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BOULDER, Colo., Sept. 22, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- LongPath Technologies has won the top prize in the Society of Petroleum Engineers' highly selective Startup Village Competition.
LongPath Technologies' continuous and quantitative methane emissions monitoring systems provide emissions mitigation and reductions across the oil and gas supply chain, with applicability to other greenhouse gas sources and sectors. "LongPath, in partnership with our customers, uses foundational technology to detect and quantify greenhouse gas emissions in the oilfield and in markets beyond," said Ian Dickinson, LongPath's CEO, in his introduction to the Competition's panel members. "Our customers use LongPath and our in-house expertise as a full end-to-end emissions management strategy, from the measurements to feedback on system design."
After being chosen as one of 10 finalists in the ATCE SPE Startup Village Competition, LongPath went on to win the top prize of "Best in Show" on Tuesday, delivering a pitch and responding to questions posed by a panel of oil and gas industry leaders, emerging energy technologies experts, venture capitalists and angel investors. "On behalf of the entire LongPath team, we are honored and humbled to have been selected Best in Show at SPE's Energy Startup Competition, particularly considering the quality of the presenters in this year's competition," said Dickinson
Founded by a team of engineers and PhD experts in greenhouse gas measurements and monitoring, LongPath provides the industry gold standard of methane emissions monitoring. By providing total site coverage of emission sources, including flares, LongPath reduces the time to find and fix leaks from months to real-time. LongPath Technologies is the only methane monitoring company capable of providing proven, full quantification of all emission sources on a site to customers multiple times a day. LongPath is a leader among methane emissions monitoring technologies on the market, with applicability for sustainability certifying bodies such as the UNEP's OGMP2.0 Level 5 protocol and other U.S.-based initiatives.
Founded in 2017, LongPath Technologies leverages foundational laser technology to engineer actionable laser systems that probe unique "fingerprints" of methane, carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide and other molecules across > 50,000 wavelengths (colors) of light. Following a decade of research and development, the company's foundational technology combines low system cost and field robustness with continuous long-distance emissions detection. LongPath is based in Boulder, CO and can be found at www.LongPathTech.com.
View original content to download multimedia:
SOURCE LongPath Technologies, Inc.
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https://www.witn.com/prnewswire/2022/09/22/longpath-technologies-wins-society-petroleum-engineers-energy-startup-competition/
| 2022-09-22T12:09:28Z
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Pioneering Rental Platform Takes Over Leasing of 200+ Units Across 9 Rastegar Developments in Austin, Texas
NEW YORK, Sept. 22, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- REZI, the pioneer of Occupancy-as-a-Service, has launched in Austin with a partnership with the city's leading developer, Rastegar Property Company. Rastegar is a technology-enabled private real estate investment firm focused on value-add and development in all asset classes throughout Austin and the Southwest US. The partnership between REZI and Rastegar was announced today by Sean Mitchell, Co-Founder and CEO of REZI.
This deal contracts over 200 apartments across 9 buildings with floor plans ranging from studios to 3-bedrooms in West Lake Hills, Mueller, Hyde Park, Highland Heights, Clarksville, South Austin. All units will be onboarded to REZI's innovative AI-powered leasing platform, where REZI will take ownership over all marketing and leasing — providing Rastegar with a turnkey guaranteed leasing solution delivering higher asset NOIs across their portfolio.
"We are thrilled to be partnering with the "King of Austin Real Estate" not only because Austin is a key market for us, but Rastegar and REZI share the mission of using technology and innovation to make finding and acquiring housing fair, transparent, and accessible for everyone," said Mitchell.
"We were immediately impressed with REZI and what they have provided the previous markets in which they've launched," said Ari Rastegar, Founder & CEO of Rastegar Property Company, "In just a few years, they have become a highly reputable brand with nationwide outreach and a service that aligns perfectly with our needs and philosophy."
The announcement of this partnership coincides with REZI's launch of their Texas Headquarters at 1920 Mckinney Ave in Uptown, Dallas.
Founded in 2016, REZI leverages state-of-the-art leasing and financial technology to improve and optimize renters' leasing experience and improve property owners' leasing performance. REZI is a privately held company based in New York City.
Rastegar Property Company is a technology-enabled private real estate investment firm focused on value-add and development in all asset classes throughout Austin and the southwest United States. Rastegar and its affiliates have co-invested in or directly own and operate over 13.8 million square feet of real estate across projects in 13 states and 35 cities. The firm specializes in acquiring complex or undervalued assets with opportunities to create value through repositioning, redevelopment, and/or improved operational efficiencies.
Media Contact:
Loren Pomerantz
917-902-0219
loren@combined-forces.com
View original content to download multimedia:
SOURCE REZI
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https://www.witn.com/prnewswire/2022/09/22/rezi-launches-austin-with-rastegar-partnership/
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HOBART, Australia (AP) — Wildlife experts on Thursday rescued 32 of the 230 whales that were found stranded on the wild and remote west coast of Australia’s island state of Tasmania a day earlier.
Half the pod of pilot whales found stranded in Macquarie Harbour were presumed to still be alive on Wednesday, the Department of Natural Resources and Environment Tasmania said.
But only 35 had survived the pounding surf overnight, Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service manager Brendon Clark said.
“Of the 35 that were remaining alive this morning, we’ve managed to refloat, rescue and release … 32 of those animals, and so that’s a terrific result,” Clark told reporters late Thursday at nearby Strahan.
“We still have three alive on the far northern end of Ocean Beach, but because of access restrictions, predominantly tidal influences, we just haven’t been able to access those three animals safely today. But they’ll be our priority in the morning,” Clark added.
The whales beached two years to the day after the largest mass-stranding in Australia’s history was discovered in the same harbor.
About 470 long-finned pilot whales were found on Sept. 21, 2020, stuck on sandbars. After a weeklong effort, 111 of those whales were rescued but the rest died.
The entrance to the harbor is a notoriously shallow and dangerous channel known as Hell’s Gate.
Marine Conservation Program biologist Kris Carlyon said the dead whales would be tested to see if there were toxins in their systems that might explain the disaster.
“These mass stranding events are typically the result of accidental sort of coming to shore, and that’s through a whole host of reasons,” Carlyon said.
Local salmon farmer Linton Kringle helped in the 2020 rescue effort and said Thursday’s challenge was more difficult because the whales were in shallower and more exposed waters.
Fourteen sperm whales were discovered Monday afternoon beached on King Island in Bass Strait between the Australian mainland and Tasmania.
Griffith University marine scientist Olaf Meynecke said it’s unusual for sperm whales to wash ashore. He said that warmer temperatures could also be changing the ocean currents and moving the whales’ traditional food.
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...DENSE FOG ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 9 AM MDT THIS
MORNING...
* WHAT...Visibility less than one-half mile in dense fog.
* WHERE...Central Laramie County including Cheyenne.
* WHEN...From midnight tonight to 9 AM MDT Thursday.
* IMPACTS...Hazardous driving conditions due to low visibility.
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...
If driving, slow down, use your headlights, and leave plenty of
distance ahead of you.
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From left, Olivia Wilde, Florence Pugh and Sydney Chandler relax poolside in the mysterious utopia of “Don’t Worry Darling.” (Merrick Morton/Warner Bros. Pictures/TNS)
British actress Florence Pugh arrives on Sept. 5, 2022, for the screening of the film “Don’t Worry Darling,” presented out of competition as part of the 79th Venice International Film Festival at Lido di Venezia in Venice, Italy. (Tiziana Fabi/AFP via Getty Images/TNS)
From left, Olivia Wilde, Florence Pugh and Sydney Chandler relax poolside in the mysterious utopia of “Don’t Worry Darling.” (Merrick Morton/Warner Bros. Pictures/TNS)
Merrick Morton
British actress Florence Pugh arrives on Sept. 5, 2022, for the screening of the film “Don’t Worry Darling,” presented out of competition as part of the 79th Venice International Film Festival at Lido di Venezia in Venice, Italy. (Tiziana Fabi/AFP via Getty Images/TNS)
There didn’t seem to be any reason for worry, darling, when it was announced that actress-director Olivia Wilde would follow up her effervescent debut feature “Booksmart” with the 1950s psychological thriller “Don’t Worry Darling,” starring Florence Pugh. Having established herself as a bold and unapologetically feminist new filmmaker to watch, Wilde and “Booksmart” collaborator Katie Silberman wrote the screenplay for “Don’t Worry Darling” based on a script by Carey and Shane Van Dyke, which appeared on the 2019 Black List of the best unproduced screenplays in Hollywood.
But then a major pop star (Harry Styles) replaced a troubled actor (Shia LaBoeuf) on set, and Wilde’s fiance (“Ted Lasso” star Jason Sudeikis) on her arm, and the film became a subject of gossipy speculation, which all climaxed in a gloriously glamorous red carpet cacophony of deliciously frivolous celebrity hubbub at the film’s premiere at the Venice Film Festival earlier this month.
“Don’t Worry Darling” is a dizzyingly gorgeous and intoxicating project that combines “The Stepford Wives,” “Gaslight” and the “The Truman Show” into an aesthetically retro riff of modern social commentary. The ideas swirling in “Don’t Worry Darling” are indeed big, but they are also the film’s downfall. Wilde brandishes a sword of Betty Friedan-inspired feminist critique, but loses her tenuous grasp on this unwieldy tool, and rather than delivering an incisive blow to nostalgic misogyny, she slices the whole project to ribbons in front of our eyes, leaving us with a mess of pieces, unclear how to fit them all together.
Powerhouse rising star Pugh delivers a typically riveting performance as Alice, the young, randy wife of Jack (Styles), who wants nothing more than to vacuum their stunning midcentury modern home every day, and greet her hubby at the door with a cocktail, a hot meal and a willing body every night. The couple live on a picture-perfect cul-de-sac where lush green lawns abut the harsh desert (the film was shot in the architectural paradise of Palm Springs, California), and the wives wave goodbye to their husbands driving to work in candy-colored cars in a synchronized choreography every morning.
Choreography is a theme in “Don’t Worry Darling,” from the wives’ ballet classes, to the tap dance routine Jack displays during a wild big band party after receiving a promotion from his boss, Frank (Chris Pine), the mysterious figure who runs “The Victory Project,” where all the husbands work. They’re engineering something called “progressive materials,” about which the men are sworn to secrecy. Maybe it’s weapons, the wives wonder, blissfully unaware.
Dance is also a part of the disturbing visions that Alice starts to experience after her neighbor Margaret (Kiki Layne) cracks up before her very eyes. Images of women performing 1930s Busby Berkeley-style dance numbers, their legs rotating hypnotically, tear a hole in the fabric of Alice’s sun-dappled existence.
“Don’t Worry Darling” seems to exaggeratedly waggle its eyebrows at the viewer in anticipation of revealing that Things Are Not What They Seem at The Victory Project. It’s so over the top that one starts to feel that the film better deliver something truly bonkers – or else.
It does, but the reveal of the secrets that lurk beneath this dazzling surface also reveals the cracks in Wilde’s own approach to the topic. It becomes clear that in reaching for something controversial and relevant, Wilde and Silberman just haven’t gone deep, or far enough. The characterizations and stylistic choices become inconsistent in the light of revelation, and as you unpack the story and attempt to put it back together, it’s obvious that in crafting this “feminist” parable, Wilde has tried to do it all, and in doing so, has defanged her own argument.
Pugh is an undeniable talent, and miraculously, this film does cement her movie star status. She runs laps around Styles, who is unequipped as an actor to match her screen charisma. When Pugh faces off with Pine, the energy crackles off the screen. Unfortunately, for her most emotional moments, she is saddled with Styles, who is not up to the task and miscast in the role.
The craft is also undeniable, the costumes, hair, makeup and production design offering lush eye candy (even if it’s a mishmash of eras, which ends up being kind of the point). It’s all captured by cinematographer Matthew Libatique’s heady, swirling, light-saturated lenses and soundtracked to a rhythmic, breathy score by John Powell that urges us along, creating a rather charged and hypnotic cinematic effect.
While what’s underneath the beautiful veneer of The Victory Project is dark, twisted and sinister, below the shiny, stylized surface of “Don’t Worry Darling,” there is just a jumble of provocative and ultimately incoherent ideas. The synapses are firing, they just fail to connect.
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https://www.wyomingnews.com/features/movie-review-dont-worry-darling-dazzling-but-murky-beneath-the-surface/article_be34ee74-39e0-11ed-9447-3b6f37615f2a.html
| 2022-09-22T12:19:22Z
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The News-Herald (Willoughby, Ohio)
“Andor” boasts a sense of realism perhaps never before seen in a “Star Wars” movie or show.
Sure, we get the occasional laser blast or TIE fighters ripping through the sky in the series debuting this week on Disney+.
Mostly, though, “Andor” is a gritty thriller and character study more concerned with crime, politics and spycraft. And it boasts seemingly few digital effects, the dialogue-dependent story unfolding mostly on elaborate practical sets.
With promises that this is a more “adult” “Star Wars” project, its story begins with its namesake character – Diego Luna’s Cassian Andor, a protagonist in the solid 2016 movie “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” – killing two men who give him a hard time after he encounters them in a brothel on the planet Ferrix. (Now, this is still “Star Wars,” so Cassian is there looking for his sister – not to have a good time.)
All of that may be quite welcome to fans who grew up on the original trilogy but now have more sophisticated tastes. The closest this show comes to cuteness is squat droid B2EMO, who exhibits very relatable emotions.
Here’s the only problem: “Andor” is boring.
Through the four episodes that Disney-owned Lucasfilm Ltd. made available for review – the three debuting this week and next week’s chapter, which takes the story in a new direction – the drama suffers from lukewarm storytelling and almost never crackles. There may not be enough here for “Star Wars” fans of any age.
Set five years before the events of “Rogue One” – and thus also before 1977’s “Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope” – “Andor” is being shepherded by Tony Gilroy, who co-wrote “Rogue One.” His goal is to take Cassian from the aimless-but-gifted thief we meet at the brothel to the gifted Rebel spy we encountered in the film. And Gilroy (“Michael Clayton,” “the Bourne Legacy”) has 24 episodes to do it, with this season’s 12 installments covering a year’s time and a second planned season set to zoom us through another four years.
There’s time for “Andor” to improve. And it needs to get better.
Early on, the killing of the two men catches the attention of Syril Karn (Kyle Soller, “Poldark”), the deputy inspector for the corporate authority on another world, Morlana One. Against the wishes of his crime-rates-obsessed supervisor, he investigates the deaths and closes in on Cassian.
Cassian, meanwhile, is now desperate to leave Ferrix, where he has been raised by his adoptive mother, Maarva (Fiona Shaw, “Killing Eve”). He enlists the help of the other woman in his life, Bix Caleen (Adria Arjona, “Morbius”), who knows someone who may be interested in purchasing a valuable piece of stolen Imperial equipment from Cassian.
That person is Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgard), a mysterious figure pulling strings for the burgeoning rebellion against the Galactic Empire. The fiery star of the most recent “Andor” trailer, the veteran actor does give the show a needed boost as Luthen tries to convince Cassian to apply his skills for a greater cause
“Don’t you wanna fight these bastards for real?” Luthen asks him.
As yet another “Star Wars” prequel, “Andor” brings with it only so many unknowns. We certainly know where Cassian’s path will end, so we must become invested in his evolutionary journey. However, he was only a so-so character on the big screen, and there’s little so far to suggest that will change in this series. Luna (“Y tu mama tambien,” “Narcos: Mexico”) is partly to blame, the actor offering a performance that is understated to a fault.
(Flashback sequences that lend insight to Cassian’s childhood on the planet Kenari, where viewers are not privy to the native tongue, aren’t exactly compelling either. Antonio Vina fills the titular role in these moments.)
On the bright side, we are looking forward to more time spent with a couple of other secondary characters.
The first is Mon Mothma, a young member of the Imperial Senate portrayed by Genevieve O’Reilly since the character’s reintroduction in 2005’s “Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith.” (Mon Mothma originally was portrayed by Caroline Blakiston in 1983’s “Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi.”). Like Luthen, she is secretly working to overthrow the Empire … while also dealing with marital issues. (Hey, we told you this was “Star Wars” for grown-ups.)
The other is Dedra Meero (Denise Gough), a supervisor with the Imperial Security Bureau. She’s new in the job and ambitious, which rankles some of her male colleagues, including her boss (Anton Lesser of “Game of Thrones”). However, she’s right about the significance of what is happening on Ferrix.
That we find ourselves rooting for Dedra to excel in this male-dominated world speaks to one of the strong suits of “Andor”: its moral complexity. That, for the most part, the Imperials aren’t cartoonishly evil is laudable. And we have reason to believe we won’t approve of every action taken by Cassian and his Rebel pals as “Andor” progresses.
However, we have one more knock against it: The writers, including Gilroy, really struggle with scripting episodic television. Many a showrunner has talked about how a season is like one long movie, but that really feels like the case with “Andor.” Each chapter ending with almost nothing to make you look forward to the next. We weren’t expecting anything akin to the introduction of Baby Yoda at the end of the first episode of “The Mandalorian,” but there is shockingly little in the way of late-game pop here.
We’d guess that as “Andor” works its way toward “Rogue One,” this latest visit to a galaxy far, far away will lean more into some of the more fantastical elements we associate with “Star Wars.” We expect more laser blasts, more TIE fighters.
And, of course, we know that a certain heavy-breathing, dark Force-wielding man in black exists during this time period and could show up at any time to choke some life into this thing.
Will Carpenter is the Wyoming Tribune Eagle’s Arts and Entertainment/Features Reporter. He can be reached by email at wcarpenter@wyomingnews.com or by phone at 307-633-3135. Follow him on Twitter @will_carp_.
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https://www.wyomingnews.com/features/review-grown-up-star-wars-series-andor-struggles-early-on-to-find-its-dramatic-thrill/article_c8f0ebc8-39e1-11ed-b708-23d0b5e45dcc.html
| 2022-09-22T12:19:23Z
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...DENSE FOG ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 9 AM MDT THIS
MORNING...
* WHAT...Visibility less than one-half mile in dense fog.
* WHERE...Central Laramie County including Cheyenne.
* WHEN...From midnight tonight to 9 AM MDT Thursday.
* IMPACTS...Hazardous driving conditions due to low visibility.
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...
If driving, slow down, use your headlights, and leave plenty of
distance ahead of you.
&&
Paul Reiser, left, and Rachel Bloom play co-showrunners of a hit sitcom’s reboot in “Reboot.” (Michael Desmond/Hulu/TNS)
Corny jokes and smart humor battle it out in “Reboot,” a half-hour comedy about a millennial writer’s effort to revamp an early 2000s family sitcom for a new generation of viewers. The behind-the-scenes satire, which premiered Tuesday on Hulu, follows the cast and creators of the old hit series “Step Right Up” as they try to reshape the show while capitalizing on its legacy.
Created by Steven Levitan (“Modern Family”), who serves as an executive producer alongside Danielle Stokdyk and Jeff Morton, “Reboot” is a fun, clever and self-deprecating send-up of an unimaginative, reboot-obsessed television industry, mining rich material from the generation gap between old-school boomer humor and fussy cancel culture.
In this paradoxical comedy, young writer Hannah (Rachel Bloom) pitches her idea for the reboot to Hulu with a vision of making it smarter and more realistic than its goofy predecessor. The original cast members sign on with Hannah’s promise that the show will be updated for a new era; Reed (Keegan-Michael Key), Clay (Johnny Knoxville), Bree (Judy Greer) and former child star Zack (Calum Worthy) then arrive on set with their old grievances and rivalries. Reed sees himself as a “serious” actor who’s been saddled with his sitcom persona for decades. Former bad boy Clay is a scandal and/or PR crisis waiting to happen. Bree is plagued by the ageism of Hollywood and her own insecurities. And Zack’s helicopter mom still accompanies her 20-something son to the set.
But when the show’s original creator, Gordon (Paul Reiser), inserts himself back into the fold as a showrunner, Hannah’s plans for a modern makeover are challenged by his old-timey sitcom sensibilities. His idea of funny is culled from the 1980s and 1990s: Characters trip and fall for laughs, popcorn pours out of the dryer, there are boob jokes aplenty. Her humor is rooted in deeper questions about abandonment, longing and sexual identity. Gordon mentions SeaWorld as an example of a fun time. Hannah huffs at the idea. He shrugs, “Who doesn’t like SeaWorld? There’s dolphins there.” “The dolphins,” she exclaims.
The tension between the two is heightened by the fact that Hannah and Gordon also happen to be an estranged daughter and father with major issues that spill out at work. Her trio of fresh-faced writers are challenged by the veteran team that Gordon hires, making the writers room a wealth of material. The old folks make “insensitive and inappropriate” jokes. The younger crew use the Bechdel test to vet the work of their elders. The generation gap is highlighted in Gordon’s one word challenge to identify an inherently “funny food.” The millennial picks oatmeal. The boomer? Pickle.
“Reboot” is deeply ingrained in the entertainment ecosystem it lampoons. Episodes are titled with the names of old series like “New Girl” and “Growing Pains” and current shows such as “What We Do in the Shadows,” and there’s lots of references to the very streamer that carries the show. In the pilot, when concerns are raised about Hulu passing on a redux of “Step Right Up,” someone scoffs and points out that it’s the network that greenlighted a fifth season of “The Handmaids Tale.” Anything’s possible!
The chemistry among the cast members pushes this series from good to exceptionally funny in an endearing, dysfunctional sort of way. They capture the absurdity of rebooting a show that has no business returning and turn that disaster into great comedy in the process.
Will Carpenter is the Wyoming Tribune Eagle’s Arts and Entertainment/Features Reporter. He can be reached by email at wcarpenter@wyomingnews.com or by phone at 307-633-3135. Follow him on Twitter @will_carp_.
Will Carpenter is the Wyoming Tribune Eagle’s Arts and Entertainment/Features Reporter. He can be reached by email at wcarpenter@wyomingnews.com or by phone at 307-633-3135. Follow him on Twitter @will_carp_.
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https://www.wyomingnews.com/features/review-remaking-a-beloved-sitcom-can-be-a-disaster-reboot-spins-it-into-comedy-gold/article_980a58bc-39e3-11ed-922e-8f8fc766a48f.html
| 2022-09-22T12:19:23Z
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PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) — For the second day in a row, the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority (RIPTA) canceled morning trips to school for some Providence students.
Dozens of students who attend Central, Classical, Hope and Mount Pleasant high schools had no bus service Thursday morning.
Story continues below.
After students were stranded at bus stops on Wednesday, the agency said from now on it would start regularly providing 6 a.m. updates on any morning school trip cancelations and 1:45 p.m. updates on any afternoon school trip cancelations “to prepare students for a disruption in their service.”
When school routes are unavailable, students can ride any available RIPTA fixed-route bus to Kennedy Plaza and then transfer to a bus route that serves their school, the agency said in a statement. RIPTA will have outreach staff wearing bright yellow vests so students will know who to ask for assistance.
RIPTA continues to struggle with a driver shortage and is in need of hiring more than 30 drivers. The agency said it’s working to offer incentives for new hires, including competitive salaries, full benefits and additional time off.
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https://www.wpri.com/news/local-news/providence/ripta-morning-service-canceled-for-4-providence-high-schools/
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THURSDAY
Caregivers for loved ones with Alzheimer’s/dementia: 3 p.m., meet for coffee, pie, understanding and comradeship at Perkins Restaurant & Bakery, 204 S. 30th St. For more information, call 307-745-6451.
Al-Anon Family Group meets: 5:30 p.m. at the Presbyterian church, 215 S. 11th St. For relatives and friends of alcoholics. For information, call Jane at 307-760-4683 or Mark at 307-760-4716.
Open house for Laramie Police Department chief finalists: 6-7:30 p.m., Laramie Municipal Operations Center, 4373 N. 3rd St.
Fly-fishing rod building for veterans: 7-9 p.m., Laramie Chamber Business Alliance office, 528 S. Adams St. For more information, call 307-745-4429 or 307-399-1801.
”Expect the Unexpected” with UW Symphony: 7:30 p.m., Buchanan Center for the Performing Arts. The season opening performance for the symphony. For tickets, call 307-766-6666.
FRIDAY
Friends of the Albany County Public Library Fall Book Sale: 2:30-5:30 p.m., 310 S. 8th St., members only for this first night. Memberships may be bought or renewed at the library circulation desk or by visiting friends.acplwy.org.
WYOpen Stages presents staged reading of “Coop: The Lesbian Chicken Play”: 7:30 p.m., Buchanan Center for the Performing Arts Thrust Theatre. Tickets are $5 and available at tix.com/ticket-sales/uwyo/6984, or call 307-766-6666.
WyoTech’s Movie Night in the Park: 7:30 p.m., Edgar J. Lewis band shell at Washington Park. Join WyoTech and the city of Laramie for a free movie night of Disney’s Pixar Inside Out in the park to close out WyoTech’s Suicide Awareness Week. Bring blankets and warm clothing.
SATURDAY
Friends of the Albany County Public Library Fall Book Sale: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., 310 S. 8th St., all welcome. Memberships may be bought or renewed at the library circulation desk or by visiting friends.acplwy.org.
WYOpen Stages presents staged reading of “Coop: The Lesbian Chicken Play”: 7:30 p.m., Buchanan Center for the Performing Arts Thrust Theatre. Tickets are $5 and available at tix.com/ticket-sales/uwyo/6984, or call 307-766-6666.
SUNDAY
Friends of the Albany County Public Library Fall Book Sale: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., 310 S. 8th St., all welcome. Memberships may be bought or renewed at the library circulation desk or by visiting friends.acplwy.org.
UW Faculty Recital Series presents oboist Jennier Stucki: 3 p.m., Buchanan Center for the Performing Arts recital hall. Free to attend.
Laramie Connections free Meet and Eat dinner and faith gathering: 4:30 p.m., First Baptist Church, 1517 E. Canby St.
Al-Anon Family Group meets: 6:30 p.m. at the United Presbyterian Church, 215 S. 11th St. For relatives and friends of alcoholics. For information, call Jane at 307-760-4683 or Mark at 307-760-4716.
MONDAY
Friends of the Albany County Public Library Fall Book Sale: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., 310 S. 8th St., 50% off day. All welcome. Memberships may be bought or renewed at the library circulation desk or by visiting friends.acplwy.org.
Alcoholics Anonymous meets: Daily at various times in person or on Zoom. For more information, call 307-399-0590 or visit area76aawyoming.org or aa.org.
Survivors of Suicide Support Group: Meets from 5:30-6:45 p.m. at Hospice of Laramie House, 1754 Centennial Drive.
America Sewing Guild Laramie Chapter meets: 7 p.m., First United Methodist Church, 1215 E. Gibbon St., enter through the east side of the building. Independent designer and ASG conference favorite Pamela Leggett will be presenting “Pamela’s patterns: a Trunk Show.”
TUESDAY
Prayers & Squares Quilting Group meets: 9 a.m., Room 1 of Hunter Hall at St. Matthews Cathedral.
Laramie Garden Club meets: 7 p.m., First United Methodist Church, 1215 E. Gibbon St., enter through the east side of the building. Presentation will be “Putting Your Garden to Bed” and members will share their best plants of the season. For more information, visit laramiegarden-club.org.
WEDNESDAY
Laramie Tai Chi and Tea meets: 1:30 p.m. outdoors at Harbon Park, North 14th and Gibbon streets. For more information, visit visit laramietaichiandtea.org.
Open loom hours at University of Wyoming Art Museum: 3-5 p.m., 2111 Willett Drive. Free to participate.
Sept. 29
Caregivers for loved ones with Alzheimer’s/dementia: 3 p.m., meet for coffee, pie, understanding and comradeship at Perkins Restaurant & Bakery, 204 S. 30th St. For more information, call 307-745-6451.
Al-Anon Family Group meets: 5:30 p.m. at the United Presbyterian Church, 215 S. 11th St. For relatives and friends of alcoholics. For information, call Jane at 307-760-4683 or Mark at 307-760-4716.
Fly fishing rod building for veterans: 7-9 p.m., Laramie Chamber Business Alliance office, 528 S. Adams St. For more information, call 307-745-4429 or 307-399-1801.
Sept. 30
Downtown Laramie Farmers Market: 3-7 p.m., parking lot north of Depot Park on South 1st Street.
Bestselling author Kali Fajardo-Anstine at library: 6-9 p.m., Albany County Public Library, 310 S. 8th St.
UW Music presents Duo Cintemani: 7:30 p.m., Buchanan Center for the Performing Arts recital hall. This free performance features a critically acclaimed flute-guitar group.
Oct. 2
Walk with a Doc: 1:30-2:30 p.m. at the Washington Park west shelter No. 3. Bring walking shoes and a friend. For more information, email questions@ivinsonhospital.org.
Laramie Connections free Meet and Eat dinner and faith gathering: 4:30 p.m., First Baptist Church, 1517 E. Canby St.
Al-Anon Family Group meets: 6:30 p.m. at the United Presbyterian Church, 215 S. 11th St. For relatives and friends of alcoholics. For information, call Jane at 307-760-4683 or Mark at 307-760-4716.
Oct. 3
Alcoholics Anonymous meets: Daily at various times in person or on Zoom. For more information, call 307-399-0590 or visit area76aawyoming.org or aa.org.
Veterans service office hours: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Veterans Service Center at the UW Student Union, 1000 E. University Ave.
Survivors of Suicide Support Group: Meets from 5:30-6:45 p.m. at Hospice of Laramie House, 1754 Centennial Drive.
Oct. 4
Prayers & Squares Quilting Group meets: 9 a.m., Room 1 of Hunter Hall at St. Matthews Cathedral.
Oct. 5
Laramie Tai Chi and Tea meets: 1:30 p.m. First United Methodist Church, 1215 Gibbon St. For more information, visit visit laramietaichiandtea.org.
Ivinson’s women’s health team hosts prenatal education: 5:30 p.m. in the Summit conference room. For more information and registration, visit ivinsonhospital.org/childbirth.
Casper Aquifer Protection Draft Plan public comment: 6-8 p.m., in-person at Laramie Municipal Operations Center at 4373 N. 3rd St. and online at Zoom; meeting ID: 85445790677, passcode: 626454.
Oct. 6
Caregivers for loved ones with Alzheimer’s/dementia: 3 p.m., meet for coffee, pie, understanding and comradeship at Perkins Restaurant & Bakery, 204 S. 30th St. For more information, call 307-745-6451.
Al-Anon Family Group meets: 5:30 p.m. at the United Presbyterian Church, 215 S. 11th St. For relatives and friends of alcoholics. For information, call Jane at 307-760-4683 or Mark at 307-760-4716.
Diabetes Support Group meets: 5:30-6:30 p.m. via Zoom. Email questions@ivinsosnhospital.org for the link.
Fly fishing rod building for veterans: 7-9 p.m., Laramie Chamber Business Alliance office, 528 S. Adams St. For more information, call 307-745-4429 or 307-399-1801.
Oct. 8
12th annual Kids Pumpkin Walk: Noon to 4 p.m., Wyoming Territorial Prison State Historic Site. A fun family event featuring outdoor activities, indoor games, education, candy, treats and plenty of pumpkins. Cost is $4 for adults, 17 and younger admitted free.
Oct. 9
Laramie Connections free Meet and Eat dinner and faith gathering: 4:30 p.m., First Baptist Church, 1517 E. Canby St.
Al-Anon Family Group meets: 6:30 p.m. at the United Presbyterian Church, 215 S. 11th St. For relatives and friends of alcoholics. For information, call Jane at 307-760-4683 or Mark at 307-760-4716.
Oct. 10
Alcoholics Anonymous meets: Daily at various times in person or on Zoom. For more information, call 307-399-0590 or visit area76aawyoming.org or aa.org.
Veterans service office hours: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Veterans Service Center at the UW Student Union, 1000 E. University Ave.
Survivors of Suicide Support Group: Meets from 5:30-6:45 p.m. at Hospice of Laramie House, 1754 Centennial Drive.
Oct. 11
Prayers & Squares Quilting Group meets: 9 a.m., Room 1 of Hunter Hall at St. Matthews Cathedral.
Albany County Republican Party meets: 6 p.m., Albany County Public Library.
Bras with a Cause: 6 p.m., Roxie’s on Grand, 221 E. Grand Ave. For tickets, information or to decorate a bra, visit wyomingbreastcancer.org.
Oct. 12
Laramie Tai Chi and Tea meets: 1:30 p.m. First United Methodist Church, 1215 Gibbon St. For more information, visit visit laramietaichiandtea.org.
Ivinson’s women’s health team hosts prenatal education: 5:30 p.m. in the Summit conference room. For more information and registration, visit ivinsonhospital.org/childbirth.
Oct. 13
Caregivers for loved ones with Alzheimer’s/dementia: 3 p.m., meet for coffee, pie, understanding and comradeship at Perkins Restaurant & Bakery, 204 S. 30th St. For more information, call 307-745-6451.
Al-Anon Family Group meets: 5:30 p.m. at the United Presbyterian Church, 215 S. 11th St. For relatives and friends of alcoholics. For information, call Jane at 307-760-4683 or Mark at 307-760-4716.
Fly fishing rod building for veterans: 7-9 p.m., Laramie Chamber Business Alliance office, 528 S. Adams St. For more information, call 307-745-4429 or 307-399-1801.
Oct. 16
Walk with a Doc: 1:30-2:30 p.m. at the Washington Park west shelter No. 3. Bring walking shoes and a friend. For more information, email questions@ivinsonhospital.org.
Laramie Connections free Meet and Eat dinner and faith gathering: 4:30 p.m., First Baptist Church, 1517 E. Canby St.
Albany County Historic Preservation Board meets: 6 p.m. the second Monday of the month via Microsoft Teams. To attend and receive an invite, email a request to kcbard@charter.net.
Al-Anon Family Group meets: 6:30 p.m. at the United Presbyterian Church, 215 S. 11th St. For relatives and friends of alcoholics. For information, call Jane at 307-760-4683 or Mark at 307-760-4716.
Oct. 17
Alcoholics Anonymous meets: Daily at various times in person or on Zoom. For more information, call 307-399-0590 or visit area76aawyoming.org or aa.org.
Veterans service office hours: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Veterans Service Center at the UW Student Union, 1000 E. University Ave.
Survivors of Suicide Support Group: Meets from 5:30-6:45 p.m. at Hospice of Laramie House, 1754 Centennial Drive.
Progressive Voter Alliance sponsors Candidate Night: 7 p.m., at the Unitarian Church, 1402 Gibbon St. All are invited and will get three minutes to share their stories.
Oct. 18
Prayers & Squares Quilting Group meets: 9 a.m., Room 1 of Hunter Hall at St. Matthews Cathedral.
Oct. 19
Laramie Tai Chi and Tea meets: 1:30 p.m. First United Methodist Church, 1215 Gibbon St. For more information, visit visit laramietaichiandtea.org.
Ivinson’s women’s health team hosts prenatal education: 5:30 p.m. in the Summit conference room. For more information and registration, visit ivinsonhospital.org/childbirth.
Oct. 20
Caregivers for loved ones with Alzheimer’s/dementia: 3 p.m., meet for coffee, pie, understanding and comradeship at Perkins Restaurant & Bakery, 204 S. 30th St. For more information, call 307-745-6451.
Al-Anon Family Group meets: 5:30 p.m. at the United Presbyterian Church, 215 S. 11th St. For relatives and friends of alcoholics. For information, call Jane at 307-760-4683 or Mark at 307-760-4716.
Fly fishing rod building for veterans: 7-9 p.m., Laramie Chamber Business Alliance office, 528 S. Adams St. For more information, call 307-745-4429 or 307-399-1801.
Oct. 21
Albany County CattleWomen meet: 11:30 a.m., location TBD. Visit wyaccw.com in the week before the meeting for location and more information.
Oct. 22
Laramie Foster Closet Fall Fest: Noon to 5 p.m., Albany County Fairgrounds.
Oct. 23
Laramie Connections free Meet and Eat dinner and faith gathering: 4:30 p.m., First Baptist Church, 1517 E. Canby St.
Al-Anon Family Group meets: 6:30 p.m. at the United Presbyterian Church, 215 S. 11th St. For relatives and friends of alcoholics. For information, call Jane at 307-760-4683 or Mark at 307-760-4716.
Oct. 24
Alcoholics Anonymous meets: Daily at various times in person or on Zoom. For more information, call 307-399-0590 or visit area76aawyoming.org or aa.org.
Veterans service office hours: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Veterans Service Center at the UW Student Union, 1000 E. University Ave.
Survivors of Suicide Support Group: Meets from 5:30-6:45 p.m. at Hospice of Laramie House, 1754 Centennial Drive.
America Sewing Guild Laramie Chapter meets: 7 p.m., First United Methodist Church, 1215 E. Gibbon St.
Oct. 25
Prayers & Squares Quilting Group meets: 9 a.m., Room 1 of Hunter Hall at St. Matthews Cathedral.
Oct. 26
Laramie Tai Chi and Tea meets: 1:30 p.m. First United Methodist Church, 1215 Gibbon St. For more information, visit visit laramietaichiandtea.org.
Oct. 27
Caregivers for loved ones with Alzheimer’s/dementia: 3 p.m., meet for coffee, pie, understanding and comradeship at Perkins Restaurant & Bakery, 204 S. 30th St. For more information, call 307-745-6451.
Al-Anon Family Group meets: 5:30 p.m. at the United Presbyterian Church, 215 S. 11th St. For relatives and friends of alcoholics. For information, call Jane at 307-760-4683 or Mark at 307-760-4716.
Fly fishing rod building for veterans: 7-9 p.m., Laramie Chamber Business Alliance office, 528 S. Adams St. For more information, call 307-745-4429 or 307-399-1801.
Oct. 30
Laramie Connections free Meet and Eat dinner and faith gathering: 4:30 p.m., First Baptist Church, 1517 E. Canby St.
Al-Anon Family Group meets: 6:30 p.m. at the United Presbyterian Church, 215 S. 11th St. For relatives and friends of alcoholics. For information, call Jane at 307-760-4683 or Mark at 307-760-4716.
Oct. 31
Alcoholics Anonymous meets: Daily at various times in person or on Zoom. For more information, call 307-399-0590 or visit area76aawyoming.org or aa.org.
Veterans service office hours: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Veterans Service Center at the UW Student Union, 1000 E. University Ave.
Survivors of Suicide Support Group: Meets from 5:30-6:45 p.m. at Hospice of Laramie House, 1754 Centennial Drive.
Nov. 1
Prayers & Squares Quilting Group meets: 9 a.m., Room 1 of Hunter Hall at St. Matthews Cathedral.
Nov. 2
Laramie Tai Chi and Tea meets: 1:30 p.m. First United Methodist Church, 1215 Gibbon St. For more information, visit visit laramietaichiandtea.org.
Ivinson’s women’s health team hosts prenatal education: 5:30 p.m. in the Summit conference room. For more information and registration, visit ivinsonhospital.org/childbirth.
Nov. 3
Caregivers for loved ones with Alzheimer’s/dementia: 3 p.m., meet for coffee, pie, understanding and comradeship at Perkins Restaurant & Bakery, 204 S. 30th St. For more information, call 307-745-6451.
Al-Anon Family Group meets: 5:30 p.m. at the United Presbyterian Church, 215 S. 11th St. For relatives and friends of alcoholics. For information, call Jane at 307-760-4683 or Mark at 307-760-4716.
Diabetes Support Group meets: 5:30-6:30 p.m. via Zoom. Email questions@ivinsosnhospital.org for the link.
Fly fishing rod building for veterans: 7-9 p.m., Laramie Chamber Business Alliance office, 528 S. Adams St. For more information, call 307-745-4429 or 307-399-1801.
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https://www.wyomingnews.com/laramieboomerang/announcements/whats-happening-sept-22-2022/article_b51f331c-39cc-11ed-9f1a-fb5dbd1502f0.html
| 2022-09-22T12:19:50Z
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Casper Star-Tribune
CASPER — As persistently high natural gas prices renew a dispute between environmental and industry groups over conservation practices at oil and gas wells, there remains little overlap on how losses of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, should be regulated.
Wells that produce often also produce some natural gas. And in the weeks after a well is drilled, before operators are equipped to capture that gas and transport it to buyers, that natural gas — a highly flammable fuel composed mostly of methane — is often released or burned off in order to protect workers and equipment.
The same may happen even after the necessary infrastructure is in place if excess gas becomes a safety risk.
Lacking substantive federal standards, states have imposed a patchwork of regulations designed to protect air quality and minimize the noise and visibility of flaring. But environmental groups are advocating, increasingly, for stricter standards to be set at the federal level.
“When gas is flared, it is not taxed, and there’s no value collected from that gas, because it’s considered to be just a product that is basically wasted,” said Shannon Anderson, staff attorney for the Powder River Basin Resource Council.
Anderson said the prevalence of venting and flaring is both an environmental and economic concern, because in addition to its contribution to climate change, methane “is a high value product that we’re literally letting just escape into the atmosphere.”
Taxpayers for Common Sense, a Washington-based budget watchdog, said in an August report on methane waste that over the last decade, wells that were drilled on federal lands or tapped federal minerals failed to capture 300 billion cubic feet of natural gas — an estimated loss of $949 million — based on self-reported data.
The group suspects those numbers, which do not account for leaking equipment or abandoned wells, should actually be much higher.
It wants the federal government to require more comprehensive reporting standards, lower the cap on allowable methane emissions and impose a tax on methane that is still released.
“This is gas that’s not getting to market to benefit consumers, and it’s largely not charged a royalty, either,” said Autumn Hanna, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense. “We have outdated rules that oversee the definition of what wasted gas is, and we have self-reported industry data that we’re relying on. So we just have layers of problems.”
For now, at least, Wyoming regulators retain more responsibility to oversee flaring and venting at oil and gas wells than the federal government. Multiple agencies, however, are developing rules that would apply nationally, if finalized.
The Bureau of Land Management has yet to propose a methane rule under President Joe Biden.
But the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed rule, released in November, was quickly applauded by environmental groups and criticized by some oil and gas industry representatives.
In a written statement at the time, Wayne Lax, a Powder River Basin Resource Council board member, said the proposed rule contained “reasonable steps to protect the public health of people living and working near oil and gas wells and associated infrastructure.”
Western Energy Alliance, meanwhile, said complying with the proposed rule “would be extremely costly and therefore would shut in American production prematurely.”
The Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission updated its rules for oil and gas wells several years ago, amid pressure from environmental groups, including the Powder River Basin Resource Council.
The state agency currently restricts both venting and flaring, particularly for producing wells that are at least six months old, though it does grant exemptions to qualifying operators. And it has the support of the oil and gas industry.
“Wyoming’s doing it better than anyone,” said Ryan McConnaughey, vice president of the Petroleum Association of Wyoming. “Companies are already doing everything they can to capture and utilize methane as quickly as possible.”
From the industry’s perspective, he said, the state’s regulations strike “a good balance of making sure that we capture those resources and make sure that the state of Wyoming is receiving the benefit it is owed, but also not being over-burdensome in ways that would make it impossible to produce here in Wyoming.”
McConnaughey believes the eventual federal methane rules should resemble Wyoming’s approach.
Anderson, meanwhile, said enforcement — including decisions about when to give operators more leeway — has been “a little hit or miss” since the state tightened its standards.
“I think it could be better, but overall, it’s definitely a step in the right direction in terms of making sure that industry at least has to put forward a justification for flaring, and that they have to explain the timeline and circumstances of limiting that flaring going forward,” she said.
She’d still prefer to see stricter standards instituted uniformly across the country.
Almost half of federal mineral royalties generated in Wyoming are returned to the state. But efforts to tax flared gas have gained little traction here.
“A lot of operations in Wyoming depend on flaring,” said Rob Godby, an economics professor at the University of Wyoming.
Wells drilled unconventionally, or fracked, often see their output decline rapidly during the first few years, Godby said. Which means that by the time operators are required to start capturing natural gas, the volume may be much lower than it was right after drilling, particularly if they secure extensions.
“The fact that so much flaring potentially happened in Wyoming was of real concern, not only to the feds, who have heard about it for decades,” he said. “But also, in a time where there were issues with state revenues and concerns of how that might go, the idea that we’re allowing companies in Wyoming to flare that gas — it’s kind of an indirect subsidy.”
Nearly half of Wyoming lands and closer to 70% of the state’s minerals are federally owned.
Wyoming is the No. 1 producer of natural gas on federal lands: In 2020, it was responsible for just over 41%. (Including state and private lands, the state’s share of production drops to 4.16% of the national total.)
Operators in Wyoming reported venting and flaring up to $77 million worth of natural gas over the last 10 years, Hanna said.
Environmental groups are hopeful — and the oil and gas industry is worried — that the forthcoming federal rules, paired with the recently enacted Inflation Reduction Act, which contains penalties for high methane emissions along with incentives to reduce them, could override Wyoming’s resistance to taxing venting and flaring.
The implications for Wyoming’s oil and gas companies, the state economy and the climate will depend on how federal agencies choose to proceed.
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https://www.wyomingnews.com/laramieboomerang/news/groups-at-odds-over-methane-regulation/article_1d726d3a-39f5-11ed-9cb1-5739e3759363.html
| 2022-09-22T12:19:56Z
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https://www.wyomingnews.com/laramieboomerang/news/groups-at-odds-over-methane-regulation/article_1d726d3a-39f5-11ed-9cb1-5739e3759363.html
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https://www.wyomingnews.com/laramieboomerang/news/local_news/arrest_record_and_police_calls/felony-arrest/article_cee9aec2-391c-11ed-afd3-2f0a3dd0a9c9.html
| 2022-09-22T12:20:09Z
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https://www.wyomingnews.com/laramieboomerang/news/local_news/arrest_record_and_police_calls/felony-arrest/article_cee9aec2-391c-11ed-afd3-2f0a3dd0a9c9.html
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Conservation District to host butterfly tagging event
ZANESVILLE − Perhaps our most iconic butterfly, the Monarch butterfly is an orange and black wonder, migrating from as far north as southern Canada to central Mexico every fall. To help scientists understand this, every year across the country some monarchs are tagged with a small ticker in hopes they can be tracked during their flight.
The Muskingum Soil and Water Conservation District will be hosting a Monarch tagging event at its pollinator garden at 831 Shinnick St. in Zanesville on Saturday. The event starts at 10 am. Parking is available at the adjacent Rural Services building on Underwood Street. The event will help educate attendees on how and why Monarchs are tagged, and learn their life cycle, including migration and how to tell a male and female Monarch apart.
The tag itself is a small sticker, about the size of a pencil eraser, placed on the butterfly's wing, said Allie Murphy of the MSWCD. It has a unique code, which is reported to Monarch Watch, with the hope that researchers on the butterflies wintering grounds in Mexico can recapture tagged Monarchs to find out more about where they travel from and how long it took to get there.
To demonstrate, Murphy captures a Monarch on a flower in the pollinator garden. It isn't easy, requiring a swift, but gentle touch with a long-handled net. The first attempt fails as the butterfly escapes, flying swiftly toward Underwood Street before eventually circling back. She gently places a sicker on the underside of the butterfly's left wing before releasing it. The butterfly, now known as AGTG 000, none the worse for wear, rockets away and disappears.
The decline of the Monarch butterfly, which was declared endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature earlier this year, demonstrates the importance of native plants and protecting open spaces, Murphy said. Loss of habitat means loss of milkweed, which is the only plant Monarchs will lay their eggs on and the only plant their caterpillars will eat.
Helping is as simple as "just planting the plants they need in your yard, instead of hearing weed and thinking 'Oh I don't want that there,' Murphy said. "It is a beautiful plant, it is what they need to survive, and it is native. It is a perfect addition to your garden or even the corner of your back yard."
For more information about the event, call the MSWCD at 740-454-2027. Or visit www.muskingumswcd.org.
ccrook@gannett.com
740-868-3708
@crookphoto
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https://www.zanesvilletimesrecorder.com/story/news/local/2022/09/22/conservation-district-to-host-butterfly-tagging-event/69508434007/
| 2022-09-22T12:20:34Z
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Jackson Hole Daily
JACKSON — The Teton County Sheriff’s Office had a rash of calls last week regarding scammers posing as local law enforcement officers to extort money or personal information.
“There’s been a wave of phone scams this week where the caller is using deputies’ names,” Teton County Sheriff Matt Carr said. “They tend to target things by ZIP code, working in a certain area at a certain time. They’re probably pulling our deputies’ names off the internet.”
Dispatch Manager for the Sheriff’s Office Riclyn Betsinger said that although she hasn’t been tracking the number of scam-related calls she has received, she estimates she has fielded 30 to 40 from people who are reporting scammers.
“What’s different is they’re posing as law enforcement and using law enforcement names,” Betsinger said. “Sometimes they’re even sending it through our law enforcement numbers so [the phone call] shows up as dispatch.
“People are getting calls about missing jury duty, scammers saying because you missed jury duty you now have to send some kind of money,” Betsinger said. “Or that you have a warrant out for your arrest, so you have to pay to take care of it.
“A lot of time they’re phishing for identity information, so they will ask you to confirm your personal information on something, and then they’ll steal identities that way.”
Another red flag is a request to pay for your so-called debt using gift cards, which are untraceable.
“Scammers will ask people to go to Albertsons or Target to buy eBay gift cards or something like that because there’s no way to track it,” Betsinger said. “Recently we had people posing as Lower Valley Energy calling people saying you have to go purchase gift cards. I believe a few people bought them.”
Although Betsinger said a wave of scams “happens every few months,” Carr said his concern has been that even folks he considers to be sharp and “very astute businesspeople” are feeling unclear enough to call and verify.
“It’s a lot of very intelligent people that are calling,” Carr said. “They’re getting hooked enough to call us to try to confirm. The scammers are very, very good at what they do.”
Carr added that the scammers often “prey on the elderly,” and that the recent evolution of spoofing local numbers has added to the confusion.
Betsinger offered some blanket advice to folks who receive requests from “agencies” such as the Internal Revenue Service or Social Security Administration to send payment or personal information.
“The biggest thing is, most of these agencies, including the Sheriff’s Office, aren’t going to be asking for money over the phone,” Betsinger said. “Most of the time if you did owe money of some sort, they’re going to ask for that in writing.”
Carr doubled down on that, citing specific instances when the Sheriff’s Office would call you.
“We don’t ever call asking anybody for money. Ever,” Carr said. “The only time we’ll call is for paper service. We’ll either ask you to come in and pick it up or have a uniformed deputy deliver it to your house. We don’t take money at all.”
Another scam entails efforts to blackmail middle schoolers and high schoolers.
Jackson Hole resident Devon Viehman said that in her weekly parents’ circle she has heard of six instances over the past six weeks of kids being extorted using graphic photos.
“I’ve heard from multiple parents that scammers are photoshopping their child’s head onto a graphic murdered body, saying, ‘This will happen to you and your family if you don’t send me money,’ ” Viehman said.
Scammers have also been photo editing the heads of children onto naked bodies.
“They’ll say, ‘Send money or I’ll post this [nude photo of you] on Instagram,’ ” Viehman said. “I saw one scammer tagged a child on Instagram and said, ‘Are you friends with so and so? Let me know and I’ll send you a picture.’ ”
Viehman said that, to her knowledge, the fake pictures hadn’t been posted and no money had been sent to the scammers.
“One child was so scared, she wouldn’t go to her after-school job,” she said, adding that the pictures she saw were “very graphic and very well-photoshopped.”
Viehman shared information for parents that she received from a therapist. The therapist told Viehman it’s common for children to feel embarrassed or feel that they did something wrong in such situations.
“The main thing is having that conversation before it happens,” Viehman said. “Saying to your kid, ‘This is happening here, and if you receive something, tell me about it. You don’t need to hide it from me. You’re not going to get in trouble, you have nothing to be embarrassed about. We just want to keep you safe.’ ”
The sheriff’s office doesn’t have a way of tracking these scams locally, so it refers people to a few federal resources.
“IC3.gov is specific to internet crime, emails and social media messages,” Betsinger said. “FTC.gov is the Federal Trade Commission, where you can report fraud. They also have articles about the latest scams going around.”
If you’re contacted by a scammer masquerading as a specific agency, such as the IRS or the Social Security Administration, those agencies also have ways to directly report on their website.
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CHEYENNE – The case of a Cheyenne man facing an aggravated vehicular homicide charge has been bound over to Laramie County District Court.
Bryan R. Ciccone, 45, waived a preliminary hearing that was scheduled for Wednesday, automatically sending the felony case from circuit court to district court. Ciccone has been accused of striking with his vehicle on Aug. 22 a man who was walking along the side of East Lincolnway.
The pedestrian, identified in a probable cause affidavit as Anthony Gabriel, was 29 or 30 years old and died Aug. 28. An autopsy attributed Gabriel's death to “blunt force trauma to the head and neck due to being struck by a motor vehicle."
Although Ciccone was originally charged with DUI with serious bodily injury, the charge was amended following Gabriel's death.
Documents later filed in Laramie County Circuit Court charged Ciccone with aggravated vehicular homicide while driving under the influence – or, in the alternative, aggravated vehicular homicide while driving in a reckless manner. Both of these felony charges carry a prison sentence of up to 20 years and/or a $10,000 fine.
Ciccone appears to have posted a $10,000 cash bond on Aug. 23, following an initial appearance, according to court papers.
It was unclear as of Wednesday afternoon when Ciccone will be arraigned in district court.
District courts in Wyoming handle felony criminal cases, as well as juvenile and probate matters.
Incident
At about 5 p.m. on Aug. 22, an officer with the Cheyenne Police Department responded to the 3100 block of East Lincolnway, following a report of the incident.
The officer contacted Ciccone, who was standing in a grass shoulder about 30 feet from the road “inside of the tracks his vehicle created in the grass to the north of” East Lincolnway, a probable cause affidavit said. His vehicle had damage that was consistent with hitting a pedestrian, including “extensive damage” to the hood and a shattered windshield.
Ciccone reportedly told the officer he passed out while he was driving and hit someone walking along the side of the street, later identified as Gabriel. Ciccone said he woke up while driving in the field, with witnesses yelling that he hit a pedestrian, according to court documents. He said he’d just left work because he’d passed out while using the bathroom.
Ciccone told law enforcement that he’d smoked marijuana at about 8 a.m. He’d had “a ‘big party’” the night before and smoked a lot of marijuana, and he was “not certain there were no other drugs in the marijuana he smoked at the party.” He apparently did not pass on-scene sobriety tests.
An examination of Ciccone’s vehicle found he’d “sped up before the collision” and struck Gabriel at 47 miles per hour.
Also bound over
A Colorado man charged with first-degree murder in a deadly Pine Bluffs shooting earlier this month also had his case bound over to Laramie County District Court.
Rodrigo Vigner Turcios Romero, also known as Yigner Rodrigo Turcios Romero, is either age 30 or 31, and is from Greeley, Colorado. His case was sent to district court following a Friday preliminary hearing, according to court records.
Turcios Romero is accused of shooting and killing Olvin Yonairo Montoya Ramirez, 37, also of Colorado, at a Pine Bluffs residence over Labor Day weekend. If convicted, he could face life in prison or the death penalty.
An autopsy said Montoya died from a gunshot wound to the head.
As of Wednesday afternoon, Turcios Romero remained in custody at the Laramie County jail, according to a jail employee. Court papers show his bond was set at $500,000 cash at the Friday hearing.
It was unclear as of Wednesday afternoon when Turcios Romero will be arraigned in district court.
The shooting was one of a few violent incidents that took place around Labor Day weekend in Laramie County. Despite this, local law enforcement leaders said recently that the incidents likely don’t indicate a larger trend of violence here.
Shooting
Deputies with the Laramie County Sheriff’s Office were dispatched at 1:47 p.m. on Sept. 4 to the 300 block of County Road 161 in Pine Bluffs for a reported assault with a gun.
Deputies found Montoya in a detached garage with an apparent gunshot wound to the head, according to a probable cause affidavit. He was taken to Cheyenne Regional Medical Center, where he died.
A witness said Turcios Romero had been visiting his home and the two had been drinking beer and talking about Turcios Romero’s relationship issues. Montoya arrived later. The three apparently knew each other because they’d previously been co-workers.
The witness said Turcios Romero’s girlfriend arrived at the home and “demanded” the keys to her vehicle from Turcios Romero, who gave them to her, and she “left at a high rate of speed.” Following this incident, and after walking in and out of the garage a few times, Turcios Romero pulled a small handgun from his waistband and “said something like ‘This is what you get’ before shooting (Montoya) once,” the affidavit says.
The witness then went inside his house, where he told his family to lock the doors and call 911. Turcios Romero reportedly went to the front door and yelled for his keys, which the man said he did not have, and he told Turcios Romero to leave. Turcios Romero continued walking around the property until he got on the man’s son’s bike and rode away, the man said.
Turcios Romero surrendered to law enforcement the following day, after hiding in a cornfield. He admitted to detectives that he'd shot Montoya. He said he didn't know why he did it, and that he'd only been thinking about shooting Montoya for about 15 to 20 minutes beforehand.
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...DENSE FOG ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 9 AM MDT THIS
MORNING...
* WHAT...Visibility less than one-half mile in dense fog.
* WHERE...Central Laramie County including Cheyenne.
* WHEN...From midnight tonight to 9 AM MDT Thursday.
* IMPACTS...Hazardous driving conditions due to low visibility.
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...
If driving, slow down, use your headlights, and leave plenty of
distance ahead of you.
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Cheyenne, Wheatland men sentenced in U.S. District Court
CHEYENNE – Two men were recently sentenced for drug crimes in U.S. District Court, according to a Tuesday news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Wyoming.
Kevin Ohlberg, 35, of Cheyenne was sentenced on Sept. 13 for possession with intent to distribute 50 grams or more of methamphetamine. He received from Chief U.S. District Judge Scott W. Skavdahl a sentence of 60 months’ imprisonment and four years of supervised release, per the U.S. Attorney's Office announcement. Ohlberg was also ordered to pay $500 in community restitution and a $100 special assessment.
Karl D. Vongettrost, 29, of Wheatland was also sentenced Sept. 13 for possession with intent to distribute 50 grams or more of methamphetamine. He received from U.S. District Judge Nancy D. Freudenthal a sentence of 120 months’ imprisonment and five years of supervised release. Vongettrost was also ordered to pay $500 in community restitution and a $100 special assessment.
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| 2022-09-22T12:21:17Z
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In a stunning decision on April 12, 1937, with enormous constitutional, economic and societal importance, the U.S. Supreme Court, in National Labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation, upheld a law that transformed workers’ rights and labor relations.
The Wagner Act of 1935 guaranteed the right of workers to organize labor unions. It also aimed to protect the right of employees to bargain collectively with their employers. The statute defined types of interference with these rights as unfair labor practices and empowered the NLRB to compel employers to halt such practices. Employers across the nation resisted the statute, and it could not be applied to manufacturing companies, given the Court’s interpretation of congressional power over interstate commerce.
The Wagner Act – the Magna Carta of the American labor movement – revolutionized employer-employee rights and relations. The Jones & Laughlin ruling revolutionized the Court’s jurisprudence. It transformed the labor market and the workplace and, in the process, expanded congressional power over interstate commerce to new frontiers.
One prominent scholar on the scene assessed the impact of the decision within the context of a series of cases that reversed rulings and upheld President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal programs and concluded that the Court was engaged in a “Constitutional Revolution, Ltd.” Certainly Justice Robert H. Jackson was correct in characterizing the landmark ruling as the most far-reaching victory ever won on behalf of labor in the Supreme Court.
The key provision in the Wagner Act involved the authorization of the NLRB to prohibit any person from engaging in any unfair labor practice that “affected commerce.” The Jones & Laughlin Steel Company was huge. It was the nation’s fourth-largest steel producer, employed more than 22,000 workers and owned iron ore, coal and limestone properties in several states, as well as railroad and shipping subsidiaries. In a word, it boasted integrated operations across America.
It was also a strong opponent of labor unions. The NLRB filed charges against one of the company’s plants in Pennsylvania for firing some 20 union supporters before an election in 1935. The Labor Board declared, “There is an exceedingly vicious history of terrorism in this community.” The question before the Supreme Court was whether these unfair labor practices had a sufficient effect upon commerce to justify congressional control.
Before Jones & Laughlin, the Court had, in several rulings, regarded mines, mills and factories as engaging in activities that it categorized as “local” in nature and subject to state regulation. Consequently, they were immune to congressional regulation under the Commerce Clause. Congressional authority in the realm or stream of commerce was limited to those activities that transcended state boundaries.
The consequences of the Court’s ruling – for employers and employees, and, indeed, for the life of the nation – generated vast and intense public interest. More than 1,000 people stood in line, hoping to squeeze into the 220 seats in the courtroom to hear what the high tribunal would decide.
Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, a former governor of New York, U.S. Secretary of State and Republican presidential candidate in 1916 (in short, one of the most famous Americans of his time), wrote for a 5-4 majority that upheld the Wagner Act. He began his magisterial opinion by saying that those previous decisions that viewed labor relations as purely “local” activities “are not controlling here.” Hughes described Jones & Laughlin’s “far-flung activities” as immediate, with direct and indirect effects on the life of the nation. The effects could be “catastrophic.”
The nationally integrated character of the steel industry loomed large in the Court’s reasoning. “When industries organize themselves on a national scale,” Hughes wrote, “making their relation to interstate commerce the dominant factor in their activities, how can it be maintained that their industrial labor relations constitute a forbidden field into which Congress may not enter when it is necessary to protect interstate commerce from the paralyzing consequences of the industrial war?”
The Court’s dismissal of previous rulings on the Commerce Clause meant that it was now embracing a maximum view of congressional authority over commerce. In brief, Congress could regulate not only interstate commerce itself, but any activity affecting commerce.
That fact pained the dissenters in Jones & Laughlin, the so-called Four Horsemen – George Sutherland, James McReynolds, Pierce Butler and Willis Van Devanter – who protested the extension of congressional authority beyond anything previously deemed permissible.
As a historical matter, the Court’s ruling indicated that it would no longer veto congressional regulation of the economy, which was the essential motivation behind President Roosevelt’s court-packing plan. The ruling, moreover, was widely regarded as the Court’s contribution toward a peaceful restoration of frayed – indeed, tense – relations between the president and the justices and its acceptance of the New Deal.
David Adler, PhD, is a noted author who lectures nationally and internationally on the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and presidential power. His scholarly writings have been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court and lower courts by both Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Congress. He can be reached at david.adler@alturasinstitute.com.
David Adler, PhD, is a noted author who lectures nationally and internationally on the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and presidential power. His scholarly writings have been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court and lower courts by both Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Congress. He can be reached at david.adler@alturasinstitute.com.
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Basketball
Junior Tribe tryout: All current seventh- and eighth-grade boys planning to attend Cheyenne Central are invited to try out for the Junior Tribe basketball teams from 7-8:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 27, at McCormick Junior High.
For more information, contact coach CJ Williams at 307-421-5541.
K-2 co-rec youth league: Registration for the city’s co-rec league for kindergartners through second graders is underway. Late registration runs Oct. 21-Nov. 3. The cost is $60 per player, with a $25 late fee, if space is available.
Practices start Dec. 12, and the season includes a six-game schedule. Players will receive a team shirt, basketball, picture and award.
For more information, contact David Contreras at dcontreras@cheyennecity.org or 307-637-6425.
Registration can be completed under the Recreation Division link at www.cheyennerec.org.
Referee training: The city of Cheyenne will hold a free youth basketball referee training from 6-8 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 25, at the Youth Activity and Community Center at David Romero Park, 1317 Parsley Blvd.
Registration ends Oct. 20. Participants will learn about proper court positioning, call signals and other aspects of the game.
Registration can be complete at www.cheyennerec.org.
For more information, contact David Contreras at dcontreras@cheyennecity.org or 307-637-6425.
Third-sixth grade league: Late registration for the city’s youth league for third through sixth graders ends Sept. 29.
The cost is $85 per player, if space is available. Practices start Oct. 17, and the season will include six games. Players will receive a team shirt, basketball, picture and award.
For more information, contact Harley Tekerman at htekerman@cheyennecity.org or 307-637-6408.
Registration can be completed under the Recreation Division link at www.cheyennerec.org.
YMCA youth league: Late registration for the YMCA’s youth fall basketball league ends Saturday, Sept. 24.
The league is for children ages 3-12, and the season starts Oct. 1.
The cost is now $72 for YMCA members and $93 for nonmembers for the 3-4- and 5-6-year-old divisions. The cost for the 7-8-year-old division is $85 for members and $100 for nonmembers. The cost for the 9-10-year-old division is $90 for members and $105 for nonmembers, and the 11-12-year-old division is $100 for members and $115 for nonmembers.
Registration can be completed under the youth sports tab at www.cheyenneymca.org.
Pickleball
BEAST drop-in play: The BEAST Foundation will host drop-in pickleball starting Oct. 3. The time is tentatively scheduled for 8-11 a.m. Monday-Friday at 2900 Sunflower Road.
The cost is $6 per session, or $50 for a 10-session punch card. Beginners and experienced players are welcomed.
Volleyball
Adult co-rec league: Registration for the city of Cheyenne’s adult co-rec winter volleyball league starts Oct. 31 and ends Dec. 15.
The cost is $450 per team. The season runs Jan. 23-April 21. Each team is guaranteed 10 games. There is a single-elimination tournament at the end of the season.
For more information, contact David Mullen at dmullen@cheyennecity.org or 307-773-1039.
Registration can be completed under the Recreation Division link at www.cheyennerec.org.
If you have an item for the Community Sports Bulletin Board, email the information to sports@wyosports.net, fax it to 307-633-3189 or contact WyoSports’ Cheyenne office at 307-633-3137.
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Boy, 16, shot in the face in Back of the Yards
CHICAGO - A teenage boy was shot in the face Thursday morning in the Back of the Yards neighborhood.
The 16-year-old was walking around 2:20 a.m. in the 4800 block of South Honore Street when a blue minivan pulled up and someone inside started shooting, according to Chicago police.
The boy was struck by gunfire on the left side of his face. He was taken by paramedics to Stroger Hospital where he was listed in good condition, police said.
The gunman fled the scene, driving westbound on 49th Street.
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No one is in custody as Area One detectives investigate.
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Happ’s sacrifice fly caps 3-run rally, Cubs beat Marlins 4-3
MIAMI - Ian Happ hit a go-ahead sacrifice fly in the eighth inning and the Chicago Cubs rallied to beat the Miami Marlins 4-3 on Wednesday night.
Patrick Wisdom hit his 23rd homer for the Cubs, who had only four hits.
Down 3-1, the Cubs scored three in the eighth without a hit against Marlins relievers Steven Okert and Dylan Floro.
"A lot of good things in that inning and then really good pitching," Cubs manager David Ross said.
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Okert (5-5) walked Zach McKinstry and Christopher Morel to start the inning. Okert then muffed Esteban Quiroz’s sacrifice bunt and threw errantly to first. McKinstry scored from second on the error while Morel and Quiroz advanced two bases.
Chicago tied it after Morel beat shortstop Miguel Rojas’ throw to the plate on a grounder by David Bote, with Quiroz advancing to third. Happ followed with a fly ball to left off Floro.
Keegan Thompson (10-5) pitched three scoreless innings of relief. Activated from the injured list earlier Wednesday, Thompson allowed one hit and struck out six.
"First batter I was too quick but I settled in, slowed down and got into a rhythm," said Thompson, who had been sidelined since Aug. 19 because of low back tightness. "The adrenaline was going. It felt good."
Thompson began the season as a reliever before joining the Cubs rotation. He relished his return role in a key spot to keep Chicago close.
"It was nice to come out there and show the confidence to go out and finish it," Thompson said.
For the second consecutive night, Okert got the loss after being unable to hold a lead in the eighth. It was the Marlins’ 37th one-run loss, matching the club record set in 1993.
"I wanted to go back to him today," Marlins manager Don Mattingly said. "The guy’s been good for you. He had a tough (Tuesday) night and wanted to give him a chance for him to respond."
Marlins starter Jesús Luzardo struck out 11 in 6 2/3 innings of one-run ball. The left-hander allowed three hits and walked one. Wisdom’s blast in the seventh ended Luzardo’s outing.
"Going into the game, I wanted to establish my fastball," Luzardo said. "What my stuff does is it gets outs in the zone. I have to throw pitches in the right spot, obviously, but just loading it up and letting guys swing out of innings instead of me trying to be too perfect."
Rookie Nick Fortes and Lewin Díaz homered against Cubs starter Marcus Stroman in the fifth. Fortes’ two-run drive cleared the right-field wall and Díaz followed with his solo shot to right.
Stroman, who limited the Marlins to two singles through the first four innings, was lifted after six innings. He allowed three runs and five hits, walked one and struck out seven.
"I felt great, ran into two bad pitches and they made some damage," Stroman said. "That’s how baseball is sometimes."
BASEBALL CLASSIC CALLINGS
Israel has added Marlins relievers Richard Bleier and Jake Fishman to its roster for the 2023 World Baseball Classic next spring. The 35-year-old Bleier also represented Israel in the 2013 tournament’s qualifying round.
ROSTER MOVE
The Cubs optioned RHP Jeremiah Estrada to Triple-A Iowa for Thompson’s spot on the roster.
TRAINER’S ROOM
Cubs: INF Nico Hoerner (triceps) sat out his ninth straight game. ... LHP Steven Brault (left shoulder strain) gave up four runs and four hits and didn’t record an out in a rehab appearance with Iowa Tuesday.
Marlins: RHP Edward Cabrera (right middle finger blister) continues to receive treatment and remains in line to make his next start Sunday.
UP NEXT
Cubs: RHP Hayden Wesneski (1-1, 2.30) will start the opener of a four-game road set against Pittsburgh on Thursday.
Marlins: Have not announced a starter for the opener of their three-game home series against Washington on Friday.
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Fall-like weather returns to Chicago today
CHICAGO - Temperatures in some spots have made a 35-degree plunge since Tuesday. Skies will be partly sunny today with highs only in the low to mid 60s.
Add a stiff northerly breeze and it will surely feel rather fall-like.
The autumnal equinox occurs at 8:04 p.m. marking the start of astronomical fall. Skies will be partly cloudy tonight and there could conceivable be a lake-effect sprinkle toward morning. Lows in the upper 40s inland and low 50s downtown.
Tomorrow will be similar to today temperature-wise. A few showers are likely tomorrow night.
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The weekend will be warmer on Saturday with mid 70s and sunshine, then cloudier with scattered showers on Sunday and highs closer to 70 degrees. It could rain during the Bears game but nothing like Week 1.
Fiona is still a Category 4 hurricane with max sustained winds of 130 mph. She will pass west of Bermuda, where tropical storm conditions are likely tonight into tomorrow morning with a chance of hurricane conditions there.
Eastern Canada will be hammered this weekend with Nova Scotia in the crosshairs. This could be the strongest hurricane (lowest central pressure) to ever hit Canada.
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| 2022-09-22T12:28:19Z
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WATERBURY, Conn. (AP) — Seven days into his trial for calling the Sandy Hook school shooting a hoax, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones is expected make his first courtroom appearance and begin testifying Thursday, as he and his lawyer try to limit damages he must pay to families who lost loved ones in the massacre.
Jones has been in Connecticut this week in preparation for his testimony, but appeared only briefly in the courthouse Tuesday and did not enter the courtroom. The Infowars host has bashed the proceedings as a “travesty justice” and the judge as a “tyrant” in comments outside the courthouse in Waterbury, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) from the scene of the 2012 shooting in Newtown.
Twenty first graders and six educators were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
Several victims’ relatives, meanwhile, have given emotional testimony during the trial about being traumatized by people calling the shooting fake, including confrontations at their homes and in public and messages including death and rape threats. The plaintiffs include an FBI agent who responded to the shooting and relatives of eight of the victims.
Judge Barbara Bellis last year found Jones liable by default for damages to plaintiffs without a trial, as punishment for what she called his repeated failures to turn over documents to their lawyers. The six-member jury only will be deciding how much Jones and Free Speech Systems, Infowars’ parent company, should pay the families for defaming them and intentionally inflicting emotional distress.
Bellis said in court on Wednesday that she was prepared to handle any incendiary testimony from Jones, with contempt of court proceedings if necessary.
Bellis also was expected to tell Jones, when he first takes the stand and with the jury not in the courtroom, what topics he cannot talk about — including free speech rights and the Sandy Hook families $73 million settlement earlier this year with gun maker Remington, which made the Bushmaster rifle used to kill the victims at Sandy Hook.
Jones also was found liable by default in two similar lawsuits over the hoax lies in his hometown of Austin, Texas, where a jury in one of the trials ordered Jones last month to pay nearly $50 million in damages to the parents of one of the children killed. A third trial in Texas is expected to begin near the end of the year.
When Jones faced the Texas jury last month and testified under oath, he toned down his rhetoric. He said he realized the hoax lies were irresponsible and the school shooting was “100% real.”
“I unintentionally took part in things that did hurt these people’s feelings,” testified Jones, who also acknowledged raising conspiracy claims about other mass tragedies, from the Oklahoma City and Boston Marathon bombings to the mass shootings in Las Vegas and Parkland, Florida, “and I’m sorry for that.”
Jones had portrayed the Sandy Hook shooting as staged by crisis actors as part of gun control efforts.
Testimony at the current trial also has focused on website analytics data run by Infowars employees showing how its sales of dietary supplements, food, clothing and other items spiked around the time Jones talked about the Sandy Hook shooting.
Evidence, including internal Infowars emails and depositions, also shows dissention within the company about pushing the hoax lies.
Jones’ lawyer Norman Pattis is arguing that any damages should be limited and accused the victims’ relatives of exaggerating the harm the lies caused them.
The relatives have testified that they continue to fear for their safety because of what the hoax believers have done and might do.
Jennifer Hensel, whose 6-year-old daughter Avielle Richman was among the slain, testified Wednesday that she still monitors her surroundings, even checking the back seat of her car, for safety reasons. She said she is trying to shield her two children, ages 7 and 5, from the hoax lies. A juror cried during her testimony.
“They’re so young,” she said of her children. “Their innocence is so beautiful right now. And at some point there are a horde of people out there who could hurt them.”
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| 2022-09-22T12:31:54Z
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NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — CMT will honor country stars Carly Pearce, Cody Johnson, Kane Brown, Luke Combs and Walker Hayes as their 2022 Artists of the Year.
The network will air its annual TV special on Oct. 14 featuring tributes by other artists. Pearce, Johnson and Hayes are first time artists of the year, while Brown and Combs come back for their third time.
Pearce is a critical favorite after the success of her album “29: Written In Stone” and coming off a hit duet with Ashley McBryde, “Never Wanted to Be That Girl.” Texas-native Johnson brought the cowboy and the rodeo back to country music with his inspiring hit “’Til You Can’t.” And Hayes dominated TikTok with his Applebee’s inspired danceable earworm, “Fancy Like.”
Brown and Combs are among the top selling artists in country music, packing out arenas and stadiums and landing multiple hits on the charts. Both released new albums in 2022 and will be touring overseas.
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| 2022-09-22T12:32:00Z
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The mood is allegedly a sombre one behind the scenes at ITV's This Morning as Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby continue to face backlash over 'Queuegate''. The two have been accused of skipping the queue to see the Queen lying-in-state.
Many waited over 10 hours in the queue to see Her Majesty's coffin. However, ITV have supported its presenters, with Holly Willoughby reading out a statement on Tuesday, September 20's show.
In the segment, she explained: "Like hundreds of accredited broadcasters and journalists we were given permission to access the hall. It was strictly for the purpose of reporting on the event for millions of people in the UK who haven't been able to visit Westminster in person.
Read next: How the Albion Rooms saved Libertines rocker Pete Doherty
"The rules were that we would be quickly escorted around the edges to a platform at the back. In contrast, those paying respects walked along a carpeted area beside the coffin and were given time to pause."
"None of the broadcasters and journalists there took anyone's place in the queue and no one filed past the Queen. We of course respected those rules, however, we realise that it may have looked like something else and therefore we totally understand the reaction."
Controversy continued on today's (September 22) show. Phillip found himself forced to apologise for fitness guru James Smith's swearing on air.
Phillip asked guest James Smith, who was talking about his career as a personal trainer, "did your friends think you were mad when you started this?" James promptly responded with: "Yeah absolutely, I had friends trying to talk me out of becoming a PT, friends that for years were part of my rugby team, taking the p*** out of me."
Turning to the camera, Phillip mouthed "sorry" while his guest continued speaking. The moment appeared to draw reaction as viewers drew comparison between Phillip's apology for the swearing and the apology for the alleged queue jump.
A Twitter user, @fragglerock41 was unimpressed, writing: "#ThisMorning and there we have it, Phil apologises for a guest saying “piss” but didn’t have the nuts to do it for the queue
@ DinghyDiver added: "people used to take the p*** out of me" he says .,..to two #ThisMorning presenters that got to see HRH in front of people queueing for over 20 hours!"
Despite the heavy backlash, other viewers have been supporting both Phillip and Holly. @shopper79x added: "Holly looks and sounds so deflated and down cast not her normal self at all, I think the media have punished her enough..move on . #ThisMorning #bekind #HollyWilloughby"
@castlepinkskull continued: "The British Public like to build people up and then drag them down. That's what's going on with Phil and Holly. The punishment does not fit the crime. The whole thing makes me very uncomfortable #HollyandPhil
Read more:
- Dame Kelly Holmes waited over eleven hours in Queen queue with 90-year-old ex serviceman
- Chatham: The Kent locations where hit Netflix TV series The Crown was filmed
- The highs and lows of the lives and TV career of Channel 4 Gogglebox's Steph and Dom
- ITV Emmerdale star Samantha Giles and her life off screen after Maidstone childhood
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| 2022-09-22T12:32:02Z
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On a bright day in Rwanda’s Akagera National Park, I stood watching a group of 10 southern white rhinos grazing with nothing between us but tall green grass. We were downwind so they couldn’t smell us, and far enough outside their poor range of vision that they couldn’t quite see us. But we were close enough to get a sense of their hulking bodies and hear the rustling of their thick legs moving through the grass. I felt my senses perk up—a mix of heightened caution, awe, and connection to my surroundings I’ve only ever felt on walks in the bush near large animals. I turned to Drew Bantlin, Akagera’s conservation and research manager, who was a few steps away, to make sure all was OK.
“We’re watching to make sure they’re active, relaxed, and not showing any signs of stress or lethargy,” he said.
This walking safari had a purpose beyond enjoying rhinos in the landscape. It was March 2022, and I had been invited to join Bantlin and his team on an observational walk to monitor the health and behavior of these rhinos, which were living within a 200-acre enclosure in their new home of Akagera. They had arrived three months earlier following a journey that started more than 2,000 miles away in andBeyond Phinda Private Game Reserve in South Africa. Several months after my visit, in the first week of July 2022, the rhinos were deemed fit enough to be released from their enclosure. Soon after that, they were venturing deeper into the park, taking advantage of the abundant food and water sources—some giving birth to calves. “They’re thriving,” Bantlin told me recently on a call. “Their health is good, and we’re seeing totally normal social interactions and behavior. Everything is looking up.”
Getting to the point where a boundary-pushing wildlife translocation like this one in Akagera was even thinkable has been years in the making. In 2010, the Rwandan government entered into a long-term agreement with NGO African Parks to manage the 430-square-mile park in eastern Rwanda on the Tanzanian border. Over the last decade, with government and donor support, African Parks brought biodiversity back to the park, which had been degraded by poachers and illegal settlers following the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Today, it’s a haven for savanna and wetland animals: Lions were introduced in 2015, and critically endangered eastern black rhinos arrived in 2017, a decade after the last one was seen in the park. Visitation to the park quintupled between 2005 and 2019 to about 58,000 people, while 2022 is showing record tourism numbers, according to Bantlin (half of the visitors are Rwandan nationals).
On November 29, 2021, 30 white rhinos arrived in the Rwandan capital of Kigali on a Boeing 747 jet in what was the largest single rhino translocation in history. The months-long process—kept secret for security reasons until after the translocation was complete—began with a multi-week stay in an enclosure to monitor their nutrition and socialize them. It was followed by a more than 40-hour journey by road and air. The goal of the translocation, a joint effort among the Rwanda Development Board (RDB), African Parks, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, and andBeyond, was to extend the range of the near-threatened white rhinos to Akagera, which has a suitable habitat for them. The presence of white rhinos, whose grazing habits in open grassland and calmer disposition make them easier to see than the more elusive black rhinos, would also offer an exciting new reason for people to visit this emerging Rwandan park. Guests have already been reporting sightings of groups and even calves.
“Conservation is a top priority for Rwanda, and it enables tourism, improves people’s lives, and contributes significantly to the country’s economy,” said Ariella Kageruka, head of tourism and conservation for the RDB, in an email. “This results from deliberate, consistent, and comprehensive conservation efforts by the government of Rwanda in close collaboration with communities and our conservation partners.”
Even in a tiny country like Rwanda, which is slightly smaller than Maryland, the RDB has over the past two decades made sustainable tourism a priority, collaborating with experts on many initiatives to restore biodiversity in its four national parks. According to a 2021 report on Rwanda released by African Leadership University’s School of Wildlife Conservation, tourism makes up 10.2 percent of the country’s total economy—double what it was in 2010—and more than 80 percent of tourism in Rwanda is nature-based. Park revenue, the majority of which comes from tourism, supports land and wildlife management and conservation, while 10 percent of profits go directly back to park-adjacent communities, where many residents are employed in everything from guiding to research.
“The [rhinos] have plenty of grass, water, everything they need, but more importantly that management and operational capacity is there with the unwavering support of communities and government,” said Bantlin. “It’s the perfect mix to make something like this a success.”
As African rhino populations continue to shrink, the stakes are high. A new report from the International Union for Conservation of Nature revealed that between 2018 and 2021, the white rhino population declined by 12 percent to 15,942—though some conservationists say numbers have plummeted even further. Like Africa’s black rhinos, of which there are just 6,195, white rhinos are victims of criminal syndicates that poach them for their horns, which are prized in parts of Asia for their spurious medicinal qualities (they’re made with the same kind of keratin as fingernails). The situation is especially dire in South Africa, which has the world’s largest rhino populations and accounted for 90 percent of the 2,707 reported rhino poaching cases on the continent between 2018 and 2021. In the first six months of 2022, the country has already lost 259 rhinos to poaching. It remains a race against time for conservationists and rangers who work on the front lines protecting ever-declining African rhino populations, sometimes at the cost of their lives.
This is a battle Phinda conservation manager Simon Naylor and his team have been fighting with increasing intensity for more than a decade, ever since the first rhino on the private reserve was poached in 2011. In addition to measures ranging from thermal drones to anti-poaching dog units, Phinda also trims rhino horns—a proven deterrent that many conservationists see as a necessary evil, as a dehorned rhino no longer has any value to a poacher. The reserve began offering trimming in 2016 as a hands-on guest experience to cover the prohibitive cost. This month, the reserve trimmed its last white rhino with an intact horn, which can take years to grow back.
“It was pretty sad actually,” Naylor said on a call. “I don’t think we’ll see a rhino with a horn like that ever again here.”
Poaching pressure in southern Africa has made it crucial that new ranges be created for the southern white rhino, which never historically existed in Rwanda but can thrive in that habitat. “Things don’t look good for rhinos,” said Naylor. “But that’s why translocations to places like Akagera are critical to their future. If they’re looked after well, and there’s good habitat there, [Akagera] has the potential for having one of the largest rhino populations left in the world. This is the short-, medium-, and long-term answer to the banking of a species.”
On that same trip to Africa where I visited Akagera in March 2022, I also visited Phinda to participate in the trimming of a rhino horn, a guest activity so popular that it’s sold out for 2022 and booking up fast for 2023. The procedure sounds straightforward on paper, but it’s an entirely different thing in practice. A vet darts the rhino via helicopter—not an easy task from the sky with a moving target below. When the sedative kicks in, the rhino is approached by a team on the ground, which has to work quickly so that the rhino isn’t down for too long. As I held the ears of the young white rhino we darted, tiny bits of keratin rained down on me while the vet, Dr. Mike Toft, removed the horn with a loud chainsaw. Occasionally the animal would raise its head, and every time my heart seemed to stop. The act of trimming a horn felt so violent and raw that I had to remind myself this was all in the name of saving the life of this enormous, vulnerable creature below me.
Even as rhinos in Africa face a nebulous future, the Akagera translocation offered me a sliver of hope to hold onto, at least in Akagera, whose security measures and government backing have ensured that not a single rhino has been poached since 2017, when eastern black rhinos were reintroduced. According to Bantlin, the park is now one of the best places in East Africa to see these awe-inspiring animals.
“If we can develop Akagera into a stronghold for rhinos in East Africa, we may be able to support other parts of the region by having animals available,” he said. “Ultimately, if we can provide a new range state for a vulnerable species like the near threatened white rhino or critically endangered black rhino, we need to just do it. We don’t have time.”
Retreats that offer a chance at close encounters with rhinos
At these lodges and camps in Africa, travelers have a good chance of seeing rhinos in the wild—and visiting can help support the threatened animals.
Wilderness Safaris Magashi Tented Camp, Rwanda
Magashi sits on close to 15,000 exclusive-use acres in the northern reaches of Akagera. The camp’s six stilted canvas tents, with traditional black-and-white imigongo flourishes and rose-hued mosquito nets, are positioned along the shores of Lake Rwanyakazinga, where it’s common to see elephant herds drinking water. When not tracking rhinos with their guide, guests can explore the lake on one of the camp’s private boats. Pair Magashi with a stay at Ruzizi Tented Lodge, a nine-tent ecocamp managed by African Parks in the southern part of Akagera, less than three miles from the park entrance.
andBeyond Phinda Private Game Reserve, South Africa
Set on 74,000 acres in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province, Phinda is home to seven different habitats, including a rare and ancient dry sand forest. Each of the reserve’s six lodges offers a different experience of the landscape—the six-suite Vlei Lodge sits on the edge of the sand forest, while the six stone-walled suites of Rock Lodge were built into a hill and overlook a green valley. Phinda’s rhino trimming activity is sold out for 2022, but there is still availability in 2023—although it’s booking up quickly. Hands-on rhino experiences are also available between April and September 2023 at andBeyond’s Ngala Private Game Reserve, next to South Africa’s Kruger National Park.
Ol Pejeta Bush Camp, Kenya
A former cattle ranch turned conservation area in Kenya’s Laikipia County, Ol Pejeta Conservancy is still used sustainably by herders, whose Boran cattle help to fertilize the land. The conservancy is famously home to the world’s last two remaining northern white rhinos. Among the various lodging options is Asilia Africa’s Ol Pejeta Bush Camp, composed of seven large tents that sit along the Ewaso Ngiro River. It’s a comfortable base for bush drives in search of the conservancy’s black rhinos and southern white rhinos. Guests can also arrange to see the last two northern white rhinos, which are under 24-hour armed protection.
Desert Rhino Camp, Namibia
Located in mountainous Damaraland, in semi-arid north-central Namibia, Wilderness Safaris’ Desert Rhino Camp offers the chance to view one of Africa’s largest wild populations of desert-adapted black rhino. Guests can join Save the Rhino monitors as they track rhinos on foot or by vehicle. The eight large tents, designed in neutral tones and reds, face sweeping desert landscapes and the mountain ranges beyond them.
Elewana Loisaba Tented Camp, Kenya
In Kenya’s Laikipia County, the 57,000-acre area that makes up the Loisaba Conservancy, owned by the Loisaba Community Trust, hasn’t seen black rhinos since every last one was poached in the 1970s. That’s about to change at the end of September 2022, when Loisaba begins a months-long process to reintroduce black rhinos using populations from nearby Solio Ranch, Ol Pejeta Conservancy, and Ol Malo. Stay at Elewana Loisaba Tented Camp, a collection of eight rooms under canvas that sit on the edge of an escarpment, or the eight-tent Loisaba Lodo Springs, which puts guests next to a wildlife-rich savanna. Or sleep under the stars in one of the four Elewana Loisaba Star Beds, where rooms on raised platforms are only partially covered by thatching, and four-poster beds on wheels can be rolled out under the night sky.
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| 2022-09-22T12:32:11Z
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Artist Tracey Emin is selling of one her paintings to raise money for a new art studio bearing her name in her home town of Margate. Her work, 'Like A Cloud of Blood', is expected to raise at least £500,000 at auction, with the proceeds to be poured into helping a new generation of artistic talent in the area.
Tracey - who was born in Croydon but moved to Margate at a young age - recently underwent treatment for bladder cancer. The work on sale represents one of the first pieces completed since having her bladder removed and receiving the news that she's in remission.
The 59-year-old is opening TKE Studios - named after her initials including middle name Karima - on October 22. The auction of her work is taking place at Christie's in London on October 13.
Read more:Thanet: Tracey Emin’s astonishing reason she’s able to afford to live in Margate
The 30,000-square foot complex will host 12 subsidised professional art studios, regular exhibitions and two-year residencies for up to 20 students at a time. Students will also experience free tutorials and lectures from the artist in the former bath house and mortuary.
Emin returned to Margate in 2017 and has repeatedly referenced the town in her career. She was awarded a CBE for services to art four years earlier, having gained fame in the 1990s for installations including 'My Bed and 'Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963–1995'.
She said: “I don’t want to die being an artist that made really interesting work. I want to make a future.
"If my art can make something happen for the future, then I’m doing the right thing. I’ve been all the way around the world in all directions and come back again. And this, Margate, is what I’ve chosen.”
Katharine Arnold, Head of Post-War and Contemporary Art, Christie’s Europe said: “Throughout her career, Tracey Emin has invited viewers to share in the most intimate aspects of her life.
"With extraordinary candour and a vivid vision, in Like a Cloud of Blood she lets us in to her world following her cancer diagnosis. The searing honesty we are accustomed to in her oeuvre resonates with her audience even more so in this painting.
"It is a renewed vigour for life that has driven Tracey to create this unparalleled opportunity for artists in her home town and it is a great honour to help her realise this project by offering the painting as a highlight in the 20th / 21st Century: London Evening Sale.”
Like A Cloud of Blood will be on display for one week before the auction at Christies between 6 and 13 October. More information can be found here.
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https://www.kentlive.news/whats-on/whats-on-news/thanet-artist-tracey-emin-sell-7614355
| 2022-09-22T12:32:12Z
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MILAN (AP) — Milan Fashion Week opened Wednesday with a sense of renewal.
Milan’s five-day calendar returned to near pre-COVID-19 levels with 68 runway shows, 104 presentations and 30 events. A crop of new designers appeared, including many of color, for perhaps the most diverse week of Milan fashion shows ever.
Among the week’s highlights: Haitian-Italian designer Stella Jean returns after a two-year hiatus; Bally makes its Milan runway debut with Filipino American designer Rhuigi Villasenor; and Maximilian Davis debuts as Salvatore Ferragamo’s new creative director.
Here are snapshots from Wednesday’s shows, including Fendi and Diesel.
STRUCTURED COOL AT FENDI
Fendi womenswear designer Kim Jones stripped the usually luxe Fendi showroom down to polished concrete floors and painted steel beams and bleachers to show his next warm weather collection.
He saved the luxe for the runway looks. The Spring-Summer 2023 collection was a studied balance of construction, texture and color.
Aprons tied askew in satin created a flowing layer over trousers, while perforated leather versions were like jumpers over sheer dresses.
Layering was key to the styling. Jones played with texture, paring an asymmetrical nubby wool coat over a sheer top, both in neutrals, saving the eye-popping color for the platform boots. Silken dresses were draped and tied to the form, and carefully constructed satiny coats had peek-a-boo slits and were tied elegantly in the back, like an elaborate Japanese bow.
The silhouette encompassed body-hugging ribbed knitwear dresses with demure slits to flowing asymmetrical silken dresses. Square-necked ribbed cardigans gave a scholastic accent to skirts with deep, sexy slits on each side, or silken trousers with utility pockets with trailing pocket closures.
Neutrals in sage, copper and white anchored the color palette, which exploded with accent pieces in cream-infused versions of seafoam green, cornflower blue, tangerine and flamingo pink.
The final look underlined the simple elegance of Jones’ propositions: A racing-back tank tucked into white trousers softened by this season’s apron-half skirt — all in the silkiest white.
“What is particularly interesting to me about Fendi is exploring the notion of functional utility alongside femininity __ because Fendi women are strong women with full, busy lives,” Jones said in show notes.
Fendi’s tiniest bag yet was worn on a chain around the neck. Logos were subtle: knit into the inside hem of sweaters and visible only if twisted upward, or with the double-F logo on linings or emblazoned as if initials on the back of Jone’s new bowed Obi belt.
Footwear featured colorful platform boots or sliders. Jones is moving the brand away from its heritage fur and focusing instead on Silvia Venturini Fendi’s handbags, which use shiny leather, canvas and shearling.
DIESEL BLOWS UP DENIM LOOKS
In a rare open-door fashion week event, Diesel made room for the general public on the upper arena tiers of its runway show, set around enormous blow-up dolls entwined in a fulsome threesome.
On the ground level, models walked beneath a squatting female figure, past a prone male, head turned demurely.
Glenn Martin’s coherent women’s and men’s collection expanded the meaning of denim.
He nailed the low-rise, high-waist debate right off the top, his first look offering the suggestion of a low-rise silhouette rising into a high-waist panty — the illusion of having it both ways. The look was finished with a matching bra top.
For him, trousers appeared to slouch and a distressed sleeveless sweatshirt in denim wash was tucked in.
Denim effects were dyed into sheer vest tops, worn open over Daisy Duke-style shorts with matching denim stilettos. The male counterpart was considerably more covered, in a double-hooded trench paired with well-worn trousers and denim boots.
Denim itself was well-worked over in innovative washes that suggested the desert, and might be accompanied by a bright palette of separates in orange, green or pink.
The collection evolved into ever more dystopian looks that seem inspired by the sci-fi classic “Dune,” in sandy colored and tattered styles, as a soundtrack suggested the call of the giant sandworm. They included layered and flowing halters and skirts secured by multi-notched belts, or a gray hoodie over a rag-tattered skirt. New iterations of jeans had large flapping leg panels, as if for taking flight.
Adding to the sci-fi vibe: a model with green-hued makeup wore a reptilian shimmery mini-dress.
HOLLYWOOD GLAM AT CAVALLI BY FAUSTO PUGLISI
As he looks ahead anxiously to Italy’s parliamentary elections Saturday, Cavalli creative director Fausto Puglisi took inspiration from the glamour of Hollywood’s golden era.
“I am really afraid of the new election. We are going to risk a lot,” Puglisi said backstage after the show, expressing concern that a far-right party has been leading in the polls.
To calm his nerves, Puglisi created looks from the finest Lake Como textiles, which he draped, pleated and fanned for diva-like impact. “I wanted this kind of freshness, kind of naïve,’’ he said.
The first look appeared as “Ave Maria” played: an angelic white brocade midi dress with a demure neckline — setting a restrained tone that Puglisi maintained for a few more looks before unleashing the Cavalli DNA to a more up-tempo soundtrack.
Then: A strapless cocktail minidress was constructed from an overlapping pleated skirt and bodice, as if a pinwheel had stopped. It is a construction that re-appeared on maxi skirt looks and with deep slit dresses. The Cavalli silhouette encompassed everything from body-confident slinky dresses and bodysuits with diamond cutouts down the torso, to pretty skirts and long silken dresses with pastoral museum prints.
Looks were accented with pretty pineapple, grape bunch and palm tree brooches and earrings. The motifs also appeared as prints and in one case, a beaded minidress evoked a pineapple down to the spiny leaves at the neckline.
Puglisi said his references were “the new Hollywood Renaissance starting from the ‘30s and ’40s. … I didn’t want excess. I wanted to play with colors, with the very classic fabrics.”
N. 21’s LOVER
The “amante,” or lover, at Alessandro Dell’Acqua’s N. 21 brand is rushing, barely dressed, lingerie peeking out, hair tussled and mascara smudged.
She, or he, wears sheer elements: a sheer shirt tucked in askance beneath a red sequin jacket, itself carelessly buttoned. The back of a ruched skirt is not quite zipped up all the way. Haste is evident.
Sheer dresses with a 1940s silhouette shows off bright red pointy bra and panties, or hang languorously off the shoulder. Masculine touches, like clothe button down shirts, are assumed to be borrowed. One is worn with a full pleated skirt.
Twisted rhinestone necklaces finish the looks. Shoes are cantilevered, an architecture that the show notes say make the actual heel “superfluous.”
“The collection deals all the moods of a lover: from love to anger to sex to eroticism to the deepest passion. The mood can pass from one to another in no time at all,’’ Dell’Acqua said. “The concept is very cinematic.”
Not to give away the ending, but the show closed with tattered wedding dresses made out of lace remnants.
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| 2022-09-22T12:32:12Z
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NEW YORK (AP) — A Fox News Channel original, Trace Gallagher, was named anchor of the “Fox News @ Night” hour that airs at midnight on the East Coast, the network said Wednesday.
A veteran news reporter based in Los Angeles, Gallagher has been with the network since its inception in 1996.
He replaces Shannon Bream in the role. Bream recently took over as anchor of “Fox News Sunday.”
Gallagher covered the death of Queen Elizabeth II and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine recently. He spent much time on stories about the COVID-19 pandemic over the past two years.
With Gallagher at the helm, the show will originate from Los Angeles.
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| 2022-09-22T12:32:18Z
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NEW YORK (AP) — Joan Didion’s precision with words extended even to ones she would never live to hear, such as those used during a small, private service this spring at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.
“She left very clear directions about what she wanted to happen at that service,” the Very Rev. Patrick Malloy said Wednesday night, at the start of a memorial tribute at the Cathedral. “She wanted it to be very brief and she specified the texts she wanted us to use, all from the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, which is what you’d expect from an Episcopalian who wrote a book called ‘A Book of Common Prayer.’”
The texts she chose were “remarkably dour,” Malloy went on to explain, and they were not from the contemporary edition of the Book of Common Prayer, but from an older, more ornate printing. It was Didion’s way of reminding everyone that the sounds of the words, and their rhythm, meant as much as the words themselves.
Didion, a master of rhythm and of the meaning of the unsaid, was remembered Wednesday as an inspiring and fearless writer and valued, exacting and sometimes eccentric friend, the kind who didn’t like to speak on the phone unless asked to or who might serve chocolate soufflés at a child’s birthday party because she didn’t know how to bake a cake.
Hundreds were presented with programs and laminated hand fans as they entered the Cathedral on a summer-ish late afternoon — the first day of autumn — where the scale of the building was too vast for the expense of air conditioning. Carl Bernstein, Donna Tartt and Fran Lebowitz were among those attending, along with relatives, friends and editors and other colleagues from The New Yorker and her last publishing house, Penguin Random House.
Didion, who died last December at age 87, left behind no immediate family members: Her husband, fellow author and screenwriting partner John Gregory Dunne died in 2003, followed less than two years later by their only child, Quintana Roo. But the speakers did span much of her life, from Sacramento and Malibu in California to the Upper Side East of Manhattan, from her years as a child already preoccupied with language to her prime as an uncommonly astute observer of contemporary society to her time as an elder sage and prototype for younger authors.
Retired Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, here in his capacity as a generational peer and a fellow Sacramento native, remembered Didion as a close friend of his older sister Nancy’s and a frequent dinner guest. She was a gifted and “pensive” girl, cerebral beyond her years, who would “think and write and think and write, all over again.” Former California Governor Jerry Brown, speaking via a taped video feed, also shared Sacramento memories and of Didion as a college friend of his sister’s.
“She and Joan would share a smoke together and talk about the novels they were reading,” he said. “Years later, my sister’s most vivid memory was of Joan coming down for breakfast in a pink chenille robe, drinking a cup of coffee and smoking cigarettes.”
Calvin Trillin read from Didion’s biting coverage of the 1988 political conventions, when she famously observed that in high school she preferred being around people who hung out at gas stations — a setting not otherwise invoked during a ceremony more populated by stories of parties, literary craft and the Rolling Stones.
Vanessa Redgrave, her white hair tied in back and otherwise covered by a dark fedora, read from Didion’s celebrated memoir about grief, “The Year of Magical Thinking,” which Redgrave years ago had performed on stage as Didion sat in the wings for every show.
Didion’s longtime friend and fellow author Susanna Moore distilled decades of conversation into a few of Didion’s aphorisms: “Evil is the absence of seriousness.” “Crazy is never interesting.” “I would drop this whole idea of knowing the truth.” Actor Susan Traylor, a childhood friend of Roo’s, spoke of feeling homesick while spending Christmas in Hawaii with the Didions.
“Without raising the issue she (Joan Didion) reached out and stroked my head,” Traylor recalled. “’What you should know is that your mother told me that the reason she let you miss Christmas at home is she thought it would be good for you to know you could do it without her.’ And I was fine.”
The show began with reflections on the Book of Common Prayer, and ended in secular scripture, Patti Smith performing Bob Dylan’s “Chimes of Freedom.” Backed by Tony Shanahan on acoustic guitar, Smith sang at a piercing, steady clip, as if mimicking the cadence of Didion’s prose.
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Tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed
For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones and worse
And for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe
And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashin’
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Smith repeated the last line, but changed “we” to “she.” She ended with a single, spoken word: “Joan.”
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| 2022-09-22T12:32:24Z
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NEW YORK (AP) — Michelle Obama plans a six-city tour this fall in support of her new book, “The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times,” beginning mid-November in Washington. D.C. and ending a month later in Los Angeles.
“I’m looking forward to making some new connections — and of course, seeing some familiar faces from the last tour,” the former first lady said in a joint statement Wednesday released through her publisher, Crown, and tour promoter Live Nation.
“This book means so much to me — it’s a collection of perspectives and practices I’ve used to keep me afloat amid uncertainty. On this tour, I’ll be sharing some personal stories and lessons that have helped me along my path, and I can’t wait to tell you more.”
Obama will open at the Warner Theatre in Washington on Nov. 15, the publication date for her book. She will then travel to Philadelphia’s The Met, Atlanta’s Fox Theatre, the Chicago Theatre and San Francisco’s Masonic, before closing at the YouTube Theater in Los Angeles.
The venues have seating capacities ranging roughly from 2,000-6,500. The settings are far bigger than for most book events, but smaller than Obama’s stops on the first leg of her tour for the 2018 memoir “Becoming,” when she appeared at the United Center in Chicago and other arenas holding 15,000 or more.
“Becoming” was a near-instant million seller and went on to sell more than 17 million copies worldwide, making it the most popular book in modern times written by a former White House resident.
As with “Becoming,” Obama will speak at each city with guest moderators, to be announced later. Oprah Winfrey, Tracee Ellis Ross and Sarah Jessica Parker were among those who joined her for “Becoming.” In partnership with Live Nation, Obama will also set aside tickets at each venue for a select number of community members.
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Fans can begin registering from Wednesday through Sept. 26 through Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan Platform, https://verifiedfan.ticketmaster.com/michelleobama. Any unsold tickets will be available to the general public starting Sept. 30.
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| 2022-09-22T12:32:30Z
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NEW YORK (AP) — The theater community is banding together for a special podcast to combat censorship that features performances from plays and musicals under threat and appearances by Bryan Cranston, Raúl Esparza, Celia Keenan-Bolger and Richard Kind.
The Dramatists Legal Defense Fund’s “Banned Together: An Anti-Censorship Podcast” has readings, scenes and snippets from works including Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America,” Jonathan Larson’s “Rent” and Eve Ensler’s “The Vagina Monologues.” It is available to download now through Sept. 24 in conjunction with Banned Books Week.
“Boldly putting this art out there is really important,” said Tony-winner and Pulitzer Prize finalist Lisa Kron, who is twice represented on the podcast. Her song with Jeanine Tesori “Changing My Major” from “Fun Home” is heard, and Kron also performs a scene from “The Vagina Monologues.”
Other plays featured include Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ “An Octoroon,” Paula Vogel’s “Indecent,” Alice Childress’ “Trouble in Mind,” Moisés Kaufman’s “The Laramie Project,” Nilo Cruz’s “Anna in the Tropics” and “My Name is Rachel Corrie” by Rachel Corrie.
Highlights include Cranston playing lawyer Roy Cohn and Kind playing his doctor in a scene from “Angels in America,” Keenan-Bolger doing a monologue from “My Name is Rachel Corrie” and Esparza reading a devastating section from “The Laramie Project.” The Stonewall Chorale performs “Seasons of Love” from “Rent.”
The podcast makes clear that producers and schools sometimes face local pressure to avoid or scrap plans for plays and musicals that explore race and sexuality.
“Every time there have been steps forward in terms of widening civil rights, enfranchisement, the American promise that involves a multiracial, multi-gendered, full enfranchisement and much fuller democracy — every single time that’s happened, there has been a violent backlash. And that’s happening right now,” Kron said.
Kron also fears that theater creators will start to pull their punches in anticipation of what could happen. “One of the insidious ways this kind of censorship moves is in self-censorship,” she said.
The podcast is hosted by Dramatists Legal Defense Fund board members Lydia Diamond and Cheryl Davis. Greg Jarrett serves as music director.
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Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits
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| 2022-09-22T12:32:36Z
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BENGALURU, India (AP) — Eight-year-old Jerifa Islam only remembers the river being angry, its waters gnawing away her family’s farmland and waves lashing their home during rainy season flooding. Then one day in July of 2019, the mighty Brahmaputra River swallowed everything.
Her home in the Darrang district of India’s Assam state was washed away. But the calamity started Jerifa and her brother, Raju 12, on a path that eventually led them to schools nearly 2,000 miles (3,218 kilometers) away in Bengaluru, where people speak the Kannada language that is so different from the children’s native Bangla.
Those early days were difficult. Classes at the free state-run schools were taught in Kannada, and Raju couldn’t understand a word of the instruction.
But he persisted, reasoning that just being in class was better than the months in Assam when submerged roads kept him away from school for months. “Initially I didn’t understand what was happening, then with the teacher explaining things to me slowly, I started learning,” he said.
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EDITOR’S NOTE: This story is part of an ongoing series exploring the lives of people around the world who have been forced to move because of rising seas, drought, searing temperatures and other things caused or exacerbated by climate change.
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The children were born in a low-lying village, flanked by the Himalayas and the river. Like many parts of northeastern India, it was no stranger to heavy rains and naturally occurring floods.
But their father, Jaidul Islam, 32, and mother Pinjira Khatun, 28, knew something had changed. The rains had become more erratic, flash floods more frequent and unpredictable. They were among the estimated 2.6 million people in the Assam state affected by floods the year they decided to move to Bengaluru, a city of over 8 million known as India’s Silicon Valley.
No one in their family had ever moved so far from home, but any lingering doubts were outweighed by dreams of a better life and a good education for their children. The couple spoke a little Hindi — India’s most widely used language — and hoped that would be enough to get by in the city, where they knew nearby villagers had found work.
The two packed what little they could salvage into a large suitcase they hoped to someday fill with new belongings. “We left home with nothing. Some clothes for the kids, a mosquito net, and two towels. That was it,” said Islam.
The suitcase is now filling up with school exercise books — and the parents, neither with any formal education, said their lives center on ensuring their kids have more opportunities. “My children will not face the same problems that I did,” the father said.
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The family fled the low-lying Darrang district, which receives heavy rainfall and natural flooding. But rising temperatures with climate change have made monsoons erratic, with the bulk of the season’s rainfall falling in days, followed by dry spells. The district is among the most vulnerable to climate change in India, according to a New-Delhi based thinktank.
Floods and droughts often occur simultaneously, said Anjal Prakash, a research director at India’s Bharti Institute of Public Policy. The natural water systems in the Himalayan region that people had relied on for millennia are now “broken,” he said.
In the past decade, Prakash said, the number of climate migrants in India has been growing. And over the next 30 years, 143 million people worldwide will likely be uprooted by rising seas, drought and unbearable heat, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported this year.
India estimates it has around 139 million migrants, but unclear is how many had to move because of climate change. By 2050, cities like Bengaluru are predicted to become the preferred destination for the nearly 40 million people in South Asia forced by climate change to leave their homes, according to a 2021 World Bank report.
“Especially if you’ve aspirations for your second generation, you have to move,” said Prakash.
In the suburban area where Jerifa and her family now live, most people are from Assam state, many forced to migrate because of climate change and dreaming of a better future: There is Shah Jahan, 19, a security guard who wants to be a YouTube influencer. There is Rasana Begum, a 47-year-old cleaner who hopes her two daughters will become nurses. Their homes, too, were washed away in floods.
Pinjira and Jaidul have both found work with a contractor who provides housekeeping staff to the offices of U.S. and Indian tech companies. Jaidul earns $240 a month, and his wife about $200 — compared to the $60 he’d made from agriculture. Raju’s new private school fees cost a third of their income, and the family saves nothing. But, for the first time in years, in their new home — a 10 feet by 12 feet (3 meters by 3.6 meters) room with a tin roof and sporadic electricity — they feel optimistic about the future.
“I like that I can work here. Back home, there was no work for women. … I am happy,” said Pinjira.
For now, Raju dreams of doing well at his new school. He has benefitted from a year-long program run by Samridhi Trust, a non-profit that helps migrant children get back to the education system by teaching them basic Kannada, English, Hindi and math. Teachers test students every two months to help them transition into state-run free schools that instruct in Kannada — or in some cases, like Raju’s, English.
“My favorite subject is math,” said the 12-year-old, adding that his favorite time of day was the bus ride to school. “I love looking out of the window and seeing the city and all the big buildings.”
His sister, who wants to be a lawyer someday, has picked up Kannada faster than he has and chats happily with new classmates at her nearby government school, switching easily between her native and adopted tongues.
Their parents work alternate shifts to ensure somebody is home in case of emergencies. “They are young and can get into trouble, or get hurt,” said Khatun. “And we don’t know anybody here.”
Their anxiety isn’t unique. Many parents worry about safety when they send their children to schools in unfamiliar neighborhoods, said Puja, who uses only one name and coordinates Samridhi Trust’s after-school program.
Children of migrants often tend to drop out, finding classes too hard. But Raju considers his school’s “discipline” refreshing after chaotic life in a poor neighborhood.
His mother misses her family and speaks with them over the phone. “Maybe I’ll go back during their holidays,” she said.
Her husband does not want to return to Assam — where floods killed nine people in their district this year — until the children are in a higher grade. “Maybe in 2024 or 2025,” he said.
Every afternoon, the father waits patiently, scanning the street for Raju’s yellow bus. When home, the boy regales him with stories about his new school. He says he now knows how to say “water” in Kannada, but that none of his new classmates know what a “real flood” looks like.
——
Follow Aniruddha Ghosal in Twitter: @aniruddhg1
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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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| 2022-09-22T12:32:49Z
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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA’s new moon rocket sprouted more fuel leaks Wednesday in a test ahead of a possible launch attempt next week, but engineers managed to get them down to acceptable levels.
There was no immediate decision on whether NASA would try for a liftoff Tuesday given the sporadic nature of the hydrogen leaks, which have bedeviled the launch team for months.
Launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson wouldn’t commit to a launch attempt date, although she said the test went well.
“We’ll go take a look at the data,” she said. “I’d like the team to have an opportunity to look at that before I speculate.”
The daylong demo had barely begun when hazardous hydrogen fuel began escaping at the same place and same time as before, despite new seals and other repairs. Engineers halted the flow and warmed the lines in hopes of plugging the leak, and proceeded with the test. But the leak persisted before dropping to acceptable levels. Hours later, another leak cropped up elsewhere, before tapering down.
Blackwell-Thompson said all test objectives were met. But managers need to review the results before determining whether the 322-foot (98-meter) rocket is ready for its first test flight, a lunar-orbiting mission with mannequins instead of astronauts.
Hydrogen leaks spoiled the first two launch attempts, as well as earlier countdown tests. So much hydrogen escaped during the countdown earlier this month that it exceeded NASA’s limit by more than double. Wednesday’s leak almost got that big again.
After hours of fits and starts, NASA finally managed to load nearly 1 million gallons (4 million liters) of fuel into the rocket.
Following the Sept. 3 launch delay, NASA replaced two seals in the leaky line. One seal had a tiny indentation; it measured a mere one-hundredth of an inch.
“Now that doesn’t sound like a lot, but again we’re dealing with hydrogen,” the smallest element on the periodic table, said mission manager Mike Sarafin.
NASA also altered the fueling process, easing slowly into the loading of the super-cold liquid hydrogen and oxygen. After Wednesday’s big leak appeared, the launch team moved even more slowly to subject the plumbing to even less stress.
In a separate matter, NASA still needs the U.S. Space Force to extend the certification of on-board batteries that are part of the flight safety system before another launch attempt.
Once launched, the crew capsule atop the rocket will be the first to orbit the moon in 50 years. The $4.1 billion mission should last more than five weeks, ending with a splashdown in the Pacific. Astronauts would climb aboard for the second test flight, dashing around the moon in 2024. The third mission, targeted for 2025, would see a pair of astronauts actually landing on the moon.
NASA’s Space Launch System rocket is more powerful than the Saturn V rocket that sent Apollo astronauts to the moon during the late 1960s and early 1970s. The engines and boosters are carryovers from the now retired space shuttles. Just like now, NASA struggled with elusive hydrogen leaks during the shuttle era, especially during the early 1990s.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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| 2022-09-22T12:32:55Z
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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Neptune and its rings haven’t looked this good in decades.
NASA released new glamour shots of our solar system’s outermost planet Wednesday taken by the James Webb Space Telescope. The pictures taken in July show not only Neptune’s thin rings, but its faint dust bands, never before observed in the infrared, as well as seven of its 14 known moons.
Webb showed Jupiter at its best in a series of fresh photos released last month.
Launched less than a year ago, the $10 billion Webb is spending most of its time peering much deeper into the universe. Astronomers hope to see back to almost the beginning of time when the first stars and galaxies were forming.
NASA’s Voyager 2 was the first spacecraft to see Neptune in all its gaseous glory, during a 1989 flyby. No other spacecraft have visited the icy, blue planet. So it’s been three decades since astronomers last saw these rings with such detail and clarity, said the Space Science Institute’s Heidi Hammel, a planetary astronomer working with Webb.
Hammel tweeted that she wept when she saw the rings, yelling and making “my kids, my mom, even my cats look.”
Webb is the world’s biggest, most powerful telescope, operating 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometers) from Earth. It rocketed into space last December.
The observatory is in good health, according to NASA, except for one item.
NASA reported this week that a mechanism on one of Webb’s instruments showed signs of increased friction late last month in one of four observing modes. Observations are on hold in this one particular observing track, as a review board decides on a path forward.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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| 2022-09-22T12:33:01Z
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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — The International Space Station welcomed three new residents Wednesday following a smooth Russian launch.
The Soyuz capsule rocketed into orbit from Kazakhstan and, just three hours later, pulled up at the space station. American Frank Rubio checked in for a six-month stay along with Russians Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin.
Rubio, a doctor and former Army parachutist from Miami, rode up on the Soyuz under a new crew swap agreement between the two countries. The agreement was finalized in July despite tensions over Moscow’s war in Ukraine, a sign of continuing Russia-U.S. cooperation in space.
Under this cash-free barter, Russian cosmonaut Anna Kikina will fly SpaceX to the space station from Florida in less than two weeks. NASA and the Russian Space Agency want to keep exchanging seats like this to ensure a constant U.S. and Russian presence at the space station.
NASA astronauts routinely launched on Russian Soyuz rockets — for tens of millions of dollars apiece — until SpaceX started flying station crews from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in 2020. A Russian last launched from Florida 20 years ago.
SpaceX aims to launch Kikina along with one Japanese and two Americans as early as Oct. 3.
The new arrivals will replace astronauts living up there since early spring; the crew size eventually will settle back to seven.
Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti said the view of the launch from the space station was “spectacular.” She tweeted stunning photos of the glowing limb of the Earth and the rocket’s zigzagging white contrail.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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| 2022-09-22T12:33:07Z
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A 99-day run of falling gasoline prices — a streak that gave consumers a glimmer of hope that red-hot inflation might be cooling — has ended, with pump prices still much higher than a year ago.
The nationwide average price for a gallon ticked up less than a penny Wednesday, to $3.68 a gallon, according to AAA. That’s down from the record $5.02 average in mid-June.
The question now is whether Wednesday’s increase is just a blip or the precursor to the return of higher prices. The answer matters to motorists and to President Joe Biden, who has taken credit for driving prices lower by releasing millions of barrels of oil from the nation’s reserves.
The 14-week decline in prices was the longest streak since 2015.
Gasoline prices mostly reflect trends in global oil prices, and crude — both the U.S. benchmark and the international Brent — have been slumping since mid-June on growing fears of a global recession that would reduce demand for energy.
Many energy analysts believe that prices are more likely to rise than fall in the next few months. However, changes in sentiment about the economy, Russia’s war against Ukraine, and even hurricane season — always a threat to disrupt refineries along the Gulf Coast — make predictions uncertain.
“I suspect that we will see choppy prices for gasoline through year end, with some down days and up days,” said Tom Kloza of the Oil Price Information Service. He predicted that the next streak will be a run of price increases early next year, driven by investors, speculators and “the fear that there won’t be enough fuel to go around.”
Phil Flynn, an analyst with the Price Futures Group, said prices will head higher once withdrawals from U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve — a million barrels per day for six months — end this fall.
“The market is going to start pricing that in, and refiners are not going to be getting this cheap oil from the reserve,” Flynn said. “The odds are we’ll see a significant price spike of oil come winter.”
Some businesses, such as airlines, have been able to pass higher fuel prices on to their customers. Others haven’t been able to do that.
“We haul for farmers, and we can’t raise (prices) for the farmer because they are struggling too,” said Mike Mitchell, part owner of Mitchell Milk Hauling, which carries about 10 million pounds of milk a year from farms in northwestern Pennsylvania.
The company’s seven trucks burn through about $20,000 in gasoline a month, and the drop in gas prices this summer provided only limited relief.
“Everything else you buy goes up,” Mitchell said. “Every part for the truck has doubled, just about.”
Al DeGennaro, a lawyer for Pennsylvania waste hauler J.P. Mascaro & Sons, said high gas prices have taken a toll, and their unpredictability is hard to handle.
“It creates uncertainty as to how you’re bidding in the future … a lot of government contracts are three to five years,” said DeGennaro, whose company has a fleet of about 300 trucks.
The nationwide average price soared above $5 a gallon — and over $6 in California — in June, as economic recovery and an increase in travel boosted demand for gasoline, and Russia’s war in Ukraine caused a spike in oil prices.
The surge in prices caused financial pain for families and a political headache for the Biden administration. With the midterm elections for Congress less than two months away, it’s hard to know whether voters will reward Biden and the Democrats for the recent fall in prices — down $1.34 a gallon from the record set on June 14 — or blame them because prices are still well above the $3.19 average one year ago.
Besides releasing oil from the strategic reserve, Biden pressed other oil-producing countries to boost output, and he clashed with oil company executives after accusing them of making unseemly profits while Americans struggled with high pump prices.
“Every time prices go down they are taking a victory lap, even though prices are substantially higher than they were when they took office,” analyst Flynn said of administration officials.
U.S. and international oil prices rose above $120 a barrel in June but have fallen since. On Wednesday, West Texas Intermediate crude was trading around $83, while the international benchmark, Brent crude, was about $90.
Unexpected events can affect gasoline prices. A BP refinery in Toledo, Ohio, was shut down Wednesday after an explosion and fire killed two workers. There are several weeks remaining in peak hurricane season in the Gulf of Mexico. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says the likelihood of increased hurricane activity this year is 65%.
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Mark Scolforo in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, contributed to this report.
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| 2022-09-22T12:33:13Z
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MIAMI (AP) — Investigators say they found evidence a former Trump official who heads Latin America’s biggest development bank carried on a romantic relationship with his chief of staff — a bond they allegedly forged in a pact scribbled on the back of a restaurant place mat: “We deserve absolute happiness.”
The Associated Press obtained a copy of a confidential report by a law firm hired by the Inter-American Development Bank’s board to investigate an anonymous complaint of misconduct against its president, Mauricio Claver-Carone.
In it, investigators said it is reasonable to conclude the relationship between the two existed since at least 2019, when both held senior positions on the National Security Council. They said the purported relationship prompted one U.S. official at the time to warn that it posed a counterintelligence risk.
Exhibit A in the 21-page report is a “contract” that the two purportedly drew up on the back of a place mat in the summer of 2019 while they dined at a steakhouse in Medellin, Colombia. Both were there attending the annual meeting of the Organization of American States.
In it, they allegedly outline a timeline for divorcing their spouses and getting married. There is also a “breach clause” stating that any failure to fulfill the terms would bring “sadness and heartbreak” that could only be mitigated by “candlewax and a naughty box” from an oceanfront hotel in Claver-Carone’s native Miami.
“We deserve absolute happiness. May only God part w/ this covenant,” according to the contract, a photo of which was provided to investigators by the woman’s former husband, who told investigators he found the place mat in her purse when she returned from the trip.
The purported contract is one of several details in the report that have Claver-Carone fighting to save his job. They include allegations he had a 1 a.m. hotel room rendezvous with his chief of staff, sent her a poem on a Sunday morning titled “My Soul is in a Hurry” and — perhaps most troubling — awarded her 40% pay raises in violation of the bank’s conflict-of-interest policies.
Claver-Carone has disputed the report’s accuracy, strongly denouncing the manner in which the review was conducted and offering no hint that he is considering resignation.
According to investigators, he has denied ever having — now or before — a romantic relationship with his longtime right hand.
His chief of staff denied the allegations in the anonymous complaint and told investigators she never violated the IDB’s code of ethics, the report said. In a written submission to investigators, she also complained that she had been denied due process.
The AP isn’t naming Claver-Carone’s aide because the report, which is labeled “confidential,” hasn’t been made public.
“Neither I nor any other IDB staff member has been given an opportunity to review the final investigative report, respond to its conclusions, or correct inaccuracies,” Claver-Carone said in a statement Tuesday.
The findings recall accusations of ethical lapses against another Republican atop a multilateral institution, former Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, who resigned as head of the World Bank in 2007 for arranging a generous pay raise for his girlfriend.
The Inter-American Development Bank is the biggest multilateral lender to Latin America, disbursing as much as $23 billion every year in efforts to alleviate poverty in the region.
Representatives of the bank’s 48 members met Wednesday to discuss the report but it was unclear what action, if any, they might take.
The U.S. is the largest shareholder in the Washington-based bank and some inside the White House have made no secret of their dislike for Claver-Carone, whose election as IDB chief in the final months of the Trump presidency broke with tradition that a Latin American head the bank.
Some of the more salacious claims referenced in the report could not be substantiated by New York-based Davis Polk. The law firm also found no evidence that Claver-Carone knowingly broke the bank’s travel policies to cover up a romantic relationship, or retaliated against any bank employees, as was alleged in an anonymous complaint sent in March to the bank’s board.
Still, Davis Polk harshly criticized Claver-Carone and his chief of staff for failing to cooperate fully with their investigation — considering it a violation of bank policies and principles.
For example, the report said Claver-Carone failed to hand over his bank-issued mobile phone for analysis although he did provide a forensic report conducted by a consultant. Claver-Carone also didn’t share messages from his personal phone or Gmail account with his chief of staff, the report said.
“Particularly in light of their failure to cooperate, it would be reasonable to conclude that the evidence of a prior relationship, and the additional circumstantial evidence of a current relationship while they were both at the Bank, constitute a violation of the applicable Bank policies,” the report said.
Davis Polk’s report said Claver-Carone raised his aide’s pay by 40% within a year. It said that one of the raises and a change of title was ordered by Claver-Carone a day after an email exchange in which she complained about not getting sufficient respect from her co-workers.
“You figure it out. It’s your bank,” she wrote, according to the report.
Davis Polk, which also conducted the investigation that led to Andrew Cuomo’s resignation as governor of New York, faulted Claver-Carone for making employment decisions about someone with whom it believes he had been romantically involved. However, it said that other executives received similarly-sized increases and his chief of staff’s current salary of $420,000 is in line with her predecessor’s compensation.
Claver-Carone when confronted with photographs of the purported place mat “contract” during an interview this month told investigators that he had never seen the document and denied it was his handwriting or signature. He stated that the document was fraudulent and part of a scheme by his aide’s ex-husband to harm her.
In a letter to the bank’s general counsel, seen by AP, divorce lawyers for the chief of staff said her former husband had a history of cruelty and revenge that was raised in divorce proceedings. They said any evidence he supplied investigators should not be deemed credible.
However, two independent handwriting experts, one who previously worked for the FBI, concluded there was a high probability that the handwriting on the place mat — excerpts of which are displayed in the report — match Claver-Carone’s penmanship in bank documents. Claver-Carone refused to submit a handwriting sample as part of the probe, the report said.
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Joshua Goodman on Twitter: @APJoshGoodman
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| 2022-09-22T12:33:20Z
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OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A last-minute deal prevented a railroad strike for now, but many rail workers remain unhappy with working conditions, including some who protested outside their workplaces Wednesday ahead of votes to approve the new contracts.
Handfuls of workers gathered outside railyards across the country in pickets organized by a newly formed workers group separate from the 12 unions that negotiated the deals last week with the major U.S. freight railroads. The protesters expressed dissatisfaction with the deals, just as the unions are trying to explain the potential benefits they negotiated to their roughly 115,000 members ahead of contract votes.
Fears about the dire economic consequences of a rail strike that could cripple all kinds of businesses that rely on railroads to deliver raw materials and finished goods prompted the Biden administration to jump into the middle of the contract talks last week and urge both sides to reach an agreement. The contract talks included Union Pacific, Norfolk Southern, BNSF, CSX, Kansas City Southern and a number of other railroads, so the entire country would have been affected by a strike.
Nearly a dozen BNSF workers gathered near Minot, North Dakota, Wednesday with homemade signs declaring “We demand more!!” and “We will not back down.” Another group of a half dozen workers stood outside their worksite in Olathe, Kansas, with signs saying “Railroad greed driving inflation” and “Greedy railroads harming nations supply chain.”
Workers’ concerns about time off and demanding attendance policies at the railroads took center stage in the negotiations. In the end, the unions that represent engineers and conductors secured a promise of three extra unpaid days off for workers to attend doctors’ appointments without being penalized and improved scheduling of days off to go with the 24% raises and $5,000 in bonuses that a special board appointed by President Joe Biden recommended this summer for the five-year deals.
It remains to be seen whether those concessions are enough to get workers to vote for these deals. A branch of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers union rejected a deal last week that didn’t include those extra days off, so they are back at the table now working on a new pact. Two smaller unions did approve their deals, but the nine other unions will be counting their votes at various times over the next two months.
The two biggest unions that held out the longest — the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen union that represents engineers, and the Transportation Division of the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers union that represents conductors — aren’t expected to report the results of their votes until mid November. Members of those unions are still waiting to see all the details of the deals that Biden announced last Thursday because lawyers are still finalizing everything before the full agreements get released.
That puts any potential for a strike out beyond the midterm elections, which mitigates the potential political impact of the talks for Biden and the Democrats. If any of the unions do reject their contracts, Congress could still be forced to step in.
Recently retired engineer Marilee Taylor, who left the railroad in Chicago after more than 30 years earlier this year when BNSF imposed the strictest attendance policy in the industry, said she doesn’t think the tentative agreements do enough to address the schedule and workload concerns after the major railroads eliminated nearly one-third of their workforces over the past six years. Unions say the railroads’ strict policies make it hard to take any time off without a penalty.
“The issue remains we’re working fatigued,” said Taylor, who is active with the Railroad Workers United coalition that urged workers to go on strike. “The safety of ourselves, our coworkers and the people that we serve — whose communities we run through — are at risk …. These conditions are losing many, many workers who cannot maintain 90% of their every breathing moment in service or at the behest of the railroad.”
Norfolk Southern engineer Hugh Sawyer said it’s hard to tell how many workers will ultimately vote for these deals because they might decide these agreements are the best they can get, although he said he’s not hearing many people happy with them. Even if they remain frustrated, workers may not be willing to go on strike and risk having Congress intervene and impose a contract on them that could be worse than what the unions agreed to.
“We’re sick and tired of the way we’re treated out there,” said Sawyer, a 34-year veteran of the railroad who serves as treasurer of the Railroad Workers United group that includes workers from all the unions. “There’s a lot of anger out there.”
One example of the schedule challenges rail workers face is that Sawyer just had outpatient surgery done earlier this week on one of his days off, but he has no idea when he’ll be able to schedule an appointment to have the stitches removed from his head next week because he’ll be on call then and doesn’t know when he’ll be working.
“It’s just ridiculous,” he said.
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| 2022-09-22T12:33:28Z
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NEW YORK (AP) — Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates combined characteristic optimism with sobering questions about persistent gender inequality and hunger at an event focused on reaching global development goals that the Gateses’ foundation convened on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.
Bill Gates again made the case for investments in agricultural technologies — like modified seeds that are drought resistant — to address food insecurity. But the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation also announced Wednesday a $100 million donation meant to respond to hunger and malnutrition more quickly. The donation will fund projects like a private sector partnership to subsidize fertilizer for African farmers, as well as other initiatives.
French Gates lamented the slow movement toward gender equality in a speech, asking, “How can we go about changing the face of power in our institutions, in our communities, and, yes, in our families?”
The annual Goalkeepers events at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York took place for the first time in person since before the start of the coronavirus pandemic. They are meant to draw attention to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals related to poverty, hunger, equity, health, education and climate change mitigation.
Progress toward meeting many of the goals by 2030 has stalled and in fact, slid backwards, according to assessments by the Gates Foundation as well as U.N. agencies.
However, the foundation did mark some successes, honoring the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, for her leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic. It hailed the European Union’s export of more than a billion vaccine doses and promised new investments in health care manufacturing in African countries.
In a speech accepting the Global Goalkeeper Award on Tuesday evening, von der Leyen said she shared it with “millions of ordinary Europeans who have helped us all make it through the pandemic.”
That is despite the world’s dismal record on health equity as measured through access to tests, treatments and vaccines. Numerous barriers hampered broader vaccine production — from lack of manufacturing capacity and raw materials to opposition, from Gates and others, to loosening intellectual property rules.
“The bottom line is that should never, ever happen again,” said Mark Suzman, the foundation’s CEO, when asked if the foundation should do anything differently to ensure equitable vaccine access. He also emphasized the foundation’s commitment to building better pandemic response plans.
Vanessa Nakate also received an award for her work to reduce suffering. The Ugandan activist started protests to demand action on climate change in her country and now has founded initiatives to install solar panels and efficient stoves in schools there.
In an interview with The Associated Press earlier this month, Nakate said the human costs of the climate crisis are still missing from global summits like this one. “It’s really the human face that tells the story, that tells the experiences of what communities are going through,” she said.
The foundation also recognized Afghan journalist Zahra Joya, founder of the news organization, Rukhshana Media that covers issues affecting women, and the doctor, Radhika Batra, who cofounded an Indian nonprofit, Every Infant Matters.
Abby Maxman, Oxfam America president, pointed to the blockbuster profits earned by fossil fuel companies as an example of the gulf between what the world knows it needs to do in order to achieve a livable future and the actions we are actually taking.
“It really is extraordinary that as humanity faces these truly existential crises, there is still more incentive to destroy our planet than to save lives and save the planet,” she said.
At this year’s general assembly, Antonio Guterres, the U.N. Secretary-General, told world leaders in his opening remarks that they need to tax the profits of fossil fuel companies.
Leaders are not bound by the suggestion, and the U.N. generally lacks enforcement mechanisms to hold countries accountable for their commitments and pledges, like those made to meet the global development goals.
Helping to hold leaders accountable and convening discussions are roles philanthropies can play, said Patricia McIlreavy, president and CEO of the Center for Disaster Philanthropy. Even the name, “Sustainable Development Goals,” can make what they represent hard to understand, she said.
“I don’t think we put things in layman’s terms often enough to kind of connect people to it. I mean, it’s Jackson, Mississippi. It’s having access to clean water. It’s having an expectation of being able to survive and thrive,” she said.
Goalkeepers is only one of several events in New York on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly. The Clinton Global Initiative reconvened this year for the first time since 2016. President Joe Biden hosted the fundraising drive for The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria that is seeking to raise $18 billion. The Gates Foundation announced Wednesday a commitment of $912 million over the next three years to the Global Fund.
___
Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits 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. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.
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| 2022-09-22T12:33:35Z
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NEW YORK (AP) —
Home Depot workers in Philadelphia have filed a petition with the federal labor board to form what could be the first store-wide union at the world’s largest home improvement retailer.
The petition, filed with the National Labor Relations Board this week, seeks to form a collective bargaining unit for 274 employees who work in merchandising, specialty and operations. The federal agency’s database shows no other attempts to form a store-wide union at the company, though a group of Home Depot drivers successfully unionized with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters in 2019.
Sara Gorman, a Home Depot spokesperson, said the company is aware of the filing and “we look forward to talking to our associates about their concerns.”
“While we will of course work through the NLRB process, we do not believe unionization is the best solution for our associates,” Gorman said in an email.
Vincent Quiles, a store employee who is leading the petition, said he delivered the petition with 103 workers’ signatures to the federal labor board Tuesday.
He said discontent with compensation and working conditions rose as employees felt strained during the pandemic.
Quiles, who makes $19.25 an hour in the receiving department, said he and other workers felt they could have benefited more from the record profits Home Depot made during the pandemic, as demand grew for home improvement projects. He pointed to two bonuses he received last year that amounted to less than $400.
Meanwhile, Quiles said his store felt perpetually understaffed, and employees were routinely asked to work in other departments with little training, sometimes angering customers when they could not provide the expertise expected of them.
“I would see corporate visits. They would say you’re doing a great job, you are so essential. You have to walk the walk. You can’t just come in here and say a bunch of nice things,” Quiles said. “This is a long shot but I think we can do this. This is just the beginning.”
Home Depot, based in Atlanta, employs about 500,000 people at its 2,316 stores in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
Worker discontent has galvanized labor movements at several major companies in the U.S. in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, which sparked tensions over sick leave policies, scheduling, safety and other issues.
In a surprise victory, Amazon workers at a Staten Island warehouse voted in favor of unionizing in April, though similar efforts at other warehouses so far have been unsuccessful. At least 238 U.S. Starbucks stores have voted to unionize over the past year, according to the NLRB. Last week, rail workers won key concessions in a tentative agreement with rail companies that averted a potentially devastating shutdown of the nation’s freight trains.
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| 2022-09-22T12:33:43Z
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PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A federal judge ruled Wednesday that Rhode Island’s truck tolling system must end within 48 hours, saying the program to fund repairs to the state’s bridges discriminates against out-of-state truckers and is unconstitutional.
The RhodeWorks tolling system was begun in 2018 to create a funding stream for repairs to about 650 bridges in the state that were either structurally deficient or close to becoming structurally deficient. But U.S. District Court Judge William E. Smith wrote the system aimed at commercial tractor-trailers “was enacted with a discriminatory purpose.”
Smith’s 91-page ruling said the system violated a clause of the U.S. Constitution that bars states from passing legislation that discriminates against or excessively burdens interstate commerce. He wrote that an injunction to end the program “shall take effect 48 hours following entry of final judgment.”
The trucking industry filed a court challenge against the system in 2018, saying in part it discriminated against out-of-state economic interests in order to favor in-state interests. The state held the legal position that the federal court cannot restrain the collection of state taxes, such as tolls, and state matters should be adjudicated in state court.
“We told Rhode Island’s leaders from the start that their crazy scheme was not only discriminatory, but illegal,” said Chris Spear, president and chief executive of the American Trucking Associations, in a statement Wednesday. “We’re pleased the court agreed.”
The other plaintiffs were Cumberland Farms Inc., M&M Transport Services Inc. and New England Motor Freight.
The state has collected about $101 million in tolls since 2018, including nearly $40 million during the fiscal year that ended June 30, according to a state Transportation Department. Tolls are collected electronically via gantries spanning the state’s major highways.
The decision sets a standard that prevents other states from setting up similar tolling systems, said Rhode Island Trucking Association President Chris Maxwell.
“Had we not prevailed, these tolls would have spread across the country and this ruling sends a strong signal to other states that trucking is not to be targeted as a piggy bank,” he said.
Former Gov. Gina Raimondo signed the bill authorizing the tolls in 2016, and the state began collecting them in 2018. Raimondo justified tolling trucks, saying big rigs caused the most damage to roads.
The state is considering its options, according to a statement from the office of current Democratic Gov. Dan McKee. But the administration reiterated that it is not considering tolling passenger vehicles.
“As this ruling has just come out, our team is reviewing the decision and evaluating next steps,” the statement said.
The suit was at first dismissed by a federal district court which said it lacked jurisdiction and the case should be heard in state court. But t he 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2020 reversed the lower court ruling, sending it back to district court.
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| 2022-09-22T12:33:50Z
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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The United Arab Emirates has called on its courts to begin enforcing the judgements of British courts, in a move that could affect the city of Dubai’s status as a haven for the world’s wealthy.
The decision, which affects all noncriminal civil, financial and marital cases, is already in effect and does not need to be drafted into law.
“After the new decision … the UAE will not be a safe haven for anyone trying to smuggle their money,” said Hassan Elhais, legal consultant at Alrowad Advocates.
“If a person was sentenced in a civil case in the UK and they fled to the UAE, they were previously able to keep their money without it being confiscated, their money was protected,” he added.
The UAE had previously not enforced British rulings due to what it called a lack of reciprocity, as the UK courts were reluctant to enforce UAE-issued judgements.
Earlier this month, the Ministry of Justice announced the principles of reciprocity had been met after British courts enforced a “bounced cheque” judgement of the Dubai Court of Cassation in the UK in the Lenkor Energy Trading DMCC v Puri (2020) EWHC 75 (QB) case.
Before the Lenkor case, British courts were not in the practice of enforcing Dubai court judgements and therefore UAE courts took that as a reason not to enforce the same rules.
The UAE has long invited the wealthy to invest in the country, largely without questioning where they made their money. Questions over money flows into the UAE have increased as Russian wealth comes into the Arabian Peninsula nation amid Moscow’s war on Ukraine.
However in recent months, the UAE has arrested several suspects wanted for major crimes, including British national Sanjay Shah who is accused of a $1.7 billion tax fraud scheme in Denmark, and two of the Gupta brothers from South Africa, wanted over allegedly looting state money with former President Jacob Zuma. An Emirati also now leads Interpol, the international police agency, as its president.
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| 2022-09-22T12:33:57Z
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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve delivered its bluntest reckoning Wednesday of what it will take to finally tame painfully high inflation: Slower growth, higher unemployment and potentially a recession.
Speaking at a news conference, Chair Jerome Powell acknowledged what many economists have been saying for months: That the Fed’s goal of engineering a “soft landing” — in which it would manage to slow growth enough to curb inflation but not so much as to cause a recession — looks increasingly unlikely.
“The chances of a soft landing,” Powell said, “are likely to diminish” as the Fed steadily raises borrowing costs to slow the worst streak of inflation in four decades. “No one knows whether this process will lead to a recession or, if so, how significant that recession would be.”
Before the Fed’s policymakers would consider halting their rate hikes, he said, they would have to see continued slow growth, a “modest” increase in unemployment and “clear evidence” that inflation is moving back down to their 2% target.
“We have got to get inflation behind us,” Powell said. “I wish there were a painless way to do that. There isn’t.”
Powell’s remarks followed another substantial three-quarters of a point rate hike — its third straight — by the Fed’s policymaking committee. Its latest action brought the Fed’s key short-term rate, which affects many consumer and business loans, to 3% to 3.25%. That’s its highest level since early 2008.
Falling gas prices have slightly lowered headline inflation, which was a still-painful 8.3% in August compared with a year earlier. Those declining prices at the gas pump might have contributed to a recent rise in President Joe Biden’s public approval ratings, which Democrats hope will boost their prospects in the November midterm elections.
On Wednesday, the Fed officials also forecast more jumbo-size hikes to come, raising their benchmark rate to roughly 4.4% by year’s end — a full point higher than they had envisioned as recently as June. And they expect to raise the rate again next year, to about 4.6%. That would be the highest level since 2007.
By raising borrowing rates, the Fed makes it costlier to take out a mortgage or an auto or business loan. Consumers and businesses then presumably borrow and spend less, cooling the economy and slowing inflation.
In their quarterly economic forecasts, the Fed’s policymakers also projected that economic growth will stay weak for the next few years, with unemployment rising to 4.4% by the end of 2023, up from its current level of 3.7%. Historically, economists say, any time unemployment has risen by a half-point over several months, a recession has always followed.
“So the (Fed’s) forecast is an implicit admission that a recession is likely, unless something extraordinary happens,” said Roberto Perli, an economist at Piper Sandler, an investment bank.
Fed officials now foresee the economy expanding just 0.2% this year, sharply lower than their forecast of 1.7% growth just three months ago. And they envision sluggish growth below 2% from 2023 through 2025. Even with the steep rate hikes the Fed foresees, it still expects core inflation — which excludes volatile food and gas costs — to be 3.1% at the end of 2023, well above its 2% target.
Powell warned in a speech last month that the Fed’s moves will “bring some pain” to households and businesses. And he added that the central bank’s commitment to bringing inflation back down to its 2% target was “unconditional.”
Short-term rates at a level the Fed is now envisioning will force many Americans to pay much higher interest payments on a variety of loans than in the recent past. Last week, the average fixed mortgage rate topped 6%, its highest point in 14 years, which helps explain why home sales have tumbled. Credit card rates have reached their highest level since 1996, according to Bankrate.com.
Inflation now appears increasingly fueled by higher wages and by consumers’ steady desire to spend and less by the supply shortages that had bedeviled the economy during the pandemic recession. On Sunday, Biden said on CBS’ “60 Minutes” that he believed a soft landing for the economy was still possible, suggesting that his administration’s recent energy and health care legislation would lower prices for pharmaceuticals and health care.
The law may help lower prescription drug prices, but outside analyses suggest it will do little to immediately bring down overall inflation. Last month, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office judged it would have a “negligible” effect on prices through 2023. The University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Wharton Budget Model went even further to say “the impact on inflation is statistically indistinguishable from zero” over the next decade.
Even so, some economists are beginning to express concern that the Fed’s rapid rate hikes — the fastest since the early 1980s — will cause more economic damage than necessary to tame inflation. Mike Konczal, an economist at the Roosevelt Institute, noted that the economy is already slowing and that wage increases — a key driver of inflation — are levelling off and by some measures even declining a bit.
Surveys also show that Americans are expecting inflation to ease significantly over the next five years. That is an important trend because inflation expectations can become self-fulfilling: If people expect inflation to ease, some will feel less pressure to accelerate their purchases. Less spending would then help moderate price increases.
The Fed’s rapid rate hikes mirror steps that other major central banks are taking, contributing to concerns about a potential global recession. The European Central Bank last week raised its benchmark rate by three-quarters of a percentage point. The Bank of England, the Reserve Bank of Australia and the Bank of Canada have all carried out hefty rate increases in recent weeks.
And in China, the world’s second-largest economy, growth is already suffering from the government’s repeated COVID lockdowns. If recession sweeps through most large economies, that could derail the U.S. economy, too.
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AP Economics Writer Paul Wiseman contributed to this report.
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| 2022-09-22T12:34:05Z
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Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes slowed in August for the seventh month in a row, as sharply higher mortgage rates and rising prices made homebuying less affordable, further cooling the once red-hot housing market.
The National Association of Realtors said Wednesday that existing home sales fell 0.4% last month from July to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.80 million. That’s higher than what economists were expecting, according to FactSet.
Sales fell 19.9% from August last year, and are now at the slowest annual pace since May 2020, near the start of the pandemic.
The national median home price jumped 7.7% in August from a year earlier to $389,500. As the housing market has cooled, home prices have been rising at a more moderate pace after surging annually by around 20% earlier this year. Before the pandemic, the median home price was rising about 5% a year.
“The rising mortgage rate has clearly hampered the housing market,” said Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist.
The August sales report is the latest evidence that the housing market, a key driver of economic growth, is slowing from its breakneck pace in recent years as homebuyers grapple with the highest mortgage rates in more than a decade, as well as inflation that is hovering near a four-decade high.
The average rate on a 30-year home loan rose to 6.02% last week, moving above 6% for the first time since 2008, according to mortgage buyer Freddie Mac. A year earlier, the rate averaged 2.86%.
The last time the long-term average rate has been this high was November 2008, just after the housing market collapse triggered the Great Recession.
Mortgage rates eased in July after climbing in June, which may have helped motivate homebuyers last month, limiting the sales decline. More recently, however, rates have been rising again along with the 10-year Treasury yield, which influences home loan rates. The 10-year yield traded at its highest levels since 2011 on Tuesday, reflecting expectations of further interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve in its bid to squash inflation.
Higher home prices and mortgage rates have pushed mortgage payments on a typical home from $897 to $1,643 a month, an 83% increase over the past three years, according to an analysis by real estate information company Zillow.
Surging home loan rates don’t just make homes less affordable, they also discouraging homeowners who locked in an ultra-low rate the last couple of years from buying a new home. That, in turn, can limit the number of homes that are available for sale.
“That lock-in effect is continuing to impact inventory and I think it will continue to impact inventory going forward,” Yun said.
Some 85% of U.S. homeowners with a mortgage now have a rate well below 6%, according to Redfin. The disparity gives less incentive to these homeowners to sell and buy another home, because taking on a higher mortgage rate would mean paying more over the life of the loan and also as bigger monthly payment.
In the four weeks ended Sept. 11, home listings fell 19% from a year earlier, the largest drop since May 2020, the real estate brokerage found.
Some 1.28 million homes were on the market at the end of August, down 1.5% from July and flat versus August last year, NAR said.
On average, homes sold in just 16 days of hitting the market last month, up from 14 days in July. Before the pandemic, homes typically sold more than 30 days after being listed for sale.
At the current sales pace, the level of for-sale properties amounts to a 3.2-month supply, Yun said. That’s unchanged from July and higher than the 2.6-month supply in August last year. In a more balanced market between buyers and sellers there is a 5- to 6-month supply.
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| 2022-09-22T12:34:19Z
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NEW YORK (AP) — Walmart is taking a cautious approach to the holiday shopping season, announcing it will hire 40,000 U.S. workers for the holidays, a majority of them seasonal workers.
The move, announced Wednesday, comes as the nation’s largest retailer and largest private employer said it’s in a stronger staffing position heading into the holidays than last year and is now focusing on hiring only seasonal workers, rather than permanent workers. Just like in past years, the company will first offer current workers the opportunity to pick up additional shifts if they want to earn extra money for the holidays.
A year ago, the Bentonville, Arkansas-based chain announced that it was looking to hire roughly 150,000 new U.S. store workers, most of them permanent, full-time positions. Last fall, it also said it was planning to hire 20,000 permanent workers for its distribution and fulfillment centers, as the pandemic created big disruptions at various points in retailers’ supply chain networks.
Retailers face a slowdown in consumer spending as shoppers face surging costs in daily necessities including rent and food. A slew of retailers including Walmart, Best Buy and Stitch Fix have trimmed their staffing in recent weeks.
As a result, forecasts point to slower sales over the crucial holiday season than a year ago. AlixPartners, the global consulting firm, forecasts that holiday sales will be up anywhere from 4% to 7% over last year, much slower than the 16% growth posted a year ago. The current inflation rate of 8.3% means retailers would see a decrease in real sales. Mastercard SpendingPulse, which tracks spending on all kinds of payments including cash, expects holiday sales will be up 7.1% compared to an 8.5% increase last year.
Even as retailers look to hire fewer holiday workers, it could still be challenging. Companies that typically hire thousands of seasonal workers are again heading into the holidays during one of the tightest job markets in decades.
The job market has slowed but still strong. Employers added 315,000 jobs in August, about what economists had expected, down from an average 487,000 a month over the past year, according to a government report earlier this month.
The jobless rate reached 3.7%, its highest level since February. But it increased for a healthy reason: Hundreds of thousands of people returned to the job market, and some didn’t find work right away, which boosted the government’s count of unemployed people.
Among other companies that have set their holiday plans, UPS plans to hire more than 100,000 workers to help handle the holiday rush this season, in line with the previous two years.
Holiday season volumes usually start rising in October and remain high into January. While online shopping has slowed from the height of the pandemic, it’s still well above historic norms.
Danelle McCusker Rees, the president of human relations at UPS, told The Associated Press that this year’s job market remains just as competitive as last year.
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Follow Anne D’Innocenzio: http://twitter.com/ADInnocenzio
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| 2022-09-22T12:34:27Z
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WARSAW, Poland (AP) — European Parliament members investigating the use of surveillance spyware by European Union governments sharply criticized Israel on Wednesday for a lack of transparency in allowing the sale of powerful Israeli spyware to European governments that have used it against critics.
The European lawmakers also condemned the Polish government for refusing to meet with them during a fact-finding visit to Warsaw that ended Wednesday.
“It is regrettable and we condemn the fact that the Polish authorities did not want to cooperate with our investigation committee,” Jeroen Lenaers, the head of the delegation, said at a news conference in Warsaw.
“We think it also is a telling sign of the complete lack of importance this government attaches to checks and balances, to democratic scrutiny and to dialog with elected representatives.”
The committee is investigating the use by governments of Israel’s Pegasus spyware and other invasive surveillance tools, viewing such technology as a threat to democracy in the 27-nation bloc.
Pegasus was developed by Israel’s NSO Group and is designed to breach mobile phones and extract vast amounts of information from them, including text messages, passwords, locations and microphone and camera recordings. The company markets the technology as a tool to target criminals but many cases have been discovered worldwide of governments using it against dissidents, journalists and political opponents.
In Europe, cybersleuths have found traces of Pegasus or other spyware in Poland, Hungary, Spain and Greece.
Sophie in ’t Veld, the raporteur of the inquiry, said the committee has learned that the NSO group has sold spyware to 14 EU governments, using export licenses issued by the Israeli government. It learned that NSO stopped selling to two of those, but won’t say which ones. They are widely believed to be Poland and Hungary due to their democratic backsliding.
“Why can we not say with certainty that Poland was one of the two countries of which the contract has been terminated?” she said. “Why is it that NSO is allowed to operate in the European Union, conduct its finances through Luxembourg, sell its products to now 12 member states, products that have been used to violate the rights of European citizens and to attack democracy of the European Union?”
Israel, an ally, should “cooperate with us in the protection of our citizens,” she said.
In ‘t Veld also she would expect most EU countries to use spyware in rare cases, and with oversight, but that others including Poland have used it “against citizens,” making it “a tool for an authoritarian political agenda.”
Greece has been rocked by revelations that Nikos Androulakis, a European Parliament member and head of Greece’s third-largest political party, was put under surveillance last year with Predator spyware when he was running for his PASOK party’s leadership. A financial journalist also was under surveillance.
That follows revelations of spyware use against government critics in Poland and Hungary and against Catalan separatists in Spain.
During their visit, which began Monday, the 10-member delegation met with Poles targeted by the spyware, including a prosecutor and a senator, and other officials including members in the opposition-controlled Senate investigating Pegasus use.
They will publish a report on their findings and recommendations on Nov. 8.
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| 2022-09-22T12:34:34Z
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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iranians experienced a near-total internet blackout on Wednesday amid days of mass protests against the government over the death of a woman held by the country’s morality police for allegedly violating its strictly-enforced dress code.
An Iranian official had earlier hinted that such measures might be taken out of security concerns. The loss of connectivity will make it more difficult for people to organize protests and share information about the government’s rolling crackdown on dissent.
Iran has seen nationwide protests over the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was detained for allegedly wearing the mandatory Islamic headscarf too loosely. Demonstrators have clashed with police and called for the downfall of the Islamic Republic itself, even as Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi addressed the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday.
The protests continued for a fifth day on Wednesday, including in the capital, Tehran. Police there fired tear gas at protesters who chanted “death to the dictator,” and “I will kill the one who killed my sister,” according to the semiofficial Fars news agency.
London-based rights group Amnesty International said security forces have used batons, birdshot, tear gas, and water cannons to disperse protesters. It reported eight deaths linked to the unrest, including four people killed by security forces. It said hundreds more have been wounded.
Iranian officials have reported three deaths, blaming them on unnamed armed groups.
Witnesses in Iran, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal, said late Wednesday they could no longer access the internet using mobile devices.
“We’re seeing internet service, including mobile data, being blocked in Iran in the past couple of hours,” Doug Madory, director of internet analysis at Kentik, Inc., a network intelligence company, said late Wednesday.
“This is likely an action by the government given the current situation in the country,” he said. “I can confirm a near total collapse of internet connectivity for mobile providers in Iran.”
NetBlocks, a London-based group that monitors internet access, had earlier reported widespread disruptions to both Instagram and WhatsApp.
Facebook parent company Meta, which owns both platforms, said it was aware that Iranians were being denied access to internet services. “We hope their right to be online will be reinstated quickly,” it said in a statement.
Earlier on Wednesday, Iran’s Telecommunications Minister Isa Zarepour was quoted by state media as saying that certain restrictions might be imposed “due to security issues,” without elaborating.
Iran already blocks Facebook, Telegram, Twitter and YouTube, even though top Iranian officials use public accounts on such platforms. Many Iranians get around the bans using virtual private networks, known as VPNs, and proxies.
In a separate development, several official websites, including those for Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the presidency and the Central Bank, were taken down at least briefly as hackers claimed to have launched a cyberattack on state agencies.
Hackers linked to the shadowy Anonymous movement said they targeted other Iranian state agencies, including state TV.
Central Bank spokesman Mostafa Qamarivafa denied that the bank itself was hacked, saying only that the website was “inaccessible” because of an attack on a server that hosts it, in remarks carried by the official IRNA news agency. The website was later restored.
Iran has been the target of several cyberattacks in recent years, many by hackers expressing criticism of its theocracy. Last year, a cyberattack crippled gas stations across the country, creating long lines of angry motorists unable to get subsidized fuel for days. Messages accompanying the attack appeared to refer to the supreme leader.
Amini’s death has sparked protests across the country. The police say she died of a heart attack and was not mistreated, but her family has cast doubt on that account, saying she had no previous heart issues and that they were prevented from seeing her body.
In a phone interview with BBC Persian on Wednesday her father, Amjad Amini, accused authorities of lying about her death. Each time he was asked how he thinks she died, the line was mysteriously cut.
The U.N. human rights office says the morality police have stepped up operations in recent months and resorted to more violent methods, including slapping women, beating them with batons and shoving them into police vehicles.
President Joe Biden, who also spoke at the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday, voiced support for the protesters, saying “we stand with the brave citizens and the brave women of Iran, who right now are demonstrating to secure their basic rights.”
The U.K. also released a statement Wednesday calling for an investigation into Amini’s death and for Iran to “respect the right to peaceful assembly.”
Raisi has called for an investigation into Amini’s death. Iranian officials have blamed the protests on unnamed foreign countries that they say are trying to foment unrest.
Iran has grappled with waves of protests in recent years, mainly over a long-running economic crisis exacerbated by Western sanctions linked to its nuclear program.
The Biden administration and European allies have been working to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear accord, in which Iran curbed its nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief, but the talks have been deadlocked for months.
In his speech at the U.N., Raisi said Iran is committed to reviving the nuclear agreement but questioned whether it could trust America’s commitment to any accord.
Iran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. It began ramping up its nuclear activities after then-President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the 2015 agreement, and experts say it now likely has enough highly-enriched uranium to make a bomb if it chooses to do so.
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| 2022-09-22T12:34:40Z
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ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) — As a new academic year starts in Algeria, third graders returning to primary school Wednesday will be taught English, as well as French, as a foreign language — a small but symbolic step toward taking the country further away from its past as a French colony that some say is long overdue.
Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune announced in June that the Arabic-speaking North African country would gradually begin to expand English to 20,000 primary school children nationwide. The linguistic shift is the latest pivot away from France, with Algiers in recent years choosing against renewing transportation and water contracts with French companies and awarding them to regional firms instead.
“English is the international language, also the language of science and technology,” the French-speaking president said in his announcement.
Tebboune has emphasized the move is not about replacing ties with France but modernizing Algeria. Young people who fluently use English on social media were at the center of demonstrations that eventually topped his predecessor, strongman leader Abdelaziz Bouteflika, in 2019.
Yet such changes have been a delicate dance for Tebboune. He wants to expand the use of English while not alienating older generations, the middle class and elites that speak French. The president has been evasive on whether he ultimately intends to replace French with English more broadly.
In an interview on public television in June, he called French “a spoil of war,” a compliment suggesting the language had benefitted the country even though the language resulted from France’s colonization of Algeria from 1830 to 1962.
Islamist party leader Abderrazak Makri was less diplomatic at the time: “We must put an end to the colonial heritage of France. (Even) President Macron speaks more English than French abroad. Now it is English which is the universal language, it is time for Algerians to appropriate it, to get in tune with the great nations,” he said.
As it stands, French will remain the main second language in the country of almost 44 million. High school students this year will continue receiving five hours of French instruction and three hours of English a week. In primary schools, third graders will be taught 90 minutes of English a week in addition to their five hours of French.
Commentators say the change, while incremental, remains highly political as it charts a course for an English-speaking future.
“The teaching of English in primary school … goes beyond the question of language and pedagogy. It is an ideological operation whose goal is the gradual replacement of French by English in Algerian society and in institutions,” said Ahmed Tessa, a state French language advisor.
“It is a way of taking some distance from France and its linguistic and cultural heritage in Algeria.”
Others say speaking English is simply a reality of the current world, and Algeria has been slow to modernize.
“This should have been done a long time ago,” said parent of two Kahina Mahmoudi. “We are late. You know, I had my kids start learning English (even) before the return to school. I’ll say again, we are late.”
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Thomas Adamson contributed from Paris
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| 2022-09-22T12:34:46Z
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LONDON (AP) — Amnesty International accused Egypt on Wednesday of attempting to cover up a decade of “unrelenting violations of human rights” in order to improve its international standing ahead of hosting the world climate summit.
Egypt’s human rights record has come under intensified scrutiny ahead of the November global COP27 summit in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. Dozens of international rights groups have called on Egypt to end its crackdown on civil society and protect freedom of expression.
Wednesday’s 48-page report by Amnesty urged the Egyptian government to implement changes and stop abuses, citing a relentless clampdown on dissent, rollback of personal freedoms and mass incarcerations after President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi came to power in 2013. Rights groups estimate that thousands of political prisoners are held in Egyptian jails.
“The international community must … pressure the Egyptian authorities to take meaningful steps to end the cycle of abuse and impunity,” the report said.
Amnesty recommended the government act to advance workers’ rights, end arbitrary detention and outlaw censorship of independent media. The London-based group said its findings were based on interviews with victims of human rights violations and lawyers, as well as other documentation and Amnesty publications compiled over the past decade.
The Egypt government, which has sought to rectify its international image over the past year, did not immediately comment on Amnesty’s latest report. Egyptian officials have not responded to The Associated Press’ request for comment.
El-Sissi’s government has recently released dozens of high-profile detainees under presidential pardons and established a new “strategy” to upgrade human rights conditions.
Amnesty described the strategy as a “shiny cover-up”’ used to broker favor with foreign governments and financial institutions.
El-Sissi has also announced a national dialogue that will include voices of the opposition for later this year. But there is scepticism over how that will translate into reality as some of the most prominent activists and former political figures remain in jail.
Egypt security forces rearrested Sherif el-Roubi, a co-founder of the pro-democracy April 6 movement, just three months after his release from detention, according to rights lawyer Negad el-Borai.
El-Roubi, a father of three, was arrested over the weekend after speaking out about the hardships he and other released activists face as former political prisoners in a phone interview with Al-Jazeera satellite television channel.
On Tuesday, Egypt’s presidential pardon committee said prosecutors ordered the release of 23 pre-trial detainees, days after 46 others were reported freed. It remains unclear how many from both groups have actually walked free.
U.S. government officials told The Associated Press last week that the Biden administration would give Egypt $170 million of annual military aid from a tranche of $300 million, an amount withheld on condition of the country’s improvement in human rights. The release of 500 political detainees and Egypt’s efforts on fostering national dialogue were cited as an improvement.
Egypt is among the world’s worst jailers of journalists, along with Turkey and China, according to 2021 data produced by the U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists. Human Rights Watch estimated in 2019 that as many as 60,000 political prisoners are incarcerated in Egyptian prisons.
El-Sissi has said in the past that the country has no political prisoners and justified detentions on grounds of national security.
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| 2022-09-22T12:34:52Z
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UNITED NATIONS (AP) — After two years of discourse dominated by the coronavirus pandemic, this year’s U.N. General Assembly has a new occupant of center stage: the war in Ukraine.
The pleas made by leaders from around the world for peace were both an altruistic amplification of besieged Ukrainians’ plight as well as born from self-interest. As several speeches made clear, the repercussions of the Russian invasion have been felt even thousands of miles away.
“It is not just the dismay that we feel at seeing such deliberate devastation of cities and towns in Europe in the year 2022. We are feeling this war directly in our lives in Africa,” Ghanaian President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo said Wednesday. “Every bullet, every bomb, every shell that hits a target in Ukraine, hits our pockets and our economies in Africa.”
The speeches that elided any direct reference to the conflict were few, but the war resonated even in the absence of its direct invocation. Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, the president of Kazakhstan, never let the words “Ukraine” or “Russia” slip from his lips, but he made several seemingly pointed allusions.
He opened his remarks by painting a bleak picture of a world catapulted into a “new, increasingly bitter period of geopolitical confrontation” that’s engendered “the prospect of the use of nuclear weapons, and not even as a last resort.”
Just hours later, Russian President Vladimir Putin — who is not attending the U.N. General Assembly — declared that he would not hesitate to use nuclear weapons to defend his country’s territory.
Russia is a key ally of Kazakhstan, and the war in Ukraine has left the former Soviet country in an awkward spot. Tokayev performed a similar dance last week during Pope Francis’ visit, refusing to speak directly about Ukraine while generally decrying a morbid state of affairs.
On Tuesday, Tokayev laid out “three primordial principles: the sovereign equality of states, the territorial integrity of states, and peaceful coexistence between states.”
“These three principles are interdependent. To respect one is to respect the other two. To undermine one is to undermine the other two,” he said.
The theme of territorial sovereignty resonated in other speeches, as countries who have faced infringements invoked their own traumas or cited the fate of Ukraine as a fear.
“We must not be silent in Bosnia and Herzegovina either. We owe that to our vivid memories of the horrors of war and aggression,” Šefik Džaferović, chair of the presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, said Wednesday. “The United Nations system was unable to prevent or stop the war in my country in the period between 1992 and 1995. Unfortunately, that happened again with Ukraine.”
Russia has long been accused of trying to destabilize the Balkans anew — including Bosnia and Herzegovina. Džaferović’s turn at the rostrum came a day after Putin met with a Bosnian Serb separatist leader in Moscow.
Russian peacekeepers have been stationed in Transnistria, a breakaway region in Moldova, since the end of a separatist war in 1992. Sandwiched between description of how the war in Ukraine — “our neighbor and friend” — has affected her country, Moldovan President Maia Sandu called for the “complete and unconditional withdrawal of Russian troops” from Transnistria.
Poland is the Ukrainian ally that has taken in the most refugees, and President Andrzej Duda made 34 references to the country in his speech Tuesday.
“We must not forget those who are suffering,” Duda said. “Let us remember that six months of Russian aggression in Ukraine has brought the biggest humanitarian crisis in Europe since World War II.”
But Duda also highlighted how Ukraine has captured the world’s attention when many other momentous crises outside of Europe have not.
“Were we equally resolute during the tragedies of Syria, Libya, Yemen? Did we not return to business as usual after two great tragedies of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the wars in the Horn of Africa, and while condemning the invasion of Ukraine, do we give equal weight to fighting mercenaries who seek to destabilize the Sahel and threaten many other states in Africa?” he said.
On the first day alone, Ukraine drew more than 150 mentions across speeches from leaders, including the U.N. secretary-general. Antonio Guterres opened the General Assembly by touting Ukraine and Russia’s deal — with the help of Turkey — over grain shipments as an example of successful multilateral diplomacy. The war was threaded throughout his speech, as he turned to its gloomier yields.
“The fighting has claimed thousands of lives. Millions have been displaced. Billions across the world are affected,” he said.
In the lone video address to the General Assembly, for which he was given special dispensation, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy himself called out the seven countries who voted against the allowance: “Seven. Seven who are afraid of the video address. Seven who respond to principles with a red button. Only seven.”
None of those seven had yet spoken. But even if those countries had somehow prevailed, Slovakian President Zuzana Čaputová said it was incumbent on other countries to advocate for Ukraine.
“The democratic world and all of us must be a voice of Ukraine. The voice that won’t be silent, voice that will continue to testify about Russia’s crimes in Ukraine,” she said Tuesday. “The voice that will remember, and that will act — so no one is ever allowed to commit such atrocities again.”
___
Follow Mallika Sen at https://twitter.com/mallikavsen. For more AP coverage of the U.N. General Assembly, visit https://apnews.com/hub/united-nations-general-assembly
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| 2022-09-22T12:34:58Z
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NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Actor Anthony Mackie was not carrying his Captain America shield when he returned to his hometown of New Orleans to help repair hurricane-damaged roofs but for people in his old neighborhood knowing their tarp-covered roofs were getting repaired was a blockbuster hit.
Mackie is working with GAF, one of the country’s leading roofing manufacturers, to fix roofs for homeowners in New Orleans who sustained damage during last year’s Hurricane Ida. The project is especially close to Mackie’s heart. The actor who is currently portraying Captain America in the Marvel Cinematic Universe grew up in New Orleans working at his family’s roofing business.
“It gives me a sense of pride that I’m doing my people a service. I know what people go through in this neighborhood because I was born in this neighborhood, I grew up in this neighborhood,” he said. “It’s important to me to bring back the gifts and blessings I received outside the city.”
GAF, a subsidiary of Standard Industries that makes things like shingles, underlayment and other roofing related products for homes and businesses, has committed to installing 500 roofs throughout the Gulf Region. That includes 150 roofs in the 7th Ward of New Orleans, an area that was hammered by both Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and then Ida that hit on the same day 16 years later. The roofing effort is part of the company’s Community Matters program started in 2020 that has already repaired or replaced 3,000 roofs.
New Orleans resident Larae Barard said she had just been talking with her mother about her concerns for her roof when she got the call saying her roof would be fixed.
“They said, ‘We want to fix your roof.’ I said, ’Really?! This must be a miracle,” she said. “After Ida, my roof was in terrible shape. It had a blue tarp on it for now almost a year and a month… So thank God I have a new roof.”
GAF is also training people in roofing skills through their GAF Roofing Academy. They teamed with Rebuilding Together New Orleans who is supplying the labor while GAF is supplying the materials and paying the costs. William Stoudt, Executive Director of Rebuilding Together New Orleans, said the groups were specifically looking to help those who didn’t have the financial or physical wherewithal to repair their roof on their own — homeowners who were often elderly or disabled and were making less than $35,000 a year.
“Who are the people that are going to struggle the most to come back? We’re talking about low-income homeowners. We’re talking about elderly, disabled, maybe veterans or single female family head of household. We’re talking about people who make New Orleans who it is,” Stoudt said.
The company and Mackie were in New Orleans recently to remove blue tarps on homes that had been damaged by Ida and replace the tarps with new roofs.
Mackie, whose family owns Mackie One Construction, grew up working in the roofing business before going on to an acting career that has included such hits “We Are Marshall” and “The Hurt Locker.” In recent years he’s appeared in numerous Avengers movies as Sam Wilson — aka Falcon — and is taking over the Captain America role.
Mackie jokingly remembers the time he fell off a roof when he was working in his family’s construction business. A thick layer of mud cushioned his fall. That memory didn’t stop him this time around from getting back on the roof and helping pull off tarps and pop off old shingles. Mackie said the resources that GAF is putting toward the project is helping people who wouldn’t be able to otherwise afford to get their home repaired.
“There’s so many houses in this neighborhood and city that are still tarped. When you fly into New Orleans, it’s become a sea of blue tarps. The hundred and fifty homes that GAF is doing in the 7th ward, that breaks a lot of barriers down for people that won’t be able to afford to do that. The 500 homes that they’ve committed to doing, that breaks a lot of barriers down for people,” he said.
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| 2022-09-22T12:35:10Z
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In a harsh warning, President Vladimir Putin declared that he won’t hesitate to use nuclear weapons to protect Russian territory, a threat that comes as Moscow is poised to annex swaths of Ukraine that Moscow has taken over after hastily called referendums there.
While the West has heard such rhetoric from him before, the circumstances are starkly different.
The Kremlin has orchestrated referendums in the occupied areas of Ukraine that are set to start Friday. Residents will be asked whether they want to become part of Russia — a vote that is certain to go Moscow’s way. That means Russia could absorb those lands as early as next week.
Putin then raised the stakes by a nnouncing a partial mobilization and vowed to use “all available means” to deter future attacks against Russia — a reference to Russia’s nuclear arsenal in a chilling new round of brinkmanship.
Some observers see Putin’s move to annex Ukrainian territory along with the mobilization and renewed nuclear threats as a last-ditch attempt to force Ukraine and its Western backers into accepting the current status quo after a successful Ukrainian counteroffensive earlier this month.
Tatiana Stanovaya, an independent political expert who follows the Kremlin’s decision-making, described Putin’s rushed moves on the referendums as a pretext for upping the ante.
“This is a blunt Russian ultimatum to Ukraine and the West: Ukraine must back off or there will be a nuclear war,” Stanovaya said. “For Putin, the annexation would legitimize the right to resort to nuclear threats to protect the Russian territory.”
In a televised address to the nation Wednesday, Putin said Moscow’s nuclear arsenal is more modern than NATO’s and declared his readiness to use them.
“This is not a bluff,” Putin added somberly in an apparent reference to those in the West who described his earlier nuclear threats as a blustery attempt to weaken the international support for Ukraine.
Russian military doctrine envisages the use of atomic weapons in response to a nuclear attack or aggression involving conventional weapons that “threatens the very existence of the state,” vague wording that offers ample room for interpretation.
In his brief speech, Putin accused the U.S. and its allies of arming and training Ukraine’s military and encouraging Kyiv to attack Russian territory. He seemed to push the threshold for using nuclear weapons even lower.
“In the event of a threat to the territorial integrity of our country and to defend Russia and our people, we will certainly use all means available to us,” he said.
In recent weeks, Russian officials have repeatedly warned Washington that supplies of longer-range missiles to Ukraine would effectively make the U.S. a party to the conflict.
U.S.-supplied HIMARS rocket launchers and other Western weapons played an important role in the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the northeastern Kharkiv region that represented Moscow’s biggest military defeat since it was forced to withdraw its troops from Kyiv after a botched attempt to seize the Ukrainian capital early in the war. It raised the prospect of more battlefield successes for Ukraine, which has vowed to reclaim control over all Russian-occupied territories, including the Crimean Peninsula that Moscow annexed in 2014.
Ukraine’s success has been a humiliating blow to Putin, who has cast the campaign as a “special military operation” and has tried to win it with a limited contingent of volunteer troops. Western estimates put Russia’s invading force at about 200,000 at the start of the war, and it has suffered heavy losses in seven months of fighting. British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace recently put Russian losses at over 25,000 dead.
While Ukraine has declared a sweeping mobilization with a goal of forming a 1 million-member military, the Kremlin so far has tried to avoid the unpopular move, recruiting volunteer soldiers and even prisoners. Hawkish circles in Moscow long have pushed for a mobilization, arguing it’s impossible to fend off Ukraine’s assaults along a 1,000-kilometer (over 500-mile) front line with the currently outnumbered Russian force.
The mobilization that Putin declared Wednesday is the first such move in Russia since World War II. The Soviet Union used a draft to fight its 10-year war in Afghanistan, and Russia also relied on conscripts during the two wars in Chechnya in the 1990s and early 2000s.
While Putin and his defense minister promised only a partial mobilization aimed at calling up about 300,000 reservists with previous military service, analysts say the move will severely strain the corrupt and inefficient government system and fuel instability that would threaten Putin’s hold on power.
The mobilization order immediately triggered protests in Moscow and other cities that were quickly disbanded by police who detained hundreds of demonstrators.
Kirill Rogov, an independent political analyst, described the mobilization order as an “explosive mixture of madness, incompetence and despair.” He noted that Putin risks losing support from the bulk of the Russian public that until now has seen the war as a “distant and limited development.”
Alexander Baunov of the Carnegie Endowment noted the mobilization has broken Putin’s pact with his political base that expected him to deliver stability and a vision of Russian grandeur without the need for personal sacrifice.
“Now sacrifice is required, and it’s a violation of the past unwritten agreements that would trigger more repressions,” Baunov wrote.
He noted that Putin’s move to annex Russia-controlled regions amounts to a warning: “You dared to fight us in Ukraine, now try to fight us in Russia, or more precisely, what we call such.”
In a Feb. 24 speech announcing the invasion, Putin already brandished the nuclear sword, threatening any foreign country attempting to interfere with “consequences you have never seen.”
The latest threat underlined the Russian leader’s dogged determination to safeguard Russian gains even at the risk of a nuclear escalation.
Putin’s previous statements about all-out nuclear conflict have been delivered with frightening nonchalance.
Talking about Russian strategy at a 2018 meeting of international foreign policy experts, Putin acknowledged that a nuclear exchange “would naturally mean a global catastrophe,” but he promised that Russia will not strike first.
And he added with a smirk: “We would be victims of an aggression and would get to heaven as martyrs and they will just croak and not even have time to repent.”
—-
Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at: t https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
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| 2022-09-22T12:35:16Z
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While world leaders from wealthy countries acknowledge the “existential threat” of climate change, Tuvalu Prime Minister Kausea Natano is racing to save his tiny island nation from drowning by raising it 13 to 16 feet (4 to 5 meters) above sea level through land reclamation.
While experts issue warnings about the eventual uninhabitability of the Marshall Islands, President David Kabua must reconcile the inequity of a seawall built to protect one house that is now flooding another one next door.
That is the reality of climate change: Some people get to talk about it from afar, while others must live it every day.
Natano and Kabua tried to show that reality on Wednesday on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly. Together they launched the Rising Nations Initiative, a global partnership aimed to preserve the sovereignty, heritage and rights of Pacific atoll island nations whose very existence have been threatened by climate change.
Natano described how rising sea levels have impacted everything from the soil that his people rely on to plant crops, to the homes, roads and power lines that get washed away. The cost of eking out a living, he said, eventually becomes too much to bear, causing families to leave and the nation itself to disappear.
“This is how a Pacific atoll dies,” Natano said. “This is how our islands will cease to exist.”
The Rising Nations Initiative seeks a political declaration by the international community to preserve the sovereignty and rights of Pacific atoll island countries; the creation of a comprehensive program to build and finance adaptation and resilience projects to help local communities sustain livelihoods; a living repository of the culture and unique heritage of each Pacific atoll island country; and support to acquire UNESCO World Heritage designation.
The initiative has already gained the support of countries like the United States, Germany, South Korea and Canada, all of which have acknowledged the unique burden that island nations like Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands must shoulder.
A U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report released in February spelled out the vulnerability of small island developing states and other global hotspots like Africa and South Asia, whose populations are 15 times more likely to die from extreme weather compared to less vulnerable parts of the world.
If warming exceeds a few more tenths of a degree, it could lead to some areas — including some small islands — becoming uninhabitable, said report co-author Adelle Thomas of Climate Analytics and the University of the Bahamas. On Wednesday, Natano noted that Tuvalu and its Pacific neighbors “have done nothing to cause climate change,” with their carbon emission contribution amounting to less than .03% of the world’s total.
“This is the first time in history that the collective action of many nations will have made several sovereign countries uninhabitable,” he said.
Representatives from other nations who attended Wednesday’s event did not deflect responsibility. But whether they will do enough to turn things around remains to be seen.
Several have pledged money to help island nations pay for early warning systems and bring their buildings up to code to better protect them from hurricanes and other weather events. But there was less talk of mitigating the problem of climate change and more about how to adapt to the devastation it has already wrought.
“We see this train coming, and it’s coming down the track, and we need to get out of the way,” said Amy Pope, deputy director general of the International Organization for Migration.
Germany’s climate envoy, Jennifer Morgan, who also attended Wednesday’s event, spoke of her country’s target to reach carbon neutrality by 2045. But while Germany remains committed to phasing out coal as a power source by 2030, it has had to reactivate coal-fired power plants to get through the coming winter amid energy shortages as a result of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
For the president of the Marshall Islands, wealthy nations could be doing much more. During his speech to the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, Kabua urged world leaders to take on sectors that rely on fossil fuels, including aviation and shipping. He pointed to the Marshall Islands’ carbon levy proposal for international shipping that he says “will drive the transition to zero emission shipping, channeling resources from polluters to the most vulnerable.”
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has likewise encouraged going after the world’s largest polluters. During his opening remarks to the assembly on Tuesday, he pushed for richer countries to tax the profits of energy companies and redirect the funds to both “countries suffering loss and damage caused by the climate crisis” and those struggling with the rising cost of living.
In the meantime, as wealthy countries urge action instead of words in their own U.N. speeches, Kabua, Natano and their fellow island nation leaders will continue to grapple with their daily climate change reality — and try to continue to exist.
___
Pia Sarkar, a Philadelphia-based journalist for The Associated Press, is on assignment covering the U.N. General Assembly. Follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/PiaSarkar_TK and for more AP coverage of the U.N. General Assembly, visit https://apnews.com/hub/united-nations-general-assembly
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| 2022-09-22T12:35:23Z
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Speaking from a wood-paneled operation room, Russian President Vladimir Putin issued another stern warning to the West on Wednesday after his country’s military suffered a series of embarrassing setbacks in Ukraine.
Putin announced a partial mobilization of reservists that could raise available troop numbers by up to 300,000 and delivered a thinly-veiled threat of Moscow’s willingness to use nuclear weapons.
Here’s a look at key takeaways from that speech and the West’s reaction to it.
WHY DID PUTIN MAKE THE THREATS NOW?
Putin’s military call-up and possible nuclear threat comes days after the Ukrainian army pulled off a surprise counteroffensive to recapture territory around its second-largest city, Kharkiv, in the east.
“I want to remind you that our country also has various means of destruction … and when the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, to protect Russia and our people, we will certainly use all the means at our disposal,” Putin said in the televised address, adding with a lingering stare at the camera: “It’s not a bluff.”
But his seven-minute address was also broadcast as Russia prepares to hold referendums in Ukrainian regions it now occupies, including areas taken over by Moscow-backed separatist forces after fighting broke out in 2014. The votes start Friday and have already been dismissed as illegitimate by Ukraine and its Western allies.
WEST VOWS TO STAY THE COURSE
President Joe Biden led Western condemnation of Putin’s remarks at the United Nations General assembly, arguing that Moscow’s aggression should be met with continued resolve by Western nations to support Ukraine.
“We will stand in solidarity against Russia’s aggression. Period,” he said, denouncing Moscow’s plans to hold “sham” referendums in Ukraine as well as Putin’s “overt nuclear threats against Europe.”
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg echoed Biden’s theme. “This is a further escalation in Putin’s war. The international community must condemn this blatant violation of international law and step up support for Ukraine,” Stoltenberg said in a tweet.
Josep Borrell, the head of the European Union’s foreign policy, added: “Threatening with nuclear weapons is unacceptable and a real danger to all… World peace is in jeopardy.”
NO CHANGE IN UKRAINE’S GOALS
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country remains committed to recapturing all of its sovereign territory, describing Putin’s remarks as demonstration of Russia’s battlefield setbacks.
“We will act in accordance with our plans, step by step. I am certain we will liberate our territory,” Zelenskyy said in a TV interview with the German newspaper Bild.
A spokesman for Zelenskyy called the Russian mobilization a “big tragedy” for the Russian people. In a statement to The Associated Press, Sergii Nikiforov said conscripts sent to the front line in Ukraine would face a similar fate as the ill-prepared Russian forces who were repelled in their attack on Kyiv in the first days of the war.
“This is a recognition of the inability of the Russian professional army, which has failed in all its tasks,” Nikiforov said.
HOW WILL RUSSIANS RESPOND?
Despite the Kremlin’s tight grip on Russia’s news media, some criticism of the war in Ukraine has been aired in Russia since the recent troop retreats.
Anti-war protests were held in 37 Russian cities on Wednesday, including St. Petersburg and Moscow, according to the monitoring group OVD-Info, which said over 800 protesters were arrested.
Russian political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin argued that Putin’s mobilization will make the Russian military’s failings in the war more personal to many Russians.
“Until recently (Russians participated) with pleasure, sitting on their couches, (watching) TV. And now the war has come into their home,” he told the AP. “People will evade this mobilization in every possible way, bribe their way out of this mobilization, leave the country.”
Russian media on Wednesday reported a run on people buying airline tickets to leave the country, sending ticket prices soaring.
___
Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
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| 2022-09-22T12:35:29Z
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BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — Two U.S. military veterans who disappeared three months ago while fighting Russia with Ukrainian forces were among 10 prisoners, including five British nationals, released by Russian-backed separatists as part of a prisoner exchange mediated by Saudi Arabia, officials said Wednesday.
Alex Drueke, 40, and Andy Huynh, 27, went missing in the Kharkiv region of northeastern Ukraine near the Russian border June 9. They had traveled to Ukraine on their own and became friends because both are from Alabama.
Their families announced their release in a joint statement from Dianna Shaw, an aunt of Drueke.
“They are safely in the custody of the U.S. embassy in Saudi Arabia and after medical checks and debriefing they will return to the states,” the statement said.
Shaw said both men have spoken with relatives and are in “pretty good shape,” according to an official with the U.S. embassy.
President Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan welcomed the releases and thanked the governments of Ukraine and Saudi Arabia for their work to secure the detainees‘ freedom. “We look forward to our citizens being reunited with their families,” he said in a tweet.
In a later statement, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States “is appreciative of Ukraine including all prisoners of war, regardless of nationality, in its negotiations” and thanked Saudi government partners for securing the release of the 10 prisoners, including the two Americans.
The Saudi embassy released a statement saying it helped secure the release of 10 prisoners from Morocco, the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden and Croatia. Shaw confirmed that Drueke and Huynh were part of the group.
The United Kingdom said five British nationals had been released, and lawmaker Robert Jenrick said one of them was Aiden Aslin, 28, who had been sentenced to death after he was captured in eastern Ukraine.
“Aiden’s return brings to an end months of agonising uncertainty for Aiden’s loving family in Newark who suffered every day of Aiden’s sham trial but never lost hope. As they are united as a family once more, they can finally be at peace,” Jenrick tweeted.
British Prime Minister Liz Truss heralded the news on social media.
“Hugely welcome news that five British nationals held by Russian-backed proxies in eastern Ukraine are being safely returned, ending months of uncertainty and suffering for them and their families,” she tweeted.
Moroccan media reported that the released prisoners included Brahim Saadoun, 21, who was sentenced to death in June after being accused of terrorism and trying to overturn the constitutional order. Captured by Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine, the court claimed he was a mercenary, while Saadoun’s father said he had enlisted in Ukraine’s regular army.
Russian state television had previously said Drueke and Huynh were being held by Russian-backed separatists in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. The U.S. does not recognize the sovereignty of the Donetsk People’s Republic and has no diplomatic relations with them, making it necessary for others to lead efforts to get the men released.
Drueke joined the Army at age 19 after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and he believed he could help Ukrainian fighters because of his training and experience with weapons, Shaw said previously. Drueke left in mid-April.
Druke’s mother received a call from Saudi Arabia on Wednesday morning and an embassy worker handed the phone to the man, Shaw said.
“He got on the phone and said, ‘Hi mom, it’s your favorite child,’” she said.
Huynh moved to north Alabama two years ago from his native California and lives about 120 miles (193 kilometers) from Drueke. Before leaving for Europe, Huynh told his local newspaper, The Decatur Daily, he couldn’t stop thinking about Russia’s invasion.
“I know it wasn’t my problem, but there was that gut feeling that I felt I had to do something,” Huynh told the paper. “Two weeks after the war began, it kept eating me up inside and it just felt wrong. I was losing sleep. … All I could think about was the situation in Ukraine.”
Huynh told his fiance he wants a meal from McDonald’s and a Pepsi-Cola when he returns home, Shaw said.
The two men bonded over their home state and were together when their unit came under heavy fire. Relatives spoke with Drueke several times by phone while the two were being held.
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| 2022-09-22T12:35:35Z
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SAN DIEGO (AP) — A Malaysian defense contractor nicknamed “Fat Leonard” who orchestrated one of the largest bribery scandals in U.S. military history has been arrested in Venezuela after fleeing before his sentencing, authorities said Wednesday.
The international manhunt for Leonard Glenn Francis ended with his arrest by Venezuelan authorities Tuesday morning at the Caracas airport as he was about to board an airplane for another country, the U.S. Marshals Service said.
Interpol Venezuela Director General Carlos Garate Rondon said in a statement posted on Instagram that Francis came to Venezuela from Mexico. Rondon said he was headed to Russia.
The arrest came on the eve of his scheduled sentencing in a federal court in California for a bribery scheme that lasted more than a decade and involved dozens of U.S. Navy officers.
There was no immediate word on when he might be extradited to the United States.
Francis was under home arrest in San Diego when he cut off his GPS ankle bracelet and escaped on Sept. 4. Ten U.S. agencies searched for Francis and authorities issued a $40,000 reward for his arrest.
U.S. authorities also issued a red notice, which asks law enforcement worldwide to provisionally arrest someone with the possibility of extradition. Malaysia and Singapore both have extradition agreements with the United States.
Francis pleaded guilty in 2015 to offering prostitution services, luxury hotels, cigars, gourmet meals and more than $500,000 in bribes to Navy officials and others to help his Singapore-based ship servicing company, Glenn Defense Marine Asia Ltd. or GDMA. Prosecutors said the company overcharged the Navy by at least $35 million for servicing ships, many of which were routed to ports he controlled in the Pacific.
Francis had been allowed to remain in home confinement to receive medical care while he cooperated with the prosecution. With his help, prosecutors secured convictions of 33 of 34 defendants, including more than two dozen Navy officers.
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| 2022-09-22T12:35:41Z
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UNITED NATIONS (AP) — This week, the United Nations is the world’s premier venue for current events — which, one could say, is the forte of the U.S. Coast Guard.
So naturally the military branch’s boats are a familiar presence during the U.N. General Assembly, guarding the aquatic border of the United Nations alongside New York City police boats. While three sides of the perimeter around the U.N. headquarters are lined with barricades, the United Nations’ adjacency to the East River requires a different security arrangement.
The U.N. General Assembly makes for “the largest maritime security operation in the nation,” said U.S. Coast Guard Cmdr. Kyle Weist, the emergency management chief for the New York sector.
In addition to patrolling the stretch between the United Nations and the Long Island City section of Queens, the Coast Guard also has teams boarding ships that arrive in the ports of New York and New Jersey.
“The entire operation lasts two weeks and consists of 20 small boats and crews, four Coast Guard ships, two helicopters and 12 law enforcement boarding teams.” Weist said via email. “These assets and crews are mobilized from units throughout the nation and deploy to NYC to support this critical maritime safety and security mission.”
While it’s mostly a sheer drop from the U.N. grounds to the water, there’s a Coast Guard cutter capable of breaking ice that’s moored at a makeshift dock. That cutter, the Penobscot Bay, serves as a platform from which to oversee the Coast Guard operations on the East River.
The land barriers are notoriously disruptive to New Yorkers, and the summit similarly rocks the boat on water. Several NYC Ferry routes were delayed or suspended altogether Wednesday, with a service advisory in place for the duration of the General Assembly.
___
Mallika Sen is on assignment at the United Nations, covering the U.N. General Assembly. Follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mallikavsen, and for more on the U.N. General Assembly visit https://apnews.com/hub/united-nations-general-assembly
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| 2022-09-22T12:35:47Z
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UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Inside the grand hall of the United Nations, the world’s leaders are convening this week, each taking a turn to speak at the high-level leaders’ meeting at the U.N. General Assembly. It’s a practice rooted in diplomatic decorum and strict protocol.
But walk a few blocks — past the metal detectors and through the maze of police barricades — and another tradition unfolds: protests. Out here, fewer rules apply. And plenty of shouting is welcome.
With the world’s attention focused on the General Assembly and the leaders gathered there, disparate groups with far-ranging grievances congregate in the hopes of catching some of the limelight in Midtown.
Here’s what some of that looks like:
—People wearing placards and stopping pedestrians with questions like: “Do you want to live in a world where nuclear arsenals are growing?”
—Marchers holding signs for the rights of Indigenous people in the Amazon.
—A truck moving through traffic carrying a large sign calling for Iran’s president to be prosecuted.
—Supporters of the Falun Gong spiritual movement decrying the Chinese government’s treatment of the group.
These causes may not make it to the U.N. podium. But the protests and placards blaring their messages ensure they’re heard, too.
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For more AP coverage of the U.N. General Assembly, visit https://apnews.com/hub/united-nations-general-assembly
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| 2022-09-22T12:35:53Z
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UNITED NATIONS (AP) — It was the lone video speech at the U.N. General Assembly, and it came from someone who had an official excuse: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
While the summit returned fully in-person to U.N. headquarters in New York this year after a remote version in 2020 and a hybrid session last year, member states overwhelmingly voted last week to allow the head of the war-torn nation to address the hall.
But there were a few holdouts. In his address Wednesday, Zelenskyy didn’t let them off the hook.
“I want to thank the 101 countries that voted for my video address to take place. It was a vote not only about the format. It was the vote about principles. Only seven countries voted against: Belarus, Cuba, North Korea, Eritrea, Nicaragua, Russia and Syria,” Zelenskyy said. “Seven. Seven who are afraid of the video address. Seven who respond to principles with a red button. Only seven. One hundred and one — and seven.”
There were also 19 abstentions.
Seated in the General Assembly Hall during Zelenskyy’s address were his wife , Olena Zelenska, and the Russian delegation. The latter remained seated through the speech, opting against walking out — a sanctioned form of protest. Zelenskyy’s speech was received with a standing ovation from several delegations.
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For more AP coverage of the U.N. General Assembly, visit https://apnews.com/hub/united-nations-general-assembly
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| 2022-09-22T12:35:59Z
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ISTANBUL (AP) — A firefighting helicopter crashed Wednesday as it headed to the Turkish port of Marmaris to combat a wildfire, killing two Russian crew members, Turkey’s minister of agriculture and forestry said.
The minister, Vahit Kirsci, said two Turkish citizens and three others Russians on the helicopter were injured but were not in critical condition. The deceased were a flight engineer and a flight technician.
An official at the General Directorate of Forestry told journalists the helicopter had flown in from the northern province of Kastamonu to join others at Marmaris, a resort town on the Aegean Sea.
There was no immediate explanation of why the helicopter, a Russian Kamov KA-32, crashed into a field. The governor of Denizli said a crash investigation has been opened.
One person suspected of causing the wildfire was detained, according to a statement by the Mugla province public prosecutor’s office. The wildfire erupted in forests around the Yalancibogaz area of Marmaris. Images showed heavy smoke behind lush hills that bordered the sea.
Strong winds fueled the blaze. Twenty-three helicopters and fourteen planes have dumped water on the fire, while more than 700 forestry personnel, 83 water trucks and police water cannons worked on the ground.
Last summer, blazes fed by strong winds and scorching temperatures tore through forests in Turkey’s Mediterranean and Aegean regions, including in Marmaris, killing at least eight people and countless animals.
The Turkish government at the time came under criticism for its inadequate response and preparedness to fight large-scale wildfires, including a lack of modern firefighting planes.
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Follow all AP stories on climate change issues at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment.
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| 2022-09-22T12:36:05Z
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UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Iran’s president insisted Wednesday that his country is serious about reviving a deal meant to prevent it from acquiring a nuclear bomb but questioned whether Tehran could trust America’s commitment to any eventual accord.
The U.S. had already “trampled” on a previous deal, President Ebrahim Raisi told the U.N. General Assembly, referring to America’s decision to pull out of the accord in 2018.
Ever since Iran’s 1979 revolution that overthrew its Western-backed shah, Tehran has been at odds with the United States and has sought to project itself as a counterweight to American power.
Tehran’s resolve to resist U.S. pressure has seen it build close ties with countries like Russia, develop a domestic ballistic missile program and attempt to export its narrow revolutionary ideals to countries across the Mideast through Shiite militias and proxies.
Its nuclear program, which Iran insists is for peaceful energy purposes, is seen as an extension of its defiance of an American-led world order.
After former U.S. President Donald Trump walked away from the deal brokered by the Obama administration, Tehran steadily abandoned every limitation the accord imposed on its nuclear enrichment.
But efforts to salvage the deal are now nearing a take-it-or-leave-it inflection point. European Union officials have warned the window for securing a nuclear deal is about to close.
In exchange for agreeing to the terms of the new nuclear deal, Iran would receive relief on economic sanctions and be given greater access to global financial markets and the flow of U.S. dollars.
“There is a great and serious will to resolve all issues” in the nuclear talks, Raisi said, but he added: “Our wish is only one thing: observance of commitments.”
“Can we truly trust without guarantees and assurances that they will this time live up to their commitment?” he asked of the U.S.
Swings in American foreign policy with successive administrations have concerned not only Iran, but also U.S. allies who have questioned America’s reliability and its commitment to agreements, ranging from climate to security.
Even as he expressed a desire to reach a deal, Raisi criticized what he said was lopsided scrutiny of Iran’s nuclear activities while other nations’ atomic programs remain secret — a reference to Israel, which has never confirmed nor denied having such weapons. Israel, which is vehemently opposed to the nuclear deal, accuses Iran of concealing aspects of its nuclear program from U.N. inspectors.
“We will not allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon,” U.S. President Joe Biden said in his own speech at the U.N., but he stressed the U.S. is ready to rejoin the accord if Iran steps up its commitments.
Raisi, who was previously chief of Iran’s judiciary, also denounced Western “double standards” on human rights. He accused Israel of creating the world’s largest prison through its blockade of the Palestinian Gaza Strip.
He also cited mass graves of Indigenous people found in Canada and the manner in which the U.S. detains migrants and refugees on its southern border.
Wearing a traditional black turban identified with Shiite clerics, Raisi held up a photo of slain Gen. Qassem Soleimani, whom he described as a “freedom-seeking man.” The Revolutionary Guard chief who oversaw Iranian militias and proxy armed groups in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and beyond was assassinated in a strike authorized by Trump in 2020 at the height of tensions with Iran.
Raisi, who was sworn in as president only a year ago, has been described as a protege of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He spoke for the first time from the podium at the U.N. in his role as president. Last year, he delivered remarks to the assembly virtually due to COVID-19 restrictions.
He told the gathered leaders Iran wants to have “extensive relations with all our neighbors” — an apparent reference to foe Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries in the region.
Saudi Arabia and Iran have held a number of direct talks over the past year, though tensions remain high between the two. Meanwhile, the United Arab Emirates recently reopened its embassy in Tehran and sent an ambassador there.
Raisi’s speech comes at a sensitive time in Iran.
Israel’s shadow war against Iran continues. It is widely believed to have been behind the killing of Iranian nuclear scientists and sabotage attacks on Iran’s nuclear program.
Meanwhile, Western sanctions, which Raisi described as a “punishment on the people of Iran,” have eaten away at Iran’s reserves, exacerbated inflation, and devalued Iran’s currency against the U.S. dollar.
Economic protests have flared — and frequently are met with lethal force.
In recent days, protesters have clashed with police in cities across the country, including the capital, over the death of a 22-year-old woman who was held by the morality police for allegedly violating the Islamic Republic’s strictly-enforced dress code. On Wednesday, Iranians experienced a near-total internet blackout.
Raisi has offered condolences to the woman’s family and promised an investigation, while other Iranian officials have accused unnamed foreign countries of seizing on the incident to foment unrest. Her death has ignited long-simmering anger among many Iranians, particularly young people, at the country’s ruling clerics.
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Associated Press writer Joseph Krauss contributed to this report.
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Aya Batrawy, a Dubai-based correspondent for The Associated Press, is on assignment at the U.N. General Assembly. Follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ayaelb
___
For more AP coverage of the U.N. General Assembly, visit https://apnews.com/hub/united-nations-general-assembly
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| 2022-09-22T12:36:11Z
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PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — The international court convened in Cambodia to judge the Khmer Rouge for its brutal 1970s rule ended its work Thursday after spending $337 million and 16 years to convict just three men of crimes after the regime caused the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people.
In its final session, the U.N.-assisted tribunal rejected an appeal by Khieu Samphan, the last surviving leader of the Khmer Rouge government that ruled Cambodia from 1975-79. It reaffirmed the life sentence he received after being convicted in 2018 of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Busloads of ordinary Cambodians turned up to watch the final proceedings of a tribunal that had sought to bring justice, accountability and explanations for the crimes. Many of those attending Thursday’s session lived through the Khmer Rouge terror, including survivors Bou Meng and Chum Mey, who had given evidence at the tribunal over the years.
Khieu Samphan, sitting in a wheelchair and wearing a white windbreaker and a face mask, listened to the proceedings on headphones.
He was the group’s nominal head of state but, in his trial defense, denied having real decision-making powers when the Khmer Rouge carried out a reign of terror to establish a utopian agrarian society, causing Cambodians’ deaths from execution, starvation and inadequate medical care. It was ousted from power in 1979 by an invasion from neighboring communist state Vietnam.
“No matter what you decide, I will die in prison,” Khieu Samphan said in his final statement of appeal to the court last year. “I will die always remembering the suffering of my Cambodian people. I will die seeing that I am alone in front of you. I am judged symbolically rather than by my actual deeds as an individual.”
His appeal alleged the court made errors in legal procedures and interpretation and acted unfairly, making objections to more than 1,800 points.
But the court noted Thursday that his appeal did not directly question the facts of the case as presented in court. It rejected almost all arguments raised by Khieu Samphan, acknowledging an error and reversing its ruling on one minor count. The court said it found the vast majority of Khieu Samphan’s arguments “unfounded,” and that many were “alternative interpretations of the evidence.”
Thursday’s ruling makes little practical difference. Khieu Samphan is 91 and already serving another life sentence for his 2014 conviction for crimes against humanity connected with forced transfers and disappearances of masses of people.
The court ordered that Khieu Samphan, who was arrested in 2007, be returned to the specially constructed jail where he has been kept.
His co-defendant Nuon Chea, the Khmer Rouge’s No. 2 leader and chief ideologist, was convicted twice and received the same life sentence. Nuon Chea died in 2019 at age 93.
The tribunal’s only other conviction was that of Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, who was commandant of Tuol Sleng prison, where roughly 16,000 people were tortured before being taken away to be killed. Duch was convicted in 2010 of crimes against humanity, murder, and torture and died in 2020 at age 77 while serving a life sentence.
The Khmer Rouge’s real chief, Pol Pot, escaped justice. He died in the jungle in 1998 at age 72 while the remnants of his movement were fighting their last battles in the guerrilla war they launched after losing power.
The trials of the only other two defendants were not completed. The former foreign minister of the Khmer Rouge, Ieng Sary, died in 2013, and his wife, former Social Affairs Minister Ieng Thirith, was deemed unfit to stand trial due to dementia in 2011 and died in 2015.
Four other suspects, middle-ranking Khmer Rouge leaders, escaped prosecution because of a split among the tribunal’s jurists.
In a hybrid arrangement, Cambodian and international jurists were paired at every stage, and a majority had to assent for a case to go forward. Under the French-style procedures the court used, the international investigators recommended the four go to trial, but the Cambodian partners would not agree after Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen declared there would be no more prosecutions, claiming they could cause unrest.
Hun Sen himself was a middle-ranking commander with the Khmer Rouge before defecting, and several senior members of his ruling Cambodian People’s Party share similar backgrounds. He helped cement his political control by making alliances with other former Khmer Rouge commanders.
With its active work done, the tribunal, formally called the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, now enters a three-year “residual” period, focusing on getting its archives in order and disseminating information about its work for educational purposes.
Experts who took part in the court’s work or monitored its proceedings are now pondering its legacy.
Heather Ryan, who spent 15 years following the tribunal for the Open Society Justice Initiative, said the court was successful in providing some level of accountability.
“The amount of time and money and effort that’s expended to get to this rather limited goal may be disproportionate to the goal,” she said in a video interview from her home in Boulder, Colorado.
But she praised having the trials “in the country where the atrocities occurred and where people were able to pay a level of attention and gather information about what was happening in the court to a much greater extent than if the court had been in The Hague or some other place.” The Hague in the Netherlands hosts the World Court and the International Criminal Court.
Michael Karnavas, an American lawyer who served on Ieng Sary’s defense team, said his personal expectations had been limited to the quality of justice his clients would receive.
“In other words, irrespective of the results, substantively and procedurally, were their fair trial rights guaranteed by the Cambodian Constitution and established law afforded to them at the highest international level?” he said in an email interview. “The answer is somewhat mixed.”
“The trial stage was less than what I consider fair. There was far too much improvisation by the judges, and despite the length of the proceedings, the defense was not always treated fairly,” said Karnavas, who has also appeared before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
“On the substantive and procedural law, there are numerous examples where the ECCC not only got it right, but further contributed to the development of international criminal law.”
There is a consensus that the tribunal’s legacy goes beyond the law books.
“The court successfully attacked the long-standing impunity of the Khmer Rouge, and showed that though it might take a long time, the law can catch up with those who commit crimes against humanity,” said Craig Etcheson, who has studied and written about the Khmer Rouge and was chief of investigations for the office of the prosecution at the ECCC from 2006 to 2012.
“The tribunal also created an extraordinary record of those crimes, comprising documentation that will be studied by scholars for decades to come, that will educate Cambodia’s youth about the history of their country, and that will deeply frustrate any attempt to deny the crimes of the Khmer Rouge.”
The bedrock issue of whether justice was served by the court’s convictions of only three men was addressed by Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, which holds a huge trove of evidence of atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge.
“Justice sometimes is made of satisfaction, recognition, rather than the number of people you prosecute,” he told The Associated Press. “It is a broad definition of the word justice itself, but when people are satisfied, when people are happy with the process or benefit from the process, I think we can conceptualize it as justice.”
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Peck reported from Bangkok. AP journalist Jerry Harmer contributed to this report
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| 2022-09-22T12:36:17Z
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SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — The leaders of South Korea and Japan agreed to accelerate efforts to mend ties frayed over Japan’s past colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula as they held their countries’ first summit talks in nearly three years on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, both governments announced Thursday.
The meeting occurred after Tokyo denied Seoul’s earlier announcement they had agreed on the summit, in a sign of the delicate nature of their current relations.
During their 30-minute meeting Wednesday in New York, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida shared the need to improve bilateral ties and agreed to instruct their respective diplomats to step up talks for that, Yoon’s office said in a statement.
Kishida’s office confirmed the meeting. A separate Japanese Foreign Ministry statement said the two leaders agreed to promote cooperation between the two countries as well as with the United States. It said the leaders shared the need to restore sound relations.
Yoon’s office said the two leaders also jointly expressed serious concerns about North Korea’s recent legislation authorizing the preemptive use of nuclear weapons in certain conditions and the North’s reported moves to conduct its first nuclear test in five years. The Japanese Foreign Ministry said Kishida and Yoon agreed to further cooperate in their response to North Korea.
Both South Korean and Japanese governments said Yoon and Kishida agreed to continue communications between them. But it wasn’t immediately known how meaningful the two leaders’ conversation in New York was to address major sticking points in bilateral ties that suffered their biggest setback in recent years when the two countries were governed by their predecessors.
In 2018, South Korea’s top court ruled that two Japanese companies — Nippon Steel and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries — must compensate Koreans who had been forced to work during Japan’s 1910-45 colonial occupation. The companies and the Japanese government have dismissed the rulings, arguing that all compensation issues were already settled under a 1965 treaty that normalized bilateral ties and included Tokyo’s provision of hundreds of millions of dollars to Seoul in economic assistance and loans.
The dispute prompted the two governments to downgrade each other’s trade status and Seoul to threaten to abandon an intelligence-sharing deal. The Korean former forced laborers and their supporters, for their part, pushed for the forced sales of the Japanese companies’ assets in South Korea.
It’s unclear if Wednesday’s summit would yield progress in efforts to improve bilateral ties since some of the former forced laborers in the court cases maintain the Japanese companies must first consent to the South Korean court rulings if they want to resolve the legal disputes.
The strained ties have complicated a U.S. push to bolster its trilateral security alliance with Seoul and Tokyo — two of its key regional allies where it deploys a total of 80,000 troops — to better deal with a rising Chinese influence and North Korean nuclear threats.
On Wednesday, President Joe Biden met Yoon and Kishida separately on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly.
In their talks, Biden and Yoon reaffirmed their commitment to strengthen their countries’ military alliance and ensure close cooperation to address the North Korean threat.
Biden and Kishida discussed the importance of advancing a free and open Indo-Pacific, emphasizing the importance of strengthening and modernizing their security alliance, according to the White House.
South Korea and Japan have been seeking better ties since Yoon’s inauguration in May. The Yoon-Kishida meeting was the first summit between the countries since December 2019, when then-South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met in China on the sidelines of a South Korea-Japan-China summit.
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Associated Press writer Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed to this report.
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| 2022-09-22T12:36:23Z
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The Latest on the U.N. General Assembly (all times local):
10:15 a.m.
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari says developing countries are “literally paying the price” when it comes to climate change.
“Africa and other developing nations produce only a small proportion of greenhouse gas emissions, compared to industrial economies. Yet we are the hardest hit by the consequences of climate change as we see in the sustained droughts in Somalia and floods of unprecedented severity in Pakistan,” he told the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday.
“These and other climate-related occurrences are now sadly becoming widely commonplace in the developing world. We are, in effect, literally paying the price for policies that others pursue. This needs to change.”
Buhari says he hopes the UNGA and the upcoming COP27 climate conference “will help galvanize the political will required to drive action towards the fulfillment of the various existing climate-change initiatives.”
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For more AP coverage of the U.N. General Assembly, visit https://apnews.com/hub/united-nations-general-assembly
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| 2022-09-22T12:36:29Z
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HARTVILLE, Mo. (AP) — It’s not every day that a small hamlet in the Missouri Ozarks is in the middle of everything, but that was the case for tiny Wright County on Wednesday as officials from the nation’s capital unveiled a marker designating a spot there as the center of population in the United States.
Dignitaries from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Census Bureau, including the agency’s director, Robert Santos, celebrated the debut of the red granite marker in Hartville. With a population of 594 residents in 2020, the county seat is 14.6 miles (23.5 kilometers) from the actual spot calculated following the 2020 census.
“You’ll be famous for this wonderful designation for the rest of our nation’s history,” Santos told local officials at a ceremony. “And you will have bragging rights for the rest of this decade! Not bad.”
Bypassed by interstate highways and railroads, Hartville doesn’t have a big tax base or large industry. The local school, a nursing home, the gas station and the Dollar General store are the largest employers.
The nation’s population center is calculated every 10 years after the once-a-decade census shows where people are living. The heart of America has been in Missouri since 1980. Previously located in Plato, in the neighboring county, it moved only 11.8 miles (19 kilometers) southwest from 2010 to 2020. It is the smallest distance shift in 100 years and the second-smallest in U.S. history.
To calculate the center of the U.S., the Census Bureau figures out which spot would be “the balance point” if the 50 states were located on an imaginary, flat surface with weights of identical size — each representing the location of one person — placed on it.
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| 2022-09-22T12:36:35Z
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NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump and his company could face a range of stiff penalties if a court sides with New York’s attorney general in a sprawling fraud lawsuit filed against the former president Wednesday.
For now, the Republican isn’t at risk of going to jail. The lawsuit brought by Attorney General Letitia James seeks civil penalties only for what she said was a decade of illicit attempts by Trump to mislead lenders, lower his insurance rates or reduce his taxes.
Trump’s legal team contends that his financial practices were normal in the real estate industry and that James is waging an unfair political vendetta. His company has noted that some of the lenders that James alleges might have been deceived by Trump’s financial statements profited richly from the loans they gave to him.
Here’s a look at some of the punishments the Democrat is seeking:
MONETARY DAMAGES
In her lawsuit, James calculated that Trump and his company got around $250 million in benefits from what she called “persistent fraudulent practices,” many involving giving financial statements to banks and other business associates that exaggerated the value of the Republican’s assets. James wants Trump to forfeit that amount, but the actual dollar figure would be determined at trial.
BANNED IN NEW YORK
The suit asks that Trump, his sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., and his daughter Ivanka Trump, be permanently banned from serving as an officer or director of any New York corporation or business entity registered and licensed in the state. This would be a blow to Trump, whose company is based in New York, but wouldn’t necessarily bar him from starting new companies in other states. James also wants Trump and the Trump Organization banned for five years from applying for a loan from any financial institution registered in New York, or entering into any New York state commercial real estate acquisitions for five years. A suspension like that might be crippling, given how many major banks do business in New York.
OVERSIGHT
James wants an independent monitor appointed to oversee regulatory compliance, financial reporting and other matters at the Trump Organization for a period of no less than five years. She also wants a requirement that the Trump Organization prepare an audited statement showing Trump’s net worth, to be distributed to all people or entities that previously received financial statements from the Trump Organization that James says were fraudulent.
LEADERSHIP CHANGES
The trustees of the Donald Trump Revocable Trust — the entity he set up to oversee his company when he became president — would be replaced with new, independent trustees. Two top Trump Organization executives, Allen Weisselberg and Jeffrey McConney, would be barred from financially controlling any New York corporation in the future.
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| 2022-09-22T12:36:41Z
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SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea says it hasn’t exported any weapons to Russia during the war in Ukraine and has no plans to do so, and said U.S. intelligence reports of weapons transfers were an attempt to tarnish North Korea’s image.
In a state media report Thursday, an unnamed North Korean defense official told the U.S. to stop making “reckless remarks” and to “keep its mouth shut.” Biden administration officials earlier this month confirmed a declassified U.S. intelligence assessment that Russia was in the process of purchasing arms from North Korea, including millions of artillery shells and rockets, as Moscow attempts to ease severe supply shortages in Ukraine worsened by U.S.-led export controls and sanctions.
The North Korean statement came weeks after Moscow described the U.S. intelligence finding as “fake.”
North Korean arms exports to Russia would violate United Nations resolutions banning the country from importing or exporting weapons.
The North Korean official stressed that Pyongyang has never recognized the “unlawful” U.N. Security Council sanctions against the country “cooked up by the U.S. and its vassal forces.” The official said the export and import of military equipment is a “lawful right peculiar to a sovereign state,” according to an English translation of the statement published by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.
“But we take this opportunity to make clear one thing. We have never exported weapons or ammunition to Russia before and we will not plan to export them,” said the official, who was described as a vice director general of the National Defense Ministry’s general equipment bureau.
“It is not sure from where the rumor originated which the U.S. is spreading, but it is aimed at tarnishing the DPRK’s image,” the official said, referring to the country’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Facing sanctions and export controls, Russia in August bought Iranian-made drones that U.S. officials said had technical problems. Experts say North Korea, if willing, could become a major source of small arms, artillery and other ammunition for Russia, considering the compatibility of their defense systems based on Soviet roots.
North Korea has sought to tighten relations with Russia even as most of Europe and the West has pulled away, blaming the U.S. for the crisis and decrying the West’s “hegemonic policy” as justifying military action by Russia in Ukraine to protect itself.
The North Korean government has even hinted it is interested in sending construction workers to help rebuild pro-Russia breakaway regions in Ukraine’s east. In July, North Korea became the only nation aside from Russia and Syria to recognize the independence of the territories, Donetsk and Luhansk.
North Korea also has used the war as a window to accelerate its own arms development, testing dozens of weapons including its first long-range missiles since 2017, exploiting a divide in the U.N. Security Council, where Russia and China have blocked U.S. attempts to tighten sanctions on Pyongyang.
The North has punctuated its testing activity with repeated threats of nuclear conflict with Seoul and Washington. The latest was a law passed by Pyongyang’s rubber-stamp parliament this month that further enshrined the country’s status as a nuclear power and authorized the preemptive use of nuclear weapons over a broad range of scenarios where its leadership comes under threat.
Sung Kim, the Biden administration’s special representative for North Korea, met with South Korean counterpart Kim Gunn in Seoul on Thursday where they expressed “serious concern” over the North’s escalating nuclear doctrine spelled out in the new law, South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said.
The diplomats reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to defend South Korea in the event of a nuclear war with the full range of its military capabilities, including nuclear. The allies also maintained their months-old assessment that North Korea is gearing up to conduct its first nuclear test since 2017 and discussed “stern” countermeasures to such an action, the ministry said.
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| 2022-09-22T12:36:47Z
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PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A white Philadelphia police officer was convicted Wednesday of voluntary manslaughter and a weapons charge in the fatal shooting of an unarmed Black motorist shot six seconds after the officer arrived on the scene.
Officer Eric Ruch Jr. told jurors he feared for his life when he fired at Dennis Plowden Jr. as the 25-year-old sat on a sidewalk after crashing a car during a high-speed chase. He said Plowden had his left hand raised, but kept his right hand hidden despite police orders. The officer said he could not take cover and feared he would be shot.
Only later did he realize that Plowden was unarmed, the defense said.
“As soon as my client discovered it was heroin and not a gun, he was upset. He was distraught,” lawyer David Mischak said in opening statements last week.
Ruch, 34, dropped his head and cried upon hearing the verdict Wednesday, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported. He was soon taken into custody.
The jury rejected a more serious third-degree murder charge, but also convicted Ruch of possessing an instrument of crime. The felony manslaughter charge carries a term of up to 20 years in prison. Sentencing is set for Nov. 17.
Mischak noted that the jury did not believe that Ruch had murdered Plowden, even though “the prosecution has vigorously pursued a murder conviction” since his client’s indictment. He said his client would consider his legal options going forward.
Ruch is one of three city police officers who had been charged with murder for their on-duty actions by District Attorney Larry Krasner, a longtime civil rights lawyer who frequently sued police earlier in his career. A first-degree murder charge filed against him was dropped before trial.
Krasner had little comment after the verdict, thanking jurors for what he called their “noble and demanding” public service, but said he expected to say more at Ruch’s sentencing.
During the trial, the defense attorney asked jurors to consider the two-minute chase through a city neighborhood that preceded the shooting. Plowden was driving a car initially thought to be linked to a recent homicide. But authorities said, however, that he was not involved in that case.
“It was a tragedy,” Mischak said of the young man’s death. “To call my client a criminal really compounds that tragedy.”
In a key pretrial ruling, Philadelphia Common Pleas Judge Barbara McDermott barred prosecutors from telling jurors about a series of complaints filed against Ruch during his 10-year police career because he was mostly cleared of wrongdoing by internal affairs.
Prosecutors said there was no justification to shoot Plowden, noting that several other officers took cover and held their fire. The bullet from Ruch’s gun went through Plowden’s raised left hand before striking him in the head. He died the next day.
Ruch was fired from the police department 10 months later.
Plowden’s widow, Tania Bond, who briefly testified at the trial, won a $1.2 million wrongful death settlement from the city.
___
Follow AP Legal Affairs Writer Maryclaire Dale on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Maryclairedale
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| 2022-09-22T12:36:53Z
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CAGUAS, Puerto Rico (AP) — Hurricane Fiona left hundreds of people stranded across Puerto Rico after smashing roads and bridges, with authorities still struggling to reach people four days after the storm smacked the U.S. territory, causing historic flooding.
For now, government officials are working with religious groups, nonprofits and others braving landslides, thick mud and broken asphalt by foot to provide food, water and medicine for people in need, but they are under pressure to clear a path so vehicles can enter isolated areas soon.
Nino Correa, commissioner for Puerto Rico’s emergency management agency, estimated that at least six municipalities across the island had areas that were cut off by Fiona, which struck as a Category 1 hurricane and was up to Category 4 power Wednesday as it headed toward Bermuda.
Living in one of those areas is Manuel Veguilla, who has not been able to leave his neighborhood in the north mountain town of Caguas since Fiona swept in on Sunday.
“We are all isolated,” he said, adding that he worries about elderly neighbors including his older brother who does not have the strength for the long walk it takes to reach the closest community.
Veguilla heard that municipal officials might open a pathway Thursday, but he doubted that would happen because he said large rocks covered a nearby bridge and the 10-foot space beneath it.
Neighbors have shared food and water dropped off by nonprofit groups, and the son of an elderly woman was able to bring back basic supplies by foot Wednesday, he said.
Veguilla said that in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, a Category 4 storm that struck five years ago and resulted in nearly 3,000 deaths, he and others used picks and shovels to clear the debris. But Fiona was different, unleashing huge landslides.
“I cannot throw those rocks over my shoulder,” he said.
Like hundreds of thousands of other Puerto Ricans after Fiona, Veguilla had no water or electricity service, but said they there is a natural water source nearby.
Fiona sparked an islandwide blackout when it hit Puerto Rico’s southwest region, which already was still trying to recover from a series of strong earthquakes in recent years. Some 62% of 1.47 million customers were without power four days after the storm amid an extreme heat alert issued by the National Weather Service. Some 36% of customers, or nearly half a million, did not have water service.
The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency has sent hundreds of additional personnel to help local officials as the federal government approved a major disaster declaration and announced a public health emergency on the island.
Neither local nor federal government officials had provided any damage estimates as Puerto Rico struggles to recover from the storm, which dropped up to 30 inches of rain in some areas. More than 470 people and 48 pets remained in shelters.
“Our hearts go out to the people of Puerto Rico who have endured so much suffering over the last couple of years,” said Brad Kieserman, vice president of operations and logistics at the Red Cross.
After Puerto Rico, Fiona pummeled the Dominican Republic and then swiped past the Turks and Caicos Islands as it strengthened into a Category 4 storm. Officials there reported relatively light damage and no deaths, though the eye of the storm passed close to Grand Turk, the small British territory’s capital island, on Tuesday.
“God has been good to us and has kept us safe during this period when we could have had a far worse outcome,” Deputy Gov. Anya Williams said.
Fiona was forecast to pass near Bermuda early Friday, and then hit easternmost Canada early Saturday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.
The center said Fiona had maximum sustained winds of 130 mph (215 kph) on Thursday morning. It was centered about 485 miles (780 kilometers) southwest of Bermuda, heading north-northeast at 13 mph (20 kph).
The hurricane was forecast to pass just west of Bermuda late Thursday. A hurricane warning was in effect for the British territory.
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Associated Press reporter Maricarmen Rivera Sánchez contributed.
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| 2022-09-22T12:36:59Z
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LONDON (AP) — A British charity on Wednesday offered a record 200,000-pound ($226,600) reward in the hunt for the suspect who killed a 9-year-old girl in her home.
Olivia Pratt-Korbel was fatally shot in Liverpool, northwest England, on Aug. 22 by a masked gunman who chased a convicted burglar into her home. The two men were not believed to be known to the family.
Olivia died from a gunshot wound to her chest during the struggle and her mother, Cheryl Korbel, was wounded.
Police have arrested nine men as part of their investigation into her death, but all have since been given bail.
The case has shaken the city of Liverpool, and last week dozens packed local streets for Olivia’s funeral.
The 200,000-pound award is the biggest single financial incentive offered in the history of the charity Crimestoppers. The body is independent of the police and takes information about crime anonymously.
“This case has been incredibly shocking, not just for those who are directly affected but also for Liverpool and the nation as a whole,” said Michael Ashcroft, the charity’s founder. “A precious young life has been lost so we need every effort to find those involved in this appalling killing.”
Police said the deadly clash began when a gunman fired at two other men on the street outside the Korbel home. When Cheryl Korbel opened her door to see what was happening, one of the men forced his way into the home, police said. The gunman gave chase, firing indiscriminately into the home as Korbel tried to bar the door.
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| 2022-09-22T12:37:06Z
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BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Large numbers of Russians rushed to book one-way tickets out of the country while they still could Wednesday after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a partial mobilization of military reservists for the war in Ukraine.
Flights filled up quickly and the prices of tickets for remaining connections sky-rocketed, apparently driven by fears that Russia’s borders could soon close or of a broader call-up that might send many Russian men of fighting age to the war’s front lines.
Tickets for the Moscow-Belgrade flights operated by Air Serbia, the only European carrier besides Turkish Airlines to maintain flights to Russia despite a European Union flight embargo, sold out for the next several days. The price for flights from Moscow to Istanbul or Dubai increased within minutes before jumping again, reaching as high as 9,200 euros ($9,119) for a one-way economy class fare.
Putin’s decree stipulates that the amount of people called to active duty will be determined by the Defense Ministry. Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said in a televised interview that 300,000 reservists with relevant combat and service experience initially would be mobilized.
Russia has seen a marked exodus of citizens since Putin ordered his troops to invade Ukraine almost seven months ago. During the early morning address to the nation in which the president announced the partial mobilization of reservists, he also issued a veiled nuclear threat to Russia’s enemies in the West.
Reports of panic spreading among Russians soon flooded social networks. Anti-war groups said the limited airplane tickets out of Russia reached enormous prices due to high demand and swiftly became unavailable.
Some postings alleged people already had been turned back from Russia’s land border with Georgia and that the website of the state Russian railway company collapsed because too many people were checking for ways out of the country.
Social networks in Russian also surged with advice on how to avoid the mobilization or leave the country.
Russian officials sought to calm the public, stressing that the call-up would affect a limited number of people fitting certain criteria. However, conflicting statements and a lack of details helped fuel the panic.
The head of the Duma defense committee, Andrei Kartapolov, said there would be no additional restrictions on reservists leaving Russia based on this mobilization. But he also advised individuals who could be eligible for the call-up against “traveling to resorts in Turkey.”
“Spend your vacation at the resorts of Crimea or (Russia’s southern) Krasnodar region,” Russian media quoted Kartapolov as saying.
Avtozak, a Russian group that monitors political demonstrations and detentions, reported that some participants were detained at anti-mobilization demonstrations in several cities.
A group based in Serbia, called Russians, Belarussians, Ukrainians and Serbs Together Against War, tweeted that there were no available flights to Belgrade from Russia until mid-October. Flights to Turkey, Georgia or Armenia also sold out, according to the Belgrade-based group.
“All the Russians who wanted to go to war already went,” the group said. “No one else wants to go there!”
Serbia’s capital, Belgrade, has become a popular destination for Russians during the war. Up to 50,000 Russians have fled to Serbia since Russia invaded Ukraine and many opened businesses, especially in the IT sector.
Russians don’t need visas to enter Serbia, which has not joined Western sanctions against Russia for its aggression in Ukraine. Allies such as Belarus and China also have not imposed sanctions.
A Wednesday flight from Moscow to Belgrade was packed with young Russian men who said they could not speak to reporters because they feared negative repercussions for the families they left behind.
An elderly Russian woman, who identified herself as Yulia, said she, too, was afraid “my government and police” might see her remarks.
“But I want to say, ‘Freedom for Ukraine.’ Please, somebody stop Putin,” she said.
___
AP Writers Jovana Gec and Dasha Litvinova contributed to this story.
___
Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
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| 2022-09-22T12:37:12Z
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WATERBURY, Conn. (AP) — Erica Lafferty said the general harassment began soon after the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre, with people telling her it was a hoax and that her mother never died. But soon, she said, it got scary and more graphic.
“Things would be mailed to my house that were threats of rape,” the daughter of slain Sandy Hook principal Dawn Hochsprung testified Wednesday.
Lafferty is among those suing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones for promoting the Sandy Hook conspiracy theories on his media platforms, including his Infowars web show. She took the stand Wednesday along with David Wheeler and Jennifer Hensel, who lost children in the shooting.
Jones, who is expected to testify Thursday, has already been found liable for damages to an FBI agent who responded to the shooting and relatives of eight of those killed. The jury, seated in a courthouse some 20 miles (32 kilometers) from the massacre site, is now hearing evidence to determine how much Jones and his Free Speech Systems company should pay.
Last month, a jury in a similar case in Texas ordered Jones to pay nearly $50 million in damages to the parents of one of the slain children.
In often emotional testimony, family members described enduring death threats, in-person harassment and abusive comments on social media. Some moved to avoid to avoid the abuse.
“There are days when grief is just so awful,” said Hensel, whose 6-year-old daughter Avielle Richman was among the slain. “Then you add on the idea that people think you made all this up for money or that your child didn’t exist. That compounds everything.”
After the shooting, Hensel and her husband, Jeremy Richman, set up a foundation named for their daughter. Soon after, the foundation’s email addresses were flooded with messages saying Avielle did not exist, that Hensel and others were actors and questioning why money was being raised from a fake shooting.
The harassment has continued ever since, Hensel testified. In 2019, after Jeremy Richman died by suicide, friends called Hensel to tell her people were at the cemetery where Avielle was buried looking for evidence her husband had died.
“It was relatively soon after Jeremy’s death and I was still reeling from that and I had to compartmentalize that,” she said. “I couldn’t wrap my head around just one more family member being part of this narrative. It simply doesn’t end.”
One of the jurors wept as Hensel testified and was comforted by another panel member.
Lafferty testified she’s moved five times since the shooting and avoids going out to grocery stores and other public places. She said she’s endured death and rape threats from people telling her that her mother was fictional.
She said she became part of the lawsuit so her niece would know the truth.
“I wanted to make sure that I was at least taking steps to make sure the first thing that came up when she Googled her grandmother’s name wasn’t that she never existed,” she said.
Wheeler, father of 6-year-old victim Ben Wheeler, detailed two instances in which people actually showed up at his home — one demanding to see Ben, insisting he was alive.
He said people also pointed to a student film he made in college as proof he was a “crisis actor.”
“It’s very stressing,” he said.
“It was demeaning. It felt like being delegitimized in a way,” he added. “It makes you feel like you don’t matter.”
The trial is being streamed live by the website Law & Crime, which disabled the comments section Tuesday of its YouTube stream, citing threatening posts and harassment targeting the victims’ families.
Jones held a news conference Wednesday outside the courthouse to again argue he was being victimized by the trial, where he will not be allowed to assert that he is “innocent” because he already has been found liable.
“I’ve come here and for six years said I believe it happened and apologize if I caused pain,” he said. “But the truth is, I didn’t create the story and I didn’t create the distrust in the system that led in cause to this.”
Judge Barbara Bellis said she is prepared to handle any incendiary testimony from the Infowars host when he is called to the stand and planned to speak with Jones prior to his testimony to make sure he understands the court’s rulings.
“If we do have an issue, Mr. Jones will be dealt with just like any other witness or party to appear before the court,” she said. “He’s not going to get special treatment. He’s not going to get more harsh treatment.”
Jones has complained he was found “guilty” without trials. There is no guilt in civil trials, including this one in Connecticut and last month’s trial in Texas. Jones faces a third trial over the hoax lies, in Texas, by the parents of another child shooting victim.
In all three cases, judges found Jones liable by default for damages to the families without holding trials, as punishment for what they called Jones’ repeated failures to turn over documents to the families’ lawyers.
During Wednesday’s proceeding, Norm Pattis, Jones’ lawyer, cross-examined the family member about their views and activism on gun control. He is arguing they are overstating their damage claims because of their political beliefs.
Lafferty denied that was a motive.
“This case has been brought because there have been lies about me and my family and they would not stop,” she said.
On Tuesday, a federal bankruptcy judge in Texas dismissed Jones’ attorney and the chief restructuring officer in that case, citing a lack of transparency by the company in disclosing financial information. He also gave more power to a federally appointed trustee monitoring the case, and authorized the trustee to hire additional legal help.
Jones said Wednesday that Free Speech systems is working closely with the trustee to obtain new representation.
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| 2022-09-22T12:37:18Z
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JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South African President Cyril Ramaphosa had an urgent meeting scheduled with his Cabinet on Wednesday to discuss the country’s electricity crisis, which has led to unprecedented levels of nationwide power blackouts in Africa’s most developed economy.
The troubled state-owned power utility Eskom, which produces about 95% of the country’s electricity, is implementing scheduled, rolling blackouts in an attempt to save electricity while struggling to keep its ageing and poorly maintained coal-fired power stations operational.
Ramaphosa returned home to chair the meeting with his ministers after attending the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II in London. He canceled his trip to New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly.
Eskom had started implementing Stage 6 power cuts, a level that means businesses and homes go without electricity for more than 10 hours a day. The company has since reduced the level to Stage 5, which requires South Africans to go without power for up to eight hours a day.
The blackouts are also affecting other government services, including water supplies in some areas as electric-powered pumps grind to a halt.
With South Africa’s economy already struggling to rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic, economists have given stark warnings on the effect of the blackouts.
Eskom imposed power cuts – what the company refers to as load-shedding – to a less-drastic degree earlier in the year, and they were a crucial contributor to the economy contracting by 0.7% in the second quarter, according to the official South African statistics agency StatsSA.
Eskom sometimes gives just a few hours notice of the blackouts.
“It is very difficult to understand what will happen next,” Jannie Rossouw, an economist at Johannesburg’s University of The Witwatersrand, said. “Will load-shedding stages decline over time going forward, will we go back to Stage 6, or might we even move beyond Stage 6 in months to come?”
“It is really just about impossible for the general public and businesses in South Africa to plan if Eskom cannot plan its capacity,” Rossouw said.
Just about every economic sector has been hurt, and South Africa’s biggest telecommunication companies this week warned that continuous blackouts may start affecting their services.
MTN South Africa chief technology and information officer, Michele Gamberini, said it was currently using upgraded power back-up batteries to keep its cellphone towers operating but that prolonged blackouts could lead to loss of services.
“Despite us having placed thousands of batteries at our sites across the country, the efficacy of those batteries greatly reduces once we pass Stage 4 load-shedding,” Gamberini said.
The company has also rolled out more than 2,000 diesel-powered generators to its sites to counter the prolonged blackouts, it said.
Eskom is in a race against time to procure additional capacity from renewable energy sources like wind and solar through independent power producers. It has announced a program to urgently procure at least 1,000 megawatts of electricity from the private sector to ease the burden of the blackouts.
Ramaphosa faces pressure from opposition parties that called on him to fire the ministers responsible for state-owned enterprises and the energy sector. His government defended itself by saying it took over a dysfunctional Eskom, which was at the heart of allegations of massive government corruption under former President Jacob Zuma.
“We really regret the way in which our energy provision that is coming from Eskom is upsetting both our households and the economy,” Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan said on the Newzroom Afrika news channel. “But this is the Eskom we inherited, this is the Eskom we’re trying to fix very hard.”
There are already moves by Ramaphosa’s rivals to oust him as the leader of the ruling African National Congress at the party’s elective conference in December.
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| 2022-09-22T12:37:24Z
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UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Russia’s partial military mobilization is a sign it is “failing and flailing” in its invasion of Ukraine, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau charged Wednesday, condemning what he called an escalation of the war.
Trudeau said the activation of some reservists, combined with President Vladimir Putin’s veiled nuclear threats and plans for referendums in occupied areas of Ukraine showed the Russian leader is desperate.
“Putin has fundamentally miscalculated in a whole bunch of different ways,” the prime minister told reporters gathered at U.N. headquarters, where the General Assembly is meeting. “Putin was wrong and he is, right now, failing and flailing in his response to the situation.”
In calling for the mobilization, Putin cited the length of the front line and said Russia is effectively fighting the combined military might of Western countries.
Trudeau vowed Canada would continue to strengthen sanctions on Russia and provide military aid to Ukraine, but offered no details. Putin, he said, was inching closer to “admitting what he has not wanted to admit” that his country is, in fact, at war.
The Canadian leader accused Putin of “war crimes” and said Russia, a founding member of the United Nations, was violating the institution’s basic tenets.
“We continue to ensure that we do everything necessary to make sure Putin and his cronies are held to account,” Trudeau said.
Prodded by reporters to wade into American politics, Trudeau sidestepped on one point and dove in on another. Asked if President Joe Biden was wrong in declaring the COVID-19 pandemic over, Trudeau noted people struggling in hospitals and said “we all want this pandemic to be over as quickly as possible.”
On the subject of the overturning of Roe v. Wade, though, he enthusiastically said Canada would fight for reproductive rights around the world.
“We’ll help the United States if we need to as well,” he said.
___
AP National Writer Matt Sedensky can be reached at msedensky@ap.org and https://twitter.com/sedensky. For more AP coverage of the U.N. General Assembly, visit https://apnews.com/hub/united-nations-general-assembly
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| 2022-09-22T12:37:36Z
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UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Ukraine’s president laid out a detailed case against Russia’s invasion at the United Nations and demanded punishment from world leaders in a speech delivered just hours after Moscow made an extraordinary announcement that it would mobilize some reservists for the war effort.
Buoyed by a counteroffensive that has retaken swaths of territory that the Russians seized, Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed in a video address Wednesday that his forces would not stop until they had reclaimed all of Ukraine.
“We can return the Ukrainian flag to our entire territory. We can do it with the force of arms,” the president said in a speech delivered in English. “But we need time.”
Video speeches by Zelenskyy in an olive green T-shirt have become almost commonplace. But this speech was one of the most keenly anticipated at the U.N. General Assembly, where the war has dominated.
The topic popped up in speeches by leaders from all over the world who deplored the invasion not least because they said it was not consistent with the cornerstone principles of the United Nations — including respect for sovereignty.
“It’s an attack on this very institution where we find ourselves today,” said Moldovan President President Maia Sandu, whose country borders Ukraine.
U.S. President Joe Biden’s address, too, focused heavily on the war in Ukraine.
“This war is about extinguishing Ukraine’s right to exist as a state, plain and simple, and Ukraine’s right to exist as a people. Whoever you are, wherever you live, whatever you believe, that should make your blood run cold,” he said. “If nations can pursue their imperial ambitions without consequences, then we put at risk everything this very institution stands for. Everything.”
The war will remain front and center at the gathering on Thursday, when the Security Council plans to take up the issue.
Russia hasn’t yet had its turn to speak at the gathering.
Putin, who is not attending the General Assembly, has said he sent his armed forces into Ukraine because of risks to his country’s security from what he considers a hostile government in Kyiv; to liberate Russians living in Ukraine — especially its eastern region of the Donbas — from what he views as the Ukrainian government’s oppression; and to restore what he considers to be Russia’s historical territorial claims on the country.
Zelenskyy’s speech was distinguished by its context. It took place after Moscow’s extraordinary mobilization announcement. It was the first time Zelenskyy addressed the world’s leaders gathered together since Russia invaded in February. And it wasn’t delivered at the rostrum where other presidents, prime ministers and monarchs speak — but instead by video after Zelenskyy was granted special permission to not come in person.
Putin’s decree Wednesday about the mobilization was sparse on details. Officials said as many as 300,000 reservists could be tapped. It was apparently an effort to seize momentum after the Ukrainian counteroffensive.
But the first such call-up in Russia since World War II also brought the fighting home in a new way for Russians and risked fanning domestic anxiety and antipathy toward the war. Shortly after Putin’s announcement, flights out of the country rapidly filled up, and more than 1,000 people were arrested at rare antiwar demonstrations across the country.
Zelenskyy didn’t discuss the developments in detail. But he suggested any Russian talk of negotiations was only a delaying tactic, and that Moscow’s actions speak louder than its words.
“They talk about the talks but announce military mobilization. They talk about the talks but announce pseudo-referendums in the occupied territories of Ukraine,” he said.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, meanwhile, contended that the mobilization was a sign was is “failing and flailing” in Ukraine.
Zelenskky asserted that Moscow wants to spend the winter preparing its forces in Ukraine for a new offensive, or at least preparing fortifications while mobilizing more troops in the largest military conflict in Europe since World War II
“Russia wants war. It’s true. But Russia will not be able to stop the course of history,” he said, declaring that “mankind and the international law are stronger” than what he called a “terrorist state.”
___
Associated Press journalist Andrew Katell contributed from New York. For more AP coverage of the U.N. General Assembly, visit https://apnews.com/hub/united-nations-general-assembly
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| 2022-09-22T12:37:42Z
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UNITED NATIONS (AP) — British Prime Minister Liz Truss on Wednesday accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of making “saber-rattling threats” to cover his failed invasion of Ukraine, as she prepared to tell the United Nations that its founding principles were fracturing because of aggression by authoritarian states.
In her debut speech to the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday night, Truss will call the war in Ukraine a battle for “our values and the security of the whole world,” and extol the late Queen Elizabeth II as a symbol of everything the U.N. stands for.
The text of the speech was released in advance by Truss’ office.
Responding to a statement from Putin that he was mobilizing reservists and would use everything at his disposal to protect Russia — an apparent reference to his nuclear arsenal — Truss accused the Russian leader of “desperately trying to justify his catastrophic failures.”
“He is doubling down by sending even more reservists to a terrible fate,” the speech said. “He is desperately trying to claim the mantle of democracy for a regime without human rights or freedoms. And he is making yet more bogus claims and saber-rattling threats.”
“This will not work. The international alliance is strong – Ukraine is strong,” said Truss, who addressed the U.N. on the same day Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the global gathering by video.
In a speech outlining her view of foreign policy in a world turned upside down by Russia’s invasion, Truss spoke of the queen, whose funeral on Monday was attended by many of the world leaders now gathered at the United Nations.
She said the queen “symbolized the postwar values on which this organization was founded.” She said the monarch, who died this month after 70 years on the throne, “transcended difference and healed division.”
Truss referred to a speech to the U.N. by the queen in 1957, in which Elizabeth said “the peoples of the world expect the United Nations to persevere in its efforts” to end conflict and crisis.
Truss said the monarch had “warned that it was vital not only to have strong ideals but also to have the political will to deliver on them. Now we must show that will.”
In her first international speech since becoming prime minister two weeks ago, Truss hailed the founding principles of the United Nations, while calling for new international alliances to circumvent the influence of authoritarian regimes.
She said the U.N.’s founding principles “that have defined our lives since the dark days of the 1940s are fracturing,” and “geopolitics is entering a new era” in which “authoritarian states are undermining stability and security around the world.” That was a direct shot at Russia – and also at China, whose growing clout among developing nations is a major concern for the United States and its allies.
Truss said the world’s democratic powers must woo developing nations with “strategic ties based on mutual benefit and trust” rather than “exerting influence through debt, aggression, and taking control of critical infrastructure and minerals.”
She also called for a toughening of the West’s response to Russia’s invasion. She urged sanctions on Russia and said “the G-7 and our like-minded partners should act as an economic NATO,” supporting countries targeted by “the economic aggression of authoritarian regimes.”
She urged nations to find alternatives to Russian oil and gas and protect supply chains for everything from food to minerals. “The free world needs this economic strength and resilience to push back against authoritarian aggression and win this new era of strategic competition,” she said.
Truss said post-Brexit Britain was “building new partnerships around the world,” citing its role in NATO and the Joint Expeditionary Force military group of northern European nations, whose importance has increased since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
She also pointed to deepening ties with “fellow democracies like India, Indonesia and South Africa” and trade ambitions with Indo-Pacific and Gulf states, a sign that Britain, now outside the European Union, sees the rest of the world – and especially Asia – as a political and economic priority.
The speech amounts to a bold statement of the new prime minister’s world view. But Truss is likely to draw criticism for linking the global fight for freedom and democracy to her own plans to change Britain’s economy.
Saying that “our commitment to hope and progress must begin at home,” Truss said demonstrating the strength of democracy “begins with growth and building a British economy that rewards enterprise and attracts investment.” To Truss, a Conservative free marketeer, that means cutting individual and corporate taxes and slashing regulations for business.
Opponents say tax cuts reward the rich more than the poor and will do little to ease a cost-of-living crisis, fueled largely by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, that has pushed U.K. inflation to 10%, a level not seen in four decades.
Despite the economic shockwaves, Truss said Britain’s commitment to defending Ukraine “is total.”
“This,” she said, “is a decisive moment in our history, in the history of this organization, and in the history of freedom.” ___
Follow AP coverage of the U.N. General Assembly at https://apnews.com/hub/united-nations-general-assembly
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| 2022-09-22T12:37:48Z
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TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas’ Democratic governor launched a new television ad on Wednesday in which she says men don’t belong in women’s sports. It’s a move seeking to blunt Republican attacks on her for vetoing two proposals to ban transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s school and college sports.
Gov. Laura Kelly doesn’t go into details on her position in the 30-second ad, which is her first to address what Republicans see as a key education issue that hurts Kelly during a close reelection race. Her campaign later said Kelly believes decisions about transgender athletes should be made by schools, doctors, families and local officials and that the two bills she vetoed would have “created unnecessary new government mandates.”
GOP challenger Derek Schmidt, the state’s three-term attorney general, tweeted that Kelly is lying about her record, and the Republican Governors Association released a digital ad Wednesday highlighting Kelly’s vetoes. Other Republicans said Kelly is trying to hide an unpopular, liberal stance.
But Democrats said the party’s voters would understand the ad as saying that the issue doesn’t involve men playing women’s sports because trans women are women.
“Men aren’t playing girls’ sports. This is the scare-tactic framing of the far right,” said Tom Witt, executive director of Equality Kansas, the state’s leading LGBTQ-rights group. “What we’re talking about in this situation is schoolkids in competitive games with their peers at school, and our position is, trans girls are girls; trans boys are boys.”
In the ad, Kelly looks into the camera and says: “Of course men should not play girls’ sports. OK, we all agree there,” before criticizing Schmidt on school funding issues.
Her campaign launched the ad after a Republican Governors Association ad featured a collegiate swimmer criticizing Kelly. That followed five other ads in which the RGA raised the issue, including one last week in which Schmidt says Kelly is aligned with groups pushing “the transgender agenda.”
The swimmer featured in the last RGA ad, University of Kentucky graduate Riley Gaines, said in a phone interview that she was surprised by Kelly’s ad because, “It’s not aligning with anything she’s said thus far.”
Tim Shallenburger, a former state treasurer and Kansas Republican Party chair, said Kelly had to deal with the issue because it’s important to many voters. He called Kelly’s latest ad “pretty sly,” adding that she’s “trying to catch Republicans.”
Joan Wagnon, a former Topeka mayor and Kansas Democratic Party chair, questioned whether Schmidt’s stance will play well with moderate Republicans. But Wagnon also said that, had she been the candidate, she’s not sure she would have made the ad.
“If you get sucked into those kind of tit-for-tat responses, it clouds your message,” she said.
Kelly is the only Democratic governor running for reelection this year, in a state that former President Donald Trump carried in 2020. That makes her a big target for the national GOP. But Democrats were buoyed in August, when Kansas voters decisively rejected a proposed amendment to the state constitution that would have allowed the Republican-controlled state Legislature to greatly restrict or ban abortion. Kelly opposed the measure, while Schmidt backed it.
However, Republicans see an opportunity to tap into suburban parents’ frustrations with coronavirus-related school restrictions and what’s taught about racism, gender and sexuality. They were encouraged by Republican Glenn Youngkin’s victory in the 2021 governor’s race in normally blue Virginia after making parents’ rights in education a key issue.
Youngkin and Schmidt were set to campaign together Thursday in the Kansas City area, after a Sunday rally with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican who has pushed conservative education initiatives.
And Republicans across the U.S. have framed restrictions on transgender athletes as keeping competition fair and preserving opportunities for girls and women, though there are relatively few transgender athletes.
Several polls this year show majorities of Americans oppose transgender athletes competing in women’s and girls’ sports, including an NPR/Ipsos poll in June that showed about two-thirds of U.S. adults are opposed to allowing transgender student athletes to compete on women’s and girls’ sports teams. A Washington Post/University of Maryland poll in May showed only about 3 in 10 said transgender women or girls should be allowed to compete.
State Sen. Renee Erickson, a Wichita Republican and the leading sponsor of the two measures, said of Kelly: “She’s having to pivot and backtrack on her two vetoes, and I don’t think Kansans are going to buy it, quite frankly.”
Including Florida and Texas, 18 GOP-led states have laws banning transgender athletes from participating in youth sports, according to the Movement Advancement Project, a Colorado think tank promoting LGBTQ rights. In the Kelly campaign’s statement Wednesday, spokesperson Lauren Fitzgerald noted that Republican governors in Indiana and Utah have vetoed such measures, although those vetoes were overridden by GOP-controlled Legislatures.
Critics say such bans are discriminatory, and that merely discussing them leads to bullying.
Kelly’s veto messages for bills in 2021 and 2022 also said they would hurt the state’s business climate. In her second message, she added that such proposals did not come from athletes or schools but from “politicians trying to score political points.”
___
Associated Press polling writer Hannah Fingerhut contributed to this report from Washington.
___
Follow John Hanna on Twitter: twitter.com/apjdhanna
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| 2022-09-22T12:38:00Z
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Progressive and centrist Democrats in the House have clinched agreement on a long-sought policing and public safety package that will be brought to the House floor just weeks before the midterm elections.
House Democrats announced the deal Wednesday, ending months of intra-party tensions over what the package should contain. A series of four bills that will include an increase in funding for local police departments will come up for a vote on Thursday.
The breakthrough came after intense negotiations in recent days between Rep. Josh Gottheimer, a New Jersey Democrat and leader of the centrist coalition, and Rep. Ilhan Omar D-Minn., one of the leaders of the progressive faction.
Joyce Beatty, chairwoman of the powerful Congressional Black Caucus, and Hakeem Jeffries, chairman of the Democratic caucus, facilitated a number of the conversations after it was clear in recent days that progress could be made.
“We have people who still won’t like this bill, and I respect that tremendously,” Beatty, an Ohio Democrat, told reporters shortly before the deal was announced. “And we have people who will say we move the needle by listening and working with everyone.”
Their deal, reached with little time to spare on the House calendar, could help unite the party on a public safety platform more than two years after the police killing of George Floyd.
“I’m proud to have worked closely with Republicans, Democrats, and a broad spectrum of stakeholders to make real progress for public safety,” Gottheimer said in a statement Wednesday.
The package includes reforms to ensure police funding is used to support smaller police departments, along with investments in de-escalation training and $250 million for mental health resources for officers. A major goal is to reduce fatal encounters between police and people with mental illness.
To get the more liberal members on board, the final package also includes limited language around police accountability that would allow the Justice Department to have preferential consideration over which police departments are permitted to receive the grants. It will also allocate $50 million of the funding to go toward data collection on police practices and community safety.
“With this package, House Democrats have the opportunity to model a holistic, inclusive approach to public safety, and keep our promise to families across the country to address this issue at the federal level,” Omar and Rep. Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said in a statement.
The police funding package is modest in comparison to the bill that Democrats introduced in the weeks after Floyd’s death in the summer of 2020.
That sweeping package, which passed the House more than a year later, went much further as far as police accountability, including banning police chokeholds and altering so-called qualified immunity for law enforcement, which would make it easier to pursue claims of police misconduct.
The unprecedented effort by lawmakers to curb police violence was stalled in the Senate for weeks as Republicans tried to push forward a competing plan by Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., which would have diminished the use of chokeholds –not ban them — as well as increase federal reporting requirements for use of force and no-knock warrants. Senate Democrats blocked the plan, saying it did not go far enough to address racial inequality.
The new package, Gottheimer said, has gained the support and input of law enforcement groups like the National Association of Police Organization and the Fraternal Order of Police.
Other policing bills proposed by Reps. Abigail Spanberger of Virginia and Dean Phillips of Minnesota are not part of the package. But Spanberger, who has worked for the last year on a bill that would help increase officer pay and allow police departments to hire more officers, said it’s important that the party take action.
It is unclear if the bills will have any Republican support. Some quickly criticized the package.
“These are efforts to repair their image with voters who blame them for higher crime rates,” said Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., the chair of the Republican Study Committee. “The Democrats know that their anti-police rhetoric over the last few years has harmed them in key districts that they need to keep the majority, which they are not. This is a top-of-the-list item for voters.”
Rep. Steven Horsford, D-Nev., said he’s not betting on bipartisan support, given the GOP plans to make crime a focal point in the fall campaign.
“I’m not worried about the other side,” Horsford said. “I’m worried about saving lives and reducing crime and breaking the cycle of violence.”
“I lost my father to gun violence when I was 19, so it’s personal,” he said.
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Associated Press writer Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.
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| 2022-09-22T12:38:07Z
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NEW YORK (AP) — There are few places in the U.S. with a more deeply ingrained reputation as a refuge for immigrants than New York City, where the Statue of Liberty rises from the harbor as a symbol of welcome for the worn and weary.
But for Mayor Eric Adams, reconciling that image with an influx of migrants landing in the city, including thousands being bused there by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, is proving difficult. The city is struggling to accommodate what Adams says has totaled more than 13,000 asylum seekers, leading him to explore whether New York can ease its practices for sheltering the homeless or even temporarily house migrants on cruise ships. Both ideas have drawn blowback from liberal advocates who are influential in the city’s politics.
Adams is one of several leaders of Democratic-leaning jurisdictions facing a sudden test of their commitment to being “sanctuary” cities or states. The designation, in which local officials pledge to limit their cooperation with federal immigration authorities, has long proved popular among progressives pressing to ensure the government treats migrants humanely.
But officials say the policy is being exploited by leaders hoping to make a political point.
“We are not telling anyone that New York can accommodate every migrant in the city. We’re not encouraging people to send eight, nine buses a day. That is not what we’re doing,” Adams said this week about his request for Abbott to coordinate with the city about the buses of migrants he’s sending. “We’re saying that as a sanctuary and a city with right to shelter, we’re going to fulfill our obligation.”
The GOP effort began in the spring when Abbott and Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona put migrants on buses to Washington and later New York. The move was intended to draw attention to what the GOP governors deemed failed border and immigration policies under Democrats and the Biden administration. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis intensified the tactic, chartering a flight last week to Martha’s Vineyard, an elite Massachusetts vacation spot.
The unpredictability that Adams referenced is precisely what the governors say they’re trying to accomplish.
“If you believe in open borders, then it’s the sanctuary jurisdictions that should have to bear the brunt of the open borders,” DeSantis said at a news conference Tuesday.
Abbott’s office has dismissed complaints and says Democratic officials should call for President Joe Biden to secure the border “instead of complaining about fulfilling their sanctuary city promises.”
Sanctuary cities or states are not legal terms but have come to symbolize a pledge to protect and support immigrant communities and decline to voluntarily supply information to immigration enforcement officials. Advocates say they are havens for immigrants to feel safe and be able to report crime without fear of deportation.
Adams isn’t the only leader struggling to navigate the challenge.
In Washington, D.C., where Abbott has sent about 8,000 migrants this year, Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser has declared a limited state of emergency. She sought help from the National Guard, which the Pentagon has denied. The D.C. Council on Tuesday voted to create an Office of Migrant Services to help asylum seekers.
Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois brought in the Illinois National Guard to assist more than 750 migrants who have arrived in Chicago since late August, but officials in some Chicago-area suburbs have complained that they got no notice when dozens of asylum-seekers were put up in local hotels for emergency housing.
Burr Ridge Mayor Gary Grasso, a Republican, said both Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot apologized for not giving him advance notice, echoing complaints by Democrats that the Republican governors had not provided a warning the migrants were coming. But Grasso’s town has not been asked to provide any resources to help with the migrants, and all the hotel rooms are being paid for by the state, county and city of Chicago, according to Pritzker’s office.
Laura Mendoza, an immigration organizer for advocacy organization The Resurrection Project, said putting migrants in suburban hotels has helped relieve some pressure but finding everyone a place to stay has been a challenge.
Mendoza said she has lost count of how many buses she has helped welcome at Chicago’s Union Station as they arrive from Texas. After a 24-hour bus ride with minimal breaks, she said, some of the people disembark dehydrated and with swollen legs from sitting so long. Others have bruises and scars from their journey, Mendoza said.
“Unfortunately,” she said, “we don’t have a lot of answers other than: ’You’re going to have a safe place to sleep tonight.”
Tens of thousands of migrants who cross the border illegally are released in the United States each month to pursue their immigration cases, a practice that accelerated during Donald Trump’s presidency and has reached new levels during the Biden administration.
To avoid the time-consuming task of scheduling court appearances, the Border Patrol has sharply expanded use of humanitarian parole. Migrants are released with an order to appear at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office.
In New York City, Adams said he is considering legal action against the GOP governors. He said Monday that the city had opened an investigation after one woman seeking asylum died by an apparent suicide over the weekend at a New York City shelter.
His administration has been strained by a long-standing court-ordered “right to shelter” law requiring the city’s homeless services to provide shelter to anyone without a roof over their head. Adams has recently suggested reassessing how the city complies with the law, but he said Tuesday he would not consider trying to send the migrants back to border states.
“It would be the wrong thing to do, and it would send the wrong message,” he said. “When I look at the large number of other communities that have come from other places to experience the American dream, what would’ve happened if we would’ve sent them back? That is not who we are as a country.”
New York City opened a resource center last week to connect migrants with services like legal help, housing and medical care. Adams is exploring whether New York can get the migrants permits to work, perhaps in the city’s short-staffed restaurants.
Sandro Hidalgo, a Venezuelan construction worker who arrived last week on a bus sent from El Paso, is among those being sheltered in New York and said he’s looking for work.
“I feel like there is an intention to help, but there is no organization,” he said. “There are no beds to sleep. I slept on the floor last night, inside, but on the floor. I am trying to get out of the shelter, but the city is very expensive.”
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Associated Press writers Bobby Caina Calvan and Claudia Torrens in New York, Elliot Spagat in San Diego, Claire Savage in Chicago and Anthony Izaguirre in Tallahassee, Fla., contributed to this report.
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| 2022-09-22T12:38:15Z
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Campaigning for a northwestern Ohio congressional seat, Republican J.R. Majewski presents himself as an Air Force combat veteran who deployed to Afghanistan after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, once describing “tough” conditions including a lack of running water that forced him to go more than 40 days without a shower.
Military documents obtained by The Associated Press through a public records request tell a different story.
They indicate Majewski never deployed to Afghanistan but instead completed a six-month stint helping to load planes at an air base in Qatar, a longtime U.S. ally that is a safe distance from the fighting.
Majewski’s account of his time in the military is just one aspect of his biography that is suspect. His post-military career has been defined by exaggerations, conspiracy theories, talk of violent action against the U.S. government and occasional financial duress.
Still, thanks to an unflinching allegiance to former President Donald Trump — Majewski once painted a massive Trump mural on his lawn — he also stands a chance of defeating longtime Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur in a district recently redrawn to favor Republicans.
Majewski is among a cluster of GOP candidates, most running for office for the first time, whose unvarnished life stories and hard-right politics could diminish the chances of a Republican “red wave” on Election Day in November. He is also a vivid representation of a new breed of politicians who reject facts as they try to emulate Trump.
“It bothers me when people trade on their military service to get elected to office when what they are doing is misleading the people they want to vote for them,” Don Christensen, a retired colonel and former chief prosecutor for the Air Force, said of Majewski. “Veterans have done so much for this country and when you claim to have done what your brothers and sisters in arms actually did to build up your reputation, it is a disservice.”
Majewski’s campaign declined to make him available for an interview and, in a lengthy statement issued to the AP, did not directly address questions about his claim of deploying to Afghanistan. A spokeswoman declined to provide additional comment when the AP followed up with additional questions.
“I am proud to have served my country,” Majewski said in the statement. “My accomplishments and record are under attack, meanwhile, career politician Marcy Kaptur has a forty-year record of failure for my Toledo community, which is why I’m running for Congress.”
With no previous political experience, Majewski is perhaps an unlikely person to be the Republican nominee taking on Kaptur, who has represented the Toledo area since 1983. But two state legislators who were also on the ballot in the August GOP primary split the establishment vote. That cleared a path for Majewski, who previously worked in the nuclear power industry and dabbled in politics as a pro-Trump hip-hop performer and promoter of the QAnon conspiracy theory. He was also at the U.S. Capitol during the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.
Throughout his campaign Majewski has offered his Air Force service as a valuable credential. The tagline “veteran for Congress” appears on campaign merchandise. He ran a Facebook ad promoting himself as “combat veteran.” And in a campaign video released this year, Majewski marauds through a vacant factory with a rifle while pledging to restore an America that is “independent and strong like the country I fought for.”
More recently, the House Republican campaign committee released a biography that describes Majewski as a veteran whose “squadron was one of the first on the ground in Afghanistan after 9/11.” A campaign ad posted online Tuesday by Majewski supporters flashed the words “Afghanistan War Veteran” across the screen alongside a picture of a younger Majewski in his dress uniform.
A biography posted on his campaign website does not mention Afghanistan, but in an August 2021 tweet criticizing the U.S. withdraw from the country, Majewski said he would “gladly suit up and go back to Afghanistan.”
He’s been far less forthcoming when asked about the specifics of his service.
“I don’t like talking about my military experience,” he said in a 2021 interview on the One American Podcast after volunteering that he served one tour of duty in Afghanistan. “It was a tough time in life. You know, the military wasn’t easy.”
A review of his service records, which the AP obtained from the National Archives through a public records request, as well as an accounting provided by the Air Force, offers a possible explanation for his hesitancy.
Rather than deploying to Afghanistan, as he has claimed, the records state that Majewski was based at Kadena Air Base in Japan for much of his active-duty service. He later deployed for six months to Qatar in May 2002, where he helped load and unload planes while serving as a “passenger operations specialist,” the records show.
While based in Qatar, Majewski would land at other air bases to transfer military passengers, medics, supplies, his campaign said. The campaign did not answer a direct question about whether he was ever in Afghanistan.
Experts argue Majewski’s description of himself as a “combat veteran” is also misleading.
The term can evoke images of soldiers storming a beachhead or finding refuge during a firefight. But under the laws and regulations of the U.S. government, facing live fire has little to do with someone earning the title.
During the Persian Gulf War, then-President George H.W. Bush designated, for the first time, countries used as combat support areas as combat zones despite the low-risk of American service members ever facing hostilities. That helped veterans receive a favorable tax status. Qatar, which is now home to the largest U.S. air base in the Middle East, was among the countries that received the designation under Bush’s executive order — a status that remains in effect today.
Regardless, it rankles some when those seeking office offer their status as a combat veteran as a credential to voters without explaining that it does not mean that they came under hostile fire.
“As somebody who was in Qatar, I do not consider myself a combat veteran,” said Christensen, the retired Air Force colonel who now runs Protect Our Defenders, a military watchdog organization. “I think that would be offensive to those who were actually engaged in combat and Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Majewski’s campaign said that he calls himself a combat veteran because the area he deployed to — Qatar — is considered a combat zone.
Majewski also lacks many of the medals that are typically awarded to those who served in Afghanistan.
Though he once said that he went more than 40 days without a shower during his time in the landlocked country, he does not have an Afghanistan campaign medal, which was issued to those who served “30 consecutive days or 60 nonconsecutive days” in the country.
He also did not receive a Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, which was issued to service members before the creation of the Afghanistan campaign medal if they deployed overseas in “direct service to the War on Terror.”
Matthew Borie, an Air Force veteran who worked in intelligence and reviewed Majewski’s records at AP’s request, said it’s “odd” that Majewski lacks many of the “medals you would expect to see for someone who deployed to Afghanistan.”
There’s also the matter of Majewski’s final rank and reenlistment code when he left active duty after four years of service.
Most leave the service after four years having received several promotions that are generally awarded for time served. Majewski exited at a rank that was one notch above where he started. His enlistment code also indicated that he could not sign up with the Air Force again.
Majewski’s campaign said he received what’s called a nonjudicial punishment in 2001 after getting into a “brawl” in his dormitory, which resulted in a demotion. Nonjudicial punishments are designed to hold service members accountable for bad behavior that does not rise to the level of a court-martial.
Majewski’s resume exaggeration isn’t limited to his military service, reverberating throughout his professional life, as well as a nascent political career that took shape in an online world of conspiracy theories.
Since gaining traction in his campaign for Congress, Majewski has denied that he is a follower of the QAnon conspiracy theory while playing down his participation in the Capitol riot.
The baseless and apocalyptic QAnon belief is based on cryptic online postings by the anonymous “Q,” who is purportedly a government insider. It posits that Trump is fighting entrenched enemies in the government and also involves satanism and child sex trafficking.
“Let me be clear, I denounce QAnon. I do not support Q, and I do not subscribe to their conspiracy theories,” Majewski said in his statement to the AP.
But in the past Majewski repeatedly posted QAnon references and memes to social media, wore a QAnon shirt during a TV interview and has described Zak Paine, a QAnon influencer and online personality who goes by the nom de guerre Redpill78, as a “good friend.”
During a February 2021 appearance on a YouTube stream, Majewski stated, “I believe in everything that’s been put out from Q,” while characterizing the false posts as “military-level intelligence, in my opinion.” He also posted, to the right-wing social media platform Parler, a photo of the “Trump 2020” mural he painted on his lawn that was modified to change the zeros into “Q’s,” as first reported by CNN.
Then there’s Majewski’s participation in the Jan. 6 insurrection. Majewski has said that he raised about $25,000 to help dozens of people attend the “Stop the Steal” rally that preceded the attack on the Capitol. He also traveled to the event with his friend Paine, the QAnon influencer, and the two later appeared in social media postings near the Capitol.
Majewski acknowledged he was outside the Capitol, but denies entering the building. Still, he lamented the decision on a QAnon livestream a week after the attack, stating that he was “pissed off at myself” for not going into the building.
“It was a struggle, because I really wanted to go in,” Majewski said on the livestream, which was first unearthed by the liberal group Media Matters.
Majewski has not been charged in connection with the attack. But he has falsely stated that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump and said that the insurrection “felt like a setup” by police who were targeting Trump supporters.
In his statement, Majewski said, “I deeply regret being at the Capitol that day” and “did not break the law,” while calling for those who did to be “punished to the fullest extent of the law.”
The mischaracterizations extend to his professional career, in which he has repeatedly described himself as an “executive in the nuclear power industry,” including in a campaign ad last spring.
But a review of his now-deleted resume on the website LinkedIn and a survey of his former employers do not support the claim.
He most recently worked for Holtec International, a Florida-based energy conglomerate that specializes in handling spent nuclear fuel. But he is not listed among the executives and members of the corporate leadership teams in current or archived versions of the company’s website.
A spokesman confirmed Majewski was a former Holtec employee, but declined to offer details on his position or role, which Majewski’s LinkedIn page described as “senior director, client relations.”
Majewski’s campaign declined to address his claim of being an executive, but said he participated in weekly conference calls with executives.
Majewski also described himself on LinkedIn as “project manager – senior consultant” for First Energy, an Ohio based power company, a position that he stated he held since shortly after leaving the military. The company, Majewski explained in a biography posted to his website, quickly recognized him for his “intellect and leadership capabilities”
Yet records from his 2009 bankruptcy raise questions about his seniority. They show he was an “outage manager” who earned about $51,000 a year. In the bankruptcy, Majewski and his wife gave up their home, two cars and a Jet Ski to settle the case, court records show.
Still, in a nationalized political environment, some Republicans suggest none of this will matter to voters.
“At the end of the day, this will be a question of whether they want Nancy Pelosi leading the House or Kevin McCarthy,” said Tom Davis, a former congressman who led the House Republican campaign arm during George W. Bush’s presidency. “These elections have become less about the person. I wouldn’t say candidates don’t matter, but they don’t matter like they used to.”
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LaPorta reported from Wilmington, North Carolina. AP investigative researcher Randy Herschaft in New York contributed to this report.
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Follow AP for full coverage of the midterms at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections and on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ap_politics
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This story has been corrected by deleting the reference to the social media platform Parler as being defunct.
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| 2022-09-22T12:38:22Z
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WASHINGTON (AP) — In a major action to address climate change, the Senate on Wednesday ratified an international agreement that compels the United States and other countries to limit use of hydrofluorocarbons, highly potent greenhouse gases commonly used in refrigeration and air conditioning that are far more powerful than carbon dioxide.
The so-called Kigali Amendment to the 1987 Montreal Protocol on ozone pollution requires participating nations to phase down production and use of hydrofluorocarbons, also known as HFCs, by 85% over the next 14 years, as part of a global phaseout intended to slow climate change.
The Senate approved the treaty, 69-27, above the two-thirds margin required for ratification.
HFCs are considered a major driver of global warming and are being targeted worldwide. Nearly 200 nations reached a deal in 2016 in Kigali, Rwanda, to limit HFCs and find substitutes more friendly to the atmosphere. More than 130 nations, including China, India and Russia, have formally ratified the agreement, which scientists say could help the world avoid a half-degree Celsius of global warming.
President Joe Biden pledged to embrace the Kigali deal during the 2020 presidential campaign and submitted the agreement to the Senate last year, months after the Environmental Protection Agency issued a rule limiting U.S. production and use of HFCs in line with Kigali. The EPA rule, in turn, followed a 2020 law passed by Congress authorizing a 15-year phaseout of HFCs in the U.S.
Biden called the Senate vote “a historic, bipartisan win for American workers and industry” and said it would allow the U.S. “to lead the clean technology markets of the future” while advancing global efforts to combat climate change.
The president’s climate envoy, former Secretary of State John Kerry, said the agreement will drive American exports, avoid up to half-degree of global warming and ensure strong international cooperation.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called the Kigali vote, along with passage of a major climate law last month, “the strongest one-two punch against climate change any Congress has ever taken.”
Ratification of the treaty not only “will protect our planet,” it also will provide “a golden opportunity to help American businesses dominate in an emerging (global) business” of refrigerants that do not rely on HFCs, said Schumer, D-N.Y..
Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso and other Republicans opposed the treaty, saying it would give China preferential treatment by designating it as a developing country.
“Under this treaty, China would get an extra decade to produce HFCs,” placing the United States at a competitive disadvantage to China, Barrasso said. “There is no excuse for any senator to give China a handout at the expense of the American taxpayer.”
The Senate approved a largely symbolic amendment by GOP Sens. Dan Sullivan of Alaska and Mike Lee of Utah declaring that China is not a developing country and should not be treated as such by the United Nations or other intergovernmental organizations.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce was among those urging approval, calling the amendment “a win for the economy and the environment.”
Senate ratification “would enhance the competitiveness of U.S. manufacturers working to develop alternative technologies, and level the global economic playing field,” the group said in a letter to the Senate.
Ratification of the amendment “would continue the important, bipartisan action Congress took in 2020 with passage of the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act, which phased out domestic HFC manufacturing,” said Jack Howard, the chamber’s senior vice president for government affairs.
Chris Jahn, president and CEO of the American Chemistry Council, an industry group, called the amendment a “tremendous market opportunity for our members to take advantage of game-changing technologies” that allow refrigeration in a more environmentally responsible manner than HFCs.
“”This is one of those truly rare things you get in the policy world where it is a win-win” for the environment and business, he said in an interview.
Every year, millions of refrigerators and air conditioning units are sold around the world, and U.S. businesses are prepared to meet that demand, Jahn said, citing growing markets in Asia, South America and Europe.
David Doniger, a senior climate and clean energy official with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the Kigali Amendment builds on the the 1987 Montreal Protocol, which he called “the world’s most successful environmental treaty.″ He said “the ozone is on the mend because the world took action to eliminate″ chlorofluorocarbons, also known as CFCs, and other ozone-destroying chemicals, Doniger said.
The next logical step is to replace HFCs with safer, commercially available alternatives, Doniger said.
Democratic Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware, chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said ratification of the Kigali Amendment would “unleash billions of dollars in U.S. economic benefits and create some 150,000 American jobs by 2027.”
Carper and Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., pushed for the 2020 law phasing out HFCs, saying it would give U.S. companies the regulatory certainty needed to produce alternative coolants. Both men represent states that are home to chemical companies that produce the alternative refrigerants.
“Today, the Senate defended U.S. innovation and countered the economic rise of China and other bad actors at a time when American workers and consumers need all the commonsense support they can get,” said Kennedy.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the climate and environment at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment
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- The second annual report from Checkout.com highlights the many opportunities for retailers despite the current economic environment
- 81 percent of consumers say that the future of retail is online (up from 75 percent in 2021)
- 60 percent of consumers say it is important to them to know that the brand they shop with is making efforts to improve sustainability (up from 54 percent in 2021)
- 62 percent of retail merchants say the integration of digital payments technologies will be key to protecting revenue in next 18 months
LONDON, Sept. 22, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- New research released today details how, in the current economic climate, consumers express significant interest in the benefits of ecommerce for managing spend and ensuring value for money. The data comes from "The Global Retailer's Handbook", the latest industry report from leading cloud-based global payment solutions provider Checkout.com, which gathered the views of 9,000 U.S. and European consumers and 500 enterprise merchants.
The study shows that across the U.S. and Europe, consumers possess increasingly positive sentiments about the benefits of shopping online and utilizing new digital payment methods, with 81 percent of consumers saying that the future of retail is online. This reality reiterates how important it is for retailers to optimize their online infrastructure so that their business can thrive in the evolving digital economy.
Building resilience in retail
Merchants invested heavily in ecommerce and digital infrastructure during the pandemic (60 percent of retail merchants have seen a significant increase in their tech budget in the past two years), and there is a great deal of opportunity to ensure their digital presence remains their competitive superpower.
However, data from the report shows that retail is facing a challenging environment. High costs are causing 76 percent of retailers to be worried about the financial health of their business. And more cautious shoppers are creating revenue concerns, as 80 percent of consumers say they will abandon their purchase if worried about the security of the payment. This makes it all the more vital that retailers ensure their payments are absolutely water-tight so that money is not left on the table.
Why retailers' digital investments continue to pay off in today's challenging environment
Attitudinal data from the report shows that positive sentiment toward digital commerce and payments has continued to significantly increase over the past 12 months. Moreover, 33% of consumers report that ecommerce is appealing to them as part of their budgeting strategies, as it makes it easier to identify savings, while merchants see the opportunity to divest from physical and ramp up digital as a way to shore up their business when money is tight.
All of this is good news for retailers because it means their significant investment in digital commerce (triggered by the pandemic) will not go to waste. With over 60% of retail merchants reporting an increase in their tech budgets of 20-50% in the past two years. Consumers have an increasingly digital mindset and merchants can turn this to their competitive advantage if they are able to meet the needs of their customers and optimize the wider reach ecommerce offers their business.
"Retailers and consumers around the world are feeling the crunch of inflation and economic uncertainty," says Leela Srinivasan, Chief Marketing Officer at Checkout.com. "Yet against this bleak backdrop, there's ample reason for optimism about the digital economy. Consumers are emphatic that the future of retail is online. For retailers, unlocking growth is all about balance: finding ways to deliver smooth and delightful experiences while staying hypervigilant in a time of heightened fraud and chargebacks."
The Global Retailer's Handbook explores numerous additional topics, including how consumers want to engage with brands they can trust, discouraging impulse buys, increased appetite for digital payment methods and digital wallets, and consumer interest in purchasing from sustainable brands.
The report can be downloaded here: https://insights.checkout.com/the-retailers-handbook
About the research
The research was conducted amongst 9,000 consumers and 500 merchants across the U.S. and Europe. Countries covered are the U.S., UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Greece. The consumer samples are census weighted and data in the report is typically compared across countries and age groups to give retailers a more granular view of their customer bases.
About Checkout.com
Checkout.com is a global payments solution provider that helps businesses and their communities thrive in the digital economy. Purpose-built with performance, scalability and speed in mind, our modular payments platform is ideal for enterprise businesses looking to seamlessly integrate better payment solutions. With a global team spread across 19 offices worldwide, we offer innovative solutions that flex to your needs, valuable insights that help you get smart about your payments' performance, and expertise you can count on as you navigate the complexities of an ever-shifting world. Find out more at www.checkout.com
View original content:
SOURCE Checkout.com
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| 2022-09-22T12:38:44Z
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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration said Wednesday that the U.S. Embassy in Cuba will begin processing full immigrant visas in early 2023, making it easier for Cubans to reunite with family members in the United States.
The embassy in Havana had last processed full immigrant visas in 2017. The U.S. government will also stop requiring Cubans seeking visas in family preference categories to travel to Georgetown, Guyana, for their interviews.
Additional government personnel will staff the embassy to handle the visa requests. The added personnel are part of the commitment stemming from the resumption of the Cuban Family Reunification Parole program last month. The 2007 program enables U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents to apply for their family members in Cuba to come to the U.S. sooner than conventionally allowed.
Under accords with Cuba, the U.S. has committed to ensuring the legal migration of at least 20,000 Cubans annually, not including immediate relatives of U.S. citizens.
Attempted border crossings by Cubans has increased sharply over the past year, according to data issued Monday by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection. U.S. officials stopped Cubans who were trying to enter the U.S. 19,057 times in August, a more than four-fold increase from August 2021.
Border crossings have been fueled partly by repeat crossers because there are no legal consequences for getting expelled under a pandemic-era rule known as Title 42. That rule denies a right to seek asylum.
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WASHINGTON (AP) — On the same day the Federal Reserve gave a sobering report on the U.S. economy’s trajectory, administration officials highlighted how they have kept some of the nation’s smallest businesses afloat through the pandemic.
Roughly $8.28 billion in relief funds have been disbursed to 162 community financial institutions across the country, through Treasury’s Emergency Capitol Investment Program, officials said Wednesday.
Those financial institutions in turn offer loans to micro and small businesses.
The funding regime, abbreviated ECIP, is one of several pandemic relief programs meant to support community financial institutions — which provide loans, grants, and other assistance to small and minority-owned businesses that have difficulty getting funding from traditional banks.
“There is almost $9 billion on the ground right now” for community banks and lenders, Vice President Kamala Harris said on a call with reporters.
Roughly 96 percent of Black-owned businesses are sole proprietorships and single employee companies. They have the hardest time finding funding and are often the first type of businesses impacted during economic downturns.
On the call with reporters, Harris and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen highlighted some of the program recipients, including Native American Bank, which recently got a $10 million loan to finance an opioid addiction treatment facility in North Dakota, and a Georgia bank that recently gave a $650,000 working capital loan to an Atlanta-based, Black-owned affordable housing developer.
Mississippi, Louisiana, North Carolina, California, and Texas have received some of the biggest contributions.
“We’ve long known that too many Americans face significant barriers to participation in our financial system,” Yellen said. “I’m pleased that we’ve reached a milestone in our work to increase capital to these underserved communities.”
There were a record 5.4 million applications for new businesses filed in 2021, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, surpassing the previous peak in 2020 of 4.4 million.
Of that number, a growing share are sole proprietors and businesses without other employees.
“Frankly, a lot of businesses are just recovering from Covid,” Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., said on the call. He said that community banks “really do incredible work in reaching small businesses.”
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Associated Press reporter Mae Anderson contributed to this report.
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Conservative activist Virginia Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, has agreed to participate in a voluntary interview with the House panel investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection, her lawyer said Wednesday.
Attorney Mark Paoletta said Thomas is “eager to answer the committee’s questions to clear up any misconceptions about her work relating to the 2020 election.”
The committee has for months sought an interview with Thomas in an effort to know more about her role in trying to help former President Donald Trump overturn his election defeat. She texted with White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and contacted lawmakers in Arizona and Wisconsin in the weeks after the election.
Thomas’s willingness to testify comes as the committee is preparing to wrap up its work before the end of the year and is writing a final report laying out its findings about the U.S. Capitol insurrection. The panel announced Wednesday that it will reconvene for a hearing on Sept. 28, likely the last in a series of hearings that began this summer.
The testimony from Thomas — known as Ginni — was one of the remaining items for the panel as it eyes the completion of its work. The panel has already interviewed more than 1,000 witnesses and shown some of that video testimony in its eight hearings over the summer.
The extent of Thomas’ involvement ahead of the Capitol attack is unknown. In the days after The Associated Press and other news organizations called the presidential election for Biden, Thomas emailed two lawmakers in Arizona to urge them to choose “a clean slate of Electors” and “stand strong in the face of political and media pressure.” The AP obtained the emails earlier this year under the state’s open records law.
She has said in interviews that she attended the initial pro-Trump rally the morning of Jan. 6 but left before Trump spoke and the crowds headed for the Capitol.
Thomas, a Trump supporter long active in conservative causes, has repeatedly maintained that her political activities posed no conflict of interest with the work of her husband.
“Like so many married couples, we share many of the same ideals, principles, and aspirations for America. But we have our own separate careers, and our own ideas and opinions too. Clarence doesn’t discuss his work with me, and I don’t involve him in my work,” Thomas told the Washington Free Beacon in an interview published in March.
Justice Thomas was the lone dissenting voice when the Supreme Court ruled in January to allow a congressional committee access to presidential diaries, visitor logs, speech drafts and handwritten notes relating to the events of Jan. 6.
Ginni Thomas has been openly critical of the committee’s work, including signing onto a letter to House Republicans calling for the expulsion of Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois from the GOP conference for joining the Jan. 6 congressional committee.
CNN first reported that Thomas agreed to the interview.
It’s unclear if the committee’s hearing next week will provide a general overview of what the panel has learned or if it will focus on new information and evidence, such as any evidence provided by Thomas. The committee also conducted several interviews at the end of July and into August with Trump’s Cabinet secretaries, some of whom had discussed invoking the constitutional process in the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office after the insurrection.
Cheney, the committee’s Republican vice chairwoman, said at the panel’s most recent hearing in July that the committee “has far more evidence to share with the American people and more to gather.”
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| 2022-09-22T12:39:00Z
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WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House has a new effort to show local governments what it can do for their communities, hosting North Carolina officials to highlight funding opportunities and hear firsthand how coronavirus relief, infrastructure dollars and other policies are faring locally.
The event Thursday reflects an expansion of the use of the White House campus as pandemic restrictions have eased. It’s also part of a larger initiative to host municipal, county and state officials on a weekly basis from all 50 states, coinciding with campaigning for November’s midterm elections as the White House tries to energize Democratic voters.
“We’re entering into a phase of our administration when we can do more in terms of convening at the White House,” said Julie Rodriguez, director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs. “It’s incredibly inspiring for us to get more proximate to the impact we’re having on Americans’ everyday lives.”
One of the key messages for the visit by North Carolina officials is the recovery in manufacturing. Steady hiring since the middle of last year has brought the U.S. manufacturing jobs total to 12.85 million, the most since late 2008 as the financial crisis triggered more than 2 million layoffs in the sector.
Officials expected to discuss with the group from North Carolina plans by Wolfspeed to invest $5 billion in building a silicon chip factory that is forecast to create an estimated 1,800 jobs in the state.
That discussion would follow the first group visit recently by officials from Ohio. President Joe Biden earlier this month spoke at the groundbreaking for a new Intel plant near Columbus. Both Ohio and North Carolina have open Senate seats this year.
Thursday’s half-day event was to include Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan, who’s from North Carolina. Rodriguez and Keisha Lance Bottoms, a former Atlanta mayor who is now a White House senior adviser, also were to talk to the group.
Confirmed to attend were 23 North Carolina officials, including U.S. Rep. Kathy Manning, state lawmakers, the mayors of Charlotte, Wilmington, Fayetteville, Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Chapel Hill, Raleigh, Concord, Kinston and Durham, in addition to leaders from Wake and Guildford counties.
Just as administration officials want to hear local stories, they also want to emphasize the possible opportunities that local governments might have because of the bipartisan infrastructure law, the incentives for developing computer chips and scientific research, and the recent package to encourage climate-friendly energy sources and limit prescription drug prices.
As part of the day’s events, the White House planned to connect those officials with regional media outlets in a sign that they’re trying to bring the message to the wider public. That will be crucial in terms of political messaging. Republicans seeking control of the House and Senate have blamed high inflation on Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package, while the administration say the prices are a byproduct of global events such as the pandemic and Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine.
The White House says its efforts have helped workers by swiftly bringing down unemployment rates to a low 3.7%, but the Republican drumbeat is that consumer prices are up 8.3% from a year ago and the primary reason for voter concern. Gasoline prices have eased since peaking in June, but the Federal Reserve estimated Wednesday that unemployment will likely rise to bring down inflation.
“The inflation rate plateauing above 8% does not mean that families are catching a break — it means exactly the opposite,” Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said in a Monday speech to the Senate. “It means that families are continuing to see prices go up and up and up all the time.”
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| 2022-09-22T12:39:07Z
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BROOKSVILLE, Fla. (AP) — A Florida highway had to temporarily close Wednesday after a semitrailer carrying cases of Coors Light crashed and turned the roadway into a silver sea of beer cans.
The multi-vehicle crash occurred shortly after 6 a.m. in the southbound lanes of Interstate 75 about 30 miles (48 kilometers) north of Tampa, the Florida Highway Patrol said in a news release.
The pileup began when one semitrailer clipped another while changing lanes, officials said. That forced other semis to brake, but one failed to stop and collided with a pickup truck and another one of the stopping semis.
The semi that failed to stop was filled with cases of the Silver Bullet beer.
Minor injuries were reported by the occupants of the pickup truck, the news release said.
The inside shoulder and travel lanes were opened to traffic by 8:30 a.m., and the rest of the roadway was reopened around noon, troopers said.
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What are the best Nativity sets?
For many people, Christmas means trimming trees, giving gifts and decorating their home and yard. Santas, reindeer and snowmen are always popular themes, but a Nativity scene is something special. The Nativity scene is a depiction of the birth of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem as described in the New Testament, and an important piece of early Christian art.
What do Nativity sets include?
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Jesus, Mary and Joseph are the heart of any Nativity scene set. As the New Testament recounts, an angel told Joseph to take Mary as his wife, for she had been called upon by God to give birth to God’s son. There was no room at the inn where they stopped in Bethlehem, so they stayed in a stable, where Mary gave birth to the baby Jesus.
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The stable is portrayed in Nativity scenes as an open-sided structure that stands behind Jesus, Mary and Joseph. It has a roof overhead and looks like a small barn with one side missing.
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The manger is a wooden trough for holding animal feed. Mary wrapped her just-born baby in swaddling clothes and used the feed trough as a cradle.
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The Three Wise Men heard about the birth of Jesus and came bearing gifts from the East. They rode across vast deserts on camels, following the Star of Bethlehem. They are also referred to as the Three Kings and the Magi.
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The Star of Bethlehem is said by today’s astronomers to probably have been Halley’s Comet or a supernova, because no star shines that brightly. Whatever its source, an extraordinarily brilliant light on the sky guided the Three Wise Men all the way to Jesus, Joseph and Mary.
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Angels from on high add a heavenly touch to any Nativity set.
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Animals are a natural part of Nativity sets because sheep, goats, cows and the donkey Mary rode on would be eating and sleeping in the stable, too.
Surroundings
Fit the size of your Nativity set to its surroundings.
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Fireplace mantels and shelves: If you want to place your Nativity scene on a narrow ledge, a small set with just a few pieces is a good choice.
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Tabletops and floors: If you want a display measured in feet rather than inches, choose a large flat surface such as a tabletop or the floor beneath your Christmas tree.
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Outdoors: If you want to set up a Nativity display in your front yard, it should be large enough that it is not overwhelmed by the size of your lawn. Outdoor displays are usually illuminated at night and need to be rainproof.
Realistic or symbolic?
The range of artistic interpretations of the Nativity scene is quite wide. At one end, you find cut-out figures that are merely silhouettes in two dimensions, with no features or details. At the other end, you find scenes that are incredibly detailed, hand-painted by artisans with tiny brushes.
Musical accompaniment
There are many Christmas carols that add to the festive occasion and some of them are about the birth of Jesus. When you add a musical background to your Nativity set, make sure you include “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” “Away in a Manger,” “We Three Kings,” “Star of Wonder,” “Silent Night” and “O Holy Night.”
Indoor Nativity sets
Three Kings Gifts 16-Piece Deluxe Edition Nativity Set
There is real gold, frankincense and myrrh in the chests carried by the Three Wise Men. This set is made of hand-painted polymer resin and finely detailed. The lighted stable adds a warm glow to the scene.
Sold by Amazon
Collections Etc. Musical Nativity Scene Tabletop Scene
Jesus, Mary and Joseph are surrounded by the Three Kings, two shepherds and an angel. The manger and the star on top light up as “Silent Night” plays when you wind up the key on the base as you would a music box.
Sold by Amazon
Napco Holy Family with Star of Bethlehem Christmas Nativity Set
This 12-inch-tall resin sculpture has a wood-like look that adds a touch of elegance. The Star of Bethlehem sits at the top of a trio of golden beams of light that surround Jesus, Mary and Joseph.
Sold by Amazon
Tree of Life Holy Land Olive Wood Hanging Ornament
Decorate your holiday tree with this 3-inch handcrafted olive wood stylized silhouette of Jesus, Mary and Joseph in the stable with the Star of Bethlehem above. Each ornament is made by hand in Israel.
Sold by Amazon
Loving Memories Indoor Nativity Set with LED Tea Light
This contemporary sculpture of Jesus, Mary and Joseph is carved from resin that has the appearance of granite. It comes with a LED candle that lights the manger from behind.
Sold by Amazon
Outdoor Nativity sets
Front Yard Originals 6-by-6-Foot Outdoor Nativity Set
These silhouettes of Jesus, Mary and Joseph in the stable with two lambs and the Star of Bethlehem overhead are made of weatherproof marine-grade PVC. The pure white color adds to a feeling of peace.
Sold by Amazon
Bzb Goods Inflatable Christmas Nativity Scene with Lights
The Three Wise men arrive at the stable bearing gifts while the Star of Bethlehem shines brightly from above with an LED light. The display is 6 feet long, 3 feet wide and almost 5 1/2 feet tall, and comes with stakes, tether and air blower.
Sold by Amazon
Best Choice Lighted Outdoor Nativity Scene
Light up your front yard with 190 LED lights that stay cool to the touch. Set up the 5-by-6-foot metal frame, connect the wires, secure them with zip ties and stake it into the ground.
Sold by Amazon
Nativity sets for kids
Little People Deluxe Christmas Story Nativity Playset
Share the spirit of the season with this stable and manger with Jesus, Mary and Joseph surrounded by a dozen Little People figures, including the Three Wise Men. When you press down on the angel atop the stable roof, the Star of Bethlehem lights up.
Sold by Amazon
Melissa and Doug Classic Wooden Christmas Nativity Play Set
This company make toys of solid wood, with the goal of igniting imagination and a sense of wonder in kids. Children assemble this four-piece stable themselves and play with the 11 wooden figures.
Sold by Amazon
Moinkidz Kids 24-Piece Nativity Scene Wooden Jigsaw Puzzle for Toddlers
Preschoolers enjoy this solid wooden puzzle with uniquely cut pieces that are the perfect size for little hands. The characters are cartoonish, as are the colors of the nontoxic paints.
Sold by Amazon
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David Allan Van writes for BestReviews. BestReviews has helped millions of consumers simplify their purchasing decisions, saving them time and money.
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| 2022-09-22T12:39:27Z
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Which Patrick Ta products on Sephora are best?
Patrick Ta cosmetics offers a wide variety of makeup products, including eyeshadow palettes, face products, lip products and makeup application tools, among other items. The company launched in 2019 and has since partnered with retailers such as Sephora.
What is Patrick Ta cosmetics?
Founder and company namesake Patrick Ta is a makeup artist based in Los Angeles, California. He began his career at MAC Cosmetics as a beauty consultant and soon became a freelance makeup artist. He went on to work with some of the biggest celebrities in Hollywood and eventually launched his own beauty brand. The company focuses on ensuring that wearers feel confident and comfortable in their own skin.
What to consider before buying Patrick Ta cosmetics
Skin sensitivity and allergies
Before purchasing any beauty item, look at the label. Identify any potential allergens or chemicals that you may react to and assess if the product will suit your skin. It’s best to do a patch test first by applying a small portion of the product to a discreet part of your skin. Leave on for 24 hours and wait for any reaction. Proceed with a full application if there are no adverse results.
Your daily routine
Understanding what you need and what will go to waste when buying cosmetics will save you money and prevent product waste. If you prefer a light-coverage look that doesn’t require a lot of time, just a few essential products, such as mascara, eyebrow pencil and concealer, should cover your bases.
For those who prefer taking their time with their makeup, experimenting with different products from the Patrick Ta line is the best way to find what’s right for you. Some popular items to play around with include the Major Volume Plumping Lip Gloss, the Major Brow Shaping Wax and Major Glow Balm.
Find your undertones
Getting the makeup that suits your complexion best depends on your undertones. Finding your undertones is easy, and you can do this by looking at the color of your veins. Green veins indicate that you have warm undertones, and you should look for these when searching for foundation and concealer.
Purple and blue veins indicate you have cooler undertones. There are charts available online for more in-depth undertone analysis, or Sephora offers in-store skin matching to find your perfect shades.
Making room for men in makeup
As more men are beginning to add cosmetics into their grooming routines, makeup artists such as Patrick Ta are embracing the trend. Inspiring men to use cosmetics to feel more confident, Patrick Ta offers several makeup tutorials online using male-identifying models to show that the brand’s products aren’t just for women — they’re “for all” to enjoy.
Top Patrick Ta face products on Sephora
Major Sculpt Creme Contour and Powder Bronzer Duo
Available in three neutral skin tones, this bronzing set has both a cream and powder formula to ensure your skin has a blended and smooth finish. Winner of the Allure Best of Beauty Award in 2021, this product is vegan and talc-free.
Sold by Sephora
Major Beauty Headlines Double-Take Creme and Powder Blush
This vegan blush set comes in eight shades of pink and red hues. It has a hydrating cream formula as well as a powder to set and melt the blush into your foundation. The pigment is designed for all-day wear and uses minimal fragrance to avoid skin irritation or breakouts.
Sold by Sephora
Winner of the Allure Best of Beauty Award in 2021, this brush has synthetic bristles that contour against the shape of your face. It is suitable for cream and powder formulas and blends away creases and lines from your skin.
Sold by Sephora
Top Patrick Ta lip products on Sephora
This lip gloss formula creates a glassy luster, and it goes well with lipstick or all on its own. It’s long-lasting and does not feather or smear after application. The formula uses vitamin E and hydrating oils to replenish your lips during and after use.
Sold by Sephora
Major Volume Plumping Lip Gloss
This high-shine lip gloss comes in six shades varying from a bright red to a muted, natural clear shade. Plumping peptides, cinnamon and ginger will naturally and effectively create a full pout. This formula is long-lasting, and the peptides offer moisture to the lips during use.
Sold by Sephora
This matte traditional lipstick offers full coverage, depositing pigment evenly and smoothly. The formula has a creamy glide on application that feels lightweight. It is long-wearing and comes in six bold shades.
Sold by Sephora
Top Patrick Ta eye products on Sephora
Major Dimension Eyeshadow Palette
This eyeshadow palette is a staple for any beauty collection. It comes with two cream bases and 10 metallic and matte neutral shades. It achieves a soft glam look or you can use it for everyday casual eye looks. It is a vegan and gluten-free formula.
Sold by Sephora
Whether achieving bold eyebrows or penciling in petite brows, this eyebrow pencil has a small pen tip to create thin, hair-like strokes onto your brows. I comes in five shades and has a brush on the opposite side. The pencil is a gel-based formula and will glide onto the skin without pulling.
Sold by Sephora
Major Dimension II Rose Eyeshadow Palette
Like its original counterpart, this eyeshadow palette has two cream bases and 10 powder eyeshadows ranging from metallics to mattes. However, this palette has rose and pink shades to complement the warm brown base colors. You can layer nearly every shade on top of one another and blend it to create your desired look.
Sold by Sephora
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Isabella Acitelli writes for BestReviews. BestReviews has helped millions of consumers simplify their purchasing decisions, saving them time and money.
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| 2022-09-22T12:39:34Z
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Should you try Bloom Nutrition Greens and Superfoods smoothie mixes?
The power of TikTok is that it can shine a spotlight on practices and products and pull them into the mainstream overnight. It can introduce strategies that help people live a better life. For instance, with only one in 10 adults eating enough fruits and vegetables, TikTok has put the focus on Bloom Nutrition Greens and Superfoods smoothie mixes, a product that seems to help people achieve the nutrition and gut health they’re lacking.
In this article: Bloom Nutrition Green Superfood, Amazing Grass Greens Blend (Detox and Digest Formula) and Country Farms Super Greens Drink Mix
What are Bloom Nutrition Greens and Superfoods smoothie mixes?
According to its website, Bloom is a supplement company for women that was founded by Mari and Greg. After Mari hit rock bottom, she went on a fitness journey with now-husband Greg and eventually lost 90 pounds. Since there were no supplements for women that satisfied their needs — all options had too much filler, tasted horrible or had ingredients they couldn’t pronounce — the pair created their own blend of dehydrated fruits and vegetables to help Mari on her journey.
Why does TikTok love Bloom?
While Bloom Nutrition Greens and Superfoods smoothie mixes are marketed as being beneficial to your fitness journey, TikTok’s infatuation with the product isn’t because of its nutritional benefits. Instead, influencers claim it reduces bloating. Some say you can look your best in under 15 minutes. Others love the taste. In summary, TikTok loves Bloom Nutrition Greens and Superfoods smoothie mixes because they taste good and make you look and feel better.
Why are nutritionists skeptical?
Nutritionists are skeptical of Bloom’s performance because most of the listed ingredients fall far below recommended daily values. However, since supplements and superfood powders aren’t regulated by the Federal Drug Administration (FDA), it’s unsafe to take more than the recommended dose because it could lead to toxicity and other problems.
What’s the verdict on Bloom Nutrition Greens and Superfoods smoothie mixes?
While TikTok loves Bloom, nutritionists say the smoothie mixes don’t look spectacular on paper. However, those outspoken nutritionists seem to overlook or disregard the fact that this product is only meant to be used as a supplement. It isn’t supposed to fulfill all of your daily nutritional needs; it’s the sand that fills in the gaps where your diet is lacking.
If Bloom Nutrition Greens and Superfoods smoothie mixes don’t cause harm, don’t interact with any medications you may be taking and can help you get some of the nutrition your body may be lacking, then, overall, it would seem to be a beneficial product.
Superfood powders to try
Bloom Nutrition Green Superfood
This is the trending brand — the one that’s making news and bringing attention to superfood powders. It comes in berry, citrus, coconut, mango and original flavors. Sold by Amazon
Amazing Grass Greens Blend (Detox and Digest Formula)
The detox and digest formula of this popular blend helps increase the growth of good bacteria to support digestion, as well as overall health and immunity. Sold by Amazon and iHerb
Evlution Nutrition Stacked Greens
Stacked Greens has no artificial sweeteners, flavors or fillers. It’s made from greens, fruits and vegetables to support immunity and defend against free radicals. Sold by Amazon
This product is formulated to fill the gap between what you eat and what you should be eating. It’s made with 49 different superfoods and contains no wheat or dairy. Sold by Amazon
Purely Inspired Organic Greens
This offering doesn’t pack quite as much in as others, but it still has the essential vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and probiotics. Sold by Amazon
Hum’s superfood powder is formulated to boost energy and metabolism while supporting healthy skin. It’s available in a yummy mint chocolate chip flavor. Sold by Amazon
Country Farms Super Greens Drink Mix
Country Farms drink mix is a slightly more affordable option that still promises to boost energy, support immune health and aid in digestion. Sold by Amazon and iHerb
California Gold Nutrition Superfoods
California Gold has a dozen blends ranging from antioxidants to whole foods. It contains no gluten, no GMOs and no soy. Sold by iHerb
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Create the perfect jack-o’-lantern this Halloween with items you already have around the house
Pumpkins always make excellent fall decorations, but you can take your Halloween display to the next level by carving your pumpkins into intricate designs. And you don’t even need to be an artist to carve the perfect pumpkin. You just need the right tools on hand to carve effectively.
The good news is you don’t need to buy any special pumpkin-carving tools. Instead, you can carve truly impressive designs in your pumpkins with tools you already have in your kitchen.
If you’re eager to create an eye-catching jack-o’-lantern this Halloween, check out these tips for carving pumpkins with kitchen tools you have on hand.
In this article: Shun Classic 6-Inch Serrated Utility Knife, Wusthof Classic Paring Knife and Norpro Stainless-Steel Canning Ladle
Prepare your work area
While carving a pumpkin is usually fun, it’s also pretty messy. Before you start, you want to ensure you won’t get your home too dirty.
Ideally, you should carve a pumpkin outdoors, where you won’t have to worry as much about the pulp and fibrous strands from inside the pumpkin getting everywhere.
But whether working on a surface outside or indoors, you should always line your work area with a protective covering you can throw away later. Old newspaper is a go-to option, but parchment paper, butcher paper or cut-up paper grocery bags also work well. Then, once you’re done carving, you can wrap up the pumpkin’s pulp and other debris in the covering and toss everything into the trash.
Pick the right tools
You should also check that you have all the essential tools before carving. You can find pumpkin carving kits at many stores, but a quick look through your kitchen drawers usually provides all you need for successful carving.
A knife is the most crucial tool, and any serrated utility knife in your kitchen will work well. However, for more detailed work like your jack-o’-lantern’s mouth, a paring knife is a better option for getting into small spaces.
You’ll also need a tool for scooping out the pumpkin’s interior. A stainless steel soup ladle is extremely effective for removing all the fibrous strands and pulp, but you can also use an ice cream scoop to clean out your pumpkin.
Plan your design
While you may be tempted to pick up your knife and just start carving away, it helps to plan and draw your design before cutting. You can use a pen or marker to create the pattern on the pumpkin’s exterior. Some people like to freehand a design, while others use stencils for a foolproof spooky design.
Cut out the lid
When you’re ready to cut, start with the top or lid. Use a serrated knife to carefully cut out the circle you’ve drawn around the pumpkin’s stem. Hold the knife at a 45-degree inward angle to create a lid that can sit in place on top without falling inside once you’ve cut it free.
Scoop the interior
After you’ve cut out the lid, remove all of the pumpkin’s insides. Many people like to collect and clean the seeds so they can roast them in the oven later. Use your ladle or ice cream scoop to remove all of the pulp and stringy pieces inside the pumpkin. You may need to scrape your tool against the sides of the pumpkins to get out all the stringy bits.
Discard all the pumpkin’s insides in the trash. Once the pumpkin is scooped out, wipe down the exterior of the pumpkin to remove any moisture or pulp. That makes it easier to cut out your design.
Cut out the design
When the pumpkin is completely cleaned out, use your serrated knife to cut out the design you’ve drawn or traced on the exterior. Make straight cuts for the cleanest look.
If you’re cutting teeth or other intricate details, switch to a paring knife for more precise cuts. Remove the pieces you cut out, and put them aside with the rest of the trash to be thrown away.
Light the pumpkin
Once you’ve carved your pumpkin, lighting it gives it a truly spooky effect. You can go for a classic look by using a small tea light or votive candle, placing it inside the pumpkin and lighting it. If you’re concerned about having an open flame on your porch or inside your home, you can use battery-operated candles instead.
Best kitchen tools for carving a pumpkin
This set of sturdy, well-performing kitchen knives contains a serrated utility knife and a paring knife, so you have all the knives you need to carve a pumpkin. The knives feature single-piece, stamped blades made of durable stainless steel. The included block makes them easy to store, too.
Sold by Amazon
Shun Classic 6-Inch Serrated Utility Knife
This versatile, multipurpose utility knife is ideal for carving pumpkins because it has scalloped serrations that easily cut through most foods. It’s made of durable Japanese steel and has a water-resistant pakkawood handle. It’s dishwasher-safe, too.
Sold by Amazon
This super-sharp paring knife provides excellent precision when cutting the fine details in your pumpkin’s design. It features a triple-riveted full tang design to allow for greater control and a blade made of high-carbon stainless steel for improved durability.
Sold by Amazon
Norpro Stainless-Steel Canning Ladle
This durable stainless-steel ladle is excellent for scooping out all the fiber threads and pulp from inside the pumpkin because it has a sharper edge than other ladles. Its long handle also makes it easy to get the bottom of a pumpkin, while its 7-ounce bowl can remove large quantities of pumpkin pulp at once.
Sold by Amazon
KitchenAid Gourmet Ice Cream Scoop
This high-quality ice cream scoop is made of cast zinc, so it’s strong enough to scoop out any pumpkin. It has an ergonomically designed handle, which makes it easy to get a comfortable grip on it. It’s also dishwasher-safe.
Hello To Halloween Press Pumpkin Carving Stencils
If you don’t want to freehand your pumpkin’s design, these stencils make it much easier to create the perfect jack-o-lantern. Each set includes 30 stencils you can use for carving or painting pumpkins.
Sold by Amazon
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Jennifer Blair writes for BestReviews. BestReviews has helped millions of consumers simplify their purchasing decisions, saving them time and money.
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| 2022-09-22T12:39:49Z
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TORONTO, Sept. 22, 2022 /PRNewswire/ - Gamelancer Media Corp. (CSE: GMNG) (OTCQB: GAMGF) (FRA: 64Q) ("Gamelancer" or the "Company") announces that its common shares, previously trading on the OTCQB under the symbol WDRGF, are to commence trading on the OTCQB under the symbol GAMGF with effect September 22, 2022.
The Company's common shares will continue to trade under the symbol GMNG on the Canadian Securities Exchange.
No action is required by current shareholders in connection with this change.
- ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Jon Dwyer, Chairman & CEO – Gamelancer Media Corp.
Acquired by Wondr Gaming, Gamelancer Media Corp. is a creative & broadcast media entertainment company, with an owned and operated network generating over 1.8 billion monthly video-views across its 29 channels. With over 32,000,000+ followers on TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat, predominantly located in the US, Canada, the UK, and Australia, Gamelancer offers clients branded short-form video content broadcast across its network. With advanced user data analytics, we provide our audience curated content relevant to the GenZ & Millennial gaming community, which allows brands unparalleled access to the largest media inventory in gaming across TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat. Gamelancer also monetizes across its variety of Snapchat Discover channels with monthly recurring revenue in partnership with Snapchat.
Forward-looking statements and information are provided for the purpose of providing information about the current expectations and plans of management of the Company relating to the future. Readers are cautioned that reliance on such statements and information may not be appropriate for other purposes, such as making investment decisions. Since forward–looking statements and information address future events and conditions, by their very nature they involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from those currently anticipated due to a number of factors and risks. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on the forward–looking statements and information contained in this news release. Readers are cautioned that the foregoing list of factors is not exhaustive. The forward–looking statements and information contained in this news release are made as of the date hereof and no undertaking is given to update publicly or revise any forward–looking statements or information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, unless so required by applicable securities laws. The forward-looking statements or information contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement.
View original content to download multimedia:
SOURCE Gamelancer Gaming Corp.
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TEMPE, Ariz. (AP) — Kyler Murray appears content to let face smacks that happened in Vegas stay in Vegas.
Police in Las Vegas said on Monday that they were investigating allegations that a fan in the stands struck the Cardinals quarterback amid celebrations of Arizona’s 29-23 overtime victory over the Raiders.
Murray said on Wednesday that the crazy ending to the game mirrored the crazy postgame situation with fans. Talking to reporters, the quarterback didn’t condone the smack, but also didn’t act as if he wanted to hold a grudge.
“Stuff happens fast,” Murray said. “I don’t know. I know every person I’ve hit in the face, I did it for a reason. I don’t know if he probably didn’t know where he was — it was a pretty live game. Vegas is Vegas. I’m sure he was having fun. But — I don’t know — I don’t think any player should be getting touched in that matter.
“But no hard feelings toward the guy. If I see him, I’ll shake his hand. It is what it is.”
Murray said he doesn’t regret going toward the stands during the postgame celebration: “No — I would do it all over again if I could.”
Murray was high-fiving front-row spectators at Allegiant Stadium following Byron Murphy Jr.’s game-ending fumble return on Sunday when a man appeared to reach out and smack Murray in the face with an open hand.
Video showed Murray appear stunned, but not injured, then attempt to identify the attacker in the mostly happy crowd.
Officer Larry Hadfield, a Las Vegas police spokesman, confirmed that a battery complaint was made about 6:30 p.m. on Sunday at the stadium. The report was not immediately available.
The victory was Arizona’s first since Murray agreed to a $230.5 million, five-year contract extension. He was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2019 draft after winning the Heisman Trophy at Oklahoma in 2018.
___
More AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL and https://twitter.com/AP_NFL
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| 2022-09-22T12:40:03Z
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Robert Sarver says he has started the process of selling the Phoenix Suns and Phoenix Mercury, a move that came barely a week after he was suspended by the NBA over workplace misconduct that included racist speech and hostile behavior toward employees.
The decision was quickly applauded by many — among them, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, the National Basketball Players Association and even Sarver’s partners in the ownership group that operates the Suns and Mercury.
Sarver made the announcement Wednesday, saying selling “is the best course of action,” although he initially hoped he would be able to keep control of the franchises — pointing to his record that, he claims, paints a dramatically different picture of who he is and what he stands for.
“But in our current unforgiving climate, it has become painfully clear that that is no longer possible — that whatever good I have done, or could still do, is outweighed by things I have said in the past,” Sarver wrote in a statement. “For those reasons, I am beginning the process of seeking buyers for the Suns and Mercury.”
Silver said he “fully” supports Sarver’s decision.
“This is the right next step for the organization and community,” Silver said.
Sarver bought the teams in July 2004 for about $400 million — then a record price for an NBA franchise. He is not the lone owner of the Suns and Mercury, but the primary one. Suns Legacy Partners LLC, the ownership group, said its work to create a “culture of respect and integrity” would continue.
“As we’ve shared with our employees, we acknowledge the courage of the people who came forward in this process to tell their stories and apologize to those hurt,” the partners said.
Assuming no other team is sold in the interim, it would be the first sale in the NBA since a group led by Qualtrics co-founder Ryan Smith bought the Utah Jazz in 2021 for about $1.7 billion.
It’s not known if Sarver has established an asking price. Forbes recently estimated the value of the Suns at $1.8 billion. Any new owners would have to be vetted by the NBA, which is standard procedure.
An independent report that was commissioned by the NBA last November — following an ESPN report into Sarver’s workplace conduct — took about 10 months to complete. That probe found Sarver “repeated or purported to repeat the N-word on at least five occasions spanning his tenure with the Suns,” though added that the investigation “makes no finding that Sarver used this racially insensitive language with the intent to demean or denigrate.”
The study also concluded that Sarver used demeaning language toward female employees, including telling a pregnant employee that she would not be able to do her job after becoming a mother; making off-color comments and jokes about sex and anatomy; and yelling and cursing at employees in ways that would be considered bullying “under workplace standards.”
Once that report was completed, Silver suspended Sarver for one year and fined him $10 million — the maximum allowed by league rule.
“Words that I deeply regret now overshadow nearly two decades of building organizations that brought people together — and strengthened the Phoenix area — through the unifying power of professional men’s and women’s basketball,” Sarver wrote. “As a man of faith, I believe in atonement and the path to forgiveness. I expected that the commissioner’s one-year suspension would provide the time for me to focus, make amends and remove my personal controversy from the teams that I and so many fans love.”
Barely a week later, Sarver evidently realized that would not be possible.
His decision comes after a chorus of voices — from players such as Suns guard Chris Paul and Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James, to longtime team sponsors like PayPal, and even the National Basketball Players Association — said the one-year suspension wasn’t enough.
James weighed in again Wednesday, shortly after Sarver’s statement went public: “I’m so proud to be a part of a league committed to progress!” he tweeted.
Added retired NBA player Etan Thomas, also in a tweet: “Sarver is cashing out so this is not really a punishment for him but definitely glad he will be gone.”
NBPA President CJ McCollum said the union thanks Sarver “for making a swift decision that was in the best interest of our sports community.”
Suns vice chairman Jahm Najafi called last week for Sarver to resign, saying there should be “zero tolerance” for lewd, misogynistic and racist conduct in any workplace. Najafi, in that same statement, also said he did not have designs on becoming the team’s primary owner.
“I do not want to be a distraction to these two teams and the fine people who work so hard to bring the joy and excitement of basketball to fans around the world,” Sarver wrote. “I want what’s best for these two organizations, the players, the employees, the fans, the community, my fellow owners, the NBA and the WNBA. This is the best course of action for everyone.”
Sarver, through his attorney, argued to the NBA during the investigative process that his record as an owner shows a “longstanding commitment to social and racial justice” and that it shows he’s had a “commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.” Among the examples Sarver cited was what he described as a league-best rate of 55% employment of minorities within the Suns’ front office and how more than half of the team’s coaches and general managers in his tenure — including current coach Monty Williams and current GM James Jones — are Black.
___
More AP NBA coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/NBA and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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LONDON (AP) — Roger Federer is a father of four — two girls who are 13, two boys who are 8 — and so perhaps that is why, as he wraps up his playing career, he thinks about the “GOAT” debate that has engulfed the tennis world the way parents might look at their children.
Folks love to ask: Who’s the “Greatest of All-Time” in men’s tennis, Federer, Rafael Nadal or Novak Djokovic?
“People always like to compare. I see it every day with my twins. Without wanting, you compare them. You shouldn’t — ever,” Federer said during an interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday, hours after his farewell news conference at the arena that will host the 20-time Grand Slam champion’s final competition, the Laver Cup.
“Naturally, we do the same in tennis. … I am my own career, my own player, that needed those challenges. They needed a challenger like myself,” he said, leaning back on a couch, having traded in the blue blazer and polo shirt he wore earlier for a post-practice navy pullover, white T-shirt and black jogger pants. “We made each other better. So at the end of the day, we’ll all shake hands and be like, ‘That was awesome.’ Now is somebody going to be happier than the other? I mean, in moments, maybe.”
He called the topic “a good conversation, let’s be honest” and “definitely a fun debate” that “you can endlessly talk about.”
But he also used the word “silly,” given all that he, 22-time major champ Nadal and 21-time major champ Djokovic have accomplished.
“I always say it’s wonderful to be part of that selective group,” he began, talking about the so-called Big Three rivals, then paused to sigh.
“How can you compare? What’s better? To win when you’re old or when you’re young? I have no idea, you know. Is it better to win on clay or grass? Don’t know. Is it better to have super dominant years or come back from injury? I don’t know,” he said. “It really is impossible to grasp.”
Referring to Nadal, who is 36 and is expected to be Federer’s doubles partner for his final match Friday, and Djokovic, who is 35, Federer said: “What I know is they are truly amazing and greats of the game and forever and will go down as one of the — maybe THE — greatest.”
Federer, who is Swiss, grew up a basketball fan, and brought up the Michael Jordan vs. LeBron James back-and-forth from hoops.
“Who is the greatest? Probably MJ. But is it LeBron? Some stats say he is. I think it’s a phenomenon of (social) media. Everybody calling each other ‘GOAT.’ ‘GOAT.’ ‘GOAT.’ ‘GOAT.’ ‘GOAT.’ ‘GOAT.’ I’m like, Come on, OK? There cannot be possibly that many ‘GOATs,’” Federer said, then cracked himself up with a Dad joke: “In Switzerland, we have a lot of them, but they’re in the fields.”
Federer promises he won’t make a comeback; his surgically repaired right knee won’t allow it. His age, 41, doesn’t help.
He is adamant, though, that he will remain connected to tennis. That will include showing up at certain tournaments, he said, “to say farewell or goodbye, because I’ve been a part of those tournaments for 20 years.”
It will include watching on TV, some of the time, and keeping an eye on results, all of the time.
He plans to keep tabs on Nadal, who won the Australian Open and French Open this season, and Djokovic, who won Wimbledon but couldn’t enter the Australian Open or U.S. Open because he isn’t vaccinated against COVID-19 (“It’s been quite strange not seeing Novak in a lot of the draws,” Federer observed).
“At this point, once either they surpassed you, or you’re not playing anymore, it doesn’t matter how far up they go,” Federer said. “For me, as long as I could be a part of it and control some of it, I cared more.”
When it comes to the pursuit of more Grand Slam titles by Nadal and Djokovic, he said: “I hope they go and do everything they want. I really hope so. Because it would be great for the game and nice for their fans, for their family. As long as it makes them happy.”
At one point during the nearly half-hour conversation with the AP, Federer mentioned the idea of a player “falling out of love” with the game.
What did he mean by that?
Essentially: It’s not possible to always love every minute of every facet of the life of a pro tennis player.
“You go through phases. As a kid, you have this vision of the tour as this fantastic place: ‘It’s the coolest thing. I can share the locker room with the guys. I walk out to stadiums, there’s fans screaming my name. I can sign autographs, take pictures. On top of the world.’ But then at some point, comes a time, you’re like: ‘I didn’t read the small print, you know?’ Where it said: ‘And, oh, by the way, you need to do it in another language, and we need one more promo shot and you need to travel now and miss a plane and wait for hours and hours in rain delays.’ We knew it was probably going to happen, but was it going to be this intense? This is the part a lot of people don’t know about — what the athletes have to go through at that level,” Federer said.
“Not looking for any ‘Aw, you poor guys.’ We’re doing well. We’re making loads of money and we have the chance to entertain millions of people. But I’m just saying, sometimes you have to second-guess yourself. Question yourself. Like, ‘Am I truly enjoying it like I’m supposed to?’ Because it’s a dream come true,” he continued. “And here you are, living the dream, yet it doesn’t feel so special anymore, because now it’s gotten normal. ‘Normal’ can be dangerous. ‘Normal’ can be no good, you know?”
That, Federer explained, is when the trick is to make things exciting for yourself — maybe “you fake it” or maybe “you have people around you that help you.”
He gave credit to the various coaches and other members of his team through the years for helping push him.
“People see me on the court and they’re like,” he said, then lowered his voice to a whisper, “’Oh, my God! He’s so gifted! Like, he can do it all by himself!'”
That, Federer said, is nonsense.
”We need inspiration. We need motivation. We need people to kick our ass and tell you, ‘OK, put on your shoes and go for a run. Put on your shoes and let’s go practice. I know you don’t want to do it here. I actually also don’t want to be here, but let’s still do it. And then you can go relax,'” he said. “It’s a challenge. But a good one. And I would do it all over again.”
And then he smiled.
___
More AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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NEW YORK (AP) — A sellout crowd of 46,175 groaned as Aaron Judge left the batter’s box in the first and fifth innings.
“Fans packed it out to see us win a ballgame and see some homers,” he said with a widening smile and a twinkle in his eyes, “so I think I got to cut out this double stuff, I guess.”
Judge remained at 60 home runs, one shy of Roger Maris’ American League record, hitting two doubles with a walk in Wednesday night’s 14-2 blowout of the Pittsburgh Pirates.
A day after hitting home run No. 60 to spark a stunning five-run, ninth-inning rally capped by Giancarlo Stanton’s game-ending slam, Judge lined a double to left on the first pitch to him from Roasny Contreras (5-5) and scored on Oswaldo Cabrera’s grand slam.
Cabrera and Gleyber Torres had five RBIs each. Torres homered twice in the eighth inning, one to right and one to left, raising his season total to 23.
With 14 games left, Judge leads the AL in average (.317), home runs and RBIs (128) and is positioned to become the first Triple Crown winner in a decade.
Maris’ sons and Judge’s family were in the stands. Applause started whenever Judge walked onto the on-deck circle, and fans stood and snapped photos in anticipation during each trip to the plate.
Judge faced just 11 pitches, putting the first pitch in play three times.
“It felt like waiting for that big moment,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said.
Judge hit a one-hop double over the wall in the left-field corner in the fifth and scored on Torres’ single. He also struck out and grounded out, then got one more time at-bat as the eighth batter in eight-run eighth. A four-pitch walk by rookie Eric Stout — all chanegups — promoted boos.
“I’m not going to give in 2-0, 3-0 and throw him something, regardless who it is honestly, especially with a lefty on deck,” Stout said.
New York (90-58) closed in on its sixth straight postseason berth and 24th in 28 years. The Yankees opened a 6 1/2 game-lead over second-place Toronto in the AL East and with one more win would clinch no worse than a wild card.
Cabrera made the Yankees the first team in major league history to end a game with a slam and hit another in the first inning of its next game, according to STATS. The only previous teams to hit slams in the last inning of a game and the first of the next were the 1955 Boston Red Sox and the 2017 Los Angeles Dodgers.
Cabrera has three homers and 14 RBIs in 30 games since his debut on Aug. 17. With the bases loaded on Judge’s double and a pair of walks by Contreras, Cabrera drove a hanging slider into the right-field bleachers.
New York has four slams in four games against the Pirates this season, including in consecutive innings on July 6. The Yankees’ 10 slams this season are their most since 2012.
“The vibe,” Cabrera said, “so good.”
IN OTHER YANKES NEWS
Harrison Bader had a two-run double in the big eighth and has five RBIs in his first two games with the Yankees. … Luis Severino (6-3) returned from a strained right lat muscle that had sidelined him since July 13 and allowed one run and two hits in five innings with six strikeouts. He reached 98.9 mph.
PIRATES
Contreras struck out a career-high 10, allowing six runs and six hits in 4 2/3 innings. … Ke’Bryan Hayes had a sacrifice fly and RBI single for Pittsburgh (55-94).
TWO-FERS
Torres joined Joe DiMaggio, Joe Pepitone, Cliff Johnson and Alex Rodriguez (twice) as Yankees to hit two homers in an inning.
EYEBALLS
New York’s win Tuesday averaged 539,000 on the Yankees’ YES Network, its most prime-time viewers for a game other than against the Mets since 557,000 for an 11-inning game against Atlanta on Aug. 2, 2018. YES is averaing 352,000, up 23% from last year and its highest since 2011.
CRUZ CONTROL
Pittburgh’s ONeil Cruz was given a Paul O’Neill No. 21 jersey and spoke with O’Neill — whom he is named after — by video chat. O’Neill is not vaccinated against COVID-19 and broadcasts Yankees’ games from home in Ohio.
TRAINER’S ROOM
Yankees: RHP Scott Effross (shoulder strain) will be activated Thursday. … LHP Zack Britton finished his minor league rehab assignment following Tommy John surgery and hopes to be actived in a few days. … INF-OF Matt Carpenter (broken left foot) had an X-ray Tuesday and was cleared for more weight-bearing work. He’ll have another X-ray in nine or 10 days. … New York is trying to pick the right time to activate INF DJ LeMahieu (right second toe), who likely will not be 100%. … OF Aaron Hicks was feeling ill and left the ballpark before the game.
UP NEXT
Pirates: RHP Mitch Keller (5-11, 4.03) opens a four-game series at home on Thursday against the Chicago Cubs’ RHP Hayden Wesneski (1-1, 2.30).
Yankees: RHP Jameson Taillon (13-5, 4.04) starts Thursday’s opener of a four-game series against Boston and RHP Michael Wacha (11-1, 2.61), who is 8-0 in his last 12 starts.
___
More AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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| 2022-09-22T12:40:32Z
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MILWAUKEE (AP) — The New York Mets set a major league record with 106 hit batters this season when Mark Canha was plunked twice and Luis Guillorme once in Wednesday’s 6-0 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers.
New York has been hit one more time than the 2021 Cincinnati Reds.
“It’s like a broken record at this point,” Canha said. “We just kind of roll our eyes when it happens now and move on. There’s nothing you can do except capitalize on it, make it hurt, and it’s all you can do. Yeah, sure, we’re frustrated. It’s like not a great thing to happen to your team.”
Mets manager Buck Showalter has repeatedly complained about the amount of times his players have been hit. He signaled for the ball after Guillorme was struck on the left foot by Jake Cousins’ slider in the ninth.
Asked what he planned to do with the ball, Showalter quipped, “it would be obscene to tell you” before adding: “I gave it to the hitting coaches. They can do with it what they want to.”
The Mets were banged up in other ways Wednesday, too. Mets center fielder Brandon Nimmo hurt his left quadriceps while stealing second base and left after the first inning. Left fielder Jeff McNeil banged up his right wrist against the chain-link fence in a failed attempt to catch Brosseau’s drive.
Canha was hit near the hip in the third and the ribs in the fifth. He has been hit a big league-high 24 times this year and tied Seattle’s Ty France for last year’s high with 27.
“I’m closer to the plate and I don’t move,” Canha said. “We have a lot of good hitters, dangerous hitters, and you have to pitch good hitters in, and we tend to get hit a lot.”
A record 2,112 baters were hit last year, topping the 1,984 in 2019. Batters were hit 1,875 times entering Wednesday with two weeks remaining.
“Teams are having to try and figure out ways to get us out, and I guess that’s part of the way, trying to pitching inside,” Nimmo said, “and so you’re going to get hit when that happens.”
Cincinnati pitchers have set a record with 99 hit batters this year, one more than last year’s Chicago Cubs.
___
More AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB and https://twitter.com/AP-Sports
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| 2022-09-22T12:40:40Z
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SAN DIEGO (AP) — Albert Pujols of the St. Louis Cardinals grounded a single to right field with two outs in the seventh inning to break up a no-hit bid by Blake Snell of the San Diego Padres.
The Padres led 1-0 at Petco Park on Wednesday night.
The left-handed Snell had shut down Pujols and the NL Central-leading Cardinals until the 42-year-old slugger, who is two shy of 700 home runs for his career, punched a base hit to right on a 3-1 pitch, Snell’s 107th of the game.
Until then, the left-handed Snell had allowed only two runners, issuing walks to Nolan Arenado leading off the second inning and Paul Goldschmidt with one out in the fourth.
He had retired Pujols twice, on a strikeout and a groundout.
Juan Yepez followed with a single before Snell struck out Paul DeJong to tie his career-high of 13.
Snell threw 117 pitches, 70 for strikes.
Snell came into the game with a 7-9 record and a 3.85 ERA.
___
More AP MLB: https://apnews.com/MLB and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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| 2022-09-22T12:40:47Z
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ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — Rays teammates Yandy Díaz and Randy Arozarena had an altercation after a 4-0 loss to the Astros on Monday, partially prompting Tampa Bay manager Kevin Cash to bench both players Tuesday in a 5-0 defeat to Houston.
Arozarena told reporters Wednesday night that there was no physical contact with Díaz, and that there were some little things they needed to address. He said things are good between the pair.
“I think these players, we owe it to them to keep what goes on in the clubhouse in the clubhouse,” Cash said before Wednesday night’s game with Houston. ”I’m not going to confirm, deny, whatever, but, I’m very confident we’re past everything.”
Arozarena, a breakout star of the 2020 postseason who won AL rookie of the year in 2021, was in Wednesday’s lineup. Díaz was out again due to a left shoulder injury that has impacted him recently.
“His left shoulder has been barking at him a little bit on the finish of his swing,” Cash said.
Tampa Bay entered Wednesday a half-game ahead of Seattle for the second of three AL wild cards.
Arozarena was seen watching Tuesday’s game from the Rays bullpen.
“I didn’t know he was in the bullpen, but I couldn’t care less where he was,” Cash said. “If I would need him to hit, I’m sure he would have ran down pretty quick.”
The altercation was initially reported by Zac Blobner and Tom Krasniqi of the Rays’ flagship radio station, WDAE.
___
More AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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| 2022-09-22T12:41:02Z
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KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The Kansas City Royals fired longtime executive Dayton Moore on Wednesday, ending the roller-coaster tenure of an influential general manager and president who took the club from perennial 100-game loser to two World Series and the 2015 championship before its quick return to mediocrity.
Royals owner John Sherman, who retained Moore after acquiring the club from David Glass in 2019, announced the move during a news conference at which Moore spoke briefly before quietly slipping out of the room.
“I think the objective is clear: It’s to compete again for championships, and we have to make sure we’re progressing toward that goal,” said Sherman, whose club was 30 games below .500 heading into its game against Minnesota.
“In 2022 we regressed,” Sherman said, “and that happens. It happens to great teams. But as I started talking to Dayton and others, I felt like we needed more change than was talked about, and that was a big reason to make this one.”
Sherman tried a mild shakeup to the front office last offseason, elevating Moore from general manager to president of baseball operations while giving J.J. Picollo the GM title. But the awkward splitting of jobs never worked out, and Sherman decided to move forward with Picollo handling all aspects of baseball operations.
Picollo was the first person Moore hired when he took over the Royals in 2006.
“I’ve known J.J. since he was 21 years old,” Moore said during his brief remarks. “He’s an incredible leader, and as I’ve mentioned before, he’s more than prepared to lead the baseball operations department in a very innovative and productive way. I’m proud that he’s continued to get this opportunity.”
Sherman said he expects other changes to be discussed down the stretch and into the offseason, including whether to keep manager Mike Matheny and his coaching staff. But it will be up to Picollo to make those decisions.
“J.J. has been great to work with,” Matheny said. “Had him on the road, had a lot of meetings here recently as the season has been winding down. He has a great perspective on the system and what needs to be done.”
Moore was hired in 2006 and tasked with rebuilding an organization that had not reached the playoffs in more than two decades. He quickly followed the blueprint that he learned from longtime Braves executive John Schuerholz, investing in Latin America and the minor league system before spending on proven major league talent.
It took most of another decade for the plan to work, but the Royals began to see progress with a winning record in 2013, when a wave of young players began to reach the majors. And the breakthrough came the following year, when a team built around Eric Hosmer and Mike Moustakas won the first of two consecutive AL pennants.
The Royals lost their first trip to the World Series to the San Francisco Giants in a dramatic seven-game series, but they finished the job the following year, beating the New York Mets in five for their first championship since 1985.
“He’s a great guy, a great person,” said Royals catcher Salvador Perez, one of the stars of those championship years. “It’s hard, you know? I never thought that he was going to leave this organization.”
For most of the people in the organization, Moore is the only boss they’ve ever known.
“Everybody looks at us like baseball players,” Royals second baseman Nicky Lopez said, “but there’s a life out of baseball and he cared about it. He cares about us as people, which is something very special.”
The end of Moore’s tenure may have seemed abrupt Wednesday, but it was years in the making.
He knew it would be impossible for the small-market organization to keep Hosmer and other stars as they hit free agency after their championship years, so after a middling 2016, the club began a nearly top-to-bottom rebuild.
It was slowed by poor drafts, lousy player development and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on baseball, and the Royals had consecutive 100-loss seasons. And when the club finally made strides last season, and some of its young talent graduated to the big leagues, it failed to capitalize on it. The Royals started slowly this season and never recovered.
“There is a gap right now between where we are and where we expected,” said Sherman, who owned a piece of the first-place Guardians before acquiring the Royals. “I felt like in 2021 we did make progress, and in 2022, that’s not how I feel.”
The organization Picollo is tasked with taking to the next level is better off than what Moore inherited 16 years ago: Infielder Bobby Witt Jr. is among the leading contenders for AL Rookie of the Year, and rookies such as Vinnie Pasquantino and MJ Melendez give Kansas City a young core reminiscent of the group Hosmer and Moustakas one led.
Yet there are plenty of organization problems that Picollo must address.
The Royals for years have struggled to develop pitching — their staff currently has the fourth-worst ERA in baseball and the worst WHIP by a wide margin, which led to the firing of pitching coordinator Jason Simontacchi earlier this season.
They have struggled to identify impact talent in the draft, consistently whiffing on first-round picks. That includes four chosen over a two-year span during their World Series years that failed to make a meaningful big league impact.
And they have struggled to keep up with the changing times, preferring old-school, anecdotal scouting methods to new-school analytics and data-driven decision-making that has leveled the playing field with big-market ballclubs.
“Dayton always talks about what a championship team looks like. That’s a great conversation,” Sherman said, “but I’d like to know what a wild-card team looks like first. Because Kansas City fans know, if you can get a wild-card slot and get into the dance, anything can happen.”
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More AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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| 2022-09-22T12:41:10Z
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SAN DIEGO (AP) — San Diego Padres manager Bob Melvin was getting nervous about Blake Snell’s pitch count in the seventh inning when Albert Pujols helped the skipper avoid what could have been an unpopular decision.
Snell held St. Louis hitless until Pujols beat the shift for a single with two outs in the seventh and the San Diego Padres beat the NL Central-leading Cardinals 1-0 on Wednesday night.
Snell (8-9) allowed two hits in seven innings on 117 pitches and struck out 13 to tie his career high. The left-hander’s brilliant effort carried the Padres to their fifth straight win and extended the rotation’s scoreless streak to 27 2/3 innings.
“I don’t want to say I’m glad somebody got a hit but I’m not going to let him throw 135 pitches this time of year and that’s probably what it would have taken to get through it,” Melvin said.
“You want a guy to be able to try to get a no-hitter but pitch-count wise he just wasn’t going to be able to make it at that point,” Melvin said. “There was a second hit and now you’ve got first and second and all of a sudden a base hit can tie the game. Look, everybody was pulling for Blake to do great things. I just don’t know that he would have had the pitches to actually do it.”
Snell said he was more excited about hitting 99 mph and wanted to talk to reliever Adrian Morejon, a hard-throwing lefty.
“In the sixth inning I was like, ‘Oh wow I’ve got a no-no going’ but I was so hyped up about 99,” Snell said. “The ball just felt really good tonight. It was just coming out.
“Morejon always talks about how he has all this velo and I finally hit 99 in front of him so I’m pumped,” the lefty said. “I was really pumped about the 99. Really pumped. Whatever happened, that was the highlight.”
Snell, the 2018 AL Cy Young Award winner while with Tampa Bay, said this performance “was up there” among his best games. “It was good one. But we’ll continue to try to top it.”
The Padres have shut out the Cardinals in the first two games of the three-game series, keeping Pujols at 698 career homers.
San Diego stayed 1 1/2 games ahead of Philadelphia for the NL’s second wild-card spot.
The left-handed Snell had shut down Pujols and the Cardinals into the seventh, retiring the slugger twice and issuing just two walks. But with the Padres shifting the right-handed Pujols, the 42-year-old slugger drove a ball through the wide-open right side of the infield for an easy hit on a 3-1 pitch, Snell’s 107th of the game.
“He’s a good hitter,” Snell said.
“I thought if I got a quick inning there I might have gotten into the eighth,” he added. “Who knows. It’s just tough; 13 strikeouts, like it’s going to be really tough going nine without throwing like 140, 150 (pitches).”
Juan Yepez followed with a single before Snell struck out Paul DeJong for No. 13.
Josh Hader pitched a perfect ninth for his 34th save.
The Padres took a 1-0 lead when Austin Nola singled in Kim Ha-seong with two outs in the second against Miles Mikolas. Josh Bell was thrown out earlier in the inning trying to score on a grounder to shortstop.
Mikolas (11-13) allowed an unearned run on three hits in six innings, struck out six and walked two.
SOTO’S WALKS
San Diego’s Juan Soto walked leading off the eighth, becoming the first player since 1906 to walk 500 times before turning 24.
UP NEXT
Cardinals RHP Jack Flaherty (0-1, 5.09 ERA) and Padres RHP Joe Musgrove (10-7, 3.16) are scheduled to start in the series finale Thursday afternoon.
___
More AP MLB: https://apnews.com/MLB and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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| 2022-09-22T12:41:17Z
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University of Edinburgh start-ups see amount raised almost triple to £30m-plus in last year
Student start-ups from the University of Edinburgh have secured more than £30 million in combined investment over the last year, nearly triple the previous 12-month period’s amount.
It comes as the University’s commercialisation service Edinburgh Innovations reveals that another 100-plus student start-ups formed over the same timeframe – 105 in the year to July 31, compared to 102 in 2020/2021, and 72 in 2019/2020 – a milestone that has just been marked by the planting of the first of 100 trees on campus.
The £30.5m bankrolling of student-led businesses is up from the £11m secured the previous year, as the portfolio of University-supported companies matures, and company founders and University enterprise leaders have teamed up to plant the first of the 100 trees.
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Dr George Baxter, chief executive of Edinburgh Innovations (EI), said: “Our impressive cohort this year is notably using data and artificial intelligence to transform areas of society from health care to energy provision. Their ideas have the potential to change the world, and our job at Edinburgh Innovations is to equip them with business knowledge and skills to ensure that impact. We are proud to support them on their journey.”
Synthetic biologist Maggie Hicks founded SynSense after fellow research student Florentina Winkleman suggested she commercialise her PhD. The pair say they have attracted the attention of the US Navy with their skin patch that uses sweat to detect potentially problematic body states, enabling diagnosis.
Ms Hicks said: “We’ve gained so much knowledge and confidence this past year through [EI], from being directed to award schemes to support with the legal side of our intellectual property to coaching and training through the Startup Accelerator. Our aim is to keep the patch as low cost and accessible as possible, for it to be used as a universal, non-invasive medical device.”
Another member of this year’s cohort present for the tree-planting was graduate Xiaoyan Ma, founder of robotic waste-sorter Danu Robotics, which is set to use automation to increase the percentage globally of waste that is recycled.
The University of Edinburgh says it is top in Scotland and second in the Russell Group of universities for student entrepreneurship according to Higher Education Statistics Agency data covering 2020/21.
In April, cancer treatment innovator Carcinotech, founded by graduate Ishani Malhotra, announced that it had secured investment of £1.6m to accelerate its commercialisation and global expansion plans.
Successes
The University also flagged previous successes include audio tech company Two Big Ears, acquired by Facebook in 2016, and Krotos, creator of the Dehumaniser sound effects software used by Hollywood movies and blockbuster video games.
EI says its support for students includes events, competitions and workshops, one-to-one business advice, awards and programmes, and funding opportunities, including via the University's in-house venture capital fund Old College Capital.
The University’s student enterprise manager Lorna Baird said: “With emphasis on inclusivity and sustainability, our aim is to inspire and equip every University of Edinburgh student with the enterprise and entrepreneurship knowledge and skills to meet the world’s biggest challenges.”
It was revealed in April that EI had supported a partnership between Scottish investment giant Abrdn and the University of Edinburgh to create a facility dedicated to fostering innovation in the investment sector. Other firms EI has helped include energy innovator Ionate and woodland regeneration innovator Rhizocore Technologies.
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| 2022-09-22T12:41:24Z
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