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BUFORD, Ga. — One of the most highly-touted high school football recruits in the entire nation is set to make his commitment Saturday night on 11Alive.com.
KJ Bolden, a five-star safety out of Buford High School in Gwinnett County, is about to make one college football fanbase very happy as he sets to decide from one of his 45 total collegiate offers.
At the moment, Bolden is leaning toward Georgia over Florida State and Ohio State, according to multiple recruiting analysts with Rivals. The Bulldogs not only have the top class in 2024, but already have the No. 1 overall recruit in the nation in that class with QB Dylan Raiola, based on Rivals' rankings.
He narrowed his final five choices down to UGA, Ohio State, Florida State, Alabama and Auburn. Bolden is expected to announce his decision at 7:30 p.m. Saturday night live on 11Alive's YouTube page and right here on 11Alive.com.
Bolden himself is the No. 1 ranked safety in the entire country and is the 9th ranked player overall for the class of 2024, according to Rivals. If Bolden were to choose UGA, he would add yet another five-star to the Dawgs' leading class of three already.
Despite being the top-ranked safety recruit in America, Bolden has been a star on both sides of the ball for the Buford Wolves during his three years, shining not only at safety but also as one of the team's leading wide receivers on the offensive side of the ball.
Raiola recently transferred from his high school in Arizona to Buford High School to play his senior year closer to where he'll play his college ball, among other things. The two were seen connecting on passes in summer practice on July 19, in a post on Bolden's Twitter account.
At a game back in October, UGA head coach Kirby Smart and Ohio State head coach Ryan Day were in the house for Buford's Week 9 home game against Mill Creek to watch Bolden star. The Wolves went on to win that game 39-27.
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https://www.11alive.com/article/sports/local-sports/kj-bolden-5-star-buford-high-school-football-recruit-commitment/85-a2d46488-5d04-4834-906a-1f1ad3b8ab10
| 2023-07-31T21:09:32
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https://www.11alive.com/article/sports/local-sports/kj-bolden-5-star-buford-high-school-football-recruit-commitment/85-a2d46488-5d04-4834-906a-1f1ad3b8ab10
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WASHINGTON (AP) — The National Institutes of Health is beginning a handful of studies to test possible treatments for long COVID, an anxiously awaited step in U.S. efforts against the mysterious condition that afflicts millions.
Monday’s announcement from the NIH’s $1.15 billion RECOVER project comes amid frustration from patients who’ve struggled for months or even years with sometimes-disabling health problems — with no proven treatments and only a smattering of rigorous studies to test potential ones.
“This is a year or two late and smaller in scope than one would hope but nevertheless it’s a step in the right direction,” said Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly of Washington University in St. Louis, who isn’t involved with NIH’s project but whose own research highlighted long COVID’s toll. Getting answers is critical, he added, because “there’s a lot of people out there exploiting patients’ vulnerability” with unproven therapies.
Scientists don’t yet know what causes long COVID, the catchall term for about 200 widely varying symptoms. Between 10% and 30% of people are estimated to have experienced some form of long COVID after recovering from a coronavirus infection, a risk that has dropped somewhat since early in the pandemic.
“If I get 10 people, I get 10 answers of what long COVID really is,” U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said.
That’s why so far the RECOVER initiative has tracked 24,000 patients in observational studies to help define the most common and burdensome symptoms –- findings that now are shaping multipronged treatment trials. The first two will look at:
— Whether taking up to 25 days of Pfizer’s antiviral drug Paxlovid could ease long COVID, because of a theory that some live coronavirus, or its remnants, may hide in the body and trigger the disorder. Normally Paxlovid is used when people first get infected and for just five days.
— Treatments for “brain fog” and other cognitive problems. They include Posit Science Corp.’s BrainHQ cognitive training program, another called PASC-Cognitive Recovery by New York City’s Mount Sinai Health System, and a Soterix Medical device that electrically stimulates brain circuits.
Two additional studies will open in the coming months. One will test treatments for sleep problems. The other will target problems with the autonomic nervous system — which controls unconscious functions like breathing and heartbeat — including the disorder called POTS.
A more controversial study of exercise intolerance and fatigue also is planned, with NIH seeking input from some patient groups worried that exercise may do more harm than good for certain long COVID sufferers.
The trials are enrolling 300 to 900 adult participants for now but have the potential to grow. Unlike typical experiments that test one treatment at a time, these more flexible “platform studies” will let NIH add additional potential therapies on a rolling basis.
“We can rapidly pivot,” Dr. Amy Patterson with the NIH explained. A failing treatment can be dropped without ending the entire trial and “if something promising comes on the horizon, we can plug it in.”
The flexibility could be key, according to Dr. Anthony Komaroff, a Harvard researcher who isn’t involved with the NIH program but has long studied a similarly mysterious disorder known as chronic fatigue syndrome or ME/CFS. For example, he said, the Paxlovid study “makes all sorts of sense,” but if a 25-day dose shows only hints of working, researchers could extend the test to a longer course instead of starting from scratch.
Komaroff also said that he understands people’s frustration over the wait for these treatment trials, but believes NIH appropriately waited “until some clues came in about the underlying biology,” adding: “You’ve got to have targets.”
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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https://www.pahomepage.com/health/ap-brain-fog-and-other-long-covid-symptoms-are-the-focus-of-new-small-treatment-studies/
| 2023-07-31T21:09:32
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https://www.pahomepage.com/health/ap-brain-fog-and-other-long-covid-symptoms-are-the-focus-of-new-small-treatment-studies/
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CLEVELAND (AP) — The Cleveland Guardians traded starting pitcher Aaron Civale to the Tampa Bay Rays for first base prospect Kyle Manzardo on Monday.
The Guardians announced the trade on social media one day before the trade deadline.
Civale’s name has been thrown around in trade speculation for weeks, which has coincided with the right-hander pitching as well as he has in several seasons. Civale posted a 1.45 ERA in six July starts.
On Sunday, Civale pitched six scoreless innings in a win over the Chicago White Sox to improve to 5-2.
The move is a bit surprising from Cleveland’s standpoint since the Guardians are just one-half game out of first place in the AL Central and they have several pitchers, including ace Shane Bieber out with injuries.
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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb
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https://www.wric.com/sports/sports-headlines/ap-cleveland-guardians-trade-pitcher-aaron-civale-to-tampa-bay-rays-for-prospect/
| 2023-07-31T21:09:36
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https://www.wric.com/sports/sports-headlines/ap-cleveland-guardians-trade-pitcher-aaron-civale-to-tampa-bay-rays-for-prospect/
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President Biden overturned a decision from the Trump administration to relocate the temporary headquarters of Space Command to Alabama, deciding instead to keep the base in Colorado.
The decision was made because Biden believes keeping the HQ in Colorado Springs, rather than relocating it to Huntsville, would maintain stability and not impact readiness, according to a senior U.S. official.
The senior administration official said Biden consulted with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and other military leaders before deciding to keep the base in Colorado permanently.
Gen. James Dickinson, the head of Space Command, also helped to convince Biden to not relocate the base, according to the Associated Press.
U.S. Space Command headquarters is set to achieve “full operational capability” at Colorado Springs later this month, according to the senior administration official.
The official said moving the headquarters to Alabama would force a transition process that does not allow the new base to open until the mid-2030’s.
“The President found that risk unacceptable, especially given the challenges we may face in the space domain during this critical time period,” the official said. “Locating Headquarters U.S. Space Command in Colorado Springs ensures peak readiness in the space domain for our nation during a critical period.”
Biden’s reversal is likely to spark the fury of Alabama Republicans who have for months feared the administration would scrap the relocation plan.
Alabama Rep. Mike Rogers (R), the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, has been investigating the delay behind the relocation plan, which was first put in motion when Space Command was resurrected in 2019.
Former President Trump’s decision to temporarily establish a headquarters in Colorado and relocate Space Command to Alabama was criticized as a political choice based upon a more favorable constituency in the Yellowhammer state.
Since coming into office, the Biden administration ordered reviews of the decision, none of which found anything improper in Trump’s decision, though they found the former president could have followed better practices in the process.
The delayed relocation reached new heights over the spring when NBC News reported the Biden administration was considering scrapping the relocation plan because of restrictive abortion laws in Alabama.
Rogers and other Alabama Republicans objected to any such plan, saying Huntsville, also known as Rocket City, was selected based on its merits and in a fair process, while pointing to the reviews that found nothing improper.
The House version of the annual defense bill that passed earlier this month includes provisions that slash funding for the Air Force Secretary until the administration makes a final decision. It’s unclear whether Rogers will be satisfied with a reversal.
Other Alabama politicians, including Gov. Kay Ivey (R), are likely to also object to the decision.
Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) said the base Redstone Arsenal in Alabama was the correct location based on its merits, arguing “Biden has irresponsibly decided to yank a military decision out of the Air Force’s hands in the name of partisan politics.”
“The President’s blatant prioritization of partisan political considerations at the expense of our national security, military modernization, and force readiness is a disservice and a dishonor to his oath of office as our nation’s Commander-in-Chief,” she said in a statement.
Colorado Sen. Michael Bennett (D) joined officials from his state in celebrating Biden’s decision.
“Over the past two and half years, we have repeatedly made the case that the Trump administration’s decision to relocate U.S. Space Command was misguided,” the senator wrote on the platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
“Today’s decision restores integrity to the Pentagon’s basing process and sends a strong message that national security and the readiness of our Armed Forces drive our military decisions,” he added.
Updated at 5:01 pm ET.
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https://www.pahomepage.com/hill-politics/biden-overturns-trump-decision-to-move-space-command-hq-from-colorado-to-alabama/
| 2023-07-31T21:09:40
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https://www.pahomepage.com/hill-politics/biden-overturns-trump-decision-to-move-space-command-hq-from-colorado-to-alabama/
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PITTSFORD, N.Y. (AP) — Of the thousands of emotions — trepidation among them — running through Damar Hamlin’s head Monday while he pulled on his pads for practice for the first time at training camp, the one that ultimately won out was joy.
For everything the Buffalo Bills safety has overcome in seven months since going into cardiac arrest during a game and needing to be resuscitated on the field, Hamlin leaned on his faith in God and himself, along with the support from his family and teammates, to take another step toward resume his playing career.
“A super big hurdle as you can imagine. Like, I pretty much lost my life playing this sport,” Hamlin said at a news conference after practice.
“I made the choice to play. But I’m processing a thousand emotions. I’m not afraid to say that it crosses my mind of being a little scared here and there,” he added. “My faith is stronger than any fear. That’s what I want to preach up here. And that’s the message I want to spread on to the world that as long as your faith is stronger than your fear, you can get through anything.”
Though Hamlin was cleared to resume practicing in mid-April, he did so wearing a helmet and shorts with the rest of his teammates through their spring sessions and first four days of training camp, as mandated by NFL rules. The magnitude of the Bills’ first day in pads wasn’t lost on Hamlin, given it marked the first time he was in full uniform since collapsing on the field in Cincinnati on Jan. 2 after making what appeared to be a routine tackle of Bengals receiver Tee Higgins.
“Ah man, it feels amazing. It’s a roller coaster of emotions. I was kind of all over the place just being back for the first time,” Hamlin said. “Just trying to keep everything as normal as possible.”
The normality of football struck him about an hour into practice when Hamlin took the field for the first time during a team red-zone running drill in which tackling was still not allowed.
On his second play, Hamlin showed no hesitation when bursting toward Damien Harris and wrapping him up with both arms. A play later, running back James Cook broke a tackle before Hamlin joined a teammate in wrapping him up just before the goal line.
Hamlin’s biggest contact came on the final play of practice, when he avoided a block to work his way into the backfield and help a teammate stop tight end Quintin Morris for what would have been a loss.
“That first little moment of contact, that was just letting me know. I felt alive, man. I felt like I’m here,” Hamlin said with a wide grin. “So it felt good. It was just that moment of: ‘All right, let’s settle in and let’s just take one play at a time. Let’s just keep going.’”
Hamlin’s only lament was not having any balls thrown in his direction during team drills, though he laughed when saying that might not be a bad thing.
“When the ball’s not coming my way, that makes you think you’re doing your job right,” Hamlin said. “But, you know, I would love some more opportunities to make a big play and turn practice up a bit.”
The 25-year-old from the Pittsburgh area is entering his third NFL season. Selected by Buffalo in the sixth round of the 2021 draft out of Pitt, he opened last season as a backup before starting 13 games after Micah Hyde sustained a season-ending neck injury.
This year, Hamlin is competing with offseason free agent addition Taylor Rapp for a backup role behind Hyde and Jordan Poyer. As for Hamlin’s next hurdle, it’ll come Aug. 12, when the Bills open their preseason schedule at home against Indianapolis.
Rapp, who spent his first four NFL seasons with the Los Angeles Rams, might be new to Buffalo but is impressed with how Hamlin has handled himself.
“How far he’s come and what he’s able to come back from late last season and just seeing how he goes about himself and attacks the rehab at the facility is nothing short of inspiring,” Rapp said.
A day earlier, coach Sean McDermott said he was walking a fine line in treating Hamlin much like any other player, while keeping in mind what he’s gone through.
“I think awareness is important, right? You’ve got X amount of guys out here and then you have Damar in there as well and trying to make it as a normal as possible,” McDermott said. “We’re going to support him through this, and to this point he’s done a phenomenal job.”
___
AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl and https://twitter.com/AP_NFL
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https://www.wric.com/sports/sports-headlines/ap-damar-hamlin-puts-aside-fear-and-practices-in-pads-for-the-first-time-since-cardiac-arrest/
| 2023-07-31T21:09:43
| 1
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https://www.wric.com/sports/sports-headlines/ap-damar-hamlin-puts-aside-fear-and-practices-in-pads-for-the-first-time-since-cardiac-arrest/
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EYEWITNESS NEWS (WBRE/WYOU) — A jackpot-winning Pennsylvania Lottery Cash 5 ticket sold Sunday worth $1.7 million in the Commonwealth.
According to PA Lottery, the Cash 5 with Quick Cash ticket matched all five balls drawn, 8-27-32-33-37, to win $1,713,561.50.
Turkey Hill, on Route 87 in Montoursville earns a $10,000 bonus for selling the winning ticket.
Winners can be identified only after prizes are claimed and tickets validated. A main Cash 5 game prize must be claimed within one year of the drawing date. Any prizes won on any Quick Cash game must be claimed within one year of the purchase date.
Anyone holding a jackpot-winning Cash 5 with Quick Cash ticket should contact the nearest Lottery office for further instructions or call 1-800-692-7481.
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https://www.pahomepage.com/news/1-7m-winning-lottery-ticket-sold-in-pa/
| 2023-07-31T21:09:46
| 0
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https://www.pahomepage.com/news/1-7m-winning-lottery-ticket-sold-in-pa/
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TOWN OF BINGHAMTON, NY (WIVT/WBGH) – Habitat for Humanity celebrated the completion of its newest home and handed over the keys to a new family.
Over the weekend, Broome County’s Habitat for Humanity held a ribbon cutting ceremony for the family moving into 3492 Margery Street in the Town of Binghamton.
The Land Bank identified the house as a problem property and purchased it from the Town in 2019.
Years later, with the work of the habitat crew, it now has 3 bedrooms and one and a half baths, plus a large, unfinished basement.
The couple, moving into the property are Pakistani immigrants.
The husband has lived in the Binghamton area for 20 years, and his new wife just recently immigrated to the States.
Executive Director of the Broome County Habitat for Humanity, Lateisha Judge says, “They’re a lovely couple. He has done more than his share of sweat equity, what we call sweat equity here at Habitat, where, the partner family actually helps in the building of their home. He and his brother have been strong volunteers, they’ve been a dream to work with, our crew loves them, and they’re actually hoping to continue volunteering even past the completion of this home.”
Judge says that this was a long time coming, as the owner has applied for the property several times.
And the site was the victim of a burglary in February in which thieves stole tools valued at $4,400.
The construction crew added a ramp to accommodate for any mobility difficulties.
Judge says that a lot of the building materials, including shingles and doors were donated.
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https://www.binghamtonhomepage.com/broome-county/ribbon-cutting-at-habitats-newest-home/
| 2023-07-31T21:09:46
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https://www.binghamtonhomepage.com/broome-county/ribbon-cutting-at-habitats-newest-home/
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GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Florida coach Billy Napier opened fall practice talking to his team about expectations — internal ones, anyway.
The once-mighty Gators are mostly an afterthought in the Southeastern Conference these days. Coming off consecutive 6-7 seasons — one in former coach Dan Mullen’s final season and the other in Napier’s inaugural campaign — Florida was picked to finish fifth in the Eastern Division in the league’s annual preseason media poll.
That’s one spot above last.
It was the lowest preseason prognostication for the Gators since also coming in fifth in 2015, former coach Jim McElwain’s first season. Florida responding by winning the East that year. Could it happen again? It would be an unbelievable long shot considering Napier pretty much has an overhauled roster after losing quarterback Anthony Richardson and 14 other starters.
“I really feel like we’re going to shock a lot of people this year as far as the standard is so low right now,” cornerback Jaydon Hill said. “It blows my mind a little bit. But then again, we’ve just got to win games. It just comes down to winning.”
Florida hasn’t won nearly enough for a fanbase that grew accustomed to it under legends Steve Spurrier and Urban Meyer. Although the Gators have enjoyed pockets of success since, they have yet to put it all together in terms of recruiting talent, developing players and building a consistent contender.
Napier had a detailed plan when he took over in November 2021, but it didn’t account for having to navigate a burgeoning transfer portal or a constantly changing name, image and likeness landscape.
So Napier sounds more like a coach entering their first year rather than one expecting the kind of second-year jumps that helped vault Spurrier and Meyer to stardom. He’s implemented several team-building exercises, including moving players into on-campus dorms for the opening week of training camp and rooming them with guys from other position groups.
They’ll eat every meal in an old-school dining hall — no phones allowed — and work on developing leadership as much as perfecting concepts, formations and plays.
“I think it’s important that we connect and try to create crossover relationships in all parts of what we do,” Napier said. “It’s absolutely important to what we do.”
Adding another layer to his unification efforts, Napier has a get-to-know-your-teammate initiative that requires players to be able to provide names and hometowns on the spot for 10 colleagues pictured.
“It’s one thing to know the guy’s first name, but it’s another thing to know his first and last name, where he’s from, part of his story, and I think with time we’ll get to that place,” Napier said. “But it’s about agreeing that there’s an expectation, and then, ‘Hey, if you can do better, you can do better.’ I think that’s the key to the drill. That’s where we’re at as a team.”
It’s a far cry from having to tamp down expectations of making the College Football Playoff or winning championships. No one’s ruled those out in Gainesville, but most would agree they seem more plausible down the road.
Florida returns seven starters from last year’s team and has a number of transfers to work into the mix. Quite possibly the main reason for Florida’s humble preseason forecast is because the team appears locked into starting former Wisconsin quarterback Graham Mertz, who completed 60% of his passes for 5,405 yards, with 38 touchdowns and 26 interceptions, in four years with the Badgers.
Florida lost four-star QB recruit Jaden Rashada in a failed NIL deal in January, leaving Mertz and former Ohio State backup Jack Miller to compete for the starting job. All signs point to Mertz taking the first snap when the Gators open the season at Utah on Aug. 31.
Although Napier appears to have Florida on the path back to national relevancy; the team’s 2024 recruiting class is ranked third behind Georgia and Ohio State, according to 247sports.com. In the meantime, the only expectations he’s focused on are the internal ones.
“The expectation we’re going to establish for each other … should be much higher than any outside narrative or outside opinion,” Napier said. “If I’m walking around the building each day, if I’m living life and I’m most concerned with not letting the people down that are going to be in this team meeting in a couple hours, that’s the most important piece.”
___
AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/college-football and https://twitter.com/ap_top25. Sign up for the AP Top 25 newsletter here: https://link.apnews.com/join/6nr/morning-wire-newsletter-footer-internal-ads
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https://www.wric.com/sports/sports-headlines/ap-florida-enters-year-2-under-billy-napier-amid-lowest-expectations-in-nearly-a-decade/
| 2023-07-31T21:09:49
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https://www.wric.com/sports/sports-headlines/ap-florida-enters-year-2-under-billy-napier-amid-lowest-expectations-in-nearly-a-decade/
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President Biden overturned a decision from the Trump administration to relocate the temporary headquarters of Space Command to Alabama, deciding instead to keep the base in Colorado.
The decision was made because Biden believes keeping the HQ in Colorado Springs, rather than relocating it to Huntsville, would maintain stability and not impact readiness, according to a senior U.S. official.
The senior administration official said Biden consulted with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and other military leaders before deciding to keep the base in Colorado permanently.
Gen. James Dickinson, the head of Space Command, also helped to convince Biden to not relocate the base, according to the Associated Press.
U.S. Space Command headquarters is set to achieve “full operational capability” at Colorado Springs later this month, according to the senior administration official.
The official said moving the headquarters to Alabama would force a transition process that does not allow the new base to open until the mid-2030’s.
“The President found that risk unacceptable, especially given the challenges we may face in the space domain during this critical time period,” the official said. “Locating Headquarters U.S. Space Command in Colorado Springs ensures peak readiness in the space domain for our nation during a critical period.”
Biden’s reversal is likely to spark the fury of Alabama Republicans who have for months feared the administration would scrap the relocation plan.
Alabama Rep. Mike Rogers (R), the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, has been investigating the delay behind the relocation plan, which was first put in motion when Space Command was resurrected in 2019.
Former President Trump’s decision to temporarily establish a headquarters in Colorado and relocate Space Command to Alabama was criticized as a political choice based upon a more favorable constituency in the Yellowhammer state.
Since coming into office, the Biden administration ordered reviews of the decision, none of which found anything improper in Trump’s decision, though they found the former president could have followed better practices in the process.
The delayed relocation reached new heights over the spring when NBC News reported the Biden administration was considering scrapping the relocation plan because of restrictive abortion laws in Alabama.
Rogers and other Alabama Republicans objected to any such plan, saying Huntsville, also known as Rocket City, was selected based on its merits and in a fair process, while pointing to the reviews that found nothing improper.
The House version of the annual defense bill that passed earlier this month includes provisions that slash funding for the Air Force Secretary until the administration makes a final decision. It’s unclear whether Rogers will be satisfied with a reversal.
Other Alabama politicians, including Gov. Kay Ivey (R), are likely to also object to the decision.
Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) said the base Redstone Arsenal in Alabama was the correct location based on its merits, arguing “Biden has irresponsibly decided to yank a military decision out of the Air Force’s hands in the name of partisan politics.”
“The President’s blatant prioritization of partisan political considerations at the expense of our national security, military modernization, and force readiness is a disservice and a dishonor to his oath of office as our nation’s Commander-in-Chief,” she said in a statement.
Colorado Sen. Michael Bennett (D) joined officials from his state in celebrating Biden’s decision.
“Over the past two and half years, we have repeatedly made the case that the Trump administration’s decision to relocate U.S. Space Command was misguided,” the senator wrote on the platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
“Today’s decision restores integrity to the Pentagon’s basing process and sends a strong message that national security and the readiness of our Armed Forces drive our military decisions,” he added.
Updated at 5:01 pm ET.
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https://www.binghamtonhomepage.com/hill-politics/biden-overturns-trump-decision-to-move-space-command-hq-from-colorado-to-alabama/
| 2023-07-31T21:09:52
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https://www.binghamtonhomepage.com/hill-politics/biden-overturns-trump-decision-to-move-space-command-hq-from-colorado-to-alabama/
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LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Churchill Downs will implement safety measures for its September meet including new track surface maintenance equipment and additional monitoring and equine care following 12 horse deaths before and after the Kentucky Derby that spurred suspension of its spring meet.
Racing is scheduled to resume Sept. 14 and run through Oct. 1 at the historic track, which paused racing operations on June 7 to conduct an internal safety review following the spate of horse deaths from racing or training injuries. Seven died in the days leading up to the 149th Derby on May 6, including two in races preceding the premier event.
The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority recommended suspending the remainder of the meet, which moved to Ellis Park in western Kentucky. Training continued at Churchill Downs during the investigation, and a release on Monday stated that while industry experts found no issues with the racing surfaces, the track invested in new maintenance equipment. It will also double the frequency of surface testing among infrastructure upgrades.
Churchill Downs Inc. CEO Bill Carstanjen said the track’s commitment to safety “remains paramount” in the release and added, “our participants, fans and the public can be assured that we will continue to investigate, evaluate and improve upon every policy and protocol.”
The announcement comes days after Carstanjen said racing would resume this fall with no changes and called the deaths “a series of unfortunate circumstances” in an earnings call with CDI investors.
Churchill Downs veterinarians will receive additional resources for specialized horse care and to assist in pre-race inspections and entry screening, the release added. The track will work with HISA and industry experts to predict at-risk horses through advanced analytic techniques.
A safety management committee including horsemen, track employees and veterinarians will also be created.
___
AP sports: https://apnews.com/hub/sports and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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https://www.pahomepage.com/news/ap-churchill-downs-to-improve-track-maintenance-veterinary-resources-for-fall-meet-after-horse-deaths/
| 2023-07-31T21:09:52
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https://www.pahomepage.com/news/ap-churchill-downs-to-improve-track-maintenance-veterinary-resources-for-fall-meet-after-horse-deaths/
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The nights before games were always the toughest times for Darrelle Revis.
One of the NFL’s most dominant cornerbacks would lie in bed thinking about what he needed to accomplish the next day on the field. Revis would go over the game plan, the notes from his film studies, the receivers’ routes and their tendencies.
Over and over until he’d fall asleep.
He’d wake up mentally prepared — and that brief anxiety would be replaced by supreme confidence.
“Restless nights, I’d say to start with,” Revis said. “Covering some of the greatest wide receivers in the game and future Hall of Famers at that time, I was probably the most nervous out of anybody on the field if I had that assignment.
“For me, it’s kind of looking at yourself in the mirror and saying to yourself, ‘It’s either me or him. I just have to stand up to the challenge.’ For me, I just took on the responsibility to take that assignment and try to shut him down.”
Revis did exactly that for most of his brilliant 11-year NFL career, including eight seasons over two stints with the New York Jets.
So much so, he earned the popular “Revis Island” nickname, a fitting tribute to how he’d single-handedly make many receivers disappear — lost on an island — from opponents’ game plans.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime type corner,” former Jets coach Rex Ryan once said. “And that’s a fact.”
Tough to argue, and voters for the Pro Football Hall of Fame made Revis a first-ballot inductee following a career during which he routinely locked down one side of the field with his air-tight coverage.
He also gave plenty of opposing offensive coordinators plenty of restless nights of their own.
“I just felt I had the ability and skill set and the coaching staff who believed in me that I had the ability to shut them down,” Revis said.
That was perhaps most evident during the 2009 season, when Revis had arguably the greatest year at his position.
Ever.
Randy Moss, Chad Johnson, Andre Johnson, Steve Smith, Terrell Owens, Reggie Wayne and Roddy White were all non-factors against the Jets that season — because they couldn’t shake Revis.
“I shouldn’t have even suited up,” Wayne said after having just a 1-yard catch in Indianapolis’ playoff loss to New York that season.
Green Bay cornerback Charles Woodson won the AP Defensive Player of the Year award that year, but Ryan insisted Revis should’ve been the choice after having “the best year a corner has ever had.”
Revis had six interceptions and set an NFL record that still stands with 31 passes defensed that season. He never really came close to matching those marks in any season the rest of his career — because teams simply stopped throwing his way.
That was the ultimate sign of respect.
“It was a very comforting thing as a player that we’d have a guy that can take away the greatest weapon of the other team’s offensive players,” former Jets center and long-time teammate Nick Mangold said. “So it was very much like a security blanket, like, we’ve got him, so we’re good.”
Revis was drafted by the Jets out of the University of Pittsburgh with the 14th overall pick in 2007 when they traded up 11 spots to add a player they believed could change their defense. And he certainly delivered, making an instant impact under coach Eric Mangini before thriving as the heart of Ryan’s defense.
“One of the highlights for me is just being drafted,” Revis said. “Just fulfilling that dream. Just the hills I had to run at an incline, the abs, the pushups, the overtime, just put into everything to try to even dare myself to be one of the best or one of the greatest or amount to be somewhat of the next Deion Sanders, in a way.”
The comparisons quickly became a regular thing for Revis, whose abilities were often measured up against the likes of Sanders, Woodson, Rod Woodson, Ty Law, Champ Bailey and Mel Blount.
Until the debates began about whether Revis was actually the best cornerback ever.
That’s subjective, of course, with some pointing out Revis’ relatively short period of greatness. A knee injury wiped out his 2012 season and a contract dispute — he had a few of those, helping set the market for cornerbacks — ended with him being traded to Tampa Bay the following offseason.
Revis won a Super Bowl the next year with New England, irking Jets fans, but he returned to New York in 2015 and played two more seasons for his original team. After a short stint with Kansas City in 2017, Revis retired. He was inducted into the Jets’ ring of honor last year.
His playing legacy came with his performance in games, but he built a reputation for striving to be great with his intense approach during practice. Revis would get on teammates who weren’t giving their all, and his goal was to not give up a catch to anyone.
And if he did, Revis would be ticked off. About catches that didn’t even count — to everyone other than Revis.
“Every practice, to him, was a game,” Mangold said. “So he was going out there and no one was going to catch a ball on him. It was the result of his competitive nature. He was always working to win.”
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AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl and https://twitter.com/AP_NFL
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https://www.wric.com/sports/sports-headlines/ap-revis-shut-down-his-nerves-and-then-the-nfls-best-wide-receivers-on-his-way-to-the-hall-of-fame/
| 2023-07-31T21:09:56
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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) rolled out his economic policy plan at a campaign stop in New Hampshire on Monday, dubbing the plan “a declaration of economic independence.”
“We will declare our economic independence from the failed elites that have orchestrated American decline, from the reckless federal spending that has inflated prices and plunged this nation to the brink of bankruptcy,” DeSantis told a crowd in Rochester, N.H., at Prep Partners Group, which handles logistics, including warehousing and distribution for companies.
The plan particularly takes aim at China by putting an end to the country’s preferential trade status and banning import goods made by stolen intellectual property.
The 10-part economic plan includes getting to 3 percent growth, making America energy independent, reining in the Federal Reserve, pushing back on “wasteful federal spending” and reforming the education system for working-class Americans.
The Democratic National Committee was quick to attack DeSantis over the plan, dubbing it “extreme.”
“It remains a mystery why DeSantis would try to reboot his dumpster fire of a campaign by promising to bring his failures as governor nationwide, but by all means, we welcome Republicans to continue reminding the American people how catastrophic the MAGA agenda is for the economy,” said Ammar Moussa, a spokesperson for the DNC.
Last week DeSantis’s campaign declared a “reset” in a memo to donors, noting that the themes of its “Great American Comeback” message will be the economy, border, China and culture.
However, polling still shows DeSantis in second place behind former President Trump, with a new New York Times/Siena College survey showing the former president leading the Florida governor by 37 points.
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https://www.binghamtonhomepage.com/hill-politics/desantis-rolls-out-economic-plan-in-new-hampshire/
| 2023-07-31T21:09:58
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BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Idaho mother Lori Vallow Daybell has been sentenced to life in prison without parole Monday in the murders of her two youngest children and a romantic rival in a case that included bizarre claims that her son and daughter were zombies and that she was a goddess sent to usher in the Biblical apocalypse.
Vallow Daybell was found guilty in May of killing her two youngest children, 7-year-old Joshua “JJ” Vallow and 16-year-old Tylee Ryan, as well as conspiring to kill Tammy Daybell, her fifth husband’s previous wife. Vallow Daybell will serve three life sentences one after the other, the judge said.
The husband, Chad Daybell, is awaiting trial on the same murder charges. Vallow Daybell also faces two other cases in Arizona — one on a charge of conspiring with her brother to kill her fourth husband, Charles Vallow, and one of conspiring to kill her niece’s ex-husband. Charles Vallow was shot and killed in 2019, but her niece’s ex survived an attempt later that year.
At the Fremont County Courthouse in St. Anthony, Idaho, Judge Steven W. Boyce said the search for the missing children, the discovery of their bodies and the evidence photos shown in court left law enforcement and jurors traumatized, and he would never be able to get images of the slain children out of his head.
A parent killing their own children “is the most shocking thing really that I can imagine,” Boyce said.
Vallow Daybell justified the murders by “going down a bizarre religious rabbit hole, and clearly you are still down there,” the judge said.
“I don’t think to this day you have any remorse for the effort and heartache you caused,” he said.
Boyce heard testimony from several representatives of the victims, including Vallow Daybell’s only surviving son, Colby Ryan.
“Tylee will never have the opportunity to become a mother, wife or have the career she was destined to have. JJ will never be able to grow and spread his light with the world the way he did,” Ryan wrote in a statement read by prosecuting attorney Rob Wood. “My siblings and father deserve so much more than this. I want them to be remembered for who they were, not just a spectacle.”
Ryan also wrote about his own grief.
“I’ve lost the opportunity to share life with the people I love the most. I have lost my sister, father, brother and my mother,” he wrote. “I pray for healing for everyone involved, including those who took the lives of everyone we loved.”
The murder scheme and Tammy Daybell’s death left a deep rift in her family, Tammy’s sister Samantha Gwilliam told the court.
“Why? Why plan something so heinous? You are not exalted beings, and your behavior makes you ineligible to be one,” Gwilliam said, referring to the unusual religious claims. “Because of the choices you made, my family lost a beloved mother, sister and daughter.”
Tammy Daybell’s mother was fighting cancer, and spent the last months of her life watching the murder trial, Gwilliam said. The family has also been hounded by media and others drawn by “all of the salacious scandal you stirred up,” Gwilliam told Vallow Daybell, who looked down as she sat between her defense attorneys.
“I miss my sister every day. I will grieve her, and the loss of my mother, every single day of my life,” Gwilliam said. “As for you, I choose to forget you and as I leave the courtroom here today, I choose to never think of you again.”
Boyce also heard from Vallow Daybell before handing down the sentence. She quoted Bible verses about how people should not judge each other. She said she too mourned the deaths of her children and Tammy Daybell but knew they would be together in the afterlife.
She claimed she is regularly visited by the spirits of her dead children, as well as the spirit of her “eternal friend,” Tammy Daybell, and suggested that the three weren’t murdered at all.
“Jesus Christ knows that no one was murdered in this case,” she said. “Accidental deaths happen. Suicides happen. Fatal side effects from medication happen.”
Wood pointed to the two Arizona cases as well as the three murders in six weeks in Idaho.
“A defendant who is willing to murder her own children is willing to murder anyone,” Wood said. “Society can only be protected from this defendant by a sentence of life in prison without parole.”
Vallow Daybell was committed multiple times for treatment to make her mentally competent for the court proceedings. But Wood said there is no evidence that her crimes were impacted by her “alleged mental illness” — which includes delusional disorder with grandiose features, according to reports referenced in court.
“The evidence is overwhelming that she did know right from wrong,” Wood said, noting testimony from several people who said she lied to them about the deaths.
In July 2019, Vallow Daybell’s brother, Alex Cox, shot and killed her estranged husband, Charles Vallow, in a suburban Phoenix home. Cox told police he acted in self-defense. He was never charged and later died of what authorities determined were natural causes.
Vallow Daybell was already in a relationship with Chad Daybell, a self-published writer of doomsday-focused fiction loosely based on Mormon teachings. She moved to Idaho with her kids and brother to be closer to him.
The children were last seen alive in September 2019. Police discovered they were missing a month later after an extended family member became worried. Their bodies were found buried in Chad Daybell’s yard the following summer.
During the trial, experts said Tylee appeared to have been stabbed and her body burned before it was buried in a pet cemetery, Wood said.
JJ’s head was wrapped in tape and plastic, asphyxiating him, Wood said, speculating that his last thoughts must have “been filled with fear and betrayal.”
Tammy Daybell’s body was bruised, suggesting she fought back as she was asphyxiated in her bed, Wood said.
Chad Daybell and Lori Vallow married in November 2019, about two weeks after Daybell’s previous wife, Tammy, was killed. Tammy Daybell initially was described as having died of natural causes, but an autopsy later showed she had been asphyxiated, authorities said.
Defense attorney Jim Archibald argued during the trial that there was no evidence tying Vallow Daybell to the killings, but plenty showing she was a loving, protective mother whose life took a sharp turn when she met Chad Daybell and fell for his “weird” apocalyptic religious claims. He suggested that Daybell and Vallow Daybell’s brother, Alex Cox, were responsible for the deaths.
Daybell told her they had been married in several previous lives and she was a “sexual goddess” who was supposed to help him save the world by gathering 144,000 followers so Jesus could return, Archibald said.
Vallow Daybell’s former friend Melanie Gibb testified during the trial that Vallow Daybell believed people in her life had been taken over by evil spirits and turned into “zombies,” including JJ and Tylee.
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https://www.pahomepage.com/news/ap-idaho-mom-lori-vallow-daybell-faces-sentencing-in-deaths-of-2-children-and-her-romantic-rival/
| 2023-07-31T21:09:59
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The New York Mets are paying Texas $35.51 million over the next 14 months as part of the Max Scherzer trade, leaving the Rangers in effect responsible for $22.5 million owed to the three-time Cy Young Award winner, according to details of the deal obtained by The Associated Press.
New York, just 50-55 despite a record-high payroll, has cut costs by nearly $26 million in pay and luxury tax this year by getting rid of Scherzer and reliever David Robertson ahead of Tuesday’s trade deadline. The Mets have offloaded just over $13.5 million in salary, resulting in an additional tax saving of about $12.15 million.
Texas acquired Scherzer on Sunday for minor league infielder Luisangel Acuña, a brother of Atlanta All-Star outfielder Ronald Acuña Jr. Scherzer’s cost to the Rangers is $10 million this year and $12.5 million in 2024.
The Rangers assumed responsibility for the 39-year-old right-hander’s salary on Monday, when he was owed $58.01 million for the remainder of a $130 million, three-year contract he agreed to before the 2022 season.
Of the $14.67 million left of Scherzer’s $43.33 million salary for this season’s final 64 days, the Mets will pay Texas $4.67 million in four installments of $1.16 million on Aug. 15 and 31 and Sept. 15 and 30.
Scherzer gets a $43.33 million salary next season in the final year of the deal. The Mets will pay the Rangers $30.83 million in 12 installments of $2.56 million on the 15th and final day of each month from April 2024 through September 2024.
New York’s payroll rose to a projected $365 million after it acquired reliever Trevor Gott from Seattle on July 3, and the Mets’ luxury tax payroll increased to about $385 million. That was on track for a tax of about $95 million.
When the Mets traded Robertson to Miami last week, the Marlins assumed $3.54 million remaining of Robertson’s $10 million salary.
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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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https://www.wric.com/sports/sports-headlines/ap-scherzer-costs-texas-22-5m-with-mets-to-pay-rangers-just-over-35-5m-through-2024/
| 2023-07-31T21:10:03
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NORWICH, NY – (WIVT/WBGH) Community members will have the opportunity to figure out “whodunnit” at a local murder mystery performance.
On September 23 at 7 p.m., the “Book ‘Em for Murder” Interactive Murder Mystery Fundraiser is being held by Chenango Arts Council. Guests will be able to interact with performers as they play detective in order to solve the crime.
The show is set in 1938, ten years to the day of the Music Hall Murder of Diamond Diana Desmond, who is rumored to haunt the theatre. Her former understudy, Sally Soprano, will read her tell-all manuscript about the unsolved crime and is set to finally reveal who killed Desmond. As all goes wrong, attendees will be able to help get to the bottom of the mystery.
Tickets for the event are $25 each. The Council is also asking for sponsors and is offering three options for those interested in joining. The Edgar Allan Poe level is $100 and gives guests two tickets to the event, two 50/50 raffle tickets, two gift basket raffle tickets, and sponsorship recognition in the event program. For $200, the Agatha Christie level, gives guests four tickets to the event, five 50/50 raffle tickets, five gift basket raffle tickets, and sponsorship recognition in the event program. The Sir Arthur Conan Doyle level, for $300, gives guests six tickets to the event, ten 50/50 raffle tickets, ten gift basket raffle tickets, sponsorship on event advertising, and recognition in the event program.
To register for the fundraiser, visit chenangoarts.org.
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https://www.binghamtonhomepage.com/news/chenango-arts-council-to-present-murder-mystery-fundraiser/
| 2023-07-31T21:10:04
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JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s Supreme Court said Monday that a full panel of 15 justices would hear petitions in September against a contentious law that was passed last week by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and which has spurred mass protests.
The law was one of a series of proposed changes to Israel’s judiciary put forward by Netanyahu’s government earlier this year that seek to curb the power of the Supreme Court. The judicial overhaul plan has been met with months of sustained mass protest against the legislation and drawn criticism from the White House.
Critics of the overhaul say that the package of laws would concentrate power in the hands of the ruling coalition and erode the system of checks and balances between branches of government. Proponents say the measures are necessary to limit the power of unelected judges who they say are overly activist.
Netanyahu and his allies passed a law last week that removes the high court’s ability to annul government decisions considered “unreasonable.” The “reasonableness standard” was implemented by the Supreme Court earlier this year to thwart the appointment of a Netanyahu ally as interior minister after he had recently pleaded guilty to tax offenses.
The court said the hearing concerning the law striking down the “reasonableness standard” would take place on Sept. 12 with a full bench of 15 justices. The Supreme Court typically hears cases with smaller panels of justices, but appears to have opted for a full complement of judges because of the highly delicate nature of the matter.
The Netanyahu administration’s push to overhaul the judiciary has deeply divided an already highly polarized country and sparked the longest sustained protests in the country’s history.
Netanyahu and his allies took office in December after the country’s fifth election in under four years, most of them referendums on the longtime leader’s fitness to serve while on trial for corruption.
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https://www.pahomepage.com/news/ap-israels-full-high-court-to-hear-petitions-against-judiciary-law-in-september-that-spurred-protests/
| 2023-07-31T21:10:05
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BINGHAMTON, NY – (WIVT/WBGH) Local organizations have partnered on a new building project to reduce the cities carbon footprint.
Volunteers Improving Neighborhood Environments (VINES), a Binghamton based urban agriculture and food justice organization, will set the first straw bale in its new office building thanks to Green Mountain Energy and other community organizations. The structure will be the first Net Zero building in Binghamton and the first commercial straw bale building in the Northeast. The office space will include a headquarters for VINES and will serve as a hub for community gatherings. It will feature solar panels, air source heat pumps, and other carbon neutral energy-efficient elements. Construction is expected to be completed by 2024.
A Net Zero building produces a zero net energy consumption, meaning the total amount of energy used by the building is equal to the amount of renewable energy created on site. Green construction elements, such as straw bale building, cut energy usage by up to 75%. The sustainable building alternative, which uses the straw bales for structural and insulation elements, has a long history of energy efficiency.
The project is made possible through donations and grants from the New York Energy Research and Development Authority, New York Empire State Development, Assemblywoman Donna Lupardo and the Dormitory Authority of New York, the City of Binghamton, Green Mountain Energy Sun Club, the Stewart W. and Willma C. Hoyt Foundation, Visions Federal Credit Union, and other community members who have contributed to the project’s Capital Campaign.
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https://www.binghamtonhomepage.com/news/first-net-zero-building-coming-to-binghamton/
| 2023-07-31T21:10:10
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https://www.binghamtonhomepage.com/news/first-net-zero-building-coming-to-binghamton/
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SYDNEY (AP) — The Women’s World Cup is taking shape with shocks and highlights as it nears the end of the group stage.
Some players have established themselves as ones to watch, like Colombia star Linda Caicedo, who has made her team one of the tournament surprises. Colombia picked up an upset win over Germany, and Nigeria upset co-host Australia — just two of the games that showed the gap has closed at top level women’s soccer.
But co-host New Zealand was eliminated, and other big teams are in danger of not advancing headed into the final few days of group play.
The Associated Press takes a look at some of the highlights and lowlights so far:
GOAL OF THE TOURNAMENT
There have been a number of contenders and Bia Zaneratto’s strike against Panama after a sweeping move from Brazil stands out as the most complete goal so far.
Ireland’s Katie McCabe scored directly from a corner kick against Canada, and England’s Lauren James curled in a long range effort against Denmark.
Even so, Caicedo’s solo goal in Colombia’s dramatic 2-1 win against Germany is the pick of the bunch. With a flash of skill, she beat two German players in the box before lashing a shot into the top corner as the Sydney crowd dominated by Colombia fans went wild.
MOMENT OF THE TOURNAMENT
It has to be Manuela Vanegas’ late winner for Colombia against Germany. Alexandra Popp seemed to position two-time champion Germany for a draw with an 89th-minute penalty.
But Vanegas’ header in the 97th minute gave Colombia a World Cup upset.
COMEBACK
Norway looked down and out after an opening game loss to co-host New Zealand and a goalless draw against Switzerland. With star player Ada Hegerberg injured, the odds were beginning to stack up against the Norwegians going into their final Group A match against the Philippines.
But three goals within 31 minutes set up a 6-0 rout that saw Norway advance to the knockout rounds in second place. The Norway win knocked New Zealand out of the tournament, making the Football Ferns the first host to be eliminated in group play in tournament history.
EMERGING STARS
Caicedo’s standout performances aren’t a surprise to those who have followed her career. The Real Madrid forward has long-been tipped to be one of the biggest stars in women’s soccer.
She hasn’t disappointed in her first World Cup and has inspired Colombia to back-to-back wins with goals in each game.
England coach Sarina Wiegman unleashed Chelsea forward James from the start in the Lionesses’ second game against Denmark, and she made a quick impression. Collecting the ball outside the area after six minutes, she swept a curling effort past Lene Christensen.
Haiti’s Melchie Dumornay has shown flashes of the talent that earned her a move to French powerhouse Lyon, while 19-year-old Aoba Fujino has become the youngest player to score at a World Cup for Japan’s men’s or women’s teams.
Casey Phair, a 16 year old, became the youngest-ever player to appear in a senior soccer World Cup when she was a second-half substitute for South Korea against Colombia.
DISAPPOINTMENTS
While youngsters have capitalized on their chance to shine, some of the established names have yet to make their mark.
There have been differing reasons for that.
Sam Kerr’s calf injury robbed Australia of its star striker for its opening two games, while Hegerberg’s groin injury has cut her playing time for Norway.
Alex Morgan, who was the co-leading scorer at the last World Cup, is still finding her footing in the United States’ new look attack.
Record international scorer Christine Sinclair was benched for Canada’s second game and is still waiting for her first goal of the tournament, while Brazil great Marta has also been used sparingly.
SURPRISES
New Zealand kicked the tournament off with a 1-0 win against Norway, but couldn’t keep up its momentum and went on to lose by the same score to the Philippines to set up the co-host’s early exit.
Jamaica’s 0-0 draw with fifth-ranked France was described by its coach Lorne Donaldson as the country’s greatest soccer result, for men or women. But the biggest surprise could be yet to come if Jamaica can avoid defeat against Brazil to advance to the round of 16.
Colombia’s dramatic late winner against Germany, meanwhile, was one of the great upsets.
ENTERTAINERS
The goals have been flowing for Spain and Japan, teams that both advanced from the group stage with a game to spare. Both teams secured 5-0 wins against Zambia and both have produced technically excellent displays.
Germany was on a high after its 6-0 rout of Morocco, but was humbled by Colombia.
Sweden routed Italy 5-0, while Norway found its scoring touch just in time against the Philippines.
ONES TO WATCH
Some of the favorites have made underwhelming starts. The two-time defending champion United States, England, Germany and France have not been totally convincing in group play and the tournament still looks wide open.
Colombia looks legitimate, and with Kerr back in action, Australia could become a contender.
The Netherlands look like serious contenders, while Spain and Japan have impressed. Brazil has shown flashes, but faces a fight to advance from the group stage.
Nigeria has shown it is dangerous, and Sweden has picked up back-to-back wins.
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James Robson is at https://twitter.com/jamesalanrobson
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More AP Women’s World Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/fifa-womens-world-cup
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https://www.wric.com/sports/sports-headlines/ap-the-womens-world-cup-has-produced-some-big-moments-these-are-some-of-the-highlights-lowlights/
| 2023-07-31T21:10:10
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KHAR, Pakistan (AP) — An Afghan branch of Islamic State on Monday claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing in Pakistan that killed at least 54 people at a pro-Taliban party’s election rally, in one of the region’s worst attacks in recent years.
Islamic State in Khorasan Province made the claim in a statement posted on its Amaq website. It said the attacker detonated an explosive vest, and that the bombing in the northwestern town of Bajur was part of the group’s continuing war against forms of democracy it deems to be against Islam.
Hours earlier, hundreds of mourners in Bajur carried caskets draped in colorful cloths to burial sites following the previous day’s attack at the election rally for the Jamiat Ulema Islam party. Officials said Sunday’s bombing killed 54 people, including at least five children, and wounded nearly 200.
The attack appeared to reflect divisions between Islamist groups, which have a strong presence in the district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province that borders Afghanistan. The Jamiat Ulema Islam party has ties to the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban.
At least 1,000 people were crowded into a tent near a market for the rally ahead of fall elections, according to police.
“People were chanting God is Great as the leaders arrived,” said Khan Mohammad, a local resident who said he was standing outside the tent, “and that was when I heard the deafening sound of the bomb.”
Mohammad said he heard people crying for help, and minutes later ambulances arrived and began taking the wounded away.
Police had suggested in their initial investigation that Islamic State in Khorasan Province was a suspect. The group is based in neighboring Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province and is a rival of the Afghan Taliban and al-Qaida.
Pakistan security analyst Mahmood Shah also previously had said that breakaway factions of the Pakistani Taliban could be possible suspects, though the group distanced itself from the attack.
The Pakistani military spent years fighting the Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, in Bajur before declaring the district clear of militants in 2016. But the Jamiat Ulema Islam party, headed by hard-line cleric and politician Fazlur Rehman, has remained a potent political force.
On Monday, police recorded statements from some of the wounded at a hospital in Khar, the district’s principal town.
Female relatives and children wailed and beat their chests at family homes Monday as the dead were taken for funerals, following local customs. Hundreds of men followed the caskets to mosques and open areas for special funeral prayers and then into the hills for burial.
As condolences continued to pour in from across the country, dozens of people who had lesser injuries were discharged from hospital, while the critically wounded were taken to the provincial capital of Peshawar by army helicopters. The death toll continued to rise as some critically wounded people died in hospital, physician Gul Naseeb said.
Gul Akbar, the father of an 11-year-old boy who was wounded in the attack, told The Associated Press that his entire family was in a state of shock after hearing about the bombing Sunday. He said he first went to the scene of the attack, and later found his son Taslim Khan being treated in a hospital in Khar.
“What would I have done if he had also been martyred? Five children died in this barbaric attack, and we want to know what our children did wrong,” he said.
Rehman’s party is preparing to contest elections, which are expected in October or November. Abdul Rasheed, one of the party’s senior leaders, said the bombing was aimed at weakening the party but that “such attacks cannot deter our resolve.”
Rehman’s party is part of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s coalition government, which came to power in April 2022 by ousting former Prime Minister Imran Khan through a no-confidence vote in the legislature.
Sharif called Rehman to express his condolences and assure the cleric that those who orchestrated the attack would be punished. Khan condemned the bombing Sunday, as did the U.S. and Russian embassies in Islamabad.
The Pakistani Taliban also distanced themselves from the bombing, saying that it was intended to set Islamists against each other. Zabihullah Mujahid, the spokesman for the Afghan Taliban, wrote in a tweet that “such crimes cannot be justified in any way.”
The bombing came hours before Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng arrived in Islamabad, where he signed new agreements to boost trade and economic ties to mark a decade of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a sprawling package under which China has invested $10 billion in Pakistan over 10 years, according to Sharif.
“We will not tolerate any obstacles in the way of friendship with China,” Sharif said, as he stood next to He.
But the government canceled a cultural event that had been arranged in honor of He, according to Sharif, while the nation mourns.
Some Chinese nationals have also been targeted by militants in northwestern Pakistan and elsewhere.
Rehman, who has long supported Afghanistan’s Taliban government, survived at least two known bomb attacks in 2011 and 2014, when bombings damaged his car at rallies.
Sunday’s bombing was one of the worst in northwestern Pakistan in the last decade. In 2014, 147 people, mostly schoolchildren, were killed in a Taliban attack on an army-run school in Peshawar.
In January, 74 people were killed in a bombing at a mosque in Peshawar. And in February, more than 100 people, mostly policemen, died in a bombing at a mosque inside a high-security compound housing Peshawar police headquarters.
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Associated Press writer Munir Ahmed contributed to this story from Islamabad.
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| 2023-07-31T21:10:12
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is running as a Democrat against President Joe Biden, tells many stories on the campaign trail about himself, his life’s work and what he stands for that are the opposite of what his record actually shows.
The Associated Press found that Kennedy’s insistence that he is not anti-vaccine doesn’t square with his long record of opposition to vaccines. His claims that he is a true Democrat inheriting the mantle of his famous family are contradicted by his alignment with far right figures and support from Republicans. And despite listing the environment as a campaign priority, he has pushed bitcoin — a cryptocurrency that requires massive amounts of electricity from supercomputers to generate new coins, prompting most environmental advocates to loudly oppose it.
Kennedy’s campaign is widely considered a long shot, but it’s gained media attention due to his famous name and the possibility that his run could weaken Biden ahead of what is expected to be a close general election in 2024.
The campaign didn’t return emails seeking comment about the contradictions in his candidacy.
Here are the key takeaways from the AP’s reporting:
KENNEDY’S ANTI-VACCINE RECORD
Kennedy told a congressional committee this month: “I have never been anti-vaxx. I have never told the public to avoid vaccination.” But Kennedy has a long record of anti-vaccine comments and rose to public prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic through the work of his anti-vaccine group, Children’s Health Defense.
Just this month, Kennedy said in a podcast interview that “There’s no vaccine that is safe and effective” and told FOX News that he still believes in the long-ago debunked idea that vaccines can cause autism. In a 2021 podcast, he recalled telling people on hiking trails not to get their children vaccinated.
That same year, Kennedy appeared in a video promoting an anti-vaccine sticker campaign by his nonprofit. A sticker shown beside him declared “IF YOU’RE NOT AN ANTI-VAXXER YOU AREN’T PAYING ATTENTION.”
The AP found that anti-vaccine activists are at the heart of Kennedy’s campaign. FEC records show several people paid to work on the campaign previously worked for Children’s Health Defense.
Kennedy has also received substantial support from the anti-vaccine community.
Children’s Health Defense currently has a lawsuit pending against a number of news organizations, among them The Associated Press, accusing them of violating antitrust laws by taking action to identify misinformation, including about COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines.
ASSOCIATION WITH FAR RIGHT HAS RAISED KENNEDY’S PROFILE
Kennedy is running as a Democrat, yet he has aligned himself with far right figures who have worked to subvert American democracy.
He has appeared on Infowars, the channel run by Sandy Hook conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. He has granted interviews to former President Donald Trump ally Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson. After he headlined a stop on the ReAwaken America Tour, the Christian nationalist road show put together by former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, he was photographed backstage with Flynn and Trump ally Roger Stone.
Those appearances have led to goodwill on the right. Trump supporters have floated a Trump-Kennedy unity ticket.
Kennedy’s run is also getting financial support from the right. A super PAC supporting Kennedy’s presidential run, called Heal the Divide PAC, has deep ties to Republicans, Federal Election Commission records show.
Kennedy denied knowing the PAC when it came up at a recent congressional hearing, but video available online shows he was a guest speaker at a Heal the Divide event just two days earlier.
SUPPORT FOR BITCOIN RUNS COUNTER TO ENVIRONMENTAL STANCE
Kennedy lists the environment as one of six top priorities on his campaign website and has spent many years speaking against pollution and climate change as an environmental lawyer. Yet he has made supporting the energy-intensive cryptocurrency bitcoin a key part of his platform.
Bitcoin mining, the process of generating new coins, uses massive amounts of electricity — more than some entire countries, experts say.
Kennedy has acknowledged the environmental downsides, but says he wouldn’t let them hinder its use. He promotes the argument that demand for the cryptocurrency will boost investment in renewable energy projects.
Kennedy has invested between $100,001 and $250,000 in bitcoin, his financial disclosure documents show.
KENNEDY INVOKES HIS FAMOUS FAMILY, WHILE RELATIVES DENOUNCE HIM
Though Kennedy peppers his speeches, podcast appearances and campaign materials with invocations of the Democratic Party legacies of his uncle President John F. Kennedy and his father Robert F. Kennedy, his relatives have distanced themselves from him and even denounced him.
“He’s trading in on Camelot, celebrity, conspiracy theories and conflict for personal gain and fame,” Jack Schlossberg, President Kennedy’s grandson, said of his cousin in an Instagram video earlier this month. “I’ve listened to him. I know him. I have no idea why anyone thinks he should be president. What I do know is, his candidacy is an embarrassment.”
Kennedy’s recent comments that COVID-19 could have been “ethnically targeted” to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people — which he denies were antisemitic but concedes he should have worded more carefully — also drew a condemnation from his sister, Kerry Kennedy.
___ The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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https://www.pahomepage.com/news/ap-takeaways-from-aps-reporting-on-inconsistencies-in-rfk-jr-s-record/
| 2023-07-31T21:10:18
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(The Hill) – President Biden is opening up about the crummiest advice he’s ever gotten, saying holding grudges “gets you nowhere.”
“I guess the worst advice I’ve ever received was holding a grudge — because lots of times when people do something that is really not good, it’s because they were fearful when they did it. Not fearful of you, but their circumstance,” Biden said in an interview on Jay Shetty’s “On Purpose” podcast released Monday.
“It gets you nowhere, which means people will doubt that I’m really Irish,” Biden quipped.
“But all kidding aside,” the 80-year-old president continued, “Remembering is important, but holding a grudge is not helpful.”
The best advice Biden said he’d been given was to “show up.”
“My mother used to say, ‘Joey, get up. Never bow, never bend. Just get up.’ But showing up, that’s a big part,” he said.
In the wide-ranging chat focused on grief and mental health, Biden also revealed he’s definitely not serving as the country’s TV viewer in chief.
Asked which TV show set in the world of politics and Washington is the most accurate and which is the least, he cracked, “’Mission Impossible.’”
“Look, one of the problems I have is I don’t — and I should — I don’t watch much television,” Biden said.
“And it’s not because I’m above it or anything like that,” he told Shetty during the pair’s conversation at the White House. Biden blamed decades of commuting between D.C. and Delaware as a senator for cutting into potential TV time.
“And so when I get home, there wasn’t much to watch,” Biden said, noting he’d focus his energy on spending time with his then-young children.
“So I’ve been back and forth so much I just haven’t watched many programs,” the 46th president said after describing his usual Amtrak train commute while in the Senate.
“There’s a lot of good stuff, I’m sure. I mean, every once in awhile I turn it on,” Biden said of current television fare.
Living at the executive mansion, which is equipped with a movie theater, has helped his viewing habits, according to Biden.
“I get this list what movies are in and we have the new one,” Biden said of “Oppenheimer,” adding that he’s yet to see the summer box office hit starring Cillian Murphy as the famed real-life Manhattan Project physicist.
“They’re the movies I see these days,” Biden said of the films screened at the White House. “I get to see them at night every once in awhile.”
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https://www.binghamtonhomepage.com/news/national-news/biden-says-he-doesnt-watch-tv-shares-worst-advice-he-ever-got/
| 2023-07-31T21:10:16
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AUCKLAND, New Zealand (AP) — The United States arrived at the Women’s World Cup as the favorites to win an unprecedented third consecutive title. But after an underwhelming draw against the Netherlands, there’s a real chance the Americans can be eliminated in group play for the first time in tournament history.
The U.S. plays Portugal in the third and final match of Group E play, and if Portugal pulls off an upset Tuesday at Eden Park in Auckland, the Americans could be in big trouble.
The United States needs to either win or draw against Portugal, one of eight teams playing in its first World Cup, to ensure the Americans continue to play in this tournament.
“I think we feel like we have to win everything all the time,” said American star Megan Rapinoe. “That’s the expectation for ourselves. That’s the expectation playing for U.S. national team. It’s just kind of like, ‘Why would you come into the World Cup if you don’t think that you should win it, and if you don’t think that you can win it?’”
The United States sits atop the group after a 3-0 victory over Vietnam in the tournament opener, and a 1-1 draw with the Netherlands last Thursday in Wellington. The Dutch are tied with the U.S. on points, but the Americans have the tie-breaker on goals scored.
Portugal lost to the Dutch in its opener but then beat Vietnam 2-0. So if the Portuguese beat the United States, they’ll move on, and the Americans would then need Vietnam to beat the Dutch in Dunedin — while keeping their advantage on goal differential — to advance.
“One thing is for sure, that we have a job to do and that’s first and foremost to take care of our game, so our main focus right now it our performance, our team, and Portugal,” said U.S. coach Vlatko Andonovski. “What happens on the other side is something we can’t control. We have to stay focused on the things we can control.”
Portugal could use a swarming defense to try to prevent the United States from scoring the way Vietnam — unsuccessfully — played the Americans in the opener.
Portugal defender Ana Borges said her team will be prepared.
“This is the stage where we want to be. It’s against these teams that we want to play because we’re going to learn and grow from them,” Borges said. “Not saying anything about the other team, but if we weren’t prepared for this challenge, we wouldn’t be playing football.”
CHINA-ENGLAND
England is in very good shape headed into its Group D finale against China, needing only a draw Tuesday night in Adelaide, Australia to win the group and advance to the round of 16.
Even a loss would be OK and push England through as group winners so long as Denmark doesn’t beat Haiti. If Denmark won and England lost, the group winner would be decided by FIFA tiebreakers.
England edged out a 1-0 victory over Haiti to open the tournament, then beat Denmark by the same score.
China lost 1-0 to Denmark in the opener but rebounded with a 1-0 win over Haiti and is now trying to keep its streak intact of advancing out of group play in all eight of its World Cup appearances.
It will be a tough task: China can advance to the round of 16 if the Chinese beat England. But if Denmark beats Haiti, coupled with a China win, then FIFA tiebreakers would come into a play. A loss would mean China’s only chance at advancing would be if Haiti beat Denmark.
England and China meet for just the fifth time, but first since a 2-1 China victory in 2015.
England has scored in each of its last 15 matches at the Women’s World Cup for a tally of 25 goals since 2015. A goal against China would make England the first team to score in 16 consecutive matches in the tournament.
China is looking to win consecutive World Cup games for the first time since 1999.
VIETNAM-NETHERLANDS
The Netherlands want to win every match in the Women’s World Cup but none more so than Tuesday’s game against Vietnam.
At stake: avoiding Sweden in the knockout round.
The Dutch, the tournament runner-up in 2019, need only a win or a draw in the Group E match played in Dunedin, New Zealand. And even a loss would be OK so long as the United States beats Portugal in a game being played simultaneously.
But the Netherlands has mapped out the tournament and wants no part of Sweden anytime soon.
“The first aim is always to win and get to the last 16 and then after that if we can score goals we will, of course,” said Dutch coach Andries Jonker. “But looking at our colleagues from the U.S. and Portugal, we’ve noticed it’s not all that easy. We’ve never shown any kind of arrogance, but if we get chances to score goals we will. We would prefer to play against the number two in this group and not Sweden.”
The Netherlands are tied with the United States for the top spot in the group after playing to a 1-1 draw against the Americans and a 1-0 win over Portugal.
Vietnam has already been eliminated from its first Women’s World Cup following losses to the United States and Portugal. Vietnam has lost its last five internationals by a combined score of 18-1.
“The Netherlands tries to have as many goals as possible, and I have to say we are at a low level,” said Vietnam coach Mai Duc Chung. “If we compare with Asia, we’re still at a low level. So if we compare with the world, we are still quite behind. It is a success for us already. In the past two matches we have tried our best. Great effort already.”
HAITI-DENMARK
First-time Women’s World Cup participant Haiti would like to stick around a bit longer but needs a miracle against in the Group D finale against Denmark to have any shot to advance.
Haiti needs to beat Denmark in the Tuesday match played in Perth, Australia, and hope England beats China. If both those things happen, Haiti’s only chance would still come down to FIFA’s tiebreaker system.
It’s very long odds for Haiti, which has played better in this tournament than its 0-2 record shows. Haiti held both England and China to one goal each in the first two matches.
Haiti is on a six-game losing streak headed into what is probably its final game of this tournament.
Denmark, meanwhile, is trying to advance to the group stage for the first time since 1995. Denmark was a 1-0 winner over China to start the tournament, then lost 1-0 to England and heads into the game tied for second in the group with China with three points each.
A win over Haiti pushes Denmark through to the next round so long as England doesn’t lose to China. That scenario would put tiebreakers into play.
The Danes, in the tournament for the first time since 2007, can also get through with a draw, but again, only if England beats China.
Denmark has won five of its last seven international matches.
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AP World Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/fifa-womens-world-cup and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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https://www.wric.com/sports/sports-headlines/ap-us-needs-win-to-ensure-americans-avoid-elimination-in-group-play-for-first-time-in-womens-world-cup/
| 2023-07-31T21:10:17
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NIAMEY, Niger (AP) — The world is levying economic sanctions over a coup against one of the West’s last democratic partners against Islamic extremists in West Africa. Families in one of the world’s poorest nations could pay the price.
In the capital of Niger, many people live in makeshift shelters tied together with slats of wood, sheets and plastic tarps because they can’t pay rent, and they scramble daily to make enough money to feed their children.
Salou Hassan and his family live in a two-room hut on the side of the road, along with some 140 people. The family sleeps on wooden slats close to the floor, with no electricity or running water, and they bathe in public showers.
“The most difficult part is finding food for my children,“ said Hassan, 30, whose sons are 5 and 6 years old.
Hassan sells water door to door, earning about $6 a day when things go well. His wheelbarrow’s been broken and he doesn’t have nearly $70 he needs to fix it. His wife sweeps stalls at the central market making less than half what Hassan does.
Hassan has hardly been aware that the country’s president was overthrown.
“I’m looking for money for food for my family,” he said.
Meanwhile, Niger’s neighbors are threatening armed intervention against the junta run by the head of the presidential guard, although analysts say there is only a slim chance of the regional body successfully sending troops.
Both the United States and France have sent forces and hundreds of millions of military and humanitarian aid in recent years to Niger, which was a French colony until 1960. The French and the US train Nigerien forces, and the French military carries out joint operations in the north.
Since the coup that ousted President Mohamed Bazoum, people have been toting Russian flags and praising that country in pro-junta demonstrations.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Niger in March to strengthen ties and announce $150 million in direct assistance, calling the country “a model of democracy.” France pulled out of Mali last year and has some 1,500 troops in Niger.
The West African regional body known as ECOWAS announced travel and economic sanctions against Niger on Sunday over the coup, and said they would use force if the coup leaders don’t reinstate him within one week.
Since the 1990s, the 15-nation bloc has unsuccessfully tried to protect democracies against the threat of coups, with mixed success.
Niger relies heavily on foreign aid and sanctions could further impoverish its more than 25 million people. ECOWAS suspended all commercial and financial transactions between its member states and Niger, as well as freezing Nigerien assets held in regional central banks.
The sanctions could be disastrous and Niger needs to find a solution to avoid them, the country’s Prime Minister Ouhoumoudou Mahamadou told French media outlet Radio France Internationale on Sunday.
“When people say there’s an embargo, land borders are closed, air borders are closed, it’s extremely difficult for people … Niger is a country that relies heavily on the international community,” he said.
Four nations are run by military governments in West and Central Africa, where there have been nine successful or attempted coups since 2020.
In the 1990s, ECOWAS intervened in Liberia during its civil war, one of the bloodiest conflicts in Africa and one that left many wary of intervening in internal conflicts. In 2017, ECOWAS intervened in The Gambia to prevent the new president’s predecessor, Yahya Jammeh, from disrupting the handover of power. Around 7,000 troops from Ghana, Nigeria, and Senegal entered the country, according to the Global Observatory, which provides analysis on peace and security issues. The intervention was largely seen as accomplishing its mission.
If the regional bloc uses force, it could trigger violence not only between Niger and ECOWAS forces but also between civilians supporting the coup and those against it, Niger analysts say.
While unlikely, “the consequences on civilians of such an approach if putschists chose confrontation would be catastrophic,” said Rida Lyammouri, senior fellow at the Policy Center for the New South, a Morocco-based think tank.
Lyammouri does not see a “military intervention happening because of the violence that could trigger,” he said.
Blinken on Sunday commended the resolve of the ECOWAS leadership to “defend constitutional order in Niger” after the sanctions announcement, and joined the bloc in calling for the immediate release of Bazoum and his family.
The military junta, which seized power on Wednesday when members of the presidential guard surrounded Bazoum’s house and detained him, is already cracking down on the government and civil liberties.
On Sunday evening it arrested four government officials, including the minister of petroleum and son of a former president; the minister of education; the minister of mines; and the president of the ruling party. The arrests were recounted to The Associated Press by a person close to the president, who was not authorized to speak about the situation, and a Nigerien analyst who did not want to be named for fear of reprisal.
Also Sunday, junta spokesman Col. Maj. Amadou Abdramane banned the use of social media to put out messages he describe as harmful to state security. He also claimed that Bazoum’s government had authorized the French to carry out strikes to free Bazoum, allegations that were not confirmed.
Observers believe Bazoum is being held at his house in the capital, Niamey. The first photos of him since the coup appeared Sunday evening, sitting on a couch smiling beside Chad’s President Mahamat Deby, who had flown in to mediate between the government and the junta.
In anticipation of the ECOWAS decision Sunday, thousands of pro-junta supporters took to the streets in Niamey, denouncing France, waving Russian flags ong with signs reading “Down with France” and supporting Russian President Vladimir Putin and telling the international community to stay away. Protesters also burned down a door and smashed windows of the French Embassy, before the Nigerien army dispersed them.
France said Monday that President Emmanuel Macron is closely monitoring the situation in Niger and has discussed the crisis with regional leaders and European and international partners.
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https://www.pahomepage.com/news/ap-west-african-nations-threaten-to-use-force-if-nigers-president-isnt-reinstated-within-a-week/
| 2023-07-31T21:10:24
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(KTLA) – The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is investigating the discovery of a body inside a 55-gallon drum in Malibu Lagoon on Monday.
A park worker first saw the drum floating by the Pacific Coast Highway bridge Sunday night but didn’t think much of it at the time, a spokesperson for the L.A. County Fire Department told Nexstar’s KTLA.
When lifeguards arrived at work Monday morning, they saw the drum in the lagoon and tried to pull it out at which point they discovered the body inside, officials said.
No information about the victim was immediately known.
KTLA helicopter footage showed the black plastic drum standing upright in shallow water and the beach appeared to be closed for the investigation.
Late last spring, a body was found in a barrel in Nevada’s Lake Mead. Authorities said the body may have been there for four decades but have not yet identified the victim, despite identifying other bodies that appeared due to receding water levels.
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https://www.binghamtonhomepage.com/news/national-news/body-found-inside-55-gallon-drum-in-malibu/
| 2023-07-31T21:10:25
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WASHINGTON (AP) — A poster hanging at the DC Open site shows Frances Tiafoe — a competitor in the field from nearby Maryland — flanked by other men such as Andy Murray and Taylor Fritz and women such as Coco Gauff and Jessica Pegula.
It is a simple visualization of a complicated change to a tournament that began Monday and has been around for men since 1969, added women via a simultaneous but lower-tier and less-promoted event in 2009 and now is taking a further step by touting itself as the first combined ATP-WTA 500 event. That is two levels below Grand Slams and one level below Masters 1000s and was accomplished by elevating the women’s portion through the lease of what had been a hard-court tourney in San Jose, California, played during the same week.
While ostensibly that puts the men and women on equal footing in Washington — where players both will be trying to win a trophy and to prepare for the U.S. Open, the year’s last Grand Slam tournament — it still is not equal all the way around.
Most notably: The men’s champion receives a check for $353,445; the women’s champion earns $120,150. That is not an anomaly. There are other stops on the professional tennis tours that include female and male players but do not pay them evenly.
“Our main goal is to work toward equal prize money. That is what we want on the WTA side and what we think is fair. Especially at the combined events, we don’t want to see a discrepancy there. We want to see that we’re earning the same at the same event,” said Pegula, an American who is No. 3 in the rankings and seeded No. 1 in Washington and a member of the women’s tour’s player council. “The fans are coming to watch both of us, and we should be making the same.”
All four Grand Slam tournaments offer equal prize money across the board, something the U.S. Open started doing 50 years ago and others as recently as 2007. That won’t happen at the DC Open until 2027 as part of a wider plan the WTA recently announced to get equal paychecks at certain events by that year and at others by 2033.
“That will give everyone a chance to hopefully get revenues to grow to be able to afford it,” said Mark Ein, who has been the tournament chairman since 2019 and is part of the group that recently bought the NFL’s Washington Commanders from Dan Snyder.
“When we took over the tournament, one of my top goals was to secure a women’s event at an equal level as our men’s,” Ein said. “One of the things I love about tennis is it’s really the only sport where athletes of both genders compete on the same playing surface at the same time.”
There are other discrepancies between the men’s and women’s brackets in Washington.
The men’s field is 48 players; the women’s is 28. The rankings points available are nearly the same, but the men’s champion gets 500, the women’s 470.
Like Pegula, three-time major champion Murray, who is seeded 15th in Washington, said that all players “at the same event, on the same courts,” should be vying for the same payouts.
“But I think for it ever to become like truly equal, the WTA and the ATP are actually going to have to come together and work as one before that’s the case, because I don’t think it’s that straightforward just now that both tours have different sponsors, different TV deals and all of that stuff, too,” Murray said. “There is a few things that still need to change, but I feel like things are going in the right direction, like with the move to this event becoming a 500 for both. Can obviously still get better.”
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AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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https://www.wric.com/sports/sports-headlines/ap-washington-tennis-tournament-offers-equal-status-for-women-and-men-but-unequal-prize-money/
| 2023-07-31T21:10:25
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PORT ANGELES, Washington (WJW) – An 8-year-old child was attacked by a cougar at Olympic National Park’s Lake Angeles on Saturday evening.
The child was with their family at Lake Angeles, south of Port Angeles, when the attack happened Saturday night, the National Park Service said Monday.
“The cougar casually abandoned its attack after being yelled and screamed at by the child’s mother,” NPS wrote in a news release. The child suffered only minor injuries and was taken to a local hospital for evaluation.
Park officials then evacuated the remaining campers in the Lake Angeles area, closing the space and Heather Park to the public. Olympic National Park wildlife biologist Tom Kay said in a statement that the decision to close the Lake Angeles Trail, Heather Park Trail, Switchback Trail, and the entire Klahhane Ridge Trail was made “out of an abundance of caution.”
Early Sunday morning, park law enforcement and wildlife personnel who specialize in cougar tracking were dispatched to the last known location of the cougar at Lake Angeles, the park service reported. If located, the cougar will be euthanized and removed from the park for a necropsy.
“This may provide clues as to why the animal attacked since cougars are rarely seen and attacks on humans are extraordinarily rare,” park officials said. “Olympic National Park has extensive protocols in place for wildlife observations, interactions, and attacks and the lethal removal of this cougar is in line with these protocols.”
Because Olympic National Park is considered “cougar territory,” NPS recommends visitors be prepared for the encounter. They should not hike or jog alone, and children should remain near adults. Pets should also be left at home.
Should you encounter a cougar, you should remain calm and avoid running, according to wildlife experts. Do your best to appear as large as possible, continue watching the animal, and be loud. NPS also recommends throwing items like rocks or sticks at the cougar.
There have been no recent deaths caused by cougars in Olympic National Park, according to NPS data.
It’s not the first wildlife attack in the national parks this year, though.
Last week, a woman was found dead after an “apparent bear encounter” near Yellowstone National Park. Earlier this month, a woman in the park suffered “significant injuries” after being gored by a bison.
The park warns that between mid-July and mid-August, bison are in mating season and “can become agitated more quickly.”
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https://www.binghamtonhomepage.com/news/national-news/child-8-attacked-by-cougar-in-olympic-national-park-saved-by-mother/
| 2023-07-31T21:10:31
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https://www.binghamtonhomepage.com/news/national-news/child-8-attacked-by-cougar-in-olympic-national-park-saved-by-mother/
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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — An escalating dispute over a gas field in the Persian Gulf poses an early challenge to a Chinese-brokered agreement to reconcile regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Saudi Arabia and neighboring Kuwait jointly claim the offshore Al-Durra gas field. Iran says it has rights to the field, which it refers to as Arash. The two sides held talks in Iran in March but were unable to agree on a border demarcation.
A spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, Nasser Kanaani, said the country would not tolerate any infringement on its rights, echoing remarks by the country’s oil minister the previous day.
“We have expressed our readiness to engage in dialogue with the Kuwaiti side,” Kanaani told reporters Monday. “But if there is no interest in mutual utilization of this joint field, the Islamic Republic of Iran has naturally put the exploration and utilization of the resources on its agenda.”
Kuwait’s oil minister told Sky News Arabia last week that his country would commence drilling and production without waiting for a deal.
Saudi Arabia has sided with Kuwait, saying the two countries have exclusive ownership of the field, and has called on Iran to return to negotiations.
Saudi Arabia and Iran, which have backed opposite sides in conflicts across the Middle East and accused each other of destabilizing the region, formally restored diplomatic relations in April following a seven-year freeze. They have since reopened embassies and welcomed senior officials on visits.
But they continue to back opposite sides in Yemen’s civil war, which is ongoing despite a 15-month cease-fire. Saudi Arabia is also in negotiations with the United States over potentially normalizing relations with Israel, which Iran’s leaders have said should be wiped off the map.
“Any step in the direction toward normalization of ties with this aggressive regime will only serve to give it more leeway to commit more atrocities against the Palestinian nation,” Kanaani, the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, said.
It’s unclear whether the dispute over the gas field, which goes back to the 1960s, will escalate beyond rhetoric. But tensions are already high in the Persian Gulf, where the U.S. is building up military forces in response to what it says is Iran’s unlawful seizure of oil tankers and harassment of commercial vessels.
Saudi Arabia and Kuwait agreed last year to jointly develop the gas field. Kuwait said at the time that they aimed to produce 1 billion cubic feet of natural gas and 84,000 barrels of liquefied gas per day. Iran denounced the agreement as illegal and said it should be included in any such plans.
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https://www.pahomepage.com/news/business/ap-business/ap-dispute-over-persian-gulf-gas-field-poses-early-challenge-to-saudi-iranian-rapprochement/
| 2023-07-31T21:10:30
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(The Hill) – Country singer Jason Aldean defended his controversial song “Try That in a Small Town” in Massachusetts over the weekend, saying the message of the track was demonstrated by the city of Boston after the devastating marathon bombing 10 years ago.
Speaking to fans at the Xfinity Center in Mansfield, about 40 miles from where the terrorist attack occurred, killing three and injuring hundreds, Aldean told fans the message of his song has been “overshadowed by all the bulls—.”
“I was lying in bed last night and I was thinking to myself, you guys would get this better than anybody, right,” Aldean said, according to NBC News. “Because I remember a time, I think it was April 2013, when the Boston Marathon bombings happened, you guys remember this right?” he asked the audience.
“The last time that happened was a whole, not a small town, a big-ass town came together, no matter your color, no matter anything,” he continued. “No matter if you’re anything. The whole country and especially Boston came together to find” the culprits.
Aldean has faced growing backlash for his song and the music video for what some consider racially charged lyrics and images. The song, which was released in May, tells protesters who “cuss out a cop, spit in his face, stomp on the flag and light it up” they could see retribution from small town residents.
Others expressed outrage over the location where the video was shot: outside a courthouse in Columbia, Tenn., where a Black man was lynched in the 1920s and which almost became the lynching spot of Thurgood Marshall, the Supreme Court’s first African American justice.
After some accused the song of glorifying sundown towns, or all-white neighborhoods where Black people were discouraged from being after dark through white violence, the music video pulled from CMT.
Republicans, however, have stood behind the song, with former President Trump, whom Aldean supported in 2020, defending the singer and calling him a “fantastic guy.”
Aldean has vehemently denied accusations that “Try That in a Small Town” carries racist undertones, and on Saturday he told concert-goers the song has nothing to do with race but about punishing those who threaten America, just as Bostonians would have if they had caught the 2013 bombers, brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
“And anybody, any of you guys that would’ve found those guys before the cops did, I know you guys from Boston, and you guys would’ve beat the s— outta them, either one of ‘em,” Aldean said. “And I’ve been trying to say, this is not about race, it’s about people getting their s— together and acting right, acting like you’ve got some common sense.”
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| 2023-07-31T21:10:37
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FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Europe’s economy has grown modestly after months of stagnation, but higher interest rates designed to fight inflation are casting a shadow as they make it more expensive for households and businesses to borrow, invest and spend.
The 20 countries that use the euro currency and their 346 million people saw 0.3% growth in the April-to-June period, compared with the first three months of the year, the EU statistics agency Eurostat reported Monday.
That’s an improvement over zero growth in the first quarter and a slight decline in fourth quarter of last year — but not by much. Plus, one-time factors and an outsized bump from Ireland made things look better than they really were.
The eurozone got a boost by 0.5% growth in France and 0.4% in Spain, where lower inflation has helped lift consumer spending power.
Yet the French figure was increased by the delivery of one very large manufactured item — a cruise ship. That statistical quirk flattered French growth but does little to disguise weak demand for goods in the eurozone’s second-largest economy.
Ireland’s growth of 3.3%, largest in the eurozone, also distorted the overall picture. Its growth figures often show large swings due to major international companies housing their headquarters there, including tech giants like Meta, Google and Apple.
Without Ireland, euro-area growth would have been only 0.1%, said Franziska Palmas, senior Europe economist at Capital Economics.
The overall figure “was driven by a few country idiosyncrasies and masks an underlying momentum that is likely much closer to stagnation,” said Marc de Muizon, senior European analyst at Deutsche Bank Research.
Europe’s largest economy, Germany, struggled in the second quarter, recording zero growth after two straight quarters of falling output as it grappled with high energy costs tied to Russia’s war in Ukraine. Italy, the No. 3 economy, shrank by 0.3%.
The eurozone growth figures for the first quarter were revised from a decline of 0.1%, statistically erasing what had been two straight quarters of contraction — one definition of recession.
Inflation in the eurozone, meanwhile, continued its gradual decline, falling to 5.3% in July from 5.5% in June.
Europe is still struggling with the aftershocks of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including Moscow cutting off most of its natural gas to the continent that sharply raised prices for the fuel and the electricity it generates.
In Germany, Europe’s manufacturing powerhouse, Vice Chancellor and Economy Minister Robert Habeck has proposed capping energy prices for industry with government help.
The worst of the price spike is over, but costs are still higher than before the war began. Energy has faded as a main driver of inflation, but price rises are hitting Europeans when they shop for groceries, clothes and more, and the rebound for services companies — such as hotels and restaurants that suffered during the COVID-19 pandemic — has mostly run its course.
Food prices rose 10.8% in July from a year earlier, an improvement from June and previous months but still a pain point for households. Energy, meanwhile, kept dropping, falling 6.1%. Stripping out volatile food and energy prices, core inflation held steady at 5.5% — a key indicator that has not fallen as much as central bankers want.
In a bright spot for Europe, rebounding travel, especially in the Mediterranean countries that heavily rely on tourism, is expected to support growth in the upcoming third quarter as people flock to the beach for their summer holidays in Greece, Spain and Italy, despite recent heat waves and wildfires.
Other than that, prospects for the rest of the year are muted. Another drag on the economy is the rapid series of interest rate increases that the European Central Bank has unleashed to knock down inflation.
The ECB made its ninth straight hike Thursday, bringing its key deposit rate from minus 0.5% to 3.75% in just one year, a record pace since the creation of the euro in 1999. The result has been higher mortgage rates and canceled construction plans due to expensive or unavailable credit.
The central bank’s lending survey shows the lowest level of business loans and credit lines since the statistics started in 2003.
Bank President Christine Lagarde left open whether the bank will keep hiking rates at its next meeting on Sept. 14, saying the decision will depend on incoming inflation data.
Since the rate hikes began, inflation has steadily fallen from a peak of 10.6% in October, but July’s figure of 5.3% is still well above the ECB’s 2% target.
Bank officials say tough action now will spare even more painful restriction of credit later if inflation gets completely out of control.
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| 2023-07-31T21:10:37
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TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Florida is seeing a rise in leprosy cases that could mean the disease has become endemic in the Sunshine State, according to a letter published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The letter, which was published in mid-July, said while leprosy is historically uncommon in the United States, cases more than doubled in the South over the last 10 years.
Leprosy, also known as Hansen’s Disease, is caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium leprae and is characterized by discolored patches of skin, ulcers, lumps and damage to the nerves.
The CDC said if untreated, the disease can progress to paralysis, blindness, the loss of one’s eyebrows, physical disfigurement, and even the “shortening of toes and fingers due to reabsorption.”
The Florida Department of Health said the disease first appeared in the state in 1921. The National Hansen’s Disease Program found that 159 cases of leprosy were reported in 2020. Florida was at the top of the list of states with the most new cases.
According to the Florida Health Charts, the state had 26 reported cases in 2019, 27 in 2020, and 14 in 2021.
“Central Florida, in particular, accounted for 81% of cases reported in Florida and almost one-fifth of nationally reported cases,” the letter said. “Whereas leprosy in the United States previously affected persons who had immigrated from leprosy-endemic areas, [about] 34% of new case-patients during 2015–2020 appeared to have locally acquired the disease.”
A disease becomes endemic when it occurs regularly within a certain community or area.
The CDC letter said multiple cases showed no sign of animal-to-human transmission or “traditionally known risk factors.”
One patient, a 54-year-old man in Central Florida, was treated at a dermatology clinic for a progressive rash caused by leprosy.
When asked, the man said he had lived in Central Florida his whole life, did not travel domestically or internationally, had no exposure to armadillos (which can carry the disease), had no contact with immigrants with endemic leprosy, and had no connection to someone with the disease.
Experts said there was some support for the theory that an increase in migration from other countries to the United States may have caused the disease to enter non-endemic areas. However, while leprosy cases are increasing in the U.S., the rate of new cases in people born outside of the U.S. had been on a decline since 2002.
“This information suggests that leprosy has become an endemic disease process in Florida, warranting further research into other methods of [local] transmission,” the letter said.
In the state of Florida, medical practitioners must report leprosy by the next business day so contact tracing can be done and reduce further infections.
“In our case, contact tracing was done by the National Hansen’s Disease Program and revealed no associated risk factors, including travel, zoonotic exposure, occupational association, or personal contacts,” the letter said. “The absence of traditional risk factors in many recent cases of leprosy in Florida, coupled with the high proportion of residents, like our patient, who spend a great deal of time outdoors, supports the investigation into environmental reservoirs as a potential source of transmission.”
The CDC said travel to Florida must now be considered when conducting contact tracing for leprosy in any state.
Leprosy, when contracted, can be treated by a combination of different antibiotics to prevent it from developing resistance to the medication, according to the CDC. Leprosy can be cured after one or two years of treatment.
However, even when cured, any nerve damage and disfigurement caused by the disease will be permanent.
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| 2023-07-31T21:10:43
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NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — Greece’s prime minister said Monday that his government wants to take full advantage of a developing positive political climate with neighboring Turkey in order to improve bilateral relations despite a string of decades-old disputes.
But Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said that doesn’t mean Turkey has “substantially changed” its stance on key differences between the two countries and needs to “decisively abandon its aggressive and unlawful conduct” against Greece’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Turkey and Greece remain at odds over maritime boundaries in the eastern Mediterranean, a dispute that affects irregular migration into the European Union, mineral rights and the projection of military power.
Mitsotakis said that he agreed with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during a NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, on July 11-12 to initiate new “lines of communication” and to maintain “a period of calm.”
High-level talks between the the two countries are expected to take place in the Greek city of Thessaloniki later this year.
However, the Greek prime minister said that Erdogan’s outreach to the EU can’t come at the expense of efforts to heal Cyprus’ nearly half-century ethnic division.
Speaking after talks with Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides, Mitsotakis said that he told Erdogan that improved European-Turkish ties can’t exclude a Cyprus peace accord and that the issue can’t be “left by the wayside.”
Turkey and the breakaway Turkish Cypriots have insisted on a two-state solution since July 2017 when the most recent round of U.N.-facilitated peace talks collapsed.
That position overturned a long-standing agreement sanctioned by the U.N. Security Council in numerous resolutions that any peace deal would aim for a reunified Cyprus as a federation made up of Greek and Turkish speaking zones.
Cyprus was split in 1974 when Turkey invaded following a coup by supporters of union with Greece. Only Turkey recognizes a Turkish Cypriot declaration of independence in the island’s northern third, where more than 35,000 Turkish troops are stationed.
On Friday, Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar repeated that peace talks could resume only if Greek Cypriots recognize the Turkish Cypriots’ “sovereign equality.”
Christodoulides said Monday that any improvement in European-Turkish relations should be based on reciprocal action by Turkey, adding that the EU prioritizes a Cyprus peace deal in line with U.N. resolutions.
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| 2023-07-31T21:10:45
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BOISE, Idaho (KTVX) – Lori Vallow Daybell, convicted of murdering her children, among other crimes, was sentenced to five life sentences in prison Monday with no possibility of parole. This sentencing brings closure to nearly four years of investigation and a trial.
Daybell, 49, was found guilty of murder, and conspiracy to commit murder of her children Joshua “JJ” Vallow, 7, and Tylee Ryan, 16. She was also convicted of conspiracy to commit murder in the death of Tammy Daybell, the former wife of her husband, Chad Daybell. Additionally, Lori was found guilty of grand theft.
Lori was sentenced to five life sentences without the possibility of parole, three of which will run consecutively, for her involvement in their murders and the conspiracy to commit murder. While many called for the death penalty, it was ruled out by a judge in March 2023 prior to her murder trial.
The case began in 2018 when Lori and Chad met at a religious conference in St. George. They became close friends, and even lovers, though both were married to other people. In July 2019, Lori’s husband Charles Vallow was killed by her brother, and it was declared self-defense, but later identified as a homicide.
Then in late-2019, Lori’s two children went missing — a case that captivated the United States. And while investigators were frantically searching for the kids, Lori and Chad were in Hawaii getting married.
Chad’s wife Tammy died a few weeks before Lori and Chad ran to Hawaii, but after the children went missing. Her death was originally ruled natural causes but later declared asphyxiation at the hands of another after her body was exhumed.
In February 2020, Lori was arrested on charges of desertion and nonsupport of dependent children. In April, Lori and Chad were both under investigation for conspiracy, attempted murder, and murder. They both pleaded not guilty.
During the final stages of the investigation leading up to their scheduled trials in January 2023, Tylee and JJ’s remains were found buried on Chad’s property.
Because of the large amount of evidence discovered, and the fact that Chad waived his right to a speedy trial, he will face his charges in April 2024. However, Lori did not waive her right to a speedy trial and appeared in court on April 2023, where she was found guilty on all charges.
Now, in July 2023, nearly four years after Lori’s children were murdered, she was sentenced to life in prison on all counts.
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https://www.binghamtonhomepage.com/news/national-news/lori-vallow-daybell-given-5-life-sentences-in-prison-for-murders-of-her-two-children/
| 2023-07-31T21:10:49
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WASHINGTON (AP) — For more than a year, the U.S. economy has defied predictions of a forthcoming recession. It has withstood 10 interest rate hikes in 16 months from an inflation-fighting Federal Reserve. In June, America’s employers added a healthy 209,000 jobs.
Will the economy remain resilient? Can the Fed achieve a notoriously difficult “soft landing” — slowing growth just enough to tame inflation without causing a recession?
The Associated Press spoke recently with Gus Faucher, chief economist at PNC Financial Services Group. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: The job market is cooling but remains strong. Does that suggest a soft landing?
A: What we have seen in the job market so far in 2023 is consistent with a soft landing. Over the past three months, we’ve added 244,000 jobs per month. That’s still too high from the Fed’s perspective but much better than what we had at the end of last year. Although it’s consistent with a soft landing, it’s also consistent with a story where job growth continues to slow, the economy continues to weaken and we get a recession at the end of 2023. We don’t know what the outcome will be. It’s more likely than not that we get a recession.
Q: When would a downturn begin?
A: A few months ago, we were seeing it starting in the second half of 2023. Now we’re seeing late 2023 or early 2024. The labor market is still holding up. Consumers are still in decent shape. But I do think we will continue to feel the impact of the Fed’s monetary tightening. By the end of this year or sometime early next year, those higher rates will be a significant drag on economic activity and lead to recession. But the economy has held up somewhat better than we were expecting.
The economy just can’t continue to add this many jobs per month. We just don’t have the labor force out there.
Q: Where is inflation headed?
A: We will see slowing inflation. If you go back to 2021, 2022, a lot of that inflation was coming on the goods side. Now, the inflation is coming on the services side. Services inflation tends to be stickier, and it tends to be more driven by what’s going on in the labor market. So the tight labor market is contributing to high services inflation. That will contribute to inflation remaining higher than the Fed would like in the near term. By the end of this year, early next year, we will see a significant softening in the labor market that will help bring inflation down to the Fed’s 2% target.
Q: Will the job market continue to favor workers over the longer term?
A: We have seen structural changes. The pandemic pushed forward a lot of retirements. You had people who were close to retirement in 2020 and planning on working a few more years. But when the pandemic came along, they decided to retire. The remaining workers have more bargaining power. Businesses are going to need to rethink a lot of things about pay, about benefits, about workplace flexibility.
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| 2023-07-31T21:10:52
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AUSTIN (KXAN) — A KXAN viewer said she saw baby foxes, also known as kits, playing on a trampoline in her garden Sunday in the north Austin, Texas, area.
That was only a couple of weeks after another viewer said she saw a family of foxes playing on the St. Edward’s University campus in Austin.
According to the Humane Society of the United States, it’s not unusual to see foxes in cities and towns, where food sources are easily found, including in your garbage.
While foxes live around the world in many different types of habitats, according to the Texas Wildlife Association, including the Arctic, the desert and even in trees, some foxes have also adapted to life in such urban environments as neighborhoods.
“Next time you are outside in a park, remember to look up, because if you are lucky, you might see a fox up in the trees,” TWA said.
TWA said three types of foxes live in Texas, including the swift fox, the red fox and the gray fox.
The swift, or kit fox, lives in the northwestern part of the state, the red fox inhabits the eastern and central parts, and the gray fox, the most common variety, can be found statewide, the TWA said.
The Humane Society said foxes are scared of people and are not typically dangerous except when they are rabid, which the society says is rare.
“Even then, a fox’s natural tendency is to flee rather than fight,” the Human Society stated.
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| 2023-07-31T21:10:55
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PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) — Kosovo’s journalists on Monday protested against the government’s decision to suspend a private television station’s operations.
Authorities made the move last week because they said there were irregularities concerning the registration of Klan Kosova’s business license that violated the country’s constitution.
Scores of journalists and members of civil society organizations gathered in downtown Pristina in front of the main government building to protest the suspension of the broadcaster’s operations.
The demonstrators said it was a “politically motivated” action taken by the government of Prime Minister Albin Kurti. It was the first closure of a media outlet since the end of Kosovo’s 1998-1999 war, they said, holding a banner that read “Democracy dies in darkness.”
Last week, Kosovo’s Ministry of Industry and Trade suspended Klan Kosova’s license, after the documentation of its business registration in neighboring North Macedonia showed that its owners had named Kosovo’s municipalities as if belonging to Serbia, “which is a violation of our constitution,” according to a statement released Monday.
The journalist accused the government’s decision as “an open and unprecedented war … against the media,” urging owners of Klan Kosova to continue its legal fight at the court.
Klan Kosova’s editor-in-chief, Gazmend, Syla called the suspension “unfair.”
“We consider this a kind of pressure to stop us doing of what we are doing,” he told The Associated Press, adding they would challenge the government’s decision in court.
Last month, Kosovo’s Agency of Business Registration found the alleged fault and decided to suspend the operations of the television station, a move supported last week by the ministry.
The station has said it had already fixed the problems as requested.
Klan Kosova was launched in 2009 to become the country’s biggest private television station.
The embassies of France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States, and the European Union in Kosovo, expressed “their deep concern” about the suspension of Klan Kosova’s business license considering it “a disproportionate decision that will have repercussions on media plurality in Kosovo.”
Kosovo is a former province in Serbia, which doesn’t recognize Pristina’s 2008 declaration of independence. Kosovo’s sovereignty is backed by the U.S. and most EU nations, but not by Russia and China.
Serbia pulled out of Kosovo in 1999 after NATO bombed the country to stop the onslaught against ethnic Albanian separatists. At least 10,000 civilians, most of them ethnic Albanians, were killed in the conflict.
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Llazar Semini reported from Tirana, Albania.
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| 2023-07-31T21:10:59
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ONEONTA, NY – (WIVT/WBGH) New York State Police are asking the public for information on a couple seen shoplifting at an Oneonta Walmart.
On July 27 around noon, a man and woman were seen leaving the Walmart after stealing items worth over $1,100. The couple selected items throughout the store, removed the packaging off of some, and walked through a closed register aisle before exiting. They were seen leaving in a dark colored sedan with New York State license plates.
Anyone with information about this couple is asked to call New York State Police at (607)561-7400 reference case 11539096.
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| 2023-07-31T21:11:01
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All Saints Orthodox Church plans ethnic food sale
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All Saints Orthodox Church will hold an ethnic food sale fund-raiser on Friday, Aug. 25, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the church hall, located between Willow and Susquehanna streets in Olyphant.
Pre-orders must be called in by Sataurday, Aug. 19. Call Ann at 570-383-0785 or 570-561-8082 or the church hall at 570-489-5591. This is take-out only.
Ethnic food availablee to pre-order includes Pigs in the Blanket (Holubtsi), Frozen Perogis, Perogis with Butter and Onions (PBO), Cabbage and Noodle (Haluski ), and Clam Chowder Soup.
Potato Pancakes will be available for purchase on Aug. 25, Friday, at the Potato Pancake Stand in the Church Parking lot.
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https://www.timesleader.com/features/1615873/holubtsi-haluski-pierogis-on-menu-in-olyphant
| 2023-07-31T21:11:02
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DETROIT (AP) — Major changes in Michigan’s car insurance system don’t apply to people who were catastrophically injured before a 2019 law kicked in, the state Supreme Court said Monday in a decision that delivers critical relief to thousands of people counting on long-term benefits.
But the 5-2 opinion didn’t come soon enough for Brian Woodward, who was paralyzed in the 1980s and had frequently talked about the law’s drastic impact on his care. He died Monday at age 64, his family said.
For decades, crash survivors were entitled to lifetime payment for “all reasonable charges” related to care and rehabilitation. But a new state law set a fee schedule and a cap on reimbursements. Suddenly, 18,000 people already receiving benefits were forced to scramble as some health providers dropped out.
The Supreme Court, however, said a “vested contractual right” to ongoing benefits “cannot be stripped away or diminished,” especially when lawmakers failed to declare an intent to do so when they changed the law.
The decision was written by Justice Elizabeth Welch, a Democrat, and joined by other Democratic justices and by Chief Justice Elizabeth Clement, a Republican.
In an effort to lower Michigan’s insurance rates, which were among the highest in the U.S., the Republican-controlled Legislature and Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer agreed to sweeping changes in 2019. Drivers can save money by choosing certain injury-coverage options. But payments for certain care were also slashed.
The catastrophically injured include hockey star Vladimir Konstantinov, a former member of the Detroit Red Wings, who requires 24/7 care. He suffered severe brain damage in 1997 when a drunken limousine driver crashed the car he was traveling in, following the team’s NHL championship.
Woodward suffered devastating spinal injuries in a crash but was able to get in-home care and even hold a job through insurance. When the law changed, and care rates were reduced, he said he lost caregivers and was shuttled from facility to facility.
“I’m dying,” Woodward told The Detroit News last week. “My body is breaking down because I’m not getting enough exercise.”
Tim Hoste, president of CPAN, a coalition of medical organizations and consumer groups, said the law led to the “spiritual, emotional and physical decline of many people, including Brian.”
An industry trade group, the Insurance Alliance of Michigan, said the Supreme Court decision will open the door to overcharging for medical care. The lower reimbursement schedule, however, remains intact for injuries since the law was overhauled.
In a dissent, Justice David Viviano said the Supreme Court majority crafted an opinion based on “vague and disputed concepts” to provide cover for those who simply believe it would be unfair to reduce future benefits for the long-term injured.
“As a result, the efforts of the Legislature and the governor to reduce costs and make insurance more affordable for all the residents of our state will not come to fruition for many decades,” said Viviano, who was joined by fellow Republican Justice Brian Zahra.
“If courts cannot be trusted to faithfully interpret and apply the laws, especially those involving such significant and contested topics, then the democratic process is in peril,” Viviano said.
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Follow Ed White at http://twitter.com/edwritez
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| 2023-07-31T21:11:06
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BINGHAMTON, N.Y. (WIVT/WBGH) – Residents of Binghamton are encouraged to get out of the house and get to know their neighbors and local police officers for National Night Out.
This morning at Fairview Park, Mayor Jared Kraham announced details for city’s National Night Out celebration being held at 4 different city parks.
N-N-O is a national initiative bringing the community and local law enforcement together to better understand one another.
Binghamton has held its own N-N-O every year since 1996 except for 2020 due to COVID.
Hands of Hope Ministries Reverend Henry Ausby, has been coordinating the event since its inception in ’96.
Ausby believes that while National Night Out is about building relationships, it is also about taking a stand against drugs and violence within our community.
Hands of Hope Ministries Reverend Henry Ausby says “Our theme this year as the Mayor said is ‘Better Together’, ‘Better Together’. The problems that we have in our community, they’re not one area of the communities problems or one persons problems they are all of our problems, and it takes all of us working together to solve those problems.”
Ausby says there will be free food, games, parking and a chance to get to know local police officers on a first name basis.
National Night Out runs tomorrow from five to nine PM at Fairview Park, Cheri Lindsey Park, Rec Park, and Columbus Park.
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| 2023-07-31T21:11:07
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BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — Two pipeline operators have agreed to pay a $12.5 million civil penalty related to crude oil spills in Montana and North Dakota.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Monday announced the settlement in a 2022 federal court lawsuit. Belle Fourche Pipeline Company and Bridger Pipeline LLC will pay the $12.5 million to resolve the claims made under the Clean Water Act and Pipeline Safety Laws, EPA said. The affiliated companies own and operate oil pipelines in Montana, North Dakota and Wyoming.
In 2015, Bridger’s Poplar Pipeline broke and spilled more than 50,000 gallons (about 190,000 liters) of crude into the Yellowstone River near Glendive, Montana. Bridger has completed cleanup of the site, and in 2021 settled a lawsuit with federal and Montana authorities for $2 million.
In 2016, Belle Fourche’s Bicentennial Pipeline in Billings County, North Dakota, broke due to a landslide and spilled over 600,000 gallons (about 2.3 million liters) of oil, impacting an unnamed tributary, Ash Coulee Creek and the Little Missouri River. Belle Fourche’s cleanup is ongoing with oversight from North Dakota’s Department of Environmental Quality, according to EPA.
Belle Fourche also will pay the state’s past response costs, totaling over $98,000, according to court documents filed Monday.
“Oil pipeline spills can cause enormous and long-lasting damage to the environment,” Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator Larry Starfield of EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance said in a statement. “This settlement holds Belle Fourche and Bridger Pipeline accountable for their significant oil spills and requires them to take meaningful measures to prevent future spills from their oil pipelines.”
The operators also are required to implement specified compliance measures, in addition to the civil penalty.
Belle Fourche and Bridger are owned by Wyoming-based True Companies, whose spokesman, when reached by email, did not have an immediate comment on the agreement.
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| 2023-07-31T21:11:12
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SCRANTON — U.S. Attorney Gerard M. Karam announced Daniel Wasielewski, 58, of Wilkes-Barre, was charged last week with wire fraud.
According to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Wasielewski allegedly filed and assisted others in filing fraudulent applications for pandemic stimulus funds, including under the Pennsylvania Protection Program, for Economic Injury and Disaster Loans, and for Pandemic Unemployment Assistant benefits.
Wasielewski allegedly submitted applications listing corporate entities that did not have actual business operations, and that bore false revenues and other business information. The applications also included forged Internal Revenue Service tax documents, according to the news release.
Wasielewski allegedly received approximately $350,000 for himself and others. Instead of using the funds on business expenses, Wasielewski and others allegedly used the funds to purchase cryptocurrency and on other personal expenses.
The Pennsylvania Protection Program and Economic Injury and Disaster Loan programs were funded by the March 2020 CARES Act and designed to help small businesses that faced financial difficulties during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The case was investigated by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Phillip J. Caraballo and Sean Camoni are prosecuting.
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| 2023-07-31T21:11:13
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BINGHAMTON, NY (WIVT/WBGH) – The River House is the Greater Binghamton Chamber Business of the Week.
Located at 38-42 Front Street in Binghamton, the River House is an apartment building that offers housing and commercial space for a variety of people of all ages.
Commercial space within the building includes businesses such as a doctors office, or a hair and nail salon.
These services are open to the community, regardless if you are a resident of the building.
The River House was built in 1963 and was renovated five years ago.
Property Manager Mandy Starling says they hold monthly social events and parties for all their residents to help bring everyone closer together.
Property manager at the River House, Mandy Starling says, “We try to make them feel at home. That’s the whole thing. Would you want to live here, and everybody wants to live in a community. They want to live somewhere where you know your neighbors.”
Starling says the motto at the River House is “Love where you live”.
The River House has 60 apartments and 15 commercial spaces.
Apartment options include one bedroom and one bath, two bedrooms and two bath or three-bedroom two bath with a starting rate of eleven hundred dollars.
Find out more at RVRHouse.com.
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NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street closed out its latest winning month with another tick higher on Monday.
The S&P 500 added 6.73 points, or 0.1%, to 4,588.96 to cap its fifth straight month of gains. That’s its longest winning streak in nearly two years, and the index is at a 16-month high after rallying on hopes cooling inflation will mean the economy can avoid a long-predicted recession.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 100.24, or 0.3%, to 35,559.53, and the Nasdaq composite rose 29.37, or 0.2%, to 13,346.02.
To be sure, critics have been saying Wall Street’s seemingly growing consensus for a soft landing for the economy has come too quickly. Several reports this upcoming week could poke holes in the theory that inflation will keep coming down enough for the Federal Reserve to not only stop hiking interest rates but to begin cutting them by early next year.
Big names in the market, such as Rob Arnott at Research Affiliates, are warning not to be “overly hasty in popping the champagne corks.” Arnott sees the possibility of inflation rebounding again later this year, even though it’s cooled considerably recently.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell himself has pointed to Friday’s upcoming report on the overall U.S. job market as an important datapoint. Growth needs to be strong enough to keep a lid on worries about a possible recession. But a reading that’s too hot could also mean upward pressure on inflation, which could push the Fed to get more aggressive about rates.
High rates undercut inflation by slowing the overall economy and dragging on prices for stocks and other investments. The Fed has already hiked its main rate to its highest level in more than two decades, a jolting shock after the rate began last year at virtually zero.
Two of Wall Street’s most influential stocks are also set to report their earnings for the spring. Amazon and Apple are both scheduled to release their latest quarterly results on Thursday. Because they’re two of the most massive stocks on Wall Street, their stock movements pack much more punch for the S&P 500 and other indexes than other stocks.
Both stocks have soared this year, in part on expectations for strong continued growth, and they’ll need to deliver to justify the big moves. Both Apple and Amazon are up more than 50% so far this year.
Roughly halfway through the earnings reporting season, more companies than usual have topped analysts’ profit expectations, according to FactSet. Companies also seem to be more optimistic about their upcoming results, giving better-than-expected forecasts more often than usual, according to strategists at Bank of America.
“While economic uncertainty remains, we believe the profit cycle is inflecting higher,” the strategists wrote in a BofA Global Research report.
ON Semiconductor rose 2.5% for one of the larger gains in the S&P 500 after reporting stronger profit for the latest quarter than expected. The company, known as onsemi, also gave a forecast for profit in the current quarter that topped analysts’ expectations.
On the losing end was Tempur Sealy International. The mattress company said it discovered a cybersecurity event last week, which pushed it to shut down some of its technology systems. It has resumed operations after what it called a temporary interruption and is working to determine the incident’s full impact. Its stock fell 3%.
In stock markets abroad, indexes in Europe were mixed after data showed Europe’s economy has grown modestly after months of stagnation.
In Asia, stocks rose in Hong Kong and Shanghai amid hopes Beijing will deliver more stimulus for the sluggish Chinese economy.
In the bond market, U.S. Treasury yields slipped after a report suggested manufacturing in the Chicago region is weakening a bit more than economists expected. Manufacturing has been one of the hardest-hit areas in the economy by high interest rates, which work with a notoriously long lag effect.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury edged down to 3.95% from 3.96% late Friday.
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AP Business Writers Matt Ott, Elaine Kurtenbach and Joe McDonald contributed.
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| 2023-07-31T21:11:18
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BINGHAMTON, NY (WIVT/WBGH) – A retirement home is hosting three public meetings to promote safety and best practices for seniors.
Good Shepherd Fairview in Binghamton is hosting three senior safety seminars with the first called Shower and Stride.
The seminar will educate seniors on how to safeguard themselves while bathing, navigating the home, and overall walking safety.
Each session will feature physical therapists, and attendees can test their balance, and tour the facility.
One therapist, Carrie Shore, says that as we age, our brain may think we’re capable of something, when our bodies tell us otherwise.
Physical Therapist at Good Shepherd Fairview, Carrie Shore says, “So, we’re trying to focus on maybe some things that you can do in the home to increase the safety. Putting in grab bars, getting rid of those sorts of throw rugs, bath mats, and just being more aware of safety when you’re getting in and out of the tub. Just suggestions and things of that nature.”
Every event is free and open to the public. The first seminar will take place on August 31st from 10 to 11:30 in the morning at Good Shepherd’s campus, located at 80 Fairview Avenue in Binghamton.
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| 2023-07-31T21:11:19
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NEW YORK (AP) — Troubled trucking company Yellow Corp. is shutting down and headed for a bankruptcy, the Teamsters said Monday.
An official bankruptcy filing is expected any day for Yellow, after years of financial struggles and growing debt. Its expected liquidation would mark a significant shift for the U.S. transportation industry and shippers nationwide.
“Today’s news is unfortunate but not surprising. Yellow has historically proven that it could not manage itself despite billions of dollars in worker concessions and hundreds of millions in bailout funding from the federal government,” Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien said, in an announcement saying the union had been served with legal notice for the bankruptcy filing. “This is a sad day for workers and the American freight industry.”
Yellow did not have a comment when reached by The Associated Press Monday. As of Monday afternoon, no bankruptcy filings from the company could be found on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s website.
The company’s collapse arrives just three years after Yellow, formerly known as YRC Worldwide Inc., received $700 million in pandemic-era loans from the federal government. But the company was in financial trouble long before that — with industry analysts pointing to poor management and strategic decisions dating back decades.
Former Yellow customers and shippers will face higher prices as they take their business to competitors, including FedEx or ABF Freight, experts say — noting that Yellow historically offered the cheapest price points in the industry.
Yellow is one of the nation’s largest less-than-truckload carriers. The closure of the 99-year-old Nashville, Tennessee-based company risks a loss of 30,000 jobs.
Safety vests that appeared to belong to former Yellow workers were zip-tied to the fence of a closed YRC Freight terminal in St. Louis, Missouri on Monday. Names and years worked at the company were written on them.
“Ron Fisher 2017-2023 was here,” one vest read.
Reports of Yellow preparing for bankruptcy emerged last week — as the Nashville, Tennessee-based trucker saw customers leave in large numbers, per The Wall Street Journal and FreightWaves. And the company reportedly stopped freight pickups earlier in the week.
Yellow shut down operations on Sunday, according to The Journal, following the layoffs of hundreds of nonunion employees on Friday.
The bankruptcy preparation reports arrived just days after Yellow averted a strike from the Teamsters, which represents Yellow’s 22,000 unionized workers, amid heated contract negotiations. On July 23, a pension fund agreed to extend health benefits for workers at two Yellow Corp. operating companies, avoiding a planned walkout. The fund gave Yellow “30 days to pay its bills,” notably $50 million that Yellow failed to pay the Central States Health and Welfare Fund earlier in the month.
Yellow has racked up hefty bills over the years. As of late March, Yellow had an outstanding debt of about $1.5 billion. Of that, $729.2 million was owed to the federal government.
In 2020, under the Trump administration, the Treasury Department granted the company a $700 million pandemic-era loan on national security grounds. Last month, a congressional probe concluded that the Treasury and Defense departments “made missteps” in this decision — and noted that Yellow’s “precarious financial position at the time of the loan, and continued struggles, expose taxpayers to a significant risk of loss.”
The government loan is due in September 2024. As of March, Yellow had made $54.8 million in interest payments and repaid just $230 million of the principal owed, according to government documents.
The current financial chaos at Yellow “is probably two decades in the making,” said Stifel research director Bruce Chan, pointing to poor management and strategic decisions dating back to the early 2000s. “At this point, after each party has bailed them out so many times, there is a limited appetite to do that anymore.”
A Wednesday investors note from financial service firm Stephens estimated that Yellow was burning daily amounts of $9 million to $10 million in recent days.
Yellow handled an average of 49,000 shipments per day in 2022 according to Satish Jindel, president of transportation and logistics firm SJ Consulting. On Friday, he estimated that number was down to between 10,000 and 15,000 daily shipments.
Yellow’s prices have historically been the cheapest compared to other carriers, Jindel said. “That’s why they obviously were not making money,” he added. “And while there is capacity with the other LTL carriers to handle the diversions from Yellow, it will come at a high price for (current shippers and customers) of Yellow.”
—-
AP Business Writer Matt Ott contributed to this report.
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| 2023-07-31T21:11:24
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CORTLAND, N.Y. (WIVT/WBGH) – The Cortland County Drug Task Force arrested two individuals in procession of 41 wax glassine envelopes containing fentanyl.
The Cortland County Drug Task conducted a drug investigation at an apartment on Northcliffe Road in the City of Cortland on July 27th.
During the Investigation, defendants James M. Glover, 29, Augustina C. Rivera, 29 and Alene D. Heath, 53 were located inside of the residence.
Glover and Rivera both had active warrants for their arrest. During their arrest, 4 wax glassine envelopes containing fentanyl were located on the person of Rivera. A further search of the residence lead members of the Cortland County Drug Task Force to locate a total of 41 wax glassine envelopes containing fentanyl, a small plastic bag containing fentanyl, packaging material, and an electronic digital scale. The fentanyl has an approximate street value of $400.
Glover was transported to the Cortland County Sheriff’s Office for processing and to await arraignment. Rivera was transported to the Cortland City Police Department for processing and to await arraignment. Both Glover and Rivera were arraigned utilizing the Centralized Arraignment Process. Glover was held on no bail and Rivera was held on $1 cash or $1 bond. Glover and Rivera were due to appear in Cortland City Court on July 28th at 10AM.
Charges:
Criminal Possession of a Controlled Substance in the 3rd Degree
Criminally Using Drug Paraphernalia in the 2nd Degree Sub 2
Criminally Using Drug Paraphernalia in the 2nd Degree Sub 3
Heath turned herself into the Cortland County Sheriff’s Office on July 28th. She was processed and arraigned utilizing the Centralized Arraignment Process and released to the supervision of Alternatives to Incarceration. She is due to appear in Cortland City Court on August 9th at 2:30PM.
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| 2023-07-31T21:11:25
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NEW YORK (AP) — Trucking company Yellow Corp. has shut down operations and is headed for a bankruptcy filing, according to the Teamsters Union and multiple media reports.
After years of financial struggles, reports of Yellow preparing for bankruptcy emerged last week — as the Nashville, Tennessee-based trucker saw customers leave in large numbers. Yellow shut down operations on Sunday, according to the Wall Street Journal, following the layoffs of hundreds of nonunion employees on Friday.
In an announcement early Monday, the Teamsters said that the union received legal notice confirming Yellow was ceasing operations and filing for bankruptcy.
“Today’s news is unfortunate but not surprising. Yellow has historically proven that it could not manage itself despite billions of dollars in worker concessions and hundreds of millions in bailout funding from the federal government,” Teamsters general president Sean O’Brien said in a statement. “This is a sad day for workers and the American freight industry.”
The Associated Press reached out to Yellow for comment on Monday. No bankruptcy filings had gone live as of the early morning.
The bankruptcy reports have renewed attention around Yellow’s ongoing negotiations with unionized workers, a $700 million pandemic-era loan from the government and other bills the trucker has racked up over time. Yellow, formerly known as YRC Worldwide Inc., is one of the nation’s largest less-than-truckload carriers. The company’s reported closure puts 30,000 jobs at risk.
Here’s what you need to know.
According to Satish Jindel, president of transportation and logistics firm SJ Consulting, Yellow handled an average of 49,000 shipments per day in 2022. Last week, he estimated that number was down to between 10,000 and 15,000 daily shipments.
With customers leaving — as well reports of Yellow stopping freight pickups last week — bankruptcy would “be the end of Yellow,” Jindel told The Associated Press, noting increased risk for liquidation.
“The likelihood of them surviving and remaining solvent diminishes really by the day,” added Bruce Chan, a research director at investment banking firm Stifel.
Yellow declined to comment when contacted by The Associated Press on Friday. In a Wednesday statement to The Journal, the company said it was continuing “to prepare for a range of contingencies.” On Thursday, Yellow said it was in talks with multiple parties about selling its third-party logistics organization.
Even if Yellow was able to sell its logistics firm, it would “not generate a sufficient amount of cash to keep them operational on any sort of permanent basis,” Chan said. “Without a major equity injection, it would be very difficult for them to survive.”
As of late March, Yellow had an outstanding debt of about $1.5 billion. Of that, $729.2 million was owed to the federal government.
In 2020, under the Trump administration, the Treasury Department granted the company a $700 million pandemic-era loan on national security grounds. Last month, a congressional probe concluded that the Treasury and Defense Departments “made missteps” in this decision — and noted that Yellow’s “precarious financial position at the time of the loan, and continued struggles, expose taxpayers to a significant risk of loss.”
The government loan is due in September 2024. As of March, Yellow had made $54.8 million in interest payments and repaid just $230 million of the principal owed, according to government documents.
Yellow’s current finances and prospect of bankruptcy “is probably two decades in the making,” Chan said, pointing to poor management and strategic decisions dating back to the early 2000s. “At this point, after each party has bailed them out so many times, there is a limited appetite to do that anymore.”
In May, Yellow reported a loss of $54.6 million, a decline of $1.06 per share, for its first quarter of 2023. Operating revenue was about $1.16 billion in the period.
A Wednesday investors note from financial service firm Stephens estimated that Yellow could be burning between $9 million and $10 million each day. Using a liquidity disclosure from earlier this month, Yellow had roughly $100 million in cash at the end of June, the note added — estimating that the company has been burning through increasing amounts of money through July.
“It is reasonable to believe that the Company could breach its $35 mil. liquidity requirement at any moment,” Stephens analyst Jack Atkins and associate Grant Smith wrote.
Last week’s reports of bankruptcy preparations arrived just days after a strike from the Teamsters, which represents Yellow’s 22,000 unionized workers, was averted.
A series of heated exchanges have built up between the Teamsters and Yellow, who sued the union in June after alleging it was “unjustifiably blocking” restructuring plans needed for the company’s survival. The Teamsters called the litigation “baseless” — with O’Brien pointing to Yellow’s “decades of gross mismanagement,” which included exhausting the $700 million federal loan.
On July 23, a pension fund agreed to extend health benefits for workers at two Yellow Corp. operating companies, averting a strike — and giving Yellow “30 days to pay its bills,” notably $50 million that Yellow failed to pay the Central States Health and Welfare Fund on July 15, the union said. While the strike didn’t occur, talks of a walkout may have caused some Yellow customers to pull back, Chan said.
“The financial struggles of Yellow are not related to the union and the contracts,” Jindel said, pointing to management’s responsibility around its services and prices. He added the union wages from Yellow are “lower than any competitor.”
As Yellow customers take their shipments to other carriers, like FedEx or ABF Freight, prices will go up.
Yellow’s prices have historically been the cheapest compared to other carriers, Jindel said. “That’s why they obviously were not making money,” he added. “And while there is capacity with the other LTL carriers to handle the diversions from Yellow, it will come at a high price for (current shippers and customers) of Yellow.”
Chan adds that we’re in an interesting time for the LTL marketplace — noting that, if Yellow liquidates, “the freight would find a home” with other carriers, which may not have been true in recent years.
“It may take time, but there’s room for it to be absorbed,” he said.
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| 2023-07-31T21:11:30
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For a first time, 15 Bay Area art galleries are opening their doors Thursday and through the weekend for a free gallery walk sponsored by the Art Dealers Association of America.
Galleries in San Francisco, Berkeley and Marin are taking part in the event in an effort to spread the world that art galleries are for everyone.
In nearly 30 years operating Hosfelt Gallery in San Francisco, gallerist Todd Hosfelt says the number one phone call he receives is “from people asking, ‘What’s the price of admission?’”
In case you’re wondering, too, the answer has always been “nothing.”
But the cost of admission isn’t the only reason people don’t check out their local galleries, said Catharine Clark, of Catharine Clark Gallery, who had the idea to launch a gallery walk in the Bay Area to help make art galleries’ open-door policy and educational role in the community more public.
“If you’re not being exposed to the arts in a general way,” Clark said, “from art classes in school, to art history, to the way in which art reflects what’s going on in our world, then you haven’t even had a chance to decide whether you’re interested or not.”
Art experts say galleries can be a source for arts education otherwise hard to come by in the United States.
“Most [gallerists] think of (themselves) as educators,” Hosfelt said. “The commercial aspect is really about supporting the program.”
Both Catharine Clark Gallery and Hosfelt Gallery will host events on Thursday evening at their Utah Street spaces. Exhibiting artist Russell Crotty will be in conversation with Sarah Mackay, Assistant Curator at the Achenbach Foundation, at 5:30 p.m. at Hosfelt Gallery.
Crotty’s drawings are sublime nighttime landscapes, conveying the awe of stargazing in the open desert. Local drag artist Monique Jenkinson (Fauxnique), will perform a specially commissioned piece at Catharine Clark Gallery at 7 p.m.
On Friday, Altman Siegel,Anglim/Trimble and Jenkins Johnson Gallery, at Minnesota Street Project, (MSP) will host receptions and walkthroughs for their current exhibitions, which range from shows of new work by minimalist painter Laeh Glenn and sculptor K.R.M. Mooney, to a survey of the late, local artist A. Frick Vernon, to a group show celebrating summertime.
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Rena Bransten Gallery, also at MSP, will host “San Francisco in Ten,” at 5 p.m., featuring local personalities speaking for ten minutes on a subject of their choice. Speakers include award- winning columnist Leah Garchik; artist and writer Maria Porges; and community organizer and Executive Director of the Gubbio Project, Lydia Bransten, among others.
Non-ADAA galleries at MSP will hold regular hours.
The downtown and Chinatown neighborhoods come alive on Saturday. At Berggruen Gallery, Elsa Hansen Oldham’s playful, narrative embroideries contrast with Margaux Ogden’s bright, floral-pattern acrylic paintings. Modernism Inc., also features simultaneous exhibitions: Scot Heywood’s geometric wall sculptures and Sheldon Greenberg’s post modern figurative paintings packed with references to art history. Fraenkel Gallery presents a brand new series of breathtaking landscape photographs by Richard Misrach.
Crown Point Press, in downtown, will host a talk by local artist Tom Marioni at 1 p.m., on his current exhibition of lithographs, “Hard Edges for Hard Times.” The minimally geometric, colorful prints range from abstract shapes to scenes of San Francisco streets at night.
Gallery Wendi Norris andJessica Silverman in Chinatown will both host seminal shows by foreign painters: Mexican artist Leo Marz’s first U.S. solo show in over a decade and Japanese artist Kei Imazu’s first exhibition in the U.S., both featuring saturated, surreal scenes.
Paulson Fontaine Press, in Berkeley, will exhibit a new series of abstract, patchwork etchings by McArthur Binion.
Sunday will feature receptions at Haines Gallery, in Fort Mason Center, where David Simpson’s “Smoke and Mirrors” promises glimmering color field paintings evocative of the surrounding Bay Area landscape, and Anthony Meier, in Mill Valley, presenting a group show focused on local artists.
Other galleries and free art events to check out this weekend include the San Francisco Center for the Book and the Institute of Contemporary Art, both located between Utah Street and The Minnesota Street Project, and a free screening of “KOKOMO CITY,” a documentary about the lives of four Black, trans sex workers, presented by downtown gallery Jonathan Carver Moore on Friday at 6:30 p.m. at The Roxie, with a Q&A to follow.
“If the weekend goes well,” Clark said, “we can make it into an annual event.”
But don’t wait for next year to visit your local art galleries. They’re expecting you.
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https://www.sfexaminer.com/culture/museums-and-galleries/bay-area-art-galleries-to-offer-free-weekend-gallery-walk/article_d7b76b7a-2d95-11ee-b741-bfa157d8b472.html
| 2023-07-31T21:11:33
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By Marc Sandalow
Examiner columnist
In the final season of the sitcom “Veep,’’ presidential candidate Jonah Ryan is horrified to learn that much of modern mathematics was developed by Muslims.
“And we teach this Islamic math to children. These math teachers are terrorists,’’ he says, vowing to ban “Sharia math.’’
“Algebra?’’ he sneers before a crowd of fellow xenophobic imbeciles, “more like “Al Jazeera!.’’
This is meant, of course, as brutal satire. Two plus two equals four, no matter your faith, race, nationality, gender, sexual orientation or favorite baseball team.
Math is math.
Which is why many conservatives, Fox News in particular, had a field day when the California Board of Education earlier this month adopted new math standards – based heavily on San Francisco’s — which call for a renewed focus on social justice and equity in K-12 math curriculum.
The reports calls for an emphasis on “big ideas,’’ and math’s usefulness over rote memorization and speedy recollection of multiplication tables.
“Critics call it woke math,’’ Fox News Anchor Harris Faulkner said as she introduced the networks coverage before decrying the “nearly 200 mentions’’ of equity or social justice in the 1,000-page report.
Conservatives are not the only ones complaining. Among the state’s recommendations is that schools follow San Francisco’s lead and push algebra from 8th to 9th grade which it believes leads to better learning outcomes, while many academics have pushed back concerned it will leave less time insufficient time for high school calculus which is necessary for many college STEM courses.
But what really caught the attention of conservatives, is the use of catch phrases that are mainstream in places like San Francisco but not in studios of Fox News, let alone the living rooms of their viewers.
“Teachers can begin with awareness that mathematics plays a role in the power structures and privileges that exist within our society and can support action and positive change,’’ says the report, which took more than four years to complete.
Ex // Top Stories
The man allegedly worked with a Russian co-conspirator to steal more than $340,000 over 14 years
Mosquitos with West Nile virus have been detected just south of The City in Palo Alto and Stanford
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Critics can be forgiven for wondering what actions might be supported, and what school districts view as “positive change.’’
Former Bush administration Education Department official Williamson M. Evers
told Fox news it is troubling to have math lessons “that tells kids they are traumatized by capitalism and therefore they have to become activists and overthrow the system. Those stuff’s all in there.’’
If that stuff is in there, I couldn’t find it. But the guidelines clearly go beyond using real life examples to interest students. It sees lesson plans on income distribution and climate change as useful ways to not only engage students, but to promote action.
And that, in turn, evokes precisely the fears mocked by “Veep.’’
The formulas for solving for x, (algebra for those of you who have long since suppressed it), require no cultural awareness.
But word problems are different. The California report envisions teachers employing real-life examples to both engage students and to establish why math is such a useful tool.
That may be well intended. But for every socially conscious California teacher who asks students to calculate how much undocumented immigrants are being exploited by sub-minimum wage jobs, there may be a Florida teacher asking her students to calculate how much emergency room treatment of undocumented immigrants costs taxpayers.
These are complicated questions. How much does cheap labor cut prices? How much does Florida benefit from the taxes paid by immigrants?
In Veep, the candidate blames Muslim math for his failure to capture enough delegates to win his party’s nomination.
“How come when I use Christian math I come ahead,’’ he wonders.
That’s because math has right and wrong answers. How to best teach it and how to best apply it, is far more complicated.
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https://www.sfexaminer.com/forum/critics-call-californias-new-mathematics-curriculum-woke/article_99a4c9ec-2fc8-11ee-a99b-5b7c6f96bda8.html
| 2023-07-31T21:11:35
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Elon Musk’s X Corp. has threatened to sue a nonprofit for reporting on what has been described as an alarming spike in hate speech on the site formerly known as Twitter.
X Corp. accused the Center for Countering Digital Hate of making “troubling and baseless claims that appear calculated to harm Twitter generally, and its digital advertising business specifically,” Alex Spiro, who represents X, said in a letter to Imran Ahmed, the group’s CEO. The legal threat was first reported by the New York Times.
The Center for Countering Digital Hate has published a series of reports on hate speech on Twitter, including one accusing the platform of effectively allowing Twitter Blue subscribers to post “racist, homophobic, neo-Nazi, antisemitic or conspiracy” content.
But the claims “are false, misleading, or both, and they are not supported by anything that could credibly be called research,” Piro said in the letter.
“The article is little more than a series of inflammatory, misleading, and unsupported claims based on a cursory review of random tweets,” Spiro wrote.
Ex // Top Stories
The crash was preceded by an alleged carjacking half a mile away from the site
The owner of the wrecked vehicle told police he had been carjacked about a half-mile away from the scene of the crash
The City lacked temporary shelter and overflow beds compared to other major cities and counties, a controller's office report found
The organization fired back Monday, saying X Corp.’s allegations “represent a disturbing effort to intimidate those who have the courage to advocate against incitement, hate speech and harmful content online.”
The Center for Countering Digital Hate “will not be bullied by your clients,” the group’s attorney, Robert Kaplan, said in a letter. “It intends to continue its research and its reporting. And in line with its mission to protect online civil liberties and ensure accountability.”
Kaplan also suggested that the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which has offices in Washington, D.C. and London, was prepared for a legal showdown that could help shed light on the Musk-owned platform’s policies on hate speech and misinformation. The group demanded that X Corp. “take immediate steps to preserve all documents and other information including any and all text messages to or from Mr. Musk and other senior executives.”
X Corp.’s legal threat comes at a critical time for the social network which has been reeling from a series of setbacks since Musk bought the company for $44 billion last year.
Musk has said that the company, which began rebranding earlier this month, has lost about half of its advertising revenue, as it struggled with “negative cash flow” and a “heavy debt load.”
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https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/technology/musk-s-x-threatens-nonprofit-for-reporting-twitter-hate-speech/article_d4eb6d5c-2fc4-11ee-9bf9-3fb96687ef72.html
| 2023-07-31T21:11:35
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CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — The Australian army helicopter that crashed Friday during a multinational exercise hit the water with a “catastrophic impact” and there is no chance its four crew members survived, officials said Monday.
Australia’s fleet of more than 40 of the MRH-90 Taipan helicopters, made by French Airbus, has been grounded since the crash and there are doubts any will fly again.
They will be grounded until crash investigators determine what caused the tragedy. The government announced in January it plans to replace them with 40 U.S. Black Hawks. The Taipans’ retirement date of December 2024 would be 13 years earlier than Australia had initially planned.
Defense Minister Richard Marles said the search and rescue effort changed Monday to a victim recovery operation with no chance that Capt. Danniel Lyon, Lt. Maxwell Nugent, Warrant Officer Joseph Laycock or Cpl. Alexander Naggs had survived.
“There was a catastrophic incident and with every passing hour, it is now clear that any hope of finding (the four crew) alive has been lost,” Marles told reporters.
The helicopter crashed during a nighttime exercise with the United States and other nations near the Whitsunday Islands on the Great Barrier Reef.
Marles had said on Saturday the helicopter “ditched,” which refers to an emergency landing. But on Monday he would not rule our pilot error or disorientation in the dark causing the crash into the water. He urged against speculation about potential causes.
“There was a catastrophic impact on the helicopter when it hit the water,” Marles said.
“We will move through the process of putting the Black Hawks into service as quickly as we can … and we will not be flying MRH90s until we understand what has happened,” Marles added.
The lost Taipan had been taking part in Talisman Sabre, a biennial U.S.-Australian military exercise that is largely based in Queensland state. This year’s exercise involves 13 nations and more than 30,000 military personnel.
The exercise was continuing on Monday with some changes near the recovery operation, Australian Defense Force Chief Gen. Angus Campbell said.
Campbell thanked the United States and Canada for their help in the search and recovery efforts, which he said was “not an easy operation.”
The wreckage lay in the path of strong currents and tidal movements. It was too deep for standard diving operations.
Part of the airframe had been retrieved by Monday but most of the helicopter remained on the seabed, Campbell said.
It was the second emergency involving an Australian Taipan since March. The fleet was grounded after one ditched into the sea off the New South Wales state coast near the naval base at Jervis Bay during a nighttime counterterrorism training exercise. All 10 passengers and crew members were rescued.
Retired Maj. Gen. Fergus McLachlan was involved in integrating the Taipan into the Australian army when they arrived in 2007 and had been responsible for keeping them airworthy. He said the Taipan did not have the proven record of the Lockheed Martin-designed Black Hawks.
“We bought into an unproven system. In real terms, it was a developmental aircraft and it has never really matured,” McLachlan told Australian Broadcasting Corp.
“It was always a battle to maintain it and keep it flying,” McLachlan added.
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https://www.pahomepage.com/news/international/ap-4-crew-members-on-australian-army-helicopter-that-crashed-off-coast-didnt-survive-officials-say/
| 2023-07-31T21:11:38
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TEXAS, USA — Lawyers for suspended Attorney General Ken Paxton requested Monday that all but one of 20 articles of impeachment be dismissed, arguing his removal would “override the will of the people” who elected him with knowledge of his alleged misconduct.
In a separate court filing, Paxton’s team also requested that his impeachment trial before the Texas Senate exclude any evidence of “any alleged conduct” that occurred prior to January 2023, when his third term in office began.
The second filing — which comes as all parties are under a strict gag order barring public comment on the proceedings and evidence — also blasted the House impeachment managers as “aggressive, reckless and misleading” with “little to no evidence whatsoever” to support the allegations against Paxton.
In their motion to dismiss, Paxton’s lawyers argued that almost all of the allegations outlined by House investigators were known to voters at the time of his most recent election, and that his impeachment would thus negate the will of Texas voters.
They also argued that Paxton’s impeachment would run afoul of the “prior-term doctrine,” which they said bars statewide officials from being impeached for conduct that predates their most recent election.
“With only a single exception, the articles (of impeachment) allege nothing that Texas voters have not heard from the Attorney General’s political opponents for years,” Paxton’s team wrote. “The alleged acts underlying 19 of the Articles took place before the Attorney General’s most recent election and were highly publicized.”
The unchallenged article against Paxton is related to the $3.3 million lawsuit settlement he reached with whistleblowers who were fired from his office after reporting Paxton to law enforcement for bribery and other alleged wrongdoing. The House’s investigation into Paxton began earlier this year, after he asked the Legislature to pay for the lawsuit settlement.
Paxton’s impeachment trial before Texas senators is set to begin Sept. 5.
Under rules previously adopted by the Senate, rulings on pretrial motions are expected to be made on the opening day of trial before opening statements. Approval of two-thirds of senators is required to dismiss an article of impeachment.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
This story comes from The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans - and engages with them - about public policy, politics, government, and statewide issues.
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https://www.kvue.com/article/news/local/texas/ken-paxton-impeachment/285-c1f12299-9e51-4999-8b25-5a701cf14c9c
| 2023-07-31T21:11:40
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ROCHESTER, N.H. — In a new policy plan unveiled Monday, Republican presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis took aim at China with a “Declaration of Economic Independence” that also targets taxes, regulations and “elites” he blames for the nation’s decline.
Speaking in a New Hampshire warehouse, the Florida governor promised to diversify and expand the economy by fighting for the middle class.
"Revitalizing economic freedom and opportunity will require building an economy where the concerns of average citizens are elevated over those deemed too big to fail,” he said at Prep Partners Group, which coordinates warehousing, distribution and other logistics for other companies.
“We are a nation with an economy, not the other way around,” DeSantis said. “We are citizens of a republic. We are not cogs in a global economic empire.”
DeSantis said his top priority would be wresting economic control from China by ending the nation’s preferential trade status, banning imports of goods made from stolen intellectual property and preventing companies from sharing critical technologies with China. Current polices, he said, have created an “abusive relationship” between the two countries.
“The elites sold us a bill of goods when it came to China. They were wrong, and we need to get it right,” he said.
The 10-point economic plan is the third major policy proposal put forth by DeSantis, who remains a distant second to former President Donald Trump in most polls and is fighting for momentum in the midst of a campaign reset. He recently shed more than one-third of his staff as federal filings showed his campaign was burning through cash at an unsustainable rate.
But on Monday, his focus was on reckless federal government spending. His plan describes him as a “new sheriff in town” who will veto wasteful spending and mandate work requirements for welfare programs. He also claimed he could achieve 3% annual economic growth by keeping taxes low, eliminating bureaucracy and incentivizing investment.
On the education front, DeSantis said he will stop incentivizing “useless degrees” by making universities responsible for the loans their students accrue.
“It’s wrong to say that a truck driver should have to pay off the debt of somebody who got a degree in gender studies,” he said.
After the speech, in what was billed as a news conference, DeSantis sidestepped a question about Trump’s mounting legal fees. That’s even as the DeSantis campaign has been attacking Trump for devoting much of his political fundraising to his legal entanglements.
“We’re here to talk about restoring this economy. We’re here to talk about uplifting the middle class,” DeSantis said. “To me, if you ask voters, are they more interested in hearing about that or the process stories about politics? I think that they want to hear about the country’s future so that’s what we’re going to talk about.”
A spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee said DeSantis should be talking about the economic woes he created in Florida including the rising costs of housing, property insurance and health care.
“It remains a mystery why DeSantis would try to reboot his dumpster fire of a campaign by promising to bring his failures as governor nationwide,” Ammar Moussa said.
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https://www.kvue.com/article/news/nation-world/desantis-economic-policy-china-taxes-regulations/507-aed5309b-d61c-4023-8b2e-c50e828635ce
| 2023-07-31T21:11:46
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https://www.kvue.com/article/news/nation-world/desantis-economic-policy-china-taxes-regulations/507-aed5309b-d61c-4023-8b2e-c50e828635ce
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KHAR, Pakistan (AP) — A suicide bomber blew himself up at a political rally in a former stronghold of militants in northwest Pakistan bordering Afghanistan on Sunday, killing at least 44 people and wounding nearly 200 in an attack that a senior leader said was meant to weaken Pakistani Islamists.
The Bajur district near the Afghan border was a stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban — a close ally of Afghanistan’s Taliban government — before the Pakistani army drove the militants out of the area. Supporters of hard-line Pakistani cleric and political party leader Fazlur Rehman, whose Jamiat Ulema Islam generally supports regional Islamists, were meeting in Bajur in a hall close to a market outside the district capital. Party officials said Rehman was not at the rally but organizers added tents because so many supporters showed up, and party volunteers with batons were helping control the crowd.
Officials were announcing the arrival of Abdul Rasheed, a leader of the Jamiat Ulema Islam party, when the bomb went off in one of Pakistan’s bloodiest attacks in recent years.
Provincial police said in a statement that the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber who detonated his explosives vest close to the stage where several senior leaders of the party were sitting. It said initial investigations suggested the Islamic State group — which operates in Afghanistan and is an enemy of the Afghan Taliban — could be behind the attack, and officers were still investigating.
“There was dust and smoke around, and I was under some injured people from where I could hardly stand up, only to see chaos and some scattered limbs,” said Adam Khan, 45, who was knocked to the ground by the blast around 4 p.m. and hit by splinters in his leg and both hands.
The Pakistan Taliban, or TTP, said in a statement sent to The Associated Press that the bombing was aimed at setting Islamists against each other. Zabiullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Afghan Taliban, said on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, that “such crimes cannot be justified in any way.”
The Afghan Taliban’s seizure of power in Afghanistan in mid-August 2021 emboldened the TTP. They unilaterally ended a cease-fire agreement with the Pakistani government in November, and have stepped up attacks across the country.
The bombing came hours before the arrival of Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in Islamabad, where he was to participate in an event to mark a decade of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, or CPEC, a sprawling package under which Beijing has invested billions of dollars in Pakistan.
In recent months, China has helped Pakistan avoid a default on sovereign payments. However, some Chinese nationals have also been targeted by militants in northwestern Pakistan and elsewhere.
Feroz Jamal, the provincial information minister, told The Associated Press that so far 44 people had been “martyred” and nearly 200 wounded in the bombing.
The bombing was one of the four worst attacks in the northwest since 2014, when 147 people, mostly schoolchildren, were killed in a Taliban attack on an army-run school in Peshawar. In January, 74 people were killed in a bombing at a mosque in Peshawar. n February, more than 100 people, mostly policemen, died in a bombing at a mosque inside a high-security compound housing Peshawar police headquarters.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and President Arif Alvi condemned the attack and asked officials to provide all possible assistance to the wounded and the bereaved families. Sharif later, in a phone call to Rehman, the head of the JUI, conveyed his condolences to him and assured him that those who orchestrated the attack would be punished.
The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad also condemned the attack. In a post on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, it expressed its condolences to the families and loved ones of the victims killed in the attack..
Maulana Ziaullah, the local chief of Rehman’s party, was among the dead. JUI leaders Rasheed and former lawmaker Maulana Jamaluddin were also on the stage but escaped unhurt.
Rasheed, the regional chief of the party, said the attack was an attempt to remove JUI from the field before parliamentary elections in November, but he said such tactics would not work. The bombing drew nationwide condemnation, with the ruling and opposition parties extending condolences to the families of those who died in the attack.
Rehman is considered to be a pro-Taliban cleric and his political party is part of the coalition government in Islamabad. Meetings are being organized across the country to mobilize supporters for the upcoming elections.
“Many of our fellows lost their lives and many more wounded in this incident. I will ask the federal and provincial administrations to fully investigate this incident and provide due compensation and medical facilities to the affected ones,” Rasheed said.
Mohammad Wali, another attendant at the rally, said he was listening to a speaker address the crowd when the huge explosion temporarily deafened him.
“I was near the water dispenser to fetch a glass of water when the bomb exploded, throwing me to the ground,” he said. “We came to the meeting with enthusiasm but ended up at the hospital seeing crying, wounded people and sobbing relatives taking the bodies of their loved ones.”
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Riaz Khan reported from Peshawar. Associated Press writer Munir Ahmad contributed from Islamabad.
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https://www.pahomepage.com/news/international/ap-a-bomb-at-a-political-rally-in-northwest-pakistan-kills-10-people-and-wounds-more-than-50/
| 2023-07-31T21:11:45
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VATICAN CITY (AP) — When Pope Francis made the first foreign trip of his papacy, to Rio de Janeiro for World Youth Day in 2013, he urged young people to make a “mess” in their local churches, to shake things up even if it ruffled the feathers of their bishops.
As he embarks this week on another edition of World Youth Day, in Lisbon, Portugal, Francis in many ways has taken his own advice to heart. After 10 years as pope, Francis is accelerating his reform agenda and making revolutionary changes in personnel and policy that are definitely shaking things up.
Unencumbered by the shadow of Pope Benedict XVI, who died seven months ago, and despite recovering from a second intestinal surgery in as many years, the 86-year-old Francis is opening a frenetic second half of the year with his Portugal visit. He seems aware that he has a limited sweet spot of time to solidify the changes he believes are necessary for the 21st century church, and is looking to the next generation of faithful and leaders to execute them.
“The sense I get is that this is the consolidation phase of the pontificate,” said papal biographer Austen Ivereigh. “He’s laying the basis now, laying the ground, for the future.”
And no better place to put it on display than at a World Youth Day. The international rally, which St. John Paul II launched in 1986 to galvanize young Catholics in their faith, is expected to draw up to 1 million people for the first post-pandemic event of its kind. Francis’ perennial social justice concerns about climate change, social inequality and fraternity, as well as Russia’s war in Ukraine, are expected to be major themes.
Beyond Portugal, though, Francis’ multifold strategy for laying the groundwork for the future is coming together and will hit significant marks in the coming months.
His global canvassing of rank-and-file Catholics about their vision for the future comes to fruition this October with a big synod at the Vatican. The meeting is intended to give direction on such hot-button issues as the place of LGBTQ+ Catholics and women in the church, and for the first time will feature women and young people voting on proposals alongside bishops.
“I really think that for Pope Francis, he felt that ‘OK, now it’s mature’ and it would be good really to involve all the members, all the people in the synod as members” with the right to vote, said Sister Nathalie Becquart, who is one of the key synod organizers.
To then implement the vision that emerges from the synod, Francis has been naming a slew of unusually young bishops for key archdioceses — in his native Buenos Aires, Madrid and Brussels, among others. At the same time, he’s elevated several cardinals in their 50s — and in some cases their 40s — including the auxiliary bishop of Lisbon who is organizing World Youth Day.
Putting such young clerics in such important positions ensures a generation’s worth of likeminded leadership in the Vatican and archdioceses around the world. While not all are cookie-cutter proteges of Francis, many are seen as similarly pastorally minded and thus more game to implement his reforms, especially as the older generation of bishops and cardinals dies out.
After Francis is gone, the youngest of these new cardinals will have some three decades’ worth of local leadership and conclave votes to select future popes, suggesting a generational and ideological shift in the church leadership is very much underway.
Francis’ most important young “legacy” appointment was that of the Vatican’s new doctrinal czar, Argentine Cardinal-elect Victor Manuel Fernandez, 61. Francis’ theological ghostwriter ran into Vatican problems in the past over questions about his doctrinal orthodoxy, and his appointment sent shockwaves through the conservative and traditionalist wings of the church.
Fernandez sees his appointment as part of Francis’ longer-term agenda. “He is proposing a more inclusive church, more respectful of different ways of living, even of thinking,” Fernandez said in an interview.
Portuguese Cardinal-elect Americo Aguiar, who is in charge of World Youth Day, is another young churchman who also understands his appointment as part of a generational turning point for the Catholic hierarchy.
At age 49 he will become the second-youngest member of the College of Cardinals when he is installed Sept. 30. He is just six months older than the current youngest cardinal, whom Francis elevated this time last year: Cardinal Giorgio Marengo, head of the church in Mongolia where Francis will travel at the end of August.
“My reading of it is that this has to do with young people, it has to do with youth, it has to do with Portugal, it has to do with World Youth Day, it has to do with all of that,” Aguiar said in an interview. “I think that his objective and his underlining was exactly to send a signal to the young people, to every young person who is preparing the day, whether in Portugal or in the world, to feel identified with this decision.”
Francis said as much in his monthly prayer intentions for August, this time dedicated to the Lisbon event.
“In Lisbon, I would like to see a seed for the world’s future,” Francis said. “A world where love is at the center, where we can sense that we are sisters and brothers.”
His wish in many ways echoed his words at the 2013 World Youth Day in Rio, which now seem prescient in outlining many of the key pastoral messages Francis has emphasized over the past decade. Delivering a spontaneous, off-the-cuff exhortation to a gathering of Argentine pilgrims that was organized at the last minute, Francis urged the young to get out into the streets, spread their faith and “make a mess.”
“I want to see the church get closer to the people,” Francis said then, speaking in his native Spanish. “I want to get rid of clericalism, the mundane, this closing ourselves off within ourselves, in our parishes, schools or structures.”
Realizing the radical nature of his message, Francis apologized to the bishops for what was about to come, even though in the 10 years since, he has only gone further than anyone could have imagined at the time.
“The true reform of the church, you know, is not a revolution bringing something completely from outside,” said Becquart, the French nun, as she reflected on Francis’ agenda. “It’s a path of change that is a way to unfold tradition, but in a very dynamic way.”
___
AP reporters Helena Alvez in Lisbon, Portugal, and Almudena Calatrava in Buenos Aires contributed.
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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
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| 2023-07-31T21:11:53
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HAPEVILLE, GA. -- Police responded to an Atlanta-area neighborhood about a suspected trespasser, but what the officer found would touch his heart and result in a moving act of kindness.
"You might be told one thing over the radio, and when you show up on scene it's something completely different," Officer Eric Colleran said in an interview with local ABC affiliate WSB.
Colleran took the call about a suspected trespasser. He responded to the neighborhood and found 16-year-old Keonte Evans.
Evans was not trespassing. Instead, he was doing some yard work in order to earn money to buy his five younger brothers and sisters clothes before the start of a new school year.
Colleran quickly sorted out the misunderstanding and felt moved by Evans' respectful, soft-spoken demeanor as well as his drive to help his family.
A couple days later, Colleran returned to Evans' house with a surprise for him in the trunk of his patrol car: a brand new PlayStation 5.
Emotion overtook Evans. He immediately hugged Colleran and thanked him for his kindness. He took the gaming console inside but immediately ran back outside to hug Colleran again.
"Somebody did this for you. The game is so expensive. You can't do anything but be so excited. So, I gave him a hug. A big hug at that. A very big hug. It's so sweet. Many people don't do these things for kids," Evans said.
"I didn't do any of this to end up on the news. I was just trying to help him out and let him understand that if you work hard and are honest, good things will come to you," Colleran said.
Evans told WSB he was still looking to pick up a part-time job to help his mom provide for their family. In the meantime, he hasn't let a single day slip by without playing his new PS5.
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https://abc7ny.com/eric-colleran-keonte-evans-georgia-trespasser-playstation-5/13577595/
| 2023-07-31T21:11:58
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BEIJING (AP) — China imposed restrictions Monday on exports of long-range civilian drones, citing Russia’s war in Ukraine and concern that drones might be converted to military use.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s government is friendly with Moscow but says it is neutral in the 17-month-old war. It has been stung by reports that both sides might be using Chinese-made drones for reconnaissance and possibly attacks.
Export controls will take effect Tuesday to prevent use of drones for “non-peaceful purposes,” the Ministry of Commerce said in a statement. It said some drone exports still will be allowed.
China is a leading developer and exporter of drones. DJI Technology Co., one of the global industry’s top competitors, announced in April 2022 it was pulling out of Russia and Ukraine to prevent its drones from being used in combat.
“The risk of some high specification and high-performance civilian unmanned aerial vehicles being converted to military use is constantly increasing,” the Ministry of Commerce said.
Restrictions will apply to drones that can fly beyond the natural sight distance of operators or stay aloft more than 30 minutes, have attachments that can throw objects and weigh more than 7 kilograms (15½ pounds), according to the ministry.
“Since the crisis in Ukraine, some Chinese civilian drone companies have voluntarily suspended their operations in conflict areas,” the Ministry of Commerce said. It accused the United States and Western media of spreading “false information” about Chinese drone exports.
The government on Friday defended its dealings with Russia as “normal economic and trade cooperation” after a U.S. intelligence report said Beijing possibly provided equipment used in Ukraine that might have military applications.
The report cited Russian customs data that showed Chinese state-owned military contractors supplied drones, navigation equipment, fighter jet parts and other goods.
The Biden administration has warned Beijing of unspecified consequences if it supports the Kremlin’s war effort. Last week’s report didn’t say whether any of the trade cited might trigger U.S. retaliation.
Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin declared before the February 2022 invasion that their governments had a “no-limits” friendship. Beijing has blocked efforts to censure Moscow in the United Nations and has repeated Russian justifications for the attack.
China has “always opposed the use of civilian drones for military purposes,” the Ministry of Commerce said. “The moderate expansion of drone control by China this time is an important measure to demonstrate the responsibility of a responsible major country.”
The Ukrainian government appealed to DJI in March 2022 to stop selling drones it said the Russian ministry was using to target missile attacks. DJI rejected claims it leaked data on Ukraine’s military positions to Russia.
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https://www.pahomepage.com/news/international/ap-china-imposes-curbs-on-drone-exports-citing-ukraine-and-concern-about-military-use/
| 2023-07-31T21:11:59
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WASHINGTON — Paul Reubens, the actor and comedian best known for his character Pee-wee Herman, has died at 70 years old after a years-long battle with cancer that he did not make public. The Monday announcement of his death was met with an immediate outpouring of grief from his friends and colleagues in the entertainment industry.
"Russian Doll" star Natasha Lyonne, who made her acting debut at 6 years old on the first season of "Pee-wee's Playhouse," shared images from the hit television series on social media.
"Love you so much, Paul. One in all time. Thank you for my career & your forever friendship all these years & for teaching us what a true original is," she wrote, adding several heart emojis and one emoji of a broken heart.
Lyonne was one of many actors and comedians who described Reubens as a friend or mentor, sharing photos or personal stories.
"No tweet can capture the magic, generosity, artistry, and devout silliness of Paul Reubens. Everyone I know received countless nonsensical memes from Paul on their birthday, and I mean EVERYONE. His surreal comedy and unrelenting kindness were a gift to us all. Damn, this hurts.
"Paul Reubens was like no one else - a brilliant and original comedian who made kids and their parents laugh at the same time. He never forgot a birthday and shared his genuine delight for silliness with everyone he met. My family and I will miss him."
"Paul Reubens was a great, great friend. He gave me the muppets for my birthday and never forgot anyone’s birthday from our class. He was in my class at CalArts and we had the same business manager. He was always kind to me and to everyone. He will be missed."
"Paul Reubens was a gifted performer and a nice person. He brought so much joy to people over the years as Pee Wee, my sister and I loved that character. I was privileged to work with him in a film and he was as great in real life as he was on screen. Tough news here."
"This is devastating. Truly heartbreaking. Paul was such a comedy genius. From his Letterman appearances to his TV shows and movies, he was so original and hilarious. And such a sweet man too. This is a huge loss for comedy. Thanks for all the laughs, Paul."
"One of the patron saints of all misfitted, weird, maladjusted, wonderful, miraculous oddities."
"One of the greats is gone. It is a very sad day. Thank you for the joy, @peeweeherman. Chris and I were so proud to call you friend. You will live in our hearts forever, Paul.
"The greatest. No one ever like him ever."
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https://www.kvue.com/article/news/nation-world/paul-reubens-death-fellow-comedians-actors-react/507-a2fda3a4-b718-4ac5-b043-7e28c12e4296
| 2023-07-31T21:12:00
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https://www.kvue.com/article/news/nation-world/paul-reubens-death-fellow-comedians-actors-react/507-a2fda3a4-b718-4ac5-b043-7e28c12e4296
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Five people were hurt after a runaway bull wreaked havoc in the streets of one city in Peru.
Dramatic video showed the bull chasing people through the streets of Ayacucho like it was Pamplona, Spain. The bull was even seen ramming into a woman.
The animal escaped from an arena during an event on Wednesday.
It took about 30 minutes for authorities to capture the bull.
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https://abc7ny.com/runaway-bull-peru-escapes-in-ayacucho-rams-woman/13570865/
| 2023-07-31T21:12:04
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https://abc7ny.com/runaway-bull-peru-escapes-in-ayacucho-rams-woman/13570865/
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GREENWICH, Connecticut (WABC) -- The Greenwich Department of Health is warming the public about Swimmer's Itch after receiving multiple reports at several area beaches.
Swimmer's Itch, also called cercarial dermatitis, appears as a skin rash caused by an allergic reaction to microscopic parasites that are released from snails into fresh and salt water.
Although humans are not the parasite's preferred host, they can come into contact with a swimmer and cause an allergic reaction and rash.
"Me and some of the other guards have been like bit, and like the little bugs get caught in your bathing suit and they like keep biting you," lifeguard Piper Dorsey said.
The rash is not contagious and cannot be spread from one person to another.
Children are more susceptible because they tend to wade for longer periods of time. Experts say to shower and towel dry immediately after a swim -- or avoid the water completely.
"It really could be from hours to even a few days afterwards, but again it would be an appearance of pimples or blisters, you would know, and it might be itchy," said Dr. Christopher Davison, the ER Medical Director at Greenwich Hospital.
The warning is especially frustrating for those who paid for the daily entrance fee and beach parking pass after there were no posted notifications alerting people of the possible risk.
Out-of-town resident Lauren Boccardi brought six family members to the beach on Monday. When she checked the water conditions on the town website, she saw nothing about Swimmer's Itch. She said had she known, their plans would have changed.
"We've got a lot of kids here and obviously we don't want to deal with any medical issues, especially on vacations," Boccardi said.
Swimmer's Itch symptoms
Swimmer's Itch treatment
Swimmer's Itch prevention
ALSO READ | NJ-bound flight from Boston re-routed after passenger allegedly threatened plane
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https://abc7ny.com/swimmers-itch-greenwich-connecticut-rash/13577648/
| 2023-07-31T21:12:05
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NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — A Cyprus court on Monday sentenced a British man who killed his ailing wife in their retirement home to two years in prison, rejecting a defense request to hand down a suspended sentence after convicting him earlier of manslaughter.
State prosecutor Andreas Hadjikyrou said the three-judge bench imposed the prison term as a “deterrent,” although the judges had earlier ruled that David Hunter’s decision to suffocate his wife Janice in December 2021 was made on the spur of the moment because he could no longer stand seeing her weeping in pain.
Hadjikyrou told The Associated Press the court took into account that Hunter, 76, acted “out of love” to save his wife, who was suffering from a blood ailment when he closed her mouth and nose with his hands as she sat in a recliner in their Paphos home.
It also took into consideration Hunter’s advanced age and that he had no previous criminal record.
Justice Abroad, a group that defends Britons facing legal troubles in foreign countries, said in a statement that Hunter could be released by Aug. 18 after already having spent more than 18 months in custody.
“This has been a tragic case and difficult for all of those involved with it, but today’s decision was the right one and allows David and his family to grieve together,” said Michael Polak from Justice Abroad.
Hunter had faced a charge of premeditated murder, but the court found in its July 21 ruling that the prosecution didn’t prove beyond a reasonable doubt that there was premeditation in his actions.
The court had accepted witness testimony that Janice feared her blood ailment would develop into full-blown leukemia and had repeatedly pleaded with her husband to take her life because she didn’t want to share the fate of her sister, who died of the disease.
Hunter attempted to take his own life by consuming a large amount of pills after suffocating his wife, but medical staff saved his life.
The court cited expert testimony that Janice Hunter suffered from myelodysplastic syndrome, a type of blood cancer which “to a large degree” — as much as 45% — could turn into leukemia, although there was no proof that she had indeed developed the disease because no definitive tests were conducted.
But the court said both husband and wife believed that Janice would develop it because of her sister’s fate.
David Hunter’s earlier assurances to Janice that he would help her fulfill her wish to end her life and not suffer anymore didn’t indicate any premeditation, the court said.
Hadjikyrou said defense lawyers had rejected a plea deal in December 2022 for the defendant to plead guilty to manslaughter because they insisted the facts of the case include an agreement Hunter and his wife allegedly made for him to take her life.
The state prosecutor said the court didn’t accept that such an agreement had indeed been made. He said the Cyprus attorney-general has 10 days to decide whether to appeal the sentence.
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https://www.pahomepage.com/news/international/ap-cyprus-court-hands-british-man-a-2-year-prison-term-for-killing-his-ailing-wife-to-spare-her-pain/
| 2023-07-31T21:12:06
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HONG KONG (AP) — The discovery of a whale carcass in Hong Kong waters Monday sparked an outpouring of grief on social media, with many comments blaming the mammal’s death on sightseers.
Many residents speculated that the dead mammal was the same whale that had been attracting groups of sightseers since it was first spotted in the city’s waters in mid-July.
Compass Chan, scientific officer of Ocean Park Conservation Foundation Hong Kong, didn’t confirm whether it was the same whale. But he said an initial check of the dead whale found a new wound on its back, in addition to two old wounds.
“It’s a pity,” Chan said at a media briefing. “I think it’s a good opportunity for everyone to think seriously about how we should get along with other species in nature.”
The whale’s cause of death would have to be confirmed by a necropsy, he said.
The carcass was in found in the waters in Sai Kung — a district known for its hiking trails, beaches and islands. Many residents blamed the death on sightseers who have flocked to those waters since a whale was spotted there about two weeks ago. Some posted a Canto-pop song whose title translates as “Whale Eater.”
The foundation had released a statement last week saying that crowds of people had been seen approaching the animal, which was believed to be a Bryde’s whale of about seven meters (23 feet) long. The foundation said at the time that the whale had propeller wounds and that nearby human activity could cause it stress and have life-threatening consequences.
The government said Monday night that the necropsy might take several days and that its results could help shape future policy for how to deal with whales in Hong Kong waters.
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https://www.pahomepage.com/news/international/ap-discovery-of-whale-carcass-in-hong-kong-sparks-anger-over-the-potential-damage-done-by-sightseers/
| 2023-07-31T21:12:13
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HONG KONG (AP) — A French man is believed to have fallen to his death from a high-rise residential building in Hong Kong last week, police said on Monday, with local media outlets identifying him as daredevil Remi Lucidi.
Police said a 30-year-old man’s body was found on a patio in the city’s upscale Mid-Levels area. He was believed to have engaged in extreme sports, police said, without identifying him.
Officers conducted an initial investigation and said he apparently fell from a rooftop. No suicide note was found at the scene, they said. The cause of his death would have to be verified by an autopsy, they added.
Local media, including the South China Morning Post, said the man was Lucidi, 30. The Post cited an unnamed source saying he was last seen alive knocking on a penthouse window on the 68th floor of a residential tower on Thursday evening. The Associated Press has not been able to verify his identity.
Lucidi, who used the name “Remi Enigma” on social media, last posted a photo of Hong Kong’s night view a week ago on Instagram and tagged the location as Times Square in shopping district Causeway Bay. The photo appeared to be taken from above.
Supporters mourned him on social media.
Lucidi posted to Instagram as he climbed various tall structures around the world and took selfies, including one he captioned, “Above the Sky, 425m” and tagged Dubai as the location.
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https://www.pahomepage.com/news/international/ap-french-daredevil-who-climbed-towers-around-world-believed-to-have-fallen-to-his-death-in-hong-kong/
| 2023-07-31T21:12:18
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https://www.pahomepage.com/news/international/ap-french-daredevil-who-climbed-towers-around-world-believed-to-have-fallen-to-his-death-in-hong-kong/
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Biden has decided to keep Space Command in Colorado, rejecting move to Alabama, officials tell AP
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has decided to keep U.S. Space Command headquarters in Colorado, overturning a last-ditch decision by the Trump administration to move it to Alabama and ending months of politically fueled debate, according to senior U.S. officials.
The officials said Biden was convinced by the head of Space Command, Gen. James Dickinson, who argued that moving his headquarters now would jeopardize military readiness. Dickinson’s view, however, was in contrast to Air Force leadership, who studied the issue at length and determined that relocating to Huntsville, Alabama, was the right move.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the decision ahead of the announcement.
The president, they said, believes that keeping the command in Colorado Springs would avoid a disruption in readiness that the move would cause, particularly as the U.S. races to compete with China in space. And they said Biden firmly believes that maintaining stability will help the military be better able to respond in space over the next decade. Those factors, they said, outweighed what the president believed would be any minor benefits of moving to Alabama.
Biden’s decision is sure to enrage Alabama lawmakers and fuel accusations that abortion politics played a role in the choice. The location debate has become entangled in the ongoing battle between Alabama Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville and the Defense Department over the move to provide travel for troops seeking reproductive health care. Tuberville opposed the policy is blocking hundreds of military promotions in protest.
The U.S. officials said the abortion issue had no effect at all on Biden’s decision. And they said the president fully expected there would be different views on the matter within the Defense Department.
Formally created in August 2019, the command was temporarily based in Colorado, and Air Force and Space Force leaders initially recommended it stay there. In the final days of his presidency Donald Trump decided it should be based in Huntsville.
The change triggered a number of reviews.
Proponents of keeping the command in Colorado have argued that moving it to Huntsville and creating a new headquarters would set back its progress at a time it needs to move quickly to be positioned to match China’s military space rise. And Colorado Springs is also home to the Air Force Academy, which now graduates Space Force guardians, and more than 24 military space missions, including three Space Force bases.
Officials also argued that any new headquarters in Alabama would not be completed until sometime after 2030, forcing a lengthy transition.
Huntsville, however, scored higher than Colorado Springs in a Government Accountability Office assessment of potential locations and has long been a home to some of earliest missiles used in the nation’s space programs, including the Saturn V rocket. It is home to the Army’s Space and Missile Defense Command.
According to officials, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, who ordered his own review of the matter, leaned toward Huntsville, while Dickinson was staunchly in favor of staying put. The officials said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin presented both options to Biden.
The decision was good news for Colorado lawmakers.
“For two and a half years we’ve known any objective analysis of this basing decision would reach the same conclusion we did, that Peterson Space Force Base is the best home for Space Command,” Sen. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., said in a statement. “Most importantly, this decision firmly rejects the idea that politics — instead of national security — should determine basing decisions central to our national security.”
Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., said the decision “restores integrity to the Pentagon’s basing process and sends a strong message that national security and the readiness of our Armed Forces drive our military decisions.”
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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https://www.cleveland19.com/2023/07/31/biden-has-decided-keep-space-command-colorado-rejecting-move-alabama-officials-tell-ap/
| 2023-07-31T21:12:22
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Country singer Craig Morgan reenlists in military while on Grand Ole Opry stage
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (Gray News) – Country singer Craig Morgan reenlisted in the military Saturday night while on stage at the Grand Ole Opry in hopes of encouraging others to enlist.
According to a news release, Morgan was sworn into the U.S. Army Reserve on stage by U.S. Army Forces Command Gen. Andrew Poppas.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn joined them on stage.
After the ceremony, Morgan returned to the microphone to perform his song “Soldier.”
Morgan previously served in the Army for 17 years, with certifications including Airborne, Air Assault and Rappel Master.
“I’m excited to once again serve my country and be all I can be in hopes of encouraging others to be a part of something greater than ourselves,” Morgan said in a news release. “I love being an artist, but I consider it a true privilege and honor to work with what I believe are the greatest of Americans, my fellow soldiers. God Bless America. Go Army.”
Morgan plans to continue touring and releasing new music while serving in the Army Reserve.
The 59-year-old singer is known to frequently perform at military bases both in the U.S. and abroad. In 2006, Morgan was awarded the USO Merit Award for his support.
Morgan began his music career in 2000. He is best known for his No. 1 single “That’s What I Love About Sunday” from 2004.
He was inducted as a member of the Grand Ole Opry in 2008.
Copyright 2023 Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
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https://www.kxii.com/2023/07/31/country-singer-craig-morgan-reenlists-military-while-grand-ole-opry-stage/
| 2023-07-31T21:12:22
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https://www.kxii.com/2023/07/31/country-singer-craig-morgan-reenlists-military-while-grand-ole-opry-stage/
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High prices ‘disproportionately pinching’ younger Americans, data shows
30% of Gen Z, 28% of millennials have no emergency savings
(InvestigateTV) — More than seven in 10 younger Americans are saving less because of inflation when compared to Gen X and baby boomers, a recent Bankrate.com survey found.
Sarah Foster is a principal writer for Bankrate.com. She said this is a time for younger Americans to be very mindful of how much they are spending and to hyper analyze their budgets.
Foster said the ultimate goal for Gen Z and millennials should be to make sure they are living within their means. She added there are several advantages to being young right now, especially when it comes to retirement contributions.
“Really the best way to gain wealth and beat inflation in the long run is to make sure that you’re holding a diverse portfolio of assets, including stocks,” Foster explained. “And so, we know that even if someone were to stop investing for three years because of inflation and they’re in their mid-twenties, they’d leave almost $200,000 on the table by the time they were 70.”
Foster said don’t stop retirement contributions during inflation. The amount can be reduced, but consistent contributions is key.
She said another reason younger Americans are being hit hard is they are early in their careers and haven’t reached their peak earnings.
Foster advised them to put any raises or extra money in savings or retirement accounts.
Bankrate has 11 tips for young Americans trying to reach financial goals during high inflation, including:
- Look for high-yield savings accounts that offer much better returns that traditional accounts
- Automate savings to build an emergency fund
- Wait 24 hours before any unnecessary purchases
Copyright 2023 Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
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https://www.kxii.com/2023/07/31/high-prices-disproportionately-pinching-younger-americans-data-shows/
| 2023-07-31T21:12:25
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Buttigieg touts progress in goal for half of new car sales to be electric vehicles
WASHINGTON (Gray DC) - Following an announcement of private investment plan for 30,000 new electric vehicle chargers across the United States, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said government investment has paved the way private companies to produce more electric cars.
“Federal investment to try and make up the difference where markets are still getting ready, and then the private sector, private industry, needs to do the rest,” Buttigieg said.
Leading global electric vehicle manufacturers, including Ford, General Motors and BMW have joined together to build 30,000 electric vehicle chargers across the country.
“When you fill up your gas car with gas you’re counting on private companies to set up for that,” Buttigieg said. “We really need private industry to play more of a roll in investing in and running these electric vehicle charging stations.”
The government has set aside $7.5 billion for states to create their own networks of EV chargers, but the Biden administration wants to guarantee things like price transparency, and guaranteeing a charger from one company works for another company’s vehicles.
“They are going to meet standards that we have set, and they’ll have to in order to qualify for federal support.”
Buttigieg said if the U.S. does not take the lead on electric vehicles, someone else will.
“There is a race, whether people realize it or not,” Buttigieg said. “Where in the middle of a heated race to win the future of electric vehicles.”
The federal money for EV charging networks comes from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law passed in 2021.
Copyright 2023 Gray DC. All rights reserved.
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https://www.cleveland19.com/2023/07/31/buttigieg-touts-progress-goal-half-new-car-sales-be-electric-vehicles/
| 2023-07-31T21:12:24
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https://www.cleveland19.com/2023/07/31/buttigieg-touts-progress-goal-half-new-car-sales-be-electric-vehicles/
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BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon’s embattled central bank governor stepped down on Monday under a cloud of investigation and blame for his country’s economic crisis as several European countries are probing his alleged financial crimes.
Riad Salameh, 73, ended his 30-year tenure as tearful employees took photos and a band played celebratory music with drums and trumpets as he left the building.
His four vice governors, led by incoming interim governor Wassim Mansouri, quickly pivoted to urge fiscal reforms for the cash-strapped country.
“We are at a crossroads,” Mansouri said at a news conference. “There is no choice, if we continue previous policy … the funds in the Central Bank will eventually dry up.”
Salameh kicked off his tenure as governor in 1993, three years after Lebanon’s 15-year civil war came to an end. It was a time when reconstruction loans and aid was pouring into the country, and Salameh was widely celebrated for his role in Lebanon’s recovery.
Now, he leaves his post a wanted man in Europe, accused by many in Lebanon of being responsible for the country’s financial downfall since late 2019.
It was a steep fall for a leader whose policies were once hailed for keeping the currency stable. Later, many financial experts saw him as setting up a house of cards that crumbled as the country’s supply of dollars dried up on top of decades of rampant and corruption and mismanagement from Lebanon’s ruling parties.
The crisis has pulverized the Lebanese pound and wiped out the savings of many Lebanese, as the banks ran dry of hard currency.
With the country’s banks crippled and public sector in ruins, Lebanon for years has run on a cash-based economy and relied primarily on tourism and remittances from millions in the diaspora.
Mansouri said previous policies that permitted the central bank to spend large sums on money to prop up the Lebanese state is no longer feasible. He cited years of spending billions of dollars to subsidize fuel, medicine, wheat and more to keep the value of the Lebanese pound stable.
He proposed a six-month reform plan that included passing long awaited reforms such as capital controls, a bank restructuring law, and the 2023 state budget.
“The country cannot continue without passing these laws,” Mansouri explained. “We don’t have time, and we paid a heavy price that we cannot pay anymore.”
The reforms Mansouri mentioned are among those the International Monetary Fund set as conditions on Lebanon in April 2022 for a bailout plan, though he did not mention the IMF. None have been passed.
France, Germany, and Luxembourg are investigating Salameh and his associates over myriad financial crimes, including illicit enrichment and the laundering of $330 million. Paris and Berlin issued Interpol notices to the central bank chief in May, though Lebanon does not hand over its citizens to foreign countries.
Salameh has repeatedly denied the allegations and insisted that his wealth comes from his previous job as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch, inherited properties, and investments. He has criticized the probe and said it was part of a media and political campaign to scapegoat him.
In his final interview as governor, Salameh said on Lebanese television that the responsibility for reforms lies with the government.
“Everything I did for the past 30 years was to try to serve Lebanon and the Lebanese,” he said. “Some — the majority —- were grateful, even if they don’t want to say so. And there are other people, well, may God forgive them.”
Salameh’s departure adds another gap in crisis-hit Lebanon’s withering and paralyzed institutions. The tiny Mediterranean country has been without a president for nine months, while its government has been running in a limited caretaker capacity for a year. Lebanon has also been without a top spy chief to head its General Security Directorate since March.
Lebanese officials in recent months were divided over whether Salameh should stay in his post or whether he should step down immediately in the remaining months of his tenure.
Caretaker Economy Minister Amin Salam wanted an immediate stepdown, given that the central bank chief had a “legal question mark.”
“I cannot explain anyone holding on to a person while a nation is failing unless there is something wrong or hidden,” Salam told The Associated Press.
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https://www.pahomepage.com/news/international/ap-lebanons-central-bank-governor-ends-30-year-tenure-under-investigation-during-dire-economic-crisis/
| 2023-07-31T21:12:25
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https://www.pahomepage.com/news/international/ap-lebanons-central-bank-governor-ends-30-year-tenure-under-investigation-during-dire-economic-crisis/
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Relationships may come and go, but tattoos are forever—well, sometime they are.
Nothing says you are committed to your romantic partner like getting their name inked on your body. And nada proves your romance is so over like covering up or completely removing the tribute after breaking up, which is something stars like Kaley Cuoco, Ariana Grande and Nick Cannon have had to do.
But not every celeb has decided to erase any trace of their exes: Harry Styles was recently photographed with a previously unseen "Olivia" tattoo, which could be a reference to his former girlfriend, Olivia Wilde. And, unlike a vow renewal on any Real Housewives series, matching tattoos don't always spell doom for a famous couple—just ask Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck and Taylor Lautner and wife Tay Lautner as both pairs sport ink in honor of their respective wedding dates.
Plus, one celeb has 70 tattoos in honor of his wife. Come on, who really needs flowers when your face is literally tattooed on your husband's arm?
So, prepare to face your fear of needles as we uncover all of these tattoos stars got in honor of their current and former lovers:
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https://www.eonline.com/news/1381788/forever-these-stars-got-tattooed-with-their-partners-names?cmpid=rss-syndicate-genericrss-us-top_stories
| 2023-07-31T21:12:27
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https://www.eonline.com/news/1381788/forever-these-stars-got-tattooed-with-their-partners-names?cmpid=rss-syndicate-genericrss-us-top_stories
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Country singer Craig Morgan reenlists in military while on Grand Ole Opry stage
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (Gray News) – Country singer Craig Morgan reenlisted in the military Saturday night while on stage at the Grand Ole Opry in hopes of encouraging others to enlist.
According to a news release, Morgan was sworn into the U.S. Army Reserve on stage by U.S. Army Forces Command Gen. Andrew Poppas.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn joined them on stage.
After the ceremony, Morgan returned to the microphone to perform his song “Soldier.”
Morgan previously served in the Army for 17 years, with certifications including Airborne, Air Assault and Rappel Master.
“I’m excited to once again serve my country and be all I can be in hopes of encouraging others to be a part of something greater than ourselves,” Morgan said in a news release. “I love being an artist, but I consider it a true privilege and honor to work with what I believe are the greatest of Americans, my fellow soldiers. God Bless America. Go Army.”
Morgan plans to continue touring and releasing new music while serving in the Army Reserve.
The 59-year-old singer is known to frequently perform at military bases both in the U.S. and abroad. In 2006, Morgan was awarded the USO Merit Award for his support.
Morgan began his music career in 2000. He is best known for his No. 1 single “That’s What I Love About Sunday” from 2004.
He was inducted as a member of the Grand Ole Opry in 2008.
Copyright 2023 Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
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https://www.cleveland19.com/2023/07/31/country-singer-craig-morgan-reenlists-military-while-grand-ole-opry-stage/
| 2023-07-31T21:12:28
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https://www.cleveland19.com/2023/07/31/country-singer-craig-morgan-reenlists-military-while-grand-ole-opry-stage/
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San Francisco prosecutors lay out murder case against consultant in death of Cash App’s Bob Lee
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — DNA from a bloody knife and video footage are crucial pieces of evidence against a tech consultant charged with murder in the stabbing death of Cash App founder Bob Lee, who was found bleeding on a deserted San Francisco street in April, prosecutors argued Monday.
The San Francisco prosecutor’s office began laying out its case against Nima Momeni, 38, at a preliminary hearing in which a judge will decide if there’s enough evidence to go to trial.
Prosecutors say Momeni planned the attack, drove Lee to a secluded spot and stabbed him three times after a dispute related to Momeni’s younger sister.
They have not spelled out a motive, but previously offered a timeline in a case that has drawn outsized media attention, partly due to Lee’s status in the tech world. Lee created Cash App, a mobile payment service, and was the chief product officer of the cryptocurrency MobileCoin.
Momeni, who has been in jail since his arrest April 13, has pleaded not guilty. He faces 26 years to life if convicted.
The arrest came more than a week after Lee, 43, was found in a deserted part of downtown San Francisco early April 4. He later died at a hospital.
On Monday morning, Assistant District Attorney Omid Talai introduced evidence, including photos of a knife that prosecutors say Momeni used to stab Lee, a trail of blood left by Lee as he staggered for help, and video footage showing the two men leave Momeni’s sister’s condo building before the stabbing.
Talai said at a May hearing that the weapon was part of a unique kitchen set belonging to his sister and that analysis showed Momeni’s DNA on the weapon’s handle and Lee’s DNA on the bloody blade. Police recovered a knife with a 4-inch (10-centimeter) blade at the scene.
Saam Zangeneh, one of Momeni’s lawyers, suggested to reporters Monday during a break that the investigation conducted by the San Francisco police was far from thorough.
He questioned why the rubber handle of the knife was tested for only DNA and not fingerprints. SFPD crime scene investigator Rosalyn Check said that it is difficult to get prints off rubber.
“When you want to see if someone’s touching something, you do fingerprint analysis, right?” he said. “And they weren’t done on the handle, which is the most important, relevant portion of who, if any, was handling that item.”
Zangeneh has yet to elaborate on the defendant’s version of events.
Momeni brought in Zangeneh and Bradford Cohen, both based in Florida. His first attorney, Paula Canny, withdrew in late May, citing a conflict of interest that she declined to disclose.
At prosecutors’ urging, Momeni has been held without bail. In arguing for release pending trial, Canny said that Momeni was not a flight risk and would not leave the two people he loves most, his sister and mother. She said Momeni needs to fight the charges or face deportation to Iran, a country that his mother fled when the children were younger to escape a violent husband.
An unnamed friend of Lee told homicide investigators they had been hanging out and drinking with Momeni’s sister the day before the stabbing, prosecutors said in their motion to deny bail.
The friend said Momeni later questioned Lee about whether his sister was doing drugs or otherwise engaging in inappropriate behavior and Lee said she had not.
Surveillance video showed Lee later entering the posh Millennium Tower downtown, where Momeni’s sister Khazar lives with her husband, prominent San Francisco plastic surgeon Dino Elyassnia. Video footage then showed Lee and Momeni leaving the building together shortly after 2 a.m. and driving off in Momeni’s car.
Lee was found shortly after 2:30 a.m. in the Rincon Hill neighborhood, which has tech offices and condominiums but little activity in the early morning hours.
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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| 2023-07-31T21:12:30
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Doctors concerned brain-eating amoeba infection could increase due to warmer water temperatures
PHOENIX (KPHO/Gray News) -- Some scientists predict brain-eating amoeba cases could grow since we’ve had record heat and water temperatures are increasing.
The amoeba, naegleria fowleri, can enter the body through the nose and travel to the brain, resulting in an infection. While cases are limited over the years, there have been multiple in Arizona at Lake Pleasant and Lake Mead.
Most recently in Nevada, a child died because of the disease.
Brain-eating amoeba is a microscopic parasite found in warm, fresh bodies of water like hot springs or lakes. You can’t get it by accidentally swallowing the water or through a cut. The only way to get infected is by getting it far up your nose by diving or cannonballing into a lake.
Although infection is rare, the disease has a 97% fatality rate since symptoms are common at first. The disease is usually only diagnosed when it’s in the late-stage and symptoms progress to more severe illness like hallucinations and seizures. By that point, it’s usually too late to treat the disease effectively.
There are only about 10 cases per year, but experts say because the amoebas live in warm, fresh bodies of water, they expect to see that number increase with rising temperatures.
Dr. Wassim Ballan, an infectious disease specialist at Phoenix Children’s Hospital, said there are concerns about cases rising, as well as a number of other infectious diseases.
“We are probably going to see a change in trends because of the climate changing and the temperatures rising,” Ballan said. “So there is a lot of concern in the infectious disease community about a lot of different infections, including amoebic infections becoming more common as the climate is warming.”
He also said parents who notice their child feeling unwell after a day of swimming should get them checked out right away. Early symptoms usually start five days after infection. They include sudden fever, headache, and stiff neck. Because the amoebas can only be deadly by entering through the nose, doctors recommend you not jump or dive into the water and instead hold your nose or wear nose clips. Or better yet, keep your head above water.
Digging in shallow water is also not advised since it stirs up the sediment where the amoeba live. It’s important to note there haven’t been any recent cases at Saguaro Lake. Since they started tracking the disease in 1962, there have been only 160 reported cases, so it’s infrequent. Still, Ballan said it isn’t worth the risk when prevention is so easy.
For more information on the naegleria fowleri, visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website.
Copyright 2023 KPHO/KTVK via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
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| 2023-07-31T21:12:30
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High prices ‘disproportionately pinching’ younger Americans, data shows
30% of Gen Z, 28% of millennials have no emergency savings
(InvestigateTV) — More than seven in 10 younger Americans are saving less because of inflation when compared to Gen X and baby boomers, a recent Bankrate.com survey found.
Sarah Foster is a principal writer for Bankrate.com. She said this is a time for younger Americans to be very mindful of how much they are spending and to hyper analyze their budgets.
Foster said the ultimate goal for Gen Z and millennials should be to make sure they are living within their means. She added there are several advantages to being young right now, especially when it comes to retirement contributions.
“Really the best way to gain wealth and beat inflation in the long run is to make sure that you’re holding a diverse portfolio of assets, including stocks,” Foster explained. “And so, we know that even if someone were to stop investing for three years because of inflation and they’re in their mid-twenties, they’d leave almost $200,000 on the table by the time they were 70.”
Foster said don’t stop retirement contributions during inflation. The amount can be reduced, but consistent contributions is key.
She said another reason younger Americans are being hit hard is they are early in their careers and haven’t reached their peak earnings.
Foster advised them to put any raises or extra money in savings or retirement accounts.
Bankrate has 11 tips for young Americans trying to reach financial goals during high inflation, including:
- Look for high-yield savings accounts that offer much better returns that traditional accounts
- Automate savings to build an emergency fund
- Wait 24 hours before any unnecessary purchases
Copyright 2023 Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
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| 2023-07-31T21:12:31
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There's nothing holdin' Shawn Mendes back from a day at the beach—not even a shirt.
The "Mercy" singer was all-smiles during a boating trip with friends off the coast of Ibiza, Spain on July 28. Clad only a pair of olive green swim trunks, Shawn showed off his rock hard abs as he soaked up the sun on the yacht's deck.
At one point in the day, the 24-year-old cooled down by taking a dive from the boat into the crystal blue waters. He then returned to the deck, where he pulled out his phone and proceeded to show something to his pals.
The sunny outing comes exactly one year after Shawn canceled the remainder of his Wonder World Tour, which was initially scheduled to run until August 2023, in order to focus on his mental health and, as he put it, "come back stronger."
"I unfortunately have to cancel the rest of the tour dates in North America, and the UK/Europe," he explained in a statement last July. "We were hopeful that I might be able to pick up with the rest of the dates after some much needed time off, but this time I have to put my health as my first priority."
Since then, Shawn has been doing a lot of introspective work. "A lot of doing therapy, a lot of trying to understand how I was feeling and what was making me feel that way," he explained to The Wall Street Journal in February. "And then doing the work to help myself and heal. And also leaning on people in my life to help a little bit."
Describing it as "the most eye-opening and growing and beautiful and just healing process of my life," the musician added, "I'm also really grateful for all the people that were so accepting and loving and kind and understanding."
His touring hiatus also included a reconciliation with ex Camila Cabello. In April, he was spotted kissing the Fifth Harmony alum at Coachella, before joining Camila in New York City the following month to catch Taylor Swift at The Eras Tour. Alas, they haven't been spotted together since.
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| 2023-07-31T21:12:33
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BANGKOK (AP) — Myanmar’s military-controlled government has extended the state of emergency it imposed when the army seized power from an elected government 2 1/2 years ago, state-run media said Monday, forcing a further delay in elections it promised when it took over.
MRTV television said the National Defense and Security Council met Monday in the capital, Naypyitaw, and extended the state of emergency for another six months starting Tuesday because time is needed to prepare for the elections. The NDSC is nominally a constitutional government body, but in practice is controlled by the military.
The announcement amounted to an admission that the army does not exercise enough control to stage the polls and has failed to subdue widespread opposition to military rule, which includes increasingly challenging armed resistance as well as nonviolent protests and civil disobedience, despite the army having a huge advantage in manpower and weapons.
The state of emergency was declared when troops arrested Aung San Suu Kyi and top officials from her government and members of her National League for Democracy party on Feb. 1, 2021. The takeover reversed years of progress toward democracy after five decades of military rule in Myanmar.
The military said it seized power because of fraud in the last general election held in November 2020, in which Suu Kyi’s party won a landslide victory while the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development party did poorly. Independent election observers said they did not find any major irregularities.
The army takeover was met with widespread peaceful protests that security forces suppressed with lethal force, triggering armed resistance that U.N. experts have described as a civil war.
As of Monday, 3,857 people have been killed by the security forces since the takeover, according to a tally kept by the independent Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.
The army-enacted 2008 constitution allows the military to rule the country under a state of emergency for one year, with two possible six-month extensions if preparations are not yet completed for new polls, meaning that the time limit expired on Jan. 31 this year.
However, the NDSC allowed the military government to extend emergency rule for another six months in February, saying the country remained in an abnormal situation. The announcement on Monday is the fourth extension.
The state of emergency allows the military to assume all government functions, giving the head of the ruling military council, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, legislative, judicial and executive powers.
Nay Phone Latt, a spokesperson for the National Unity Government, an underground group that calls itself the country’s legitimate government and serves as an opposition umbrella group, said the extension of emergency rule was expected because the military government hasn’t been able to annihilate the pro-democracy forces.
“The junta extended the state of emergency because the generals have a lust for power and don’t want to lose it. As for the revolutionary groups, we will continue to try to speed up our current revolutionary activities,” Nay Phone Latt said in a message Monday.
The military government labels the NUG and its armed wing, the People’s Defense Forces, as “terrorists.”
Monday’s report did not specify when the polls might be held, saying only that they would occur after the goals of the state of emergency are accomplished.
According to the constitution, the military must transfer government functions to the president, who heads the NDSC, six months before the polls. That would mean Acting President Myint Swe, a retired general.
The military originally announced that new polls would be held a year after its takeover and later said they would take place in August 2023. But the extension of the emergency in February made that timing impossible.
The MRTV report said Myint Swe told members of the NDSC that the government needs to do more to achieve stability and the rule of law to prepare for the election.
Critics say the polls will be neither free nor fair under the military-controlled government, which has shut independent media and arrested most of the leaders of Suu Kyi’s party.
Her party was dissolved along with 39 other parties by the election commission in March for failing to re-apply under a political party registration law enacted by the military government early this year. The law makes it difficult for opposition groups to mount a serious challenge to army-backed candidates.
Suu Kyi, 78, is serving prison sentences totaling 33 years after being convicted in a series of politically tainted cases brought mostly by the military government.
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| 2023-07-31T21:12:32
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As work begins on the largest US dam removal project, tribes look to a future of growth
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The largest dam removal project in United States history is underway along the California-Oregon border — a process that won’t conclude until the end of next year with the help of heavy machinery and explosives.
But in some ways, removing the dams is the easy part. The hard part will come over the next decade as workers, partnering with Native American tribes, plant and monitor nearly 17 billion seeds as they try to restore the Klamath River and the surrounding land to what it looked like before the dams started to go up more than a century ago.
The demolition is part of a national movement to return the natural flow of the nation’s rivers and restore habitat for fish and the ecosystems that sustain other wildlife. More than 2,000 dams have been removed in the U.S. as of February, with the bulk of those having come down within the last 25 years, according to the advocacy group American Rivers.
When demolition is completed by the end of next year, more than 400 miles (644 kilometers) of river will have opened for threatened species of fish and other wildlife. By comparison, the 65 dams removed in the U.S. last year combined to reconnect 430 miles (692 kilometers) of river.
Along the Klamath, the dam removals won’t be a major hit to the power supply; they produced less than 2% of power company PacifiCorp’s energy generation when they were running at full capacity -- enough to power about 70,000 homes. Though the hydroelectric power produced by dams is considered a clean, renewable source of energy, many larger dams in the U.S. West have become a target for environmental groups and tribes because of the harm they cause to fish and river ecosystems.
The project will empty three reservoirs over about 3.5 square miles (9 square kilometers) near the California-Oregon border, exposing soil to sunlight in some places for the first time in more than a century.
For the past five years, Native American tribes have gathered seeds by hand and sent them to nurseries with plans to sow the seeds along the banks of the newly wild river. Helicopters will bring in hundreds of thousands of trees and shrubs to plant along the banks, including wads of tree roots to create habitat for fish.
This growth usually takes decades to happen naturally. But officials are pressing nature’s fast-forward button because they hope to repel an invasion of foreign plants, such as starthistle, which dominate the landscape at the expense of native plants.
“Why not just let nature take its course? Well, nature didn’t take its course when dams got put in. We can’t pretend this gigantic change in the landscape has not happened and we can’t just ignore the fact that invasive species are a big problem in the west and in California,” said Dave Meurer, director of community affairs for Resource Environmental Solutions, the company leading the restoration project.
PacifiCorp built the dams starting in 1918 to generate electricity. The dams halted the natural flow of the river and disrupted the lifecycle of salmon, a fish that spends most of its life in the Pacific Ocean but returns to the chilly mountain streams to lay eggs. The fish are culturally and spiritually significant to a number of Native American tribes, who historically survived by fishing the massive runs of salmon that would come back to the rivers each year.
A combination of low water levels and warm temperatures in 2002 led to a bacterial outbreak that killed more than 34,000 fish, mostly Chinook salmon. The loss jumpstarted decades of advocacy from Native American tribes and environmental groups, culminating last year when federal regulators approved a plan to remove the dams.
“The river is our church, the salmon is our cross. That’s how it relates to the people. So it’s very sacred to us,” said Kenneth Brink, vice chairman of the Karuk Tribe. “The river is not just a place we go to swim. It’s life. It creates everything for our people.”
The project will cost $500 million, paid for by taxpayers and PacifiCorps ratepayers. Crews have mostly removed the smallest of the four dams, known as Copco No. 2. The other three dams are expected to come down next year. That will leave some homeowners in the area without the picturesque lake they have lived on for years.
The Siskiyou County Water Users Association, which formed about a decade ago to stop the dam removal project, filed a federal lawsuit. But so far they have been unable to stop the demolition.
“Unfortunately it’s a mistake you can’t turn back from,” association President Richard Marshall said.
The water level in the lakes will drop between 3 feet and 5 feet (1 meter to 1.5 meters) per day over the first few months of next year. Crews will follow that water line, taking advantage of the moisture in the soil to plant seeds from more than 98 native plant species including wooly sunflower, Idaho fescue and Blue bunch wheat grass.
Tribes have been invested in the process from the start. Resource Environmental Solutions hired tribal members to gather seeds from native plants by hand. The Yurok Tribe even hired a restoration botanist.
Each species has a role to play. Some, like lupine, grow quickly and prepare the soil for other plants. Others, like oak trees, take years to fully mature and provide shade for other plants.
“It’s a wonderful marriage of tribal traditional ecological knowledge and western science,” said Mark Bransom, CEO of the Klamath River Renewal Corporation, the nonprofit entity created to oversee the project.
The previous largest dam removal project was on Washington state’s Elwha River, which flows out of Olympic National Park into the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Congress in 1992 approved the demolition of the two dams on the river constructed in the early 1900s. After two decades of planning, workers finished removing them in 2014, opening about 70 miles (113 kilometers) of habitat for salmon and steelhead.
Biologists say it will take at least a generation for the river to recover, but within months of the dams being removed, salmon were already recolonizing sections of the river they had not accessed in more than a century. The Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, which has been closely involved in restoration work, is opening a limited subsistence fishery this fall for coho salmon, its first since the dams came down.
Brink, the Karuk Tribe vice chair, hopes similar success will happen on the Klamath River. Multiple times per year, Brink and other tribal members participate in ceremonial salmon fishing using handheld nets. In many years, there have been no fish to catch, he said.
“When the river gets to flow freely again, the people can also begin to worship freely again,” he said.
___
Associated Press writer Eugene Johnson in Seattle contributed.
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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| 2023-07-31T21:12:36
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Cynthia Bailey knows exactly what Kyle Richards is going through.
So, after enduring two public divorces of her own, The Real Housewives of Atlanta alum is sharing some advice for her Bravo bestie amid troubles in Kyle's marriage to husband of 27 years Mauricio Umansky.
"I just think, at the end of the day, if it doesn't bring you peace and happiness, then you guys should really have that real conversation and go from there," Cynthia exclusively told E! News at Jill Zarin's Luxury Luncheon Benefitting the Bobby Zarin Memorial Trust hosted by Ticket2Events. "I adore Kyle. I adore Mauricio. I think that they have, from what I can tell, an amazing relationship, a beautiful family. I always root for people to work it out. But I feel like at the end of the day, whatever's going to make them both happy is what I support."
And while Cynthia has talked to her former Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip costar since divorce rumors surfaced, they've kept the conversation light.
"I'm the kind of person, when people are going through things, I kind of try to respect their space," she said. "And when I see her it's like, 'Hey, I'm here for you, whenever you need me.'"
But whatever happens, Cynthia added, "I think she's going to be fine."
In early July, Kyle and Mauricio—who share daughters Alexia, 27, Sophia, 23, and Portia, 15, as well as her daughter Farrah, 34, from a previous marriage—issued a joint statement denying they are divorcing after more than two decades together. Though they did acknowledge their marriage isn't so perfect.
"Any claims regarding us divorcing are untrue," the longtime couple wrote on Instagram on July 4. "However, yes, we have had a rough year, the most challenging one of our marriage. But we both love and respect each other tremendously. There has been no wrongdoing on anyone's part."
As for Cynthia's love life? She is still searching for Mr. Right after her divorce from Mike Hill last year.
"I am officially, officially, officially single," she said. "I am enjoying dating. I have not met anyone that I am ready to get serious with, but I'm having a really, really good time."
(E! and Bravo are both part of the NBCUniversal family)
—Reporting by Nikaline Katsilometes
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| 2023-07-31T21:12:39
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BEIJING (AP) — A zoo in eastern China is denying suggestions some of its bears might be people in costumes after photos of the animals standing like humans circulated online.
The sun bears from Malaysia are smaller than other bears and look different but are the real thing, the Hangzhou Zoo said Monday on its social media account.
“Some people think I stand like a person,” said the posting, written from the bear’s point of view. “It seems you don’t understand me very well.”
An employee who answered the phone at the zoo declined to talk about the bears but said visits were being arranged for reporters Monday to see them.
Internet users questioned whether the zoo’s bears were real after photos circulated showing one standing upright on slender hind legs.
“Because of the way they stand, some people online question whether they are ‘humans in disguise,’” the newspaper Hangzhou Daily said.
Sun bears are the size of large dogs, standing at most 1.3 meters (50 inches) tall on their hind legs, compared with up to 2.8 meters (9 feet) for grizzlies and other species, according to the zoo.
Other Chinese zoos have been accused of trying to pass off dogs dyed to look like wolves or African cats, and donkeys painted to look like zebras.
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| 2023-07-31T21:12:40
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‘I’ll be able to walk again’: 6-year-old shot in road rage incident confident about her future
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE/Gray News) – A 6-year-old’s life may be changed forever after she was shot in the back during a road rage incident on July 10, but that’s not crushing the young girl’s spirit.
Onyx, 6, was in the car with her family when a road rage incident with a group of motorcyclists in Kentucky led to a shooting.
A bullet went through the girl’s back and she had to have emergency surgery.
Onyx has been recovering since and may never walk again. Being in a wheelchair is her new reality.
“I really liked going through the hallways to test it out,” Onyx said, talking about her wheelchair. “I wanted to do it again and then I did.”
The 6-year-old who just wants to dance and play is finding comfort in doing donuts in her wheelchair.
Onyx said she remembers leaving the park on July 10, getting in the car and the moment when she was shot.
“I remember getting carried into the hospital,” she recalled.
Those chain of events left Onyx’s mother, Chyna Sands, with the task of telling her daughter her new reality.
Sands said she told Onyx the bullet severed her back and she can’t use her legs like she used to – a conversation that is still setting in for the young girl.
She’s had to explain to Onyx that she must be in a wheelchair because she can’t walk.
But Onyx didn’t let this get her down too much. She said she is tired of people saying what she can’t do. To her, she has no doubt about what the future holds.
“I’ll be able to walk again, I know I will,” Onyx said with confidence. “I believe that I will be able to walk again.”
That mindset is what Sands says keeps her going.
As of right now, no one has been charged for the shooting which keeps Sands on edge.
“They want me to be patient, but I am out of patience,” Sands said. “I would like to see justice for an innocent 6-year-old who was minding her own business.”
While those responsible are out free, small things like getting into a car are now triggers of trauma.
“Because I got shot in the back, and I’m a little bit scared to get in the car because it brings back the memories,” Onyx said.
Hearing Onyx say that is a hard pill to swallow for a mother that loves to travel everywhere with her daughter.
“As her mom, I’m used to being her superhero,” Sands said. “I fix all of her problems and that’s something that I can’t fix.”
Copyright 2023 WAVE via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
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| 2023-07-31T21:12:42
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PYEONGTAEK, South Korea (AP) — The dogs bark and stare as Kim Jong-kil approaches the rusty cages housing the large, short-haired animals he sells for their meat. Kim opens a door and pets one dog’s neck and chest.
Kim says he’s proud of the dog meat farm that has supported his family for 27 years, but is upset over growing attempts by politicians and activists to outlaw the business, which he is turning over to his children.
“It’s more than just feeling bad. I absolutely oppose these moves, and we’ll mobilize all our means to resist it,” Kim, 57, said in an interview at his farm in Pyeongtaek city, just south of Seoul.
Dog meat consumption is a centuries-old practice on the Korean Peninsula and has long been viewed as a source of stamina on hot summer days. It’s neither explicitly banned nor legalized in South Korea, but more and more people want it prohibited. There’s increasing public awareness of animal rights and worries about South Korea’s international image.
The anti-dog meat campaign recently received a big boost when the country’s first lady expressed her support for a ban and two lawmakers submitted bills to eliminate the dog meat trade.
“Foreigners think South Korea is a cultural powerhouse. But the more K-culture increases its international standing, the bigger shock foreigners experience over our dog meat consumption,” said Han Jeoungae, an opposition lawmaker who submitted legislation to outlaw the dog meat industry last month.
Prospects for passage of an anti-dog meat law are unclear because of protests by farmers, restaurant owners and others involved in the dog meat industry. Surveys suggest that one in three South Koreans opposes such a ban, though most people don’t eat dog meat anymore.
Dogs are also eaten in China, Vietnam, Indonesia, North Korea and some African countries, including Ghana, Cameroon, Congo and Nigeria.
Earlier this month, Indonesian authorities announced the end of dog and cat slaughter at an animal market on the island of Sulawesi following a yearslong campaign by local activists and world celebrities. The Tomohon Extreme Market will become the first such market in Indonesia to go dog and cat meat-free, according to the anti-animal cruelty group Humane Society International.
South Korea’s dog meat industry receives more international attention because of its reputation as a wealthy, ultra-modern democracy. It is also the only nation with industrial-scale farms. Most farms in South Korea have more than 500 dogs, according to a dog farmers’ association.
During a recent visit, Kim’s farm, one of the country’s largest with 7,000 dogs, appeared relatively clean but there was a strong stench in some areas. All dogs are kept in elevated cages and are fed with food waste and ground chicken. They are rarely released for exercise and typically are sold for meat one year after they are born.
Kim said two of his children, age 29 and 31, are running the farm with him, and that business has been going pretty well. He said the dogs bred for their meat are different from pets, an idea opposed by activists.
It’s difficult now to find dog meat restaurants in Seoul’s bustling downtown, though many still exit in the countryside.
“I only earn one-third of the money I used to make. Young people don’t come here. Only ailing old people come for lunch,” said Yoon Chu-wol, 77, the owner of a dog meat restaurant in Seoul’s Kyungdong traditional market. “I tell my elderly customers to come and eat my food more frequently before it’s banned.”
Farmers also face growing scrutiny from officials and increasingly negative public opinion. They complain that officials visit them repeatedly in response to complaints filed by activists and citizens over alleged animal abuse and other wrongdoing. Kim said more than 90 such petitions were filed against his farm during a recent four-month span.
Son Won Hak, general secretary of the dog farmers’ association, said many farms have collapsed in recent years because of falling dog meat prices and weaker demand. He thinks that’s a result of activist campaigns and unfair media reports focusing on farms with inferior conditions. Some observers, however, say consumption of dog meat was already declining, with younger people staying away from it.
“Quite honestly, I’d like to quit my job (as a farmer) tomorrow. We can’t confidently tell our children that we’re raising dogs,” Son said. “When my friends called me, they said ‘Hey, are you still running a dog meat farm? Isn’t it illegal?’”
The number of farms across South Korea has dropped by half from a few years ago to about 3,000 to 4,000, and about 700,000 to 1 million dogs are slaughtered each year, a decline from several million 10 to 20 years ago, according to the dog farmers’ association. Some activists argue that the farmers’ estimates are an exaggeration meant to show their industry is too big to destroy.
In late 2021, South Korea launched a government-civilian task force to consider outlawing dog meat at the suggestion of then-President Moon Jae-in, a pet lover. The committee, whose members include farmers and animal rights activists, has met more than 20 times but hasn’t reached any agreement, apparently because of disputes over compensation issues.
Agriculture officials refused to disclose the discussions in the closed-door meetings. They said the government wants to end dog meat consumption based on a public consensus.
In April, first lady Kim Keon Hee, the wife of current President Yoon Suk Yeol, said in a meeting with activists that she hopes for an end to dog meat consumption. Famers responded with rallies and formal complaints against Kim for allegedly hurting their livelihoods.
Han, the lawmaker, said she “highly positively appraises” influential figures speaking out against dog meat consumption.
Han said her bill offers support programs for farmers who agree to close their farms. They would be entitled to money to dismantle their facilities, vocational training, employment assistance and other benefits, she said.
Ju Yeongbong, an official of the farmers’ association, said farmers want to continue for about 20 more years until older people, their main customers, die, allowing the industry to naturally disappear. Observers say most farmers are also in their 60s to 70s.
Borami Seo, a director of the South Korea office of the Humane Society International, said she opposes the continued killing of millions of dogs for such a prolonged period. “Letting this silent cruelty to (dogs) be committed in South Korea doesn’t make sense,” Seo said.
“(Dog meat consumption) is too anachronistic, has elements of cruelty to animals and hinders our national growth,” said Cheon JinKyung, head of Korea Animal Rights Advocates in Seoul.
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Jury poised to deliberate death penalty or life sentence for gunman in Pittsburgh synagogue massacre
PITTSBURGH (AP) — A jury is set to deliberate whether to impose the death penalty or a sentence of life in prison without parole on a man who spewed antisemitic hate before fatally shooting 11 worshippers at a synagogue in the heart of Pittsburgh’s Jewish community.
The same jurors who convicted 50-year-old Robert Bowers in June on 63 criminal counts listened to closing arguments Monday in the penalty phase of his federal trial, held nearly five years after the truck driver from suburban Baldwin perpetrated the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history.
The extent to which mental illness and Bowers’ difficult childhood played a role in the massacre dominated the lawyers’ arguments for and against capital punishment.
Speaking for the government, U.S. Attorney Eric Olshan said Bowers was clearly motivated by religious hatred when he entered the Tree of Life synagogue on Oct. 27, 2018, and opened fire with an AR-15 rifle, shooting everyone he could find.
The gunman raved incessantly on social media about his hatred of Jewish people — using a slur for Jewish people some 400 times on a platform favored by the far right — and remains proud that he killed Jews, the prosecutor reminded jurors.
“Do not be numb to it. Remember what it means. This defendant targeted people solely because of the faith that they chose,” Olshan said.
He added: “This is a case that calls for the most severe punishment under the law: the death penalty.”
Bowers’ lead defense attorney, Judy Clarke, acknowledged the horror of his crimes but urged jurors to opt for mercy and a life sentence.
Bowers’ attorneys have argued that he has schizophrenia, a serious brain disorder whose symptoms include delusions and hallucinations, and that Bowers attacked the synagogue out of a delusional belief that Jews were helping to bring about a genocide of white people by coming to the aid of refugees and immigrants. On Monday, Clarke recounted Bowers’ history of psychiatric hospitalizations, including an extended stay in a residential juvenile mental health program.
The defense also presented evidence of Bowers’ difficult childhood.
“What has happened cannot be undone. We can’t rewind the clock and make it that this senseless crime never happened. All we can do is make the right decision going forward. We are asking you to make the right decision, and that is life,” Clarke said in her closing argument.
A life sentence would mean that “prison is where Mr. Bowers will die in obscurity, not as a hero and not as a martyr,” she said.
Olshan, the prosecutor, disputed the defense experts’ diagnosis of schizophrenia, asserting that Bowers was not suffering psychosis but had chosen to believe white supremacist rhetoric. And while acknowledging that Bowers was a depressed, neglected child, Olshan downplayed the significance of it, noting that Bowers had held jobs, paid bills, and was an otherwise functioning adult.
“He was not a child, he was a grown man. He was responsible for his actions, not his family and things that happened decades earlier. He was, he is responsible for his actions,” Olshan said.
Clarke retorted that “childhood matters.”
“It defies reality to say he got better, he’s fine, he’s just an evil guy. What it does is reflects a complete misunderstanding of serious mental illness,” she said.
In order to impose death, jurors must find that aggravating circumstances, which make the crime especially heinous, outweigh mitigating factors that could be seen as diminishing his culpability. Those aggravating circumstances could include the vulnerability of Bowers’ elderly and disabled victims and his targeting of Jewish people.
Olshan played a composite of 911 calls made from inside the synagogue, including audio of people being shot and a survivor’s horrified screams.
He said Bowers had taken “11 people, 11 full lives, 11 people who loved their families, 11 people who loved their friends, 11 people who were loved. ... How do you measure the impact of all of that loss?”
The prosecutor spoke about 75-year-old Joyce Fienberg’s care for her family and 65-year-old Richard Gottfried’s devotion to his faith. He said Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz, 66, had the ethos of a country doctor: “He loved delivering babies but he never delivered judgment.” David Rosenthal, 54, and Cecil Rosenthal, 59, intellectually disabled brothers, “loved life,” Olshan said. “But maybe more than anything, they loved Tree of Life.”
The other deceased victims were Rose Mallinger, 97; Bernice Simon, 84, and her husband, Sylvan Simon, 86; Dan Stein, 71; Melvin Wax, 87; and Irving Younger, 69.
The attack also wounded seven people, including five responding police officers. Bowers was shot three times before surrendering when he ran out of ammunition.
___
Rubinkam reported from northeastern Pennsylvania.
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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San Francisco prosecutors lay out murder case against consultant in death of Cash App’s Bob Lee
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — DNA from a bloody knife and video footage are crucial pieces of evidence against a tech consultant charged with murder in the stabbing death of Cash App founder Bob Lee, who was found bleeding on a deserted San Francisco street in April, prosecutors argued Monday.
The San Francisco prosecutor’s office began laying out its case against Nima Momeni, 38, at a preliminary hearing in which a judge will decide if there’s enough evidence to go to trial.
Prosecutors say Momeni planned the attack, drove Lee to a secluded spot and stabbed him three times after a dispute related to Momeni’s younger sister.
They have not spelled out a motive, but previously offered a timeline in a case that has drawn outsized media attention, partly due to Lee’s status in the tech world. Lee created Cash App, a mobile payment service, and was the chief product officer of the cryptocurrency MobileCoin.
Momeni, who has been in jail since his arrest April 13, has pleaded not guilty. He faces 26 years to life if convicted.
The arrest came more than a week after Lee, 43, was found in a deserted part of downtown San Francisco early April 4. He later died at a hospital.
On Monday morning, Assistant District Attorney Omid Talai introduced evidence, including photos of a knife that prosecutors say Momeni used to stab Lee, a trail of blood left by Lee as he staggered for help, and video footage showing the two men leave Momeni’s sister’s condo building before the stabbing.
Talai said at a May hearing that the weapon was part of a unique kitchen set belonging to his sister and that analysis showed Momeni’s DNA on the weapon’s handle and Lee’s DNA on the bloody blade. Police recovered a knife with a 4-inch (10-centimeter) blade at the scene.
Saam Zangeneh, one of Momeni’s lawyers, suggested to reporters Monday during a break that the investigation conducted by the San Francisco police was far from thorough.
He questioned why the rubber handle of the knife was tested for only DNA and not fingerprints. SFPD crime scene investigator Rosalyn Check said that it is difficult to get prints off rubber.
“When you want to see if someone’s touching something, you do fingerprint analysis, right?” he said. “And they weren’t done on the handle, which is the most important, relevant portion of who, if any, was handling that item.”
Zangeneh has yet to elaborate on the defendant’s version of events.
Momeni brought in Zangeneh and Bradford Cohen, both based in Florida. His first attorney, Paula Canny, withdrew in late May, citing a conflict of interest that she declined to disclose.
At prosecutors’ urging, Momeni has been held without bail. In arguing for release pending trial, Canny said that Momeni was not a flight risk and would not leave the two people he loves most, his sister and mother. She said Momeni needs to fight the charges or face deportation to Iran, a country that his mother fled when the children were younger to escape a violent husband.
An unnamed friend of Lee told homicide investigators they had been hanging out and drinking with Momeni’s sister the day before the stabbing, prosecutors said in their motion to deny bail.
The friend said Momeni later questioned Lee about whether his sister was doing drugs or otherwise engaging in inappropriate behavior and Lee said she had not.
Surveillance video showed Lee later entering the posh Millennium Tower downtown, where Momeni’s sister Khazar lives with her husband, prominent San Francisco plastic surgeon Dino Elyassnia. Video footage then showed Lee and Momeni leaving the building together shortly after 2 a.m. and driving off in Momeni’s car.
Lee was found shortly after 2:30 a.m. in the Rincon Hill neighborhood, which has tech offices and condominiums but little activity in the early morning hours.
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A state-run oil giant in the United Arab Emirates said Monday it has moved up its target for achieving net zero emissions in its operations to 2045, as the country prepares to host U.N. climate talks later this year.
The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, known as ADNOC, said it is also committed to acheiving zero methane emissions by 2030. Methane is a greenhouse gas that is 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide in the short term.
Earlier this year, ADNOC earmarked $15 billion for an array of green initiatives, including the development of hydrogen power, carbon capture facilities and the planting of mangroves.
The company had previously committed to net zero — the balancing of greenhouse gas emissions to the point that the amount removed from the atmosphere is equal to the amount emitted — by 2050.
The UAE, an OPEC member that produces over 3 million barrels of crude oil a day, will host the global climate talks known as COP28 from Nov. 30 to Dec. 12 in Dubai. It has appointed Sultan al-Jaber, the head of ADNOC, to chair the meeting, a move that drew criticism from some environmentalists.
Al-Jaber has emphasized the need to cut emissions, rather than end fossil fuel use itself. It’s prompted fears that he might seek loopholes for untested carbon-capture technologies and so-called offsets that experts say distract from the need to end the release of greenhouse gases.
Governments agreed eight years ago in Paris to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) — ideally no more than 1.5C (2.7F). With average global temperatures already about 1.2C (2.2F) above pre-industrial levels, experts say the window to meet the more ambitious target is closing fast and even the less stringent goal would be missed if emissions aren’t slashed sharply soon.
The UAE, a global hub for business and tourism, has pledged to be carbon neutral by 2050 — a target that remains difficult to assess and one that authorities haven’t fully explained how they’ll reach. Analysts believe the Emirates is trying to maximize its profits as the world turns to renewables.
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As work begins on the largest US dam removal project, tribes look to a future of growth
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The largest dam removal project in United States history is underway along the California-Oregon border — a process that won’t conclude until the end of next year with the help of heavy machinery and explosives.
But in some ways, removing the dams is the easy part. The hard part will come over the next decade as workers, partnering with Native American tribes, plant and monitor nearly 17 billion seeds as they try to restore the Klamath River and the surrounding land to what it looked like before the dams started to go up more than a century ago.
The demolition is part of a national movement to return the natural flow of the nation’s rivers and restore habitat for fish and the ecosystems that sustain other wildlife. More than 2,000 dams have been removed in the U.S. as of February, with the bulk of those having come down within the last 25 years, according to the advocacy group American Rivers.
When demolition is completed by the end of next year, more than 400 miles (644 kilometers) of river will have opened for threatened species of fish and other wildlife. By comparison, the 65 dams removed in the U.S. last year combined to reconnect 430 miles (692 kilometers) of river.
Along the Klamath, the dam removals won’t be a major hit to the power supply; they produced less than 2% of power company PacifiCorp’s energy generation when they were running at full capacity -- enough to power about 70,000 homes. Though the hydroelectric power produced by dams is considered a clean, renewable source of energy, many larger dams in the U.S. West have become a target for environmental groups and tribes because of the harm they cause to fish and river ecosystems.
The project will empty three reservoirs over about 3.5 square miles (9 square kilometers) near the California-Oregon border, exposing soil to sunlight in some places for the first time in more than a century.
For the past five years, Native American tribes have gathered seeds by hand and sent them to nurseries with plans to sow the seeds along the banks of the newly wild river. Helicopters will bring in hundreds of thousands of trees and shrubs to plant along the banks, including wads of tree roots to create habitat for fish.
This growth usually takes decades to happen naturally. But officials are pressing nature’s fast-forward button because they hope to repel an invasion of foreign plants, such as starthistle, which dominate the landscape at the expense of native plants.
“Why not just let nature take its course? Well, nature didn’t take its course when dams got put in. We can’t pretend this gigantic change in the landscape has not happened and we can’t just ignore the fact that invasive species are a big problem in the west and in California,” said Dave Meurer, director of community affairs for Resource Environmental Solutions, the company leading the restoration project.
PacifiCorp built the dams starting in 1918 to generate electricity. The dams halted the natural flow of the river and disrupted the lifecycle of salmon, a fish that spends most of its life in the Pacific Ocean but returns to the chilly mountain streams to lay eggs. The fish are culturally and spiritually significant to a number of Native American tribes, who historically survived by fishing the massive runs of salmon that would come back to the rivers each year.
A combination of low water levels and warm temperatures in 2002 led to a bacterial outbreak that killed more than 34,000 fish, mostly Chinook salmon. The loss jumpstarted decades of advocacy from Native American tribes and environmental groups, culminating last year when federal regulators approved a plan to remove the dams.
“The river is our church, the salmon is our cross. That’s how it relates to the people. So it’s very sacred to us,” said Kenneth Brink, vice chairman of the Karuk Tribe. “The river is not just a place we go to swim. It’s life. It creates everything for our people.”
The project will cost $500 million, paid for by taxpayers and PacifiCorps ratepayers. Crews have mostly removed the smallest of the four dams, known as Copco No. 2. The other three dams are expected to come down next year. That will leave some homeowners in the area without the picturesque lake they have lived on for years.
The Siskiyou County Water Users Association, which formed about a decade ago to stop the dam removal project, filed a federal lawsuit. But so far they have been unable to stop the demolition.
“Unfortunately it’s a mistake you can’t turn back from,” association President Richard Marshall said.
The water level in the lakes will drop between 3 feet and 5 feet (1 meter to 1.5 meters) per day over the first few months of next year. Crews will follow that water line, taking advantage of the moisture in the soil to plant seeds from more than 98 native plant species including wooly sunflower, Idaho fescue and Blue bunch wheat grass.
Tribes have been invested in the process from the start. Resource Environmental Solutions hired tribal members to gather seeds from native plants by hand. The Yurok Tribe even hired a restoration botanist.
Each species has a role to play. Some, like lupine, grow quickly and prepare the soil for other plants. Others, like oak trees, take years to fully mature and provide shade for other plants.
“It’s a wonderful marriage of tribal traditional ecological knowledge and western science,” said Mark Bransom, CEO of the Klamath River Renewal Corporation, the nonprofit entity created to oversee the project.
The previous largest dam removal project was on Washington state’s Elwha River, which flows out of Olympic National Park into the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Congress in 1992 approved the demolition of the two dams on the river constructed in the early 1900s. After two decades of planning, workers finished removing them in 2014, opening about 70 miles (113 kilometers) of habitat for salmon and steelhead.
Biologists say it will take at least a generation for the river to recover, but within months of the dams being removed, salmon were already recolonizing sections of the river they had not accessed in more than a century. The Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, which has been closely involved in restoration work, is opening a limited subsistence fishery this fall for coho salmon, its first since the dams came down.
Brink, the Karuk Tribe vice chair, hopes similar success will happen on the Klamath River. Multiple times per year, Brink and other tribal members participate in ceremonial salmon fishing using handheld nets. In many years, there have been no fish to catch, he said.
“When the river gets to flow freely again, the people can also begin to worship freely again,” he said.
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Associated Press writer Eugene Johnson in Seattle contributed.
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian ballistic missiles slammed into an apartment complex and a university building in President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s hometown Monday, killing six people and wounding 75 others as the blasts trapped residents beneath rubble, Ukrainian officials said.
One of the two missiles that hit the central city of Kryvyi Rih destroyed part of an apartment building between the fourth and ninth floors, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said. Video showed black smoke billowing from corner units and burned out or damaged cars on a tree-lined street.
The dead included a 10-year-old girl and her mother, according to Zelenskyy. More than 350 people were involved in the rescue operation, he said in a Telegram post.
The morning attack also destroyed part of a four-story university building.
The strike on Zelenskyy’s hometown, which has been hit in the past, happened a day after the Ukrainian president seemed to warn of more attacks inside Russia.
“Gradually, the war is returning to the territory of Russia — to its symbolic centers and military bases, and this is an inevitable, natural and absolutely fair process,” Zelenskyy said Sunday in his nightly video address.
It was not clear whether the missile strikes were in retaliation for his comments.
Meanwhile, a Ukrainian artillery strike on the partially occupied Donetsk province killed two people and wounded six others in the regional capital, according to Denis Pushilin, the Moscow-installed leader of the illegally annexed province.
A bus was also hit as Ukrainian forces shelled the city of Donetsk multiple times Monday, Pushilin said.
Elsewhere, in the Russian-held part of the Zaporizhzhia region, three people were killed and 15 were wounded in Ukrainian shelling that hit a store in the village of Basan, according to the Russia-backed acting regional governor, Yevgeny Balitsky.
Neither side’s claims could be independently verified.
The ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensive, deploying weaponry supplied by Western allies and aimed at driving Russian forces out of occupied areas, intensified last week. At the same time, Ukraine has sought to take the war deep into Russia, reportedly using drones to hit targets as far away as Moscow.
Ukrainian drone attacks on Russia and Moscow-annexed territory, especially Crimea, have become more frequent. The latest strike, on Sunday, damaged two office buildings a few miles (kilometers) from the Kremlin. Ukrainian officials did not acknowledge the attack.
Russia tightened security in the aftermath of that attack, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday, describing the assault as an “act of desperation.”
“The Kyiv regime is in a very, very difficult situation,” Peskov said, “as the counteroffensive is not working out as planned.”
“It’s obvious that the multibillion-dollar resources that have been transferred by NATO countries to the Kyiv regime are actually being spent inefficiently,” Peskov said.
“This raises big questions in Western capitals and great discomfort among taxpayers in Western countries.”
Analysts say Russian President Vladimir Putin is wagering that Western support for Kyiv will wane as the war drags on and costs mount.
Another Ukrainian drone targeted a district police department early Monday in Russia’s Bryansk region, which borders Ukraine, but there were no casualties, the local governor said.
Bombarding populated areas with missiles, artillery and drones has been a hallmark of Moscow’s military strategy throughout the war, and that approach has continued during the Ukrainian counteroffensive that started in June.
Russian officials insist they take aim only at legitimate military targets, but Ukraine and its supporters say mass civilian deaths during previous attacks are evidence of war crimes.
“In recent days, the enemy has been stubbornly attacking cities, city centers, shelling civilian objects and housing,” Zelenskyy said. “But this terror will not frighten us or break us.”
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Monday that his forces have increased the intensity of attacks on Ukrainian military facilities.
It was not immediately clear which military facilities he was referring to, as Russia’s recent missile strikes have hit civilian infrastructure.
In the southern city of Odesa, Russian strikes in recent weeks targeted port infrastructure and grain silos, after Moscow broke off an export agreement for Ukrainian grain. The Ukrainian foreign ministry estimated Monday that about 180,000 metric tons of grain have been destroyed by Russia in the past nine days.
Russian shelling Monday also killed four civilians and wounded 17 in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson. A 70-year-old woman was killed by shelling in her home in a Kharkiv province village near Izyum, authorities said.
In eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk province, one person was reported killed and seven people were wounded after Russia shelled 12 cities and villages, according to Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko.
In other developments Monday, China introduced restrictions on the export of long-range civilian drones. Authorities cited the war in Ukraine and concern that drones could be converted for military purposes.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s government is friendly with Moscow, but says it’s neutral in the war. It has been stung by reports that both sides might be using Chinese-made drones for reconnaissance and possibly attacks.
Meanwhile, Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin said Monday that his Wagner Group is not currently recruiting fighters.
In an audio message published on a Telegram channel associated with the Wagner chief, Prigozhin said the company had suspended recruitment as there is currently “no shortage of personnel.”
Prigozhin previously agreed with Western estimates that he lost more than 20,000 men in the long battle for the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut.
Prigozhin last month led a short-lived mutiny against Moscow, demanding a leadership change in the Russian military. In an attempt to control him, Russian authorities insisted that Wagner fighters can only return to Ukraine if they join Russia’s regular army.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
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UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United Nations chief on Monday welcomed Kenya’s offer to “positively consider” leading a multinational police force to help combat Haiti’s gangs and improve security in the violence-wracked Caribbean nation.
Haiti’s Prime Minister Ariel Henry sent an urgent appeal last October for “the immediate deployment of a specialized armed force, in sufficient quantity” to stop the gangs. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has been appealing unsuccessfully since then for a lead nation to help restore order to Latin America’s most impoverished country.
Kenya’s Foreign Ministry said Saturday said its offer includes a commitment to send 1,000 police to help train and assist the Haitian National Police “restore normalcy in the country and protect strategic installations.” The ministry said it was responding to a request from the Friends of Haiti group of nations.
“Kenya stands with persons of African descent across the world, including those in the Caribbean, and aligns with the African Union’s diaspora policy and our own commitment to Pan Africanism, and in this case to `reclaiming of the Atlantic crossing,’” the ministry said.
Haiti’s gangs have grown in power since the July 7, 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse and are now estimated to control up to 80% of the capital. The surge in killings, rapes and kidnappings has led to a violent uprising by civilian vigilante groups.
U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said Guterres “welcomes Kenya’s positive response to his call” and expresses gratitude to Kenya for its “solidarity.”
The secretary-general calls on the U.N. Security Council to support a non-U.N. multinational operation in Haiti “and encourages member states, particularly from the region, to join forces from Kenya” in supporting the country’s police, Haq said.
Kenya’s Foreign Ministry said its proposed deployment will crystalize once the Security Council adopts a resolution giving a mandate for the force, and other Kenyan constitutional processes are undertaken.
A Kenyan task force plans to undertake an assessment mission to Haiti within the next few weeks which “will inform and guide the mandate and operational requirements of the mission,” it said.
Guterres, who visited Haiti in early July, called afterward for a robust international force to help the Haitian National Police “defeat and dismantle the gangs.”
He said the estimate by the U.N. independent expert for Haiti, William O’Neill, that up to 2,000 additional anti-gang police officers are needed is no exaggeration. O’Neill, who concluded a 10-day trip to Haiti in July, is an American lawyer who has been working on Haiti for over 30 years and helped establish the Haitian National Police in 1995.
The Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution on July 14 asking Guterres to come up with “a full range of options” within 30 days to help combat Haiti’s armed gangs, including a non-U.N. multinational force, a possible U.N. peacekeeping force, additional training for the Haitian National Police and providing support to combat illegal arms trafficking to the country.
Compounding the gang warfare, which has spread outside the capital, is the country’s political crisis: Haiti was stripped of all democratically elected institutions when the terms of the country’s remaining 10 senators expired in early January.
The Security Council resolution, co-sponsored by the United States and Ecuador, “strongly urges” all countries to prohibit the supply, sale or transfer of weapons to anyone supporting gang violence and criminal activities.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke to Kenyan President William Ruto on Monday including about Kenya’s positive consideration to leading a multinational force in Haiti, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said.
The United States takes over the rotating presidency of the U.N. Security Council for August on Tuesday, and Miller said the U.S. and Ecuador, as a first step, are going to introduce a resolution to authorize a non-U.N. multinational mission.
The second step is an assessment mission by Kenya, “which they plan to do in the coming days,” and then there will be talks with other countries about what additional assistance is needed, he said.
“We are committed to finding the resources to support this multinational force,” Miller said. “We’ve been a large humanitarian donor to relief efforts in Haiti for some time, and we have worked behind the scenes to find the lead nation to run this multinational force and are pleased that that has been successful.”
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Ellen Knickmeyer contributed to this report from Washington and Evelyne Musambi from Nairobi
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Updated July 31, 2023 at 4:09 PM ET
Pee-wee Herman, the comic creation of actor/writer Paul Reubens, would often toss taunts of the schoolyard into his casual conversation. It was one of the character's go-to bits.
"Why don't you take a picture? It'll last longer!"
"That's my name! Don't wear it out!"
And, most iconically,
"I know you are, but what am I?"
Of course, when it came to Pee-wee himself, with his tight gray suit, red bow tie, crew cut, rouged cheekbones and ruby-red lips, "What am I?" was the real question – it was the one he posed merely by existing.
Reubens died Sunday of cancer at the age of 70. He was an actor – but for a long time, he tried to convince the public that Pee-wee was a real person, not a character.
Folks didn't know what to make of Reubens' petulant man-child at first. Created in 1977, while Reubens was a member of the Los Angeles sketch troupe The Groundlings, Pee-wee was part prop comic, part brat and part trickster spirit. There was something fearless in Pee-wee, something unapologetic and brash that took you a second to process. The character was very obviously and intentionally what folks used to call a sissy – but how could a sissy own the stage like he did? Bask in the spotlight like he did? How could a sissy so confidently and explicitly dictate the terms for his audience on how to experience him?
The Pee-wee Herman Show at The Groundlings Theatre soon had LA hipsters lining up around the block for a midnight show that mixed puppets and parody with archival educational films – the precise fuel mixture that powered Reubens' later CBS Saturday morning show, Pee-wee's Playhouse.
It was never Peter Pan, what he was doing. Yes, Pee-wee was a boy who never grew up, but he was more than that — he was one singular adult's remembrance of what it was like being a kid. Specifically, of those parts of childhood we pretend not to see in our own children — the narcissism, the selfishness, the utter lack of basic human empathy. The monstrous bits.
In Pee-wee's Big Adventure, it manifested in his hilariously obsessive drive to recover his stolen bike — a quest which would cause him to trample on the feelings of friends like Amazing Larry (Lou Cutell) and Dottie (E.G. Daily). On Pee-wee's Playhouse, it took the form of gleeful admonitions to his viewers to "scream real loud" whenever anyone said the week's secret word. (Spare a thought for the long-suffering parents who'd hoped that sitting their kids in front of the TV would allow them a moment's peace to finish their coffee.) On 1988's magnificent holiday staple Pee-wee's Playhouse Christmas Special, Reubens zeroed in kids' ravenous greed for presents, turning Pee-wee into a monster who only reluctantly sees the light once guilted into it. (Like Scrooge, he's a lot more fun to hang around with before his last-minute epiphany.)
To watch Pee-wee was to re-experience childhood the way we'd forgotten it actually was – pure, concentrated, distilled to its essence, when riding your bike and playing with your toys and screaming real loud was all it took to fill a day. Pee-wee was a creature of impulse, anarchy and id – which is probably why Reubens' frequent appearances on Late Night with David Letterman helped launch him to stardom.
Reubens' silliness worked on a different frequency than Letterman's – Pee-wee was wilder and far less inhibited than Letterman could ever hope to be, and Letterman knew to play up his own tetchy, aggrieved discomfort at Pee-wee's hijinks for comedic effect. The two men vibrated at opposite ends of the comedic spectrum, but they worked together brilliantly. In those interview segments, which quickly devolved into Pee-wee's signature giggles, you laughed at Reubens' ability to take complete control of the experience, and at Letterman's entirely uncharacteristic willingness to give over the reins.
In the coming days, our social media feeds will fill up with a lot of Pee-wee's greatest hits – Large Marge; "Tequila!"; Jambi the Genie; Chairy; Reubens' extended and entirely improvised death scene in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie; "I'm a loner, Dot. A rebel."; and, of course, "Come on, Simone. Let's talk about your big 'but.'"
Me, though, I'll be putting on the aforementioned Pee-wee's Playhouse Christmas Special, because it will remind me of one of Reubens' most overlooked talents – his ability to sneak an artisanal blend of fey subversiveness into the mainstream. That special injected a defiantly, yet matter-of-fact, queer sensibility into the CBS primetime airwaves of Reagan's America: The Del Rubio Triplets! Zsa Zsa Gabor! Little Richard! Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon! KD Lang! Charo! The LA Men's Chorus dressed up as a Marine choir! And, most indelibly, Grace Jones as green Gumby, drag singing a club mix of "The Little Drummer Boy."
Keep your "I meant to do that." Keep your dancing on the biker bar to "Tequila." The image of Reubens that I'll be holding closest to my heart over the next few days is of him rocking out in the background as Jones sings in the glare of the spotlight.
Because I swear you can see, in just the way he holds his body, the mischievous delight he's taking in what he's unleashing on an unsuspecting public: Grace Jones, ladies and gentlemen, delivered unto your living rooms, pulling up to the bumper of your cozy family holiday special, an entirely singular brand of weirdness served up to you hot and fresh, with a high, unselfconscious giggle.
Jennifer Vanasco contributed to earlier versions of this story.
Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
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https://www.ijpr.org/npr-news/npr-news/2023-07-31/but-what-am-i-pee-wee-herman-creator-paul-reubens-dies-at-70
| 2023-07-31T21:13:08
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DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Another day, another billion dollar lottery jackpot.
At least, that’s how it seems ahead of Tuesday night’s Mega Millions drawing for an estimated $1.05 billion top prize.
It’s a huge sum of money, but such giant jackpots have become far more common, with five prizes topping $1 billion since 2021 — and one jackpot reaching $2.04 billion in 2022.
The massive prizes are due in part to chance, but it’s not all happenstance. Rising interest rates coupled with changes to the odds of winning are also big reasons the prizes grow so large.
HOW DO INTEREST RATES INCREASE JACKPOTS?
Nearly all jackpot winners opt for a lump sum payout, which for Tuesday night’s drawing would be an estimated $527.9 million. The lump sum is the cash that a winner has actually won. The highlighted $1.05 billion prize is for a sole winner who is paid through an annuity, which is funded by that lump sum and will be doled out annually over 30 years.
That’s where the higher interest rate becomes a factor, because the higher the interest rate, the larger the annuity can grow over three decades. The U.S. is in the midst of a remarkable run of interest rate increases, with the Federal Reserve raising a key rate 11 times in 17 months, and that higher rate enables a roughly $500 million lump sum prize to be advertised as a jackpot of about twice that size.
HOW DOES THE ANNUITY WORK?
A winner who chooses the annuity option would receive an initial payment and then 29 annual payments that rise by 5% each year. Opting for an annuity has some tax advantages, as less of the winnings would be taxed at the top federal income tax rate of 37%. It also could be an option for winners who don’t trust themselves to manage so much money all at once.
If lottery winners die before 30 years, the future payments would go to their beneficiaries.
WHY DO WINNERS SNUB THE ANNUITY OPTION?
The annuities pay out big money, but not nearly as big as taking the lump sum.
For example, a sole winner of Tuesday night’s Mega Millions could choose a lump sum of an estimated $527.9 million or an initial annuity payment of about $15.8 million. Of course, those annuity payments would continue for decades and gradually increase until the final check paid about $65.1 million, according to lottery officials.
In both cases, the winnings would be subject to federal taxes, and many states also tax lottery winnings.
Given all that, nearly all jackpot winners think they could make more money by investing the money themselves, or they simply want the biggest initial payout possible.
WHAT ABOUT THE ODDS OF WINNING?
That’s another factor that has created so many huge prizes for those who match all six numbers.
In 2015, the Powerball odds were changed from 1 in 175.2 million to 1 in 292.2 million. Mega Millions took a similar action in 2019 by lengthening the game’s odds from 1 in 258.9 million to 1 in 302.6 million.
For lottery officials, the hope was that by making it harder to win jackpots, the prizes would roll over for weeks and create truly massive pots of money that would in turn generate higher sales.
The result is that all of the billion dollar jackpots have come after the changes in the odds.
HOW LONG UNTIL THERE IS A WINNER?
Luck remains a big factor, as the odds of any ticket being a winner never changes. However, the more people who play Mega Millions, the more of the potential 302.6 million number combinations are covered.
For the last Mega Millions drawing on Friday night, 20.1% of possible number combinations were purchased. Typically, the larger the jackpot grows, the more people buy tickets and the more potential combinations are covered.
Tuesday night’s drawing will be the 30th since the last jackpot winner. That is inching closer to the longest Mega Millions jackpot drought, which reached 37 drawings from Sept. 18, 2020, to Jan. 22, 2021.
The longest jackpot run was for a Powerball prize that stretched over 41 drawings and ended with a record $2.04 billion prize on Nov. 7, 2022.
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The top federal tax bracket has been corrected to 37%.
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https://www.pahomepage.com/news/national/ap-1-05-billion-mega-million-jackpot-is-among-a-surge-in-huge-payouts-due-to-more-than-just-luck/
| 2023-07-31T21:13:14
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This article was written by a human.
That's worth mentioning because it's no longer something you can just assume. Artificial intelligence that can mimic conversation, whether written or spoken, has been in the news a lot this year, delighting some members of the public while worrying educators, politicians, the World Health Organization, and even some of the people developing AI technology.
Misuse of AI is part of what actors and writers are striking about in Hollywood, and the threat of AI is something Hollywood was imagining long before it was real.
In 1968, for instance, the year before humans first set foot on the moon — and a time when astronauts still used pencils and slide rules to calculate re-entry trajectories because their space capsules had less computing power than a digital watch has today — Stanley Kubrick introduced movie audiences to a sentient HAL-9000 computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
HAL (for Heuristically Programmed Algorithmic Computer) introduced itself early in the film by saying, "No 9000 computer has ever made a mistake or distorted information. We are all, by any practical definition of the words, foolproof and incapable of error."
'Open the pod bay door, HAL'
So why was HAL acting so strangely? He (it?) was responsible for maintaining all aspects of a months-long space flight, ferrying astronauts to the moons of Jupiter. Programmed to run the mission flawlessly, the computer's behavior had become alarming, and two of the astronauts had decided to shut down some of its functions. Their plan was short-circuited when HAL, lip-reading a conversation they'd managed to keep him from hearing, cast one of them adrift while he was outside the ship repairing an antenna and refused to let the other back on board.
"Open the pod bay door, HAL" became one of the most quoted film lines of the decade when the computer responded, "I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that. This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it."
It's hard to articulate what a genuine shock this was for 1960s movie audiences. There'd been films with, say, robots causing havoc, but they were generally robots doing someone else's bidding. Movie robots, at that point, were about brawn, not brain.
And anyway, malevolent robot stories were precisely the sort of B-movie silliness Kubrick was trying to avoid. So his intelligent machine simply observed (with an unblinking red eye) and, when addressed directly, spoke with a calm, modulated voice, not unlike the one that would be adopted four decades later by Siri and Alexa.
Darwin Among the Machines
Earlier literary notions of "artificial" intelligence — and there were not a lot of them at that point — hadn't really caught the public's imagination. Samuel Butler's 1863 article Darwin Among the Machines, is generally thought to be the origin of this species of writing, and it mostly just notes that while humankind invented machines to assist us — and remember, a really sophisticated machine in 1863 was the steam locomotive — we were increasingly assisting them: tending, fueling, repairing.
Over tens of thousands of years, Butler wondered, might humans not evolve in much the same way Darwin's study of natural selection had just established the rest of the plant and animal kingdoms do, to the point that we would become dependent on our devices?
But even when he incorporated that idea a decade later into a satirical novel called Erewhon, expounding for several chapters on self-replicating machines, Butler barely touched on the notion that those machines would develop consciousness. And neither did the influential 19th-century science fiction writers who followed him. H.G. Wells and Jules Verne invented plenty of unorthodox devices as they sent characters to the center of the Earth, and into space and the recesses of time, without ever considering that those devices might want to do things on their own.
The term "artificial intelligence" wasn't even coined (by American computer scientist John McCarthy) until about a dozen years before Kubrick made his Space Odyssey. But HAL made an impression on the public where scientists had not. Within just a couple of years, movie computers didn't just want spaceship domination; in Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970), they wanted to take over the world.
Malignant machines gone viral
And then this notion of technology-run-wild, ran wild. A high school student played by Matthew Broderick nearly started World War III in WarGames (1983) when he thought he was hacking a computer company's website but accidentally challenged the Pentagon's defense network to a quick game of "global thermonuclear war." The problem, it soon became clear, was that no one told the defense network they were just "playing."
Elsewhere, mechanical men stopped being all-brawn and got a new dispensation to think for themselves, something fiction had granted them before Hollywood got around to it.
In the 1940s, sci-fi novelist Isaac Asimov came up with "Three Laws of Robotics" that would theoretically keep "independent" machines in line. When Asimov's story I, Robot, was turned into a film a half-century or so later, those laws should have reassured Will Smith as he stared down thousands of bots. But he had good reason to be skeptical; he was fighting a robot rebellion.
The Terminator movies effectively put all these themes on steroids — cyborgs in the service of a computerized, sentient, civil-defense network called Skynet, designed to function without any human input. A "Nuclear Fire" and three billion human deaths later, what was left of humanity was engaged in a war against the machines that has so far consumed six films, a TV series, a pair of web series, and innumerable games.
And nuclear blasts weren't necessary to make machine intelligence alarming, a fact cyberpunk-noir established definitively in Blade Runner with its "replicants," and in a Matrix series that reduced all of humanity to a mere power source for machines.
Hollywood's still fighting that vision. Who knows what "The Entity" wants in Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning (presumably we'll find out next year in Part Two), but whatever it is, it won't bode well for humanity.
Hollywood concentrates on exploiting our fears — in the late 20th century, we worried about ceding control to technology. In the 21st century, we worry about losing control of technology.
It seems not to have occurred to Tinseltown that AI might do the things it's actually doing — make social media dangerous, or make undergrad writing courses unteachable, or screw up relationships by auto-completing incorrectly. None of those are terribly cinematic, so Hollywood concentrates on exploiting our fears — in the late 20th century, we worried about ceding control to technology. In the 21st century, we worry about losing control of technology.
Bring on the droids
Have there also been friendlier film visions of AI? Sure. George Lucas came up with lovable droids R2-D2 and C-3PO for Star Wars, and Pixar gave us Wall-E, a bot who was pluckily determined to clean up an entire planet we'd despoiled.
Spike Jonze's drama Her imagined a sentient, Siri-like personal assistant as a digital girlfriend. Star Trek's Data was not just a Next Generation android version of Mr. Spock, but also a sort of emotion-challenged Pinocchio.
And another Pinocchio — this one fashioned to stand the test of time — would have been Stanley Kubrick's own answer to the question he'd posed with HAL in 1968.
Kubrick labored for decades to hone the script for A.I. Artificial Intelligence, then just two years before he died, handed the project off to Steven Spielberg — the story of David, a robot child who has been programmed to love, and who ends up going beyond that programming.
"Until you were born," William Hurt's Professor Hobby told the bionic child he'd modeled on his own son, "robots didn't dream, robots didn't desire unless we told them what to want." The miracle, he went on, was that though David was engineered rather than born, he shared with humans "the ability to chase down our dreams...something no machine has ever done, until you."
That may not have been enough to make David a real boy, but it put a gentle face on what is perhaps our greatest fear about AI – that we are mortal, and it is not.
In the film, David outlives all of humanity, never growing up, never changing. And perhaps because he was played by Haley Joel Osment, or perhaps because Spielberg was calling the shots, or perhaps because the music swelled ... just so — it didn't feel the least bit threatening.
Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
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https://www.ijpr.org/npr-news/npr-news/2023-07-31/open-the-pod-bay-door-hal-heres-how-ai-became-a-movie-villain
| 2023-07-31T21:13:14
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https://www.ijpr.org/npr-news/npr-news/2023-07-31/open-the-pod-bay-door-hal-heres-how-ai-became-a-movie-villain
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SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The largest dam removal project in United States history is underway along the California-Oregon border — a process that won’t conclude until the end of next year with the help of heavy machinery and explosives.
But in some ways, removing the dams is the easy part. The hard part will come over the next decade as workers, partnering with Native American tribes, plant and monitor nearly 17 billion seeds as they try to restore the Klamath River and the surrounding land to what it looked like before the dams started to go up more than a century ago.
The demolition is part of a national movement to return the natural flow of the nation’s rivers and restore habitat for fish and the ecosystems that sustain other wildlife. More than 2,000 dams have been removed in the U.S. as of February, with the bulk of those having come down within the last 25 years, according to the advocacy group American Rivers.
When demolition is completed by the end of next year, more than 400 miles (644 kilometers) of river will have opened for threatened species of fish and other wildlife. By comparison, the 65 dams removed in the U.S. last year combined to reconnect 430 miles (692 kilometers) of river.
Along the Klamath, the dam removals won’t be a major hit to the power supply; they produced less than 2% of power company PacifiCorp’s energy generation when they were running at full capacity — enough to power about 70,000 homes. Though the hydroelectric power produced by dams is considered a clean, renewable source of energy, many larger dams in the U.S. West have become a target for environmental groups and tribes because of the harm they cause to fish and river ecosystems.
The project will empty three reservoirs over about 3.5 square miles (9 square kilometers) near the California-Oregon border, exposing soil to sunlight in some places for the first time in more than a century.
For the past five years, Native American tribes have gathered seeds by hand and sent them to nurseries with plans to sow the seeds along the banks of the newly wild river. Helicopters will bring in hundreds of thousands of trees and shrubs to plant along the banks, including wads of tree roots to create habitat for fish.
This growth usually takes decades to happen naturally. But officials are pressing nature’s fast-forward button because they hope to repel an invasion of foreign plants, such as starthistle, which dominate the landscape at the expense of native plants.
“Why not just let nature take its course? Well, nature didn’t take its course when dams got put in. We can’t pretend this gigantic change in the landscape has not happened and we can’t just ignore the fact that invasive species are a big problem in the west and in California,” said Dave Meurer, director of community affairs for Resource Environmental Solutions, the company leading the restoration project.
PacifiCorp built the dams starting in 1918 to generate electricity. The dams halted the natural flow of the river and disrupted the lifecycle of salmon, a fish that spends most of its life in the Pacific Ocean but returns to the chilly mountain streams to lay eggs. The fish are culturally and spiritually significant to a number of Native American tribes, who historically survived by fishing the massive runs of salmon that would come back to the rivers each year.
A combination of low water levels and warm temperatures in 2002 led to a bacterial outbreak that killed more than 34,000 fish, mostly Chinook salmon. The loss jumpstarted decades of advocacy from Native American tribes and environmental groups, culminating last year when federal regulators approved a plan to remove the dams.
“The river is our church, the salmon is our cross. That’s how it relates to the people. So it’s very sacred to us,” said Kenneth Brink, vice chairman of the Karuk Tribe. “The river is not just a place we go to swim. It’s life. It creates everything for our people.”
The project will cost $500 million, paid for by taxpayers and PacifiCorps ratepayers. Crews have mostly removed the smallest of the four dams, known as Copco No. 2. The other three dams are expected to come down next year. That will leave some homeowners in the area without the picturesque lake they have lived on for years.
The Siskiyou County Water Users Association, which formed about a decade ago to stop the dam removal project, filed a federal lawsuit. But so far they have been unable to stop the demolition.
“Unfortunately it’s a mistake you can’t turn back from,” association President Richard Marshall said.
The water level in the lakes will drop between 3 feet and 5 feet (1 meter to 1.5 meters) per day over the first few months of next year. Crews will follow that water line, taking advantage of the moisture in the soil to plant seeds from more than 98 native plant species including wooly sunflower, Idaho fescue and Blue bunch wheat grass.
Tribes have been invested in the process from the start. Resource Environmental Solutions hired tribal members to gather seeds from native plants by hand. The Yurok Tribe even hired a restoration botanist.
Each species has a role to play. Some, like lupine, grow quickly and prepare the soil for other plants. Others, like oak trees, take years to fully mature and provide shade for other plants.
“It’s a wonderful marriage of tribal traditional ecological knowledge and western science,” said Mark Bransom, CEO of the Klamath River Renewal Corporation, the nonprofit entity created to oversee the project.
The previous largest dam removal project was on Washington state’s Elwha River, which flows out of Olympic National Park into the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Congress in 1992 approved the demolition of the two dams on the river constructed in the early 1900s. After two decades of planning, workers finished removing them in 2014, opening about 70 miles (113 kilometers) of habitat for salmon and steelhead.
Biologists say it will take at least a generation for the river to recover, but within months of the dams being removed, salmon were already recolonizing sections of the river they had not accessed in more than a century. The Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, which has been closely involved in restoration work, is opening a limited subsistence fishery this fall for coho salmon, its first since the dams came down.
Brink, the Karuk Tribe vice chair, hopes similar success will happen on the Klamath River. Multiple times per year, Brink and other tribal members participate in ceremonial salmon fishing using handheld nets. In many years, there have been no fish to catch, he said.
“When the river gets to flow freely again, the people can also begin to worship freely again,” he said.
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Associated Press writer Eugene Johnson in Seattle contributed.
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https://www.pahomepage.com/news/national/ap-as-work-begins-on-the-largest-us-dam-removal-project-tribes-look-to-a-future-of-growth/
| 2023-07-31T21:13:20
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https://www.pahomepage.com/news/national/ap-as-work-begins-on-the-largest-us-dam-removal-project-tribes-look-to-a-future-of-growth/
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Whales are no longer hunted off the West Coast of the United States, but devices meant to catch other sea creatures do occasionally catch a whale. Wildlife agencies and people who make a living from the sea have worked for years to reduce whale entanglements in crabbing and fishing gear, but the incidents still happen.
In fact, records from National Marine Fisheries Service indicate they may happen more often than is reported. The ocean conservation organization Oceana keeps an eye on the situation around the world. Tara Brock, Oceana's Pacific Counsel (as in lawyer) talks to us about entanglements, reporting, and remedies.
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https://www.ijpr.org/show/the-jefferson-exchange/2023-07-31/tue-9-25-whales-may-get-tangled-in-fishing-gear-more-than-is-reported
| 2023-07-31T21:13:20
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https://www.ijpr.org/show/the-jefferson-exchange/2023-07-31/tue-9-25-whales-may-get-tangled-in-fishing-gear-more-than-is-reported
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ATLANTA (AP) — The first new U.S. nuclear reactor to be built from scratch in decades is sending electricity reliably to the grid, but the cost of the Georgia power plant could make it a dead end instead of a path to a carbon-free future.
Georgia Power Co. announced Monday that Unit 3 at Plant Vogtle, southeast of Augusta, has completed testing and is now in commercial operation, seven years late and $17 billion over budget.
At its full output of 1,100 megawatts of electricity, Unit 3 can power 500,000 homes and businesses. A number of other utilities in Georgia, Florida and Alabama are receiving the electricity, in addition to the 2.7 million customers of Southern Co. subsidiary Georgia Power.
“This hadn’t been done in this country from start to finish in some 30-plus years,” Chris Womack, CEO of Atlanta-based Southern Co. said Monday in a telephone interview. “So to do this, to get this done, to get this done right, is a wonderful accomplishment for our company, for the state and for the customers here in Georgia.”
A fourth reactor is also nearing completion at the site, where two earlier reactors have been generating electricity for decades. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Friday said radioactive fuel could be loaded into Unit 4, a step expected to take place before the end of September. Unit 4 is scheduled to enter commercial operation by March.
The third and fourth reactors were originally supposed to cost $14 billion, but are now on track to cost their owners $31 billion. That doesn’t include $3.7 billion that original contractor Westinghouse paid to the owners to walk away from the project. That brings total spending to almost $35 billion.
The third reactor was supposed to start generating power in 2016 when construction began in 2009.
Vogtle is important because government officials and some utilities are again looking to nuclear power to alleviate climate change by generating electricity without burning natural gas, coal and oil. But most focus in the U.S. currently is on smaller nuclear reactors, which advocates hope can be built without the cost and schedule overruns that have plagued Vogtle. For its part, Womack said Southern Co. isn’t looking to add any more reactors to its fleet.
“In terms of us making additional investments, at this time is not something that we’re going to do, but I do think others in this country should move in that direction,” Womack said.
In Georgia, almost every electric customer will pay for Vogtle. Georgia Power currently owns 45.7% of the reactors. Smaller shares are owned by Oglethorpe Power Corp., which provides electricity to member-owned cooperatives, the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia and the city of Dalton. Oglethorpe and MEAG plan to sell power to cooperatives and municipal utilities across Georgia, as well in Jacksonville, Florida, and parts of Alabama and the Florida Panhandle.
Georgia Power’s residential customers are projected to pay more than $926 apiece as part of an ongoing finance charge and elected public service commissioners have approved a rate increase. Residential customers will pay $4 more per month as soon as the third unit begins generating power. That could hit bills in August, two months after residential customers saw a $16-a-month increase to pay for higher fuel costs.
The high construction costs have wiped out any future benefit from low nuclear fuel costs in the future, experts have repeatedly testified before commissioners.
“The cost increases and schedule delays have completely eliminated any benefit on a life-cycle cost basis,” Tom Newsome, director of utility finance for the commission, testified Thursday in a Georgia Public Service Commission hearing examining spending.
The utility will face a fight from longtime opponents of the plant, many of whom note that power generated from solar and wind would be cheaper. They say letting Georgia Power make ratepayers pay for mistakes will unfairly bolster the utility’s profits.
“While capital-intensive and expensive projects may benefit Georgia Power’s shareholders who have enjoyed record profits throughout Vogtle’s beleaguered construction, they are not the least-cost option for Georgians who are feeling the sting of repeated bill increases,” Southern Environmental Law Center staff attorney Bob Sherrier said in a statement.
Commissioners will decide later who pays for the remainder of the costs of Vogtle, including the fourth reactor. Customers will pay for the share of spending that commissioners determine was prudent, while the company and its shareholders will have to pay for spending commissioners decide was wasteful.
Georgia Power CEO Kim Greene said the company hasn’t decided how much it will ask customers to pay.
“That will be determined as we move closer and closer to our prudence filing, but we have not made a final determination,” Greene said.
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https://www.pahomepage.com/news/national/ap-first-american-nuclear-reactor-built-from-scratch-in-decades-enters-commercial-operation-in-georgia/
| 2023-07-31T21:13:26
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https://www.pahomepage.com/news/national/ap-first-american-nuclear-reactor-built-from-scratch-in-decades-enters-commercial-operation-in-georgia/
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It's never a question of if, it's always when: when wildfire smoke will push air quality into unhealthy levels. The first part of this summer was relatively smoke-free for much of the region, but not completely so... and the luck seldom lasts through the summer.
Jackson County Health and Human Services is trying to get ahead of the smoke season by reminding people of ways to stay healthy when smoke does roll in. Tanya Phillips is Health Promotion Program Manager for the department, and our guest in a conversation about avoiding smoke outdoors and inside.
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https://www.ijpr.org/show/the-jefferson-exchange/2023-07-31/tue-9-40-dont-wait-for-the-smoke-get-ready-for-it-in-advance
| 2023-07-31T21:13:27
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https://www.ijpr.org/show/the-jefferson-exchange/2023-07-31/tue-9-40-dont-wait-for-the-smoke-get-ready-for-it-in-advance
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PHOENIX (AP) — A hellish and historic 31-day run of temperatures cracking 110 degrees (43 degrees Celsius) in Phoenix appeared headed for a welcome end on Monday, as monsoon rains moved through the region from Mexico.
The relief wasn’t all that great — the day’s highs were forecast near 108 degrees, or about 42 Celsius — and the heat was expected to rise past 110 again later in the week. But residents and visitors were taking what they could get.
“It’s not going to last more than a couple of days, but I’m enjoying this break,” said Christine Bertaux, 76, who was cooling off Monday at a downtown day center for older people who are homeless.
“It has been REALLY hot here!” said Jeffrey Sharpe, of Kenosha, Wisconsin, who was in town for a long weekend that on Monday included watching his son’s poodles frolic in a grassy dog park. “But today it was about 85 degrees, more like Wisconsin.”
High heat blasted much of the Southwest all through July, ranging from West Texas to eastern California. But Phoenix and its suburbs sweltered to new records, including three days where the high reached 119, and overnight lows stayed above 90 more than half the month. Concerts and other outdoor events were cancelled throughout the month because of the heat and busy parts of the city became ghost towns as people stayed indoors to avoid the heat.
Health officials have so far confirmed 25 heat-related deaths in Maricopa County, Arizona’s most populous and home to Phoenix, in July, although that number seems certain to rise. Another 249 deaths are under investigation for links to heat.
Rudy Soliz, who manages the center where Bertaux was cooling off, said those who visit to get a meal and cool off out of the sun “have been having a very hard time this summer.”
“Older people have a harder time with the heat, there are a lot of diabetics, people who take medicines,” he said.
“The heat has been pretty bad this summer. We’ve made at least five 911 calls from here this July for people who got heat stroke,” said Soliz. “They’ve found a couple of bodies around here this month but it’s not clear yet if they died from the heat.”
Although there is no excessive warning for city, the National Weather Service said Phoenix residents should take precautions to stay cool and safe from the heat.
“Even though it’s going to be cooler than it has been, it’s still going to be warmer than normal. And the heat definitely can still affect a large portion of the population,” said Matthew Hirsch, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Phoenix. “So we’re still urging people to take the necessary precautions, such as remaining hydrated and limiting outdoor activity.”
Phoenix’s previous record for days of 110 degrees or more was 18 straight, set in 1974, nearly two weeks shorter than the new record.
Hirsch said July 2023 was the city’s hottest month on record. The previous hottest month on record was August 2020.
And August could be even hotter than July, Hirsch said. He said there is a slightly higher chance of temperatures that are above normal in August and there’s an equal chance for the region to get more or less rain than average.
R. Glenn Williamson, a businessman who was born in Canada but has lived in Phoenix for years, said he really noticed a temperature difference Monday morning as he washed his car in his driveway.
“Now we have to get rid of the humidity!” Williamson said. “But honestly, I’d rather have this heat than a Montreal winter.”
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Costley reported from New Orleans.
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Follow Drew Costley on Twitter: @drewcostley.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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https://www.pahomepage.com/news/national/ap-forecast-calls-for-108-phoenix-will-take-it-as-record-breaking-heat-expected-to-end/
| 2023-07-31T21:13:32
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The roughest days of fire season may lie ahead of us, but we've already had a few notable fires in the region. And that's despite a lack of lightning over much of the landscape. Which means that the fires starting in the latter half of July were caused by humans, accidentally or not.
The Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF) reports an uptick in such fires heading into the middle of summer, and is refreshing its reminders about prevention. Everyday activities that you take for granted can start fires if you're not careful. Natalie Weber, Public Affairs Officer for ODF's Southwest region, visits with some tips.
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https://www.ijpr.org/show/the-jefferson-exchange/2023-07-31/tue-9-am-odf-puts-out-reminders-for-preventing-human-caused-wildfires
| 2023-07-31T21:13:33
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At about summer’s halfway point, the record-breaking heat and weather extremes are both unprecedented and unsurprising, hellish yet boring in some ways, scientists say.
Killer heat. Deadly floods. Smoke from wildfires that chokes.
And there’s no relief in sight.
Expect a hotter than normal August and September, American and European forecast centers predict.
“We are seeing unprecedented changes all over the world,” said NASA climate scientist Gavin Schmidt. “The heat waves that we’re seeing in the U.S. and in Europe, in China are demolishing records left, right and center. This is not a surprise.”
Imperial College of London climate scientist Friederike Otto said examining what’s causing heat waves is “boring” in a way since it keeps happening. Yet she added that it matters “because it shows again just how much climate change plays a role in what we are currently experiencing.”
“This story, these impacts, are going to continue,” Schmidt said. “We’re going to be seeing this pretty much this year and into next year” with a natural El Nino warming of the Pacific adding to the overwhelming influence of human-caused climate change largely from the burning of coal, oil and gas.
Here’s a rundown of the summer of Earth’s discontent.
RECORD-SHATTERING HEAT
Globally, June this year was the hottest June on record — and scientists say July has been so hot that even before the month was over they could say it was the hottest month on record. But it’s individual places where people live that the heat has stuck around and killed.
Phoenix, where the last day of June and each day of July has been at least 110 degrees (43 degrees Celsius), set records for the longest mega-heat streak and longest stretch when the temperatures didn’t go below 90 degrees (32 degrees Celsius) at night.
El Paso, Texas, had 44 days of 100 degree (37 degree) heat. Schools closed in Nuevo Leon state in northern Mexico a month earlier than usual as temperatures reached 113 degrees (45 Celsius).
Farther east, Miami added humidity to high heat for 46 straight days of feels-like temperatures of 100 or more.
Beijing had its own record streak with at least 27 days of 95 degrees (35 Celsius) in July, after a three-day streak of at least 104 (40 Celsius) in June. And the country set it’s all-time highest temperature on July 16 in remote Sanbao township with 126 degrees (52.2 Celsius).
Heat records fell all over southern Europe. Sardinia, Italy, hit 117 (47 Celsius). Palermo in Sicily broke a record that goes back to 1791 by a whopping 3.6 degrees (2 degrees Celsius). Temperatures hit 115 (46 Celsius) in Gytheio, Greece.
Spain reported nearly 1,000 excess deaths from the heat, mostly among the elderly, by mid July.
In Argentina, where it’s mid-winter, temperatures were above 89.6 (32 Celsius) four straight days in June in the northern part of the county. One July night in Buenos Aires didn’t get below the 70s (low 20s Celsius).
TOO MUCH RAIN
More than 10,000 people had to be evacuated in central Hunan province in China where heavy rainfall caused at least 70 houses to collapse. In Yichang, rain triggered a landslide that buried a construction site and killed at least one person.
Australia’s Queensland outback got 13 times its normal monthly July rain in just one day.
Thousands of people were evacuated from Delhi in India as rains caused flash floods and landslides. Elsewhere in the country at least 100 people were killed by the downpours.
In the United States, sudden heavy rain killed people in Vermont, Connecticut and Pennsylvania with tragic stories of children washed away in flooding.
WILDFIRES AND SMOKE
Too little rain in Greece and Spain fed wildfires that proved difficult to fight. In the Canary Islands, a fire caused 4,000 people to evacuate, others to wear face masks and had 400 firefighters battling it.
Hot and dry conditions caused about 160 wildfires to break out in Israel in early June.
But what really brought fires home happened in parts of Canada where few people live. Rare far northern Quebec wildfires triggered nasty smoke that inflicted the world’s dirtiest air on cities like New York and Washington, then switched to the Midwest.
As of late July more than 600 wildfires were out of control in Canada. A record 47,490 square miles (123,000 square kilometers) burned, and fire season isn’t near done. That’s an area larger than the state of Pennsylvania or North Korea.
WATER TEMPERATURES
Water temperatures in the Florida Keys and off the Everglades hit the high 90s (high 30s Celsius) with Manatee Bay breaking 100 degrees twice in what could be an unofficial world record for surface water temperature, although that’s in dispute.
The North Atlantic had hot spots that alarmed scientists. The world’s oceans as a whole were their hottest ever in June and got even hotter in July. In Antarctica, sea ice smashed record-low levels.
Ocean temperatures take a long time to warm up and cool down, said University of Northern Illinois meteorology professor Victor Gensini. So it doesn’t look good for the rest of the summer, he said.
A HOT FORECAST
“We are favoring above normal temperatures for the next three months,” said NOAA Climate Prediction Center meteorologist Matt Rosencrans.
The only potential relief he sees, especially in the hot Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico, is if a hurricane or tropical storm moves through.
The peak of hurricane season in September hasn’t even started.
When going through the litany of this summer’s weather extremes so far, University of Pennsylvania climate scientist Michael Mann had one question: “How on God’s Earth are we still burning fossil fuels after witnessing all this?”
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Researcher Rhonda Shafner contributed to this report from New York. ___
Follow AP’s climate and environment coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment
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Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears
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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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https://www.pahomepage.com/news/national/ap-heres-how-hot-and-extreme-the-summer-has-been-and-its-only-halfway-over/
| 2023-07-31T21:13:38
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PHOENIX (AP) — Phoenix sizzled through its 31st consecutive day of at least 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43.3 Celsius) and other parts of the country grappled Sunday with record temperatures after a week that saw significant portions of the U.S. population subject to extreme heat.
The National Weather Service said Phoenix climbed to a high of 111 F (43.8 Celsius) before the day was through.
July has been so steamy thus far that scientists calculate it will be the hottest month ever recorded and likely the warmest human civilization has seen. The World Meteorological Organization and the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service on Thursday proclaimed July beyond record-smashing.
The historic heat began blasting the lower Southwest U.S. in late June, stretching from Texas across New Mexico and Arizona and into California’s desert.
On Sunday, a massive wildfire burning out of control in California’s Mojave National Preserve spread rapidly amid erratic winds, while firefighters reported progress against another major blaze to the south that prompted evacuations.
The York Fire that erupted Friday near the remote Caruthers Canyon area of the preserve sent up a huge plume of smoke visible nearly 100 miles (160 kilometers) away across the state line in Nevada.
Flames 20 feet (6 meters) high in some spots have charred more than 110 square miles (284 square kilometers) of desert scrub, juniper and Joshua tree woodland, according to a Sunday update.
“The dry fuel acts as a ready ignition source, and when paired with those weather conditions it resulted in long-distance fire run and high flames, leading to extreme fire behavior,” authorities said. No structures were threatened, but there was also no containment.
To the southwest, the Bonny Fire was holding steady at about 3.4 square miles (8.8 square kilometers) in rugged hills of Riverside County. More than 1,300 people were ordered to evacuate their homes Saturday near the remote community of Aguanga, California.
Triple-digit heat was expected in parts of the central San Joaquin Valley through Monday, according to the National Weather Service.
And in Burbank, California, about 10 miles (16 kilometers) north of Los Angeles, the summer heat may have been responsible for some unusual behavior in the animal kingdom: Police in the city responded to a report of a bear sighting in a residential neighborhood and found the animal sitting in a Jacuzzi behind one of the homes.
As climate change brings hotter and longer heat waves, record temperatures across the U.S. have killed dozens of people, and the poorest Americans suffer the most. Air conditioning, once a luxury, is now a matter of survival.
Last year, all 86 heat-related deaths indoors were in uncooled environments.
“To explain it fairly simply: Heat kills,” said Kristie Ebi, a University of Washington professor who researches heat and health. “Once the heat wave starts, mortality starts in about 24 hours.”
It’s the poorest and people of color, from Kansas City to Detroit to New York City and beyond, who are far more likely to face grueling heat without air conditioning, according to a Boston University analysis of 115 U.S. metro areas.
Back in Phoenix, slight relief may be on the way as expected seasonal thunderstorms could drop temperatures Monday and Tuesday.
“It should be around 108 degrees, so we break that 110 streak,” meteorologist Tom Frieders said. “Increasing cloud cover will put temperatures in a downward trend.”
The relief could be short-lived, however. Highs are expected to creep back to 110 F (43.3 C) Wednesday with temperatures reaching 115 F (46.1 C) by the end of the week.
Phoenix has also sweated through a record 16 consecutive nights when the lows temperature didn’t dip below 90 F (32.2 C), making it hard for people to cool off after sunset.
Meanwhile, Las Vegas continues to flirt with its hottest July ever. The city is closing in on its 2010 record for the average of the high and low each day for July, which stands at 96.2 F (35.5 C).
The extreme heat is also hitting the eastern U.S, as soaring temperatures moved from the Midwest into the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, where some places recorded their warmest days so far this year.
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| 2023-07-31T21:13:45
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PITTSBURGH (AP) — A jury is set to deliberate whether to impose the death penalty or a sentence of life in prison without parole on a man who spewed antisemitic hate before fatally shooting 11 worshippers at a synagogue in the heart of Pittsburgh’s Jewish community.
The same jurors who convicted 50-year-old Robert Bowers in June on 63 criminal counts listened to closing arguments Monday in the penalty phase of his federal trial, held nearly five years after the truck driver from suburban Baldwin perpetrated the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history.
The extent to which mental illness and Bowers’ difficult childhood played a role in the massacre dominated the lawyers’ arguments for and against capital punishment.
Speaking for the government, U.S. Attorney Eric Olshan said Bowers was clearly motivated by religious hatred when he entered the Tree of Life synagogue on Oct. 27, 2018, and opened fire with an AR-15 rifle, shooting everyone he could find.
The gunman raved incessantly on social media about his hatred of Jewish people — using a slur for Jewish people some 400 times on a platform favored by the far right — and remains proud that he killed Jews, the prosecutor reminded jurors.
“Do not be numb to it. Remember what it means. This defendant targeted people solely because of the faith that they chose,” Olshan said.
He added: “This is a case that calls for the most severe punishment under the law: the death penalty.”
Bowers’ lead defense attorney, Judy Clarke, acknowledged the horror of his crimes but urged jurors to opt for mercy and a life sentence.
Bowers’ attorneys have argued that he has schizophrenia, a serious brain disorder whose symptoms include delusions and hallucinations, and that Bowers attacked the synagogue out of a delusional belief that Jews were helping to bring about a genocide of white people by coming to the aid of refugees and immigrants. On Monday, Clarke recounted Bowers’ history of psychiatric hospitalizations, including an extended stay in a residential juvenile mental health program.
The defense also presented evidence of Bowers’ difficult childhood.
“What has happened cannot be undone. We can’t rewind the clock and make it that this senseless crime never happened. All we can do is make the right decision going forward. We are asking you to make the right decision, and that is life,” Clarke said in her closing argument.
A life sentence would mean that “prison is where Mr. Bowers will die in obscurity, not as a hero and not as a martyr,” she said.
Olshan, the prosecutor, disputed the defense experts’ diagnosis of schizophrenia, asserting that Bowers was not suffering psychosis but had chosen to believe white supremacist rhetoric. And while acknowledging that Bowers was a depressed, neglected child, Olshan downplayed the significance of it, noting that Bowers had held jobs, paid bills, and was an otherwise functioning adult.
“He was not a child, he was a grown man. He was responsible for his actions, not his family and things that happened decades earlier. He was, he is responsible for his actions,” Olshan said.
Clarke retorted that “childhood matters.”
“It defies reality to say he got better, he’s fine, he’s just an evil guy. What it does is reflects a complete misunderstanding of serious mental illness,” she said.
In order to impose death, jurors must find that aggravating circumstances, which make the crime especially heinous, outweigh mitigating factors that could be seen as diminishing his culpability. Those aggravating circumstances could include the vulnerability of Bowers’ elderly and disabled victims and his targeting of Jewish people.
Olshan played a composite of 911 calls made from inside the synagogue, including audio of people being shot and a survivor’s horrified screams.
He said Bowers had taken “11 people, 11 full lives, 11 people who loved their families, 11 people who loved their friends, 11 people who were loved. … How do you measure the impact of all of that loss?”
The prosecutor spoke about 75-year-old Joyce Fienberg’s care for her family and 65-year-old Richard Gottfried’s devotion to his faith. He said Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz, 66, had the ethos of a country doctor: “He loved delivering babies but he never delivered judgment.” David Rosenthal, 54, and Cecil Rosenthal, 59, intellectually disabled brothers, “loved life,” Olshan said. “But maybe more than anything, they loved Tree of Life.”
The other deceased victims were Rose Mallinger, 97; Bernice Simon, 84, and her husband, Sylvan Simon, 86; Dan Stein, 71; Melvin Wax, 87; and Irving Younger, 69.
The attack also wounded seven people, including five responding police officers. Bowers was shot three times before surrendering when he ran out of ammunition.
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Rubinkam reported from northeastern Pennsylvania.
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https://www.pahomepage.com/news/national/ap-jury-poised-to-deliberate-death-penalty-or-life-sentence-for-gunman-in-pittsburgh-synagogue-massacre/
| 2023-07-31T21:13:53
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Buttigieg touts progress in goal for half of new car sales to be electric vehicles
WASHINGTON (Gray DC) - Following an announcement of private investment plan for 30,000 new electric vehicle chargers across the United States, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said government investment has paved the way private companies to produce more electric cars.
“Federal investment to try and make up the difference where markets are still getting ready, and then the private sector, private industry, needs to do the rest,” Buttigieg said.
Leading global electric vehicle manufacturers, including Ford, General Motors and BMW have joined together to build 30,000 electric vehicle chargers across the country.
“When you fill up your gas car with gas you’re counting on private companies to set up for that,” Buttigieg said. “We really need private industry to play more of a roll in investing in and running these electric vehicle charging stations.”
The government has set aside $7.5 billion for states to create their own networks of EV chargers, but the Biden administration wants to guarantee things like price transparency, and guaranteeing a charger from one company works for another company’s vehicles.
“They are going to meet standards that we have set, and they’ll have to in order to qualify for federal support.”
Buttigieg said if the U.S. does not take the lead on electric vehicles, someone else will.
“There is a race, whether people realize it or not,” Buttigieg said. “Where in the middle of a heated race to win the future of electric vehicles.”
The federal money for EV charging networks comes from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law passed in 2021.
Copyright 2023 Gray DC. All rights reserved.
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https://www.kait8.com/2023/07/31/buttigieg-touts-progress-goal-half-new-car-sales-be-electric-vehicles/
| 2023-07-31T21:13:59
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WASHINGTON (AP) — X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, has threatened to sue a group of independent researchers whose research documented an increase in hate speech on the site since it was purchased last year by Elon Musk.
An attorney representing the social media site wrote to the Center for Countering Digital Hate on July 20 threatening legal action over the nonprofit’s research into hate speech and content moderation. The letter alleged that CCDH’s research publications seem intended “to harm Twitter’s business by driving advertisers away from the platform with incendiary claims.”
Musk is a self-professed free speech absolutist who has welcomed back white supremacists and election deniers to the platform, which he renamed X earlier this month. But the billionaire has at times proven sensitive about critical speech directed at him or his companies.
The center is a nonprofit with offices in the U.S. and United Kingdom. It regularly publishes reports on hate speech, extremism or harmful behavior on social media platforms like X, TikTok or Facebook.
The organization has published several reports critical of Musk’s leadership, detailing an increase in anti-LGBTQ hate speech as well as climate misinformation since his purchase. The letter from X’s attorney cited one specific report from June that found the platform failed to remove neo-Nazi and anti-LGBTQ content from verified users that violated the platform’s rules.
In the letter, attorney Alex Spiro questioned the expertise of the researchers and accused the center of trying to harm X’s reputation. The letter also suggested, without evidence, that the center received funds from some of X’s competitors, even though the center has also published critical reports about TikTok, Facebook and other large platforms.
“CCDH intends to harm Twitter’s business by driving advertisers away from the platform with incendiary claims,” Spiro wrote, using the platform’s former name.
Imran Ahmed, the center’s founder and CEO, told the AP on Monday that his group has never received a similar response from any tech company, despite a history of studying the relationship between social media, hate speech and extremism. He said that typically, the targets of the center’s criticism have responded by defending their work or promising to address any problems that have been identified.
Ahmed said he worried X’s response to the center’s work could have a chilling effect if it frightens other researchers away from studying the platform. He said he also worried that other industries could take note of the strategy.
“This is an unprecedented escalation by a social media company against independent researchers. Musk has just declared open war,” Ahmed told the Associated Press. “If Musk succeeds in silencing us other researchers will be next in line.”
Messages left with Spiro and X were not immediately returned Monday.
It’s not the first time that Musk has fired back at critics. Last year, he suspended the accounts of several journalists who covered his takeover of Twitter. Another user was suspended for using publicly available flight data to track Musk’s private plane; Musk had initially pledged to keep the user on the platform but later changed his mind, citing his personal safety. He also threatened to sue the user before allowing him back on the platform under certain restrictions.
He initially had promised that he would allow any speech on his platform that wasn’t illegal. “I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means,” Musk wrote in a tweet last year.
X’s recent threat of a lawsuit prompted concern from U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who said the billionaire was trying to use the threat of legal action to punish a nonprofit group trying to hold a powerful social media platform accountable.
“Instead of attacking them, he should be attacking the increasingly disturbing content on Twitter,” Schiff said in a statement.
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https://www.pahomepage.com/news/national/ap-musk-threatens-to-sue-researchers-who-documented-the-rise-in-hateful-tweets/
| 2023-07-31T21:14:00
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