{"question_id": "20230317_0", "search_time": "2023/05/25/17:55", "search_result": [{"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2023/03/09/brendan-fraser-and-other-indiana-natives-vie-for-oscars/69984887007/", "title": "Brendan Fraser and other Indiana natives vie for Oscars", "text": "When I was interviewing for this position, a big part of the job description was something to the effect of \"writing about the Hoosiers making waves in American popular culture.\"\n\nThe natural question, especially for someone who at that point had never stepped foot in Indiana, was who qualifies as a Hoosier?\n\nThere's an ocean of gray area here, but it seems most Hoosiers would agree anyone born in Indiana or living here currently is a Hoosier. But I've found it also includes anyone who spent some formative years here. Mark Cuban went to IU, and I've heard Indiana fans claim him as a Hoosier. Abraham Lincoln spent his boyhood in the state, and you better believe he was a Hoosier.\n\nBasically, if you've lived in the state and we want to claim you, we will. And with those broad parameters in mind, Hoosiers are very much at the forefront of some of last year's biggest film performances.\n\nHere is a breakdown of the Hoosiers poised to make a big noise at Sunday's Academy Awards ceremony, airing at 8 p.m. on ABC. It is by no means exhaustive, as Hoosiers have a hand in everything, but it covers some of the larger names competing for top awards.\n\nRelated:Hollywood actor Dylan Sprouse stars in new movie 'The Duel,' filmed in Indianapolis\n\nBrendan Fraser\n\nPerhaps the biggest modern corollary to the \"Hoosier by birth\" rule is Brendan Fraser, who was born in Indianapolis but moved away as an infant.\n\nStill, at least since \"The Mummy,\" we have claimed him as our own.\n\nAs I wrote following the packed screening of \"The Whale\" that closed Heartland International Film Festival in October, Fraser is beyond deserving of the Oscar for best actor. The audience could feel his pained movements and struggle to reclaim what's important to him. His performance carried the film.\n\nFraser was the early frontrunner, and he has already captured a Screen Actors Guild award for his performance. But Variety, which tracks award season buzz year-round, is predicting a win for Austin Butler, whose turn as Elvis Presley won the Golden Globe in January.\n\nButler is deserving, as is Colin Ferrell, though I did not love \"The Banshees of Inisherin\" as much as seemingly everybody else did.\n\nA lot of this year's top films — \"Elvis,\" \"Tar,\" \"Banshees,\" even \"The Whale\" at times — felt a bit more like vehicles for strong acting performances rather than great overall films with strong plots and character development driven by the acting. \"The Revenant\" is my go-to example of this phenomenon. That movie existed to finally get Leonardo DiCaprio a best acting Oscar and to look really pretty while doing it.\n\nWhether he wins or not, Fraser's comeback is cemented. And Hoosiers love a good comeback story.\n\nSon Lux\n\nI first met Ryan Lott at Monon Coffee Company last April. It was a beautiful Indiana spring afternoon — the rain was pouring so hard I nearly drowned getting over there.\n\nDuring the pandemic, Lott, an IU grad and local music fixture for several decades who typically splits his time between here and Los Angeles, moved his family moved to Indianapolis. The Son Lux founder created the 49-song soundtrack for \"Everything Everywhere All at Once,\" now the clear favorite to win Best Picture and a handful of other Oscars this weekend, in the bedroom of a rented home in Broad Ripple.\n\nLott's work encompassed a score, original songs featuring musical heavy hitters David Byrne, Randy Newman, André 3000 and Mitski and the soundscapes necessary for holding the interdimensional comedy/drama/martial arts film together.\n\nLott and his collaborators produced one hour and 50 minutes of original music for a two hour and 15-minute movie.\n\nMore coverage:The musical journey of 'Everything Everywhere All at Once' began in a Broad Ripple bedroom\n\nAnd for that work, Son Lux earned Oscar nominations for Best Original Score and Best Original Song. The band will also perform \"This Is A Life,\" a song from the soundtrack, at the ceremony alongside Byrne and \"Everything\" co-star Stephanie Hsu.\n\nVariety does not like Son Lux's chances in either category. The band may have to settle for only playing an integral part in by far the year's best movie. But I'm in Indiana manifesting the win for Lott and company.\n\nLott told me something about a film composer's work that has stuck with me as I've watched however many dozens of films since:\n\n\"You don't want (the score) to stand out, yet it has to have a massive opinion … it has to have the same sized heart and personality of the movie.\"\n\n'Stranger at the Gate'\n\nMuncie is at the forefront of a film nominated for Best Documentary Short Film.\n\n\"Stranger at the Gate\" tells the stories of Richard \"Mac\" McKinney, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who planned to bomb a mosque, and the Muslim family that embraced their would-be attacker as a friend and brother.\n\nUpon getting to know the congregants of the Islamic Center of Muncie, McKinney not only abandoned his plan but underwent a total transformation in his soul.\n\nMore:A Muncie man planned to bomb a mosque. A film on his redemption is up for an Oscar.\n\n\"This film shows the power of talking to each other, of staying open to each other and of building bridges and searching for that shared humanity,\" director Joshua Seftel told me in a recent interview. \"There's a power in that, and in this case, it saved lives.\"\n\nIt's a gripping and necessary film about hate and prejudice in Indiana and beyond. It's short and easily digested. It's also available for free on YouTube.\n\nI'm not familiar with the other nominees in this category, but \"Stranger at the Gate\" is deserving on message alone. Plus, I'm a homer. Win this one for personal growth in Indiana.\n\nLooking for things to do? Our newsletter has the best concerts, art, shows and more — and the stories behind them\n\nRory Appleton is the pop culture reporter and columnist at IndyStar. Contact him at 317-552-9044 and rappleton@indystar.com, or follow him on Twitter at @RoryDoesPhonics.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2023/03/09"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2023/03/12/oscars-2023-live-updates-winners/11430002002/", "title": "Oscars 2023: 'Everything Everywhere All at Once' wins best picture", "text": "Everything was all right Sunday at the 95th Academy Awards, where no one got slapped and \"Everything Everywhere All at Once\" ruled the night.\n\nThe acclaimed sci-fi comedy came in as a frontrunner at the Oscars and cleaned up like a powerhouse, winning seven honors including best picture, best actress (Michelle Yeoh), supporting actress (Jamie Lee Curtis), supporting actor (Ke Huy Quan), directing and original screenplay. And the good vibes continued in the best actor category, where Brendan Fraser completed a great awards-season comeback story and won for \"The Whale.\"\n\nHere are all the winners and highlights from the main Oscar ceremony, hosted by Jimmy Kimmel:\n\nOscars winners:See who took home gold at Academy Awards\n\nWho made Oscars history in 2023? See the many 'firsts' from Michelle Yeoh, 'Naatu Naatu,' more\n\n'Everything Everywhere All at Once' wins the Oscars' top prize, best picture\n\n\"We've said enough tonight. You inspire me,\" says director Daniel Kwan, accepting best picture for \"Everything Everywhere All at Once.\"\n\nMichelle Yeoh takes best actress for 'Everything Everywhere'\n\nThe longtime action-movie icon finally gets her Oscar and becomes the first Asian woman to win the category. \"For all the little boys and girls who look like me watching tonight, let this be a beacon of hope and possibilities. This is proof dreams come true. And ladies, don't let anyone ever tell you you are past your prime,\" Michelle Yeoh says, winning best actress for \"Everything Everywhere All at Once.\" She dedicates the win to her 84-year-old mom and promised to bring Oscar \"home to you and my extended family in Hong Kong where I started in my career. Thank you to the Academy, this is history in the making.\"\n\n'A beacon of hope and possibilities':Michelle Yeoh wins best actress, making Oscars history\n\n'The Whale' comeback kid Brendan Fraser wins best actor\n\nBrendan Fraser shakes fellow nominee Colin Farrell's hand before accepting the best actor honor for \"The Whale.\" \"So this is what the multiverse looks like!\" Fraser says, out of breath with excitement. \"I just want to say thank you for this acknowledgement. It's like I've been on a diving expedition,\" he adds, shouting out his kids and director Darren Aronofsky for \"throwing me a creative lifeline.\"\n\nBrendan Fraser:'The Whale' star wins best actor Academy Award and proves nice guys can finish first\n\n'Everything Everywhere' snags Oscars for film editing, directing\n\n\"This is too much. This is my second film, y'all. This is crazy,\" Paul Rogers says, accepting the Oscar for best film editing for \"Everything Everywhere All at Once.\" Then the best picture frontrunner runs its tally to five awards when Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert take best directing. \"Our fellow nominees, you guys are our heroes, This is weird,\" Scheinert says. He thanks all the \"mommies\" in the house and his parents \"for not squashing my creativity when I was making really disturbing horror films or really perverted comedy films, or dressing in drag as a kid, which is a threat to nobody\" – a shot seemingly at anti-drag legislation popping up around the country.:\n\nAdds Kwan: \"There is greatness in every single person. You have a genius in you that is waiting to be unlocked.\"\n\n'Top Gun' takes best sound, 'RRR' gets original song Oscar for 'Naatu Naatu'\n\nSomewhere, Tom Cruise is smiling. \"Top Gun: Maverick\" finally wins an Oscar, for best sound. And the Academy Award for best original song goes to \"RRR\" dance number \"Naatu Naatu.\" \"I grew up listening to The Carpenters and here I am with the Oscars,\" says composer M.M. Keeravani, doing his own spin on The Carpenters' \"Top of the World.\" John Travolta comes out and chokes up when introducing Lenny Kravitz, who sings \"Calling All Angels\" during the \"In Memoriam\" segment (which includes Travolta's \"Grease\" co-star Olivia Newton-John).\n\nBrutally honest rankings:All the Oscars song performances, from ‘Naatu Naatu’ to Lady Gaga\n\n'Everything Everywhere,' 'Women Talking' win screenplay Oscars\n\n\"Everything Everywhere\" filmmaker Daniel Scheinert thanks his teachers for helping him be \"less of a butthead\" when accepting the original screenplay Oscar alongside partner Daniel Kwan, who admits \"my imposter syndrome is at an all-time high.\" And when accepting the adapted screenplay honor, \"Women Talking\" director Sarah Polley slyly shouts out the Academy for \"not being offended by the words 'Women' and 'Talking' so close together.\"\n\n'Black Panther: Wakanda Forever' presents Chadwick Boseman tribute, Rihanna number\n\n\"Wakanda Forever\" star Danai Gurira arrives on stage to pay tribute to late \"Black Panther\" actor Chadwick Boseman, saying in Wakandan: \"Thank you, king.\" Gurira then introduces Rihanna, who sings her nominated tune \"Lift Me Up\" and receives a standing ovation.\n\n'Lift Me Up':Rihanna soars at 2023 Oscars with powerful first performance of song\n\n'Avatar: The Way of Water' gets the gold for visual effects\n\nElizabeth Banks and the Cocaine Bear come out to present the award for visual effects. The Oscar goes to \"Avatar: The Way of Water,\" which makes sense because the Na'vi main characters are all digital. Afterward, Jimmy Kimmel is ready with an A-plus dad joke: \"The afterparty is at CGI Friday's.\"\n\n'All Quiet on the Western Front' wins two more technical honors\n\nThe Netflix war movie is starting to gain some momentum, as \"All Quiet on the Western Front\" runs over the likes of \"Babylon,\" \"The Fabelmans\" and other Oscar favorites for best production design and score.\n\nLady Gaga sings a raw, rousing version of 'Top Gun' song 'Hold My Hand'\n\n\"It's deeply personal for me and we all need a lot of love to walk through this life. And we all need a hero sometimes. You might find that you can be your own hero, even if you feel broken inside,\" Lady Gaga says before performing her nominated song \"Hold My Hand\" (from \"Top Gun: Maverick\") with stripped-down piano, guitar, bass and drums.\n\nOscars best-dressed:Jaw-dropping looks from Lady Gaga, Michelle Yeoh, Angela Bassett\n\n'Elephant Whisperers' and 'The Boy, the Mole' conquer shorts categories\n\n\"The Elephant Whisperers,\" about an Indian couple that cares for an orphaned baby elephant, wins for best documentary short. And animated short goes to \"The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse,\" based on Charlie Mackesy's book.\n\n'All Quiet on the Western Front' wins best international film\n\nThis isn't a surprise: After ruling the BAFTAs (and with Indian action epic \"RRR\" not in its category), \"All Quiet on the Western Front\" takes the international film Oscar, its second honor of the night. \"This means so much to us,\" says director Edward Berger. He also thanks star Felix Kammerer: \"Without you, none of us would be here.\"\n\n'Wakanda Forever' nabs costume design honor\n\n\"Nice to see you again,\" Ruth Carter says, winning costume design for \"Black Panther: Wakanda Forever\" – the same honor she took home for 2018's original \"Panther.\" The first Black woman to win two Oscars, Carter dedicates the award to her mom, who recently died at age 101, and thanks director Ryan Coogler and producer Nate Moore: \"We are reshaping how culture is represented.\" if that wasn't exciting enough, the original song performance of \"RRR\" tune \"Naatu Naatu\" delivers a ton of rousing dance moves that get the Oscar crowd going.\n\nBrendan Fraser's 'The Whale' wins for best makeup and hairstyling\n\nDigital and physical prosthetics were used to transform Brendan Fraser into the 600-pound main character of \"The Whale,\" and it pays off with an Oscar for makeup. Fraser is one of the first to get on his feet and excitedly cheer the win.\n\nBest cinematography Oscar goes to 'All Quiet on the Western Front'\n\nNetflix's acclaimed German war drama earns its first technical honor of the night. \"My fellow nominees, your work is just outstanding and inspiring,\" says James Friend, who wins best cinematography for \"All Quiet on the Western Front.\" Donnie Yen arrives on stage afterward to introduce the next original song nominee: \"Everything Everywhere\" star Stephanie Hsu, Son Lux and David Byrne doing a weird, ethereal performance of \"This Is a Life.\"\n\n'Navalny' is named best documentary\n\nDirector Daniel Roher's film about Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny wins the Oscar for best documentary. \"We must not be afraid to oppose dictators,\" says Roher, while Navalny's wife Yulia addresses her husband, currently being held in solitary confinement in Russia: \"I'm dreaming of the day you will be free and our country will be free.\" And the award for live-action short goes to \"The Irish Goodbye.\"\n\nJamie Lee Curtis wins her first Oscar, for supporting actress in 'Everything Everywhere'\n\n\"Woo-hoo,\" Jamie Lee Curtis exclaims, hugging Ariana DeBose and taking her supporting actress trophy for \"Everything Everywhere.\" \"I know it looks like I'm standing up here by myself but I am hundreds of people,\" Curtis says, shouting out her directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, \"my bae\" Michelle Yeoh, all her horror folks and her late Hollywood parents, Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh. \"We all just won an Oscar together.\" She leaves the stage and then Sofia Carson and Diane Warren arrive with a choir to perform their original song nominee, \"Applause\" from \"Tell It Like a Woman.\"\n\nJamie Lee Curtis:First-time winner thanks castmates, late parents in touching Oscars speech\n\nKe Huy Quan takes best supporting actor for 'Everything Everywhere'\n\nAfter hugging co-star Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan goes to the stage to take his supporting actor trophy for \"Everything Everywhere\" and immediately starts crying. \"My mom is 84 years old and she's at home watching. Mom, I just won an Oscar!\" he says through tears. He tells how his journey started on a boat, involved spending a year in a refugee camp and \"somehow ended up on the Oscar stage. This is the American dream.\" He concludes by saying that \"dreams are something you have to believe in. I almost gave up on mine. Everyone out there, keep your dreams alive.\"\n\n'This is the American dream':Read Ke Huy Quan's emotional Oscars acceptance speech\n\nGuillermo del Toro's 'Pinocchio' wins best animated feature\n\nEmily Blunt and Dwayne Johnson arrive on stage to give out the first award of the night: best animated feature. And the winner is ... director Guillermo del Toro's Netflix stop-motion feature \"Pinocchio\"! \"Animation is cinema, animation is not a genre. Animation is ready to be taken to the next step. Please help us keep animation in the conversation,\" del Toro says, tearing up when thanking his parents. According to Netflix, del Toro becomes the first person to win best picture, best director and best animated feature Oscars.\n\n2023 Oscars:Why Cate Blanchett, Guillermo del Toro and more celebs wore blue ribbons\n\nJimmy Kimmel gets the 'Top Gun' treatment to begin the show\n\nJimmy Kimmel starts the show by being \"ejected\" out of a fighter jet by Tom Cruise and parachutes onto the Dolby Theatre stage. \"Give me a second to adjust my Danger Zone here. My Banshees are caught in my Inisherin,\" he jokes. Kimmel shouts out audiences returning to the theater to see movies and is also glad to see Nicole Kidman out of that \"abandoned AMC, where she has been held captive for two whole years now.\"\n\nThe host points out first-time nominees Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan, as well as Brendan Fraser: \"Two guys from 'Encino Man' are nominated for Oscar.\" Kimmel calls Steven Spielberg and Seth Rogen \"the Joe and Hunter Biden of Hollywood\" and can't believe Spielberg was sober doing \"E.T.\" \"You were high as a bike when you made that movie,\" Kimmel cracks. He also gives props to John Williams being a nominee at 91 – \"He's still scoring – if you know what I mean\" – and mentions the absence of Cruise and James Cameron: \"Two guys who insisted we go to the theater didn't come to the theater.\"\n\nJimmy Kimmel:Angry actors would have to 'battle' Michelle Yeoh to slap him at Oscars\n\nFor Angela Bassett, the Oscars are all about 'the spirit of never giving up'\n\nSupporting actress contender Angela Bassett, the first actor from a Marvel superhero movie to garner a nod, told USA TODAY that her husband Courtney B. Vance has been an essential support system this Oscar season, accompanying her to awards shows and filming her acceptance speeches on his smartphone. \"He was supportive before the whirlwind,\" says the \"Black Panther: Wakanda Forever\" star. \"He always trusted and believed that a nomination like this might one day happen for me.\"\n\nIn addition to being the subject of Ariana DeBose's viral rap, Bassett has loved going through the awards process with her fellow thespians: \"When I think of my girl Michelle Yeoh and it being her first nomination, it really is about the spirit of never giving up.\"\n\nA Brendan Fraser win would complete an epic Oscar comeback story\n\nThe best actor race seems to be down to Austin Butler, Colin Farrell and Brendan Fraser, though a win by the latter would finish one of this year's most noteworthy comebacks. After becoming a major Hollywood star in the 1990s, Fraser has been honest about his career hardships, including being sexually assaulted, and won accolades for his role in \"The Whale.\"\n\nIn an emotional Screen Actor Guild speech, Fraser shouted out to other actors who've weathered struggles: \"I know how you feel. But believe me, if you just stay in there and you put one foot in front of the other, you'll get to where you need to go.\"\n\nThe new Oscar best picture winner will join Hollywood's most hallowed hall\n\n\"Everything Everywhere All at Once\" is in the pole position to win best picture over \"The Banshees of Inisherin,\" \"Top Gun: Maverick,\" \"All Quiet on the Western Front,\" \"The Fabelmans\" and \"Elvis,\" among others.\n\nThe victor will join a long list filled with some of the greatest movies ever (and a few that don't quite fit that bill). We watched all 94 so far and ranked them, from the first winner – the 1927 silent war drama \"Wings,\" which holds up well! – to the feel-good 2022 Oscar champ \"CODA.\"\n\nGet a video tour of the ultra-exclusive green room at the Oscars\n\nUSA TODAY's Ralphie Aversa has been in LA all week for events leading up to the Academy Awards, and one of them was getting a look at the ultra-exclusive, swanky green room backstage at the Oscars. He was able to do a fun video tour for our readers but come Sunday night at the Dolby Theatre, no cameras will be allowed in – only performers, presenters and winners will be able to enjoy the comfy furniture, floral arrangements and food by celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck.\n\nMichelle Yeoh, Colin Farrell could be first-time Academy Award winners\n\nSixteen of the 20 acting contenders at Sunday's Oscars are first-time , including \"Everything Everywhere\" favorites Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan and Jamie Lee Curtis, as well as best actor candidates Brendan Fraser, Colin Farrell and Austin Butler. The four returnees: Two-time winner Cate Blanchett (\"Tár\"), Angela Bassett (\"Black Panther: Wakanda Forever\"), Michelle Williams (\"The Fabelmans\") and Judd Hirsch (\"The Fabelmans\"), who last received an Oscar nod for 1980's \"Ordinary People.\"\n\nBut the list of thespians who've never won an Academy Award is a pretty star-studded affair overall, including Scarlett Johansson, Antonio Banderas, Glenn Close, Willem Dafoe, Amy Adams, Tom Cruise and Robert Downey Jr.\n\nSupporting actor is Ke Huy Quan's to lose\n\n\"Everything Everywhere\" star Ke Huy Quan has dominated the competition and rolled through awards season. But his quest for a supporting actor victory has also been a Cinderella story for the actor, who was a child star in the 1980s with roles in \"The Goonies\" and \"Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom\" and then stepped away from Hollywood because of a lack of meaty roles for Asian actors.\n\n\"I'm grateful the landscape has changed, there’s a lot more progress now,\" Quan said backstage after winning at the Golden Globes. He's also made sure to have a bunch of fun heading to Oscar night, posting tons of selfies with peers on his Instagram account.\n\nBest supporting actress is a toss-up\n\nAs far as Oscar predictions go, most of the acting categories are fairly straightforward with a favorite moving out in front. Not so much with supporting actress, which can go a few different ways. \"Black Panther: Wakanda Forever\" star Angela Bassett – the first actor to be nominated for a Marvel movie – had the early momentum with wins out of the Golden Globes and Critics Choice, but Jamie Lee Curtis of \"Everything Everywhere\" took an important Screen Actors Guild honor while \"The Banshees of Inisherin\" actress Kerry Condon picked up the supporting trophy at the British Academy Film Awards.\n\nGiven SAG and the \"Everything\" goodwill, Curtis probably has the best chance over Bassett, though it's possible the two beloved Hollywood types cancel each other out and Condon sneaks by for a victory.\n\nGood news: Lady Gaga will be performing 'Hold My Hand' after all!\n\nA bevy of original song contenders are slated for prime-time performances. Rihanna will sing \"Lift Me Up\" from \"Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,\" Sofia Carson and songwriter Diane Warren are slated to perform \"Applause\" from \"Tell It Like A Woman,\" Talking Heads frontman David Byrne teams with \"Everything Everywhere All at Once\" supporting actress nominee Stephanie Hsu and music trio Son Lux for “This Is A Life,\" and Indian singers Rahul Sipligunj and Kaala Bhairava will perform the \"RRR\" song-and-dance number – and the frontrunner in the category – \"Naatu Naatu.\"\n\nAnd while Oscar producers previously said she wouldn't perform, Lady Gaga is now slated to sing “Hold My Hand” from \"Top Gun: Maverick,\" a person familiar with the production but not authorized to speak publicly told USA TODAY. (Fun fact: Gaga is shooting \"Joker: Folie à Deux\" with Joaquin Phoenix, who won best actor for the first \"Joker\" movie.)\n\nGlenn Close tests positive for COVID-19, won't be among Oscar presenters\n\nGlenn Close was expected to be among the dozens of A-list stars on tap to hand out trophies and appear on the telecast Sunday but has tested positive for COVID-19. A representative for the actress told The Associated Press she is isolating and resting.\n\nAriana DeBose, Troy Kotsur, Halle Berry, Nicole Kidman and Jessica Chastain are among the previous Oscar winners scheduled to be presenters. Also on the list is a raft of other high-profile names like Samuel L. Jackson, Dwayne Johnson, Melissa McCarthy, Janelle Monáe, Zoe Saldaña and Harrison Ford.\n\nJust don't expect an appearance from Will Smith. Smith, who won best actor last year for \"King Richard\" and would traditionally present the award for best actress this year, was banned from Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences events for 10 years after he slapped Oscar presenter Chris Rock for making a joke about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith.\n\nRed carpet coverage is coming for the fashionistas\n\nAll the big stars will be hitting the \"champagne carpet\" and wearing their Sunday best. E!'s \"Live From the Red Carpet\" kicks off at 5 p.m. EDT/2 p.m. PDT while ABC starts its pre-show coverage at 6:30 EDT/3:30 PDT. (And check out entertainment.usatoday.com for fashion galleries and analysis.)\n\nRead more about the Academy Awards:\n\nContributing: Bryan Alexander, Patrick", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2023/03/12"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/07/entertainment/gallery/oscar-best-picture-winners/index.html", "title": "Here's every film that won the Oscar for best picture | CNN", "text": "\"It Happened One Night\" (1935): \"It Happened One Night\" was one of the great underdog winners. Its studio, Columbia, wasn't considered one of the majors at the time, and neither Clark Gable nor Claudette Colbert, its stars, were excited about the project. But it became the first film to sweep the five major categories of picture, actor, actress, director and screenplay. To this day, only two other films -- \"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest\" (1975) and \"The Silence of the Lambs\" (1991) -- have pulled off the same trick. Columbia Pictures Corporation", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/02/07"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2023/03/13/everything-everywhere-historic-oscars-sweep-asian-representation/11452430002/", "title": "'Everything Everywhere' historic Oscars sweep: I finally feel seen", "text": "After nearly a year of rave reviews, I waited until Saturday to watch \"Everything Everywhere All at Once,\" the movie that swept the 2023 Academy Awards with seven wins Sunday, including best picture and three of the four acting awards. Not because I doubted the hype, but because I knew it would hit home for me.\n\nAnd I wasn't quite ready for that.\n\n\"Everything Everywhere\" tells the story of a Chinese immigrant, Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh), struggling to connect with her lesbian daughter, Joy (Stephanie Hsu), and her kind yet estranged husband, Waymond (Ke Huy Quan). That is, until she is thrust into an alternate universe and forced to defeat an evil force inhabiting her daughter – a metaphor for Joy's deep-rooted unhappiness stemming from years of unaddressed intergenerational trauma.\n\nAfter finally mustering the mental energy to watch, I can say it's no wonder \"Everything Everywhere\" is being heralded as the movie of the year. Very few movies have made me laugh, cry, smile and call my mom all in the span of 2 hours and 19 minutes. It's a cosmically chaotic plot infused with fun martial arts action, bittersweet family drama and comic relief.\n\nThat's why \"Everything Everywhere,\" against all odds, won big. But more importantly, it's a hopeful reminder that Asian representation doesn't have to include cliche stereotypes or tokenism disguised as diversity to be worthy of the Oscars.\n\nA big night for Asian Americans\n\nAfter decades of limited, biased and stereotypical representations of my community, Asian Americans witnessed a milestone in Hollywood history.\n\nOn the red carpet, Harry Shum Jr., one of the film's stars, paid homage to his Asian heritage with an innovative, bespoke \"East meets West\" tuxedo. Hong Chau, nominated for her performance in \"The Whale,\" added a Mandarin collar to her custom Prada gown as \"a shoutout to (her) roots.\"\n\nOscars best-dressed:Jaw-dropping looks from Lady Gaga, Michelle Yeoh, Angela Bassett\n\nThe night continued to radiate inspiring Asian American pride and positivity, for South Asian Americans – who witnessed many \"firsts\" with \"RRR\" (best song) and \"The Elephant Whisperers\" (best documentary short) – and for East Asian Americans, who witnessed a long-awaited and well-deserved win from Quan, 51, only the second Asian actor to win best supporting actor since Haing S. Ngor for \"The Killing Fields\" in 1984.\n\nBeloved industry veteran Yeoh, 60, also took home one of the night's biggest prizes, the second woman of color in the 95-year history of the awards to win best actress (following Halle Berry for 2001's \"Monster's Ball\").\n\nWhat 'Everything Everywhere All At Once' means for me\n\nWords cannot explain how proud I am to see \"Everything Everywhere\" – an unapologetically Asian American story with an Asian American cast – recognized by perhaps the most prestigious institution in the entertainment industry, now headed by an Asian president, Janet Yang.\n\nThe crux of the film is a familiar and nostalgic narrative: I see bits of myself in Joy, an angsty 20-something grappling with the innate, intergenerational trauma that comes with being a second-generation American. It's trauma, with a lowercase \"t,\" in the subtle form of sensing disappointment from your grandparents when you can't fluently speak their native language; of wanting to assimilate as an Asian American without abandoning your roots; of feeling guilt over the sacrifices your parents made, only to fear you won't live up to their expectations.\n\nBut I also relate to matriarch Evelyn. I too struggled to communicate and express my feelings. Instead, my default response to frustrating and unfamiliar conflicts was defensiveness and anger rather than empathy and kindness.\n\nThe movie admittedly is a hard watch, but in the best ways possible. I enjoyed that it courageously explored taboo topics, such as positive masculinity (Waymond's) and queer relationships in Asian cultures. At the same time, \"Everything Everywhere\" pushed boundaries and perfectly captured the complexities of vulnerable, intergenerational healing in many immigrant families.\n\nDespite the dazzle of special effects and the fantastical impossibilities of a multiverse, \"Everything Everywhere\" represented my reality: an authentic story of a second-generation Asian American girl who is still learning to accept being \"stubborn, aimless, and a mess.\"\n\nMissed the Oscars? Read our coverage", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2023/03/13"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2013/01/10/oscar-falls-in-love-with-amour/1823243/", "title": "Oscar falls in love with 'Amour'", "text": "Andrea Mandell, USA TODAY\n\nFive nominations came as a surprise\n\nFilm's unflinching focus on aging resonates with academy members\n\n\"The film is very human,\" says producer Margaret Menegoz\n\nThere are no presidents reincarnated in Amour. No wars. Or storms.\n\nJust love.\n\nThe Paris-set film with French-speaking actors (subtitled for the USA) and directed by an Austrian filmmaker surprised Oscar prognosticators on Thursday by earning nominations in five categories, including best picture, director and actress categories, stealing spots from supposed big-budget shoo-ins.\n\nDirector Michael Haneke, 70, simply focuses on a couple in their 80s, living in a somewhat spare, but well-loved, apartment as aging takes its toll and slowly, cruelly rips one partner away from the other. The carefully paced story offers few fireworks but emphasizes the enduring power of a love that transcends a lifetime.\n\n\"It's a beautiful life. A long life,\" Emmanuelle Riva says with a sigh in the film as Anne, a onetime accomplished pianist reduced to looking through an old photo album after a failed operation to fix an obstructed artery leaves her left side paralyzed. It falls to her husband, Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant), to care for her, until her illness requires that a team of nurses take over.\n\n\"There's nothing reassuring in its dry-eyed examination of decrepitude,\" writes USA TODAY critic Claudia Puig in her review. \"Haneke doesn't sentimentalize serious illness. Taking place almost entirely inside an apartment, the march toward death grows increasingly oppressive. Yet this is a humanistic film, infused with subtle emotion and profound honesty.\"\n\nTom O'Neil, founder of awards website GoldDerby.com, says the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which skews over retirement age and may have identified with the topic at hand, likes to honor international art-house hits. And Amour, he notes, beat out other foreign-language favorites like The Weinstein Co.'s The Intouchables.\n\n\"It's no surprise that Amour got nominated for best picture, but the support it got across the board — for screenplay, director, the rest of it — really is remarkable,\" says O'Neil. \"It shows extreme love for the movie that was not anticipated by the pundits.\"\n\nCurrently playing in Los Angeles and New York, Amour opens in San Diego, Chicago, Phoenix, San Francisco and Washington\n\nThere have been signs that the film was gathering steam. Last year, the film won the Cannes Film Festival's top prize, the Palm d'Or. Recently, it took home best-picture awards from both the Los Angeles Film Critics and the National Society of Film Critics. Riva and Haneke were tapped for BAFTA best-actress and director nominations.\n\nAt 85, Riva is the oldest lead-actress nominee in the academy's history, and the French actress says (in French, via a translator) that she didn't expect to receive the attention. \"I feel like I'm in sort of a fairy tale.\"\n\nBut she believes the film struck a chord with Oscar voters because of its universality, crediting Haneke's \"impeccable\" direction.\n\n\"It resonates with a lot of Americans because the situation that we have lived in this film has so much to do with the essence of being a human being,'' she says. \"You come into life, and there's childhood. You love. (And then) the possibility of illness, operations and death is a subject which is the very essence of life. One cannot be indifferent to such a subject.\"\n\n\"We did not expect the nominations, but are very happy to have them, especially for Michael and Emmanuelle,\" adds Amour producer Margaret Ménégoz,who says she wasn't exactly sure how the film swept into so many categories. \"I can only think perhaps it's because the film is very human.''\n\n\"There's a lot of respect for Haneke,\" says O'Neil of the filmmaker/screenwriter, who has helmed 11 films since 1989, including the much-lauded The Piano Teacher and The White Ribbon. \"He's overdue for an Oscar nomination.\"", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2013/01/10"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/12/entertainment/emmy-awards-2022-nominations/index.html", "title": "'Succession' and 'Ted Lasso' dominate major categories in Emmy ...", "text": "CNN —\n\nIt was a good morning for the cast and creative teams of “Succession” and “Ted Lasso.”\n\nThe shows on Tuesday earned several nominations in the major categories for the 74th Emmy Awards, which will be held September 12.\n\n“Succession” earned the most nominations of any show, earning a total of 25 nods, including one for outstanding drama, as well as outstanding lead actor nominations for Brian Cox and Jeremy Strong.\n\n“Ted Lasso” led the comedy category, earning 20 nominations, including one for outstanding comedy series. Star Jason Sudeikis earned an outstanding lead actor nomination, while Juno Temple, Brett Goldstein and Hannah Waddingham were among those who earned individual nominations in their respective supporting acting categories. Sarah Niles, Toheeb Jimoh and Nick Mohammed also earned supporting actor nominations.\n\n“White Lotus” was a favorite in the limited series category, earning a total of 20 nominations and an incredible eight nominations in supporting acting categories.\n\n“Hacks” and “Only Murders In the Building” earned 17 nominations each, rounding out the list of top five nominated programs.\n\nSee below for a list of nominees in top categories.\n\nOutstanding drama series\n\n“Better Call Saul”\n\n“Euphoria”\n\n“Ozark”\n\n“Severance”\n\n“Squid Game”\n\n“Stranger Things”\n\n“Succession”\n\n“Yellowjackets”\n\nOutstanding comedy series\n\n“Abbott Elementary”\n\n“Barry”\n\n“Curb Your Enthusiasm”\n\n“Hacks”\n\n“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”\n\n“Only Murders in the Building”\n\n“Ted Lasso”\n\n“What We Do in the Shadows”\n\nOutstanding limited series\n\n“Dopesick”\n\n“The Dropout”\n\n“Inventing Anna”\n\n“Pam & Tommy”\n\n“The White Lotus”\n\nOutstanding lead actor in a drama series\n\nBrian Cox, “Succession”\n\nLee Jung-jae, “Squid Game”\n\nBob Odenkirk, “Better Call Saul”\n\nAdam Scott, “Severance”\n\nJeremy Strong, “Succession”\n\nOutstanding lead actress in a drama series\n\nJodie Comer, “Killing Eve”\n\nLaura Linney, “Ozark”\n\nMelanie Lynskey, “Yellowjackets”\n\nSandra Oh, “Killing Eve”\n\nReese Witherspoon, “The Morning Show”\n\nZendaya, “Euphoria”\n\nOutstanding supporting actor in a drama series\n\nNicholas Braun, “Succession”\n\nBilly Crudup, “The Morning Show”\n\nKieran Culkin, “Succession”\n\nPark Hae-soo, “Squid Game”\n\nMatthew Macfadyen, “Succession”\n\nJohn Turturro, “Severance”\n\nChristopher Walken, “Severance”\n\nOh Yeong-su, “Squid Game”\n\nOutstanding supporting actress in a drama series\n\nPatricia Arquette, “Severance”\n\nJulia Garner, “Ozark”\n\nJung Ho-yeon, “Squid Game”\n\nChristina Ricci, “Yellowjackets”\n\nRhea Seehorn, “Better Call Saul”\n\nJ. Smith-Cameron, “Succession”\n\nSarah Snook, “Succession”\n\nSydney Sweeney, “Euphoria”\n\nOutstanding lead actor in a comedy series\n\nDonald Glover, “Atlanta”\n\nBill Hader, “Barry”\n\nNicholas Hoult, “The Great”\n\nSteve Martin, “Only Murders in the Building”\n\nMartin Short, “Only Murders in the Building”\n\nJason Sudeikis, “Ted Lasso”\n\nOutstanding lead actress in a comedy series\n\nRachel Brosnahan, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”\n\nQuinta Brunson, “Abbott Elementary”\n\nKaley Cuoco, “The Flight Attendant”\n\nElle Fanning, “The Great”\n\nIssa Rae, “Insecure”\n\nJean Smart, “Hacks”\n\nOutstanding supporting actor in a comedy series\n\nAnthony Carrigan, “Barry”\n\nBrett Goldstein, “Ted Lasso”\n\nToheeb Jimoh, “Ted Lasso”\n\nNick Mohammed, “Ted Lasso”\n\nTony Shalhoub, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”\n\nTyler James Williams, “Abbott Elementary”\n\nHenry Winkler, “Barry”\n\nBowen Yang, “Saturday Night Live”\n\nOutstanding supporting actress in a comedy series\n\nAlex Borstein, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”\n\nHannah Einbinder, “Hacks”\n\nJanelle James, “Abbott Elementary”\n\nKate McKinnon, “Saturday Night Live”\n\nSarah Niles, “Ted Lasso”\n\nSheryl Lee Ralph, “Abbott Elementary”\n\nJuno Temple, “Ted Lasso”\n\nHannah Waddingham, “Ted Lasso”\n\nOutstanding lead actor in a limited series or TV movie\n\nColin Firth, “The Staircase”\n\nAndrew Garfield, “Under the Banner of Heaven”\n\nOscar Isaac, “Scenes from a Marriage”\n\nMichael Keaton, “Dopesick”\n\nHimesh Patel, “Station Eleven”\n\nSebastian Stan, “Pam & Tommy”\n\nOutstanding lead actress in a limited series or TV movie\n\nToni Collette, “The Staircase”\n\nJulia Garner, “Inventing Anna”\n\nLily James, “Pam & Tommy”\n\nSarah Paulson, “Impeachment: American Crime Story”\n\nMargaret Qualley, “Maid”\n\nAmanda Seyfried, “The Dropout”\n\nOutstanding supporting actor in a limited series or TV movie\n\nMurray Bartlett, “The White Lotus”\n\nJake Lacy, “The White Lotus”\n\nWill Poulter, “Dopesick”\n\nSeth Rogen, “Pam & Tommy”\n\nPeter Sarsgaard, “Dopesick”\n\nMichael Stuhlbarg, “Dopesick”\n\nSteve Zahn, “The White Lotus”\n\nOutstanding supporting actress in a limited series or TV movie\n\nConnie Britton, “The White Lotus”\n\nJennifer Coolidge, “The White Lotus”\n\nAlexandra Daddario, “The White Lotus”\n\nKaitlyn Dever, “Dopesick”\n\nNatasha Rothwell, “The White Lotus”\n\nSydney Sweeney, “The White Lotus”\n\nMare Winningham, “Dopesick”\n\nOutstanding reality/competition series\n\n“The Amazing Race”\n\n“Top Chef”\n\n“RuPaul’s Drag Race”\n\n“Lizzo’s Watch Out for the Big Grrrls”\n\n“The Voice”\n\n“Nailed It!”\n\nOutstanding variety talk series\n\n“Last Week Tonight With John Oliver”\n\n“The Late Show With Stephen Colbert”\n\n“Late Night With Seth Meyers”\n\n“The Daily Show With Trevor Noah”\n\n“Jimmy Kimmel Live!”", "authors": ["Sandra Gonzalez"], "publish_date": "2022/07/12"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2023/03/09/2023-oscar-predictions-who-will-win/11372700002/", "title": "2023 Oscar predictions: Who will win best picture, actor and actress?", "text": "Last year's Academy Awards were unexpectedly exciting. This year's ceremony might be so predictable you'll have to slap yourself to stay awake.\n\nAfter winning all the top guild prizes, the sci-fi comedy \"Everything Everywhere All at Once\" rolls into Oscar night (ABC, Sunday, 8 p.m. ET/5 PT) like a multiversal monster, with a leading 11 nominations and tons of momentum. It looks to be only the third film in history to win three acting categories, and \"Everything Everywhere\" is a clear frontrunner for best picture.\n\nThe academy likely won't be embracing total chaos but maybe has a surprise or two up its sleeve. Here are our predictions for all the major categories:\n\nBest picture\n\n“All Quiet on the Western Front”\n\n“Avatar: The Way of Water”\n\n“The Banshees of Inisherin”\n\n“Elvis”\n\n“Everything Everywhere All at Once”\n\n“The Fabelmans”\n\n“Tár”\n\n“Top Gun: Maverick”\n\n“Triangle of Sadness”\n\n“Women Talking”\n\nWill win: \"Everything Everywhere\"\n\nShould win: \"The Banshees of Inisherin\"\n\nSo far this awards season, \"Everything\" has been a kung fu master taking down, well, everything in its path, and it's a great bet to win the final battle, too. The word-of-mouth hit won over hearts and minds early, and the film has stuck with audiences like \"Parasite\" did three years ago. The academy's preferential ballot (where voters rank their best picture choices) does lend itself to the possibility of a shock: Perhaps Tom Cruise's blockbuster \"Top Gun\" sequel has enough in the tank for an out-of-nowhere victory? The category is called \"best picture,\" and \"Banshees\" is honestly the top of this list with its darkly funny look at an imploding friendship. But let's be real: Those Irish eyes won't be smiling at the end of an Oscar night seemingly destined for \"Everywhere.\"\n\nBest actress\n\nAna de Armas, “Blonde”\n\nCate Blanchett, “Tár”\n\nAndrea Riseborough, “To Leslie”\n\nMichelle Williams, “The Fabelmans”\n\nMichelle Yeoh, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”\n\nWill win/should win: Yeoh\n\nThis has always been a two-woman contest, between Blanchett's portrayal of a powerfully flawed orchestra conductor and Yeoh's multiverse-saving, laundry-owning wife and mom. After an important Screen Actors Guild Awards victory, the Oscar is there for Yeoh's taking – and hallelujah for that. After a long career – including as a global action-movie icon – Yeoh is finally having her moment for a role that lets her show every facet of her talent, sometimes even with hot dog fingers. It took the mainstream a while to figure out how much she rules and, as good as Blanchett is, it's Yeoh on tap to reign Sunday.\n\nBest actor\n\nAustin Butler, “Elvis”\n\nColin Farrell, “The Banshees of Inisherin”\n\nBrendan Fraser, “The Whale”\n\nPaul Mescal, “Aftersun”\n\nBill Nighy, “Living”\n\nWill win/should win: Fraser\n\nWhen nominations were announced, it was a three-man race between Golden Globe winners Butler and Farrell as well as Fraser, but in recent weeks the latter has been pulling away. Fraser won the SAG award (which has missed matching up with the eventual Oscar winner only twice since 2004) and has a ton of goodwill on his side, yet also took his acting to an unforeseen level in \"The Whale.\" As a 600-pound writing teacher hoping to reconnect with his teen daughter before his death, Fraser gives a heart-wrenching, empathetic portrayal of a man who sees the good in people while wrestling with his own flaws and mistakes, reminding Hollywood he's still one heck of a leading man.\n\nBest supporting actress\n\nAngela Bassett, “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”\n\nHong Chau, “The Whale”\n\nKerry Condon, “The Banshees of Inisherin”\n\nJamie Lee Curtis, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”\n\nStephanie Hsu, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”\n\nWill win: Curtis\n\nShould win: Condon\n\nThe most tumultuous acting category on this year's Oscar slate, with Bassett winning at Golden Globes and Critics Choice, Curtis taking SAG and Condon victorious at the British Academy Film Awards. The SAG winner has taken Academy gold 12 of the last 13 years, which bodes extremely well for Curtis – the fact that she's both Hollywood royalty and a beloved performer with a chance for her first Oscar in an iconic career doesn't hurt either. She deserves her flowers, but Condon is the standout of this group. As an Irish woman caught in her brother and his ex-best pal's civil war, she brings fiery sass, a strong grounding presence and needed warmth to an island village divided by feuding frenemies.\n\nBest supporting actor\n\nBrendan Gleeson, “Banshees on Inisherin”\n\nJudd Hirsch, “The Fabelmans”\n\nBrian Tyree Henry, “Causeway”\n\nBarry Keoghan, “Banshees of Inisherin”\n\nKe Huy Quan, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”\n\nWill win/should win: Quan\n\nAll of these stellar performances are Oscar-worthy, but Quan has run the table this awards season and you can take it to the bank that he's going to end Sunday night with a golden guy. While he's fantastic in the multifaceted role of Yeoh's onscreen husband – and his various alternate-reality versions – Quan also is a comeback kid with a Cinderella story. After gaining fame as a 1980s child movie star in \"The Goonies\" and \"Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,\" he disappeared from the public for decades, returned with a meaty performance and has been on a tear with emotional acceptance speeches. Expect the best to come this weekend.\n\nBest director\n\nTodd Field, “Tár”\n\nDaniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”\n\nMartin McDonagh, “The Banshees of Inisherin”\n\nRuben Ostlund, “Triangle of Sadness”\n\nSteven Spielberg, “The Fabelmans”\n\nWill win/should win: Kwan and Scheinert\n\nIt would take an impressive effort to defeat a legend like Spielberg putting his life story onscreen, though that's exactly what happened with a couple of guys named Daniel and their genre-exploding quest to scramble people's brains before getting them right in the feels. Although Spielberg won Globe honors, Kwan and Scheinert scored a key victory at the Directors Guild Awards – a frequent harbinger for Oscar success. More importantly, they're bringing their fresh (and very weird, in a good way) filmmaking voices to the fore.\n\nRead more about all things Academy Awards:", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2023/03/09"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/24/entertainment/oscar-nominated-foreign-films-2022/index.html", "title": "Oscar nominated foreign films 2022: Where to watch the Oscar ...", "text": "CNN —\n\nThe best international feature film category at the Academy Awards could, in some ways, be compared to flying economy. Often, the five films that get a seat aboard the Oscars seem squashed in the back, lest they take up space that Hollywood might want to luxuriate in. You’d like to upgrade to best picture? With twice the room and more prestige, who wouldn’t. But many of those seats still appear to be reserved for English-language pictures.\n\nHowever, things are changing for the better, with Academy voters finding increasing space for international films in other categories. As the awards continues to ask existential questions of itself, this is cause for celebration.\n\nIn the Oscars’ 94th year, there are a few firsts among the nominees for best international feature. “Drive My Car” by Ryusuke Hamaguchi became the first Japanese film to be nominated for best picture, and “Flee” by Danish writer-director Jonas Poher Rasmussen became the first film nominated across best international feature film, best animated feature and best documentary feature. Meanwhile Bhutanese cinema received its first nomination in any category with Pawo Choyning Dorji’s “Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom.”\n\nNorwegian nominee “The Worst Person in the World” and “Drive My Car” both made the cut in writing categories – director Joachim Trier and Eskil Vogt sharing a nomination for best original screenplay, and Hamaguchi and Takamasa Oe for best adapted – while Hamaguchi finds himself only the third Japanese filmmaker nominated for best director.\n\n“Drive My Car” ties Akira Kurosawa’s “Ran” (1986) for most nominations ever for a Japanese film, but a “Parasite”-level sweep is unlikely, even if few would quibble with the movie’s brilliance. However, the repeated inroads of non-English language cinema suggests, to borrow a phrase from Bong Joon-ho, that voters are overcoming the one inch tall barrier of subtitles and finding a whole world of movies to celebrate. No doubt the Academy’s increasingly international membership is helping too.\n\nLast year’s resurgent festival scene and a backlog of releases due to the pandemic meant there was even greater choice than usual. As always, each country may only nominate one movie for best international feature, with 93 countries submitting this year. Many big-hitters missed out. France had Julia Ducournau’s Cannes Palme d’Or winner “Titane” and Audrey Diwan’s Venice Golden Lion winner “Happening” at its disposal; “Titane” was submitted over “Happening,” only to fail to make the shortlist. Spain submitted Fernando Leon de Aranoa’s “The Good Boss” over Pedro Almodovar’s “Parallel Mothers,” only for it to strike out and see Almodovar’s film nominated for original score (Alberto Iglesias) and star Penelope Cruz for best actress. Romania’s Berlin-winner “Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn” by Radu Jude, two-time Iranian Oscar winner Asghar Farhadi’s “A Hero” and Austrian submission “Great Freedom” by Sebastian Meise are all fantastic films that were either not shortlisted or nominated.\n\nThere was such an abundance of great international cinema, the question of whether this category should be expanded to 10 nominees, like best picture, must be asked once more. Until then, we have these five. If you need to catch up on this year’s crop, here’s all the details, along with where to watch them.\n\n“The Hand of God”\n\nFilippo Scotti in \"The Hand of God.\" Gianni Fiorito/Netflix\n\nItalian director Paolo Sorrentino is up to his usual tricks in “The Hand of God,” setting them loose on a work of poignant, sometimes bizarre, autofiction.\n\nSet in sweltering 1980s Naples, Sorrentino’s stand-in Fabietto (Filippo Scotti) is an awkward teenager struggling to find his voice among his large, bickering carnival of a family. The talk of the town is the possible move of football megastar Diego Maradona to local club Napoli, but Fabietto is equally preoccupied with his aunt Patrizia (a disquieting Luisa Ranieri). An abused woman with mental health concerns, the director chooses to present this primarily through the medium of her exposed breasts, at which her nephew can’t help but stare. It is not the most conventional sexual awakening committed to screen, and where the film goes from there is eyebrow-raising to say the least (kudos to Sorrentino for his honesty if it’s all true).\n\nThat aside, there’s beauty aplenty in how director and regular cinematographer Daria D’Antonio shoot their hometown. Visual flourishes and a Fellini-esque menagerie of larger-than-life characters combine in an elegy to the city and the director’s youth – one defined by a tragedy that set Sorrentino on his path.\n\n“You’ve got to have a story to tell,” a director urges aspiring filmmaker Fabietto toward the end of the movie. Sorrentino, already an Oscar winner for “The Great Beauty” in 2013, hasn’t exactly made a bad fist of telling fictional stories. By returning to Naples and telling his own, he’s come full circle and made one of his richest films to date.\n\n“The Hand of God” is available to watch on Netflix.\n\n“Drive My Car”\n\nHidetoshi Nishijima and Toko Miura as Yusuke Kafuku and Misaki Watari in \"Drive My Car.\" Courtesy of Sideshow and Janus Films\n\nJapanese director Ryusuke Hamaguchi had a huge 2021, debuting not one but two critically acclaimed films. “Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy” enchanted the Berlin Film Festival, but it was his three-hour adaptation of Haruki Murakami short story “Drive My Car” that gained traction after its debut at Cannes.\n\nThe adaptation is an expansion of the story of actor Yusuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima) grieving the sudden death of his wife. Two years on, he’s hired to direct a production of Anton Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya,” where Kufuku meets chauffeur Misaki Watari (Toko Miura), with whom he has unlikely kinship. Through chance and his own making, the past surrounds Kufuku, forcing him to confront his loss.\n\nHamaguchi’s intricately woven story contemplates the disconnect between inner turmoil and outward stoicism. He brilliantly uses Chekhov’s play, with its thematic overlap, as a safe space for characters to wrestle with their real lives. By casting the play as a multilingual production (actors perform in Korean, Tagalog, Mandarin and Korean Sign Language, among others), Hamaguchi steers the audience’s attention towards language and the body. Like Kafuku, we become attuned to when the two fail to tell the same story. His frustrations become our own, his direction of his actors a proxy for what he desires for himself: self-knowledge, and perhaps through that, catharsis.\n\nThis is intellectual filmmaking that offers no concessions to the audience. It demands your attention and offers rich rewards in return. Hamaguchi may be surprised by the Academy’s love for the film, but that comes off the back of topping multiple critics’ best of year lists. The film has already won a BAFTA and must be considered red-hot favorite to take the Oscar on Sunday.\n\n“Drive My Car” is available to watch on HBO Max (like CNN, a WarnerMedia company) and Amazon Prime Video in the US.\n\nRead more: Ryusuke Hamaguchi is as surprised as anyone by the Oscar love for ‘Drive My Car’\n\n“The Worst Person in the World”\n\nHerbert Nordrum and Renate Reinsve as Eivind and Julie in Joachim Trier's \"The Worst Person in the World.\" courtesy Mubi\n\nThe capstone of Joachim Trier’s Oslo Trilogy, “The Worst Person in the World” refuses to stick to the rom-com blueprint in its portrait of the Norwegian city and its inhabitants.\n\nJulie (Renate Reinsve) is approaching 30 and is coasting. Her older boyfriend Aksel (Anders Danielsen Lie) is looking to get serious, but Julie has reservations; thoughts that crystallize when free-spirited Eivind (Herbert Nordrum) walks into her life, setting off a charisma bomb that will go down as one of cinema’s great meet-cutes.\n\nTrier has no interest in fairy tale endings, however. His and Eskil Vogt’s rich and textured script drills into the ideation and idealization of modern living, and the life that happens while you’re making – and breaking – plans.\n\nJulie something of a paradox, riven by impulsiveness and indecisiveness (and she’s privileged enough that she can be). The writing is strong, but this is a film propelled by a star turn. Reinsve’s iridescent performance won her the best actress award at Cannes (remarkably, she’d been about to give up the industry before being cast) and as Julie she’s nothing short of a marvel; a muddle of inconsistencies and equally beguiling and infuriating. In other words: deeply human.\n\n“The Worst Person in the World” paints a portrait that’s so arrestingly real, it recasts much of what came before in the genre as synthetic. For romcoms, this is a corner turned.\n\n“The Worst Person in the World” is available to watch on Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV in the US.\n\nRead more: Joachim Trier ripped up the romcom script with ‘The Worst Person in the World’\n\n“Flee”\n\nAmin (right), the subject of Jonas Poher Rasmussen's \"Flee.\" Final Cut for Real\n\nJonas Poher Rasmussen’s international animated documentary represents an impressively original triple threat at the Oscars this weekend.\n\nThe Danish film debuted at Sundance in 2021 where it won the world cinema documentary award and it’s been attracting high-profile admirers ever since. It centers on Amin, a gay Afghan who as a boy fled Kabul in the 1990s. Now an academic in his thirties living in Denmark, he narrates the story of his perilous flight, dredging up myriad horrors that are written and rewritten before our eyes as what was once suppressed breaches consciousness and finds form.\n\nThe choice of animation allows Amin (a pseudonym) anonymity, but what it affords Rasmussen is dazzling scope for creative expression, utilizing a variety of styles from smooth rotoscope to scratchy sketching in stylistic collusion with the tone of the moment. It’s truly beautiful, impactful filmmaking that’s not quickly forgotten.\n\n“Flee” is available to watch on Hulu and Apple TV in the US.\n\n“Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom”\n\nSherab Dorji as Ugyen in \"Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom.\" Kinley Wangchuk/Jigme Thinley\n\nThis year’s surprise contender, “Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom” is only Bhutan’s second entry to the Academy Awards and its first nominee.\n\nWriter-director Pawo Choyning Dorji’s mild-mannered addition to the “city-slicker-goes-to-the-countryside-and-learns-what’s-important-in-life” canon follows Ugyen (Sherab Dorji), a government employee and wannabe singer whose dreams of Australia are put on hold when he’s sent to teach in the remote mountain community of Lunana. Initially dismissive, his petulance gives way to an appreciation of rural life and the culture he was so ready to leave behind, helped by cute kid Pem Zam (Pem Zam) and singer and local beauty Saldon (Kelden Lhamo Gurung).\n\nIt’s familiar story, but perhaps one shouldn’t hold that against the film. “Lunana’s” trump card is its stunning setting and window into an underexposed part of the world. Handsomely shot by Jigme Tenzing, we see both bustling capital Thimphu and the majestic foothills of the Himalayas, an idyll if ever there was one. The guileless turns of the film’s real-life highlander cast also grounds the film nicely and act as an effective foil to Ugyen.\n\nAcademy voters have plucked from relative obscurity a film that debuted at the London Film Festival way back in 2019. Dorji beat out giants of world cinema to bag a nomination – and with a debut feature, no less. All this considered, “Lunana” represents a landmark in Bhutanese cinema.\n\n“Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom” is available to watch on Kanopy and Amazon Prime Video.\n\nThe 94th Academy Awards takes place on Sunday March 27.", "authors": ["Thomas Page"], "publish_date": "2022/03/24"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/college/2013/02/25/viewpoint-oscars-snub-some-but-largely-get-it-right/37416987/", "title": "viewpoint-oscars-snub-some-but-largely-get-it-right", "text": "Clara Ritger\n\nDirector Ben Affleck, center, and producers George Clooney, right, and Grant Heslov celebrate in the press room after winning the trophy for Best Picture for Argo during the 85th Annual Academy Awards on Feb. 24.\n\nThough it didn't seem like it, Argo swept the Academy Awards. Winning best picture, best adapted screenplay and best film editing, Argo fared better than its other high profile counterparts, such as Silver Linings Playbook, which accepted only one award for its eight nominations, or Lincoln, which took two of 12.\n\nIn all, the Academy largely granted recognition to the films that deserved it, if in an egalitarian manner where the best woman doesn't necessarily win (see my best actress analysis). While the winner's circle seemed to represent the large number of quality films at the 85th annual Academy Awards, there were obvious overlooked films -- Zero Dark Thirty and Beasts of the Southern Wild -- which easily could have stolen the top honors from Argo.\n\nExcept Argo director Ben Affleck got his own snub in the best director category, making best picture a necessary apology for the film that had moviegoers in full applause when I saw it last weekend.\n\n\n\nRELATED: Life lessons from Oscar-nominated films\n\nCategory by category, here’s my analysis of last night’s ceremony based on the movies I saw: Argo, Silver Linings Playbook, Zero Dark Thirty, Beasts of the Southern Wild and Lincoln.\n\nBest picture: Director drama aside, Argo was a solid choice in a category of nine well-received films. True to the undercover operation itself, every single element of this production came through, from performances to editing to screenplay. The focus is on the story, not the actors, and it will have you on the edge of your seat even though, like Zero Dark Thirty, you know how it ends.\n\nBest actress:Jessica Chastain was robbed. That said, this category featured such powerful performances from strong, defiant leading ladies, the measure of difference between them was so small that the award could have been anyone's. Go watch Quvenzhané Wallis, for instance, who had no real chance in this category -- she’s nine and the star of an independent film -- but performed with such naked vulnerability that I wouldn't object to her taking home the gold. In the end, Jennifer Lawrence’s interpretation of Tiffany was memorable and I was glad to see Silver Linings Playbook get something.\n\nBest actor:Daniel Day-Lewis was this year’s single best performance in film, bar none. Anyone who would like to argue can go watch My Week With Marilyn. Michelle Williams embodies Marilyn Monroe as perfectly as Day-Lewis captures Abraham Lincoln, and I contend that, like Chastain, she was deservedly awarded at the Golden Globes if passed over for a higher profile pick (Meryl, anyone?) at the Oscars. Plus, Day-Lewis needed to take this award home for Lincoln, the movie that had everyone predicting Steven Spielberg for best director but only got one other award: best production design.\n\nBest director: Having read and loved the book, Life of Pi was not on my list of films I wanted to see. I remained skeptical that it could pull off Yann Martel’s allegorical story. But when Ang Lee beats Spielberg and a director who got a best actress performance out of a nine-year-old, I’m all eyes.\n\nBest adapted screenplay: Talk about a loaded category. I could hardly predict how the Academy would fall. Argo is a commendable choice -- its witty dialogue and dramatic scenes propel the narrative forward and I’m especially happy it beat out Lincoln. Personally, I thought Lincoln was made for history buffs and not the general public. Historically accurate sure, but the movie missed an opportunity to tell a story audiences could fall in love with. Lincoln’s wife was crazy -- why not give the facts through the lens of family struggle, instead of a Doris Kearns Goodwin history lesson? Other notable screenplays certainly include Silver Linings Playbook, which had me laughing as much as it had me thinking about mental health in the United States, and Beasts of the Southern Wild, which perfectly embodied the voice of a child narrator, while prompting discussion about problems adults face, such as climate change.\n\n\n\nClara Ritger is a Spring 2013 USA TODAY Collegiate Correspondent. Learn more about her here.\n\nThis story originally appeared on the USA TODAY College blog, a news source produced for college students by student journalists. The blog closed in September of 2017.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2013/02/25"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/music/2020/01/26/grammys-2020-news-live-highlights/4557480002/", "title": "Grammys 2020: Billie Eilish sweeps all four major categories ...", "text": "“Bad Guy” led to good news all around for teenage phenom Billie Eilish at the Grammy Awards on Sunday night.\n\nThe 18-year-old singer swept all four major honors at the 62nd annual Grammys, winning album, record and song of the year as well as best new artist – the first person to do so since Christopher Cross in 1981 – plus picked up best pop vocal album on a night that honored young talent and the loss of NBA star Kobe Bryant.\n\n“Tonight is for Kobe,” pronounced pop sensation Lizzo as she kicked off the ceremony, one of several tributes to the Los Angeles Laker during the show hosted by Alicia Keys.\n\nLizzo won solo pop performance for “Truth Hurts,” Tyler, the Creator took best rap album, and country mainstay Tanya Tucker won her first Grammys in her long career. In addition to awards, there were plenty of memorable performances, including emotional turns from Camila Cabello and Demi Lovato.\n\nHere are the live-time highlights from the Grammys ceremony (in ET):\n\n11:39: Now it’s a sweep as Eilish takes record of the year as well for her hit “Bad Guy.” “Thank you” is all she can say.\n\nKobe Bryant: All the major (and subtle) nods during the Grammys show\n\nGrammys 2020:The winners list\n\n11:36: Eilish is on a roll, winning album of the year for \"When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?\" \"Please sit down. Can I just say that Ariana deserves this?\" she says. (Ariana Grande, to her credit, waves her off and blows Eilish a kiss.)\n\n11:29: Camila Cabello, Cyndi Lauper, Ben Platt, The War and Treaty, Lang Lang, Common, Gary Clark Jr. and more perform \"I Sing the Body Electric,\" which features an appearance from A-list ballerina Misty Copeland.\n\n11:25: Best new artist goes to … Billie Eilish. This time on stage, she honors the fans, who “deserve everything. They haven’t been talked about enough tonight because they’re the reason why we’re here at all.”\n\n11:19: The \"In Memoriam\" segment honors Dr. John, Leon Redbone, Doris Day, Neil Peart, Dick Dale, Ric Ocasek, Jessye Norman and other musicians who died in the past year. It's followed by Trombone Shorty and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band with the Dixieland jam \"Didn't He Ramble.\"\n\n11:10: Bonnie Raitt performs her song \"Angel From Montgomery,\" honors John Prine's lifetime achievement award, then introduces Gary Clark Jr.'s powerful rendition of \"This Land.\"\n\n11:01: Sitting at her piano, H.E.R. sings \"Sometimes\" and grooves with a backing band of dancing instrumentalists before she shreds an excellent electric guitar solo.\n\nWho is Billie Eilish? Everything to know about the teen who won big at the 2020 Grammys\n\nA Grammy group hug:Having the Grammys in the wake of Kobe Bryant's death reminded us how music can heal\n\n10:58: DJ Khaled's \"Higher,\" a collaboration with John Legend and the late Nipsey Hussle, wins best rap/sung performance. \"This is for Nipsey Hussle. This is for hip-hop,\" Khaled says, with Legend thanking everyone \"for lifting Nipsey's name up.\"\n\n10:47: Keys plays a rising piano and sings \"Underdog\" while Brittany Howard strums on her guitar.\n\n10:40: Billie Eilish gets her second Grammy and it's a big one: song of the year for \"Bad Guy.\" \"Why? Wow,\" Eilish says alongside co-writer/brother Finneas O'Connell. \"So many other songs deserved this. I never thought this would happen in my whole life. I feel like I joke around a lot and I never take anything seriously, but I openly want to say that I'm grateful and honored to be here.\"\n\n10:33: Best new artist nominee Rosalia breaks out the flamenco stylings for her song \"Juro Que,\" gives the audience a dramatic dance break, then shifts to \"Malamente.\"\n\n10:21: Introduced by Ava DuVernay, the tribute to Nipsey Hussle (who was fatally shot last year in L.A.) begins with Meek Mill and also includes John Legend (on piano), DJ Khaled, Roddy Ricch, Kirk Franklin, YG and a dancing choir. \"Long live Nip, long live Kobe Bryant,\" Khaled says in closing.\n\nCamila Cabello:The singer brings dad to tears with heartfelt Grammys performance\n\nPrince tribute:Here's why fans are upset about Usher's Grammys performance\n\n10:08: Greta Gerwig introduces Demi Lovato's return to the Grammys in the singer's first live appearance after an apparent drug overdose in 2018. Lovato chokes up at the beginning of her ballad \"Anyone\" and has to start over, but by the end she's belting with a strong, clear voice and the crowd gives her a standing ovation.\n\n9:56: Lil Nas X teams up with mega-popular South Korean boy band BTS – as well as country dude Billy Ray Cyrus, Walmart yodeler Mason Ramsey, Diplo, Young Thug and Nas – on his breakthrough hit \"Old Town Road.\"\n\nThe 2020 Grammy Awards in the wake of Kobe Bryant's death reminded us how music can heal\n\n9:53: Tyler, the Creator takes home best rap album for \"Igor.\" \"That's my mom, if y'all are wondering,\" says Tyler, hugging his crying mother. \"You did a great job raising this guy.\" He thanks those who \"trust in my crazy ideas\" and has a special shout-out for Pharrell Williams: \"That man allowed me to be comfortable in myself.\"\n\n9:41: Aerosmith comes out to go old school first with \"Living on the Edge\" and then reuniting with hip-hop pioneers Run-DMC for the iconic rap/rock tune \"Walk This Way.\"\n\n9:34: The green-haired Eilish comes out to perform her ballad \"When the Party's Over\" as her producer brother Finneas (and a whole choir dressed in white) backs her.\n\n9:21: Ariana Grande's medley starts with \"Imagine,\" transitions to a mashup of \"My Favorite Things\" and \"7 Rings\" with a full orchestra and lingerie-clad backup dancers, and completes with her hit \"Thank U, Next.\"\n\n9:15: Dave Chappelle wins for best comedy album, but he's not there to accept.\n\n9:11: Just four hours after winning her first-ever Grammy, country legend Tanya Tucker (with piano accompaniment and backup vocals courtesy of Brandi Carlile) performs \"Bring My Flowers Now.\"\n\n9:08: Camila Cabello tries to hit everybody in the feels with her ballad \"First Man,\" which she's singing in tribute to her father as home videos play in the background. She comes down to perform next to her dad, who's crying, and they end the tune with a big hug.\n\n8:54: Usher begins a tribute to the iconic Prince with a cover of \"Little Red Corvette,\" puts his smooth touch on \"When Doves Cry\" (while FKA twigs dances on a pole nearby), and finishes his medley – plus breaks out some Prince-y moves – with \"Kiss.\"\n\nMore:Brutally honest reviews and rankings of every Grammys 2020 performance\n\n8:52: Dan + Shay take best country duo/group performance for \"Speechless.\" \"I want to put my heart up to this microphone. You can literally hear it beating out of my chest right now,\" says Dan Smyers alongside Shay Mooney.\n\n8:39: Tyler, the Creator's fiery avant-garde showing includes his songs \"Earfquake\" and \"New Magic Wand,\" with backup from Charlie Wilson and a special a cappella interlude by Boyz II Men.\n\n8:32: Lizzo takes the first major award of the night, best pop solo performance, for \"Truth Hurts.\" \"This is unexpected (and) really cool. This whole week, I've been lost in my problems, stressed out, and then in an instant all that can go away and your priorities shift,\" says an emotional Lizzo. \"I realize that people are hurting right now (but) this is the beginning of making music that moves people again.\"\n\n8:26: \"Pose\" TV star Billy Porter introduces the Jonas Brothers, who sing \"Five More Minutes\" out into the crowd like a traveling bunch of bards before coming back to the stage – now full of dancers – for the catchy \"What a Man Gotta Do.\"\n\n8:10: Blake Shelton is joined by his girlfriend and fellow huge music star, Gwen Stefani, to duet on their song \"Nobody But You.\" There are lots of wedding vibes with Shelton in a tux and Stefani wearing a white dress with a tiara of roses.\n\n8:07: Host Alicia Keys arrives on stage at the Staples Center but says, \"We're all feeling crazy sadness right now\" because of the death of Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gigi Sunday. \"We're literally standing here heartbroken in the house that Kobe Bryant built.\" After asking for a moment of silence \"to hold them inside of you and share our strength and support for their family,\" Keys is joined by Boyz II Men for a tribute version of the group's ballad \"It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday.\"\n\n8:01: \"Tonight is for Kobe,\" Lizzo pronounces as she (and her own orchestra) kicks off the ceremony with \"Cuz I Love You\" before shifting into a lively rendition of her hit \"Truth Hurts\" with a posse of backup ballerinas. To top it all off, a flute is delivered to Lizzo from up above for a woodwind breakdown.\n\n6:47: Eilish gets her first Grammy win – best pop vocal album – for \"When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?\" in the pre-show ceremony. (It also received the best engineered album award earlier in the day.) Her brother Finneas takes producer of the year (non-classical).\n\n6:43: Lil Nas X receives best pop/duo group performance, his second Grammy of the day, for \"Old Town Road,\" his huge breakout hit with Billy Ray Cyrus. Elvis Costello & The Imposters snags best traditional pop vocal album for \"Look Now.\" \"This is a beautiful thing,\" says Costello, who kept a Carole King collaboration on the shelf for years until the album \"because I didn't want to answer to Carole if I didn't get it right.\"\n\n6:28: Lizzo scores her first two Grammy wins, best traditional R&B performance for \"Jerome\" and urban contemporary album for \"Cuz I Love You (Deluxe).\" PJ Morton's \"Say So\" gets best R&B song and Anderson Paak snags best R&B performance for \"Come Home,\" his collaboration with Andre 3000, plus R&B album for \"Ventura.\" \"This is a win for R&B,\" Paak says. \"I’m just going to keep it at my house. if you don’t mind.\"\n\n6:16: Gary Clark Jr. takes best rock performance and rock song for \"This Land\" – he also won best contemporary blues album earlier in the day. Clark thanks \"everybody who paid attention and showed love.\" Tool's \"7empest\" gets best metal performance, Cage the Elephant earns best rock album for \"Social Cues,\" and Vampire Weekend's \"Father of the Bride\" is named best alternative music album.\n\n6:14: The Broadway musical \"Hadestown,\" which swept the Tonys with eight awards (including best musical) last summer, wins the Grammy for best musical theater album.\n\n5:41: Nipsey Hussle, who was shot to death last March in L.A., posthumously wins best solo rap performance for \"Racks in the Middle.\" The performer \"was a phenomenal vessel,\" says Lauren London, Hussle's girlfriend and the mother of his son, accepting the Grammy alongside Hussle's family. \"Nip did it not just for the awards but for the people. God allowed him to use this music to speak his truth, give us wisdom, and (it's) something that we will forever be able to live with.\"\n\n5:25: Forty years after winning best disco recording for \"I Will Survive,\" Gloria Gaynor, 70, takes home best roots gospel album for \"Testimony.\" \"I am at least able to balance out my piano,\" Gaynor quips. In addition, Kirk Franklin wins best gospel album for \"Long Live Love\" and best gospel performance for his song \"Love Theory.\" \"Sending prayers to Kobe Bryant and his family,\" Franklin adds.\n\nA milestone:Tanya Tucker wins first-ever Grammys for best country album, country song\n\n5:05: After almost 50 years in the music business, 61-year-old Nashville stalwart Tanya Tucker finally won her first Grammys, best country song for \"Bring My Flowers Now\" and best country album for \"While I'm Livin'.\" \"There’s no words to express how I feel right now,\" Tucker says. Willie Nelson also wins best country solo performance for \"Ride Me Back Home.\"\n\n4:50: Esperanza Spalding, the first jazz artist to win Grammy's prestigious best new artist honor, snags best jazz vocal album for \"12 Little Spells.\" \"Thank you to whatever mystery life-force energy is moving through us,\" says Spalding, wearing a flowery dress with \"LIFE FORCE\" written on the front. Other jazz Grammys go to Chick Corea & the Spanish Heart Band (Latin jazz album for \"Antidote\") and Brian Lynch Big Band (large jazz ensemble album for \"The Omni-American Book Club\").\n\n4:45: Legendary composer John Williams wins his 25th career Grammy for best instrumental composition for \"Galaxy's Edge Symphonic Suite,\" which he created for the new \"Star Wars\" lands in the Disney theme parks. And English musician Jacob Collier picks up a couple of arranging Grammys for \"Moon River\" and \"All Night Long.\"\n\n4:38: The audiobook for Michelle Obama's best-selling memoir \"Becoming\" takes best spoken word album. \"I will gladly accept this on her behalf,\" presenter Esperanza Spalding says with a grin, earning a cheer from the crowd. The Chemical Brothers win best dance/electronic album for \"No Geography\" as well as best dance recording for \"Got to Keep On,\" Patty Griffin's self-titled effort takes best folk album, and Koffee's \"Rapture\" is named best reggae album.\n\n4:20: Backstage, producer Paul Blair (aka DJ White Shadow) says he's not sure if Lady Gaga is aware of the wins yet. “I texted her,\" he says.\n\n4:05: Lil Nas X wins best music video for \"Old Town Road\" with Billy Ray Cyrus. He simply says \"thank you,\" at the microphone when accepting his award. Moments later, Beyonce wins best music film for her Netflix project \"Homecoming.\" She's not in the room for the win, and producer Steve Pamon accepts instead. He's the first to reference Kobe Bryant's death, which hit like a shock wave just an hour earlier: \"Rest in peace, Kobe, we love you,\" he says.\n\n3:45: Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga win best compilation soundtrack for visual media, a year after their Oscar run for the musical film \"A Star Is Born.\" Sadly, neither star is in the house to pick up the award; album producers accept instead. Gaga and Cooper win again moments later, taking home best song written for visual media for \"A Star Is Born\" ballad \"I'll Never Love Again.\"", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2020/01/26"}]}
{"question_id": "20230317_1", "search_time": "2023/05/25/17:55", "search_result": [{"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/02/business/global-recession-fears-explained/index.html", "title": "5 signs the world is headed for a recession | CNN Business", "text": "New York CNN Business —\n\nAround the world, markets are flashing warning signs that the global economy is teetering on a cliff’s edge.\n\nThe question of a recession is no longer if, but when.\n\nOver the past week, the pulse of those flashing red lights quickened as markets grappled with the reality — once speculative, now certain — that the Federal Reserve will press on with its most aggressive monetary tightening campaign in decades to wring inflation from the US economy. Even if that means triggering a recession. And even if it comes at the expense of consumers and businesses far beyond US borders.\n\nThere’s now a 98% chance of a global recession, according to research firm Ned Davis, which brings some sobering historical credibility to the table. The firm’s recession probability reading has only been this high twice before — in 2008 and 2020.\n\nConsumer spending accounts for roughly two-thirds of US gross domestic product. That growth engine is beginning to sputter. Richard B. Levine/Levine Roberts/ZUMA Press\n\nWhen economists warn of a downturn, they’re typically basing their assessment on a variety of indicators.\n\nLet’s unpack five key trends:\n\nThe mighty US dollar\n\nThe US dollar plays an outsized role in the global economy and international finance. And right now, it is stronger than it’s been in two decades.\n\nThe simplest explanation comes back to the Fed.\n\nWhen the US central bank raises interest rates, as it has been doing since March, it makes the dollar more appealing to investors around the world.\n\nIn any economic climate, the dollar is seen as a safe place to park your money. In a tumultuous climate — a global pandemic, say, or a war in Eastern Europe — investors have even more incentive to purchase dollars, usually in the form of US government bonds.\n\nThe Bank of England intervened in the bond market this week restore confidence in UK assets. Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg/Getty Images\n\nWhile a strong dollar is a nice perk for Americans traveling abroad, it creates headaches for just about everyone else.\n\nThe value of the UK pound, the euro, China’s yuan and Japan’s yen, among many others, has tumbled. That makes it more expensive for those nations to import essential items like food and fuel.\n\nIn response, central banks that are already fighting pandemic-induced inflation wind up raising rates higher and faster to shore up the value of their own currencies.\n\nThe dollar’s strength also creates destabilizing effects for Wall Street, as many of the S&P 500 companies do business around the world. By one estimate from Morgan Stanley, each 1% rise in the dollar index has a negative 0.5% impact on S&P 500 earnings.\n\nAmerica’s economic engine stalls\n\nThe No. 1 driver of the world’s largest economy is shopping. And America’s shoppers are tired.\n\nAfter more than a year of rising prices on just about everything, with wages not keeping up, consumers have pulled back.\n\n“The hardship caused by inflation means that consumers are dipping into their savings,” EY Parthenon Chief Economist Gregory Daco said in a note Friday. The personal saving rate in August remained unchanged at only 3.5%, Daco said — near its lowest rate since 2008, and well below its pre-Covid level of around 9%.\n\nOnce again, the reason behind the pullback has a lot to do with the Fed.\n\nThe Federal Reserve, led by Chairman Jerome Powell, is aggressively raising rates to combat inflation — even if it risks triggering a recession. Kevin Lamarque/Reuters\n\nInterest rates have risen at a historic pace, pushing mortgage rates to their highest level in more than a decade and making it harder for businesses to grow. Eventually, the Fed’s rate hikes should broadly bring costs down. But in the meantime, consumers are getting a one-two punch of high borrowing rates and high prices, especially when it comes to necessities like food and housing.\n\nAmericans opened their wallets during the 2020 lockdowns, which powered the economy out of its brief-but-severe pandemic recession. Since then, government aid has evaporated and inflation has taken root, pushing prices up at their fastest rate in 40 years and sapping consumers’ spending power.\n\nCorporate America tightens its belt\n\nBusiness has been booming across industries for the bulk of the pandemic era, even with historically high inflation eating into profits. That is thanks (once again) to the tenacity of American shoppers, as businesses were largely able to pass on their higher costs to consumers to cushion profit margins.\n\nBut the earnings bonanza may not last.\n\nIn mid-September, one company whose fortunes serve as a kind of economic bellwether gave investors a shock.\n\nFedEx, which operates in more than 200 countries, unexpectedly revised its outlook, warning that demand was softening, and earnings were likely to plunge more than 40%.\n\nIn an interview, its CEO was asked whether he believes the slowdown was a sign of a looming global recession.\n\n“I think so,” he responded. “These numbers, they don’t portend very well.”\n\nFedEx, with its global footprint, is an economic bellwether. Its revised outlook has renewed recession fears on Wall Street. Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty Images\n\nFedEx isn’t alone. On Tuesday, Apple’s stock fell after Bloomberg reported the company was scrapping plans to increase iPhone 14 production after demand came in below expectations.\n\nAnd just ahead of the holiday season, when employers would normally ramp up hiring, the mood is now more cautious.\n\n“We’ve not seen the normal September uptick in companies posting for temporary help,” said Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter. “Companies are hanging back and waiting to see what conditions hold.”\n\nWelcome to bear territory\n\nWall Street has been hit with whiplash, and stocks are now on track for their worst year since 2008 — in case anyone needs yet another scary historical comparison.\n\nBut last year was a very different story. Equity markets thrived in 2021, with the S&P 500 soaring 27%, thanks to a torrent of cash pumped in by the Federal Reserve, which unleashed a double-barreled monetary-easing policy in the spring of 2020 to keep financial markets from crumbling.\n\nThe party lasted until early 2022. But as inflation set in, the Fed began to take away the proverbial punch bowl, raising interest rates and unwinding its bond-buying mechanism that had propped up the market.\n\nThe hangover has been brutal. The S&P 500, the broadest measure of Wall Street — and the index responsible for the bulk of Americans’ 401(k)s — is down nearly 24% for the year. And it’s not alone. All three major US indexes are in bear markets — down at least 20% from their most recent highs.\n\nIn an unfortunate twist, bond markets, typically a safe haven for investors when stocks and other assets decline, are also in a tailspin.\n\nAll three major US indexes are in a bear market, down at least 20% from their most recent highs. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images\n\nOnce again, blame the Fed.\n\nInflation, along with the steep rise in interest rates by the central bank, has pushed bond prices down, which causes bond yields (aka the return an investor gets for their loan to the government) to go up.\n\nOn Wednesday, the yield on the 10-year US Treasury briefly surpassed 4%, hitting its highest level in 14 years. That surge was followed by a steep drop in response to the Bank of England’s intervention in its own spiraling bond market — amounting to tectonic moves in a corner of the financial world that is designed to be steady, if not downright boring.\n\nEuropean bond yields are also spiking as central banks follow the Fed’s lead in raising rates to shore up their own currencies.\n\nBottom line: There are few safe places for investors to put their money right now, and that’s unlikely to change until global inflation gets under control and central banks loosen their grips.\n\nWar, soaring prices and radical policies collide\n\nNowhere is the collision of economic, financial, and political calamities more painfully visible than in the United Kingdom.\n\nLike the rest of the world, the UK has struggled with surging prices that are largely attributable to the colossal shock of Covid-19, followed by the trade disruptions created by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As the West cut off imports of Russian natural gas, energy prices have soared and supplies have dwindled.\n\nThose events were bad enough on their own.\n\nBut then, just over a week ago, the freshly installed government of Prime Minister Liz Truss announced a sweeping tax-cut plan that economists from both ends of the political spectrum have decried as unorthodox at best, diabolical at worst.\n\nIn short, the Truss administration said it would slash taxes for all Britons to encourage spending and investment and, in theory, soften the blow of a recession. But the tax cuts aren’t funded, which means the government must take on debt to finance them.\n\nThat decision set off a panic in financial markets and put Downing Street in a standoff with its independent central bank, the Bank of England. Investors around the world sold off UK bonds in droves, plunging the pound to its lowest level against the dollar in nearly 230 years. As in, since 1792, when Congress made the US dollar legal tender.\n\nThe BOE staged an emergency intervention to buy up UK bonds on Wednesday and restore order in financial markets. It stemmed the bleeding, for now. But the ripple effects of the Trussonomics turmoil is spreading far beyond the offices of bond traders.\n\nBritons, who are already in a cost-of-living crisis, with inflation at 10% — the highest of any G7 economy — are now panicking over higher borrowing costs that could force millions of homeowners’ monthly mortgage payments to go up by hundreds or even thousands of pounds.\n\nThe upshot\n\nWhile the consensus is that a global recession is likely sometime in 2023, it’s impossible to predict how severe it will be or how long it will last. Not every recession is as painful as the 2007-09 Great Recession, but every recession is, of course, painful.\n\nSome economies, particularly the United States, with its strong labor market and resilient consumers, will be able to withstand the blow better than others.\n\n“We are in uncharted waters in the months ahead,” wrote economists at the World Economic Forum in a report this week.\n\n“The immediate outlook for the global economy and for much of the world’s population is dark,” they continued, adding that the challenges “will test the resilience of economies and societies and exact a punishing human toll.”\n\nBut there are some silver linings, they said. Crises force transformations that can ultimately improve standards of living and make economies stronger.\n\n“Businesses have to change. This has been the story since the pandemic started,” said Rima Bhatia, an economic adviser for Gulf International Bank. “Businesses no longer can continue on the path that they were at. That’s the opportunity and that’s the silver lining.”\n\n— CNN Business’ Julia Horowitz, Anna Cooban, Mark Thompson, Matt Egan and Chris Isidore contributed reporting.", "authors": ["Allison Morrow"], "publish_date": "2022/10/02"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/real-estate/2023/03/19/svb-collapse-new-banks-could-fail/11504269002/", "title": "US banking crisis: Close to 190 banks could collapse, according to ...", "text": "With the failure of three regional banks since March, and another one teetering on the brink, will America soon see a cascade of bank failures?\n\nBloomberg reported Wednesday that San Francisco-based PacWest Bancorp is mulling a sale.\n\nLast week, First Republic Bank became the third bank to collapse, the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history after Washington Mutual, which collapsed in 2008 amid the financial crisis.\n\nAfter the demise of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank in March, a study on the fragility of the U.S. banking system found that 186 more banks are at risk of failure even if only half of their uninsured depositors (uninsured depositors stand to lose a part of their deposits if the bank fails, potentially giving them incentives to run) decide to withdraw their funds.\n\nUninsured deposits are customer deposits greater than the $250,000 FDIC deposit insurance limit.\n\nLearn more: Best current CD rates\n\nWhy are regional banks failing?\n\nRegional banks are failing because the Federal Reserve’s aggressive interest rate hikes to tamp down inflation have eroded the value of bank assets such as government bonds and mortgage-backed securities.\n\nMost bonds pay a fixed interest rate that becomes attractive when interest rates fall, driving up demand and the price of the bond. On the other hand, if interest rates rise, investors will no longer prefer the lower fixed interest rate paid by a bond, thus driving down its price.\n\nMany banks increased their holdings of bonds during the pandemic, when deposits were plentiful but loan demand and yields were weak. For many banks, these unrealized losses will stay on paper. But others may face actual losses if they have to sell securities for liquidity or other reasons, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.\n\nAnother bank collapse?:As Pacific Western Bank stocks fall, fears of crisis resurface\n\nBanks at risk:Close to 190 banks could collapse, according to study\n\nSVB:Silicon Valley Bank collapse explained in graphics\n\n“The recent declines in bank asset values very significantly increased the fragility of the U.S. banking system to uninsured depositor runs,” economists wrote in a recent paper published on the Social Science Research Network\n\nOf course, this scenario would play out only if the government did nothing.\n\n“So, our calculations suggest these banks are certainly at a potential risk of a run, absent other government intervention or recapitalization,” the economists wrote.\n\nHow did Silicon Valley Bank collapse?\n\nIn the case of the Santa Clara-based Silicon Valley Bank, which held most of its assets in U.S. government bonds, the market value of its bonds fell when interest rates started going up.\n\nThat’s because most bonds pay a fixed interest rate that becomes more attractive if interest rates fall, driving up demand and the price of the bond. But when interest rates rise, the lower fixed interest rate paid by a bond is no longer attractive to investors.\n\nGRAPHICS:Ripple effect: How Silicon Valley Bank collapse is affecting other US banks\n\nThe timing coincided with the financial difficulties many of the banks’ customers – largely tech startups – were dealing with, forcing them to withdraw their deposits.\n\nIn addition, Silicon Valley Bank had a disproportional share of uninsured funding, with only 1% of banks having higher uninsured leverage, the paper notes. \"Combined, losses and uninsured leverage provide incentives for an SVB uninsured depositor run.\"\n\nA run on these banks could pose a risk to even insured depositors − those with $250,000 or less in the bank − as the FDIC’s deposit insurance fund starts incurring losses, the economists wrote.\n\nSwapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is a housing and economy correspondent for USA TODAY. You can follow her on Twitter @SwapnaVenugopal and sign up for our Daily Money newsletter here.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2023/03/19"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/26/health/updated-boosters-omicron-imprint/index.html", "title": "Updated Covid-19 vaccines boost protection, but may not beat ...", "text": "CNN —\n\nThe updated Covid-19 booster shots appear to work about as well against the BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron subvariants as the original boosters they replaced, according to two new studies from research teams at Harvard and Columbia universities.\n\nThe research suggests that our bodies have been well-trained to fight the original virus, which emerged from Wuhan, China, and that boosters mostly reinforce that response. Getting boosted this fall is still an important way to renew protection, even among people who were previously infected or vaccinated.\n\nBut the hope was that by tweaking the vaccine recipe to include currently circulating strains of the Omicron variant, it would help broaden immunity against those variants and perhaps offer better and longer-lasting protection.\n\nWhen the researchers compared the immune responses of people who got a booster dose of the original shot to people who got the updated bivalent boosters, they looked about the same.\n\n“We see essentially no difference” between the old boosters and the new about a month after the shot, said Dr. David Ho, professor of microbiology and immunology at Columbia, whose team authored one of the studies.\n\nImmunologists say a vaccine against two strains may not be better than a single strain shot because of a phenomenon called immune imprinting. Scientists say imprinting may complicate efforts to stay ahead of new variants as the coronavirus continues to evolve, and it adds urgency to the development of new vaccine technologies to fight the virus.\n\nWhen the US Food and Drug Administration issued emergency use authorizations for new bivalent Covid-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna at the end of August, it did so on the basis of studies in mice and previous human trials with a different two-strain booster formulation. Little was known about the how protective the shots might be in people; full data from clinical trials testing the BA.4 and BA.5 bivalent vaccines in humans hasn’t yet been made public.\n\nBut modeling data suggested that getting the boosters out in September could save tens of thousands of lives if the country had another winter surge, so the FDA authorized the shots, ahead of results from clinical trials, in order to get them to the public more quickly.\n\nThe updated shots contain instructions that show cells how to make spike proteins from the original virus that caused Covid-19, as well as spikes from the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants. These spikes get assembled by our cells and displayed to our immune system so it can make antibodies to fight the real thing during an active infection.\n\nThe original strain of the virus, sometimes called the ancestral or wild-type strain, is no longer circulating, however. When we boost, we are mostly boosting antibodies against a virus that’s long gone.\n\nAs the virus has evolved, the vaccines have not kept pace. Each new variant has become more and more resistant to the antibodies we make against it, increasing the risk of breakthrough infections, hospitalizations and deaths.\n\nRight now, protection against infection begins to wane just a few months after each booster dose. Protection against severe outcomes – hospitalization or death from Covid-19 – lasts longer, but can also fade, especially for vulnerable groups such as people who are over 65, who have weakened immune systems or who have underlying medical conditions.\n\nSimilar immune responses\n\nThe studies have important limitations, and they aren’t the final word on the updated boosters.\n\nBoth studies were small. Ho’s study looked at the immune responses of 19 people who were boosted with a fourth dose of the original recipe vaccine and 21 people who got a fourth dose of the updated boosters. The other study, from Dr. Dan Barouch, a professor at Harvard and director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, looked at 15 people who got the original booster and 18 people who got bivalent shots.\n\nBoth reports were posted as preprints, before scrutiny by independent experts.\n\nThe studies also measured immune responses over a short period of time – about three to five weeks after the fourth doses. Ho says these results could change with time, as immune cells mature.\n\n“We can’t say that a few months from now, there won’t be any difference,” he said. “We won’t know that until these individuals are followed for a longer period of time.”\n\nDespite these caveats, experts who were not involved in the research say that two studies from well-regarded labs arriving at roughly the same conclusions about the vaccines gives them confidence that the results are correct.\n\n“At least at this time point, there’s no discernible benefit” over the older boosters, Ho said.\n\nClinical trials being conducted by vaccine makers Pfizer and Moderna involve hundreds of people who have had the updated boosters and are being followed for longer periods of time. Data from those studies are still coming.\n\nBoth companies declined to comment on Ho and Barouch’s studies, citing company policies not to weigh in on research they have not been involved in.\n\nIn comparing the immune responses of people who got the old boosters with those who got the newer ones, the researchers found that neutralizing antibodies spiked after both shots to about the same high levels, which was good news.\n\nIn Barouch’s study, antibody concentrations were 15 times higher after the original boosters, rising from 184 to 2,829. They were 17 times higher after the updated shots, jumping from 211 to 3,693. The difference in antibody levels between shots didn’t pass a statistical test, however, so the results may have been due to chance.\n\nMore importantly, that slight difference in antibody levels probably wouldn’t protect people any better in the real world.\n\n“We would not expect this to be clinically significant,” said Barouch, who worked on the development of the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine.\n\nBut the bulk of the antibodies generated after either shot were ones that would bind the original virus, with fewer directed specifically against the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants.\n\nBarouch’s team also looked specifically at T cells, which help the body hold the memory of germs it has been exposed to. These cells are thought to play a key role in how long immune protection lasts. Antibody levels naturally drop off over time, but T cells stick around.\n\nThe numbers of T cells didn’t budge much after either vaccine.\n\n“Unfortunately, neither one increased T-cell responses very much, and we believe that T-cell responses in addition to antibody responses are important for protection against severe disease,” Barouch said.\n\n‘A booster is a booster’\n\nDr. Eric Topol, who directs the Scripps Research Translational Institute, said the study results “can be considered a disappointment,” especially because the US government raced to make them available and because there had been high hopes for an improved vaccine in time for a predicted winter Covid-19 surge.\n\nTopol also said it would be a mistake to skip these shots. They still work; they just may not be much of an improvement over the older ones.\n\n“A booster is a booster until proven otherwise and we are in great need of getting more of them in the US,” Topol, who was not involved in the new studies, wrote in an email to CNN.\n\nFewer than 20 million people – less than 10% of the population ages 5 and up – have gotten the updated booster, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.\n\nAfter waiting the recommended three months since his last Covid-19 infection, President Joe Biden got an updated booster Tuesday and urged eligible Americans to do the same.\n\n“Your old vaccine or your previous Covid infection will not give you maximum protection,” Biden said.\n\nPublic health officials had hoped that the rollout of the updated boosters would mark a turning point, where Americans might be able to get annual Covid-19 shots instead of boosters every few months.\n\nDr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, recently told Stat that he wasn’t sure whether the country had reached that point.\n\n“I would be lying to you if [I said] it doesn’t keep me up at night worrying that there is a certain chance that we may have to deploy another booster – at least for a portion of the population, perhaps older individuals – before next September, October,” he said.\n\n“I’m not saying that’s what’s going to happen, but it’s what keeps me up at night, because we see how fast this virus is evolving.”\n\nImprinting may complicate quest for better immunity\n\nThe studies probably didn’t find any difference between the new and old boosters because of immune imprinting, says Michael Worobey, a professor at the University of Arizona who studies the evolution of viruses and the origins and control of pandemics.\n\n“Your body is on a hair trigger to create more antibodies of what it has a good memory of,” said Worobey, who was not involved in the new research.\n\nAt the beginning of the pandemic, our immune systems were blank slates when it came to the coronavirus. By now, most of us have been exposed to one version of the virus or another through the vaccine, an infection or both. That exposure programs cells called B cells to make specific kinds of antibodies, and more B cells get this programming during their first exposure to the virus than they do in subsequent brushes with it.\n\nThat’s the reason some strains of the flu may hit certain age groups harder than others, too. When viruses look more similar to the first infection or vaccine you had, your body tends to do a better job fighting them off.\n\nWorobey said that both new studies have limitations, “but I think when you put them together, they paint a pretty clear picture that that antigenic imprinting is causing issues here, for sure.”\n\nIt’s possible to break through immune imprinting, he said. Certain kinds of vaccine ingredients, or adjuvants – “things that just happen to really wake up the immune system” – can do it.\n\nBut it’s not easy to add the kind of adjuvants he’s thinking about to mRNA vaccines like Pfizer and Moderna’s. In this case, he says, judging by the study findings, it probably would have been better to update the vaccine by including only the components against BA.4 and BA.5.\n\n“For me, the take-home message is, if you want to boost and provide protection against Omicron, leave the original variant out of the vaccine.”\n\nDr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and a member of the FDA’s vaccine advisory committee, says the new studies bear out data that was presented to the FDA’s advisers in June.\n\nHe says it’s one of the reasons he voted against the FDA requiring companies to add an Omicron strain to the boosters used in the US.\n\n“Certainly, the hope that this would be significantly better in terms of protection against the circulating strains, I think, is unlikely to be realized,” said Offit, who was not involved in the new studies.\n\nGet CNN Health's weekly newsletter Sign up here to get The Results Are In with Dr. Sanjay Gupta every Tuesday from the CNN Health team.\n\nWorobey says that when the strains are combined as they are in the updated boosters, they actually end up competing. The body’s response to the original strain is so strong, it will end up blocking the updated portion of the vaccine from stimulating those blank slate B cells against the newer variants and reshaping the immune response.\n\nThus, imprinting will complicate efforts to keep up with the virus, he says. We may need different kinds of vaccine technologies if the virus ever changes so much that it outcompetes our immunity altogether.\n\nThat’s something the FDA’s Marks has considered, too.\n\n“I would love to see us have a very ecumenical look over all of the available vaccines and all of the vaccines in development to try to see what’s best moving forward,” he told Stat. “Not to diss the current mRNA vaccines but because we owe it to the population to see what might provide the greatest breadth, depth and duration of immunity against Covid-19.”", "authors": ["Brenda Goodman"], "publish_date": "2022/10/26"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/23/economy/china-bank-runs-protests-intl-mic-hnk/index.html", "title": "Small banks in China are running into trouble. Savers could lose ...", "text": "Editor’s Note: A version of this story appeared in CNN’s Meanwhile in China newsletter, a three-times-a-week update exploring what you need to know about the country’s rise and how it impacts the world. Sign up here.\n\nPeter had put his life savings of about $6 million into accounts at three small banks in China’s central Henan province. He says he hasn’t been able to access them since April.\n\nThe 45-year-old entrepreneur asked us to call him Peter for security reasons. He’s from the eastern city of Wenzhou and is just one of thousands of depositors who have been fighting to recover their savings from at least six banks in rural provinces in central China.\n\n“I’m close to having a nervous breakdown. I can’t sleep,” Peter told CNN Business.\n\nWhen he tried to access his accounts online, a statement would pop up on the homepage informing him that the website was under maintenance and services would be unavailable for a while, Peter told CNN Business. Two months later, those services have not been restored.\n\nThe trouble began in April, when four banks in Henan suspended cash withdrawals.\n\nIn China, local banks are only permitted to obtain deposits from their home customer base, but authorities say that “third-party platforms” were used to acquire funds from depositors outside the region. In Peter’s case, for example, his hometown is over 700 miles away from the banks in Henan.\n\nThe national banking regulator has accused a major shareholder of the four banks of illegally attracting money from savers. “Henan New Fortune Group, a shareholder of the four village banks, has illegally absorbed the public’s funds through internal and external collusion, the use of third-party platforms, and fund brokers,” the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission told state-run Xinhua News Agency in May.\n\nDepositors protest in front of the Henan branch of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, demanding their money back after their funds were frozen. From Lan Nuo Nuo in February\n\n“The police have opened a case for investigation into the matter,” it added.\n\nRuns on small Chinese banks have become more frequent in recent years and some have been accused of financial improprieties or corruption. But experts worry that a much bigger financial problem could be looming, caused by fallout from a real estate crash and soaring bad debts related to the Covid-19 pandemic.\n\nThere are no official estimates yet on the total amount of funds that bank depositors are unable to withdraw. CNN Business did not receive a comment from the local police or the national banking regulator.\n\nAs many as 400,000 banking customers across China were unable to access their savings, according to an estimate in April by Sanlian Lifeweek, a state-owned magazine.\n\nThat’s a drop in the ocean of China’s vast banking system, but about a quarter of the industry’s total assets are held by around 4,000 small lenders, which often have opaque ownership and governance structures and are more vulnerable to corruption, say experts, and the sharp economic slowdown.\n\n“The scope of the bank scandals where bank officials embezzle and steal funds from depositors is alarming, and what is exposed could only be the tip of the iceberg,” said Frank Xie, a professor at University of South Carolina Aiken who studies Chinese business and the economy.\n\n“As the Chinese economy slows down further, the fiscal shortage worsens, and the debt repayments become more widespread among Chinese companies, especially in the real estate sector, bank runs could become more often and on a larger scale,” he said.\n\nMany savers have had enough. Late last month, hundreds of depositors traveled to Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan, to protest outside the office of the banking regulator and to demand their money back, to no avail.\n\nAnother protest was planned in June. But as the depositors arrived in Zhengzhou, they were stunned to find that their health codes — which were green upon departure — had turned red, according to six people who spoke with CNN and social media posts. Anyone with a red code — usually assigned to people infected with Covid or deemed by authorities to be at high risk of infection — immediately becomes persona non grata.\n\nThey are banned from all public venues and transport and are often subject to weeks of government quarantine.\n\nCNN has reached out to the Zhengzhou government for comment. The Henan Provincial Health Commission told state-run news website thepaper.cn it was “investigating and verifying” the complaints from depositors who received red codes.\n\nWhat’s behind the problem in Henan\n\nIn Henan, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission has put the blame on the private investment firm that holds large stakes in all four lenders.\n\nLast week, the Henan police said that a criminal gang headed by the investment firm’s controller “has been suspected of using village banks to commit serious crimes.” Police say several suspects have been arrested.\n\nThe Henan New Fortune Group no longer has a website. CNN tried to reach the company for comment on the phone and by email without success. The company has made no public statements and it’s believed to have been annulled.\n\nLater on Monday, the four Henan banks said they would start collecting information from customers who have been affected by the shutdown of their online transaction systems. The move was required by financial regulators, the banks added in separate statements on their website, without elaborating further.\n\nThat’s of little comfort to the banks’ customers. Deposits up to 500,000 yuan (almost $75,000) are guaranteed in the event of bank failures, but that’s not enough for some — like Peter — and if the government’s investigation finds that their savings are “non-compliant” transactions, they could lose everything.\n\n“I’m quite worried about how they [authorities] are going to deal with our money,” said Ye, who asked CNN Business to only use his surname. Ye is a 30-year old tech worker from the city of Dongguan in Guangdong province — about 1500 km (900 miles) from the banks he used in Henan. He said he has a total of 160,000 yuan (about $24,000) worth of deposits with them.\n\n“We were told by the banks that the deposit products were legal, and that they were protected by the deposit insurance scheme,” he said. “We just want to get our money back.”\n\nThe four banks — Yuzhou Xinminsheng Village Bank, Shangcai Huimin County Bank, Zhecheng Huanghuai Community Bank, New Oriental Country Bank of Kaifeng — have not replied to requests for comment.\n\nRisky liabilities\n\nIn early 2021, Beijing banned banks from selling deposit products via third party online platforms, fearing that the rapid expansion of the fintech sector could increase risks in the wider financial system. The People’s Bank of China called such practices “illegal financial activities.”\n\nSo why were small local banks in Henan apparently ignoring the ban and raising deposits from savers — like Ye, who live on the other side of the country?\n\nChina’s national banking and insurance regulator says third party online platforms allowed them to bypass these geographical restrictions and grow their business nationwide.\n\nIn the Henan case, various state-run media are reporting that the deposit products were sold via platforms affiliated with, or owned by, giants of China’s tech scene such as Baidu (BIDU) and JD.com. (JD)\n\nThose platforms — Du Xiaoman Financial, which is the financial affiliate of Baidu, as well as JD Finance — have not responded to requests for comment.\n\n“The central government regulators seem to be incapable of enforcing those regulations aimed at preventing this kind of bank run from occurring,” said Frank Xie, the Chinese economy expert. He added that corruption was “rampant” at local levels of financial institutions.\n\n“Perpetrators such as the person stealing millions from the depositors often get shielded by accomplices in governments and in the upper-level management of the banks,” Xie said.\n\n“The core problem is that China’s financial system simply expanded far too fast relative to the size of the economy over the previous decade,” said Logan Wright, director of China markets research at Rhodium Group.\n\nChina’s banking sector has increased sixfold in size since 2008, with total assets reaching over $50 trillion, according to government statistics.\n\nThe funding structure of small lenders also makes them more risky, say experts.\n\nCompared with big banks, they are more reliant on deposits for funding. Many of them offer high interest rates to attract commercial and interbank deposits. But as the slowing economy means borrowers struggle to repay the banks, it becomes difficult for them to deliver the returns they offered savers.\n\n“The funding structure of liabilities in many of China’s mostly smaller and regional banks is most likely still vulnerable to deposit runs, lender caution, and deteriorating economic performance and rising unemployment,” said George Magnus, an associate at the China Centre at Oxford University and former chief economist at UBS.\n\nDeteriorating financial health\n\nThe Henan crisis arrived at a time when public confidence in China’s banking system was already waning.\n\nIn the past decade, Beijing has been clamping down on “shadow banking” activities — which means unregulated, off-the-book lending by financial institutions — on worries that most of the funds had been diverted to property developers and local government infrastructure projects, leading to a rapid run-up in debt and growing financial risks.\n\nIn 2019, China seized control of Baoshang Bank, based in Inner Mongolia, citing serious credit risks posed by the lender.\n\nIt was the first bank seizure in China in more than 20 years and the lender was declared bankrupt.\n\nThe following year, there were at least five bank runs at small lenders, mostly triggered by public fears following reports of financial distress at the banks or anti-graft investigations into bank executives.\n\n“Financial institutions are still grappling with some of the losses that have resulted, particularly in China’s northeast, central provinces, and western regions, where shadow banking activities had expanded the fastest over the past decade,” Wright said.\n\nMaking matters worse, “the ongoing slowdowns in the economy during the Covid-19 pandemic have further exposed financial institutions to new credit risks as well,” Wright added.\n\nSpillover effects\n\nInvestors are closely watching the government’s investigation into the Henan bank run. Analysts are gauging possible spillover effects to other banks.\n\n“The economy is a key reason why affected banks might be experiencing difficulties, and it is quite possible that other banks will be affected, perhaps even larger banks, given that the fate of the property market and real estate prices hang in the balance,” said Magnus from Oxford University.\n\nThe Chinese economy has been struggling with the country’s zero-Covid policy. Many cities have been placed under full or partial lockdowns since March, wreaking havoc on activity. Analysts are worried that the economy could contract in the second quarter.\n\n“This could have multiplier effects given that real estate as an asset class could be compromised now for a few years,” Magnus said.\n\nChina’s gigantic real estate sector, which accounts for as much as 30% of its GDP, is in a worsening downturn. Sales by the country’s top 100 developers collapsed 59% in May from a year ago, according to a recent survey by property research firm Cric China.\n\nEvergrande — one of the country’s biggest developers — is undergoing a huge restructuring after it defaulted on its debts late last year. Analysts have long feared Evergrande’s collapse could have ripple effects across the property industry and spill over to the financial system.\n\nProperty loans accounts for nearly 30% of outstanding loans with China’s financial institutions.\n\nAnalysts aren’t yet worrying about a financial crisis — because the PBOC is likely to ensure that larger and systemically more important banks are protected.\n\nBut the discontent triggered by the bank runs could be a major concern for the government.\n\nWhen Covid health codes of depositors turned red early last week, derailing a planned protest in Zhengzhou, it sparked a massive outcry on social media.\n\n“Now (the authorities) can stop you from petitioning by directly putting digital shackles on you, aka giving you red codes,” said one comment on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like platform.\n\nDozens of depositors were taken into a quarantine hotel guarded by police and local officials, before being sent away on trains bound for their hometowns the next day; others were “quarantined” at several other locations in the city, including a college campus, according to the witnesses and online posts.\n\n“Many people lost their lifetime savings because of this and [if] more incidences like this takes place, and [if] a bank run is met with a government crackdown, social unrest will be the only end result,” Xie said.\n\n— Nectar Gan, CNN’s Beijing bureau, and Wayne Chang contributed to this report.", "authors": ["Laura He"], "publish_date": "2022/06/23"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/20/investing/premarket-stocks-trading/index.html", "title": "Netflix's collapse is a warning sign for stocks | CNN Business", "text": "A version of this story first appeared in CNN Business’ Before the Bell newsletter. Not a subscriber? You can sign up right here. You can listen to an audio version of the newsletter by clicking the same link.\n\nLondon CNN Business —\n\nShares of Netflix (NFLX) are imploding after the company reported its first quarterly loss of subscribers in more than a decade, far underperforming expectations and worrying investors that had been betting that a handful of big tech companies would continue to grow at a rapid clip.\n\nWhat’s happening: Netflix’s stock dropped 30% when the market opened on Wednesday, instantly wiping more than $45 billion off the value of the company.\n\nNetflix said it shed 200,000 subscribers in the first three months of the year, when it had been expecting to add 2.5 million.\n\nThe streaming giant, whose stock had already dropped more than 40% year-to-date, blamed the attrition on increased competition for viewers and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.\n\nNetflix said its decision to pull out of Russia cost the company 700,000 subscribers. But the economy isn’t helping, either.\n\nInflation is forcing households to reevaluate their budgets. People in Great Britain canceled about 1.5 million streaming subscriptions in the first three months of 2022. More than a third did so to save money, according to a new report by media consultancy Kantar.\n\n“Food and energy are people’s priorities right now, not watching ‘Stranger Things,’” CMC Markets chief market analyst Michael Hewson told me.\n\nNetflix signaled it could make big changes to its business as it tries to stem the bleeding. It’s taking another look at how to address password sharing. CEO Reed Hastings also told analysts that the company will consider a lower-price subscription option with advertising.\n\n“I’ve been against the complexity of advertising and a big fan of the simplicity of subscription,” Hastings said Tuesday. “But as much as I’m a fan of that, I’m a bigger fan of consumer choice.”\n\nBig picture: Hewson said the stock plunge shows that Netflix was extremely overvalued, as investors — flush with cash during the pandemic recovery — fed a huge rally. Shares of Netflix rose 86% from the end of 2019 through 2021, while the S&P 500 climbed 48%.\n\n“They were assuming people were going to be locked down forever,” Hewson said, adding that unlike Apple and Amazon, Netflix doesn’t have many alternative sources of revenue.\n\nClearly, the market mood has changed. The strong reaction could set the stage for another turbulent earnings season, with investors already on edge after disappointing results from the big banks.\n\nWhen companies reported fourth quarter results earlier this year, Netflix and Facebook experienced huge stock losses as investors signaled growing sensitivity to downbeat predictions for the future. That was because the Federal Reserve was set to start raising interest rates, a move that would weigh on high-growth companies. Facebook’s disastrous results triggered the biggest loss in market value for an S&P 500 company on record.\n\nNow, rates are officially on the rise, and there’s daily debate about whether the Fed could be even more aggressive than expected. The war in Ukraine is also dragging down sentiment. That could tee up big swings for top stocks as they disclose results.\n\nAttention turns to Tesla earnings\n\nInvestors have been spending a lot of time following CEO Elon Musk’s ploy to buy Twitter. But come Wednesday evening, attention will turn back to a company he already controls.\n\nTesla (TSLA) reports first quarter results after markets close. Analysts have strong expectations, my CNN Business colleague Chris Isidore reports.\n\nThe electric carmaker’s earnings are forecast to jump 142% from a year ago. Other traditional automakers, such as General Motors, Ford, Toyota and Volkswagen are all expected to report a drop in earnings due to supply chain problems and production issues.\n\nWatch this space: Musk joined the call with analysts last quarter. Will he be on this time around?\n\nIf he isn’t, that could feed Wall Street’s worries that he’s too busy trying to take Twitter private to deal with his management responsibilities. If Musk does dial in, there could still be risks, given his tendency to speak off the cuff.\n\nAnother point of focus will be lockdowns in China, which have affected Tesla’s production in Shanghai. Credit Suisse analysts estimate that the recent shutdown there prevented the manufacture of 90,000 vehicles.\n\nShareholders will want to know if the plant can stay open given restrictions, and how suppliers of critical parts such as batteries are faring.\n\nInvestor insight: A lot is riding on Tesla’s performance. Disappointing results could further disrupt a stock market that’s already unsteady.\n\nGas prices are creeping higher again\n\nPrices at the pump have stopped falling from their recent highs — and some forecasters are warning of another uptick as the summer driving season looms and the war in Ukraine drags on, my CNN Business colleague Matt Egan reports.\n\nAfter a slow-but-steady decline, the national average price for regular gasoline bottomed out at $4.07 a gallon last week, according to AAA. Since then the national average has increased five days in a row, climbing to $4.11 a gallon on Wednesday.\n\nIt’s the first increase in gas prices since early March, when turmoil in energy markets hit a crescendo following the invasion of Ukraine. And it dashes hopes that the national average would drop to $4 a gallon, taking pressure off inflation that’s running at the fastest pace in 40 years.\n\n“It isn’t going down anymore,” said Andy Lipow, president of consulting firm Lipow Oil. “This is terrible news for inflation.”\n\nPreviously, Lipow had been forecasting a return to $4 gas. But he abandoned that call because of renewed concerns about Russia’s oil supplies and a pop in gasoline futures, a major driver of wholesale and retail prices.\n\nUp next\n\nProcter & Gamble (PG) reports results before US markets open. SL Green Realty (SLG), Tesla (TSLA), Alcoa (AA) and United Airlines (UAL) follow after the close.\n\nAlso today: US existing home sales for March arrive at 10 a.m. ET.\n\nComing tomorrow: Earnings from American Airlines (AAL), AT&T (T) and Snap (SNAP).", "authors": ["Julia Horowitz"], "publish_date": "2022/04/20"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/09/business/food-fuel-prices-political-instability/index.html", "title": "Soaring food and fuel prices are destabilizing countries on the brink ...", "text": "London CNN Business —\n\nWhen people took to the streets in Egypt in 2011, protesters chanted about freedom and social justice — but also bread. The cost of pantry staples had jumped because of the skyrocketing price of goods like wheat, stoking fury with President Hosni Mubarak.\n\nNow, more than a decade after the Arab Spring, global food prices are soaring again. They had already reached their highest level on record earlier this year as the pandemic, poor weather and the climate crisis upended agriculture and threatened food security for millions of people. Then came Russia’s war in Ukraine, making the situation much worse — while also triggering a spike in the cost of the other daily essential, fuel.\n\nThe combination could generate a wave of political instability, as people who were already frustrated with government leaders are pushed over the edge by rising costs.\n\n“It is extremely worrisome,” said Rabah Arezki, a senior fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and former chief economist at the African Development Bank.\n\nUnrest in Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Peru over the past week highlights the risks. In Sri Lanka, protests have erupted over shortages of gas and other basic goods. Double-digit inflation in Pakistan has eroded support for Prime Minister Imran Khan, forcing him from office. At least six people have died in recent anti-government protests in Peru sparked by rising fuel prices. But political conflict isn’t expected to be limited to these countries.\n\n“I don’t think people have felt the full impact of rising prices just yet,” said Hamish Kinnear, a Middle East and North Africa analyst at Verisk Maplecroft, a global risk consultancy.\n\nLessons from the Arab Spring\n\nIn the run-up to the anti-government protests that became known as the Arab Spring — which began in Tunisia in late 2010 and spread through the Middle East and North Africa in 2011 — food prices were climbing sharply. The Food Price Index from the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization reached 106.7 in 2010 and jumped to 131.9 in 2011, then a record.\n\n“Mohamed Bouazizi didn’t set himself on fire because he couldn’t blog or vote,” an Emirati commentator wrote in January 2011, referring to the street vendor whose protest act helped launch the revolution in Tunisia and, ultimately, the Arab world. “People set themselves on fire because they can’t stand seeing their family wither away slowly, not of sorrow, but of cold stark hunger.”\n\nCircumstances in individual countries differed, but the bigger picture was clear. Surging wheat prices were a major part of the problem.\n\nThe situation now is even worse than it was then. Global food prices have just hit a new record high. The FAO Food Price Index published Friday hit 159.3 in March, up almost 13% from February. The war in Ukraine, a major exporter of wheat, corn and vegetable oils, as well as harsh sanctions on Russia — a key producer of wheat and fertilizer — is expected to spur further price increases in the coming months.\n\n“Forty percent of wheat and corn exports from Ukraine go to the Middle East and Africa, which are already grappling with hunger issues, and where further food shortages or price increases could stoke social unrest,” Gilbert Houngbo, head of the International Fund for Agricultural Development, said last month.\n\nAdding to the pain is the surge in energy prices. Global oil prices are almost 60% higher than they were a year ago. The cost of coal and natural gas has spiked, too.\n\nMany governments are struggling to protect their citizens, but fragile economies that borrowed heavily to make it through the 2008 financial crisis and the pandemic are most vulnerable. As growth slows, hurting their currencies and making it harder to keep up with debt payments, maintaining subsidies for food and fuel will be difficult, especially if prices keep climbing.\n\n“We are now in a situation where countries are indebted,” Arezki said. “As a result, they have no buffers to try to contain the tensions that will emerge from such high prices.”\n\nAccording to the World Bank, close to 60% of the poorest countries were “already in debt distress or at high risk of it” on the eve of the invasion of Ukraine.\n\nWhere tensions are simmering\n\nAsia: In Sri Lanka, an island nation of 22 million, an economic and political crisis is already boiling over, with protesters taking to the streets in defiance of curfews and government ministers stepping down en masse.\n\nGrappling with high debt levels and a weak economy reliant on tourism, Sri Lanka was forced to run down its reserves of foreign currency. That prevented the government from making payments for key imports such as energy, creating devastating shortages and forcing people to spend hours lining up for fuel.\n\nIts leaders have also devalued its currency, the Sri Lankan rupee, as they try to secure a bailout from the International Monetary Fund. But that just made inflation worse at home. In January, it reached 14%, almost double the rate of price increases in the United States.\n\nPakistan’s parliament issued a vote of no confidence in Khan on Sunday, ousting him from power and upending his government. While his political problems date back years, claims of economic mismanagement as the cost of food and fuel leaped, as well as the depletion of foreign exchange reserves, made matters worse.\n\n“The extent of economic chaos has united opposition to Imran Khan,” Kinnear of Verisk Maplecroft said.\n\nMiddle East and Africa: Experts are also watching for signs of political distress in other countries in the Middle East that are heavily dependent on food imports from the Black Sea region, and often provide generous subsidies to the public.\n\nIn Lebanon, where nearly three-quarters of the population was living in poverty last year as the result of a political and economic collapse, between 70% and 80% of imported wheat comes from Russia and Ukraine. Key grain silos were also destroyed during the 2020 explosion at the Beirut port.\n\nAnd Egypt, the world’s largest buyer of wheat, is already seeing enormous pressure on its huge subsidy program for bread. The country recently set a fixed price for unsubsidized bread after prices spiked, and is trying to secure wheat imports from countries like India and Argentina instead.\n\nWith an estimated 70% of the world’s poor living in Africa, the continent will also be “very exposed” to rising food and energy prices, Arezki said.\n\nDroughts and conflict in countries like Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan and Burkina Faso have created a food security crisis for more than a quarter of the continent’s population, the International Committee of the Red Cross said this week. The situation risks getting worse in the coming months, it continued.\n\nPolitical instability has already been building in parts of the continent. A series of coups have taken place in West and Central Africa since the start of 2021.\n\nEurope: Even countries with more developed economies, which have greater buffers to shield citizens from painful price increases, won’t have the tools to fully cushion the blow.\n\nThousands of protesters gathered in cities across Greece this week to demand higher wages to counter inflation, while France’s presidential election is narrowing as far-right candidate Marine Le Pen plays up her plans to reduce the cost of living. President Emmanuel Macron’s government said last month it was considering issuing food vouchers so that middle and low-income families could afford to eat.\n\n— Jessie Yeung, Rhea Mogul and Sophia Saifi contributed reporting.", "authors": ["Julia Horowitz"], "publish_date": "2022/04/09"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/15/business/ftx-bankruptcy-one-million-customers/index.html", "title": "Bankrupt crypto exchange FTX may have over 1 million creditors as ...", "text": "New York CNN —\n\nBankrupt crypto exchange FTX could have more than 1 million creditors and has been in contact with “dozens” of regulators around the world, according to court documents, underlining the far-reaching impact from the stunning collapse of one of the industry’s biggest players.\n\nThe new bankruptcy court filings also offer new details into the liquidity crisis that caused FTX to implode and called out the role of Sam Bankman-Fried, the exchange’s 30-year-old founder and one of the faces of the crypto industry.\n\nIn filings dated Monday, FTX’s lawyers say there is “substantial interest in these events” from regulatory authorities around the world.\n\nIn just the past 72 hours, FTX says its representatives have been in touch with “dozens” of federal, state and international regulatory agencies, including with the US Attorney’s Office, the US Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.\n\nA person familiar with the matter confirmed to CNN on Monday that federal prosecutors in New York are investigating the FTX collapse.\n\nFTX filed for bankruptcy last week and at the time estimated it had more than 100,000 creditors. Now, FTX has dramatically upped that estimate.\n\n“In fact, there could be more than one million creditors in these Chapter 11 cases,” lawyers for FTX wrote.\n\nThe court filing also explained that the “emergency” bankruptcy filing came after FTX faced a “severe liquidity crisis.”\n\n“Questions arose about Mr. Bankman-Fried’s leadership and the handling of FTX’s complex array of assets and businesses under his direction,” thefiling said.\n\nBankman-Fried resigned last week and apologized for his company’s collapse. The court filing said Bankman-Fried “ultimately agreed to step aside” at about 4:30 a.m. on Friday.\n\n–CNN’s Kara Scannell contributed to this report.", "authors": ["Matt Egan"], "publish_date": "2022/11/15"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/01/business/russia-economy-sanctions/index.html", "title": "The West's $1 trillion bid to collapse Russia's economy | CNN ...", "text": "London CNN Business —\n\nThe West has responded to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with round after round of punishing sanctions. The latest salvo is designed to spark a banking crisis, overwhelm Moscow’s financial defenses and tip the Russian economy into a deep recession.\n\nNever before has an economy with the global importance of Russia’s been targeted with sanctions at this level, according to analysts, who say there is now a high risk that Russia will face a financial crisis that pushes its largest banks to the brink of collapse.\n\nWestern officials have described their campaign as an economic war meant to punish President Vladimir Putin and turn the country he leads into an international pariah — even if it takes years for sanctions to destroy the defenses of Russia’s “fortress economy.”\n\n“We will provoke the collapse of the Russian economy,” French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire told a local news channel on Tuesday.\n\nRussia’s status as a global energy supplier will make that mission all the more difficult. Europe gets nearly 40% of its natural gas and 25% of its oil from Russia, and any disruptions to those exports would cause already elevated global prices to rise even further.\n\nHow the West is fighting\n\nPutin’s invasion of Ukraine has been met with an unprecedented response from the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, Canada, Japan, Australia and other countries. Even Switzerland, famous for its neutrality and banking secrecy, has pledged to impose sanctions on Russia.\n\nThe West has cut off Russia’s two largest banks, Sberbank (SBRCY) and VTB, from direct access to the US dollar. It has also taken steps to remove some Russian banks from SWIFT, a global messaging service that connects financial institutions and facilitates rapid and secure payments.\n\nThe coalition is trying to prevent Russia’s central bank from selling dollars and other foreign currencies to defend the ruble and its economy. In total, nearly $1 trillion worth of Russian assets have now been frozen by sanctions, according to Le Maire.\n\n“Western democracies have surprised many by pursuing a strategy of exerting intense economic pressure on Russia through effectively cutting it off from global financial markets,” Oliver Allen, markets economist at Capital Economics, said in a research note.\n\n“If Russia continues on its current path, it is quite easy to see how the latest sanctions could be just the first steps in a severe and enduring severing of Russia’s financial and economic ties with the rest of the world,” he added.\n\nWestern countries have ruled out sending troops to fight in Ukraine, leaving sanctions as the primary means of challenging Russia. The measures could wipe as much as 6% off Russia’s gross domestic product, according to Oxford Economics.\n\n“Our strategy, to put it simply, is to make sure that the Russian economy goes backward as long as President Putin decides to go forward with his invasion of Ukraine,” a senior US administration official told reporters.\n\nRussia’s ‘fortress’ economy\n\nSince 2014, when the United States and its Western allies imposed sanctions on Moscow following the annexation of Crimea and the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17, Putin has been trying to sanction-proof Russia’s $1.5 trillion economy, the 11th largest in the world.\n\nMoscow has attempted to wean its oil-dependent economy off the dollar, limited government spending and stockpiled foreign currencies.\n\nPutin’s economic planners have also sought to boost domestic production of certain goods by blocking equivalent products from abroad. Russia’s central bank has meanwhile amassed a war chest of $630 billion in reserves including foreign currencies and gold — a huge sum compared to most other countries.\n\nThose defenses are now being severely tested.\n\nThe sanctions have rendered roughly 50% of Russia’s foreign reserve stockpile useless, according to Capital Economics.\n\n“External conditions for the Russian economy have drastically changed,” the Russian central bank said Monday, announcing that it would roughly double interest rates to 20%. “This is needed to support financial and price stability and protect the savings of citizens from depreciation,” the bank added.\n\nRussia is also imposing capital controls. The central bank ordered companies to sell foreign currencies on Monday to prop up the ruble as it plunged to a record low against the US dollar. And Putin is planning a decree that would temporarily ban foreign companies and investors from selling Russian assets — which have become toxic for many since the invasion.\n\n“The $600 billion-plus war chest of Russia’s foreign reserves is only powerful if Putin can use it,” a senior Biden administration official told reporters.\n\nWhat happens next\n\nAll eyes are on the Russian financial system.\n\nThere were reports over the weekend that Russians were standing in long lines to withdraw cash from ATMs, raising the prospect of a run on the country’s banks. Already the main target of sanctions, Russian banks could come under even greater pressure if borrowers are unable to repay loans as the inevitable recession hits businesses and households.\n\nLiam Peach, an emerging markets economist at Capital Economics, said that Russian banks could be forced to respond by selling assets — probably on the cheap. Credit could become scarce, making the economic pain from sanctions even worse.\n\n“The ratcheting up of Western sanctions over the weekend has left Russian banks on the edge of crisis,” said Peach.\n\nOne early casualty was the European subsidiary of Sberbank, Russia’s biggest lender that has been sanctioned by Western allies. The European Central Bank said Monday that Sberbank Europe, including its Austrian and Croatian branches, was failing, or likely to fail, because of “significant deposit outflows” triggered by the crisis.\n\nAnother problem is that Russian banks only have enough foreign cash on hand to cover roughly 15% of the foreign currency deposits on their books. The central bank would normally supply banks with foreign currency, but with half its war chest out of bounds it may not be able to do that, and defend the ruble at the same time.\n\nThe central bank could be under pressure for months or even years.\n\nThanks to oil and gas, the value of Russia’s exports far exceeds imports, and payments into the country are a major source of foreign currency. But investors and businesses could try to move large amounts of foreign cash outside the country as the ruble falls, forcing the central bank to spend up to $100 billion of its available reserves this year, according to Capital Economics.\n\nAt the same time, the West could crack down even harder. The United States and its allies could remove more Russian banks from SWIFT and further restrict their access to dollars and euros, according to the Institute of International Finance. They could also cut off Russian energy exports, although that would cause prices to spike.\n\nFurther escalation of the economic conflict could have major consequences.\n\n“Don’t forget that in human history, economic wars quite often turned into real ones,” former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Thursday in response to Le Maire’s comments.", "authors": ["Charles Riley"], "publish_date": "2022/03/01"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/16/business/crypto-contagion-genesis-ftx-ctrp/index.html", "title": "Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen named in lawsuit against FTX ...", "text": "New York CNN Business —\n\nThe fallout from the spectacular implosion of crypto giant FTX has triggered a cascade of wide-reaching effects: It’s ensnared a number of celebrities who endorsed the now-bankrupt platform, and financial contagion is spreading across the vast crypto and digital-asset ecosystem.\n\nOn Wednesday, the lending arm of crypto brokerage Genesis suspended redemptions and new loan originations after an “abnormal” number of withdrawal requests that exceeded its current liquidity, citing market turmoil from the failure of FTX.\n\nGenesis said it was working with advisers “to explore all possible options,” adding that it would release a plan for the lending business next week. “We’re working tirelessly to identify the best solutions for the lending business, including among other things, sourcing new liquidity,” the company said.\n\nGenesis’ lending unit had about $2.8 billion in active loans in the third quarter, according to its website.\n\nThe suspension comes as the entire crypto industry is on edge following the unraveling of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX exchange and Alameda Research hedge fund, both of which filed for bankruptcy late last week.\n\n“In the crypto world, the minute you see a company or firm announce ‘we’re temporarily halting withdrawals’ — yikes,” said Daniel Roberts, editor-in-chief of Decrypt Media, a crypto-focused news outlet. “You put them on death watch now … It’s unusual that someone says ‘we’re halting withdrawals’ and then they say, ‘OK, withdrawals back on, we’re good.’”\n\nThat “death watch” is not confined to Genesis.\n\nSoon after the company suspended withdrawals, one of its partners, Gemini — the crypto firm founded by Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss — warned customers that redemptions under its Earn program would be delayed. Gemini said it was working with Genesis to help customers redeem funds from the program, which allowed customers to earn interest on crypto holdings. No other Gemini products or services were affected, the company said.\n\nMeanwhile another big player in the crypto space, BlockFi, halted withdrawals last week as FTX came unglued. On Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal reported BlockFi was preparing for a potential bankruptcy filing.\n\nOf course, major players in the crypto space are rushing to distinguish themselves from FTX and other firms that have gone bust in the past year as token prices have slumped.\n\nOne is Brian Armstrong, the CEO of publicly traded exchange Coinbase, who told CNN’s Julia Chatterly on Wednesday that even though the fallout is hurting the industry now, it may ultimately be a positive for companies like his.\n\n“Crypto is not going anywhere,” he said in an interview, which will air Thursday on First Move. “One bad player does not undermine the entire thing — similarly to how Bernie Madoff doesn’t cause us to question the entire traditional financial system.”\n\nLawsuit names Tom Brady, Gisele Bundchen, others\n\nAnd the legal headaches for Bankman-Fried, FTX’s founder who resigned as CEO last week, are piling up.\n\nOn Wednesday an FTX investor sued Bankman-Fried as well as several celebrities who have endorsed the platform, including Tom Brady, Gisele Bundchen and Steph Curry. “The deceptive FTX platform maintained by the FTX entities was truly a house of cards,” the proposed class-action lawsuit states.\n\nHeavyweight lawyers Adam Moskowitz and David Boies filed the suit on behalf of an FTX customer, Edwin Garrison.\n\nMoskowitz, a Florida lawyer, is also behind a class-action suit against crypto broker Voyager Digital, which also filed for bankruptcy earlier this year. And Boies is perhaps best known for representing Vice President Al Gore in 2000’s Bush v. Gore.\n\nIn an email to CNN Business, Moskowitz alleged FTX was “a massive Ponzi scheme larger than the Madoff scheme.”\n\n“FTX were geniuses at public relations and marketing, and knew that … [it] could only be successful with the help and promotion of the most famous, respected, and beloved celebrities and influencers in the world,” Moskowitz wrote.\n\nRepresentatives for Brady, Bundchen and Curry didn’t immediately respond to CNN Business’ request for comment.\n\nLawyers who aren’t involved in the case told CNN Business that a key question in the case will be whether cryptos can be treated as securities under the law. The Securities and Exchange Commission has said they are; the industry widely disagrees.\n\nIn its heyday, FTX received endorsements from several athletes and celebrities. Brady and Bundchen, notably, took an undisclosed equity stake in the exchange in 2021.\n\nIt’s not clear from the lawsuit what economic relationship the celebrities had with FTX, says Charles Whitehead, professor at Cornell Law School, who is not involved in the case. But plugging crypto has different implications than, say, endorsing a sports drink or athletic wear.\n\n“Selling an asset that is a financial instrument … is not the same thing as selling sneakers,” Whitehead says. “There are anti-fraud and consumer-protection rules for selling bad sneakers. There are more restrictive rules when you’re talking about selling financial assets.”\n\nHe added: “All these celebrities who are running around and doing these sorts of sponsorships should stop and ask a securities lawyer.”\n\nGrowing calls for regulation\n\nIn recent days, regulators, policy makers, and even crypto industry leaders have publicly called for Congress to take action on the crypto market, which is largely unregulated and lacks clear guidelines for traders.\n\n“The recent failure of a major cryptocurrency exchange and the unfortunate impact that has resulted for holders and investors of crypto assets demonstrate the need for more effective oversight of cryptocurrency markets,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement Wednesday. “Where existing regulations apply, they must be enforced rigorously so that the same protections and principles apply to crypto assets and services.”\n\n—CNN Business’ Jennifer Korn contributed to this article.", "authors": ["Allison Morrow"], "publish_date": "2022/11/16"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/18/business/ftx-crypto-downfall-explained/index.html", "title": "FTX: Inside the crypto giant's downfall | CNN Business", "text": "New York CNN Business —\n\nNovember 2022 is a month that investors, particularly in cryptocurrencies, will never forget. And the worst may be yet to come.\n\nOver the past two weeks, the digital asset industry has watched in horror as FTX, the multi-billion-dollar crypto exchange created by one of its biggest and brightest stars, Sam Bankman-Fried, imploded.\n\nThe failure of FTX, shook the foundations of the entire ecosystem. Token prices tumbled across the board as investors rushed to exit risky positions. Contagion followed. In the panic, depositors scrambled to pull their money out of various crypto platforms, forcing lenders to halt withdrawals — what one industry watcher described a going on “death watch.”\n\nOvernight, Bankman-Fried went from hero to villain.\n\nHow did we get here? And can crypto survive? The saga is far from over, but if you’re just tuning in, here’s what you need to know.\n\nQuick recap\n\nOn November 2, an article from the crypto trade publication Coindesk cited a leaked financial document that raised questions about the relationship between FTX and Bankman-Fried’s trading house, Alameda. On paper, they were two separate companies that happened to be owned by the same man. But the Coindesk article said that Alameda “rests on a foundation largely made up of a coin that a sister company invented.”\n\nA few days later, the head of FTX’s biggest rival, Binance, said the company would liquidate $580 million worth of FTT, the FTX’s in-house token. That set off a firestorm of draw downs that FTX didn’t have the cash to facilitate.\n\nSam Bankman-Fried saw his personal fortune of billions of dollars evaporate overnight. Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg/Getty Images\n\nPanic spread, tanking the value of not only FTT but also more mainstream cryptos including bitcoin, ethereum and solana.\n\nFTX faced a massive liquidity crisis. It needed a bailout, and briefly, it seemed it might be rescued by none other than Binance, its rival whose drawdown escalated the crisis. But Binance bailed on the rescue plan less than a day after announcing it, saying FTX’s problems were “beyond our control or ability to help.”\n\nOn November 11, FTX and Alameda filed for bankruptcy, and Bankman-Fried resigned as CEO of the exchange. “I f**ked up,” he wrote in a lengthy Twitter apology.\n\nHouse of cards\n\nFTX appointed a restructuring expert, John J. Ray III, as CEO to shepherd what’s left of the firm through bankruptcy.\n\nThat involves taking a cold hard look at the company’s financials and figuring out exactly how much it holds in assets and liabilities.\n\nIt’s only been a week, and Ray has declared it’s the biggest mess he’s ever encountered. That’s coming from an executive who made his name overseeing the liquidation of Enron, the largest bankruptcy reorganization in US history.\n\n“Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here,” Ray wrote in a court filing Thursday.\n\nThe filing contains evidence of colossal mismanagement and potential fraud taking place under Bankman-Fried’s leadership.\n\nBankman-Fried hasn’t been charged with any crimes. His lawyer didn’t respond to CNN Business’ request for comment.\n\nCrypto contagion\n\nThe crypto industry is on edge, waiting for the next dominoes to fall. Soon after FTX went down, crypto firms were inundated requests from customers seeking to claw their money back — the crypto equivalent of a run on the bank. Several firms have been forced to suspend withdrawals while they sort out their liquidity problems.\n\n“In the crypto world, the minute you see a company or firm announce ‘we’re temporarily halting withdrawals’ — yikes,” said Daniel Roberts, editor-in-chief of Decrypt Media, a crypto-focused news outlet. “You put them on death watch now … It’s unusual that someone says ‘we’re halting withdrawals’ and then they say, ‘OK, withdrawals back on, we’re good.’”\n\nAmong the firms that are at risk is lender BlockFi, which said it has “significant exposure” to FTX. BlockFi has suspended most operations. According to the Wall Street Journal, the company is preparing for a potential bankruptcy filing.\n\nThe pain isn’t confined to crypto companies. Venture capital firm Sequoia marked down its $210 million investment in FTX to zero. Similarly, the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, which invested $95 million, said it now believes that investment is worthless. Roughly 1 million others may have lost all the money they put into FTX.\n\nBinance, meanwhile, is stepping in as a potential lifeline for companies hit by FTX’s collapse. Its CEO, Changpeng Zhao, said Monday that his team would establish “an industry recovery fund,” for projects facing a liquidity crisis. Binance and others have been quick to try to distinguish themselves from FTX, assuring customers and investors that their financials are on solid footing.\n\nZhao, who goes by CZ, told CNN’s Anna Stewart that an FTX-style collapse is not a risk for Binance. Asked what he would say if all his customers wanted to withdraw their money at once, CZ replied: “Yes, no problem…We have always been profitable.”\n\nQuirky genius turns pariah\n\nAt the heart of the entire saga is an enigmatic 30-year-old who managed to charm his way into powerful circles dominated by celebrities, lawmakers and deep-pocketed investors.\n\nIn recent years, SBF (as he’s known online) appeared on the covers of Forbes and Fortune, hailed as the crypto world’s Warren Buffett. He accumulated a vast personal fortune, estimated at $26 billion at its peak earlier this year.\n\nAll of that went up in smoke as FTX unraveled. His fortune was completely wiped out, and now his companies are under investigation by federal prosecutors in New York, according to a person familiar with the matter.\n\nSBF had become a fixture in Washington, too, where he regularly traveled to lobby lawmakers for greater regulatory clarity for the crypto industry. But since losing his companies, SBF has been tweeting erratically and told a Vox reporter that all of his DC trips were little more than white-hat posturing.\n\n“F*ck regulators,” he told Vox in the interview, which was conducted over direct messages on Twitter. “They make everything worse.”\n\nInvestigations and regulatory scrutiny\n\nFTX said this week that its representatives have been in touch with “dozens” of federal, state and international regulatory agencies.\n\nIn addition to the Southern District of New York’s probe, FTX is reportedly under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodities and Futures Trading Commission, according to multiple news outlets.\n\nAuthorities in the Bahamas, where FTX is based, opened a criminal investigation shortly after the firm filed for bankruptcy.\n\nOn Friday, a powerful subcommittee in the House of Representatives said it was seeking internal documents and communications from Bankman-Fried and FTX to understand how the crypto exchange collapsed so suddenly and what is being done to recover customer funds.\n\nCan crypto survive?\n\nIn short yes. But there will be a lot more pain.\n\n“In the short term, FTX’s collapse has destroyed trust,” said Matt Hougan, CIO at crypto asset manager Bitwise. “The marginal crypto investor will now think twice before signing up for an account, and many institutional investors will sit on the sidelines waiting to see what other shoes will drop.”\n\nMany observers have compared crypto to the dot-com bubble of the late 90s — plenty of companies went bust, but those that survived, like Amazon, emerged to become the cornerstones of the tech industry.\n\nAnother historical comparison making the rounds is the fall of Lehman Brothers in 2008, which set off a global financial crisis. Crypto optimists might be quick to point out that Lehman didn’t take all of Wall Street down with it. Skeptics might counter that that’s only because the US government intervened — an outcome that is highly unlikely in the largely unregulated world of crypto.\n\n“There are attempts to make this about cryptocurrency and sufficient regulation, but this disaster has nothing to do with crypto in and of itself,” said economist Pete Earle of the American Institute for Economic Research, a think tank. “It’s about fraud and the power of virtue signaling.”\n\nHe added: “This scandal, far from destroying crypto, practically ensures that crypto will be around for a long, long time.”", "authors": ["Allison Morrow"], "publish_date": "2022/11/18"}]}
{"question_id": "20230317_2", "search_time": "2023/05/25/17:55", "search_result": [{"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/weather/2023/03/11/storms-forecast-west-northeast-weekend-weather-march-11-12/11445456002/", "title": "Flooding in California; snow in New York, Dakotas: Weekend weather", "text": "An atmospheric river battering California has prompted evacuations, a Presidential Emergency Declaration and an increasingly dire warning that more heavy rain is coming for portions of the state.\n\nThe central part of California was especially hammered by flooding: Roads dramatically flooded around Kern County and National Guard members encountered floodwaters as they deployed to help first responders in Santa Cruz County.\n\nForecasters' concerns are primarily concentrated away from the state's major population centers. On Saturday afternoon, Los Angeles and San Diego were free of weather watches, warnings and advisories; the San Francisco Bay Area was under an expansive flood watch.\n\nMeanwhile, forecasters said a winter storm could dump a foot of snow or more on northeast North Dakota, part of a storm impacting parts of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and Michigan this weekend.\n\nCalifornia storm impacts: Flooded roads, evacuations, levees breached\n\nMore than 9,000 California residents were under evacuation orders Friday. First responders rescued dozens of people Saturday in a Northern California agricultural community after the Pajaro River's levee was breached. In the Central Valley's Tulare County, another levee breach prompted evacuations on Friday.\n\nMonterey County Board of Supervisors Chair Luis Alejo said in a tweet that it would take months for residents to repair the damage to their homes from flooding in Parajo, a largely Latino unincorporated Monterey Bay community.\n\n\"We need all the help we can get from our state and federal leaders to assist our families through this devastating hardship!\" Alejo said.\n\nAnd in an unusual move, officials opened spillways at Lake Oroville for the first time since April 2019 because one of the most important reservoirs in the state had too much water. State water managers have been grappling with the best way to use recent storms to help emerge from a severe drought.\n\nCalifornia weekend forecast\n\nAn atmospheric river blasting California will continue to dump rain and heavy snow on much of the state Saturday.\n\nThe storm, known as a “Pineapple Express” because it is fed by moisture stretching over the Pacific to Hawaii, has caused particular concern because California's mountains have built up a huge, expansive snowpack after multiple other atmospheric rivers hit the state this winter. It's the state's 10th atmospheric river of the season.\n\nThe snowpack at high elevations is so deep it should be able absorb the rain, forecasters said. But lower elevations could face a troubling combination of snow melt and precipitation at the same time.\n\nCentral California remained at risk of more strong and severe isolated storms Saturday afternoon into the evening, the National Weather Service said, and the Central Valley could see \"hail, strong winds and perhaps a brief tornado.\"\n\nRain at lower elevations and snow in the mountains in Northern and Central California were expected at slightly lower intensity than in recent days.\n\nAtmospheric river:The weather phenomenon extends thousands of miles from the tropics to the western U.S\n\nAnother storm headed for California\n\nSome of the same areas hit in recent days with snow, heavy rainfall and flooding will see more of the same from the next storm, the weather service said.\n\nThe beginning of the week will bring \"considerable flooding impacts\" along the Central California Coast, San Joaquin Valley, Sacramento Valley and southern Sierra Nevada foothills. The Bay Area should brace for damaging winds beginning Monday night.\n\nOn Tuesday and Wednesday, more heavy rain and melting snow may bring widespread flooding before another round of snow \"will further compound snow load impacts and issues,\" according to the weather service.\n\nAll the precipitation in California does carry some good news for the state.\n\nAbout 26 percent of the state is now considered drought-free, up from just 16 percent on Feb. 28, Bob Larson — senior meteorologist with AccuWeather — said, adding that new figure doesn't even include the two atmospheric rivers impacting the state Saturday and next week.\n\n\"It's not ending the drought but (it's) absolutely helping,\" he said. \"Although it's causing all kinds of problems short term, the big picture long term is it's a help.\"\n\nA weird winter winds down:New data details record warmth, strange snow patterns\n\nWinter storm map\n\nEast/Northeast\n\nLike California, the eastern and northeastern part of the U.S. will continue seeing winter storm weather on Saturday before a tranquil Sunday, followed quickly by another storm.\n\nA strip of the region between Buffalo and Binghamton, New York can expect 6-12 inches of snow while New York City may get 1 to 3 inches.\n\nThe farther east the storm moves, the \"less of a big deal it becomes,\" Larson said.\n\nWestern Massachusetts may get between 2 and 4 inches of snow while Boston seems like it will be spared from any major precipitation this weekend.\n\nCome Monday, that'll change with a nor'easter.\n\n\"It won't be a prolonged lull,\" Larson said. \"But all of New England should be dry and tranquil in between for Sunday.\"\n\nThe South\n\nStrong to severe thunderstorms are expected in eastern Oklahoma and most of Arkansas on Saturday before the threat shifts southeast to the southern half of Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia on Sunday.\n\nUS weather watches and warnings\n\nNational weather radar\n\nContributing: The Associated Press", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2023/03/11"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2021/11/29/giant-christmas-tree-jersey-shore-boardwalk-salmon-farm-news-from-around-states/8788371002/", "title": "50 States", "text": "From USA TODAY Network and wire reports\n\nAlabama\n\nTuscaloosa: The city’s outdoor ice skating venue is open at a new location and with a new name. The event, formerly known as Holidays on the River, has moved to Government Plaza for this holiday season, The Tuscaloosa News reported. It’s now known as Holidays on the Plaza. Ice skating is scheduled to continue through Jan. 17. Along with outdoor ice skating, Holidays on the Plaza features the Tinsel Trail benefiting Tuscaloosa’s One Place, private parties, and other holiday festivities, organizers said. The decision to move the holiday ice skating from the Tuscaloosa Amphitheater was because of ongoing construction on Jack Warner Parkway, city officials said. “With increased visibility and proximity to local businesses and restaurants, we hope to make this event more convenient to the community,” said Stacy Vaughn, director of public services. Holidays on the River began nine years ago on the Mildred Westervelt Warner Transportation Museum property, the Tuscaloosa News reported. It grew in popularity, and moved in 2015 to the Tuscaloosa Amphitheater. Admission to Holidays on the Plaza is free. However, guests must purchase skate passes to access the ice rink.\n\nAlaska\n\nBethel: A federal grant will allow an extensive trail system to connect all four communities on Nelson Island, just off Alaska’s western coast. The $12\n\nmillion grant will pay to take the trail the last link, from Toksook Bay, which received the federal money, to the community of Mertarvik, the new site for the village of Newtok. The village is moving because of erosion. However, Newtok has not yet agreed to accept the trail. Newtok Tribal Administrator Phillip Carl told KYUK the village council has not met in months because of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the council is scheduled to meet in December, and will vote on the trail project. Even if they decide not to accept the project, Toksook Bay still intends to build most of the trail to Mertarvik. However, they would stop just short of the village, at the border between the two village corporations. Work on the trail to Mertarvik still needs to be designed and go through environmental reviews. If approved, construction is expected to start in 2023 and take about two years to complete. The island’s trail system will span 50 miles, connecting the four communities: Toksook Bay, Tununak, Nightmute and Mertarvik. The trail connecting Toksook Bay to Nightmute is expected to be completed next summer.\n\nArizona\n\nPhoenix: Two hikers were rescued Saturday in separate operations at Echo Canyon and South Mountain. According to the Phoenix Fire Department, the rescues involved a 59-year-old man who experienced chest pains while hiking Echo Canyon and a 14-year-old boy who tripped and suffered a lower-extremity injury while hiking Holbert Trailhead at South Mountain. Firefighters arrived at Holbert Trailhead just before 11 a.m. Saturday and hiked approximately 1\n\nmile to the location where a 14-year-old boy tripped and fell while hiking. After locating him, emergency personnel conducted basic life-support measures and splinted the patient’s leg. He was extricated by helicopter from the scene. The Phoenix Fire Department said the patient was then taken to a local pediatric emergency room for further evaluation. The other hiker was assisted by Technical Rescue Teams in Echo Canyon. After a quick assessment, rescue teams decided to use the “Big Wheel” to help the hiker off of the mountain after he stated he didn’t feel comfortable walking down on his own, according to the Phoenix Fire Department. Once at the trailhead, a second assessment of the hiker was performed and rescue crews determined the patient needed transport to a local hospital. Phoenix Fire Department said no emergency personnel was injured in either incident.\n\nArkansas\n\nHelena-West Helena: The U.S. Department of Transportation has awarded a $20\n\nmillion grant to finish the final section of a bike and pedestrian trail in southeastern Arkansas. The Arkansas Department of Parks, Heritage and Tourism was awarded the money to construct the final 13.4-mile section of the Delta Heritage Trail. Once complete, the 87-mile trail stretching from Lexa to Arkansas City will be one of the longest dedicated pedestrian and bicycle trails in Arkansas. The federal grant is being matched by $20\n\nmillion from the Walton Family Foundation. State parks officials said the project is expected to be finished by 2025.\n\nCalifornia\n\nSacramento: A federal appeals court temporarily blocked an order that all California prison workers must be vaccinated against the coronavirus or have a religious or medical exemption. A panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted a request for a stay of September’s lower court order pending an appeal. It also sped up the hearing process by setting a Dec. 13 deadline for opening briefs. The vaccination mandate was supposed to have taken effect by Jan. 12 but the appellate court stay blocks enforcement until sometime in March, when the appeal hearing will be scheduled. The judge who issued the vaccination mandate followed the recommendation of a court-appointed receiver who was chosen to manage the state prison health care system after a federal judge in 2005 found that California failed to provide adequate medical care to prisoners. In addition to requiring COVID-19 shots for prison workers, U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar required vaccinations or exemptions for inmates who want in-person visits or who work outside prisons, including inmate firefighters.\n\nColorado\n\nFort Collins: The remains of the final victim of the Black Hollow Flood have been discovered four months after she and her three family members were swept away in the flood. About 4 p.m. Nov. 20, a local resident reported finding what she thought to be human remains while hiking east of Rustic Road – a little more than 4 miles east of Black Hollow Road – according to a news release from the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office. Deputies with the sheriff’s office and investigators with Larimer County Coroner’s Office recovered those remains, and the coroner’s office identified them as belonging to 57-year-old Diana Brown of San Antonio. Brown was swept away by the flood waters July 20 along with her family members Richard Brown of Bellevue, Nebraska; Patricia Brown of Madison, Wisconsin; and David Brown of San Antonio. Their bodies were recovered in a section of the river between Arrowhead Lodge and the Indian Meadows area of the Poudre Canyon several days after the flood. Richard Brown owned a mobile home on Black Hollow Road, according to Larimer County property records, but his home residence was in Bellevue. All four victims were in the same house in the small Black Hollow area 45\n\nmiles west of Fort Collins when the Black Hollow Creek initiated a flash flood down the mountainside filled with large boulders and trees burned in the Cameron Peak Fire.\n\nConnecticut\n\nTorrington: The Torrington Public Schools district is turning to a limousine service company to help transport students to school because of a bus driver shortage that has been exacerbated by the pandemic. The district plans to use some of its $5.9\n\nmillion in federal coronavirus relief funds to pay Carriage & Limousine Services of Oxford to help cover its 53 bus routes. The private company has said it can provide 30 passenger buses and 10 passenger vans to cover morning bus runs on an emergency basis and afternoon runs more regularly, the Waterbury Republican-American reported. The company charges $125 an hour for passenger buses and $87.50 an hour for passenger vans. All-Star Transportation, the city’s main bus provider, has had difficulty finding enough drivers, which has caused morning delays and prevented most after-school programs, the superintendent of schools, Susan Lubomski, recently told the Board of Education.\n\nDelaware\n\nDover: Delaware’s K-12 public schools are continuing to report fewer than 300 COVID-19 cases that are deemed as being in-person and contagious. The Delaware State News reported last week the numbers remained below 300 for the fifth consecutive week. The data was released Wednesday by the Delaware Division of Public Health. The agency said there were 298 cases for students, just 0.21% of the estimated 141,040 public school students. The week’s numbers were slightly up from 0.17% – or 243 cases – from the previous week. Delaware has recorded a total of 3,397 in-person contagious cases among students this school year. That figure amounts to 2.4% of all public school students. Another 665 cases have been reported among staff. The data is for all of Delaware’s public schools. That includes 19 districts and 23 charter schools that are part of the public school system.\n\nDistrict of Columbia\n\nWashington: The Knights of Columbus handed out new winter coats for those in need at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish in southeast D.C. on Friday, WUSA-TV reported. Many low-income families have scarce resources to cover even the most basic essentials, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The Knights of Columbus launched the Coats for Kids program to ensure that every child in North America would have access to a warm winter coat. Since the program started in D.C. in 2009, councils have purchased and distributed more than 500,000 new winter coats to children throughout North America. Cardinal Wilton Gregory, who is the first Black U.S. prelate to earn the coveted red cap, said this is the season for giving if you can. “It’s a great gesture of concern for kids and young people who need a little help at this time of year,” Gregory said. Metro Police officers were also picking up coats. Each district gets three boxes. Officer Karen Voglezon said giving them out is a way to connect with the community they serve. “We never know what anybody’s situation is, so to get a warm coat for the winter is very good,” Officer Voglezon said.\n\nFlorida\n\nMiami: Federal authorities have taken into custody a 26-year-old man who apparently stowed away in the landing gear compartment of an American Airlines fight that arrived at Miami International Airport from Guatemala on Saturday morning. The man was in the wheel well area when the flight arrived from Guatemala City at 10:06 a.m., officials said. News outlets reported that Flight 1182 was met by law enforcement because of a security issue. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers took the man into custody, the agency said in a news release. Medics took the man to a hospital for a medical assessment. “Persons are taking extreme risks when they try to conceal themselves in confined spaces such as an aircraft,” the agency said. The news release didn’t say whether the man will face any charges, or what will happen to him when he’s released from the hospital.\n\nGeorgia\n\nLawrenceville: All active school district employees in Gwinnett County eligible for benefits are in line to get $1,000 in bonuses next month, as well as a paid Juneteenth holiday next year. Superintendent Calvin Watts recommended the bonuses to the county’s Board of Education, which approved them unanimously, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. The bonus will be paid in a lump sum in the December monthly paycheck for about 21,500 employees, including teachers, administrators and support personnel, according to a news release from Gwinnett County Public Schools. The one-time bonuses’ $21.5\n\nmillion cost will not tie up future budgets or decrease the year-end fund balance, the news release said. Atlanta Public Schools is also considering $1,000 stipends next month for all its 6,000 workers, including part-time employees.\n\nHawaii\n\nHonolulu: A food distributor in Hawaii has filed a federal lawsuit against a dairy company because milk from the mainland is allegedly being sold under a name that advertises local ties. The lawsuit filed by Hawaii Foodservice Alliance claims Meadow Gold Dairies is selling milk from California alongside advertising that reads, “Hawaii’s Dairy” and “Made with Aloha,” the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported. The lawsuit said the company has no cows in Hawaii and their “Lani Moo” mascot is misleading. Meadow Gold has long sold milk produced in Hawaii. The company was sold in April 2020 to Bahman Sadeghi, a Big Island dairy farmer, who allegedly began using milk from outside the state. “We have never claimed that all our milk is local, but we do consider ourselves Hawaii’s Dairy because we are committed to Hawaii and its community and will continue to be while we work toward building a more sustainable operation,” Meadow Gold said in a statement. In a similar but unrelated case, a federal judge recently tossed out a lawsuit against California-based King’s Hawaiian, which produces sweet rolls. Hawaii Public Radio reported King’s Hawaiian was sued because their label features the words “Established 1950” and “Hilo, Hawaii” in reference to the company’s founding. U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton said the packaging clearly states the rolls are made in California and a geographic reference such as Hilo would not deceive a consumer into believing the product was made there.\n\nIdaho\n\nBoise The city is looking to expand its geothermal heating system by 40% as part of a goal to become carbon-neutral by 2050. The city pumps 250 gallons of geothermal water to 96 buildings through 21 miles of pipes. The water has a temperature of 177 degrees Fahrenheit. City officials said that the geothermal heat supplies about 2% of the city’s energy resources. “Geothermal really provides that clean energy alternative,” said Climate Action Manager Steve Hubble, the Idaho Statesman reported. The heated water comes from a river of geothermally heated water flowing under the nearby foothills. Experts said the water is heated by the Idaho Batholith, a massive igneous intrusion of granite producing heat through decay of isotopes like uranium, thorium, and potassium. Boise Geothermal Program Manager Jon Gunnerson said a large fault line runs through the Boise foothills and helps bring the water near the surface. The hot water is pumped from city-owned wells in the foothills to buildings, and then returned to the aquifer. City officials said they want to expand the use of the geothermal water by 5 million gallons (18.9 million liters) a year until reaching 355\n\nmillion gallons. Gunnerson said anyone interested in switching to geothermal should contact his office. The city says the rate is competitive with natural gas prices.\n\nIllinois\n\nSpringfield: The Capitol dome in Springfield will be without holiday lights for the third straight year. The same structural issue that kept workers from hanging about 1,300 lights from the state Capitol dome in 2019 and again last year has not been resolved, Secretary of State spokesman Henry Haupt told The Springfield State-Journal Register. Haupt said an engineering firm conducted an inspection of the dome in 2019 and recommended an observation deck above the dome be fortified before the lights are put up. “It’s the engineering firm just feels the Christmas lights shouldn’t be tethered to it until it’s fortified,” he said, adding that there is nothing wrong with the observation deck necessarily. He said the next step is for the secretary of state’s office – which is the custodian of the building – to work with the Capitol Development Boar to come up with the funding for the project. That means the lights, which were first hung on the dome in 1924 and became an annual tradition in the 1960s, will remain dark for at least one more holiday season.\n\nIndiana\n\nWinamac: Staff at a primate sanctuary in northern Indiana will be feeding the center’s menagerie with freshly picked fruit in the coming years because of a newly planted orchard. A team of volunteers helped plant 60 fruit trees last month on the property of the Peaceable Primate Sanctuary, which is home to baboons and macaque monkeys retired from research facilities and pharmaceutical companies. The new orchard at the primate center is outfitted with an irrigation system and within a few years it will supply the sanctuary with fresh apples, persimmons and other fruits, WSBT-TV reported. The orchard was planted after donations and a partnership with an organization called The Fruit Tree Planting Foundation. The next project at the sanctuary, located in Winamac, about 40 miles southwest of South Bend, is to build space for 10 additional primates that will be retiring there, said Scott Kubisch, the center’s director and founder.\n\nIowa\n\nDes Moines Iowa motorists will soon have the option of keeping their driver’s license on their phones. State officials have begun a pilot project to make digital driver’s licenses, or “mobile IDs,” available for download via smartphone apps sometime in 2022, the Cedar Rapids Gazette reported Friday. Iowa is one of several states that have considered, tested or begun issuing digital versions of driver’s licenses. Iowa plans to test devices equipped with digital versions through December, with about 100 state Department of Transportation employees expected to enlist by spring as a test group to make sure the app works. Melissa Gillett, director of the department’s motor vehicle division, said the mobile ID will be optional, but motorists will still be expected to carry hard-copy licenses. Iowa DOT officials are working with technology vendors to address security and privacy concerns inherit with any electronic-based app. They also are working with law enforcement agencies, and want to make sure the digital ID can be accepted by retailers and other places that require people to show identification or proof of age or address.\n\nKansas\n\nWichita: Kansas utility regulators have issued an order requiring Evergy to explain and justify a plan to spend $10.4 billion on its electrical system and report quality of service measures on a quarterly basis amid concerns that the plan is designed largely to benefit a hedge fund investor. The Wichita Eagle reported members of the Kansas Corporation Commission sent a strong signal Tuesday that they won’t tolerate efforts to increase shareholder profits at the expense of unreasonably high rates for Evergy’s 1\n\nmillion Kansas customers. In a written statement, Evergy said it was reviewing the commission’s order before identifying “if there are appropriate next steps.” At issue is a plan undertaken by Evergy after Elliott Management Corp. bought into Evergy last year with a stated goal of raising the company’s profitability and stock prices.\n\nKentucky\n\nFrankfort: Kentucky officials spent nearly $1 million to replace office furniture for hundreds of legislative staffers who work out of the state Capitol and Capitol Annex in Frankfort. The Lexington Herald-Leader reported that Mike Wynn, spokesperson for the General Assembly’s Legislative Research Commission, said the purchase was necessary. “In short, we’ve reached a tipping point,” Wynn said. “Our furniture is more than a decade old, and many items have suffered significant wear over the years. It’s now cheaper to replace those items than repair them.” Fifty executive desks were bought for nearly $1,350 each. Meanwhile, more than 290 bookcases were bought for $815 each and 276 guest chairs were $339 each. No new furniture was purchased for lawmakers and their staffers.\n\nLouisiana\n\nNew Orleans: A New Orleans museum plans to launch an elaborate nighttime sound-and-light show next year to showcase individual stories of bravery and sacrifice during World War II. The National WII Museum plans to premier its Expressions of America show on Veterans Day in 2022. It will use music, art installations and projections of what the museum calls “living murals” on the various facades of the expansive museum in downtown New Orleans. The plan is to draw from the museum’s archives to tell personal stories of soldiers, nurses and chaplains who served, their loved ones and others who played a role on the home front, including factory workers, artists and entertainers. The show also will feature actor and veterans advocate Gary Sinise. Expressions of America is being produced at an estimated cost of about $5\n\nmillion, according to museum spokesman Keith Darcey. It will be sponsored by the Bob & Dolores Hope Foundation, a charitable organization founded in the name of the late comedian who famously entertained troops overseas, and his wife.\n\nMaine\n\nBucksport: A proposed salmon farm located at the site of the former Verso paper mill in Bucksport has not started construction despite receiving the necessary permits two years ago. A spokesperson for the company, Whole Oceans – which proposed the land-based aquaculture facility located on 100 acres along the Penobscot River – could not provide an update on when construction would start, the Bangor Daily News reported. The project received permits from the Bucksport Planning Board and approval from the Maine Department of Environmental Protection in 2019. In 2020, the company bought a second plot of land at the old mill site that it said meant it needed to review its plans. Bucksport Code Enforcement Officer Luke Chiavelli told the newspaper he had not received any applications related to construction on the second plot. The current approvals are valid for five years. The company is in compliance with permits and has paid its taxes, Susan Lessard, the Bucksport town manager, told the newspaper. She said the company told her they were in the process of hiring a CEO and there have been multiple previous changes in the company’s leadership in the past three years, the newspaper reported.\n\nMaryland\n\nEaston: Officials on Maryland’s Eastern Shore have voted to award a contract to remove a Confederate monument from a courthouse lawn and relocate it. The Talbot County Council voted unanimously to award a contract for the removal of the “Talbot Boys” statue and its relocation to a Virginia battlefield, news outlets reported. The council also passed an amendment that would allow submissions of alternative local sites for the monument until Dec. 6. The statue dedicated in 1916 commemorates more than 80 soldiers who fought for the Confederacy. It’s thought to be the last Confederate monument still standing on public property in Maryland besides cemeteries and battlefields. The contract was awarded to Washington, D.C.-based contractor Stratified for $67,000, an amount contingent on the project being funded by the Mid-Shore Community Foundation. No county funds are required for the bid.\n\nMassachusetts\n\nBoston: A man has pleaded guilty to his role in a conspiracy to transport drugs and cash using secret compartments inside tractor trailers. Jamil Roman, 44, of Chicopee was indicted in 2016. He pleaded guilty on Tuesday in federal court in Springfield to conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute cocaine. He is scheduled to be sentenced in March. In 2014, Roman, who owned an auto body shop, and a co-defendant, Javier Gonzalez, conspired to distribute cocaine in western Massachusetts, prosecutors said. Roman admitted to meeting with Gonzalez and conspiring to collect a debt owed for the cocaine, which was part of a larger load obtained from a Mexican supply source. Law enforcement officers seized about $1.17\n\nmillion in cash from a hidden compartment inside a tractor trailer being driven by Gonzalez to Texas as payment for the drugs, prosecutors said. Gonzalez was sentenced in October to 21/2 years in prison and fined $20,000.\n\nMichigan\n\nEast Lansing: In the wake of the death of a Michigan State University student two weekends ago, the school and the Pi Alpha Phi national organization have suspended the school’s chapter of the fraternity. The student, identified as Phat Nguyen, died early Nov. 20 at a residence off campus. An autopsy was conducted but the Office of the Medical Examiner at Sparrow Hospital said the cause of death would not be determined until toxicology results are completed in six to eight weeks. Authorities have said alcohol consumption might have been a factor and shortly after the incident, the East Lansing Police Department said its officers had responded to the scene where four people were “passed out,” including one who was not breathing. According to the Lansing State Journal, Nguyen’s death came a day after the fraternity posted on its Facebook page that he was one of four students who had just joined the chapter.\n\nMinnesota\n\nMinneapolis: President Joe Biden is scheduled to visit the Twin Cities suburb of Rosemount on Tuesday to tout his $1 trillion infrastructure plan. The president has been making multiple stops across the country to highlight the infrastructure package. The White House has projected the package will deliver $4.5\n\nbillion to Minnesota for highways, $800\n\nmillion for public transportation and about $300\n\nmillion for bridge work over a five-year span, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported. The state also is in line for $680\n\nmillion for water projects, at least $100\n\nmillion for broadband expansion and about $297\n\nmillion for airport infrastructure. Biden won Minnesota by about 7 percentage points in the 2020 presidential election.\n\nMississippi\n\nOcean Springs: Mississippi is unveiling a new app that’s designed to store someone’s driver license on their phone. The app is being billed as a safe and effective way to make sure your ID is always on you, WLOX-TV reported. However, state officials said people will still need a physical driver license to show if requested when they are stopped by law enforcement. Another exception listed on the program’s website is boarding an airplane. Still, there’s a “growing list” of businesses and state agencies that accept the Mississippi Mobile ID, state officials said. “Vendors can accept the Mobile ID with confidence, as information on the digital ID can be verified against what is on file with the Department of Public Safety and will always be accurate and up-to-date,” the program’s website stated. Residents’ information is secure and can only be accessed with their fingerprint or face ID, officials with the Department of Public Safety said. Mississippi Mobile ID is voluntary, and residents may continue relying on their physical ID. More information about the program is available at www.driverservicebureau.dps.ms.gov/mobile-id/\n\nMissouri\n\nKansas City: The city’s embattled police chief’s last day on the job will be in April, a draft agreement obtained by The Kansas City Star showed. The letter was written after Chief Rick Smith met last week with Mayor Quinton Lucas and Board of Police Commissioners president, Mark Tolbert. The meeting came just four days after a Jackson County found Det. Eric DeValkenaere guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the 2019 shooting death of Cameron Lamb. Capt. Leslie Foreman, a spokeswoman for the department said in a statement Smith would retire sometime in 2022. She said Smith made a commitment to stay in the position no more than five years when he was hired in August 2017. But the new letter, which is addressed to Smith from Tolbert, provided more details. It said Smith will announce his retirement to the public on March 1, that his last day will be April 22 and that he will be compensated at his current salary through Aug. 31. Smith earns about $191,000 per year as chief. There have been repeated calls for Smith to resign, including during last year’s racial justice protests. Smith’s departure is expected to come up when the police board meets Monday in a closed session.\n\nMontana\n\nBillings: The value of livestock killed by predators such as grizzly bears and wolves is expected to exceed the budget for compensating ranchers for such losses this year, the Montana Livestock Loss Board said. George Edwards, the board’s executive director, said 331 head of livestock have been killed this year by wolves, grizzlies and mountain lions. With more than $262,000 in payouts having been made through Nov. 23, Edwards told The Billings Gazette he doesn’t think the state’s $300,000 annual budget will be enough to cover all the losses. Claims for animals killed by grizzly bears have been increasing in recent years. Six years ago, reported grizzly bear kills of cattle was 50 head, with another 16 probable kills. So far this year, there have been 80 confirmed kills and another 35 that are probable. Wolves also kill sheep, and mountain lions kill sheep and goats. The Montana Legislature started the Livestock Loss Program in 2007 to compensate ranchers for animals lost to grizzly bears and wolves. Mountain lions were added to the predators list and the legislature increased the compensation program’s annual budget from $200,000 to $300,000 in 2019.\n\nNebraska\n\nLincoln: Students at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln could be required to log into an online class or watch a recorded lecture from home when bad weather strikes. The Lincoln Journal Star reported a new policy gives UNL the option to require students to follow “instructional continuity plans.” The new policy goes into effect Jan. 3, the start of winter interim classes at UNL. The change comes after heavy snow earlier this year forced UNL to call off classes during an already compressed spring semester schedule. Faculty leaders and others asked for the option, and a plan was developed by the Faculty Senate, Association of Students of the University of Nebraska, and campus administrators. Instructors can choose how they want classes to continue in the event of inclement weather, while adhering to the same schedule and ensuring to make the option available for all students.\n\nNevada\n\nCarson City: Residents of a rural, Republican-leaning town that the Nevada Legislature split into two Assembly districts filed a lawsuit last week challenging the state’s district maps. John Koenig and Gregory Hafen II, a Republican who represents Pahrump in the Statehouse, argued that the maps passed by the Democratic-controlled Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Steve Sisolak are drawn in a way that denies voters their right to elect representatives of their choice. The maps split rural Nye County into three state Assembly districts and Pahrump – its largest city – into two. The lawsuit filed in Carson City court said that combining Nye County voters into a district with more urban communities in the Las Vegas area dilutes their voting power and makes it unlikely that they’ll be able to choose a representative committed to their interests. A representative from a distant county, they said in the lawsuit, “will have little understanding of Pahrump’s and Nye County’s unique and local problems and issues and as such will be unable to adequately represent the needs and interests of Pahrump’s and Nye County’s rural voters.”\n\nNew Hampshire\n\nKittery: The final submarine in the Navy’s Los Angeles class arrived at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard last week for scheduled system upgrades and maintenance work. With more than 140 crew members aboard, the USS Cheyenne docked at the shipyard. Its home base is in Groton, Connecticut, from where it traveled. Portsmouth Naval Shipyard announced the Cheyenne is the third naval ship to be named after the Wyoming city, as well as the first of its class to partake in the Navy’s service-life extension program. Portsmouth Naval Shipyard spokesperson Gary Hildreth said the maintenance of the submarine is expected to last 30 months at a cost of approximately $315\n\nmillion. At 360 feet long and with a dead weight of 927 tons, the USS Cheyenne is capable of supporting military missions that include “anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface ship warfare, strike warfare, and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance,” according to the shipyard’s statement. The Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company was awarded the contract to build the submarine in the fall of 1989, leading to its construction beginning July 6, 1992. The USS Cheyenne was commissioned Sept. 13, 1996.\n\nNew Jersey\n\nWildwood: One of the Jersey Shore’s most popular boardwalks is undergoing repairs designed to better prepare it for next year’s summer crowds. Wildwood has begun repairing several blocks of its wooden walkway, as famous for the motorized tram cars that carry people up and down it as for the gigantic expanses of sand that stretch to the ocean. The first $4\n\nmillion of what could be a $30\n\nmillion to $40\n\nmillion project is being done solely with state funds included in this year’s budget. The walkway is particularly popular with tourists from Philadelphia and its suburbs. Engineers examined the concrete substructure of the walkway and determined that not all of it was in bad shape. An examination of the boardwalk’s underbelly by local and state officials in 2019 found some spots where concrete crumbled to the touch. But the overall assessment of the substructure cleared the way for less expensive plans to repair the sections most in need of work, Mayor Pete Byron said. Work started last week on a three-block section. Eventually, 20 of the boardwalk’s 26 blocks will be refurbished, a process that could take five years, with work done in the offseason to avoid interfering with tourist season.\n\nNew Mexico\n\nAlbuquerque: Several members of New Mexico’s congressional delegation are urging the U.S. Forest Service to again allow a decades-old foot race that goes through a wilderness area and up into mountains overlooking Albuquerque. A letter by Sens. Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Lujan and Rep. Melanie Stansbury asked the agency to reverse its 2020 decision that the La Luz Trail Race wouldn’t be permitted under the Cibola National Forest’s draft land and resource management plan. The lawmakers wrote that the 9-mile event held annually for more than 55 years “is a point of pride for New Mexicans and an important source of recreation and tourism.” The race, which attracted hundreds of runners, started in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains on the outskirts of Albuquerque and finished at Sandia Crest after an elevation gain of more than 4,000 feet. In a 2020 announcement, Sandia District Ranger Crystal Powell said officials had determined that the race should not have been permitted in the wilderness area because it was a commercial event.\n\nNew York\n\nPoughkeepsie: A second gun buyback event through the state Attorney General’s Office in less than six months is scheduled in the city for Dec. 4. Letitia James’ office is holding the event, in association with the city police department, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Beulah Baptist Church at 92 Catharine St. The amount residents can receive depends on the gun they bring, with the range beginning at $25 for a nonworking or antique gun, followed by $75 for a rifle or shotgun, $150 for a handgun and $250 for an assault rifle. Participants will receive a prepaid gift card at the church. Participants can trade in as many guns as they wish. Weapons must be unloaded and transported inside a plastic bag, paper bag or box. Licensed gun dealers and active or retired law enforcement officers are not allowed to participate in the program. Identification is not required to take part, and no questions will be asked. The Poughkeepsie City School District was forced to close its high school for several days after a shooting on Forbus Street roughly a half-hour after dismissal Nov. 15. City police said 40 to 50 people were in the area of the shooting. No injuries were reported. A 13-year-old found by police that day is in a juvenile facility, charged with criminal possession of a weapon.\n\nNorth Carolina\n\nConcord: A fire has destroyed 60 guitars and up to 100 paintings at the North Carolina home of Jim Avett. He is the father of Scott and Seth Avett of the Avett Brothers band. The Charlotte Observer reported the fire occurred Friday in the city of Concord. “The fire started from a golf cart,” Jim Avett posted on Facebook. “Half the house is totally beyond repair.” Officials said that arriving firefighters saw “heavy fire from the garage” and entered the house to keep the flames from spreading. No one was injured, although Jim Avett said a cat was missing. The Avett Brothers, a three-time Grammy Award nominee, are based in North Carolina and have a national following. Jim Avett said on Facebook the blaze is “not a knockout punch.” “We have the strength, attitude, faith and abilities to move forward,” he wrote. “And we will!”\n\nNorth Dakota\n\nBismarck: An agency key to implementing new in-state investment components of North Dakota’s $8.3 billion oil tax savings has a new leader. The State Investment Board recently named Retirement and Investment Office interim Executive Director Jan Murtha to take over the role on a permanent basis, the Bismarck Tribune reported. The office oversees about $20\n\nbillion of assets. Murtha, who is an attorney, has led the agency in the interim role since June, when Dave Hunter resigned for a job in Alabama. Murtha was hired in 2020 and previously was the office’s deputy executive director and chief retirement officer. The agency is key to effecting new in-state investment mandates of the Legacy Fund approved by the Legislature, which include making investments in companies in the state. During the Legislature’s special session earlier this month, state lawmakers approved an additional six full-time employees and $1.8\n\nmillion for salaries and expenses. Murtha has said those resources will help the office meet the new investment requirements.\n\nOhio\n\nLima: The city is about to swear in Democrat Sharetta Smith as its first female and first Black mayor. Smith will take her oath of office Monday at the city’s Veterans Memorial Civic and Convention Center. She defeated Republican Elizabeth Hardesty on Nov. 2 after the two topped a four-way primary in May.Smith succeeds retiring eight-term Mayor David Berger, who has led the city since 1989. She most recently served as his chief of staff. An attorney, Smith previously served as an assistant public defender and criminal court magistrate.\n\nOklahoma\n\nEnid: The dedication for the world’s tallest fresh-cut Christmas tree, a 140-foot Douglas fir, took place Friday night during the opening ceremony for “The One,” a 42-day Christmas event at 150 W Park Ave. In recent days, a special crew from California used boom lift aerial equipment to decorate the tree with more than 20,000 LED lights. Crew members also braved the Oklahoma winds to add about 10,000 ornaments for a show-stopping effect. And an Enid florist shop owner and local volunteers decorated numerous smaller trees that formed a brightly colored ring around the tree. Kyle Williams, chief executive officer of Hammer Williams Co,. said he and his wife Carol came up with the idea for “The One” extravaganza with their four grown children. They envisioned a series of concerts, plays and other activities to take place around a huge tree in downtown Enid. About two years ago, the Williams family did some research to determine where the tallest fresh-cut Christmas trees were featured in previous years. Williams said he found that the giant trees were often the highlight of elaborate holiday scenes created at outlet malls and casinos across the country. And then there was the large fresh-cut Christmas tree famously featured each year at New York City’s Rockefeller Plaza.\n\nOregon\n\nPortland: Oregonians will soon have more options for camping – especially those looking for a quick trip – as the state parks department works to complete details on a capital improvement plan. Oregon Public Broadcasting reported staff in the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department recently outlined some of the plans at a Parks and Recreation Commission meeting. Park Services Manager Matt Rippee said expanded campgrounds are in the works for several state parks in the Willamette Valley, including Silver Falls and Champoeg. “It also gives folks an opportunity, if a big storm comes through in the middle of the night, or a baby is crying, they can hop in the car and head home, and it’s not a four hour drive,” he said. The expansion is part of an approved $50 million, by state lawmakers, to fund a series of projects over the next five years. In addition, as part of the package the iconic Smith Rock State Park is set to receive $4 million to $6 million for upgrades throughout the park – including added parking, extended hiking trails and a visitor center.\n\nPennsylvania\n\nHarrisburg The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention dropped its percentage of vaccinated adults in Pennsylvania by nearly 5 percentage points in what apparently was a data correction to weed out duplicates. The agency adjusted the percentage to 68.9%, after a day earlier putting the percentage at 73.7% of Pennsylvanians 18 and older. The downward revision amounted to a reduction of about 1.2\n\nmillion doses. Pennsylvania’s Department of Health said it sends its data to the CDC, and began in July to refine its data to remove duplicate information and correct data on first, second and booster doses. The data correction came as infections, hospitalizations and intensive-care unit cases are rising in Pennsylvania and many other states. The department said there are 3,349 people hospitalized with COVID-19 in Pennsylvania, up about 21% in November. That includes 763 in the ICU, up about 17% in November. More than 33,000 people in Pennsylvania have died from COVID-19, according to Department of Health data.\n\nRhode Island\n\nProvidence: Gov. Dan McKee said the annual holiday celebration and tree lighting at the State House will take place at 5 p.m. on Thursday on the south lawn. The tree will be lit at 6:15 p.m. Two Christmas trees will be on display at the State House. A 12-foot Douglas fir from Henry’s Christmas Tree Farm in Scituate will be outside the State House and an 18-foot artificial tree will be inside the State House. The Douglas fir was purchased with donations from several local businesses and the artificial tree was purchased with funds from the 2017 National Governors Association conference, McKee said. Keeping a real tree alive inside the State House has proved challenging. In 2005, the tree turned brown and shed all its needles. In 2017 the tree died 10 days before Christmas. The governor’s office purchased an artificial tree in 2019. After the tree is lit, McKee and first lady Susan McKee will read “The Night Before Christmas.” The celebration features performances by Billy Gilman, the Cumberland Clef Singers, the Paul Cuffee Lower School Chorus and the Rhode Island Army National Guard’s “Governor’s Own” 88th Army Band. Unwrapped toys will be collected to benefit local children in need. Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus are also scheduled to appear to take socially-distanced photos with children.\n\nSouth Carolina\n\nCharleston: More loggerhead turtle nests were counted on South Carolina beaches this year than in 2020, according to state Department of Natural Resources data. The Post and Courier of Charleston reported officials counted more than 5,600 sea turtle nests this year, with data still being compiled. The final 2020 count was 5,560. That remains below the state’s two biggest years, with 6,446 in 2016 and 8,774 in 2019. The state’s first nest was reported on May 5 on Seabrook Island. The town of Kiawah Island said its last nest was counted Oct. 10. In July, volunteers found a rare two-headed sea turtle hatchling while conducting an inventory at Edisto Beach. As far as the park specialists know, this was a first for the beach. The turtle was released into the Atlantic Ocean. Loggerheads are the Palmetto State’s primary nesting sea turtles. But the department this year reported a Kemp’s ridley nest and five green sea turtle nests. Last year, 16% of nests were washed away, including some by Hurricane Isaias, said state DNR state sea turtle coordinator Michelle Pate. This year, 3.4% of eggs were lost. Pate said a larger share of lost eggs were eaten by predators this year, including coyotes, foxes and raccoons.\n\nSouth Dakota\n\nDeadwood: The addition of sports betting helped drive a 20% revenue increase for Deadwood casinos in October, according to new state data. The Rapid City Journal reported that a report from the South Dakota Commission on Gaming showed the casinos generated 20.54% more revenue last month than in October 2020. Gamblers shelled out more than $116\n\nmillion for slots, $8.3\n\nmillion for table game bets and $815,036 in sports bets. Sports betting became legal in South Dakota in July. Betting began in early September after the gaming commission approved a list of sporting events that gamblers can wager on, including the Olympics, professional and college sports. Five Deadwood casinos offered sports betting in October, paying out just over $98,000. Most bets were placed on professional and college football. Overall, gamblers spent almost $1.3\n\nbillion in Deadwood casinos through the first 10 months of the year. That’s up nearly 40% from 2021, when the COVID-19 pandemic forced casinos to close temporarily. Slot machines paid out more than $10.8\n\nmillion in winnings and table games yielded almost $1.5\n\nmillion in winnings, mostly from blackjack and house-banked poker, according to the report.\n\nTennessee\n\nNashville: A woman attacked two flight attendants on a Spirit Airlines flight to Nashville on Saturday night, was restrained by a fellow passenger, and then yelled at police officers to “shoot me” when they arrested her. Airport police arrested a 42-year old female for public intoxication after the flight crew contacted officers on the ground at Nashville International Airport about 7 p.m., an arrest affidavit said. The flight took off from Fort Lauderdale at about 6 p.m., according to Spirit Airlines spokesperson Nicole Aguiar and FlightAware, a flight tracking website. When the plane arrived, members of the crew told officers that she attacked two flight attendants, punching one and pulling the other’s hair. Aguiar did not comment on details in the affidavit but said law enforcement officers removed “a passenger for unruly behavior.” When the passenger deplaned, another passenger was restraining her feet with zip ties, the affidavit said. She smelled of alcohol, spoke in a slurred manner, and her eyes were bloodshot. She told officers she drank “a lot,” the affidavit said. After police arrested her, she yelled at the officers on several occasions, using expletives and saying “I didn’t do anything wrong” and “shoot me,” according to the affidavit. The passenger also resisted getting into the police cruiser, including by stiffening her legs to prevent officers from closing the door. Davidson County Sheriff’s Office jail logs showed she was admitted into jail on at 8:40 p.m. Saturday, but she was released 6 a.m., Sunday.\n\nTexas\n\nKilleen: An invasive underwater weed is spreading in a central Texas lake popular with anglers, tangling boat propellers and threatening fish. The weed is hydrilla, an aquatic plant initially imported and sold as an aquarium plant in the 1950s that has become one of the world’s most invasive plants. Fishing guide Bob Maindelle said its presence is at a record level in Stillhouse Hollow Lake, about 13 miles southeast of Killeen. “So much hydrilla has now grown in Stillhouse that entire coves are now completely inaccessible to boating anglers because the matted vegetation entangles the propellers of both outboard engines and electric trolling motors, thus prohibiting access,” Maindelle wrote recently in the Killeen Daily Herald. The plants are spread by uncleaned boats and form thick mats on water surfaces, changing their pH levels, stripping them of oxygen, restricting native plant growth, blocking nutrients for aquatic animals, and hindering irrigation, recreation and water flow, according to the Texas Invasive Species Institute. It also can damage water quality and foster the growth of toxic blue-green algae. Such algae were linked to the recent sudden deaths of multiple dogs at nearby Belton Lake.\n\nUtah\n\nPanguitch: A minor earthquake struck parts of southern Utah on Friday morning. The quake had a preliminary magnitude of 3.0 and was centered about 7 miles west of Panguitch, the U.S. Geological Survey said. It happened at about 6:40 a.m. Quakes of that magnitude are among the smallest generally felt by people.\n\nVermont\n\nStrafford: A final total of the cost of cleaning up the long-abandoned Elizabeth copper mine in Strafford came in more than four times the original estimate, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said. The Valley News reported that when the Superfund project to clean up the mine began in 2002, its estimated cost, in today’s dollars, was $25\n\nmillion. When the the cleanup was completed earlier this year the final price tag, released last week, came in at $103\n\nmillion. Ed Hathaway, the EPA’s Elizabeth Mine project manager, said “cost increases are very common” in the Superfund program. “We’re not building a house. We essentially are unwrapping the site as we clean it up. … As we excavate and as we do work, we uncover more of the challenges,” Hathaway said. In 2001 the EPA designated the abandoned 250-acre copper mine a Superfund site. Acid- and metal-contaminated water from the site contaminated nearby streams. Copper ore was first discovered in the area in the 1790s. Mining operations waxed and waned over the decades with economic conditions. The mine closed in 1958, leaving behind 7,800 feet of tunnels; abandoned buildings; equipment; huge piles of rock, known as tailings; and other mining debris. After the mine closed, contaminated water leached from waste rock and tailings into nearby streams, endangering animals and homes nearby.\n\nVirginia\n\nRoanoke: Police are seeing an increase in thefts of catalytic converters from automobiles across the nation and in parts of Virginia. Roanoke County police officer Greg Benton told The Roanoke Times that he didn’t think catalytic converter thefts have “ever been this prolific.” Catalytic converters filter pollutants from car exhaust. They’re made with valuable precious metals and sit on the underside of a vehicle. They can be removed in a matter of minutes with a machine-powered saw. In July, insurance provider State Farm said it had seen a three-fold jump in the number of catalytic converter claims filed over the past year. The National Insurance Crime Bureau also said that the average monthly thefts across the nation had soared to 1,203 in 2020. There were 282 a month in 2019. In Roanoke City, 182 converters were reported stolen by the end of October. In all of 2020, there were about 16 thefts. In Roanoke County, Benton said thieves had made off with about 30 converters at once. Car owners can take precautions by parking in well-lit, visible areas. Illegally removing a catalytic converter can be done quickly – but not quietly. The sawing tends to make a racket.\n\nWashington\n\nBellingham: Residents throughout the state were preparing for possible flooding as “atmospheric rivers” again threatened parts of the Northwest, which saw heavy damage from extreme weather earlier this month. People in the small communities of Sumas and Everson in northwest Washington were asked to voluntarily evacuate Saturday night, The Bellingham Herald reported. Both towns near the Canadian border saw extreme flooding from the previous storm. Flood watches were issued for much of western and north-central Washington and the National Weather Service warned that flooding was possible through Sunday. Heavy rain and rising rivers were also expected in the Cascade mountains in the center of the state and the Olympic mountains near the coast. Meteorologists predicted the rain would taper off Sunday and that Monday should be relatively dry.\n\nWest Virginia\n\nCharleston: FirstEnergy Corp. has applied to build five solar energy projects throughout its West Virginia service territory. The Akron, Ohio-based utility company estimated the projects, if approved by West Virginia regulators, would generate 50 megawatts of power, the Charleston Gazette-Mail reported. The plans comply with a 2020 bill passed by the state legislature that permits electric utilities to own and operate up to 200 megawatts of renewable generation facilities. They would not displace the company’s current coal-fired generation capacity, the newspaper reported. The application was submitted through FirstEnergy’s two subsidiaries, Mon Power and Potomac Edison. Construction could begin as early as 2022, with all projects expected to be completed by 2025. The sites include a 26-acre reclaimed ash disposal site in Berkeley County, a 51-acre site adjacent to a Mon Power substation in Hancock County, a 95-acre site in Monongalia County and a 44-acre reclaimed strip mine property in Tucker County. A fifth location is under review.\n\nWisconsin\n\nMadison: A community group is urging city officials to back off on plans to shut down a homeless encampment in a city park. City officials have posted notices that camping won’t be allowed in Reindahl Park on Madison’s east side after Dec. 6 and all tents, structures and belongings must be removed from the park by Dec. 9. The encampment has seen more than 70 people at times and has been declared unsanitary, unhealthy and unsafe after a number of attacks and overdoses, a stabbing and a shooting. The city wants to move people living in the park into shelters and a hotel. The Wisconsin State Journal reported that volunteer group Community Action Against Reindahl Eviction issued a statement Wednesday asking the city to halt the eviction. One of the group’s members, Pearl Foster, said the shelters and the hotel don’t have enough space for all the Reindahl campers and it shouldn’t be a problem to keep the park open because it’s not used for winter sports. Linette Rhodes, the city’s community development grants supervisor, said the city doesn’t want anyone sleeping outside during the winter and she’s confidant that all campers will have a place to go as the city shuts down the park.\n\nWyoming\n\nCheyenne: When the Republican-dominated legislature met last month to fight federal COVID-19 vaccination rules, it drew a crowd. That first day, people opposed to the federal rules crammed into the House and Senate galleries, filled two overflow rooms and gathered on the steps of the Capitol. State residents who traveled to Cheyenne fear taking a relatively new vaccine and don’t want to lose their jobs for refusing the shots, said Kristy Tyrney, the head of Wyoming Health Freedom, a grassroots group that rejects vaccine requirements. The scene in Wyoming played out across more than a dozen red-state legislatures in recent weeks as Republican lawmakers and governors pledged to fight President Joe Biden’s new immunization rules. Since September, at least 14 GOP-controlled legislatures have debated bills that would undermine vaccine mandates and passed at least 13 new laws, by Stateline’s count.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2021/11/29"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/50-states/2022/08/25/teacher-strike-eagle-paradox-forest-restoration-news-around-states/50638451/", "title": "Teacher strike, eagle paradox: News from around our 50 states", "text": "From USA TODAY Network and wire reports\n\nAlabama\n\nBirmingham: City leaders complained, yet agreed to a $5 million bailout to help the World Games 2022 reduce a roughly $15 million debt from the sporting event held in the city last month. Mayor Randall Woodfin said the metro area did benefit from the 11-day Olympics-style competition. But he also joined council members in criticizing a lack of transparency about the finances of the event, which featured sports ranging from parachuting to billiards. “I know each of you enough to know this sucks,” Mayor Randall Woodfin told the council at their meeting Tuesday. “I feel the same way you feel.” The World Games lost $2.5 million in expected sponsorships in May, and ticket sales fell about 200,000 short of projections, said Nick Sellers, chief executive of the World Games Organizing Committee. While expenses were lower than projected, the lack of revenue still caused a budget crunch, he said. More than 100 companies or individuals, many of them from Alabama, are owed about $15 million, officials said. Some area companies also complained about a decline in business during the event, which didn’t draw the expected number of international visitors during its run July 7-17. The Birmingham games marked only the second time a U.S. city played host to the World Games in its four-decade-long existence.\n\nAlaska\n\nJuneau: Republican U.S. House candidate Tara Sweeney said Tuesday that she plans to end her campaign, saying she does not see a path to victory or to raise the resources needed to be successful in the November general election. Sweeney was positioned in fourth place after last week’s U.S. House primary as elections officials continued to count ballots. But she was far behind the top finishers, Democrat Mary Peltola and Republicans Sarah Palin and Nick Begich, who were already poised to advance to the November general election. An election process approved by voters in 2020 calls for the top four vote-getters in a primary to advance to the general election, in which ranked-choice voting will be used. Tiffany Montemayor, a spokesperson with the state Division of Elections, said if a candidate who advances from the primary withdraws 64 or more days before the general election, the fifth-place candidate would advance instead. She said that determination would come after the Sept. 5 withdrawal deadline. Peltola, Palin and Begich also were the three candidates competing in last week’s ranked-choice special election that will determine who serves the remainder of the late U.S. Rep. Don Young’s term, which ends early next year. The results of that election aren’t expected until Aug. 31.\n\nArizona\n\nMarana: A massive, beloved cactus has fallen. “Strong-Arm,” a saguaro that stood in the Tortolita Preserve in Marana near Tucson, fell Aug.4 after living for roughly 150 to 200 years, the town said on its website. The 40-foot-tall saguaro, marked with its own metal sign proclaiming its name, had 34 arms in all and was home to many birds, including a great horned owl and some woodpeckers. In the memorial post on Marana’s government website, Jason Grodman, natural resources supervisor with the Marana Parks and Recreation Department, called it a “saguaro motel” to its many animal residents. “It saw all of the development grow up around us, and it’s really a sentinel for the preserve,” Grodman said in a tribute video for the plant. Marana’s recreation superintendent Bob Stinson said his predecessor had given the saguaro its name since it was one of the largest cacti in the area, and the trail went right by it. “It was just a beautiful specimen,” Stinson said. He said, gauging from the many people he had spoken to about it, Strong-Arm would be missed in the community. Grodman said in the video that the trunk of the saguaro, which remains upright, will likely stand for the next few years, while the arms will likely decompose of the course of about five years.\n\nArkansas\n\nMulberry: The attorney for a man seen on video being punched and kneed by officers said Tuesday that the violent arrest is part of an alleged pattern of excessive force by a sheriff’s deputy, and policing experts said some of the blows appeared to be unjustified or even criminal. A bystander’s video of 27-year-old Randal Worcester’s arrest Sunday in the small town of Mulberry sparked outrage after it was posted online. All three officers were later suspended, and state and federal authorities have opened criminal investigations into their actions. It’s the latest case in which increasingly omnipresent cameras have led to consequences for officers and raised questions about what level of force police are justified in using and when. A deputy was caught in the video repeatedly punching and kneeing Worcester in the head before grabbing his hair and slamming him against the pavement. As that was happening, another officer was holding Worcester down as a third also kneed him over and over. Carrie Jernigan, an attorney for Worcester, said the deputy who punched him, Levi White, used excessive force against other people she’s representing. “There’s something going on, and we just need to get it addressed,” she said during a Tuesday news conference with the two other clients.\n\nCalifornia\n\nSacramento: Victims who receive unsolicited sexually graphic material by text, email, app or other electronic means could sue the sender under a bill that lawmakers sent to Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday. The bill targets what’s known as “cyber flashing,” when victims receive such unwelcome surprises, often from strangers. “Just as individuals suffer sexual harassment and abuse in their physical, non-digital lives, there’s a growing incidence of individuals being harassed by receiving unsolicited, sexually explicit images and videos including from people they do not know,” Democratic Assemblymember Cecilia Aguiar-Curry said when the Assembly approved the bill. The Assembly passed the measure 76-0 last Thursday, and the Senate sent the bill to Newsom on a 37-0 roll call Monday. There was no recorded opposition. The most common recipients are young women, Aguiar-Curry said. The Pew Research Center in a report last year on online harassment found that 33% of women under 35 had been sexually harassed online – three times as often as men. In a 2017 report, the center said more than half of women ages 18-29 had been sent unsolicited explicit images, as had 37% of men in the same age range. The bill would allow recipients to recover at least $1,500 and as much as $30,000 from senders of obscene material.\n\nColorado\n\nDenver: A Colorado businessman charged in a “We Build the Wall” fraud case that once included former presidential adviser Steve Bannon among defendants wants his October retrial moved from New York to Colorado to save money and spare him from what his lawyer says is bias from political polarization he’ll otherwise face. Attorney John Meringolo wrote in papers submitted to a Manhattan federal court judge late Monday that Timothy Shea cannot get a fair and impartial retrial in New York. He also asked that the retrial be moved from Oct. 24 to early December, saying prosecutors have recently produced a previously seized laptop computer taken from Shea’s Castle Rock, Colorado, residence that contains an email exchange not introduced at the first trial, which ended in June with a deadlocked jury. In requesting a change of venue, Meringolo cited what he called the “obviously politically charged atmosphere of the jury room” at the first trial and said the effect of “political polarization” became obvious when the trial ended in a mistrial after 11 jurors tried to force one juror off the panel, saying he possessed political bias. A similar venue-change request was denied before Shea’s first trial. Meringolo said the first trial was an immense financial burden for his client, and a move would enable him to have witnesses who live closer to Colorado testify on his behalf.\n\nConnecticut\n\nManchester: A department store security guard who was shot outside a mall was wounded when he struggled with an alleged shoplifter who pulled a handgun on him, according to an arrest warrant affidavit released Monday. The affidavit was released as Richard LaPlante was arraigned in court on attempted murder and other charges in connection with Friday’s shooting outside The Shoppes at Buckland Hills in Manchester. A judge kept the 30-year-old Windsor resident’s bail at $1 million. Tirso Polanco, a 27-year-old loss prevention officer at the Macy’s store at the mall, was shot in the abdomen and remains hospitalized, police said. According to the affidavit, LaPlante fled the mall after the shooting and took a transit bus home. Police said they were able to track and identify him through mall and bus security cameras. LaPlante turned himself in to police Saturday. His next court date was set for Sept. 7. His lawyer, Ronald Johnson, said after Monday’s court hearing that LaPlante “feels bad” about the shooting.“We’re praying for the victim and hope that the victim is OK, and we’re praying for his family,” Johnson said. “And the most important thing is let the judicial process go through its process.”\n\nDelaware\n\nWilmington: A group of prisoners has sued the state’s prison system and its private health care contractor, claiming they’ve been left to suffer chronic and sometimes debilitating pain after officials banned certain pain medicines. Aside from complaints involving the pandemic, the lawsuit is the first large-scale litigation filed against Centurion of Delaware, the private health care provider for the state’s prison system. Centurion won a $47 million contract to provide health care for those imprisoned by the state starting in 2020, taking over after years of complaints and scandals involving the prisons’ prior health care provider. The lawsuit names 24 plaintiffs. All but one are currently in a Delaware prison. They each claim that they suffer from chronic pain or nerve damage caused by a range of issues from gunshot wounds to things like degenerative joint and spinal conditions, pain that was treated by medications that were effectively banned by the prison in 2019, the lawsuit says. The suit claims that after that, inadequate alternatives were provided. In some cases, they were given psychiatric drugs or alternative methods such as “distraction” and yoga, which leave the prisoners suffering behind bars.\n\nDistrict of Columbia\n\nWashington: A homeless encampment in Northwest D.C. was cleared Wednesday morning, leaving many people looking for a new location to live, WUSA-TV reports. The National Park Service closed Reservation 70 about 7 a.m. The closure was due to imminent threats to public health and safety from unsheltered encampments in the parks, National Mall and Memorial Parks Chief of Communications Mike Litterst said. The closure will allow for turf rehabilitation, cleaning and maintenance of the park area, and removal of rodent infestation. Fencing will enclose the park and will remain closed while the park is under restoration. There was no information on how long the people who were living there were notified ahead of the closure to make arrangements to relocate. The site is one of many encampments that have been closed to homeless residents in the district this year. Once an encampment is closed, the unhoused people who were living there typically migrate to a different one, which can cause overcrowding.\n\nFlorida\n\nFort Lauderdale: Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz as a toddler was intellectually and physically behind other children, which caused him to isolate himself and hit and bite to get what he wanted, a day care administrator and former neighbor testified Tuesday at his penalty trial for mass murder. He remained socially and behaviorally stunted through elementary school, a special education counselor also testified. Cruz’s attorneys began the second day of their defense by building on testimony that his birth mother’s cocaine and alcohol abuse during pregnancy left him severely brain-damaged, putting him on a road that led to him murdering 14 students and three staff members at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, 2018. They are trying to persuade his jury to sentence him to life without parole instead of death. Cruz, 23, pleaded guilty in October to the murders, and the trial is only to determine his sentence. Prosecutors say no drugs were found in Cruz’s system at birth. The defense says that’s because his birth mother was put in a residential drug rehab program when she was six months pregnant, but the damage had been done. The defense is trying to overcome the prosecution’s case, which featured surveillance video of Cruz mowing down students and staff as he stalked a three-story building for seven-minutes, photos of the aftermath and a jury visit to the building.\n\nGeorgia\n\nMorrow: Two white Atlanta police officers who clashed with Rayshard Brooks acted reasonably during the 2020 encounter that ended with the 27-year-old Black man’s fatal shooting, a specially appointed prosecutor said Tuesday in announcing his decision not to pursue charges against them. Officer Garrett Rolfe, who shot and killed Brooks in June 2020, and Officer Devin Brosnan faced a “quickly evolving” situation when Brooks lunged and grabbed one of their Tasers during an arrest attempt, said Pete Skandalakis, executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia. “We did not look at this with 20/20 hindsight. Given the quickly changing circumstances, was it objectively reasonable that he used deadly force? And we conclude it was,” Skandalakis said. The shooting happened against the backdrop of heightened tensions and protests nationwide after the death of George Floyd under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer less than three weeks prior. Sometimes-violent protests had largely subsided in Atlanta, but Brooks’ killing set off a new round of demonstrations against police brutality and racial injustice. Skandalakis said he believes context is important and acknowledged encounters between police and the African American community are sometimes “very volatile,” but he said he doesn’t believe race played a role in this instance.\n\nHawaii\n\nHonolulu: A food distribution company has agreed to pay $90,000 to settle a lawsuit alleging a Black employee was subjected to racial slurs and racist references to slavery, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said Wednesday. According to the lawsuit, a supervisor at Suisan Co.’s Hilo warehouse shouted racial slurs at the worker, who was fired after complaining to management. A manager who investigated also used a racial epithet during a meeting with the employee, the lawsuit said. During a second meeting, the manager and another supervisor made jokes about slavery, the lawsuit said. The commission alleged in the lawsuit filed last year in U.S. District Court in Honolulu that the man was later fired in retaliation for reporting the harassment. In addition to the money, Suisan agreed to measures to address and prevent discrimination, the commission said, including outlining an internal complaint process and providing anti-discrimination training. “Even though Hawaii is a racially and culturally diverse state, we continue to see race discrimination and harassment complaints filed with our agency in this region,” said Anna Park, regional attorney for the commission.\n\nIdaho\n\nBoise: Gov. Brad Little on Tuesday called a special session of the Legislature beginning Sept. 1 to use the state’s projected $2 billion budget surplus for a record $500 million income tax rebate this year to help residents deal with increased food and gas prices due to inflation. The Republican governor also proposed an ongoing tax cut of more than $150 million annually by creating a corporate and individual flat tax rate of 5.8% starting next year. The first $2,500 of income for individuals and $5,000 for those filing jointly would be exempt from taxes. Finally, Little wants to bolster K-12 public schools and ongoing education with $410 million annually from sales taxes starting next year. Language in Little’s proclamation calling the special session cites high inflation, currently about 8.5%. “Idaho taxpayers and the education system are especially imperiled by the consequences of historic inflation,” Little’s proclamation said. The proposed bill already has enough co-sponsors in the 70-member House and 35-member Senate to make it to the governor’s desk for his signature. The Legislature would decide when it meets in regular session in January how to spend the education money. Of the $410 million, $330 million is proposed for K-12 and $80 million for ongoing education.\n\nIllinois\n\nSpringfield: A former prison guard could face life in prison after a jury convicted him Tuesday of violating the civil rights of a 65-year-old inmate who died after correctional officers beat him in a lockup more than four years ago. The jury of six men and six women deliberated about three hours before returning guilty verdicts on five counts against ex-correctional Lt. Todd Sheffler, 54, of Mendon. Sheffler is the second ex-guard convicted in the death of Larry Earvin in May 2018. A separate jury convicted Alex Banta, 31, of similar charges in April. That jury could not reach a verdict on Sheffler, so the government tried him again. “The defense made a statement about the long, cruel arm of government,” assistant U.S. Attorney Eugene Miller said in his closing statement. “Todd Sheffler violated his training, violated the U.S. Constitution and allowed, participated in and covered up the brutal beating of a 65-year-old man, defenseless, a fellow citizen, handcuffed behind his back and lying on the cold, hard concrete floor. He was the long, cruel arm of government.” Like Banta, Sheffler was convicted of depriving Earvin of his civil rights, conspiracy to deprive civil rights, tampering with a witness, destruction or falsification of records and intimidation or force against a witness. The civil rights charges alone carry sentences of as much as life in prison.\n\nIndiana\n\nLakeville: Democrat Paul Steury has been confirmed as the party’s candidate for the special election to complete the congressional term of Republican U.S. Rep. Jackie Walorski following her death in a highway crash. Democratic precinct committee members from Indiana’s 2nd Congressional District confirmed Steury’s selection during a caucus vote Tuesday evening in Lakeville. “With Paul Steury, Democrats have an educator and proven community leader who is ready to fight climate change, create more good-paying jobs, and build a better tomorrow for Hoosiers across Indiana’s Second Congressional District,” Indiana Democratic Party Chair Mike Schmuhl said Tuesday night in a statement. Steury is a high school science teacher from Goshen and will face Republican Rudy Yakym and Libertarian William Henry. Yakym won a Republican caucus Saturday to replace Walorski on the November ballot after gaining the endorsement of Walorski’s husband. Yakym, an executive with Elkhart distribution company Kem Krest, will be a heavy favorite to win in the solidly Republican district. All three candidates are running both in the special election to complete Walorski’s term that ends in early January and the regular election for a full two-year term. Both elections will be on the November ballot.\n\nIowa\n\nDes Moines: The city is undertaking an ambitious project to survey the condition of every house in Des Moines. The Property Condition Survey intends to survey more than 50 neighborhoods and 96,000 houses across the city, officials said. The initiative employs coordinators to evaluate properties with a focus on safety, according to SuAnn Donovan, the city’s deputy director of Neighborhood Services. As a part of the survey, coordinators will survey the condition of each property’s roof, siding, windows, fence and gates, porch and balconies, and foundation. Properties are then ranked on a scale of one to five, with one indicating the property is in good condition and five indicating it is in need of repair, according to Donovan. The overall score will help the city and Invest DSM, a neighborhood revitalization project, decide where to invest in next, she said. The survey is being used in the development of a voluntary neighborhood assistance program coined “Improving Our Neighborhoods,” Donovan said. Between 2011 and 2021, developers, homeowners and businesses have invested $2.1 billion in the city’s downtown, supplemented by government tax breaks and incentives. She emphasized that the initiative is voluntary and that the city will not be issuing any violations in regard to the findings of the survey.\n\nKansas\n\nWichita: An anti-abortion activist is now suing for a complete hand recount of an election in which voters soundly rejected a proposal to remove abortion rights from the state’s constitution. Mark Gietzen is representing himself in a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Sedgwick County District Court after a nine-county hand recount that his supporters largely funded wrapped up over the weekend. Fewer than 100 votes changed out of more than 500,000 cast in those counties. The measure failed by about 165,000 votes statewide. Republican Secretary of State Scott Schwab said in a news release that the recount results should “put to rest the unfounded claims of election fraud.” In the lawsuit, Gietzen alleges without evidence that votes statewide might have been vulnerable to the same type of programming error that initially switched results in a county commission race. The suit also seeks a revote “where necessary.” A judge quickly dismissed a lawsuit Gietzen filed before the election seeking to have ballot drop boxes removed across the state.\n\nKentucky\n\nJackson: In the wake of the worst flooding in eastern Kentucky memory, 59 Breathitt County residents have signed onto a lawsuit against Blackhawk Mining and a contracted company, Pine Branch Mining, alleging nearby strip mining operations amplified the flood damage. Ned Pillersdorf, a local attorney representing the plaintiffs, said a majority of those 59 residents are now homeless, and those who aren’t won’t have access to clean water for months. The mining operations were a “ticking time bomb ready to explode with any type of heavy rainfall,” the filing in Breathitt County Circuit Court alleges. Following the late July flooding, residents said they found fish on their property that would normally reside in the silt ponds of coal mining operations, which the plaintiffs say indicates failure on the part of the coal companies to properly maintain its silt ponds and overall operation. Kentucky Administrative Regulation 20:060 requires coal companies to keep any debris or water from its operation from escaping its property into non-permitted areas, such as the residences below. The filing also accuses the coal companies of failing to continuously reclaim strip mined land, as required under Kentucky Revised Statute 350.100, damaging residents’ water supply, and causing property damage.\n\nLouisiana\n\nBaton Rouge: About two dozen juvenile inmates at a troubled detention center won’t be moved to the notorious state penitentiary at Angola until at least the middle of next month, as a legal battle over their transfer plays out, officials said Tuesday. The juveniles are currently being held at the Bridge City Center for Youth in Jefferson Parish. Officials have long acknowledged issues at the center, which wasn’t designed to house certain high-risk inmates. There have been at least four escapes this year, as well as a riot in which 20 juveniles took over parts of the complex. But the plan to move them to Angola has been sharply criticized by criminal justice advocates, former officials and parents of children currently held at the center, The Times-Picayune/The News Orleans Advocate reports. A federal lawsuit to block the state from moving forward with the transfer was filed Friday on behalf of a teenager currently held in Bridge City who is set to be transferred to Angola, the newspaper reports. The defendants in the case – which include Gov. John Bel Edwards and the Office of Juvenile Justice – and their attorneys said Tuesday that they would not transfer any of the inmates until at least Sept. 15. A preliminary injunction hearing is scheduled for Sept. 6.\n\nMaine\n\nAugusta: The state’s public defender system wants to more than double its budget to better represent people who can’t afford an attorney. The Maine Commission on Indigent Legal Services voted to recommend a $62.1 million budget next year. The proposal would open four public defender offices in the state and raise the hourly fee from $80 to $150 for court-appointed lawyers. Maine is the only state in the nation without a public defender’s office for people who cannot afford to hire a lawyer. The state relies on private attorneys who are reimbursed by the state, but the number of lawyers willing to take court-appointed cases has declined in recent years. The American Civil Liberties Union of Maine is suing the state, contending there’s a failure to train, supervise and adequately fund a system to ensure the constitutional right to effective counsel. The budget request, which will be considered by lawmakers, comes against a backdrop of states grappling with public defender systems across the country.\n\nMaryland\n\nBaltimore: A Texas man was sentenced to six months in federal prison Tuesday for threatening a Maryland doctor who has been a prominent advocate for COVID-19 vaccines, a federal prosecutor said. Scott Eli Harris, 52, of Aubrey, Texas, pleaded guilty in February to threats transmitted by interstate communication. U.S. Attorney for Maryland Erek L. Barron announced the sentence, which will be followed by three years of supervised release, in a news release Wednesday. “While we are all entitled to our own opinion, no one has the right to threaten the life of someone because of race, national origin, or because of holding different views,” Barron said in a statement. “Threats like these will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.” According to Harris’ plea agreement and statements made in connection with the plea hearing, Harris sent a threatening message from his cellphone to the doctor. Court documents identify the doctor only as “Dr. L.W., who had been a vocal proponent of the COVID-19 vaccine.” Harris’ message included violent statements such as: “Never going to take your wonder drug. My 12 gauge promises I won’t. .… I can’t wait for the shooting to start.” Harris’ message also made reference to the doctor’s Asian American background and national origin.\n\nMassachusetts\n\nKingston: A project underway in the woods of coastal Massachusetts seeks to restore a 32-acre former Catholic summer camp on the banks of the Muddy Pond in Kingston to something closer to what it might have looked like before European colonization transformed it. Through the Wampanoag Common Lands, the Native Land Conservancy – the local Native group that received the donated forestland this year – envisions a natural environment filled with indigenous plants and animals where Wampanoags can practice cultural ceremonies and educate new generations in traditional ways. Ramona Peters, a Mashpee Wampanoag who founded the conservancy, said the effort is all the more meaningful because the land is some 5 miles from where Pilgrims arriving on the Mayflower established the English colony of Plymouth, near the remnants of a Wampanoag community wiped out by European disease. “This is basically where the first impact of colonization of this country happened,” she said. “It’s very significant that it’s been returned to us.” The Wampanoag Common Lands is part of a growing movement of Indigenous-led conservation efforts helping to preserve and reinvigorate Native culture and identity, said Beth Rose-Middleton, a professor at the University of California, Davis, focused on Native American environmental policy and conservation.\n\nMichigan\n\nAnn Arbor: University of Michigan researchers are studying how well people with autism spectrum disorder can detect road hazards, and they plan to assist the young motorists in sharpening their driving skills. The upcoming effort will be the second phase of a project funded by Ford Motor Co. that teams the Ann Arbor university with a local driving school. During phase one of the study, researchers found that students with autism spectrum disorder detected fewer hazards than control participants during simulated drives. But lead researcher Elise Hodges said some extra work behind the wheel did the trick. “Those folks that underwent training improved in two-thirds of hazards in the simulated drive,” said Hodges, a clinical associate professor in the University of Michigan’s neuropsychology program. Ann Arbor Academy, a school for students with learning and social differences, hosted driving lessons. Hodges designed the simulated drives and oversaw the study. Ford footed the bill. The goal, in part, was to provide an opportunity for those with autism spectrum disorder to improve their driving skills. “Many of them … would like to drive, but getting from wanting to drive and being able to drive are two different things,” she said. The individualized driving sessions planned for phase two are expected to start in a month or two, Hodges said.\n\nMinnesota\n\nEden Prairie: A suburban Minneapolis mall resumed normal business hours Tuesday after a fatal shooting that had earlier locked down the shopping complex. Police responded to the Eden Prairie Center mall Monday night and found a man dead of what they said was a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The shooting happened in the Scheels sporting goods store, which also sells firearms. Police Chief Matt Sackett said it’s not clear whether the man brought a weapon to Scheels or accessed one of the store’s guns. “It’s obviously an active and fluid investigation, but again, we do believe it to be an isolated incident. There is not a threat to anybody else in the public,” Sackett said at a briefing. Will Dammann was shopping in Scheels when he heard an alarm sound and a commotion near a door. Seconds later a store announcement told people to evacuate immediately. “So then it was, you know, the hustle bustle of getting out. Then everyone was just standing out in front, and that’s when the police just started rolling in,” Dammann said. He said people seemed calm, including store employees. He did not hear a gunshot, Minnesota Public Radio News reports.\n\nMississippi\n\nLorman: The Honors Curriculum Program at Alcorn State University is being renamed in honor of Myrlie Evers-Williams. The program will be renamed the Myrlie Evers-Williams Honors Program in recognition of the civil rights leader, author and journalist who spent over three decades seeking justice for the 1963 murder of her former husband, Medgar Evers, the university said in a news release. Evers-Williams attended Alcorn A&M College for a year, and there she met and fell in love with Medgar Evers. The two later married in 1951. Alcorn said the honors program attracts academically successful and socially conscious students and assists the university in cultivating global citizen scholars. Evers-Williams expressed her appreciation to the school for recognizing her. “This designation is a special recognition that I hold close to my heart, acknowledging my time on Alcorn’s campus, my life’s work, and my dedication to furthering the fight for equality and human rights,” she said. Alcorn President Dr. Felecia M. Nave praised Evers-Williams’ achievements and said she was proud to recognize the civil rights leader on campus. “She’s an ideal example of the strength, courage, and character that Alcornites exude. We’re thrilled to recognize her for extraordinary contributions and ongoing activism,” Nave said.\n\nMissouri\n\nSt. Louis: John Wood, a Republican running as an independent for U.S. Senate, announced Tuesday that he was withdrawing from the race. Wood said on Twitter that he decided not to challenge Republican Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt and Democratic nominee Trudy Busch Valentine in the race to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt. Wood said he has significant differences with Schmitt and Valentine, but “it has become evident there is not a realistic path to victory for me as an independent candidate.” Wood, a lifelong Republican, former U.S. attorney and most recently a top investigator for the U.S. House committee examining the Jan. 6 riot, said he entered the race when disgraced former Gov. Eric Greitens was the front-runner for the Republican nomination. He said it would have been “unacceptable” for Greitens to be Missouri’s new senator. Schmitt soundly defeated Greitens in the Aug. 2 GOP primary. Greitens resigned as governor four years ago after a sex scandal, two criminal charges that were eventually dropped and a legislative investigation that could have led to impeachment hearings. This year, his ex-wife accused him of abuse. Wood’s candidacy was backed by a political action committee led by retired Republican Sen. John Danforth, which spent millions on his campaign.\n\nMontana\n\nGreat Falls: Visitors to the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center in Great Falls will have the unique opportunity Monday to get close to some of Montana’s most powerful predators: hawks, falcons and owls. Educational staff from Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks will be in the city with two or three live “ambassador birds” in conjunction with FWP’s Montana WILD program. Three 40-minute programs will give attendees an up-close encounter with the birds, along with insights into what makes raptors unique from other types of birds, why they are so important to our ecosystems, and simple things property owners and recreationalists can do to protect and conserve raptors. “The mission of the ambassador bird program to educate and hopefully get people interested in the outdoors and what we’re doing in terms of conservation,” said Ali Pons, of FWP’s Wildlife Rehabilitation Center. The Montana WILD program is an outgrowth of the work being done at the center in Helena, which takes in injured and orphaned raptors for rehabilitation and release. Montana WILD cares for 15 ambassador birds too injured to be released on their own. “They wouldn’t make it,” Pons said of raptors who’ve become stars of the educational program. “They also have a personality and a demeanor that makes them good education birds.”\n\nNebraska\n\nLincoln: A judge has dismissed the discrimination lawsuit of a former Lincoln Police Department spokeswoman, saying her allegations did not sufficiently prove a hostile work environment. Erin Spilker said in her lawsuit that she faced years of discrimination and that the department not only mishandled allegations of sexual assaults by male officers but also disciplined the women who complained. “She is under a microscope, and has been subjected to assaults, harassment, intimidation, threats and retaliation, which affect her ability to do her job,” Spilker’s attorney, Kelly Brandon, said in the complaint. In his order issued Monday, District Judge Kevin McManaman acknowledged Spilker’s string of allegations, from male colleagues making sexualized remarks about female colleagues to suffering various acts of retaliation after she complained, the Lincoln Journal Star reports. But McManaman said, citing case law, that the allegations amounted to “an amalgamation of discrete incidents … and not one unlawful employment practice.” The allegations “are not so similar in nature, frequency and severity as to be considered part and parcel of a hostile work environment,” McManaman wrote. Spilker, who was a 20-year veteran of the department before she resigned earlier this year, is among several female Lincoln police officers who have sued, alleging sex-based discrimination in the department.\n\nNevada\n\nReno: A new herd of wild horses is descending on the Black Rock Desert for 2022’s Burning Man festival. The Wild Horses of the American West project is rounding up more than a dozen life-size sculptures from local and international artists to bring awareness to environmental concerns surrounding the West’s wild horses. “Everyone loves horses. Wild horses are beautiful,” said organizer Adrian Landon. “But the bottom line is they need to be managed.” A longtime metalwork artist, Landon’s career has largely focused on equine sculptures. In 2019, he created “Wings of Glory,” a giant, flying Pegasus with moving parts now on display in England. This year, Landon had a vision of creating a herd of horses to bring awareness to the plight of Western ecosystems and the need to bring wildlife, plant life and water resources into balance. He put out a call to other artists interested in creating equine art and received dozens of replies. He selected 10 artists and used a grant from Burning Man to help fund their pieces. Now, the herd includes a sculpture from British artist Simon Bellamy, who fashioned a galloping steel piece based on the work of pioneering motion photographer Eadweard Muybridge, and Turburam Sandagdorj, a paper-cutting artist who learned the ancient art from his dad.\n\nNew Hampshire\n\nConcord: Continuing with its efforts to close gaps and recover from missed learning, the state Department of Education has selected Tutor.com to provide 24/7 online tutoring for every middle and high school student in the state. Through the partnership, more than 100,000 middle and high school students will gain unlimited access to Tutor.com – anytime, anywhere, from any internet-connected device. The service will be available to students at all New Hampshire schools (public, non-public and charter), as well as students in Home Education and Education Freedom Account programs. “This tutoring will not only facilitate and enhance learning but serve as a tremendous resource for students hoping to enhance their educational experience, or those students in need of individualized instruction. This partnership will also support teachers in their ongoing efforts to assist students who may be struggling and seeking additional guidance,” said Frank Edelblut, the state education commissioner. School districts are being encouraged to register for Tutor.com’s free access for their students; students outside those districts will be able to register individually.\n\nNew Jersey\n\nEdison: Mayor Sam Joshi said symbols of hate and discrimination are not welcome in the township, after a piece of construction equipment, viewed as a symbol of hate by the Muslim community, was featured in the Aug. 14 India Day Parade. The parade, from Edison to Woodbridge, marked the 75th anniversary of India’s independence and the division of the South Asian subcontinent into two nations, Hindu-oriented India and Muslim-oriented Pakistan, after years of civil strife. In a statement Monday, Joshi said Edison is committed to celebrating and working in harmony with people from all cultures. But an American-Islamic relations group said it’s disappointed the mayor has not gone further in rebuking the parade organizers, whom the group called to apologize. The parade, organized by the Indian Business Association, featured a piece of construction equipment with the photos of political leaders in India, who are described as proponents of hate against Muslims and other minorities, according to Azra Baig, chair of the South Brunswick’s Human Relations Commission. In India, Baig noted, homes, businesses and houses of worship are being bulldozed because of people’s faith and when they stand up for their rights. “Something this hateful should never be included in a parade in Edison,” she said.\n\nNew Mexico\n\nSanta Fe: The state will no longer deny licenses to practice law solely because of an applicant’s citizenship or immigration status, including some aspiring law students who arrived in the U.S. as children and don’t have a clear path to citizenship. Announced Monday, the rule change from the New Mexico Supreme Court is scheduled to take effect Oct. 1. Several states already have provisions that disregard residency or immigration status in licensure decisions. “The change in the licensure rule is grounded in the fundamental principle of fairness, and is consistent with New Mexico’s historical values of inclusion and diversity,” Supreme Court Chief Justice Shannon Bacon said in a statement Tuesday. She said the shift aligns New Mexico with recommendations by the American Bar Association and provisions in at least eight other states that provide attorney licensing to some immigrants. All applicants are still required to graduate from law school, pass the bar exam and undergo further character vetting by a board of bar examiners. The rulemaking drew immediate criticism from state Republican Party Chairman Steve Pearce, at a time when GOP candidates are challenging two incumbent state Supreme Court justices in the November general election.\n\nNew York\n\nNew York: Former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is headed to Harvard this fall as a teaching fellow at the university’s schools of government and public health. De Blasio, a Democrat who served as mayor from 2014 to 2021, will take part in “a variety of discussions, events, and programming” at the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School and will teach classes on leadership and public service at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the schools said in separate announcements Wednesday. Dean Michelle A. Williams cited the former mayor’s time grappling with public health crises including COVID-19, homelessness and the opioid epidemic. Setti Warren, interim director of the Institute of Politics, said de Blasio’s “decades of experience in local government, federal agencies, national campaigns, and running the largest city in the country will provide invaluable insight to our students and the Harvard community.”De Blasio, who grew up in Massachusetts and is a die-hard Boston Red Sox fan, was prevented by term limits from seeking a third four-year term as mayor. After an unsuccessful campaign for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, de Blasio flirted this year with running for governor of New York and later mounted a brief run for a congressional district that includes his Brooklyn home.\n\nNorth Carolina\n\nRaleigh: A federal appeals court on Tuesday blocked a local district attorney from prosecuting state Attorney General Josh Stein or anyone else for his 2020 campaign ad through a criminal libel law. The majority of a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, granted the request by Stein’s campaign committee and others associated with his campaign to prevent enforcement of the law while they sue to attempt to have the law overturned as unconstitutional. The 2-1 decision came the day after a Wake County grand jury formally asked the Wake district attorney’s office to submit an indictment against Stein and two of his advisers or any one of the three for jurors to consider. Wake County DA Lorrin Freeman said Monday that could have happened as soon as next month. Any formal charges could harm the political future of Stein, a Democrat and possible 2024 gubernatorial candidate. The law, which dates back to at least 1931, makes it a misdemeanor to circulate “derogatory reports” about a candidate with the intent of hurting that candidate’s chances in the election. Stein’s Republican opponent in 2020, Forsyth County District Attorney Jim O’Neill, cited the law while demanding that the board investigate a political ad that accused the Republican of letting more than a thousand rape kits go untested. O’Neill said the ad was false because police agencies, not prosecutors, are responsible for testing the kits.\n\nNorth Dakota\n\nFargo: A school board reversed course on its decision to stop reciting the Pledge of Allegiance at its monthly meetings, following complaints from conservative lawmakers and an angry backlash from citizens around the country. Seven of the nine members of the Fargo Board of Education, including four newcomers who took office in June, voted earlier this month to cancel a previous board edict that was approved a couple of months before the election. The new board agreed with member Seth Holden, who said the pledge did not align with the district’s diversity and inclusion code in part because the phrase “under God” does not include all faiths. Republican Gov. Doug Burgum last week promoted new legislation that would require public schools and governing bodies to administer the pledge without mandating that people recite it. Republican state Rep. Pat Heinert, a retired county sheriff, is suggesting that sanctions be put in place for public boards and commissions that don’t require the patriotic oath. Angry emails and voicemails dominated Thursday’s special meeting to reconsider the vote. Nyamal Dei, a refugee who fled war-torn Sudan, played a profanity-laced voicemail from a man who called her a slave, racist and Nazi. Several board members apologized to Dei, the lone Black member on the board, for taking the worst of the abuse. Dei said reversing the decision would be giving in to hate. She paused for several seconds before casting the lone “no” vote to reinstate the pledge.\n\nOhio\n\nColumbus: A strike by teachers in the state’s largest school district entered its third day Wednesday – the first day of school for some 47,000 students, with some of those students and their parents rallying to their sides. Parents, students, teachers and other employees gathered at schools across the Columbus School District with plans to picket for hours, advocating for safer buildings, better heating and air conditioning, smaller class sizes, and a more well-rounded curriculum that includes art, music and physical education. It’s the union’s first strike in the district since 1975. Picketers blasted music on the sidewalks outside Whetstone High School in Columbus and waved to honking drivers. Some held up signs reading:“Columbus schools deserve working air,” “a history lesson in progress,” and “my feet hurt but I’ll walk as long as it takes.” The school district and the union resumed bargaining Wednesday afternoon. The school board said its offer to the union put children first. The Ohio Education Association said more than 94% of the Columbus Education Association members voted to reject the school board’s final offer late Sunday. The union represents more than 4,000 teachers, librarians, nurses and other employees, though it isn’t clear how many of those 4,000 members were not on the job Wednesday.\n\nOklahoma\n\nOklahoma City: Gov. Kevin Stitt on Wednesday rejected clemency for a man facing execution Thursday for the 1997 hammer killing of a Choctaw man, despite a recommendation from the state’s Pardon and Parole Board that his life be spared. James Coddington was convicted and sentenced to die for the beating death of a friend and co-worker, 73-year-old Albert Hale, inside Hale’s Choctaw home. Prosecutors say Coddington, who was 24 at the time, became enraged when Hale refused to give him money to buy cocaine. Coddington’s execution is scheduled for Thursday morning. “After thoroughly reviewing arguments and evidence presented by all sides of the case, Governor Kevin Stitt has denied the Pardon and Parole Board’s clemency recommendation for James Allen Coddington,” Stitt’s office said in a statement. During a clemency hearing this month before the state’s five-member Pardon and Parole Board, an emotional Coddington, now 50, apologized to Hale’s family and said he is a different man today. “I’m clean; I know God; I’m not … I’m not a vicious murderer,” Coddington told the board. “If this ends today with my death sentence, OK.” Coddington’s attorney, Emma Rolls, said Coddington doesn’t have any pending appeals that would delay or stop his execution Thursday.\n\nOregon\n\nKlamath Falls: The Klamath Irrigation District in southern Oregon plans to defy a U.S. government order issued last week for a halt to water deliveries to farmers in the drought-stricken basin. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation manages the Klamath Project, which includes Klamath Irrigation District and serves 266 square miles of farmland around the Oregon-California border. A limited allocation of water was allowed for irrigators from Upper Klamath Lake this year because of extreme drought. The bureau has said the project is now out of water and ordered a shutdown last week, but irrigation district directors met Monday and authorized the district’s manager, Gene Souza, to continue operations, the Capital Press reports. The district operates a canal that provides water to nine irrigation districts encompassing about 191 square miles. Souza said in a letter to Alan Heck, acting area manager for the U.S. agency, that it has not provided a legal basis for shutting down the project and that doing so would deny farmers of the water they have legal rights to receive. “I am not doing my duty if I just comply because I do not have a legal justification to deny the people I serve their property,” Souza told the Capital Press.\n\nPennsylvania\n\nHarrisburg: State elections officials said Wednesday that a push last week to recruit new poll workers produced more than 1,100 applicants, including at least one in 58 of 67 counties. The effort tied to Help America Vote Day, organized by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, brought in the most applicants in some of the populous suburbs of Philadelphia – 221 in Montgomery County, 132 in Chester and 91 in Delaware. Allegheny County, which encompasses Pittsburgh, drew 100 applicants, while Philadelphia brought in 47. In central Pennsylvania, Lancaster received 71 applications, Dauphin 40 and Cumberland 39. Poll workers, often older people, are paid to help run elections in some 9,000 polling places across the state, but it has been a challenge to recruit and train sufficient numbers of them during the COVID-19 pandemic. Poll worker shortages predate the pandemic, however, in part because their work can require 14- or 16-hour days. Lisa Schaefer, executive director of the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania, said the influx of 1,146 new candidates was a welcome boost. Some counties promoted the recruitment drive last week.\n\nRhode Island\n\nProvidence: A new report suggests ways the city can atone for its extensive ties to the trans-Atlantic slave trade and centuries of racism and discrimination by, among other things, establishing home repair funds, launching financial literacy programs, and boosting aid to Black and Indigenous organizations. The report, issued Monday by the Providence Municipal Reparations Commission, notably doesn’t recommend giving out direct payments to Black and Native American residents, as some had called for. Instead, it defines “reparations” as efforts that close the “present-day racial wealth and equity gaps,” and it outlines 11 areas for the city to focus its reparations work, including criminal justice reform, neighborhood development, health equity, and improving educational and cultural opportunities. Providence’s reparations effort was launched the same year Rhode Island voters approved a ballot referendum getting rid of the words “and Providence Plantations” from the state’s formal name because of its slavery connotations. The new report suggests creating a dedicated fund to support residents touched by urban renewal policies that displaced and negatively affected communities of color. It also calls for forgiving certain municipal court debts; ending police use of so-called no-knock warrants; decriminalizing consumption of alcohol in public; and creating a school curriculum based on the city’s research into its racist and discriminatory policies.\n\nSouth Carolina\n\nColumbia: A showdown between defense attorneys for disbarred lawyer Alex Murdaugh who say prosecutors are unfairly withholding evidence and prosecutors who want the defense to agree to secrecy rules first is heading for a courtroom next week. In their latest court filing, defense lawyers said the secrecy rules as Murdaugh awaits a murder trial in the shooting deaths of his wife and younger son are hypocritical because prosecutors are leaking evidence to media outlets, including a video the leaker said was taken not long before the killings. Prosecutors, including South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson himself, denied the leaks last week. A hearing about the matter is scheduled for Monday at the Colleton County courthouse, where defense attorneys want the murder trial to take place in January. The cellphone video from Murdaugh’s son included Murdaugh talking to his wife outside the family’s Colleton County home where the killings happened, said defense lawyers, who said they hadn’t been given the video, but it was shown to Murdaugh’s family by state agents. The leaked media reports did not include that the conversation was friendly and about dogs, the defense said. Defense lawyer Dick Harpootlian said the state contends that Murdaugh killed his wife and son “for no apparent reason” within minutes of the light-hearted conversation.\n\nSouth Dakota\n\nSioux Falls: The American Civil Liberties Union of South Dakota is joining other states in filing an amicus brief in defense of the Indian Child Welfare Act. The friend of the court brief involves the U.S. Supreme Court case Brackeen v. Haaland, which challenges the act that establishes federal standards for placement of Native American children in foster of adoptive homes. The act seeks to give the child’s family and tribe the opportunity to be involved in decisions from which they previously may have been excluded, including placement and services. Arguments in the case are scheduled before the high court this November. Stephanie Amiotte, legal director for the South Dakota ACLU, said if the court overturns the law, it could be devastating for tribes. “ICWA was enacted by Congress to address a situation where disproportionate numbers of Indian children were being removed from their homes, and eventually a disproportionate number of them were being adopted into white families,” Amiotte told South Dakota Public Broadcasting. The act’s opponents say the race-based policy is unconstitutional. Amiotte said keeping Indigenous children connected to their culture improves outcomes. “Native American Children have been essentially invisible within the American society,” Amiotte said.\n\nTennessee\n\nMemphis: The superintendent of the state’s largest school district has resigned as he was being investigated by an outside attorney for allegations that he abused his power and violated policies. The Shelby County School Board accepted the resignation of Joris Ray during a specially called meeting Tuesday evening, officials said in a news release. Ray was appointed to lead Memphis-Shelby County Schools in 2019, and he had worked in the district for more than 24 years. The board had suspended Ray during an investigation stemming from allegations made in divorce proceedings between Ray and his wife, who is also a school district employee. A board resolution says it took action “to review the allegations to determine whether Superintendent Ray, during his tenure as Superintendent, engaged in relationships with District employees violative of MSCS policies.” The investigation was being led by former U.S. Attorney Edward L. Stanton III. In a statement posted on Twitter, Ray thanked colleagues for their “many, many small but powerful acts of devotion and commitment.”\n\nTexas\n\nHouston: Texas officials have accused the state’s most populous county of defunding some of its law enforcement agencies in violation of a new law that prevents such funding cuts. In a letter sent Monday, Texas Comptroller Glen Hegar alleged leaders in Harris County, where Houston is located, reduced funding for the offices of its constables in the current fiscal year and would again reduce funding next year. Harris County officials pushed back against the claims they were defunding law enforcement, saying they have actually increased funding, proposing a budget for the next fiscal year that would allocate $1.4 billion for justice and safety – which is 75% of the county’s budget and the most ever allocated by the county for public safety. Hegar accused the county of ending a policy that would have let the constables’ offices automatically roll over unspent departmental funds from one fiscal year to the next, resulting in a loss of more than $3 million. He also accused the county of reducing funding for the constables by up to $12 million for the 2022-23 fiscal year. Constables and their deputies are licensed peace officers who have the same powers as regular police officers but also have the added responsibility of civil law enforcement.\n\nUtah\n\nSalt Lake City: Republican state leaders sued the Biden administration Wednesday over the president’s decision last year to restore two sprawling national monuments on rugged lands sacred to Native Americans that ex-President Donald Trump had downsized. The lawsuit over Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments alleges President Joe Biden’s action violates the authority granted in a century-old law that allows presidents to protect sites considered historically, geographically or culturally important. The legal argument has been repeated for years by Republicans, and the legal challenge had been expected since Biden made the move in October 2021. The lawsuit is the latest twist in a years­long debate spanning three presidential administrations about proper protections of lands that include ancient cliff dwellings and petroglyphs. Trump’s decision to cut them in size opened them for mining and other development, although market dynamics kept that in check. “President Biden made no attempt to explain how 3.23 million acres constituted the ‘smallest area compatible with the proper care and management’ of these supposed monuments,” the lawsuit claims, citing the 1906 Antiquities Act outlining rules for designating national monuments.\n\nVermont\n\nStrafford: A woman was attacked by a black bear over the weekend while walking her two dogs on trails on her Strafford property, the state Fish and Wildlife Department reported Tuesday. The 61-year-old woman was treated at Gifford Medical Center in Randolph on Saturday for non-life-threatening injuries, including a bite wound on her leg and multiple scratches, the department said. Fish and Wildlife game wardens and a bear biologist visited the site and concluded that the bear was a female with cubs who was likely provoked when the woman and her dogs surprised the group. They were unable to find the bear and say such attacks are extremely rare in the state. At the time of the attack, the woman had called her two dogs, who were out of sight, when she heard a large noise and realized a bear was charging her, officials said. She told game wardens that she tripped on a stone wall as the bear was charging her and then realized the animal was on top of her and had bitten her. The woman said her Jack Russell terrier barked at the bear, prompting the animal to get off her. She said she left with her dogs without seeing the bear again and called 911 when she got home. She also texted a neighbor to take her to the hospital.\n\nVirginia\n\nRichmond: A ratepayer protection that state regulators included in a recent order approving Dominion Energy Virginia’s application to build and recover the costs of a massive offshore wind farm would force the utility to scrap the project, Dominion said in a filing this week. The State Corporation Commission granted approval this month for the 176-turbine, multibillion-dollar project off Virginia Beach. Dominion immediately raised concerns about the commission’s inclusion of a performance guarantee for the wind farm and in a petition Monday asked the regulators to reconsider that element of their order. Dominion “shares the Commission’s concern, as expressed in the Final Order, that the Project be constructed and operated in a way that reasonably mitigates risk for its customers. The Commission’s unprecedented imposition of an involuntary performance guarantee condition on its approvals, however, is untenable,” the filing said. “As ordered, it will prevent the Project from moving forward, and the Company will be forced to terminate all development and construction activities.” The commission’s Aug. 5 order included three “consumer protections,” including the performance guarantee, which it said would protect customers who are paying for the wind farm “from also having to pay for replacement energy if the Project does not generate the amount of electricity upon which Dominion bases its request and its cost estimates.”\n\nWashington\n\nSeattle: An analysis of Washington State Ferries data shows ferries are running behind schedule this year more than they have in the past decade, with a consistent decline in on-time performance. Ferries spokesperson Ian Sterling told The Seattle Times that with 50% more passengers traveling by ferry in the summer, it is not unusual to see a dip in on-time performance from June to September. But the delays are more pronounced this year, and passengers on the Anacortes/San Juans route face particular problems, according to WSF data. While this route usually records more delays than others, in June, nearly half of all sailings on this route ran behind schedule. The newspaper reports that was a 40 percentage point gap from WSF’s target to run on time for 95% of trips. WSF attributes the lower on-time performance to a staffing shortage and a higher number of passengers on busy routes. On weekends, especially holiday weekends like Labor Day, passengers on popular tourist routes such as Anacortes/San Juans and Port Townsend/Coupeville are more likely to face delays on Thursday and Friday afternoons leaving the Seattle area and returning on Sunday and Monday afternoons. As of July this year, WSF had a 6% decline in staffing since 2019, when it was running at full capacity.\n\nWest Virginia\n\nCharleston: A cleanup project is planned for the Kanawha River next month. The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection’s Rehabilitation Environmental Action Plan is sponsoring the 32nd annual Great Kanawha River Cleanup from 8 a.m. to noon Sept. 10. Cleanup sites will be in Kanawha, Putnam and Fayette counties. Anyone who wants to volunteer should register with the department at (800) 322-5530 or christopher.j.cartwright@wv.gov. Bags and gloves will be provided for volunteers, and REAP will arrange for the trash to be hauled away. Volunteers will receive a T-shirt. Last year, 59 volunteers helped remove 1.9 tons of litter and 301 tires from five sites along the Kanawha River.\n\nWisconsin\n\nMilwaukee: A federal judge has rejected a motion by the Milwaukee Police Department that sought to dismiss a case brought by two city residents who claimed their constitutional rights were violated when they were arrested near a memorial site for a Black man fatally shot by an officer in 2016. The American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin is representing the residents, including Jarrett English and a plaintiff who did not wish to be named. They were arrested Aug. 30, 2016, in Milwaukee’s Sherman Park neighborhood, where police killed Sylville Smith approximately two weeks earlier. The 23-year-old Smith, who was armed, was running from police who suspected him of dealing drugs. The officer who killed Smith, also Black, was acquitted in the fatal shooting. Smith’s death touched off days of rioting in which businesses were burned, including a gas station, an auto parts store and a beauty supply shop. Firefighters were held back from the gas station blaze because of gunfire. The two plaintiffs, in their 2019 lawsuit, said their rights to the freedoms to assemble and to express themselves were violated when police in riot gear cleared Smith’s memorial site and arrested each of them at separate locations in the neighborhood.\n\nWyoming\n\nCody: The rush to build wind farms to combat climate change is colliding with preservation of one of the West’s most spectacular predators – the golden eagle – as the species teeters on the edge of decline. Ground zero in the conflict is Wyoming, a stronghold for golden eagles that soar on 7-foot wings and a favored location for wind farms. As wind turbines proliferate, scientists say deaths from collisions could drive down golden eagle numbers considered stable at best. Yet climate change looms as a potentially greater threat to the species: Rising temperatures are projected to reduce golden eagle breeding ranges by more than 40% later this century, according to a National Audubon Society analysis. That leaves golden eagles doubly vulnerable – to the shifting climate and to the wind energy promoted as a solution to that warming world. “We have some of the best golden eagle populations in Wyoming, but it doesn’t mean the population is not at risk,” said Bryan Bedrosian, conservation director at the Teton Raptor Center in Wilson, Wyoming. “As we increase wind development across the U.S., that risk is increasing.” Turbines blades hundreds of feet long are among myriad threats to golden eagles, which are routinely shot, poisoned by lead, hit by vehicles and electrocuted on power lines.\n\nFrom USA TODAY Network and wire reports", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/08/25"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/08/30/hurricane-ida-updates-path-aftermath-damage/5646933001/", "title": "Hurricane Ida update: Did levees fail? Any damage? Latest on ...", "text": "Editor's note: Having trouble connecting? Read USA TODAY's text-only storm updates.\n\nFleets of boats, high-water vehicles and helicopters rescued hundreds trapped by Hurricane Ida’s floodwaters across southern Louisiana on Monday and utility repair crews rushed in to restore the power grid after the storm left a path of destruction on its way out the state.\n\nMore than 1 million homes and businesses were without power in Louisiana and another 90,000 in Mississippi as Ida, downgraded from a furious Category 4 hurricane to a tropical storm, remained a danger with its heavy rains and storm surge.\n\nTwo deaths have been confirmed -- a person hit by a falling tree outside Baton Rouge and later a male driver who drowned in New Orleans. The Louisiana Department of Health said the motorist drowned after trying to drive through floodwater.\n\nRelated:Ida was one of the strongest hurricanes to hit US mainland. Here are some stronger ones.\n\nA third person was attacked Monday by an alligator in flood waters caused by the storm near Slidell, located just across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans, according to Jason Gaubert, a spokesman for the St. Tammany Fire District No. 1.\n\nThe man's wife witnessed the attack, which took the man's arm off, Gaubert told USA TODAY. When his wife went to call for help, the man disappeared into the flood waters. His body hasn't been recovered and officials were investigating, Gaubert said.\n\nLouisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said he expected the death toll to rise \"considerably.''\n\nThe governor’s office said damage to the power grid appeared “catastrophic” – dispiriting news for those without refrigeration or air conditioning amid the stifling heat and humidity. Forecasts call for temperatures in the mid-80s to near 90 by midweek.\n\n\"I can’t tell you when the power is going to be restored. I can’t tell you when all the debris is going to be cleaned up and repairs made,” Edwards said in a news conference. “But what I can tell you is we are going to work hard every day to deliver as much assistance as we can.”\n\nEdwards said at least 671 people had been rescued by Monday afternoon.\n\nIda, which roared onto the Gulf Coast near Port Fourchon, Louisiana, on Sunday with 150-mph winds, knocked out power to the entire city of New Orleans before heading northeast toward Mississippi.\n\nLevees failed or were overtopped along some rivers and bayous south of New Orleans but held up in the city. Some people posted their addresses and locations on social media to direct rescue teams. Roofs were torn off some buildings by the powerful winds, which decreased to about 35 mph by mid-afternoon. Still, tropical storm-force winds extended out 150 miles.\n\n\"Heavy rainfall and flash flooding threat continues to spread inland,'' the National Hurricane Center said in its 4 p.m. Central Time update, when Ida was 20 miles northwest of Jackson, Mississippi.\n\nThe storm was inching north at 9 mph, the slow roll driving up rainfall totals and toppling power lines along Ida's path.\n\nAt least 1 death in Louisiana as New Orleans loses power; Biden approves major disaster declaration\n\nEPA relaxes fuel rules for Louisiana, Mississippi\n\nThe U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, responding to requests from Louisiana and Mississippi, temporarily suspended requirements related to fuel volatility to make sure residents have easy access to fuel.\n\nReid Vapor Pressure requirements govern fuel volatility, which refineries change according to the seasons to improve fuel efficiency and reduce emissions.\n\nEPA Administrator Michael S. Regan issued emergency fuel waivers effective immediately to allow Louisiana and Mississippi residents access to the widest range of fuels. The waivers end Sept. 16.\n\nHeat, water contamination among top concerns in Ida's wake, ex-FEMA head says\n\nCraig Fugate, the former head of FEMA under President Barack Obama, said with the threat of flooding diminishing as waters recede in Louisiana, the loss of electricity poses a serious danger to residents. Temperatures in New Orleans for the next two days are predicted to hit 88 degrees with high humidity -- conditions that can be dangerous for some without air conditioning, he said.\n\n\"We're still in summer and so without electricity, it's going to be very dangerous for the elderly, for those with pre-existing conditions, on top of dealing with COVID,\" Fugate said.\n\nHe said reports of the loss of water pressure in Jefferson Parish suggests downed trees have ripped open water and sewer lines, raising concerns about access to clean drinking water and sewage pollution.\n\n\"That will be driving a lot of FEMA response after the initial rescues,\" Fugate added.\n\nLines for gas at station damaged by storm\n\nAbout 24 hours after Hurricane Ida made landfall in southeast Louisiana, lines of people waited Monday to fill cans with gas at a station and store called Veillon’s in Prairieville.\n\nThe building had sustained damage, with metal roofing peeled and lying twisted on the ground, and its doors and windows remained boarded. But the pumps were still working and accepting credit cards, and the word had gotten around Facebook, prompting Monday's lines.\n\nPeople came with multiple cans to get fuel for their generators at home. The whole town seemed to be without electricity after the Category 4 storm hit the state. Prairieville seemed to miss the rain but not the strong winds.\n\nLinemen working the area said they were addressing outages at hospitals, police stations and other emergency locations before they head into the community to restore power.\n\nNew Orleans' $14 billion risk-reduction system passes major test\n\nThe memories of endless miles of flooded streets still haunt some New Orleans residents who lived through the Hurricane Katrina disaster 16 years ago.\n\nThough Hurricane Ida was technically stronger with winds of up to 150 mph -- making it a Category 4, one level higher than Katrina -- the frequent scenes of people getting rescued from the roof of their New Orleans homes as the floodwaters surged appear not to have been replicated this time.\n\nThat's because the levee system for the most part withstood the test of the storm.\n\nGov. John Bel Edwards said no major levees failed during Ida, thanks to a $14 billion hurricane risk-reduction system that was built in the greater New Orleans area following Katrina in 2005. The system was activated Sunday morning for just the second time, and even though the floodwaters overtopped some levees and other minor ones did fail, more extensive flood damage was averted.\n\nKatrina survivor on riding out Ida: 'It was horrible'\n\nPaten Neville and his family have weathered hurricanes before, including the legendary Katrina in 2005. So Neville's words as a seasoned hurricane survivor carry extra weight after he stayed at his mother's house in Houma with at least six other family members, ranging from children to adults. They spent at least half the storm underneath the carport.\n\n“It was horrible,” said Neville, 34. “The tree fell first. Boom. Then after a while, the roof (was) flying off (and) water started pouring through.”\n\nNeville said Katrina was worse because of the massive flooding. Ida seemed to be more of a wind event, at least in the Houma area, but he added an observation that lent some perspective: The amount of water that came inside during Ida could be measured in buckets.\n\nOfficials ask residents who fled not to return home yet\n\nMany Louisiana residents who fled Ida are clamoring to return home, but even though the storm is no longer a hurricane, the devastation it left behind has created plenty of dangers.\n\nOfficials in the affected areas are asking for patience, pointing out conditions are still hazardous and some roads remain unpassable.\n\n\"If you evacuated before Hurricane Ida, we request that you DO NOT RETURN until further notice,'' Jefferson Parish Councilman Scott Walker tweeted Monday. \"Power remains out with hazards on the road.''\n\nSaid Terrebonne Parish President Gordon Dove: “We completely understand the desire of our residents to return to their homes and loved ones. We also want this to happen as soon as possible, but in a safe and orderly manner.”\n\nBiden says federal government won't abandon storm-hammered region\n\nPresident Joe Biden pledged to stand with people in the affected areas for as long as necessary during the recovery. Biden named senior adviser and former congressman Cedric Richmond as his liaison with authorities in the Gulf, and instructed his team to get storm victims the assistance they need. Biden lauded the resilience of people of Louisiana and Mississippi but said that \"in moments like these we can see the need for government to respond.\"\n\n\"When folks get knocked down, we're here to help you get back on your feet,\" he said.\n\nLouisiana officials fear COVID-19 spike\n\nGov. John Bel Edward's office said over 2,200 evacuees were staying in 41 shelters as of Monday morning, a number expected to rise as people were rescued or escaped from flooded homes.\n\nChristina Stephens, Edwards' spokeswoman, said the state will work to move people to hotels quickly so they can keep their distance from one another. Even before Ida hit, Louisiana was battling a fourth coronavirus surge sparked by the highly contagious delta variant and relatively low vaccination rates across the state.\n\n“This is a COVID nightmare,” she said. “We do anticipate that we could see some COVID spikes related to this.”\n\n4 hospitals damaged by storm\n\nFour Louisiana hospitals were damaged and 39 medical facilities were operating on generator power, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said Monday. Scores of patients were being evacuated to other cities. Lady of the Sea General Hospital in Lafourche Parish, near where Hurricane Ida made landfall, was among those hard-hit.\n\n“All patients and staff are fine at this time without injury, although our hospital has sustained significant damage,” Lady of the Sea CEO Karen Collins said.\n\nIn Houma, the Terrebonne General Health System hospital sustained major damage and had to transfer patients right away to other healthcare facilities, officials said.\n\nEdwards said 22 nursing homes and 18 assisted living facilities have been evacuated, though evacuating the largest hospitals was not an option because there aren’t other places to send the patients. Warner Thomas, president and CEO of Ochsner Health, said the system evacuated a smaller hospital in St. Charles Parish on Sunday. He said 35 patients were moved to other hospitals.\n\nNYC sends team to aid recovery\n\nAn 83-member team of specially trained New York City police officers and firefighters has been sent to Louisiana to assist Ida response and recovery efforts. New York Task Force 1, managed by the city Emergency Management Department, brought six dogs, four water rescue boats, equipment to support rescues from collapsed structures and confined spaces, and hazardous materials equipment.\n\n\"After Hurricane Katrina, our members were proud to bravely serve in New Orleans and help the people of Louisiana,” Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said. \"I know they will make us proud once again.\"\n\nHundreds of boats, high-water vehicles to the rescue\n\nRescuers across southern Louisiana began launching hundreds of boats into the floodwaters Monday. New Orleans and several parishes said their 911 systems were experiencing technical difficulties, so some trapped residents sought help via social media. The Louisiana National Guard said it activated 4,900 personnel and lined up 195 high-water vehicles, 73 rescue boats and 34 helicopters. Local and state agencies brought in hundreds more.\n\nJefferson Parish in suburban New Orleans knew of 500 people who said they were going to stay in areas that were flooded, Parish Council member Deano Bonano told WWL-TV.\n\n\"We know we have people we need to rescue. We've been getting calls all night,\" he said. \"We're going to methodically go up and down every street transporting individuals out to buses and putting them in shelters.\"\n\nPower outage could last 6 weeks for some\n\nMore than 1 million utility customers in Louisiana and almost 130,000 in Mississippi were without power Monday. The utility Entergy, citing Ida's \"catastrophic intensity,\" said all eight transmission lines that deliver power into the New Orleans area were out of service. The company said it had provided back-up generation to the New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board, but that some homes could be without power for weeks.\n\n\"It will likely take days to determine the extent of damage to our power grid in metro New Orleans and far longer to restore electrical transmission to the region,\" Entergy warned.\n\nJoe Valiente, director of emergency management in Jefferson Parish, said Monday that the outages could last up to six weeks: \"100% of the grid is smashed,\" Valiente told NPR. \"We are estimating six weeks based on numbers that Entergy gave us.\"\n\nDark New Orleans reawakens after brunt of storm passes\n\nNew Orleans residents who didn't flee the storm began emerging from their homes Monday, ducking and dodging downed light poles, pieces of roofs and branches.\n\n“I had a long, miserable night,” said Chris Atkins, who was in his New Orleans home when he heard a “kaboom” and all the sheetrock in the living room fell into the house. A short time later, the whole side of the living room fell onto his neighbor’s driveway.\n\n“Lucky the whole thing didn’t fall inward. It would have killed us,” he said.\n\nIda's center crosses into Mississippi\n\nHurricane Ida crossed into Mississippi's Amite County from Louisiana and was headed north, the National Hurricane Center said. The storm slowed down slightly as it made its way over land and across the Mississippi River, causing massive power outages in southwestern Mississippi, primarily in Adams, Wilkinson, Amite and Pike counties. A state of emergency for the city of Jackson was in effect – winds of up to 65 mph were forecast for the area Monday night.\n\nCentral Mississippi into far western Alabama could see 4 to 8 inches of rain with isolated maximum amounts of 12 inches before the weather passes Tuesday, the National Hurricane Center said.\n\n– Clarion Ledger in Jackson, Miss.\n\nResidents in rural areas report major damage\n\nAbout 68 miles southwest of New Orleans, Albert Naquin sheltered in Pointe-aux-Chênes with seven others. Naquin, the Traditional Chief of the Isle De Jean Charles Tribe, watched Ida rip shingles from his home and peel away the front side of his house.\n\n\"I saw bits and pieces,\" Naquin said. \"My neighbor's house broke in half.\"\n\n– Melissa Brown, Lafayette Daily Advertiser\n\nSheriff warns against sightseeing in battered Terrebonne Parish\n\nIn Terrebonne Parish, southwest of New Orleans, Sheriff Timothy Soignet said electricity and water utilities are not functioning and all roads are blocked by downed trees, utility poles and other debris. Terrebonne Parish is under a curfew until further notice and Soignet said no one should attempt to sightsee. Crews are working to clear debris and additional vehicles on the road will hinder progress, the sheriff said. First responders have not yet been able to reach certain parts of the parish, he said.\n\n“Prayers are with the citizens and business owners of Terrebonne Parish in this difficult time,\" Soignet said. \"If you have evacuated, please don’t try to return yet, and if you are in the parish, shelter in place.”\n\n– Keith Magill, The Courier\n\nIda was so powerful it reversed the flow of the Mississippi River\n\nA U.S. Geological Survey gauge at Belle Chasse, south of New Orleans, detected the Mississippi's flow moving backward around midday Sunday because of the amount of water Ida whipped up. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers spokesman Ricky Boyette confirmed engineers detected a “negative flow” on the Mississippi River as a result of storm surge. Although rare, the river changing course is not unprecedented, occurring during Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Hurricane Isaac in 2012.\n\n\"I remember, off hand, that there was some flow reversal of the Mississippi River during Hurricane Katrina, but it is extremely uncommon,\" Scott Perrien, a UDGS hydrologist, told CNN.\n\n– Ryan Miller\n\n'People are in attics' in small Louisiana town\n\nMayor Tim Kerner said much of the Town of Jean Lafitte, a community of 2,000 people just outside the Jefferson Parish levee protection system, was underwater. Kerner told WGNO the levees were overtopped by rapidly rising water. Parish President Cynthia Lee Sheng told the station that \"people are in attics in Lower Lafitte.\"\n\n\"Total devastation, catastrophic\" Kerner said. \"This is a very dangerous situation. I’ve never seen so much water in my life. We’ve lost our school and everything ... People’s lives are I believe at stake now.''\n\nKerner said the water swept over a 7.5-feet-high flood wall protecting the town, leaving some people at the mercy of the rushing water. When the weather breaks \"we are going to send an army to them,\" he said.\n\nFirst death reported in Louisiana\n\nThe Ascension Parish Sheriff’s Office said deputies received a report Saturday night of a resident injured from a fallen tree in Prairieville. Deputies arrived on scene and confirmed that the victim had been killed, the office said on social media posts. More than 250 roads in the parish were closed because of downed trees or power lines, and the office urged everyone to stay home.\n\nIda could drop 24 inches of rain in some areas\n\nThrough Tuesday morning, Ida could bring total rainfall accumulations of 10 to 18 inches with isolated maximum amounts of 24 inches, the National Weather Service said. Heavy rain combined with storm surge resulted in catastrophic impacts along the southeast coast of Louisiana, with life-threatening flash flooding and \"significant\" river flooding continuing farther inland.\n\nWhere Ida is headed next\n\nThe center of Ida is forecast to move over central and northeastern Mississippi on Monday afternoon and night and move across the Tennessee Valley on Tuesday. Additional rapid weakening is forecast during the next day or so. \"Considerable\" flash flooding is possible from the Lower Mississippi Valley through the Middle Tennessee Valley, Ohio Valley, Central/Southern Appalachians and into the Mid-Atlantic in coming days, the weather service said.\n\nContributing: The Associated Press", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2021/08/30"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/50-states/2019/08/14/many-fish-hot-rocks-gun-insurance-news-around-states/39957761/", "title": "News from around our 50 states", "text": "From USA TODAY Network and wire reports\n\nAlabama\n\nTuscaloosa: Officials say they expect new arrangements between the University of Alabama and the city’s business incubator to help entrepreneurs and generate new jobs. The Tuscaloosa News reports that the Bama Technology Incubator, which features on-campus support for startup companies, will now be known as Edge Labs. Officials say the name change is significant, as it will emphasize the connection between Edge Labs on the northern end of UA’s campus and the Edge, an off-campus business incubator. The Edge opened in February as a collaboration among UA, the city of Tuscaloosa and the Chamber of Commerce of West Alabama.\n\nAlaska\n\nAnchorage: Researchers have begun questioning whether there’s too much of a good thing in the waters of the North Pacific Ocean. Wild populations of pink salmon are flourishing. Their numbers are enhanced by the annual release of 1.8 billion fish from Alaska hatcheries, and critics say they’re having an effect on other species. Biological oceanographer Sonia Batten examined 15 years of data and noticed that zooplankton was abundant in even-number years and less abundant in odd-number years. That corresponds with even-odd variations in pink salmon abundance. University of Alaska professor emeritus Alan Springer sees reproduction effects on seabirds that also feed on zooplankton. State regulators say they have no evidence the ocean has reached its carrying capacity for hatchery fish, which brought sales averaging $120 million for 2012 through 2017.\n\nArizona\n\nTucson: Experts say a federal court ruling against a planned mining project in the state is expected to have national repercussions if upheld by higher courts. The Arizona Daily Star reports the mining industry has decried the ruling against the proposed $1.9 billion Rosemont Mine. The U.S. Forest Service’s approval of plans for the new copper mine in southeastern Arizona was overruled July 31 in U.S. District Court. The project was planned to spread across federal, state and private land. Mining company attorneys say the decision usurps the role of government agencies, could bring chaos to federal mining reviews and will add permitting delays. Conservation and tribal groups praised the ruling, saying it recognized the Forest Service’s failure to protect public land and resources.\n\nArkansas\n\nBentonville: An accident involving a ride that derailed on the last night of the Benton County Fair and injured at least two has prompted a state investigation. The Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports the ride shut down Saturday after a cart from a miniature roller coaster derailed, sending two people in an ambulance to a nearby hospital. Their conditions weren’t immediately available. Bentonville Fire Department Battalion Chief Justin Scantlin says a third person also rode in a car to the hospital. Arkansas Department of Labor general counsel Denise Oxley says investigators will examine the ride and its maintenance records as well as talk to the owner, operator and any witnesses. Oxley says the ride was inspected before the fair opened last week.\n\nCalifornia\n\nSan Jose: The mayor has proposed requiring gun owners in the nation’s 10th largest city to carry liability insurance to cover taxpayer costs associated with firearm violence. The Mercury News reports that, if approved, Mayor Sam Liccardo’s strict new measure would be the first of its kind in the nation to curb gun violence. The city of 1 million was home to two children killed in a July 28 mass shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival. Liccardo announced his proposal Monday. It would require approval from the City Council. He likened the proposal to attempts to lower smoking rates and car crashes. Gun rights groups are vowing that if the City Council approves the measure, they will take San Jose to court.\n\nColorado\n\nAspen: The U.S. Forest Service has put a logging project in the state on hold as it deals with a lawsuit. The Aspen Times reported Monday that the agency had authorized the plan to clear-cut about 2.5 square miles in the Upper Fryingpan Valley, saying it would improve forest resiliency and increase the amount of young forest. The logging near Basalt was planned to begin this summer. A group of residents near the project area filed a lawsuit earlier this year, claiming logging would increase carbon emissions and harm tourism and recreation. District ranger Curtis Keetch says the project will proceed after the litigation is resolved.\n\nConnecticut\n\nHartford: Consumers, businesses and health care providers in the state will be able to compare the cost and quality of medical care at hospitals and provider networks online. The Connecticut Office of Health Strategy has launched HealthscoreCT.com, which includes a quality scorecard and a cost estimator that is scheduled to be released at the end of September. OHS Executive Director Vicki Veltri says the website, which includes interactive tables and graphs, “gives people the resources to make better health care decisions” and gives providers an opportunity to improve on the cost and quality of the care they give patients. Once fully implemented, the free service will help consumers determine if the high cost charged by a particular network means good quality.\n\nDelaware\n\nDover: A fire department official says dozens of pet snakes died when a blaze ripped through a home. No people were injured in the fire that broke out Sunday morning in Dover. The homeowner told firefighters that approximately 60 snakes were in the house. All of them are believed to be dead. There was no immediate word on what kinds of snakes were being kept in the home. Deputy Chief Michael O’Connor Jr. of the Dover Fire Department says the snakes were kept in bedrooms throughout the house. O’Connor says the fire apparently started in the kitchen and caused extensive damage to the house.\n\nDistrict of Columbia\n\nWashington: A D.C. Council staffer is accused of firing a gun outside a pop-up marijuana market this month. News outlets report 24-year-old DaVon Lorenzo Fuller was arrested Saturday and charged with assault with a dangerous weapon and possession of a firearm. A police statement says Fuller and another man were being robbed by two people. Both men shot at the robbers, firing at least a dozen rounds. Fuller’s attorney Daniel K. Dorsey says Fuller fired in self-defense. Police are looking for Fuller’s companion. The statement says Fuller was denied a concealed-carry permit, making it illegal for him to take the weapon outside his home. Fuller is a staffer for councilwomen Brianne K. Nadeau, who has passed several laws to help reduce gun violence. He’s been placed on administrative leave.\n\nFlorida\n\nTallahassee: Republican lawmakers from the state are postponing an immigration “listening tour,” saying a charged atmosphere after the El Paso, Texas, shootings and the Mississippi immigration raids won’t lead to a productive discussion. State Sen. Joe Gruters said Monday that the tour scheduled to begin next week will be pushed back, probably until November. Gruters also chairs the state Republican Party. Gruters and state Rep. Cord Byrd planned to lead the tour with stops across Florida. They’re the lawmakers who sponsored bills requiring local governments to cooperate with federal authorities enforcing immigration laws. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the sanctuary policy ban into law. Democratic Rep. Anna Eskamani said Gruters and Byrd should cancel the tour, calling it politically motivated rather than a sincere attempt to listen to Floridians on immigration issues.\n\nGeorgia\n\nStonecrest: A local high school graduate has won a $30,000 college scholarship through the “Doodle for Google” competition. Citing a Google statement, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports Arantza Pena Popo’s design was featured on the tech giant’s homepage Tuesday. The nationwide contest asked grade schoolers to redesign Google’s logo based on what they hoped for the future. Popo’s doodle titled “Once you get it, give it back” shows a framed picture of Popo’s mother carrying her as an infant sitting above an adult Popo caring for her aging mother. The Colombia native graduated as a valedictorian from Arabia Mountain High School in Stonecrest. Google says the school will get $50,000 to establish a computer or technology lab. Popo plans to study graphic design at the University of Southern California this fall.\n\nHawaii\n\nHilo: Geologists have measured high temperatures in rock ripped up by road crews during reconstruction of a Big Island highway inundated by lava. Hawaii News Now reports that Hawaii Volcano Observatory geologists recorded temperatures of cooling lava rock on Highway 132 above 700 degrees Fahrenheit from the 2018 Kilauea volcanic eruption. Geologists say the drill bit used to hammer the rock into pieces has changed colors from the intense heat, and rocks take most of the day to cool. Hawaii County officials say the construction will grant access to some residents’ landlocked homes and farms about 24 miles southeast of Hilo. Officials say reconstruction began in July and is expected to be completed by Oct. 5 to qualify for 100% federal reimbursement.\n\nIdaho\n\nBoise: The state’s sage-grouse numbers have dropped 52% since the federal government decided not to list the birds as an endangered species in the fall of 2015. It’s not yet clear whether the three-year decline is part of a cyclical pattern or indicative of a more serious issue, but the Idaho Statesman reports the trend could force state and federal wildlife and land managers to take a closer look at how sage grouse are faring in Idaho and other western states. Under Idaho’s sage grouse management plan, wildlife managers must work to determine the cause of population declines and come up with an appropriate response any time numbers drop below a certain level. Idaho Fish and Game biologist Ann Moser says it looks like populations are low enough in several parts of Idaho to trigger the plan.\n\nIllinois\n\nWilmington: A group conducting an archaeological dig has found pieces of broken pottery, projectile points and other artifacts dating to the 1600s. Two University of Notre Dame professors have been leading summer volunteers on an exploration at the Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie in northern Illinois. The project at the Middle Grant Creek Site is revealing how people of the Oneota culture lived in the area four centuries ago. Earlier this month volunteers digging in a 6-foot-deep pit found projectile points made of rock that would have been used for hunting. They’ve also found painted pottery and needles made from bones, which were likely used to weave mats from tallgrass. The group is gathering evidence to reconstruct the environment and ecology of the last prehistoric culture of the upper Midwest.\n\nIndiana\n\nIndianapolis: An agriculture economist is projecting a nearly 20% drop in revenue for the state’s corn and soybean crops this year. That prediction from Purdue University professor Chris Hurt comes after Indiana farmers faced several weeks of planting delays because of persistent spring rainfalls, followed a long summer dry spell. Hurt says those troubles and the ongoing U.S. trade fight with China could lead to a $1.3 billion revenue drop for Indiana’s corn and soybean crops from last year’s $6.8 billion. Purdue agricultural experts spoke Monday during a program at the Indiana State Fair. They said the state’s farmers face a risk that late-planted corn and soybeans won’t mature before the fall freeze.\n\nIowa\n\nMaquoketa: City leaders have promised to work with a company they know little about – including its name – but they say it could bring up to 200 new manufacturing jobs to town. The Telegraph Herald reports that Maquoketa leaders signed a nonbinding letter of intent to the company that says if Maquoketa is chosen for the project, city leaders will propose a development agreement. The objective is to have that agreement in place “within the next 120 days, if not sooner.” Nic Hockenberry, director of Jackson County Economic Alliance, says that “this isn’t usually how it works if you’re being considered for a site, but we take all inquiries seriously.” The city would provide the land and help install utilities to the site, if the city were chosen.\n\nKansas\n\nTopeka: The state Department of Transportation plans to spend $5 million this year to help cities and counties repair 3,800 bridges that are in poor condition or structurally insufficient. The Topeka Capital-Journal reports the department is restarting a program suspended in 2014 when state government struggled with revenue shortfalls. An estimated 20% of the 19,000 county and city bridges in Kansas need to be repaired or replaced. The department will provide up to $150,000 toward replacement or rehabilitation of a bridge on a local roadway system. The agency also offered $50,000 to a city or county in exchange for permanently closing a functionally obsolete bridge. Funding was drawn from $216 million in sales tax funneled to the state highway fund in fiscal year 2020, which began July 1.\n\nKentucky\n\nSlade: State parks officials say a wilderness advanced first aid training course will be offered later this year at Natural Bridge State Resort Park. Officials say the five-day course will be presented Dec. 2-6 and geared toward people who work or play in remote wilderness areas. They say it’s recommended for backcountry guides, canoe trip leaders, college outdoor programs, hiking club leaders, emergency medical technicians and adventure race safety personnel. Officials say the course will focus on stabilizing patients, treatment and evacuation guidelines for patients in remote areas. Learning will take place in the classroom as well as outdoor settings. The fee of $375 covers the course only. Lodging and meals at Natural Bridge are available at discounted rates.\n\nLouisiana\n\nBaton Rouge: Police say Baton Rouge’s African American history museum has been reported vandalized exactly a month after its founder was found dead. News outlets report police are investigating the damage to the Odell S. Williams African-American Museum founded by Sadie Roberts-Joseph. Photos posted online Monday show flipped benches, windows on the ground, and other damage including torn and ruined landscaping. It’s unclear if the inside of the museum suffered any damage. It’s been closed since Roberts-Joseph’s death. The 75-year-old was found dead last month in the trunk of a car. Preliminary autopsy results showed she was strangled before being shoved into the trunk. Police later arrested 38-year-old Ronn Bell on a charge of first-degree murder. He had been renting from Roberts-Joseph and was about $1,200 behind in rent.\n\nMaine\n\nAugusta: A Republican lawmaker says a legislative fix would address a problem with timing of a handful of potential “people’s veto” votes. In a “people’s veto,” residents gather signatures to force a ballot question to veto a state law. Secretary of State Matt Dunlap at first incorrectly told “people’s veto” petitioners their attempted vetoes could go on ballots in June. He then announced they would go on ballots in March, alongside Maine’s presidential primary. Citizen petitioners fear a heavily Democratic turnout at the primary would doom their effort. They want to overturn laws including one that bans so-called conversion therapy for gay people. Rep. Patrick Corey, of Windham, says his proposal would exempt “people’s veto” votes from presidential primary elections. He says it’s about treating voters equally.\n\nMaryland\n\nBaltimore: An animal rights group has filed a federal complaint against Johns Hopkins University researchers over a lab experiment in which nine dogs had to be euthanized after spinal surgeries. The Baltimore Sun reports that Stop Animal Exploitation Now wants the U.S. Agriculture Department to impose fines of $10,000 per animal under the Animal Welfare Act. The group says Hopkins told the National Institutes of Health that it ended the federally funded experiment to study gastrointestinal issues when some dogs suffered acute paralysis. Hopkins spokeswoman Kim Hoppe says that the program rigorously complies with animal welfare regulations and that the remaining dogs were adopted. Federal law requires animal testing of drugs for humans.\n\nMassachusetts\n\nNantucket: The island’s first pot shop is up and running. The Green Lady Dispensary opened Sunday on an appointment-only basis after receiving approval to operate from the state’s Cannabis Control Commission. Massachusetts voters legalized recreational pot for adults in 2016, but marijuana businesses faced additional obstacles to opening off the mainland because it remains illegal to transport marijuana through federal waters or to fly it there. The Green Lady Dispensary is cultivating marijuana on the island and received permission from regulators to conduct on-site laboratory testing in lieu of the normal requirement that products be tested at a licensed independent lab. The family-run store says appointments will be required through Labor Day.\n\nMichigan\n\nLansing: Researchers say the state may have more than twice as many sand dune acres as previously known. Alan Arbogast of Michigan State University recently oversaw development of what he calls the most detailed and comprehensive map of the state’s dunes, which total 230,000 acres. He tells MLive.com the project mapped previously unrecognized dunes on the west coast of the Lower Peninsula. It also documented dunes on the eastern side of the state along Lake Huron that hadn’t been included in previous surveys. Arbogast is chairman of the university’s Department of Geography. His team gathered and analyzed remotely sensed imagery and compared aerial photos, topographic maps and soil data. They verified the findings in the field. Roughly half of the dune acreage is publicly owned or controlled by a local land conservancy.\n\nMinnesota\n\nSt. Paul: Gov. Tim Walz says he still wants Senate Republicans to hold hearings on Democratic proposals for gun control and emergency insulin supplies. The governor told reporters Monday he finds it “absolutely unacceptable” that none have been scheduled following the latest mass shootings in Ohio and Texas. He contrasted the impasse in Minnesota with states with Republican governors and legislatures that have adopted gun safety measures, as well as President Donald Trump’s recently stated willingness to consider stronger federal background checks. Proposals for tighter gun controls and easier access to emergency insulin stalled out during the 2019 Legislature’s regular session amid GOP opposition. Walz says it wouldn’t be productive to call lawmakers back if they’re not willing to do anything, but voters are demanding action.\n\nMississippi\n\nJackson: It’s painfully hot in the state now, but residents suffering through a blistering heat wave can take solace in the news that ice skating will be available this year at the Mississippi State Fair. State Agriculture Commissioner Andy Gipson says a temporary ice rink will be installed inside the Mississippi Coliseum on the fairgrounds in Jackson. Gipson announced that a Florida-based company called Magic Ice USA will build and manage the 8,000-square-foot rink. Construction will begin in late September, and the fair runs Oct. 2-14. The cost of skating will be $10 per person. Admission to the fair costs $5 for every person older than 6.\n\nMissouri\n\nKansas City: A bidder from Nebraska has paid $920,000 for a house designed and built by iconic architect Frank Lloyd Wright. The Kansas City Star reports that Heritage Auctions says the new owner wants to remain anonymous for now, but the bidder plans to honor the integrity of the Sondern-Adler house that sold Monday. Wright designed the home in 1939 for Clarence Sondern. He designed a later addition for the second owner, Arnold Adler. Heritage Auctions spokesman Eric Bradley says the winning bidder plans to keep it a national or regional destination. The home had been on the market for 11 months at $1.65 million. Bidding began at $450,000. Bids quickly soared to $775,000, with the Nebraska bidder on the phone going head-to-head with a representative for a local bidder.\n\nMontana\n\nGreat Falls: Members of a state task force whose goal is to help various agencies work together in reporting and searching for missing Native Americans want to add more people to the panel. The Missing Indigenous Persons Task Force met in Great Falls on Saturday and decided it wanted to add representatives from Indian Health Services and the U.S. attorney’s office. The task force was created by the Montana to help state, local, federal and tribal law enforcement agencies identify jurisdictional barriers that prevented the agencies from working together. The task force members were told the Department of Justice has not yet found the right candidate for the new job of missing persons specialist to work with the various agencies and oversee databases of missing persons.\n\nNebraska\n\nOmaha: The Sarpy County Sheriff’s Office is giving people the opportunity to get rid of unwanted or unsafe guns, ammunition and leftover fireworks. People can turn in those items from 9 a.m. until 2 p.m. Aug. 17 at a drop-off location at the Sarpy County Sheriff’s Office south parking lot garage in Papillion. The amnesty day event allows the items to be dropped off with no questions asked, but police will document all firearms. If a gun is linked to a crime or reported stolen, police will investigate. Officials say all guns, ammunition and fireworks turned in at the event will be safely disposed of by the sheriff’s office and Omaha Police Department.\n\nNevada\n\nLas Vegas: As students head back to school this week, the nation’s fifth-largest school district is dealing with one of its biggest teaching shortages. KVVU-TV reports the Clark County School District has more than 700 vacant teaching positions. Officials say there have not been such a large number of openings during the first week of school since 2014. Some teachers say there is no way staff and students won’t feel the strain of having fewer instructors. Teacher Maria Zuniga says she sometimes has to substitute for another class in situations like this at the expense of her break time. District officials have said that teacher recruitment and retention are top priorities in their Focus 2024 plan.\n\nNew Hampshire\n\nHampton: The state’s Department of Environmental Services has lifted a ban on most shellfish harvesting along the ocean coastline and Hampton-Seabrook Harbor after a drop in toxic algae bloom known as red tide. The harvest closure went into effect May 9 in response to elevated levels of paralytic shellfish poisoning detected in blue mussels. Chris Nash, the department’s shellfish program manager, said Maine and Massachusetts have been reporting similar red tide declines. He said the one exception is that surf clams along the Atlantic Coast continue to show unacceptably high levels of the toxin. He said surf clams typically retain it much longer than other types of shellfish. The DES says paralytic shellfish poisoning is life-threatening. Symptoms include tingling, burning, numbness, drowsiness, incoherent speech and respiratory paralysis.\n\nNew Jersey\n\nNewark: Residents began picking up bottled water Monday, days after elevated lead levels were found in homes where city-issued filters had been distributed months ago as part of an ongoing effort to combat contamination. Newark has given thousands of filters to residents in homes with lead service lines. But the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said recent tests showed drinking water in a few locations was still testing high for lead despite the filters. Water was available at four locations Monday. The process was successful for some people, not so much for others. Emmett Coleman, a senior citizen who said he is a heart transplant recipient, said he waited an hour for his two cases of water. He lugged them down the stairs and began to carry them up the street to his car before a worker came out to help him.\n\nNew Mexico\n\nAlbuquerque: State officials say visits to museums and historic sites have fallen. The Albuquerque Journal reports New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs says overall attendance for the fiscal year that ended June 30 dipped 2% from last year. According to the agency, in fiscal 2019, 992,574 visitors were counted for the eight state-run museums and the six historic sites. In fiscal 2018, attendance was at 1,014,041 and was largely led by the blockbuster “Da Vinci – The Genius” exhibit at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science in Albuquerque. The biggest drops in attendance came at the Fort Sumner/Bosque Redondo site and the New Mexico History Museum, with a 30% and 17% decrease respectively.\n\nNew York\n\nBethel: State police are warning travelers in the Hudson Valley of likely traffic delays coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the Woodstock festival. Troopers say traffic congestion is expected on routes 17 and 17b in Sullivan County on Thursday through Sunday. Traffic is expected to be particularly heavy on Route 17 westbound between the Thruway in Harriman and exit 104 onto Route 17b in Monticello. Peak traffic for westbound lanes is anticipated between 1 and 7 p.m. and for eastbound lanes between 11 p.m. and 2 a.m. all four days of the anniversary concert weekend. Local officials expect up to 100,000 visitors to the Woodstock festival site in the town of Bethel on Thursday through Sunday. The site is hosting separate shows by festival veterans like Carlos Santana and John Fogerty.\n\nNorth Carolina\n\nWrightsville Beach: Volunteers who watch sea turtles nest fear more than 100 hatchlings were lost because they were attracted to artificial lights instead of the light of the moon. Nancy Fahey of the Wrightsville Beach Sea Turtle Project tells The StarNews of Wilmington that 112 sea turtle hatchlings broke through their shells early Aug. 1 after volunteers had quit watching the nest. She says she found turtle tracks under a pier and other places. She hopes the city can find a way to address problems with artificial lights. Wrightsville Beach Town Manager Tim Owens says most structures with problematic lighting predate the city’s lighting ordinance. He says one solution may be to ask property owners to shield bright lights when a nearby nest is nearing the end of its incubation period.\n\nNorth Dakota\n\nBismarck: State agriculture officials say anthrax has been confirmed in a group of cows in a pasture in eastern Billings County. The case was confirmed Friday. It is North Dakota’s first reported case of anthrax this year. State veterinarian Susan Keller says producers in Billings County and surrounding areas should check with their veterinarians to see if they should start vaccinating their cattle for anthrax. Anthrax vaccines are readily available, but it takes about a week to establish immunity, and the vaccine must be administered annually. Anthrax is caused by bacterial spores that can lie dormant in the ground until they are activated by heavy rains, flooding or drought. Scattered heavy rains may have triggered the recent case. No anthrax cases were reported in North Dakota last year.\n\nOhio\n\nColumbus: Opponents hoping to overturn a financial rescue for the state’s nuclear power plants and two coal-fired plants have failed to clear an initial hurdle to put the issue before voters next year. Ohio’s attorney general says there were inaccuracies in the petition summary submitted by Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts, so it wasn’t certified as a fair and truthful representation of the proposed statewide referendum. The campaign says it will submit revised language. Lawmakers approved the $1.5 billion rescue package last month. It tacks a new fee onto every electricity bill in Ohio and scales back requirements that utilities generate more power from wind and solar. Backers say it saves jobs and protects nuclear plants that account for nearly all of Ohio’s clean energy. Opponents criticize it as a bailout.\n\nOklahoma\n\nOklahoma City: A state district judge has blocked implementation of a new law that requires top brands of wine and spirits to be sold to all Oklahoma alcohol wholesalers. The Oklahoman reports Judge Thomas Prince in Oklahoma City ruled the new law violates the state constitution. The state Supreme Court had remanded the legal challenge launched to the new law by a group of liquor wholesalers. Currently, manufacturers can designate a single wholesaler to distribute their products. The group argued the law unconstitutionally changed the amendment passed by voters in 2016 that also allows the sale of strong beer in grocery and convenience stores and the sale of cold, strong beer in liquor stores.\n\nOregon\n\nPortland: Far-right groups are traveling to the city from around the United States this weekend to rally against self-described antifascists who are planning to oppose them. Portland’s leadership is mobilizing in hopes of avoiding clashes similar to those in June and in 2018 that attracted national attention. Since President Donald Trump’s election, Portland has become a political arena for far-right and far-left groups to face off. None of the city’s nearly 1,000 police officers will have the day off Saturday. The Oregon State Police and the FBI are also helping out. Mayor Ted Wheeler says he may ask Democratic Gov. Kate Brown to call up the Oregon National Guard. The Southern Poverty Law Center says the groups coming to Portland include far-right militias, white supremacists, white nationalists and other hate groups.\n\nPennsylvania\n\nHarrisburg: The governor says at least four children from the state were recently separated from their parents by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and wrote Monday to demand the agency halt the practice until it has a plan to ensure the welfare of children. Gov. Tom Wolf asked Homeland Security Acting Secretary Kevin McAleenan to account for all children separated from their parents this year in Pennsylvania and to tell him how long they were kept apart and about any steps the federal government took to ensure their well-being. Wolf said in the letter that the four children are U.S. citizens and come from at least three migrant families. He said that “information relayed” to state officials indicated federal agents did not make sure that the children had adequate temporary guardianship.\n\nRhode Island\n\nProvidence: State health officials are cautioning people to avoid contact with seven lakes and ponds because of potential risks from blue-green algae. The locations are Almy Pond in Newport; Sisson Pond in Portsmouth; JL Curran Reservoir in Cranston; Mashapaug Pond in Providence; and several lakes within Roger Williams Park in Providence, Pleasure Lake, Roosevelt Lake and Elm Lake. All recreation – including swimming, fishing, boating and kayaking – should be avoided. The Rhode Island Department of Public Health also warned that people and pets should not ingest water or eat fish from the locations. Contact with water containing blue-green algae commonly causes irritation of the skin, nose, eyes and/or throat.\n\nSouth Carolina\n\nRidgeland: The leader of the state’s health and environmental agency says putting out a trash fire that has been smoldering for months is the department’s top priority. The fire at a recycling company in Jasper County started in early June with hazardous levels of smoke particles and a voluntary evacuation of a neighborhood nearby happening earlier this month. Department of Health and Environmental Control Director Rick Toomey said at an agency board meeting Thursday the department hired an outside company to put out the fire at Able Contracting Inc. The Island Packet of Hilton Head reports Toomey also said it can’t wait for delayed federal testing of water and air samples near the fire and is paying a private firm to see if there are more hazards than just smoke.\n\nSouth Dakota\n\nRapid City: Prosecutors in Pennington County have declined to issue charges resulting from a police seizure of hemp-derived CBD oil that contained THC, the compound in marijuana that produces a high sensation. Officers raided a health food store in Rapid City in May and seized 16 individual or bundled packages of CBD oil products worth about $3,000. The raid was the result of an earlier purchase by a Rapid City police officer who had a CBD product tested and found it was positive for THC. The Rapid City Journal reports state’s attorney Mark Vargo says he chose not to charge the owner of Staple and Spice Market because it would be difficult to prove she knew the CBD products she was selling contained THC. The manufacturer, Plus CBD Oil, says on its webpage that its products contain less than 0.3% THC.\n\nTennessee\n\nNashville: The state is holding events to celebrate the 99th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which ushered in women’s right to vote. Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park, the Tennessee State Museum, and the Tennessee State Library and Archives are collaborating on events Friday and Saturday in Nashville. Congress passed the 19th Amendment in June 1919. Three-fourths of state legislatures were required to ratify it for its nationwide adoption. Tennessee became the 36th and final state needed for ratification in August 1920. The park and museum will feature living history programs and hands-on activities. Historians will depict stories related to the women’s suffrage movement at the park. Keeping with Tennessee’s “Perfect 36” nickname, the Tennessee State Parks Run Club will host the Perfect 3.6 Race for Ratification on Saturday.\n\nTexas\n\nLa Porte: Officials say Aug. 25 is the last date for public visits to the Battleship Texas near Houston before the 107-year-old vessel undergoes repairs. The Texas Parks & Wildlife Department says staff and contractors, starting Aug. 26, need full access to the ship at La Porte to prepare for $35 million in renovations. The agency in June announced a pared-back summer schedule for visitors at the Battleship Texas State Historic Site so personnel could begin cataloging thousands of artifacts. The historic items will be put into storage before the Battleship Texas goes into dry dock to fix the leaking hull. The Battleship Texas Foundation in May announced the ship would get a new home following repairs. No site was announced.\n\nUtah\n\nSalt Lake City: Imprisoned polygamist leader Warren Jeffs has suffered a mental breakdown and isn’t fit to give a deposition in a sex abuse case against him, according to a recent court filing. Forcing Jeffs, 63, to testify would be “futile,” said lawyers representing a community trust that once belonged to a polygamous sect run by Jeffs on the Utah-Arizona border. The trust and Jeffs were sued in 2017 by a woman who says she was sexually abused by Jeffs when she was a child. Lawyer Zachary Shields said Monday that he isn’t trying to cover for Jeffs, who he says has done many awful things, but that he doesn’t want attorneys to waste time and money traveling to the Texas prison where Jeffs is housed until he is determined to be mentally competent.\n\nVermont\n\nMontpelier: Admission to state-owned historic sites will be free on Bennington Battle Day this Friday. It’s a state holiday commemorating the Revolutionary War victory over the British on Aug. 16, 1777. The Vermont Division of Historic Preservation says three sites are key to Vermont’s role in the American Revolution. They are Mount Independence, a fortification built by American troops in 1776 and 1777, in Orwell; the Hubbardton Battlefield marking the site of the Revolutionary War battle fought on what would become Vermont; and the 306-foot-high Bennington Battle Monument. Other sites that will be free to visit are Chimney Point in Addison; the Senator Justin S. Smith Morrill Homestead in Strafford; and the President Calvin Coolidge Birthplace and Homestead in Plymouth Notch.\n\nVirginia\n\nRichmond: Researchers at the University of Richmond believe a burial ground of enslaved Africans may lie beneath the campus. The Richmond Times-Dispatch and The Collegian, the university’s student newspaper, report researchers say they’ve discovered evidence suggesting an unknown number of slaves may be buried behind Puryear Hall. Dywana Saunders, a research associate at one of the university’s libraries, says a history book describes campus land that once belonged to lumber plantation owner Ben Green, who likely owned slaves. A 1947 Richmond News Leader article added to the evidence, describing a small pile of bones that had been unearthed on campus. Researchers say they hope a ground survey using radar technology will provide more answers.\n\nWashington\n\nSeattle: A wildfire-triggered thunderstorm has provided an unusual opportunity for scientists to fly through its clouds and take photos and measurements. The Seattle Times reports information collected from Thursday’s flight could inform new research about wildfire-induced thunderstorms, which only recently have been studied in detail. Philippe Papin, a postdoctoral atmospheric scientist at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, says such thunderstorms don’t produce much precipitation that reaches the ground but can create lightning strikes with potential to spark new fires. The research is part of a project between NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration aimed at better understanding wildfire smoke’s impact on air quality and the climate.\n\nWest Virginia\n\nHuntington: Officials say the number of HIV cases in Cabell County has risen to 71. The state Department of Health and Human Resources posted the figure Monday, saying the virus has spread primarily among intravenous drug users. The cluster, tracked since January 2018, represents a drastic increase from the baseline average of eight cases annually over the past five years. Officials confirmed last month that one person associated with the cluster has died. Dr. Cathy Slemp of the state Department of Health and Human Resources told The Register-Herald that there haven’t been any indications the cases have spread outside Cabell County. The health department says it is working to find gaps in health care and prevention coverage.\n\nWisconsin\n\nMadison: Republican legislators are reintroducing a bill that would punish students who interfere with campus speeches and presentations. The state Assembly passed a bill last session that would suspend University of Wisconsin System students twice accused of disrupting others’ free speech. Students who disrupt others’ free expression a third time would be expelled. The measure died in the Senate, but UW regents adopted the sanctions as policy in October. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, Sen. Chris Kapenga and Reps. Cody Horlacher and Dave Murphy reintroduced the bill Tuesday. Passage would cement the sanctions in statute.\n\nWyoming\n\nJackson: Under threat of legal action, federal wildlife managers are pledging to start weaning elk that winter on the National Elk Refuge in northwest Wyoming off supplemental feeding. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has been talking with Wyoming wildlife managers for about a dozen years about the feeding program. But the threat of litigation by the Earthjustice environmental group has forced the agency to act. Earthjustice attorney Tim Preso tells the Jackson Hole News & Guide that the federal agency has agreed to have a plan in place by the next feeding season, which typically begins in late January or early February each winter. Earthjustice contends the supplemental feeding of elk increases the risk of spreading chronic wasting disease among wildlife in the area.\n\nFrom USA TODAY Network and wire reports", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2019/08/14"}]}
{"question_id": "20230317_3", "search_time": "2023/05/25/17:55", "search_result": []}
{"question_id": "20230317_4", "search_time": "2023/05/25/17:55", "search_result": [{"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/local/phoenix/contributor/2016/03/09/arizona-observe-daylight-saving-time/81139788/", "title": "Here's why Arizona won't 'spring forward' for daylight-saving time", "text": "Mark Nothaft\n\nSpecial for The Republic | azcentral.com\n\nEvery state has a choice on daylight saving time, but Arizona and Hawaii are the only two to opt out\n\nASU expert Randall Cerveny says Arizonans don't want summer heat in the evening hours\n\nProlonging sun and heat into the evening costs more energy, Cerveny says\n\nArizona just has to be different, right? Well, with summer on the way, you'll be glad we don't follow daylight saving time.\n\nBut why? For starters, the sun wouldn't set until after 9 p.m. during the summer if we \"sprang forward.\" And how about your APS or SRP bill for all that extra air conditioning? Yipes.\n\nOddly enough, every state has a choice. Arizona and Hawaii are the only two to opt out. Indiana avoided springing back and forth for awhile but gave up in 2005. Don't think the cows could handle it.\n\nNEW FOR 2017: What Arizonans should do with that extra hour from skipping daylight-saving time: Read this trivia\n\nEven more weird, in the state's northeast corner, the Hopi Nation opts out but the Navajo Nation doesn't. The Hopi are like an island within the Navajo Reservation. What happens when you drive across the border for a gallon of milk but Bashas' is closed?\n\nEDITORIAL: Why everyone else is wrong about Daylight Saving Time\n\nAnyhow, I conferred with the smart folks at Arizona State University for some answers.\n\n\"Actually, the reasoning is pretty straightforward: we don't want our summer heat continuing on into the evening hours,\" Randall Cerveny of ASU's School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning says. \"Imagine having the sun set here at 9 or even 10 p.m. in the summer as it does in some parts of the country on daylight saving time. Miserable!\"\n\nAgreed. Cerveny also says that in other areas of the country, farmers and other industrious types can do more stuff in the evening hours on daylight saving time since the sun is still up and save energy.\n\nMONTINI: Keep your daylight-savings — we LIKE it in the dark!\n\n\"But for us, it is the opposite,\" he says. \"Prolonging sun and heat into the evening costs more energy. So far we have shown sense enough to do what is best for us rather than what conforms to the rest of the country.\"\n\nThe meteorological gurus at Salt River Project concur.\n\n\"From a weather perspective, not observing DST gives Phoenix and Tucson residents 'cooler,' more comfortable evenings in the heat of summer,\" Jon A. Skindlov of SRP says.\n\nSounds like a good reason to be different.\n\nContact \"Only in Arizona\" columnist Mark Nothaft at marknothaft.onlyinaz@gmail.com. Send him the weird and fun facts and places found #OnlyInArizona.\n\nPurpose of Daylight Saving Time\n\n• It saves energy. During daylight saving time, the sun sets one hour later in the evenings, so the need to use electricity for household lighting and appliances is reduced. People tend to spend more time outside in the evenings during DST, which reduces the need to use electricity in the home. Also, because the sunrise is very early in the morning during the summer months, most people will awake after the sun has already risen, which means they turn on fewer lights in their homes.\n\n• It saves lives and prevents traffic injuries. More people travel to and from school and work and complete errands during the daylight.\n\n• It reduces crime. More people are out conducting their affairs during the daylight rather than at night, when more crime occurs.\n\n(SOURCE: U.S. Department of Transportation)\n\nHow the Superstition Mountains got their name, legend\n\n'Giant baby' is all grown up, playing college softball", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2016/03/09"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/10/29/daylight-savings-time-2019-what-states-want-make-dst-permanent/2494759001/", "title": "Daylight Savings Time 2019: What states want to make DST ...", "text": "Corrections and Clarifications: An earlier version of this story misstated when daylight saving time took place annually before it was extended by President George W. Bush.\n\nHere we go again: Time to fall back after we sprang forward.\n\nThe end of daylight saving time is fast approaching, and with it comes an \"extra\" hour of sleep and the slow disappearance of early-evening sunlight.\n\nUnless you reside in the states of Arizona (except the Navajo Nation) or Hawaii or the U.S. territories of American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, adjust your clocks back one hour Nov. 3 at 2 a.m. – lest you wake up an hour early to everything in the days ahead.\n\nPresident Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Uniform Time Act in 1966, which established daylight saving time from the last Sunday in April through the last Sunday in October.\n\nAfter one change in to the start date in 1987, another extension was made in 2005. That year, President George W. Bush extended daylight saving time even further, changing it to the second Sunday of March through the first Sunday of November. The change was made official in 2007.\n\nThe law also allows states to remain in standard time all year and does not require states to adhere to daylight saving time. However, it does require that states get approval from Congress before making daylight saving time permanent.\n\nIn fact, those against changing clocks during the year include President Donald Trump, who tweeted in March that making DST \"permanent is O.K. with me.\" Other advocates argue that shifting time twice a year can cause an increased risk of stroke and heart attack, as well as affecting adults 65 or older more drastically.\n\nThose in favor of shifting time include the National Parent Teacher Association, which says that children would have to commute to school in the dark with year-round daylight saving time, and the U.S. Department of Transportation, which says that the time changes save energy and cut crime.\n\nSeven states – Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Nevada, Oregon, Tennessee and Washington – have approved legislation to make daylight saving time permanent. These states still need the OK from the federal government to enact the change, however.\n\nA handful of other states, including Alaska, California, Iowa, Massachusetts, Texas, Utah and Vermont have introduced legislation to make changes to how they observe daylight saving time.\n\nSome of those states in New England, rather than introduce permanent daylight saving time, are proposing a workaround by using a year-round Atlantic Standard Time (AST) — a time zone one hour ahead of Eastern Standard Time. In doing so, these states would effectively be observing daylight saving time permanently without having to put it to a vote in Congress.\n\nOther states, such as Texas, are considering moving to permanent standard time altogether rather than daylight saving time.\n\nTo make matters more complicated, some states considering switching to a form of permanent daylight saving time, including Delaware and Oregon, require that the other states in their time zone switch with them, meaning that their proposals may be indefinitely postponed.\n\nContributing: Doyle Rice, Ashley May, USA TODAY; Andrew Clark, Indianapolis Star", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2019/10/29"}]}
{"question_id": "20230317_5", "search_time": "2023/05/25/17:55", "search_result": [{"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2019/12/05/mulan-trailer-fans-get-see-yifei-liu-action-disney-remake/2617959001/", "title": "'Mulan' trailer: Fans get to see Yifei Liu in action for Disney remake", "text": "Disney released a new trailer on Thursday for its upcoming live-action \"Mulan,\" where fans get to see Yifei Liu in action as the titular character.\n\nThe new trailer, which follows July's teaser, takes a serious approach to the Disney animated original. Fans will notice there is no \"good luck\" cricket or talking Mushu dragon in this live-action remake, at least as far as this trailer shows.\n\nWe still see Mulan stepping in to take the place of her father to serve in the Imperial Army against the country's invaders.\n\n\"It is my duty to protect my family,\" Mulan says in the trailer, before footage shows her riding off to join the men in the military.\n\nMore:First 'Mulan' trailer retains spirit of the animated original, but without singing or Mushu\n\nWhat ensues is a myriad of thrilling action scenes with Mulan training alongside her fellow army men, wielding a sword, dodging arrows and fighting.\n\nSlated for release March 27, and directed by Niki Caro, the live-action adaptation follows Hua Mulan, the fearless young daughter of aged warrior Fa Zhou. Mulan impersonates a man to take her father's place during a Hun invasion and becomes one of China's greatest heroines.\n\nThe film's star (also known as Crystal Liu) was announced for the lead role in November, following a yearlong search of five continents that looked at nearly 1,000 candidates.\n\nJoining Liu in \"Mulan\" is “Star Wars: Rogue One” standout Donnie Yen as the warrior's mentor Commander Tung. Jason Scott Lee stars as the villainous warrior Bori Khan. Gong Li (“Memoirs of a Geisha,” “Raise the Red Lantern”) will portray a villainous witch and Jet Li (“Shaolin Temple,” “Lethal Weapon 4”) stars as The Emperor who calls up the troops.\n\nContributing: Hannah Yasharoff, Bryan Alexander", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2019/12/05"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2022/09/10/harrison-ford-d-23-indiana-jones-5/8049458001/", "title": "'Indiana Jones 5': Harrison Ford reveals first trailer to fans at D23", "text": "Harrison Ford showed off the first trailer of \"Indiana Jones 5\" at Disney's D23 fan expo.\n\nThe emotional Ford said it is the last time he will play Indiana Jones, saying, \"This is it.\"\n\nChristian Slater will join Disney's \"Willow\" series.\n\nANAHEIM, Calif. – Harrison Ford lit up the stage Saturday at D23, the Disney fan expo, appearing with his \"Indiana Jones 5\" co-star Phoebe Waller-Bridge and showing the first trailer for the highly anticipated movie.\n\n\"I am very proud to say this is fantastic,\" said Ford, and pointed to Walter-Bridge. \"And this is one of the reasons.\"\n\nOften holding back tears, Ford, 80, was emotional in his speech, hinting that this would the last time he would appear in the hallowed series. \"This is it,\" he said, waving his arm dramatically.\n\n\"I will not fall down for you again!\" the \"Star Wars\" icon added, laughing.\n\nThe footage shown also confirmed the return of beloved character Sallah (John Rhys-Davies), Indy's trusted friend from the original \"Raiders of the Last Ark.\"\n\nAlso at D23:Disney shares first look at 'Little Mermaid' Halle Bailey singing, 'Lion King' prequel 'Mufasa'\n\nHappy 90th, John Williams! Harrison Ford crashes 'Star Wars' icon John Williams' birthday, reveals 'Indiana Jones 5' date\n\nFord welled with emotion and hit his chest talking about having a story with \"heart\" and promised \"this movie will kick your (butt).\" The stirring trailer certainly had the D23 crowd cheering wildly.\n\nLittle is known about the plot of the new movie, but the footage, which hasn't been released online yet, shows Ford's retired adventurer Jones lamenting about his return to staid academic life with Sallah.\n\n\"I miss the adventure,\" Indy says.\n\nBut he's quickly pulled into action with Waller-Bridge's Helena, riding a horse through New York City (and the subway). Indiana Jones naturally dons the famous fedora and wields the whip, telling a group of gunmen to \"Get back\" only to be shot at (a callback to a famed \"Raiders\" scene). Another trailer moment shows star Mads Mikkelsen, whose role is still mysterious, in a Nazi uniform.\n\n\"Indiana Jones 5\" is directed by James Mangold and is out June 30, 2023. The legendary composer John Williams, who started the series' musical immortality in \"Raiders,\" returns to write the score.\n\n\"I had the time of my life\" making this movie, Waller-Bridge said. \"And keeping up with this guy is exhausting.\"\n\nPixar, Amy Poehler announce 'Inside Out' sequel: And there is Joy at Disney's D23\n\nHarrison Ford:Injures shoulder rehearsing a fight scene for new 'Indiana Jones' movie\n\nChristian Slater joins Disney +'s 'Willow' TV series\n\nChristian Slater is now part of the \"Willow\" family, appearing onstage with Warwick Davis, who plays Willow in the TV series based on the 1988 film.\n\nNo details were given about Slater's role, but the \"Mr. Robot\" star said he enjoyed shooting the series.\n\n\"Surprisingly, we got to do some improvs, we came up with some stuff on the spot,\" said Slater. \"This is a fun character.\"\n\nDavis premiered a new trailer for the series, which arrives Nov. 30.\n\n'Thunderbolts':Marvel recruits Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, David Harbour for anti-hero team\n\nJude Law joins 'Star Wars' universe in TV's 'Skeleton Crew'\n\nJude Law appeared at D23, a new member of the \"Star Wars\" Disney+ series \"Skeleton Crew.\"\n\n\"I can't quite believe I'm part of the 'Star Wars' universe,\" said Law, who stars as Dumbledore in the \"Fantastic Beasts\" franchise.\n\nNo details were given about his \"Skeleton Crew\" role. The series, which follows a group of kids lost in the \"Star Wars' universe, does not have a release date.\n\n'We already knew that, bro':'Fantastic Beasts 3' finally addresses Dumbledore's sexuality onscreen", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/09/10"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2023/03/12/little-mermaid-halle-bailey-live-action-trailer-oscars-melissa-mccarthy/11461502002/", "title": "Halle Bailey's live-action 'Little Mermaid' debuts first full trailer at the ...", "text": "Halle Bailey's version of \"The Little Mermaid\" will soon be part of our world.\n\nThe upcoming live-action Disney film, coming to theaters May 26, debuted its first full-length trailer during the Oscars on Sunday, giving fans their first real glimpses at Prince Eric (Jonah Hauer-King), King Triton, (Javier Bardem), and Ursula (Melissa McCarthy) – tentacles and all.\n\n\"It has been such an honor to step into the iconic role of Ariel,\" Bailey said on stage at the Dolby Theater, joined by co-star McCarthy. \"It's been an extraordinary experience; a dream come true for me.\"\n\nMcCarthy added: \"For 100 years, the Walt Disney Company has produced some of the best heroes, villains and stories of all time. And this amazing legacy would not be complete without 'The Little Mermaid.'\"\n\nShe noted 1,735 \"remarkable film artists, technicians and craftspeople came together to tell this new story. I may be biased, but I have enjoyed making this film and it has been a complete joy.\"\n\nThe trailer includes several recognizable scenes out of the 1989 animated film: the shipwreck that nearly drowned Prince Eric, Ursula inviting Ariel to trade her voice for human legs, Ariel and Prince Eric's romantic \"Kiss The Girl\" boat ride and Ariel singing \"Part of Your World.\"\n\n2023 Oscars winners:See who took home gold tonight at the Academy Awards\n\nOscars 2023 live updates:'Everything Everywhere All at Once' wins 7, including best picture\n\nBailey, 22, stepped out on the Oscars red carpet in a custom teal tulle Dolce & Gabbana gown fit for an incoming Disney princess. Earlier in the evening, she hinted at an Oscars trailer drop.\n\n\"I'm here for a reason is what I'll say,\" Bailey teased to Laverne Cox on the E! red carpet.\n\n\"You're here for a reason: because you're a superstar, darling,\" Cox replied.\n\nOscars best-dressed:Jaw-dropping looks from Lady Gaga, Michelle Yeoh, Angela Bassett\n\n'The Little Mermaid' teaser trailer, Ariel doll spark excitement\n\nFans got a first glimpse at Bailey's Ariel in September at Disney fan expo D23, where director Rob Marshall called Bailey's performance \"a tour de force.\"\n\n\"It’s the range of what Halle brings, full and emotional and so joyous and fighter. You see all the sides of her,\" Marshall said.\n\nMarshall said there would be four new songs in the movie from the team of Alan Menken and Lin-Manuel Miranda – the first time the duo have collaborated together.\n\n\"And it's magical,\" Marshall added.\n\nAnother teaser released last month offered the first (tiny!) glimpse of Melissa McCarthy in character as the iconic villain Ursula.\n\nAfter some quick shots of Halle Bailey's Ariel gracefully swimming through the sea, the 42-second teaser ends with a shadowy shot of what seems to be McCarthy's Ursula looking menacingly at the camera over one of her tentacles. At the end of the teaser, McCarthy lets out her character's signature, villainous laugh.\n\nLast week, Bailey unveiled a new doll based on her turn as the famed red-headed mermaid.\n\n“I have something really exciting to reveal to you all. I am going to cry,” she said in an Instagram video, before holding up the toy. “This is the new 'Little Mermaid' doll. I am literally choking up, because this means so much to me, and to have one that looks like me, that’s my favorite Disney character, is very surreal.\"\n\nBailey also marveled at the detail that went into making the doll look like her.\n\n\"She even has my mole, see?\" she said. \"The hair and the tail... I’m just stunned, so I don’t quite know what to do with it, but I’m going to steal this and take it home and hide it forever.\"\n\nIn the video's caption, Bailey added that \"the little girl in me is pinching herself right now.\"\n\nContributing: Bryan Alexander and Charles Trepany\n\n'brb gonna go cry':Halle Bailey tears up unveiling new 'Little Mermaid' doll based on her\n\nMore:'The Little Mermaid' teaser trailer gives first glimpse of Melissa McCarthy as Ursula", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2023/03/12"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/19/investing/disney-stock/index.html", "title": "No magic for Disney investors | CNN Business", "text": "New York CNN Business —\n\nDisney investors aren’t having as awful a year as Netflix shareholders. But that’s not saying much.\n\nNetflix’s stock (NFLX) has plunged more than 40% this year, ahead of its first quarter earnings release after the closing bell Tuesday. Meanwhile, shares of Disney (DIS) have dropped nearly 15% so far in 2022. That makes Disney (DIS) one of the worst performers in the Dow, which is down just 4% this year.\n\nBoth companies have been plagued by concerns about streaming competition and the fierce battle for subscribers.\n\nInflation is a problem, too. A recent report from the United Kingdom showed that consumers are cutting back on streaming services due to worries about rising prices, and UK customers were dropping Disney+ at a faster rate than Netflix and Amazon’s (AMZN) Prime Video. (Disney also owns Hulu and the sports streaming service ESPN+.)\n\nStream dreams have turned to profit nightmares\n\nDespite Disney’s massive library of movies and shows thanks to its own branded studio, as well as Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars creator Lucasfilm, investors are worried that this abundance of content won’t boost streaming subscription growth enough to offset slowdowns in its traditional broadcast and cable TV businesses.\n\n“Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+ have the scale and management conviction to over time be a massive global streamer,” said JPMorgan analyst Philip Cusick in a report Tuesday. But he added that “this isn’t necessarily as good a business as Disney used to have in TV.”\n\nTraditional media companies like Disney used to rely a lot more on lucrative advertising sales and affiliate fees from cable companies to carry their channels, but the shift to streaming has upended that model. Investors now are more interested in streaming margins and not merely the bragging rights that come from how many subscribers a company has.\n\n“The market appears to be moving past rewarding media companies, as it did in 2020 and 2021, simply for their forecast of future streaming subscriber growth,” said MoffettNathanson analyst Michael Nathanson in a report last month.\n\n“Now it seems that investors are looking further down the income statement — and also, finally, digging through the cash flow statement — to try to determine the underlying steady state profitability of the pivot to Direct-to-Consumer content delivery,” Nathanson added.\n\nNathanson lowered his price target on Disney in March from $165 a a share to $150 due in part to worries about lower profit margins.\n\nFlorida controversy still an issue for Disney\n\nDisney has also come under fire after CEO Bob Chapek initially refused to speak out against Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which bans schools from teaching students from kindergarten through the third grade about gender identity and sexual orientation.\n\nFollowing criticism from Disney workers, Chapek eventually did condemn the law. But some Republicans are now threatening Disney with boycotts while many Democrats feel Chapek’s response came too late and had some pining for the days of former Disney CEO Bob Iger, who was a more outspoken advocate for progressive causes.\n\nWhether or not the Florida controversy is having an actual impact on Disney+ subscriptions, movie and theme park attendance and ratings for Disney-owned ABC and ESPN is up for debate.\n\nHowever, one analyst noted that the “Don’t Say Gay” issue could also hurt the company in another way, if more liberal Hollywood celebrities decide not to work with the House of Mouse.\n\n“The single most important [Disney] asset is its brand, next is its talent. If the controversy leads to a loss of key creative talent, it would clearly be a negative,” said Loop Capital’s Alan Gould in a report earlier this month.\n\nWhatever happens, it’s clear that Wall Street is not happy with how Disney has performed since Chapek took over from Iger in February 2020.\n\nDisney shares are now hovering near their lowest levels since November 2020. To be sure, Chapek was dealt a bad hand since the start of his tenure coincided with the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic in the United States, an event that led to a dramatic slowdown in tourism and leisure activities like going to see movies.\n\nDisney should have a big 2022 at the box office\n\nBut some are hopeful that Disney will be able to soon turn things around.\n\nMichael Morris of Guggenheim Securities wrote in a report late last month that the parks business should rebound thanks to new attractions like “Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge” and “Avengers Campus,” increased visits from foreign travelers to the flagship resorts in Orlando and California and a full reopening of international parks and cruise lines.\n\nAnd JPMorgan’s Cusick noted Disney’s strong slate of movies this summer and later this year as a positive.\n\nBox office revenue should start to bounce back thanks to the upcoming releases of sequels for Marvel’s Dr. Strange, Thor and Black Panther, the Pixar movie “Lightyear” about the inspiration behind the popular “Toy Story’ character. Also coming is the highly anticipated first sequel to the 2009 hit “Avatar.” (“Avatar 3” will follow in 2024.)\n\nDisney’s Marvel, along with partner Sony, has already proven that film fans will return to theaters in droves for big blockbusters. Last year’s “Spider-Man: No Way Home” is the third-highest grossing movie ever in the US.", "authors": ["Paul R. La Monica"], "publish_date": "2022/04/19"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/17/entertainment/little-mermaid-racist-backlash-halle-bailey-disney-cec/index.html", "title": "Analysis: Why racist 'The Little Mermaid' arguments don't hold up ...", "text": "CNN —\n\nEver since Disney released the first look for its 2023 live-action remake of “The Little Mermaid,” the internet has been sodden with wave after wave of racist critics complaining that Ariel, the completely fictional underwater fish woman, shouldn’t be Black. Hashtags like #notmyariel are bouncing around social media, and YouTube hid the dislike counter on the official video after it was bombarded with racist comments and more than 1.5 million “dislikes.” One group of critics went as far as to share a digitally altered version of the teaser that featured a White woman in place of the movie’s star Halle Bailey, who they called a “woke actress.”\n\nBy now, we know it’s not unusual to see racist responses whenever a person of color is cast in a role considered “traditionally” White. While there are plenty of legitimate reasons to dislike a movie, these critics often hide their discomfort behind other thin arguments, claiming historical or cultural accuracy or, of all things, science.\n\nHere are some real arguments people have levied to protest the casting choice. The facts prove they just don’t hold water.\n\nClaim: ‘The Little Mermaid’ is a Danish story, therefore Ariel should be White\n\nThe original “Little Mermaid” story was written by Hans Christian Andersen and first published in 1837. If we’re going to dignify this argument, according to the text, Ariel and the rest of her mermaid kin are from “far out in the ocean” (literally the opening lines of the story) at the “bottom of the sea.” So, not Denmark or anywhere near it.\n\nIf critics are truly worried about staying faithful to the original story, we shouldn’t gloss over the original ending where the mermaid is instructed to kill her prince, but throws the knife away in despair and dissolves into sea foam instead. Not to mention, while the 1989 Disney version has a Prince Eric with bright blue peepers, Anderson specifically described the prince as having “coal-black eyes” and “raven hair.” (Also “The Little Mermaid,” who doesn’t even have a name in the original story, isn’t real.)\n\nClaim: Mermaids live under the sea and therefore would not have dark skin\n\nCould be a mermaid, who knows. @adopamanatee\n\n“From a scientific perspective, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to have someone with darker skin who lives deep in the ocean.” So says far-right pundit Matt Walsh, who opined about the “Little Mermaid” casting on “The Matt Walsh Show.” He claims he framed the comment as a joke, since he goes on to say that “​​not only should the Little Mermaid be pale, she should, actually, be translucent.” However, the context of his comment is still racially charged, and he still implies pale skin is closer to a “scientific” mermaid than dark skin.\n\nAgain, if we’re going to take an academic look at these unnecessary bits of discourse, not all abyssal creatures are pale. Not all underwater creatures are pale. Also, since mermaids also get close enough to the surface to see other humans, if you want to look at it scientifically, mermaids would probably have a specific type of pigmentation that allowed for both a deep sea and shallow water existence. We also know that, centuries ago, seafarers often mistook one particular animal for a mermaid: the manatee, which is not pale. (Also “The Little Mermaid” isn’t real.)\n\nClaim: Mermaids are a European mythological figure and therefore Ariel should be White\n\nNumerous Twitter scraps have cropped up with people trying to argue European folklore, or even Homerian epics like “The Odyssey,” have some sort of monopoly on the idea of mermaids. In reality, it’s fascinating to see how many different cultures throughout history have arrived at parallel folklorical themes. Humanoid creatures that dwell in the water are part of innumerable mythologies around the world.\n\nEast Asian and Oceanic folklore is replete with stories of underwater kingdoms and merpeople both good and evil, from the Magindara in some Philippine regions to the tale of the Indian Princess Suriratna or Hwang-ok that reached South Korea. Middle Eastern folktales compiled in the classic “Arabian Nights” collection, which dates back more than a thousand years, feature several accounts of sea-dwelling human creatures. In parts of continental Africa and among the African diaspora, folklore describing water spirits, oftentimes in the shape of beautiful women, are common. According to Shona mythology in Zimbabwe, the “njuzu” are mermaids who occupy lakes or rivers.\n\n(Also, not all Europeans are White. Also, “The Little Mermaid” isn’t real.)\n\nClaim: Making Ariel Black is ruining childhoods and changing the character\n\nOn message boards and comment sections across the internet, people are debating whether a new, dark-skinned Ariel somehow negates or erases the classic 1989 version.\n\nDisney’s 1989 “The Little Mermaid” is still available to watch, own and share. The animated character of Ariel is part of Disney’s wildly profitable “Disney Princess” franchise and her name and image are valuable and heavily trademarked Disney properties. The red-haired, fair-skinned Ariel is here to stay.\n\nFar from ruining childhoods, many fans think making a different iteration of Ariel will only increase the Disney magic. Just look at the sweet reactions of young Black children and the praise of Disney icons like Jodi Benson, the voice of the original Ariel.\n\nVideos of young Black girls reacting to 'Little Mermaid' trailer go viral 01:07 - Source: CNN\n\nMore importantly, the remake of one film doesn’t erase the existence of the previous films: 1999’s Mr. Darcy and 2005’s Mr. Darcy live in harmony with every other character from the roughly 300 “Pride and Prejudice” film remakes. Pennywise looks different in every “It” iteration, as does Frankenstein’s monster. The story of “Cinderella,” which predates even the famous Brothers Grimm version, seems to have a different remake out every year. One notable version, 1997’s “Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella,” featured a racially diverse cast that included singer Brandy as the first Black Cinderella and Whitney Houston as the fairy godmother. It aired on TV as part of the “Wonderful World of Disney.”\n\nWhile Disney has produced a very famous iteration of “The Little Mermaid,” it isn’t the first, only, or universally definitive work. No one owns the concept of mermaids or what they look like. A White, red-haired animated teenager is not the only version of “The Little Mermaid” to exist.\n\nAlso – and this is very important – “The Little Mermaid” isn’t real.", "authors": ["Aj Willingham"], "publish_date": "2022/09/17"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2023/04/07/star-wars-celebration-2023-daisy-ridley-new-movies/11560731002/", "title": "Star Wars Celebration: Daisy Ridley returning as Rey in new movie", "text": "LONDON – New adventures are coming for Star Wars fans around the world.\n\nDevotees dressed in cosplay, filmmakers and stars from the universe gathered Friday at Star Wars Celebration, the April 7-10 fan convention where filmmakers discussed the future of the franchise's films and TV series.\n\nLucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy took the Celebration Stage with featured guests to discuss what's next and revealed a new \"Star Wars\" movie, one of three, starring a returning Daisy Ridley.\n\nAs the stage filled with stars and Star Wars creators alike, a crowd of 10,000 cheered and clapped for a glimpse at previously unseen footage and insight from behind the scenes. Lightsabers raised, the audience welcomed teasers for \"Ahsoka,\" \"Skeleton Crew,\" \"The Acolyte\" and the new season of \"The Mandalorian,\" celebrating the chance to see some famous faces.\n\nLucasfilm announces three new 'Star Wars' movies, one starring Daisy Ridley as Rey\n\nNew \"Star Wars\" movies are coming to the big screen: Kennedy announced that three films are on the way, with the goal of widening the cinematic timeline from past to present to a \"rich\" future.\n\n\"It's still very early days,\" Kennedy cautioned the crowd as people grew excited. She then invited several of the films' directors onto the stage. These include James Mangold, who will direct \"Dawn of the Jedi,\" about the earliest era of \"Star Wars.\"\n\nMangold, who is still writing the film, told USA TODAY he was inspired by the idea of a \"biblical epic\" that explains where the spirituality of the force originates. The film, which was not given a release or start date, will truly be about the \"dawning of the religion that drives 'Star Wars.'\"\n\n\"It gives you elbow room to create a world,\" he said, adding he's in the process of \"designing\" everything about this early world, from what characters wear to the ships they will travel in. \"So many of the tricks of working within the tighter fabric of the (existing) movies is the realities that have already been set, which can create compromises. For me, it's about getting to a period of time that connects to the grand story\" while standing on its own.\n\nMangold said he's excited to bring \"Star Wars\" back to theaters and reignite the community element of watching the films together.\n\nDirector Dave Filoni said his film will explore the New Republic Era, including an epic war.\n\nPulling threads together between the TV and film worlds is a \"big tapestry that's being woven. I love to think of stories in that context. You're not bound at all. I hope you walk into that theater and whether you've seen a series or not, you enjoy the movie,\" he said.\n\nThat film will close out the interconnected stories of the Disney+ TV series, including \"The Mandalorian,\" \"The Book of Boba Fett\" and \"Ahsoka.\"\n\nRidley returns to 'Star Wars'\n\nSharmeen Obaid-Chinoy rounded out the directors' panel Friday and said she's spearheading a third film about a \"new Jedi order\" with a Jedi academy led by a \"powerful Jedi master.\"\n\nWho will this new master be? The crowd roared as Ridley took the stage. Ridley, Rey in the most recent film trilogy, will play this leader and told the crowd how excited she was to be stepping into the role. The film will be set after \"The Rise of Skywalker,\" the last \"Star Wars\" movie.\n\nNo release dates were given for the three films.\n\nLending his voice:Star Wars actor Mark Hamill voices strike warnings for Ukrainian app\n\nCatch up with the universe:The definitive ranking of all 11 'Star Wars' movies\n\n'Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny' unveils a new trailer\n\nIn a brief break from the \"Star Wars\" action, fans were also treated to a new trailer for \"Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,\" with star Mads Mikkelsen and Phoebe Waller-Bridge on hand to greet the crowd. The Harrison Ford film, the fifth in the series and also directed by Mangold, is due in theaters June 30.\n\nNew details revealed about Season 3 of 'The Mandalorian'\n\nYou may already be keeping up with Season 3 of the \"Star Wars\" series \"The Mandalorian,\" which debuted last month on Disney+ and features everyone's favorite helmet-wearing hero, The Mandalorian, aka Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal), racing through the galaxy and intoning, \"This is the way.\"\n\nIn the eight new episodes, Mando and Grogu (Baby Yoda) are back – although not without confusion for fans who may have missed \"The Book of Boba Fett,\" which streamed in early 2022 and depicts what happened between Seasons 2 and 3 of \"Mandalorian.\"\n\nThis season is all about showing different points of view of the world, said Filoni, who plays Trapper Wolf, especially exploring the idea of what happens when a Mandalorian removes their helmet.\n\nThis season is about \"examining this idea of culture and what it means to be Mandalorian,\" said Rick Famuyiwa, who plays Jib Dodger and has directed and executive produced the season.\n\nCast members Giancarlo Esposito, Katee Sackhoff, Carl Weathers and Emily Swallow joined the Celebration stage and eight minutes from upcoming episodes were shown to attendees.\n\n'The Mandalorian':How Baby Yoda grows up in Season 3\n\n'Ahsoka' to launch in August on Disney+ with Rosario Dawson\n\nThe first season of the series starring Rosario Dawson is coming in August.\n\nFiloni, donning a T-shirt with his own custom \"Ashoka\" design, told reporters that he's known this character since she was 14, so he's excited to lead her story into its next chapter (and think about its connections with his upcoming film).\n\n\"I've had so many pinch-me moments,\" Dawson said of filming the show. Natasha Liu Bordizzo, who plays Sabine Wren, joined the stage in addition to Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who plays Hera Syndulla. First-look images of the actors in character were displayed on the massive screen above the Celebration stage before the audience watched the first trailer for the series.\n\n'Skeleton Crew' shares first footage with Jude Law\n\nA series about a group of kids with \"a sense of wonder\" is also on the way, Filoni said.\n\nThe idea came before Disney+ even launched, said head writer Jon Favreau. But he was inspired to make a show about young people and took it to Kennedy.\n\n\"It was meant to be,\" Kennedy said, adding past shows haven't been meant for kids as much as about kids. The show stars Jude Law, who took the stage to chat about working with young actors, and will be directed by Jon Watts, David Lowery, the Daniels, Jake Schreier, Bryce Dallas Howard and Lee Isaac Chung.\n\n'The Acolyte' arrives in 2024 with Amandla Stenberg, Lee Jung-jae\n\nThe \"Star Wars\" TV epic is also headed to the next chapter, with a new 2024 Disney+ project called \"The Acolyte,\" created by Leslye Headland. The show explores the perspectives of the villains, Headland told fans, describing it as a \"'Frozen' meets 'Kill Bill'\" vibe set between the High Republic and the beginning of the prequels.\n\n\"This is such an exciting (part) of the timeline, but also when the bad guys are outnumbered. They are the underdogs,\" Headland said, promising \"lots of Jedi.\"\n\nThe show is inspired by martial arts films and captures \"the spiritual war\" going on during this time in the universe.\n\n\"The show is female-led,\" said Jodie Turner-Smith, one of the stars. \"There's a sense of how important it was ... that energy alone coming from behind the camera felt important.\"\n\nActor Amandla Stenberg (\"The Hate U Give\") told the crowd she was attracted to the show's \"magical realism,\" and co-star Lee Jung-jae (\"Squid Game\") said he was \"still shaking\" from his first experience filming while holding a lightsaber.\n\nStenberg told USA TODAY she loves most that she plays a figure with \"tenacity\" and \"ferocity.\"\n\nFinal season for 'Andor' set for August 2024\n\nAlso coming is Season 2 of \"Andor.\" Director Tony Gilroy joined the stage with the series' cast and announced a planned August 2024 release date for what will be the show's final season.\n\n\"If you know your ending, it really helps,\" Gilroy said. \"We know exactly where we're going.\"\n\nContributing: Brian Truitt and Kelly Lawler", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2023/04/07"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2023/04/18/lilo-stich-live-action-casting-colorism-backlash/11691262002/", "title": "'Lilo & Stich' live-action film's casting sparks colorism backlash", "text": "As production on a live-action remake of the Disney film “Lilo & Stich” gets underway, fans are sounding off on the casting of one of its stars.\n\nActress Sydney Agudong was cast in the role of Nani, the older sister of protagonist Lilo, in the sci-fi comedy that follows two orphaned Hawaiian sisters who unwittingly befriend an alien fugitive named Stich. Agudong was born and raised on the island of Kauai, Hawaii.\n\nDespite Agudong’s Hawaiian descent, people have taken to social media to scrutinize the appropriateness of her casting given the actress’ light skin tone, which contrasts with the darker complexion of the original Nani from the 2002 animated film.\n\n'We did that!':'Lilo & Stitch' director says movie captured sisterhood before 'Frozen'\n\nFans blast Sydney Agudong’s ‘Lilo & Stich’ casting on social media\n\nA number of fans took to social media following Agudong’s casting as Nani in the upcoming adaptation of “Lilo & Stich,” many taking issue with casting a light-skinned actor for a dark-skinned character.\n\n“If they’re not going to cast a thick brown skin Pacific Islander as Nani why bother even filming the live action Lilo and Stitch,” Twitter user @eureckah1 wrote. “They won’t be getting a penny from me.”\n\n“The conflict occurring in Lilo and Stitch being about the colonialist state attempting to pull this tiny ‘broken’ native Hawaiian family apart is made more apparent by their both being darker skinned girls,” user @FaatiTheStreet tweeted. “Casting a lighter skinned Hawaiian to play Nani interferes with that.”\n\nOne Twitter user distinguished Agudong’s casting as Nani from the casting of Halle Bailey as Ariel in the live-action adaptation of “The Little Mermaid.”\n\n“Nani’s character has a real human ethnicity relevant to the plot which should be represented by a dark skin native Hawaiian,” the user wrote. “Meanwhile mermaids aren’t real and can be anything.”\n\n“Colorism really (messed up) Nani's casting for the live action Lilo and Stitch,” user @ello_bitty tweeted. “Yes the actress is a native Hawaiian, but she is also light skinned and white passing while Nani is not and never had been. She deserves better.”\n\n“What is so difficult about casting Hawaiian actors with deep complexions?” user @isaiahbeenlost wrote on Twitter. “When will the colorism in Hollywood finally be addressed? It’s so sickening.”\n\n'This story is my culture':Dwayne Johnson reveals 'Moana' live-action remake\n\nHalle Bailey’s casting in ‘The Little Mermaid’ draws controversy\n\nThe controversy over Agudong’s casting in “Lilo & Stich” isn’t the first time Disney has come under fire for the racial diversity of its casting.\n\nNews of Bailey’s casting as Ariel in “The Little Mermaid,” which is set for a May 26 release, similarly divided fans, who debated the accuracy of casting Bailey – a Black woman – in the role of Ariel, who appeared as a light-skinned, redheaded mermaid in the 1989 animated film.\n\n“Ariel has been white with red hair for 50 years, keep it the way it was,” Twitter user @McKaylaRoseRed wrote.\n\nDespite criticism from some, Bailey’s casting as Ariel also elicited an outpouring of love from young Black girls on social media, who reveled in seeing a Black woman portray the iconic mermaid.\n\n'Brown Ariel is cute':Halle Bailey in 'The Little Mermaid' trailer thrills young girls\n\nDisney's live-action 'Little Mermaid' arrives soon. Here's what to know.\n\nNaomi Scott’s casting as Jasmine in ‘Aladdin’ received criticism\n\nActress Naomi Scott, who is of English and Indian descent, was tapped to portray Princess Jasmine in the 2019 live-action adaptation of “Aladdin.” The film won a People’s Choice Award for favorite family movie and earned Scott a Teen Choice Award for best sci-fi/fantasy actress.\n\nHowever, despite the film’s acclaim, Scott’s casting in the film about a dark-skinned princess living in the Middle East drew criticism.\n\n“Naomi scott is half white and half gujarati ( indian ) while aladdin is a middle eastern story,” user @vaguetapes tweeted. “The casting wasn’t accurate at all.”\n\nDisney agreed to redraw Princess Tiana after backlash for lightening skin\n\nThe depiction of Princess Tiana, who originally appeared in the 2009 film “The Princess and the Frog,” in the 2018 film “Ralph Breaks the Internet,” drew the ire of fans who criticized the lightening of the Black character’s skin in the latter.\n\n“I kind of thought people were overreacting at first about Tiana’s look in the last Ralph Breaks the Internet screencap, but I was so wrong,” user @disney__tasthic tweeted. “Looking at her beside the hand drawn Tiana, she looks nearly unrecognizable.”\n\nAnika Noni Rose, the voice actress who plays Tiana, and racial advocacy group Color of Change reportedly met with Disney animators following the initial backlash. In the end, Disney agreed to redraw Tiana’s appearance in the film.\n\nDisney changes 'Wreck-It Ralph 2'after complaints about a black princess' light skin\n\nAll the Disney live-action remakes (including 'Cruella'),definitively ranked\n\nContributing: Sonja Haller, USA TODAY", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2023/04/18"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/28/entertainment/reflect-disney-plus-size-wellness-cec/index.html", "title": "Disney's 'Reflect' stars a young plus-size ballet dancer, exciting fans ...", "text": "CNN —\n\nDisney finally has its first young plus-size heroine, and fans across the internet are elated.\n\n“Reflect” is a short film now on Disney+ about a young ballet dancer named Bianca who struggles with her body image. Though the film was first released on the platform in September as a part of the studio’s Short Circuit Experimental Films series, many social media users are now celebrating “Reflect” as a win for representation among young girls.\n\n“16 year old me needed this Disney short before I quit ballet because I didn’t want to be the fat girl in class anymore,” one user on Twitter said. “I’m glad little ones will have this. 10/10 for Reflect!”\n\n“I don’t think y’all comprehend, this is my Ariel,” a TikTok user said in a video, captioned “(Disney+) you really got me in my feelings.”\n\nDisney did not immediately respond to a CNN request for comment.\n\nBody positivity is something director Hillary Bradfield strongly believes in, she said in an interview featured at the start of the short. Making the film from the perspective of a dancer, she explained, felt natural.\n\n“It’s a part of the craft to be looking at your posture and checking things in the mirror, so it just seemed like a really good way to put her in that environment where she has to look at herself and she doesn’t want to,” Bradfield said.\n\nEventually, Bianca is able to dance freely. From Disney Animation/Twitter\n\nIn the short, Bianca is able to overcome her negative feelings and dance freely. But body positivity and self-acceptance can be easier said than done, Bradfield said.\n\n“When people watch the short, I hope that they can feel more positively about themselves and how they look, and feel okay about the tough parts of their journey,” Bradfield said. “Sometimes you go to the dark place to get to the good place. And that just makes the good place that much more beautiful.”\n\nDisney has made multiple steps in recent years to improve the diversity of its characters in its animated films. Earlier this year, the show “Baymax,” a spin-off from “Big Hero 6” featured a transgender character. In 2020, Disney’s Pixar released its first animated feature starring a Black character, with “Soul.”\n\nThese recent depictions are a departure from those seen in many of the company’s prior movies. The Disney/Pixar film “Wall-E,” released in 2008, negatively portrayed obesity in humans as synonymous with environmental destruction – a lazy depiction that lacked nuance, according to some critics.", "authors": ["Leah Asmelash"], "publish_date": "2022/10/28"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2019/07/07/mulan-disneys-live-action-teaser-debuts-without-singing-mushu/1668928001/", "title": "'Mulan': Disney's live-action teaser debuts without singing or Mushu", "text": "Our first real glimpse of Disney's live-action \"Mulan\" is here.\n\nDisney unveiled an official teaser trailer on Sunday, introducing fans to Yifei Liu, who takes the title role in the remake of the popular 1998 animated film inspired by the legendary Chinese ballad. Missing from the footage: Any hint whether the new movie will be a musical or feature fan-favorite animated dragon Mushu.\n\nIn the trailer, Mulan's mother announces that a matchmaker has found Mulan \"an auspicious match.\" Her father agrees that it's \"what is best for our family.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Mulan replies. \"I will bring honor to us all.\"\n\n\"Quiet, composed, graceful, disciplined. These are the qualities we see in a good wife,\" the matchmaker narrates over an impressive action sequence of Mulan training as an army soldier. \"These are the qualities we see in Mulan,\"\n\nFirst look:See the new warrior princess from Disney's live-action remake of 'Mulan'\n\n'Mulan' turns 20:Why the live-action version should replicate the animated musical\n\nSubtle callbacks to the original \"Mulan\" are visible in the teaser: The matchmaker's base, reflecting pool and army camps are reminiscent of their animated counterparts. Mulan's matchmaker gown also looks similar, and notes from the instrumental music sound vaguely like \"Honor to Us All\" and \"Reflection.\"\n\nSlated for release March 27, 2020, and directed by Niki Caro, the live-action adaptation follows Hua Mulan, the fearless young daughter of aged warrior Fa Zhou, who impersonates a man to take her father's place during a Hun invasion and becomes one of China's greatest heroines.\n\nLiu (also known as Crystal Liu) was announced for the lead role in November, following a year-long search of five continents that looked at nearly 1,000 candidates. The part requires credible martial arts skills, the ability to speak English and, clearly, star quality.\n\nJoining Liu in \"Mulan\" is “Star Wars: Rogue One” standout Donnie Yen as the warrior's mentor Commander Tung. Jason Scott Lee stars as the villainous warrior Bori Khan. Gong Li (“Memoirs of a Geisha,” “Raise the Red Lantern”) will portray a villainous witch and Jet Li (“Shaolin Temple,” “Lethal Weapon 4”) stars as The Emperor who calls up the troops.\n\nContributing: Bryan Alexander", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2019/07/07"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/reviewed/2022/06/29/how-watch-hocus-pocus-2-disney/7766324001/", "title": "How to watch 'Hocus Pocus 2'", "text": "— Recommendations are independently chosen by Reviewed’s editors. Purchases you make through our links may earn us a commission.\n\nThe Sanderson Sisters are back...again. Nearly 30 years after the cult-favorite film Hocus Pocus premiered, its original cast is reuniting for a highly anticipated sequel that is now streaming exclusively on Disney+ as of today, Friday, September 30.\n\n“I am so grateful to be able to play a part in bringing these witches back to life,\" director Anne Fletcher (The Proposal, 27 Dresses) said in a press release. \"[T]o be working with my friends at Disney again makes it all the more special. This is a movie for everyone, from the fans who grew up with the first film to the next generation of viewers, and I can’t wait to get started.”\n\nThe whole girl gang is getting back together as Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy will return as Winifred, Sarah and Mary Sanderson.\n\nHere's everything we know about the film.\n\n►Review: Beloved Halloween cult classic loses its magic in wretched sequel\n\nWhere to stream Hocus Pocus 2 online\n\nYou'll be able to stream the new Hocus Pocus sequel on September 30, 2022, on Disney+. You can stream the original Hocus Pocus, plus Pixar and Marvel films, as well as everything else Disney+ has to offer wherever you’re connected to the internet on Disney+. Disney’s direct-to-consumer streaming service is available in Australia, Austria, Canada, the Channel Islands, France, Germany, India, Ireland, the Isle of Man, Italy, Monaco, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the U.S.\n\nDisney+ is supported on desktop browsers, a wide range of mobile devices, smart TVs, and game consoles. The platform serves as the new home for Walt Disney Studios films as well as original, exclusive Disney+ content like the upcoming Hocus Pocus sequel, as well as Lucasfilm’s new Star Wars series—including The Mandalorian and the final season of The Clone Wars—and a full slate of live-action Marvel shows.\n\nWhat is Hocus Pocus 2 about?\n\nThe Sanderson Sisters can't stay dead for long. By the end of the 1993 film, the sisters have been turned to dust, outwitted by Max Dennison, his younger sister Dani and his classmate/love interest Allison. The Hocus Pocus sequel will see the sisters summoned back to life by Becca (Whitney Peak) and Izzy (Belissa Escobedo), two young high-school students. The film will take place in Salem and follow the girls as they try to stop the witches.\n\nRecently, Disney dropped a full-length trailer, teasing what's to come in the highly anticipated sequel.\n\nProduction on the film began in the fall of 2021 and Bette Midler took to social media in January to confirm that filming was complete. Adam Shankman (Disenchanted) was originally set to direct the sequel but has been replaced by Anne Fletcher. Shankman will stay on as executive producer.\n\n“As heartbroken as I am that I won’t be able to direct my friends Bette, Sarah Jessica and Kathy in what is sure to be nothing short of a major event for Disney+, due to scheduling conflicts, I couldn’t be more pleased to be handing over the reins to Anne, who has brought so much laughter and joy into people’s lives with her previous work,” Shankman said in a press release. “I am still grateful and proud to help shepherd this ingenious project as executive producer alongside producer Lynn Harris, whom I have loved and admired as a colleague and friend since she helped get me the job choreographing ‘Boogie Nights.’”\n\nHow to sign up for Disney+\n\nTo watch the highly anticipated Hocus Pocus sequel when it drops, you can subscribe to Disney+ today for $7.99 a month or $79.99 per year. You can also opt to get the service as part of a special value bundle with ESPN+ and Hulu for $13.99 a month in total.\n\nDisney+ is available to watch through the following devices:\n\nRoku streaming devices\n\nTVs with built-in Roku\n\nApple TV iPhones, iPads, and iPod touch models\n\nAndroid phones\n\nAndroid TV devices\n\nGoogle Chromecast\n\nXbox One\n\nXbox Series X\n\nPlayStation 4\n\nPlaystation 5\n\nSony TVs with built-in Android\n\nLG TV\n\nSamsung\n\nChrome OS, MacOS, or any Windows PC\n\nIf you’re hoping to stream on another device in the future, you can sign up for email updates to stay in the know.\n\nIn addition to its all-new programming, Disney+ offers on-demand access to other classics like A Goofy Movie, Fantasia, High School Musical, Lilo & Stitch, The Sword in the Stone, Toy Story, Tron, Up and Wall-E. The extensive library also includes such beloved TV series as Boy Meets World, DuckTales, Kim Possible, Marvel’s Ultimate Spider-Man, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, That’s So Raven and 30 seasons of The Simpsons.\n\nThe product experts at Reviewed have all your shopping needs covered. Follow Reviewed on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok or Flipboard for the latest deals, product reviews and more.\n\nPrices were accurate at the time this article was published but may change over time.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/06/29"}]}
{"question_id": "20230317_6", "search_time": "2023/05/25/17:55", "search_result": [{"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/2013/09/28/athletes-administrators-debate-ncaa-scholarship-stipends/2890117/", "title": "Athletes, administrators debate scholarship stipends", "text": "Jerry Carino\n\nUSA TODAY Sports\n\nImplementing any supplemental plan %22incredibly sticky%2C%22 says Rutgers AD Julie Hermann\n\nRetiring Princeton AD Gary Walters views idea as a %22bait-and-switch tactic%22\n\nMonmouth AD Marilyn McNeil%3A %22This is a Title IX lawsuit waiting to happen%22\n\nJen Hilgenberg laughs when she reads about the NCAA's proposed $2,000 stipends for scholarship athletes.\n\nA former captain of the Villanova women's basketball team, Hilgenberg runs a customized merchandising business called Red Dog Glass. In her mind Villanova paid her handsomely — and continues to do so every time she makes a sale.\n\n\"It was absolutely a lot of work, but it was an amazing experience,\" she said of her time in a Wildcats uniform. \"As a business professional, it taught me almost every life lesson as far as being successful afterward: the teamwork, the commitment factor and learning how to prioritize your time, which is huge in the real world.\"\n\nHilgenberg, who earned the Big East's Sportsmanship Award as a Villanova senior in 2005, keeps her hand in hoops as an assistant at Division III Swarthmore (Pa.). She does not see the need for a stipend on top of a scholarship.\n\n\"As a Division I athlete, my question would be, 'What do they need it for?' \" she said. \"Your room and food is paid for. You're getting apparel. You're pretty much taken care of until the day you go home over the summer. In four years, at the end of the day I didn't ask for anything financially from my parents. The school provided it all.\"\n\nNot everyone views it that way, which is why the stipend idea has morphed into a national debate.\n\n\"I think there's a big misconception a lot of people have — that a full scholarship takes care of everything. In reality, it doesn't,\" said Monmouth junior Julian Hayes, a leading rusher for the Hawks' football team. \"There are simple things like gas money, toiletries, clothing — things people take for granted. A student who is on an academic scholarship has time to bring in some extra income, whereas a full scholarship player most likely is not able to do that.\"\n\nHayes is business management major whose current credit load includes courses in economics and business law and business history. Between football and academics, most of his waking hours are tightly scheduled.\n\n\"I think of it and the other athletes look at it as job schedule,\" he said. \"Practices and meetings take up a large part of your day.\"\n\nAs a result, Hayes said, the $2,000 stipend is \"definitely something that's on our radar. It would be welcome by most if not all players.\"\n\nOn the surface this seems like a simple moral issue: Should athletics scholarships be expanded to cover what is called the \"full cost of attendance,\" including a moderate amount of spending money?\n\nA vast amount of energy has been spent by the news media, advocacy groups and commissioners of the so-called power conferences arguing the moral case for the stipend. But the high logistical hurdles to implementing such a policy — compliance with Title IX, application to sports that rely on partial scholarships and, most significantly, how athletics departments would foot the bill — receive scant public attention.\n\nThose problems prompted NCAA member schools to send the stipend legislation back to the drawing board last year, and that's where it remains. A revised version is supposed to be rolled out soon, possibly as early as October. In the meantime, it's a festering wedge that threatens to permanently divide Division I as power brokers in the affluent Big Ten and SEC line up against mid- and low-majors that populate the membership.\n\n\"I think it's the right idea,\" Rutgers athletics director Julie Hermann said of the stipends. \"It struggled to get passed because it was done so quickly. It was done with a very small group of administrators out of the national office with limited notice, without thinking through the complications of its application — including Title IX and including how we're going to pay for that. Depending on what campus you're on, that's another $200,000 to $700,000 (a year), and we had less than a couple of months' notice to apply that.\"\n\nOver the past month New Jersey Press Media interviewed athletics directors at four Division I schools — Rutgers, Seton Hall, Monmouth and Princeton — and spoke informally with several athletics department staffers who work with college athletes. Opinions varied on the moral necessity of a stipend system, but all agreed on one salient point: Putting it into place looms as a practical nightmare that could foment hikes in tuition and the elimination of some non-revenue sports.\n\n\"It's incredibly sticky,\" Hermann said.\n\nUnbalanced budgets\n\nThe forces pushing for stipends cite gaudy numbers in support: Television networks CBS and Turner Sports are paying the NCAA $785 million a year for the rights to broadcast the men's basketball tournament. Fueled by television money, the Big Ten paid its schools $25 million apiece last year. NCAA President Mark Emmert made nearly $1.7 million last year. Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott raked in $3.1 million in 2011.\n\nLocally, Monmouth spent $57 million to build its new Multipurpose Activity Center, which houses several sports. Rutgers is paying $1.25 million a year to new men's basketball coach Eddie Jordan.\n\nIn a vacuum those seem like over-the-top investments, but they are in line with industry standards. This is the cost of doing business in Division I, and it's a big reason every year, without fail, only about 10% of athletics departments show a profit. The rest operate in the red, which means relying on a subsidy from the main university budget to cover the shortfall.\n\nIt should be noted that the NCAA's billion-dollar haul from the networks does not get divided among the schools. It does fully fund 89 championship tournaments for men's and women's sports in Division I, II and III.\n\nStill, the raw numbers fan flames of discontent in some quarters.\n\n\"The problem is 20 years ago the TV contracts were not at the level that they are now. We're using the B-word now — billions,\" Seton Hall athletics director Pat Lyons said. \"(The pro-stipend argument) becomes, 'If the schools and conferences are making all this money, what about the athletes?' I don't think the issue (regarding stipends) is that the need is big. There is this thought process that because the schools and conferences are profiting so much, why aren't the athletes getting more?\"\n\nThe truth is that most schools are not profiting, not even close. Rutgers athletics ran a $28 million deficit in 2012 and used university and student-fee money to balance its budget.\n\n\"Every school I've been at has hiked tuition drastically. So tuition is going up already $8,000 a year, and now you're adding $400,000 (in stipends),\" Hermann said. \"You're stressing the system. This automatically put most athletic departments in serious financial cross hairs.\"\n\nAnd there is a hidden cost beyond just paying the stipends to athletes who currently have full scholarships. Schools with football have a much higher percentage of male athletes on full scholarship. Some of the most populated women's sports — soccer, lacrosse, field hockey, track and field and softball — use the \"equivalency\" model where scholarships can be broken into halves and quarters and spread out as a head coach sees fit.\n\nBecause the stipend legislation only targeted athletes on full scholarships, it created a problem with Title IX — the gender equity law passed by Congress in 1972.\n\n\"You automatically have a Title IX shortfall,\" Hermann said, using Rutgers' projected stipend costs as an example. \"You have $200,000 you can now award to your men, which is great. But that only gives you $60,000 that you can award on the women's side. You're automatically $140,000 off.\"\n\nFor those who would promote only paying stipends to the sports that produce revenue — football and men's basketball — Monmouth athletics director Marilyn McNeil acknowledges the likely result.\n\n\"That's a Title IX lawsuit waiting to happen,\" she said. \"I don't think it would take five minutes.\"\n\nSo how to bridge the aforementioned Title IX gap? There are two ways, and neither is easy. One would be raising more women's sports to full-scholarship status.\n\n\"But as you do that, your costs continue to soar,\" Hermann said, adding that eliminating partial scholarships would decrease the number of women who get athletics aid.\n\n\"Do we take more of those university subsidies that maybe would be going to a science program or the arts and give student-athletes money in their pocket?\" McNeil said. \"If I was a member of the general student body I'd really be questioning that.\"\n\nThe second option, which nobody wants to address — but nobody will discount, either — is that non-revenue sports will suffer drastic cuts or be eliminated to avoid adding to the subsidy.\n\n\"Speaking generally, it's just another thing that now creates so much financial stress in athletics that people would be looking in all directions to relieve it,\" Hermann said. \"I'd hate for that to happen.\"\n\nThese unresolved questions are why, as Hermann put it, the stipend legislation \"went off the rails.\"\n\nReal student-athletes\n\nIt's been a rough month for college football, from Johnny Manziel's autograph-gate to a scathing series by Sports Illustrated outlining alleged improprieties at Oklahoma State. Many of the loudest voices in the pay-the-players crowd cite these and other scandals as proof that amateurism is dead, the term student-athlete is a farce and the intercollegiate model needs to be blown up.\n\nThey haven't met Mael Corboz.\n\nThe Rutgers men's soccer sophomore was just named offensive player of the week by the American Athletic Conference. Somewhere between a class in differential equations and a three-hour physics lab, he posted three goals and two assists in a two-game span, both wins for the Scarlet Knights.\n\nCorboz bristles at the notion that a few highly publicized scandals represent the state of college sports.\n\n\"We're not just athletes who are here to play sports,\" he said. \"That is completely not true. If you miss class, the coaches are going to find out and the whole team has to run. Even if you don't want to be a student-athlete, if you just want to be an athlete, you're kind of forced to do both. There is no other way.\"\n\nCorboz said he's never heard of the stipend initiative, and although he wasn't thrilled last year when he had to stand throughout a three-hour chemistry lab on the day of a soccer match, he's not concerned about getting paid for it either.\n\n\"I'm not looking for money or anything like that,\" he said. \"I'm doing what I love every day.\"\n\nMaybe that sounds quaint, but it's not uncommon. For every Manziel, there are scores of student-athletes such as just-graduated Rutgers men's basketball center Austin Johnson, who is pursuing a master's degree and serves as a graduate assistant with the Scarlet Knights. There are many in the mold of former Seton Hall basketball star Jerry Walker, who was sidelined by academic issues as a freshman but eventually became a community activist and just ran for mayor of Jersey City.\n\nThere is Kaitlin McWhorter. She is a senior at the College of Charleston who competes on a track and field scholarship. This past summer she traveled to Kenya and volunteered at an orphanage while assisting team of eye surgeons. Her dream is to work for Doctors Without Borders.\n\nMcWhorter is in favor of the $2,000 stipends, but she would like to see them awarded on merit. Not for the fastest runner or highest jumper, but for student-athletes who engage in service projects on campus or in the community.\n\n\"A lot of athletes go above and beyond,\" she said. \"It's not just about what happens on the field.\"\n\nMauri Horton offers an interesting perspective. She was a captain on the Rutgers women's basketball team in the early 2000s and now coaches the girls varsity at Plainfield (N.J.) High. She knows the value of an athletics scholarship, but she also sees value in the stipend.\n\n\"To say you can get your school paid for and leave without any debt is huge,\" she said. \"It gives a lot of kids a chance to get a better education. Five years after (graduating from Rutgers) I went back to see Coach (C. Vivian) Stringer, and I broke down and cried. I told her I appreciated that she gave me the opportunity to be successful in life. If you don't have that education, it's hard to make it. She's giving all these young ladies an opportunity to make a decent living after basketball, which is a very short life. You learn that as you get older.\"\n\nBut, she added, \"A young person who has a full scholarship but comes from a home with low income, how are they supposed to get necessities? I have a meal plan, but I also need socks. Or I need to get my hair done.\"\n\nHorton would award the stipends based on financial need and regulate their use.\n\n\"If you buy a dress for a banquet, you have to turn in the receipt,\" she said.\n\nThat's what some schools did when the legislation initially was approved in 2011. It was overturned two months later, but athletes who signed a Letter of Intent in the interim were grandfathered in.\n\n\"The campus I just left, they have a card where they can go make outside charges, run out and get shampoo or whatever,\" Hermann said. \"Part of the problem is they were running out and buying an iPhone 5 that you and I don't even have. They're buying a $500 pair of jeans that you and I don't spend money on. So yes we could make them a card, but you have to teach them financial management. We're trying to feed and clothe you, give you everything you need (via the stipend), but we're not trying to make you into fashionistas.\"\n\nMotives and values\n\nThe logistical hurdles speak for themselves, but beyond that stands a layer of philosophical opposition to stipends. Within college athletics, the prime forces behind the stipends are the commissioners of the major football conferences — the ones whose schools comprise the 10% that make money off sports.\n\nMore than a few skeptics view their push for stipends as a way to give the big-money schools an added advantage over mid-majors such as Butler and Boise State that occasionally crash the party in high-profile sports. And perhaps even a way to split off from those schools entirely — a view reinforced when those commissioners threatened to do just that after the stipend legislation crashed.\n\n\"Their ability to disguise self-interest in the name of any number of principles has been raised to an art form,\" said Princeton athletics director Gary Walters, a former member of the NCAA basketball tournament's selection committee. \"When you see the NCAA president making $1.7 million, and that all of the (major conference) commissioners, many of whom are friends of mine, are making $2 million, where your treasure lies, so shall your heart beat.\"\n\nIn other words, the less competition there is from pesky mid-majors, the more money for the big conferences and their bosses.\n\n\"I believe the desire to pay student athletes is a bait-and-switch tactic which is taking place now under the name of student-athlete welfare,\" Walters said. \"But student-athlete welfare wasn't considered at all — not at all — when the conferences expanded beyond regions.\"\n\nWalters is worried that an ultimate casualty will be the NCAA tournament, one of the crown jewels of American sports. He's not the only one.\n\n\"We talk now about the haves and the have-nots. You're going to widen that gap to the point where you're not going to have (Cinderella) upsets in the NCAA tournament anymore,\" said Seton Hall's Lyons, who previously served as athletics director at mid-major Iona. \"I like the fact that there are 340 teams in Division I and for the most part on any given night anyone can beat the other team. But if you start to push (a pay model) and you'll have mid-majors who can't do it. Mid-majors don't have a lot of money. Then you will start seeing that gap.\"\n\nBig picture\n\nWhat's a full scholarship worth? A number that gets thrown around a lot is $50,000 a year. Seton Hall's Lyons said there is more to the picture.\n\n\"When you go all-in on what a full grant-in-aid student-athlete gets, you can quantify some things, but there are some things that you can't,\" said Lyons, who was a scholarship athlete as an undergrad at Iona. \"You're getting tuition, room and board, books and fees, food. But you're also getting this support system around you that is absolutely free. Tutors, nutritionists, the best doctors, strength coaches. It's certainly worth more than the $50,000 for tuition, room and board and books and fees.\"\n\nThe larger point these ADs want to make is this: Change is good, but overhaul is a strong word when there are thousands of college athletes in dozens of sports who really go to class and play sports for the sake of sports, not money or fame.\n\n\"What I've told anyone who is willing to listen is, 99% of this enterprise is everything you wished it was — young people pursuing a degree who take pride in playing for their school colors,\" Hermann said. \"It's only the 1% we have to find a way to manage. I walk around every day and see 600 student-athletes who are so put together for young people, it's incredible. Those are the stories that don't get reported and it's frustrating.\"\n\nJerry Carino also writes for New Jersey Press Media, a Gannett property.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2013/09/28"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/high-school/2022/07/08/10-rhode-island-high-school-coaches-who-dominated-during-their-playing-day/7827398001/", "title": "The 10 best RI High school coaches during their playing days", "text": "There were plenty of terrific athletes who performed on athletic fields throughout Rhode Island during this past high school season. Many will go on to compete in college and just maybe some will go beyond that. We’ll have to wait and see.\n\nBut there’s also some incredible talent that have helped guide these athletes along the way – and we're not just talking coaching skill either.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/07/08"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaab/bigten/2013/12/25/northwestern-basketball-coach-chris-collins/4198635/", "title": "Chris Collins embraces challenge of lifting Northwestern to NCAAs", "text": "Nicole Auerbach\n\nUSA TODAY Sports\n\nChris Collins played and eventually coached for 13 years under Hall of Famer Mike Krzyzewski%2C\n\nNorthwestern sits at 7-5 and opens Big Ten play next week against Wisconsin\n\nHaving a famous father%2C Hall of Famer Doug Collins%2C in your profession comes with some pressure\n\nEVANSTON, Ill. — Not far from here, two couches learned a lot about basketball.\n\nDoug Collins lay on one, his son Chris on the other, in their home in Northbrook during Chris's childhood.\n\nThe NBA coach and former four-time NBA all-star would put on a basketball game and start talking. His son, working his way toward a scholarship to play at Duke, would listen. He'd chime in sometimes, helping to analyze a team's strategy or a particular player's strength. Most nights, the couches got an earful. When Chris left for college, these were the moments Doug would miss most.\n\n\"He's talking the game out; I'm a kid,\" Chris says now. \"He's talking about what teams are trying to do, matchups and situations, why coaches are doing certain things. That's how I learned.\"\n\nChris picked up tips and tidbits about the game he loved from his father in other ways, too, though Doug never coached him (on purpose). At Bulls practices or camps, Chris would watch the way his father handled other players. Chris also learned from his coach at Glenbrook North, Brian James, who spent 18 years at four different high schools in Illinois and then 14 years as an assistant coach in the NBA. At Duke, Chris played and eventually coached for 13 years under Hall of Famer Mike Krzyzewski, another invaluable resource.\n\nDuring those 13 seasons in Durham, Chris and his wife, Kim, would often get asked how long they planned on staying there. Kim always said three to five years; assistant coaches rarely stay in one spot too long.\n\n\"People would say to me all the time, 'Why aren't you leaving? Why are you still here? He's so ready (to be a head coach),' \" Kim says. \"He's been ready for awhile, but it was about finding the right fit.\"\n\nNorthwestern came calling in March.\n\nChris liked its similarities to Duke – the academics, the values, the standards of excellence it preached. He liked the idea of moving back to the area he'd grown up in. And then, of course, there's that whole thing about Northwestern never reaching the NCAA tournament.\n\n\"The fact that it was a program kind of on the cusp, that hadn't made the jump to where everybody wants it to be, to the NCAAs – to me, that was an exciting challenge,\" Chris says. \"It may not be a fit for everybody … It fit everything I was looking for.\"\n\n***\n\nAfter Northwestern fired Bill Carmody last March, athletics director Jim Phillips met with the basketball team to break the news. He then asked players to meet him again, later that weekend, prepared with a list of the attributes they'd want in a new coach.\n\n\"Having someone who would develop great relationships with his players,\" was important, redshirt senior Drew Crawford says, a sentiment that was repeated throughout the meeting. Players wanted someone hungry to win. Someone who had played the game. Someone who'd experienced success in basketball.\n\nPhillips took their notes, along with his own, and went to find the Wildcats' next coach. He met with seven candidates over two days before sitting down with Chris on March 25, a day after the Blue Devils beat Creighton to advance to the Sweet 16. Phillips felt instant chemistry with Chris; he announced him as his new coach two days later.\n\n\"Could he do the job?\" Phillips says. \"Could he lead and be a head coach? Did he have the basketball acumen and all the rest of that? And oh, by the way, he's also from Chicago – the stars aligned. It came together that he was the perfect choice.\"\n\nOn the day he was hired, Chris sent texts to the current Northwestern players to introduce himself. \"He's gotten to know each guy individually,\" Crawford says. \"We're able to communicate with him about the team or life in general. That's one thing that's great about him, we all have a good relationship with him.\"\n\nIn the days and months that followed Chris's hire, excitement followed him nearly everywhere he went. To events with boosters, to Wrigley Field, to throw out the first pitch, to potential recruits' homes. In July, the 66th-ranked recruit in the class of 2014 and Chicago native Vic Law committed to Northwestern. He was the Wildcats' first top-75 recruit since 1993.\n\n\"The city of Chicago identifies with its own,\" Phillips said. \"It gave us instant credibility.\"\n\nChris had kept those Chicago-area ties strong through the years. He played a key role in the recruitment of Jon Scheyer, another Glenbrook North star who went to Duke in 2006. Both Chris and Scheyer had been Illinois' Mr. Basketball.\n\nJames, Chris's former high school coach and current assistant, also maintains close relationships throughout the state of Illinois and is a former board member of the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association.\n\n\"We are right in the middle of what I think is as good a hotbed as there is in this country, not only in Chicago, but the whole Midwest,\" Chris says. \"Kids in the Midwest, they grow up, they want to be in the Big Ten. … The challenge now is to get those local kids to want to stay home and understand they have everything they need in their backyard.\"\n\n***\n\nNorthwestern sits at 7-5, with one game left in its non-conference season. It opens Big Ten play next week against Wisconsin. Those around the program are realists; they know this won't be easy.\n\n\"I told Chris this is probably going to be the hardest year that he's ever had in sports,\" Doug says. \"It's going to be tough to get wins in the Big Ten – the Big Ten is loaded. It's going to be interesting to me to see how he manages that. Working hard every day and playing to win, and being able to absorb the losses, understanding it's a part of the process of getting Northwestern where it needs to be.\"\n\nLike most coaches, Chris doesn't handle losing well. Kim says he even refuses to lose to his children while playing Candy Land and other board games. These on-court losses may sting more.\n\n\"There are going to be some bad moments, there are going to be some great moments,\" James says. \"He's used to winning at such a high level all the time with an 85% or 90% ratio of wins versus losses. That's not going to come overnight here.\"\n\nA program – particularly one with a long history of losing (Northwestern's first 20-win season came in 2009-10) – cannot transform instantly. Carmody-recruited players were used to running the Princeton offense; Chris wants to give players more freedom and to play faster. Conditioning had to improve. Recruiting had to get better, too, and it has. (Northwestern's 2014 class, highlighted by Law, is ranked No. 25 in the nation by ESPN.com.)\n\nThough the athletic department is in the midst of building a new lakefront football facility, there are no immediate plans to upgrade the basketball facilities. But it's coming, eventually – \"In time, we all believe and know that will be the right thing,\" Phillips says.\n\nIt's a start; Chris knows he's far from his finish line.\n\nIt's no secret that, ultimately, Chris would like to be the coach to lead Northwestern to its first NCAA tournament appearance. He talks about wanting to build a legacy here; he likes that he can start from scratch.\n\nHarvard coach Tommy Amaker knows exactly what that's like. Amaker led the Crimson to a share of its first-ever Ivy League title in 2011 and to its first NCAA tournament win last spring, against No. 3 New Mexico. Amaker also gave Chris his first job in college basketball, back at Seton Hall in 1998.\n\n\"He gets a chance to put his identity and his stamp on it,\" Amaker says. \"He'll do it – no question in my mind. He's capable. What another neat story. … Knowing him the way I know him, I can't imagine that's not something that's really attractive and intriguing to him, to be a part of it, to be a part of one of those incredible sports stories that will be talked about for years and years. We know how that feels.\"\n\nKrzyzewski said Northwestern made a \"terrific\" hire in Chris. Stanford coach Johnny Dawkins, another coach from the Duke/Krzyzewski tree, said he has no doubt Chris will achieve whatever he wants at Northwestern. \"Chris will have many sleepless nights trying to accomplish it,\" Dawkins says. \"No one's going to work any harder to get that done.\"\n\n***\n\nAs soon as Chris was hired at Northwestern, Doug bought a place in the Chicago suburbs. His primary residence is in Arizona, but he says he's actually spent more time here this fall. Partially because he wanted to be around Chris and his grandchildren and partially because he didn't want to be part of the 76ers rebuilding project, Doug left Philadelphia and coaching this spring.\n\nHe now works as an analyst for ESPN, though his informal job is one he's had all of Chris's life: as his son's most trusted advisor. The conversations are different from the ones they had on couches back in the day, but they're still lengthy and intriguing. Sometimes Doug will sit down with his son after stopping by practice. Or he'll stop by Chris's house for a bite and a chat.\n\n\"Men are funny,\" Kim says. \"Guys don't talk on the phone all the time, but Chris and his dad talk everyday. They are best friends. They literally could sit in a room and talk basketball for 24 hours straight.\"\n\nJames, who coached with Doug in Philadelphia, overheard many of those conversations over the years. He remembers father-son phone calls while the 76ers were bussing back from games that dissected matchups and in-game strategies.\n\n\"(Chris) is a thinking man's coach,\" James says. \"He's proactive, not reactive. A lot of that is how smart I feel his father is. I think Doug is a genius in terms of basketball, strategy, game management, substitutions, what to do in the end of games. Obviously, Chris has learned from Coach K, but also having a very astute father, who's one of the best basketball minds in the world as well.\"\n\nHaving a famous father in your profession comes, understandably, with some pressure. But those close to Chris don't think of it that way. Because Chris has coached college basketball and Doug has mostly stayed in the realm of the NBA, they have been able to respect one another's space and domain while offering help or advice when asked.\n\nKim sees a third Coach Collins in the making. Ten-year-old Ryan already mimics his dad, motivating his sister, Kate, and her teammates during their soccer games. He also models his grandfather pretending he's a commentator by doing play-by-play for games his classmates play at school.\n\n\"Ryan obviously lives in the shadow of his grandfather and his dad, but it's such a big compliment,\" Kim says. \"No pressure there, Ryan.\" She laughs. \"He's like a little Collins-in-training.\"\n\nWhen Doug's in town and drops by his son's house, he often sees something that makes him pause: Chris lying on one couch and Ryan lying on the other, talking hoops.\n\n\"It puts a smile on my face,\" Doug says. \"It wasn't too long ago that I was doing that with Chris.\"\n\nNicole Auerbach, a national college basketball reporter for USA TODAY Sports, is on Twitter @NicoleAuerbach.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2013/12/25"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/university-of-tennessee/other-sports/2022/06/02/tony-vitello-tennessee-baseball-hired-john-currie/9588497002/", "title": "Tennessee baseball coach Tony Vitello was hired by Vols in 36 ...", "text": "Tony Vitello was so heartbroken he could physically feel it.\n\nMissouri State had walked into Arkansas’ Baum Stadium and ended the Razorbacks’ season on June 5, 2017, weeks before Vitello ever imagined. The distraught Arkansas hitting coach headed to a taco place in Fayetteville, ordered three times more than normal and went home after the jarring NCAA Regional loss.\n\nHe watched a movie and then another. “Tombstone” started after midnight, and Vitello couldn't resist.\n\n“Oh hell, I have to at least watch a little bit of this,” Vitello thought.\n\nAs Vitello spurned sleep in favor of the 1993 Western, his phone rang around 1:30 a.m. It was Tennessee athletics director John Currie.\n\n“I was upset still but my mind was racing,” Vitello said.\n\nThat fateful phone call launched Vitello into a 36-hour blur. It united him with Tennessee baseball and put him on a path to coaching superstardom, setting the stage five years later for him to lead the juggernaut Vols in their pursuit of College World Series glory this season and a stake as one of the greatest teams of all time.\n\n“I like people who are willing to bet on themselves,” Currie told Knox News in an exclusive interview. “'I am going to take this job because I see the opportunity. I know what I can do and I am going to do it.'”\n\nHow Tony Vitello entered Tennessee's search\n\nThat first call lasted a couple of hours. Vitello finished “Tombstone” before he fell asleep on the couch with his phone next to him. Currie, now the athletics director at Wake Forest, told him to expect a phone call in the morning, and Vitello didn’t want to miss it.\n\n“(The coaching search) had to be one of the quirkiest ones that has ever gone down and one of the quickest,” Vitello said.\n\nESTES:Best ever? Tennessee baseball can stake its claim in 2022 NCAA Tournament | Estes\n\nTICKETS:How much will a Tennessee baseball ticket cost for Knoxville regional?\n\nADAMS:When Redmond Walsh pitches for Tennessee baseball, Patrick becomes an absentee father | Adams\n\nUT vetted a handful of candidates, both head coaches and assistant coaches, after Dave Serrano stepped down following the 2017 season after mostly losing seasons.\n\nCurrie and Blair DeBord, a special project manager at UT and former baseball player at Kansas State, led the search. DeBord spearheaded the efforts to build a profile of its ideal candidate by talking to former players and longtime SEC baseball figureheads.\n\nTennessee needed a coach with the ability to recruit at a high level and build a roster with power arms and power bats — a hallmark of winning teams in the SEC. Simply, the Vols lacked the roster and talent to win. They needed a coach who could stockpile talent and develop it.\n\n“One of the things we noticed about Tony was that every place he had been, they had really good players,” said DeBord, now an associate athletics director for development at Memphis. “It was this trend of Tony was going to places and now all of a sudden, they were winning at a really high level.”\n\nVitello, 43, had a proven track record as a recruiter and developer at Missouri, TCU and Arkansas. DeBord, a natural and cerebral right-hand man for Currie in the search, provided firsthand experience of Vitello’s ability to relate to players.\n\nDeBord was a standout prep prospect in Manhattan, Kansas, and was destined to be a multiyear starter at Kansas State. Vitello, then Missouri's pitching coach and recruiting coordinator, left a lasting impression with DeBord as “one of the coolest guys I had ever met.\" DeBord always planned to go to Kansas State, but Vitello made him second-guess himself as a recruit.\n\nThat experience carried weight with Currie, who trusted DeBord and the character reference he provided.\n\n“All the dynamics that Tony Vitello represents are all the right dynamics that we needed,” Currie said. “But especially his ability to connect with his student-athletes and build a competitive team culture.\"\n\nWhy John Currie kept thinking about Tony Vitello\n\nTwo phone calls followed Currie’s initial late-night contact. UT administrators Angie Boyd-Keck, Carmen Tegano and Donna Thomas called in the morning for a follow-up conversation.\n\n“He is a problem-solver and he is smart,” DeBord recalled Tegano saying. “He can get through stuff. I can just tell by how he is answering questions.”\n\nCurrie called again as Vitello headed to Baum Stadium for exit interviews and recruiting planning. He asked Vitello where he could fly to that day. They agreed upon Washington — the nation's capital. Vitello let Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn know the situation and searched for flights on Kayak, the online travel agency, in his office.\n\n“He is really smart and is intentional about everything he does,\" Currie said.\n\nDeBord was actually the first person from UT who had reached out to Vitello that season, given their prior relationship. Vitello brushed aside the overture while Arkansas played in the regional, not wanting any distractions.\n\nCurrie proceeded with the coaching search as Vitello focused on trying to help Arkansas reach the College World Series.\n\n“Tony kept being on my mind,” Currie said. “He really hit all the things that we wanted even though he hadn't been a head coach”\n\nCurrie was known to target past head coaches in his searches. Yet he broke that mold when he hired Vols tennis coach Chris Woodruff earlier in 2017, promoting the associate head coach to the top position. And he did it again when he hired Vitello.\n\nVitello wowed Currie with his energy and understanding of who he was as a person. His baseball savvy and enthusiasm popped. He also displayed sound awareness of what it would take to be successful at Tennessee.\n\n“He was just ready for the opportunity,” DeBord said. “He was ready for the role. … He felt in his heart like he could do it at Tennessee.”\n\nEverything he did backed up what Currie and DeBord had already known or garnered through research. Vitello called it “a reframing” of the way to view the job, which had its obvious challenges with facilities and successful rivals.\n\n“A lot of it got boiled down to personalizing everything to Tennessee,” Vitello told Knox News. “Why don’t we make Tennessee baseball as good as we can and not worry about anyone else? And let’s tailor it to what our place is like with the park and campus and town.”\n\nWhy Frank Anderson was important\n\nVitello sat on a couch in Currie’s hotel room in Washington, less than 24 hours after scarfing down those tacos on his couch in Fayetteville.\n\nIt was highly informal. But that worked for Vitello.\n\n“I didn’t really have time to prepare or overthink things,” Vitello said. “Maybe that was a blessing in disguise.”\n\nVitello flew into Washington late on June 6, then waited to meet with Currie. He filled the time by talking to Frank Anderson and Sean McCann, two of his longtime sounding boards and eventual hires at Tennessee as pitching coach and video coordinator, respectively.\n\nAnderson was in favor of the opportunity for Vitello, and Vitello wanted to bring the decorated former head coach with him.\n\n“He had a really good feel for his weaknesses as a coach and what he needed to supply himself with on his staff to be successful,” DeBord said.\n\nCurrie and Vitello met for three hours, their first in-person meeting.\n\nVitello’s vision for a staff resonated with Currie. He knew not only the type of coaches he needed around him, but who they would be as he proposed a staff.\n\nAnderson would be the pitching coach, a veteran presence to help Vitello navigate a new situation.\n\n\"Instead of having to call him, I could just walk down the hall,\" Vitello said.\n\nVitello envisioned a hitting coach who could share the burden of recruiting. Josh Elander was the fit. McCann, whom Currie knew from overlap at Kansas State, was another veteran voice to hire.\n\n“Why not make that as great a group of coaches as possible?” Vitello said. “Then combine it with the fans in Knoxville, you have a great recruiting tool. Then if recruit great people, that is your niche — relationships. …\n\n“That is kind of your weapon to go into battle in the SEC.”\n\nCurrie was well-versed in Vitello’s background. He became familiar with him during his time as Kansas State athletics director, and was floored sitting with him into the night in Washington. As Vitello asserted himself as the man for the job above two other finalists, Currie was left feeling that Vitello's success wouldn't just be likely — it would be inevitable.\n\n“He had essentially been an offensive coordinator and defensive coordinator,” Currie said. “It is just so rare that you would have an assistant coach who has not just done all those things, but been the best in their league in those elements.”\n\nTony Vitello, the perfect fit\n\nCurrie told Knox News he stopped to take a picture as he walked through Reagan National Airport on May 24 after interviewing Megan Gebbia, his eventual hire as the Wake Forest women’s basketball coach.\n\nHe texted the image of a nondescript seating area by a food court to Vitello.\n\n“Here’s the seat where you signed that crappy contract!” Currie wrote.\n\n“Worked out alright!!” Vitello replied.\n\nFollowing the meeting with Vitello, Currie worked through the night with former deputy athletics director Reid Sigmon and then-university lead general counsel Matthew Scoggins. They had to prepare a contract.\n\nCurrie and Vitello met again the next morning, and Currie offered Vitello the job. Vitello had the contract reviewed by a pair of advisers as he rode to the airport with his soon-to-be boss.\n\nVitello packed the only orange shirt he had, a deeper orange shirt with a dark gray collar, and wore it when he signed the contract with an orange pen. Currie took a picture on that day, too, and posted it on Twitter on June 7, announcing Vitello as the baseball coach.\n\n“It was one of the few times where I have had that feeling that the kids get from us when we recruit them,” Vitello said. “This guy believes in me. He recruited me. He gave me an opportunity.”\n\nVitello arrived in Knoxville a day later and was introduced June 9. Currie called Vitello \"a perfect fit\" at an introductory news conference that day, and Vitello has spent the past five years backing it up.\n\nHe took Tennessee to the NCAA Tournament in 2019, the first appearance since 2005. He had the Vols roaring to start the 2020 season before the COVID-19 pandemic shut it down. UT won 50 games and went to the College World Series in 2021, then had an even bigger 2022 with a roster laden with first-round MLB talent and well-developed pieces.\n\nThe Vols (53-7) have been the No. 1 team in the country for two months, won the SEC regular-season title by a record six games and never trailed in the SEC Tournament en route to their first title since 1995. They will open NCAA Tournament play in the Knoxville Regional on Friday (6 p.m., SEC Network) against Alabama State (34-23) at Lindsey Nelson Stadium.\n\n“It isn’t always about hiring the biggest name or hiring the most expensive person,\" DeBord said. \"It is about finding the right person for the job. It is about fit and what your program needs at the time. Tony was that.”\n\nDeBord was in Knoxville when the Vols hosted a regional last June. He watched from the balcony outside the coaches' offices in the opener against Wright State. He knew the buzz had grown about Tennessee baseball, but seeing it was different. He gazed across a packed Lindsey Nelson Stadium, and watched it reach a fever pitch when Drew Gilbert hit a walk-off grand slam.\n\nIt was the vision that Tennessee had when Currie called Vitello in 2017 — and it was real.\n\n“This is what everyone thought it could be and Tony made it happen,” DeBord said.\n\nMike Wilson covers University of Tennessee athletics. Email him at michael.wilson@knoxnews.com and follow him on Twitter @ByMikeWilson. If you enjoy Mike’s coverage, consider a digital subscription that will allow you access to all of it.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/06/02"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/notre-dame/notre-dame-insider/2019/03/29/notre-dames-arike-ogunbowale-forged-her-championship-spirit-early/3311664002/", "title": "How Notre Dame's Arike Ogunbowale forged her championship spirit", "text": "SOUTH BEND – Had things gone differently for Arike Ogunbowale, she might be starring on the soccer pitch instead of the basketball court.\n\nLong before the senior guard became a buzzer-beating national champion, long before she broke Notre Dame’s all-time scoring record or competed on “Dancing With the Stars,” she dreamed of becoming the female version of Didier Drogba.\n\n“She was a very good soccer player,” Yolanda Ogunbowale says of her only daughter, who faces fourth-seeded Texas A&M on Saturday in a Sweet 16 matchup in the Chicago Region. “She had some colleges that looked at her.”\n\nOlder brother Dare Ogunbowale, the former Wisconsin running back now with the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers, says Arike’s soccer potential went well beyond that modest assessment.\n\n“She was great,” he says. “She was so much stronger and more physical than the other girls. On top of that, she had the speed. It’s the same now. She just has a knack for scoring. She’s always found ways to put the ball in the net.”\n\nArike, whose father, Gregory, played soccer and rugby in Nigeria before becoming an elementary school principal, played club soccer through her freshman year at Divine Savior Holy Angels High School. Her clubs (FC Milwaukee and Lake Country United) won four straight Wisconsin State Cups from 2009-12 and traveled throughout the country for high-level youth soccer showcases.\n\nDuring one of those events in California, the women’s soccer coaches at Stanford and Baylor showed advanced interest in the budding phenom. Unlike many of her soccer teammates, however, Arike still played other sports, including softball and most notably basketball.\n\n“She was incredible at all the sports she played,” Dare says. “She was actually a very good track runner when she was younger (200 and 400 meters). She also played softball. She was an infielder. She could have been good at it if she wanted to.”\n\nEventually, the young prodigy realized if soccer wasn’t her first love, she might be hurting her friends’ chances at securing scholarships of their own.\n\n“A lot of her friends when she played soccer were good, and they went to a lot of showcases too,” says Yolanda, a former softball pitcher at DePaul University. “And then she realized, ‘You know, mom, they might be looking at me, and I don’t want a scholarship for soccer in college.’ She knew back then.”\n\nEven then, the natural scorer’s inclination to put others first had taken root. After her freshman year of high school, basketball became the sole focus of Arike’s athletic pursuits.\n\n“She just stopped playing soccer,” Yolanda says. “She had some nice offers, but she knew she didn’t want to pursue that. Once it got too tough (to play multiple sports), it was all strictly basketball.”\n\n'She was gone'\n\nAlong the way, there was another sport Arike briefly dabbled in – flag football. Because there was no girls’ league, she played up with the boys on Dare’s team.\n\n“That’s when I was really, really young,” Arike says. “I would say I was around 7 or 8, so (Dare) had to be like 10 or 11.”\n\nThat didn’t stop Arike from finding the end zone more than a few times that season. Dare still remembers one play in particular.\n\n“We ran a reverse,” he says. “I pitched it to her, and she scored a touchdown against a bunch of guys. She ran around the left end and she was gone. I’ll never forget that. It was funny, man. It was funny.”\n\nAsked about that famous reverse, Arike doesn’t deny it happened but suggests it wasn’t a seminal moment for her.\n\n“He probably remembers better than me,” she says. “I was younger than him. That probably is true.”\n\nWas that her only touchdown of the year?\n\n“That’s the one he remembers,” she says with a laugh. “Let’s say that. That’s the one he remembers.”\n\nAs a matter of convenience, it was nothing for the pre-teen Arike to play with her older brothers, including Mario, who is 9 years older. That was both informally and on Dare's youth teams.\n\nBeing the only girl on those teams wasn’t easy, but it also taught her early on to ignore the doubters.\n\n“I used to play with my brothers a lot, so I would play on Dare’s team,” she says. “I played on the boys’ team in basketball. I played AAU (with boys) in fourth or fifth grade. The team was called the Wizards. And I played in a boys’ league when I was younger.”\n\nDid she ever receive encouraging feedback from her male competitors?\n\n“Not really,” she says. “I don’t think they really liked competing with me at that age, but my brothers always did though.”\n\nPlaying with older boys in various sports merely expedited the learning process for Arike. It also built confidence.\n\n“Definitely,” she says. “Especially with having two older brothers, I used to be physical with them all the time at home. And then playing in those leagues, I wasn’t the best yet, but it got me prepared and it got me used to being competitive with boys, so once I started playing with girls it was a little easier.”\n\nDream sequence\n\nOne constant for Arike, regardless of sport or age or level, is her incredible competitive spirit.\n\n“She’s always had that from a young age when she was playing against us,” says Dare, who turns 25 in May. “Playing against her brothers or our cousins, she was always in the back yard competing just like she was one of the guys or she was as old as us. We had to make sure we toughened her up.”\n\nIf anything, Dare’s mentorship to his younger sister would center on finding ways to lessen the self-applied pressure.\n\n“I never, ever had to ever talk about her effort or her competitiveness or her toughness,” Dare says. “That always just came natural. Sometimes we actually had to tell her to calm down. Some things weren’t as serious as she’d make them seem, but she was just such a fierce competitor. She made everything a competition.”\n\nIt’s still that way for Arike, whose first name means “something that you see and you cherish” in her father Gregory’s native Nigeria.\n\nAfter closing out a 64-2 home record over her four-year college career, she is two wins away from a return trip to the Final Four and four away from making Notre Dame (32-3) the first non-UConn repeat champion in the women’s game since Tennessee in 2007 and 2008.\n\nEven if that doesn’t happen, a future in the WNBA awaits, as does an eventual jersey retirement ceremony for her Number 24 at Purcell Pavilion. At 5-foot-8, she is one of five national finalists for the Ann Meyers Drysdale Award as well as a Naismith Award semifinalist for national player of the year after earning second-team All-America honors as a junior.\n\n“Arike has always wanted the ball in her hands,” Yolanda says. “Ever since she’s played basketball or just been in that competitive environment in sports, we knew she had that desire to be one of the best.”\n\nStill, could her parents have imagined all of this happening for their daughter?\n\n“No,” Yolanda says. “Never, ever. It never even crossed our minds.”\n\nBig brother politely disagrees.\n\n“Imagine? Yes,” Dare says. “I definitely could have imagined this just because of how very few people in my opinion have her talent mixed with her work ethic. You see a lot of people that are very talented or you see people that work hard but maybe they don’t have the talent. When you put them both together the way she has, I definitely could have imagined it.”\n\nHe shakes his head and smiles.\n\n“Seeing it actually come to fruition, seeing her eventually maybe being one of the jerseys hanging up in the rafters, is just incredible,” he says. “I guess I couldn’t have predicted this, no.”\n\nEntering the national spotlight with her heroics at last year’s Final Four only added to the dream-like quality of the experience. Her family marvels at Arike’s ability to push all the noise aside and stay in the moment.\n\nAs the stakes climb higher and the end of her college career draws closer, those qualities will only become more vital.\n\n“She still goes back and looks back on it and says, ‘Wow, I can’t believe we won,’ “ Yolanda says. “I think it’s just made her a better person, a stronger person. She knows what she has to do. Arike is a different breed, so to speak. She just takes it as it goes. She’s handled it all with a lot of poise and grace.”\n\nFollow Mike Berardino on Twitter @MikeBerardino. His email is mberardino@gannett.com.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2019/03/29"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/high-school/2021/01/08/emotions-spill-over-aftermath-aia-canceling-winter-sports/6602454002/", "title": "Emotions spill over in aftermath of AIA canceling winter sports", "text": "For the first time in the history of the Arizona Interscholastic Association, full sports seasons have been canceled, after the Executive Board voted 5-4 not to have winter sports seasons.\n\nThe COVID-19 pandemic that in March canceled the spring sports season surged in recent weeks in Arizona, making the state the No. 1 hotspot in the country and causing the Sports Medicine Advisory Committee to recommended to the board to not start the winter sports season.\n\nEmotions spilled over in the high school sports community in the aftermath of this decision that impacts basketball and soccer players and wrestlers in Arizona among the nearly 300 schools in the AIA.\n\n\"It's a tragedy that a handful of adults made a decision that robs thousands of young women and men across the state,\" said Phoenix St. Mary's boys basketball coach Damin Lopez, whose team was ranked No. 1 in 4A by The Arizona Republic in preseason. \"With a vaccine increasing in distribution and the fact that student-athletes were competing in AIA activities on the day of the vote just makes one wonder what their real motivation is.\"\n\nThe winter sports season was set to start in 10 days.\n\nDuring the December special AIA Executive Board meeting that pushed the start date back from Jan. 5, AIA Executive Director David Hines said that the only way the season wouldn't start is if Gov. Doug Ducey would shut down the state.\n\nThat hasn't happened.\n\nMORE:AIA board's decision to cancel winter sports season angers Arizona high school community\n\n\"It's disappointing,\" said Kwame Hymes, who was battling the AIA for his son Isaac to have his entire sophomore basketball season at Goodyear Millennium restored after leaving national prep program Hillcrest. \"My heart goes out to all the seniors that this decision is affecting.\"\n\nMesa Mountain View coach Gary Ernst, the winningest boys basketball coach in AIA history, said he felt the AIA could have compromised and pushed the season back two more weeks with a five-week season. He also suggested a varsity-only spring season for basketball.\n\n\"Give us two more weeks off and give us a five-week season with a tourney,\" Ernst said in an email.. \"Give us a spring season varsity only. But don’t take away our seniors last year after weeks and weeks of practice with the idea they were going to have a chance to play. PLEASE!!\"\n\nPhoenix Thunderbird head boys basketball coach Buddy Rake, who is an attorney, called the cancellation of winter sports \"heartbreaking.\"\n\nBut, he added, \"Under the present circumstances, I think it is the right decision.\"\n\nRake said tight mitigation measures were used during practices.\n\n\"Our coaches at every level have maintained a protective bubble,\" Rake said. \"We didn’t allow players to move from freshman to JV or varsity. We kept teams segregated and didn’t allow more than 12 players in the gym. We did a history every day and if a player sneezed we sent them home and requested a Covid test. Coaches had to wear masks throughout practice.\"\n\nRake said there was great concern about COVID-19 as he led his team through practices.\n\n\"A Mayo cardiologist was consulted informally and he educated me about the rising number of myocarditis and other heart problems occurring in young athletes with Covid,\" Rake said.\n\nRake says that his players will join a club team and \"have far less protection than they would\" with his team. He believes testing would have been a better thing to do than canceling the season.\n\nCollege basketball across the country has been playing with daily testing conducted. The AIA doesn't have COVID-19 testing for athletes.\n\n\"Since the Glendale Union District has been very successful in preventing spread among athletes, I would have preferred that the district determine that we would have games limited to Glendale Union High Schools,\" Rake said. \"We could have tested each player and coaches for Covid an hour before game time. The recent test I was required to have before leaving for Hawaii took thirty minutes. In Hawaii anyone can get a test for free. Athletic trainers could be trained to give and evaluate.\"\n\nLaurie Jones, mother of Washington-committed senior and The Republic’s 2019-20 All-Arizona Girls Basketball Team selection Marisa Davis of Valley Vista, feels it is sad that but can see both sides to this.\n\nMedically, I see the bigger picture and the liabilities,” Jones said.\n\nQueen Creek Casteel transfer guard Grace Oken, who left Gilbert Perry in June, lamented the AIA canceling the chance to play for senior season.\n\n“I’m honestly heartbroken, this was our year at Casteel and we all knew that,” Oken said. “It’s upsetting how other sports could do whatever they wanted like nothing was going on in the world, but we get to winter sports and it’s all different for us. I’ve never been more excited for a season before like I was for this year. I have been dying to get onto the floor with my teammates and get that ring, and it all just got taken away from us in the blink of an eye. I never expected my senior season to get ripped away from me like this.”\n\nValley Vista girls basketball coach Rachel Matakas of The Republic’s top-ranked Super 10 poll girls basketball team and 6A defending championship team has had her team practice since August with masks on awaiting the season.\n\nMORE:AIA board votes to cancel high school winter sports season amid surging COVID-19 cases\n\nValley Vista was scheduled to play its first game of the season against No. 5-ranked Phoenix Xavier Prep on Jan. 20.\n\n“For (the AIA) just to say a blanket no, or seven days out before our first game, it’s not equitable,” Matakas said. “A lot of coaches have put a lot of things in place. There’s a lot of money already been spent on the season. For them not to even come up with a plan or an alternative to try and save the season I think is atrocious.\n\n\"We all know that there are other prep (basketball) teams currently still playing and I understand it’s a safety issue and that’s OK. But we can find ways to still be safe. Like, all athletes go online and they just show up to school for practice and then they play games. For a blanket statement and the vote to be that close, and just because one district has more pull than the others, I just don’t think that’s right.”\n\nDefending 3A conference girls soccer state champion Gilbert Christian’s head coach and former Arizona Cardinals kicker Jay Feely is disappointed on the 5-4 vote.\n\n\"Never been more disappointed in the leadership of the AIA,\" he said. \"The board members didn’t put the best interests of the high school athletes at the forefront. The mental health consequences of their decision is certainly more detrimental to the high school athletes than Covid. I’m heartbroken for our seniors. The actions of the AIA board didn’t protect the athletes they simply kicked the can down the road to club sports and punished those who love high school sports.\n\n\"My message to the five board members is the seniors will never have this opportunity back. You stole something from them that can never be replaced. I hope that resonates deep in your soul. You were put in a role to lead and today you failed in your obligation. Today, you failed the very people you were entrusted to protect.\"\n\nArizona NCAA scout for girls basketball Ron Coleman believes kids could lose college recruitment opportunities.\n\n“It's a tough situation for sure but our Covid numbers are the worst in the country,\" he said. \"Collectively, we need to continue promoting our 2021 players to colleges at all levels. Many deserve to play at the next level.”\n\nSteve Sangillo, whose daughter Gabby is one of Goodyear Millennium's top soccer players, pointed out that he would always send his children to Phoenix Children's Hospital for injuries. He said he has had at least one child over the last nine years competing in sports.\n\n“Are the children’s hospitals at the same capacity as regular hospitals?,” he said. “I ask because that being the main sticking point, if my child was injured in a high school sports, we would send them to Phoenix Children’s, not a regular hospital as they are better suited to handle injuries of those under the age of 18.”\n\nGabby Sangillo, who will be playing college soccer, feels for her fellow seniors who wont' be moving onto the next level.\n\n“I was really disappointed,” she said. “Not only for myself but for the players not playing at the next level, because they won’t have those games.”\n\nMesa boys wrestling head coach David DiDomenico understands the AIA’s decision and how club sports could be student-athletes’ alternative this winter:\n\n“It won’t end up stopping anything. The logistics and the supervisor of the organization is just going to change. However, I feel with the AIA board. They made a tough decision,\" DiDomenico said. \"And each one of them, I know it weighs on them because they’re caring people. A lot of them are former coaches and teachers. They were us, so it wasn’t a lightly based decision.\n\n\"Now what's going to happen is we’ll change vehicles on how we’re going to end up competing. They follow the science, the data, and safety is the No. 1 concern. There is no winning decision. Who knows what it is? We have discrepancies in the least running our own staff. They had to have made that call. It wasn’t a pro-football ‘lemme just get that done.’ It was the (COVID-19) numbers are through the roof.”\n\nPhoenix Brophy Prep still held a soccer practice as planned Friday three hours after the AIA's decision to cancel.\n\n\"We had a lot of new faces anxious to be apart of the program for the first time,\" coach Paul Allen said. \"Jumped through a lot of hoops to even get this far. We knew we had an uphill battle in order to complete a season in a pandemic but we were ready for the challenge.\n\n\"Heartbroken for our seniors who won’t get to finish the three peat many of them started. We understand the decision and fully support what has been done by the AIA board, just had hoped we could try to be as safe as possible and give this kids something to look forward to.\"\n\nChandler Hamilton wrestling coach David DeSilva said he feels bad that the kids have been practicing hard for the season only to have it ripped out from under then 10 days before the start of competition.\n\n\"We've actually had a kid with COVID-19 go to the protocols and come back with no problems,\" he said. \"It seems that at this point we need to just bite the bullet and forge forward because these kids are actually handling it pretty well and if someone has any concerns they are free to opt out, which quite a few kids have.\n\n\"We were down 50% from last year but everybody that came back, including the parents, are fine the way we are navigating through the beginning of the season. It's a lot of work to try and get the kids into college on some kind of athletic scholarship when they are not competing in their sports.\"\n\nDesert Vista junior guard Andrew King was declared eligible to return to play for Desert Vista this season after leaving PHH Prep. But now he said if there isn't a club season created by AIA schools, he'll just train on his own to get ready for his senior season.\n\n“To be honest, it’s heartbreaking,” King said. “I feel really bad for the seniors. They don’t get their year. It’s unfair. Football got their season. And they had fans. Then they were saying winter sports would not have fans. I even heard we would have to wear masks in games, which I was fine with that. I thought they would do that. I feel this is unfair. They even promised Jan. 18 would be the date (to begin competition) and that they would only not have a season if Gov. Ducey shut down the state.”\n\nTo suggest human-interest story ideas and other news, reach Obert at richard.obert@arizonarepublic.com or 602-316-8827. Follow him on Twitter @azc_obert.\n\nSupport local journalism: Subscribe to azcentral.com today", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2021/01/08"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/university-michigan/wolverines/2018/06/07/michigan-basketball-john-beilein-detroit-pistons/679425002/", "title": "Michigan coach John Beilein's Pistons interest wasn't fake news", "text": "This wasn't a ploy to get more money. Or a way to raise his profile to lure 5-star recruits. Or a rope-a-dope so that John Beilein could remind the University of Michigan who he is.\n\nHe doesn't need any of that. Besides, it's not in his nature to sneak around. He's too sincere to be playing games. Remember, this is a coach without an agent.\n\nAnd so, when Beilein announced Wednesday on Twitter that he was staying at U-M to lead its basketball program, you could hear the collective sigh from the program's fan base.\n\nBecause his interest in the Pistons was real. And if you think he wouldn't have strongly considered the job if he'd gotten an offer, then you're not thinking about what drives John Beilein: to teach.\n\nThe U-M coach said as much in San Antonio, site of this year's Final Four, when he met with the media a couple of days before the semifinals and talked about his legacy.\n\n\"I want to be known as a teacher and mentor,” he said. \"Not the coach.”\n\nThis wasn't coach-speak. Or some cliché he hoped would take the pressure off if his team didn't win.\n\nHe meant it.\n\nThat may be difficult to believe in the ulterior-motive world we inhabit. If so, I'd invite you into the hallway outside U-M's locker room inside the Alamodome after his Wolverines lost to Villanova in the national title game.\n\nThere stood Beilein, the center of a media scrum, holding his final informal press conference of the season, having come up one game short for the second time in six years, expressing a kind of … joy?\n\nYes, joy.\n\nSeriously.\n\nNot that there wasn't pain and disappointment. Not that he isn't competitive. Not that he doesn't love to win.\n\nIt's just that those things miss the point. For him, a season is about learning, and improving, and watching habits he instills lead to success on the court.\n\nWhen someone told him his players were crushed they hadn't been able to win the title for him, this was his response:\n\n\"Oh, man, don't worry about me. I would love to win a national championship for those guys. For the University of Michigan, for all those great students, for the alums. But, for me? This is why I coach. To be in that locker room with those kids. To have this opportunity to tell them: this is life, (and) all of a sudden, in a blink of an eye, you have this great sadness, your season is over … but in the long run there is a lot of joy.\"\n\nMore:Michigan's John Beilein to Detroit Pistons? With his mind, it'd work\n\nThere is a sense that this kind of sentiment doesn't play in the NBA. That's not true. Almost everyone likes learning, likes getting taught.\n\nWhether you're a teenager learning to pivot or set your feet for a jump shot, or a 12-year NBA vet learning to navigate evolving defenses, or a retiree learning to identify birds, or how to use Instagram.\n\nSeeking knowledge doesn't cap out at a particular age. Nor does the desire to impart it.\n\nIn that sense, the NBA would've given Beilein a chance to teach the most gifted basketball pupils in the world. That was the appeal. Not the money. Not the stage. But the NBA classroom.\n\nAnd, yes, it is a classroom. The students are just older and make more money.\n\nNo wonder Beilein listened when the Pistons offered to meet with him informally in California a couple of weeks ago. Then met with team brass a second time last week. Then met with team owner, Tom Gores, after that.\n\nIt was serious.\n\nIt also made sense, considering Beilein's eternal basketball quest. But also remembering how irrelevant the Pistons are beginning to feel.\n\nGores is desperate to get back to the playoffs. To create some juice around a franchise that's mostly created disappointment in the seven years since he bought the team. Thus, Beilein's ability to teach and develop players held appeal.\n\nIn the end, a job offer never came. Beilein announced he was staying. U-M is set to sweeten his contract.\n\nStill, the old coach got to experience a part of the league. He got to talk basketball, share his ideas, think about what he could do and how he would do it at the highest level of the game.\n\nKnowing him, whatever boost in profile he may get from the attention won't matter. Yet he deserved the consideration. Deserved, too, the chance to ruminate about how best to spend the final years of his teaching and coaching career.\n\nTurns out that will be in Ann Arbor, which is obviously good for U-M and its basketball program. As for Beilein?\n\nHe'll keep returning to the film room, to his notebooks, to his grease board, to his classroom, forever in search of ideas and of the best ways to teach them.\n\nContact Shawn Windsor: 313-222-6487 or swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @shawnwindsor.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2018/06/07"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mens-basketball/2022/06/30/college-basketball-june-theres-no-shortage-nd-topics-discuss/7755051001/", "title": "College basketball in June? There's no shortage of ND topics to ...", "text": "Thomas Noie: Happy summer everyone! We made through those dog/dark days of January and February and, if you live around these here parts. March and April and May. But we're here, so what better time to talk some Notre Dame men's basketball. There's no shortage of topics to discuss today - from last week's NBA draft, to the news that broke Wednesday of assistant coach Ryan Humphrey leaving for another coaching position (more details on that coming). To join today's discussion with a question or comment, make sure to include your name (no aliases, please) and hometown. With that, let's light this Notre Dame men's basketball summer chat.\n\nSteve Duff: I’m curious about how you think Blake Wesley will do in the NBA. Also is playing for Pop a good or a bad thing for his development? Thanks Tom!\n\nThomas Noie: Steve: The first one-and-done in Notre Dame men's basketball history, former Irish guard Blake Wesley was taken in the first round (No. 25 overall) by San Antonio in last week's draft (https://tinyurl.com/mr2ymn6m). At first, the thought was he'd probably have his rookie season to ease into NBA life, maybe spend some time with the Spurs' G League team in Austin, see some time here and there. San Antonio then traded guard Dejounte Murray to Atlanta, which opens a window of opportunity for Wesley. The Spurs seem to be headed toward full rebuild mode, which means, play the kids, which means, Wesley might see significant minutes. Normally, warm and cuddly Gregg Popovich has no use for rookies. Now, though, he seems to have embraced going young, which means Wesley has a chance. No matter how it shakes out, Wesley will be a way better pro in two, three years as his game develops. He needs time. If the Spurs give him that, he could be special.\n\nLinas fr. Orange Cty, CA (Rex Pfluger territory): Hey Tom, Happy Summer :) So I feel a Matt Zona breakout coming this year. Jack Cooley, Martinas Geben and John Mooney had similar profiles and really broke out around junior years. Are you allowed to attend/observe informal summer workouts for ND players? Have you heard any scuttlebutt from Brey or others about Zona's off season or upcoming season's prospects? Thank you\n\nThomas Noie: Linas: I can hear you now all the way from Orange County - \"WE WANT ZONA!!!\" Better keep that chant handy. Matt Zona might - stress MIGHT - find a spot in the rotation this season as the third big man behind Nate Laszewski and Ven-Allen Lubin, who apparently is better than advertised to date in summer workouts. Matt Zona would be the first big off the bench if needed - it's going to be a heavy dose of perimeter guys this season, so the backup bigs (Matt Zona, Dom Campbell) might be squeezed for minutes. The Irish have been back on campus for about three weeks. We usually get to see a practice toward the end of summer school. That's where we can see how everything's starting to shake out...\n\nThomas Noie: ..Early returns? There are eight Irish currently rotating through the white (starter's) jerseys in practices and scrimmage situations. You can pen (not pencil) in Dane Goodwin, Nate Laszewski and Cormac Ryan as starters. There might be a lot of nights where those three never leave the floor. Freshmen Ven-Allen Lubin and J.J. Starling have also been in starter's jerseys a lot. When they go blue, Marcus Hammond (Niagara grad transfer) and Trey Wertz get run with the white jerseys. Sometimes, Matt Zona will slide into the mix. That's how Mike Brey will go for the rest of those summer. Right now, it's those eight.\n\nJim in Charlottesville: Hi Tom. The Irish seemed to try hard to sign a portal Big. What’s your take on that they didn’t? Anything NIL about it? What do you see for Matt Zona this season? He’s not earned any meaningful minutes thus far, yet several of Mike Brey’s bigs have come of age later in eligibility.\n\nThomas Noie: Jim: It's still early, but it looks like Matt Zona is the leader in the clubhouse for most popular/asked about offseason guy. Look below (or above) to see some early thoughts on Zona, who's getting closer to the rotation but not all the way there yet. Why isn't he? And why didn't Notre Dame sign a big man out of the portal? Everything changed when Nate Laszewski decided to return for his super senior season. The thinking was that Laszewski might be ready for his next basketball challenge. That he was done with college. When he decided to give it another run, it changed the urgency (really, erased it) to find a big. Laszewski's going to play a lot. Ven-Allen Lubin is going to play a lot, to the point where an All-ACC freshman team spot might be realistic. Add those two bigs, Matt Zona and Dom Campbell as ready reserves and a stacked perimeter and getting a transfer big was not going to happen. Sign a transfer big and he's going to play. A lot. That would've pinched other players in terms of minutes.\n\nMike: Tom, do you know if Coach Brey put out any more 2023 offers the past 2 recruiting weekends? Has 10 offers out and he needs at least 4, not the greatest odds.\n\nThomas Noie: Mike: Does he? Need four? The early thinking might be that if Notre Dame can land Xavier Booker and T.J. Power, that might be enough for the 2023 class. Mike Brey would be ecstatic with those two, and would probably be done. Then, he'd turn his attention to a guard (local kid Markus Burton from Penn is someone that the staff is liking more and more, so keep an eye on him). That probably would be it in terms of high school seniors. With the portal being the portal, the Irish would look hard at veteran transfers. Notre Dame may eventually get to a four-man class, but it will be a combination of high school seniors, transfers and maybe a grad transfer.\n\nTony: Tom, if JR, JJ, Matt, Tony, Dom, and V-A are the only returns. How many recruits and transfers do you see the staff bring in?\n\nThomas Noie: Tony: Whoa, that's a lot of first names/initials there. Have to take a minute and figure them all out....lol. Probably answered your question with the last question - it would be difficult from a management standpoint to go any deeper than four. Remember when that freshman class with Hubb/Goodwin/Laszewski came in? Yeah, it was ranked as high as the Top 15 in the country, but that was a five-man class. That was way too big. Too many guys to try and keep happy. It kind of played itself out when Robby Carmody got hurt and Chris Doherty transferred. That saved some minutes migraines for Mike Brey. Five freshmen? Too many. The transfer portal will solve that - sign a couple of traditional recruits, then hit the portal and get old and stay old. There also is a chance - a very slim one at that, but a chance - that Cormac Ryan returns for another year. Ryan does have that option, but given the arc of his career, especially as last season ended, this likely will be it for him at Notre Dame. He has pro aspirations.\n\nNick from Goshen (formerly South Bend): Tom hope summer is off to a good start for you. I’m going to guess this will be a reoccurring topic, but what are ND’s realistic chances of landing Xavier Booker? Blake getting drafted seemingly helps their chances, but I just have a bad feeling ( a Hunter Dickinson feeling) about this one. Thoughts ?\n\nThomas Noie: Nick: If Notre Dame doesn't land Xavier Booker, it won't be from a lack of effort. Almost from the day he returned for his third stint on Mike Brey's staff, associate head coach Anthony Solomon has made Booker his top priority. If there's an open gym, Slo's there. Cathedral playing for a state championship? Slo's there. He's also at the Top 100 camp in Orlando this week to watch Booker. The thinking now (and it's still kind of early, though Booker already has made an official to Notre Dame) is that it should come down to Notre Dame and Michigan State. Indiana will be there. Duke, too. But it could/should be Michigan State and Notre Dame...\n\nThomas Noie: ...That Blake Wesley became the first one-and-done in Notre Dame history (and a first-round pick on top of that) can do nothing but help the chances of landing Booker. Mike Brey has a new go-to recruiting pitch. He'll mention how Big Ten guys like Keegan Murray and Johnny Davis and Jaden Ivey all were NBA lottery picks, but they were TWO YEAR college guys. Brey will then say, my guy, Blake Wesley, was a one-and-done and still went in the first round, so come to Notre Dame, play one year and I'll get you to the league. Will it work? Stay tuned...\n\nBob from chicago: It is hard to see ND as any kind of serious ACC or NCAA threat with zero post presence. Unless Zona or Campbell can be that guy ? What do you think ?\n\nThomas Noie: Bob: Understood, but you do know that the game has changed - gone are the days where you plant a seven-footer in the lane leave him there. It's all perimeter and stretch fours and bigs who can step out and shoot it. I like Notre Dame's chances in that regard. The Irish won't have someone they can throw it to like they did with Paul Atkinson, but try and guard that perimeter. Watch them pull a big away from the basket with Nate Laszewski stepping out and shooting shots that he passed up last year. Nate's not going to be the post-up guy. Ven-Allen Lubin might not be the post-up guy. But let's see teams try to match that perimeter. An interior presence might be a problem, but the potential of that perimeter? Scary. Notre Dame will find a way to compensate. Just watch.\n\nVictor K. From Salem: where does JR Konieczny fit into next season’s Irish team…or does he?\n\nThomas Noie: Victor: It was a looooooong learning year for former South Bend Saint Joseph standout J.R. Konieczny. He played in only seven games with totals of 11 points and one rebound in 22 minutes. That was often his stat line for three quarters in high school, but this ain't the Northern Indiana Conference any more. It's going to be really difficult for Konieczny to crack the rotation this season. At 6-foot-6, and maybe now closer to 6-7, Konieczny considers himself a guard, but Notre Dame has a whole bunch of really good guards. With Cormac Ryan, Dane Goodwin, Trey Wertz, Marcus Hammond and J.J. Starling, it's easy to do the math - before the Irish even play a real game, or hold a fall practice, Konieczny is the sixth guard in a group that went only five deep last season. Notre Dame loses Prentiss Hubb and Blake Wesley, but adds a veteran (Hammond) and a McDonald's All-American (Starling). It might be best for Konieczny to take a redshirt season in 2022-23 and stay patient with the process.\n\nMike S: Hey Tom, has Carmody played at all this summer, and if so, any chance he can crack the rotation this year? Thanks!\n\nThomas Noie: Mike: Robby Carmody returned for his super senior season, though he really has like nine years of eligibility remaining (not really, but you get the point). There was a thought that he would earn his degree and just walk away from a game that has been so cruel to him from a health standpoint since he arrived. Carmody returned for another year and still is striving to get back to full health. It's been hard. He could get back to 200 percent health and he'd be at a similar crossroads as J.R. Konieczny. Notre Dame is loaded on the perimeter. Carmody can still be an asset as a team/bench/locker room guy who preaches Brey's gospel. He still believes and at this point, for him, that's half the battle.\n\njoe from the south side: Tom, What was the impetus behind Carmody's decision to stay on? I think he knows he will never contribute, on the court, in any way for the program. Is it graduate school? His brother?\n\nThomas Noie: Joe: Asked and answered. Look at the previous question/comment. He just wants to prove that he can still play. It may not ever materialize, but Carmody just doesn't want to let it go. You know what Red said about hope in Shawshank....\n\njoe from the south side: Tom, How do you think the minutes will play out for the guards? I assume JJS has to start. You don't recruit him to \"wait his turn.\" Goodwin is the leading returning leading scorer. He plays. Ryan showed at the end of last season he has to be on the court. Has to. And Marcus H didn't transfer to get splinters in the butt. Looks to me like last year's Miami team. 4 out, 1 big, and just try to outscore the opposition, since that team won't get any OFF REBs, and won't be able to defend the opposition's interior post play. Looks like Nate L. gets to do all of the grunt work, with Big Zone or a freshman as the backup there, and Wertz as the 5th Guard. How do you see it?\n\nThomas Noie: Joe: Didn't you kind of answer your own question? LOL. Ryan and Goodwin will be 40-minute guys. Seriously. They're never coming out of the game. Laszewski as well. Forty minutes on a lot of nights. Starling's a starter. Blake Wesley played 30 minutes a game. Starling might be better than Wesley. And you're right - grad transfers under Mike Brey don't come to Notre Dame to be bit players. Hammond's going to play a lot. Trey Wertz is going to play a lot. It's a big dose of four around one...\n\nThomas Noie: ...As for the interior, I must have missed this - was Paul Atkinson, Jr., the second coming of Dikembe Mutombo? Shaq? Atkinson was just what this team needed last year, but he wasn't THAT much of a game-changing presence. Nate Laszewski was that team's most important player in terms of defense. That will continue this year. And every early indication is that Ven-Allen Lubin will be able to hold up and do the heavy lifting left behind by Zona. There's a reason Notre Dame didn't land a transfer big.\n\njoe from the south side: Tom, Brey has 12 on scholarship, since he whiffed on 3 pitches looking for an experienced Forward. That said, 6 of those 12 are gone. Nate, Robby, Trey, Dane, Marcus, and likely Cormac. Thrown in a disgruntled transfer from the 2 Juniors and he may have 7 or 8 slots to fill. How likely is he to fill those slots and is that any way to run a basketball program based on \"get old and stay old\"? Also, if this is the new reality of college BBL, is Brey, at 63, up for the challenge? It certainly impacted the decisions of Jay Wright, Muffet, etc..........If they make the NCAA Tourney, and they certainly have enough talent and experience to do that, is it time for him to walk away?\n\nThomas Noie: Joe: That's a lot of words to spend on....NEXT SEASON!!! LOL. Seriously? Let's see how 2022-23 unfolds before we start wringing our hands about what may or may not happen a full year from now. I'm sure there's a plan. That staff isn't going to wake up a year from now and be like, whoa, where did everybody go? Enjoy the ride this year, then worry about what's coming next. Sound good? Please? 😃\n\nRay: Hi Tom. What's the chance that Brey will sign a big man from the portal? Brey needs to replace Atkinson unless he thinks Lubin can give us good minutes in the paint. Besides avoiding injuries IMO this is the key to the upcoming season. We have a good team coming back but without someone giving us good minutes in the paint we will get manhandled. If we can compete in the paint against the better ACC teams we will have a good/great season.\n\nThomas Noie: Ray: Chances? Less than zero. I might go dig up some of our NDI chats from last summer. Think a lot of the same verbiage was used in wondering/worrying about Paul Atkinson. How is someone who played in the Ivy League going to fare in the big, bad rough and tumble Atlantic Coast Conference? He's going to get manhandled!!! It all turned out all right. And those wondering/worrying about interior defense, man, let's give Nate Laszewski at least a little credit. He was a key guy to get back because of what he does on defense. That often went overlooked last season.\n\nMark Oliver: Hi Tom, Looking forward to this latest chat, but honestly I wish your stay in Omaha had been several days and a few Irish wins longer. Anyway, couple quick things. I'm with you for sure on the not so enthusiastic reaction to seeing Sparty again in the Challenge. I wish we had faced attractive opponents like Wisky and Michigan by now, particularly since ND is by far the closest ACC team geographically to almost all these Big 10 stalwarts and has had football relationships with them as well. I get that the Challenge appears geared to the marquee matchups for Duke, Carolina, UVA, but why isn't there more variety? And second, is there any upside in your mind to Blake's departure for the NBA as far as this year's team goes. Would have been great to have him back, but I also get the vibe that the returnees and new additions can develop a nice chemistry without the presence and possible distractions of a year-long NBA audition. Am I on the right mindset on this? Thanks Tom as always for your insight.\n\nThomas Noie: Mark: You got me all worked up at Sparty and Challenge. Ooof. How and why they concoct the matchups that they do is beyond baffling. Notre Dame has been in the Atlantic Coast Conference for 10 years. It will be Michigan State three times, Illinois three times, Iowa twice and once each for Maryland and Ohio State. That's it. I love Tom Izzo, but man, change it up...\n\nThomas Noie: ...As for Blake Wesley, he just had to go to the NBA. It was just time. It was best for all involved. Yeah, it would've been sweet to see Blake Wesley and J.J. Starling in the same backcourt, but at what price? Wesley might've improved his stock, but what would it have done to the team dynamic? Might've been hard to chase the team goal when everyone would've known your individual goal (see Ivey, Jaden). Everything about this season for Wesley was too pure that you couldn't duplicate it. He wasn't thinking one and done in November - he was just trying to get in the starting lineup. Then it all took off. Notre Dame is going to miss Blake Wesley, but Notre Dame might be better this season. That's nobody's fault. Like Bruce Hornsby once crooned, that's just the way it is.\n\nZach P: Given Blake Wesley’s selection by the San Antonio Spurs in the first round of the NBA draft, what are the chances he returns to ND for a second run? On a serious note, does this make ND a more attractive landing spot for more one and done type players? And how are the three freshmen looking in summer practice?\n\nThomas Noie: Zach: Don't hold your breath on Wesley returning to Notre Dame...think that door is closed...lol. Really, though, it closed the minute he announced. He was going all-in to chase that and he did. He's a first-round pick. It's a great story, and a great story moving forward for the program. It opens the door for a J.J. Starling this season, maybe Xavier Booker next season. Like, you CAN go to Notre Dame and still be a one-and-done. In this basketball day and age, that's a pretty good gig...\n\nThomas Noie: ...As for the freshmen, we'll get to see them for ourselves later in July. But Starling and Lubin have been maybe even better than advertised with their court senses. Dom Campbell is coming along, but his path toward playing time/meaningful minutes might be a little longer. And that's OK.\n\nTodd Waynesville, NC: Can’t help but believe the two months Nate spent In “NBA” training will make him leaps and bounds better than he has been. (And he has been a solid player). Thoughts on that premise. Has the coaching staff said anything to that thought? Excited for the 22-23 season. I think it has the makings of a great season.\n\nThomas Noie: Todd: Early returns are that this is a different Nate Laszewski than we've seen. There's a lot of layers to that. Part of it was working out in Las Vegas for two months. Part of it also is that there's a different dynamic. There's no more Prentiss Hubb. There's no more Paul Atkinson. He's got to be more of a leader (without Hubb) and more of an interior presence (without Atkinson). Just the natural progression/maturation of a college basketball player. He could've decided to chase a two-way or gone to Europe. He believes there's more for him - and for Notre Dame - to do.\n\nJim Tal, Valley Center, CA.: Hi Tom, thanks for your time and by the way, splendid work on the baseball front. Some may say this is heresy but is it possible that if JJ Starling turns out to be as dynamic as expected, he could greatly minimize the loss of Blake Wesley to the point where the Irish won't be all that diminished by the departure of the latter? In other words, does Starling have the overall game to pick up the slack left by Wesley's exit so that the Irish backcourt suffers no appreciable drop-off?\n\nThomas Noie: Jim: Thanks for the kind words on the baseball front. It was fascinating to get to know and then watch Link Jarrett up close through June. You could say Notre Dame baseball was better because of this and because of that, but any conversation starts and ends with one person - Link Jarrett. The guy can absolutely lead. He will be missed...\n\nThomas Noie: ...Back to basketball, J.J. Starling can and should absolutely step into the shoes left behind by Blake Wesley. We're talking about a Top 15 national recruit, a five-star prospect and a McDonald's All-American. From that standpoint, he was better than Blake Wesley. Will that translate to a breakout one-and-done season? Not necessarily. Blake and J.J. are different kind of players. Wesley wanted to get downhill, get in the open court and get to the basket. Starling's more of a bigger picture guy. What does the team need from him in this game? In this half? Wesley was really, really good in his one season. Starling can be really, really good next season. Can't wait to watch him.\n\nMark Kruz from Mishawaka: Hi Tom what is up with the ACC/Big Ten challenge schedule in which ND is playing Mich St again?? If ND keeps playing the same 4 or 5 teams over and over the challenge will become a stale event just like the Crossroads Classic has been the past few years. Will there be a return trip by Georgia in the 23-24 season? Also you mentioned to keep an eye on Markus Burton from Penn HS. Do you think he can play at the Power 5 level?? I seen he had a really good weekend down in Indy at a Indiana HS classic tourney especially against Cathedral and Xavier Booker.\n\nThomas Noie: Mark: It's like the leagues forget about the ACC/Big Ten Challenge matchups on the agenda. Then, while the decision-makers are walking out the door, they're reminded that, hey, we need to get the pairings complete. Somebody says, what did we do three years ago? Four years ago? Let's just scratch off whatever that year was and scribble 2022. Let's go with it. Nothing against Michigan State, but Notre Dame has done that dance. Let's hear some different music, see some different moves. You're so right - stale's a great word. There's no thought or creativity. As for the Georgia game, that's a neutral-site game at State Farm Arena in downtown Atlanta. It's part of a doubleheader, so it's a one-time thing. No return game. But a cool day of hoops in place of the Crossroads. And an easy flight from SBN, so there's that.\n\nJim in Charlottesville: Hello again, Tom. While Mike Brey’s Assistants keep low profiles (e.g. not available to media, seldom mentioned in game day planning, post game recount, and recruiting), they hugely contribute to individual player development. Ryan Humphrey boosted Jack Cooley Martinus Geben, and Paul Atkinson, Jr. How important is it that Brey hire acBigs Coach to succeed him??\n\nThomas Noie: Jim: The replacement for Ryan Humphrey, who will leave the program soon for another opportunity, doesn't necessarily need to have a background coaching bigs. Doing those jobs - coaching bigs, coaching perimeter - is pretty interchangeable. Coaching basketball is coaching basketball. It's more important that the new AC bring a similar passion and personality to all aspects of the job as Hump did. He will be missed, but when someone leaves, in any position in any profession, it offers you a chance to get better. Notre Dame has that chance.\n\nGuest: what does the outlook look like for robby carmody this season? Any chance he plays?\n\nThomas Noie: Can Robby Carmody take it a step further this season after last year? That would be a positive for him. It's next to impossible to expect that he can be a rotation player. He basically hasn't played major minutes in what, four years? Five? You lose track. Just give him the hope that he can continue to work his way back, and see where it all ends up.\n\nRyan Mars pa: tom how has the team looked so far i am interested in watching starling lubin Hammond and Campbell when season starts go Irish\n\nThomas Noie: Ryan: So, in other words, all the new guys grab your interest, right? LOL. Early returns have been nothing but positive with all four. Starling and Lubin are as advertised, so too is Hammond, a veteran/experienced/confident guard who can score it and get to the rim. Campbell? We'll see. The practice we're scheduled to see in July will offer a better indication. Last year, we watched Blake Wesley for that one day and it was apparent, like, whoa, that kid's different. Special. I hope to feel that again this time around with a couple of the new guys.\n\nMike in Pittsburgh: Tom, any chance Blake Wesley comes back for his sophomore year? (I kidd, I kidd). What are your thoughts on Tony Sanders? Is there a role for him on this team? Defend and rebound are his keys to minutes but he seems to be a guy (they have had them in the past) that is okay at everything but not great at anything.\n\nThomas Noie: Mike: Wait, Blake Wesley's gone? As in, not coming back? WHen did this happen? Does Mike Brey know about it??? LOLOLOL. Tony Sanders may be heading into his junior year, but he remains the proverbial blank slate. I don't know where or how he may fit, mainly because he's played behind veteran guys the first two years and likely will do the same this season. Defending and rebounding may be keys to his minutes, but if you can't prove you can do something on the offensive end, it's going to be difficult to find you some minutes. That's where the Irish are with Sanders. Give him credit - he just works. No public gripes. No complaints. No disrupting the locker room. It's almost fitting that Sanders and Matt Zona are so close. They're like the same player - keep working, keep progressing and see where it all takes them. At the end of the day, it's important to both that they get their degrees. Basketball is a bonus.\n\nPortND: Any info on where Hump is going to end up and any big man Coach options you've heard of?\n\nThomas Noie: Port: It's way too early on AC options, though I will say Notre Dame won't be looking exclusively at a \"big man\" coach. Does he know the game? Can he mesh with the fabric (sorry, had to say it) with the current staff? How does he do as a recruiter? Player development? The next AC is not expected to have Notre Dame ties. Mike Brey will take next month to consider all options.\n\nPortND: Seems many thought Carmody would have moved on, how's his health? I certainly don't see how he has a role on this team.\n\nThomas Noie: That he's still at Notre Dame tells you all you need to know about his health. He still believes he can contribute in some way, shape or form to the success of the program. That might not be in minutes played. He's a high character guy that can be an example to guys who get down on themselves.\n\nPortND: Last one for me, I have to think JR is just too talented to not somehow carve out a role with this team. In my opinion I could see him jumping someone like Wertz who really needs to step up.\n\nThomas Noie: Port: Probably wishful thinking there, but we'll see how it plays out. That Konieczny is not expected to spend summer session in a white (starter's) jersey is kind of the proverbial writing on the wall as to what the expectation for him is this season. He's stuck behind a veteran, deep, talented perimeter. He'd have to make the push of pushes to scramble into the rotation.\n\nClint from Winnipeg: What do you see as the fit and role of Marcus Hammond this season? Does he take playing time away from JJ Starling? How much would they be on the floor together?\n\nThomas Noie: Clint: Does somebody take playing time away from a five-star, Top 15 McDonald's All-American? Uh.....Yeah, that answer is a hard no. No, Marcus Hammond isn't taking minutes from J.J. Starling. Marcus is a really good, talented, experienced, veteran guard who will be a really good addition. But, it's J.J. STARLING. Cormac Ryan and Dane Goodwin will be 40-minute guys. Starling will play a lot. Then how does it fill in around that? Hammond will play. Trey Wertz will play. How those minutes will be dispersed will remain to be seen. So will how many minutes the guards will play together. What's best for this team? Is it playing four around one? Playing two bigs? That will be determined in November and December.\n\nPortND: I lied, not my last question.....................reports have been Lubin being better than advertised, any idea what sort of size he's at??? When recruited thought more of a wing but spunds like he's more of a big for ND.\n\nThomas Noie: Port: Those who would and should be in the know have Ven-Allen Lubin at 6-9 and 210 pounds. That Notre Dame didn't add a grad transfer or traditional transfer big is an indication of how important Lubin is to the plan. He's going to get a really big chance, maybe really early.\n\nJeff from Schererville, IN: Hi Tom and thanks for having this summer chat. So you're saying the Michigan St-ND ACC-Big Ten Challenge game might be renamed the Xavier Booker Classic? In all seriousness, I'm wondering if you can expound upon your tweet showing disappointment in having that matchup this year other than we've seen that movie before back in 2014 at ND and a couple other times in East Lansing. As a season ticket holder and ND hoops fan, I wouldn't mind seeing someone new like a Wisconsin or Maryland (though it still doesn't feel right they're in the Big Ten) or a school I'll mention later, but this is a marquee non-conf home game we don't often get, and I'm not sure any other team besides IU, Purdue or Michigan would generate the same energy in the building as Sparty, even if it's a repeat of a previous matchup.\n\nThomas Noie: Jeff: Simple. Notre Dame has done the Michigan State dance. It's the ACC/Big Ten Challenge, but it feels more like a conference game between two schools that aren't conference colleagues. Even Mike Brey sighed when he learned that it's Michigan State yet again. What's wrong with a rematch with Rutgers after what those teams did in the First Four. Now that the Crossroads Classic has ceased (praise the Lord), think a home game against Purdue would've moved the meter? Or a visit from Wisconsin for the first time since 1968? Part of the attraction of playing in the ACC/Big Ten from a Notre Dame perspective was running though a host of schools close to campus that would pique interest. But playing Michigan State for a third time in the challenge, and a fourth overall, has a been-there/done-that feel. Let's try something else. It's not that hard. And Notre Dame fans should be beyond being glad about a non-league opponent generating energy in their own building. But that's a rant for another day...😃\n\nJack: Hey Tom - Are the main non-conference games all set? I think you tweeted that there are three yet to be announced - Is it expected that those will be \"bye\" games at home against low RPI teams, or could one or two be a major opponent?\n\nThomas Noie: Jack: You must have my tweet confused with someone else...don't think I'd ever count down the number of non-con games remaining...ugh. LOL. By my count, and again, it's late June and I'm still trying to get clear of baseball mode and Omaha and everything CWS, Notre Dame has non-league games set against Georgia (neutral), St. Bonaventure (neutral), Marquette (home) and Michigan State (home). Given the ACC slate, where the repeat opponents will be Boston College, Georgia Tech, Florida State, North Carolina, Syracuse and Wake Forest, they're pretty much done in terms of power. The other home buy games will fill out November and early December, but even that comes with a wrinkle. ACC teams are scheduled to play three league games in December.\n\njoe from the south side: Tom, With the 4 Guard, 1 Big lineup that looks to be the bread and butter for this year's squad, I thought, who would be the perfect big to complement the 4 guards. My pick. Ty Nash. Unselfish, athletic, can guard the opposing big, rebounds, and averaged, AVERAGED 2.6 APG as a Point Center. In the Big East. You could use him handling the ball at the top of the key and basically empty the paint for drivers and slashers. Your thoughts?\n\nThomas Noie: There was nobody better - or more underappreciated - than my man T-Nash. He was really good. The ultimate lunch pail/dirty work guy. Never needed touches. Never demanded the ball. Just found a way to operate around the four perimeter guys. He could play/thrive in 2010-11. He could do it in 2022-23. There's a reason he's still playing professionally after all these years. He's a true pro.\n\nPaul: Are Georgia and Michigan State it for \"promising\" nonconference games? Any other rumors?\n\nThomas Noie: \"Promising?\" That's a new term for....what? Notre Dame also is playing Marquette at home and St. Bonaventure at UBS Arena on Long Island on Black Friday.\n\nJDub, Ft. Wayne: I would like your thoughts on Ryan Humphrey's departure. Last time we talked you mentioned there was little chance of staff turnover, so I would assume you are surprised by this? How much do you think it hurts recruiting in that Humphrey seemed to relate well with the recruits?\n\nThomas Noie: JDub: It was stunning to learn that Ryan Humphrey is leaving for another coaching opportunity (more on that when it's finalized). Staffs just don't turn over at this time of year. That's like having a high school team lose its head coach this week (which actually happened to a South bend school, but I digress) Hump's the definition of a Notre Dame man. He went to Notre Dame. He coached at Notre Dame. He lived Notre Dame. But there comes a time when you have to see what else is out there if you want to max out your coaching potential. It's a big loss, but only if Mike Brey doesn't add someone who will also do the job and do it well. In terms of relating to recruits, don't forget about Antoni Wyche, who played at and graduated from Notre Dame. Hump's leaving, but that staff is still pretty strong.\n\nPaul, here in the Bend: Got a few minutes to kill before golf, it's been a great season for that here! Georgia, Michigan State in the nonconference....am I missing anyone? Any rumors? I know Mike will want to have 10 wins going into ACC if possible.\n\nThomas Noie: Paul: Hope you got out early. It's already close to 90 here in the Bend. Marquette and St. Bonaventure as well in terms of non-league. Getting to 10 wins before league play starts might be a stretch in that league play will start with three Atlantic Coast Conference games in December. And don't forget, this team had only six overall wins before Jan. 1 - and last season turned out OK. 😃\n\nMatt from North Dakota: Hey Tom, I understand you probably can’t get into a ton of info but I was shocked by the timing of Coach Humphrey’s departure. Any ideas where Coach Brey looks?\n\nThomas Noie: Matt: Still relatively early - he only made his plans known Wednesday, but Mike Brey did say that he'll look beyond his circle of former Notre Dame players for the hire and won't be rushed to make a decision. It will be intriguing/interesting to see where he goes. With Humphrey, Antoni Wyche and Anthony Solomon, you had a staff of three really strong personalities. Three Alphas. Who joins that group? Can't wait to see.\n\nRobb, Colorado: Hey Tom, Surprised to see Humphrey leaving at this point. Any intel on that?\n\nThomas Noie: Robb: Stunned at the timing but not all that surprising. Stick around long enough in this profession and you realize that everybody eventually leaves - coaches, players, writers, bosses, administrators. Everybody does it.\n\nTodd: Any idea on who the other two teams are in Atlanta? I am about 2.5 hours driving time from ATL and will definitely make that trip. Also, when will the ACC game schedule come out? Got to mark my calendar for all those I can attend. Great to be a ND fan in ACC country!!!!\n\nThomas Noie: Todd: It will be Georgia Tech against an opponent TBD in the other game of the doubleheader at State Farm Arena on Dec. 18. Notre Dame will play Georgia that day, then remain in the Atlanta area to play a league game against Georgia Tech at McCamish Pavilion on Dec. 21. The Atlantic Coast Conference schedule usually comes out a week or two after Labor Day. Repeat opponents will be Boston College, Georgia Tech, Florida State, North Carolina, Syracuse and Wake Forest...start making plans!\n\nGuest: Tom, if you had to pick the best player from the Brey era… and also your favorite. Not necessarily the same guy but if it is cool.\n\nIMO I’d go Murphy as best and T Jackson as favorite\n\nThomas Noie: I'll go only the best player, and not favorite, because I can't play favorites. I just can't. Have to treat them all equally, but there was something different being able to cover guys like Ryan Humphrey, David Graves, Matt Carroll, Chris Thomas, Pat Connaughton, Tory Jackson, John Mooney, Bonzie Colson and Ben Hansbrough just to name a few. Best? That's easy. Nobody better than Troy Murphy. He was a future pro the minute he walked in the door. He was good, he was goofy, he was Murph.\n\nMatt from North Dakota: Tom, curious as to when the ACC releases the conference schedule? Late July right? Also, when is the next time the Irish can go on a foreign tour?\n\nThomas Noie: Matt: Schedule usually drops sometime after Labor Day. It gets later and later each year. Notre Dame is overdue for a foreign tour - that might be in the cards for next season. Veteran teams don't need/seek foreign tours. Gotta wait until they're young and the extra games/practices will have a pay off. No reason for these guys who are going to log heavy minutes as it is to spend any additional time on the court.\n\nJim Tal, Valley Center, CA.: Tom, who do you see having a more successful career in the pros, Atlkinson or Hubb? Also, since you've been covering ND, which former Irish player did you think would make a real impact in the NBA but wasn't able to do so?\n\nThomas Noie: Jim: Good question, but hard answer. There really might not be one. It's hard, because neither Paul Atkinson or Prentiss Hubb will play in the NBA. So then it comes down to, what are they looking for in their professional careers? How good are their situations in Europe? Do they still love the game when the game becomes the life? Atkinson has a degree from Yale and a graduate degree from Notre Dame. Is he still hungry to play? There's just so many factors. A lot of times, the love fades, and guys decide, yeah, it might be time to do something else. I can see both sticking it out, or both saying, yeah, next chapter time. It's so hard to say. How's that for a middle of the road answer?😃\n\nPortND: That size from Lubin says alot about why the urgency once Laz decided to return wasn't there to bring a big into the program. Been a long time since we've had a bouncy 6'9\" athlete on the team.\n\nThomas Noie: Port: Ven-Allen Lubin is going to play and play a lot. Right away. Watch.\n\njoe from the south side: Tom, As unexciting as ND MSU is in the ACC/Big10 challenge, could you imagine if they sent ND to Lincoln, NEB or State College? YUCK!\n\nThomas Noie: Joe: That's bottom-feeder stuff reserved for the Pittsburghs and Clemsons and Boston Colleges of the Atlantic Coast Conference. There's so many good Big Ten road trips beckoning that make so much more sense - Michigan, Minnesota, Northwestern, Wisconsin, even Purdue and Indiana become options now that the Crossroads is done. You get sent to Lincoln or State College, that's an indictment of your program. Let's hope Notre Dame never gets there.\n\nJeff from Schererville, IN: Thanks for the additional explanation. I do think the powers that be try to create evenly-matched games based on how they think teams will be ranked in the preseason while at the same time trying to alternate home and road games for teams year by year. This year I know there's a Nike event in Oregon Thanksgiving weekend that features Duke and Purdue in one bracket and Mich St and UNC in another, so they probably didn't want to schedule those teams to play each other less than a week after they might play in another event. They wouldn't match up Duke and Mich St to play in the ACC-Big Ten thing the same year they play in the Champions Classic either, and the same goes for when Ohio St plays UNC in the CBS Sports Classic. We chatheads can do better but it might be harder than it looks. The fact ND gets a marquee team even if it's a repeat I think speaks to ND's ability and watchability and overall interest level nationwide.\n\nThomas Noie: Here's an easy flix/flip - send Michigan State to Florida State and move Purdue to Notre Dame. See, it's not that hard! 😃\n\nClint from Winnipeg: Have the new basketball facilities had a positive impact on recruiting? Or is it more a case of no longer having the old facilities being a drag on recruiting?\n\nThomas Noie: Clint: Little of both. Notre Dame's a place where prospects want the full campus experience. They're as impressed with a conversation they may have with a business professor as they are with the stand-alone practice facility. So it's just a piece of the entire puzzle. But it does help. When Paul Atkinson walked into Rolfs Hall for the first time, he couldn't believe it. Like, the training table food, he could eat anytime? He could make a smoothie after a late-night workout? He was blown away. Same holds true now with Marcus Hammond. He couldn't believe how ACC teams live after four seasons at Niagara. It blew him away. Covering an ACC team, you have a tendency to take that stuff for granted, like, that's just how it is at that level. But a level or two down, they'd crawl across campus to have what Notre Dame has.\n\nJeff from Schererville, IN: I would've been ok with MSU-FSU and Purdue-ND for sure!\n\nThomas Noie: Get Jim Phillips on the phone now! Kevin Warren as well. We can fix this!😃\n\njoe from the south side: Tom, I get that Lincoln and State College are reserved for the low end squads. But, I think it's also indicative of the apathy that has set in among the 2 leagues as to genuinely trying to generate some excitement. To me, it looks like they are just going thru the motions for these matchups. Which is why I would put nothing past them since care and concern went out the window a long time ago.\n\nThomas Noie: Joe: Understood, but at the same time, it's television's fault going for the must-see matchups. The country's still fully invested in football, be it the NFL or college or the upcoming conference championship games or the impending bowl announcements. It doesn't matter what the matchups are, the casual fan isn't suddenly dropping his football fix for hoops. And from an ACC perspective, there's only so many Big Ten schools (not many) that move the meter at Duke or Carolina. So it limits matchups. That's what you get when you have TV pulling all the strings. They do just go through the motions.\n\nPaul R: Any concern about JR, Zona, Sanders leaving for more playing time after this year? Or wait and see how this season goes before we worry about 2023 roster construction\n\nThomas Noie: Paul: Given today's transfer portal world, there's always a concern (often on a daily basis) if somebody from your roster or somebody from somebody else's roster is in the portal. It's just the way of the free agency world that's college basketball. Don't like your situation? Leave. Don't want to work harder? Leave. Not saying anybody is unhappy on the current roster (it's way too early for that), but that's the game today. Get out and get somewhere else. Here's the thing, though. If this rotation remains status quo, there won't be enough minutes for Zona or Sanders or Konieczny. There just won't be. Will they want to stick it out and see if it changes next year? I think so, but you never really know. That's portal life of college basketball 2022.\n\nMatt from St. Louis: Thoughts on scheduling the Georgia game? Feels a bit like the Crossroads Classic in that it is a \"neutral site\" game for quadrant purposes but basically a road game so I thought it was odd. As for the Big 10/ACC challenge, I'm sure Purdue wouldn't mind your quick fix either considering they played Florida State last year!\n\nThomas Noie: Matt: Like it, especially since there's no more slog of a drive (usually in dicey weather) down 31 to watch Notre Dame play what essentially was a road game in a \"neutral\" site game. Don't think the clamor for Georgia basketball in downtown ATL comes close. It would be odd if it was a one-off weekend game, but Notre Dame is scheduled to play at Georgia Tech days later, so why not get a few days in a big city, play in an NBA arena, turn the page and get focused for a league game all before Christmas break? Looks good on paper. Let's see what Dec. 18 brings...😃\n\nTom from Gary: With Prentiss Hubb graduated, who do you think will be the point guard/primary ball handler for this season?\n\nThomas Noie: Tom: Great question. The ball goes into the hands of Cormac Ryan given what he did and how he played at the end of the year. Like, we really didn't know he had THAT in him. That was Ben Hansbrough-esque the way he just kind of drove that program. Like, he wasn't going to let them lose. They almost got to the Sweet 16. He'll be the main handler/facilitator, but there will be others. J.J. Starling was supposed to be that guy, but the more I watched Starling last year at La Lumiere, the more I realized he's more than just a point guard. He can play off it, move and cut and get it back, then make a decision. Marcus Hammond might be a problem in the open court. Like Prentiss Hubb, he's a lefty, but unlike P-Hubb, he's built closer to a football player. He has the physicality to get to the rim more, and be more productive. Trey Wertz is sneaky productive as a handler as well. But the ball first goes to Ryan.\n\nTaylor - Elkhart: Tom, I believe ND hosted a center from Harvard a month ago. I apologize I can’t remember his name, but do you recall? If so, chances he could join as a grad transfer?\n\nThomas Noie: Taylor: Michael Wang, who was hurt a lot at Penn and had an official at Notre Dame. It never got beyond that. Wang returned to his national team in China instead of doing the grad transfer stuff. Might work out better in the end for Notre Dame. Wang comes to Notre Dame, he would've needed heavy minutes, maybe at the expense of Ven-Allen Lubin.\n\nTom from South Bend: I thought Humphrey was headed to Long Island, but they just announced Rod Strickland as their new coach.\n\nThomas Noie: Good one. No.😃\n\nMike in Wisconsin: Five-man recruiting classes are common in college basketball and other coaches manage them fine. Given how you and others who watch these guys in practice have evaluated the returning reserve players, combined with the loss of Laszewski, Goodwin, Ryan, Wertz, and Hammond, it would seem foolish to arbitrarily place a limit of two on the next recruiting class.\n\nThomas Noie: Mike: Ah yes, the proverbial \"other coaches.\" Yep, because it works with program A, B and C it should work for Notre Dame. Sure. Arbitrarily? Does a conversation with the head coach who outlined how he views what the 2023 recruiting class count? Or does that fall into the other coaches category? Asking for a foolish friend. 😕\n\nMike from Mount Holly: In my opinion, one of the many traits about that great 2015 team was its ability to put 2 super-quick athletes (Demetrius Jackson and Jerian Grant) at the top of their 2-3 zone. It was a difference maker! It looks like we may be able to approach that level with this year's roster, too...though it sure would be nice to have a Zach Auguste-type waiting in the paint to erase anything that got through... :)\n\nThomas Noie: Mike: Can we get Pat Connaughton back for another year too? Steve Vasturia? A lot of that was Jerian Grant, who was an All-American, kind of just orchestrating everything. Have ZA in the back line was good as well, so was being able to call on a relatively unknown freshman named Bonzie Colson. Still the gold standard team in program history. And yeah, that includes 1978. Sorry Digger.\n\np.rose: I think Wertz has the potential to shine this year. He got into his own head too much last year, but had some pretty great assists and was reliable as a ball handler. I'm predicting he'll surprise fans with his productivity.\n\nThomas Noie: That would be huge. If Blake Wesley had come back, Trey Wertz likely wouldn't have. But now along comes Marcus Hammond. Wertz's body language often isn't the best. He showed flashes, but too often drifted. Like, he was just kind of there. Did hit a big shot in San Diego. Now build off it.\n\njoe from the south side: Tom, I'll take Pat C. off of that team any day. Heart of a lion, didn't know what \"quit\" meant, freak of an athlete, ice in his veins, etc, etc. etc.....What always amazed me about him is he was this skinny white boy, who kind of looked like he just woke up in time for the game, and at the end of the game 15-16 points, hit big shots and 8 or 9 rebounds against Duke or NC's front court. That guy was a coach's dream.\n\nThomas Noie: Joe: The best. Leader. Senior. Captain. Doubt him and he'd make you regret it.\n\nPortND: Crystal ball time, this ND team a sweet 16 unit?\n\nThomas Noie: In June...why not? Let's go.😃\n\nMike from Mount Holly: I remember watching that Kentucky tourney game and thinking to myself (at the end) \"That's as close as we're ever going to get to going all the way. ND just doesn't get a team like THAT\". How much fun would it be if this year's team, with the remaining members of that top-15 freshman class and the influx of new blood, could make a run like that?? I get goose bumps just thinking about it.......\n\nThomas Noie: Still the best team I've covered, and not even close. Remember thinking, holy cow, they're going to the Final Four. And if they had, they would've won the national championship. Easy to say now, but you could sense it with that team. You could see it. Even today, it's hard for Irish fans to look back at how that season ended. But I often look back on it and remember what it was like in Greensboro that weekend, then the weekend in Pittsburgh, then Cleveland, and the ride home the next day. As a beat guy, all you ask for is a good ride of a season. That one was better than any. Ever.\n\nMike in Wisconsin: Sure, sure Tom. At no point did I say that everything that works at other programs will work at ND, so you can dispense with that strawman. Why precisely again would a four or five-man class put the roster outside an optimal level of scholarship players? Am I correct that your previously stated position was that you have too many players competing for minutes? Was that sarcasm?\n\nThomas Noie: Mike: Read more, post less. Have a great day.\n\njoe from the south side: Tom, If I am not mistaken, Pat C. was one of Mike Crotty's guys. Can you speak to Crotty's relationship with Brey, and if I am not mistaken, one or two of the guys Brey is currently recruiting, also play for Middlesex Magic. I think Dom C came from there as well. Can you expand on that?\n\nThomas Noie: Joe: Michael Crotty is the head coach of the Middlesex magic AAU program in Massachusetts. He coached Pat Connaughton. He coached Cormac Ryan. He coached Dom Campbell. He's as good as they come. Just gets it. Has been around the game his whole life. Doesn't so much coach kids in the game of basketball as he does the game of life. Gets them to see the bigger picture, not just what happens in the gym. Anytime Notre Dame gets a Middlesex Magic kid, and I get a chance to talk hoops with Michael Crotty is a good day.\n\nMike in Wisconsin: I mean, how could anyone question Brey's roster management, particularly over recent history? Certainly no keen-eyed beat reporters ever broached that subject...\n\nThomas Noie: If you know, you know...if you don't, well you're Mike from Wisconsin. Read closer. Post less. It really does work.\n\nDan - Chicago: I had in my mind that Hammond would be the 5th starter, but from this chat I am sensing that spot might go to Lubin. It is close?\n\nThomas Noie: Dan: Absolutely, It's not even June - not for another 10 hours. That starting lineup isn't in pen. It all depends on what the staff feels is the best way to move forward. Do they want to play two bigs? Ven-Allen Lubin starts. Do they want to go four around one? If that's the case, maybe Trey Wertz gets the first chance at a starting job. Then Marcus Hammond. Or vice versa. Marcus Hammond is going to play. A lot. Grad transfers usually aren't part-time guys. I'm anxious to see them in person and see who can do what, who can bring what. It's going to be interesting.\n\nJohn from Naperville: With Ryan, Goodwin, Wertz, Hammond and potentially Starling leaving after this year, where does this put the backcourt starting in 2023. Ryan will technically have another year. Will Wertz? The staff doesn't seem to be actively targeting guards outside Burton and Jackson. Grad Transfers? What am I missing?\n\nThomas Noie: John: Cormac Ryan technically has another year, one that he probably (likely) won't use. Trey Wertz has only this season remaining. As mentioned earlier (and apparently ignored by upper midwest readers), Mike Brey may only go two deep in the 2023 recruiting class (Xavier Booker, T.J. Power) and use the remaining grants for a guard (Markus Burton) and then grad transfers/traditional transfers and see what they can get out of the returning guys.\n\nMatt from St. Louis: 2024 Big 10/ACC matchup of ND vs UCLA??\n\nThomas Noie: Matt: Post of the day. Well played. We should just shut it down right now, but we press on. That was awesome! And yes, please, sign us up for Notre Dame and UCLA in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge. Every. Single. Year.👍\n\nJim Tal, Valley Center, CA.: Damn, Tom Noie the marathon man. Just got in from a lengthy power walk to find that you're still at it. I mean talk about logging some heavy minutes! Ok, I'm still game. If ND is to have another rewarding and redeeming season like the past one, what are the absolute keys that must happen? Can you pick out three or four critical elements that definitely need to take place?\n\nThomas Noie: Jim: I've moved from the home office to the patio with the sun beating down on an 89-degree day, but we're not stopping now. Three keys (1) The Big Three (Goodwin, Laszewski, Ryan) max out their college careers with career best years. (2) J.J. Starling is as good as advertised and plays in a way that allows everyone to forget (just a little bit) about Blake Wesley (3) Notre Dame continues its Road Dawg mentality in ACC play and picks off six or seven league wins away from Purcell Pavilion. Bonus - Marcus Hammond or Ven-Allen Lubin have a wow type of Blake Wesley season.\n\nBob from chicago: Ok Tom. I get where we might be tough to guard, but teams with bigs like Illinois and Purdue were impossible for us to stop and defensive rebounding is a huge problem. The trade three for two is not a winning proposition against good teams.\n\nThomas Noie: Bob: True, but if I had a dime for every season where defensive rebounding/bench depth was an issue, I'd be the Notre Dame men's basketball beat writer. Oh, wait....This is a different type of team with guys who can get to the basket and also finish. It's not chuck it from deep and trade twos for those threes. Marcus Hammond, drive and kick. J.J. Starling, drive and kick. Cormac Ryan, drive and kick. All three will finish better than Prentiss Hubb. Let's see how it plays out.\n\nJeff from Schererville, IN: Haha I think Kevin Warren might be busy today planning for a future USC or UCLA at Notre Dame ACC-Big Ten Challenge matchup.\n\nThomas Noie: Stunning.\\\n\nTodd: Or what about a ND-USC football/basketball doubleheader in Los Angeles over Thanksgiving Break?????\n\nThomas Noie: Where do I sign up? Can't make those reservations quick enough.\n\nJim Tal, Valley Center, CA.: Tom, really enjoying this extended ride. One more from me. I've always wondered if it's really in Brey to bring the hammer down on a player if, for whatever reason, he deserves it. I mean, can the loosest and one of the most personable coaches in America really crack the whip if necessary? It's just near impossible for me to envision Brey playing the bad cop role. I would have loved to have played for a guy like him, but can you give me any insight into moments where he has really gotten after some guys? I know he must have done it but it's really hard for me to envision that side of him. Have you seen any examples of him being really hardnosed?\n\nThomas Noie: Jim: Yeah, don't get sucked into the whole Loosest Coach in America narrative with him. It makes for a nice national storyline, but Mike Brey can be the bad cop when needed. He needed to three times last season - after the Boston College game, after the great escape at Howard and heading into the NCAA tournament after the disappearing act against Virginia Tech. He basically threw everyone out of practice in the days leading to the Kentucky game. He told them after Howard that they all could up and transfer if they wanted. Ditto for after the ACCT. Don't let the looseness fool you. When Mike Brey wants to light somebody up, they're getting lit up. He just does it away from the cameras. But it definitely happens, a lot more often than anyone would ever imagine.\n\nJake: Do you think that having a better collection of guards more adept at getting to the rim will push the PPG average closer to or near 80 for the season? My thinking was that we should average more free throws (unless we get treated like football isn't fully in the ACC haha), along with presumably having 4 established collegiate scorers starting around a 5-star. Feel like maybe 80 or a number in the high 70's points could be like the 10 3-pointers stat from last year. I know that ND isn't known for their blazing tempo, but maybe the efficiency from 2-point range could bring the PPG up a bit. Also maybe scoring more than 43 against Duke could be helpful.\n\nThomas Noie: Jake: Good stuff. Notre Dame averaged 72.8 ppg last season, and the core of the returners all are a year older and a year wiser. So they should be better. The next guys are as skilled/talented as Blake Wesley. Think they can find eight more points a game. Maybe if they play a heavy dose of four around one, they play quicker. But you're right, they'll always be treated as the step-child of the ACC. No calls for you! Kidding (not kidding)\n\nWadelite from Long Beach: Tom, realized you addressed this already: but it seems you are saying that Carmody might be enough of a factor for spot minutes in a 4 around one offense that Brey may pitch the Abromaitis sophomore redshirt to JR. Also, why I can see Zona being some what effective versus mid major teams he will be eaten up versus major conference big men. Brey will then go down to 7 guys or throw some occasional crumbs to Carmody or Sanders or JR if he is active. A not ready for prime time big man is much more exposed than a wing bench guy.\n\nThomas Noie: Wade: It's going to be really, really difficult for Robby Carmody to get his health in a position where he can play. And even then, he's so far removed from everything. Those eight are going to be those eight, unless somebody comes from nowhere and claims a spot. A lot of what Notre Dame looked like last year, it will look like this year. Subtract Atkinson and Hubb and add Starling, Lubin and Hammond.\n\nMike in Pittsburgh: Tom - This is Mike from Pittsburgh, not to be confused with Mike from Wisconsin. Where would you slate ND in the hierarchy of the ACC this year. Clearly think Carolina is #1. Duke will be up there because they are well, Duke. But I think this ND team can be every bit as competitive for a 3/4 spot as anyone else. Louisville will be down, not all that excited about Syracuse. UVA maybe? Who am I missing?\n\nThomas Noie: Oh, yeah, North Carolina is the clear-cut favorite. Duke will be No. 2 because it's Duke. Miami will be good. Virginia Tech will be good. Virginia will be penciled into one of the top five spots because it's Virginia. Florida State will get the benefit of the doubt that last year was an outlier. I'd say Notre Dame would be slotted in a 6-7-8 spot, which is fine.\n\nThomas Noie: Think that will do it for today. We passed the six-hour mark with relative ease. Solid effort. We'll try and sneak one more chat in before that certain sport on campus gets going in early August. Stay tuned to Twitter (@tnoieNDI) for exact date and time later in July. Thanks to all who participated. Have a great holiday weekend!\n\nFollow South Bend Tribune and NDInsider columnist Tom Noie on Twitter: @tnoieNDI. Contact: (574) 235-6153.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/06/30"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/asu/2016/12/17/asu-rose-bowl-teams-celebrate-major-anniversaries/95157066/", "title": "ASU Rose Bowl teams celebrate major anniversaries", "text": "The Arizona State Rose Bowl teams are like starships linked with some sort of time-bending tractor beam that binds them together in a never-ending journey.\n\nWhen one celebrates an anniversary so does the other. It's been that way since 1996 when the Sun Devils went undefeated in the regular season, advancing to ASU Rose Bowl II against Ohio State, coached by John Cooper. That came 10 years after Rose Bowl I, when Cooper coached the Sun Devils to a win over Michigan. The connection only deepens with each five- and 10-year increment, especially since Rose Bowl III remains elusive 20 years after what fans believed would become a more frequent occurrence.\n\nMemories of the 1996 team are in sharper focus because they are more recent and because ASU came so close – 100 seconds – to a national championship. It's easier to forget how good the Sun Devils were in 1986. \"We were the best team in the country that year,\" Cooper flatly says. \"If we had a playoff back then, we'd at least have played for it. I still thought we were the best team even though we lost after we had the Rose Bowl cinched. That's what killed us.\"\n\nActually ASU fell two spots to No. 7 in the Associated Press poll after losing 34-17 in the 60th Territorial Cup and almost certainly would not have been in a 1986 final four playoff. That instead would have paired Miami against Michigan and Penn State vs. Oklahoma. But what Cooper wouldn't have given for a shot at Penn State after watching in person at Sun Devil Stadium, on the night following ASU's 22-15 Rose Bowl win, as the No. 2 Nittany Lions intercepted Heisman Trophy winner Vinny Testaverde five times in a 14-10 upset of No. 1 Miami.\n\nImagine how different ASU football would be perceived as a two-time (or three if you believe the undefeated 1975 team was robbed) national champion instead of finishing No. 4 in 1986 and '96 final AP polls.\n\n\"It didn't end up with a victory and a national championship, but it ended up in what I truly believe to be one of the greatest college football games I've ever watched but I actually was playing in,\" quarterback Jake Plummer says of the 20-17 loss to Ohio State in Rose Bowl II. \"Sad we didn't win it, but it ain't dampening our spirits right now.\"\n\nThe 1996 team's 20-year reunion was in September, a more informal get together than the 1986 team's 30-year celebration that was the center piece of Homecoming in October. In another decade, the '96 team will get its full Legends Luncheon treatment during Homecoming as the balancing act between the two continues.\n\n\"I know a lot of guys from that (1986) squad and have come to realize they were rooting their butts off for us to do well,\" Plummer says. \"What we did was special, but it still wasn't what they did. Van Rapper (quarterback Jeff Van Raaphorst) won the Rose Bowl. We lost. Maybe some day we'll combine (for a reunion) because having that many great Sun Devils together could be a pretty awesome experience.\"\n\nMORE: Reliving 1997 Rose Bowl: Ohio State 20, ASU 17\n\nRELATED: Reliving 1987 Rose Bowl: ASU 22, Michigan 15\n\nThe coaches\n\nTime passage has been crueler on the younger of the Rose Bowl teams.\n\nNot only did linebacker Pat Tillman die fighting in Afghanistan in 2004 but five years later to the month coach Bruce Snyder died of cancer at age 69. So while Cooper, 79, returned in good health this fall for induction into the ASU Athletic Hall of Fame, Snyder's absence leaves a void for his 1996 players.\n\n\"He always talked about there's going to be ups and downs, not only in the game of football but in life,\" running back Terry Battle says. \"It was the people who could play right through it or never get too high or low that were going to be successful. Because you know what it takes to kind of weather the storm and put yourself in a better situation as a man in your community and with those around you, trying to uplift them.\"\n\nThe intellectually inquisitive Snyder – remember his trip to Libya in 2006 to view a total solar eclipse? – would take more pride in a life message being remembered than in any scoreboard result. Even after the Rose Bowl loss, secured when Ohio State quarterback Joe Germaine of Mesa threw for the winning touchdown with 19 seconds left, Snyder reassured his wife there was no need to put him on suicide watch.\n\n\"I just coached a team for 12 games that did everything I could possibly ask them to do,\" Snyder said in 2006. \"How wonderful is that. Not many coaches in the world have that. To be angry didn't seem as legitimate to me as being proud to be around such a great group.\"\n\nThere is some Jean-Luc Picard in Snyder, to expand the starship analogy to its captains, but Cooper is less James Kirk and more Andy Taylor, the aw-shucks sheriff of Mayberry who is much savvier than he lets on.\n\n\"It may look like at times he was kind of separated, but he really wasn't,\" says Larry Marmie, 1986 defensive coordinator. \"John Cooper knew exactly what he was doing. He always had a pulse on his football team and he let his coaches coach. He'd say, are we putting it in or are we working it in? We can tell them to do a lot of things, but that ain't good enough. Did we work it in?\"\n\nLike at his other coaching stops, Cooper retained some coaches from the previous staff for continuity. At ASU, it was quarterbacks coach Mike Martz, offensive line coach Tom Freeman and recruiting coordinator Don Bocchi (hired days before head coach Darryl Rogers left for the Detroit Lions).\n\nBocchi still is at ASU as senior associate athletic director. \"John had an outstanding way of administering the program,\" he said. \"It was a different style, but he did everything to make sure we were in order at practice, in order at games, handled the alumni and the administration so the coaches coached.\"\n\nMartz said he \"changed who I was as a coach\" from working with Cooper and emulated him when he became a head coach with the NFL St. Louis Rams. \"He put the players' face to the fire and wouldn't back off,\" Martz said. \"He demanded attention to detail. There wasn't any other way we could have got that done because it was a group of a lot of big personalities. Left alone or without discipline, we would have never accomplished what we did.\"\n\nIf they met\n\nIt's not coincidence that two of the three consensus All-Americas on ASU's Rose Bowl teams were offensive linemen – Danny Villa (1986) and Juan Roque (1996). Or that the other was a defensive lineman – Derrick Rodgers (1996).\n\nBoth teams were built for offensive balance – each almost evenly split between rushing and passing yards – and to stop the run. Opponents averaged just 13.9 points/112 yards rushing in 1986 and 18.0/100.9 in '96.\n\n\"It was nice the coaches would leave it to us saying we're going to run the ball, it starts up front with you guys,\" said Randall McDaniel, now widely considered to be ASU's greatest offensive lineman given his college and pro football hall of fame status. Like all the offensive line starters in 1986, McDaniel was from Arizona, the famed Home Boys. \"We knew we could throw it at any time, but we had the horses in the backfield that could get the job done. We knew if we just gave them a little gap or that first three yards, they would take it the rest of the way.\"\n\nCooper and offensive coordinator Jim Colletto knew that they didn't need 500-yard passing games from Van Raaphorst to win, something that the quarterback and QB coach Martz came to accept.\n\n\"It was hard for me because I knew how talented we were on the perimeter,\" said Martz, who would become architect of the Rams' Greatest Show on Turf offense. \"What Jim understood was we were really good on defense and why take those kind of risks when we're going to win by playing percentage football. It was hard for Jeff because we had led the Pac-10 in every offensive category the year before John got here. We had to dial it all back, but by doing that you become a team instead of just an independent contractor.\"\n\nEach team had a 1,000-yard rusher – Darryl Harris (1,042) in 1986, Battle (1,077) in '96 – among a stable of backs. \"We had a lot of great backs,\" said Battle, who shared carries with Michael Martin and J.R. Redmond among others. \"We understood that it didn't matter who was going to be the starter. It really meant when your number was called what were you going to bring to the table for the team. As long as we got wins, that's what we really focused on.\"\n\nOn defense, the 1986 team was two-deep across its four-man front and like the '96 team stocked with future NFL defensive linemen. By the time all the talent off the Rose Bowl trees had been plucked, ASU's all-time NFL list was some 30 players longer, including all of the starting Home Boys and eventual Pro Bowlers McDaniel, Eric Allen, Dan Saleaumua and Plummer.\n\nIt's an entertaining fantasy exercise to imagine how a game between Rose Bowl I and Rose Bowl II ASU teams would turn out. The 1996 team was higher scoring (40.7 ppg to 31.6), but there's every reason to believe the '86 defense would limit Plummer and company like it did Jim Harbaugh-led Michigan. And in a lower-scoring game, it's hard to go against the 1986 team because of its power ability.\n\nJon Dokter of Tucson developed his Entropy System that measure \"dominance relative to the competition, physicality, and rules of a given year.\" In his list of the 222 most dominant teams since 1945 at the fittingly named timetravelsports.com, Dokter puts ASU's 1986 team at No. 150 and the '96 team at No. 192.\n\nIn a performance formula created by Bob Boyles of Phoenix and Paul Guido for their College Football Encyclopedia, the 1996 ASU team comes out second highest in school history behind the 1970 team with the '86 team rated sixth best.\n\n\"It's just different styles,\" said an admittedly biased Van Raaphorst, ASU's long-time football radio analyst. \"We were a play action, power run team. Who knows with Jake (Plummer) running around. He is certainly the wild card. We used to get yelled at when we got out of the pocket. Where we would have an advantage is in overall quality depth. Our 4-5-6 (players) were better than their 4-5-6. Going through it position by position, I think we would have beat them.\"\n\nPublic perception probably favors the '96 team in no small part because Plummer, Tillman and tight end Steve Bush went on to play for the Arizona Cardinals. \"Their personalities were bigger than ours,\" Van Raaphorst said.\n\nBeacon of hope\n\nIn case you missed it, ASU is not playing in the Rose Bowl this season. Or any bowl for the first time in six years.\n\nAfter a 10- to 11-year cycle of football highs – 1975 (12-0, WAC/Fiesta Bowl champion), 1986 (10-1-1, Pac-10/Rose Bowl champion), 1996 (11-1, Pac-10 champion/Rose Bowl), 2007 (10-3/Pac-10 co-champion/Holiday Bowl) – 2016 was a clunker, ending with six consecutive losses and a 5-7 record.\n\nBut it's worth remembering that two years before Rose Bowl I, ASU was 5-6 and still feeling some effects from NCAA sanctions imposed for violations at the end of Frank Kush coaching era. And that from 1993-95, the Sun Devils were a combined 15-18 and did not play in a bowl game, extending their postseason absence to eight years.\n\nSo no matter how much of a hangover remains for fans from the Territorial Cup, remember that a 16-13 loss to Arizona in 1985, keeping ASU out of the Rose Bowl, was the seed for the Sun Devils the next season becoming the first Pac-10 team to win at UCLA and USC and return for a Southern California hat trick in Pasadena. \"The way we lost that (1985) game really had an effect on us the next year because we should have won,\" Marmie said. \"We could have been back-to-back (champions). As we get older, you realize those things more, but I realize more too how special those guys were. Sometimes we get a gift, but we really don't open it until 20 (or 30) years later. You see that in those guys today when they come back.\"\n\nSnyder won 13 fewer games than current ASU coach Todd Graham in his first four seasons (1992-95). The patience and steady build paid off with 20 wins over the next two including the stunning 19-0 shutout of two-time defending national champion Nebraska on the way to the Rose Bowl. Snyder's nine-year coaching run still is the second longest in school history.\n\n\"What culminated after three tough years in '96 was magical,\" Plummer said. \"Bruce Snyder told me as an 18-year-old in my house in Boise, if you come to ASU, we'll win the national championship. I didn't hear that from any other coach. It almost came to fruition with a lot of guys that poured their heart and soul into this and really loved and cared about each other. That emanated down from our head coach. We loved each other. We still do.\"\n\nGraham encourages players from the Rose Bowl teams to speak to the current Sun Devils whenever possible. Most welcome the opportunity, especially during the players' only Rock Walk on the night before home games, to encourage them to boldly go where only two ASU teams have gone before.\n\nReach Metcalfe at 602-444-8053 orjeff.metcalfe@arizonarepublic.com. Follow him at twitter.com/jeffmetcalfe.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2016/12/17"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/hoosier-insider/2014/01/18/rob-judson-indiana-basketball/4634723/", "title": "Indiana names Judson new director of operations", "text": "Zach Osterman\n\nzach.osterman@indystar.com\n\nBLOOMINGTON Indiana has named Rob Judson its new director of basketball operations.\n\nJudson most recently served as an assistant at Illinois State. He played at Illinois and served as head coach at Northern Illinois from 2001-07.\n\nHis biography on Illinois State's website credits Judson \"as a master recruiter and a detailed teacher\" with nearly two decades of experience in college basketball.\n\nJudson played for four years at Illinois, from 1977-80 under former Illini coach Lou Henson.\n\nHe coached as an assistant at Bradley, where he was part of the Braves' 1996 Missouri Valley Conference title team. From 1996-2001, he served as an assistant at his alma mater, before taking the head coaching position at Northern Illinois. Over six seasons in charge DeKalb, Ill., Judson compiled a 74-101 record.\n\nAccording to his Illinois State biography: \"\n\n\"During his 16 years as a NCAA Division I assistant coach, including last season at Illinois State, the teams he has coached have compiled a 258-148 record and a .635 winning percentage.\"\n\nHe replaces Calbert Cheaney, who left this past offseason for an assistant coaching position at Saint Louis.\n\nAs IU's director of operations, Judson will not be allowed to recruit off campus or participate actively in practice. He will be permitted to offer guidance to players who seek it, and he can be a part of Indiana's on-campus recruiting efforts. Cheaney often served as an informal guide when prospects visited Bloomington.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2014/01/18"}]}
{"question_id": "20230317_7", "search_time": "2023/05/25/17:55", "search_result": [{"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/26/business/china-travel-covid-quarantine/index.html", "title": "China will end Covid restrictions and quarantining for international ...", "text": "New York CNN —\n\nChina will drop quarantine requirements for international arrivals from January 8, in a major step toward reopening its borders that have shut the country from the rest of the world for nearly three years.\n\nInbound travelers will only be required to show a negative Covid test result obtained within 48 hours before departure, China’s National Health Commission (NHC) said in an announcement late on Monday. Currently, they are subject to five days of hotel quarantine and three days of self-isolation at home.\n\nRestrictions on airlines over the number of international flights and passenger capacity will also be removed, according to the announcement.\n\nThe easing of borders is part of a broader move by China to dismantles what was left of its long-held zero-Covid policy, which was abruptly abandoned early this month following nationwide protests over its heavy social and economic toll.\n\nThe sudden policy U-turn caught the public and the country’s fragile health system unprepared, causing widespread shortages of cold and fever medicine and leaving hospitals scrambling to cope with an unprecedented surge of infections.\n\nHaving rolled back lockdowns, mass testing and allowed positive patients to quarantine at home, the government is now scrapping other remaining preventive measures, including contact tracing.\n\nChina has sealed its borders since March 2020 to prevent the spread of the virus, keeping itself in global isolation even as the rest of the world reopened and moved on from the pandemic.\n\nForeigners have been largely banned from entering China, apart from a limited number of business or family visits. The NHC said it will further “optimize” arrangements for foreigners to visit China for work, business, study or family reasons and “provide convenience” for their visa applications.\n\nThe scrapping of travel restrictions is also a big relief for Chinese nationals studying or working abroad. Those who could not afford the soaring prices of flight tickets, lengthy hotel quarantines or onerous testing requirements have not been able to go home for three years.\n\nAuthorities also vowed to resume outbound tourism for Chinese citizens in an orderly manner, depending on the international Covid situation and the capacity of various domestic services – although it offered no time line or details on implementation.\n\nOn Chinese social media, many celebrated the long-awaited relaxation on international travel. Ctrip, a travel booking site in China, said searches for popular overseas tourist destinations on the platform jumped 10 times within an hour of the announcement of the new policy.\n\nOthers lamented the suffering, loss and missed opportunities over the past years.\n\n“How many people who used to straddle the borders, from overseas students to workers making a living in Africa, had to change their life plans? How many families had been separated and barred from seeing their loved ones for one last time? How many three years do we have in our lives? These three years have changed us forever,” a Chinese journalist wrote on microblogging site Weibo.\n\nChina’s top health authority made the sweeping announcement Monday as an action plan for the downgrading of its management of Covid.\n\nSince 2020, China has classified Covid as a Category B infectious disease but treated it as a Category A disease, putting it on par with bubonic plague or cholera and empowering local authorities to impose lockdowns and other restrictions. Now, it will be treated as a Category B disease, in the same category as HIV and bird flu.\n\nThe commission also changed the official Chinese name of Covid from “novel coronavirus pneumonia” to “novel coronavirus infection,” an amendment it said is “more in line with the current characteristics and danger level of this disease.”\n\n“The less-deadly Omicron variant has become the dominant strain of SARS-Cov-2, and only a very small number of cases developed to pneumonia,” NHC said in the statement.\n\nChina’s top leaders have signaled recently that they would shift focus back to growth next year and have bet on the relaxation of pandemic restrictions to lift the economy.\n\nChina’s current focus is to prepare sufficient medical resources, according to the NHC statement. Big and middle size cities need to quickly transform their “Fangcang”, makeshift centralized Covid quarantine facilities, into designated hospitals with enough health workers staffed, NHC added.\n\nNHC also didn’t completely rule out the possibility for temporary and local restriction measures going forward.\n\n“As we manage the outbreaks, we should pay special attention to real-time global assessment of the outbreak’s intensity – pressure on the health system and general situation of the society – and take appropriate lawful measures to limit people’s group activities and movement in a flexible way to flatten the curve,” it said in the statement, adding that lockdowns might be re-imposed at nursing homes if the outbreak is severe.\n\n– CNN’s Selina Wang and Laura He contributed to this report", "authors": ["Yong Xiong Xiaofei Xu Nectar Gan", "Yong Xiong", "Xiaofei Xu", "Nectar Gan"], "publish_date": "2022/12/26"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/07/china/china-covid-restrictions-explainer-intl-hnk/index.html", "title": "China eases some of its Covid restrictions, in significant step toward ...", "text": "CNN —\n\nChina announced sweeping changes to its national pandemic response on Wednesday, the clearest and most significant sign yet that the central government is moving away from its strict zero-Covid approach that prompted protests across the country.\n\nIn a statement reported by state broadcaster CCTV, China’s State Council unveiled 10 new guidelines that loosen some restrictions – most notably, allowing home quarantine and largely scrapping the health QR code that has been mandatory for entering most public places.\n\nLocal governments had already taken steps this week that indicated a possible change in direction – including some major cities loosening requirements on Covid testing.\n\nBut this is the first official change in Covid policy on a national level – a notable turnaround by Beijing, which for the past three years has insisted that unwavering restrictions are the only effective way to stamp out the highly transmissible virus.\n\nHere are some of the biggest changes.\n\nQR codes scrapped\n\nPeople shopping at a supermarket in Urumqi, China, on December 5. CNS/AFP/Getty Images\n\nSince early in the pandemic, China has used health codes on mobile phones to track individuals’ health statuses. The color of these codes – in red, amber or green – decides whether users can leave their homes, use public transport and enter public places, or potentially need to quarantine.\n\nUnder the guidelines released Wednesday, people will be able to enter most places without showing a negative test result or their health code – a significant step after nearly three years of disruption to people’s daily routines and livelihoods.\n\nOnly a few exceptions will still require these checks, including nursing homes, medical institutions and secondary schools. Businesses can now determine their own prevention and control policies, the report added.\n\nHome quarantine allowed\n\nIn another massive change, asymptomatic Covid patients or those with mild symptoms will be allowed to quarantine at home instead of being taken to a government facility, unless they choose otherwise.\n\nPatients whose condition deteriorates will be transferred to hospital for treatment, the report said. Close contacts can also quarantine at home.\n\nThroughout the pandemic, Chinese residents have described the chaos and stress of going into quarantine camps, many saying it was unclear when they would be allowed to leave, and others complaining of crowded or poor conditions.\n\nIn several cases, health workers reportedly killed the pets of those taken to government quarantine, citing health risks – triggering outrage on Chinese social media each time. Others criticized the policy after reports earlier this year of elderly residents being forced out of their homes in the middle of the night for transport to quarantine.\n\nMan dragged out of home after allegedly refusing to go to quarantine facility 00:59 - Source: CNN\n\nLimits on lockdown\n\nThe new guidelines also urge authorities to “ensure the normal functioning of society and basic medical services,” saying areas that aren’t designated high-risk should not restrict people’s movements or close businesses.\n\nLockdowns are only allowed in “high-risk areas,” and even then, should be “promptly” lifted if no new cases are found for five consecutive days, it said. It added that authorities are forbidden from blocking fire escapes, apartment or building entrances, and other gates, so residents can still evacuate and seek medical attention if needed.\n\nThis particular guideline comes at a particularly sensitive time, with China still reeling from a wave of rare public protest in late November and early December, that had been triggered by a deadly fire in the far western Xinjiang region. Public fury had swept the nation after videos of the incident appeared to show lockdown measures had delayed firefighters from reaching the victims.\n\nDuring the protests, thousands across the country took to the streets to call for an end to lockdowns and other zero-Covid measures – with some voicing broader grievances against censorship and the ruling Communist Party’s authoritarian leadership.\n\n'Chilling': Protester tells CNN what the atmosphere is like in China 03:57 - Source: CNN\n\nVaccination plan\n\nThe State Council on Wednesday also emphasized the need to accelerate Covid vaccination among the elderly, saying all locations should be “administrating as many vaccinations as possible.”\n\nWhile the Omicron variant is milder than previous strains and China’s overall vaccination rate is high, experts say even a small number of severe cases among vulnerable and under-vaccinated groups like the elderly could overwhelm hospitals if infections spike across the country of 1.4 billion.\n\nMore than 86% of China’s population over 60 are fully vaccinated, according to China’s National Health Commission. That leaves around 25 million who have not received any shot, according to a comparison of official population figures and November 28 vaccination data. But booster rates are lower, with more than 45 million of the fully vaccinated elderly yet to receive an additional shot.\n\nFor the most at-risk over 80 age group, around two-thirds were fully vaccinated, but only 40% had received booster shots as of November 11, according to state media.\n\nDomestic travel\n\nThe rules also make domestic travel within China easier, with cross-regional travelers no longer needing to provide a negative test result or their health code – or test upon arrival.\n\nThese former requirements, as well as other travel restrictions such as provincial border closures and provincial train and bus suspensions, have made domestic travel difficult over the last few years.\n\nFor the many in China who left their hometowns to find work in other cities and provinces, that meant being separated from family for long stretches – or being stranded far from home without an income during snap lockdowns.\n\nResidents line up for Covid tests in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China on December 1. CFOTO/Future Publishing/Getty Images\n\nIn recent days, some social media users have pointed out that Lunar New Year is just a month away – the country’s biggest annual holiday, a time when people typically travel home to gather with family, akin to the American Thanksgiving.\n\nFor some, the prospect of mass nationwide travel has raised concern of the virus spreading once more. Others, long fatigued with the toll of zero-Covid, greeted the news with relief.\n\n“I haven’t been home for Chinese New Year for two years now, I’m crying,” one person said on Weibo. Another wrote: “It’s been a long time. Welcome home.”\n\nMedicine, schools, and monitoring\n\nA few other guidelines are also likely to ease the transition away from zero-Covid toward a less disruptive model.\n\nFor instance, schools without Covid outbreaks are now asked to carry out “normal offline teaching activities,” and to reopen on-campus facilities such as cafeterias, libraries and sports venues. Schools with Covid cases can continue “normal teaching and living,” as long as they designate certain “risk areas” with control measures.\n\nThe guidelines also emphasize the need to make medicine widely accessible, dropping restrictions that previously made it difficult to buy cold and fever medication in pharmacies. Since early in the pandemic, China has required a prescription and negative Covid test to buy these.\n\nPerhaps reflecting public concern that the relaxation in rules could cause a surge in cases, residents have rushed to drug stores, with reports last week that cold and fever medicines were flying off shelves.\n\nThe State Council also urged doctors and local medical institutions to continue closely monitoring the health situation of key populations, including the risks posed to elderly or immunocompromised residents.\n\nSome experts have warned that a broader reopening inevitably brings health risks, especially to those vulnerable groups.\n\n“The key risk when countries decide to move away from a zero-Covid policy is really the strain this will exert on the health care system,” said Ruklanthi de Alwis, deputy director for the Centre for Outbreak Preparedness at the Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore.", "authors": ["Jessie Yeung"], "publish_date": "2022/12/07"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/23/china/hong-kong-removes-quarantine-international-travel-intl-hnk/index.html", "title": "Hong Kong removes international travel quarantine after more than ...", "text": "Hong Kong CNN —\n\nThe Hong Kong government has announced the ending of formal quarantine for international travelers after more than two and a half years of stringent pandemic controls.\n\nUnder new rules that will take effect from September 26, incoming travelers will be required to undergo three days of self-monitoring on arrival.\n\nThe Hong Kong government has faced considerable pressure from its business community and some public health officials to loosen restrictions amid a faltering economy, an outflow of foreigners and concerns that the financial hub, once known as “Asia’s World City,” was being left behind as the rest of the world moved on from the pandemic.\n\nBaby with Covid separated from family and quarantined alone in Hong Kong 03:41 - Source: CNN\n\nHong Kong’s Chief Executive John Lee said in a much anticipated press conference on Friday that the city’s infection numbers have stabilized, allowing for the removal of quarantine.\n\n“We hope to give the maximum room to reconnect Hong Kong, and to revitalize our economy,” Lee said.\n\nIncoming travelers will be able to do their three days of self-monitoring at home or a place of their own choice. During this time they will be able to go outside but will be restricted from some places.\n\nArrivals will no longer need to provide a negative PCR test before boarding a plane. However, they will need to provide a negative rapid antigen test (RAT) 24 hours before they board.\n\nDuring the three-day monitoring period, people will be assigned an amber color under the city’s digital health code, which will prevent them from entering places such as bars or restaurants.\n\nThey will need to do PCR tests on days 2, 4 and 6 after arrival, and an RAT test every day for seven days after arrival.\n\nThe policy shift came after Japan announced that it will re-open its borders from October 11 and after Taiwan said it aims to scrap its mandatory quarantine on October 13 if the island has passed the peak of its latest Omicron BA-5 outbreak.\n\nQuestions about when the city would loosen restrictions have grown more pointed as two major international events, the Hong Kong Sevens rugby tournament and a global banking conference, were slated for November and seen as a way to revive the beleaguered city, which has been rocked in recent years by pro-democracy protests and an ensuing crackdown on civil liberties by Beijing.\n\nWhile various governments brought in border controls following the outbreak of the pandemic, most have since rolled back the measures, including Singapore, which typically vies with Hong Kong to attract foreign business and talent.\n\nBut unlike other global hubs, Hong Kong’s Covid-19 policies have long been seen as closely tied to mainland China, where Beijing continues to maintain a stringent zero-Covid policy and border quarantines, with no sign of easing as stamping out infection remains a top priority.\n\nCalls for the international border controls to be loosened under the leadership of Lee’s predecessor Carrie Lam, who left office June 30, were stymied by a competing demand to open quarantine-free travel to the mainland – a proposition that has yet gone unfulfilled.\n\nA public signal of Beijing’s support for Hong Kong’s new policy route came on September 20, when the deputy head of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office Huang Liuquan said the Hong Kong government had been coordinating its policies in line with its local situation and adjustments did not need to be “overinterpreted.”\n\nWhile the new policy for international arrivals in Hong Kong may not be a harbinger of imminent change in mainland policy, it is a mark of divergent situations on each side of the border.\n\nThough the city kept local cases to a minimum for the first two years of the pandemic, Hong Kong experienced an explosive outbreak of the highly infectious Omicron variant earlier this year and has not revived a zero-Covid stance since. Instead, the city has continued to clock between hundreds and thousands of daily cases. Officials records show over 1.7 million cases have been reported in the city of 7.4 million, though experts believe the real number is higher.\n\nIn mainland China, in contrast, the vast majority of the country has yet to be exposed to the virus – placing its population at a deficit when it comes to natural immunity from infection, a concern for health officials there who fear the strain of a widescale outbreak on the health care system.\n\nHong Kong’s new measures comes more than 900 days after the city first enacted border restrictions in March 2020 and nearly two years after it mandated hotel quarantine for all international arrivals in December 2020. At its longest, the quarantine period stretched to 21 days. Travelers who tested positive during quarantine were moved to designated facilities, including, at times, government-run camps.\n\nThe program became increasingly controversial among the public after Covid-19 vaccines became widely available, local case numbers rose and places with similar systems like New Zealand and Australia opened their borders.\n\nThis summer a dearth of available hotel rooms and limited flights raised public anger as travelers risked being trapped outside the city until a free room opened up if their itinerary was disrupted, for example by catching Covid-19 or having a flight rescheduled.\n\nCertain restrictions have been eased in recent months. In May non-Hong Kong residents were permitted to enter the city from overseas for the first time in more than two years, while a scheme that saw some flights with Covid-positive passengers suspended was scrapped in July.\n\nEarlier this summer, Lee’s administration reduced quarantine from one week to three days, plus an additional four days of health monitoring, during which arrivals are not allowed to go to places including bars, gyms and restaurants.\n\nHotel quarantine and pre-flight testing requirements had been seen as a remaining significant hurdle to travel into the city, though questions remain over what role the new plan will play in reviving the city’s once vibrant tourism industry.", "authors": ["Simone Mccarthy Kathleen Magramo", "Simone Mccarthy", "Kathleen Magramo"], "publish_date": "2022/09/23"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/05/asia/hong-kong-reopen-finance-summit-rugby-sevens-intl-hnk/index.html", "title": "Hong Kong says it's back open for business. Will the world buy it ...", "text": "Hong Kong CNN —\n\nAt a glitzy finance summit in Hong Kong this week, the city’s leader triumphantly told a room packed with top Wall Street executives that the Asian hub was back in business. “The worst is behind us,” he declared.\n\nTwo days later, tens of thousands of rugby fans descended on the city’s largest stadium for the Hong Kong Sevens, its biggest (and usually booziest) annual sporting event, which had been suspended since 2019 due to political unrest, and, later, Covid-19.\n\nThe two high-profile international events sent a clear message: After almost three years of border closures, mandatory quarantines, and restrictions on businesses and social gatherings, Hong Kong was finally reopening.\n\nFor much of the pandemic, the semi-autonomous Chinese city maintained some of the region’s most stringent restrictions, including one of the world’s longest mandatory quarantines for international arrivals. With the economy tanking and concerns mounting that Hong Kong was being left behind as the world moved on, the government finally threw open the city’s doors in September and ended formal quarantine to the relief of millions of people.\n\n“We were, we are and we will remain one of the world’s leading financial centers,” vowed Hong Kong leader John Lee at Wednesday’s summit, attended by more than 200 investors from 20 countries. “You can take that to the bank.”\n\nHong Kong leader John Lee during the Global Financial Leaders Investment Summit on November 2. Sebastian Ng/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images\n\nSpeaking on Friday ahead of the kickoff of the Sevens, Hong Kong Rugby Union CEO Robbie McRobbie hailed the return of the tournament as a “catalyst, watershed,” a symbol that “Hong Kong is still a vibrant, resilient city.”\n\nBut experts warn the push to revive Hong Kong, while welcome and long overdue, faces many challenges ahead.\n\nThe past few years of isolation, which coincided with an ongoing political crackdown, have taken their toll, they said. Despite what Lee and other leaders insist, the Hong Kong that’s reopening is not the same city the world knew before the pandemic – and the true impact of that change remains to be seen.\n\nPush to reopen\n\nLast year, as many destinations reopened to travelers and relaxed restrictions, Hong Kong appeared to be stuck in a different reality.\n\nRestaurants, bars and gyms were frequently forced to shutter or limit their hours. Residential buildings were placed under lockdown for days. At one point, public gatherings were capped at two people. And most residents didn’t leave the city for years, unable or unwilling to spend up to three weeks in hotel quarantine at their own cost upon return.\n\nBusinesses were hit hard. The Sevens tournament makes up 95% of the Hong Kong Rugby Union’s revenue, so “we’ve had three years of redundancies and cutbacks,” said McRobbie.\n\nMany disillusioned residents chose to leave permanently; this past year, the city recorded its steepest drop in population since records began in 1961. Companies, too, began eyeing other locations – most notably Singapore, Hong Kong’s longtime regional rival.\n\nBut Hong Kong authorities, eager to reopen the border with mainland China – which still shows no sign of easing its strict zero-Covid policy that aims to stamp out infections – remained reluctant to loosen restrictions for fear cases would spike and close that door.\n\nThen, a severe outbreak fueled by the highly contagious Omicron variant at the start of the year put an end to Hong Kong’s hope of maintaining zero daily cases.\n\nUnder mounting public pressure, the government lifted flight bans with certain countries and shortened hotel quarantine in March – but these small concessions did little to lure people back.\n\nAccording to media reports in August, some Wall Street banks warned their executives would only attend Wednesday’s finance summit if there was quarantine-free travel – a widely-speculated factor behind the government’s ultimate decision to scrap quarantine.\n\nFinance leaders in the city breathed a sigh of relief at the news.\n\n“We’ve been closed for too long,” said Sebastian Paredes, CEO of Singaporean bank DBS’ Hong Kong operations. “We are beginning to open up following the other parts of the world that have already opened up. And this is a tangible demonstration that Hong Kong is back.”\n\nAttendees at the Global Financial Leaders' Investment Summit in Hong Kong on November 2. Paul Yeung/Bloomberg/Getty Images\n\nAlicia Garcia-Herrero, chief Asia Pacific Economist of French investment bank Natixis, agreed the week’s dual big events were “a big sign of Hong Kong moving away from Covid restrictions to a new world.”\n\nHowever, the remaining restrictions pose a competitive disadvantage.\n\nInternational visitors must take Covid tests for seven straight days after arrival in Hong Kong, and for the first three days are barred from restaurants, bars and gyms. But the testing doesn’t stop there – bars and clubs that don’t serve food require proof of a negative rapid antigen test from all patrons.\n\nA mask mandate – indoors and outdoors – is also in effect, though photos of the finance summit show attendees sitting at tables without face coverings. They included the city’s Financial Secretary Paul Chan, who was declared a “recovered case” by health authorities after testing positive for Covid upon arrival from a trip abroad on Tuesday.\n\nHong Kong's Financial Secretary Paul Chan makes a speech at the Global Financial Leaders Investment Summit in Hong Kong on November 2, 2022. Peter Parks/AFP/Getty Images\n\nThese rules are “still largely prohibiting the overseas travel market,” said McRobbie, the Hong Kong rugby chief. Before the pandemic, roughly half the fans at the Sevens came from abroad; this year, that number is “negligible,” he said.\n\nThe long stretch of isolation and financial hardship has also created challenges for companies hoping for a comeback. Many people have left the sports and events sectors in the past few years in favor of more stable jobs, leaving the industry short staffed, McRobbie added.\n\nThis partial reopening has left the city in an awkward Covid limbo, said Vera Yuen, an economics lecturer at the University of Hong Kong.\n\n“If we want to open up our border with the Mainland China, our restriction is too lenient … so it’s not allowed,” she said. “But then if we want to open ourselves up to the world, we are still too stringent. We are now stuck in between, hoping to see better policies in the future.”\n\nCrackdown and tensions\n\nOthers also warn of growing political challenges. “Clouds are certainly coming to Hong Kong from different angles,” said banker Garcia-Herrero, pointing to the West’s response to the sweeping national security law Beijing imposed on Hong Kong in 2020.\n\nUnder this law, pro-democracy activists have been jailed or exiled, independent newsrooms shut down, and former lawmakers targeted. Meanwhile, authorities have changed school curricula to emphasize Chinese history and culture, and pushed greater economic cooperation in the Greater Bay Area, a national scheme to link China’s southern Guangdong province closer with Hong Kong and Macao.\n\nThe law has been widely criticized by foreign governments and human rights organizations, with the United States sanctioning Lee and other top Hong Kong officials over their role in the crackdown. Hong Kong authorities have repeatedly claimed the law has restored order and stability after the city’s 2019 anti-government, pro-democracy protests.\n\nFor the US and the European Union, the national security law and crackdown represent “a change in the rules of the game in what was agreed upon,” said Garcia-Herrero.\n\nThese rising tensions could spell trouble for Hong Kong’s trade and diplomatic relationships with other countries. Hong Kong is afforded more freedoms than other Chinese cities, thus has long been seen as a gateway between the mainland and the West – a position that looks increasingly precarious as its civil liberties erode.\n\n“The West would now understand that Hong Kong is not only part of China, but it’s closer to China than before,” said Yuen, the economics lecturer. “The worst scenario is that the West would treat Hong Kong as the same as the mainland China, and then Hong Kong would suffer the kind of sanctions.”\n\nAnd this drawing closer together is likely to continue. In an effort to stem the brain drain, the government is spending 30 billion Hong Kong dollars ($3.8 billion) to draw in global businesses and fresh talent – which Yuen said is expected to “attract a lot of mainland workers” who may be eager to escape an even more dire job market across the border.\n\nMiddle man, again\n\nDespite these geopolitical frictions, some argue Hong Kong’s innate advantages will allow a revival – even if the city is heading in a different direction than before.\n\nAsia doesn’t have many other financial centers that can match Hong Kong’s open regulatory environment, low salaries tax and existing financial infrastructure – “therefore, even if the image may be tarnished a little bit, there are not many other places to go,” said Garcia-Herrero.\n\nYuen echoed this point, saying the city’s proximity to China remains appealing to businesses and investors hoping to tap into the vast and lucrative mainland market.\n\nTravelers in the departure hall at Hong Kong International Airport following the government's scrapping of hotel quarantine, on September 26. Lam Yik/Bloomberg/Getty Images\n\n“We can plug into China and sort of maintain the status as having a little bit of autonomy, and (being) different from them, given different Covid policies and (systems of) governance,” she said.\n\nBut, both experts acknowledged, the path forward is now fraught with new risks. International businesses may come to Hong Kong, but be warier in how much they invest in the city, keeping in mind the threat of US sanctions and regional conflict.\n\nToday’s Hong Kong is increasingly under Beijing’s control, with China growing more assertive on the world stage as leader Xi Jinping enters a third term in power surrounded by loyalists. Those rising tensions between China and its rivals have caused growing divides “as the world deglobalizes,” said Garcia-Herrero – effects that inevitably spill over into Hong Kong, caught in the middle.\n\n“It will never be, in my opinion, what it used to be in terms of the openness of Hong Kong to both the West and the East,” she said.", "authors": ["Jessie Yeung Kristie Lu Stout", "Jessie Yeung", "Kristie Lu Stout"], "publish_date": "2022/11/05"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/news/2021/11/08/us-travel-ban-requirements-international-tourists/6303811001/", "title": "'No point in getting irate, the queue will still be there': International ...", "text": "A rush of international travelers headed into the United States Monday as the COVID-19 travel ban ended and people from dozens of countries begin flooding in, more than 600 days since they were barred from entry.\n\nThat's more than 86 weeks. Nearly 20 months. Enough time for grandchildren to be born, or for couples to lose track of the number of nights they fell asleep to FaceTime calls with their partner. Long enough to lose hope in a U.S. vacation or honeymoon after having to delay plans over and over.\n\nLines began forming at the Canada and Mexico borders well before daybreak, and eager travelers boarded flights from Europe, including dueling departures from London's Heathrow airport. The U.S.-Mexico border is typically the world's busiest border crossing, with about 350 million people crossing annually.\n\n► US drops travel ban Nov. 8:Expect bottlenecks at airports under strict entry rules\n\n►Vacation travel:Hawaii opening for fully vaccinated international travelers, but some virus restrictions linger\n\nLearn more: Best travel insurance\n\nThe new U.S. entry requirements require foreign air passengers to test negative for the coronavirus before boarding a plane to the country and, if they are 18 or older, show proof of full vaccination. Travelers entering the U.S. on land or by ferry for nonessential reasons must show proof of vaccination. Although federal officials had warned of the potential for long lines at entry points, there seemed to be few delays as visitors arrived by land and air.\n\nIt's a long-awaited moment for travelers from more than 30 countries. The U.S. initiated its first COVID-19-related travel ban on China in February 2020. By the end of March, it had added travel bans on the United Kingdom, Ireland, Iran and 26 countries in the European Schengen Area. Brazil, India and South Africa were later added to the list.\n\nWant more? Sign up for USA TODAY's Travel newsletter to receive updates directly to your inbox and follow us on Twitter.\n\nFederal officials warned of delays: 'No staff around to help'\n\nThe smooth sailing for international travelers at JFK Airport ended Monday afternoon as arrivals ramped up after a relatively quiet morning. Passengers arriving from England on Virgin Atlantic reported lines of up to two hours to clear Customs and Border Protection processing due to the arrival of multiple flights from the United Kingdom. CBP officials had warned lines would grow from recent levels given the return of international passengers.\n\nPaul Richards, the 58-year-old head of safeguarding for Stoke City F.C., arrived on a Virgin Atlantic flight from London at 3:35 p.m. ET for vacation and to celebrate his son's 21st birthday. He ultimately waited about two hours before being cleared into the country.\n\n\"No point in getting irate, the queue will still be there,'' he said as he waited.\n\nMarc Evans, a 42-year-old police officer, flew from Manchester, England, with his wife and two children to visit family for the first time in 20 months, ultimately waiting more than an hour.\n\n\"It was apparently a PR stunt to show the USA was back open but seems they weren't concerned about the queues at customs,\" Evans said via Twitter message, noting that they have a friend waiting to pick them up at the airport.\n\nEvans said he was frustrated as his family has been told to wait as other families with children have been able to jump the queue. There are \"no staff around to help,\" he said.\n\nBut the problem extends beyond a pesky wait, according to Evans. \"Other people were getting connecting flights and told to stay in line,\" he said.\n\n— Morgan Hines, Dawn Gilbertson, USA TODAY\n\n'What happens here, only happens here': McCarran welcomes tourists\n\nWhen the first U.K. passengers arrived in Las Vegas on Monday afternoon, McCarran International Airport made sure to give them a \"fabulous Las Vegas welcome,\" complete with waving showgirls as the plane taxied to its gate and free T-shirts and hats promoting the city's new slogan, \"What happens here, only happens here.\"\n\nKarl Watson, 37, of London plans to spend his week in Nevada visiting national parks and watching a Bryan Adams performance. But his first stop? A bar.\n\n\"First of all, I'm going to get really drunk,\" he said.\n\nWatson said getting through customs and security was a long process, with the lines taking more than an hour to get through, but the Las Vegas airport was still \"buzzing\" with excitement when the plane landed.\n\n\"Everyone on the plane was cheering when the plane landed,\" Watson said. \"Usually when people clap I'm like, shut up, you don't do that when a bus parks. But this time, it was exciting. It was really cool.\"\n\n\"It's just such a fun place. Vegas never stops,\" added Ann Kirk, 64 of Birmingham, England who landed in Las Vegas with her husband Mark.\n\nThe two plan to spend five weeks in the U.S., but that's nothing compared to two- or three-month vacations they used to take before the travel ban. The couple usually spends most of their time at a home they own in Lake Havasu City in Arizona, and already have their next visit planned for February.\n\n\"It's the warmth. The heat. The sunshine,\" Mark Kirk, 62, said.\n\n\"We've really missed it,\" Ann Kirk added.\n\n— Bailey Schulz, USA TODAY\n\nChanges affect most air travelers\n\nArriving at Hartsfield-Jackson's Atlanta International Airport from Korea, Seongbin Woo, 26, said his travel experience for his first U.S. visit was \"not that smooth,\" largely because he had to rush to get test results back before departing Seoul. Although Korean nationals were not banned from travel to the U.S., anyone arriving as of Monday must follow new protocols, including showing proof of vaccination.\n\n\"I heard that everyone here is not wearing masks, so it's good for me because I am tired of masks,\" he said. He added he is still concerned about getting sick.\n\nIvana Pedroso, 30, tearily reunited with her parents as they arrived from Sao Paulo, Brazil. Pedroso lives in Greensboro, North Carolina, where she's a graduate student at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. She had been able to visit Brazil several times, but this is the first time her parents will see the house she bought.\n\n\"It's great. Exciting. I have been waiting for this moment for two years because she doesn't know my house,\" Pedroso said. \"They don't know where I live. So I've been waiting for this moment for two years.\"\n\nPedroso said her parents will stay for her graduation in December, on a trip they've been rescheduling for two frustrating years. Her parents said the flights and border control checks went smoothly, and they were confident they would be safe.\n\n\"She was a little bit nervous, but since they followed the protocols and all the companies, Delta Airlines and the airport followed the protocols with COVID, everything was OK,\" Pedroso said of her mom. \"Sanitizers and masks all the time. They're good.\"\n\nWaiting for \"my guy,\" Deb Halleck, 61, wore a Manchester United jersey waiting for Stephen Donnelly to arrive in Atlanta from England via Amsterdam. Wearing a similar jersey, Donnelly strode through the terminal and swept her into a hug that seemed to make time stop. The two had been friends for years but this summer realized they wanted more.\n\n\"We've just been friends and recently, more than that, so just excited,\" Halleck said moments before he arrived. \"I can't wait.\"\n\nSince July, they've talked on the phone every day and FaceTimed. Every week they make dinner together, long distance, and share a meal. Donnelly also buys her flowers and takes a picture and sends them to her weekly. Donnelly, 62, said the mood was apprehensive on the plane due to the new rules, but was happy to finally be in the U.S. with Halleck.\n\nWhat are their plans now? \"She's in charge. I just go with the flow,\" Donnelly said.\n\nBy late afternoon the arrivals terminal at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport began filling with loved ones awaiting passengers on a string of flights from cities like Amsterdam, Frankfurt and London, along with other places not previously banned.\n\nAll eyes were either staring down the corridor at the sliding doors coming from customs or glued to their phones. Locals eagerly checked to see how much longer it would take for their family, friends and significant others to make it through customs.\n\nOne woman remained dedicated to holding up a sign that said #HappyMama while another family, whose kids had been holding up \"Welcome Home\" signs set them down, sitting in the floor to wait. They had waited this long. What's a little longer?\n\n— Eve Chen, USA TODAY\n\nRomance reignited and 'already have Disneyland booked'\n\nAt LAX, the happy emotions ran the gamut — hugs and kisses, laughter and tears — when Damia Suuck, 20, of Claremont, California, saw her German boyfriend, Eric Reuschel, 19, for the first time in almost a year as he came off the plane from Frankfurt.\n\n\"We were waiting, waiting. We booked so many tickets,\" said Suuck, who was waiting at LAX with her mother, Fadia Suuck.\n\nDamia Suuck, who has German and American citizenship, was able to visit her boyfriend in Germany last Christmas, but Monday was the first day he could visit the U.S. They began dating about two years ago when she was living briefly in Germany.\n\n\"We haven't seen each other in almost 12 months, so to meet again, I can't explain it. It's crazy,\" said Reuschel.\n\nTheir plans for Reuschel's one-month visit?\n\n\"We already have Disneyland booked. That was No. 1,\" Damia Suuck said.\n\n— Bill Keveney, USA TODAY\n\nScattered delays create a 'stressful' experience\n\nJulien Yomtov of Paris said he faced several frustrating delays leaving France – first at security and then again when the plane's departure was delayed an hour. He said he's excited to get back to Las Vegas, traveling via Los Angeles, to play in the World Series of Poker, which he normally does annually with his brother.\n\n\"The experience was stressful because the employees are (not) ready to welcome so many travelers,\" he told USA TODAY via Whatsapp. \"Hope in LAX it will be easier.\"\n\nAlthough Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport is one of the busiest airports in the world, the international terminal's arrival hall on Monday, which was almost tranquil and relatively empty through early afternoon. Many fellow passengers made connections to other cities, and those who made Atlanta their final destination described their trips as smooth and even \"better than before.\"\n\n— Bailey Schulz, Eve Chen, USA TODAY\n\nTrip delayed four times\n\nIn Los Angeles, Jan Hutten tiptoed up to his sister-in-law Jeannette Gross for a surprise hug, kicking off a family reunion three years in the waiting. His wife Henny followed with a hug of her own, grasping her sister as the Huttens arrived from Amsterdam for a three-week visit. The two had tried to visit four times previously, but had to keep rescheduling due to the ongoing travel ban.\n\nGross and her son, Gary Loth live in Valencia, north of Los Angeles, and will be taking the Huttens for sushi and Mexican food in sunny Los Angeles — a welcome change from the rainy weather they left behind.\n\n\"Fantastic! Finally,\" Henny Hutten said in Dutch, her native language, when asked how it felt to get together with her sister after having to settle for Skype calls in the three years since they last saw each other.\n\n\"I'm very happy to see her,\" Gross said, adding they usually get together once a year. The separation \"was very painful, not being able to hug her. We Skyped, but it's not the same.\"\n\nHenny Hutten offered a one-word response when asked about the sibling separation: \"Terrible!\"\n\nThe Huttens were supposed to visit in April 2020 to celebrate Gross's retirement. That was the first COVID-related postponement. After more reservations and cancellations, Gross quickly texted her sister when the Nov. 8 opening was announced.\n\n\"I said, ‘Change your flight. We're opening up.' She did. She got right on the ball,\" Gross said.\n\n— Bill Keveney, USA TODAY\n\nFamilies begin to reunite: 'Everything is so exciting'\n\nSimone Thies of Cologne, Germany, is flying in to see her fiancé, who she has seen just twice since the ban began-- once during a trip to Aruba in June, and again when he visited her in Germany in August. Before those trips, they had been separated a year. Thies stayed overnight in a Düsseldorf hotel near the airport before catching her Delta flight, headed ultimately to Lincoln, Nebraska.\n\n\"I want to avoid stress because everything is so exciting,\" she said.\n\nGetting through the line at the Düsseldorf airport was quick — \"5 minutes at most,\" she said — but she had one more stop in Paris before crossing the Atlantic.\n\nThere, she had to show her passport, proof of vaccination and results of her negative coronavirus test. Even as the first person in line, the wait took about 20 minutes because one employee was still learning which documents to check, she said.\n\n\"The line is very long, but (I'm) done for now,\" she said before departing.\n\nAlan Marques said the border closure for tourists nearly ended his relationship with his boyfriend, who is a flight attendant. They've been together four years, but hadn't seen each other in four months, until Marques, 33, flew in from Sao Paulo to Atlanta on Monday. He said the separation has been \"very difficult and distressing,\" because his boyfriend's visits to Brazil have only been for a few hours, instead of the days they are used to.\n\nHow does it feel to be properly reunited? \"So good,\" he said.\n\n— Bailey Schulz, Eve Chen, USA TODAY\n\nMexico border busy ... then quiet\n\nAfter a busy few hours after midnight ET at the El Paso-Ciudad Juárez border crossing in Texas, the normally bustling border crossing fell quiet. Traffic was minimal at crossings between El Paso and Ciudad Juárez and passenger vehicles zipped up the El Paso's Bridge of the Americas freely, no line to stop them.\n\n\"I've sold hardly anything,\" said newspaper salesman José Fierro, whose rack was still filled with El Diario newspapers and PM tabloids at 8 a.m. He had been there on the curb since 3 a.m., he said. There was 6 a.m. traffic, then nothing. \"Everyone crossed yesterday, panicked about how the lines were going to be today.\"\n\nConstantino Castellanos, 68, and his wife, Lizbeth, 62, bought quesadillas at the foot of the Bridge of the Americas, a street vendor handing over a Styrofoam tray wrapped in plastic.\n\nThey could take their time. The bridge – usually a wall of slow-moving cars and trucks – was an empty ribbon of asphalt. The border had been closed to tourists or people visiting family, although a wide variety of essential workers had been permitted to cross during the closure. During that time, Mexican nationals holding tourist cards were banned from traveling over the land border; air travel between points in the interior of both countries never ceased.\n\n\"It's been two years,\" said Lizbeth Castellanos. \"We're going to Marshalls and Walmart.\"\n\nThe crossing reopened at just after midnight Eastern time. At 6 a.m. Eastern, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported no significant crossing delays at either the Mexico or Canada borders.\n\nSusana Hernández of Juárez was crossing for the first time since the pandemic restrictions to buy clothes in El Paso for her business. She smiled and flashed her vaccine card.\n\n\"We're happy,\" she said. \"We're home, we feel like we're back home.\"\n\nCross-border traffic of essential travelers between El Paso and Juárez reached nearly 800,000 crossings of passenger vehicles in August, according to the Border Region Modeling Project at the University of Texas at El Paso.\n\n\"Nobody anticipated that this pandemic would last as long as it has, in terms of travel restrictions,\" said Hector Mancha, U.S. Customs and Border Protection director of field operations in El Paso. \"People have not crossed over and visited with family in going on two years... Unfortunately, the pandemic has kept us from (reopening). I think it's overdue.\"\n\n— Lauren Villagran, Martha Pskowski, El Paso Times\n\n'Welcome back world'\n\nTimes Square was relatively quiet Monday morning as the city that never sleeps prepared to welcome vaccinated international tourists back to the U.S.\n\nAround 8:45 a.m., the Times Square Alliance unfurled a \"Welcome Back World\" sign on the Red Steps in Times Square.\n\nThe Steps, considered an iconic New York landmark for tourists, had about 190,000 people walk by them each day before the pandemic, according to the Times Square Alliance, the not-for-profit group that maintains it. At the pandemic's worst, that number dropped to 30,000, and New York businesses hope the flood of tourists will boost their finances.\n\nTJ Witham, the vice president of communications for the Times Square Alliance, told USA TODAY the alliance chose the red steps as it is an \"iconic meeting place\" for people visiting the Big Apple.\n\nChris Dickson, a 41-year-old bus scheduler from Newcastle, England, flew to New York City on Monday for 48 hours, using credit from a British Airways trip he'd had to cancel seven months ago.\n\nDickson planned to drop his bag at his Brooklyn hotel and start exploring the city he last visited more than two years ago.\n\n\"I just wanted to come to America at the first opportunity,'' he said. \"I'm going to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge, I'm going to go through Central Park, I'm going to do some running, some jogging in that area. I'm just going to enjoy the weather and enjoy being back in America.''\n\nMainda Kiwelu, 45, arrived in New York on the second British Airways flight of the day. She said this was her first trip to the U.S. in about five or six years, and was hoping to visit the Brooklyn Bridge and Central Park later this week, after work meetings.\n\n\"The flight was ok,\" Kiwelu said. \"It was just a bit nerve-wracking sort of doing all the logistics for the travel and making sure the vaccination certificate, app, everything works.\"\n\n— Morgan Hines, Dawn Gilbertson, USA TODAY\n\nDueling takeoffs from London to New York\n\nA pair of simultaneous flights left London's Heathrow airport early Monday morning, taking off on parallel runways and following similar flight paths for New York's JFK International Airport. British Airways Flight 1 and Virgin Atlantic Flight 3 took off at 3:51 a.m. ET and landed within minutes of each other. The airlines are rivals but teamed up to commemorate the reopening of foreign travel to the U.S., and British Airways' CEO was aboard his company's flight, which touched down about 11 a.m. ET\n\nAmerican Airlines, which is a BA travel partner, saw bookings from London to US surge 70 percent in the past week, with a lot of the travel for remainder of 2021, said Chief Revenue Officer Vasu Raja.\n\nClive Wartten, who runs a business-travel group in the UK, arrived on the British Airways flight and was headed for a run in Central Park before meetings with colleagues. Wartten planned to fly home Tuesday night.\n\n\"It just feels good to be back on an airplane,\" he said. \"There was a real buzz at the airport and aboard the aircraft, lots of cheering when we took off. It was a bit of a holiday party flight.\"\n\nWartten, who is the CEO of the Business Travel Association, later tweeted that he made it from the plane to one of New York's famed yellow taxis in just seven minutes.\n\n\"This is a big step for us to come back and open business travel with our US friends,\" he told USA TODAY while passing through the terminal.\n\nBritish Airways CEO Sean Doyle has been pushing the Biden administration to ease travel restrictions between the UK and the US for months because it is one of the busiest travel corridors in the world. At one point during the spring, he said, the second runway at Heathrow was closed because the airport hadn't seen such a limited number of flights since World War II.\n\n\"This has been a crisis like no other,'' he said Monday after arriving in New York.\n\nDoyle believes the border reopening took too long – the UK and European Union started welcoming US tourists back over the summer – but on Monday said he didn't want to dwell on the past. Instead, he gushed about what the reopening means to British Airways and its passengers.\n\n\"The North Atlantic is very important to British Airways and today's a very, very important turning point and milestone in the future of the country,'' he said.\n\nIs he worried travel restrictions could return if COVID cases spike on either side of the Atlantic?\n\n\"You always have to keep an eye on things,'' he said. \"But I do think that we're seeing a sort of pragmatic framework emerge across a number of jurisdictions.''\n\nHe said he hopes that that framework – basing entry requirements on vaccination and testing – remains despite any COVID trends going forward.\n\n— Dawn Gilbertson, Morgan Hines, USA TODAY\n\nAnticipation at airports\n\nAhead of the British Airways first flight arrival, family members waited in the Terminal 7 arrivals area at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport, which is decked out with balloons and New York symbols including the back half of a taxicab filled with a floral arrangement and NYC-themed cookies.\n\nLouise Erebara, from Danbury, Connecticut, arrived at the airport with her family early to welcome her sister and her sister's husband after 730 days apart.\n\n\"It's everything, we can't thank British Airways enough,\" a choked-up Erebara said, noting the airline paid for her relatives' flight. \"They want to reunite ex-pats and they're doing it.\"\n\nIn Atlanta, Ari Bell, waited anxiously for her fiancé to arrive from the UK after 21 months apart. They've bridged the distance with Snapchat, video calls and texts, and she was waiting to surprise him at the airport as he starts a three-week visit that will include his first-ever Thanksgiving.\n\n\"He actually came over for a quick job interview in February, right before the shutdown, got back to London and then that March, everything closed up. So we've just kind of been hanging on a string,\" Bell said. \"It was a little bit confusing to get him here, just because he didn't know he needed a negative (test) so that three days prior we actually had to make that last minute. And he came back negative. He's already fully vaccinated. I'm vaccinated. I got my booster yesterday, just in case — I'm just excited to see him.\"\n\nBell said she's excited to just watch a movie together — for months, they've been watching movies simultaneously but separated by the Atlantic Ocean.\n\n\"We're homebodies. We like to game together. But yeah, that's mostly what we're looking forward to — just being in the same space together,\" she said. \"This is going to be our first Thanksgiving together, his first Thanksgiving period. He's never celebrated. So we're actually gonna make the big meal and have all my family come over. He's a little nervous. But you know, he loves my dad. They're both ex-army. So they get along great.\"\n\nAnd Rosa Chorra, 37, eagerly awaited her parents' arrival from Spain, waiting with her 10-month-old Aurora for their plane to land in Atland. Chorra's parents missed her pregnancy and granddaughter's birth, although Chorra was able to take Aurora to visit them three months ago. She said she missed having the help they could have provided with a newborn.\n\n\"It was absolutely horrible. I think it's been the hardest time of my life. I mean, when she was born, the first months that are the hardest, and it's been tough,\" Chorra said.\n\n— Dawn Gilbertson, Morgan Hines, Eve Chen, USA TODAY\n\nHeaded to Disney World\n\nFor UK resident Emma Barbour and her family, the border reopening means one thing: Florida's Disney World with their 10-year-old daughter.\n\nThey usually come annually, but put those plans on hold after 2019, and rescheduled this trip three times as they waited for the Biden administration to lift the ban. Barbour, 41, said the airports were busy but staff seemed cheerful despite long lines.\n\n\"We honestly wouldn't travel if we felt unsafe or nervous, we are fully vaccinated and will wear our masks. I definitely won't let it tarnish our time there by worrying about it,\" she said from Paris as they waited to board their Atlanta-bound flight.\n\n— Eve Chen, USA TODAY\n\nThe British are coming\n\nSam Nagy and his family are headed to Florida, to the Universal Orlando Resort, their first trip to the U.S. since 2018. He said lines at the Manchester, England, airport were smooth, raising his hopes for the family vacation they've rescheduled four times already.\n\n\"That once-a-year trip is so much more to us than just a vacation, it honestly feels like it's ‘home' as cliché as that may be to say,\" said Nagy.\n\nPaul Richards is flying from London to New York on Virgin Atlantic and described the airport scene as chaotic, with long check-in lines this morning. He is headed to New York City for vacation to celebrate his son's 21st birthday.\n\n\"They are working really hard to get people through, however, some passengers hadn't completed the attestation forms or just stood in the wrong queue,'' he said. \"Once through check in, security was pretty slick.''\n\n— Dawn Gilbertson, USA TODAY\n\nLines at the Canada-US border\n\nAt th Sweetgrass, Montana, border crossing, wait times climbed to 240 minutes -- four hours — according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Normal wait time is about 45 minutes.\n\nWindsor, Ontario, Mayor Drew Dilkens said a Canadian travel requirement – having negative polymerase chain reaction test that can cost $200 – is likely to prevent many who want to drive from Ontario to Michigan from doing so.\n\nHe explained the testing provision doesn't make sense for day-trippers nor does it provide the kind of health assurance the government thinks it does because someone could easily contract the virus during their visit.\n\nHe wants to see that requirement lifted.\n\n— Frank Witsil, Detroit Free Press\n\nHow did the international travel ban start?\n\nThe travel ban barred most foreign nationals who had been in the listed countries in the past 14 days from entering the U.S., regardless of vaccination status. The country also cut off nonessential travel across the U.S. land borders with Mexico and Canada in March 2020.\n\nIt wasn't until September that the White House announced that it would end the travel ban for fully vaccinated travelers – months after many other nations reopened to U.S. tourists.\n\nThe new U.S. entry requirements, which went into effect Monday, require foreign air passengers to test negative for the virus before boarding a plane to the country and, if they are 18 or older, show proof of full vaccination. Travelers entering the U.S. on land or by ferry for nonessential reasons also need to show proof of vaccination.\n\nAs airports and border crossings get adjusted to the new travel rules, international travelers should prepare for lines.\n\nThe first flight from a country listed the travel ban is set to fly into Chicago from Dublin just before 7 a.m. CT, according to flight tracker Flight Aware and flight-data firm OAG.\n\nPlenty more will follow; there are more than 2 million international flights scheduled to arrive in the U.S. next month, compared to just 728,820 in December of 2020, according to OAG and Flight Aware.\n\n— Bailey Schulz, USA TODAY\n\n► US drops travel ban:Expect bottlenecks at airports under strict entry rules", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2021/11/08"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/news/2021/07/06/canada-border-travel-restrictions-vaccinated-canadians-exempt-covid-quarantine/7870910002/", "title": "As Canada border crossing restrictions ease for some, Trudeau says ...", "text": "Associated Press\n\nTORONTO – Pandemic restrictions on travel between Canada and the U.S. began to loosen Monday for some Canadians, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said plans to fully reopen the border would be announced over the next few weeks.\n\nCanadian citizens and permanent residents who have had a full dose of a coronavirus vaccine approved for use in Canada can skip a 14-day quarantine that has been a requirement since March 2020. Eligible air travelers also no longer have to spend their first three days in the country at a government-approved hotel.\n\nRestrictions barring all nonessential trips between Canada and the United States, including tourism, will remain in place until at least July 21.\n\nTrudeau said the easing of the rules marks a \"big step\" toward reopening the border.\n\nWill the US-Canada border reopen this summer? Tourists, business travelers and families anxiously await news\n\n“We’re very hopeful that we’re going to see new steps on reopening announced in the coming weeks,” he said at a news conference in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. “We’re going to make sure that we’re not seeing a resurgence of COVID-19 cases, because nobody wants to go back to further restrictions after having done so much and sacrificed so much to get to this point.”\n\nJulia Dunn, who landed at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport from the United States while on her way to Halifax, said she was glad the restrictions had eased.\n\n\"It’s very freeing being able to get home to family without having to spend those two weeks alone,\" she said.\n\nDunn, who is originally from Cape Breton but now lives in Houston, said she booked her trip to Canada after learning about the planned easing of quarantine rules a few weeks ago.\n\nTrudeau said he understands how eager people are to see the border reopen but noted that the pandemic continues and \"things aren’t normal yet.\"\n\n\"Nobody wants us to move too fast and have to reimpose restrictions as case numbers rise like we’re seeing elsewhere in the world,\" he said. \"We need to do this right.\"", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2021/07/06"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/news/2021/05/19/covid-travel-restrictions-countries-fully-vaccinated-americans-europe/7284487002/", "title": "COVID travel restrictions: Where fully vaccinated Americans can go", "text": "Corrections & clarifications: Germany’s, Spain's and Italy's entry requirements have been updated.\n\nAs vaccination levels continue to rise in the U.S. and around the world, countries that had been off limits to foreigners for more than a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic are beginning to reopen.\n\nOn June 18, the European Union added the U.S. to a list of countries for which travel restrictions should gradually be lifted. The list applies to all American tourists, vaccinated or not, for nonessential travel.\n\nThe recommendation is not legally binding, and the decision on how and when to reopen borders is up to each individual member country.\n\n► Europe travel restrictions for vaccinated visitors:Making sense of rules in France, Spain, Italy\n\nLearn more: Best travel insurance\n\n► Spain reopens: Vaccinated Americans can now visit\n\nIn April, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that fully vaccinated Americans could resume travel at low risk to themselves, though the agency still recommended against travel due to rising COVID case counts. On June 7, the agency softened its guidance for dozens of destinations, and now says travelers should make sure they are fully vaccinated before entering these countries.\n\nFederal travel guidance:CDC, State Department downgrade travel alerts for dozens of countries\n\nYou'll still need a negative COVID test to fly back to the US\n\nIf Americans do decide to travel abroad, no matter which country they decide to visit, they'll still need to be tested for COVID within three days of an international flight back to the U.S. – even vaccinated travelers. You can find available testing sites in your destination country and turnaround times on the website for the U.S. embassy there.\n\nSome resorts are also offering COVID testing on site to help satisfy the U.S. requirement.\n\n► Beware: These Americans were stranded in Mexico after testing positive for COVID\n\nAbout the list of countries allowing vaccinated travelers\n\nRules are evolving, so we've chosen to focus on countries that did not admit Americans before COVID-19 vaccines began to roll out and now are open or opening to vaccinated Americans. Keep in mind that countries' rules and plans may shift quickly, so before planning, check with your destination to find out the latest requirements.\n\nThe information below pertaining to vaccination and testing requirements comes from official sources such as government agencies (such as embassies and immigration ministries and the U.S. State Department) or official tourism websites.\n\nIf you would like to find out how much of the local population is at least partially vaccinated in a country you plan to visit, you can find the latest data on USA TODAY. Johns Hopkins University, which has tracked COVID infection and death statistics since the earliest days of the pandemic, drills down even further, with percentages for both the partially and fully vaccinated.\n\nEurope\n\nWhen will Americans be allowed back in Europe? The European Union on June 18 added the U.S. to a list of countries for which travel restrictions should gradually be lifted. The list applies to all American tourists, vaccinated or not, for nonessential travel.\n\nThe recommendation is non-binding, and national governments have authority to require test results or vaccination records and to set other entry conditions.\n\nHowever, some countries had announced their own plans before the EU's recommendation, including Portugal, Spain, Austria and Greece.\n\nAnd finally, while the United Kingdom does admit Americans with a negative COVID test, travelers must have a negative test result from within 72 hours of travel and quarantine for 10 days. They must also schedule follow-up tests for days 2 and 8 of their visit, though they can arrange a private test after five days to be released from quarantine early. This is required even for people who have been vaccinated. Failure to be tested can result in a fine of up to £1,000 ($1,418).\n\nEarlier this month, airlines reiterated their plea for the U.S. and U.K. to rescind their respective travel restrictions, citing rising vaccination rates in both countries. At the G7 conference, President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson launched a travel task force that will make policy recommendations about safely reopening international travel between the U.K. and the U.S. But no specific timing was announced.\n\nCountries that allow Americans in with a negative COVID test (and other conditions: Italy\n\nPortugal announced June 15 that travelers 2 years and older must take a nucleic acid amplification test – such as a PCR test – within the last 72 hours before boarding, or a rapid antigen test within 24 hours of boarding.\n\nItaly has said that Americans can enter and bypass quarantine with a negative COVID test taken no more than 48 hours prior to entry. Italy also noted visitors would be allowed to enter the country even if they've recently been in other EU countries.\n\nAustria travel\n\nVaccine requirements: Vaccinated travelers need a certificate or vaccine passport. Certificates for people who received their first of two shots at least 22 days prior to entry are valid for three months; documents for people who have had both shots or are considered fully vaccinated after a single dose are good for an additional six months.\n\nTesting requirements: Visitors who are unvaccinated or who have not had COVID need a negative PCR test no older than 72 hours or an antigen test no older than 48 hours. If you arrive without a valid negative test, you will have to take one at your own expense within 24 hours after arriving. People who have proof they have recovered from COVID in the past six months or a positive COVID antibodies test no more than three months old may enter.\n\nOther restrictions: Travelers who arrive without a vaccination certificate, proof of recovery or negative COVID test result must complete an advance clearance form to get permission to enter.\n\nDetails: Austria official travel portal\n\nBulgaria travel\n\nVaccine requirements: Visitors need to show proof that their final dose was administered at least 14 days prior to entry may enter Bulgaria.\n\nTesting requirements: Unvaccinated visitors over the age of 5 need a negative PCR test no older than 72 hours or an antigen test no older than 48 hours. People who have recovered from COVID need a positive PCR or antigen test taken between 15 days and 180 days prior.\n\nOther restrictions: Look for businesses with a Safe Travels stamp from World Travel & Tourism Council\n\nDetails: U.S. Embassy, Sofia; Bulgarian government tourism site\n\nCroatia travel\n\nVaccination requirements: Tourists must present a vaccine certificate showing they received their final dose or single dose at least 14 days prior to entering the country.\n\nTesting requirements: Individuals who have not been vaccinated yet must have a negative PCR or rapid antigen test taken within the last 48 hours or proof they have recovered from COVID-19.\n\nOther restrictions: Tourists must pay lodging fully in advance and provide proof. They must also complete an arrival form with their contact-tracing information.\n\nDetails: U.S. Embassy, Zagreb\n\nCyprus travel\n\nVaccine requirements: Though COVID vaccinations are not required to enter Cyprus, Americans who can prove they are fully vaccinated will not be subject to testing or quarantine as long as their vaccine is approved by the European Medicines Agency.\n\nPrior to travel, visitors must upload a copy of their vaccination certificate to the Cyprus Fight Pass platform. Verification is the responsibility of U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Cyprus reserves the right to randomly test passengers on any arriving flight, including vaccinated travelers.\n\nTesting requirements: Unvaccinated visitors from countries classified as red must have a PCR test from a certified lab taken within 72 hours prior of departure.\n\nOther restrictions: Visitors must present their Cyprus Flight Pass to enter crowded venues. In addition, there is a curfew in effect from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m.\n\nDetails: Cyprus Flight Pass\n\nFrance travel\n\nVaccine requirements: Americans may enter as of June 9, provided they have proof they've had their final dose of an approved vaccine at least two weeks prior to travel. They will also need a negative PCR test no older than 72 hours or a rapid antigen test no older than 48 hours.\n\nTesting requirements: Unvaccinated Americans may not visit France for tourism purposes, according to the French Embassy in Washington, D.C.\n\nOther restrictions: Travelers must complete a sworn document saying they do not have symptoms of COVID-19, nor have they been exposed to it. They must also be willing to be tested upon arrival, quarantine if deemed necessary and undergo retesting afterward.\n\nDetails: French Embassy, Washington; U.S. Embassy, Paris\n\nGermany travel\n\nVaccination requirements: American tourists with proof of vaccination of an approved vaccine may enter Germany via air and bypass testing. They must be two weeks past their final dose.\n\nTesting requirements: Unvaccinated visitors from the U.S. will also be allowed, but they must have proof of a negative PCR test no older than 72 hours or antigen test no older than 48 hours prior to entry. Alternately, people who have recovered from COVID can provide a positive PCR test carried out at least 28 days prior but not more than six months prior.\n\nOther restrictions: Regardless of vaccination or test status, all visitors must complete a digital entry registration prior to travel. Americans who enter Germany from a variant concern area need a negative PCR test and must quarantine for 10 days. Travelers are also advised to check the rules for each German state they plan to visit.\n\nDetails: German Foreign Office; U.S. Embassy, Berlin\n\nGreece travel\n\nVaccine requirements: The country announced it is reopening to international tourists on May 15. Fully vaccinated individuals may bypass the testing requirement if they they present a vaccination certificate issued by a public authority showing their second shot occurred at least 14 days prior to arrival in Greece.\n\nTesting requirements: Unvaccinated visitors must have a negative PCR test performed within 72 hours prior to entering the country.\n\nOther restrictions: All visitors must complete Greece's online Passenger Locator Form at least 48 hours before entering the country.\n\nDetails: U.S. Embassy, Athens\n\nNon EU-member countries that allow Americans in with a negative COVID test (or other conditions):\n\nIceland travel\n\nVaccine requirements: Individuals who can provide proof they are fully vaccinated are exempt from testing and quarantine requirements. Iceland will also accept a yellow card issued by the World Health Organization.\n\nTesting requirements: Unvaccinated Americans need a negative PCR test from within 72 hours of departure and must quarantine at an official facility for five days upon arrival. People who can provide proof they've recovered from COVID are exempt from quarantine requirements.\n\nOther restrictions: Visitors must pre-register online; however, this does not count as a travel authorization.\n\nDetails: U.S. Embassy, Reykjavik; covid.is\n\nIreland travel\n\nVaccine requirements: Vaccinated Americans will be welcome in Ireland beginning July 19. They will need proof of vaccination to bypass quarantine and testing requirements.\n\nTesting requirements: Unvaccinated adult travelers are still required to undergo testing and quarantine, per the Irish government.\n\nOther restrictions: Travelers need to complete a passenger locator form prior to arrival in Ireland.\n\nDetails: Irish government website\n\nItaly travel\n\nVaccine requirements: Travelers from the U.S. can enter Italy without a quarantine period, so long as they submit a passenger locator form and present a COVID-19 Green Pass or CDC vaccination certificate.\n\nIn order to obtain a Green Pass, travelers must either become fully vaccinated against COVID-19; recover from COVID-19 and pass the medical isolation period, or provide a negative COVID-19 test result performed in the 48 hours prior to entering the country.\n\nDetails: U.S. Embassy, Italian National Tourist Board\n\nRomania travel\n\nVaccine requirements: Travelers with proof of vaccination can bypass the mandatory 14-day quarantine.\n\nTesting requirements: Unvaccinated travelers need a negative test taken no sooner than 72 hours prior to departure to bypass quarantine. People who enter without one must quarantine and won't be allowed to test out until day 10.\n\nOther restrictions: Visitors may be asked to complete a questionnaire upon entry.\n\nDetails: RomaniaTourism.com\n\nSlovenia travel\n\nVaccine requirements: Vaccinated Americans need to show proof they are at least 14 days past their final dose.\n\nTesting requirements: Unvaccinated Americans need a negative PCR test result no older than 48 hours. Travelers who have recovered from COVID need either a positive test that is at least 10 days old but no older than six months or a certificate attesting to the same. Children under 15 who cross the border with a direct family member or organized group are exempt from testing.\n\nDetails: Republic of Slovenia\n\nSpain travel\n\nVaccine requirements: U.S. citizens can travel to Spain, regardless of vaccination status, as long as they present a QR code from the Spain Travel Health portal upon arrival. There is no requirement to bring proof of vaccination. This applies to all U.S. citizens, including those who visited another country before making their way to Spain.\n\nInformation required to complete the health portal form includes travelers' identity document number (which can be found on passports) and details such as a traveler's arrival date and flight number.\n\nTesting requirements: U.S. citizens are not required to show a negative COVID test to enter Spain.\n\nDetails: Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs; TravelSafe Spain, U.S. Embassy\n\nCaribbean\n\nCountries that allow Americans to bypass quarantine if they present a negative COVID test and meet other conditions:\n\nCountries where Americans don't need proof of vaccine, negative COVID test or quarantine: Dominican Republic\n\nBahamas travel\n\nVaccine requirements: Travelers who are two weeks past their last vaccination are exempt from the testing requirements for entry and inter-island travel.\n\nTesting requirements: Unvaccinated travelers must have a negative PCR test result no older than five days prior to entry. (Children 10 and under are exempt.)\n\nOther restrictions: Visitors must complete a Bahamas Travel Health Visa application.\n\nDetails: Bahamas.com\n\nSaint Lucia\n\nVaccine requirements: Americans who have documentation proving they are at least 14 days past their final dose will be given a wristband and granted freer access to the island as long as they obey mask and social-distancing requirements. Unvaccinated minor children will be granted the same freedom of movement as their vaccinated parents.\n\nTesting requirements: All travelers ages 5 and up, regardless of vaccination status, need a negative PCR test result from within the past five days and can only partake in approved activities and eat at COVID-certified restaurants.\n\nOther restrictions: All visitors must use COVID-certified lodging regardless of vaccination status.\n\nDetails: StLucia.org\n\nNorth America\n\nCanada remains off limits to American leisure travelers, unless they meet certain exemptions. On May 11, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that his government prefers to keep its border closed until 75% of the population has had at least their first vaccine dose.\n\n\"My gut tells me it's going to be (closed) at least well into the fall of 2021,\" he predicted a week earlier.\n\nCountries where Americans don't need proof of vaccine, negative COVID test or quarantine: Mexico\n\nIn mid-May, the governor of Mexico's Quintana Roo state, home to the Caribbean tourist meccas of Cancun, Cozumel and Tulum, warned that the area faced \"imminent risk\" of returning to lockdown conditions due to surging COVID cases there.\n\n►Border closures extended: Canada, Mexico land border closed to nonessential travel through June 21\n\n► Trouble in paradise: Mexico's Caribbean coast including Cancún, Cozumel, Tulum at 'imminent risk' of lockdown\n\nCentral America\n\nCountries where Americans don't need proof of vaccine, negative COVID test or quarantine:\n\n►Costa Rica during COVID: What's it like to vacation there during the pandemic?\n\nCountries where Americans can bypass quarantine with a negative COVID test result:\n\nBelize travel\n\nVaccine requirements: Individuals who are at least two weeks past their second shot and bring their official vaccination card must bring their official certificate. If two weeks have not passed, a negative PCR test no older than 96 hours or a rapid antigen test no older than 48 hours old are required.\n\nTesting requirements: Anyone over the age of 4 who is not vaccinated needs a negative test result.\n\nOther restrictions: It's recommended that visitors stay within the Tourism Safe Corridor, and a curfew is in effect from 10 p.m. to 4:59 a.m. daily.\n\nDetails: U.S. Embassy, Belmopan; Belize Tourism Board\n\nEl Salvador travel\n\nVaccination requirements: Visitors who have completed their shots may present their vaccine certificate in lieu of a negative test. However, it is still recommended that you contact your airline to confirm whether you also need a negative test to board your flight.\n\nTesting requirements: Unvaccinated visitors ages 2 and up need a negative PCR test result no older than 72 hours of their scheduled arrival time.\n\nOther restrictions: The U.S. Embassy notes that El Salvador strictly enforces the policies and cannot assist anyone who arrives without testing or vaccine documentation.\n\nDetails: U.S. Embassy, San Salvador\n\nGuatemala travel\n\nVaccine requirements: Vaccinated individuals ages 10 and up may enter Guatemala by air or land but need proof the last shot was administered at least two weeks before arrival.\n\nTesting requirements: Guatemala will also accept proof of a negative test completed within 72 hours prior to check-in at the airport or documentation from a licensed health care provider attesting the visitor recovered from COVID-19 in the 90 days prior to travel.\n\nOther restrictions: All visitors must complete a Health Pass form prior to arrival.\n\nDetails: U.S. Embassy, Guatemala City\n\nSouth America\n\nCountries where Americans can bypass quarantine with a negative COVID test:\n\nEcuador travel\n\nVaccine requirements: Travelers must have a certificate showing they have received their full course of vaccinations.\n\nTesting requirements: Unvaccinated visitors need a negative PCR or antigen test taken no more than three days before entering Ecuador. Children 2 years of age and younger, as well as airline crew, are exempt from this requirement. People who have had COVID-19 but are at least one month past the onset of symptoms may also present a medical certificate attesting to their recovery.\n\nOther restrictions: International visitors transiting en route to the Galapagos Islands must arrive with a negative PCR test taken within the last three days.\n\nDetails: U.S. Embassy, Quito\n\nMiddle East and North Africa\n\nCountries where Americans can bypass quarantine with a negative COVID test:\n\nDjibouti (Visa required)\n\nEgypt\n\nIran (However, no visas are being issued currently.)\n\nIraq (Visa required)\n\nMorocco (Tourists must have reservation at approved hotel or resort.)\n\nUnited Arab Emirates (All visitors to Dubai and Abu Dhabi still need PCR tests to enter the country; Abu Dhabi also requires a second PCR test on days 6 and 12, regardless of vaccination status.)\n\nBahrain travel\n\nVaccine requirements: Inbound airline passengers vaccinated in the U.S. with approved certificates will be provided with a card for use in Bahrain. However, vaccinated visitors are still required to undergo PCR tests on arrival as well as days 5 and 10 of their stays (at a cost of $95).\n\nTesting requirements: Unvaccinated visitors must test on arrival as well as on days 5 and 10. (Children 6 and younger are exempt.)\n\nOther restrictions: Visitors must download the BeAware Bahrain app prior to arrival.\n\nDetails: U.S. Embassy, Manama\n\nIsrael travel\n\nVaccine requirements: Visitors vaccinated outside of Israel must undergo testing at an approved Israeli lab at their own expense to prove their status. They then will be allowed to apply to be exempted from quarantine. They must provide their vaccination certificate and their negative test result along with their exemption application.\n\nTesting requirements: All visitors, regardless of vaccination status, need a negative PCR test taken no more than 72 hours prior to their scheduled departure to Israel.Unvaccinated people will be required to quarantine for at least 10 days. People who have recovered from COVID must provide medical documentation of their recovery.\n\nOther restrictions: Major U.S airlines have suspended flights to Israel amid the current unrest there.\n\nDetails: Israeli Ministry of Health; U.S. Embassy, Jerusalem\n\nLebanon travel\n\nVaccine requirements: Americans who can prove they are fully vaccinated, have an antibody test showing sufficient antibodies or proof of testing positive for COVID more than 15 days prior to arrival can bypass quarantine.\n\nTesting requirements: All arriving travelers who do not qualify for one of the exemptions need a negative PCR test no older than 96 hours. In addition, travelerswill be tested at the airport at their own expense ($50). They will also have to quarantine for 72 hours and download the CovidLebTracker app.\n\nOther restrictions: Tourists must request permission to enter certain establishments.\n\nDetails:U.S. Embassy, Beirut\n\nAfrica\n\nCountries where Americans can bypass quarantine with a negative COVID test:\n\nWestern and Central Asia\n\nCountries that allow Americans to bypass quarantine if they present a negative COVID test and meet other conditions:\n\nGeorgia travel\n\nVaccine requirements: Vaccinated tourists can enter by air if they present a certificate proving they have received the full round of shots.\n\nTesting requirements: Upon arrival, unvaccinated visitors can avoid quarantine by presenting a negative result from a PCR test conducted 72 hours or less before arrival in Georgia. They will also need to undergo a second test at their own expense on day 3 of their stay.\n\nOther restrictions: Before crossing into Georgia, tourists must complete an authorization form detailing their contact information and their travel history for the previous 14 days.\n\nDetails: U.S. Embassy, Tbilisi; Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia\n\nSouth and East Asia\n\nMuch of Asia either still remains off limits to American tourists (including Olympic host nation Japan and Indonesia) or requires them to quarantine (as is the case in Cambodia, China, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Nepal, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam).\n\nDestinations where Americans can bypass quarantine with a negative COVID test:\n\nOceania/South Pacific\n\nMost South Pacific countries remain off limits to American tourists, most notably Australia, which has indicated it may not reopen its borders until 2022. In addition, New Zealand and Fiji have both been reluctant to speculate about a reopening timeline. Other island destinations either require a lengthy quarantine (Solomon Islands, Tonga, Vanuatu) or special permission to visit (Samoa), One notable exception: the U.S. territory of Guam.\n\nCountries that admit Americans who can provide a negative COVID test and meet other conditions:\n\nNorthern Mariana Islands (Health declaration form required)\n\nGuam travel\n\nVaccine requirements: Travelers to the U.S. territory who are two weeks past their last dose of an FDA-approved vaccine who can provide a vaccine record card and a secondary form of vaccine verification (such as a letter from the provider) may bypass quarantine.\n\nTesting requirements: Tourists who have recovered from COVID-19 within three months of visiting Guam and are no longer symptomatic may be eligible to bypass quarantine if they can present a positive PCR test between 10 and 90 days old and a negative PCR test collected within 10 days prior to arrival and clearance from their medical provider attesting to their recovery. Visitors who arrive without a vaccine certificate or proof of recovery must spend five days at a quarantine facility but can test out on day 6 with a negative result.\n\nAdditional requirements: Vaccinated individuals must sign a declaration attesting to their COVID status (under penalty of perjury).\n\nDetails: VisitGuam.com; Guam Department of Health and Social Services\n\nContributing: Matthew Brown, Dawn Gilbertson, Maureen Groppe, Kim Hjelmgaard, USA TODAY", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2021/05/19"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/news/2021/07/21/us-mexico-canada-border-reopening-travel-restrictions-through-august/8034057002/", "title": "US-Mexico, Canada border reopening: Travel restrictions through ...", "text": "The United States has extended border restrictions on nonessential travel yet again as COVID-19 infections rise in every state.\n\nU.S. borders with Mexico and Canada will remain closed through Aug. 21, according to documents to be published in the Federal Register. The previous U.S. border restrictions were set to end Thursday.\n\nThe extensions come on the heels of Canada's Monday announcement that it would reopen its borders to fully vaccinated U.S. citizens and permanent residents Aug. 9, with plans to allow fully vaccinated travelers from any country on Sept. 7.\n\nWhite House press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday: \"Any decisions about resuming travel will be guided by our public health and medical experts. ... I wouldn’t look at it through a reciprocal intention.”\n\nCanada border:Canada is easing travel restrictions. Here are 10 things to know before a trip\n\nLearn more: Best travel insurance\n\nHow long have the borders been closed?\n\nThe Department of Homeland Security, in conjunction with its Canadian and Mexican counterparts, first closed the United States' borders to leisure travelers in March 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The restrictions have been extended on a monthly basis ever since.\n\nRestrictions on entry into the U.S. by land and ferry travel are extended until 11:59 p.m. Aug. 21, according to the notices.\n\nPeople from Canada and Mexico have been allowed to fly into the U.S. with proof of a negative coronavirus test or recovery from COVID-19 – a requirement before boarding any international flight to the U.S. that went into effect in January.\n\nUnhappy travelers:Couples separated by Canadian border plead for U.S. to end travel restrictions\n\nUS-Canada border:Canada to reopen its borders to fully vaccinated Americans starting Aug. 9\n\nWhy is the US extending border restrictions?\n\nThe news comes as vaccines continue to roll out across the three countries and COVID-19 cases are on the rise with the delta variant of the virus spreading, accounting for 83% of U.S. COVID-19 cases.\n\nThe DHS said the restrictions have been extended to decrease the spread of COVID-19, including the highly contagious delta variant.\n\n\"DHS is in constant contact with Canadian and Mexican counterparts to identify the conditions under which restrictions may be eased safely and sustainably,\" DHS said in a statement provided Wednesday by spokesperson Angelo Fernández.\n\nOn June 7, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention downgraded COVID-19 travel alert levels for Mexico and Canada from level 4 or \"very high\" to level 3 or \"high\" recognizing that conditions, while still unsafe, are improving, the DHS said in the notice.\n\nTravel industry reacts\n\nTori Emerson Barnes, executive vice president of public affairs for the U.S. Travel Association trade group, urged the Biden administration to determine a date and plan \"as quickly as possible\" to welcome Canadian visitors at U.S. land borders.\n\n“Canada made the right call in releasing a timeline for vaccinated Americans to cross the land border and visit, and it is past time that the U.S. reciprocates,\" Barnes said in a Wednesday statement. \"There is no difference between a fully vaccinated Canadian and a fully vaccinated American.\"\n\nUnited Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said Wednesday he understood that the Biden administration is trying to put safety first but believes easing border restrictions would help the world's pandemic recovery.\n\n“It does seem that the data and the science are pretty clear: We have similar vaccination rates, similar case rates. We have similar variants,’’ Kirby said during an interview on CNBC. “We’re not going to prevent the delta variant from coming to the United States by closing those borders because it’s already here.’’\n\nContributing: The Associated Press", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2021/07/21"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/news/2021/11/01/australia-thailand-reopen-travel-restrictions/6230651001/", "title": "Australia, Thailand reopening: Who is allowed to travel", "text": "Rod McGuirk, David Rising\n\nAP\n\nCANBERRA, Australia — Sydney’s international airport came alive with tears, embraces and laughter on Monday as Australia opened its border for the first time in 20 months, with some arriving travelers removing mandatory masks to see the faces of loved ones they’ve been separated from for so long.\n\nAustralia and other countries in the Asia-Pacific have had some of the world’s strictest COVID-19 pandemic lockdown measures and travel restrictions, but with vaccination rates rising and cases falling, many are now starting to cautiously reopen.\n\nSome, like China and Japan, remain essentially sealed off to foreign visitors, but Thailand also started to substantially reopen Monday and many others have already started, or plan to follow suit.\n\n►When will Australia let tourists in?:For most foreign visitors, not until 2022\n\n►'There's only so much you can say on the phone':How COVID-19 travel restrictions have impacted families and couples\n\nLearn more: Best travel insurance\n\nTraveler Carly Boyd seized the opportunity presented by the new Australian regulations to jump on the first flight home from New York to surprise her parents, whom she hadn't seen in three years.\n\n“Just being able to come home without having to go to quarantine is huge,” she told reporters at Sydney’s airport, where the country's unofficial anthem “I Still Call Australia Home” was playing.\n\n“There’s a lot of people on that flight who have loved ones who are about to die or have people who died this week, so for them to be able to get off the plane and go see them straight away is pretty amazing.”\n\nIn Thailand, a country where tourism accounted for some 20% of the economy before the pandemic, the lockdown has caused massive job losses and hardship, and the government hopes the return of foreign visitors will provide a much-needed boost.\n\nStill, only a few months removed from a surge fueled by the delta variant of the virus that saw deaths rise dramatically, many Thais remain worried that an influx of outsiders could trigger new outbreaks.\n\n►Cambodia to begin reopening to tourists:Americans advised not to go\n\nBangkok taxi driver Issarapong Paingam lost his mother to COVID-19 during the recent surge, and said it would make more sense to him for the government to focus its attention fully on reopening domestically before introducing foreign travelers into the mix.\n\n“The government has not yet told the public what they would do if an outbreak takes place again,” the 34-year-old said. \"I don’t understand why they don’t let people in the country live normally as a trial to see the trend (of COVID-19 cases) before welcoming tourists.”\n\nThailand has allowed residents to travel during the pandemic, but mandated a strict two-week quarantine in specially designated hotels for people entering the country.\n\nForeign arrivals plummeted from 40 million in 2019 to 6.69 million in 2020 — almost all in the first three months before the pandemic restrictions were introduced — to fewer than 100,000 so far in 2021.\n\nMonday's reopening builds on a pilot scheme launched in July on the resort island of Phuket, which allowed fully vaccinated travelers from selected countries to spend their quarantine moving around the island instead of in a hotel room.\n\nStarting Monday, if travelers are fully vaccinated and from one of 63 countries and territories deemed “low risk” — which some cynical Thais have noted seem to be based more on spending power than coronavirus infections — they are exempt from quarantine. They need to spend one night at a designated hotel and can't check out until they have a negative COVID-19 test, but then are free to travel.\n\nTravelers from countries not on the preferred list or those who are unvaccinated are still subject to various quarantine rules.\n\nRestrictions are also being relaxed in the destination areas, including widespread reopening of businesses and other facilities such as department stores, spas, tattoo shops, schools and sporting events.\n\n►US travel rules are changing:What travelers need to know before Nov. 8\n\nWith the combination of strict screening of visitors and higher vaccination rates in Thailand, Supat Hasuwannakit, president of Thailand’s Rural Doctor Society, said he is not concerned about foreign tourists sparking a new surge in cases.\n\nBut he said he does worry about the planned reopening of bars and clubs in December, noting that recent domestic outbreaks came after the government allowed people to gather for activities such as religious services and weddings.\n\n“Once people start to gather, eat and drink, it has a high possibility to create a new outbreak,” he said. “Most bars and nightclubs are indoors with bad airflow, so it is easy for COVID-19 to spread once they reopen.”\n\nRules requiring masks and distancing remain in place, much like other countries in the region that have begun reopening.\n\n►Where vaccinated tourists can go:Vietnamese island Phu Quoc, Israel easing travel restrictions\n\nIn India, which saw a peak of 400,000 daily cases in April and May, officials have been warning that people need to continue following such restrictions to avoid causing “super spreader” events during the holiday season as the country gradually reopens.\n\nIndia began granting tourist visas on Oct. 15 for fully vaccinated people arriving on charter flights, and will extend them to tourists on commercial flights starting Nov. 15.\n\nNeighboring Sri Lanka has already started to allow fully vaccinated travelers without quarantines, and partially or non-vaccinated people with some restrictions. South Korea, which on Monday began to allow larger social gatherings and lifted operating-hour restrictions on restaurants, has a similar scheme.\n\nVietnam is still closed but plans to open the popular resort island of Phu Quoc to fully vaccinated vacationers by the end of the month, and neighboring Cambodia, which on Monday lifted restrictions on domestic travel, has a similar plan to open two seaside provinces to international travelers. Malaysia intends to open its northern resort island of Langkawi on Nov. 15 to fully vaccinated tourists.\n\nAustralia is betting that vaccination rates are now high enough to mitigate the danger of allowing international travel.\n\nInitially only Australian permanent residents and citizens will be free to enter the country. Fully vaccinated foreigners traveling on skilled worker and student visas will be given priority over international tourists.\n\nBut the government expects Australia will welcome international tourists back to some degree before the year ends.\n\nAlready, Australia announced Monday that vaccinated tourists from Singapore — which has one of the highest vaccination rates in the world — will be welcome from Nov. 21 under a bilateral agreement.\n\n►Come explore with us:Sign up for USA TODAY's Travel newsletter\n\nThe new freedoms also mean that fully vaccinated Australian permanent residents and citizens can leave the country for any reason without asking the government for an exemption from a travel ban that has trapped most at home since March 25, 2020.\n\nSydney was the first Australian airport to announce it would reopen Monday because New South Wales was the first state where 80% of the population aged 16 and older has been fully vaccinated. Melbourne and the national capital, Canberra, also opened on Monday after Victoria state and the Australian Capital Territory achieved the vaccination benchmark.\n\nEven though Australians are now free to travel overseas, four Australian states and a territory are still maintaining pandemic restrictions on crossing state lines.\n\n►New Zealand eases some quarantine rules:Keeps borders closed to tourists\n\nAustralian Ethen Carter, who landed at Sydney's airport from Los Angeles on Monday, expressed his frustration at having to apply for permission to visit his dying mother in Western Australia state.\n\nHe pleaded through the media to Western Australia Premier Mark McGowan, who has said the state border will not open this year, to let him in.\n\n“Mark, think of the people that are suffering, like, mentally to see their family. That’s also a health issue,\" Carter said. \"And we know we’ve got to protect people’s lives, but you’ve got to bring families together again, you have to.”\n\nMcGowan said his government would consider allowing Carter to enter the state if he applies for an exemption.\n\n“These situations are very sad and very difficult and we’ve seen much of this over the course of the last two years,” McGowan said.\n\nContributing: Chalida Ekvitthayavechnuku, Tassanee Vejpongsa, Ashok Sharma, AP", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2021/11/01"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/local/michigan/2021/06/18/us-canada-border-restrictions-extended/7745459002/", "title": "US-Canada border restrictions extended until July 21", "text": "Rob Gillies\n\nAssociated Press\n\nTORONTO — Canada’s public safety minister said Friday border restrictions on nonessential travel with the United States will be extended until July 21.\n\nPublic Safety Minister Bill Blair tweeted the move has been made in coordination with the U.S. He said Canada’s number one priority is to keep Canadians safe during the pandemic.\n\nBlair also noted the government plans to release details on Monday about fully vaccinated Canadians who return to the country. The Canadian government has said it anticipates fully vaccinated Canadian citizens who test negative for COVID-19 will be exempt from two weeks of quarantine when returning to the country sometime in early July.\n\nDr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, has said she would like to see 75% of eligible Canada residents fully vaccinated before advising that border restrictions be loosened for tourists and business travelers who aren’t citizens or permanent residents.\n\nMore:'We have to find an acceptable level of risk': Officials urge reopening of Canadian border\n\nMore:Canadian border likely to enter phased reopening: What to know\n\nThe Canadian government expects to have enough vaccine delivered for 80% of eligible Canadians to be fully vaccinated by the end of July.\n\nThe border between Canada and the U.S. remains closed to all nonessential travel. The restrictions were announced in March, 2020 in the early months of the pandemic and have been extended every month since.\n\nThere are growing calls in the U.S. to open the Canada-U.S. border for nonessential travel like tourism, but less than 20% of eligible Canadians are fully vaccinated now.\n\nThe U.S. only started allowing export of Pfizer vaccines in early May. Canada has largely been getting vaccines from Europe until Pfizer exports from the U.S. began arriving in May.\n\nAbout 70% of eligible Canadians have had at least one dose of vaccine and second doses are ramping up this month and next.\n\nThe government also expects in early July to eliminate the need for fully vaccinated Canadian air travelers to spend three days quarantining in an authorized hotel upon arriving in the country. Travelers will also have to be fully vaccinated 14 days or more prior to the arrival.\n\nCurrently, air travelers are required to spend three days in quarantine at a hotel at their expense on arrival and then complete their two weeks of self-isolation.\n\nAir travelers will still be required to take a COVID-19 test before arriving as well as on arrival, and remain in isolation until the second test comes back negative.\n\n► Stay connected and stay informed. Subscribe to the Detroit Free Press today.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2021/06/18"}]}
{"question_id": "20230317_8", "search_time": "2023/05/25/17:55", "search_result": [{"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/03/17/pesticides-these-fruits-and-vegetables-put-them-dirty-dozen-list/4707708001/", "title": "Pesticides in these fruits and vegetables put them on Dirty Dozen list", "text": "Strawberries remain in the top spot on an annual list of fruits and vegetables found to have the highest traces of pesticides.\n\nThe 2021 \"Dirty Dozen,\" released Wednesday by the Environmental Working Group, ranked pesticide residue levels of fruits and vegetables based on samples taken by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.\n\nThere were two noticeable changes to this year's list, said Thomas Galligan, an EWG toxicologist.\n\nCollard and mustard greens joined the list at No. 3, sharing a spot with kale. The pesticide most frequently found on these greens was DCPA, a compound classified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as a possible carcinogen, Galligan added.\n\nThe second vegetables added to this year's \"Dirty Dozen\" are bell peppers and hot peppers, which ranked at No. 10, Galligan said. \"In the most recent test, they found 115 pesticides on different peppers.\"\n\nNearly 70% of non-organic produce sold in the country contains pesticide residues, the new EWG report stated. And more than 90% of samples including strawberries, apples and leafy greens tested positive for residues of two or more pesticides.\n\nStoring produce?:This is how to properly store these 20 products during the pandemic\n\nNutritional needs vs. consumer concerns\n\nA CDC analysis found only 1 in 10 adults gets enough fruits and vegetables, with men, younger adults and people with lower incomes consuming the fewest.\n\n\"The most important thing is that everyone should be eating lots of fruits and vegetables,\" Galligan said. \"We do recommend you try to reduce your pesticide exposure. Choose organic whenever possible.\"\n\nThat's why EWG also released the \"Clean Fifteen,\" a list of produce that tested with lower trace amounts of pesticides.\n\n\"Try to choose organic options for those 12 (Dirty Dozen),\" Galligan said. \"But if you can't afford or don't have access to those organic foods, then you can turn to our Clean Fifteen list.\"\n\nAvocados and sweet corn took the top two spots on the clean list, where fewer than 2% of samples showed any detectable pesticides.\n\nTake a bite out of your food bill:How to save money on groceries and dining out\n\nDandy Dozen 2019 list:Strawberries, spinach, kale have the most residue\n\nHowever, there are some concerns this annual list may scare shoppers away from non-organic fruits and vegetables, which tend to cost less than their organic counterparts and may be more accessible to consumers living in areas without multiple grocery options.\n\n\"This list should have no impact on your shopping habits,\" said Tamika Sims, senior director of food technology at the International Food Information Council, a nonprofit supported by food, beverage and agricultural industries.\n\nOrganic and conventionally grown fruits and vegetables are not regulated more than the other, Sims said. The USDA and EPA, among others, \"work conservatively to make sure all these fruits and vegetables are safe for consumption.\"\n\nIf the concern over the potential for pesticide residue remains, Sims said, there are other options.\n\n\"Think about buying the frozen version,\" she said. \"(Frozen) fruits and vegetables are just as nutritious and good for you, and safe, as the fresh ones. Canned goods are a great option, too.\"\n\nEWG's Dirty Dozen for 2021\n\nStrawberries Spinach Kale, collard and mustard greens Nectarines Apples Grapes Cherries Peaches Pears Bell and hot peppers Tomatoes Celery\n\nEWG's Clean Fifteen for 2021", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2021/03/17"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/07/health/dirty-dozen-produce-2022-wellness/index.html", "title": "Dirty Dozen 2022: Produce with the most and least pesticides | CNN", "text": "CNN —\n\nStrawberries and spinach continue to top the annual list of the “Dirty Dozen” fruits and veggies that contain the highest levels of pesticides, followed by three greens – kale, collard and mustard – nectarines, apples, grapes, and bell and hot peppers, according to the Environmental Working Group’s 2022 Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce.\n\nCherries came in eighth this year on the list of the 12 most contaminated foods, with peaches, pears, celery and tomatoes rounding out the list.\n\nBut don’t stop eating these foods, which are full of the vitamins, minerals, fiber and antioxidants needed to battle chronic disease, experts say.\n\n“If the things you love to eat are on the ‘Dirty Dozen’ list, we recommend buying organic versions when you can,” said Alexis Temkin, a toxicologist at the EWG with expertise in toxic chemicals and pesticides.\n\n“Several peer-reviewed studies and clinical trials have looked at what happens when people switch to a fully organic diet,” she said. “Concentrations and measurements of pesticides decrease very rapidly.”\n\nConsumers can also consult EWG’s “Clean Fifteen” – a list of produce with the least amount of pesticides. Nearly 70% of the fruits and veggies on the list had no detectable pesticide residues, while just under 5% had residues of two or more pesticides, the report said.\n\nAvocados had the lowest levels of pesticides among the 46 foods tested, followed by sweet corn, pineapple, onions and papaya.\n\nMultiple pesticides\n\nIssued yearly since 2004, the EWG report uses US Department of Agriculture test data to rank 46 foods that are the most and least contaminated with pesticide residues. The USDA staffers prepare the food as consumers would – washing, peeling or scrubbing – before testing each item.\n\nThe USDA does not sample all 46 foods each year, so EWG pulls results from the most recent testing period. Strawberries, for example, have not been tested by the USDA since 2016, Temkin said,\n\nMany samples of the 46 fruits and vegetables included in the report tested positive for multiple pesticides, including insecticides and fungicides. Over 90% of “strawberries, apples, cherries, spinach, nectarines and grapes tested positive for residues of two or more pesticides,” the report said.\n\nTesting found the highest level of multiple pesticides – 103 – on samples of the heart-healthy trio of kale, collards and mustard greens, followed by 101 different pesticides on hot and bell peppers. In general, “spinach samples had 1.8 times as much pesticide residue by weight as any other crop tested,” the report said.\n\nBeing exposed to multiple pesticides, even at low levels, is “supra-additive,” with each pesticide having more of a health impact than it might in isolation, said Dr. Leonardo Trasande, chief of environmental pediatrics at NYU Langone, who was not involved in the report.\n\nHealth risks of pesticides\n\nHealth dangers from pesticides depend on the type, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency. Pesticides can impact the nervous system, irritate the eyes and skin, interfere with the hormonal systems of the body, or cause cancer, the EPA said.\n\nThe pesticide DCPA, classified by the EPA as a possible human carcinogen and banned in 2009 by the European Union, was frequently detected on collards, mustard greens and kale, the EWG report said.\n\nChlorpyrifos, a pesticide often used on nut and fruit trees and row crops such as broccoli and cauliflower, was banned by the EPA in February 2022 after a 15-year effort by environmental groups.\n\nChlorpyrifos contains an enzyme “which leads to neurotoxicity, and has also been associated with potential neurodevelopmental effects in children,” the EPA said.\n\nBabies and children are especially vulnerable to pesticides, experts say, because of the damage the chemicals can cause to the developing brain. A 2020 study found an increase in IQ loss and intellectual disability in children due to exposure to organophosphates, a common class of pesticides.\n\nA large number of pesticides also affect the endocrine system in developing fetuses, which can interfere with developmental growth, reproduction and metabolism.\n\n“Even a brief exposure to pesticides which alter endocrine function can cause permanent effects if the exposure occurs during critical windows of reproductive development,” according to the EPA.\n\nIndustry complaints\n\nThe agricultural industry has long complained about the release of the “Dirty Dozen,” saying EWG “willfully” misrepresents USDA data in the report.\n\n“To put it simply, EWG’s attempt to twist the data to create bias … results in growing consumer fear of fruits and vegetables,” said Chris Novak, president and CEO of CropLife America, a national trade association that represents the manufacturers, formulators and distributors of pesticides.\n\n“A study found that specifically naming the “Dirty Dozen” resulted in shoppers being less likely to buy ANY vegetables and fruit, not just those named on their list,” Novak said via email.\n\nIn response, EWG said the study in question, which was funded by another industry association, the Alliance for Food and Farming, presents an entirely different reality than what Novak describes.\n\n“The study actually shows that just over half of people surveyed said the ‘Dirty Dozen’ list made them more likely to buy fruits and vegetables,” Temkin said. “Only about 1 in 6 said our report would make them less likely to buy produce.”\n\nSteps consumers can take\n\nBesides eating organic, there are a number of actions consumers can take to reduce exposure to pesticides – and many other toxins such as heavy metals – that can be found in produce.\n\nRinse all produce before serving. Don’t use soap, detergent or commercial produce wash – water is the best choice, experts say.\n\n“Soap and household detergents can be absorbed by fruits and vegetables, despite thorough rinsing, and can make you sick. Also, the safety of the residues of commercial produce washes is not known and their effectiveness has not been tested,” the US Food and Drug Administration stated.\n\nChoose local. Buying food that is purchased directly from a local farmer can reduce the risk of pesticide exposure, experts say.\n\nGet CNN Health's weekly newsletter Sign up here to get The Results Are In with Dr. Sanjay Gupta every Tuesday from the CNN Health team.\n\nBuy in season. Prices drop when fruits and vegetables are in season and plentiful. That’s a good time to purchase organic foods in bulk, then freeze or can them for future use, experts suggest.", "authors": ["Sandee Lamotte"], "publish_date": "2022/04/07"}]}
{"question_id": "20230317_9", "search_time": "2023/05/25/17:55", "search_result": [{"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/03/15/most-popular-dog-breed-french-bulldogs/11477981002/", "title": "What's the most popular dog breed? French bulldogs take the title", "text": "Watch out March Madness, another competition featuring underdogs and shocking upsets is here.\n\nThe French bulldog is now the most popular (pup-ular?) dog breed of 2022, ending the Labrador retriever’s 31-year term as the country’s favored dog breed, the American Kennel Club announced Wednesday.\n\nThe organization said the French bulldog has spiked in popularity in recent years. The dogs were the 14th most popular breed in 2012, but jumped to the number 2 spot in the American Kennel Club’s 2021 rankings.\n\n“Frenchies are playful, adaptable, loyal and outgoing,\" American Kennel Club's executive secretary Gina DiNardo said in a news release. \"They make wonderful companions for a variety of people, but it’s extremely important to do your research to not only find the right breed for your lifestyle, but to ensure that you’re getting a well-bred dog from a responsible breeder.”\n\nExperts warn that some bulldog breeds are known for being highly susceptible to health complications.\n\nA barrage of bullets:Dog breeder fatally shot selling pup, South Carolina sheriff says\n\nStudy:Feeding dogs certain table scraps could help health, but processed kibble may not\n\nFrench bulldogs may have a greater chance of being diagnosed with a slate of common disorders compared to other breeds, according to a study published in 2021. The British Veterinary Association has urged people against buying flat-faced dog breeds.\n\nFrench bulldogs have also been the target of thefts. Last month, officials in South Carolina said a well-known breeder was fatally shot during the sale of a French bulldog. Lady Gaga’s dog walker in 2021, Ryan Fischer, was also shot as the star’s two dogs were stolen.\n\nThe American Kennel Club in its rankings also included the least popular dog breeds of 199 rankings, with English Foxhounds coming in last place, followed by Norwegian Lundehunds and Sloughis.\n\nYou can find the full rankings here.\n\nMost popular dog breeds of 2022\n\nFrench bulldogs Labrador retrievers Golden retrievers German shepherd dogs Poodles Bulldogs Rottweilers Beagles Dachshunds German shorthaired pointers\n\nLeast popular dog breeds of 2022\n\nEnglish foxhounds Norwegian Lundehunds Sloughis American foxhounds Belgian Laekenois Azawakhs Harriers Sussex spaniels Cesky terriers Pyrenean shepherds\n\nHow are the dog breeds ranked?\n\nThe American Kennel Club explained Wednesday that it uses its “registration statistics to rank the most popular breeds of the past year.” They're based on about 716,500 dogs newly registered last year, and registration by owners is voluntary.\n\nThe rankings do not include mixed-breeds or popular “designer” hybrids, such as labradoodles.\n\nContributing: Natalie Neysa Alund, Jordan Mendoza, USA TODAY; Associated Press", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2023/03/15"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/09/26/bulldogs-most-searched-dog-breeds-us/8073052001/", "title": "What is the most popular breed in each state? Here's what Google ...", "text": "Corrections and clarifications: A previous version of this story had an outdated number of dog breeds recognized by the American Kennel Club.\n\nPet owners often pamper their fur babies with the same fervor that parents have for their human children. But dogs haven't always been given the same level of treatment that many of us aim to provide today.\n\nNational Dog Week, established by William Lewis Judy in 1928 as a way to celebrate our beloved canines, occurs annually Sept. 20-27.\n\nThroughout Judy's career, he highlighted dog owners' responsibilities and explored various breeds in books like \"The Dog Encyclopedia,\" published in 1923, and \"Dog World Magazine,\" which was owned by Judy and continued to publish until 2012. His work taught people about dogs needs, the different types of breeds and how to successfully train them, according to the Animal History Museum.\n\nOut of 200 purebred dog breeds recognized by the American Kennel Club, less than a handful were at the top of people's minds who searched online.\n\nBased on Google search data compiled over the last five years, Bulldogs are the most-searched dog breed in the U.S. in all but 13 states: Alaska, Idaho, Kentucky, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, New Hampshire, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin and West Virginia. Those states favored three other breeds: Labrador Retriever, Siberian Husky and German Shepherd.\n\nMost popular dog breed in each state, according to Google trends data since 2017:\n\nAlabama – Bulldog\n\nAlaska – Siberian Husky\n\nArizona – Bulldog\n\nArkansas – Bulldog\n\nCalifornia – Bulldog\n\nColorado – Bulldog\n\nConnecticut – Bulldog\n\nDelaware – Bulldog\n\nDistrict of Columbia – Bulldog\n\nFlorida – Bulldog\n\nGeorgia – Bulldog\n\nHawaii – Bulldog\n\nIdaho – Labrador Retriever\n\nIllinois – Bulldog\n\nIndiana – Bulldog\n\nIowa – Bulldog\n\nKansas – Bulldog\n\nKentucky – German Shepherd\n\nLouisiana – Bulldog\n\nMaine – Labrador Retriever\n\nMaryland – Bulldog\n\nMassachusetts – Bulldog\n\nMichigan – Bulldog\n\nMinnesota – Labrador Retriever\n\nMississippi – Bulldog\n\nMissouri – Bulldog\n\nMontana – Labrador Retriever\n\nNebraska – Bulldog\n\nNevada – Bulldog\n\nNew Hampshire – Labrador Retriever\n\nNew Jersey – Bulldog\n\nNew Mexico – Bulldog\n\nNew York – Bulldog\n\nNorth Carolina – Bulldog\n\nNorth Dakota – Labrador Retriever\n\nOhio – Bulldog\n\nOklahoma – Bulldog\n\nOregon – Bulldog\n\nPennsylvania – Bulldog\n\nRhode Island – Bulldog\n\nSouth Carolina – Bulldog\n\nSouth Dakota – Labrador Retriever\n\nTennessee – Bulldog\n\nTexas – Bulldog\n\nUtah – Bulldog\n\nVermont – Labrador Retriever\n\nVirginia – Bulldog\n\nWashington – Siberian Husky\n\nWest Virginia – German Shepherd\n\nWisconsin – Labrador Retriever\n\nWyoming – Bulldog\n\nWhat other lists have Bulldogs made?\n\nFrom 2013 – 2020, Bulldogs ranked in the top five most popular dog breeds, based on American Kennel Club (AKC) registration statistics. In 2021, Bulldogs were knocked down to No. 6 by the Poodle, which made top five for the first time since 1997.\n\nHow well do you know your doggos? Take the quiz\n\nBulldogs are believed to have been created in 13th-century England for bullbaiting — a betting \"sport\" where bulls fought a pack of dogs in front of spectators — according to AKC. As the sport became obsolete, Bulldogs were bred to be more of a companion than a fighter.\n\nThe Labrador Retriever has been the No. 1 most-popular breed since 1991, according to AKC.\n\nSee the most-searched dog breeds in the country.\n\nCamille Fine is a trending visual producer on USA TODAY's NOW team.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/09/26"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/pets/2016/02/25/labs-fetch-first-place-akc-breed-popularity-ranking/80955834/", "title": "Labs fetch first place in AKC breed popularity ranking", "text": "Sharon Dargay Staff Writer\n\nLabrador retrievers rank first in purebred popularity. They’ve been the top dog in America for the past 25 years, according to the American Kennel Club, (AKC).\n\nThe organization tallies purebred dog registrations each year and uses those statistics as the basis for its annual breed popularity list, which it released this week. According to AKC’s 2015 stats, the Labrador retriever took the top spot.\n\nMarla Stuck isn’t surprised.\n\n“I think it’s because they are naturally a friendly dog. They are super duper smart and they are easy to train and good with children. You can’t have a better family dog. If you want a guard dog, you’re not going to get a Lab,” said Stuck, president of MI Lab Rescue.\n\nBut there’s a downside to popularity.\n\n“People go to the breeder and buy these puppies and then no one wants to potty train and clean up,” Stuck said. “People buy this dog because they want to go hunting and then they never hunt. Or they don’t want to train them and don’t understand positive training like we do. They don’t want to walk them. Labs are athletes and if you don’t exercise them, it makes them go crazy.”\n\nOr they buy a puppy as a family Christmas gift, but soon discover dog ownership is too much work.\n\n“So, a lot of people don’t understand basic stuff before getting a dog and how much work it is. The shelters are full of the number one breed.”\n\nA quick check of Petfinder.com turns up 525 Labs or Lab mixes for adoption within 100 miles of Livonia’s 48150 zip code. Eighty-seven German shepherds, AKC’s second most popular breed, are listed for adoption within the same geographic area.\n\nStuck started the Ypsilanti-based rescue two years ago upon the urging of an acquaintance. The non-profit organization has a seven-member board of directors and volunteers who foster the dogs. MI Lab Rescue adopted out 16 dogs its first year, 23 dogs last year and four this year. Stuck said the organization placed two new rescued Labs in foster care this week.\n\n“She was a puppy mill dog,” Stuck described one of the newcomers. “They used her as a puppy mill dog and then tied her to a picnic table at a shelter up north and drove away.”\n\nDog decides\n\nStuck said all of the rescue’s dogs are vetted and spayed or neutered. The organization requires a home visit and a meet and greet before an adoption is finalized. The dogs have the final say.\n\n“I tell people if the dog doesn’t want to be with you, the dog won’t be with you.”\n\nStuck recalls one potential adopter that passed the home visit, but failed to make the cut after the dog became shy, stressed and urinated inside the house.\n\n“My vice president knelt down and (the dog) put both paws around her head and hugged her tight. When I opened the door she made a beeline for my van.”\n\nNew life\n\nIn some cases, dogs go from a rags-to-riches existence when they’re placed with a new family. Stuck said an adopter in Plymouth offered the perfect setting — a big backyard — for their rescued Lab, which initially had been heartworm positive and came from a shelter in Mobile, Ala.\n\n“We got quite a few of ours from Alabama. We had one pup that had been tossed out onto a highway in Alabama. Someone took it to a shelter there, but it was a high-kill shelter.”\n\nMI Lab Rescue pulls dogs from high-kill shelters in Michigan and Alabama. Its adoption fees are $250 per dog. Stuck said her organization spends approximately $1,000 on each dog it prepares for adoption. All of its members are volunteers and they rely on donations to pay expenses.\n\nIts first fundraising event is a four-person golf scramble, 10 a.m. May 21, at Pine View Golf Course, 5820 Stony Creek Road, Ypsilanti. Register for MI Lab Rescue’s Par For Pups golf outing or check out the rescue’s success stories and adoptable dogs at milabrescue.com.\n\nsdargay@hometownlife.com\n\nTop 10 AKC dog breeds in America\n\n1. Labrador retriever — “Friendly, active, outgoing. Labs play well with others.”\n\n2. German shepherd — “Smart, confident, courageous and steady. A true dog lover’s dog.”\n\n3. Golden retriever — “Intelligent, friendly and devoted.”\n\n4. Bulldog — “Calm, courageous and friendly, dignified but amusing.”\n\n5. Beagle — “Curious, friendly, merry...loving and lovable, happy, easygoing and companionable.”\n\n6. French bulldog — “Playful, smart, adaptable and completely irresistible.”\n\n7. Yorkshire terrier — “Affectionate, sprightly, tomboyish.”\n\n8. Poodle — “Active, proud, very smart.”\n\n9. Rottweiller — “Confident guardian, loving, reserved with strangers and affectionate and loyal with his family.”\n\n10. Boxer — “Active, bright, fun-loving, and loyal.”", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2016/02/25"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/local/2018/02/25/cane-corso-dog-breed-delaware/360747002/", "title": "Cane Corso is most searched for dog breed in Delaware, study finds", "text": "Delaware dog lovers are literally searching for an underdog.\n\nLabrador retrievers, German shepherds and golden retrievers have consistently topped the list of the American Kennel Club's most popular dog breeds both nationwide and in Delaware the past few years.\n\nBut research by FranchiseOpportunities.com, an online franchise opportunity directory, dug into the data and found that interest by Delaware dog lovers has turned to another breed this past year.\n\nAccording to Melody Porter, a representative of FranchiseOpportunities.com, Delawareans have searched the web for the Cane Corso breed more than any other dog breed in 2017.\n\nThe Cane Corso, also known as the Italian Mastiff, is a large Italian breed of dog regarded as a companion, guard dog and hunter.\n\nFolks in Delaware seem to be intrigued by the Cane Corso and have been outpacing all other dog breeds in web searches, according to data from the FranchiseOpportunities.com study.\n\n\"We began by looking at the American Kennel Club's Top 50 Dog Breeds list,\" Porter said. \"Then, we took that list and pulled data from Google Trends for related search terms around each dog breed. The breed with the highest search interest was deemed the top for that state.\"\n\nPorter said the reason for the survey was because Earthwise Pet Supply and the Dog Stop are joining FranchiseOpportunities.com soon to offer franchisees business opportunities in doggy day care as well as grooming services.\n\n\"With that being said, we've been reminiscing about our canine pals and discussing our beloved dog breeds,\" she said.\n\nAnd while the AKC list is the gold standard and most referenced dog breed list, Porter said the data compiled in the FranchiseOpportunities.com study painted a different picture of what breed people are at least searching the web for.\n\n\"We calculated the top-three most popular dog breeds across the U.S. by looking at the breeds with the highest count by state,\" she said. \"In order, those were Dobermans, French bulldogs and Rottweilers.\"\n\nThe American Kennel Club list hasn't fluctuated much in the past few years with Labrador retrievers holding down the top spot in Delaware, followed by German shepherds, golden retrievers, Rottweilers and poodles.\n\nThe national list from the nation’s largest purebred dog registry for 2016 is much the same, with the top three the same as in Delaware. That changes with bulldogs and beagles rounding out the top five.\n\nOn the national list, Rottweilers are No. 8, while the Cane Corso breed comes in at No. 40.\n\nThe German shepherd secured its spot as the second most popular breed again this year in the AKC list. The 2017 list will be released next month.\n\nFanucci, a German shepherd co-owned by a retired vet tech from Milton, was in the spotlight two weeks ago when he saw his hopes for a \"Best in Show\" at the 2018 Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show dashed.\n\nThe 5-year-old German shepherd that survived a brutal highway crash a few years ago in New Jersey was scratched from the competition because of a hematoma on his left ear, said co-owner Stephanie Schrock of Milton.\n\nSchrock thinks Fanucci might have been nipped by a playful puppy before or during Westminster, or perhaps he shook his ear too hard and broke a blood vessel.\n\n\"It was a freak thing,\" Schrock said. \"You work hard all week and boom, this happens. The timing couldn't have been any worse.\"\n\nFanucci was considered by many the nation's top in his class heading into the prestigious dog show at the Westminster Kennel Club.\n\nTop dogs searched in surrounding states\n\nDelaware: Cane Corso\n\nMaryland: Bullmastiff\n\nPennsylvania: Rottweiler\n\nNew Jersey: Maltese dog\n\nVirginia: Bichon frise\n\nSOURCE: FranchiseOpportunities.com\n\nThe 2016 AKC Top 10 list of dog breeds\n\n1. Labrador retriever\n\n2. German shepherd dog\n\n3. Golden retriever\n\n4. Bulldog\n\n5. Beagle\n\n6. French bulldog\n\n7. Poodle\n\n8. Rottweiler\n\n9. Yorkshire terrier\n\n10. Boxer\n\nSOURCE: American Kennel Club\n\nReach Jerry Smith at jsmith17@delawareonline.com. Follow him on Twitter at @JerrySmithTNJ.\n\nKEEP READING\n\nSchool bus drivers concerned about discipline, their own safety\n\nMurdered drag star remembered as proud, enterprising entrepreneur\n\nHibachi Japanese Steak House near Newark has closed", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2018/02/25"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/21/top-dog-breeds-labrador-retrievers-top-list-28th-year-row/3232354002/", "title": "Americans loves labs. They're the top dog breed for the 28th year in ...", "text": "The Associated Press\n\nNEW YORK (AP) — Labrador retrievers aren’t letting go of their hold on U.S. dog lovers, but German shorthaired pointers are tugging on the top ranks of doggy popularity, according to new American Kennel Club data.\n\nLabs topped the list for the 28th year in a row. Yet there’s been plenty of movement over time on the purebred pup-ularity ladder.\n\nAfter Labs, the top five breeds nationwide are German shepherds, golden retrievers, French bulldogs and bulldogs. Rounding out the top 10 are beagles, poodles, Rottweilers, German shorthaired pointers and Yorkshire terriers.\n\nLabs smashed the record for longest tenure as top dog back in 2013. Fans credit the Lab’s generally amiable nature and aptitude in many canine roles: bomb-sniffer, service dog, hunters’ helper, dog-sport competitor and patient family pet.\n\nAt No. 9, the German shorthaired pointer notched its highest ranking since getting AKC recognition in 1930. These strikingly speckled hunting dogs are also versatile — some work as drug- and bomb-detectors — and active companions.\n\n“I think people are learning about how fun the breed is,” says AKC spokeswoman Brandi Hunter.\n\nThe suddenly ubiquitous French bulldog remains the fourth most popular breed for a second year, after surging from 83rd a quarter-century ago.\n\nTHE NUMBERS:\n\nThe rankings reflect a breed’s prevalence among the 580,900 puppies and other purebred dogs newly registered in 2018 with the AKC, the country’s oldest such registry. Some 88,175 of these dogs were Labs.\n\nAKC says registrations, which are voluntary, have been growing for six years.\n\nEstimates of the total number of pet dogs nationwide range from about 70 million to 90 million.\n\nTHE CONSISTENT FAVE\n\nBeagles, now No. 6, can boast they’re uniquely beloved. No other breed has made the top 10 in every decade since record-keeping began in the 1880s.\n\nWhy? “They’re a good general family dog,” lively, friendly, relatively low-maintenance and comfortable with children, says breeder Kevin Shupenia of Dacula, Georgia. Beagles also work sniffing out contraband meat and plants at airports, detecting bedbugs in homes and doing their traditional job: hunting rabbits.\n\n“They have a sense of humor, and they’re just characters,” Shupenia says.\n\nTHE RAREST OF THEM ALL:\n\nThe most scant breed was the sloughi (pronounced SLOO’-ghee). The greyhound-like dog has a long history in North Africa but garnered AKC recognition only three years ago. It replaces the Norwegian lundehund in the rarest-breed spot.\n\nHOW DID DOODLES DO?\n\nWonder where goldendoodles, puggles, or cockapoos stand? You won’t find these and other popular “designer dogs” among the 193 breeds recognized and ranked by the AKC.\n\nThat’s not to say they never will be, if their fanciers so desire. New breeds join the club periodically, after meeting criteria that include having at least 300 dogs nationwide and three generations.\n\nMeanwhile, designer and just plain mixed-breed dogs can sign up with AKC to compete in such sports as agility, dock diving and obedience.\n\nTHE WHYS, PROS AND CONS OF POPULARITY\n\nMany factors can influence a breed’s popularity: ease of care, exposure from TV and movies, and famous owners, to name a few.\n\nPopularity spurts can expand knowledge about a breed, but many people in dogdom rue slipshod breeding by people trying to cash in on sudden cachet.\n\nElaine Albert, a longtime chow chow owner and sometime breeder, is glad the ancient Chinese dog is now 75th in the rankings, after leaping into the top 10 in the 1980s. Albert recalls that she and other chow rescue volunteers were swamped as people gave up dogs with temperament and health problems, which she attributes to careless breeding.\n\n“I certainly wouldn’t want (chows) to be number one, ever,” says Albert, of Hauppauge, New York. “They belong where they are.... They’re not for everybody.”\n\nOn the other hand, aficionados of rare breeds sometimes worry about sustaining them.\n\nTHE PUREBRED DEBATE\n\nSome animal-welfare groups feel the pursuit of purebred dogs puts their looks ahead of their health and diverts people from adopting pets. Critics also say the AKC needs to do more to thwart puppy mills.\n\nThe club says it encourages responsible breeding of healthy dogs, not as a beauty contest but to preserve traits that have helped dogs do particular jobs.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2019/03/21"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/15/health/english-bulldogs-scn-scli-intl-gbr/index.html", "title": "Vets want people to stop buying 'unhealthy' English bulldogs | CNN", "text": "London CNN —\n\nVeterinarians are calling on animal lovers to stop buying English bulldogs, because of “major” concerns about their health.\n\nThe breed, also known as the British bulldog, is “compromised” by a “high rate of health issues related to extreme body shape” that has been bred into them, according to the UK’s Royal Veterinary College (RVC).\n\nA new study by the college calls for “urgent action” to reduce the many serious health problems that, it says, are associated with the breed’s “exaggerated features,” such as their flat faces.\n\nThe vets hope the study, which reveals that English bulldogs are more than twice as likely to develop a range of health disorders, will deter people from breeding and buying dogs designed to look this way.\n\nIn a press release posted online, the college said: “The English Bulldog has risen sharply in popularity in the UK over the past decade. However, its distinctive and exaggerated short muzzle, protruding lower jaw and stocky body shape has been linked with several serious health and welfare issues, including breathing problems, skin and ear diseases and eye disorders.\n\n“Sadly, many of the breed’s problematic characteristics such as a very flat face, deep facial skin folds and noisy breathing are still often perceived by many people as ‘normal’ or even ‘desirable’ novelties rather than major welfare issues.”\n\nThe RVC’s VetCompass program compared the health of random samples of 2,662 English bulldogs and 22,039 dogs of other breeds. It found the bulldogs were more than twice as likely to have one or more disorders in a single year than other breeds.\n\nSome of the most common health problems included skin-fold dermatitis, cherry eye (a prolapsed eyelid gland), protruding lower jaw, and brachycephalic obstructive airway syndrome (severe breathing problems related to a dog’s flat face shape), which was 19 times more common than in other dog breeds.\n\nThe bulldog was developed centuries ago in England for use in fighting bulls. Characteristically powerful and often vicious, the breed almost disappeared when dog-fighting was outlawed in 1835. However, enthusiasts saved it by breeding out its ferocity.\n\nThe vets argue that the public should embrace the breed’s more natural look, saying: “In the future, the English Bulldog should become recognised and loved for having a longer face, smaller head and non-wrinkled skin, representing a more moderate and healthier conformation.”\n\nDan O’Neill, lead author of the paper and associate professor in companion animal epidemiology at the RVC, said: “Every dog deserves to be born with equal and good innate health by having a natural ability to breathe freely, blink fully, exercise easily, have healthy flat skin, mate and give birth.\n\n“For breeds such as English Bulldogs where many dogs still have extreme conformations with poor innate health, the public have a huge role to play by demanding dogs with moderate and healthier conformations. Until then, prospective owners should ‘stop and think before buying a flat-faced dog’.”\n\nThe study was funded in part by the the Kennel Club Charitable Trust. Bill Lambert, health, welfare and breeder services executive at the Kennel Club, said in the statement: “As this research shows, there are increasing numbers of Bulldogs bred outside any sphere of influence and in a certain way because it is perceived to be ‘cute’, with little regard for health and welfare. A collaborative approach to tackling these issues is crucial; we must continue to work together with breeders, vets and welfare organisations to reduce and ultimately eliminate the health problems faced by brachycephalic (flat-faced) breeds, as well as reduce mass demand for these dogs.”", "authors": ["Lianne Kolirin"], "publish_date": "2022/06/15"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/04/13/bayley-snoopy-dog-sheepadoodle/11657205002/", "title": "Bayley the dog, a mini sheepadoodle who looks like Snoopy from ...", "text": "A 2-year-old sheepadoodle named Bayley is getting her moment in the spotlight this week after pet lovers on Instagram began marveling at how much she looks like Snoopy, the famous canine Charlie Brown character.\n\nBayley's floppy black ears, her big button nose and even the size and shape of her head appear to perfectly match the familiar cartoon image of Snoopy, Charlie Brown's pet dog in the \"Peanuts\" cartoon strip.\n\nThis week, the Doodle Dogs Club Instagram account introduced Bayley to its thousands of followers with a post that reads, \"Meet @Bayley.Sheepadoodle, the spitting image of Snoopy! With those big ears and that button nose, Bayley is the perfect real-life version of our favorite cartoon dog.\"\n\nThe post had received more than one million likes by Thursday.\n\nBayley's own Instagram account, @bayley.sheepadoodle, commented on the post, saying: \"That's me 🥰😁 Hi 🐾 everyone ❤️\"\n\nRESCUE BEAGLES:4,000 beagles bred for drug experiments rescued in Virginia\n\nWho is Bayley the mini sheepadoodle?\n\nBayley has over 170,000 followers on her Instagram and she's turning two in a few weeks, her account says.\n\nShe appears to enjoy eating whipped cream given to her in a plastic cup, otherwise known by many dog owners as a \"pup cup,\" or a \"Puppuccino\" if the treat was made by a Starbucks barista.\n\nBayley's Instagram also shows her snuggling on her family's couch, playing with her toys and trying on different doggie outfits.\n\nWhat breed is Snoopy?\n\nAccording to his profile page on the \"Peanuts\" website, Snoopy is a beagle.\n\nIn real life, beagles were bred to be hunting dogs and are known for their large, floppy ears, according to the American Kennel Club.\n\nWhat breed is Bayley?\n\nBayley's Instagram account says she is a miniature sheepadoodle, or a cross between an Old English sheep dog and a miniature poodle.\n\nAccording to her account, Bayley's mom was an Old English sheep dog and her dad was a black miniature poodle.\n\nMore coverage from USA TODAY", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2023/04/13"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2022/10/05/most-expensive-dog-in-the-world/8062598001/", "title": "What is the most expensive dog? The most expensive dog breeds ...", "text": "Pet care is anything but cheap. According to the American Kennel Club, the lifetime cost for small dogs, which have an average life expectancy of 15 years, is approximately $15,051, while large dogs, which have an average life expectancy of 10 years, have a lifetime cost of $14,480.\n\nOther estimates tell a different story. According to Forbes, the lifetime cost of a dog can be anywhere between $17,650 a year to a shocking $93,520, depending on size, breed and care required.\n\nBut what about from the beginning? How much do some pups cost if you're looking to purchase rather than rescue? We have you covered on what is the most expensive dog, plus other pricey pooches.\n\nPups galore:The 30 most popular small dog breeds in America\n\nWhat is the most expensive dog?\n\nThe Tibetan mastiff is considered the most expensive dog, as it has sold for thousands and even millions. In 2014, a Tibetan mastiff puppy was sold for nearly $2 million in China, according to AFP, which cited a report in Chinese newspaper Qianjiang Evening News.\n\nThe dog was sold at a premium pet fair in the eastern province of Zhejiang for 12 million yuan, around $1.95 million, to a property developer. The pup was 80 centimeters (31 inches) tall and weighed 90 kilograms (nearly 200 pounds).\n\nThis wasn't the first time this breed of dog had a high price ticket. In 2011, another Tibetan mastiff puppy sold for $1.5 million, according to NBC News, which reported the animal was the most expensive dog sold at the time.\n\nAccording to the AKC, the Tibetan mastiff is a \"watchful, aloof, imposing, and intimidating\" working breed and affectionate with family, yet distant to strangers.\n\nOn average, males of the breed can weigh between 90 to 150 pounds, while females weigh 70 to 120 pounds. The minimum heights for a Tibetan mastiff are 26 inches for males and 24 inches for females.\n\nHow much is that doggie in the window?How much is that doggie in the window? Try $2M\n\nWhat are the top 10 most expensive dogs?\n\nFetching for a high price tag? Here are the top 10 most expensive dogs and their average prices, according to Reader's Digest:\n\nTibetan mastiff ($3,000 to $5,000)\n\nBlack Russian terrier ($3,000 to $5,000)\n\nSamoyed ($2,500 to $5,000)\n\nFrench bulldog ($2,500 to $4,000)\n\nLöwchen ($2,500 to $4,000)\n\nCavalier King Charles spaniel ($2,500 to $3,500)\n\nBernese mountain dog ($2,500 to $3,500)\n\nBiewer terrier ($2,500 to $3,500)\n\nStaffordshire bull terrier ($2,000 to $3,000)\n\nSt. Bernard ($1,500 to $3,500)\n\nHow often should you walk your dog?Best practices for keeping your pup healthy.\n\nWhat human foods are safe for dogs to eat?Here's what is and isn't safe for your pet.\n\nWhat is the least expensive dog?\n\nNot all pooches cost hundreds or thousands. If you rescue a dog, adoption fees can range from $50 to $500 with an average fee of $300, according to rescuepets101.com.\n\nThe North Shore Animal League America breaks down its adoption fees:\n\nPuppies (up to 6 months): $350\n\nAdult dogs (over 6 months): $100\n\nPuppy mill rescues (over 6 months): $250\n\nSmall breed and pure breeds (over 6 months): $250\n\nIn dog years:These are the longest living dog breeds in the United States\n\nPet care:What we know about your pet's health and common behaviors\n\nJust curious?:We're here to help answer life's everyday questions", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/10/05"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/02/09/can-you-feed-table-scraps-raw-meat-to-dogs/11205715002/", "title": "Dogs could benefit from eating table scraps, raw meat, study says", "text": "Researchers found that about 22% of puppies and 18% of adolescent dogs had gastrointestinal issues such as vomiting, diarrhea and weight loss.\n\nPuppies and young dogs fed a diet of highly processed dried kibble food were more likely to have developed gastrointestinal issues.\n\nPuppies and dogs fed table scraps, leftovers, and non-processed meat were less likely to have stomach problems.\n\nYou may want to modify your puppy's menu. Giving your puppy or dog table scraps and the occasional bone or raw meat may actually make them healthier, new research suggests.\n\nA new study from the University of Helsinki, Finland, published Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports suggests that a diet for puppies and young dogs including non-processed meat, dinner table leftovers and raw bones could protect your pet from stomach disorders later in life.\n\nConversely, a diet of processed dog food could lead to a higher risk of gastrointestinal problems. \"Proactive owners can provide a variety of whole foods and species-appropriate leftovers for the puppies and young dogs, even as an addition to a kibble-based diet,\" one of the study's authors Anna Hielm‑Björkman told USA TODAY.\n\nThe researchers analyzed pet owners' details about the diets of 4,681 puppies and 3,926 adolescent dogs from the DogRisk food frequency questionnaire, established at the university in 2009. Overall, owners reported symptoms of chronic enteropathy (CE), or gastrointestinal issues such as vomiting, diarrhea, weight loss and loss of appetite, in 1,016 (21.7%) of the puppies and 699 (17.8%) of the adolescent dogs.\n\nDog owners were asked about what their pets were fed – and where they were fed – during various times of their pets' lives. They were also asked about health issues their dog might have experienced, as well as at what ages and how often.\n\nThe search:A dog was abandoned on a cold night. This New York community rallied to find her\n\nClassroom crisis?:Half of nation's students fell behind a year during COVID-19 pandemic. How do we recover?\n\nHere's what researchers found when they looked at dogs' diets and outcomes\n\nNon-processed meat-based diet. This diet included raw red meat, organs, fish, eggs, and bones, but also vegetables and berries. When puppies were fed the diet a couple times a month or more, they were 22% less likely to develop the digestive problems (CE) later in life, as adult dogs. As adolescent dogs, they were 12.7% less likely, researchers found.\n\nThis diet included raw red meat, organs, fish, eggs, and bones, but also vegetables and berries. When puppies were fed the diet a couple times a month or more, they were 22% less likely to develop the digestive problems (CE) later in life, as adult dogs. As adolescent dogs, they were 12.7% less likely, researchers found. Leftovers and table scraps from dog owners' plates (not spoiled food). Owners who said they gave their puppies leftovers regularly were 23% less likely to report CE development, researchers found. When young dogs were given leftovers that also led to a 24% less likelihood of CE development in adolescent years and as older dogs.\n\nOwners who said they gave their puppies leftovers regularly were 23% less likely to report CE development, researchers found. When young dogs were given leftovers that also led to a 24% less likelihood of CE development in adolescent years and as older dogs. Ultra-processed carbohydrate dog food. Puppies fed a diet of highly processed dried kibble food were 29% more likely to have developed CE later in life. When young and adolescent dogs were given the diet, they were 15% more likely to have developed CE then and as they aged, researchers said.\n\nPuppies fed a diet of highly processed dried kibble food were 29% more likely to have developed CE later in life. When young and adolescent dogs were given the diet, they were 15% more likely to have developed CE then and as they aged, researchers said. Rawhides. Rawhide chews are often made from dried animal skins, according to the American Kennel Club. When the chews were given to puppies, they were associated with a 117% increased risk of CE in adult dogs, researchers said.\n\nRawhide chews are often made from dried animal skins, according to the American Kennel Club. When the chews were given to puppies, they were associated with a 117% increased risk of CE in adult dogs, researchers said. Berries. Feeding berries to puppies, especially wild blueberries, for example, decreased CE risk later in life by 29%, researchers said.\n\nThe researchers note that dog owners' responses about their pets were not confirmed by subsequent veterinary diagnosis. However, the combined responses of 21.7% of puppies and 17.8% of adolescent dogs with gastrointestinal issues tracked with veterinarians' experiences with the frequency of real-world diagnoses, researchers said.\n\nThe study design doesn't prove causality – that the non-processed and leftovers diet is directly responsible for chronic gut problems in dogs, Hielm‑Björkman said.\n\nCanine custody battle:Ghost survived living with a pack of Nevada coyotes. Now the dog's in custody feud.\n\nShould I feed my puppy or dog leftovers, table scraps and raw meat?\n\nBut the research findings are strong enough that pet owners could try the diet with their dogs, she said. \"We also recommend taking it slow when you transit from one diet to another (a week) as it takes a minimum of 3 weeks for the gut microbiota to be able to adjust to a new diet,\" Hielm‑Björkman said.\n\nA good rule of thumb: previous research on inflammatory skin diseases and atopic dermatitis in dogs showed a \"protecting effect\" starts with using 20% raw foods, whereas the risk of getting the disease starts if eating more than 80% of the food as dry food,\" she said.\n\nThe findings make sense because dogs \"used to be hunters before they were domesticated, Athena Gaffud, a doctor of veterinary medicine at research group Veterinarians.org. But modern dogs are domesticated, which \"makes it risky to feed raw food to some dogs,\" she said.\n\n\"Modern dog breeds are more sensitive and are predisposed to bacterial diseases if fed uncooked food, especially puppies because their immune system is not yet well developed,\" Gaffud said. But the study found when dogs were fed non-processed meat, leftovers, and raw bones during their early life it \"stimulated the growth of a balanced gastrointestinal microbiome,\" she said.\n\n\"While this study looks promising, more studies are needed to outweigh the risks of feeding non-processed food,\" Gaffud said. \"Nonetheless, to reap the benefits of this discovery, a gradual introduction of non-processed meat, dinner table leftovers, and raw bones during the early life of dogs can be tried by owners interested in doing so.\"\n\nShe recommends pet owners confer with a veterinarian to make sure dogs get a balanced diet.\n\nJerry Klein, chief veterinary officer with the American Kennel Club, concurs that most dog owners \"without proper training would not be able to feed a well-balanced diet based on scraps to a growing puppy in their important formative stages without the advice of a veterinarian or nutritionist.\"\n\nKlein, who is an emergency veterinarian, said he has found \"that when people indiscriminately feed their dogs table scraps, it tends to result in many instances in gastroenteritis in their dogs. There is also the potential of feeding toxic foods mixed in with the scraps, such as grapes, raisins, onions and garlic.\"\n\nSo before you em-bark on changing your puppy or dog's diet, maybe get some professional advice.\n\nFollow Mike Snider on Twitter: @mikesnider.\n\nWhat's everyone talking about?:Sign up for our trending newsletter to get the latest news", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2023/02/09"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2022/12/08/how-do-dogs-get-parvo/10702650002/", "title": "How do dogs get parvo? How it spreads and how to spot symptoms ...", "text": "The spread of disease -- person to person, through a sneeze or a loud exclamation, or via an unwashed surface -- has been a hot topic of conversation in recent years. Plenty of people now know a great deal about how to slow the spread of illness. Do those same rules apply when it comes to the animal world?\n\nParvo, for example, is a common virus among dogs. How can canines stay protected? Get vaccinated and stay vigilant, just like us. Here's what you need to know about the disease that affects puppies of all kinds:\n\nHow is parvo spread in dogs?\n\nDogs contract the highly contagious virus through dog-to-dog interaction or contact with an infected surface, environment, or person, the American Veterinary Medical association reports.\n\nWhat is parvo?:Understand parvo in dogs with this definitive guide to the illness.\n\nDespite there being an effective vaccine for the illness, parvo remains fairly common, Dr. Whitney Miller, Petco's chief veterinarian told USA TODAY. This is in part because it is able to withstand weather conditions and live in the environment for upwards of 6 months to a year, Dr. Miller reports.\n\nPet Care 101:What to know about your pet's health and common behaviors\n\nWhat foods are safe for dogs to eat? Here's what human foods are and are not safe for your pet.\n\nWhat are parvo symptoms?\n\n\"Parvo is a viral disease that attacks a dog's immune and GI systems,\" Dr. Miller says, so the first sign a dog owner might see is their pet losing a healthy appetite.\n\nThis might eventually progress to \"potentially bloody diarrhea and vomiting\" she reports. This can dehydrate your dog, making it imperative to seek treatment sooner rather than later.\n\nThe American Kennel Club lists potential symptoms as:\n\nBloody diarrhea\n\nVomiting\n\nFever\n\nLethargy\n\nLoss of appetite\n\nWeight loss\n\nWeakness\n\nDehydration\n\nDepression\n\nWhat is the smallest dog breed? Facts to know and history of the world's smallest breed.\n\nWhy do dogs howl?:Understanding your pet's wild, ancestral instincts.\n\nIs parvo contagious to other dogs?\n\nParvo is highly contagious, so if your dog has been in contact with a known infected pet or environment it is wise to seek treatment sooner rather than later.\n\nThere is an effective vaccine against the disease, and it is much more common for young dogs or unvaccinated canines to contract the disease. \"The number one recommendation is to make sure that when your dog's a puppy that they start on their vaccination schedule,\" Miller says.\n\nDoes eating grass make dogs sick? What to know and when to see a veterinarian.\n\nHow likely is a puppy to get parvo?\n\nThis depends on a number of factors: how common parvo is in the environment where you live, how your puppy is, if they are vaccinated, and how social they are.\n\nSince parvo can be spread through dog-to-dog contact, if your dog is highly social, often visiting dog parks or staying at a doggy day-care, they may be at a higher risk.\n\nDogs between 6 weeks old and 6 months are also at a higher risk, along with unvaccinated puppies, the American Kennel Club reports.\n\nCertain dog breeds are also more susceptible to parvo AKC reports, including:\n\nRottweilers Doberman Pinschers\n\nAmerican Staffordshire Terriers\n\nEnglish Springer Spaniels\n\nGerman Shepherd Dogs\n\nLabrador Retrievers\n\nHow many parvo shots does a dog need?\n\nThree. The American Kennel Club reports that vaccination against parvo is a 3 shot series, and that owners should be particularly careful during the time in between shots so that their pup does not contract the illness.\n\nDogs should receive this shot series as puppies, when they are most vulnerable, ideally between starting at the age of 6 weeks.\n\nHow much does it cost to treat parvo?\n\nThere is no definitive cost that can be put on treating parvo.\n\nTreatment depends on the severity of the illness, and in severe cases could involve a trip to emergency care which can be quite pricey. In less severe cases, the course of treatment is supportive care -- rehydration efforts and keeping your dog warm as they recover.\n\nThe total cost of such care depends on those variety of factors, including pet insurance and the seriousness of the condition.\n\nJust Curious? Your everyday questions, answered.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/12/08"}]}
{"question_id": "20230317_10", "search_time": "2023/05/25/17:56", "search_result": [{"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2023/03/12/oscars-2023-live-updates-winners/11430002002/", "title": "Oscars 2023: 'Everything Everywhere All at Once' wins best picture", "text": "Everything was all right Sunday at the 95th Academy Awards, where no one got slapped and \"Everything Everywhere All at Once\" ruled the night.\n\nThe acclaimed sci-fi comedy came in as a frontrunner at the Oscars and cleaned up like a powerhouse, winning seven honors including best picture, best actress (Michelle Yeoh), supporting actress (Jamie Lee Curtis), supporting actor (Ke Huy Quan), directing and original screenplay. And the good vibes continued in the best actor category, where Brendan Fraser completed a great awards-season comeback story and won for \"The Whale.\"\n\nHere are all the winners and highlights from the main Oscar ceremony, hosted by Jimmy Kimmel:\n\nOscars winners:See who took home gold at Academy Awards\n\nWho made Oscars history in 2023? See the many 'firsts' from Michelle Yeoh, 'Naatu Naatu,' more\n\n'Everything Everywhere All at Once' wins the Oscars' top prize, best picture\n\n\"We've said enough tonight. You inspire me,\" says director Daniel Kwan, accepting best picture for \"Everything Everywhere All at Once.\"\n\nMichelle Yeoh takes best actress for 'Everything Everywhere'\n\nThe longtime action-movie icon finally gets her Oscar and becomes the first Asian woman to win the category. \"For all the little boys and girls who look like me watching tonight, let this be a beacon of hope and possibilities. This is proof dreams come true. And ladies, don't let anyone ever tell you you are past your prime,\" Michelle Yeoh says, winning best actress for \"Everything Everywhere All at Once.\" She dedicates the win to her 84-year-old mom and promised to bring Oscar \"home to you and my extended family in Hong Kong where I started in my career. Thank you to the Academy, this is history in the making.\"\n\n'A beacon of hope and possibilities':Michelle Yeoh wins best actress, making Oscars history\n\n'The Whale' comeback kid Brendan Fraser wins best actor\n\nBrendan Fraser shakes fellow nominee Colin Farrell's hand before accepting the best actor honor for \"The Whale.\" \"So this is what the multiverse looks like!\" Fraser says, out of breath with excitement. \"I just want to say thank you for this acknowledgement. It's like I've been on a diving expedition,\" he adds, shouting out his kids and director Darren Aronofsky for \"throwing me a creative lifeline.\"\n\nBrendan Fraser:'The Whale' star wins best actor Academy Award and proves nice guys can finish first\n\n'Everything Everywhere' snags Oscars for film editing, directing\n\n\"This is too much. This is my second film, y'all. This is crazy,\" Paul Rogers says, accepting the Oscar for best film editing for \"Everything Everywhere All at Once.\" Then the best picture frontrunner runs its tally to five awards when Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert take best directing. \"Our fellow nominees, you guys are our heroes, This is weird,\" Scheinert says. He thanks all the \"mommies\" in the house and his parents \"for not squashing my creativity when I was making really disturbing horror films or really perverted comedy films, or dressing in drag as a kid, which is a threat to nobody\" – a shot seemingly at anti-drag legislation popping up around the country.:\n\nAdds Kwan: \"There is greatness in every single person. You have a genius in you that is waiting to be unlocked.\"\n\n'Top Gun' takes best sound, 'RRR' gets original song Oscar for 'Naatu Naatu'\n\nSomewhere, Tom Cruise is smiling. \"Top Gun: Maverick\" finally wins an Oscar, for best sound. And the Academy Award for best original song goes to \"RRR\" dance number \"Naatu Naatu.\" \"I grew up listening to The Carpenters and here I am with the Oscars,\" says composer M.M. Keeravani, doing his own spin on The Carpenters' \"Top of the World.\" John Travolta comes out and chokes up when introducing Lenny Kravitz, who sings \"Calling All Angels\" during the \"In Memoriam\" segment (which includes Travolta's \"Grease\" co-star Olivia Newton-John).\n\nBrutally honest rankings:All the Oscars song performances, from ‘Naatu Naatu’ to Lady Gaga\n\n'Everything Everywhere,' 'Women Talking' win screenplay Oscars\n\n\"Everything Everywhere\" filmmaker Daniel Scheinert thanks his teachers for helping him be \"less of a butthead\" when accepting the original screenplay Oscar alongside partner Daniel Kwan, who admits \"my imposter syndrome is at an all-time high.\" And when accepting the adapted screenplay honor, \"Women Talking\" director Sarah Polley slyly shouts out the Academy for \"not being offended by the words 'Women' and 'Talking' so close together.\"\n\n'Black Panther: Wakanda Forever' presents Chadwick Boseman tribute, Rihanna number\n\n\"Wakanda Forever\" star Danai Gurira arrives on stage to pay tribute to late \"Black Panther\" actor Chadwick Boseman, saying in Wakandan: \"Thank you, king.\" Gurira then introduces Rihanna, who sings her nominated tune \"Lift Me Up\" and receives a standing ovation.\n\n'Lift Me Up':Rihanna soars at 2023 Oscars with powerful first performance of song\n\n'Avatar: The Way of Water' gets the gold for visual effects\n\nElizabeth Banks and the Cocaine Bear come out to present the award for visual effects. The Oscar goes to \"Avatar: The Way of Water,\" which makes sense because the Na'vi main characters are all digital. Afterward, Jimmy Kimmel is ready with an A-plus dad joke: \"The afterparty is at CGI Friday's.\"\n\n'All Quiet on the Western Front' wins two more technical honors\n\nThe Netflix war movie is starting to gain some momentum, as \"All Quiet on the Western Front\" runs over the likes of \"Babylon,\" \"The Fabelmans\" and other Oscar favorites for best production design and score.\n\nLady Gaga sings a raw, rousing version of 'Top Gun' song 'Hold My Hand'\n\n\"It's deeply personal for me and we all need a lot of love to walk through this life. And we all need a hero sometimes. You might find that you can be your own hero, even if you feel broken inside,\" Lady Gaga says before performing her nominated song \"Hold My Hand\" (from \"Top Gun: Maverick\") with stripped-down piano, guitar, bass and drums.\n\nOscars best-dressed:Jaw-dropping looks from Lady Gaga, Michelle Yeoh, Angela Bassett\n\n'Elephant Whisperers' and 'The Boy, the Mole' conquer shorts categories\n\n\"The Elephant Whisperers,\" about an Indian couple that cares for an orphaned baby elephant, wins for best documentary short. And animated short goes to \"The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse,\" based on Charlie Mackesy's book.\n\n'All Quiet on the Western Front' wins best international film\n\nThis isn't a surprise: After ruling the BAFTAs (and with Indian action epic \"RRR\" not in its category), \"All Quiet on the Western Front\" takes the international film Oscar, its second honor of the night. \"This means so much to us,\" says director Edward Berger. He also thanks star Felix Kammerer: \"Without you, none of us would be here.\"\n\n'Wakanda Forever' nabs costume design honor\n\n\"Nice to see you again,\" Ruth Carter says, winning costume design for \"Black Panther: Wakanda Forever\" – the same honor she took home for 2018's original \"Panther.\" The first Black woman to win two Oscars, Carter dedicates the award to her mom, who recently died at age 101, and thanks director Ryan Coogler and producer Nate Moore: \"We are reshaping how culture is represented.\" if that wasn't exciting enough, the original song performance of \"RRR\" tune \"Naatu Naatu\" delivers a ton of rousing dance moves that get the Oscar crowd going.\n\nBrendan Fraser's 'The Whale' wins for best makeup and hairstyling\n\nDigital and physical prosthetics were used to transform Brendan Fraser into the 600-pound main character of \"The Whale,\" and it pays off with an Oscar for makeup. Fraser is one of the first to get on his feet and excitedly cheer the win.\n\nBest cinematography Oscar goes to 'All Quiet on the Western Front'\n\nNetflix's acclaimed German war drama earns its first technical honor of the night. \"My fellow nominees, your work is just outstanding and inspiring,\" says James Friend, who wins best cinematography for \"All Quiet on the Western Front.\" Donnie Yen arrives on stage afterward to introduce the next original song nominee: \"Everything Everywhere\" star Stephanie Hsu, Son Lux and David Byrne doing a weird, ethereal performance of \"This Is a Life.\"\n\n'Navalny' is named best documentary\n\nDirector Daniel Roher's film about Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny wins the Oscar for best documentary. \"We must not be afraid to oppose dictators,\" says Roher, while Navalny's wife Yulia addresses her husband, currently being held in solitary confinement in Russia: \"I'm dreaming of the day you will be free and our country will be free.\" And the award for live-action short goes to \"The Irish Goodbye.\"\n\nJamie Lee Curtis wins her first Oscar, for supporting actress in 'Everything Everywhere'\n\n\"Woo-hoo,\" Jamie Lee Curtis exclaims, hugging Ariana DeBose and taking her supporting actress trophy for \"Everything Everywhere.\" \"I know it looks like I'm standing up here by myself but I am hundreds of people,\" Curtis says, shouting out her directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, \"my bae\" Michelle Yeoh, all her horror folks and her late Hollywood parents, Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh. \"We all just won an Oscar together.\" She leaves the stage and then Sofia Carson and Diane Warren arrive with a choir to perform their original song nominee, \"Applause\" from \"Tell It Like a Woman.\"\n\nJamie Lee Curtis:First-time winner thanks castmates, late parents in touching Oscars speech\n\nKe Huy Quan takes best supporting actor for 'Everything Everywhere'\n\nAfter hugging co-star Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan goes to the stage to take his supporting actor trophy for \"Everything Everywhere\" and immediately starts crying. \"My mom is 84 years old and she's at home watching. Mom, I just won an Oscar!\" he says through tears. He tells how his journey started on a boat, involved spending a year in a refugee camp and \"somehow ended up on the Oscar stage. This is the American dream.\" He concludes by saying that \"dreams are something you have to believe in. I almost gave up on mine. Everyone out there, keep your dreams alive.\"\n\n'This is the American dream':Read Ke Huy Quan's emotional Oscars acceptance speech\n\nGuillermo del Toro's 'Pinocchio' wins best animated feature\n\nEmily Blunt and Dwayne Johnson arrive on stage to give out the first award of the night: best animated feature. And the winner is ... director Guillermo del Toro's Netflix stop-motion feature \"Pinocchio\"! \"Animation is cinema, animation is not a genre. Animation is ready to be taken to the next step. Please help us keep animation in the conversation,\" del Toro says, tearing up when thanking his parents. According to Netflix, del Toro becomes the first person to win best picture, best director and best animated feature Oscars.\n\n2023 Oscars:Why Cate Blanchett, Guillermo del Toro and more celebs wore blue ribbons\n\nJimmy Kimmel gets the 'Top Gun' treatment to begin the show\n\nJimmy Kimmel starts the show by being \"ejected\" out of a fighter jet by Tom Cruise and parachutes onto the Dolby Theatre stage. \"Give me a second to adjust my Danger Zone here. My Banshees are caught in my Inisherin,\" he jokes. Kimmel shouts out audiences returning to the theater to see movies and is also glad to see Nicole Kidman out of that \"abandoned AMC, where she has been held captive for two whole years now.\"\n\nThe host points out first-time nominees Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan, as well as Brendan Fraser: \"Two guys from 'Encino Man' are nominated for Oscar.\" Kimmel calls Steven Spielberg and Seth Rogen \"the Joe and Hunter Biden of Hollywood\" and can't believe Spielberg was sober doing \"E.T.\" \"You were high as a bike when you made that movie,\" Kimmel cracks. He also gives props to John Williams being a nominee at 91 – \"He's still scoring – if you know what I mean\" – and mentions the absence of Cruise and James Cameron: \"Two guys who insisted we go to the theater didn't come to the theater.\"\n\nJimmy Kimmel:Angry actors would have to 'battle' Michelle Yeoh to slap him at Oscars\n\nFor Angela Bassett, the Oscars are all about 'the spirit of never giving up'\n\nSupporting actress contender Angela Bassett, the first actor from a Marvel superhero movie to garner a nod, told USA TODAY that her husband Courtney B. Vance has been an essential support system this Oscar season, accompanying her to awards shows and filming her acceptance speeches on his smartphone. \"He was supportive before the whirlwind,\" says the \"Black Panther: Wakanda Forever\" star. \"He always trusted and believed that a nomination like this might one day happen for me.\"\n\nIn addition to being the subject of Ariana DeBose's viral rap, Bassett has loved going through the awards process with her fellow thespians: \"When I think of my girl Michelle Yeoh and it being her first nomination, it really is about the spirit of never giving up.\"\n\nA Brendan Fraser win would complete an epic Oscar comeback story\n\nThe best actor race seems to be down to Austin Butler, Colin Farrell and Brendan Fraser, though a win by the latter would finish one of this year's most noteworthy comebacks. After becoming a major Hollywood star in the 1990s, Fraser has been honest about his career hardships, including being sexually assaulted, and won accolades for his role in \"The Whale.\"\n\nIn an emotional Screen Actor Guild speech, Fraser shouted out to other actors who've weathered struggles: \"I know how you feel. But believe me, if you just stay in there and you put one foot in front of the other, you'll get to where you need to go.\"\n\nThe new Oscar best picture winner will join Hollywood's most hallowed hall\n\n\"Everything Everywhere All at Once\" is in the pole position to win best picture over \"The Banshees of Inisherin,\" \"Top Gun: Maverick,\" \"All Quiet on the Western Front,\" \"The Fabelmans\" and \"Elvis,\" among others.\n\nThe victor will join a long list filled with some of the greatest movies ever (and a few that don't quite fit that bill). We watched all 94 so far and ranked them, from the first winner – the 1927 silent war drama \"Wings,\" which holds up well! – to the feel-good 2022 Oscar champ \"CODA.\"\n\nGet a video tour of the ultra-exclusive green room at the Oscars\n\nUSA TODAY's Ralphie Aversa has been in LA all week for events leading up to the Academy Awards, and one of them was getting a look at the ultra-exclusive, swanky green room backstage at the Oscars. He was able to do a fun video tour for our readers but come Sunday night at the Dolby Theatre, no cameras will be allowed in – only performers, presenters and winners will be able to enjoy the comfy furniture, floral arrangements and food by celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck.\n\nMichelle Yeoh, Colin Farrell could be first-time Academy Award winners\n\nSixteen of the 20 acting contenders at Sunday's Oscars are first-time , including \"Everything Everywhere\" favorites Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan and Jamie Lee Curtis, as well as best actor candidates Brendan Fraser, Colin Farrell and Austin Butler. The four returnees: Two-time winner Cate Blanchett (\"Tár\"), Angela Bassett (\"Black Panther: Wakanda Forever\"), Michelle Williams (\"The Fabelmans\") and Judd Hirsch (\"The Fabelmans\"), who last received an Oscar nod for 1980's \"Ordinary People.\"\n\nBut the list of thespians who've never won an Academy Award is a pretty star-studded affair overall, including Scarlett Johansson, Antonio Banderas, Glenn Close, Willem Dafoe, Amy Adams, Tom Cruise and Robert Downey Jr.\n\nSupporting actor is Ke Huy Quan's to lose\n\n\"Everything Everywhere\" star Ke Huy Quan has dominated the competition and rolled through awards season. But his quest for a supporting actor victory has also been a Cinderella story for the actor, who was a child star in the 1980s with roles in \"The Goonies\" and \"Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom\" and then stepped away from Hollywood because of a lack of meaty roles for Asian actors.\n\n\"I'm grateful the landscape has changed, there’s a lot more progress now,\" Quan said backstage after winning at the Golden Globes. He's also made sure to have a bunch of fun heading to Oscar night, posting tons of selfies with peers on his Instagram account.\n\nBest supporting actress is a toss-up\n\nAs far as Oscar predictions go, most of the acting categories are fairly straightforward with a favorite moving out in front. Not so much with supporting actress, which can go a few different ways. \"Black Panther: Wakanda Forever\" star Angela Bassett – the first actor to be nominated for a Marvel movie – had the early momentum with wins out of the Golden Globes and Critics Choice, but Jamie Lee Curtis of \"Everything Everywhere\" took an important Screen Actors Guild honor while \"The Banshees of Inisherin\" actress Kerry Condon picked up the supporting trophy at the British Academy Film Awards.\n\nGiven SAG and the \"Everything\" goodwill, Curtis probably has the best chance over Bassett, though it's possible the two beloved Hollywood types cancel each other out and Condon sneaks by for a victory.\n\nGood news: Lady Gaga will be performing 'Hold My Hand' after all!\n\nA bevy of original song contenders are slated for prime-time performances. Rihanna will sing \"Lift Me Up\" from \"Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,\" Sofia Carson and songwriter Diane Warren are slated to perform \"Applause\" from \"Tell It Like A Woman,\" Talking Heads frontman David Byrne teams with \"Everything Everywhere All at Once\" supporting actress nominee Stephanie Hsu and music trio Son Lux for “This Is A Life,\" and Indian singers Rahul Sipligunj and Kaala Bhairava will perform the \"RRR\" song-and-dance number – and the frontrunner in the category – \"Naatu Naatu.\"\n\nAnd while Oscar producers previously said she wouldn't perform, Lady Gaga is now slated to sing “Hold My Hand” from \"Top Gun: Maverick,\" a person familiar with the production but not authorized to speak publicly told USA TODAY. (Fun fact: Gaga is shooting \"Joker: Folie à Deux\" with Joaquin Phoenix, who won best actor for the first \"Joker\" movie.)\n\nGlenn Close tests positive for COVID-19, won't be among Oscar presenters\n\nGlenn Close was expected to be among the dozens of A-list stars on tap to hand out trophies and appear on the telecast Sunday but has tested positive for COVID-19. A representative for the actress told The Associated Press she is isolating and resting.\n\nAriana DeBose, Troy Kotsur, Halle Berry, Nicole Kidman and Jessica Chastain are among the previous Oscar winners scheduled to be presenters. Also on the list is a raft of other high-profile names like Samuel L. Jackson, Dwayne Johnson, Melissa McCarthy, Janelle Monáe, Zoe Saldaña and Harrison Ford.\n\nJust don't expect an appearance from Will Smith. Smith, who won best actor last year for \"King Richard\" and would traditionally present the award for best actress this year, was banned from Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences events for 10 years after he slapped Oscar presenter Chris Rock for making a joke about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith.\n\nRed carpet coverage is coming for the fashionistas\n\nAll the big stars will be hitting the \"champagne carpet\" and wearing their Sunday best. E!'s \"Live From the Red Carpet\" kicks off at 5 p.m. EDT/2 p.m. PDT while ABC starts its pre-show coverage at 6:30 EDT/3:30 PDT. (And check out entertainment.usatoday.com for fashion galleries and analysis.)\n\nRead more about the Academy Awards:\n\nContributing: Bryan Alexander, Patrick", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2023/03/12"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2023/03/09/everything-everywhere-all-at-once-oscars-frontrunner/11361928002/", "title": "Why 'Everything Everywhere All at Once' is the film to beat going into ...", "text": "A year ago, we never could have guessed that a film with hot-dog hands and a singing raccoon would win best picture.\n\nBut “Everything Everywhere All at Once” is predicted to do just that at Sunday’s Academy Awards (ABC, 8 EDT/5 PDT), where it leads with 11 nominations. After winning over critics and moviegoers, the poignant sci-fi adventure has dominated awards season, scoring record-setting wins from the Screen Actors Guild and Independent Spirit Awards last week.\n\n“We’re proud weirdos,” co-director Daniel Kwan told USA TODAY last year. \"I'm so happy people are resonating with this story. We worked so hard to make sure it felt honest.\"\n\nHere’s what you need to know about the unlikely Oscar front-runner:\n\n'Everything Everywhere All at Once' is a multiverse-jumping family drama from the Daniels\n\n\"Everything Everywhere\" follows Evelyn Wong (Michelle Yeoh), a laundromat owner and Chinese immigrant who feels dissatisfied with her life. She struggles to communicate with her estranged husband, Waymond (Ke Huy Quan), and lesbian daughter, Joy (Stephanie Hsu), until one day she is transported to another universe and tasked with defeating an evil force.\n\n\"We love Charlie Kaufman, Douglas Adams, Kurt Vonnegut – people who have a sense of humor about really big, philosophical ideas,\" says co-director Daniel Scheinert, known collectively with Kwan as the Daniels. \"So we've always tossed around ideas that are almost uncinematic in how crazy they are, and the multiverse was one of those.\"\n\nThe film explores mental health, generation gaps and the desire for genuine connection. After experiencing dozens of alternate lives and timelines, Evelyn finally learns to express herself to her family, which culminates in an emotional reconciliation in a parking lot.\n\n\"I like to make fun of that scene for feeling like a rom-com ending,\" Kwan says. \"But in a movie where they spend the whole time talking past each other and existing in different universes, it actually feels very profound to just let them say exactly what they want.\"\n\nMichelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan could make Oscars history\n\nQuan, 51, has made a long-awaited comeback after childhood roles in '80s classics \"The Goonies\" and \"Indiana Jones.\" He's all but swept the best supporting actor race this year, with major wins and endearing speeches at the Golden Globes, Critics Choice and SAG Awards. If he repeats at the Oscars, he'll become only the second Asian actor to win the category, after Haing S. Ngor took best supporting actor for 1984's \"The Killing Fields.\"\n\nMeanwhile, beloved industry veteran Yeoh, 60, has been neck in neck with Cate Blanchett (\"Tár\") for best actress all season, but recently surged thanks to prizes from the Spirit Awards and SAG. If she earns the Oscar on Sunday, Yeoh will be just the second woman of color in the 95-year history of the awards to win best actress, following Halle Berry for 2001's \"Monster's Ball.\"\n\nStephanie Hsu tackles dual roles as Joy and Jobu Tupaki\n\nAlthough Yeoh and Quan have picked up the lion's share of trophies, Hsu arguably has the trickiest role in the film as Joy, who longs for her mom's acceptance. In parallel universes, Evelyn faces off against Joy's nihilistic alter ego, Jobu Tupaki, who threatens to destroy everything with the help of a giant, black-hole-like bagel.\n\n\"Jobu is like, 'If nothing matters, then what if I just blow your head up into confetti?' \" Hsu says. The 32-year-old actress, who also appears on \"The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,\" says the Daniels' script is \"one of the best I've ever read,\" mixing \"super-silly physical comedy\" with \"heartfelt, very sincere storytelling.\"\n\n\"There are these really profound messages of kindness and love,\" Hsu says. \"You can try to run from someone, but no matter where you go – no matter what universe you go to – they're always going to be there in some form. That is a very Zen, cosmic philosophy.\"\n\nJamie Lee Curtis is a strong contender to win best supporting actress\n\nNo one is a bigger \"Everything Everywhere\" fan than Curtis, who plays the hilariously named tax auditor Deirdre Beaubeirdre. The actress has been a self-described \"weapon of mass promotion\" since the film's release last spring, and went viral with her ecstatic reaction to Yeoh's Golden Globes win.\n\n\"I'm a cheerleader,\" Curtis told USA TODAY last fall. \"Let's get Michelle gold right now. I will do everything in my power to support that.\"\n\nCurtis might also pick up her own hardware come Sunday: She surprised at the SAG Awards with a supporting actress victory, besting presumed front-runners Angela Bassett (\"Black Panther: Wakanda Forever\") and Kerry Condon (\"The Banshees of Inisherin\"). In her acceptance speech, the \"Halloween\" star paid tribute to her parents, actors Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis, and joked about her \"nepo baby\" label. \"I totally get it,\" she said. \"But the truth of the matter is: I'm 64 years old and this is just amazing.\"\n\nWhere to stream 'Everything Everywhere All at Once'\n\n\"Everything Everywhere\" is still playing on the big screen, having returned to theaters following its massive Oscar nominations haul. But you can also stream it at home with a Showtime subscription, or with a seven-day free trial to Showtime through Amazon Prime Video.\n\nContributing: Brian Truitt\n\nWhat else you should know before you watch Oscars 2023:", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2023/03/09"}]}
{"question_id": "20230317_11", "search_time": "2023/05/25/17:56", "search_result": [{"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaab/2023/03/12/north-carolina-ncaa-tournament-nit/11462881002/", "title": "UNC basketball misses March Madness, declines NIT invitation", "text": "The season is over for North Carolina's men's basketball team, which missed the NCAA Tournament and will not participate in the NIT.\n\nUNC announced the decision Sunday evening and released a statement from second-year head coach Hubert Davis.\n\n\"All season, our focus and goal have been on being the best team we can possibly become and reaching our full potential to give us another opportunity to compete, play for and win an NCAA championship. Although we no longer have that opportunity and this season wasn't what we had hoped for, I want to thank our players and staff for their hard work and love for Carolina Basketball,\" Davis said.\n\nBRACKETS ARE BACK! The USA TODAY Sports Bracket Challenge is back! $1 million grand prize for a perfect bracket\n\n\"Many factors go into postseason play, and we believe now is the time to focus on moving ahead, preparing for next season and the opportunity to again compete for ACC and NCAA championships. I also want to thank our great fans for their incredible support. Our commitment to you is what drives us to improve our program in every way.\"\n\nThe Tar Heels (20-13) are the first preseason No. 1 team to miss the NCAA Tournament since the field expanded in 1985. After UNC’s 68-59 loss to Virginia, several players seemed disinterested in participating in the NIT.\n\nWhen Carolina missed the NCAA Tournament in 2010, the Tar Heels advanced to the championship game of the NIT. They also accepted a bid in 2003. Overall, UNC has six NIT appearances, winning it all in 1971.\n\nBut this team, which returned four starters from a squad that had a 15-point halftime lead in the national championship before watching Kansas snatch away the title, had bigger aspirations. The Tar Heels finish the 2022-23 season with a 20-13 record.\n\nRodd Baxley can be reached at rbaxley@fayobserver.com or @RoddBaxley on Twitter.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2023/03/12"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaab/2023/03/13/tom-penders-unc-skip-nit-ncaa-tournament/11464224002/", "title": "UNC not in NCAA Tournament: Tom Penders rips declining NIT ...", "text": "An invitation to the NIT wasn't good enough for the University of North Carolina men's basketball team, and one former NCAA coach believes the Tar Heels should be held accountable.\n\nCollege Basketball Hall of Famer Tom Penders said UNC should be fined for declining an invitation to the NIT and urged the NCAA basketball committee to \"remember this slap in the face,\" according to a tweet posted to Penders' Twitter account Sunday night.\n\n\"ARROGANCE!\" Penders wrote. \"UNC should get fined big bucks! The NCAA basketball committee should remember this slap in the face. The NIT started before the NCAA tournament.\"\n\nTHE BRACKETS ARE BACK: The USA TODAY Sports Bracket Challenge is back. $1 MILLION grand prize for a perfect bracket.\n\nNCAA TOURNAMENT SNUBS:Oklahoma State, Rutgers North Carolina get burned by being left out\n\nIn a follow-up Tweet, Penders slammed Tar Heels head coach Hubert Davis, saying the team \"rarely played hard and together\" and that \"Coach Davis has to step up and take the blame\" for UNC missing out on the NCAA tournament.\n\n\"The Tar Heels rarely played hard and together,\" Penders wrote. \"That’s on the coaching staff! They’re not helping themselves by turning down an NIT bid. That, in itself tells me that the players were running this team.\n\n\"Coach Davis has to step up and take the blame. Show people that he’s in charge.\"\n\nPenders posted a career head-coaching record of 649-437 across stops that included Houston, Rhode Island, Texas and George Washington. among others. He was named Atlantic 10 Coach of the Year in 1987.\n\nUNC (20-13) became the first team to miss the NCAA tournament after being named the No. 1 team in preseason rankings since the field expanded in 1985.\n\nIn a statement released by the school, Davis explained UNC's postseason philosophy but did not specifically address the decision to skip the NIT after being denied an NCAA tournament bid.\n\n\"All season, our focus and goal have been on being the best team we can possibly become and reaching our full potential to give us another opportunity to compete, play for and win an NCAA championship,\" Davis said in the statement. \"Although we no longer have that opportunity and this season wasn't what we had hoped for, I want to thank our players and staff for their hard work and love for Carolina Basketball.\n\n\"Many factors go into postseason play, and we believe now is the time to focus on moving ahead, preparing for next season and the opportunity to again compete for ACC and NCAA championships.\"", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2023/03/13"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaab/2023/03/12/nit-selection-show-2023/11461263002/", "title": "NIT selection show: Which teams made National Invitational ...", "text": "As teams find out it if they made the men's NCAA Tournament, those that fall just short won't have their seasons come to an end.\n\nThe National Invitation Tournament, or NIT, had its selection show Sunday night, with 32 teams set to compete in the postseason tournament.\n\nPlayed every year since 1938 – except in 2020 – the NIT has been known for games being played on college campuses in the opening rounds instead of a neutral site, with the semifinal and final round being held at Madison Square Garden in New York City. While the tournament is back for another edition in 2023, some changes will made this year, including a new final round site.\n\nBRACKETS ARE BACK! Get your men's and women's NCAA Tournament brackets\n\nMEN'S NCAA TOURNAMENT SNUBS:Oklahoma State men and North Carolina get burned\n\nWhen is the 2023 NIT?\n\nThe NIT will begin with opening round action on March 14-15. Here is the full schedule of the tournament:\n\nFirst round: March 14-15\n\nSecond round: March 18-19\n\nQuarterfinal: March 21-22\n\nSemifinal: March 28\n\nFinal: March 30\n\nHow are teams selected to the NIT?\n\nThe NIT selects teams that were just short of making the NCAA Tournament, but they don't have to accept a bid if the school does not want to. Teams that also won their conference regular season title but didn't win their conference tournament, and therefore didn't make the NCAA Tournament, are given automatic berths should they accept.\n\nTeams eligible for the tournament were: Eastern Washington, UC Irvine, Hofstra, Youngstown State, Yale, Bradley, Morehead State, Southern Miss, Alcorn State and Utah Valley.\n\nWhich teams made the NIT?\n\nThe NIT selection show was held Sunday night. Here are the first-round matchups:\n\nTop left bracket\n\n1. Oklahoma State vs. Youngstown State (7 p.m. ET on Wednesday, ESPN+)\n\n4. Washington State vs. Eastern Washington (11 p.m. ET on Tuesday, ESPNU)\n\n3. North Texas vs. Alcorn State (8 p.m. ET on Wednesday, ESPN+)\n\n2. Sam Houston vs. Santa Clara (9 p.m. ET on Wednesday, ESPN+)\n\nBottom left bracket\n\n1. Oregon vs. UC Irvine (11 p.m. ET on Wednesday, ESN2)\n\n4. Florida vs. UCF (7 p.m. ET on Wednesday, ESPN2)\n\n3. Wisconsin vs. Bradley (9:30 p.m. ET on Tuesday, ESPN)\n\n2. Liberty vs. Villanova (9 p.m. ET on Tuesday, ESPN2)\n\nTop right bracket\n\n1. Rutgers vs. Hofstra (7 p.m. ET on Tuesday, ESPNU)\n\n4. Cincinnati vs. Virginia Tech (9 p.m. ET on Wednesday, ESPN2)\n\n3. New Mexico vs. Utah Valley (10 p.m. ET on Wednesday, ESPN+)\n\n2. Colorado vs. Seton Hall (11 p.m. ET on Tuesday, ESPN2)\n\nBottom right bracket\n\n1. Clemson vs. Morehead State (7 p.m. ET on Wednesday, ESPN+)\n\n4. UAB vs. Southern Miss (7:30 p.m. ET on Wednesday, ESPN+)\n\n3. Vanderbilt vs. Yale (9 p.m. ET on Tuesday, ESPNU)\n\n2. Michigan vs. Toledo (7 p.m. ET on Tuesday, ESPN2)\n\nNorth Carolina opts not to participate in NIT\n\nAfter missing out on the men's NCAA Tournament, North Carolina declared its season over. UNC announced Sunday night a decision to not compete in the NIT.\n\n\"All season, our focus and goal have been on being the best team we can possibly become and reaching our full potential to give us another opportunity to compete, play for and win an NCAA championship. Although we no longer have that opportunity and this season wasn't what we had hoped for, I want to thank our players and staff for their hard work and love for Carolina Basketball,\" Tar Heels coach Hubert Davis said.\n\nWhat's different for the 2023 NIT?\n\nFor the 2023 edition, the NIT will seed the top 16 teams, with the top four teams in each pod of the bracket. The remaining 16 teams will then be placed in the bracket \"geographically where possible.\"\n\nThe first three rounds of the tournament will remain on campus sites, but the semifinal and final will no longer be held in New York City. This year, the NIT final four will be held at Orleans Arena in Las Vegas.\n\nFollow Jordan Mendoza on Twitter: @jordan_mendoza5.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2023/03/12"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaab/sec/2013/03/17/kentucky-ncaa-tournament-snub/1995357/", "title": "NIT-bound Kentucky responds to missing NCAA tournament", "text": "Kyle Tucker, USA TODAY Sports\n\nKentucky is just the fifth defending champion since 1985 to not make the field the next year\n\nThe Wildcats are instead the top overall seed in the NIT%2C but will travel to Robert Morris in first round\n\nNCAA committee cited Kentucky%27s weakness playing on the road as a factor in leaving it out\n\nThe long roller-coaster ride, after so many sharp climbs and violent dives, finally came to a screeching halt Sunday evening.\n\nKentucky was left out of the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2009 — the last of the dark days under former coach Billy Gillispie — and only the second time in 22 years. The Wildcats are just the fifth defending national champion to miss tournament.\n\nTheir consolation prize: A road trip in the National Invitation Tournament. Despite being the No. 1 overall seed, Kentucky (21-11) did not submit a bid to host its opening game against eighth-seeded Robert Morris (23-10) on Tuesday night because of \"limited staff availability to properly host a game at Memorial Coliseum,\" associate athletics director DeWayne Peevy said.\n\nThe Wildcats' normal home, Rupp Arena, is hosting the NCAA tournament this week, and the school's athletics staff is committed to helping with that. Should it advance in the NIT, Kentucky did place bids to host second-round and quarterfinal games at Rupp. First, the team will have to stop a five-game losing streak away from home that was a major reason for the Wildcats' NCAA exclusion.\n\n\"If you haven't shown you can play away from your own environment, that's an indicator you're not one of the 37 at-large teams,\" NCAA selection committee chairman Mike Bobinski said on a teleconference Sunday night. He also noted that Kentucky was among the last few teams cut.\n\nOne sliver of good news: This road trip will feel like home for Wildcats coach John Calipari. He grew up in Moon Township, the Pittsburgh suburb where Robert Morris is located, and his grandmother once worked in the school's cafeteria. Calipari went to high school less than two miles from the 3,000-seat arena where the Patriots will host Kentucky in what is sure to be among the biggest events in program history.\n\n\"I feel like Rocky,\" said 32-year-old Robert Morris coach Andrew Toole on ESPNU's NIT selection show.\n\nThat's appropriate, considering the Wildcats must be feeling like they were just knocked out.\n\n\"I'm really disappointed we didn't make the NCAA tournament,\" tweeted Calipari, who did not speak to the media after the announcement, \"but we are going to use this time to make us better. We had our chances, but I'm not going to stop. It's a great lesson for the future of our program (and) a humbling experience for me as a coach.\"\n\nIt's also a bitter end to a disappointing season that started with such promise. Kentucky opened the year ranked No. 3 despite losing its top six players to the NBA. Most figured it was another plug-and-play year for Calipari, who brought in his fourth straight top-rated recruiting class. But this team lacked last season's veteran nucleus and didn't have a true leader. Nerlens Noel, the nation's top shot-blocker, was the closest thing to it — but he went down with a torn ACL on Feb. 12.\n\nThe Wildcats were already an iffy NCAA team with Noel, considering a beating at Notre Dame and home losses to marginal Baylor and Texas A&M teams, and they went 4-4 without him. They lost all four games away from home in that span — by an average of 17.3 points — including a pair to teams with losing records. Friday night's 16-point loss to lowly Vanderbilt in the Southeastern Conference quarterfinals sealed Kentucky's fate.\n\nThose defeats, among Kentucky's seven losses by double digits this season, cancelled out three victories over teams who made the NCAA tournament field: No. 3 seed Florida, No. 9 seed Missouri and No. 12 seed Mississippi. The Wildcats beat the Rebels on the road and toppled the Gators and Tigers after losing Noel. Kentucky went 3-1 against that trio of teams.\n\nThat gives the Wildcats, who finished second in the SEC, some beef with the selection committee. Among the final few at-large selections, only Boise State (four) had more wins against top-50 teams in the Ratings Percentage Index than Kentucky's three. La Salle (19-10) had two, while Saint Mary's (26-6) and Middle Tennessee (28-5) had one apiece. The Blue Raiders' selection was somewhat surprising, since their best win was at home against the same Mississippi team Kentucky beat on the road.\n\nBut the Wildcats had their chances to take it out of the committee's hands and couldn't. So the program with the most all-time NCAA appearances (52) and victories (111) and second-most titles (eight) won't go dancing.\n\nKentucky seemed to expect this fate, announcing Saturday night that there would be no interviews with Calipari or the players Sunday. After some time to digest the news, they'll meet with the media Monday. Calipari is out of the NCAA tournament for the first time in eight years, dating back to his Memphis days. He's been to the Sweet 16 or further in each of the past seven seasons, reaching six Elite Eights and three Final Fours, including the last two.\n\nKentucky joins 1987 Louisville, 1989 Kansas, 2008 Florida and 2010 North Carolina as the only defending NCAA champions to miss the tournament since the field expanded to 64 teams in 1985. Now the Wildcats will try to instead claim a consolation crown. Kentucky won the NIT in 1946 and 1976.\n\nRobert Morris is ranked 123rd in the RPI and its best win is against No. 63 Ohio, but the Colonials lost by just two points at Xavier and by five at Arkansas, where the Wildcats fell by 13. If it wins, Kentucky would host the winner between fourth-seeded Providence (17-14) and fifth-seeded Charlotte (21-11) on Sunday or next Monday. There's potential for a quarterfinal Rupp rematch with second-seeded Baylor (18-14), which snapped Kentucky's 55-game home winning streak on Dec. 1.\n\nKyle Tucker writes for The (Louisville) Courier-Journal", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2013/03/17"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/uw/2023/03/12/wisconsin-badgers-basketball-team-misses-2023-ncaa-tournament-march-madness-nit/69999184007/", "title": "Wisconsin Badgers, left out of NCAA Tournament, accept NIT invite ...", "text": "MADISON – As expected, Wisconsin did not land an at-large berth in the 68-team NCAA Tournament field Sunday.\n\nThe Badgers (17-14) instead accepted an invitation to the the 32-team National Invitation Tournament field later Sunday.\n\nUW received a No. 2 seeding and is set to host Bradley (25-9) at 8:30 p.m. Tuesday. Bradley won the Missouri Valley regular-season title with a 16-4 mark but suffered a 77-51 loss to Drake in the title game of the league tournament.\n\nEight Big Ten teams made the NCAA field. They were: Purdue, Northwestern, Indiana, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan State, Penn State and Iowa.\n\nUW last missed the NCAA Tournament in 2017-18. The Badgers opened that season having to replace four starters and then lost D’Mitrik Trice and Kobe King to season-ending injuries and finished 7-11 in the league and 15-18 overall.\n\nBRACKET:2023 National Invitational Tournament\n\nBADGERS IN NIT:How to watch Wisconsin vs. Bradley in the first round of the NIT on TV and live stream", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2023/03/12"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaw/tourney/2023/04/05/angel-reese-rejects-jill-biden-explanation-white-house-invite-lsu-iowa/11606621002/", "title": "Angel Reese rejects Jill Biden explanation for White House invite", "text": "LSU women's basketball star Angel Reese said she rejects comments made by First Lady Jill Biden about inviting both the Tigers and Iowa to the White House after LSU's dominant victory over the Hawkeyes in the national championship and also said she would prefer to celebrate the title with the Obamas.\n\n\"I don't accept that — I'm not going to lie to you, I don't accept that apology because she said what she said,\" Reese said during an appearance on the \"I Am Athlete\" podcast that published Tuesday. \"You can't go back on certain things that you say. You felt that they should have came because of 'sportsmanship,' right? (Iowa) can have that spotlight; we'll go to the Obamas. We'll see Michelle. We'll see Barack.\"\n\nWhile Biden did not technically apologize via press secretary Vanessa Valdivia for her initial comments, the White House did walk them back Tuesday.\n\nReese, a sophomore forward, also said LSU declined to have Biden, who was in Houston to watch the game in person, speak to their locker room prior to tipoff.\n\n\"We said we didn't want to,\" Reese said. \"I think Joe Biden put somebody else to win the national championship. He didn't even put us on his bracket, getting out of Baton Rouge, so I was like, 'Bet. bet.' I think he said we were going to lose to Michigan (in the second round) or something.\"\n\nReese was named the Final Four's most outstanding player after LSU's 102-85 victory Sunday night. Barack Obama served as the 44th President of the United States, with Joe Biden as his Vice President for both terms, from 2009-17.\n\nWhat else did Angel Reese say about First Lady Jill Biden suggesting to invite Iowa to the White House?\n\n\"I just know if the roles were reversed, it wouldn't be the same,\" Reese said. \"If we were to lose, we would not be getting invited to the White House. I remember she made a comment that both teams should be invited because it was about sportsmanship.\n\n\"And I'm like, are you saying that because of what I did?\" Reese continued, flashing the hand gesture with which she taunted Iowa star Caitlin Clark toward the end of the national championship game. \"Stuff like that, it bothers me. Because you are a woman, at the end of the day. White, black, it doesn't matter, you're supposed to be standing behind us before anything, so it's hard to see things like that and not to comment on it. But at the same time, I have the platform right now where I can speak out and a lot of people have had my back through it. I'm proud to be in a situation like this. Nobody is giving her grace right now. Trust me, nobody is giving her grace and that's why she's trying to back track on what she said.\"\n\nWhat did First Lady Jill Biden say about a potential Iowa invitation?\n\nWhile Reese is slightly misquoting Biden, who never used the word \"sportsmanship\" in her comments about wanting to invite Iowa, the sentiment was largely the same.\n\n\"I know we’ll have the champions come to the White House, we always do. So, we hope LSU will come,” Biden said. “But, you know, I’m going to tell Joe I think Iowa should come, too, because they played such a good game.”\n\nOn Tuesday, through Valdivia, Biden walked back those comments, saying: \"Her comments in Colorado were intended to applaud the historic game and all women athletes\" and that \"She looks forward to celebrating the LSU Tigers on their championship win at the White House.\"", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2023/04/05"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaw/2019/04/29/baylor-womens-basketball-donald-trump-white-house/3571634002/", "title": "Honoring women's basketball champs has been an annual White ...", "text": "Thirty-five years ago this month, President Ronald Reagan honored the Southern California women's basketball team at a ceremony in the Indian Treaty Room of the Old Executive Office Building next to the White House.\n\n\"There was a time when the only jumping that was done at an athletic contest by women was by the cheerleaders — and there's nothing wrong with that,\" Reagan told the 1984 NCAA champions. \"But you are proving that women can make their mark as well in the field of athletics, out there on the floor of the arena.\"\n\nThough the Trojans didn't technically visit the White House, their ceremony with Reagan was a historic moment — and the start of a longstanding tradition in women's basketball.\n\nAccording to USA TODAY Sports research, 31 of the next 32 NCAA women's champions went on to be honored by the president, either individually or as part of a broader ceremony. At least 16 WNBA champions have received White House invitations since the founding of the league in 1997.\n\nThose trends have changed with President Donald Trump in office.\n\nWhile championship visits have become more sporadic across all sports under Trump, they've become particularly rare for women's teams. When the Baylor women's basketball team is honored at the White House on Monday, it will be the first female team — in any sport — to receive its own championship ceremony during Trump's presidency.\n\n\"Why is that?\" Dr. Deborah Antoine, the CEO of the Women's Sports Foundation, said in a statement provided to USA TODAY Sports.\n\n\"Female athletes, coaches and teams all deserve equal opportunity to play, compete and thrive. And when that all adds up to a national championship, they too should have equal opportunity to be recognized with one of our country's highest honors.\"\n\nThe White House did not reply to an email seeking comment for this story.\n\nEllen Staurowsky, a professor of sports management at Drexel University, believes the entire idea of visiting the White House has changed under Trump. Multiple teams have not been invited or declined invitations, most recently the Virginia men's basketball team. The Cavaliers announced Friday that they would forgo a visit, just as the president's comments about a 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville were back in the news.\n\nStaurowsky said these once non-partisan celebrations have become inherently political. And for women's teams, she said, that means taking into account some of Trump's past comments about women and the sexual harassment allegations that have been levied against him.\n\n\"On one hand, it leaves us with the question: Is it all that surprising that this administration would not invite as many women?\" Staurowsky said Saturday. \"And then it also presents the dilemma of what women are to make when these kinds of invitations are extended.\"\n\nThe lack of White House visits for female champions under Trump is a departure from nearly 30 years of precedent. According to presidential schedules, speech transcripts and photographs reviewed by USA TODAY Sports, each of the past five presidents — including three Republicans and two Democrats — generally honored women's basketball champions as frequently as men.\n\nFormer presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, for example, typically held joint celebrations for the men's and women's NCAA basketball champions. Former president George W. Bush followed suit, while also regularly inviting WNBA champions to visit the White House for the first time.\n\nFormer president Barack Obama took it one step further — celebrating every college and professional women's basketball champion individually during his eight-year term. He also held ceremonies for the U.S. women's national soccer team after its World Cup win in 2015 and Sky Blue FC, which won the inaugural league title in Women's Professional Soccer in 2009.\n\nTrump, meanwhile, has hosted female athletes or women's teams at the White House twice since taking office: as part of a celebration of NCAA champions in non-revenue sports in 2017, and at a ceremony honoring Olympians and Paralympians in 2018. But he has yet to even extend an invitation to a WNBA champion, to the chagrin of some of the league's players and coaches.\n\n\"It's probably because we're a women's sport and it maybe is not on our president's radar,\" Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve told The Star Tribune after her team was not invited last year.\n\nIn a statement provided to USA TODAY Sports, WNBA chief operating officer Christy Hedgpeth described the situation as a \"missed opportunity\" for the White House: \"WNBA players are world-class athletes and multifaceted women whose accomplishments and interests extend far beyond basketball and serve as a source of inspiration to millions of people.\"\n\nBaylor declined to make women's basketball coach Kim Mulkey available for an interview ahead of Monday's visit, and spokesperson Kyle Robarts declined to release any additional information about the decision to accept Trump's invitation — including whether players were consulted.\n\n\"It's not a political issue for me. It's an honor to go to the White House,\" Mulkey told The Associated Press this month. \"I want everyone to say they went to the White House. Not many people can say that.\"\n\nContact Tom Schad at tschad@usatoday.com or on Twitter @Tom_Schad.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2019/04/29"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaab/2022/03/11/bellarmine-basketball-missing-nit-latest-example-ncaa-ineptitude/7003406001/", "title": "Bellarmine basketball missing NIT is latest example of NCAA ...", "text": "This isn’t about the NCAA Tournament and its 68 teams. It’s more about the 32 who’ll comprise the NIT.\n\nSome of those teams and players selected won’t care a thing about the National Invitation Tournament. They’ll be disappointed. They'll be over this season. They’ll prepare and play poorly, and they’ll lose. They'll still have had that opportunity.\n\nAnd Bellarmine’s men’s basketball team – champions of the Atlantic Sun Conference – will not.\n\nThat bothers me.\n\nIt should bother the NCAA, too, though that would require evidence that the governing body in collegiate athletics actually cares about college athletes more than it does money or stubborn adherence to technicalities that don’t make sense.\n\nIn only its second season transitioning from NCAA Division II, the small private school in Louisville, Kentucky, – with a roster still comprised mostly of D-II recruits – earned the right to be in the Division I NCAA Tournament. It beat out the rest of the ASUN, Lipscomb included, to win the league's tourney and secure an automatic bid.\n\nGET THE LATEST UPDATES:Sign up for our Sports newsletter now!\n\nBut rules being what they are, Bellarmine (20-13) isn’t eligible for the NCAA Tournament.\n\nThe NCAA requires a four-year transition period that prevents universities that are changing divisions from competing for championships. That part, Bellarmine knew in advance. The school signed up for that.\n\nBut until this week, the Knights believed the NIT would remain open to them.\n\nTurns out, since the NCAA owns the NIT, it chose to apply the same rules to that event. That means Bellarmine found out in the last couple of days – after winning the ASUN – that it wouldn’t be eligible for the NIT, either.\n\n\"It's just unfair to our kids,” Bellarmine coach Scotty Davenport said.\n\nAnd so the NCAA is once again exposed as a heartless, inefficient organization that lacks the leadership or mobility to respond to unexpected situations as they arise.\n\nAccording to ESPN, Bellarmine was the first men’s basketball team in 25 seasons to win a conference tournament while not being eligible for the NCAA Tournament.\n\nBut the NIT? Who benefits from Bellarmine not being able to play in the NIT?\n\n“They have the power to invite us,” senior guard Juston Betz said. “... We want to be in the NIT, and we think we deserve to be in the NIT.”\n\nIn 2021, the women’s basketball team at Cal Baptist played in the NIT while in a transition period to Division I. The women’s NIT isn’t owned by the NCAA.\n\n\"If we were a women's program,\" Betz said, \"we would be in a position to be eligible to play.\"\n\nBellarmine could still end up in another of the lesser-known postseason basketball tournaments, but for now, its situation is receiving national media attention. Rightfully so.\n\nPeople can tell when something just isn't right.\n\nI don’t understand the NCAA's four-year rule, but I’m told it was put in place to prevent universities from changing divisions lightly. Additionally, Division II doesn’t have the same guidelines – lower admission standards, things like that – as is in Division I.\n\n\"I have five seniors,” Davenport said. “They are going to leave Bellarmine with eight degrees. That's not the intent of this rule.”\n\n“We chose to be here,” said Betz, one of those seniors, “and the transition rule sets up an impulse of transfers to leave. But the student-athletes at Bellarmine chose to be here. We think that if the NCAA was putting student-athletes first then they would not be penalizing us for that.”\n\nThe NCAA Tournament – or the NIT – would be better if Bellarmine was a part of it. The Knights are a great, unique story. They are no fluke.\n\nThey are a small-time program who over the years developed a surprisingly robust following in basketball-crazy Kentucky. They'd routinely lure thousands into their on-campus arena for Division II games, the result of efforts to build relationships in the community and the fact the Knights played an attractive, organized, high-scoring style.\n\nThat has to do with Davenport, a popular and former assistant at the University of Louisville under Denny Crum and Rick Pitino who is a salesman at heart. He knows pretty much everyone in his native city. (And if he doesn’t, he’d be interested in an introduction).\n\nAs I was leaving the Louisville Courier-Journal in late 2019 to come to Nashville and join The Tennessean, my phone rang: \"How can we get you to stay!?\" Davenport exclaimed.\n\nThe man could run tomorrow for mayor of Louisville and win.\n\nDavenport used to personally clean the backboards and arrange the chairs on the benches and vacuum the locker room before games in Bellarmine’s old gym. Had to look right. It was about self-respect – and earning respect.\n\nOn the court, Davenport once described Bellarmine’s style to me as a full-court press on offense. “The system is not as much the individuals as it is the passing,” he said. “Passing is the biggest lost art in college basketball. Just pick a random game and watch how many people dribble the ball.”\n\nThe Knights – routinely among the nation’s leaders in field-goal percentage and other offensive categories – were a powerhouse in D-II. They won a national title in 2011.\n\nNonetheless, few could have expected them to be so successful so quickly at the Division I level.\n\nI’ve been surprised by it. But not shocked.\n\nI’d seen them play before. That's why I once asked Davenport if he believed his approach could win with a D-I program. \"I’m going to go to my grave wondering,\" he replied. \"They will bury me, and I’ll wonder because I’m convinced you can.”\n\nThat was in 2018. Davenport has since gotten to find out. He was right.\n\nThat revelation has meant more at Bellarmine – and in Louisville, whose beloved Cardinals have been a train wreck of troubles for years now – than it would on almost any campus in America. It is about what’s right with college sports.\n\nThe NCAA, once again, is showing itself to be what’s wrong.\n\nReach Gentry Estes at gestes@tennessean.com and on Twitter @Gentry_Estes.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/03/11"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaw/2023/04/06/lsu-womens-basketball-team-accept-white-house-invite-rep-says/11618935002/", "title": "LSU women's basketball team will accept White House invite, rep says", "text": "The LSU athletic department said the national champion women’s basketball team will accept an invitation to visit the White House, despite Angel Reese saying they wouldn't.\n\nThe Tigers defeated Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes, 102-85, on Sunday to win their first NCAA women’s basketball national championship in program history. Following LSU's dominant performance, First Lady Jill Biden suggested inviting both teams to the White House to applaud strides in women's sports before walking back her comments.\n\nReese, the women’s tournament most Outstanding Player, said she didn't accept Biden's explanation earlier this week, adding that \"if the roles were reversed, it wouldn't be the same.\" Reese added the team would rather \"go to the Obamas.\"\n\nBut on Thursday, LSU spokesman Michael Bonnette said the team would accept an invitation from President Joe Biden to visit 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, although he didn't confirm which players would attend. Coach Kim Mulkey previously said she would.\n\n'I DONT ACCEPT THAT': LSU's Angel Reese rejects Jill Biden's White House invite\n\nIt's a longstanding tradition for national champions across college and professional sports leagues to visit the sitting president at the White House. However, Jill Biden floated the idea of inviting runner-up Iowa after attending the historic game in Dallas, the highest scoring championship game in women's NCAA history.\n\n\"I know we’ll have the champions come to the White House, we always do. So, we hope LSU will come,\" Biden said. “But, you know, I’m going to tell Joe I think Iowa should come, too, because they played such a good game.”\n\nPresident Biden only invited the Tigers and the University of Connecticut men's basketball team, but the comments sparked backlash.\n\nDuring an appearance on the \"I Am Athlete\" podcast that published Tuesday, Reese said the Tigers wouldn't have been invited if they lost, noting racial undertones.\n\n\"And I'm like, are you saying that because of what I did?\" Reese continued, flashing the hand gesture with which she taunted Clark toward the end of the national championship game. \"Stuff like that, it bothers me. Because you are a woman, at the end of the day. White, black, it doesn't matter, you're supposed to be standing behind us before anything, so it's hard to see things like that and not to comment on it.\"\n\nContributing: Lorenzo Reyes, USA TODAY", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2023/04/06"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaab/bigeast/2018/10/25/villanova-basketball-white-house/1761325002/", "title": "For NCAA champion Villanova basketball, no White House invitation", "text": "The Villanova men's basketball team's only visit to Washington, D.C. over the next few months will be to play Georgetown.\n\nThe Wildcats won't be going to the White House to celebrate their second national title in the past three years.\n\nNearly eight months after cutting down the nets, Villanova has not received an invitation to the traditional champions' ceremony with the president, coach Jay Wright said Thursday during Big East media day.\n\nIf one were to come at this point, Wright said, \"We probably wouldn’t be able to get everybody together. We’ve lost staff members, we’ve lost players (to the NBA).\"\n\nAfter winning the NCAA tournament in April of 2016, Wright’s Wildcats visited President Barack Obama in late May.\n\n\"Two years ago it was the experience of a lifetime for all of us,\" Wright said. \"It’s just a different time and I understand it. So it is what it is.”\n\nPRESEASON POLL:Kansas start at No. 1 followed by Kentucky and Duke\n\nTOP 25 ANALYSIS:Five teams snubbed or overrated in the preseason poll\n\nThe move continues a trend at all levels of the basketball world during Donald Trump's presidency.\n\nAfter North Carolina men’s basketball won the 2017 NCAA title, the university announced in September that the team was invited but “couldn’t find a date that worked” and never visited.\n\nThe two-time defending NBA champs, the Golden State Warriors, elected to pass up a visit in 2017 and were not invited after repeating last June.\n\nFrom the WNBA, Trump did not invite the 2017 champ Minnesota Lynx and the 2018 champion Seattle Storm has not been invited after several players indicated they were uninterested in going.\n\nIn women’s college basketball, 2017 NCAA champ South Carolina declined an invitation after receiving it in November of that year — once the season already was underway. The 2018 champ, Notre Dame, has not yet visited or indicated that an invitation has been extended.\n\nSo Trump is 0-for-8 thus far on American basketball champions.\n\nBy contrast, Trump hosted Alabama’s football team in April, four months after the Crimson Tide won the 2018 NCAA title. Last year’s World Series champion, the Houston Astros, visited the White House in March---five months after their triumph.\n\nIn early June, the defending Super Bowl champions Philadelphia Eagles had their invitation rescinded by Trump after it became clear that most of the team would not attend the already-planned ceremony.\n\nIn announcing the decision to rescind, Trump bashed the Eagles for kneeling during the national anthem — when in fact none of them had kneeled during the regular season or playoffs.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2018/10/25"}]}
{"question_id": "20230317_12", "search_time": "2023/05/25/17:56", "search_result": [{"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/2023/03/13/solo-hiking-nepal-banned/11465639002/", "title": "You can no longer hike alone in Nepal: Country bans solo hikers ...", "text": "Solo hiking will soon be banned from Nepal’s national parks in an attempt to reduce risks for the tens of thousands of adventurers who annually flock to the Himalayan country.\n\nThe move goes into effect next month and makes guides now mandatory, according to the Nepal Tourism Board.\n\nThe decision, announced in early March comes after incidents in which tourists became lost and sometimes died while hiking alone, according to the board’s director, Mani R. Lamichhane.\n\n“There were many cases where tourists have disappeared,” Lamichhane told the New York Times. He added that deaths among solo trekkers had given some tourists the misperception that Nepal was unsafe.\n\nHiking illegally in Hawaii will cost you:Illegal hikers in Hawaii may have to pay for their own rescues, after many are saved from this popular hike\n\nNew rules apply to tourists of all experience levels\n\nThe new rules apply to tourists of all experience levels on treks in Nepal’s national parks, such as the popular Annapurna Circuit, a 150-mile route that circles the Annapurna mountain range. Trekkers can still embark on solo hikes outside of national parks, such as around the city of Kathmandu.\n\nBorder standoff:US officials in riot gear clash with migrants attempting mass entry into Texas\n\n\"The decision, however, will not be applicable to Nepali trekkers,” Lamichhane told The Kathmandu Post.\n\nThe tourism board has also increased the fee charged to hikers.\n\nNatalie Neysa Alund covers trending news for USA TODAY. Reach her at nalund@usatoday.com and follow her on Twitter @nataliealund.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2023/03/13"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/2022/10/01/stop-doing-this-on-hawaii-vacation/8084032001/", "title": "What to stop doing on your trip to Hawaii, according to locals", "text": "In pre-pandemic days, over 10 million people would arrive annually to enjoy the Hawaiian Islands. That's quite a bit of people, considering that the state's population is about 1.4 million. The impact of the high number of tourists hasn't gone unnoticed.\n\n\"Over a century, Hawaii has welcomed many visitors by embracing them with warmth and aloha,\" Diana Su, the senior marketing manager of Waikiki Beach Marriott Resort & Spa who was raised in Honolulu, said. \"However, over decades, the amount of visitors have increased and started depleting the state of its natural resources, damaging the delicate environment, and affecting traditional practices and rituals.\"\n\nAbout two-thirds of Hawaii residents think their \"island is being run for tourists at the expense of local people,\" a number that has held steady for about five years, according to a 2022 state-sponsored survey asking residents about their sentiment toward tourism. They point out overcrowding, damage to the environment, higher costs and more traffic.\n\nBOOK A SPOT:To manage over tourism, are reservation systems the future of traveling to Hawaii?\n\nJUST DON'T:Stop throwing coins into hot steam vents, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park asks of 'disrespectful' people\n\nAt the same time, tourism is a pillar of Hawaii's economy – in fact, it represents a quarter of it, thanks to the jobs it creates in the hospitality industry and visitor spending.\n\nIt can be a tricky balancing act for people who want to visit Hawaii while minimizing any negative impact on the islands because for so long, people have treated it as their paradisiacal playground. The best people to turn to for advice on this are undeniably the ones who live in Hawaii: locals.\n\nRead below to read Hawaii locals wish tourists would stop doing while visiting the islands:\n\n1. Don't be clueless\n\nSu urges people to know their stuff before departing on their trip, so take some time and learn more about Hawaii.\n\n\"Avoid coming to Hawaii without doing some research first,\" she said. It's important to know how to \"avoid disrespecting sacred sites and respect boundaries and kapu (off-limit) areas.\"\n\nTake the time to learn about the companies you're hiring for excursions or tours to make sure they support the community and environment. Making educated choices on where to spend your money and what is considered respectful or disrespectful will make your trip to Hawaii that much better.\n\nDON'T BE THAT TOURIST:Here's how to respectfully visit Hawaii, have an authentic trip\n\n2. Don't take anything, ever\n\nMany visitors to Hawaii take sand, coral or lava rocks from its national parks as memorabilia of their trip to Hawaii. According to Jin Prugsawan Harlow, chief of interpretation, education and volunteers as well as public information officer for Haleakala National Park, taking items from national parks is not only illegal, it's also culturally inappropriate.\n\nHawaiians view Haleakala as their ancestor, Harlow said, so taking something from the park is considered highly disrespectful.\n\n\"People come to Hawaii and (other national parks) because they're wild, scenic and beautiful,\" Harlow said. \"And people can play a great role in making sure it stays that way.\"\n\nTHINK TWICE:Stop throwing coins into hot steam vents, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park asks of 'disrespectful' people\n\n3. Don't go during peak hours\n\nTraffic in Hawaii is a sore spot, with Honolulu often ranking as one of the most congested cities in the country. With so many tourists out and about on the islands, Harlow suggests to try going to popular attractions during off-hours.\n\n\"At Haleakala, things can get crowded around the summit around sunset but from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., the park is really empty,\" she said. \"Going to the Kipahulu District, arriving earlier in the day helps you beat crowded parking lots.\"\n\n4. Don't disturb wildlife\n\nHawaii is blessed with many beautiful creatures, some of which are impossible to spot anywhere else in the world, like the Hawaiian monk seal. While spotting these creatures out in the wild is always a treat, keep your distance and make sure to never disturb them or their natural habitat (as in, don't touch reefs or flip over rocks).\n\nIn certain cases, it's illegal to get too close to animals like turtles and nursing seals. Seriously, it's not worth it.\n\nSHARK ATTACK:Tourist taken to hospital after 'serious bite' from shark on Maui's north shore\n\n5. Don't be reckless outdoors\n\nHawaii has otherworldly valleys, peaks, shorelines and waterfalls to explore, and as stunning as the experience may be, it can also be dangerous if you're not careful. A lack of preparation, bad weather conditions and going to unsafe areas that are trending online can often put people at risk.\n\nFor example, on Kauai, the Kauai Fire Department locked the gate accessing Queen's Bath, a large tidal pool that can be hazardous, especially when the surf is rough. Still, people sneak in and often end up needing to be rescued. Do your research about hikes or beaches and heed to warning signs – they're there for a reason.\n\n\"One of our most important values, for example, is to respect the land and ocean that provides for us, and we ask that visitors share in this ethos to keep our home beautiful,\" Wendy Tuivaioge, Director of Hawaiian Programs at the Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea, said. \"Be mindful of your surroundings, do not venture out alone, and stay on well-marked trails.\"\n\nDO THIS, NOT THAT: You won't regret these 8 activities when you visit the islands, according to Hawaii locals\n\n6. Don't use harmful sunscreen\n\nHawaii's ecosystems are unique and fragile, including its coral reefs, and some sunscreens may play a role in harming the islands' marine life.\n\nIn 2018, Hawaii Gov. David Ige passed a law that went into effect in 2021 – making Hawaii the first state – that banned sunscreens containing chemicals believed to damage coral and marine life, oxybenzone and octinoxate.\n\nWhen slathering up with SPF, do your part to protect the ocean by picking reef-safe brands. Some brands that are reef-safe include Raw Elements or Kokua Sun Care, which is made right in the islands.\n\n7. Don't geotag\n\nIt may be tempting to do it for the 'gram and share your vacation pictures online, but that post may have consequences long after you hit upload.\n\nThe rise in social media geotagging and sharing of once hidden spots has caused many across the country to blow up and become overcrowded and overrun, much to the dismay of locals who have been enjoying these more secret places for a long time. If you find yourself at this crossroads, consider the impact of your post.\n\nCROWDED SPOTS:Was your favorite hidden vacation spot overexposed? Blame social media and pent-up demand\n\n8. Don't forget you're visiting someone's home\n\nAt the end of the day, many locals have one reminder: \"It's important for travelers to understand they are visiting someone's home and draw on the sensibilities that come with that,\" Ha'aheo Zablan, general manager of Kaimana Beach Hotel who is also Native Hawaiian, said. \"We have amazing visitor-centric opportunities to take in all Hawaii has to offer without venturing into local neighborhoods or exploring too far from resort zones.\" For example, people who seek out hikes with trailheads in quiet neighborhoods have been called out for disturbing residents with noise or crowded parking.\n\nPrejean echoes the sentiment: \"While Hawaii is a welcoming destination, we do ask that tourists be aware of their surroundings, reduce your 'footprint' by leaving the places you visit better than you found it, and to treat the local neighborhoods and people with respect and kindness.\"", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/10/01"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/15/health/pandemic-lessons-public-health-khn/index.html", "title": "Health departments apply lessons learned from Covid to other ...", "text": "KHN —\n\nLIVINGSTON, Mont. — Shannan Piccolo walked into a hotel with a tote bag full of Narcan and a speech about how easy it is to use the medicine that can reverse opioid overdoses.\n\n“Hopefully your business would never have to respond to an overdose, but we’d rather have you have some Narcan on hand just in case,” Piccolo, director of Park City-County Health Department, said to the hotel manager.\n\nThe manager listened to Piccolo’s instructions on how to use Narcan, the brand name of the drug naloxone, and added four boxes of the nasal spray to the hotel’s first-aid kit.\n\nShannan Piccolo, with the Park City-County Health Department in Montana, talks with a hotel manager about how to use Narcan nasal spray to reverse a drug overdose. Katheryn Houghton/KHN\n\nThe transaction took less than 10 minutes. It was the third hotel Piccolo had visited that hot July day in Livingston, a mountain town of roughly 8,000, where, as in much of the nation, health officials are worried about a recent rise in the use of the synthetic opioid fentanyl.\n\nIt was the first time the local health department offered door-to-door training and supplies to prevent overdose deaths. The underlying strategy was forged during the pandemic when public health officials distributed rapid tests and vaccines in high-risk settings.\n\n“We learned this from covid,” said Dr. Laurel Desnick, the county’s public health officer. “We go to people who may not have time to come to us.”\n\nDr. Laurel Desnick, public health officer for the Park City-County Health Department in Montana, prepares to deliver boxes of Narcan to local hotels. The free distribution of Narcan, the brand name of the drug naloxone, which can reverse opioid overdoses, is one public health strategy borne out of the covid-19 pandemic. Katheryn Houghton/KHN\n\nThe pandemic laid bare the gaps and disparities in the U.S. public health system, and often resulted in blowback against local officials trying to slow the coronavirus’s spread. But one positive outcome, in part fueled by a boost in federal dollars, is that health workers have started adapting lessons they learned from their covid-19 response to other aspects of their work.\n\nFor example, in Atlanta, where the county health department planned to mail out at-home kits to test for diseases, a program modeled on the distribution of covid rapid tests. In Houston, health officials announced this month they’ll begin monitoring the city’s wastewater for monkeypox, a tactic broadly used to gauge how far and fast covid spread. And in Chicago, government agencies have tweaked covid collaborations to tag-team a rise in gun violence.\n\nSome of these adaptations should cost little and be relatively simple to incorporate into the departments’ post-pandemic work, such as using vans purchased with covid relief money for vaccine delivery and disease testing. Other tools cost more money and time, including updating covid-borne data and surveillance systems to use in other ways.\n\nSome public health workers worry that the lessons woven into their operations will fall away once the pandemic has passed.\n\n“When we have public health crises in this country, we tend to have a boom-and-bust cycle of funding,” said Adriane Casalotti, with the National Association of County and City Health Officials.\n\nSome federal pandemic relief funding is scheduled to last for years, but other allocations have already run dry. Local health workers will be left to prioritize what to fund with what remains.\n\nMeanwhile, historically short-staffed and underfunded health departments are responding to challenges that intensified during the pandemic, including delayed mental health treatment and routine care.\n\n“You’re not just starting from where you were 2½ years ago, there’s actually a higher mountain to climb,” Casalotti said. “But places that were able to build up some of their systems can adapt them to allow for more real-time understanding of public health challenges.”\n\nIn Atlanta, the Fulton County Board of Health has offered to mail residents free, at-home tests for sexually transmitted diseases. The state has historically had some of the highest rates of reported STDs in the nation.\n\n“This program has the power to demonstrate the scalable effects of equitable access to historically underserved communities,” Joshua O’Neal, the county’s director of the sexual health programs, said in a press release announcing the kits.\n\nThe changes go beyond government. University of Texas researchers are trying out a statewide program to crowdsource data on fatal and nonfatal opioid overdoses. Those working on the project are frustrated the national effort to track covid outbreaks hasn’t extended to the overdose epidemic.\n\nDr. Allison Arwady, commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health, said her team is expanding the covid data-driven approach to track and report neighborhood-level data on opioid drug overdoses. Nonprofits and city agencies that have worked together through the pandemic now meet each month to look at the numbers to shape their response.\n\nArwady said the city is trying to use the pandemic-driven boost in money and attention for programs that can last beyond the covid emergency.\n\n“Every day, we’re having these debates about, ‘How much do we continue on? How big do we go?’” Arwady said. “I feel like it’s such a moment. We’ve shown what we can do during covid, we’ve shown what we can do when we have some additional funding.”\n\nThe city also opened a new safety center modeled on its covid-response base to counter gun violence. Employees from across city departments are working together on safety issues for the first time by tracking data, connecting people in highest-risk areas to services, and supporting local efforts such as funding neighborhood block clubs and restoring safe spaces.\n\nSeparately, neighborhood-based organizations created to handle covid contact tracing and education are shifting focus to address food security, violence prevention, and diabetes education. Arwady said she hopes to continue grassroots public health efforts in areas with long-standing health disparities by using a patchwork of grants to retain 150 of the 600 people initially hired through pandemic relief dollars.\n\n“The message I’ve really been telling my team is, ‘This is our opportunity to do things that we have long wanted to do,’” Arwady said. “We built some of that up and I just, I’m gonna kick and scream before I let that all get dismantled.”\n\nBack in Montana, Desnick said not every change relies on funding.\n\nWhen flooding destroyed buildings and infrastructure in and around Yellowstone National Park in June, the Park County health department used a list of contacts gathered during the pandemic to send updates to schools, churches, and businesses.\n\nDesnick posts regular public health video updates that began with covid case counts and broadened to include information on flood levels, federal cleanup assistance, and ice cream socials for people to meet first responders.\n\nGet CNN Health's weekly newsletter Sign up here to get The Results Are In with Dr. Sanjay Gupta every Tuesday from the CNN Health team.\n\nPiccolo, the county’s health director, spent roughly an hour on that day in July going to hotels in Livingston’s core to offer opioid overdose response training and supplies. Three hotel managers took the offer, two asked her to come back later, and one scheduled an all-staff training for later that week. Piccolo plans to extend the program to restaurants and music venues.\n\nIt’s that kind of adaptation to her job that doesn’t require the continuing flow of covid aid. The state supplied the Narcan boxes. Otherwise, she said, “it’s just about taking the time to do this.”", "authors": ["Katheryn Houghton"], "publish_date": "2022/08/15"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2022/06/15/gas-prices-seresto-collars-vaccines-kids-heat-wave-its-wednesdays-news/7525670001/", "title": "Gas prices, Seresto collars, vaccines for kids, heat wave. It's ...", "text": "With gas at $5 per gallon, President Joe Biden is urging gas companies to immediately cut costs. Congress wants a top-selling flea collar off the market. And America's youngest kids could be getting COVID-19 vaccines as soon as next week.\n\n👋 It's Laura Davis. It's Wednesday. Do you know where your kids under 6 are? Round 'em up, it's about to be vaccine time. Here's the news.\n\nBut first, the truth is out there, y'all. 👽 China's giant \"Sky Eye\" telescope picked up signals that could be from alien civilizations, researchers say.\n\nThe Short List is a snappy USA TODAY news roundup. Subscribe to the newsletter here or text messages here.\n\nComing soon: 2 COVID-19 vaccines for the youngest kids\n\nAmerica's youngest children could soon have access to two COVID-19 vaccines. An expert panel on Wednesday unanimously found Moderna's vaccine safe and effective for children ages 6 months to 6 years old. An hour later, the committee voted to support a Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for children ages 6 months to 5 years old. If its decisions are upheld by the Food and Drug Administration's commissioner and then the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, vaccines will be available for young children as soon as Tuesday. Although young children have largely been spared the worst of COVID-19, they can still become seriously ill and more than 200 have died from their infections, according to data presented by the FDA. Read more here.\n\nBiden urges oil companies to immediately cut costs\n\nGas is up. Biden wants it down. In a letter to heads of top oil and gas companies on Wednesday, Biden urged them to immediately reduce prices as gasoline exceeded $5 a gallon in some parts of the country. The president's letter said Russia's war against Ukraine was the primary driver of spiking fuel prices, but \"historically high refinery profit margins are worsening that pain.\" It was the White House's latest effort to demonstrate that Biden, who lacks the authority to enforce the directive to oil executives, is working to reduce inflation. Keep reading for more.\n\nWhat everyone's talking about\n\nThe Short List is free, but several stories we link to are subscriber-only. Consider supporting our journalism and become a USA TODAY digital subscriber today.\n\nCongress: No more Seresto collars\n\nOne of the most popular flea and tick collars in America poses \"too great a risk to animals and humans\" and should be removed from the market, a congressional subcommittee recommended in a report released Wednesday. The House Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy held a hearing Wednesday afternoon, aiming to investigate the Environmental Protection Agency’s \"failure to regulate the Seresto collar as well as Elanco’s refusal to take action to protect pets and their owners from the collar’s harm.\" Since it entered the U.S. market in 2012, records show Seresto flea and tick collars have been linked to at least 98,000 adverse incidents and 2,500 pet deaths — the most of any such product regulated by the EPA. Keep reading for more from the hearing.\n\nMaker of Seresto defends collar amid calls for a ban over safety concerns.\n\namid calls for a ban over safety concerns. 🔎 Popular flea collar linked to almost 1,700 pet deaths. The EPA has issued no warning.\n\nThe Fed makes aggressive moves to fight inflation\n\nThe Federal Reserve is rolling out the heavy artillery in its bid to fight historic inflation that has shown little letup. But the aggressive strategy is expected to further slow the economy and increases the risk of recession. It already has triggered a brutal market sell-off. The Fed raised its key short-term interest rates by three-quarters of a percentage point Wednesday – its largest hike since 1994 – to a range of 1.5% to 1.75%. It also downgraded its economic forecast. It also signaled that more big moves may be coming. Fed officials forecast the federal funds rate will end 2022 at a range of 3.25% to 3.5%, according to their median estimate. Here's what it means for you.\n\nWill rates keep going up? Is it too much, too soon? What we know.\n\nIs it too much, too soon? What we know. Redfin, Compass lay off hundreds of workers as housing market cools.\n\nReal quick\n\nStorms threaten as sprawling heat wave drags on\n\nParts of the upper Midwest braced for severe thunderstorms Wednesday while dangerous, sweltering heat continued to bake nearly a third of the nation's population. Scattered severe thunderstorms, as well as several tornadoes, large hail and gusty, damaging winds are expected from parts of Iowa into Wisconsin, according to NOAA. Meanwhile, a week of record-breaking heat continues to hit a wide swath of the nation, with excessive heat warnings and advisories remaining from Michigan to northern Florida, the National Weather Service said. Dangerously hot and humid weather will persist Wednesday from the Upper Midwest to the Southeast, with many locations once again seeing triple-digit heat indices. 🥵 Check your local forecast here. And stay hydrated!\n\nA break from the news", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/06/15"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/31/us/five-things-august-31-trnd/index.html", "title": "5 things to know for August 31: Mar-a-Lago, Flooding, Heat waves ...", "text": "CNN —\n\nGet '5 Things' in your inbox If your day doesn’t start until you’re up to speed on the latest headlines, then let us introduce you to your new favorite morning fix. Sign up here for the ‘5 Things’ newsletter.\n\nTwo of California’s many wildfires are threatening Sequoia National Park and the massive, iconic trees that grow there. And in Louisiana, Tropical Depression Nicholas could slow down recovery from Hurricane Ida, which just blew through two weeks ago.\n\nHere’s what you need to know to Get Up to Speed and On with Your Day.\n\n(You can also get “5 Things You Need to Know Today” delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up here.)\n\n1. California recall\n\nA flood watch is currently in place for millions of people across the southwestern US after a weekend of rain and thunderstorms drenched the region. In Las Vegas, at least two people have died in flooding since last week in what has become the wettest monsoon season in a decade. In Texas, the National Hurricane Center is monitoring a disturbance that will bring thunderstorms and up to 6 inches of rain over the next few days, leading to potential flash flooding. While the rain has brought relief to some drought-stricken areas, experts say climate change is increasing the likelihood of extreme flooding and catastrophic disasters. Separately, a new study indicates a disastrous megaflood is coming to California in the next four decades – and experts say it would be unlike anything anyone alive today has ever experienced.\n\n2. Coronavirus\n\nCNN meteorologist explains cause of water crisis in Jackson, Mississippi 02:27 - Source: CNN\n\n3. Gen. Mark Milley\n\n5. Haiti\n\nNASA scrubs Artemis I rocket launch due to engine issues. CNN reporter explains why 02:39 - Source: CNN\n\n5. UK deportations\n\nBREAKFAST BROWSE\n\nMan vs. Emu\n\nA woman used her smartwatch to call 911 after getting stuck in an interesting position at the gym. Watch the video here.\n\nNASA releases stunning new image of the Phantom Galaxy\n\nIn a galaxy far, far away – 32 million light-years from Earth – there is a remarkable spiral of solar systems. Take a look at the new image here.\n\nHow Princess Diana’s style legacy remains relevant\n\nToday marks 25 years since the death of Princess Diana, but her legacy and wardrobe continue to inspire new generations.\n\nDC Comics featured stereotypical Latino foods on Hispanic Heritage Month covers\n\nThe publisher attempted to commemorate Hispanic Heritage Month by adding Latino foods to its comic covers… but fans found it offensive and cliché.\n\nKohl’s and Gap have a surprising plan for this season’s unsold clothing\n\nSome retailers are holding onto their unsold inventory in the hope of selling it next summer. And yes, they’re confident these items will stay in style.\n\nIN MEMORIAM\n\nMikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the former Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, has died at the age of 91 after a long illness, Russian state news agencies reported on Tuesday. Gorbachev is credited with introducing key political and economic reforms to the USSR and helping to end the Cold War. Several world leaders paid tribute to Gorbachev Tuesday, with President Joe Biden calling him “a man of remarkable vision” in a statement.\n\nTODAY’S NUMBER\n\n17\n\nThat’s how many people in Pakistan have been recently impacted by devastating floods. Some areas have seen five times their normal levels of rain, largely due to the climate crisis, experts say. Torrential rainfall and extreme flooding have killed more than 1,100 people and injured more than 3,500 others in the country since mid-June.\n\nTODAY’S QUOTE\n\n“This is merely an attempt to stop a man that is leading in every poll, against both Republicans and Democrats by wide margins, from running again for the Presidency.”\n\n– Alberto Flores, a port director for the US Customs and Border Protection, after a large shipment of baby wipes at the US-Mexico border turned out to be $11.8 million worth of cocaine. Officers seized the narcotics Friday at the Colombia-Solidarity Bridge just north of Laredo, Texas, according to a news release. An inspection revealed 1,935 baby wipe packages were stuffed with around 1,533 pounds of alleged cocaine.\n\nTODAY’S WEATHER\n\nHeat builds for the west as tropical systems in the Atlantic intensify 02:21 - Source: CNN\n\nCheck your local forecast here>>>\n\nAND FINALLY\n\nMy Dog Gets Annoyed by New Puppy From Day One\n\nHear the Otherworldly Sounds of Skating on Thin Ice\n\nWatch this dog’s reaction when an energetic puppy becomes the newest addition to the family. (Click here to view)", "authors": ["Alexandra Meeks"], "publish_date": "2022/08/31"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/50-states/2019/11/13/el-paso-memorial-hogs-helicopter-trees-troops-news-around-states/40597251/", "title": "El Paso memorial, hogs by helicopter: News from around our 50 states", "text": "From USA TODAY Network and wire reports\n\nAlabama\n\nMontgomery: The state’s tourism agency has been honored for its work promoting civil rights travel in 14 U.S. states. The office was presented with an award recognizing its marketing campaign for the U.S. Civil Rights Trail during an industry trade show in London last week. The trail promotes museums, churches and other African American landmarks across the South. Promotional materials include video interviews with civil rights participants from the 1960s and photos of landmarks. Alabama oversaw the project in partnership with the Atlanta-based TravelSouth USA and the National Park Service. The trail includes sites from Kansas to Delaware, including all of the Deep South. The state won an award for best regional destination.\n\nAlaska\n\nAnchorage: Warm temperatures and an abundance of food are keeping bears out of their dens in south-central Alaska. KTVA-TV reports the Alaska Department of Fish and Game is warning people to be aware of bears that have not begun to hibernate. Anchorage area biologist Dave Battle says the department has received regular reports of sightings of both brown and black bears. Battle says most black bears enter dens by October, but brown bears are sometimes still up in November. Battle says denning is a response to both cold weather and food availability, but it’s not cold enough, and bears still have food available. Battle says bears are trying to pack in every calorie they can.\n\nArizona\n\nPhoenix: The Arizona Sikh Community has donated 550 trees to low-income Phoenix neighborhoods. Local Sikh leaders gathered Sunday with Mayor Kate Gallego and other officials for a tree dedication ceremony. Planting of elm, Arizona ash and other drought-resistant trees has already started in some downtown neighborhoods. The gift worth about $68,000 is part of a worldwide observance of the anniversary of Sikh religion founder Guru Nanak’s birth in 1469. There were similar tree-planting campaigns in countries including Germany, Canada and Myanmar earlier this year. More trees are especially welcome in Phoenix, which suffers from an urban heat island effect that raises already high temperatures in areas covered by heat-retaining asphalt and concrete. Phoenix has planted thousands of trees in recent years in hopes of offsetting the effects.\n\nArkansas\n\nPine Bluff: Mold contamination is so high at an election office that officials are considering moving. Jefferson County Election Commissioner Stuart Soffer says air quality technicians found an election room with small mold spores measuring 73,300 particles per cubic foot, exceeding the acceptable levels of 2,500 particles per cubic foot. Technicians found large mold spores measuring 16,800 particles per cubic foot; the acceptable level is 200 particles per cubic foot. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports the mold is a health hazard and puts 150 voting machines at risk. Soffer said the county could be liable if it knowingly exposed people to mold. Mold can cause a stuffy nose, coughing or wheezing. Technicians recommended a $1,500 dehumidifier. County Judge Gerald Robinson, the CEO for the county government, says he’s exploring alternative buildings.\n\nCalifornia\n\nSan Francisco: The head of a commuter train system apologized to a black rider who was detained and cited by police for eating a breakfast sandwich on a train platform after an outcry from people who assailed enforcement of a no-food rule as racist. More than two dozen people staged an “eat-in” at a Bay Area Rapid Transit station over the weekend, and others continue to protest the Nov. 4 encounter, which ended with a 31-year-old man, who was headed to work, in handcuffs and unable to leave until he had told BART police his name. BART officials said Monday that an independent auditor is investigating. Eating is not allowed in paid portions of stations to maintain cleanliness, but it shouldn’t be used to prevent people from getting to work on time, they said. Steve Foster says he knew eating was not allowed on trains but did not realize it was banned on platforms.\n\nColorado\n\nDenver: A state law banning the sale and transfer of large-capacity gun magazines has not stopped the sale and transfer of magazines that hold more than 15 rounds of ammunition. An undercover investigation by 9Wants to Know found examples of gun stores in Colorado either ignoring the law altogether or finding a loophole to get around the law. “It’s shocking to see that people are doing this,” said state Sen. Rhonda Fields, D-Aurora. In 2013, a Democrat-controlled Legislature passed four comprehensive bills dealing with guns, including the bill sponsored by Fields banning magazines that hold more than 15 bullets. The bill, signed into law by then-Gov. John Hickenlooper, banned the sale, transfer and possession of a large-capacity magazine as of July 1, 2013.\n\nConnecticut\n\nWaterford: Environmental groups are planning to remove a 1970s dam that has blocked alewife herring from returning from the ocean to freshwater spawning grounds. The Day reports a recently announced $187,000 grant from the Long Island Sound Futures Fund will help pay for the removal of the dam in Alewife Cove along the Waterford-New London line. The grant was awarded to the Connecticut Fund for the Environment and Save the Sound, which are working on the project with the Alewife Cove Conservancy. The groups will be required to provide $128,000 in matching funds. The groups say the project will restore 3 miles of a migratory corridor that benefits alewife as well as sea lamprey and American eel. A timeline for the project has not been announced.\n\nDelaware\n\nWilmington: The Central YMCA downtown will end its housing program for the homeless next spring, cutting 41 guaranteed beds in the city and potentially relocating dozens of men. The beds are reserved for the chronically homeless, a group advocates consider to be the most vulnerable among homeless adults and the most challenging to help. Those who qualify can stay indefinitely. Their rooms are paid for by a $264,000 federal grant that the YMCA of Delaware this year declined to apply to renew. The current grant lasts until May. The YMCA and Housing Alliance Delaware, the nonprofit that coordinates shelter placements statewide, is finding ways for the current residents to stay in their rooms with other funding such as vouchers, to move toward paying rent like the YMCA’s other tenants or to be relocated to other housing.\n\nDistrict of Columbia\n\nWashington: Authorities say a man was walking his 4-month-old pit bull when he was robbed of the puppy at gunpoint. News outlets report the dog named “L.A.” was stolen Saturday. A D.C. police statement says the man and L.A. were walking that afternoon when a vehicle slowed next to them, and the driver asked about buying L.A. The man refused, and the driver followed the pair. It says the driver then stopped the car and got out with a passenger, who pulled a handgun and told L.A.’s owner that “it’s our dog now.” The driver grabbed L.A. and fled in a burgundy Kia Forte. L.A. was wearing a blue collar at the time. A $1,000 is offered for information leading to an arrest.\n\nFlorida\n\nInverness: Controversy over a county commission blocking a library system from having a digital subscription to the New York Times has spilled over into the local tourism realm. The Citrus County Chronicle reports that people are canceling trips to Citrus County, and the repercussions are being felt as far abroad as London. John Pricher, director of the Citrus County Visitors Bureau, said as of Wednesday afternoon he’s received 10 anonymous and signed emails from tourists who all oppose county commissioners’ actions. In late October, commissioners discussed whether to buy the digital subscription but didn’t make a final decision. On Nov. 19, Citrus County Commissioners will decide whether to take the advice of library officials and spend $2,700 annually for a digital subscription to the paper.\n\nGeorgia\n\nAtlanta: Enrollment at the state’s public colleges and universities is rising again, led by its largest schools. The University System of Georgia reported Tuesday that total enrollment rose 1.5% in fall 2019 from fall 2018. More than 333,000 students are enrolled across the state’s 26 institutions. Among those schools, 11 showed growth, and 15 showed declines. The fastest-growing institution, proportionally, was Georgia Tech, where enrollment went up nearly 12% to 36,000. The Atlanta’s school 3,800-student gain made up more than three-quarters of all student gains statewide. Other schools showing large gains were Kennesaw State University, Middle Georgia State University and Georgia Gwinnett College. Atlanta Metropolitan State College saw enrollment drop the most, falling 16% to 1,844.\n\nHawaii\n\nHonolulu: A public health study says Native Hawaiians experience fewer years of good health compared with other ethnic groups in the state. The study by University of Hawaii researchers published in the Asia Pacific Journal of Public Health found Native Hawaiians have 14 fewer years of healthy life than other groups. The study based on a self-reported survey calculates the number of healthy years among the state’s indigenous people and those with white, Filipino, Japanese and Chinese heritages. The study finds Native Hawaiians have 62.2 years of healthy life expectancy, compared with 75.9 years for Chinese, 74.8 for Japanese, 73.3 for Filipinos, and 72.1 years for white Hawaii residents. The authors say the analysis provides a more complete estimate of population health than life expectancy studies.\n\nIdaho\n\nBoise: Federal officials have released a final plan for five open-pit phosphate mines and reclamation work in eastern Idaho proposed by J.R. Simplot Co. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service released the jointly prepared final environmental impact statement Friday for the Dairy Syncline Mine Project about 14 miles east of Soda Springs. The five mines, disposal areas, tailing ponds and other mine workings would cover about 4.3 square miles. The two federal agencies are taking comments before making decisions. The area contains one of the nation’s most abundant deposits of phosphate ore that’s turned into fertilizer needed by farmers to grow food. The area also contains more than a dozen federal Superfund sites needing cleanup from past phosphate mining activities.\n\nIllinois\n\nChicago: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is giving a legal aid group $30,000 to educate farmworkers about and to do research on pesticides. The EPA said in a statement that the money going to Legal Aid Chicago will, among other things, help it survey corn-detasseling workers and fruit harvesters in Illinois on their knowledge of pesticide use. It says the goal is to improve the health of migrant farmworkers. Legal Aid Chicago says the state Department of Agriculture has received a record number of nearly 1,000 complaints in 2019 on alleged misuse of pesticides. It says that’s 10 times recent averages and illustrates the need for better education. The money going to Legal Aid Chicago is part of a series of grants nationwide for groups working on similar measures.\n\nIndiana\n\nIndianapolis: The state is bringing an exhibition exploring the opioid crisis to its official museum early next year. The Indiana State Museum says “Fix: Heartbreak and Hope Inside our Opioid Crisis” aims to remove the shame and isolation surrounding opioid addiction. It will feature displays on the biology behind addiction, the history of health crises in America, and personal stories from addicts and their families. The Indiana Business Journal reports more than 1,700 people in Indiana died from drug overdoses in 2017. Most of those deaths were linked to opioid abuse. The exhibit will feature multimedia displays, hands-on installations and interactive artwork. One display will allow a visitor to enter a giant brain and watch how substance abuse affects it. The 7,000-square-foot exhibit will run for a year starting Feb. 1.\n\nIowa\n\nFort Madison: A monument marking a battlefield where 23 soldiers died has been installed in Fort Madison. The granite monument put in place last week includes a history of the military post on one side and the soldiers’ names on another side. Andy Andrews of the North Lee County Historical Society and Friends of the Old Fort says the $14,000 cost was underwritten by donations through Friends of Old Fort Madison. A flagpole will be installed nearby. The Fort Madison Daily Democrat reports that Fort Madison, originally known as Fort Bellevue, was built by the U.S. Army in 1808 and abandoned in 1813. It was the location of the only War of 1812 battle west of the Mississippi.\n\nKansas\n\nWichita: A cold front that froze much of the state set at least six records for low temperatures. The National Weather Service reports Wichita, Salina, Russell, Dodge City, Garden City and Medicine Lodge set low temperature records early Tuesday. The lowest temperature was in Garden City, which dropped to minus 1, breaking the record of 7 set in 2018. The highest temperature of the six cities was 8 in Wichita, which breaking the former record of 9. Wichita, Salina, Dodge City and Medicine Lodge broke records set in 1911. Much of Kansas experienced below-freezing temperatures after an arctic air mass moved from the Rocky Mountains to northern New England on Monday, with forecasters saying much of the affected region would see record-breaking cold temperatures Tuesday.\n\nKentucky\n\nLand Between the Lakes National Recreation Area: The war on feral hogs at Land Between the Lakes has escalated, with plans announced this week to shoot them on sight from helicopters. The winter campaign to eradicate feral hogs at the site also includes bait trapping and euthanasia, managed by the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife, and the U.S. Forest Service. Feral hogs are non-native and threaten visitor safety, cultural sites, and native plant and wildlife species, Land Between the Lakes officials say. The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service began assisting the Forest Service with trapping in 2014 with success but not at a rate that keeps up with the hogs’ rapid growth. Feral hogs can have two litters per year averaging five-10 piglets. Those offspring can give birth to a new generation in less than a year, according to a release.\n\nLouisiana\n\nBaton Rouge: The state’s social services agency says 893 children in foster care were adopted over the past year. The Department of Children and Family Services says that’s the second-highest number of adoptions from foster care in a single year in state history, falling just below last year’s record of 912. The latest numbers are from the federal budget year that ran from Oct. 1, 2018, through Sept. 30. The department says the 893 children were adopted into 661 families. Of those families, 27% adopted more than one child, including 164 families who adopted siblings. First lady Donna Edwards hosted an adoption celebration with the families Thursday at the governor’s mansion.\n\nMaine\n\nBucksport: A company that intends to create a salmon farm at a former mill site is altering the plan to avoid a 19th-century farm identified during an archaeological survey. Arthur Spiess from the Maine Historic Preservation Commission said Whole Oceans will change the planned locations of an auxiliary building and an access road in Bucksport. He told the Bangor Daily News that the historical significance of the farmstead “is undetermined.” Whole Oceans plans to start building the $180 million salmon farm next spring. It’ll be located on the former site of a paper mill. Spiess declined to identify the contractor who performed the archaeological survey or release the contractor’s report, saying the exact location of historical sites, which the report identifies, is confidential under state law.\n\nMaryland\n\nWestover: Officials gathered over the weekend to celebrate Somerset County’s new technical high school that allows students to explore a whole host of career fields in a brand-new, state-of-the-art facility. Somerset County Technical High School opened its doors to students in September, but officials from the county, state legislators and Congressman Andy Harris’ office gathered Saturday for a ribbon-cutting ceremony and to tour the facility, according to a press release. The new $42 million building serves about 400 students from grades 8-12 and teaches them about a number of career fields including automotive technology, biomedical scienes, information technology and more, the release says. The funds for the building were provided by the state and loans from the federal government. The building is also eco-friendly and energy efficient, including a “vegetated roof” in some areas to provide insulation.\n\nMassachusetts\n\nBoston: Medical marijuana products are set to become exempt from the state’s four-month vaping materials ban. Suffolk Superior Court Judge Douglas Wilkins ruled a week ago that marijuana cultivated for medical use must be exempted from Republican Gov. Charlie Baker’s ban starting Tuesday. Wilkins ruled that the ban can’t apply to marijuana card holders seeking to purchase cannabis vaping products. He said the ban as written undermines the state’s medical marijuana law. Officials said patients will be able to resume making purchases at noon Tuesday. A group representing medical marijuana patients argued that only the state Cannabis Control Commission can regulate marijuana products. Baker issued the emergency ban in September in response to lung illnesses attributed to use of e-cigarette products.\n\nMichigan\n\nEast Lansing: A new Michigan State University exhibit is built around a 20th-century guidebook that a generation of black motorists used during the segregation era to find places where they could safely sleep, eat, shop or find services while traveling. The exhibit for “The Negro Motorists’ Green Book” runs at the East Lansing school until the end of November. It will also introduce the guide’s creator, Victor H. Green. Green’s book listed 86 black-friendly Detroit businesses and five in Lansing from 1936 to 1966. The exhibit presents before-and-after pictures of the businesses, showing how they looked 50 to 80 years ago and today. The historical display follows the 2018 release of “Green Book,” an Oscar-winning film highlighting the guide that African Americans consulted when traveling in the South during the Jim Crow era.\n\nMinnesota\n\nMinneapolis: After completing coursework for her hectic senior year, statistics major Emilia Janik has an additional responsibility: sorting through multiple data sets to determine what more than 30,000 students at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities care most about on campus. As the solo research and data coordinator for the Minnesota Student Association, it is Janik’s job to work with student government to create surveys for the student body every semester. Usually, the work is completed by more than one person, but Janik is a one-woman show. The survey results help discover the issues students want to see changed or advocated for at the University, the Minnesota Daily reports. The latest survey, which MSA says is its best yet, received more than 3,000 responses on questions about grocery stores, off-campus living, environmental justice issues and freedom of speech, among others.\n\nMississippi\n\nOxford: The University of Mississippi says a lecture by a conservative journalist is back on after initially being canceled. The Oxford Eagle reports Daily Wire contributor Elisha Krauss will speak in the university’s student union Wednesday. The talk was originally set to be inside the Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics, but Krauss said she was told by a professor that a policy mandated no ideological groups could host speakers there. The event is hosted by the school’s Young Americans for Freedom chapter, a conservative youth activism organization. Krauss tweeted about the cancellation last week. Hours later, the university responded on Twitter saying the decision to cancel was made by two individuals and wasn’t authorized by the administration. The school rescheduled it and affirmed its commitment to free speech.\n\nMissouri\n\nSt. Louis: A 12-year-old girl has died from injuries suffered last month when a St. Louis County patrol vehicle struck her. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports Akeelah “Ke Ke” Jackson had been in critical condition since she was hit Oct. 14 while crossing a street in Jennings. Her family’s attorney, Robert Merlin, says she died about 1:30 a.m. Tuesday at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. County Police Sgt. Benjamin Granda has said the officer told police he was trying to get closer to a suspicious car to make a traffic stop and wasn’t using lights and sirens. The patrol vehicle reached a top speed of 59 mph on a stretch of road with a limit of 30 mph, although the exact speed at the time of impact wasn’t known.\n\nMontana\n\nKalispell: Park officials in the state have closed public comment on a road management plan intended to help officials better handle increased visitation. The Flathead Beacon reports Glacier National Park officials will begin weighing comments as they attempt to mitigate crowds and congestion on Going-to-the-Sun Road. Park officials say the alpine highway plan was released in September after receiving more than 3 million visitors this year. Officials say the plan suggests expanding the shuttle service, implementing a partial parking permit system, improving and adding trails and bathrooms, and extending visitor hours in some locations. Some comments say the plan omits determining a carrying capacity for the Sun Road, raising concerns about the long-term solutions to crowding. A former park official says a plan limiting use would be a better-suited first step.\n\nNebraska\n\nLincoln: The University of Nebraska-Lincoln is planning construction of a reflection area for its Veterans’ Tribute project. The university said in a news release Monday that the area will run from the steps of the Military and Naval Science Building to the Coliseum. The $3.75 million project is part of an upgrade of the mall just east of Memorial Stadium. The fundraising goal through the University of Nebraska Foundation is $4.5 million, which will cover construction and create an endowment for maintenance. Words on steps in the reconfigured space will honor career moments and personal sacrifices of veterans. The tentative design will embody the concept of glass panels featured in the American Veterans Disabled for Life Memorial in Washington, D.C. Construction is tentatively scheduled to begin in spring 2020.\n\nNevada\n\nReno: Federal land managers have withdrawn more than 500 square miles of public land from a swath of eastern Nevada where oil and gas drilling leases go to auction this week after a judge blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to ease protection of sage grouse habitat. The acreage pulled from Tuesday’s scheduled sale covers more than half the lease area the Bureau of Land Management originally planned to auction. It roughly corresponds to priority habitat designated in a 2015 federal sage grouse plan completed under President Barack Obama for Nevada and northeastern California. The Trump land-use plans finalized in March had removed the most protective habitat designations across millions of acres. A federal judge temporarily blocked the rules last month because they could allow activity likely to harm the struggling bird species in seven Western states.\n\nNew Hampshire\n\nPortsmouth: A bridge has been replaced and rededicated to a World War II submarine crew member who died when the vessel sank in August 1944. George Laderbush, of Portsmouth, was a torpedoman’s mate about the USS Flier when it sank after striking a Japanese mine. Seascoastonline.com reports the Woodbury Avenue bridge over the Route 1 Bypass in the city was originally dedicated to Laderbush when it was built in 1949. But the plaque wasn’t in a prominent location. The bridge was closed two years ago and was replaced. The plaque was removed and refurbished and is being featured in a more visible area. Laderbush’s niece and nephew, Marga Coulp and George Laderbush, were guests of honor at the Veteran’s Day bridge rededication.\n\nNew Jersey\n\nToms River: Police say a convertible traveling at high speed went airborne and crashed into the second floor of a commercial building, killing both of the car’s occupants. Toms River police say the red Porsche Boxster went out of control just after 6:30 a.m. Sunday. The car hit the center median, struck an embankment and went airborne into the building. Police said two Toms River men, 22-year-old Braden DeMartin and 23-year-old Daniel Foley, were deceased when emergency responders arrived at the scene. Police said the structure, which was unoccupied at the time, had been deemed unsafe by a building inspector. Sgt. Vincent Padalino said the building, which is across from Hooper Avenue Elementary School, houses four businesses, including a counseling service and a real estate company.\n\nNew Mexico\n\nSanta Clara Pueblo: Federal officials say a tribe will see an increase in federal disaster aid as it continues to recover from flooding that occurred several years ago. A significant portion of Santa Clara Pueblo’s watershed was wiped out by wildfire in 2011 and the flooding that followed. President Donald Trump recently authorized an increase in the level of funding for public projects undertaken as a result of flooding that occurred during the summer of 2012. Under the disaster declaration issued for the state in August 2012, the federal share for public assistance was 75% of total eligible costs. Trump’s order increases that to 90% for the pueblo. The tribe is in the midst of rehabilitating the Santa Clara Creek and surrounding areas by building erosion-control structures and replanting.\n\nNew York\n\nAlbany: The state’s court system says it plans to expand the gender options on jury documents in an effort to be more inclusive of people who do not identify as male or female. State court spokesman Lucian Chalfen says the system aims to have the updated juror information card set for distribution by early January. Chalfen says the new categories will include female, male, transgender, nonbinary, intersex and other. He says the cards, which tell people when they must attend jury duty, only have male and female gender options right now. The court system is also changing up its juror questionnaire.\n\nNorth Carolina\n\nRaleigh: Education officials had to warn parents not to use Google to search for two schools because the results included explicit images. The News & Observer of Raleigh reports searches for Four Oaks Middle School and South Johnston High School over the weekend returned an “explicit image” in the top results. The newspaper described the image as “graphic and overtly sexual.” A search of the two websites Monday showed the offending images appear to have been removed. Johnston County Schools said it was working with the schools, law enforcement and Google to get the images taken down, and it asked faculty and staff to help remove the image by reporting it as inappropriate to Google.\n\nNorth Dakota\n\nGrand Forks: A break-in at a sorority house at the University of North Dakota has some students on edge. Police are looking for a man who broke into the Gamma Phi Beta house early Monday and took pictures of a woman who was sleeping. Senior Matthew Ely tells KVLY-TV the crime is “kind of weird, kind of scary” because it’s something that doesn’t happen very often on campus. Chloe Shelton, a freshman and sorority member, says she always walks with a group of people, especially at night. University administrators sent an alert to students after the crime occurred.\n\nOhio\n\nColumbus: Tree farmers are joining forces with the state to send a little holiday cheer to the troops overseas. The Ohio Department of Agriculture and the Ohio Christmas Tree Association are partnering on an effort that will ship more than 100 Christmas trees to military members stationed overseas. Growers will donate the trees, and state inspectors will make sure they are free of pests and disease. Both groups will work with volunteers Tuesday to wrap, load and ship the trees at the Ohio Department of Agriculture in Columbus. Each shipment will also include decorations provided by schoolchildren, churches and veterans’ groups.\n\nOklahoma\n\nOklahoma City: A group working to reduce the state’s prison population is launching a new initiative petition that could lead to the release of hundreds more inmates. A group of business, political and religious leaders filed the constitutional ballot initiative Tuesday. The proposal would prohibit prosecutors from using previous felony convictions to enhance sentences in nonviolent cases. It would also allow people who already had such sentence enhancements to petition the courts for relief. Once its petition is finalized, the group will have 90 days to gather nearly 178,000 signatures from registered voters to place the proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot. The same group launched a successful initiative in 2016 that reduced criminal penalties and ultimately helped lead to the release of hundreds of inmates from prison last week.\n\nOregon\n\nPortland: A Portland State University study found tiny pieces of plastic in the vast majority of razor clams and oysters sampled along the state’s coast. The Oregonian/OregonLive reports up to 700,000 of the microscopic fibers are shed by yoga pants, fleeces and other active outerwear made of synthetic textiles during a wash. These fibers are in the wastewater from laundry machines that eventually winds up in the ocean. Some of the tiny plastic fibers could also come from derelict fishing gear. The study’s authors collected and sampled shellfish from 15 sites from Clatsop in the north to Gold Beach near the California border. Of the roughly 300 shellfish studied, all but two contained at least some microplastics. There was an average of 11 pieces of microplastic in each specimen.\n\nPennsylvania\n\nHarrisburg: The family of a sick inmate who died inside a rural jail two years ago claims guards and medical professionals ignored and even ridiculed his distress but documented his agony. A federal lawsuit filed Friday by the mother of 40-year-old Shawn Kitchen blames Clinton County, jail officials and medical staff for mishandling what began as a urinary tract infection and led to a fatal kidney infection. The lawsuit claims Kitchen exhibited symptoms shortly after being jailed for an alleged probation violation and within three days was seen crying in his cell and unable to stand without assistance. It accuses medical and jail staff of responding to his complaints by putting him in a restraint chair and solitary confinement.\n\nRhode Island\n\nProvidence: Brown University has announced plans to double the number of veterans it enrolls by changing admissions policies, increasing financial support and bolstering recruitment. The Ivy League university announced in a press release on Veterans Day that standardized test scores will be optional for veterans in the admissions process. The release indicates changes in financial aid will eliminate “all out-of-pocket costs” for undergraduate tuition and fees for veterans. “We owe an immense debt of gratitude to our veterans,” university President Christina Paxson says. The Providence Journal reports there are currently 21 undergraduate veterans at the school, out of about 7,000 undergraduates.\n\nSouth Carolina\n\nClemson: Clemson University and WYFF 4 Greenville are partnering to create an on-campus satellite news bureau. The bureau gives Clemson students the chance to work alongside industry professionals. “Our students will have the opportunity to work alongside WYFF journalists in the bureau on campus and gain tremendous professional experiences doing that,” says Clemson University Department of Communications Chair Joseph Mazer. The bureau, housed at Hendrix Student Center next to the Student Media offices and studio, was unveiled Tuesday. WYFF 4 news director Bruce Barkley says the Clemson bureau won’t be a main fixture during the station’s newscasts but will be used by reporters and crew members while on assignment in the Clemson area. WYFF 4 sports reporters will be able to use the office as a home base during major sporting events.\n\nSouth Dakota\n\nSioux Falls: Visiting and camping in the state’s parks will be a little more costly after legislators gave a proposed fee increase the final OK on Monday. The legislative Rules Review Committee agreed the process was complete for implementing the increased park entrance and camping fees, which was the final step for the proposal that began in September. Sen. Lance Russell, R-Hot Springs, was the sole opposition in the 5-1 vote. Beginning Jan. 1, an annual state park pass will cost $36, and a daily pass will cost $8. Prime campsites will cost $26, preferred campsites will cost $23, and modern campsites will cost $20. A new statewide $15 fee will begin for all non-electric, tent-only campsites. A seven-day motorcycle pass to Custer State Park will cost $20. Currently, an annual park pass costs $30, and a daily pass is $6, while the seven-day Custer motorcycle pass is $10, and campsites start at $17 for a modern campsite.\n\nTennessee\n\nLynchburg: The distillery that produces Jack Daniel’s whiskey is once again teaming up with a military support group to help service members and their families get home for the holidays. For the ninth year, the distillery is working with the Armed Services YMCA for the “Operation Ride Home” campaign. It provides financial assistance to active-duty junior-enlisted military members and their families to travel home during the holidays. Distillery officials say that since the campaign began, about 7,230 service members and their relatives have been assisted. Jack Daniel’s says it has again donated $100,000 to kick off the campaign. Military members have been able to travel to all 50 states thanks to the program.\n\nTexas\n\nEl Paso: The makeshift memorial formed after the Aug. 3 mass shooting was completely removed Tuesday in anticipation of the reopening of the Cielo Vista Walmart. City officials say some materials will be preserved for historical purposes. A permanent memorial for the 22 killed in the shooting is being built by Walmart in the south end of the store. Construction crews could be seen building the memorial Tuesday morning. Some materials have been moved to a smaller memorial in Ponder Park. Staff from the El Paso Museum of Art, El Paso Museum of History and the Public Art Program, along with Zaragoza Rotary volunteers, began selecting items from the memorial Tuesday to take to Ponder Park. Erica Marin, a registrar at the El Paso Museum of History, says they selected a mix of items, from handmade ones like a string of paper cranes and wooden stars to religious items like rosaries and memorial wreaths.\n\nUtah\n\nSalt Lake City: City officials have bought more than 100 new hybrid sedans for the police department, but some have criticized the vehicle’s size. KUTV-TV reports some officers from the Salt Lake City Police Department have warned city leaders that the Ford Fusion Responder hybrid sedan is too small for use by officers or people they have in custody. Officers say the vehicle is a liability, citing concerns with safety in the event of a collision and lack of all-wheel drive in wintry conditions. City leaders say replacing police cruisers with hybrid models is more sustainable. Officers say the cars could still be used in other areas, but it doesn’t solve the patrol car problem. Officers say some cars are more than a decade old and have thousands of miles.\n\nVermont\n\nMontpelier: The state auditor says numerous questionable choices were made in the administration of the state’s remote worker program aimed at attracting new residents by paying them to move to the Green Mountain state. In a report released Tuesday, Auditor Doug Hoffer wrote that the program’s cost-effectiveness cannot be determined because it’s not known for certain if the grantees moved to Vermont because of the program. He also says the program has serious structural flaws by requiring applicants to prove their Vermont residency before applying. Hoffer writes that “spending taxpayer funds on programs of questionable value is bad enough,” and the problem is made worse by not spending that money “on programs with demonstrable and quantifiable long-term benefits.”\n\nVirginia\n\nRichmond: An army of Confederate monuments dots the state’s landscape, but some of those statues could soon start coming down after Election Day gave Democrats control of the General Assembly for the first time in decades. Members of the new legislative majority say they plan to revive proposals to make it easier to remove the public displays honoring Civil War soldiers and generals in a state that was home to two Confederate capitals. Previous attempts to do so were quickly dispatched in the Republican-controlled General Assembly, in votes largely along party lines. Del.-elect Sally Hudson, a Democrat whose district includes Charlottesville, says she plans to reintroduce legislation her predecessor, David Toscano, sponsored, giving cities and counties the ability to remove Confederate monuments. Local governments are currently hamstrung by a 1904 state law.\n\nWashington\n\nSeattle: A new federal lawsuit aims to kill plans for building one of the world’s biggest methanol refineries along the Columbia River. Plans for the $2 billion refinery, shipping terminal and pipeline project in Kalama, Washington, are already stalled after a state board required further environmental review. Now conservation groups including Columbia Riverkeeper are suing in U.S. District Court in Tacoma. They said Tuesday that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers did not consider the huge amount of greenhouse gases the project would emit or the effect on endangered orcas. The refinery would turn fracked gas from Canada into methanol, which would be shipped to China to make plastics. The project’s backer, Northwest Innovation Works, says the project would provide a cleaner source of plastics than coal-based methanol.\n\nWest Virginia\n\nCharleston: West Virginians are being told to be on the lookout for an invasive insect. The state Department of Agriculture says in a news release that a small population of the spotted lanternfly was detected in the Eastern Panhandle community of Bunker Hill last month. The insects are devastating to trees and crops such as grapes and hops. They lay eggs in the fall on surfaces including vehicles, firewood, outdoor furniture and campers. That allows them to hitch a ride to new areas. Agriculture Commissioner Kent Leonhardt says protecting the fruit orchards and wineries in the Eastern Panhandle is a concern. The agency says landowners should inspect their property for lanternfly egg masses. The insect is native to China and likely arrived in North America on goods imported from Asia.\n\nWisconsin\n\nMadison: Gov. Tony Evers has signed an executive order designed to promote diversity and inclusiveness in state government. Evers signed the order at a state office building Tuesday surrounded by Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, members of his Cabinet, Democratic state lawmakers and others in his administration. The order requires state agencies to develop and implement equity and inclusion action plans. It also calls for creating and providing mandatory equity and inclusion training for all state agency employees. Evers is also creating a diversity and equity advisory council. He says the state is taking a proactive role in making make sure government employees feel empowered and heard in the workplace. Supporters say the effort will help address racial disparities in Wisconsin.\n\nWyoming\n\nCheyenne: An interim legislative committee has rejected a proposed bill to raise the state’s property tax. The Wyoming Tribune Eagle reports that members of the Joint Revenue Interim Committee took the action during their meeting Monday in Cheyenne. The bill would have raised the tax rate on real and personal property from 9.5% to 11.5%, a jump that calculates to a roughly 20% increase in taxable property. Under the bill, minerals and industrial property would have been excluded from the increase. Proponents of the idea say the increase is essential to help the state deal with declining mineral industry revenue in the coming years. But opponents say raising the property tax could place an unfair burden on low-income people.\n\nFrom USA TODAY Network and wire reports", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2019/11/13"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/09/09/covid-updates-astrazeneca-vaccine-trial-honolulu-trump/5754245002/", "title": "COVID news: 900K deaths worldwide, 190K in US", "text": "A day after a vaccine maker hit pause on its COVID-19 clinical trial, the nation's top health experts said Wednesday that the delay shows the degree of safety going into testing the candidate vaccines.\n\nAstraZeneca put a hold on its COVID-19 clinical trials worldwide while it investigated an adverse reaction in a trial participant in the United Kingdom. The interruption represents the first major hiccup in what has been a remarkably smooth path in the historically rapid vaccine effort spanning the globe, but Dr. Anthony Fauci said such pauses are not uncommon.\n\n\"It's really one of the safety valves that you have on clinical trials such as this, so it’s unfortunate that it happened,\" Fauci said.\n\nThe news comes as 900,000 deaths from COVID-19 are recorded worldwide, 190,000 of which are from the United States.\n\nSome significant developments:\n\nNew York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday that New York City could resume indoor dining at the end of the month at 25% capacity with other restrictions.\n\nFive counties in California, including Orange County south of Los Angeles, are moving ahead with reopening plans amid a decline in confirmed coronavirus cases across the state. Places of worship, restaurants with indoor dining and movie theaters will soon be allowed to reopen at 25% capacity, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Tuesday.\n\nHonolulu is extending stay-at-home orders for another two weeks amid a surge in cases.\n\nInternationally, India reported another 89,000 cases on Wednesday after becoming the world's second hardest-hit country the previous day.\n\nThe Transportation Security Agency reported its busiest day since March over the Labor Day weekend: About 935,000 passengers went through TSA checkpoints on Saturday.\n\nSenate Republicans unveiled a coronavirus relief plan far smaller than what lawmakers on both sides of the aisle spent weeks arguing over. It's a bill that even Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says isn't perfect.\n\n📈 Today's numbers: The U.S. has more than 6.3 million confirmed cases and more than 190,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data. Globally, there are almost 27.6 million cases and more than 900,000 fatalities.\n\n📰 What we're reading: A study by a California research group estimates that the Sturgis motorcycle rally in South Dakota led to more than 260,000 coronavirus cases in the month following the event. Gov. Kristi Noem called the study \"fiction.\"\n\n🗺️ Mapping coronavirus: Track the U.S. outbreak, state by state\n\nThis file will be updated throughout the day. For updates in your inbox, subscribe to The Daily Briefing newsletter.\n\nA spike in teacher deaths raises concerns as school year starts\n\nTeachers in at least three states have died after bouts with the coronavirus since the dawn of the new school year, and a teachers’ union leader worries that the return to in-person classes will have a deadly impact across the U.S. if proper precautions aren’t taken.\n\nAshLee Marinis, a 34-year-old special education teacher in Missouri, died after being hospitalized for three weeks. Elsewhere, a third-grade teacher died Monday in South Carolina, and two other educators died recently in Mississippi — which has reported 604 cases among school workers.\n\nRandi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said schools need guidelines such as mandatory face coverings and strict social distancing rules to reopen safely.\n\n“If community spread is too high as it is in Missouri and Mississippi, if you don’t have the infrastructure of testing, and if you don’t have the safeguards that prevent the spread of viruses in the school, we believe that you cannot reopen in person,” Weingarten said.\n\n– The Associated Press\n\nGov. Whitmer’s virus-related powers reach top Michigan court\n\nGov. Gretchen Whitmer’s bold use of emergency powers during the coronavirus pandemic reached the Michigan Supreme Court on Wednesday as justices heard hours of arguments about whether she has illegally made far-reaching decisions without input from the Legislature.\n\nJustice David Viviano raised pointed and repeated questions about whether the 1945 emergency law Whitmer relied on was ever intended to deal with a health pandemic.\n\nDeputy Solicitor General Eric Restuccia, representing the governor's office, pushed back, saying that although the Emergency Powers of Governor Act does not specifically mention epidemics, it says it can be invoked when \"public safety is imperiled\" and it references disasters and catastrophes that would clearly include major threats to public health.\n\n– The Associated Press and Paul Egan, Detroit Free Press\n\nEvents at near-empty stadiums still linked to infections, study finds\n\nProfessional soccer matches played in near-empty stadiums were linked to higher COVID-19 cases and deaths in the area, a study at the University of Reading found.\n\nResearchers studied hundreds of soccer matches in England in February and March and found that a match led to six more COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people in the area where the match took place, two more COVID-19 deaths and three additional excess deaths.\n\nEven stadiums that are 80% empty are unlikely to reduce rates of COVID-19 transmission without effective social distancing measures for fans before, during and after matches, the researchers concluded.\n\n\"Even when stadiums are only partially filled, fans tend to pack together in groups. They also mix in bar areas, toilets, and queues, as well as in pubs, shops and restaurants outside the grounds,\" said sports economist and study author James Reade. \"This behaviour presents an effective route for airborne viruses to spread, and is no less prevalent with smaller crowds.\"\n\n– Grace Hauck\n\nBritain bans gatherings of more than 6 people\n\nBritish Health Secretary Matt Hancock says new limits on social gatherings in England to six people are set to stay in place for the \"foreseeable future,\" potentially until or even through Christmas.\n\nHancock said the new limit for both indoor and outdoor gatherings, which will come into force and be enforceable by law from Monday, will provide \"more clarity\" to people and should help keep a lid on a recent spike in coronavirus cases.\n\nThough there are exemptions, such as for schools, workplaces and \"life events\" like funerals and weddings, the government is clearly hoping that the new limits will be easily understood and followed. Unlike the previous set of guidelines, people could be fined for not following the rules – 100 pounds ($130) for a first offense, up to a potential 3,200 pounds ($4,100).\n\n– The Associated Press\n\nNew York City to resume indoor dining at month's end\n\nIndoor dining is set to resume in New York City after being stopped in late March because of COVID-19. Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Wednesday that restaurants can add indoor dining at 25% capacity in the city starting Sept. 30.\n\nThe rest of the state has been allowed to have limited indoor dining, and the entire state has had outdoor dining since late spring as the virus' infection rate has stayed below 1% for 33 straight days.\n\nNew York City has had the most COVID deaths in the state, and Cuomo and city officials have been cautious in reopening businesses, particularly in the city.\n\nThe safety guidance will require temperature checks at the door for all indoor customers and require one member of each party to provide contact information for COVID tracing if needed. Indoor dining will also prohibit any bar service, and masks must be worn when not seated at tables. Restaurants will have to close at midnight, and the state is encouraging them to improve infiltration systems.\n\n– Joseph Spector, New York State Team\n\nTrump said he knew the coronavirus was deadly but chose to 'play it down'\n\nPresident Donald Trump told journalist Bob Woodward that he knew the coronavirus was more deadly and contagious than the flu while he continued to downplay its dangers to the public, according to Woodward's new book \"Rage.\"\n\n\"I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic,\" Trump told Woodward on March 19 in excerpts of audio interviews obtained by CNN.\n\nIn interviews with Woodward from December 2019 to July 2020, Trump discussed the threat of the coronavirus with a level of detail that he had not yet acknowledged to the public, noting Feb. 7 that it was \"deadly stuff,\" and \"more deadly than your – even your strenuous flus.\"\n\nWhile Trump discussed the threat of the virus to Woodward, he continued to assure the public that it was \"under control\" in the U.S. and would \"go away.\"\n\n– Jeanine Santucci\n\nThree-time Olympic gold medalist decries mask wearing, then apologizes\n\nThree-time Olympic beach volleyball gold medalist Kerri Walsh Jennings wrote in a recent Instagram post that she did not wear a mask while shopping over the weekend, which she referred to as \"a little exercise in being brave.\"\n\nThe consensus among public health experts is that wearing a mask is a crucial preventive measure amid the coronavirus pandemic, but Walsh Jennings said that she wants \"people to stop living in fear and start living in a way that strengthens themselves body, mind and spirit.\"\n\nThe next day, Walsh Jennings offered an apology after facing sharp criticism, including from fellow beach volleyball player Jennifer Kessy and Walsh Jennings' own sister, Kelli Mezzetti.\n\n– Chris Bumbaca\n\nNIH head: No way anyone could know the exact date vaccine will be ready\n\nDr. Francis Collins, the head of the National Institutes of Health, said health officials do not expect that all six candidate COVID-19 vaccines in the U.S. will be proved safe and effective in clinical trials but that safety was \"foremost in all our minds.\"\n\nCollins, testifying before a Senate panel Wednesday, said three of the six candidates are in Phase 3 trials, and that the hold on AstraZeneca's trial is a \"concrete example\" of the safety measures in place to pause a trial after even one illness.\n\nCollins also said he was cautiously optimistic about a vaccine being ready by the end of the year but that no scientist would be able to say whether a vaccine could be ready by a specific date – a reference to President Donald Trump's repeated promise a vaccine will be ready by Election Day.\n\nCollins was also optimistic about the potential efficacy of the vaccine. He said that if he had to guess, he would expect a vaccine to have longer lasting efficacy than a seasonal flu vaccine. However, Collins cautioned that scientists won't know for sure until later on in the trials.\n\nFauci: Vaccine trial pause is unfortunate but not uncommon\n\nDr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, called AstraZeneca's hold on its COVID-19 candidate vaccine trials \"unfortunate\" but said it was \"not uncommon at all\" during vaccine development.\n\n“It’s really one of the safety valves that you have on clinical trials such as this, so it’s unfortunate that it happened,” Fauci told CBS “This Morning” on Wednesday. “Hopefully, they’ll work it out and be able to proceed along with the remainder of the trial but you don’t know. They need to investigate it further.”\n\nAstraZeneca, one of the companies racing to make a vaccine against the coronavirus, said Tuesday that it was investigating an adverse reaction in a trial participant in the United Kingdom and paused its COVID-19 clinical trials worldwide.\n\nThe company, which is currently working with the University of Oxford on Phase 3 of testing its vaccine, said the pause was \"a routine action which has to happen whenever there is a potentially unexplained illness in one of the trials.\"\n\n– Elizabeth Weise and Karen Weintraub\n\nPope Francis: Health of all is a 'common good'\n\nPope Francis, in an appeal Wednesday against the \"partisan interests\" emerging among some nations and groups during the COVID-19 pandemic, made a plea for all to look out for the health of others as well as themselves.\n\n\"The coronavirus is showing us that each person’s true good is a common good and, vice versa, the common good is a true good for the person. Health, in addition to being an individual good, is also a public good. A healthy society is one that takes care of everyone’s health,\" Francis said in a public address.\n\nFrancis resumed his weekly public audiences last week after a six-month hiatus because of the pandemic. A limited crowd gathered to see Francis, with chairs were spaced out in the San Damaso courtyard inside the Apostolic Palace.\n\nBioNTech CEO confident vaccine will be ready for approval by mid-October\n\nBioNTech CEO and co-founder Ugur Sahin said in an interview with CNN that his company's vaccine being developed along with Pfizer could be ready for regulatory approval by mid-October or early November.\n\n\"It has an excellent profile and I consider this vaccine ... near perfect, and which has a near perfect profile,\" Sahin told CNN on Tuesday. Sahin's comments came the same day another candidate vaccine hit a snag as AstraZeneca paused its trial after an unexplained illness.\n\nThe comments also come after BioNTech and Pfizer were among the nine biopharmaceutical companies that issued a letter Tuesday pledging to fully vet their COVID-19 candidate vaccines before asking for federal approval to market them.\n\nPresident Donald Trump has repeatedly said a vaccine could be ready before the November election and that if it wasn't, it was because of a \"deep state\" conspiracy against him.\n\nMajority of young adults live with their parents for first time since Great Depression\n\nThe number of 18- to 29-year-olds living with their parents reached record highs as more than half reported residing at home in July. In February, 47% of young adults reported living at home. That number grew to 52% by July, or roughly an increase of 2.6 million people, according to data from the Pew Research Center.\n\nThe number is higher than any previous measurements, Pew says. At the end of the Great Depression, based on data from the 1940 census, 48% of young adults lived at home. The peak during the Great Depression may have been higher, but there is no available data, Pew says.\n\nThe economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic has been particularly hard for young Americans, and Pew's data show many moved home due to job loss or college campus closures.\n\nPennsylvania college football player dies of coronavirus complications\n\nCalifornia University of Pennsylvania football player Jamain Stephens, 20, has died, the school announced Tuesday. Stephens, a senior defensive lineman, was the son of former Pittsburgh Steelers and Cincinnati Bengals offensive lineman Jamain Stephens.\n\nCentral Catholic High School in Pittsburgh, where Stephens played, said in a statement posted to Facebook on Tuesday his cause of death was related to complications involving COVID-19. It is unclear how he contracted the disease.\n\nCalifornia University was not playing football this fall with COVID-19 health concerns forcing sports to be halted by the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference. A cause of death was not given in the California University announcement.\n\n– Erick Smith\n\nTrump says North Carolina restrictions will hurt his reelection bid\n\nPresident Donald Trump kicked off a campaign rally on Tuesday in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, by accusing the state's governor of using coronavirus restrictions to hurt his reelection chances.\n\n\"Your state should be open,\" Trump said to a crowd of hundreds that erupted in cheers at the Smith Reynolds Airport.\n\nThe president, still stung from the loss of the GOP convention that was due to take place in Charlotte last month but moved to a nearly all-virtual event over COVID-19, said North Carolina and other key battleground states such as Michigan were keeping their states shut for \"political reasons.\"\n\n\"On Nov. 4, every one of those states will be open. They're doing it for political reasons,\" Trump said in remarks that lasted 76 minutes.\n\n– John Fritze, Courtney Subramanian and David Jackson\n\nLos Angeles sets COVID-19 guidelines ahead of Halloween celebrations\n\nLos Angeles County health officials have set guidelines for Halloween celebrations amid the coronavirus pandemic. The city banned door-to-door trick-or-tricking, trunk-or-treating events where children receive treats from car-to-car, haunted houses, festivals and other related events.\n\n\"Door-to-door trick-or-treating is not allowed because it can be very difficult to maintain proper social distancing on porches and at front doors especially in neighborhoods that are popular with trick or treaters,\" the guidelines say.\n\nInstead, officials are encouraging families to celebrate by attending virtual events, car parades, drive-in movie theaters and other activities that follow the city's public health guidelines.\n\nTSA passenger screenings top 900,000 twice over Labor Day weekend\n\nThe Transportation Security Agency reported Tuesday that more people flew over the Labor Day weekend than at any other point in the COVID-19 pandemic. About 935,308 passengers went through TSA checkpoints on Monday, setting a new record. That betters the previous high of 862,949 that was set on Aug. 16.\n\nThe number of passengers who went through TSA checkpoints went over 900,000 twice during the long holiday weekend – first on Friday with 968,673, then again on Monday. Thursday also saw higher-than-average traffic with 877,673 passengers being screened.\n\nThough the TSA numbers approached 1 million for the first time since the country went on lockdown, they're still a far cry from Labor Day weekend in 2019, when more than 2 million passed through checkpoints all but one day.\n\n– Jayme Deerwester\n\nHonolulu extends stay-at-home order\n\nHonolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell announced Tuesday that he will extend an existing stay-at-home order for two weeks to control the coronavirus in Hawaii's largest city.\n\nThe stay-at-home order will be kept in place through Sept. 24. But Caldwell said he will modify the rules to allow solo activity at beaches, parks and trails. Individuals will be able to run, sit or eat by themselves in these public places beginning Thursday.\n\nCOVID-19 resources from USA TODAY\n\nOn Facebook: There's still a lot unknown about the coronavirus. But what we do know, we're sharing with you. Join our Facebook group, Coronavirus Watch, to receive daily updates in your feed and chat with others in the community about COVID-19.\n\nThere's still a lot unknown about the coronavirus. But what we do know, we're sharing with you. Join our Facebook group, Coronavirus Watch, to receive daily updates in your feed and chat with others in the community about COVID-19. In your inbox: Stay up-to-date with the latest news on the coronavirus pandemic from the USA TODAY Network. Sign up for the daily Coronavirus Watch newsletter.\n\nStay up-to-date with the latest news on the coronavirus pandemic from the USA TODAY Network. Sign up for the daily Coronavirus Watch newsletter. Tips for coping: Every Saturday and Tuesday we'll be in your inbox, offering you a virtual hug and a little bit of solace in these difficult times. Sign up for Staying Apart, Together.\n\nContributing: The Associated Press", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2020/09/09"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/50-states/2022/08/31/synagogue-fight-celebrity-burglaries-fast-food-workers-news-around-states/50663237/", "title": "Synagogue fight, celebrity burglaries: News from around our 50 states", "text": "From USA TODAY Network and wire reports\n\nAlabama\n\nMontgomery: Corrections officials apparently botched an inmate’s execution last month, an anti-death penalty group alleges, citing the length of time that passed before the prisoner received the lethal injection and a private autopsy indicating his arm may have been cut to find a vein. Joe Nathan James Jr. was put to death July 28 for the 1994 shooting death of his former girlfriend. The execution was carried out more than three hours after the U.S. Supreme Court denied a request for a stay. “Subjecting a prisoner to three hours of pain and suffering is the definition of cruel and unusual punishment,” Maya Foa, director of Reprieve US Forensic Justice Initiative, a human rights group that opposes the death penalty, said in a statement. “States cannot continue to pretend that the abhorrent practice of lethal injection is in any way humane.” The Alabama Department of Forensic Science declined a request to release the state’s autopsy of James, citing an ongoing review that happens after every execution. Officials have not responded to requests for comment on the private autopsy, which was first reported by The Atlantic. At the time of the execution, Alabama Corrections Commissioner John Hamm told reporters that “nothing out of the ordinary” happened. Hamm said he wasn’t aware of the prisoner fighting or resisting officers. The state later acknowledged that the execution was delayed because of difficulties establishing an intravenous line but did not specify how long it took.\n\nAlaska\n\nJuneau: Police in the city are trying to get DNA samples from people with certain past convictions to help fulfill the governor’s push to reduce a backlog of missing evidence across the state, Alaska Public Media reports. The ACLU of Alaska has raised concerns about DNA collection efforts and said it’s monitoring the situation.\n\nArizona\n\nPhoenix: Democratic attorney general candidate Kris Mayes is calling to investigate and potentially cancel the leases the State Land Department signed with a Saudi Arabian company that is pumping from Phoenix’s backup water supply in western Arizona. Mayes is also calling for the company to pay the state approximately $38 million for using the water in La Paz County, which sits in a basin that could be tapped as future water source for the Phoenix metro area. Mayes said the leases should be put on hold while they are investigated because they potentially violate the Arizona Constitution’s gift clause, as well as a clause that requires state land and its products to be appraised and offered at their true value. The Arizona State Land Department gave a sweet deal to a Saudi Arabian company called Fondomonte to farm areas in Butler Valley near Bouse, growing alfalfa to ship it back to the Middle East to feed its cows. Fondomonte pays only $25 per acre annually, which is about one-sixth of the market price for farm land in that area, according to experts and the state’s own mass appraisal for areas in and around Butler Valley. In addition, the water that is being pumped by Fondomonte is located in what’s called a transfer basin, meaning water sucked from the ground can be shipped to areas of the state where groundwater is regulated.\n\nArkansas\n\nLittle Rock: A man who was beaten and held down by law enforcement officers during an arrest that was caught on a widely circulated video has filed a federal lawsuit against the officers. Attorneys for Randal Worcester filed the lawsuit Monday over the Aug. 21 arrest outside a convenience store in the small town of Mulberry that’s prompted state and federal criminal investigations. A bystander’s video shows one officer hold Worcester down as a sheriff’s deputy repeatedly punches and knees the 27-year-old man in the head before grabbing his hair and slamming him against the pavement. At the same time, a third officer also kneed Worcester repeatedly. All three officers – Mulberry Officer Thell Riddle and Crawford County deputies Zachary King and Levi White – are white. Worcester is also white, according to jail booking information. Worcester’s lawsuit accuses the officers, all of whom have been suspended, of violating his constitutional rights. The lawsuit also names the city of Mulberry, its police chief, Crawford County and its sheriff as defendants. “Any reasonable law enforcement officer should have known that his conduct violated clearly established federal law and was a direct violation of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution,” the lawsuit said.\n\nCalifornia\n\nSacramento: State lawmakers on Monday approved a nation-leading measure that would give more than a half-million fast food workers more power and protections, over the objections of restaurant owners who warn it would drive up consumers’ costs. The bill will create a new 10-member Fast Food Council with equal numbers of workers’ delegates and employers’ representatives, along with two state officials, empowered to set minimum standards for wages, hours and working conditions in California. A late amendment would cap any minimum wage increase for fast food workers at chains with more than 100 restaurants at $22 an hour next year, compared to the statewide minimum of $15.50 an hour, with cost of living increases thereafter. “We made history today,” said Service Employees International Union President Mary Kay Henry, calling it “a watershed moment.” “This legislation is a huge step forward for workers in California and all across the country,” she said as advocates offered it as a model for other states. The Senate approved the measure on a 21-12 vote, over bipartisan opposition. Hours later the Assembly sent it to Gov. Gavin Newsom on a final 41-16 vote, both chambers acting with no votes to spare.\n\nColorado\n\nDenver: Two minors and an adult face charges after a teenager was fatally shot in the head while filming a video for the popular social media platform TikTok earlier this month. Three minors were filming dance videos to post on TikTok in the southern Colorado town of Monte Vista when a Glock 19 pistol discharged Aug. 7, according to an arrest warrant affidavit obtained by KRDO-TV. The victim’s identity has not been released. Emiliano Vargas, 21, has been arrested for allegedly permitting or providing a minor with a firearm. The two other minors who were at the scene were arrested for alleged reckless manslaughter and possession of a handgun by juveniles, according to a statement by the Monte Vista Police Department. According to the affidavit, one of the minors told police that she saw the other juvenile point and shoot the gun at the victim before throwing the pistol on a nearby bed. When asked if it seemed like an accident, the girl said to police that “it could be.” Vargas told police he was not at the scene when the shot was fired, according to the affidavit.\n\nConnecticut\n\nKillingly: A high school assistant principal this month was charged with bringing a handgun onto campus – more than a year after the incident occurred and three months after state police were directed to reopen the case. Rolando Navarro, 43, was charged Aug. 16 with possession of a weapon on school grounds, a felony, and released on a $1,000 non-surety bond pending his scheduled arraignment Wednesday at Danielson Superior Court, according to a state police criminal information summary. Navarro and Principal Rafael Calixto were placed on administrative leave in February, weeks after the state Department of Children and Families and state police announced an investigation into a report of a gun discovered at Harvard H. Ellis Technical High School last year. State police from the Central District Major Crime Squad in August interviewed a former student who said he was tasked June 8, 2021, with performing a tire rotation on Navarro’s personal vehicle inside the school’s automotive shop. The student and his shop teacher said they found a gun box in the vehicle’s rear tire well containing an unloaded semi-automatic pistol and magazine. Soon after the weapon was reported, Navarro retrieved the gun box and left, police said.\n\nDelaware\n\nDover: State health officials announced Monday that they will soon include fentanyl test strips in naloxone overdose-reversal kits distributed to the public. The effort is aimed at preventing accidental overdoses due to fentanyl consumption, the Division of Public Health’s Office of Health Crisis Response said in a news release. Fentanyl is now the leading cause of drug overdose deaths in Delaware, found in more than 80% of fatal overdoses, officials said. There were 515 overdose deaths in Delaware last year, an increase of 15% from 2020, according to Division of Forensic Science data. Fentanyl was found in 83% of those deaths. The test strips are highly sensitive, and marijuana, cocaine, meth, ecstasy and other substances can be tested for the presence of fentanyl, officials said. Most overdoses are unintentional, officials said, and people may not realize how strong a drug is or that it contains fentanyl, which cannot be detected by sight, taste, smell or touch. The Division of Public Health also distributes 10-pack fentanyl test strip kits through a free mail-order program.\n\nDistrict of Columbia\n\nWashington: During her show at The Anthem concert hall Monday, New Zealand singer-songwriter Lorde caused a stir by telling the crowd she swam in the Potomac River, WUSA-TV reports. “The crowd is in SHAMBLES,” concertgoer Natalie Escobar said in a tweet. Escobar said the Grammy-winning artist told fans she did it to get a feel for D.C. Another Lorde fan said many in the venue booed. In video from the show, Lorde says she was lying in the river contemplating what to say to the crowd. “I love swimming in water where I’m playing,” said Lorde, 25. “It makes me feel like I know you a bit better.” The reaction on social media has been mixed. “She did what?!” one user wrote. Another joked that the musician is going to grow an extra limb. Others praised her gutsiness. Earlier this year, local leaders celebrated the progress made in cleaning the Potomac. “I think a lot of people still think that this river is not clean enough to swim, but we’ve been doing the testing for three straight years, every single week,” Potomac Riverkeeper Dean Naujoks said back in March. “And we’re finding that there’s plenty of days, and a lot of places more than 85% of the time, where it is safe to swim in this river. I swim in this river; my daughter swims in this river.” Swimming in the Potomac without a permit has been banned since 1932.\n\nFlorida\n\nFort Lauderdale: Four school board members appointed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis in one of the state’s most Democratic counties were sworn into office Tuesday. They replace the elected Broward County board members DeSantis suspended after a grand jury investigating the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School found widespread wrongdoing. The Florida Department of Education on Monday voiced “significant concerns” about the school system’s actions before, during and after the shootings of 17 people by Nikolas Cruz, a troubled former student who attacked the high school’s campus on Valentine’s Day in 2018. In a letter sent to Superintendent Vickie Cartwright, the state cited the grand jury’s finding of mismanagement of the $800 million voter-approved bond to renovate schools, the underreporting of criminal activity to the state, the district’s “almost fanatical desire to control student data” and use it to manipulate public perception, and the practice of allowing students with serious felonies back on school campuses. “Due to the gravity of the issues outlined above, the Florida Department of Education and the Office of Safe Schools will contact you to arrange an in-person meeting this week to investigate these major concerns,” wrote Tim Hay, who directs the state’s Office of Safe Schools.\n\nGeorgia\n\nAtlanta: A prosecutor on Monday announced a sprawling indictment against members of what she said is a violent street gang that has been targeting the Atlanta-area homes of famous athletes, entertainers and others who flaunt expensive possessions on social media. Singer Mariah Carey, Marlo Hampton of “The Real Housewives of Atlanta,” Atlanta United player Brad Guzan and the Atlanta Falcons’ Calvin Ridley all had their homes broken into, the indictment says. The 220-count indictment filed Aug. 22 charges 26 people, most of whom are accused of violating Georgia’s anti-gang and racketeering laws. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said the crimes alleged in the indictment – carjacking, kidnapping, armed robbery, shootings, home invasions – were committed by members of the Drug Rich gang, which she said began to emerge in 2016 in a neighboring county. In addition to the celebrity targets, social media influencers were also victimized in home invasions and burglaries, Willis said. “What they do is target people who show their wealth on social media,” she said. “So I do have a message for the public: Where it is kind of fun to put your things on social media and show off, unfortunately these gangs are becoming more savvy, more sophisticated in the way that they target you.”\n\nHawaii\n\nHonolulu: The Hawaii State Capitol remained closed Monday after a power outage over the weekend. On Saturday morning, one of three high-voltage circuit breakers at the Capitol shorted, officials said. The cause is unknown. The Department of Accounting and General Services has been working with contractors to restore power as soon as possible, officials said in a statement Monday. Until the damaged equipment is repaired, the downtown Honolulu building will remain closed. The Hawaii Legislature adjourned in May. The 2023 session starts in January.\n\nIdaho\n\nBoise: The University of Idaho wants to build the nation’s largest research dairy and experimental farm in south-central Idaho, the geographical heart of the sector. University President Scott Green and school officials said in a presentation to Gov. Brad Little and other members of the Idaho Land Board this month that the proposed Center for Agriculture, Food and the Environment will help support growth of the dairy and other industries. “CAFE will be a leader (for) water usage and environmental quality challenges while supporting the continued growth of the dairy, livestock, cropland and food processing industries,” Green told the board. The dairy industry is Idaho’s top agricultural sector and ranks third in the nation behind California and Wisconsin. Idaho’s main dairy products are milk, cheese and yogurt. The school wants the Land Board to use $23 million from the 2021 sale of 282 acres, in Caldwell, of endowment land benefitting the University of Idaho’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences to buy roughly 640 acres of farmland in Minidoka County north of Rupert. The $23 million is in a fund controlled by the Land Board. The presentation was informational, and the board is expected to take action on the plan in September.\n\nIllinois\n\nRockford: A federal judge sentenced a man to 55 years in prison Monday for the shooting death of a deputy U.S. marshal serving an arrest warrant for a series of downstate burglaries. U.S. District Judge Matthew F. Kennelly imposed the sentence on Floyd E. Brown, 43, of Springfield, for his April 8 conviction on charges of second-degree murder of a federal officer, attempting to kill additional federal officers, assault of federal officers and multiple firearm counts. Brown was acquitted of first-degree murder. Special Deputy U.S. Marshal Jacob Keltner, 35, was a McHenry County deputy working with a Marshal’s Service fugitive task force when he was killed March 7, 2019, at a Rockford hotel. When task force officers attempted to gain access to Brown’s third-floor hotel room, he fired 10 shots through the door and nearby walls, narrowly missing three deputy marshals, U.S. Attorney John Lausch said. Brown then jumped out a window and fired a shot that killed Keltner, who was positioned outside. Brown was arrested several hours later near Lincoln after a high-speed pursuit.\n\nIndiana\n\nIndianapolis: Abortion clinic operators filed a lawsuit Tuesday seeking to block the state’s near-total ban on abortions. The lawsuit filed in a Monroe County court claims the ban, set to take effect Sept. 15, “strips away the fundamental rights of people seeking abortion care” in violation of the Indiana Constitution. It argues the law “will infringe on Hoosiers’ right to privacy, violate Indiana’s guarantee of equal privileges and immunities, and includes unconstitutionally vague language.” Indiana’s Republican-dominated Legislature approved the tighter abortion restrictions Aug. 5, making it the first state to do so since the U.S. Supreme Court eliminated federal abortion protections for abortions by overturning Roe v. Wade in June. The Indiana law includes exceptions, allowing abortions in cases of rape and incest within 10 weeks of fertilization; to protect the life and physical health of the mother; and if a fetus is diagnosed with a lethal anomaly. Under the law, abortions can be performed only in hospitals or outpatient centers owned by hospitals, meaning all abortion clinics would lose their licenses. Any doctors found to have performed an illegal abortion would be stripped of their state medical licenses and could face felony criminal charges punishable by up to six years in prison.\n\nIowa\n\nDes Moines: Police are investigating a burglary from some unusual victims – endangered primates. Bonobos are considered humanity’s closest living animal relative, and a wooded research site in southeast Des Moines is home to seven of them out of only 250 alive in captivity. On Saturday morning, a staff member at the Ape Initiative reported an overnight burglary to Des Moines police. According to the organization’s Facebook page, the burglars did extensive damage and took a “considerable amount of tools and equipment that we use every day to keep the bonobos safe and healthy.” The investigation is active, and neither the group nor Sgt. Paul Parizek, the Des Moines Police Department’s spokesman, could share specifics of what was taken or how burglars gained access. Neither the bonobos nor the institute’s human staff were put at risk, and the animals remained safe, said Jared Taglialatela, the group’s director. The bonobos seem to be unaffected, Taglialatela said. As for the reported break-in, he said none of the scientific equipment or data on site was taken. Staff are now working on cleanup, repairs and paperwork, away from their normal responsibilities.\n\nKansas\n\nBurlington: Builders of a proposed electric line taking nuclear energy from Kansas to Missouri now have eminent domain power, but they will have to wait to use it until the final route is approved. Regulators say electricity consumers in the state will be better off in the long run from cost savings, despite having to help foot the bill for sending Kansas-produced electricity out of state. The Kansas Corporation Commission granted public utility status to NextEra Energy Transmission Southwest, which plans to build a 94-mile, 345-kilovolt transmission line from the Wolf Creek nuclear power plant, near Burlington, to the Blackberry Substation in Missouri, north of Joplin. Now that NextEra has a certificate of convenience and necessity, it has eminent domain powers. But it can’t use them until it gets approval for the route, expected to run through Coffey, Anderson, Allen, Bourbon and Crawford counties. Instead of a longer route following highways in southeast Kansas, the proposal crosses large swaths of farmland, making it a shorter distance to the station. Several landowners objected to the power lines, which would require a 150-foot easement, during the regulatory proceedings. Anderson County farmer Mike Welding testified that he has no intention of allowing NextEra agents onto his property or to sign the easement contract.\n\nKentucky\n\nFrankfort: The state has received a $5million federal grant to help prevent wrong-way crashes on interstates, officials said. The funding will go toward implementing a pilot program that will use new technology to detect when someone goes the wrong way and then alert the wrong-way driver, other drivers and emergency responders, according to a statement Monday from the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet. “Wrong-way driving is a major safety challenge,” Gov. Andy Beshear said. “These funds will allow us to use innovative video technology to help monitor and bolster safety on corridors prone to these types of incidents.” Kentucky’s Wrong Way Driving and Integrated Safety Technology System will include digital and roadway signs, cameras and sensors. Locations in Fayette and Jefferson counties – home to Lexington and Louisville, respectively – will be chosen based on crash history and interstate ramp designs, and the system could expand into other counties, officials said. “In addition to implementing this new technological system, we’ll continue researching statewide opportunities to address wrong-way crashes, such as striping and signage,” Transportation Secretary Jim Gray said.\n\nLouisiana\n\nNew Orleans: Nearly 100 calls to report rapes this year have been quickly downgraded from emergency status, leaving survivors to wait hours for police – and, increasingly, to leave before officers arrive, a New Orleans newspaper and TV station report. The change is highlighted in a report that City Council crime analyst Jeff Asher plans to present to the council this week, WWL-TV and The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate report. Other serious crimes, including armed robberies, carjackings, aggravated assaults and domestic disturbances, are also often being shifted from high to low priority before police arrive, Asher wrote. Advocates and officials are worried that the long waits raise the emotional cost for rape survivors and the chance that the reports won’t be investigated. The changes come at a time when the department has fallen from 1,300 officers to about 950. The reasons are not clear, but authorities appear to be trying to keep lights-and-siren treatment for still-unfolding emergencies, the news agencies report. So far this year, 98 aggravated rape reports – 40% of the total – have been reclassified from emergencies to nonemergencies while the call was being dispatched. The same happened with 1,486 domestic disturbances, 431 domestic batteries, 252 aggravated assaults and 74 armed robberies or carjackings, Asher wrote.\n\nMaine\n\nPortland: Parents of children enrolled in religious schools fought for years – all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court – for the state to treat tuition reimbursements the same as other private schools. But only one of the religious high schools that stood to benefit has signed up to participate this fall, after Maine’s attorney general warned that the schools would have to abide by state anti-discrimination laws, including those that protect LGBTQ students and faculty. That development has frustrated the families who sued. “Their hands are tied. The state said you can take the money, but we’ll tie your hands,” said David Carson, whose daughter was a sophomore at Bangor Christian Schools when his family and two other plaintiffs sued in 2018. The Supreme Court ruled in June that Maine can’t exclude religious schools from a program that offers tuition for private education in rural towns where there are no public schools. Last year, 29 private schools participated in the tuition reimbursement program, enrolling more than 4,500 students, officials said. Those schools that meet the state’s criteria can get about $12,000 per student in taxpayer funding. So far, only one religious school has signed up to participate, and that application will go through a review process, said Marcus Mrowka, a state education spokesperson. Mrowka declined to identify the school. The deadline for applications is Thursday.\n\nMaryland\n\nAnnapolis: Eva Cassidy may be the most famous musical artist ever to live in Annapolis, but it took 26 years and a mural dedication for the city to mount a tribute concert in her honor. Cassidy died in 1996 of metastatic melanoma. She was 33, beloved locally, with one solo album and countless gigs at Annapolis bars to her name. That album, “Live at Blues Alley,” has since sold more than 12 million copies, landing atop record sales charts around the world. No other artist who spent her recording career in the Washington area has enjoyed that level of success, with the caveat that Cassidy did not live to see it, the Capital Gazette reports. “That’s the thing about Eva: All of her success was posthumous,“ said fan Doug Gibson, who attended the recent dedication along with his girlfriend, an artist who knew Eva Cassidy through Annapolis art circles. Acquaintances, co-workers, friends, family, bandmates, roommates and even ex-boyfriends all were among the crowd of several hundred who attended the official dedication of “Maryland Songbird,” a portrait of Eva Cassidy painted on the rear of a Cathedral Street building in Annapolis. The mural was created by artists Jeff Huntington and Julia Gibb with help from local students and supported by their nonprofit Future History Now. More than 30 musicians performed at a tribute concert in the Eva Cassidy Lot.\n\nMassachusetts\n\nWorcester: The Worcester Housing Authority held a groundbreaking Monday for “A Place to Live,” a $7.7 million, 24-unit building that will provide permanent, supportive housing and wraparound care for people experiencing homelessness. “This will not only help people to achieve long-term housing,” Alex Corrales, executive director of the WHA, said during the ceremony Monday morning at the building site. “It will improve residents’ wellness.” The building is the first of its kind in the state and is based on the “A Place to Live” model first developed by the Massachusetts Housing and Shelter Alliance. The model offers permanent, supportive, micro-housing units for those who have been chronically homeless. The three-story, 13,340-square-foot building will include 24 fully furnished studio apartments – two of which are wheelchair accessible – as well as a unit for a resident manager and space for group meetings and individual meetings with service providers. Residents will be selected through a lottery system. “This is a sacred moment in which we are announcing and groundbreaking a project and, even more than that, a home,” Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito said at the ceremony. “This supportive housing is loving and beautiful.”\n\nMichigan\n\nTraverse City: A judge began hearing evidence Monday to determine if five men will face trial for their alleged roles in a plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. The proceedings in state court came six days after two men who were described as leaders of the scheme were convicted in federal court. Michael Null, William Null, Eric Molitor and Shawn Fix, all from Michigan, are each charged with providing material support for terrorist acts as well as a gun crime. Brian Higgins, of Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin, faces the same material support charge. Judge Michael Stepka must decide if there is probable cause to send the men to trial in Antrim County, a low bar at this stage of the case. The county is the location of Whitmer’s Elk Rapids vacation home. Fourteen people – six in federal court, eight in state courts – were arrested in 2020 and charged in relation to the kidnapping plot. Federal authorities said there was support to abduct Whitmer and spark a civil war, known as the “boogaloo, before the 2020 election. It’s a “version of anarchy,” FBI agent Hank Impola testified Monday. The Null brothers, Higgins and Molitor participated in trips to see Whitmer’s home, according to evidence.\n\nMinnesota\n\nMinneapolis: Preparing for an unprecedented strike, hundreds of University of Minnesota service workers protested on campus Tuesday to demand an end to what they called poverty wages and abusive employment practices. “It’s shameful that the University of Minnesota has a billion dollars left over at the end of the year, coming off the backs of workers who are homeless and don’t have enough money for food,” Brian Aldes, secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 320, said in a statement. “The State of Minnesota, UMN President Joan Gabel, and the Board of Regents need to understand that if our brothers and sisters at the university are forced to strike, the Teamsters are ready to take up this fight, no matter the cost.” The protesting service workers were joined by student and environmental groups, faculty members, community leaders and elected officials, including Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman. Local 320 represents 1,500 workers at UMN who clean buildings, service dormitories, maintain grounds, prepare food, maintain HVAC systems, care for research animals, drive trucks, and perform other activities across the university’s five campuses. Many of the workers are Black, including immigrants from Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea and other East African countries.\n\nMississippi\n\nJackson: Hunters have set a new state record after killing a female alligator that measures more than 10 feet long, state wildlife officials said Monday. A pair of hunters killed the gator Sunday on the Pearl River near the Ross Barnett Reservoir northeast of Jackson, the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks said in a news release. It measured 10 feet, 2 inches long from head to tail, making it the longest female alligator harvested on record in the state. The catch would have tied a 1984 world record, but that record fell last year after a female alligator taken in Florida measured 10 feet, 6.75 inches, said Ricky Flynt, the department’s alligator program coordinator. Flynt said it’s possible the Mississippi alligator was 75 to 100 years old. The hunting season for alligators in public waters opened Friday and ends Sept. 5.\n\nMissouri\n\nJefferson City: The state Supreme Court on Tuesday reprimanded St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner for mistakes made in the 2018 prosecution of then-Gov. Eric Greitens but agreed with an advisory counsel’s decision that suspension of her law license or disbarment was not merited. The brief ruling from the state High Court echoed a “joint stipulation” agreement reached in April by Gardner and the Missouri Office of Disciplinary Counsel. In that agreement, Gardner conceded that she failed to produce documents and mistakenly maintained that all documents had been provided to Greitens’ lawyers in the criminal case that played a pivotal role in the Republican’s decision to resign in June 2018. The agreement, stating that Gardner’s conduct “was negligent or perhaps reckless, but not intentional,” called for a written reprimand, but it was ultimately up to the Missouri Supreme Court to issue a ruling. In addition to the reprimand for violating rules of professional conduct, the court fined Gardner $750. Messages seeking comment from Gardner’s office weren’t immediately returned. She told the disciplinary panel in April that the mistakes were due to the fast-moving nature of the Greitens case. “Yes, we had a process. But unfortunately, that process came up short,” she said at the time.\n\nMontana\n\nKalispell: Authorities say a man shot two people, killing a woman and seriously injuring her husband, during a weekend altercation at a bar near Glacier National Park. Whisper Dawn Mari Sellars, 28, of Hungry Horse, died at the scene of the shooting outside of the South Fork Saloon in Martin City, the Flathead County Sheriff’s Office said. A 40-year-old man from Kila was arrested at the scene and booked into the county jail for suspected deliberate homicide and attempted deliberate homicide. He was due to make an initial appearance Tuesday afternoon in Flathead County Justice Court, officials said. Deputies responded early Saturday morning to a reported shooting at the saloon and found a woman had been killed and a man injured, the sheriff’s office said. Just before the shooting, Sellars and another woman allegedly got into an argument with the suspect after he found them taking pictures in a golf cart that he’d driven to the bar from a nearby party, the Hungry Horse News reports, based on accounts from witnesses. After the suspect pushed Sellars, her husband pushed the suspect, who fell, got up and allegedly started shooting, the newspaper reports. The victims had five children. Martin City has about a population of 460 people and is located about 20 miles northeast of Kalispell.\n\nNebraska\n\nTecumseh: A death row inmate who strangled his cellmate after complaining he talked too much died Monday at the state prison in Tecumseh. Officials said they have not determined how Patrick Schroeder, 45, died. Schroeder died about four years after he was sentenced to death for the strangulation death of his prison cellmate, Terry Berry. Schroeder admitted to killing Berry in 2017, saying his cellmate was too talkative. After Berry’s death, the state paid his family $479,000 to settle a lawsuit that alleged the state was responsible for Berry’s death because officials put in him a cell with Schroeder, who had been convicted of murder in the 2006 killing of a 75-year-old farmer from Pawnee City. Berry, 22, of Scottsbluff, was nearing parole after being convicted of forgery. As is the case whenever an inmate dies in state custody, a grand jury will conduct an investigation of the death.\n\nNevada\n\nReno: The historic Sinai Mansion – also called the Howell House – will likely be torn down despite a proposal made last November to move it to a new location on the Truckee River. The Nevada Museum of Art, which owns the 106-year-old building, has started construction on a $60 million, 50,000-foot expansion that requires a commitment to move the house by October. It can be moved anywhere, but it can’t stay where it is next to the museum. “We know people who lived here and who grew up here at the Sinai Mansion – the Howell House – and I can tell you there’d be a lot of broken hearts in this community if this didn’t end up on its feet somewhere else,” museum executive director David Walker said by phone from the Sinai Mansion, where administrative staff are temporarily located during construction. One proposal to save the mansion comes from Reno attorney Nancy Gilbert, who submitted it to the city Nov. 2. Gilbert’s proposal would move the building 1.5 miles from its current spot to a city-owned property that’s been abandoned for over a decade. The plan is supported by the museum, the Historic Reno Preservation Society and the 1200 Riverside Drive Community Association. Gilbert envisions a coffeehouse, restaurant and event space incorporating both old buildings.\n\nNew Hampshire\n\nPortsmouth: City officials have received a number of complaints from residents about supporters of ex-President Donald Trump who have been appearing regularly at Prescott Park. The complaints have prompted at least two City Council discussions about the issue, an investigation by the city’s Legal Department, and plans to implement more rules about the designated public forum area of the city-owned park that has long been dedicated to freedom of speech and expression. Robert Sullivan, an attorney for the city, said the complaints from citizens started last summer but “have been continuous all summer long” in 2022. He emphasized the group’s First Amendment rights to free speech, but there are questions about rules regarding the park’s designated public forum area. The pro-Trump group has also appeared downtown in front of North Church – a traditional public forum area that has seen countless political speeches, rallies and protests over the years. “We have been led to believe they are in the park nearly every day,” Sullivan said. “There’s a public forum area at Prescott Park in which constitutionally protected speech is not only allowed but encouraged. John McCain announced his candidacy for president in that very same location.”\n\nNew Jersey\n\nTrenton: The state is using $6.5 million of federal aid to help collect and digitize school blueprints for first responders, Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy said Tuesday. The American Rescue Plan funds will help the state’s Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness and the state police devise maps for about 1,500 schools public and private schools. An additional 1,500 schools already have such digital graphics available, according to the administration. The maps are critical to help police and other responders react to emergencies in what could be unfamiliar environments, officials say. “With the epidemic of gun violence reaching every part of our communities, including our schools, we offer our families not empty promises, but concrete investments in tools and resources that will keep our students safe,” Murphy said in a statement. The announcement comes nearly a month after Murphy signed legislation requiring the state’s nearly 600 school districts to set up threat assessment teams aimed at stemming any violence in schools. The bill was introduced two days after the Uvalde, Texas, school shooting. That measure goes into effect in the 2023-2024 school year.\n\nNew Mexico\n\nSanta Fe: Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Monday pardoned six people for convictions ranging from fraud and larceny to burglary and drug trafficking. The pardons represent another round of clemency decisions for the first-term Democratic governor who is seeking reelection. She has pardoned 56 people overall. The governor’s office said nearly all of the pardoned offenses stem from crimes committed a decade or more ago, and all but one involved nonviolent offenses. Among those pardoned was Cynthia Jaramillo, who escaped from serial killer David Parker Ray in 1999. The governor’s office said Jaramillo, who had a drug trafficking conviction on her record, has since dedicated her life to supporting women facing homelessness and addiction. The others were Bridgette Yvette Tabor, Jack Ferguson, Travis Earl Gatling, Randall E. Johnston and Kathleen Woerter. The governor’s pardoning power extends to all crimes committed under state law except for impeachment and treason. A pardon restores certain rights, such as the right to vote and the right to hold public office.\n\nNew York\n\nNew York: Amid the bright lights and electronic billboards across Times Square, city authorities are posting new signs proclaiming the bustling crossroads a “Gun Free Zone.” The sprawling Manhattan tourist attraction is one of scores of “sensitive” places – including parks, churches and theaters – that will be off limits for guns under a sweeping new state law going into effect Thursday. The measure, passed after a U.S. Supreme Court decision in June expanded gun rights, also sets stringent standards for issuing concealed carry permits. New York is among a half-dozen states that had key provisions of its gun laws invalidated by the high court because of a requirement for applicants to prove they had “proper cause” for a permit. The quickly adopted law, however, has led to confusion and court challenges from gun owners who say it improperly limits their constitutional rights. Under the law, applicants for a concealed carry permit will have to complete 16 hours of classroom training and two hours of live-fire exercises. Ordinary citizens would be prohibited from bringing guns to schools, churches, subways, theaters and amusement parks – among other places deemed “sensitive” by authorities. Applicants also will have to provide a list of social media accounts for the past three years as part of a “character and conduct” review.\n\nNorth Carolina\n\nDurham: U.S. Senate candidate Cheri Beasley pitched herself Monday as a bridge between law enforcement and the Democratic Party, appealing to moderate voters in one of the nation’s most competitive races for a seat in the narrowly divided chamber. Joined by more than a dozen current and former law enforcement officers at a news conference in Durham, Beasley announced new legislative priorities to strengthen public safety and mend the frayed relationship between her party and the police force. The Democrat committed to working with Republican lawmakers to secure funding for local law enforcement to train officers on deescalation techniques, mindful responses to behavioral health crises and alternatives to using force. She also told sheriffs she would fight for federal funding to help rural departments address officer shortages and the ongoing opioid crisis. With the Senate in a 50-50 deadlock, North Carolina is one of the few states where Democrats have strong potential to flip a seat this November. Beasley, former chief justice of the state Supreme Court, will face off this fall against Republican U.S. Rep. Ted Budd, who is endorsed by ex-President Donald Trump. Beasley distanced herself Monday from the “defund the police” movement – a progressive push to divest funds from police department budgets and reallocate them to social services and other community resources.\n\nNorth Dakota\n\nFargo: A Fargo police officer was justified in fatally shooting a man at an apartment complex in July, state Attorney General Drew Wrigley said Monday. Wrigley said Officer Adam O’Brien, a more than 10-year veteran of the department, fired his gun at 28-year-old Shane Netterville, of Jamestown, after Netterville ignored commands of officers and sped out of a garage in a stolen van, narrowly avoiding officers. Netterville suffered a chest wound and died at a hospital several hours later. The shooting came after a citizen report of three “possibly deceased” people in the van, Wrigley said. The men were alive and may have been sleeping in the van. When police arrived, Netterville “failed to company with lawful orders,” he said. Wrigley said the two passengers in the van said they heard police commands and were trying to convince Netterville to comply. Wrigley and Fargo police Chief David Zibolski showed dash and bodycam video of the incident during a press conference in Fargo. Wrigley previously rejected calls to release camera footage of the shooting. O’Brien was placed on paid administrative leave while the case was being reviewed by the Bureau of Criminal Investigation. Zibloski said O’Brien will return to full duty Sept. 7.\n\nOhio\n\nColumbus: The state Supreme Court on Tuesday said it would not take up an appeal of a $25 million judgment against Oberlin College in a business’ lawsuit claiming it was libeled by the school after a shoplifting incident involving three Black students. The court did not say why it would not hear the appeal. The 9th District Court of Appeals in Akron upheld the judgment in late March. Oberlin College said in a statement that officials are disappointed the high court did not hear the school’s appeal. “The issues raised by this case have been challenging, not only for the parties involved, but for the entire Oberlin community,” the statement said. Store owners Allyn Gibson and his son, David Gibson, sued Oberlin College in November 2017 claiming they had been libeled by the school, and their business had been harmed. The lawsuit was filed a year after David Gibson’s son, also named Allyn, chased and tackled a Black male student he suspected of having stolen a bottle of wine. Two Black female students who were with the male student tried to intervene. All three were arrested and later pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges. The arrests triggered protests outside Gibson’s Bakery, where flyers were handed out, some by an Oberlin College vice president and dean of students, accusing the Gibsons of being racist.\n\nOklahoma\n\nOklahoma City: The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals has reinstated the murder conviction and life sentence of a man featured in the book and television series “The Innocent Man.” The court overturned a lower court decision that said prosecutors and police withheld evidence that could exonerate Tommy Ward, 61, of the 1984 murder of Donna Denice Haraway in Ada. The ruling, dated Friday, said the withheld evidence, which included witness interviews and police reports, had been available to Ward’s defense since 2003 and was not included in Ward’s direct appeal after his 1999 conviction. “Raising the same general categories on post-conviction that one raised on direct appeal, even if the basis is different, will result in a procedural bar,” according to the state court’s opinion. “He’s very disappointed that he’s still in prison for a murder he didn’t commit,” Ward’s attorney, Mark Barrett, said Tuesday. “We are pressing forward… exploring the possibility of going to federal court” with additional appeals. Barrett noted that the appeals court ordered the lower court to consider an additional claim regarding new evidence discovered in 2019. That evidence includes previously undisclosed suspects and whether police provided Ward with information about the victim’s blouse, which prosecutors said he had described.\n\nOregon\n\nPortland: A federal judge has ruled that the Oregon State Hospital must impose strict limits on the length of time it treats patients accused of crimes who need mental health treatment. Judge Michael W. Mosman’s ruling seeks to ease the psychiatric hospital’s overcrowding, speed up patient admission and stop people waiting for admission from languishing in jail, The Oregonian/OregonLive reports. Effective immediately, the hospital must release “aid-and-assist” patients accused of misdemeanors within 90 days of admission and those accused of felonies within six months of admission. Aid-and-assist patients are those found by a judge to be unable to participate in their own defense at trial. The judge’s decision overrules an Oregon law that says the hospital can hold an aid-and-assist patient for up to three years, or the maximum amount of time that a person could have been sentenced to prison for their alleged crime, whichever is shorter. Disability Rights Oregon and Metropolitan Public Defenders requested the order after protesting the hospital’s lengthy admission delays. Disability Rights Oregon in 2002 won a court order that required the hospital to admit aid-and-assist patients within seven days so they can begin mental health treatment quickly.\n\nPennsylvania\n\nPhiladelphia: The state may not keep a cache of weapons seized from the parents of a gunman who killed one state trooper and permanently disabled another eight years ago, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday. The parents of Eric Frein sued after authorities refused to return 25 rifles, 10 pistols and two shotguns that were taken from their home in September 2014, days after Frein ambushed the troopers outside a state police barracks in the Pocono Mountains. Eugene Michael Frein and Deborah Frein were not charged in their son’s crime – for which he was convicted and sentenced to death – and none of their weapons were used in his deadly late-night assault. The Pike County district attorney, who was named as a defendant in the parents’ suit, had argued that authorities had the right to hold the seized weapons, saying they might be needed as evidence during Eric Frein’s state and federal appeals. The Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed, saying in its ruling Tuesday that state authorities never used Michael and Deborah’s weapons as evidence at their son’s trial and violated the parents’ constitutional rights by holding on to the guns indefinitely.\n\nRhode Island\n\nNewport: A Jewish congregation in New York City has moved to evict Rhode Island congregants who worship at the nation’s oldest synagogue as part of a long-running dispute over control of the historic building. The New York-based Congregation Shearith Israel on Monday filed a motion in state District Court to take control of Touro Synagogue by removing its current tenants, the Newport-based Congregation Jeshuat Israel. Congregation Shearith Israel said in court documents that it sent a notice in October demanding that Congregation Jeshuat Israel leave the premises as of Monday. “CJI, and any others still in possession of the premises, must vacate the premises as of midnight on the termination date,” Shearith Israel wrote. Members of Congregation Jeshuat Israel released a statement Friday saying their goal was to have a long-term lease so the congregation could have the security of knowing they and future generations can continue to worship in the synagogue. They said they are willing to take full responsibility for maintaining the building and maintaining orthodox services, with the hope of expanding the congregation. “Touro Synagogue is our home, and the place where we have worshipped and been the sole caretakers, for almost 140 years,” members of the congregation wrote.\n\nSouth Carolina\n\nColumbia: “Cocky” will now be joined by “The General” at University of South Carolina football games this fall. The school announced Monday that its live, crowing rooster mascot will have a new name going forward. The bird had previously been called “Sir Big Spur,” but a dispute between its old and new owners led to the name change. Neither the university nor the athletic department owned rights to the former name. The rooster has had a perch at football and baseball games at South Carolina the past two decades. “The General” will be alongside human-sized mascot “Cocky” when the Gamecocks open the season against Georgia State on Saturday night. The new name comes from Revolutionary War general Thomas Sumter, who was known as “The Fighting Gamecock.” South Carolina deputy athletic director Eric Nichols said when officials realized they’d have to change the name, it seemed fitting to go back to the Gamecock nickname’s origin. “We know Gamecock fans are passionate about our traditions, and seeing the live mascot at games and other athletics events is something they look forward to,” Nichols said. The athletic department worked with the rooster’s new owners, Beth and Van Clark, in picking a name. The school’s legal department discouraged keeping any part of the old name.\n\nSouth Dakota\n\nAberdeen: Avera Health has announced plans to resize its organization, including eliminating jobs, in response to rising expenses. The higher costs for items that include paper products, common medical supplies, software technology and more mean a reduction is coming to the workforce across the Avera network, according to a statement released by the company Monday evening. “We are resizing our organization with an even greater focus on delivering high-quality patient care while redefining our core business focus around patient care. Sadly, this will mean a reduction in our nonclinical workforce across the Avera footprint, restructuring in areas and changes in services,” the statement said. Details were not shared about how many positions are being eliminated or what specific changes are in the works. While Avera is caring for more patients, inflation is a big reason for the change, per the statement. Because of those rising expenses, Avera said it is challenging itself to “be more efficient, focused and creative in looking at health care differently and less expensively, while leveraging innovation.”\n\nTennessee\n\nNashville: A South Korean tire manufacturer plans to add almost 400 jobs in a third expansion of its Tennessee operations. The state Department of Economic and Community Development said Hankook Tire & Technology Co. is planning to add the jobs over five years at its Clarksville campus. The company plans to finish a previous expansion to double U.S. production of passenger car and light truck tires. Hankook will invest $612 million in the third expansion, which will add the company’s first U.S. production line of truck and bus radial tires. Tire production at the new phases of the plant is expected to begin in the last quarter of 2024, then reach full capacity by early 2026. The company broke ground on the Tennessee facility in 2014. Hankook has relocated its North American headquarters to Nashville. The new Clarksville expansion will bring the company’s workforce to about 2,300 people across Tennessee.\n\nTexas\n\nUvalde: The Associated Press and other news organizations are suing local officials after months of refusal to publicly release records related to the May massacre at Robb Elementary School. The lawsuit filed Monday in Uvalde County asks a court to force the city, school district and sheriff’s department to turn over 911 recordings, personnel records and other documents. Newsrooms have requested them under Texas open records laws since a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers May 24. More than three months after one of the deadliest classroom shootings in U.S. history, news organizations have turned to courts in an effort to obtain information and records that Uvalde officials and state police have argued they cannot release because of ongoing investigations. The Texas Attorney General’s Office has also ruled that Uvalde officials cannot withhold all records. Misleading and outright false statements by authorities about the police response in the initial hours and days after the attack on a fourth grade classroom – which lasted more than 70 minutes – have sowed distrust that remains among many Uvalde residents. “The obfuscation and inaction have only prolonged the pain of victims, their families and the community at large, all of whom continue to cry out for transparency regarding the events of that day,” the lawsuit says.\n\nUtah\n\nSalt Lake City: The state reported far fewer coronavirus cases in the week ending Sunday, adding 3,143 new cases. That’s down 11.2% from the previous week’s tally of 3,539 new cases of the virus that causes COVID-19. Utah ranked 46th among the states where coronavirus was spreading the fastest on a per-person basis, a USA TODAY Network analysis of Johns Hopkins University data shows. In the latest week coronavirus cases in the United States increased 10.8% from the week before, with 654,873 cases reported. With 0.96% of the country’s population, Utah had 0.48% of the country’s cases in the last week. Across the country, 16 states had more cases in the latest week than they did in the week before. Across Utah, cases fell in five counties, with the best declines in Davis County, with 351 cases from 446 a week earlier; in Salt Lake County, with 1,294 cases from 1,376; and in Utah County, with 470 cases from 512. Within Utah, the worst weekly outbreaks on a per-person basis were in San Juan County with 157 cases per 100,000 per week; Tooele County with 116; and Salt Lake County with 112. The Centers for Disease Control says high levels of community transmission begin at 100 cases per 100,000 per week.\n\nVermont\n\nBurlington: The state will spend $3million in the coming year to attract more workers, continuing an effort that began in 2019 when the state offered to cover up to $10,000 in moving expenses for people willing to move to the Green Mountain State to work remotely. In 2020, the Legislature added a program offering up to $7,500 in moving expenses to workers who accepted jobs with Vermont companies in targeted positions such as cooks and servers, child care workers, registered nurses, construction laborers, delivery drivers, elementary school teachers and retail salespeople. In 2021, the state offered both incentives again. The $3 million commitment this year comes despite widespread opposition in the Legislature – especially in the state House – and a review by the Legislative Joint Fiscal Office that rejects the conclusions of a third-party study claiming the programs paid for themselves within two years. The review stated, among other things, that the report relied on “unrepresentative and misleading data to derive its most important conclusions.”\n\nVirginia\n\nRichmond: Hazing charges against five former members of a now-expelled Virginia Commonwealth University fraternity in connection with a freshman’s death from alcohol poisoning after a party have been dropped. Six of the 11 former Delta Chi members charged in the death of Adam Oakes, 19, have pleaded guilty or no contest, but a prosecutor in the case declined to say why the charges against the remaining five were dropped last week, The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports. Last year, 11 former members of the fraternity were charged with hazing and seven of them with serving alcohol to a minor. VCU suspended the students, a defense attorney said last year, and the university permanently removed the fraternity from campus. Three of the six who pleaded guilty or no contest are eligible to have their charges dismissed if they meet the terms of their plea agreements. Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Mike Hollomon declined to comment on the dropped charges, citing the open case status of three defendants. Both charges in these cases are misdemeanors and carry no more than a year in jail and a fine of $2,500. None of the six received jail time. The police investigation found Oakes was told to drink a large bottle of whiskey in February 2021, and the freshman from Loudoun County was found dead the next morning.\n\nWashington\n\nSeattle: Members of the Chinook Indian Nation rallied Monday on the steps of a federal building in Seattle to raise awareness for their long fight to get federal recognition. Chairman Tony Johnson, whose tribal name is Naschio, told KNKX Public Radio that his great-great-grandfather and other leaders first hired lawyers to sue for their lands back in the 1890s. Federal recognition would mean access to federal dollars for health care and housing for this group of tribes, which are based in southwestern Washington, particularly Pacific County. The rally was the start of a campaign by Chinook leadership, they said, to pressure U.S. Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell to use their influence in Congress to get the Chinook recognized. For a brief time twenty years ago, the Clinton administration recognized the Chinook Indian Nation, but the Bush administration revoked that decision in 2002 after another Indigenous nation in Washington state, the Quinault, appealed to the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Johnson said during a speech Monday that the Chinook nation, which is made up of five tribes – the Cathlamet, Clatsop, Lower Chinook, Wahkaikum and Willapa – refused to sign a treaty that would force them to lose their land and therefore was never moved to a reservation.\n\nWest Virginia\n\nCharleston: Two former teacher’s aides have been charged with failing to report the abuse of special needs students at an elementary school, the Kanawha County Prosecutor’s Office said. The charges were announced Monday in connection with a case involving former special education teacher Nancy Boggs, officials told news outlets. Boggs pleaded guilty in May to 10 misdemeanor counts of battery and was sentenced this month to 10 years in prison stemming from incidents in September 2021. The aides were charged under a state law that requires school employees to report to authorities when they have “reasonable cause” to suspect abuse or neglect or witness “conditions that are likely to result in abuse or neglect.” One aide pleaded not guilty during an initial court appearance Monday, and the other postponed the arraignment until her lawyer could be present.\n\nWisconsin\n\nMadison: Gov. Tony Evers is allocating $90million more in federal pandemic funding for schools. Evers said the funds are aimed at helping school officials recruit and retain teachers, combatting staffing shortages that have emerged since the coronavirus pandemic began in early 2020. “Yes, they are federal funds, I understand that, but until there is a (state) budget, we need to make sure that the people that stand behind me can do the good work,” the Democratic governor said at a news conference at Leopold Elementary School in Madison. Evers is a former state superintendent and public school educator. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, both Republicans, did not react to the governor’s plan. Republican candidate for governor Tim Michels, who is challenging Evers in November, said the plan was political. “The fact that self-proclaimed ‘education governor’ Evers needs to make news on education with 70 days until Election Day shows that his anti-parents, pro-special interest education agenda isn’t resonating with Wisconsin voters,” Michels said. “Evers wants his big checks to make people forget his big failures, but his disastrous record speaks for itself.”\n\nWyoming\n\nJackson: At the Jackson Cupboard food bank, Ash Hermanowski oversees the distribution of about 1,200 free meals a day from a commercial garage after being forced from a previous site by a malfunctioning sprinkler. The food bank couldn’t afford any other place in town. Just across the street, The Glenwood, a collection of townhomes that will sell for millions, is nearing completion. “Unparalleled luxury,” its website says, in a “truly relaxing oasis.” It’s the “ultimate irony,” Hermanowski said. “The staff and I, we talk about it all the time. We all struggle to live here, and they’re building high-end residences. That dichotomy exists all over town, but people refuse to see it.” Inflation is particularly high in the town of Jackson and the surrounding Teton County, which, even before the pandemic erupted two years ago, was the wealthiest and most unequal place in the nation. The state of Wyoming has calculated that the cost of living in the county at the end of 2021 was 68% higher than in the rest of the state – with housing costs 130% higher. Roughly 85% of the food bank’s recipients have a job, often more than one, said Sharel Lund, executive director of one22, a nonprofit that includes Jackson Cupboard.\n\nFrom USA TODAY Network and wire reports", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/08/31"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/50-states/2021/08/16/casa-bonita-mypillow-poke-banksy-exhibit-news-around-states/118354866/", "title": "Casa Bonita, MyPillow poke: News from around our 50 states", "text": "From USA TODAY Network and wire reports\n\nAlabama\n\nHuntsville: The Rocket City has overtaken the Magic City as Alabama’s largest, according to new census numbers. Huntsville, with a population of 215,006, is now slightly more populous than Birmingham, according to U.S. census numbers released Thursday. Birmingham, which had long been Alabama’s largest city, has a population of 200,733. And the capital, Montgomery, is biting at its heels in third, with 200,603 residents. However, the Birmingham metro area remains the largest in the state. The Birmingham-Hoover metro statistical area has 1.1 million people, while the Huntsville metro area has just 491,723. Huntsville, with historical ties to the space industry, has seen rapid growth over the past ten years, partly fueled by the tech and manufacturing sectors. The city’s population has jumped by 19% since 2010. “I’m proud that the great things we have going on in Huntsville have grown our city,” Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle wrote in a tweet. “To tell the truth, we’re more focused on being the best than the biggest.” Birmingham got the nickname the Magic City for its rapid growth and had long been Alabama’s largest city. Much of the recent growth around Birmingham has been concentrated in the surrounding suburban areas, rather than in the city itself.\n\nAlaska\n\nAnchorage: U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm is spending two days in the state traveling with Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski to showcase what Granholm’s office calls Alaska’s status as “America’s living laboratory.” The visit coincides with the recent passage of the bipartisan infrastructure deal and is intended to show how investments and research and development funding “will bring jobs and help build the state’s clean, secure energy future,” Granholm’s office said. The visit started Sunday in Fairbanks with a tour of the National Renewable Energy Lab’s Cold Climate Housing Research Center, highlighting its training of a local workforce to build and rapidly deploy shelter for climate-threatened communities in an effort to reduce the need for relocation. Also on Sunday’s agenda was a tour of the Permafrost Tunnel Research Facility and the Chena Hot Springs Renewable Energy Fair. On Monday, plans call for visiting the Alaska Center for Energy and Power at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, where researchers are developing ways to achieve 100% renewable power for rural villages. In Anchorage, Granholm and Murkowski will speak with Malcolm Woolf, president of the National Hydropower Association. The visit is set to conclude with a meeting with Alaska Native engineering students and alumni.\n\nArizona\n\nPhoenix: A coalition of educators, parents and advocates for children is asking a judge to overturn several new state laws that restrict the power of local governments and school districts to impose COVID-19 requirements, arguing the statutes violate constitutional rules and pointing out the state is seeing a growing number of coronavirus cases among children. A new lawsuit filed Thursday against the state by the Arizona School Boards Association, a teacher’s union and others challenges a law that prohibits cities, counties and public school districts from imposing mask requirements on students and teachers. At least 11 districts accounting for 140,000 students and more than 200 schools have defied the law by imposing their own mask rules. The coalition also is seeking to overturn a law prohibiting colleges and universities from requiring COVID-19 shots for students and making them reveal their vaccination status, as well as another statute that forbids communities from establishing vaccine passports for people to show they were inoculated. The lawsuit argues elements of the legislative proposals with limits on local government had violated constitutional rules requiring laws to focus on only one subject and have their contents reflected in the title of the bills.\n\nArkansas\n\nLittle Rock: Most public school students in the state will be required to wear masks when classes begin this week, following moves by dozens of districts in response to a judge blocking Arkansas’ mask mandate ban. At least 60 public school districts and charter schools have approved the requirements in the past week. The pace at which districts have approved the mandates surprised even public health experts who say masks are needed to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, especially as the ultra-contagious delta variant fuels a surge in cases and hospitalizations. “I think those actions are going to prevent some superspreader events that would have occurred,” said Dr. Joe Thompson, president and CEO of the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement. Some form of mask mandate has been approved in the state’s 10 largest school districts. The biggest, Springdale, approved a requirement but only for students in kindergarten through seventh grade. The Little Rock School Board, which sued over the state’s mandate ban, voted Thursday to require masks be worn indoors by students and staff. Republican Attorney General Leslie Rutledge announced Friday that she’s appealing Pulaski County Circuit Judge Tim Fox’s Aug. 6 preliminary injunction against the mandate ban. Fox ruled the ban violated the Arkansas Constitution.\n\nCalifornia\n\nOakland: A McDonald’s franchise has settled a lawsuit by employees who said the owner gave them masks made from dog diapers and coffee filters to guard against the coronavirus. Thursday’s settlement requires the owner to provide masks and gloves to all workers and provide other health and safety measures required by a judge last year, such as regular temperature checks. The franchise owner didn’t acknowledge any wrongdoing in the settlement. The measures will remain in place for a year unless government health agencies no longer recommend them. The Telegraph Avenue outlet shut down for a month beginning in May 2020 after 20 workers refused to show up, contending that 25 workers and their families, including a baby, had come down with the coronavirus. After the COVID-19 pandemic began in March 2020, employees asked for masks but received dog diapers and coffee filters as a stopgap measure, and when they eventually received masks intended for one-time use, they had to wear them for several days, the employees alleged. Three of the employees who sued also alleged that they were required to work despite having COVID-19 symptoms, and all later tested positive for the virus.\n\nColorado\n\nLakewood: The creators of the irreverent animated television series “South Park” are buying Casa Bonita, a quirky restaurant in suburban Denver that was featured on the show. Matt Stone and Trey Parker said in an interview with Gov. Jared Polis on Friday that they had come to an agreement with the current owners of the restaurant, which closed to diners in March 2020 as the pandemic took hold. It declared bankruptcy in the spring. “We’re excited to work with everybody and make it the place we all want to make it,” Parker said. The Lakewood restaurant has been in business since 1974 but gained wider recognition when it was featured on a 2003 “South Park” episode and when the Denver Broncos announced some of their draft picks there in 2018. The Mexican restaurant is known for its decor, which includes a pink facade and large indoor waterfall, as well as its cliff divers and skits that feature an excitable actor in a gorilla costume. But some have noted there is room for improvement. “The one area that we would all love to see an upgrade – and I think I speak on behalf of everybody who patronizes Casa Bonita – is the food could be a little better,” Polis said. “I think it could be a little more than a little better,” Stone added.\n\nConnecticut\n\nHartford: Shoppers are getting a one-week tax break. The state’s annual Sales Tax Free Week, which began Sunday and runs through Aug. 21, exempts retail purchases of most clothing and footwear priced under $100 from Connecticut’s 6.35% sales and use tax. The exemption applies to each eligible item costing less than $100, regardless of how many of those items a customer purchases. The sales tax holiday, which costs the state about $5 million in lost tax revenue, applied to clothing and footwear costing less than $300 per item in past years and was ultimately scaled back. However, many retailers are expected to offer additional discounts during the week, which is a popular time for back-to-school shopping. Connecticut Retail Merchants Association President Timothy G. Phelan said the week gives residents an opportunity to save money and also “reconnect with local retail businesses that have endured the business challenges of the past year and a half,” referring to the pandemic. “The COVID-19 economy this year has put retail businesses, particularly smaller independent retailers, under increasing pressure just to stay in business and to stay in business here in Connecticut,” Phelan told state lawmakers earlier this year during a public hearing.\n\nDelaware\n\nDover: To enter Firefly Music Festival, guests will have to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination or a negative coronavirus test taken within 72 hours, the festival’s owner announced late last week. The policy will be in place for all events and venues operated by AEG Presents, which purchased Firefly in 2018. “We have come to the conclusion that, as a market leader, it was up to us to take a real stand on vaccination status,” AEG Presents CEO Jay Marciano said in a statement, citing the virus’s delta variant and vaccine hesitancy that have pushed statistics “in the wrong direction again” in recent weeks. In the past month, COVID-19 cases have quintupled in Delaware. “We realize that some people might look at this as a dramatic step, but it’s the right one,” Marciano said. “We also are aware that there might be some initial pushback, but I’m confident and hopeful that, at the end of the day, we will be on the right side of history and doing what’s best for artists, fans, and live event workers.” Firefly officials previously said the festival will be limited to 50,000 people for each day of its four days, Sept. 23-26. According to AEG’s website, its festivals will accept a physical copy of a COVID-19 Vaccination Record Card or a digital copy of the card for proof of vaccination. Masks are strongly encouraged, the website says.\n\nDistrict of Columbia\n\nWashington: A military base in the nation’s capital was locked down for about two hours Friday, causing a brief panic, after an armed man ran onto the grounds during a local police investigation of gunshots on the surrounding streets. A statement from Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling said the man’s firearm was discovered after the intrusion, and the intruder himself was detained about 2:45 p.m. during “a thorough sweep of the installation.” The individual, who was not named, was transferred to Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department. The naval support facility at the north end of the base is used by Marine Helicopter Squadron One, the fleet of green helicopters that carry the president and vice president. Col. Mike Zuhlsdorf, the base commander, credited the “thorough and coordinated response” among multiple agencies, including MPD and the Secret Service, with helping to swiftly control the situation. “I remain confident in our security posture,” Zuhlsdorf said in a statement. The 905-acre base in southeast Washington houses Air Force, Marine Corps and Coast Guard units, along with the Washington field office of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the headquarters of the Defense Intelligence Agency.\n\nFlorida\n\nGainesville: The University of Florida will open its upcoming semester with in-person classes, reversing itself within hours of telling students the term might begin online because of the state’s renewed COVID-19 outbreak. UF administrators sent an email to students Friday afternoon telling them that after consulting with university epidemiologists, plans were being made to put the first three weeks of school online. But then a few hours later, a second email went out announcing that classes would be conducted in person. No reason was given for the reversal, but UF said in a statement that no schools in the state university system would be conducting classes online. The university is not requiring vaccines or mask-wearing but is recommending both. In an email to students last week, administrators wrote that they “cannot modify the operation of the entire university for a minority of people who may choose not to be vaccinated.” Gov. Ron DeSantis is strongly opposed to vaccine and mask mandates, saying those decisions should be left to each person. He has encouraged vaccination but has stopped wearing masks in public. The state averaged almost 22,000 newly confirmed cases per day last week, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, up from about 1,500 per day in mid-June and blowing past last year’s highs.\n\nGeorgia\n\nSavannah: The National Park Service is pushing back after a U.S. government report recommended approval of a launch pad for commercial rockets on the Georgia coast, saying a chance of explosive misfires over a federally protected island popular with tourists and campers poses an “unacceptable risk.” Camden County in Georgia’s coastal, southeast corner has spent nine years and $10 million seeking permission to build what would be the nation’s 13th licensed commercial spaceport. The proposed Spaceport Camden took a big step forward in June, when the Federal Aviation Administration issued a final environmental impact study that concluded building the spaceport would be its “preferred alternative.” Now the Park Service and its parent agency, the U.S. Department of the Interior, are disputing the FAA’s conclusion that the spaceport poses minimal risks or adverse impacts to Cumberland Island, a federally protected wilderness. The island, known for wild horses and nesting sea turtles, is managed by the Park Service and draws about 60,000 visitors each year. In a July 22 letter to the FAA, the Interior Department said the final study on the spaceport’s impacts noted that a failed launch could result in “fires, explosions, or releases of propellants or other hazardous materials.”\n\nHawaii\n\nHonolulu: Two visitors from the U.S. mainland were arrested for allegedly using fake vaccine cards to travel into the state. Officials with the Hawaii Attorney General’s office arrested the visitors at Honolulu’s international airport, a spokesman for the agency said in a statement. Investigators said the two were in violation of the state’s travel rules, which require travelers to produce either a negative coronavirus test or proof of COVID-19 vaccination to avoid quarantine when entering the state. Violating the state’s COVID-19 mandates, including falsifying a vaccination card, is a misdemeanor that can result in a fine of up to $5,000, up to a year in prison or both. The visitors were arraigned Wednesday after being arrested over the prior weekend. Authorities responded to a tip from a community member. “Attorney General investigators are committed to ensuring all such leads are investigated and thank the community for their assistance and support,” the AG’s office said. The agency said that while there may be other cases pending with other Hawaii law enforcement divisions, this was the first arrest by the Department of the Attorney General for allegedly falsifying vaccination cards.\n\nIdaho\n\nBoise: The state’s budget surplus is up to $1.4 billion, officials said Friday. The Idaho Division of Financial Management said it based the increase on a revised general fund revenue forecast it does every August for the current fiscal year to account for economic conditions and law changes. The agency said the surplus comes from a nearly $900 million ending balance for fiscal year 2021, which ended June 30, combined with another $513 million more than the forecast used by lawmakers to set the state’s budget last May for the current fiscal year, 2022, which ends next summer. The agency also said revenue collections were nearly $40 million more than anticipated in July, the first month of the current fiscal year. State officials said the $1.4 billion surplus could change based on monthly revenue collections. Budget setting for fiscal year 2021 occurred before the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, and state officials feared a big deficit. But the state received billions of dollars in coronavirus rescue money, and many Idaho residents and businesses received pandemic aid. Federal money was also used to boost unemployment benefits. In addition, Idaho has been one of the fastest-growing states, with new residents bringing in additional money.\n\nIllinois\n\nChicago: An exhibit of more than 80 works by the graffiti artist known publicly only as Banksy has come to the Windy City. “The Art of Banksy” opened Saturday and runs through Oct. 31 in a shuttered, 45,000-square-foot broadcast communications museum. The pieces – which include canvases, prints and sculptures – are from private collections. Stencils by the street artist have appeared on the walls of buildings – even a British prison, bridges and streets across the globe. Some of his most recognizable stencils and murals include “Flower Thrower,” “Rude Copper,” “Girl with Balloon” and “I Remember When All This Was Trees.” Earlier this year, a Banksy painting honoring health workers in the pandemic sold at auction for more than $23 million. Titled “Game Changer,” the work first appeared on a wall at Southampton General Hospital in southern England in May 2020. The black-and-white picture depicts a young boy sitting on the floor playing with a nurse superhero toy, as Batman and Spiderman toy figures lie in a wastepaper basket next to him. At the time it went up, the hospital said Banksy left a note for workers there saying: “Thanks for all you’re doing. I hope this brightens the place up a bit, even if it’s only black and white.”\n\nIndiana\n\nChesterton: The National Park Service wants to charge entrance fees for the first time at the Indiana Dunes National Park, citing a dramatic increase in visitors in recent years and the need for more revenue for park maintenance. The federal agency will hold an online public meeting on the proposed fees via Zoom on Wednesday, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. CDT. If approved, the fees would begin March 31, 2022. The northwest Indiana park has seen a surge in visitors during the past two years, and the new fees would help finance park maintenance, public safety and programming, officials said. “The value of public open spaces has been underscored during the COVID pandemic,” Park Superintendent Paul Labovitz said in a statement. The proposed entrance fees include $15 per person for people walking, bicycling or boating into the park, or $20 for motorcyclists. A commercial motor coach fee would be $100. The other fees would be a $25 seven-day pass for vehicles and a $45 annual pass. Among the other new entrance fees, the Park Service proposes adding six backcountry campsites that would cost $25 per night, with a limit of eight campers. The 15,000-acre park along Lake Michigan’s southern shore, about 50 miles east of Chicago, became Indiana’s first national park in February 2019.\n\nIowa\n\nDes Moines: Iowa’s Ethics Board has found that Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds didn’t violate any laws when she appeared in a series of taxpayer-funded ads last fall promoting coronavirus public safety measures. The Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board voted unanimously Thursday to find Reynolds did not violate a 2018 state law that prohibits statewide elected officials from using public funds for self-promotion. Iowa State Auditor Rob Sand had accused Reynolds of the ethical violation, saying the ad campaign she launched in November was used to promote her own image when she appeared in several of the ads encouraging mask-wearing. Sand, a Democrat, had said the ad campaign was funded with money intended to pay for expanded testing capacity for the coronavirus and improve collection and reporting of data about the pandemic. He also said Reynolds’ office didn’t seek federal approval to spend the money on an ad campaign until after it was announced and well after his office requested invoices for the spending. On Thursday, the Ethics Board found that the law includes an exception for when a governor proclaims a disaster emergency, which Reynolds had done for the pandemic. Sand said the ruling declared “open season” on using taxpayer money for politicians’ self-promotion.\n\nKansas\n\nLeavenworth: The CoreCivic Leavenworth Detention Center has been on lockdown for more than a week and a half after an inmate died from injuries he suffered in a fight, officials said Friday. Scott W. Wilson, 39, was kicked, punched and struck with a tray Aug. 2. He suffered a broken rib and punctured lung and died two days later, said Maj. Dan Nicodemus, deputy chief of the Leavenworth Police Department. Another inmate, a 28-year-old man, has been identified as a suspect, but no charges were filed as of Friday afternoon. The Leavenworth Detention Center houses pretrial detainees for the U.S. Marshals Service. Ryan Gustin, spokesman for CoreCivic, said in an email that the detention center was placed on lockdown Aug. 3, and the lockdown was still in place Friday. Detention center officials are working with U.S. Marshals to determine when normal operations will resume, he said.\n\nKentucky\n\nFrankfort: State tourism officials are offering a new incentive for residents to get vaccinated. The initiative called Vax and Visit launched Thursday and allows permanent Kentucky residents who have received at least one COVID-19 vaccination to enter drawings for travel incentives at state parks, said Tourism, Arts and Heritage Secretary Mike Berry. There will be 30 drawings for gift certificates that will include golf rounds, overnight lodging and campground stays, he said. The drawings also raise awareness of how Kentucky residents can get vaccinated, officials said. “Offering vaccine incentives to Kentucky state parks will not only boost travel revenue in local communities but also ensure that Kentucky continues to be seen as a safe travel destination post-pandemic,” Berry said. Winners will be selected beginning Sept. 9, and the final drawing will take place Oct. 7.\n\nLouisiana\n\nNew Orleans: The French Quarter Festival, in which thousands crowd the streets of the historic New Orleans neighborhood to listen to brass bands, zydeco and other music, has become the latest victim of the state’s fourth coronavirus surge. Festival organizers announced Friday that they were canceling the festival, which had been slated for Sept. 30-Oct. 2. Other events such as the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival have already canceled events slated for this summer and fall. The event will return to the French Quarter on April 21-24 of next year, organizers said Friday. The Festivals Acadiens et Creoles, which takes place in Lafayette, is also being canceled for this fall, organizers announced. That festival had been slated for Oct. 8-10 and instead will take place March 18-20 of next year. Louisiana has set new daily records for the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 for two weeks. Ninety-one percent of those hospitalized are unvaccinated, according to state health department data. Only 38% of Louisiana’s population is inoculated, putting it among the bottom five states in the nation, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But the number of people seeking their first shot has increased dramatically over the past month.\n\nMaine\n\nAugusta: The state’s congressional delegation wants the Federal Communications Commission to keep Maine a one-area-code state. All of the Pine Tree State is served by the 207 area code. The four members of the delegation said 207 phone numbers are projected to run out by 2024 if the FCC doesn’t take action, and that would necessitate the creation of a second area code in the state. The delegation told the FCC on Thursday that the 207 area code is “both a cultural touchstone and a matter of efficiency.” It also said adding another area code could be a problem for businesses because so many leave the 207 area code out when posting a phone number or relaying a message. The Maine Public Utilities Commission recently asked the FCC to let Maine try a method that allocates numbers one at a time to phone providers rather than allocating them in large blocks. The congressional delegation said it strongly supports that request, which it said could help maintain the solo area code.\n\nMaryland\n\nBaltimore: Police officials have told all employees they cannot collect overtime pay while on paid vacation, a practice the department says costs the city an average of $300,000 per year. Shallah Graham, the department’s chief financial officer, told City Council members last week that the agency won’t let employees file for overtime pay in addition to vacation pay, The Baltimore Sun reports. A previous payroll system allowed this practice of “double dipping” without a way to identify when it happened, but Graham said a new system has greater transparency. Before an investigation by the newspaper, the department spent nearly $50 million a year in overtime, according to department budget records. The investigation showed many officers made tens of thousands of dollars in paid overtime, including five who logged more than 2,000 hours of overtime each in a single year. While the practice didn’t violate any city policy, the Inspector General’s Office reported last month that “it could be perceived as wasteful.”\n\nMassachusetts\n\nQuincy: Turtles are being temporarily relocated so the city can start a $1.4million pond restoration project. Starting this week, volunteers from the New England Herpetological Society will trap the turtles and take them to the New England Wildlife Center in Weymouth. The trapping process, which involves sardine-baited “hoop traps,” will take four days, according to a news release. Turtles will be taken from the traps each day to the wildlife center. The contractors are scheduled to begin restoration work Aug. 27. The plan is to dredge sediment from the pond and create a gravel stormwater treatment wetland on the north side, the city said. Julie Sullivan, the city’s environmental scientist, said sediment that has settled at the bottom of the pond has become so thick that it interferes with plant life and harms the ecosystem. The idea to move the turtles was sparked after Quincy residents expressed concerns that the restoration of the pond would disrupt wildlife.\n\nMichigan\n\nLansing: The state has passed the grim milestone of 20,000 deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic, with a top health official warning that people must continue taking precautions. State health officials reported Friday that Michigan had totaled 20,011 confirmed deaths since recording its first one in March 2020. “We’ve seen real devastation and tragedy as a result of COVID-19, and it remains as important now as it (was) a year ago to mitigate the transmission of this virus,” said Elizabeth Hertel, director of Michigan’s Department of Health and Human Services. “Because it is deadly.” Health officials are preparing for a new wave of coronavirus infections caused by the highly transmissible delta variant that is sweeping the country. On Friday, Michigan identified delta variant infections in more than 50 counties and the city of Detroit. Michigan’s COVID-19 deaths have been highest among the elderly and African Americans. Those 70 years and older have accounted for 69% of the total deaths. Confirmed deaths among African Americans have accounted for about about 22% of deaths, whereas Black residents comprise only about 14% of Michigan’s population.\n\nMinnesota\n\nMinneapolis: The city’s police will no longer stop motorists for minor traffic violations, such as expired tags or an air freshener hanging from their rearview mirror, according to a new policy change. Police Chief Medaria Arrandondo, in an internal memo Thursday, said the move comes after examining how officers can better use time and resources. “MPD will no longer be conducting traffic stops solely for these offenses: expired tabs, an item dangling from a mirror, or not having a working license plate light,” Arradondo wrote in the memo obtained by the Star Tribune. Critics have long argued that low-level traffic stops in which officers use a minor traffic or equipment violation as a justification for pulling over someone they want to investigate contribute to racial disparities in the criminal justice system. The memo also said the city attorney will stop prosecuting tickets for driving after suspension if there was no accident “or other egregious driving behavior that would impact public safety.” Mayor Jacob Frey said Friday that police will continue to stop motorists for offenses that are a threat to public safety, such as reckless driving or speeding.\n\nMississippi\n\nJackson: A rural community is overwhelmed with COVID-19 cases, two weeks after hosting the Neshoba County Fair that drew thousands who lived in cabins, attended shoulder-to-shoulder outdoor concerts and listened to stump speeches – including one by the Republican governor, who decried federal masking guidance as “foolish.” Frustrated by rising COVID-19 infections, the chief executive officer of the 25-bed Neshoba General Hospital posted a message on social media challenging Gov. Tate Reeves to step up and show leadership. “@tatereeves hospitals and healthcare workers need you to help us. Where are you?” Lee McCall wrote Tuesday on Twitter. “We are overwhelmed with the surge of Covid and understaffed to safely care for our patients. Our incredible staff are holding it together but we are all at our breaking point.” Last week alone, Mississippi broke its single-day records of new COVID-19 cases and hospitalized patients multiple times. The previous records were in January, before vaccinations were widely available. Until recent days, Reeves had made few public statements about the coronavirus the past few weeks. In a July 29 speech to a conservative crowd at the Neshoba County Fair, he called federal advice for the fully vaccinated to resume wearing masks indoors “foolish” and “harmful.”\n\nMissouri\n\nSedalia: Mostly unmasked crowds packed into the Missouri State Fair shoulder-to-shoulder last week as it opened amid soaring numbers of new COVID-19 infections. Fair officials decided in the spring to bring back the full fair after replacing it with a much smaller youth livestock show last year because of safety concerns, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. “We’re not seeing any kind of slowdown in attendance and are expecting an average to good year,” said State Fair Director Mark Wolfe, adding that his staff estimated up to 340,000 people will attend the event before it closes Aug. 22. Among the unmasked was Brian Eggers, a 55-year-old farmer who lives outside Chillicothe. He lost a close neighbor as well as aunts and uncles to COVID-19 and said he hasn’t gotten around to getting a shot. “I’m not anti-vaccine, but I haven’t gotten it myself yet,” he said as he watched a youth livestock show, adding: “If God wants to take me, that’s his choice.” Jessica Miller, who manned the fair’s vaccination station, said five patients had come in for COVID-19 shots in the event’s first 2.5 hours of operation. Some told Miller that their jobs were going to require the vaccine or that they would be allowed to eschew a mask if they got inoculated.\n\nMontana\n\nMissoula: Police on Friday released the name of a 21-year-old man who was shot and killed by a police officer after authorities say he fled a traffic stop. Brendon T. Galbreath, a member of the Blackfeet Nation who lived in Missoula, died in a hospital Thursday. Galbreath’s brother, Terrance LaFromboise, said Friday that the family had received statements from law enforcement officials following his death that did not match up with information publicly released by Missoula police following the incident. In a recording of communications between police officers during the chase and shooting, a police officer can be heard saying the victim shot himself. “Did he shoot or did we?” an officer asks. “Both,” another officer responds. LaFromboise said people who knew his brother find it hard to believe he had a gun or knew how to use one. “He has a strong stance against guns,” he said. Galbreath was the salutatorian of his class in high school and had met former first lady Michelle Obama during a trip to Washington, D.C., through a pre-college program. He moved to Missoula during the coronavirus pandemic, after several relatives contracted COVID-19 and died. He was planning to apply to study at the University of Montana to study medicine or engineering, his brother said.\n\nNebraska\n\nLincoln: The University of Nebraska Board of Regents has rejected an anti-critical race theory resolution. The 5-3 vote Friday followed about three hours of public comment from students, faculty and others, the Lincoln Journal-Star reports. Regent Jim Pillen, a Republican candidate for governor, introduced the resolution objecting to “any imposition of critical race theory” in academic curriculum in July, after another candidate for governor criticized him for not taking action on the issue. Critical race theory, a framework for examining the effects race and racism have on institutions, both historically and today, has become a flashpoint in the culture wars. Several legislatures have enacted bills preventing it from being taught. Pillen said most Nebraskans believe critical race theory to be “discriminatory, divisive” and antithetical to the values held by many. But the proposal ran into a buzz saw of opposition from students, faculty, administrators and others, who said it abridged academic freedom and would hurt recruiting and retention, particularly of students and faculty of color. The ACLU of Nebraska, Anti-Defamation League and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People bused students from Omaha to Lincoln and handed out T-shirts emblazoned with “Protect Academic Freedom.”\n\nNevada\n\nLas Vegas: The owner of a hotel that was fined a year ago for defying state coronavirus pandemic restrictions and hosting a beauty pageant and a faith-based Donald Trump campaign rally has lost a court challenge of the governor’s directives that limited meeting sizes. State Attorney General Aaron Ford said Friday’s ruling against Ahern Hotel and Convention Center amounted to a finding by a court that emergency orders issued by Gov. Steve Sisolak after COVID-19 emerged in March 2020 balance the rights and safety of residents. “Today, the court recognized what we already knew – the state has a responsibility to protect the lives of Nevadans,” Ford said. In a verbal ruling, Clark County District Court Judge Nancy Allf decided the lawsuit filed in August 2020 was moot because there are no more occupancy limits imposed by the state, Ford said. The city of Las Vegas and its planning director also were named as defendants. The property was fined nearly $11,000 after holding an “Evangelicals for Trump” event at which a city employee tallied more than 1,100 attendees – far more than the 50-person limit Sisolak had ordered for public and private events at the time. Organizers of the Mrs. Nevada America pageant held days later removed spectators to comply with crowd limits.\n\nNew Hampshire\n\nConcord: The state has a new goal of reducing waste sent to landfills by 25% by 2030. The goal is included in a bill signed into law last week. Sen. David Watters, a Dover Democrat who co-sponsored the bill, said it reframes and updates the state’s waste reduction goals and requires more innovation to reduce how much trash is generated and to increase the diversion of trash from landfills through reuse, recycling and composting. The law requires the Department of Environmental Services to update the state’s solid waste plan and make it available to the public.\n\nNew Jersey\n\nTrenton: The state has retained its slot as the country’s densest, and Newark kept its crown as New Jersey’s biggest city, according to newly released U.S. census figures. The state’s population per square mile climbed 5.6% over the past decade to 1,263 people up from 1,195.5 – higher than every other state, though behind the District of Columbia. Newark also saw its population climb above 300,000, edging out a growing Jersey City that some expected would overtake Newark. Jersey City will remain the Garden State’s second-biggest, after growing 18% to just shy of 300,000 residents. The new figures also show the state became less white and more Black, Hispanic and Asian. The white population fell from 5.21 million a decade ago to 4.82 million in 2020, while the Hispanic and Asian populations both climbed by nearly 30%. People identifying as Hispanic climbed from 1.55 million in 2010 to 2 million in 2020, while the Asian population went from about 720,000 to roughly 942,000. The Black population grew from 1.13 million to 1.15 million. People under age 18 in New Jersey have declined from 2.07 million in 2010 to 2.01 million. Overall, the state’s population climbed from 8.8 million to 9.3 million. It will keep the 12 House seats it currently has.\n\nNew Mexico\n\nAlbuquerque: State health officials say an increase in hospitalizations has prompted them to put out an urgent call for volunteer nurses to help boost the state’s medical workforce. The New Mexico Department of Health late Friday called on nurses or anyone with a medical license to volunteer to help because officials believe hospitals could soon be overwhelmed with patients. They want recently retired health workers or anyone qualified to sign up for the state’s Medical Reserve Corps. Hospitals are seeing increased hospitalizations because of long-postponed surgeries and a surge in COVID-19 patients. The delta variant of the coronavirus is much more contagious than previous strains. “We ask our nurses, and anyone with a medical license, to once again volunteer with the Medical Reserve Corps,” Dr. David R. Scrase, the acting director of the state health department, said in a statement. “To get through this together, we need everyone who can provide patient care to work side by side with us during this critical time.” The state’s Reserve Medical Corps has filled more than 139 requests during the pandemic, deploying 2,750 volunteers. To sign up, go to the Corps website at nmmrcserves.org.\n\nNew York\n\nAlbany: State Sens. Jamaal Bailey and Brian Benjamin are emerging as top contenders in the search for the next lieutenant governor, a person familiar with the matter told the Associated Press. Bailey and Benjamin, both from New York City, are among several candidates being vetted by Kathy Hochul and her team and have emerged as the leading contenders, the person said. Last week Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced he would resign after increasing calls for his impeachment following an investigation that found he sexually harassed 11 women. He is set to leave office Aug. 24, when Hochul, who has been lieutenant governor since 2015, will take over. The state Assembly will suspend its investigation of Cuomo once he steps down after its leader concluded the Legislature didn’t have the clear authority to impeach a departed official, the chamber’s top Democrat said Friday. In an interview Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Hochul, who hails from the Buffalo area, said she had narrowed her search to focus on candidates from New York City. “Even though I’ve spent thousands of hours in New York City, and I’m well familiar with the challenges, I want someone who lives there,” she said. “I want someone who understands the challenges firsthand.” The position of lieutenant governor has largely been a ceremonial role.\n\nNorth Carolina\n\nRaleigh: Those who visit indoor spaces within the capital city will now need to wear a face mask to limit the spread of COVID-19, the mayor said Friday. Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin also said city employees who are already fully vaccinated or get to that point by Sept. 17 will receive a $250 reward and two days of bonus leave. “The number of COVID-19 cases continues to increase in our community and across the state at an alarming rate,” Baldwin said in a statement. “The idea that we can hope COVID-19 will just go away on its own is not a reality. It’s time to take responsible action and today we are taking an important step to make sure the people of this community, and those who visit us, remain healthy and safe.” The move to reimpose the mask mandate will only be within Raleigh city limits, not Wake County. But the requirement does apply to both vaccinated and unvaccinated people. The largest city in the state may also soon decide to compel masking indoors for residents and visitors, as Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles backtracked comments she made last week that she lacked the authority to compel people to wear masks indoors. Renewed mask requirements and rewards for vaccinations are coming as the more contagious delta variant sweeps across the state, giving North Carolina its worst coronavirus metrics in months.\n\nNorth Dakota\n\nBismarck: State officials say production of oil and gas is holding steady. The latest figures released Friday show the state’s oil production from May to June has plateaued at about 1.1 million barrels per day for both months. “I would have to characterize the Bakken at this point as a sleeping giant,” State Mineral Resources Director Lynn Helms said. “The COVID pandemic kind of put the industry to sleep, and it’s struggling somewhat to wake up.” The state’s oil production has recovered somewhat from last summer’s lows amid the coronavirus crisis, but it’s far from the record 1.5 million barrels per day produced in late 2019, the Bismarck Tribune reports. North Dakota’s natural gas production is also steady at about 2.9 billion cubic feet of gas per day in June. Officials say that if gas production grows, the state will need more pipelines and processing facilities within the next two years if it’s to continue to keep flaring down. “It’s not going to be an easy feat,” North Dakota Pipeline Authority Director Justin Kringstad said. “Things will have to get moving relatively briskly to meet those time frames.” Helms said he expects oil production will likely increase next year as companies slowly add back rigs in North Dakota, as well as crews needed to frack newly drilled wells so they can start producing oil.\n\nOhio\n\nColumbus: A concealed weapons permit would become optional, and the requirement that individuals “promptly” notify police officers that they are carrying a concealed weapon would be eliminated, under legislation proposed in the state Senate. The bill is similar to a measure pending in the Ohio House and is one of several GOP-backed proposals in recent years seeking to expand gun rights in the state. The new concealed weapons bill, dubbed “Constitutional Carry” by its backers, was introduced Aug. 5 by state Sen. Terry Johnson, a Republican from southern Ohio’s Scioto County. Keeping the permit optional – as opposed to eliminating it altogether – would allow gunowners who obtain it to carry a concealed weapon in states with reciprocity agreements recognizing such permits. Earlier this year, Rep. Tom Brinkman, R-Cincinnati, noted it’s already legal to openly carry a firearm in Ohio without a license or training. “In order to avoid unnecessary hassle from the public or law enforcement, one may decide to put a coat or jacket over their firearm,” Brinkman, sponsor of the House legislation, told the House Government Oversight Committee in April. “Sadly, that individual instantly turns into a felon if they have not gone through some … government-mandated rigmarole first.”\n\nOklahoma\n\nOklahoma City: An emergency rule by Gov. Kevin Stitt allows hospitals to renovate conference rooms and other areas to care for COVID-19 patients, the state’s health commissioner said Friday. The rule is not an emergency declaration, which would allow state schools to implement mask mandates, said Dr. Lance Frye, adding that he is not convinced one is needed. “We strictly looked at what do we need to respond (to the virus surge) and is there anything that was … accomplished before in our emergency declaration that we can’t do now,” Frye said. “We are good where we are right now as far as our ability to respond” to the surge that Frye said would be slowed with vaccinations. Unvaccinated patients make up 98% of new cases and 93% of hospitalizations in the state, Frye said. The state health department reported 2,814 new coronavirus cases Friday and a seven-day average of 2,122 new cases daily, up from 1,268 on July 28, along with 1,326 virus-related hospitalizations. Oklahoma’s vaccination rate reached 50% of residents with one dose, according to deputy health commissioner Keith Reed, and 41.1% fully inoculated, compared to national rates of 58.2% with one dose and 49.9% fully vaccinated.\n\nOregon\n\nSalem: A new state law that suspends a requirement for a basic-skills test in math, reading and writing to graduate high school is being praised by advocates as a way to rethink education standards and sharply criticized by others as a misguided effort that will hurt children’s learning in the long run. Democratic Gov. Kate Brown signed Senate Bill 744 last month without much attention. The measure temporarily eliminates essential-skills testing through the 2022-23 school year. That requirement had been put on a hold amid the pandemic, which forced the closure of many schools and remote learning for students. The Oregon Department of Education has said the new law will allow the state to develop more equitable graduation requirements. Officials have been told to compare diploma requirements in various states and find ways to reduce disparities and ensure graduation requirements are fair. “Senate Bill 744 does not remove Oregon’s graduation requirements, and it certainly does not remove any requirements that Oregon students learn essential skills,” department spokesman Marc Siegel told KATU. Rashelle Chase, founder of Mxm Bloc, an advocacy group led by Black women and focused on education and other social justice issues, said certain children struggle with exams and had been hurt by the testing requirements.\n\nPennsylvania\n\nPhiladelphia: Health care workers, college students and higher education employees will be required to be vaccinated against COVID-19 by mid-October under new mandates announced by the city’s Public Health Department on Friday. The mandates were passed Thursday night by the Board of Health, which provides guidance to the city’s health department, said acting Public Health Commissioner Cheryl Bettigole. She said both categories of people will be required to be vaccinated by Oct. 15, but exemptions will be allowed for religious or medical reasons, with added precautions or accommodations for those people. Health care workers with an exemption will be required to wear masks and undergo a coronavirus test twice a week. At colleges, those with exemptions will have to get a PCR test or two antigen tests weekly. Once a college reaches a 90% vaccination rate, Bettigole said those people with exemptions can double-mask and social distance in indoor spaces, or colleges can offer virtual options as an accommodation. City public health officials also made adjustments to mask mandates announced last week in an effort to accommodate parents with young children not yet eligible for the vaccines.\n\nRhode Island\n\nProvidence: West Nile virus has been found in a mosquito sample collected in the state for the first time this summer, environmental officials said. A mosquito trapped July 29 in Cranston tested positive for the virus, the state Department of Environmental Management said in a statement Thursday. No mosquito samples this year have tested positive for eastern equine encephalitis, another mosquito-borne disease. The finding was not unexpected, given that West Nile has been found in multiple samples collected in neighboring Connecticut and Massachusetts, indicating that the virus has “established seasonal activity in our area,” the department said. Because the virus is expected to become more prevalent as the season progresses, state environmental and health officials urged residents to limit their exposure to mosquitoes until the first hard frost. That includes eliminating mosquito breedings areas; ensuring windows and doors have screens; avoiding outdoor activities at sunrise and sundown, when mosquitoes are most active; and wearing shirts with long sleeves and long pants and using insect repellant when outdoors.\n\nSouth Carolina\n\nHilton Head Island: A new genealogy research project could help preserve vulnerable coastal land belonging to Gullah Geechee families. The Heirs’ Property Family Research Project in Hilton Head Island will assist families with research that could help them obtain valid deeds for land that has been passed down to multiple family members without a will. Organized by the town’s Gullah Geechee Culture and Land Preservation Task Force, the Heritage Library of Hilton Head Island, and the University of South Carolina Beaufort, the project aims to help Black Americans known as Gullah or Geechee. These slave descendants retained much of their African heritage passed down from ancestors who grew up isolated on coastal islands off North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. Some of the Gullah Geechee land is particularly vulnerable, project organizers said in a statement, because of the way it was passed down without a formal will. Volunteers with the free program will tap into census records and other documents to create family trees. Sheryse DuBose of the task force said the project could aid several Gullah Geechee families to secure titles for their land.\n\nSouth Dakota\n\nSioux Falls: MyPillow chief executive Mike Lindell said he was aggressively poked by someone seeking a selfie, which led him to say he was attacked. Lindell, who hosted an election fraud symposium in the city last week, told the conservative talk show FlashPoint that he was approached by a man who wanted a photo Wednesday night. “He put his arm around and stuck his finger, it was so much pressure, I just knew if I did anything something more was coming,” Lindell said, gesturing to his side. “He jammed it in where it was just piercing pain.” Lindell had told the crowd Thursday at the election fraud symposium that he was still in pain and wanted everyone to know about the evil in the world. The Sioux Falls Police Department said it is investigating a report of an assault at a hotel near the symposium. Police spokesman Sam Clemens has declined to identify the victim, citing Marsy’s Law, a state constitutional amendment that protects crime victims. Lindell announced the symposium in July, saying he hoped hundreds of “cyber-forensics experts” would attend and back up his claims that voting machines were hacked to flip votes for former President Donald Trump to President Joe Biden in 2020.\n\nTennessee\n\nNashville: The governor’s office is pushing back on COVID-19 vaccine misinformation that goes as far as claiming cows are being vaccinated to inoculate unwitting people who eat meat. The confusion over an assortment of outlandish claims illustrates the hurdles that face a state in the bottom 10 for vaccination rates amid a coronavirus resurgence stretching hospitals thin. In an email Thursday to lawmakers, a top deputy of Republican Gov. Bill Lee debunked “several conspiracy theories” about a recent executive order. The email says some components that are being most frequently misinterpreted were included in previous executive orders during the pandemic. Lee’s office said lawmakers seeking information for constituents and constituents themselves have reached out about the claims. The rumors deemed “FALSE” in the governor’s office email are that his executive order creates “quarantine camps”; that the National Guard will round up unvaccinated people and take them to locations to be quarantined or vaccinated, or forcibly vaccinate them in their homes; that the executive order lays the groundwork for permanent lockdowns; and that COVID-19 vaccines are being given to livestock to vaccinate people through meat consumption.\n\nTexas\n\nDallas: A man who was scheduled for trial on murder charges last week has instead been granted release on bond after Dallas police revealed that material in his case might be among troves of data lost from its computer system. A Dallas County judge granted Jonathan Pitts bond Thursday after prosecutors asked the judge to delay his trial as they worked with police to determine whether case material was part of the information lost while the Dallas Police Department was moving data from a computer network drive. It was not immediately clear when Pitts would be freed from jail. The release of Pitts, who is charged in the 2019 shooting of Shun Handy, was ordered as authorities race to determine how many cases may have had evidence vanish in the 8-terabyte data loss. Prosecutors told Judge Ernie White on Thursday that they needed more time to work with police to audit the materials in Pitts’ case to determine whether anything was lost. On Friday evening, Dallas Police Sgt. Warren Mitchell said that “all the evidentiary items and data are available for prosecution on this murder case.” White granted Pitts release without paying bail because state law requires a person be freed if prosecutors aren’t ready at the time trial, his defense attorney, George Ashford III, told The Dallas Morning News.\n\nUtah\n\nSalt Lake City: Zion National Park may soon require reservations to hike one of its most famous trails. The Angel’s Landing hike is a narrow trail perched on the edge of a red-rock cliff in southern Utah. The number of people visiting Zion has been growing at a breakneck pace in recent years, and Angel’s Landing is one of the most sought-after destinations. More than 300,000 people made the trek in 2019, according to park officials. The crowding is worrisome on the trail where people regularly fall and die from the trail edged by a sheer cliff, park officials said. The system would start in 2022 and require people to pay $6 to enter an online lottery to get a permit and a $3 per person usage fee if they are chosen. It would apply specifically to the narrowest section of the trail, called the chain section after the metal handholds driven into the rock. Park officials are taking online public comment on the proposal through Sept. 12.\n\nVermont\n\nMontpelier: The state Supreme Court has authorized a one-year pilot project for remote civil jury trials. The move comes after a committee studied how to utilize remote hearing technology to increase access to justice and address civil case backlogs. The issue is especially important as the judiciary continues to navigate challenges associated with COVID-19. “The judiciary has been using remote technology to facilitate operations in order to ensure access to justice and continuity of operations and to promote the health and safety of judges, staff, and court users during the pandemic,” said state court administrator Patricia Gabel. “Considering the ways available technology can assist us in managing our civil docket is an important step in our ongoing effort to leverage technology and adapt our operations to changing conditions,” she said. The pilot project will not affect criminal trials.\n\nVirginia\n\nRoanoke: A federal judge declined to block the blasting of bedrock on a mountain where a natural gas pipeline is supposed to be laid, saying she lacks authority to do so. The decision by U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Dillon comes after the property owner on Bent Mountain in Roanoke County sought an injunction to halt the work involving the Mountain Valley Pipeline. Dillon said Friday that her court was not the proper jurisdiction to resolve the dispute, noting that landowner John Coles Terry III had already sought action from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, The Roanoke Times reports. An attorney for Terry’s family asked last week for a temporary injunction on the drilling and blasting. Construction crews had started boring holes to prepare for explosives that would clear a trench for burying the 42-inch-diameter pipe. Terry’s motion said the blasting could contaminate his well water and that of others downstream. But the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality and pipeline officials have said they’ve not seen evidence of the potential harm described in the motion. Terry said after Friday’s hearing that crews had yet to reach the portion of his land where construction would most likely impact his water.\n\nWashington\n\nGeorge: More than 160 cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed so far among people who attended the Watershed Music Festival at the Gorge Amphitheatre in central Washington. More than 20,000 fans packed the Gorge, in George, for the three-day outdoor country music festival in late July, The Seattle Times reports. The Grant County Health District said Friday that the cases are tied to residents in counties including King, Grant, Pierce, Skagit, Kittitas, Okanogan, Whatcom, Kitsap, San Juan, Lincoln and Stevens. There’s also one case tied to an Oregon resident. Officials expect more cases associated with the festival to be confirmed in the coming days, and investigators are working with those who have tested positive to identify other cases. Public Health officials urge people who attended the festival to self-quarantine and get tested for the coronavirus. On average, symptoms of the virus develop five to six days after exposure, but the incubation period can be as long as 14 days, officials said. In eastern Oregon, Umatilla County Public Health officials have tied at least 66 COVID-19 cases to the outdoor Pendleton Whiskey Music Fest on July 10. Sixty-one of the people who tested positive were unvaccinated, officials said.\n\nWest Virginia\n\nCharleston: Policies that allow state officials to refuse to change a transgender person’s gender on their birth certificates should be declared unconstitutional, according to a new federal lawsuit. The American Civil Liberties Union and the Harvard Law School LGBTQ+ Advocacy Clinic on Thursday sued the Department of Health and Human Resources on behalf of two transgender men born in West Virginia, The Exponent Telegram reports. The suit stems from a ruling by the West Virginia Supreme Court last year that said circuit judges could no longer issue court orders telling health officials to change birth certificate gender markers. The lawsuit says the ruling led to health officials refusing to change gender markers and prior legal names on birth certificates of transgender individuals. The Department of Health and Human Resources has the authority under state law to make requested changes without a court order, according to ACLU of West Virginia Legal Director Loree Stark. Denying such requests violates transgender individuals’ constitutional rights to free speech, due process and equal protection, Stark said. West Virginia is “one of the last remaining states in the nation” where the gender marker on birth certificates can’t be changed, Harvard Law School LGBTQ+ Advocacy Clinic Director Alexander Chen said.\n\nWisconsin\n\nKenosha: A woman accidentally shot a friend while using the laser sight on a handgun to play with a cat, authorities said. A criminal complaint charging the 19-year-old woman with negligent use of a weapon said she was visiting a Kenosha apartment Tuesday afternoon where a 21-year-old man had brought a handgun. The woman, who a witness said had been drinking, picked up the handgun, “turned on the laser sight and was pointing it at the floor to get the cat to chase it” when the gun went off, the complaint filed Thursday said. The man, who was standing in a doorway, was shot in the thigh, authorities said. He left and went into another apartment, where police found him after responding to a 911 call, the Kenosha News reports. A tourniquet was applied to his leg to stop the bleeding before he was taken to a hospital. There’s no word on his condition, but authorities said he was facing charges for violating bond conditions that prevented him from having a weapon. The woman told police she thought the magazine had been taken out of the gun and said it “accidentally went off,” according to the complaint.\n\nWyoming\n\nCasper: A new memorial honors the military service of Native Americans who long went unrecognized. The Path of Honor opened Thursday at the Frank B. Wise Business Center in Fort Washakie, where stones along a winding red path symbolize courage and commitment to living a purposeful life, the Casper Star-Tribune reports. Lyle Wadda of American Legion Post 81 spearheaded the project that began in 2008 after the Wind River Development Fund and Post 81 partnered to create the business center. Still, even after the building and memorial’s completion, Wadda found himself in disbelief when it was finally dedicated to the public in a ceremony attended by dignitaries including Gov. Mark Gordon. “We accept anyone in this post,” he said at the dedication ceremony. “You don’t have to be Native American or part of another tribe. Business is open to everyone.” John St. Clair, chairman of the Eastern Shoshone Business Council and a Vietnam veteran, pointed to the dedication and bravery of Native Americans who served as volunteers in the Spanish American War and in World War I, before Native Americans were granted U.S. citizenship. At the Wind River Reservation alone, close to 900 tribal members have served in conflicts ranging from World War I to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.\n\nFrom USA TODAY Network and wire reports", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2021/08/16"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/50-states/2019/05/09/george-jones-mower-mural-one-bold-eagle-news-around-states/39462909/", "title": "News from around our 50 states", "text": "From staff and wire reports\n\nAlabama\n\nMontgomery: Lawmakers have voted to place statues of Rosa Parks and Helen Keller on the grounds of the state Capitol. State senators on Tuesday voted 29-0 for the bill. The legislation now goes to Gov. Kay Ivey for her signature. The bill by Rep. Laura Hall creates a Women’s Tribute Statue Commission to fund, commission and place statues of Parks and Keller on the Capitol grounds. Parks was arrested Dec. 1, 1955, for refusing to give up her seat on a segregated Montgomery city bus to a white passenger. Her arrest helped spark the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the civil rights movement. Keller, who was both deaf and blind, became a world-famous author and activist.\n\nAlaska\n\nKodiak: Many are familiar with uninvited guests unexpectedly crashing at the house, but an eagle took such a scenario to new heights. An eagle grabbed a piece of freezer-burned halibut that someone had thrown out and apparently misjudged its climb up a cliff with the 4-pound piece of fish while likely being chased by another eagle, the Kodiak Daily Mirror reports. The wrong trajectory led the eagle to smash through a front window of Stacy Studebaker’s home Saturday. “It was so unbelievably loud. My first thought was I thought an atomic bomb had dropped and the windows were blowing out,” says Studebaker, who founded the local chapter of the Audubon Society. She and a neighbor struggled to get the raptor out of her home as it dealt mayhem. Except for some blood around the beak, the eagle didn’t appear to be injured.\n\nArizona\n\nPhoenix: Tonto National Monument, a desert park northeast of Phoenix, has been designated an International Dark Sky Park by the International Dark-Sky Association. That honor is bestowed on areas worldwide that take steps to make it easier for people to enjoy the night sky without the distractions of light pollution. Achieving this designation involves retrofitting light fixtures and bulbs, acquiring data for darkness analysis, and monitoring and interpreting the importance of preserving darkness. The state is awash in dark-sky sites, including the communities of Camp Verde, Flagstaff, Fountain Hills, Oak Creek and Sedona; Grand Canyon National Park; Kartchner Caverns State Park; Oracle State Park; Petrified Forest National Park; Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument; Parashant National Monument; Tumacacori National Historical Park; Walnut Canyon National Monument; and Wupatki National Monument.\n\nArkansas\n\nFayetteville: Local leaders are considering a measure that would prevent the city from using public money to buy disposable products made with Styrofoam. The Fayetteville City Council discussed the proposal Tuesday night but took no action. The measure would also prohibit vendors, concession stands or food trucks operating on city property from using polystyrene foam, better known as Styrofoam. The Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports that the proposal is set to be considered again later this month. Cities and states across the nation have been busy banning or imposing fees for single-use foam and plastic products, while a wave in the opposite direction has led some states to seek prohibitions against such bans at the local level.\n\nCalifornia\n\nBeverly Hills: A fiery debate is breaking out as people at tony hair salons, gas stations and stores weigh in on whether the city of the rich and famous should become the first in the U.S. to outlaw the sale of tobacco products everywhere except a few cigar lounges. The City Council decided Tuesday night to make some changes to the proposal, such as allowing guests in Beverly Hills’ luxury hotels to acquire cigarettes through their concierge or room service. Members indicated they plan to pass the amended measure May 21. Abstainers have said yes to the idea, and the sooner the better, while smokers protested. California already outlaws smoking in workplaces, restaurants and bars. It also has one of the highest cigarette taxes in the country – nearly $3 a pack. The proposed ordinance would ban all tobacco products from grocery stores, pharmacies, hotels and gas stations.\n\nColorado\n\nDenver: Voters narrowly made the city the first in the nation to decriminalize psilocybin, the psychoactive ingredient in “magic mushrooms.” Decriminalization led by a slim 51%, according to preliminary figures on Tuesday’s election released by Denver’s Election Division. As many as 1,300 votes still remain to be counted, but that figure was not enough to swing the vote the other way, division spokesman Alton Dillard said. Final results will be released May 16, he said. Organizers say their only goal in the mushroom measure is to keep people out of jail for using or possessing the drug to cope with depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress and other conditions. The initiative effectively decriminalizes use or possession of psilocybin by people 21 and older, making it the lowest enforcement priority for police and prosecutors. It does not legalize psilocybin or permit its sale by cannabis businesses.\n\nConnecticut\n\nHartford: An effort to better market the state as a good place to live, visit and do business has cleared a key legislative hurdle. The House of Representatives on Tuesday voted 113-28 for a bill requiring the Department of Economic and Community Development to come up with a marketing strategy that includes outreach to startup businesses and entrepreneurs, a new social media photo competition highlighting Connecticut’s beauty, and a campaign highlighting successful businesses. The bill, which awaits Senate action, also suggests DECD consider updating the state’s “Still Revolutionary” logo or design a new one with the help of a middle-school design competition. Other suggestions include targeting former residents between ages 30-45 and improving print marketing in airport lounges. Some Republicans opposed the bill, arguing lawmakers should simply cut taxes to attract business.\n\nDelaware\n\nDover: In an effort to better identify victims of human trafficking, hospitals across the state will start to use the same techniques, making the First State likely the first in the country to adopt a coordinated approach, health officials say. Delaware has become an attractive place for traffickers because of its place along the I-95 corridor – and critics say state officials have been slow to address the growing problem. The Delaware Healthcare Association, which represents all the hospitals in the state, announced five recommendations Wednesday that will be implemented at all hospitals within the next year: educating the entire staff about human trafficking, using a specific assessment to identify red flags, following a step-by-step process to respond to suspected trafficking, using a hospital code for trafficking victims to collect statewide data and following a memo on how best to address minors who are being trafficked.\n\nDistrict of Columbia\n\nWashington: Comedian Dave Chappelle has been chosen to receive this year’s Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. The 45-year-old Chappelle shot to international stardom through his Comedy Central program, “Chappelle’s Show,” which gleefully skewered racial stereotypes and hot-button societal issues. He later made headlines for walking away from a lucrative contract over creative differences. Chappelle attended Washington’s Duke Ellington School of the Arts, and his first hourlong comedy special was filmed in the nation’s capital. Kennedy Center President Deborah Rutter called Chappelle “a hometown hero” and said his social commentary and body of work embody Twain’s statement that “against the assault of humor, nothing can stand.” Chappelle will be presented with the award in a star-studded ceremony Oct. 29 that will be broadcast on television Jan. 6, 2020.\n\nFlorida\n\nGainesville: The lovebugs that are driving Floridians crazy right now may not be good for the finish on cars, but they are good for the environment, particularly the soil, according to the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. The pesky, slow-flying insects lay their eggs in places with dying vegetation, such as thatch, which is the cut grass spit out by lawn mowers. That’s where immature lovebugs, which actually are a type of fly known scientifically as plecia nearctica, live and eat. Feeding on the dead vegetation redistributes essential nutrients back into the ground, and that benefits plants and the environment. Also known as honeymoon flies, double-headed bugs and kissing bugs, the adult insects feed on plant nectar, especially sweet clover, goldenrod and Brazilian pepper.\n\nGeorgia\n\nAtlanta: The state is seeking proposals to develop a Medicaid waiver that Republican Gov. Brian Kemp says will make health care more affordable and accessible. If approved by the federal government, the waiver would allow Georgia to expand Medicaid more conservatively than federal rules typically allow. The Department of Community Health asked six consulting firms Monday to submit proposals for waivers addressing Georgia’s Medicaid program and private health insurance. Officials are aiming to submit them to the federal government by the end of 2019. A bill that Kemp signed in March gave his office wide leeway to seek a waiver that reshapes the state’s health care system. Georgia is one of 14 states that haven’t fully expanded Medicaid under the 2010 Affordable Care Act.\n\nHawaii\n\nHonolulu: The State Department of Health has launched a new website that provides near real-time data on the air quality following last summer’s Kilauea eruption. The site is expected to serve as an online resource, particularly in the event of future volcanic eruptions, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reports. “We listened to the concerns of residents, took action to improve our air quality monitoring system, and created a one-stop, user-friendly website. We’re much more volcano-ready than we have ever been,” says Health Director Bruce Anderson. Data for the website is pulled from air quality monitoring stations at strategic locations throughout the state. Most are on the Big Island. The state upgraded and expanded its air quality monitoring system with more than $1.5 million in federal and state funds. People can access the data via an interactive air quality map.\n\nIdaho\n\nBoise: A planned hiking-and-biking trail connecting the popular central Idaho tourist destinations of Redfish Lake and Stanley is being challenged in federal court by the owners of Sawtooth Mountain Ranch. David Boren and Lynn Arnone filed the lawsuit last month seeking to stop a U.S. Forest Service plan to build a 4.4-mile trail for pedestrians, cyclists and horseback riders. The trail cuts across the Sawtooth Mountain Ranch. But the Sawtooth National Forest has a conservation easement deed dating to 2005 that it says allows the trail to cross the private property. The lawsuit contends the planned trail deviates from the easement and has “numerous flaws and illegalities.”\n\nIllinois\n\nChicago: Community and environmental activists are pushing for the opening of Lake Calumet on the city’s South Side to public access for recreation. Currently, a chain-link fence topped with razor wire surrounds the lake, blocking public access to hundreds of acres of natural habit. Ders Anderson of Chicago-based Openlands told the Daily Southtown in Tinley Park that Lake Calumet has long been recognized for the waterfowl, bald eagles and other bird species that roost nearby. Anderson says in addition to bird-watching, walking or bicycling on trails near the water, canoeing on the shallow lake or simply relaxing would benefit residents of Chicago and nearby suburbs. About 1,500 acres around Lake Calumet are part of the Port of Chicago, controlled by the Illinois International Port District.\n\nIndiana\n\nFranklin: Researchers at Franklin College have received a record-breaking research grant to study the behavior and management of Canada geese in the state, where the migratory bird’s population is growing along with complaints. The four-year grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act includes a $250,000 award that will fund Franklin College’s contribution to the study, on which the college is partnering with the Indiana Department of Natural Resources and Ball State University. It is the largest research grant ever awarded to the small college about 20 miles south of Indianapolis. Indiana’s Canada goose population is estimated around 130,000, according to the DNR, but the rise in complaints involving geese in urban areas suggests that figure may actually be higher.\n\nIowa\n\nOnawa: A new report has named this small town, known for its wide main street and its claim to the invention of the Eskimo Pie, the poorest in the state. According to 24/7 Wall Street, Onawa is the only town in Iowa where more than 1 in 4 residents lives below the poverty line. The town’s 24.9% SNAP benefit recipiency rate is more than double the 11.2% rate statewide, the report says. The town with a population of 2,849 has a median household income of $31,089 (state: $56,570), a poverty rate of 25.3% (state: 12%) and a median home value of $93,500 (state: $137,200). The population is 90% white and 8% American Indian. Onawa is most widely known for staking a claim as the town with the “widest main street in America” at 150 feet wide. It’s also known as the birthplace of the Eskimo pie, a frozen treat made of ice cream encased in a chocolate coating, reportedly invented by Chris K. Nelsen in the summer of 1919.\n\nKansas\n\nKansas City: A water park where a 10-year-old boy was decapitated isn’t hiring lifeguards, advertising or selling tickets with just weeks left before its typical Memorial Day weekend opening date, underlining speculation that it could be put up for sale. Schlitterbahn remains mum on its plans but has largely removed reference from its website about the park where Caleb Schwab was killed in 2016 when the raft he was riding on the 17-story Verruckt slide went airborne and hit a metal pole. Verruckt – German for “crazy” – never reopened and was torn down last year. Season tickets have been on sale for months for Schlitterbahn’s four Texas locations, but not the Kansas park. Speculation about a potential sale was fueled by mortgage lender EPR Properties announcing last week that Schlitterbahn is expected to pay off its approximately $190 million loan on the property soon.\n\nKentucky\n\nWalton: The high school senior who went to court over a restriction tied to chickenpox at his school has come down with the illness, his lawyer says. Christopher Wiest says Jerome Kunkel, 18, got sick last week, nearly two months after the Northern Kentucky Health Department issued its order to control an outbreak at two small parochial schools in Boone County. “He’s fine,” Wiest said. “He’s a little itchy.” In January, chickenpox broke out at Our Lady of the Sacred Heart School and Assumption Academy, its high school. The schools and church in Walton are affiliated with the Society of St. Pius X, a conservative branch of Roman Catholicism that rejects Vatican II reforms. Nearly 90% of the schools’ students have religious exemptions against vaccinations. Kunkel and his classmates did not receive the vaccine because its production involves laboratory-generated cells taken from a fetus aborted in 1966.\n\nLouisiana\n\nShreveport: A display of “magic, luck and friendship” will brighten up downtown’s Shreveport Common neighborhood this fall. The FriendsWithYou artist group will install a vivid, colorful public park called Rainbow City, including more than 35 larger-than-life, vinyl, multicolored inflatable sculptures standing up to 50 feet high. Rainbow City will be unveiled in late October in the Common Park. Various interactive and entertaining experiences are programmed at the inflatable park from Oct. 26 through Dec. 7, including a Dia de los Muertos celebratory dance party, a PJs and Pancakes breakfast, a romantic movie screening under the stars, a yoga session and more. On Oct. 26, FriendsWithYou will lead a Rainbow City Parade, featuring a new inflatable character named “Gumball,” designed by Caddo Parish student Isaiah Roberts. The fourth grader’s drawing was selected from hundreds of submissions.\n\nMaine\n\nPortland: The state’s baby eel fishermen are enjoying a steady harvest and strong prices during the first season in which regulators are using new controls to stop poaching. Baby eels, called elvers, are one of the most lucrative marine resources in the U.S. on a per-pound basis, but the fishery has had problems with poaching. This year, packing and shipping of the fish is subject to more scrutiny by the Maine Marine Patrol. Fishermen are more than 90% of the way through their quota for the year, which is slightly less than 10,000 pounds. The average price is more than $2,000 per pound, which would be the third highest average on record if holds, state officials said. “For the guys who want to do the right thing and grow this fishery, they’re happy to comply,” says Jeffrey Pierce, a former state legislator who is an adviser to the Maine Elver Fishermen Association.\n\nMaryland\n\nBaltimore: Police arrested seven people Wednesday as they ended a monthlong sit-in in the lobby of an administrative building at Johns Hopkins University, where a group of protesters have demonstrated against the creation of a campus police force and the institution’s contracts with the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency. City police officers and firefighters “provided assistance” shortly before 5 a.m. to reopen Garland Hall, the primary administrative building, the university announced. Protesters had chained the doors shut and blocked stairwells, defying a city fire marshal’s orders to keep the entrances and exits clear. Firefighters used an electric saw to get inside. The city’s top prosecutor swiftly dismissed the idea of prosecuting them. “No one arrested, student or community member, will be prosecuted,” said Melba Saunders, spokeswoman for State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby.\n\nMassachusetts\n\nBoston: America’s oldest performing arts group is looking for a child who was literally wowed by a recent classical music concert. The Handel & Haydn Society had just finished its rendition of Mozart’s “Masonic Funeral” at Symphony Hall on Sunday when a youngster blurted out loudly: “WOW!” Boston classical music station WCRB-FM captured the exuberance on audio. The crowd can be heard bursting first into laughter and then into rousing applause for the child. Now the organization founded in 1815 has mounted a search for the kid it’s calling the “Wow Child” – not to reprimand him or her but to offer a chance to meet the conductor and hear the orchestra again as a guest of honor. “It was one of the most wonderful moments I’ve experienced in the concert hall,” Handel & Haydn president and CEO David Snead wrote in a letter to concertgoers asking them to share the child’s name.\n\nMichigan\n\nDetroit: A 17-foot bronze sculpture that arrived downtown last year got people talking, taking selfies and wondering what exactly it means. This week, the conversation sparked by “Waiting,” a work of art by internationally acclaimed artist Kaws, will get some fresh context, thanks to the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit. “Kaws: Alone Again,” which opens Friday and runs through Aug. 4, is a solo exhibition of work by Brooklyn-based artist Brian Donnelly, who goes by the alias Kaws. The show was organized by MOCAD’s executive director Elysia Borowy-Reeder in collaboration with the contemporary art superstar. “Riffing on specific genres of pop art, figuration, deconstruction, collage and fashion, the exhibition represents an underlying irreverence and affection for our turbulent times, as well as Kaws’ agility as an artist to appropriate and transform,” MOCAD says about the exhibition.\n\nMinnesota\n\nSt. Paul: Mississippi River flooding in the capital this spring swamped the record for the longest period of flooding ever measured in the city. The St. Paul Pioneer Press reports that the river was above flood stage for 42 straight days, easily surpassing the 2001 record of 33 days. The National Weather Service says the river fell below flood stage last weekend. The city is continuing to assess and clean up riverside streets that were submerged before reopening them. All of the city’s flood plain parks, including boat launches, remain closed.\n\nMississippi\n\nOxford: The mayor is apologizing about confusion over parking meters. Oxford Mayor Robyn Tannehill says drivers will not be ticketed for parking at a malfunctioning meter. The Oxford Eagle reports the city put stickers on meters a couple of weeks ago warning people not to park at broken ones. The city’s parking director, Matt Davis, had also told the newspaper that citations would be issued. Parking meters are still fairly new on the town square in Oxford. Tannehill says the mayor and aldermen never voted to allow ticketing for vehicles parked at broken meters. She said Saturday on social media that if someone finds a broken meter, the city should tell that driver: “ ‘It’s your lucky day.’ ”\n\nMissouri\n\nSpringfield: An Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals panel has upheld a previous ruling on a city ordinance that prohibits women from showing their nipples and areolas in public, despite protests from local activists who argue the policy is discriminatory. The decision Monday is the latest in a four-year controversy that started when some women walked shirtless through downtown Springfield to protest the differing rules for men and women. Members of the City Council, who feared the scandalizing of children and moral degradation of the community, later passed an ordinance prohibiting women from showing their nipples in public. But the ACLU and local “Free the Nipple” activists sued, and a federal judge upheld the city’s ordinance in 2017. On Monday, a three-judge panel for the appeals court agreed with the lower court, citing at least eight cases during which courts upheld similar laws.\n\nMontana\n\nBillings: Law enforcement officials say they’ve managed to slow an increase in violent crime rates in the state’s most populous county that’s being driven largely by methamphetamine trafficking and abuse. U.S. Attorney Kurt Alme and Montana Attorney General Tim Fox on Wednesday announced results from the first year of an initiative targeting violent criminals in Yellowstone County. They say the number of murders, robberies and aggravated assaults increased just over 1% over the past year, after surging 26% in the prior 12-month period. Alme credited the government’s Project Safe Neighborhoods initiative for helping bring federal charges against 170 defendants in Yellowstone County for drug trafficking, armed robbery and firearms offenses. Alme says a similar effort in Missoula County is also showing positive results.\n\nNebraska\n\nNiobrara: People who suffered losses when the Spencer Dam failed have gotten more bad news: State law limits the liability of the dam’s owner. That owner, Nebraska Public Power District, has said the March 14 collapse was due to a combination of high Niobrara River flows and massive chunks of ice. The home of a man who lived below the dam, Kenny Angel, was swept away. His body still has not been found. The Norfolk Daily News reports that attorney David Domina addressed a gathering of homeowners, farmers and businesspeople Monday in Niobrara. He told them state law limits the district liability to $1 million per claim per occurrence and $5 million per occurrence for all claimants. He says Knox County already is listing more than $17 million in damages.\n\nNevada\n\nSparks: The Forest Service’s rejection of a proposal to drill for oil or gas in the Ruby Mountains has become official after no one complained during the 45-day objection period. Forest Supervisor Bill Dunkelberger says the agency’s decision became final Tuesday. He says the service didn’t receive a single objection after it determined the drilling wasn’t suitable for the area and selected the “no leasing” alternative in mid-March. He says that reaffirms his belief he made the right decision for future management of more than 82 square miles of the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest along the mountain range in northern Nevada’s Elko County. Dunkelberger concluded any economic benefits from the drilling would be limited compared to money the natural resources contribute to the area economy through tourism, recreation and livestock grazing.\n\nNew Hampshire\n\nDurham: University of New Hampshire researchers say they’ve discovered a new strain of canine distemper virus in wild animals in New Hampshire and Vermont. Over one year, pathologists diagnosed canine distemper virus infection in eight mammals: fishers, gray foxes, a skunk, a raccoon and a mink. Pathologists found all of the animals were infected with a distinct strain of the virus that had been identified only in a single raccoon in Rhode Island in 2004. They said the identification of this strain fills a gap in the general knowledge of canine distemper virus strains circulating in North America. The strain was identified by UNH pathologists in collaboration with colleagues at Cornell University, University of Georgia, Northeast Wildlife Disease Cooperative, and state Fish and Game departments.\n\nNew Jersey\n\nNewark: Gov. Phil Murphy has signed four bills into law aimed at improving maternal health care, particularly for residents using Medicaid. The Democrat signed the measures Wednesday at University Hospital in Newark. The new laws were enacted just a day after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a study showing that pregnancy-related deaths are rising and that being black is a main risk factor. One measure provides for Medicaid to cover doulas. Another sets up a pilot program for perinatal care for those on Medicaid. The third bill bars early, elective deliveries that are not medically necessary for those on Medicaid and on the state’s health benefits plans. The final measure codifies a current practice by requiring perinatal risk assessment forms be filled out by Medicaid providers.\n\nNew Mexico\n\nLas Vegas: A group of college students is helping redesign the Jemez Historic Site visitor center using multimedia tools. New Mexico Highlands University announced this week that 15 of its media arts students are creating floor-to-ceiling video projections of historic images and oral histories at the Native American site. The students also are adding interactive touch-screen computer tablets that focus on artifacts and an event called “Light Among the Ruins.” Supervisory archaeologist Ethan Ortega says the students used oral histories and texts written by Jemez tribal members to create the new components. The Jemez Historic Site includes the stone remains of a 500-year-old village and the San Jose church, which dates to 1622. It’s located at Jemez Springs, about 50 miles north of Albuquerque.\n\nNew York\n\nAlbany: A new exhibit chronicling the end of one of the most turbulent decades in American history has opened to the public at the Empire State Plaza. The exhibit titled “1969” opened Wednesday at the Vietnam Memorial Gallery in the Robert Abrams Justice Building in downtown Albany. Events such as the first moon landing and Woodstock music concert occurred 50 years ago this year, while the Vietnam War raged in Southeast Asia. The exhibit includes photographs, archival footage and artifacts from the era, along with audio recordings of veterans from New York telling stories about their Vietnam experience in ’69. Nicholas Valenti, a Marine Corps veteran who served in Vietnam and is now a leader of the Vietnam Veteran chapters of New York, joined state officials at the official opening.\n\nNorth Carolina\n\nDurham: Duke University has received a $5 million grant to improve the 55-acre Sarah P. Duke Gardens site on campus, which attracts about 400,000 visitors each year. University President Vincent Price said in a news release that The Duke Endowment is providing the grant for the Garden Gateway Project, a fundraising campaign. The grant brings the total raised to $16 million of the $30 million goal for the project, which will revitalize the gardens’ front entrance and fund new and improved facilities and classrooms. The plan also calls for a new performance lawn and expanded indoor event hall. The Duke Endowment is a private foundation based in Charlotte. The university, the foundation and Duke Energy are separate organizations despite sharing a name.\n\nNorth Dakota\n\nMedora: Part of the scenic drive and some trails are being temporarily closed at Theodore Roosevelt National Park’s North Unit while prescribed fire projects are completed. Planned burns are used as a resource management tool. The National Park Service says one fire Thursday is to encompass about 4,300 acres, or nearly 7 square miles. There also will be a smaller fire covering 700 acres, or about a square mile. The scenic drive will be closed at the Caprock Coulee trailhead to the end of the road. Portions of the Achenbach and Caprock Coulee trails will be closed for visitor safety. Burning is expected be completed by the end of the day.\n\nOhio\n\nCincinnati: The Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden is expecting two new babies this year. “Two of our giraffes are pregnant. One, Tessa, is due in June, and the other, Cece, is due in the fall,” spokeswoman Michelle Curley says. Both Tessa and Cece have given birth at the zoo before, but these will be the first giraffe calves in three years. Cece’s daughter Cora and Zoey, who was born to Jambo, made their debut in 2016. In 2014, Tessa gave birth to Nasha. Way back in 2011, Tessa gave birth to the zoo’s first baby giraffe in 26 years. According to the zoo, giraffe calves typically weigh about 125 pounds at birth and are approximately 6 feet tall.\n\nOklahoma\n\nTulsa: Fines, dues and court expenses assessed to defendants in the state have spiked since fiscal year 2007, and some criminal justice reform advocates say state and local government agencies are increasingly relying on them as an income source. Tulsa World reports that citations, fees and costs have risen 27% since 2007. State lawmakers have also imposed two administrative charges that collectively require defendants to pay an additional 25% of all fees amassed by the courts for the executive branch. Court collections have contributed to about 66% to 90% of yearly district court subsidies over that same period. Oklahomans for Criminal Justice Reform director Kris Steele says an impoverished person’s inability to pay either puts them in jail or leads to their return to crime in order to satisfy the debts.\n\nOregon\n\nSalem: The Legislature is considering a bill that would let farmers sue companies, such as Bayer and Syngenta, that hold patents on genetically engineered seeds if crops grown from those seeds contaminate other crops. Contamination from genetically engineered crops can make organic and conventional crops unable to be sold. GE crops also can escape their fields and become a nuisance for other farmers that is hard to eradicate. House Bill 2882 would allow landowners or tenants to seek three times actual economic damages if GE organisms, also called GMOs, are present on their land without permission. It also would allow residents to sue the corporations if GE organisms are found on land owned or occupied by a public body in the area where they live.\n\nPennsylvania\n\nHarrisburg: Three Mile Island, site of the United States’ worst nuclear power accident, will begin a planned shutdown starting June 1 now that it is clear that it will not get a financial rescue from the state, its owner said Wednesday. Exelon Corp.’s statement comes two years after the energy giant threatened to close the money-losing plant without what critics have called a bailout. The fight over Three Mile Island and Pennsylvania’s four other nuclear power plants invigorated a debate over the “zero carbon emissions” characteristics of nuclear power in the age of global warming and in one of the nation’s largest fossil fuel-producing states. Three Mile Island’s Unit 1 is licensed to operate through 2034, and shutting it down will cut its life short by 15 years. It will go offline by Sept. 30, Exelon said.\n\nRhode Island\n\nWarwick: A school district has changed its policy after facing criticism for a plan to serve students who owe lunch money sun butter and jelly sandwiches instead of a hot meal. Warwick Public Schools, which serves students in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade, said Wednesday that a school subcommittee recommended students get the lunch of their choice regardless of their account balance. Chairwoman Karen Bachus clarified that under the current policy students would’ve been provided the sandwich, which is also a daily choice on the school lunch menu, vegetables, fruit and milk. The district faced pushback after announcing in a Facebook post Sunday that students who owed money on paid, free or reduced lunch accounts would be served cold sandwiches until the balance is paid starting May 13.\n\nSouth Carolina\n\nCharleston: The state’s largest detention center is facing a serious staffing shortage, and officials are hoping to hire those looking for work. WCIV-TV reports there are about 90 vacancies currently out of nearly 400 jobs at the Al Cannon Detention Center. Deputy PJ Skipper says the job isn’t for everyone, but it’s one that has kept her coming back every day for 23 years. She says she initially planned a short two-year stint but realized working there is a calling. She says if she can make a difference with just one inmate, she’s done her job. The sheriff’s office is holding a Career Day on Saturday. Those interested should bring a driver’s license or other ID and be ready to take tests to see if they qualify for the posts.\n\nSouth Dakota\n\nKeystone: Fireworks will return to Mount Rushmore National Memorial for the Fourth of July celebration in 2020. Mount Rushmore’s fireworks were discontinued after 2009 due to concerns related to the pine beetle infestation that increased fire concerns in the Black Hills National Forest. The forest has since rebounded, and advances have been made in pyrotechnic safety. Gov. Kristi Noem, federal Interior Secretary David Bernhardt and National Park Service Deputy Director P. Daniel Smith on Tuesday announced the resumption of fireworks. Noem said the agreement came after several months of meetings and discussions.\n\nTennessee\n\nNashville: Along with classic country songs like “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” there’s a legendary tale that millions associate with George Jones – the lawn mower story. Once, during a terrible bout of binge drinking, Jones says he was left alone in his house with no booze. To stop him from driving to the liquor store, his wife had hidden all his car keys. “But she forgot about the lawn mower,” Jones wrote in his autobiography, “I Lived to Tell It All.” Jones cleaned up his act for good in 1999, living a sober life until his death in 2013, but the lawn mower legend lives on. Now, it’s been immortalized in a new mural on the side of Nashville’s Colonial Liquors, where Jones was once a frequent customer. The mural was painted by Nashville artist Shawn Catz, along with a crew of musician friends. But the cartoon design actually comes from an episode of “Tales From the Tour Bus,” an animated TV series by Mike Judge (“Beavis & Butthead,” “King of the Hill”).\n\nTexas\n\nAustin: Removal of Confederate and other historical markers would need approval from voters or state lawmakers under a bill that won initial approval from the state Senate on Tuesday. The measure would take removal powers away from local governments and other public entities who have grappled with calls to remove Confederate markers that are now facing protests over the era’s racist history. The Dallas City Council voted last year to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee from a park, and the University of Texas in 2017 removed several statues of Lee and other Confederate figures. Earlier this year, Gov. Greg Abbott and other top state Republicans agreed to remove a Capitol plaque that said slavery was not the underlying cause of the Civil War.\n\nUtah\n\nCedar City: Southern Utah University has secured funding for a new child development center, which officials say could fill a previously unmet need of on-campus child care. But city residents as a whole may also be struggling to find quality, affordable child care. Data suggests care in Cedar City isn’t just hard to come by but also expensive. Though finding affordable, quality child care is an issue many families and individuals face, SUU is focusing its services on students who are single mothers. Construction on the Sorenson Legacy Child and Family Development Center will begin in July, and it will be open for student use by August 2020. Kathy Wyatt, steering committee chair of the child care center and SUU’s first lady, says the center will double as a preschool, taking in children who are infants up to age 5.\n\nVermont\n\nDerby Line: U.S. officials have marked the completion of a new U.S.-Canada border crossing facility that is designed to smooth the flow of people and trade between the two countries while keeping the U.S. safe from terrorism and criminal organizations. The new $33 million facility at the northern end of Interstate 91 in the Vermont town of Derby Line replaces another facility that was built in 1965. High-tech improvements make the new facility more energy efficient, and it includes technological upgrades and larger spaces where officers from U.S. Customs and Border Protection can process both people and cargo. Construction began in fall 2016. The port of entry processes about 1.1 million people a year, says Christopher Averill, the regional administrator of the General Services Administration.\n\nVirginia\n\nRichmond: A police officer who cursed at a group of black middle schoolers and later promised to publicly apologize has rescinded the offer. Richmond police Chief William Smith tells The Richmond Times-Dispatch that the officer, whose name hasn’t been released, no longer feels he can handle the large setting. A March video shows the officer telling the Albert Hill students to “wait until your asses turn 18, then you’re mine.” Student Cameron Hilliard filmed the video and says someone outside her group yelled an obscenity directed at officers, launching the confrontation. The officer apologized to the students and their guardians last week and signed an agreement to publicly apologize at a school assembly. The chief says the officer is sorry for not being able to meet with the school.\n\nWashington\n\nOlympia: Gov. Jay Inslee, who is seeking a path to the White House on the message of climate change, signed a measure Tuesday that makes the state the fourth in the nation to establish a mandate to provide carbon-free electricity by a targeted date. The measure was among several environmental bills that Inslee signed at a park in Seattle, surrounded by climate advocates and others. The signing of the new law comes less than a week after Inslee unveiled his first major policy proposal of his presidential campaign, in which he called for the nation’s entire electrical grid and all new vehicles and buildings to be free of carbon pollution by 2030. “We are determined to build a solar and wind and electrical system where people can access clean energy and cleaner air to breathe for our kids as long as Washington state is here,” he said.\n\nWest Virginia\n\nCharleston: The U.S. government sued nearly two dozen of Gov. Jim Justice’s coal companies Tuesday to get them to pay about $4.8 million in unpaid mine safety fines. The civil lawsuit was filed by federal prosecutors on behalf of the U.S. Department of Labor and the Mine Safety and Health Administration. Justice’s companies committed more than 2,000 federal Mine Health and Safety Act violations since May 2014 but have refused to pay the penalties despite multiple attempts by federal agencies to get the money, according to the lawsuit. “This is unacceptable, and, as indicated by this suit, we will hold them accountable,” said U.S. Attorney Thomas T. Cullen.\n\nWisconsin\n\nMadison: Assembly Republicans with prisons in their districts are complaining about Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ decision to grant temporary raises at only six institutions. Nineteen Republicans sent a letter Wednesday to Evers saying that the raises aren’t fair and that compensation should be addressed through the state budget. A state audit released last week found entry-level guard pay in Wisconsin was second-lowest among seven Midwestern states. Evers’ budget calls for spending an additional $23.8 million to create a pay progression system for prison workers. Days before the audit was released, Evers’ administration gave temporary raises of up to $5 an hour to workers at Columbia, Dodge, Green Bay, Taycheedah and Waupun correctional institutions as well as the Lincoln Hills youth prison. Evers spokeswoman Melissa Baldauff says Evers is trying to fix problems Republicans have ignored.\n\nWyoming\n\nLaramie: If Thomas Foulke has his way, some of the oldest domesticated crops in the world will help grow a new industry in the state. Foulke, a senior research scientist at the University of Wyoming in the Department of Agriculture and Applied Economics, is leading an effort called the Wyoming First-Grains Project, which aims to develop a niche industry around growing “first grains.” He describes those as the earliest domesticated cereal crops, among them Emmer wheat, spelt, barley and einkorn. “People were making bread from wild grains before they even domesticated it,” he said. “There was something about bread and something about wheat that was really important to early humans.” In conjunction with UW research farms in Lingle, Powell and Sheridan, the First-Grains Project produced about 20 acres of spelt and Emmer wheat last year.\n\nFrom staff and wire reports", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2019/05/09"}]}
{"question_id": "20230317_13", "search_time": "2023/05/25/17:56", "search_result": [{"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nba/bucks/2023/03/14/bucks-clinch-playoff-spot-50-wins-suns/11475598002/", "title": "Bucks become first NBA team to clinch playoff spot, reach 50 wins", "text": "PHOENIX – The Milwaukee Bucks continued their march to the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference as they won for the fifth time in six games with a 116-104 victory over the Phoenix Suns on Tuesday night at the Footprint Center.\n\nThe Bucks are the first team in the NBA to reach 50 wins this season and clinch a spot in the postseason. They remain three games ahead of the Boston Celtics in the loss column with a 50-19 record. The Suns dropped to 37-32.\n\nBucks first to clinch playoff berth\n\nThe Bucks have kept their eyes on the long-term goal all season, which has been playoff basketball. All the steps along the way, from roster changes to injury management to play style adjustments have been done with that mind. After ascending to the top spot in the Eastern Conference they’ve been asked about seeding and home court advantage, questions they’ve acknowledged but largely pushed aside with an eye on the bigger picture.\n\nBut on Tuesday, a piece of the bigger picture fell firmly into place as the Bucks became the first team in the NBA to formally punch their ticket to the 2022-23 postseason.\n\nFollow every game: Latest NBA Scores and Schedules\n\nThere are still 13 games left in the regular season, and the focus does indeed turn a bit more squarely toward solidifying home court advantage. It is the next regular season step in the process of getting to the playoffs on a roll.\n\nGiannis Antetokounmpo posts back-to-back dominant games\n\nAntetokounmpo returned to the court for the first time since March 5 on Monday night in Sacramento and scored 46 points in 34 minutes, and he backed that up with a 36-point night against the Suns on Tuesday. It was the fifth set of back-to-back games he’s played, and the Bucks are 10-0 in those games. (He has missed one or both games of four others, and the Bucks are 3-1 in the second game of those sets.)\n\nPhoenix struggled to slow down Antetokounmpo on the defensive side, especially when he drew two first-quarter fouls on Suns center Deandre Ayton. That forced the Suns to put smaller players on the 7-footer, and they did about as well as expected.\n\nAntetokounmpo scored 20 points in 15 first-half minutes in helping the Bucks to a 57-48 lead at the break, making 7 of his 11 shots and 6 of 10 free throws. He also pulled down nine rebounds and had five assists – all of which led to 3-pointers.\n\nHe scored 14 second-half points and helped the Bucks hold off a late Suns charge by assisting a Wesley Matthews 3-pointer and then scoring five straight points to keep game tied at 92.\n\nAntetokounmpo nearly recorded a triple-double with eight assists to go with his 11 rebounds, but he was just 14 for 24 from the free throw line.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2023/03/14"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nba/bucks/2023/03/14/milwaukee-bucks-phoenix-suns-game-score-injury-report-khris-middleton-giannis-antetokounmpo-march-14/70006925007/", "title": "Bucks first to win 50 games, clinch playoff berth with 116-104 win ...", "text": "PHOENIX – The Milwaukee Bucks continued their march to the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference as they won for the fifth time in six games with a 116-104 victory over the Phoenix Suns on Tuesday night at the Footprint Center.\n\nThe Bucks are the first team in the NBA to reach 50 wins this season and clinch a spot in the postseason.\n\n\"We made the playoffs?\" Giannis Antetokounmpo asked facetiously with a smile. \"No way! We did? Man! For real? Oh man, it feels good. Yeah, it feels good.\n\n\"Gotta keep on playing, keep on trying to compete, build good habits. I think the last three games we've played in playoff atmosphere, it's really good for us. It's really good for us to lose a game, to be down 10, come back to the game, be up 10, they came back and we kept our composure and win the game by 10. It was good. All on the road.\n\n\"It makes it stronger. I'm happy that we're able to win and be the first team to clinch the playoffs.\"\n\nFollow every game: Latest NBA Scores and Schedules\n\nThe Bucks remain three games ahead of the Boston Celtics in the loss column with a 50-19 record. The Suns dropped to 37-32.\n\nBucks first to clinch playoff berth\n\nThe Bucks have kept their eyes on the long-term goal all season, which has been playoff basketball. All the steps along the way, from roster changes to injury management to play style adjustments have been done with that mind. After ascending to the top spot in the Eastern Conference they’ve been asked about seeding and home court advantage, questions they’ve acknowledged but largely pushed aside with an eye on the bigger picture.\n\nBut on Tuesday, a piece of the bigger picture fell firmly into place as the Bucks became the first team in the NBA to formally punch their ticket to the 2022-23 postseason.\n\n“We just mentioned it in the coaches locker room to appreciate this,” Bucks head coach Mike Budenholzer said. “Making the playoffs in this league is hard. You should never take anything for granted.\n\n\"We have a special team and our focus and our effort and kind of desire to just keep getting better, sometimes I just forget about celebrating and I need to improve and I need to get better.”\n\nBOX SCORE:Bucks 116, Suns 104\n\nThere are still 13 games left in the regular season, and the focus does indeed turn a bit more squarely toward solidifying home court advantage. It is the next step in the process of getting to the playoffs on a roll.\n\n\"I think that we’ve been playing well,” Jrue Holiday said. “Obviously playoffs are like in the back of your mind but I feel like we’re about one game at a time and winning games and trying to execute and be better down the stretch.”\n\nWesley Matthews agreed.\n\n\"Just keep getting better every single day,\" he said of what's next for the Bucks. \"Don't take anything for granted, don't take health for granted, taking care of your body, taking care of your mind and being ready to show up for work.\"\n\nGiannis Antetokounmpo posts back-to-back dominant games\n\nAntetokounmpo returned to the court for the first time since March 5 on Monday night in Sacramento and scored 46 points in 34 minutes, and he backed that up with a 36-point night against the Suns on Tuesday. It was the fifth set of back-to-back games he’s played, and the Bucks are 10-0 in those games. (He has missed one or both games of four others, and the Bucks are 3-1 in the second game of those sets).\n\nPhoenix struggled to slow down Antetokounmpo on the defensive side, especially when he drew two first quarter fouls on Suns center Deandre Ayton. That forced the Suns to put smaller players on the 7-footer, and they did about as well as expected.\n\nAntetokounmpo scored 20 points in 15 first half minutes in helping the Bucks to a 57-48 lead at the break, making 7 of his 11 shots and 6 of 10 free throws. He also pulled down nine rebound and had five assists – all of which led to three-pointers.\n\nHe scored 14 second-half points and helped the Bucks hold off a late Suns charge by assisting a Wesley Matthews three-pointer and then scoring five straight points to keep game tied at 92.\n\nAntetokounmpo nearly recorded a triple-double with eight assists to go with his 11 rebounds, but he was just 14 for 24 from the free throw line, however.\n\nSecond-chances and triples key to Bucks win\n\nPhoenix came into the game as the seventh-best offensive rebounding team in the league, an area in which the Bucks have been victimized at times throughout the year – even as recently as their loss to Golden State (18 for 24 second-chance points) to start the road trip.\n\nSuns head coach Monty Williams said it has become a focus for his team the last two years, and before the game he said it was an important part of what they need to do offensively. And the Suns were active in that area, but the Bucks matched that intensity as defensive rebounders and prevented Phoenix from owning an advantage in that area.\n\nIn fact, it was the Bucks who crashed the offensive glass harder and scored 19 second-chance points. The Suns meanwhile had just eight offensive rebounds for seven second-chance points.\n\n\"That was the game plan,\" Jae Crowder said. \"Just try to get extra possessions. These guys do a good job of crashing themselves from the corners. They killed us at home doing that and we were aware of it, so we just wanted to try to clean that up and try to continue to make those guys pay on that end on the offensive glass.\"\n\nAnd while the Bucks did not have a great shooting night from behind the three-point line (12 for 39) they still made four more than the Suns, an advantage that no number of Devin Booker and Chris Paul midrange shots could overcome. The Bucks are one of the best teams in the league in opponent three-point percentage, but the Suns also just didn’t put up that many (23) to increase their odds of pulling totally ahead after falling behind by 15.\n\nPlay of the game was Pat Connaughton’s fourth quarter corner three\n\nThe Bucks’ wing started in place of Khris Middleton and scored eight points on 2-of-6 shooting, but his second basket was huge With the game tied at 97 with 6:32 to go, Connaughton collected a pass from Joe Ingles in the corner and knocked down a three-pointer to put the Bucks up for good at 100-97. It kickstarted an 8-0 run, which allowed the Bucks to final put the Suns away.\n\nFive numbers\n\n9-1 Bucks record in the second game of back-to-backs.\n\n\"You might say that it's a secret recipe to play better or to win a back-to-back but it's not,\" Antetokounmpo said. \"Our body's tired. Arriving to the hotel at 2:30 a.m. Playing one of the best offense in the league the night before, one of the fastest teams in the NBA that you have to sit down and guard and you have to move your feet. That is not easy.\n\n\"Then you wake up ad you don't have an easy game. You're playing the Phoenix Suns, which for me is probably a top three, one of the best teams in the West. You know they always play hard and they always compete. It's not easy.\n\n\"It's all effort now. It's all in our mind. Are we going to go out there and try to fold and give up the game because we are tired and we're a little bit sore? Or are we going to try and fight for it and put ourselves in position to win the game? This year wit the team that we have, we always try to fight for it.\"\n\n17 Third quarter points for Devin Booker, on 7-of-10 shooting. He helped pull the Suns back from 14 points down early in the quarter to just a 85-84 deficit heading into the fourth. The Suns put the ball in his hands as Deandre Ayton was sent to the bench with five fouls. Booker finished with 30 points.\n\n23-3 Bucks record since Jan. 16.\n\n16,000 Career points for Antetokounmpo when he notched his 12th of the night in the second quarter. He became the 115th player in NBA history to reach that plateau.\n\n2/16/23 Date of Wesley Matthews’ last game. He suffered a calf strain against the Bulls that night and missed the next 10 games. Matthews returned against the Suns on Tuesday night.\n\n\"It was long. Longer than I expected it to be,\" Matthews said. \"But we've got a good team, everybody helped me out. And just keeping my mind right was the biggest thing. Keeping my mind right and just staying ready, staying on point and going out there and not thinking about it.\"\n\nVideo of the game is Giannis' 16,000th point\n\nOnly 115 players in NBA history have scored that many points in their career, and Antetokounmpo joined that club Tuesday night with a free throw in the second quarter. He is the all-time leading scorer in franchise history.\n\nKhris Middleton held out\n\nThe Bucks held out Ingles in Sacramento for left knee injury management, as head coach Mike Budenholzer said \"for him, long-term, and what we're doing, this was important (to hold him out).\"\n\nThe natural follow-up was if the move worked in tandem with Middleton, who did play vs. the Kings, sitting out in Phoenix.\n\n\"Yes,\" Budenholzer said flatly.\n\nMiddleton has yet to play in a back-to-back this season.\n\nWho do the Bucks play next?\n\nMilwaukee returns home and will host all-star Tyrese Haliburton of Oshkosh and the Indiana Pacers at 7 p.m. Thursday at Fiserv Forum. Along with Haliburton (20.8 points, 10.4 assists), the Pacers get scoring from big man Myles Turner (18.0) and sharpshooter Buddy Hield (17.1). Former Bucks player Jordan Nwora is averaging 12 points off the bench for the Pacers.\n\nMore:Giannis Antetokounmpo for MVP? Brook Lopez for defensive player of year? The case for Milwaukee Bucks NBA award winners\n\nMore:Bucks guard Pat Connaughton and Marquette's Tyler Kolek have a unique friendship. Here's the story behind it.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2023/03/14"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/packers/2023/01/05/who-would-the-green-bay-packers-meet-in-the-nfl-playoffs-with-a-win/69781090007/", "title": "Who would the Packers play in the NFL playoffs with a win over Lions?", "text": "Four games — and arguably five — on Sunday bear impact on the Green Bay Packers' destiny beyond Week 18 of the 2022 NFL season, aside from the obvious must-win against Detroit to even qualify for the postseason.\n\nThe debatable game in that equation would be Seattle against the Los Angeles Rams at 3:25 p.m. Sunday, even though it has no bearing on a potential first-round playoff opponent. If Seattle wins, it would eliminate Detroit from postseason contention and potentially change the demeanor of the Sunday night clash between the Lions and Packers. Though as many will point out, a Lions team with nothing to play for anymore doesn't necessarily make the squad less dangerous.\n\nFour other contests will determine who the Packers face in the wild-card round if Green Bay beats the Lions to clinch an NFC playoff berth. Coming into the week, the Packers (who would be the No. 7 seed) have a 50% chance of facing San Francisco, a 25% chance of facing Minnesota, a 12.5% chance of seeing Philadelphia and a 12.5% chance of seeing Dallas (and coach Mike McCarthy!)\n\nMore:Green Bay Packers vs. Detroit Lions odds for Sunday Night Football Week 18 game of NFL season: spread, point total, money line\n\nMinnesota (12-4) at Chicago (3-13), noon\n\nArizona (4-12) at San Francisco (12-4), 3:25 p.m.\n\nDallas (12-4) at Washington (7-8-1), 3:25 p.m.\n\nNew York Giants (9-6-1) at Philadelphia (13-3), 3:25 p.m.\n\nHere's a handy chart that might help.\n\nThe scenarios in which Green Bay faces San Francisco\n\nWith teams playing limited rosters (like Chicago) or simply enduring the final throes of a disappointing year, it's easy to envision the four favorites winning these games, and that would be one scenario that would put Green Bay in San Francisco for the first round of the playoffs.\n\nOf the possible 16 ways those four games finish, eight would lead to San Francisco facing the Packers at Levi's Stadium, good for 50%. However, six of those eight possible combinations feature Minnesota losing, which seems like a longshot against depleted Chicago. The most likely scenarios that land Green Bay against the 49ers: All four favorites winning or all but Dallas winning.\n\nThe scenario in which Green Bay faces Minnesota\n\n(This segment has been clarified from its original version)\n\nAfter Green Bay throttled Minnesota in Week 17, it's understandable if this looks like a desirable outcome for Packers fans.\n\nIf Minnesota somehow loses to the Bears, there's no way the Packers would face the Vikings. That's the only possible determination that can be made Sunday as a result of the early games.\n\nThere are four combinations that would pit Minnesota against the Packers, but all that matters is two outcomes: If San Francisco loses and Minnesota wins, then the Packers will play the Vikings.\n\nThe scenario in which Green Bay faces Dallas\n\nThe juiciest possibility on the table is Green Bay meeting former coach Mike McCarthy and the Cowboys at AT&T Stadium.\n\nThis outcome doesn't hinge on what Minnesota does. It requires wins from San Francisco and Dallas and a loss by Philly, which is actually a plausible course of action.\n\nThe scenario in which Green Bay faces Philadelphia\n\nThose who remember the 2010 Packers eking into the playoffs as the final seed in the NFC, then starting a Super Bowl run in Philadelphia, might appreciate the nostalgia of this arrangement, but it feels like the most longshot of the four.\n\nAs with Dallas, this one doesn't require Minnesota's involvement but it does require three other outcomes to go precisely one way. If Dallas and Philadelphia lose and San Francisco wins, the Eagles will face the Packers.\n\nWhat about ties?\n\nMost ties lead to a matchup with the 49ers.\n\nIf the Packers tie Detroit, Green Bay won't be going to the playoffs\n\nIf the Vikings tie Chicago, Minnesota won't gain any ground and remain a No. 3 seed (the Packers won't play them).\n\nIf the 49ers tie Arizona, they'd be vulnerable to fall below a winning Vikings team. Otherwise, they'd remain the No. 2 seed and Green Bay's opponent. It would preclude the Packers from facing Philadelphia or Dallas.\n\nIf the Cowboys tie Washington, they can't catch Philadelphia and would be no better than a No. 5 seed, unable to play the Packers.\n\nIf the Eagles tie New York, they'll be locked into the No. 1 seed and won't play Green Bay.\n\nIf multiple teams tie ... nah, we're not doing all the math. Status quo probably reigns and the Packers face the 49ers.\n\nJR Radcliffe can be reached at (262) 361-9141 or jradcliffe@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @JRRadcliffe.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2023/01/05"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nba/thunder/2023/04/04/thunder-vs-warriors-score-updates-game-recap-nba-playoff-race-klay-thompson-out/70082480007/", "title": "OKC Thunder falters late vs. Jordan Poole, Golden State Warriors", "text": "SAN FRANCISCO — The Thunder led the Warriors for the first 39 minutes and 30 seconds of the game Tuesday night before things unraveled for the young Thunder.\n\nWarriors guard Jordan Poole went nuclear. Thunder coach Mark Daigneault went nuclear on the referees (more on that later).\n\nGolden State beat Oklahoma City 136-125 thanks to a fourth-quarter rout.\n\nThe Warriors outscored the Thunder 34-19 in the final frame. Heck, Poole almost outscored the Thunder by himself. Poole scored 18 of his 30 points in 10 fourth-quarter minutes. A Poole 3-pointer tied the game with 10 minutes left, and a Poole free throw gave the Warriors their first lead of the game.\n\n“We weren’t quite on point there,” Daigneault said of the Thunder’s fourth-quarter defense, “but I thought our competitiveness and our poise was there tonight. I just thought the execution on the defensive end wasn’t great.”\n\nFollow every game: Latest NBA Scores and Schedules\n\nThe Thunder (38-42) has lost four of its last five and has a half-game lead on the Mavericks (37-42) for the last West play-in spot.\n\n“These types of games are great for us,” Thunder guard Josh Giddey said. “(The Warriors) are playing for position, we’re playing to try and keep our season going and we understand what’s at stake.”\n\nThe Thunder can finish no higher than 10th, which means an elimination game on the road for the Thunder if it makes the play-in. According to playoffstatus.com, the Thunder has a 66% chance of making the play-in at No. 10, and a 34% chance of missing the play-in.\n\nOKC has two games left: Thursday at Utah and Sunday vs. Memphis. OKC’s magic number is two. It can clinch the No. 10 spot with two wins, or any combination of Thunder wins/Mavericks losses that add up to two.\n\nDallas has three games left, all at home: vs. Sacramento on Wednesday, vs. Chicago on Friday and vs. San Antonio on Sunday.\n\n“It’s awesome,” Daigneault said of being in this meaningful position. “You look out on the court, you’ve got rookie players, you’ve got second-and third-year guys. Everybody at this point is playing the most minutes they’ve ever played in an NBA season, for the most part, and having to grind through in games that have some weight, not only for us, but for our opponents.\n\n“These are games where we’re getting peoples’ best shot. I thought we got their best shot tonight, and that’s great for our growth. I love it for our guys.”\n\nMore:Tramel's ScissorTales: New CBA deal finally gets rid of positions on all-NBA teams\n\nOfficials admit error on dead ball blunder in Thunder vs. Warriors\n\nWhen the Thunder threw the ball out of bounds with 6:05 left in the game, a turnover that resulted in a dead ball, Thunder guard Jalen Williams was at the scorer’s table ready to check in.\n\nWarriors forward Draymond Green, sensing the oncoming substitution, rushed a referee into giving him the ball for the inbounds pass. The Warriors basically quick-pitched the Thunder, with J-Dub raising his hands in disbelief.\n\nThe Warriors’ possession ended in an easy layup, with one of the Thunder’s best defenders in Williams still standing at the scorer’s table.\n\nDaigneault went berserk.\n\nDaigneault called timeout and chewed out the three officials — Courtney Kirkland, Karl Lane and Nate Green — one by one. At one point, Daigneault had to be held back by assistant coach Mike Wilks and a team security guard.\n\nDaigneault was assessed a technical. At the time, the Warriors led by three points, and the technical free throw increased their lead to four. Golden State cruised from there.\n\n“When there’s a dead ball like that, the official has discretion on how quickly to inbound the ball,” Daigneault said after the game. “Players in the league, (Draymond) Green was the inbounder there, have figured that out, and they go over there and compel the official, basically like, ‘Give me the ball, give me the ball.’ And with some players in the NBA, clearly Green being one of them, they just throw the ball in.”\n\nDaigneault likened the blunder to “an umpire walking a guy on three pitches.”\n\n“And now I have to call a timeout to get the sub in,” Daigneault said. “They scored on the ensuing possession, I was getting one of our better defenders in the game, and I get a technical. That oversight by them cost us three points and a timeout.”\n\nThe officials owned up to the mistake.\n\n“We did not recognize that Jalen Williams was at the scorer’s table when the ball went out of bounds,” Kirkland, the crew chief, said in a pool report. “Because he was at the scorer’s table he should have been allowed to come into the game, but we did not recognize that he was there. It was our error, and he should have been allowed to enter the game.”\n\nDaigneault said the Thunder tried to pull a similar stunt on a third quarter out of bounds play.\n\n“Lu Dort’s the inbounder, same official, Lu Dort’s begging for the ball, doesn’t give it to him,” Daigneault said. “Same situation. That’s why I lost my mind, because that’s in front of our bench and that to me is something that we feel regularly as the youngest team in the league, but that (Warriors) one, for a sub to be up and for the ball to be inbounded so quickly that they don’t see the sub, I was beside myself on that, obviously.\n\n“With that being said, credit to Golden State. It’s not what lost the game.”\n\nMore:Thunder 'made it very easy' for Michael Cage to support San Diego State at Final Four\n\nHigh flying first half in Thunder vs. Warriors\n\nJalen Williams passed to Jaylin Williams, who passed back to Jalen Williams, who drained a 3-pointer to beat the second-quarter buzzer.\n\nThe Thunder jogged off the court with a 79-69 lead.\n\nIt tied OKC’s highest-scoring half of the season. The Thunder shot 60% from the floor, including 57% (8-of-14) from 3-point range.\n\nThe Thunder withstood a 24-point first half from Steph Curry, who went 4-of-8 from 3-point range. The Warriors shot 11-of-22 from three in the first half and still trailed by 10 points.\n\nThrough two quarters, Curry was the only Warrior in double digits. Meanwhile, four Thunder players were in double digits, led by Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who scored 21 first-half points on 7-of-10 shooting.\n\nJalen Williams and Isaiah Joe had 14 points in the first half. Lu Dort had 11 points.\n\nMore:Tramel: Jalen Williams seems headed for stardom, but what kind of star will he be?\n\nSGA, Steph Curry superstar showcase\n\nSGA crossed over Warriors center Kevon Looney in the second quarter and drained a stepback jumper. Gilgeous-Alexander drew “how did he do that?” murmurs from the Warriors crowd.\n\nSGA had a lot of those moments Tuesday night.\n\nSo did Stephen Curry.\n\nGilgeous-Alexander and Curry, two players with entirely different offensive games, put on a stunning show for the Chase Center crowd.\n\nThe two players combined for 45 points in the first half on 16-of-26 shooting.\n\nHeck, SGA even did his best Curry impression — at least for a moment. Gilgeous-Alexander shot 2-of-2 from 3-point range in the first quarter. It was just the second time this season that SGA made two or more 3-pointers in a quarter.\n\nCurry averages 12 3-point attempts per game. Gilgeous-Alexander averages 2.5.\n\nCurry drew a charge against SGA at the eight-minute mark in the third quarter. It was SGA’s fourth foul of the game, but he stayed in.\n\nCurry scored a game-high 34 points on 11-of-25 shooting. He shot 6-of-13 from 3-point range. Curry had six assists and five rebounds.\n\nGilgeous-Alexander led the Thunder with 32 points on 11-of-17 shooting. He had seven assists and five rebounds.\n\n“We were aggressive, weren’t scared, we were confident,” SGA said after the game. “I think we were just ourselves and I think that’s what you try to get done in a pressure situation — just try to be who you are and not stray.”\n\nMore:'Best coach I’ve ever had': Mark Daigneault's G League players not surprised by NBA ascent\n\nOusmane Dieng gets physical\n\nOusmane Dieng, at least for now, has emerged as the Thunder’s ninth man.\n\nThe rookie forward logged eight solid minutes Tuesday night.\n\nDieng drove and finished an and-one layup in the second quarter. The Warriors unsuccessfully challenged the call.\n\n“He continues to get better,” Daigneault said. “He continues to get more comfortable. I thought he was in his spots defensively.\n\n“It’s a great environment, both where we are in the season and also on the road against a team like Golden State, not only for him, but for everybody.”\n\nMore:'He's making Hamilton his': How Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander's hometown shaped him\n\nThunder tip-ins\n\n● Mark Daigneault watched the national title game Monday night as his UConn Huskies beat San Diego State. Daigneault was a student manager at UConn from 2003-07. The Huskies won the national title in Daigneault’s freshman year. “To win every game in the tournament by double digits is so hard,” Daigneault said. “I haven’t been there in a while, but I’ve been there enough to know how hard it is in that tournament to play that well.”\n\n● Warriors guard Klay Thompson (lower back soreness) was ruled out a half-hour before tip-off.\n\n● Aleksej Pokusevski (left knee contusion) was a late scratch for the Thunder.\n\n● Andrew Wiggins has returned to the Warriors after missing the last 21 games due to personal reasons. Wiggins didn’t suit up against the Thunder, but it looks like the Warriors will have him back for the postseason.\n\n● The Thunder hasn’t won in San Francisco since Nov. 25, 2019 — a losing streak of five games at the Warriors.\n\n● The Warriors improved to 33-8 at home. The Warriors are 9-30 on the road. Only the Rockets and Spurs have a worse road record among West teams. “You have to take them extremely seriously at home,” Daigneault said. “They’re a great home team. They have been for years.”\n\n● The Warriors won the season series 3-1.\n\n● Lu Dort scored the first bucket of the game, a driving layup through contact. Dort finished better at the rim, an area of his game that’s been lacking. He finished with 17 points.\n\n● Isaiah Joe led the Thunder’s bench with 14 points and five rebounds. He shot 2-of-3 from behind the arc.\n\n● Rookie guard Jalen Williams had 19 points on 50% shooting.\n\n● Guard Josh Giddey had 15 points, six rebounds and five assists.\n\n● A Jaylin Williams 3-pointer put the Thunder up 17-9 in the first quarter. Steve Kerr called timeout. All five Thunder starters were already on the scoreboard.\n\n● SGA picked up his third foul four minutes before halftime. He picked up his fourth foul early in the third quarter. He still played 34 minutes, though.\n\n● Jaylin Williams drew his 41st charge in his 48th game. No other player in the NBA has drawn more than 30 charges.\n\n● Thunder forward Dario Saric was whistled for a technical after the third-quarter buzzer. OKC led by four going into the fourth, but the Warriors slashed the lead to three after the technical free throw.\n\n● Mark Daigneault emptied his bench with the Thunder down 13 points. Jared Butler, Tre Mann and Olivier Sarr played the final three minutes.\n\n● Golden State outrebounded OKC 54-38. The Warriors had 19 offensive rebounds, which led to a 25-9 Warriors advantage in second-chance points.\n\n● The Thunder shot 3-of-18 from three in the second half.\n\nMore:OKC Thunder schedule: How to watch the Thunder in 2022-23 NBA season\n\nNBA Western Conference playoff picture\n\nThe top six teams advance to NBA Playoffs, while the seventh- through 10th-place teams advance to a play-in tournament. The winner of the No. 7-vs.-No. 8 game will be the No. 7 seed in the playoff. The winner of the No. 9-vs.-No. 10 game will face the 7-8 loser for the No. 8 seed.\n\nStandings after games played on Tuesday, April 4:\n\ny-Denver Nuggets (52-27) y-Memphis Grizzlies (50-29) y-Sacramento Kings (48-31) x-Phoenix Suns (44-35) Golden State Warriors (42-38) Los Angeles Clippers (41-38) Los Angeles Lakers (41-38) -- Clippers own tiebreaker based on head-to-head record New Orleans Pelicans (40-39) Minnesota Timberwolves (40-40) Oklahoma City Thunder (38-42) Dallas Mavericks (37-42) Utah Jazz (36-43)\n\nMore:Tramel: Jalen Williams seems headed for stardom, but what kind of star will he be?", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2023/04/04"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2022/11/11/mlb-top-free-agents-2022-best-players-available-signing-updates/10660446002/", "title": "MLB top free agents 2022: Best players available, signing updates", "text": "If Major League Baseball is truly a copycat industry, this should be a lucrative winter for free agents.\n\nFive years after executive indifference led to a chilling, multiyear depression for top players, one year after a 99-day lockout split a sizzling market in half and led to a frenzied signing period just days from Opening Day, some semblance of stability has returned to baseball.\n\nThe COVID-19 cancellations and restrictions of 2020-21 are largely gone. A five-year collective bargaining agreement was struck, even as the onerous qualifying offer will still stick to a handful of free agents.\n\nAnd 2023 should resemble something close to a “normal” season for the first time since 2018, bereft of labor strife, juiced baseballs and nascent infectious disease. What’s more, as the highly aggressive San Diego Padres and Philadelphia Phillies joined the stalwart Houston Astros and New York Yankees in baseball’s final four, owners received a not-so-subtle reminder: Aggression helps. Spending helps.\n\nWORLD SERIES: Dusty Baker's friends and family share in World Series joy\n\nFollow every game: Latest MLB Scores and Schedules\n\nNEWSLETTER: Get the latest sports news straight to your inbox!\n\nWith that, a look at the top 87 free agents, from the elite to those reasonably expected to sign a major league contract. Rankings based on projected future performance and perceived market value:\n\n(Age as of April 1, 2023; 2022 team)\n\n1. Aaron Judge (30, OF, Yankees)\n\nHe does not play the game’s most premium position, but Judge has many factors in his favor: A potential bi-coastal bidding war, a Yankees franchise that should be highly motivated to retain him and, oh yeah, the AL-record 62 homers he slugged last season. Judge may not get the lengthy deal the younger shortstop on this list may receive, but a high annual value and his greater appeal should put him atop this winter’s market.\n\nSIGNED: Nine years, $360 million with Yankees, Dec. 7.\n\n2. Carlos Correa (28, SS, Twins)\n\nOne year after topping this list, Correa is back, after accepting an opt-out laden, lockout-driven deal that paid him $35.5 million last season. After duplicating his on-base percentage (.366), increasing his adjusted OPS (140) but seeing a slip in some defensive metrics, Correa is a year older but just as good. If 10 years, $350 million was a shoot-for-the-sky number last year, why not nine years, $315 million this time?\n\nSIGNED: Six years, $200 million with Twins, Jan. 10.\n\n3. Trea Turner (29, SS, Dodgers)\n\nIf Correa is No. 1 among shortstops, Turner is very much 1A, a year older but quicker, showing better afield but with less power, less reliable in walk rate and OBP but also a legitimate game-changer. Will the Dodgers realize how special their Turner-Mookie Betts-Freddie Freeman power trio is, or will they return to “fiscal responsibility” and replace Turner internally? Either way, he will draw huge interest from Philly to Frisco, and has a good shot at cracking the $300 million barrier.\n\nSIGNED: 11 years, $300 million with Phillies, Dec. 5.\n\n4. Xander Bogaerts (30, SS, Red Sox)\n\nLike Judge, Bogaerts has a significant factor in his favor: A huge market quickly growing impatient with its front office and ready to howl in protest should a core player depart via free agency. Bogaerts’ departure would only ramp up the angst in Boston one year ahead of Rafael Devers’ free agency. Oh, and he can play: Bogaerts produced 6.1 fWAR last season and led all shortstops with a .377 OBP.\n\nSIGNED: 11 years, $280 million with Padres, Dec. 7.\n\n5. Dansby Swanson (29, SS, Braves)\n\nIf you don’t consider Swanson a “franchise player” the way you would Correa or Turner, perhaps further examination is necessary. Swanson blew away the shortstop field in outs above average (21) and trailed only Francisco Lindor with 6.4 WAR. Now that he’s aged into more power, averaging 26 homers the past two seasons, there’s far more to tangibly love about Swanson beyond the fact he quarterbacked five consecutive division champions.\n\nSIGNED: Seven years, $177 million with Cubs, Dec. 17.\n\n6. Jacob deGrom (34, SP, Mets)\n\nIs there a more volatile player on the market? DeGrom brings the upside of a two-time Cy Young Award winner and a guy who struck out 14.3 batters per nine innings each of the past two seasons – and the downside of a pitcher limited to 26 starts over those two years due to assorted injuries. Perhaps the Mets keep it simple, offer him a deal that mirrors running mate Max Scherzer’s (three years, $130 million) and everyone calls it a day at $43 million per year. But will deGrom want more guaranteed cash? Will a pitching-hungry team ignore the red flags and pay him like a starter in his prime?\n\nSIGNED: Five years, $185 million with Rangers, Dec. 2.\n\n7. Justin Verlander (40, SP, Astros)\n\nVerlander’s body may be entering its fifth decade, but his elbow is just a year old, and he was electric in his first season removed from Tommy John surgery. While Verlander will still be subject to myriad old man pains – such as the calf injury that knocked him out for a few weeks near the end of the season – his new arm produced a 1.75 ERA and 185 strikeouts. Now, will an aggressive suitor guarantee his wish that he pitch until he’s at least 45?\n\nSIGNED: Two years, $86 million with Mets, Dec. 5.\n\n8. Carlos Rodon (30, SP, Giants)\n\nRodon fused the dominance of a career comeback year in 2021 with good health in 2022, making 31 starts and leading the majors in strikeouts per nine innings (12) and fielding independent pitching (2.25). Now, a well-timed opt-out means the best lefty on the market will flirt with a nine-figure contract.\n\nSIGNED: Six years, $162 million with Yankees, Dec. 15.\n\n9. Willson Contreras (30, C, Cubs)\n\nAre the Cubs ready to bid farewell to the last everyday connection to their World Series winners? They could do worse than retain a catcher who’s still a four-win player, can still churn out an .815 OPS, and would become a crucial part of any club’s foundation.\n\nSIGNED: Five years, $87.5 million with Cardinals, Dec. 7.\n\n10. Tyler Anderson (33, SP, Dodgers)\n\nFeel free to scoff at a pitcher who cut his ERA nearly in half, to 2.57, and made the All-Star Game after bouncing around four clubs the previous three years. We’re inclined to believe the Anderson breakout, that his true self will land somewhere between his ERA and his 3.31 FIP, provided a club well-versed in getting the best out of him, as the Dodgers did, is inclined to buy into his career season.\n\nSIGNED: Three years, $39 million with Angels, Nov. 15.\n\n11. Brandon Nimmo (30, CF, Mets)\n\nWhile two of his past five seasons have been injury-shortened, it’s tough to argue with Nimmo’s offensive consistency in that span: An .837 OPS (134 adjusted), a .388 OBP and 55 extra-base hits per 162 games. In 2022 he was borderline elite in center field and will hold down a premium position and the leadoff spot for any suitor.\n\nSIGNED: Eight years, $162 million with Mets, Dec. 8.\n\n12. Chris Bassitt (34, SP, Mets)\n\nHe may not be an ace, but Bassitt is pretty much money in the bank as a No. 3 starter. Bassitt held down the Mets rotation when Scherzer and deGrom were injured and his WHIP, ERA and strikeout-walk ratio have hovered in the same range the past four years. A big-market suitor with an established No. 1 would be an ideal fit.\n\nSIGNED: Three years, $63 million with Blue Jays, Dec. 12.\n\n13. Kenley Jansen (35, RP, Braves)\n\nHis price tag soared when Edwin Diaz accepted $105 million to return to the Mets, establishing a ceiling for relievers while plucking the best one off the market. Jansen got $80 million from the Dodgers six years ago and while that may be unrealistic, supply and demand will drive his price high after leading the majors in saves (41) and striking out 12 batters per nine innings.\n\nSIGNED: Two years, $32 million with Red Sox, Dec. 7.\n\n14. Anthony Rizzo (33, 1B, Yankees)\n\nWhile Rizzo posted a full-season career low .224 batting average, he still muscled 32 balls out of Yankee Stadium and his .817 OPS was his best since 2019. Plenty of demand for a middle-of-the-lineup bat and Gold Glove-caliber defender.\n\nSIGNED: Two years, $40 million with Yankees, Nov. 15.\n\n15. Nathan Eovaldi (31, SP, Red Sox)\n\nTime is both Eovaldi's friend and foe. He's five years removed from Tommy John surgery and just one year past an All-Star campaign where he struck out 195 and led the AL in starts (32) and FIP (2.79). But injuries limited him to 20 starts this year and the mileage on his body may make getting longer than a four-year deal challenging.\n\nSIGNED: Two years, $34 million with Rangers, Dec. 27.\n\n16. Taijuan Walker (30, SP, Mets)\n\nAfter a decade of fits and starts, Walker has settled into who he is and it’s pretty good: A 3.65 FIP that mirrors his 3.49 ERA and a 1.20 WHIP that will look just fine on the market. Walker has made 29 starts each of the past two seasons and represents a nice mid-range rotation option - particularly since he won't be saddled with the qualifying offer, as teammates Bassitt and deGrom will.\n\nSIGNED: Four years, $72 million with Phillies, Dec. 6.\n\n17. Josh Bell (30, 1B, Padres)\n\nFew switch hitters offer the plate coverage and power potential the 6-4, 260-pound Bell does. He struggled after a midseason trade, with his OPS dipping from .877 in Washington to .587 in San Diego, but offers a career .351 OBP and an easily expected 25 homers.\n\nSIGNED: Two years, $33 million with Guardians, Dec. 6.\n\n18. Clayton Kershaw (35, SP, Dodgers)\n\nFeels like the same tune as before: Back to L.A. on a short-term deal or into the carpool line. Maybe the Rangers but maybe not. Either way, Kershaw had a strong bounceback from 2021 elbow woes, making 22 starts and posting a 2.57 FIP that was his best since 2016.\n\nSIGNED: One year, $20 million with Dodgers, Dec. 5.\n\n19. Jose Abreu (36, 1B/DH, White Sox)\n\nHis White Sox for life stint may finally be ending after nine seasons and 243 home runs, with Andrew Vaughn slated to take over at first. In his advanced age, Abreu has sacrificed some power (a career-low 15 homers in 2022) but not production (.824 OPS).\n\nSIGNED: Three years, $58.5 million with Astros, Nov. 29.\n\n20. Michael Wacha (31, SP, Red Sox)\n\nAfter three seasons as a swing guy, Wacha started 22 games with Boston and showed well, his 1.12 WHIP and 127 adjusted ERA full-season career bests. He’s made 22 starts each of the past two seasons, which won’t guarantee him frontline money, but Wacha is settling into a nice comfort zone somewhere between the phenom he was and the injury-addled pitcher who struggled late last decade.\n\nSIGNED: Four years, $24 million with Padres, Feb. 16.\n\n21. Martín Perez (31, SP, Rangers)\n\nYet another late-career lefty who makes you wonder, just how real was last year? Perez flourished back in Arlington, posting career bests in ERA (2.89) and FIP (3.26), giving up just 0.5 home runs per nine innings and making his first All-Star team. His career marks entering the season – 4.71, 4.54, 1.5. Feeling lucky?\n\nSIGNED: Accepted one-year, $19.65 million qualifying offer from Rangers, Nov. 15.\n\n22. Jameson Taillon (31, SP, Yankees)\n\nAfter two Tommy John surgeries, Taillon found himself in the Bronx, settling in not as the ace drafted between Bryce Harper and Manny Machado but rather a steady mid-rotation option. Taillon equaled his career high with 32 starts and posted the best strikeout-walk ratio (4.72) of his career while his 3.91 ERA landed on league average a second consecutive year.\n\nSIGNED: Four years, $68 million with Cubs, Dec. 7.\n\n23. Rafael Montero (32, RP, Astros)\n\nMontero capped a career season – a 2.37 ERA over 71 appearances, just three homers allowed – with a fantastic playoff run that only further showcased him before a first trip to the free agent market. Montero punched out 10 in 9 ⅓ playoff innings over 10 games and took part in a combined no-hitter. Perhaps not a closer, but certainly will be a valued seventh- or eighth-inning guy.\n\nSIGNED: Three years, $34.5 million, with Astros.\n\n24. Joc Pederson (30, OF, Giants)\n\nWill a second dip into free agency yield Pederson more than the one-year deal San Francisco gave him? Perhaps his future will be as a platoon guy, but the Giants also deployed him well: He smacked 23 home runs, one every 16.5 at-bats, his best rate since hitting 37 in the juiced-ball 2019 season. You could do worse than a useful outfielder who rakes against right-handers, which is why the Giants extended him the $19.65 million qualifying offer that will likely produce a return engagement.\n\nSIGNED: Accepted one-year, $19.65 million qualifying offer from Giants, Nov. 15.\n\n25. Seth Lugo (33, RP, Mets)\n\nThe Mets have a dozen free agents and many share an identical profile: Really valuable to us, but should fetch a lot of cash on the open market. Toss Lugo in that bin: He appeared in a career-high 65 games this season and struck out more than a batter an inning for the fifth consecutive year. They can surely get by without him, but those numbers aren’t easy to replace.\n\nSIGNED: Two years, $15 million with Padres, Dec. 19.\n\n26. Robert Suarez (32, RP, Padres)\n\nBehold the most fascinating reliever on the market. Suarez has just one major league season to his credit, but dominated after spending eight seasons in Mexico and Japan, striking out 61 in 47 ⅔ innings. He overpowered the Dodgers in the NLDS before giving up a pennant-winning home run to Bryce Harper in the NLCS. Still, there’s not much tread on the arm and the market is thin, so don’t be surprised when Suarez gets a large payday.\n\nSIGNED: Five years, $46 million with Padres.\n\n27. J.D. Martinez (35, DH, Red Sox)\n\nThe landscape has changed a lot since Martinez signed a five-year, $110 million deal with Boston. Good news: The NL added the designated hitter. Bad news: Martinez’s power has diminished a bit, hitting just 16 homers in 139 games. He still thumped 43 doubles, though, and a 30-team market for his services will ensure a decent payday.\n\nSIGNED: One year, $10 million with Dodgers, Dec. 17.\n\n28. Johnny Cueto (37, SP, White Sox)\n\nA nice revival for the quick-pitching right-hander, whose 158 ⅓-inning total was his highest since his 2016 All-Star campaign. The innings-eaters thin out pretty quickly on this list, making postmodern Cueto a decent gamble for mid-range rotation help.\n\nSIGNED: One year, $8.5 million with Marlins, Jan. 10.\n\n29. Jose Quintana (34, SP, Cardinals)\n\nA wild ride for Quintana, who looked cooked after a lost 2021 but posted a 2.93 ERA over 32 starts and got the Game 1 nod in the playoffs after a trade from Pittsburgh to St. Louis. Betting on a repeat might be foolhardy, but Quintana suppresses home runs (majors-best 0.4 per nine) and controls the strike zone, which is most of the battle these days.\n\nSIGNED: Two years, $26 million with Mets, Dec. 7.\n\n30. Ross Stripling (33, SP, Blue Jays)\n\nBehold the majors’ self-awareness king, who knows he won’t strike out many guys, isn’t built to go deep into games but knows how to deliver quality innings. Stripling provided a 1.02 WHIP over 134 ⅓ innings and can start, “open” or pitch bulk relief innings.\n\nSIGNED: Two years, $25 million with Giants, Dec. 13.\n\n31. Andrew Benintendi (28, OF, Yankees)\n\nA strange 2022 for Benintendi, who posted a career-best .373 OBP, made the AL All-Star team and then fractured a hamate bone after a trade from Kansas City to New York. He hit just five home runs in 461 at-bats. Yet his age is such that there could still be growth for Benintendi – from an acumen and/or power standpoint.\n\nSIGNED: Five years, $75 million with White Sox, Dec. 16.\n\n32. Matt Moore (33, RP, Rangers)\n\nThanks to advanced metrics, teams are finding they can get by without a left-handed reliever (see: Astros), but Moore morphed into one of the best in his first season exclusively out of the bullpen. Moore struck out 10 per nine innings and notched five saves and 14 holds with just one blown save.\n\nSIGNED: One year, $7.55 million with Angels, Feb. 16.\n\n33. Mitch Haniger (32, OF, Mariners)\n\nInjuries have limited Haniger to 277 games since 2018, but he’s managed a 120 adjusted OPS over the past two seasons, including a 39-homer campaign in 2021.\n\nSIGNED: Three years, $43.5 million with Giants, Dec. 6.\n\n34. Corey Kluber (36, SP, Rays)\n\nThe former Cy Young Award winner topped the 30-start mark for the first time since 2018 and while he posted a 4.34 ERA, did lead the majors in fewest walks (1.2) per nine innings. A friendly ballpark and an elite defensive team would make a particularly good fit for Kluber, who may get a multiyear commitment after signing a pair of one-year deals.\n\nSIGNED: One year, $10 million with Red Sox, Dec. 28.\n\n35. Noah Syndergaard (30, SP, Phillies)\n\nAn odd but effective 2022 for Thor, who in his first full-bore year back from Tommy John surgery pitched above league average in 24 starts for the Angels and Phillies before adopting a swingman role in the postseason. Whether he can build back toward the guy who tossed 197 innings in 2019 is uncertain, but in the right hands, he should take another step toward the previous version of himself.\n\nSIGNED: One year, $13 million with Dodgers, Dec. 14.\n\n36. Drew Smyly (33, SP, Cubs)\n\nSmyly’s 2023 team will likely be his eighth in 10 seasons, but he might finally lay down some roots. While he pitched just 106 ⅓ innings, Smyly posted a 3.47 ERA and a 118 adjusted ERA and is firmly atop a second tier of available lefty starters.\n\nSIGNED: Two years, $19 million with Cubs, Dec. 22.\n\n37. Zach Eflin (28, SP/RP, Phillies)\n\nRecovering from a knee injury hatched a pleasant surprise for the Phillies and Eflin, who, lacking the runway to build back as a starter, became a crucial relief weapon for them down the stretch and in the playoffs. Eflin tossed 6 ⅓ scoreless innings over six games of the NLCS and World Series, and he gave up just one earned run in 7 ⅓ relief innings in the regular season. Perhaps a Philly reunion, where they know what he can bring to the table, is the best outcome for all.\n\nSIGNED: Three years, $40 million with Rays, Dec. 1.\n\n38. Andrew Chafin (32, RP, Tigers)\n\nOpted out after a solid single season in Detroit, where he punched out 67 in 57 ⅓ innings. Salty veteran presence will play well in a veteran or developing bullpen.\n\nSIGNED: One year, $6.25 million with Diamondbacks, Feb. 13.\n\n39. Chris Martin (36, RP, Dodgers)\n\nYet another L.A. success story, as Martin went from mop-up work with the Cubs (4.31 ERA in 34 games) to a high-leverage slot with the Dodgers (1.46 ERA in 24 games). Come playoff time, he was an eighth- or ninth-inning guy; for his sake, here’s hoping he bottled whatever the Dodgers gave him.\n\nSIGNED: Two years, $17.5 million with Red Sox, Dec. 2.\n\n40. Brandon Drury (30, INF/OF, Padres)\n\nAfter churning through four teams in seven seasons, Drury found his groove in 2022, smacking a career-best 28 homers with the Reds and Padres, winning a Silver Slugger award. He added five RBI in the NLCS and, with his multi-positional versatility, may have found a niche by his 30th birthday.\n\nSIGNED: Two years, $17 million with Angels, Dec. 20.\n\n41. Jordan Lyles (32, SP, Orioles)\n\nThe Lyles-Orioles union was ideal: Veteran starter provides innings and counsel to young, unproven staff. Now, they’re ready to move on, declining Lyles’ $11 million club option. But Lyles posts, logging 180 and 179 innings the past two seasons and should do the same for a similarly green staff in 2023.\n\nSIGNED: Two years, $17 million with Royals, Dec. 20.\n\n42. Kevin Kiermaier (32, OF, Rays)\n\nKiermaier seems as much a part of Tampa Bay as grouper sandwiches and pop-up showers, but the club declined his ’23 option, which likely marks the end of his decade at Tropicana Field. Kiermaier totes a .308 career OBP and will be coming off hip surgery, but remains one of the game’s elite defensive center fielders.\n\nSIGNED: One year, $9 million with Blue Jays, Dec. 9.\n\n43. Andrew Heaney (31, SP/RP, Dodgers)\n\nInjuries limited Heaney to 72 ⅔ innings but, as so many do, he renewed his career with the Dodgers, posting his finest season since 2015. Heaney struck out 110 and posted a 1.08 WHIP and likely found a road map for optimal usage – mostly starter, sometimes reliever, deployed in multi-inning bursts.\n\nSIGNED: Two years, $25 million with Rangers, Dec. 6.\n\n44. Adam Ottavino (37, RP, Mets)\n\nOttavino has pitched in five consecutive postseasons and, even as he nears 40, still finds himself in high-leverage situations for playoff teams. He dropped his WHIP below 1.00 for the first time since 2018 and posted a fabulous 188 adjusted ERA.\n\nSIGNED: Two years, $14.5 million with Mets, Dec. 20.\n\n45. Justin Turner (38, 3B, Dodgers)\n\nThe Dodgers unsurprisingly declined his $16 million option and it’d be equally unsurprising if they brought him back at a lesser salary. Turner turned in a respectable .278/.350/.438 season, though his home run output dipped from 27 to 13.\n\nSIGNED: Two years, $21.7 million with Red Sox, Dec. 18.\n\n46. Rich Hill (43, SP, Red Sox)\n\nIt may once again be Boston or bust for Hill, who has expressed an interest in returning and also representing the USA in the World Baseball Classic. Even if he’s just a five-inning guy in his advanced age, Hill remains valued in Boston and a return seems quite possible.\n\nSIGNED: One year, $8 million with Pirates, Dec. 27.\n\n47. Yuli Gurriel (38, 1B, Astros)\n\nFrom batting champion to below-average hitter, it’s fair to wonder if time has caught up with Gurriel, whose average has fluctuated greatly the past four seasons: .298, .232, .319, .242. He rallied with a fabulous postseason, posting a .347/.360/.490 line in 50 plate appearances and that’s probably where his future lies: Part-time bat on a contending team.\n\nSIGNED: Minor-league contract with Marlins, March 10.\n\n48. A.J. Pollock (35, OF, White Sox)\n\nPollock struggled in his first AL season, posting a career-low .292 OBP in 527 plate appearances. He was probably too exposed in Chicago’s lineup and should provide value in a more part-time role, where he might better approach the .355 OBP he produced for the Dodgers in 2021.\n\nSIGNED: One year, $7 million with Mariners, Jan. 8.\n\n49. Matt Carpenter (37, 1B/DH, Yankees)\n\nThe Yankees rescued Carpenter from a minor-league contract with Texas and deployed him to perfection, batting .305 and hitting 15 home runs in 154 plate appearances. Should be an ideal lefty part of a DH platoon somewhere.\n\nSIGNED: Two years, $12 million with Padres, Dec. 20.\n\n50. Jurickson Profar (30, INF/OF, Padres)\n\nProfar played in a career-high 152 games and was a playoff menace, producing a .365 OBP, often out of the leadoff spot. While he’ll never hit for much power, Profar remains a multi-position value for a contending team.\n\nSIGNED: One year, $7.75 million with Rockies, March 19.\n\n51. Jean Segura (33, INF, Phillies)\n\nSegura broke the majors’ longest streak without reaching the playoffs (1,328 games) and then got the Phillies’ biggest hit, a go-ahead single in their wild-card opener at St. Louis. Segura is a valued veteran and a firmly league average hitter, but Philadelphia is expected to go big at shortstop and move rookie Bryson Stott to second base.\n\nSIGNED: Two years, $17 million with Marlins, Dec. 28.\n\n52. Michael Brantley (35, OF, Astros)\n\nCheck back in five decades, when Brantley will wake up from an afternoon nap at the senior center and knock out three hits. He had a .370 OBP before a torn labrum that required shoulder surgery ended his year after 64 games. He will mash, somewhere.\n\nSIGNED: One year, $12 million with Astros, Dec. 18.\n\n53. Mike Clevinger (32, SP, Padres)\n\nFour years after striking out 207 batters, Clevinger remains a curiosity, largely because injuries limited him to 30 starts since 2020. San Diego saw fit to give him two playoff starts and he didn’t record an out in the second one. An incentive-laced deal for a maybe-contender would seem to best benefit both parties.\n\nSIGNED: One year, $12 million with White Sox, Nov. 27.\n\n54. Zack Greinke (39, SP, Royals)\n\nSeems like a Royals reunion is in the works here, unless Greinke and Family decide to become full-time Mariners season-ticket holders. Can Greinke rack up 118 more strikeouts and become the 20th pitcher to exceed 3,000 in a career?\n\nSIGNED: One year, $8 million with Royals, Jan. 30.\n\n55. David Phelps (36, RP, Blue Jays)\n\nHe took the ball 65 times at age 35, and therein lies Phelps’ value. A 64-31 strikeout-walk ratio won’t get checkbooks rumbling, but Phelps will absorb innings and often in quality fashion, with a 2.83 ERA in 2022.\n\nRETIRED: Announced retirement Jan. 18.\n\n56. David Peralta (35, OF, Rays)\n\nYou can count on Peralta for 30 doubles a year and slightly better than league average production overall, though his Silver Slugger season of 2018 does seem like a long time ago.\n\nSIGNED: One year, $7.5 million with Dodgers, Feb. 10.\n\n57. Elvis Andrus (35, SS, White Sox)\n\nNext year will mark Andrus’ 15th in the major leagues, all of them spent at shortstop. He and the White Sox got a nice little boost when he arrived in an August trade and Andrus finished as a league average hitter for the first time since 2017.\n\nSIGNED: One year, $3 million with White Sox, Feb. 19.\n\n58. Andrew McCutchen (36, OF, Brewers)\n\nLast year marked a career first for McCutchen: The only season in which his adjusted OPS (99) was less than league average. OK, so just barely, but nonetheless, the former MVP needs a path to viability entering his 15th season after he hit .237 with 17 homers in 515 at-bats and was successful on just 57% of his 14 stolen base attempts.\n\nSIGNED: One year, $5 million with Pirates, Jan. 20.\n\n59. Brandon Belt (34, 1B/DH, Giants)\n\nA dozen years in San Francisco finished roughly for Belt, plagued by injuries and seeing his OPS plummet from .975 to .676. But good health and a fresh start would make him an attractive lefty DH candidate.\n\nSIGNED: One year, $9.3 million with Blue Jays, Jan. 9.\n\n60. Trey Mancini (31, 1B/OF, Astros)\n\nProbably best to judge Mancini for the .751 OPS in four months with Baltimore than the .622 mark after a trade to Houston – though he will get a shiny championship ring from the Astros. Still some pop in that bat and always plenty of respect in the clubhouse should a first base/DH timeshare open up for him.\n\nSIGNED: Two years, $14 million with Cubs, Jan. 20.\n\n61. Kyle Gibson (35, SP, Phillies)\n\nHe still eats innings with the best of them, but now they taste a little more sour. Gibson produced a 5.05 ERA over 167 ⅔ innings, and his 5.06 ERA in a year and a half with Philly was a run and a half more than his previous year and a half in Texas (3.52). Will take ball, will travel.\n\nSIGNED: One year, $10 million with Orioles, Dec. 5.\n\n62. Carlos Santana (36, DH, Mariners)\n\nSantana is very much in the hired gun stage of his career, what with his OBP dropping from .397 in an All-Star season of 2019 to .316 last year. He did help galvanize the Mariners’ lineup, though, hitting 14 homers in 79 games, and retains value as a lefty-swinging DH.\n\nSIGNED: One year, $6.7 million with Pirates, Nov. 25.\n\n63. Michael Lorenzen (31, SP, Angels)\n\nFor the first time in his career, Lorenzen worked exclusively as a starter and was OK, averaging 5 ⅓ innings per outing with a 4.24 ERA. And that’s what you’ll likely get: A five-ish inning, league average pitcher.\n\nSIGNED: One year, $8.5 million with Tigers, Dec. 14.\n\n64. Tommy Kahnle (33, RP, Dodgers)\n\nL.A. devoted two years to Kahnle’s Tommy John surgery recovery and got 12 appearances out of it, plus three more in the playoffs. But Kahnle did show glimpses why the Dodgers were so intrigued, posting a 0.63 WHIP in his limited runway.\n\nSIGNED: Two years, $11.5 million with Yankees, Dec. 6.\n\n65. Matthew Boyd (32, SP, Mariners)\n\nSigned by the Giants in hopes he’d recover from injury to contribute, Boyd instead was shipped to Seattle in August and made 10 relief appearances, posting a 1.35 ERA. Could start or relieve in the future and yes, he’s left-handed.\n\nSIGNED: One year, $10 million with Tigers, Dec. 14.\n\n66. Brad Hand (33, RP, Phillies)\n\nIt’s been an uneven past two seasons for the three-time All-Star, who bobbed in and out of the Phillies’ circle of trust before making seven postseason appearances, five of them scoreless. Likely won’t land a closer gig, but can still take down fairly high-leverage late innings.\n\nSIGNED: One year, $2 million with Rockies, March 4.\n\n67. Brad Boxberger (34, RP, Brewers)\n\nMilwaukee declined a $3 million club option after Boxberger posted nearly identical seasons for them (64 innings, 68 strikeouts, 2.95 ERA in ’22). He’ll probably do about that well on the market and settle in as a set-up man.\n\nSIGNED: One year, $2.8 million with Cubs, Dec. 15.\n\n68. Craig Kimbrel (34, RP, Dodgers)\n\nThe Craig Conundrum: Kimbrel isn’t comfortable in non-closing situations, but in 2022 was not particularly good as a closer. This left the Dodgers with little choice but keep him off the playoff roster. While he did save 22 games (and blew five others), his 7.7 hits per nine innings made many of them the white-knuckle variety.\n\nSIGNED: One year, $10 million with Phillies, Dec. 23.\n\n69. Joey Gallo (29, OF, Dodgers)\n\nWhile it was convenient for a minute to say Gallo found a comfort level after his trade from New York to L.A., his line with the Dodgers (.162/.277/.393) was just as bad as it was with the Yankees (.159, .282, .339). Still, Gallo’s relative youth and power history (38 homers in 2021) will ensure he gets a DH gig in some form.\n\nSIGNED: One year, $11 million with Twins, Dec. 16.\n\n70. Zach Davies (30, SP, Diamondbacks)\n\nDavies pared his ERA from 5.78 with the Cubs to 4.09 over 27 starts with the Diamondbacks, largely by cutting his walks by nearly a quarter. Rotation-filling fodder.\n\nSIGNED: One year, $5 million with Diamondbacks, Jan. 4.\n\n71. Jace Peterson (32, INF/OF, Brewers)\n\nJust keeps chugging along: Was worth 2.3 WAR last season and should provide positional versatility to his sixth club come 2023.\n\nSIGNED: Two years, $9.5 million with Athletics, Dec. 14.\n\n72. Michael Fulmer (30, RP, Twins)\n\nThe one-time Rookie of the Year is now a usable relief piece, though a career-worst 4.6 walks per nine will dampen his earning power and a shot at high-leverage roles early.\n\nSIGNED: One year, $4 million with Cubs, Feb. 10.\n\n73. Christian Vázquez (32, C, Astros)\n\nAnd so begins the march of respected veteran backstops. Vazquez’s trade left ‘em choked up in the Red Sox dugout and delighted in Houston, where he contributed three hits in 10 at-bats during the ALCS and World Series. A respectable 109 adjusted OPS overall.\n\nSIGNED: Three years, $30 million with Twins, Dec. 16.\n\n74. Luke Jackson (31, RP, Braves)\n\nPerhaps a major league guarantee will be too hard to come by, but Jackson finished second in the NL with 31 holds in 2021 before April 2022 Tommy John surgery. With recovery time typically shorter for relievers, a modest multiyear commitment would be a decent gamble on a guy who posted a 1.98 ERA in his most recent season.\n\nSIGNED: Two years, $11.5 million with Giants, Jan. 9.\n\n75. Taylor Rogers (32, RP, Brewers)\n\nAfter posting a 3.15 ERA and 50 saves in six seasons with Minnesota, the bottom fell out for Rogers after trades to San Diego and Milwaukee, where he combined for a 4.76 ERA. Yet his 1.18 WHIP was in line with his 1.16 mark; a moderate bounce-back seems possible.\n\nSIGNED: Three years, $33 million with Giants, Dec. 23.\n\n76. Josh Harrison (35, INF, White Sox)\n\nEven if lighter in the bat department these days, Harrison played five positions for the White Sox, including pitcher, and provides key roster flexibility along with veteran bona fides.\n\nSIGNED: One year, $2 million with Phillies, Jan. 29.\n\n77. David Robertson (37, RP, Phillies)\n\nRobertson recorded the Phillies’ lone World Series save, capping a year that began with the Cubs. Robertson’s 3.58 FIP is below average for a high-leverage reliever.\n\nSIGNED: One year, $10 million with Mets, Dec. 8.\n\n78. Tucker Barnhart (32, C, Tigers)\n\nWhile his OBP fell to a career-low .287, Barnhart remains a respected receiver and should find a slot in the catching carousel.\n\nSIGNED: Two years, $6.5 million with Cubs, Dec. 22.\n\n79. Will Smith (33, RP, Astros)\n\nSmith saved 37 games and helmed the World Series-winning Night Shift bullpen in Atlanta in 2021, then saw his WHIP spike to 1.41 and was traded to Houston. While Smith made the World Series roster, he did not pitch in the ’22 Series and may need to crawl back from a diminished role to begin ’23.\n\nSIGNED: One year, $1.5 million, with Rangers, March 4.\n\n80. Erasmo Ramirez (32, RP, Nationals)\n\nHe did everything the Nationals asked and did it well, finishing with a 2.92 ERA and 1.08 WHIP in a bullpen often under siege from starters failing to get deep into games.\n\nSIGNED: One year, $1 million with Nationals, Dec. 20.\n\n81. Dylan Bundy (30, SP, Twins)\n\nBundy started 29 games but was hit hard in Minnesota, yielding a 4.89 ERA and nearly 10 hits per nine innings.\n\nSIGNED: Minor-league contract with Mets, March 25.\n\n82. Robbie Grossman (33, OF, Braves)\n\nWhile Grossman suffered the worst year of his career, he did improve his OPS by 80 points after a trade to Atlanta. A reserve outfielder who can man either corner, has a .346 OBP and occasional sock.\n\nSIGNED: One year, $2 million with Rangers, Feb. 18.\n\n83. Omar Narvaez (31, C, Brewers)\n\nWhile his glimpses of power have vanished (22 homers in 2019, 11 in ’21), Narvaez remains a predictive presence in a catching timeshare.\n\nSIGNED: Two years, $15 million with Mets, Dec. 15.\n\n84. Chad Pinder (31, INF/OF, Athletics)\n\nA dash of power and the promise of positional flexibility should afford Pinder a shot elsewhere after becoming the rare player to reach free agency in Oakland before he’s traded.\n\nSIGNED: Minor-league deal with Reds, Jan. 30.\n\n85. Trevor May (33, RP, Mets)\n\nHad a 5.04 ERA overall but it was 3.24, with a 2.75 FIP, after a three-month absence due to a stress reaction in his humerus. May averaged 12 strikeouts per nine innings with a 3.33 ERA from 2018-21.\n\nSIGNED: One year, $7 million with Athletics, Dec. 16.\n\n86. Austin Hedges (30, C, Guardians)\n\nProduced an abysmal 42 adjusted OPS yet still caught 105 games for the AL Central champions. Clearly the man is doing something right behind the plate.\n\nSIGNED: One year, $5 million with Pirates, Dec. 17.\n\n87. Corey Dickerson (33, OF, Cardinals)\n\nThe one-time All-Star now personifies the league average hitter, which should mean a gig as an extra outfielder or part-time DH.\n\nSIGNED: One year, $2.25 million with Nationals, Jan. 10.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/11/11"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/12/sport/gallery/nfl-2022-season/index.html", "title": "The best photos from the 2022 NFL season | CNN", "text": "The Cleveland Browns run the ball across midfield against the New York Jets during the first quarter at FirstEnergy Stadium. The Browns ended up losing 31-30 after being up by 13 points with 1:55 remaining in the game. Jets QB Joe Flacco threw for 307 yards and four TDs — including two in the final two minutes of the game — to carry the Jets. Sunday's game saw the return of \"Brownie the Elf\" to the Browns' home field. The logo was initially used by the Browns in their inaugural season in 1946 but fell out of favor in the 60s, returning when the franchise was brought back to Cleveland in 1999. Scott Galvin/USA Today Sports", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/09/12"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/columnists/gregg-doyel/2017/04/13/doyel-media-decide-paul-georges-future-fix-now/100412728/", "title": "Doyel: The media will decide Paul George's future? Fix this now", "text": "Gregg Doyel\n\ngregg.doyel@indystar.com\n\nINDIANAPOLIS – The media will decide whether Paul George stays with the Indiana Pacers, and it will be close — a vote for PG or Anthony Davis here, a vote for Jimmy Butler or Draymond Green there. And then it will be over. Paul George will make the All-NBA third team, or he won’t. The Pacers will or won't be able to offer him this summer a super-max contract extension that will top all other offers he could receive next summer in free agency by roughly $70 million.\n\nPaul George can look at that great googly-moogly gob of money he can get here in Indianapolis, and only here in Indianapolis, and he will become a Pacers star for life.\n\nOr he can’t, so he won’t.\n\nMORE PACERS:\n\nDoyel: Paul George has dragged the Pacers into the playoffs\n\nPaul George on the Cavs: 'It’s who I’ve wanted to matchup against'\n\n5 things to know about the Cleveland Cavaliers\n\nThe media will do this, but whatever we decide, it won’t be our fault. This is not the system we wanted. Around the country, newspapers are starting to withdraw their staff writers from this sort of voting nonsense, for this nonsensical reason. The Washington Post’s NBA writer cannot vote. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s NBA writer cannot vote. Soon, I hope, my IndyStar bosses will follow suit.\n\nPacers Insider Nate Taylor does have a vote for the All-NBA teams. He wants no part of this, has told me that, but he will have a voice, one voice, about 1 percent of the expected pool. Last year, there were 129 All-NBA voters, but this season the NBA has removed team broadcasters from the voting pool. Because of the conflict of interest. As if the conflict stops there.\n\nWhat if Paul George makes the All-NBA third team by a single vote? What if he falls short by a single vote? What if the $70 million in additional money the Pacers and only the Pacers can offer Paul George is applicable and it sways him to stay?\n\nWhat if it’s not, so he doesn’t?\n\nIs Nate Taylor going to decide the future of the Indiana Pacers?\n\nNo, this is not our fault. The idea behind the super-max contract is terrific — the NBA wants to reward its best players — but the execution is off. And it’s the fault of the players and the league for allowing such an enormous incentive to be decided by something as arbitrary and even absurd as the whims of an NBA writer in Detroit or Dallas or Indianapolis.\n\nMy solution? Let coaches vote, but make them unable to vote for players on their team. But even that is fraught with danger. Does the Los Angeles Lakers’ Luke Walton leave Paul George off his ballot entirely, hoping that omission slides PG off the All-NBA third team, out of super-max territory and into free agency — where he just might pick … the Lakers?\n\nNow then, enough moaning. Tell me what’s going to happen — right? That’s what you care about at this moment: Don’t tell me what’s wrong with the system. Tell me what the system will do about Paul George.\n\nSo, here. I’ve talked this week to 10 NBA media members, roughly 10 percent of the voting electorate, and I can tell you, with certainty, this:\n\nIt’s going to be close.\n\nIt’s going to be really close.\n\nFive writers told me they’d put Paul George on one of the three All-NBA teams. (The four forwards on the first two teams figure to be LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard, Kevin Durant and Giannis Antetokounmpo.)\n\nThree writers told me: No. They will not vote PG for any of the three All-NBA teams. Two said: He’s under consideration, but we don’t know yet. Votes are due this week, then we wait. All-NBA teams typically are announced in late May.\n\nLook, it’s possible that not even the money — assuming he makes the All-NBA third team and the Pacers offer him the super-max extension — would sway George to stay. One way or another he’s going to be rich in a manner none of us can probably comprehend, himself included. Maybe he looks at the Pacers’ super-max offer and looks at the roster and gauges the future and decides he’d rather play for slightly smaller gobs of money elsewhere, whether for the hometown Lakers or somewhere else, anywhere else.\n\nEVEN MORE PACERS:\n\nPacers vs. Cleveland playoff schedule\n\nAnkle injury not expected to sideline Pacers' Jeff Teague\n\nReaction: Get the Lance/LeBron memes out of the way now\n\nIf it’s not here, it doesn’t much matter where Paul George plays next, or why. All that will matter is that the Pacers will have lost the kind of transcendent talent that some teams never get. The Memphis Grizzlies, created in 1995 when the NBA expended into Vancouver, British Columbia, have spent 22 years in two NBA countries and never had this kind of talent. The Charlotte Hornets have been around since 1988. They’ve been called the Hornets, the Bobcats, the Hornets again. They’ve never had a Paul George. Go look up Alonzo Mourning’s career. He made an All-NBA team twice in 11 years. He was great. He was no Paul George.\n\nMuch like the money he will sign for one way or another, Paul George is special – talented and freakish in a league full of freakish talent – in a way that defies description.\n\nShould he make the 2017 All-NBA third team? Yeah. I think he should. LeBron and Kawhi would be my first-team forwards. Durant and Antetokounmpo would be on my second team. On the third team, just ahead of Utah’s Gordon Hayward (from Brownsburg and Butler) and Golden State’s Draymond Green, it would be Chicago's Jimmy Butler and Paul George — and probably in that order, though the cartoon superhero way PG has finished this season makes me wonder if it should be George and Butler.\n\nDoyel: 'Playoff Paul' lifts the switch, energizes Pacers\n\nBut I don’t have a vote. And even if I did, I wouldn’t know what to make of New Orleans’ Anthony Davis. See, Davis is a clear All-NBA player. Second team, at worst. What’s not clear? His position. He has split time at forward and center this season, especially after the Pelicans acquired center (forward?) DeMarcus Cousins. The Pelican’s official roster isn’t helpful, listing each guy as a “forward-center.”\n\nMaking the All-NBA voting even more insane, the NBA isn’t telling voters which position to consider Davis. And so some voters will make him a center, and the rest a forward. Davis will get credit for every vote he receives, but his tally will be skewed — it will be wrong — because on some ballots he’ll be competing with LeBron James and Kawhi Leonard. On others? Marc Gasol and Karl-Anthony Towns.\n\nImagine Paul George making the All-NBA third team, and receiving the super-max contract, only because voters didn’t know what to do with Anthony Davis and split his landslide of votes into two smaller rockslides that left him off all three All-NBA teams.\n\nThis is happening. This is really happening. The Pacers’ next decade could be determined this week by a sports writer in Toronto deciding whether Anthony Davis is a forward or center.\n\nFix this mess, NBA commissioner Adam Silver. And fix it now.\n\nFind IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter:@GreggDoyelStar or atfacebook.com/gregg.doyel.\n\nTHIRD TEAM = $70 MILLION\n\nIf the Indiana Pacers' Paul George is voted on one of the three All-NBA teams but the media, he will be eligible for a super-max contract from the Pacers. He is under contract for $19.3 million next season, here's an estimate of what the Pacers can offer George versus other NBA teams:\n\nWHO YOU GOT?\n\nLeBron James and Kawhi Leonard are likely the first-team All-NBA forwards. Kevin Durant and Giannis Antekoumpo the second team ... if Anthony Davis is a center. Who is Paul George's competition for third team? A look at the candidates:\n\nPaul George, Indiana: Already a three-time All-NBA member, George set career-highs in points (23.7), field goal percentage (.461) and free-throw percentage (.898), while also shooting 39.4 percent on 3s and averaging 6.6 rebounds, 3.3 assists and 1.6 steals. In finishing the season with five must-win games, George averaged 30.8 points, 8.0 rebounds, 3.6 assists and 1.8 steals, while shooting 56.9 percent from the field and 44.2 percent on 3s. He's also considered an elite defender.\n\nJimmy Butler, Chicago: Butler's case is remarkably similar to George's. Butler averaged 23.9 points on 45.5 percent shooting (36.7 percent on 3s), with 6.2 rebounds, 5.5 assists and 1.9 steals. He's been almost as good as George down the stretch as well, leading the Bulls to seven wins in their last nine games by averaging 26.3 points on 51.9 percent shooting, 66.7 percent on 3s, 6.0 rebounds, 6.3 assists and 1.8 steals.\n\nDraymond Green, Golden State: Green has averaged 10.2 points, 7.9 rebounds, 7.0 assists, 2.0 steals and 1.4 blocks per game for the league's best team. He's also a candidate for defensive player of the year. But he's the fourth-best player on his own team and shot just 41.8 percent (30.8 percent on 3s) this season, far below his numbers the previous two seasons.\n\nGordon Hayward, Utah: Exhibit A in how deep the forward position is in the NBA right now. The former Brownsburg High and Butler star is averaging 21.9 points on 47.1 percent shooting (39.8 on 3s), 5.4 rebounds and 3.5 assists, yet it'd be difficult to make a case for him to make even third-team All-NBA given the competition. He's led a resurgence in Utah, which finished 51-31 this season.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2017/04/13"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2022/09/15/rays-rout-blue-jays-11-0-with-all-latin-american-starting-9/50741211/", "title": "Mets beat Pirates 7-1 on Clemente Day to extend slim lead", "text": "AP\n\nNEW YORK (AP) — On a Roberto Clemente Day particularly meaningful to both of them, Francisco Lindor and Carlos Carrasco propelled the New York Mets past the Pittsburgh Pirates 7-1 on Thursday night to extend their slim lead in the NL East.\n\nLindor launched his 24th home run to set a Mets season record for shortstops, and Carrasco (15-6) struck out 11 in six splendid innings as New York moved a game ahead of idle Atlanta.\n\nSlumping designated hitter Daniel Vogelbach drove in three runs against his former team, and pinch-hitter Mark Vientos had an RBI single for his first major league hit.\n\nBreaking out early at the plate in the opener of a four-game series, the Mets halted a five-game home losing streak and rebounded from a three-game sweep by the Chicago Cubs at Citi Field.\n\nMichael Chavis had an RBI double in the second for the last-place Pirates. JT Brubaker (3-12) was tagged for five runs and seven hits over three innings before leaving with discomfort in his right lat muscle. He is day-to-day.\n\nFollow every game: Latest MLB Scores and Schedules\n\nRAYS 11, BLUE JAYS 0\n\nTORONTO (AP) — Yandy Díaz hit a three-run home run and Tampa — starting an unprecedented nine Latin American players on Roberto Clemente Day — routed Toronto to pull within a half-game of the Blue Jays in the wild-card chase.\n\nClemente, the late Hall of Fame outfielder from Puerto Rico, was a two-time World Series winner and NL MVP who played 18 seasons with Pittsburgh.\n\nActivated off the injured list after missing 15 games because of a left shoulder impingement, Shane McClanahan (12-5) pitched five shutout innings. He allowed three hits, struck out five and walked one.\n\nIsaac Paredes hit a solo home run and added an RBI single as the Rays (80-63) won the fifth and final game of the series. Toronto (81-63) will play a four-game series at Tampa Bay, starting next Thursday.\n\nSeattle (80-62), which holds one of the three AL wild-card spots, was idle Thursday, but moved percentage points ahead of Toronto.\n\nDíaz homered in a four-run second inning, his ninth. Paredes made it 5-0 with a leadoff blast in the seventh, his 19th\n\nKevin Gausman (12-10) was the loser.\n\nASTROS 5, ATHLETICS 2\n\nHOUSTON (AP) — Aledmys Díaz hit a two-run homer, Lance McCullers Jr. had a solid start and Houston beat Oakland for its fifth straight victory.\n\nAt 94-50, American League-leading Houston’s magic number to clinch a postseason spot is one. The Astros are 13-3 in their last 16 games.\n\nDíaz broke a 2-2 tie in seventh inning, roping an 84-mph slider from Joel Payamps (3-6) into the left-field Crawford Boxes. Díaz has 11 homers this season.\n\nMcCullers had 11 strikeouts — his most since July 29, 2018 — and held Oakland to two hits and two runs while walking four.\n\nSeth Martinez (1-1) pitched a scoreless seventh, and Rafael Montero worked the ninth for his 13th save.\n\nWHITE SOX 8, GUARDIANS 2\n\nCLEVELAND (AP) — Elvis Andrus hit one of Chicago’s five home runs off rookie Hunter Gaddis — and backed up a pregame swipe at the Guardians —to help cut Cleveland’s lead in the AL Central to three games.\n\nAndrus connected in the fifth inning off Gaddis (0-2) — the first Cleveland pitcher to allow five homers in a game since Luis Tiant in 1969.\n\nOn Wednesday, Andrus raised some eyebrows by telling reporters he expected the first-place Guardians “to crumble, the closer we get.”\n\nGavin Sheets hit a two-run homer in the second to start Chicago’s homer spree against Gaddis, and Andrew Vaughn, Yoán Moncada and Yasmani Grandal joined Andrus by hitting shots off the right-hander.\n\nLance Lynn (7-5) limited the Guardians to two run and six hits in 6 1/3 innings. The right-hander is 5-0 in his last seven starts. Cleveland had its winning streak stopped at six.\n\nREDS 3, CARDINALS 2\n\nST. LOUIS (AP) — Nick Senzel and Aristides Aquino hit solo home runs and Cincinnati beat NL Central-leading St. Louis to snap a six-game losing streak in the opener of a five-game series.\n\nSt. Louis made it interesting in the ninth against rookie reliever Alexis Diaz, loading the bases with one out on two singles and walk before pulling within a run on a sacrifice fly by Albert Pujols. Diaz then got pinch-hitter Cory Dickerson to ground out to end the game and earn his seventh save.\n\nAquino and Spencer Steer each had two hits for the Reds.\n\nPujols finished 0 for 3 and remained at 697 career home runs. He is fourth on the career list behind Barry Bonds (762), Hank Aaron (755) and Babe Ruth (714).\n\nCincinnati starter Chase Anderson (1-3) was the winner. Miles Mikolas (11-12) took the loss.\n\nMARLINS 5, PHILLIES 3\n\nMIAMI (AP) — Kyle Schwarber hit his NL-leading 38th homer for Philadelphia in the playoff-contending Phillies’ loss to Miami.\n\nSchwarber connected off Pablo López in the sixth with a solo shot to right-center.\n\nMiami rookie Jordan Groshans hit his first major league homer and Bryan De La Cruz also went deep and had four RBIs.\n\nLópez (9-10) completed 6 2/3 innings, allowing two runs and six hits. Dylan Floro pitched the ninth for his fifth save. Noah Syndergaad (9-10) was the loser.\n\nDIAMONDBACKS 4, PADRES 0\n\nPHOENIX (AP) — Drey Jameson pitched seven shutout innings in his major league debut and Arizona hit three home runs to beat San Diego.\n\nJameson, called up Thursday from Triple-A Reno, gave up two hits — both by Brandon Drury — and walked one. He struck out five — including Juan Soto twice — and got 10 ground outs. He threw 90 pitches, 62 for strikes.\n\nKevin Ginkel, Joe Mantiply and Reyes Moronta finished the three-hitter. Ketel Marte, Emmanuel Rivera and Carson Kelly hit solo homers.\n\nSean Manaea (7-9) was the loser.\n\nTWINS 3, ROYALS 2\n\nMINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Carlos Correa’s solo home run in the first inning and Nick Gordon’s two-run shot in the second were enough for Minnesota to beat Kansas City for a three-game sweep.\n\nThe Twins (72-70) pulled within four games of first-place Cleveland in the AL Central.\n\nTrevor Megill (4-3), who threw the first of five scoreless innings by five Twins relievers, picked up the victory with a perfect fifth. Jhoan Duran got his seventh save with a tense ninth,\n\nRoyals starter Daniel Lynch (4-11) was the loser.\n\n___\n\nMore AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/09/15"}]}
{"question_id": "20230317_14", "search_time": "2023/05/25/17:56", "search_result": [{"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/dining/2023/03/14/pi-day-2023-deals-phoenix-restaurants-offer-free-discounted-pizza/70007850007/", "title": "Pi Day 2023 deals: For the love of math, snag discounted pizza at ...", "text": "Arizona Republic\n\nTuesday equals deals on pizza pies.\n\nMarch 14 marks Pi Day, the annual holiday in honor of the mathematical constant π (pi), the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter.\n\nThe irrational number is typically rounded down to 3.14 hence why the celebration takes place on March 14, which has a numerical date of 3/14. The date also happens to be famed physicist Albert Einstein's birthday and marks the anniversary of Stephen Hawking's death.\n\nWhile the day is really about math, many restaurants offer deals and discounts on circular food, including pizza and traditional dessert pies, to celebrate the holiday.\n\nPro moves:100 essential restaurants in metro Phoenix\n\nWhy is Pi Day celebrated on March 14?\n\nIn 1988, Larry Shaw, a former staff physicist at the Exploratorium museum in San Francisco, linked March 14 (3/14) with the digits of pi (3.14) and celebrated the first Pi Day with fruit pies and tea. Shaw led Pi Day parades yearly at the museum until his death in 2017, according to the Exploratorium.\n\nPi Day became an annual tradition at the Exploratorium, and the celebration became an official U.S. national holiday in 2009. The U.S. House of Representativesresolution that designated Pi Day aims to encourage \"schools and educators to observe the day with appropriate activities that teach students about Pi and engage them about the study of mathematics.\"\n\nWhether you're a math lover or a food lover (or both), here are some tasty deals you can snag on Pi Day. The offers are only available Tuesday unless otherwise noted, and make sure to check if your nearest location is participating before heading out.\n\nIt's Pi Day!Add an 'e' and go celebrate at the best pie shops in metro Phoenix\n\nFree pocket pies at MOD Pizza\n\nOn Pi Day, MOD Pizza is giving customers the opportunity to try MOD’s new Pocket Pie for free. Customers simply need to give secret code (hint π).\n\nMade from MOD’s signature 6-inch mini pizza crust, the calzones come in three flavors: Italiano: A white sauce base packed with shredded mozzarella and parmesan cheese, pepperoni, salami, roasted red peppers, sliced tomatoes, fresh basil and arugula and red sauce. Four Cheese is filled with freshly shredded mild-cheddar, mozzarella, asiago and parmesan cheese. And Chicken Bacon Ranch is filled with shredded mild-cheddar cheese, chicken, bacon, and finished with a ranch drizzle.\n\nSauce Pizza & Wine offering Cheese Pizzas for $3.14\n\nSauce Pizza & Wine is celebrating Pi Day with $3.14 Cheese Pizzas on Tuesday, March 14th.\n\nThere are no strings attached with this deal. Guests simply order a cheese pizza at any location and receive the special offer. Additional toppings and specialty pizzas are extra.\n\nThere is a limit of two Pi Day pizzas per check. It is valid for dine-in, takeout and online ordering.\n\n7-Eleven has pizza for $3.14\n\n7Rewards and Speedy Rewards members can get any whole pizza for $3.14 at participating 7-Eleven, Speedway and Stripes locations.\n\nThe offer is limited to two pizzas per customer.\n\nMembers can also redeem the deal via the 7NOW Delivery app.\n\nBlaze brings back Pi Day pizza promo\n\nBlaze Pizza is offering diners any one 11-inch pizza for $3.14 (not including crust upgrades) when they download the Blaze app and join Blaze Rewards.\n\nThe offer is available in-restaurant and varies based on location.\n\nNow open:New restaurants now open in metro Phoenix including African, Persian and Mexican cuisine\n\nJet's Pizza offers discount\n\nJet's Pizza customers who order online can get 20% off all menu-priced pizzas with the code 314DAY.\n\nThe offer is available for both pick-up and delivery.\n\nMarco’s has a deal on a medium pizza\n\nMarco's Pizza customers who buy any large or extra-large pizza at the regular menu price can get a medium one-topping pizza for only $3.14.\n\nPizza lovers can order online or through the Marco's Pizza app using the code PIDAY2023.\n\nPapa Johns has a Pi Day BOGO\n\nPapa Johns customers can buy one large one-topping pizza for the regular menu price and get a second large one-topping pizza for $3.14 with the promo code PIDAY.\n\nRound Table Pizza offers cheesy deal\n\nRound Table Pizza Royal Rewards members can snag personal cheese pizzas for $3.14.\n\nThe offer is valid only at participating locations.\n\nSchlotzsky's has a BOGO offer\n\nSchlotzsky's reward members can buy one pizza and get another for free at participating locations.\n\nThe offer excludes kid's pizzas, and the free pizza must be of equal or lesser value.\n\nGrand Avenue Pizza Company returns:This time in historic downtown Glendale", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2023/03/14"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/shopping/2023/03/14/pi-day-2023-deals/11435419002/", "title": "Pi Day 2023 deals: For the love of math, snag a discounted slice of ...", "text": "Tuesday equals deals on pizza pies.\n\nMarch 14 marks Pi Day, the annual holiday in honor of the mathematical constant π (pi), the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter.\n\nThe irrational number is typically rounded down to 3.14 hence why the celebration takes place on March 14, which has a numerical date of 3/14. The date also happens to be famed physicist Albert Einstein's birthday and marks the anniversary of Stephen Hawking's death.\n\nWhile the day is really about math, many restaurants offer deals and discounts on circular food, including pizza and traditional dessert pies, to celebrate the holiday.\n\nNational Pi Day 2023:Here's everything you need to celebrate\n\nLove Ranch?:Hidden Valley's new ice cream could be your new... sweet treat?\n\nWhy is Pi Day celebrated on March 14?\n\nIn 1988, Larry Shaw, a former staff physicist at the Exploratorium museum in San Francisco, linked March 14 (3/14) with the digits of pi (3.14) and celebrated the first Pi Day with fruit pies and tea. Shaw led Pi Day parades yearly at the museum until his death in 2017, according to the Exploratorium.\n\nPi Day became an annual tradition at the Exploratorium, and the celebration became an official U.S. national holiday in 2009. The U.S. House of Representatives resolution that designated Pi Day aims to encourage \"schools and educators to observe the day with appropriate activities that teach students about Pi and engage them about the study of mathematics.\"\n\nWhether you're a math lover or a food lover (or both), here are some tasty deals you can snag on Pi Day. The offers are only available Tuesday unless otherwise noted, and make sure to check if your nearest location is participating before heading out.\n\n7-Eleven has pizza for $3.14\n\n7Rewards and Speedy Rewards members can get any whole pizza for $3.14 at participating 7-Eleven, Speedway and Stripes locations.\n\nThe offer is limited to two pizzas per customer.\n\nMembers can also redeem the deal via the 7NOW Delivery app.\n\nBlaze brings back Pi Day pizza promo\n\nBlaze Pizza is offering diners any one 11-inch pizza for $3.14 (not including crust upgrades) when they download the Blaze app and join Blaze Rewards.\n\nThe offer is available in-restaurant and varies based on location.\n\nGet $3.14 off pizza at Casey's\n\nVisit Casey's on Pi Day and take $3.14 off any large pizza.\n\nCasey’s customers can also play Rewards Match-up on its app for a chance to score freebies through April 7.\n\nCicis has dine-in and takeout deals\n\nIf you dine in at Cicis, you can get $3.14 off an adult buffet and a kids' combo for $3.14.\n\nYou can also score a pi deal if you're looking to dine at home. Customers can get $3.14 off a large one-topping pizza when they order online for pickup or delivery with code PIDAY.\n\nJet's Pizza offers discount\n\nJet's Pizza customers who order online can get 20% off all menu-priced pizzas with the code 314DAY.\n\nThe offer is available for both pick-up and delivery.\n\nMarco’s has a deal on a medium pizza\n\nMarco's Pizza customers who buy any large or extra-large pizza at the regular menu price can get a medium one-topping pizza for only $3.14.\n\nPizza lovers can order online or through the Marco's Pizza app using the code PIDAY2023.\n\nPapa Gino’s has a deal on a small pizza\n\nGet a small cheese pizza for only $3.14 with the purchase of any large or extra-large pizza. Use the code 9220 at checkout.\n\nThe offer is valid at participating locations only.\n\nPapa Johns has a Pi Day BOGO\n\nPapa Johns customers can buy one large one-topping pizza for the regular menu price and get a second large one-topping pizza for $3.14 with the promo code PIDAY.\n\nRound Table Pizza offers cheesy deal\n\nRound Table Pizza Royal Rewards members can snag personal cheese pizzas for $3.14.\n\nThe offer is valid only at participating locations.\n\nSchlotzsky's has a BOGO offer\n\nSchlotzsky's reward members can buy one pizza and get another for free at participating locations.\n\nThe offer excludes kid's pizzas, and the free pizza must be of equal or lesser value.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2023/03/14"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/food/2022/03/14/pi-day-pizza-deals-2022/7005356001/", "title": "Pi Day pizza deals 2022: Blaze, Marco's, Domino's and more have ...", "text": "It’s not irrational to find deals including pizza for $3.14 this Monday.\n\nMarch 14 is Pi Day, the annual celebration of the mathematical constant π (pi), which is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. The trillion-digit ratio is rounded to 3.14.\n\nAlbert Einstein was born on Pi Day and noted astrophysicist Stephen Hawking died on the made-up holiday in 2018.\n\nBut you don't have to be a math scholar to be acutely aware that Pi Day equals deals on circular food, including pies and pastries.\n\nPi Day, not to be confused with National Pie Day held in January or National Pizza Day in February, is usually a smorgasbord of deals on pizza, pastries and pot pies.\n\nPI DAY 2022:What is Pi Day? Why mathematicians and bakers unite to celebrate\n\nPI DAY DEALS FOR PIE:10 places to order pie online for Pi Day\n\nPi Day freebies, deals and $3.14 pizza\n\nHere are the deals available at participating locations Monday, unless otherwise noted. To be on the safe side, always check with your closest location before heading out. Many deals require you to have a restaurant's app or be signed up for emails.\n\n7-Eleven Pi Day pizza deal\n\n7-Eleven will have a $3.14 pizza deal Monday for members of its 7Rewards loyalty program. Get any whole pizza for $3.14, including cheese, pepperoni or 7-Meat at participating 7-Eleven and Speedway stores. At participating Speedway stores, get the deal with the Speedy Rewards loyalty program.\n\nThe Pi Day pizza deal also is available for $3.14 through the 7NOW delivery app.\n\nThere's a limit of two pizzas per rewards member in-store and two pizza deals for delivery. Fees and delivery charges apply.\n\nBJ’s Pi Day $3.14 pizza deal\n\nBJ’s Restaurant & Brewhouse has a dine-in pizza deal for Pi Day. Get a mini one-topping pizza for $3.14 Monday.\n\nBlaze Pi Day deal: Pizza for $3.14\n\nBlaze Pizza is giving new and existing Blaze Rewards members any 11-inch pizza for $3.14 with a one-time reward on the chain's app. To get the deal you need to sign up for the loyalty program on the app by the end of the day Monday. The reward can be redeemed Monday through March 31.\n\nCrust upgrades are extra and there is a limit of one Pi Day reward per user.\n\nPI DAY RELEASE:Pizza ice cream, Kraft Mac & Cheese among new ice cream flavors coming to Walmart\n\nDAILY MONEY NEWSLETTER: Money tips and advice delivered right to your inbox. Sign up here\n\nCarnation Pi Day online giveaway\n\nCarnation is giving fans a chance to win \"Cow Pies,\" which feature Carnation Evaporated Milk, cocoa and more through Monday. Ten people will win the prize worth $20 each, according to the contest fine print. Enter at Play.keeplifedelicious.com/Carnation-pie-day.\n\nChuck E. Cheese Pi Day and spring deal\n\nChuck E. Cheese said its Spring-tastic Family Fun Pack is available for Pi Day and through April 24 for delivery or carryout. For $34.99, get two large pizzas, Unicorn Cotton Candy, a goody bag and spring activity sheet, and 250 e-tickets for your next Chuck E. Cheese visit.\n\nCicis Pi Day deal: $3.14 adult buffet\n\nCicis Pizza has all-you-can-eat pizza for $3.14 on Monday. The $3.14 adult buffet offer is available for dine-in at Cicis locations nationwide.\n\nThe chain also has a pizza deal for takeout. Get two, large one-topping pizzas for $5.99 each.\n\nDomino's Pi Day: $3 coupon for carryout orders\n\nFor a limited time, Domino's will give you a $3 \"tip\" to order your pizza online and pick it up yourself instead of choosing delivery.\n\nMake a carryout order through May 22 and get a $3 coupon code to redeem the following week on a carryout order of $5 or more before tax and gratuity.\n\nAlso, earn points to redeem for free pizza with the chain's Piece of the Pie rewards program that you can sign up for at Dominos.com.\n\nCOSTCO SENIOR HOURS:Costco to end senior hours, COVID operating hours for healthcare workers and first responders\n\nDonatos Pi Day deal: $3.14 off large pizza\n\nDonatos Pizza has a deal Monday for Pi Day. Get $3.14 off any large pizza when you order online with code PI.\n\nEggo free waffles for daylight savings transition Monday\n\nEggo is giving away 100,000 free boxes of waffles to make the daylight savings transition easier.\n\nThe Kellogg’s brand said on Monday it will announce official instructions on its social media accounts Monday and the first 100,000 people to sign up will receive one free box of 10 count Homestyle waffles.\n\nLearn more at Leggowitheggo.com.\n\nEl Torito margaritas for $3.14\n\nEl Torito, a chain with 74 locations, is offering house margaritas for $3.14 all day Monday.\n\nHoney Baked Ham Pi Day coupon\n\nThe Honey Baked Ham Company has a printable coupon for $3.14 off the Apple Caramel Walnut Pie on Monday. The coupon is required and the brand says it must be printed and brought in store or code can be used online for pick-up. Locations that will not accept the deal are listed on the coupon website.\n\nHungry Howie’s Pi Day deal\n\nHungry Howie’s is offering 40% off any pizza from Sunday through March 20 with promo code FORTY. The deal is for online carryout orders at participating locations.\n\nMarco’s Pi Day BOGO deal\n\nMarco’s Pizza has a buy-one-get-one deal Monday. Purchase any large or x-large pizza at menu price and get a medium one-topping pizza for $3.14. Order online or through the chain’s app with code PIDAY2022.\n\nMcDonald’s Pi Day free pie deal\n\nGet a free pie Monday with $1 or more purchase and a McDonald’s app deal.\n\nMcDonald's also has several ongoing deals on its app and with the MyMcDonald's Rewards program. Offers and daily deals can vary by account and region.\n\nDon't have the app? McDonald's says on its website that you'll get a free large fries when you download the app and join MyMcDonald’s Rewards through March 31. Then after your first purchase, you get the choice of Hash Browns, Vanilla Cone, McChicken or a Cheeseburger for free.\n\nSHAMROCK SHAKE SEASON:Jack in the Box trolls McDonald's broken ice cream machines to promote new Oreo mint shake\n\nSLEEP WEEK:Sleep Week 2022 offers cozy savings on mattresses, bedding and pillows—here’s what to buy\n\nPapa Gino's Pi Day code\n\nGet 25% off online pizzas at Papa Gino's Monday with code 9044.\n\nPieology Pi Day double rewards points\n\nPieology has a “Free Pizza Friday” promotion on social media Fridays in March. On March 11, it will give away three free pizzas and then 14 free pizzas Monday. To enter, guests must comment how many toppings they like on their pizza and Pieology will pick the three and 14 winners on Monday at 5 p.m. PST.\n\nThen on Pi Day, Pieology will be celebrating with double the points for Pie Life Reward members who download the app and join the chain's \"circle of family, friends and community.\"\n\nRound Table Pizza Pi Day deal\n\nRound Table Pizza is celebrating Pi Day with an offer for a $3.14 Personal Cheese Pizza Monday. The deal is available to new and existing loyalty members. Access the deal on the Round Table Pizza Royal Reward App.\n\nSlice Pi Day deal\n\nSlice, the pizza delivery app with over 17,000 local pizza shops nationwide, is offering $5 off pizza orders $15 or more for first-time Slice users with promo code PIDAY2022.\n\nTaco Bell Pi Day deal: 50-cent coffee\n\nTaco Bell has a deal on its new Cinnabon Delight Coffee through Thursday. Get a cup for 50 cents with a $1 or more purchase at breakfast from open until 11 a.m. The offer is “redeemable only via the Taco Bell mobile app for in-store/drive-thru pickup orders, at participating U.S. Taco Bell locations, while supplies last,” according to the fine print.\n\nWendy’s Pi Day and March Madness deals\n\nWendy’s has several deals on its mobile app for a limited time. The chain says it is the “Official Breakfast” and the “Official Hamburger” of March Madness.\n\nDeals include:\n\n$1 Dave’s Single: Through April 10, Wendy’s will have singles for $1 via mobile order on the app. The deal will refresh daily.\n\nThrough April 10, Wendy’s will have singles for $1 via mobile order on the app. The deal will refresh daily. Half-off breakfast: Get half off your entire Wendy’s breakfast purchase when ordered in the app with mobile order through March 31. The deal refreshes daily.\n\nGet half off your entire Wendy’s breakfast purchase when ordered in the app with mobile order through March 31. The deal refreshes daily. $3 off orders of $15 or more: Get $3 off any order of $15 or more through the Wendy’s app through April 10. The deal will be refreshed daily.\n\nGet $3 off any order of $15 or more through the Wendy’s app through April 10. The deal will be refreshed daily. BOGO $1 premium chicken sandwich: This deal will refresh weekly. Buy one premium chicken sandwich and get a second for $1 through April 10 with a mobile offer.\n\nWhite Castle Pi Day free food\n\nWhite Castle is giving away free dessert-on-a-stick with any purchase Monday with a coupon.\n\nWhole Foods Pi Day deal: $3.14 off pies\n\nAmazon Prime members get $3.14 off large cherry and apple pies at Whole Foods Market bakeries Monday. This deal is in-store only and excludes all other pie flavors, brands and sizes. While supplies last.\n\nYour Pie Pi Day pizza deal\n\nNew and existing Your Pie Rewards members will get an offer for $3.14 off one 10-inch pizza to redeem in-store or online Monday through March 16. The offer is redeemable on one pizza per guest, per order and exclusions apply, the chain said.\n\nTo get this deal, you need to sign up for the loyalty program before Monday, Your Pie said. Learn more at Yourpie.com/pieday.\n\nFollow USA TODAY reporter Kelly Tyko on Twitter: @KellyTyko. For shopping news, tips and deals, join us on our Shopping Ninjas Facebook group.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/03/14"}]}
{"question_id": "20230317_15", "search_time": "2023/05/25/17:56", "search_result": [{"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/reviewed/2023/02/15/watch-ted-lasso-apple-tv/11265228002/", "title": "How to watch Ted Lasso season 3: Stream on Apple TV+ today", "text": "Liz Kocan and Jon Winkler\n\nReviewed\n\n— Recommendations are independently chosen by Reviewed’s editors. Purchases you make through our links may earn us and our publishing partners a commission.\n\nIt's time to hit the pitch with Richmond FC again: \"Ted Lasso\" has returned to Apple TV+. The first two seasons of the Emmy award-winning series were a hit with critics and audiences alike, making the third season one of the most anticipated of the year. Below, we have all the details on how you can watch Jason Sudeikis, Hannah Waddingham and Juno Temple on Apple TV+ today.\n\nMake smart choices without hours of googling. Subscribe to The Checklist newsletter for expert product advice and recommendations.\n\n►Ted Lasso x Nike: Ted Lasso season 3 is here and we’re watching it in Nike’s AFC Richmond collection\n\n►Ted Lasso: 25 products Ted Lasso fans need for season 3\n\nWhen does Ted Lasso season 3 start?\n\nAfter the second season’s cliffhanger ending broadcast in October of 2021, fans have been eagerly awaiting news of the third and final season's premiere date. The new series returned to Apple TV+ today, March 15.\n\nHow to watch Ted Lasso\n\nYou can stream all three seasons of \"Ted Lasso,\" as well as other original programming, on Apple TV+. The streaming service is currently available in 107 countries across the globe. For a full, up-to-date list of countries where Apple TV+ is available, you can search the Apple Support page.\n\nThe first trailer for the series features Lasso's players making him their own versions of the iconic \"Believe\" sign that hangs in the locker room.\n\nSign up for Apple TV+\n\nTo stream \"Ted Lasso,\" you can sign up for an initial seven-day free trial of Apple TV+, and subsequently pay $6.99 a month for the service.\n\nIf you're a new subscriber, you’ll need to download the Apple TV app on a supported device to start watching. The service is currently available on all mobile Apple devices, Apple TV 4K, Apple TV HD, and third-generation Apple TVs, as well as Panasonic, Playstation, Xbox, Vizio, Samsung, LG and Sony Smart TVs and Roku, FireTV, Android TV and Google TV streaming devices. (You can always check the Apple TV supported device page for a complete, up- to-date list of devices compatible with Apple TV+.)\n\nWhat to watch on Apple TV+\n\nIn addition to Ted Lasso, Apple TV+ offers plenty of other top-rated original shows like \"Shrinking\" and \"Severance\", and films such as \"CODA\" and \"The Tragedy of Macbeth.\" On Friday, February 17, Apple TV+ will air two brand new shows: \"Hello Tomorrow!\" and \"Extrapolations.\"\n\nThe product experts at Reviewed have all your shopping needs covered. Follow Reviewed on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok or Flipboard for the latest deals, product reviews and more.\n\nPrices were accurate at the time this article was published but may change over time.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2023/02/15"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/tv/2022/06/16/where-the-best-tv-comedies-of-all-time-are-streaming/7620429001/", "title": "Where the best sitcoms of all time stream, from 'Lucy' to 'Atlanta'", "text": "When you're looking for a specific kind of laugh, only your favorite TV comedy will do.\n\nMaybe you need some classic Americana yuks (\"I Love Lucy\"), some weird sketch humor (\"Mr. Show\"), the biggest comedy of 2021 (\"Ted Lasso\") or an easy family sitcom (\"Modern Family\"). And with more streaming services than you can keep track of, it's not always so easy to find which service has your favorite show.\n\nSo if you're looking for \"The Office\" or \"Good Times\" or \"Atlanta,\" you don't have to scroll through endless menu screens of Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO Max, Peacock, Paramount+, Disney+ and Apple TV+, hoping to strike TV gold. We compiled a list of 50 of the greatest TV comedies of all time and exactly where they're streaming.\n\nHangout sitcoms\n\n“The Big Bang Theory” (HBO Max) The CBS sitcom starring Jim Parsons and Kaley Cuoco was TV's most popular show for a reason – its big, broad humor and nerdy characters are comforting and familiar.\n\n“Community” (Hulu, Netflix, Amazon) This slightly zany NBC comedy about a group of diverse friends attending a local community college has its ups and downs, but its funniest, most ambitious installments are among the best TV episodes ever made.\n\n“Don’t Trust the B**** in Apt. 23” (Hulu) This quirky series about a nightmare roommate didn't last long on ABC, but made great comedy, with Krysten Ritter and James Van Der Beek, playing a fictional version of himself.\n\n“Frasier” (Hulu, Paramount+) Although it's more cynical and mature than its forerunner, \"Cheers,\" NBC's series about Dr. Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer) became one of the most successful spinoffs of all time.\n\n“Friends” (HBO Max) Nearly three decades after it premiered on NBC, \"Friends\" remains a cultural institution and a reliable source of delight and laughs. Its long afterlife in cable reruns and streaming (it was on Netflix for years before it moved to HBO Max) has introduced it to new generations. It may be a cliché, but it is nice to spend some time with our \"Friends.\"\n\n“Happy Endings (HBO Max, Hulu) One of the many \"Friends\"-like hangout sitcoms to emerge over the past two decades, ABC's \"Endings\" is on the quirkier, more heightened side, following five 30-somethings in Chicago.\n\n“Seinfeld” (Netflix) If you've never seen Jerry Seinfeld's landmark NBC show about nothing, it's a great time to start. You might want to skip the disappointing series finale though.\n\nMore:The 50 best TV shows to watch on Netflix\n\nWorkplace sitcoms\n\n“30 Rock” (Netflix, Hulu) Alec Baldwin, Tina Fey and Tracy Morgan make an endlessly appealing trio in this award-winning NBC series about a \"Saturday Night Live\"-style sketch comedy series.\n\n“Cheers” (Hulu, Paramount+, Peacock) You can still go where everybody knows your name in this classic NBC comedy starring Ted Danson.\n\n“The Good Place” (Netflix) NBC's afterlife sitcom feels like a dose of palliative care with its bright colors, puns and visual gags. Underneath its appealing aesthetics, \"Place\" has great performances, great writing and some sincere thoughts about ethics and philosophy.\n\n\"Parks and Recreation\" (Peacock) Nothing can stop Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler). NBC's workplace sitcom is an inspiring stalwart in this genre, full of generally good people trying to do good things.\n\n“Party Down” (Hulu) Fans of \"Party Down\" creator Rob Thomas' “Veronica Mars” and “iZombie” will love this cynical Starz comedy about cater-waiters that stars Jane Lynch and Adam Scott.\n\n“Scrubs” (Amazon, Hulu) The sweet, silly comedy of NBC's long-running “Scrubs,” starring Zach Braff, Donald Faison and Sarah Chalke, is what fans most often remember. But it's also a celebration of the doctors who work so hard to save lives, and often feels like a more realistic look at life in the hospital than high-drama soap operas.\n\n“Superstore” (Hulu, Peacock) This NBC series set at a big-box retail store is something of a modern-day \"Cheers,\" a workplace comedy set outside a traditional office in a place we all have wandered into at some point. (The blue vests of the fictional Cloud 9 store might remind you of a certain chain).\n\n“Veep” (HBO Max) Some of the political satire's bite has faded as our world has become more absurd and shocking, but that doesn't dull the sharpness of star Julia Louis-Dreyfus' performance in the HBO Emmy-favorite.\n\nFamily sitcoms\n\n“Black-ish” (Hulu) The series, which ended its ABC run this spring, follows an upper-middle-class Black family navigating social issues in a predominantly white Los Angeles neighborhood. With great performances by Anthony Anderson and Tracee Ellis Ross, it's one of the best sitcoms on TV.\n\n“Everybody Loves Raymond” (Peacock) If you want guaranteed laughs and guaranteed comfort, look no further than CBS' touchstone sitcom, which remains one of the greatest entries in the genre. For nine seasons, Ray (Ray Romano), Debra (Patricia Heaton), Robert (Brad Garrett), Marie (Doris Roberts) and Frank (Peter Boyle) were like a second family.\n\n“Fresh Off the Boat (Hulu) From the creator of “Don’t Trust the B***,” this is another hall of fame entry in the ABC family sitcom genre. Especially in the first four seasons, this story of a Taiwanese-American family in 1990s Orlando, Florida, was full of great, specific humor and a talented cast, including Constance Wu and Randall Park.\n\n“Modern Family” (Hulu, Peacock) The multiple-Emmy-winning ABC series has an incredible cast and relatable laughs for families and married couples.\n\n“Mom” (Hulu) Anna Faris and Allison Janney deliver smart comedy about family and addiction in producer Chuck Lorre's (\"The Big Bang Theory\") best (but most underrated) former CBS sitcom.\n\n“One Day at a Time” (Netflix) Like the Norman Lear original, this sitcom, about a Cuban-American family in Los Angeles, is an expert at combining a frank discussion of social issues with hilarity.\n\n\"Schitt's Creek\" (Netflix) Full of beautiful romance, sunny settings and plenty of humor, the Canadian sitcom about a rich family that loses it all but gains a little perspective is always a mood booster.\n\n“Speechless” (Hulu) Gone too soon after just three seasons, ABC's comedy about a family in which one son has cerebral palsy is a representation of disability like you've never seen before, with searing satire and riotous laughs.\n\nMore:The 50 best TV shows on Amazon Prime right now\n\nTV classics\n\n“The Brady Bunch” (Paramount+) There’s an undeniable appeal to ABC's family sitcom about a lovely lady and a man named Brady (that’s the way they all became the Brady bunch!) that extends far beyond its 1969-74 run.\n\n\"The Carol Burnett Show\" (Amazon, Peacock) Several series from the mid-20th century, when TV was a jolly affair across the board, are available to stream. We're partial to CBS' timeless sketch comedy from Burnett, an American treasure.\n\n“Designing Women” (Hulu) A hallmark of 1980s fashion and hair, CBS' “Designing” is one of the great ensemble workplace shows. The interior design firm in Atlanta will always have our hearts, if not our aesthetic.\n\n“The Golden Girls” (Hulu) They don't make them like they used to, right? A visit from Dorothy, Rose, Blanche and Sophia is always funny and calming, no matter whether you're just discovering the beloved NBC sitcom or rewatching it.\n\n\"Good Times\" (Peacock) This Norman Lear series from the 1970s about the Evanses, a Black family getting by in Chicago, is a television classic and a welcome addition to the streaming landscape. John Amos, Esther Rolle and Janet Jackson are among the wonderful cast of the \"Maude\" spinoff (which itself was an \"All in the Family\" spinoff) that aired for six seasons on CBS.\n\n“I Love Lucy” (Paramount+) Lucille Ball and her husband, Desi Arnaz, were the innovators of one of TV’s great formats in this iconic CBS sitcom that ran from 1951-57. The episodes are pockets of history that still offer plenty of laughs in 2022, “Vitameatavegamin” among them.\n\nMore:The 50 best TV shows to watch on Hulu\n\nSketch comedy\n\n\"A Black Lady Sketch Show\" (HBO Max) Created by Robin Thede and produced by Issa Rae, HBO’s tiny-but-mighty sketch comedy series is knee-slappingly hilarious. Its talented Black lady comedians excel in sketches that are unique to their experiences and universal in their humor.\n\n“Chappelle’s Show” (HBO Max, Netflix, Paramount+) Although it aired on Comedy Central for only two seasons in 2003-04, Dave Chappelle’s landmark sketch-comedy show had a deep impact on the comedy scene of the 2000s.\n\n“Key & Peele” (Hulu, Paramount+) If you're more interested in morsels of comedy than long narratives, Comedy Central's sketch show, which jump-started the careers of Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele, is perfect and requires very little commitment to get a laugh.\n\n“Saturday Night Live” (Hulu, Peacock) You can dive into previous seasons of NBC's late-night institution for some quick laughs and topical (well, at the time) parodies.\n\nMore:The 25 best TV shows on Disney+ to watch\n\nAdult animation\n\n“Archer” (Hulu) Spy games are never funnier (or sillier) than in this FXX series, which features the voices of Judy Greer, H. Jon Benjamin and Chris Parnell.\n\n“Bob’s Burgers” (Hulu) Heartfelt, offbeat and full of visual humor, Fox's series about a family and its burger joint is the model of modern adult animation.\n\n“BoJack Horseman” (Netflix) Not the cheeriest comedy, but one of the most affecting, Netflix’s showbiz satire found unexpected depths by juxtaposing animated, bipedal animals dealing with serious contemporary issues.\n\n“The Simpsons” (Disney+) Disney+ isn't all princesses and Pixar – the entire library of this seminal Fox Sunday night comedy is ready for you to stream at a time in which the quirks of Springfield feel less odd than real life.\n\nMore:The 50 best TV shows on HBO Max\n\nFrom across the pond\n\n“Catastrophe” (Amazon) For fans of dry British humor who feel stable in their marriages, this sitcom from Rob Delaney and Sharon Horgan is a beautiful portrait of a relationship that begins with an unplanned pregnancy but becomes so much more.\n\n“Derry Girls” (Netflix) This Irish series, best watched with subtitles, follows a group of Catholic teens in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, a period of religious violence in the region. The series is a great comedy about trying to live a daily life amid social unrest and upheaval.\n\n“Fleabag” (Amazon) Hilarious, emotional and utterly surprising, the British comedy from Phoebe Waller-Bridge, in which she stars as a struggling young woman, deserves the hype (and all those Emmys).\n\n\"Ted Lasso\" (Apple TV+) The comedy, about an American football coach drafted to lead a British soccer team, was a warm light of positivity in 2020, a deeply funny and meaningful show with lovable characters. In its second season, the tone turned serious as the writers explored a deeper story about mental health and trauma.\n\nMore:The 35 best TV shows to watch on Peacock\n\nDramedies\n\n“Atlanta” (Hulu) Donald Glover’s audacious FX series about a college-dropout father trying to climb the economic ladder as a manager for his rapper cousin (Brian Tyree Henry) is proof of the multitalented artist's creative prowess.\n\n\"Gilmore Girls\" (Netflix) Although the Gilmore family had plenty of trials and tribulations on the WB in the early 2000s, the world of quaint small-town Stars Hollow is a delight to revisit time and time again.\n\n“Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” (Netflix) CW's poignant musical comedy about one woman's (Rachel Bloom) mental-health struggles has a tune for every emotion, and you'll be happy to hum them for weeks after finishing all four seasons.\n\n“Insecure” (HBO Max) Issa Rae crafts a distinctly millennial series in this HBO comedy about a black woman in Los Angeles who questions her life decisions, including her long-term boyfriend.\n\nMore:The 40 best TV shows to watch on Paramount+\n\nCringe comedy\n\n“American Vandal” (Netflix) The rare series in which teen problems are taken seriously, \"Vandal\" is also a hilarious mockumentary that pokes fun at overly serious true-crime documentaries like \"Making a Murderer.\"\n\n“Curb Your Enthusiasm” (HBO Max) Larry David’s dry meta-comedy, in which he plays a fictionalized version of himself, is a reliable source of humor for his fans. Whenever he returns to HBO for a new season, David is ready to poke fun at his peculiarities and neurosis.\n\n“It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” (Hulu) If you like crass comedy, more than 150 episodes of this FXX series have fun in Philly, with a lot of mishaps along the way.\n\n“PEN15” (Hulu) Not for the faint of heart, this comedy, set in a middle school in 2000 with adult actresses playing preteens, is the pinnacle of cringe-humor series. But along with embarrassment, there is humor and warmth (mostly embarrassment, though).\n\n“What We Do in the Shadows” (Hulu) This absurdist FX comedy, about vampires sharing a house in Staten Island, New York, never fails to make us guffaw.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/06/16"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/tv/2021/12/20/best-tv-shows-of-2021-ted-lasso-squid-game/6196093001/", "title": "We pick the best TV shows of 2021, from 'Ted Lasso' to 'Mare of ...", "text": "In 2021, TV came back roaring.\n\nAfter the production delays, rescheduled premieres and \"Tiger King\" obsession that defined TV in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, 2021 was slightly more normal on the small screen. Production resumed, and broadcast networks debuted their fall TV shows on time. \"Succession\" (finally) returned for Season 3. The Emmys were held in person, and all the favorites won.\n\nAnd as much as the usual schedule of TV programming resumed, the quality of new shows improved after a disappointing 2020. Here's our take on 19 top picks of this year.\n\nThe only shocking 'Tiger King' 2 reveal:'We came up with a plan to decapitate' Joe Exotic\n\nWhy you can't stop watching rich people disintegrate on 'Succession,' 'Real Housewives'\n\n(Bravo)\n\nIn its 18th season, one of the strengths of the reality cooking competition is its ability to adapt and change as it has aged. Who knew that filming under pandemic conditions, which required a small group of guest judges (all former contestants and winners) to appear in each episode and to keep the challenges even more focused on this year’s setting in Portland, Oregon , made “Chef” the best it's been in years. Diversifying the cuisine, from Pan-African to Native American, made the reality series feel not only fresh but vital. The season was marred by the sexual harassment allegations against the winner, Gabe Erales, but the innovation, community and creativity that the quarantined season inspired suggest “Chef\" can continue for years.\n\n(ABC)\n\nProducers Lee Daniels and Saladin K. Patterson took on the monumental task of bringing a beloved sitcom back to life in a way that is both respectful and reminiscent of the original, but also its own unique series. Few remakes are as creatively successful as their new \"Years,\" which follows a middle-class Black family in Montgomery, Alabama, in the late 1960s. Thoughtfully written and expertly acted by an ensemble led by Dulé Hill (\"Psych\" and \"The West Wing\"), \"Wonder\" is a wonder in the world of TV reboots.\n\nWhy Lee Daniels and ABC brought 'The Wonder Years' back with a Black family in the 1960s\n\n17. 'Everything’s Gonna Be Okay'\n\n(Freeform)\n\nNot many TV series set in the modern era have smoothly incorporated the COVID-19 pandemic into their storylines, but Freeform’s teen dramedy was adept at conveying the seriousness of real life. In Season 2, “Everything,\" created by and starring Australian comedian Josh Thomas, continues the story of Nicholas (Thomas), a 20-something who becomes a guardian of his sisters Genevieve (Maeve Press) and Matilda (Kayla Cromer), who is on the autism spectrum, after their father dies. Although “Everything” spends much of Season 2 in quarantine, the show's humor isn't diminished. In fact, the claustrophobia of pandemic life served to enhance the show’s sense of humor and capacity for hijinks. Freeform canceled the series, but “Everything” will have a legacy as one of the most beloved series that never had time to age out of its brilliance.\n\nAidy Bryant on ‘wishful’ rewrites of her life on ‘Shrill’ and ‘overblown’ Elon Musk ‘SNL’ saga\n\n16. 'Shrill'\n\n(Hulu)\n\nAidy Bryant’s Hulu comedy saved the best for last. Its third and final season is a superb sendoff, featuring some of the actress's best work, along with banner scripts from the writers (including Bryant). Based on Lindy West’s memoir, “Shrill” started as a more singularly focused series about Annie (Bryant), a fat woman who spent most of her life trying to hide because of her weight, only to finally realize that while society was wrong for discriminating against her, she was never a bad person for being fat. In Season 3, Annie continues on that journey, navigating life as a single woman who's finally confident and self-assured. But it's the scene-stealing performance of Lolly Adefope, as Annie’s roommate, Fran – who becomes more of a lead than a supporting character this year – that elevates Season 3. The eight-episode season wraps up the story with care, but it’s hard not to want more.\n\n(Peacock)\n\nCreated by Meredith Scardino and executive-produced by the “30 Rock” team of Tina Fey and Robert Carlock, “Girls” is a sweet comedy about a has-been 1990s girl pop group – played by Sara Bareilles, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Busy Philipps and Paula Pell – that tries to make it again in middle age. Occasionally, the series is nostalgic to a fault, but mostly it's a spot-on parody of what the music industry (and Hollywood) does to women who reach a certain age. With hilarious earworms (“Dream Girlfriends” and “The Splingy”), a cast brimming with energy and chemistry, “Girls” is the kind of happy-go-lucky sitcom that's perfect for a post-“Ted Lasso” world.\n\nEmmys 2021 snubs:'Girls5Eva,' Nicole Kidman, Ethan Hawke and more\n\n14. 'What We Do in the Shadows'\n\n(FX)\n\nAlthough it started off unevenly, the third season of FX's riotous vampire mockumentary offered some of its best episodes ever, from its character payoff to the sheer number of jokes that the writers packed into a half hour. With great performances, clever physical and aesthetic jokes and a cast perfectly in sync, \"Shadows\" has become one of TV's most reliably funny comedies.\n\n13. 'Evil'\n\n(Paramount+)\n\nThe second season of this supernatural thriller, from creators Robert and Michelle King (\"The Good Wife\"), started out strong and declined slightly in its second half. Still, a mostly good season of \"Evil\" is vastly better than much of what else is on television. The move to Paramount+ from CBS made it weirder, more horrifying and more ambitious, daring to go to further depths in its horror and mystical elements. It never lost the core appeal of its main characters, played by Katja Herbers, Mike Colter and Aasif Mandvi, even as the mythology became more complicated.\n\n'She's perfect':Steve Martin praises his rap teacher, 'Only Murders' co-star Selena Gomez\n\n'Reservation Dogs':FX's Oklahoma comedy shows 'Indigenous people are really funny'\n\n(Hulu)\n\nSteve Martin and Martin Short brought their considerable talents and longtime comedic partnership to TV with a little help from Selena Gomez for an endearing, breezy end-of-summer series. All play loners, residents of a swanky Manhattan apartment building who bond as lovers of true-crime podcasts. When there's a suspicious death in the building, they band together to solve it (while making their own podcast about it, of course). The 10-episode first season improves with each episode, building to a satisfying conclusion that leaves you wanting a second season, already in the works.\n\n(FX on Hulu)\n\nThis dark comedy about a quartet of rebellious and delinquent Indigenous teens who live on a reservation in Oklahoma is utterly unique. It's not just that there are few shows on TV created by or about Indigenous people, but the specific tone, pacing and style \"Reservation\" carves out for itself is novel. Moody, meandering and meaningful, the series is about kids who are stuck in their hometown – and desperate to beg, borrow or steal enough money to get out – and each episode perfectly highlights that feeling of being trapped. It's a joy to watch, especially in its quietest moments.\n\n(Netflix)\n\nMargaret Qualley (\"Once Upon a Time in Hollywood\") and her real-life mom Andie MacDowell star in this adaptation of Stephanie Land's memoir (\"Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay and a Mother's Will to Survive\") about her life as a single mother who escapes an abusive relationship, only to wind up homeless and desperate, and eventually makes ends meet as a housekeeper. The drama offers a blistering portrayal of the realities of poverty as seen through the eyes of Alex (Qualley), who suffers a series of angering and unjust events as she tries to protect herself and her young daughter. It's hard to watch at times, but even harder to look away.\n\nKate Winslet on HBO’s ‘Mare of Easttown,’ her ‘Titanic’ accent and funny nickname from Jack Black\n\n(HBO)\n\nKate Winslet shed her posh English accent for the dialect of Delaware County, Pennsylvania, in this crime drama, with fantastic results. Winslet plays a local detective battling personal demons while investigating the murder of a young girl and the disappearance of two others, but it's far more than your basic prestige cop show. More compelling than the central mystery is Mare’s family life, including her struggle with trauma after the death of her son by suicide. The supporting cast deepens the narrative, including Jean Smart as Mare’s Fruit Ninja-slaying mother and Evan Peters as a young and hungry detective who's called in to help with the case and develops a puppy-dog crush on her. Layered, intimate and fully committed to its Philadelphia setting, “Mare” is so much better than it appears on the surface.\n\n(Netflix)\n\nThe dark thriller about impoverished, desperate people competing in deadly children's games for the chance to win a fortune became the rare thing on TV in 2021: a bonafide word-of-mouth hit. Not even Netflix was prepared for how big this South Korean drama became as it surged to the top of the streamer's charts. And \"Squid\" has the substance to back up all the hype and memes. There is a visceral, gripping feeling to the series, which traffics in gore but also deep psychological horror and disturbances. The series will return for a second season by popular demand, and it's one of the few times art and commerce are so serendipitously aligned – and in a satirical series that deftly skewers capitalism, no less.\n\n'Squid Game':Why everyone is obsessed with Netflix's brutal South Korean horror series\n\n(Apple TV+)\n\nPlenty of TV shows that hit it big with audiences, critics and Emmy voters in their first season flounder in their second, but thankfully, producer and star Jason Sudeikis' \"Lasso\" isn't one of them. The comedy, about an American football coach drafted to lead a British soccer team, was a warm light of positivity in 2020, a deeply funny and meaningful show with lovable characters. In its second season, the tone turned serious as the writers explored a deeper story about mental health and trauma. But in spite of Ted's journey, the ethos was never lost, and a smart finale set up what is sure to be a terrific third season.\n\n(HBO)\n\nCringeworthy, hilarious and genuinely shocking, the breakout HBO summer miniseries became a sleeper social-media hit, thanks to its impeccably cast stars and creator Mike White’s (“Enlightened\") acerbic brand of comedy. Dreamed up by White as a series that could be easily filmed under COVID-19-safe protocols, was well-written, well-acted and shot against a gorgeous Hawaiian backdrop. “Lotus” follows guests and staff at a Hawaiian resort in the days leading up to a mysterious death on the premises. But the series is so much more than a murder mystery or an upstairs/downstairs drama. “Lotus” is satire at its best – a biting critique of the uber-wealthy that is nonetheless realistic about who has the power in our capitalist culture. (Spoiler alert: it’s the people with all the money.)\n\nHow HBO satire 'The White Lotus' hit uncomfortably close to home for creator Mike White\n\n5. 'We Are Lady Parts'\n\n(Peacock)\n\nShort, pithy and outrageously funny, Peacock’s British import about an all-Muslim girl punk band in London is both far too unacknowledged for its brilliance and the best original series Peacock has released so far. The series kicks off with the band's search for a lead guitarist, which leads to the discovery of Amina (Anjana Vasan), a shy player with stage fright who's unlucky in love. The young cast has wonderful chemistry, the music is lively and the writing feels utterly unique.\n\n(HBO Max)\n\nAll hail Jean Smart. The veteran actress received acclaim and a well-deserved Emmy for her superb HBO Max comedy. As Deb Vance, a Joan Rivers-style comedian with a Las Vegas residency and a QVC empire, Smart is in her element and at her best, a prickly diva with hidden depths. When Deb’s residency is threatened, she is forced to take on Ava (Hannah Einbinder, a revelation), a young, self-centered comedy writer who is similarly coerced into working with Deb after a dumb tweet leaves her jobless. The two actors make an electric pair, and the show combines sharp wit with a great deal of realism and emotion.\n\n(HBO Max)\n\nSuccinct, accomplished and desperately affecting, this British import from creator Russell T. Davies (“Queer as Folk”) is a stirring chronicle of the 1980s AIDS crisis. As told from the point of view of a group of young gay men living in London, “Sin” chooses character over exploitative tragedy when dramatizing how AIDS ripped through their lives, whether or not they were infected by the disease. The group includes Ritchie (Olly Alexander), a young, charming actor who first refuses to believe a disease could kill only gay men; Roscoe (Omari Douglas), who fled his conservative family for freedom and love; and Colin (Callum Scott Howells), a naïve young tailor tagging along with the cool kids who's tickled to be included. Perfectly paced, set to the beat of '80s pop bangers and the neon lights of dance clubs, “Sin” transcends the label of mere “AIDS drama.”\n\n'I was always a late bloomer':Jean Smart on her new comedy 'Hacks,' becoming the queen of HBO at 69\n\nReview:HBO Max's AIDS crisis drama 'It's A Sin' is the best show of 2021 so far\n\n(Amazon)\n\nBrutal, unflinching, hopeful and epic, Barry Jenkins’ adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is a tour de force miniseries that was criminally overlooked at this year’s Emmy awards. Combining “Moonlight” director Jenkins’ distinct style with Whitehead’s ahistorical, yet deeply familiar, story of a literal railroad, \"Underground\" centers on Cora (Thuso Mbedu), an enslaved woman who takes a train toward freedom but finds horrifying facets of America along her way. With Mbedu’s performance, the haunting score and Jenkins’ direction, “Underground” is a worthy if sometimes difficult journey.\n\n(Apple TV+)\n\nApple’s alternate history of the space race, which posits what might have happened had the Soviet Union beaten the U.S. to the moon and the competition for the final frontier never ended, was a smart, appealing series in its first season. In this year’s second season, however, it rocketed ahead to a possible spot on a list of TV’s all-time great dramas. That’s thanks to a sprawling, effortlessly talented cast led by Joel Kinnaman, a plausible alternate reality, superb writing and riveting action set pieces. The series is at its best in the second-season finale, involving a U.S.-Soviet standoff in space with the stakes of the Cuban missile crisis. “Mankind” asks big questions and doesn’t shy away from the worst tendencies of 20th-century America, all without careening into pedantic and patronizing territory. \"Mankind\" truly flies.\n\n'I know how fraught those images are':Barry Jenkins on portraying slavery in 'The Underground Railroad'\n\n'For All Mankind' fact check:How Apple TV's space series mirrors real moon-landing history", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2021/12/20"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/2020/09/24/2020-tv-premieres-summer-television-streaming-shows-dates/3519265001/", "title": "New 2020 TV premieres: Here's when your favorite show returns ...", "text": "Continuing to social distance leaves us with a lot of time on our sanitized hands. Thankfully, television is here to offer a distraction.\n\nNow, given the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on production, fall's offerings are slimmer than usual. But there are still releases to be excited about.\n\nBeloved competitions also return this fall, including \"The Masked Singer,\" \"The Amazing Race,\" and \"The Bachelorette.\"\n\nAs we near Halloween, streaming platforms will unleash horror series, including \"Monsterland\" (Hulu) and \"The Haunting of Bly Manor\" (Netflix), the next chilling offering from the producers of \"The Haunting of Hill House.\"\n\nOur calendar of major highlights ensures you won't miss the return of your favorite series or the start of a new show you'll fall in love with. (All times EDT/PDT.)\n\nThe 50 best TV shows to watch on Amazon Prime right now, from 'The Americans' to 'The Boys'\n\nEmmys 2020:The best and worst moments on a weird, virtual night, from 'Friends' reunion to hazmat suits\n\nSept. 16\n\n\"Archer\" Season 11 (FXX, Wednesdays at 10)\n\n\"Sing On!\" (Netflix): Tituss Burgess hosts this singing contest that compares karaoke contestants to the original singers of their songs.\n\nSept. 18\n\n\"Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous\" (Netflix): The new animated series, which counts Steven Spielberg as an executive producer, is centered on a group of six teens selected to attend a special camp. But, as is typical with \"Jurassic\" projects, it's never just a walk in the park...\n\n\"Pen15\" Season 2 (Hulu)\n\n\"Ratched\" (Netflix): Sarah Paulson stars in producer Ryan Murphy's origin story for the infamous nurse from the novel and Oscar-winning 1975 film \"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.\"\n\nRyan Murphy's 'Ratched' Netflix series leaves critics disappointed: 'It's really bad'\n\nSept. 23\n\n\"The Masked Singer\": Season 4 (Fox, Wednesdays at 8)\n\n\"I Can See Your Voice\" (Fox, Wednesdays at 9): \"Masked Singer\" judge Ken Jeong serves as host of this new game show, where contestants attempt to decipher talented singers from the bad ones, before they've sung a note, for a chance at $100,000. Like \"Masked,\" it's based on a South Korean format.\n\n'The Masked Singer' reveals Season 4 characters, shows off a hot pink Croc ready to rock\n\nSept. 24\n\n\"The Chef Show:\" Season 2 (Netflix)\n\n“Celebrity Family Feud” (ABC, Thursdays at 8)\n\n“Press Your Luck” (ABC, Thursdays at 9)\n\n“Match Game” (ABC, Thursdays at 10)\n\nSept. 27\n\n\"The Comey Rule\" (Showtime, Sunday at 9): The two-part miniseries dramatizes the events around the 2016 presidential election and aftermath, and the role of former FBI Director James Comey (Jeff Daniels) in shaping history.\n\n\"Fargo\" (FX, Sundays at 10): The fourth installment of the acclaimed anthology series, starring Chris Rock arrives after a five-month pandemic production delay. Set in 1950 Kansas City, it centers on dueling African-American and Italian crime bosses.\n\nReview:Chris Rock leads a slow-but-steady 'Fargo' Season 4\n\nChris Rock on changing his humor for 'Fargo' Season 4 and the 'surreal' 'SNL' with Eddie Murphy\n\nOct. 2\n\n\"Monsterland\" (Hulu): In the anthology series inspired by Nathan Ballingrud’s \"North American Lake Monsters,\" interactions with creatures and beasts \"drive broken people to desperate acts.\"\n\nOct. 4\n\n\"Flesh and Blood\" (PBS, Sundays at 9): The four-part series explores the deadly sins challenging a family in the \"mystery about the perils of late-life romance.\"\n\n\"The Good Lord Bird\" (Showtime, Sundays at 9): Ethan Hawke plays abolitionist John Brown in the limited series inspired by James McBride's 2013 novel, with Joshua Caleb Johnson as Onion, a young slave.\n\n\"The Walking Dead: World Beyond\" (AMC, Sundays at 10): A pair of sisters and their two pals venture out of their safe haven in order to complete a mission.\n\nOct. 6\n\n“Ellen’s Game of Games” (NBC, Tuesday at 8, then 9 as of Oct. 13.)\n\n\"Swamp Thing\" (CW, Tuesdays at 8): Abby Arcane (played by Crystal Reed) comes back to her Louisiana hometown and learns frightening truths about the community's swamp.\n\n\"NeXt\": (Fox, Tuesdays at 9): John Slattery plays a Silicon Valley trailblazer who partners with a cybercrime agent played by Fernanda Andrade to do battle with a uniquely terrifying opponent.\n\nOct. 8\n\n\"Supernatural\" (CW, Thursdays at 8): The long-running series returns with its (delayed) final episodes.\n\nOct. 9\n\n\"The Haunting of Bly Manor\" (Netflix): A new chapter arrives from the producers of \"The Haunting of Hill House\" (2018). 1980s England serves as a backdrop for the nine-episode season, which begins with Henry Wingrave (Henry Thomas) finding a replacement nanny to tend to his parent-less niece and nephew.\n\nOct. 11\n\n\"Fear The Walking Dead\" Season 6 (AMC, Sundays at 9)\n\nOct. 13\n\n\"The Bachelorette” (ABC, Tuesdays at 8): Clare Crawley kicks off her journey as the franchise's eldest lead.\n\nOct. 14\n\n\"The Amazing Race\" (CBS, Wednesdays at 9)\n\nOct. 15\n\n\"Star Trek: Discovery\" Season 3: (CBS All Access, Thursdays)\n\nOct. 16\n\n\"Helstrom\" (Hulu): The two children of a serial killer search for heinous evildoers.\n\n“Shark Tank” (ABC, Fridays at 8)\n\nOct. 18\n\n“Supermarket Sweep” (ABC, Sundays at 8): \"SNL” alum Leslie Jones hosts the return of the grocery store game show.\n\nOct. 19\n\n“The Voice” (NBC, Mondays and Tuesdays at 8)\n\nOct. 22\n\n\"Superstore” (NBC, Thursdays at 8)\n\nOct. 25\n\n\"The Undoing\" (HBO, Sundays at 9): Nicole Kidman stars as therapist Grace Fraser, who is married to the dedicated Jonathan (Hugh Grant) in this limited series created by David E. Kelley (\"Big Little Lies\"). The couple's idyllic life is upended following a death and a missing spouse.\n\nOct. 27\n\n“This Is Us” (NBC, Tuesdays at 9)\n\n'This Is Us' Season 4 finalereveals pregnancy and marriage shockers\n\nOct. 29\n\n\"Superstore\" (NBC, Thursdays at 8)\n\nOct. 30\n\n\"The Mandalorian\" (Disney+)\n\nNov. 1\n\n\"Roadkill\" (PBS, Sundays at 9): Hugh Laurie embodies a crooked politician in this four-part drama.\n\nNov. 2\n\n\"The Good Doctor\" (ABC, Mondays at 10)\n\nNov. 8\n\n\"Moonbase 8\" (Showtime, Sundays at 11): Astronauts Skip (Fred Armisen), Rook (Tim Heidecker) and Cap (John C. Reilly) are in training for what they hope is their first lunar mission.\n\nNov. 9\n\n\"Industry\" (HBO, Mondays at 10): The new drama centers on a group of recent grads all trying to nab a job at a one of London's premiere investment banks.\n\nNov. 11\n\n“Chicago Fire” (NBC, Wednesdays at 9)\n\nNov. 12\n\n“Station 19” (ABC, Thursdays at 8)\n\n“Grey’s Anatomy\" (ABC, Thursdays at 9)\n\n“Law & Order: SVU” (Thursdays at 9)\n\nNov. 13\n\n\"I am Greta\" (Hulu): A documentary centered on teen environmental activist Greta Thunberg.\n\n“The Blacklist” (NBC, Fridays at 8)\n\nNov. 15\n\n\"The Crown\" Season 4 (Netflix): The upcoming season covers 1979-1990, which includes Prince Charles' 1981 wedding to Diana and the birth of their two children, Princes William and Harry.\n\n\"The Reagans\" (Showtime, Sundays at 8): The Reagan administration is examined in this four-episode docuseries.\n\n'The Crown' introduces its Princess Diana: See Emma Corrin in Diana's wedding dress\n\nNov. 17\n\n\"Big Sky\" (ABC, Tuesdays at 10): In David E. Kelley's new thriller series set in Montana, private detectives Cassie (Kylie Bunbury) and Cody (Ryan Phillippe) team up with Cody's ex, former police officer Jenny (Katheryn Winnick), to track down the person responsible for the kidnappings and killings of women in the area.\n\nNov. 18\n\n\"For Life\" (ABC, Wednesdays at 10)\n\nNov. 19\n\n\"A Milliion Little Things\" (ABC, Thursdays at 10)\n\nNov. 23\n\n\"Black Narcissus\" (FX): All In this three-episode limited series, inspired by Rumer Godden's 1939 novel, things go awry when a group of nuns tries to convert an isolated palace into a mission.\n\nDec. 17\n\n\"The Stand\" (CBS All Access, Thursdays): In the limited series inspired by Stephen King’s novel, Whoopi Goldberg plays centenarian Mother Abagail, who is tasked with saving the world from Randall Flagg, aka the Dark Man played by Alexander Skarsgård.\n\nEarlier premieres:\n\nAug. 5\n\n\"Big Brother\" (CBS, premiere at 9, Wednesday. After the debut, it will air Sundays, Wednesdays and Thursdays at 8): An all-star cast assembles for the reality program's 22nd season.\n\n'Big Brother: All-Stars' premiere:Who's in the cast, who's HOH and what went wrong on live TV\n\nWhat are 'Big Brother' and 'Love Island' like in COVID quarantine? Masks with a side of real emotion\n\nAug. 6\n\n\"Star Trek: Lower Decks\" (Thursdays on CBS All Access): A new animated comedy, the first in decades for the \"Trek\" franchises, centers on the U.S.S. Cerritos's support crew.\n\nAug. 7\n\n\"Selling Sunset\": Season 3 (Netflix)\n\n\"Howard\" (Disney+): The documentary makes viewers a part of Howard Ashman's world. The late lyricist wrote the lyrics for tunes from beloved Disney movies like “The Little Mermaid,” “Aladdin” and “Beauty and the Beast,” in addition to creating musicals.\n\n'Selling Sunset':Chrishell Stause learns of divorce from Justin Hartley in a text: 'It's hard not to feel worthless'\n\nAug. 9\n\n\"Shark Week\" (Discovery Channel, Aug. 9 through Aug. 16): The 32nd annual Discovery event includes specials \"Tyson vs. Jaws: Rumble on the Reef\" (Aug. 9, 9 EDT/PDT) and \"Will Smith: Off The Deep End\" (Aug. 11, 9 EDT/PDT).\n\nAug. 14\n\n\"Ted Lasso\" (Apple TV+): Jason Sudeikis stars as a football coach hired to oversee a British soccer team.\n\n\"World's Toughest Race: Eco-Challenge Fiji\" (Amazon Prime): Bear Grylls hosts the reality competition, in which 66 teams face-off.\n\nAug. 16\n\n\"Lovecraft Country\": (HBO, Sundays at 9): The drama takes its inspiration from 2016 Matt Ruff's novel, set in the 1950s. Jonathan Majors portrays Freeman, who partners with his uncle George (Courtney B. Vance) and Letitia (Jurnee Smollett), a pal from childhood. They embark on a road trip to find Atticus' dad, Montrose (Michael Kenneth Williams), who has gone missing and also encounter racism and horrifying monsters.\n\n'Lovecraft Country' review:In HBO's horror series, America's racism is the real monster\n\n'There's a horror in just being Black':HBO's 'Lovecraft Country' digs into real racism with pulp fiction\n\nAug. 21\n\n\"Lucifer\": Season 5 (Netflix)\n\nAug. 30\n\n\"Love Fraud\" (Showtime, Sundays at 9): This four-part docuseries explores the cons of Richard Scott Smith, who romanced and swindled several women, prompting them to turn to a bounty hunter for revenge.\n\n'Pure evil':Con man Richard Scott Smith's ex-fiancée talks crook ahead of 'Love Fraud' docuseries\n\nSept. 2\n\n\"Chef's Table: BBQ\" (Netflix): The beloved food series returns to focus on barbecue.\n\nSept. 4\n\n\"The Boys\": Season 2 (Amazon Prime)\n\n\"Away\" (Netflix): Hillary Swank plays an astronaut who must leave her family to lead an international crew to Mars in this series.\n\n'Away':Hilary Swank on her timely new Netflix trip-to-Mars space drama\n\nHilary Swank sues SAG-AFTRA Health Plan over ovarian cyst coverage: 'It’s time we are treated fairly'\n\nSept. 6\n\n\"Power Book II: Ghost\" (Starz, Sunday at 9 (then 8 as of Sept. 13)): This new series, featuring Mary J. Blige, begins where its predecessor \"Power\" left off. Tariq St. Patrick (Michael Rainey Jr.) is facing a new reality where his mom Tasha (Naturi Naughton) is being charged with the death of Tariq's father. In order to pay for her defense attorney he \"turns to the familiar drug game.\"\n\n\"Undercover\": Season 2 (Netflix)\n\nSept. 7\n\n“American Ninja Warrior”: Season 12 (NBC, Mondays at 8)\n\nSept. 9\n\n\"Get Organized with The Home Edit\" (Netflix): A reality series from producers Reese Witherspoon and Molly Sims about organizers who help conquer clutter and transform lives.\n\n'Get Organized with The Home Edit' stars on 'surreal' experience in Reese Witherspoon's closet\n\n\"L.A.'s Finest\": Season 2 (Spectrum On Demand; first season airs on Fox, beginning Sept. 21 at 8.) Jessica Alba plays detective Nancy McKenna and Gabrielle Union portrays Syd Burnett, a member of the LAPD, formerly with the DEA, in this \"Bad Boys\" spin-off crime series.\n\n\"Woke\" (Hulu): Cartoonist Keith Knight serves as co-creator and an executive producer for the comedy inspired by the artist. Lamorne Morris stars as Keef, a cartoonist on the brink on success when an incident upends his life.\n\n'Woke' star Lamorne Morris talks reality of new Hulu series, shares his own experiences with racism\n\nSept. 11\n\n\"The Duchess\" (Netflix): Comedian Katherine Ryan stars as a single mom debating whether to have another child with her ex.\n\nSept. 12\n\n\"Wonderstruck – Animal Babies\" (BBC America, Saturday at 8): A trio of films documents the young lives of animals being raised in dangerous places.\n\n\"Coastal Elites\" (HBO, Saturday at 8): Bette Midler, Issa Rae, Sarah Paulson, Kaitlyn Dever and Dan Levy star in this special set during the pandemic, in a serious of monologues.\n\nSept. 13\n\n\"Our Cartoon President\" (Showtime, Sundays at 8:30)\n\nSept. 14\n\n\"Dancing with the Stars\" (ABC, Mondays at 8): Tyra Banks hosts the new season of the revamped dance competition.\n\n\"The Third Day\" (HBO, Mondays at 9): The limited series is broken into two parts: Jude Law stars in the \"Summer\" episodes, while Naomie Harris is at the center of the series' \"Winter\" shows.\n\n\"We Are Who We Are\" (HBO, Mondays at 10): A pair of American teens living in Italy on a U.S. military base are the focus of the eight-part look at adolescent life from Luca Guadagnino (\"Call Me By Your Name\").\n\nContributing: Carly Mallenbaum and Kelly Lawler\n\nDon Lewis' family lawyer says ad during Carole Baskin's 'DWTS' debut sparked 'legitimate tips'\n\nCarole Baskin:Family of her missing ex-husband airs commercial during her 'DWTS' debut", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2020/09/24"}]}
{"question_id": "20230317_16", "search_time": "2023/05/25/17:56", "search_result": []}
{"question_id": "20230317_17", "search_time": "2023/05/25/17:56", "search_result": []}
{"question_id": "20230317_18", "search_time": "2023/05/25/17:56", "search_result": [{"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/28/politics/us-covid-measures-travelers-china/index.html", "title": "US to require travelers from China to show negative Covid-19 test ...", "text": "CNN —\n\nThe United States will require all travelers from China to show a negative Covid-19 test result before flying to the country as Beijing’s rapid easing of Covid-19 restrictions leads to a surge in cases.\n\nPassengers flying to the US from China will need to get a test no more than two days before flying, federal health officials said, and present proof of the negative test to their airline before boarding.\n\nThe tests can be either a PCR test or an antigen self-test administered through a telehealth service.\n\nThe requirement will apply both to passengers flying directly to the United States from China, including Hong Kong and Macau, as well to passengers flying through popular third-country gateways, including Seoul, Toronto and Vancouver.\n\nPassengers who test positive more than 10 days before their flight can provide documentation of their recovery in lieu of a negative test result.\n\nThe new rules take effect at 12:01 a.m. ET on January 5.\n\nAmerican officials have expressed deep concerns about China’s lack of transparency surrounding the most recent surge in cases, particularly the absence of genome sequencing information that could help detect new strains of the coronavirus.\n\n“We know these measures will not eliminate all risk or completely prevent people who are infected from entering the United States,” a federal health official said. Still, “taken together they will help limit the number of infected people and provide us an early warning about new variants.”\n\nUS health officials said the January 5 timeline was selected to provide airlines with ample time to adjust operations to implement the new rules. The officials did not estimate how long they expect these rules to remain in place, saying they would “monitor the situation on the ground and adjust as needed.”\n\nAdditionally, officials announced that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expanding the Traveler-based Genomic Surveillance program to airports in Seattle and Los Angeles, bringing the total number of airports participating to seven with approximately 500 weekly flights from at least 30 countries covered. This will include approximately 290 weekly flights from China and surrounding areas.\n\n“We’re expanding that to hopefully to pick up any variant that may emerge” as well as “to reduce transmission of a new variant by introducing this pre-departure testing program,” an official said.\n\nThe new requirement comes as Japan and India have announced Covid-19 measures for travelers from China amid concerns over an uptick in cases.\n\nJapan is requiring individuals traveling from China be tested for Covid-19 upon arrival starting December 30. Indian authorities have said travelers from China, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Thailand will have to show proof of a negative Covid-19 test on arrival to India and quarantine if they test positive.\n\nChina has started loosening its strict Covid-19 measures after dismantling the country’s long-held zero-Covid policy earlier this month. On Monday, China announced it will end quarantine requirements for international arrivals from January 8, marking a major step toward reopening its borders.\n\nBut the sudden end to the China’s stringent health policy has caught many in the country off guard and put strains on the health system as it deals with an increase of infections.\n\nOfficials noted that the “CDC continues to recommend masking during travel, self-monitoring for symptoms and testing for three days after arrival for international travel.”\n\nOfficials said China uploaded “only about 100” new sequences to public databases in recent weeks, “including Omicron subvariants such as BA.5,” but the small sample size leaves room for concern, the CDC said.\n\n“What we’re concerned about is a new variant may emerge actually in China,” one official said. “With so many people in China being infected in a short period of time, there is a chance and probability that a new variant will emerge.”\n\nAsked if there was concern about the veracity of the data – and whether China was being truthful and transparent, an official said it was mainly the amount of data that concerned the administration at this point.\n\n“We have just limited information in terms of what’s being shared related to number of cases (that) are increasing hospitalizations, and especially deaths,” he said. “Also, there’s been a decrease in testing across China. So that also makes it difficult to know what the true infection rate is.”\n\nChina’s foreign ministry responded Wednesday to reports that the US is considering imposing restrictions on travelers from China, urging parties to work together to ensure the safe movement of people between countries and the stability of the global supply chain.\n\n“We need all parties to work together scientifically against the epidemic to ensure the safe movement of people between countries, maintain the stability of the global industrial chain supply chain and promote the resumption of healthy growth in the world economy,” China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Wang Wenbin said in a briefing.\n\nThis story has been updated with additional developments.", "authors": ["Arlette Saenz Kevin Liptak Nikki Carvajal", "Arlette Saenz", "Kevin Liptak", "Nikki Carvajal"], "publish_date": "2022/12/28"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/30/health/covid-variants-concern-new-year/index.html", "title": "Coronavirus: 2022 ends with looming risk of a new variant, public ...", "text": "CNN —\n\nAs the world enters a new year, many public health and infectious disease experts predict that monitoring for new coronavirus variants will be an increasingly important part of Covid-19 mitigation efforts – and some are turning their attention to a surge in cases in China.\n\nSubvariants of the Omicron coronavirus variant continue to circulate globally, and “we’re seeing Omicron do what viruses do, which is it picks up mutations along the way that helps it evade a little bit of immunity that’s induced by previous infection or vaccination,” said Andrew Pekosz, a microbiologist and immunologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore.\n\n“We haven’t seen any major jumps in terms of Omicron evolution in some time,” he said. But “it’s getting to that stage where it’s something that we have to continue to monitor.”\n\nIn the United States, the Omicron subvariants XBB.1.5, BQ.1.1, BQ.1, BA.5 and XBB are causing almost all Covid-19 infections, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.\n\nFor this week, the CDC estimates that XBB.1.5 now causes 40.5% of cases in the US, followed by BQ.1.1 at 26.9%; BQ.1 at 18.3%; BA.5 at 3.7%; and XBB at 3.6%.\n\n“SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is constantly changing and accumulating mutations in its genetic code over time. New variants of SARS-CoV-2 are expected to continue to emerge,” CDC researchers write in their data tracker. “Some variants will emerge and disappear, while others will emerge and continue to spread and may replace previous variants.”\n\nOmicron’s offshoots appear to dominate globally as well, but as the coronavirus continues to spread – especially in China after Beijing’s rapid easing of restrictions – there is now concern about where Covid-19 trends could be heading in 2023 and the risk of new variants emerging.\n\n“It is a worry,” said Dr. William Schaffner, a professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville and medical director of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases. “And that, of course, has led to the CDC’s very recent announcement that they are going to oblige people who come to this country from China to be tested and test negative before they can come into the country.”\n\nUS health officials announced Wednesday that, starting January 5, travelers from China will be required to show a negative Covid-19 test result before flying to the country. Passengers traveling to the US from China will need to get tested no more than two days before flying and present proof of the negative test to their airline before boarding.\n\nOfficials also announced that the CDC is expanding the traveler-based Genomic Surveillance Program to airports in Seattle and Los Angeles, bringing the total number of airports participating to seven with about 500 weekly flights from at least 30 countries covered, including about 290 weekly flights from China and surrounding areas.\n\nThe Chinese government has not been sharing a lot of information about the genetic composition of the viruses that it’s seeing there, Schaffner said.\n\n“Because the Chinese government was not doing that, that was the main reason CDC put this new travel requirement in place. It’s certainly not to prevent simple transmission of Covid from China here. We’ve got plenty of Covid. That would be like telling people not to pour a bucket of water into a swimming pool,” he said. “This travel testing requirement is a way to buy us some time and help create somewhat of a buffer between ourselves and China, should a new variant suddenly appear in that country.”\n\nHe added that the US will need “as much time as possible” to update vaccines and antivirals to respond to a potential emerging variant of concern.\n\n‘It really is a bit of a black hole’\n\nThe US testing requirements for travelers will “buy some time,” but they won’t prevent new Covid-19 cases from coming to the United States or new variants from emerging, said Dr. Carlos Del Rio, the executive associate dean for the Emory School of Medicine and Grady Health System in Atlanta.\n\n“I don’t think we’re going to see much benefit, honestly,” he said of the travel requirements. “The most important thing we need right now is, we need the Chinese to have more transparency and tell us exactly what’s going on, and that is pretty much a diplomatic decision. This is about diplomacy.”\n\nIn terms of the genetic data on coronaviruses in China that is accessible to the public, “It really is a bit of a black hole,” Pekosz said. Almost 250 million people in China may have caught Covid-19 in the first 20 days of December, according to an internal estimate from the nation’s top health officials, Bloomberg News and the Financial Times reported last week.\n\n“To me, what’s really a concern is the ongoing infections and whether they’re producing more variants in China that might be of particular concern for us, and testing people before they get on a plane won’t answer that question,” Pekosz said.\n\n“What we really need is to do a much better job of sequencing the viruses from individuals who are traveling from China so that we can aid in terms of understanding what kinds of variants are circulating there,” he said, adding that throughout the pandemic, Chinese officials have not been very transparent about their data on variants.\n\nMore spread, more variants\n\nConstant spread of a virus is what can lead to the emergence of variants. The more a virus spreads, the more it mutates.\n\n“For a variant to emerge – and this is true not only for Covid, but for influenza and for a lot of other viruses – the most critical thing is, the more cases that you have, the more likely that the virus will start to accumulate mutations that might have the ability to evade immunity more effectively or to transmit more effectively,” Pekosz said.\n\n“So when you have a situation like what’s starting to turn out in China, where you’re going to have millions upon millions of infections, every one of those infections is just one additional opportunity for the virus to pick up a random mutation that might make it better at infecting people,” he said. “Combine that with the fact that the Chinese population has been using less-than-optimal vaccines and has apparently not been as good about putting boosters into their population as other countries have, that means that there’s probably a lower amount of immunity in the population.”\n\nHealth authorities in China have “noticeably increased” the number of coronavirus genome sequences and other related data they are submitting to the global database GISAID, an initiative that maintains databases for scientists around the world to share data on flu viruses and coronaviruses.\n\nBut many experts argue that it’s not enough.\n\nGISAID said in an email to CNN on Wednesday that China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and several regional centers in the country, “have noticeably increased the number of submissions of genome sequence and associated metadata from samples taken in recent days.”\n\nThe number of genome sequences from China grew to just shy of 1,000, as of Friday, according to GISAID.\n\nGISAID also confirmed that the sequences from China “all closely resemble known globally circulating variants seen in different parts of the world between July and December 2022,” compared with the 14.4 million genomes in its database.\n\n“These latest data provide a snapshot of the evolution of the Omicron variants and shows that these most recently shared sequences from China are closely related to variants that have been circulating for some time,” according to GISAID.\n\nWhat the future may hold\n\nCovid-19 is in a relatively “stable” state right now in the United States, but the nation still sees about 350 deaths related to the disease each day, said Dr. Jessica Justman, an associate professor of medicine in epidemiology at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and senior technical director of the global health program ICAP.\n\nWhile Covid-19 levels remain far below those of prior surges, trends are on the rise in parts of the US, new hospital admissions have jumped nearly 50% over the past month, and there is growing concern that case numbers could soar after the winter holidays.\n\nTo reduce the risk of increased Covid-19 spread, Justman said, it will be important for people in the new year to continue to stay up-to-date with their Covid-19 vaccinations.\n\nOnly 14.6% of the US population ages 5 and older has gotten their updated booster shot, according to CDC data.\n\n“So where are we going? That does take me to China,” Justman said.\n\nGet CNN Health's weekly newsletter Sign up here to get The Results Are In with Dr. Sanjay Gupta every Tuesday from the CNN Health team.\n\n“I’m concerned that China right now is one giant incubator of SARS-CoV-2. There is the potential to have so many infections and with that, new variants,” she said.\n\n“I think we’re going to be looking at new variants of concern” in 2023, Justman said. “The question is: Will we go back to a point where we have a variant of concern that causes such severe illness that we don’t get the benefit of our protection from prior infections and from prior vaccinations? … I’m going to be optimistic and say I don’t think we’re going to go back to that point.”", "authors": ["Jacqueline Howard"], "publish_date": "2022/12/30"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/news/2023/03/14/cdc-lifts-covid-requirement-china/11472595002/", "title": "Travelers from China no longer need to show proof of negative ...", "text": "A requirement that travelers to the U.S. from China present a negative COVID-19 test before boarding their flights expired last Friday after more than two months as cases in China have fallen.\n\nFollowing other countries like Italy and Japan, the restrictions were put in place on Dec. 28 and took effect Jan. 5 amid a surge in infections in China after the nation sharply eased pandemic restrictions and as U.S. health officials expressed concerns that their Chinese counterparts were not being truthful to the world about the true number of infections and deaths.\n\nI measured CO2 levels on a plane:I measured CO2 levels on a plane: It showed me when I was most likely exposed to COVID\n\nTraveling to Europe?:What you should know about recent and planned strikes\n\nThe requirement from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expired for flights leaving after 3 p.m. EST last Friday.\n\nLearn more: Best travel insurance\n\nThe U.S. decision to lift restrictions comes at a moment when U.S.-China relations are strained. Biden ordered a Chinese spy balloon shot down last month after it traversed the continental United States. The Biden administration has also publicized U.S. intelligence findings that raise concern Beijing is considering providing Russia weaponry for its war on Ukraine.\n\nWhy was the order lifted?\n\nIn a news release Friday, the CDC said epidemiologic data showed there is no longer a surge in COVID-19 cases in China, and the agency determined that requirements are no longer necessary. The agency also identified no variants of concern from China.\n\nAccording to the World Health Organization, daily cases peaked at 7 million during the surge in late December and leveled off to 20,000 or so cases a day between Jan. 24 and Feb. 21.\n\nWhat happens now that there are no requirements?\n\nPassengers flying to the U.S. from China, Hong Kong, Macau and designated airports will no longer be required to show a negative COVID-19 test no more than two days before their flight or proof of recovery from COVID-19 before boarding.\n\nThe designated airports include Incheon International Airport (ICN) in Seoul, Republic of Korea; Toronto Pearson International Airport (YYZ) in Canada; and Vancouver International Airport (YVR) in Canada.\n\nThe testing applied to anyone 2 years and older, including U.S. citizens.\n\nThere also were health screening procedures at airports where travelers have their temperature taken.\n\nWhat is the current travel advisory for Americans in China?\n\nThe same day the requirements were lifted by the CDC, the State Department reissued China a Level 3 Travel Advisory with updates to COVID-19 information. The advisory urges Americans to \"reconsider travel,\" citing health risks, wrongful detention and other potential risks.\n\nRegarding COVID-19, the agency said it doesn't \"provide or coordinate direct medical care to private U.S. citizens abroad. U.S. citizens overseas may receive PRC-approved COVID vaccine doses where they are eligible.\"\n\nThe Chinese government has not authorized the use of commonly available COVID-19 vaccines in mainland China, such as Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech. There are 13 Chinese-made vaccines, but not all have been approved by the FDA.\n\nTravelers in mainland China may can face additional testing requirements to attend events or enter facilities. People may also run into law enforcement \"arbitrarily enforcing local laws,\" including exit bans, and they become aware of this only when trying to leave China.\n\nOn the CDC website, there are no travel health notices for China. The agency recommends people be up to date with all COVID-19 vaccines, among others, before traveling to China and taking the same health and safety precautions as they would in other places.\n\nContributing: Zeke Miller and Aamer Madhani, The Associated Press\n\nKathleen Wong is a travel reporter based in Hawaii. You can reach her at kwong@usatoday.com", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2023/03/14"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/2022/12/28/us-require-covid-19-testing-travelers-china/10961481002/", "title": "US will require COVID-19 testing for travelers from China, major ...", "text": "The U.S. announced new COVID-19 testing requirements for all travelers from China, joining other nations imposing restrictions because of a surge of infections.\n\nThe increase in cases across China follows the rollback of the nation's strict anti-virus controls. China's \"zero COVID\" policies had kept China's infection rate low but fueled public frustration and crushed economic growth.\n\nCOVID infections rise:Virus surging back in China?\n\nVaccinations:China urges elderly to get COVID jab\n\nBeginning Jan. 5, all travelers to the U.S. from China will be required to take a COVID-19 test no more than two days before travel and provide a negative test before boarding their flight. The testing applies to anyone 2 years and older.\n\nLearn more: Best travel insurance\n\nOther countries have taken similar steps in an effort to keep infections from spreading beyond China's borders. Japan is requiring a negative COVID-19 test upon arrival for travelers from China, and Malaysia announced new tracking and surveillance measures. India, South Korea and Taiwan are requiring virus tests for visitors from China.\n\nLunar New Year, which begins Jan. 22, is usually China's busiest travel season, and China announced last week it will resume issuing passports for tourism for the first time since the start of the pandemic in 2020.\n\nThe U.S. action is a return to requirements for some international travelers. The Biden administration lifted the last of such mandates in June. At that time, the CDC continued to recommend that people boarding flights to the U.S. get tested close to departure time and not travel if they are sick.\n\nEarly in the pandemic, the U.S. barred entry to foreigners traveling from China, weeks after the virus first emerged there three years ago. Americans were allowed to return home and flights from China were funneled to selected airports where passengers were screened for illness.\n\nBut the virus was already spreading in the U.S. among people with no travel history.\n\nMajor cruise line operator brings back COVID-19 requirements\n\nCruise line operator Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd. also said it will implement mandatory pre-cruise COVID testing for passengers who have been in mainland China, Hong Kong or Macau within 10 days of their sailing. NCLH operates Norwegian Cruise Line, Oceania Cruises and Regent Seven Seas Cruises.\n\n\"The health, safety and well-being of our guests, crew and communities we visit is our number one priority,\" a spokesperson for the company, told USA TODAY in an email. \"As a result of growing concerns regarding COVID-19 in China, and recently implemented travel restrictions by several countries including the United States, we are proactively implementing preventative health and safety measures for all sailings embarking between Jan. 5 - Jan. 31, 2023.\"\n\nCruise lines dropped COVID-19 rules:How did that affect cases? We got numbers from the CDC\n\nI measured CO2 levels on a plane:It showed me when I was most likely exposed to COVID\n\nImpacted passengers must show proof of a negative PCR test taken within 48 hours before boarding, and take a PCR test at the embarkation port. They will also need to test every 48 hours on board the ship \"until at least 10 days have passed from their last time in these regions,\" the spokesperson said.\n\nThose guests must also be fully vaccinated and boosted, and guests that hold a passport from China, Hong Kong or Macau have to follow the same rules, unless they can prove they have not visited in the 10 days before boarding.\n\nNorwegian Cruise Line previously dropped all remaining testing, vaccine and mask rules in October, though the changes were subject to rules at various destinations.\n\nContributing: Carla K. Johnson, The Associated Press", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/12/28"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/23/china/hong-kong-removes-quarantine-international-travel-intl-hnk/index.html", "title": "Hong Kong removes international travel quarantine after more than ...", "text": "Hong Kong CNN —\n\nThe Hong Kong government has announced the ending of formal quarantine for international travelers after more than two and a half years of stringent pandemic controls.\n\nUnder new rules that will take effect from September 26, incoming travelers will be required to undergo three days of self-monitoring on arrival.\n\nThe Hong Kong government has faced considerable pressure from its business community and some public health officials to loosen restrictions amid a faltering economy, an outflow of foreigners and concerns that the financial hub, once known as “Asia’s World City,” was being left behind as the rest of the world moved on from the pandemic.\n\nBaby with Covid separated from family and quarantined alone in Hong Kong 03:41 - Source: CNN\n\nHong Kong’s Chief Executive John Lee said in a much anticipated press conference on Friday that the city’s infection numbers have stabilized, allowing for the removal of quarantine.\n\n“We hope to give the maximum room to reconnect Hong Kong, and to revitalize our economy,” Lee said.\n\nIncoming travelers will be able to do their three days of self-monitoring at home or a place of their own choice. During this time they will be able to go outside but will be restricted from some places.\n\nArrivals will no longer need to provide a negative PCR test before boarding a plane. However, they will need to provide a negative rapid antigen test (RAT) 24 hours before they board.\n\nDuring the three-day monitoring period, people will be assigned an amber color under the city’s digital health code, which will prevent them from entering places such as bars or restaurants.\n\nThey will need to do PCR tests on days 2, 4 and 6 after arrival, and an RAT test every day for seven days after arrival.\n\nThe policy shift came after Japan announced that it will re-open its borders from October 11 and after Taiwan said it aims to scrap its mandatory quarantine on October 13 if the island has passed the peak of its latest Omicron BA-5 outbreak.\n\nQuestions about when the city would loosen restrictions have grown more pointed as two major international events, the Hong Kong Sevens rugby tournament and a global banking conference, were slated for November and seen as a way to revive the beleaguered city, which has been rocked in recent years by pro-democracy protests and an ensuing crackdown on civil liberties by Beijing.\n\nWhile various governments brought in border controls following the outbreak of the pandemic, most have since rolled back the measures, including Singapore, which typically vies with Hong Kong to attract foreign business and talent.\n\nBut unlike other global hubs, Hong Kong’s Covid-19 policies have long been seen as closely tied to mainland China, where Beijing continues to maintain a stringent zero-Covid policy and border quarantines, with no sign of easing as stamping out infection remains a top priority.\n\nCalls for the international border controls to be loosened under the leadership of Lee’s predecessor Carrie Lam, who left office June 30, were stymied by a competing demand to open quarantine-free travel to the mainland – a proposition that has yet gone unfulfilled.\n\nA public signal of Beijing’s support for Hong Kong’s new policy route came on September 20, when the deputy head of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office Huang Liuquan said the Hong Kong government had been coordinating its policies in line with its local situation and adjustments did not need to be “overinterpreted.”\n\nWhile the new policy for international arrivals in Hong Kong may not be a harbinger of imminent change in mainland policy, it is a mark of divergent situations on each side of the border.\n\nThough the city kept local cases to a minimum for the first two years of the pandemic, Hong Kong experienced an explosive outbreak of the highly infectious Omicron variant earlier this year and has not revived a zero-Covid stance since. Instead, the city has continued to clock between hundreds and thousands of daily cases. Officials records show over 1.7 million cases have been reported in the city of 7.4 million, though experts believe the real number is higher.\n\nIn mainland China, in contrast, the vast majority of the country has yet to be exposed to the virus – placing its population at a deficit when it comes to natural immunity from infection, a concern for health officials there who fear the strain of a widescale outbreak on the health care system.\n\nHong Kong’s new measures comes more than 900 days after the city first enacted border restrictions in March 2020 and nearly two years after it mandated hotel quarantine for all international arrivals in December 2020. At its longest, the quarantine period stretched to 21 days. Travelers who tested positive during quarantine were moved to designated facilities, including, at times, government-run camps.\n\nThe program became increasingly controversial among the public after Covid-19 vaccines became widely available, local case numbers rose and places with similar systems like New Zealand and Australia opened their borders.\n\nThis summer a dearth of available hotel rooms and limited flights raised public anger as travelers risked being trapped outside the city until a free room opened up if their itinerary was disrupted, for example by catching Covid-19 or having a flight rescheduled.\n\nCertain restrictions have been eased in recent months. In May non-Hong Kong residents were permitted to enter the city from overseas for the first time in more than two years, while a scheme that saw some flights with Covid-positive passengers suspended was scrapped in July.\n\nEarlier this summer, Lee’s administration reduced quarantine from one week to three days, plus an additional four days of health monitoring, during which arrivals are not allowed to go to places including bars, gyms and restaurants.\n\nHotel quarantine and pre-flight testing requirements had been seen as a remaining significant hurdle to travel into the city, though questions remain over what role the new plan will play in reviving the city’s once vibrant tourism industry.", "authors": ["Simone Mccarthy Kathleen Magramo", "Simone Mccarthy", "Kathleen Magramo"], "publish_date": "2022/09/23"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/26/business/china-travel-covid-quarantine/index.html", "title": "China will end Covid restrictions and quarantining for international ...", "text": "New York CNN —\n\nChina will drop quarantine requirements for international arrivals from January 8, in a major step toward reopening its borders that have shut the country from the rest of the world for nearly three years.\n\nInbound travelers will only be required to show a negative Covid test result obtained within 48 hours before departure, China’s National Health Commission (NHC) said in an announcement late on Monday. Currently, they are subject to five days of hotel quarantine and three days of self-isolation at home.\n\nRestrictions on airlines over the number of international flights and passenger capacity will also be removed, according to the announcement.\n\nThe easing of borders is part of a broader move by China to dismantles what was left of its long-held zero-Covid policy, which was abruptly abandoned early this month following nationwide protests over its heavy social and economic toll.\n\nThe sudden policy U-turn caught the public and the country’s fragile health system unprepared, causing widespread shortages of cold and fever medicine and leaving hospitals scrambling to cope with an unprecedented surge of infections.\n\nHaving rolled back lockdowns, mass testing and allowed positive patients to quarantine at home, the government is now scrapping other remaining preventive measures, including contact tracing.\n\nChina has sealed its borders since March 2020 to prevent the spread of the virus, keeping itself in global isolation even as the rest of the world reopened and moved on from the pandemic.\n\nForeigners have been largely banned from entering China, apart from a limited number of business or family visits. The NHC said it will further “optimize” arrangements for foreigners to visit China for work, business, study or family reasons and “provide convenience” for their visa applications.\n\nThe scrapping of travel restrictions is also a big relief for Chinese nationals studying or working abroad. Those who could not afford the soaring prices of flight tickets, lengthy hotel quarantines or onerous testing requirements have not been able to go home for three years.\n\nAuthorities also vowed to resume outbound tourism for Chinese citizens in an orderly manner, depending on the international Covid situation and the capacity of various domestic services – although it offered no time line or details on implementation.\n\nOn Chinese social media, many celebrated the long-awaited relaxation on international travel. Ctrip, a travel booking site in China, said searches for popular overseas tourist destinations on the platform jumped 10 times within an hour of the announcement of the new policy.\n\nOthers lamented the suffering, loss and missed opportunities over the past years.\n\n“How many people who used to straddle the borders, from overseas students to workers making a living in Africa, had to change their life plans? How many families had been separated and barred from seeing their loved ones for one last time? How many three years do we have in our lives? These three years have changed us forever,” a Chinese journalist wrote on microblogging site Weibo.\n\nChina’s top health authority made the sweeping announcement Monday as an action plan for the downgrading of its management of Covid.\n\nSince 2020, China has classified Covid as a Category B infectious disease but treated it as a Category A disease, putting it on par with bubonic plague or cholera and empowering local authorities to impose lockdowns and other restrictions. Now, it will be treated as a Category B disease, in the same category as HIV and bird flu.\n\nThe commission also changed the official Chinese name of Covid from “novel coronavirus pneumonia” to “novel coronavirus infection,” an amendment it said is “more in line with the current characteristics and danger level of this disease.”\n\n“The less-deadly Omicron variant has become the dominant strain of SARS-Cov-2, and only a very small number of cases developed to pneumonia,” NHC said in the statement.\n\nChina’s top leaders have signaled recently that they would shift focus back to growth next year and have bet on the relaxation of pandemic restrictions to lift the economy.\n\nChina’s current focus is to prepare sufficient medical resources, according to the NHC statement. Big and middle size cities need to quickly transform their “Fangcang”, makeshift centralized Covid quarantine facilities, into designated hospitals with enough health workers staffed, NHC added.\n\nNHC also didn’t completely rule out the possibility for temporary and local restriction measures going forward.\n\n“As we manage the outbreaks, we should pay special attention to real-time global assessment of the outbreak’s intensity – pressure on the health system and general situation of the society – and take appropriate lawful measures to limit people’s group activities and movement in a flexible way to flatten the curve,” it said in the statement, adding that lockdowns might be re-imposed at nursing homes if the outbreak is severe.\n\n– CNN’s Selina Wang and Laura He contributed to this report", "authors": ["Yong Xiong Xiaofei Xu Nectar Gan", "Yong Xiong", "Xiaofei Xu", "Nectar Gan"], "publish_date": "2022/12/26"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/news/2023/05/09/international-travel-vaccine-guidelines/70199814007/", "title": "Biden to lift COVID vaccine requirements for international travelers", "text": "The Biden administration will lift the COVID-19 vaccine requirement for inbound international air travelers on Friday.\n\n\"As we continue to monitor the evolving state of COVID-19 and the emergence of virus variants, we have the tools to detect and respond to the potential emergence of a variant of high consequence,\" President Joe Biden said in a proclamation Tuesday. \"Considering the progress that we have made, and based on the latest guidance from our public health experts, I have determined that we no longer need the international air travel restrictions that I imposed in October 2021.\"\n\nBiden announced the change last week, along with the end of vaccine requirements for federal employees and contractors, foreign nationals at the land border and others. The requirement for air travelers will lift at midnight Thursday as the coronavirus public health emergency ends. Biden previously signed a bill ending the COVID national emergency in April.\n\nSo, what does that mean for travelers? Here's what we know.\n\nSummer travel is expensive:Here's why flight prices heat up when the weather does\n\nLearn more: Best travel insurance\n\nWhy are travel refunds taking so long?Here are some tips to get your money back\n\nIs there still a vaccine requirement for international travelers coming to the US?\n\nNot as of later this week.\n\nCurrently, all \"non-U.S. citizen, non-U.S. immigrants traveling to the United States by air\" must show proof of vaccination with limited exceptions, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's website.\n\nIndustry group the U.S. Travel Association, which had called on the Biden administration to end the vaccine requirement for inbound international visitors and argued the rule was an impediment to tourism, applauded the change when it was announced last week.\n\n“Today’s action to lift the vaccine requirement eases a significant entry barrier for many global travelers, moving our industry and country forward,\" Geoff Freeman, the organization's President and CEO, said in a statement last week. He also called on the federal government to \"ensure U.S. airports and other ports of entry are appropriately staffed with Customs and Border Protection officers to meet the growing demand for entry.\"\n\nThe U.S. lifted a requirement that air travelers coming from China show proof of a negative COVID test in March. The policy took effect in January amid a surge of cases in China.\n\nThe U.S. dropped its COVID testing rule for international flyers in June.\n\nDo travelers need a vaccine to cross the Mexico or Canada borders to the US?\n\nThe Department of Homeland Security also said in a news release that it will no longer require non-U.S. travelers coming into the country by land or at ferry terminals to be fully vaccinated or show proof of their vaccination status.\n\nDo US travelers need to be vaccinated against COVID to travel internationally?\n\nThat depends. Many destinations have dropped their vaccination and testing requirements for travel, though some still have rules in place. The Philippines, for example, still requires travelers to be fully vaccinated or show proof of a negative COVID test in order to visit, according to the U.S. Embassy in the Philippines.\n\nAI, self-service are taking over travel:Will everything become a DIY experience?\n\nThe CDC also recommends travelers be up to date on their COVID vaccinations before leaving the country. The agency defines up to date as having one updated Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccine for people age 6 and up, which \"protect against both the original virus that causes COVID-19 and the Omicron variant BA.4 and BA.5,\" according to its website.\n\nNathan Diller is a consumer travel reporter for USA TODAY based in Nashville. You can reach him at ndiller@usatoday.com.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2023/05/09"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/10/politics/us-to-end-pre-departure-testing-requirement/index.html", "title": "US will end Covid-19 testing requirement for air travelers entering ...", "text": "CNN —\n\nThe Biden administration is expected to announce Friday that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will lift its requirement for travelers to test negative for Covid-19 before entering the US, according to a senior administration official and a US Centers For Disease Control and Prevention official.\n\nThe move, which CNN was first to report, will go into effect for US-bound air travelers at midnight on Sunday, the officials said.\n\nThe CDC is lifting the restriction that the travel industry had lobbied against for months after determining it was no longer necessary “based on the science and data,” the senior administration official said. The CDC has the ability to reassess the order at any time and potentially reinstate it, especially if a new variant develops and poses concern. The measure has been in place since January 2021.\n\nThat official said the Biden administration plans to work with airlines to ensure a smooth transition with the change, but it will likely be a welcome move for most in the industry.\n\nIn a statement to CNN, the CDC said, “The Covid-19 pandemic has now shifted to a new phase, due to the widespread uptake of highly effective Covid-19 vaccines, the availability of effective therapeutics, and the accrual of high rates of vaccine- and infection-induced immunity at the population level in the United States. Each of these measures has contributed to lower risk of severe disease and death across the United States.”\n\nTravel industry officials have been increasingly critical of the requirement in recent weeks and directly urged the Biden administration to end the measure, arguing it was having a chilling effect on an already fragile economy, according to Airlines for America chief Nick Calio, whose group met recently with White House officials.\n\nThe travel industry, and some scientific experts, said the policy had been out of date for months.\n\nLawmakers, including Democrats, had also advocated for lifting the requirement in recent weeks.\n\nNevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto said, “I’m glad CDC suspended the burdensome coronavirus testing requirement for international travelers, and I’ll continue to do all I can to support the strong recovery of our hospitality industry.”\n\nWhite House officials met last month with travel industry officials, who pressed the Biden administration to end its requirements that vaccinated international travelers take a coronavirus test before flying to the United States.\n\nAirlines for America said its members – including American Airlines, United Airlines, Southwest Airlines and Delta Air Lines – had believed lifting the requirements would lead more foreigners to visit the US.\n\nThe trade association told CNN that in mid-May, domestic travel came within 7 percentage points of pre-pandemic levels, but international travel lagged at 14% below normal.\n\nUS Travel Association President and CEO Roger Dow praised the decision.\n\n“Prior to the pandemic, travel was one of our nation’s largest industry exports. The lifting of this requirement will enable the industry to lead the way toward a broader US economic and jobs recovery,” Dow said in a statement.\n\nThe industry has criticized the policy as out of date for months, and some medical experts have also questioned its utility.\n\nTesting international arrivals doesn’t make much sense to Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious diseases specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee.\n\n“I’ve been bemused about that for a long time because we’ve got plenty of Covid here! It’s not as though we’re trying to keep Covid out,” Schaffner told CNN in March. “It’s here already.”\n\nThis story has been updated with additional reporting.", "authors": ["Kaitlan Collins"], "publish_date": "2022/06/10"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/news/2023/04/27/china-travel-requirements-pcr-test-zero-covid/11751297002/", "title": "China to drop PCR test requirement for travelers entering the country", "text": "Associated Press\n\nBEIIJING — Travelers entering China will no longer need to provide a negative PCR test result starting Saturday, in another easing of China's “zero COVID” policies.\n\nTravelers can instead show a negative antigen test result taken within 48 hours before boarding, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told reporters Tuesday.\n\nOver the last three years, China imposed an array of anti-virus controls to try to eliminate the coronavirus from the country, including lockdowns and regular mass testing. But after the regulations hammered the economy and sparked protests, the government suddenly rolled back the onerous measures in December and made a major step to drop its quarantine rule in early January.\n\nCDC:Travelers from China no longer need to show proof of negative COVID test\n\nShould I book my summer travel now?:Travel experts share how to find the best deals\n\nLearn more: Best travel insurance\n\nLast month, the country resumed issuing all types of visas as part of its efforts to revive tourism. Still, it kept PCR testing requirements for passengers arriving from some countries, a costly requirement that was a major deterrent for visitors.\n\nPCR tests are highly accurate but cost time and money, while antigen tests are easier to obtain.\n\n“To further facilitate cross-border travel, China is taking new steps to refine pre-departure testing requirements guided by the principle of ensuring safe and orderly travel and keeping the measures science based and well targeted,” Mao said.\n\nShe added that airlines will no longer be required to check test results before departure.\n\nAt a briefing on Wednesday, He Qinghua, an official of the National Health Commission, said the number of COVID-19 cases in early April had dropped to the lowest level since December. Although the figures have risen slightly since mid-April, massive outbreaks in the short term are unlikely, he said.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2023/04/27"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/news/2020/05/20/international-travel-allowed-yet-when-destinations-reopening-coronavirus/5220301002/", "title": "Coronavirus travel: Reopening info for Bali, UK, Cayman Islands", "text": "Americans with a bad case of wanderlust may have to wait to vacation abroad – and while some countries have reopened or announced target dates to reopen, the pickings may be slim for a while.\n\nParts of the Caribbean and Europe have reopened from coronavirus restrictions, but the European Union extended its travel ban on Americans.\n\nThe EU first started lifting international travel restrictions on July 1, welcoming visitors from 14 countries, including Canada, South Korea and Australia. The U.S. was left off that initial list, and Americans remain barred from visiting the bloc.\n\nThough the U.S. State Department has lifted its advisory on avoiding international travel issued in March, the agency is returning to its system of country-specific advisories, noting that the customary level 1 through 4 advisories for specific countries on Travel.State.gov provide more detailed information about specific conditions in individual countries. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also has a travel notice system and recommends against \"nonessential travel\" to much of the world.\n\nWhile this is by no means an exhaustive list, here's an update on some of the countries that are most popular with American travelers:\n\nLearn more: Best travel insurance\n\nCanada\n\nBorder status report: Americans and Canadians won't be able to cross the border in either direction for nonessential travel until Aug. 21, according to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.\n\nWhat can travelers expect once they're allowed in? There's a major loophole in the border-closure policy: The U.S. Embassy in Ottawa said the order does not apply to \"air, rail, or sea travel at this time, but does apply to commuter rail and ferry travel.\"\n\nAccording to the Canadian Border Services Agency, anyone who is not a citizen or permanent resident of that country must prove they are traveling for an essential purpose, are only transiting or are an immediate family member of a citizen or permanent resident. They must also have a plan to quarantine for 14 days, unless exempted.\n\n'It was the right thing': Trudeau announces extension of US-Canada border closure\n\nMexico\n\nWhen will the border open? Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf announced that theland border with Mexico would remain closed until at least Aug. 20.\n\nBut like the U.S.-Canadian closure order, the Mexican version does not apply to air, rail or sea travel, except for commuter rail and ferry travel.\n\nCosta Rica\n\nBorder status report: While the Central American country reopened to visitors from Europe and Canada on Aug. 1, it hasn't said when it will welcome back Americans.\n\nWhat can tourists expect? Passengers entering Costa Rica from an approved flight must present negative COVID-19 test results taken within the last 48 hours and purchase insurance covering accommodations for quarantine and hospitalization, should they get sick. Passengers must also complete digital epidemiological forms, available in multiple languages.\n\nCaribbean\n\nAnguilla\n\nBorder status: Although it previously appeared that the British overseas territory north of St. Maarten would not open to foreign tourists until at least Halloween, its tourism board announced via Twitter Aug. 17 that it will begin accepting entry applications via its website, IVisitAnguilla.com, on Aug. 21.\n\nWhat can tourists expect?According to details provided to Travel Weekly, once a visitor's application has been approved, he or she will be required to submit a negative PCR test for COVID-19 taken no earlier than five days before travel and proof of a health insurance policy that covers coronavirus treatment. If Anguilla grants an electronic certificate authorizing travel, the visitor must remain at their hotel until a second PCR test is administered on Day 10 of the visit. If that test comes back negative, the tourist may then move about the island freely.\n\nAruba\n\nBorder status report: The Aruba Tourism Authority says the island is open to tourists but with restrictions.\n\nWhat can tourists expect? All visitors must complete a disembarkation card with contact-tracing details such as their date of birth, passport information and the duration of their stay as well as completing a health assessment interview. While all visitors 15 and older must present a negative PCR test result, visitors from hot-spot states must complete their test 72 hours before departure or take one test before leaving and a second upon arrival at the airport. Others may opt to be tested upon arrival. The testing fee is $75.\n\nBahamas\n\nBorder status report: After barring Americans from entry earlier this month as COVID-19 cases resurged, the Bahamas issued an update on July 31 saying travelers from the United States are once again welcome, so long as they follow strict protocol, including a mandatory 14-day quarantine upon arrival.\n\nWhat can tourists expect? Travelers can quarantine in a private residence or rented accommodation, such as an Airbnb, where it's possible to isolate in a bedroom with a connected bathroom; in a hotel room with a connected bathroom; or on a private boat. If travelers don't have access to an approved quarantine location, then they will have to spend two weeks in a government-mandated quarantine facility, at their own expense.\n\nTravelers will also have to download an app on their phones to assist with contact tracing. Refusing to download the app is a deportable offense. They must also apply for a Bahamas health visa and have a negative COVID-19 PCR test result from an accredited lab that was taken within 10 days.\n\nAfter the 14-day quarantine, travelers will need to test negative on another COVID-19 test in order to leave quarantine.\n\nThough the Bahamas remains open to international visitors, Prime Minster Hubert Minnis announced a national, two-week lock down starting Aug. 4 to combat a surge in COVID-19 cases. During this time, all businesses throughout the country, including curbside and takeaway dining and retail, must suspend operations. Residents may leave their homes only on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. to retrieve essential items including groceries, water, medication and gas. On Aug. 6, the U.S. Department of State issued a Level 4 travel advisory urging Americans not to travel to the Bahamas due to COVID-19 health concerns and warning of increased crime.\n\nBarbados\n\nBorder status report: The island has reopened to U.S. tourists with with restrictions as of July 12.\n\nBarbados' tourism site says that all visitors must complete an online customs entry form. And while an advance COVID-19 test is not required, one is recommended in order to have your application form fast-tracked; anyone who doesn't provide one will be tested upon arrival.\n\nCayman Islands\n\nBorder status report: According to an Aug. 7 press release, The Cayman Islands are postponing reopening by a month until at least Oct. 1, when it will reassess COVID-19 trends.\n\nWhat can tourists expect? Prior to the postponement announcement, the British overseas territory had outlined the first phase of reopening. During this period, visitors and returning residents must register for permission to travel on a government-arranged repatriation flight or by private air. All passengers over the age of 10 must provide results of a negative PCR test within 72 hours of traveling.\n\nThe Cayman Islands are also collaborating with BioIntelliSense, a U.S.-based biotech company, on wearable tech for arriving travelers. They plan to use \"BioButtons\" to monitor their heart rates, respiratory rates and skin temperature for symptoms of COVID-19.\n\nEligible travelers can choose to wear a BioButton and self-isolate in their choice of residence for five days before taking a second PCR test. If negative, they must continue wearing a BioButton for nine more days, but they will not be required to self-isolate. Those who choose not to wear a BioButton must quarantine in a government-managed facility for 14 days.\n\nDominica\n\nBorder status report: According to a press release issued July 21, Dominica will reopen its borders to international travelers Aug. 7 — so long as travelers comply with a lengthy list of health and safety protocols.\n\nWhat can tourists expect? All passengers must submit a health questionnaire at least 24 hours prior to their arrival in Dominica and show notification of clearance to travel. They must also submit a negative PCR test result recorded within 24 to 72 hours before their arrival. Upon arriving, passengers must wear face masks at all times up to and including departure from the airport, follow physical-distancing guidelines, practice good respiratory and personal sanitization, and obey the instructions of health care staff and officials.\n\nAs part of the disembarkation process, arriving passengers must also sanitize their hands, undergo a health assessment that includes a temperature check, provide confirmation of their health questionnaires and negative PCR test results, and undergo test screening with a negative result.\n\nGrenada\n\nBorder status report: Americans are allowed back in Grenada, but because the U.S. is considered a high-risk country, there are additional requirements.\n\nWhat can tourists expect? According to the government's entry requirements document, visitors from high-risk countries must present a completed health form and a negative COVID-19 PCR test taken no more than 72 hours before travel. They will also have to take a second CPR test at their own expense within 48 hours of arrival and quarantine in a government-approved facility until the results come back. They must also download Grenada's contact-tracing app by the time they arrive and keep it on their phones for the duration of their quarantine period, which may last up to 14 days. They will also be required to wear a geofencing watch for that period.\n\nJamaica\n\nBorder status report: The Caribbean island began welcoming back international tourists on July 15.\n\nWhat can tourists expect? While all tourists must complete an online travel authorization form and undergo a health screening, Jamaica's official tourism site says anyone over 12 from the U.S., Mexico, the Dominican Republic or Brazil traveling there after Aug. 20 must submit a negative COVID-19 RT-PCR test from an accredited lab taken within 10 days of travel.\n\nIn a press release, Jamaica's Tourist Board also warned that travelers from areas deemed not to be high-risk may still be subject to testing. In addition, it said, \"Those with negative results – as well as those who do not require testing – must adhere to the Stay in Zone order, which requires persons to remain at their hotel or resort within the Resilient Corridor for the duration of their stay. Those who are screened and assessed and show symptoms upon arrival will be subject to swab testing and must quarantine in their hotel room until test results are available.\"\n\nPuerto Rico\n\nBorder status report: Tourists are already being welcomed back in this U.S. territory.\n\nWhat can tourists expect? Starting July 15, all passengers have to wear a mask and must take a molecular test 72 hours prior to their arrival. The test results must be submitted to officials at the airport. Travelers who test positive for the virus or refuse to hand over results or do not yet have results available will be forced into a two-week quarantine. During that time, they have to undergo a molecular test and share the results if they want to be released from quarantine, said Puerto Rico Health Secretary Lorenzo González.\n\nSt. Barts\n\nBorder status report: According to its website, St. Barts is currently open to citizens of Schengen Treaty (European) countries. It has not said when it will welcome back Americans.\n\nWhat can tourists expect: Visitors ages 11 and up must present a negative COVID-19 test taken with 72 hours of travel and give a sworn statement that they have not had exhibited symptoms or been in contact with someone who tested positive within the last 14 days. A second test within the seven days after arrival is also encouraged.\n\nSt. Kitts & Nevis\n\nBorder status report: The tourism website for the islands, quoted Prime Minister Timothy Harris as saying they will reopen in October but did not specify a date.\n\nWhat tourists can expect: The tourism site also says that all inbound travelers are required to email a negative PCR COVID-19 test result taken within 72 hours of travel to Chief Medical Officer Dr. Hazel Law. They must quarantine for 14 days after arrival and then undergo a second test. Visitors will be released at that point if they test negative.\n\nSt. Lucia\n\nBorder status report: The island's tourism board says it is open.\n\nWhat can tourists expect? All arriving passengers must have a negative result from a PCR test taken no more than seven days before arriving in St. Lucia, the island's tourism site advises. Once there, they must wear face masks and practice social distancing.\n\nSt. Maarten\n\nBorder status report: St. Maarten reopened to U.S. tourists on Aug. 1, according to its tourism board.\n\nWhat can tourists expect? All passengers must take a COVID-19 test with proof of a negative result no more than 72 hours before arrival. Children who are 10 or younger do not need to take a COVID-19 test. Travelers also must fill out a health declaration form (and should bring a printout with them).\n\nAdditionally, all travelers will be subject to a mandatory temperature check on arrival. Passengers showing symptoms will have to take a COVID-19 test, at additional cost to the traveler.\n\nTurks & Caicos\n\nBorder status report: According to its official tourism site, the British territory is open to U.S. tourists.\n\nWhat can tourists expect? Travelers need a negative COVID-19 PCR test from an accredited laboratory taken within five days of travel (the travel day does not count towards that period). The test result is a requirement to obtain a TCI Assured Travel Authorization to enter the country.\n\nU.S. Virgin Islands\n\nBorder status report: The islands of St. Croix, St. Thomas and St. John are open to tourists but with restrictions.\n\nWhat can tourists expect? According to the USVI tourism bureau, any visitor aged 15 or up must must complete a pre-screening form. Furthermore, anyone who resides in Puerto Rico or a state where the COVID-19 positivity rate is higher than 10% must provide a negative COVID-19 antigen (molecular/PCR/rapid) test result received within five days prior to travel or a positive COVID-19 antibody test result received within four months of travel. Travelers who have spent more than seven days in a hot spot must also submit a test. (Note that the five-day window is related to receiving test results, not taking the test itself.)\n\nEurope\n\nAlthough European Union countries reopened to some international travelers on July 1, the bloc has barred Americans from entering for the time being due to the United States' high COVID-19 infection rate. .\n\nEU officials determined which countries' visitors will be allowed by looking at the trend in new infections, testing capacity, contact tracing and other steps countries have taken to contain the virus outbreak inside their borders, Kasper Zeuthen, a senior media adviser for the EU’s delegation to the U.S., told USA TODAY.\n\nEuropean Union: Bloc bars Americans as bloc reopens to international visitors July 1\n\nAdalbert Jahnz, a spokesman for the European Commission in Brussels, the EU's executive branch, told USA TODAY that lists would likely be reviewed every two weeks as new information about coronavirus trends in different countries becomes apparent.\n\nHere are more details about specific countries' plans:\n\nAustria\n\nBorder status report: Austria began accepting visitors from some European countries June 16.\n\nAccording to the country's official tourism site, visitors entering Austria from other Schengen treaty countries must submit a medical certificate showing a negative COVID-19 test that was issued in the last four days. Tourists from outside the EU still may not fly into Austria for the time being.\n\nGreece\n\nBorder status report: Greece started its tourism season on June 15 and expanded international flights to its regional airports on July 1.\n\nGreek authorities say incoming travelers arriving at the country’s land border with Bulgaria will have to carry a negative COVID-19 test results issued within the previous 72 hours.\n\nIceland\n\nBorder status report: Tourism minister Thordis Kolbrun Reykfjord Gylfadottir announced earlier this month that Iceland, which is part of the European Economic Area but not an EU member country, will begin easing restrictions on foreign tourists no later than June 15.\n\nOne condition of admission is that visitors must either be tested for coronavirus or spend two weeks in quarantine. However, citizens of countries that provide government records documenting a clean bill of health can opt to submit those instead, Reuters reported.\n\nRegardless of which option visitors choose, they will be asked to download a contact-tracing app.\n\n“Iceland’s strategy of large-scale testing, tracing and isolating have proven effective so far,” Gylfadottir told Reuters, explaining the country's relatively low rate of infection and death as well as its quick rebound.\n\nSpain\n\nBorder status report: Although it is open to residents of other European countries, Canada and some in Asia and Africa, \"U.S citizens cannot enter Spain unless they meet very specific requirements or have already obtained special permission from the Government of Spain,\" according to the website for the American embassy in Madrid.\n\nWhat can tourists expect? \"All travelers arriving in Spain by air or sea will go through a health check,\" the country's official tourism site says. \"This check may include having their temperature taken, checking their documents, and a visual examination of the passenger’s state of health. In all cases, you must show your health control form.\"\n\nThe U.S. Embassy also advises that masks are required for everyone ages six and up in public areas at all times.\n\n\"\"There are few exceptions to this rule such as medical waivers, eating or drinking, or while practicing sports,\" it notes. \"Large gatherings of people in public spaces are also limited in many regions.\"\n\nItaly\n\nBorder status report: While travel from America is not prohibited, anyone who has been the U.S. in the past 14 days is required to self-quarantine once in Italy, according to the website for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.\n\nWhat can tourists expect? \"All persons traveling to Italy from any foreign location are required to provide their airline or Italian law enforcement officials with a self-declaration form prior to travel,\" according to the U.S. Embassy in Milan.\n\nFrance\n\nBorder status report: \"Travel to France from outside the European zone remains restricted,\" the website for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs cautions. And as of Aug. 5, travelers coming from the U.S. must present “results of a negative virology COVID-19 test (a PCR test for example), carried out less than 72 hours before the flight\" in order to board. Travelers may also be required to quarantine for 14 days.\n\nWhat can tourists expect? \"Cloth face coverings are mandatory in indoor settings and on public transportation,\" the U.S. Embassy in Paris warns. Some cities have made face coverings mandatory in some outdoor areas, as well, and failure to comply could result in a fine.\n\nGermany\n\nBorder status report: \"Germany will only allow EU citizens, EU residents, and residents of certain specific countries to enter. The United States is not one of those countries,\" the website for the U.S. Embassy in Berlin says.\n\nAccording to the German Foreign Office, foreign nationals from unapproved countries are not permitted to enter Germany unless they meet certain criteria, such as as transiting, reuniting with their German partner or family or they are a healthcare provider or other essential worker. However, it says, \"The question of whether travel to Germany is permitted depends on where the person travelling has previously been staying, not on their nationality.\"\n\nWhat can tourists expect? \"Regardless of the criteria stated above, the decision on whether to permit entry is at the discretion of the Federal Police at the border,\" the Foreign Office warns, adding that travelers must obey the quarantine rule of the individual German states they plan to enter. The U.S. Embassy added that some states allow travelers from unapproved countries to bypass quarantine if they can provide a negative PCR COVID-19 test from an accredited lab conducted in the 48 hours prior to their entry and keep the results with them for 14 days.\n\nCroatia\n\nBorder status report: Much of Europe may not be welcoming Americans, but Croatia began allowing American tourists back in as of July 1.\n\n\"All EU/EEA nationals and individuals holding permanent residence in the EU/EEA countries can enter Croatia freely, without restrictions,\" according to the U.S. Embassy in Croatia. \"All other foreign nationals, including U.S. citizens, may enter Croatia for business, tourism, or other pressing personal reasons, if they provide relevant proof.\"\n\nFinland\n\nBorder status report: Until Sept. 8, the Scandinavian country has reopened only to residents of nations that have fewer than eight new cases of COVID-19 per 100,000 people in the last 14 days, according to Finland's tourism site. The U.S. is not currently on the list of approved countries, though the list will be reviewed after two weeks.\n\nWhat can tourists expect? \"Finnish airports are now open for passenger traffic and strongly recommend using face masks,\" the site says, though it notes they are not required. Ports with border crossings are also open.\n\nUnited Kingdom\n\nBorder status report: Foreign nationals are allowed to visit but those from countries other than those on the U.K.'s pre-approved list (which does not include the U.S.) must provide their travel and contact information no earlier than 48 hours before travel.\n\nWhat can tourists expect? Foreign nationals from outside the list of approved countries are required to self-quarantine for 14 days. They must bring a a printed copy of the document attached to the confirmation email or provide an electronic copy on their smartphone. The government will use the contact information from the form to confirm they are obeying the quarantine rule. Visitors who refuse to provide their contact information or who violate their quarantine more than once face a fine equivalent to $130.\n\nAsia and the South Pacific\n\nAustralia\n\nBorder status report: Australia's ban on foreign nationals is expected to continue for the rest of 2020, based on comments by the country's treasurer in late July. His agency's economic modeling is based on the assumption that travel will resume in January, though he said no decision has been made.\n\n“In terms of the borders, the assumptions are that it very gradually starts to come back that the quarantine is applied, that you start bringing in some international students – that is work that we have been undertaking,\" he said.\n\nNew Zealand\n\nBorder status report: \"The New Zealand border is currently closed to almost all travellers to help stop the spread of COVID-19,\" according to the country's immigration service. The only exceptions are for essential and humanitarian workers, permanent residents, visa holders and the partner or dependents of citizens or visa holders.\n\nDon't expect New Zealand to open to visitors from outside the South Pacific until at least next year, based on comments from Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who told The New Zealand Herald earlier this week that she doesn't expect to formalize the country's first \"travel bubble\" with the Cook Islands until the end of 2020.\n\n\"\n\nBali\n\nBorder status report: Bali started putting together its reopening plan for tourism, including allowing foreign tourists beginning Sept. 11.\n\nCambodia\n\nForeign travelers arriving in Cambodia need to pay a $3,000 deposit after getting to the airport to cover COVID-19 testing in addition to potential treatment (with more specifics on the financial details here).\n\nChina\n\nBorder status report: China's current ban on international tourists remains in effect, and the U.S. Embassy in Beijing says it \"cannot forecast when these policies will be lifted or amended.\"\n\nJapan\n\nBorder status report: Americans and anyone who has been to the U.S. in the past 14 days are still banned from traveling to Japan except in cases of emergency, according to the country's official tourism site.\n\nIndia\n\nBorder status report: As of Aug. 8, India's Bureau of Immigration is accepting travel applications from foreign nationals but is reviewing them on a case-by-case basis through its travel portal.\n\nWhat can tourists expect? Visitors are subject to a mandatory 14-day quarantine, though they can apply for exemption by submitting a negative RT-PCR test taken within 96 hours of travel to the online portal. However, all travelers are required to complete a self-declaration form within 72 hours of travel or upon arrival in India as well as a form attesting that the information on their application is true. If Indian authorities discover any part is falsified, that traveler could face prosecution.\n\nThe Maldives\n\nBorder status report: The island, located off the southern tip of India, reopened on July 15. However, inter-island travel is prohibited and visitors must stay at the same resort for the duration of their visit.\n\nWhat can tourists expect? According to the Maldives' official tourism site, visitors need:\n\nA confirmed booking at a registered lodging establishment\n\nProof of sufficient funds\n\nConfirmed return ticket\n\nCompleted Health Declaration Form to be filled out twice: 24 hours before your flight to the Maldives and once more before you depart from the Maldives.\n\nOn-arrival visas (free for 30 days)\n\nThe website also notes that all tourists will undergo a temperature check upon arrival and may be chosen for a random, voluntary and free COVID-19 PCR test. And while quarantine is not required for anyone who does not display COVID-19 symptoms, masks are mandatory at the airport, during domestic travel and in all enclosed public spaces.\n\nSingapore\n\nBorder status report: Short-term visitors are not allowed entry into Singapore, the island's tourism website said in mid-July. The only exceptions are those from neighboring countries with \"fast lane\" agreements (such as China) or who have special prior approval. Approved visitors must be tested for COVID-19.\n\nThailand\n\nBorder status report: \"Most foreign nationals remain barred from entering Thailand,\" according to the website for the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok. \"The Royal Thai Government has also extended its ban on inbound international passenger flights until further notice.\"\n\nAfrica\n\nKenya\n\nBorder status report: International travelers were welcomed back in the east African country as of Aug. 1, according to the website for the U.S. embassy in Nairobi.\n\nWhat can tourists expect? Visitors' temperatures must not exceed 99.5°F and they must not exhibit flu-like symptoms. Travelers (except those from California, Florida and Texas) will be exempted from quarantine if they present a negative PCR-based COVID-19 test conducted within 96 hours before travel. And while the country does not require a negative COVID-19 test result for entry, travelers should check to see whether their airline requires it as a condition for boarding. try as of Aug. 1, according to the website for the U.S. embassy in Nairobi.\n\nAlso be aware that Kenya has extended its nightly, 9 p.m.-to-4 a.m. curfew through August. After that time, you must present evidence of travel reservations for that night.\n\nMorocco\n\nBorder status report:According to the U.S. Embassy in Rabat, Morocco has extended its state of emergency through Sept. 10. All regularly scheduled commercial flights to/from Morocco remain suspended, as do ferries to/from Spain.\n\nNigeria\n\nBorder status report: Aviation minister Sen. Hadi Sirika announced Monday during a televised presidential COVID-19 task force briefing that the country will resume international flights at Lagos and Abuja beginning Aug. 29, CNN and Al Jazeera reported. He said details such as entry requirements will be announced at a later date.\n\nRwanda\n\nBorder status report: Commercial flights to Rwanda resumed on Aug. 1.\n\nAs of June 17, Rwanda has been open for tourism and international travel can resume for charter flights. However, passengers entering Rwanda must present two negative COVID-19 RT-PCR tests. According to the Rwanda Development Board, one test must be taken within 72 hours of departure, and they must take a second COVID-19 test before visiting tourist attractions. Those who can't test in their origin countries can get tested twice in Rwanda.\n\n.\n\n\"Rwanda’s tourism industry is adapting to create a safe environment for travelers and operators, in order to thrive in these unprecedented times,\" Belise Kariza, the Chief Tourism Officer at Rwanda Development Board said in a statement. \"We encourage all travel enthusiasts and nature explorers to take advantage of this unique opportunity to venture out and experience the beauty and adventure that our country has to offer.\"\n\nSenegal\n\nBorder status report: The west African nation reopened to international travel on July 15. However, the country's land and sea borders will remain closed until future notice.\n\nWhat can tourists expect? \"Despite the end of the State of Emergency in Senegal, some leisure facilities will remain closed indefinitely due to social distancing measures, and markets will remain closed once per week for cleaning,\" the embassy website advised. \"Use of facial coverings remains mandatory in public and private offices, public places and markets, and on public transportation.\"\n\nTanzania\n\nBorder status report: The eastern African nation reopened to international travel in June.\n\nWhat can tourists expect? According to the U.S. State Department website, all visitors entering Tanzania must present a valid COVID-19 certificate from an approved laboratory in a departure country tested within 72 hours before travel. They are also required to complete a health surveillance form on their inbound flight and turn it in upon arrival.\n\nMiddle East\n\nIsrael\n\nBorder status report: \"At the moment, and until further notice, entry to Israel will be refused to non-citizens or non-residents of Israel arriving from anywhere in the world,\" its official tourism site says. \"In exceptional cases, one may apply for approval of the Foreign Ministry subject to proof of the ability to remain in self-isolation for 14 days.\"\n\nJordan\n\nBorder status report: According to the U.S. Embassy in Amman, the Jordanian government has postponed the reopening of its borders to international flights and visitors from approved countries until Aug. 18. The U.S. is not yet on the \"green\" list, but officials will review the epidemiological situation every two weeks.\n\nWhat can tourists expect? Visitors must have a negative PCR test for COVID-19 taken within 72 hours of travel and then take a second test upon arrival at the airport, where they must wait for results. The fee, which must be paid in advance, is equivalent to $56. They must also complete health declaration and locator forms that are available online. Foreign nationals must also show they have health insurance that would cover treatment for the duration of their visit and download Aman, a mobile contact-tracing app for the duration of their stay in the country.\n\nDubai, United Arab Emirates\n\nBorder status report: Dubai opened its borders to international travelers on July 7.\n\nWhat can tourists expect? In order to travel, tourists must take a COVID-19 test within 96 hours of their flight and show the airline a negative result, according to its official tourism site. Otherwise, they will be tested on arrival and required to isolate while awaiting the results, which travelers say typically takes a few hours.\n\nTravelers must also have health insurance covering COVID-19 or sign a declaration agreeing to cover the costs of treatment and isolation. They are also required to register their travel details in an app.\n\nContributing: Jenna Ryu, Charles Trepany and David Oliver, USA TODAY; Associated Press", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2020/05/20"}]}
{"question_id": "20230317_19", "search_time": "2023/05/25/17:56", "search_result": [{"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/12/politics/eric-garcetti-los-angeles-what-matters/index.html", "title": "Outgoing LA Mayor Eric Garcetti on why his stalled ambassador ...", "text": "A version of this story appeared in CNN’s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.\n\nCNN —\n\nA few days before Karen Bass was sworn in on Sunday as the first female mayor of Los Angeles, term-limited Democratic Mayor Eric Garcetti was making his farewell tour through South Los Angeles.\n\nHe donned a hard hat to survey construction at a massive affordable housing site, checked in on formerly unsheltered residents at a motel-to-interim housing conversion and toured another spacious campus with more than 90 shelter beds and nearly 200 units for the formerly unhoused.\n\nFor more than a year, Garcetti was a bystander as the LA mayoral candidates lamented the state of the city – from the ongoing homelessness crisis with about 42,000 people living on the streets, to concerns about crime and a series of corruption scandals on the City Council.\n\nAmid the unease and disquiet that drove the dynamics of this year’s race, Garcetti and his team have made progress since he was elected in 2013 on a broad array of metrics including the increase in shelter beds and affordable housing units, the expansion of police-worn body cameras, the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and widespread water conservation efforts. While he says he loathes questions about his legacy, he clearly is intent on setting the record straight.\n\nAs he leaves office, Garcetti’s nomination to be US ambassador to India – announced in July 2021 – is still in limbo. His nomination has been held up for months because of concerns among senators on both sides about allegations that he ignored alleged sexual harassment and bullying by one of his former senior political aides. Garcetti has repeatedly denied that he ignored those allegations.\n\nGarcetti remains optimistic that he will get confirmed to the ambassadorship, and he said the delay was an unexpected “gift” because it allowed him to work through the last day of his term. CNN spoke to Garcetti last week about his future, his record and the state of the city as he returns to private life.\n\nThe following excerpts have been lightly edited for length and clarity.\n\nReston: What’s your level of confidence right now about whether you’ll be confirmed and when?\n\nGarcetti: I’ve stopped doing the guessing game of the when, but I feel quite optimistic. I have good support from Republicans and Democrats who recognize this is a critical position. … I can’t wait to get to work. Even if it was longer than was first estimated, it was kind of a gift to be here. … To be there for the finishing of the Crenshaw line, which will bring transit to LAX – finally bringing trains to planes; seeing records amount of housing getting built. Or, even dealing with crises like the (leaked audio) tapes that came out of City Hall. … And, seeing the city through the end of the crisis of Covid. To me it was a gift, and made me have no guilt about leaving a day early.\n\nReston: When you think about your major accomplishments all the way back to when you were a council member, what is different about the state of the city today than when you started that you had a real hand in changing?\n\nGarcetti: The honest answer is Los Angeles is a harder place to live in than the Los Angeles I grew up in. Politicians usually run from things that are complicated to explain or that take a long time to do. Maybe I’m a glutton for punishment, but I like those problems the most. Climate change? No, we might not solve it in our lifetime, but our Green New Deal is the strongest of any city in the world…\n\nWe won the Olympics. It’s like the biggest civic prize in the world, which isn’t just about an amazing sports event. It’s about really showing who you are to the world. … And, then transit. Our city has been where a car is king – the car capital of the world – and we’re building 15 transit lines off of one (ballot) measure. … We’ve tripled the pace of the housing, period. Tripled and passed a plan to double that again, which means that if we had a decade of that kind of growth to overcome four decades of the ‘not in my backyard’ mentality, LA could actually be a place where you can dream of owning a home again.\n\nReston: We just went through a mayor’s race where invariably, when you’d talk to voters, they would say they see all of this money from the state and city going into homelessness, and they don’t see things getting better. When is it that you think people will feel the change of what’s happening?\n\nGarcetti: Forty years of inaction is responsible for it. … The curve just kept going up. We’ve now flattened (the curve), and I believe we’re actually starting to bend it. I can see that here. I’m not in any way saying you don’t see a ton of tents, but we cleaned up Venice. There’s encampments that are thinning out. … I don’t think people should have to wait the decade, but if you want the honest answer, when we have a right to housing in this country, when the housing vouchers that we have – housing choice vouchers, section eight – are an entitlement and not a lottery. … When it comes to housing in this country, in LA, it’s one out of eight people who qualify to get a voucher, and they wait years for that. … If this was easy, it would’ve been solved a long time ago.\n\nReston: Karen Bass, when she gave her first post-election speech, said she was going to solve homelessness. Is that a promise she can keep?\n\nGarcetti: We all should set that as a goal. … If we want to end homelessness, we can point to countries that are not as wealthy as us, that actually have. Don’t tell me it’s actually not possible.\n\nReston: So, the other half of the equation – as you talked about – is not under your control as the mayor, and that’s the mental health space. There’ve been a lot of committee hearings in Washington about these issues, but nothing ever seems to emerge in terms of a grand plan. What do you want to see happen there?\n\nGarcetti: This country is experiencing a mental health crisis and addiction crisis. There are not enough professionals who can treat mental health afflictions, and we have no right to mental health care in this country. … Treating trauma and mental health issues is the biggest gap in the American health care system by far. And if people don’t treat this like a health crisis – together (with) the housing crisis, not either or, both – you’re not going to ever see the end of homelessness in America.\n\nReston: I want to pivot to politics. You’re waiting on your own confirmation. (California Sen.) Dianne Feinstein’s been in her office for a long time. There are people who have raised concerns about her mental acuity. Do you feel that the people of California, at this point, are getting full representation from that office?\n\nGarcetti: I mean, I can bear witness to that. I have conversations with her, even this past year, that have been effective and critical for my city on transportation. There’s so many places – whether it’s the torture report or whether it’s the building of the Wilshire subway down in the heart of LA – where she has been an amazing representative.\n\nReston: She’s not raising a lot of money though, and folks expect that she will step down at some point. Is that an office that would interest you in the future?\n\nGarcetti: I expect to be in India and not around for that campaign. … I generally don’t close doors, but after 20 years, I think it’s really important to take time to reflect. … I’ve read two novels in 10 years. I’ve read maybe 10 non-fiction books (during) that time. I listen to a little music now and again, but I haven’t played the piano. …Human beings always are like, ‘What are you going to do next?’ Nobody asks, ‘Who do you want to be next?’ I want to spend a little time on who I want to be.\n\nReston: If (President Joe) Biden were to stand down and not run for president, you could potentially have both (Vice President) Kamala Harris and California Gov. Gavin Newsom running for president at the same time. Who would you back?\n\nGarcetti: I don’t answer hypotheticals. I’ve never said that to anybody, but I don’t. And by the way, look, I genuinely love both of them. Kamala has been a friend since she was district attorney (of San Francisco) and I was a council member and we were co-chairs of the Obama campaign. Gavin, I got to know in a very personal way (during the pandemic), and I think he’s a really critical leader for our country. I mean, I’ve always known him decently well, but wartime leadership together is a different level of bond.\n\nReston: When you think about the things that still are on your bucket list – beyond being an ambassador – what are the things you’re most excited about right now? And I need an update on how many countries you’ve visited – since you said you were going to try to get to all of the countries in the world.\n\nGarcetti: I think I’m close to 100 now. One thing that was on my bucket list – I didn’t say it to anyone – but at our staff party, I finally got to crowd surf. They lifted me up and just started doing it. [The song was Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer”]. On my bucket list (is) a sophisticated Netflix show with all these guys about City Hall. I’d love to get back to something creative, whether it’s my music or developing drama out of the world that I’ve lived in from the perspective of somebody who came out of theater.\n\nReston: So, what’s the screenplay you would write – with someone else potentially?\n\nGarcetti: I was working on a musical a long time ago that I thought would be really interesting in LA. It starts with the riots and it ends with the (Northridge) earthquake – ’92 to ‘94 – as the internet first comes. That moment kind of defined us. A group of young professionals living together. … A lot of people said, Let’s develop a City Hall (series). ‘The Wire’ was good, but there’s not been, since that, a really good series about City Hall. That would be kind of fun.", "authors": ["Maeve Reston"], "publish_date": "2022/12/12"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/50-states/2020/05/11/hollywood-sign-hikes-water-parks-hair-salons-news-around-states/111687156/", "title": "Hollywood sign hikes, water parks, hair salons: News from around ...", "text": "From USA TODAY Network and wire reports\n\nAlabama\n\nMontgomery: Dine-in restaurants, bars, salons and gyms will be allowed to reopen with limits as the state eases restrictions during the continuing coronavirus pandemic, Gov. Kay Ivey said Friday. New guidelines taking effect Monday require that social distancing rules remain in place, and businesses will be required to protect both customers and workers, officials said. But the state will lift restrictions on nonwork gatherings of 10 or more people, Ivey said. The new rules will allow more churches to resume regular services, but entertainment venues including movie theaters and bowling alleys must remain closed, and youth sports teams are still barred from playing. More outbreaks will occur as the economy reopens, said Dr. Scott Harris, the state health officer, but the state is “well prepared” to deal with them. The changes were coupled with new legal protections meant to help shield businesses from what Ivey called “frivolous” lawsuits linked to the pandemic.\n\nAlaska\n\nAnchorage: Domestic violence and sexual assault organizations in the state have experienced a 52% increase in hotline calls as residents remain at home amid the coronavirus pandemic, a study said. The Alaska Council on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault took a survey of 30 shelter providers statewide from March 11 to April 24, the Anchorage Daily News reports. In that time period, shelter capacity was reduced by 57% to comply with federal social distancing guidelines, meaning some shelters limited one person to a room instead of four, the study said. To curtail limited space, shelters saw a 60% increase in alternative housing options such as hotel rooms and safe houses and a 20% increase in online tool usage, the study said. Children staying in shelters were also having trouble keeping up with schoolwork in part because of the lack of computers or internet, officials said, adding that there are efforts to increase resources.\n\nArizona\n\nPhoenix: Arizona State University economists say the state’s economic slide due to the coronavirus pandemic will last for months but be followed by a rebound that results in a recovery by early 2021. Economics professors predicted a recession of three to nine months during last week’s annual forecasting webinar hosted by the W.P. Carey School of Business and the Economic Club of Phoenix. They said they expect the trough to be followed by a swift recovery if consumer spending kicks in with an assist by heavy federal spending. Professor Dennis Hoffman said there’ll be “some startling numbers” in the meantime, including state unemployment rates above 15%. But Hoffman and fellow economics professor Lee McPheters said the recovery will be V-shaped as consumer spending and service industries rebound. That’d put the state in a position to return to normal by early 2021, they said.\n\nArkansas\n\nLittle Rock: The state is allowing pools and water parks to reopen this month with new capacity limits and other restrictions to prevent the spread of coronavirus, Gov. Asa Hutchinson said Friday. Hutchinson said pools will be allowed to reopen May 22, in the latest move by the Republican governor to roll back the state’s coronavirus restrictions. The decision will also allow splash pads and swim beaches to reopen that day. Hutchinson said the pools will be limited to 50% capacity, and no entry will be allowed for anyone with fever, symptoms or contact with a positive patient. Unlike most states, Arkansas did not issue a stay-at-home order during the pandemic. But the state had other restrictions that have been eased in recent days. Restaurants will be allowed to resume sit-down service starting Monday.\n\nCalifornia\n\nLos Angeles: Hiking to the Hollywood sign and hitting the links were allowed again Saturday as the California county hit hardest by the coronavirus cautiously reopened some sites to recreation-starved stay-at-homers. Los Angeles County permitted the reopening of trails and golf courses but with social distancing restrictions. For those interested in retail therapy, there was even better news as Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday allowed tens of thousands of stores to reopen, including florist shops, just in time for Mother’s Day. The city of Los Angeles announced it also was reopening some public spaces, including sprawling Griffith Park, which includes popular paths to the Hollywood sign. But mounted police and park rangers would be keeping hikers to small, distant groups wearing face coverings. Mayor Eric Garcetti urged “good judgment” and said the city would rely on education and encouragement rather than heavy-handed enforcement.\n\nColorado\n\nAspen: Park officials have announced that bus service to a scenic area in White River National Forest will likely not be operational this summer amid the coronavirus pandemic. Park supervisor Scott Fitzwilliams made the announcement Thursday, citing plans to find alternative scenarios for people to enjoy the Maroon Bells Scenic Area, southwest of Aspen, The Aspen Times reports. The U.S. Forest Service and its partners have started to look into a reservation system that would allow a limited number of private vehicles to drive up the popular destination, Fitzwilliams said. “It’s still a work in progress,” Fitzwilliams said. But “the shuttle system is not an option, at least not at this time.” The agency has a bus service agreement with the Roaring Fork Transportation Authority that previously restricted private vehicles during summer days and into fall. But with an increasing number of COVID-19 cases, public transportation is not recommended.\n\nConnecticut\n\nHartford: The state health department distributed iPads to nursing homes Saturday with an order to help residents who have been unable to have visitors since March stay in touch with friends and relatives. The iPads, paid for with civil fines, were being delivered in time for Mother’s Day on Sunday. Each of the state’s 215 nursing homes was to receive a number of the devices based on the facility’s size. State officials banned visitors to nursing homes March 13 as part of efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Department of Public Health Commissioner Renee Coleman-Mitchell on Saturday ordered each facility to schedule weekly alternatives to in-person visits for residents. They can include outdoor visits while social distancing, video chats, telephone calls or visits through the window. Nursing home residents have accounted for more than half of all COVID-19-related deaths in the state, according to data released by Gov. Ned Lamont’s office.\n\nDelaware\n\nDover: Delaware’s state-of-emergency order amid the coronavirus pandemic has been extended to the end of May as the state more than quadruples its testing capacity for the virus. Gov. John Carney on Friday extended his state-of-emergency order, which includes the current mask order, stay-at-home order and beach closures, among other restrictions to prevent the spread of the virus. When the state of emergency was first implemented, these orders were set to stay in effect until May 15, or until the virus is no longer a public health threat. By June 1, the Carney administration wants to begin the first phase of a reopening plan based on guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the White House. It’s not clear exactly what the first phase of reopening the economy will look like, but social distancing will still be required after June 1, and no more than 10 people can be in a group. Schools will stay closed, as will bars.\n\nDistrict of Columbia\n\nWashington: Instead of welcoming crowds and hosting events during a normally busy spring season, the Walter E. Washington Convention Center is instead being used as a temporary alternative care facility as the spread of coronavirus continues to lead to large gatherings being canceled across the D.C. region, WUSA-TV reports. Other venues owned by Events DC, including Nationals Park and the Entertainment and Sports Arena, also remain shut down as the future of sporting events and conventions in the area faces an uncertain road ahead. Last week the impact to tourism from the pandemic became even clearer after district leaders released statistics showing the losses D.C. has endured over the past several weeks. According to the report, the spread of the new coronavirus has led to a $1.7 billion loss in travel spending after the city welcomed almost 23 million domestic visitors last year.\n\nFlorida\n\nFort Lauderdale: More than 650 patients at nursing homes and assisted living facilities in the state have died from the new coronavirus, including 22 at a facility near St. Petersburg, state data shows. Florida Department of Health figures released late Friday show 656 patients, eight employees and one person of unknown status have died at the state’s nursing homes and assisted living facilities, with 14 reporting at least 10 deaths and 183 reporting at least one. That means nursing homes and ALFs account for almost 40% of the state’s 1,715 confirmed deaths from COVID-19. The state has now had more than 40,000 confirmed cases since reporting its first two months ago. People over 65 and those with underlying health conditions are particularly endangered by the disease, making nursing homes especially vulnerable to outbreaks. According to the Florida Health Care Association, a trade group, there are 700 nursing homes and 3,100 ALFs in the state caring for 155,000 people. The facilities employ 200,000 people.\n\nGeorgia\n\nAtlanta: The number of patients hospitalized due to the coronavirus has fallen to its lowest total in weeks, Gov. Brian Kemp said Saturday as the state’s death toll from COVID-19 reached at least 1,400. Kemp tweeted Saturday morning that 1,203 patients were currently hospitalized, the lowest number since the state started reporting the figure April 8. He also noted that Saturday’s total of 897 ventilators in use across the state was the lowest number since early April. “We will win this fight together!” the Republican governor tweeted. The state began to reopen some businesses April 24. The Athens Farmers Market was among those to reopen its doors Saturday. Organizers said extensive precautions were put in place. Only 50 people were allowed inside at a time, and customers were asked to wash or sanitize their hands before entering, to wear masks at all times and to maintain a distance of at least 6 feet.\n\nHawaii\n\nLihue: Environmental groups in the state have joined a campaign to bring attention to discarded personal protective equipment that is adding to plastic pollution on shorelines worldwide amid the coronavirus pandemic, advocates said. Federal and state governments have advised people to wear masks in public to protect themselves and others against the coronavirus, but masks, gloves and other equipment are not always properly disposed of, The Garden Island reports. “Millions of pounds of plastic pollution wash ashore Hawaii beaches each year. This campaign is aimed at reducing the environmental and public health impacts of improperly discarded PPE,” Surfrider Foundation Kauai chapter scientist Carl Berg said. Personal protective equipment can be mistaken as food by birds, turtles and marine mammals and can put animals at risk, the foundation said in a statement, adding that these used items could also be carrying pathogens and contributing to the spread of COVID-19.\n\nIdaho\n\nKuna: At least 23 employees working at a beef processing plant near Boise have tested positive for the coronavirus, health officials confirmed Saturday. One additional employee is presumed to have the virus, and two other contract employees have tested positive, Central District Health spokesperson Christine Myron told the Idaho Statesman. The majority of the employees have recovered, Myron said. Steve Cherry, CS Beef Packers plant manager, said in a statement that plant employees working in close proximity may have been exposed to the virus. Employees who are ill will remain at home until officials confirm they are recovered, Cherry said. Employees will be compensated for time away from work, he said. Cherry said all employees have been provided masks, face shields and outside seating options to allow for social distancing during breaks. The plant is also conducting temperature and health screenings of all employees reporting for work, he said.\n\nIllinois\n\nChicago: The effort to reduce the population at Cook County Jail to slow the spread of the coronavirus hit another snag when the sheriff announced he has run out of electronic monitoring bracelets that defendants wear when they’re placed on home confinement. The sheriff’s department said Thursday that the lack of the bracelets will mean that defendants who might otherwise have been sent home will have to remain in jail, where hundreds of detainees and staffers have been infected by the virus in recent weeks. The lack of bracelets “threatens to undo the successes we have achieved in slowing the spread of the virus,” said jail spokeswoman Sophia Ansari. Judges, attorneys and the sheriff’s office have been scrambling to get as many nonviolent offenders out of jail as quickly as possible – an effort that has seen its population shrink from about 5,400 in late March to just over 4,000 this week.\n\nIndiana\n\nIndianapolis: Three women who moved to the United States as children have created a fund to help immigrant families who don’t qualify for government aid and have lost their jobs during the coronavirus pandemic. The women joined other volunteers, many of whom are also recipients under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, in an effort to raise awareness of working-class families – including people living in the country illegally. The Undocumented Hoosier Support Fund will help about 800 families pay for utilities, medical expenses or a whole month’s worth of food. “We’re called essential workers, but when we don’t have access to sick pay or protection to stay safe at work without exposing our families, that tells us we’re disposable,” said Dara Marquez, one of the three women who started the fund group, along with friends Wendy Catalan Ruana and Mari Luna.\n\nIowa\n\nWest Liberty: A turkey plant that is the site of a coronavirus outbreak said Friday that hundreds of employees will be furloughed this fall due to the nation’s economic collapse. West Liberty Foods said roughly one-third of its 994 employees will be temporarily laid off for months, likely from from November through February. The company confirmed Friday that 136 employees have tested positive for coronavirus, after mass testing at the West Liberty plant last week. The company said restaurant closures have dramatically reduced demand for many of its products, resulting in excess supply. As a result, growers affiliated with the plant will stop placing baby turkeys for 18 weeks beginning in late June. That means the plant won’t have turkeys to process for about four months beginning in November. During that time, the plant will work through millions of pounds in excess turkey breast that’s in cold storage.\n\nKansas\n\nLawrence: Kansas state parks saw a “significant” increase in visits last month, especially with new users. State Parks Director Linda Lanterman said the increase in the last weeks of April offset the revenue state parks lost in March, when Kansas issued its stay-at-home order, the Lawrence Journal-World reports. The number of visits is up about 200,000 from last April, Lanterman said. If the parks are able to remain open, and the high traffic continues, “we can make good strides to increasing our revenue we lost,” she said. Kansas’ state parks also lost about about $1.2 million in user fees as a result of summer flooding last year. “I think during this pandemic, being outside is good for us,” Lanterman said. There’s also plenty of room for social distancing given miles of trails and various campgrounds.\n\nKentucky\n\nLouisville: The coronavirus pandemic has put a bigger share of the state’s workforce out of a job than any other in America, new unemployment figures show. More than 670,000 Kentuckians – roughly one-third of the commonwealth’s workforce – filed for unemployment insurance for the first time from the week ending March 14 through the week ending May 2. That puts Kentucky No. 1 in the nation for the percentage of its workforce that has submitted new jobless claims during the pandemic, credit rating agency Fitch Ratings found in a report published Thursday. Trying to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus, Gov. Andy Beshear issued several executive orders in March that closed or altered businesses across the commonwealth, from restaurants to retail shops. Beshear knew that would leave many Kentuckians without a job – and he has repeatedly encouraged people to apply for unemployment benefits.\n\nLouisiana\n\nNew Orleans: The state will have 250 workers in place by the end of the week to contact people infected with the coronavirus and track down people with whom they have been in close contact, Gov. John Bel Edwards said Friday. Such “contact tracing” is a key factor in whether the state will be able to start easing restrictions and closures of businesses, something the Democratic governor is under increasing pressure to do from Republican officials. Increased testing is also a factor, and Edwards said the state, with aid from the federal government, plans to complete a total of 200,000 tests for the month of May. Edwards said contracts have been signed with two companies that will establish the contact tracing system. That will bolster the 70 contact tracers currently working. The state expects to eventually hire as many as 700 contract tracers if needed.\n\nMaine\n\nPortland: The state will reopen the economy in its rural areas sooner than its population centers, with many businesses reopening this month, the governor said Friday. The reopening plan applies to 12 counties but leaves out Cumberland, York, Penobscot and Androscoggin counties, which are home to the state’s biggest cities and more than half its population. Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, said retail stores in the more rural counties will be able to open Monday with increased health and safety precautions in place. Restaurants will be able to open May 18. The state is in the midst of a gradual reopening of its economy. Retail businesses and restaurants aren’t allowed to open statewide until June 1. “I believe we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, and the tunnel is a long one, and there are some dark corners ahead,” Mills said.\n\nMaryland\n\nBaltimore: The state’s Democratic attorney general is defending Republican Gov. Larry Hogan’s executive orders to combat the coronavirus pandemic in a legal filing in federal court. Attorney General Brian Frosh’s office urged a judge in U.S. District Court in Baltimore to toss out a lawsuit filed last week challenging stay-at-home orders and other restrictions Hogan has imposed. The memo filed Friday by Frosh’s office says that federal courts have generally turned aside similar challenges in other states and that governors enjoy broad authority to act swiftly during a public health emergency. A coalition of state legislators, pastors and a group called Reopen Maryland filed the suit, arguing that the governor’s actions unconstitutionally restrict freedom of assembly and religion. A conference call in the case has been scheduled for Monday afternoon.\n\nMassachusetts\n\nBoston: The live Fourth of July concert with the Boston Pops along the banks of the Charles River has been canceled to help limit the spread of the coronavirus. The Pops announced Friday that the group will instead present A Boston Pops Salute to Our Heroes, designed to pay tribute to the front-line workers and honor those who have died during the current health crisis. The virtual concert will feature newly created content from The Boston Pops and guest artists, as well as highlights from recent presentations of The Boston Pops fireworks spectacular. The fireworks display that traditionally accompanies the concert has also been canceled. Mayor Marty Walsh said Friday during a press conference that other traditional parades and festivals will not take place in the city this summer up to and including Labor Day.\n\nMichigan\n\nLansing: Restaurants and bars on Friday pushed Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to let them reopen in three weeks, saying they need a lifeline to survive financially and a chance to show the public it is safe to return. The venues have been closed to dine-in customers since March 16. They hope to resume service May 29, when restrictions are set to end unless the governor extends them. Guidance released Friday by the Michigan Restaurant & Lodging Association to help restaurants prepare to reopen their dining rooms includes procedures for cleaning, screening workers, providing them masks and gloves, and keeping customers, tables and bar stools 6 feet apart. Whitmer spokeswoman Tiffany Brown said the governor “will continue to listen to medical experts and put the health and safety of Michiganders first.”\n\nMinnesota\n\nMinneapolis: Metro Transit officials are trying to contain a homeless encampment that has grown to more than 100 people in the past month, as many men and women moved to “Camp Quarantine” amid fears they would catch the coronavirus in crowded shelters. Metro Transit officials said the camp’s tightly packed tents and lack of hygiene facilities create a scenario that could contribute to the virus’s spread. The Star Tribune reports Metro Transit ordered the construction of a fence around the site near the light-rail line in south Minneapolis to keep it from growing. Officials also might clear out the camp if it becomes too much of a health and safety risk. Those who first moved to Camp Quarantine said they set up tents there largely to isolate themselves and have stability, as libraries and other public buildings shut their doors in the early days of the pandemic. The camp allowed them to stay in one spot without going to crowded, virus-prone shelters.\n\nMississippi\n\nJackson: Barbershops, salons and gyms are allowed to reopen Monday, Gov. Tate Reeves said Friday. It was the Republican governor’s latest announcement to gradually remove restrictions he has set because of the pandemic in the past several weeks. Reeves said people must continue taking precautions against the highly contagious coronavirus as confirmed case numbers continue to rise. But he also said he is trying to avoid another Great Depression. “I believe in my heart that endless government shutdowns are not an option,” Reeves said. He said the pandemic has been “particularly cruel to the working class – those people who work on their feet, those people who don’t have a home office or paid leave.” The governor said he is extending his “safer at home” order for another two weeks. It was set to expire Monday morning; Reeves said the new expiration is May 25.\n\nMissouri\n\nSt. Louis: Experts aren’t clear why the coronavirus is striking the state’s two largest metropolitan areas so differently, although the geography of the areas might provide a clue. Johns Hopkins University reported 483 deaths and 9,700 cases in Missouri as of Saturday, with the bulk of them in the St. Louis region. As of late the week, 466 had died in the St. Louis area, compared to 157 in greater Kansas City, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. The St. Louis region is home to about 30% more people, not enough to account for the lopsided totals. The discrepancy is all the more confusing, according to some experts, because the timeline of each region’s coronavirus outbreaks and response actions seemed to unfold – at least initially – in such similar fashion. One theory, according to some experts, is that the St. Louis community has a higher population density and simply had more of the virus circulating undetected at the time shutdowns clicked into place. Kansas City also is better shielded from initial hot spots by a larger geographic buffer.\n\nMontana\n\nHelena: A COVID-19 outbreak that started at a north-central Montana assisted living facility and caused six of the state’s 16 deaths appears to be over, a state health official said Friday. Jim Murphy, the health department’s Communicable Disease Control and Prevention Bureau chief, said that while there are still seven active cases in Toole County, those who are ill remain in isolation, and no new cases have been diagnosed in weeks, “well past an incubation period.” Because the outbreak was tied to the Marias Heritage Center in Shelby, state and local health officials have been cautious in confirming that someone has fully recovered, he said. Sometimes it takes up to four or five weeks for a person to test clear of the virus, he said.\n\nNebraska\n\nLincoln: Businesses have started reopening in the state, even as the number of coronavirus cases surges, raising concerns among medical experts. Projections have long suggested the pandemic would peak at the end of April in Nebraska. But Dr. Mark Rupp, chief of the division of infectious diseases at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, said it appears cases have only plateaued at best – and at much higher levels than had been seen just weeks earlier, the Omaha World-Herald reports. Gov. Pete Ricketts on Friday declined to say whether he thinks the state has peaked. But he said he’s not so much focused on the case numbers as he is on whether Nebraska’s hospitals are being overwhelmed with patients, and they’re not. Dr. Daniel Brailita, an infectious disease specialist with Mary Lanning Healthcare in Hastings, said models showing an April peak clearly did not anticipate how explosively the virus would spread within meatpacking communities.\n\nNevada\n\nCarson City: Restaurants, hair salons and some of the other businesses that closed or had their operations reduced under state-imposed restrictions to slow the spread of the coronavirus were able Saturday to reopen or once again allow customers inside their establishments. Gov. Steve Sisolak on Thursday had said restaurants, salons and other nonessential businesses could reopen with limited capacity. He said hospitalization rates and positive tests had stabilized. However, Sisolak kept casinos, nightclubs, spas and gyms closed, along with indoor movie theaters, bowling alleys, community centers, tattoo parlors, strip clubs and brothels. Lala’s Style Hair & Makeup Studio, near the Las Vegas airport, had only one customer per stylist when it reopened Saturday, and everybody was masked, said owner Laura Leon. She said her customers were anxious for the business to reopen. “They’re happy. They’re so excited,” Leon said. “Everybody has long hair.”\n\nNew Hampshire\n\nConcord: Dentists can reopen their offices Monday, and public colleges are preparing to welcome students back to campus in the fall. But a decision on beaches might take a while, as the state continues to grapple with the coronavirus pandemic. Walking, swimming and other motion-based activities would be allowed at Hampton Beach starting June 1, with sunbathing and small gatherings to follow a few weeks later, under a proposal being considered by the Governor’s Economic Reopening Task Force. Dentists have gotten the go-ahead to resume some routine work. While dentistry offices were not ordered to close, most if not all have limited their practice to emergency work during the coronavirus pandemic. The state is not recommending the resumption of elective cosmetic procedures or the use of ultrasonic scaling.\n\nNew Jersey\n\nTrenton: Gov. Phil Murphy announced that two American Red Cross convalescent plasma collection sites will begin operations in northern New Jersey this week. Convalescent plasma collection will begin Monday at the American Red Cross blood center in Fairfield and at University Hospital in Newark. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in late March announced a new initiative to collect plasma from those who have recovered from the novel coronavirus in order to treat patients with serious or immediately life-threatening COVID-19 infections. Officials say the blood plasma from recovered patients contains antibodies that may help critically ill patients fight the virus. Convalescent plasma has historically been used as a potentially life-saving treatment in situations when new diseases or infections develop quickly with no treatments or vaccines yet available, officials said.\n\nNew Mexico\n\nRio Rancho: Republicans and sheriffs in the state are asking U.S. Attorney General William Barr to look into Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s health orders aimed at stopping the spread of COVID-19. State Republican Party Chairman Steve Pearce and New Mexico Sheriffs’ Association President Tony Mace each sent letters to Barr last week seeking a review into the health orders that have shuttered some businesses since late March. They say the orders, which have closed several small businesses, violate residents’ civil rights. Mace, the Cibola County sheriff and a frequent critic of fellow Democrat Lujan Grisham, said the health order was unfairly hurting residents. “The governor has been discriminatory in her policies, keeping big box corporate giants open – draining New Mexico dollars out of state – while shutting down mom and pop locally owned establishments,” Mase wrote.\n\nNew York\n\nNew York: After an outcry over racial disparities in the city’s enforcement of social distancing, the mayor planned Sunday to double the ranks of non-police workers trying to persuade people to comply with the policy. The number of city workers deployed as “social distancing ambassadors” will grow by next weekend from about 1,000 to 2,300, Mayor Bill de Blasio said. “More and more, the emphasis will be on a communicative, encouraging approach,” the Democrat said, while noting that enforcement through ticketing “will still be there when needed.” “The last thing we want to see is enforcement if there’s any other way to get the job done.” The city didn’t immediately have information on social distancing arrests or summonses, if any, over the weekend. De Blasio reiterated there have been relatively few – under 10 summonses a day citywide – but said enforcement needs to be done “fairly and consistently in all communities.”\n\nNorth Carolina\n\nRaleigh: COVID-19 remains a “lethal threat” to residents who don’t take it seriously, Gov. Roy Cooper said Friday as rules he issued so more businesses can open and the public enjoy more of the outdoors took effect. Cooper offered sobering comments to citizens even while defending his decision this week to initiate Friday afternoon the first part of his three-phase plan to ease restrictions that began in March. He said it’s still preferable to stay at home but urged social distancing and wearing of face masks in public. Still, the Democratic governor and state health department Secretary Mandy Cohen said case data, testing, tracing and supply trends support easing the order. Nearly 15,000 people had tested positive in the state by Sunday, the state health department said, and 547 people have died.\n\nNorth Dakota\n\nBismarck: Cass County in eastern North Dakota remains the epicenter of the state’s coronavirus outbreak. North Dakota officials on Sunday reported 24 new cases of COVID-19 in Cass County, bringing the county’s total to 805 – more than half of the coronavirus cases in the state. Grand Forks County is second with 285 cases. Statewide, there were 1,491 confirmed cases as of Sunday, up 27 from the previous day. North Dakota’s death toll from COVID-19 remains at 35. Mass-testing events continued over the weekend, including one in Fort Yates on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, The Bismarck Tribune reports. On Facebook, the tribe reported 482 residents and essential workers were tested. Results are expected in several days. Meanwhile, Theodore Roosevelt National Park in western North Dakota resumed visitor access Saturday for day use of trails, picnic areas, roads and backcountry camping.\n\nOhio\n\nColumbus: Gov. Mike DeWine is acknowledging that there are risks to reopening the state’s economy following closures due to the coronavirus pandemic, but he says that “it’s really a risk no matter what we do.” The Republican governor dialed into the economic toll the pandemic has had on businesses during an appearance on “Fox News Sunday.” “The economy’s not going to open no matter what we do, whatever we order, unless people have confidence,” he said Sunday. “And we’re trying to give them confidence.” So, he said, officials are emphasizing that the virus is still out there and “still very, very dangerous,” so people should continue maintaining social distance, wearing masks and washing their hands. Retail businesses in Ohio will be allowed to reopen Tuesday. Barbershops, hair salons, day spas, nail salons and other services can start reopening Friday. Construction companies, distributors, manufacturers and offices were allowed to open last week.\n\nOklahoma\n\nOklahoma City: A local plastic supplier company has been receiving thousands of orders for custom-made protective barriers from businesses reopening amid the coronavirus pandemic. Allied Plastic Supply is working out contracts with a wide variety of clients to fit each business’ needs. “Any place where there’s face-to-face customer interaction, we’re trying to develop styles that allow for that protection,” said Sheryl Gipson, a salesperson at Allied Plastic Supply. A casino has asked the company to put up plastic barriers between slot machines. A nail salon is getting barriers with a hole just large enough for customers to put their hands in so the nail technician can work, and a public library system wants to hang shields from the ceiling to protect checkout attendants. “The problem is going to be sourcing the material,” Gipson said. “There still are domestic suppliers of acrylic, but they’re running flat out trying to keep up with demand. It’s hard.”\n\nOregon\n\nAstoria: Twelve more workers at Bornstein Seafoods have tested positive for the coronavirus, bringing the outbreak to 26. The Clatsop County Public Health Department began testing workers at the seafood processor May 2 after the company informed the county that one employee had tested positive. The county finished testing all 200 workers earlier this week, The Astorian reports. Of the positive tests, 17 live in Oregon’s Clatsop County, while the rest live in Washington’s Pacific, Grays Harbor and Cowlitz counties. Bornstein Seafoods has shut down two plants at the Port of Astoria in response to the outbreak and advised employees to stay home. Michael McNickle, the county’s public health director, said the prevalence of the virus among workers at the facility was lower than he expected after the initial positive tests.\n\nPennsylvania\n\nMedia: A suburban Philadelphia barbershop owner who had vowed to reopen over the weekend in defiance of the governor’s shutdown order instead hosted a rally calling for an end to the shutdown. Giovanni’s owner Nichole Missino on Saturday cited threats from the state board that licenses her and her business and from local police she said had promised action to revoke her occupancy license. Missino said last week that she and her six employees had been unable to get unemployment compensation and collectively decided to reopen the Media shop. She said barbers are trained to contain infectious diseases and vowed additional safety precautions, including masks, face shields and partitions between barber chairs. But instead, she held an impromptu rally Saturday on the salon’s front steps, telling a crowd outside through a bullhorn, “What happened to ‘Home of the Free’? I don’t know where I live anymore.”\n\nRhode Island\n\nProvidence: Gov. Gina Raimondo said Friday that she is signing an executive order that will give the state Department of Health the authority to fine or even shut down businesses that fail to comply with face covering, social distancing and other guidelines. The state will conduct compliance inspections at businesses. “We’re not going to be out there trying to shut you down, we’re going to be out there bending over backwards to help you stay open and to do it safely, but if you refuse, and you’re continually noncompliant, and you get fine after fine, we will have to shut you down,” the Democrat said at her daily news conference. Businesses face fines of up to $1,000 for multiple violations. As of Saturday, nonessential businesses and some state parks reopened, but people are still required to stay 6 feet apart from others and wear face coverings in public places. Gatherings of more than five people are still barred.\n\nSouth Carolina\n\nColumbia: Restaurants throughout the state can reopen with limited, indoor dining service, as Gov. Henry McMaster continues to lift coronavirus-related restrictions and promises to soon discuss reopening other businesses. Starting Monday, the governor said, restaurants could open for indoor dining as long as they kept patrons to 50% occupancy, placed tables 6 to 8 feet apart, and followed stringent cleaning and sanitizing guidelines, like keeping hand sanitizer at entrances and removing previously shared condiments from tables. “A lot of iconic restaurants have actually gone out of business, and the whole state regrets that,” the governor said Friday, in announcing what he calls “phase two” of a process to get dining rooms throughout the state back open. Last week, restaurants were allowed to open for limited outdoor dining. This week, McMaster said he would likely address “close-contact” businesses like hair and nail salons.\n\nSouth Dakota\n\nSioux Falls: Gov. Kristi Noem on Friday told tribes to take down road checkpoints they had set up to keep out unnecessary visitors because of concerns about the coronavirus. The Republican governor said she would take legal action if the tribes didn’t remove the checkpoints in 48 hours. Two tribes – the Oglala Sioux Tribe and the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe – set up the checkpoints last month in an attempt to lock down their reservations amid fears infections could decimate members. The move sets up a potential legal showdown between a governor who has avoided sweeping stay-at-home orders and tribes that assert their sovereign rights allow them to control who comes on reservations. The tribes have taken stronger action than the state because they are concerned the virus could overwhelm fragile health care systems that serve many people with underlying health problems.\n\nTennessee\n\nGatlinburg: The reopening of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was a little too tempting of a draw Saturday as scores of nature lovers from dozens of states crowded trails and trekked into blocked-off areas, a spokeswoman said. Even with some of the most popular trails closed, parking lots were packed, and lines of cars snaked down tree-lined streets, in one case for about a mile leading up to a waterfall path, according to park spokeswoman Dana Soehn. Many people did not wear masks. “It seemed like people were not respecting our suggestion that they avoid crowded areas,” Soehn said, adding that she counted license plates from 24 different states in one visitor center parking lot. Visitors also walked past heavy barricades on one of the park’s most trafficked trails, Laurel Falls, which was closed off to heed federal social distancing guidelines, she said.\n\nTexas\n\nHouston: City health officials and Rice University scientists have begun testing wastewater samples for COVID-19, a process they hope will reveal the true spread of the new coronavirus as clinical testing continues to lag. The city-led effort makes use of studies that show traces of the virus can be found in human feces, according to the Houston Chronicle. By testing samples of sewage collected at the city’s wastewater treatment plants, officials hope to uncover the scale of the outbreak in Houston and, perhaps, locate hot spots undetected by in-person tests. “It’s an evolving field. We hope that it will help give us just more information on where the virus is and how much of it is out there,” said Loren Hopkins, a Rice University statistics professor who also serves as the health department’s chief environmental science officer.\n\nUtah\n\nSalt Lake City: Rates of domestic violence are rising as the new coronavirus confines many Utahns to their homes, stretching resources for victims and stoking concerns among law enforcers as judges decline to order some arrests. In Salt Lake County, police sent 318 domestic violence cases to prosecutors over a roughly three-week period beginning in mid-March, a nearly 22% increase from the same time frame a year earlier, the Deseret News reports. In early April, state and county leaders urged Utahns to stay in their houses. But for many, home is the most dangerous place, and the virus can amplify the threat. Those at risk may find it difficult to call for help with their abusers in the next room, noted Jenn Oxborrow, executive director of the Utah Domestic Violence Coalition, a network of 14 nonprofit programs serving survivors of domestic abuse and sexual assault across the state.\n\nVermont\n\nMarshfield: Child care programs that had to close amid the coronavirus outbreak may reopen starting June 1, and camps may operate this summer under soon-to-be issued health and safety guidance, Gov. Phil Scott announced Friday. The news comes as the state takes steps to gradually reopen the economy and as some parents return to work. Child care centers may start transitioning May 18 to bring back staff, conduct training and prepare for reopening, Scott said. To meet health and safety requirements, the state is creating about $6 million in restart grants for the programs, he said. Child care and camp workers will be included in the state’s expanded COVID-19 testing, officials said. But Ted Brady, deputy secretary of the Agency of Commerce and Community Development, said summer camp will “look different this year.” Some camps have decided not to operate, and others have adapted or will need to, though he did not say how.\n\nVirginia\n\nRichmond: Gov. Ralph Northam is laying out his plans for reopening the state this week amid the coronavirus pandemic, cautioning that the process will be gradual and that many restrictions will remain in place for at least several more weeks. “We are not flipping a light switch from closed to open,” Northam said. “When the time is right, we will turn a dimmer switch up just a notch.” The governor said Friday that his planned reopening – currently set for next Friday – would be slow, cautious and deliberate. Under the new rules, nonessential retail businesses and places of worship can operate at at 50% of their building’s occupancy rate. Restaurants and bars will only be allowed to serve customers in outdoor spaces. Employees at retail businesses and restaurants will have to wear masks. Beauty parlors and barber shops will be by appointment only, and employees and customers must wear masks. Gyms can only have classes outside.\n\nWashington\n\nOlympia: Data from COVID-19 projection models shows that the rate of infection is increasing in the state, Gov. Jay Inslee said Friday, as he urged people to follow his measured approach to slowly reopening the state from his stay-at-home restrictions. “This is a very challenging moment for us,” Inslee said at a news conference. The Democrat did say that curbside retail sales could begin almost immediately for businesses with reopening plans approved by health officials. Inslee said data showed that the reproductive rate of the coronavirus in western and eastern Washington was above 3 when the outbreak was first detected in late February and March. That means each infected person infects about three others. It has since dropped to about 1, Inslee said, but data up to April 19 shows that the reproduction rate is on the upswing.\n\nWest Virginia\n\nCharleston: The West Virginia National Guard will assist in conducting tests for the coronavirus starting Monday at a poultry processing plant in a small county where cases have increased, authorities said. Testing at the Pilgrim’s Pride plant of about 940 workers in Moorefield will occur on every shift, Hardy County sheriff’s office spokesman David Maher said in a news release. Using guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for meat processing plants, employees will be screened for symptoms on a daily basis and between shifts, the statement said. Health officials have not disclosed whether there are any confirmed virus cases at the plant. The number of confirmed cases in the county of about 14,000 residents has increased from three April 27 to 16 as of Sunday, according to health officials.\n\nWisconsin\n\nMadison: A decontamination system that can sanitize N95 respirator masks worn mainly by health care workers is ready for use in the state, Gov. Tony Evers announced Saturday. The Battelle system will be able to decontaminate up to 80,000 masks on a daily basis and clean respirators up to 20 times without degrading filtration performance. Evers said the addition will help ease the shortage of personal protection equipment and aid in the fight against COVID-19. “Our front line workers are in need of these critical PPE supplies, and we are doing everything we can to supply them with the tools to effectively do their jobs while preventing further spread,” Evers said in a statement. Meanwhile, the pandemic forced the University of Wisconsin-Madison to move online Saturday for its graduation ceremonies. Bestselling author James Patterson gave the virtual commencement address from his kitchen, aptly decorated with Badgers paraphernalia.\n\nWyoming\n\nGillette: The Campbell County Recreation Center reopened last week following an extended closure because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Patrons were spread throughout the building and in open areas Wednesday morning, the Gillette News Record reports. Many changes accompanied the reopening of the Rec Center. About 35 employees working about four-hour shifts have been moved from others area of the Rec Center that aren’t open yet, like the Aquatic Center and climbing wall, to maintain the facility and its new health requirements. That includes some cleaning equipment and others monitoring for social distancing. Many pieces of equipment also have been removed from the weightlifting and cardio areas. The aquatics area and climbing wall are among a few of the closures that have remained in place. The basketball and racquetball courts have been limited to one person or one family each at a time.\n\nFrom USA TODAY Network and wire reports", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2020/05/11"}]}
{"question_id": "20230317_20", "search_time": "2023/05/25/17:56", "search_result": [{"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2023/03/12/oscars-2023-live-updates-winners/11430002002/", "title": "Oscars 2023: 'Everything Everywhere All at Once' wins best picture", "text": "Everything was all right Sunday at the 95th Academy Awards, where no one got slapped and \"Everything Everywhere All at Once\" ruled the night.\n\nThe acclaimed sci-fi comedy came in as a frontrunner at the Oscars and cleaned up like a powerhouse, winning seven honors including best picture, best actress (Michelle Yeoh), supporting actress (Jamie Lee Curtis), supporting actor (Ke Huy Quan), directing and original screenplay. And the good vibes continued in the best actor category, where Brendan Fraser completed a great awards-season comeback story and won for \"The Whale.\"\n\nHere are all the winners and highlights from the main Oscar ceremony, hosted by Jimmy Kimmel:\n\nOscars winners:See who took home gold at Academy Awards\n\nWho made Oscars history in 2023? See the many 'firsts' from Michelle Yeoh, 'Naatu Naatu,' more\n\n'Everything Everywhere All at Once' wins the Oscars' top prize, best picture\n\n\"We've said enough tonight. You inspire me,\" says director Daniel Kwan, accepting best picture for \"Everything Everywhere All at Once.\"\n\nMichelle Yeoh takes best actress for 'Everything Everywhere'\n\nThe longtime action-movie icon finally gets her Oscar and becomes the first Asian woman to win the category. \"For all the little boys and girls who look like me watching tonight, let this be a beacon of hope and possibilities. This is proof dreams come true. And ladies, don't let anyone ever tell you you are past your prime,\" Michelle Yeoh says, winning best actress for \"Everything Everywhere All at Once.\" She dedicates the win to her 84-year-old mom and promised to bring Oscar \"home to you and my extended family in Hong Kong where I started in my career. Thank you to the Academy, this is history in the making.\"\n\n'A beacon of hope and possibilities':Michelle Yeoh wins best actress, making Oscars history\n\n'The Whale' comeback kid Brendan Fraser wins best actor\n\nBrendan Fraser shakes fellow nominee Colin Farrell's hand before accepting the best actor honor for \"The Whale.\" \"So this is what the multiverse looks like!\" Fraser says, out of breath with excitement. \"I just want to say thank you for this acknowledgement. It's like I've been on a diving expedition,\" he adds, shouting out his kids and director Darren Aronofsky for \"throwing me a creative lifeline.\"\n\nBrendan Fraser:'The Whale' star wins best actor Academy Award and proves nice guys can finish first\n\n'Everything Everywhere' snags Oscars for film editing, directing\n\n\"This is too much. This is my second film, y'all. This is crazy,\" Paul Rogers says, accepting the Oscar for best film editing for \"Everything Everywhere All at Once.\" Then the best picture frontrunner runs its tally to five awards when Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert take best directing. \"Our fellow nominees, you guys are our heroes, This is weird,\" Scheinert says. He thanks all the \"mommies\" in the house and his parents \"for not squashing my creativity when I was making really disturbing horror films or really perverted comedy films, or dressing in drag as a kid, which is a threat to nobody\" – a shot seemingly at anti-drag legislation popping up around the country.:\n\nAdds Kwan: \"There is greatness in every single person. You have a genius in you that is waiting to be unlocked.\"\n\n'Top Gun' takes best sound, 'RRR' gets original song Oscar for 'Naatu Naatu'\n\nSomewhere, Tom Cruise is smiling. \"Top Gun: Maverick\" finally wins an Oscar, for best sound. And the Academy Award for best original song goes to \"RRR\" dance number \"Naatu Naatu.\" \"I grew up listening to The Carpenters and here I am with the Oscars,\" says composer M.M. Keeravani, doing his own spin on The Carpenters' \"Top of the World.\" John Travolta comes out and chokes up when introducing Lenny Kravitz, who sings \"Calling All Angels\" during the \"In Memoriam\" segment (which includes Travolta's \"Grease\" co-star Olivia Newton-John).\n\nBrutally honest rankings:All the Oscars song performances, from ‘Naatu Naatu’ to Lady Gaga\n\n'Everything Everywhere,' 'Women Talking' win screenplay Oscars\n\n\"Everything Everywhere\" filmmaker Daniel Scheinert thanks his teachers for helping him be \"less of a butthead\" when accepting the original screenplay Oscar alongside partner Daniel Kwan, who admits \"my imposter syndrome is at an all-time high.\" And when accepting the adapted screenplay honor, \"Women Talking\" director Sarah Polley slyly shouts out the Academy for \"not being offended by the words 'Women' and 'Talking' so close together.\"\n\n'Black Panther: Wakanda Forever' presents Chadwick Boseman tribute, Rihanna number\n\n\"Wakanda Forever\" star Danai Gurira arrives on stage to pay tribute to late \"Black Panther\" actor Chadwick Boseman, saying in Wakandan: \"Thank you, king.\" Gurira then introduces Rihanna, who sings her nominated tune \"Lift Me Up\" and receives a standing ovation.\n\n'Lift Me Up':Rihanna soars at 2023 Oscars with powerful first performance of song\n\n'Avatar: The Way of Water' gets the gold for visual effects\n\nElizabeth Banks and the Cocaine Bear come out to present the award for visual effects. The Oscar goes to \"Avatar: The Way of Water,\" which makes sense because the Na'vi main characters are all digital. Afterward, Jimmy Kimmel is ready with an A-plus dad joke: \"The afterparty is at CGI Friday's.\"\n\n'All Quiet on the Western Front' wins two more technical honors\n\nThe Netflix war movie is starting to gain some momentum, as \"All Quiet on the Western Front\" runs over the likes of \"Babylon,\" \"The Fabelmans\" and other Oscar favorites for best production design and score.\n\nLady Gaga sings a raw, rousing version of 'Top Gun' song 'Hold My Hand'\n\n\"It's deeply personal for me and we all need a lot of love to walk through this life. And we all need a hero sometimes. You might find that you can be your own hero, even if you feel broken inside,\" Lady Gaga says before performing her nominated song \"Hold My Hand\" (from \"Top Gun: Maverick\") with stripped-down piano, guitar, bass and drums.\n\nOscars best-dressed:Jaw-dropping looks from Lady Gaga, Michelle Yeoh, Angela Bassett\n\n'Elephant Whisperers' and 'The Boy, the Mole' conquer shorts categories\n\n\"The Elephant Whisperers,\" about an Indian couple that cares for an orphaned baby elephant, wins for best documentary short. And animated short goes to \"The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse,\" based on Charlie Mackesy's book.\n\n'All Quiet on the Western Front' wins best international film\n\nThis isn't a surprise: After ruling the BAFTAs (and with Indian action epic \"RRR\" not in its category), \"All Quiet on the Western Front\" takes the international film Oscar, its second honor of the night. \"This means so much to us,\" says director Edward Berger. He also thanks star Felix Kammerer: \"Without you, none of us would be here.\"\n\n'Wakanda Forever' nabs costume design honor\n\n\"Nice to see you again,\" Ruth Carter says, winning costume design for \"Black Panther: Wakanda Forever\" – the same honor she took home for 2018's original \"Panther.\" The first Black woman to win two Oscars, Carter dedicates the award to her mom, who recently died at age 101, and thanks director Ryan Coogler and producer Nate Moore: \"We are reshaping how culture is represented.\" if that wasn't exciting enough, the original song performance of \"RRR\" tune \"Naatu Naatu\" delivers a ton of rousing dance moves that get the Oscar crowd going.\n\nBrendan Fraser's 'The Whale' wins for best makeup and hairstyling\n\nDigital and physical prosthetics were used to transform Brendan Fraser into the 600-pound main character of \"The Whale,\" and it pays off with an Oscar for makeup. Fraser is one of the first to get on his feet and excitedly cheer the win.\n\nBest cinematography Oscar goes to 'All Quiet on the Western Front'\n\nNetflix's acclaimed German war drama earns its first technical honor of the night. \"My fellow nominees, your work is just outstanding and inspiring,\" says James Friend, who wins best cinematography for \"All Quiet on the Western Front.\" Donnie Yen arrives on stage afterward to introduce the next original song nominee: \"Everything Everywhere\" star Stephanie Hsu, Son Lux and David Byrne doing a weird, ethereal performance of \"This Is a Life.\"\n\n'Navalny' is named best documentary\n\nDirector Daniel Roher's film about Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny wins the Oscar for best documentary. \"We must not be afraid to oppose dictators,\" says Roher, while Navalny's wife Yulia addresses her husband, currently being held in solitary confinement in Russia: \"I'm dreaming of the day you will be free and our country will be free.\" And the award for live-action short goes to \"The Irish Goodbye.\"\n\nJamie Lee Curtis wins her first Oscar, for supporting actress in 'Everything Everywhere'\n\n\"Woo-hoo,\" Jamie Lee Curtis exclaims, hugging Ariana DeBose and taking her supporting actress trophy for \"Everything Everywhere.\" \"I know it looks like I'm standing up here by myself but I am hundreds of people,\" Curtis says, shouting out her directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, \"my bae\" Michelle Yeoh, all her horror folks and her late Hollywood parents, Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh. \"We all just won an Oscar together.\" She leaves the stage and then Sofia Carson and Diane Warren arrive with a choir to perform their original song nominee, \"Applause\" from \"Tell It Like a Woman.\"\n\nJamie Lee Curtis:First-time winner thanks castmates, late parents in touching Oscars speech\n\nKe Huy Quan takes best supporting actor for 'Everything Everywhere'\n\nAfter hugging co-star Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan goes to the stage to take his supporting actor trophy for \"Everything Everywhere\" and immediately starts crying. \"My mom is 84 years old and she's at home watching. Mom, I just won an Oscar!\" he says through tears. He tells how his journey started on a boat, involved spending a year in a refugee camp and \"somehow ended up on the Oscar stage. This is the American dream.\" He concludes by saying that \"dreams are something you have to believe in. I almost gave up on mine. Everyone out there, keep your dreams alive.\"\n\n'This is the American dream':Read Ke Huy Quan's emotional Oscars acceptance speech\n\nGuillermo del Toro's 'Pinocchio' wins best animated feature\n\nEmily Blunt and Dwayne Johnson arrive on stage to give out the first award of the night: best animated feature. And the winner is ... director Guillermo del Toro's Netflix stop-motion feature \"Pinocchio\"! \"Animation is cinema, animation is not a genre. Animation is ready to be taken to the next step. Please help us keep animation in the conversation,\" del Toro says, tearing up when thanking his parents. According to Netflix, del Toro becomes the first person to win best picture, best director and best animated feature Oscars.\n\n2023 Oscars:Why Cate Blanchett, Guillermo del Toro and more celebs wore blue ribbons\n\nJimmy Kimmel gets the 'Top Gun' treatment to begin the show\n\nJimmy Kimmel starts the show by being \"ejected\" out of a fighter jet by Tom Cruise and parachutes onto the Dolby Theatre stage. \"Give me a second to adjust my Danger Zone here. My Banshees are caught in my Inisherin,\" he jokes. Kimmel shouts out audiences returning to the theater to see movies and is also glad to see Nicole Kidman out of that \"abandoned AMC, where she has been held captive for two whole years now.\"\n\nThe host points out first-time nominees Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan, as well as Brendan Fraser: \"Two guys from 'Encino Man' are nominated for Oscar.\" Kimmel calls Steven Spielberg and Seth Rogen \"the Joe and Hunter Biden of Hollywood\" and can't believe Spielberg was sober doing \"E.T.\" \"You were high as a bike when you made that movie,\" Kimmel cracks. He also gives props to John Williams being a nominee at 91 – \"He's still scoring – if you know what I mean\" – and mentions the absence of Cruise and James Cameron: \"Two guys who insisted we go to the theater didn't come to the theater.\"\n\nJimmy Kimmel:Angry actors would have to 'battle' Michelle Yeoh to slap him at Oscars\n\nFor Angela Bassett, the Oscars are all about 'the spirit of never giving up'\n\nSupporting actress contender Angela Bassett, the first actor from a Marvel superhero movie to garner a nod, told USA TODAY that her husband Courtney B. Vance has been an essential support system this Oscar season, accompanying her to awards shows and filming her acceptance speeches on his smartphone. \"He was supportive before the whirlwind,\" says the \"Black Panther: Wakanda Forever\" star. \"He always trusted and believed that a nomination like this might one day happen for me.\"\n\nIn addition to being the subject of Ariana DeBose's viral rap, Bassett has loved going through the awards process with her fellow thespians: \"When I think of my girl Michelle Yeoh and it being her first nomination, it really is about the spirit of never giving up.\"\n\nA Brendan Fraser win would complete an epic Oscar comeback story\n\nThe best actor race seems to be down to Austin Butler, Colin Farrell and Brendan Fraser, though a win by the latter would finish one of this year's most noteworthy comebacks. After becoming a major Hollywood star in the 1990s, Fraser has been honest about his career hardships, including being sexually assaulted, and won accolades for his role in \"The Whale.\"\n\nIn an emotional Screen Actor Guild speech, Fraser shouted out to other actors who've weathered struggles: \"I know how you feel. But believe me, if you just stay in there and you put one foot in front of the other, you'll get to where you need to go.\"\n\nThe new Oscar best picture winner will join Hollywood's most hallowed hall\n\n\"Everything Everywhere All at Once\" is in the pole position to win best picture over \"The Banshees of Inisherin,\" \"Top Gun: Maverick,\" \"All Quiet on the Western Front,\" \"The Fabelmans\" and \"Elvis,\" among others.\n\nThe victor will join a long list filled with some of the greatest movies ever (and a few that don't quite fit that bill). We watched all 94 so far and ranked them, from the first winner – the 1927 silent war drama \"Wings,\" which holds up well! – to the feel-good 2022 Oscar champ \"CODA.\"\n\nGet a video tour of the ultra-exclusive green room at the Oscars\n\nUSA TODAY's Ralphie Aversa has been in LA all week for events leading up to the Academy Awards, and one of them was getting a look at the ultra-exclusive, swanky green room backstage at the Oscars. He was able to do a fun video tour for our readers but come Sunday night at the Dolby Theatre, no cameras will be allowed in – only performers, presenters and winners will be able to enjoy the comfy furniture, floral arrangements and food by celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck.\n\nMichelle Yeoh, Colin Farrell could be first-time Academy Award winners\n\nSixteen of the 20 acting contenders at Sunday's Oscars are first-time , including \"Everything Everywhere\" favorites Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan and Jamie Lee Curtis, as well as best actor candidates Brendan Fraser, Colin Farrell and Austin Butler. The four returnees: Two-time winner Cate Blanchett (\"Tár\"), Angela Bassett (\"Black Panther: Wakanda Forever\"), Michelle Williams (\"The Fabelmans\") and Judd Hirsch (\"The Fabelmans\"), who last received an Oscar nod for 1980's \"Ordinary People.\"\n\nBut the list of thespians who've never won an Academy Award is a pretty star-studded affair overall, including Scarlett Johansson, Antonio Banderas, Glenn Close, Willem Dafoe, Amy Adams, Tom Cruise and Robert Downey Jr.\n\nSupporting actor is Ke Huy Quan's to lose\n\n\"Everything Everywhere\" star Ke Huy Quan has dominated the competition and rolled through awards season. But his quest for a supporting actor victory has also been a Cinderella story for the actor, who was a child star in the 1980s with roles in \"The Goonies\" and \"Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom\" and then stepped away from Hollywood because of a lack of meaty roles for Asian actors.\n\n\"I'm grateful the landscape has changed, there’s a lot more progress now,\" Quan said backstage after winning at the Golden Globes. He's also made sure to have a bunch of fun heading to Oscar night, posting tons of selfies with peers on his Instagram account.\n\nBest supporting actress is a toss-up\n\nAs far as Oscar predictions go, most of the acting categories are fairly straightforward with a favorite moving out in front. Not so much with supporting actress, which can go a few different ways. \"Black Panther: Wakanda Forever\" star Angela Bassett – the first actor to be nominated for a Marvel movie – had the early momentum with wins out of the Golden Globes and Critics Choice, but Jamie Lee Curtis of \"Everything Everywhere\" took an important Screen Actors Guild honor while \"The Banshees of Inisherin\" actress Kerry Condon picked up the supporting trophy at the British Academy Film Awards.\n\nGiven SAG and the \"Everything\" goodwill, Curtis probably has the best chance over Bassett, though it's possible the two beloved Hollywood types cancel each other out and Condon sneaks by for a victory.\n\nGood news: Lady Gaga will be performing 'Hold My Hand' after all!\n\nA bevy of original song contenders are slated for prime-time performances. Rihanna will sing \"Lift Me Up\" from \"Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,\" Sofia Carson and songwriter Diane Warren are slated to perform \"Applause\" from \"Tell It Like A Woman,\" Talking Heads frontman David Byrne teams with \"Everything Everywhere All at Once\" supporting actress nominee Stephanie Hsu and music trio Son Lux for “This Is A Life,\" and Indian singers Rahul Sipligunj and Kaala Bhairava will perform the \"RRR\" song-and-dance number – and the frontrunner in the category – \"Naatu Naatu.\"\n\nAnd while Oscar producers previously said she wouldn't perform, Lady Gaga is now slated to sing “Hold My Hand” from \"Top Gun: Maverick,\" a person familiar with the production but not authorized to speak publicly told USA TODAY. (Fun fact: Gaga is shooting \"Joker: Folie à Deux\" with Joaquin Phoenix, who won best actor for the first \"Joker\" movie.)\n\nGlenn Close tests positive for COVID-19, won't be among Oscar presenters\n\nGlenn Close was expected to be among the dozens of A-list stars on tap to hand out trophies and appear on the telecast Sunday but has tested positive for COVID-19. A representative for the actress told The Associated Press she is isolating and resting.\n\nAriana DeBose, Troy Kotsur, Halle Berry, Nicole Kidman and Jessica Chastain are among the previous Oscar winners scheduled to be presenters. Also on the list is a raft of other high-profile names like Samuel L. Jackson, Dwayne Johnson, Melissa McCarthy, Janelle Monáe, Zoe Saldaña and Harrison Ford.\n\nJust don't expect an appearance from Will Smith. Smith, who won best actor last year for \"King Richard\" and would traditionally present the award for best actress this year, was banned from Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences events for 10 years after he slapped Oscar presenter Chris Rock for making a joke about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith.\n\nRed carpet coverage is coming for the fashionistas\n\nAll the big stars will be hitting the \"champagne carpet\" and wearing their Sunday best. E!'s \"Live From the Red Carpet\" kicks off at 5 p.m. EDT/2 p.m. PDT while ABC starts its pre-show coverage at 6:30 EDT/3:30 PDT. (And check out entertainment.usatoday.com for fashion galleries and analysis.)\n\nRead more about the Academy Awards:\n\nContributing: Bryan Alexander, Patrick", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2023/03/12"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/oscars/2023/03/03/who-has-most-oscars/11365523002/", "title": "Who has the most Oscars? Top record-holders in Academy Awards ...", "text": "Since 1929, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has awarded those in the entertainment industry for their significant achievements. The Academy Awards, or Oscars, is the oldest worldwide entertainment awards ceremony.\n\nEach year, actors, actresses, directors, writers and more vie for the chance to win an Oscar. This year's ceremony, the 95th Academy Awards, took place Sunday, March 12, with winners from \"Everything Everywhere All at Once\" and \"The Whale.\"\n\nIn preparation for the biggest night in film, here are the top record holders for the most Academy Awards, including which actor, actress and films have won the most Oscars.\n\nOscars winners 2023:Brendan Fraser, Michelle Yeoh and all those who took home gold at Academy Awards.\n\nThe 6 best (and worst) Oscar moments:Lady Gaga strips down, Jimmy Kimmel roasts Will Smith\n\nWhat is an Oscar?\n\nAn Oscar, or Academy Award, is presented annually by the film academy. The awards are given for \"outstanding individual or collective film achievements in a wide variety of categories.\"\n\nFor the 95th Academy Awards, there are 23 categories, including best picture, best director, best actor and best actress.\n\nThe nominees are selected by academy members. Most categories are decided by members of the corresponding branches: actors nominate actors, directors nominate directors and so on.\n\nFrom there, members vote online, and the results are announced on awards night. The votes are certified by PricewaterhouseCoopers, which has counted for the Oscars since 1935.\n\nTo be eligible for an Oscar, there are certain rules that must be fulfilled. The rules for the 95th Academy Awards can be found here.\n\nThis award is one-fourth of the coveted EGOT – signifying a person who has won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony, the top awards in television, music, film and theater, respectively.\n\n'A beacon of hope':Michelle Yeoh makes Oscars history as first Asian to win best actress\n\nJust Curious? Your everyday questions, answered\n\nWho has the most Oscars?\n\nWalt Disney holds the record for the most Oscars won by an individual with total of 22 competitive awards and four honorary awards. Disney was nominated 59 times throughout his career, receiving one award posthumously.\n\nHe won the best short subject (cartoon) category 12 times, the best documentary (feature) category twice, the best documentary (short subject) category twice, the best short subject (live action) category once and the best short subject (two-reel) category five times.\n\nDisney also received four special Oscars:\n\n1933: For the creation of Mickey Mouse\n\n1939: For \"Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs\" and pioneering the motion picture cartoon\n\n1942: For an \"outstanding contribution to the advancement of the use of sound in motion pictures through the production of 'Fantasia ' \"\n\n1942: The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award\n\nThe famous slap:Oscars implements first 'crisis team' in its history after Will Smith attacked Chris Rock\n\nWhat actor has the most Oscars?\n\nThere is a three-way tie for the male actor with the most Oscars. Walter Brennan, Daniel Day-Lewis and Jack Nicholson all have three awards.\n\nBrennan won best supporting actor three times, the only performer to do so. He won during the:\n\n9th Academy Awards for his performance as Swan Bostrom in \"Come and Get It\"\n\n11th Academy Awards for his performance as Peter Goodwin in \"Kentucky\"\n\n13th Academy Awards for his performance as Judge Roy Bean in \"The Westerner\"\n\nDay-Lewis won best actor three times. He is the only performer to win three Oscars in this category. He won during the:\n\n62nd Academy Awards for his performance as Christy Brown in \"My Left Foot\"\n\n80th Academy Awards for his performance as Daniel Plainview in \"There Will Be Blood\"\n\n85th Academy Awards for his performance as Abraham Lincoln in \"Lincoln\"\n\nNicholson has won best actor twice and best supporting actor once. He won during the:\n\n48th Academy Awards for his performance as Randle Patrick McMurphy in \"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest\"\n\n56th Academy Awards for his performance as Garrett Breedlove in \"Terms of Endearment\"\n\n70th Academy Awards for his performance as Melvin Udall in \"As Good As It Gets\"\n\nThe actress with the most Oscars is Katharine Hepburn, who won best actress four times. Hepburn is the only performer to win four competitive acting Oscars. She won during the:\n\n6th Academy Awards for her performance as Eva Lovelace in \"Morning Glory\"\n\n40th Academy Awards for her performance as Christina Drayton in \"Guess Who's Coming to Dinner\"\n\n41st Academy Awards for her performance as Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine in \"The Lion in Winter\"\n\n54th Academy Awards for her performance as Ethel Thayer in \"On Golden Pond\"\n\nAngela Bassett:The actress is long overdue for an Oscar. Her advice? 'Just hang in there, girl.'\n\nOscars:'RRR' number 'Naatu Naatu' leads Oscar original song field\n\nFilm with the most Oscars\n\nThree films are tied for having the most Oscars. \"Ben-Hur,\" \"Titanic\" and \"The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King\" all received 11 awards, respectively.\n\n\"Ben-Hur\" received 11 awards out of 12 nominations during the 32nd Academy Awards. It won in the following categories:\n\nActor\n\nSupporting actor\n\nArt direction (color)\n\nCinematography (color)\n\nCostume design (color)\n\nDirecting\n\nFilm editing\n\nMusic (music score of a drama or comedy)\n\nBest picture\n\nSound\n\nSpecial effects\n\n\"Titanic\" received 11 awards out of 14 nominations during the 70th Academy Awards. It won in the following categories:\n\nArt direction\n\nCinematography\n\nCostume design\n\nDirecting\n\nFilm editing\n\nOriginal dramatic score\n\nOriginal song\n\nBest picture\n\nSound\n\nSound effects editing\n\nVisual effects\n\n\"The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King\" received 11 awards out of 11 nominations during the 76th Academy Awards. It won in the following categories:", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2023/03/03"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2023/03/12/oscar-2023-full-winners-list/11452490002/", "title": "Oscar winners list 2023: The full list of 2023 Academy Award winners", "text": "Everybody loves “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” and the film won big at the Oscars.\n\nThe multiverse-hopping sensation, beloved by fans as a showcase for Michelle Yeoh and her hot dog fingers, headed into the night as the front-runner with 11 nominations, including best director, which the Daniels (Kwan and Scheinert) clinched, and four acting nods (Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, Jamie Lee Curtis all won, with Curtis beating out her castmate Stephanie Hsu). The movie ended the night with seven wins, including the coveted title of best picture.\n\nHere's how the show played out when the 95th Academy Awards returned to the Dolby Theatre Sunday in Hollywood with host Jimmy Kimmel.\n\nOscars best-dressed:Jaw-dropping looks from Michelle Yeoh, Angela Bassett, Cate Blanchett\n\nMichelle Yeoh makes Oscars history as first Asian star to win best actress\n\nWho took home honors? Check out the list of Oscar winners (in bold).\n\nFull list of the 2023 Oscar winners:\n\nBest picture\n\n“All Quiet on the Western Front”\n\n“Avatar: The Way of Water”\n\n“The Banshees of Inisherin”\n\n“Elvis”\n\nWINNER: “Everything Everywhere All at Once”\n\n“The Fabelmans”\n\n“Tár”\n\n“Top Gun: Maverick”\n\n“Triangle of Sadness”\n\n“Women Talking”\n\nBest actress\n\nAna de Armas, “Blonde”\n\nCate Blanchett, “Tár”\n\nAndrea Riseborough, “To Leslie”\n\nMichelle Williams, “The Fabelmans”\n\nWINNER: Michelle Yeoh, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”\n\nBest actor\n\nAustin Butler, “Elvis”\n\nColin Farrell, “The Banshees of Inisherin”\n\nWINNER: Brendan Fraser, “The Whale”\n\nPaul Mescal, “Aftersun”\n\nBill Nighy, “Living”\n\nBest supporting actress\n\nAngela Bassett, “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”\n\nHong Chau, “The Whale”\n\nKerry Condon, “The Banshees of Inisherin”\n\nWINNER: Jamie Lee Curtis, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”\n\nStephanie Hsu, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”\n\nBest supporting actor\n\nBrendan Gleeson, “Banshees on Inisherin”\n\nJudd Hirsch, “The Fabelmans”\n\nBrian Tyree Henry, “Causeway”\n\nBarry Keoghan, “Banshees of Inisherin”\n\nWINNER: Ke Huy Quan, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”\n\nBest director\n\nTodd Field, “Tár”\n\nWINNER: Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”\n\nMartin McDonagh, “The Banshees of Inisherin”\n\nRuben Ostlund, “Triangle of Sadness”\n\nSteven Spielberg, “The Fabelmans”\n\nBest film editing\n\n\"The Banshees of Inisherin\"\n\n\"Elvis\"\n\nWINNER: \"Everything Everywhere All at Once\"\n\n“Tár”\n\n\"Top Gun Maverick\"\n\nBest original song\n\n“Applause” from “Tell It Like a Woman”\n\n“Hold My Hand” from “Top Gun: Maverick”\n\n“Lift Me Up” from “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”\n\n“This Is a Life” from “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”\n\nWINNER: “Naatu Naatu” from “RRR”\n\nBest sound\n\n“All Quiet on the Western Front”\n\n“Avatar: The Way of Water”\n\n\"The Batman”\n\n“Elvis”\n\nWINNER: “Top Gun: Maverick”\n\nBest adapted screenplay\n\n“All Quiet on the Western Front”\n\n“Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery”\n\n“Living”\n\n“Top Gun: Maverick”\n\nWINNER: “Women Talking”\n\nBest original screenplay\n\n“The Banshees of Inisherin”\n\nWINNER: “Everything Everywhere All at Once”\n\n“The Fabelmans”\n\n“Tár”\n\n“Triangle of Sadness”\n\nBest visual effects\n\n“All Quiet on the Western Front”\n\nWINNER: “Avatar: The Way of Water”\n\n“The Batman”\n\n“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”\n\n“Top Gun: Maverick”\n\nBest original score\n\nWINNER: Volker Bertelmann, “All Quiet on the Western Front”\n\nCarter Burwell, “The Banshees of Inisherin”\n\nJustin Hurwitz, “Babylon”\n\nSon Lux, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”\n\nJohn Williams, “The Fabelmans”\n\nBest production design\n\nWINNER: \"All Quiet on the Western Front\"\n\n\"Avatar: The Way of Water\"\n\n\"Babylon\"\n\n\"Elvis\"\n\n\"The Fabelmans\"\n\nBest animated short\n\nWINNER: “The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse”\n\n“The Flying Sailor”\n\n“Ice Merchants”\n\n“My Year of Dicks”\n\n\"An Ostrich Told Me the World is Fake and I Think I Believe it”\n\nBest documentary short\n\nWINNER: \"The Elephant Whisperers\"\n\n\"Haulout\"\n\n\"How Do You Measure a Year?\"\n\n\"The Martha Mitchell Effect\"\n\n\"Stranger at the Gate\"\n\nBest international film\n\nWINNER: “All Quiet on the Western Front” (Germany)\n\n“Argentina, 1985” (Argentina)\n\n“Close” (Belgium)\n\n“EO” (Poland)\n\n“The Quiet Girl” (Ireland)\n\nBest costume design\n\n\"Babylon\"\n\nWINNER: \"Black Panther: Wakanda Forever\"\n\n\"Elvis\"\n\n\"Everything Everywhere All at Once\"\n\n\"Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris\"\n\nBest makeup and hairstyling\n\n\"All Quiet on the Western Front\"\n\n\"The Batman\"\n\n\"Black Panther: Wakanda Forever\"\n\n\"Elvis\"\n\nWINNER: \"The Whale\"\n\nBest cinematography\n\nWINNER: “All Quiet on the Western Front”\n\n“Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths”\n\n“Elvis”\n\n“Empire of Light”\n\n“Tár”\n\nLive action short\n\nWINNER: “An Irish Goodbye”\n\n“Ivalu”\n\n“Le Pupille”\n\n“Night Ride”\n\n“The Red Suitcase”\n\nBest documentary feature\n\n“All That Breathes\"\n\n“All the Beauty and the Bloodshed”\n\n“Fire of Love”\n\n“A House Made of Splinters”\n\nWINNER: “Navalny”\n\nBest animated film\n\nWINNER: “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio”\n\n“Marcel the Shell With Shoes On”\n\n“Puss in Boots: The Last Wish”\n\n“The Sea Beast”\n\n“Turning Red”\n\nContributing: Kim Willis\n\nEverything Oscars all at once:", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2023/03/12"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2023/03/12/michelle-yeoh-wins-best-actress-makes-oscar-history/11427037002/", "title": "Michelle Yeoh wins best actress, makes Oscar history", "text": "The Oscars may still have a ways to go before it becomes a truly inclusive celebration of film, but the show took a bold step in that direction Sunday when Michelle Yeoh stepped up to collect her trophy.\n\nIn winning the best actress Academy Award for \"Everything Everywhere All at Once,\" the 60-year-old Malaysian star was the first Asian actress to do so.\n\n\"Thank you, this is for all the little boys and girls who look like me watching tonight,\" Yeoh said through tears. \"This is a beacon of hope and possibilities. This is proof, that if you dream big, dreams do come true. And ladies don't let anybody tell you you are past your prime. Never give up.\"\n\n'Everything Everywhere All at Once': A long awaited, well-deserved win for Asian Americans\n\nYeoh continued: \"I have to dedicate this to my mom, and all the moms in the world, because they are the superheroes, without them none of us would be here tonight. (My mom) is 84 and I'm taking this home to her, watching in Malaysia. I'm bringing this home to you, and my extended family in Hong Kong where I started in my career. Thank you to the Academy, this is history in the making.\"\n\nOscars 2023: 'Everything Everywhere All at Once' wins 7, including best picture\n\nYeoh is the second woman of color to win the category, after Halle Berry in 2002 for \"Monster's Ball.\" In 2021, Yuh-jung Youn won best supporting actress in 2021 for her role in \"Minari.\"\n\nThe closest anyone has come to Yeoh's achievement was back in 1936, when India-born actress Merle Oberon was nominated for her leading role in \"The Dark Angel.\" Given the tenor of the times, Oberon hid her mixed-race heritage. She lost that year to Bette Davis, who won for her role in \"Dangerous.\"\n\nYeoh's Oscar win caps a season of accolades for her work in the action-packed sci-fi comedy (cue those hot dog fingers). She received best actress awards for her dynamic role from the Golden Globes, the Screen Actors Guild, the Independent Spirit Awards and others.\n\nYeoh's Oscar win is part of the broader triumph of \"Everything Everywhere All at Once,\" which garnered a field-leading 11 nominations. They included director Daniel Kwan (half of the directing duo known as the Daniels, which includes Daniel Scheinert) and her Asian co-stars Stephanie Hsu and Ke Huy Quan, the latter best known as a child actor opposite Harrison Ford in 1984's \"Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.\"\n\nOscars 2023 winners:Brendan Fraser, Michelle Yeoh. See who took home gold at Academy Awards\n\nEarlier in the evening the Daniels won for best directors, while Ke Huy Quan won the Oscar for best support actor. Other winners included included best supporting actress (Jamie Lee Curtis) and best original screenplay (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert), and best editing (Paul Rogers).\n\nYeoh's Oscar win crowns an action-packed career that dates back to the 1980s. After studying dance in England and winning the 1983 Miss Malaysia World contest, she quickly embarked on a Hong Kong-based film career that leveraged her athleticism.\n\nLaunching into movies shortly after her wins as a beauty queen, Yeoh became know for doing her own stunts and martial arts fight scenes in movies such as \"Supercop\" (1992) and \"Tai Chi Master\" (1993).\n\nIn 1997, her appearance in the James Bond film \"Tomorrow Never Dies,\" opposite 007 Pierce Brosnan, brought her global attention, leading to a host of high-profile parts.\n\nThat star turn was followed by her roles in director Ang Lee's martial arts film \"Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon\" (2000) and opposite Brendan Fraser and Jet Li in \"The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor\" (2008).\n\nIn her run-up to her Oscar, Yeoh made memorable appearances in two films that also marked the rise of Asian-themed movies into the mainstream.\n\nShe played a stern family matriarch in director Jon M. Chu's hit film \"Crazy Rich Asians\" (2018), and the martial arts-expert aunt of the title character in Marvel's \"Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings\" (2021).\n\nYeoh's win opens a new chapter for Asian film artists and presents her male counterparts with a challenge to nab the best actor Oscar next.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2023/03/12"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2023/03/06/oscars-2023-date-time-whos-hosting/11358795002/", "title": "Oscars 2023: When and where to watch the Academy Awards, plus ...", "text": "Finally, it's here. After the usual parade of awards shows big and small, international and domestic, the megalodon of trophy-fueled Hollywood gatherings is upon us.\n\nThe Oscars this year promise to be both a typical celeb glam-fest and another prime-time opportunity to make a cultural mark. And we’re not talking another Will Smith-Chris Rock slap heard 'round the world.\n\nThe 10 best picture nominees include genuine popcorn epics like “Top Gun: Maverick” as well as atypical gems such as the tale of a broken friendship (“The Banshees of Inisherin”) and a searing indictment of war (“All Quiet on the Western Front”).\n\nBut by far the most exciting possibility of the evening is rewarding Malaysian film star Michelle Yeoh, fresh off her Screen Actors Guild win, with a best actress Oscar for her dynamic role in “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” A victory in the lead actress category would be a first for an Asian actress.\n\nHere’s what you need to know to tune in.\n\nWhen are the Oscars?\n\nThe 95th Academy Awards will unfold March 12 at the Dolby Theatre in the heart of Hollywood.\n\nWhere can I watch Oscars 2023?\n\nABC will broadcast the Academy Awards live at 8 p.m. EDT/5 PDT.\n\nThe ceremony also will stream live on a variety of platforms, including ABC.com and the ABC app, both of which require cable subscriptions to access. Other ways to watch include Hulu, YouTubeTV, AT&T TV and FuboTV.\n\nE! will broadcast live from the red carpet starting at 5 p.m. EDT/2 PDT.\n\nWho is the Oscars 2023 host?\n\nComedian and late-night host Jimmy Kimmel is returning as host. Kimmel also hosted in 2017 and 2018.\n\nHe now joins other Oscars host three-peaters Jerry Lewis, Steve Martin, Conrad Nagel and David Niven. Those who have hosted even more times include Whoopi Goldberg and Jack Lemmon (4), Johnny Carson (5), Billy Crystal (9) and Bob Hope (19).\n\nIs Will Smith going to be at the Oscars?\n\nNo. Will Smith has been banned from Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences events for 10 years after he slapped Oscar presenter Chris Rock for making a joke about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith.\n\nTypically, actors who appear at the Oscars either are currently nominated for their performance or have been asked to present an award. As last year’s best actor winner for his role in “King Richard,” Smith would traditionally present the award for best actress this year.\n\nThe academy has yet to announce who will present the award in Smith's place. Conceivably, his replacement could be a previous best actor winner or one of the other 2022 best actor nominees: Andrew Garfield, Benedict Cumberbatch, Denzel Washington and Javier Bardem.\n\nWhich movies are nominated for Oscars?\n\n\"Everything Everywhere All at Once\" leads the field with 11 nominations, followed by \"The Banshees of Inisherin\" and \"All Quiet on the Western Front\" with nine, \"Elvis\" with eight, \"The Fabelmans\" with seven and \"Tár\" with six.\n\nA full list of Oscar nominees this year is here. And you can find out how to watch these movies here.\n\nWho will win the best actor Oscar?\n\nFor a while there, it looked like the ghost of Elvis, as embodied by Austin Butler in Baz Luhrmann's biopic \"Elvis,\" would be collecting the Oscar for best actor, after winning that laurel at both the Golden Globes and the British Academy Film Awards.\n\nBut Brendan Fraser stunned oddsmakers by winning best actor at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, casting doubt on the certainty of Butler's Oscar night bid. Likely out of the race at this point after failing to build on his Globes momentum is fellow nominee Colin Farrell, whose performance in \"The Banshees of Inisherin\" helped propel that movie to success. The other nominees in the category are Bill Nighy (\"Living\") and Paul Mescal (\"Aftersun\").\n\nWho else could win at the Oscars?\n\nLook for the cast of “Everything Everywhere All at Once\" to clean up, according to the pundits at awards site GoldDerby. SAG best actress winner Michelle Yeoh and her “Everything” supporting actors Jamie Lee Curtis and Ke Huy Quan should win statues if the trend holds from 2022, when SAG winner Jessica Chastain (“The Eyes of Tammy Faye”) and supporting players Troy Kotsur (“CODA”) and Ariana DeBose (“West Side Story”) all went on to win Oscars.\n\nIn the best picture category, the odds-on favorite is “Everything,” while the German-made “All Quiet” is more likely to grab the Oscar for best international feature.\n\nThe movie is nominated for both best picture and best international feature. “All Quiet” was named best movie at the BAFTAs while Edward Berger took the prize for his direction.\n\nWho are the Oscar presenters?\n\nThe Oscars telecast never fails to draw A-list talent for its high-profile presenting duties, and the first slate of stars who committed include Ariana DeBose, Questlove, Riz Ahmed, Emily Blunt, Deepika Padukone, Troy Kotsur, Jennifer Connelly, Samuel L. Jackson, Dwayne Johnson, Michael B. Jordan, Jonathan Majors, Melissa McCarthy, Janelle Monáe, Zoe Saldaña and Donnie Yen.\n\nMore recently, Oscars producers also announced the addition of Halle Bailey, Antonio Banderas, Elizabeth Banks, Jessica Chastain, John Cho, Andrew Garfield, Hugh Grant, Danai Gurira, Salma Hayek, Nicole Kidman, Florence Pugh, Sigourney Weaver, Halle Berry, Paul Dano, Cara Delevingne, Harrison Ford, Kate Hudson, Mindy Kaling, Eva Longoria, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Andie MacDowell, Elizabeth Olsen, Pedro Pascal and John Travolta.\n\nGlenn Close was expected to be a presenter, but has tested positive for COVID-19 and will miss the show, The Associated Press reports.\n\nWho will perform at the Oscars?\n\nTalking Heads founder David Byrne will appear alongside \"Everything Everywhere All at Once\" supporting actress nominee Stephanie Hsu and music trio Son Lux to perform the film's Oscar-nominated song, \"This Is A Life.\"\n\nRihanna will sing \"Lift Me Up\" from \"Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,\" Sofia Carson and Diane Warren will perform \"Applause\" from \"Tell It Like A Woman,\" and Indian singers Rahul Sipligunj and Kaala Bhairava will perform the song-and-dance number \"Naatu Naatu\" from the action epic \"RRR.\"\n\nLady Gaga will sing “Hold My Hand” from \"Top Gun: Maverick,\" a person familiar with the production but not authorized to speak publicly told USA TODAY on Sunday. Oscar producers previously said the star wouldn't perform because she's shooting \"Joker: Folie à Deux\" with Joaquin Phoenix.\n\nLenny Kravitz will anchor the show's \"In Memoriam\" segment, which typically overlays photos of industry icons who died in the previous year with a musical performance.\n\nWho is being honored by the academy this year?\n\nBeyond the winners, a number of other Hollywood icons are being feted this year for their work.\n\nHonorary Oscars have been awarded to songwriter Diane Warren, whose 14 Oscar nominations have included a collaboration with Lady Gaga; Australian filmmaker Peter Weir, whose films range from “Master and Commander” to “The Way Back”; and Euzhan Palcy, the first Black woman to direct a major studio release (1989's \"A Dry White Season,\" starring Marlon Brando).\n\nIn addition, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award will go to film and TV actor Michael J. Fox, who in more recent years has served as a tireless fundraiser for Parkinson’s research.\n\nContributing: Bryan Alexander, USA TODAY, and The Associated Press\n\nMore awards season news:", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2023/03/06"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2023/01/24/oscars-2023-academy-awards-nominations-full-list/11105555002/", "title": "Oscar nominations 2023 full list: 'Everything Everywhere,' 'Banshees'", "text": "We don't know how it plays elsewhere in the multiverse, but in this reality, the Oscars really love \"Everything Everywhere All at Once.\"\n\nThe genre-smashing sci-fi hit ruled Tuesday morning when nominations for the 95th Academy Awards were announced. The film scored 11 honors including best picture and screenplay, star Michelle Yeoh was nominated for best actress, Jamie Lee Curtis and Stephanie Hsu earned their first Oscar nominations and Cinderella story Ke Huy Quan garnered a nod for supporting actor.\n\n\"Everything\" is up for the night's biggest prize with Steven Spielberg's semi-autobiographical \"The Fabelmans,\" dark comedy \"The Banshees of Inisherin,\" blockbuster sequel \"Top Gun: Maverick,\" musical biopic \"Elvis,\" a German remake of 1930 best picture winner \"All Quiet on the Western Front,\" the satire \"Triangle of Sadness,\" classical music drama \"Tár,\" #MeToo drama \"Women Talking\" and otherworldly extravaganza \"Avatar: The Way of Water.\"\n\nAcademy Awards acting categories feature a mix of old and new faces\n\nThe Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences selected a wide variety of movies and actors to be honored at its March 12 ceremony (airing live on ABC), hosted by Jimmy Kimmel for a third time:\n\nCate Blanchett and first-time nominee Michelle Yeoh scored slots in the best actress race.\n\nBrendan Fraser, Colin Farrell, Austin Butler, Paul Mescal and Bill Nighy are first-time best actor nominees.\n\nAwards-season favorites Angela Bassett and Ke Huy Quan both garner Oscar nods.\n\nBrendan Fraser and Colin Farrell in for best actor, Cate Blanchett vs. Michelle Yeoh for best actress\n\nBlanchett (\"Tár\") and Yeoh (\"Everything Everywhere\") – who both scored victories at the recent Golden Globes – lead the best actress category and will compete against Ana de Armas (\"Blonde\"), Michelle Williams (\"The Fabelmans\") and surprise entry Andrea Riseborough (\"To Leslie\").\n\nThe field for best actor – which features all first-time Oscar nominees – includes Fraser (\"The Whale\"), Butler (\"Elvis\"), Farrell (\"Banshees\"), Bill Nighy (\"Living\") and Paul Mescal (\"Aftersun\").\n\nAngela Bassett and Ke Huy Quan lead the Oscars' supporting actress and actor categories\n\nQuan, whose comeback story with \"Everything Everywhere\" has been a highlight of awards season, was nominated for best supporting actor, as were \"Banshees\" co-stars Brendan Gleeson and Barry Keoghan, Judd Hirsch (\"The Fabelmans\") and Brian Tyree Henry (\"Causeway\").\n\nBassett (\"Black Panther: Wakanda Forever\") earned her first Oscar nomination since 1994 with a slot in supporting actress alongside \"Everything Everywhere\" co-stars Curtis and Hsu, Kerry Condon (\"Banshees\") and Hong Chau (\"The Whale\").\n\nFull list of the 2023 Oscar nominees:\n\nBest picture\n\n“All Quiet on the Western Front”\n\n“Avatar: The Way of Water”\n\n“The Banshees of Inisherin”\n\n“Elvis”\n\n“Everything Everywhere All at Once”\n\n“The Fabelmans”\n\n“Tár”\n\n“Top Gun: Maverick”\n\n“Triangle of Sadness”\n\n“Women Talking”\n\nBest actress\n\nAna de Armas, “Blonde”\n\nCate Blanchett, “Tár”\n\nAndrea Riseborough, “To Leslie”\n\nMichelle Williams, “The Fabelmans”\n\nMichelle Yeoh, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”\n\nBest actor\n\nAustin Butler, “Elvis”\n\nColin Farrell, “The Banshees of Inisherin”\n\nBrendan Fraser, “The Whale”\n\nPaul Mescal, “Aftersun”\n\nBill Nighy, “Living”\n\nBest supporting actress\n\nAngela Bassett, “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”\n\nHong Chau, “The Whale”\n\nKerry Condon, “The Banshees of Inisherin”\n\nJamie Lee Curtis, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”\n\nStephanie Hsu, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”\n\nBest supporting actor\n\nBrendan Gleeson, “Banshees on Inisherin”\n\nJudd Hirsch, “The Fabelmans”\n\nBrian Tyree Henry, “Causeway”\n\nBarry Keoghan, “Banshees of Inisherin”\n\nKe Huy Quan, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”\n\nBest director\n\nTodd Field, “Tár”\n\nDaniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”\n\nMartin McDonagh, “The Banshees of Inisherin”\n\nRuben Ostlund, “Triangle of Sadness”\n\nSteven Spielberg, “The Fabelmans”\n\nBest international film\n\n“All Quiet on the Western Front” (Germany)\n\n“Argentina, 1985” (Argentina)\n\n“Close” (Belgium)\n\n“EO” (Poland)\n\n“The Quiet Girl” (Ireland)\n\nBest original screenplay\n\n“The Banshees of Inisherin”\n\n“Everything Everywhere All at Once”\n\n“The Fabelmans”\n\n“Tár”\n\n“Triangle of Sadness”\n\nBest adapted screenplay\n\n“All Quiet on the Western Front”\n\n“Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery”\n\n“Living”\n\n“Top Gun: Maverick”\n\n“Women Talking”\n\nBest animated film\n\n“Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio”\n\n“Marcel the Shell With Shoes On”\n\n“Puss in Boots: The Last Wish”\n\n“The Sea Beast”\n\n“Turning Red”\n\nBest visual effects\n\n“All Quiet on the Western Front”\n\n“Avatar: The Way of Water”\n\n“The Batman”\n\n“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”\n\n“Top Gun: Maverick”\n\nBest cinematography\n\n“All Quiet on the Western Front”\n\n“Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths”\n\n“Elvis”\n\n“Empire of Light”\n\n“Tár”\n\nBest costume design\n\n\"Babylon\"\n\n\"Black Panther: Wakanda Forever\"\n\n\"Elvis\"\n\n\"Everything Everywhere All at Once\"\n\n\"Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris\"\n\nBest production design\n\n\"All Quiet on the Western Front\"\n\n\"Avatar: The Way of Water\"\n\n\"Babylon\"\n\n\"Elvis\"\n\n\"The Fabelmans\"\n\nBest film editing\n\n\"The Banshees of Inisherin\"\n\n\"Elvis\"\n\n\"Everything Everywhere All at Once\"\n\n“Tár”\n\n\"Top Gun Maverick\"\n\nBest makeup and hairstyling\n\n\"All Quiet on the Western Front\"\n\n\"The Batman\"\n\n\"Black Panther: Wakanda Forever\"\n\n\"Elvis\"\n\n\"The Whale\"\n\nBest sound\n\n“All Quiet on the Western Front”\n\n“Avatar: The Way of Water”\n\n\"The Batman”\n\n“Elvis”\n\n“Top Gun: Maverick”\n\nBest original score\n\nVolker Bertelmann, “All Quiet on the Western Front”\n\nCarter Burwell, “The Banshees of Inisherin”\n\nJustin Hurwitz, “Babylon”\n\nSon Lux, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”\n\nJohn Williams, “The Fabelmans”\n\nBest original song\n\n“Applause” from “Tell It Like a Woman”\n\n“Hold My Hand” from “Top Gun: Maverick”\n\n“Lift Me Up” from “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”\n\n“This Is a Life” from “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”\n\n“Naatu Naatu” from “RRR”\n\nBest documentary feature\n\n“All That Breathes\"\n\n“All the Beauty and the Bloodshed”\n\n“Fire of Love”\n\n“A House Made of Splinters”\n\n“Navalny”\n\nBest documentary short\n\n\"The Elephant Whisperers\"\n\n\"Haulout\"\n\n\"How Do You Measure a Year?\"\n\n\"The Martha Mitchell Effect\"\n\n\"Stranger at the Gate\"\n\nBest animated short\n\n“The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse”\n\n“The Flying Sailor”\n\n“Ice Merchants”\n\n“My Year of Dicks”\n\n\"An Ostrich Told Me the World is Fake and I Think I Believe it”\n\nLive action short\n\n“An Irish Goodbye”\n\n“Ivalu”\n\n“Le Pupille”\n\n“Night Ride”\n\n“The Red Suitcase”\n\nMore on the 2023 Oscars\n\nSnubbed by the Oscars!Brad Pitt, Viola Davis, Adam Sandler shut out of Academy nominations\n\n'Wish Lisa Marie was here':Austin Butler's 'Elvis' Oscar nomination is 'joyous' but 'bittersweet'\n\nYou can stream these 15 Oscar-nominated movies tonight: From 'Everything Everywhere' to 'Elvis'\n\nFrom 'Glass Onion' to 'Top Gun: Maverick':Here are 30 movies you need to stream right now\n\n'The Whale':Brendan Fraser wants to change 'hearts and minds' about people living with obesity\n\nKe Huy Quan:'Indiana Jones' star waited 'more than 30 years' for 'Everything Everywhere' role\n\nThe 10 best movies of 2022:From Tom Cruise's 'Top Gun: Maverick' to 'The Whale,' 'RRR'\n\nAll 94 Oscar best picture winners:Ranked from worst to best", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2023/01/24"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2023/03/12/jamie-lee-curtis-oscars-2023-speech/11462430002/", "title": "Jamie Lee Curtis Oscars speech thanks parents Janet Leigh, Tony ...", "text": "Jamie Lee Curtis achieved a career milestone with her first Oscar win, but she knows the victory was a team effort.\n\nCurtis, who won the award for best supporting actress during the 95th Academy Awards on Sunday, gave an emotional acceptance speech thanking those who have supported her, both professionally and personally.\n\n\"I know it looks like I am standing up here by myself, but I am not. I am hundreds of people,\" the \"Everything Everywhere All at Once\" star said. \"My bae Michelle (Yeoh), Ke (Huy Quan), Stephanie (Hsu) – the entire group of artists who made this movie – we just won an Oscar.\"\n\n'Everything Everywhere All At Once':A long-awaited, well-deserved win for Asian Americans\n\n2023 Oscars winners:See who took home gold tonight at the Academy Awards\n\nThe 64-year-old actress went on to thank her family – \"my beautiful husband Christopher Guest, our daughters Annie and Ruby\" – as well as the moviegoers who have supported her throughout her decades-long career.\n\n\"To all of the people who have supported the genre movies that I have made for all of these years, the thousands and hundreds of thousands of people, we just won an Oscar together,\" Curtis continued.\n\nCurtis also gave a heartfelt shoutout to her late parents, actors Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis.\n\n\"My mother and my father were both nominated for Oscars in different categories,\" a teary-eyed Curtis said as she looked upward. \"I just won an Oscar.\"\n\n'This is the American dream':Read Ke Huy Quan's emotional Oscars acceptance speech\n\nOscars host Jimmy Kimmel skewers Academyfor lack of female best-director nominees", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2023/03/12"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2023/01/23/oscar-nominations-2023-predictions-academy-awards/11070696002/", "title": "Oscar nominations predictions: Who's in for sure, who may get ...", "text": "See the full list of 2023 Oscars nominations here, as well as best picture nominees for the Academy Awards.\n\nFor the first time in forever, multiple blockbusters are actually contenders to win the best picture Oscar. But first, they've got to get nominated.\n\nThe dark comedy \"The Banshees of Inisherin\" and Steven Spielberg's autobiographical coming-of-age drama \"The Fabelmans\" scored big at the Golden Globes, while sci-fi hit \"Everything Everywhere All at Once\" led the Screen Actors Guild pack alongside \"Banshees.\" However, when the field for the 95th Academy Awards (airing March 12 on ABC) is announced Tuesday morning, \"Top Gun\" and \"Black Panther\" sequels loom as heavyweight contenders that could throw extra spiciness into an awards season that's somewhat back to normal after a couple of pandemic-plagued years.\n\nOscars nominations 2023:Here's the full list of nominations for the 2023 Academy Awards\n\nAttention, Oscars! We hope these 10 brilliant performances feel the love at Academy Awards\n\nCould 'Top Gun: Maverick' soar in the Oscar nominations? Don't count it out\n\nWhile everything might seem to be falling into place for probable nominees, that's usually just when chaos is around the corner. Let's separate the potential contenders from the pretenders in the six major Oscar categories:\n\nBlockbusters will tussle for prime spots in the best picture field.\n\nIt's a two-person race in the best actress category and a talented trio for best actor.\n\nSupporting stars Angela Bassett and Ke Huy Quan are the easiest bets of all.\n\nBest picture\n\nThe best: The producers and the directors usually know what's going on before the rest of us – the vast majority of their nominees make the Oscar cut. So expect the shoo-ins to be \"Fabelmans,\" \"Banshees,\" \"Everything Everywhere,\" \"Top Gun: Maverick\" and \"Tár,\" which all scored Producers Guild of America and Directors Guild of America nods. \"Elvis,\" with Globe, PGA and British Academy Film Awards nominations to its credit, also has a good shot, as does \"Babylon,\" boasting Globe and Screen Actors Guild ensemble honors.\n\nThe rest: High-profile PGA nominees \"Avatar: The Way of Water,\" \"Black Panther: Wakanda Forever\" and \"Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery\" seem more primed to take the last three spots than the polarizing \"The Whale,\" though don't count out the love for Brendan Fraser. Other possibilities include the popular Indian action epic \"RRR,\" BAFTA -leading \"All Quiet on the Western Front\" and SAG-nominated \"Women Talking\" – they could all be jockeying for a slot if \"Babylon\" (with its mixed reviews) or \"Top Gun\" falters.\n\nBest actor\n\nThe best: This looks to be a three-dude race between Golden Globe victors Austin Butler (\"Elvis\") and Colin Farrell (\"Banshees\") plus \"Whale\" star Fraser, who scored extra awards-season momentum with his heartfelt speech after winning the Critics Choice Award. It's safe to say those guys are locks, especially with Screen Actors Guild and BAFTA nominations.\n\nThe rest: The past two Oscar cycles have seen the SAG and Oscar best actor contingents match up exactly, which is a boon for SAG nominees Bill Nighy (\"Living\") – who also snagged a BAFTA nod – and Adam Sandler (\"Hustle\"). Sandler still doesn't have an Oscar nomination, so the Academy could look at it as a career attaboy. But if they don't, waiting in the wings to scoop a spot are newcomers such as BAFTA nominee Paul Mescal (\"Aftersun\") as well as two Globe contenders, Diego Calva (\"Babylon\") and Jeremy Pope (\"The Inspection\"). Then there's Tom Cruise, the face of \"Top Gun\" who probably has a few voters rooting for him.\n\nBest actress\n\nThe best: Cate Blanchett (\"Tár\") and Michelle Yeoh (\"Everything Everywhere\") tore their way through awards season with Globe wins and SAG nominations, and that inevitable showdown is happening at the Oscars because, barring some multiverse mishap, they're in.\n\nThe rest: The other three spots are less clear-cut. Oscar winner Viola Davis (\"The Woman King\") has put together a nice resume, with SAG, Globe and BAFTA nods, and fellow SAG nominees Danielle Deadwyler (\"Till\") and Ana de Armas (\"Blonde\") are also in the mix. Michelle Williams – who arguably would have fared better this season as a supporting contender – has a shot thanks to \"Fabelmans\" momentum. Also on the outside looking in are Globe nominees Margot Robbie (\"Babylon\") and Olivia Colman (\"Empire of Light\").\n\nBest supporting actor\n\nThe best: No one in Hollywood is as beloved as \"Everything Everywhere\" star/Globe winner/SAG nominee Ke Huy Quan these days because of his comeback story and overall Cinderella mojo. At least one actor usually runs the table every year and Quan's the top bet of this Oscar class. Likely taking up another three slots: the \"Banshees\" duo of Brendan Gleeson and Barry Keoghan as well as \"The Good Nurse\" antagonist Eddie Redmayne, who each racked up SAG, Globe and BAFTA nominations.\n\nThe rest: For that last remaining spot – or maybe two, given that \"Good Nurse\" isn't exactly a major awards player – SAG nominee Paul Dano is in contention for \"Fabelmans.\" His co-star Judd Hirsch is a possibility too: The longtime Emmy-winning actor has only been nominated for an Oscar once, for 1980's \"Ordinary People.\" Also standing a chance are Brian Tyree Henry (\"Causeway\"), who like Hirsch was nominated for Critics Choice, and BAFTA nominee Micheal Ward (\"Empire of Light\").\n\nBest supporting actress\n\nThe best:Angela Bassett rules Wakanda and, so far, the leadup to this category, which looks to be the acting field most in flux. The “Black Panther\" star took home gold from the Globes and Critics Choice Awards, plus scored SAG and BAFTA nominations. Kerry Condon (\"Banshees\") and Jamie Lee Curtis (\"Everything Everywhere\") – still seeking her first Oscar nod after decades in the business – are also safe bets, with each earning SAG, Globe, Critics Choice and BAFTA nods.\n\nThe rest: What's left is pretty much a free-for-all with a bunch of talented contenders. Curtis' co-star Stephanie Hsu snagged a SAG nom for her breakout role. Hong Chau (\"The Whale\") impressed the SAG and BAFTA contingents, while Dolly de Leon (\"Triangle of Sadness\") and Carey Mulligan (\"She Said\") have Globe and BAFTA nominations in their favor. And don't overlook Janelle Monáe (\"Glass Onion\") or Jessie Buckley (\"Women Talking\"), both Critics Choice-nominated standouts in acclaimed ensembles.\n\nBest director\n\nThe best: Every year, to an uncanny degree, four out of five DGA nominees make it into the category. In other words, things are looking pretty groovy for Globe champ Spielberg, Critics Choice-winning duo Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (\"Everything Everywhere\"), Todd Field (\"Tár\"), Martin McDonagh (\"Banshees\") and Joseph Kosinski (\"Top Gun: Maverick\").\n\nThe rest: So who's the odd man out? Probably Kosinski, since his best picture contender is the only one without any major award wins to date. Sarah Polley (\"Women Talking\") could take his place and avoid an all-male field following two straight victories by female filmmakers. James Cameron has a puncher's chance thanks to his \"Avatar\" sequel's box-office success. Baz Luhrmann (\"Elvis\") or S.S. Rajamouli (\"RRR\") could ride their way in off of the wave of popularity for their films. But maybe a surprise dark horse arises from the BAFTA slate, which includes Park Chan-wook (\"Decision to Leave\"), Edward Berger (\"All Quiet on the Western Front\") and Gina Prince-Bythewood (\"The Woman King\").\n\nRead more about this year's Oscar contenders\n\nRanked:All of Steven Spielberg's movies (including 'The Fabelmans')\n\n'The Whale':Brendan Fraser wants to change 'hearts and minds' about people living with obesity\n\n'The Banshees of Inisherin' review:Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson bring friendly fire to dark comedy\n\nKe Huy Quan:'Indiana Jones' star waited 'more than 30 years' for 'Everything Everywhere' role", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2023/01/23"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2023/03/13/2023-oscars-what-you-didnt-see-tv-jamie-lee-curtis-brendan-fraser/11460814002/", "title": "Oscars: Jamie Lee Curtis jokes 'don't cancel me,' stars hang backstage", "text": "When it comes to the Oscars, the telecast only tells you part of the story.\n\nHome viewers saw \"Everything Everywhere All at Once\" star Ke Huy Quan break down on stage following his best supporting actor win and co-star Michelle Yeoh make history as the first Asian woman to win best actress.\n\nBut so much more happened in the Dolby Theatre and backstage in the media room, Jamie Lee Curtis cracked an edgy joke in front of a room full of reporters – and quickly regretted it. And an emotional Brendan Fraser received a standing ovation from the press.\n\nHere's a peek at the moments you didn't catch on TV:\n\n2023 Oscars winners: See who took home gold tonight at the Academy Awards\n\nPedro Pascal had no clue he was in the Oscar monologue\n\nBefore heading into the theater, stars enjoyed personal moments on the Oscar champagne-colored carpet. Steven Spielberg and his wife Kate Capshaw caught up with Spielberg's sisters Anne, Sue and Nancy for hugs, family photos and tearful congrats. \"I am so proud of you,\" Sue Spielberg said to her director brother.\n\nYeoh made a sudden sharp diversion to seek out and hug her \"Everything Everywhere All at Once\" co-star Stephanie Hsu. After exchanging whispers Hsu told Yeoh: \"Now you go have fun.\"\n\nAs showtime approached, \"The Last of Us\" star Pedro Pascal was escorted swiftly toward the theater entrance. Pascal's minder told the theater staff: \"Please take him to his seat, he's in the monologue.\"\n\nWithout breaking stride, the startled Pascal asked, \"Wait, who is in the monologue?\" He might have been surprised by the brief appearance, but, when called out by host Jimmy Kimmel in the opening number, Pascal played his small part perfectly.\n\nBrendan Fraser gets standing ovation backstage, brings girlfriend\n\nBest actor winner for \"The Whale,\" Fraser, received a standing ovation from members of the press backstage. His partner Jeanne Moore, clad in an electric blue gown, held an Oscars program and watched him with a proud smile. She stood on the sidelines alongside Fraser's two sons Holden and Leland.\n\n\"When I first heard my name, I thought, 'That can't be right.' But it was. 'So, I guess I should get up there and say something,' \" Fraser said teary-eyed. \"I hope that I live up to this.\"\n\nMichelle Yeoh shades Don Lemon's comment on women's 'prime'\n\nAfter her historic best actress win, Yeoh thanked the Academy for awarding her with an Oscar.\n\n\"We friggin’ broke that glass ceiling,\" she said. \"For anybody who’s been identified as a minority, we deserve to be heard. We deserve to be seen.”\n\nShe also reiterated her quip in her acceptance speech, in which she seemed to reference CNN anchor Don Lemon’s controversial comments about women aging out of their \"prime.\"\n\n\"Finally after 40 years, I get this. It just goes to show we will win the battle,\" she said. \"Never give up because once you give up, then it’s a loss… Don’t let anybody put you in a box. Don’t let anybody say you’re past your prime.\"\n\n'Everything Everywhere All At Once' sweep: A long awaited, well-deserved win for Asian Americans\n\nKe Huy Quan: From uninsured to Oscar winner\n\nAs an emotional Quan talked to reporters backstage at the Oscars, he said he couldn’t help but think of a time not so long ago when he lost his health insurance.\n\nHe also said he struggled during the pandemic to get work.\n\n\"I would call (my agent) once every three months,\" he said. “I would say, 'Hey, is there anything out there for me?’ And the answer would always be the same: ‘There’s nothing out there but I’ll continue to look.'\"\n\nThe first thing Quan said he was going to do Monday morning is call his agent.\n\n\"So hopefully, when I call my agent tomorrow he will give me a different answer,\" Quan said, prompting laughter.\n\nIt’s a long way from the days when Quan, at the advice of agents, changed his name to one that sounded American in hopes of getting more work.\n\n\"It’s insane that at one point I would try a different name,\" he said. \"So when I decided to get back into acting, which was three years ago, the very first thing I wanted to do is go back to my birth-given name, and tonight to see Ariana (DeBose) open that envelope and say Ke Huy Quan, that was a really, really special moment for me.\"\n\n'This is the American dream': Read Ke Huy Quan's emotional Oscars acceptance speech\n\nJamie Lee Curtis confuses press room: 'Don't cancel me'\n\nCurtis begged not to be canceled the same night as winning her first Oscar after she accidentally insulted a journalist from Hungary.\n\nFresh off her win for best supporting actress for “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” Curtis answered questions from members of the news media who were in person and in a virtual press room.\n\nWhen it was announced the next question would be virtual, Curtis thought that meant the question was coming from Twitter, not a real person.\n\nJamie Lee Curtis thanks 'Everything Everywhere' castmates, late parents in touching Oscars speech\n\n\"By the way, the virtual people don’t get (expletive),\" Curtis said. \"They don’t get the food … they’re at home, their kids are screaming, their husband’s cheating on them … They want to be here with you people so bad.\"\n\nWhen the virtual journalist from Hungary started asking the question, Curtis was mortified.\n\n\"Don’t cancel me! Please do not cancel me because I assumed that your husband is cheating on you,\" she said. \"I literally thought when they said digital that it was like, virtual. I thought it was a tweet question. Seriously, do not ruin this moment.\"\n\nCara Delevingne and Florence Pugh catch up\n\nAs the Academy Award ceremony was going on inside, celebrities snuck out to mingle with fellow stars.\n\nDelevingne and Pugh were spotted in the lobby laughing and dancing.\n\nJonathan Majors made a beeline for Jay Ellis, Monica Barbaro, Greg Tarzan Davis and the rest of the \"Top Gun: Maverick\" cast to say hello and chat for a bit before being approached by a young fan. The \"Creed III\" star and the child took a quick photo before Majors returned to the theater.\n\nPregnant Rihanna had backup getting ready for her performance\n\nPlenty was going on behind the scenes as the stage was getting prepared for Rihanna's \"Lift Me Up\" performance, which was nominated for best original song. The crew quickly pulled out backdrops for the Fenty mogul's set while platforms emerged from the stage's floor.\n\nAs Danai Gurira was introducing the performance, the pregnant Rihanna was guided onto her podium by four crew members. Once on her platform, Rihanna was enjoying herself, swaying back and forth and rolling her shoulders in preparation for her song. Following her emotional performance, the artist was then assisted carefully down from the platform.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2023/03/13"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/music/2023/03/12/rihanna-lift-me-up-oscars-performance-black-panther-wakanda-forever/11462649002/", "title": "Rihanna sings 'Lift Me Up' in touching 2023 Oscars performance ...", "text": "Of course, one of the standout moments at the Oscars was not an award, but a rousing performance from Rihanna.\n\nThe singer, 35, took the stage to sing her Oscar-nominated song \"Lift Me Up\" from \"Black Panther: Wakanda Forever\" at the 95th annual Academy Awards show Sunday.\n\nDanai Gurira, who played Okoye in the Marvel movies, introduced Rihanna as \"royalty in her own right.\"\n\n\"Ludwig Göransson, Ryan Coogler, Tems and Rihanna wrote a ballad that speaks from the heart as a tribute to the late Chadwick Boseman,\" Gurira said. \"Chadwick's powerful artistry, his magnetism and incomparable humanity left an indelible mark on our hearts. Chadwick embodied the Wakandan king T'Challa.\"\n\nThe singer dazzled in a sparkling Maison Margiela Artisanal ensemble custom made for her by John Galliano for Maison Margiela.\n\nHer emotional performance earned a standing ovation from the audience (including the artist's super fan boyfriend A$AP Rocky, who raised his glass in celebration) in the Dolby Theater.\n\nOscars 2023:'Everything Everywhere All at Once' wins 7, including best picture\n\nBrutally honest reviews of Oscars 2023 performance:Best songs on stage, including Sofia Carson\n\nThe power ballad captures the spirit of loss, uplifting the film's message of moving through grief following the 2020 death of \"Black Panther\" star Chadwick Boseman.\n\n\"Lift Me Up\" was nominated for original song, up against “Applause” from “Tell It Like a Woman”, “Hold My Hand” from “Top Gun: Maverick”, “This Is a Life” from “Everything Everywhere All at Once\" and “Naatu Naatu” from “RRR.\" It is the Bajan superstar's first Oscar nomination. The award ultimately went to \"RRR.\"\n\nThe song, with music by Tems, Rihanna, Ryan Coogler and Ludwig Göransson and lyrics by Tems and Ryan Coogler, peaked at No. 2 on Billboard's Hot 100.\n\n\"Wakanda Forever\" was up for five Oscars, including best supporting actress for Angela Bassett for her role as Queen Ramonda. Ruth E. Carter won her second Oscar in the costume design category for her work on the film.\n\nRihanna's performance followed quite a bit of anticipation from producers.\n\nOscar producers were already ecstatic to have Rihanna perform her Oscar-nominated song, which was also nominated for best song at the Golden Globes. Then Rihanna stole the Super Bowl with her halftime performance and pregnancy reveal.\n\n\"We were thrilled before the Super Bowl, but it only helped to see the coverage that her Super Bowl performance received,\" Oscars producer Ricky Kirshner told USA TODAY.\n\nRihanna, who is pregnant with her second child, joked on Instagram ahead of the awards show about her son being disappointed to learn he would have to stay home while his new sibling attended the show.\n\n\"my son when he found out his sibling is going to the Oscars and not him,\" she wrote.\n\nThe baby jokes though, were ongoing. While it was unclear whether Rihanna's son was actually present at the Oscars, host Jimmy Kimmel took the opportunity to joke about the baby being backstage.\n\nRihanna \"has a nine-month-old backstage. He's very cute. He pooped during rehearsal. You know who the last person was to poop backstage at the Oscars? The accountant that mixed up the enveloped,\" Kimmel said, referencing the best picture winner mix-up during his ill-fated Oscars hosting gig in 2017.\n\nEmotional Oscars speech:Jamie Lee Curtis thanks 'Everything Everywhere' castmates, late parents\n\nWatch:See behind-the-scenes video of Rihanna and her baby at British Vogue cover shoot\n\nContributing: Bryan Alexander; The Associated Press", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2023/03/12"}]}
{"question_id": "20230317_21", "search_time": "2023/05/25/17:56", "search_result": [{"url": "https://www.theweek.co.uk/news/politics/958335/dullness-dividend-can-market-psychology-help-rishi-sunak-out-of-fiscal-hole", "title": "'Dullness dividend': can market psychology help Rishi Sunak out of ...", "text": "We will use the details you have shared to manage your registration. You agree to the processing, storage, sharing and use of this information for the purpose of managing your registration as described in our Privacy Policy.\n\nWould you like to receive The WeekDay newsletter ?\n\nThe WeekDay newsletter provides you with a daily digest of news and analysis.\n\nWe will use the details you have shared to manage your newsletter subscription. You agree to the processing, storage, sharing and use of this information for the purpose of managing your subscription as described in our Privacy Policy.\n\nWe will use the information you have shared for carefully considered and specific purposes, where we believe we have a legitimate case to do so, for example to send you communications about similar products and services we offer. You can find out more about our legitimate interest activity in our Privacy Policy.\n\nIf you wish to object to the use of your data in this way, please tick here.\n\n'We' includes The Week and other Future Publishing Limited brands as detailed here.", "authors": ["Jamie Timson"], "publish_date": "2022/10/28"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/university-of-tennessee/football/2017/11/14/ut-vols-football-coaching-search-tennessee-brady-hoke-jon-gruden-butch-jones-chip-kelly-dan-mullen/860864001/", "title": "UT coach search: End could be near with reported offer to Jeremy ...", "text": "Tennessee football coach Butch Jones was fired Nov. 12 after five seasons with the Vols. Jones went 34-27 during his tenure, including a 14-24 record in the SEC.\n\nAthletic director John Currie promised an \"exhaustive search\" to find Jones' replacement. But it won't be Currie finishing the search. On Friday, Currie was suspended with pay as the university attempts to fire him with cause.\n\nPhillip Fulmer was appointed athletic director. Fulmer, who coached Tennessee from 1992-2008, is now in charge of finding the next Vols coach.\n\nHere's the latest on the coaching search.\n\nIt could be over...\n\nAfter nearly two weeks of chaos, the coaching search could finally be coming to a close.\n\nAlabama defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt is weighing an offer from Tennessee to become its next head coach, according to a report Wednesday night from ESPN.com's Chris Low.\n\nDetails of the potential deal with Pruitt were still being worked out as of Wednesday night, Bruce Feldman of FOX Sports and SI.com reported.\n\nPruitt and fellow defensive coordinators Kevin Steele of Auburn and Mel Tucker of Georgia were considered finalists for the job, which has been open since Tennessee fired Butch Jones on Nov. 12.\n\nPreviously in the search\n\nooking like a coordinator hire\n\nScratch another candidate off the list.\n\nArkansas will name SMU's Chad Morris its next coach, ESPN.com's Chris Low reported Wednesday. Morris had been a candidate for the Tennessee job.\n\nIt looks more and more like Tennessee's hire will come from the coordinator ranks. The leading contenders are Alabama defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt, Auburn defensive coordinator Kevin Steele, Georgia defensive coordinator Mel Tucker, Clemson defensive coordinator Brent Venables and Southern California offensive coordinator Tee Martin.\n\nCiting sources, Bruce Feldman of Fox Sports and SI.com reported on Wednesday morning that Pruitt had emerged as \"a strong candidate\" for the job.\n\nIs the end near?\n\nFootballscoop.com reported that Fulmer is meeting with candidates for a second time on Tuesday and that Fulmer could have his choice by Tuesday night.\n\nSmart money Tuesday morning appeared to be on one of five candidates: Auburn defensive coordinator Kevin Steele, Georgia defensive coordinator Mel Tucker, SMU coach Chad Morris, Alabama defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt or Clemson defensive coordinator Brent Venables.\n\nHowever, Southern California offensive coordinator Tee Martin, who played quarterback for Fulmer at UT, picked up some momentum Tuesday afternoon.\n\nESPN.com's Chris Low reported that Martin and Fulmer had a productive conversation via phone on Tuesday.\n\nFulmer is in New York for Peyton Manning's College Football Hall of Fame enshrinement.\n\nSteele was a finalist for the Broyles Award, which was presented Tuesday in Little Rock, Ark. There were five finalists for the Broyles Award, given to the nation's top assistant. Steele was the only one not present. That seems noteworthy.\n\nVolQuest.com, citing sources, reported that Steele is in New York meeting with UT officials for a second time.\n\nVenables, the 2016 Broyles Award winner, was on hand for Tuesday's ceremony in Arkansas.\n\nESPN.com's Mark Schlabach reported Tuesday that Tucker was en route to New York for a second interview with Tennessee brass.\n\nPete Thamel of Yahoo Sports reported on Tuesday morning that former LSU coach Les Miles is not a candidate for the job. Thamel is in New York covering the College Football Hall of Fame induction. GoVols247, citing a source, reported Saturday night that Tennessee had interest in Miles.\n\nFulmer may be open to coordinators\n\nCurrie's search appeared focused only on candidates who had head coaching experience. Fulmer's hunt might not follow the same path.\n\nHe referenced Friday that he had no head coaching experience before taking the reins of the Tennessee job before the 1992 season.\n\n\"I've been charged to find the right coach for these circumstances: head coach, assistant coach and coordinators,\" Fulmer said. \" I wasn't a head coach when I started. More times than not, you like experience to come in, somebody that has been a head coach. We'll see where that goes.\"\n\nA few coordinators have joined the coaching search conversation since Fulmer has taken over.\n\nFootballscoop.com, citing sources, reported Monday that Fulmer has spoken with or plans to speak with Georgia defensive coordinator Mel Tucker, Clemson defensive coordinator Brent Venables, Auburn defensive coordinator Kevin Steele, former LSU coach Les Miles and SMU coach Chad Morris.\n\nMorris is believed to have been on Currie's radar.\n\nNeither Tucker nor Venables has head coaching experience, but Venables has a decorated run as a coordinator, having won national titles with Clemson and Oklahoma. He was a name included on our initial hot board, published Nov. 12. So was Morris.\n\nThis is only Tucker's second season as a coordinator. Georgia is tied for third nationally in scoring defense.\n\nBruce Feldman of Fox Sports and SI.com reported Monday that Venables and Morris are names to monitor as the search reboots under Fulmer.\n\nLes Miles takes his turn\n\nThe \"Mad Hatter\" is now apparently linked to the Vols' mad coaching search.\n\nGoVols247, citing a source, reported Saturday night that Tennessee has interest in former LSU coach Les Miles, who has been on the market since he was fired in September 2016.\n\n\"No real news!!\" Miles said in a text to the Baton Rouge Advocate.\n\nMiles, 64, has made it known that he'd like to coach again. His career record is 114-34. That includes a national title with LSU to cap the 2007 season.\n\nMore:UT Vols football: A timeline of Tennessee's coaching search\n\nWhat about Tee?\n\nMany speculated that with Fulmer now driving the coaching search, the focus would turn to Southern California offensive coordinator Tee Martin, the former UT quarterback who won a national championship under Fulmer.\n\nAfter USC won the Pac-12 championship on Friday night, Martin said he'd \"heard from everyone in Tennessee, except Tennessee,\" ESPN Radio's Kevin Winter reported.\n\nMartin posted a tweet Saturday morning thanking the Tennessee fans who attended the Pac-12 championship.\n\nThe 'Leacher'?\n\nLate Thursday night, a fresh name emerged: Washington State coach Mike Leach.\n\nGoVols247, citing a source, reported that athletic director John Currie met with Leach on Thursday in Los Angeles.\n\nBruce Feldman of FOX Sports and SI.com, citing a source, reported that Tennessee's meeting with Leach on Thursday \"went very well.\" Feldman wrote a book with Leach, \"Swing Your Sword,\" which published in 2011. The AP, citing a source, also reported that Leach and Currie met Thursday to discuss the job.\n\nBut on Friday morning, ESPN.com's Chris Low reported that \"no deal has been struck\" with Leach and that Currie was scheduled to meet with Chancellor Beverly Davenport to \"reassess the search.\"\n\nLeach was a name included on our latest hot board, after first appearing on hot board 2.0.\n\nFormer Florida Steve Spurrier coach, during an appearance Thursday on \"The Paul Finebaum Show,\" suggested Leach would be a good candidate for Tennessee to consider. Spurrier dubbed Leach \"The Leacher.\"\n\n“I like Mike Leach a lot,” Spurrier said.\n\nLeach was asked about the Tennessee job following WSU's season finale on Saturday, after a report by Footballscoop.com stated that Leach had a good shot at the UT job and would be interested in it if approached.\n\n“I can’t speak to rumors I don’t know anything about, really,\" Leach told the Spokesman Review on Saturday.\n\nLeach is 122-80 in his 16 seasons as a head coach. He's in his sixth season at Washington State. Before that, he coached 10 seasons at Texas Tech. He never had a losing season in Lubbock.\n\nAnother whiff; now what?\n\nWell, Tennessee endured another failed pursuit of a coach, when reports surfaced Thursday that Dave Doeren was staying put after negotiating a new contract with North Carolina State. Doeren had fielded interest from the Vols.\n\nMany Tennessee fans didn't seem excited about the possibility of Doeren, who's 33-30 in five seasons at NCSU.\n\nFans might be a little more favorable toward the latest name to surface.\n\nBruce Feldman of FOX Sports and SI.com, citing a source, reported on Thursday afternoon that Tennessee has interest in Kevin Sumlin, the former Texas A&M coach who was fired on Sunday.\n\nSumlin went 51-26 in six seasons at A&M.\n\nSumlin was featured on our latest coaching hot board.\n\nIs the end in sight?\n\nThe Vols missed on another candidate Wednesday, as talks between UT and Purdue's Jeff Brohm didn't result in a deal.\n\nNext in line: N.C. State coach Dave Doeren reportedly could be the guy for the Vols.\n\nMore:Dave Doeren: 5 things to know about potential UT Vols football coach\n\nBruce Feldman of FOX Sports and SI.com reported Thursday that Doeren has become the Vols' latest target but that he's also weighing a new contract from NCSU that would increase his term and salary.\n\nDoeren's current contract runs through the 2020 season and pays him $2.21 million. His buyout for leaving would be $2.52 million.\n\nThe Raleigh News & Observer reported that Doeren has a potential offer in place from Tennessee.\n\nIf so, it's decision time for Doeren, who has a 33-30 record in five seasons at NCSU.\n\nDoeren's dance with the Vols might be nothing more than a maneuver to help secure a better contract at NCSU.\n\nUSA TODAY's Dan Wolken reported on Wednesday that Doeren had been engaged in a prolonged standoff with his athletics director, Debbie Yow, regarding a possible contract extension, and he'd begun to search for outlets amid an active coaching carousel.\n\nIf not Doeren, options still remain for the Vols. There's SMU coach Chad Morris, who was included on our initial hot board on Nov. 12.\n\nMany Tennessee fans have coalesced behind former UT quarterback Tee Martin, the offensive coordinator at Southern California who is a finalist for the Broyles Award, given to the nation's top assistant.\n\nMore:UT Vols hot board (2.0): 7 names from David Cutcliffe to Tee Martin to Jeff Brohm\n\nSpeaking of potential candidates with UT ties, what about Auburn defensive coordinator Kevin Steele, another finalist for the Broyles Award? He played for Johnny Majors at Tennessee and then started his coaching career under him.\n\nVols whiff on Gundy\n\nThe focus of Tennessee's coaching search shifted to Oklahome State coach Mike Gundy on Tuesday, with reports that Gundy was meeting with Tennessee officials in Dallas.\n\nBut like the last time the Vols pursued Gundy, in 2012, he turned them down.\n\n\"Cowboy For Life!\" Gundy tweeted Tuesday night.\n\nBrett McMurphy, a college football insider formerly with ESPN, reported that Gundy turned down a six-year, $42 million deal from Tennessee.\n\nWhat a Sunday\n\nOhio State defensive coordinator Greg Schiano won't be the next Tennessee head coach. But he almost was.\n\nSunday began with a USA TODAY report that Schiano was in line to be hired by the Vols. Then it began. The Tennessee fan base erupted. State representatives chimed in. Local businesses tossed in their two cents.\n\nThe uproar, in part, stemmed from Schiano's years spent at Penn State working on Jerry Sandusky's staff. Testimony released in 2016 mentioned Schiano's name, as former Penn State staffer Mike McQueary testified that fellow assistant Tom Bradley told McQueary that Schiano was aware of a child sexual abuse incident by Sandusky, who was Penn State's defensive coordinator.\n\nSchiano and Bradley denied having knowledge or witnessing any of Sandusky's abuse.\n\nBut the backlash was overwhelming and the deal was reportedly dead by the end of the day.\n\nCurrie issued a statement Monday morning defending his coaching search, stating that Schiano was \"carefully interviewed and vetted.\"\n\nMore:John Currie says Tennessee 'carefully interviewed' Greg Schiano\n\nBefore Sunday's madness, reports Saturday pointed to Mississippi State's Dan Mullen being the leading candidate, while the Vols backed away from Iowa State's Matt Campbell.\n\nMullen was hired Sunday by Florida.\n\nHow about a couple names from UT's past?\n\nFormer Tennessee offensive coordinator David Cutcliffe is \"a viable candidate,\" Footballscoop.com reported on Nov. 20. Cutcliffe is in his 10th season coaching Duke.\n\n(Update:Cutcliffe is not interested in the job, according to a report from ESPN.com's Chris Low.)\n\nThe website listed a few other names of potential interest, including Wake Forest coach Dave Clawson, another former Vols offensive coordinator. Clawson is in his fourth season at Wake Forest, which is 7-4. He previously coached five seasons at Wake Forest.\n\nWhat about Jon Gruden?\n\nThe Gruden-to-Tennessee rumors have gone on for so many years that they have a name of their own: Grumors.\n\nAs expected, with the Tennessee job open, the Grumor mill is in full swing.\n\nEven Calhoun's restaurant joined the fray on Saturday, Nov. 18.\n\nMore:Knoxville BBQ restaurant apologizes for spreading Jon Gruden rumors\n\nMultiple media outlets, citing unnamed Calhoun's employees, reported that Gruden was dining at the restaurant's Tennessee River location with former UT quarterback Peyton Manning.\n\nFollowing the reports, Calhoun's released a statement saying it wasn't sure it was Gruden at the restaurant and apologized for its part in the matter. An ESPN public relations official wrote on Twitter that Gruden was in Seattle preparing for \"Monday Night Football\" and not eating barbecue in Knoxville. The Seattle Times also reported that information.\n\nOn Friday, Nov. 17, CBS Sports' Dennis Dodd reported that Tennessee has \"considerable reservations about hiring Gruden.\"\n\nThe strongest report came from Grant Ramey of GoVols247, who reported, citing sources, that Currie flew to Tampa, Fla., on Wednesday, Nov. 15. Gruden lives in Tampa. Additionally, sources told GoVols247 that UT gave Gruden a deadline on making a decision.\n\nGruden, when asked about the Tennessee opening on ESPN's \"Mike and Mike\" on Nov. 15, said \"You never say never to nothing.\"\n\nThe Chattanooga Times Free Press, citing sources, reported on Nov. 15 that Gruden has contacted some college assistants to gauge their interest in possibly joining him on a coaching staff.\n\nPaul Finebaum, of the SEC Network and ESPN, said on his radio show on Tuesday, Nov. 14 that one source close to Gruden told him that Gruden is not coming to Tennessee.\n\nFootballscoop.com addressed the Grumors with a report that stated \"Gruden has no interest in being the next coach at Tennessee.\"\n\nGruden, who coached in the NFL at Oakland and Tampa Bay, is an ESPN analyst.\n\nDan Mullen, Bobby Petrino field questions on job openings\n\nMississippi State coach Dan Mullen had been on the wish list for some Tennessee fans long before UT fired Jones.\n\nMullen was asked on Nov. 13 at his news conference how the attractiveness of the Tennessee job compares to the job he has.\n\n\"I love the one I have,\" Mullen told reporters in Starkville.\n\n(Update: Florida hired Mullen.)\n\nMore:Dan Mullen on Vols' opening: 'I have a great job' at Mississippi State\n\nMore:Why not Jon Gruden? Or Dan Mullen? Or Scott Frost?\n\nAdditionally, the topic of job openings came up at Louisville coach Bobby Petrino's Nov. 13 news conference.\n\n“I don’t really worry about it,” Petrino said, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal. “I’ve just got to focus on what I can do. (Director of football operations Andy Wagner) was asking me something earlier today. I said, ‘I don’t even know that.’ \"\n\nNeither coach definitively stated they weren't interested in Tennessee.\n\nMullen and Petrino are two of the 15 names off our coaching hot board.\n\nReport states that an NFL assistant is of interest\n\nThe New York Daily News, citing sources, reported that Tennessee has interest in New York Jets defensive coordinator Kacy Rodgers.\n\nRodgers, a native of Humboldt, just north of Jackson, played linebacker/defensive end for the Vols from 1988-91. He's in his third season as the Jets' DC. The Jets rank 16th in the NFL in scoring defense.\n\nCurrie isn't using a search firm\n\nOne of the more interesting comments from Currie's news conference Nov. 12 was that he said he doesn't plan to use a search firm at this time.\n\nThat implies a couple things: One, Currie probably has been working on this search for a while, even though Jones wasn't fired until Sunday. And two, Currie might already have a short list of candidates and feels good about his ability to nab one of them.\n\nWho are names to watch?\n\nAs is typical during coaching searches, a lot of names will be thrown against the wall by various media outlets. Some will be linked to the Tennessee job. Rumors will rule the day.\n\nMore:Butch Jones' replacement as Tennessee football coach: 15 names from Gruden to Gundy\n\nHere are 15 names we think could come up during the search.\n\nWho is the interim coach?\n\nCurrie named defensive line coach Brady Hoke the interim coach on Nov. 12. Hoke has previous head coaching experience at Michigan, San Diego State and Ball State.\n\nHoke promised some \"tweaks\" are coming as the Vols prepare for their final two regular-season games and vowed that the staff would give a good effort for the seniors.\n\nMore:UT Vols' Brady Hoke to get $50,000 extra a month for interim role\n\nWhat was the cost for firing Jones?\n\nJones was under contract through Feb. 28, 2021. Because he was fired without cause, he's owed $8.26 million in buyout money, according to the separation agreement UT released. That buyout adheres to the language in Jones' contract. Jones is required to seek comparable employment to mitigate the damages.\n\nMore:Butch Jones fired: What's in football coach's termination letter from Vols AD John Currie\n\nThe buyout will be paid in monthly installments until Jones' contract was set to expire.\n\nMore UT Football Headlines:\n\nUT Vols coaching search: Here's what we know, including Mike Leach, Kevin Sumlin\n\nUT Vols: What will it take for them to return to SEC championship game?\n\nCade Mays narrows down to top three choices\n\nMike Leach: 5 things to know about potential UT Vols football coach\n\nUT Vols football: Dave Doeren staying at NC State after interest from Tennessee\n\nUT Vols football: Kevin Sumlin? Kevin Steele? Les Miles? Are only fired coaches options now?\n\nUT Vols hot board (3.0): 8 names from Kevin Sumlin to Mike Leach to Tee Martin\n\nUT Vols: Man identified after arrest at men's basketball game\n\nKevin Sumlin: 5 things to know about potential UT Vols football coach\n\n5 things to know about Kevin Sumlin", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2017/11/14"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/50-states/2021/11/08/giant-joystick-hyena-health-moose-loose-news-around-states/49327113/", "title": "Giant joystick, hyena health: News from around our 50 states", "text": "From USA TODAY Network and wire reports\n\nAlabama\n\nMontgomery: Gov. Kay Ivey on Friday signed employment protections for workers who claim a religious or health reason for not getting vaccinated against COVID-19. The Republican governor signed the legislation a day after it was approved by the Alabama Legislature as GOP-led states turn to lawsuits and legislation to fight federal vaccine requirements that they call an infringement on personal liberties. Ivey also signed into law a separate bill requiring parental consent for minors to get vaccinated against COVID-19. The new law says employers in Alabama can’t fire workers for being unvaccinated if the employee returns a new standardized state form to claim a religious or medical exemption. President Joe Biden in September announced contractors who do business with the federal government must have workforces vaccinated, with no option to test out. The Alabama law will also affect companies, such as medical providers, who wanted to independently place vaccination requirements on workers. The bill drew opposition from the Business Council of Alabama, which said it would put federal contractors in a no-win situation. Democrats said Republicans were putting both jobs and public health in jeopardy for the sake of scoring political points.\n\nAlaska\n\nJuneau: The U.S. Department of the Interior said the first two federal land allotments to Alaska Native Vietnam War-era veterans have been finalized. Frank Nanooruk and Richard Boskoffsky received the first allotments under a 2019 law passed by Congress, according to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. The allotments are east of Goodnews Bay in southwest Alaska, agency spokesperson Richard Packer said by email Friday. The Interior Department said the allotments were finalized Thursday. Under the 1906 Alaska Native Allotment Act, Alaska Natives were allowed to apply for up to 160 acres of land. Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s office has said that the program’s restrictions kept many from applying until the 1960s. There was a push to urge Alaska Natives to apply for lands if they had not already done so before a 1971 law took effect. But that period overlapped with the Vietnam War. A 1998 federal law allowed veterans to apply for land, but the provisions were seen as restrictive. The 2019 law lifted use and occupancy requirements that were part of prior laws and made lands available until late 2025, the Bureau of Land Management has said. “We have a sacred obligation to America’s veterans,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement.\n\nArizona\n\nPhoenix: Education advocates did not collect enough valid signatures to give voters a chance to repeal a new state law exempting some business owners from a tax increase on the wealthy to boost school funding, a lawyer for Secretary of State Katie Hobbs said Friday. The measure is one of two tax-cut bills signed this year by Gov. Doug Ducey that school-funding advocates are trying to refer to the 2022 ballot. County election officials reviewing a sample of the 123,500 submitted signatures found too many were invalid. Petitioners needed 118,823 valid signatures. The failure to collect enough signatures is not likely to matter much, however, because the Arizona Supreme Court has signaled that the entire tax increase, approved by voters last year as Proposition 208, is likely to be struck down. In addition to the tax exemption for business owners, education groups want voters to have a say on a new flat income tax rate of 2.5%, which would cut taxes by about $2 billion a year, primarily benefiting the wealthy. They turned in significantly more signatures to refer that measure. Lawyers for the Free Enterprise Club, a conservative advocacy group, argued in court Friday that the constitution does not allow referrals for measures that provide for “support and maintenance” of state government and that tax cut bills fall into that category.\n\nArkansas\n\nFayetteville: A former state senator convicted in 2018 of corruption-related charges is pushing forward with a request for a new trial. Attorney Lee D. Short of North Little Rock filed notice Wednesday that his client, former Sen. Jon Woods, will take his request for a new trial to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports. Woods was sentenced to more than 18 years in prison on 15 counts of conspiracy, fraud and money laundering for a bribery scheme in which prosecutors said he and another Republican legislator were taking kickbacks from state grants meant to be directed to nonprofit groups. The scheme involved at least $20 million taken from taxpayers or the nonprofit. The request for a retrial comes after claims that the FBI coerced former state Sen. Jeremy Hutchinson into giving incriminating information about Woods that lead to his investigation and subsequent conviction. According to the Democrat-Gazette, the information Hutchinson gave the FBI should have been protected by attorney-client privilege. Four additional state legislators pleaded guilty or were convicted on corruption-related charges in the investigation.\n\nCalifornia\n\nDiamond Bar: Southern California air regulators on Friday approved new restrictions on area oil refineries and other factories that could remove tons of smog-forming pollutants from the air. The board of the South Coast Air Quality Management District adopted rule changes requiring emissions limits on oxides of nitrogen that will affect nine refineries and seven plants that produce asphalt, biofuel plants, hydrogen and sulfuric acid. Oxides of nitrogen, collectively known as NOx, form when fuel is burned at high temperatures. The gases can be produced by cars and industrial sources such as refineries and power plants. They are a key ingredient in producing ozone pollution. The new rules will reduce NOx emissions by about 8 tons per day over the next 14 years, with nearly half the reductions expected by 2023, and will go a long way to helping the region meet some federal air quality standards by 2031, the AQMD said. The rules apply to some 300 pieces of combustion equipment at the facilities, such as boilers and gas turbines. The rules, which will be implemented over a decade, provide two ways of meeting the new requirements and also ban refineries from purchasing credits to offset pollution they produce. The total cost of implementing the new rules is projected at about $2.3 billion, but the reduction in health costs from pollution is expected to be about $2.6 billion, according to a September AQMD study session.\n\nColorado\n\nDenver: Two hyenas at the Denver Zoo have tested positive for the coronavirus, marking the first confirmed cases among the animals worldwide, a national veterinary lab announced Friday. Samples from a variety of animals at the zoo, including the spotted hyenas, were tested after several lions at the facility became ill, according to the National Veterinary Services Laboratories. The hyena samples tested presumptive positive at a lab at Colorado State University, and the cases were confirmed by the national lab. In addition to the two hyenas, 11 lions and two tigers at the zoo tested positive for the virus. “Hyenas are famously tough, resilient animals that are known to be highly tolerant to anthrax, rabies and distemper. They are otherwise healthy and expected to make a full recovery,” the zoo said in a statement. Zoo officials said the hyenas – 22-year-old Ngozi and 23-year-old Kibo – are experiencing mild symptoms, including slight lethargy, some nasal discharge and an occasional cough. The other animals that tested positive in recent weeks either have fully recovered or are on the path to a full recovery. “We now know that many other species may be susceptible to COVID-19 based on multiple reports, and we continue to use the highest level of care and precaution when working with all of our 3,000 animals and 450 different species,” the statement said.\n\nConnecticut\n\nNew Haven: Bomb threats forced the evacuation of several buildings at Yale University as well as nearby businesses for hours Friday, school and city officials said. A single caller to the New Haven police nonemergency line indicated there were bombs in eight buildings on campus about 2 p.m., police and school officials said. People in the buildings were initially told to go to the New Haven Green. Later, they were directed to certain indoor locations. Yale gave the all clear at about 7 p.m. and said the campus had resumed normal operations. Several city streets were blocked off as law enforcement officials with bomb-sniffing dogs prepared to search the buildings that were threatened. FBI and state police were helping Yale and New Haven authorities in the investigation and response. “We’re treating this as if it is a legitimate threat; however, at this time we are still working on who the caller was,” acting New Haven Police Chief Renee Dominguez said at a late afternoon news conference. Yale Police Chief Ronnell Higgins said the person who made the bomb threats did not give a reason.\n\nDelaware\n\nWilmington: The family-owned Delaware Park, home to the state’s biggest thoroughbred horse race each year, is being sold to a private equity firm and a gambling investor. The sale of Delaware Park, which has been operated by the Rickman family since the early 1980s and now includes a casino, should be completed by the end of the year, according to a news release Friday. The new owners will be Canadian-based Clairvest Group Inc. and Rubico Gaming LLC, a newly formed subsidiary run by investor Thomas Benninger. Delaware Park President Bill Fasy, who declined to comment Friday when asked about a sale price, said he wasn’t aware of any immediate operational changes to the Wilmington-based attraction, which hosts the Delaware Handicap each July. First developed by William du Pont Jr. in the 1930s, Delaware Park was known as the only major East Coast track, save for Aqueduct in New York, that raced in June. In 1983, longtime Maryland-based real estate developer William Rickman Sr. purchased the track, which had closed after financial troubles. He revived the business by offering smaller purses, which attracted cheaper horses. Competition improved in 1996 when legislation allowed slot machines at the track.\n\nDistrict of Columbia\n\nWashington: Howard University’s president addressed students Friday as campus protests entered a 24th day Friday, WUSA-TV reports. Dozens of students began occupying the Blackburn University Center and set up tents on the yard in October to bring attention to several issues, including a demand for better living conditions, as they claim some dormitory rooms have been found to have mold. They also want student representation to be restored on the university board of trustees. “We’re not just these radical Black students,” said Channing Hill, a junior at Howard. “We’re simply trying to garner the first-class living conditions that Georgetown students have.” The day’s protests coincided with President Wayne Frederick’s annual State of the University address. Frederick took questions from students and alumni in a virtual event and said he was “empathetic with the students who have concerns.” He said one student with mold in their room is one too many, and Howard needs to make sure its housing partners who are responsible for the upkeep and cleaning air ducts are doing it at a high level. But Frederick also said dorms are not any worse now than they have been in the past. “The physical infrastructure of our residence halls today is as good as it’s ever been,” he said.\n\nFlorida\n\nOrlando: Reversing its previous position, the University of Florida said Friday that it will allow three professors to testify as experts in a lawsuit challenging a new state election law that critics say restricts voting rights. Last month, the university prohibited Dan Smith, Michael McDonald and Sharon Austin from testifying in the lawsuit brought by civic groups, saying that such testimony would put the school in conflict with the administration of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, which pushed the election law. More than half of the university’s trustees are appointed by the governor. In a letter to the campus, university President Kent Fuchs said he is asking the office responsible for approving professors’ outside work to greenlight their request to serve as expert witnesses in the litigation. Fuchs said the outside work would have to be on the professors’ own time and not use university resources. Attorneys representing the professors said they were still planning to move forward with a lawsuit against the university. The school’s announcement came after the union for faculty members urged donors to withhold contributions and scholars and artists to turn down invitations to campus until university administrators affirmed the free speech rights of school employees.\n\nGeorgia\n\nAtlanta: Republicans on Friday advanced a plan projected to maintain a 33-23 GOP majority in the state Senate, setting it up for a possible vote this week in the full Senate. The proposal passed the Senate Reapportionment and Redistricting Committee on a 9-4 party-line vote over complaints that Republicans pushed too fast for a proposal released late Tuesday. “This process has gone too fast,” said Sen. Harold Jones II, D-Augusta. “We should really know what we’re talking about.” As senators voted, a House committee started considering new districts for the 180-member state House. The General Assembly must redraw electoral districts at least once every decade to equalize populations following the U.S. census. Georgia added more than a million people from 2010 to 2020, with urban districts generally growing and rural districts usually shrinking. This will be the first time in decades that Georgia lawmakers won’t be required to get federal approval of their maps after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a portion of the Voting Rights Act. Committee Chairman John Kennedy, R-Macon, noted that this year’s redistricting process had been compressed because of delays in releasing census results. But he said that if people wanted different alternatives considered, they should have gotten their senators to introduce them.\n\nHawaii\n\nHilo: An independent review of the state of astronomy and astrophysics in the U.S. has recommended federal funding of a giant telescope in the state. The Astronomy and Astrophysics Decadal Survey warned it could be “disastrous” for U.S. astronomy if the National Science Foundation does not invest in projects like the Thirty Meter Telescope, the Hawaii Tribune-Herald reports. The survey recommends the U.S. government fund several large astronomy projects. “There’s a little bit of a feeling of astronomy going the way of physics,” said Doug Simons, director of the University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy. He said the cancellation of a particle accelerator in Texas in 1993 resulted in the research moving to European facilities like the Large Hadron Collider. “I think if … the Europeans were the only international organization that had this kind of research capacity, that really signals something kind of alarming in the U.S., which has historically had a leadership role in contemporary astronomy.” But the report also highlights astronomy’s problems with Indigenous people. Some Native Hawaiians consider the proposed site for the giant telescope, on the Big Island’s Mauna Kea, to be sacred. “I wish they would have recognized that we have already spoken,” Native Hawaiian activist Kealoha Pisciotta said.\n\nIdaho\n\nBoise: U.S. Sens. Mike Crapo and Jim Risch sent a letter to the White House last week requesting a meeting about Idaho’s federal district judge vacancy, saying it “cannot be filled” without a “mutual agreement” between them and the administration. But the “blue slip” procedure that the Republicans referenced – a system that gave home-state senators a veto over federal judicial nominees – was thrown out during the Trump administration, when federal judges were appointed over objections from Democratic senators. “The blue slip procedure regarding filling United States District Court vacancies is alive and well,” the two senators wrote in a Nov. 2 letter to Dana Remus, counsel to the president, the Idaho Press reports. Idaho’s top Democratic elected officials submitted an all-female list of four nominees to the White House in March, but there’s been no further word on the nomination since then. U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill took senior status in August, making Idaho eligible for another federal judge. The Democratics nominated Idaho Falls attorney DeAnne Casperson, Boise attorney Keely Duke, Boise attorney Deborah Ferguson and former U.S. Attorney for Idaho Wendy Olson. Idaho is one of just three states with only two U.S. district judges and has not gotten an additional judgeship in 60 years, though caseloads have soared.\n\nIllinois\n\nChicago: Chicago Public Schools officials have canceled all classes next Friday in a bid to boost COVID-19 vaccinations among younger students who are newly eligible for the shots. A letter from the district sent Thursday to parents and families said schools will be closed Nov. 12 for “Vaccination Awareness Day” after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention approved a COVID-19 vaccine for children 5 to 11 years old last week. District CEO Pedro Martinez said next Friday’s canceled classes will provide “an opportunity for parents and guardians to take their children 5 years of age and older to get vaccinated.” He said sporting events would not be canceled. Martinez and Chicago Public Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady have stressed their desire to see children vaccinated ahead of the holidays, when family gatherings have proven to spread the coronavirus at high rates. Jesse Sharkey, the Chicago Teachers Union president, said in a statement to union members that he welcomes the district’s acknowledgment of the importance for parents and families to get their children vaccinated. Free vaccines can be obtained at sites around the city. In addition, CPS has set up four clinics where students can get shots. Appointments can be made at cps.edu/vaccinations.\n\nIndiana\n\nIndianapolis: With state tax collections surging, a top Republican legislator is looking at possible significant changes to the state sales tax and cutting property taxes for some businesses. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Tim Brown hasn’t offered details yet for what he could propose for the new legislative session starting in January, but such changes face concerns about the possibility of an economic slowdown and the impact on funding for local governments and school districts. Topics in Brown’s sights include expanding Indiana’s 7% sales tax that covers merchandise purchases ranging from clothing to cars so that it also is charged for spending on services, which potentially could be anything from haircuts to hospital stays. Brown said his aim would be to lower the sales tax rate if it were applied to a broader range of spending. Brown pointed to a trend of more spending on services, which federal reports show now make up nearly 70% of consumer spending. “Our sales tax base is changing a lot, so I am interested in looking at sales tax, and sales tax affects everybody,” Brown said. “It doesn’t matter how much money you make; you pay sales tax.”\n\nIowa\n\nIowa City: Twenty years after a fire destroyed the dome of the University of Iowa’s Old Capitol, the UI now is preparing to redo “failing” gilding at an estimated cost of $200,000 to $500,000. The UI will pay OPN Architects $23,500 to study the “causes and extents of gilding failure on the Old Capitol dome and develop recommendations for repair and restoration,” according to a contract signed in September. The study may include drone photography, sampling of the gold leaf and consultation with the State Historic Preservation Office. Wendy Moorehead, UI assistant director of facilities management, said that “the campus is excited to celebrate the upcoming year representing the 175th anniversary of the UI, and the Old Capitol dome, at the heart of campus, will represent that important milestone.” Another major milestone was the Nov. 20, 2001, fire that destroyed the dome, damaged much of the historic building and kept the Old Capitol shuttered for five years. The Old Capitol Building, for which the cornerstone was laid July 4, 1840, was to be the hub of state government after Iowa City was chosen as the state capital in 1839. The Iowa Legislative Assembly met in the building for the first time in December 1842. The Legislature decided in 1857 to move the capital to Des Moines. Old Cap housed most of the UI classes after the university was founded in 1847. The building also served as the library, chapel, armory and office space for administrators.\n\nKansas\n\nTopeka: Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly grew more forceful Friday in opposing President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandates, saying it’s “too late” in the pandemic to impose them after Kansas and other states tailored responses to their needs. Kelly’s latest statement came a day after she argued that federal mandates “tend not to work,” though they’ve boosted vaccination rates elsewhere. She faces a difficult race for reelection next year in her Republican-leaning state, and GOP officials have been attacking the Democratic president’s mandates for weeks and criticizing Kelly for not making any public comments until Thursday. “While I appreciate the intention to keep people safe, a goal I share, I don’t believe this directive is the correct, or the most effective, solution for Kansas,” Kelly said in her latest statement. Attorney General Derek Schmidt, a Republican who hopes to unseat Kelly next year, announced later Friday that Kansas is among seven states that filed a federal lawsuit with the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati against a Biden mandate that applies to companies with more than 100 workers. Schmidt already had brought Kansas into a federal lawsuit against a mandate applying to employees of federal government contractors.\n\nKentucky\n\nLouisville: Gov. Andy Beshear, a Bluegrass State bourbon industry leader and a Louisville-based spirits producer are applauding an agreement between the United States and the European Union to lift tariffs on bourbon and whiskey. The United States and European Union have been in a trade war since 2018, when the former imposed a 25% tariff, or tax on imports, on European steel and a 10% tariff on aluminum under then-President Donald Trump. The European Union retaliated with tariffs on American products, including a 25% on bourbon whiskey. That tariff on a major Kentucky product was set to double Dec. 1. But now, for bourbon producers, “it’s time to raise a glass,” Kentucky Distillers Association President Eric Gregory said. National security adviser Jake Sullivan, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo announced an agreement Oct. 30 in which the United States will allow some quantity of European steel and aluminum to come to the country without tariffs, and, in turn, the European Union will drop its retaliatory tariffs. Gregory said that “these unfortunate tariffs have slashed exports of Kentucky bourbon by 50% to the EU and the United Kingdom, costing distillers, industry partners and farm families hundreds of millions of dollars.”\n\nLouisiana\n\nFranklin: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is holding a contest to name a recently improved pond in a national wildlife refuge. The agency has graded the parking lot and installed a floating dock and an information kiosk at the pond on Stephen R. Road in the Bayou Teche National Wildlife Refuge near Franklin. Now it’s asking people to visit the refuge and take a selfie or a photo of their family enjoying its trails as part of their entry. The photo, proposed name and a short explanation of the name can be submitted by email – bayouteche@fws.gov – or at facebook.com/SoutheastLouisiana. Specific personal names or vulgar, profane, racially insensitive or other derogatory names will not be accepted. The top five entries will be announced Dec. 2 on the refuge’s Facebook page, and the public will have a week to choose their favorite. The winning name will be announced live on Facebook at 10 a.m. Saturday, Dec. 11.\n\nMaine\n\nPortland: The state’s environmental commissioner said Friday that she’ll take the referendum vote into account when deciding whether to suspend a permit for a $1 billion electric transmission line in western Maine. Commissioner Melanie Loyzim will close comments at the end of a new public hearing Nov. 22 so she can expedite a decision. Loyzim’s letter to New England Clean Energy Connect points to an aggressive timetable after Maine residents voted Tuesday to halt the project. The law takes effect 30 days after election results are certified. The Natural Resources Council of Maine told the commissioner the permit should be revoked immediately to prevent further environmental damage during construction, which is continuing. It would be a “dereliction of duty” for regulators to allow “continued destruction” of woodlands while waiting for the law to go into effect, James Kilbreth, a lawyer for NRCM, wrote Thursday in a notice to environmental regulators. The 145-mile power transmission line would serve as a conduit for up to 1,200 megawatts of Canadian hydropower. Most of it would be built along existing corridors, but a new 53-mile section is being cut through the woods to reach the Canadian border.\n\nMaryland\n\nElkton: The Christmas tree that will light up Rockefeller Center this holiday season is coming from Maryland for the first time in the nearly nine decades of the annual tradition. A 79-foot-tall Norway spruce will be cut down in Elkton next Thursday and arrive in New York City on Saturday, the center announced Thursday. Rockefeller Center’s website says the 85-year-old tree will be covered with about 5 miles of wire holding more than 50,000 multicolored lights and topped with a 900-pound star covered in 3 million Swarovski crystals. The lighting ceremony is scheduled for Dec. 1 and will be televised on NBC. After that, the tree will be lit daily from 6 a.m. to midnight. It will be lit for 24 hours on Christmas Day and from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. on New Year’s Eve.\n\nMassachusetts\n\nBoston: Three residents of a tent encampment at the nexus of the city’s opioid and homelessness crises say in a lawsuit that Boston’s plan to move them from the area is unconstitutional because it doesn’t provide viable alternatives, officials said Friday. The lawsuit filed Thursday in Suffolk Superior Court by the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts and the WilmerHale law firm was in response to the city’s decision last month to declare addiction and homelessness a public health emergency and clean up the area around Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard, known as Mass and Cass. The city pledged to find treatment or alternative housing for people displaced from tents in the area but has not properly done so, according to the ACLU. Although only three plaintiffs are mentioned, the suit applies to all residents of the area, according to the ACLU. “We can’t sweep or arrest our way out of the intersecting crises at Mass and Cass,” Carol Rose, the state ACLU’s executive director, said in a statement. “This plan is harmful and unconstitutional because it forces people to disperse with no safe place to sleep, while disconnecting them from the medical care they are able to receive at Mass and Cass.”\n\nMichigan\n\nLansing: Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Friday vetoed Republican-backed bills that would have created scholarship accounts for K-12 students to pay for educational expenses, including private school and tutoring, and given tax credits to people and corporations that donate to the program. The veto, which was expected, came the same week proponents of the legislation preemptively launched a ballot drive that would enable the GOP-led Legislature to enact identical citizen-initiated bills without her signature. The Democratic governor said the bills would cut state revenue by as much as $500 million in 2022 alone. “Simply put, our schools cannot provide the high-quality education our kids deserve if we turn private schools into tax shelters for the wealthy,” she wrote to lawmakers, adding that she has worked to reverse disinvestment in public education. School-choice proponents such as the Great Lakes Education Project criticized Whitmer, saying the funds would have helped more than 1 million kids who fell behind during the COVID-19 pandemic. Under the plan, students would have been eligible for scholarships if their family income was no more than double the cutoff to receive free or reduced-priced lunch – $98,050 for a family of four currently – or if they had a disability or were in foster care.\n\nMinnesota\n\nPine City: Gov. Tim Walz was among the thousands of hunters who took to the field Saturday for the state’s firearms deer hunting season opener. Walz hunted with Brady Crocker and Kevin Hinze on the Hinze family’s private property in Pine County. The family permanently protected the land by donating a conservation easement to the Minnesota Land Trust. Walz, Crocker and Hinze didn’t get a deer, but the opener was marked by beautiful, warmer-than-usual weather across most of Minnesota. Following the hunt, Walz visited a chronic wasting disease sampling site in Pine City, joined by Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Sarah Strommen and Agriculture Commissioner Thom Petersen. They highlighted the importance of sampling to detect the brain disease, which is always fatal in deer. During opening weekend, people hunting in CWD surveillance, control, or management zones must bring their harvested deer to sampling stations to be tested. Voluntary sampling is available after the opening weekend for deer harvested within a CWD zone. “I ask all Minnesota deer hunters to be aware of CWD regulations and use one of the state’s sampling sites if hunting in a mandatory or voluntary sampling area,” Walz said in a statement.\n\nMississippi\n\nJackson: An environmental group is using fines from the 2010 BP oil spill to plan the state’s first oyster shell recycling program. “It’s very straightforward – take the actual oyster shell and reuse it to help restore the very resource it’s providing. But the devil is always in the details,” said Alex Littlejohn, state director for The Nature Conservancy. “We want to learn from the other successful programs like this in other states, work through the kinks and make this a viable program for Mississippi.” At least 14 other states have had programs that collect empty shells from restaurants, festivals and other venues and use them to build coastal reefs. A survey before the COVID-19 pandemic found such programs in all four other Gulf Coast states, nine on the East Coast, and California, said Tom Mohrman, The Nature Conservancy’s director of marine programs. The programs often cover specific areas, such as Galveston Bay or Mobile Bay, but Mississippi’s coastline is small enough that one program could cover it all, he said. Mississippi’s Gulf Coast generally has plenty of oyster larvae but needs more hard surfaces where they can attach themselves and grow into oysters, the organization said in a news release. Oyster reefs also create homes for other types of marine life, slow waves that erode coastlines, and purify water.\n\nMissouri\n\nSt. Louis: The U.S. Office of Special Counsel said in a letter to President Joe Biden and members of Congress that employees at a federal office complex in the city were exposed to “widespread, longstanding” contamination from asbestos, lead, mercury, arsenic and other toxic materials by the agency in charge of managing government workplaces. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that the letter, issued Friday, also noted that children at an on-site day care facility were exposed. The letter said officials deliberately misled tenants about the health risks at the Goodfellow Federal Center in north St. Louis. The U.S. Office of Special Counsel handles investigations and prosecution aimed at protecting federal employees. The OSC said an investigation into whistleblower allegations “substantiated that officials had been aware of environmental contamination but failed to appropriately notify GSA employees or tenant agencies.” The investigation also concluded that officials made no effort to limit access to contaminated areas and failed to assess potential exposure risks in the site’s child care center. The GSA has said it is working to close the Goodfellow complex and expects to relocate most tenant agencies by the end of 2022.\n\nMontana\n\nMissoula: Calls to the Missoula Mobile Support Team have significantly reduced the number of people who would otherwise be taken to jail or to an emergency room since the team’s inception late last year, according to a presentation the program’s organizers made to a City Council committee Wednesday. Data shows that calls to the team are also on the rise. “The number of calls increased over time and continue to increase,” Gretchen Neal, Missoula County’s mental health coordinator, told the Missoulian. The Mobile Support Team is funded by the county, the city and the state. Emergency medical technicians from the Missoula Fire Department and licensed behavioral health clinicians or clinicians in training work with case facilitators to staff the team. They are trained to provide consultation, screening and brief intervention to individuals in crisis stemming from behavioral health issues, which includes mental health issues or substance abuse issues. The goal is to provide them with the care they need while reducing the time that first responders spend addressing a situation in which behavioral health is the chief concern. Another goal is to reduce the number of arrests and emergency room visits, which reduces government-funded jail and hospital costs.\n\nNebraska\n\nOmaha: The city plans to join hundreds of others across the nation trying to come up with strategies to combat climate change. While the Nebraska Legislature has rejected calls for a statewide plan, Omaha will lead a metropolitan area climate action plan expected to be funded with a mix of public and private money, the Omaha World-Herald reports. Mayor Jean Stothert told the newspaper in an email that the time is right. “Omaha has been implementing sustainability measures for some time now without the need for a formal plan,” she wrote. “The current timeline gives us the opportunity to maximize the results of more coordination for climate-related practices.” Climate plans typically involve identifying where a community is most vulnerable to severe weather, its contribution to global warming, what needs to be done and measurable steps that can be taken. A consultant is expected to be chosen by mid-2022. It could take a year or longer for the consultant that’s chosen to develop the plan. Some wonder what took so long. The Kansas City metropolitan area, the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, and Lincoln are among nearby places that already have climate action plans. “Omaha and the surrounding area are late to the solutions game,” said David Corbin, chairman of the Missouri Valley Sierra Club’s energy committee.\n\nNevada\n\nCarson City: American Civil Liberties Union attorneys said if the state redraws its political maps without reallocating thousands of inmates to their pre-prison addresses, they will be in violation of a 2019 Nevada law. The threat of a lawsuit and the organization’s insistence that prison officials compile more addresses could complicate the redistricting process that lawmakers are expected to conduct this month. Though the U.S. census counts inmates at prisons where they’re serving sentences, Nevada is one of a growing number of states required to reallocate residents in prison to where they previously lived. Nevada lawmakers in 2019 passed legislation to ban so-called prison gerrymandering. It directs the Department of Corrections to “compile the last known residential address of each offender immediately before the offender was sentenced to imprisonment in a facility or institution of the Department” and subsequently “provide to the State Demographer all available information.” Last week, prison officials said they only had usable addresses for 6,275 people out of the 12,214 counted in the 2020 census, or about 51%. In a Friday letter sent to lawmakers and state officials, attorneys Holly Welborn and Chris Peterson allege the thousands of missing inmate addresses “place the Legislature at risk of violating Nevada’s Constitutional requirement to base reapportionment on accurate data.”\n\nNew Hampshire\n\nHanover: A 9-foot-tall video game joystick made of wood, rubber and steel has made it into the Guinness World Records 2022 as the largest. Dartmouth College professor Mary Flanagan created the giant controller – nearly 14 times the size of an original classic Atari controller – in 2006 to celebrate her childhood experience of “maniacally” playing Atari 2600 video games. She also wanted to see what it would be like when a single-player experience becomes collaborative: It takes at least two people to operate the joystick and push the button to play classic Atari games such as “Centipede” and “Breakout.” “To have this common pop culture artifact just erupt in the middle of a space and allow people to play something familiar, yet not familiar, was exciting,” said Flanagan, an artist who is chair of Dartmouth’s Film and Media Studies and the Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Professor in Digital Humanities. The joystick, which toured Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States, is now part of the permanent collection of ZKM Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe, Germany.\n\nNew Jersey\n\nTrenton: A truck driver who ousted the powerful state Senate president in last week’s election previously posted online calling Islam “a false religion,” comparing vaccine mandates to the Holocaust and defending rioters at the U.S. Capitol. Republican Edward Durr apologized Friday after media outlets highlighted the posts. His victory over Steve Sweeney, widely regarded as the second most powerful Democrat in state government, in Tuesday’s election shocked the state’s political establishment. Durr spent a paltry sum on his campaign. On Thursday and Friday, media reports highlighted posts Durr had made on Twitter and Facebook, including some critical of immigrants, boasting of defying state COVID-19 mask mandates, and making misogynist attacks on Democratic elected officials like then-Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. Durr issued a statement Thursday night to radio station WHYY and Friday to the website New Jersey Globe apologizing for the posts. “I’m a passionate guy and I sometimes say things in the heat of the moment,” Durr said in identical comments to both outlets. “If I said things in the past that hurt anybody’s feelings, I sincerely apologize.” Twitter showed Friday that Durr’s account had been deactivated by the user.\n\nNew Mexico\n\nSanta Fe: State officials have been inundated with critical letters on proposed K-12 social studies standards over the inclusion of racial identity and social justice themes in a majority-Latino state where Indigenous tribes have persevered through war, famine, internment camps and boarding schools aimed at stamping out their cultures. If approved, the standards would require students starting in kindergarten to “identify some of their group identities” and “take group or individual action to help address local, regional, and/or global problems.” By high school, students would examine “factors which resulted in unequal power relations among identity groups.” Critics, including some Hispanics, say the standards promote victimhood, while supporters have praised the standards as “more just and anti-racist.” The proposed New Mexico standards represent a new frontier in the clash over “critical race theory” – an academic concept increasingly used by conservative activists as a catchall term for the study of systemic racism, historical oppression or progressive social activism. New Mexico is a patchwork of 23 federally recognized Native American nations, tribes and pueblos. Half of the state is Latino, and about 10% of students are Native American, with many tracing their heritage to pre-Columbian and 16th-century Spanish conquistadors.\n\nNew York\n\nNew York: The former head of the city’s police sergeants union has been punished with a loss of 70 vacation days, which amounts to almost $32,000 in pay, after being found guilty by his own police department of improperly disclosing information and using inappropriate language on social media, police said Friday. Ed Mullins of the New York Police Department had already filed retirement papers last month and retired as president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association in the wake of federal agents raiding the union’s office and his home. The retirement was effective as of Friday, but the NYPD said in an email that “the cases were moved forward expeditiously to ensure the appropriate penalty could be imposed in the event of findings of guilt.” Mullins was found guilty in disciplinary proceedings for improperly tweeting NYPD paperwork last year regarding the arrest of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s daughter during protests over the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd. He denied violating guidelines. In a separate complaint from the Civilian Complaint Review Board, he was also found guilty after an administrative hearing for using inappropriate language in social media posts he made that referenced other New York City officials. Review board Chair Fred Davie said he was “disappointed” that Mullins was docked vacations days and not fired.\n\nNorth Carolina\n\nRaleigh: Barely 24 hours after their passage, the state’s newly drawn maps drew another legal complaint that will likely determine how much Republicans can expand their political clout over the coming decade in a state that is slowly becoming more blue. An organization formed by Marc Elias, a prominent Democratic lawyer, announced Friday that a group of voters who successfully challenged previous North Carolina maps will now make a similar appeal in state court contesting the latest congressional maps. They will argue that the boundaries approved by Republicans on Thursday were drawn for political gain in a way that violates several provisions of the North Carolina Constitution. The stakes are high, as Republicans currently hold an 8-5 edge over Democrats in the U.S. House and would likely expand their advantages substantially if the maps prevail. During a virtual event on Twitter, Elias, founder of Democracy Docket, called North Carolina’s maps “a grotesque partisan gerrymander” and “indefensible.” “The Republican Party has lost all shame,” Elias said. “I mean, in the 2010 (redistricting process and) after 2010, they were still pretending that they cared about democracy and about voting rights, and now they no longer pretend.” Last week, voters and advocacy groups sued in Wake County court to block the timetable for passing state legislative maps, accusing Republicans of breaking rules aimed at ensuring Black voters can elect their desired candidates.\n\nNorth Dakota\n\nBismarck: A proposal to use $150 million in federal stimulus money to build another pipeline to carry natural gas from the Bakken region to eastern North Dakota will be on the table as lawmakers convene at the Capitol. Lawmakers plan to divvy up $1 billion from the federal American Rescue Plan Act during the special session, which opens Monday, and the money that leaders hope to set aside for pipeline grants could make the prospect of such a project more attractive to developers. “There’s been a long-standing desire to see more North Dakota gas be used in the state,” North Dakota Pipeline Authority Director Justin Kringstad told the Bismarck Tribune. The Bakken region of western North Dakota produces substantial quantities of gas alongside oil, and some of it is wastefully burned off in flares at well sites rather than piped away for use as fuel due to a lack of infrastructure. Some eastern North Dakota communities have gas service because they happen to be near a limited number of pipelines that extend to that part of the state, but many do not. Much of the gas produced within North Dakota is transported to markets in other states. Cost appears to be the major barrier to building another pipeline. The economics tend to work out better to send gas down existing pipelines into other states, Kringstad said.\n\nOhio\n\nColumbus: The election board for the state’s most populous county is being put under administrative oversight by the secretary of state, after another problem with electronic poll books led to three improperly cast votes in last week’s election. Not all of Franklin County’s electronic poll books were properly updated on Election Day with data about who had already voted early or requested an absentee ballot, according to Secretary of State Frank LaRose’s office. His office has determined three voters were able to vote twice but said those votes didn’t affect the outcome of any election. One of those voters told the office they cast a ballot during early voting, then did so again on Election Day while accompanying their spouse to vote because a poll worker indicated the poll book didn’t reflect the earlier vote. The voter said they were worried their first ballot hadn’t been counted. The Franklin County Board of Elections had another problem last year with some of its electronic poll books not updating, and it didn’t fully follow a remediation plan to avoid the newest problem, LaRose’s office said. To make sure the board is effectively administering elections, it will now have to report weekly to the secretary of state, according to LaRose’s office.\n\nOklahoma\n\nOklahoma City: A group of about 20 local pastors and ministers gathered outside the state Capitol on Friday to pray for Gov. Kevin Stitt as he weighs the fate of high-profile death row inmate Julius Jones. The preachers said they hoped Stitt would lean heavily on his Christian roots and follow the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board’s recommendation that Jones be granted clemency. “Lord, we implore you to allow Gov. Stitt to be the hero of Julius’ story,” the Rev. Keith Jossell, Jones’ spiritual adviser, said in his prayer. The prayer gathering came only days before Jones’ execution date, set for Nov. 18. Jones was convicted in 2002 in the fatal shooting of Edmond insurance executive Paul Howell during a 1999 carjacking. Jones has maintained his innocence in the murder, claiming another individual shot and killed Howell and pinned the slaying on him. The Rev. Major Jemison, senior pastor of St. John Missionary Baptist Church, said the circumstances surrounding Jones’ conviction included Jones’ lack of adequate representation, lack of fairness and lack of equality. Jemison also voiced unease that there could be negative consequences should the governor go against the parole board’s recommendation. “We are also very concerned about the potential for civil unrest if the state proceeds with the execution of Mr. Jones while disregarding the avalanche of questions and ambiguity surrounding the circumstances of the case,” he said.\n\nOregon\n\nNewberg: The teachers union in the city has filed a lawsuit over a policy passed narrowly by its school board that limits what kinds of images or signs school employees can display on campus. The “Ensuring Safe Environments to Learn” policy bars school employees from displaying images “relating to a political, quasi-political, or controversial topic.” The lawsuit was filed Wednesday. Oregon Public Broadcasting reports the Newberg policy has been a lightning rod for controversy, with the ACLU, Democrats in the Oregon Legislature and the State Board of Education all issuing statements against it. The policy, backed by a four-member majority of the Newberg school board, started out as a directive to remove signs and posters showing support for Black Lives Matter and LGBTQ pride. In its 18-page complaint, the Newberg Education Association argues the policy violates two amendments of the U.S. Constitution: the First Amendment protecting free speech and the 14th Amendment guaranteeing equal protection. The suit also argues the Newberg policy violates Article I, Section 20 of the Oregon Constitution, which protects “against vague laws that confer unbridled discretion, because such discretion creates the potential for unequal application of the law,” among other state constitutional provisions.\n\nPennsylvania\n\nHarrisburg: Gov. Tom Wolf said his mail-in ballot was dropped off by his wife before Tuesday’s election despite a state law requiring that voters deliver them in person. Wolf’s spokeswoman Beth Rementer called it an honest mistake. “I did vote; actually I voted by mail,” Wolf said Tuesday on KDKA radio. When an interviewer told him the ballot was due in the York County elections office by the end of Election Day, he said first lady Frances Wolf delivered it. “My wife actually dropped it off personally two weeks ago, so it’s there,” he said. The interview segment was highlighted Thursday in a tweet by state Rep. Seth Grove, R-York County, who has spent much of the past year working on an election code revamp. In June, Democrat Wolf vetoed an election reform bill Grove sponsored. “It’s law,” Grove said in a text exchange Thursday. “You can’t hand in more than 1 ballot.” He said Frances Wolf dropping off the governor’s mail-in ballot would have been legal had his bill been enacted. State law requires voters who do not mail their absentee or mail-in ballot to “deliver it in person to (their) county board of election,” although with preapproval others can do it under certain circumstances.\n\nRhode Island\n\nProvidence: A World War I veteran is getting a new monument in the city after the original monument in his honor was vandalized. City Councilman David Salvatore said the new marker in honor of Pfc. Carlo Lafazia will be commissioned and dedicated next spring. “We’re going to relocate it to a new area that is going to allow for an education opportunity, first and foremost about the history of Private Lafazia and the contributions that he made, and secondly, some of the history around World War I and what that meant to the Eagle Park community and to Rhode Island as a whole,” Salvatore said. Lafazia, who served in the 16th Infantry Regiment, was killed in the Forest of Argonne in France in October 1918. The original monument was placed on Admiral Street in 2017. But earlier this year, it was knocked off its foundation. The vandal was never caught. The damaged monument stone is now stored at the Department of Public Works.\n\nSouth Carolina\n\nCharleston: A strong storm off the Southeast’s Atlantic coast combined with periodic higher tides Sunday, causing coastal flooding that approached levels rarely seen outside of hurricanes along the South Carolina and Georgia coasts, officials said. Scientists have said data shows the unusually high tides and the flooding of roads that come with it are happening more frequently as sea levels rise with global warming. The Sunday high tide in Charleston Harbor reached 8.51 feet, the 10th-highest level in the century of recording at that site, the National Weather Service said. The high water closed dozens of roads in downtown and caused the city to cancel its Veterans Day parade scheduled for Saturday. Sunday’s high tides were the culmination of four days of rising ocean water pushed ashore by both winds from a strong autumn storm offshore and periodic King Tides when the moon’s location causes the water level to increase. Rising sea levels are leading to more frequent flooding, meteorologists said. Charleston Harbor has recorded 25 of the 39 tides of 8 feet or greater since 2015. The tide reached that level for major flooding three times already this month, meteorologists said.\n\nSouth Dakota\n\nSioux Falls: A moose on the loose got onto the South Dakota State University football field in Brookings before leaving town. Campus police said the moose left campus about 3:30 p.m. Friday and was headed west. They said the bull moose appeared to be 1 to 2 years old. Emmett Keyser, the regional supervisor for the Game Fish and Parks office, told KELO-TV his agency helped the campus police and other law enforcement with herding the moose out of town. “We did try to move him north,” Keyser said. But, in apparent impersonation of a running back, “he ran back through our line and into the stadium,” Keyser said. The moose hung around campus for a time until officials were able to herd him west out of town. “The thing is, moose are so unpredictable,” Keyser said. “You don’t want anyone getting hurt or the animal getting hurt.” The sighting followed one a few days earlier of a moose walking down U.S. Highway 75 in Luverne, Minnesota, about 50 miles away. It wasn’t clear if it was the same moose. While moose are rare in the area, they do appear from time to time.\n\nTennessee\n\nNashville: Gov. Bill Lee on Friday again extended an executive order that allows parents to opt students out of school mask requirements that federal judges have blocked from applying in three counties. The Republican’s decision maintains the status quo on the opt-out order for two weeks while he considers whether to sign a broad coronavirus-related bill that would limit mask policies in schools even further. He first issued the mask opt-out order in mid-August and extended it in late September. Lee on Friday also extended the ongoing state of emergency over the COVID-19 pandemic until Nov. 19, while members of his administration “continue analyzing impacts of recent legislation & how it affects certain provisions,” he wrote on Twitter. During their recent three-day special session, Republican lawmakers passed a proposal that would in part largely prohibit government entities – including public schools – from implementing mask mandates. Those entities would only be allowed to require masks if they lived in a county with a rolling average 14-day COVID-19 infection rate of at least 1,000 per 100,000 resident while the state is under a state of emergency. There are no counties that currently meet that threshold. Even then, mask mandates would continue to be limited in use.\n\nTexas\n\nAustin: The weeklong, record-breaking February freeze this past winter led to crises of power, water, food, shelter, medical care, transportation and emergency response. A lengthy report published by the city Thursday identified a myriad of issues the community experienced that week and offered 132 recommendations about how to be better prepared for the next disaster. The freeze “was an overlapping emergency with overwhelming and cascading community impacts,” says the report, written by the city’s Homeland Security and Emergency Management departments with the help of Hagerty Consulting. The report reviewed the city’s entire response to the weather event and subsequent crises, identifying lapses in training and coordination, as well as supply-chain failures and neglected communities. “City and county leadership sought to move expeditiously to provide life-sustaining services,” the report says. “These included activation of shelter and warming centers, coordinating medical operations and distribution of drinking water. They faced significant obstacles in loss of infrastructure, staffing shortfalls, and availability of volunteers.” The coronavirus pandemic meant resources were already stretched thin, the report says. Some elected officials and volunteers set up services in response to shortfalls in departmental services.\n\nUtah\n\nSalt Lake City: State lawmakers are set to vote on a name change for southern Utah’s Dixie State University this week. A bill to rename it Utah Technical University will be considered in a special session in which lawmakers will also vote on redistricting, state Rep. Kelly Miles, R-South Ogden, told Fox13. It’s expected to get a hearing before the Education Interim Committee on Tuesday. The step comes after numerous public hearings, focus groups and a vote in favor of a name change from the Utah System of Higher Education. Supporters of changing “Dixie” have pointed to difficulties in recruiting and retaining students, who link the name to the South, the Civil War and the Confederacy. Past yearbooks show students in blackface, Confederate flags and the former mascot dubbed “The Rebel.” Opponents of the name change insist the name comes from Mormon pioneers who settled in the St. George area to grow cotton. They’ve begun launching campaigns to pressure lawmakers to resist a name change, accusing the state of giving in to “cancel culture.” The Washington County Commission recently passed a resolution supporting \\\\ the “Dixie” name. But Miles said that after an extensive input-gathering process, he expects the Legislature to support a name change. Gov. Spencer Cox would also be expected to sign it.\n\nVermont\n\nMontpelier: The state is requiring unvaccinated employees to use personal sick time if they are exposed to someone with COVID-19 through their jobs and have to quarantine. State workers who exhaust all their sick time could be required to quarantine without being paid. Fully vaccinated employees forced to quarantine will be paid without needing to use sick time. “We want to do whatever we can to take advantage of safe, effective and free vaccines,” Jason Maulucci, a spokesperson for Republican Gov. Phil Scott, said Friday. “If there are people who choose not to, there are implications to making that decision.” Maulucci said it was unclear how many people have had to use sick leave or if anyone has already gone unpaid. Steve Howard, executive director of the Vermont State Employees Association, said there have been cases in which employees have had to use leave, but he didn’t have a specific number. He didn’t know if anyone had gone without pay. Howard said the union has filed a grievance, saying the new policy was implemented without working through the details with the union. The previous policy allowed state workers who had to quarantine to be paid while out of work.\n\nVirginia\n\nRichmond: A juvenile son of Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin tried twice to cast a ballot in Tuesday’s election, election officials said Friday. The 17-year-old presented an ID but was told he was ineligible to vote due to his age and turned away, according to a statement from Scott Konopasek, Fairfax County’s general registrar. The statement said the teen did not successfully vote, made no false statements, did not disrupt voting and appeared to have committed “no election offense.” The statement mentioned Youngkin’s son by name, saying the identification was based on contemporaneous notes by the chief election officer. The news was first reported by The Washington Post. The Associated Press is not naming the son because he is a juvenile. A spokesman for the Republican governor-elect, who campaigned heavily on election integrity, said the son misunderstood Virginia’s laws. State law allows any person who is 17 and will be 18 by Election Day to register in advance and vote in any intervening primary or special election. Jennifer Chanty, a precinct captain, told The Washington Post she encountered the son, who left after initially being told he was too young to vote. She said he returned a short time later, saying a friend who was also 17 had been allowed to cast a ballot. Youngkin, who has four children, made election integrity central to his campaign during the fight for the GOP nomination, and he refused for months to say whether President Joe Biden was legitimately elected.\n\nWashington\n\nTacoma: Three Black women who work for the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department have filed a lawsuit against the county alleging a long-standing pattern of discrimination, harassment and retaliation against minority employees. The News Tribune reports Lt. Charla James-Hutchison and Sgts. Dione Alexander and Sabrina Braswell-Bouyer are the highest-ranking African American women in the department’s 168-year history. Their attorneys filed the suit on their behalf last Monday, claiming that the women – who all work in Pierce County Jail – have suffered emotional distress, economic losses and damage to their reputations due to the decades of discrimination. No specific damages are specified in the lawsuit. James-Hutchison, Alexander and Braswell-Bouyer are among 12 Black women who work for the Sheriff’s Department, according to county statistics. There are 47 Black sworn employees in the department out of about 614. The women have been subjected to racial slurs, told they were only hired or promoted to “fill a quota,” called thugs because of their hairstyles, and subjected to colleagues’ comments about how the COVID-19 vaccines should be tested on Black people before white people, the suit says.\n\nWest Virginia\n\nCharleston: Grandparents who are the primary caregivers for their grandchildren ages 5 to 11 can receive a $150 school voucher if they are vaccinated against COVID-19, Gov. Jim Justice said Friday. The program is through the Healthy Grandfamilies vaccination incentive program. To receive a voucher, the family must be enrolled in West Virginia State University’s Healthy Grandfamilies program at healthygrandfamilies.com. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently recommended the vaccine for use by children ages 5 to 11. All vaccine-eligible members of the family must have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. The vouchers can be used for school supplies, the governor’s office said in a news release. About 19,000 West Virginia children live in households with a grandparent as primary caregiver, according to the Healthy Grandfamilies organization.\n\nWisconsin\n\nMadison: The University of Wisconsin-Madison has raised the Ho-Chunk Nation flag over its main administration building, marking the first time the university has flown another nation’s flag with the U.S. flag and the Wisconsin flag. Friday’s ceremony at Bascom Hall felt historic to senior Paige Skenandore, who grew up on a reservation in northern Wisconsin and is one of roughly 100 Native American students on campus. It also felt long overdue. “I think this is a great first step,” Skenandore told the Wisconsin State Journal. “It’s been a long time coming. It’s kind of shocking that it hasn’t happened before.” Ho-Chunk Nation Chief Clayton Winneshiek told attendees the flag-raising was “a start.” UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank said the flag-raising was more than a symbolic gesture but part of an ongoing commitment to educate and acknowledge the state’s tribes and their sovereignty. Almost 190 years ago, the U.S. government and Ho-Chunk Nation signed the Treaty of 1832, which forced the tribe to give up territory that includes the UW-Madison campus. “For many years, UW-Madison was not mindful of this history, and we paid little attention to our relationship with the descendants of those who were here long before us,” Blank told a crowd of at least a couple hundred. “But we are working to change that.”\n\nWyoming\n\nTorrington: An inmate who died Wednesday is the fourth death in as many weeks at the Wyoming Medium Correctional Institution. The Casper Star Tribune reports 66-year-old Frank Lee Apodaca died Wednesday at the Community Hospital in Torrington. The Wyoming Department of Corrections said it will conduct an autopsy to determine the cause of death. Apodaca was from Fort Collins, Colorado, and sentenced to nine to 12 years in prison in 2017, after being convicted of third-degree sexual assault and intrusion on a victim under age 16 in Laramie County.\n\nFrom USA TODAY Network and wire reports", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2021/11/08"}]}
{"question_id": "20230317_22", "search_time": "2023/05/25/17:56", "search_result": [{"url": "https://www.theweek.co.uk/news/technology/960072/tiktok-a-uk-ban", "title": "TikTok ban for UK ministers | The Week UK", "text": "The government is to ban ministers and civil servants from having the Chinese-owned social media app TikTok on their work phones.\n\nThe video app “has been under increasing scrutiny over its security and data privacy”, said The Telegraph, and Parliament’s own TikTok account was shut down last August after MPs raised concerns about the app’s links to Beijing. Cabinet Office minister Oliver Dowden confirmed the ban in a statement in the House of Commons today.\n\n“Until recently, the UK had been relaxed about TikTok,” said The Guardian. But following an initial review by a cabinet committee, experts at GCHQ’s National Cyber Security Centre have “assessed the app and identified risks to sensitive information”, The Sunday Times reported.\n\nTikTok “has long maintained” that it does not store users’ data in China, but Beijing’s laws require firms, including tech companies, to aid the Communist Party and its intellectual services “when asked to do so”, said the newspaper. Western security officials have warned that “this could expose vast amounts of data” globally.\n\nRishi Sunak hinted at the ban on Monday. When asked if TikTok should be banned from government devices, the prime minister said that Westminster was looking “at what our allies are doing. And we’re in the process of doing all of that.”\n\nUS federal agency employees have been told to delete the app from government devices, while Belgium, the Netherlands and the European Commission have imposed bans on all official devices.\n\nTikTok, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, has attempted to assuage concerns, said The Guardian.\n\nLast week, it outlined a European security deal, dubbed Project Clover, that would see European user data stored on servers in Ireland and Norway, and any outside transfers “vetted by a third-party IT company”. A similar scheme, involving Oracle, is being considered in the US.", "authors": ["Julia O Driscoll"], "publish_date": "2023/03/16"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2023/04/05/tiktok-banned-in-florida-what-you-need-to-know-about-university-bans/70085629007/", "title": "TikTok banned in Florida? What you need to know about university ...", "text": "Florida State University announced on Monday that six apps, including TikTok, have been banned from campus effective immediately following a Florida Board of Governors statewide emergency regulation.\n\nThe Tallahassee Democrat reported that FSU’s campus ban extends not only to the apps but their respective websites and technologies, too. According to the announcement, the school would enforce this policy by blocking access to the platforms on university devices or while using FSU’s Wi-Fi.\n\nThe six apps named in the block were TikTok, TencentQQ, WeChat, Vkontakte, Kaspersky and Fizz.\n\nUWF ban:UWF joins FSU, UF in banning TikTok on university devices, Wi-Fi network\n\nFSU Associate Provost for Strategy and Analytics Rick Burnette and interim chief information officer told the Democrat that the ban was implemented to put “safety measures in place to protect our faculty, staff and students’ personal data against any personal threats.”\n\nFSU’s TikTok ban isn’t the first in the state or the nation. Florida A&M University’s Office of Information Technology Services sent an email on March 7 to all students, faculty and staff that the university was implementing a similar TikTok ban that blocked access on FAMU devices and its Wi-Fi network.\n\nThe University of Florida announced it was also banning TikTok on campus just hours after FSU’s announcement.\n\nThis ban is part of a series of TikTok bans sweeping across the nation. Here is why you're likely to see the trend continue.\n\nWhy does the U.S. government want to ban TikTok?\n\nGrowing privacy concerns over how the Chinese owners of TikTok handle user data, especially regarding whether the app could be infiltrated by the Chinese government to spy on its 150 million American users, is the central focal point around the ban.\n\nOfficials in Washington believe that the app could also be used by the Chinese government to spread propaganda to global audiences, and there are concerns about how harmful social media sites could be to younger users in general.\n\nOpinion:TikTok may be fun, but you should consider removing it\n\nIs TikTok getting banned in the U.S.?\n\nTikTok remains freely accessible to Americans for the moment, but the video-sharing platform has been under threat of a ban by the White House dating back to 2020, when former President Donald Trump issued the company an ultimatum: Divest from its Chinese owners or face a nationwide ban.\n\nWhile Trump’s threat ultimately didn’t pan out, The Wall Street Journal reported in March that the Biden administration had issued a similar demand.\n\nTikTok maintains that protecting national security and its users privacy is an important objective for the company. And during a regular press briefing, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Wang Wenbin said, “The U.S. side has so far failed to produce evidence that TikTok threatens U.S. national security.”\n\nOpinion:Congress wants to ban TikTok. They have no idea what that means to the rest of us.\n\nNegotiations between TikTok and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States — a U.S. multiagency comprised of Departments of Treasury, Justice, Homeland Security, Defense and Commerce — have stretched on for over two years without a resolution. The stalemate has prompted more aggressive measures from the Biden administration.\n\nIn 2022, Congress passed legislation that blocked access to TikTok from U.S. government devices. Several state governments have implemented similar policies.\n\nWhether the U.S. government will (or can) ban TikTok is still up in the air.\n\nWhat Florida universities have banned TikTok?\n\nOn March 29, the State University System of Florida Board of Governors approved emergency regulation that requires universities remove TikTok, TencentQQ, WeChat, Vkontakte, Kaspersky and Fizz from university devices and block them from their Wi-Fi networks.\n\nAs of publication, these are the Florida universities that have blocked the apps.\n\nUniversity of West Florida\n\nFlorida State University\n\nUniversity of Florida\n\nNew College of Florida\n\nFlorida Atlantic University\n\nFlorida International University\n\nFlorida Agricultural and Mechanical University\n\nUniversity of South Florida\n\nThe remaining universities in the system that have not announced bans are expected to release statements in the coming days.\n\nIs TikTok banned in Florida?\n\nWhile TikTok is not currently banned in the Sunshine State, DeSantis is pushing lawmakers to approve a “digital bill of rights” that would ban its use on government-issued devices and block access to the platform on internet services provided by public schools, universities and government offices.\n\nFederal ban:Tick-tock, TikTok: As Biden sets deadline for ban of social media app, here's what we know\n\nWhat countries have banned TikTok?\n\nThe following countries have implemented full or partial TikTok bans, according to the Associated Press:", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2023/04/05"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/02/tech/fcc-commissioner-tiktok-ban/index.html", "title": "FCC commissioner calls for TikTok ban | CNN Business", "text": "Washington CNN Business —\n\nThe US government should ban TikTok rather than come to a national security agreement with the social media app that might allow it to continue operating in the United States, according to Brendan Carr, a commissioner at the Federal Communications Commission.\n\nA string of news reports this year about TikTok’s handling of US user data has left Carr with “little confidence there’s a path forward,” he told CNN in a phone interview Tuesday. “Perhaps the deal CFIUS ends up cutting is an amazing, airtight deal, but at this point I have a very, very difficult time looking at TikTok’s conduct thinking we’re going to cut a technical construct that they’re not going to find a way around.”\n\nThe Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a multi-agency government body charged with reviewing business deals involving foreign ownership, has spent months negotiating with TikTok on a proposal to resolve concerns that Chinese government authorities could seek to gain access to the data TikTok holds on US citizens. This year the company said it had migrated its US user data to servers run by Oracle, but concerns have persisted over whether China-based employees of TikTok or its parent, ByteDance, will still be able to access that information. Those bipartisan fears were again raised in September, when under pressure from US lawmakers, TikTok declined to commit to cutting off data flows to China.\n\n“Commissioner Carr has no role in or direct knowledge of the confidential discussions with the US government related to TikTok and is not in a position to discuss what those negotiations entail” a TikTok spokesperson said in a statement to CNN. “We are confident that we are on a path to reaching an agreement with the US government that will satisfy all reasonable national security concerns.”\n\nCarr, who spoke to CNN from Taiwan during a first-ever visit by an FCC official to that country, said he has not met with CFIUS member agencies or the White House to specifically raise the issue, though he added the topic could have arisen incidentally amid other routine discussions.\n\nCarr’s call for a TikTok ban was first reported by Axios, and the remarks expand on his earlier calls for Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their respective app stores.\n\nCarr acknowledged that as an FCC official, his own capacity to regulate TikTok is limited; CFIUS, the Commerce Department or the Federal Trade Commission may have greater legal authority over the company, he said.\n\nStill, Carr said his call for a TikTok ban reflects a “natural progression in my thinking” and is informed by his own agency’s work to limit China’s influence in US telecommunications networks. The FCC has taken numerous steps to block or ban Chinese-affiliated telecom companies from selling equipment or services in the United States, over allegations that those companies could also be compelled to give up the data they hold on US communications to the Chinese government.\n\n“For me, this is taking what I’ve learned in the Huawei, ZTE, China Mobile context, where we’re looking at possibly nefarious data flows, and bringing it to bear in terms of this issue,” Carr said.", "authors": ["Brian Fung"], "publish_date": "2022/11/02"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/13/politics/elon-musk-spacex-starlink-ukraine/index.html", "title": "Exclusive: Musk's SpaceX says it can no longer pay for critical ...", "text": "Washington CNN —\n\nSince they first started arriving in Ukraine last spring, the Starlink satellite internet terminals made by Elon Musk’s SpaceX have been a vital source of communication for Ukraine’s military, allowing it to fight and stay connected even as cellular phone and internet networks have been destroyed in its war with Russia.\n\nSo far roughly 20,000 Starlink satellite units have been donated to Ukraine, with Musk tweeting on Friday the “operation has cost SpaceX $80 million and will exceed $100 million by the end of the year.”\n\nBut those charitable contributions could be coming to an end, as SpaceX has warned the Pentagon that it may stop funding the service in Ukraine unless the US military kicks in tens of millions of dollars per month.\n\nDocuments obtained by CNN show that last month Musk’s SpaceX sent a letter to the Pentagon saying it can no longer continue to fund the Starlink service as it has. The letter also requested that the Pentagon take over funding for Ukraine’s government and military use of Starlink, which SpaceX claims would cost more than $120 million for the rest of the year and could cost close to $400 million for the next 12 months.\n\n“We are not in a position to further donate terminals to Ukraine, or fund the existing terminals for an indefinite period of time,” SpaceX’s director of government sales wrote to the Pentagon in the September letter.\n\nAmong the SpaceX documents sent to the Pentagon and seen by CNN is a previously unreported direct request made to Musk in July by the Ukrainian military’s commanding general, General Valerii Zaluzhniy, for almost 8,000 more Starlink terminals.\n\nIn a separate cover letter to the Pentagon, an outside consultant working for SpaceX wrote, “SpaceX faces terribly difficult decisions here. I do not think they have the financial ability to provide any additional terminals or service as requested by General Zaluzhniy.”\n\nThe documents, which have not been previously reported, provide a rare breakdown of SpaceX’s own internal numbers on Starlink, detailing the costs and payments associated with the thousands of terminals in Ukraine. They also shed new light on behind-the-scenes negotiations that have provided millions of dollars in communications hardware and services to Ukraine at little cost to Kyiv.\n\nThe Pentagon confirmed they received correspondence from SpaceX about the funding of the Starlink satellite communications product in Ukraine, a statement from Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said Friday.\n\nEarlier in the day, Singh confirmed the Pentagon had been in communication with SpaceX but did not say whether it was over the funding of the Starlink satellite communication product.\n\nMusk on Friday said that in asking the Pentagon to pick up the bill for Starlink in Ukraine, he was following the advice of a Ukrainian diplomat who responded to Musk’s Ukraine peace plan earlier this month, before the letter was sent to the Pentagon, with: “F*** off.”\n\nUkraine’s ambassador to Germany, Andrij Melnyk, responded earlier this month to Musk’s claimed peace plan for Russia’s Ukraine war by saying: “F*** off is my very diplomatic reply to you @elonmusk.”\n\n“We’re just following his recommendation,” Musk said on Friday, responding to a tweet that referenced CNN’s reporting and Melnyk’s comments, even though the letter SpaceX sent to the Pentagon was sent before the Twitter exchange.\n\nReports of outages\n\nThe letters come amid recent reports of wide-ranging Starlink outages as Ukrainian troops attempt to retake ground occupied by Russia in the eastern and southern parts of the country.\n\nSources familiar with the outages said they suddenly affected the entire frontline as it stood on September 30. “That has affected every effort of the Ukrainians to push past that front,” said one person familiar with the outages who spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive conversations. “Starlink is the main way units on the battlefield have to communicate.”\n\nThis photograph taken on September 25 shows an antenna of the Starlink satellite-based broadband system donated by US tech billionaire Elon Musk in Izyum, Kharkiv region, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty Images\n\nThere was no warning to Ukrainian forces, a second person said, adding that now when Ukraine liberates an area a request has to be made for Starlink services to be turned on.\n\nThe Financial Times first reported the outages which resulted in a “catastrophic” loss of communication, a senior Ukrainian official said. In a tweet responding to the article, Musk didn’t dispute the outage, saying that what is happening on the battlefield is classified.\n\nSpaceX’s suggestion it will stop funding Starlink also comes amid rising concern in Ukraine over Musk’s allegiance. Musk recently tweeted a controversial peace plan that would have Ukraine give up Crimea and control over the eastern Luhansk and Donetsk regions.\n\nAfter Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky raised the question of who Musk sides with, he responded that he “still very much support[s] Ukraine” but fears “massive escalation.”\n\nMusk also argued privately last month that Ukraine doesn’t want peace negotiations right now and that if they went along with his plan, “Russia would accept those terms,” according to a person who heard them.\n\n“Ukraine knows that its current government and wartime efforts are totally dependent on Starlink,” the person familiar with the discussions said. “The decision to keep Starlink running or not rests entirely in the hands of one man. That’s Elon Musk. He hasn’t been elected, no one decided to give him that power. He has it because of the technology and the company he built.”\n\nOn Tuesday Musk denied a report he has spoken to Putin directly about Ukraine. On Thursday, when a Ukrainian minister tweeted that Starlink is essential to Ukraine’s infrastructure, Musk replied: “You’re most welcome. Glad to support Ukraine.”\n\n“The gall to look like heroes”\n\nMore than seven months into the war, it’s hard to overstate the impact Starlink has had in Ukraine. The government in Kyiv, Ukrainian troops as well and NGOs and civilians have relied on the nimble, compact and easy-to-use units created by SpaceX. It’s not only used for voice and electronic communication but to help fly drones and send back video to correct artillery fire.\n\nCNN has seen it used at numerous Ukrainian bases.\n\nElon Musk pauses and looks down as he speaks during a press conference at SpaceX's Starbase facility near Boca Chica Village in South Texas on February 10, 2022. Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images\n\n“Starlink has been absolutely essential because the Russians have targeted the Ukrainian communications infrastructure,” said Dimitri Alperovitch, co-founder of the Silverado Policy Accelerator, a think tank. “Without that they’d be really operating in the blind in many cases.”\n\nThough Musk has received widespread acclaim and thanks for responding to requests for Starlink service to Ukraine right as the war was starting, in reality, the vast majority of the 20,000 terminals have received full or partial funding from outside sources, including the US government, the UK and Poland, according to the SpaceX letter to the Pentagon.\n\nSpaceX’s request that the US military foot the bill has rankled top brass at the Pentagon, with one senior defense official telling CNN that SpaceX has “the gall to look like heroes” while having others pay so much and now presenting them with a bill for tens of millions per month.\n\nAccording to the SpaceX figures shared with the Pentagon, about 85% of the 20,000 terminals in Ukraine were paid – or partially paid – for by countries like the US and Poland or other entities. Those entities also paid for about 30% of the internet connectivity, which SpaceX says costs $4,500 each month per unit for the most advanced service. (Over the weekend, Musk tweeted there are around 25,000 terminals in Ukraine.)\n\nIn his July letter to Musk, Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, Gen. Zaluzhniy, praised the Starlink units’ “exceptional utility” and said some 4,000 terminals had been deployed by the military. However, around 500 terminals per month are destroyed in the fighting, Zaluzhniy said, before asking for 6,200 more terminals for the Ukrainian military and intelligence services and 500 per month going forward to offset the losses.\n\nSpaceX said they responded by asking Zaluzhniy to instead take up his request to the Department of Defense.\n\nOn September 8, the senior director of government sales for SpaceX wrote the Pentagon saying the costs have gotten too high, approaching $100 million. The official asked the Department of Defense to pick up Ukraine’s new request as well as ongoing service costs, totaling $124 million for the remainder of 2022.\n\nThose costs, according to the senior defense official, would reach almost $380 million for a full year.\n\nSpaceX declined repeated requests for comment on both the outages and their recent request to the Pentagon. A lawyer for Musk did not reply to a request for comment. Defense Department spokesman Bob Ditchey told CNN, “The Department continues to work with industry to explore solutions for Ukraine’s armed forces as they repel Russia’s brutal and unprovoked aggression. We do not have anything else to add at this time.”\n\nBreaking down the costs\n\nEarly US support for Starlink came via the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) which according to the Washington Post spent roughly $3 million on hardware and services in Ukraine. The largest single contributor of terminals, according to the newly obtained documents, is Poland with payment for almost 9,000 individual terminals.\n\nUS Pentagon in Washington DC building looking down aerial view from above Ivan Cholakov/iStockphoto/Getty Images\n\nThe US has provided almost 1,700 terminals. Other contributors include the UK, NGOs and crowdfunding.\n\nThe far more expensive part, however, is the ongoing connectivity. SpaceX says it has paid for about 70% of the service provided to Ukraine and claims to have offered that highest level – $4,500 a month – to all terminals in Ukraine despite the majority only having signed on for the cheaper $500 per month service.\n\nThe terminals themselves cost $1500 and $2500 for the two models sent to Ukraine, the documents say, while consumer models on Starlink’s website are far cheaper and service in Ukraine is just $60 per month.\n\nThat’s just 1.3% of the service rate SpaceX says it needs the Pentagon to start paying.\n\n“You could say he’s trying to get money from the government or just trying to say ‘I don’t want to be part of this anymore,’” said the person familiar with Ukraine’s requests for Starlink. Given the recent outages and Musk’s reputation for being unpredictable, “Feelings are running really high on the Ukrainian side,” this person said.\n\nMusk is the biggest shareholder of the privately-held SpaceX. In May, SpaceX disclosed that its valuation had risen to $127 billion and it has raised $2 billion this year, CNBC reported.\n\nLast week, Musk faced a barrage of criticism on Twitter – including from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky – after presenting in a series of tweets his peace plan to end the war. It would include giving Crimea to Russia and re-do referenda, supervised by the United Nations this time, in the four regions Russia recently illegally annexed.\n\nIt echoed comments he’d made last month at an exclusive closed-door conference in Aspen, Colorado called “The Weekend,” at which Musk told a room full of attendees that Ukraine should seek peace now because they’ve had recent victories.\n\n“This is the time to do it. They don’t want to do it, that’s for sure. But this is the time to do it,” he said, according to a person in the room. “Everyone wants to seek peace when they’re losing but they don’t want to seek peace when they’re winning. For now.”", "authors": ["Alex Marquardt"], "publish_date": "2022/10/13"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/2022/09/08/queen-elizabeth-funeral-plans-what-happens/5719778001/", "title": "Queen Elizabeth funeral plans: Operation Unicorn and beyond", "text": "Unlike most American presidents, British monarchs die in office, meaning there is plenty of time to plan a suitably grand funeral far in advance of the mournful day.\n\nAnd in the case of the late Queen Elizabeth II, who died Thursday at age 96 after 70 years on the throne, those plans in fact have been in place since the 1960s.\n\nThe funeral plan for the late sovereign is a characteristically Windsor blend of ancient tradition and modern practicalities, featuring tolling bells and half-mast flags with a ban on retweets and social media accounts gone dark.\n\nOperation London Bridge, as the queen's funeral plan is known, gets a military-style name in part because the military is heavily involved in organizing and carrying out many of the processions and ceremonies.\n\nQueen Elizabeth II dies 'peacefully':William, Harry traveled to be by her side\n\nThe world reacts:King Charles expresses 'greatest sadness' over mother Queen Elizabeth II's death\n\nBut another set of plans kicks into gear because the queen died at her beloved estate in Balmoral, Scotland. Dubbed Operation Unicorn, those plans, reports say, include having the queen's body remain in Scotland for a number of days before eventually being transported, likely by plane, to London.\n\nThe death of the monarch is simultaneously the birth of a new reign; as one set of Britain's ceremonial maestros prepares for the funeral of the queen, another set is working on Operation Spring Tide, the separate plan for the rituals accompanying the accession of her son, now known as King Charles III.\n\nWhen the queen's husband, Prince Philip Duke of Edinburgh, died in April 2021, his funeral plan was called Operation Forth Bridge after a bridge in Edinburgh, Scotland, and he was deeply involved in laying out details of what he did and didn't want for his send-off.\n\nHer previous health concerns:Injured Queen Elizabeth II didn't attend Remembrance Sunday, her scheduled return to public\n\nThe monarch's funeral plans are supposed to be top secret, but inevitably details get leaked because multiple palace officials and government departments are responsible for drafting sections or circulating them in advance.\n\nIt's been so long since the death of the last monarch (the queen's father, King George VI, died in 1952), relatively few people alive today have experienced a sovereign's funeral. That makes the elaborate ritual big news for a ceremony-obsessed nation, not to mention the rest of the world.\n\nDetails of Operation London Bridge first leaked in The Guardian in May 2017, describing what would happen during the 10-day period from the day after the death and the funeral at Westminster Abbey followed by interment in St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle.\n\nIn September 2021, another leak splashed into headlines, apparently after the plan was updated to account for the coronavirus pandemic, social media and other changes, this time it was in Politico.\n\n\"The documents show the extraordinary level of action required by all arms of the British state, including a vast security operation to manage unprecedented crowds and travel chaos that could see, in the words of one official memo, London becomes 'full' for the first time ever,\" Politico reported.\n\nBuckingham Palace declined to comment or confirm to USA TODAY any reports on the queen's funeral plan. Based on the Guardian and Politico reports, here are some of the things to expect:\n\nWhat's next?:What happens to the other royals under King Charles III and his new slimmed-down monarchy?\n\n'London Bridge is down': What happens when the queen dies\n\nThe moment the queen died, her eldest son and heir, the Prince of Wales, instantly became Britain's 42nd monarch, a tradition dating back to William the Conqueror in 1066. If he and his three siblings all were in fact at the bedside of their mother when she died, they would have acknowledged his new position by kissing his hand.\n\nThe late monarch's private secretary would then have called the prime minister on a secure line to say the code phrase, \"London Bridge is down,\" followed by a number of similar calls to cabinet officials and other high-ranking officials in the United Kingdom and in the 15 Commonwealth countries where the British sovereign is head of state.\n\nEmails will follow to lower-ranking civil servants, urging \"discretion\" until the PM officially announces the death.\n\nThe royal household notify the Press Association, which flash the news to the world's media (if they don't already know it from leaks). At the same time, a footman in mourning dress emerges from Buckingham Palace and post a black-edged death notice near the gates.\n\nWithin 10 minutes of the death, all the flags across Whitehall are supposed to be lowered to half-mast. The bells at St. Paul's Cathedral and Westminster Abbey toll for hours. The military will arrange gun salutes across London, including a 41-gun fusillade from Hyde Park.\n\nRoyal websites and social media will change to a black page with a short statement confirming the queen’s death. All government websites and social media pages will show a black banner. Non-urgent content will not be published and retweets by government officials will be banned without prior approval by the government communications chief.\n\nAt some point after the death, the prime minister will meet with Charles, who is expected to deliver a broadcast to the nation, his first as king.\n\nWhat to know:Who succeeds Queen Elizabeth II, more questions answered after her death\n\nProclamation confirms Charles as king on Day One\n\nThe Accession Council will meet at St. James’s Palace to proclaim the new sovereign, attended by scores of high-ranking officials and privy councilors, \"lords spiritual and temporal,\" including the prime minister, many in morning dress.\n\nAlthough Charles is already king at that point, the proclamation read (by an official in an antique costume) from the Friary Court balcony at St. James’s Palace and at the Royal Exchange in the City of London confirms him as the new monarch.\n\nIt also signals the religious significance of the British monarch: Charles' first official duty of his reign will be to swear three oaths: to protect the Church of Scotland; the Accession Oath, to be a true and faithful Protestant; and the coronation oath, promising to uphold the rights and privileges of the Church of England as its symbolic head.\n\nTrumpeters from the Life Guards, wearing red plumes on their helmets, will step onto the balcony to give three blasts, followed by the Garter King of Arms who will begin the ritual proclamations of the king. Costumed heralds will then fan out around the city and the nation, blasting their trumpets and declaiming proclamations.\n\nSubsequent days: Queen's coffin transfer\n\nAfter the queen rests in state among family and friends in Scotland, the queen's coffin will be transferred from the place of death to the throne room at Buckingham Palace overlooking the northwest corner of the Quadrangle interior courtyard. The plan calls for an altar, the pall (a large cloth draping the coffin), the royal standard and four Grenadier Guards, their bearskin hats inclined, their rifles pointing to the floor, standing watch.\n\nCharles' tour of the kingdom, procession\n\nThe new king will receive Parliament's motion of condolence at Westminster Hall, then depart on a tour of the kingdom to meet his people.\n\nHe is expected to visit Edinburgh in Scotland, Belfast in Northern Ireland and Cardiff in Wales, to attend services of remembrance for the queen and to meet the leaders of the kingdom's devolved governments.\n\nMeanwhile, rehearsals will take place for the procession of the coffin from Buckingham Palace to the Palace of Westminster, the sprawling complex also known as the Houses of Parliament.\n\nThe actual procession will take place along a ceremonial route in the first major military parade of the funeral: Down the Mall, through Horse Guards and past the Cenotaph, at a slow march, expected to take just under 30 minutes. The route is thought to hold around a million people, based on what was learned during the London 2012 Olympics.\n\nThe procession will be followed by a service in Westminster Hall, the magnificent building that is the oldest part of the Parliamentary complex (more than 900 years old) and is today used for state occasions.\n\n'I remain committed to serving you':Queen Elizabeth II's most memorable, poignant quotes\n\nQueen lies in state in London for a number of days\n\nThe queen will lie in state on a purple-draped catafalque in Westminster Hall. The coffin will have a false lid with a high rim to hold the Crown Jewels, the orb, the scepter and the Imperial Crown, in place. Soldiers will stand guard while the public shuffles past, 23 hours a day; up to a half-million people are expected. (VIPs may go to the head of the line.)\n\nIn 1936, the four sons of George V (the queen's grandfather) revived what's known as the Prince’s Vigil, in which members of the royal family arrive unannounced and stand watch. The queen’s children and grandchildren, including women for the first time, are expected to do the same.\n\nMeanwhile, rehearsals will take place for the state funeral procession, while government departments work to deal with potential problems of security threats, overcrowding in the transportation network and crowd control.\n\nThe queen's funeral at Westminster Abbey\n\nThe state funeral will be at Westminster Abbey, where British kings and queens traditionally were married, mourned and buried. The queen will be the first British monarch to have her funeral in the abbey since George II in 1760 (he was also buried there).\n\nInside the abbey, 2,000 guests will be assembled when the coffin arrives. Outside, Big Ben's muffled bell will toll. The day will be declared a Day of National Mourning and two minutes of silence will be marked across the nation.\n\nWhen the coffin emerges from the abbey, the pallbearers will place it on the green gun carriage that was used for the funerals of the queen’s father, grandfather and great-grandfather, all kings. From Hyde Park Corner, the hearse will go about 25 miles to Windsor Castle.\n\nThere will be a committal service in St. George’s Chapel, followed by burial in the royal vault's King George VI Memorial Chapel, where the queen will join her parents and sister, and be reunited with her beloved late husband.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/09/08"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/23/politics/fbi-investigation-huawei-china-defense-department-communications-nuclear/index.html", "title": "CNN Exclusive: FBI investigation determined Chinese-made ...", "text": "Washington CNN —\n\nOn paper, it looked like a fantastic deal. In 2017, the Chinese government was offering to spend $100 million to build an ornate Chinese garden at the National Arboretum in Washington DC. Complete with temples, pavilions and a 70-foot white pagoda, the project thrilled local officials, who hoped it would attract thousands of tourists every year.\n\nBut when US counterintelligence officials began digging into the details, they found numerous red flags. The pagoda, they noted, would have been strategically placed on one of the highest points in Washington DC, just two miles from the US Capitol, a perfect spot for signals intelligence collection, multiple sources familiar with the episode told CNN.\n\nAlso alarming was that Chinese officials wanted to build the pagoda with materials shipped to the US in diplomatic pouches, which US Customs officials are barred from examining, the sources said.\n\nFederal officials quietly killed the project before construction was underway. The Wall Street Journal first reported about the security concerns in 2018.\n\nThe canceled garden is part of a frenzy of counterintelligence activity by the FBI and other federal agencies focused on what career US security officials say has been a dramatic escalation of Chinese espionage on US soil over the past decade.\n\nSince at least 2017, federal officials have investigated Chinese land purchases near critical infrastructure, shut down a high-profile regional consulate believed by the US government to be a hotbed of Chinese spies and stonewalled what they saw as clear efforts to plant listening devices near sensitive military and government facilities.\n\nAmong the most alarming things the FBI uncovered pertains to Chinese-made Huawei equipment atop cell towers near US military bases in the rural Midwest. According to multiple sources familiar with the matter, the FBI determined the equipment was capable of capturing and disrupting highly restricted Defense Department communications, including those used by US Strategic Command, which oversees the country’s nuclear weapons.\n\nWhile broad concerns about Huawei equipment near US military installations have been well known, the existence of this investigation and its findings have never been reported. Its origins stretch back to at least the Obama administration. It was described to CNN by more than a dozen sources, including current and former national security officials, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.\n\nF.E. Warren Air Force Base, a strategic missile base, is located in Cheyenne, Wyoming, an area near a host of cell towers using Huawei equipment. From F.E. Warren Air Force Base/Facebook\n\nIt’s unclear if the intelligence community determined whether any data was actually intercepted and sent back to Beijing from these towers. Sources familiar with the issue say that from a technical standpoint, it’s incredibly difficult to prove a given package of data was stolen and sent overseas.\n\nThe Chinese government strongly denies any efforts to spy on the US. Huawei in a statement to CNN also denied that its equipment is capable of operating in any communications spectrum allocated to the Defense Department.\n\nBut multiple sources familiar with the investigation tell CNN that there’s no question the Huawei equipment has the ability to intercept not only commercial cell traffic but also the highly restricted airwaves used by the military and disrupt critical US Strategic Command communications, giving the Chinese government a potential window into America’s nuclear arsenal.\n\n“This gets into some of the most sensitive things we do,” said one former FBI official with knowledge of the investigation. “It would impact our ability for essentially command and control with the nuclear triad. “That goes into the ‘BFD’ category.”\n\n“If it is possible for that to be disrupted, then that is a very bad day,” this person added.\n\nTurning doves into hawks\n\nFormer officials described the probe’s findings as a watershed moment. The investigation was so secret that some senior policymakers in the White House and elsewhere in government weren’t briefed on its existence until 2019, according to two sources familiar with the matter.\n\nThat fall, the Federal Communications Commission initiated a rule that effectively banned small telecoms from using Huawei and a few other brands of Chinese made-equipment. “The existence of the investigation at the highest levels turned some doves into hawks,” said one former US official.\n\nIn 2020, Congress approved $1.9 billion to remove Chinese-made Huawei and ZTE cellular technology across wide swaths of rural America.\n\nBut two years later, none of that equipment has been removed and rural telecom companies are still waiting for federal reimbursement money. The FCC received applications to remove some 24,000 pieces of Chinese-made communications equipment—but according to a July 15 update from the commission, it is more than $3 billion short of the money it needs to reimburse all eligible companies.\n\nAbsent more money from Congress, the FCC says it plans to begin reimbursing approved companies for about 40 percent of the costs of removing Huawei equipment. The FCC did not specify a timeframe on when the money will be disbursed.\n\nIn late 2020, the Justice Department referred its national security concerns about Huawei equipment to the Commerce Department, and provided information on where the equipment was in place in the US, a former senior US law enforcement official told CNN.\n\nAfter the Biden administration took office in 2021, the Commerce Department then opened its own probe into Huawei to determine if more urgent action was needed to expunge the Chinese technology provider from US telecom networks, the former law enforcement official and a current senior US official said.\n\nThat probe has proceeded slowly and is ongoing, the current US official said. Among the concerns that national security officials noted was that external communication from the Huawei equipment that occurs when software is updated, for example, could be exploited by the Chinese government.\n\nDepending on what the Commerce Department finds, US telecom carriers could be forced to quickly remove Huawei equipment or face fines or other penalties.\n\nReuters first reported the existence of the Commerce Department probe.\n\n“We cannot confirm or deny ongoing investigations, but we are committed to securing our information and communications technology and services supply chain. Protecting US persons safety and security against malign information collection is vital to protecting our economy and national security,” a Commerce Department spokesperson said.\n\n\n\nInside Huawei's connection to rural America 02:55 - Source: CNN\n\nUS counterintelligence officials have recently made a priority of publicizing threats from China. This month, the US National Counterintelligence and Security Center issued a warning to American businesses and local and state governments about what it says are disguised efforts by China to manipulate them to influence US policy.\n\nFBI Director Christopher Wray just traveled to London for a joint meeting with top British law enforcement officials to call attention to the Chinese threats.\n\nIn an exclusive interview with CNN, Wray said the FBI opens a new China counterintelligence investigation every 12 hours. “That’s probably about 2,000 or so investigations,” said Wray. “And that’s not even talking about their cyber theft, where they have a bigger hacking program than that of every other major nation combined, and have stolen more of Americans’ personal and corporate data than every nation combined.”\n\nAsked why after years of national security concerns raised over Huawei, the equipment is still largely in place atop cell towers near US military bases, Wray said that, “We’re concerned about allowing any company that is beholden to a nation state that doesn’t adhere to and share our values, giving that company the ability to burrow into our telecommunications infrastructure.”\n\nHe noted that in 2020, the DOJ indicted Huawei with racketeering conspiracy and conspiracy to steal trade secrets.\n\n“And I think that’s probably about all I can say on the topic,” said Wray.\n\nCritics see xenophobic overreach\n\nDespite its tough talk, the US government’s refusal to provide evidence to back up its claims that Huawei tech poses a risk to US national security has led some critics to accuse it of xenophobic overreach. The lack of a smoking gun also raises questions of whether US officials can separate legitimate Chinese investment from espionage.\n\n“All of our products imported to the US have been tested and certified by the FCC before being deployed there,” Huawei said in its statement to CNN. “Our equipment only operates on the spectrum allocated by the FCC for commercial use. This means it cannot access any spectrum allocated to the DOD.”\n\n“For more than 30 years, Huawei has maintained a proven track record in cyber security and we have never been involved in any malicious cyber security incidents,” the statement said.\n\nIn its zeal to sniff out evidence of Chinese spying, critics argue the feds have cast too wide a net — in particular as it relates to academic institutions. In one recent high-profile case, a federal judge acquitted a former University of Tennessee engineering professor whom the Justice Department had prosecuted under its so-called China Initiative that targets Chinese spying, arguing “there was no evidence presented that [the professor] ever collaborated with a Chinese university in conducting NASA-funded research.”\n\nAnd on Jan. 20, the Justice Department dropped a separate case against an MIT professor accused of hiding his ties to China, saying it could no longer prove its case. In February, the Biden administration shut down the China Initiative entirely.\n\nThe federal government’s reticence across multiple administrations to detail what it knows has led some critics to accuse the government of chasing ghosts.\n\n“It really comes down to: do you treat China as a neutral actor — because if you treat China as a neutral actor, then yeah, this seems crazy, that there’s some plot behind every tree,” said Anna Puglisi, a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology. “However, China has shown us through its policies and actions it is not a neutral actor.”\n\nChinese tech in the American heartland\n\nAs early as the Obama administration, FBI agents were monitoring a disturbing pattern along stretches of Interstate 25 in Colorado and Montana, and on arteries into Nebraska. The heavily trafficked corridor connects some of the most secretive military installations in the US, including an archipelago of nuclear missile silos.\n\nFor years, small, rural telecom providers had been installing cheaper, Chinese-made routers and other technology atop cell towers up and down I-25 and elsewhere in the region. Across much of these sparsely populated swaths of the west, these smaller carriers are the only option for cell coverage. And many of them turned to Huawei for cheaper, reliable equipment.\n\nBeginning in late 2011, Viaero, the largest regional provider in the area, inked a contract with Huawei to provide the equipment for its upgrade to 3G. A decade later, it has Huawei tech installed across its entire fleet of towers, roughly 1,000 spread over five western states.\n\nAs Huawei equipment began to proliferate near US military bases, federal investigators started taking notice, sources familiar with the matter told CNN. Of particular concern was that Huawei was routinely selling cheap equipment to rural providers in cases that appeared to be unprofitable for Huawei — but which placed its equipment near military assets.\n\nFederal investigators initially began “examining [Huawei] less from a technical lens and more from a business/financial view,” explained John Lenkart, a former senior FBI agent focused on counterintelligence issues related to China. Officials studied where Huawei sales efforts were most concentrated and looked for deals that “made no sense from a return-on-investment perspective,” Lenkart said.\n\n“A lot of [counterintelligence] concerns were uncovered based on” those searches, Lenkart said.\n\nBy examining the Huawei equipment themselves, FBI investigators determined it could recognize and disrupt DOD-spectrum communications — even though it had been certified by the FCC, according to a source familiar with the investigation.\n\n“It’s not technically hard to make a device that complies with the FCC that listens to nonpublic bands but then is quietly waiting for some activation trigger to listen to other bands,” said Eduardo Rojas, who leads the radio spectrum lab at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida. “Technically, it’s feasible.”\n\nTo prove a device had clandestine capabilities, Rojas said, would require technical experts to strip down a device “to the semi-conductor level” and “reverse engineer the design.” But, he said, it can be done.\n\nAnd there was another big concern along I-25, sources familiar with the investigation said.\n\nWeather camera worries\n\nAround 2014, Viaero started mounting high-definition surveillance cameras on its towers to live-stream weather and traffic, a public service it shared with local news organizations. With dozens of cameras posted up and down I-25, the cameras provided a 24-7 bird’s eye view of traffic and incoming weather, even providing advance warning of tornadoes.\n\nBut they were also inadvertently capturing the movement of US military equipment and personnel, giving Beijing — or anyone for that matter — the ability to track the pattern of activity between a series of closely guarded military facilities.\n\nThe intelligence community determined the publicly posted live-streams were being viewed and likely captured from China, according to three sources familiar with the matter. Two sources briefed on the investigation at the time said officials believed that it was possible for Beijing’s intelligence service to “task” the cameras — hack into the network and control where they pointed. At least some of the cameras in question were running on Huawei networks.\n\nViaero CEO Frank DiRico said it never occurred to him the cameras could be a national security risk.\n\n“There’s a lot of missile silos in areas we cover. There is some military presence,” DiRico said in an interview from his Colorado office. But, he said, “I was never told to remove the equipment or to make any changes.”\n\nIn fact, DiRico first learned of government concerns about Huawei equipment from newspaper articles — not the FBI — and says he has never been briefed on the matter.\n\nDiRico doesn’t question the government’s insistence that he needs to remove Huawei equipment, but he is skeptical that China’s intelligence services can exploit either the Huawei hardware itself or the camera equipment.\n\n“We monitor our network pretty good,” DiRico said, adding that Viaero took over the support and maintenance for its own networks from Huawei shortly after installation. “We feel we’ve got a pretty good idea if there’s anything going on that’s inappropriate.”\n\nScouring the country for Chinese investments\n\nBy the time the I-25 investigation was briefed to the White House in 2019, counterintelligence officials begin looking for other places Chinese companies might be buying land or offering to develop a piece of municipal property, like a park or an old factory, sometimes as part of a “sister city” arrangement.\n\nIn one instance, officials shut down what they believed was a risky commercial deal near highly sensitive military testing installations in Utah sometime after the beginning of the I-25 investigation, according to one former US official. The military has a test and training range for hypersonic weapons in Utah, among other things. Sources declined to provide more details.\n\nFederal officials were also alarmed by what sources described as a host of espionage and influence activities in Houston and, in 2020, shut down the Chinese consulate there.\n\nUS Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Richard P. Donoghue announcing indictments against China's Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, several of its subsidiaries and its chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou on January 28, 2019. Joshua Roberts/Reuters\n\nBill Evanina, who until early last year ran the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, told CNN that it can sometimes be hard to differentiate between a legitimate business opportunity and espionage — in part because both might be happening at the same time.\n\n“What we’ve seen is legitimate companies that are three times removed from Beijing buy [a given] facility for obvious logical reasons, unaware of what the [Chinese] intelligence apparatus wants in that parcel [of land],” Evanina said. “What we’ve seen recently — it’s been what’s underneath the land.”\n\n“The hard part is, that’s legitimate business, and what city or town is not going to want to take that money for that land when it’s just sitting there doing nothing?” he added.\n\nA complicated problem\n\nAfter the results of the I-25 investigation were briefed to the Trump White House in 2019, the FCC ordered that telecom companies who receive federal subsidies to provide cell service to remote areas — companies like Viaero — must “rip and replace” their Huawei and ZTE equipment.\n\nThe FCC has since said that the cost could be more than double the $1.9 billion appropriated in 2020 and absent an additional appropriation from Congress, the agency is only planning to reimburse companies for a fraction of their costs.\n\nGiven the staggering strategic risk, Lenkart said, “rip and replace is a very blunt and inefficient remediation.”\n\nDiRico, the CEO of Viaero, said the cost of “rip and replace” is astronomical and that he doesn’t expect the reimbursement money to be enough to pay for the change. According to the FCC, Viaero is expected to receive less than half of the funding it is actually due. Still, he expects to start removing the equipment within the next year.\n\n“It’s difficult and it’s a lot of money,” DiRico said.\n\nSome former counterintelligence officials expressed frustration that the US government isn’t providing more granular detail about what it knows to companies — or to cities and states considering a Chinese investment proposal. They believe that not only would that kind of detail help private industry and state and local governments understand the seriousness of the threat as they see it, but also help combat the criticism that the US government is targeting Chinese companies and people, rather than Chinese state-run espionage.\n\n“This government has to do a better job of letting everyone know this is a Communist Party issue, it’s not a Chinese people issue,” Evanina said. “And I’ll be the first to say that the government has to do better with respect to understanding the Communist Party’s intentions are not the same intentions of the Chinese people.”\n\nA current FBI official said the bureau is giving more defensive briefings to US businesses, academic institutions and state and local governments that include far more detail than in the past, but officials are still fighting an uphill battle.\n\n“Sometimes I feel like we’re a lifeguard going out to a drowning person, and they don’t want our help,” said the current FBI official. But, this person said, “I think sometimes we [the FBI] say ‘China threat,’ and we take for granted what all that means in our head. And it means something else to the people that we’re delivering it to.”\n\n“I think we just need to be more careful about how we speak about it and educate folks on why we’re doing what we’re doing.”\n\nIn the meantime, the “rip and replace” program has remained fiercely controversial.\n\n“It’s not going to be easy,” DiRico said. “I’m going to be up nights worrying about it, but we’ll do what we’re told to do.”\n\nThis story has been updated to reference Wall Street Journal reporting.", "authors": ["Katie Bo Lillis"], "publish_date": "2022/07/23"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/03/tech/google-russia-youtube/index.html", "title": "Google and Russia's delicate dance | CNN Business", "text": "San Francisco CNN Business —\n\nRussia has spent months either driving out American tech firms or watching them leave of their own accord over its war in Ukraine. But the country now finds itself stuck in a stalemate with one big tech company: Google.\n\nMany of Google’s services, including search, maps, Gmail and, perhaps most importantly, YouTube, continue to be available in Russia at a time when Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are not. The situation illustrates the difficult position both sides now find themselves in and the tenuous current state of Russia’s internet ecosystem. Russia has attempted to wall off its internet from the world but appears to recognize the potential backlash from citizens for banning the most popular services. For its part, Google has spoken out against Russia’s actions but also has strategic and moral incentives to remain.\n\nThe Russian government continues to try to squeeze the Silicon Valley company, opening a new case against Google last Friday for its alleged failure to store data of Russian users inside the country. (Google did not respond to a request for comment on Russia’s move.) Weeks earlier, Google’s Russia subsidiary filed for bankruptcy and paused most of its commercial operations after the government seized control of its bank accounts in the country.\n\n“The Russian authorities’ seizure of Google Russia’s bank account has made it untenable for our Russia office to function, including employing and paying Russia-based employees, paying suppliers and vendors, and meeting other financial obligations,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement to CNN Business.\n\nHowever, Google has stopped short of pulling out of Russia altogether and Russia has stopped short of forcing it to do so.\n\n“People in Russia rely on our services to access quality information and we’ll continue to keep free services such as Search, YouTube, Gmail, Maps, Android and Play available,” the spokesperson added. (Google has taken some steps to pull back its services in Russia, banning Russian state media channels and preventing them from selling ads while also cracking down on misinformation around the war in Ukraine.)\n\nMeanwhile, Russia’s minister of digital development, Maksut Shadayev, ruled out a total ban on YouTube — one of Russia’s most popular online services. “We are not planning to block YouTube,” Shadayev was quoted as saying by Russian news agency Interfax. “Whenever we block anything, we should clearly understand that no harm will be done to our users,” he added.\n\n‘Last man standing’\n\nFor Google, there is a clear strategic value to keeping its services active in a country with more than 100 million internet users — and a market in which it already has a strong position.\n\n“Various Google services have obtained a significant market share in Russia, which the company may wish to maintain in the hope of an end to the war and lifting of sanctions,” said Mariëlle Wijermars, an assistant professor of cybersecurity and politics at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, whose work focuses on Russian internet policy. “Given Russia’s push towards establishing digital sovereignty, it may be difficult to re-enter the market.”\n\nBut some internet governance experts argue Google’s choice to keep services running in the country may have more of a moral imperative than a business one.\n\n“I think the moral side is a bigger deal,” said Daphne Keller, director of the program on platform regulation at Stanford University’s Cyber Policy Center. “Keeping information flowing to dissidents in Russia, or people who want information from a source other than state media, is incredibly important.”\n\nGoogle did not respond to questions about its motives for keeping its services active in Russia, but YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki last week laid out the role the video platform sees itself playing in the country.\n\n“The reason we are still serving in Russia and we believe that that is important is that we’re able to deliver independent news into Russia,” Wojcicki told an audience at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “And so the average citizen in Russia can access for free the same information that you can access here from Davos, which we believe is really important to be able to help citizens know what’s going on and have perspectives from the outside world.”\n\nYouTube is used by roughly three quarters of Russia’s online population, or more than 77 million people, according to estimates from Insider Intelligence. Despite continued warnings from the Russian government to take down content, YouTube remains one of the few digital links between Russia and the outside world, especially since other global platforms were blocked.\n\n“‪YouTube‬ ‪in‬ ‪particular ‪is‬ ‪kind of the‬ ‪last‬ ‪man‬ ‪standing‬, ‪if‬ ‪you‬ ‪will,” Alina Polyakova, president and CEO of the Washington DC-based Center for European Policy Analysis, told CNN Business. “Google finds itself the last company standing ‪in‬ ‪this‬ ‪broader battle between‬ ‪an‬ ‪authoritarian‬ ‪government‬ ‪and‬ ‪a‬ ‪Western‬ ‪technology‬ ‪company‬ ‪that‬ ‪provides‬ one of the last ‪remaining‬ ‪spaces‬ ‪for‬ free ‪expression in Russia.‬” (Google is one of several companies that CEPA receives “a small part” of its funding from in the form of donations, according to Polyakova.)\n\nWhy Russia blinked with Google\n\nRussia has used the war in Ukraine to step up its effort to wall off its internet from the rest of the world, building what some have described as a digital Iron Curtain. But its decision not to ban Google’s various services shows the limitations of Russia’s more restricted, homegrown internet.\n\nNot only is YouTube popular in the country, but Russian authorities have long used the platform to spread their own messaging, with state media channels such as RT and Sputnik reaching millions of subscribers before they were taken down.\n\n“Russia actively uses YouTube to disseminate propaganda,” Wijermars said. “For reaching younger generations who watch less traditional television, online dissemination of both TV shows and more tailored online formats has been important in order to expand the reach of its narratives.”\n\nUnlike the homegrown social network VK and search engine Yandex, no comparable local alternatives to YouTube exist in Russia (government-backed RuTube has failed to achieve the same level of popularity).\n\n“They don’t have a real domestic alternative, and I do think they fear a backlash because so many Russians use it,” Polyakova said. “And frankly that gives YouTube a lot of leverage.”\n\nYouTube is not the only popular western tech platform Russia has left alone. WhatsApp, the mobile messenger owned by Facebook’s parent company Meta, is still operational, with the Russian government saying it is exempt because it is a private messaging service rather than a public social network. But while Russia’s leniency towards YouTube has thus far extended to Google as a whole, Meta’s other platforms Facebook and Instagram were among the first to be blocked.\n\nYouTube is also just one of a number of Google services that Russians rely on.\n\n“It is unclear what would happen, for example, to its Android operating system, which is widely used in Russia, if Russia forces YouTube out,” said Wijermars. “The long list of technology firms that have announced they will leave the Russian market, together with the impact of sanctions, makes Russia’s digital economy very vulnerable to such disruptions.”\n\nFor the moment, it appears that Russia and Google are both willing to drag their feet and dare the other side to cut the cord.\n\n“I think certainly the Russian government is playing a very delicate game here,” said Polyakova. “There’s obviously a line that they don’t want to cross and force this company out completely.”", "authors": ["Rishi Iyengar"], "publish_date": "2022/06/03"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/18/tech/social-media-russia-government-accounts/index.html", "title": "Social media platforms tread carefully when it comes to the Russian ...", "text": "CNN Business —\n\nAs its troops have gotten bogged down in Ukraine, the Russian government has been fueling a conspiracy theory on social media about the purpose of US-funded biolabs in Ukraine.\n\nIn posts spread across Facebook, Twitter and YouTube viewed by CNN this week, Russia’s foreign and defense ministries have repeated claims that Ukraine had been researching biological weapons — an assertion that’s previously been rejected as false by the United States, its allies and a top United Nations disarmament official.\n\nIn fact, the US-supported labs are part of a program to develop vaccines and perform peaceful research, the United States has said, while White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki has described the Russian claim as “propaganda” and a potential pretext for Russia to deploy chemical or biological weapons itself in Ukraine.\n\nThe issue marks yet another front in the sprawling information war over Ukraine. And it highlights the challenge for social media platforms posed by Russian government accounts that critics say are freely allowed to spew disinformation to millions of users, even as those same platforms have moved to restrict Russian state media content over similar concerns.\n\nRather than announce blanket restrictions on Russian government accounts, as they’ve done with Russian state media, tech platforms have instead taken a more surgical approach by removing individual posts by government accounts that violate platform rules.\n\nHowever, as the information war continues, and as US officials increasingly blast the Russian government for spreading false claims, tech platforms may come under more pressure to crack down on accounts linked to the Kremlin, disinformation experts say.\n\n“We’re in a serious crisis situation right now, and we’re in an information warfare situation where maybe suspending these accounts, if not banning them for all eternity, would make a lot of sense,” said Alina Polyakova, president of the Center for European Policy Analysis, a think-tank that receives support from some tech giants including Google and Microsoft. “For now [the platforms] have stuck to a more free-speech approach rather than a blocking approach, which I also understand, but again, we’re in a very different situation when it comes to what’s happening in Ukraine right now.”\n\nCalifornia Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell put it more bluntly in a tweet last week: “RT NOW if @twitter should BAN the baby-killing country of Russia from its platform.”\n\nEarlier this week, Facebook removed a post by Russia’s embassy in the UK for disputing reported facts about the bombing of a hospital in Mariupol. The post violated Facebook’s policy against denying violent events, said Drew Pusateri, a spokesperson for Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram.\n\nSimilar posts by Russian embassy officials were also removed from Twitter for violating that platform’s policy against denying violent events, company spokesperson Katie Rosborough told CNN.\n\nThe affected Russian accounts remain active on both websites, along with the Russian foreign ministry and ministry of defense. On Twitter, an account run by the office of Russian President Vladimir Putin still shares Kremlin promotional photos and links to press releases. And on YouTube, a Russian government channel broadcasts speeches by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.\n\n“We don’t remove accounts even when we disagree with the content they post — but we do take action when they violate our rules,” said Meta’s Pusateri. “The world deserves the opportunity to hear and scrutinize the content of Russian leaders at this moment.”\n\nLike Facebook, Twitter labels government-run accounts, including Russia’s, for transparency. Twitter added Wednesday that its moves to restrict Russian state media has led to a 30% decrease in that content’s reach, and that it has also begun labeling accounts belonging to the Ukrainian and Belarusian governments.\n\n“While we’ve had a policy around state-affiliated media and government accounts for years, the war in Ukraine raises a complicated set of challenges in how we handle the accounts,” Rosborough said in a statement. “Our goal is to consistently enforce our rules while balancing the public interest.”\n\nIvy Choi, a spokesperson for YouTube, said the platform’s policies apply equally to all users, including Russian government channels, and that “our teams continue to monitor the situation closely.” Asked to name an account linked to Russia that has been banned from the platform, Choi said YouTube had terminated Vladimir Solovyov, a pro-Russia broadcaster, for repeatedly violating YouTube policies, including its policy against incitement. But the company did not identify any official Russian government accounts that have been banned.\n\nRussia has objected to what it’s described as censorship at the hands of western tech platforms, and has moved to block Facebook, Instagram, and to a lesser extent, Twitter within its borders. Russian internet users have flocked to digital circumvention tools in response to defeat the government’s information blackout.\n\nDifferences among platforms and how they work have in some cases led to varying policies and approaches to enforcement, said Polyakova, adding that greater regulation could lead to more uniform policies across the industry.\n\n“We’ve seen this hodgepodge approach that hasn’t always been coordinated or consistent; in general, this creates a lot of vulnerabilities and openings for spreaders of disinformation,” Polyakova said.\n\nSocial media sites’ handling of Russian government accounts also echoes how the companies have dealt with individual politicians for years.\n\nTech companies famously grappled with how to handle claims by Donald Trump — both before and during his presidency — with most platforms arguing it was important for users to hear what public figures have to say, if only to help keep them accountable. While some may argue it’s in the public interest for Russia’s claims to be documented and preserved, said Polyakova, there will always be ways to access Russia’s propaganda without giving it a megaphone on social media.\n\nThe posts viewed by CNN this week containing the debunked claims about Ukrainian biolabs were not accompanied by content warnings or labels, though the platforms did label the Russian accounts as government-run in accordance with existing policies.\n\nThe rapidly unfolding military, political and diplomatic situation may prompt platforms to hesitate in many scenarios, said Karen Kornbluh, a disinformation expert at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.\n\n“It’s a tough balancing act for platforms,” Kornbluh said. “They do not want to call the shots in foreign policy disputes.”\n\nBut even though tech companies may be wary of getting caught in an uncomfortable position, Kornbluh said, social media platforms should nevertheless consider applying to Russian government accounts some of the same restrictions they’ve applied to Russian state-run media, “especially when that same government is criminalizing truth in Russia with the new ‘fake news’ law” that threatens over a decade of jail time for contradicting official narratives about the war.", "authors": ["Brian Fung"], "publish_date": "2022/03/18"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/03/business/nightcap-zelle-fraud-warren-investigation/index.html", "title": "Zelle fraud is rising. And banks aren't coming to the rescue", "text": "This story is part of CNN Business’ Nightcap newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free, here.\n\nNew York CNN Business —\n\nZelle, the popular payment app, is under fire for how it handles (or rather, doesn’t handle) fraud and scams that have exploded on the platform in recent years.\n\nThe New York Times called Zelle out in two reports earlier this year. That grabbed the attention of US senators, who pressed the CEOs of the nation’s large banks that own the platform in hearings last month and began an investigation into the service.\n\nHere’s the deal: On Monday, Senator Elizabeth Warren’s office said its investigation into Zelle showed that fraud and theft are not only rampant but getting worse. And once people report fraudulent transactions, banks are reimbursing only a small fraction of the swindled customers.\n\nSen. Warren questions bank CEOs about Zelle during a Senate Banking Committee hearing on Sept. 22. Jacquelyn Martin/AP\n\n“Big banks own and profit from Zelle but are failing to make their customers whole for both authorized and unauthorized fraudulent activity on the platform, despite their claims that it is safe,” Warren’s office wrote.\n\nKey things to know:\n\nZelle (rhymes with “tell”) was created in 2017 as the banking industry’s answer to Venmo and Cash App.\n\nThe fintech companies behind those apps were doing what big banks had failed to do for decades — make transferring money to your friend who just paid for dinner easy and free and fast.\n\nSo the big banks got together and created Zelle, which was lame and almost no one used it till around 2020, when digital payments took off in response to the pandemic.\n\nZelle is now by far the largest peer-to-peer payment system in America. Last year, according to Zelle, transactions totaled $490 billion, up 59% from the year before. (PayPal-owned Venmo, its closest rival, handled $230 billion.)\n\nThe service is operated by Early Warning Systems, a fintech company owned by seven of the US’s largest banks.\n\nNaturally, where the internet and money collide is where scammers get to work.\n\nZelle’s size and accessibility — it’s built right into participating banks’ apps — make it the “preferred tool of fraudsters and other bad actors,” according to the report from Warren’s office.\n\nAmong the investigation’s key findings, which corroborate anecdotal evidence reported by the Times:\n\nBanks are not repaying 90% of cases in which customers were tricked into making payments on Zelle.\n\nAn estimated $440 million was lost by Zelle users through frauds and scams in 2021. But banks “appear not to have provided sufficient recourse to their customers.”\n\n“Authorized” vs “Unauthorized:” Under the a federal rule known as Regulation E, banks are technically only liable to cover fraudulent activity when it involves “unauthorized” transactions. Say, when someone steals your credit card and makes purchases without your permission. But if someone persuades you to send them $500 through a phishing scam, banks consider that “authorized” and won’t reimburse those funds.\n\nBUT… The bank data reviewed by Warren’s office suggest even the bulk of unauthorized cases are going unpaid. For example: PNC Bank indicated that its customers reported 10,683 cases of unauthorized payments totaling over $10.6 million. It refunded only 1,495 cases, totaling $1.46 million.\n\nZelle sought to downplay the report and didn’t specifically address Warren’s allegations Monday. In a statement, the company said: “Tens of millions of consumers use Zelle without incident, with more than 99.9% of payments completed without any report of fraud or scam,” adding that the proportion of fraud and scams has steadily decreased as its user numbers have climbed.\n\nThe Bank Policy Institute, a banking industry group, also disputed Warren’s findings and claimed that Zelle’s rivals Venmo and CashApp receive more reports of disputed transactions.\n\n“Zelle is the safest peer-to-peer network,” it said in a statement Monday. “For any real discussion of online fraud, the focus belongs elsewhere.”\n\nBOTTOM LINE\n\nIt’s kind of crazy to remember how anyone moved money among friends before the advent of payment apps. Did I actually carry cash with me? On the first every month did I take my little checkbook out and literally write out my portion of the rent on a magic slip of paper and then just hand it to my roommates? Wild. It would not surprise me if the original idea for a payments app came from a restaurant server who was fed up with splitting bills unevenly across eight different cards.\n\nBut that’s the pre-internet world Regulation E was made for. It’s a 1978 rule that only got a 21st century electronic payments update by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau late last year. It wasn’t made for the world of instant payments, and could hardly have envisioned how easy the internet would make it to swindle people out of their money.\n\nWarren’s report on Zelle could add pressure on regulators including the CFPB to update its guidance.\n\n“Given this uncertain landscape and the banks’ abdication of responsibility, regulatory clarity is needed to further protect Zelle users,” researchers wrote in the report, noting that the CFPB has regulatory authority over peer-to-peer platforms including Zelle.\n\nNUMBER OF THE DAY: $1.26 million\n\nKim Kardashian, the reality TV star, cosmetics entrepreneur and budding private-equity manager, was hit with a $1.26 million fine for touting what turned out to be a worthless crypto token to her millions of Instagram followers.\n\nKardashian failed to disclose that she was paid $250,000 for the endorsement. Her hashtag “#ad” in the June 2021 post wasn’t enough to satisfy the Securities and Exchange Commission. In addition to the fine, Kardashian agreed to refrain from any crypto asset promotions for three years.\n\n“This case is a reminder that, when celebrities or influencers endorse investment opportunities, including crypto asset securities, it doesn’t mean that those investment products are right for all investors,” said SEC Chair Gary Gensler.\n\nUK U-Turn\n\nIn a development that I can only assume means that Liz Truss is a Nightcap reader, the British government is reversing part of its tax proposal that was so unpopular it nearly tanked the UK bond market last week.\n\nHere’s the deal: The newly installed government of Prime Minister Liz Truss had announced a massive slate of tax cuts that have amounted to a windfall for the nation’s wealthiest people, slashing the top rate of income tax to 40% from 45%.\n\nThat provision “had become a distraction,” the finance minister said Sunday.\n\nThe proposed cuts of more than $50 billion were aimed at turbo-boosting growth. Instead, it caused panic. The pound plunged to its lowest level against the US dollar, and sparked chaos in the market for UK debt because they will require a large increase in government borrowing.\n\nIt was a dumpster fire of a plan that no mainstream economist supported.\n\nBut, as my colleague Mark Thompson writes, the about-face is more of a symbolic gesture than a genuine reckoning. It will likely reduce the overall size of the tax-cutting package by about £2 billion.\n\n“This move is rather symbolic, being less about the amount of money it will save (low billions) and more about the poor signal it had delivered of ideological (unfunded) tax cuts,” wrote Chris Turner, global head of UK markets at ING.\n\nBottom line: The Truss government’s unfunded tax cuts, which set off a panic in financial markets and put Downing Street in a standoff with the Bank of England, remain, uh, unfunded. The BOE’s bond-buying intervention may have bought the government some time, but Truss has shown no signs of budging on her fringe trickle-down economic theory.\n\nTruss’ finance minister, Kwasi Kwarteng, “still has a lot of work to do if he is to display a credible commitment to fiscal sustainability,” said Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, on Monday.\n\n“Unless he also U-turns on some of his other, much larger tax announcements, he will have no option but to consider cuts to public spending: to social security, investment projects, or public services.”\n\nEnjoying Nightcap? Sign up and you’ll get all of this, plus some other funny stuff we liked on the internet, in your inbox every night. (OK, most nights — we believe in a four-day work week around here.)", "authors": ["Allison Morrow"], "publish_date": "2022/10/03"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/12/tech/russia-internet-censorship-circumvention/index.html", "title": "Russian internet users are learning to beat Putin's internet ...", "text": "CNN Business —\n\nA digital Iron Curtain may be descending on Russia, as President Vladimir Putin struggles to control the narrative about his war in Ukraine. The Kremlin has already moved to block Facebook and Twitter, and its latest step in that direction came Friday as the government announced plans to block Instagram in the country, as well.\n\nBut despite Putin’s efforts to clamp down on social media and information within his borders, a growing number of Russian internet users appear determined to access outside sources and circumvent the Kremlin’s restrictions.\n\nTo defeat Russia’s internet censorship, many are turning to specialized circumvention technology that’s been widely used in other countries with restricted online freedoms, including China and Iran. Digital rights experts say Putin may have inadvertently sparked a massive, permanent shift in digital literacy in Russia that will work against the regime for years.\n\nSince the invasion of Ukraine, Russians have been flocking to virtual private networks (VPNs) and encrypted messaging apps, tools that can be used to access blocked websites such as Facebook or safely share news about the war in Ukraine without running afoul of new, draconian laws banning what Russian authorities consider to be “fake” claims about the conflict.\n\nA rapid rise in downloads\n\nDuring the week of February 28, Russian internet users downloaded the five leading VPN apps on Apple and Google’s app stores a total of 2.7 million times, a nearly three-fold increase in demand compared to the week before, according to the market research firm SensorTower.\n\nThat growth dovetails with what some VPN providers have reported. Switzerland-based Proton, for example, told CNN Business it has seen a 1,000% spike in signups from Russia this month. (The company declined to provide a baseline figure for comparison, however.)\n\nVPN providers are just one type of application seeing higher uptake in Russia. Since March 1, a range of messaging apps including Meta’s Messenger and WhatsApp services have seen a gradual increase in traffic, said the internet infrastructure company Cloudflare, a trend consistent with an increase in traffic to global social media platforms such as Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and TikTok.\n\nBut perhaps the fastest-growing messaging app in Russia may be the encrypted messaging app Signal. SensorTower said Signal was downloaded 132,000 times in the country last week, an increase of more than 28% from the week before. Russian internet traffic to Signal has seen “significant growth” since March 1, Cloudflare told CNN Business.\n\nOther private messaging apps, such as Telegram, saw a relative slowdown in growth that week but still witnessed more than half a million downloads in that timeframe, SensorTower said.\n\nIn recent weeks, Russian internet users also appear to have increased their reliance on Tor, a service that anonymizes internet browsing by scrambling a user’s traffic and bouncing it through multiple servers around the world. Beginning the day of the Ukraine invasion, Tor’s metrics page estimated that thousands more Russian users were accessing the web through secret servers connected to Tor’s decentralized network.\n\nTor users got a helping hand from Twitter on Tuesday, as the social network — which has been partially blocked in Russia following the invasion — added the ability to access its platform through a specialized website designed for Tor users. Facebook, for its part, has had its own Tor site since 2014.\n\nAnd Lantern, a peer-to-peer tool that routes internet traffic around government firewalls, began seeing more downloads from Russia starting about two months ago, said Sascha Meinrath, a communications professor at Penn State University who sits on the board of Lantern’s parent company, Brave New Software.\n\nLantern has seen a 2,000% increase in downloads from Russia alone over the past two months, Meinrath said, with the service going from 5,000 monthly users in Russia to more than 120,000. By comparison, Meinrath said, Lantern has between 2 million and 3 million users globally, mostly in China and Iran.\n\n“Tor, Lantern, all the VPNs, anything that’s masking who you are or where you’re going —Telegram — everything, downloads are increasing dramatically,” said Meinrath. “And it’s a bootstrapping thing, so the people that are on Telegram, they’re using that to swap notes about what else you should download.”\n\nThe most tech-savvy and privacy-conscious users, said Meinrath, know how to combine multiple tools together to maximize their protection — for example, by using Lantern to get around government blocks while also using Tor to anonymize their activity.\n\nThe war for information technology\n\nThe growing prominence of some of these tools highlights the stakes for Russian internet users as the Kremlin has detained thousands of people for protesting the war in Ukraine. And it contrasts with the steps Russia has taken to clamp down on social media, from blocking Facebook entirely to passing a law that threatens up to 15 years behind bars for those who share what the Kremlin deems “fake” information about the war.\n\nNatalia Krapiva, a lawyer at the digital rights group Access Now, said some Russian internet users have been using secure communications tools for years, as the Russian government began restricting internet freedoms more than a decade ago.\n\nIn the past, the Russian government has tried to block Tor and VPN providers, Krapiva said. But it hasn’t been very successful, she said, due to Tor’s open, decentralized design that hinges on many distributed servers and the willingness of new VPN providers to fill the gap left behind by banned ones. What Russia faces now is an intensifying game of cat and mouse, Krapiva said.\n\nBut while Putin may not be able to shut down censorship-resistant technologies entirely, supporters of the Kremlin can still try to drag it into Russia’s wider information war and hinder adoption.\n\nOn February. 28, Signal said it was aware of rumors suggesting the platform had been compromised in a hack — a claim the company flatly denied. Without blaming Russia directly, Signal said it suspected the rumors were being spread as “part of a coordinated misinformation campaign meant to encourage people to use less secure alternatives.”\n\nSignal’s claim underscores how quickly the information war has evolved from being about the news coming out of Ukraine to being about the services people use to access and discuss that news.\n\nIf only a small minority of Russians end up embracing circumvention technologies to get access to outside information, it may allow Putin to dominate the information space within the country. And while there are many indications of growing interest in these tools, it appears to be on the scale of thousands, not millions, at least for now.\n\n“The concern, of course, is that the majority of the people, the general population, might not necessarily know about those tools,” said Krapiva. “[They] can be complex if your digital literacy is quite low, so it’s going to remain a challenge to have a bigger section of the population really adopt these tools. But I’m sure there will be more education and I want to remain hopeful they will persevere.”\n\nNormalizing censorship-resistant tech\n\nSome digital rights experts say it’s important for these tools to be used for ordinary and innocuous internet activities, too, not just potentially subversive ones. Performing mundane tasks like checking email, accessing streaming movies or talking to friends using these technologies makes it harder for authoritarian regimes to justify cracking down on them, and can make it more difficult to identify efforts to violate government restrictions on speech and access.\n\n“The more that regular users use censorship-resistant technology for everyday activities like unblocking movies, the better,” said John Scott-Railton, a security and disinformation researcher at The University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab.\n\nAnd this may only be the start. Meinrath said the government restrictions will likely trigger not just broader adoption of circumvention tools in Russia but also further research and development of new tools by Russia’s highly skilled and tech-savvy population.\n\n“We’re at the beginning of a J-curve,” Meinrath said, adding: “This is a one-way transformation in Russia.”", "authors": ["Brian Fung"], "publish_date": "2022/03/12"}]}
{"question_id": "20230317_23", "search_time": "2023/05/25/17:56", "search_result": [{"url": "https://www.theweek.co.uk/news/world-news/960066/man-to-walk-marathon-backwards", "title": "Man to walk marathon backwards | The Week UK", "text": "A man who once crawled the London Marathon while dressed as a gorilla is to walk the entire 26.2 miles backwards in aid of Ukraine. Tom Harrison said he is taking on the challenge as a way of “looking over my shoulder for Ukraine”. The project manager said he hopes the “quirky” and “eye-catching” scheme idea will help to draw attention to the cause. His funds will be donated to the Red Cross.\n\nTitanic-tongued man sets Jenga record\n\nA US man with the world’s longest tongue set a new Guinness World Record for the fastest time to remove five Jenga blocks with the tongue. Nick Stoeberl of California, managed to remove the five Jenga blocks from a stack in 55.526 seconds, winning the curious honour. He also uses his “record-breaking tongue” to paint, said UPI.\n\nDinosaur had longest neck\n\nThe Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum had the longest neck of any animal that has ever existed, measuring nearly 50ft, a new study has found. The Telegraph said that the “crane-like projection” allowed the creature to stand in a single spot “hoovering up tons of vegetation” but “expending little energy”. The Mamenchisauridae family “roamed East Asia” approximately 174 to 114m years ago, claim scientists.\n\nFor more odd news stories, sign up to the weekly Tall Tales newsletter.", "authors": ["Chas Newkey-Burden"], "publish_date": "2023/03/16"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/2011/10/24/guinness-combs-world-for-largest-afro-and-finds-napoleonville-native/26994025007/", "title": "Guinness combs world for largest Afro and finds Napoleonville native", "text": "Thad Angelloz Staff Writer\n\nFrom the same south Louisiana community that brought the world athletes like New York Giants' Brandon Jacobs, Green Bay Packers' Tramon Williams and 2008 Olympic silver medalist Kim Willoughby, comes the town's newest claim to fame: Aevin Dugas.\n\nThe difference between Dugas and her cohorts is what sits atop her head.\n\nDugas recently made the Guinness Book of World Records where she's listed as the woman with the world's largest female Afro, measuring 7.3 inches high, 7.7 inches wide and 4-feet, 4-inches in circumference.\n\n“It's actually a random type thing,” the 35-year-old native of Napoleonville said. “My sister posted some pictures of my Afro on Facebook. A friend saw some of the photos and told me I should check into Guinness.”\n\nAfter finding information about the contest at Nappturality.com, Dugas said she was blown away when the British record-keepers contacted her. To qualify, no hairspray, mousse, gel or other products could be used.\n\nDugas said she submitted a bunch of hair-related pictures to Guinness officials in May 2010. Her record was authenticated three months later.\n\n“The toughest thing is even though I was told I had the record in August of last year I couldn't tell anyone about it,” she said. “I basically had to keep the whole thing a secret until last month.”\n\nWhile Guinness would typically feature the world's tallest man or heaviest dog, largest Afro is something new to Guinness.\n\n“This is the first ever year that Guinness has recognized the largest Afro,” Michael Whitty, a Guinness photo editor who came to New Orleans last year to meet with Dugas, said through an email. “We looked long and hard around the world for suitable potential candidates with help from various hair consultants and specialists. Aevin's photos lept out at us and she made the short list. Once we had everyone's measurement evidence she was clearly our standout winner.”\n\nDugas said she was inspired to go natural with her hair 12 years ago as a way of protesting against chemicals she says, “are destroying African-American women's hair.”\n\nDeciding to grow an Afro that was similar to the one her mom had in the 1970s felt right for a person that acknowledges having a sincere love for vintage clothing and jewelry.\n\n“I guess you could call me old school,” Dugas said. “I'm just a person that appreciates older fashions and hair styles.”\n\nTricia West said what's amazing is how Dugas managed to grow her impressive “do” naturally without the use of any hair sprays or chemicals.\n\n“When I saw a picture of her, my first thought was she's beautiful and has gorgeous hair,” said West, a former teacher at Paul Mitchell School in Charlotte. “To think she's been able to do what she has without even as much as setting foot in a salon is something that is absolutely incredible.”\n\nWest, a Thibodaux native currently living in Charlotte, where she works as a hair stylist and makeup artist for Groove Salon, said she's heard of many African-American women taking a similar natural approach to their overall hair care, but noted it is obvious Dugas' hair differs from others she's seen during her career.\n\n“She has a really good curl pattern,” she said. “That allows her hair to be more workable and easier for her personally to care for. The other thing I was blown away by was her hair color. From a stylist's perspective, I can't state enough about how impressed I truly am with her hair.”\n\nDugas said the comments directed at her have been overwhelmingly positive because “going natural” has become more commonplace in today's society.\n\n“When I was still in Napoleonville and decided to start the whole natural thing, people used to make fun of me, but as of late, that doesn't happen anymore cause natural is what's in right now,” she said.\n\nOn the day Dugas was contacted, her hair was actually down and braided.\n\n“I don't just go wearing my hair like that every day,” Dugas said about her record-setting Afro. “There's a time and place for it, and even when I don't pick it out all the way it can be a hindrance because it gets in my eyes and knocks up against people.”\n\nBesides upkeep, Dugas said her hair has presented its fair share of problems, like the time she got caught up in a low-hanging tree that pulled her and her hair backward.\n\n“My younger sister, Sarah, is always playing jokes on me,” she said referring specifically to the time when Sarah threw some coins in her hair. “I was able to remove all of them, but one. That coin fell out while I was taking a nap. When I woke it scared the heck out of me because I thought it was a roach at first.”\n\nDugas said her sister has even been known to put her Blackberry phone in her hair and call it repeatedly.\n\n“I don't like that too much,” she said with a chuckle.\n\nDugas, who works for her parent's residential-care facility for adults with developmental disabilities, said officials with “2012 Guinness Book of World Records,” that hit store shelves in mid-September, flew her to London right before the book was released.\n\nWhile there for a photo and video shoot, Dugas had the opportunity to meet some other world record-setters — like a woman with the world's largest tongue.\n\n“It was the craziest thing I'd ever seen,” Dugas said. “I mean here I am from Napoleonville riding in a cab with this woman with a tongue the length of an iPhone. This definitely isn't something you see every day.”\n\nDugas said she still has trouble believing she's a world record-holder.\n\n“Before I left London, I saw the book in the airport and picked it up,” she said. “I had to look up my name again just to make sure that this whole thing was real.”\n\nDugas said she has a blog, afromaniacs.com, where she shares her experiences with products and styling.\n\nAccording to Dugas, she takes vitamins, works out and maintains a balanced diet that has contributed to her achieving her Afro record.\n\nShe rarely heat-styles it straight, but when she has, her hair stretches down her back, nearly to her waist.\n\nTo keep her Afro looking good, Dugas goes through a multiday process where she shampoos, conditions, towels off, plaits it into two French braids and let's it dry for a day or two.\n\nWhen fully dry, she unbraids it, spritzes with a water-and-conditioner mix she keeps in a spray bottle, and picks it out.\n\nWhitty said having the chance to work with Dugas was a rare treat.\n\n“Aevin was a very popular record-holder and her fabulous Louisiana accent went down like a storm over here. She had great stories, a great message and a wonderful delivery style that did Louisiana proud!,” he said in an email.\n\n“It is something I'm proud of,” Dugas added.\n\nStaff Writer Thad Angelloz can be reached at 857-2207 or at thad.angelloz@houmatoday.com.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2011/10/24"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/2022/12/06/wrestling-mailbag-dec-6-final-cy-hawk-analysis-ncaa-wrestling-results-team-usa-wrestling-world-cup/69704448007/", "title": "Final Iowa vs Iowa State wrestling thoughts, Team USA, World Cup ...", "text": "A lot of you guys asked about Sunday's Cy-Hawk dual, so before we rehash a lot of that again, some quick thoughts about the World Cup.\n\nNo, not that World Cup.\n\nWrestling's World Cup, the one where Team USA will actually, legitimately contend and is coming to Coralville's Xtream Arena this week.\n\nFor the first time ever, both the men's and women's freestyle World Cup competitions will be held in the same building at the same time. It's a tremendous opportunity for wrestling to put their top men's and women's wrestlers on the same stage and give them the same shine. That's a really cool thing.\n\nWe know the men's freestyle competition will be a banger. We saw as much in 2018, when Team USA beat Azerbaijan 6-4 in the finals. It was a fantastic few days of wrestling, despite not having Iran, Russia, or Turkey in the building, which was originally the plan.\n\nBut the women's competition deserves your attention, too. The popularity of girls and women's wrestling has skyrocketed in recent years, and the folks at Xtream Arena and Think Iowa City have helped facilitate that by hosting the girls wrestling state championships, adding a girls division to the Dan Gable Donnybrook, and now by bringing the women's World Cup to be contested alongside the men this week.\n\nRELATED:How Coralville and Xtream Arena became America’s wrestling hotspot\n\nThe competition, set for Saturday and Sunday, will be an amazing confluence of different cultures and incredible wrestling and it's all going to be so much fun. It will also be a chance for Team USA to test its depth against some of the top wrestling countries in the world.\n\nNeither the U.S. men or women's freestyle teams will field their full A-Team lineups this week, which is a bummer, but there's still some serious star-power on both squads. The men will have five returning world team members, led by world champs Jordan Burroughs and Kyle Snyder. The women will have five returning world-teamers as well, led by world champ Amit Elor and returning medalists Kayla Miracle and Mallory Velte.\n\nWe'd like to see the entire A Teams out there, sure, but it's also an opportunity for other Americans to get some shine against international stars. Iowa's own Felicity Taylor, for example, will go at 53 kilograms (116 pounds) for the women's team and will face two returning Senior world championship combatants. Nate Jackson, a universal fan favorite, will likely see a world medalist from September. Those are just two examples.\n\nIt's a little weird to inject some freestyle energy into a time normally reserved for folkstyle. But this weekend's action will be absolutely worth it if you can make it. I'll be there all weekend taking in some of the best wrestling the world has to offer. Hope to see you there.\n\nOK, onto the Wrestling Mailbag. A lot of final Cy-Hawk thoughts today, plus a quick look back at the Dan Gable Donnybrook and another look ahead to the World Cup. Welcome to December, you guys. It's very cold.\n\nPlease give me a follow on Twitter and I’ll keep you up to date on all things wrestling in Iowa. Don't forget to tune into the Register's wrestling podcast, In the Room, each week. You can find the latest episodes below.\n\nThanks for your help here, and for reading.\n\nFinal thoughts on Sunday's thrilling Cy-Hawk wrestling dual\n\nAll of them. Can I say all of them? I'm going to say all of them.\n\nThat's a cop-out answer, but it's also the honest one. Seemingly every match had something great.\n\nReal Woods made his Iowa debut, and Casey Swiderski wasn't scared. Paniro Johnson continues to look like one of the nation's top 149-pounders. Cobe Siebrecht! David Carr! Marcus Coleman and Abe Assad are fairly even. So are Jacob Warner and Yonger Bastida. Sam Schuyler has wrestled really well this season, but Tony Cassioppi reminded everybody that he's world class. And, oh yeah, Spencer Lee is back.\n\nThat's what the Cy-Hawk dual should look like and feel like all the time. Every match was intense. Every match, clearly, mattered. The dual ended 5-5, which sounds about right. If you wrestle that dual 10 times, a handful of those matches — 133, 149, 157, 165, 184, 197 — would go completely differently.\n\nIt is hard for me to pick one favorite because I liked so many matches for so many reasons. Lee's return injected more juice into an already-wound-up building. Woods-Swiderski poured gasoline on the fire. Johnson-Max Murin was a chess match, and then Siebrecht goes out and launched Jason Kraisser on his head. Carr was very tactical. Nelson Brands was a bulldozer, then 184 and 197 could've gone either way.\n\nI wrote this yesterday, but the last time the Cy-Hawk dual went 5-5 in matches was 2018, when Iowa eked out a 19-18 win after getting upset at three weights, losing another due to an injury default, but rallied thanks to Jacob Warner beating Willie Miklus, Sam Stoll wrestling on a bad knee, and Austin DeSanto not getting pinned. But before that? It was 2004 … which was the last time Iowa State won the Cy-Hawk dual.\n\nThat tells me Iowa State is as close as they've ever been to the Hawkeyes, at least in a dual setting. They still have a ways to go in a tournament setting, but duals are often great barometers for program rebuilds, and it's clear the Cyclones have taken good steps forward under Kevin Dresser.\n\nThe best part? Not unreasonable to think we could see a lot of those matchups again. The matchups at 141, 149, 165, 184 and 197, especially, felt like NCAA quarterfinal/bloodround matches on Sunday. Put those matches on the dogbone mats inside Tulsa's BOK Center in March and see how much more intense they get.\n\nMORE:19 things we learned from Iowa’s 18-15 win over Iowa State\n\nIowa's Jacob Warner vs. Iowa State's Yonger Bastida at 197 pounds\n\nWent about how I expected. Here the full notebook dump from when I rewatched the match:\n\nBastida is so fast when he decides to pull the trigger offensively. We saw that when he scored two takedowns in the first period — including one at the buzzer, which was huge. Warner is a gamer, made positional adjustments (which can be hard to do against a fast-twitch guy like Bastida), and was in on shots in both the second and third periods. If he finishes the one in the third on the edge, he wins.\n\nThese are two All-American-caliber wrestlers, which, like, duh. Warner is a three-time podium finisher and returning NCAA finalist. Bastida won four in a row in the wrestlebacks en route to a fifth-place finish last March. Would not be surprise if they hit again in March, but 197 is a volatile weight class — returning champ Max Dean lost twice this past week — so who knows how the seeds will shake out three-and-a-half months from now.\n\nBastida likes to play mind games on the mat, even if only a little. Both guys were swiping at each other with heavy hands, but Bastida stuck his tongue out at Warner during the second period, probably as a way to frustrate Warner. Looked funny on video. Taunting can be hit and miss. Warner might've bit on that as a freshman and reacted with a poor decision. It likely still made him mad in the moment. He'll remember that.\n\nWhen it comes to the actual wrestling, you got a real good look at Bastida's technique on his two takedowns.\n\nHis first came after a flurry of slight level changes, then he dropped to a low-ankle shot on Warner's left leg but used it more as a shot-entry because he immediately got his hips under him, came up, popped his head outside, cut across for a double. That speed is insane.\n\nOn his end-of-the-period takedown, Bastida muscled into double-unders, elevated on the left side while simultaneously dropping his right hand to pick Warner's left ankle and covers on the edge for the takedown at the gun — then he clapped in Warner's face after the buzzer sounded.\n\nBastida picked neutral in the second period, which tells me he respects Warner's top game. Noticed that throughout the match Bastida clubbed Warner's head or tried to snap him to the mat and often grabbed his headgear. Ref gave him a verbal warning in the second period, then he got dinged for it in the third, resulting in a point for Warner. Dresser pointed to his temple, telling Bastida to stay calm. Found that interesting.\n\nYou could tell in the second period that Warner's heavy hands and constant pressure were starting to get to Bastida a little. Late in the second, Warner went club-single to Bastida's right leg, but Bastida defended well enough to avoid the takedown. Warner about landed on Bastida's second leg. If he catches it, takedown, and it's 4-3 entering the third. Warner also wanted a call on Bastida for fleeing. Some refs might've given it.\n\nMore of the same in the third, and the wildest part to me was that Warner again went club-single and picked up Bastida's leg with 33 seconds left in the match. You have to finish that shot. You have to. Warner's track record suggests he'll work on that and finish that shot come March. But, man. Give Bastida credit, though. To stand and fight off another attack for 33 seconds at the end of the match like that was mighty impressive.\n\nGreat match overall. I'd watch it again.\n\nInstant Analysis:#2 Iowa defeats #10 Iowa State, 18-15, in thrilling Cy-Hawk wrestling dual\n\nCobe Siebrecht's big throw against Jason Kraisser\n\nLet's set the scene:\n\nWhile tied up in the first period, Siebrecht swipes for a cross-body ankle-pick then immediately swings his right arm back up and goes seat-belt position. Kraisser counters with an overhook. Siebrecht comes up and goes full body-lock, but now Kraisser has double-overs and snaked his left leg inside Siebrecht's right leg. The crowd begins to roar and the wrestlers stop, trying to figure out each other's next move.\n\nWe didn't get to speak to Siebrecht afterward, so this is only from my perspective, but when you're in a situation like that, you're looking for where you're comfortable. That's a 'duh' statement, but against a guy like Kraisser, who's comfortable in a lot of weird positions, you have to get where you feel good, where you know you're good, to a place that you've felt before.\n\nMost importantly, when you pull the trigger like Siebrecht did, go all the way. Too often, guys try half-attempts at a throw or inside trip, or they'll pull the trigger then hesitate because it doesn't feel right after they launch, and it bites them and they're the ones on their backs. If you're going to go in a position like this, commit to it — which is exactly what Siebrecht did.\n\nSiebrecht adjusted his lock, likely to get a better grip, then pulled the trigger. Siebrecht swung his right leg up, literally like he was kicking a field goal, to unlace his leg, which eliminated any advantage Kraisser might've had when they landed. When they landed, Siebrecht kicked his right leg out like a post, giving him leverage as he held Kraisser there for the takedown and four backs.\n\nThis wasn't just a grip-it-and-rip-it type of throw. The whole thing was very calculated and beautifully-executed. Here it is again in like slow-motion. Watch how Siebrecht kicks his right leg up and see how it helps him cover.\n\nThanks for flying Siebrecht Airlines.\n\nOr Air Curly.\n\nOr Curly Air! That one is funny because, you know, he has curly hair.\n\n*ba-dum, tish*\n\n(Sorry, I'll show myself out.)\n\nThe Dan Gable Traveling Trophy\n\nGreat question. Short answer: I'm not sure. Sunday was Iowa State's best shot in a long while, and it may be another long while before they get another shot like that.\n\nHere's the long answer: While driving home on Sunday evening, I thought for a minute that maybe Iowa State could win next year. Then I thought about the matchups and changed my mind.\n\nThis is a WAY too early lookahead, but here's what next year's Cy-Hawk dual could look like:\n\n125 : Drake Ayala vs. Kysen Terukina\n\n: Drake Ayala vs. Kysen Terukina 133 : Brody Teske/Cullan Schriever vs. Ramazan Attasaouv\n\n: Brody Teske/Cullan Schriever vs. Ramazan Attasaouv 141 : Real Woods vs. Casey Swiderski\n\n: Real Woods vs. Casey Swiderski 149 : Caleb Rathjen/Cody Chittum vs. Paniro Johnson\n\n: Caleb Rathjen/Cody Chittum vs. Paniro Johnson 157 : Cobe Siebrecht/Aiden Riggins vs. Jason Kraisser/Connor Euton\n\n: Cobe Siebrecht/Aiden Riggins vs. Jason Kraisser/Connor Euton 165 : Patrick Kennedy vs. David Carr\n\n: Patrick Kennedy vs. David Carr 174 : Nelson Brands vs. Julien Broderson/Manny Rojas/MJ Gaitan\n\n: Nelson Brands vs. Julien Broderson/Manny Rojas/MJ Gaitan 184 : Abe Assad vs. Tate Naaktgeboren\n\n: Abe Assad vs. Tate Naaktgeboren 197 : Kolby Franklin/Bradley Hill vs. Yonger Bastida\n\n: Kolby Franklin/Bradley Hill vs. Yonger Bastida 285: Tony Cassioppi vs. Francis Duggan\n\nThink Iowa gets the nod at 125, 141, 157, 174, 184, 285, and 133 is another winnable match. Iowa may be losing a lot with Lee, Murin, Warner all leaving after this season, but with Coleman graduating, that flips 184 to Iowa's favor, at least in this matchup.\n\nA few things to consider, too:\n\nNo guarantee that Swiderski stays at 141. He's pulling a lot of weight this year, and the eventual plan may be for him to grow into 157, if only because Johnson ain't going anywhere.\n\nUnsure what 157 and 174 might look like for Iowa State, just because there's guys who are currently redshirting that I know Dresser is excited about. Same for 184. I plugged in Tate Naaktgeboren, who will be a true freshman next year, but could easily see Broderson or even Joel Devine bumping to 184.\n\nThere's also the possibility that Bastida could redshirt, or even bump to 285. Dresser hinted this past summer they're considering that as an option.\n\nIowa may be losing Lee, but they're going to be just fine with Ayala back at 125.\n\nUnrelated, but the 149 and 157 lineup battles could be a lot of fun next year for Iowa.\n\nSo, yeah. Very early lookahead suggests the trophy won't travel. But, again, it's very early.\n\nRecapping the 2022 Dan Gable Donnybrook\n\nI was not surprised, but I was impressed.\n\nGabe Arnold, a future Hawkeye now reppin' Iowa City High after three years at Wyoming Seminary, blew through one of the Donnybrook's deepest weights. It was his Iowa high school wrestling debut, and he did not disappoint, outscoring his five opponents 76-25. He beat Linn-Mar's Tate Naaktgeboren 8-3 in the semifinals, then topped West Bend's Connor Mirasola 4-3 in the finals. All three are ranked in the top-10 nationally by MatScouts.\n\nI was not surprised because Gabe Arnold is that good. He's a two-time national prep champ, a 16U freestyle national champ, and he won a four-man weight at Who's Number One a few years ago. Guy's talented. No question about it.\n\nI was impressed because that was the first time I got to see him wrestle up close, and, man, he's incredible live.\n\nHe's got a wicked combination of speed and power. We're all mesmerized by the shucks and super-ducks and slide-bys. But his head-and-hands defense were just as impressive. Don't believe he gave up a takedown all weekend (he did give up a reversal to Mirasola in the finals, though).\n\nThing is, I wouldn't have been surprised if Naaktgeboren had won either. He's as mean as they come on the mat, and his relentless pressure and versatile offensive skillset makes him one of the top wrestlers in the country. He nearly scored two on the edge against Arnold in their semifinal match. Do that, the match changes.\n\nThe beauty of that particular matchup specifically is that we'll (hopefully) see it a few more times this season. City High and Linn-Mar are in the same conference, so there's a head-to-head dual meet in January, the conference tournament as well, and, presumably, the state tournament in February. Both City High and Linn-Mar are going to the Battle of Waterloo later this month, so maybe they'll hit there, too. Sign me up.\n\nIt would be easy to pick 182 as my favorite weight, and it definitely was one of my favorite weights, but there was so much to love about so many different weights from the Donnybrook.\n\nYou could argue that 195 was a deeper weight, and we saw a potential state finals preview in the third-place match, between Waverly-Shell Rock's McCrae Hagarty and Fort Dodge's Dreshaun Ross. At 113, we saw a ton of Class 3A's major players, with Dru Ayala, Jake Knight, Connor Fiser, Ryker Graff. At 132, Jayce Luna caught a heater like I've never seen from him before, beating both Carter Freeman and Kael Kurtz to reach the finals.\n\nIt was a fantastic way to kick off the 2022-23 high school wrestling season.\n\nMORE:At the Dan Gable Donnybrook, an exciting first girls wrestling season continues to unfold\n\nIowa City West's impressive freshman Alex Pierce\n\nIs there a fan club for Iowa City West's Alex Pierce? I would like to be a member. Please send me the application. I'll sign it right now.\n\nBut there's been a lot at successful 106-pounders who have gone on to find success at the college level and beyond. Here's a few names just off the top from the last two decades that won state titles and then went on to do some cool things:\n\nDylan Peters won in 2010 for Denver and went on to become a two-time All-American for Northern Iowa.\n\nwon in 2010 for Denver and went on to become a two-time All-American for Northern Iowa. Cory Clark won in 2009 for Southeast Polk, became a four-time state champ, then a four-time All-American, three-time NCAA finalist and national champ at Iowa.\n\nwon in 2009 for Southeast Polk, became a four-time state champ, then a four-time All-American, three-time NCAA finalist and national champ at Iowa. Joe Colon won in 2007 for Clear Lake, won a junior-college title, took third at the NCAA Championships, and ultimately won a bronze medal at the 2018 world championships.\n\nwon in 2007 for Clear Lake, won a junior-college title, took third at the NCAA Championships, and ultimately won a bronze medal at the 2018 world championships. Jay Borschel won in 2002 for Linn-Mar, became a four-time state champ, then a two-time All-American and NCAA champ at Iowa.\n\nDisclaimer: all of these guys won their state titles at 103 pounds, not 106. But you get what I'm saying.\n\nAnd not to be forgotten: both T.J. Sebolt and Dylan Carew were state champs as 103-pounders and now run two of the best wrestling clubs in the country, Sebolt Wrestling Academy and Big Game Wrestling Club. It just so happens that Pierce wrestles for Carew at Big Game.\n\nThis is not to say Pierce is the state's next incredible 106-pounder, but man, he sure looked the part this past weekend. He was also a tad undersized for the weight, making it all the more impressive. There will be others who emerge at this weight — or, in the case of Southeast Polk's Carter Pearson, are already here — but count Pierce among the early-season contenders and among the many freshman who have big futures ahead of them.\n\nMatches to watch at the men's and women's freestyle World Cup\n\nOh man. There's going to be so many matches worth watching this weekend, but I'll stick with those that involve USA wrestlers — and, more specifically, the matches that we know will happen in the group stages. USA's men's freestyle team will wrestle Mongolia and Georgia. The women will wrestle China and the All-World team.\n\nSo, here we go:\n\nNick Gwiazdowski/Hayden Zillmer vs. Geno Petriashvili (Georgia) and Lkhagvagerel Munkhtur (Mongolia)\n\nPretty fun group round-robin! Petrisahvili is a two-time Olympic medalist and three-time world champ. Munkhtur is a 2022 world finalist. Both of these matches will be incredible, whether Gwiazdowski or Zillmer get the nod.\n\nNate Jackson vs. Miriani Maisuradze (Georgia)\n\nNate Jackson is one of the most fun wrestlers to watch in America, and his run to Final X this past spring and summer was incredible. Maisuradze is the 2022 world bronze medalist. Great test to see how Jackson stacks up internationally.\n\nTyler Berger/Alec Pantaleo vs. Zurabi Iakobishvili (Georgia)\n\nIakobishvili won world bronze this year, and lost to Zain Retherford in the semifinals. This match will test USA's depth at 70 kilos.\n\nSeth Gross vs. Narankhuu Narmandakh (Mongolia)\n\nGross finished fifth at the world championships in September while Narmandahk won bronze, but they were in opposite bronze-medal matches. This could be a high-scoring match that will be important in the USA-Mongolia dual.\n\nMallory Velte vs. Jia Long (China)\n\nVelte and Long are both returning world medalists (Velte won bronze, Long won silver). They were on opposite sides of the bracket at the world championships, so this would be a big matchup in the USA-China dual.\n\nKayla Miracle vs. Xiaojuan Luo (China) and Aisuluu Tynybekova (Kyrgyzstan)\n\nAnother fun round-robin group! Miracle is a two-time world silver medalist, a run that included a 17-6 first-round win over Luo, won rallied to win bronze. Tynybekova is a 2020 Olympic silver and a two-time world champ.\n\nJenna Burkert/Jacarra Winchester vs. Karla Godinez (Canada)\n\nGodinez won world bronze in September, and she'll face either Burkert, a world bronze medalist in 2021, or Winchester, who won a world title in 2019 and finished fifth in September.\n\nThere are so many more matches that could happen and that I'll keep an eye out for this weekend, in both men's and women's freestyle. Xtream Arena is the place to be this weekend. Get your tickets now.\n\nThis week, I'm grateful for my couch. It's the kind you can sink into if you're not careful. Took a bomb nap on it Monday afternoon. That was nice.\n\nCody Goodwin covers wrestling and high school sports for the Des Moines Register. Follow him on Twitter at@codygoodwin.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/12/06"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/food-dining/2022/08/03/hottest-spicy-pepper-in-world/10120857002/", "title": "What is the hottest pepper in the world? Top five spiciest peppers ...", "text": "Are you a fan of spicy foods? How about the hottest pepper in the world? The title is a coveted one, ranked by the Guinness World Records and held by chili farmers looking to challenge the meaning of the word “spicy.”\n\nThere are an estimated 50,000 types of chili peppers in the world, resulting from domestication over 6,000 years ago in Peru and Mexico. These peppers file into five categories — Capsicum annuum, Capsicum chinense, Capsicum frutescens, Capsicum baccatum and Capsicum pubescens.\n\nBut one ranks above them all as the world’s hottest pepper.\n\nWhat is the hottest pepper in the world?\n\nThe world’s hottest pepper is the Carolina Reaper, grown by Ed Currie of the PuckerButt Pepper Company in Fort Mill, South Carolina. Ranked as the Guinness World Record’s hottest pepper, the Carolina Reaper peaked at about 2.2 million Scoville Heat Units, the scale used to rank how spicy peppers are. It averages around 1.6 million SHU.\n\nFor comparison, jalapeño registers about 2,500 to 8,000 SHU and cayenne pepper is 30,000 to 50,000 SHU.\n\nAccording to Man of Many, Currie created the Reaper by crossbreeding a pepper from a doctor in Pakistan and one from the island of St. Vincent.\n\nWhat is the healthiest vegetable?:Check out these great nutrient-dense options\n\nSwitch up your salsa:Try spicy pear, pineapple-mint-jalapeño, tropical fruit\n\nCan you eat the world’s hottest pepper?\n\nCan you safely consume a Carolina Reaper? For some, the idea may never cross their mind. In 2018, a 34-year-old man went to the emergency room complaining of severe headaches just days after eating the pepper. Newsweek reported that brain scans revealed constricted arteries that eventually returned to their normal state five weeks later. In 2020, the National Center for Biotechnological Information reported an incident of a 15-year-old boy who ate a Carolina Reaper and had an acute cerebellar stroke two days later after being hospitalized because of headaches.\n\nOthers relish an opportunity to eat the world’s spiciest pepper. League of Fire ranks chili eating champions with a specific set of rules — they need the details of the official event, the credentials of the witnesses present and no more than 200 Carolina Reapers can be consumed.\n\nThetitle is held by Gregory “Iron Guts” Barlow of Melbourne, Australia, who ate 160 Reapers in one sitting. In second place is Dustin “Atomik Menace” Johnson of Las Vegas at 122 peppers.\n\nTry a more mild pepper:Use bell peppers to make these fun summer squash recipes\n\nHealthiest fruit:This one is high in antioxidants and has cognitive and cardiovascular benefits\n\nWhat are the top five hottest peppers?\n\nAccording to PepperHead, here are the five peppers that pack the most heat:\n\nCarolina Reaper: 2,200,000 SHU Trinidad Moruga Scorpion: 2,009,231 SHU 7 Pot Douglah: 1,853,936 SHU 7 Pot Primo: 1,469,000 SHU Trinidad Scorpion Butch T: 1,463,700 SHU\n\nHow do you measure how hot a pepper is?\n\nPharmacist Wilbur Scoville invented the Scoville scale in 1912 to measure a pepper’s heat. According to Masterclass, Scoville tested peppers by mixing sugar water with an alcohol-based extract of capsaicin oil — the chemical compound in chili peppers that makes them hot. Scoville placed the solution with water on taste testers’ tongues and diluted it with water to rank how spicy the testers thought it was.\n\nNow, scientists use a more high tech method instead of tongue testing. High-Performance Liquid Chromatography determines the concentration of capsaicin in a pepper but uses the same Scoville ranking system.\n\nPure capsaicin ranks at 16 million SHU.\n\nJust Curious?:We're answering life's everyday questions", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/08/03"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/12/17/ghost-pepper-world-record/4050715/", "title": "World record pepper eater finds nothing too hot to handle", "text": "Matt Frassica\n\nThe (Louisville, Ky.) Courier-Journal\n\nEating the world%27s hottest pepper was on his bucket list%2C Jason McNabb initially told co-workers\n\nAlso on the list%3A Breaking a world record and making it into the Guinness Book of World Records\n\nMcNabb%27s contest%2C Episode 3 of %27Guinness World Records Unleashed%2C%27 originally aired Nov. 21\n\nCRESTWOOD, Ky. — Edmund Hillary climbed Everest. Roald Amundsen reached the South Pole. Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.\n\nThis year, dentist Jason McNabb performed a feat of physical endurance and mental toughness on par, probably, with those greats.\n\nHe ate a whole lot of very, very hot peppers.\n\nNow, competitive eating doesn't get the same glory as, say, discovering a continent. But before you object to the comparison, consider: Columbus stumbled upon the Americas by mistake.\n\nBy contrast, McNabb intentionally ingested ghost peppers. Eating just one can cause profuse sweating, intense stomach cramps, vomiting and hours of extreme burning sensations from the tongue down to the gut.\n\nMcNabb downed about a dozen.\n\nAnd he did it all on national TV.\n\nIt all started a couple of years ago when McNabb, who practices dentistry in the Louisville suburb of Shively, Ky., casually let slip to one of his co-workers the existence of a personal bucket list, a list of things McNabb intended to do before he died.\n\nMcNabb is only 34, but his co-workers thought they would help him get started. One item on the list, \"eat the world's hottest pepper,\" seemed like an easy one.\n\nMcNabb grew up in Bullitt County just south of Louisville and has a quick smile and a shock of red hair. He has long had a taste for spicy foods — the collection of hot sauces on the shelf behind his desk at the office suggests as much — but he wasn't born with it.\n\n\"When I was a kid, I couldn't stand anything hot,\" he said. \"An Atomic Fireball was too hot for me.\"\n\nBut his father ate jalapeños straight.\n\n\"I just thought that he was the toughest guy in the world for being able to do that,\" McNabb said. So one day, the young McNabb forced himself to eat one.\n\n\"It kind of escalated from there,\" he said.\n\nKristin Flynn, McNabb's office manager, said they found the ghost pepper — the world's hottest chili at the time — and McNabb ordered one.\n\nThe ghost pepper, or bhut jolokia, comes from the mountainous northeastern region of India. It registers more 1 million Scoville units, the international measure of spicy hotness. That's 200 to 400 times hotter than a jalapeño.\n\nWhen McNabb's first ghost pepper arrived at the office, Flynn talked him into eating it at work.\n\n\"He was sweating,\" Flynn said. \"The pepper affected him, but nothing like the YouTube videos we had seen.\" Yes, YouTube has videos of people eating ghost peppers, and they are recommended if you enjoy seeing grown men cry.\n\n\"I tolerated it very well, a lot better than I expected,\" McNabb said.\n\nCheck one off the bucket list. Moving on, Flynn spotted another attainable goal on the list: \"break a Guinness world record.\" Why not try for a hot pepper record, she thought.\n\nFlynn did some research and found that the record at the time was three ghost peppers eaten in 1 minute. McNabb, she thought, could beat that — so she filled out some paperwork and sent it to Guinness.\n\n\"About eight months later, the TV producers called me up and asked if I'd be interested in going on their show,\" McNabb said. Guinness, it turns out, has a reality TV show called Guinness World Records Unleashed, on truTV. He would compete for the one-minute ghost-pepper-eating title against two other challengers, onstage, in front of an audience and cameras.\n\nMcNabb agreed and started training. He would time himself and eat as many peppers as he could in 1 minute.\n\n\"The girls got a lot of laughs out of watching me suffer through eating all these peppers,\" he said of his co-workers.\n\nOne day, he made the mistake of eating a ghost pepper on an empty stomach.\n\n\"I had the worst stomach cramps,\" he said. \"My face turned white, and I started sweating profusely. I had to sit down in front of a box fan for a little while.\"\n\nEventually, McNabb built his tolerance up to the point where he could eat eight peppers in 1 minute — more than twice the world record.\n\nAfter a few months of training, the time came for McNabb to travel to Los Angeles for the show taping. But things did not go as planned.\n\n\"The night before the event, they called me and told me that they had changed it to 2 minutes,\" he said. \"It was like telling somebody who has been training for a 5K that, tomorrow, you're going to run a marathon instead.\"\n\nBut the next day, McNabb got up on stage with the other challengers. Wearing a tie-dyed T-shirt and shorts, he sat in front of a heaping plate of bright orange ghost peppers and a pitcher of milk.\n\nThe rules of the game: Eat as many peppers as you can in 2 minutes. No one could drink any of the milk until the 2 minutes were up.\n\nTo ensure fairness, the contestants were judged by the weight of the peppers they ate, not the number of peppers.\n\n\"I was prepared to eat about eight peppers, which would be roughly 40 grams,\" McNabb said. But with twice as much time, how many more would he be able to tolerate?\n\nMcNabb didn't suffer from stage fright. \"It was pretty painful, so I didn't care what the audience thought,\" he said. \"I was just getting through the 2 minutes.\"\n\nWhen it was over, McNabb had eaten 66 grams, or 12 to 15 peppers. He had a new world record, set June 19 but one that he had to keep mum until the show aired Nov. 21.\n\nThe certificate from Guinness hangs framed on the wall in the kitchen of McNabb's Crestwood, Ky., home. In the fridge is a collection of hot sauces, including about a gallon of Frank's Red Hot.\n\n\"Eating hot peppers, it'll give you a food high,\" he said. \"It'll give you a dopamine rush, and you do get a bit of a buzz from it.\n\n\"But it's also something more,\" McNabb said. \"It's kind of addicting. You have to have something hotter in order to satisfy that craving.\"\n\nIn case you're wondering, McNabb said capsaicin, the chemical that causes the spicy sensation, has no negative health consequences.\n\nMcNabb eats very hot peppers like the red savina — which had the hottest pepper title until the ghost pepper dethroned it — every other day or so. He has also tried the Trinidad Moruga scorpion, the current world record holder for hottest chili, but it's not a regular menu item.\n\n\"I usually don't eat ghost peppers or scorpions for enjoyment,\" he said.\n\nMcNabb's wife, Gina, who teaches English at ATA College in Louisville, bet her husband that she would try a ghost pepper if he won the world record.\n\n\"I wasn't going to make her, but she did it anyway,\" McNabb said.\n\nBut she did have to take some liquid courage to do so.\n\n\"One night I had two margaritas or so, and I was like, 'Just give me a pepper,' \" she said. \"So I ate the pepper, took it like a champ. I would not do it again.\"\n\nThat's an understatement, her husband said.\n\n\"She laid on the floor for about 30 minutes,\" McNabb said. \"I've got that on film. It's on Facebook.\"", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2013/12/17"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/health-wellness/2022/07/23/how-to-get-rid-of-hiccups/10050509002/", "title": "How to get rid of hiccups: Causes and how to effectively cure them", "text": "Caught a bad case of the hiccups? Chances are you've already been offered 10 different ideas on how to get rid of them: a spoonful of sugar, drinking water from the wrong side of the cup, a series of deep breaths. The truth is, any one of these cures might work.\n\nThough we know what happens to the body during a bout of hiccups, tracking specific causes and cures remains a challenge for doctors. Some cases last five minutes while others last five months; some come from anxiety while others come from a fizzy beverage.\n\nHere's everything you need to know about what causes hiccups and how you might get rid of them.\n\nHow do youget rid of hiccups?\n\nTo stop hiccups, many of the cures might feel just as startling as the condition itself. In fact, you’ve probably heard of asking someone to jump out and scare the hiccups right out of you. This is actually a pretty accurate reflection of the science.\n\nAccording to Harvard Medical School, the idea is to create a stimulus that will interrupt the signals causing the hiccup reflex, effectively startling the nervous system out of the behavior. There is an ever-growing list of ways to do this. A popular one involves drinking water from the wrong side of the glass which excites nerves that are not normally stimulated by this behavior.\n\nAlternatively, it has been shown that when carbon dioxide levels go up in your blood, hiccups tend to subside. That’s why breathing into a paper bag sometimes works.\n\nDeep breaths might also work – take one deep breath in, hold it for 10 seconds and then breathe in again twice more without exhaling. This increases CO2 and immobilizes the diaphragm. This is called the “supra-supramaximal inspiration.\"\n\nCommon cures, according to AARP, Healthline and Harvard Medical School include:\n\nBreathe into a paper bag (be careful not to get light headed, though)\n\nPull your knees up to your chest and lean forward\n\nSip ice-cold water\n\nPut a cold compress on your face\n\nDrink a cup of water quickly\n\nGargle with water\n\nSwallow granulated sugar, bread or ice\n\nBite on a lemon or sip vinegar\n\nPull on your tongue\n\nDrink from a straw\n\nHold your breath for 10 seconds, breathe in again twice\n\nWhat causes hiccups?\n\nThere is no main cause of hiccups; it varies case to case. According to the Mayo Clinic, anything from a large meal to consumption of alcoholic or carbonated beverages to sudden excitement can prompt a bout of hiccups. You can even get them from swallowing air while chewing gum or sucking on candy or a sudden shift in the temperature.\n\nIn some cases, hiccups can also signal an underlying medical condition – either nerve damage, a central nervous system disorder, metabolic disorders or drug use.\n\nMystery of what causes hiccups:Hiccup causes and cures remain a mystery\n\nDoes gripe water get rid of hiccups?\n\nSometimes gripe water is offered as a solution to hiccups, especially in babies. Sold at retail locations like Target and Walmart, Healthline calls it a “combination of herbs and water.” The supplement, unregulated by the Food and Drug Administration, has yet to be clinically proven to help with hiccups in infants.\n\nHealthline recommends parents and caretakers of children, before giving your baby something new, like gripe water, discuss it with the baby’s doctor.\n\nDoes sugar stop hiccups?\n\nA common home remedy for hiccups involves swallowing granulated sugar, dry bread or ice. The \"why\" here has to do with how the sugar affects the vagus nerve which connects the brain and the stomach. The sugar causes irritation in the back of the throat and interrupts the diaphragm spasms.\n\nHow to stop hiccups with medication\n\nThere is only one FDA approved medication for hiccups, and it is used for cases that are not considered \"mild,\" lasting over 48 hours. The drug is chlorpromazine, which has also been used to treat psychotic disorders.\n\nNotable cases of hiccups:Hiccups for days: Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro may need emergency surgery\n\nWhat are hiccups?\n\nThe Cleveland Clinic defines hiccups as repeated spasms of the diaphragm which is the muscle that separates your chest and stomach, located just below the ribcage. You make the \"hic\" sound as your diaphragm pulls downward in between breaths and you suck in air. Your glottis, which is the space between your vocal cords, then closes, preventing any further air from entering.\n\nHow long do hiccups take to go away?\n\nMost cases last only a few minutes. Bouts of hiccups can last for months or years, though, in rare cases, causing exhaustion and weight loss.\n\nFun fact: The world record for the longest hiccups is 68 years. Charles Osborne suffered a bout from 1922 to 1990.\n\nLong lasting hiccups:Man hospitalized after eight days of hiccups\n\nAre hiccups life threatening?\n\nHiccups themselves are not life-threatening, and most mild cases are entirely benign. However, prolonged bouts, labeled “intractable,” can signal a number of serious underlying health conditions including stroke and cancer.\n\nIn short, if your hiccups persist longer than a few days you should visit your doctor.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/07/23"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/22/health/syrinx-artificial-electrolarynx-japan-spc-scn-intl/index.html", "title": "Syrinx: This 'artificial larynx' prototype aims to give cancer survivors ...", "text": "CNN —\n\nAlthough he’s retired, 60-year-old former fashion brand executive Hirokazu Ogitsu still wears outfits that make a statement – even when he can’t.\n\n“I got cervical esophageal cancer and lost my voice about 10 years ago and made a smooth recovery,” Ogitsu said. “But I had a recurrence almost two years ago and ended up being unable to speak without a device.”\n\nOgitsu had a laryngectomy, a surgery in which all or part of the larynx – also known as the voice box – is removed. This procedure can be a part of treating laryngeal cancers, which impact more than 184,000 people worldwide each year, according to the World Health Organization.\n\nThese days, Ogitsu volunteers his time at Ginreikai, a laryngectomy support group in Tokyo, Japan, where he helps people learn to speak again using a speech device called the electrolarynx.\n\nThe traditional electrolarynx is a razor-sized device that is held up against the neck and creates vibrations that in turn transmit sound through tongue and lip movement.\n\nBut there have not been many improvements in sound quality and functionality since it was invented over 100 years ago.\n\nMasaki Takeuchi began engineering the artificial larynx prototype, Syrinx, in 2019. Daniel Campisi/CNN\n\nAfter speaking with the members of Ginreikai about their struggles, Masaki Takeuchi, a young engineer, decided to create something new and better.\n\nIn 2019, Takeuchi and a group of graduate students from the University of Tokyo developed Syrinx – a machine-learning, hands-free, wearable electrolarynx.\n\n“The patients said that they want to talk in public without any inconvenience or embarrassment,” Takeuchi told CNN. “This project was launched to develop a good device to make that happen.”\n\nSpeech restoration options\n\nFor patients who lose their ability to speak after a laryngectomy, there are currently three speech rehabilitation options, according to Yvonne Knapp, a speech-language pathologist at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City.\n\nThere’s the traditional electrolarynx, which is what Ogitsu currently uses. Another option is esophageal speech, says Knapp – a learned technique where air is swallowed into the esophagus and forced back up, creating vibrations on the throat which are then formed into speech. This is the oldest and hardest of the voice restoration options, Knapp says, adding that less than 40% of patients can achieve it, and only 5% can do it well.\n\nThe third form of speech rehabilitation, and the most popular according to Knapp, is the tracheoesophageal puncture, or TEP. This surgical procedure creates a small hole between the trachea and esophagus, where a prosthesis can be inserted to allow air from your lungs to vibrate muscles in your throat to create speech.\n\nKnapp, who has worked with laryngectomized people for 26 years, says TEP is much easier than esophageal speech and “is far superior in sound quality to the electrolarynx.”\n\nHowever, not every patient is able to get the TEP procedure. And for those who can’t – external speech aids like the electrolarynx can present as a good option for voice restoration. But the devices can produce speech that sounds monotone and unnatural, and they can be hard to use. Ogitsu also pointed out that he can’t use both hands freely with the traditional electrolarynx.\n\n“The problem with the electrolarynx is it’s very robotic,” Knapp says. “People don’t like it and they tend to shove it in a drawer and never use it again.”\n\nA more human-sounding electrolarynx\n\nThe main difference between the traditional electrolarynx and Syrinx is the way Takeuchi’s device creates sound.\n\n“Conventional devices use pulse waves, which can produce a loud sound, but be far from a human voice – more robotic and mechanical. So, we used human recordings and processed them to create sounds more like a human voice,” he said.\n\nAdditionally, a traditional electrolarynx has one transducer (an electromechanical vibrator that creates sound) while Syrinx has two – which generate a wider range of sound-wave frequencies that the user can turn into speech through tongue and lip articulation.\n\nThe Syrinx prototype has two transducers, which Takeuchi says allow for more vocal pitch. Daniel Campisi/CNN\n\nThese two components combined can create a more natural sounding voice, according to Takeuchi, but the device is still in the early prototype phase and the technology is always evolving.\n\n“We used (artificial intelligence) only in the early days, but now we don’t,” he said. “In the near future, we would like to introduce AI again to create sounds much more like human voices.”\n\nTakeuchi says the device can also incorporate a user’s old voice recordings, if they have any, to sound even more like their former voice – an important option for many patients.\n\nOur voices are so closely connected to our identity, Knapp said.\n\n“[Say someone calls] you and you don’t know who’s on the other end, but that person says one syllable and you know who it is, and you know how they’re feeling from one syllable,” she said. “That’s what a voice can impart, and that’s super powerful … When they’re robbed of that, it is really, really hard.”\n\nVoicing strong opinions\n\nAs part of the research and development of the device, Syrinx is continually tested by the Ginreikai members.\n\nTakashi Sugiyama, a 75-year-old pharyngeal cancer survivor, has tested the devices about seven times. He said that it still sounds too mechanical but that progress has been made over time. During his most recent testing, he says that the sound is clearer and that it’s very easy and comfortable to wear.\n\nTakashi Sugiyama, a 75-year-old pharyngeal cancer survivor, tests the Syrinx prototype periodically. CNN\n\nOgitsu, who tests the device about once a month, says he would like Syrinx’s straps to be more elastic to fit better around his throat.\n\nWhile Knapp has not seen the device in use in person, she said that it may have a bit more depth than a traditional electrolarynx but that it doesn’t sound too different than what’s currently on the market.\n\nBut she added that the hands-free feature could be a game-changer for some patients.\n\nThe device is already gaining recognition in Asia, with Syrinx winning the 2021 Grand Prix at the Japan Healthcare Business Contest and the Microsoft Imagine Cup Asia Regional in 2020. Eventually, Takeuchi would love to expand his product globally and have US testers.\n\nFor now, he says he’s working on reflecting the feedback he’s getting from Ginreikai into future iterations of the device.\n\n“I am so glad to hear that people were surprised by this device and said, ‘I can’t wait to talk with this device’ and ‘I hope it will be commercialized soon,’” said Takeuchi, adding that he hopes to pass the strict screening criteria required for clinical trials and get Syrinx to market in the next decade.\n\nOgitsu agrees he’d like to see this device fully developed and available as soon as possible.\n\n“I strongly feel how grateful I am to use my own voice for communication and how important communication is for human beings and society,” he said. “I believe that we will be able to lead a more normal social life by using both hands while speaking like a healthy person.”", "authors": ["Michelle Cohan"], "publish_date": "2022/03/22"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/12/americas/cuba-mass-migration-intl-latam/index.html", "title": "Cubans are arriving to the US in record numbers. Smugglers are ...", "text": "Havana, Cuba CNN —\n\nAs Cuba confronts the worst shortages of food and medicine in decades and runaway inflation, a new exodus of the island’s citizens is underway.\n\nIn March, more than 32,000 Cubans arrived at the US-Mexico border, almost twice the number from the previous month, according to US Customs and Border Protection data.\n\nDesperate to leave Cuba, Claudia, her husband and their young son managed to obtain visas to Mexico in Havana – the first step in a journey that placed them in the hands of criminal smuggling networks that are known to charge migrants thousands of dollars for safe passage to the US border.\n\nClaudia, who requested her real name not be used in this story for her safety, said she decided to leave Cuba after the July 2021 widespread protests over power outages, food shortages and a lack of civil liberties, boiled over.\n\nThe Cuban government said the protests were orchestrated by Washington to topple the communist government. Prosecutors have charged over 700 people with sedition and civil disobedience in the largest mass trials since the beginning of the Cuban revolution.\n\n“I was done after July 11,” Claudia told CNN. “I am leaving for my son, for his future. I spent all day waiting in lines so he can have yogurt. I work at a [government] hospital for $50 a month. I basically work for free.”\n\nCubans that have just crossed the US-Mexico border huddle near a fire in Yuma, Arizona in February. Katie McTiernan/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images\n\nAfter pretending to be tourists for two days in Cancún, Mexico, Claudia and her family were told by the Mexican smugglers they contacted to fly from Mexico City to Mexicali, a city of more than one million inhabitants right on the US border.\n\nClaudia said the small plane to Mexicali was full of fellow Cubans. She said the smugglers had warned her that Mexican police would stop them as they arrived at the Mexicali airport and to place $100 in each of their passports.\n\nClaudia said Mexican police detained all of the Cubans from their flight and from another flight – from Guadalajara, that was carrying mostly Cuban passengers – that arrived at the same time.\n\nThe Cubans from the two flights were taken to a nearby police station and the officers kept their passports, she said. There, she said, the police let her and her family, along with the other Cubans who had placed a $100 bribe in their passports go free. The others remained detained, she said.\n\nPolice in Mexicali did not respond to a CNN request for comment. Migrants regularly complain that police in Mexico solicit bribes and rob them.\n\nAfter leaving police custody, Claudia said that the smuggler they had been in contact with picked them up in a car and drove them to an unfinished house in the Mexican desert.\n\nThere, she said a handful of armed smugglers told more than 30 migrants to wait in two stiflingly hot rooms until they could attempt the border crossing. One room was full of people from different countries, she said.\n\n“There were Colombians, Bangladeshis, Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, Haitians. It felt like the whole world was in there,” she said. The other room, Claudia said, was packed with Cubans.\n\nCubans collect donated food at a supermarket in Havana in August 2021. Yamil Lage/AFP/Getty images\n\nA mass exodus\n\nCubans have mass emigrated in waves throughout the years.\n\nIn 1994, some 35,000 Cubans made the dangerous journey to the US on makeshift rafts. And in 1980, during the “Mariel Boatlift,” an estimated 125,000 Cubans fled to the US on a flotilla of boats.\n\nHowever, this current exodus is on track to be even larger. According to US Customs and Border Protection data, nearly 80,000 Cubans reached the US border from Mexico from October through March.\n\nThe rise in migration comes as the Cuban government has begun to ease Covid-19 related travel restrictions.\n\nFor much of the pandemic, the government kept the island on a tight lockdown. People wanting to travel often waited months to get a spot on one of the handful of weekly flights out.\n\nA power outage in Havana. Roberto Machado Noa/LightRocket/Getty Images\n\nAs Cuba relaxed the restrictions in November, the Cuban government’s ally Nicaragua lifted their visa requirements for Cubans – sparking a surge of people who tried to travel to the Central American nation as a way to eventually reach the US.\n\nSuddenly Cubans began posting online ads selling their homes with “everything inside” to pay for the expensive airfare. Others joked about “going to visit the volcanos” in Nicaragua, a tongue-in-cheek way of saying they were emigrating to the US.\n\nMany Cubans flew through Panama to reach Nicaragua – and in March, when the Panamanian government said it would require Cubans traveling via the country to obtain a transit visa, a large crowd of desperate Cubans mobbed Panama’s embassy in Havana.\n\nCubans protest outside the Panama Embassy in Havana as the country tightens visa requirements in March. Amanda Perobelli/Reuters\n\nIncreasing shortages on basic goods are what’s driving many people to leave the island, English teacher Kailen Rodríguez told CNN in April as she waited outside Panama’s embassy for a visa.\n\n“We don’t have the possibility to buy many things here. There [outside of Cuba] we can buy all the things,” she said.\n\nCritics say the economic crisis and subsequent migration is the fault of the Cuban government which then uses the wave of migrants to force the US to the negotiating table.\n\n“Tyrannies cause massive migrations,” said Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) in April. “It’s not just a hostile act, if it reaches a certain level, it’s considered an act of war.”\n\nCuban officials say that increased sanctions, put in place under former US President Donald Trump’s administration are contributing to the economic turmoil on the island.\n\n“In the case of Cuba, it’s not just the consequence of the pandemic, it’s the consequences of the reinforcement of the policy of maximum economic pressure of the US towards Cuba,” Cuban Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Josefina Vidal told CNN in an interview last month.\n\nThe US and Cuba held their first migration talks in four years in April, but failed to reach a new agreement.\n\nMeanwhile, migrants like Claudia will likely continue to pay criminal organizations to take them on the dangerous and uncertain journey to the US.\n\nA family from Cuba waits to be transported to a US Border Patrol processing center in December 2021 in Yuma, Arizona. John Moore/Getty Images\n\n‘I feel liberated’\n\nClaudia said smugglers left her and the other migrants on a dirt road close to the US border in the dark after signaling the path to take.\n\nThe path was littered with trash and the coats of other migrants who had gone before them.\n\n“They told us to not use the lights on our phones and to keep the children quiet,” Claudia said.\n\nBut the group quickly got disorientated until one of the people in the group, a Colombian, used a map application on his phone to guide them back towards the US border, she said.\n\nAs they reached the border, Claudia said the group could see lights – a McDonalds – from the Arizona side.\n\nThe migrants then reached a gap in the wall where someone had left a case of water and bars of chocolate, she said. Shortly after, US Customs and Border Protection agents arrived to transport them to a detention center in Yuma, where they were interviewed, fingerprinted and tested for Covid. Claudia’s son was examined by a pediatrician, she said.\n\nLess than 24 hours later, the family was released after they requested asylum. They contacted their relatives in Florida who bought them airplane tickets to Miami.\n\nUnder the 1996 Cuban Adjustment Act, Cubans who spend a year in the US are able to apply to become permanent residents.\n\nClaudia says she is still disorientated by life in the US, but that her family’s dangerous journey was worth the risks.\n\n“I feel liberated,” Claudia said. “I am another person now, I feel reborn.”", "authors": ["Patrick Oppmann"], "publish_date": "2022/05/12"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/02/golf/alan-shepard-moon-golf-apollo-remastered-photo-spt-scn-spc/index.html", "title": "The incredible true story of the time an astronaut played golf on the ...", "text": "CNN —\n\nFebruary 6, 1971, was a relatively uneventful day for US sports.\n\nLarry Costello’s Milwaukee Bucks swept past the San Francisco Warriors in the NBA, the Boston Bruins defeated the Buffalo Sabres to continue an eight-game unbeaten NHL streak, and Arnold Palmer shot 68 to tie for the lead at the Hawaiian Open.\n\nNothing out of this world you might say, incorrectly. Because some 230,000 miles away, Alan Shepard was playing golf on the moon.\n\nBeamed back to TV sets on Earth in grainy images, Shepard’s exploits on Apollo 14 – the eighth crewed Apollo mission and only the third to land on the lunar surface – left viewers stunned, including those at mission control in Houston.\n\nAn avid golfer, Shepard had sought out Jack Harden, a club pro at River Oaks Country Club in Texas, to build him a modified club. The resulting creation, a Wilson Staff Dyna-Power 6-iron head, was tucked away in Shepard’s space suit for launch, with a few balls hidden in a sock.\n\nNone of this was on NASA’s inventory. The Apollo program cost almost $25 billion – some $246 billion today according to a 2019 analysis by The Planetary Society – bringing a new meaning to the phrase “time is money.” With minutes worth millions, moonwalk schedules were meticulously strategized to ensure maximum efficiency.\n\nIt is rumored that only mission director Bob Gilruth knew of the astronaut’s plan, with Shepard gaining Gilruth’s reluctant permission only on the promise that any golfing would be saved for the end of extravehicular activities (EVA), and only if there was time.\n\nThe incredible true story of the time an astronaut played golf on the moon 03:22 - Source: CNN\n\nAfter nine hours walking the surface and several scientific experiments, Shepard was returning to the lunar module when he saw his chance. Attaching the modified club head to a tool designed for scooping lunar rock samples, the commander prepared to take on one of the universe’s biggest bunkers – one-handed.\n\n“Houston … you might recognize what I have in my hand as the handle for the contingency sample return. It just so happens to have a genuine six iron on the bottom of it,” Shepard said, speaking directly into the camera.\n\n“In my left hand, I have a little white pellet that’s familiar to millions of Americans … Unfortunately, the suit is so stiff, I can’t do this with two hands, but I’m going to try a little sand-trap shot here.”\n\nAfter two botched efforts, Shepard’s first shot shanked into a nearby crater, much to the joy of Capsule Communicator Fred Haise in Houston.\n\n“That looked like a slice to me Al,” Haise jabbed, but the moon’s first golfer had one more ball left to play.\n\nBlowing up plumes of lunar dust, the second shot was struck with a sweeter connection, and Shepard liked what he saw.\n\n“Miles and miles and miles,” the jubilant astronaut remarked as the ball sailed out of his view, swallowed by the infinite blackness of space. Needless to say, shot-tracking technology was unavailable, and so Shepard returned to Earth with the whereabouts of his second shot unknown.\n\nAlan Shephard lining up a shot in December 1995. J.D. Cuban/Getty Images North America/Getty Images\n\nCamera shy\n\nThree years later, in the Northwest of England, Andy Saunders was born. After graduating from Loughborough University, he carved out a career in property renovation, but harbored a passion for photography.\n\nWhat does any of that have to do with an astronaut playing golf on the moon? Almost 50 years on, Saunders would be the man to show that, actually, the astronaut’s second shot traveled just 40 yards – roughly the length of two 10-pin bowling lanes.\n\nSaunders has had an obsession with all things space since childhood. Andy Saunders\n\nSaunders did not set out to rain on Shepard’s parade. Instead, he began with a nagging desire to amend a lifelong frustration, expressed neatly in a 2012 piece in The Atlantic titled “There Are No Good Pictures of Neil Armstrong on the Moon.”\n\nBecause while Armstrong may have been the astronaut tasked with taking one small step for man, he was also the astronaut on camera duty. As a result, effectively all the iconic astronaut images captured on the surface during Apollo 11 are of Buzz Aldrin.\n\n“If you think in today’s world how absolutely ridiculous that concept is; the first person on another world, but they only took one camera,” Saunders told CNN.\n\n“They didn’t take a selfie as we would do now.”\n\nUsing a modern digital enhancement technique known as stacking, whereby frames are separated then stacked and consolidated to coax out more detail, Saunders produced the clearest ever image of Armstrong on the moon.\n\nWhen he released the picture on the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 in July 2019, it made world news. Shortly after, NASA opened access to a sprawling library of Apollo flight film – long sealed in a frozen vault at Johnson Space Center in Houston – and Saunders applied his techniques en masse.\n\nNASA's original 16mm film footage of Armstrong on the surface (L), and Saunders' restored version (R). NASA / Andy Saunders\n\nFaced with 35,000 still photos and more than 10 hours of film footage, over the next two years he put his properties career on hold to spend more than 10,000 hours restoring each and every frame. The result was “Apollo Remastered,” a book of Saunders’ favorite 400 stunning images that show the space program in unprecedented clarity.\n\nThe book’s front cover, a shot of Apollo Nine astronaut Jim McDivitt, is a perfect encapsulation of the water-to-wine magic of Saunder’s restoration techniques. Previously an image of near total blackness, barring a dim outline of McDivitt’s helmet, it is hard to believe that the illuminated, cinematic portrait can possibly be mined from the original.\n\nApollo 16 astronaut Charlie Duke described the pictures as an “exact representation” of his memories on the moon, “the next best thing to being there.” For Saunders, there is no better appraisal.\n\n“I want people to feel like this is as close as they can get to walking on the moon themselves,” he said.\n\n“You think of the subject matter for any photographer – you’ve got fellow humans doing these incredibly extraordinary things in an extraordinary place against a backdrop that’s literally otherworldly.\n\n“Every several hundred images I’m going through, there is something of interest, something of significance, or something that just looks incredible.”\n\nShooting stars\n\nWhen he reached Apollo 14, Saunders tasked himself with finding Shepard’s elusive second ball. Picking it out from the original, murky footage – where almost everything on the surface resembled small rocks – made for an impossible game of interstellar Where’s Waldo, but with Saunders’ array of tricks, he quickly found his prize.\n\nWorking out how far the ball had traveled was a little trickier, given there was no reference for scale. Saunders’ workaround was to superimpose the images onto footage captured from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, a satellite that orbited the moon in 2009.\n\nWith no wind or erosion at play, nothing had moved; the scene was perfectly preserved from 38 years prior, and Saunders had his answer: 40 yards. Some 318 yards shy of the 2022 PGA Tour average driving distance, even the most casual golfers would write such an opening shot off as a disaster.\n\nBut casual golfers aren’t playing in a restrictive, bulky spacesuit and thick gloves, aren’t swinging a weightless club in one sixth of Earth’s gravity, barely able to see their feet, and – with the exception of a certain Tik-Tok star – aren’t swinging one-handed.\n\nSaunders' restoration finally revealed the location of Shepard's second ball. NASA / Andy Saunders\n\n“He didn’t get preferred lies, he just dropped the ball – full of rocks and footprints and like an unraked bunker – so to even make contact, I think was pretty impressive,” Saunders said.\n\nSaunders believed Shepard’s “miles and miles” remark to have been made tongue-in-cheek, an almost instinctive reflex of his hyper-competitive, “fighter-jock” nature. The fact that Shepard, who died aged 74 in 1998, later lowered his estimate to – a still generous – 200 yards would seem to support this assessment.\n\nAnd yet, ironically, there was some innate truth beneath the astronaut’s bold claim. By Saunder’s calculations, if famed big-hitter Bryson DeChambeau was able to replicate his earthbound clubhead speed at a 45-degree angle on the moon, he would blast his drive 3.41 miles.\n\n“So actually, funnily enough, that is miles and miles and miles as Shepard said,” Saunders added.\n\n“It is possible, given a flexible enough suit … because there’s no air resistance, because there’s one sixth gravity, you could hit it almost the length of a whole golf course.”\n\nShepard is lifted up to the helicopter after he splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean aboard the Mercury capsule in May 1961. AFP via Getty Images\n\nFinders keepers\n\nWith the launch of the Artemis I earlier this month, NASA edged towards a long-awaited return to the surface of the moon, untouched by humans since Apollo 17 astronaut Gene Cernan’s final steps in December 1972.\n\nTheoretically, it could make Saunders a millionaire. A 2021 ESPN article put the auction value of each ball at a minimum of $10 million, and Saunders joked that he would be chasing NASA for his 10% finders fee should they be retrieved.\n\nThough Saunders isn’t planning an early retirement just yet. He is content in his conviction that the site of Shepard’s exploits will never be disturbed, a belief supported by NASA’s chief historian Brian Odom.\n\n“Maybe one day we’ll have colonies on the moon and it’s like Stonehenge – we don’t want to be messing around in the Apollo landing sites,” Odom said.\n\n“We want to make sure that we treat these landing sites as national landmarks, make sure that they’re preserved, make sure that they’re not contaminated, make sure that they’re there in perpetuity.\n\n“I think they (the balls) are where they need to stay and we need to make sure they’re preserved as they were.”\n\nShepard is commemorated as one of two USPS stamps released in 2011 to celebrate Project Mercury and the MESSENGER Mission respectively. Bill Ingalls / NASA / Getty Images\n\nThe pair’s hopes touch on something that has contributed to the enduring legacy of Shepard’s shots: not their distance or monetary value, but their human resonance.\n\nAs odd as it may seem, by the time of Apollo 14, Odom explained, the American public had developed a desensitized “been there, done that” attitude towards the space program, and the prospect of a predominantly science research mission did little to change the mood.\n\nThat all changed with news of golf on the moon, even more so due to the man wielding the club. As the first American astronaut in space in 1961, Second World War navy veteran Shepard had become a national celebrity, a remedy to the shame of the Soviet Union’s Yuri Gagarin pipping the US into space.\n\n“People love Shepard, they know Shepard,” Odom explained.\n\n“It seems like maybe a lot of people want to see themselves as an Alan Shepard at times.\n\n“Folks who knew Shepard, that I’ve talked to – he had this zest for life. He had this appreciation for doing your job but having fun too … those two things come together in that moment on the moon when he’s smacking golf balls around.”\n\nShepard's EVA suit on display at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Matt Stroshane / Getty Images\n\nHistory’s longest drive or not, Shepard’s lunar golfing exhibition has captured the imagination for half a century, and not just of those interested in golf.\n\n“We always talk about getting to the moon, landing on the moon, returning back to Earth – that’s how we think of the moon,” Odom said.\n\n“But when it comes to a human activity, something that’s done just for the joy of being alive, that’s something that people can appreciate.”\n\nSaunders agrees. “A lot of people know that someone played golf on the moon,” he said, “But not a lot of those people would know that it was on Apollo 14, that there even was an Apollo 14.\n\n“Those human moments resonate forever.”\n\nAndy Saunders’ “Apollo Remastered” book is out now.\n\n", "authors": ["Jack Bantock"], "publish_date": "2022/12/02"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/03/30/pythons-can-kill-human-minutes-and-swallow-them-hour/99824246/", "title": "Pythons can kill a human in minutes and swallow them in an hour", "text": "Sean Rossman\n\nUSA TODAY\n\nThe length of time it takes to watch an episode of Games of Thrones is about all it takes for a reticulated python to kill and swallow a human being.\n\nDeath comes quickly, notes Cornell Professor Dr. Harry W. Greene. The reticulated python, the longest living species of snake in the world, are constrictors, meaning they coil around their prey and squeeze them until they're dead in just a couple minutes. The swallowing takes most of the time.\n\n\"It would be extremely difficult for me to save my life without help,\" Greene said. \"It wouldn't take very long and it would be awful.\"\n\nSuch a nightmare occurred earlier this week, when a 23-foot reticulated python swallowed whole an Indonesian farmer. It's a rare occurrence for that part of the world, but not unheard of, Greene said. There are, he said, examples of people being eaten by reticulated pythons, particularly on Sulawesi, the island where 25-year-old Akbar Salubiro was eaten.\n\nHumans, unfortunately, fit into the general, mammal-heavy diet of the reticulated python, which can grow between 20 and 25 feet long. The Guinness World Records notes a reticulated python named Medusa, which lives in Kansas City, Mo., holds the title as the world's largest snake ever in captivity at over 25-feet long. Pythons often eat primates, including monkeys, sometimes orangutans and, seldom, people.\n\nPythons bite first and would attack a human in two ways: 1. A startled snake could bite as a form of defense; 2. The python stealthily lies in wait along a game trail, edges of waterways or any other place where they would find unsuspecting prey. On Thursday, CBS reported villagers said Akbar was attacked from behind.\n\nReticulated pythons bite first. Then, Greene said, \"literally within a few seconds,\" it would wrap its powerful coils around a person's body, cutting off blood circulation to the brain, blocking off airways and preventing the chest from expanding. From one or all of those reasons, he said, a person would quickly die.\n\n\"Big pythons are incredibly powerful animals with huge muscles to both move and eat and constrict,\" said Stephen Ressel, a professor at the College of Atlantic. \"They certainly can pack a huge force as they're constricting.\"\n\nThen comes the swallowing. Pythons can swallow humans because their lower jaw is indirectly attached to their skull, allowing it to expand. Also, a python's lower jaw comes apart, allowing it to further open up. Over the course of about an hour, Greene estimates, the snake would walk its teeth over a person's body until it is completely inside the animal's stomach.\n\nA person's body would be digested by the snake's stomach acid, Greene said.\n\nAkbar's death, noted Greene, isn't the first one. In a study he did with Thomas N. Headland, Greene found reticulated pythons killed at least six Filipino hunter-gatherers from 1934 to 1973. Once, a python went into a thatched house, killed two children and was swallowing one of them when the father came home and killed the snake with a bolo knife.\n\nThe study found it was pretty common for humans to be attacked by reticulated pythons. Among the nearly 60 hunter-gatherers interviewed, more than a quarter had been attacked by a python and had the bites and scars to prove it. Most often, they were able to escape by using a knife or a shotgun.\n\nGreene, an emeritus professor in Cornell's Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, said the case of Akbar is special because there's video evidence of his body being pulled from the snake. Usually, he said, we don't hear about people being eaten because pythons rarely leave a carcass as a trace. The animals can digest flesh and bones.\n\n\"I'm pretty sure it happens every year,\" Greene said.\n\nFollow Sean Rossman on Twitter: @SeanRossman", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2017/03/30"}]}
{"question_id": "20230317_24", "search_time": "2023/05/25/17:57", "search_result": [{"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/olympics/beijing/2022/02/07/us-womens-hockey-team-canada-beijing-winter-olympics-group-game/6693948001/", "title": "US women's hockey team falls to Canada in Beijing Olympics group ...", "text": "BEIJING — The players of the U.S. women’s hockey team could still be out there shooting, and Ann-Renée Desbiens would still be stonewalling them.\n\nThat’s if the American attempts even made it past the Canadian goaltender’s teammates, who were intent on blocking anything and everything the U.S. could muster on Tuesday.\n\nFor 60 minutes at Wukesong Sports Centre, the Canadians were content to let the Americans dictate play. They controlled the scoreboard.\n\nIn the end, that’s all that matters.\n\nCanada (4-0) defeated the U.S. 4-2, despite being outshot 53-27, to wrap up Group A play for both teams. The Canadians will be the top seed in the Olympic tournament’s quarterfinals that begin Friday. Knockout round matchups aren't yet finalized.\n\nBEIJING TEXT UPDATES: Get behind-the-scenes access to the Winter Olympics!\n\nNEVER MISS A MOMENT:Subscribe to our Olympics newsletter to stay informed!\n\nFULL MEDAL COUNT:How each country performed at the Winter Games\n\nDesbiens stopped 51 of the Americans’ 53 shots, while her teammates blocked dozens more.\n\n“Shots don’t win games,” Team USA coach Joel Johnson said. “Goals do.\n\n“We’ve got to find a way to create different, higher-quality scoring chances if we expect to win a game like this.”\n\nThe theme for this result was established during the fall, when the U.S. dropped four of six exhibition games to Canada. It was never outshot in any of those contests, either.\n\n“It’s just numbers,” U.S. forward Hilary Knight said. “You got to put more on net and put yourself in a better position to have Grade-A scoring opportunities and maybe crack that perimeter a little bit better.”\n\nKnight and her teammates didn’t account for the second half of that equation she laid out. Asked if she was satisfied with the caliber of scoring opportunities, Knight (four shots on goal) replied:\n\n“No, because we didn’t win. Seriously, I think you run into hot goalies. Every goalie is good here. You have to really find a way to find the back of the net. … I see how good we are at shooting. I can’t wait for it to sort of fall in when we get into a game atmosphere.”\n\nFinding different angles and using the flanks, rather than directing the offense from the top of the offensive zone, will be a necessary adjustment if these two teams face each other on Feb. 17 in the gold-medal game – an expected inevitability that has proved true at the last three Winter Olympics.\n\nNeither team scored in the third period Tuesday, as Canada packed it in and the U.S. could not break through.\n\n“When we shoot from the top, they’ve got three, four goaltenders in there,” Johnson said. “Only one of them is wearing pads, but they’re all doing the same thing.”\n\nThe one with the pads, though, is one of the best in the world.\n\n“Kind of to be expected,” Canadian forward Natalie Spooner (one assist) said of Desbiens’ performance. “She is, I think, the best goalie in the world.”\n\nCanada forward Sarah Nurse has had a front-row seat to Desbiens’ prowess for eight years, dating back to their college days at the University of Wisconsin.\n\n“I think that was one of the best games I’ve ever seen her play,” Nurse (one assist) said. “She was just calm, collected and poised. Really made it look easy.”\n\nDesbiens is not infallible, though. She was beaten twice in the second period, as Dani Cameranesi and Alex Carpenter scored four minutes apart to give the U.S. a brief 2-1 lead. The advantage was short-lived, though.\n\nCanada scored two goals within 26 seconds not long after, thanks to a pair of defensive breakdowns – one a turnover near the blue line that led to Brianne Jenner’s second goal of the game, the other an inability to clear the zone.\n\n“We can’t let that happen,” forward Abbey Murphy said about the sequence, which sucked away any momentum the U.S. had built.\n\n“We had a little bit of a defensive breakdown,” said U.S. goalie Maddie Rooney, who made 23 saves on 27 shots. “They capitalized on it.”\n\nCanada captain Marie-Philip Poulin put an exclamation point on the scoring and the Canadian comeback by taking an errant pass by Jincy Dunne on the U.S. power play for a breakaway that resulted in a penalty shot. Poulin buried the attempt on Rooney’s stick side.\n\nAt the 2018 Games in Pyeongchang, Canada defeated the U.S. 2-1 in group play before the Americans won in a dramatic shootout to claim their first gold since 1998. And earlier this year, at the 2021 world championships, Canada blasted the U.S. 5-1 in the preliminary round.\n\nThat tournament's final went into overtime, with Poulin scoring the game-winning goal – which is nothing new for her. She also had the game-winning goals in the 2010 and 2014 gold-medal contests.\n\nIn the aftermath of another Poulin backbreaker, Johnson acquiesced that his skaters looked “a little off” in some sequences.\n\n“Almost every time (a mistake) happened, it ended up in the back of our net,” he said. “There’s no excuses. There’s only finding solutions.”\n\nIf the U.S. wants to repeat as gold medal winners, the answers better be in hand by the time next Thursday rolls around.\n\nFollow Chris Bumbaca on Twitter @BOOMbaca.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/02/07"}]}
{"question_id": "20230317_25", "search_time": "2023/05/25/17:57", "search_result": []}
{"question_id": "20230317_26", "search_time": "2023/05/25/17:57", "search_result": [{"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2023/03/14/smelly-seaweed-sargassum-headed-toward-florida/11468969002/", "title": "Sargassum seaweed blob headed toward Florida, the Caribbean ...", "text": "Beachgoers in Florida and the Caribbean could be greeted by heavy blankets of smelly seaweed in the weeks ahead as a 5,000-mile swath of sargassum drifts westward and piles onto white sandy beaches.\n\nSargassum, a naturally occurring type of macroalgae, has grown at an alarming rate this winter. The belt stretches across the Atlantic Ocean from Africa to Florida and the Yucatan Peninsula and is as much as 200 to 300 miles wide.\n\n\"This year could be the biggest year yet,\" even bigger than previous growths, said Brian Lapointe, an algae specialist and research professor at Florida Atlantic University's Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute.\n\nThe belt is already beginning to wash up in the Florida Keys and Barbados and elsewhere in the region, but researchers don't know where the bulk of it could wind up.\n\nHow does climate change affect you? Subscribe to the weekly Climate Point newsletter\n\nREAD MORE: Latest climate change news from USA TODAY\n\nThe monstrous seaweed bloom is just one more example of a growing global invasion of macro and microscopic algal blooms thriving on an increasing supply of nutrients such as nitrogen in freshwater and marine ecosystems.\n\nWhat is causing the algal blooms?\n\nIn addition to the unsightly piles of sargassum along the coast, some species produce toxins that affect the food chain or deplete the oxygen in the water when they start to decay, causing fish kills and the die-off of other marine species.\n\nHere's what to know:\n\nCause: The algal blooms are linked to human activities, such as lawn fertilizers, wastewater and agricultural runoff, that increasingly send pollutants into rivers, lakes and oceans.\n\nThe algal blooms are linked to human activities, such as lawn fertilizers, wastewater and agricultural runoff, that increasingly send pollutants into rivers, lakes and oceans. Key quote: \"These nutrients are the common thread that ties all the algal blooms together,\" whether it's sargassum, red tide, or blue green algae, Lapointe said. It's also linked to the \"brown tide\" bloom in Florida's Indian River Lagoon that has been blamed for killing thousands of acres of seagrass, leading to the starving deaths of hundreds of manatees.\n\n\"These nutrients are the common thread that ties all the algal blooms together,\" whether it's sargassum, red tide, or blue green algae, Lapointe said. It's also linked to the \"brown tide\" bloom in Florida's Indian River Lagoon that has been blamed for killing thousands of acres of seagrass, leading to the starving deaths of hundreds of manatees. Looking ahead: Such algal blooms are expected to occur more often and cover larger areas of the globe, potentially harming other aquatic ecosystems, fisheries and coastal resources, reported a group of international researchers in a coastal phytoplankton study published this month in the journal Nature.\n\nNot all algal blooms are bad. Many can occur naturally and can have positive effects.\n\nFOR SUBSCRIBERS:Huge seaweed blob on way to Florida is 'like a Stephen King movie'\n\nIsn't sargassum naturally occurring?\n\nYes. Christopher Columbus wrote about floating mats of it in the Atlantic Ocean.\n\n\"It's not a bad thing to have the sargassum in the ocean,\" said Brian Barnes, an assistant research professor at the University of South Florida in Tampa. Sea turtle hatchlings swim from Florida beaches to the Sargasso Sea in the Atlantic, where they spend their early lives floating and foraging in the grass.\n\n\"If it all stays offshore, we wouldn't really have a problem,\" Barnes said. But the macroalgae has mushroomed in size over the past 12 years or so, which makes it more likely to see large piles of seaweed that make it difficult to walk, sit or play on beaches.\n\nThe trend was first documented on satellite in 2011.\n\nIn some cases, there's so much seaweed that local governments must use heavy equipment and dump trucks to haul it away, LaPointe said.\n\nHe has linked the surge in sargassum to flow from the Mississippi River, extreme flooding in the Amazon basin, and the mouth of the Congo, where upwelling and vertical mixing of the ocean can bring up nutrients that feed the blooms. He said deforestation and burning also may contribute.\n\nDEFINITIONS: Is climate change the same thing as global warming? Definitions explained.\n\nCLIMATE CHANGE CAUSES: Why scientists say humans are to blame.\n\nPhytoplankton blooms increasing in size and frequency\n\nBlooms of much smaller algae – a microscopic species known as phytoplankton – increased in size and frequency around the world from 2003 to 2020, the researchers concluded in the Nature study.\n\n\"We’ve seen something pretty similar in a lot of the things we study,\" Barnes said. \"We’re seeing such massive blooms now.\"\n\nThe coastal phytoplankton study, by researchers at the Southern University of Science and Technology in China and elsewhere, used images from NASA’s Aqua satellite. They found:\n\nBlooms affected more than 8% of the global ocean area in 2020, a 13.2% increase from 2003.\n\nBloom frequency increased globally at a rate of nearly 60%.\n\nEurope and North America had the largest bloom areas.\n\nAfrica and South America saw the most frequent blooms, more than 6.3 a year.\n\nAustralia had the lowest frequency and smallest affected area.\n\nIs climate change affecting algae blooms?\n\nBlooms have been at least indirectly linked to climate change in several ways, but especially to the warming temperatures that bring more extreme rainfall that washes silt and pollutants into waterways.\n\nFOR SUBSCRIBERS:Saving endangered right whales pits advocates against lobstermen\n\nGREEN ENERGY:Growing group of mayors at odds with experts over whale deaths and offshore windmills\n\nThe authors of the coastal phytoplankton study, Lapointe and other researchers have found:\n\nA correlation in some regions between changes in sea surface temperatures and ocean circulation.\n\nWarmer temperatures coincided with blooms in high latitude regions such as Alaska and the Baltic Sea.\n\nClimate change can affect ocean circulation and the movement of nutrients that feed phytoplankton blooms.\n\nGlobal climate events, such as El Nino, also show connections to bloom frequency and movement.\n\nAlgal-bloom-favorable seasons in temperate seas have increased with warmer temperatures.\n\nWhere will the sargassum pile up this year?\n\n\"We can't really say which particular beach at which particular time,\" Barnes said. The university publishes a regular update on the status of the bloom.\n\n\"We can get an idea of when it will be fairly close,\" he said. \"In general, everything flows west. It will come across the Central Atlantic and into the Caribbean, and into the Gulf of Mexico through the straits of Florida.\"\n\nWinds, currents and even small storms can influence where the sargassum moves.\n\nPuerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands could get hit hard, Barnes said. But the floating mats also wind up on beaches in Jamaica and all around the coast of Florida.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2023/03/14"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/local/felixvailgone/2016/12/29/felix-vail-gone-one-wife-dead-two-other-missing-jerry-mitchell/95895894/", "title": "GONE", "text": "Jerry Mitchell\n\nDecember 30, 2016\n\nMy office telephone rang, and a woman asked, “Would you be interested in writing about a serial killer living in Mississippi?”\n\n“Yes, I would,” I replied.\n\nThe woman’s name was Mary Rose. She told me her missing daughter, Annette, had been married to a man named Felix Vail, and that Annette wasn’t the only one gone. She knew of two others.\n\nA day after Mother’s Day, May 14, 2012, I met the 64-year-old, bright, short-haired woman and followed her to the property in Montpelier, Mississippi, where she planned to confront Vail.\n\nShe told me what she was going to say to him: “You may never go to jail, but I want you to know that I know and a lot of others know that you took the lives of these three women. You haven’t really gotten away with it.”\n\nWe parked and walked up to his gate, which was locked. She told me he lived down this path.\n\nI followed her over the gate, and we walked down the path, the tall weeds blocking the light.\n\nWhen we reached a clearing, we could see two trailers — a silver one gleaming in the sun and a second one 28 feet long and damaged.\n\nI followed her to the silver trailer. She knocked. No one answered.\n\nShe checked the door. Locked.\n\nCupping her hands, she peeked inside and saw no one.\n\nSo where is this Felix Vail guy?\n\nI turned around and noticed a patch of woods next to the trailers.\n\nWhen I looked back, Rose was marching toward the damaged trailer. I hurried to catch up.\n\nShe checked the front door. Locked.\n\nCircling the trailer, she noticed the back window was missing. She pulled the plastic off the window and slipped inside.\n\nShe opened the front door. Now I could see.\n\nShe rummaged through the trailer and began tossing things she found.\n\nA machete clanked on the floor. Another machete clanked beside it. Then another. Then another.\n\nThen a long sword clanked. Then another. Then another.\n\nA chill ran up my spine, and I glanced back at the woods. Could he be watching us?\n\nFelix Vail discovered he could disappear.\n\nThe blond boy stepped into the sandbox where he liked to play on the family’s dairy farm in the community of Montpelier a half-hour north of Starkville, Mississippi.\n\nHe figured out that, if he stood in the sandbox where a tree blocked his mother’s view, she couldn’t see him.\n\nHe would take one step back, then another, then another, slipping farther and farther away.\n\n“She’d come and find me out there in the orchard 100 yards away,” he recalled in a series of recorded conversations he had with undercover private investigator Gina Frenzel. “I’d be fine or climbing one of the trees.”\n\nHe drifted off for hours at a time, and later, overnight.\n\nHe began testing other boundaries, tasting what he called the “nonsexual” parts of a girl in the neighborhood.\n\nWhen his mother caught him and scolded him, he slid down the wall, crying. “I just crumbled,” he recalled. “I just wanted to die. It was the only time in my life.”\n\nWhat upset him most was he couldn’t do it anymore. “It wasn’t a wrong thing until she was told it was wrong,” he said. “Damn ego, my mother. She totally polluted her son with ego and lies.”\n\nAt school, he excelled. In fifth grade, he made straight A’s, but five times the teacher noted he was “inclined to mischief.”\n\nHe also excelled on the farm. At age 16, he produced 130 bushels of corn in a 5-acre contest, topping every farmer in Clay County.\n\nHis father, Ray, gushed to the newspaper, “I thought my patch was good, but he beat me easily. His is the best I’ve ever seen.”\n\nA year later, Vail volunteered for the military, hoping to be a pilot. When he took an aptitude exam, “I scored the highest score,” he recalled.\n\nBut the military found him unfit for military service. “They said I was not the kind of person who would follow orders,” he recalled, “and that I would be a disciplinary problem.”\n\nOther signs of trouble arose. After his mother announced the family couldn’t keep their mother cat’s offspring, he scooped up the kittens and shot them, recalled his sister, Kaye Faulkner.\n\nWhen a charismatic evangelist came to town, he became one of about a dozen teenage boys who responded to an “altar call” at the Montpelier Baptist Church.\n\nHe told his family he believed he had been called by God to preach.\n\nOn the day he delivered his 10th sermon, he said he felt an “infinitely greater” power, which he compared to sticking his finger in a light socket. “I started getting electrical rushes and thrills and tingles and ... sweat popping out.”\n\nHe later wrote that he saw a “being” that day, “shimmering like a moon-sized sun with infinite energy radiating out from it in all directions at once.”\n\nSuddenly, he said he knew the deepest thoughts of parishioners. “I knew who was screwing who.”\n\nHe never preached again.\n\nFateful meeting\n\nBy the time Felix Vail received his diploma from Montpelier High School in 1957, he was already working an enviable job at one of several plants surrounding the Cities Service (later known as CITGO) refinery in Sulphur, Louisiana — thanks to his favorite uncle, a supervisor there.\n\n“I’m making lots of money,” he recalled. “I have two cars, a motorcycle and a boat. I’m dating about 20 women.”\n\nSlender and 6 feet tall, he drove his Karmann Ghia convertible to nearby Lake Charles, where he hung out at the country club and strolled across the McNeese State College campus, searching for the prettiest women he could find.\n\n“He told me he was an ordained minister,” recalled Cynthia Miller, a student then. “I asked, ‘Where’s your Bible?’ He said, ‘I don’t have it with me.’ ”\n\nShe said he took her to a McNeese football game and afterward asked her for sex. She turned him down.\n\n“Suppose the world ends tomorrow,” he said. “You’ll never know.”\n\n“Well,” she replied, “then I’ll never know.”\n\nSome, however, took him up on his offer. “The majority of women were available to me just for the asking,” he recalled.\n\nMany noticed his light blond hair and piercing blue eyes. “He looked,” one sorority member recalled, “like he had been kissed by heaven.”\n\nMary Horton noticed him.\n\nShe had grown up in the Louisiana swamps, where Cajun food and music overflowed.\n\nShe became homecoming queen at Eunice High School, where she graduated and began attending McNeese State College. She was so popular all five sororities invited her to join.\n\nShe chose Chi Omega, and her friends marveled at how, no matter what, she seemed to find the good in people.\n\nHer cute figure and perky personality captivated many men, and the football team nominated her for the homecoming court.\n\n“All of us horny men were secretly in love with her,” recalled Vail’s friend, Bob Hodges. “She was a doll, very sweet. I would have lifted that girl up on high.”\n\nBy 1960, she began to date Vail, who took her to company shrimp boils, where they stuffed themselves and danced the night away.\n\n“I am so deliciously happy!” she wrote in one of many letters to a childhood friend. “Felix and I have been doing some really unusual things this week and having fun.”\n\nDriving around in his blue Lincoln with a white hardtop, the couple visited an African-American church, played 45s at his relatives, dined at A&W Root Beer and sipped from the same glass of lemonade.\n\nBut their relationship was not all bliss.\n\nOn June 20, 1960, Mary confided, “I really do love Felix, but I don’t think that I like him anymore. He really is sweet, but we don’t see eye to eye on things.”\n\nShe talked of being miserable with Vail and asked her friend to set her up on a date with someone else, hoping Vail would leave her.\n\n“I never could break up with anyone,” she wrote. “I always keep hoping when there is no hope.”\n\nIn response to that date, Vail came to her, sharing that he was suffering from a disease.\n\n“What disease?”\n\n“Mary.”\n\nShe welcomed his words. “He did all the talking, and I just listened. I really had nothing to say — I mean, about us,” she wrote. “He said he’s changed. I have to.”\n\nThe couple dated again, and she continued to see others.\n\nShe joined classmate Kelley McFarland at a house party, and McFarland later heard Vail was so angry he wanted to kill him.\n\nMcFarland said he tracked down Vail at a bar on Cities Service Highway and approached Vail, who responded, “I’d rather not talk about it here.”\n\nThe two men met in the dark woods. Although McFarland sensed Vail’s anger, he and Vail exchanged no blows and went their separate ways.\n\nAfter this, Mary described herself as “miserable,” writing that “Kelley and Felix (were) threatening to kill one another.”\n\nVail remained jealous, she wrote. “Felix says that he doesn’t even want me to walk around the block with another boy now, and I know just what kind of miserable feelings he’s going through. It’s just tearing me up, and I can’t do anything.”\n\nShe reiterated her love for Vail in letters. “He’s going to move to Lake Charles next week, so he’ll be closer now.\n\nOne night at a pool party, Vail “walked up to Mary and just slapped the heck out of her,” recalled her former boyfriend from high school, Leonard Matt.\n\nHe wanted to retaliate, but others held him back.\n\nBefore fall ended, Vail told Mary he wouldn’t give her a Christmas gift because he didn’t believe in giving at designated times.\n\nShe planned to buy him something anyway, “even if it’s a lollipop,” she wrote her friend. “This is one thing I love, and it won’t change for me.”\n\nWhen her friends questioned his refusal to give, she defended him, calling him a “wonderful person.”\n\nIn an Oct. 12, 1960, letter, Mary confided, “I say things that I don’t mean when I’m angry — like at Mom and Felix, for example, and I usually say the ugliest things to the ones that I love most because they are capable of hurting me the most. You always hurt the ones you love, the ones you shouldn’t hurt at all.”\n\nSadness and fear\n\nFelix Vail and Mary Horton married on a sunny day, July 1, 1961, in Eunice, Louisiana. When he slipped on her wedding ring, she nudged him, reminding him to say the marriage vow. As they headed for their honeymoon in Orange, Texas, rain pelted their gray convertible, drenching them before they could get the top back up.\n\nThat fall, she dyed her hair brown, back to her original color, and began her job as a second-grade teacher at Moss Bluff Elementary School.\n\nFellow teacher Myrtis Quinilty gave her a ride each day. She said they decided to join a local gym together because “Felix did not want her to lose her figure.”\n\nWhen December came, Mary worried she might be pregnant, and Quinilty said Vail didn’t want a child.\n\nA fellow teacher drove Mary to the doctor, where she learned the news. “We had been so careful and still I got pregnant,” Mary wrote.\n\nFor a week in February 1962, the couple celebrated a “real honeymoon” in Acapulco, Mexico, where they rode in a boat, soaked in the sun, ate lobster and listened as a band serenaded them.\n\nBack home, Mary dyed her hair blond. Vail worked the late-night shift and often stayed gone. When he returned, he talked about playing golf and bowling in leagues.\n\nMary wrote in a May 3, 1962, letter, “Felix hasn’t been acting so sweet earlier, but I haven’t helped. I never stand up for him or say anything nice to him.”\n\nHer sister-in-law, Sue Jordan, told her the only reason Vail believed Mary wanted to get married was to have a baby — not because of him.\n\nAfter Mary heard this, she wrote her friend, “I can see, looking back, from many things I said how they could have been misunderstood.”\n\nShe insisted “we are very happy now,” but her sadness seeped through, writing how unattractive she felt being pregnant.\n\nShe switched her hair color to baby blonde. A month later, she tried silver blonde.\n\nOn the couple’s first anniversary, they greeted their baby, Bill, whom she adored and sang to.\n\nWithin a month, she suspected she might be pregnant again.\n\n“My stomach has begun to get larger, and I don’t eat much,” she wrote. “It kind of excites me in a way.”\n\nShe talked of expanding her skirt. “Wonder if it’s not a tumor or something else. It hurts when you press my stomach on the right.”\n\nInside the Maree Apartments, where they lived in Lake Charles, strange things happened. One morning, the couple awoke to find their front door had been removed from its hinges.\n\nAnother time, they found the front door on their apartment wide open. Nothing was missing.\n\nMary began receiving threatening calls.\n\n“She was afraid,” Quinilty recalled. “Mary told me, ‘Felix and I decided it must be somebody watching because he only calls when he’s not here.’ ”\n\nDespite her fear of drowning and of anything that crawled, Vail took her by boat into a wildlife reserve, where she saw an alligator sunning itself before slithering into the water.\n\nWhen they spotted snakes curled up on the muddy bank, Vail blasted them with his shotgun. Dirt rained down.\n\nHe gunned the 40-horsepower motor, taking her way out into the Gulf of Mexico “until we couldn’t see the camps anymore,” she wrote, “and the water was so rough that I was a little scared.”\n\nShe heard “a funny creaking noise, and I just knew that the boat had sprung a leak because we had hit the waves so hard like at Acapulco.”\n\nVail bailed water, and they made it home.\n\nShe confessed to several Chi Omega sisters that her husband had done “something awful” in Mississippi. She wouldn’t say what.\n\nShe spoke with her mother about divorcing him, recalled her brother, Will Horton. Their mother, Lillie Mae Horton, a devout Catholic, urged her daughter to stay and work things out.\n\nDeath and disappearance\n\nDarkness had long enveloped Shell Beach on Oct. 28, 1962, when Vail drove up in his boat at 7:30 p.m., saying his wife, Mary, had accidentally fallen into the Calcasieu River while they were laying trotlines.\n\nAfter two days of searching, authorities recovered her body near the spot where he had told authorities she disappeared.\n\nHer funeral followed the next day, Halloween.\n\nHer former roommate Cynthia Miller, attended with her husband, wearing a black maternity dress.\n\nWhen she walked up to Vail to share her condolences, he replied, “I’m sorry y’all couldn’t come to our party.”\n\n“What party?”\n\n“We called y’all, but y’all weren’t home.”\n\nThe words stunned her because “I never got a call from him,” she recalled. “My husband didn’t like him at all.”\n\nThe more she pondered, the more puzzled she grew. “What is he talking about a party at a funeral? Mary is dead.”\n\nFour days after the funeral, deputies arrested Vail at work, hauling him to jail and questioning him. He refused to take a lie detector test.\n\nThe coroner ruled the death an “accidental drowning,” and Vail walked free from jail days later.\n\nMonths later, he picked up his son, Bill, from the Louisiana home of his late wife’s aunt and headed for Mississippi.\n\nFelix Vail traded the Mississippi hills for the San Diego cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean. His brother, Ronnie, was stationed there in the Navy, doing four tours in Vietnam, where he earned three bronze stars.\n\nVail left his son, Bill, behind with his mother and father, who continued to operate the family’s dairy farm in Montpelier.\n\nIn 1965, Mercy Hospital employed him as a technician, and he began working for Dr. Ivan Baronofsky, an open-heart surgery pioneer who had been chief of surgery at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City.\n\nFellow surgeon Dr. Elliot Senderoff recalled Baronofsky’s experimentations, including a wild one that failed to curb angina with X-rays. “He was always having ideas about ways to do things.”\n\nVail oversaw a kennel of 40 dogs for the heart research and helped operate a heart-lung machine. At night, he took college courses in English and speed-reading, working toward a college degree.\n\n“I have to go to bed,” he wrote his mother, Nell Rose, in a March 9, 1965, letter. “It is 10 p.m., and we have surgery tomorrow at 7:15 a.m. I will have help with the pump on this one, but after it, I’ll have to operate it alone. I hope the first patient doesn’t die. Quite a few people do in heart surgery, so it is possible.”\n\nHe urged her to lie about his whereabouts. “You can tell people about my job, but tell them I am in Alaska.”\n\nWithin a few months, he returned to Mississippi and took his son, Bill, back with him. From that point forward, Bill split time between California and Mississippi.\n\n“I kept changing my accent so as not to attract attention,” Bill said in an interview he recorded months before his 2009 death from cancer.\n\nWhen “love-ins” began at the park, Vail visited them, watching people listen to music, roll around in the grass and smoke marijuana.\n\nAfter an affair with a married nurse, he traded his medical work for life as a hippie, hitchhiking, bicycling and exploring. For months, Bill lived on a farm run by a religious cult called the Holy Order of MANS.\n\nHe said his father made him try marijuana and LSD as a child. “He thought it would enlighten my mind. I didn’t like it.”\n\nAs for companions, “my father went through more girlfriends than I could count.”\n\nOne of them was Robin Sinclair. She met Felix Vail at a San Diego bus stop in 1967.\n\nThe 17-year-old slender brunette was spending the summer with her sister when he approached her.\n\n“He was into the metaphysical, getting in touch with the subconscious,” she recalled. “He was a different person than I had ever met before.”\n\nThey began dating. When summer break ended, she returned to the San Francisco Bay area without him.\n\nIn October 1968, while listening to Iron Butterfly and other bands play at a concert, Vail appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. She saw it as a sign they belonged together.\n\n“He was always on a very even keel, like he was a little detached and studying everybody,” she said. “He was the observer.”\n\nVail had his young son with him, and they bounced from place to place.\n\nBill “was neglected,” Robin recalled, “and Felix let him smoke pot. Bill would just run wild. He would make some friends with people at a hamburger stand, and they fed him.”\n\nAt the time, she said, “I was young and naive and concerned with my next joint. I didn’t worry about any of that.”\n\nAfter being evicted for failing to pay rent, they watched another couple’s home over the Christmas holidays, she said.\n\nBefore the pair returned, she learned she was pregnant, sharing the news with Vail. “He said, ‘Well, I don’t think you’re emotionally stable enough to handle the pregnancy.’ ”\n\nWhen morning came, Vail had vanished with his son, she recalled.\n\n“A friend told me that he went back to Mississippi, that it was time for his son to go to school and that he didn’t want to be with me.”\n\nHeartbroken, she moved back in with her parents. “There was no place to go, and I was sick, sick, sick.”\n\nIn August 1969, she gave birth to her daughter, Simone, and penned Vail an angry letter.\n\nTwo months later, he showed up, and she told him, “Get out of here. I don’t want to see you again.”\n\nVail and Sharon Hensley meet\n\nFelix Vail spent time in a second-story apartment on Nob Hill in San Francisco.\n\nOne night, a neighbor above him knocked on his door, saying they were filming upstairs and had run out of electrical plugs. Could they plug their extension cord into one of his outlets?\n\nVail agreed, and the neighbor invited him to watch them make their porn film. He stepped upstairs, glimpsing the writhing bodies.\n\nOne day while housesitting at a high-rise apartment, he stripped and stepped out onto the balcony, soaking up the sun. Some time later, he looked up to see a brunette joining him.\n\nShe was 20 with long, dark hair. Her name was Sharon Hensley, so attractive that she had modeled while growing up in North Dakota.\n\nThey became friends and then more than friends, despite him being a decade older.\n\nVail handed her a copy of “The Grape Cure,” the 1928 book in which author Johanna Brandt claimed a combination of fasting and eating grapes had cured her of stomach cancer.\n\nDespite physicians condemning the diet as “quackery,” Vail and Hensley became believers, filling a bathtub with grapes they collected from vineyards.\n\nThey hitchhiked across California, living off the land. Vail’s 8-year-old son, Bill, accompanied them as they slept near vineyards and orchards.\n\nHe recalled his father sharing how his mother died. “(He said) he and my mother were out fishing …, that a boat had come by and caused a big wave and knocked my mother out of the boat and she didn’t know how to swim, had on no flotation and immediately sank and drowned. My father said he almost died trying to rescue her.”\n\nThen one summer day, when his father thought he was outside playing, he overheard his father sobbing and speaking to Sharon.\n\n“He told her that he had murdered my mother,” he recalled. “I heard the girlfriend saying, ‘Oh, I know you just must feel responsible for it.’ … He said, ‘No, you don’t understand. I really did kill her.’ ”\n\nEmotions flooded Bill. He wanted to hit his father. Then run. Then cry.\n\n“I was just so angry with my father,” he said. “He was actually a good father in many ways, but still how do I reconcile what I’ve just heard? I couldn’t.”\n\nShortly after that, the trio hiked to Mexico’s Baja Desert, where they camped and fasted, “which is miserable for an 8-year-old,” he recalled.\n\nHe decided to pray. “I really started talking to God, and just said, ‘God, get me home.’ ”\n\nTo him, home meant Mississippi, living with his grandparents.\n\nAfter their desert trip, the trio trekked north until they reached a vineyard near Merced in in central California, where Bill met a 13-year-old migrant worker.\n\n“He was very curious about me living with no shirt and no shoes,” he recalled. “We got to be friends.”\n\nIt was Aug. 21, 1970, when Bill began to share the story of his father with his new friend. “The more he heard of my story, he said, ‘Why don’t you just turn him in to the police?’ ”\n\nWhen Bill heard those words, “It was like ‘ding.’ The light came on,” he recalled. “He told me there was a town about two miles away, and I started walking right then.”\n\nIn the town of Livingston, he found the police station, where he told officers he was hungry and tired of using the drugs his father gave him, that he wanted to go back to school and live like other kids, and that he had overheard his father admit to killing his mother.\n\n“At first, they didn’t believe me, just kind of shooed me out, said, ‘Yeah, kid, go away,’ but I was committed,” he said. “I was not going to take ‘no’ for an answer.”\n\nHe camped out on the front steps until one detective listened.\n\nAt a beach along the Merced River, authorities found his 31-year-old father and 21-year-old Sharon Hensley, carrying a bag filled with LSD capsules.\n\nTheir only food? A bag of grapes.\n\nPolice charged the couple with LSD possession and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.\n\nNewspapers across the U.S. printed stories about the arrests, and the National Enquirer published a photograph of the towheaded boy playing with a “lawn toy instead of drugs after being placed in a foster home.”\n\nVail received a six-month jail sentence, plus three years’ probation, after pleading guilty to a lesser charge of LSD possession.\n\nCalifornia authorities shared their information with Louisiana authorities. Once again, the district attorney in Lake Charles passed on prosecuting Vail for murder.\n\nBill returned to Mississippi to live with his grandparents, who gained full custody.\n\nOn Jan. 23, 1971, he saw his father and Sharon Hensley in their driveway.\n\nHe stood frozen, wondering where he could run. “I really thought he was going to kill me,” he said. “My grandmother came back out and reassured me that he wasn’t going to hurt me.”\n\nAfter a while, he and his father sat down and spoke, and his father said he did not blame him for time spent in prison, Bill recalled. “He actually blamed the girlfriend, which was strange ‘cause she had nothing to do with it.”\n\nVail’s family questioned how he and Sharon could legally be in Mississippi when they were supposed to be serving their time on probation in California. They soon realized they couldn’t.\n\nA day later, the sheriff came. He told Vail’s family he had a cablegram from California, asking him to pick up the couple for questioning.\n\nVail’s mother told the sheriff she didn’t know where her son was.\n\nFour days later, Vail and his girlfriend, Sharon, hid on a car’s floorboards as his family transported them out of town. At the bus station in Grenada, Mississippi, the family gave the couple enough money to return to the West Coast.\n\n“Don’t know if (it) was the right thing to do,” Vail’s mother wrote the Hensley family. “We definitely feel that they both need psychiatric help. But there seems to be no way that can be arranged. So God help them, and us, is our prayer.”\n\n‘She believed in love’\n\nSharon Hensley grew up in the state capital of Bismarck, North Dakota, where buffalo once roamed free on the hills. A post-World War II baby born five days before Christmas in 1948, she dated football players and belonged to the high school’s Demonettes, an award-winning dance team founded by a former Rockette.\n\nOne summer day, she and her best friend, Connie Woodworth, stepped into the Missouri River and nearly drowned. Another time, when they drove with their boyfriends on a gravel road, Sharon panicked rounding a curve, and the car rolled three times.\n\nThrown clear, she rushed to check on her friends. When she discovered they were OK, she wept, Woodworth recalled. “She was a person who cared deeply for her friends and family.”\n\nThe girls graduated in 1966, and Sharon attended Bismarck Junior College, where she took classes in dancing and acting, performing in a play with her older brother, Frank.\n\nYounger brother Brian adored his sister. Although she was 11 years older than him, when the radio brimmed with Beatles songs in 1964, Sharon and her girlfriends played the records and had him dance with them.\n\nWhen summer came, he tagged along with them as they sunbathed on the river’s sandbars. “It was heaven for a 6-year-old,” he said.\n\nThey picnicked, played volleyball, snapped Polaroids and tossed a new toy called the Frisbee, he recalled. “I just remember sunshine and happiness.”\n\nIn 1967, Sharon discovered she was pregnant. Wanting to escape her hometown, she followed her brother Frank and other classmates to San Francisco, where thousands of other young people were already gathering for the “summer of love.”\n\n“She believed in love,” Brian recalled. “She believed in happiness. She believed in flowers and beads.”\n\nAfter arriving in the Bay area, she stayed in a home for unwed mothers, where she gave birth to a girl she named “Cherry” after the popular Neil Diamond song. She told friends she wanted to keep the child, but was unable to.\n\nTwo years after leaving for California, Sharon was in jail and her mother, Peggy, headed there with a $5,000 cashier’s check to bail her out. “I’m going to get Sharon and bring her home,” she announced.\n\nBut when she returned, Sharon wasn’t with her.\n\n“She said she had lost her daughter,” Brian recalled. “She cried almost every night.”\n\nDepression overwhelmed his mother. “She was never the same after that.”\n\nIn the summer of 1972, Sharon appeared unannounced with Vail at her childhood home in Bismarck. They had been hitchhiking, eating macrobiotic foods, meditating and practicing yoga.\n\nThe more the family witnessed, the more horrified they became. Sharon wore a mini-skirt with no panties and had armpit hair and leg hair like a man, Brian recalled. “I thought she was freaking way out.”\n\nShe had been losing weight and with it some of the curves that made her a model. She was also losing clumps of hair.\n\nShe seemed brainwashed, Brian said. “You could just tell she was not the same person, that this guy was controlling what she was saying.”\n\nIf someone asked her a question, “either Felix would answer the question for her, or she would look at Felix while she was giving the answer.”\n\nBrian went one day with Vail to the Elks Club, where his father was a member. “They had a workout room, and Felix gets totally naked.”\n\nVail tested out the exercise equipment then strolled into the steam room, where “these older gentlemen just freaked out on him because he was hippie looking and walking around naked.”\n\nThe men forced Vail to leave. When he objected, insisting he was a guest of Harry Hensley, one man shot back, “The hell you are. I know Harry Hensley better than that.”\n\nBrian said he traveled with the couple to a small grocery store. While Vail distracted the clerk, Sharon stuffed jars of grape juice into a duffle bag. “I could even hear the bottles clanging.”\n\nWhile the clerk questioned what was going on, Sharon dashed out with the bottles. When the clerk tried to pursue her, Vail stood in the way.\n\n“We got away,” Brian recalled. “The cops didn’t come.”\n\nThe couple left North Dakota and traveled to Mississippi, where they stayed with Vail’s family. On the dairy farm, they helped paint the family home.\n\nThe couple also sunbathed in the nude, drawing more than a few glares from neighbors.\n\nPeggy Hensley received a telephone call from Sharon, who said she and Vail were heading to New Orleans and then to Miami to make pornographic films.\n\n“What daughter tells her mother she’s going to do a porno?” Brian asked. “I think it was a cry for help. That’s what my mom thought.”\n\nHe said his mother wanted to travel south in hopes of getting her daughter back, but his parents were unable to do that.\n\nIn early 1973, Sharon telephoned and talked of traveling to South America, where she and Vail would eat natural foods and write a book, Brian recalled.\n\nIt was the last conversation any family or friends had with his sister.\n\nSharon’s last letter contained a picture, which showed her holding a pen and sitting at a table at the home of Vail’s parents. She captioned the Polaroid: “Making travel notes.”\n\nWhen Brian gazed at the photograph, all he could see was her sorrow, a shell of the sister he loved.\n\nSharon disappears\n\nIn New Orleans, Sharon Hensley worked as a table dancer at a strip club — something Vail said she had done before in San Bernardino, California, and Albuquerque, New Mexico.\n\n“Guys would give her another $100 to dance on their table, rather than go to the next table,” Vail recalled. “She’d make a $1,000 a night sometimes.”\n\nVail left with Sharon for Miami, where they lived in a commune and worked at a health food store not far from the Voyager Inn, where the porn movie, “Deep Throat,” had been surreptitiously shot for $25,000. Now on its way to grossing $600 million, the film helped turn Miami into a mecca for porn flicks.\n\nThe couple managed to get a telephone number for Len Camp, who had worked on the iconic movie, and Vail recalled a man approaching them.\n\n“He asked if we had ever been in movies and did we realize the camera might love us?” Vail recalled. “He didn’t say porn.”\n\nThe couple took him up on the offer, which paid them $500 a day, he said.\n\nWhen they arrived, there was no script. Instead, they ad-libbed sex scenes, Vail recalled.\n\nRather than casting Vail in the part of a sexual stud, the director had Vail take on a different role. “You get on the bed, and you start masturbating,” he recalled. “They walk in and look, and you’re surprised.”\n\nFor him, it was hardly enjoyable. “So much of it was ridiculous.”\n\nMonths passed, and Sharon Hensley’s family never heard from her. Worried, her mother telephoned Vail’s mother.\n\nIn March 1974, Sharon’s mother received a letter from Vail, who wrote that he was in west Florida: “I share your concern about Sharon but then she is of age and she should have the right and freedom from you to decide for herself how she wants to live her time on earth.”\n\nHe wrote that he last saw Sharon about a year ago in Key West with an Australian couple traveling around the world. All he recalled was the first names of the couple, who were talking with Sharon about “island hopping around South America and the West Indies and they talked of stopping in Hawaii for a while, maybe a couple of years in the Philippines, then India, Egypt and the Mediterranean islands and coasts. I don’t know which of these (if any) they decided on or in what order.”\n\nBrian remembered his mother throwing down the letter, not believing a word.\n\n“Felix didn’t remember the boat’s name, the couple’s last name or much of anything else,” he said, “but, boy, he sure had down their travel itinerary.”\n\nIn fall 1975, Vail’s mother wrote the Hensley family about what her son had told her: “He was surprised that you had not heard from Sharon by this time.”\n\nVail told his mother the names of the couple that Sharon left with were Frank and Sally — different names than he gave a year earlier.\n\nVail explained that before Sharon left, she burned all of her identification cards, got new IDs and declared that she would become a completely different person.\n\nHis mother told her family, “My heart goes out to you. I know how hard (it) would be if Felix had gone like that.”\n\nVail’s son, Bill, recalled his father taking him aside and mentioning Sharon. “He said she would never bother anyone ever again.”\n\nThe words upset Bill, who believed his father had just confessed to another killing. “There was not a soul I could tell about it because I had had my experience in court when I was 8,” he wrote. “No one would believe me. It would be my word against his, and no one would believe a 13-year-old.”\n\nWhile riding a bus back home to north Mississippi in 1975, Felix Vail spotted a 17-year-old girl seated behind the driver. He scooted beside Sharon Campbell, who was half his age. He told her how fit she looked, saying he needed someone like her to keep him fit.\n\nIn a 2014 sworn statement, she said she felt flattered and shared her telephone number. Not long after returning home, he showed up in a yellow Volkswagen bug.\n\nDuring one conversation, he shared that his first wife had drowned while they were fishing. She felt sorry for him.\n\nHe talked of California, the mountains and other places he had visited. His words intrigued her, so different from her cloistered upbringing that she had begun to rebel against.\n\nHe wanted her to travel with him, and she told him the only way her parents would let her do that would be if they were married.\n\nOn July 24, 1975, they tied the knot and honeymooned in Gulf Shores, Alabama.\n\nThe couple never consummated the marriage because he was unable to “obtain an erection,” she told Louisiana prosecutor Hugo Holland.\n\nAfter their honeymoon, the couple, along with her 1-year-old son, traveled to Clinton, Oklahoma, where Vail said he had a job.\n\nDuring the day, he left, and she and her son hung out at the hotel, swimming in the pool.\n\nSeveral weeks later, she went with Vail to visit his relatives in Louisiana. There, she said a niece told her, “You probably need to know that he killed his first wife.”\n\nShe said the niece continued, saying, “Yeah, they arrested him. … We all believed that he did it. … He drowned her out of a boat.”\n\nThe teenage bride discounted what she was hearing, thinking he would be in prison if he had killed someone.\n\nBut as months passed, she concluded he “had no value in the female gender,” she said. “He hated women.”\n\nShe later traveled with Vail to his parents’ home in Montpelier.\n\nWhile there, he “was outdoors doing something around that yellow (Volkswagen) bug,” she said. “I walked out there. I don’t think he knew I was coming out there.”\n\nHe opened a compartment, and she said she saw “sinister, surgical looking saws of all shapes and sizes in a neat, neat formation. They were so clean … like you would see in a surgery clinic. I mean, they were that sterile.”\n\nTo her, the sight screamed evil. “It scared me. I said, ‘I’m not going anywhere with you.’ ”\n\nShe left, annulled the marriage and never looked back.\n\nIn 1977, Vail joined a crew for Western Geophysical, a seismograph company with an office in nearby West Point, Mississippi.\n\nThey traveled across the U.S., stomping geophones into the ground. The devices helped locate oil and natural gas pockets.\n\nMost of the crew were in their 20s. Vail was the exception. Fit, thin and tan, he wore a pageboy haircut, but his craggy neck gave away that he was approaching 40.\n\nMembers of the crew said Vail regarded eating meat as unholy, but believed marijuana and LSD were “God’s creations,” giving insight into the divine.\n\nWhen the crew discovered Vail missing one day, they retreated to find him hanging from a tree. He was meditating, arms crossing his chest.\n\nWorking with the crew that summer, Vail found himself in jail again.\n\nOn June 28, sheriff’s deputies arrested him near Bath, New York, less than an hour and a half south of Rochester, on a charge of criminal possession of a controlled substance.\n\nVail explores ‘enlightenment’\n\nOn a bus heading back to Mississippi, Vail ran into a woman named Ella from Holland. “She was rich,” he said. “She had made her money in Transactional Analysis.”\n\nThis new approach to psychoanalysis had become a national rage, fueling such bestsellers as “I’m OK, You’re OK” and “Games People Play.”\n\nElla planned to attend the International Transactional Analysis Association Conference in San Francisco, but in the meantime, “she was going to see America,” Vail recalled.\n\nHeading for New Orleans, she exited the bus instead with Vail and went with him to his childhood home of Montpelier. From there, they rode together on his motorcycle across the country until they arrived at the symposium in August 1977.\n\n“It was one of the most interesting weeks,” Vail recalled.\n\nWhile there, he listened to speakers about Transactional Analysis, which describes parent, adult and child “ego states” when people interact with each other\n\nVail recalled a presentation from a group known as the “Frog Pond,” which believed that people could have their lives transformed, just as fairy tales described frogs being transformed into princes or princesses.\n\nDuring that presentation, the Frog Pond people shared sexual research, Vail said. “Normally, orgasms are only a few seconds. They found a way to sneak into the orgasm and hold the orgasm … (for) several hours.”\n\nAfter the conference, Vail headed south, reconnecting with an old friend, Brian Biedebach, and a San Diego native named Carolyn, whom he had dated in 1975 in Placerville, California. Their romance had flourished in that old Gold Rush boomtown, but when she returned from work one day, Vail had vanished like the prospectors.\n\nNow reunited, the pair resumed their relationship. They married on Christmas Eve 1977 and rented a modest house in San Bernardino. “He decided he had allergies to everything,” she recalled. “We had to scrub the house from top to bottom and put plastic on things.”\n\nWhile she worked at her job, he never found one, other than trying to grow marijuana once in the back yard.\n\nShe covered all the couple’s expenses, paid to get his teeth fixed and even bought him a Karmann Ghia. “I was paying for so many things, I was starting not to trust him.”\n\nHe signed a note to repay her for the car, but she said she “never saw a dime.”\n\nShe had long been frugal with her earnings as a teacher, saving $23,000 toward a future home.\n\nWhen Vail learned of this, he became upset she wouldn’t give him some of it, telling others, “Carolyn doesn’t believe in community property.”\n\nShe did pay about $600 (the modern equivalent of nearly $2,400) for him to attend the Erhard Seminars Training (known as est), where trainers promised participants they could break free from their pasts.\n\nWhen Vail returned home, he kept her up all night, saying he should be an est trainer “because he was so much more enlightened,” she recalled.\n\nHe insisted they drive two hours to San Diego to talk with her mother, trying “to alienate me from my mother by convincing me that she never loved me,” she said. “How stupid was that. How stupid was I.”\n\nThe marriage disintegrated soon after the couple went on a double date with Biedebach and Alexandra Christiansen. While they drove in a car together, Carolyn said Christiansen glared at Vail in the rearview mirror and asked, “So why did you get married?”\n\nThe next day, Vail left with Christiansen.\n\nCarolyn said she soon found out he also had an affair with a neighbor. “I was so furious.”\n\nShe telephoned Vail’s mother and detailed what had happened. “Doesn’t this surprise you?” she asked.\n\n“No,” his mother replied.\n\nThat response confirmed that he had “a history of behaving this way,” she recalled. “If your parents don’t defend you, there’s something wrong there.”\n\nWhen he showed up later to collect a few things he left behind, she had friends serve him with divorce papers.\n\n“He was not responsible. He was immoral. But, boy, he knew it all.”\n\nAfter taking the divorce papers, Vail backed his car all the way across the property until he smashed into her MGB sports car.\n\nAbout a month later, he telephoned and told her, “I love you.”\n\nUtilizing a phrase popular in est circles, she replied, “I got it.”\n\nShe never looked back, moving more than 100 miles away. “He was so mentally deranged I couldn’t get far enough away.”\n\nAnnette\n\nIn summer 1981, Mary Rose and her teenage daughter, Annette Craver, greeted people at a friend’s yard sale in the Montrose neighborhood in Houston, Texas, not far from Rice University. They had contributed a few items before their move to San Antonio.\n\nThey had just returned from a vacation in Mexico, and Annette felt heartsick, still infatuated with a boy named Adolfo, who was unable to join her in America. Two years earlier, her father, a Vietnam veteran, had died in a car crash in Mexico.\n\nWhile people poked through stacks of clothes and books, Vail pulled up on a motorcycle and spoke with Annette, a singer-songwriter who at 15 was so bright she was starting her senior year at a private school aimed at those entering the medical profession. He was 41 and had done some carpentry work in the area.\n\n“When I saw her, I thought, ‘That’s going to be my new girlfriend,’ ” he recalled.\n\nAfter moving with her daughter to San Antonio, Rose struggled to find work and relocated to Tulsa, Oklahoma.\n\nAnnette boarded with an art teacher near her high school and dreamed of becoming a midwife, assisting with three births. Vail began to visit her there.\n\nIn April 1982, Rose and her daughter invested in a Tulsa home that had a rental cottage behind it. Rose began renovating both of them.\n\nAfter graduating from high school, Annette joined her mother in Tulsa. Vail appeared a few days later.\n\nHe convinced Annette to leave with him on his motorcycle. They lived off the $500-a-month Social Security check that she received from her father’s death, Rose recalled. “It was over one year before I saw her again.”\n\nThat fall, Annette became pregnant and underwent a painful abortion. “Ideally, we should have been ready to have it, go off into the woods and live happily ever after, but as it was neither of us was ready (me mainly),” she wrote. “That sure shot down my ‘I can’t wait to have a baby’ trip.”\n\nThe couple rode south of the border, stopping near Cancun at Isla Mujeres, where her old boyfriend lived, Annette wrote in a Dec. 4, 1982, letter to her mother. “The first couple of nights I looked everywhere for him.”\n\nShe confessed, “Felix has come close to leaving me a couple of times already because of my fantasy that Adolfo was better than anyone I could ever be with, including him.”\n\nSeven months later, she saw her old flame. “He’s teaching children, doing artwork,” she wrote her mother in a postcard. “He asked about you.”\n\nThe couple trekked to Sausalito, California, to see friends.\n\nJerry Woodall recalled seeing the couple outside. “They were in a sleeping bag at 10 in the morning, about 20 feet away. Felix was on top of her and having sex. Annette was looking at me, grinning and waving.”\n\nHis then-wife, Meredith McMackin, recalled the scene as “just embarrassing. We were trying to ignore it.”\n\nShe recalled Vail as a “very handsome” and “spiritually enlightened” man who seemed to have it all together.\n\nShe noticed, too, “this coldness and controlling aspect to his personality. Annette was so open and alive, but I think he just totally dominated her. He would try to convey that he was this higher form of being. At first, I thought maybe he was evolved, but then I realized it was this arrogant act.”\n\nLater that summer of 1983, police in California arrested Vail for violating probation a dozen years earlier.\n\nAnnette telephoned Woodall, who gave her $200.\n\nAfter Vail walked free from prison, he and Annette decided to marry. Because she was only 17, she needed permission.\n\nShe told her mother that she loved Vail, that the couple was already “spiritually married” and that the couple would marry in Mexico if she refused.\n\nNot wanting to lose her daughter completely, Rose said OK.\n\nOn Aug. 15, 1983, the couple married in Bakersfield, California.\n\nFour months later, Annette turned 18, making it possible for her to collect more than $98,000 on life insurance policies taken out by her late father. Accompanied by Vail, she withdrew all the money in cash from a San Antonio bank. She bought a Fiat convertible that Vail liked and paid for his dental work.\n\nIn a letter to a friend, she described her husband as “a separate entity from his family. I’ve met them all, and we visit but infrequent. And Felix has established his own code of ethics which free him from any obligation.”\n\nOne day in April 1984, Rose returned home to find Annette waiting on her doorstep. She spoke of divorcing Vail and enrolling in college.\n\nShe talked, too, of Vail’s temper, Rose recalled. “She confessed to me that she had lied to me about Felix breaking his hand by dropping a pot on it. She said the truth was Felix took a swing at her face. She dodged the blow, and he hit the wall.”\n\nA few weeks later, Vail showed up, Rose said. “They fought almost constantly. He left after a few days. He was insanely jealous of her, would go into a rage when she talked of her desire to go out with younger men.”\n\nShe and Annette worked on renovating the two homes, enjoying their time together, she recalled. “We started a garden.”\n\nAnnette received a letter from Vail, who vowed their time apart would fuel their love. “After we hung up,” he wrote, “I went out to a park and ran and hung and talked with god and smoked some and shot some pool and rode with the top down out through the marsh playing ‘Iron Butterfly’ [“In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida”] and bathing every inch of your body-spirit being with love.”\n\nHe referred to their being apart as “deprivation jail” — “only this time it’s your ego that is our (my) jailer.”\n\nThe idea of her cutting away ego’s “feeder roots and creating roots between your spirit and the cosmic ground of loving makes me hot for you,” he wrote her. “My mind is kissing you everywhere.”\n\nVail returned to her daughter’s life, Rose recalled. “Annette told me, ‘Felix is the wisest person in the world, and I can’t make decisions without him.’ ”\n\nHis influence on Annette grew stronger. She compared Vail to God, Rose said.\n\nThe reunited couple insisted Rose leave. “They became very angry and adamant about me getting out and deeding the place over to Annette.”\n\nRose said Annette fell under Vail’s control and became hostile, accusing her of being a thief.\n\nShe felt devastated. “I have never felt so low in my life.”\n\nWhen thoughts of taking her own life swept over her in spring 1984, she said she realized she had to leave to survive, heading to California to stay with family and friends.\n\nBefore departing, she deeded the house to Annette for $7,000.\n\nWhen Rose later spoke to Annette about the two cats she left behind, Yawni and Puff, Annette shared that Vail had killed them, calling them “a bother.”\n\nIn a July 24 letter, Rose encouraged her daughter to keep their communication open and continue her education. “I feel afraid that you are allowing all of Felix's attitudes to become yours and hope that you will be able to sort out what is true and what is manufactured through his fear.”\n\nBy the time that letter arrived, Annette had already added Vail to the deed. A month later, she deeded him both homes.\n\nAs fall neared, the couple told neighbors they were leaving on vacation. When Vail returned to Tulsa in October, he was driving the Fiat alone.\n\nA neighbor, Wende Austin, asked where Annette was. Vail replied that Annette had a lot of money on her when they parted company and that she might see some people she knew in Denver.\n\nUpon learning that Annette had failed to return, Rose telephoned Vail. “He told me that while they were camping, Annette had a sexual dream about being with other men in Mexico, and she wanted to go there,” she recalled. “He claimed that the dream made them both realize that she should have her freedom.”\n\nThe next day, she said Vail told her he had put Annette on a bus with $50,000, but gave no further details.\n\nHis explanation made no sense to Rose, who wondered how her daughter could have been carrying this much cash since the couple hadn’t planned in advance to split up.\n\nOn Oct. 22, 1984, Rose filed a missing person’s report. She told the Tulsa Police Department that each person who talks with Vail “gets a different story about the amount of money that Annette took with her and where she might be. We all believe that he knows where she is or has done something with her.”\n\nFelix Vail answered the door, seeing Detective Dennis Davis and another officer from the Tulsa Police Department. It was Jan. 22, 1985, and Vail had been expecting them.\n\nWeeks earlier, he had dropped off a photograph of Annette at Davis’ request. Two weeks before that, Vail had filed for divorce, citing an inability to find her after a “diligent search.”\n\nHe invited the officers in, and they chatted for more than two hours.\n\nDavis said her mother, Mary Rose, mentioned her daughter had received more than $90,000 from her father’s estate.\n\nVail confirmed that was true, saying the couple had spent much of that money traveling in foreign countries. He said they kept their money in cash because they didn’t trust banks and that he had found about $10,000 in cash when he returned home.\n\nThe next day, Vail telephoned a lawyer, who promised to talk with the officers and tell them to “leave me alone,” he wrote in his journal.\n\nBy the time Davis returned five days later, Vail had a detailed alibi: The couple left Tulsa between noon and 3 p.m. Sept. 13, 1984, and stayed the night in a hotel in Claremont, Oklahoma. After two nights of camping on the river, Annette awoke and told Vail she had decided to leave him. He took her to the Trailways Bus Station in St. Louis and left before she bought the ticket.\n\nHe told the officers she told him she was headed for Denver, where she planned to get a fake ID card and leave for Mexico.\n\nThey asked Vail if he would take a lie detector test. He said no.\n\nAfter the officers left, Vail wrote in his journals about Annette’s mother, Rose. She is “making Davis dance, and he’s trying to make me dance.”\n\nVail claimed Annette had bought a gun. “I regret some not letting Annette kill her [mother] when she wanted to & Annette is free of her (at least as long as she stays incommunicado).”\n\nHe wondered what to do about Rose. “Now how do I get free of her short of giving her the property?” he asks in his journal. “One way (that I don’t know how to do) is prove to Davis she is manipulative old whore who’s [sic] motivation is accusing me (of whatever) is mostly money and very little if any parental concern for Annette.”\n\nHe scribbled a letter to Rose. He blamed her for the “bad things” in Annette, saying she had “stymied the love between us to the point where we both decided that she could get more ... from miscellaneous emotionally and sexually hungry men than she was getting from me.”\n\nHe wrote that after the couple came back from Costa Rica, Annette “began seeing friends and relatives ... and doing what she called completing her relationships with them for the purpose of getting ready to drop everybody and start over.”\n\nHe wrote that she “disappeared herself from you because she realized that you probably would never voluntarily stop re-energizing in her and superimposing on her the same value system you live by that makes her see you and your mother (and herself partially) as zero self image whores for approval in the form of male attention as prerequisite to the periodic and temporary permission to feel good about yourselves.”\n\nVail explained the two left each other “with no plans to communicate in the future … I have not the slightest idea where she might have gotten to by now. I will tell you that I love the spirit part and very much respect her right to freedom and so I also assure you that even if I did know, I would not tell you.”\n\nHis response felt like a cold slap to Rose. She could feel police interest in her daughter’s disappearance growing cold, too. Perhaps they would be less skeptical if she talked to them in person.\n\nShe returned to Tulsa in April 1985, letting Vail know she would be in town.\n\n“Dear Mary, I would like to see you to [sic],” he wrote her. “I think it could be more than lovely to be with you some. I look forward to it. Love, Felix.”\n\nWhen she arrived, she was unable to reach him and grew worried about her daughter. She slipped inside the rental cottage where her daughter had lived. All of Annette’s clothes were gone, and so were nearly all her possessions, including the diary she kept.\n\nInside a Barbie suitcase, Rose found a photograph of her daughter and several of her identification cards. She also located things that Annette had written, including a Feb. 17, 1984, note that contradicted Vail’s claim that the couple had spent most of her inheritance on their travel to Mexico and Central American countries.\n\nInstead, the note detailed how they used the money to buy the Fiat, pay off all of Vail’s loans, and deposit $36,000 into Louisiana Savings. “As of today, we have $41,600 in cash.”\n\nRose shared the information with police.\n\nDetective Davis showed up again, “acting like Columbo with two more questions,” Vail wrote in his journal.\n\nHe had told Davis before that he and Annette kept their money in cash. Now he acknowledged the couple divided the money into smaller cashier’s checks.\n\nAfter a while, Davis left. Vail hoped the answers satisfied the detective.\n\nHe dreamed about Annette in bed “with this great big ugly fat guy,” he wrote in his journal. “She was feeling dumb and ridiculous for having let him into her and being at the same time as high as she could be … (from) the energy of his desire and attention.”\n\nVail never heard again from the detective, who closed the missing person’s case.\n\nRose kept telephoning, hoping to talk with Vail. She tried him at home in Tulsa. She tried him at his parents’ home in Mississippi.\n\nOn Sept. 14, 1985, she finally reached him in Tulsa. When she asked about Annette’s missing clothes, he told her he had given all of them to charity.\n\nWhen Rose asked about Annette’s whereabouts, he refused to say where she was.\n\nShe mentioned that she was talking to police. When she pressed for more details about what happened to all the money that Annette inherited, she said Vail shot back, “That’s all you really care about — her money.”\n\nShe hung up.\n\nEach day in his journals, Vail wrote about his encounters with women. He hopped from bed to bed, sometimes in the same night.\n\nWhen the sex was good, he described it as “electric” and “mutually orgasmic.” When he was unable to have sex with a woman, he blamed it on her “fat.”\n\nWhen problems arose in the relationships, he blamed their egos, never his own.\n\nDecember came, and temperatures dipped below freezing. Vail watched television, “vibrating on commercials.”\n\nHe thought about Annette. He had told Tulsa police she was schizophrenic and suicidal. Now he wrote that everyone he had met 3 or older was “schizo.”\n\nLess than two weeks before Christmas, he stepped out into the snow at 1 a.m. After watching the movie, “The Hotel New Hampshire,” he returned to the icy white, this time in his bare feet. “It’s coming down in bigger flakes now & around 2 inches, it is magic to walk & frolic in it, falling & fallen, clothes on & clothes off.”\n\nBurning bridges\n\nFed up with the lack of progress in her daughter’s disappearance, Rose returned in 1987 to Tulsa, where she began working at her old job as a manager for the Bakery on Cherry Street.\n\nShe spent thousands on private investigators. When they were unable to locate Vail, she decided to look herself.\n\nTipped off that he was staying at someone’s house, she went there with a friend and found him sitting outside.\n\n“So where did Annette go?” she asked.\n\n“Mexico.”\n\n“Where in Mexico did she go?”\n\nHe told her that he and Annette had made a pact they would contact each other after five years.\n\nHe never looked up, never stood up and never looked her in the eye.\n\nShe walked away, shaking her head in disbelief. She didn’t believe a word.\n\nVail became fast friends with Tulsa native Scott Porter, an expert in martial arts who held more than one black belt.\n\nVail believed he was a martial arts expert, too, after practicing flying kicks into a mattress.\n\nEach morning, he and Porter worked out, lifting weights together before hitting a Chinese buffet.\n\nOver lunch, Vail shared that he had never felt bound by society’s rules, Porter recalled. “He dropped his silverware and began eating with his hands like a caveman.”\n\nAt nights, the pair played pool, drank beer and sometimes visited strip clubs in Tulsa, where Vail tucked dollar bills into the strippers’ panties. “Tulsa had more churches than gas stations,” Porter said, “but also more strip clubs than anywhere else I’ve lived.”\n\nBack home, Vail listened to the songs of Porter, who still dreamed of a career in music.\n\nThe two men reminisced about the women missing from their lives. Vail, at 45, had been married to Annette, just 18, and Porter, at 28, had dated Rose, who was 36.\n\nPorter had driven Rose to California before returning home alone. “My heart was absolutely broken,” he recalled. “She needed to move on, and I didn’t.”\n\nNot long after Annette vanished, Rose telephoned Porter and shared her suspicions that Vail had something to do with her daughter’s disappearance.\n\nPorter began examining each word his friend spoke.\n\nWhile he discussed his hopes of reuniting with Rose, he noticed Vail never mentioned that possibility with Annette.\n\nOne night, Vail seemed more open. “He was crying like a baby,” Porter recalled, “angry it didn’t work out differently.”\n\nVail explained that Annette “wanted to ‘recreate’ herself and that she didn’t want any contact with any portion of her past life. She wanted to totally break with herself.”\n\nWhile Vail talked of breaking with the past, Porter was busy searching for his.\n\nHe had been adopted and decided to move to Minnesota to reconnect with his birth parents. While there, he met his future wife, Jennie.\n\nReturning to Tulsa with a small son and another on the way, he renewed his friendship with Vail, who was so kind he later watched the boys while the couple went out on dates.\n\nOnce, during a discussion of fidelity, Porter said Vail shared that he felt “nobody could ever be faithful to one person.”\n\nMonths later, Vail “starts hitting on my wife,” Porter said.\n\nUpset about this, he took Vail on a walk and confronted him.\n\nVail denied it all, Porter recalled. “He said, ‘No, no, she was hitting on me.’ ”\n\nAs they crossed the Arkansas River Bridge, a fleeting thought ran through his head. “I was wanting to throw Felix off and wondering if I’d get away with it.”\n\nViolence and jealousy\n\nVail began dating Beth Field. She was attracted to his intelligence, and the pair grew close.\n\nArguments followed, and he kept calling her a “whore.” During a December 1987 argument, he became so violent he ruptured her eardrum, according to court records.\n\nShe told Vail there was no justification for physical violence, and she said he replied, “If you quit behaving like a whore, I’ll quit hitting you.”\n\nShe recalled discussing the issue with a therapist. “I finally told this woman, ‘It’s all very nice, but one of us is going to be dead before this works.’ ”\n\nField took the advice of a close friend and attended an intensive 10-day meditation course in August 1988 on Colorado’s Western Slope. To her surprise, Vail came, too.\n\nAfter the course, she received a telephone call from Rose, sharing details about the disappearance of her daughter, Annette.\n\nFrom that point forward, Field said she began to examine Vail’s words more closely, realizing “the probability that he had taken Annette’s life.”\n\nHe told Field he and Annette had gone camping, that she decided she wanted to get away from her mother and that he had helped her set up an opportunity for her to change her name and move on.\n\nVail denied any involvement in Annette’s disappearance.\n\n“Then one time,” Field recalled, “he said, ‘What if I said yes?’ ”\n\nFour months after the meditation course, he entered her home unannounced. Already drunk, he accused her of “imagined promiscuity,” according to the court order.\n\nHe slapped her, struck her and threw her across the bedroom.\n\n“Will I get out alive?” she asked.\n\n“It depends on what you tell me,” Vail replied.\n\nThe judge gave her a protective order, requiring Vail to keep his distance. Two weeks later, the sheriff reported that Vail was nowhere to be found.\n\nField said she felt caught in a “sick, addictive relationship, and it took quite some time to fully unravel it.”\n\nOver time, her attachment to him began to fade.\n\nWhile Field was visiting a meditation center in Texas in 1990, Vail arrived and castigated her, and she felt the same anger and defensiveness rising up as before, she said.\n\nShe walked away to compose herself, and when she returned, she sat down next to him. “I told him, ‘There is a part of you that goes off, and it’s sick and it’s dangerous.’ ”\n\nShe said he looked at her and asked, “Really?”\n\n“Yes, really.”\n\nThis time, the message seemed to soak in.\n\nVail left the next day, and with a single exception about five years later, she did not see him again.\n\nMary Rose moved to Ashland, Oregon, in 1989, working as an administrator for a private Waldorf School. She was hoping for a quieter life than the one she had in California.\n\nMore than a year later, she visited a psychic, asking if she could talk about her daughter Annette.\n\nThe psychic put her hands over her forehead and spoke. “Oh, my gosh, this is not something I usually talk about when I see images like this.”\n\nShe never shared what she saw, but Rose knew her daughter was dead and that she needed to get to the bottom of this.\n\nIn the summer of 1991, she removed the back seats from her Toyota van and put in a makeshift bed for sleeping. She made curtains to hang over the windows.\n\nShe had previously talked by telephone with Felix Vail’s sister, Sue Jordan, who now lived in Canyon Lake, Texas.\n\nNow Rose decided to drive the more than 2,000 miles there, hoping she might find out more in person.\n\nJordan answered the door and invited her in. The two women sat in the living room, and Jordan recalled the last time she saw Annette. In October 1984, the family attended the Cam-Cal Fair in Sulphur, Louisiana, along with Vail and Annette.\n\n“She told me Felix was giving Annette a hard time,” Rose recalled. “He criticized the way she was dressed.”\n\nDays after the fair, the couple left together, and a few days after that, Vail returned alone, “extremely distressed, eating meat and drinking alcohol,” she said Jordan told her.\n\nThat struck Rose as strange because Vail was a longtime vegetarian.\n\nJordan shared that Vail told her that Annette wanted to leave, that he took her to a bus station and that she left with some Mexican men, heading for Mexico.\n\nJordan also mentioned that Vail’s first wife had drowned. That was news to Rose.\n\nBefore she left, she said Jordan remarked, “Oh, you know, there was another woman that disappeared. I remember her mother calling my mother for years, checking to see if they’d heard from her. I think her name was Sharon.”\n\nAfter the conversation, Rose sat down at a typewriter, pecking out every word she could remember. She also telephoned the public library in Lake Charles.\n\nThe librarian remembered the 1962 drowning of Vail’s first wife, Mary. She recalled that he had taken out life insurance policies on his wife prior to her drowning. She also said the insurance companies were suspicious and didn’t pay the full value.\n\nThe librarian made copies of those newspaper articles and mailed them to her.\n\nAfter reading them, Rose reached out to Mary’s family in Louisiana, speaking to Will Horton. He shared his suspicions about Vail and a copy of the 1971 National Enquirer article. When she read it, she learned that Sharon’s last name was Hensley.\n\nThat solved one problem, but created another. Where was Sharon Hensley from? She had no idea.\n\nIn 1994, she read in the newspaper about Dolores Strehlow’s disappearance from Medford, Oregon, seven years earlier. Police had just arrested her husband, thanks to the work of Detective Terry Newell.\n\nShe contacted Newell, who was able to help her find the family of Sharon Hensley.\n\nWhen Rose dialed the Hensley family, Sharon’s mother, Peggy, answered.\n\n“Do you happen to know who Felix Vail is?” Rose asked.\n\n“You bet I do.”\n\n“We need to talk.”\n\n‘A fraud, bum and kind of a joke’\n\nNow back in Mississippi, Vail lived with his mother and father in their home in Montpelier.\n\n“Beginning lucid in the daily conscious waking dreaming and in the nightly sleep dreaming is the beginning purpose of this journal,” he wrote May 6, 1988. “A 24-hour-a-day lucid conscious spirit presence is my nature. … Starting tonight all the dreams go in this book.”\n\nIn one dream, he made his “fat” wife (whom he called “my cow wife”) disappear so he could be with a beautiful, black-haired woman.\n\nDuring the day, he worked some on the family’s farm. He also tinkered with his Fiat and used his gravity boots to hang upside down in a barn.\n\nOne day, he “chased off a poor three-legged hound dog,” he wrote in his journals. The next, he “shot the 3-legged dog and cleaned up the garbage.”\n\nHe detailed winning pool games and bedding women, sometimes having sex in a grain bin, an old bus or their homes while their husbands are away. “We are amping each other’s electric in a way we both desperately need right now in our lives,” he wrote Feb. 28, 1992.\n\nIn 1992, Robin Sinclair telephoned a Mississippi newspaper, wanting to buy an advertisement to remind Vail that he had a daughter he had never met.\n\nThe newspaper put her in touch with Vail, and the two began to write letters and talk on the telephone.\n\nIn one note, Vail “stated he had never gotten over me,” she recalled.\n\nShe felt confused by his words, she said, because she was already living with a man who made her happy — and who would become her future husband.\n\nWhen Vail arrived a few months later, she said the same magic she had felt more than two decades earlier had vanished. “I realized that he was a fraud, bum and kind of a joke.”\n\nPursuit for justice\n\nMary Rose contacted everyone she could think of, including the FBI.\n\nThe detective who had helped her before, Terry Newell, made contact with Jim Bell, a national expert in serial killings working for the FBI.\n\nWhen Rose talked with Bell, she felt she had hit the jackpot.\n\nHe was interested in working on the Vail case if he could swing the time. He remained busy with active serial killer cases, helping train task forces across the U.S.\n\nVail’s son, Bill, told Rose that he was willing to testify, as long as authorities provided protection to his family.\n\nBoth the Tulsa police and the district attorney’s office in Lake Charles revived their investigations into Vail, now considered a suspected serial killer.\n\nBell suggested the victims’ families gather with authorities at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, to share information on Vail.\n\nHe was unable to work on the case and left the FBI in 1995. The meeting in Quantico never materialized, and the cases involving\n\nVail grew cold again.\n\nRose felt devastated. She had worked so hard to make something happened and nothing had. She knew the other families felt devastated, too.\n\nShe sought counseling to help her cope with the grief.\n\nOne night, she listened to a recording of Annette performing her songs, including “Sunset in Winter”: “I’m dying, leaving orange tears, blood upon your face … Throw me gilded kisses, silent sorrow, but do not stay up and wait for me, for I may not return.”\n\nTears streaked down her cheeks. She knew Annette would never return.\n\n‘Not the man I know’\n\nIn the mid-1990s, Vail began dating a woman in Mississippi. At the time, he was 55, and she was 44.\n\n“In 10 years, I never saw a temper,” the woman said.\n\nShe recalled Vail taking care of his parents before their deaths. “Felix was very attentive,” she said. “He was just a kind man.”\n\nAlthough he never worked a job, she said he was the most frugal person she ever met. “He could probably live off $300 a month. He got rental money from the house in Tulsa.”\n\nOne day, she tried to step across the swollen creek in front of her house. Knocked off her feet, the current dragged her downstream.\n\n“If I had died in the creek,” she said, “I would have been added to the list of people that Felix supposedly killed.”\n\nShe knew of the allegations that Vail had something to do with Annette Vail’s disappearance, but she was unaware of Sharon Hensley’s disappearance or suspicions surrounding Mary Horton Vail’s death.\n\n“That man,” she insisted, “was not the man I know.”\n\nRose moved to western Massachusetts, hoping to heal.\n\nIn the fall of 1997, family members and friends held her hands during a memorial service for Annette, whose songs played.\n\nAt night, Rose sometimes stepped outside, gazing at the stars and pondering the past.\n\nShe fumed at herself for letting Annette marry Vail, for failing to stand up to him and for leaving Annette behind in Tulsa.\n\nHer anger boiled toward Vail. Why, she wondered, was he not behind bars?\n\nA dozen years later, she read about a local support group for parents whose children had died.\n\nWould she fit in? She didn’t know, but decided to go anyway.\n\nShe shared stories about Annette, passing around her pictures and poetry.\n\nRose’s work with support groups and sessions with a local therapist helped her do something she had been unable to do for a quarter century — release the heavy burden she felt she had been carrying since her daughter’s disappearance.\n\nAfter a therapy session in which she had sobbed at Annette’s loss, she returned home and listened to one of her daughter’s songs.\n\nAnnette strummed a guitar, and her voice rose. Her mother felt the joy of her daughter and her all-too-brief life, finally able to listen to the music without weeping.\n\nSon’s mixed feelings\n\nVail’s son, Bill, became an Eagle Scout and graduated from Mississippi State University in the top 5 percent of his class.\n\nHe became a mechanical engineer, working for corporations such as Sinclair Oil, and remained active in church and Boy Scouts.\n\nIn 1984, Bill married his wife, Janet. Years later, he received a call from Rose and then from authorities.\n\n“They asked, ‘Did I believe he may have murdered her (Annette)?’” Bill said. “And I said, ‘Yes, I believe based on past experiences, it was entirely possible.’ ”\n\nHe explained his complicated feelings to Rose.\n\n“Felix is a mixture of opposite extremes — he is capable of incredibly unselfish love, and simultaneously he is capable of doing the incredibly selfish and black things he has done,” he wrote. “He values, even demands, honesty and integrity, yet he admittedly will lie whenever it is convenient.”\n\nVail held mixed feelings toward Bill.\n\nIn a letter to his son, he bragged about him holding “center stage with a whole room full of PhDs by simplifying logic sequence problems for them when you were 5.”\n\nBut in his journals, he criticized his son’s Christian faith as “herd animal mentality,” saying, “Ego finally took him over.”\n\nIn a letter, Vail told Bill that after death, he and his half-sister, Simone, should “split up whatever ‘stuff’ I will have accumulated … I love you both equally with all the heart I have.”\n\nBill replied in a letter: “I have always loved you. I can’t help but love you.”\n\nBut barricades remained to their relationship, the biggest of which was “the murder of my mother,” he wrote.\n\nHe mentioned the pain of learning about these two other missing women and recalled what his father had told him about Sharon Hensley.\n\n“I was so angry that you told me because there was absolutely no one I could talk to about it,” he wrote. “I had to keep it to myself knowing that no one would believe you had killed her based on those words, at least not in court.”’\n\nDiagnosed with esophageal cancer, Bill heard from doctors that he didn’t have long to live. “Now,” he told his uncle, Will Horton, “I’ll get to be with my mom.”\n\nMonths before dying in 2009, Bill talked about his father in a recorded interview with his pastor at Grace Church in Overland Park, Kansas.\n\n“Part of me loves him,” he said. “He was a good father. I know that’s hard to believe given what he’s done. ... I have to keep a distance because of what he’s able to do — for my family’s sake.”\n\nOn Jan. 3, 2009, Bill died, and Vail wrote in his journal, “I feel a large empty hole in my being where his life presence has been for 47 years.”\n\nHe then wrote about getting a good haircut.\n\nVail drove to Kansas, but skipped the funeral. If he had attended, he would have heard the recording, his son detailing how he overheard his father talk about killing his mother.\n\nWhen Vail learned of the recording, he wrote Pastor Tim Howey, asking for a copy: “Bill never mentioned to me in his whole life any of the negative stuff about drugs and murder that had been put in his mind about me.”\n\nVail blamed his son’s statements on “false memories,” saying, “I have not known about it until now and am stunned.”\n\nAs for the accusations of murder, he wrote, “I have saved several people’s lives. I have never taken any.”\n\nOn May 14, 2012, I went with Mary Rose as she tried to confront Felix Vail about her missing daughter, Annette. He wasn’t there, but she found a stack of machetes and swords in one of his trailers.\n\n“Could DNA tests be done to see if there is blood on these?” she asked.\n\nI was wondering the same thing.\n\nShe handed me a spiritual tome by the Holy Order of MANS. When I opened it, I read the words, “Look not into the past, for it is no more.”\n\nBefore we left the area, Vail’s sister, Kaye Faulkner, stopped us. She wanted to talk.\n\nRose and I sat in her living room as she spoke about attending the 2009 funeral of Bill Vail. “Bill said he overheard Felix saying he killed his mother.”\n\nShe turned to me. “You should get a copy of that recording.”\n\nShe was convinced, she said, that Felix had killed all three women.\n\nShe was surprised he was still alive. Last year, a tornado smacked his trailer, and he had somehow survived, receiving only minor injuries.\n\nI told her I was interested in talking to her brother. She gave me his cellphone number. She also shared the numbers for her other brother, Ronnie, and her sister, Beth.\n\nWhen Felix Vail didn’t answer, I left him a message that I was interested in speaking with him about these women’s disappearances. Ronnie promised to speak to his brother on my behalf.\n\nOver dinner, Rose opened two manila folders filled with hundreds of pages of documents she had collected on Vail.\n\nThere was the judge’s protective order for Beth Field after Vail had beaten her a second time and the National Enquirer article on the 1970 arrests of Felix Vail and Sharon Hensley.\n\nRose showed me similarities between the two letters Vail wrote — one to her after Annette disappeared and the other after Sharon disappeared.\n\nIn each letter, he insisted to the families that the women had gone away because they wanted to disappear, start over and leave their pasts behind.\n\nWas he the one who really wanted to leave his past behind?\n\nRose shared the 1962 autopsy report on Vail’s wife, Mary, and a stack of newspaper clippings on her drowning in Lake Charles.\n\nVail told deputies that he and his wife had gone trotline fishing, that she was shining a flashlight and that when she warned him about a stump, he jerked the boat to avoid it, and she accidentally fell out. He told them he dove into the water, but was unable to save her.\n\nLake Charles\n\nArriving in Lake Charles, I stood along the Calcasieu River, examining the place where Vail told deputies his wife had drowned.\n\nThe dark, swift river, which bore the Atakapa word for “crying,” swept by as I stood on the dirt.\n\nReassembling this case was going to be even tougher than I thought. Whatever reports the sheriff’s office had made at the time had all been lost.\n\nI stopped by the Southwestern Louisiana Genealogical and Historical Library, which shared copies from old city directories, and I began tracking down those who had lived in the Maree Apartments with Felix and Mary Vail.\n\nOne of them was Judson McCann II. When he finally answered the door, he invited me inside his apartment, filled with photographs of him deep-sea fishing.\n\nHe had been close with Vail, and Mary Vail’s death had always shocked him. He said he couldn’t believe she would be out on the river at night.\n\nHe also couldn’t believe Vail’s claim that he was laying trotlines. He and Vail golfed, but he never recalled Vail fishing. Instead, Vail used his boat to waterski.\n\nMcCann described Vail as a ladies’ man. “Many nights, his car wouldn’t be home, and Mary would be there with the lights on.\n\nWhen Felix was gone, it wasn’t because he was trotline fishing.”\n\nAnother close friend, Bob Hodges, told me that when Mary drowned, “I’ll be truthful with you, that was the end of my friendship with Felix.”\n\nHe never knew Vail to fish and described Vail’s explanation about how his wife drowned as “horse manure. That’s what I think of that story.”\n\nThe odds of one man having one wife drown and two others disappear seemed beyond belief.\n\nI decided to ask criminologist James Alan Fox of Northeastern University what the odds of such a scenario would be. “Smaller than the threshold of chance,” he said. “Either he tends to select partners that lead higher risk lives or something else is going on that’s more nefarious.”\n\nThe family of Vail’s wife, Mary, told me she had been a member of Chi Omega. I contacted a librarian from McNeese State University, who pulled out the old yearbooks and created a list of the members between 1957 and 1961. She shared the list, and I began contacting them.\n\nThey talked of how much she feared drowning. “Nobody believed it was an accident,” her college roommate, Sandra Sudduth Pratt, told me.\n\nI shared the Oct. 30, 1962, autopsy report with renowned pathologist Dr. Michael Baden of New York City.\n\nHis conclusion? Foul play took place in her death.\n\nThe report showed large bruises with bleeding into tissues on the left side of the neck, which he said suggested she suffered forceful neck trauma before entering the water.\n\nThere were also hemorrhagic bruises to the right calf and left leg above the knee, which he said were consistent with a struggle before her submersion.\n\nMost convincingly of all was the scarf authorities found around her neck that extended 4 inches into her mouth, which suggested traumatic asphyxia before entering the water, he said.\n\n“Somebody had to push that scarf into her mouth. She had to have that scarf wedged in her mouth before she went in the water.”\n\nJoining forces\n\nA half-century after his sister, Mary, drowned, Will Horton went out onto the Calcasieu River and gazed at the place where she breathed her last.\n\nHe never knew she died in this section of the river that snakes north of downtown Lake Charles. He had always believed she had drowned much farther south.\n\nHe said he had looked up to his sister, seven years older than him. “It’s haunting. I keep wanting to talk with her.”\n\nHe told me Mary Rose had contacted him in the 1990s. “You could have knocked me over with a feather when I found out there were two other women.”\n\nHe and Rose bonded in their common cause for justice. She shared letters Vail had written and other documents she had been saving since 1984. Horton shared his sister’s autopsy report, death certificate and other documents his family had been saving since her death in 1962.\n\nHe said he told Rose, “No matter what happens, this is going to be for all three women.”\n\nA cousin put him in touch with former detective “Rabbit” Manuel, who had headed up the Calcasieu Parish Sheriff Office’s investigation back in 1962.\n\nManuel had worked thousands of cases, but he had never forgotten Mary’s death, Horton said. “He said Felix’s story just didn’t add up. The fishing tackle was dry. The trotline was dry. The boat was dry. Even Felix’s cigarettes were dry, despite him telling the deputies he dove straight in the water to save Mary.”\n\nHe and Manuel met with “Lucky” DeLouche, who directed the Violent Crimes Task Force, an elite unit that investigated homicides.\n\nThree young detectives took notes as they talked. Manuel shared details from the case, saying deputies wanted to prosecute, but the district attorney wouldn’t let them. Horton shared the autopsy report, Vail’s letters and his belief that Vail was a serial killer.\n\nHorton said DeLouche replied, “This absolutely fits the profile of a serial killer.”\n\nThe other detectives agreed.\n\nThe task force discussed sending Vail’s son, Bill, in to secretly record a conversation with his father. Horton objected, saying that might put Bill in jeopardy.\n\nDeLouche left the task force, and the case grew cold again.\n\nHorton gazed out at the Calcasieu River as Calcasieu Parish Deputy Ron Johnson guided the boat. He had fished and dived in this river since the 1960s.\n\nJohnson led us north of the old Halliburton docks, where newspaper articles said Mary’s body had been recovered.\n\nHorton said his sister feared drowning and refused to swim where she couldn’t see the bottom. “Mary was scared of the dark water, so why was she out there? And why was she out there without wearing a life preserver?”\n\nHe wondered why Vail had failed to seek help closer, rather than boating back toward Shell Beach, more than 5 miles south, especially since he claimed to have trouble cranking his engine.\n\nHe questioned Vail’s story about running trotlines, saying he had waterskied in that high-powered boat many times, but “I never saw a fishing pole. I never saw a tackle box.”\n\nHe said ski boats aren’t designed for trotline fishing because they sit up too high on the water.\n\nHe said a ski boat sits up high on the water, but a boat that sits close to the water is needed to run trotlines. “Felix didn’t even have a trolling motor.”\n\nHe questioned Vail’s claim that Mary fell from the boat when he steered to avoid a stump.\n\nJohnson said dredging during World War II enabled Navy ships, oil tankers and other vessels to use this waterway. He said a trotline can’t survive such traffic, and that’s why fishermen place their trotlines elsewhere.\n\nHorton said Vail never explained to the family what happened that night.\n\n“Our family had a lot of questions, but we never got any answers.”\n\nAnother disappearing act\n\nShortly after Rose rummaged through the old trailer, looking for clues, Vail disappeared again.\n\nHe returned on Labor Day weekend in 2012, only to sell his 17 acres and depart. He left his storm-damaged trailer behind, but the machetes and knives that had lined his floor were gone.\n\nI telephoned his brother, Ronnie, who told me, “I don’t know where he went. He probably doesn’t want anyone to know where he is.”\n\nRonnie, who had worked for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for 22 years, told me when he heard allegations of the disappearances of these women, “We were all just shocked.”\n\n“Did the FBI ever interview you?”\n\n“No. I’m surprised they haven’t.”\n\nAfter my story on Felix Vail, “Gone” appeared in The Clarion-Ledger on Nov. 11, 2012, I traveled to Montpelier to meet a man who had telephoned me.\n\nWesley Turnage grew up with Vail and recalled a conversation he had in the months following his 1963 graduation from Montpelier High School.\n\nHe said he had car trouble one day, and Vail gave him a ride to the Knickerbocker Manufacturing Co. in nearby West Point, where they both worked.\n\nDuring that drive on Mississippi 46, he said Vail talked first of his son, Bill, and then of his deceased wife, Mary, calling her his “ex-wife” — a word that struck Turnage as strange since the two were not divorced at the time of her death.\n\nHe said the longer Vail spoke, the angrier the man got. “You could see a rage in his eyes.”\n\nVail referred to Mary as a “bitch,” saying she thought another child would help solve their marriage problems, Turnage recalled.\n\nHe quoted Vail as saying, “She wanted to have another kid. I didn’t want the one I got. I fixed that sorry bitch. She will never have another one.”\n\nTime marched on, but he said he never forgot what Vail told him. “It’s like 9/11. Some things stick in your mind.”\n\nI returned to Lake Charles, puzzled by how Vail dodged an indictment in the 1962 death of his first wife, Mary.\n\nHer brother, Will Horton, joined me in the Calcasieu Parish clerk’s office as I pored through stacks of records, trying to find out more information about the grand jury that met on the case Jan. 7, 1963.\n\nFlipping through the pages, I noticed a lot of criminal cases had been dismissed in 1962. When I added them up, I realized then-District Attorney Frank Salter Jr. had the judge dismiss 882 criminal cases — more than three cases for each working day.\n\nHorton told me the original detectives in the case told him that Salter wouldn’t allow them to present the evidence they had collected against Vail.\n\nThat matched the stories I had heard from grand jurors’ families.\n\nHorton left while I continued to dig. A half hour later, he called me to let me know he was talking with District Attorney John DeRosier.\n\n“He’s from Eunice, just like me,” Horton said.\n\nI walked over and met DeRosier, a Vietnam veteran who viewed himself as the guy wearing the white hat and battling the bad guys. He even kept a life-size cutout of John Wayne in his office.\n\nHe said he would be willing to reopen the case if there was enough evidence.\n\nAfterward, I telephoned a retired lawyer who had known Salter.\n\nThe cheerful, white-haired man, who built boats and model airplanes, greeted Horton and me at the door, inviting us to join him at the kitchen table.\n\nA talented attorney in both civil and criminal court, Russell Tritico Sr. had won a 1980 civil judgment, forcing chainsaw manufacturers to put chain brakes on their products.\n\nThe 84-year-old retired lawyer recalled the corruption of those days. He worked back then under his uncle, Joe, who represented then-Sheriff “Ham” Reid, accused of taking bribes but never convicted.\n\nTritico said the sheriff was so paranoid, he stayed in his patrol car, and he never answered the telephone at home unless he heard the right sequence of rings.\n\nHe described Salter as a longtime prosecutor whose “close friends were mostly what I called hoodlums.”\n\nIn the 1950s, Salter began his legal career as an assistant district attorney for then-District Attorney Ed Shaheen, but when the senior prosecutor sought re-election in 1960, Salter ran against him.\n\nTritico said the major issue Salter raised was Shaheen had dismissed too many cases. “Then Frank becomes DA and does the same thing.”\n\nDismissals became business as usual, and defense lawyers showered office secretaries with gifts, especially at Christmas, he recalled. “It was easy money. Of course, the victim might not be happy.”\n\nHe knew about the 1962 death of Mary Horton Vail.\n\nWhen his uncle, Joe, ran against Salter in 1966, her death became a political issue. The candidate showed a photograph of her body after it was recovered from the river as proof of Salter’s political favors.\n\nI asked Tritico about Cities Service, and he told me the company was like the General Motors of the Lake Charles area. I knew Vail’s uncle, Thomas Finnie, had worked there as a supervisor and had arranged for Vail’s job.\n\nIn searching for Salter’s obituary, I had run across the one for his father, who also worked at Cities Service. When I visited Finnie’s 94-year-old widow, Virginia, she confirmed the couple’s friendship with the district attorney.\n\nI shared what Vail said about trotline fishing that night, and Tritico shook his head. The longtime fisherman questioned why Vail would have traveled so many miles up the Calcasieu River when he could have laid trotlines not far from where he kept his boat.\n\n“You don’t run trotlines in deep water.”\n\nFinding Felix\n\nSo where had Vail gone? Had he just disappeared like the women he professed to once love?\n\nI telephoned more of his relatives and friends. They were just as clueless as me.\n\nWeeks after “Gone” was published, I received a telephone call from a man who had read my nearly 9,000-word story online. We discussed Vail, the case against him and his disappearance before the man volunteered, “I know where he is.”\n\n“You do?”\n\n“Canyon Lake, Texas. Would you like his post office box?”\n\n“You bet.”\n\nBack in Jackson, I telephoned Enzo Yaksic of Boston, the founder of the Serial Homicide Expertise and Information Sharing Collaborative. No matter what questions I had about serial killers, Yaksic had the answers, thanks to a huge database he had amassed.\n\nMy search for answers in the Vail case led Yaksic to contact Armin Showalter, acting chief for the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, which specialized in serial homicide investigations.\n\nYaksic shared a copy of “Gone” with Showalter, who in turn contacted Calcasieu Parish Deputy Randy Curtis, now taking on the Vail case.\n\nCurtis telephoned me, explaining that he was a 20-year law enforcement veteran who had been transferred from the Violent Crimes Unit to the Forensic Cold Case Division. After reading “Gone,” he called back, wondering if I knew where Vail was these days.\n\n“Canyon Lake, Texas,” I said.\n\nDays later, the deputy telephoned with news that the FBI had discovered Vail purchased property at 737 Shadyview Drive in Canyon Lake.\n\nOn Jan. 18, 2013, Curtis decided to confront Vail. He found the suspected serial killer at that address, living in a storage shed so large it could be a home.\n\nCurtis said he read Vail his rights before asking him about the death and disappearances of the women.\n\nVail refused to say anything, accusing families and The Clarion-Ledger of lying about him.\n\nThe whole time, Vail couldn’t stop smirking.\n\nThe sight of that smirk angered Curtis, who worked days, nights and weekends on the case.\n\nOne day, he called to tell me he had found something. Big.\n\nConsensus: Vail killed Mary\n\nNot long after this call, Will Horton shared the number of his cousin, who was in the same rosary group with a caretaker for 90-year-old Isaac “Sonny” Abshire Jr.\n\nI drove to Lake Charles and sat down with the man, who was finishing his lunch in front of the television. He remembered Vail well. The pair had worked together at a chemical plant next to the Cities Service refinery in nearby Sulphur. They refrigerated the chemical butadiene, used to produce tires.\n\nAbshire described Vail as “my helper” and “a good worker. I liked him.”\n\nVail was looking for a place closer to his girlfriend, Mary Horton, who was living in Lake Charles. Needing the cash, Abshire offered him a room for rent.\n\nHe accepted, and Mary became a frequent visitor. “I was kind of like a big brother to her. She was a sweet little girl.”\n\nAfter the couple decided to get married, Vail moved out.\n\nAt work, his disposition soured. He talked about how ugly his wife was when she was pregnant and that he didn’t like his baby.\n\n“Even a dog loves their children,” Abshire said he replied.\n\nOn the Friday before her drowning, the couple visited, bringing their infant son, Bill. Mary confided in Abshire, asking if he\n\nthought Vail could take her baby away.\n\nTwo nights later, word came that Mary had drowned in the Calcasieu River.\n\nDeputies contacted Abshire’s father for help in the search.\n\nAbshire and two fellow workers went out the next day to drag the river. The next morning, Oct. 30, 1962, he returned with one of them, Jimmy May, to continue dragging.\n\nWhile they were talking, “something popped up. A guy with binoculars asked, ‘Does she have blonde hair?’ I said, ‘Yes, that’s her.’ ”\n\nThey recovered the body, and Abshire could never forget what he saw. Her body was rigid, and a scarf was wrapped around her neck before going into her mouth. “It had a big ol’ knot in it.”\n\nThe deputies on the boat boiled in anger, all voicing the same opinion — that Vail had killed Mary. “They believed it was foul play.”\n\nA deputy shared copies of photographs taken that day, and Abshire had held onto them ever since, placing them in a folder he marked “Keep.”\n\n“You hung onto these photos for 50 years?” I asked.\n\n“Yes.”\n\nHe told me he gave the photos to Deputy Curtis. He also handed over a copy of the 1962 sheriff’s report, which listed 15 points suggesting Vail’s guilt.\n\nDespite being behind on major bills, Vail had managed to pay an entire year’s premiums in advance for a $50,000 life insurance policy on his wife. He had a second life insurance policy on her for $8,000, which promised to pay double if she died by accident.\n\nDeputies reported that witnesses said Vail told them he didn’t love his wife, that she was stupid and that she looked vulgar.\n\nDeputies also reported that Vail had “sexual relationships with other females and at least one male.”\n\nMost witnesses they talked to felt he was capable of killing his wife.\n\nVail told deputies that his wife was wearing an off-white leather jacket when she went into the water. But she wasn’t wearing the jacket when her body was recovered.\n\nInside his boat, deputies found two life preservers. Mary had not been wearing one, despite her fear of drowning.\n\nAs for the trotline, deputies found it coiled inside Vail’s tackle box.\n\n“That’s why,” Abshire told me, “they thought it was fishy.”\n\nWhen he returned to work, he told his co-workers what he witnessed.\n\nWord spread, and he said his boss hauled him in and told him to stop sharing what he saw.\n\nEventually, Abshire faced off with Vail. “He said he had lawyers that were ready to sue me for everything I had for all I was saying about him.”\n\n“Get your lawyers ready,” he said he replied. “I want to get on the (witness) stand and tell everybody what happened.”\n\nAfter some time passed, Abshire said Vail telephoned him, asking if he still wanted to tell everything to the lawyers.\n\n“Get ‘em,” Abshire said he replied. “I’m still ready to talk. I want to get on the stand and tell ‘em what I know.”\n\nNot long after, Vail left town.\n\nI asked him if he believed Vail had killed his wife.\n\n“Oh, my God, yes.”\n\nMarriage made in hell\n\nOver gumbo and crawfish étouffée, Steve Horton talked about his aunt Mary, whom his family adored so much that he and his wife had named their daughter after her. He showed me her 1962 death certificate, signed by the coroner, Dr. Harry Snatic. The certificate said she “fell from (the) boat while fishing and accidentally drowned.”\n\nHorton detailed the many errors. Snatic had put down the wrong date of her birth. The wrong date of her death. The wrong occupation (“housewife” rather than “teacher”).\n\nHe pointed to the neat signature, “William Vail.” It looked nothing like the handwriting of William Felix Vail that I was familiar with.\n\nHe then directed me to the date of Vail’s signature, Oct. 31, 1962.\n\n“That was the same day as the funeral, which was in Eunice,” he said. “How could he have signed this in Lake Charles?”\n\nHorton shared other documents, which showed Vail had failed to pay any money toward the $1,014 bill for his wife’s funeral, her headstone or her burial plot.\n\n“Dear Sir, I would have contacted you sooner if I had known anything definate (sic) about when I can pay you,” Vail wrote\n\nArdoin’s Funeral Home in 1963. “Thank you for your patience and I’ll be in your office the first part of April to settle the bill. Yours truly, Felix Vail.”\n\nVail never showed and never paid, despite receiving thousands on two life insurance policies he took out on his wife.\n\nThe funeral home won a $1,306 judgment in Mississippi against Vail. He still didn’t pay.\n\nIt was during a bridge game in 1969 that Mary’s mother learned Vail had never put a penny toward the funeral, Horton told me.\n\n“She was so embarrassed, she went and paid.”\n\nI spoke with funeral home operator Gene Ardoin. He remembered Mary as “a beautiful girl. They had a marriage not made in heaven, but made in hell.”\n\nTrip to Canyon Lake\n\nWhen I drove into the Canyon Lake neighborhood where Vail lived, I saw deer grazing on the lawns.\n\nPaperwork I copied at the courthouse showed David Thomason had deeded his property to Vail after he paid the back taxes.\n\nDigging into Thomason’s background, I discovered he and Vail shared something in common — each had a wife who died in an “accidental drowning.”\n\nI decided to dig deeper.\n\nThomason’s estranged wife, Kathey, had drowned in Canyon Lake on July 3, 2005. Her family still had questions.\n\nHer mother, Cathy Simon, still lived in Canyon Lake. She told me her daughter tried to get away from Thomason, who was charged twice with assault but was never prosecuted. “She was terrified of him.”\n\nOn the back lot of Vail’s property, I could see the boat Kathey supposedly fell from and drowned.\n\nFriends told me Thomason was out of town at the time.\n\nIf he did take out a life insurance policy on her, I couldn’t find it, but I did find that insurance companies had shelled out more than a half million in proceeds to him, including $215,400 for a house fire that the fire marshal had ruled a suspicious arson.\n\nVail now lived on this property, and when I pulled up outside his home, I noticed there were no windows. The padlocked fence had barbed wire across the top.\n\nI called out his name and told him I was interested in speaking to him about the missing women. There was no answer.\n\nOn March 10, 2013, I received an email from Gina Frenzel, a redheaded private investigator, whose colleagues nicknamed her “Batgirl.”\n\nObsessed with serial killers, she had read the e-book version of “Gone” before going online to discover Felix Vail was now living in Canyon Lake.\n\nThat was only an hour and a half away from her home in Kerrville, Texas, where her grandfather had been chief of police for 20 years.\n\n“I’m a licensed private investigator,” she wrote me. “Let me know if you need any help.”\n\nI promised I would. Later, I sent a second email, saying I would like to find out more about the suspicious burning of David Thomason’s house on the property where Vail now lived.\n\nOn April 3, she tried to talk to Thomason, and when she was unable to, she telephoned and said she was going to see Vail.\n\n“He won’t talk to you,” I told her.\n\n“Wanna bet?” she replied.\n\nShe called back later with the news that Vail had indeed talked. She told him she was an investigator looking into Thomason’s fire, and he had spoken almost nonstop to her.\n\nShe returned several more times, recording each of her conversations with Vail, who shared details about his life and lectured her about the dangers of ego, even as his own ego overwhelmed their conversations.\n\nHe claimed to have a genius-level IQ surpassing 140 and talked of memories from the womb, saying he could “feel the sunshine” on his mother’s belly.\n\nI shared information from Frenzel’s visits with the expert, Yaksic. He provided many hours of advice and insights, saying Vail seemed “more in line with a cult leader” than a suspected serial killer.\n\nFo", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2016/12/29"}]}
{"question_id": "20230317_27", "search_time": "2023/05/25/17:57", "search_result": [{"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/16/football/host-cities-2026-fifa-world-cup/index.html", "title": "2026 FIFA World Cup sites revealed for 16 cities in Canada, Mexico ...", "text": "CNN —\n\nMatches for the 2026 World Cup will be held in 11 US cities as well as three host sites in Mexico and two in Canada, soccer’s world governing body, FIFA, announced Thursday.\n\nThe 16 host cities will be: Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Guadalajara, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Miami, Monterrey, New York/New Jersey, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto and Vancouver.\n\nFIFA officials will decide at a later date which of the 16 cities will host group play and which will host elimination round matches.\n\n“We congratulate the 16 FIFA World Cup Host Cities on their outstanding commitment and passion,” FIFA President Gianni Infantino said in a news release. “Today is a historic day – for everyone in those cities and states, for FIFA, for Canada, the USA and Mexico who will put on the greatest show on Earth. We look forward to working together with them to deliver what will be an unprecedented FIFA World Cup and a game-changer as we strive to make football truly global.”\n\nThe 2026 men’s World Cup will be the first edition to feature 48 teams and it is the first time matches will be played in three countries.\n\nIt will be the second time the US has hosted the World Cup after the first in 1994, and a record third time for Mexico, which also hosted in 1970 and 1986. It will be the first time a men’s World Cup match has been held in Canada, though the country did host the Women’s World Cup in 2015.\n\nThe host cities that are successful in their bids could reap huge financial benefits, according to a 2018 US Soccer study, with more than $5 billion in economic activity created in North America.\n\nThe study said that those cities chosen to hold World Cup matches could see an estimated $160-$620 million in economic activity.\n\nREAD: Harry Kane reveals discussions on taking collective stand on human rights in Qatar\n\nCorrection: A previous version of this story gave an an incorrect year for a past World Cup in Mexico. It hosted World Cups in 1970 and 1986.", "authors": ["Matt Foster Matias Grez", "Matt Foster", "Matias Grez"], "publish_date": "2022/06/16"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/soccer/2022/06/17/world-cup-2026-host-cities-picked-now-real-work-begins/7657213001/", "title": "World Cup 2026: Host cities picked, now the real work begins", "text": "NEW YORK — FIFA president Gianni Infantino playfully warned this part of the world does not really know what’s coming in 2026.\n\n\"We often say it's like 64 Super Bowls, in terms of audience, right?\" Infantino said. “World Cup 26 is 80 Super Bowls, 80 incredible games, 80 finals.\n\nThursday's official announcement of the 16 host cities for the joint 2026 men’s World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico, shed a little light on what’s to come and where people will convene.\n\nRELATED: Costa Rica going to 2022 World Cup after defeating New Zealand\n\n\"These three countries will be upside down, flipped back again,\" Infantino said during an event to reveal the hosts. \"The world will be invading Canada, Mexico and the United States. They will be invaded by a big wake of joy and happiness.\"\n\nHe added 2026 will be \"much bigger\" than the last time the United States hosted the World Cup in 1994.\n\nFIFA and Concacaf — the Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football — narrowed 22 finalist locations to 16 cities that will host games in 2026.\n\nThat includes 11 U.S. cities: Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, New York/New Jersey, Philadelphia, San Francisco Bay Area and Seattle.\n\nThere will be three host cities in Mexico: Guadalajara, Mexico City and Monterrey; and two in Canada: Toronto and Vancouver.\n\nOne of the biggest surprises was Washington, DC not making the list. It will be only the second time in the men’s tournament history that a host nation's capital does not host a game. Bonn was the other capital city snubbed when West Germany held the competition in 1974. (In 2002, when Japan and South Korea held the tournament, the closest game to Tokyo was in Yokohama — a suburb of the city.)\n\nMISSED OPPORTUNITY: Why Nashville lost bid to host 2026 FIFA World Cup\n\n\"This was a very, very difficult choice,\" FIFA chief tournaments and events officer Colin Smith said. \"You can't imagine a World Cup coming to the U.S. and the capital city not taking a major role as well. So, we'll be engaging with all the cities that weren't chosen to host matches. There's still lots of other areas of cooperation and working together and celebration.\n\n\"We know what a fan fest on the National Mall would be like (on the) 250th anniversary of the U.S.A. on the Fourth of July.\"\n\nInfantino confirmed a fan fest will still be held in D.C., which combined its bid with Baltimore in April 2022 in an attempt to strengthen its hosting chances.\n\nUnited States Soccer Federation president Cindy Parlow Cone didn’t want to focus on the cities not selected Thursday, but rather celebrate the ones that will host games.\n\n\"This is an exciting day, right? One that we have been waiting for a long, long time to announce who are going to be the host cities,\" Parlow Cone said. \"And look, our nation's capital is very much going to be a huge part of this World Cup, even though they're not hosting games.\"\n\nAnd there will be another chance, if the U.S. hosts the women’s World Cup in 2027 or 2031. Parlow Cone said U.S. Soccer plans to bid for those tournaments, but is waiting on further guidance from FIFA.\n\nThe 1994 World Cup holds the record for highest attendance. About 3.58 million spectators watched, with an average match attendance of 68,991, according to U.S. Soccer.\n\nBoston, Dallas and San Francisco hosted games in 1994 and will again in 2026. But Los Angeles, Atlanta and New York could really compete for record crowds based on stadium capacities and their appeal as international hubs.\n\n\"This is really a luxury problem that we have (selecting a location for the final) that is probably unique to this part of the world.\" Infantino said. \"We have cities here that are not just important cities in America, but global capitals.\"\n\nIn Los Angeles County, matches will be held at the splashy SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, which opened in 2020 to the tune of $5.5 billion. The venue has a 70,000-person capacity and is home to the NFL's Los Angeles Rams and Chargers. It also hosted the most recent Super Bowl in February.\n\nThe LA metropolitan area is no stranger to record soccer crowds. The Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California hosted the 1999 women’s World Cup final in front of 90,185 people. The attendance set the world record for a women’s sporting event for nearly 23 years.\n\nThe record was broken this year. In March, 91,553 fans packed Camp Nou in Barcelona to watch the UEFA Women's Champions League quarterfinal between FC Barcelona and Real Madrid.\n\nMercedes-Benz Stadium has also become a soccer hub. The Atlanta venue has superb appeal thanks to an investment from owner Arthur Blank. Major League Soccer’s Atlanta United has experienced early success by winning the MLS Cup in 2018 in its second season.\n\nAtlanta United holds the league's attendance records for a regular-season match (72,035, March 2018 vs. D.C. United), MLS All-Star game (72,317, August 2018 vs. Juventus) and for single-game attendance (73,018, December 2018 vs. Portland Timbers for the 2018 MLS Cup final). It also owns a Campeones Cup record (40,128, August 2019 vs. Club América).\n\nNew York/New Jersey is a host with a particular edge at nabbing the 2026 World Cup final because MetLife Stadium, home of the NFL’s New York Giants/Jets has a capacity of 82,500.\n\nBut the location for the culmination of the tournament has not yet been determined.\n\n\"We haven't even started that process,\" Concacaf president Vittorio Montagliani said. \"We've been laboring at the last four years of venue visits to get to this point. There'll be a whole other process to pick — and it's not just the final, there's a lot of big matches, knockout matches and the opening match.\"\n\nFIFA and Concacaf will have to consider multiple factors, including the impact of travel across an entire continent, with multiple time zones and weather conditions.\n\nThe 2026 World Cup will be the first hosted by three countries. Nearly 3,000 miles separate Mexico City (the southern-most host) and Vancouver (the farthest north); Los Angeles (farthest West) and Boston (farthest East).\n\nIt will also be the first World Cup with an expanded 48-team field, which will be divided into 16 groups of three teams to begin play. Thirty-two teams will advance to the knockout stages.\n\nFor comparison, the 2022 World Cup taking place in Qatar in November has 32 teams total, with a 16-team knockout round.\n\n\"When we design the calendar, when we decide on the kickoff times, when we look at the different schedules . . . in such a big region like North America, we need to make sure that teams are playing in clusters that the fans don't have to travel crazy distances, and the teams as well,\" Infantino said.\n\nAnnouncing the host cities was just the start. Now the real work begins, according to Parlow Cone.\n\n\"We know we feel like 26 is far away,\" she said, \"but it will be here before we know it.\"", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/06/17"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/soccer/worldcup/2022/11/21/2026-fifa-world-cup-usa-mexico-canada-host-cities-tickets/10710839002/", "title": "Where is the 2026 World Cup? US, Mexico, Canada host cities, tickets", "text": "The next FIFA World Cup is coming to North America. Sixteen cities across the United States, Canada and Mexico will host soccer’s most prestigious tournament in what could be a boon to the sport’s growing popularity among Americans.\n\nThe three nations' joint bid to host the 2026 World Cup beat Morocco's bid in 2018. It will be the second time the U.S. hosts the men’s competition, after hosting the 1994 World Cup. It will be Canada’s first time hosting the men’s tournament, and Mexico’s record third time as World Cup hosts after hosting it in 1970 and 1986.Here's what to know about the next FIFA World Cup, including host cities, tickets and a new expanded field.\n\n2026 World Cup host cities and stadiums\n\nFIFA announced the list of host cities in June.\n\nUnited States: 11 cities\n\nMexico: 3 cities\n\nCanada: 2 cities\n\nUSA eliminated:Netherlands knocks off USMNT in World Cup round of 16 with dominating 3-1 win\n\nWhy is the 2026 World Cup between three countries?\n\nThe soccer federations of the U.S., Canada and Mexico agreed to submit a joint bid to FIFA to host the competition. The bid won in 2018, with a majority of FIFA’s congress voting to grant rights to the three nations.\n\nThe World Cup has been jointly hosted once before, in 2002 by South Korea and Japan. This is the first time three nations will host the World Cup.\n\nThe North American nations called the bid “United 2026” and contended that their combined sporting event infrastructure made them the best equipped to handle an expanded 48-team tournament.\n\nWhat are soccer's yellow card rules? How players get red cards, suspensions in World Cup\n\nWhat is offside in soccer?Explaining the rule so you're prepared to watch the 2022 World Cup.\n\nPrior World Cups, including Qatar 2022, Russia 2018 and Brazil 2014, have been marred by human rights abuses of workers tasked with hurriedly delivering brand new stadiums. In Brazil’s case, some locals were displaced from their homes to make way for new World Cup stadiums, according to the Washington Post.\n\nHuman rights:Migrant workers were deceived and died for Qatar's World Cup. Thousands want compensation\n\n“Without a need to worry about construction timelines or its related risks, the focus of the 2026 FIFA World Cup can be on welcoming, inspiring, and empowering the world to contribute to the future of football,” states United 2026’s bid book.\n\nHow does the World Cup work? The ultimate soccer showcase, explained\n\nAre 2026 FIFA World Cup tickets on sale?\n\nNo not yet, according to FIFA’s website. Tickets will go on sale in 2025, according to the United 2026 World Cup bid book.\n\nFor reference, Qatar 2022 tickets went on sale in January, 10 months before the tournament’s start.\n\nWhat happens if a World Cup game ends in a tie?FIFA extra time and penalty shootouts, explained\n\nHow much will 2026 FIFA World Cup tickets cost?\n\nFIFA has yet to provide pricing information, but ticket prices for the opening match of the 2022 World Cup were as low as $54 for Qatar residents and $302 for non-Qatar residents as of Nov. 16. The cheapest group stage match tickets were priced at approximately $11 for locals and $69 for fans from abroad.\n\nThe cheapest tickets for the 2022 World Cup final were roughly $604 for fans from abroad and $206 for locals.\n\nIt’s unclear if FIFA will offer discounted ticket prices for U.S., Canada and Mexico residents as it did for the residents of 2022's host nation.\n\nUSMNT World Cup roster:Surprises, heartbreak and the countdown to Qatar\n\nAn expanded tournament\n\nFIFA in 2017 voted to expand the 2026 World Cup from 32 teams to 48 teams. It will consist of 16 groups of three, with the top two teams in each group advancing to a round of 32.\n\nWhat time of the year will the 2026 World Cup be?\n\nThe 2026 World Cup is slated to return to the summer. Final dates have yet to be announced, but the tournament will likely span from June to July in line with past World Cups. FIFA pushed the 2022 Qatar World Cup to November and December due to the country's extreme summer heat.\n\nHe didn't watch soccer until HS:Now Matt Turner is USA goalkeeper in World Cup\n\nContributing: Jason Anderson, Pro Soccer Wire", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/11/21"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/25/football/us-england-qatar-2022-world-cup-spt-intl/index.html", "title": "US remains unbeaten against England at World Cups after goalless ...", "text": "Al Bayt Stadium, Al Khor, Qatar CNN —\n\nThere were no goals in Friday’s game between the US Men’s National Team (USMNT) and England in a key World Cup game at Qatar 2022, but the result spoke volumes as to where this American team looks to be heading.\n\nFacing an England team full of superstars that reached the European Championship final last year is no easy task, but the Americans looked more than at home.\n\nIndeed, the USMNT players appeared disappointed as they were cheered off the field – frustrated, perhaps, that they couldn’t find the winner they might well have deserved.\n\n“We had the majority of the chances, we were more dangerous, but just couldn’t get in the back of the net,” midfielder Weston McKennie told reporters after the match.\n\nAny annoyance is unlikely to last too long with the USMNT still unbeaten against England at World Cups.\n\nThe sides have now met three times on the world stage with the USMNT winning once and the other two matches ending as draws.\n\nThe USMNT’s hopes of progressing into the knockout rounds are still very much in its own hands, knowing a win against Iran on Tuesday will see it through to the last 16 from Group B.\n\nEngland goalkeeper Jordan Pickford makes a save against the USMNT. Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP/Getty Images\n\nDespite England getting the better of the early exchanges, the USMNT grew into the match and looked the most threatening by halftime.\n\nChristian Pulisic saw his effort crash off the crossbar as England struggled to cope with the intensity of the American team.\n\nIt felt reminiscent of the USMNT’s previous match against Wales when it started in brilliant form. On that occasion, this young side – with an average age of 25 years 214 days when the World Cup began – struggled to keep up the intensity and suffered a late equalizer through Gareth Bale’s penalty.\n\nBut against England, Gregg Berhalter’s side doubled down after the break and continued its waves of attacks against the opposition’s nervous-looking defense.\n\nPulisic, the player of the match, was orchestrating the US fans behind the goal, whipping them into a frenzy as they started to believe their team could beat England, which is ranked fifth in the world.\n\nThe breakthrough never came but the USMNT coped well with a late surge from England, which finally seemed to wake up with no more than five minutes to play.\n\n“I thought it was a really solid performance from the team against a good opponent,” Pulisic told reporters after the game.\n\n“A draw is not the worst thing but I felt there were stretches of the game where we showed dominance […] We even could have won the game.”\n\nHe added: “This team has come a very long way and I think we should be proud of the performance but most of all, it should spark confidence in the team.”\n\nUS defenders did well to keep England's star striker Harry Kane quiet. Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters\n\nIran next\n\nEngland missed the chance to qualify for the next round but would need to lose heavily to Wales to miss out on a place in the knockout stages.\n\nFor the USMNT, all eyes turn to the game against Iran, which beat Wales 2-0 in the earlier Group B match.\n\n“Pleased with the performance of the group and most importantly the belief of the group – that never wavered,” Berhalter told reporters after the match.\n\n“We win [against Iran] or we’re out of the World Cup. That will be the focus for us.”\n\nThe match against Iran will have added significance given the political tensions between the two countries.\n\nBerhalter, though, says the team’s focus is not on the politics but more on rewarding its fans with a place in the knockout stages.\n\n“The thing about soccer is you meet so many different people from around the world and you’re united by the common love of the sport of soccer,” he said.\n\n“I see the game being hotly contested for the fact that both teams want a place in the next round, not because of politics.\n\n“We are soccer players and we are going to compete and they are going to compete and that’s it.”\n\nAlong with Canada and Mexico, the US will host the 2026 World Cup.\n\nAnd Berhalter said that growing the men’s game is something that the whole squad and staff take very seriously.\n\n“We’re not done, our focus it to keep going and hopefully by the end of the tournament we’ll give people something to talk about,” he added.", "authors": ["Ben Church"], "publish_date": "2022/11/25"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/soccer/2017/01/08/a-guide-to-fifas-options-for-expanding-the-2026-world-cup/96312264/", "title": "A guide to FIFA's options for expanding the 2026 World Cup", "text": "AP\n\nFIFA is preparing to decide Tuesday on adding 16 more teams to the 2026 World Cup for a 48-team tournament.\n\nPresident Gianni Infantino's favored format would break with soccer tradition to play in groups of only three teams. Two would advance from each group to a Round of 32 knockout bracket.\n\nIf agreed by the Infantino-chaired FIFA Council in Zurich, the 2026 hosting contest could formally open in weeks. A co-hosted North American bid is widely seen as the best option.\n\nHere are some things to know about overhauling the greatest competition in the world's most popular sport:\n\n___\n\nWHY EXPAND?\n\nA bigger World Cup was an Infantino campaign promise before his election last February, when his plan was 40 teams.\n\nIt might have been key. Infantino's momentum for victory in a second-round poll was a three-vote lead over Sheik Salman of Bahrain in the first. Sheik Salman had promised only to review if more World Cup teams were wanted.\n\nInfantino also pledged to give more of FIFA's money to member federations — all 211 are now entitled to $5 million from each World Cup — and send more to continental and regional soccer bodies.\n\nSo, more teams also had to mean more games, earning more revenue from broadcasters and sponsors.\n\nThe \"16x3\" format arguably works better with only group winners advancing. But that would leave total matches unchanged at 64.\n\nInfantino also wants to create fervor in the extra countries which would qualify.\n\nIn the short-term, competing national teams attract more sponsors. The long-term goal is appealing to more young people who are the future players, fans and officials.\n\nExpect to hear much FIFA talk of helping the next Costa Rica or Iceland — feelgood stories at the 2014 World Cup and Euro 2016 — by inviting 16 more teams to the party.\n\n___\n\n48-TEAM OPTIONS\n\nA near-consensus is growing around the \"16x3\" option revealed just one month ago.\n\nAll 80 games would be played in exclusive time slots. That's more hours of TV exposure for sponsors and sales time for broadcasters in the same 32-day tournament period.\n\nBy advancing two teams from each group, a Round of 32 ensures most teams still play at least three matches.\n\nFIFA's own analysis predicts this format will raise revenue by 20 percent from the equivalent $5.5 billion forecast from the 2018 World Cup in Russia.\n\nThe flaw for purists is planning for penalty shootouts to settle drawn group matches. If each game has a \"winner\" that guards against teams colluding on a mutually favorable result in the last group games.\n\nPreviously, Infantino suggested an opening playoff round of 16 matches to decide who would join 16 seeded teams in a traditional 32-team group phase.\n\nThat was unacceptable to many FIFA members federations who said \"one-and-done\" teams were not part of a real World Cup.\n\nIt also would stretch the tournament to 39 days.\n\n___\n\n40-TEAM OPTIONS\n\nInfantino's plan from one year ago is now almost friendless.\n\nEither of two options, 10 groups of four teams or eight five-team groups, gives lopsided or weak match schedules, FIFA judged.\n\nIn \"10x4,\" only 76 matches are played and only six group runners-up advance from a muddled tiebreaker process to a Round of 16.\n\nIn \"8x5,\" the 88 matches include meaningless ones in a flabby group phase ripe for collusion. Also, the four semifinalists would play eight matches and that workload is unacceptable to European clubs releasing employees to national-team duty.\n\n___\n\nPROVEN 32-TEAM FORMAT\n\nWhy fix something that is not broken? Germany, the defending champion, has publicly asked this question.\n\nThe 32-team format and perfect 64-match bracket has worked well since being introduced at the 1998 World Cup in France (where Europe had 15 teams).\n\nFIFA acknowledged that it produces the best soccer — \"the highest absolute quality\" of games pitting high-ranked teams against each other.\n\nRecall that former winners Italy, England and Uruguay were drawn in the same 2014 World Cup group — and yet Costa Rica finished top.\n\nStill, enough of FIFA's 211 members want change and their chance to play.\n\n___\n\nWHO WILL PLAY?\n\nA big question is likely not being resolved Tuesday.\n\nFIFA has yet to announce exactly how many entry slots each of six confederations would get for their own qualifying program.\n\nQuotas for a 40-team World Cup were proposed in December 2015 by a FIFA advisory group that included Infantino, then UEFA's general secretary.\n\nSome saw a cynical move to sweeten skeptical FIFA voters who were being asked to vote through modernizing and anti-corruption reforms on the same day they picked a new president.\n\nThen, assuming a single host nation would get automatic entry, the proposal for sharing 39 qualifying slots was: Europe 14; Africa 7; Asia 6; South America 5; North, Central America and Caribbean 5; Oceania 1; plus a final slot awarded \"based on sporting merits using a method yet to be defined.\"\n\nGoing from 40 to 48 can add at least one more from each continent.\n\nWho could those new teams be?\n\nOn current form, maybe Wales and Panama, Congo and Burkina Faso, Uzbekistan and Oman, will bring something new to the 2026 World Cup.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2017/01/08"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/17/football/qatar-2022-world-cup-migrant-workers-human-rights-spt-intl/index.html", "title": "Migrant workers helped build Qatar's World Cup tournament, now ...", "text": "CNN —\n\nKamal was standing outside a shop with other migrant workers, having finished yet another grueling working day, when he and – he says – a few others were arrested this August. Without explanation, the 24-year-old says he was put into a vehicle and, for the next week, kept in a Qatari jail, the location and name of which he does not know.\n\n“When they arrested me, I couldn’t say anything, not a single word, as I was so scared,” he told CNN Sport, speaking at home in southern Nepal where he has been working on a farm since being deported three months ago.\n\nKamal – CNN has changed the names of the Nepali workers to protect them from retaliation – is one of many migrant workers wanting to tell the world of their experiences in Qatar, a country that will this month host one of sport’s greatest, most lucrative, spectacles – the World Cup, a tournament which usually unites the world as millions watch the spectacular goals and carefully-choreographed celebrations.\n\nIt will be a historic event, the first World Cup to be held in the Middle East, but one also mired in controversy. Much of the build-up to this tournament has been on more sober matters, that of human rights, from the deaths of migrant workers and the conditions many have endured in Qatar, to LGBTQ and women’s rights.\n\nKamal says he has yet to be paid the 7,000 Qatari Riyal bonus (around $1,922) he says he is entitled to from his previous employers, nor 7,000 Riyal in insurance for injuring two fingers at work.\n\n“I wasn’t told why I was being arrested. People are just standing there … some are walking with their grocery [sic], some are just sitting there consuming tobacco products … they just arrest you,” he adds, before explaining he could not ask questions as he does not speak Arabic.\n\nA worker is seen inside the Lusail Stadium during a stadium tour on December 20, 2019, in Doha, Qatar. Francois Nel/Getty Images\n\nDescribing the conditions in the cell he shared with 24 other Nepali migrant workers, he says he was provided with a blanket and a pillow, but the mattress on the floor he had to sleep on was riddled with bed bugs.\n\n“Inside the jail, there were people from Sri Lanka, Kerala (India), Pakistan, Sudan, Nepal, African, Philippines. There were around 14-15 units. In one jail, there were around 250-300 people. Around 24-25 people per room,” he says.\n\n“When they take you to the jail, they don’t give you a room right away. They keep you in a veranda. After a day or two, once a room is empty, they keep people from one country in one room.”\n\nUsing a smuggled phone, he spoke to friends, one of whom, he says, brought his belongings – including his passport – to the jail, though he says he was sent home after the Nepali embassy had sent a paper copy of his passport to the jail. CNN has reached out to the embassy but has yet to receive a response.\n\n“When they put me on the flight, I started thinking: ‘Why are they sending workers back all of a sudden? It’s not one, two, 10 people … they are sending 150, 200, 300 workers on one flight,’” he says.\n\n“Some workers who were just roaming outside wearing (work) dress were sent back. They don’t even allow you to collect your clothes. They just send you back in the cloth you are wearing.”\n\nKamal believes he was arrested because he had a second job, which is illegal under Qatar’s 2004 Labour Law and allows authorities to cancel a worker’s work permit. He says he worked an extra two to four hours a day to supplement his income as he was not making enough money working six eight-hour days a week.\n\nQatar has a 90-day grace period in which a worker can remain in the country legally without another sponsor, but if they have not had their permit renewed or reactivated in that time they risk being arrested or deported for being undocumented.\n\nHe says he received paperwork upon his arrest, which Amnesty International says would likely have explained why he was being detained, but as it was in Arabic he did not know what it said and no translator was provided.\n\nLaborers rest in green space along the corniche in Doha, Qatar, on June 23. Christopher Pike/Bloomberg/Getty Images/FILE\n\nA Qatari government official told CNN in a statement: “Any claims that workers are being jailed or deported without explanation are untrue. Action is only taken in very specific cases, such as if an individual participates in violence.”\n\nThe official added that 97% of all eligible workers were covered by Qatar’s Wage Protection System, established in 2018, “which ensures wages are paid in full and on time.” Further work was being done to strengthen the system, the official said.\n\nSome workers never returned home\n\nWith the opening match just days away, on-the-pitch matters are a mere footnote because this tournament has come at a cost to workers who left their families in the belief that they would reap financial rewards in one of the world’s richest countries per capita. Some would never return home. None of the three Nepali workers CNN spoke to were richer for their experience. Indeed, they are in debt and full of melancholy.\n\nThe Guardian reported last year that 6,500 South Asian migrant workers have died in Qatar since the country was awarded the World Cup in 2010, most of whom were involved in low-wage, dangerous labor, often undertaken in extreme heat.\n\nThe report did not connect all 6,500 deaths with World Cup infrastructure projects and has not been independently verified by CNN.\n\nHassan Al Thawadi – the man in charge of leading Qatar’s preparations – told CNN’s Becky Anderson that the Guardian’s 6,500 figure was a “sensational headline” that was misleading and that the report lacked context.\n\nA government official told CNN there had been three work-related deaths on stadiums and 37 non-work-related deaths. In a statement, the official said the Guardian’s figures were “inaccurate” and “wildly misleading.”\n\n“The 6,500 figure takes the number of all foreign worker deaths in the country over a 10-year period and attributes it to the World Cup,” the official said. “This is not true and neglects all other causes of death including illness, old age and traffic accidents. It also fails to recognize that only 20% of foreign workers in Qatar are employed on construction sites.”\n\nIt has been widely reported that Qatar has spent $220 billion leading up to the tournament, which would make it the most expensive World Cup in history, though this likely includes infrastructure not directly associated with stadium construction. A spokesperson for the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy (SC) which, since its formation in 2011, has been responsible for overseeing the infrastructure projects and planning for the World Cup, told CNN that the tournament budget was $6.5 billion, without expanding on what that cost covered.\n\nEight new stadiums rose from the desert, and the Gulf state expanded its airport, constructed new hotels, rail and highways. All would have been constructed by migrant workers, who – according to Amnesty International – account for 90% of the workforce in a near-three million population.\n\nAn aerial view of Al Janoub stadium at sunrise on June 21 in Al Wakrah, Qatar. David Ramos/Getty Images\n\nSince 2010, migrant workers have faced delayed or unpaid wages, forced labor, long hours in hot weather, employer intimidation and an inability to leave their jobs because of the country’s sponsorship system, human rights organizations have found.\n\nHowever, the health, safety and dignity of “all workers employed on our projects has remained steadfast,” a statement from the SC read.\n\n“Our efforts have resulted in significant improvements in accommodation standards, health and safety regulations, grievance mechanisms, healthcare provision and reimbursements of illegal recruitment fees to workers.\n\n“While the journey is on-going, we are committed to delivering the legacy we promised. A legacy that improves lives and lays the foundation for fair, sustainable and lasting labour reforms.”\n\nLast year, in an interview with CNN Sport anchor Amanda Davies, FIFA President Gianni Infantino said that while “more needs to be done,” progress had been made.\n\n“I’ve seen the great evolution that has happened in Qatar, which was recognized – I mean not by FIFA – but by labor unions around the world, by international organizations,” said Infantino.\n\n‘It was difficult to breathe’\n\nWe are, unusually, writing about a World Cup in November because the competition had to be moved from its usual June-July slot to Qatar’s winter as the heat is so extreme in the country’s summer months – temperatures can reach around 43 degrees Celsius (109 degrees Fahrenheit) in June – that playing in such conditions could have posed a health risk to players.\n\nHari is 27 years old and, like many of his compatriots, left Nepal for Qatar as his family – he was one of five siblings with just his father at home – desperately needed money, primarily to eat. Since 2013, Nepal’s government-mandated minimum wage has been set at $74 a month, according to minimum-wage.org. He says that his monthly wage in Qatar was 700 Rial a month ($192).\n\nAfter moving to Qatar in 2014, he worked in four places during his four-year stay: at a supermarket, a hotel and airport, but the most difficult job, he says, was in construction when he had to carry tiles up buildings “six to seven stories above” in overbearing heat, plus lay pipelines in deep pits.\n\n“It was too hot,” he tells CNN. “The foreman was very demanding and used to complain a lot. The foreman used to threaten to reduce our salaries and overtime pay.\n\n“I had to carry tiles on my shoulder to the top. It was very difficult going up through the scaffolding. In the pipeline work, there were 5-7 meters deep pits, we had to lay the stones and concrete, it was difficult due to the heat. It was difficult to breathe. We had to come upstairs using a ladder to drink water.\n\n“It never happened to me, but I saw some workers fainting at work. I saw one Bengali, one Nepali … two to three people faint while working. They took the Bengali to medical services. I’m not sure what happened to him.”\n\nDuring his time in Qatar, government regulations generally prohibited workers from working outdoors between 11:30 a.m. and 3 p.m. from June 15 to August 31. He said one company he worked for followed these rules.\n\nHe added: “At some places, they didn’t have water. Some places, they didn’t provide us water on time. At some places, we used to go to houses nearby asking for water.”\n\nIn this photo taken in May 2015 during a government organized media tour, workers use heavy machinery at the Al-Wakra Stadium being built for the 2022 World Cup. Maya Alleruzzo/AP/FILE\n\nWorking long hours in extreme heat has, some non-governmental organizations believe, caused a number of deaths and put lives at risk in Qatar.\n\nIn 2019, research published in the Cardiology Journal, exploring the relationship between the deaths of more than 1,300 Nepali workers between 2009 and 2017 and heat exposure, found a “strong correlation” between heat stress and young workers dying of cardiovascular problems in the summer months.\n\nThe government official told CNN that there had been a “consistent decline” in the mortality rate of migrant workers, including a decline in heat stress disorders, “thanks in large part to our comprehensive heat stress legislation.”\n\n“Qatar has always acknowledged that work remains to be done, notably to hold unscrupulous employers to account,” the government official added. “Systemic reform does not happen overnight and shifting the behavior of every company takes time as is the case with any country around the world.”\n\n‘Heat does not typically injure on its own’\n\nNatasha Iskander, Professor of Urban Planning and Public Service at New York University, tells CNN that heat can kill “in ways that are confusing and unclear.”\n\n“Fatal heat stroke can look like a heart attack or a seizure. Sometimes, heat kills through the body, amplifying manageable and often silent conditions, like diabetes and hypertension, and turning them into sudden killers,” she explains.\n\n“As a result, Qatar, in the death certificates that it has issued after migrant construction workers have collapsed, has been able to push back against the correlation between heat stress and deaths and claim instead that the deaths are due to natural causes, even though the more proximate cause is work in the heat.”\n\nDetermining the number of workers injured by heat is even harder, she says, because many injuries may not become apparent until years later, when migrants have returned home and young men “find that their kidneys no longer function, that they suffer from chronic kidney disease, or that their hearts have begun to fail, displaying levels of cardiac weakness that are debilitating.”\n\n“Heat does not typically injure on its own,” she adds. “Workers are exposed to heat and heat dangers through the labor relations on Qatari worksites. The long hours, physically intense work, the forced overtime, the abusive conditions, the bullying on site all shape how exposed workers are to heat. Additionally, conditions beyond the worksite also augmented heat’s power to harm – things like poor sleep, insufficient nutrition or a room that was not cool enough to allow the body to reset after a day in the heat. In Qatar, the employer housed workers in labor camps, and workers as a matter of policy were segregated to industrial areas, where living accommodations were terrible.”\n\nForeign laborers working on the construction site of the Al-Wakrah football stadium, one of Qatar's 2022 World Cup stadiums, walk back to their accomodation at the Ezdan 40 compound after finishing work on May 4, 2015, in Doha's Al-Wakrah southern suburbs. Marwan Naamani/AFP/Getty Images/FILE\n\nAccording to Amnesty International, Qatari authorities have not investigated “thousands” of deaths of migrant workers over the past decade “despite evidence of links between premature deaths and unsafe working conditions.” That these deaths are not being recorded as work-related prevents families from receiving compensation, the advocacy group states.\n\nIn its statement, the SC said that its commitment to publicly disclose non-work-related deaths went beyond the requirements of the UK’s Health and Safety Executive Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences regulations (RIDDOR), which defines and provides classification for how to document work-related and non-work-related incidents.\n\nThe statement added: “The SC investigates all non-work-related deaths and work-related fatalities in line with our Incident Investigation Procedure to identify contributory factors and establish how they could have been prevented. This process involves evidence collection and analysis and witness interviews to establish the facts of the incident.”\n\nAmnesty International’s Ella Knight told CNN Sport that her organization would continue to push Qatar to “thoroughly investigate” deaths of migrant workers, including past deaths, to “ensure the families of the deceased have the opportunity to rebuild their lives.”\n\nBarun Ghimire is a human rights lawyer based in Kathmandu whose work focuses on the exploitation of Nepali migrants working abroad. He tells CNN that the families he advocates for have not received satisfactory information on their loved ones’ deaths. “Families send out healthy, young family member to work and they receive news that the family member died when they were sleeping,” he says. In a separate interview, he told CNN last year: “The Qatar World Cup is really the bloody cup – the blood of migrant workers.”\n\nLast year, Qatari legislation was strengthened regarding outdoor working conditions, expanding summertime working hours during which outdoor work is prohibited – replacing legislation introduced in 2007 – and additionally putting into law that “all work must stop if the wet-bulb globe temperature (WBGT) raises beyond 32.1C (89.8F) in a particular workplace.” The regulations also mandate annual health checks for workers, as well as mandatory risk assessments.\n\n“We recognize that heat stress is a particular issue in the summer months in Qatar,” a Qatari government official said. “In May 2021, Qatar introduced a requirement for companies to conduct annual health checks for workers, as well as mandatory risk assessments to mitigate the dangers of heat stress. Companies are expected to adopt flexible, self-monitored working hours where possible, adjust shift rotations, enforce regular breaks, provide free cold drinking water and shaded workspaces, and adhere to all other guidelines with respect to heat stress outlined by the Ministry of Labour.\n\n“Every summer, Qatar’s labor inspectors carry out thousands of unannounced visits to work sites across the country to ensure that heat stress rules are being followed,” the official added. “Between June and September 2022, 382 work sites were ordered to close for violating the rules.”\n\nWorkers walk to the Lusail Stadium -- one of the 2022 Qatar World Cup stadiums -- in Lusail on December 20, 2019. Hassan Ammar/AP\n\nIskander said a heat point of 32.1C WBGT was “already dangerous.”\n\n“Working at the physical intensity that construction workers do in Qatar for any amount of time at that temperature is damaging to the body,” she explained.\n\n“The regulation relied on the assumption that workers would be able to self-pace and rest as needed whenever they experienced heat stress. Anyone who has ever spent any amount of time on a Qatari construction site knows that workers have no ability to self-pace.”\n\nKnight adds: “The fact investigations into migrant workers deaths are often not happening precludes the possibility of greater protections being implemented because if you don’t know what is really happening to these people how can you then implement and enforce effective measures to increase their protection?”\n\nFor the majority of his time in Qatar, Hari said he felt sad. He would watch planes take off during his six months tending the airport gardens and question why he was in the country. But he had paid 90,000 Nepali rupees ($685) to a Nepali recruitment company that facilitated his move. He was also told, he says, by the company he had joined that he would have had to pay 2,000 to 3,000 Riyal ($549-$823) to buy himself out of his contract.\n\nHis friends, he said, counseled him as he continued to work long, lonely days for, Hari says, not enough money to live and save for his family. Amnesty International says many migrants pay high fees to “unscrupulous recruitment agents in their home country” which make the workers scared to leave their jobs when they get to Qatar.\n\nNow, he is a father-of-two, and work is plowing fields in Nepal as a tractor driver, but Hari hopes one day to work abroad again, his heart set on Malaysia. “I don’t want my children to go through what I did. I want to build a house, buy some land. That’s what I am thinking. But let’s see what God has planned,” he says.\n\n‘Our dreams never came true’\n\nSunit has been back in Nepal since August after working just eight months in Qatar. He had expected to be there for two years, but the collapse of the construction company he worked for meant he and many others returned with money still owed to them, he says. He struggles to find work in Nepal, meaning feeding his two children and paying school fees is difficult.\n\nHe had dreamed of watching World Cup matches from the rooftop of the hotel he had helped build. One of the stadiums – the name of which he does not know – was a 10-minute walk from the hotel. “We used to talk about it,” he says of the World Cup. “But we had to return, and our dreams never came true. The stadium activities were visible from the hotel. We could see the stadium from the hotel rooftop.”\n\nIn helping construct the city center hotel, the name of which he doesn’t remember, he would carry bags of plaster mix and cement, weighing from 30 to 50 kilos, on his shoulders up to 10 to 12 floors, he says.\n\n“The lift was rarely functional. Some people couldn’t carry it and dropped it halfway. If you don’t finish your job, you were threatened saying the salary would be deducted for that day,” he says. “The foreman used to complain that we were taking water breaks as soon as we got to work. They used to threaten us saying: ‘We will not pay you for the day.’ We said: ‘Go ahead. We are humans, we need to drink water.’\n\n“It was very hot. It used to take 1.5 to two hours to get to the top. I used to get tired. I used to stop on the way. Then proceed again slowly. Yes, the supervisors used to yell at us. But what could we do?”\n\nHe says he had paid an agent in Nepal 240,000 Nepali rupees (around $1,840) before leaving for Qatar. He says he has filed a case with the police about the agent as he had been unable to fulfill his two-year contract, but there have been no developments. He says the owners of the company he worked for in Qatar were arrested because they did not pay laborers. The company did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment, neither did it respond to questions from the Business & Human Rights Centre, an advocacy group, about protests over unpaid wages.\n\nQatar has expanded its airport, constructed new hotels, and rail and highways over the last decade. Britta Pedersen/picture alliance/Getty Images\n\nFor a month, he says, he was in his accommodation with no work or money to buy food – he borrowed to eat – so he and his fellow workers called the police, who brought food with them.\n\n“The police came again after 10-15 days and said we have arrested the company people. (The police) distributed food again,” he says. “They told us the company has collapsed and the government will send all the workers back home.”\n\n“I’m extremely sad,” he adds. “I mean, it is what it is. Nothing would change by regretting it. I get mad (at the company) but what can I do? Even if I had tried to fight back, it would have been my loss.”\n\nThe SC said it has established what it claims is a “first-of-its-kind” Workers’ Welfare Forum, which it said allowed workers to elect a representative on their behalf and, when companies failed to comply with the WWF, it steps in, demands better and alerts the authorities.\n\nSince 2016, the SC said 69 contractors had been demobilized, 235 contractors placed on a watch list and a further seven blacklisted. “We understand there is always room for improvement,” the statement added.\n\n‘Expertise and heroism’\n\nQatar, a peninsula smaller than Connecticut and the smallest World Cup host in history, is set to host an estimated 1.5 million fans over the month-long tournament, which begins on November 20. There are already reports of accommodation concerns for such a vast number of visitors.\n\nThe spotlight is no doubt on this Gulf state, as has progressively been the case since it was controversially awarded the tournament over a decade ago – though Qatari officials have previously “strongly denied” to CNN the allegations of bribery which has surrounded its bid.\n\nSuch attention has brought about reforms, significantly dismantling the Kafala system which gives companies and private citizens control over migrant workers’ employment and immigration status.\n\nIn Qatar, migrant workers can now change jobs freely without permission from their employer. But Knight adds: “Another aspect of the Kafala system, the criminal charge of absconding still exists, and this, along with other tools that are still available to employers, means that, fundamentally, the power balance between workers and employers, the imbalance remains great.”\n\nKnight says unpaid wages is still an issue as the wage protection system “lacks enforcement mechanisms,” while she also says employers can cancel a worker’s ID at a “push of a button,” meaning they risk arrest and deportation. Additionally, labor committees intended to help workers are under-resourced and “lack the capacity to deal with the number of cases that are coming to them.”\n\nMigrant laborers work at a construction site at the Aspire Zone in Doha on March 26, 2016. Naseem Zeitoon/Reuters/FILE\n\nGhimire agrees that there have been a few positive changes to employment laws but adds that it is “more show and tell.”\n\n“Many workers who work in construction are untouched, so there’s still exploitation going on,” he tells CNN.\n\nQatar’s government official told CNN work remained to be done but that “systemic reform does not happen overnight, and shifting the behavior of every company takes time as is the case with any country around the world.\n\n“Over the last decade, Qatar has done more than any other country in the region to strengthen the rights of foreign workers, and we will continue to work in close consultation with international partners to strengthen reforms and enforcement.”\n\nHuman Rights Watch’s #PayUpFIFA campaign wants Qatar and FIFA to pay at least $440 million – an amount equal to the prize money being awarded at the World Cup – to the families of migrant workers who have been harmed or killed in preparation for the tournament.\n\nFamilies of workers who have died face uncertain futures, HRW says, especially children. Those who survived and returned home, cheated of wages or injured, remain trapped in debt, it says, “with dire consequences for their families.”\n\nGhimire says compensation is key, but so too is making the world aware of what has taken place to make this tournament happen.\n\n“People are concerned about clothing brands, and the meat they eat, but what about mega events? Isn’t it time we ask how this was possible?” he asks.\n\n“Everyone who will watch should know at what cost this was even possible and how workers were treated. Players should know, sponsors should know.\n\n“Would it be the same situation if it was European workers dying in Qatar? If it was Argentinean workers, would Argentina be concerned about playing?\n\n“Because it’s migrant workers from poor south Asian countries, they’re invisible people. Forced labor, death of workers, while making a World Cup is unacceptable. As a football fan, it makes me sad; as a lawyer, it makes me really disappointed.”\n\nEarlier this month, Qatar’s Labor Minister Ali bin Samikh Al Marri rejected the prospect of a remedy fund.\n\nA Qatar government official said the country’s Workers’ Support and Insurance Fund was “effective in providing compensation for workers and their families” with the fund reimbursing workers with more than $350 million so far this year.\n\nIn terms of the SC’s efforts to ensure repayment of recruitment fees, as of December 2021, workers have received $22.6 million, with an additional $5.7 million committed by contractors, according to FIFA.\n\nLast month, FIFA’s Deputy Secretary General Alasdair Bell said “compensation is certainly something that we’re interested in progressing.”\n\nA general view shows the exterior of the Al-Thumama Stadium in Doha -- one of eight stadiums that will host World Cup matches KARIM JAAFAR/AFP/AFP via Getty Images\n\nIt has been widely reported that FIFA has urged nations participating in the World Cup to focus on football when the tournament kicks off.\n\nFIFA confirmed to CNN that a letter signed by FIFA President Gianni Infantino and the governing body’s secretary general Fatma Samoura was sent out on November 3 to the 32 nations participating in the global showpiece but would not divulge the contents. However, a number of European federations have issued a joint statement saying they would campaign at the tournament on human rights and for a migrant workers center and a compensation fund for migrant workers.\n\nThe motto for Qatar’s bid team in 2010 was ‘Expect Amazing.’ In many ways, this year’s World Cup has replicated that maxim.\n\nAs NYU’s Iskander says: “One of the things that is not really covered in the coverage of the World Cup and the coverage of this enormous construction boom is the expertise and heroism of the workers who built it.\n\n“They built buildings that were unimaginable to everyone, including the engineers and designers, until they were built. They performed acts of bravery that are unsung. They operated at levels of technical complexity and sophistication that are unparalleled. And yet their contribution to building the World Cup is really rarely featured, downplayed.\n\n“They are represented, generally speaking, as exploited and oppressed. And it’s true that they have been exploited and oppressed, but they are also the master craftsmen that built this Cup, and they are enormously proud of what they have built.”\n\nHosting this tournament has undoubtedly put Qatar under the global spotlight. The question is whether the world can enjoy watching what the migrant workers built, knowing the true cost of this billion-dollar extravaganza.", "authors": ["Aimee Lewis Pramod Acharya Sugam Pokharel", "Aimee Lewis", "Pramod Acharya", "Sugam Pokharel"], "publish_date": "2022/11/17"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/soccer/2022/06/15/world-cup-2026-fifa-announce-us-host-sites-soccer-tournament/7641267001/", "title": "World Cup 2026: FIFA to announce US host sites for soccer ...", "text": "Associated Press\n\nNEW YORK (AP) — As FIFA prepares to announce the 2026 World Cup sites on Thursday — and make high-profile cuts — Alan Rothenberg thought back to when stadiums were picked for the 1994 tournament he headed in the United States.\n\n“They gave the rights to the host country, and the host country basically ran the whole thing,” he said. “Here, everything is done in-house by FIFA. So it’s been a really long and arduous process. The terms have been incredibly difficult for cities to cope with.”\n\nSeventeen stadiums in 16 areas remained in contention to be among 10-12 selected from the U.S. for the tournament, which will be co-hosted with Mexico and Canada. The U.S. will host 60 of the 80 games under FIFA’s plan, including all from the quarterfinals on, and there was little doubt over the venues for 10 games each in the other nations.\n\nLast time, the nine U.S. stadiums were announced during a Waldorf-Astoria news conference 816 days before the opener. This time, the decisions will be revealed by FIFA in a Fox television studio 1,456 days before the likely start (Thursday, 5 p.m. ET on FS1).\n\nMORE:The 23 venues bidding to host World Cup matches in 2026\n\nIn handicapping the bidders, there appeared to be several tiers:\n\nLocks: AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, and Met Life Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, along with SoFi Stadium in Inglewood or the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California.\n\nIn the hunt: Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta; M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore; Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts; NRG Stadium in Houston; Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri; Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida; Nissan Stadium in Nashville, Tennessee; Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia; Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California; and Lumen Field in Seattle.\n\nLeast likely: Paul Brown Stadium in Cincinnati; Empower Field at Mile High in Denver; and Camping World Stadium in Orlando, Florida.\n\nIn the other countries: Mexico City’s Estadio Azteca, which hosted the 1970 and ’86 finals and will become the first stadium in three World Cups; Guadalajara’s Estadio Akron; Monterrey’s Estadio BBVA; Toronto’s BMO Field and Vancouver, British Columbia’s B.C. Place. Edmonton, Alberta’s Commonwealth Stadium was likely to be dropped.\n\n2022 WORLD CUP SCHEDULE:Groups, matches, fixture start times\n\nCONCACAF NATIONS LEAGUE:Jordan Morris scores late equalizer as USMNT ties El Salvador in the mud\n\nLANDMARK PACT:MLS announces 10-year media rights deal with Apple TV, beginning in 2023\n\n“This country has even more than 17 cities capable of hosting the World Cup, and it will be a pity for those that miss out,” said Telemundo’s Andrés Cantor, who has broadcast the tournament since 1990 and will co-host the announcement. “But I don’t think it’s going to take away from the desire of the soccer fan to attend the game, wherever their country lands in 2026.”\n\nRothenberg said the decision remained uncertain in the final week between SoFi, which may need pricey renovations to create a wider field, and the Rose Bowl.\n\n“Even to this moment, there’s calls going on all day long trying to sort it out,” he said Tuesday. “There will be discussions between the LA host committee and FIFA right up almost to the moment of the announcement. The costs of LA are a huge part of the difficulty.”\n\nJust two of the contending stadiums hosted games in 1994, the Rose Bowl joined by Orlando. Dozens of training complexes have been built for MLS teams, creating a far better infrastructure than at the first World Cup in the U.S., when Italy worked out at The Pingry School in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, and the U.S. practiced ahead of its opener on a wind-swept field at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan.\n\nMLS ON APPLE:Commissioner Don Garber discusses new media rights deal\n\n“It’s completely different from the standpoint that in a lot of these cities there’s a base of fans that have been sort of built up because of MLS,” said Tony Meola, the U.S. starting goalkeeper at that ’94 Cup. “We know Los Angeles and New York and Miami always had soccer fans, and they weren’t necessarily American soccer fans, but they were fans of some teams around the world. I think we’ve got just a little bit more of a fever for the game. From a fan’s perspective, the infrastructure in the cities are so much more developed. And tickets will never be a problem in our country if we host the World Cup every four years.”\n\nAll U.S. stadiums forecast capacities of 60,000 or larger. Three have retractable roofs and one a fixed roof. Ten have artificial turf but would switch to temporary grass.\n\nThis will be the first 48-nation World Cup, up from the 32-team format used since 1998. In a tournament likely to run from June 11 to July 12, but possibly start and end a week later, there will be 16 groups of three nations. Each team will play two first-round games instead of three as part of an awkward arrangement in which one nation in each group opens against an opponent who will have already played. The top two in each group advance to a 32-nation knockout bracket.\n\nRevenue has skyrocketed: The 1994 Cup drew a record 3.59 million fans and grossed $580 million, which produced a profit of $133.25 million for FIFA and $50 million for the U.S. organizing committee. FIFA said the 2018 World Cup in Russia produced $5.357 billion in revenue over the four-year cycle and a $3.533 billion surplus.\n\nFIFA requires bidders to obtain “a limited tax exemption” for FIFA, teams and other entities involved, and the Missouri Legislature last month approved a sales tax exemption for June and July 2026. Chicago dropped out in 2018 over FIFA’s demands.\n\nRothenberg anticipates many of U.S. states and cities will refuse to comply.\n\n“I think that’s a fair assumption in most of the jurisdictions. Some of them, they may just build it into the stadium price and other things, but getting an actual waiver may be difficult,” he said. “Ultimately, it just means another cost that the host committee, host city, is going to be responsible for.”", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/06/15"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/soccer/fc-cincinnati/2021/11/03/us-soccer-world-cup-qualifying-usmnt-mexico-match-sold-out/6242105001/", "title": "US Soccer World Cup qualifying: USMNT-Mexico match sold out", "text": "The buildup and hype for the U.S. men's national team's FIFA World Cup qualifier against Mexico is really going to start picking up in the latter stages of this week.\n\nU.S. Soccer was happy to begin stoking the frenzied environment around this storied rivalry match, which will be contested domestically in the current World Cup cycle at FC Cincinnati's TQL Stadium on Nov. 12, by announcing Monday the match was officially sold out.\n\nMore:Cincinnati, TQL Stadium to host US-Mexico 2022 World Cup qualifier\n\nOn Thursday around 11:30 a.m., attentions should shift to the match once again as U.S. Soccer will announce its travel roster for the upcoming two-match window of qualifying matches. USMNT head coach Gregg Berhalter is expected to address media members around noon on the subject of the personnel selections for the games.\n\nExcitement around the roster reveal was boiling over into Tuesday and Wednesday.\n\nOn Wednesday, a German news outlet reported 18-year-old defender Joe Scally of Borussia Mönchengladbach would be included in the roster.\n\nAmerican star Christian Pulisic, who plays his club soccer at famed English Premier League side Chelsea FC, is also widely projected to earn a call-up for this international window after missing three qualifiers in October through injury.\n\nAccording to U.S. Soccer, fans from all 50 states and Washington, D.C. have purchased tickets, helping make this the third-consecutive sellout for the USMNT in the 2022 qualifying campaign.\n\nThe federation's Monday news release announcing the sellout didn't put an exact number on the sellout, but TQL Stadium has a capacity around 26,000.\n\nBy midweek, the secondary market for tickets looked slightly better than it had in recent weeks. On Wednesday, SeatGeek listed tickets for the match for $414. It wasn't long ago that tickets couldn't be had for less than around $500.\n\nU.S. Soccer, which will reveal its roster for the upcoming two-match international window of World Cup qualifiers on Thursday, also announced further activities locally.\n\nMore:FC Cincinnati takeaways: Has anything gone right recently? Yes, for some.\n\nMore:FC Cincinnati loses 11th straight in 2-0 defeat at Philadelphia Union\n\nMore:'Message received': Here's what we learned from the FIFA 2026 World Cup site visit\n\nStarting Friday, buildings in Downtown will be lit red, white and blue through Nov. 12 during nighttime hours.\n\nU.S. Soccer and the American Outlaws, a supporters group for the men's and women's national teams, will host a kick-off party Thursday (6 p.m.) at The Pitch Cincy (1430 Central Pkwy.)\n\nThe party is open to attendees of all ages until 9 p.m. It will then turn to 21-plus for entry. National team merchandise will also be available for purchase at The Pitch on Thursday, as well as Friday.\n\nA \"FanHQ\" will operate on Central Parkway on Friday starting at 5:30 p.m.\n\nThese and other activities lead into the scheduled 9:10 p.m. kickoff between the U.S. and Mexico on Nov. 12.\n\nMore:Rose Lavelle talks next generation of USWNT, TQL Stadium and returning to Cincinnati for Paraguay friendly", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2021/11/03"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/2018/09/11/usa-soccer-mexico-nashville-world-cup-bid-mls/1258217002/", "title": "Nashville bid for 2026 World Cup games: Did USA vs. Mexico help?", "text": "The main event was Tuesday’s United States-Mexico friendly at Nissan Stadium — the latest opportunity for Nashville to showcase its soccer devotion and make its case for FIFA World Cup games in 2026 — but serious action took place a night earlier at the governor’s residence.\n\n“Aggressively touting the benefits” of Nashville as a host city is the way Major League Soccer Commissioner Don Garber described city and state officials who showed up at a gathering put on by Gov. Bill Haslam. The guests included Carlos Cordeiro, president of the United States Soccer Federation. He recommended the 17 cities that FIFA is considering for an expected 10 spots, and FIFA no doubt has his phone number as it whittles the list over the next couple of years.\n\nSo yeah, Butch Spyridon was pumped to do some aggressive touting Monday night. Or as the CEO of the Nashville Convention and Visitors Corp. put it before heading to the governor’s mansion: “I’m going to start talking and won’t stop until they shove me aside.”\n\nMaking the case for Music City\n\nPresumably, then, Nashville should be closer to hosting the biggest sporting event in the world today than it was yesterday. This even though the crowd for Tuesday’s game, 40,194, was not an overwhelming turnout. It did exceed what Garber and Spyridon said they expected (about 35,000) for this weeknight exhibition.\n\nNashville made a bigger statement when 47,622 showed up at Nissan for a CONCACAF Gold Cup match between the United States and Panama on July 8, 2017 — a game that counted, played in the summer. Then a new record of 56,232 was set for a game between English Premier League rivals Manchester City and Tottenham.\n\nAnother Gold Cup opportunity comes next summer. That will count, too, toward a World Cup decision that is scheduled to be made in late 2020. As will the progress and embrace of MLS in Nashville, which is back on track after the $275 million stadium deal at the fairgrounds was threatened. As will the future of Nissan Stadium.\n\nSticking with Nissan Stadium\n\nAmid this city’s soccer craze, we have more clarity on what American football will look like in the future. And the answer is, very similar, with upgrades planned for Nissan Stadium and no apparent desire for a new stadium. This will disappoint folks who envisioned a state-of-the-art dome that could attract a Super Bowl, a Final Four, a College Football Playoff game.\n\nIt’s good news for those who love the outdoor atmosphere and location of Nissan. It’s sensible news because, frankly, I don’t see how there’d be enough taxpayer support here for the kind of wallet hit a brand-new stadium would require. Nashville Mayor David Briley told The Tennessean's Joey Garrison that the Titans recently told him they “definitively don’t want a new stadium.”\n\nThe Titans released a statement Tuesday that said, in part: “With over 10 years still remaining in the original lease for Nissan Stadium, we believe the correct course of action is to keep modernizing and improving the existing building, which is the approach we have taken since the building debuted in 1999.”\n\nPlenty of competition for 2026\n\nIf there’s a plan in place by 2020 for significant improvements to be completed by 2026, that could help. Briley said he believes FIFA’s decisions will have “a lot to do with the facilities” in the respective cities.\n\nNew York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Dallas, Washington, San Francisco and Boston seem like no-brainers to host World Cup games. That would leave Nashville, Philadelphia, Miami, Seattle, Houston, Orlando, Kansas City, Denver, Baltimore and Cincinnati to scrap for an expected three spots — assuming Canada and Mexico each end up with three host cities as planned.\n\n“In my opinion, we’re all auditioning continuously,” Spyridon said. “I’d put our chances right now around 50/50. I feel good about it.”\n\nNashville MLS CEO Ian Ayre said Tuesday he believes the “experience around the games” is a lure for World Cup organizers and could serve as a Nashville advantage.\n\n“One thing that helped us with the Gold Cup, we used Kings of Leon to push it,” Spyridon said of the popular Nashville rock band. “That ability to tap star power to promote events has resonated with U.S. Soccer, with Soccer United Marketing and with the NFL. They’ve all seen how we can talk to different audiences in a pretty impactful way. Because they know they can talk to soccer fans, but if they can reach a different audience, that’s what they want.”\n\nThe soccer audience on a cool Tuesday night in Nashville was rocking by 8:10 p.m. kickoff. It was easy to envision the same city, eight years from now, housing an updated venue with butts in every seat for the most important games the sport has to offer.\n\nContact Joe Rexrode at jrexrode@tennessean.com and follow him on Twitter @joerexrode.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2018/09/11"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/columnist/martin-rogers/2017/04/10/world-cup-joint-bid-united-states-us-canada-mexico/100290566/", "title": "U.S. is on the perfect team for a winning World Cup bid", "text": "Martin Rogers\n\nUSA TODAY Sports\n\nIt seems so long away, 2026, farther over the horizon than the 2024 Olympics that Los Angeles hopes for, more distant than the end of Donald Trump presidential reign even if he serves two terms, past the close of the soccer careers of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.\n\nYet the bid to host the FIFA World Cup nine years from now is a fight that could be won quickly and decisively, even if the ultimate decision will not be revealed until May 2020 and 3,000 days will have elapsed before the first ball is kicked.\n\nThe United States, Canada and Mexico launched a loud and bold three-pronged campaign on Monday with the clear intention of establishing itself as the primary, and perhaps only, legitimate contender to stage soccer’s grandest spectacle.\n\nThanks to a combination of timing, quirky soccer politics and FIFA’s own intricate and convoluted processes, it became an immediate favorite in a race that isn’t going to have a whole lot of runners.\n\nMORE WORLD SOCCER:\n\nUnited States, Mexico, Canada announce joint bid for 2026 World Cup\n\nU.S. Soccer chief: Trump 'fully supportive' of joint 2026 World Cup bid\n\nFIFA proposes new six-team playoff ahead of 2026 World Cup\n\nUSMNT's Jermaine Jones: 'The criticism is always on me'\n\nBarring another mental meltdown from soccer’s political powerbrokers, the CONCACAF collaboration is the surest of sure things, so much so that they might as well start printing the tickets now. Even the specter of Trump’s immigration policies is not necessarily a negative given that the president would be at least two and possibly six years removed from office by the time the tournament actually begins.\n\nTrump, according to US Soccer president Sunil Gulati, has actively backed the bid and its nature of regional alliance. Yet for those opposed to Trump the combined formula of the bid could also be seen to fly in the face of the controversial president, which may sit well with some global FIFA delegates that could have held reservations about supporting the U.S. outright.\n\nCanada, whose liberal prime minister Justin Trudeau has wanted little opportunity to tweak Trump, and Mexico, which Trump wants to isolate with a physical border wall, are ideal running mates in this instance.\n\nFor all the theme of international teamwork that will surely be trotted out again and again, make no mistake, this is a U.S.-driven bid. The U.S. would have the vast majority of the games, 60 out of the 80 total and all games from the quarterfinals on, and its infrastructure and size would be relied heavily upon. Under the formative plans, Canada and Mexico would host 10 games each.\n\nAlready, the United States/Canada/Mexico bid is its own to lose, because the competition this time is painfully thin. European bidders are out of the reckoning, as that continent will have hosted in Russia two editions earlier in 2018. Therefore, no “home of football” bid from England to beat out. No opposition from Spain or Italy with their wondrous soccer cultures.\n\nAsia too, capable of mounting serious bids from nations such as China or Japan, will be excluded on account of the upcoming Qatar farce of 2022.\n\nOther continental confederations will be permitted to apply, yet there hasn’t been much appetite for it yet. South America went 36 years between World Cups before hosting in Brazil in 2014, so it is a bit of a stretch to think that Colombia, Argentina or Uruguay would be selected with a gap of only 12 years. Furthermore, it could be that South American bids get out of the way this time in order to facilitate a Uruguayan bid for 2030 — which would be the 100th anniversary of the first World Cup, staged in Uruguay.\n\nIn Africa, Nigeria or Morocco have some serviceable stadiums but would have scant chance of toppling the CONCACAF effort, while a previously mooted composite bid of several West African nations was quickly deemed as being too risky and unwieldy.\n\nWhich leaves the Oceania region’s New Zealand, which doesn’t want it unless it is in combination with Australia. But Australia can’t bid because it is part of Asia for soccer purposes.\n\nGame, set and match then, it would seem, even with the unpredictable nature of a governing body that saw fit to award the 2022 tournament to a miniscule enclave in the Middle East that has never qualified for the World Cup and that sees temperatures reach 110F during the period when the event is typically staged.\n\nThe U.S. has timed its run, and picked its partners, perfectly. This, remember, will be the first 48-team World Cup in history, up from the current number of 32. Bigger may not mean better in terms of the quality of soccer, but it certainly does in terms of providing a safe pair of hands with which to deliver an enlarged event for the first time.\n\nMonday marked the opening salvo in what figures to be a short and decisive battle. By establishing itself as an organized, efficient and heavyweight bid right at the start, the triple bid might have knocked the fight out of its potential rivals before the opening bell has formally sounded.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2017/04/10"}]}
{"question_id": "20230317_28", "search_time": "2023/05/25/17:57", "search_result": []}
{"question_id": "20230317_29", "search_time": "2023/05/25/17:57", "search_result": [{"url": "https://www.theweek.co.uk/news/science-health/960088/rolls-royce-gets-ps29m-for-james-bond-moon-project", "title": "Rolls-Royce gets £2.9m for 'James Bond' Moon project | The Week UK", "text": "Rolls-Royce has been awarded funding by the UK Space Agency to build a nuclear reactor to power a base on the Moon.\n\nThe idea “might sound like the setup of a James Bond film”, said Sky News, but is “part of a very real-world project that aims to see humans living and working on the lunar surface”.\n\nExperts told The Guardian that nuclear power could “dramatically increase the length of lunar missions”, providing enough energy for communications, life-support and experiments.\n\nRolls-Royce plans to have a reactor ready to send to the Moon by 2029. The UK Space Agency has announced £2.9m of new funding for the project, which will deliver an initial demonstration of a UK lunar modular nuclear reactor. The cash injection follows a £249,000 study funded by the UK Space Agency last year.\n\nDr Paul Bate, chief executive of the UK Space Agency, said: “This innovative research by Rolls-Royce could lay the groundwork for powering continuous human presence on the moon, while enhancing the wider UK space sector, creating jobs and generating further investment.”\n\nWork on the lunar base comes as humans prepare to return to the Moon for the first time in more than 50 years. “As humanity begins to venture back into space”, said Gizmodo, the “technology that moves us throughout the solar system will be a pivotal part of that journey”.\n\nWith dozens of lunar missions due to launch over the next decade, the European Space Agency wants to give the Moon its own time zone and is collaborating with other space agencies including Nasa in a “joint international effort” to determine what a lunar time zone might look like, said Axios.\n\nAcross the Atlantic, Nasa recently announced funding for a nuclear-powered rocket that could “cut journey times to Mars from seven months to just 45 days”, the Independent reported.", "authors": ["Chas Newkey-Burden"], "publish_date": "2023/03/17"}]}