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How to take better photos Published August 20, 2022 at 4:12 PM CDT Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Listen • 3:13 Is it even a vacation if you don't have the pics to prove it? NPR's Life Kit has tip from a professional photographer on getting the most out of your camera. Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.keranews.org/2022-08-20/how-to-take-better-photos | 2022-08-20T21:51:32Z |
Following Liz Cheney's primary loss this week in Wyoming, NPR's Michel Martin asks independent Utah Senate candidate, Evan McMullin, what the path forward is for candidates who have criticized Trump.
Copyright 2022 NPR
Following Liz Cheney's primary loss this week in Wyoming, NPR's Michel Martin asks independent Utah Senate candidate, Evan McMullin, what the path forward is for candidates who have criticized Trump.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.keranews.org/2022-08-20/independent-sees-enough-unity-between-parties-to-back-anti-trump-republicans | 2022-08-20T21:51:38Z |
A new Netflix documentary explores one of the most famous incidents of catfishing. NPR's Michel Martin speaks with Manti Te'o about the new documentary, Untold: The Girlfriend Who Didn't Exist.
Copyright 2022 NPR
A new Netflix documentary explores one of the most famous incidents of catfishing. NPR's Michel Martin speaks with Manti Te'o about the new documentary, Untold: The Girlfriend Who Didn't Exist.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.keranews.org/2022-08-20/manti-teo-subject-of-high-profile-catfishing-story-talks-untold-netflix-doc | 2022-08-20T21:51:44Z |
NPR's Michel Martin speaks with The Sentencing Project's Senior Director of Advocacy Nicole D. Porter about her new study on states repurposing closed correctional facilities.
Copyright 2022 NPR
NPR's Michel Martin speaks with The Sentencing Project's Senior Director of Advocacy Nicole D. Porter about her new study on states repurposing closed correctional facilities.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.keranews.org/2022-08-20/new-study-reveals-a-quiet-revolution-of-repurposed-prisons | 2022-08-20T21:51:50Z |
With airlines shut down and many of the country's road's destroyed, Ukraine's train system has been both the literal and figurative lifeline for the country.
Copyright 2022 NPR
With airlines shut down and many of the country's road's destroyed, Ukraine's train system has been both the literal and figurative lifeline for the country.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.keranews.org/2022-08-20/ukraines-rail-system-is-working-overtime-to-keep-people-and-goods-moving | 2022-08-20T21:51:56Z |
Boomerang page plan, Aug. 21, 2022 Aug 20, 2022 Aug 20, 2022 Updated 1 hr ago Comments Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Copy article link Save Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Copy article link Save BOOMERANG page plan for E-EDITION, Aug. 21 Vol. 142, No. 170 (NOTE:Please take off the “A” from the folios, just Page 2, Page 3, etc. Saying A2, A3 makes it seem like there are more sections to follow. Thx) PAGE 1 – LDB SPECIFICMAIN PACKAGE: Working out the kinks: UW students study, socialize ahead of semester, Abby (photos)WDE says social media hacked, shares survey, WTE (photo)National group applauds lawmakers for voting records, WTE (mugs)PAGE 2 – LDB SPECIFICWeather map (top of page)Worth noting briefsJumps from A1What’s Happening (to fit) Page 3Regular Bozeman-designed “A2” with feature, entertainment briefs and Today in HistoryPages 4-6AP wire (picked and built by design)Page 7Homestyle page (built by Bozeman)Page 8Health page (built by Bozeman) Pages 9-?? WyoSportsBudget and copy from Jeremiah/David. Shared in both e-editions. Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Copy article link Save Tags Brief Page Printing Publishing Building Industry Ldb Specificweather Entertainment Map Social Media Plan Recommended for you Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. comments powered by Disqus Trending Now Hageman beats Cheney, will face Grey Bull in November Poll: Hageman up big ahead of Wyoming's GOP primary next week Kozak wins sheriff primary, Hackl presumptive DA Nearly all incumbents advance in state, county and city races Polls open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. for today's primary election Latest Special Section Cheyenne Frontier Days To view our latest Special Section click the image on the left. Latest e-Edition Wyoming Tribune Eagle To view our latest e-Edition click the image on the left. | https://www.wyomingnews.com/boomerang-page-plan-aug-21-2022/article_4d88b428-20c5-11ed-ba78-ef1dd9ca68a6.html | 2022-08-20T22:01:02Z |
LARAMIE – After 3-1/2 weeks of training camp, the University of Wyoming is finally gearing up to face its first opponent of 2022.
The Cowboys were set to go through a mock game and dress rehearsal on Saturday, in anticipation of the Aug. 27 season opener at Illinois next weekend. UW coach Craig Bohl noted Friday that the Pokes plan to limit their time on the practice field this week, in an effort to stay fresh for their showdown with the Illini.
Bohl was displeased with what he saw from his team following Wednesday’s practice. However, he says the team responded well in full pads on Thursday, and followed that up with a productive half-pads practice on Friday.
“We had a really robust inside drill that we went live, and it was a very intense practice,” Bohl said. “Guys bounced back. You could tell by my demeanor that I wasn't happy the day before, and some of it's just maturity and learning how to practice when you're not in full gear. We were in full gear, and I thought we got a lot of good work done.”
The matchup with the Illini will feature some familiarity, even if it will mark the first meeting between the two teams.
Bohl and Illinois coach Bret Bielema were assistants at Nebraska and Iowa, respectively, when the two programs met in 1999 and 2000. Illinois offensive line coach Bart Miller is also a former Wyoming assistant, having held the same position with the Cowboys in 2019 and 2020. There are similarities in the offenses, as well, with both teams leaning heavily on a power run attack.
With eight months since their last time facing another opponent, Bohl and his players are eager to get on the field Saturday in Champaign, Illinois.
“Coach Bielema and I have known each other for many, many years,” Bohl said. “They'll play well. Their offensive line coach is a guy that had worked for us here, so there is a lot of crossover. We have a lot of alums in the area. I know there is a strong, robust interest in the game.
“Camp is going to wind down, and I can tell it's getting about time. We're never going to be perfect, but my mentality is it's about time to play a game, because I'm getting edgy, too.”
The season is starting a week earlier than usual for the Pokes, who are one of 18 FBS teams playing week zero games. As a result, Wyoming will have an additional bye week this fall, with both breaks coming during Mountain West play.
“Week zero can have a huge benefit if it's utilized correctly – not only for the first game, but then throughout the year,” Bohl said. “Basically, you're going a week longer in your regular season, and how to utilize the bye weeks are important.
“Coach Bielema was wanting to do a zero week game, and I was comfortable, so it's an opportunity to have a national stage and get some more practice. If it's not handled correctly, it can be detrimental, and I think we have a good balance here.”
Injury update
The Cowboys suffered what is likely their third season-ending injury in the past few weeks on Thursday, this time to an individual that was expected to play a key role both at wide receiver and from a leadership perspective.
Redshirt junior Gunner Gentry, who missed all of last season with a torn patellar tendon in his left knee, suffered a non-contact knee injury while going up for a ball and is expected to miss the rest of the fall.
“That's part of football,” Bohl said. “It's heartbreaking, but I mentioned to our football team that it's an injury, and he'll bounce back. We have to move forward as a team.”
Josh Criswell covers the University of Wyoming for WyoSports. He can be reached at jcriswell@wyosports.net or 307-755-3325. Follow him on Twitter at @criswell_sports. | https://www.wyomingnews.com/wyosports/university_of_wyoming/football/cowboys-turn-focus-to-illinois/article_76c5fb10-20d0-11ed-ae97-0bb297e5924c.html | 2022-08-20T22:01:08Z |
Dorli Rainey, symbol of Occupy movement, dies at 95
SEATTLE (AP) — Dorli Rainey, a self-described “old lady in combat boots” who became a symbol of the Occupy protest movement when she was photographed after being pepper-sprayed by Seattle police, has died. She was 95.
The longtime political activist died on Aug. 12, the Seattle Times reported. Her daughter, Gabriele Rainey, told the newspaper her mom was “so active because she loved this country, and she wanted to make sure that the country was good to its people.”
Rainey was a fixture in the local progressive movement for decades, demonstrating for racial justice, affordable housing and public transit, and against war, nuclear weapons and big banks.
In November 2011, in the early days of the Occupy Wall Street movement, Rainey, then 84, joined protesters in blocking downtown intersections. She was hit when Seattle police used pepper spray to clear the crowd.
Fellow protesters poured milk over her face to ease the sting, and a seattlepi.com photographer, Joshua Trujillo, captured a stunning image of her staring defiantly into the camera, her eyes red and milk dripping off her face.
The photo become a worldwide symbol for the protest movement. She was profiled by The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Associated Press and The Guardian.
“It’s a gruesome picture,” she told the AP. “I’m really not that bad looking.”
Then-Mayor Mike McGinn apologized and ordered a review of the incident. Rainey was back out protesting a couple days later.
“Dorli is legendary, and deservedly so, for her activism,” McGinn said Friday. “She was just omnipresent and a conscience and a voice for change, and I deeply, deeply, deeply respected her.”
Rainey was born in Austria in 1926. She was a Red Cross nurse and then worked in Europe as a technical translator for the U.S. Army for 10 years. She married Max Rainey, a civil engineer who got a job with Boeing, and they moved to the Seattle area in 1956.
She worked as a court-appointed special advocate, representing children who have experienced abuse or neglect, and as a real-estate agent. She served on the Issaquah School Board and ran for King County Council a half-century ago, and she made a brief run for Seattle mayor in 2009.
She had three children, Gabriele, of Asheville, North Carolina; Michael, of Boston; and Andrea, who died in 2014. She was also preceded in death by her husband, Max.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/08/20/dorli-rainey-symbol-occupy-movement-dies-95/ | 2022-08-20T22:28:20Z |
Metal-detecting stranger retrieves woman’s ring lost in sea
HAMPTON, N.H. (AP) — A Massachusetts woman’s diamond wedding ring, a family heirloom, is back on her finger after a man with a metal detector responded to her social media plea for help and found it at the bottom of the ocean.
Francesca Teal told The Boston Globe that she was tossing a football with her husband this month at North Beach in Hampton, New Hampshire, when the ring that once belonged to her great-grandmother slipped off her finger.
They couldn’t find the ring in the water after hours of searching, the 29-year-old from Groveland said.
Teal posted about the ordeal on Facebook and asked anyone who might frequent the beach with a metal detector to be on the lookout. Her post was shared thousands of times and got the attention of a man named Lou Asci.
Asci, 60 of Marshfield, put on a wetsuit and headlamp and went into the water searching for the ring with his metal detector. The first two days he went looking, he had no luck.
“I don’t take failure all too well,” Asci told the newspaper. “I wanted to go back and give it one last shot.”
That’s when he found the ring buried beneath the sandy ocean floor, he said. He sent Teal a picture, writing in a message: “Please tell me this is the ring so I can finally get off this beach.”
Asci returned the ring to Teal’s home, and her husband got on one knee to place it back on her finger.
“I have been so overwhelmed by the kindness of strangers this past week,” Teal wrote on Facebook. “It has been so amazing to witness humanity in this positive way & has brought so much faith to myself & others.”
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/08/20/metal-detecting-stranger-retrieves-womans-ring-lost-sea/ | 2022-08-20T22:28:27Z |
Thunderstorms move in tonight after midnight and into tomorrow
Temperatures tonight will be in the low 60s
The rest of this afternoon we will see isolated showers and maybe a rumble of thunder here and there. The main event for the rain will be rolling through tonight and into tomorrow morning.
Tonight, we could see some showers and thunderstorms, the temperature will be around average again sitting in the low 60s.
Tomorrow morning will be the biggest chance for some rain. Things could already be wet as you step out the door with temperatures sitting in the mid 60s. Throughout the day we hold onto a chance for rain. Things will definitely be more wet tomorrow than it has been today. We could possibly see some stronger storms tomorrow, and maybe some flooding issues.
Looking ahead, things will be drying up a little bit after Monday. We will still see a small chance of rain on our dry days, but we may luck out and things will remain dry.
Copyright 2022 WVVA. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/08/20/thunderstorms-move-tonight-after-midnight-into-tomorrow/ | 2022-08-20T22:28:33Z |
Dorli Rainey, symbol of Occupy movement, dies at 95
SEATTLE (AP) — Dorli Rainey, a self-described “old lady in combat boots” who became a symbol of the Occupy protest movement when she was photographed after being pepper-sprayed by Seattle police, has died. She was 95.
The longtime political activist died on Aug. 12, the Seattle Times reported. Her daughter, Gabriele Rainey, told the newspaper her mom was “so active because she loved this country, and she wanted to make sure that the country was good to its people.”
Rainey was a fixture in the local progressive movement for decades, demonstrating for racial justice, affordable housing and public transit, and against war, nuclear weapons and big banks.
In November 2011, in the early days of the Occupy Wall Street movement, Rainey, then 84, joined protesters in blocking downtown intersections. She was hit when Seattle police used pepper spray to clear the crowd.
Fellow protesters poured milk over her face to ease the sting, and a seattlepi.com photographer, Joshua Trujillo, captured a stunning image of her staring defiantly into the camera, her eyes red and milk dripping off her face.
The photo become a worldwide symbol for the protest movement. She was profiled by The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Associated Press and The Guardian.
“It’s a gruesome picture,” she told the AP. “I’m really not that bad looking.”
Then-Mayor Mike McGinn apologized and ordered a review of the incident. Rainey was back out protesting a couple days later.
“Dorli is legendary, and deservedly so, for her activism,” McGinn said Friday. “She was just omnipresent and a conscience and a voice for change, and I deeply, deeply, deeply respected her.”
Rainey was born in Austria in 1926. She was a Red Cross nurse and then worked in Europe as a technical translator for the U.S. Army for 10 years. She married Max Rainey, a civil engineer who got a job with Boeing, and they moved to the Seattle area in 1956.
She worked as a court-appointed special advocate, representing children who have experienced abuse or neglect, and as a real-estate agent. She served on the Issaquah School Board and ran for King County Council a half-century ago, and she made a brief run for Seattle mayor in 2009.
She had three children, Gabriele, of Asheville, North Carolina; Michael, of Boston; and Andrea, who died in 2014. She was also preceded in death by her husband, Max.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/08/20/dorli-rainey-symbol-occupy-movement-dies-95/ | 2022-08-20T22:40:04Z |
Metal-detecting stranger retrieves woman’s ring lost in sea
HAMPTON, N.H. (AP) — A Massachusetts woman’s diamond wedding ring, a family heirloom, is back on her finger after a man with a metal detector responded to her social media plea for help and found it at the bottom of the ocean.
Francesca Teal told The Boston Globe that she was tossing a football with her husband this month at North Beach in Hampton, New Hampshire, when the ring that once belonged to her great-grandmother slipped off her finger.
They couldn’t find the ring in the water after hours of searching, the 29-year-old from Groveland said.
Teal posted about the ordeal on Facebook and asked anyone who might frequent the beach with a metal detector to be on the lookout. Her post was shared thousands of times and got the attention of a man named Lou Asci.
Asci, 60 of Marshfield, put on a wetsuit and headlamp and went into the water searching for the ring with his metal detector. The first two days he went looking, he had no luck.
“I don’t take failure all too well,” Asci told the newspaper. “I wanted to go back and give it one last shot.”
That’s when he found the ring buried beneath the sandy ocean floor, he said. He sent Teal a picture, writing in a message: “Please tell me this is the ring so I can finally get off this beach.”
Asci returned the ring to Teal’s home, and her husband got on one knee to place it back on her finger.
“I have been so overwhelmed by the kindness of strangers this past week,” Teal wrote on Facebook. “It has been so amazing to witness humanity in this positive way & has brought so much faith to myself & others.”
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/08/20/metal-detecting-stranger-retrieves-womans-ring-lost-sea/ | 2022-08-20T22:40:11Z |
CHEYENNE – The text group Laramie County Community College women’s soccer players have burst at the seams with messages not long after they got off a video call with former coach Nate Ulness.
The Golden Eagles were roughly a week from starting practice when Ulness assembled them digitally to let them know he was leaving Cheyenne for another coaching post after two seasons. Players were shocked by their coach’s sudden departure, unsure about what the timing of the move meant for their upcoming season and curious about who might replace him.
Rebecca Valdez and LCCC’s other assistant coaches did their best to put the players at ease and assure them the school was going to find a quality interim coach capable of helping them get back to the National Junior College Athletic Association tournament.
“I assumed it was going to be someone from Cheyenne because we were so close to the start of the season,” said third-year sophomore Ainsley Basich, who graduated from Cheyenne Central. “I thought it would be (Valdez), but she’s got a lot going on with teaching right now. We spent the next couple days texting back and forth, seeing if anyone had heard anything.
“We were all really nervous about who the coach was going to be. I think we got the best-case scenario.”
Jim Gardner was tabbed for the interim job this fall. The National Junior College Athletic Association hall-of-famer coached LCCC from 2003-19, helping it grow from a start-up program into a perennial power. The Eagles were 250-70-28 during Gardner’s tenure. They made 11 trips to the NJCAA tournament, including four berths in the semifinals.
Third-year sophomore Erin Griess played for Gardner as a freshman and sophomore at Cheyenne East High. Her LCCC teammates looked to her to get the lowdown on their new coach.
“I was able to tell them he’s great, he knows what he’s doing, and he’s a successful coach that can get us where we want to be,” the defender said. “I let them know he has high expectations he wants met. I told them he can be loud while getting his point across, and that he’s a demanding coach because he wants all of his players to be the best they can be.”
Gardner has been pleased with what he’s seen from his new team through the first two weeks of practice.
“This is a great group of kids, with a lot of character, integrity and work ethic,” he said. “On top of that, there’s some pretty good talent, speed and technical ability. That’s a big plus.
“But I can’t say high enough praise about this team and its work ethic. This is the first team I’ve had where they show up 20 minutes early for practice. They’ve done it every day for two weeks. I thought that would taper off, but they’ve kept it up, which shows me a lot.”
Because he was unfamiliar with the roster, Gardner has stressed to the players that the ones who worked the hardest would play, and the ones who were the most skilled would play the most. The Eagles have embraced getting a clean slate.
“It’s basically like a tryout, where we can show him how well we can do things, show him we’re coachable and can adapt to his coaching style,” third-year defender Delaney Knottnerus said.
Added Basich: “It’s brought the intensity of practice up because we know we have to show what we’ve got every day. If we want to play, we have to try as hard as we can and show him our skill.”
LCCC has 26 players on its roster, which is far more than Gardner prefers. He understands the need for depth, but may play as few as 14 in a tight match. The Eagles are saying all the right things about that scenario, Gardner said.
“We’ve had individual meetings where we talked about roles and playing time,” he said. “I ask what they do if they’re not going to start. ‘I’ll work really hard and get in there.’ I have to ask what they’ll do if that doesn’t work.
“All of them said they’ll be good teammates and work hard to make their teammates as good as they can be. I’m going to hold them to that.”
Jeremiah Johnke is the WyoSports editor. He can be reached at jjohnke@wyosports.net or 307-633-3137. Follow him on Twitter at @jjohnke. | https://www.wyomingnews.com/wyosports/other_sports/lccc/lccc-womens-soccer-adapts-to-new-coach/article_7764b5a6-20db-11ed-a310-e3d441d2a2b3.html | 2022-08-20T23:54:05Z |
HONOLULU-HI (KITV-4) Sacred Hearts Academy celebrates 113 Years on Oahu educating young girls. Scott Schroeder, Ph.D is the first man to lead the girls’ school in histor.y Dr. Schroeder was on Good Morning Hawaii to talk about the Academy’s goals, scholarship programs and two major fundraising events.
Sacred Hearts Academy is raising funds for scholarships through 2 major fundraisers this year; the Academy Uncorked Wine event with Food prepared by Chef Roy Yamaguchi on September 24, 2022 at 5pm – 9 pm at the Academy Campus. Makaha Sons will perform at the Uncorked event.
Plus, Mele on the Lawn, on Friday, August 26, 2022 from 5:30 pm till 9 pm will include onolicious food and crafters selling their art. This is the Academy’s first Mele on the Lawn. Mele on the Lawn, general admission tickets are $15 and students are $10.
So far, 400 people are attending the Mele.
Scott Schroeder, Ph.D, President, Sacred Hearts Academy says, “We really have a focus on stem areas for student development in science, technology, engineering and math. Our performing arts area is very strong . And we just put in a new innovation center this last year. This Includes a 3-D printer and is a place where the girls can take action learning and turn that Into real life experiences."
For more information or tickets to Academy Uncorked and Mele on the Lawn go to: Sacredhearts.org.
Do you have a story idea? Email news tips to Cyip@kitv.com
Cynthia is an award-winning journalist who returned to Hawaii as an Anchor/Reporter/MMJ from Houston. She is a graduate of the University of Hawaii with a B.A. and M.B.A. DM her on IG @CynthiaYipTV to share stories. | https://www.kitv.com/news/local/sacred-hearts-academy-celebrates-113-years-on-oahu-with-2-major-events/article_af0d7c8c-20d5-11ed-bbb8-77f70af1fc2c.html | 2022-08-21T00:10:42Z |
Boil water advisory lifted in Burtchville Twp. following water main break
The Great Lakes Water Authority has announced the boil water advisory for Burtchville Township has been lifted.
The advisory was lifted as a result of stabilized system pressures and the completion of water quality testing within the regional transmission and local distribution system.
Burtchville Township will still be manning the water distribution site at their fire station today only, according to a press released from the county Saturday.
The boil advisory was first issued Aug. 13 after a break was found in the 120-inch water transmission main that distributes finished drinking water from its Lake Huron Water Treatment Facility to communities in the northern part of GLWA’s drinking water service area.
Work continues at the break site to prepare for delivery of 48-feet of additional 120-inch pipe on Tuesday. Damaged section of pipe will be removed by a crane this weekend, according to GLWA.
The repairs are expected to be complete by Sept. 3.
One business in Greenwood remains under a precautionary boil water advisory.
Those who have been under the advisory should take the following steps before using their water:
- Flush
- Unscrew and remove the faucet aerator (screen)
- Turn on each cold water faucet/tap slowly
- Run cold water for five minutes
- Clean and reinstall aerator
- Flush automatic ice makers. Ice cubes made during the advisory should be emptied and the ice maker run through a 24-hour cycle. Make three batches of ice and discard them. The water line should be clear, and ice should be safe to consume with the fourth batch.
- Clear hot water tanks/heaters
- Run hot water only at all faucets and flush until water runs cool or typically a minimum of 15 minutes for a typical household 40-gallon hot water tank or 30 minutes for a hot water tank greater than 40 gallons
- Replace Filters
- Water filters, such as ones used in refrigerators, faucets, pitchers and under the sink, are not designed to remove the specific bacteria potentially present during a boil water advisory. If you ran water through your filter during the advisory, the filter should be replaced.
- Remove and discard water filters
- Replace with a new filter following flushing | https://www.thetimesherald.com/story/news/2022/08/20/boil-water-advisory-lifted-in-burtchville-twp-following-water-main-break/65412185007/ | 2022-08-21T00:10:47Z |
20-Yard Dash: Mountain View
HARRISONBURG, Va. (WHSV) - Mountain View football is entering a building year, in more ways than one.
Last fall, the Generals’ campaign came to a screeching halt after only one game, when fallen roster sizes ended the competitive season.
This year, the squad has adjusted. Mountain View is moving out of the Bull Run District and will compete as an independent team, facing opponents with similar roster sizes. The 2022 season will be crucial as the Generals look to rebuild a program that is fighting to exist, after posting five winless seasons over the past ten years.
According to Head Coach Kyle Kokkonen, the Generals are using this season to establish the football program in 2022 and beyond.
“We’ve been talking about the selflessness it takes to rebuild something,” said Kokkonen. “Our current seniors might never see the results of their labor. This program has been around for a long time and we want to see it continue.”
Senior runningback/linebacker Hunter Rinker echoed the goal of growing the team in Quicksburg.
“We’re here to make it work so that kids in the future can play football,” said Rinker. “We’ve been seeing a good number of kids participating this year and hopefully it keeps growing.”
The Generals have already doubled their roster size compared to last fall. With 26 varsity players, the team is working to create a positive atmosphere in the weight room and on Friday nights.
“It’s great to see more players in the weight room and know they’re going to play this year,” said senior wide receiver/defensive back Micah Stapleton. “When it gets tough, the players who stay with you are the ones you really want to keep.”
Mountain View - 2022 Schedule
8/26 - at TEACH
9/9 - at Bath County
9/15 - vs. Parry McCluer
9/23 - at Thomas Jefferson Science and Technology
9/30 - vs. Craig County
10/7 - vs. Roanoke Catholic
10/14 - at Petersburg
10/21 - at Page County
10/28 - at Massanutten Military Academy
Competing as an independent team ineligible for post-season play
Copyright 2022 WHSV. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/08/20/20-yard-dash-mountain-view/ | 2022-08-21T00:10:47Z |
Travel softball team in Grottoes gives back to the town
GROTTOES, Va. (WHSV) - Taking the town by “Storm.”
The Storm softball team in Grottoes participated in town cleanup day Saturday morning.
“I knew that we wanted to do something like to help this town that helps us get better and go in our college careers and helps our future,” Taelor Ware, a member of the Storm softball team said.
This team has been putting in the work on and off the field.
“We’re just going around cleaning up the town. It’s our way of giving back and just showing appreciation. It’s their way of supporting us, so we feel like more of a community,” Sierra Custer, another member the Storm softball team said.
Saturday morning, the team split off into groups to pick up trash and debris across the town of Grottoes.
“We’ve played on that field down there at the Caverns since we were like eight, so we’ve been playing there a lot and rebuilding it. We knew that we wanted to give back to the community that let us practice on that field,” Ware said.
One parent said these girls grew up on the field in Grottoes together, and as they part ways going to different high schools, and soon colleges, this is a place that brings them back together.
“It brings us together. I guess more of a teamwork kind of thing and then our community supports us when we go off to college,” Custer said.
Coach Tina Custer said the Valley is like a hidden gem of softball players, so having the town support the girls on their journey to play collegiate ball is important.
“There was a guy that thanked us on the street like it feels really good to give back to what gives to us,” Ware said.
The girls said this was a good team bonding experience, and they plan to continue hitting it out of the park with more community events in the future.
Copyright 2022 WHSV. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/08/20/travel-softball-team-grottoes-gives-back-town/ | 2022-08-21T00:10:54Z |
A new study finds that late-stage cervical cancer cases are on the rise in the U.S., and some researchers hypothesize that a decrease in screenings among young women could be why more women are being diagnosed with the deadly disease.
While the overall rate of cervical cancer in the U.S. is on the decline, the number of women suffering from advanced stages of the disease — which has a five-year survival rate of 17% — is increasing.
Researchers at the University of California Los Angeles Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology set out to investigate stage 4 cervical cancer trends in the country by analyzing data from 2001 to 2018. In a study published Thursday in the International Journal of Gynecologic Cancer, they found a 1.3% increase per year in advanced stages of the disease, with the greatest increase taking place among white women in the South aged 40 to 44, among whom cases went up 4.5% annually.
Researchers also found that Black women have an overall higher rate of late-stage cervical cancer, at 1.55 per 100,000, versus 0.92 per 100,000 in white women.
Dr. Alex Francoeur, a fourth year OB-GYN resident at UCLA, said the team's recent study was born out of a study published last year, which found a 3.39% annual increase in advanced cases among women aged 30 to 34.
"This is a disease that only 17% of patients will live past five years," Francoeur said. "So, if you're a 30-year-old who won't live past their 35th birthday, that's tragic."
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends women start getting Pap tests at 21 and receive a follow every three years, depending on their health history. The test screens for precancers, which if detected, can be surgically removed. Cervical cancer detected early enough can have a five-year survival rate of over 90%.
Women should also get a routine human papillomavirus (HPV) test, according to the National Cancer Institute guidelines. The virus is linked to more than 90% of all anal and cervical cancers, as well as a high percentage of other cancers.
Francoeur said she suspects many women put off routine tests because they don't have any glaring health concerns. But HPV is the most common sexually transmitted disease, according to the CDC, so common that most sexually active people will contract the virus at some point in their lives.
Another concern is that the most recent figures are from 2018, Francoeur said, which doesn't include the COVID-19 pandemic, during which routine health care for many was put on pause.
"I worry that the last two years people have had a lot of barriers of accessing heath care," she said. "I think we might see this trend get a little worse before it gets better."
Francoeur recommended that "even if you're in your late 20s and early 30s and you don't have any medical problems, you need a primary health doctor, because routine health exams save lives."
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-20/late-stage-cervical-cancer-cases-are-on-the-rise | 2022-08-21T00:41:15Z |
SHANGHAI, Aug. 20, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- LovelyWholesale ("LW" or "the Company"), an international online shopping e-commerce clothing brand, recently announced the launch of LW Basic garment collection. These basic garments are made to be more durable and environmentally friendly - an important part of LovelyWholesale's response to environmental protection and sustainability. The LW Basic collection will be available online at lovelywholesale.com and its App LovelyWholesale on August 20, 2022. There are more than 700 items for consumers to choose from, including 2 piece sets, bodysuits, shirts, pants, dresses, etc.
Considering that the heat wave swept the world this summer and environmental issues become increasingly frequent and more extreme, Leon Guo, CEO of LW, thinks that the company should have a responsibility to drive the transition to a sustainable economy. The garments of LW Basic collection were made with durability and wearability in mind. The clothes can be washed repeatedly without becoming hard and shrinking, and the style is easy to mix and match in daily outfits. "The number of times people wear an item of clothing can make a big difference to our environment" said by Leon. "That's the reason why we launched this basic collection".
In LovelyWholesale's product line, sexy style and street style garments bring 80% of sales, and the inventory pressure of basic style garments is greater than those of better-selling styled garments. Leon still insists on the decision of launching this basic collection to respond to environmental protection.
"The climate crisis is one of the most urgent and complex challenges of our time. As a fashion retailer, we must do something. The core of the LW Basic collection line is providing the pieces that customers need for every daily life, including shirts, pants, bodysuits, dresses, etc. The average price of all the basic collection pieces is around US$10. They are easy to match and have good durability. We don't advocate excessive waste." Leon said.
In order to avoid simple items that result in boring outfits, the designer of the LW Basic collection gives consumers more choices in color supply. Except the classic colors of black, white and gray, LW basic collection pieces use popular colors of orange, pink and yellow, giving more possibilities to match the basic items.
"LW Basic collection line uses less water and energy than traditional processes, which is not only making this collection ultra-affordable in price, but also embracing our vision of sustainability. These basic items are cut in different lengths, with the color expansion, providing everyone with a style that is both trendy and timeless." Leon said.
For more information about the LovelyWholesale Basic collection, visit LovelyWholesale.com.
About LovelyWholesale:
Founded in 2010, LovelyWholesale supplies more than 10 thousands of types of fashionable clothing, shoes, jewels, sexy lingerie and accessories. The company focuses on providing higher quality products with competitive price to customers all over the world. LovelyWholesale customer knows they can trust in us for everything they need from the latest trend-led pieces to celebrity inspired looks, to the everyday wardrobe staples and that ultimate party piece. LovelyWholesale expects that every customer can find their loved style and enjoy shopping here.
LovelyWholesale has factories and warehouse all around the world. With the great advantage of fabric resources and hundreds of fashion buyers, LovelyWholesale can provide customers with the latest fashion trends style and lower prices at first time. Over the past 11 years of operation, Lovelywholesale becomes one of the most popular online store for black women in North America.
To learn more about LovelyWholesale, follow us at lovelywholesale.com and instagram.com/lovelywholesale_online
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SOURCE Lovelywholesale | https://www.whsv.com/prnewswire/2022/08/21/lovelywholesale-launches-its-lw-basic-garment-collection/ | 2022-08-21T01:41:51Z |
James Monroe brings experienced squad into 2022
Mavericks open season against Sherman on August 26
Published: Aug. 20, 2022 at 10:19 PM EDT|Updated: 19 minutes ago
LINDSIDE W.Va. (WVVA) - James Monroe reach the second round of the Class A playoffs last season and the Mavericks return a large part of that team.
The offensive line figures to be a strength given the unit’s size.
Copyright 2022 WVVA. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/08/21/james-monroe-brings-experienced-squad-into-2022/ | 2022-08-21T02:39:43Z |
Mount View envisions a playoff push
Golden Knights start season against county-rival River View
Published: Aug. 20, 2022 at 10:15 PM EDT|Updated: 22 minutes ago
WELCH, W.Va. (WVVA) - The Golden Knights finished three wins short of a state title last season and the 2022 squad is focused on finishing the job.
The Golden Knights lost some key pieces on both sides but QB Ryan Long and WR/SS Jaylen Hall return.
Copyright 2022 WVVA. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/08/21/mount-view-envisions-playoff-push/ | 2022-08-21T02:39:49Z |
4 hurt after small planes collide in Fauquier County
RICHMOND, Va. (WWBT) - 4 people are hurt after a two-plane crash in Fauquier County.
The crash happened Saturday afternoon at 9:05 a.m. on Ritchie Road.
Virginia State police say a Stearman Aircraft was attempting to land, when another Stearman Aircraft was trying to take off.
The two planes collided, causing one of them to overturn.
The pilot of the plane that was landing, a 62-year-old Warrenton man, suffered minor injuries and was treated on scene. A 50-year-old woman was also in that plane and was treated on scene for minor injuries.
The pilot of the plane that was taking off was a 62-year-old Chesterfield man. He also had minor injuries and was treated at the site of the crash. A 14-year-old girl was the passenger in that plane and also suffered minor injuries.
The FAA also responded to the scene and the NTSB was notified. The crash remains under investigation.
No one on the ground was injured.
Copyright 2022 WWBT. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/08/20/4-hurt-after-small-planes-collide-fauquier-county/ | 2022-08-21T03:00:51Z |
VMI welcomes 385 new cadets
ROANOKE, Va. (WDBJ) - Hundreds of rats or newly admitted cadets arrived early this morning at the Virginia Military Institute.
Families gathered for Matriculation Day and to help move in with their loved ones.
This year the institution is welcoming 385 rats, 53 of which are women. Many say it’s meaningful to be matriculating during the 25th anniversary since female cadets were first admitted.
“I think it’s really empowering it’s the anniversary and that I get to be here and matriculate as a woman of color at VMI,” said Rechnna Sok.
“It’s great that we can show other women that we’re capable of doing hard things too,” explained Sadie Smith. “We’re capable of pushing through tough times. Getting through anything no matter the circumstances, we should all be there to support each other through everything.”
The day also featured a Superintendent’s Welcome and a Cadet Oath.
Copyright 2022 WDBJ. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/08/20/vmi-welcomes-385-new-cadets/ | 2022-08-21T03:00:58Z |
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Grandfather, 79, killed walking dog; police name person of interest
GARY, Ind. (WLS) - An Indiana family is mourning the death of a beloved father and grandfather as police search for the deadly shooting suspect.
A small memorial of chalk drawings marked the spot where 79-year-old Cornelius Olive was shot and killed while walking his granddaughter’s dog, Kenzo.
“It’s sad he died doing something that he did every day, which was walking my dog,” said his granddaughter, Kamarie Caldwell.
After hearing gunshots Wednesday night, Caldwell says she went outside their Gary, Indiana, home to find her grandfather lying in a pool of blood.
“I’m a medical assistant, so my first thought was maybe I can save him. So, I went in the house and grabbed a towel, and I kept telling the operator he was still breathing,” Caldwell said.
Unfortunately, Cornelius Olive died on the pavement.
“The last picture that I have in my mind is watching the blood just run from the back of his head over to the sidewalk and looking at his face. I pulled up, and the dog was still sitting there between his legs,” said his daughter, Kimberly Olive.
Police say 24-year-old Tyree Gaines is considered a person of interest in the 79-year-old’s death. He allegedly sent multiple threating emails to Gary City Hall and neighboring communities.
Police believe Gaines is unstable, and he is considered armed and dangerous. He is described as a Black male who is 5 feet, 5 inches tall and 115 pounds.
Anyone who sees Gaines or has information about his whereabouts is urged not to approach him but instead call 911.
Copyright 2022 WLS via CNN Newsource. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/08/21/grandfather-79-killed-walking-dog-police-name-person-interest/ | 2022-08-21T04:39:22Z |
Critically missing adult alert issued by Virginia State police
Published: Aug. 20, 2022 at 11:49 PM EDT|Updated: 54 minutes ago
Virginia Beach, Va. (WHSV) - Virginia State Police issued a critically missing adult alert around 9:52 p.m.
Virginia Beach Police say Marie Darshaun Covington was last seen on Wednesday, August 17, 2022, at 10 p.m near Thalia Trace Drive in Virginia Beach. She was possibly wearing a gray sweat suit and a black baseball cap.
Investigators do believe their health and safety is being threatened.
Virginia Beach Police ask those with any information to call them at 757-385-4101, or visit their Twitter for more information.
Copyright 2022 WHSV. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/08/21/critically-missing-adult-alert-issued-by-virginia-state-police/ | 2022-08-21T04:44:16Z |
Grandfather, 79, killed walking dog; police name person of interest
GARY, Ind. (WLS) - An Indiana family is mourning the death of a beloved father and grandfather as police search for the deadly shooting suspect.
A small memorial of chalk drawings marked the spot where 79-year-old Cornelius Olive was shot and killed while walking his granddaughter’s dog, Kenzo.
“It’s sad he died doing something that he did every day, which was walking my dog,” said his granddaughter, Kamarie Caldwell.
After hearing gunshots Wednesday night, Caldwell says she went outside their Gary, Indiana, home to find her grandfather lying in a pool of blood.
“I’m a medical assistant, so my first thought was maybe I can save him. So, I went in the house and grabbed a towel, and I kept telling the operator he was still breathing,” Caldwell said.
Unfortunately, Cornelius Olive died on the pavement.
“The last picture that I have in my mind is watching the blood just run from the back of his head over to the sidewalk and looking at his face. I pulled up, and the dog was still sitting there between his legs,” said his daughter, Kimberly Olive.
Police say 24-year-old Tyree Gaines is considered a person of interest in the 79-year-old’s death. He allegedly sent multiple threating emails to Gary City Hall and neighboring communities.
Police believe Gaines is unstable, and he is considered armed and dangerous. He is described as a Black male who is 5 feet, 5 inches tall and 115 pounds.
Anyone who sees Gaines or has information about his whereabouts is urged not to approach him but instead call 911.
Copyright 2022 WLS via CNN Newsource. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/08/21/grandfather-79-killed-walking-dog-police-name-person-interest/ | 2022-08-21T04:44:23Z |
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 20, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- With inflation on the rise and increasing environmental concerns, companies like Varla Scooter have devised unique ways to fill the market gaps. It has been noted that most injuries occur when students commute to school. People who run short on time during high-traffic hours may encounter accidents.
According to the national data, 5,623 college-aged vehicle accident victims died in a year. Another 567,000 sustained injuries. This means that a total of 572,000 were either killed or injured in crashes. This accounted for 20% of the national total.
Varla Scooter has devised a perfect solution to reduce these numbers. They are producing the scooters for adults that allow the students to commute easily without leaving any carbon footprint.
"Environmental concerns are the main reason we have always negated the idea of owning a car or bike. Plus, our parents are rightfully concerned about our safety during the rides. Varla comes as a knight in shining armor, enabling us to travel easily and safely," says Ben Michael, a student in Los Angeles.
"Every year, thousands of students get injured during accidents at the school times. This is due to traffic, poor transport situation, and fast running. The companies like Varla are providing safe solutions to the customers. The motor scooter is easy to ride and help the students to reach their destination on time," says traffic control expert Youvas Cory from Houston.
Varla has introduced a fairly new concept to the people and brings best electric scooter that are greatly helpful for the customers. An electric scooter for adults is also a good option for teachers and older students. When companies like Varla take the responsibility of keeping the youth safe, they will be set up for success and reduce the chances of injuries.
According to the recently collected data, students are most susceptible to accidents during commuting to and from school. There are many reasons students come across accidents as they move to and from schools and colleges. Some of which are:
- 32.8% of high school students nationwide have texted or e-mailed while driving
- 34% of teens aged 16 and 17 admit that they send and respond to text messages while driving
So, it is essential to increase awareness among student groups. Allow them to shoulder the responsibility and use the motorized scooter for an easy and safe commute.
Media Contact:
marketing@varlascooter.com
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SOURCE Varla Scooter | https://www.whsv.com/prnewswire/2022/08/21/varla-scooter-values-back-to-school-basics-prevent-injury/ | 2022-08-21T04:44:29Z |
LAIE, HAWAII (KITV4) - "Shaka, A Story of Aloha" is based on a master fisherman also known as the creator of the “shaka” gesture. Man Hamana Kalili, who lost his middle three fingers in an accident, greeted people with just his thumb and pinky.
Officials said although many people use the "shaka" symbol, not many know where it can actually came from.
"With respect to the shaka gesture, only 8% of people here know where it came from. That's a very small percentage of our population, not to speak of the world yet the world knows this gesture," said Steven Sue, producer of "Shaka, A Story of Aloha".
A public huki-lau was held in Laie after more than 60 years - to film a scene in the upcoming documentary . The first nets went out to the ocean at 9 AM and hundreds of people joined in the effort.
"In commemoration of my great-grandpa, Man Hamana Kalili, my family came over here to support this. As a community, we all came to pull rope to get fish," said Nihoa Kaonohi.
Event coordinator said this type of fishing isn't used very often and it was rewarding seeing the community come together to participate in the tradition.
Producers said the “shaka” meaning is richer than what we're seeing and that's what they want to focus on in the documentary – to keep this icon alive.
Do you have a story idea? Email news tips to news@kitv.com | https://www.kitv.com/news/a-huki-lau-was-held-in-laie-for-an-upcoming-documentary/article_160305f0-2104-11ed-a88a-13a8451b90b8.html | 2022-08-21T05:14:57Z |
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Cost of raising a child grows to more than $300,000
(CNN) - The cost of raising a child through high school has gone up, thanks to inflation.
For a married, middle-income couple, it now takes on average $310,605 to raise a child born in 2015 through the age of 17. That comes out to more than $18,000 a year on average.
The Brookings Institution came up with the estimate based on numbers for a couple with two children from the U.S. Agriculture Department.
The price tag includes a range of child expenses, including food, healthcare, clothing, childcare and activities.
Back in 2015, a federal government projection put the total child-raising cost at more than $233,000.
A senior fellow at Brookings suggests many couples will take more time to consider whether to have a first or second child.
Copyright 2022 CNN Newsource. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/08/21/cost-raising-child-grows-more-than-300000/ | 2022-08-21T06:15:40Z |
Cost of raising a child grows to more than $300,000
(CNN) - The cost of raising a child through high school has gone up, thanks to inflation.
For a married, middle-income couple, it now takes on average $310,605 to raise a child born in 2015 through the age of 17. That comes out to more than $18,000 a year on average.
The Brookings Institution came up with the estimate based on numbers for a couple with two children from the U.S. Agriculture Department.
The price tag includes a range of child expenses, including food, healthcare, clothing, childcare and activities.
Back in 2015, a federal government projection put the total child-raising cost at more than $233,000.
A senior fellow at Brookings suggests many couples will take more time to consider whether to have a first or second child.
Copyright 2022 CNN Newsource. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/08/21/cost-raising-child-grows-more-than-300000/ | 2022-08-21T06:29:41Z |
Woman, 69, fatally mauled by 3 dogs while walking home
HOLMES COUNTY, Fla. (WJHG) - A 69-year-old Florida woman was killed while walking home when three dogs attacked her, according to the sheriff.
Shirley Johnson, a 69-year-old Holmes County resident, was found dead last Sunday in Gritney, Florida. Holmes County Sheriff John Tate said her cause of death was dog bites, WJHG reports.
Johnson was walking home from her son’s house last Saturday evening when three dogs attacked her, according to Tate. The sheriff said Johnson was found by a passerby nearly 24 hours later.
The medical examiner determined Johnson had been bitten more than 100 times.
The three dogs believed to be responsible have now been euthanized. Neighbors say they had a history of aggressive behavior.
Tate said there are no charges pending against the dogs’ owner because there is no physical evidence tying the dogs to Johnson’s death.
Copyright 2022 WJHG via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/08/21/woman-69-fatally-mauled-by-3-dogs-while-walking-home/ | 2022-08-21T08:12:58Z |
Woman, 69, fatally mauled by 3 dogs while walking home
HOLMES COUNTY, Fla. (WJHG) - A 69-year-old Florida woman was killed while walking home when three dogs attacked her, according to the sheriff.
Shirley Johnson, a 69-year-old Holmes County resident, was found dead last Sunday in Gritney, Florida. Holmes County Sheriff John Tate said her cause of death was dog bites, WJHG reports.
Johnson was walking home from her son’s house last Saturday evening when three dogs attacked her, according to Tate. The sheriff said Johnson was found by a passerby nearly 24 hours later.
The medical examiner determined Johnson had been bitten more than 100 times.
The three dogs believed to be responsible have now been euthanized. Neighbors say they had a history of aggressive behavior.
Tate said there are no charges pending against the dogs’ owner because there is no physical evidence tying the dogs to Johnson’s death.
Copyright 2022 WJHG via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/08/21/woman-69-fatally-mauled-by-3-dogs-while-walking-home/ | 2022-08-21T08:41:16Z |
What do districts pay their superintendents? A look into St. Clair, Sanilac superintendent contracts
Superintendent contracts in St. Clair and Sanilac counties school districts may look similar, but the salaries can vary.
Holly Wetzel, director of public relations for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, said superintendent contracts are drafted with many factors in mind. These include the size of the district, student population and other district salaries.
“There’s a variety of factors that go into determining not only compensation, but additional benefits as well,” Wetzel said.
Wetzel said contracts are typically negotiated with the district’s school board, occasionally with lawyers.
The Livingston Daily reported in March the median base salary for Michigan superintendents in 2016 was $119,000 and increased to $123,000 in 2020, according to a survey by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
The average superintendent salary was $123,908.23 in Sanilac and St. Clair counties, not include Croswell-Lexington’s interim superintendent contract.
The Port Huron Area Schools superintendent contract pays the most out of the districts. According to his contract, Superintendent Theodore Kerhoulas has a salary of $169,900. His contract did not specify the amount of vacation days or sick days he has per year.
With a salary of $90,000, the Carsonville-Port Sanilac superintendent contract pays the least out of the school districts. Additionally, Superintendent Doug Muxlow’s contract is the only one that does not have sick, personal or leave time during the school year.
RESA’s superintendent, Brenda Tenniswood, has the most recently approved contract, with her term running from Oct. 1, 2022 to June 30, 2025. Her base salary is $156,800, which is a decrease from Kevin Miller’s, the previous superintendent, salary of $159,689. Tenniswood said one reason for the change is years of experience,
"The salary is based on a whole host of attributes, including years of experience," she said.
This will be Tenniswood's first year serving as a superintendent. Miller had 13 years of superintendent experience between RESA and Cros-Lex.
Croswell-Lexington Community Schools voted for Colette Moody to be its new superintendent on Aug. 17. Her contract is currently in development. While she served as the interim superintendent, Moody was paid $500 per day she held that position.
Below is a list of highest to lowest salaries for school districts in St. Clair and Sanilac counties:
St. Clair County
- Port Huron: Theodore Kerhoulas, $169,900, $600 mileage reimbursement per month
- RESA: Brenda Tenniswood, $156,800, $900.41 mileage allowance per month
- Algonac: Al Latosz, $144,687
- East China: Suzanne Cybulla, $140,000, $400 vehicle allowance per month; contract from July 2019 to June 2022.
- Marysville: Shawn Wightman, $135,000, $400 mileage reimbursement per month
- Yale: Kurt Sutton, $125,000; Salary reported from 2021.
- Memphis: Sara Dobbelaer, $114,999.99, $100 car allowance per month
- Capac: Jeff Terpenning, $111,419
Sanilac County
- Marlette: $124,564 in 2020
- Sandusky: Paul Flynn, $117,116
- Brown City: Neil Kohler, $117,045, $500 mileage stipend per year
- Deckerville: Michael Hugan, $102,840
- Peck: Bill Kerr, $91,000
- Carsonville-Port Sanilac: Doug Muxlow, $90,000, reimbursed the state mileage rate
The Times Herald did not receive the current contracts from the East China and Yale school districts. Instead, their contracts were sourced from the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
Contact McKenna Golat at mgolat@gannett.com or (810) 292-0122. | https://www.thetimesherald.com/story/news/2022/08/21/comparing-superintendent-contracts-between-st-clair-sanilac-counties/65408217007/ | 2022-08-21T08:57:40Z |
KAUAI (KITV)- The future of the Coco Palms Resort could be decided this week, as the Kauai Planning Commission goes over its annual status report on Tuesday. Activists are not only going to protest the new 350-room hotel taking its place, they will also file paperwork against the project's permits.
"This is significant to all Hawaiians everywhere. The site is one of the most historical and important sites for political religious practice in Hawaii," said Fern A Holland who is part of the I Ola Wailuanui Working Group that's against a new hotel being built at the former Coco Palms Hotel location on Kauai.
The future of the location is up for discussion at the latest Planning Commission set for Tuesday. Besides being in Elvis's iconic movie Blue Hawaii, the location of the hotel has a long and contentious history. Last year it was up for auction, after the developer defaulted. Now with a new developer still planning a 350-room hotel there, questions remain on what's to come.
"During the expansion of Coco Palms in the 1970's , there were 34 bodies removed from the marked burial mound that was mapped in that area. So obviously there is significance that Iwi Kapuna are still buried on that property," said Holland.
A source with knowledge of the project who wishes to remain anonymous, says the new developers have a burial plan in place. Those locations will be protected. Construction will involve building floating slabs on top of dirt, not on digging into the ground. As for the 2 historic fish ponds used in the Movie Blue Hawaii, that's also been planned.
"Elvis was paddled in the wedding scene in those around in those ponds. But they were actually really important fish ponds for the east side of Kauai. Part of the historical significance of that is these 800 estimated year old fish ponds," said Holland.
The inside source tells us those lagoons are registered as historic. New plans include hand cleaning and preserving those spots. "We'd like to see this place turned into a culture center and really acknowledge the rich history it has," said Holland.
The same source tells us the new developer also sees a cultural center on a portion of the property. Plans are to work on that with the community.
"We are dealing with this major landfill issue. We don't want all of that concrete from Coco Palms to end up in our landfill," said Holland. The inside source tells us the plan for demolished cement involves turning it into gravel to fill under the parking lot, and to recycled it into future cement mix.
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/business/coco-palms-resort-update/article_728da584-212a-11ed-84aa-8fac0e70a57a.html | 2022-08-21T09:57:49Z |
Deputy resigns after traffic stop that pregnant mother calls terrifying
BRADFORD COUNTY, Fla. (WJXT) - A pregnant mother is speaking out after what she describes as a terrifying traffic stop with a Florida deputy. The traffic stop was caught on police camera, and the deputy later resigned.
Four months pregnant Ebony Washington and her three children were on their way home to Jacksonville from Gainesville last Friday around midnight when they were pulled over for speeding by Bradford County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Jason DeSue.
DeSue says the mother was traveling 75 miles per hour in a 55 mph speed zone.
Despite the lights and siren, Washington did not pull over right away because she wanted to find a well-lit area before doing so. She kept driving but turned on her hazard lights.
“It was dark [and I was] with my kids. I felt uncomfortable. I didn’t want to be able to not have anyone else around,” Washington said.
In the body camera footage, DeSue sounds like he is unhappy with this decision.
“Pull the vehicle over, or I’ll put you into the ground,” he said through the police car’s speakers.
Shortly after DeSue makes that statement, he follows Washington’s car into a gas station parking lot. Video shows he gets out of the vehicle and points his gun toward her car.
“If you make any movement, that’ll be your last mistake you’re gonna make,” he shouts at the car. “Do not move.”
The video shows Washington put her hands outside the vehicle like the deputy asked.
Washington says she was unaware the deputy pulled out a gun at first.
“I didn’t know he had a gun until I told him my seatbelt was on because he was telling me to get out… He said, ‘Well, get out. I have my gun. I’m not worried,’” she said.
Body camera footage shows DeSue aggressively take Washington’s arm after he handcuffed her.
Washington later tried to explain to the deputy why she did not initially pull over.
“I’m trying to tell you the only reason why I didn’t stop. I’m a very educated woman with a master’s degree… I was only not because it’s dark out and I have three kids with me. I’m pregnant, and I did not want them to feel uncomfortable,” she said in the video.
“Shut up about the why,” DeSue yelled at her. “Don’t care about the why.”
Washington was given a speeding ticket and apologized to the deputy.
“Apologize for yourself for not thinking,” DeSue said in the video.
The mother says she keeps replaying the incident in her head. She says she was “obliging [and] corresponding” during the stop, but she worries about might have happened.
“Had I done any type of movement outside of what he asked me to do, that could’ve been the opportunity for him to pull the trigger,” she said.
DeSue resigned from the sheriff’s office after the incident.
Copyright 2022 WJXT via CNN Newsource. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/08/21/deputy-resigns-after-traffic-stop-that-pregnant-mother-calls-terrifying/ | 2022-08-21T10:22:22Z |
MOGADISHU, Somalia — Somali authorities on Sunday appeared to have ended a deadly attack on a hotel in the capital in which at least 20 people were killed.
It took Somali forces more than 30 hours to contain the gunmen who had stormed Mogadishu's Hayat Hotel on Friday evening in an assault that started with loud explosions.
Ismail Abdi, the hotel's manager, told the AP that while the siege has ended, security forces were still working to clear the area.
No more gunfire could be heard after 9 a.m. local time. Onlookers gathered outside the gates of the badly damaged hotel on Sunday morning, surveying the scene.
Police are yet to give a detailed explanation of how the attack unfolded. It remains unclear how many gunmen entered the hotel.
The Islamic extremist group al-Shabab, which has ties with al-Qaida, claimed responsibility for the attack, the latest of its frequent attempts to strike places visited by government officials.
The attack on the hotel is the first major terror incident in Mogadishu since Somalia's new leader, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, took over in May.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the attack, according to a spokesman's statement that said the U.N. supports the people of Somalia "in their fight against terrorism and their march towards peace."
In addition, at least 40 people were wounded in the late Friday night attack and security forces rescued many others, including children, from the scene at Mogadishu's popular Hayat Hotel, they said Saturday.
In a Twitter post, the U.S. Embassy in Somalia said it "strongly condemns" the attack on the Hayat.
"We extend condolences to the families of loved ones killed, wish a full recovery to the injured, & pledge continued support for #Somalia to hold murderers accountable & build when others destroy," it said.
There was no immediate word on the identities of the victims, but many are believed to be civilians.
Mohamed Abdirahman, director of Mogadishu's Madina Hospital, told the AP that 40 people were admitted there with wounds or injuries from the attack. While nine were sent home after getting treatment, five are in critical condition in the ICU, he said.
"We were having tea near the hotel lobby when we heard the first blast, followed by gunfire. I immediately rushed toward hotel rooms on the ground floor and I locked the door," witness Abdullahi Hussein said by phone. "The militants went straight upstairs and started shooting. I was inside the room until the security forces arrived and rescued me."
He said on his way to safety he saw "several bodies lying on the ground outside hotel reception."
Al-Shabab remains the most lethal Islamic extremist group in Africa.
The group has seized even more territory in recent years, taking advantage of rifts among Somali security personnel as well as disagreements between the government seat in Mogadishu and regional states. It remains the biggest threat to political stability in the volatile Horn of Africa nation.
Forced to retreat from Mogadishu in 2011, al-Shabab is slowly making a comeback from the rural areas to which it retreated, defying the presence of African Union peacekeepers as well as U.S. drone strikes targeting its fighters.
The militants in early May attacked a military base for AU peacekeepers outside Mogadishu, killing many Burundian troops. The attack came just days before the presidential vote that returned Mohamud to power five years after he had been voted out.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-20/somali-forces-end-hotel-attack-in-which-20-were-killed | 2022-08-21T10:44:16Z |
The Academy Museum in Los Angeles is celebrating key moments in Black cinema, from the 1890s until 1971. Its new exhibition, "Regeneration," includes a clip of Hattie McDaniel, the first Black woman to win an Academy Award, as she gives her 1940 acceptance speech.
Seven gallery spaces feature performances and costumes such as Lena Horne's gown and home movies of the Nicholas Brothers. One room shows a staircase painted with the word "colored," recreating segregated movie theaters back in the day pointing Black and Brown audiences to the balconies.
Josephine Baker sings and dances on camera in the 1920s, and there are tons of movie clips, by legends such as Cicely Tyson and Sidney Poitier.
The showcase begins with a silent film of two vaudeville performers in 1898.
"It's the earliest known image of Black people kissing on film," says Jacqueline Stewart, the Academy Museum's director and president. The exhibition has two prints of Something Good- Negro Kiss, recently found in USC's film archive and Norway. Stewart figures the film was a novelty among the genre of "kiss" films that were popular at that time.
"During that era, there are earlier images of Black folks, and they are stealing chickens and eating watermelon and getting smoked out of their cabins. And stereotyping that came from the minstrel tradition," says Stewart. "And what we see in this footage are two finely dressed Black people showing affection and fun. And it's a revelation to see that that early on."
For the exhibition, the museum restored a film from 1939 called Reform School. Unlike her previous subservient roles, actress Louise Beavers plays a probation officer in the film that was one of the many so-called "race films" produced for Black audiences from the 1910s to 1940s. They included cowboy movies, thrillers, action-adventure films and more.
"We see the richness of Black performers, not just playing mammies and butlers as they were during their time in Hollywood since they were not afforded full representation at that time," says co-curator Doris Berger. "They should have and could have been, as we see in this parallel film history."
Co-curator Rhea Combs hopes people walk away from the exhibit with a sense of possibility and empowerment.
"There were people working in front of and behind the camera that were advocating and fighting and pushing forward and using this new technology and this art form to really create these vibrant, rich stories that highlight the complexities and the full humanity of Black people and looking at sort of American history through the lens of African-Americans," Combs says.
The exhibition includes performances from all-Black musicals and civil rights era documentaries - all leading to 1971, the year when Melvin Van Peeble's movie Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song was released. That same year, Robert Goodwin directed the indie film Black Chariot, about an underground Black Power movement group. The museum has restored a copy of the rarely seen film.
The cinematic survey ends just before the rise of Blaxploitation films in the 1970s, when Shaft, Superfly and Pam Grier's Foxy Brown movies were first screened.
"Regeneration in many ways is a pre-history," says Stewart. "It shows us that throughout the Harlem Renaissance, the civil rights era, there were creative folks who were using film as a medium in the Black freedom struggle."
Acclaimed filmmaker Charles Burnett was among the first people to see the exhibition. "For me, history started here in this museum," he says. "Realizing that we were involved in filmmaking at a really early age, it's about rediscovering our history, in a sense. If I had learned about this earlier, I wonder what kind of effect it would have had on my filmmaking."
The curators behind the exhibition say they hope that museum goers will not only look at film history in new ways but will also begin conversations about representation and more.
"The bottom line is that this work had to happen. It's overdue. It's important. It's crucial work," says filmmaker Ava Duvernay. She consulted on the exhibition that she says "showcases the generations of Black artists whose shoulders we stand, artists who defied society, who rebelled against norms and notions of who they could and should be. Their very presence onscreen and behind the camera was an act of revolution, a cultural, political and emotional victory that has echoed through generations, a triumph that transformed the way that we as black people saw ourselves and the way that we were seen."
The Academy Museum's exhibition "Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898-1971" runs from August 21, 2022–April 9, 2023.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-21/a-new-exhibit-in-la-explores-the-complicated-history-of-black-cinema | 2022-08-21T10:44:22Z |
SUNDAY
Walk with a Doc: 1:30-2:30 p.m. at the Washington Park west shelter No. 3. Bring walking shoes and a friend. For more information, email questions@ivinsonhospital.org.
Laramie Connections free Meet and Eat dinner and faith gathering: 4:30 p.m., First Baptist Church, 1517 E. Canby St.
Al-Anon Family Group meets: 6:30 p.m. at the Presbyterian church, 215 S. 11th St. For relatives and friends of alcoholics. For information, call Jane at 307-760-4683 or Mark at 307-760-4716.
Vertical Dance Connections performs: 7:30 p.m., Buchanan Center for the Performing Arts. A collaboration of the University of Wyoming Department of Theatre and Il Posto Vertical Dance. They’re free to attend and open to the public. Performance also will feature live music by UW jazz faculty.
MONDAY
Alcoholics Anonymous meets: Daily at various times in person or on Zoom. For more information, call 307-399-0590 or visit area76aawyoming.org or aa.org.
Survivors of Suicide Support Group: Meets from 5:30-6:45 p.m. at Hospice of Laramie House, 1754 Centennial Drive.
Women for Sobriety meet: 6:30-8:30 p.m. via Zoom. For meeting details, email 1093@womenforsobriety.org.
TUESDAY
Prayers & Squares Quilting Group meets: 9 a.m., Room 1 of Hunter Hall at St. Matthews Cathedral.
WEDNESDAY
Laramie Tai Chi and Tea meets: 1:30 p.m. outdoors at Harbon Park, North 14th and Gibbon streets. For more information, visit laramietaichiandtea.org.
THURSDAY
Caregivers for loved ones with Alzheimer’s/dementia: 3 p.m., meet for coffee, pie, understanding and comradeship at Perkins Restaurant & Bakery, 204 S. 30th St. For more information, call 307-745-6451.
Al-Anon Family Group meets: 5:30 p.m. at the Presbyterian church, 215 S. 11th St. For relatives and friends of alcoholics. For information, call Jane at 307-760-4683 or Mark at 307-760-4716.
FRIDAY
Downtown Laramie Farmers Market: 3-7 p.m., parking lot north of Depot Park on South 1st Street.
SATURDAY
Fusion Feast culinary event: 1-4 p.m., Lincoln Community Center, 365 W. Grand Ave. Hosted by Friends of Internationals and High Plains Christian Fellowship. Taste delicious dishes from around the world and play games. It’s free.
Thrown-Out Bones performs: 5:30-7p.m., Washington Park band shell, 18th and Sheridan streets. Popcorn, pretzels and beer.
UW Planetarium presents “Back to the Moon For Good”: 8 p.m., UW Planetarium. What’s up in the sky around Wyoming.
Aug. 28
Laramie Connections free Meet and Eat dinner and faith gathering: 4:30 p.m., First Baptist Church, 1517 E. Canby St.
Al-Anon Family Group meets: 6:30 p.m. at the Presbyterian church, 215 S. 11th St. For relatives and friends of alcoholics. For information, call Jane at 307-760-4683 or Mark at 307-760-4716.
Aug. 29
Alcoholics Anonymous meets: Daily at various times in person or on Zoom. For more information, call 307-399-0590 or visit area76aawyoming.org or aa.org.
Survivors of Suicide Support Group: Meets from 5:30-6:45 p.m. at Hospice of Laramie House, 1754 Centennial Drive.
Women for Sobriety meet: 6:30-8:30 p.m. via Zoom. For meeting details, email 1093@womenforsobriety.org.
UW Music presents Diego Caetano on piano: 7:30 p.m., Buchanan Center for the Performing Arts Recital Hall. Free to attend and all are invited. Program focuses on French-inspired music by an artist who’s been described as “a gifted pianist with a brilliant technique and musicality.”
Aug. 30
Prayers & Squares Quilting Group meets: 9 a.m., Room 1 of Hunter Hall at St. Matthews Cathedral.
Aug. 31
Laramie Tai Chi and Tea meets: 1:30 p.m. at outdoors Harbon Park, North 14th and Gibbon streets. For more information, visit laramietaichiandtea.org.
Sept. 1
Caregivers for loved ones with Alzheimer’s/dementia: 3 p.m., meet for coffee, pie, understanding and comradeship at Perkins Restaurant & Bakery, 204 S. 30th St. For more information, call 307-745-6451.
Al-Anon Family Group meets: 5:30 p.m. at the Presbyterian church, 215 S. 11th St. For relatives and friends of alcoholics. For information, call Jane at 307-760-4683 or Mark at 307-760-4716.
Diabetes Support Group meets: 5:30-6:30 p.m. via Zoom. Email questions@ivinsosnhospital.org for the link.
Sept. 3
Walk with a Doc: 1:30-2:30 p.m. at the Washington Park west shelter No. 3. Bring walking shoes and a friend. For more information, email questions@ivinsonhospital.org.
Sept. 4
Laramie Connections free Meet and Eat dinner and faith gathering: 4:30 p.m., First Baptist Church, 1517 E. Canby St.
Al-Anon Family Group meets: 6:30 p.m. at the Presbyterian church, 215 S. 11th St. For relatives and friends of alcoholics. For information, call Jane at 307-760-4683 or Mark at 307-760-4716.
Sept. 5
Alcoholics Anonymous meets: Daily at various times in person or on Zoom. For more information, call 307-399-0590 or visit area76aawyoming.org or aa.org.
Survivors of Suicide Support Group: Meets from 5:30-6:45 p.m. at Hospice of Laramie House, 1754 Centennial Drive.
Women for Sobriety meet: 6:30-8:30 p.m. via Zoom. For meeting details, email 1093@womenforsobriety.org.
Sept. 6
Prayers & Squares Quilting Group meets: 9 a.m., Room 1 of Hunter Hall at St. Matthews Cathedral.
Sept. 7
Laramie Tai Chi and Tea meets: 1:30 p.m. outdoors at Harbon Park, North 14th and Gibbon streets. For more information, visit visit laramietaichiandtea.org.
Ivinson’s women’s health team hosts prenatal education: 5:30 p.m. in the Summit conference room. For more information and registration, visit ivinsonhospital.org/childbirth.
Sept. 8
Caregivers for loved ones with Alzheimer’s/dementia: 3 p.m., meet for coffee, pie, understanding and comradeship at Perkins Restaurant & Bakery, 204 S. 30th St. For more information, call 307-745-6451.
Al-Anon Family Group meets: 5:30 p.m. at the Presbyterian church, 215 S. 11th St. For relatives and friends of alcoholics. For information, call Jane at 307-760-4683 or Mark at 307-760-4716.
Sept. 10
22nd annual Wyoming Buddy Walk: 9 a.m. to noon, Washington Park band shell.
Summer Market Day at the fairgrounds: 3-6 p.m., beef barn.
Sept. 11
Laramie Connections free Meet and Eat dinner and faith gathering: 4:30 p.m., First Baptist Church, 1517 E. Canby St.
Al-Anon Family Group meets: 6:30 p.m. at the Presbyterian church, 215 S. 11th St. For relatives and friends of alcoholics. For information, call Jane at 307-760-4683 or Mark at 307-760-4716.
Sept. 12
Alcoholics Anonymous meets: Daily at various times in person or on Zoom. For more information, call 307-399-0590 or visit area76aawyoming.org or aa.org.
Survivors of Suicide Support Group: Meets from 5:30-6:45 p.m. at Hospice of Laramie House, 1754 Centennial Drive.
Albany County Historic Preservation Board meets: 6 p.m. via Microsoft Teams. To attend and receive an invite, email a request to kcbard@charter.net.
Women for Sobriety meet: 6:30-8:30 p.m. via Zoom. For meeting details, email 1093@womenforsobriety.org.
Sept. 13
Prayers & Squares Quilting Group meets: 9 a.m., Room 1 of Hunter Hall at St. Matthews Cathedral.
Albany County Republican Party meets: 6 p.m., Albany County Public Library.
Sept. 14
Laramie Tai Chi and Tea meets: 1:30 p.m. outdoors at Harbon Park, North 14th and Gibbon streets. For more information, visit visit laramietaichiandtea.org.
Ivinson’s women’s health team hosts prenatal education: 5:30 p.m. in the Summit conference room. For more information and registration, visit ivinsonhospital.org/childbirth.
Sept. 15
Caregivers for loved ones with Alzheimer’s/dementia: 3 p.m., meet for coffee, pie, understanding and comradeship at Perkins Restaurant & Bakery, 204 S. 30th St. For more information, call 307-745-6451.
Al-Anon Family Group meets: 5:30 p.m. at the Presbyterian church, 215 S. 11th St. For relatives and friends of alcoholics. For information, call Jane at 307-760-4683 or Mark at 307-760-4716.
Sept. 16
Albany County CattleWomen meet: 11:30 a.m., location tbd. Visit wyaccw.com in the week before the meeting for location and more information.
Sept. 17
Higher Ground Fair: 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., Wyoming Territorial Prison State Historic Site in Laramie. A celebration of the six Rocky Mountain states and the native first nations that also call the region home. Proceeds from ticket sales (kids admitted free) help support Feeding Laramie Valley. Fore more information or to volunteer, call 307-223-4300 or email info@highergroundfair.org.
Walk with a Doc: 1:30-2:30 p.m. at the Washington Park west shelter No. 3. Bring walking shoes and a friend. For more information, email questions@ivinsonhospital.org.
Sept. 18
Higher Ground Fair: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Wyoming Territorial Prison State Historic Site in Laramie. A celebration of the six Rocky Mountain states and the native first nations that also call the region home. Proceeds from ticket sales (kids admitted free) help support Feeding Laramie Valley. Fore more information or to volunteer, call 307-223-4300 or email info@highergroundfair.org.
Laramie Connections free Meet and Eat dinner and faith gathering: 4:30 p.m., First Baptist Church, 1517 E. Canby St.
Al-Anon Family Group meets: 6:30 p.m. at the Presbyterian church, 215 S. 11th St. For relatives and friends of alcoholics. For information, call Jane at 307-760-4683 or Mark at 307-760-4716.
Sept. 19
Alcoholics Anonymous meets: Daily at various times in person or on Zoom. For more information, call 307-399-0590 or visit area76aawyoming.org or aa.org.
Survivors of Suicide Support Group: Meets from 5:30-6:45 p.m. at Hospice of Laramie House, 1754 Centennial Drive.
Women for Sobriety meet: 6:30-8:30 p.m. via Zoom. For meeting details, email 1093@womenforsobriety.org.
Sept. 20
Prayers & Squares Quilting Group meets: 9 a.m., Room 1 of Hunter Hall at St. Matthews Cathedral.
Sept. 21
Laramie Tai Chi and Tea meets: 1:30 p.m. outdoors at Harbon Park, North 14th and Gibbon streets. For more information, visit visit laramietaichiandtea.org.
Ivinson’s women’s health team hosts prenatal education: 5:30 p.m. in the Summit conference room. For more information and registration, visit ivinsonhospital.org/childbirth.
Sept. 22
Caregivers for loved ones with Alzheimer’s/dementia: 3 p.m., meet for coffee, pie, understanding and comradeship at Perkins Restaurant & Bakery, 204 S. 30th St. For more information, call 307-745-6451.
Al-Anon Family Group meets: 5:30 p.m. at the Presbyterian church, 215 S. 11th St. For relatives and friends of alcoholics. For information, call Jane at 307-760-4683 or Mark at 307-760-4716.
Sept. 25
Laramie Connections free Meet and Eat dinner and faith gathering: 4:30 p.m., First Baptist Church, 1517 E. Canby St.
Al-Anon Family Group meets: 6:30 p.m. at the Presbyterian church, 215 S. 11th St. For relatives and friends of alcoholics. For information, call Jane at 307-760-4683 or Mark at 307-760-4716.
Sept. 26
Alcoholics Anonymous meets: Daily at various times in person or on Zoom. For more information, call 307-399-0590 or visit area76aawyoming.org or aa.org.
Survivors of Suicide Support Group: Meets from 5:30-6:45 p.m. at Hospice of Laramie House, 1754 Centennial Drive.
Women for Sobriety meet: 6:30-8:30 p.m. via Zoom. For meeting details, email 1093@womenforsobriety.org.
America Sewing Guild Laramie Chapter meets: 7 p.m., United Methodist Church, 1215 E. Gibbon St.
Sept. 27
Prayers & Squares Quilting Group meets: 9 a.m., Room 1 of Hunter Hall at St. Matthews Cathedral.
Sept. 28
Laramie Tai Chi and Tea meets: 1:30 p.m. outdoors at Harbon Park, North 14th and Gibbon streets. For more information, visit visit laramietaichiandtea.org.
Sept. 29
Caregivers for loved ones with Alzheimer’s/dementia: 3 p.m., meet for coffee, pie, understanding and comradeship at Perkins Restaurant & Bakery, 204 S. 30th St. For more information, call 307-745-6451.
Al-Anon Family Group meets: 5:30 p.m. at the Presbyterian church, 215 S. 11th St. For relatives and friends of alcoholics. For information, call Jane at 307-760-4683 or Mark at 307-760-4716.
Oct. 2
Laramie Connections free Meet and Eat dinner and faith gathering: 4:30 p.m., First Baptist Church, 1517 E. Canby St.
Al-Anon Family Group meets: 6:30 p.m. at the Presbyterian church, 215 S. 11th St. For relatives and friends of alcoholics. For information, call Jane at 307-760-4683 or Mark at 307-760-4716. | https://www.wyomingnews.com/laramieboomerang/announcements/whats-happening-aug-21-2022/article_1cf6cf30-20c4-11ed-92c9-7b0692d7aeaf.html | 2022-08-21T11:42:08Z |
Canvassing board certifies primary resultsLocal results of Tuesday’s elections were certified by the Albany Board of Canvassers on Friday, according to Jackie Gonzales, Albany County Clerk.
The results mean that the provisional vote totals reported will remain in place.
The canvassing board is a three-member team with one Republican and one Democratic representative and Gonzales as county clerk.
Essentially, Gonzales said, the board makes sure that the number of electors equals the number of votes that are reported in the unofficial results. The board did not find any problems with the vote totals, she said.
Wyoming statutes require the board examine all poll books, tally sheets, precinct certifications and oaths of election officials. It compares the total votes with the total number of voters; counts the votes for write-in candidates, if there are enough to affect the result of an election; and reviews provisional voters.
A provisional voter may be someone who provided correct identification after the polls closed, the statute says.
Any questions about a voter were resolved by the board. Although they are not required to reach a consensus, board members were unanimous in any decisions they made, said Kimberly Starkey, the Republican representative.
Carrie Murthy, who served on the board for the first time as the Democratic representative, said her impression was that the process was “very thorough and transparent.”
“We were in agreement every step of the way,” Murthy said.
The canvassing process is open to the public, and several people stopped into see how it works, she said.
Gonzales said that she did not hear that Wyoming’s new voter identification law created any problems at local polling places.
Ballots are kept in a vault for 24 months, Gonzales said.
Laramie County DA declines to charge woman in stabbing deathThe Laramie County district attorney has declined to charge a woman arrested earlier this month in a fatal stabbing, saying current evidence points to the incident being self-defense.
The local sheriff’s office says it continues to investigate “with the goal of bringing charges” against the woman.
Rocsand Bocanegra, 42, was arrested late Aug. 9 by Laramie County Sheriff’s deputies after she’d been identified as a person of interest in a fatal stabbing earlier the day before.
Bocanegra was held on a second-degree homicide charge at the Laramie County jail until just before midnight Aug. 12. Anyone not formally charged within 72 hours of their arrest must be released, said LCSO Undersheriff Capt. Kevin James.
The sheriff’s office identified the victim in the fatal stabbing as 58-year-old Jess Smith of Cheyenne.
In an Aug. 12 letter to an LCSO detective, DA Leigh Anne Manlove outlined how Wyoming statutes related to self-defense did not permit her to charge Bocanegra at that time. Manlove provided that letter to the Wyoming Tribune Eagle. | https://www.wyomingnews.com/laramieboomerang/news/local/worth-noting-aug-21-2022/article_8d1985ba-20c3-11ed-bed9-a3a58a1b9671.html | 2022-08-21T11:42:14Z |
The Wyoming Department of Education shared a school choice survey on its social media last weekend, which an official said was the result of a hack.
WDE spokeswoman Linda Finnerty said a link to the survey was posted on the department’s Twitter account by someone with malicious intent, and it has since been removed. She told the Wyoming Tribune Eagle their passwords have since been changed, and recommends no one click on the survey, as it could lead to a virus or damage to electronics.
“We’ve tried to investigate, and we’re still looking into it,” she said. “But at this point, we don’t have that identification.”
Observers of the school choice survey have said it wasn’t just shared on the department’s Twitter account. There were reports it was seen on Facebook, which also came Wednesday from the Jackson Hole News&Guide.
“The survey was promoted on the department’s Twitter and Facebook pages,” wrote reporter Evan Robinson-Johnson. “It was retweeted by the state of Wyoming and @WyoSUP, a collaborative group of school districts, colleges and education organizations.”
Wyoming School Boards Association President Brian Farmer told the WTE he saw the survey on multiple social media platforms. It was brought to his attention last week by another member of the WSBA, who shared a link to the Twitter post and was concerned. He said he saw what he believes to be the same survey on the WDE’s Facebook, but didn’t compare them closely.
In a follow-up text chain with Finnerty, she told the WTE the survey was never posted to the department’s Facebook account.
“I was very surprised,” Farmer said in response. “This sort of posting by a state agency generally gives some sort of legitimacy to the material that they’re sharing or reposting, or that they’re putting out there through their official channels. Yet, the survey itself certainly seems to be very much a promotion of a specific perspective.”
He said it was unusual for a department that doesn’t engage in any partisan promotion.
“I was also very disappointed in the agency that they would post something that was ... I don’t have a better term for it than propaganda,” he said.
About the surveyThe “Wyoming School Choice Survey,” which was still online Friday at https://wyomingschoolchoicesurvey.com/, has no connection listed to an official agency, nor does it provide any information about who created it.
It provides those who would participate with 12 questions about schools in the state. It asks them to grade public schools in Wyoming and their communities on a scale from A to F, or undecided, and how much background knowledge they have on charter schools.
It moves into education-related statements, and asks the participant to indicate if they favor or oppose each statement. Some of those include whether they agree with “reducing regulations as long as accountability for student performance remains high,” and “allowing schools to make quick, effective changes to improve student achievement.”
Once the survey is submitted, it thanks the participant and gives no indication what the survey is for or who will receive the information provided.
“I think it encouraged the respondent to present an unfavorable impression of Wyoming public schools, and suggested that charter schools or charter options are somehow always a superior option to public schools,” Farmer said. “It seemed it was a promotion for charter schools, as opposed to taking an unbiased or neutral position – or even one that was just informative.”
Farmer was not the only education advocate concerned with the survey being shared by the state agency.
Charter school critics
“I was disappointed to see a school choice survey being sent out from the Wyoming Department of Education,” said Wyoming Education Association President Grady Hutcherson in a statement. “WDE is our government agency charged with responsibly leading and stewarding our public schools; that is where the agency’s focus should be.”
The Wyoming Legislature voted in 1995 to allow charter schools, according to the National School Choice Week website. The state currently has five, located in Cheyenne, Laramie and Riverton; Poder Academy is the one here.
Despite both organization presidents criticizing the sharing of the survey, they held different perspectives on charter schools in the state.
Farmer said the school boards association doesn’t believe charter schools are either inherently good or bad. He said every application must be judged on whether it meets the requirements under Wyoming law, and there are clearly times when they benefit communities in the state. He said he stands by the belief that charters should be approved by school districts and a neutral party, and held to the same standards as public schools.
“It’s highly important for Wyoming to demand that public dollars have public accountability and public transparency,” he said. “It’s critically important that the governance of any school has local control, and so I think all of our charter schools need to be held to the same standards as our public schools.”
He said if this is not the case, it shouldn’t be a charter school. It should be a private school and operate by different rules.
The WEA also takes the position that programs such as charter schools should not negatively impact the regular public school program, and must include adequate safeguards covering contract and employment provisions for all employees. They also must fully comply with statutory regulations.
However, Hutcherson said charter schools come with unintended consequences that pose a threat to Wyoming students. He said allowing dollars to follow students out of the public education system into charter schools will only siphon money out of already underfunded public schools.
“I find it ironic that this is called the ‘school choice’ movement because, for so many of our students, our traditional, existing public schools are the choice. Because of location, socioeconomic status or circumstance, public school is their one and only choice. And it is a choice that matters: For too many students, their public school is their main – or even their only – source of education, nutrition, counseling, health services, socialization and even safety,” he said. “How can anyone be willing to consider policy options that erode and jeopardize our public schools when they are the heart of our communities and the lifeline for our children?”
School choice advocates
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Brian Schroeder has been in charge of the Wyoming Department of Education since being appointed to fill a vacancy in February, and has taken an opposing public stance. He has been an advocate for school choice, and hosted a public information night in Cheyenne in May for a proposed charter school. He was joined by national advocates for the charter school movement.
“A healthy school has zero tolerance for toxic behaviors, toxic attitudes or toxic ideologies. Healthy schools, where the adults are still in charge, students are respectful, common sense prevails, and where our nation’s longstanding traditions are honored, not deleted,” he said at the event. “Which is why the charter school movement is such a critical piece in this whole thing. It breaks the stronghold of centralization, moves things back to the parents and local control, and brings competition back into the picture.”
His support for the charter school movement earned him former President Donald Trump’s endorsement in his campaign during the Republican primary.
“Brian Schroeder is doing an incredible job as Wyoming Superintendent of Public Instruction,” the Save America PAC said in a statement. “The proud father of seven children, Brian is a Champion for Wyoming Families. He is working hard to Advance School Choice, Deliver Education Solutions for our Children, and Defend Parental Rights.”
Schroeder lost Tuesday to Megan Degenfelder in the Republican primary, and will serve as state superintendent until January. He could not be reached for comment on the survey or the department’s social media pointing to it. | https://www.wyomingnews.com/laramieboomerang/news/wde-says-social-media-hacked-shares-survey/article_a9963668-20c1-11ed-9562-0344b3830723.html | 2022-08-21T11:42:20Z |
Boomerang Writer
University of Wyoming students are getting an early preview of the joys and challenges that could face them across their academic careers.
Monday was the first day of Saddle Up, the university’s orientation program for incoming students. The program is meant to prepare students for their studies and social lives over the course of a week packed with activities that go far beyond a campus tour and learning the UW fight song.
“Our expectation is this incoming class of students will be the best prepared ever in part because of Saddle Up,” UW President Ed Seidel said during a Board of Trustees meeting Tuesday.
UW students and employees helped create the program, which was modeled off of similar practices at other universities that have been shown to increase student retention rates by 8%-10%, said Dean of Student Success and Graduation Nycole Courtney.
During the orientation, students take a weeklong course with their peers with same or similar majors. The courses are meant to mimic a real college-level class complete with tests and quizzes. Engineering students even build a car in their class.
When not in class, students spend time learning about the resources and activities on campus, take tours and do team building activities with their assigned orientation groups. The week also includes seminars on wellness topics, such as bystander intervention and mental health.
“Busy, tired and sweaty” was the way one student described the experience, with the consensus of many others.
The week wasn’t without its challenges, especially for student leaders and staff members running the orientation. When the basements of some campus buildings flooded during last weekend’s storm, the group rushed to save the 1,000 “Saddle Up” bags that had been laid out ready to give to the students.
They succeeded in saving the bags and worked to keep spirits up as some students sat in flooded classrooms Monday to the ambiance of fans and a smell one orientation leader described as “mucky.”
In some ways the difficulties were a perfect introduction to college for the students: things were hard at times, but together the group learned how to make the best of it — and build connections with one another along the way.
Teaching students how to advocate for themselves, whether it be to seek help from a professor, counselor or friend, is a central goal of the program.
“We want to get them to success from Day One,” Courtney said.
This type of comprehensive tour of college life and all it entails is something the orientation leaders said they wish they had when starting college.
“I would’ve loved meeting more geology students and getting (involved) in the department sooner,” said orientation leader Sarah Copertino.
Some freshman students said they made friends with people they wouldn’t have met otherwise, while others were exposed to corners of campus they may not have found on their own.
Some students gathered in the makerspace of the Coe Library, where there is equipment available for students to make items like buttons and keychains.
“I don’t think outside of this I would have been here,” incoming student Keagan Bowen said of the space.
The crafting time gave students an opportunity to reflect on what they are looking forward to in the upcoming semester. For Bowen, it’s experiencing more independence and freedom from a high school class schedule.
Others were excited to be closer to family who live in Laramie and start the next phases of their lives.
“I’m excited to start class and clubs,” Kanilehua Miller said.
More than 1,400 students checked into the residence halls by Wednesday, with a total of 1,677 set up to check in throughout the week, UW spokesperson Chad Baldwin said. The first day of classes is Monday.
For many of the new students, heading to class this fall will be a welcome change after a series of difficult school years during the pandemic.
“As freshmen we got booted out of the dorms,” said senior orientation leader Danielle Ernste. “Now it feels like (COVID-19) never happened.” | https://www.wyomingnews.com/laramieboomerang/news/working-out-the-kinks-uw-students-study-socialize-ahead-of-semester/article_da62bf44-1fd8-11ed-94c6-3bc03f07c770.html | 2022-08-21T11:42:26Z |
Laramie Boomerang
LARAMIE – University of Wyoming trustees are mulling a change in how student fees are charged, moving from per-credit billing to a flat rate.
The change is one of the issues the UW Board of Trustees will discuss at its next meeting Sept. 14-16.
The way the fee structure stands now, students pay per credit hour. Trustees are considering moving to a block tuition model, which means full-time students would pay a set rate, regardless of the number of credits they are taking in the range of 12-18.
The change is meant to make it more clear for students how much they will be paying for college, and to encourage them to graduate within a four-year window, according to UW. While the university already offers a cost calculator for students, the current tuition model can leave some with questions about the cost of their education.
“I think it provides some transparency for the student in what the cost will be,” Trustee Laura Schmid-Pizzato said of the block model during a July board retreat.
In addition to clarifying what can be a murky tuition paying process, the block schedule can offer students flexibility in adding or dropping courses without having to worry about how academic decisions could influence their finances. It will also encourage students to take more courses, Schmid-Pizzato said.
The block rate would be priced based on a 15-credit-hour semester, meaning students who take more than 15 credits would save money under the new structure, while those who take fewer than 15 credits would pay more per credit.
UW students are required to take a minimum of 12 credits each semester to be considered full-time, and taking 15 credits per semester is recommended to graduate within four years.
Tuition increase
The board will also consider a separate proposal to raise tuition rates by 4% each academic year. The hike is part of a tuition review process that happens every four years, according to trustee documents.
Of the 4% increase, 2% of revenue could go to student success programs established by the Associated Students of UW and administration. The other 2% would go toward salary increases, with mandatory raises for promoted faculty taking priority.
The current estimated cost of attendance for an in-state undergraduate student for the upcoming academic year is $18,682, according to the UW website. The estimated cost for an in-state graduate student is $7,182. The numbers increase to $33,832 and $18,324 respectively for out-of-state students.
The university has the ability to be flexible with where tuition increases are applied, and they may not impact every area of study, said Board of Trustees Chairman John McKinley.
Tuition rates change depending on whether classes are undergraduate or graduate and whether they are online or virtual.
In the past, the university has provided tuition flexibility in the areas of nursing and the law school, he said. This time, the final recommendations may include a more “market-based” rate for entrepreneurial programs, McKinley said.
Trustees will discuss and finalize the possible changes during a meeting scheduled for Nov. 16-18. | https://www.wyomingnews.com/news/in_our_schools/uw-considers-block-tuition-rates-4-increase/article_3732bff0-20cc-11ed-bd29-7b831e7630cd.html | 2022-08-21T11:42:32Z |
CHEYENNE – The Cheyenne Central tennis teams both swept Natrona County, 5-0. Junior Ashli Smedley won her No. 1 singles match against Matina Sanchez de Lamadrid Llatas, 6-4, 2-6, 7-6 (0). Hailey Mathis-Breithapt blanked her opponent 6-0, 6-0.
The Central boys got a pair of three-set wins, two by scores of 6-0, 6-0 and another, 6-1, 6-1. No. 1 singles player Thomas Smedley rallied from a set down to win 5-7, 6-2, 6-2. The No. 2 doubles team of Nathan Courtright and Matt Klaassen won 6-2, 6-7 (5), 6-3.
Results from Central’s duals with Kelly Walsh were not available be e-edition deadline Saturday.
East splits duals with Casper schools
CHEYENNE – The Cheyenne East tennis teams both downed Natrona County and lost to Kelly Walsh on Saturday.
The Lady Thunderbirds topped Natrona 3-2 thanks to their doubles teams. Emma Dray and Zoey Woods rallied from a set down to win 3-6, 6-4, 6-4 at No. 1 doubles. Ava Courtney and Ashley Smith won 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 at No. 3 doubles.
East’s boys beat the Mustangs 4-1, getting all their wins in straight sets. The No. 2 doubles tandem of Jacob Romine and Peyton Seelye won 6-4, 7-6 (5).
The girls lost to Kelly Walsh 5-0, while the boys fell 4-1. Freshman Colin Crecelius won his No. 1 singles match 6-1, 6-0. He also picked up a win against Natrona. | https://www.wyomingnews.com/wyosports/high_school/cheyenne_central/prep-tennis-central-sweeps-duals-with-natrona/article_d9e6da34-20ee-11ed-9844-4f9d7ec9cd7e.html | 2022-08-21T11:42:39Z |
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USU-Eastern rallies to beat LCCC men Aug 21, 2022 36 min ago Comments Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Copy article link Save Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Copy article link Save CHEYENNE – The Golden Eagles struck first, but Utah State-Eastern controlled the rest of the match winning 4-2 on Saturday in Price, Utah.Isaac Perez got Laramie County Community College (0-2) on the scoreboard with an unassisted goal in the 12th minute.USU-Eastern held a 3-1 halftime lead. LCCC’s second goal came from Azael Marrufo with an assist from Edgar Garcia.“Unfortunately, it did not go our way this weekend,” interim coach Fernando Perez said. “We have to get back to work.” Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Copy article link Save Tags Usu-eastern Laramie County Community College Halftime Sport Lead Isaac Perez Azael Marrufo Assist Recommended for you Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. comments powered by Disqus Latest Special Section 2021 Wyoming Football Preview To view our latest e-Edition click the image on the left. Trending Now Predicting Wyoming’s starters for the season opener Life led Rigan McInerney back to LCCC volleyball Gentry ‘ahead of schedule’ with season approaching UW’s Volk wins U20 world title Pokes make progress, suffer setback in scrimmage | https://www.wyomingnews.com/wyosports/other_sports/lccc/usu-eastern-rallies-to-beat-lccc-men/article_142a6bf2-20e5-11ed-9e7a-37805c0ecdea.html | 2022-08-21T11:42:54Z |
Defense in school shooter’s trial set to present its case
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — The prosecution spent three weeks telling jurors how Nikolas Cruz murdered 14 students and three staff members at a Florida high school four years ago. Now his attorneys will get their chance to present why they believe he did it, hoping to get him sentenced to life without parole instead of death.
Melisa McNeill, Cruz’s lead public defender, is expected to give her opening statement Monday, having deferred its presentation from the start of the trial a month ago.
She and her team will then begin laying out their 23-year-old client’s life history: his birth mother’s abuse of alcohol and cocaine during her pregnancy, leading to possible fetal alcohol syndrome; his severe mental and emotional problems; his alleged sexual abuse by a “trusted peer;” the bullying he endured; and his adoptive father’s death when he was 5 and his adoptive mother’s four months before his Feb. 14, 2018, attack at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
McNeill’s decision to delay her opening statement appeared part of a broader strategy to not deny or lessen anything prosecutors told jurors about Cruz’s massacre — he pleaded guilty in October to 17 counts of first-degree murder. This trial is only to decide his sentence; the seven-man, five woman jury will consider whether the prosecution’s aggravating circumstances “outweigh” the defense’s mitigating factors.
The defense is “going to say, ‘Look, you saw what happened — we are not going to argue that. It was horrible, that was awful, that was horrific, whatever adjectives you want to use,” said David S. Weinstein, a Miami defense attorney and former prosecutor. But then the defense will add: “He never had a chance and, because of that, his poor victims never had a chance.’”
This is the deadliest U.S. mass shooting to ever reach trial. Nine other gunmen who killed at least 17 people died during or immediately after their shootings, either by suicide or police gunfire. The suspect in the 2019 slaying of 23 people at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, is awaiting trial.
During the prosecution’s case, McNeill’s team never cross-examined any teacher or student who witnessed the slayings and only had brief, mild exchanges with a few other witnesses.
They asked one teacher from a classroom where no one was shot about the lack of a security monitor in the three-story building where the slayings happened. When the gun store owner who sold Cruz the AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle used in the killings testified, they asked what Florida’s minimum age was in 2017 to buy a rifle — 18 — and today — 21.
Neither they nor the prosecutors then asked the store owner why the law was changed: Cruz was 19 when the shooting happened and the Republican-led Legislature raised the age limit as part of a larger package of gun laws enacted in response to the shootings.
Cruz’s youth will be part of his defense and while Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer has barred the defense from presenting testimony that directly casts blame on third parties like school administrators for not preventing the shooting, McNeill and her team will likely try to indirectly make such points.
To get Cruz a life sentence, the defense will only have to persuade one of the 12 jurors, but they will have to do it on all 17 counts, one for each victim. It is possible, for example, a reluctant juror might be pushed to vote for death on victims who surveillance video showed Cruz shot multiple times as they lay wounded and helpless.
The defense will be trying to overcome the horrendous evidence that was laid out by the prosecution, capped by the jurors’ Aug. 4 visit to the fenced-off building that Cruz stalked for seven minutes, firing about 150 shots down halls and into classrooms. The jurors saw dried blood on floors and walls, bullet holes in doors and windows and remnants of Valentine’s Day balloons, flowers and cards.
Prosecutors also presented graphic surveillance videos of the massacre; gruesome crime scene and autopsy photos from its aftermath; emotional testimony from teachers and students who witnessed others die; and four days of tearful and angry statements from parents, spouses and other family members about the victims and how their loved one’s death affected their lives. Jurors also watched video of Cruz calmly ordering a cherry and blue raspberry Icee minutes after the shooting and, nine months later, attacking a jail guard.
It is unknown how long the defense presentation will take, but they said in court recently that it will last past Labor Day in two weeks. The prosecution will then get to present a rebuttal case before it goes to the jury.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/08/21/defense-school-shooters-trial-set-present-its-case/ | 2022-08-21T12:04:28Z |
Car blast kills daughter of Russian known as ‘Putin’s brain’
MOSCOW (AP) — The daughter of a Russian nationalist ideologist who is often referred to as “Putin’s brain” was killed when her car exploded on the outskirts of Moscow, officials said Sunday.
The Investigative Committee branch for the Moscow region said the Saturday night blast was caused by a bomb planted in the SUV driven by Daria Dugina.
The 29-year-old was the daughter of political theorist Alexander Dugin, a prominent proponent of the “Russian world” concept and a vehement supporter of Russia’s sending of troops into Ukraine.
Dugin’s exact ties to President Vladimir Putin are unclear, but the Kremlin frequently echoes rhetoric from his writings and appearances on Russian state TV. He helped popularize the concept of “Novorossiya” (New Russia) that Russia used to justify the annexation of Crimea and its support of separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine.
He promotes Russia as a country of piety, traditional values and authoritarian leadership, and disdains Western liberal values.
Dugina expressed similar views and had appeared as a commentator on the nationalist TV channel Tsargrad.
She was sanctioned by the United States in March for her work as chief editor of United World International, a website that the U.S. described as a disinformation site. The sanctions announcement cited a UWI article this year that contended Ukraine would “perish” if it were admitted to NATO.
“Dasha, like her father, has always been at the forefront of confrontation with the West,” Tsargrad said on Sunday, using the familiar form of her name.
The explosion took place as Dugina was returning from a cultural festival she had attended with her father. Some Russian media reports cited witnesses as saying the vehicle belonged to her father and that he had decided at the last minute to travel in another car.
The vivid and violent incident, unusual for Moscow, is likely to aggravate Russia-Ukraine animosity.
No suspects were immediately identified. But Denis Pushilin, president of the separatist Donetsk People’s Republic that is a focus of Russia’s fighting in Ukraine, blamed it on “terrorists of the Ukrainian regime, trying to kill Alexander Dugin.”
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, denied Ukrainian involvement, saying on national TV that “We are not a criminal state, unlike Russia, and definitely not a terrorist state.”
Analyst Sergei Markov, a former Putin adviser, told Russian state news agency RIA-Novosti that Alexander Dugin, not his daughter, likely was the intended target and said “it’s completely obvious that the most probable suspects are Ukrainian military intelligence and the Ukrainian Security Service.”
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/08/21/car-blast-kills-daughter-russian-known-putins-brain/ | 2022-08-21T12:38:05Z |
Defense in school shooter’s trial set to present its case
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — The prosecution spent three weeks telling jurors how Nikolas Cruz murdered 14 students and three staff members at a Florida high school four years ago. Now his attorneys will get their chance to present why they believe he did it, hoping to get him sentenced to life without parole instead of death.
Melisa McNeill, Cruz’s lead public defender, is expected to give her opening statement Monday, having deferred its presentation from the start of the trial a month ago.
She and her team will then begin laying out their 23-year-old client’s life history: his birth mother’s abuse of alcohol and cocaine during her pregnancy, leading to possible fetal alcohol syndrome; his severe mental and emotional problems; his alleged sexual abuse by a “trusted peer;” the bullying he endured; and his adoptive father’s death when he was 5 and his adoptive mother’s four months before his Feb. 14, 2018, attack at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
McNeill’s decision to delay her opening statement appeared part of a broader strategy to not deny or lessen anything prosecutors told jurors about Cruz’s massacre — he pleaded guilty in October to 17 counts of first-degree murder. This trial is only to decide his sentence; the seven-man, five woman jury will consider whether the prosecution’s aggravating circumstances “outweigh” the defense’s mitigating factors.
The defense is “going to say, ‘Look, you saw what happened — we are not going to argue that. It was horrible, that was awful, that was horrific, whatever adjectives you want to use,” said David S. Weinstein, a Miami defense attorney and former prosecutor. But then the defense will add: “He never had a chance and, because of that, his poor victims never had a chance.’”
This is the deadliest U.S. mass shooting to ever reach trial. Nine other gunmen who killed at least 17 people died during or immediately after their shootings, either by suicide or police gunfire. The suspect in the 2019 slaying of 23 people at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, is awaiting trial.
During the prosecution’s case, McNeill’s team never cross-examined any teacher or student who witnessed the slayings and only had brief, mild exchanges with a few other witnesses.
They asked one teacher from a classroom where no one was shot about the lack of a security monitor in the three-story building where the slayings happened. When the gun store owner who sold Cruz the AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle used in the killings testified, they asked what Florida’s minimum age was in 2017 to buy a rifle — 18 — and today — 21.
Neither they nor the prosecutors then asked the store owner why the law was changed: Cruz was 19 when the shooting happened and the Republican-led Legislature raised the age limit as part of a larger package of gun laws enacted in response to the shootings.
Cruz’s youth will be part of his defense and while Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer has barred the defense from presenting testimony that directly casts blame on third parties like school administrators for not preventing the shooting, McNeill and her team will likely try to indirectly make such points.
To get Cruz a life sentence, the defense will only have to persuade one of the 12 jurors, but they will have to do it on all 17 counts, one for each victim. It is possible, for example, a reluctant juror might be pushed to vote for death on victims who surveillance video showed Cruz shot multiple times as they lay wounded and helpless.
The defense will be trying to overcome the horrendous evidence that was laid out by the prosecution, capped by the jurors’ Aug. 4 visit to the fenced-off building that Cruz stalked for seven minutes, firing about 150 shots down halls and into classrooms. The jurors saw dried blood on floors and walls, bullet holes in doors and windows and remnants of Valentine’s Day balloons, flowers and cards.
Prosecutors also presented graphic surveillance videos of the massacre; gruesome crime scene and autopsy photos from its aftermath; emotional testimony from teachers and students who witnessed others die; and four days of tearful and angry statements from parents, spouses and other family members about the victims and how their loved one’s death affected their lives. Jurors also watched video of Cruz calmly ordering a cherry and blue raspberry Icee minutes after the shooting and, nine months later, attacking a jail guard.
It is unknown how long the defense presentation will take, but they said in court recently that it will last past Labor Day in two weeks. The prosecution will then get to present a rebuttal case before it goes to the jury.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/08/21/defense-school-shooters-trial-set-present-its-case/ | 2022-08-21T12:38:11Z |
Deputy resigns after traffic stop that pregnant mother calls terrifying
BRADFORD COUNTY, Fla. (WJXT) - A pregnant mother is speaking out after what she describes as a terrifying traffic stop with a Florida deputy. The traffic stop was caught on police camera, and the deputy later resigned.
Four months pregnant Ebony Washington and her three children were on their way home to Jacksonville from Gainesville last Friday around midnight when they were pulled over for speeding by Bradford County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Jason DeSue.
DeSue says the mother was traveling 75 miles per hour in a 55 mph speed zone.
Despite the lights and siren, Washington did not pull over right away because she wanted to find a well-lit area before doing so. She kept driving but turned on her hazard lights.
“It was dark [and I was] with my kids. I felt uncomfortable. I didn’t want to be able to not have anyone else around,” Washington said.
In the body camera footage, DeSue sounds like he is unhappy with this decision.
“Pull the vehicle over, or I’ll put you into the ground,” he said through the police car’s speakers.
Shortly after DeSue makes that statement, he follows Washington’s car into a gas station parking lot. Video shows he gets out of the vehicle and points his gun toward her car.
“If you make any movement, that’ll be your last mistake you’re gonna make,” he shouts at the car. “Do not move.”
The video shows Washington put her hands outside the vehicle like the deputy asked.
Washington says she was unaware the deputy pulled out a gun at first.
“I didn’t know he had a gun until I told him my seatbelt was on because he was telling me to get out… He said, ‘Well, get out. I have my gun. I’m not worried,’” she said.
Body camera footage shows DeSue aggressively take Washington’s arm after he handcuffed her.
Washington later tried to explain to the deputy why she did not initially pull over.
“I’m trying to tell you the only reason why I didn’t stop. I’m a very educated woman with a master’s degree… I was only not because it’s dark out and I have three kids with me. I’m pregnant, and I did not want them to feel uncomfortable,” she said in the video.
“Shut up about the why,” DeSue yelled at her. “Don’t care about the why.”
Washington was given a speeding ticket and apologized to the deputy.
“Apologize for yourself for not thinking,” DeSue said in the video.
The mother says she keeps replaying the incident in her head. She says she was “obliging [and] corresponding” during the stop, but she worries about might have happened.
“Had I done any type of movement outside of what he asked me to do, that could’ve been the opportunity for him to pull the trigger,” she said.
DeSue resigned from the sheriff’s office after the incident.
Copyright 2022 WJXT via CNN Newsource. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/08/21/deputy-resigns-after-traffic-stop-that-pregnant-mother-calls-terrifying/ | 2022-08-21T12:38:18Z |
Updated August 21, 2022 at 7:47 AM ET
MOGADISHU, Somalia — Somali authorities on Sunday ended a deadly attack in which 21 people were killed and dozens more wounded when gunmen stormed a hotel in the capital.
It took Somali forces more than 30 hours to contain the fighters who had stormed Mogadishu's Hayat Hotel on Friday evening in an assault that started with loud explosions.
The siege ended around midnight, police commissioner Abdi Hassan Hijar told reporters. "During the attack, the security forces rescued many civilians trapped in the hotel, including women and children," he said.
Health Minister Dr. Ali Haji Adam reported 21 deaths and 117 people wounded, with at least 15 in critical condition. He noted that some victims may not have been brought to hospitals.
Police are yet to give a detailed explanation of how the attack unfolded and it remains unclear how many gunmen entered the hotel.
Ismail Abdi, the hotel's manager, told The Associated Press early Sunday that security forces were still working to clear the area. No more gunfire could be heard after 9 a.m. local time. Onlookers gathered outside the gates of the badly damaged hotel on Sunday morning, surveying the scene.
The Islamic extremist group al-Shabab, which has ties with al-Qaida, claimed responsibility for the attack, the latest of its frequent attempts to strike places visited by government officials.
Al-Shabab opposes the federal government and the outsiders who support it.
The attack on the hotel is the first major terror incident in Mogadishu since Somalia's new leader, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, took over in May.
Somalia's previous president, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, avoided any major confrontation with al-Shabab. But Mohamud has said his government will take the offensive against the group's thousands of fighters, with the backing of returning U.S. forces.
Al-Shabab charged via its Andalus radio station that the attack on the hotel was in response to Mohamud's assertion that he would eliminate the group from Somalia.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the attack, according to a spokesman's statement that said the U.N. supports the people of Somalia "in their fight against terrorism and their march towards peace."
Al-Shabab remains the most lethal Islamic extremist group in Africa.
The group has seized even more territory in recent years, taking advantage of rifts among Somali security personnel as well as disagreements between the government seat in Mogadishu and regional states. It remains the biggest threat to political stability in the volatile Horn of Africa nation.
Forced to retreat from Mogadishu in 2011, al-Shabab is slowly making a comeback from the rural areas to which it retreated, defying the presence of African Union peacekeepers as well as U.S. drone strikes targeting its fighters.
The militants in early May attacked a military base for AU peacekeepers outside Mogadishu, killing many Burundian troops. The attack came just days before the presidential vote that returned Mohamud to power five years after he had been voted out.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-20/somali-forces-end-hotel-attack-in-which-21-were-killed | 2022-08-21T12:51:01Z |
NPR's Ayesha Rascoe speaks with Tomicia Gray, a single mother in Charlotte, N.C., about the onerous cost of school supplies.
Copyright 2022 NPR
NPR's Ayesha Rascoe speaks with Tomicia Gray, a single mother in Charlotte, N.C., about the onerous cost of school supplies.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-21/back-to-school-stress-is-amplified-by-inflation-affecting-the-cost-of-supplies | 2022-08-21T12:51:07Z |
NPR's Books We Love has reading recommendations from our staff and contributors. Today, we hear about three new romance novels: "An Arrow to the Moon," "Young Mungo" and "Ramon and Julieta."
Copyright 2022 NPR
NPR's Books We Love has reading recommendations from our staff and contributors. Today, we hear about three new romance novels: "An Arrow to the Moon," "Young Mungo" and "Ramon and Julieta."
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-21/books-we-love-recommended-reading-for-romance | 2022-08-21T12:51:13Z |
Eleanor Beardsley began reporting from France for NPR in 2004 as a freelance journalist, following all aspects of French society, politics, economics, culture and gastronomy. Since then, she has steadily worked her way to becoming an integral part of the NPR Europe reporting team. | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-21/climate-change-and-war-are-felt-everywhere-including-the-dijon-mustard-industry | 2022-08-21T12:51:19Z |
Ayesha Rascoe speaks with Dr. Frank Lin of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health about the link between hearing loss and dementia, and how over-the-counter hearing aids may help.
Copyright 2022 NPR
Ayesha Rascoe speaks with Dr. Frank Lin of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health about the link between hearing loss and dementia, and how over-the-counter hearing aids may help.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-21/hearing-loss-is-a-direct-link-to-dementia-easier-access-to-hearing-aids-could-help | 2022-08-21T12:51:25Z |
Ayesha Rascoe speaks with Corus International Chief Humanitarian Officer Tamara Demuria about the need for aid in Ukraine as winter approaches.
Copyright 2022 NPR
Ayesha Rascoe speaks with Corus International Chief Humanitarian Officer Tamara Demuria about the need for aid in Ukraine as winter approaches.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-21/humanitarian-groups-prepare-to-send-winter-help-to-ukrainians | 2022-08-21T12:51:31Z |
Ayesha Rascoe talks with the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Andrea Bayer about a new New York law requiring museums to acknowledge if a work of art was stolen by the Nazi regime.
Copyright 2022 NPR
Ayesha Rascoe talks with the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Andrea Bayer about a new New York law requiring museums to acknowledge if a work of art was stolen by the Nazi regime.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-21/new-york-art-museums-must-now-disclose-if-a-piece-was-stolen-by-nazis | 2022-08-21T12:51:37Z |
Thanks to redistricting, New York state will hold primary elections Tuesday for the second time this year, confusing some voters.
Copyright 2022 WSKG Radio
Thanks to redistricting, New York state will hold primary elections Tuesday for the second time this year, confusing some voters.
Copyright 2022 WSKG Radio | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-21/new-yorkers-will-vote-in-a-second-primary-election-this-year-thanks-to-redistricting | 2022-08-21T12:51:43Z |
People are paying to write messages on Ukrainian war weapons before use NPR | By Tim Mak Published August 21, 2022 at 6:42 AM MDT Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Flipboard Ukrainian volunteers are resorting to creative methods to raise funds to support the country's military. Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-21/people-are-paying-to-write-messages-on-ukrainian-war-weapons-before-use | 2022-08-21T12:51:49Z |
Mara Liasson is a national political correspondent for NPR. Her reports can be heard regularly on NPR's award-winning newsmagazine programs Morning Edition and All Things Considered. Liasson provides extensive coverage of politics and policy from Washington, DC — focusing on the White House and Congress — and also reports on political trends beyond the Beltway. | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-21/politics-chat-hot-issues-see-developments-this-week | 2022-08-21T12:51:55Z |
On-air challenge: Every answer today is a made-up phrase of two five-letter words that differ only in their vowel.
Ex. Path for heavy vehicles --> TRUCK TRACK
1. Ravine in Holland
2. Dark-colored cube
3. Light-haired person who can't see
4. Viking caregiver
5. Things offered for sale during the third month of the year
6. Jersey that doesn't reach down to the waist
7. Odor that you can barely detect
8. Food for pigs that's just terrific
9. Immediate sound from a duck
[Last one has six-letter words:]
10. Cord that's hard to break
Last week's challenge: This is a two-week creative challenge. The object is to write a sentence using only the letters of any particular U.S. state. You can pick the state and repeat letters as often as necessary. For example:
OREGON --> Roger, go gorge on green eggnog.
NEBRASKA --> Sen. Ben Sasse's sneakers reek. [Note: Ben Sasse is a U.S. senator from Nebraska]
Entries will be judged on originality, sense, naturalness of syntax, humor, and overall elegance. *No more than three sentences per entry, please.*
Winner: The winner of our two-week challenge is Kate Simpson of Kensington, Maryland. Her winning submission:
For West Virginia: In tennis news, a new era starts as Serena is retiring.
Honorable mentions:
Massachusetts: At the museum, esthetes hate the cute statues that amuse the masses. — H.S. Hughes
Rhode Island: Denise hoarded sand and seashells inside her shoreside diner. — Rawson Scheinberg
Rhode Island: Dolores had to dine on nine dollars she had hidden in her sandal, so she ordered a side salad and a dinner roll. — Kevin Root
Washington: Shania Twain is in town tonight, singing Gaga's hit songs at Santana's San Antonio gig. — Kerry Fowler
New Mexico: Native educational wisdom makes eradicating xenophobia its core obligation. — Tamar Stieber
Massachusetts: As she teaches math, she must use the state tests that she hates. — Rick Cleary
Texas [only 5 letters to work with!]: Texas axes estate taxes. — Charvaka Duvvury
Challenge: This week's challenge comes from listener Rawson Scheinberg, of Northville, Michigan. Think of an eight-letter noun composed phonetically of two consecutive names traditionally given to girls. Remove the sixth letter and rearrange the result. You'll get an event where you might hear the thing named by the original noun. What words are these?
If you know the answer to the two-week challenge, submit it here by Thursday, August 25 at 3 p.m. ET. Listeners whose answers are selected win a chance to play the on-air puzzle. Important: Include a phone number where we can reach you.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-21/sunday-puzzle-double-down | 2022-08-21T12:52:01Z |
NEW YORK — A white bus with Texas plates has just pulled up outside the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan. The men and women on it have just finished a 30-hour nonstop bus ride from the Mexico border, and have arrived hungry, tired, and some in need of immediate medical care. It's a hot Wednesday morning in early August, and the rush hour traffic has clogged the city streets outside.
"Bienvenidos a Nueva York," a small crowd of city officials and relief workers cheers, as TV cameras and photographers crowd around.
This is the scene at one of the bus arrivals from the Texas-Mexico border, as Gov. Greg Abbott shows his opposition to federal immigration policies by sending them to Washington, D.C., – and more recently, to New York City.
Some migrants want to come to New York, others say they've been forced or tricked into coming here by Texas officials. They have become the most public face of a political back-and-forth between the State of Texas and New York City. They're part of an increasing number of asylum seekers who have been coming to the city from the U.S.-Mexico border this summer. While city officials and volunteers have stepped up to give the asylum seekers a warm welcome, the migrants' journey can still be rocky once they arrive.
Charities and volunteer groups have been helping people as they've arrived over the past few months, but city officials and nonprofits have become more publicly involved in the past few weeks. Team TLC NYC, part of a larger national organization called Grannies Respond, has worked to offer food, clothing, and medical assistance to asylum-seekers when they arrived. In an interview on Aug. 10, Ilze Thielmann, the group's director, said the cooperation has been successful.
Many of the almost 5000 newly-arrived asylum seekers are alone in New York and enter city homeless shelters
"We had a great coordinated response between our side, the volunteer side, [the] NGO side, and the city," she said. "It was absolutely amazing."
Many of the newly-arrived asylum seekers don't have relatives in New York to stay with. So after they leave the station, they often enter city homeless shelters. The shelter system doesn't track people by immigration status, but city officials estimate that between 4000 and 5000 asylum-seekers have entered city shelters since May.
New York's shelters are, however, already overstretched, and not only by new immigrants. Capacity is low and New York's affordable housing is limited. Some migrants have encountered difficulties with translation and city bureaucracy during the intake process and have felt unsafe as they arrive.
Carlos, a 26-year-old from Venezuela who recently arrived in the U.S., says that as a member of the LGBTQ community, he felt threatened by other residents at a city shelter for homeless men located in Manhattan. He preferred to only share his first name to protect his legal status.
"They had problems with drugs, they had [mental] problems, and really, we felt in danger there," he says, speaking Spanish. "I'd 1000 times rather stay in the streets than [at that shelter]."
He called for New York City to offer more support, not only to immigrants like himself, but also to Americans who are already facing problems here.
NYC officials want to hear about any problems migrants encounter and are working with charities to help
Veronica, a 22-year-old from Venezuela, who also asked to use only her first name to protect her legal status, says she is six months' pregnant, and a problem with her pregnancy she encountered while traveling through Mexico necessitates specific medical care. She says she was staying in a shelter in Manhattan, but it only offered a place to stay.
"Immigration [officials] gave me help at the hospital, but when they sent me here, I haven't received anything," she says in Spanish. "Absolutely nothing – [not even] medicine," she says.
She says she didn't know who to ask for help, and hasn't been in contact with people in the city government. She and Carlos have been receiving assistance from South Bronx Mutual Aid, a grassroots group working directly with migrants throughout the city.
NYC's Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs commissioner Manuel Castro says he wants to hear about any problems people encounter, and that city officials are working with a growing group of charities and nonprofits.
"What's important is that those families are connected to us ... so that we understand what were the challenges that they've faced," Castro says. "And we can adjust appropriately."
Activists want New York do more to improve housing problems and meet asylum-seekers' complex needs
But activists call for more work to be done. Ariadna Phillips, an organizer with South Bronx Mutual Aid, says the city should do more work to improve New York's deep seated housing problems and to make sure asylum-seekers' complex needs are being met after already experiencing harrowing journeys.
"People say this is the capital of the world, so we're going to act like it," Philips says. "If everybody else says that they can't handle these conditions, then we're going to step up and be part of the solution."
The State of Texas has continued to send buses without sharing arrival times in advance. As migrants, volunteer groups, and city officials in New York City continue to adapt, they're watching the political back-and-forth play itself out on a deeply human level.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-21/texas-sends-migrants-to-new-york-they-get-a-warm-welcome-but-life-there-is-tough | 2022-08-21T12:52:07Z |
Updated August 21, 2022 at 7:45 AM ET
MOSCOW — An explosion in the outskirts of Moscow has killed the daughter of a key ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Daria Dugina, 29, was driving a Toyota Land Cruiser Sunday when the vehicle exploded.
She was the daughter of Alexander Dugin, who is often called "Putin's brain." Dugin is a prominent Russian nationalist intellectual whose vision of a revived Russian empire came to influence Putin's war in neighboring Ukraine.
Dugin was placed on western sanctions lists as a key proponent of the Kremlin's forced annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. He also backed Russia's decisions to send troops into Ukraine earlier this year.
Several Dugin allies immediately suggested he was the target of the blast and blamed the Ukrainian government.
Authorities in Russia have launched a criminal investigation.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-21/the-daughter-of-putins-brain-ideologist-was-killed-in-a-car-explosion | 2022-08-21T12:52:13Z |
President Biden has signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law. We take a look at the viability of the law's provision concerning capturing carbon emissions.
Copyright 2022 NPR
President Biden has signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law. We take a look at the viability of the law's provision concerning capturing carbon emissions.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-21/the-inflation-reduction-act-incentivizes-capturing-carbon-emissions | 2022-08-21T12:52:20Z |
A Texas county has seen its top election officials quit after persistent threats following the 2020 elections. It's part of a larger, problematic trend across the U.S.
Copyright 2022 NPR
A Texas county has seen its top election officials quit after persistent threats following the 2020 elections. It's part of a larger, problematic trend across the U.S.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-21/top-election-officials-in-a-texas-county-quit-after-threats-stemming-from-2020 | 2022-08-21T12:52:26Z |
The Academy Museum in Los Angeles is celebrating key moments in Black cinema, from the 1890s until 1971. Its new exhibition, "Regeneration," includes a clip of Hattie McDaniel, the first Black woman to win an Academy Award, as she gives her 1940 acceptance speech.
Seven gallery spaces feature performances and costumes such as Lena Horne's gown and home movies of the Nicholas Brothers. One room shows a staircase painted with the word "colored," recreating segregated movie theaters back in the day pointing Black and Brown audiences to the balconies.
Josephine Baker sings and dances on camera in the 1920s, and there are tons of movie clips, by legends such as Cicely Tyson and Sidney Poitier.
The showcase begins with a silent film of two vaudeville performers in 1898.
"It's the earliest known image of Black people kissing on film," says Jacqueline Stewart, the Academy Museum's director and president. The exhibition has two prints of Something Good- Negro Kiss, recently found in USC's film archive and Norway. Stewart figures the film was a novelty among the genre of "kiss" films that were popular at that time.
"During that era, there are earlier images of Black folks, and they are stealing chickens and eating watermelon and getting smoked out of their cabins. And stereotyping that came from the minstrel tradition," says Stewart. "And what we see in this footage are two finely dressed Black people showing affection and fun. And it's a revelation to see that that early on."
For the exhibition, the museum restored a film from 1939 called Reform School. Unlike her previous subservient roles, actress Louise Beavers plays a probation officer in the film that was one of the many so-called "race films" produced for Black audiences from the 1910s to 1940s. They included cowboy movies, thrillers, action-adventure films and more.
"We see the richness of Black performers, not just playing mammies and butlers as they were during their time in Hollywood since they were not afforded full representation at that time," says co-curator Doris Berger. "They should have and could have been, as we see in this parallel film history."
Co-curator Rhea Combs hopes people walk away from the exhibit with a sense of possibility and empowerment.
"There were people working in front of and behind the camera that were advocating and fighting and pushing forward and using this new technology and this art form to really create these vibrant, rich stories that highlight the complexities and the full humanity of Black people and looking at sort of American history through the lens of African-Americans," Combs says.
The exhibition includes performances from all-Black musicals and civil rights era documentaries - all leading to 1971, the year when Melvin Van Peeble's movie Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song was released. That same year, Robert Goodwin directed the indie film Black Chariot, about an underground Black Power movement group. The museum has restored a copy of the rarely seen film.
The cinematic survey ends just before the rise of Blaxploitation films in the 1970s, when Shaft, Superfly and Pam Grier's Foxy Brown movies were first screened.
"Regeneration in many ways is a pre-history," says Stewart. "It shows us that throughout the Harlem Renaissance, the civil rights era, there were creative folks who were using film as a medium in the Black freedom struggle."
Acclaimed filmmaker Charles Burnett was among the first people to see the exhibition. "For me, history started here in this museum," he says. "Realizing that we were involved in filmmaking at a really early age, it's about rediscovering our history, in a sense. If I had learned about this earlier, I wonder what kind of effect it would have had on my filmmaking."
The curators behind the exhibition say they hope that museum goers will not only look at film history in new ways but will also begin conversations about representation and more.
"The bottom line is that this work had to happen. It's overdue. It's important. It's crucial work," says filmmaker Ava Duvernay. She consulted on the exhibition that she says "showcases the generations of Black artists whose shoulders we stand, artists who defied society, who rebelled against norms and notions of who they could and should be. Their very presence onscreen and behind the camera was an act of revolution, a cultural, political and emotional victory that has echoed through generations, a triumph that transformed the way that we as black people saw ourselves and the way that we were seen."
The Academy Museum's exhibition "Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898-1971" runs from August 21, 2022–April 9, 2023.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-08-21/a-new-exhibit-in-la-explores-the-complicated-history-of-black-cinema | 2022-08-21T13:24:07Z |
NPR's Books We Love has reading recommendations from our staff and contributors. Today, we hear about three new romance novels: "An Arrow to the Moon," "Young Mungo" and "Ramon and Julieta."
Copyright 2022 NPR
NPR's Books We Love has reading recommendations from our staff and contributors. Today, we hear about three new romance novels: "An Arrow to the Moon," "Young Mungo" and "Ramon and Julieta."
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.keranews.org/2022-08-21/books-we-love-recommended-reading-for-romance | 2022-08-21T13:24:13Z |
Eleanor Beardsley began reporting from France for NPR in 2004 as a freelance journalist, following all aspects of French society, politics, economics, culture and gastronomy. Since then, she has steadily worked her way to becoming an integral part of the NPR Europe reporting team. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-08-21/climate-change-and-war-are-felt-everywhere-including-the-dijon-mustard-industry | 2022-08-21T13:24:20Z |
Ayesha Rascoe speaks with Dr. Frank Lin of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health about the link between hearing loss and dementia, and how over-the-counter hearing aids may help.
Copyright 2022 NPR
Ayesha Rascoe speaks with Dr. Frank Lin of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health about the link between hearing loss and dementia, and how over-the-counter hearing aids may help.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.keranews.org/2022-08-21/hearing-loss-is-a-direct-link-to-dementia-easier-access-to-hearing-aids-could-help | 2022-08-21T13:24:26Z |
Ayesha Rascoe is a White House correspondent for NPR. She is currently covering her third presidential administration. Rascoe's White House coverage has included a number of high profile foreign trips, including President Trump's 2019 summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi, Vietnam, and President Obama's final NATO summit in Warsaw, Poland in 2016. As a part of the White House team, she's also a regular on the NPR Politics Podcast. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-08-21/humanitarian-groups-prepare-to-send-winter-help-to-ukrainians | 2022-08-21T13:24:32Z |
Ayesha Rascoe talks with the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Andrea Bayer about a new New York law requiring museums to acknowledge if a work of art was stolen by the Nazi regime.
Copyright 2022 NPR
Ayesha Rascoe talks with the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Andrea Bayer about a new New York law requiring museums to acknowledge if a work of art was stolen by the Nazi regime.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.keranews.org/2022-08-21/new-york-art-museums-must-now-disclose-if-a-piece-was-stolen-by-nazis | 2022-08-21T13:24:38Z |
Thanks to redistricting, New York state will hold primary elections Tuesday for the second time this year, confusing some voters.
Copyright 2022 WSKG Radio
Thanks to redistricting, New York state will hold primary elections Tuesday for the second time this year, confusing some voters.
Copyright 2022 WSKG Radio | https://www.keranews.org/2022-08-21/new-yorkers-will-vote-in-a-second-primary-election-this-year-thanks-to-redistricting | 2022-08-21T13:24:44Z |
Mara Liasson is a national political correspondent for NPR. Her reports can be heard regularly on NPR's award-winning newsmagazine programs Morning Edition and All Things Considered. Liasson provides extensive coverage of politics and policy from Washington, DC — focusing on the White House and Congress — and also reports on political trends beyond the Beltway. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-08-21/politics-chat-hot-issues-see-developments-this-week | 2022-08-21T13:24:50Z |
On-air challenge: Every answer today is a made-up phrase of two five-letter words that differ only in their vowel.
Ex. Path for heavy vehicles --> TRUCK TRACK
1. Ravine in Holland
2. Dark-colored cube
3. Light-haired person who can't see
4. Viking caregiver
5. Things offered for sale during the third month of the year
6. Jersey that doesn't reach down to the waist
7. Odor that you can barely detect
8. Food for pigs that's just terrific
9. Immediate sound from a duck
[Last one has six-letter words:]
10. Cord that's hard to break
Last week's challenge: This is a two-week creative challenge. The object is to write a sentence using only the letters of any particular U.S. state. You can pick the state and repeat letters as often as necessary. For example:
OREGON --> Roger, go gorge on green eggnog.
NEBRASKA --> Sen. Ben Sasse's sneakers reek. [Note: Ben Sasse is a U.S. senator from Nebraska]
Entries will be judged on originality, sense, naturalness of syntax, humor, and overall elegance. *No more than three sentences per entry, please.*
Winner: The winner of our two-week challenge is Kate Simpson of Kensington, Maryland. Her winning submission:
For West Virginia: In tennis news, a new era starts as Serena is retiring.
Honorable mentions:
Massachusetts: At the museum, esthetes hate the cute statues that amuse the masses. — H.S. Hughes
Rhode Island: Denise hoarded sand and seashells inside her shoreside diner. — Rawson Scheinberg
Rhode Island: Dolores had to dine on nine dollars she had hidden in her sandal, so she ordered a side salad and a dinner roll. — Kevin Root
Washington: Shania Twain is in town tonight, singing Gaga's hit songs at Santana's San Antonio gig. — Kerry Fowler
New Mexico: Native educational wisdom makes eradicating xenophobia its core obligation. — Tamar Stieber
Massachusetts: As she teaches math, she must use the state tests that she hates. — Rick Cleary
Texas [only 5 letters to work with!]: Texas axes estate taxes. — Charvaka Duvvury
Challenge: This week's challenge comes from listener Rawson Scheinberg, of Northville, Michigan. Think of an eight-letter noun composed phonetically of two consecutive names traditionally given to girls. Remove the sixth letter and rearrange the result. You'll get an event where you might hear the thing named by the original noun. What words are these?
If you know the answer to the two-week challenge, submit it here by Thursday, August 25 at 3 p.m. ET. Listeners whose answers are selected win a chance to play the on-air puzzle. Important: Include a phone number where we can reach you.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-08-21/sunday-puzzle-double-down | 2022-08-21T13:24:56Z |
Updated August 21, 2022 at 7:45 AM ET
MOSCOW — An explosion in the outskirts of Moscow has killed the daughter of a key ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Daria Dugina, 29, was driving a Toyota Land Cruiser Sunday when the vehicle exploded.
She was the daughter of Alexander Dugin, who is often called "Putin's brain." Dugin is a prominent Russian nationalist intellectual whose vision of a revived Russian empire came to influence Putin's war in neighboring Ukraine.
Dugin was placed on western sanctions lists as a key proponent of the Kremlin's forced annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. He also backed Russia's decisions to send troops into Ukraine earlier this year.
Several Dugin allies immediately suggested he was the target of the blast and blamed the Ukrainian government.
Authorities in Russia have launched a criminal investigation.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-08-21/the-daughter-of-putins-brain-ideologist-was-killed-in-a-car-explosion | 2022-08-21T13:25:02Z |
President Biden has signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law. We take a look at the viability of the law's provision concerning capturing carbon emissions.
Copyright 2022 NPR
President Biden has signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law. We take a look at the viability of the law's provision concerning capturing carbon emissions.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.keranews.org/2022-08-21/the-inflation-reduction-act-incentivizes-capturing-carbon-emissions | 2022-08-21T13:25:08Z |
Car blast kills daughter of Russian known as ‘Putin’s brain’
MOSCOW (AP) — The daughter of an influential Russian political theorist who is often referred to as “Putin’s brain” was killed in a car bombing on the outskirts of Moscow, officials said Sunday.
The Moscow branch of the Russian Investigative Committee said preliminary information indicated a bomb planted in the SUV driven by Daria Dugina, 29, exploded Saturday night and killed the TV commentator who was the daughter of Alexander Dugin, a nationalist philosopher and writer.
Dugin is a prominent proponent of the “Russian world” concept, a spiritual and political ideology that emphasizes traditional values, restoration of Russia’s power and the unity of all ethnic Russians throughout the world. He also is a vehement supporter of Russia sending troops into Ukraine.
The explosion took place as his daughter was returning from a cultural festival she had attended with him. Some Russian media reports cited witnesses as saying the SUV belonged to Dugin and that he had decided at the last minute to travel in another vehicle.
The vivid and violent incident, unusual for Moscow, is likely to aggravate Russia-Ukraine animosity.
No suspects were immediately identified. But Denis Pushilin, president of the separatist Donetsk People’s Republic that is a focus of Russia’s fighting in Ukraine, blamed it on “terrorists of the Ukrainian regime, trying to kill Alexander Dugin.”
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, denied Ukrainian involvement, saying on national TV that “We are not a criminal state, unlike Russia, and definitely not a terrorist state.”
Analyst Sergei Markov, a former Putin adviser, told Russian state news agency RIA-Novosti that Alexander Dugin, not his daughter, likely was the intended target and said “it’s completely obvious that the most probable suspects are Ukrainian military intelligence and the Ukrainian Security Service.”
While Dugin’s exact ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin are unclear, the Kremlin frequently echoes rhetoric from his writings and appearances on Russian state TV. He helped popularize the “Novorossiya,” or New Russia, concept that Russia used to justify the 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea and its support of separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine.
He promotes Russia as a country of piety, traditional values and authoritarian leadership, and disdains Western liberal values.
His daughter expressed similar views and had appeared as a commentator on the nationalist TV channel Tsargrad, where Dugin had served as chief editor.
Dugina herself was sanctioned by the United States in March for her work as chief editor of United World International, a website that the U.S. described as a disinformation site. The sanctions announcement cited a UWI article this year that contended Ukraine would “perish” if it were admitted to NATO.
“Dasha, like her father, has always been at the forefront of confrontation with the West,” Tsargrad said on Sunday, using the familiar form of her name.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/08/21/car-blast-kills-daughter-russian-known-putins-brain/ | 2022-08-21T13:41:12Z |
DC’s pioneering ‘Baby Bonds’ plan aims to narrow wealth gap
WASHINGTON (AP) — Aaliyah Manning’s dreams of becoming a psychologist ended abruptly during her freshman year at Potomac State in West Virginia when the cost of continuing her education became overwhelming.
“The money just wasn’t there,” she said. “I knew I wasn’t going to finish so I just had fun.”
After a year, Manning, 25, was back in the nation’s capital working fast food jobs. Now she lives largely on public assistance in a two-bedroom apartment with her boyfriend, his mother and his 9-year-old daughter from another relationship. She still has student debt and there’s a baby boy on the way.
She sees a brighter future for that baby, thanks to a landmark social program being pioneered in Washington. Called “Baby Bonds,” the program will provide children of the city’s poorest families with up to $25,000 when they reach adulthood. The money is to be used for a handful of purposes, including education.
“It would be such a different opportunity for him, a lot different than what I had,” Manning said of her soon-to-arrive baby.
In just over a decade, the Baby Bonds idea has moved from a fringe leftist concept to actual policy, with the District of Columbia as the first laboratory. Lawmakers from coast to coast are monitoring the experiment, one that proponents say could reshape America’s growing wealth gap in a single generation if instituted on a federal level.
One week after giving birth to her second child, a daughter named Kali, Aaliyah Wright told The Associated Press that she did not anticipate having much savings to help her children when they reached adulthood, especially with about $80,000 in student loan debt.
She and her husband, Kainan, are on Medicaid despite steady jobs (she’s a case worker at a nongovernmental organization and he’s a barber) and an estimated annual income of about $70,000.
Even at that income level, their new daughter still would qualify for the city’s Baby Bonds program, although at a lower level.
“At that stage of maturity and adulthood, that money can be a door opener to some pretty big things,” Kainan Wright said
Despite the name, the bonds are more accurately trust funds, designed to provide a boost of capital at a critical time in the lives of the country’s poorest children. At age 18, each enrolled child would receive a large lump sum payment that can be used to pay for higher education, invest in a business or make a down payment on a home.
“Think about all the things that people with money do to support themselves or what parents do for kids,” said Kenyan McDuffie, a District of Columbia Council member who pushed through Washington’s Baby Bonds program last summer. The clock started ticking in October and as of mid-August the city has so far identified 833 babies born since then who will receive up to $25,000 when they turn 18.
“Think about all those young folks who are going to be here in a city trapped in poverty, graduated from high schools turning 18,” McDuffie said. “And then having an account with money in it for them.”
It’s an expensive and long-simmering investment that by definition will take a generation of sustained political willpower to truly bear fruit. The district’s program will cost $32 million for the first four years alone.
The idea was originally proposed in 2010 by academics William Darity and Darrick Hamilton as a way to break the poverty cycle by giving children of poor families a chance to build long-term equity — either actual property, a stake in a business or the earning potential that comes from higher education.
It came to mainstream attention when Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., made it a centerpiece of his 2020 presidential campaign.
“I think it’s an idea that’s growing,” Booker told the AP. “And it’s a big idea. It’s on the level of Social Security. It’s on the level of Medicare. One generation would create a dramatic change.”
But for politicians, the price tag can be daunting. Booker’s national plan envisioned annual costs of $60 billion, something he proposes financing by raising taxes on the wealthy.
For now, the Washington experiment will be closely watched by other state and local governments, with Baby Bonds proposals recently emerging in Wisconsin and Washington state and Massachusetts studying the issue. California just created a more targeted version, with Baby Bonds funds specifically for children who lost parents to COVID-19.
Manning and her boyfriend, Darren Gibson, say the expectation that their child will be part of the district’s first Baby Bonds generation is a much needed injection of hope. Gibson, 26, left high school three credits short of graduation. Now he’s the sole earner for his growing household, making less than $10,000 per year as a videographer shooting music videos for local artists.
“It takes such a burden off my shoulders,” he said. Gibson said he will raise his son to make good use of that money when he matures. “It’s on me to work on him and make sure he follows his ambitions.”
The concept’s journey from academic thought experiment to on-the-ground policy received a major boost from the national conversation on poverty brought on by the pandemic. The economic iniquities exposed by COVID-19 fueled calls for a new approach to the cycle of generational poverty. And the Baby Bonds concept, already familiar from Booker’s campaign, gained fresh momentum with multiple proposals receiving serious consideration at a state level.
But most of them have failed to see daylight.
Gov. Phil Murphy, D-N.J., made headlines in 2020 for backing a Baby Bonds proposal. But the Legislature stripped it out of his budget, and Murphy did not propose it again.
In June 2021, Connecticut’s legislature approved the country’s first state-level Baby Bonds program. But in May of this year, lawmakers, in coordination with the governor’s office, chose to delay the program’s start by two years.
That makes Washington, D.C., the first real test case.
Connecticut’s treasurer, Shawn Wooden, who championed the program, said he was surprised and disappointed by the delay in his own state but remains convinced that the policy’s time has come.
“There’s quite the level of interest in this, and always with these things we need what we call first movers,” Wooden said. For the concept to spread, “there needs to be success in Connecticut. There needs to be success in the District of Columbia.”
Wooden has discussed Baby Bonds with members of President Joe Biden’s domestic policy team. McDuffie’s office has fielded queries from multiple state governments.
The concept is new enough that it’s still being tinkered with in real time, with multiple models and internal debates among advocates on issues such as how best to determine eligibility. Washington’s program is so new that the 833 families who have qualified have not been informed yet and will not be until the city hires a fund manager.
Connecticut’s will automatically enroll any newborn from a family on the state’s Medicaid program. Booker’s proposal would have sidestepped that issue by granting every child born in the country a Baby Bonds fund and $1,000 in seed money. Then, all subsequent payments into the fund would have been heavily weighted toward poorer families.
Washington’s program is open to families on Medicaid who make less than 300% of the federal poverty line, meaning earnings of up to about $83,250 for a family of four. With those parameters, it is designed to benefit not only the impoverished but also families like the Wrights who might be considered lower-middle class.
At their income level, their daughter will receive closer to $15,000 instead of the $25,000 limit.
There is one inevitable quirk in the system: Any Baby Bonds program has to set a start date that excludes anyone born before it. In the case of the Wright family, Kali, would receive benefits but her older bother, Khaza, would not. Aaliyah Wright was fine with that.
“OK, so I know my future is set for one child,” said Wright. “So now I need to really focus on making things work for him.”
There are differences among plans in the size of the final payout. Booker’s proposal would have paid about $46,000 to children of the poorest families, while the district expects to pay out a maximum of $25,000. Connecticut’s plan would pay an estimated $13,000 — something Wooden described as “pretty much the floor” for a serious attempt at a Baby Bonds program.
Naomi Zewde, an assistant professor in health economics at the City University of New York who conducted a 2019 analysis of the concept, set the lowest impactful payment at $15,000.
“It has to be a sum of money that’s kind of outside what people would normally come across,” she said.
Zewde’s analysis suggested that a nationwide federal Baby Bonds program would massively reduce the racial wealth gap between white and Black Americans in a single generation, even as it boosted both races.
Currently the median wealth of young white Americans stands at $46,000, compared with $2,900 for Black Americans.
For a Baby Bonds program to succeed, it has to be on a national level and have strong popular support, advocates said.
Darity, a Duke professor who co-authored the original Baby Bonds proposal, points to Britain, which instituted a similar program called the child trust fund in 2005. But the program was discontinued and all future payments halted in 2010 in a government austerity campaign.
“I think the assessment in England was that they had not built grassroots support for the policy when they started it,” he said. “So there wasn’t any strong resistance to eliminating the plan.”
In the United States, the program already has been strongly endorsed by prominent liberal organizations such as the Urban Institute and Prosperity Now.
But there are detractors.
Veronique de Rugy, a senior research fellow at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, said the one-way nature of the deposits, with no mechanism for the families themselves to add money, “does nothing to encourage the culture of savings.”
She added that the program could tie up millions that could be used to address immediate societal conditions that also help feed the cycle of poverty.
“A lot of these kids are still going to be stuck in bad schools,” she said.
Michael Strain, an economist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, says Baby Bonds advocates will struggle to persuade lawmakers around the country to make such an expensive commitment. “I absolutely think it’s a hard sell,” he said. “The 18-year lag is less of a political obstacle than the price tag.”
Wooden rejected the perception of Baby Bonds as having no payoff for 18 years, saying the benefits will be immediate and measurable. That nest egg, he said, will inspire real-time changes in planning, academic achievement and overall ambition in both children and families.
“There is a high value that should be placed on hope,” he said. “We know what hopelessness looks like in our communities.
Manning, the young expectant mother in Washington, said the knowledge that the money was waiting for her son would change how her family talks about his future.
“It would be much more focused,” she said. “‘Do you know what you want to do? What are your plans?’”
___
Follow Ashraf Khalil on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ashrafkhalil
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.whsv.com/2022/08/21/dcs-pioneering-baby-bonds-plan-aims-narrow-wealth-gap/ | 2022-08-21T13:41:19Z |
Ayesha Rascoe is a White House correspondent for NPR. She is currently covering her third presidential administration. Rascoe's White House coverage has included a number of high profile foreign trips, including President Trump's 2019 summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi, Vietnam, and President Obama's final NATO summit in Warsaw, Poland in 2016. As a part of the White House team, she's also a regular on the NPR Politics Podcast. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-08-21/back-to-school-stress-is-amplified-by-inflation-affecting-the-cost-of-supplies | 2022-08-21T14:28:00Z |
Ayesha Rascoe talks with Anna DeForest about her debut novel, "A History of Present Illness," and how she drew from her experience as a physician to write about sickness, healing, and loss.
Copyright 2022 NPR
Ayesha Rascoe talks with Anna DeForest about her debut novel, "A History of Present Illness," and how she drew from her experience as a physician to write about sickness, healing, and loss.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.keranews.org/2022-08-21/dr-anna-deforest-draws-from-her-profession-to-write-on-sickness-healing-and-loss | 2022-08-21T14:28:06Z |
Ayesha Rascoe is a White House correspondent for NPR. She is currently covering her third presidential administration. Rascoe's White House coverage has included a number of high profile foreign trips, including President Trump's 2019 summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi, Vietnam, and President Obama's final NATO summit in Warsaw, Poland in 2016. As a part of the White House team, she's also a regular on the NPR Politics Podcast. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-08-21/journalist-al-crespo-who-exposed-corruption-in-miami-dies-at-80 | 2022-08-21T14:28:12Z |
People are paying to write messages on Ukrainian war weapons before use By Tim Mak Published August 21, 2022 at 7:42 AM CDT Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Listen • 4:18 Ukrainian volunteers are resorting to creative methods to raise funds to support the country's military. Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.keranews.org/2022-08-21/people-are-paying-to-write-messages-on-ukrainian-war-weapons-before-use | 2022-08-21T14:28:18Z |
Ayesha Rascoe asks Haywood Talcove of LexisNexis Risk Solutions how job seekers can protect themselves from the proliferation of scams on employment sites like LinkedIn.
Copyright 2022 NPR
Ayesha Rascoe asks Haywood Talcove of LexisNexis Risk Solutions how job seekers can protect themselves from the proliferation of scams on employment sites like LinkedIn.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.keranews.org/2022-08-21/that-high-paying-job-opportunity-you-saw-online-could-be-a-scam | 2022-08-21T14:28:25Z |
A Texas county has seen its top election officials quit after persistent threats following the 2020 elections. It's part of a larger, problematic trend across the U.S.
Copyright 2022 NPR
A Texas county has seen its top election officials quit after persistent threats following the 2020 elections. It's part of a larger, problematic trend across the U.S.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.keranews.org/2022-08-21/top-election-officials-in-a-texas-county-quit-after-threats-stemming-from-2020 | 2022-08-21T14:28:31Z |
Ayesha Rascoe is a White House correspondent for NPR. She is currently covering her third presidential administration. Rascoe's White House coverage has included a number of high profile foreign trips, including President Trump's 2019 summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi, Vietnam, and President Obama's final NATO summit in Warsaw, Poland in 2016. As a part of the White House team, she's also a regular on the NPR Politics Podcast. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-08-21/whats-that-humming-sound-in-music-its-not-to-be-ignored | 2022-08-21T14:28:37Z |
As I pass along a row of mannequins, the sharply tailored, pale blue cotton dashiki stops me in my tracks. Based on a long-sleeved open-necked, centuries old tribal costume, the garment has a sash draped gently from one shoulder to the other like a Roman toga.
The dashiki, part of the Intsinzi Collection from Rwandan design studio Moshions, first appeared on a catwalk in Kigali five years ago. Its graceful cut and clean lines struck me as youthful, elegant and yet deeply traditional. It would be equally at home in an urban or rural environment on a handful of continents.
Now it is part of a visually stunning exhibition at London's Victoria and Albert Museum entitled "Africa Fashion."
The two-level exhibition looks like a roundhouse inside one of the museum's rotundas and includes fashion pieces that range from eye-catching costumes and gowns to ordinary workday dresses. It makes the case that any list of global fashion powerhouses should include African designers — that fashion is not solely the purview of European design houses like Coco Chanel, Christian Dior or Yves Saint-Laurent.
The museum is also making amends for failures in its own collecting and curating practices that have have left vast gaps in its previous offerings around African culture and design.
In an irony of history, the museum is named for a monarch and her consort who presided over the longest expansion of the British Empire. The end of that colonial era in Africa brought not only sweeping political changes but a flowering of creativity in music, art — and fashion.
It is the renaissance and subsequent evolution of the continent's couture that the exhibition "Africa Fashion" seeks to assess and amplify.
Exhibit curator Christine Checinska herself worked for many years as a designer at several major British fashion labels before pursuing a Ph.D. in cultural studies at Goldsmiths' College in the University of London, with her thesis focused on the impact of Caribbean creole culture on British male dress. Ever since, she says, she has sought to explore the relationships between race, culture and cloth.
Checinska has been tasked with expanding the Victoria and Albert museum's permanent collection of African and African diaspora textiles and fashion.
"Across the board, there is recognition that we need to almost have a broader sense of — a broader vocabulary when we're curating," she told NPR, "to incorporate many of the different cultures that perhaps have been missing in the past and to recognize and revisit our own colonial history."
She hopes the show manages "to inspire and to encourage" visitors from all backgrounds but also to offer a glimpse of what she describes as "the genius of African creativity that all too often has been left out."
Below are a sampling of garments from the exhibition that she thinks exemplify African fashion itself and best represent the intention behind the show, which runs through mid-April 2023.
Chris Seydou brings flair — and mud — into haute couture
Seydou's stunning orange checkered suit and wide brimmed hat combination on display are emblematic of the Malian designer's ability to marry contemporary Western tailoring with African materials. Seydou lived in Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast before moving to Paris, where he worked for Yves Saint-Laurent in the 1970s before returning to West Africa to open his own atelier and launch his own line. He often used traditional patterned cloth like Mali's "bògòlanfini" — dyed with fermented mud — and not only marketed his designs across the region but further afield in Europe and the United States. He died in 1994.
IB Kamara, a Sierra Leone-born and London-based stylist who is now editor-in-chief of the magazine Dazed, stepped behind the lens to take three soulful black-and-white portraits of Seydou's clothes on a contemporary model. Kamara has long championed what curator Checinska calls "African heritage fashion." The intention of this Seydou display, Checinska says, is to mark the museum's own conscious celebration of African fashion through a refreshed collecting and curating strategy.
Bubu Ogisi marries fashion and politics
This Nigerian designer does not shy away from political statements in her works. For instance, she incorporates raffia from the Democratic Republic of Congo in this costume on the right to highlight Belgian exploitation in its former colony, where traditional weaving and manufacturing techniques were curtailed to service the foreign desire for products like rubber and ivory.
"Her work is research-based," Checinska explains. "She's sort of 'decolonizing her own mind' – and those are her words – through the deconstruction technique that she uses in her clothes," reimagining traditional styles and reinvigorating ancient materials commonly used in the pre-colonial era.
The curator says that from a purely design point of view she wants to include these two adjacent outfits in her selection for NPR. The one on the right is "exquisite," she says. "The proportion of the long jacket against the shift dress underneath, it's just wonderful fashion." On the dress on the left, meanwhile, Checinska highlighted elements drawn from a Nigerian masquerade tradition known as Egungun, pointing to the rows of multi-colored tassels attached to the front of the dress that create the kind of kaleidoscope effect found on the costumes worn by individuals in a community who act out the role of departed ancestors during ceremonies — a practice that continues in parts of West Africa and diasporas in the Caribbean and Brazil.
Imane Ayissi is a bold Cameroonian trailblazer in Paris
Ayissi is the first Black designer from sub-Saharan African to be included in the annual calendar of haute couture fashion shows, the founder of an eponymous Paris studio that melds traditional artisanal techniques from African countries – including Cameroon, Nigeria and Ghana – with cuts and designs that garnered critical acclaim from Milan to New York. A former ballet dancer and model who once graced catwalks for fashion giants like Givenchy and Valentino, he has sought to encourage an industry in his native Cameroon that produces various types of local textiles, like the raffia derived from palm leaves seen in this bold, backless pink design that wraps around the wearer.
In an interview with NPR, Ayissi emphasized how important local fashion is in Africa, that he wants it to become "a force that functions properly" on the international stage and that the exhibition would help to "educate" people about the continent.
A luxurious combo of past and present from Kofi Ansah
The Ghanaian designer studied at the Chelsea Art School in the U.K. before returning to his homeland, designing clothes with an emphasis on "luxury" as well as "exacting standards and attention to detail," Checinska says. His glittering jacket and shorts set with blue and white floral trim atop delicate buckled shoes (second from the left in the photo below) were first displayed at the Ivory Coast's embassy in London in the late 1980s and encapsulated an effort by the designer to bring the past — the printed fabrics, the ruffled neckline — with him into the new, the curator says, with the sequins and female shorts.
Throughout his career Ansah, who died in 2014, worked to mentor young talent back in Ghana, famously instructing them that, " 'West is not always best, inspiration is all around you,' " Checinska explains, quoting a phrase Ansah used. "There's a sense in which that feels part and parcel of what this show is, also."
Willem Marx is a London-based journalist.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-20/african-fashion-rules-in-british-museum-show-from-chic-dashikis-to-mud-dyed-cloth | 2022-08-21T14:51:45Z |
Updated August 21, 2022 at 7:47 AM ET
MOGADISHU, Somalia — Somali authorities on Sunday ended a deadly attack in which 21 people were killed and dozens more wounded when gunmen stormed a hotel in the capital.
It took Somali forces more than 30 hours to contain the fighters who had stormed Mogadishu's Hayat Hotel on Friday evening in an assault that started with loud explosions.
The siege ended around midnight, police commissioner Abdi Hassan Hijar told reporters. "During the attack, the security forces rescued many civilians trapped in the hotel, including women and children," he said.
Health Minister Dr. Ali Haji Adam reported 21 deaths and 117 people wounded, with at least 15 in critical condition. He noted that some victims may not have been brought to hospitals.
Police are yet to give a detailed explanation of how the attack unfolded and it remains unclear how many gunmen entered the hotel.
Ismail Abdi, the hotel's manager, told The Associated Press early Sunday that security forces were still working to clear the area. No more gunfire could be heard after 9 a.m. local time. Onlookers gathered outside the gates of the badly damaged hotel on Sunday morning, surveying the scene.
The Islamic extremist group al-Shabab, which has ties with al-Qaida, claimed responsibility for the attack, the latest of its frequent attempts to strike places visited by government officials.
Al-Shabab opposes the federal government and the outsiders who support it.
The attack on the hotel is the first major terror incident in Mogadishu since Somalia's new leader, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, took over in May.
Somalia's previous president, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, avoided any major confrontation with al-Shabab. But Mohamud has said his government will take the offensive against the group's thousands of fighters, with the backing of returning U.S. forces.
Al-Shabab charged via its Andalus radio station that the attack on the hotel was in response to Mohamud's assertion that he would eliminate the group from Somalia.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the attack, according to a spokesman's statement that said the U.N. supports the people of Somalia "in their fight against terrorism and their march towards peace."
Al-Shabab remains the most lethal Islamic extremist group in Africa.
The group has seized even more territory in recent years, taking advantage of rifts among Somali security personnel as well as disagreements between the government seat in Mogadishu and regional states. It remains the biggest threat to political stability in the volatile Horn of Africa nation.
Forced to retreat from Mogadishu in 2011, al-Shabab is slowly making a comeback from the rural areas to which it retreated, defying the presence of African Union peacekeepers as well as U.S. drone strikes targeting its fighters.
The militants in early May attacked a military base for AU peacekeepers outside Mogadishu, killing many Burundian troops. The attack came just days before the presidential vote that returned Mohamud to power five years after he had been voted out.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-20/it-took-somali-forces-more-than-30-hours-to-end-a-hotel-attack-that-killed-21-people | 2022-08-21T14:51:52Z |
People in more than 30 cities across the U.K., Europe and the U.S. participated in a kite festival to mark one year since Afghanistan fell to the Taliban.
In Afghanistan, kite flying is a recreational activity like it is in other countries, but there's more to it than letting your kite fly up high on a string. Kite fighting is popular, where multiple fliers using lines coated with extra-sharp material will try to cut each other's line. Flying kites was banned during the Taliban's previous time in control of the country.
The festival, called Fly With Me, was created by the Good Chance Theatre, alongside master Afghan kitemaker Sanjar Qiam, The Kite Runner actor Elham Ehsas, and Afghan musician Elaha Soroor, and was meant to celebrate the Afghan tradition and serve as a show of solidarity.
We brought over 60 Afghan refugees to Dunstable Downs to fly kites, celebrate Afghan culture & show solidarity with the people of Afghanistan for the #FlyWithMe festival today @GoodChanceCal #RememberAfghanistan pic.twitter.com/b11Eefnnnu
— Herts Welcomes Refugees 🧡 (@HertsWelcomes) August 20, 2022
"Fly With Me is a reminder to the world: Remember Afghanistan," Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson, the co-artistic directors at Good Chance Theatre, said in a statement. "And so, by making and flying kites in the Afghan tradition, led by Afghans who have made new lives in Europe, and open to all, we will be standing in solidarity with Afghans in the latest affront to their freedom and will remind the world of the devastating humanitarian crisis still taking place in Afghanistan today."
Afghanistan fell to the Taliban on Aug. 15, 2021. Since then the country has been hit with poverty and a hunger crisis that is affecting nearly 20 million people — or almost half the country — according to a report from the United Nations and other groups.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-20/kite-fliers-gathered-in-multiple-cities-in-a-show-of-solidarity-with-afghanistan | 2022-08-21T14:51:58Z |
SOUTH WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. — A Little League World Series player who seriously injured his head when he fell out of his top bunk in dorms at the world series complex has FaceTimed with his coach and continues to improve, the coach said Friday.
Mark Ence, the manager for Snow Canyon, Utah, said he told his 12-year-old player, Easton Oliverson, that he loved him and Easton said he loved the coach back.
"It was great to hear his voice," Ence said.
Easton has been recovering in the hospital since the accident Monday. His MRI on Wednesday night came back normal, he has begun walking and walked to the bathroom on his own Friday morning, Ence said.
"I'm not familiar with the recovery process of that sort of injury," Ence said. "But he definitely is improving and the family wanted to let everyone know that they are grateful for the thoughts and prayers and they feel like the prayers are working."
Ence spoke with reporters hours before Utah, representing the Mountain Region, played its first game of the tournament against Tennessee from the Southeast Region.
With Easton's condition improving so quickly, his father, Jace was back in the dugout to resume his role as an assistant coach. In addition, Easton's younger brother Brogan was added to the team's roster.
"You're allowed to have 14 on a roster," Ence said. "We had 13 and we were able to get Easton's little brother Brogan to come and be with our team, so he arrived yesterday. The family is extremely excited. I think it's going to be huge for the family in terms of the healing process to have Brogan be there."
Easton was remembered during warmups. Utah did not send a player out to left field, Easton's position, and Tennessee took the field in Utah ballcaps.
During pregame introductions, Brogan received rousing applause from a big crowd at Lamade Stadium. When Utah received commemorative medals for participating, Jace received Easton's medal on his behalf to a standing ovation.
In the bottom of the fifth, Brogan pinch hit to a rousing cheer from the entire stadium that lasted about 30 seconds. Following the 10-year-old's at bat, he once again received applause from fans as he made his way back to the dugout.
"It gives you a good feeling that people can cheer for an opponent like little Brogan," Ence said. "Even though you're playing against them, there's things bigger than baseball."
Utah lost 11-2, but even in defeat the coaching staff and parents have worked to keep their players' attention on upcoming games and enjoying the Little League World Series experience.
"Being kids they bounce back pretty quick. They've enjoyed it here and stayed busy," Ence said. "It's definitely been more stressful for the parents, but the kids are doing great."
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-21/a-little-league-world-series-player-who-injured-his-head-was-able-to-call-his-coach | 2022-08-21T14:52:04Z |
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A combination of new election laws and congressional redistricting has made it harder for Black communities in Florida to organize and vote, activists say.
Florida, which concludes its primary elections on Tuesday, is among various Republican-led states that have passed laws since the 2020 election that place new restrictions on voters — as well as on third-party groups that play a big role in registering racial minorities in Florida.
Ben Frazier and his small civil rights organization, the Northside Coalition of Jacksonville, recently spent an afternoon in the city helping a group of older Black voters update their voter registration.
That way, Frazier said, there are no issues when they go to vote.
"We don't want your voter registration form to be thrown out for any reason," he said. "They are doing a lot of different things to suppress the Black vote in this city and in this state."
Last year, Republican lawmakers in Florida passed Senate Bill 90, a sweeping law requiring people to apply to vote by mail more often. It also set new limits on drop boxes. And this year, legislators passed Senate Bill 524, which creates new and harsher penalties for voter registration organizations for things like turning in forms late.
And notably, Frazier said, the latter law created a new policing unit focused on voting crimes.
"I think all of that has a chilling effect. People are afraid of the police," he said. "We know that this is one of many attempts to suppress the Black vote."
On Thursday, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis announced this new policing unit is charging 20 people with voting illegally in 2020. He said those individuals had felony convictions that prevent them from getting their voting rights back. Several details were not made public at the time, though, including that some of those charged have told the Tampa Bay Times and the Miami Herald that they weren't told they couldn't vote. Their races were also not disclosed.
DeSantis said in a press conference that the charges and the investigation carried out by the new agency mark the beginning of the state getting serious about combating alleged voter fraud.
"Before we proposed this [unit] there were just examples of this stuff seeming to fall through the cracks," he said. "So this is just the opening salvo, this is not the sum total of 2020." Experts have found voter fraud to be exceedingly rare.
Black activists say the reaction to the 2020 election from Republicans leaders in the state is part of a larger effort to diminish Black voting power.
Earlier this year, a federal judge ruled that SB 90, in particular, is part of the state's long and "grotesque" history of racial discrimination. Soon after the ruling, an appeals court ordered that the law stay in place while legal challenges worked their way through the courts. The Justice Department in recent days agreed that the law is intentionally discriminatory.
Driving change in Duval County
Reginald Gundy, the pastor at Mt. Sinai Missionary Baptist Church in Jacksonville, says all these new rules in Florida feel deeply personal.
Gundy has spent a lot of his time registering voters in communities of color — mostly Black voters — in North Florida. Since 2018, Gundy estimates he's registered more than 80,000 people in Duval County alone, which is the county encompassing Jacksonville.
Gundy also works to get the vote out, making sure that the people his group registers actually go to the polls during elections.
"If they don't go to polls, we would be like, 'Hey, look you are registered to vote, you haven't voted, you need to go vote,' " he said. "We can't tell people who to vote for, but we've been very good at that. So, as a result of that it has brought about a change in Duval County."
In 2020, Joe Biden won Duval County. It was the first time in decades a Democratic presidential nominee won there.
Gundy says this change is not something that went unnoticed by Republican leaders in Florida. In fact, he thinks it's why DeSantis recently redrew the state's congressional lines in a way that cut the number of opportunity districts for Black voters in half.
Before redistricting, the state had four seats where Black voters had enough votes to elect the candidate of their choice. Now the state only has two seats like this. One of those lost seats included Black communities in Jacksonville.
"The way they have reconfigured — redrawn the district in Duval County — has taken away the right for Blacks to vote and have a representative in Congress," Gundy said. "We will have a congressional leader without proper representation for who we are."
Gundy says Black voting power and organizational power is the weakest it's been in decades.
"It's sad and we've got to figure out how to fix it," he said.
In a statement, DeSantis' office said his redistricting decision had nothing to do with politics. A spokesperson said the governor's priority was to "make sure that the congressional maps would be constitutional and withstand anticipated legal challenges."
The argument DeSantis made to the state legislature when he vetoed their maps and submitted his own is that he thought the majority-minority district that included Jacksonville is unconstitutional. In a letter to lawmakers, he said the district wasn't compact and "didn't conform to usual political or geographic boundaries." He argued the district was written to favor one race over another, which DeSantis said violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Michael Sampson II, with the Jacksonville Community Action Committee, says he does not buy that DeSantis — who's thought to be considering a presidential run — didn't make a political calculation here.
"It's a clear choice to dilute the Black voting power, the Black political power in D.C., especially as the governor is planning his run for president," he said.
Sampson adds that what is happening in Florida amounts to a "white blacklash" reacting to a summer of civil rights protest following the murder of George Floyd.
Christina Kittle with Florida For All agrees.
"There's been just a clear attack on organizers and protesters within the Black community, especially since 2020," she said. "When there are clear attacks like that it does make it difficult for us to move. But I don't think ... it hasn't stopped us. We are still out there doing the work. I see other people are too. It's just more difficult."
Meanwhile the state has big elections on the horizon this fall. DeSantis is up for reelection. And Rep. Val Demings is vying to oust Sen. Marco Rubio. If she wins the uphill battle, Demings would be the state's first Black U.S. senator.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-21/activists-in-florida-say-black-voters-have-seen-their-political-power-curtailed | 2022-08-21T14:52:10Z |
Ayesha Rascoe talks with Anna DeForest about her debut novel, "A History of Present Illness," and how she drew from her experience as a physician to write about sickness, healing, and loss.
Copyright 2022 NPR
Ayesha Rascoe talks with Anna DeForest about her debut novel, "A History of Present Illness," and how she drew from her experience as a physician to write about sickness, healing, and loss.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-21/dr-anna-deforest-draws-from-her-profession-to-write-on-sickness-healing-and-loss | 2022-08-21T14:52:16Z |
Five years ago, Mike Noel was newly retired from his manufacturing job in Rhode Island and had just gone through a rough divorce.
"I hooked up my boat and headed down here, without having a place to live," he recalls in the living room of his home near Vero Beach, Fla.
Noel used most of his modest retirement savings to buy the house at Heritage Plantation, a mobile home park 20 minutes from the ocean. The homes here look more like conventional houses than what you might think of as a mobile home. They're up on foundations and have yards and driveways.
"I thought I was moving to paradise – you know, beautiful weather and being able to fish 12 months a year."
His new place wasn't like the large house he owned in Rhode Island, and the floor needed repairs. But the price was affordable and it offered the promise of a new start.
And then it started to rain.
"I'm talking about those typical Florida thunderstorms you get, where you get a 15- to 20-minute downpour."
When those rains came, Noel found out the streets in the park flooded, for hours or sometimes days. At first he didn't worry too much about it. "But by the tenth time it flooded, I had started reaching my limits," he says, because at times the water was a foot deep, sometimes even two. "It was like, holy crap," he remembers, "this is not good!"
Floods and a slimy residue
Residents in the park say the streets have been flooding after normal rainfall for 20 years, due to an antiquated and broken stormwater drainage system.
They say the water has damaged their homes and is often deep enough that people get trapped in their houses. Some are elderly. They say emergency vehicles have refused to respond to calls due to the flooding.
"The people across the street are in their 90s," says Noel. "I know people that couldn't get to their chemotherapy appointments."
To make matters worse, residents say when the water eventually recedes it leaves behind a slimy residue that people slip and fall on.
"The slime never goes away," says Stanley Paxton, a 79-year-old resident who slipped on the street in 2018 and landed in the hospital for shoulder surgery. "I was just walking my dog," he says. "Next thing I know my left foot goes out from underneath me... and I hit the pavement with my shoulder."
Mobile homes are one of the last options for affordable home ownership
Residents say there have been other problems beyond the broken drainage system– electrical wiring issues, potholes, and bad lighting that's caused people to trip and get hurt on the park's dark roads at night.
A group of residents have now organized and filed a lawsuit detailing all these problems against the park's owner, a company called Equity Lifestyle Partners, or ELS. The group alleges that ELS has ignored their complaints over the years, and failed to fix the broken stormwater drainage system. ELS denies wrongdoing.
What these residents say they are dealing with may be part of a bigger problem that goes far beyond any one park or landlord.
Millions of Americans live in mobile home parks – one of the nation's last options for affordable homeownership.
But in recent years, big companies have been buying up mobile home parks. And critics say some are making hundreds of millions of dollars in profits collecting and raising rents on their typically lower-income residents, without spending enough money on even basic maintenance and upkeep.
Allegations from residents at parks around the country, owned by ELS or other companies, have ranged from persistent sewage backups to drinking water and power outages. Other claims include aggressive eviction policies and unfair business practices.
Mobile in name only: Once installed mobile homes are hard to move
"They're taking advantage of a group of people that really don't have the resources to fight against it," says Beth Fegan, an attorney representing the residents at the park in Vero Beach.
Feeling they were running out of options, residents started looking for a lawyer. They found Fegan.
She was known for fighting a different kind of battle – the harassment and assault cases that became the "Me too" movement.
Among her clients were victims of Hollywood movie mogul Harvey Weinstein.
But, she took the residents' case and sued ELS in federal court. Fegan says the company's failure to fix the stormwater system violates the promise it makes in the park's prospectus for residents. And she says the problems here go beyond this individual case.
"We're trying to right a wrong that we see that is systemic in an industry, and really use it as an example," she says, "To let the industry know we're going to come after them."
While buying a manufactured home offers the promise of home ownership, residents of mobile home parks don't have the same independence and economic power that owners of traditional homes do.
For one thing, the homes are mobile in name only. Once they're trucked in and assembled, it's difficult and expensive to move them. It can also be prohibitively expensive to find another place to live. Manufactured housing households had a median income of less than $35,000 in 2019, according to the American Housing Survey.
"The park knows that they cannot pick up their home and leave," Fegan says. "And so these complaints have really just gone ignored."
Since the homeowners don't own the lot the home sits on, that can leave them vulnerable to the decisions of their landlords when it comes to maintenance, rent increases and even eviction.
ELS says homeowners are free to sell their homes, and many do
Basically Fegan describes it as a classic David vs Goliath power imbalance. On the one side are lower-income residents, while their landlords are often big businesses.
ELS is a multi-billion dollar, publicly traded company that lists about 200 mobile home parks in its portfolio. It also owns RV parks and marinas. Its net income was about $263 million last year.
Fegan says if corporate landlords decide to squeeze out more profits by, as she sees it, neglecting their residents, they need to be held accountable.
"If they don't put the money in to maintain the infrastructure in these parks," she says, "we're willing to take on that fight."
The manager at the ELS park said she couldn't talk to NPR reporters. And no one from the company would agree to an interview. But ELS spokeswoman Jennifer Ludovice says in a statement to NPR that the lawsuit misrepresents conditions at the park and that the company, "invest[s] in the maintenance of the community to ensure it remains a desirable neighborhood."
Ludovice says homeowners are free to sell their homes if they want to and often do.
The company also says the suit, "involves only three out of approximately 650 residents in the community." But that's not really true.
Technically, there are three plaintiffs, but documents show 27 residents signed court papers in support of the lawsuit getting class action status. Fegan says more than 75 answered questionnaires to help her with the case.
There are, though, some residents who question the lawsuit.
Mixed views on the lawsuit
"I'm not an advocate, per se, for ELS," says Dick Bruce, a former head of the park's homeowners' association. "I'm just going to say that they're not as bad as what some folks will make it sound like."
Bruce and his wife, Jean, who are retired, worry that if they force the company to spend a lot of money fixing the flooding problems, it will raise their lot rents more than it otherwise would.
"I'm not saying I don't want the flooding fixed, but we need to be aware of what we are asking for and what we may get," Jean Bruce says, "We're on a fixed income, but we've seen our rent go up every year."
And the Bruces say ELS more recently has been making some major repairs to its stormwater system.
Company spokeswoman Ludovice says the company has spent more than $300,000 improving the stormwater system over the last three years and that three former homeowners association officers are on the record saying the system functions as it should.
But Fegan sent NPR photos of flooded streets which she says were taken recently, in July, after a hard rain.
Some residents say there's still a flooding problem and that it seemed to them that major repairs only started after the homeowners began organizing and meeting with lawyers.
Black mold, rotted beams and floorboards
Residents also say that over the years the flooding has caused a lot of damage.
"The ground here is very wet in this place, it's soaked, it never goes away," says Michael Frawley. His mother lived in a home in the park for 23 years. She just passed away a few months ago.
Frawley says he had to replace her floors twice, with pressure treated plywood, because they rotted out.
"The plywood, the beams, everything was eaten up from moisture," Frawley says. "And then there was black mold everywhere."
The cost of doing business
From an investor standpoint, choosing an industry where maintenance and overhead costs are relatively low, is, as they say, not a bug but a feature.
ELS says as much in its annual report. "Compared to other types of real estate companies, our business model is characterized by low maintenance costs and low customer turnover costs," the report says.
Former ELS board member and current shareholder Michael Torres agrees. "It's just basically resurfacing roads and having a shared community center. You don't own walls and roofs."
Residents have to fix their own roofs or floors, or pretty much anything else that needs repair in their homes because they own them. Torres says that's one of the things that makes investing in mobile home parks, "the gold standard of investing in property."
Torres manages more than $2 billion in investments through his company, Adelante Capital Management. Mostly, he invests in real estate investment trusts (REITs), like ELS. And he does not seem to have much sympathy for the homeowners at the park in Florida.
"Streets flood,"Torres says. "You chose that community - buyer beware. It's like people that move next to a school and complain about the noise. To me there's no story here."
He goes further: "Unfortunately, it's called landlord for a reason," he says. "You're not told you have to live there."
With regard to the lawsuit against ELS, he says he doesn't know all the facts and he's not speaking on behalf of the company, but he's not concerned about it as an investor. "It's a nuisance," Torres says. "It's just part of the cost of doing business."
A smoking gun?
Heritage Plantation isn't the first ELS park to find itself in the crosshairs of a lawyer representing residents. The company has been the subject of numerous legal proceedings. Perhaps the most notable one began in 2009.
Then, California attorney Jim Allen sued the company over conditions at California Hawaiian Mobile Estates, a park in Salinas. He alleged that the electrical system was shot, power would go out to the homes regularly, sewage backed up in some houses.
"They had a lake and the lake basically stunk," Allen says. "It was putrid."
There were kids in that park, and he says the playground was dangerous. "It had sharp edges, it had a slide you couldn't use." he says.
Allen says there are so many mobile home parks neglecting residents that representing residents is now the heart of his law practice.
As the California ELS case played out, Allen says he uncovered what to him seemed to be a smoking-gun reason for the neglect.
He argued in the trial that ELS had an employee bonus structure that incentivized managers to squeeze out more profits by forgoing maintenance.
"So what happens is, you want to get your bonus, so you don't authorize repairs," says Allen.
An attorney for ELS during that trial said that staying within the maintenance budget was just one factor in determining a bonus.
After a legal fight that dragged on for years, a jury sided with the residents and awarded them $111 million. ELS successfully challenged the award and the case ended with a settlement of close to $10 million. The company maintains to this day that the suit was without merit and that the park was and remains a desirable community.
With regard to the bonus structure, ELS said in a statement that it encourages park managers to act in the best interest of the property and residents. Park budgets, "are not written in stone," ELS' Ludovice wrote to NPR. She says Heritage Plantation's manager received her full bonus last year despite the property being over budget.
Catfish swimming in the roads
Back in Florida, Ann, a former ELS manager at another of the company's mobile home parks, told NPR that her community also had a stormwater problem.
"We would have constant flooding," she says. "There were catfish swimming in the roads."
Ann says she worked at that ELS park for several years about 5 years ago. She says residents there would get trapped in their homes too because the water was too deep to drive through.
"They wouldn't be able to leave," she says.
She didn't want her full name used, fearing retribution from ELS or others in the industry.
Ann says she repeatedly asked ELS management to fix the flooding problem, but the company didn't. She says ELS did do some basic maintenance such as fixing potholes.
"They had a cap of how much they were willing to spend."
"Do the right thing"
At the Heritage Plantation park, the local government has gotten involved. Frustrated residents called officials with Indian River County, only to be told that they too, had limited power over ELS. The park, they noted, is private property.
But, county officials say that, in addition to the flooding, the stormwater system appeared to have another problem.
"Their storm water is going in our sewer system," says County Commissioner Joe Earman.
He says the county ordered ELS to fix that problem, but even after fining the company $100 a day for several years, it remains unfixed. As of mid July, the fines had reached $157,700.
"When they make no effort to contact us and (they) owe you $150,000 in code enforcement fines and don't ever reach out to us about it, that kind of sends a red flag up to us," Earman says.
ELS says it has in fact fixed that problem and is now in the process of resolving the issue with the county.
Still, Earman says it shouldn't take twenty years for the flooding problems residents have been struggling with here to get fixed.
"It's frustrating to me as a county commissioner," Earman says. "How about you just do the right thing?" And that, Earman says, is for ELS to fix the flooding problems in the park. "I think they can afford it."
NPR researcher Julia Wohl contributed to this report.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-21/from-floods-to-slime-mobile-home-residents-say-landlords-make-millions-neglect-them | 2022-08-21T14:52:22Z |
Ayesha Rascoe is a White House correspondent for NPR. She is currently covering her third presidential administration. Rascoe's White House coverage has included a number of high profile foreign trips, including President Trump's 2019 summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi, Vietnam, and President Obama's final NATO summit in Warsaw, Poland in 2016. As a part of the White House team, she's also a regular on the NPR Politics Podcast. | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-21/journalist-al-crespo-who-exposed-corruption-in-miami-dies-at-80 | 2022-08-21T14:52:29Z |
Ayesha Rascoe asks Haywood Talcove of LexisNexis Risk Solutions how job seekers can protect themselves from the proliferation of scams on employment sites like LinkedIn.
Copyright 2022 NPR
Ayesha Rascoe asks Haywood Talcove of LexisNexis Risk Solutions how job seekers can protect themselves from the proliferation of scams on employment sites like LinkedIn.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-21/that-high-paying-job-opportunity-you-saw-online-could-be-a-scam | 2022-08-21T14:52:35Z |
SeQuoia Kemp was 14 years old when she attended her first birth — standing at the foot of the bed, she watched as her cousin was born.
"From that moment on, I knew I wanted to help deliver babies."
She's gone on to become a doula, providing support to birthing mothers, their partners and families before, during and after pregnancy and childbirth in her Syracuse, New York, community for more than a decade. And in a time where maternal mortality rates in the United States are staggeringly disproportionate, with Black women dying in childbirth at three times the rate of white women, doula care and maternal advocacy have become more important than ever. Now, with the recent Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, Kemp sees the need for doula care rising.
Of the recent ruling, Kemp says, "Reproductive justice was a framework developed by Black and Indigenous women who recognized a duty to show up for one another, to defend our right to bodily autonomy and organize for a more just and humane society. My work is built upon that framework and legacy."
In 2014, Kemp founded Doula 4 a Queen, a community-based doula practice that offers everything from prenatal support for expectant mothers to doula care for those experiencing miscarriage and pregnancy loss. The organization specializes in caring for Black women and their families and serves a diverse client base. Committed to a mission of service when doula support is so crucial to the outcomes of laboring mothers in her community, Kemp has never turned away anyone for financial reasons, and she always makes sure that those who come to her are connected with another doula if her organization is unable to take them on.
Caring for laboring mothers and their families can be a years-long process in many cases, and Kemp is well-versed in helping families navigate the effects of generational trauma.
"It can take a lifetime to heal from birth trauma — moms can be 40, 50, 60 years old and still reflect on that time that a doctor didn't listen to them; we're talking about lifetimes of processing that people have to go through to heal from their experiences during birth. That just shows me that this work requires generational healing, and this work is helping our families and our communities heal because the idea of having a doula is really new for Black women. Even though caring for birthing people is an age old tradition, slavery and white supremacy and so many other policies disrupted our practices and took us away from our ancestral practices. That requires healing for grandma, great-grandma, as well as the mother."
Doula work is an act "of reclaiming something that was historically ours and has been taken from us by institutionalized care," Kemp says. "It's a return to the tenets of people within your community, serving you, giving you support emotionally, physically, spiritually. It's a return to taking care of our own to help our community heal."
The overwhelming majority of Syracuse's OBGYNs and midwives are white, making Kemp's role as a support person essential for Black women. And, she says, for many Black women and women of color, experiencing pregnancy in the country that hailed 19th-century physician J. Marion Sims — notorious for experimenting on enslaved Black women without anesthesia — as the "father of modern gynecology" can be incredibly difficult.
"There are studies that show that people who are cared for by people who look like them — who have a shared history, a shared lived experience — have better health outcomes," Kemp says. "If your family has a distrust of the medical system, it can be helpful to have someone with you to help you navigate the anxiety of going to the doctor. We know that when we go to the doctor, you're not just going into that room with your own experiences, you're also going into that room with the experiences of your family and the experiences of your ancestors — even if you've never gone to the hospital before yourself."
While some may associate doulas — who have worked alongside midwives and medical doctors for generations — only with birth support, for many who do the work, it extends far beyond labor and delivery. And Kemp is no exception. From attending prenatal visits to staying with families throughout the birth and visiting with families during the postpartum period, she's there, folding baby clothes, washing dishes, seeking donations for diapers and prenatal care items, supporting clients who struggle with domestic violence and those who need to navigate custody battles. Every client's needs are different, and Kemp says she tailors her care accordingly.
"Some people just need to talk after the birth to help them continue to process [what happened] while other people might need me to be more hands-on, so I might wash dishes or fold baby clothes," Kemp says. "Each person's postpartum doula care looks different, depending on what they need from me."
"A lot of officials, when they talk about safety and when they talk about harm reduction, a lot of that focuses on 'Does mom survive? Does baby survive?' and what we focus on is we should not be merely surviving childbirth, we should be thriving, we should be feeling empowered — like we were honored and like we were an active participant in the laboring experience," Kemp says. "But the way our medical industrial complex works, that's not the focus. It's not 'How does she feel, emotionally? How does she feel, mentally? How does she feel, physically?' ... The focus, in maternity care in the United States, is on physical comfort and did you survive, and that's not ok."
"As community birth workers, we're trying to expand the definition of safety for our clients so safety is not the mere fact that you survived, it's the fact that you had an experience that made you feel good. Often, many of us are not having those experiences that we deserve."
And Kemp's vision for the future goes far beyond supporting and realizing more compassionate care for families. For her, the experiences of pregnancy and birth should be elevated far beyond their current place in our institutionalized health-care system.
"We want to see people's human rights be honored," she says. "An ideal birth is one that's not centered around violence and is not centered around the preferences and policies [of a hospital] but, rather, what is best for this birthing person and their families — and trusting that the birthing person, when they're given the proper information, will make the decision that's ultimately the best one."
"I love it when my clients say, 'That was good. I had a great experience,' " Kemp continued. "It makes me want to cry, because that's not the norm — but it should be. Moms should be smiling, raving about how good the nursing care was, raving about how their OB or midwife listened to them, supported them and made them feel safe."
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-21/through-community-based-care-doula-sequoia-kemp-advocates-for-radical-change | 2022-08-21T14:52:42Z |
Ayesha Rascoe is a White House correspondent for NPR. She is currently covering her third presidential administration. Rascoe's White House coverage has included a number of high profile foreign trips, including President Trump's 2019 summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi, Vietnam, and President Obama's final NATO summit in Warsaw, Poland in 2016. As a part of the White House team, she's also a regular on the NPR Politics Podcast. | https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/2022-08-21/whats-that-humming-sound-in-music-its-not-to-be-ignored | 2022-08-21T14:52:48Z |
DC’s pioneering ‘Baby Bonds’ plan aims to narrow wealth gap
WASHINGTON (AP) — Aaliyah Manning’s dreams of becoming a psychologist ended abruptly during her freshman year at Potomac State in West Virginia when the cost of continuing her education became overwhelming.
“The money just wasn’t there,” she said. “I knew I wasn’t going to finish so I just had fun.”
After a year, Manning, 25, was back in the nation’s capital working fast food jobs. Now she lives largely on public assistance in a two-bedroom apartment with her boyfriend, his mother and his 9-year-old daughter from another relationship. She still has student debt and there’s a baby boy on the way.
She sees a brighter future for that baby, thanks to a landmark social program being pioneered in Washington. Called “Baby Bonds,” the program will provide children of the city’s poorest families with up to $25,000 when they reach adulthood. The money is to be used for a handful of purposes, including education.
“It would be such a different opportunity for him, a lot different than what I had,” Manning said of her soon-to-arrive baby.
In just over a decade, the Baby Bonds idea has moved from a fringe leftist concept to actual policy, with the District of Columbia as the first laboratory. Lawmakers from coast to coast are monitoring the experiment, one that proponents say could reshape America’s growing wealth gap in a single generation if instituted on a federal level.
One week after giving birth to her second child, a daughter named Kali, Aaliyah Wright told The Associated Press that she did not anticipate having much savings to help her children when they reached adulthood, especially with about $80,000 in student loan debt.
She and her husband, Kainan, are on Medicaid despite steady jobs (she’s a case worker at a nongovernmental organization and he’s a barber) and an estimated annual income of about $70,000.
Even at that income level, their new daughter still would qualify for the city’s Baby Bonds program, although at a lower level.
“At that stage of maturity and adulthood, that money can be a door opener to some pretty big things,” Kainan Wright said
Despite the name, the bonds are more accurately trust funds, designed to provide a boost of capital at a critical time in the lives of the country’s poorest children. At age 18, each enrolled child would receive a large lump sum payment that can be used to pay for higher education, invest in a business or make a down payment on a home.
“Think about all the things that people with money do to support themselves or what parents do for kids,” said Kenyan McDuffie, a District of Columbia Council member who pushed through Washington’s Baby Bonds program last summer. The clock started ticking in October and as of mid-August the city has so far identified 833 babies born since then who will receive up to $25,000 when they turn 18.
“Think about all those young folks who are going to be here in a city trapped in poverty, graduated from high schools turning 18,” McDuffie said. “And then having an account with money in it for them.”
It’s an expensive and long-simmering investment that by definition will take a generation of sustained political willpower to truly bear fruit. The district’s program will cost $32 million for the first four years alone.
The idea was originally proposed in 2010 by academics William Darity and Darrick Hamilton as a way to break the poverty cycle by giving children of poor families a chance to build long-term equity — either actual property, a stake in a business or the earning potential that comes from higher education.
It came to mainstream attention when Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., made it a centerpiece of his 2020 presidential campaign.
“I think it’s an idea that’s growing,” Booker told the AP. “And it’s a big idea. It’s on the level of Social Security. It’s on the level of Medicare. One generation would create a dramatic change.”
But for politicians, the price tag can be daunting. Booker’s national plan envisioned annual costs of $60 billion, something he proposes financing by raising taxes on the wealthy.
For now, the Washington experiment will be closely watched by other state and local governments, with Baby Bonds proposals recently emerging in Wisconsin and Washington state and Massachusetts studying the issue. California just created a more targeted version, with Baby Bonds funds specifically for children who lost parents to COVID-19.
Manning and her boyfriend, Darren Gibson, say the expectation that their child will be part of the district’s first Baby Bonds generation is a much needed injection of hope. Gibson, 26, left high school three credits short of graduation. Now he’s the sole earner for his growing household, making less than $10,000 per year as a videographer shooting music videos for local artists.
“It takes such a burden off my shoulders,” he said. Gibson said he will raise his son to make good use of that money when he matures. “It’s on me to work on him and make sure he follows his ambitions.”
The concept’s journey from academic thought experiment to on-the-ground policy received a major boost from the national conversation on poverty brought on by the pandemic. The economic iniquities exposed by COVID-19 fueled calls for a new approach to the cycle of generational poverty. And the Baby Bonds concept, already familiar from Booker’s campaign, gained fresh momentum with multiple proposals receiving serious consideration at a state level.
But most of them have failed to see daylight.
Gov. Phil Murphy, D-N.J., made headlines in 2020 for backing a Baby Bonds proposal. But the Legislature stripped it out of his budget, and Murphy did not propose it again.
In June 2021, Connecticut’s legislature approved the country’s first state-level Baby Bonds program. But in May of this year, lawmakers, in coordination with the governor’s office, chose to delay the program’s start by two years.
That makes Washington, D.C., the first real test case.
Connecticut’s treasurer, Shawn Wooden, who championed the program, said he was surprised and disappointed by the delay in his own state but remains convinced that the policy’s time has come.
“There’s quite the level of interest in this, and always with these things we need what we call first movers,” Wooden said. For the concept to spread, “there needs to be success in Connecticut. There needs to be success in the District of Columbia.”
Wooden has discussed Baby Bonds with members of President Joe Biden’s domestic policy team. McDuffie’s office has fielded queries from multiple state governments.
The concept is new enough that it’s still being tinkered with in real time, with multiple models and internal debates among advocates on issues such as how best to determine eligibility. Washington’s program is so new that the 833 families who have qualified have not been informed yet and will not be until the city hires a fund manager.
Connecticut’s will automatically enroll any newborn from a family on the state’s Medicaid program. Booker’s proposal would have sidestepped that issue by granting every child born in the country a Baby Bonds fund and $1,000 in seed money. Then, all subsequent payments into the fund would have been heavily weighted toward poorer families.
Washington’s program is open to families on Medicaid who make less than 300% of the federal poverty line, meaning earnings of up to about $83,250 for a family of four. With those parameters, it is designed to benefit not only the impoverished but also families like the Wrights who might be considered lower-middle class.
At their income level, their daughter will receive closer to $15,000 instead of the $25,000 limit.
There is one inevitable quirk in the system: Any Baby Bonds program has to set a start date that excludes anyone born before it. In the case of the Wright family, Kali, would receive benefits but her older bother, Khaza, would not. Aaliyah Wright was fine with that.
“OK, so I know my future is set for one child,” said Wright. “So now I need to really focus on making things work for him.”
There are differences among plans in the size of the final payout. Booker’s proposal would have paid about $46,000 to children of the poorest families, while the district expects to pay out a maximum of $25,000. Connecticut’s plan would pay an estimated $13,000 — something Wooden described as “pretty much the floor” for a serious attempt at a Baby Bonds program.
Naomi Zewde, an assistant professor in health economics at the City University of New York who conducted a 2019 analysis of the concept, set the lowest impactful payment at $15,000.
“It has to be a sum of money that’s kind of outside what people would normally come across,” she said.
Zewde’s analysis suggested that a nationwide federal Baby Bonds program would massively reduce the racial wealth gap between white and Black Americans in a single generation, even as it boosted both races.
Currently the median wealth of young white Americans stands at $46,000, compared with $2,900 for Black Americans.
For a Baby Bonds program to succeed, it has to be on a national level and have strong popular support, advocates said.
Darity, a Duke professor who co-authored the original Baby Bonds proposal, points to Britain, which instituted a similar program called the child trust fund in 2005. But the program was discontinued and all future payments halted in 2010 in a government austerity campaign.
“I think the assessment in England was that they had not built grassroots support for the policy when they started it,” he said. “So there wasn’t any strong resistance to eliminating the plan.”
In the United States, the program already has been strongly endorsed by prominent liberal organizations such as the Urban Institute and Prosperity Now.
But there are detractors.
Veronique de Rugy, a senior research fellow at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, said the one-way nature of the deposits, with no mechanism for the families themselves to add money, “does nothing to encourage the culture of savings.”
She added that the program could tie up millions that could be used to address immediate societal conditions that also help feed the cycle of poverty.
“A lot of these kids are still going to be stuck in bad schools,” she said.
Michael Strain, an economist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, says Baby Bonds advocates will struggle to persuade lawmakers around the country to make such an expensive commitment. “I absolutely think it’s a hard sell,” he said. “The 18-year lag is less of a political obstacle than the price tag.”
Wooden rejected the perception of Baby Bonds as having no payoff for 18 years, saying the benefits will be immediate and measurable. That nest egg, he said, will inspire real-time changes in planning, academic achievement and overall ambition in both children and families.
“There is a high value that should be placed on hope,” he said. “We know what hopelessness looks like in our communities.
Manning, the young expectant mother in Washington, said the knowledge that the money was waiting for her son would change how her family talks about his future.
“It would be much more focused,” she said. “‘Do you know what you want to do? What are your plans?’”
___
Follow Ashraf Khalil on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ashrafkhalil
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/08/21/dcs-pioneering-baby-bonds-plan-aims-narrow-wealth-gap/ | 2022-08-21T14:59:08Z |
Jill Biden tests negative for COVID-19, will go to Delaware
REHOBOTH BEACH, Del. (AP) — First lady Jill Biden has tested negative for COVID-19 and will leave South Carolina, where she had isolated since vacationing with President Joe Biden, and rejoin him at their Delaware beach home, her office said Sunday.
The White House announced on Tuesday that the 71-year-old first lady, who like her husband has been twice-vaccinated and twice-boosted with the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, had tested positive for the coronavirus. She first had symptoms on Monday.
The 79-year-old president recovered from a rebound case of the virus on Aug. 7.
Jill Biden was prescribed the antiviral drug Paxlovid and isolated at the Kiawah Island vacation home for five days before receiving negative results from two consecutive COVID-19 tests, spokeswoman Elizabeth Alexander said. Jill Biden planned to travel to Delaware later Sunday.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.wvva.com/2022/08/21/jill-biden-tests-negative-covid-19-will-go-delaware/ | 2022-08-21T14:59:15Z |
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