Medical Debt does. The nonprofit has boomed during the pandemic, freeing patients of medical debt, thousands of people at a time. Its novel approach involves buying bundles of delinquent hospital bills — debts incurred by low-income patients like Logan — and then simply erasing the obligation to repay them.
It's a model developed by two former debt collectors, Craig Antico and Jerry Ashton, who built their careers chasing down patients who couldn't afford their bills.
"They would have conversations with people on the phone, and they would understand and have better insights into the struggles people were challenged with," says Allison Sesso, RIP's CEO. Eventually, they realized they were in a unique position to help people and switched gears from debt collection to philanthropy.
What triggered the change of heart for Ashton was meeting activists from the Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011 who talked to him about how to help relieve Americans' debt burden. "As a bill collector collecting millions of dollars in medical-associated bills in my career, now all of a sudden I'm reformed: I'm a predatory giver," Ashton said in a video by Freethink, a new media journalism site.
After helping Occupy Wall Street activists buy debt for a few years, Antico and Ashton launched RIP Medical Debt in 2014. They started raising money from donors to buy up debt on secondary markets — where hospitals sell debt for pennies on the dollar to companies that profit when they collect on that debt.
RIP buys the debts just like any other collection company would — except instead of trying to profit, they send out notices to consumers saying that their debt has been cleared. To date, RIP has purchased $6.7 billion in unpaid debt and relieved 3.6 million people of debt. The group says retiring $100 in debt costs an average of $1.
RIP bestows its blessings randomly. Sesso says it just depends on which hospitals' debts are available for purchase. "So nobody can come to us, raise their hand, and say, 'I'd like you to relieve my debt,'" she says.
Yet RIP is expanding the pool of those eligible for relief. Sesso said that with inflation and job losses stressing more families, the group now buys delinquent debt for those who make as much as four times the federal poverty level, up from twice the poverty level.
A surge in recent donations — from college students to philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, who gave $50 million in late 2020 — is fueling RIP's expansion. That money enabled RIP to hire staff and develop software to comb through databases and identify targeted debt faster.
New regulations allow RIP to buy loans directly from hospitals, instead of just on the secondary market, expanding its access to the debt.
Sesso says the group is constantly looking for new debt to buy from hospitals: "Call us! We want to talk to every hospital that's interested in retiring debt."
Sesso emphasizes that RIP's growing business is nothing to celebrate. It means that millions of people have fallen victim to a U.S. insurance and health care system that's simply too expensive and too complex for most people to navigate. As NPR and KHN have reported, more than half of U.S. adults say they've gone into debt in the past five years because of medical or dental bills, according to a KFF poll. A quarter of adults with health care debt owe more than $5,000. And about 1 in 5 with any amount of debt say they don't expect to ever pay it off.
RIP is one of the only ways patients can get immediate relief from such debt, says Jim Branscome, a major donor. Policy change is slow. Numerous factors contribute to medical debt, he says, and many are difficult to address: rising hospital and drug prices, high out-of-pocket costs, less generous insurance coverage, and widening racial inequalities in medical debt. The pandemic, Branscome adds, exacerbated all of that.
The "pandemic has made it simply much more difficult for people running up incredible medical bills that aren't covered," Branscome says. He is a longtime advocate for the poor in Appalachia, where he grew up and where he says chronic disease makes medical debt much worse. It undermines the point of care in the first place, he says: "There's pressure and despair."
For Terri Logan, the former math teacher, her outstanding medical bills added to a host of other pressures in her life, which then turned into debilitating anxiety and depression. Now a single mother of two, she describes the strain of living with debt hanging over her head. She had panic attacks, including "pain that shoots up the left side of your body and makes you feel like you're about to have an aneurysm and you're going to pass out," she recalls.
Some hospitals say they want to alleviate that destructive cycle for their patients. Heywood Healthcare system in Massachusetts donated $800,000 of medical debt to RIP in January, essentially turning over control over that debt, in part because patients with outstanding bills were avoiding treatment.
"We wanted to eliminate at least one stressor of avoidance to get people in the doors to get the care that they need," says Dawn Casavant, chief of philanthropy at Heywood. Plus, she says, "it's likely that that debt would not have been collected anyway."
One criticism of RIP's approach has been that it isn't preventive; the group swoops in after what can be years of financial stress and wrecked credit scores that have damaged patients' chances of renting apartments or securing car loans. (The three major credit rating agencies recently announced changes to the way they will report medical debt, reducing its harm to credit scores to some extent. However, consumers often take out second mortgages or credit cards to pay for medical services.)
"A lot of damage will have been done by the time they come in to relieve that debt," says Mark Rukavina, a program director for Community Catalyst, a consumer advocacy group.
Rukavina says state laws should force hospitals to make better use of their financial assistance programs to help patients. "Hospitals shouldn't have to be paid," he says. "Basically: Don't reward bad behavior."
Most hospitals in the country are nonprofit and in exchange for that tax status are required to offer community benefit programs, including what's often called "charity care." Depending on the hospital, these programs cut costs for patients who earn as much as two to three times the federal poverty level. But many eligible patients never find out about charity care — or aren't told. They are billed full freight and then hounded by collection agencies when they don't pay.
Recently, RIP started trying to change that, too.
RIP CEO Sesso says the group is advising hospitals on how to improve their internal financial systems so they better screen patients eligible for charity care — in essence, preventing people from incurring debt in the first place. Ultimately, that's a far better outcome, she says.
"We prefer the hospitals reduce the need for our work at the back end," she says. "I would say hospitals are open to feedback, but they also are a little bit blind to just how poorly some of their financial assistance approaches are working out."
Terri Logan says no one mentioned charity care or financial assistance programs to her when she gave birth. Nor did Logan realize help existed for people like her, people with jobs and health insurance but who earn just enough money not to qualify for support like food stamps.
The debt shadowed her, darkening her spirits. "I don't know; I just lost my mojo," she says. "But I'm kinda finding it," she adds. Logan's newfound freedom from medical debt is reviving a long-dormant dream to sing on stage.
Her first performance is scheduled for this summer.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-15/this-groups-wiped-out-6-7-billion-in-medical-debt-and-its-just-getting-started | 2022-08-15T10:04:34Z |
A massive ecological study that's happening across the United States, and which is designed to track the impact of long-term changes like a warming climate, is deliberately releasing a highly potent and persistent greenhouse gas in national parks and forests.
The gas, sulfur hexafluoride, is "the most potent greenhouse gas known to date," according to the Environmental Protection Agency. It's 22,800 times more effective at trapping heat than carbon dioxide, and lasts in the atmosphere for thousands of years.
So far, this ecology study has released around 108 pounds of the gas, which has about the same impact as burning more than a million pounds of coal.
That may not seem like a big deal in the grand scheme of global emissions, but government scientists working at federal parks and forests have objected to using this gas on public lands — especially since this major study is designed to go on for 30 years and alternative gasses are available.
This kerfuffle has so far played out quietly within government agencies. But it comes at a time when all kinds of researchers are thinking about the climate effects of past practices, with some saying that scientists who understand the urgency of the climate crisis have a special obligation to set an example to the public by reducing the greenhouse gas emissions of their own work.
The National Science Foundation (NSF), which funds this large ecology study, told NPR that it supports an evaluation that's now underway to see whether phasing out the use of this gas would affect the quality of the information that's being gathered.
That's not good enough for one watchdog group, which is calling for an immediate halt to the release of this gas on public lands.
"We're using just a tiny amount"
For decades, ecologists have sometimes burbled small amounts of sulfur hexafluoride into streams and rivers, in order to study how quickly gasses can move from the water into the air. One reason that's of interest is that, although inland waterways cover up only a small fraction of the Earth's surface, researchers believe these running waters could be an important source of greenhouse gasses, as rainfall can carry carbon from the ground into turbulent streams that later release it into the atmosphere.
Ecologists have always known that sulfur hexafluoride was itself a potent greenhouse gas, "but we always said, 'Well, we're using just a tiny amount of it," says Bob Hall, a professor of stream ecology at the University of Montana.
"The beauty of sulfur hexafluoride is we only have to add very tiny quantities, and it's really, really easy to measure and it's perfectly unreactive. We're not doing anything to the ecosystem by adding it, it's not reacting with anything, it's not poisoning anything," says Hall, who once calculated that the amount he used in one of his experiments had about the same climate impact as burning 35 gallons of gasoline.
Given the usefulness of this gas in stream studies, it's not surprising that tests involving sulfur hexafluoride were built into the standardized protocols of the National Ecological Observatory Network, or NEON, which is an ambitious government-funded effort to track ecological changes. Its mission is to use consistent methods to collect all kinds of data on 81 different locations across the nation--and to do this regularly for three decades.
"The idea is to understand the effects of things like climate change, land use change, and invasive species on these ecosystems," says Kaelin Cawley, who works at Battelle, the nonprofit applied science and technology organization that operates NEON for the NSF.
The planning for this half-billion-dollar ecological project, and the construction of its monitoring instruments, took around twenty years. It began operating at full tilt in 2019.
That's the same year when a scientist at Yellowstone National Park started to question why NEON was releasing sulfur hexafluoride at Blacktail Deer Creek, according to documents obtained through a public records request by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a group that supports workers within the government who are concerned about activities that can harm the environment.
The environmental consequence
NEON's protocols called for it to annually release around 3.3 pounds of sulfur hexafluoride, or SF6, in Yellowstone National Park, hydrologist Erin White pointed out in a November, 2020 email to another National Park Service official. Over the 30-year lifetime of the project, White calculated, that meant the use of SF6 for research in Yellowstone National Park alone would be equivalent to burning over 1,139,000 pounds of coal.
"In short, the environmental consequence of a small SF6 application in the park is significant," noted White, who recommended that NEON immediately substitute an alternative gas, such as argon, even though NEON staffers thought making this switch would be problematic because of things like lab contracting constraints.
It is somewhat ironic to study carbon cycling using a tracer gas with that much greenhouse forcing.
Bobby Hensley, who works on NEON for Battelle, told NPR that the climate impact from the scientific use of this gas has to be kept in perspective.
"I don't want to sort of criticize Yellowstone National Park, but, I mean, there's hundreds of thousands of vehicles driving through that park every single day," says Hensley. "They can't tell people, 'Hey, you can't come visit the park.' But they can say, 'You can't use SF6.'"
Soon, government officials shared the concerns raised at Yellowstone with others who oversaw sites where NEON had been releasing this gas. Emails went out to Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the Bureau of Land Management, and the United States Forest Service. About half of the NEON sites with streams where sulfur hexafluoride was released were on forest service lands, records show.
"SF6 is a potent greenhouse gas and over the 30 year NEON program the release will be equivalent to burning millions of pounds of coal," wrote Bret Schichtel of the National Park Service's Air Resource Division to Linda Geiser, the National Air Program Manager for the Forest Service. "We would like to know if you are aware of this issue and share similar concerns."
In December of 2020, representatives of the park and forest services held a virtual meeting with NEON employees. Emails sent after that meeting make it clear that the public land officials felt a "strong desire" to discontinue the use of this gas.
NEON subsequently convened a group of expert advisers to figure out if they could stop using the gas without disrupting the science.
One of those advisors was Hall, who says that he had already moved away from using SF6 in his own studies of streams, in part because of its extreme potency as a greenhouse gas. "It is somewhat ironic," Hall and a colleague wrote in one paper, "to study carbon cycling using a tracer gas with that much greenhouse forcing."
"This doesn't fit with the mission"
It turns out that the physical features of streams that affect turbulence and gas exchange don't change much over time. So NEON's expert advisers basically felt it would be okay to just make sure this study had some baseline measurements using SF6 for each site and then leave it at that, rather than switching to an alternative gas that would require new instruments and training so that measurements could be taken year after year.
"We have discontinued it recently at several of our sites, but not all of them," says Cawley, who notes that the water level in streams might currently be too low to get the data they want. "Some of the sites, we still need to get certain flow ranges that we haven't covered yet."
The NSF's Program Director for NEON, Charlotte Roehm, told NPR in an emailed statement that Battelle was evaluating the impact of phasing out the use of SF6 and that "the NSF team that manages NEON is supportive of conducting that evaluation."
In 2021, according to one memo sent from NEON to Roehm, NEON used approximately 18 pounds of the gas, which is the equivalent of greenhouse gas emissions from driving an average car over 460,000 miles. That memo stated the new plan was to use the gas to take measurements "up to three times per year at up to 10 sites," likely for one to three more years.
"Eventually we will stop using SF6 when all sites have enough data to draw conclusions about gas exchange rates across a wide range of flows at a site," the memo states.
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, however, wants them to stop using SF6 immediately.
"They're doing these experiments on public lands like national parks and national forests," says Chandra Rosenthal, who directs the non-profit's Rocky Mountain office. "This doesn't fit with the mission of these agencies at all."
The government workers who manage those federal lands are unhappy about the use of this gas, she says, "but they haven't really had the authority to do anything about the fact that this stuff is being used."
This week, her group sent a letter to the director of the NSF, asking the agency to stop funding projects that use SF6 on federal lands, and to assess the value of using SF6 and other greenhouse gasses in all the research it funds. A similar letter, sent to U. S. Department of the Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and U. S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, calls on them to stop allowing the use of SF6 on the lands they manage. "It is our understanding," the letter says, "that similar research projects have switched to argon without issue."
One researcher who uses small amounts of SF6 for studies of gas exchange in the ocean, rather than streams, says he thinks NEON's protocols could have been set up differently, to minimize the use of this greenhouse gas.
"If I was to do what they're doing, I would do it differently. I wouldn't be bubbling it in, because that does use a lot," says David Ho, an oceanographer with the University of Hawaii, who explains that he might infuse a small amount of the gas into a bag of water and then release that into the stream. "They haven't thought this through, in terms of the best way to do it."
And even if the amount that's been released by NEON and other scientific studies is essentially nothing compared to the amount of SF6 released globally from industrial sources, the concerns about it still seem reasonable to streams researcher Walter Dodds of Kansas State University, who served on NEON's technical advisory panel.
"It may be an overreaction of sorts, but it's completely understandable as well. We all are worried about what our own footprints are," says Dodds. "Certainly we should be cognizant of the potential for that harm and at least minimize the amount of times we use it and the amount of gas that we use in each experiment."
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-15/why-scientists-have-pumped-a-potent-greenhouse-gas-into-streams-on-public-lands | 2022-08-15T10:04:41Z |
Diaa Hadid chiefly covers Pakistan and Afghanistan for NPR News. She is based in NPR's bureau in Islamabad. There, Hadid and her team were awarded a Murrow in 2019 for hard news for their story on why abortion rates in Pakistan are among the highest in the world. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-08-15/a-year-after-the-taliban-seized-power-what-is-life-like-in-afghanistan-now | 2022-08-15T10:43:06Z |
New coastal development and higher temperatures mean more people are vying for a spot along the nation's beaches, just as coastal erosion swallows up precious swatches of sand.
Copyright 2022 GBH
New coastal development and higher temperatures mean more people are vying for a spot along the nation's beaches, just as coastal erosion swallows up precious swatches of sand.
Copyright 2022 GBH | https://www.keranews.org/2022-08-15/coastal-towns-are-making-it-more-difficult-for-the-public-to-get-to-the-shore | 2022-08-15T10:43:13Z |
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