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+{"question_id": "20220617_0", "search_time": "2022/06/17/16:34", "search_result": [{"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/12/media/squid-game-season-2/index.html", "title": "'Squid Game': Netflix green lights season 2 - CNN", "text": "1. How relevant is this ad to you?\n\nVideo player was slow to load content Video content never loaded Ad froze or did not finish loading Video content did not start after ad Audio on ad was too loud Other issues", "authors": ["Ramishah Maruf"], "publish_date": "2022/06/12"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/17/us/five-things-june-17-trnd/index.html", "title": "5 things to know for June 17: Jan. 6, Church shooting, Ukraine ...", "text": "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\n(CNN) The popular rideshare company Lyft has agreed to a $25 million settlement with shareholders over safety-related allegations, including not disclosing reports of drivers assaulting passengers. Notably, the money will go to shareholders instead of the individuals who've been victim to and reported such incidents.\n\nHere's what you need to know to Get Up to Speed and On with Your Day.\n\n(You can get \"5 Things You Need to Know Today\" delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up here .)\n\n1. January 6\n\nThe House select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection used Thursday's hearing to detail how former President Donald Trump tried to pressure his vice president to join in his scheme to overturn the presidential election -- and how Mike Pence's refusal put his life at risk as rioters called for his hanging on January 6, 2021. The committee underscored that Pence was in real danger on January 6, and the panel made the case that Trump was to blame. The mob got about 40 feet from Pence, threatened him by name, and were enraged that he didn't overturn the election because they believed Trump's lie that Pence could overturn Joe Biden's victory in the Electoral College. One person noticeably absent on Thursday was the focus of the hearing himself: the former vice president.\n\n2. Church shooting\n\nTwo people were killed in a shooting at a church near Birmingham, Alabama on Thursday, police said. The gunman, who is in custody, opened fire at a small group church meeting at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Vestavia Hills. It is unclear how many people were at the event when the shooting took place. A spokesperson for the the Diocese of Alabama said the community needs to be lifted up in healing through prayer and unity. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey echoed those sentiments: \"This should never happen -- in a church, in a store, in the city, or anywhere. We continue to closely monitor the situation,\" Ivey said. The shooting is the latest in a house of worship amid a national reckoning on guns in America and their availability.\n\n3. Ukraine\n\nUkraine's bid to join the European Union received a major boost today after the bloc's executive said it believed the country should be formally considered for candidate status in the wake of Russia's invasion. Speaking in Brussels, the European Commission's President Ursula von der Leyen said the Commission recommends \"that Ukraine is given candidate status. This is of course on the understanding that the country will carry out a number of further reforms.\" Leaders of the 27 EU member states will now meet for a summit next week to discuss the Commission's opinion. Even if the member states agree that Ukraine should be a candidate nation -- which is far from certain -- the process to join the EU is complicated and takes, on average, just under five years to complete, according to the think tank, UK in a Changing Europe\n\nJUST WATCHED Ukrainian Defense Minister: Written military orders recovered from dead Russian officer reveal Moscow's initial plan Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Ukrainian Defense Minister: Written military orders recovered from dead Russian officer reveal Moscow's initial plan 03:50\n\n4. Mortgage rates\n\nAmid rising inflation and an interest rate hike, mortgage rates jumped to nearly 6% this week. The spike from 5.23% to 5.78% is the largest one-week increase since 1987. This comes as no surprise though as rates have risen more than two-and-a-half percentage points this year alone. Rates were at an average of 2.93% at this time last year, largely due to the pandemic. But now, buyers are finding homes even less affordable as inflation takes a larger chunk of their income and the cost of borrowing has reduced their purchasing power. However, some experts say soaring rates may finally bring the housing market back to earth because it will continue to drive demand for mortgages down -- likely resulting in the cooling off of home prices.\n\nJUST WATCHED What the mortgage rate spike means for first-time home buyers Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH What the mortgage rate spike means for first-time home buyers 02:33\n\n5. NBA Finals\n\nThe Golden State Warriors defeated the Boston Celtics 103-90 on Thursday night to claim their fourth NBA championship in the last eight seasons . The victory gives the trio of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green their fourth title together -- adding to their championships from 2015, 2017 and 2018. Curry, who was in tears on the court after the final whistle, won NBA Finals MVP honors for the first time in his career. \"Beginning of the season, nobody thought we'd be here except everybody on this court right now, and it's amazing. Very surreal, though,\" Curry said after the victory. This is the Warriors' seventh league title in franchise history.\n\nTHIS JUST IN\n\nJulian Assange extradition order issued by London court\n\nWikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has moved one step closer to being extradited to the US , where he is set to be tried under the Espionage Act, after a London court sent his handover order to the British government for approval. Assange is wanted in the US on 18 criminal charges after WikiLeaks published thousands of classified files and diplomatic cables in 2010. If convicted, Assange faces up to 175 years in prison.\n\nBREAKFAST BROWSE\n\nBlack bear follows a hiking family\n\nElon Musk shares who he would like to be the next president in 2024\n\nPetco is launching stores for a new group of customers\n\nScooch over cats and dogs. Petco is eyeing a new customer base\n\nUS Open: Phil Mickelson suffers nightmare first round\n\nThe six-time major winner must finish in the top 60 by the close of Friday's second round to avoid being cut . No pressure.\n\nKim Kardashian did not ruin Marilyn Monroe's dress, Ripley's said\n\nContrary to the social media fuss, Kim Kardashian didn't damage the iconic dress lent to her for the Met Gala, according to Ripley's.\n\nQUIZ TIME\n\nWhich wildly popular show was recently green lit for a new season?\n\nA. \"Game of Thrones\"\n\nB. \"Squid Game\"\n\nC. \"Breaking Bad\"\n\nD. \"Friends\"\n\nHAPPENING THIS WEEKEND\n\nCNN to broadcast live Juneteenth concert\n\nA slate of Black artists and musicians are set to take the stage at the Hollywood Bowl this Sunday, June 19 for an inaugural Juneteenth concert that will be broadcast live on CNN at 8pm ET. \" Juneteenth: A Global Celebration for Freedom \" will feature artists Jhené Aiko, Khalid, Jill Scott, Questlove, Mickey Guyton, Ne-Yo, Killer Mike among several other talented performers.\n\nAlso, how well do you know Emancipation Day?\n\nTake this special edition CNN quiz to learn more about the oldest known US celebration of the end of slavery.\n\nTODAY'S NUMBER\n\n12\n\nThat's how many elementary school children drank floor sealant believing it was milk after it was served to students at a childcare program in Juneau, Alaska, according to the school district. On Tuesday, several children at the school complained the milk they were served tasted bad and was burning their mouths and throats. An investigation revealed that the chemical was mistakenly stored in a food warehouse. All 12 students are recovering and some have fully recovered, school district officials said, and new safeguards are forthcoming.\n\nTODAY'S QUOTE\n\n\"I have loved every single minute, and still do, so gonna play my last year, just like this little girl played her first.\"\n\n-- WNBA legend Sue Bird, announcing on Thursday that , announcing on Thursday that she will retire after the current season . Bird, the league's all-time assists leader, has played her entire career with the Seattle Storm, where she has won four championships to go along with five selections to the All-WNBA first team and a record 12 All-Star Game appearances. She also achieved a record-tying five Olympic basketball golds with Team USA.\n\nTODAY'S WEATHER\n\nJUST WATCHED Heat dome bakes Southeast Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Heat dome bakes Southeast 02:19\n\nAND FINALLY\n\nBig cats like boxes too", "authors": ["Alexandra Meeks"], "publish_date": "2022/06/17"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/books/2019/06/04/looking-alaska-hulu-series-based-john-green-novel-date-set/1334621001/", "title": "'Looking for Alaska' Hulu series, based on John Green novel, date set", "text": "The first glimpse at the new Hulu adaptation of \"Looking for Alaska,\" a 2005 novel by John Green, premiered Saturday at the annual BookCon in New York.\n\nThis highly anticipated debut comes with a 14-year history of adaption attempts and fails.\n\n\"Looking for Alaska\" will premiere on Oct. 18 with all eight episodes available at once on Hulu as a limited series.\n\nThe story follows Miles, who is infatuated with a girl named Alaska at their boarding school in Alabama. But it's not a typical teen romance of a popular girl who finally sees the nerdy boy who has pined after her. In fact, it's an insightful look at the dangers of putting someone, especially a young woman, on a pedestal.\n\nSeries actors Kristine Froseth and Charlie Plummer told BookCon attendees that the story's themes of grief and empathy are what drives their passion for the series and that they have been long-time fans of Green's novel.\n\nThe pair reflected on how the characters made them feel the first time they read \"Looking for Alaska\" and now as adults how they view them with a much more refined perspective.\n\nFroseth, who plays Alaska, said she related to Alaska’s internal struggles when she was a teenager, including the feeling of isolation that comes with grief.\n\nJosh Schwartz, the executive producer, noted that every person on the crew has read the book and feels passionately about honoring the novel and adapting it. Schwartz said the production of the show is a “really beautiful” experience.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2019/06/04"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nascar/2022/02/04/if-nascars-coliseum-experiment-fails-clash-return-daytona-los-angeles-busch-clash-daytona-500/6653729001/", "title": "Busch Clash: If NASCAR's Coliseum experiment fails, will it return to ...", "text": "The Busch Clash goes green this weekend.\n\nWell, scratch that. The Busch Light Clash goes green this weekend from Daytona International Speedway.\n\nHang on. Scratch that, again.\n\nThe Busch Light Clash goes green this weekend from the Los Angeles Coliseum, kicking off Speedweeks 2022 and leading into next weekend's Daytona 500.\n\nOK. One more try.\n\nThe Busch Light Clash goes green this weekend from the Los Angeles Coliseum — one week before the start of SpeedDays 2022 and two weeks before the Feb. 20 Daytona 500.\n\nYeah, a lot has changed since the checkered flag dropped at Phoenix last November.\n\n\"It's definitely a little bit different,\" said Penske driver Ryan Blaney. \"A different venue, another coast, and a different race. It's a different feel, and a very, very new racetrack. Definitely weird not having the Clash in Daytona.\"\n\nMoney Mayweather:Floyd Mayweather starts NASCAR team, will enter car in Daytona 500 with Kaz Grala\n\nCLASH DASHES:Daytona loses Busch Clash as NASCAR moves exhibition race to L.A. Coliseum in 2022\n\nDale and Daytona:Can NASCAR drivers keep up with Rolex 24 field? Dale Earnhardt Jr. gives blunt assessment\n\nBlaney was at the center of discussion following last year's Clash after he was wrecked by Chase Elliott as the two came to the checkered flag. And while that race was certainly different than the previous 39 Clash events — it was on Daytona's road course, for starters — it was nothing compared to what you'll see this weekend.\n\nLast September NASCAR announced it was moving the Clash — the opening exhibition race of each season since 1979 — to the West Coast, putting a track inside the historic L.A. Coliseum and dropping the green flag one week before the Super Bowl.\n\nThe Clash was also moved to a weekend earlier, meaning there's now a weekend off between the Clash and the Daytona 500.\n\n\"It'll be a little weird racing, then watching the Super Bowl, then going down to the 500,\" Blaney said. \"Kinda odd, but it's a little preseason exhibition I guess.\"\n\nIn recent years, Daytona Speedweeks have been more and more condensed. Last year, the Clash was held on a Tuesday for the first time, turning an already reduced Speedweek(s) into SpeedDays.\n\nBut the Clash still served as the official kickoff event to several straight days of racing, all leading up to the Daytona 500. From the date, to the venue, to the coast — everything is different this season.\n\n\"I've always enjoyed coming down to Daytona for two weeks and enjoy the good weather,\" said Ricky Stenhouse Jr., who won Daytona's summer race back in 2017. \"I almost would take up residence in my bus and just kind of get in the flow of being down there and being ready to go.\n\n\"I definitely enjoyed that part of it. I think the Clash is going to be a great event, the track looks spectacular. I think it'll be good for our sport, but I will miss being down in Daytona for the period of time that we're normally down there.\"\n\nNASCAR can stay in L.A. through 2024\n\nOf course, if the past few years have taught us anything, it's nothing in the NASCAR world is permanent.\n\nLast year's schedule was the most adventurous in the sports' modern history, with the addition of several road events and a race on the Bristol dirt.\n\nThis year, the cars are completely different with the introduction of the Next Gen car (bigger tires, one lug-nut, composite bodies), while the car numbers on the side have been moved a few feet forward to create more space for sponsors.\n\nEverything is fluid, at least recently, in the NASCAR universe.\n\nLast fall, Ben Kennedy — NASCAR's senior vice president of strategy and innovation — did say the Clash could one day return to Daytona, but admitted the hope is that the move will continue to generate \"excitement\" leading up the Daytona 500.\n\nEarlier this week, Coliseum GM Joe Furin told NBC Sports that NASCAR’s current agreement is a three-year deal, with options on the last two years.\n\nFollowing Sunday's race, Furin added, NASCAR has 90 days to state if it wishes to return next year, meaning May 6 is the date to circle for those hoping the move to L.A. is just temporary.\n\n\"It'll be a good, new challenge,\" William Byron said of the quarter-mile Coliseum track. Byron, the fifth-year Hendrick Motorsports driver, played a small role in designing the track, using iRacing to virtually put it all together.\n\n\"I was sort of involved early on with some of the testing of the track,\" he continued. \"Just making sure they had the walls in the right places, things like that. The collaboration to get the track configured was pretty cool, so I'm excited for it.\"\n\nSo are the fans — at least the ones out West.\n\nFurin told NBC that a crowd of 50,000 to 60,000 is expected for Sunday’s race, which could put it near capacity. While the Coliseum seats 78,000, 14 rows of lower level seats are being blocked off for fan safety, putting capacity around the 60,000 range.\n\nWhile those numbers will almost assuredly beat recent Daytona figures — the 2020 Daytona Clash (the last pre-pandemic Clash) had an estimated 25,000 fans in attendance — the true deciding factor could very well come down to TV numbers.\n\nOver 1.5 million people tuned in to last year's Clash, which was run on FS1 on a Tuesday. This year's event moves back to Sunday, when NASCAR typically rates better, and will also be on the main Fox channel with three hours of lead-in coverage beginning with qualifying races at 3 p.m.\n\nCombine that with the unique venue and those numbers should — should — see a significant bump this year.\n\nDaytona 500 Speedweeks schedule\n\nMeanwhile, back in Daytona, the Speedway is doing its best to fill the void left by the Clash.\n\nThere will be two 50-minute practice sessions on Tuesday, Feb. 15, to get Daytona 500 week started, followed by a Rodney Atkins concert at 8 p.m. inside the Fanzone that's free to infield campers and $20 for everyone else.\n\nThose two practices will kick off six straight days of racing at the Speedway. Daytona 500 front-row qualifying is set for Wednesday, followed by the two Duel races on Thursday, a truck race on Friday, an ARCA-Xfinity doubleheader Saturday and the main event on Sunday.\n\nDespite losing the Clash, Speedway President Frank Kelleher said the mystique around Daytona 500 week is still alive and well.\n\n\"Our sales, year over year, are through the roof,\" he added. \"The entire industry, all the stakeholders win when Daytona starts out successful, and we are on that path.\"\n\nJust how successful the start to this NASCAR season will be remains to be seen — and there will be plenty of eyes on both coasts, starting at the Coliseum this weekend.\n\nRegardless of where it is, though, a race is a race, Blaney said.\n\nAnd when the green flag drops Sunday somewhere around the 50 yard-line (OK, that's just a guess), that's all that matters.\n\n\"It's something new,\" Blaney added. \"And I think all of us are kind of antsy to get back racing.\"\n\nNASCAR Clash TV schedule\n\nSaturday: 12:30 p.m. Busch Light Clash practice (FS2/MRN/FOX Sports App); 8:30 p.m. Busch Light Clash single-car qualifying (FS1/MRN/FOX Sports App)\n\nSunday: 3 p.m. Busch Light Clash qualifying heats (FOX/MRN/FOX Sports App); 4:10 p.m. (approx.) Busch Light Clash last-chance qualifiers (FOX/MRN/FOX Sports App); 6 p.m. Busch Light Clash main event (FOX/MRN/FOX Sports App)", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/02/04"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/books/2018/09/26/dip-into-4-new-mysteries-including-kate-atkinsons-transcription-george-pelecanos-andrew-gross/1419981002/", "title": "Dip into 4 new mysteries for fall, including Kate Atkinson's spy novel ...", "text": "Charles Finch\n\nSpecial to USA TODAY\n\nThe big mysteries have arrived for the start of autumn: a surefire bestseller from Kate Atkinson, George Pelecanos with a riff on Elmore Leonard, and new novels by Abby Geni and Andrew Gross that reckon in different ways with crime and the American dream. Charles Finch has some pumpkin spice reviews.\n\n\"Transcription\"\n\nBy Kate Atkinson\n\nLittle, Brown, 335 pp.\n\n★★★ out of four stars\n\nEveryone loves Kate Atkinson, but I think writers may have a particular admiration for her. She dissolves the choices that bedevil us: between big plots and wry, acute, noticing sentences; between genre and literary fiction; between the wildly popular and the wildly nuanced. Her new spy novel, “Transcription,” returns to World War II, also the subject of her best book, “Life After Life.” Having been struck by a car in 1981, Juliet Armstrong, lying in the road, flashes back to the war, which she spent involved in the complex game of flushing out England’s homegrown enemies. Is this vengeance at a distant remove? “Transcription” is a minor work in the Atkinson canon – a bit meandering, a bit quiet – but is nonetheless a joy to read. Above all, it continues the author's vital project of reconstituting how we understand British women of that era – not as dutiful handmaidens of the home front, but as flesh-and-blood girls of 18, 19, who across every class were willing to die for their ideals.\n\nThe Wildlands\n\nBy Abby Geni\n\nCounterpoint, 357 pp.\n\n★★★½\n\nFrom the moment Abby Geni’s second novel starts, you know you’re in good hands. She’s describing the surreal effects of a tornado in a small Oklahoma town. A bird flies backwards; an umbrella turns a couple times, then floats “straight into the sky, rising like a UFO.” What an image! For the McClouds, who lose their father, this sense of unreality persists past the storm. Out of their loss, Geni spins a careful, humane, moving story, centered primarily on the youngest McCloud, Cora, who finds her missing older brother Tucker, an inept eco-terrorist, just when he needs her most, and she needs him least. “The Wildlands” is a dense, slow-moving novel, but one filled with rewards for the patient reader – in its best sections, the most responsible McCloud, Darlene, who has forfeited her dreams for her siblings, searches for green shoots of possibility in a life dominated by poverty and hard work. America, Geni argues, shouldn’t demand so much heroism of its people. Many give it anyway.\n\n\"Button Man\"\n\nBy Andrew Gross\n\nMinotaur, 371 pp.\n\n★★★½\n\nAndrew Gross (writer of slick thrillers, sometime denizen of the James Patterson factory, good head of hair) takes on a new challenge in the broad but irresistible “Button Man.” It’s the saga of a single family’s beginnings in the garment trade at the turn of the 20th century. Tracking the three Rabishevsky brothers, led by Morris, as they explore Manhattan in search of opportunity, we witness an indomitable work ethic rewarded with success. But that brings its own problem: Murder, Inc. Will Morris take a stand or a powder against the fearsome Louis “Lepke” Buchalter? “The Pirkei Avot tells us it is not our responsibility to finish the work of perfecting the world,” his brother reminds him, “but we are not free to desist from it either.” Gross’s beats and characters can be overly simplistic, but this is a big, heartfelt handshake of a book, with all the street-scrambling energy that distinguishes the best fiction of Jeffrey Archer and Mario Puzo.\n\n\"The Man Who Came Uptown\"\n\nBy George Pelecanos\n\nMulholland, 265 pp.\n\n★★★\n\nGeorge Pelecanos has drawn some heat lately: In an interview about his favorite books with The New York Times, he named 20-odd male authors but only a single female one, Harper Lee – to remark that she wasn’t a favorite. As if to double down, his newest novel, “The Man Who Came Uptown,” is dedicated to Elmore Leonard and Charles Willeford. It’s about a reformed ex-con named Michael and a restless private investigator named Orzanian, whom Michael owes, unfortunately, a favor. Pelecanos is a great storyteller and this is a shrewd, lean, martini-smooth suspense novel, with a nuanced portrayal of Washington’s gentrification. Its female lead, Anna, is a hot librarian who, in passages of mawkish affectation, teaches Michael to love reading. (Roll your own eyes, mine are tired.) It’s not exactly a crime that such a gifted writer should have such resolutely male influences and boundaries; but it is a shame.\n\n––––––––\n\nCharles Finch writes the Charles Lenox mystery series.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2018/09/26"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/2016/08/03/can-walking-dead-bring-ky-town-back-life/87254334/", "title": "'The Walking Dead' Day comes to Ky. town Saturday", "text": "Shauna Steigerwald\n\nssteigerwald@enquirer.com\n\nThirteen years ago, Officer Rick Grimes woke up in a Cynthiana, Kentucky, hospital room to find his town overrun with \"The Walking Dead.\"\n\nOn Saturday, the scene will leap from the pages of the comics' Issue 1 to the streets of the actual city. Sheets hanging out windows. Cars flipped over. A downed airplane. National Guard vehicles. And zombies – well, 'walkers,' to use Grimes' term – lots of them.\n\nYes, Cynthiana is a real place. Long before he created the comic series and the wildly popular TV show it spawned, Robert Kirkman called it home.\n\nHe'll be back on Saturday, to play a starring role in Cynthiana's first-ever \"The Walking Dead\" Day.\n\nIt's supposed to be fun, of course. But some Cynthiana residents hope it will be much more than that. That Kirkman's fictional dead could help breathe life into the real city, attracting new visitors and new businesses to help serve them.\n\nSound like (science) fiction? Maybe not. Locals have already seen cars with Texas and California plates stopping at the town's new mural. Its larger-than-life renderings of Grimes and some of his fellow survivors from the TV version of the disaster – Carl, Michonne and Daryl – now decorate an 1871 building that's home to Rohs Opera House, Cynthiana's movie theater.\n\nFor \"The Walking Dead\" fans, it feels like a selfie waiting to happen.\n\nFrom Cynthiana to your TV: 'A wild ride'\n\nCynthiana sits a little fewer than 60 miles from Downtown Cincinnati. You can take US-27 South all the way there, following the road as it passes through rolling green hills and small towns on its way to becoming Cynthiana's Main Street. It's the kind of drive where observing the often 55-mph speed limit can make you feel like you're careening when you should be meandering. A horse-and-buggy sign a few miles outside of town announces the small Amish community nearby – and offers another argument for slowing down.\n\nBut don't.\n\nThere are plenty of signs of life in Cynthiana: A jeweler, an antique store, a fabric shop, a pet store. Biancke’s Restaurant, in business since 1894, is known for its fried green tomatoes and homemade pie.\n\nAnd just like in the comic book, the city's downtown business district has its empty buildings.\n\nKirkman knows both Cynthianas. He moved to the city when he was in fourth grade and considers it home. Speaking by phone, he described the city as the type of place where locals wave at strangers and you always see someone you knew at Walmart. All in all, a much friendlier place than the fictional Cynthiana that Grimes wakes up in.\n\nThough Kirkman was (presumably) never attacked by the undead or hit over the head with a shovel like his protagonist, growing up in Cynthiana nevertheless left is mark on the writer, now also a writer and executive producer on \"The Walking Dead\" TV show.\n\n\"Living in such a tight-knit community, having that small town environment, it had to have shaped me in some way,\" he said.\n\n\"The Walking Dead\" centers around \"blue-collar, small-town people ... the kind of people that I interacted with in Cynthiana,\" Kirkman said.\n\n\"It seems like these kinds of stories always center around a big city police officer or what the government is doing,\" he said. \"I wanted to see how a small town police officer, how a local pizza delivery boy, how a small farmer would deal with this kind of crisis.\"\n\nIn the first comic – the TV show subs-in fictional King County, Georgia – we see Grimes wake up in room 251 of Cynthiana's Harrison Memorial Hospital. (That room exists in real life, by the way, in the hospital's ICU.) We follow him to his home on a Cynthiana street. We watch him go to the Cynthiana Police Station to get guns.\n\nWhen you think about it, including Cynthiana in the first issue seems like a no-brainer, zombie pun intended. After all, it's where Kirkman met Tony Moore, the artist on the first six issues of the comic series. They met because of comics: Kirkman recalled the two bonding after he watched Moore draw a character during seventh-grade social studies.\n\nSo it was easy to work together remotely when Kirkman could use shorthand. Like \"the street our friend grew up on, that's where Rick Grimes lives.\"\n\nBack then, Kirkman couldn't have imagined creating something that would take off the way \"The Walking Dead\" has. The show averaged 18.6 million viewers during its sixth season, its most recent, according to Nielsen.\n\n\"This has been a pretty wild ride,\" Kirkman said.\n\nSmall city, big ideas\n\nThe real story of Kirkman's hometown is not unlike the story of countless small towns across America. Things haven't been easy.\n\nMany in Cynthiana, population 6,423, want to fill the vacant spaces in the city's downtown business district. They want reasons for young people to stay in town, or to move back. To let outsiders know about what the 223-year-old city has to offer.\n\nBut one thing Cynthiana has that those other towns don't is, well, zombies.\n\n\"We were looking for a way to put Cynthiana on the map,\" said Tomi Jean Clifford, executive director of the Cynthiana-Harrison County Chamber of Commerce and the co-creator of Cynthiana's \"The Walking Dead\" Day.\n\nThat's something she's been thinking about since she took the job last September. One of her big ideas: Increase tourism.\n\n\"I feel like that's how Cynthiana is going to grow,\" she said. \"We have to bring outsiders in.\"\n\nHence new signs at the city's northern and southern limits on US-27, to be dedicated to native sons Kirkman and Moore on Saturday, and the new mural – potential draws for \"The Walking Dead's\" huge fan base. Portuguese graphic artist Odeith created the mural, with its spot-on likenesses of the show's characters, using spray paint during a five-day period earlier this summer.\n\nIn today's social media and selfie culture, a mural seems like a smart choice for attracting younger visitors.\n\n\"People want to see that in person and get their picture there,\" Clifford said.\n\nAs for \"The Walking Dead\" Day, it started out as simply a day to dedicate those signs. But then, it got bigger – Zombie Apocalypse big.\n\n\"When Robert suggested we could do a whole day, we knew it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,\" said Annastasia Hicks, a member of the Cynthiana Tourism Committee and the co-creator of the event.\n\nJust one problem: That was only two months ago.\n\n\"It's an event that should probably take a year to a year and a half to plan and we're doing it in two months,\" Clifford said.\n\n\"It's all we think about,\" she joked. \"I don't know what we're going to talk about after this.\"\n\nOrganizers, then, have their work cut out for them. For starters, they'll close off the streets at 9 p.m. Friday night. Clifford expects that she and other volunteers will be up all night making Cynthiana's downtown area look like the zombie apocalypse just happened.\n\n\"The amount of detail we're trying to put into the design, it's going to take us a while,\" Clifford said.\n\nBut she expects to have plenty of help, both for the getting ready and on the day of. More than 170 volunteers have signed up to dress as zombies and walk the town on Saturday.\n\nMore 'Cheers' than 'The Walking Dead'\n\nIn Clifford's experience, living in the small town is more like \"Cheers\" than \"The Walking Dead.\"\n\n\"Everyone knows your name, and you can count on everyone to help because everyone wants the same thing for Cynthiana,\" she said.\n\nClifford said some of the older people are a little nervous because they don't quite understand the fandom, but reactions have mostly been positive.\n\n\"I think overall, everyone is excited to have something in our small town,\" she said.\n\nSo much so that residents are boning up, to use what seems to be the most appropriate idiom, on the comics and TV show.\n\n\"Movie Warehouse, our local video store, can't keep them in stock,\" Clifford said. \"The library has nine or 10 people waiting in line for each volume. I know because I was one of those.\"\n\nShe figures people who come to, or even just hear about, \"The Walking Dead\" Day might come back again.\n\nHicks has seen it before. She pointed to Senoia, Georgia, where much of the TV show has been filmed.\n\n\"That little community has opened coffee shops and other businesses around the show,\" she said.\n\nIndeed, that town boasts Nic & Norman's, a new restaurant owned by co-executive producer and make-up designer Greg Nicotero and \"The Walking Dead\" star Norman Reedus (he plays Daryl Dixon, one of the men on Cynthiana's mural). And it has Woodbury Shoppe, selling \"The Walking Dead\" gear.\n\nThat type of thing may or may not happen in Cynthiana. But the city is moving steadily forward, much like Grimes and the rest of \"The Walking Dead\" survivors as they carry on toward season seven.\n\n'An upward swing'\n\n\"Within the last five or 10 years, we've been on an upward swing,\" Clifford said. More businesses are opening – 11 new ones last year, she said. One closed, but it's expected to reopen.\n\n\"There's been a lot of the younger generation moving back and wanting to make the town our own and make it better,\" she added.\n\nClifford, 32, and Hicks, 23, are among them. Clifford went to Eastern Kentucky University, about an hour south, but opted to come back after school. Hicks went to Centre College in Danville, about an hour and a half away, then lived in Lexington for a year before returning home.\n\n\"People used to say, 'there's nothing to do in Cynthiana,' and it used to drive me crazy,\" Clifford said.\n\nThat's changing, she said, with both the new businesses and an added emphasis on events. Think summer concerts and fall ghost walks. (Yes, the town has supernatural connections other than zombies: Rohs itself is reputedly haunted. The venue was featured on the TV show \"My Ghost Story\" in 2011.)\n\nEven Kirkman has taken note of the changes. He lives in Los Angeles now so he can be in the show's writers' room, but he and his family still visit his hometown often.\n\n\"It’s really exciting right now because I think there’s a really big shift, with new people coming into the town and new businesses coming in,\" he said.\n\nAnd there's more to come. Hicks' sister, Sonia Kirkman – yes, she's Robert's wife – is opening a five-room bed and breakfast with a restaurant in an 1858 Greek Revival house. Dubbed the Ashford Acres Inn, it will sit on 64 acres and should open by December, said Hicks, who will be the inn's manager. (It won't be zombie-themed. No need to give guests nightmares.)\n\nThat's just the latest way that the Kirkmans are getting involved in the town. In 2014, the couple found out that the Rohs Opera House would no longer be able to show movies because its owners couldn't afford a digital projector. So they donated the money to buy one.\n\n\"We had grown up seeing movies at the Rohs Opera House and we didn’t like the idea of the community not being about to see movies there,\" Kirkman said.\n\nDay of the 'Dead'\n\nOn Saturday, members of the community will also be able to meet Kirkman there. Among the highlights of \"The Walking Dead Day\" itself will be a 4 p.m. Q&A with the writer at Rohs. Seats – there are only 450 total – will be first come, first served. But Hicks said they plan to show the talk on Facebook Live and Periscope; WCYN, 102.3, the local radio station, will broadcast it.\n\nAlso on tap for the event: An interactive shuttle tour that will take visitors on stops featured in the comic (think the hospital, \"Rick's house,\" the former Cynthiana Police Department) and drive through a part of town where the tour just might get overrun with zombies.\n\nThere will also be booths and vendors, including Kirkman's company, Skybound, and a makeup artist to turn event goers into zombies, a silent auction, comic signings with Kirkman and Moore, a costume contest and trivia.\n\nAttendees can also pick up a limited edition of \"The Walking Dead\" Issue 1 with a special Cynthiana cover by Moore and a letter from Kirkman. It will be available at the Cynthiana Chamber of Commerce building while supplies last.\n\nThey have no idea how many fans to expect. And who can blame them? The event is as unprecedented in Cynthiana as the undead walking its (real) streets. Hicks gave 5,000 as a low attendance projection, but she figures it could draw as many as 30,000 people. She might not have thought so at first. But then the event's Facebook page got 1,000 likes within 12 hours. (It had more than 5,600 as of Aug. 2.) And event posters started disappearing from area businesses – five went missing from the local bank – presumably pilfered by fans.\n\nFor his part, Kirkman is excited about the prospect of \"The Walking Dead\" bringing more attention to the town. After all, the town made its mark on him. Now he's making his mark on it.\n\n\"To know that there’s something that could give Cynthiana a little bit of a leg up is exciting,\" he said. \"It’s extremely flattering that this thing that I’ve created ... is going to, to some small extent, revitalize this town and keep it alive.\n\n\"It’s a great town, there’s a lot of great business there and no end of great people there,\" he added. \"I think the brightest days of Cynthiana are hopefully ahead of it.\n\nIf you go\n\nWhat: The Walking Dead Day\n\nWhere: Downtown Cynthiana, Kentucky. Free parking at \"The Kingdom\" (Harrison County High School), 320 Webster Ave., Cynthiana. Paid ($5) parking at Hershel's Farm (Flat Run Veterans Park), 358 Oddville Ave., Cynthiana. Free shuttle pickup (7 a.m.-6 p.m.) from both locations.\n\nWhen: 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday. (Some area businesses are planning \"The Walking Dead\"-themed activities on Friday as well.)\n\nInfo: www.facebook.com/WalkingDeadDay", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2016/08/03"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/reviewed/2022/02/04/how-stream-reacher-amazon-prime/6667500001/", "title": "The all-new Amazon series 'Reacher' is out now—here's how to watch", "text": "Blake Howard\n\nReviewed\n\n— Recommendations are independently chosen by Reviewed’s editors. Purchases you make through our links may earn us a commission.\n\nThe thrilling and twisty new television adaptation of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher series just dropped on Amazon Prime. The first season of Reacher is based on the first book in Child's series, Killing Floor. Amazon's Reacher is available to watch as of February 4, 2022, on Amazon Prime Video.\n\n►Amazon Prime discount: Here's how to save 50% on your Amazon membership\n\n► Amazon raising price of Prime membership for new and current members\n\nHow can you watch Reacher?\n\nYou can watch Reacher with your Amazon Prime Video subscription. Prime Video is included with a general Prime membership, but you can also subscribe to Prime Video as a standalone service if you prefer. Prime Video is available to Amazon Prime customers in over 200 countries and territories, and can be accessed through most web browsers with an internet connection. Prime Video is also available as a streaming app on numerous devices, including iOS and Android, Amazon Fire TV devices, Roku devices, Xbox, PlayStation, smart TVs and more.\n\nYou can watch Reacher as well as other Amazon Originals, popular films and series, and over 100 additional channels (like Starz, Showtime, HBO Max and Shudder) through your Prime Video subscription.\n\nWhat is Amazon Prime's Reacher about?\n\nReacher is a sensational and much anticipated new thriller that successfully and faithfully cracks Jack Reacher for those fond of character in print or films to date. Starring Alan Ritchson, Malcolm Goodwin, Willa Fitzgerald, Bruce McGill, Maria Sten, Kristin Kreuk, Currie Graham and more, the first season introduces the towering, loner savant detective who seems to be a magnet for trouble in any town he strolls into. The eponymous Reacher is based on the first Jack Reacher book Killing Floor, by best-selling author Lee Child.\n\nThe first season begins when Jack Reacher (Ritchson), a retired Military Police detective, is arrested on suspicion of murder in Margrave, Georgia's sleepy, working-class town. When Chief Detective Finlay (Goodwin) clears him of perpetrating the crime, Reacher offers to assist Finlay and Roscoe (Fitzgerald) to untangle a web of crooked cops, deceitful corporations, and political conspiracy with nothing but cunning and immense brawn. After the mixed critical and commercial response to the Tom Cruise starring Jack Reacher and Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, let's hope that this phenomenal new thriller series can bring more of the hugely popular book series to our streams.\n\nYou can watch the first series of Reacher as of February 4, 2022, on Prime Video.\n\nHow can you sign up for Prime Video?\n\nPrime Video is the streaming component of Amazon Prime. You can sign up for Prime Video for $8.99 per month, or sign up for an all-in-one Prime membership for $12.99 monthly or $119 per year. You can access a 30-day free trial of Prime Video upon signing up. Or, if you’re a Prime member already, you can access the Prime Video library.\n\nThrough Prime Video, subscribers get access to Amazon Prime Originals—including series like The Expanse, The Legend of Vox Machina, Invincible and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel—as well as films like The Big Sick, Love & Friendship, and more. Prime Video is also home to popular films and series like Midsommar, The Americans, Knives Out, Downton Abbey, Orphan Black, with over 100 additional channels accessible through add-on subscriptions.\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": "2022/02/04"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/books/2013/08/08/wimpy-kid-hard-luck-jeff-kinney/2628639/", "title": "Narrator hits 'Hard Luck' in eighth Wimpy Kid book", "text": "Bob Minzesheimer\n\nUSA TODAY\n\nNarrator Greg Heffley tries %22to reinvent himself%2C%22 author Kinney says\n\nLime green is the color of choice for the cover of eighth book in popular series\n\nNo more movies planned%2C but a TV special is in the works\n\nJeff Kinney says that in his next \"novel in cartoons,\" Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Hard Luck (due Nov. 5), his wisecracking, self-centered, middle-school narrator, Greg Heffley, will try \"to reinvent himself.\"\n\nIn his first interview about Hard Luck (its cover is revealed here for the first time), Kinney says Greg isn't aging or maturing but continues to find new comic challenges. It's the eighth book in the wildly popular series, written and illustrated by Kinney for readers 8 and up.\n\nKinney says Greg's best friend, Rowley, \"has a girlfriend. Greg is on his own. He realizes the choices he's made haven't been the best, so he decides to turn his decisions over to chance, using an 8 Ball.\"\n\nWith 85 million copies of the series in print in the USA, Hard Luck will be one of the biggest books of the fall. The past five titles in the series each hit No. 1 on USA TODAY's Best-Selling Books list.\n\nAfter three movies based on the first five books, Kinney doesn't expect any more adaptations since stars Zachary Gordon (as Greg) and Robert Capron (as Rowley) \"aged out of their roles.\"\n\nBut he says he's working on an half-hour TV special for Fox — an animated version of his sixth book, Cabin Fever — to air in late 2014.\n\nEach Wimpy book cover has used a different color: red, blue, green, yellow, purple, ice blue and chocolate brown. Hard Luck will be lime green. \"It's set in the spring,\" Kinney says, \"and the green in the Irish flag symbolizes the luck of the Irish.\"\n\nKinney's publisher, Abrams, will promote the book with a Hard Luck Truck Tour, starting Thursday at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson, N.J., and making 150 stops in the next three months. (See the schedule at wimpykid.com/hardlucktruck.)\n\nKinney says he will not be on the tour but at home in Plainville, Mass., working on the final version of Hard Luck, both words and cartoons.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2013/08/08"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2022/03/02/alan-ladd-jr-braveheart-producer-oscar-winner-dies/9352657002/", "title": "Oscar-winning producer Alan Ladd Jr., who greenlit 'Star-Wars ...", "text": "Jake Coyle\n\nThe Associated Press\n\nNEW YORK — Alan Ladd Jr., the Oscar-winning producer and studio boss who as a 20th Century Fox executive greenlit \"Star Wars,\" has died. He was 84.\n\nLadd died Wednesday, his daughter Amanda Ladd-Jones, who directed the documentary \"Laddie: The Man Behind the Movies,\" wrote in a Facebook post. No cause of death was given.\n\nLadd Jr., the son of \"Shane\" star Alan Ladd, started in the film business as his father's stuntman but rose to become one of its leading — and most widely liked — executives. As studio head at Fox and MGM (twice), Ladd — affectionately known as \"Laddie\" — was involved in some 14 best-picture nominees, including \"Young Frankenstein\" (1974), \"The Rocky Horror Picture Show\" (1975), \"Chariots of Fire\" (1981) and \"Blade Runner\" (1982). As an independent producer, Ladd Jr. helped steer films including \"Once Upon a Time in America\" (1984), \"The Right Stuff\" (1983) \"Gone, Baby Gone\" (2007) and Mel Gibson's \"Braveheart\" (1995), for which he won best picture.\n\nAll told, films Ladd produced or greenlit movies that won more than 50 Oscars and 150 nominations. And he did so with an easy-going, tight-lipped manner that made him widely admired by stars and filmmakers. Esquire magazine put him on the cover in 1978 with the headline: \"Triumph of the Laid-Back Style.\"\n\nRIP:Farrah Forke, actor on 'Wings' and 'Lois & Clark,' dies at 54: reports\n\nRemembering those we lost: Celebrity Deaths 2022\n\nA former talent agent for stars like Robert Redford and Judy Garland, Ladd Jr. joined 20th Century Fox in 1973, and later became president. There, he greenlit George Lucas' $10 million science-fiction film — the original script was titled \"The Adventures of Luke Starkiller as Taken from the Journal of the Whills, Saga 1, Star Wars\" — when few in Hollywood saw any potential in it.\n\nLucas once recalled his meeting with Ladd, whose faith in the filmmaker began with an early screening of Lucas' \"American Graffiti\" before it was released.\n\n\"The only reason it got off the ground was that Alan liked 'American Graffiti' and said, 'I don't understand this movie, I don't get it at all, but I think you're a talented guy and I want you to make it,'\" Lucas said in Tom Shone's 2004 book \"Blockbuster.\"\n\nEven when the studio's confidence wavered on \"Star Wars,\" Ladd kept his trust in what would become one of the highest grossing films ever made. His only false move may have been granting Lucas' merchandising rights rather than a raise when \"American Graffiti\" became a hit.\n\n\"My biggest contribution to 'Star Wars' was keeping my mouth shut and standing by the picture,\" Ladd told Variety.\n\nRIP:Children's author Shirley Hughes, known for her popular 'Alfie' series, dies at 94\n\nMore:Ned Eisenberg, 'Marvelous Mrs. Maisel' and 'Law & Order: SVU' character actor, dead at 65\n\n\"Star Wars\" wasn't the only classic sci-fi film Ladd greenlit at Fox. Ladd also backed \"Alien.\" But the same year that 1979 film opened, after clashing with Fox chairman Dennis Stanfill, Ladd left to form the independent production company Ladd Co.\n\nOn his own, Ladd produced, beside \"The Right Stuff\" and \"Blade Runner,\" films like \"Body Heat\" and \"Police Academy.\"\n\nBut Ladd Co., weighed down by some disappointments and hefty budgets for films like \"The Right Stuff,\" struggled to be profitable. In the mid-1980s, Ladd moved to MGM, which he would eventually lead. His two stints at the studio were less successful than his time at Fox, but movies he made there included \"Moonstruck\" (1987), \"Rain Man\" (1988) \"A Fish Called Wanda\" (1988) and \"Thelma & Louise\" (1991).\n\nWhen a loan default put MGM in the hands of Credit Lyonnais, the French bank acrimoniously ousted Ladd, who was eventually given $10 million to sever his contract and two projects to take with him. He chose \"Braveheart.\"\n\nWhen \"Braveheart\" won best picture, some saw it as the widely admired Ladd — Richard Donner famously once said \"There are snakes in this business and then there's Alan Ladd\" — getting the last laugh.\n\n\"I guess it is kind of a sweet justice,\" Ladd told the Los Angeles Times in 1996. \"If I were more eloquent, I would have thanked Credit Lyonnais for treating me shabbily and allowing me to take this project with me. In fairness, MGM couldn't have afforded to make this film at the time. Paramount could.\"\n\nLadd was never known for his loquaciousness, though. When he, as one of three producers, accepted the Oscar, his entire speech was: \"I'd like to thank my family. Thank you.\"\n\nLadd is survived by his wife, Cindra Pincock; children Kelliann, Tracy and Amanda; half-brother, David Ladd; half-sister, Alana Ladd; and step-sister Carol Lee Stuart-Ladd.\n\nOscar tracker: Will Smith's first Oscar win is finally in reach after SAG Awards\n\nSnubbed! Ben Affleck, Jennifer Hudson, Lady Gaga, Leonardo DiCaprio miss out on Oscar nominations", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/03/02"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/holiday/2021/11/09/winter-woods-spectacular-2021-cost-tickets-location-dates/6342223001/", "title": "Winter Woods Spectacular 2021: Cost, tickets, location, dates", "text": "The Christmas season is here. And one of the best ways to see magical holiday lights is to drive through the Winter Woods Spectacular at Iroquois Park.\n\nExperience the twinkling of millions of lights on a winding half-mile road in woods at Iroquois Park that is filled with illumination, artistic scenes, and sounds that will delight the senses and transport you to a true \"winter wonderland.\"\n\nThe show is produced by Hey Bob Productions, the same creative talent behind the wildly popular Jack O’Lantern Spectacular. Proceeds benefit the Parks Alliance of Louisville, a 501(c)3 dedicated to improving Louisville’s public parks.\n\nHere's everything you need to know about the 2021 Winter Woods Spectacular:\n\nWhat is the Winter Woods Spectacular?\n\nThis drive-thru show takes place on a half-mile road nestled in the Iroquois Park woods that is filled with illumination, artistic scenes, and sounds that will transport you to an ethereal winter wonderland.\n\nYou may like:Light Up Louisville is back. Here's everything to know about the 2021 holiday event\n\nWhen and where is the Winter Woods Spectacular?\n\nThe 2021 Winter Woods Spectacular runs from Nov. 26 to Dec. 26. It is open from 6-10 p.m. Sunday-Thursday and 6-11 p.m. Friday and Saturday. The entrance to the event is 4800 New Cut Road at the intersection of New Cut and Southern Parkway.\n\nHow much are tickets to the Winter Woods Spectacular?\n\nWinter Woods Spectacular is a drive-thru experience. Purchase one ticket per vehicle.\n\nCar/SUV/Minivan/Truck: $35\n\nPassenger Van/RV/Limousine: $50\n\nTour Bus/Limo Bus: $100\n\nFor group ticket information, visit winterwoodsspectacular.org/group-tours.\n\nIt's also highly encouraged that people purchase tickets online in advance in case there are sell-out evenings.\n\nYou may like:Want an official Santa Claus postmark on your holiday mail? This small post office can help\n\nWhat happens if it rains or in the event of severe weather?\n\nThe show goes on, rain or shine. In the event the show is delayed or postponed due to weather conditions, tickets will be honored on another day.\n\nWhat happens if I can't go the night I purchased my tickets. Can I exchange my tickets?\n\nYes, you can exchange your ticket by contacting Event Ticket Support. In your email requesting an exchange, please include the email address you used to purchase the ticket and a phone number in case there is a need to call.\n\nI can't attend. Can I get a refund on my ticket?\n\nSorry, no refunds will be available for this event. Proceeds benefit the Parks Alliance of Louisville.\n\nYou may like:Pentatonix, which features Kentucky native, brings its Christmas tour to the Yum Center\n\nIs there a sensory-friendly night?\n\nYes. On Dec. 26 from 5-6 p.m., there will be a special sensory-friendly Winter Woods Spectacular event an hour before the trail opens to the public. It is designed for people with Autism Spectrum Disorders and sensory processing differences to enjoy while it is still light outside.\n\nThe woods will be lit up, but there will be no music or special effects.\n\nReach Kirby Adams at kadams@courier-journal.com", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2021/11/09"}]}
+{"question_id": "20220617_1", "search_time": "2022/06/17/16:34", "search_result": [{"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/13/us/five-things-june-13-trnd?cid=external-feeds_iluminar_msn", "title": "5 things to know for June 13: Gun laws, January 6, Covid, White ...", "text": "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\n(CNN) Just imagine what a relief it would be if you could use the same charging cable for all of your devices -- your phone, laptop, earbuds, camera, tablet, portable speaker, etc. Well, in a huge step to reduce cable clutter and waste, European regulators say that Apple and other smartphone makers will be required to support a single common charging standard for all mobile devices as early as the fall of 2024. But Apple hates the idea (shocker) because that means about a billion devices will become obsolete.\n\nHere's what you need to know to Get Up to Speed and On with Your Day.\n\n(You can get \"5 Things You Need to Know Today\" delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up here .)\n\n1. Gun laws\n\nA bipartisan group of senators announced an agreement on gun safety legislation Sunday in the wake of several deadly mass shootings . The proposal includes \"needed mental health resources, improves school safety and support for students, and helps ensure dangerous criminals and those who are adjudicated as mentally ill can't purchase weapons,\" the group said in a statement. Notably, the plan has the support of 10 Republican senators, which would help overcome a Senate filibuster . But many of the details of the plan are still to be sorted out and maintaining support for it throughout the legislative process will be challenging. A few major reforms were left out of the proposed deal, including a provision to expand background checks. Also absent is a ban on military-style assault weapons. Plus, there will be no change to the minimum age to purchase guns, which is 18 years old.\n\n2. January 6\n\n3. Coronavirus\n\n4. White nationalists\n\nPolice in Idaho arrested 31 men believed to be affiliated with the White nationalist group Patriot Front who allegedly had plans to riot at a local Pride event Saturday in Coeur d'Alene, officials said. Authorities received a call from a concerned citizen to report that the group was meeting in the parking lot of a hotel and \"looked like a little army\" equipped with shields and masks, the city's Police Chief Lee White said. They intended to riot at an event that included a Pride walk and performances by local musicians, dancers and drag artists, police said. All 31 men were charged with conspiracy to riot, which is a misdemeanor.\n\n5. Stocks\n\nGlobal markets and US stock futures fell early today , indicating a downbeat start to the trading week after a broad sell-off on Wall Street. The Dow plunged 880 points, or 2.5%, on Friday. The S&P 500 shed 2.7% and the Nasdaq dropped about 3%. The Consumer Price Index rose by 8.6% in May, raising fears that the Federal Reserve will have to act even more aggressively to try to tame inflation. The shockwaves were felt most acutely in Asia today. Japan's Nikkei closed down 3%, and the yen weakened to the lowest level in more than 20 years. If you're looking for ways to protect yourself financially while also making the most of what you have, CNN has developed this list of options to consider.\n\nBREAKFAST BROWSE\n\n'Squid Game' season 2 is coming to Netflix\n\nGreen light! The wildly popular series is making a highly anticipated return\n\nTony Awards\n\nBroadway's best were recognized Sunday night at New York's Radio City Music Hall. View the full list of winners here\n\nCountry music superstar Toby Keith announces he's been fighting stomach cancer\n\nKeith said he plans to return to the stage after taking time to rest and recover.\n\nRebranded McDonald's restaurants are unveiled in Russia\n\nDue to the war in Ukraine, McDonald's removed all of their golden arches from Russia. This is what the restaurants look like now\n\nWoman sets record swimming 26.22 miles in a mermaid fin\n\nSwimmer Merle Liivand encountered loads of marine life on her impressive journey -- and was even stung by a jellyfish.\n\nTODAY'S NUMBER\n\n$5\n\nThat's how much a gallon of regular gas now costs on average nationwide, according to data from AAA today. While a $5 national average set a new record this past weekend, $5 gas has become unpleasantly common in much of the US. Friday's readings showed more than 30% of stations nationwide were already charging more than $5 a gallon. And about 10% of stations are currently charging more than $5.75 a gallon.\n\nTODAY'S QUOTE\n\n\"In our blue Pacific continent, machine guns, fighter jets, gray ships and green battalions are not our primary security concern. The single greatest threat to our very existence is climate change.\"\n\n-- Inia Seruiratu, Fiji's minister for defense, saying that climate change posed the biggest security threat in the Asia-Pacific region. Fiji has been battered by a series of tropical cyclones in recent years that caused devastating flooding that displaced thousands from their homes and hobbled the island's economy.\n\nTODAY'S WEATHER\n\nJUST WATCHED Record heat spreads to the East Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Record heat spreads to the East 02:21\n\nAND FINALLY\n\nHow Tea Time Came to England", "authors": ["Alexandra Meeks"], "publish_date": "2022/06/13"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/11/us/five-things-march-11-trnd/index.html", "title": "5 things to know for March 11: Ukraine, Pandemic, MLB, North ...", "text": "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\n(CNN) America, the \"land of the free,\" is getting quite costly. Prices for gas, food and housing -- which are all necessary expenses -- are spiking across the country. Gas prices have risen 38% over the past year , and rising prices in pandemic-related sectors, such as travel and dining, are also expected as the US recovers from the Omicron wave of Covid-19. Here's what you need to know to Get Up to Speed and On with Your Day .\n\n(You can get \"5 Things You Need to Know Today\" delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up here .)\n\n1.Ukraine\n\nMajor cities in Ukraine were attacked by Russian forces today as evacuations continue in several parts of the country. More than 100,000 people have been evacuated in the past two days as the threat of Russian bomb strikes remains an ongoing concern for Ukrainians. Russia has been using its neighbor Belarus as a springboard for many of its air operation s in Ukraine, but the Russian army appears to be facing difficulties on the ground, \"particularly in the logistical field and in the field of intelligence,\" a French military spokesman said. In the US, patience is running thin on Capitol Hill , with Republicans -- and even some Democrats -- challenging the Biden administration to go further to help Ukraine. Sources say President Joe Biden plans to announce today that the US, along with the G7 and European Union, will call for revoking \"most favored nation\" status for Russia -- a retraction of permanent normal trade relations.\n\nWant to help? Learn how to support humanitarian efforts in Ukraine here . CNN's audience has contributed more than $4.1 million to the humanitarian relief work according to Public Good, the online donation platform partnering with CNN.\n\n2. Coronavirus\n\nToday marks two years since the World Health Organization declared the Covid-19 outbreak a pandemic . Since then, official reports through the end of 2021 show that 6 million people worldwide have died directly because of Covid-19. But researchers estimate in a new study that the global pandemic death toll is actually three times higher than that figure. Some of this excess mortality may have been missed in official counts due to the lack of diagnostic or reporting resources, the study says. As for masking, most counties across the US have rolled back requirements or lifted mandates in some form. Only 2% of Americans -- about 7 million people -- live in a county where the CDC still recommends universal indoor masking\n\n3. MLB\n\nThe lockout is over. Major League Baseball and the players union yesterday reached a deal on a new collective bargaining agreement , ending the first league work stoppage since the players went on strike in 1994. With spring training camps set to open Sunday, the deal ends a nearly 100-day lockout. At issue were disagreements over how to distribute an estimated $11 billion in annual revenue. Owners have said they have been battered by shrinking attendance, and players -- particularly those who are not among the stars of the league -- have seen salaries decline in recent years. Some of the key components of the new agreement include significant increases to minimum salaries and an expanded postseason, according to the players' union. In light of the deal, MLB tweeted a video with the words, \"Let the fun begin!\" Opening Day is April 7.\n\nJUST WATCHED 'This seems like a done deal': CNN's Foreman explains tentative MLB agreement Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH 'This seems like a done deal': CNN's Foreman explains tentative MLB agreement 01:24\n\n4. North Korea\n\nNorth Korea's ongoing weapons tests -- two of which recently involved intercontinental ballistic missiles -- is a \"serious escalation\" by Pyongyang and its leader Kim Jong Un, US officials say. The two ballistic missile tests conducted on February 26 and March 4 were not intended to demonstrate the range or capability of these high power weapons, but were \"likely to evaluate this new system before conducting a test at full range in the future, potentially disguised as a space launch,\" Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said in a statement yesterday. In response, Japanese and South Korean leaders today agreed to boost ties with the US to tackle North Korea.\n\n5. Facebook\n\nIn a temporary change to hate speech policies on Facebook and Instagram, both platforms are allowing users in some countries to call for violence against Russians and Russian soldiers in the context of the Ukraine invasion, according to internal emails seen by Reuters. Meta, the parent company of both platforms, said \"temporary allowances\" are being made \"for forms of political expression that would normally violate our rules like violent speech such as 'death to the Russian invaders.'\" Meta is also allowing some posts that call for death to Russian President Vladimir Putin or Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in countries including Russia, Ukraine and Poland, according to the internal emails. But the platforms won't allow credible calls for violence against Russian civilians, a Meta spokesperson told CNN.\n\nJUST WATCHED Facebook is trying to restore service in Russia, Meta exec says Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Facebook is trying to restore service in Russia, Meta exec says 03:44\n\nBREAKFAST BROWSE\n\nManhattan rents rise to an all-time high\n\nWe all know The Big Apple has a big price tag . But now, \"pandemic deals\" have been replaced by bidding wars.\n\nRare wolverine sighting in Yellowstone was captured on video\n\nAlicia Keys shares the inspiration behind her new graphic novel\n\nShe's a Grammy-winning musician, talented actress, busy mom, and now -- budding novelist. We love a multifaceted queen\n\nAmanda Bynes speaks out as she seeks to end her conservatorship\n\nFour months after a judge ended Britney Spears' 13-year conservatorship, the former \"All That\" actress is hoping for the same outcome.\n\nOver 2.5 million students were current users of tobacco products in 2021\n\nA new survey details the alarming popularity of flavored tobacco products and disposable vapes among high schoolers and pre-teens.\n\nQUIZ TIME\n\nWhat global holiday was celebrated this week?\n\nA. International Pizza Day\n\nB. International Flag Day\n\nC. International Women's Day\n\nD. International Climate Day\n\nTake CNN's weekly news quiz see if you're correct!\n\nIN MEMORIAM\n\nEmilio Delgado, who spent more than 40 years entertaining generations of children playing the Fix-It Shop owner Luis on \"Sesame Street,\" has died. He was 81. Delgado was \"a beloved member of the Sesame family\" and \"proudly laid claim to the 'record for the longest-running role for a Mexican-American in a TV series,'\" Sesame Workshop told CNN.\n\nTODAY'S NUMBER\n\n61%\n\nThat's approximately the percentage of the continental US currently in drought , according to the US Drought Monitor. In the last month alone, the figure jumped from 55% to more than 61%, an increase of nearly 170,000 square miles, an area larger than the size of California.\n\nTODAY'S QUOTE\n\n\"This is a bill in search of a problem that we don't have. This is politically driven. This is designed to create division.\"\n\n--Florida Democratic state Sen. Audrey Gibson, on a Republican-backed bill that would ban public schools and private businesses in Florida from instructing that , on a Republican-backed bill that would ban public schools and private businesses in Florida from instructing that someone \"must feel guilt or anguish\" for their race or sex . The measure would also prohibit instruction that says certain races or sexes are privileged or oppressed. The crackdown on certain teachings about race in Florida is part of a national effort by Republicans to remove critical race theory from school curricula, even where it doesn't exist. The legislation passed the GOP-controlled state Senate and now heads to the desk of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis , where he is expected to sign it.\n\nTODAY'S WEATHER\n\nJUST WATCHED Severe storms, heavy snow, flash floods, and strong winds accompany the latest winter storm Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Severe storms, heavy snow, flash floods, and strong winds accompany the latest winter storm 02:50\n\nAND FINALLY\n\nCruise into the weekend", "authors": ["Alexandra Meeks"], "publish_date": "2022/03/11"}]}
+{"question_id": "20220617_2", "search_time": "2022/06/17/16:34", "search_result": [{"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/25/politics/gun-laws-us-congress/index.html", "title": "Gun laws in the US: Why Congress won't act on legislation anytime ...", "text": "Washington (CNN) Tuesday's shooting at a Texas elementary school, which has left at least 19 children and two adults dead , marked another instance of a uniquely American tragedy.\n\nThe shooting is the latest entry in the long history of gun violence in the United States. Before Tuesday, there had been at least 39 shootings in K-12 schools, colleges and universities in 2022, resulting in at least 10 deaths and 51 injuries.\n\nWhile proposals to overhaul gun laws -- such a ban on assault-style weapons or high-capacity magazines -- face steep odds at the federal level, there are some areas of bipartisan agreement. Whether that's enough to break congressional gridlock is yet to be seen.\n\nHere's what to know about what is being considered in Congress and where it stands.\n\nClosing loopholes\n\nA House-passed bill, HR 1446 , backed by Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, would close what's known as the \"Charleston loophole,\" which allows some licensed gun sales to go through before a required background check is done.\n\nSpecifically, the legislation would increase the amount of time, from three business days to a minimum of 10 business days, that a federal firearms licensee must wait to receive a completed background check prior to transferring a firearm to an unlicensed person.\n\nUsing that loophole, a White gunman was able to legally purchase a firearm to kill nine people at a historically Black church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015.\n\nSenate Democrats took steps Tuesday night to place the bill, called the Enhanced Background Checks Act of 2021 , onto the legislative calendar so it can be voted on.\n\nIt's unclear when the Senate will vote on the measure, but it needs 60 votes in the chamber to overcome a filibuster, and it's clear the legislation does not have that support (at least not right now) -- nor does it have full Democratic backing to gut the Senate rule altogether.\n\nIt's unclear when Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will try to force a procedural vote to break a filibuster. Unless there's an agreement from all 100 senators, the earliest he could set up the procedural vote would be Saturday, according to a Democratic aide.\n\nBut senators were expected to leave for next week's Memorial Day recess on Thursday afternoon. So they may wait until after the recess to take that procedural vote, even though leaving town amid the Texas tragedy would be bad optics.\n\nThe aide said Schumer has not indicated when he may try to force the vote yet.\n\nStill, Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, who has pushed for gun safety legislation since the Sandy Hook shooting in his state nearly 10 years ago, told reporters Tuesday there should be a vote even if it is doomed to fail.\n\n\"I think we need to hold every member of Congress accountable and vote so that the public knows where every one of us stand,\" he said. Asked about the potential for bipartisan agreement, he added, \"I think there may well be areas of agreement. I have come close to agreement with a number of my colleagues on a red flag statute.\"\n\n'Red flag' legislation\n\nHouse Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said Wednesday he'll put a gun safety bill known as the Federal Extreme Risk Protection Order Act to a vote in the House during the first week of June.\n\n\"Congress must do more to #EndGunViolence. During the first week of the June work period, I will bring @RepLucyMcBath's bill to the Floor to establish a national 'Red Flag' law to prevent those who pose a threat to themselves or others from being able to legally possess a firearm,\" he tweeted\n\nThe legislation, which is sponsored by Democratic Rep. Lucy McBath of Georgia, who lost her son to a shooting a decade ago, would \"allow family members and law enforcement to obtain an extreme risk protection order to temporarily remove access to firearms for those who are deemed a danger to themselves or to others by a federal court.\"\n\nRed flag laws tend to be supported by those favoring more gun safety measures, arguing that the policies can prohibit mass shootings from happening in the first place.\n\nBut critics say they infringe on due process by letting a judge make an initial decision -- even if temporary -- without hearing from the accused, and by allowing the judge to curtail someone's Second Amendment right to bear arms without the respondent ever having been convicted of a crime or been adjudged mentally ill.\n\nWhile the legislation will likely find support in the House, it would face steep odds in the Senate.\n\nEven bills with bipartisan support can't pass the Senate\n\nAnother bill, HR 8 , the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2021, would expand background checks for all firearm sales or transfers in the country. Currently, background checks are not required for gun sales and transfers by unlicensed and private sellers.\n\nThe legislation has bipartisan support, passing the House last year in a 227-203 vote. Eight Republicans supported the bill and one Democrat voted against it.\n\nAsked Tuesday about this broader House-passed background checks measure , Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia referenced his own, narrower effort in the Senate, saying, \"If you can't pass Manchin-Toomey, how are you going to get enough votes for anything?\"\n\nIn 2013, Manchin and Republican Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania pushed a compromise bill that would have required background checks on all commercial sales of guns (including private sales at gun shows and all internet sales), but would have allowed for individuals to sell their firearms to family, friends and other acquaintances without background checks.\n\nThis failed under Senate filibuster rules, even though it had majority support. The vote was 54-46, with four Republicans joining most Democrats in support. Then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid cast a \"no\" vote to secure the ability to bring the measure up again. Four other Democrats voted against the bill.\n\nManchin has continued to push versions of that legislation in more recent years.\n\nRepublicans will argue that background checks chip away at gun rights and, ultimately, will take away guns. \"You see Democrats and a lot of folks in the media whose immediate solution is to try to restrict the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens,\" Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, told reporters Tuesday\n\nThe GOP will also argue that the bills would not stop every shooting. This is true. The specifics of each shooting are different. We still don't know if any of this legislation would have stopped Tuesday's shooter, identified by Texas officials as Salvador Ramos.\n\nFor now, every state has variations on the rules . Most action on gun regulation is happening at the state level because Washington is frozen on the issue, as it is on so many others.\n\nThe filibuster, again\n\nDemocrats argue that this intransigence means Senate rules must change. There are a lot of subjects on which Republicans will block Democrats -- limiting gun rights, expanding voting rights, addressing climate change, rolling back tax cuts and more. Calls to end the filibuster will continue to grow.\n\nUntil every Democrat agrees, it's not possible to end the filibuster. Manchin supports gun control measures like the one he sponsored. But he's more committed to maintaining Senate rules, which currently require 60 votes to move forward on legislation.\n\n\"The filibuster is the only thing that prevents us from total insanity,\" Manchin said Tuesday.\n\nOther Democrats, such as Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, also support maintaining the filibuster. It would require a simple majority to create a new precedent under Senate rules.\n\nNotably, after Sinema tweeted that she was \"horrified and heartbroken\" by Tuesday's shooting, Rep. Ruben Gallego, a likely primary challenger in 2024, criticized her for supporting the filibuster. \"Please just stop.. unless you are willing to break the filibuster to actually pass sensible gun control measures you might as well just say 'thoughts and prayers,'\" he tweeted\n\nBut for now, either Democrats must all agree to end the filibuster or Republicans must begin to support gun control measures in larger numbers. Until then, there will be no new federal gun laws.\n\nBiden calls for lawmakers to have a backbone\n\nPresident Joe Biden addressed the shooting in emotional remarks from the White House Tuesday evening, saying, \"I had hoped when I became President, I would not have to do this again.\"\n\nTurning to the issue of gun control legislation, Biden implored lawmakers to \"turn this pain into action\" as he ticked through some of the mass shootings since the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook, when he was vice president.\n\n\"Why do we keep letting this happen? Where in God's name is our backbone to have the courage to deal with and stand up to the lobbies?\" he said.\n\n\"Our hearts keep getting broken. ... Every time a tragedy like this happens, our hearts break and our broken hearts are nothing compared to the broken hearts of those families. And, yet, it keeps happening,\" she said.\n\nStill, familiar political postures emerged throughout the day.\n\nGOP Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina warned Democrats against having a \"reflexive reaction,\" saying he is confident in the coming days it will be learned that there were \"signs\" the 18-year-old shooter was \"at risk.\"\n\n\"It's horrible. And you know what we need to avoid is the reflexive reaction we have to say this could all be solved by not having guns in anyone's hands. We can always talk about reasonable measures, but we also have to talk about better situational awareness,\" Tillis told CNN.\n\nThis story has been updated with additional information Wednesday.", "authors": ["Analysis Paul Leblanc"], "publish_date": "2022/05/25"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/03/19/voter-photo-id-bill-passes-legislature-head-gov-andy-beshear/2881374001/", "title": "Voter photo ID bill passes legislature, head to Gov. Andy Beshear", "text": "An amended bill requiring voters to present photo identification to vote is heading to the governor's desk for his signature or veto.\n\nKentucky voters are currently required to present identification to vote unless they are recognized by a poll worker, but Senate Bill 2, passed by both chambers of the legislature, would require government-issued identification with the voter's photograph.\n\nThe bill's Republican backers say the measure is needed to prevent in-person voter fraud and ensure public confidence in elections, though Democratic opponents countered it would create an unnecessary barrier to voting, noting there have been zero confirmed incidents of voter impersonation in Kentucky.\n\nBoth chambers passed different versions of the bill earlier in the session by a nearly party-line vote, with a conference committee creating a new version of the bill Thursday before the House and Senate passed it that evening.\n\nA copy of the amended bill passed by both chambers had not been publicly posted by Thursday evening.\n\nIf Gov. Andy Beshear signs the bill into law, voters would be required to have a photo ID by this November's general election.\n\nLooking back:Amended Kentucky bill to require photo voter ID would go into effect this year\n\nBeshear previously said he would not support any bill that makes it more difficult for Kentuckians to vote but was waiting to see what version of the bill passed. Even if he vetoes the bill, it likely would be overridden by the Republican-dominated General Assembly.\n\nNoting that Kentucky's primary election already has been pushed back to June over concerns about the coronavirus, the ACLU of Kentucky issued a statement condemning the passage of SB 2 as further endangering the same populations most vulnerable to the pandemic.\n\n\"Thousands of people who do not meet the newly mandated identification requirements will have to choose between exposing themselves to COVID-19 to obtain identification, or being forced to sit on the sidelines on Election Day,\" stated Corey Shapiro, the legal director for ACLU-KY.\n\nRead this:Stressing medical care needs in pandemic, lawmakers OK $35M U of L Jewish Hospital loan\n\nAlso:Beshear rips into Senate budget proposal as Kentucky lawmakers hit pause on session\n\n\"It is unconscionable for politicians to move this legislation at a time when Kentuckians are not allowed in the Capitol and are losing their jobs, their small businesses, access to childcare and more.\"\n\nThe ACLU of Kentucky previously indicated it may file a lawsuit to block the enforcement of the law unless it delayed implementation until after this year's general election.\n\nReach reporter Joe Sonka at jsonka@courierjournal.com or 502-582-4472 and follow him on Twitter at @joesonka. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courierjournal.com/subscribe.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2020/03/19"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2020/08/10/jcps-tax-increase-november-ballot-thanks-louisville-petition-county-clerk/3317543001/", "title": "JCPS tax increase likely on November ballot after Louisville petition", "text": "LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A petition to put a tax increase for local schools on the November ballot has enough valid signatures to force a vote, officials said Monday.\n\nJefferson County Clerk Bobbie Holsclaw said her office confirmed the petition received 38,507 valid signatures, nearly 3,000 more than needed to place it on the ballot.\n\nEven with sufficient signatures, the effort's future is not yet certain. Jefferson County Public Schools has 10 days to appeal.\n\n\"We will be reviewing their findings,\" JCPS spokeswoman Renee Murphy said.\n\nA group of teachers and community members that has been calling petition signees to verify signatures are finding several petitioners who say they didn't sign the petition and want their names removed.\n\nEmilie McKiernan Blanton, a JCPS teacher and leader in the local teachers union, estimated that about one-fifth of people who have been reached by phone have asked for their signatures to be withdrawn.\n\nThe effort is not officially tied to the union, she said. Murphy said the district did not organize the coalition, either, but was aware of the effort.\n\nTop headlines:Beshear recommends virtual learning for schools until Sept. 28\n\nTheresa Camoriano, an Anchorage resident and Louisville Tea Party leader who spearheaded the petition, said several people who signed the petition have reported receiving calls asking them to confirm their signatures.\n\nCamoriano did not provide further details regarding the phone calls she said began last week.\n\n\"There is no legitimate reason for teachers to be making these calls. We are telling people that they have no obligation to answer any questions these people may ask,\" Camoriano said.\n\nBut Blanton said the petition had \"no safeguards to assure that no one else entered your name without your knowledge and consent.\"\n\nThe only way to confirm signatures is to call and ask, she said.\n\nThe months leading to the November election are guaranteed to feature a public battle between those in favor of the tax increase and those against it. JCPS already signed a $575,000 contract with a Danville-based public relations firm to pitch the increase to voters.\n\nThe petition against the tax increase was created in May, soon after JCPS board members, in a 5-2 vote, approved a 7-cent property tax increase. The hike represents roughly an extra $70 a year for a $100,000 home.\n\nUnder state law, Kentucky school boards can raise property taxes enough to boost revenue by 4% without being subject to a recall. The JCPS proposal would raise district revenue past that cap.\n\nJCPS board approves tax increase:Here's what leaders say it would fund\n\nThe group behind the petition, dubbed \"No JCPS Tax Hike,\" said in July that it had turned in 40,320 signatures.\n\nBut a review of the more than 1,100-page petition, obtained by The Courier Journal under the state's open records law, showed that staff from the county clerk's office were discarding up to a dozen signatures per page.\n\nA review of the petition signatures turned up the names of several current and past Republican lawmakers, including ex-state Rep. Phil Moffett and current state House members Kevin Bratcher and Jerry Miller.\n\nBratcher told The Courier Journal that he has \"a great deal of respect\" for JCPS Superintendent Marty Pollio but that asking for a tax hike during a pandemic that has caused widespread unemployment was \"tone deaf.\"\n\n\"I just think it's a horrible time to be trying to raise taxes,\" Bratcher said.\n\nRhonda Palazzo, a Republican who is vying to unseat U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth in November's election, also confirmed that she signed the petition.\n\nAt least one JCPS board member — Linda Duncan — signed as well. Duncan, along with Chris Brady, voted against the tax increase in May, citing the economic impact of COVID-19.\n\nAs a result of the COVID-19 crisis, JCPS estimates it will lose about $23 million locally from a drop in occupational tax revenue.\n\nBut Pollio and other district leaders said helping children during the pandemic and economic downturn was necessary now more than ever.\n\n\"I know it's a difficult time, and I know this is a challenge,\" Pollio said in May. \"But I don't believe our district can wait.\"\n\nPollio:JCPS has completed its corrective action goals to potentially avoid takeover\n\nThe current JCPS property tax rate, 73.6 cents for $100 of assessed value, is among the lowest in the area.\n\nAn increase to 80.6 cents would bring it closer to peer districts, including Fayette County Public Schools, that serve large groups of disadvantaged students living in poverty.\n\nJCPS officials have said the new revenue would largely go to building and renovating schools, and to providing more supports for the district's most disadvantaged students.\n\nThe district has also pointed to its proposal for a new student assignment model that would allow West End students to go to a school closer to home.\n\nTo make that possible, JCPS said it would need millions to both build new schools in the West End and provide resources for the students who attend them.\n\nCamoriano and other tax hike opponents argued that JCPS should better manage its existing funds and not raise taxes during a pandemic.\n\nJCPS, the state's largest school district, has a roughly $1.65 billion budget.\n\nIn the petition period, libertarian advocacy groups, including the Bluegrass Institute and Americans for Prosperity, supported the effort.\n\nKentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams, who lives in Jefferson County, also encouraged voters to sign the petition.\n\n\"Democracy wins again,\" Adams tweeted from his personal account after news broke that the petition received enough signatures.\n\nSupport for the petition even came from one of the most vocal pro-public school groups, Dear JCPS, which said the district needs more time to figure out budget priorities in the wake of the pandemic and racial justice protests.\n\nThe group turned in 32 signatures that weren't counted because they didn't come from the official petition committee tied to the No JCPS Tax Hike group, the county clerk said.\n\nSee also:Here's how JCPS families can request a Chromebook and Wi-Fi hot spot\n\nReach Billy Kobin at bkobin@courierjournal.com. Reach Olivia Krauth at okrauth@courierjournal.com, 502-582-4471 or on Twitter at @oliviakrauth.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2020/08/10"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2020/07/21/breonna-taylor-protests-nfac-plans-hold-armed-march-louisville/5477815002/", "title": "Breonna Taylor protests: NFAC plans to hold armed march in ...", "text": "LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A Black militia is planning to hold an armed march in Louisville on Saturday to demand justice for Breonna Taylor, according to a video from the leader of the group.\n\nJohn Fitzgerald \"Jay\" Johnson, the self-proclaimed grand master and founder of the NFAC, which stands for the Not F***ing Around Coalition, said in a video posted on Sunday that those wishing to march must come in a specific uniform: black boots, black pants, black button-down shirt and black mask. He added that members must come with several types of guns.\n\n\"Understand the seriousness of this situation,\" said Johnson, who goes by the name The Real Grandmaster Jay. \"Breonna Taylor was murdered in her home. ... We gotta go in on this one.\"\n\nFLASH SALE:Click here to get unlimited digital access at $39 for one year. Offer limited to new subscribers.\n\nIn a video published Monday, Johnson said that the group will meet at noon Saturday at Central High School, 1130 W. Chestnut St. But on Tuesday afternoon, Louisville Metro Police spokeswoman Jessie Halladay said the NFAC will change locations so that it is not on school property.\n\nUnlawful possession of a weapon on school property is a felony in Kentucky. Halladay said she did not have any additional information to share about the rally location.\n\nJohnson met electronically with Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron and Louisville Metro Council President David James on Monday, according to James, who added that he organized the meeting.\n\nCameron is investigating the killing of Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman who was unarmed in her South End apartment when Louisville police fatally shot her March 13. Cameron spokeswoman Elizabeth Kuhn confirmed the phone call took place.\n\n\"The conversation was productive,\" Kuhn wrote in an email. \"Attorney General Cameron discussed his continued commitment to moving forward with our office’s independent and thorough investigation into the death of Ms. Taylor.\"\n\nThe militia made waves July 4 when roughly 1,000 members of the group marched in Stone Mountain, Georgia, where there is a mountainside carving of three Confederate leaders: Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis and Stonewall Jackson. Authorities said the event was peaceful, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, but the group's presence caused a stir on social media.\n\nProtesters have taken to the streets of Louisville for 55 days to demand justice for Taylor, who was shot as police served a \"no-knock\" search warrant as a part of a narcotics investigation. No drugs were found in the apartment.\n\nCourt records show that police obtained a warrant with a no-knock provision for Taylor's apartment signed by Circuit Judge Mary Shaw. Even so, officials have said that plainclothes officers knocked and announced their presence before breaking in Taylor’s door with a battering ram.\n\nTaylor's boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, who was also in the apartment, fired one shot in response, hitting Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly in the thigh. Mattingly and Officers Brett Hankison and Myles Cosgrove returned fire, striking Taylor five times.\n\nShe died in her hallway.\n\nFACT CHECK: Debunking 7 widely shared rumors in the Breonna Taylor police shooting\n\nMore:Breonna Taylor was briefly alive after police shot her. But no one tried to treat her\n\nLike many of the protesters, Johnson, the leader of the NFAC, is demanding that the three officers involved in the shooting be fired by Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer and criminally charged by Cameron. One of the officers in the shooting, Hankison, was fired last month and is in the process of appealing the termination.\n\nIn a call last week organized by local activist Lebron Seay, Johnson told David James, D-6th District, and Louisville Chief of Community Building Vincent James that 5,000 to 6,000 people from his group will hold an armed march in Louisville if there is not progress made in Taylor's case.\n\n\"I would be so remiss not to tell you that there are a lot of people nationwide that are ready to descend on your city to extract justice if you cannot give us some type of guarantee that something is coming soon,\" Johnson said.\n\nDavid James said during the call that the investigation has taken so long due to Fischer's \"piss-poor leadership,\" as the city did not turn over the police's investigative to Attorney General Cameron until a few weeks ago.\n\nIn an interview with The Courier Journal, David James said he had not spoken with Johnson before and joined the call to \"help answer any questions\" and to make sure Johnson \"was aware of whatever the facts were.\"\n\nDavid James also said that the \"lack of transparency\" of Fischer's administration has led to a distortion of facts and that he was asked to join the call after the Louisville mayor refused to do so.\n\nJean Porter, a spokeswoman for Fischer, told The Courier Journal on Tuesday that the mayor was not invited to the call with Johnson.\n\nOpinion:Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron can't submit to outside pressure in Taylor case\n\nDavid James said he is \"not a big fan of people carrying weapons while they're protesting or marching through the city, no matter who they are.\" However, he added that the group consists of \"law-abiding citizens following the rules and laws of the state of Kentucky\" and that they have the right to protest.\n\nThe Metro Council president added that he is more worried about people reacting to the NFAC and that there may \"be one person that does one stupid thing, and then we have a problem.\"\n\nLouisville Metro Police spokesman Dwight Mitchell said the department is aware of Johnson's video announcing the NFAC's intentions to come to Louisville and the department has attempted to reach out to the group's organizers \"to understand what their plans are.\"\n\n\"We have had several protests posted over the past several weeks, some of which have occurred and some which have not,\" Mitchell said. \"We will take the appropriate steps to prepare for whatever may occur.\"\n\nMitchell declined to comment further on whether the department has successfully reached Johnson and what steps the department is taking to ensure the march is safe.\n\nAccording to Porter, Louisville police have been in contact with Johnson about tentative plans for the march and \"their shared goal for a peaceful event.\"\n\nWhen asked during a Tuesday press briefing if the state would send police to the armed march in Louisville, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said his administration has not received a request to get involved.\n\n\"Any time a request comes in, we'll have to look at the danger that's out there for life and safety of folks,\" Behsear said. \"But at the time, we have not received any official request for assistance.\"\n\nContact Ben Tobin at bjtobin@gannett.com and 502-377-5675 or follow on Twitter @TobinBen. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: subscribe.courier-journal.com.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2020/07/21"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/05/21/mitch-mcconnell-wants-end-beefed-up-unemployment-benefits/5237309002/", "title": "Mitch McConnell wants to end beefed-up unemployment benefits", "text": "Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell is being accused by Democrats at home and across the country of turning his back on Kentucky at a critical time after he reportedly vowed to put a stop to enhanced unemployment benefits.\n\nMcConnell made clear during a conference call with House GOP members on Wednesday how the $600 weekly boost — which was provided to help those who lost their jobs because of the coronavirus — \"will not be in the next bill\" out of Washington.\n\nA source familiar with the conversation on Thursday told The Courier Journal that McConnell said the Senate was, \"going to have to clean up the Democrats' crazy policy that is paying people more to remain unemployed than they would earn if they went back to work.\"\n\nThis statement comes as 47,000 Kentuckians filed initial unemployment claims as of May 16, and more than 246,000 Kentuckians are asking for continued assistance as parts of the state economy begin to reopen.\n\nOregon Sen. Ron Wyden, the ranking Democrat on the finance committee, told The Courier-Journal in an interview Thursday the numbers he's seen show COVID-19 has hit Kentucky with a \"wrecking ball\" economically.\n\n\"Mitch McConnell's comments indicate he either doesn't care or doesn't understand that unemployment insurance doesn't just protect families who've had misfortune, it's a lifeline for communities,\" he said.\n\nWyden said those benefits are more than just wage replacement but also inject demand into the market as a way to stabilize the economy. He is pushing for a bill that would link unemployment benefits to economic conditions and continue the extra $600 until a state's unemployment rate falls below 11%.\n\nRead more:Coronavirus pandemic pushes Mitch McConnell and other Senate candidates to change tactics\n\nKentucky has seen nearly 800,000 people apply for unemployment benefits since mid-March, when the coronavirus first put a choke hold on the U.S. economy. Since then, the state's jobless rate has surged to a little more than 15% in April.\n\nThe Kentucky Democratic Party also pounced on McConnell's hardening position in the context of those statistics, saying it comes as the GOP leader is holding up additional financial aid for states and local governments withstanding massive budget deficits because of the contagion.\n\n“This is what happens when you surround yourself with expensive D.C. consultants who don’t care about Kentucky,\" Democratic Party spokeswoman Marisa McNee said.\n\n\"First, Mitch wanted to let states go bankrupt, leading to layoffs for first responders and public health officials,\" she added. \"Now, he wants to cut unemployment benefits for Kentuckians who are out of work through no fault of their own. Kentucky deserves better.”\n\nRelated:More than 40,000 people filed for unemployment last week in Kentucky\n\nMcConnell said during a Thursday interview with Fox News that continuing unemployment insurance is important amid the coronavirus crisis but emphasized the extra $600 benefits will end in July.\n\n\"We think that in order to create jobs, we need to incentivize people to go back to work, not encourage them to stay home,\" he said.\n\nUnemployment insurance typically covers up to 45% of lost wages, but Congress took an extraordinary and bipartisan step with the CARES Act to provide 100% of lost wages for many Americans.\n\nThe thinking at the time was this was needed in order to keep people safe from the coronavirus while also stabilizing the economy, but McConnell's comments indicate how conservatives are beginning to thaw on the idea.\n\nMcConnell's office pointed to an ABC News story on Thursday about how some employers are having a hard time competing with the boosted benefits.\n\nIn it, ABC draws attention to a study showing roughly 40% of workers made less in their jobs than they would on the new unemployment, according to national data gathered by Noah Williams at the Center for Research On the Wisconsin Economy.\n\nMcConnell has reportedly told President Donald Trump any new legislation must create incentives for people to get back to work. He said previously he wants see how the previous COVID-19 relief bills, which total about $3 trillion, play out before the Senate moves on any new proposals.\n\nGov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, said earlier this week how his administration believes it has enough money in its Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund to last through the spring and at least part of the summer.\n\nKentucky took out a $972 million loan to cover unemployment benefits when it zeroed out its trust fund during the Great Recession of 2008-09. The state finished repaying the federal government in 2015.\n\nBut with nearly two in five Kentucky workers out of a job, the governor said he expects the state will have to take out a loan unless the federal government provides more direct assistance.\n\nAsked Thursday if he's worried that unemployment benefits outpacing private sector wages will dampen the reopening, Beshear said he thinks plenty of people are ready to get back to work.\n\n\"I'm not for cutting the benefits they are getting at this time,\" he said.\n\nMcConnell has conceded, according to other reports about Wednesday's conference call, how further aid may be necessary in the coming weeks but that it must be more short-term relief.\n\nHouse Democrats passed the HEROES Act last week with a $3 trillion price tag, but McConnell reportedly told the GOP House members the bill will have to go through serious changes in the Republican-controlled Senate before being considered.\n\nReach Phillip M. Bailey at pbailey@courier-journal.com or 502-582-4475. Follow him on Twitter at @phillipmbailey.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2020/05/21"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/local/2020/06/01/kentucky-teacher-year-arrested-breonna-taylor-protest/5306818002/", "title": "Breonna Taylor protest: Kentucky High School Teacher of the Year ...", "text": "LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The 2020 Kentucky High School Teacher of the Year was arrested this weekend protesting the death of Breonna Taylor in downtown Louisville.\n\nMatt Kaufmann, who teaches in Jefferson County Public Schools, was booked Sunday night on an unspecified misdemeanor charge, according to the Department of Corrections booking log.\n\nAn arrest citation was not immediately available.\n\n\"(Kaufmann) was arrested this evening for protesting and standing up for #BreonnaTaylor and for Black Lives in Louisville,\" local activist Hannah Drake wrote on Facebook.\n\n\"No way he was not peaceful,\" she said. \"He is physically okay but a little roughed up.\"\n\nMore:Beshear announces investigation into LMPD, National Guard fatally shooting man on Broadway\n\nPolice arrested at least 40 people during Sunday's protests demanding justice after the police shooting that left 26-year-old Taylor, an unarmed black woman, dead in March.\n\n\"JCPS supports the right of our employees to peacefully protest,\" Renee Murphy, a spokeswoman for JCPS, said.\n\nKaufmann was named Kentucky's top high school teacher last spring for his work teaching English at Marion C. Moore High School.\n\n\"Matt exemplifies inclusivity,\" his then principal, Rob Fulk, said at the time. \"I have witnessed firsthand the exceptional environment he creates among his students, one that promotes a strong sense of social justice, togetherness, and uniqueness.\"\n\nAn outspoken advocate for public education, Kaufmann also ran for state Senate in 2018. He lost in the primary.\n\nThis story may be updated.\n\nReach Olivia Krauth at okrauth@courierjournal.com or 502-582-4471, and on Twitter at @oliviakrauth. Support strong local journalism by subscribing: courier-journal.com/subscribe.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2020/06/01"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/06/01/guns-marijuana-delaware-bills-roundup/641304002/", "title": "Guns, marijuana and more: Delaware legislators have a full slate", "text": "Gun control and school safety bills.\n\nTwo proposed amendments to the state constitution.\n\nA complete overhaul of Delaware's criminal code. A slew of election reforms. A minimum wage hike and the creation of a legal marijuana industry.\n\nThose are just a few of the hotly contested measures lawmakers are expected to tackle in the remaining weeks of the 149th General Assembly.\n\nBut with only 13 work days left, it is unlikely every bill still on the table will get a final vote.\n\nThat means the race is on to see who can get their measure through both the Senate and the House before the final gavel strikes during the early morning hours on July 1.\n\n\"It always happens around this time and this year is no different,\" said House Speaker Pete Schwartzkopf, D-Rehoboth Beach. \"And, yes, there is always a chance some of these bills might not get a vote.\"\n\nThe good news is Delaware has a $430 million surplus this year. That means lawmakers are less likely to use what little time is left battling over spending cuts and tax hikes — the same brinksmanship that pushed last year's legislative calendar past June 30 for the first time in decades.\n\nThe expectation is that will open up room for debate over many of the bills left on the agenda.\n\nMuch of that legislation is currently awaiting action in the Senate, where Democrats' one-vote majority has contributed to what some view as a legislative bottleneck.\n\nSenate President David McBride, D-Hawk's Nest, does not see it that way.\n\n\"I think we're working right along,\" he said. \"I don't see why we can't get most of these bills done. The agendas might get longer and ladies and gentlemen might have to stay longer. But in my mind, this is not unusual.\"\n\nThe stakes are high for lawmakers to clear the final hurdle. Any bills that do not reach Gov. John Carney before the final gavel strikes will need to start the legislative process all over again next year.\n\nRegardless of whether they pass or fail, several of the bills will end up driving public debate as the end of the legislative cycle gives way to the start of election season and finger-pointing over what lawmakers were able to accomplish.\n\nA fierce gun battle\n\nThe dominant issue in the Delaware General Assembly this year unquestionably has been gun control.\n\nIn the wake of mass shootings at a Las Vegas concert and a Parkland, Florida high school, Democrats rolled out a string of proposals aimed at limiting the public's access to firearms, including an assault weapons ban sought by Gov. John Carney but intensely opposed by Second Amendment advocates.\n\nRepublicans have pushed measures that would fund or require more school security enhancements.\n\nSo far, neither side has gained much ground.\n\nLegislation that would allow police to temporarily seize firearms from someone a mental health professional deems a danger to themselves and others won bipartisan support and was signed into law by the governor. A bill strengthening a rarely imposed sentence for straw purchases also cleared the General Assembly.\n\nBut the proposed assault weapons ban has languished in committee for months. It is unclear at this point whether it has the votes to reach the Senate floor. Even if it does, wavering by a few key senators means it might never reach the House.\n\nThe Senate also has yet to take final action on measures that would raise the legal age at which someone can buy a rifle, outlaw devices that allow semi-automatic weapons to fire at a faster rate, and increase the penalties for failing to adequately store firearms.\n\nA bill to ban high-capacity magazines and another that would allow family members and police to recommend someone's firearms be seized temporarily are waiting to clear both chambers of the Legislature.\n\nSchool safety bills have not fared any better.\n\nLegislation that would require all 189 public and charter schools in Delaware to be outfitted with panic buttons has yet to be called up for a vote. Neither has a bill that would provide $50,000 grants to school districts for safety and security enhancements.\n\nSen. David Lawson, R-Marydel, last week unveiled a new proposal that would set aside $65 million of this year's surplus for school safety projects — funding that only could be unlocked by schools that agree to hire and arm at least two security guards.\n\nThat measure likely will be dead on arrival due to its massive cost and number of logistical issues that several lawmakers say it fails to consider.\n\nDELAWARE GENERAL ASSEMBLY\n\nDelaware lawmakers eye bonuses for state workers, other spending\n\nBudget deficit, then surplus: Delaware should consider plan to stop the crises\n\nA bill introduced by Rep. Earl Jaques, D-Glasgow, might have a better chance of success. It would require all future school construction and major renovation projects to include security features such as bulletproof glass, secured vestibules and lockable classroom doors. That legislation has passed the House and is awaiting a final vote in the Senate.\n\nBig changes, big votes\n\nThere are at least three proposals the General Assembly could consider in June that would have major impacts on state government.\n\nTwo would amend the state constitution while the third would make sweeping changes to Delaware's criminal code.\n\nEach would require a supermajority to pass. And one has yet to be introduced.\n\nA panel of economists and elected officials formally unveiled a long-awaited proposal this month that seeks to rein in Delaware's sometimes boom-and-bust budget process by fundamentally changing how the state allocates its surpluses.\n\nTheir \"budget smoothing\" plan would limit annual spending growth to a floating cap based on certain economic factors. Any revenue beyond that would be split evenly between funding one-time projects and a reserve account that could be tapped to fill future budget gaps.\n\nThe panel also recommended a series of tax reforms aimed at moving Delaware toward more stable revenue sources, largely by eliminating itemized deductions and consolidating myriad senior citizen tax discounts into a single, means-tested tax break.\n\nGov. John Carney and Republican state Treasurer Ken Simpler say the plan would help fix the state's structural deficit issues.\n\nBut getting there would involve amending the state constitution — a process that requires a two-thirds vote in consecutive General Assemblies. A bill to get that process rolling has yet to be introduced, although that could happen soon.\n\nMeanwhile, a proposed equal rights amendment that cleared the House in March is currently on life support in the Senate, where the measure failed, 11-9, earlier this month. The bill seeks to make men and women equal in the eyes of the law.\n\nA procedural ploy by Sen. Margaret Rose Henry, D-Wilmington, means the bill could be called up for a revote. Legislators say they are working behind the scenes to address Republican concerns that the measure could have unintended consequences ranging from co-ed prisons to mandatory state funding for abortions.\n\nIt's unclear whether those efforts will convince three Republicans to switch their votes to provide the supermajority needed for passage.\n\nSeveral efforts to pass ERA have failed since the 1980s. Supporters and opponents will likely find out next week if 2018 marks the latest defeat.\n\nA multiyear effort to revise the rules that define crime and measure punishment in Delaware also is facing a steep climb.\n\nProponents of the reform effort argue the state's criminal code has become a bloated mess rife with redundancy, contradiction and inconsistency. They want to streamline the rules that cover more than 200 felonies and misdemeanors into a document that is clear and accessible to police, the courts and the public.\n\nRetiring Attorney General Matt Denn has been steadfast in his opposition, however.\n\nSenate Minority Whip Greg Lavelle, a key supporter of the effort, recently called for the General Assembly to hit the brakes on two bills — totaling 282 pages — that would enact the new version and amend other sections of the code. Each would require a two-thirds vote.\n\n\"I strongly believe that the Delaware General Assembly should wait to allow the Attorney General's office to fully review and comment on these final bills before we act on them,\" the Sharpley Republican said. \"Rushing this bill through without careful scrutiny with just four weeks of session remaining would be a significant mistake.\"\n\nMoney bills left to tally\n\nJust because the Joint Finance Committee is hashing out a tentative spending plan for next year does not mean the rest of the General Assembly will not get a say in how that money is spent.\n\nWhile the budget-writing panel is penciling in some added expenses, several of the programs that proposal would fund have yet to be approved by the full Legislature.\n\nThat includes a bill to provide $20 million a year in tax relief to Delaware's three casinos. The deal cleared the Senate in April and awaits final action in the House where Schwartzkopf is in no hurry to bring it up for a vote.\n\nThe speaker has been outspoken in his opposition to that tax cut, saying he would prefer something far less costly to the state.\n\nHe also noted that a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that will bring full sports betting to Delaware could cause lawmakers to hesitate when it comes to granting a casino tax break.\n\n\"That's a game changer for that bill,\" he said. \"I think there are some folks [in the Senate] who would like to have their vote back now that sports betting is legal.\"\n\nSchwartzkopf, meanwhile, is championing a tax cut for first-time homebuyers that would excuse them from their half of a 1-percentage point increase in the state's real estate transfer tax that was imposed last year when the Legislature was facing a $400 million shortfall.\n\nThat measure was passed by the House and is awaiting action in the Senate.\n\nOther tax bills on the table include competing legislation — one sponsored by Republicans and the other by Democrats — that both seek to impose a tax on prescription opioids. Proponents say the levy would force drug manufacturers and distributors to pay for addiction treatment in Delaware.\n\nMore than a dozen states have introduced similar bills but only New York has approved such a measure, leaving many unanswered questions that may not be settled in time for the local bill to pass this year.\n\nLawmakers are expected to give New Castle County and possibly a few municipalities the authority to impose a local lodging tax for the first time — measures vehemently opposed by the state hotel industry.\n\nThen there are a few spending bills that would provide new benefits for state employees, who are also slated to get raises and bonuses next year.\n\nCarney opened this year's legislative calendar by offering his full support to a bill introduced by Rep. Debra Heffernan, D-Bellefonte, that would grant workers employed by the state for at least a year 12 weeks of paid parental leave.\n\nThat bill has yet to be called up for a vote in the House. A fiscal note that put the price tag at $2.5 million a year is no longer attached to the legislation. And Rep. Ruth Briggs King, R-Georgetown, recently introduced an amendment that would cut the length of paid leave down to six weeks.\n\nCarney also championed a bill that would create a student-loan forgiveness program for educators at high-needs schools and those who teach high-demand subject areas. The 250 educators accepted into the program would be eligible for loan repayments of up to $10,000 over five years.\n\nThat legislation has remained in the House Appropriations Committee for over a month.\n\nWaiting in the wings\n\nLegislation still pending before the General Assembly includes bills that could impact everything from the affordability of conception to the final days of life.\n\nState Sen. Bryan Townsend, D-Newark, has introduced several health care-related bills this year, including a measure that would require Delaware insurers to cover a range of fertility care services, such as in vitro fertilization.\n\nSupporters of the bill say the out-of-pocket costs for those treatments can be crippling, while opponents warn that requiring insurers to cover the procedures could raise premium costs for all residents. The measure unanimously passed the Senate in March and now awaits action in the House.\n\nRep. Paul Baumbach, D-Newark, has a highly-controversial bill focused on the other end of Delaware residents' life spectrum that would allow doctors to help terminally ill people end their own lives. Vehemently opposed by anti-abortion groups, the measure was introduced and moved out of committee in 2017 but has yet to come up for a vote on the House floor.\n\nSen. Robert Marshall, D-Wilmington, also is hoping to get a vote on his latest effort to increase the minimum wage in Delaware. A bill that would hike the state's base wage $2 over four years to $10.25 an hour in 2021 is awaiting a vote in the Senate, where similar legislation failed by a single vote in March.\n\nSeveral Democrats, meanwhile, are hoping to advance a series of election reform bills in the final days of the legislative calendar.\n\nThey include a bill that would allow voters to register on Election Day, cast ballots in person up to 10 days before the election, open polls for school board elections two hours earlier and move statewide primaries to coincide with the presidential primary in April.\n\nMeanwhile, Rep. Helene Keeley and Sen. Margaret Rose Henry, both Wilmington Democrats, are still holding out hope of advancing legislation that would make Delaware the ninth state to legalize recreational marijuana.\n\nLegislation they introduced last year would allow people 21 and older to purchase up to an ounce of marijuana from dozens of stores authorized to sell the drug. The legislation also would authorize the creation of an entire marijuana industry, including cultivation facilities, testing companies and manufacturing businesses.\n\nThat bill failed to come up for a final vote in 2017, leading to the creation of a task force that released a lengthy report under rather inauspicious circumstances in March.\n\nSince then, Keeley has been using the panel's recommendations to craft a new version of the bill that she plans to introduce next week.\n\nBut it also will require a two-thirds majority in both chambers to reach the governor's desk. Carney also has said repeatedly that he does not support the legislation at this time.\n\nDozens of other bills also are waiting in the wings with just a few weeks left in the legislative session, leaving many to wonder how much the General Assembly will be able to act on.\n\n\"We always get a lot of requests to move bills after the May break so I would say the volume is pretty normal right now,\" Schwartzkopf said. \"But my hope is we might be able to finish up not too long after midnight on June 30.\"\n\nMcBride agreed the list of pending legislation is long but manageable.\n\n\"It's always a dance,\" he said of the final month. \"But one thing is certain and that's that there will be a soft landing sometime in the early morning of July 1. My job now is to get us there.\"\n\nWEEKEND MUST-READS\n\nRegulation 225 would no longer let students \"self-identify\" without parents' permission\n\nHospital settles lawsuit claiming doctor removed wrong part of thyroid\n\nBromberg's Big Noise moves opening night to Constitution Yards Beer Garden\n\nContact reporter Scott Goss at (302) 324-2281, sgoss@delawareonline.com or on Twitter @ScottGossDel.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2018/06/01"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2022/03/01/state-of-the-union-live-updates/6884795001/", "title": "State of the Union: Biden slams Russia for 'unprovoked' invasion", "text": "President Joe Biden fulfilled a constitutional request when he delivered a State of the Union address – his first – to Congress on Tuesday.\n\nThe president kicked off his speech strongly condemning Russia for its \"unprovoked\" invasion of Ukraine, including closing off U.S. airspace to Russia planes.\n\nDomestically, he hailed a new phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, urging Americans to see the virus, and not each other, as the enemy.\n\nAnd he also addressed inflation, with price jumps hitting 40-year highs recently pressuring American families and making it harder to afford everything from rent to food to schooling.\n\nHere's what else you need to know, along with some history on the speech.\n\nLive updates:660K people have fled Ukraine as Russia resumes attacks on crowded cities\n\nHistoric moment:For first time in history, two women sat behind president at State of the Union\n\nWhat does the progressive response to the State of the Union mean?\n\nRep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., called for student loan debt forgiveness and passage of the Build Back Better Act and voting rights legislation during her Working Families Party's response to President Joe Biden's first State of the Union address Tuesday.\n\n\"The majority of the Build Back Better agenda is stalled Mr. President. Our work is unfinished. We are ready to jumpstart our work again,\" Tlaib, a Democrat, said on behalf of the independent political party.\n\nTlaib also touted the passage of the bipartisan infrastructure bill during her address but said her fellow Democrats need to do more work.\n\n– Mabinty Quarshie\n\nRead the whole story here:What does the progressive response to President Biden's State of the Union address mean?\n\nRepublican rebuttal: GOP deploys campaign-style attacks on Biden's State of the Union speech\n\nRepublicans used President Joe Biden's State of the Union address to launch campaign-style attacks Tuesday on what many GOP members see as the congressional elections' top issue: Biden himself.\n\n\"Weakness on the world stage has a cost and the president's approach to foreign policy has consistently been too little too late,\" said Gov. Kim Reynolds, R-Iowa., in the Republican Party's formal response to the State of the Union.\n\nReynolds accused Biden of bringing the nation back to the late 1970s and early 1980s, a time when \"runaway inflation was hammering families, a violent crime wave was crashing on our cities, and the Soviet army was trying to redraw the world map.\"\n\n-- David Jackson\n\nRead the whole story here:Republican rebuttal: GOP deploys campaign-style attacks on Biden's State of the Union speech\n\nWhat Biden said about Ukraine, COVID, the economy in his first State of the Union: full transcript\n\nPresident Joe Biden gave his first State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday. The roughly hour-long speech started a little after 9 p.m.\n\nBiden spoke about several of his administration's domestic priorities such as voting rights, combatting rising inflation, the electrification of the transportation system to fight climate change and other challenges facing the nation.\n\nHe also addressed Russia's ongoing invasion into Ukraine.\n\nHere's a transcript of Biden's speech.\n\nMore:What Biden said about Ukraine, COVID, the economy in his first State of the Union: full transcript\n\nAnalysis: Biden seeks his footing as his agenda and the landscape are transformed\n\nEverything has changed.\n\nFor President Joe Biden, his State of the Union address Tuesday night was dominated by issues he had scarcely mentioned in his first speech to a joint session of Congress a year ago – issues of inflation at home and Russian aggression abroad, on which his presidency will now be judged.\n\nSpeaking at length and at times with emotion, the president described Moscow's invasion of Ukraine as a historic challenge to European stability and security that demanded a strong and united response. Even as Biden climbed to the dais in the House of Representatives, Kyiv was bracing for an all-out Russian assault that could lead to the occupation of the capital and the overthrow of the nation's democratically elected government.\n\nRead the whole story here:A world of change: Biden seeks his footing as his agenda and the landscape are transformed\n\nWho heckled Biden?\n\nA notable moment in the State of the Union came when Biden talked about talked about the flag-draped coffins of fallen service members, including his son, Beau, who died in 2015 of brain cancer at age 46.\n\nAs Biden spoke about Beau, people inside the House chambers reported someone shouting, “You put them in there, 13 of them.\" After the comment was made, attendees in the chambers began to boo and groan at the comment, as Biden paused for a brief moment and continued his address.\n\nBoebert later confirmed on Twitter she in fact made the comment, in reference to the 13 U.S. soldiers who were killed in a suicide bombing attack at Kabul's Hamid Karzai International Airport in August as the Taliban took over Afghanistan and Afghans attempted to flee the country.\n\n--Jordan Mendoza\n\nBiden touts Justice Breyer, Ketanji Brown Jackson\n\nIn one of the more touching moments of Biden’s remarks Tuesday, the president briefly recognized Associate Justice Stephen Breyer, who announced he will step down from the Supreme Court after nearly three decades.\n\nBreyer, holding his hands over his heart and, at one point, his face, appeared to be embarrassed by the attention. Breyer, who will retire in June, approached Biden after the address and the two spoke for several minutes and shared a laugh.\n\n“Thank you for your service,” Biden said to Breyer during the speech. “Thank you. Thank you.”\n\nBiden nominated U.S. Circuit Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson for Breyer’s seat on Friday, and the Miami native, who has served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit since June, has started to meet with members of the Senate who will vote on her confirmation later spring.\n\nThe president described Jackson as a “consensus builder” but made no mention, as he has in other venues, of what makes Jackson a historic candidate: She would be the first Black woman ever to serve on the nation’s highest court.\n\nAt 51, Jackson could serve on the Supreme Court for decades. Democrats are seeking to confirm Jackson by early April.\n\n-- John Fritze\n\nWho is Joshua Davis? Here's more about the 13-year-old who stole the show at State of the Union\n\nOf all the guests invited to President Joe Biden's first State of the Union address, one of the few mentioned was 13-year-old Joshua Davis. Davis, who is from Midlothian, Virginia, was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when he was just 11 months old, according to the White House.\n\nAt the age of four, Davis began advocating for the Virginia General Assembly to make \"school safer for kids with Type 1 diabetes.\"\n\nEarlier this month, the seventh-grader at Swift Creek Middle School introduced President Biden at an event on prescription drug costs at a community college in Virginia.\n\n--Jordan Mendoza\n\nBiden's report on the State of the Union: Strong\n\nThe president struck an optimistic tone in his concluding remarks, praising American values and calling the moment a \"test of resolve and conscience, of history itself.\"\n\n\"It is in this moment that our character is formed. Our purpose is found. Our future is forged,\" he said. \"We will meet this test.\"\n\nBiden acknowledged while the country has faced a challenging period, he is \"more optimistic about America today than I have been my whole life.\"\n\nThe president waited until the end of his speech, which lasted more than an hour, to deliver his report on the state of the union: \"strong.\"\n\n\"Because you, the American people, are strong,\" he said as the crowd erupted in cheers. \"We are stronger today than we were a year ago. And we will be stronger a year from now than we are today.\"\n\n-- Courtney Subramanian\n\nBiden says Americans can order more COVID tests from the government starting next week\n\nAmericans will be able to order more free coronavirus tests from the government starting next week, President Joe Biden announced during Tuesday's State of the Union address.\n\n\"Even if you already ordered free tests, tonight, I am announcing that you can order more from covidtests.gov starting next week,\" Biden said, adding the government has made hundreds of millions of tests available for free.\n\nAmericans were able to start ordering the free tests from the Covidtests.gov website on Jan. 18.\n\n-- Kelly Tyko\n\nRead the rest here:Biden says Americans can order more COVID tests from the government starting next week\n\nBiden vows to address soldiers’ exposure to ‘burn pits’\n\nBiden announced that his administration is expanding eligibility to veterans suffering from respiratory cancers and promised to examine the issue of troops’ exposure to “burn pits.”\n\nBurn pits are used to incinerate jet fuel, medical materials and other wastes of war. Many soldiers who breathe smoke from them develop headaches, numbness, dizziness and even cancer, Biden said.\n\n“I know,” he said. “One of those soldiers was my son Major Beau Biden.”\n\nBeau Biden died in 2015 of brain cancer at age 46.\n\n“We don’t know for sure if a burn pit was the cause of his brain cancer or the diseases of so many of our troops,” Biden said. “But I’m committed to finding out everything we can.”\n\n-– Michael Collins\n\nBiden: ‘Let's end cancer as we know it’\n\nBiden highlighted his announcement last month to relaunch the Cancer Moonshot, an issue close to the president’s heart after his son, Beau, died of brain cancer.\n\n“Let's end cancer as we know it,” he said.\n\nBiden noted that the fight to end cancer is personal for him and First Lady Jill Biden, as well as Vice President Kamala Harris, whose mother died of colon cancer.\n\n“So many of you lost someone you love: Husband wife, son, daughter, mom, dad,” Biden added.\n\n-- Rebecca Morin\n\nLawmakers react in the chamber following speech\n\nFollowing the speech, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., walked towards the front of the chamber to take a photo of Vice President Harris and Speaker Nancy Pelosi. \"Most powerful ladies in the world,\" Gillibrand shouted as she took the picture.\n\nBiden was swarmed by lawmakers as he exited the chamber. Rep. Adam Schiff shook his hand, and Biden placed his hand on Schiff's shoulder. Others took selfies and photos with the president in the background as he spoke to members on his way to the exit.\n\n-- Dylan Wells\n\nMaking history:For first time, two women sat behind president at State of the Union\n\nBiden slams social media for effects on children\n\nBiden connected young people’s mental health to social media platforms, saying they must be held accountable for what he called a “national experiment” being conducted on children for profit.\n\nUnder the American Rescue Plan, the Biden administration funneled millions into schools to hire teachers and help students make up for lost learning during the coronavirus pandemic.\n\n“Children were also struggling before the pandemic,” he said “Bullying, violence, trauma, and the harms of social media.”\n\n“It’s time to strengthen privacy protections, ban targeted advertising to children, demand tech companies stop collecting personal data on our children,” he said.\n\nProposals mentioned by the president include strengthening privacy protections, banning targeted advertising to children and stopping the collection of personal data on children.\n\nBiden also acknowledged Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen in the chamber and thanked her for her courage.\n\n— Phillip M. Bailey, Chelsey Cox\n\nBig tech:Did Facebook ignore warnings that Instagram is unhealthy for kids? States are investigating\n\nBiden: We can secure the border and fix the immigration system\n\nBiden renewed calls for immigration reform while also bolstering security at the U.S. southern border, remarks that drew chants of \"build the wall,\" from Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo.\n\n\"And if we are to advance liberty and justice, we need to secure the border and fix the immigration system,\" Biden said. \"We can do both.\"\n\nThe president said the U.S. implemented new technology to better detect drug smuggling, set up joint patrols with Mexico and Guatemala to catch human traffickers and is supporting partners in South and Central America to host more refugees and secure their own borders.\n\nBiden also called for obtaining legal status for so-called Dreamers, or undocumented immigrations who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children, as well as those who have temporary status, farm workers and essential workers.\n\n\"It’s not only the right thing to do—it’s the economically smart thing to do,\" he added.\n\n-- Courtney Subramnaian\n\nBiden calls for ‘proven measures’ to reduce gun violence\n\nBiden vowed to cut down on gun trafficking and called on Congress to pass what he called “proven measures” to reduce gun violence.\n\nSpecifically, he urged lawmakers to pass universal background checks, ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines and repeal liability shield that mean gun makers can’t be sued.\n\n“These laws don’t infringe on the Second Amendment,” he said. “They save lives.”\n\n–- Michael Collins\n\nBiden: Nominee Jackson a ‘consensus builder’\n\nBetween the crisis in Ukraine, soaring inflation and a stalled domestic agenda, Biden doesn’t have a lot of good news to tout at his State of the Union address this year.\n\nOne exception: His recently announced historic nominee to the Supreme Court, U.S. Circuit Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.\n\nBiden called Jackson “one of our nation’s top legal minds” and a “consensus builder.” Jackson would be the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court.\n\nThe president tried to signal bipartisan support for Jackson as she begins meeting with senators ahead of a confirmation hearing this spring.\n\n“Since she’s been nominated, she’s received a broad range of support -- from the Fraternal Order of Police to former judges appointed by Democrats and Republicans,” Biden said.\n\nSenate Democrats hope to confirm Jackson to the high court by early April.\n\n-- John Fritze\n\nBiden: Right to vote ‘under assault’\n\nBiden called on Congress to pass voting rights legislation, saying that the right to vote is “under assault.”\n\n\"The most fundamental right in America is the right to vote – and to have it counted,” Biden said. “And it’s under assault.”\n\nHe added that he would like to see Congress pass the Freedom to Vote Act and John Lewis Act.\n\n-- Rebecca Morin\n\nAmerican Rescue Plan essential to keep neighborhoods safe, Biden says\n\nPresident Biden touted his American Rescue Plan as an asset to community safety.\n\nThe plan, which was approved by Democrats in Congress last March, provides $350 billion in direct aid to cities, states and counties that can be used to hire more police and invest in proven strategies like community violence interruption.\n\n“We should all agree, the answer is not to defund the police, it’s to fund the police,” Biden said to cheers and applause.\n\n-- Chelsey Cox\n\nMore:President Joe Biden's COVID stimulus bill explained in 6 charts\n\nCOVID-19 reset\n\nBiden reflected on how COVID-19 has challenged the country since 2020, but that with roughly three-fourths of Americans fully vaccinated, and hospitalizations down by 77%, “most Americans can removed their masks, return to work, stay in the classroom and move forward safely.”\n\nThe president touched on how that has been the result of free vaccines, treatments, tests and masks. But Biden noted how this is a pivotal moment for Americans to stay focused in the face of the contagion’s possible resurgence.\n\n“Let’s use this moment to reset,” he said. “Let’s stop looking at COVID-19 as a partisan dividing line and see it for what it is: A God-awful disease.”\n\nBiden noted how many lives have been lost, and that Americans cannot let the contagion divide them further.\n\n“We can’t change how divided we’ve been,” he said. “But we can change how we move forward—on COVID-19 and other issues we must face together.”\n\n— Phillip M. Bailey\n\nTracking COVID-19 vaccine distribution by state:How many people have been vaccinated in the US?\n\nBiden: End the 'partisan dividing line'\n\nIn his speech, Biden asked Republicans to stop using the COVID pandemic as a \"partisan dividing line\" – and to lower the temperature on a whole host of important issues.\n\n\"Let’s stop seeing each other as enemies,\" the president said, \"and start seeing each other for who we really are: Fellow Americans.\"\n\n-- David Jackson\n\nBiden: Bring an end to shutdowns of schools and businesses\n\nThe president called for bringing COVID-19-related shutdowns of schools and businesses to an end as the country moves into a new phase of living with the pandemic.\n\n\"It’s time for Americans to get back to work and fill our great downtowns again. People working from home can feel safe to begin to return to the office,\" he said. \"Our schools are open. Let’s keep it that way. Our kids need to be in school.\"\n\nBiden also noted that with 75% of adult Americans fully vaccinated and hospitalizations down by 77%, most Americans can remove their mask as they return to classrooms and offices.\n\nHe told the mostly maskless crowd that continuing his administration COVID-19 response efforts would cost more money and he intended to send Congress a request for more funds.\n\n-- Courtney Subramanian\n\nBiden outlines plans to lower deficit\n\nThe president urged lawmakers to confirm his nominees to head the Federal Reserve, calling it crucial to his plan to fight inflation.\n\nBiden said his plan is designed to “monitor and lower costs” and “give families a fair shot” while also lowering the deficit.\n\n“The previous administration not only ballooned the deficit, it undermined the watchdogs of those pandemic relief funds,” Biden said, and added that his administration reprioritized going after criminals who commit pandemic relief-related fraud.\n\nBiden also stated that he is the only president to have cut the deficit by more than $1 trillion dollars in a single year and vowed to even the economic playing field for Americans.\n\n“Capitalism without competition is not capitalism. Capitalism without competition is exploitation,” Biden said.\n\n-- Chelsey Cox\n\nBiden on COVID: ‘We’re moving forward’\n\nBiden said the United States has made progress to move past COVID-19, noting the updated mask guidelines issued by the CDC last week.\n\n“Because of the progress we’ve made, because of your resilience and the tools we have, tonight I can say we are moving forward safely, back to more normal routines,” he said. “We’ve reached a new moment in the fight against COVID-19.\"\n\n“COVID-19 need no longer control our lives,” he added.\n\n-- Rebecca Morin\n\nBiden vows to crack down on price gouging\n\nBiden announced a crackdown on companies that practice price gouging.\n\nDuring the coronavirus pandemic, foreign-owned companies raised prices by as much as 1,000% and made record profits, he said.\n\n\"I’m a capitalist,” he said. “But capitalism without competition isn’t capitalism. It’s exploitation – and it drives up prices.”\n\n– Michael Collins\n\n‘Secret ballot’ on taxes?\n\nBiden challenged Congress to adopt his plan at reforming the tax code, promising that under his plan no one earning less than $400,000 a year would “pay an additional penny in new taxes.”\n\n“I may be wrong but my guess is if we took a secret ballot on this floor that we’d all agree that the president tax system ain’t fair,” Biden said. “We have to fix it.”\n\nThe president’s remarks received a more lukewarm response, especially from congressional Republicans, who have resisted his idea.\n\nBut Biden’s pitch to the American people argued that his tax plan would grow the economy and doesn’t “punish anyone” but rather seeks to even the playing field by ensuring U.S. companies and its wealthiest individuals to “start paying their fair share.”\n\n“Just last year, 55 Fortune 500 corporations earned $40 billion in profits and paid zero dollars in federal income tax,” Biden said. “That’s simply not fair. That’s why I’ve proposed a 15% minimum tax rate for corporations.”\n\n-- Phillip M. Bailey\n\nSome Republicans take notes, joke to colleagues during Biden's speech\n\nSome Republican Senators appear to be taking notes on Biden's remarks, including Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., and Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La.\n\nSen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., turned to Scott and Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., and moved his hand up and down, appearing to point out Democrats standing up and down in applause, garnering laughter from his colleagues.\n\n-- Dylan Wells\n\nBiden calls for reviving plan for child care and universal pre-kindergarten\n\nThe president reiterated his longstanding call to cut the cost of child care for parents, pointing out that most American families pay up to $14,000 a year for child care per child. A recent report by Child Care Aware of America found the price of child care has exceeded the annual inflation rate by 4 percent in 2020.\n\n\"Middle-class and working families shouldn’t have to pay more than 7% of their income for care of young children,\" he said.\n\nBiden's child care plan is part of his Build Back Better bill that was effectively killed after Sen. Joe Manchin announced late last year he wouldn't vote to pass it. The president also called for reviving plans to cut the cost of home and long-term care and creating a plan for universal pre-kindergarten for every 3- and 4-year-old.\n\n-- Courtney Subramanian\n\nBiden pushes for climate investments as part of his inflation pitch\n\nBiden called for several climate investments that he said will save families money as part of his efforts aimed at tackling rising inflation.\n\nThat included investment tax credits for Americans to weatherize their homes, doubling clean energy production and lowering the price of electric vehicles.\n\n-- Joey Garrison\n\nMore:UN panel's grim climate change report: 'Parts of the planet will become uninhabitable'\n\nBiden touts ‘revitalization’ of American manufacturing\n\nBiden praised what he said is the revitalization of the American manufacturing and said he agreed with Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown that it’s time to bury the “Rust Belt” label.\n\nCompanies are choosing to build new factories in the United States when just a few years ago they would have built them overseas, he said.\n\nFord is investing $11 billion to build electric vehicles, creating 11,000 jobs across the country, he said. GM is making the largest investment in its history – $7 billion to build electric vehicles, creating 4,000 jobs in Michigan.\n\nBiden said the revitalization is being driven by people like Joseph “JoJo” Burgess, a Pennsylvania steelworker who was seated in the first lady’s viewing box.\n\n– Michael Collins\n\nBiden called on lowering the cost of drug prices, such as insulin.\n\nThe president shouted out Joshua Davis, a 13-year-old with diabetes, who attended the address.\n\n“For Joshua & the 200,000 other young people with Type 1 diabetes, let’s cap the cost of insulin at $35 a month so everyone can afford it,” Biden said.\n\nHe added that he spoke with Joshua’s mom about how hard it's been to afford the drug.\n\n“Imagine what it's like to look at your child who needs insulin to stay healthy and have no idea how in God's name you're going to be able to pay for it,” Biden said.\n\n-- Rebecca Morin\n\n'It is legal extortion':Diabetics pay steep price for insulin as rebates drive up costs\n\nBiden aims for investment in Intel, competitiveness with China\n\nIntel, the world's largest semiconductor manufacturer, recently unveiled plans to build a $20 billion complex outside of Columbus, Ohio, a move Biden hailed as a major sign of progress in his administration's work to boost U.S. production of the critical microchips at a time of rising competition with China.\n\n“That's why it's so important to pass the bipartisan (Innovation and Competition Act) in Congress that will make record investments in emerging technologies and American manufacturing,” Biden said. The president also acknowledged Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, who was invited to the speech.\n\n-- Chelsey Cox\n\nBiden: We can cut inflation by making more things in the U.S.\n\nBiden said one way to reduce inflation – one of his biggest political problems – is to make more products in the United States, reducing rely on blocked supply chains.\n\n\"Instead of relying on foreign supply chains, let’s make it in America,\": he said.\n\nThe president was not very specific about how to do that; Republicans say his proposed environment regulations will choke industry.\n\n– David Jackson\n\nBiden touts ‘infrastructure decade’\n\nShifting from Ukraine, Biden touted his American Rescue Plan legislation and infrastructure law, the latter of which he got support from Republicans to pass in the evenly divided Senate.\n\n“I want to thank members of both parties who helped make it happen,” Biden said. “We’re done talking about infrastructure week. We’re talking about the infrastructure decade.”\n\nHe pointed to broadband expansion, roadway and bridge repairs and lead pipe replacement among the projects that will be funded.\n\n-- Joey Garrison\n\nBiden says Putin ‘will never gain the hearts’ of Ukrainians\n\nBiden said that Democracies are “rising to the moment” as Russia continues its invasion of Ukraine.\n\n\"Putin may be able to circle Kyiv with tanks, but he will never gain the hearts and souls of the Ukrainian people,” he said. \"He will never weaken the resolve of the free world.\"\n\n-- Rebecca Morin\n\nBiden: U.S. to release 30 million barrels from Strategic Petroleum Reserve\n\nBiden said the U.S. is working with 30 countries to release 60 million barrels of oil from reserves around world to ease the impact of the war in Ukraine on energy markets.\n\nThe U.S. is leading the effort by releasing 30 million barrels from its own Strategic Petroleum Reserve, he said.\n\n“These steps will help blunt gas prices here at home,” he said.\n\n– Michael Collins\n\nStanding ovation for Biden’s vow to defend NATO countries\n\nDespite Russia’s devastating attack on Ukraine, President Biden reiterated support in the form of economic sanctions, not the deployment of U.S. troops, to the vulnerable area.\n\n“We have mobilized American ground forces, air squadron, ship deployments to protect NATO countries including Poland, Romania, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. And as I’ve made crystal clear, the United States and our allies will defend every inch of territory that is NATO territory with the full force of our collective power,” Biden said.\n\nHis remarks received a standing ovation from lawmakers in the chamber.\n\n-- Chelsey Cox\n\nWhat is NATO?:Military alliance in spotlight as Russia tries to forbid Ukraine membership\n\nBiden: Sanctions are strangling Putin's Russia\n\nBiden outlined a strict set of sanctions meant to choke the Russian economy in retribution for Putin’s invasion.\n\n“Tonight I say to the Russian oligarchs and corrupt leaders who have bilked billions of dollars off this violent regime no more,” he said.\n\nThe president, who praised Ukraine’s resolve on the battlefield, said the Justice Department is assembling a dedicated task force to go after the crimes of Russian’s wealthiest people. He pledged that the U.S., along with European allies, will look seize Russian yachts, luxury apartments and private jets.\n\n“We are coming for your ill-begotten gains,” Biden said.\n\nAmerica has seen immediate dividends with its economic sanctions and $1 billion in aid to Ukraine, according to the president, who said that along with closing U.S. air space to all Russian flights the Ruble has lost 30% of its value; its stock has dipped by 40% and trading with the foreign country has been halted.\n\n-- Phillip M. Bailey\n\nMore:Biden threatens devastating sanctions if Russia invades Ukraine. Here's what that might look like.\n\nBiden says 'no more' to Russian oligarchs, announces closure of US airspace to Russian aircraft\n\nBiden said the U.S. and western allies are enforcing \"powerful economic sanctions,\" including cutting off Russia's largest banks from international financial systems, preventing Russia's central bank from shoring up the Russian ruble and \"making Putin's $260 billion war fund worthless.\"\n\nHe announced the U.S. is closing off airspace to all Russian flights, joining a growing number of countries around the world that have made similar moves in recent days.\n\nThe president also said coordinated sanctions are \"choking off Russia's access to technology\" that will weaken its military and undermine its economic strength.\n\nU.S. and European sanctions also target Putin and his inner circle as well as Russian oligarchs.\n\n\"Tonight I say to the Russian oligarchs and corrupt leaders who have bilked billions of dollars off this violent regime: no more,\" he said. \"We are joining with our European allies to find and seize your yachts your luxury apartments your private jets. We are coming for your ill-begotten gains.\"\n\n-- Courtney Subramanian\n\nZelenskyy government:What happens if Kyiv falls? What would a government in exile look like?\n\nPutin more ‘isolated from the world’ than ever, Biden says\n\nBiden hailed the united response of the U.S. and western allies against Russia President Vladimir Putin as Russia continues its war in Ukraine.\n\nBiden called the attack “premeditated and totally unprovoked,” adding that Putin thought he could divide the world.\n\n“But Putin was wrong. We are ready. We are united,” Biden said. “Now that he’s acted, the free world is holding him accountable.”\n\n“Putin is now isolated from the world more than he has ever been,” he said.\n\n-- Joey Garrison\n\nMore:Poor planning, low troop morale and a fierce Ukrainian resistance. Why Russia is getting bogged down\n\nBiden says Ukraine “inspires the world”\n\nBiden said during his speech that the Ukrainian people are inspiring the world as they face Russia’s attacks.\n\n“(Putin) thought he could roll into Ukraine and the world would roll over. Instead he met a wall of strength he never imagined,” Biden said.\n\n“He met the Ukrainian people,” Biden continued. “From President Zelenskyy to every Ukrainian, their fearlessness, their courage, their determination, inspires the world.”\n\n-- Rebecca Morin\n\nMore:Why is the White House releasing US intelligence on Putin's moves in Ukraine? Behind the unusual strategy\n\nBiden arrives at House chamber\n\nBiden was introduced in the House chamber at 9:05 p.m. and walked into the room to a loud chorus of cheers.\n\nBiden shook hands of several lawmakers seated along the aisle and chatted briefly with a few of them as he made his way to the rostrum, where he will deliver his remarks.\n\n– Michael Collins\n\nJill Biden, Cabinet members have arrived for SOTU\n\nFirst Lady Jill Biden entered the House chamber with her guests for this evening's speech, including the Ukrainian Ambassador to the U.S.\n\nThe group stood and applauded as the president's cabinet entered the chamber next. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Marcia Fudge, a former member of the House, blew kisses as she walked down the aisle, before taking her place next to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. Fudge is sitting across the aisle from Supreme Court Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh.\n\n-- Dylan Wells\n\nSome lawmakers noticeably absent from State of the Union\n\nAs President Biden addressed lawmakers and the nation Tuesday, the absence of some who were invited to the speech did not go unnoticed.\n\nSen. Marco Rubio said during a February appearance on conservative news network Newsmax that he would not attend due to the COVID-19 testing mandate and that he would watch replays of the speech on television.\n\n\"I'm just tired of all that COVID theater crap,” Rubio said.\n\n“Same,” Texas Republican Rep. Chip Roy tweeted Monday in response to a post about Rubio’s absence. “I will not attend.”\n\nFour other Republican members of Congress, Mary Miller, R-Ill., Bob Good, R-Va., Matt Rosendale, R-MT and Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., told Newsmax Tuesday they would also skip the speech due to health safety precautions.\n\nAt least five Democratic lawmakers, Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., and Reps. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., Suzan DelBene, D-Wash. And Ted Deutch, D-Fla., tested positive for COVID-19 ahead of the address.\n\n-- Chelsey Cox\n\nFive Supreme Court justices show for speech\n\nBiden is getting something for his State of the Union address that’s been hard to come by for much of his presidency: a majority of the Supreme Court.\n\nChief Justice John Roberts, joined by four associate justices, filed into the House chamber before the president's remarks Tuesday, the first time five members of the nine-member court have appeared for a presidential address to Congress since President Donald Trump’s remarks in 2017.\n\nIn addition to Roberts, Associate Justices Stephen Breyer -- set to retire in June -- Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett are attending the address, taking their traditional front-row seats.\n\nBiden has had a series of setbacks at the nation's highest court, where conservatives hold a 6-3 advantage. A majority of the justices sided against the administration’s COVID-19 eviction moratorium in August. Last month, the court blocked a requirement that large companies implement vaccine-or-testing mandates to fight the virus.\n\n-- John Fritze\n\nMore:Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer to step down, giving Biden a chance to make his mark\n\nMembers sporting Ukraine flags and colors\n\nThere are signs of support for Ukraine in the House chamber.\n\nUkraine-born Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-IN 05) is wearing a yellow dress and blue blazer, the colors of Ukraine.\n\nSome other members on the floor are holding small Ukrainian flags, including Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., the House GOP conference chair.\n\n-- Dylan Wells\n\nBiden leaves White House for Capitol\n\nBiden pulled out of the White House in the presidential motorcade at 8:32 p.m. EST to make the short drive to the Capitol.\n\nThe president is expected to arrive in just a few minutes.\n\nPennsylvania Avenue between the White House and Capitol is lined with American and Ukrainian flags in a show of support for Ukrainians amid Russia’s brutal attack on Ukraine.\n\n-- Joey Garrison\n\nDesignated Survivor State of the Union: Gina Raimondo\n\nAnd the lucky Cabinet member is ... Gina Raimondo\n\nThe Commerce Secretary is being held back from the State of the Union in case disaster strikes the U.S. Capitol and she has to assume the presidency.\n\nThe concept of the \"designated survivor\" has fascinated entertainers for years.\n\nThriller writer Tom Clancy used an attack on the U.S. Capitol as a plot device in one of his Jack Ryan novels (Ryan became the president).\n\nThere was also a television show based on the idea. Its title: \"Designated Survivor.\"\n\n-- David Jackson\n\nMembers of Congress in the chamber ahead of SOTU\n\nMembers of Congress have begun to gather in the House chamber ahead of Biden’s remarks.\n\nMany, but not all, are taking advantage of the new Congressional guidelines on mask usage, which no longer requires that they wear a mask in the chamber during the State of the Union.\n\nSpeaker of the House Nancy Pelosi spoke with Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries of New York and Assistant Speaker Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, before walking across the House aisle to speak to Chair of the House Appropriations Committee Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut.\n\nMembers are assigned seats this evening, separated by one empty seat between, but ahead of the remarks most are gathered talking in small groups around the floor.\n\n-- Dylan Wells\n\nThese are the Dems who will escort Biden at his State of the Union address\n\nHouse Speaker Nancy Pelosi named seven Democratic members of the House to the Escort Committee for tonight’s State of the Union, who will help escort President Biden to the House chamber.\n\nThe members of leadership on the committee are Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland, Whip Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, Assistant Speaker Katherine Clark of Massachusetts and Chairman of the Democratic caucus Hakeem Jeffries of New York.\n\nDemocratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Sean Patrick Maloney of New York, the head of the House Democrats campaign arm, will also serve on the committee, as will Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware.\n\nDemocratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio is also part of the group. Kaptur is the co-founder and co-chair of the Congressional Ukraine Caucus.\n\n-- Dylan Wells\n\nMore:Why is Russia invading Ukraine? Could it be the start of WWIII? Here's what we know\n\nBiden will call on Congress for DOJ Task Force resources in SOTU\n\nPresident Biden will use his State of the Union address to ask Congress for resources for the Justice Department’s COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force to expand prosecutions of pandemic fraudsters, the White House announced.\n\nBiden will also ask Congress for more serious penalties for criminals who commit fraud related to pandemic relief.\n\nThe DOJ has already prosecuted cases where PPP loans meant for small businesses undergoing difficulties due to the pandemic were fraudulently obtained and where unemployment insurance was stolen by identity thieves.\n\n-- Chelsey Cox\n\nMore:Americans are at higher risk of Russian cyberattacks after Ukraine invasion: What you should do right now\n\nThese are the twelve Representatives with prime aisle seating at the SOTU\n\nSix Democrats and six Republicans have the premium aisle seats that allow close proximity to President Biden as he enters the House chamber to deliver his remarks.\n\nDemocratic Reps. Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware, Hakeem Jeffries of New York, Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, Benny Thompson of Mississippi and Mark Takano of California have the seats on the Democratic side.\n\nGOP Reps. Frank Lucas of Oklahoma, Gary Palmer of Alabama, Kevin Brady of Texas, Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, Glenn Thompson of Pennsylvania, and Debbie Lesko of Arizona are the Republicans on the aisle.\n\n-- Dylan Wells\n\nFollow along:What Biden will say: excerpts from his first State of the Union address to Congress\n\nBiden to issue executive order on identity theft in public benefits programs\n\nBiden is set to speak on a new executive order targeting identity theft during the State of the Union.\n\nThe order, which will expand upon steps taken in 2021 to prevent and detect identity theft of public benefits and direct new actions to support fraud victims, will be announced in the coming weeks, according to The White House.\n\n-- Chelsey Cox\n\nBiden to announce new chief prosecutor to pandemic relief crimes\n\nBiden will roll out new efforts to prevent identity theft and other pandemic-related fraud crimes during the State of the Union, according to the White House, including the addition of a chief prosecutor to the Justice Department’s COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force.\n\nThe COVID-19 task force was implemented by Attorney General Merrick Garland in May 2021 and has charged over 1,000 criminal cases and opened over 200 civil investigations across 1800 individuals and entities involving billions of dollars in suspected fraud.\n\nThe new chief prosecutor will help prosecute reports of identity theft involving public pandemic benefits from 2019 to 2020, as reported by the Federal Trade Commission.\n\n--Chelsey Cox\n\nLive updates:U.S. to ban Russian planes from American airspace; shells pound Ukrainian city of Kharkiv\n\nBiden to say ‘defund the police’ is not the answer\n\nAmid rising crime in cities across the nation, albeit from historical lows, President Joe Biden will tout his administration’s efforts to fund local police departments and to tackle gun control during Tuesday’s State of the Union, according to the White House.\n\nBiden will highlight how he’s urged local and state governments to use American Rescue Plan funds to add police officers. He’s also expected to urge Congress to pass his $300 million budget request to more than double the size of the Department of Justice’s COPS community policing grant program.\n\nRepublicans have sought to tie Biden and other Democrats to the “defund the police” mantra on the left, even though Biden has repeatedly rejected that phrase.\n\n“He'll make clear that the answer is not to defund the police, it’s to put more police – with better training and more accountability – out to take back our streets and make our neighborhoods safer,” a White House official said.\n\nAlthough Republicans in the Senate have refused to pass sweeping gun reform measures, Biden will point to his administration's unilateral efforts. That includes creating five new Justice Department gun trafficking strike forces to target the illegal; an executive order aimed at “ghost guns,” and new ATF rules.\n\n-- Joey Garrison\n\nU.S. to close airspace to Russian planes\n\nBiden will announce in his State of the Union address that the U.S. is closing its airspace to Russian planes in retaliation for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, three sources told USA TODAY.\n\nThe U.S. joins a growing list of countries that have announced plans to close their airspace to Russian aircraft in response to the invasion.\n\nThe E.U. banned all Russian aircraft from its airspace after several European countries including France, Italy and Denmark as well as Canada announced the move Sunday. Neutral Sweden and Austria also joined the international move to cut off Russian aircraft.\n\n– Michael Collins and Courtney Subramanian\n\nWhat time is the State of the Union address?\n\nBiden will start speaking at 9 p.m. ET.\n\nTalking points:From Ukraine to historic Supreme Court nominee: 5 things to watch for in Biden's State of the Union address\n\nWhere can I watch the SOTU?\n\nIt will be carried by all major TV news networks (CBS, NBC, ABC and PBS) and cable news networks including Fox News, Fox Business Network, CNN, MSNBC and C-SPAN.\n\nNPR will also carry the address.\n\nThe speech will also be live-streamed by the White House and many organizations, including USA TODAY. Readers can follow live updates on the speech from USA TODAY.\n\n– Chelsey Cox\n\nFirst lady Jill Biden's State of the Union guest list\n\nPer tradition, first lady Jill Biden will sit in the House gallery with a group of distinguished Americans to watch her husband deliver his State of the Union address.\n\nIn addition to Ukraine's ambassador to the United States, Mrs. Biden's guest list includes people who work in education, health care, technology, and a steelworkers union.\n\n\"The President and I are honored to welcome an extraordinary group of Americans and H.E. Oksana Markarova, Ambassador of Ukraine to the United States, to sit with me and @SecondGentleman for the State of the Union,\" Mrs, Biden tweeted.\n\nThe White House posted the full guest list.\n\n-- David Jackson\n\nGOP, Dems to wear Ukrainian colors\n\nBrandishing Ukraine’s flag colors will be a bipartisan affair during Biden’s first State of the Union address, as several members from both parties plan to either wear ribbons or other clothing in the colors of the Ukrainian flag.\n\nRepublican Rep. Victoria Spartz, of Indiana, who was born in Ukraine, will wear a blue suit and yellow blazer to draw attention to the crisis. She took to Twitter ahead of the president’s remarks calling on the Biden administration to do more.\n\n“Putin’s war is not a war but a genocide of the Ukrainian people who wanted to be free and with us,” Spartz said. “We cannot let him embarrass our great nation and slaughter these brave people under our watch.\"\n\nRep. Brett Guthrie, of Kentucky, showed off how dozens of members from both parties had gathered on the Capitol steps before the address with a flag merging the U.S. and Ukrainian colors.\n\n“Today I joined my colleagues to show solidarity for the Ukrainian people,” Guthrie, a Republican, said. “Their bravery in the fight against Putin's unlawful and unprovoked invasion is inspiring. I support sending more aid to Ukraine and crushing Putin and his associates with a powerful arsenal of sanctions.”\n\nThe Democratic Women’s Caucus earlier Tuesday announced its members plan to “wear bright and colorful attire” in support Ukraine.\n\n-- Phillip M. Bailey\n\nSOTU comes as inflation soars\n\nBiden delivers his State of the Union address at a time when inflation has soared to its highest level in four decades.\n\nConsumer prices jumped 7.5% last month compared with 12 months earlier, the steepest year-over-year increase since February 1982, the Labor Department reported last month. The increase was driven by shortages of supplies and workers, heavy doses of federal aid, low interest rates and robust consumer spending, the department said.\n\nThe steady surge in prices has left many Americans less able to afford food, gas, rent, child care and other necessities.\n\n-- Michael Collins, Associated Press\n\nExplained:What is inflation and how does it affect you? Increase in prices for gas, food, energy raise concern\n\nCongresswoman to pass out ribbons to show Ukraine solidarity\n\nRep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, will pass out blue and yellow ribbons to members of congress at Biden’s State of the Union to “wear tonight in solidarity with the people of Ukraine,” the Democratic Women’s Caucus said.\n\nKaptur is leader of the Ukraine Caucus.\n\nIn addition, some congresswomen were seen wearing blue and yellow, the color of Ukraine’s flag, in a photo posted by Michelle Moreno-Silva, communications director of the Democratic Women’s Caucus.\n\nMoreno-Silva said members of the Democratic Women’s Caucus are planning to “wear bright and colorful attire to the State of the Union in celebration of the strength and diversity of the Caucus.”\n\nThe caucus first asked members to don white at the 2019 State of the Union in honor of the Women's Suffrage Movement that led to the ratification of the 19th amendment in 1920. The lawmakers wanted to acknowledge voters who gave Democrats a majority in the House that year.\n\nThe tradition continued in 2020 in protest \"against President Trump's backwards agenda.\"\n\n-- Rebecca Morin and Chelsey Cox\n\nBiden to deliver speech as Russian convoy inches toward Kyiv\n\nBiden's State of the Union speech comes on day six of Russian President Vladimir Putin's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, and the international crisis is expected to be a focal point of his speech.\n\nA 40-mile convoy of Russian tanks and vehicles appeared to stall about 15 miles outside of Ukraine's capital city of Kyiv. Troops appeared to run out of gas and food, but it's also possible the Russians are pausing to regroup and reassess their attack, a senior U.S. Defense Department official told reporters earlier Tuesday.\n\nUkrainians are bracing for continued attacks after at least 11 people were killed and 35 others wounded in an apparent rocket strike in Kharkiv. Earlier, Russian strikes hit Kyiv's main broadcasting tower and the nearby Babi Yar Holocaust Memorial site, where Nazis killed thousands of Jews during World War II. Ukraine's foreign minister confirmed the attack.\n\nAhead of his remarks, Biden spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for more than 30 minutes. The president said he discussed continued U.S. support, including security assistance and humanitarian aid, and vowed to hold Russia accountable.\n\nFor more updates on the unfolding crisis in Ukraine, follow USA TODAY's live coverage here.\n\n-- Courtney Subramanian\n\nMore:Satellite images show huge Russian convoys in Ukraine\n\nWhat will Biden talk about?\n\nBiden’s remarks to a joint session of Congress will give him a chance to trumpet his administration’s accomplishments during his first year in office and lay out policy goals for the coming year.\n\nA prominent Democratic strategist urged Biden to use the opportunity to offer Americans hope for better days.\n\n“What Americans want to hear is genuine understanding of what we have been through together and a clear path forward – less about Mr. Biden’s accomplishments than about the heroic, unsung sacrifices so many have made to see their families and communities through,” David Axelrod, who helped shape many of President Barack Obama’s addresses to Congress, wrote in an op-ed in The New York Times.\n\nWhat else is bound to come up? Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will cast a long shadow over Biden’s State of the Union address. Biden will seek to reassure the country that it's entering a new phase in the fight against COVID-19. And the president wants Americans to know that he feels their pain when it comes to rising prices.\n\nRead more here on expectations for the address.\n\n– Michael Collins\n\nBiden to address Russian invasion of Ukraine\n\nBiden will address Russia’s invasion of Ukraine during his address, according to excerpts of his prepared remarks released by the White House.\n\n“Throughout our history we’ve learned this lesson – when dictators do not pay a price for their aggression, they cause more chaos. They keep moving. And, the costs and threats to America and the world keep rising,” he is expected to say.\n\n“That’s why the NATO Alliance was created to secure peace and stability in Europe after World War 2. The United States is a member along with 29 other nations.\n\n“It matters. American diplomacy matters.\n\n“Putin’s war was premeditated and unprovoked. He rejected efforts at diplomacy. He thought the West and NATO wouldn’t respond. And, he thought he could divide us here at home.\n\n“Putin was wrong. We were ready,” he will say.\n\nMore:Russia has been accused of using 'vacuum bombs' in Ukraine. What are those?\n\nBiden to talk about inflation and the US economy\n\nBiden will also address inflation — an issue that is a top concern for the American people -- according to prepared remarks released by the White House.\n\n“We have a choice. One way to fight inflation is to drive down wages and make Americans poorer. I have a better plan to fight inflation,” he is expected to say.\n\n“Lower your costs, not your wages. Make more cars and semiconductors in America. More infrastructure and innovation in America. More goods moving faster and cheaper in America. More jobs where you can earn a good living in America. And, instead of relying on foreign supply chains – let’s make it in America.\n\n“Economists call it “increasing the productive capacity of our economy.” I call it building a better America,” he will say.\n\n“My plan to fight inflation will lower your costs and lower the deficit,” he is expected to say.\n\n-- Rebecca Morin\n\nBiden speech focus: The U.S. and Europe must be united against Russia\n\nPreviewing his State of the Union speech to a group of journalists, President Joe Biden said he will stress the importance of unity between the United States and Europe in confronting Russian President Vladimir Putin over his invasion of Ukraine.\n\nIn a lunch with television anchors and others, Biden said he would re-emphasize \"my determination to see to it that the EU, NATO, all of our allies are on the same exact page in terms of sanctions against Russia and how we deal with the invasion – and it is an invasion – of Ukraine.\"\n\nThis from a tweet by CNN anchor Jake Tapper, who also reported that Biden declared global unity \"the one thing that gives us power to impose severe consequences on Putin for what he’s done.\"\n\nPresidents host these kinds of lunches with television anchors before every State of the Union address. The sessions are off the record, but White Houses often put a few comments on the record.\n\nIn this case, Biden wanted to make clear his message on Ukraine.\n\n-- David Jackson\n\nMore:Americans are at higher risk of Russian cyberattacks after Ukraine invasion: What you should do right now\n\nBiden will roll out mental health crisis strategies\n\nBiden will outline his plan for tackling the mental health crisis during his first State of the Union.\n\nThe White House said Tuesday that Biden will call on Congress to pass legislation to support those policies that increase the capacity of the mental health system to provide care, make it easier for those who need care to get it and address the determinants of health.\n\nAmong the policies he will pitch, according to the White House:\n\nA plan to spend $700 million on training, scholarship and loan repayment for those who pursue careers in mental health and substance abuse treatment in rural communities and other underserved areas.\n\nA proposal that health plans cover \"robust behavioral health services with an adequate network of providers, including three behavioral health visits each year without cost-sharing.\"\n\nTo address concerns about digital technology and social media damage to the mental health of young people, Biden wants to ban targeted advertising for children online and stop online algorithms from returning results that damage their mental well-being.\n\n– Rick Rouan\n\nPelosi won’t be wearing a mask during State of the Union\n\nAs she sits behind President Joe Biden during his State of the Union address, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will be mask-less.\n\n“I’m not going to be wearing a mask tonight,” Pelosi told MSNBC Tuesday. “If I had little children, or if I were around little grandchildren I would because some of them would not be vaccinated.”\n\nDemocratic House leadership lifted its mask mandate in the House in time for the president’s first State of the Union. It comes as the rate of positive COVID-19 test results dropped to 2.7% at the Capitol’s testing site, according to Politico, and as the District of Columbia dropped its indoor mask mandate as COVID-19 cases have plummeted in Washington.\n\nThe White House on Tuesday ended its mask requirement for vaccinated staff members. But White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Monday said she hadn’t spoken to Biden on whether he will wear a mask when he walks into the House Chamber.\n\n“He will certainly not be wearing a mask when he's speaking,” Psaki said.\n\n-- Joey Garrison\n\nWhat was the shortest State of the Union? the longest?\n\nWhich presidents delivered the longest and the shortest State of the Unions? It depends on your measuring stick.\n\nBased on word count, President George Washington’s delivered the shortest speech on record in 1790, before the annual message was even dubbed the State of the Union. Washington’s speech to a joint session of Congress measured in at 1,089 words, according to the Congressional Research Service.\n\nNot every president has delivered an oral message, however. After President Thomas Jefferson eschewed a speech in favor of a written message to Congress in 1801, it took more than a century before President Woodrow Wilson revived the tradition of an in-person speech in 1913.\n\nDating back to 1964, the shortest oral delivery of a State of the Union was President Ronald Reagan’s 31-minute speech in 1986, according to The American Presidency Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The Congressional Research Service noted that speech still had a word count about three times as long as Washington’s inaugural annual message.\n\nThe longest written message to date belongs to President Jimmy Carter, who delivered a 33,667-word written State of the Union in 1981. In his final State of the Union in 2000, President Bill Clinton set the high watermark for an in-person speech at just under 90 minutes.\n\nPresident Donald Trump’s 80-minute average is the longest of all presidents dating to 1964, according to the American Presidency Project.\n\n– Rick Rouan\n\nWhy is this Biden’s first State of the Union?\n\nThe concept of an annual update from the president to members of Congress has existed as long as the presidency. President George Washington delivered the first of what was then called the “Annual Message” in 1790.\n\nThat is rooted in the constitutional requirement to provide an update “from time to time.” The speech was not formally named the State of the Union until 1947, according to the Congressional Research Service.\n\nBut recent tradition has been for presidents to not deliver a formal State of the Union in the year they were inaugurated but instead to simply speak before a joint session of Congress.\n\nPresident Joe Biden did that in 2021, as the six presidents before him had done in their inauguration years. That means Biden’s 2022 address will be his first formal State of the Union.\n\n– Rick Rouan", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/03/01"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2020/06/18/judge-justin-walker-mcconnell-protege-confirmed-court-appeals/3215707001/", "title": "Judge Justin Walker, McConnell protege, confirmed to Court of ...", "text": "Louisville native Judge Justin Walker was confirmed Thursday by the U.S. Senate for a seat on what is considered the nation’s second-most powerful court.\n\nThe Senate voted 51-42 for the nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.\n\nThe vote continues Walker’s meteoric ascendancy in the federal court system. The former law professor at the University of Louisville is only 38 and was appointed to the federal district bench just last October.\n\nBut Walker, a graduate of St. Xavier High School and later Duke and Harvard Law School, had a power ally in Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a family friend and mentor.\n\nThe confirmation puts Walker in line for a future nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Donald Trump, if he wins reelection, or a future Republican president. The appellate court in the nation’s capital has long been a springboard for future justices.\n\nThe confirmation vote went along party lines. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine was the only Republican to vote against Walker. Forty Democrats and one Independent voted against, while seven senators were absent.\n\nLegal paper:Some U of L law professors have turned on Justin Walker\n\nWalker will be the youngest judge on the court, according to Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond law professor who follows judicial nominations.\n\nIn a tweet, McConnell said, “We Kentuckians are sorry to lose Judge Justin Walker, but we’re very proud this brilliant and fair jurist will be serving our nation on the D.C. Circuit.”\n\nThe National Law Journal reported this month that five U of L law professors who supported Walker for U.S. District Court said he needed more seasoning before he was elevated to the higher court.\n\nOne of them, Sam Marcosson, also said Walker's order allowing to a church to hold drive-in services on Easter Sunday amid the coronavirus pandemic was “troubling” because it reached unnecessary legal conclusions and had a “tenor and a tone that I thought was over the top.” Walker wrote that Mayor Greg Fischer was trying to “criminalize Easter.”\n\nWalker has no trial experience but had the conservative pedigree that McConnell has embraced in trying to remake the federal courts, which he has cited as his legacy.\n\nWalker was a star in the Federalist Society and clerked for both Justice Anthony Kennedy and Judge Brett Kavanaugh when he was on the D.C. Circuit. Walker then campaigned for Kavanaugh’s nomination to the highest court when he came under fire over reports that he sexually assaulted Christine Blasey Ford when the two were in high school.\n\nWalker gave 119 interviews to the news media and made several speeches paid for by the Federalist Society rebutting Kavanaugh critics, The New York Times has reported, and Kavanaugh attended Walker’s swearing-in ceremony last fall.\n\nRead this:5 things to know about Walker and his backing by McConnell\n\nDemocratic opponents on the Senate Judiciary Committee portrayed Walker as a conservative ideologue and noted he said at the ceremony that “in Brett Kavanaugh’s America, we will not surrender while you wage war on our work, or our cause, or our hope, or our dream.”\n\nWalker also said: “Although we are winning we have not won. Although we celebrate today, we cannot take for granted tomorrow — or we will lose our courts and our country to critics who call us terrifying and who describe us as deplorable.”\n\nDemocrats also said Walker had denounced the Affordable Care Act, but Walker testified he did so in his private capacity and would abide by the Supreme Court decision upholding it.\n\nHis confirmation came despite last-minute misgivings expressed by some of his former colleagues at U of L's Brandeis School of Law, who questioned his experience and judgment.\n\nWalker was raised in Louisville by his mother, Deborah Walker, whom The Times said he once described as “a single working mom” who “made indescribable sacrifices to provide me, the first in my family to graduate from college, with the opportunities she didn’t have herself.”\n\nBut his maternal grandfather, Frank R. Metts, was a millionaire real estate developer and Kentucky Transportation Cabinet secretary under Gov. John Y. Brown Jr. Walker’s parents divorced in 1985, when he was 3.\n\nTop headlines:Daniel Cameron won't put timetable on Breonna Taylor investigation\n\nWalker grew up in a Democratic family but was a conservative from a young age. At 13, he wrote a letter to The Courier Journal praising the Christian Coalition and saying he had recently attended its convention.\n\nHe met McConnell when he was in high school, introduced by the husband of his grandmother after she she remarried.\n\nIn 2002, Walker interned in McConnell’s office, and after graduating from Duke two years later, he worked on the reelection campaign of President George W. Bush, and then served as a speechwriter for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.\n\nWalker worked at a large D.C. law firm before and after his clerkships, then moved in 2015 to Louisville, where he practiced law on his own before joining the Louisville office of Dinsmore & Shohl last year.\n\nAt U of L, he co-directed the Ordered Liberty Program at Brandeis Law School — a fellowship devoted to the study of “federalism, separation of powers, originalism, natural rights, and the common good.”\n\nWalker is married, and he and his wife, Anne, whom he met at Duke, have one daughter. They have run a nonprofit in Louisville called Global Game Changers for children from grades K-5 that tries to “transform student outcomes and empower them to overcome apathy and feel empathy,” according to its website.\n\nWalker was well-liked at Brandeis Law School. Last July, 16 faculty and staff of various political persuasions signed a letter submitted to the Judiciary Committee endorsing his nomination for U.S. District Court.\n\nSome professors independently supported his elevation to the appellate court, but there was no letter sent by the faculty.\n\nMore news:DACA recipients relieved SCOTUS denies Trump bid to end protections\n\nAndrew Wolfson: 502-582-7189; awolfson@courier-journal.com; Twitter: @adwolfson. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courier-journal.com/andreww.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2020/06/18"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/10/09/mitch-mcconnell-campaign-brags-access-elaine-chao/3917488002/", "title": "Mitch McConnell campaign brags about access to Elaine Chao", "text": "U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell doesn't seem bothered by ethical questions about whether Kentucky has had too much access to Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao. In fact, his reelection campaign is trumpeting that news.\n\nThis week, McConnell's campaign promoted a Politico story about the higher number of meetings Kentucky officials had with Chao — his wife of more than 25 years — compared with representatives from other states, even though that disparity raises concerns.\n\n\"In all, 25 percent of Chao’s scheduled meetings with local officials from any state from January 2017 to March 2018 were with Kentuckians, who make up about only 1.3 percent of the U.S. population,\" Politico reported Monday.\n\nThe McConnell campaign was quick to share the story on Twitter — with apparent pride.\n\n\"Mitch McConnell is a Kentucky Asset,\" the Team Mitch account tweeted Monday, along with a link to Politico's reporting.\n\nPreviously:House panel investigates Elaine Chao over possible conflicts\n\nU.S. Sen. Rand Paul's chief strategist, Doug Stafford, tweeted: \"Where are my \"Corrupt for Kentucky\" shirts ...\" on Tuesday after McConnell's campaign promoted the Politico story again by sharing a picture of the article and a graphic showing how Kentuckians got more meetings with Chao than other states' officials did.\n\nHe followed up with another tweet noting that he was \"ribbing\" the idea that anyone thinks helping Kentucky hurts McConnell's campaign.\n\nMcConnell, who's up for reelection next year, often highlights his use of his clout in Washington, D.C., to secure federal dollars to support his home state's needs.\n\nFor example: In an appearance Monday at the University of Kentucky, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said a landmark study UK is working on — with the help of an $87 million grant — to reduce deaths from opioid overdoses wouldn't be possible without funding McConnell shepherded through Congress.\n\nMcConnell's campaign manager, Kevin Golden, echoed that sentiment in a statement this week: \"Senator McConnell's leadership position gives Kentucky a great advantage over wealthier states like New York or California and we encourage you to explore how his tremendous influence has helped in a number of other ways like expanding opportunity for Kentucky's hemp farmers or delivering the largest opioid grant in Bluegrass history.\"\n\nRead this:In ad, McConnell says impeachment will fail 'with me as majority leader'\n\nFederal ethics rules don't allow government officials to take actions that benefit themselves or close family members, Politico noted.\n\nAn ethics expert indicated Chao's marriage to the Senate majority leader makes this situation almost unprecedented, although she isn't necessarily breaking rules by disproportionately meeting with Kentucky officials.\n\nThe U.S. Department of Transportation has defended Chao. A spokesman said it's natural for her to meet with people from Kentucky since she herself is a Kentuckian.\n\nIn a different statement to The Courier Journal, a department spokesperson criticized Politico's story: \"It’s based on a few outdated and incomplete calendars provided by dark money, partisan political groups,\" the statement reads. \"The story also ignores the countless hours the Department puts in each day to revitalize American infrastructure ...\"\n\nThis isn't the first time Chao's predilection for Kentucky has been scrutinized.\n\nOver the summer, Politico reported the Transportation Department had designated Todd Inman, who hails from Owensboro, as a special liaison who advised local officials in Kentucky on grant applications, including one for a highway-improvement project in the Daviess County town that had been rejected in the past.\n\nCritics: McConnell and Chao using a power (couple) play to help his reelection\n\nMorgan Watkins: 502-582-4502; mwatkins@courierjournal.com; Twitter: @morganwatkins26. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courier-journal.com/morganw.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2019/10/09"}]}
+{"question_id": "20220617_3", "search_time": "2022/06/17/16:34", "search_result": [{"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/13/us/idaho-patriot-front-arrests-pride-what-we-know/index.html", "title": "Idaho Pride event: 31 men with ties to Patriot Front were arrested ...", "text": "(CNN) After an alarmed 911 caller reported a group dressed like a \"little army\" getting into a moving truck, police in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, arrested 31 men believed to be linked to a White nationalist group, who had plans to riot at a weekend Pride event, authorities said.\n\nThe large group -- which police believe was affiliated with Patriot Front -- was seen at a hotel piling into a U-Haul with riot gear, the caller told a 911 dispatcher. They were later pulled over and arrested, Coeur d'Alene Police Chief Lee White said.\n\nThe group was headed to a Pride in the Park event at Coeur d'Alene City Park, police said. The event included a Pride walk and performances by local musicians, dancers and drag artists.\n\nLocal and state police were plentiful and on high alert Saturday because they wanted \"to make sure this event went off safely,\" Mayor Jim Hammond said. They'd also received threats about a separate group meeting in another city park; threats that turned out to be unfounded, he said.\n\nHammond referred to those arrested as young men who \"seem to not have a purpose.\" Asked what he thought the group might have done had police not thwarted their alleged plans, he said, \"I have not seen that these people had any firearms, so I think it would've been mostly just disruption and trying to cause fear.\"\n\nPolice found at least one smoke grenade, White said.\n\nAll 31 individuals were from outside the local area, Hammond said previously. Just two are from Idaho, according to a booking summary from the Kootenai County Sheriff's Office.\n\nIt's unclear why they picked Coeur d'Alene's out of all the Pride events going on in the nation, but Hammond said perhaps they thought they could \"get away with more\" in a smaller community like Coeur d'Alene, a city of about 56,000 residents located just over the Washington border from Spokane.\n\nThe North Idaho Pride Alliance, which organized the event, released a statement Sunday saying its members were resting \"after successfully organizing a momentous, joyful, and SAFE Pride in the Park community celebration under the most challenging of circumstances. ... We are deeply grateful to law enforcement agencies who were present and professionally responded.\"\n\nHere's what we know about the arrests:\n\nPolice received report of a group dressed like 'a little army'\n\nThere was a large police presence at the Pride event after authorities received information \"there were a number of groups\" planing to disrupt Saturday's activities, White said.\n\nPolice did not have information that Patriot Front members were coming, White said Monday.\n\n\"We had some information that there might be some, some individuals who are loosely affiliated with the some of the groups who were planning to protest the Pride event that day, and so we were adequately staffed for it, but we didn't have any intelligence that there was going to be a riotous group coming to this event prior to the 911 call that we received,\" he said.\n\nA concerned citizen called police Saturday afternoon to report \"approximately 20 people jumped into a U-Haul\" in a local hotel parking lot, the chief said.\n\nPolice arrested 31 men near a Pride event in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, on Saturday.\n\nThe group was equipped with shields and masks and \"looked like a little army,\" the caller said, according to White.\n\nAbout 10 minutes after the call, officers stopped the U-Haul and detained 31 people, White said. They were charged with misdemeanor conspiracy to riot, he said.\n\nThe group was dressed similarly, wearing khaki pants, blue shirts and hats with plastic inside them, the chief said. They were also equipped with \"shields, shin guards and other riot gear,\" along with papers White described as \"similar to an operations plan that a police or military group would put together for an event.\"\n\n\"It is clear to us, based on the gear that the individuals had with them, the stuff they had in their possession in the U-Haul with them, along with paperwork that was seized from them, that they came to riot downtown,\" White said.\n\n\"I think some of us were a bit surprised by not only the level of preparation that we saw, but the equipment that was carried and worn by those individuals, along with the large amount of equipment that was left in the van when the stop happened,\" White said at a news conference Monday.\n\n\"That level of preparation is not something you see every day,\" the chief said.\n\nCity, state and Kootenai County police responded with two SWAT teams, White said.\n\n\"I don't think this would have been as successful had we not had one extremely astute citizen who saw something that was very concerning to them and reported it to us,\" he said.\n\nOfficials aren't releasing the identity of the caller to protect that person, White said.\n\n\"Since myself and other members of our agency have been receiving threats, including death threats, I think it is appropriate that we withhold that person's information at this time,\" the chief said.\n\nThe men were released after posting bond, the Kootenai County Sheriff's Office said. They're due back in court at a later date.\n\nThe individuals came from a dozen states, according to a booking summary from the sheriff's office. Seven are from Texas, six from Utah, five from Washington and three from Colorado. One was from as far away as Alabama. The youngest is 20 years old, and the oldest is 40, according to the summary.\n\nLaw enforcement arrested 31 men believed to be affiliated with a White nationalist group.\n\nCoeur d'Alene police are leading an investigation with the FBI's assistance, FBI spokesperson Sandra Yi Barker.\n\nPolice arrested at least two other people in connection with the Pride event, authorities said. They were charged with disorderly conduct and trespassing, police said.\n\nMen affiliated with White nationalist group, police say\n\nIn addition to the clothing associated with Patriot Front, most of the men had logos on their hats \"consistent with the Patriot Front group,\" and some were wearing arm patches associated with the organization, White said.\n\nThe Patriot Front believes their White ancestors conquered America and \"bequeathed it to them,\" according to the Anti-Defamation League . Members espouse fascist and anti-Semitic beliefs, which they spread through propaganda campaigns, the ADL says.\n\nThe Texas-based group was formed following the deadly 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, when members of the White supremacist group, Vanguard America, split off to form their own organization, the ADL says.\n\nThomas Ryan Rousseau\n\nAmong those arrested Saturday was Patriot Front leader Thomas Ryan Rousseau, Kootenai County sheriff's Sgt. Shane Moline said.\n\nRousseau led several dozen members of Vanguard America Texas during the Unite the Right rally and later led a contingent of VA members to create Patriot Front.\n\nCNN has reached out to the Patriot Front and people believed to be associated with Rousseau but did not immediately hear back.\n\nCoeur d'Alene residents and businesses have long made it clear the city is \"too great to hate,\" going back to the early aughts, when the Southern Poverty Law Center helped the city shut down an Aryan Nations group with a compound north of the city, Hammond told CNN.\n\n\"We are not going to back to the days of the Aryan Nations,\" Hammond said at the news conference Monday.\n\n\"We are past that and we will do everything we can to make sure that we continue to stay past those kinds of problems,\" the mayor said. \"We are a culture of love and kindness, and we will continue to be.\"\n\nCorrection: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that CNN had reached out to Thomas Ryan Rousseau's legal representative. It's unclear if he has legal representation yet.", "authors": ["Elizabeth Wolfe"], "publish_date": "2022/06/13"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/11/us/31-people-arrested-for-conspiracy-to-riot-near-idaho-pride-parade/index.html", "title": "Coeur D'Alene: 31 people arrested for conspiracy to riot near Pride ...", "text": "(CNN) Idaho police officers arrested 31 people Saturday who are believed to be affiliated with the White nationalist group Patriot Front, after they were seen gathering near a Pride parade in the city of Coeur d'Alene, authorities said.\n\n\"It is clear to us based on the gear that the individuals had with them, the stuff they had in their possession, the U-Haul with them along with paperwork that was seized from them, that they came to riot downtown,\" Coeur d'Alene Police Chief Lee White said during a news conference.\n\nThe FBI is assisting local police in its investigation, according to FBI Public Affairs Specialist Sandra Yi Barker. Barker said Coeur d'Alene police are the lead law enforcement agency investigating the situation.\n\nThe FBI is assisting Coeur d'Alene police in their investigation of the incident.\n\nThe people who were arrested were all wearing similar clothing associated with Patriot Front, including identical insignia, and there was at least one smoke grenade in their possession, police said.\n\nAccording to the Anti-Defamation League , Patriot Front is a white supremacist group whose members maintain their ancestors conquered America and left it to them. The group split from another white supremacist group, Vanguard America, in late August 2017, per the ADL.\n\nRead More", "authors": ["Andy Rose"], "publish_date": "2022/06/11"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/14/us/idaho-pride-conspiracy-to-riot-group-documents/index.html", "title": "Group allegedly affiliated with Patriot Front had protective gear ...", "text": "CNN —\n\nThe people believed to be affiliated with White nationalist group Patriot Front arrested in Idaho over the weekend appear to have been well-prepared with detailed plans and protective gear to “antagonize and cause disorder” at the Coeur d’Alene Pride event on Saturday, according to a new court filing.\n\nAmong the items seized in the arrests of 31 men who piled into a U-Haul box truck, were documents taken from the group leader, Thomas Rousseau, outlining the hate group’s moral intentions, and an operational plan, as detailed in an affidavit of probable cause filed Monday in Kootenai County District Court.\n\n“(One) document was typed and discussed the group being there to raise a voice against the moral depravity which permits events such as this to take place,” writes Coeur d’Alene Police Officer Alan Gilbert. “There was also a typed organizational document outlining call locations, primary checkpoints, drill times, prep times and observation windows. There were also GPS coordinates for a drop point with two backup plans.”\n\nAccording to Gilbert’s probable cause declaration, the group’s plan was intended to “antagonize and cause disorder” and outlines an exit strategy to be implemented “once an appropriate amount of time and confrontational dynamic has been established.”\n\nOnly two men questioned by police openly admitted to being part of the Patriot Front, an officer stated.\n\nThomas Rousseau is the leader of the group, officials say Kootenai County Sheriff\n\nItems taken into evidence from the box truck and one other vehicle believed to be associated with the group included “fashioned metal shields, flags on abnormally long metal poles and voice amplification type devices,” according to the affidavit. A smoke bomb/grenade was also recovered.\n\nIn addition to being dressed similarly in khaki cargo pants, navy blue T-shirts adorned with Patriot Front patches, and face masks, hats, and sunglasses, several of the men tucked “a hard plastic type insert, inside the hat, similar to a hard hat worn by constructions workers,” the declaration states. Several men wore plastic shin guards and other protective gear and others carried tactical medical kits, radios, and cameras and digital recording devices on their persons.\n\n“The adorned equipment was similar in nature to our law enforcement riot control equipment utilized when we are anticipating a physical altercation,” Gilbert writes in the court document.\n\nCNN has reached out to the Patriot Front and people believed to be associated with Rousseau but has not heard back. CNN has also not been able to identify legal representation for Rousseau at this time.\n\nThe men were released after posting bail, online court records and inmate rosters show, and are due back in court at a later date. Most are from out of state, including Rousseau, who is from Texas, according to the affidavit.\n\nHis next court date has been scheduled for August 1, according to online court records.\n\nGroup split from another after Charlottesville rally\n\nThe Patriot Front believes their White ancestors conquered America and “bequeathed it to them,” according to the Anti-Defamation League. Members espouse fascist and anti-Semitic beliefs, which they spread through propaganda campaigns, the ADL says.\n\nThe Texas-based group was formed following the deadly 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, when members of the White supremacist group, Vanguard America, split off to form their own organization, the ADL says.\n\nThe 31 men were arrested after someone saw them gathering near a Pride parade and called 911 to report a group dressed like a “little army” getting into a moving truck.\n\nThe group was headed to a Pride in the Park event at Coeur d’Alene City Park, police have said. The event included a Pride walk and performances by local musicians, dancers and drag artists.\n\nLocal and state police were plentiful and on high alert Saturday because they wanted “to make sure this event went off safely,” Mayor Jim Hammond told CNN’s New Day on Monday.", "authors": ["Cheri Mossburg"], "publish_date": "2022/06/14"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/14/us/national-pride-events-security-measures/index.html", "title": "How Pride events nationally are responding after a White ...", "text": "(CNN) With Pride celebrations scheduled throughout the month in cities big and small across the country, organizers and police departments are taking a close look at their safety plans.\n\nOver two dozen men were arrested after an alarmed 911 caller reported a group dressed like a \"little army\" getting into a moving truck. The group was headed to a Pride in the Park event at Coeur d'Alene City Park and had plans to riot, police said.\n\nWhen Debra Porta, executive director of Pride Northwest Inc., heard about what happened in Idaho, she felt \"disappointment that we still face this kind of thing and reminded that our communities are stronger together than they are apart,\" she told CNN in a statement.\n\nPorta has been volunteering with Pride Northwest since 2006 and said safety has always been a top priority at the annual event and this year is no different.\n\nTheir security strategy entails a combination of local law enforcement, private security, de-escalation teams and infrastructure support from several local jurisdictions, she said. Portland Pride Waterfront Festival in Oregon is scheduled for this weekend.\n\nOver 2,000 miles away, Chicago will also be celebrating this weekend and David O'Neal Brown, Chicago's superintendent of police, said during a Monday news conference he wanted \"to put those who might be planning something on notice that we are going to be vigilant to ensure that this event, as well as others, go off safely.\"\n\nThreats to the city's celebrations will not be tolerated, Brown said.\n\nIn San Francisco, the city's Pride parade is scheduled for June 26.\n\n\"This week marks six years since the Pulse tragedy, and we commemorate the loss of so many lives taken from us, Carolyn Wysinger, board president of San Francisco Pride told CNN in a statement. Forty-nine people were killed at the gay nightclub in Orlando by an American-born man who'd pledged allegiance to ISIS.\n\n\"We have always been vigilant when it comes to safety and are working on a very coordinated basis with local law enforcement, city and community leaders to ensure this year's Pride is safe and people can enjoy themselves knowing we are taking every precaution possible,\" Wysinger said.\n\nIt's not just bigger cities giving their security measures a second look. Oklahomans for Equality, the organizers of Tulsa Pride, said it had increased security measures following a mass shooting at a Tulsa hospital this month.\n\n\"We have heightened our security measures with bag checks at every entrance, increased security personnel throughout the festival grounds, and, as always, no weapons will be allowed at Tulsa Pride,\" Alex Wade, deputy director of Oklahomans for Equality, said in a Monday statement. \"We ask that festivalgoers not engage with antagonistic protestors. Proving a point is not worth risking your safety.\"\n\nHis message for attendees: Stay together, stay safe, go with someone you trust and remain alert.\n\nAt a time where many communities are ramping up their safety protocols, organizers in New York City said they're not making any changes to protocols or event schedules as a result of the incident in Idaho.\n\nLast month, NYC Pride announced a new set of policies around safety, wellness, accessibility, sustainability and efforts to reinforce its commitment to ensuring the safety of festivalgoers, the organization said. \"Based on our existing safety plans we are not making any changes in response to this particular incident,\" NYC Pride spokesperson Dan Dimant told CNN in a statement.\n\nParticipation by uniformed law enforcement at Pride events can seem threatening or dangerous to an LGBTQ+ community that over decades has been targeted with excessive force, even if their presence is intended to foster a sense of community and safety, advocacy groups have said.\n\nAdditionally, NYC Pride staff and executive board go through active shooter training annually, he said.\n\nMirroring San Francisco's plan to work closely with law enforcement, organizers from Denver PrideFest and Seattle Pride say they are doing the same for their celebrations scheduled for the end of the month.\n\nAfter two years of postponed Denver PrideFest events due to the pandemic, the organization said it's excited for this year's festivities.\n\nAs a direct result of what happened in Idaho, the Seattle Police Department and Iron Oak Security, Seattle Pride's privately contracted security company, will increase the number of Seattle police officers at the parade to a \"couple hundred\" in addition to roughly 80 Iron Oaks officers, Krystal Marx, the executive director of Seattle Pride, told CNN.", "authors": ["Alisha Ebrahimji"], "publish_date": "2022/06/14"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/06/13/patriot-front-idaho-pride-what-we-know/7610970001/", "title": "White supremacist group Patriot Front charged with planning 'riot' at ...", "text": "Thirty-one members of the national white supremacist group Patriot Front were arrested Saturday in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, and charged with conspiracy to riot, a misdemeanor, according to police.\n\nIn a news conference Saturday, Police Chief Lee White said a concerned citizen reported \"a little army\" of about 20 people wearing masks and holding shields loading into a U-Haul truck. Police pulled over the truck about 10 minutes later, White said.\n\nPolice received reports that groups planned to disrupt LGBTQ Pride activities planned for the weekend, White said, leading to a heavy police presence in downtown Coeur d'Alene, about 30 miles east of Spokane, Washington.\n\nExperts on extremism identified the suspects as members of Patriot Front, which often engages in propaganda efforts, such as putting up posters and making videos, and \"flash mob\" events, where identically dressed members march around shouting slogans and waving flags.\n\nHere's what we know:\n\nWho was arrested in Idaho?\n\nWithin hours of the arrests, the Kootenai County Sheriff's Office released booking photos and names for 31 men from Texas, Wyoming, South Dakota, Washington, Colorado, Arkansas and other states. Most of them appeared to be white men in their 20s and 30s.\n\nEach man was charged with one count of conspiracy to riot, White said, stressing more charges could come.\n\n“They came to riot downtown,” White said at the news conference.\n\nThe founder of Patriot Front, Thomas Rousseau, 23, of Texas, was among the 31 arrested.\n\nAll of the suspects bonded out of jail and were scheduled to be arraigned in the coming weeks, Kootenai County 1st District Trial Court Administrator Karlene Behringer told USA TODAY.\n\n'THOROUGHLY MAINSTREAM ON THE POLITICAL RIGHT':Month before Buffalo shooting, poll finds, 7 in 10 Republicans believed in 'great replacement' ideas\n\nWhat is Patriot Front?\n\nAccording to the Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism, Patriot Front is responsible for approximately 80% of white supremacist propaganda across the USA. Members put up flyers and hang banners.\n\n\"Patriot Front espouses racism, antisemitism and intolerance under the guise of preserving the ethnic and cultural origins of their European ancestors,\" ADL Vice President Oren Segal said. \"They essentially believe that this is their country and they need to fight for the perception of what it was.\"\n\nThe group, founded in 2017 by Rousseau, regularly produces videos with a distinctive red-white-and-blue aesthetic that are posted to its various social media platforms. The videos often feature men marching, training, putting up stickers and hanging flags.\n\nWhen the group appears in public, members wear identical uniforms of khaki slacks and baseball caps, blue jackets and white face masks.\n\nIn January, the journalism collective Unicorn Riot published archives of hundreds of pages of Patriot Front's private chats. The leak revealed the group has a rigorous recruitment process, said Megan Squire, a research fellow with the Southern Poverty Law Center.\n\nIn February, Squire and other researchers with the SPLC reported that one in five applicants to Patriot Front claimed to hold current or former military status.\n\n\"They want to appear as strong and organized and orderly in their appearance,\" Squire said. \"But they're fine as coming across as white nationalists and fascists, they just want to be more disciplined about it.\"\n\nShe said, \"They want to come across more like the Hitler Youth.\"\n\nYES, AMERICAN VOTER DEMOGRAPHICS ARE CHANGING:No, that’s not what replacement theory is\n\nWas Patriot Front ramping up?\n\nExperts on extremism noted that it would be fairly unusual for Patriot Front to deliberately get involved in a violent confrontation. Usually, the group tends toward \"flash mob\" events, where they suddenly appear in a public space, march for a short time, chanting and waving flags, then get in a U-Haul and disappear.\n\nThe group received media attention when it held a rally in December in Washington.\n\nSquire said it's hard to tell whether Saturday's arrests resulted from a propaganda stunt that turned sour, or if the group planned to violently confront people perceived as their enemies who were attending Pride events.\n\n\"They were either continuing what they have already been doing, or they were ramping up. I can see either of those being the case,\" Squire said. \"We'll have to see some chats or testimony from informants to know.\"\n\nHow embarrassing is this for Patriot Front?\n\nThe arrests are an embarrassment for Patriot Front, experts told USA TODAY.\n\nThe group prides itself on discipline, secrecy and, above all, carefully curating its public image, Squire said. Social media teemed with videos of Patriot Front members kneeling on the ground with their hands zip-tied behind their backs. Onlookers jeered as Rousseau was arrested.\n\n\"They looked very weak, kneeling on the ground instead of putting on this show of strength,\" Squire said.\n\nSquire noted that for a group that is very careful about not revealing members' identities or being \"doxxed,\" Saturday's arrests and the subsequent release of their names represented a misstep.\n\n\"Thomas (Rousseau) is obsessed with them not being doxxed, and now 31 of them have been doxxed,\" she said. \"He’s basically exposed all of them.\"\n\nContributing: N'Dea Yancey-Bragg", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/06/13"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/15/opinions/idaho-patriot-front-pride-arrests-hemmer/index.html", "title": "Opinion: Arrests at Idaho Pride event could be a harbinger of things ...", "text": "(CNN) A Pride event in Coeur d'Alene, a small city in Idaho's panhandle, might seem like an odd target for one of the country's most active White supremacist groups . But on Saturday, 31 White men believed by authorities to be affiliated with the group Patriot Front huddled in the back of a U-Haul, allegedly planning to disrupt the gathering of LGBTQ people and allies in the city. (The men were charged with misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to riot.)\n\nBut both the place and the event make sense in the context of a White nationalist movement that combines spectacles of deadly terrorism with efforts to integrate itself into the mainstream right in the US. Those two strands of the movement may seem to be at odds -- the lethal violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, for instance, helped trigger the collapse of several far-right and neo-Nazi organizations and largely sidelined its organizers -- but they have in fact proven to be a potent pairing.\n\nNot only have far-right activists become far more intertwined with the Republican Party, but as the January 6 insurrection and subsequent attempts to minimize it have shown, the Republican Party has become far more tolerant of political violence.\n\nIdaho has been on the leading edge of this alliance. Which makes sense: fordecades, the state has attracted far-right groups . Militias, White separatists, Christian nationalists, Aryan Nations and others have viewed the state as a safe haven. It was the state where, a few hours north of Coeur d'Alene, Randy and Vicky Weaver hid out from a federal warrant in 1992, leading to the deadly siege at Ruby Ridge\n\nAnd it is the state whose current lieutenant governor, Janice McGeachin, has repeatedly aligned with anti-government militias and White nationalist groups. (As an added bonus, she attempted to usurp the governor's powers in October 2021 by issuing an executive order while he was out of state, which he immediately rescinded.)\n\nThat blurred space between the state GOP and far-right extremists makes Idaho the ideal spot for the Patriot Front, the group formed out of Vanguard America, a neo-Nazi group that largely disbanded in the aftermath of the deadly Charlottesville riot in 2017.\n\nThomas Rousseau, the founder of Patriot Front, was in Charlottesville as a member of Vanguard America ; James Alex Fields, Jr., who murdered Heather Heyer and injured scores more when he rammed his car into a gathering of antiracist activists, had hoisted a Vanguard America shield at the riot earlier that day (though Vanguard America claimed he was never a member).\n\nPatriot Front emerged after Charlottesville because Rousseau believed, having been tarnished by both lethal violence and Nazi iconography, White nationalists needed to rehabilitate their image if they were going to grow the movement. A manifesto for the group leans heavily on patriotic language and old-fashioned Americana, sprinkled with quotes from former presidents and White supremacist heroes like General Robert E. Lee and automaker-and-antisemite Henry Ford.\n\nThe group's symbols are rendered in red, white, and blue, with only small tells that the message is darker than run-of-the-mill patriotism: fasces -- the symbol of fascism -- embedded in an image of an eagle surrounded by stars, different symbols replacing the 50 stars on the American flags they carry at their rallies.\n\nIn that sense, Patriot Front is carrying on the work of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, which sold itself as an effort to bring together different right-wing factions under the banner of free speech. That gathering was billed as a free speech rally aimed at the protection of Confederate monuments.\n\nRichard Spencer, one of the main organizers of the White nationalist event in Charlottesville, understood the real potency of embracing a set of issues that appealed to right-wing Republicans. For the Patriot Front, attacking a Pride event is less about the group's radicalism than about its efforts to align with the mainstream right, coming as it does at the same moment that right-wing media personalities and politicians are backing anti-gay legislation and carrying out a campaign to demonize trans people . Notably, the Patriot Front has also repeatedly marched alongside anti-abortion activists since 2018.\n\nNor is Idaho the only place where far-right groups are attempting to work their way into the Republican Party. In Miami-Dade County, the New York Times reports, the local Republican Party is now riddled with Proud Boys, members of a far-right group connected to both Charlottesville in 2017 and the Capitol insurrection in 2021.\n\nThat law enforcement was able to disrupt the planned riot in Idaho offers a slim ray of hope. Local police are working with the FBI , taking seriously the types of coordinated conspiracies that constitute a major form of far-right intimidation and violence (see the recent seditious conspiracy charges against Proud Boy members allegedly involved in the attack on the Capitol).\n\nGet our free weekly newsletter Sign up for CNN Opinion's newsletter. Join us on Twitter and Facebook\n\nFederal agencies are taking far-right terrorism more seriously, as the recent warning about the potential for increased political violence from the Department of Homeland Security shows, and groups like the January 6 select committee are connecting the dots for the American public between far-right violence and antidemocratic procedural extremism.\n\nStill, those measures are reactions to the growing success of White nationalist and far-right groups in not only engaging in acts of political intimidation and violence but in efforts to embed themselves in the political mechanisms of states like Idaho and Florida. What is happening in Idaho may be a far more advanced version of the far-right Republican alliance, but it is not an aberration -- it may be a harbinger of things to come.", "authors": ["Opinion Nicole Hemmer"], "publish_date": "2022/06/15"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/10/09/mitch-mcconnell-campaign-brags-access-elaine-chao/3917488002/", "title": "Mitch McConnell campaign brags about access to Elaine Chao", "text": "U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell doesn't seem bothered by ethical questions about whether Kentucky has had too much access to Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao. In fact, his reelection campaign is trumpeting that news.\n\nThis week, McConnell's campaign promoted a Politico story about the higher number of meetings Kentucky officials had with Chao — his wife of more than 25 years — compared with representatives from other states, even though that disparity raises concerns.\n\n\"In all, 25 percent of Chao’s scheduled meetings with local officials from any state from January 2017 to March 2018 were with Kentuckians, who make up about only 1.3 percent of the U.S. population,\" Politico reported Monday.\n\nThe McConnell campaign was quick to share the story on Twitter — with apparent pride.\n\n\"Mitch McConnell is a Kentucky Asset,\" the Team Mitch account tweeted Monday, along with a link to Politico's reporting.\n\nPreviously:House panel investigates Elaine Chao over possible conflicts\n\nU.S. Sen. Rand Paul's chief strategist, Doug Stafford, tweeted: \"Where are my \"Corrupt for Kentucky\" shirts ...\" on Tuesday after McConnell's campaign promoted the Politico story again by sharing a picture of the article and a graphic showing how Kentuckians got more meetings with Chao than other states' officials did.\n\nHe followed up with another tweet noting that he was \"ribbing\" the idea that anyone thinks helping Kentucky hurts McConnell's campaign.\n\nMcConnell, who's up for reelection next year, often highlights his use of his clout in Washington, D.C., to secure federal dollars to support his home state's needs.\n\nFor example: In an appearance Monday at the University of Kentucky, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said a landmark study UK is working on — with the help of an $87 million grant — to reduce deaths from opioid overdoses wouldn't be possible without funding McConnell shepherded through Congress.\n\nMcConnell's campaign manager, Kevin Golden, echoed that sentiment in a statement this week: \"Senator McConnell's leadership position gives Kentucky a great advantage over wealthier states like New York or California and we encourage you to explore how his tremendous influence has helped in a number of other ways like expanding opportunity for Kentucky's hemp farmers or delivering the largest opioid grant in Bluegrass history.\"\n\nRead this:In ad, McConnell says impeachment will fail 'with me as majority leader'\n\nFederal ethics rules don't allow government officials to take actions that benefit themselves or close family members, Politico noted.\n\nAn ethics expert indicated Chao's marriage to the Senate majority leader makes this situation almost unprecedented, although she isn't necessarily breaking rules by disproportionately meeting with Kentucky officials.\n\nThe U.S. Department of Transportation has defended Chao. A spokesman said it's natural for her to meet with people from Kentucky since she herself is a Kentuckian.\n\nIn a different statement to The Courier Journal, a department spokesperson criticized Politico's story: \"It’s based on a few outdated and incomplete calendars provided by dark money, partisan political groups,\" the statement reads. \"The story also ignores the countless hours the Department puts in each day to revitalize American infrastructure ...\"\n\nThis isn't the first time Chao's predilection for Kentucky has been scrutinized.\n\nOver the summer, Politico reported the Transportation Department had designated Todd Inman, who hails from Owensboro, as a special liaison who advised local officials in Kentucky on grant applications, including one for a highway-improvement project in the Daviess County town that had been rejected in the past.\n\nCritics: McConnell and Chao using a power (couple) play to help his reelection\n\nMorgan Watkins: 502-582-4502; mwatkins@courierjournal.com; Twitter: @morganwatkins26. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courier-journal.com/morganw.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2019/10/09"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/50-states/2020/02/03/tibetan-monks-turtle-release-puppy-rescue-news-around-states/41132187/", "title": "Tibetan monks at turtle release, puppy rescue 911: News from ...", "text": "From USA TODAY Network and wire reports\n\nAlabama\n\nScottsboro: Jackson County plans to reopen the park where a deadly fire at a marina killed eight people a week ago. Most of Jackson County Park will reopen Monday, officials said, but the part of the marina where fire occurred will still be off-limits. Paul Smith, the county emergency management director, said crews would be cleaning up the site through the weekend. Environmental damage from the blaze didn’t get outside the immediate area around the marina, he told a news conference Friday. A fire broke out on a dock at the marina Jan. 27, destroying about three dozen boats and claiming eight lives. Officials have not determined the cause of the fire, but they said investigators are looking at one boat in particular. Most burned boats that sunk in the wide creek where the marina is located off the Tennessee River have been removed, Smith said, but some remain. Salvage work will take “quite a while,” he said.\n\nAlaska\n\nJuneau: Gov. Mike Dunleavy is planning town hall meetings centered on the state’s fiscal situation and future. Events are planned for Petersburg on Monday and Wrangell on Tuesday. Dunleavy’s office said the town halls will be open to the public. Additional public events will be announced later as part of a town hall series, his office said. Dunleavy has said he plans to more directly communicate with Alaskans. His first year in office was marked by an ongoing recall effort, which was fueled by anger over budget cuts he proposed last year. Dunleavy has called the recall effort political. Besides the town halls, Dunleavy plans to meet with school and community leaders, tribes, business groups and nonprofits across the state, according to his office. Dunleavy told reporters Friday that the state is paying for the upcoming trips. He faced criticism last year for holding town halls hosted by Americans for Prosperity-Alaska.\n\nArizona\n\nFlagstaff: The City Council drew an overflow crowd as it moved toward declaring a climate emergency to address climate change and achieve carbon neutrality by 2030. With more than 250 people present for the council’s consideration of the issue at a meeting last week, dozens had to sit on folding chairs in the lobby of City Hall to watch a livestream, the Arizona Daily Sun reports. The council is now poised to officially adopt the resolution following a legal review. “We have seen and felt the sense of emergency,” Councilwoman Regina Salas said after numerous members of the public spoke. The measure would be nonbinding. But activist Sara Kubisty said declaring a climate emergency sets a standard that residents and voters can cite during future policy discussions. Mayor Coral Evans said she supported the resolution but warned that further climate action will take real effort and won’t always be popular.\n\nArkansas\n\nJacksonville: The City Council voted Friday to allow new tests on fingerprints and DNA evidence relating to the case of a man the state put to death in 2017. The council voted to allow the tests that Ledell Lee’s family contends could exonerate him of the 1993 slaying of Debra Reese. Patricia Young, Lee’s sister, had sued the city to allow the new tests. Representing the family were the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Arkansas and the Innocence Project. The groups said they plan to have the DNA evidence tested at a nationally accredited laboratory at Young’s expense and to upload the fingerprints to a national database. Lee was the first of four inmates Arkansas executed in April 2017 before its supply of a lethal injection drug expired. The state had originally planned to execute eight inmates, but four were spared by court rulings.\n\nCalifornia\n\nSan Francisco: A conservation group has reached an agreement to buy a canyon in the Santa Cruz Mountains that includes 100 acres of ancient redwood trees, a purchase that will help create a continuous corridor of protected redwood habitat stretching to the Pacific Ocean. Save the Redwoods League reached an agreement Thursday to buy the 564-acre Cascade Creek, nestled between Big Basin Redwoods and Ano Nuevo state parks, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. The towering redwoods have never felt the blade of a saw, the kind to which conservationists reverently refer as “old-growth.” “We got here just in time,” said Sam Hodder, president and CEO of Save the Redwoods League, gesturing toward blue paint marks, which indicate they were once the target of loggers. The league has so far raised $8.6 million of the $9.6 million needed to complete the transaction, which is expected to close May 30.\n\nColorado\n\nDenver: The state Senate formally approved a death penalty repeal bill Friday and sent it to the House, where prospects for passage are favorable. Gov. Jared Polis has said he will sign a repeal bill. The 19-13 vote came in the seventh effort in recent years to repeal the state’s death penalty. The bill would apply to offenses charged on or after July 1. It would not apply to the three men on Colorado’s death row. That provision was added to the bill at the conclusion of an hours­long Senate floor debate Thursday. Democratic Sen. Rhonda Fields of Aurora again urged her colleagues to keep capital punishment – or at least refer the question to voters. Colorado’s last execution came in 1997. Twenty-one U.S. states have abolished capital punishment. Other states are currently considering action.\n\nConnecticut\n\nHartford: The state is giving $1.3 million to help house victims of domestic violence and human trafficking, advocates say. The state’s Department of Housing and Coalition Against Domestic Violence announced a new round of funding Thursday, the Hartford Courant reports. The coalition said the money will allow the two state agencies continue to find safe housing for victims who are fleeing intimate partner violence and human trafficking. The new funding followed an initial $1.7 million received last year when the two agencies began to collaborate in their effort to house victims of abuse and human trafficking. Gov. Ned Lamont commended the agencies’ efforts and said the state has been a leader “on issues pertaining to domestic and family violence and providing protections for survivors, and enhancing these services remains a priority.”\n\nDelaware\n\nDover: Democratic Gov. John Carney is proposing to increase the state’s operating budget by almost 4% next fiscal year, boosting spending to more than $4.6 billion. The budget proposal unveiled Thursday for the fiscal year starting July 1 includes a 2% pay raise for state employees, who also received pay raises last year and the year before, at a $29.3 million cost to taxpayers. Carney’s proposed operating budget includes $36.5 million in new spending to address school enrollment growth. He’s also proposing a record capital budget of $892.8 million for construction, maintenance, technology, equipment, economic development and environmental projects. The proposal includes $50 million in new spending for clean water initiatives, $50 million for economic development, and $50 million to build and renovate schools in Wilmington.\n\nDistrict of Columbia\n\nWashington: A new study has been granted $1 million to determine who would qualify for free or discounted fares on Metro, officials say. The district’s social science center called The Lab received $1 million in grant funding to run the study, WUSA-TV reports. The city says 18% of all Metrorail riders are considered low-income, and that number jumps to 48% on Metrobus. City Administrator Rashad Young says the study ensures the city does not waste its money, as it could ultimately pay Metro for revenue it loses. Researchers say they want the system to be seamless with SmarTrip cards, perhaps linked to databases of other social services, like food stamps. Young also says the idea will not be a handout in a city where getting around can bankrupt those trying to make ends meet. Officials say 2,500 adults will be asked to participate in the study starting this summer.\n\nFlorida\n\nIslamorada: Visiting Tibetan monks helped release a rehabilitated sea turtle in the Florida Keys. Hundreds of spectators witnessed the release Thursday of “Drifter,” a 170-pound female adult loggerhead sea turtle who was rehabilitated at the Keys-based Turtle Hospital after she was found floating offshore of the Lower Keys last November. The monks hail from the Drepung Gomang Monastery in India. “Drifter” was released into the Atlantic Ocean off an Islamorada resort after an hourlong ceremony performed by the monks, each an ordained student of the Dalai Lama. Ritual chants aspired that the turtle and other animals enjoy long lives. Minyak Rinpoche, the group’s leader, said the key to ultimate happiness is compassion for all living things and loving kindness. Staff at the Turtle Hospital have been rescuing, rehabilitating and returning turtles to the wild for almost 35 years.\n\nGeorgia\n\nAtlanta: Anne Cox Chambers, a newspaper heiress, diplomat and philanthropist who was one of the country’s richest women, died Friday at the age of 100. Chambers’ nephew James Cox Kennedy announced her death to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, her company’s flagship newspaper. Chambers, a director of Cox Enterprises Inc., promoted Jimmy Carter’s political career and served as U.S. ambassador to Belgium during his presidency. Forbes estimated her net worth several years ago at nearly $17 billion. She was well known for her charitable giving and served on the boards of the Atlanta Arts Alliance and the High Museum of Art, among other institutions. She owned a white-columned manor across from the governor’s mansion in Atlanta, where Jimmy Carter brought his daughter, Amy, over to swim in the pool. Gov. Brian Kemp issued a statement Friday praising Chambers, saying her “contributions to the city of Atlanta and the state of Georgia will be felt for generations to come.”\n\nHawaii\n\nHonolulu: Law enforcement officers from around the country gathered in the city for a ceremony to honor one of two officers killed while responding to a call in which a suspect and his landlord died and nearby homes were leveled by fire. Officer Tiffany Enriquez was memorialized Thursday by her family, members of the public, and police officers and emergency personnel who formed a “thin blue line” at the Honolulu Police Department headquarters as part of Enriquez’s “end of watch” ceremony. Enriquez, 38, was a seven-year veteran of the Honolulu police assigned to Waikiki. The Air Force veteran was the first female officer to die in the line of duty in Hawaii when she was fatally shot Jan. 19 along with Officer Kaulike Kalama. Authorities say Jaroslav Hanel, 69, shot the officers and killed landlord Lois Cain in a suspected landlord-tenant dispute.\n\nIdaho\n\nBoise: The state’s roads are becoming increasingly dangerous with distracted drivers and a growing number of motorists, the director of the Idaho Department of Transportation says. “Drivers are more distracted than ever before,” Brian Ness told state lawmakers on a budget-setting committee Friday. “And I think technology may be to blame for much of that.” Legislation to impose a statewide ban on handheld cellphone use while driving is pending in the Senate, and distracted driving legislation is pending in the House. Ness isn’t taking a position on the legislation, but his agency is running a campaign aimed at having people put away distractions while driving. Ness was before the committee to present his agency’s budget. Republican Gov. Brad Little has proposed a 7.9% increase from last year to $785 million. The committee won’t start setting state agency budgets for several more weeks.\n\nIllinois\n\nChicago: The city is suing a coffee company for trademark infringement, saying its logo is nearly identical to the symbol for the city’s fire department. Fire Department Coffee’s logo features the letters F, D and C, intertwined in a stylized monogram, just like the one for the Chicago Fire Department, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. The design is likely used to confuse consumers into thinking the city has endorsed or sponsored the business, according to the lawsuit filed Thursday. Firefighters run the Rockford-based company, and “10% of proceeds from every order goes towards supporting ill or injured firefighters and first responders,” according to its website. “Fire Department Coffee pursued all of the correct legal channels and secured an approved, registered trademark for our current Fire Department Coffee logo,” the company said in a statement.\n\nIndiana\n\nIndianapolis: Four members of the Indianapolis City-County Council openly identify as members of the LGBTQ community, which is the most ever for the legislative body. Newly elected member Ali Brown, who is bisexual, says none of the candidates won in November for that reason. “None of that was part of (anything) groundbreaking or anything like that,” Brown says. “It was just something that was.” But LGBTQ advocates hope it means their concerns are better heard. “The only expectation we have is that they listen to our community and provide a voice to the issues important to our community,” says Chris Handberg, executive director of Indy Pride. “Whereas in the past, we have not had easy access to lawmakers and politicians and leaders to be able to provide some of that.” The candidates were elected as part of a Democratic wave on the council. Indiana’s legislature is overwhelmingly Republican.\n\nIowa\n\nDes Moines: A divided state Supreme Court concluded Friday that a central Iowa recreational lake that owners tout as the state’s largest private lake isn’t private at all because it is accessible via a public waterway. The ruling could have ramifications for private lake developments connected to rivers that want to keep out nonmember boaters. It’s not immediately clear how many lakes in the state could be affected. The 4-2 decision came in the case of Jeffrey Alan Meyers, who was arrested by Iowa Department of Natural Resources officers for boating while intoxicated on Lake Panorama in July 2018. The DNR officers initially stopped Meyers’ pontoon boat on the lake because it was decorated with blue lights, violating an Iowa law against displaying blue lights on a boat that’s not an emergency vessel. DNR officers claimed they had jurisdiction because the lake is connected to the publicly accessible Middle Raccoon River.\n\nKansas\n\nLawrence: As the Super Bowl neared, University of Kansas students urged administrators to call off classes on the day after the big game and to provide vomit bags on campus if they didn’t. The Student Senate made the request in a resolution passed Thursday as the Kansas City Chiefs prepared to play the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday in the team’s first trip to the Super Bowl since 1970. It said Chancellor Douglas Girod should consider the “health implications of students attending classes and attempting course work less than 12 hours after the culmination of the Super Bowl and any celebrations that follow the game, should the Kansas City Chiefs emerge victorious.” The resolution also said Student Senate members don’t condone the tradition of fans mimicking tomahawk chops or “any other behavior that mocks or is offensive to Native American culture.” They urged the Chiefs to “take proactive attempts to end such traditions.”\n\nKentucky\n\nLouisville: The number of travelers taking flights at the Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport last year set a record, officials said. The airport announced in a statement on Thursday that 2019 was its busiest year yet with 4.2 million passengers. That’s nearly 300,000 more than it had in 2000, when there were 3.9 million passengers. “Exceeding the 4 million mark is something we are very proud of and is a new milestone for our airport,” said Dan Mann, executive director of the Louisville Regional Airport Authority. “We know how successful 2019 was for passenger traffic, and we believe the numbers for 2020 will be even better.” Last year, the six airlines serving Louisville increased capacity on 20 different routes including the addition of nonstop flights to multiple locations. “Direct flights are essential in making us attractive for businesses and visitors,” said Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer.\n\nLouisiana\n\nBaton Rouge: Gov. John Bel Edwards’ administration reached another impasse Friday over the state’s income forecast, unable to strike a deal with the Legislature’s new Republican leaders about how to set the projections used to build the budget. The Democratic governor had been hopeful that a change in the House’s top leadership would break through repeated logjams over the forecast and give him the updated, larger state income forecast he wanted as he crafts his budget proposal for next year. Instead, the Edwards administration found itself at odds with both the new Republican House Speaker Clay Schexnayder and new GOP Senate President Page Cortez during the latest meeting of the Revenue Estimating Conference. Both expressed concerns about the numbers proposed by nonpartisan legislative and administrative economists that the governor’s chief budget adviser wanted to use.\n\nMaine\n\nPortland: Allen’s Coffee Brandy, a venerable brand of liquor beloved in Maine, is no longer the top-selling alcohol in the Pine Tree State. State alcoholic beverage records say Mainers spent $12.2 million on Fireball Cinnamon Whiskey and $11.7 million on Tito’s Handmade Vodka last year, the Bangor Daily News reports. Those sales were enough to eclipse Allen’s, which garnered $9.2 million in sales. Allen’s remains the most-purchased hard alcohol in the state in terms of volume. People purchased more than 90,000 cases of Allen’s in Maine last year, while Tito’s came in second at 71,000. Allen’s is produced by M.S. Walker of Massachusetts. Sales are trending downward, though. Revenue of Allen’s has dropped by about a sixth since 2014. Last year’s sales lagged about $400,000 behind the 2018 figure. Maine is the only significant market for Allen’s, which is especially popular in a milk-based mixed drink called a “Sombrero.”\n\nMaryland\n\nBel Air: The city’s police chief has been placed on administrative leave after being accused of physical and verbal fights with his estranged wife and teenage son. Charles A. Moore Jr., chief of Bel Air police, was served a temporary protective order Tuesday, news outlets report. Deputy Chief Richard Peschek will serve as chief in Moore’s absence, town officials say. Moore and his wife separated in 2016, according to court documents obtained by The Aegis, a division of The Baltimore Sun. In December, Moore and his adult son went to his wife’s house, where Moore allegedly got into an argument with his teenage son and attempted to choke the boy after being punched by the teen, court documents state. Jason Silverstein, Moore’s attorney, said his client is the victim, the newspaper reports. Moore was also accused of sending “belittling text messages” to his wife and threatening to to “bash her head,” according to the documents.\n\nMassachusetts\n\nBoston: Bay State voters who can’t get to their local polling location for the upcoming presidential primaries can now pick up absentee ballots. Voters who will be out of town March 3 or have a disability or religious belief that prevents them from voting at their polling place are eligible to vote by absentee ballot. Those who need a ballot mailed to them may send an absentee ballot application to their city or town hall. Family members may also complete the application on a voter’s behalf. Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin is recommending voters submit absentee ballot applications as soon as possible to allow time for the ballot to be mailed to the voter and returned to their city or town hall. Ballots must be delivered to the local election office by the close of polls March 3 in order to be counted. Early voting will also be available Feb. 24-28 for all voters.\n\nMichigan\n\nSt. Clair Shores: People who live along the shores of Lake St. Clair are wondering how much it will cost them to clean up a sludge-like substance that recently washed up on their properties. Tests of samples taken from one property in Macomb County, in southeastern Michigan, showed the substance to be decaying algae containing E. coli bacteria, the county health department said in a release. Health officials have said the algae presents “no imminent public health hazard.” But to vacuum the material up using a sanitary truck and then dispose it could cost about $10,000 per home, according to Ryan Siarkowski, the owner of Synergy Development Specialist. It will cost more if a homeowner also removes the soil beneath the material, said Siarkowski, who noted that every house would be different. Lake St. Clair feeds into the Detroit River and is part of the waterway linking lakes Huron and Erie.\n\nMinnesota\n\nDuluth: The breathtaking ice caves along the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore will likely be inaccessible this year due to low ice coverage on Lake Superior. On Friday, less than 5% of Lake Superior was covered by ice; ice coverage is typically 25% at the end of January. The Star Tribune reports the last time the ice caves were accessible by foot was in 2015. While ice coverage on Superior usually peaks in February or March, data shows most winters with this level of ice Jan. 31 don’t accumulate much more. A University of Michigan study last year said tracking ice on the Great Lakes is an ideal case study for climate research. Ice surrounding the Bayfield Peninsula was more consistent before the late 1990s, when “all of a sudden we saw years in which there was no safe ice cover,” said Andrew Gronewold, a study author. Apostle Islands National Lakeshore is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.\n\nMississippi\n\nOxford: Former Fox News Channel anchor Shepard Smith is set to receive a journalism award from his alma mater, the University of Mississippi. The university’s School of Journalism and New Media announced in a news release that Smith is the latest to be honored with its Silver Em award. Smith will receive the award during a ceremony April 1 in Oxford. Smith, who grew up in Holly Springs, spent more than 20 years anchoring Fox News before leaving the network last year. “Shepard Smith embodies what a journalist should be – for decades, he has reported the news without fear or favor,” said Debora Wenger, assistant dean for innovation and external partnerships and professor of journalism. “Because he got his start in journalism here at the University of Mississippi, we feel extraordinarily proud of all he has accomplished.”\n\nMissouri\n\nJefferson City: Lawmakers this session are trying to make it easier for military spouses and out-of-state doctors, teachers, pharmacists and other licensed professionals to get jobs in the state. Legislation approved by the state House last week would allow those professionals to work in the state without going through its licensing process. One bill would make the exception only for military spouses, who might move frequently. That bill wouldn’t allow military spouses to transfer teaching licenses to Missouri. Another bill would apply what’s called license reciprocity to all out-of-state professionals. Republican Gov. Mike Parson called for license reciprocity for military spouses during his January State of the State address to the Republican-led Legislature. He told House and Senate sponsors of the measure that he’s counting on them to send legislation to his desk “very soon.”\n\nMontana\n\nHelena: The U.S. Department of Agriculture granted a secretarial natural disaster designation to 17 counties that requested federal aid after incurring losses caused by multiple disasters during the 2019 crop year, Gov. Steve Bullock said Friday. The designation will make producers eligible for certain assistance from the Farm Service Agency, including emergency loans. The farmers have eight months to apply for the loans. The counties designated are Cascade, Chouteau, Daniels, Dawson, Glacier, McCone, Pondera, Prairie, Richland, Roosevelt, Rosebud, Sheridan, Teton, Toole, Treasure, Valley and Wibaux. Bullock sent two letters to Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue requesting a secretarial disaster designation for several counties that had multiple disasters, including excessive moisture and snow, freezing, frost, hail and high winds.\n\nNebraska\n\nKearney: Officials are investigating how a pair of juvenile offenders managed to escape custody twice in a 24-hour period. The incident began Tuesday night when a report of two suspicious males led the Buffalo County Sheriff’s Office to call the Youth Rehabilitation and Treatment Center in Kearney to see if it was missing any teens. The facility’s staff checked and reported two teens were missing, the Kearney Hub reports. Early the next day, deputies in neighboring Seward County found an abandoned, stolen car in a snowbank off Interstate 80. Footprints in the snow led deputies to the two escaped juveniles. By Wednesday afternoon, York County deputies received a report that a transportation company driver taking the teens back to the Kearney facility had been assaulted and the transport van stolen. York police tracked the van to Hamilton County, where the teens were again taken into custody and back to the youth center, which has been plagued by escapes and understaffing in recent years.\n\nNevada\n\nLas Vegas: The city has opened a new park named for a police officer killed in the line of duty in 2014. The numerous officials and dignitaries who attended the dedication ceremony Friday for Officer Alyn Beck Memorial Park on Friday included Gov. Steve Sisolak, Mayor Carolyn Goodman and Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo, head of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. Beck and another officer were killed while having lunch at a restaurant when they were shot by a couple who also killed a civilian who tried to stop them. The couple eventually died in a gunfight with other officers. The 10-acre park named after Beck features a lacrosse field, soccer fields, basketball court and a shaded playground with benches for families.\n\nNew Hampshire\n\nHampton Beach: The village’s annual Easter egg hunt has been moved inland out of concern that plastic eggs could end up in the ocean. The Hampton Beach Parks & Recreation Department announced on Facebook on Wednesday that the department will no longer host the Easter Egg Dig on the beach because it cannot ensure all eggs will be accounted for, the Portsmouth Herald reports. “I know there’s a lot of people that love this, and it’s been a tradition,” Recreation Director Rene Boudreau said. “I also feel that it’s a time where these kinds of decisions have to be made, and I’d rather be known for trying to help the cause as opposed to be part of the problems.” The department’s post received mixed reaction. Some parents praised the decision, while others called it “very silly.” But Blue Ocean Society Director Jen Kennedy wrote in a letter to the editor that many eggs that are not found during the hunt are discovered in beach cleanups months later.\n\nNew Jersey\n\nElmwood Park: A northern New Jersey paper plant is operating again, a year after a massive fire destroyed most of it. Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy was among the guests Friday at the Marcal plant in Elmwood Park for a ceremony at one of the few buildings that wasn’t leveled by the January 2019 fire. “We need to get back to work,” Marcal CEO Rob Baron said Friday. Marcal’s resumption of operations was made possible through a merger with Lewistown, Pennsylvania-based Nittany Paper Mills. Investigators conducted more than 100 interviews and concluded that the fire started in a building where large rolls of paper were stored, but they have been unable to determine the cause due to the extensive damage. The fire destroyed 30 of 36 buildings as well as Marcal’s familiar red sign visible from Interstate 80. Demolition at the site began last August. About 500 people lost their jobs.\n\nNew Mexico\n\nAlbuquerque: Police hired a convicted felon and allowed him to continue working in a high-ranking position even after officials learned he had provided a wrong birthdate and Social Security number, city records show. Documents obtained by KOAT-TV through an open records request show that Amir Chapel was hired in April as the department’s policy and compliance manager. The position, which paid $72,000 a year, was created to make sure police followed the city’s settlement agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice involving use of excessive force. A department memo and court records show Chapel had been convicted of forgery in Texas, misuse of a credit card in Illinois and robbery in California. Under Albuquerque personnel rules, applicants are ineligible for city employment if they make a false statement on applications or if they have a prior felony conviction involving “moral turpitude.”\n\nNew York\n\nAlbany: The New York State Bar Association is endorsing the legalization of recreational marijuana, as state lawmakers consider proposals this session to legalize the drug. Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, has put forward legislation to legalize marijuana in the state. Under the governor’s proposal, sales to retail dispensaries would be taxed at 20%, and people could have 1 ounce of marijuana before getting in trouble. A separate proposal, backed by Democrats in the Legislature, would permit people to have to have 3 ounces of marijuana. The legislation would set one of the largest limits for legal marijuana possession in the nation. The bar association on Friday announced that it supports legalizing adult recreational marijuana. The association also said it approved a report that outlined various recommendations for how the state should address the issue.\n\nNorth Carolina\n\nRaleigh: From interstate improvements to turn lanes, the state’s Department of Transportation is asking residents to advise which projects they want funded over the next 10 years. A statewide public comment period to submit ideas continues through Feb. 28 for the 10-year transportation plan for 2023-2032. Residents can send project suggestions in a short, interactive survey found on the 2023-2032 STIP website. Projects can be for any type of transportation, including highway, aviation, bicycle, pedestrian, ferries, rail and public transportation. The comment period is not for maintenance, such as patching potholes. In addition, a three-day open house will be held Tuesday through Thursday during regular business hours at DOT’s Division Five headquarters in Durham for in-person input about potential projects in Wake, Durham, Franklin, Person, Granville, Vance and Warren counties.\n\nNorth Dakota\n\nBismarck: A pipeline spill of oil-field wastewater in northwestern North Dakota has affected more cropland than originally reported. State environmental scientist Bill Suess said regulators were notified last month of the 8,400-gallon pipeline leak in Renville County. The pipeline is operated by Texas-based Cobra Oil and Gas. Regulators initially said about 1,000 square feet of cropland was affected. The landowner, Sherwood resident Allan Engh, said people involved in the cleanup of the site told him the brine could have contaminated as much as 400,000 square feet of soil. Suess told the Bismarck Tribune that estimate could be accurate, but the official number is not yet known. “We know it’s bigger; we know it’s impacting a very large area,” Suess said. He said the spill of produced water happened 2 miles north of Sherwood and within a mile of the U.S.-Canada border. The cause of the pipeline leak is unknown.\n\nOhio\n\nCincinnati: Fiona, the hippopotamus heartthrob at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden, apparently made a mess of her Super Bowl prediction Thursday. Zookeepers placed two “enrichment” toys in front of her, marked with the logos of the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers. While the plan called for Fiona to nudge one of the items with her snout to indicate her pick, she instead chose to lose her leafy green lunch on the Chiefs’ item, WLWT-TV reports. Fiona’s premature birth three years ago drew international attention. She has since grown to 1,200 pounds, roughly the weight of four NFL offensive linemen. It’s the third year she has handicapped the Super Bowl, correctly picking the Philadelphia Eagles to beat the New England Patriots in 2018 but missing on the Los Angeles Rams upsetting the Patriots in 2019.\n\nOklahoma\n\nNorman: A judge has refused to dismiss a lawsuit accusing the University of Oklahoma’s Board of Regents of negligence in its handling of a sexual harassment case. Cleveland County District Judge Thad Balkman ruled Thursday that the case filed by Levi Hilliard involves a “mixed question of law and facts” that should be decided in future legal proceedings, The Norman Transcript reports. Balkman, however, did dismiss a portion of the lawsuit that sought punitive damages against the university. Hilliard, a former server at a university restaurant, says former OU Vice President Jim “Tripp” Hall III made sexual advances toward him on multiple occasions. He says Hall “patted him on the buttocks” during the fall 2017 semester and pinched his nipples at the university club where Hilliard worked.\n\nOregon\n\nPortland: The city has agreed to pay an African American couple $120,000 to settle a discrimination lawsuit that contended a police officer pulled them over and then broke the key off in the ignition, leaving them stranded. The Oregonian/OregonLive reports city officials settled the suit Friday with Claudius and Daynelle Banks. Officer Christian Berge said he pulled the couple over in March 2015 at 2 a.m. for drifting into oncoming traffic. Attorneys for the Banks said Berge never filed a report or conducted a field sobriety test. Berge said he didn’t have time or backup support to process a drunken driving arrest, so he gave the Banks a warning and allowed them to walk home. Berge said he accidentally broke the key off not in the ignition but in the driver’s door lock. He denied searching the vehicle. Court documents say Berge had approached the vehicle and ordered, “Get your black (expletive) out of the car.”\n\nPennsylvania\n\nHarrisburg: A judge put a freeze on a new state police policy regarding sales of partially manufactured gun frames that can be made into working pistols and rifles. Commonwealth Court Judge Kevin Brobson issued the preliminary injunction Friday, about three weeks after state police provided guidance to gun dealers about how to perform background checks for sales of what are often called 80% receivers or unassembled “ghost guns.” Brobson said the plaintiffs, businesses that manufacture and sell the gun frames, have raised a legitimate question about whether the state police policy is too vague. He said he would be open to revisiting the scope of his injunction, depending on what state police does in response. State police announced last month that gun dealers must call the state gun-purchase background check system for sales of the 80% receivers and are not permitted to simply use the online system.\n\nRhode Island\n\nProvidence: A bill would require safety barriers or netting on bridges that connect islands to the state’s mainland. If made into law, the barriers would be required for three bridges that connect Aquidneck and Conanicut islands to the Rhode Island mainland – Mount Hope Bridge, the Claiborne Pell Bridge and the Jamestown Verrazzano Bridge – by Jan. 1, 2022, in an effort to prevent suicides. Rep. Joseph J. Solomon Jr., D-Warwick, introduced the legislation. He described the problem as “frequent” and said in a statement that Portsmouth Police responded to Mount Hope Bridge 36 times last year. Between 2010 and 2018, there were 27 suicide deaths from the three bridges, according to the Rhode Island Department of Health. The Rhode Island Turnpike and Bridge Authority already has prevention measures in place, including a surveillance system that allows authorities to act quickly.\n\nSouth Carolina\n\nColumbia: The state’s military museum covers 250 years of artifacts and stories of brave soldiers fighting for their country, from the Revolutionary War to the ongoing conflict Afghanistan. But the museum’s official name – the South Carolina Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum – is stuck in the four years South Carolinians didn’t fight for the U.S. And when anything involving the Confederacy comes up, it drags on fundraising and admissions, Executive Director Allen Roberson says. When recently working on renewing its national accreditation, the American Alliance of Museums Accreditation said the museum could make it easier on itself by eliminating “Confederate” from its name. Roberson has his own reason for suggesting the change. “The name right now is too long. And what do you think about when you hear ‘relic’? I prefer ‘artifacts,’ ” he says, suggesting a relic would be a small bottle of sand from a desert battle, while an artifact would be the pen a president used to sign a declaration of war.\n\nSouth Dakota\n\nRapid City: Tribal police have taken over law enforcement duties from the Bureau of Indian Affairs on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Tribal Police Chief Robert Ecoffey told the Rapid City Journal said the tribe wasn’t getting “enough resources in terms of manpower” from the BIA. The move is allowed under the 1975 Indian Self Determination and Education Assistance Act, which allows tribes to manage federal programs that affect their communities. Charles Addington, director of the BIA’s Office of Justice Services, said the agency supports the move. Tribal officers will take control of the BIA’s $1.3 million budget, property, equipment and responsibilities, which include investigating higher-level crimes on the reservation, Addington said. Ecoffey said the BIA allocates nine positions to the reservation, and nine of his officers have now been promoted to detective.\n\nTennessee\n\nNashville: The state’s Department of Environment and Conservation on Thursday announced that Dunbar Cave State Park has been selected as the 2019 Tennessee State Park of the Year. The agency says Dunbar Cave State Park – which encompasses 144 acres – is the site of significant prehistoric Mississippian Native American cave art, as well as a prehistoric site for part of the Eastern Woodlands. Over the past two years, the staff has transformed Dunbar Cave State Park by redeveloping cave tours to be more engaging. Research performed by park staffers resulted in new discoveries of Mississippian art and rare Cherokee written symbols that represent syllables. “Dunbar Cave State Park represents some of the highest qualities of our state parks system,” Deputy Commissioner Jim Bryson says. “It takes a lot to stand out among the work of our 56 state parks, and we are proud of the work that has been done at Dunbar Cave.”\n\nTexas\n\nDallas: More than a dozen police officers have been disciplined for making offensive statements on social media, including posts that were bigoted or made light of police violence. The city’s police department announced Thursday that 13 officers whose posts violated department policy would receive punishments ranging from a written reprimand to unpaid suspension. Two more cases are still being reviewed, and one officer resigned, the department said in a statement and memo on the disciplinary measures. The officers can appeal their punishments. “It is imperative that we operate with the highest level of ethics and integrity to ensure that the public is confident in the legitimacy of who we are as a law enforcement agency,” Dallas Police Chief U. Renee Hall said. The officer’s posts were among thousands identified by researchers with the Plain View Project as potentially undermining public confidence in police departments around the country.\n\nUtah\n\nBrigham City: A 9-year-old boy is in stable condition after accidentally shooting himself in the head, authorities say. Brigham City Police Department responded to the call Thursday just after 5 p.m., authorities said. The boy was taken to Brigham City Community Hospital but was later transferred to Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City, authorities said. An investigation is ongoing. The accidental shooting occurred just hours after a 3-year-old boy accidentally shot himself in the head while playing with a gun in his home in Murray, about 65 miles south of Brigham City, authorities say. Police believe the 3-year-old boy was awake before his parents and another sibling and used a chair to reach a handgun that was sitting on a kitchen cabinet, officer Kenny Bass told the Deseret News.\n\nVermont\n\nMontpelier: Republican Gov. Phil Scott has vetoed a paid family and medical leave bill, saying it would have worsened economic inequity in the state. Scott said Friday that he will move forward with a voluntary program that doesn’t rely on a mandatory $29 million payroll tax. “For years, Vermonters have made it clear they don’t want, nor can they afford, new broad-based taxes,” he said in a statement. “We cannot continue to make the state less affordable for working Vermonters and more difficult for employers to employ them – even for well-intentioned programs like this one.” Democratic legislative leaders expressed disappointment about the veto. House Speaker Mitzi Johnson said the bill represented significant movement toward Scott’s position, but the governor was unwilling to compromise.\n\nVirginia\n\nTazewell: A rescued puppy is helping lighten the stressful days of the dispatchers at a 911 center. The puppy’s former owners surrendered the 8-week-old lab mix to the Tazewell County Sheriff’s Office, and dispatchers fell in love, WVNS-TV reports. “A lot of people don’t realize how stressful this job can be,” Edwinna Cecil told the station. “If we have a bad call, you can’t be upset when you see something this precious. It helps calm everybody down. The whole atmosphere has changed since he’s been here.” As the official 911 dispatcher service dog, he will not only provide emotional support but also be an ambassador for 911, attending events and visiting schools. Dispatchers are asking the public to help name the puppy. People can vote on the sheriff’s office Facebook page for their favorite or four proposed names – Mischief, Rookie, Taser or Creed. Votes will be counted Monday afternoon.\n\nWashington\n\nRichland: Energy Northwest is considering whether there is a need and regional interest for adding a small modular nuclear reactor system near the Tri-Cities – Kennewick, Pasco and Richland. Energy Northwest already operates the only commercial nuclear power reactor in the Northwest, Columbia Generating Station near Richland, in addition to small solar and hydroelectric projects and a wind farm. The public agency currently generates the electricity for more than 1.5 million customers in Washington state. Now it plans to spend up to $2 million to look at the feasibility of small modular reactors that might be added near its existing reactor. The study will look at the electricity that will be needed in the Northwest in coming decades and where it will come from.\n\nWest Virginia\n\nCharleston: The state may soon require the speedy testing and collection of rape kits under a bill passed by the House of Delegates on Friday. Lawmakers approved the proposal by a unanimous vote of 96-0 without debate. It now moves to the Senate for consideration. The bill comes amid a national push to clear backlogs of the kits. More than 20 states have approved bills to require submission guidelines or kit audits in the past two years, according to the advocacy group End The Backlog. The measure would require the kits to be submitted to the state police’s forensic lab within 30 days or as soon as possible after collection. It would also allow for the creation of a tracking process of the kits and would require a court order before law enforcement could dispose of the examinations.\n\nWisconsin\n\nMilwaukee: The city’s first brewery since Prohibition, Sprecher Brewing, was sold Friday to a group of local investors. Sprecher Brewing is credited with jump-starting the craft beer age in Milwaukee when Randy Sprecher and business partner James Bubolz opened shop in 1985, with $40,000 and a hand-built brew kettle. Sprecher Brewing is metro Milwaukee’s longest-running craft brewery. Sharad Chadha, former vice president for GE Medical and an executive with Samsung, will be the brewery’s CEO. Milwaukee native and entrepreneur Andy Nunemaker will be chairman of the board, and Jim Kanter, the former general manager for MilllerCoors, will also be on the leadership team. “Nothing is really going to change for our partners and suppliers and things like that,” brewery president Jeff Hamilton said Friday. Chadha said the goal is to make Sprecher a national craft beverage producer.\n\nWyoming\n\nCasper: The headdress worn by a Native leader is returning to the tribe after he gave it to a non-Native dentist living in the state, tribal leaders said. The Northern Arapaho Tribe held a ceremony Saturday to welcome the headdress of Chief Black Coal, who guided many to the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming in the 19th century, the Casper Star-Tribune reports. Coal gave his headdress to a dentist who would often travel to the reservation to provide dental care, officials said. The great-grandson of that dentist contacted the tribe last year asking if the tribe wanted the headdress back, tribal leaders said. The Tribal Historic Preservation office accepted the offer, and descendants of Coal traveled to Massachusetts to retrieve the 140-year-old headdress, officials said.\n\nFrom USA TODAY Network and wire reports", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2020/02/03"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/50-states/2021/08/31/tuskegee-monument-sugar-water-potato-problems-news-around-states/118486586/", "title": "Tuskegee monument, sugar water, potato problems: News from ...", "text": "From USA TODAY Network and wire reports\n\nAlabama\n\nMontgomery: The Alabama Shakespeare Festival, which began in a high school auditorium in 1972, is undergoing a $1.6million renovation in advance of its 50th season. Located in east Montgomery, the theater is upgrading an entrance lobby and enclosing an outdoor area. It also is adding restrooms, constructing a new gift shop and making other additions. While the theater received $1.18 million in federal pandemic aid as part of the American Rescue Plan Act, spokeswoman Layne Holley said the renovations will not use that money, and officials have yet to decide how to use the funding. Indoor shows are scheduled to resume Nov. 27 with a production of “Cinderella.” Executive director Todd Schmidt said the theater has survived the pandemic and made plans for a return in part because of strong community backing. “We had to reduce our staff and our overhead,” Schmidt said. “It’s been a tough time, but luckily we’ve had great support.” Initially staged at Anniston High School, the company relocated to Montgomery and is housed in a theater constructed in 1985.\n\nAlaska\n\nAnchorage: The Alaska Federation of Natives has postponed its annual convention because of a rise in COVID-19 cases in the state, officials said in a statement. The convention has traditionally been the largest gathering of Alaska Natives in the state. It had been scheduled for Oct. 21-23 but is now delayed until mid-December in Anchorage, the organization said in a statement. Organizers said they will continue planning for an in-person convention at the Dena’ina Convention Center in downtown Anchorage with a virtual option. However, the statement said the board will make a decision by mid-October on whether to maintain the in-person part. Organizers encouraged Alaskans to get vaccinated and wear masks so the convention can be held. One notable celebration this year will be the observation of the 50th anniversary of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. The act was the largest land settlement in the nation’s history when President Richard Nixon signed it into law Dec. 18, 1971, and settled Indigenous land claims in Alaska. “Postponing until December provides us an opportunity to gather in person on the 50th anniversary of ANCSA, but it all hinges on everyone’s willingness and ability to get vaccinated,” said Sealaska chairman and Alaska Federation of Natives co-chair Joe Nelson.\n\nArizona\n\nPhoenix: A tribe that didn’t sign a revised gambling compact with the state earlier this year has filed a lawsuit alleging that a new law is unconstitutional and left some rural tribes in the cold by excluding them from negotiations hamming out the legislation. The suit filed by the Yavapai-Prescott Indian Tribe on Thursday asks the court to prevent the Department of Gaming from issuing sportsbook licenses and allowing sports betting. The lawsuit said the state presented the tribe with an amended compact “as a non-negotiable, ‘take-it-or-leave-it’ proposition.” The lawmaker who sponsored the gambling legislation defended it as fair and equitable. The legislation signed by Republican Gov. Doug Ducey last spring expands the types of gambling allowed at tribal casinos, lets tribes and pro sports teams take bets on sport evenings, and licenses six operators to sign up players for betting on fantasy virtual games. A judge scheduled an emergency hearing for next Friday on the suit.\n\nArkansas\n\nLittle Rock: A federal judge has scheduled the retrial of a former state senator on bribery and fraud charges for the first week of October. Court records, first reported by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, show U.S. District Judge Judge Price Marshall on Friday scheduled the trial for Gilbert Baker, a Republican former senator and one-time state GOP chairman, to begin Oct. 4. A federal jury earlier this month acquitted Baker of conspiracy in the case in which he allegedly conspired to bribe an ex-judge who admitted to lowering a jury’s award in a negligence lawsuit in exchange for campaign contributions. The jury, however, deadlocked on charges of bribery and wire fraud against Baker, and prosecutors on Thursday filed notice of their intent to retry those counts. Baker was accused of conspiring with former state Judge Michael Maggio, who admitted to accepting campaign donations from a nursing home operator, then reducing a judgment against that company by $4.2 million. Michael Morton, the nursing home operator, has not been charged with any crimes and has denied wrongdoing. Maggio was sentenced in 2015 to 10 years in prison.\n\nCalifornia\n\nBlythe: California farmers near the Arizona border with the oldest rights to Colorado River water will reap $38million over three years to not plant some of their fields and leave extra water in the rapidly declining Lake Mead reservoir. Located roughly halfway between Los Angeles and Phoenix, growers near the city of Blythe in Riverside County have first priority to the river water. They hold rights that stretch back to 1877, superseding 40 million customers in eight states who also depend on it. But with continued drought and overuse, a first-ever shortage in the river system was declared in recent weeks by federal authorities, triggering cuts to Arizona, Nevada and Mexico’s supplies next year. In response, farmers who control the Palo Verde Irrigation District voted unanimously this month to agree to cancel planting some of their crops for three years. They will be paid about $925 per acre this year via federal drought response funds and water ratepayers in Arizona, Nevada and Southern California, with 2% increases each year after that. Bart Fisher, a PVID trustee whose family owns the 11,500-acre Fisher Ranch, said he and others were acting not because they want the money but because they want to help others and try to guarantee continued water supply for all.\n\nColorado\n\nDenver: Colorado’s secretary of state filed a lawsuit Monday to remove a rural county’s election clerk who is accused of allowing a security breach of the county’s voting equipment that is currently being investigated by the FBI. The lawsuit filed in Mesa County district court by Secretary of State Jena Griswold seeks to formally remove Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters as the designated election official. The suit also calls for the appointment of former Secretary of State Wayne Williams to replace Peters and Sheila Reiner, former Mesa county clerk and recorder, to serve as the elections supervisor for the county’s upcoming November elections. The Board of County Commissioners praised the changes in a statement Monday, saying Mesa County will have “arguably the most secure and transparent election system in the United States.” Peters has claimed that the investigation led by Griswold – who is a Democrat – is an attempt to take over one of the few remaining conservative counties in Colorado. Griswold said initial investigation findings show images of election management software used by the county’s elections equipment were obtained by conspiracy theorists and posted on far-right blogs. Griswold’s office also said it believes one of the images was taken from a secure room.\n\nConnecticut\n\nHartford: Schools around the state looking to upgrade aging ventilation systems to improve air quality and help fight the airborne spread of the coronavirus may find themselves short on funds, even with federal pandemic aid. The Connecticut Mirror reports a state policy restricts aid for heating, air conditioning and air quality control projects. The policy could be reviewed again by legislators, but likely not before the 2022 General Assembly session in February. “There are some districts that haven’t touched their schools in 40 years,” said Kostantinos Diamantis, the state’s budget director who also has overseen the state’s school construction program for the past six years. “The local level needs to belly up to the bar. The cities have an obligation to maintain those buildings.” Connecticut reimburses communities for between 10% and 71% of new construction and large renovation projects designed to last 20 years or longer, the Mirror reports. But the cost of smaller projects such as replacing or upgrading a heating and ventilation system must be absorbed by the town. For the town of Coventry, which wants to replace ventilators in its middle and high schools and make roof repairs, that would mean a bill of more than $2 million even after unused federal pandemic aid is applied.\n\nDelaware\n\nLewes: Preliminary necropsy results show that a young fin whale that beached itself and died at Cape Henlopen State Park last week was riddled with parasites. “There was a lot going on,” said Marine Education, Research and Rehabilitation Institute Executive Director Suzanne Thurman. Measured by MERR to be 57 feet long, the whale first showed up in Lewes on Thursday, stuck on a sandbar in the Harbor of Refuge. It was able to free itself when the tide came in, but a short time later it beached itself again on the oceanside of The Point. Around noon Aug. 27, after many onlookers had come to catch a glimpse of its tail flapping in the surf, and just moments after Virginia Aquarium representatives had arrived to provide palliative care and possible euthanasia, the whale stopped breathing, according to a MERR Facebook post. The whale had to be cut into several pieces to move it out of the water for necropsy.\n\nDistrict of Columbia\n\nWashington: Dozens of people marched to the White House on Sunday calling for support of Afghan women. Organized by the nonprofit Vital Voices Global Partnership, the group is calling on President Joe Biden and other U.S. leaders to prioritize the evacuation of women out of Afghanistan and to help permanently protect women’s rights inside the country following the crisis inside the country and the Taliban takeover, WUSA-TV reports. Protesters wore shirts and held signs emblazoned with “I stand with Afghan women” as they marched from the Vital Voices headquarters on 16th Street through Black Lives Matter Plaza and to Lafayette Square, eventually gathering in front of the White House. The deadline to evacuate U.S. citizens from Afghanistan is Tuesday. Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said Sunday that for those U.S. citizens seeking immediately to leave Afghanistan by the looming deadline, “we have the capacity to have 300 Americans, which is roughly the number we think are remaining, come to the airport and get on planes in the time that is remaining.”\n\nFlorida\n\nWest Palm Beach: Sugar growers are suing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over proposed reservoir water levels they say will be far too low. The federal lawsuits filed last week by Florida Crystals’ Okeelanta Corp., U.S. Sugar and the Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative say the current Corps plan won’t supply enough water for their fields. “Farmers need a secure supply of water, and all farmers need certainty as we plan and manage our planting schedules and crop rotation,” said Jaime Vega, vice president of agriculture at Florida Crystals. Jacksonville Commander Col. Andrew Kelly defended the Corps’ work, saying the agency will balance water supply for both the environment and farmers. The project in question is the Everglades Agricultural Area reservoir intended to cleanse tainted water so more can flow south as crucially needed toward Everglades National Park and Florida Bay. In the lawsuits, Sugar Growers say the still-under-construction reservoir should be kept at higher water levels than what is currently envisioned in a Corps of Engineers plan. Everglades restoration advocates say the growers are simply putting their priorities ahead of others.\n\nGeorgia\n\nAtlanta: Atlanta Black Pride organizers say the annual celebration will happen Labor Day weekend as planned with some precautions to protect against the spread of COVID-19. The larger Atlanta Pride festival and parade planned for October were canceled Wednesday because of concerns about the pandemic. But leaders of Atlanta Black Pride, which celebrates the African American LGBTQ community, say they plan to go forward, with fewer indoor gatherings, while encouraging people to wear masks and maintain social distance. Amber Moore, COO and vice president of Atlanta Black Pride, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that COVID-19 vaccines and coronavirus testing will be offered. The celebration, marking its 25th anniversary this year, is to feature events around the city. In addition to parties, that includes a fashion show, a session on empowering women, an awards ceremony for the transgender community, a virtual film festival and a health expo. Vaughn Alvarez, who is helping to promote some of the events at Piedmont Park, told the newspaper that Atlanta rapper and radio host Da Brat and fiancee Jesseca “Judy” Dupart, CEO of Kaleidoscope Hair Products, will be honored for “bravery and courage with their love story.” The two star in “Brat loves Judy” on WE-TV.\n\nHawaii\n\nWailuku: A county affordable housing committee has voted to recommend approval of a rental project on Lanai, where no new affordable homes have been built in 30 years. The Hokuao 201H Housing Project, proposed by billionaire Larry Ellison’s company Pulama Lanai, includes the development of 150 two-bedroom rental homes on former pineapple fields. About half of the units will be market-rate priced. The project will be developed under the state’s fast-track approval process for affordable housing. The Maui County Council’s Affordable Housing Committee voted 8-0 to recommend giving the project the green light after multiple meetings packed with public testimony and hours of discussion over concern about the project’s number of market-rate homes, The Maui News reports. Council Chairwoman Alice Lee said the project is “desperately needed.” Pulama Lanai had sought an exemption for sidewalks in the future subdivision, saying including them would cost about $2 million. Sharon Thom, senior vice president of development and construction for Pulama Lanai, said the sidewalks would change the “look and feel” of Lanai City. But Committee Chairman Gabe Johnson argued to include sidewalks, saying the county needs to advocate for pedestrian safety and accessibility.\n\nIdaho\n\nPocatello: The hot, dry, smoky growing season has left some potato farmers bracing for a poor crop. Randy Hardy, of Oakley, told the Idaho State Journal that his harvest will likely be the worst of his career. Statewide, spud farmers conducting test digs or early harvests are uprooting plants supporting no tubers. Where there are potatoes, there are fewer than normal, and most of the tubers are undersized and misshapen. “I’ve never had this happen before, and I’ve got an agronomist who works with me on potatoes, and he’s been doing it for over 20 years, and he said he’s never seen a worse crop than this,” said Hardy, who raises spuds for the fresh market and is chairman of the board of Sun Valley Potatoes. Hardy isn’t scheduled to harvest until Sept. 20, and he’s hoping the extra time will allow his tubers to add a bit more bulk. United Potato Growers of Idaho asked growers to submit results from Aug. 1 test digs and will gather follow-up data in person during harvest. Hardy said the average number of tubers in the test digs was down 30% from last year. Weight was also down substantially, he said. Many fields lacked deep soil moisture when the potatoes were planted. Then the state was hit with record-high heat in June, contributing to fewer potatoes growing beneath each plant, and smoke-filled air from Western wildfires.\n\nIllinois\n\nChicago: From a waterpark resort to a public school, seven finalists have been named in a design competition to repurpose a much-maligned state government building downtown. State officials are trying to sell the James R. Thompson Center, which was designed by famed architect Helmet Jahn. They say the 17-story curved-glass structure that opened in 1985 is inefficient and requires hundreds of millions of dollars worth of repairs and updates to keep it running. The building houses offices for the governor and employees of state agencies, who are scheduled to move next year to another building on the city’s Near West Side. Illinois officials are seeking bids for a developer and have not committed to any preservation ideas. Officials have said they want to sell the building by February 2022. Architecture buffs have pushed for preservation, an effort that’s been renewed in the wake of Jahn’s death in May. The finalists were named last week. A group of design and preservation experts picked the finalists from 59 entries. A winner will be chosen Sept. 14.\n\nIndiana\n\nIndianapolis: A coalition of voting rights groups is sponsoring a contest for Hoosiers to draw new maps for congressional and legislative election districts. The group All IN for Democracy said the contest is aimed at finding “fair” proposed election maps to present to legislators before they vote in late September on the once-a-decade redistricting based on population shifts from the U.S. census. Voting rights activists have complained that the GOP-dominated Legislature isn’t involving the public enough in the redistricting work and that partisan gerrymandering has helped Indiana Republicans gain outsized power in state government. The organization is providing an online site where residents can compile maps based on the 2020 census data. Proposals submitted by Sept. 13 will be judged, with the winning map for Indiana’s nine congressional districts getting $1,000, with $2,000 for the best districts for the 50 Indiana Senate seats and $3,000 for the fairest map of the 100 Indiana House districts. The group said its judging will be based on how well the maps keep communities of interest together, maintain whole cities and counties in the same district, and maximize the number of politically competitive districts.\n\nIowa\n\nDes Moines: Black applicants are 2.6 times more likely to be denied a conventional home loan than similarly qualified white applicants in the Des Moines/West Des Moines metro, according to an analysis of 2019 data by The Markup, a nonprofit newsroom. Des Moines has the fifth-greatest likelihood of denial for Black applicants out of 71 U.S. metro areas that The Markup found had statistically significant disparities in home loan approvals. The newsroom found that nationally, mortgage lenders are 80% more likely to reject Black applicants; 70% more likely to deny Native American applicants; 50% more likely to turn down Asian/Pacific Islander applicants; and 40% more likely to reject Latino applicants. For its analysis, The Markup examined more than 2 million conventional mortgage applications, accounting for 17 independent variables, including debt-to-income ratio and combined loan-to-value ratio. It did not take into account credit scores, which are not publicly available through Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data. John Sorensen, president and CEO of the Iowa Bankers Association, said in a statement that while the organization “firmly believes that discrimination has no place in the mortgage market,” the data used by The Markup doesn’t give a full picture as to why these disparities exist.\n\nKansas\n\nWichita: One of the biggest gun dealers in south-central Kansas is the city of Wichita, but it actually received less than half the proceeds from the sales because it works with several online companies to auction off the firearms. Since a new state law allowing the gun sales was passed in 2015, Wichita has sold 2,082 guns that were seized during crimes for which the criminal cases were complete. The city generated $196,000 on the gun sales that went into a fund that pays for miscellaneous police equipment. But The Wichita Eagle learned the city received less than half of the $425,000 in total sales generated because the companies that handle the sales take a significant chunk of the proceeds. The city contracts with Propertyroom.com, which sells the guns through a partnership with a major gun retailer that operates an online auction site. The city finance director said officials last took proposals for the gun contract two years ago and got no better offer. Sedgwick County Commissioner Jim Howell, who wrote the law, said it’s no different from police departments selling off other seized property, and any gun purchases require background checks. Former Rep. Jim Ward, who also used to work as a city prosecutor, said he knows it’s impossible to keep all the guns off the street, but he never wanted the government in the gun business.\n\nKentucky\n\nFrankfort: An instructional assistant at an eastern Kentucky elementary school died from COVID-19 as the fast-spreading delta variant has sparked coronavirus outbreaks in several school districts. Heather Antle, an aide at Lee County Elementary, died Sunday. Antle was an involved member of the school community who “brought great joy to the students and staff that she worked with,” Lee County Superintendent Sarah Wasson said in a statement posted to social media. The Lee County district canceled in-person classes until Sept. 7 in response to coronavirus cases among students and teachers. Virus outbreaks have caused disruptions since the school year began. Several other districts have shut down classes for multiple days due to outbreaks. Gov. Andy Beshear, while expressing condolences to Antle’s family, urged Kentuckians to get vaccinated and wear masks to prevent the virus’s spread in schools. “There was a time when some argued COVID did not spread in schools,” the governor said on social media. “That time should be over. ... We must do everything in our power to prevent the spread of this virus in our schools, and vaccinations and masks are our greatest tools. Let’s do what’s right for our teachers.”\n\nLouisiana\n\nNew Orleans: A couple who met in a gross anatomy class as Tulane University undergraduates have given Tulane Medical School $5 million for an endowed professorship. Drs. Philip and Cheryl Leone, of Naples, Florida, are now retired pathologists and current members of the School of Medicine Board of Governors, a university news release said Wednesday. Their endowment will support a medical school professor who will also hold a joint appointment in another school or unit and will focus on areas such as public health, immunology, parasitology or anthropology, the university said. The Leones have worked in both academia and private practice. “Tulane University has played a major role in our lives and the lives of our family members,” Phil Leone said. “Our son graduated from Tulane, and Cheryl’s siblings earned undergraduate and graduate degrees from the university.” “Endowing a Presidential Chair with an emphasis on interdisciplinary academic study allows us to contribute to the university in these challenging times,” Cheryl Leone said. “We hope our gift will strengthen the medical school and help train future physicians who can significantly advance the field of medicine.”\n\nMaine\n\nBar Harbor: More than 125 boats participated in a weekend protest against plans for an aquaculture operation in waters near Acadia National Park. Commercial and recreational vessels comprised the “Save the Bay” flotilla that motored around Frenchman Bay on Sunday. Some people on land also participated by holding signs stating their opposition. American Aquafarms has proposed raising 66 million pounds of Atlantic salmon annually at a pair of 15-pen sites off the coast of Gouldsboro in Frenchman Bay. The company didn’t immediately return a telephone message. Ted O’Meara of Frenchman’s Bay United likened the scope of the project to ”some huge hog farm from the Midwest and plucking it right in the middle of one of the most beautiful parts of Maine.” He said that “our first goal is to stop this project, and our second goal is to look at changing some of the rules that allow people like this to think they can just come here and plug something like this down in our waters.”\n\nMaryland\n\nBaltimore: The first new Catholic school built in the city in roughly 60 years opened its doors Monday to hundreds of youngsters, who entered the gleaming new building with a mix of enthusiasm and first-day-back jitters. The state-of-the-art Mother Mary Lange Catholic School was built on the site where a notoriously rough public housing high-rise once stood. In a U.S. city steeped in Catholicism like few others, the new 65,000-square-foot building near downtown Baltimore is somewhat of an anomaly in the national education landscape as the COVID-19 pandemic has contributed to the shuttering of many Catholic schools. It’s named after Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange, a Haitian American who started a Catholic school for Black children in 1828 – the first U.S. Catholic school for African American youth. She co-founded the Oblate Sisters of Providence in Baltimore in 1829. The Vatican is reviewing Lange for possible canonization. Archbishop of Baltimore William E. Lori said the new school, which goes from preschool to eighth grade, is not only a benefit to the students and their families but also an asset to the surrounding neighborhood. The school’s playing fields and gym will be accessible, as appropriate, to the city community. “They say a rising tide lifts all boats. And I think the opening of this school has put a spring in the step of all of our Catholic educators,” Lori said in a phone interview.\n\nMassachusetts\n\nBoston: A public marker to remember the enslaved Africans forced to journey across the ocean to toil in the Americas was formally dedicated Sunday on the downtown waterfront. The Middle Passage Port Marker was installed last October at the end of Long Wharf looking out onto Boston Harbor. It is meant to acknowledge Boston’s history of slavery and honor the Africans who were forced into the the trans-Atlantic voyage known as the Middle Passage. The Sunday ceremony included remarks from Michael Creasey, superintendent of the National Parks of Boston, and officials from the downtown Museum of African American History. Names of enslaved members of Boston’s oldest churches were read aloud, and there was a traditional balafon performance by Balla Kouyate as well as a land acknowledgement statement delivered by Elizabeth Solomon, a member of the Massachusett Tribe at Ponkapoag. Millions of Africans were sold in the Caribbean and in American cities such as Boston and Newport, Rhode Island, from 1619 to 1865, according to event organizers. Native Americans from local tribes, including the Massachusett, Wampanoag and Nipmuc, were also enslaved after being taken as prisoners of war, the organizations said.\n\nMichigan\n\nPort Huron: A monument dedicated to Tuskegee Airmen who died in Michigan during World War II training was unveiled Saturday near the international Blue Water Bridge. Michigan served as an advanced training ground for many graduates of the Tuskegee University pilot training program in Alabama. Surviving Tuskegee airmen and their descendants attended the event in Port Huron, part of a three-day celebration that recognized the accomplishments of America’s first Black military pilots. Fifteen Tuskegee airmen were killed while training in Michigan, including five pilots lost in Lake Huron and one in the St. Clair River, according to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. Wreckages from two planes have been found in the river and the lake. In 2014, the remains of a P-39 aircraft were found in Lake Huron, 70 years after it crashed. The body of 2nd Lt. Frank Moody washed ashore a few months after the April 1944 crash. A dive team spent a week in Lake Huron in 2015 surveying the wreckage. The plane’s wing, landing gear, engine block, tail, propeller, cockpit door, instrument panel, .50-caliber machine guns and ammunition are being restored and will become an exhibit sponsored by the National Tuskegee Airmen Museum in Detroit.\n\nMinnesota\n\nSt. Paul: A write-in campaign for a prehistoric giant beaver that weighed more than 200 pounds has secured it a spot on a list of possible candidates for state fossil. The write-in campaign has been so successful that the beaver, or Castoroides ohioensis, is now in the lead among possible state-fossil candidates proposed by the Science Museum of Minnesota. The fossil, found in St. Paul, dates back to the Pleistocene epoch and is estimated to be anywhere from 2.58 million years to 10,150 years old, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reports. Minnesota is one of just seven states without a state fossil, said Alex Hastings, the Phillip W. Fitzpatrick Chair of Paleontology at the Science Museum of Minnesota, who is leading an effort to designate one. Hastings put together a list of eight candidates – representing different creatures, different parts of the state and different geologic times – for consideration. As of last Tuesday, more than 2,100 people had voted, he said. The entry for Castoroides ohioensis notes that it had “buck teeth and aquatic lifestyle” and “was the size of a small bear,” according to officials with the St. Paul museum. It almost became Minnesota’s state fossil back in 1988, but the measure failed in the Legislature. Voting ends Oct. 1, after which legislators will get involved.\n\nMississippi\n\nYazoo City: A white father and son have each been sentenced to four years in prison for convictions related to chasing and shooting at two Black teenagers who were riding all-terrain vehicles on a country road. Some of the charges were prosecuted as hate crimes, which strengthened the punishment. Wade Oscar Twiner, 49, of Yazoo City, and his son, Lane Irvine Twiner, 23, of Jackson, were sentenced Friday in Yazoo County. Jurors on Wednesday convicted each man of two counts of simple assault and one count of malicious mischief. The district attorney’s office said the penalty for each simple assault conviction was increased because the men’s actions were deemed hate crimes under Mississippi law, which allows stronger penalties for crimes motivated by the victim’s actual or perceived race, color, ancestry, ethnicity, religion, national origin or gender. The men were arrested after the Sept. 27 chase in rural Yazoo County. The two teenagers were not injured, but they told investigators they were frightened for their lives. The teenagers were riding ATVs on a country road close to Wade Twiner’s home, said Chief Deputy Joseph Head of the Yazoo County Sheriff’s Office. The father and son got in a pickup and chased the teens, firing several shots and bumping into one of the ATVs with the truck.\n\nMissouri\n\nSt. Louis: Officials face a tall order to get all the state’s nursing home workers vaccinated because fewer than half of them have received the shots. By that metric, Missouri’s 48% ranks third-lowest in the nation, trailed only by Florida and Louisiana, both at 47%. Yet some 82% of Missouri’s nursing home residents have been vaccinated, which is just behind the national average of 83%. That worries residents like Michael Williams, who has diabetes and is on kidney dialysis at the Crestwood Health Care Center in St. Louis. “It’s fine if they (staff) don’t want to take it, but then don’t work around us. We all have underlying conditions here,” Williams told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “They are out in the casino, and they are rolling the dice, but the sad thing about it is it’s other people’s lives they are playing with.” Some workers have already quit rather than face a mandate. Earlier this month, the Biden administration said it would require nursing home staff be vaccinated against COVID-19 as a condition for those facilities to continue receiving Medicare and Medicaid payments – revenue on which nearly all skilled nursing facilities depend. But details of that plan still haven’t been released. Data analyzed by the Post-Dispatch shows 20 facilities statewide had staff vaccination rates of 20% or less as of Aug. 15.\n\nMontana\n\nBozeman: Montana State University has announced a $101 million donation to its College of Nursing, believed to be the largest donation ever given to a college of nursing in the United States, school officials said. The donation, announced Monday, comes from Mark and Robyn Jones, founders of Goosehead Insurance, based in Westlake, Texas. “It is hard to put into words how moved and excited all of us are at Montana State University by the generosity of the Joneses, who are helping to address some of the most critical health care disparity issues in Montana, particularly in the state’s rural areas,” MSU President Waded Cruzado said in a statement. The money will be used to fund new facilities and state-of-the-art simulation labs at MSU College of Nursing campuses in Bozeman, Billings, Great Falls, Kalispell and Missoula. The donation will also create five faculty professorships, helping MSU attract top faculty talent as the nation faces a nursing faculty shortage. MSU’s College of Nursing will also create an endowed scholarship fund and a nurse midwifery program for doctoral-level nurses to provide maternal health in rural and remote communities.\n\nNebraska\n\nOmaha: The bones of the city’s next outdoor performance space have risen in the Gene Leahy Mall downtown. Metal arches that will one day form a performance pavilion have gone up in the mall in recent weeks, part of a $400 million public-private renovation of the mall, Heartland of America Park and Lewis & Clark Landing. When the pavilion is finished – likely sometime next spring – three white arches cascading in size will cover a stage. The Omaha World-Herald reports the space will be used for all manner of performances, from concerts, symphony performances and music festivals to movie nights and dance competitions. “It’s exciting seeing it start to come out of the ground,” said Katie Bassett, vice president of parks for the Metropolitan Entertainment & Convention Authority, which is managing the park renovations for the city. Stretching out from the pavilion to the west will be a 42,000-square-foot green lawn that will be able to host thousands of people for shows and offer a recreation space the rest of the time. Officials say the venue will be reminiscent of the iconic Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, which has a similar arch-shaped covering over the stage. At night, the pavilion will be lit from underneath to create a glow effect, which Bassett said will offer “an iconic” addition to Omaha’s downtown.\n\nNevada\n\nLas Vegas: The nation’s fifth-largest school system has begun using ultraviolet light as a classroom germ-killer in a bid to stop the spread of COVID-19. “This doesn’t have any chemicals. It’s just light,” said Grant Morgan, chief executive and co-founder of Utah biosafety startup R-Zero, during a demonstration of the disinfection system at an elementary school in suburban Henderson. The blue-light-emitting tower can disinfect a 1,000-square-foot indoor space in seven minutes, destroying more than 99.99% of surface and airborne pathogens, Morgan told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. It is designed to be used while a space is unoccupied but has no lingering effects when people enter a room after treatment, he said. The Clark County School District bought one Arc unit for each of its 372 campuses using $7.4 million in federal coronavirus relief money to cover the $20,000 per-unit cost, the Review-Journal said. The district has more than 310,000 students. Classes began Aug. 9.\n\nNew Hampshire\n\nHanover: Dartmouth College is asking employees who have not yet returned to campus to keep working remotely until Oct. 4. The previous plan was for workers to return at the start of September, but the college is adjusting its plans as COVID-19 cases increase regionally and nationally, said Scott Bemis, chief human resources officer. Many of those who have already returned “can continue to work on-site,” Bemis said in an email to the community Friday. He said the date is being pushed back a month “to help slow the increase in the density of people on campus, with the goal of interrupting COVID-19 transmission wherever possible.” Bemis also said that weekly coronavirus surveillance testing will be conducted for vaccinated employees, instead of every 30 days. Unvaccinated employees who are coming to campus are still required to test twice a week.\n\nNew Jersey\n\nTrenton: About half a million residents stand to lose a $300 federal unemployment benefit when it expires Saturday. Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy said Monday during a COVID-19 news conference that it would cost the state more than $1 billion a month to pick up the unemployment insurance tab from the federal government. “The proper way to extend federal UI benefits is through federal action, not a patchwork of state ones,” he said. “The reality is that continuing the $300-per-week benefit through state resources would be cost-prohibitive.” The expiration will affect about 500,000 people, according to the New Jersey Department of Labor. Federal jobless aid was first approved in 2020 when COVID-19 outbreak hit, sending jobless to record highs amid pandemic-related shutdowns. The state has administered $33.7 billion directly to 1.6 million residents since the start of the pandemic, the governor said. The lion’s share – $25 billion – has come from the federal government. To those unemployed residents affected by the expiration of the federal benefit, Murphy pointed to the state’s minimum wage, which will rise to $13 an hour in the new year from $12. He also pointed to the state���s paid sick and family leave programs, along with other social safety net aids.\n\nNew Mexico\n\nAlbuquerque: U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland married her longtime partner, Skip Sayre, on Saturday night in her home state. Haaland wore a dress designed and sewn by her sister, said Interior Department spokeswoman Melissa Schwartz. The ceremony incorporated elements honoring her Native American ancestry. The former New Mexico congresswoman is a member of the Laguna Pueblo. According to Schwartz, guests had to be vaccinated against COVID-19 to attend and wear masks per U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and New Mexico guidelines. But pictures on social media that show some people, including Haaland, not wearing masks indoors the whole time have drawn criticism. Her office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.\n\nNew York\n\nNew York: A “sequence of failures” in the city’s subway system following a brief power outage disrupted half of the system for several hours and stranded hundreds of passengers, Gov. Kathy Hochul said Monday. Hochul said in a statement that a Metropolitan Transportation Authority review of Sunday night’s subway breakdown “uncovered a sequence of failures that resulted in some backup systems not providing power as designed last night, including an additional failure to quickly diagnose the underlying cause.” The unprecedented breakdown affected more than 80 trains on the subway system’s numbered lines plus the L train from shortly after 9 p.m. Sunday to about 1:30 a.m. Monday, Hochul said at an earlier news conference. The restoration of service was delayed because passengers on two of the stuck trains walked out onto the tracks by themselves rather than waiting for rescuers from agencies including the police and fire departments to help them, Hochul said. “We never, ever want riders to do that,” she said. “It is dangerous, and it caused a delay in the restoration of power.” Speaking outside a lower Manhattan subway system, Hochul promised a thorough investigation. “Let me be very clear,” she said. “Last night was unacceptable.”\n\nNorth Carolina\n\nFayetteville: State environmental regulators say a plant that for years discharged so-called forever chemicals into the air and water is not currently in compliance with its air permit. In its letter to Chemours, the Department of Environmental Quality warned that it is preparing an enforcement action against the company’s Fayetteville Works plant in Bladen County, which has been exceeding its GenX air pollution limits for much of 2021. Officials said the company could be facing up to a $25,000 fine per day. In a statement, Chemours said the site experienced a temporary increase in air emissions this year from one of its carbon adsorption units. “The issue was quickly resolved when the carbon was replaced in this unit, and emissions returned to their usual low levels,” the statement said. “However, the data results from that one emissions sampling caused an exceedance of the site’s calculated 12-month rolling air emission allowance.” Chemours, a spinoff of DuPont Co., plans to take corrective action to fix the issue in the long term, according to its statement. GenX, a type of PFAS, has been found in drinking water wells near the plant and also the municipal utility serving the city of Wilmington, about 100 miles downstream.\n\nNorth Dakota\n\nBismarck: A new quarterly report from North Dakota State University says the state’s economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic has slowed a bit. The outlook predicts declines in the gross state product, which is the measurement of the state’s output, labor force participation, and total wages and salaries. “The overall economic outlook for the state had been improving amidst the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, but the most recent data shows a state economy that is at risk of declining economic growth and a shrinking labor force,” said NDSU economics professor Jeremy Jackson, director of the Center for the Study of Public Choice and Private Enterprise. Total wages and salaries are expected to hold steady with a slight decline in the third quarter of this year, the Bismarck Tribune reports. The labor force is predicted to decline in the third quarter, with that trend continuing into next year. The unemployment rate is projected to have a slight increase in the third quarter and then return to its declining trend. North Dakota’s gross state product grew 1.8% in the first quarter of 2021, up from 1.3% in the previous quarter, but gross state product is forecast to decline heading into 2022. Despite the forecast decline, the model predicts relative stability in total tax collections.\n\nOhio\n\nColumbus: Supporters of a proposal to legalize marijuana got the green light Monday to collect signatures to place the measure before state lawmakers. The Coalition to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol’s proposed statute was approved as a single issue by the Ohio Ballot Board, a panel of legislative appointees led by Secretary of State Frank LaRose. The group will soon begin collecting the 132,887 signatures of registered Ohio voters needed to submit the proposed law to the Legislature. If the Legislature doesn’t pass or passes an amended version of the bill, supporters can collect another 132,887 signatures to put the proposal before voters, likely in November 2022. The proposal would allow adults age 21 and older to buy, grow, possess and consume marijuana. Proceeds of a 10% tax on marijuana would go to education, addiction treatment and municipalities with marijuana businesses. Municipalities could limit or ban marijuana businesses within their borders. Ohio’s medical marijuana businesses, several of which are backing the plan, could automatically get licenses for the recreational side. The bill establishes 40 new cultivation licenses and 50 additional dispensary licenses for economically and socially disadvantaged “social equity” applicants. Additional licenses could be granted two years later.\n\nOklahoma\n\nOklahoma City: Hospitals are again overwhelmed as the spread of COVID-19 is surging through the state, but this time, they’re facing the wave with even further strain on health care workers. The state has dealt with a nursing shortage for at least two decades, Oklahoma nursing leaders said. But the pandemic has worsened it, with the stresses driving some burned-out nurses out of the industry or to other states, amid greater demands on the health care system. “The pandemic has brought on some extra stresses that we had no way of predicting, and that has impacted our retention rates enormously,” said Shelly Wells, president of the Oklahoma Nurses Association. “For example, I don’t think that humans were meant to see as much death as our nurses have seen, personally, in the last 16 months.” A nurse working in a hospital in normal times might expect to care for a dying patient once a week, Wells said. “These patients are dying much more frequently,” she said. “There’s no family support, so the nurses are having to double as family and offer that support” on top of caring for the patients themselves. And it can be especially troubling to care for someone your age or younger “that you know is probably not going to live,” said Elain Richardson, regional chief nursing officer with SSM Health St. Anthony.\n\nOregon\n\nPortland: Record-low numbers of steelhead are returning to the Columbia River this year, prompting conservationists and anglers alike to call for a halt to recreational fishing for the sea-run fish. As of last week, just 29,000 steelhead passed the Bonneville Dam since July 1 – the fewest ever recorded, less than half the average of the past five years, Oregon Public Broadcasting reports. A coalition of conservation and fishing groups sent a letter to the Oregon, Washington and Idaho agencies that manage fish and wildlife requesting an immediate closure of recreational steelhead fisheries on the Columbia River, the Lower Snake River and their tributaries. “This is a really, really dire year for steelhead – especially wild steelhead – in the Columbia River Basin,” said Rob Kirschner, legal and policy director for The Conservation Angler, which advocates for protection and restoration of wild fish in the Pacific Northwest and Kamchatka, Russia. “We are trying to protect every eligible spawner,” he said. “Every one of these fish counts.” Steelhead on the Columbia and Snake rivers are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Their population has been devastated by habitat destruction, including construction of hydroelectric dams, as well as overfishing and climate change. High water temperatures have also been detrimental.\n\nPennsylvania\n\nHarrisburg: Hundreds of thousands of residents will lose federal pandemic unemployment benefits after this week, including an extra $300 per week, an extra 13 weeks of benefits and coverage for the self-employed. Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration said Monday that there are sources of help for people who need it once their jobless aid runs out, including federal rental assistance through counties, Medicaid, food stamps and temporary cash-assistance for low-income families. In the first week of August, roughly 640,000 people were receiving the extra $300, according to figures from the state Department of Labor and Industry. About 388,000 of them were in the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program for freelancers or the self-employed, and almost 175,000 were receiving an extra 13 weeks of assistance through the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation program. About 78,000 people were receiving benefits through the state’s regular 26-week unemployment compensation program, which will continue running, but without the extra $300 federal benefit on top. The American Rescue Plan Act, signed by President Joe Biden in March, extended those federal benefits and set them to expire after this week.\n\nRhode Island\n\nProvidence: Gov. Dan McKee’s chief of staff, who is under scrutiny for whether he used his political clout to push through a development approval on some wetlands owned by his family, has stepped down, the governor’s office announced Monday. Anthony Silva maintains he did nothing wrong in the approval process, but the issue had become a distraction, the Democratic governor said in a statement. “Tony and I reached a mutual agreement that it is in the best interest of the administration for him to retire from state government effective immediately,” the statement said. “Right now, his situation is a distraction from the critical work we have ahead. I appreciate that Tony understands the need to remove the distraction to ensure we can continue serving Rhode Islanders effectively.” Silva once had an agreement to purchase the property in Cumberland – where McKee was once mayor and Silva was police chief. After the state Department of Environmental Management issued the necessary approvals, the property was purchased by Silva’s son, Ross. Town officials as well as neighbors oppose building on the land, saying developing it would exacerbate flooding problems in the area, and were concerned that Silva and his family got preferential treatment from the state environmental agency.\n\nSouth Carolina\n\nColumbia: The rapid rise in COVID-19 cases in the state has the Department of Motor Vehicles changing how it gives road tests for driver’s licenses. The agency started requiring masks for both new drivers and examiners Wednesday. As of Monday, it is again requiring appointments for driving tests, and on Sept. 7 the department will go back to how it handled testing at the start of the pandemic, with the examiner outside the car, the DMV said in a statement. The modified skills test evaluates the same abilities as the regular test, with the examiner scoring the test from outside, the DMV said. The agency is encouraging but not requiring masks inside its branches. Officials also said many basic services, like driver’s license renewal, can be done online.\n\nSouth Dakota\n\nSioux Falls: Lawmakers tasked with redrawing the state’s political boundaries set a framework Monday that will allow them to speed through the once-in-a-decade process on a tight schedule this year. The two committees responsible for drawing the new legislative districts began their work in earnest Monday after the U.S. Census Bureau released detailed data earlier this month. Lawmakers only have about 10 weeks to propose districts before a special session of the Legislature convenes Nov. 8. The Census Bureau’s data was delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic. “We’re in for a very compact and a very intense schedule over the next two months to get all this accomplished,” Republican Sen. Jim Bolin told the committees, which met jointly Monday. Republican lawmakers cited the shortened process in setting two parameters that will guide their work: keeping new legislative districts between a lower threshold of 24,066 residents and an upper threshold of 26,600 people, and restricting access to the Legislature’s map-drawing software to committee members only. Legislative research staff said they were worried their work would get bogged down if the general public were allowed to propose maps through its software and said people could create their own proposals with other open-source applications.\n\nTennessee\n\nNashville: Cummins Falls State Park has been named state park of the year. The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation honored the Cookeville park for effectively managing an increase in visitors and overcrowding while enhancing safety measures, the department said in a news release Thursday. The 306-acre park in middle Tennessee used social media to inform people of river conditions, scheduled programs and activities. It also conducted more than 250 interpretation programs, held day camps for children and school programs, and hosted a weekly home-school group, officials said. Cummins Falls also has removed invasive plants, planted native species, built two greenhouses, and grown and processed sorghum, officials said. Cummins Falls is one of 56 state parks in Tennessee. It is one of several state parks honored with a 2021 Award of Excellence at a recent park management conference at Pickwick Landing State Park.\n\nTexas\n\nAustin: The Black arts community is pushing to create a cultural center at the music venue Kenny Dorham’s Backyard, amid broader work for equity in the city’s cultural arts programs and historic preservation in East Austin. “Everybody says the words equity, sustainability. But it turns out, if there’s no intention, no action behind it, it means nothing,” City Council Member Natasha Harper-Madison told a diverse crowd of arts supporters in July as they gathered to celebrate the return of Black contemporary dance company Ballet Afrique to East Austin. “We have so much work to do to make this a truly equitable and truly inclusive city that lives up to our progressive reputation.” In 2019, the city contracted with an outside consultant, MJR Partners, to conduct a review of city-allocated cultural arts and heritage funding. An interim report released in June outlines strategies to achieve greater equity, as well as some of the challenges the city will face. The report notes that “traditional and white-led institutions struggle to accept that historic inequities exist in the city.” “I think the city is really trying,” said Carl Settles, director of the nonprofit E4 Youth, which aims to build bridges between underprivileged area youths and Austin’s creative and tech industries.\n\nUtah\n\nMoab: Two recently married Utah women were found dead from gunshot wounds after reports of a “weirdo camping near them” and a four-day search in Moab, about an hour away from Arches National Park. On Wednesday, 38-year-old Crystal Turner and 24-year-old Kylen Schulte were found by a family friend in the South Mesa area of La Sal Loop Road, where they had been camping. Schulte and Turner went missing Aug. 14, four days before they were found dead from gunshot wounds, according to the Grand County Sheriff’s Office. Schulte’s father had posted on Facebook that they hadn’t been to work, hadn’t called, were not in the hospital and were not in jail. “Kylen and Crystal told close friends that there was a weirdo camping near them that was freaking them out !!! And that they should move campsites. Now they have been missing for over 4 days and nights!” Sean-Paul Schulte posted. The couple’s bodies were transported to the Medical Examiner’s Office, which determined the cause of death to be gunshot wounds, the Sheriff’s Office said.\n\nVermont\n\nVergennes: The city is planning to erect a monument to the state’s first known black sheriff and chief of police. The city of Vergennes is planning to unveil and dedicate the monument to former Sheriff Stephen Bates on Oct. 3. Bates was first elected sheriff and chief of police in Vergennes in 1879. Bates had been formerly enslaved in Virginia. He gained his freedom and served Union soldiers during the Civil War. He first came to Vergennes in 1866 with Vermont U.S. Rep. Frederick E. Woodbridge. Bates served as sheriff of Vergennes for 25 years. He raised a family in the city before his death in 1907, and some of his descendants will be attending the event. A local team of historians and others spent the past year researching Bates’ life and rediscovering his story in Vergennes.\n\nVirginia\n\nRichmond: Democrat Terry McAuliffe has asked a court to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Virginia Republicans that seeks to remove him from the ballot in this year’s closely watched race for governor over an alleged paperwork error. In a filing Friday evening, attorneys for the former governor now running for a second term against GOP nominee Glenn Youngkin said the suit was based on a “legal lie” and would effectively invalidate hundreds of thousands of votes cast in the Democratic primary. The complaint filed last week by the Republican Party of Virginia against state election officials argued that McAuliffe should be disqualified from running in the November general election because of the omission of his signature on an official form declaring his candidacy. McAuliffe argued in his filing that nothing in Virginia code requires a candidate to sign the declaration of candidacy. Further, the filing said: “Even if there were a technical defect with the declaration of candidacy – and there is not – it would provide no basis for removing McAuliffe’s name from the general election ballot and preventing Virginia’s voters from choosing him as their next Governor. The declaration of candidacy is a prerequisite for placement on the ballot in the primary election, not the general election, and the primary election has already concluded.”\n\nWashington\n\nOlympia: Hundreds of people gathered at the state Capitol on Saturday to protest Gov. Jay Inslee’s vaccine mandate. Announced in early August, Inslee’s order requires most state workers, health care workers and school employees to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by Oct. 18 or face losing their jobs. Inslee has said getting people vaccinated is essential for getting Washington past the pandemic. Organizers of the rally Saturday warned that a large segment of state workers, including many firefighters, sanitation workers and bus drivers, won’t get the vaccine – as much as 30% to 40% statewide, they said. It wasn’t clear what that estimate was based on. “If the Governor refuses to rescind his mandate, it will mean that multiple areas of the state will be severely reduced or shut down completely,” Tyler Miller, of the group Liberty, At All Hazards, said in a news release. “The Governor is unnecessarily threatening the genuine safety and well-being of the citizens of Washington if he forces his mandate to stand.” Inslee spokesman Mike Faulk defended the need for the mandate. “Employees are losing their lives to COVID. Hospitals are filling up. Communities are stressed by the pandemic’s impacts. The safest and most effective way to get beyond these tragic circumstances is vaccination,” Faulk said in a statement.\n\nWest Virginia\n\nCharleston: Residents who landscape for wildlife use can have their land designated a “wild yard.” The program already has 300 members around the state and is operated through the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources to create more natural habitat for wildlife around the state. “It’s such a wonderful program to get involved in,” Rebecca Linger, who owns a certified wild yard, said in a news release from the agency. “And you get the added benefit of creating an environment around your house where you can enjoy seeing wildlife coming and going. It really is delightful.” Jim Fregonara, a wildlife biologist with the division, said landowners who apply, provide a habitat plan and demonstrate that their property meets the needs of native wildlife will be added to a register of wild yards. They also receive a certificate for participating in the program and a sign post to display in the yard. “We want to encourage private citizens, whether they have a little bit of property or own a lot of land, to help wildlife thrive by providing them with food, water, shelter and space,” Fregonara said. More information is available at WVdnr.gov/plants-animals/conservation-education. For an information packet and application, call (304) 637-0245.\n\nWisconsin\n\nMadison: Republican concerns about the screening process for thousands of Afghan refugees who stood side by side with Americans and are now being processed through Fort McCoy are unfounded “dog whistle crap,” Gov. Tony Evers said Monday. Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, have criticized the vetting process and warned about terrorists being allowed into the country. After a tour of the Wisconsin base last week, Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson questioned whether the refugees at Fort McCoy had been fully vetted and called White House assurances about the process “lipstick on a pig.” Evers also toured the base last week and met with refugees. He said Republicans criticizing the vetting of those refugees are “vastly uninformed.” “Or they like to raise that specter of maybe some of those little kids I saw at Fort McCoy are terrorists, or maybe those adults that I saw at Fort McCoy who were working hand in hand with our soldiers and airmen in Afghanistan, somehow they are terrorists even though they’ve been vetted four or five or six times even before they left Afghanistan,” Evers said. “To me, it’s dog whistle crap, and we don’t need any of that.”\n\nWyoming\n\nCasper: Donations are pouring in for the widow and unborn child of a U.S. Marine killed in a bombing in Afghanistan. Rylee McCollum, 20, was among 13 service members killed by a suicide bomb attack Thursday at the Kabul airport. The troops were providing security as the airport was overwhelmed with people trying to leave the country amid the U.S. withdrawal and Taliban takeover. McCollum was from Bondurant and expecting his first child in three weeks, according to his family. Almost $687,000 had been raised through two online fundraising campaigns, one for the child’s future education costs and one for McCollum’s widow, as of Tuesday morning. McCollum was on his first deployment and manning a checkpoint at the airport when the attack happened, the Casper Star-Tribune reports. McCollum attended Jackson Hole High School and competed as a wrestler. He graduated in 2019 from Summit Innovations School in Jackson.\n\nFrom USA TODAY Network and wire reports", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2021/08/31"}]}
+{"question_id": "20220617_4", "search_time": "2022/06/17/16:35", "search_result": [{"url": "http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/music/2018/06/07/cmt-music-awards-six-moments-you-missed/679999002/", "title": "CMT Music Awards highlights and memorable moments", "text": "The CMT Music Awards turned Nashville's Lower Broadway into a street party Wednesday night. Hosted by Little Big Town, the fan-voted awards show recognized country music's biggest stars and hottest new talent.\n\nCheck out the top six moments below and then scroll down for a list of the winners.\n\n1. Blake Shelton is top dog at the CMT Music Awards\n\nBlake Shelton planned to stake his claim on Nashville this week during CMA Music Festival but Wednesday night he also owned the CMT Music Awards.\n\nShelton’s I’ll Name the Dogs took the top prize of Video of the Year as well as Male Video of the Year. He was featured in the show opening and performed Turn Me On, a song from his current album Texoma Shore, from the roof of his new bar on Lower Broadway, Ole Red.\n\n“I can’t believe (I’ve had) 18 years of making records,” Shelton said after winning Video of the Year. “I’m lucky (the fans) accepted them, that radio played them. It’s so cool to sit up here with the new generation of country singers.”\n\nFollowing the show, Shelton planned to host a concert from Ole Red.\n\n2. Dan + Shay stun\n\nDan + Shay collected their first awards show trophy Wednesday night when the duo pulled off a surprise win, beating favorites Florida Georgia Line and Brothers Osborne for Duo Video of the Year with Tequila.\n\nJohn Osborne of Brothers Osborne met members Shay Mooney and Dan Smyers in the aisle as they walked to the stage, greeting them with bear hugs.\n\n“Wow, I just want to thank God for country music,” said an emotional Mooney.\n\n“My heart is literally beating out of my chest right now,” added Smyers.\n\nLater in the show, the duo performed Tequila backed by their full band and a trio of strings as members of the star-studded audience sang along.\n\nTequila has been a country music juggernaut since it was released earlier this year. Since January, Tequila has been streamed more than 100 million times. The song is the lead single from the popular duo’s self-titled album that’s due June 22.\n\n3. Carrie Underwood continues CMT Music Awards winning streak\n\nCarrie Underwood captured the trophy for Female Video of the Year. The award is her 18th win at the CMT Music Awards, the most of any artist in the show’s history.\n\nUnderwood won for The Champion, her collaboration with Ludacris, which opened the television broadcast of Super Bowl LII.\n\n“Thank you so much,” Underwood said. “First and foremost, thank you God from all of us who are lucky enough to sit over here and do what we get to do. Thank you to the fans. Thank you, Ludacris, for wanting to inspire. It took a whole team of people to put all of this together.”\n\nEarlier in the night, Underwood — complete with glitter tears — wailed through her new single Cry Pretty. The song is the first from her album that is expected later this year.\n\n4. CMT Music Awards spoof royal family\n\nLittle Big Town showed off their hosting prowess in the opening skit of the CMT Music Awards Wednesday. The vocal group posed as news anchors in the bit, which looped in fellow country singers Kelsea Ballerini, Blake Shelton, Jake Owen, Jon Pardi and Dustin Lynch for a spoof on the popularity of bachelorette parties in downtown Nashville.\n\n“You guys are going all out,” Shelton told Owen, Pardi and Lynch who approached him on the sidewalk wearing matching tight pink T-shirts and silly hats.\n\n“We do this every Wednesday,” Owen quipped.\n\nTrace Adkins, Darius Rucker and Florida Georgia Line good-naturedly poked fun at England’s royal family.\n\nRucker dressed as Queen Elizabeth and waved politely from the back of a limo while Florida Georgia Line’s Brian Kelley and Tyler Hubbard posed as Prince Harry and Prince William in the back of a horse-drawn carriage.\n\n“You’re looking a lot like Prince Harry,” Hubbard told Kelley.\n\nWhen Kelley mentioned Hubbard resembled Prince William, Hubbard removed his hat to reveal a bald head surrounded by faux blond hair.\n\n5. First-time winners\n\nTears flowed on stage at the CMT Music Awards Wednesday night when Carly Pearce, Kane Brown, Backstreet Boys and Dan + Shay accepted their first CMT Music Awards. Ludacris was also a first-time winner but was not present.\n\nPearce, who used to be a performer at Dollywood, said it was a dream come true.\n\n“(The feeling) is indescribable,” said Pearce who won Breakthrough Video of the Year for Every Little Thing. “My girlfriend that was with me, she’s my best friend, she said my heart, she saw it beating in my chest. I immediately started crying because I couldn’t contain myself.”\n\nBrown, who won for Collaborative Video of the Year for What Ifs featuring Lauren Alaina, called his win “surreal.”\n\n“What an incredible feeling to win my first award that I’ve ever won on a song I’m so proud that I wrote, and to win with Lauren makes it even more special,” Brown said.\n\nBrown and Alaina have been friends since grade school.\n\n6. A plethora of summer song television debuts\n\nDierks Bentley and Brothers Osborne were pure fire during Burning Man. Flames erupted from the stage during the high-energy performance.\n\n“Everybody jump,” Bentley told the crowd as Brothers Osborne’s John Osborne blazed through a guitar solo at the end of the song.\n\nBurning Man is from Bentley’s new album The Mountain that will be available Friday.\n\nLuke Bryan used Lower Broadway as a backdrop during the national television debut performance of his new single Sunrise, Sunburn, Sunset. Bryan tossed it back to Florida Georgia Line who premiered their new single Simple. The stripped-down performance was a change of pace for the often progressive duo who played acoustic guitars and included a standing bass and mandolin in the song’s instrumentation.\n\nSam Hunt simulated a bar crawl through Lower Broadway for Downtown’s Dead. Fireworks exploded over the stage set up in the street near Bridgestone Arena at the end of the song. The Backstreet Boys did a highly choreographed version of Don’t Go Breaking My Heart and Kelly Clarkson, backed by a gospel choir, wowed on a version of American Woman.\n\nThe show closed with a collaborative performance from Rucker featuring Jason Aldean, Bryan and Charles Kelley on Straight to Hell.\n\nThe winners of the CMT Music Awards are:\n\nVIDEO OF THE YEAR\n\nBest video of the year; awarded to the artist (male, female, group/duo or collaboration) and the video director.\n\nBlake Shelton – I’ll Name The Dogs\n\nMALE VIDEO OF THE YEAR\n\nBest video by a male artist; awarded to the artist\n\nBlake Shelton – I’ll Name The Dogs\n\nFEMALE VIDEO OF THE YEAR\n\nBest video by a female artist; awarded to the artist\n\nCarrie Underwood feat. Ludacris – The Champion\n\nDUO VIDEO OF THE YEAR\n\nBest video by a duo; awarded to the artists\n\nDan + Shay – Tequila\n\nGROUP VIDEO OF THE YEAR\n\nBest video by a group; awarded to the artists\n\nLittle Big Town – When Someone Stops Loving You\n\nBREAKTHROUGH VIDEO OF THE YEAR\n\nBest video from an artist's major breakthrough album; awarded to the artist (male, female or group/duo)\n\nCarly Pearce – Every Little Thing\n\nCOLLABORATIVE VIDEO OF THE YEAR\n\nBest video from a collaboration; awarded to the artists\n\nKane Brown feat. Lauren Alaina – What Ifs\n\nCMT PERFORMANCE OF THE YEAR\n\nMusical performance on a television show, series or variety special on CMT; awarded to the artist (individual, group or duo)\n\nFrom CMT Crossroads: Backstreet Boys and Florida Georgia Line – Everybody", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2018/06/07"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/2021/06/09/cmt-music-awards-carrie-underwood-kane-brown-and-more-top-moments/7547331002/", "title": "CMT Music Awards: Carrie Underwood, Kane Brown and more top ...", "text": "Carrie Underwood: Queen of the CMT Music Awards?\n\nSounds about right.\n\nFor the ninth time in her career and the eighth since 2010, Underwood scored the top prize — Video of the Year — at the annual CMT Music Awards. Winning for \"Hallelujah,\" her John Legend collaboration, she accepted the trophy Wednesday night at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, where the show returned a year after COVID-19 derailed \"normal\" award ceremonies.\n\nIn her acceptance speech, Underwood praised the voters — country music fans.\n\nCMT Music Awards 2021:A complete list of winners\n\nCMT Music Awards:Lindsay Ell showed up to the CMT Awards in a big silver cast. Here's what happened.\n\nCMT Music Awards 2021:Red carpet fashion returns. Here's what the stars are wearing\n\n\"Fans, thank you so much, fans,\" Underwood said in accepting the fan-voted award. \"You're the reason that we are all here, doing what we do, doing what we love. Making music videos.\"\n\nWhat else went down during the show? Read along for top moments, from all-star collaborations to a unsung country legend getting her due and trips to the Bonnaroo farm.\n\nKane Brown, Kelsea Ballerini and Gabby Barrett\n\nUnderwood wasn't the only one who had reason to smile at Bridgestone Arena. Co-host Kane Brown left downtown Nashville as the year's winningest CMT Music Awards artists.\n\nBrown won Male Video of the Year for his single \"Worship You\" and Collaborative Video of the Year for Chris Young duet \"Famous Friends.\"\n\n“This is the most nervous I’ve been all night,” Brown said as he picked up his prize for Male Video of the Year.\n\nThe 27-year-old centered his speech on family – not only his wife, Katelyn Jae, and their daughter, Kingsley Rose, but also “my family that works for me, everybody in country music, and all the fans.”\n\nFirst-time co-host Kelsea Ballerini also became a first-time CMT winner. Her collaboration with pop star Halsey on last year’s show – “The Other Girl” – was named CMT Performance of the Year.\n\n“After this performance last year, there was a lot of chatter (about) categorically what genre that song did or didn't fit into,” Ballerini said from the stage. “And the fact that you voted this as the winning performance tells me that you know where my roots are, and that you know who I am. It also tells me that you hear music as music. … You love when people push boundaries and explore their artistry. And as I make a new record, that means the absolute world to me.”\n\nCountry newcomer and \"American Idol\" alumna Gabby Barrett joined the wave of leading award recipients, earning Female Video of the Year for \"The Good Ones.\"\n\nLinda Martell gets her due\n\nTrailblazing 80-year-old Linda Martell — who in 1969 was the first solo Black woman to sing at the Grand Ole Opry — earned long overdue recognition when CMT awarded her the annual Equal Play Award.\n\nIn 1970, Martell released her debut album, \"Color Me Country,\" including lead single \"Color Him Father\" — which peaked at No. 22 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, the highest-charting placement by a Black woman in chart history.\n\nBut her time in the spotlight was short-lived. Facing systemic racism, Martell retired from the country music business by the mid-1970s.\n\nAlthough under-recognized, Martell hasn't been forgotten. Country music's new wave of Black artists — including Mickey Guyton and Brown — have sung her praises, and Rissi Palmer named her Apple Music Country show \"Color Me Country\" in her honor.\n\nThe show honored Martell with a video montage featuring Palmer, Underwood, Rhiannon Giddens, Darius Rucker and inaugural Equal Play recipient Jennifer Nettles; Guyton presented the award to Martell, who accepted it earlier this week from South Carolina.\n\n\"Hearing Linda sing makes it very clear that she had all the talent to be a huge star, but her career was cut short for just one reason: the color of her skin,\" Guyton said, adding: \"Equal play is crucial so the next generation of women, like Linda, can flourish in this industry.\"\n\nGuyton continued, \"I would not be standing here today without you, and none of us would be here without you. So thank you, thank you, thank you.\"\n\nH.E.R. slays with Chris Stapleton\n\nCollaborations took center stage as country music crossed into rock, pop and soul during Wednesday night's show.\n\nGrammy-winning singer-songwriter H.E.R. enlisted Chris Stapleton for a standout take on the former's song \"Hold On\" that saw the artists swapping guitar licks and sharing lines in the soaring chorus.\n\nEarlier in the show, Ballerini and Paul Klein of alt-rock outfit LANY shared a television debut of duet \"I Quit Drinking.\" Guyton joined newcomer Breland for a take on his single \"Cross Country\" before welcoming empress of soul Gladys Knight to sing \"Friendship Train,\" a show highlight.\n\nAnd, of course, country artists collided on stage. Miranda Lambert, Jack Ingram and Jon Randall took viewers campside for a shot of \"Tequila Does\"; the broadcast traveled to Harlinsdale Park in Franklin for \"Getting Over Him\" with Lauren Alaina and Jon Pardi; and Young joined Brown to close the show with \"Famous Friends.\"\n\nWatch:H.E.R. and Chris Stapleton deliver soaring 'Hold On' performance\n\nDown on The Farm\n\nLike last year, the CMT Music Awards took viewers on a musical trip through Middle Tennessee — including a handful of performances from the Great Stage Park, AKA the Bonnaroo Farm, in Manchester.\n\nDrone footage showed off the expansive farm as Chris Stapleton performed a roaring rendition of 2020 track \"Arkansas.\" The show returned to Manchester for a Brothers Osborne and Dierks Bentley collaboration of the latter's laid back jam \"Lighten Up\" (complete with a stage full of 'Roo memorabilia) before taking a final trip to Coffee County for a collaboration with Underwood and Christian outfit NEEDTOBREATHE.\n\nAround Nashville, the show took viewers atop 5th + Broadway for performances from Luke Combs and Luke Bryan, respectively, as well as Midtown rooftop bar White Limozeen for a memorable \"Lady Like\"/\"Like That\" medley from Ingrid Andress and pop artist JP Saxe.\n\nTaylor Swift's off-camera win\n\nQuiz time, Swifties: When did Taylor Swift last win a CMT Music Award?\n\nAnswer: In 2011, she won Video of the Year for her \"Speak Now\"-era single \"Mine\" (who else remembers Swift singing in a forest of memories during the video? Throwback!).\n\nSwift returned to the winner's column — albeit virtually — Wednesday night, earning the \"Best Family Feature\" award for her endearing home footage video “The Best Day (Taylor’s Version).\" Fans voted for the category via social media, and CMT announced a winner Wednesday online prior to the show.\n\n\"I LOVE YOU MOM,\" Swift tweeted Wednesday after winning the award.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2021/06/09"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/music/2019/08/25/best-country-music-songs-all-time/2116371001/", "title": "What are the all-time greatest country songs? These 100 top our list", "text": "How do you make a sprawling list of 100 tunes seem criminally short? Try to squeeze the greatest country songs of all time into that space.\n\nAs we considered a century's worth of story-driven songcraft, we did our darndest to make sure all of the greats were recognized. And when we say \"of all time,\" we mean all time.\n\nEvery era is reflected here, from the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers' historic recordings to the reign of the \"Nashville Sound,\" outlaws, singing cowboys and pop crossovers.\n\nAnd before you shake your fists and grumble furiously about how the list forgot \"Friends in Low Places\" or gave \"9 to 5\" the short stick, let's establish one basic rule: One song per artist, with the exception being duets.\n\nOne song from Cash. One song from Garth. And, yes, as tough as it can be, only one song from Dolly.\n\nNow, dust off your turntable (or boot up Spotify) and travel through 100 of the greatest tracks to come from Music City, Bakersfield and beyond.\n\nAgree or disagree? We want to hear from you: Join us on Reddit at 12 p.m. CDT Tuesday, Aug. 27 for an AMA with the writers who compiled this list\n\nDolly Parton — \"Jolene\"\n\nEvocative and woeful, Parton's marquee recording crosses genre and generations — a once-in-a-world song without boundaries.\n\nTim McGraw — “Live Like You Were Dying”\n\nMcGraw's 2004 ballad reminds listeners to love deeper, speak sweeter and give forgiveness that you've been denying.\n\nTammy Wynette — “Stand By Your Man”\n\nFive decades removed from hitting airwaves, and country music faithful still stand tall for Wynette and her booming chorus.\n\nBrad Paisley and Alison Krauss — “Whiskey Lullaby”\n\nIt's known for its layered, mournful instrumentation, but it's the ballad's devastating storytelling and Paisley's ability to softly serenade that makes \"Whiskey Lullaby\" one of country's best modern cuts.\n\nAlan Jackson — “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)”\n\nThe country music Class of 1989 returns to the all-time list, this time asking a question in the shadow of a generation-defining event.\n\nPatsy Montana — \"I Want to be a Cowboy’s Sweetheart\"\n\nIn 1935, this jaunty tune became the first country song by a female artist to sell more than 1 million copies. It's since been covered by everyone from Patti Page to Cyndi Lauper and Phish.\n\nClint Black — \"Killin’ Time\"\n\nOn his 1989 chart-topper, Black tried — and failed — to drink a woman off of his mind.\n\nEric Church — “Springsteen”\n\nChurch expertly captures a fleeting feeling chased by all musicians — like the chorus says, “Sometimes a melody sounds like a memory.”\n\nChris Stapleton — \"Tennessee Whiskey\"\n\nWith a rough but welcoming warmth, Stapleton croons a rendition of this country classic that’s worth toasting for years to come.\n\nGeorge Jones — “He Stopped Loving Her Today”\n\nThe years go slowly by, but Jones still preys upon our minds.\n\nDeanna Carter — \"Strawberry Wine\"\n\nA commercial and critical success still filling Lower Broadway taverns with a chorus that offers \"My first taste of love, oh bittersweet.\"\n\nKenny Rogers and Dolly Parton — “Islands in the Stream”\n\nOne of the biggest pop-country crossovers in history, the beloved duet has lived on through remixes and constant karaoke rotation.\n\nThe Judds — “Why Not Me”\n\nWith the title track of their debut album, mother and daughter Naomi and Wynonna Judd made their case for being the biggest country duo of the ‘80s.\n\nConway Twitty — \"Hello Darlin' \"\n\nThis self-penned tune became Twitty’s signature song, about a guy who can’t get over the woman he wronged and lost.\n\nLoretta Lynn — “Coal Miner's Daughter\"\n\nA song, a film and a way of life for a generation raised on Lynn's working-class honesty.\n\nKris Kristofferson — “Sunday Morning Coming Down”\n\nCash made it famous, but no song may better exemplify the power and impact of Kristofferson's pen.\n\nDon Williams — “Good Ole Boys Like Me”\n\nDuring the song's 1980 release and beyond, Williams explains why \"we're all gonna be what we're gonna be.\"\n\nJimmie Rodgers — “Blue Yodel (T for Texas)”\n\nRecorded more than 90 years ago, \"T for Texas\" is considered by many to be the premier song from a blue yodelin' father to the genre.\n\nCarter Family — “Can the Circle Be Unbroken (By and By)”\n\nA torch-bearing call for country music that’s still celebrated on stages today.\n\nRay Price — “Heartaches by the Number”\n\nIt spent 40 weeks on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart and 60 years at the top of mind for 1950s country classics.\n\nRosanne Cash — “Seven Year Ache”\n\nCovered in drum loops and 1980s synthesized production, it's Rosanne Cash's sorrow that stands the test of time.\n\nSteve Earle — “Guitar Town”\n\nA foot-stomping country-rock tribute to wanderlust down a lost highway.\n\nOld Crow Medicine Show — “Wagon Wheel”\n\nSure, Darius Rucker made it a hit, but little comes close to experiencing Old Crow howling this singalong for thousands of invested onlookers.\n\nJeannie C. Riley — “Harper Valley PTA”\n\nA fictional Tennessee scandal that took Riley to the top of Billboard's Hot 100 chart.\n\nMiranda Lambert — “The House That Built Me”\n\nThe fastest-rising single of Lambert’s career remains a haunting exploration of her music's ability to resonate for repeated listens.\n\nKitty Wells — “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels”\n\nTwo-and-a-half minutes of truth that launched a career for this Tennessee legend.\n\nJerry Reed — “Eastbound and Down”\n\nCountry music's best addition to soundtrack canon? Maybe — it's the most lively, at least.\n\nRoger Miller — “King of the Road”\n\nA soft tap on the bass, a snap of the finger and Miller's off to croon listeners with his 1964 vagabond tale.\n\nWaylon Jennings and Willie Nelson — “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys”\n\nTwo of the genre’s finest unite for a heartfelt warning that cowboys “never stay home and they’re always alone, even with someone they love.”\n\nGeorge Strait and Alan Jackson — “Murder on Music Row”\n\n\"Someone killed country music/ Cut out its heart and soul,” Strait laments on the seething duet. It was released in 2000, but the sentiment still strikes a chord today.\n\nBobbie Gentry — “Ode to Billie Joe”\n\nWhat did Billie Joe throw off the bridge? Regardless of the answer, Gentry captivates with every word.\n\nVince Gill — “Go Rest High on That Mountain”\n\nAn awe-inspiring musical eulogy from Gill, delivered best during times when something moving needs to be heard.\n\nJohnny Cash — “I Walk the Line”\n\nCash released his ode to temptation in 1956, cementing words in musical history that hold true in 2019.\n\nMarty Robbins — “El Paso”\n\nComplemented by Spanish picking, \"El Paso\" offers a bloody romance worthy of Western songwriting.\n\nKeith Whitley — “I’m No Stranger to the Rain”\n\nThe last single released during Whitley's lifetime shows the singer peacefully reminding listeners that \"I've fought with the devil, got down on his level/ But I never gave in, so he gave up on me.\"\n\nEddy Arnold — \"The Cattle Call\"\n\nThe Tennessee Plowboy yodels his lonesome call, a sound that would shape country to come.\n\nReba McEntire — “Fancy”\n\nWritten by Bobbie Gentry in 1969, the almighty Reba unleashed fire with her show-closing 1990 version of this song.\n\nBuck Owens — “Act Naturally”\n\nA love song for the starry-eyed dreamers wishing about one day being put in the movies.\n\nTrisha Yearwood — “Walkaway Joe”\n\nZeal turns awry in the beloved 1990s ballad from Yearwood.\n\nLady Antebellum — \"Need You Now\"\n\nBehind the band's gorgeous harmony, Lady A sings of a longing some may know too well.\n\nShania Twain — \"Man! I Feel Like a Woman\"\n\nThe 1990s country anthem passed from Generation X mothers for millennial daughters to make their own.\n\nTaylor Swift — “Mean”\n\nIn a characteristically triumphant move, Swift turns a tune about scathing critics into the brightest addition of her country music catalog.\n\nVern Gosdin — “Chiseled in Stone”\n\nA tear-jerking ballad worthy of the Country Music Association's Song of the Year award in 1989.\n\nBlake Shelton — \"Ol' Red\"\n\nBefore it was a chain of bars, Ol’ Red was the prison dog that helped Shelton’s character bust out (thanks to his cousin’s bluetick hound).\n\nRonnie Milsap — \"Smoky Mountain Rain\"\n\nHomecoming leads to heartbreak on Milsap's 1980 chart-topper, wherein the singer \"thumbed my way from LA back to Knoxville,\" only to find his love has moved on.\n\nTom T. Hall — \"Old Dogs, Children and Watermelon Wine\"\n\n\"The Storyteller\" drew from a real-life encounter for one of his greatest tales. During a trip to Miami, he met a janitor at his hotel, who told him there were \"three things in this world that's worth a solitary dime.\"\n\nGeorge Strait — “Amarillo By Morning”\n\nThe King of Country Music subtly parades his royal status with a crisp story from the road.\n\nBob Wills and His Texas Playboys — “Stay a Little Longer”\n\nA taste of traditional western swing that simply asks listeners to dance all night and stay a little longer.\n\nAlabama — “My Home's in Alabama\"\n\nCountry music's 6½-minute calling card to the South.\n\nEmmylou Harris and Gram Parsons — “Love Hurts”\n\nNearly 60 years since being initially released — and 45 years since Harris and Parsons' duet — yes, love can still hurt.\n\nRicky Skaggs — “Country Boy”\n\nA slick-picking piece of country music (and No. 1 hit) from one of the finest to pick up an instrument.\n\nErnest Tubb — “Walking the Floor Over You”\n\nA 1941 entry in which Tubbs shares a restlessness in a simple chorus: \"I'm walking the floor over you/ I can't sleep a wink, that is true. I'm hoping and I'm praying as my heart breaks right in two/ Walking the floor over you.\"\n\nGlen Campbell — “Rhinestone Cowboy”\n\n\"Rhinestone Cowboy\" defined Campbell's career. It was a country-pop hit that kept the singer balanced between each world.\n\nCarrie Underwood — “Before He Cheats”\n\nCountry music has its share of anthems for scorned women, but Underwood’s signature song is the gold standard. An instant classic upon its release in 2006.\n\nCharley Pride — “Kiss an Angel Good Morning”\n\nWith the biggest of his dozens of hits, the Country Music Hall of Famer shared the key to marital bliss: “Kiss an angel good morning/ And love her like the devil when you get back home.”\n\nDavid Allan Coe — “You Never Even Called Me By My Name”\n\nJohn Prine didn’t want credit when he co-wrote this kiss-off to Music Row. But it was the perfect message to be delivered by Coe, perhaps country music’s most infamous outsider.\n\nWillie Nelson — “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain”\n\nThe Red Headed Stranger narrates a story of emotional messiness with soothing clarity.\n\nJohnny Paycheck — “Take This Job and Shove It”\n\nIt spawned an eternal catchphrase, but don’t forget there’s another layer to Paycheck’s lone chart-topper: “My woman done left and took all the reasons I was working for.”\n\nTanya Tucker — “Delta Dawn”\n\nRecorded when she was just 13, Tanya Tucker’s first haunting hit is ironically about an aging Southern belle, one who's under the delusion that a long-gone suitor is still coming for her.\n\nPatsy Cline — “Crazy”\n\nIt’s been covered by the likes of Neil Young, LeAnn Rimes and Linda Ronstadt, but no artist captured Willie Nelson’s lyrical poignancy the way Cline did with her 1961 version.\n\nKeith Urban — “Somebody Like You\"\n\nUrban sounds unstoppable on his 2002 chart-topper, a love song that's also wrapped up in his personal redemption.\n\nGarth Brooks — “The Dance”\n\nWhat one song could possibly capture the career of this country music giant? How about the 1990 entry showcasing Brooks’ unparalleled ability to embody a story worth singing for decades to come?\n\nCharlie Rich — “Behind Closed Doors”\n\nCountry love songs didn't get much more suggestive than Rich's 1973 hit.\n\nTennessee Ernie Ford — \"Sixteen Tons\"\n\nIt may be one of country’s most depressing songs, and in this genre, that’s saying something. Ford’s beyond saving in his 1955 recording, as he’s “sold my soul to the company store.”\n\nDwight Yoakam — “Guitars, Cadillacs”\n\nWhen he found himself in Hollywood with a broken heart and shattered dreams, Yoakam clung to hope with his \"guitars, Cadillacs (and) hillbilly music.\" Soon enough, it made him one of country's biggest stars.\n\nHank Williams Jr. — “Family Tradition”\n\nWhile he explained that he was only following in his dad’s rowdy footsteps, “Bocephus” also truly stepped out of Hank Sr.’s shadow with this 1979 smash.\n\nOak Ridge Boys — \"Elvira\"\n\nGiddy-up! We dare you to name a song that’s more fun to sing than this Oaks “oom-poppa” classic (named after an East Nashville street).\n\nRay Charles — \"You Don't Know Me\"\n\nCharles’ heartbreaking spin on the Eddy Arnold/Cindy Walker song is the pinnacle of his landmark album “Modern Sounds in Country & Western Music.”\n\nKenny Rogers — “The Gambler”\n\nRaise a glass to timeless advice.\n\nLittle Big Town — “Girl Crush”\n\nSome radio programmers were terrified of this 2014 song — in which Karen Fairchild sings of wanting to “taste (the) lips” of the woman who has her love interest’s attention — but listeners, critics and Music Row gave it a full embrace.\n\nLee Brice — “I Drive Your Truck”\n\nBrice’s powerful 2012 hit was inspired by a true story of a father who found comfort in driving the truck once owned by his son, who’d been killed while serving in Afghanistan.\n\nLacy J. Dalton — \"16th Avenue\"\n\nSeveral years after she found country stardom, Dalton made sure to tip her hat to those still chasing their dream on Nashville’s Music Row — aka 16th Avenue South.\n\nPorter Wagoner — “The Green, Green Grass of Home”\n\nBefore Tom Jones, Elvis and dozens of others put their spin on Curly Putman's classic, Wagoner first made it a hit. In a devastating twist, it turns out he's dreaming of his hometown while on death row.\n\nMerle Haggard — “Mama Tried”\n\nA slippy lead guitar, Haggard's sketched storytelling ... California country with \"Mama Tried.\"\n\nRandy Travis — “Forever and Ever, Amen”\n\nTravis lays out his devotion in his signature song, and listeners haven't stopped loving it since its release in 1987.\n\nRoy Acuff — “Wabash Cannonball”\n\nThis folk song about a mighty train had already been passed down for generations when Acuff cut it in 1936, and his version helped the \"Wabash\" legend spread around the world.\n\nGuy Clark — \"Desperados Waiting for a Train\"\n\nClark penned a beautiful tribute to his grandmother's boyfriend, Jack Prigg, \"an old school man of the world\" who would sing \"Red River Valley\" with the budding songwriter.\n\nBrooks & Dunn — \"Believe\"\n\nThe country duo won multiple awards for this soulful ballad of unwavering faith.\n\nThe Highwaymen — \"Highwayman\"\n\nOnly songwriting great Jimmy Webb could conjure up an epic theme worthy of country's greatest supergroup, composed of Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson and Willie Nelson.\n\nLarry Gatlin and the Gatlin Brothers — \"All the Gold in California\"\n\nIn soaring three-part harmony, the Gatlins issued a warning to all who head west with stars in their eyes: \"It don't matter at all where you've played before/\n\nCalifornia's a brand-new game.\"\n\nCharlie Daniels Band — \"The Devil Went Down to Georgia\"\n\nIn 1979, Daniels found the perfect showcase for his fiery fiddle technique — a familiar tale about a boy named Johnny who makes a bet with the devil (and wins).\n\nJoe Diffie — “John Deere Green”\n\nAgainst all odds, tractors have nothing to do with Diffie's 1993 song. Instead, \"John Deere Green\" is the color used to paint \"Billy Bob loves Charlene\" on the town's water tower.\n\nEarl Thomas Conley — \"Holding Her and Loving You\"\n\nIt doesn’t have a chorus, but “Holding Her and Loving You” has quite a hook. Conley counts down the hardest things he'll ever do, and the song's title tops the list.\n\nDixie Chicks — \"Wide Open Spaces\"\n\nWith the title track of their breakthrough album — about a young woman who's ready to spread her wings — the Dixie Chicks truly took flight.\n\nKacey Musgraves — \"Follow Your Arrow\"\n\nOn top of taking mainstream country into new territory with its \"Kiss lots of boys/ Or kiss lots of girls\" line, \"Follow Your Arrow\" was a powerful mission statement from Musgraves, as she's proven to have great artistic instincts.\n\nPatty Loveless — \"How Can I Help You Say Goodbye\"\n\n\"Time will ease your pain,\" Loveless sang. That may be true, but this tearjerker about carrying on after a move, a divorce and the death of a parent still stings 25 years later.\n\nSugarland — “Stay”\n\nWhat if \"Jolene\" could have given her side of the story? On Sugarland's massive 2007 hit, Jennifer Nettles sings from the perspective of a mistress, who begs her lover to stay before deciding she's tired of waiting.\n\nMartina McBride — \"Independence Day\"\n\nIt's often falsely assumed to be a patriotic song, but McBride's triumphant anthem is actually about a woman breaking free of an abusive relationship.\n\nLee Ann Womack — \"I Hope You Dance\"\n\nWhether you're singing it to your kids, a loved one or yourself, Womack's plea to live life to the fullest and take chances truly resonates.\n\nK.T. Oslin — \"80's Ladies\"\n\nOslin rocketed through the decades on her 1987 hit, which fittingly sounds very much like a product of its time. \"Now we're 80's ladies/ There ain't been much these ladies ain't tried.\"\n\nJohn Anderson — \"Swingin’ \"\n\nSure, it's about swinging on the porch (is it really, though?), but few country hits have strutted the way Anderson's feisty, horn-spiked 1983 hit does.\n\nNitty Gritty Dirt Band — \"Fishin’ in the Dark\"\n\n\"You and me going fishing in the dark/ Lying on our backs and counting the stars.\" NGDB's classic is all about simple pleasures, and listening to it is one, too.\n\nKenny Chesney — “The Good Stuff”\n\nKenny's bartender teaches him a valuable lesson: \"The good stuff\" isn't booze; it's the memories you make with your loved ones.\n\nGeorge Jones and Tammy Wynette — \"Golden Ring\"\n\nGeorge and Tammy's greatest duet explains that \"only love\" can transform a \"cold metallic thing\" into something more.\n\nLuke Bryan — “Drink a Beer”\n\nBryan didn't write this song, but he made a powerful connection to it, relating it to the deaths of his brother and sister. He sings about learning of the death of a friend and going to the pier they would sit at to \"watch the sunset disappear and drink a beer.\"\n\nLefty Frizzell — \"If You’ve Got the Money, I’ve Got the Time\"\n\nSome things never change. In 1950, Frizzell kicked off his celebrated career with this No. 1 tune about painting the town red and going \"honky tonkin.'\"\n\nToby Keith — \"How Do You Like Me Now\"\n\nKeith was already an established star, but he didn't really crank up the attitude until this 1999 hit, in which he rubs his success in the face of an unrequited love.\n\nWaylon Jennings — \"Only Daddy That’ll Walk the Line\"\n\n\"Everybody knows you've been stepping on my toes/ And I'm getting pretty tired of it.\" The outlaw legend is barely holding it together on his seething 1968 hit.\n\nEmmylou Harris, Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt — \"Even Cowgirls Get the Blues\"\n\nThe iconic trio finds exquisite harmony on a Rodney Crowell composition.\n\nHank Williams — “Your Cheatin’ Heart”\n\nSome consider this Williams entry, a can't-miss in country music history, to define the genre.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2019/08/25"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/destinations/2013/10/31/celebrity-sightings-in-nashville-during-november-cma-week/3316533/", "title": "November is prime time for Nashville celebrity sightings", "text": "Stacie Standifer\n\n10Best (a division of USA TODAY)\n\nNovember is a fantastic time to visit Nashville, especially for fans of recording artists. Famous faces from all music genres gather in the city to celebrate a host of award ceremonies and once-a-year industry banquets. This Sunday, a behind-the-scenes documentary, For the Love of Music: The Story of Nashville, debuts, and it will surely make the pull of November even stronger.\n\nWhile the Country Music Association Awards will also captivate a television audience on Wednesday evening, savvy visitors know that special moments will happen all over the city this week, as artists gather to honor songwriters and industry peers at BMI, ASCAP and SESAC banquets.\n\nWhere to run into stars\n\nWhile industry insiders visit with each other during this busy week, fans in the know can get a glimpse of their favorite stars in truly intimate moments. The stars will be meeting with actors, producers and other notables in local restaurants and watering holes. The trick is in knowing where — and also knowing what to do when faced with a star you recognize.\n\nFor cocktails, don't limit stops to tourist-directed guides focused on Broadway's honky-tonks. Visit them, certainly, but seek out haunts off of the beaten path. Stars like Hayden Panettiere (who plays Juliette Barnes on ABC's Nashville) cite hidden treasures like Santa's Pub or South Street as favorites. The Tippler in Midtown is also a great stop, as it's located at the bottom of the Adelicia residential tower that's home to several of the area's most popular artists.\n\nOne place everyone frequents without worry of intrusion is The Palm, which is directly across the street from the city's Bridgestone Center Arena. Most nights, at least one of the clubby, private rooms houses celebrities (and not just from the music world; non-music personalities like Peyton Manning and Mel Gibson have been spotted there).\n\nUsually, patrons enjoy signature martinis and steaks in booths on the main floor. Just don't go up and interrupt anyone's meal. Order the 'off the menu' Shrimp Bruno and enjoy the view. Respecting privacy is understood in Nashville, so save photo opportunities for the endless signed caricatures that line the walls ... unless you want a fast escort to the door.\n\nSpecial events this week\n\nEarly November visitors to Nashville benefit from the outpouring of celebrities before and after every big night, as well as having the chance to enjoy dozens of free events and concerts throughout the week. One of the most anticipated is Luke Bryan's performance when Good Morning America broadcasts live from the Bridgestone Arena on Wednesday morning.\n\nThe CMA Awards will go off that evening at the same venue, which will surely be sporting a red carpet for performers which include Carrie Underwood, Brad Paisley, Eric Church, Florida Georgia Line and Kacey Musgraves. Also in town to perform at the CMAs will be Alan Jackson and George Strait — the two top nominees in the awards show's history — who will be paying tribute to the late, legendary George Jones. The show is scheduled from 8-11 p.m. ET (ABC) for those wanting to secure a post-show seat in a local hot spot.\n\nNashville must-sees\n\nA visit to Nashville should include a few prerequisites. It's truly magical to see a show in the historic Ryman Auditorium for the first time. If you get a chance for tickets to a performance here, take it. But, an even more inspirational experience is to book a tour backstage and in the heart of the building. The stories and traditions you'll discover are authentic and fascinating (and not on everyone's radar).\n\nFor a souvenir unlike any other, stop into Hatch Show Prints, where custom-designed posters reflect so much of the city's past. Be prepared to stay awhile. The process, the people and their talent are all captivating. This historic print shop - in business since 1879 - is one of the oldest working letterpress print shops in the country and has just moved into its new space within the massive expansion of the Country Music Hall of Fame, which links this attraction to the new Omni Nashville Hotel.\n\nThere are two places that should be on the top of your list for a bit of history and detail on all things music-related. The Country Music Hall of Fame offers tours daily and has intimate displays along with artist detail you will not find anywhere else. A few blocks away, the new Songwriter's Hall of Fame is completely entertaining. In the new Music City Center, this state-of-the-art facility has interactive videos and dozens of ways to be completely captivated by the content and the talent stretching.\n\nThe documentary\n\nThe debut of For the Love of Music: The Story of Nashville celebrates the rich heritage of entertainment in the city's history. Viewers will see what drives the spirit of Nashville and why musicians continue to flock (and stay) there. From-up close and personal interviews and sessions with The Black Keys and Kings of Leon to stories behind the songs of famous songwriters — like the legendary Kris Kristofferson and Emmylou Harris — this is a must-watch for music fans and will surely inspire many a trip.\n\nVisitMusicCity.Com offers a sneak peek of this release featuring Keith Urban, The Black Keys, Carrie Underwood, The Civil Wars, Marty Stuart, Charlie Daniels, Bill Anderson, Vince Gill, Steve Cropper and other musical luminaries. The show airs at 3 p.m. ET on ABC, the network which also airs Nashville.\n\nVisitMusicCity.com and CMAworld.com also have updates on the latest happenings and schedules for public events (both free and ticketed).", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2013/10/31"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/2019/06/05/fun-home-best-musical-tony-awards-vermont-alison-bechden-hadestown/1305339001/", "title": "'Fun Home' VT participants look back at musical's Tony Awards win", "text": "As the musical “Hadestown” – created in Vermont by Addison County folksinger Anais Mitchell – gets ready to rock the Tony Awards this weekend, it brings back memories of the most-recent production with Vermont ties to take a star turn at the Tonys.\n\n“Fun Home” won five Tony Awards in 2015, including the biggie, Best Musical. “Fun Home” is based on the autobiographical illustrated novel by Bolton resident Alison Bechdel, who stood prominently on stage at Radio City Music Hall as cast and crew accepted the Best Musical prize. The original cast included then-11-year-old actor Oscar Williams of Charlotte, who portrayed one of Bechdel’s brothers in the musical.\n\nMore theater news:\n\nThe Burlington Free Press caught up with the two Vermonters to see what they’ve been up to in the past four years and what their thoughts are as “Hadestown,” nominated for 14 awards, goes for Tony glory Sunday night.\n\nAlison Bechdel\n\nBurlington Free Press: Four years later, what stands out for you about “Fun Home” winning the Tony Award for Best Musical?\n\nAlison Bechdel: It felt like a really historic moment, for this story about a lesbian and her gay dad to get that kind of attention. And then the fact that Lisa Kron and Jeanine Tesori won for best score, and were the first all-female team to ever do that—well, it was just a pretty amazing night.\n\nBFP: How, if at all, does being part of a Tony Award-winning production change your life?\n\nAB: You know, I had an odd relationship to the whole thing since I wasn’t really part of it. I wrote the book it was based on, and of course the book was about my life. But I wasn’t involved in the production directly. Still, it led to me becoming a lot more visible. I went through a period of getting recognized and having people come up to me on the street to tell me about the play. That was cool for a while but I’m glad it seems to be quieting down these days.\n\nBFP: Will you watch the Tony Awards ceremony on June 9?\n\nAB: I’ll probably watch a little bit, but not the whole thing.\n\nBFP: Have you seen “Hadestown?” If so, what did you think of it, and if not, do you plan to see it?\n\nAB: No, I haven’t seen it, but my partner Holly saw it in Barre way back in 2006. The little clips I’ve seen online are entrancing ,so I’m eager to see it and I hope it wins in all 14 categories it’s nominated in.\n\nBFP: What have you been up to in the past four years?\n\nAB: Just hangin’ out in Vermont, trying to get some work done. I’m writing and drawing another graphic memoir called “The Secret to Superhuman Strength,” which started out as a fun project about exercise and physical fitness, but is turning into a grim one about aging and death.\n\nOscar Williams\n\nBurlington Free Press: Four years later, what stands out for you about “Fun Home” winning the Tony Award for Best Musical?\n\nOscar Williams: What stands out for me with “Fun Home” winning best musical, is that it wasn't your typical big \"Broadway Show.\" It was unique and personal and left you feeling like you know the characters and you sympathize with them. Not to mention the fact that it was an all-female writing team. “Fun Home” was a story that needed to be told. For me, getting to be a part of such an important show was mind blowing and when we won the Tony Award I knew that we weren't the only people who knew this story was important.\n\nBFP: How, if at all, does being part of a Tony Award-winning production change your life?\n\nOW: Being a part of a Broadway production is like no other feeling in the world. You create a family and you get to tell a story for hundreds, if not thousands, of people each night. Being a part of a Tony-winning show, and being a part of the original cast, there is no greater sense of accomplishment. I got to watch people win prestigious awards for their hard work and dedication. We all celebrated for them, and when “Fun Home” won best musical, that's when the foundation we had created as a family was solidified. Nothing brings a family together more than a sense of group accomplishment and pride. We were all thankful for each other and we all loved each other. Knowing that I got to experience all those emotions and feelings, changed my life. It makes me even more grateful for all the wonderful opportunities I have had and all the people who helped me get there.\n\nBFP: Will you watch the Tony Awards ceremony on June 9?\n\nOW: I will be watching the Tony Awards, as I have done every year even before I worked on “Fun Home”! So excited to see how this season plays out.\n\nBFP: Have you seen “Hadestown?” If so, what did you think of it, and if not, do you plan to see it?\n\nOW: I have seen \"Hadestown,\" and it blew me away. The artistic detail and performances were stunning. I also felt a personal connection to the show considering the woman who created the show is from Vermont. My dad has performed in some open mics that Anais Mitchell has also played at, which for me, brings me closer to the show knowing I'm growing up in the same area as the woman who created this beautiful work of art.\n\nBFP: What have you been up to in the past four years?\n\nOW: As for me, I've been performing with my school, l also participate in educational theater companies including Very Merry (Theatre), the Flynn (Center). Coming back to these communities after my experiences in the professional world is a gift and a wonderful way to create art with some of my greatest friends. I've done productions like “Rent” as well as “The Last Five Years.”\n\nI have also been doing some work in New York as well. I did the reading of the musical “Parade” by Jason Robert Brown, where I played Frankie Epps. I got to work with Ben Platt again as well as the insanely talented Micaela Diamond. Working with director Michael Arden was amazing and a one-of-a-kind experience. Having such a complex character to develop in a professional setting was a gift. I hope they decide to bring this gorgeous show back to Broadway and I’d love another shot at a chance to bring Frankie to life. Also what a thrill getting to work with Jason Robert Brown who has written some of my favorite shows I have had the pleasure of acting in (Evan in “13 The Musical” with VMT, Jamie in “The Last Five Years” as a Grad Challenge Project at CVU (Champlain Valley Union High School), and of course Frankie in “Parade.”\n\nThis summer I am doing my own Grad Challenge as a rising junior. I am going to try my hands behind the scenes by being a co-assistant stage manager for the Flynn Summer Youth Theaters “Matilda” (which is a very special show to me that I may have been in on Broadway had I not been offered “Fun Home” first).\n\nContact Brent Hallenbeck at 660-1844 or bhallenbeck@freepressmedia.com. Follow Brent on Twitter at www.twitter.com/BrentHallenbeck.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2019/06/05"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2019/01/22/kaye-ballard-dies-at-93-rancho-mirage/2620474002/", "title": "Kaye Ballard dies in Rancho Mirage at 93 after lifetime of achievement", "text": "Kaye Ballard had a contented smile on her face as she watched herself, larger than life, at the Palm Springs International Film Festival screening of her documentary, “Kaye Ballard: The Show Goes On,” this month at the Palm Springs Cultural Center.\n\nShe had been greeted in the lobby by mobs of fans, taking pictures and congregating around her wheelchair like close personal friends. It made her caregiver nervous, and she advised Ballard to leave the theater early more than once. Her heart was weak. She needed to be in bed.\n\nBut Ballard waved her off as the audience broke into spontaneous applause seven times during the film. Ballard stayed for about an hour, until just before a scene depicting her conflict with her mother. Then her caregiver wheeled her out of the theater one last time. When she was gone, a reporter sitting across the aisle sensed she was really gone.\n\nLatest:Kaye Ballard remembered at memorial as big talent with humongous heart\n\nMore:Broadway icon Carol Channing remembered in the Coachella Valley as 'unsurpassable'\n\nMore:'Monkees' TV director and Indian Wells resident James Frawley dies in desert he loved\n\nBut there was one more celebration. A film festival official called her Saturday night, Jan. 12, and said her documentary had been named one of the Best of the Fest. Ballard was thrilled, said her closest friend, Myvanwy Jenn. Then she began to fade away.\n\nBallard, 93, died Monday night at her home in Rancho Mirage after lapsing into unconsciousness less than a week after being notified that “Kaye Ballard: The Show Goes On” would go on to have another festival screening as a Best of the Fest.\n\n“I loved that she was at the theater the night the film opened at the festival,” said Festival Chairman Harold Matzner. “She received a serenade of applause from all the people who gathered from a sold-out performance. I’m sure she loved that. I’m glad it was finished in time for her to see it and enjoy it.”\n\n“The irony of all this,” added actor Gavin MacLeod, “is, you can go back a year, a year-and-a-half, and PBS did a movie on Rose Marie’s life. And Rosie died I think three days later. Kaye said, ‘I want my movie to be better than Rosie’s.’ Then Kaye’s movie is shown at the festival, and then the award, and then she goes. It’s like these two dynamite personalities got a chance to see their lives flash in front of them on screen before they said, ‘Bye-bye.’\n\nMore:Premiere of documentary on Palm Springs legend leads week's entertainment events\n\nMore:Premiere of documentary on Palm Springs legend leads week's entertainment events\n\n“Kaye was my favorite leading lady, and my favorite friend, and there is a vacancy in our lives because of her leaving that only God can fulfill.”\n\nBallard had one of the most illustrious careers in show business in the mid-20th century. She first exhibited her talents in Cleveland, where she was born Catherine Gloria Balotta to Italian emigrant parents. She was doing impressions of French entertainment legend Maurice Chevalier at age 5. She developed into a painter, singer, actor, musician and comic impressionist.\n\nBallard was offered a scholarship to Cleveland Art College, but chose to perform instead in vaudeville. A stage producer in Detroit was so impressed by her multiple talents, he recommended her to Spike Jones, the most popular comic big band leader of the Swing Era. Jones, who had novelty hits like \"Cocktails For Two\" and \"Yes, We Have No Bananas,\" invited her to look him up if she ever got out to Los Angeles. So Ballard bought a one-way plane ticket to L.A. and landed a job as a singer and a comic tuba player with his band.\n\nShe was performing with the Spike Jones Orchestra at the posh Trocadero supper club in L.A. when Mel Torme came in to sing with Nat King Cole in the lounge, Ballard said. Torme had written a new Christmas song that started with, \"Chestnuts roasting on an open fire ...\"\n\nMore:Kaye Ballard memorial service scheduled after outpouring of love\n\nMore:Kaye Ballard gets a third act with debut of her documentary at the film festival she loves\n\nWhen Jones' band stopped went on tour to New York, Ballard got a chance to see Laurette Taylor in Tennessee Williams' \"The Glass Menagerie,\" which inspired her to get serious about acting, and Ethel Merman in Irving Berlin's \"Annie Get Your Gun,\" which convinced her to go into musical theater.\n\nBallard made her Broadway debut in 1946 when she was invited by someone who had seen her with Jones to join the cast of the musical, \"Three To Make Ready,\" with \"The Wizard of Oz\" star Ray Bolger and such future legends as Arthur Godfrey, Julie Wilson and Gordon McRae.\n\nFrom there, she did such shows as \"Touch and Go,\" which included a Royal Command Performance for King George VI, which got her an introduction to the future Queen Elizabeth; \"Top Banana\" with Phil Silvers, in which she replaced Rose Marie for the road tour, and \"The Golden Apple,\" which landed her on the cover of Life Magazine and enabled her to introduce the standard, \"Lazy Afternoon.\"\n\nThroughout the rest of her life, with all of the other endeavors she tried, including film, record albums and and a book, Ballard always came back to the stage. Her list of theatrical credits in New York and around the country is remarkable, including:\n\n\"Carnival,\" \"Gypsie,\" \"Annie Get Your Gun,\" \"Sheba,\" \"High Spirits,\" a female version of \"The Odd Couple,\" \"Funny Girl,\" \"Chicago,\" \"The Pirates of Penzance,\" \"Royal Flush,\" \"Reuben, Reuben,\" \"Follies,\" \"Look Ma, I'm Dancin',\" \"Minnie's Boys,\" \"The Decline and Fall of the Entire World As Seen Through the Eyes of Cole Porter Revisited,\" \"Molly,\" \"The Beast In Me,\" \"Wonderful Town,\" \"She Stoops To Conquer,\" \"The Pirates of Penzance,\" \"No, No Nanette\" and \"Over the River and Through the Woods.\"\n\nOther notable productions included \"Nunsense,\" which won a Carbonell Award for South Florida theater, \"4 Girls 4,\" which she performed at the McCallum Theatre,\" \"Crazy Words, Crazy Tunes,\" which she performed for most of a season at the Springs Theater in the Palm Springs Convention Center, \"From Broadway with Love,\" with Donna McKcKechnie and Liliane Montevecchi, and \"The Fabulous Palm Springs Follies,\" where she appeared as a guest artist as an opportunity to sell copies of her book, \"How I Lost 10 Pounds in 53 Years: Kaye Ballard, A Memoir,\" in the lobby in 2004.\n\nShe toured with two critically acclaimed one-woman shows, \"Kaye Ballard — Working 42nd St., At Least,\" and \"Hey Ma... Kaye Ballard,\" which she also brought to the McCallum. She did her last touring production in 2012 at age 86, \"Doin' It For Love,\" a tribute to Broadway standards and performers, and the stories behind them with Montevecchi and Lee Roy Reams.\n\nShe said she was proud of having always been a working entertainer, without ever having to take a job outside of show biz.\n\n\"I’m very happy because I’m doing the things I’ve done for 60 years,\" she said in 2012. \"I’m just doing the best of the things, like Sophie Tucker and Jimmy Durante (material), and telling things that were in my book. It’s really wonderful.\"\n\nAfter her first Broadway show, Ballard next went into cabaret, headlining New York's finest supper clubs, such as the Blue Angel and Bon Soir. She had a voice that rivaled Judy Garland's and, with her comedy and acting skills, she became a magnet for New York music publishers and their \"song pluggers.\" In 1954, she introduced a Bart Howard song called \"In Other Words\" for Hampshire House Publishing, led by her future Rancho Mirage neighbor, Howie Richmond. It became known as \"Fly Me To the Moon\" after Frank Sinatra recorded it.\n\nGretchen Reinhagen, a New York singer-actress whose family has long been part of the Coachella Valley theater community, did her own New York cabaret show saluting Ballard, called “Special Kaye: A Tribute to the Incomparable Kaye Ballard,” and performed it at the Annenberg Theater with Ballard in attendance.\n\n“There is a huge fan base for her and deservedly so,” Reinhagen said at the time. “I saw her a couple of years ago with 'The (Fabulous Palm Springs) Follies' and it was like seeing a master class. I don’t think people know her as the incredible musician she is. I think people in the theater world or cabaret are very familiar with her cabaret work, as well as her Broadway career. I think some of the broader population that know her from ‘The Mothers-In-Law’ don’t know about ‘Working 42nd Street At Last.’”\n\nBallard made her first television splash in the 1957 made-for-TV Rodgers & Hammerstein musical, \"Cinderella,\" starring Julie Andrews. She became part of the Kraft Music Hall Players on NBC's \"The Perry Como Show\" with Don Adams and Sandy Stewart in 1961-62. But it was the 1967-69 sit-com, \"The Mothers-In-Law\" that made Ballard a household name. She starred with Eve Arden as two very different neighbors who were forced to become in-laws when their kids surprised them by marrying one another.\n\nDesi Arnaz directed the shows and the writers of \"I Love Lucy,\" Bob Carroll Jr. and Madelyn Davis, wrote the brilliant scripts. But Roger C. Carmel, who played the husband of Ballard's character, left the show after the first season in a salary dispute and the show didn't work with Richard Deacon playing Carmel's character.\n\nBallard moved on to a recurring part \"The Doris Day Show\" in 1970, with Rose Marie again in a higher-profile featured role, and she made an appearance on \"Here's Lucy,\" starring Lucille Ball and her two kids, Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz Jr.\n\nLucie, now living in Palm Springs, remembers Ballard coming to the desert to visit her family, with her father and his second wife, Edie, during \"The Mothers-In-Law.\"\n\n\"I have known her for over 50 years,\" Arnaz said. \"My father produced her series and she bought his house here in Rancho Mirage. She has always been very supportive of the direction I wanted to take in this business, even mentioning me in her autobiography, saying I would make a great director one day — years before I actually started directing. I always appreciated that. Kaye was a force to be reckoned with and I will miss her.\"\n\nRancho Mirage was home to some of the greatest female talents in the history of show biz in the 1970s. They included Ball, the biggest name in television, Dinah Shore, the leading female recording artist of the 1940s; Mary Martin, a rival to Merman as Broadway’s top stage musical actress; Alice Faye, the biggest star at 20th Century-Fox before walking away from the movies, and Ruby Keeler and Ginger Rogers, the top female movie dance stars of the 1930s and ‘40s, respectively.\n\nBallard felt overshadowed by these women in terms of celebrity. But her activity in theater, where casts grow personally connected after weeks or months of working together, had given her an extended family that reached across the globe.\n\nBallard never married or had children. She wrote in her memoir, “I found an emotional connection with women like Liz (Smith, the admittedly bisexual syndicated columnist who was Ballard’s road manager in the 1950s) that I could never find with a man. I don’t know why or how it happened, but I do know it has kept me single my entire life.”\n\nBut Ballard’s show-biz family was always all welcome at her house in the desert. She became an unofficial ambassador enticing celebrities to visit and often move to the Coachella Valley.\n\n“When I first met her, I was a big fan of hers,” MacLeod recalled. “We were doing ‘The Mary Tyler Moore Show’ (in the early ‘70s) and I got a call. ‘Would I play Herbie with Kaye Ballard at a real burlesque theater in San Diego.’ I said, ‘Are you kidding?’ That was the beginning of our relationship. We spent a lot of time with Kaye and I had never been to Palm Springs. She said, ‘I live in Rancho Mirage, in Desi’s old house.’ So, (wife) Patti and I came down here and fell in love with it and we’ve had places down here since the ‘Mary Tyler Moore’ days. First in Palm Springs and then all over. It was because of Kaye. I don’t know if we would have come down here (otherwise). Now we have our burial plots right down the street from us.”\n\nPhotographer and event producer Michael Childers, who saw Ballard in \"Carnival\" when he was 16, credits her with introducing him to the desert and his life partner, John Schlesinger, the director of films such as “Midnight Cowboy” and “Marathon Man.”\n\nChilders said he got to know Ballard while taking still photos of “The Mothers-In-Law.” She told him Schlesinger had just come to Los Angeles and was lonely. He was “very nice and very charming,” Ballard told him, and she suggested they meet for a drink at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel bar. Childers read that Schlesinger could be “mercurial and difficult on the set,’ so he asked an actor friend to come along. But he soon told the friend to get lost.\n\n“He was charming, delightful and wonderful and I thank Kaye Ballard for introducing me to my partner of 38 years,” Childers said. “It wouldn’t have happened without Kaye Ballard. And, when we moved here in 1998, she was the first person to take us under the wing and introduce us to all the locals — the movers and the shakers.\n\n“She loved the desert. She was the first great desert booster that I met.”\n\nBallard performed at two of Childers’ “One Night Only” benefit variety shows at the McCallum, and Childers said, “The audience went crazy when they saw her.” She regularly attended charity events and performed at a few of them, including a roast of the late journalist Gloria Greer to benefit ACT For MS, and a tribute to Merv Griffin to benefit the La Quinta Arts Foundation. She received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Palm Springs Women In Film & Television in November for helping to break the glass ceiling marginalizing women in show business.\n\nBut her passion was the Palm Springs International Film Festival. She served on the board of the Palm Springs International Film Society under Camelot Theatres founders Ric and Rozene Supple in the 1990s after being a regular at the foreign film screenings since the festival’s inception in 1990. She was no longer on the board when Matzner joined, but he noticed how much the other celebrities at the gala liked her.\n\n“When I arrived on the scene in 2000, the gala had a green room and she was in it and she knew everybody,” he said. “We very quickly eliminated the green room after my first year because we wanted the stars to be part of the audience. But, Kaye has always been very, very helpful to me personally and to the film festival. She is a real ambassador for this film festival and always has been. So, when she got to the point where she really couldn’t walk, we treated her as a member of our film festival inner circle. Her star status qualified her for the red carpet, and she was always invited.”\n\nMatzner recognized how happy Ballard seemed to be “in that milieu” of show biz people. Childers saw it, too.\n\n“She needed people around her all the time,” Childers said. “She was no good alone. She loved entertaining, giving parties, and the days in Hollywood, when she had lots of money, she had lots of parties where I met everybody in Hollywood. She was a people person.”\n\nBut Ballard was in awe of people with great talent. She originally planned to call her autobiography, “I Just Happened To Be There” because she was so impressed by all the people she met from the pantheon of show business. She said after meeting French chanteuse Edith Piaf, and then seeing her in concert, “I couldn’t talk to her normally ever again.”\n\n“I met Elvis Presley in Palm Springs,” she said. “I was driving along Palm Canyon and I pulled right upside his black (Stutz Blackhawk), and I said, ‘I love you!’ He said, ‘I love you, too, Miss Ballard.’ I said, ‘Ah!’ I almost drove off the road. I thought, ‘Elvis Presley said my name! He knows who I am! That was the thrill of a lifetime.”\n\nBut she was just as proud of recognizing up-and-coming talent and helping them with their careers. She boasted of introducing comic actor Paul Lynde to producer Leonard Sillman, who launched his career by putting him in “New Faces Of 1952.” She suggested Jerry Stiller and his wife, Anne Meara, do a comedy act together. They became famous as Stiller & Meara before they became famous as Ben Stiller's parents.\n\nSatirist Paul Krassner, who edited the pioneering comic Lenny Bruce’s autobiography, “How to Talk Dirty and Influence People,” credited Ballard with getting Bruce one of his first big New York gigs at the Blue Angel.\n\n“I think every person who understood Kaye at all would agree that the most salient fact about her was that, in a profession where the ego is most often supreme, she thrived on finding genuine happiness in the success of others, whether they happened to be huge stars or simply people she took pleasure in knowing,” said her Rancho Mirage friend, Hal Wingo, one of the founding editors of People magazine.\n\n“As much as she sought out and enjoyed the limelight of show business in a very long and diversified career, she equally enjoyed the company of other talented performers she respected and admired, even to the point of refusing top billing every time she thought another person was more deserving, though very few were.”\n\nBallard also had regrets about things she didn’t accomplish. In 2003, she told The Desert Sun she needed to work and, “I would give anything to be on a television show.” She auditioned for “Becker,” she said, and sent a tape in for “The Sopranos.” Neither panned out.\n\n“If I had my life to live over, I would live my life differently,” she said. “I would have gone after Howard Richmond!”\n\nBut friends said Ballard could be her own worst enemy.\n\nChilders recalls the time he booked Doris Roberts to perform at his “One Night Only” and Ballard was upset. He later discovered Ballard had wanted the role of the Italian mother in “Everybody Loves Raymond,” which Roberts got.\n\n“She would have been great as the Italian mother,” he said, “but she refused to go in to L.A. to do a screen test. She said, ‘You can look at my old TV footage on ‘The Mothers-In-Law.’ Well, that’s not how the business works.’ That was sad to see she didn’t get that.”\n\n“Kaye was not always easy to understand,” added Arnaz. “She could be abrasively cruel and then hilariously compassionate to the same person within minutes. She was a superb entertainer, a sensational vocal talent who, sadly, never believed she got the breaks she deserved, and it ate away at her.”\n\nBut Ballard was beloved in the Coachella Valley. She was the only local celebrity to receive two lifetime achievement awards from the Desert Theatre League. She has a star on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars at the corner of Palm Canyon and Tahquitz Canyon drives, next to the marker for Marilyn Monroe, with whom she took acting classes at Actors Studio in New York. The city of Rancho Mirage renamed the street on which she lived Kaye Ballard Lane in 2003, putting her in a league with Sinatra as probably the only local celebrities to live on streets named after them.\n\nShe did a “Going Out Of Business” show at the Camelot Theatre in 2014 with friends such as the late Carol Channing, Shecky Greene and Peter Marshall, and it sold out in two weeks. It was filmed for the documentary that was made about her and it provided a warm ending to a film that was primarily intended to inform people about the vastness of Ballard’s career.\n\nChanning says in the film Ballard was the only friend she could talk to about her own personal let-downs.\n\n“She and Channing,” lamented Childers. “What a loss. What an empty hole we have in this desert now without them.”\n\nMatzner, who invested in the documentary that took three-and-a-half years to make, said he loved the movie more than he expected when he watched it at the film festival.\n\n“I had no idea she had done all that work,” he said. “It covered so many years. It was the right thing for her to do to give people a chance to see how broad her work really was.”\n\n\"There is no dynamite talent like that,\" added McLeod. \"In the movie, you can see what a multi-talented person she was, and she was that way as a friend, too.\"\n\nWingo, who was an executive producer of “Kaye Ballard: The Show Goes On,” said he'll remember Ballard for her work and the depth of her friendship.\n\n“When self-interest and ego satisfaction were being dished out to humans,” Wingo said, “Kaye was still in the line waiting for a second helping of awe and wonder. Those traits were her constant companions throughout a career of comedic brilliance and stunning vocal competence in every arena of show business, from vaudeville to Broadway, television and films.\n\n“But, what must be remembered now is that none of those achievements were any match for the grandeur and strength of her own generous heart. That's the great loss we all experience in losing her.”\n\nWingo, serving as a family spokesman, said Ballard did not want any form of funeral service and her body will be cremated. Her nearest relatives, he said, are nieces and nephews, In lieu of flowers, Ballard asked that donations in her name be made to the Palm Springs Animal Shelter, the Coachella Homeless Shelter or any Coachella Valley veterans groups.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2019/01/22"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/music/2017/09/25/new-2017-top-25-indiana-musicians-all-time/639839001/", "title": "Icons highlight IndyStar list of Top 25 Indiana musicians of all time", "text": "The entire world sings along to hits made by Indiana natives, from Brazilians who love Axl Rose to Nigerians who adore Michael Jackson.\n\nRose and Jackson are two superstars highlighted in IndyStar’s list of “25 Top Hoosier Musicians.” The list, originally published as a series in December 2012, includes representatives of blues, pop, country, hip-hop, R&B, rock, classical, jazz, Broadway and punk rock styles.\n\nThe roster, revised slightly after five years, includes subjective selections by IndyStar reporter David Lindquist. For this list, a “Hoosier” is defined as someone who helped shape the cultural identity of Indiana or someone whose identity was shaped by the state.\n\nHere’s who made the cut, from No. 25 to No. 1, including YouTube and Spotify playlists:\n\n25. Rusty Redenbacher, inventive voice of Mudkids and Birdmen\n\nIndiana has yet to send a hip-hop act to the top of the charts, but you shouldn’t believe the state lacks a transcendent MC. Rusty Redenbacher, born in Gary in 1970, has a catalog of razor-sharp rhymes stretching across four Mudkids albums with producer/DJ Tyler Knapp, three solo albums and a duo album with Mr. Kinetik. Redenbacher’s songs brim with drama, comedy, romance, intelligence, pride, humility, perseverance, celebration and gratitude. Before the Mudkids, he blazed a trail through Indiana’s hard-rock scene as frontman for Birdmen of Alcatraz.\n\nEssential songs: \"MK Hustle,” “Another Journey,\" “Cashin’ In.”\n\nHe said it: \"Lyrically, man, I’m always pushing the envelope. I’m John Glenn. I’ve been to space and I’m trying to go back,\" Redenbacher told IndyStar in 1998.\n\n24. Shannon Hoon, Blind Melon singer and MTV fixture in the ’90s\n\nAfter earning nine varsity letters at Lafayette's McCutcheon High School, Shannon Hoon left Indiana to pursue his rock 'n' roll dream in Los Angeles. Fellow Hoosier Axl Rose provided an assist by inviting Hoon to sing backing vocals on Guns N' Roses songs and even appear in the video for 1991 single \"Don't Cry.\" Hoon's own band, Blind Melon, took MTV by storm one year later with its \"No Rain\" single and memorable \"Bee Girl\" video mascot. Blind Melon sold more than 2 million copies of its debut album, appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine and performed as part of the 1994 Woodstock festival. Hoon (1967-1995) died two months after the release of Blind Melon's second album, \"Soup.\" An accidental drug overdose was the cause of Hoon's death.\n\nEssential songs: \"No Rain,” “Tones of Home,\" “Three is a Magic Number.”\n\nHe said it: \"I was never satisfied,\" Hoon told IndyStar in 1995, \"but that wasn't a bad thing for me. I want to do more. I'm never satisfied with what I've done.\"\n\n23. Bob Flanigan, head of the class for Four Freshmen harmonies\n\nFormed on the campus of Butler University in 1948, the Four Freshmen sang vocal harmonies that defied the rules of math. Bob Flanigan (who grew up in Greencastle), brothers Don and Ross Barbour (Columbus, Ind.) and Hal Kratzsch (Warsaw) spread four voices across what seemed to be five- or six-part harmony. Ross coined the term “purple chords” to describe their lush-sounding arrangements, and Flanigan (1926-2011) sang lead atop the shifting stack of sound. Credited by Brian Wilson as a prime influence on the Beach Boys, the Four Freshmen were Inducted to the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2001.\n\nEssential songs: “It’s a Blue World,” “Poinciana,” “Their Hearts Were Full of Spring.”\n\nHe said it: “We think like horn players. The way we blend is due to our approach as instrumentalists,” Flanigan told The Los Angeles Times in 1991.\n\n22. The Rev. Josh Peyton, modern guitar hero of timeless country blues\n\nIt wasn't long after Josh Peyton graduated from Westfield High School in 1999 that he began to spread the country-blues gospel popularized by Charley Patton and Furry Lewis in the 1920s. As leader of the Rev. Peyton's Big Damn Band (featuring his wife, Breezy, on washboard and Maxwell Senteney on drums), Peyton has performed in 32 countries and every state aside from Alaska and Hawaii. Audiences are wowed when he multi-tasks melodies and bass lines on his resonator guitar. Peyton also made a 2016 video featuring his “guitgun” — a three-string guitar that's also an operational shotgun — that's racked up more than 25 million online views.\n\nEssential songs: \"Clap Your Hands,” “We Deserve a Happy Ending,\" “Two Bottles of Wine.”\n\nHe said it: \"If they played music in Claire's at the mall instead of in bars, I'd go to Claire's at the mall,\" Peyton told IndyStar in 2017. \"I'd suck it up, carry my guitar down there and play. I love making music. I love everything about it.\"\n\n21. Dale Lawrence, boundary pusher with Gizmos and Boatmen\n\nDale Lawrence supplied the rootsy jangle when two underground styles — punk and indie rock — surfaced in Indiana. The singer-songwriter played in the second version of the state's first punk band, the Gizmos, and he's led the Vulgar Boatmen through multiple decades of critical acclaim. When the Gizmos made a split album with the West Lafayette-based Dow Jones and the Industrials (a 1980 gem titled \"Hoosier Hysteria\"), Lawrence served as primary vocalist and songwriter. The Boatmen specialize in clean, refined pop-rock — skittering along a rhythmic path established by Bo Diddley and later subverted by the Velvet Underground.\n\nEssential songs: \"Change the World All Around,\" \"Mary Jane,\" \"The Midwest can be Alright.\"\n\nHe said it: \"In New York, we got lost in the shuffle and we felt that we were just playing in a void. In Bloomington, at least people disliked us,\" said Lawrence, telling IndyStar about the Gizmos in a 2000 interview.\n\n20. Scrapper Blackwell, collaborative and influential blues master\n\nThe story of blues music doesn’t begin with Robert Johnson, the mysterious 1930s singer-guitarist from Mississippi who captured the imaginations of Eric Clapton and Led Zeppelin. Johnson borrowed the framework for two of his signature tunes — “Sweet Home Chicago” and “Kindhearted Woman Blues” — from Indianapolis-based musicians Francis “Scrapper” Blackwell and Leroy Carr. Vocalist-pianist Carr and guitarist Blackwell recorded more than 160 songs together between 1928 and 1935. Blackwell Carr Memorial Playground, part of Brookside Park, is named in honor of Blackwell (1903-1962) and Carr (1905-1935).\n\nEssential songs: “Kokomo Blues,” “How Long, How Long Blues,” “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out.”\n\nHe said it: “The records sold so fast that the company couldn’t keep them, that’s the truth,” Blackwell on 1928 recording “How Long, How Long Blues,” as told to Jazz Monthly magazine in 1960.\n\n19. Crystal Gayle, ‘Brown Eyes’ singer who became a crossover queen\n\nCrystal Gayle recorded one of the biggest country-pop crossover hits of the 1970s as well as 31 more songs that reached the Top 10 of Billboard magazine's country chart. Born near Van Lear, Ky., in 1951, Brenda Gail Webb was the youngest child of coal miner Melvin \"Ted\" Webb and Clara Marie Ramey Webb. One of Brenda's seven siblings, Loretta, found country music fame after she married Oliver \"Mooney\" Lynn. Brenda's parents moved to Wabash in the mid-1950s, and she adopted the stage name Crystal Gayle before releasing debut single \"I've Cried (the Blue Right Out of My Eyes)\" in 1970. Seven years later, \"Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue\" made Gayle a mainstream star.\n\nEssential songs: \"Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue,” “I’ll Get Over You,\" “You and I.”\n\nShe said it: \"On the weekends, I was always out there in whatever clubs I could get into, the VFWs. I'd get up there with my brother's band and sing a few songs,\" said Gayle about early performances in Indiana, as told to The Indianapolis News in 1993.\n\n18. Charlie Fuqua, responsible for signature riffs on Ink Spots hits\n\nMost hit songs by the Ink Spots began the same way: in the hands of guitarist Charlie Fuqua. “If I Didn’t Care,” “My Prayer,” “Maybe,” “Do I Worry?” and “I Don’t Want to Set the World On Fire” are difficult to tell apart in their opening moments, because Fuqua applied his signature “bom-ba-dee-da, bom-ba-dee-da” intro to all. The formula worked. The Ink Spots, founded in Indianapolis in 1934, sent 20 songs into the Top 10 of Billboard magazine’s Hit Parade between 1939 and 1949. The original Ink Spots were Fuqua (1910-1970), Jerry Daniels (1915-1995), Ivory “Deek” Watson (1909-1969) and Orville “Hoppy” Jones (1902-1944). In 1989, the Ink Spots became Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees in the category of “Early Influence.”\n\nEssential songs: \"If I Didn’t Care,” “My Prayer,\" “I Don’t Want to Set the World On Fire.”\n\nHe said it: “The act was known as King Jack and the Jesters and included Deek Watson, Orville 'Hoppy' Jones, Jerry Daniels and myself. Upon arriving in New York, the group, sitting in Moe Gale's office, tried to figure out a new name for the group. All of a sudden a drop of ink spilled from Moe Gale's fountain pen, and Deek Watson snapped his fingers and said, 'That's it. The Ink Spots,' \" Fuqua, recalling the group's origins for The Carolina Times in 1952.\n\n17. Steve Wariner, one of Music City’s few ‘Certified Guitar Players’\n\nSteve Wariner isn’t the flashiest guitar player in Nashville, but he’s recognized as one of the best. Born in Noblesville on Christmas Day, 1954, Wariner is one of just five people to be designated as “Certified Guitar Players” by country music icon Chet Atkins (1924-2001). Atkins gave the title to himself, Wariner, Jerry Reed, Tommy Emmanuel and John Knowles. Wariner’s career highlights include four Grammy Awards, more than 30 Top 10 country hits as a performer and three Top 5 country hits in the role of songwriter for other artists. Wariner’s 1998 hit “Holes in the Floor of Heaven” collected Single of the Year and Song of the Year honors at the Country Music Association Awards.\n\nEssential songs: \"Holes in the Floor of Heaven,” “Lonely Women Make Good Lovers,” “If I Didn’t Love You.”\n\nHe said it: \"I remember when I was living in a town called Noblesville. I remember driving around listening to country music on WIRE radio. I'd pull up at a red light and all my friends would be in the next car and there'd be some girls over there. I'd either roll my window up or real quick turn the radio off. I was embarrassed that they might think I was listening to country music. But it's not that way anymore,\" Wariner, in a 1991 IndyStar interview.\n\n16. Yank Rachell, mandolin ace and patriarch of Indianapolis blues\n\nJames “Yank” Rachell lived a low-key life in Indianapolis when the folk music revival exploded in the early 1960s. People wanted to hear the man who played mandolin on 30-year-old country blues recordings, and Tennessee native Rachell was newly widowed and available for gigs. \"I didn't have nothing else to do,” Rachell told The Indianapolis Star in 1997. “I went on, me and Sleepy John (Estes) and Hammie Nixon.\" The trio played the festival circuit in the United States and Europe, waking up the echoes of “Diving Duck Blues” (recorded in Memphis, Tenn., in 1929) and “New Minglewood Blues” (recorded in Memphis in 1930 and frequently covered by the Grateful Dead). To Indianapolis-based musicians, Rachell (1910-1997) was the long-running patriarch of the local blues community. He made “Pig Trader’s Blues,” a 1995 album recorded with guitarist David Morgan, and “Too Hot for the Devil,” a 1997 album recorded with guitarist Pat Webb and harmonica player Allen Stratyner.\n\nEssential songs: \"She Caught the Katy,\" \"Diving Duck Blues\" \"New Minglewood Blues.\"\n\nHe said it: “You’ve got to have that feeling to play the blues,” Yachell told IndyStar in 1992. “Sometimes it makes me cry, I feel so good.”\n\nIndyStar podcast:Revisit chats with Dave Grohl, Slash, David Lee Roth and more\n\nMusic festival:See-it, feel-it party planned for Fountain Square\n\nConcert recap:U2 spotlights best of U.S.A., Indy in stadium show\n\n15. Paul Mahern, Zero Boys trailblazer and production wizard\n\nThe Zero Boys' \"Vicious Circle\" album was made Aug. 18-19, 1981, at Keystone Recording in Indianapolis. At age 17, Paul Mahern accomplished enough during those two days to earn his spot on a list of top Hoosier musicians. \"Vicious Circle\" is a breakneck document of American punk rock, fueled by Mahern's youthful energy and the adept musicianship of Zero Boys' band mates guitarist Terry \"Hollywood\" Howe, bass player David \"Tufty\" Clough and drummer Mark Cutsinger. Mahern's adult life has been filled with more time spent in studios, as he's worked as producer or engineer on recordings by Iggy Pop, John Mellencamp, the Blake Babies, the Rev. Peyton's Big Damn Band and many more.\n\nEssential songs: \"Civilization's Dying,\" \"Livin' in the '80s,\" \"Dirty Alleys, Dirty Minds.”\n\nHe said it: “In reality, my life hasn't changed that much. I'm still completely surrounded by music and do exactly what I want to do,\" Mahern told IndyStar in 2012.\n\n14. Kenny Aronoff, in-demand drummer with star-studded discography\n\nKenny Aronoff’s name is listed in the liner notes of hundreds of albums, and he’s seated at a drum kit for some of the world’s biggest gigs. In 2009, Aronoff backed an A-list lineup at President Obama’s inauguration celebration at the Lincoln Memorial. Aronoff, who grew up in Massachusetts and studied music at Indiana University, played drums during 2014's \"The Night That Changed America: A Grammy Salute to the Beatles.\" Seventeen years of work in John Mellencamp’s band cemented Aronoff’s reputation as a powerhouse drummer, and tours with Melissa Etheridge, Bob Seger, Fogerty, Joe Cocker, the BoDeans, Smashing Pumpkins and Chickenfoot followed.\n\nEssential songs: John Mellencamp’s “Crumblin’ Down,” the BoDeans’ “You Don’t Get Much,” Hollywood hit “That Thing You Do!”\n\nHe said it: “Music makes me feel good. It's a physical thing, it's a mental thing, it's a spiritual thing. Those are the big three. That's what makes a complete person. To be able to play music every day — and get paid for it — the question isn't why do you do it. Why not? You'd be a fool not to,” Aronoff, to IndyStar in 1992.\n\n13. Joshua Bell, violin sensation and Indiana Living Legend\n\nThe star power of Joshua Bell, who emerged as a violin sensation at age 14, has yet to burn out or fade. Born in Bloomington, in 1967, Bell is a Grammy Award winner who collected Indiana Living Legend honors from the Indiana Historical Society in 2000. He studied under Indiana University professor Josef Gingold and earned an artist diploma in violin performance in 1989 — the same year Bell made his debut on “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.” Bell’s mainstream appeal translated into a 2002 appearance on “Sesame Street,” a 2000 spotlight in People magazine’ ”50 Most Beautiful People” issue and a 2010 PBS special in which Bell’s guest stars included Regina Spektor, Sting, Kristin Chenoweth and fellow IU alum Chris Botti.\n\nEssential songs: “Excerpt from ‘West Side Story Suite,’ ” \"Rondeau (Tempo di minuetto),\" \"Allegro ben ritmato e Deciso.\"\n\nHe said it: “These days, getting a wider audience is really important, with orchestras folding right and left. I'm not trying to popularize the music I play in the way I play it; I just try to open people to it,\" Bell, to IndyStar in 1993.\n\n12. Janet Jackson, pop superstar who maintained ‘Control’\n\nJanet was the ninth and final child in the musically mighty Jackson family, born after Rebbie, Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, La Toya, Marlon, Michael and Randy. By embracing reinvention within dance, pop and R&B styles, Janet’s career eclipsed all but Michael’s. Born in Gary in 1966, Janet Jackson has sold more than 100 million recordings. Her first two albums flopped, but a commercial breakthrough arrived with “Control,” her 1986 statement of independence that yielded five Top 5 singles: “What Have You Done for Me Lately,” “Nasty,” “When I Think of You,” “Control” and “Let’s Wait Awhile.” Jackson’s next four albums — \"Rhythm Nation 1814\" (1989), \"Janet\" (1993), \"The Velvet Rope\" (1997) and \"All for You\" (2001) — stretched her impact era into the 21st century.\n\nEssential songs: “Nasty,\" “When I Think of You,” “That’s the Way Love Goes.\"\n\nShe said it: “I wrote my very first song when I was 9. ‘Fantasy’ is the title. I remember being a kid and my brother Randy, my brother Mike and myself, we have our chores to do after dinner, especially, I remember one night in particular, I was doing dishes, I think Mike was sweeping the floor. And Randy was cleaning off the tables and all the countertops. And that's how we would always create music. We could come up with melodies and then we would add lyrics to them. And we would sing a three part-harmony,\" Jackson, on “Larry King Live” in 2010.\n\n11. J.J. Johnson, the unlimited innovator of jazz trombone\n\nJ.J. Johnson made the trombone a high-profile instrument in bebop jazz, giving it stature in context with Dizzy Gillespie’s trumpet and Charlie Parker’s saxophone. \"In those days the trombone was a slow instrument, but that didn't matter to J.J.,\" Indianapolis jazz great Jimmy Coe said following Johnson’s death in 2001. \"He opened a new field for trombonists. He was unlimited.\" Born in Indianapolis in 1924, James Louis Johnson (the “J.J.” nickname sprung from arrangements he initialed) attended Crispus Attucks High School. Johnson’s career highlights include popular collaborative albums made with Danish trombonist Kai Winding, playing on sessions that became Miles Davis’ “Birth of the Cool” album and being honored as an National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master in 1996. For 19 consecutive years, 1955-1973, Johnson was selected as top trombonist in annual Down Beat magazine reader polls.\n\nEssential songs: “Blue ‘n Boogie,” “It Never Entered My Mind,” “Lament.”\n\nHe said it: \"I've never been preoccupied with speed or technique or agility or any of the things that I'm accused of. I've been preoccupied — and consumed — by performing on the trombone with clarity, definition and logic,” Johnson, to IndyStar in 1995.\n\n10. John Hiatt, your favorite songwriter’s favorite songwriter\n\nArmed with sharp wit and a human touch, John Hiatt has written a mountain of songs popularized by himself and a laundry list of his peers. Bonnie Raitt made a hit of Hiatt’s “Thing Called Love”; Eric Clapton and B.B. King built a collaborative album around Hiatt’s “Riding with the King”; Buddy Guy mined extreme blues from Hiatt’s “Feels Like Rain”; and the Jeff Healey Band reached the Top 5 with Hiatt’s “Angel Eyes.” More than 30 acts covered “Have a Little Faith in Me,” a song that appeared on Hiatt’s “Bring the Family” — his 1987 album that provided a mainstream breakthrough following seven albums that were commercially ignored. Born in Indianapolis in 1952, Hiatt grew up near the intersection of 57th Street and Central Avenue. At 18, he left town for Nashville, Tenn. In 2008, Hiatt received the Americana Music Association’s lifetime achievement award for songwriting. He was inducted to the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame the same year.\n\nEssential songs: “Have a Little Faith in Me,” “Drive South,” “Slow Turning.”\n\nHe said it: \"We used to get up a dozen people and ride around in this guy's hearse. We'd inevitably wind up Downtown with quarts of Boone's Farm apple wine wrapped in paper bags — sitting on the Circle or the War Memorial. Figuring it all out, so to speak, only to go back to our parents and realize we didn't have anything figured out,\" Hiatt in 1999, telling IndyStar about his teenage years.\n\n9. Freddie Hubbard, trumpet great who played with Coltrane and Hancock\n\nFrom bebop through the fusion era, trumpet/flugelhorn master Freddie Hubbard played jazz with a sense of daring and a knack for versatility. Hubbard, characterized as a “fiery individualist” by former IndyStar critic Jay Harvey, represented the next big thing in trumpet after the towering careers of Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis. Across a 57-album career, Arsenal Tech High School alum Hubbard (1938-2008) made notable projects for Blue Note Records (including “Ready for Freddie” and “Hub-Tones” in the early 1960s) and CTI Records (including “Red Clay” and “First Light” in the early 1970s). As a supporting player, Hubbard appeared on landmark albums such as Herbie Hancock’s “Maiden Voyage,” John Coltrane’s “Ascension,” Eric Dolphy’s “Out to Lunch!” and Wayne Shorter’s “Speak No Evil.”\n\nEssential songs: “Red Clay,” “Arietis,” “Lament for Booker.\"\n\nHe said it: “I've played some things that I don't think too many cats can play that are alive today,\" Hubbard told the Associated Press in 2008. \"Whatever they play, it's not going to surpass that. You see, I played like a tenor saxophone, so a lot of the things with me are kind of different, kind of hard to play.”\n\n8. Axl Rose, Guns N’ Roses bad boy fueled by anti-Indiana sentiments\n\nAfter hitchhiking from Indiana to California, William B. Bailey adopted the stage name W. Axl Rose and sang in one of the most popular hard rock bands in history. Guns N’ Roses (featuring fellow Hoosier Izzy Stradlin on rhythm guitar) sold 30 million copies of 1987 album “Appetite for Destruction.” The album included songs based on Rose’s memories of authority figures in Indiana (“Out Ta Get Me”) and his perspective on big-city life (breakthrough single “Welcome to the Jungle”). Born in Lafayette in 1962, Rose dropped out of Jefferson High School. As an adolescent, he ran cross-country, sang in the choir and built a police record of minor offenses. Guns N’ Roses melded metal and punk styles to refreshingly jolt a rock scene dominated by hair bands.\n\nEssential songs: “Sweet Child o' Mine,” “Patience,” “November Rain.”\n\nHe said it: \"People that I used to go to school with, people that used to hate my guts, want me to invest money in this and that. People say (things) like ‘Axl thinks he's too cool to party with us.’ But those people never wanted to party with me before,” Rose, talking about Indiana to Rolling Stone magazine in 1989.\n\n7. Kenny ‘Babyface’ Edmonds, R&B heavyweight and 11-time Grammy winner\n\nIn the words of late IndyStar columnist Lynn Ford, Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds was a shy Northside nerd who grew up to be a world champ in pop and R&B. Edmonds has worked on more than 100 hit songs as a singer, songwriter or producer. His 1993 solo album “For the Cool in You” sold 3 million copies. His songwriting credits include Boyz II Men’s “End of the Road,” which spent a record-breaking 13 weeks at No. 1 on Billboard magazine’s Hot 100 chart in 1992. His production credits include Madonna’s “Take a Bow” and Whitney Houston’s “Exhale (Shoop Shoop).” In 1999, 17 miles of I-65 were named “Kenneth ‘Babyface’ Edmonds Highway” to honor the 11-time Grammy Award winner.\n\nEssential songs: “Whip Appeal,” “For the Cool in You,” “How Come, How Long.”\n\nHe said it: \"I call success having been lucky and having been blessed. But there are so many things that come with it: pressure, managers, contracts, record companies. There are battles all the way through — making sure you're making what you're supposed to make and getting what you're supposed to get. And trying to stay sane through it all,” Edmonds, to IndyStar in 1994.\n\n6. Hoagy Carmichael, composer of iconic ‘Stardust’ and ‘Georgia’ tunes\n\nHoagland Howard \"Hoagy\" Carmichael composed enduring tunes \"Stardust\" and \"Georgia (On My Mind).\" \"Stardust,\" written in Carmichael's hometown of Bloomington in 1927, has been recorded more than 1,500 times — making it one of the most popular songs of the 20th century. Pianist Carmichael recorded an instrumental version of \"Stardust\" at Gennett studios in Richmond, and Tin Pan Alley lyricist Mitchell Parish added words to the song in 1929. \"Georgia,\" written in 1930 by Carmichael with lyrics by fellow Hoosier Stuart.Gorrell, became a signature hit for Ray Charles in 1960. Carmichael (1899-1981) won an Academy Award in the category of best original song. \"In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening\" appeared in 1951 film \"Here Comes the Groom.\"\n\nEssential songs: “Stardust,” “Georgia on My Mind,” “Baltimore Oriole.”\n\nHe said it: \"Jazz maniacs were being born and I was one of them. There were leaping legions of them from New Orleans to Chicago and Bloomington was right in the middle. Alleged to be in the exact center of population at that time and a part of the population was going jazz crazy,\" Carmichael wrote in his 1946 autobiography, \"The Stardust Road.\"\n\n5. John Mellencamp, ‘Small Town’ rock star who explores music’s roots\n\nAmong Indiana’s musicians, none has maintained a closer bond with the state than John Mellencamp. The no-nonsense yet good-timing rock star outlasted comparisons to Bruce Springsteen and Bob Seger to establish a respected career from his home base near Bloomington. Mellencamp, a 2008 inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, co-founded Farm Aid with Willie Nelson and Neil Young. Born in 1951 and initially saddled with a stage name of “Johnny Cougar” he didn’t want, the Seymour native became a fixture of MTV programming during the 1980s. His videos for “Hurts So Good,” “Jack & Diane,” “Crumblin’ Down,” “Pink Houses,” “Authority Song,” “Lonely Ol’ Night,” “Small Town,” “R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A.,” “Rain on the Scarecrow,” “Cherry Bomb,” “Paper in Fire” and “Check It Out” were aired in heavy rotation. The album \"American Fool\" (1982) sold 5 million copies. \"Uh-Huh\" (1983) followed with 3 million. \"Scarecrow\" (1985) hit 5 million, and \"The Lonesome Jubilee\" (1987) reached 3 million.\n\nEssential songs: “Paper in Fire,” “Minutes to Memories,” “Pink Houses.\"\n\nHe said it: \"Life is exhausting. To make it not exhausting, you have to continue to challenge yourself and try to do something that you never thought you could do. So many people think about me as 'Pink Houses' and 'Jack & Diane.' That's great. I'm very fortunate to have those songs. But I've written thousands of songs that aren't like that,\" Mellencamp told IndyStar in 2010.\n\n4. Bill Monroe, father of bluegrass who worked and played in Indiana\n\nThe father of bluegrass music wasn’t born in Indiana, but he embraced the state as hallowed ground. Monroe (1911-1996) spent significant time in Indiana during two phases of his career. As a teenager, he moved to industrial Lake County to find higher wages than were available in his hometown of Rosine, Ky. According to 2001 biography “Can’t You Hear Me Callin’,” written by Richard D. Smith, Monroe worked as a barrel loader and washer at the Sinclair Oil Refinery from 1930 to 1934. Away from the refinery, the Monroe Brothers (Charlie on vocals and guitar, Bill on mandolin and Birch on fiddle) played tunes at house parties and square dances in Hammond, Ind. Bill’s first radio appearances were broadcast from Hammond station WWAE and Gary’s WJKS. The dry-witted Monroe was widely quoted as saying, “Bluegrass is wonderful music. I’m glad I originated it.” Monroe lived in Indiana as a young man for reasons of self-preservation. He returned to make a mark in the state because he wanted to. In the early 1950s, Monroe purchased a 55-acre country music park in Brown County, within the unincorporated town of Bean Blossom and 5 miles north of Nashville. He presented his first bluegrass festival at the park, now known as the Bill Monroe Memorial Music Park and Campground, in 1967.\n\nEssential songs: “Uncle Pen,” “Blue Moon of Kentucky,” “New Mule Skinner Blues.\"\n\nHe said it: \"You know, I never wrote a tune in my life. All that music’s in the air around you all the time. I was just the first one to reach up and pull it out,” Monroe, quoted in The New York Times in 1994.\n\n3. Wes Montgomery, guitarist whose picking transformed jazz\n\nJohn Leslie “Wes” Montgomery transformed jazz guitar after World War II, playing a fingerpicking style initially embraced by the genre’s purists and later by the masses. Indianapolis native Montgomery was the innovator of a smooth, warm sound he coaxed by picking strings with the flesh of his thumb (instead of using a plastic or metal plectrum) and by doubling melodies via simultaneous “octave” notes. The two-time Grammy Award winner influenced the work of George Benson, Jimi Hendrix and Pat Metheny. In annual Down Beat magazine polls, Montgomery was selected as top guitarist five times in the 1960s by critics and four times by readers. Montgomery (1923-1968) took no formal training on guitar, but he cited Indianapolis-based pianist Erroll Grandy (1918-1991) as a mentor. Necessity proved to be the mother of invention for Montgomery’s distinctive style. In deference to his wife and neighbors, he turned down the volume on his amplifier during home rehearsal sessions and found he could hear his playing better by strumming strings with his thumb.\n\nEssential songs: “Four on Six,” “Jingles,” “West Coast Blues.\"\n\nHe said it: \"Working three gigs all that time was not the worst thing that could have happened to me. From all that scuffling, I learned a lot about discipline as an entertainer,\" Montgomery, telling Down Beat magazine in 1968 about six years in which he worked from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. in a radio parts factory, from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. playing music at the Turf Bar and from 2:30 to 5 a.m. playing music at the Missile Room.\n\n2. Cole Porter, Broadway genius who crafted enduring classics\n\nPeerless in style, sophistication and suggestive phrasing, Cole Porter ranks among the greatest songwriters of the 20th century. Born in Peru, Ind., in 1891, Porter composed music and lyrics for Broadway shows across 39 years — highlighted by \"Paris\" (1928), \"Anything Goes\" (1934) and \"Kiss Me, Kate\" (1948). Porter's songs, remarkably durable across generations, feature lyrics that are \"urbane or witty\" paired to melodies boasting a \"sinuous, brooding quality,\" as The Associated Press reported in his 1964 obituary. \"You're the Top,\" \"I Get a Kick Out of You,\" \"Love for Sale,\" \"Night and Day,\" \"Begin the Beguine,\" \"I've Got You Under My Skin,\" \"Let's Do It (Let's Fall in Love),\" \"You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To\" and \"It's De-Lovely\" rank among Porter's immortal tunes. His maternal grandfather, J.O. Cole, amassed a fortune by selling supplies to miners during the California Gold Rush. He returned to Indiana to oversee Westleigh, the 750-acre estate in Miami County where Cole Porter grew up.\n\nEssential songs: “Anything Goes,” “You’re the Top,” “I Get a Kick Out of You.\"\n\nHe said it: \"I've been accused most of my life of being remote. But that's not so. I've been working. It's awful to tell people things like that. I've done lots of work at dinner, sitting between two bores. I can feign listening beautifully and work. That's the reason I like to go out. I have no hours. I can work anywhere. I work very well when I'm shaving or when I'm in a taxi,” Porter told The New York Times in 1955.\n\n1. Michael Jackson, ‘King of Pop’ for joyful dance hits and empathetic ballads\n\nA new era of superstars dawned when Michael Jackson sold more than 40 million copies of 1982 album \"Thriller.\" Gary native Jackson (1958-2009) earned his \"King of Pop\" nickname by making joy-infused dance hits and empathetic ballads. Within a career packed with honors, awards and superlatives, Jackson was named \"Most Successful Entertainer of All Time\" by the Guinness Book of World Records in 2006. \"Thriller\" was bookended by significant-selling albums \"Off the Wall\" (20 million copies in 1979) and \"Bad\" (30 million in 1987). In 1985, Jackson and Lionel Richie co-wrote landmark charity single \"We Are the World.\" Jackson's singing career began in Gary, where he spent his earliest years in a white house roughly the size of a two-car garage — 2300 Jackson St. Nine children of Joseph and Katherine Jackson lived in the house, and sons Michael, Tito, Marlon, Jackie and Jermaine became the dynamic Jackson 5 singing group. The quintet made its live debut at Gary nightclub Mr. Lucky's in 1964.\n\nEssential songs: “Billie Jean,” “I Want You Back,” “Man in the Mirror.\"\n\nHe said it: \"My motto has been ‘Heal the World,’ ‘We are the World,’ ‘Earth Song,’ ‘Save Our Children,’ ‘Help Our Planet.’ And people want to persecute me for it, but it never hurts, because the fan base becomes stronger. And the more you hit something hard, the more hardened it becomes — the stronger it becomes. And that’s what’s happened: I’m resilient. I have rhinoceros skin. Nothing can hurt me. Nothing,” Jackson, quoted in Interview magazine in 2003.\n\nCall IndyStar reporter David Lindquist at (317) 444-6404. Follow him on Twitter: @317Lindquist.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2017/09/25"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2015/05/06/usa-today-honors-make-a-difference-day-award-winners/70898986/", "title": "USA TODAY honors Make a Difference Day award winners", "text": "Arienne Thompson\n\nUSA TODAY\n\nWASHINGTON — Volunteering is not necessarily something that comes naturally to a 5-year-old, but Broadway star Idina Menzel says her son Walker is headed in the right direction -- she thinks.\n\n\"It's very hard when all you want to do is spoil him! It's about empathy, really, and the best way to instill these kinds of things in your children is to actually be a good example of that. ... I'm proud to say that his teachers say he's incredibly empathetic for his age,\" she brags with a smile. \"It's about trying to teach him that there's something outside of himself; that there are other things and other people that need our help.\"\n\nIt's the kind of help that was doled out in spades by the winners of this year's Make a Difference Day Awards, who were honored during a luncheon at the National Museum for Women in the Arts on Wednesday afternoon.\n\nNewman's Own, in partnership with USA TODAY and Points of Light, handed out award money totaling $130,000 to 10 individuals and organizations and three charitable U.S. communities, while Gannett awarded an additional $10,000 to one All-Star Award winner. All of the honorees were recognized for serving those in the need during Make a Difference Day last October, doing everything from raising money for pet adoptions in Texas to providing coats for needy kids in Tennessee.\n\nToday show anchor Natalie Morales emceed the luncheon and said before the ceremony that giving back is something that can and ideally should come naturally.\n\n\"Volunteerism is really at the core of who we are as people. It's about humanity. It's about helping one another and giving back to those who help you in return. Ultimately, it's about being a good person on this planet.\"\n\nMenzel's voice is familiar to millions of small children who have heard her belt out the megahit song Let It Go from the movie Frozen, but her commitment to teen girls in New York City is not quite as well known. Menzel's A Broader Way camp provides aspiring performers access to Broadway vets and tools to put on their own shows and to fully express themselves. It's a luxury she remembers well from her own youth.\n\n\"Music and acting and the arts, in general, was always a sanctuary for me,\" she said. \"It was a place to take all of my emotions and be able to explore who I was.\"\n\nBut, short of starting your own foundation or camp, Morales says everyday people can still make a big difference in small ways, too.\n\n\"That's the great thing about volunteering ... it starts local. It really is about giving back in small ways. Maybe it's your church, your school, your neighborhood. It's finding the elderly person who lives next door who needs help with her lawn. These are little things that you can do, but they make such a difference in a person's life. That affects how you feel about yourself at the end of the day. It makes you feel great, and you want to keep doing it. It's a win-win.\"", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2015/05/06"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/theater/2014/04/30/tony-award-nominees-chat-at-reception/8522121/", "title": "Cranston, O'Dowd, McDonald, other Tony nominees chat", "text": "Elysa Gardner\n\n@elysagardner, USA TODAY\n\nNEW YORK -- On Wednesday, a little more than 24 hours after the 2014 Tony Awards nominations were announced, some of Broadway's biggest names gathered to schmooze and exchange congratulations.\n\nSome recalled where they were when the good news arrived -- in several cases, in bed. Chris O'Dowd, tapped for leading actor in a play for his performance in a revival of Of Mice And Men, was \"spooning\" with his wife when the phone call came. \"There was quite a lot of screaming, a little whiskey drinking, and then back to bed.\"\n\nJames Monroe Iglehart, a contender for featured actor in a musical for his inexhaustible Genie in Disney's Aladdin, was also with the missus. \"I thought for sure that I would jump up and run around the house, but I ended up just crumpling up into a ball of joy and tears.\"\n\nSutton Foster, up for leading actress in a musical for Violet, has already lined up two dates for the big night: \"I'm going to bring my fiance and my dad. That I'm excited about.\"\n\nOthers discussed the physical challenges their roles have posed. Featured actor in a play nominee Reed Birney plays a cross-dresser in Harvey Fierstein's best-play candidate Casa Valentina, and is now \"a little mystified as to why women didn't burn high heels before they burned bras. The heels are torture -- barbaric.\"\n\nBryan Cranston, another nominee for leading actor in a play for his portrait of LBJ in All The Way (up for best play as well), admitted that he's heading home after shows with \"a wrecked body. I try to give (Johnson) a sense of being heavy, which he was, and I'm not; and for some reason I've developed an almost S-shape on stage, where my neck and my stomach are out and my neck is curved. I need physical therapy.\"\n\nTony Shalhoub, also tapped in that category, juggles three roles in Act One: \"I've had to change my eating and sleeping habits. One of the challenges is just changing the clothes. I have an amazing dresser.\"\n\nLeading actor in a musical nominee Jefferson Mays can top that: He plays eight roles in A Gentleman's Guide To Love and Murder, \"and they all die, eight times a week. So 64 times a week, I die.\"\n\nTyne Daly, up for leading actress in a play for Terrence McNally's Mothers And Sons, spoke with McNally, who is also nominated, about audience reaction. \"Mr. McNally accuses me of being a laugh whore -- but so is he,\" she quipped. \"Laughs are good, and gasps are good. But I really like the silences, where there's a collective quiet, where the audience has to know what happens next.\"\n\nIf/Then lyricist Bryan Yorkey, a nominee for best score with composer Tom Kitt, noted he has \"been accosted\" by women \"who have asked me if I'd been reading their diaries.\" Kelli O'Hara, up for leading actress in a musical for portraying another woman facing conflicts in The Bridges of Madison County, notes that show has also struck a chord with women: \"Reactions are not only about love; sometimes it's about their career vs. their family -- did they ever fulfill that dream they meant to.\"\n\nO'Dowd has noticed \"a lot of vocalizing\" in Mice's audiences, \"when it transpires that it's not going to work out great for Lennie or George,\" respectively his character and James Franco's. \"I'm waiting for someone to shout, 'He's got a gun!'\"\n\nFans also acknowledge his co-star sometimes -- loudly. \"People will stand up and shout, 'James Franco!' Not 'I love you,' or 'Marry me,' just 'James Franco!'\"\n\nChanneling Billie Holiday in Lady Day At Emerson's Bar & Grill, Audra McDonald, up for leading actress in a play, interacts with a section of the audience; and at one show \"this lady said, 'Oh, you're trying to make us think this is real!' Shouted it out.\"\n\nFor Kenny Leon, a nominee for director of a play for his celebrated revival of A Raisin in the Sun, one of the most memorable reactions was Michelle Obama's. After the first lady and the president saw the show recently, she told Leon that she wanted to see it again -- with her mother and daughters.\n\n\"That was the greatest compliment to me -- especially the daughters,\" Leon says. \"She obviously felt this play was speaking to a new generation in a way that would empower her girls.\"", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2014/04/30"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/arts/2016/05/19/kimiko-glenn-actress-waitress-broadway-orange-is-the-new-black-star/84565670/", "title": "'New Black' actress Kimiko Glenn on Broadway", "text": "Kerry Lengel\n\nThe Republic | azcentral.com\n\n“Orange Is the New Black” star Kimiko Glenn made her official Broadway debut on April 24, and 11 days later she found out her show, “Waitress,” is up for four Tony Awards. But she still doesn’t know where she’ll be on Tony night.\n\n“I may be performing. We don’t know yet,” the Arizona-raised actor says with a laugh. “I would love to be part of a scene and present our show, because it deserves to be represented. But I have no idea. I think I’ll probably be watching in my pajamas with the rest of the cast.”\n\nThe Tonys haven’t announced presenters and performers for the 70th annual awards show, which will be broadcast live on CBS from New York’s Beacon Theatre on June 12. “Waitress” is nominated for best musical, and although it won’t win — not in the year of “Hamilton” — it will almost certainly get a slot in the lineup, if only for its Tony-nominated star, Jessie Mueller.\n\nGlenn, meanwhile, will be streaming into living rooms everywhere on June 17, when Netflix releases Season Four of “Orange Is the New Black.” She plays Brook Soso, the Chatty Cathy prisoners’ rights activist.\n\nGET SOCIAL WITH AZCENTRAL: Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest\n\n“It’s really cool to be around all those awesome New York actresses who are really great people at the core,” Glenn says of “New Black.” “And (being part of) a company led by a diverse group of women, it’s special to me. It really changed the face of what we’re seeing on TV now, which for someone like me, an Asian-American woman, is really important.”\n\nGlenn grew up in metro Phoenix, making her stage debut as a fifth-grader in “Snow White” at Valley Youth Theatre. In 2008, while attending the Boston Conservatory, she landed a role in the national tour of \"Spring Awakening\" and has been making her living as an actor ever since.\n\nGetting cast in “Orange Is the New Black” two years ago was a huge career boost, but Glenn sounds even more thrilled to be acting — and especially singing — on Broadway.\n\n\"Over the course of eight years, I must have auditioned for hundreds of shows. I audition a lot,” she says. “So for this to be my Broadway debut was a huge deal for me. I’ve always wanted to be on Broadway since I even knew what Broadway was.”\n\n“Waitress” was adapted from the 2007 film of the same name, about a Southern woman who hopes to change her life by winning a pie-baking contest. In the musical, Glenn plays Dawn, best friend to the main character. She solos on the song “When He Sees Me,” in which Dawn screws up her courage to post a profile on an online dating service.\n\nREAD: Arizona actress stars in “American Psycho” on Broadway\n\n“Dawn is kind of the more reserved, doesn’t-like-to-go-outside-her-comfort-zone type of person, and she’s really particular in her ways,” she says. “It’s a fun little part.”\n\nThe role is almost the opposite of Brook Soso, and closer to Glenn’s own personality. She says she definitely didn’t get into acting because she craved attention, and being recognized from “Orange Is the New Black” has taken some time to adjust to.\n\n“Millions of people watch the show, so I feel highly exposed in that way, which is a good thing for an actor, but also I’m a little bit of an introvert, so it’s a little hard for me,” she says. “There’s like a learning curve when it comes to being recognized or being on a show that a lot of people watch, especially when you live in New York where there are a lot of people around all the time.\n\nMORE ARTS:Top Phoenix arts events in May\n\n\"I went through a paranoia for probably a year, where I was like, ‘Everyone’s watching me and nobody’s saying anything.’ It’s kind of scary and nuts what you go through. But the fans are the reason why we’re able to do this sort of thing, so it’s honestly a blessing, and I really love getting to hear people’s stories when they come up.\n\n“I’d like to put this out there,” she adds. “It’s always better if you just come up and ask for the picture or say your piece, because it’s always worse when you yell across the street or take a secret a photo. So I would say that to anyone who is a fan.”\n\nReach the reporter at kerry.lengel@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4896.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2016/05/19"}]}
+{"question_id": "20220617_5", "search_time": "2022/06/17/16:35", "search_result": [{"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/11/business/gas-prices-five-dollars-national-june/index.html", "title": "Average US gas price hits $5 for first time - CNN", "text": "He predicted US inflation would rise. Hear what he thinks about a recession\n\nA For Sale sign is displayed in front of a house in Washington, DC, on March 14, 2022.\n\nUS Microsoft founder, Co-Chairman of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, poses for a picture on October 9, 2019, in Lyon, central eastern France, during the funding conference of Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. - The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria on October 9, 2019, opened a drive to raise $14 billion to fight a global epidemics but face an uphill battle in the face of donor fatigue. The fund has asked for $14 billion, an amount it says would help save 16 million lives, avert \"234 million infections\" and place the world back on track to meet the UN objective of ending the epidemics of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria within 10 years. (Photo by JEFF PACHOUD / AFP) (Photo by JEFF PACHOUD/AFP via Getty Images)\n\nU.S. Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell takes questions after the Federal Reserve raised its target interest rate by three-quarters of a percentage point to stem a disruptive surge in inflation, during a news conference following a two-day meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) in Washington, U.S., June 15, 2022.\n\nRosalind \"Roz\" Brewer, president and chief executive officer of Sam's Club, speaks during the Wal-Mart Stores Inc. annual shareholders meeting in Fayetteville, Arkansas, U.S., on Friday, June 7, 2013. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which kicked off its annual meeting today, approved a new $15 billion share buyback program. Photographer: Sarah Bentham/Bloomberg via Getty Images\n\nNew York CNN Business —\n\nFor the first time ever, a gallon of regular gas now costs $5 on average nationwide, according to AAA’s Saturday reading.\n\nThe record is hardly a surprise. Gas prices have been rising steadily for the last eight weeks, and this latest milestone marks the 15th straight day that the AAA reading has hit a record price, and the 32nd time in the last 33 days.\n\nThe national average stood at $4.07 when the current run of price increases began April 15. The current price reading from OPIS represents 23% increase in less than two months.\n\nAnd the rising gasoline prices is doing more than just causing pain at the pump for drivers. They are a major factor in the prices paid by consumers for a full range of goods and services rising at the fastest pace in 40 years, according to the government’s inflation report Friday.\n\nInflation caused consumer confidence to hit a record low on Friday, according to a survey by the University of Michigan. Worries about what the Federal Reserve will do to battle inflation has sent US stocks plunging in recent months, wiping out billions in household wealth.\n\nWhile a $5 national average is new, $5 gas has become unpleasantly common in much of the country.\n\nData from OPIS, which collects the readings from 130,000 US gas stations used to compile the AAA averages, showed that 32% of stations nationwide, nearly one of every three, were already were charging more than $5 a gallon in readings Friday. And about 10% of stations across the nation are charging more than $5.75 a gallon.\n\nThe statewide average was $5 a gallon or more in 21 states plus Washington DC in Saturday’s reading.\n\n$6 gas could be next\n\nAnd gas prices are unlikely to stop there. With the summer travel season getting underway, demand for gasoline, coupled with Russian oil shipments cut off due to the war in Ukraine, oil prices are soaring on global markets.\n\nThe US national average for gasoline could be close to $6 later this summer, according to Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis for the OPIS.\n\n“Anything goes from June 20 to Labor Day,” Kloza said earlier this week about the demand for gas as people hit the road for long-anticipated getaways. “Come hell or high gas prices, people are going to take vacations.”\n\nThe highest statewide average has long been in California, where the average stood at $6.43 a gallon in Saturday’s readings. But the pain of higher prices is being felt across the country, not just in California or other high-priced states.\n\nCheap gas hard to find\n\nThat’s partly because the cheapest price wasn’t all that cheap — the $4.47 a gallon average price in Georgia gives it the cheapest statewide average. Less than 300 gas stations out of 130,000 nationwide were charging $4.25 a gallon or less in Friday’s reading from OPIS. For purposes of comparison, before the run-up in prices earlier this year, the record national average for gas had been $4.11, set in July 2008.\n\nAnd even in some states with cheaper gas prices, such as Mississippi, lower average wages mean that drivers there have to work more hours to earn the money needed to fill their tank than drivers in some of the higher priced gas states, such as Washington.\n\nThere are some early signs that people are starting to cut back on their driving in the face of the higher prices, but it’s still a modest decline.\n\nThe number of gallons pumped at stations in the last week of May was down about 5% from the same week a year ago, according to OPIS, even though gas prices have risen more than 50% since then. The number of US trips by car has slipped about 5% since early May, according to mobility research firm Inrix, although those trips are still up about 5% since the start of the year.\n\nThe chief concern is that consumers will cut back on other spending to keep driving which could push an economy already showing signs of weakness into recession.\n\nNumerous reasons for record prices\n\nBeyond the strong demand for gasoline, there is also a supply problem that’s driving up the price of both oil and gasoline. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the sanctions on Russia imposed in the United States and Europe since then is a major factor, since Russia was among the world’s leading oil exporters. But it is only part of the cause.\n\nOil is a commodity traded on global markets. The United States has never imported significant amounts of oil from Russia, but Europe has traditionally been dependent on Russian exports. The EU’s recent decision to ban oil tanker shipments from Russia sent oil prices soaring globally.\n\nThe price of a barrel of crude closed above $120 a barrel Friday, up from just less than $100 a month ago. Goldman Sachs recently predicted the average price for a barrel of Brent crude, the benchmark used for oil traded in Europe, will be $140 a barrel between July and September, up from its prior call of $125 a barrel.\n\nOther factors beyond Russia’s withdrawal from the global market are limiting supply. OPEC and its allies have sharply cut back oil production as demand for oil crashed in the early months of the pandemic, as much of the world’s businesses shut down and people stayed close to home. Global oil futures briefly traded in negative territory due to lack of space to store the glut of oil. Some oil producing nations slashed production in an effort to support prices, and some of that production is back online but not all of it.\n\nUS oil production and refining capacity also have not fully recovered to the pre-pandemic levels. And because prices are even higher in Europe, some US and Canadian refineries that would normally supply the US market with gas are exporting gasoline to Europe.\n\nMany oil companies have been slow to increase production, despite the high price that the oil could fetch, instead using those soaring profits to buy back their own stock in an effort to raise their share price. ExxonMobi has announced it intends to repurchase $30 billion of its stock, more than its total capital spending budget for the year.\n\n– CNN’s Matt Egan and Michelle Watson contributed to this report.", "authors": ["Chris Isidore"], "publish_date": "2022/06/11"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2022/03/10/gas-prices-state-per-gallon/9447015002/", "title": "Gas prices are high and up another 7 cents nationwide. Here is the ...", "text": "How much is gas in my state? How does it compare nationwide?\n\nThe cost for a gallon of gas in the United States continues to reach all-time highs, as the national average jumped nearly 7 cents Thursday morning.\n\nThe nationwide average for regular gas is now $4.32 a gallon, according to AAA. On Wednesday, the cost was $4.25, once again eclipsing the previous all-time record of $4.11 set in July 2008. When adjusted for inflation, that would be around $5.25 today.\n\nDiesel prices are also at record highs, with the average cost at $5.06 a gallon, up nearly 18 cents from Wednesday's average of $4.88. Thursday is the first time diesel has ever been over $5. Before this week, the previous record of $4.84 was also in July 2008, which would be around $6.19 in today's dollars.\n\n(How much are you paying for gas? How is it affecting you and your budget? Share your thoughts with USA TODAY on the form below or use this form if you have photos of your local gas station's prices to share for possible inclusion in future stories, photo galleries and social media posts.)\n\nSAVE MONEY:How to save money at the pump as gas prices hit all-time high with Russian invasion of Ukraine\n\nRISING PRICES:Russia's war in Ukraine has driven up gas prices. Will rising oil costs increase food prices next?\n\nHighest gas prices in California\n\nCalifornia continues to have the most expensive gas in the country at $5.69, and remains the only state to average over $5. California also became the first state to average over $6 for a gallon of diesel at $6.21.\n\nGas still under $4 a gallon in 12 states\n\nAs of Thursday, only 12 states have averages under $4, most of which are located in the Midwest. Kansas has the cheapest cost for gas at $3.82.\n\nWhy are gas prices so high?\n\nRussia's invasion of Ukraine remains a large factor behind rising prices, as sanctions put on Russia include the country's selling of crude oil, which is one of the biggest factors in determining gas prices. Russian crude oil only accounts for 3% of U.S. imports, but it has a pivotal role because it produces crude oil that is valuable to U.S. refineries.\n\nPresident Joe Biden's decision to ban the U.S. import of all Russian energy products on Tuesday is expected to result in prices continuing to climb.\n\n\"Oil prices play a leading role in pushing gas prices higher. Consumers can expect the current trend at the pump to continue as long as crude prices climb,\" AAA said on Monday.\n\nGAS TIPS: Gas prices are soaring – here's what you can do to keep your costs down\n\nGAS QUESTIONS: Why are gas prices rising so quickly? And how high are they expected to get?\n\nWhen will gas prices go down?\n\nIt is unknown when prices will drop, but there is some hope as the cost for oil dropped. As of Wednesday night, U.S. crude oil costs $111.05 a barrel, nearly $15 less than Tuesday, according to Bloomberg. Brent crude, the international standard, costs $111.14 a barrel, $19 less than Tuesday.\n\n\"It doesn't mean lower prices YET- it means a slowdown in the increases. stations won't have to go up quite as much,\" Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at fuel-savings app GasBuddy, said in a tweet on Wednesday.\n\nINFLATION RATE:Inflation climbed at fastest pace since 1982 last month as consumer prices rose 7.9%, CPI report shows\n\nDAILY MONEY NEWSLETTER: Money tips and advice delivered right to your inbox. Sign up here\n\nAverage gas prices per state\n\nWondering how much gas costs in your state? Here is how much it is across the country by fuel type:\n\nAlabama gas prices\n\nRegular: $4.13\n\nMid-grade: $4.413\n\nPremium: $4.755\n\nDiesel: $5.024\n\nAlaska gas prices\n\nRegular: $4.68\n\nMid-grade: $4.791\n\nPremium: $4.984\n\nDiesel: $4.933\n\nArizona gas prices\n\nRegular: $4.548\n\nMid-grade: $4.768\n\nPremium: $5.033\n\nDiesel: $5.024\n\nArkansas gas prices\n\nRegular: $3.901\n\nMid-grade: $4.176\n\nPremium: $4.47\n\nDiesel: $4.774\n\nCalifornia gas prices\n\nRegular: $5.694\n\nMid-grade: $5.834\n\nPremium: $5.976\n\nDiesel: $6.212\n\nColorado gas prices\n\nRegular: $3.953\n\nMid-grade: $4.269\n\nPremium: $4.558\n\nDiesel: $4.565\n\nConnecticut gas prices\n\nRegular: $4.475\n\nMid-grade: $4.714\n\nPremium: $4.931\n\nDiesel: $5.219\n\nDC gas prices\n\nRegular: $4.50\n\nMid-grade: $4.864\n\nPremium: $5.056\n\nDiesel: $5.09\n\nDelaware gas prices\n\nRegular: $4.285\n\nMid-grade: $4.594\n\nPremium: $4.829\n\nDiesel: $5.103\n\nFlorida gas prices\n\nRegular: $4.346\n\nMid-grade: $4.644\n\nPremium: $4.959\n\nDiesel: $5.052\n\nGeorgia gas prices\n\nRegular: $4.269\n\nMid-grade: $4.561\n\nPremium: $4.9\n\nDiesel: $5.091\n\nHawaii gas prices\n\nRegular: $4.81\n\nMid-grade: $5.003\n\nPremium: $5.268\n\nDiesel: $5.083\n\nIdaho gas prices\n\nRegular: $4.296\n\nMid-grade: $4.448\n\nPremium: $4.654\n\nDiesel: $4.877\n\nIllinois gas prices\n\nRegular: $4.57\n\nMid-grade: $4.901\n\nPremium: $5.292\n\nDiesel: $4.886\n\nIndiana gas prices\n\nRegular: $4.256\n\nMid-grade: $4.557\n\nPremium: $4.869\n\nDiesel: $4.939\n\nIowa gas prices\n\nRegular: $3.921\n\nMid-grade: $4.044\n\nPremium: $4.474\n\nDiesel: $4.734\n\nKansas gas prices\n\nRegular: $3.817\n\nMid-grade: $4.076\n\nPremium: $4.318\n\nDiesel: $4.606\n\nKentucky gas prices\n\nRegular: $4.042\n\nMid-grade: $4.334\n\nPremium: $4.641\n\nDiesel: $4.892\n\nLouisiana gas prices\n\nRegular: $4.132\n\nMid-grade: $4.405\n\nPremium: $4.721\n\nDiesel: $4.917\n\nMaine gas prices\n\nRegular: $4.319\n\nMid-grade: $4.571\n\nPremium: $4.827\n\nDiesel: $5.22\n\nMaryland gas prices\n\nRegular: $4.302\n\nMid-grade: $4.649\n\nPremium: $4.913\n\nDiesel: $5.187\n\nMassachusetts gas prices\n\nRegular: $4.354\n\nMid-grade: $4.60\n\nPremium: $4.828\n\nDiesel: $5.135\n\nMichigan gas prices\n\nRegular: $4.261\n\nMid-grade: $4.541\n\nPremium: $4.876\n\nDiesel: $4.915\n\nMinnesota gas prices\n\nRegular: $3.954\n\nMid-grade: $4.145\n\nPremium: $4.483\n\nDiesel: $4.765\n\nMississippi gas prices\n\nRegular: $3.997\n\nMid-grade: $4.254\n\nPremium: $4.581\n\nDiesel: $4.876\n\nMissouri gas prices\n\nRegular: $3.85\n\nMid-grade: $4.083\n\nPremium: $4.356\n\nDiesel: $4.648\n\nMontana gas prices\n\nRegular: $4.002\n\nMid-grade: $4.242\n\nPremium: $4.507\n\nDiesel: $4.702\n\nNebraska gas prices\n\nRegular: $3.917\n\nMid-grade: $3.999\n\nPremium: $4.375\n\nDiesel: $4.659\n\nNevada gas prices\n\nRegular: $4.872\n\nMid-grade: $5.054\n\nPremium: $5.247\n\nDiesel: $5.16\n\nNew Hampshire gas prices\n\nRegular: $4.29\n\nMid-grade: $4.56\n\nPremium: $4.824\n\nDiesel: $5.186\n\nNew Jersey gas prices\n\nRegular: $4.379\n\nMid-grade: $4.657\n\nPremium: $4.848\n\nDiesel: $5.222\n\nNew Mexico gas prices\n\nRegular: $4.179\n\nMid-grade: $4.462\n\nPremium: $4.732\n\nDiesel: $4.961\n\nNew York gas prices\n\nRegular: $4.466\n\nMid-grade: $4.722\n\nPremium: $4.957\n\nDiesel: $5.275\n\nNorth Carolina gas prices\n\nRegular: $4.181\n\nMid-grade: $4.486\n\nPremium: $4.825\n\nDiesel: $5.079\n\nNorth Dakota gas prices\n\nRegular: $3.89\n\nMid-grade: $4.113\n\nPremium: $4.347\n\nDiesel: $4.609\n\nOhio gas prices\n\nRegular: $4.091\n\nMid-grade: $4.378\n\nPremium: $4.716\n\nDiesel: $4.967\n\nOklahoma gas prices\n\nRegular: $3.852\n\nMid-grade: $4.111\n\nPremium: $4.342\n\nDiesel: $4.677\n\nOregon gas prices\n\nRegular: $4.722\n\nMid-grade: $4.872\n\nPremium: $5.079\n\nDiesel: $5.291\n\nPennsylvania gas prices\n\nRegular: $4.436\n\nMid-grade: $4.728\n\nPremium: $5.007\n\nDiesel: $5.397\n\nRhode Island gas prices\n\nRegular: $4.352\n\nMid-grade: $4.638\n\nPremium: $4.881\n\nDiesel: $5.111\n\nSouth Carolina gas prices\n\nRegular: $4.076\n\nMid-grade: $4.38\n\nPremium: $4.708\n\nDiesel: $5.004\n\nSouth Dakota gas prices\n\nRegular: $3.946\n\nMid-grade: $4.068\n\nPremium: $4.418\n\nDiesel: $4.601\n\nTennessee gas prices\n\nRegular: $4.112\n\nMid-grade: $4.414\n\nPremium: $4.757\n\nDiesel: $5.03\n\nTexas gas prices\n\nRegular: $4.004\n\nMid-grade: $4.288\n\nPremium: $4.59\n\nDiesel: $4.888\n\nUtah gas prices\n\nRegular: $4.304\n\nMid-grade: $4.467\n\nPremium: $4.652\n\nDiesel: $4.922\n\nVermont gas prices\n\nRegular: $4.311\n\nMid-grade: $4.528\n\nPremium: $4.751\n\nDiesel: $5.14\n\nVirginia gas prices\n\nRegular: $4.241\n\nMid-grade: $4.578\n\nPremium: $4.896\n\nDiesel: $5.06\n\nWashington gas prices\n\nRegular: $4.707\n\nMid-grade: $4.868\n\nPremium: $5.057\n\nDiesel: $5.274\n\nWest Virginia gas prices\n\nRegular: $4.118\n\nMid-grade: $4.367\n\nPremium: $4.657\n\nDiesel: $5.022\n\nWisconsin gas prices\n\nRegular: $4.038\n\nMid-grade: $4.326\n\nPremium: $4.74\n\nDiesel: $4.751\n\nWyoming gas prices\n\nRegular: $3.987\n\nMid-grade: $4.192\n\nPremium: $4.436\n\nDiesel: $4.683\n\nFollow USA TODAY reporters Jordan Mendoza and Kelly Tyko on Twitter: @jordan_mendoza5 and @KellyTyko.\n\nHigh gas prices affecting you? Share your thoughts and photos with USA TODAY\n\nAre you changing your driving habits because of rising gas prices? Share your thoughts with USA TODAY for possible inclusion in future coverage. If you don't see the form below or want to submit photos, please use this form.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/03/10"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2022/03/06/gas-price-tops-4-dollar-gallon/9402743002/", "title": "National average price of gas tops $4 a gallon", "text": "The national average price for gas has topped $4 a gallon for the first time in over a decade as gas costs continue to soar in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nAs of Sunday afternoon, the national average of a regular gallon of gas was $4.009, according to AAA. That's up 8 cents from Saturday and up 40 cents from last week. The U.S. hit the $4 national average a day earlier than analysts expected.\n\nThe record high for the national average is $4.11, set on July 17, 2008, according to AAA.\n\nPatrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at fuel-savings app GasBuddy, said in a tweet Sunday the national average could reach up to $4.10 by Tuesday, adding to the possibility the record could be broken by the end of the week.\n\n►Gas prices and inflation have you down?: Here's how to sell your car to Carvana, Autonation\n\n►Gas prices are up: What can Biden do to lower costs at the pump amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine?\n\nGasBuddy's 2022 gasoline forecast predicts the average price of gas will reach $4.25 by May and will remain over $4 likely until November.\n\n\"GasBuddy expects that gasoline prices will continue to rise in the days ahead, and could be just days away from setting a new all-time record high and continuing to rise through summer,\" the company said.\n\nThe average cost is also the highest since May 2011, when it was $3.90, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.\n\nThe rising cost of gas in recent weeks comes as Russia's invasion of Ukraine has applied pressure on global oil markets. The lifting of coronavirus mask mandates throughout the U.S. could also be a factor as consumer spending and travel ramp up.\n\n\"American and (European Union) sanctions are having a severe impact on Russia's ability to sell crude oil, thus crude prices have skyrocketed,\" De Haan told USA TODAY.\n\nMost expensive gas in the U.S.\n\nCalifornia continues to shatter its record of highest gas prices and the most expensive gas prices in the country, averaging $5.28 per gallon in the Golden State. California is the only state with an average cost over $5.\n\nIn Mono County, which borders Nevada and home of popular tourist destination Mammoth Mountain, the average price of gas is $5.95. But other places are seeing higher cost; A gas station in Los Angeles had prices at $6.99 per gallon. The cheapest average cost of gas is in Missouri and Oklahoma at $3.60.\n\nHere are the most expensive average costs of gas per gallon in the country, per AAA:\n\nCalifornia ($5.28)\n\nHawaii ($4.69)\n\nNevada ($4.52)\n\nOregon ($4.46)\n\nWashington ($4.40)\n\nAlaska ($4.36)\n\nIllinois ($4.26)\n\nConnecticut ($4.21)\n\nNew York ($4.20)\n\nPennsylvania ($4.17)\n\nContributing: Mike Snider\n\nFollow Jordan Mendoza on Twitter: @jordan_mendoza5.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/03/06"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2022/03/08/gas-most-expensive-us-history/9404939002/", "title": "Gas prices are the most expensive in US history, breaking record ...", "text": "After rising dramatically following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the price of gas reached a record, topping a high that had stood for nearly 14 years.\n\nAs of Tuesday morning, the average national price for a gallon of regular gasoline touched $4.17, according to AAA, the highest price ever, not accounting for inflation. That was up from $4.07 on Monday and $3.61 a week earlier.\n\nThe previous high was $4.11 on July 17, 2008, according to AAA. That would come to around $5.25 today when adjusted for inflation.\n\nThe cost for diesel is nearing the record of $4.84, also set in July 2008. The price for a gallon of diesel is $4.75, more than double what it was in October 2020.\n\nPRICES CONTINUE TO RISE: Latest update shows another record set on March 9\n\nOne of the main components of the rising costs is the invasion of Ukraine by Russian armed forces. Tom Kloza, chief global analyst for the Oil Price Information Service, told USA TODAY that Russia is the second-largest oil producer in the world, behind the United States.\n\nYour questions answered: Why are gas prices rising so quickly? How high are they expected to get?\n\n'Be prepared for months of high prices': How to save money as gas prices smash records\n\nFor subscribers: Are oil and gas companies price gouging consumers at the pump?\n\nThe Associated Press reported a barrel of U.S. crude oil cost $119.40 per barrel, and Brent crude, the international standard, cost $123.21 per barrel on Monday.\n\nGas prices are likely to keep rising. The fuel-savings app GasBuddy projects prices will probably average $4.25 in May and stay over $4 until November.\n\n“Americans have never seen gasoline prices this high, nor have we seen the pace of increases so fast and furious. That combination makes this situation all the more remarkable and intense, with crippling sanctions on Russia curbing their flow of oil, leading to the massive spike in the price of all fuels: gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and more,\" Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, said in a statement Monday.\n\nDe Haan said in a tweet Sunday the chances of a $5 nationwide average are \"somewhat remote\" but remain a small possibility.\n\nMost expensive gas in the USA\n\nAs is historically the case, California has the most expensive prices in the country, averaging $5.44 a gallon as of Tuesday. The Golden State is the only one to average more than $5 a gallon.\n\nThe most expensive county for gas is Mono County, which borders Nevada and includes the tourist destination Mammoth Mountain. The average price is $6.02.\n\nSome gas locations reported prices about $2 over the state average. Stations in Los Angeles and San Francisco sell regular gas for more than $6 per gallon, some reaching nearly $7. In the city of Gorda, about 140 miles south of San Francisco on the coast, one station charged $7.59, KSBW reported.\n\nAs of Tuesday morning, 28 states have average prices over $4. Only five states – South Dakota, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Arkansas – averaged less than $3.80. The cheapest state to get gas is Oklahoma at $3.71.\n\nHere are the most expensive average costs of gas per gallon in the country, per AAA:\n\nCalifornia ($5.44)\n\nHawaii ($4.71)\n\nNevada ($4.67)\n\nOregon ($4.58)\n\nWashington ($4.54)\n\nAlaska ($4.50)\n\nIllinois ($4.42)\n\nNew York ($4.36)\n\nConnecticut ($4.35)\n\nPennsylvania ($4.31)\n\nContributing: Mike Snider, Brett Molina\n\nFollow Jordan Mendoza on Twitter: @jordan_mendoza5.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/03/08"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/07/energy/record-gas-price/index.html", "title": "Gas prices in the US hit a record as Russia continues to invade ...", "text": "New York (CNN Business) US drivers have never paid this much for gasoline. The price for a gallon of regular gas now stands at $4.17, according to AAA.\n\nThat breaks the previous record of $4.11 a gallon that has stood since July 2008.\n\nAs Russia continues its military offensive in Ukraine , gas prices are rising faster than they have since Hurricane Katrina slammed into oil platforms and refineries along the US Gulf Coast in 2005.\n\nGas prices rose 10 cents since early Monday, gaining three of those cents overnight, according to the Oil Price Information Service, the firm that collects and calculates prices for AAA. The price data is calculated on a dynamic basis with pricing information from 130,000 US gas stations. OPIS confirmed Monday evening that a new record of $4.14 a gallon had been reached. But enough stations raised their prices further later Monday and early Tuesday to lift the average to $4.17.\n\nThe $4.17 average means that the price is up 55 cents a gallon in just the last week, and 63 cents, or 18%, since February 24, the day Russian forces invaded Ukraine\n\nGas price spikes won't be stopping any time soon, said Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis for the OPIS. Wholesale gasoline prices rose between 1 cent to as much as 12 cents a gallon in trading Monday in different markets across the United States. Those increases will be passed onto to drivers at the pump in relatively short order.\n\n\"I think we'll hit $4.50 a gallon before it turns around,\" said Kloza. \"The risk is how bad this gets, how long this goes on. Even $5 a gallon nationwide is possible. I wouldn't have predicted that before the fighting started.\"\n\nWhy gas prices are surging\n\nRussia is one of the world's major oil exporters, with most of its output going to Europe and Asia. Russian oil made up only 2% of US imports in December, according to Energy Department data. But oil is priced on global commodity markets, so the impact is felt everywhere.\n\nThe sanctions placed on Russia's economy following the invasion have so far exempted oil exports . But traders have been reluctant to purchase Russian oil because of sanctions on the country's banking sector. Many are also worried about finding oil tankers willing to dock in Russian ports.\n\nThat's what investors who are bidding on contracts for future deliveries of oil are betting could happen, which has been driving up the price of crude, Kloza said.\n\n\"If this becomes a real ban, not just a de facto ban, the concern is it's going to last longer,\" he said.\n\nWhere gas is most expensive ... and cheapest\n\nIn some parts of the United States, $4 a gallon gas remains rare. A large swath of central states, from North Dakota south to Texas, had averages in Tuesday's reading from AAA no higher than $3.86 a gallon.\n\nBut prices are rapidly increasing everywhere. The lowest statewide average is in Oklahoma, where unleaded stands at $3.72 a gallon. But that's up 42 cents, or 13%, in the last week.\n\nAs of Monday morning, gas was $4 or more in 28 states, plus Washington, DC. All of the East Coast states other than South Carolina, as well as the three West Coast states, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan Alaska and Hawaii had statewide averages at or above $4. And it is likely that other states will cross the $4 a gallon mark soon, as South Carolina, West Virginia and Alabama are all within a couple of cents from that mark in Tuesday's reading.\n\nThe highest prices are in California, where the statewide average stood at $5.44 a gallon.\n\nBattling inflation\n\nThe rapid increase in gas prices is putting a real squeeze on many household budgets. It comes at an unfortunate time as overall inflation is up 7.5% over the last 12 months, the biggest year-over-year gain in consumer prices in nearly 40 years. Gasoline stations advertise prices in large numbers that are much more visible for consumers than many other prices.\n\nThe average US household uses about 90 gallons of gas a month. So just the 63-cent increase in the average price since the start of the war in Ukraine will cost that typical household about $55 more a month than they were spending on gas before this latest spike.\n\nAnd it's not as if prices were low before this recent surge in gas prices. A year ago, the average price for a gallon of regular stood at $2.77 a gallon, so drivers are paying $1.40 a gallon more now. That comes to nearly $126 a month more, or about $1,500 a year, if prices stay that elevated for that long.\n\nStill the $4.11 record that was set in 2008 would be the equivalent to $5.25 a gallon in today's dollars when adjusted for inflation. And vehicles as a group are more fuel efficient today than they were in 2008, with far more electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles, and better fuel economy overall than the fleet of cars on the road 14 years ago.", "authors": ["Chris Isidore", "Cnn Business"], "publish_date": "2022/03/07"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/06/business/gas-price-surge/index.html", "title": "Two more states hit $5 a gallon gas prices - CNN", "text": "New York (CNN) The gas price spike keeps getting worse.\n\nThe national average jumped to $4.87 a gallon on Monday, according to AAA. That's up 25 cents in the past week and 59 cents in the past month.\n\nThere are now 10 states where the average price of gasoline is $5 a gallon or higher, with the latest being Michigan and Indiana. Washington, DC, is also above $5.\n\nNew Jersey, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts are just pennies away. Georgia is the only state with an average below $4.30 a gallon.\n\nIn total, more than one out of every five gas stations nationwide are now charging more than $5 a gallon for regular, and just over half are charging $4.75 or more.\n\nRead More", "authors": ["Matt Egan"], "publish_date": "2022/06/06"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/10/energy/record-gas-price/index.html", "title": "Why the average gas price is at $4.99 a gallon and how high it'll go ...", "text": "SCHWEDT, GERMANY - MAY 03: In this aerial view, huge tanks for crude oil of the PCK oil refinery, which is majority owned by Russian energy company Rosneft and processes oil coming from Russia via the Druzhba pipeline, stands on May 3, 2022 in Schwedt, Germany. European Union member states are to meet later this week to possibly agree on a phased-in ban on oil imports from Russia after Germany, which relies heavily on Russian energy imports, recently said it was willing to support a ban. (Photo by Hannibal Hanschke/Getty Images)\n\nHow to save money on gas by being more fuel efficient\n\nMILL VALLEY, CA - MARCH 03: A customer pumps gasoline into his car at an Arco gas station on March 3, 2015 in Mill Valley, California. U.S. gas prices have surged an average of 39 cents in the past 35 days as a result of the price of crude oil prices increases, scheduled seasonal refinery maintenance beginning and a labor dispute at a Tesoro refinery. It is predicted that the price of gas will continue to rise through March. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)\n\nGas prices over the $6 dollar mark are displayed at a gas station in Sacramento, Calif., Friday, May 27, 2022. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)\n\nNew York CNN Business —\n\nAnother day, another record for US gas prices.\n\nThe US average for the price of a gallon of regular gas hit $4.96 according to the most recent reading from AAA Wednesday. It marked the 12th straight day, and the 29th time in the last 30 that gas has set a record in America.\n\nFor much of the country, $5 gas is already here.\n\nThere are now 16 states plus Washington DC with averages of $5 or above. Idaho, Ohio and Pennsylvania became the latest states to cross that threshold. The highest priced state remains California, with a state average of $6.39 a gallon.\n\nAnd the worst is yet to come for drivers.\n\nWith the summer travel season just getting underway, demand for gasoline, coupled with the cut-off of Russian oil shipments due to the war in Ukraine, is sending oil prices higher on global markets.\n\nThe national average for gasoline could be close to $6 by later this summer according to Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis for the OPIS, which tracks gas prices for AAA.\n\n“Anything goes from June 20 to Labor Day,” Kloza said about the demand for gas as people hit the road for long-anticipated getaways. “Come hell or high gas prices, people are going to take vacations,”\n\nWhile the United States has never imported significant amounts of oil from Russia, the commodity is traded on global markets, and Europe was greatly dependent on Russian exports. The EU’s recent decision to ban oil tanker shipments from Russia as sent oil prices soaring on those global markets.\n\nThe price of a barrel of crude is now above $120 a barrel, up from just less than $100 a month ago, And prices continued to climb in early trading Wednesday. Goldman Sachs predicted the average price for a barrel of Brent crude, the benchmark used for oil traded in Europe, will be $140 a barrel between July and September, up from its prior call of $125 a barrel.\n\nThere are stations and states where gas is cheaper. About 20% of stations nationwide still are selling gas for less than $4.50 a gallon. But even in many states where gasoline is cheaper, such as Mississippi, lower average income can mean drivers have to work longer to fill-up their tanks than in some high gas price states such as California.\n\nHow much are drivers willing to pay before they cut back on driving? So far the number of gallons pumped at stations in the last week of May was down only about 5% from the same week a year ago, even though gas prices rose more than 50% during the same period. The number of US trips by car has slipped about 5% since early May, according to mobility research firm Inrix, although those trips are still up about 5% since the start of the year.\n\nThe concern is that consumers will cut back on other spending to keep driving the miles they want or need to drive, which could drive an economy already showing some signs of weakness into recession.\n\n– CNN’s Matt Egan contributed to this report", "authors": ["Chris Isidore"], "publish_date": "2022/06/10"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2022/06/11/high-gas-prices-average-five-dollars/7592466001/", "title": "High gas prices in US reach nationwide average of $5 for first time", "text": "For the first time ever, the average gas price across the U.S. is $5 a gallon.\n\nOn Saturday, the AAA reported the $5 nationwide average – which comes amid a surge in fuel costs, with record-breaking prices over the past few months.\n\nThe national average gas price jumped 19 cents in the past week. And prices at the pump are up $1.93 from this time last year.\n\nSaturday marked the first time the U.S. reached a $5 average for nationwide gas prices – but it's not highest record when inflation is taken into account. In July 2008, gas prices peaked at $4.11 a gallon, which would be equal to about $5.40 a gallon today.\n\nStill, the whopping $5 average has shaken the country and contributed to the growing cost of living crisis, as Americans face the highest rate of inflation in 40 years.\n\nMy gas-guzzling Chevy taught me a lesson: It's paying off as inflation and gas prices get ugly\n\nHighest rate of inflation in 40 years:New level driven by gas, grocery prices and high rent in May\n\nAccording to the AAA, the state reporting the highest gas prices on Saturday was California – with an average of $6.43 a gallon. The lowest state average is currently in Mississippi, with a price of $4.52 a gallon.\n\nExperts note that global oil prices are rising largely because of the ongoing war in Ukraine. In the U.S., costs are also rising due to limits on refining capacity because of some shut downs during the pandemic and increased fuel demand overall – especially as many Americans traveled over Memorial Day weekend.\n\nWhat's everyone talking about?:Sign up for our trending newsletter to get the latest news of the day\n\nAfter Russia invaded Ukraine in February, the price of oil climbed in 2022's first quarter as countries that rely heavily on Russia for energy scrambled for alternative fuel sources amid uncertainty. The benchmark for global oil prices, Brent crude, averaged at $102.23 a barrel during the first quarter – 67% higher than during the same period last year, according to the Associated Press.\n\nRecord profits despite record prices:Oil giants reap record profits as war rages in Ukraine, energy prices soar\n\nIn the months following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, prices at the pump continued to reach record highs in the U.S. On March 8th, AAA reported the nation's then record-high (not accounting for inflation) of $4.17 a gallon. By mid-May, the national average was $4.58, with gas prices above $4 in every state.\n\nContributing: The Associated Press", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/06/11"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/09/energy/record-gas-price-causes/index.html", "title": "Why US gas prices are at a record and why they'll stay high for a ...", "text": "SCHWEDT, GERMANY - MAY 03: In this aerial view, huge tanks for crude oil of the PCK oil refinery, which is majority owned by Russian energy company Rosneft and processes oil coming from Russia via the Druzhba pipeline, stands on May 3, 2022 in Schwedt, Germany. European Union member states are to meet later this week to possibly agree on a phased-in ban on oil imports from Russia after Germany, which relies heavily on Russian energy imports, recently said it was willing to support a ban. (Photo by Hannibal Hanschke/Getty Images)\n\nHow to save money on gas by being more fuel efficient\n\nMILL VALLEY, CA - MARCH 03: A customer pumps gasoline into his car at an Arco gas station on March 3, 2015 in Mill Valley, California. U.S. gas prices have surged an average of 39 cents in the past 35 days as a result of the price of crude oil prices increases, scheduled seasonal refinery maintenance beginning and a labor dispute at a Tesoro refinery. It is predicted that the price of gas will continue to rise through March. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)\n\nGas prices over the $6 dollar mark are displayed at a gas station in Sacramento, Calif., Friday, May 27, 2022. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)\n\nNew York CNN Business —\n\nRussia’s invasion of Ukraine is a major reason that US drivers are paying record prices for gasoline. But it’s not the only cause of the spike.\n\nNumerous factors are pushing prices up, with regular gasoline hitting a record $4.87 a gallon Monday according to AAA’s survey — up 25 cents a gallon in just the last week.\n\nGas prices were already expected to breach the $4 a gallon mark for the first time since 2008, with or without shots fired in Eastern Europe or economic sanctions imposed on Russia. But now the national average is expected to hit $5 a gallon within the next two weeks, said Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis for the OPIS, which tracks gas prices for AAA.\n\nNow, because so many factors are at play simultaneously, drivers should prepare to pay uncomfortably high gas prices through at least Labor Day. Prices could easily reach $4.50 a gallon before they start to retreat, and even a $5 per gallon national average is not out of the question.\n\nHere’s what’s behind the record price surge:\n\nRussia’s invasion of Ukraine\n\nRussia is one of the largest oil exporters on the planet. In December it sent nearly 8 million barrels of oil and other petroleum products to global markets, 5 million of them as crude oil.\n\nVery little of that went to the United States. In 2021 Europe got 60% of the oil and 20% went to China. But oil is priced on global commodity markets, so the loss of Russian oil affects prices around the globe no matter where it is used.\n\nThe concerns about disrupting global markets led Western nations to initially exempt Russian oil and natural gas from the sanctions they put in place to protest the invasion.\n\nDespite that carve out, much of Russia’s oil is going unsold on global markets. Traders are reluctant to bid for it when it’s not clear that any deal can be closed, given the sanctions on Russia’s banking system. There have also been difficulties finding any tankers able or willing to call on Russian ports.\n\nThis has resulted in a de facto ban on Russian oil in global markets, with investors pricing crude as if the country’s supply isn’t available.\n\nBut in March the United States announced a formal ban on all Russian energy imports. And last week the EU announced a ban on imports of Russian oil by ship, which represented about two-thirds of the oil European nations imported from Russia. Russia’s oil is slowly and steadily being removed from global markets.\n\nThere is growing political pressure on the rest of Europe to join a formal ban on Russian oil. Russia supplies about 27% of the 27-nation EU’s oil imports.\n\nWhile oil prices moved somewhat higher on the US and UK moves, a European ban could drive global prices up further due to concerns the restriction will stay in place indefinitely, even once the fighting in Ukraine stops. Oil is generally traded as futures pegged to delivery.\n\nThe price of a barrel of Brent crude, the closely watched benchmark used in Europe, closed Monday at $123.21, up 27% since the start of fighting just 12 days ago. West Texas Intermediary oil, the US benchmark,closed at $119.40 a barrel Monday, up 30% over the same timeframe.\n\nLess oil and gas from other sources\n\nOil prices plunged when pandemic-related stay-at-home orders around the world crushed demand in the spring of 2020, and crude briefly traded at negative prices. In response, OPEC and its allies, including Russia, agreed to slash production as a way to support prices. And even when demand returned sooner than expected, they kept production targets low.\n\nUS oil companies don’t adhere to those types of nationally mandated production targets. But they have been reluctant or unable to resume producing oil at pre-pandemic levels amid concerns that tougher environmental rules could cut future demand. Many of those stricter rules have been scaled back or failed to become law.\n\n“The Biden administration is suddenly interested in more drilling, not less,” Robert McNally, president of consulting firm Rapidan Energy Group, said earlier this spring. “People are more worried about high oil prices than anything else.”\n\nIt takes time to scale up production, particularly when oil companies are facing the same supply chain and hiring challenges as thousands of other US businesses.\n\n“They can’t find people, and can’t find equipment,” McNally added. “It’s not like they’re available at a premium price. They’re just not available.”\n\nOil stocks have generally lagged the broader market over the last two years, at least until the recent run-up in prices. Oil company executives would rather find ways to boost their share price than increase production.\n\n“Oil and gas companies do not want to drill more,” Pavel Molchanov, an analyst at Raymond James, said earlier this spring. “They are under pressure from the financial community to pay more dividends, to do more share buybacks, instead of the proverbial ‘drill baby drill,’ which is the way they would have done things 10 years ago. Corporate strategy has fundamentally changed.”\n\nNot only is oil production lagging behind pre-pandemic levels, US refining capacity is falling. Today, about 1 million fewer barrels of oil a day are available to be processed into gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and other petroleum-based products.\n\nState and federal environmental rules are prompting some refineries to switch from oil to lower carbon renewable fuels. Some companies are closing older refineries rather than investing what it would cost to retool to keep them operating, especially with massive new refineries set to open overseas in Asia, the Middle East and Africa in 2023.\n\nAnd the fact that diesel and jet fuel prices are up far more than gasoline prices shows that refiners are shifting more of their production to those products.\n\nStrong demand for gas\n\nBut supply is only part of the equation for prices. Demand is the other key, and while it’s very strong right now, it’s still not back to pre-pandemic levels.\n\nJob gains have remained strong so far in 2022. And as many workers who have been working from home much of the last two years return to the office, demand is getting another boost.\n\n“Jobs numbers have been pretty impressive and a lot of [workers] will be driving to work somewhere,” said Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis for the Oil Price Information Service. “There’s also going to be more people not working remotely than there were last year or even last month. I don’t know how to put a number on that, but that is certain to add to demand.”\n\nThe end of the Omicron surge and the removal of many Covid restrictions is encouraging people to get out of the house for more shopping, entertainment and travel.\n\nCommuting may remain down slightly. Many who plan to return to the office will be there only three or four days a week, and the total number of jobs is still a bit below 2019 levels. But there will be periods, most likely this summer, with higher demand for gas than during comparable periods before the pandemic, Kloza predicts.\n\nBut there will be periods, most likely this summer, where there will be more demand for gas than during comparable periods before the pandemic, Kloza predicts.\n\nTight supplies and strong demand were likely to push prices above $4 even without the current disruption caused by the war.\n\n“Even before Ukraine, I was expecting to break the record,” Kloza said. “Now it’s a question of how much we break the record by.”\n\n– CNN’s Gregory Wallace contributed to this report", "authors": ["Chris Isidore"], "publish_date": "2022/03/09"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/10/economy/gas-prices-inflation/index.html", "title": "Gas prices jump to fresh record highs | CNN Business", "text": "World Bank president on handling 'biggest slowdown of the global economy in 80 years'\n\nStrategist: We're at peak pessimism (and why that's a good thing)\n\nRetirees becoming homeless at higher rate than other age groups amidst inflation\n\nHow this mom is using coupons to combat inflation\n\nFormer labor secretary on how Biden administration can combat inflation\n\nHere's what the US economy can expect if a recession hits\n\nHe predicted US inflation would rise. Hear what he thinks about a recession\n\nA For Sale sign is displayed in front of a house in Washington, DC, on March 14, 2022.\n\nWhat the interest rate hike means for you\n\nThe Fed anticipates more rate increases after announcing biggest hike in 28 years\n\nU.S. Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell takes questions after the Federal Reserve raised its target interest rate by three-quarters of a percentage point to stem a disruptive surge in inflation, during a news conference following a two-day meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) in Washington, U.S., June 15, 2022.\n\nCEOs at major oil companies come under fire for high gas prices\n\nNew York CNN Business —\n\nIn another blow to the US economy, prices at the pump soared to fresh record highs.\n\nThe national average price for regular gasoline climbed more than four cents on Tuesday to $4.37 a gallon, according to AAA. That takes out the prior record of $4.33 set on March 11.\n\nThe gas spike — prices are up 17 cents in the past week alone — will only add to inflationary pressures that have raised recession fears, rocked financial markets and soured Americans’ views on the economy.\n\nThe national average dipped to as low as $4.07 a gallon in April after the record-setting release of oil from emergency reserves and as oil prices cooled off. But as industry analysts predicted at the time, that relief proved to be short-lived and minor.\n\nPump prices are up about 25% since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine set off shockwaves in global energy markets.\n\nReal gas prices, adjusted for inflation, would need to climb above $5.30 a gallon to break the records set in 2008, according to the US Energy Information Administration.\n\nStill, the latest spike in gas prices will only make today’s inflation problems worse, and for the most part won’t be captured in Wednesday’s closely watched inflation report.\n\nSome analysts fear even higher prices are coming. Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates, told CNN on Sunday he expects retail prices will jump to $4.50 a gallon in the next week to 10 days.\n\nGas prices move with a lag to oil, and the good news is that oil prices fell sharply Monday, perhaps taking some pressure off pump prices.\n\nUS oil tumbled 6% to $103.09 a barrel on Monday, its worst day since late March.\n\nBeyond concerns about China’s Covid lockdowns, analysts said oil dropped because it got swept up in the gloom-and-doom on Wall Street as stocks dropped. Crude prices were just slightly lower Tuesday morning.", "authors": ["Matt Egan"], "publish_date": "2022/05/10"}]}
+{"question_id": "20220617_6", "search_time": "2022/06/17/16:35", "search_result": [{"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/12/asia/fiji-climate-change-shangri-la-dialogue-intl-hnk/index.html", "title": "Fiji says climate change, not conflict, is Asia's biggest security threat ...", "text": "(Reuters) Fiji's defense minister said on Sunday that climate change posed the biggest security threat in the Asia-Pacific region, a shift in tone at a defense summit dominated by the war in Ukraine and disputes between China and the United States.\n\nThe low-lying Pacific islands, which include Fiji, Tonga and Samoa, are some of the most vulnerable countries in the world to the extreme weather events caused by climate change.\n\nFiji has been battered by a series of tropical cyclones in recent years, causing devastating flooding that has displaced thousands from their homes and hobbled the island's economy.\n\n\"In our blue Pacific continent, machine guns, fighter jets, gray ships and green battalions are not our primary security concern,\" Inia Seruiratu, Fiji's Minister for Defense, said at the Shangri-La Dialogue , Asia's top security meeting.\n\n\"The single greatest threat to our very existence is climate change. It threatens our very hopes and dreams of prosperity.\"", "authors": ["Story Reuters"], "publish_date": "2022/06/12"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/30/asia/china-pacific-islands-unable-to-agree-security-pact-intl-hnk/index.html", "title": "China, Pacific islands unable to agree on security pact | CNN", "text": "(CNN) China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Monday urged the Pacific region not to be \"too anxious\" about his country's aims after a meeting in Fiji with his counterparts from 10 island nations was unable to agree to a sweeping trade and security communique.\n\nWang hosted the meeting with foreign ministers from Pacific island nations with diplomatic ties with China midway through a diplomatic tour of the region where Beijing's ambitions for wider security ties has caused concern among US allies\n\nA draft communique and five-year action plan sent by China to the invited nations ahead of the meeting showed China was seeking a sweeping regional trade and security agreement\n\nBut the draft communique prompted opposition from at least one of the invited nations, Federated States of Micronesia, according to a letter leaked last week.\n\nAfter the meeting, which included Samoa, Tonga, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Niue and Vanuatu, Wang said the nations had agreed on five areas of cooperation, but further discussions were needed to shape more consensus.\n\nThe five areas he listed included economic recovery after the Covid pandemic, and new centers for agriculture and disaster, but did not include security.\n\n\"China will release its own position paper on our own positions and propositions and cooperation proposals with Pacific island countries, and going forward we will continue to have ongoing and in-depth discussions and consultations to shape more consensus on cooperation,\" he told reporters in Fiji. Questions at the media briefing were not allowed.\n\nWang said some had questioned China's motives in being so active in the Pacific islands, and his response was China supported developing countries in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean also.\n\n\"Don't be too anxious and don't be too nervous, because the common development and prosperity of China and all the other developing countries would only mean great harmony, greater justice and greater progress of the whole world,\" he said.\n\nTaking questions after Wang's briefing, China's Ambassador to Fiji, Qian Bo, said participants had agreed to discuss the draft communique and the five-year plan \"until we have reached an agreement.\"\n\n\"There has been general support from the 10 countries with which we have diplomatic relations, but of course there are some concerns on some specific issues.\"\n\nFiji's Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama told reporters the Pacific nations were prioritizing consensus.\n\n\"Geopolitical point-scoring means less than little to anyone whose community is slipping beneath the rising seas, whose job is being lost to the pandemic, or whose family is impacted by the rapid rise in the price of commodities,\" Bainimarama said.\n\nIn a written address to the meeting, China's leader Xi Jinping said China will always be a good friend of Pacific Island countries no matter how the international situation changes, China's state-owned CCTV reported.\n\nPacific tour\n\nSeveral invited nations want to defer action on the draft communique or have it amended, an official from one Pacific country said earlier.\n\nThe United States, Australia, Japan and New Zealand have expressed concern about a security pact signed by the Solomon Islands with China last month, saying it had regional consequences and could lead to a Chinese military presence close to Australia.\n\nThe new Australian government has made the Pacific islands an early foreign policy priority to counter Beijing's push, sending the foreign minister to Fiji with the message Australia would put new priority on the region's biggest security challenge of climate change and announcing a new visa program to allow Pacific island citizens to migrate.\n\nIn Honiara last week, Wang condemned interference in the deal and said the Solomon Islands' relationship with China was a model for other Pacific island nations.\n\nWith borders closed across the region because of the Covid pandemic, most foreign ministers are attending the Fiji meeting by video link. In several Pacific countries, the foreign minister is also prime minister.\n\nWang will travel to the South Pacific kingdom of Tonga for a two-day visit on Tuesday.", "authors": ["Story Reuters"], "publish_date": "2022/05/30"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/12/asia/us-china-defense-shangri-la-dialogue-intl-hnk-ml/index.html", "title": "Shangri-La Dialogue: China blasts US 'bully', says it will 'fight to the ...", "text": "Singapore (CNN) Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe on Sunday accused the United States of being a \"bully\" and \"hijacking\" countries around the region, during a combative speech in which he said his country would \"fight to the very end\" to stop Taiwanese independence.\n\n\"Taiwan is first and foremost China's Taiwan,\" Wei told the Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia's premier defense conference, adding that China would \"not hesitate\" to crush any attempt by the self-governed island to \"secede.\"\n\nThe speech -- which came just weeks after US President Joe Biden said the US would respond \"militarily\" if China attacked Taiwan -- capped a weekend of confrontational exchanges between the American and Chinese military chiefs.\n\nWei also called out US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who had told the conference a day earlier that China was engaged in coercive, aggressive and dangerous actions that threatened to \"undermine security, stability and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific.\"\n\nAustin had also talked about US coalition-building in the region and its joint military exercises with Japan , Australia, India and Indonesia, but Wei said this was a kind of \"power politics\" that China rejected.\n\n\"No one and no country should impose its will on others, or bully others under the guise of multilateralism,\" Wei said.\n\n\"We notice Secretary Austin's remarks on the US Indo-Pacific strategy. To us, the strategy is an attempt to build an exclusive, small group in the name of a free and open Indo-Pacific, to hijack countries in our region and target one specific country. It is a strategy to create conflict,\" Wei said.\n\n\"Fight to the very end\"\n\nBut Wei -- who met Austin in a bilateral meeting on Friday afternoon -- reserved some of his harshest criticisms for Washington's stance on Taiwan, the democratically governed island that Beijing considers its territory despite never having ruled it.\n\nAustin had on Friday said the US would continue to support Taiwan with the means to defend itself, including arms sales which China sees as a violation of its sovereignty.\n\nUnder US policy, Washington provides Taiwan defensive weapons, but has remained intentionally ambiguous on whether it would intervene militarily in the event of a Chinese attack -- a policy that the White House insists remains intact despite Biden's recent comments that appeared to deviate from the ambiguity. Washington acknowledges China's position that Taiwan is part of China, but has never officially recognized Beijing's claim to the self-governing island.\n\nWei said there would be no compromise on China's sovereignty or the question of whether Taiwan will one day be \"reunited\" with the mainland -- a clear goal of China's ruling Communist Party , which calls for peaceful \"reunification\" but has not ruled out using force.\n\n\"China will definitely realize its reunification. ... It is a historical trend that no one, no force can stop,\" Wei said.\n\nAnd the People's Liberation Army was prepared to spill blood to enforce that if necessary, he said.\n\n\"Let me make this clear,\" Wei said. \"If anyone dares to secede Taiwan from China, we will not hesitate to fight. We will fight at all costs. And we will fight to the very end.\"\n\nThe Chinese defense minister said the road the US is taking in the region is one his country would never go down.\n\n\"The order of human civilization must be based on the rule of law. Otherwise, the law of the jungle will prevail,\" Wei said.\n\n\"China will never seek hegemony or engage in military expansion or an arms race. We do not bully others, but we will not allow others to bully us,\" he said.\n\nWei leads China's Ministry of National Defense, but is not the top military official in the Chinese Communist Party's Central Military Commission, which controls China's armed forces under Chinese leader Xi Jinping.\n\nChina's Defense Minister Wei Fenghe speaks at the Shangri-La Dialogue summit in Singapore on June 12.\n\nRegional tensions\n\nChina has faced a barrage of criticism during the Shangri-La conference.\n\nDelegates from US allies like Australia and Canada have been critical of what they see as Beijing's violation of international laws, including what they claim are dangerous intercepts of their aircraft operating in the region.\n\nWithout mentioning China by name, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Friday that the Asian security situation is prompting Tokyo to substantially increase its defense budget and consider acquiring \"counterstrike weapons,\" of the type not now in its arsenal.\n\nJapanese forces and Australian forces, among other US allies and partners, have been operating in the South China Sea, almost all of which China claims as its sovereign territory.\n\nChina has militarized various man-made islands in the 1.3 million square mile waterway.\n\nBut Wei inferred that it was the US that was muscling in by sending naval ships into the waterway.\n\n\"Some big power has long practiced navigation hegemony on the pretext of freedom of navigation,\" Wei said.\n\nHe said the US and China are at a critical juncture in their relationship, but contended the ball is in Washington's court when it comes to diffusing tensions.\n\nWashington must stop \"smearing\" Beijing and \"interfering in China's internal affairs\" for relations to improve, Wei said.\n\n\"It will be a historic and strategic mistake to insist on taking China as a threat and of an adversary or even an enemy,\" he said.\n\nIf Washington can treat Beijing with \"mutual respect,\" there is room for both nations to prosper, Wei contended.\n\nBut he had a stern warning if the United States chose otherwise.\n\n\"If you want to cooperate, we should promote mutual benefits and win-win results. However, if you want confrontation, we will fight to the end.\"", "authors": ["Brad Lendon", "Heather Chen"], "publish_date": "2022/06/12"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/06/asia/china-pacific-islands-wang-yi-intl-hnk/index.html", "title": "Why the sparsely-populated South Pacific islands have become the ...", "text": "Hong Kong (CNN) The island nations that stretch across the South Pacific -- sparsely populated atolls and volcanic archipelagos, known more for tourism than lucrative natural resources -- may not seem, at first glance, to be a major geopolitical prize.\n\nYet, Pacific Island countries have become the latest arena for a great power contest between the United States and China.\n\nThat contest was thrown into sharp focus in recent days, as China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi completed a 10-day tour of eight countries to promote cooperation and a sweeping, regional security and economic proposal with the potential to significantly ramp up Beijing's role in the South Pacific.\n\nWang's trip, and news of that proposed deal, sent the powers with longstanding relationships in the South Pacific -- Australia, New Zealand, and the United States -- scrambling, with Washington pledging last week to intensify its own support of the region and Canberra dispatching its foreign minister on a dueling diplomatic tour.\n\nSome Pacific Island leaders pushed back on the posturing, stressing instead the importance of other issues, such as climate change, with Fiji's Prime Minister Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama noting that, \"geopolitical point scoring means less than little to anyone whose community is slipping beneath the rising seas.\"\n\nthe rising tensions between major powers. China's bid for a larger, regional pact ultimately didn't win backing at a 10-country meeting last week, but Wang did leave behind a clear message of China's interest in the region -- and heightened concerns that these island nations, which carry a history of strategic importance, will have little choice but to navigatethe rising tensions between major powers.\n\nIsland hopping\n\nFrom the vantage point of Washington and Canberra, Beijing is bolstering ties with capitals across the South Pacific, so it can potentially seek to parlay infrastructure deals, or even seemingly modest security agreements, into a military foothold.\n\nThat would drive a wedge into the two countries' military presence in the South Pacific, where the US maintains military bases and a Compact of Free Association with the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), and the Republic of Palau, which gives it military operating rights over the airspace and waters of these nations.\n\nAustralia operates its own navy in the region and has long maintained defense and security ties with neighboring island governments, including on peacekeeping and military training. Both Australia and New Zealand are part of regional and bilateral security pacts in the Pacific.\n\nThe region was included in a joint statement between US President Joe Biden and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern last week, which voiced concern about \"the establishment of a persistent military presence in the Pacific by a state that does not share our values.\"\n\nAnd for the US and Australia threats to the regional status quo have echos of World War II, when the islands were used by imperial Japan to threaten Australia, before becoming part of an American \"island hopping\" offensive that ultimately played into the turning tide in the Pacific.\n\n\"The islands sit astride a key passageway for US and Australian naval ships and merchant ships,\" said Timothy Heath, a senior international defense researcher at the RAND Corporation in Arlington.\n\n\"If China could establish (military) basing rights, it could deploy warships and aircraft temporarily to the islands. (Its) ships and airplanes could threaten US and Australian ships and aircraft that passed by,\" he said, adding that even a boosted presence, short of a military one, could help China \"collect sensitive intelligence on US and Australian military operations.\"\n\nWinning friends\n\nChina's interest in building rapport with the Pacific Islands countries is not new. In the early 2000s, as the US was turning its attention toward perceived threats in the Middle East, a newly outward-looking China was starting on a path to become an economic and diplomatic partner for Pacific island countries -- not least of all as it sought to win friends away from Taiwan, which is now only formally recognized by four of 14 South Pacific nations, after the Solomon Islands and Kiribati switched allegiance to China in 2019.\n\nIn recent years, as Beijing has pursued a more assertive foreign policy and expanded development funding globally in a bid to enhance its international sway, its visibility in the Pacific Islands, too, has grown. China has backed widely publicized projects in some Pacific Island countries -- a national sports stadium to host the Pacific Games in the Solomon Islands, highways in Papua New Guinea, bridges in Fiji -- and sent high-level envoys to the region, including two visits from Chinese leader Xi Jinping, once in 2014 and again in 2018. It's also become a major trading partner for Pacific Island economies.\n\nChina's ambassador to the Solomon Islands Li Ming and Solomons Prime Pinister Manasseh Sogavare at the opening ceremony of a China-funded national stadium complex in Honiara on April 22, 2022.\n\nAnd while Australia has remained the top aid donor in the region for the past five years, according to data collected by the Australian think tank Lowy Institute, experts say that in some parts, perceptions are that China is a more expedient partner than traditional donors.\n\n\"There is an assumption that China will do more,\" said Celsus Talifilu, a political adviser based in Solomon Island's Malaita Province, who has been an outspoken critic of how the national government has handled its recent relations with China.\n\n\"It may be that our politicians are thinking that it's easier to deal with China in terms of implementing things on the ground quickly, in comparison to other donors that have been in the Solomons for a long time yet have been very slow,\" he told CNN.\n\nContainment concerns\n\nConcerns that Beijing may have military ambitions in the region were fueled in April after China and the Solomon Islands signed a security agreement , sparking fears of creating an opening for China to establish a military presence in the country.\n\nWang, the foreign minister, has been quick to deny China's latest moves have had a military angle, saying flatly of the Solomons deal that Beijing did not intend to build military bases and calling on observers \"not to be too anxious\" about China's overall aims in the region, where he said it has \"no intention of scrambling for influence.\"\n\n\"China and developing countries realizing common development and prosperity will make the world fairer, more harmonious and stable,\" Wang said, following a meeting with Pacific Island leaders last week.\n\nMany observers say Beijing may be a long way from a military foothold, but agree that expanding its presence overseas would be a logical next step for an ambitious power like China.\n\n\"As China grows it is little wonder that the Chinese security interest in the (South Pacific) region will also grow,\" said Denghua Zhang, a research fellow at The Australia National University's Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs in Canberra.\n\nOne driver may be concerns, often discussed by Chinese scholars and strategists, of China being enclosed by the US and its allies. This has bolstered the concept of breaking the \"island chains\" viewed as hemming China in, in particular, with military bases on islands near China and in the Pacific, according to Zhang. These include US military bases in Japan and Guam, and a military presence in the Philippines.\n\nIn an analysis the US Indo-Pacific strategy published last year, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences senior researcher Liu Ming and co-authors expressed this concern, writing: \"The [American] principle of containment is to politically isolate China throughout the region by expanding a network of allies and partners, so as to draw more \"Indo-Pacific\" countries into the US camp.\"\n\nBlue Pacific\n\nChina's growing outreach has left other powers on the back foot -- scrambling to energize their presence, from Australia's \"Step-Up\" policy and New Zealand's \"Pacific Reset,\" both in 2018, to Washington's \"Pacific Pledge\" a year later.\n\n\"They've all developed these new initiatives for the Pacific ... essentially amounting to the same thing, wanting to ensure that they remain the partners of choice and China is not gaining the upper hand,\" said Sandra Tarte, an associate professor in the University of the South Pacific's School of Law and Social Sciences in Fiji.\n\nTo some extent, there is an upshot for the Pacific Island countries: as these powers try and outdo the other, this can bring more focus to and leverage for local governments.\n\n\"The Pacific Island people ... are not new to global, geopolitical competition,\" said Tarcisius Kabutaulaka, associate professor of Pacific Islands Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.\n\nVanuatu's Prime Minister Bob Loughman Weibur and visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi pose with officials following a signing ceremony for agreements between the two countries in the capital city Port Vila on June 1, 2022.\n\nHe points back to the 1800s when the islands were the focus of colonial competition through to the Cold War, where there was pressure for nascent Pacific Island countries to shun Soviet advances. But as time goes on -- and if US-China tensions continue to rise -- the balancing act may become more difficult, Kabutaulaka said.\n\nThat may have been one factor in why the sweeping pact conceived of by Beijing did not ultimately come to pass last week. Another may be the region's \"Blue Pacific\" concept, which emphasizes collective decision-making about the region through consultation with all members.\n\n\"Our position was that you cannot have regional agreement when the region hasn't met to discuss it,\" Samoa's Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata'afa said Thursday.\n\nWang did sign a number of bilateral deals including on areas of economic cooperation, disaster management and policing equipment. But even without a deal -- this time -- competition and varying views on engaging with China could chip away at cohesion in the region, said Kabutaulaka.\n\n\"I'm concerned that geopolitical competition will ... affect the strong regional bond.\"", "authors": ["Analysis Simone Mccarthy"], "publish_date": "2022/06/06"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/02/asia/us-coast-guard-pacific-islands-china-intl-hnk-ml/index.html", "title": "While China makes Pacific islands tour, US Coast Guard is already ...", "text": "(CNN) As China's foreign minister began a Pacific islands tour to promote economic and security cooperation with Beijing, the smallest of the US government's armed services was already on the scene, reinforcing Washington's longstanding commitment to the region.\n\nReacting to a request from the Solomon Islands, the first stop in Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi's 10-day regional diplomatic tour, the US Coast Guard diverted its cutter Myrtle Hazard to patrol the island nation's exclusive economic zone after a Solomons police vessel needed repairs.\n\nThe US cutter \"helped to fill the operational presence needed by conducting maritime surveillance to deter illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing in the northern Solomon Islands,\" a Coast Guard press release said.\n\nCrewmembers aboard the US Coast Guard Cutter Myrtle Hazard stand watch on the bridge while underway in Oceania.\n\nThe Myrtle Hazard was already in the region as part of Operation Blue Pacific, what the Coast Guard calls its \"overarching multi-mission ... endeavor promoting security, safety, sovereignty, and economic prosperity in Oceania while strengthening relationships.\"\n\nThe Solomon Islands is just one of several Pacific island nations the US aids under Operation Blue Pacific, including, among others, Kiribati, Samoa, Fiji, Tonga and Papua New Guinea -- all stops on the Chinese foreign minister's tour.\n\nChina had proposed a sweeping regional security and economic agreement with a number of Pacific Island nations, according to documents seen by CNN. The deal, which touched on a range of areas including education and health, was targeted for a Monday meeting between Wang and foreign ministers from 10 Pacific island nations in Fiji.\n\nThe meeting ended without the signing of the proposed agreement, with Wang instead noting the grouping had landed on five \"points of consensus.\" Those areas, largely general statements such as deepening strategic partnership and pursuing common development, did not include security.\n\nThe pact, if accepted, would have marked a significant advance in Beijing's connection to the region, which holds geo-strategic importance in the Indo-Pacific.\n\nWang Yi defended China's intentions during the media briefing in Fiji on Monday, referencing \"questions\" about why China was \"actively supporting\" Pacific Island countries.\n\n\"Don't be too anxious and don't be too nervous, because the common development and prosperity of China and all the other developing countries would only mean great harmony, greater justice and greater progress of the whole world,\" he said.\n\nCoast Guard a part of Indo-Pacific strategy\n\nAmid the Chinese push, the US Coast Guard's efforts in the region haven't received much attention. But they are substantial, and part of the Biden administration's Indo-Pacific strategy released in February.\n\n\"We will expand US Coast Guard presence and cooperation in Southeast and South Asia and the Pacific Islands, with a focus on advising, training, deployment, and capacity-building,\" the strategy's action plan says.\n\nThe Coast Guard's website shows cutters have spent hundreds of days and steamed thousands of miles in the past two years helping Pacific island nations.\n\nThe crews of the Coast Guard Cutters Juniper and Joseph Gerczak return to Honolulu after completing a 42-day patrol in Oceania on March 7, 2022.\n\nOne of the key parts of Washington's influence in the region is through \"shiprider agreements\" with 11 Pacific nations, including Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau, Nauru, Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu, according to US Coast Guard publications. Under these agreements, defense and law enforcement personnel from the partner nations embark aboard the US cutters to enforce their nation's laws in the island nations' exclusive economic zones.\n\nThe relationships the US Coast Guard has forged in the Pacific islands have deep roots, said Collin Koh, research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.\n\nThat \"institutionalized network of defense and security relationships\" is something Beijing would have a hard time duplicating, Koh said.\n\n\"It doesn't enjoy the extent of partnership networks that its geopolitical rivals, the US included, have cultivated in the region for decades,\" Koh said.\n\nWith fish as the main food source and key economic driver of the island nations, the Coast Guard says the emphasis of Operation Blue Pacific is to deter illegal and unregulated fishing.\n\nAnd that has a big link to China.\n\nWith the world's largest fishing fleet, \"Chinese-flagged fishing vessels range the world over in search of catch and are notorious for fishing within other nations' -- especially developing nations' -- exclusive economic zones (EEZs),\" according to a 2021 report from the Brookings Institution.\n\nKoh said the scope of Chinese fishing activities doesn't help Beijing's case for being a positive force in the region.\n\n\"Chinese fishing vessels are not necessarily viewed in a benign manner -- they are large distant water fishing fleets, equipped with large and better-equipped vessels that can outrun, outmuscle and outfish local fishing boats,\" he said.\n\nUS Coast Guard the \"near-perfect\" tool\n\nCarl Schuster, a retired US Navy captain and a former director of operations at the US Pacific Command's Joint Intelligence Center, said the Coast Guard is \"near perfect ... for relations building with Pacific Island countries.\"\n\nCoast Guard cutters are not threatening vessels, associated with rescuing people as much as anything else, Schuster said.\n\n\"You cannot understate the Coast Guard's importance to ... relationships in the Central and Western Pacific,\" he said.\n\nWhile some observers note that China also has a well-equipped coast guard that could do what the US is doing in the region, Koh doesn't see that happening, at least in the near term.\n\nHe notes Beijing's troubles in waters closer to home, in places like the South and East China seas, where disputes over fishing rights and territorial claims keep the Chinese coast guard busy.\n\nThose also bring in China's credibility as a fair broker into question, he said, leaving an advantage to the US Coast Guard.\n\n\"It's difficult to imagine China having sufficient political capital to push for something analogous to what the US is currently doing,\" Koh said.\n\nThis story has been updated with additional reporting.", "authors": ["Brad Lendon", "Simone Mccarthy"], "publish_date": "2022/06/02"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/13/us/five-things-june-13-trnd?cid=external-feeds_iluminar_msn", "title": "5 things to know for June 13: Gun laws, January 6, Covid, White ...", "text": "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\n(CNN) Just imagine what a relief it would be if you could use the same charging cable for all of your devices -- your phone, laptop, earbuds, camera, tablet, portable speaker, etc. Well, in a huge step to reduce cable clutter and waste, European regulators say that Apple and other smartphone makers will be required to support a single common charging standard for all mobile devices as early as the fall of 2024. But Apple hates the idea (shocker) because that means about a billion devices will become obsolete.\n\nHere's what you need to know to Get Up to Speed and On with Your Day.\n\n(You can get \"5 Things You Need to Know Today\" delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up here .)\n\n1. Gun laws\n\nA bipartisan group of senators announced an agreement on gun safety legislation Sunday in the wake of several deadly mass shootings . The proposal includes \"needed mental health resources, improves school safety and support for students, and helps ensure dangerous criminals and those who are adjudicated as mentally ill can't purchase weapons,\" the group said in a statement. Notably, the plan has the support of 10 Republican senators, which would help overcome a Senate filibuster . But many of the details of the plan are still to be sorted out and maintaining support for it throughout the legislative process will be challenging. A few major reforms were left out of the proposed deal, including a provision to expand background checks. Also absent is a ban on military-style assault weapons. Plus, there will be no change to the minimum age to purchase guns, which is 18 years old.\n\n2. January 6\n\n3. Coronavirus\n\n4. White nationalists\n\nPolice in Idaho arrested 31 men believed to be affiliated with the White nationalist group Patriot Front who allegedly had plans to riot at a local Pride event Saturday in Coeur d'Alene, officials said. Authorities received a call from a concerned citizen to report that the group was meeting in the parking lot of a hotel and \"looked like a little army\" equipped with shields and masks, the city's Police Chief Lee White said. They intended to riot at an event that included a Pride walk and performances by local musicians, dancers and drag artists, police said. All 31 men were charged with conspiracy to riot, which is a misdemeanor.\n\n5. Stocks\n\nGlobal markets and US stock futures fell early today , indicating a downbeat start to the trading week after a broad sell-off on Wall Street. The Dow plunged 880 points, or 2.5%, on Friday. The S&P 500 shed 2.7% and the Nasdaq dropped about 3%. The Consumer Price Index rose by 8.6% in May, raising fears that the Federal Reserve will have to act even more aggressively to try to tame inflation. The shockwaves were felt most acutely in Asia today. Japan's Nikkei closed down 3%, and the yen weakened to the lowest level in more than 20 years. If you're looking for ways to protect yourself financially while also making the most of what you have, CNN has developed this list of options to consider.\n\nBREAKFAST BROWSE\n\n'Squid Game' season 2 is coming to Netflix\n\nGreen light! The wildly popular series is making a highly anticipated return\n\nTony Awards\n\nBroadway's best were recognized Sunday night at New York's Radio City Music Hall. View the full list of winners here\n\nCountry music superstar Toby Keith announces he's been fighting stomach cancer\n\nKeith said he plans to return to the stage after taking time to rest and recover.\n\nRebranded McDonald's restaurants are unveiled in Russia\n\nDue to the war in Ukraine, McDonald's removed all of their golden arches from Russia. This is what the restaurants look like now\n\nWoman sets record swimming 26.22 miles in a mermaid fin\n\nSwimmer Merle Liivand encountered loads of marine life on her impressive journey -- and was even stung by a jellyfish.\n\nTODAY'S NUMBER\n\n$5\n\nThat's how much a gallon of regular gas now costs on average nationwide, according to data from AAA today. While a $5 national average set a new record this past weekend, $5 gas has become unpleasantly common in much of the US. Friday's readings showed more than 30% of stations nationwide were already charging more than $5 a gallon. And about 10% of stations are currently charging more than $5.75 a gallon.\n\nTODAY'S QUOTE\n\n\"In our blue Pacific continent, machine guns, fighter jets, gray ships and green battalions are not our primary security concern. The single greatest threat to our very existence is climate change.\"\n\n-- Inia Seruiratu, Fiji's minister for defense, saying that climate change posed the biggest security threat in the Asia-Pacific region. Fiji has been battered by a series of tropical cyclones in recent years that caused devastating flooding that displaced thousands from their homes and hobbled the island's economy.\n\nTODAY'S WEATHER\n\nJUST WATCHED Record heat spreads to the East Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Record heat spreads to the East 02:21\n\nAND FINALLY\n\nHow Tea Time Came to England", "authors": ["Alexandra Meeks"], "publish_date": "2022/06/13"}]}
+{"question_id": "20220617_7", "search_time": "2022/06/17/16:35", "search_result": [{"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/15/weather/yellowstone-national-park-montana-flooding-wednesday/index.html", "title": "Yellowstone National Park flooding: Northern parts may stay closed ...", "text": "(CNN) While all entrances of Yellowstone National Park are temporarily closed because flooding has damaged roads and bridges, the park's northern portion in particular may remain closed for \"a substantial length of time,\" park officials said Tuesday.\n\n\"Many sections of road in (the park's northern areas) are completely gone and will require substantial time and effort to reconstruct,\" a news release reads. \" ... It is probable that road sections in northern Yellowstone will not reopen this season due to the time required for repairs.\"\n\nDangerous flooding caused by abundant rain and rapid snowmelt began to hit the park and several counties in southern Montana on Monday, washing out or eroding roads and bridges and inflicting widespread damage on homes and businesses\n\nThe park on Monday closed all five of Yellowstone's entrances in Montana and Wyoming to inbound traffic -- in part to prevent people from being stranded as conditions deteriorated.\n\nYellowstone National Park could partly reopen as early as Monday, the Casper Star Tribune reports. Cam Sholly, the park's superintendent, told residents and tourists in Cody on Wednesday rangers could reopen parts of the park not badly impacted by flooding, according to the paper.\n\nResidents of Red Lodge, Montana, clear mud, water and debris from the city's main street on Tuesday.\n\nPark officials told visitors already in the park to leave, and more than 10,000 have left the park since Monday, Sholly said Tuesday.\n\nThough cooler temperatures and drier weather have allowed some parts of swollen rivers to start receding, higher temperatures are expected later this week and into the weekend, which could cause more snowmelt runoff and therefore more flooding, CNN meteorologist Brandon Miller said.\n\n\"There will be no inbound visitor traffic at any of the five entrances into the park, including visitors with lodging and camping reservations, until conditions improve and park infrastructure is evaluated,\" the park's release reads.\n\nQuickly deteriorating road conditions in Yellowstone created harrowing evacuations for some visitors, including the parents of CNN supervising producer Tim Carter, who had to exit over a bridge which had been compromised.\n\n\"When we were going over it, it was really scary because the water was already violently swirling around the bridge,\" Martha Carter said. \"We did find out later that it had washed out.\"\n\nMeanwhile, some surrounding communities in Montana were left without power or safe drinking water as flood conditions made it impossible or unsafe to travel and compromised water supplies.\n\nGov. Greg Gianforte declared a statewide disaster Tuesday and MontanaGov. Greg Gianforte declared a statewide disaster Tuesday and announced he would seek an expedited presidential disaster declaration to help cover the cost of recovery.\n\nDramatic flooding prompts evacuations and rescues\n\nRain and snowmelt flooded rivers including the Yellowstone River, which runs northwest through Yellowstone Park in Wyoming and then north and eastward through several nearby Montana communities.\n\nThe flooding washed out parts of roads especially in the northern part of the park, and inundated south Montana homes, businesses and infrastructure Monday, forcing many families to evacuate. In the Montana city of Gardiner, a gateway to the park's northern entrance, video from witnesses showed a building collapsing into the Yellowstone River on Monday.\n\nIn Montana's Park County, which includes Gardiner, at least two homes collapsed into the intruding river and numerous homes and businesses were flooded, Greg Coleman, the county's disaster emergency services manager, told CNN Wednesday.\n\nFor some, roads and bridges were rendered temporarily impassable by the flooding, leaving them trapped, at times without clean water or power.\n\nThe Montana National Guard used four helicopters to help with evacuations in affected areas on Monday and Tuesday and also sent soldiers to the city of Red Lodge to establish a command center for search and rescue efforts, the force said. The Guard has used helicopters to rescue 87 people in south-central Montana since Monday, it said Wednesday\n\nA Montana helicopter company flew about 40 people out of Gardiner, which was temporarily isolated by flooding, Laura Jones with Rocky Mountain Rotors told CNN.\n\nA house that was pulled into a flooded creek in Red Lodge, Montana, is pictured Tuesday.\n\nIn the south Montana community of Absarokee, situated along a Yellowstone River tributary, resident Tracy Planichek and her husband had just reached their long-awaited goal of having a new home when the flood threat forced them to evacuate.\n\nNow, she told CNN, she is desperately hoping it has avoided the destruction seen in other homes, some of which were swept away. \"(We've) never been able to afford a new house,\" she said. \"It's sitting at the top of the lane, and we're hoping that by some God miracle that our house will be there.\"\n\nA road from Livingston into Gardiner was reopened Tuesday to local traffic, goods and services, but \"significant damage\" remains, Park County Sheriff Brad Bichler said.\n\nA road near Yellowstone National Park's northern entrance was significantly damaged by flooding.\n\nFloods shut down businesses in Gardiner\n\nThe flooding in Yellowstone has also had an adverse effect on businesses in the area.\n\nTami Rai McDonald owns the historic Park Hotel Yellowstone in Gardiner and told CNN Wednesday she and her staff are \"at the end of a rope\" because the flooding and closing of Yellowstone Park has \"cut us off from the world.\"\n\nThe Park Hotel is usually booked one to two years in advance, McDonald said.\n\nPhotos taken on Tuesday afternoon show the aftermath of the flooding in Red Lodge, Montana. Images show the street covered in rocks and debris from the high water levels.\n\n\"This closure of entrance during high season has caught all by surprise with no back up plans to survive what supports our livelihood,\" McDonald told CNN via text message, adding many visitors have called and emailed they were looking forward to staying at her hotel and have no alternative plans.\n\n\"So we (are) empty now, employees planned their lives to be here to keep things special, they feel a bit lifeless, abandoned, we feel sick for our guests who so looked forward to their time here, to get away, so excited,\" McDonald's text read. \"So many guests are so upset, crying, don't know what to do.\"\n\nZachary Beard told CNN he took these photos Tuesday along Broadway Avenue in Red Lodge, Montana.\n\nKari Huesing, who works at the Yellowstone Gateway Inn, told CNN the area has been a ghost town this week. One hotel, she said, shut down and sent all of their employees home. Her hotel will have a meeting to decide what they can do going forward.\n\n\"This is all based on tourism,\" Huesing said. The Yellowstone Gateway Inn had been booked for a year, Huesing said, and now there is all but one person at the hotel who actually recently checked out.\n\nFlood wave moves to Billings and further east\n\nA wave of flooding still was moving east Wednesday along the Yellowstone River, threatening more trouble in south Montana.\n\nBy early Wednesday, major flooding from the river was being reported in Billings, roughly a 175-mile drive east of Gardiner. The river in Billings rose above its previous record, 15 feet, around 4 p.m. Tuesday, said the National Weather Service.\n\n\"Exactly how high the river is, is a bit unsure with floodwaters impacting the gauge a bit at these higher levels, but have not seen a downturn trend yet,\" the service's office in Billings tweeted early Wednesday\n\nFields and streets were flooded along the river Tuesday just outside Billings, images posted to Facebook by the Yellowstone County Sheriff's Office showed. One picture showed two people walking in calf-deep water in a neighborhood.\n\nBillings public works officials said they decided Tuesday night to shut down water plant facilities after flooding in the Yellowstone River caused river levels to exceed 16 feet, according to a Facebook post from the department.\n\n\"As of Wednesday at 8:30 a.m., the water level at the plant reached more than 16 feet. For the plant to operate effectively, the river needs to be at 15 feet or below,\" officials said in the post.\n\nPublic works director Debi Meling said Wednesday no one had planned for this level of flooding the facilities were designed and recognized the diligence of the facilities' operational teams.\n\nShe added the plant would not return to \"normal operations\" until river water levels decrease.\n\nMeling said all reservoirs are filled, and the plant would have water for the community for about a day to a day and a half. Superintendent of Parks Mike Pigg said firetrucks were filled with water and water for all city parks was turned off.\n\nThe river should crest there Wednesday -- though attention will turn to high temperatures that could cause more snowmelt and more flooding in the region this weekend.\n\nBillings will approach record temperatures in the upper 90s Friday and Saturday, while the higher elevations will be in the 60s and 70s. This would be warm enough to melt the remaining snow pack and lead to additional river rises over the weekend. And more rain is possible in the area on Sunday.\n\nA lot of rain and snowmelt in only three days\n\nWhat led to the flooding was substantial rainfall and snow runoff over the weekend in the Beartooth and Absaroka mountain ranges, which span the Montana-Wyoming state line.\n\nThe combination of rain and snowmelt created a \"total water event of at least 4 to 9 inches,\" the National Weather Service in Billings said Tuesday.\n\nThat amount of runoff is similar to the region receiving two to three times a normal June's precipitation in only three days, according to CNN meteorologists.\n\nIn the park, officials had all visitors move out of lodging and campgrounds and leave the park to prevent anyone from being stranded, the National Park Service said in a news release . The park averages between 15,000 and 20,000 visitors in June, Sholly said.\n\nThe park has also closed the Yellowstone back country and has been in contact with groups in the area.\n\nA washed out bridge at Yellowstone National Park's Rescue Creek.\n\n\"We have contacted or know the whereabouts of every back country user currently in Yellowstone,\" Sholly said, noting one group remained in the northern range. No helicopter evacuations have been necessary, he said.\n\nNo known injuries or deaths occurred in the park because of the flooding, Sholly said, and officials do not believe the animals in the park have been significantly affected.\n\nThe park's southern loop \"appears to be less impacted than the northern roads\" and teams will try to determine when the loop can be reopened. But officials expect it to stay closed at least through Sunday, the park's release states.", "authors": ["Jason Hanna", "Amir Vera", "Elizabeth Wolfe", "David Williams", "Paradise Afshar"], "publish_date": "2022/06/15"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/06/14/yellowstone-national-park-flooding-closed-damage/7619882001/", "title": "Yellowstone flooding, damage closes national park, forces ...", "text": "GARDINER, Mont. – Yellowstone National Park officials assessed widespread damage Tuesday as the park remained closed amid dangerous floods, mudslides and rockslides that have eroded roads, ripped apart bridges and forced evacuations this week.\n\nThe water started to slowly recede Tuesday and one key highway reopened, but the record-level floods left all five entrances to the park closed through at least Wednesday, officials said. And, officials said during an update on Tuesday, the water levels could still change at any time.\n\n“The water is still raging,” said Park Superintendent Cam Sholly, who added that more wet weather was forecast this weekend, which could cause additional flooding.\n\nThe park, which is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year, has seen multiple road and bridge failures, power outages and mudslides, causing the evacuations of more than 10,000 visitors from the park.\n\n“I’ve never seen this, not in my lifetime,” said Austin King, a firefighter and EMT in Gardiner, a town just outside Yellowstone's busy northern entrance.\n\nThere were no reports of injuries or deaths as of Tuesday afternoon, but floodwaters swept away a number of homes, bridges and other structures. The northern part of the park suffered the worst damage.\n\nThe full scope of the damage was not known Tuesday, leaving it unclear when roads might reopen or when residents in neighboring communities might be able to return.\n\nThe northern loop of Yellowstone National Park was cleared of visitors and park officials were working to evacuate visitors in the southern area of the park Tuesday. Park staff were searching for five back-country groups to ensure they were safely evacuated.\n\nMeanwhile, Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte declared a statewide disaster and said the Montana National Guard rescued 12 people stranded by high waters in Roscoe and Cooke City.\n\nYELLOWSTONE CLOSED:Yellowstone National Park evacuates visitors\n\nMORE:Home swept away as Yellowstone is hit by major floods and mudslides\n\nHighways reopen as floodwaters recede\n\nThe Yellowstone River reached highs of almost 14 feet on Monday, far higher than the record 11.5 feet set more than a century ago, according the the National Weather Service.\n\nAlthough the water was still \"extremely\" high, a route out of Gardiner, a town of about 900 people, reopened Tuesday afternoon, according to county Commissioner Bill Berg and Sholly.\n\nVisitors could drive out using U.S. Highway 89 and East River Road, but only residents and service vehicles were allowed to drive back inside. While some residents questioned if they could wait a few days before leaving town, Berg and Sholly were adamant: “Get out of Gardiner.”\n\n\"We are working with the county and state of Montana to provide necessary support to residents, who are currently without water and power in some areas,\" Yellowstone officials said Monday.\n\nA smaller highway into the previously isolated Cooke City also reopened to local traffic and emergency services Tuesday afternoon.\n\nYellowstone communities left stranded, without power\n\nThe flooding left some of Yellowstone's small gateway communities in southern Montana isolated and without power, leading to evacuations by boat and helicopter.\n\nFloodwaters isolated areas including Silvergate, which is east of the park, and led to evacuations in Livingston. As Stillwater River in south-central Montana flooded, 68 people were stranded at a campground as crews rescued campers by raft.\n\nOfficials in Park County, which encompasses those cities, issued shelter-in-place orders Monday and warned flooding had made drinking water unsafe in many communities. Residents hauled bottled water home from stores and worried about a possible food shortage.\n\nMany in Gardiner have used only bottled water to brush their teeth, wash dishes and prepare food due to a break in the area's main water service line. The community was under an advisory to boil water before consumption as of Tuesday afternoon.\n\nThe county said water and air rescues were underway amid evacuations Monday.\n\n\"Extensive flooding throughout Park County has washed out bridges, roads, and left communities and homes isolated,\" Park County said in a statement.\n\nA 10-person bunker was among the buildings that slipped from the riverbank into the water. Only a portion of the building's foundation remained Tuesday.\n\nParker Manning, who was visiting from Terre Haute, Indiana, watched the flooding from a cabin in Gardiner. He said he saw trees and a mostly intact house floating in rushing waters.\n\nIn the south-central Montana town of Joliet, Kristan Apodaca cried as she watched floodwaters overtake her grandmother's log cabin and the park where her husband proposed.\n\n\"I am sixth-generation,\" she told the Billings Gazette. \"This is our home.\"\n\nKing, the EMT in Gardiner, said the flooding was \"damaging for a lot of people.\"\n\n\"Some have lost their houses; others can’t go to work,\" King said. \"People are worried about food shortages already.\"\n\nYELLOWSTONE NEWS:National park renames mountain named for officer in Native American massacre\n\nWhen will Yellowstone reopen?\n\nYellowstone officials have prohibited visitors from entering the park at any of its five entrances until at least Wednesday.\n\nSholly said the park could remain closed as long as a week, and northern entrances may not reopen at all this summer.\n\nCory Mottice, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Billings, Montana, said reduced rain and cooler temperatures, which could lead to decreased snowmelt, may lessen flooding.\n\nStill, \"this is flooding that we’ve just never seen in our lifetimes before,\" Mottice said.\n\nWhy is Yellowstone flooding?\n\nRecord rainfall combined with rapidly melting snowpack caused the deluge of flooding this week. Scientists pointed to climate change as the culprit behind more intense and frequent weather events.\n\nThe flooding happened as the summer tourist season was ramping up. June is one of the park's busiest months.\n\n'This is serious': Millions under heat wave warnings as triple-digit temps move east\n\nWhat state is Yellowstone National Park in?\n\nThe world's first national park, Yellowstone National Park encompasses nearly 3,500 square miles on top of a volcanic hot spot. The park lies mostly in Wyoming but spreads into Montana and Idaho.\n\nThe park allows visitors \"to observe wildlife in an intact ecosystem, explore geothermal areas that contain about half the world’s active geysers, and view geologic wonders like the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River,\" according to the Yellowstone's website.\n\nContributing: The Associated Press\n\nContact News Now Reporter Christine Fernando at cfernando@usatoday.com or follow her on Twitter at @christinetfern.\n\nHannah Phillips of The Palm Beach Post reported from Gardiner, Montana.\n\nYOU MAY LIKE:A first in Yellowstone, as man in Tesla proves his ‘ingenuity’", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/06/14"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/14/us/yellowstone-national-park-closed-visitors-flooding-tuesday/index.html", "title": "Unprecedented flooding conditions force Yellowstone park to close ...", "text": "(CNN) Yellowstone National Park will remain closed to visitors through at least Wednesday due to dangerous flooding conditions, which have prompted park evacuations and left some in surrounding communities trapped without safe drinking water, officials say.\n\nA Montana helicopter company transported about 40 people on Monday and Tuesday from a community airstrip in the town of Gardiner in Park County, Laura Jones of Rocky Mountain Rotors told CNN.\n\n\"We haven't 'rescued' anyone that was in danger, we have mainly been transporting people out of there,\" Jones said via email. \"We have also taken some passengers in who had pets they needed to get to or live there and needed to get home.\"\n\nThe park announced Monday afternoon that all park entrances were closed to visitors, citing \"record flooding events\" and a forecast of more rain to come.\n\nThe abundant rainfall and rapid snowmelt combined to produce up to three-quarters of a foot of water runoff, which is similar to the area receiving 2 to 3 months of June precipitation in only three days, according to CNN Weather calculations.\n\n\"Our first priority has been to evacuate the northern section of the park where we have multiple road and bridge failures, mudslides and other issues,\" Yellowstone Park Superintendent Cam Sholly said in a statement Monday.\n\n\"Well over 10,000 visitors\" were in the park, according to Sholly, who said at a news conference Monday he didn't have an exact number, but average visitation in June can be between 15,000 and 20,000 people.\n\nA road in Yellowstone National Park partially collapsed due to flooding Monday.\n\nImmediately north of the Yellowstone, several cities in Montana's Park County were also experiencing extensive flooding, which has washed out bridges and roads, making it unsafe to travel or impossible to evacuate, Park County officials said on Facebook\n\nOfficials have also issued warnings in many areas for residents to avoid drinking local water due to a broken water main and submerged wells.\n\nThe Park County town of Gardiner, located at the northern entrance to Yellowstone, is isolated and surrounded by water after heavy flooding washed out bridges and roads, county officials said on Facebook on Tuesday.\n\nDamage from flooding in the town is \"significant,\" Park County Sheriff Brad Bichler said Tuesday.\n\n\"The water's coming down and it's kind of showing us exactly what kind of damage we're dealing with,\" Bichler said at a news conference.\n\nSholly told reporters Tuesday evening that the road between Gardiner and Cooke City will likely remain closed for the remainder of the season. He said no damage estimates are yet available.\n\n\"This is not going to be an easy rebuild,\" Sholly said, referring the five-mile stretch of road most affected by the flooding. He said officials will have to assess whether it make sense to rebuild the road in that area.\n\nGardiner is a hub of activity in the region and the only entrance that remained open to wheeled-vehicle use year-round, according to the town website.\n\nCNN tried to contact Park County officials to confirm how many people are affected but has been unable to reach them.\n\nMany roads and bridges are inaccessible, along with some railroad tracks. A few roads and bridges remain open to emergency traffic. The National Guard and local rescue groups were conducting evacuations, water rescues and airlifts.\n\nOfficials on Tuesday warned residents that displaced wildlife could traverse their properties, with bears, deer and domestic livestock already spotted.\n\n\"The river has never been this high before by my house,\" said Elizabeth Aluck, who lives in Gardiner. Aluck told CNN Monday afternoon that she cannot evacuate because the roads and bridges around her home are washed out.\n\nAn Indiana family staying at a short-term rental cabin in Gardiner told CNN they were supposed to leave Monday morning, but the flooding left them stranded.\n\n\"The water levels were high on Saturday but within the past 10 to 12 hours things have gotten rougher,\" Parker Manning said. \"Our way out of town would be north on 89, but those roads are currently all underwater.\"\n\nJUST WATCHED See the severe flooding that shut down Yellowstone National Park Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH See the severe flooding that shut down Yellowstone National Park 01:15\n\nThe Yellowstone River, which runs through the park and several Park County cities, swelled to a record high Monday due to recent heavy rainfall and significant runoff from melting snow in higher elevations, according to CNN meteorologist Brandon Miller.\n\nThe Yellowstone River gauge at Corwin Springs, Montana, reached 13.88 feet Monday afternoon, surpassing the historical high crest of 11.5 feet from 1918, NOAA river gauge data shows.\n\nGovernor declares statewide disaster\n\nMontana Gov. Greg Gianforte declared a \"statewide disaster\" on Tuesday \"to help impacted communities get back on their feet as soon as possible,\" according to a Twitter post.\n\nSnow melt and rainfall across the Beartooths and Absarokas -- which span the Montana-Wyoming border -- have led to \"flooding rarely or never seen before across many area rivers and streams,\" the National Weather Service in Billings said on its on website.\n\nThe Montana National Guard had evacuated 12 people stranded from flooding in Roscoe and Cooke City, the governor said in a separate Twitter post. The National Guard said it also was responding to a search and rescue request in the East Rosebud Lake area.\n\nSeveral roads and bridges are severely damaged in southern Montana and may be temporarily closed, according to an tweet from Montana's Disaster and Emergency Services.\n\nAcross the nation in recent days, extreme weather events have battered communities, including thunderstorms that left nearly 300,000 customers without power in the Midwest, a tornado threat in Chicago, and a severe heat dome which has left more than a third of the US population under heat alerts.\n\nA large rockslide on North Entrance Road in Yellowstone National Park Monday.\n\nSome are evacuated while others remain trapped\n\nAs several roads and bridges were rendered impassable by floodwaters, park and county officials in Montana worked to evacuate whoever they can and provide support to those who are unable to leave.\n\nThe National Guard and local search and rescue teams were assisting with evacuations and rescues throughout the county, including two air lifts and one swift water rescue, the county said.\n\nJUST WATCHED Video shows Yellowstone River flooding take out part of waterfront home Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Video shows Yellowstone River flooding take out part of waterfront home 00:25\n\nMultiple communities in Park County were isolated and surrounded by water, including Gardiner, Cooke City and Silver Gate, an update on the county Facebook page said. Quickly rushing floodwaters have also damaged homes, as images show houses either partially or fully collapsing.\n\nIn neighboring Carbon County, Montana, flooding compromised utility service lines, leaving many customers in Red Lodge without power, officials said.\n\nMeanwhile, several roads and bridges in Yellowstone have also been compromised by flooding, park officials say. Videos released by the park show portions of paved road washed out or severely eroded.\n\nA bridge at Rescue Creek in Yellowstone National Park was washed out by rushing waters.\n\nDue to predictions of higher flood levels and concerns about water and wastewater systems, the park also began moving visitors out of the southern loop of the park Monday, Sholly said.\n\n\"We will not know timing of the park's reopening until flood waters subside and we're able to assess the damage throughout the park,\" Sholly said. \"It is likely that the northern loop will be closed for a substantial amount of time.\"\n\nDramatic increase in rain strengthens floodwaters\n\nIn June, precipitation across northwestern Wyoming and southern Montana has been more that 400% of the region's average, according to Miller.\n\nThe dramatic increase in rain has been coupled with near-record temperatures in the region that have caused snowmelt in areas of high elevation, the NWS in Riverton, Wyoming, said. Overnight Sunday, the snowmelt made its way into streams and rivers, further adding to the floodwaters, the NWS said.\n\nIn addition to the record set at Corwin Springs, the Yellowstone River reached 10.9 feet in Livingston, Montana, Monday exceeding the area's 1997 record of 10.7 feet, the NWS in Billings said.", "authors": ["Elizabeth Wolfe", "Claudia Dominguez", "Ray Sanchez"], "publish_date": "2022/06/14"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/15/us/what-caused-yellowstone-flooding-climate/index.html", "title": "What caused Yellowstone's 'unprecedented' flooding? - CNN", "text": "CNN —\n\nExtreme rainfall rates and rapid snowmelt prompted the flash flooding in Yellowstone National Park early this week, washing out roads and bridges in the park and causing “significant” damage to the town of Gardiner, Montana, at the park’s entrance.\n\nAbnormally warm temperatures and torrential rain triggered a wave of snowmelt over the weekend which produced nearly a foot of water runoff by Monday.\n\nThe Beartooth and Absaroka mountain ranges “received anywhere from 0.8 inches to over 5 inches of rainfall” from June 10 to June 13, the National Weather Service in Billings revealed Tuesday.\n\nThe extreme rainfall combined with snowmelt led to a massive deluge of water equivalent to the area receiving two to three months worth of summer precipitation in just three days, according to CNN Weather calculations.\n\nThe enormous volume of water then flowed into the rivers and valleys in lower elevations, where it quickly rose to record depths and led to “flooding rarely or never seen before,” forecasters at the National Weather Service said.\n\nThe Yellowstone River, which runs through the park and several Park County cities, reached 13.88 feet at Corwin Springs Monday afternoon, surpassing the historical high crest of 11.5 feet from 1918, according to NOAA.\n\nVideo Ad Feedback 00:59 - Source: CNN Watch moment house collapses into flood water\n\nScientists predicted events like this week’s flash flooding would happen more often in the Yellowstone area as global temperatures climb. A report published just last year on the future of Yellowstone concluded the climate crisis would lead to more rainfall and rapid snowmelt due to extreme spring and summer warmth.\n\nIn the report published last year, scientists with the US Geological Survey, Montana State University and the University of Wyoming examined how the climate has changed from 1950 to 2018, and how it would continue until the end of the century based on projected greenhouse gas scenarios from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.\n\nThe report showed average temperatures in the Greater Yellowstone Area rose by 2.3 degrees Fahrenheit since 1950, and could increase another five to 10 degrees in the coming decades.\n\nUnder the climate scenario where significant reductions to greenhouse gas emissions are made in the next few years, scientists found annual precipitation in the region could still increase by 9% to 15%, though high temperatures and evaporation rates would still likely worsen the region’s drought conditions.\n\nIt suggests the Yellowstone region will experience what the rest of the West is already experiencing: long periods of dry conditions punctuated by brief moments of torrential rainfall, which leads to dangerous flash flooding.\n\nStudies have shown how climate change could produce larger and more intense rain events, leading to more flash floods like the Montana and Wyoming are facing right now.\n\nThough cooler temperatures and drier weather have allowed for rivers and streams in the Yellowstone region to drop back to normal levels, even hotter temperatures are expected late this week and weekend, which could lead to more melting, and bring additional flooding to the region.\n\n“Plan on highs in the 60 to 70s in the higher elevations [Friday and Saturday], which should melt much of the remaining snowpack and lead to additional river rises,” the National Weather Service in Billings said Tuesday.", "authors": ["Brandon Miller Rachel Ramirez", "Brandon Miller", "Rachel Ramirez"], "publish_date": "2022/06/15"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/14/us/yellowstone-national-park-closed-visitors-flooding-tuesday/index.html/", "title": "Yellowstone National Park flooding: Unprecedented flooding ...", "text": "See the severe flooding that shut down Yellowstone National Park\n\n'It's sportswashing': Costas on Mickelson's deal to play in Saudi-backed golf league\n\nPhil Mickelson of The USA tees off the 14th hole during day three of the PIF Saudi International at Royal Greens Golf & Country Club on February 05, 2022 in Al Murooj, Saudi Arabia.\n\n'We need a basic minimum': Ukrainians ask for heavier weapons as Russia advances\n\nHe predicted US inflation would rise. Hear what he thinks about a recession\n\nToobin: SCOTUS says this is history, we're dealing in the present\n\nWASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 26: The U.S. Supreme Court building on the day it was reported that Associate Justice Stephen Breyer would soon retire on January 26, 2022 in Washington, DC. Appointed by President Bill Clinton, Breyer has been on the court since 1994. His retirement creates an opportunity for President Joe Biden, who has promised to nominate a Black woman for his first pick to the highest court in the country.\n\nWhy L'Oréal's CEO is not worried about inflation\n\nSee George Conway's reaction to new photos of Pence hiding on Jan. 6\n\nCNN —\n\nYellowstone National Park will remain closed to visitors through at least Wednesday due to dangerous flooding conditions, which have prompted park evacuations and left some in surrounding communities trapped without safe drinking water, officials say.\n\nA Montana helicopter company transported about 40 people on Monday and Tuesday from a community airstrip in the town of Gardiner in Park County, Laura Jones of Rocky Mountain Rotors told CNN.\n\n“We haven’t ‘rescued’ anyone that was in danger, we have mainly been transporting people out of there,” Jones said via email. “We have also taken some passengers in who had pets they needed to get to or live there and needed to get home.”\n\nThe park announced Monday afternoon that all park entrances were closed to visitors, citing “record flooding events” and a forecast of more rain to come.\n\nThe abundant rainfall and rapid snowmelt combined to produce up to three-quarters of a foot of water runoff, which is similar to the area receiving 2 to 3 months of June precipitation in only three days, according to CNN Weather calculations.\n\n“Our first priority has been to evacuate the northern section of the park where we have multiple road and bridge failures, mudslides and other issues,” Yellowstone Park Superintendent Cam Sholly said in a statement Monday.\n\n“Well over 10,000 visitors” were in the park, according to Sholly, who said at a news conference Monday he didn’t have an exact number, but average visitation in June can be between 15,000 and 20,000 people.\n\nA road in Yellowstone National Park partially collapsed due to flooding Monday. National Park Service/AP\n\nImmediately north of the Yellowstone, several cities in Montana’s Park County were also experiencing extensive flooding, which has washed out bridges and roads, making it unsafe to travel or impossible to evacuate, Park County officials said on Facebook.\n\nOfficials have also issued warnings in many areas for residents to avoid drinking local water due to a broken water main and submerged wells.\n\nThe Park County town of Gardiner, located at the northern entrance to Yellowstone, is isolated and surrounded by water after heavy flooding washed out bridges and roads, county officials said on Facebook on Tuesday.\n\nDamage from flooding in the town is “significant,” Park County Sheriff Brad Bichler said Tuesday.\n\n“The water’s coming down and it’s kind of showing us exactly what kind of damage we’re dealing with,” Bichler said at a news conference.\n\nSholly told reporters Tuesday evening that the road between Gardiner and Cooke City will likely remain closed for the remainder of the season. He said no damage estimates are yet available.\n\n“This is not going to be an easy rebuild,” Sholly said, referring the five-mile stretch of road most affected by the flooding. He said officials will have to assess whether it make sense to rebuild the road in that area.\n\nGardiner is a hub of activity in the region and the only entrance that remained open to wheeled-vehicle use year-round, according to the town website.\n\nCNN tried to contact Park County officials to confirm how many people are affected but has been unable to reach them.\n\nMany roads and bridges are inaccessible, along with some railroad tracks. A few roads and bridges remain open to emergency traffic. The National Guard and local rescue groups were conducting evacuations, water rescues and airlifts.\n\nOfficials on Tuesday warned residents that displaced wildlife could traverse their properties, with bears, deer and domestic livestock already spotted.\n\n“The river has never been this high before by my house,” said Elizabeth Aluck, who lives in Gardiner. Aluck told CNN Monday afternoon that she cannot evacuate because the roads and bridges around her home are washed out.\n\nAn Indiana family staying at a short-term rental cabin in Gardiner told CNN they were supposed to leave Monday morning, but the flooding left them stranded.\n\n“The water levels were high on Saturday but within the past 10 to 12 hours things have gotten rougher,” Parker Manning said. “Our way out of town would be north on 89, but those roads are currently all underwater.”\n\nVideo Ad Feedback 01:15 - Source: CNN See the severe flooding that shut down Yellowstone National Park\n\nThe Yellowstone River, which runs through the park and several Park County cities, swelled to a record high Monday due to recent heavy rainfall and significant runoff from melting snow in higher elevations, according to CNN meteorologist Brandon Miller.\n\nThe Yellowstone River gauge at Corwin Springs, Montana, reached 13.88 feet Monday afternoon, surpassing the historical high crest of 11.5 feet from 1918, NOAA river gauge data shows.\n\nGovernor declares statewide disaster\n\nMontana Gov. Greg Gianforte declared a “statewide disaster” on Tuesday “to help impacted communities get back on their feet as soon as possible,” according to a Twitter post.\n\nSnow melt and rainfall across the Beartooths and Absarokas – which span the Montana-Wyoming border – have led to “flooding rarely or never seen before across many area rivers and streams,” the National Weather Service in Billings said on its on website.\n\nThe Montana National Guard had evacuated 12 people stranded from flooding in Roscoe and Cooke City, the governor said in a separate Twitter post. The National Guard said it also was responding to a search and rescue request in the East Rosebud Lake area.\n\nSeveral roads and bridges are severely damaged in southern Montana and may be temporarily closed, according to an tweet from Montana’s Disaster and Emergency Services.\n\nAcross the nation in recent days, extreme weather events have battered communities, including thunderstorms that left nearly 300,000 customers without power in the Midwest, a tornado threat in Chicago, and a severe heat dome which has left more than a third of the US population under heat alerts.\n\nA large rockslide on North Entrance Road in Yellowstone National Park Monday. National Park Service/AP\n\nSome are evacuated while others remain trapped\n\nAs several roads and bridges were rendered impassable by floodwaters, park and county officials in Montana worked to evacuate whoever they can and provide support to those who are unable to leave.\n\nThe National Guard and local search and rescue teams were assisting with evacuations and rescues throughout the county, including two air lifts and one swift water rescue, the county said.\n\nVideo Ad Feedback 00:25 - Source: CNN Video shows Yellowstone River flooding take out part of waterfront home\n\nMultiple communities in Park County were isolated and surrounded by water, including Gardiner, Cooke City and Silver Gate, an update on the county Facebook page said. Quickly rushing floodwaters have also damaged homes, as images show houses either partially or fully collapsing.\n\nIn neighboring Carbon County, Montana, flooding compromised utility service lines, leaving many customers in Red Lodge without power, officials said.\n\nMeanwhile, several roads and bridges in Yellowstone have also been compromised by flooding, park officials say. Videos released by the park show portions of paved road washed out or severely eroded.\n\nA bridge at Rescue Creek in Yellowstone National Park was washed out by rushing waters. National Park Service/AP\n\nDue to predictions of higher flood levels and concerns about water and wastewater systems, the park also began moving visitors out of the southern loop of the park Monday, Sholly said.\n\n“We will not know timing of the park’s reopening until flood waters subside and we’re able to assess the damage throughout the park,” Sholly said. “It is likely that the northern loop will be closed for a substantial amount of time.”\n\nDramatic increase in rain strengthens floodwaters\n\nIn June, precipitation across northwestern Wyoming and southern Montana has been more that 400% of the region’s average, according to Miller.\n\nThe dramatic increase in rain has been coupled with near-record temperatures in the region that have caused snowmelt in areas of high elevation, the NWS in Riverton, Wyoming, said. Overnight Sunday, the snowmelt made its way into streams and rivers, further adding to the floodwaters, the NWS said.\n\nIn addition to the record set at Corwin Springs, the Yellowstone River reached 10.9 feet in Livingston, Montana, Monday exceeding the area’s 1997 record of 10.7 feet, the NWS in Billings said.", "authors": ["Elizabeth Wolfe Claudia Dominguez Ray Sanchez", "Elizabeth Wolfe", "Claudia Dominguez", "Ray Sanchez"], "publish_date": "2022/06/14"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/06/14/yellowstone-national-park-flooding-mudslide-photos/7621287001/", "title": "Home swept away as Yellowstone National Park is hit by major ...", "text": "As summer tourist season ramps up, record-breaking floods in Yellowstone National Park and dangerous mudslides have swept away homes, ripped apart bridges and forced evacuations of surrounding communities isolated without power.\n\nOn Tuesday, a video showed a home in Gardiner, Montana, collapsing into the murky waters of Yellowstone River.\n\nYellowstone River reached highs not seen in our lifetimes, at almost 14 feet on Monday. The previous record of 11.5 feet occurred more than a century ago, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.\n\nYellowstone National Park covers nearly 3,500 square miles in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. It sits atop a volcanic hot spot with about half the world’s active geysers.\n\nNearby Park County said water and air rescues were underway Monday and issued shelter-in-place orders.\n\nMore:Yellowstone National Park closes entrances, evacuates visitors amid 'unprecedented' rainfall, flooding\n\nClimate change is responsible for more intense and frequent weather events, scientists have said.\n\nRainfall is expected for the next several days and all five entrances to the park were closed, officials said Monday. There were no immediate reports of injuries.\n\nCamille Fine is a trending visual producer on USA TODAY's NOW team. She loves to make pizza, photograph friends and spoil her loving cat Pearl.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/06/14"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/06/15/yellowstone-national-park-flooding-tourists-damage/7632874001/", "title": "Yellowstone still closed as flooding recedes and thousands ...", "text": "GARDINER, Mont. – On a typical day, helicopter pilot Mark Taylor might fly tourists or professional photographers above national parks in the West, scouting for wildlife and offering a birds-eye view of the mountains, geysers and waterfalls.\n\nBut when historic flooding hit Yellowstone National Park this week, Taylor sprang into action and helped dozens evacuate from towns that couldn't be evacuated by road. Park County law enforcement reached out to his Montana-based company, Rocky Mountain Rotors, about a helicopter, and — by the \"Montana way of a handshake agreement\" — he agreed.\n\n\"There's just no questions asked,\" Taylor told USA TODAY in an interview Wednesday. \"We just go do the work and provide whatever helicopter services that they need.\"\n\nAfter offering his services, the phones were inundated with travelers and residents eager to quickly vacate the Yellowstone area as floodwaters swept away homes, eroded roads, ripped apart bridges and left some stranded. Entire towns were temporarily isolated without a way out after roads closed or were demolished by rushing water.\n\nThe flooding continued to devastate the area Wednesday with rushing water reaching Montana's largest city. The floodwaters in Billings, which boasts a population of 110,000, flooded farms and ranches and caused the shutdown of the area's water treatment plant, although the city reported improvement at the plant on Wednesday evening.\n\n'Nothing that we have ever seen'\n\nMany who called were in Gardiner, a town of about 900 people just north of Yellowstone. People there were isolated for more than a day before roads reopened. Many were tourists, some with medical issues, who didn't want to risk waiting for the Montana National Guard, which has rescued at least 87 people, according to the Department of Defense. Over the course of two days, Taylor was hired to pick up about 40 people from the local airport, including a cancer patient, two pregnant women, and a man who recently had a stroke.\n\nAs Taylor flew around Yellowstone National Park and the surrounding communities, he watched debris, including huge pieces of houses, timber and even 1000-gallon propane tanks, float downstream as a river ate up massive swaths of land.\n\n\"It was obvious that this flood was like nothing that we have ever seen,\" he said.\n\nYellowstone National Park flooding: Waters 'still raging'; more than 10,000 visitors evacuated: What we know\n\nAlmost all the tourists in Yellowstone National Park — more than 10,000 — were evacuated as historic levels of flooding forced the park to close earlier this week. The only tourists remaining Wednesday were a dozen campers making their way out of the back-country.\n\nOfficials were working Wednesday to repair damaged infrastructure and prepared for more wet weather over the weekend. The park could remain closed for a week after the floods damaged roads, bridges and homes, Superintendent Cam Sholly said Tuesday. Sholly said additional flooding was possible over the weekend.\n\nNo injuries or deaths have been reported amid the devastation. Roads were starting to reopen and some evacuated residents in Park County were allowed back into their homes Tuesday.\n\n\"We're really, really, really thankful that there wasn't a river drowning,\" Taylor said. \"When we're called out, it's not always a happy ending and usually lives are lost.\"\n\nResidents in Yellowstone communities assess damage\n\nThe full impact of the flooding, mudslides and rockslides is not yet known, but the northern part of the park and the smaller communities that border it suffered some of the worst damage.\n\nIn Red Lodge, a town of 2,100 that’s a popular jumping-off point for a scenic route into the Yellowstone high country, a creek running through town jumped its banks and swamped the main thoroughfare.\n\nThe water toppled telephone poles, knocked over fences and carved deep fissures in the ground through a neighborhood of hundreds of houses. Electricity was restored by Tuesday, but there was still no running water in the area.\n\nTaylor is planning to fly a small group to an area near Red Lodge this week to seal up cabins and get rid of food to prevent bears from entering the properties.\n\nAt least 200 homes were flooded in Red Lodge and the town of Fromberg, including Heidi Hoffman's. She left early Monday to buy a sump pump, which can be used to pump water out of a home. But by the time she returned, her basement was full of water.\n\n“We lost all our belongings in the basement,” Hoffman said as the pump removed a steady stream of water into her muddy backyard. “Yearbooks, pictures, clothes, furniture. We're going to be cleaning up for a long time.”\n\nResidents in Park County hauled bottled water home from stores as concerns mounted over a possible food shortage due to blocked routes making deliveries difficult. As Stillwater River in south-central Montana flooded, 68 people were stranded at a campground as crews rescued campers by raft.\n\nSilver Gate, a community just northeast of the park, is now the only town inaccessible by road, according to Park County officials.\n\nMontana Gov. Greg Gianforte declared a statewide disaster Tuesday and was seeking an expedited presidential disaster declaration to help cover the cost of repair.\n\nThe Yellowstone River reached highs of almost 14 feet on Monday, far higher than the record 11.5 feet set more than a century ago, according the the National Weather Service.\n\nRecord rainfall combined with rapidly melting snowpack caused the deluge of flooding this week. Scientists pointed to climate change as the culprit behind more intense and frequent weather events.\n\nThe flooding comes as the summer tourist season was ramping up. June is one of the busiest months for the park, which is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year.\n\nThe world's first national park, Yellowstone National Park encompasses nearly 3,500 square miles on top of a volcanic hot spot.\n\nThe park, which stretches across Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, previously closed in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, but Sholly said he didn't believe the park had ever closed for flooding.\n\nWhat to know if you're hoping to visit Yellowstone National Park\n\nPeople planning to visit in weeks ahead are being advised to stay abreast of road and weather conditions due to the severe damage.\n\nThe northern portion of the park, which features popular sites like Tower Fall, Mammoth Hot Springs and the Lamar Valley, may not reopen for the summer tourist season and is \"likely to remain closed for a substantial length of time due to severely damaged, impacted infrastructure,\" park officials said in a statement.\n\nSome parts of the park may require reservations.\n\n\"Due to the northern loop being unavailable for visitors, the park is analyzing how many visitors can safely visit the southern loop once it’s safe to reopen,\" the park said Tuesday.\n\nSUMMER VISITORS:What to know if you're hoping to visit Yellowstone National Park after floods recede\n\nAll nine Yellowstone lodges, 12 campgrounds and 293 backcountry campsites are closed through at least Sunday and until further notice. Refunds would be issued if needed for reserved lodging and activities, the park said.\n\nGuests hoping to cancel should expect long hold times as the central reservations line is \"experiencing extremely high call volumes,\" according to the park's lodging website.\n\nBusinesses in hard-hit Gardiner had just started really recovering from the tourism contraction brought by the coronavirus pandemic, and were hoping for a good year, Bill Berg, a commissioner in nearby Park County, said.\n\n“It’s a Yellowstone town, and it lives and dies by tourism, and this is going to be a pretty big hit,” he said. “They’re looking to try to figure out how to hold things together.”\n\nContributing: Christine Fernando, Eve Chen, Jeanine Santucci, USA TODAY; The Associated Press\n\nHannah Phillips of The Palm Beach Post reported from Gardiner, Montana.\n\nContact Breaking News Reporter N'dea Yancey-Bragg at nyanceybra@gannett.com or follow her on Twitter @NdeaYanceyBragg", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/06/15"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/14/weather/extreme-weather-monday-heat-wave-flooding-power-outages/index.html", "title": "Across the US, a day of extreme weather prompts heat warnings ...", "text": "See the severe flooding that shut down Yellowstone National Park\n\nCNN —\n\nIn a matter of hours Monday, the iconic landmarks of Yellowstone National Park were shuttered to the public and its roads left unpassable after a torrential downpour and rapid snowmelt contributed to unprecedented flooding at one of America’s most visited national parks.\n\nA helicopter flying overhead captured scenes of destruction – with massive chunks of concrete snatched from the road as the swollen Gardner River raged outside its banks. It was one of many scenes of extreme weather Monday across the US.\n\nIn a span of 24 hours, American communities grappled with a slew of severe weather threats that left hundreds of thousands without power in the Midwest, trapped flooded communities in Montana without clean drinking water, prompted tornado warnings in Chicago and left millions battling sweltering heat.\n\nThese are the extreme weather events the US endured Monday.\n\nHundreds of thousands without power in the Midwest\n\nSevere storms that moved across the Upper Midwest and the Ohio River Valley left more than 620,000 customers without power early Tuesday, according to PowerOutage.us, with more than 370,000 outages in Ohio alone.\n\nThunderstorms prompted a tornado warning in Chicago during the busy evening rush hour as wind gusts of up to 84 mph buffeted the city.\n\nThe same storm system brought lashing winds and rain to portions of western Ohio, Michigan and northern Indiana, generating more than 200 wind reports in the region, including a 98 mph gust in Fort Wayne, Indiana.\n\nMillions endure dangerous heat\n\nA heat dome that enveloped the Southwest in heat and humidity last week shifted to the central US and put more than 125 million people in the region under heat advisories.\n\nThat’s more than one third of the US population enduring potentially dangerous heat levels.\n\nSeveral cities set temperature records Monday afternoon, including Asheville, North Carolina, St. Louis and Nashville. In North Platte, Nebraska, the temperature rocketed to a record 108 degrees.\n\nThe heat will continue to travel northeast into the upper Mississippi Valley, western Great Lakes and Ohio Valley, and it will continue to build Tuesday over the southern Mid-Atlantic and Southeast, according to the Weather Prediction Center.\n\nMore than 100 million people are under some sort of heat alert Tuesday.\n\nExcessive heat forecasts forced some schools in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin to announce that classes will be canceled, close early or move online this week.\n\nEven after this heat dome subsides, relief could be short-lived. Heat waves will become increasingly common and more severe, experts say.\n\n“Climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of heat waves around the world, tilting the scale in the direction of warmer temperatures,” CNN meteorologist and climate expert Brandon Miller explained.\n\n“In the United States, record high temperatures are now well more than twice as likely to occur compared to record low temperatures,” according to the US National Climate Assessment.\n\nExtreme flooding shuts Yellowstone, strands locals\n\nHeavy rainfall and rapid snowmelt drove extreme flooding and road erosion in Yellowstone National Park and some surrounding communities, forcing officials to close the park to incoming visitors and leaving many nearby residents unable to escape the rising water due to compromised roads.\n\nCommunities north of the park are experiencing dramatic flooding, including in Park County, Montana, where cities have become isolated and surrounded by water, an update on the county Facebook page said.\n\nPart of a home in Gardiner, Montana, is swept away by floodwaters. Steve Rupno\n\nIn nearby Carbon County, Montana, utility services lines were compromised by the flooding, leaving many customers in the town of Red Lodge without power and leading officials to issue a water boil advisory, officials said.\n\nRushing water has left homes damaged or fully swept away, images and videos show. One video shows a multi-story home collapsing into the rushing water and being entirely enveloped by the deluge as the underlying foundation crumbles.\n\nPortions of roads and bridges in Yellowstone National Park were also compromised by flooding, officials said. Videos released by the park show large sections of paved roads completely washed away or drastically eroded.\n\nHigh water levels in the Gardiner River washed out part of the road in Yellowstone National Park. National Park Service/AP\n\nThe park began evacuating people Monday due to road and bridge failures, as well as concerns over forecasts of more rain and potential water and wastewater problems.\n\nPrecipitation levels more than 400% above average in the region, combined with near-record temperatures causing snowmelt in areas of high elevation, have inundated rivers and streams to record levels.\n\nThe Yellowstone River gauge at Corwin Springs, Montana, reached 13.88 feet Monday afternoon, surpassing the historical high crest of 11.5 feet from 1918, NOAA river gauge data shows.", "authors": ["Elizabeth Wolfe"], "publish_date": "2022/06/14"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/08/19/fred-flooding-missing-people-north-carolina-tornado-warning-northeast/8191424002/", "title": "Fred flooding: 2 dead, 17 missing in North Carolina; tornado warnings", "text": "ASHEVILLE, N.C. – The remnants of Tropical Storm Fred soaked the Northeast on Thursday as Southern states assessed the damage from severe flooding, which in North Carolina had left two people dead and 17 missing.\n\nGov. Roy Cooper declared a state of emergency as western North Carolina saw intense flooding, with nearly 100 people rescued, after Fred drenched the state as a tropical depression earlier in the week.\n\nCooper planned to survey flood damage later Thursday afternoon. U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis toured the area earlier in the day.\n\nThe storm that blew through the area Tuesday made roads impassible, washed out bridges and swamped homes and businesses.\n\nMeanwhile, the remnants of Fred were forecast to bring up to 5 inches of rain from New York State across New England on Thursday, according to the National Weather Service. Flash flood watches were in effect for much of New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and parts of Maine.\n\nThe weather service also warned a tornado was possible, and tornado warnings were issued across several New York and New England counties Thursday.\n\nIn North Carolina and West Virginia, power had largely been restored after about 37,000 customers were without electricity Wednesday, according to the utility tracker poweroutage.us. But about 17,000 customers in Pennsylvania and New York didn't have power as of Thursday afternoon, the tracker reported.\n\nMonday and Tuesday marked the heaviest two-day rainfall in more than 50 years in Buncombe County, which includes Asheville, and neighboring Haywood County endured the worst of the storm, Cooper said in a news conference Wednesday.\n\nMore from North Carolina:Tropical Depression Fred prompts state of emergency, with 35 missing in Haywood County\n\nThe number of people unaccounted for in Haywood County since the start of Tropical Depression Fred has gone from 20 to 17 as of late Thursday, said Allison Richmond, Haywood County Emergency Services spokeswoman.\n\nRichmond also confirmed the two fatalities and said officials were still working with the medical examiner on identifications.\n\nDamage to roadways and bridges was significant, with at least 10 to 15 bridges damaged or destroyed, she said. About 200 search and rescue personnel were going home to home along the Pigeon River.\n\n“We have homes that are completely destroyed and off their foundations,” Sheriff Greg Christopher said. “Mobile homes that were moved, and mobile home parks that I would call completely destroyed.”\n\nHaywood County Board of Commissioners Chair Kevin Ensley said damage done to structures as a result of the storm totals about $300 million in the small Haywood unincorporated community of Cruso, which is considered the hardest hit by Fred. Ensley said 225 structures, including homes, were destroyed.\n\nRonnie Hannah, who has lived on Cruso Road for 74 years, had his chain-link fence ripped from the ground and his lawn destroyed in the storm.\n\n\"I’ve never seen anything this devastating,” Hannah said of the damage to the community. “I get depressed. I come out here and sit down and just think of what it looked like.\"\n\nJessica Vecchio, her two sons, two dogs and five cats slept in an SUV after their apartment was destroyed by flooding on Tuesday. “We we’re just putting stuff in bags that we could, trying to save what we could,” she said.\n\nIn Buncombe County, there were about 70 water rescues, and 911 call centers fielded double the typical volume of calls in a 24-hour period, spokesperson Lillian Govus said.\n\nThe storm caused rockslides and downed trees, including on the Blue Ridge Parkway.\n\nThe popular national park, which winds directly through Asheville, was almost completely closed in western North Carolina during the peak of the storm Tuesday, said spokesperson Leesa Brandon. Much has been cleared since, but the most of the main corridor through Asheville remained closed Wednesday, Brandon added.\n\nVideos shared on social media also showed a river in the Pisgah National Forest with waters raging as river levels rose from the rainfall.\n\n“What really caught us by surprise was how quickly the water rose, the tremendous amount and intensity of it,” said Zeb Smathers, mayor of the town of Canton, where water rescues also were needed.\n\nHurricane and COVID-19:Here's what you need to protect yourself.\n\nFred has been blamed for at least one other death after a driver hydroplaned and flipped into a ditch near Panama City, Florida.\n\nThe storm roared ashore Monday near Cape San Blas in the Florida Panhandle as a tropical storm. Fred flooded streets, knocked down power lines and trees and destroyed houses, mobile homes and other buildings across the South during its march north.\n\nThe storm caused more than a dozen tornadoes in Georgia and the Carolinas, according to the National Weather Service.\n\nTwo other storms, Tropical Storm Grace and Tropical Storm Henri, were active in the Atlantic Basin on Thursday. Grace made landfall in Mexico as a hurricane on Thursday, and Henri could be a threat to the Northeast and New England early next week.\n\nContributing: Karen Chávez, Asheville Citizen Times; Doyle Rice, USA TODAY; The Associated Press", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2021/08/19"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/16/weather/yellowstone-national-park-flooding-closed-thursday/index.html", "title": "Yellowstone Park flooding: Parts may reopen to tourists on Monday ...", "text": "(CNN) Yellowstone National Park could partially reopen as early as Monday as officials continue to assess the damage caused by historic flooding , which now threatens to hamper the peak of the summer tourist season.\n\nHeavy rains and rapid snowmelt caused rivers to swallow bridges, sweep away entire sections of roadway and forced the evacuation of more than 10,000 visitors. The sudden closure has fueled concerns from business owners and employees in surrounding communities who rely on Yellowstone visitors as a key source of revenue.\n\nThe park's northern region, which bore the brunt of the flood damage, is expected to be closed for a \"substantial length of time,\" which will likely go through the end of the season, the park said in a release Tuesday.\n\nThe less-impacted southern loop could reopen as early as Monday, Park Superintendent Cam Sholly told residents and tourists in Cody, Wyoming, on Wednesday, according to the Casper Star-Tribune\n\nBut while the southern loop reopening may provide relief to some tourism industry workers, those bordering the northern entrance are still left to wait.\n\nA North Entrance road in Yellowstone National Park was inundated with water.\n\nIn the south Montana city of Gardiner, which acts as a gateway into Yellowstone's northern entrance, hotel owners are already feeling the impact.\n\n\"There's nobody here,\" Keri Huesing, owner of Yellowstone Gateway Inn, told CNN. \"We were booked solid for a year.\"\n\nNow, she says, all but one of her visitors are gone, following the flooding, and one neighboring hotel has shut down completely and sent its employees home.\n\n\"It's a Yellowstone town, and it lives and dies by tourism,\" Park County Commissioner Bill Berg said of Gardiner.\n\nIn Cody, which lies east of the park, tourism industry workers were eager for answers from Sholly on the southern loop reopening, the Casper Star-Tribune reported. Sholly hopes gateway communities and park staff can determine how to sustain local businesses without attracting more visitors than the park can host, the paper reported.\n\nThe dangerous flooding fueled by heavy rainfall and snowmelt began to inundate the park and several surrounding communities Monday, overtaking essential roadways and bridges, and making it dangerous or impossible for some people to evacuate.\n\nAs some communities became completely surrounded by water, at times without power or drinking water, search and rescue teams worked to evacuate residents. The Montana National Guard this week carried out 87 rescues by helicopter, it said Wednesday on Facebook.\n\nIn Montana's Park County, which includes Gardiner, water has been receding, and access to the communities that had been surrounded by floodwater has been restored for emergency vehicles at a minimum, Greg Coleman, the county's emergency services manager, said Wednesday morning.\n\nPresident Joe Biden on Thursday approved a disaster declaration for Montana in areas affected by flooding. \"Federal funding is available to State, tribal, eligible local governments and certain private nonprofit organizations on a cost-sharing basis for emergency work and the repair or replacement of facilities damaged by the severe storm and flooding in the counties of Carbon, Park, and Stillwater,\" the declaration states.\n\nPark temporarily closed as locals try to recover\n\nAll five entrances to Yellowstone will remain closed through at least the weekend, the park said in a release Tuesday , and the northern roads of the park will likely be closed for an extended period due to \"severely damaged, impacted infrastructure.\"\n\nThe battering floodwaters wiped away entire segments of paved road near the northern entrance, downed trees and triggered multiple mudslides.\n\nCommunities surrounding Yellowstone are also reeling from the catastrophic damage. Quickly moving waters compromised several roads and bridges, submerged cars, and even swept away homes as the underlying foundations became completely worn away.\n\nMicah Hoffman uses a pump to remove water from his basement in Rod Lodge, Montana.\n\nIn Park County, at least two homes collapsed into the intruding Yellowstone River early this week, and numerous homes and businesses were flooded, said Coleman, the county emergency official.\n\nVideo from witnesses showed one building in Gardiner collapsing into the river on Monday. Gardiner was isolated by water Monday and into Tuesday as flooding rendered roads and bridges impassable.\n\nAerial video captured by CNN shows one Montana home hanging precariously over the edge of a severely eroded embankment. Photos of the aftermath in the city of Red Lodge, Montana, on Tuesday, show several streets piled with rocks and debris as water still runs over the sidewalks.\n\nThe flooding in Red Lodge, Montana left the roads covered in rocks and debris.\n\nRegion braces for more potential flooding\n\nThe record flooding was caused by a combination of heavy rainfall and snowmelt from high elevations over the weekend in the Beartooth and Absaroka mountain ranges, which stretch across the Montana-Wyoming state line.\n\nThe level of runoff is comparable to the region receiving two to three times a normal June's precipitation in only three days, according to CNN meteorologists.\n\nflood wave moved east Tuesday and Wednesday along the Yellowstone River, the National Weather Service said, leading to reports of major flooding in Billings, which is about a 175-mile drive east of Gardiner. By Tuesday afternoon, the river at Billings had surged well above its previous record of 15 feet, according to the weather service.\n\nThe flooding prompted city officials to shut down the city water plant late Tuesday night, the city's public works department said.\n\nThe plant resumed operations at a low level Wednesday afternoon, and by Thursday morning it was working at full capacity, city officials said.\n\nEven as water levels began to recede in areas on Tuesday and Wednesday, park officials and residents in the region are bracing for the possibility of more flooding in the coming days.\n\nMore snow could soon melt in the mountains of Wyoming and Montana, and that, coupled with more rain this weekend, could cause river levels to rise again, the National Weather Service's office in Billings said.\n\nWarm air is expected to move over the mountains Thursday night, keeping the low temperatures above freezing. This, along with plenty of sunshine during the day, should get snow melting. \"Temperatures will be in the 50s and 60s in the high country both Friday and Saturday afternoon,\" the weather service said.\n\n\"Expect a few days of melting of what is still a substantial snowpack in the mountains.\"\n\nShowers and thunderstorms are expected to hit the area Saturday night and Sunday.\n\nThe weather service's latest river forecasts predict substantial rises due to the melt. Still, the levels are predicted to be well under flood stage, because the rainfall amounts look very light. River projections show this new rise in water peaking over the weekend around Yellowstone and in Billings on Monday.\n\n\"By the time slightly more substantial precipitation arrives Sunday night into Monday, temperatures drop into the 30s, and snow is probable above 8,500 feet Sunday night,\" the weather service said.\n\n\"That said, those with interests near waterways in the western foothills should pay attention to the forecasts through the weekend in case the forecast changes significantly,\" the service added.\n\nThe intense rainfall and rapid snow melt already experienced by the park and nearby communities are consistent with projections laid out in a climate assessment report released last year from scientists with the US Geological Survey, Montana State University and the University of Wyoming.\n\nThe climate crisis is already driving more annual precipitation and runoff from melting snowpack in the Greater Yellowstone Area, and the trend will continue in the coming years, the report said.", "authors": ["Elizabeth Wolfe", "Jason Hanna", "Claudia Dominguez"], "publish_date": "2022/06/16"}]}
+{"question_id": "20220617_8", "search_time": "2022/06/17/16:35", "search_result": [{"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/15/health/fda-covid-vaccine-youngest-children-vrbpac-vote/index.html", "title": "FDA advisers vote in favor of authorizing Covid-19 vaccines for ...", "text": "(CNN) Vaccine advisers to the US Food and Drug Administration voted unanimously on Wednesday in favor of expanding the emergency use authorizations for the Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccines to include children as young as 6 months.\n\nAll 21 members of the FDA's Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee voted \"yes\" in response to the question: \"Based on the totality of scientific evidence available, do the benefits of the Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine when administered as a 2-dose series (25 micrograms each dose) outweigh its risks for use in infants and children 6 months through 5 years of age?\"\n\nAnd all the committee members voted yes in response to the question: \"Based on the totality of scientific evidence available, do the benefits of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine when administered as a 3-dose series (3 micrograms each dose) outweigh its risks for use in infants and children 6 months through 4 years of age?\"\n\nThe FDA, which typically follows the committee's decisions, will now decide whether to authorize the vaccines for emergency use in the youngest children.\n\nHowever, shots can't be given until the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's own vaccine advisers have voted on whether to recommend them and CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky has signed off on the recommendation.\n\nThe CDC's vaccine advisers are expected to vote Saturday. The White House has said shots could begin as early as next week.\n\nChildren younger than 5 are the only age group not currently eligible to be vaccinated against Covid-19. About 17 million kids will become eligible for Covid-19 vaccines once they're authorized for this age group.\n\n\"To be able to vote for authorization of two vaccines that will protect children down to 6 months of age against this deadly disease is a very important thing,\" said committee member Dr. Archana Chatterjee, dean of the Chicago Medical School at Rosalind Franklin University.\n\nShe compared the day to December 2020, when the first Covid-19 vaccines were authorized for adults and older teens.\n\n'Benefits seem to clearly outweigh the risks'\n\n\"The benefits seem to clearly outweigh the risks, particularly for those with young children who may be in kindergarten or in collective child care,\" committee member Oveta Fuller, an associate professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Michigan Medical School, said of the Moderna vaccine.\n\nCommittee member Dr. Art Reingold added that even though the risk of Covid-19 hospitalization and death is lower for young children than for adults, children already get vaccinations to protect them against diseases for which their risk is low.\n\n\"If we have a vaccine with benefits that outweigh the risks, then making it available to people is a reasonable choice,\" said Reingold, of the University of California, Berkeley.\n\n\"I would point out that we as a country continue to give a large number of vaccines to children where the risk of the child dying or being hospitalized of those diseases are pretty close to zero,\" he said, such as polio and measles.\n\nThe number of Covid-19 hospitalizations and deaths in children is concerning and much higher when compared with influenza-related deaths and hospitalizations, FDA official Dr. Peter Marks said at Wednesday's meeting.\n\n\"There still was, during the Omicron wave, a relatively high rate of hospitalization during this period,\" said Marks, director of the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. \"That rate of hospitalization actually is quite troubling, and if we compare this to what we see in a terrible influenza season, it is worse.\"\n\nMarks said the number of deaths for children 4 and under during the first two years of the pandemic \"also compares quite terribly to what we've seen with influenza in the past.\"\n\n\"We are dealing with an issue where I think we have to be careful that we don't become numb to the number of pediatric deaths because of the overwhelming number of older deaths here. Every life is important,\" he said, adding that \"vaccine-preventable deaths are ones we would like to try to do something about.\"\n\nMarks said the Covid-19 vaccines are an intervention similar to the influenza vaccine, which has been broadly and routinely used and accepted to prevent deaths.\n\nModerna vaccine 'well-tolerated' in youngest children\n\nThe Moderna vaccine is already authorized for adults. In a meeting Tuesday, the FDA's advisers voted unanimously in favor of expanding the emergency use authorization to include older children and teens, ages 6 to 17, saying it would also offer more benefits than risks.\n\nModerna's Covid-19 vaccine, when given as a 25-microgram dose, is \"well-tolerated\" in children ages 6 months to 5, said Dr. Rituparna Das, Moderna's vice president of Covid-19 vaccines clinical development, during Wednesday's meeting as she described the safety profile of the vaccine among this age group and adverse reactions.\n\n\"Pain was the most common event,\" Das said. \"Young children's events included fever, headache, fatigue, myalgia, arthralgia, nausea, vomiting and chills. For infants and toddlers, events included fever, irritability, crying, sleepiness and loss of appetite.\"\n\nThese reactions were more common after the second dose of vaccine and resolved within two or three days, Das said, adding that fever was an important assessment of the vaccine's safety for this age group.\n\nFever after any dose of vaccine happened in about a quarter of the children, but more often after the second dose, and one incident of febrile seizure was considered to be related to vaccination, Das told the committee members. The child who had the seizure remained in the vaccine study and got a second dose of vaccine with no serious events.\n\nNo deaths or cases of myocarditis or pericarditis were reported among vaccine recipients, Das said.\n\n\"In summary, mRNA-1273 was well tolerated,\" she said, using the technical name of Moderna's vaccine. \"Local and systemic reactions were seen less frequently in these youngest groups.\"\n\nConcern over number of doses\n\nVRBPAC member Dr. Paul Offit said in Wednesday's meeting that children who get the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine will have to complete a three-dose series to get sufficient protection.\n\n\" 'Do the benefits outweigh the risks' is something I can support, but I do have some concerns about this vaccine,\" said Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Pennsylvania.\n\nCommittee member Dr. Jeannette Lee of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences also mentioned concern that some children might not complete all three doses and that uptake of the vaccine will be slow.\n\n\"Three doses will certainly benefit. I have a lot of concern that many of these kids will not get a third dose,\" she said. \"My concern is that you have to get the three doses to really get what you need.\"\n\nData from a phase 2/3 trial of the Pfizer vaccine included 1,678 children who had received a third dose during the period when the Omicron coronavirus variant dominated. The vaccine appeared to be safe and had a strong immune response. The data has not been peer-reviewed or published in a medical journal.\n\nAntibody levels tested one month after the third dose showed that the vaccine produced a similar immune response as two doses in 16- to 25-year-olds, the companies said.\n\nIn FDA briefing documents, it was noted that among young children who had received the vaccine in trials, there were no cases of anaphylaxis, myocarditis or pericarditis, and the most common adverse reactions among children 6 months to 23 months were irritability, drowsiness, decreased appetite and tenderness at the injection site. For children 2 to 4 years old, the most common adverse reactions were fatigue and pain and redness at the injection site.\n\nWill these children get vaccinated?\n\nThere is already slow uptake of Covid-19 vaccines among children in the United States.\n\n\"Having vaccine options for the youngest children is very important; however, we have seen a relatively low uptake of Covid vaccines in children in the 5- to 12-year-old group, and so my concern is that uptake in the youngest children under 5 years old might also be lower than we would like,\" Dr. Dan Barouch, director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, told CNN on Wednesday.\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\nBarouch, who is not a member of the FDA advisory committee, helped develop and study the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine.\n\nHe said there were \"striking\" differences in how many adults are fully vaccinated compared with children and teens.\n\nChildren 5 to 11 were the most recent group to become eligible for vaccination, in November. But just 29% of these children are fully vaccinated with their two-dose primary series in the United States, according to the CDC , compared with about:", "authors": ["Jacqueline Howard"], "publish_date": "2022/06/15"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/09/politics/covid-19-vaccines-children-under-5-biden-plan/index.html", "title": "Biden administration lays out its plan for Covid-19 vaccinations for ...", "text": "CNN —\n\nThe White House has announced a highly anticipated Covid-19 vaccine rollout plan for children under 5.\n\nThe administration “has made 10 million vaccine doses available for states, Tribes, territories, community health centers, federal pharmacy partners, and others to pre-order,” according to a White House fact sheet shared with CNN Wednesday. It is partnering with those entities to ship and distribute vaccines across the country following next week’s meeting of the US Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine advisers – who will review data on these vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna – and expected authorization from the full FDA.\n\nThe first vaccinations could start “as early as the week of June 20 —with the program ramping up over time as more doses are delivered and more appointments become available,” according to the fact sheet. CNN previously reported Covid-19 vaccination shots for the youngest Americans could begin as soon as June 21.\n\nFDA vaccine advisers are scheduled to meet next week to discuss authorizing emergency use of Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine for children 6 months through 5 years of age and Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine for children 6 months through 4 years of age, and pending those decisions, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will make final recommendations about the vaccines.\n\nThe administration estimates that 85% of children under the age of 5 live within five miles of a potential vaccination site at this time, though they’re anticipating most parents seeking a vaccination for young children will do so at their pediatrician’s or primary care provider’s office.\n\nAccording to a senior administration official, however, additional vaccine clinics and sites will be set up at easy-to-access locations for parents, including pharmacies, schools, children’s hospitals, diaper banks, community health centers, clinics, museums, libraries and organizations serving minority communities across the country.\n\nJurisdictions across the country have been able to pre-order Covid-19 vaccine doses for children under 5 since last week – in that time, of the initial 5 million doses available for pre-order pending FDA authorization, the administration has received requests for 2.3 million vaccine doses, including 1.45 million doses of Pfizer and 850,000 doses of Moderna.\n\nStill, the official suggested they anticipate an uptick in orders over time.\n\n“Our experience has been that people are slow to order, and this has been true across each of the times we’ve opened up ordering, so I wouldn’t focus on those early numbers,” the official told reporters on a call Wednesday. “Our experience is that the longer the ordering stays open, the more likely the states come forward, so some of this is a matter of letting them know the ordering is available, and that they can begin that process.”\n\nTo spread awareness, the administration will partner with the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program, which it estimates serves over 6 million people in the US, including almost half of all infants; with Head Start Programs through the Administration for Children and Families at the Department of Health and Human Services, which it estimates services approximately 1 million families; with Department of Housing and Urban Development programs, which it estimates serves more than 800,000 children under 5; and with Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), which serves millions of children under 5, among others.\n\nThey’ll also partner with community organizations, including “What to Expect,” a platform serving mothers and expectant mothers, to author a series of blog posts to dispel vaccine misinformation.\n\nCovid team warns of funding challenges\n\nDuring Thursday’s Covid team briefing, the White House said that major reallocations made to US Covid-19 response resources in the absence of congressional funding would not affect the summer effort to vaccinate children under the age of five when those vaccines are recommended by the FDA and CDC.\n\n“We do not have enough resources to have enough vaccines for every American for the next generation of vaccines. So the challenges are coming up in the fall. We need the money now. But the money we’re using for kids vaccines today is money that was appropriated previously by Congress,” Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House’s Covid-19 response coordinator said.\n\nAs CNN has reported, the administration is reallocating roughly $10 billion in existing funding from current efforts on testing, personal protective equipment, and research and development toward more immediate needs. Of that funding, $5 billion will be reallocated to support the purchase of Covid-19 vaccine doses for this fall, $4.9 billion for 10 million courses of Pfizer’s antiviral drug Paxlovid, and $300 million for additional monoclonal antibody treatments.\n\nJha indicated the timing of Wednesday’s announcement ensured that the US could “be at the negotiating table” with vaccine manufacturers, reiterating, “We do not have enough resources to make sure that every American who wants one of the next generation of vaccines will be able to get one.”\n\n“We needed to be at the negotiating table and waiting longer – waiting for Congress no longer felt like an acceptable option,” Jha said.\n\nJha called those decisions to reallocate “very painful,” telling CNN that the administration is aware that it is “taking resources away from what we think are vital programs to make sure that we’re at the table when it comes to purchasing the next generation of vaccines to make sure that we have enough therapeutics for Americans as we get into the fall and winter.”\n\nThe White House requested $22.5 billion in funding for the administration’s Covid-19 response – money to pay for vaccines, testing, and treatments – earlier this year. Negotiators had been able to reach a scaled-back agreement on a $10 billion package, but left Washington for the Easter recess without passing that bill. Congress remains entangled in disagreement on how to proceed.\n\nJha said he had been communicating those difficult choices and consequences to bipartisan members of both the House and Senate.\n\n“I think members of Congress that I’ve been meeting with and speaking with understand the situation we’re in, so we’ve got to keep making this point clear,” Jha said amid the congressional stalemate.\n\nThis story has been updated with additional reporting.", "authors": ["Donald Judd Betsy Klein", "Donald Judd", "Betsy Klein"], "publish_date": "2022/06/09"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/09/health/covid-19-vaccine-rollout-children-under-5-cdc/index.html", "title": "US plans to roll out initial 10 million Covid-19 vaccine doses for ...", "text": "WASHINGTON, DC - DECEMBER 21: People pass a sign that reads \"Face Mask Required\" in a mall as COVID-19 cases surge in the city on December 21, 2021 in Washington, DC. District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser reinstated the city's indoor mask mandate at 6am on Tuesday and announced a vaccination mandate for government employees after COVID-19 case numbers have surged to a new high. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)\n\nWhat we can learn from the WHO Covid mortality numbers\n\nThis is why you should still have confidence in the FDA for vaccines\n\nJohnson & Johnson's Janssen Covid-19 vaccine awaits administration at a vaccination clinic in Los Angeles, California on December 15, 2021. (Photo by Frederic J. BROWN / AFP) (Photo by FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images)\n\nTOPSHOT - Employees spray disinfectant and wipe surfaces as part of preventative measures against the Covid-19 coronavirus at the Pyongyang Children's Department Store in Pyongyang on March 18, 2022. (Photo by KIM Won Jin / AFP) (Photo by KIM WON JIN/AFP via Getty Images)\n\nFILE - In this photo provided by the North Korean government, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, center, visits a pharmacy in Pyongyang, North Korea on May 15, 2022. Independent journalists were not given access to cover the event depicted in this image distributed by the North Korean government. The content of this image is as provided and cannot be independently verified. Korean language watermark on image as provided by source reads: \"KCNA\" which is the abbreviation for Korean Central News Agency. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP, File)\n\nCNN —\n\nIf the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine receives emergency use authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration for children 6 months to 5 years old, the tentative plan is to roll out about 10 million vaccine doses initially, according to a US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention document posted online.\n\nThe document, an updated pediatric Covid-19 vaccination planning guide, notes that “planning is for a sequenced rollout involving an initial total of approximately 10 million doses” and that providers and facilities that have ordered doses “must be able to receive vaccine shipment on Monday February 21.”\n\nThe FDA’s vaccine advisory committee will meet February 15 to discuss Pfizer and BioNTech’s request for an emergency use authorization of their vaccine for children as young as 6 months. The virtual meeting will give scientists a chance to go over the available trial data and make a recommendation on whether the vaccine would be appropriate for this age group.\n\nIf the FDA then gives the green light, the CDC’s independent vaccine advisory group will convene and make its recommendation. The CDC director needs to sign off before shots can be administered to children in this age group.\n\nOperationally, the United States will be ready to roll out the vaccine for children under 5 once the FDA and CDC make their recommendations, Jeff Zients, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, said at a news briefing Wednesday.\n\n“We can start packing and shipping the vaccine once FDA makes its decision,” he said.\n\nAccording to the planning document, the doses for children under 5 will have a maroon cap and be distributed in cartons of 100 doses: 10 vials, each containing 10 doses.\n\nThe anticipated dosing size is 3 micrograms of vaccine per dose, with an anticipated three doses in a vaccine series. Pfizer and BioNTech are currently seeking authorization for a two-dose vaccine but are continuing to test a three-dose regimen. They say they will submit the additional data on a third dose in the coming months.\n\n“This vaccine is specifically formulated for these young kids. So we’re launching a new program especially for kids under 5. The planning process is well underway. CDC is working with states to help them prepare. We’ve secured enough vaccine supply for all kids in this age group, all 18 million. We have enough needles, syringes and kits, and these are all specially formulated or made for this age group to send alongside the vaccine,” Zients said Wednesday.\n\n“We’re working closely with pediatricians and family doctors and children’s hospitals and pharmacies to make sure the vaccine is available at thousands of locations across the country,” he said. “So we will be prepared for those parents that are eager to get their kids vaccinated.”\n\nThe rollout of the coronavirus vaccine for children younger than 5 is expected to mirror the rollout for children ages 5 to 11 in October, Lori Tremmel Freeman, chief executive officer of the National Association of County and City Health Officials, told CNN on Wednesday.\n\n“There will be an emphasis on utilizing the current systems in place for the pharmacy program: registered pharmacies to get the vaccine as well as registered vaccine providers,” Freeman said, adding that children younger than 3 most likely could receive the vaccine at their pediatricians’ offices or other sites. Federal regulations do not allow pharmacists to administer vaccines to children under the age of 3.\n\nState immunization boards are in conversation with providers to discuss who will be ready to receive the initial doses, said Claire Hannan, director of the Association of Immunization Managers.\n\n“There’s obviously a lot of emphasis on making that vaccine available as soon as it’s authorized. But at the same time, especially with this age group, it’s not something that we want to rush,” Hannan said. “We want to make sure that the providers are comfortable with the product and they’ve had a chance to really look at the data.”\n\nDuring the previous rollout of vaccine doses for children, about 35% to 40% of children ages 5 to 11 were vaccinated at pharmacies, according to data that NACCHO has received.\n\nBecause children 3 and under tend to visit the pediatrician regularly for well visits, Hannan said, there is an emphasis on incorporating the Covid-19 vaccine schedule into those visits. As a result, it might be a slower process than with other age groups.\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\nRecognizing that some parents will be ready to vaccinate their children immediately upon authorization, Hannan said, state health and immunization authorities are identifying clinics and pediatricians who can take on children outside of their regular patient base.\n\n“That is a challenge because pediatricians are stretched very thin right now,” she said, due to staffing shortages, flu season and Covid-19.\n\nThere are about 18 million children ages 6 months through 4 years in the United States who potentially will be eligible to get vaccinated against Covid-19.", "authors": ["Jacqueline Howard Nadia Kounang", "Jacqueline Howard", "Nadia Kounang"], "publish_date": "2022/02/09"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2022/05/29/covid-vaccine-kids-under-5-what-know-pfizer-moderna-doses/9836699002/", "title": "COVID vaccine kids under 5: What to know about Pfizer, Moderna ...", "text": "Parents eager to vaccinate their youngest children may be able to do so as early as June 21, a top White House pandemic advisor said during a briefing Thursday.\n\nDr. Ashish Jha, coordinator of the federal COVID-19 response, told reporters the Biden administration is working closely with states, pharmacies and other health care providers to prepare for authorization from key regulatory agencies.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/05/29"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/03/health/pfizer-vaccine-for-kids-odd-authorization/index.html", "title": "Covid-19 vaccine for younger children will face an 'odd ...", "text": "(CNN) About 18 million children under the age of 5 in the United States could soon be eligible to get a Covid-19 vaccine -- but first, the child-sized shot must go through a rigorous authorization process that's taking a different path than the Covid-19 vaccines that came before.\n\nOn Tuesday, Pfizer and BioNTech announced that they had initiated a rolling submission to the US Food and Drug Administration of data for their vaccine for children ages 6 months up to 5 years. The companies expect to complete the request for emergency use authorization soon.\n\nIt will still go through a thorough safety and efficacy review by US health agencies and experts, but it's a different plan than what was expected late last year.\n\nIn December, Pfizer announced that it decided to add a third dose to the primary vaccine regimen for young children. It said the original two-dose series did not provide the expected immunity in 2- to 5-year-olds.\n\nStill, this week's request seeks authorization for the two-dose vaccine, which could make the vaccine available sooner. Pfizer and BioNTech plan to continue testing a three-dose regimen in this younger age group and say they will submit the additional data on a third dose in the coming months.\n\nThe company decided to submit for authorization of the two-dose vaccine now \"with pediatric Covid-19 cases surpassing 10 million and at the request of the FDA,\" it said.\n\n\"Having a safe and effective vaccine available for children in this age group is a priority for the agency and we're committed to a timely review of the data, which the agency asked Pfizer to submit in light of the recent Omicron surge,\" acting FDA Commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock said in a news release.\n\nWhat changed since December\n\nIn December, Pfizer said that the vaccines appeared to protect the youngest children -- infants and toddlers up to 2 -- at the same levels seen in teens and young adults, slashing symptoms in 90% of kids who got the shot. However, the 3-microgram dose did not produce the same immune response in 2- to 5-year-olds.\n\nThe dose for infants and young children is about one-third of the dose given to children age 5 to 11 and a tenth the size of the dose given to people 12 and older.\n\nThe company decided to expand its trial to include a third dose, rather than the two doses older children and adults receive in a primary vaccine series.\n\nWhat changed between December and this week's authorization request, public health leaders said, was the Omicron variant.\n\nDuring the Omicron surge, cases among children \"spiked dramatically,\" the American Academy of Pediatrics said Monday. There have been over 3.5 million child cases reported in January alone.\n\n\"It turns out that has actually facilitated the collection of more important additional clinical data that we did not have in December,\" US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy said at a White House Covid-19 briefing Wednesday. \"Whether that changes the risk-benefit profile is what the FDA will be assessing, but there has been developments since December on the data front.\"\n\nSome suggest that the FDA may be pursing a strategy of authorizing the first two doses of a vaccine that may not offer substantial protection until after a third dose, hoping to start kids on the series even as data on third shots is still pending.\n\nChildren have a lower risk of serious outcomes from a Covid-19 infection compared with elderly or immunocompromised adults. But about 1% of children who catch Covid-19 will be hospitalized. Infections can also lead to long-term consequences in children as they do in adults, increasing the risk for diabetes, autoimmune disease and a delayed reaction to infection called multisystem inflammatory syndrome, which requires hospital care.\n\n\"If the goal of the vaccine is to get baseline immunity in the kids -- to prevent really bad outcomes and you're really not using the vaccine as a tool to prevent infection in the first place -- two doses could do that,\" former FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb, who sits on the board of Pfizer, said on CBS on Sunday. \"I think that may be why federal health officials are rethinking this. If, in fact, they decide to authorize this on the basis of two doses, it could be out much sooner, perhaps as early as early March.\"\n\nOthers agree that it could be a smart approach.\n\n\"When I was on hospital service last, there was a 7-month-old in the intensive care unit,\" Dr. Paul Offit, a pediatrician and vaccine expert at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, told CNN. \"If you can prevent that safely, and that's number one, and effectively, number two, then prevent it\" with a vaccine.\n\nOffit sits on the panel of experts that advises the FDA on its vaccine authorizations and will be one of the first to review the new data on the vaccine. The FDA's independent vaccine advisers will meet February 15 to discuss the company's data on the youngest children and make a recommendation on the vaccine.\n\nThe path to authorization\n\nTo authorize Covid-19 vaccines for emergency use, the FDA has previously set a bar of 50% effectiveness, meaning the shots have to prevent disease or decrease severity in at least 50% of the people who get them.\n\nSince the data has not been released, it's unclear whether the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine for younger children meets that standard after two doses.\n\nMost experts CNN spoke with said they couldn't think of another vaccine review process quite like this.\n\nOne somewhat similar example is the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which was authorized at one dose while the company tested a second, although the first dose proved sufficient to meet the FDA's authorization requirements.\n\nThe Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine is expected to produce a \"good efficacy signal\" in children younger than 5, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Wednesday.\n\n\"The FDA is looking at the data very carefully, and in their typical fashion, they will be very careful in scrutinizing the data and making a recommendation of the decision based on that data,\" Fauci said.\n\nThat decision to go ahead and ask for the authorization, though, is still considered odd by some health experts.\n\n\"This does seem very unusual,\" said Dr. Eric Rubin, a member of the FDA's vaccine advisory committee and assistant professor microbiology and molecular genetics at Harvard Medical School.\n\n\"Regulators have to weigh risk and benefit. And in this case, we know a lot about the risks in older individuals, and they're very low, including older children,\" Rubin said. \"It doesn't have to be that great, as long as we have something that's safe, and then a theoretical benefit could be that you are set up well for future vaccines. But having said all that, it does seem like a very unusual route to take.\"\n\nRubin thinks that with so many parents eager to get their kids vaccinated, there may also be some lobbying underway.\n\n\"FDA doesn't seem to be immune to political pressures,\" he said. \"And I know that there are some who are saying that it would be good to get a couple doses of vaccine into kids now, in assuming that the third dose is going to be the one that makes a difference.\"\n\n'We need a vaccine for kids'\n\nDr. Helen Talbot , an associate professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University and a member of the CDC's independent vaccine advisory board, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, also hasn't seen the data. But she too believes there may be some pressure from parents.\n\n\"There's families of kids less than 5 who are really pushing. They feel like they're the last ones that don't have access, and there's nothing available for them,\" Talbot said. She knows this personally, since she gets a lot of emails asking about it, too.\n\nTalbot said her questions are around safety data and the potential benefits and risks.\n\nShe is concerned about people in the middle who aren't quite sure if they want to get their child vaccinated. Only about 3 in 10 parents say they'll get their child under 5 vaccinated against Covid-19 right away, according to survey results from the Kaiser Family Foundation that were released Tuesday.\n\nCommunication may be key to help parents understand why they should vaccinate their small children, particularly if two doses may not be as protective as three.\n\n\"The FDA is really going to have to be able to eloquently explain the decision,\" she said.\n\nFor his part, Dr. Jay Portnoy, a member of the FDA's advisory panel on vaccines, says he's glad to see the FDA speeding up its process.\n\n\"I'm actually relieved,\" said Portnoy, who's a pediatrician at Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City. \"Right now, our hospital is filled, not all Covid patients but many Covid patients, including our intensive care unit.\"\n\nPortnoy says parents are anxious and worried.\n\n\"They're forced to send their kids to school, and the schools aren't allowed to mandate masks or anything else,\" he said.\"So what is a parent to do? That's just from my perspective. It's about time. We need a vaccine for kids.\"\n\nWhat happens after authorization\n\nWhite House Covid-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients said Wednesday that the administration is ready to \"hit the ground running\" to vaccinate young children as soon as Pfizer receives a green light from the federal government.\n\nZients said the US has enough kid-size needles and supplies to administer the vaccines. The administration is also working with local public health partners to make thousands of locations nationwide ready to vaccinate these children.\n\n\"We know many parents are eager to get their kids the protection of the vaccine. We know others have questions. So we're working with our partners to ensure all parents have access to the facts and information they need to make the right decision,\" Zients 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\nPfizer has said it's testing a third dose administered eight weeks after a second dose. Data on a potential third dose, an updated authorization and third-dose rollout would come later on.\n\nThis may not be the last change to the Covid-19 vaccine schedule.\n\nFormer CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden said this week that it may be a while before scientists figure out the best vaccine schedule for children.\n\n\"What the vaccine schedule should be is much more complicated, and that may take months or even years to optimize,\" Frieden, president and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives, told CNN's Anderson Cooper.\n\n\"It's probably a three-dose schedule for lots of people, but we really don't know that yet,\" Frieden said. \"Nor do we know the right interval between doses. That's going to be with time, but we do know that vaccines are remarkably effective.\"", "authors": ["Jen Christensen", "Brenda Goodman"], "publish_date": "2022/02/03"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2022/03/25/covid-vaccine-kids-under-5-moderna-pfizer-shots-ba-2/7145325001/", "title": "Will babies and young kids get COVID-19 vaccines before a BA.2 ...", "text": "After enduring months of confusion and multiple setbacks, parents of young children were elated to find out Moderna plans to request the Food and Drug Administration to authorize a COVID-19 vaccine for kids under 6.\n\nAlthough parents welcomed the much-anticipated news, the BA.2 strain of the omicron variant continues to gain ground in the U.S., and access to these life-saving vaccines for 18 million of the nation's youngest is still weeks away.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/03/25"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2022/06/13/fda-advisors-consider-recommending-covid-19-vaccines-young-children/7571523001/", "title": "COVID vaccine for kids: FDA panel likely to recommend Pfizer ...", "text": "An FDA expert advisory panel meets this week and will likely recommend two COVID vaccines for the youngest children.\n\nThe vaccines under review are Moderna's for ages 6 months to 17 years and Pfizer-BioNTech's for children ages 6 months to 5 years.\n\nIf the vaccines are authorized this week, they would become available as soon as June 21, the Biden administration has said.\n\nA federal advisory panel is likely this week to recommend two COVID-19 vaccines for the youngest children, as well as a second option for older kids whose access has been limited to Pfizer-BioNTech shots.\n\nAccording to detailed information made public Friday and Sunday, Food and Drug Administration staff reviewed safety and effectiveness data for the Moderna vaccine for people ages 6 months to 17 years and for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for children ages 6 months through 4 years.\n\nThe review was positive, raising no new safety issues or concerns about trial data, most of which had been released by the companies.\n\nAn FDA expert advisory panel will hold all-day meetings Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss the data, but the staff review suggests that there will be no major surprises and that the panel will recommend authorization of both vaccines.\n\nIf that happens and the FDA commissioner signs off on the shots, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will follow the same process, and a different expert advisory panel will do a review Friday and Saturday. The CDC director would have to endorse the vaccines before the companies would be allowed to provide them.\n\nThe Biden administration said that if the vaccines are authorized this week, they would become available as soon as June 21 (a day after the federal Juneteenth holiday) at pharmacies, pediatricians' offices, libraries, children's museums, health centers and other outlets.\n\nThe federal government pre-purchased vaccine doses, which will be provided at no cost to families.\n\nThose ‘free’ COVID-19 tests? Labs rake in millions in tax dollars, study says\n\nAdvocates are eager for vaccines to finally be extended to young children, the only major group of Americans left unprotected by vaccines.\n\n\"This moment is bittersweet,\" said Fatima Khan, co-founder of Protect Their Future, a grassroots group of physicians, parents and activists. \"We're grateful to access a safe vaccine but also troubled by how long it took. … We must learn from this experience and fix root bureaucratic issues that caused the delays so that our children are never left behind again.\"\n\nThe only vaccine available for children has been Pfizer-BioNTech's, authorized for those 5 and up. Traditionally, drugs and vaccines are studied first in adults, then in adolescents and progressively younger children, moving down in age as safety and effectiveness are proved in older groups.\n\nBabies younger than 6 months are not expected to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. Instead, vaccination during pregnancy, which has been safe, passes on protection that lasts for about the first six months of life.\n\nCompanies determined the most effective doses of COVID-19 vaccines for each eligible age group, while minimizing side effects.\n\nPfizer-BioNTech offers adults and adolescents a two-dose initial vaccine series, with 30 micrograms of active ingredients in each shot. Children ages 5-11 receive 10 micrograms of the vaccine, and the youngest children would get a 3-microgram dose.\n\nPfizer and its German partner, BioNTech, found that two doses were not adequately protective against the omicron variant of the coronavirus, so they asked the FDA and CDC to authorize a three-dose series for children ages 6 months through 4 years old. Older children are authorized to receive a booster dose to protect against the latest variants.\n\nAdults get two 100-microgram doses of the Moderna vaccine, which is based on the same mRNA technology as Pfizer-BioNTech's, for their initial series. The company proposed the same dosage for teens, two 50-microgram shots for younger children and two 25-microgram doses for the youngest children.\n\nModerna tested its vaccine in two doses only, and it appears less effective in the youngest children.\n\nOn Tuesday, the FDA advisory panel, called the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, will review data on Moderna's vaccine for children 6 to 17.\n\nOn Wednesday, the panel will decide whether to recommend Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech's vaccines for children as young as 6 months.\n\nVaccine side effects, dosage for children and what studies have found\n\nVaccine side effects in the youngest age groups were similar to those in older children, including short-term fever and redness at the injection site, studies showed.\n\nNeither vaccine trial in young children found any cases of allergic reactions to the shots or myocarditis, the swelling of the heart muscle occasionally seen among adolescent boys and young men after vaccination.\n\nIn the Pfizer-BioNTech trial, three shots – the third given at least eight weeks after the second – protected more than 75% of children ages 6 months to 2 years and 82% of those ages 2 to 5, and there was no significant increase in side effects. The trial included about 4,500 children in five countries; twice as many participants got the active vaccine than got a placebo.\n\nThe Pfizer-BioNTech trial had been designed to wait for results until 21 children in either the placebo or active vaccine group contracted COVID-19. Although cases have risen in recent weeks, only 10 had tested positive for the coronavirus this month, so technically, the effectiveness results are considered preliminary.\n\nIn Moderna's trial of 6,700 children ages 6 months to under 6, company researchers found that two 25-microgram doses led the children to develop levels of virus-fighting antibodies comparable to young adults who received two full-strength shots.\n\nIn the study, which took place during the omicron wave, researchers found the vaccine was 51% effective among children 6 months to under 2 and 37% effective among children 2 to under 6.\n\nAmong older children, a 50-microgram dose appeared to be safe and effective, according to company data and the FDA analysis.\n\nModerna filed a year ago for authorization of its vaccine in adolescents, but the FDA held the application, awaiting more information on the risks of myocarditis after vaccination. The committee will review more recent data and decide whether the benefits of the vaccine outweigh the risks of myocarditis in that age group.\n\nTeens and young adults, particularly males, appear to be at the highest risk for this side effect, though it is generally milder than the myocarditis caused by infection with COVID-19.\n\n5 million doses of each vaccine available by June 21\n\nThe FDA advisory panel is likely to make a recommendation at the end of each day's meeting: Tuesday on Moderna's vaccine for children ages 6-17 and Wednesday on both vaccines for young children.\n\nAdministration officials said last week they started accepting state and local orders for the shots and expect to have 5 million doses each of Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines for young children available on June 21 and millions more soon thereafter.\n\n\"If the FDA and the CDC recommend these vaccines, this would mark an important moment in the pandemic,\" Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House COVID-19 response coordinator, said at a news conference last week. \"It would mean that for the first time, essentially every American – from our oldest to our youngest – would be eligible for the protection that vaccines provide.\"\n\nContributing: Adrianna Rodriguez\n\nContact Karen Weintraub at kweintraub@usatoday.com.\n\nHealth and patient safety coverage at USA TODAY is made possible in part by a grant from the Masimo Foundation for Ethics, Innovation and Competition in Healthcare. The Masimo Foundation does not provide editorial input.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/06/13"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2022/06/09/administration-lays-out-plans-vaccinate-kids-under-5-against-covid/7562349001/", "title": "White House lays out plans for distributing vaccines to youngest ...", "text": "COVID-19 vaccines could be available for America's smallest children as soon as June 21, assuming regulatory authorities sign off on the shots next week.\n\nThe Biden administration early Thursday released its plans for distributing low-dose vaccines for children ages 6 months to under 5, the last major group of Americans to receive access to the shots.\n\nAs with other groups, the vaccine will be made available free at pharmacies across the country, but the administration is also making a big push to make the vaccines accessible via pediatricians and primary care providers, children's museums, libraries, children's hospitals and health clinics.\n\nFacilities have been able to pre-order vaccine doses since Friday, when the administration released 5 million doses. Another 5 million will be available before June 21 and millions more after, administration officials said. Doses will be evenly divided among the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines.\n\nFirst, though, federal advisory committees will review safety and effectiveness data on the low-dose vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech and decide whether their benefits outweigh their risks in younger children.\n\nAdministration officials, in a call with media Wednesday night, said they were not preempting the regulatory process but rather planning for the possibility that the vaccines will soon be authorized.\n\nThe vaccines would be identical to those provided to adults, but at a lower dose, one-tenth the adult dose for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and one-quarter of the adult dose for the Moderna vaccine.\n\nBoth companies have led studies showing their vaccines are safe and generated a comparable immune response in younger children as in older children and adolescents. Moderna tested two doses of its vaccine in children 6 months to 6 years, and Pfizer-BioNTech found that three doses were needed to provide equal protection for children 6 months to under 5 during the current omicron outbreak.\n\nThere are no plans to vaccinate children under 6 months old. Vaccinating pregnant women provides infants with some protection against the virus that causes COVID-19, studies show.\n\nOn June 15, an advisory committee to the Food and Drug Administration will hold an all-day meeting to review data on vaccines for the youngest children from both companies. (On June 14, the committee will consider authorizing Moderna's vaccine for children ages 6 to 17. The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has long been available to minors.)\n\nA similar advisory committee to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expected to take up the same topic on June 18, if the FDA commissioner authorizes the shots. (The same procedure will be followed on June 17 for Moderna's vaccine for children ages 6 to 17.)\n\nIf the CDC director signs off on the shots, they will become available as soon as June 21, officials said. (June 20 is a federal holiday to celebrate Juneteenth, which commemorates the emancipation of enslaved African Americans at the end of the Civil War.)\n\nAdministration officials said they have focused their planning on making vaccines available as soon as they are authorized and on providing information to families and trusted community leaders, such as pediatricians.\n\nThe national public education campaign will include 17,000 volunteers from health care, faith, rural, sports, and youth organizations, as well as national and local organizations.\n\nShots and educational information will also be made available through existing programs designed to reach young families, including the Women, Infants, and Children Program (WIC), Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), subsidized housing programs and the Head Start early education program, administration officials said.\n\nKaren Weintraub can be reached at kweintraub@usatoday.com.\n\nHealth and patient safety coverage at USA TODAY is made possible in part by a grant from the Masimo Foundation for Ethics, Innovation and Competition in Healthcare. The Masimo Foundation does not provide editorial input.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/06/09"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/01/health/pfizer-covid-vaccine-eua-request-younger-children/index.html", "title": "Pfizer and BioNTech seeking emergency use authorization from ...", "text": "(CNN) Pfizer and BioNTech are requesting emergency use authorization for their two-dose Covid-19 vaccine for children age 6 months up to 5 years, the companies said Tuesday.\n\nPfizer and BioNTech said they have initiated a rolling submission of data to the US Food and Drug Administration after a request from the agency. They expect to complete the EUA submission in the coming days and say they will also submit clinical trial data to the European Medicines Agency and other agencies around the world.\n\nThe FDA's vaccine advisory committee will meet February 15 to discuss the submission.\n\nSafety and effectiveness are key, said Dr. Paul Offit, a member of the committee and director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.\n\n\"The confidence of the American public depends on that, that you you're recommending something that you would give to your own children,\" Offit told CNN. \"It all depends on the data. The data will tell us just how good these are. There should be a robust safety profile and a robust efficacy profile and immunogenicity profile. And if that's true, speed doesn't really matter, as long as they have those data.\"\n\nRead More", "authors": ["Jamie Gumbrecht"], "publish_date": "2022/02/01"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/02/politics/covid-19-vaccination-shots-youngest-kids/index.html", "title": "White House says Covid-19 shots for kids under 5 could begin as ...", "text": "WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 26: White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha gestures as he speaks at a daily press conference in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House on April 26, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)\n\nCNN —\n\nCovid-19 vaccination shots for the youngest Americans could begin as soon as June 21, the White House said on Thursday.\n\nThe vaccination program for children younger than 5 would come more than 18 months after vaccines were first authorized for adults.\n\nDr. Ashish Jha, White House coronavirus response coordinator, laid out a timeline for authorization of vaccines for children younger than 5 at an afternoon news briefing. The US Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine advisers will review data submitted by Pfizer and Moderna during a meeting on June 14-15, and the agency will then decide whether to authorize the vaccines for emergency use.\n\n“We expect an FDA decision shortly after the advisory committee meeting, and we look forward to this process playing out,” Jha said. “The FDA authorization is not the final step in the process before vaccinations can begin. CDC must also issue its recommendations. If the FDA authorizes the vaccines, the CDC will have its advisory committee meetings and ultimately the CDC director will make her recommendations.”\n\nJha said the White House was not going to “prejudge the outcome of the process,” but was already “hard at work” planning for the process to play out.\n\n“We’ve been working very closely with states with local health departments, with pediatricians, family physicians, other health care providers and pharmacies to get ready,” he said, adding the administration expected “the vast majority” of kids would be “vaccinated by their primary care providers.”\n\nThe good news, Jha said, is the US has “plenty of supply” of both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines to start the vaccination program for kids younger than 5, and 10 million additional doses would be made available for states, pharmacies, community health centers and federal entities to order starting this Friday. Jha said those doses were expected to start arriving at their destinations after the long Juneteenth weekend.\n\nThe Monday after the FDA advisory committee meeting is June 20, when the US celebrates Juneteenth, so Jha said the White House expects “that vaccinations will begin in earnest as early as Tuesday, June 21.” He noted it will take some time for the program to ramp up and for vaccines to be more widely available.\n\nCORRECTION: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated when the first Covid-19 vaccines were made available to adults. They were authorized 18 months ago.", "authors": ["Nikki Carvajal"], "publish_date": "2022/06/02"}]}
+{"question_id": "20220617_9", "search_time": "2022/06/17/16:35", "search_result": [{"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2022/06/15/ford-recall-rollaway-escape-fusion-edge/7633818001/", "title": "Ford recalls 2.9M vehicles for inability to shift into gear, risking crash", "text": "Ford Motor Co. is recalling 2.9 million vehicles that may shift into unintended gears or roll away while parked, the third major recall for the automaker this month.\n\nThe latest recall affects certain 2013-2019 Escape, 2013-2018 C-Max, 2013-2016 Fusion, 2013-2021 Transit Connect and 2015-2018 Edge vehicles, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.\n\nEach vehicle model affected is listed separately on the NHTSA recall site, totaling 2,925,968 vehicles.\n\n\"A damaged or missing bushing may prevent the vehicle from shifting into the intended gear, and cause the vehicle to move in an unexpected direction,\" the government website says. \"Additionally, the vehicle may roll after the driver selects the 'Park' position.\"\n\nEarlier recalls:Ford Mustangs, F-Series, Chevy and GMC trucks among latest auto recalls\n\nEV versus ICE:Considering an electric vehicle? Here's what to expect if you've never driven an EV before.\n\nFord details accident reports from defect\n\nThe agency acknowledged the automaker's June 10 report to safety regulators in a letter dated Tuesday.\n\nFord said in its filing that the company is aware of six reports alleging property damage and four reports alleging injury related to this concern.\n\n\"The transmission may not be in the park position, even though the shifter position indicates that the vehicle was shifted to park,\" Ford wrote in its recall letter to federal regulators. \"The driver does not receive a warning message or audible chime.\"\n\n\"Root cause is unknown. Based on Ford’s root cause investigation, heat and humidity have the potential to contribute to the hydrological breakdown of the bushing material.\"\n\nA Ford spokesman declined to provide additional comment Wednesday.\n\nIn the filing, Ford said its dealers will replace the shift bushing and add a protective cap over the shift cable bushing free of charge.\n\nFord said it plans to mail letters June 27 to approximately:\n\n1,726,763 Escape owners\n\n143,220 C-Max owners\n\n439,483, Fusion owners\n\n107,102 Transit Connect owners\n\n509,400 Edge owners\n\nMustang Mach-E, Expedition recalls\n\nAlso this week, Ford confirmed recalling 48,924 model year 2021-22 electric Mustang Mach-E vehicles because they could lose power while driving. The 2021 Ford Bronco has also been recalled for \"catastrophic\" engine failure.\n\nFord recalled 350,000 SUVs, including about 39,000 for engine fire risk in May.\n\nElectric trucks:They're the 1st owners of Ford F-150 Lightnings: What they're going to do with them\n\nEngine fires:Ford recalls SUVs because of engine fire risk\n\nCustomers who own a 2021 Ford Expedition and 2021 Lincoln Navigator revealed last week they're suing for the fire risk that potentially affects 39,013 vehicles and currently has no identifiable fix.\n\nIn February 2020, prior to becoming CEO eight months later, Jim Farley said in a public speech that the company had to get control of warranty costs that were taking a huge bite out of profits.\n\n\"We know what we need to do,\" he said. \"We need to lower our warranty spending.\"\n\nContact Phoebe Wall Howard at 313-222-6512 orphoward@freepress.com.Follow her on Twitter@phoebesaid.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/06/15"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2020/01/21/toyota-recall-corolla-avalon-matrix-airbag-sensor/4535037002/", "title": "Toyota recalls 2.9 million cars to fix airbag defect", "text": "Toyota issued a massive recall on Tuesday to fix an airbag sensor defect on 2.9 million U.S. vehicles made over the course of nearly a decade.\n\nThe automaker said it is recalling certain versions of the 2011-19 Corolla, 2011-13 Matrix, 2012-18 Avalon, and 2013-18 Avalon Hybrid.\n\nThe vehicles have a faulty electronic control unit, which is designed to assess incoming signals from crash sensors and trigger an airbag deployment and seatbelt tightening, if necessary.\n\nThe unit \"may not have adequate protection against certain electrical noise that can occur in certain crashes, such as severe underride crashes,\" Toyota said in a statement.\n\nAs a result, the airbag may not deploy correctly or at all, which could increase the risk of injury or worsen the outcome.\n\nToyota spokesperson Tania Saldana declined to comment on how many injuries, deaths or crashes the company has linked to the defect.\n\nThe recall also affects more than 500,000 additional vehicles outside the U.S.\n\nAirbag defects:Takata recalls 10 million more airbags from 14 automakers\n\nThe faulty units were made by \"a specific supplier\" that Toyota did not identify.\n\nTo fix the units, Toyota will install a noise filter, if necessary, at no cost to vehicle owners.\n\nCar owners can check Toyota.com/recall or NHTSA.gov/recalls to see if their specific vehicle is affected.\n\nFollow USA TODAY reporter Nathan Bomey on Twitter @NathanBomey.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2020/01/21"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2014/12/19/fcaus-chrysler-takata-airbags-recall/20656893/", "title": "Chrysler gives in, makes air bag recall global", "text": "James R. Healey\n\nUSAToday\n\nChrysler will give in to government pressure and make worldwide its existing regional recall to fix driver's-side Takata air bags, adding 3.3 million vehicles, including 2.9 million in the U.S.\n\nThe sweeping action brings to 3.67 million the number of Takata-equipped vehicles that Chrysler — now officially FCA US — has said qualify for free inflator replacements.\n\nNeither Chrysler nor Takata acknowledges that there is a known safety defect with the bags, which means the repairs and replacements technically need not be labeled \"recalls.\" Chrysler calls them \"field actions.\"\n\nThe National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has been pressuring five automakers to expand what have been regional Takata recalls for driver's side bags into national actions. Including separate actions for passenger-side front bags, 10 automakers are involved. But NHTSA says the driver's bag risk is greater and more widespread.\n\nChrysler is the first to identify its expanded move as a \"worldwide\" action. Ford Motor, Honda and Mazda recently promised to make their driver's side Takata recalls national. The last of the five, BMW, has not announced its plans.\n\nThe impact of the expanded recalls is illusory for now. Lacking enough replacement parts for the Takata bags, automakers are funneling the ones they get into the high-humidity regions where the problem seems most likely to occur.\n\nAbout 11 million vehicles with Takata air bags have been recalled in the U.S. Close to 20 million have been recalled worldwide.\n\nFive deaths are linked to faulty Takata bags.\n\nThough the big Japanese safety-equipment supplier refuses to flatly say there is a safety flaw in the bags, it previously said the explosive propellant used to inflate the air bags was mishandled.\n\nThat left it vulnerable to some conditions — so far believed to be the high humidity in certain places — that degrade the propellant. When it malfunctions, it deploys the air bags with too much force, ripping them free from their housings and blasting bits and pieces — shrapnel — into vehicle occupants.\n\nTakata has refused NHTSA's demand that it declare a safety defect and begin a nationwide recall, instead of leaving it to the automakers who buy its air bags.\n\nTakata bought big newspaper ads with a statement from Shigehisa Takada, Takata's chairman and grandson of the company founder.\n\nThe ads, which ran Thursday, quote Takada as saying: \"Even one failure is unacceptable and we are truly and deeply saddened that five fatalities have been attributed to auto accidents where Takata air bags malfunctioned.\" Takada, 48, added, \"We understand the public's concerns, and we take them seriously.\"\n\nHe said production of replacement parts is being increased, but — again — he did not specifically say the bags have a safety defect.\n\nNHTSA says it will sue Takata to require a recall, if the company won't do it voluntarily, but that process can take months.\n\nChrysler has emphasized in its Takata-related announcements that it is taking what it calls \"field actions\" out of \"an abundance of caution\" and not because there is a known defect.\n\nThe automaker said Friday:\n\n\"Neither FCA US, nor Takata Corporation, the supplier, has identified a defect in this population of inflators. These components also are distinct from Takata inflators cited in fatalities involving other auto makers.\n\n\"More than 1,000 laboratory tests have been performed on these components. All deployed as intended, but FCA US continues to study the suspect inflators, which are not used in the company's current production vehicles.\n\n\"Outside of Florida, one of the areas covered by the original action, no FCA US vehicle has been linked to an air-bag deployment of the type that has raised public concern. Nevertheless, the Company is replacing the Takata components tied to that concern.\n\n\"FCA US is aware of one related injury involving one of its vehicles, an older-model sedan. It occurred in a southern Florida region marked by persistent, high, absolute humidity — a condition believed to be a contributing factor in the air-bag deployments under investigation.\"\n\nThe original, regional recall was announced in June, and recently expanded.\n\nThe latest action affects an estimated 2,89 million vehicles across the U.S., another 258,586 in Canada, 66,436 in Mexico, and 99,030 elsewhere.\n\nNewly covered by the recall are these 2004-2007 models:\n\n•Dodge Ram 1500, 2500 and 3500 pickups\n\n•Dodge Ram 3500 chassis-cab trucks\n\n•Dodge Durango and Chrysler Aspen full-size SUVs\n\n•Chrysler 300 and Dodge Charger full-size sedans\n\n•Dodge Magnum full-size station wagons\n\n•Mitsubishi Raider and Dodge Dakota small pickups\n\nChrysler said it will notify the newly affected owners when they can get free repairs, but noted that it first will use its supplies of replacement parts in high-humidity areas. It made no forecast of how long it will take to begin replacing inflators in other areas.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2014/12/19"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2016/02/18/toyota-recalls-29m-suvs-over-seat-belts/80544376/", "title": "Toyota recalls 2.9M SUVs over seat belts", "text": "Associated Press\n\nTOKYO - Toyota said Thursday it is recalling nearly 2.9 million sports utility vehicles, including more than 1.1 million in the U.S., because of seat belts that might fail in a crash.\n\nThe recall covers RAV4 SUVS from the 2005 through 2014 model years, the RAV4 electric vehicle from 2012 through 2014, sold in North America, and the Vanguard sold in Japan from 2005-2016, the Japanese automaker said.\n\nToyota says it’s possible the belts in both second-row window seats could come in contact with a metal seat cushion frame in a severe frontal crash.\n\nIf that happens, the belts could be cut and would not restrain passengers.\n\nThe company says it will add plastic covers to the metal frame at no cost to customers.\n\nThe recall also affects 625,000 vehicles in Europe, 434,000 vehicles in China and 177,000 in Japan.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2016/02/18"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2016/06/29/toyota-recalls-cars-fix-air-bags-emissions/86504548/", "title": "Toyota recalls cars to fix air bags, emissions", "text": "Nathan Bomey\n\nUSA TODAY\n\nEmissions problems and air bag defects — quality issues that are bedeviling the auto industry — have triggered new global Toyota recalls.\n\nAn air bag defect unrelated to the ongoing Takata air bag crisis covers 1.4 million Toyota cars, including 482,000 in the U.S. The Japanese automaker also issued a global recall for 2.9 million cars over potential defects related to emissions controls, though none are located in the U.S.\n\nWhen eliminating certain models covered by both recalls, the number of total vehicles affected worldwide by the two new recalls is 3.4 million, Reuters said.\n\nA small crack can develop in air bag inflators, causing partial inflation. Toyota said North American models affected by the air bag recall are the 2010 to 2012 Prius hybrid, the 2010 and 2012 Prius plug-in and the 2011 to 2012 Lexus CT 200h.\n\nSweden-based auto supplier Autoliv, which made the air bag inflators, acknowledged Wednesday in a statement that it had documented seven cases of a side curtain air bag partially inflating in Prius vehicles while the cars were parked and unoccupied. No injuries were reported.\n\nAutoliv shares (ALV) fell 4.2% in pre-market trading to $105.49. U.S.-traded shares of Toyota (TM) rose 0.6% to $100.45.\n\nAutoliv signaled that it would spend about $10 million to $40 million to aid Toyota in the recall.\n\n”For Autoliv, safety and quality are our priorities and we are fully committed to support Toyota's action in resolving this issue, and will support Toyota in the implementation of solution to the issue,\" Autoliv CEO Jan Carlson said in a statement.\n\nFollow USA TODAY reporter Nathan Bomey on Twitter @NathanBomey.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2016/06/29"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2019/03/11/kia-catches-fire/3105713002/", "title": "Fire engulfs Kia on Michigan highway; group wants 2.9M recalls", "text": "Matthew Rose described his beloved 2012 Kia Optima as a “big toasted marshmallow.”\n\nSeeing a car burst into flames for no apparent reason was a new experience. And, it seems, Rose isn’t the only Kia or Hyundai driver to experience something so scary.\n\nRose said his Optima delivered great gas mileage for his 45-minute commutes back and forth to work in Grand Rapids. He really loved that midsize car.\n\nBut then it burned to a crisp on Feb. 28.\n\n“This was the first brand-new car I’d ever purchased in my life. I never had any real major issues with it, except for some recalls and guest service bulletins here and there,” said Rose, 53, a systems analyst from Holland, Michigan. “When I took it in, people were friendly at the dealership. It was a comfortable car to drive. It was kind of a shock that it just, all of a sudden, it did this.”\n\nThe company said in a statement that Kia has taken proactive steps to address an engine manufacturing issue that “can, in rare instances, result in a non-collision fire, including the recall of more than 680,000 vehicles, and is committed to taking any necessary actions in a timely manner.”\n\nBut a consumer advocacy group wants a total 2.9 million Kias and Hyundais recalled: 2011-14 Kia Sorento, Kia Optima, Hyundai Sonata and Hyundai Santa Fe; and 2010-15 Kia Soul.\n\nMore:Ford Explorer drivers complain of dizziness, nausea, vomiting\n\nMore:Ford's 2020 Explorer for police has hidden lifesaving design feature\n\nRose is among hundreds of drivers who have reported such fires to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and independent Center for Auto Safety involving certain 2011-18 Kia and Hyundai vehicles. These fires have led to higher-than-average insurance claims and a public plea that Congress launch a defect investigation.\n\n“Recently, Hyundai and Kia acknowledged there are additional millions of their vehicles experiencing engine failure, a frequently cited precursor to fire events, yet they have refused to recall almost any of these vehicles to address the risk of fire,” said Jason Levine, executive director of the nonprofit Center for Auto Safety, which has called for the broader recall.\n\n“Instead of presenting the public a solution for these fires, or a satisfactory explanation, or simply taking responsibility for continuing to sell what appear to be defective engines,\" both manufacturers have recalled only a portion of the \"potential fire-prone vehicles and hoped no one would ask about the rest,” Levine said.\n\nJames Bell, Kia spokesman, said, “Customer safety is one of Kia’s top priorities and we are taking this matter seriously.\"\n\nA Hyundai spokeswoman referred inquiries to Bell. Kia is part of the South Korea-based Hyundai Motor Group.\n\nLevine said he has reviewed more than 300 reports since June 2018 filed with his organization and federal safety officials.\n\nRose surfaced as one of many.\n\nRose worries that the service campaigns don’t go far enough, and lives are at risk.\n\n'Car is definitely on fire'\n\nHe was driving about 70 mph on his way home during rush hour, merging from Michigan Highway 6 onto I-96 westbound near Hudsonville, when the engine stalled. Just died. Rose used his blinker and coasted through traffic to the shoulder to call for roadside assistance. While sitting in the driver’s seat while using the phone, smoke began “coming up from the front of the hood.” At that point, he told the tow operator he planned to call 911 “in case of fire.”\n\nThen things took a turn for the worse.\n\n“About a minute after I hung up, smoke started coming in through the vents,” Rose said. “I had my insurance information, which I put in my pocket, grabbed my laptop and was able to get out of the car. There was still quite a bit of traffic. I was going to try and open the hood. I had popped it but didn’t look inside. I could see there were flames inside the engine compartment. I called 911 back and said, ‘Hey, the car is definitely on fire.’ And they said they were on the way. By the time I hung up, the engine was engulfed, the whole hood, everything.”\n\nSo a guy who paid off his $28,000 vehicle about six months ago is waiting for an insurance settlement check. His son-in-law gave the family a 2005 Kia Sportage.\n\nRose agreed to an interview because he wants to get the word out that if people see smoke, they should exit their Kia or Hyundai immediately. “If a person stays in the car too long, it would overtake you quite quickly. I’d hate to hear of people getting injured or dying.”\n\nRose explained, “We are frustrated and kinda upset. Here we were, no car payments. And we were kinda focusing in remodeling the house. Now we’re looking at getting a used Lexus hybrid.”\n\nHe has owned a Ford Explorer, Ford F-150 pickup, Ford Expedition, Ford Taurus, Buick Regal and a Volvo S80 T6 sedan. He was attracted to the fuel efficiency of the Asian brands.\n\nThing is, Rose took his vehicle to the Kia dealership in 2018 for an engine bearing recall and other repairs. No engine replacement was done. On Feb. 9, Rose’s vehicle had a “knock sensor detection system upgrade” that is part of Kia's Product Improvement Campaign and intended to warn the driver prior to catastrophic engine failure that can result in stalling and engine fires.\n\n“I was reading more about the issues other people are having and why there’s an issue with the recall,” Rose said. “Even though my car has the same motor, same year and same model as other recalls, my particular VIN is not on the recall list. Yet it caught fire. I’m not real pleased.”\n\nHe applauded the Center of Auto Safety for pushing to get Kia to do a “full-on recall and not pick and choose.”\n\nKia says it will help\n\nMeanwhile, Rose tried filing a complaint online with Kia but the system timed out.\n\n“Perfect, right?” he said, laughing. “I found a link to consumer affairs and I think, in all fairness, I should give them the opportunity to make it right. I was enjoying the car with no payments.”\n\nUpon hearing that the customer planned to reach out, Bell said, “I’m happy to hear he is planning to contact us. … We welcome the opportunity to investigate and provide assistance when and where appropriate.”\n\nBut consumer watchdogs aren’t so sure.\n\n“The engines in question are all exactly the same. The part is the same part, the problem is the same problem. Their recalls have been identical,” said Levine, who has been tracking the data over the past year.\n\n”There’s a history of manufacturers who have defects that contribute to car fires that are brought to their attention and they are not addressed soon enough,\" he said. \"Fortunately, so far only one death is associated with these models. That’s dumb luck. Over 300 car fires on just ones we’re tracking. This has been going on for years now and their response has been pushing it off, kicking the can down the road, to do an improvement campaign, with a resistance to actually addressing the problem. We want to stop it before someone does die.”\n\nHe emphasized, “It’s like, ‘We know it’s going to catch fire but here’s a knock sensor.’ How does that help? So you’ve got an open wound and here’s a blood pressure cuff. If it goes up, come back to the hospital?”\n\nEngine can be off\n\nThe Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s Highway Loss Data Institute, which analyzes data from insurers, has noticed the Kia and Hyundai non-collision fires.\n\n“When these vehicle fires occur, typically it results in a total loss. The consumer loses use of the vehicle,” said Matt Moore, senior vice president at the Highway Loss Data Institute financed by the insurance industry to track patterns. \"Second, these problems can manifest themselves when the vehicle is turned off. That vehicle can be in a garage, attached to a home, and there can be a significant loss of property and possible loss of life. That’s the reason we pay attention to these things.”\n\nTracking shows higher insurance claim rates for the 2011-15 Kia Optima, 2011-14 Hyundai Sonata, 2011-15 Kia Sorento, 2011-12 Hyundai Santa Fe and 2013-14 Hyundai Santa Fe Sport.\n\nA U.S. Senate committee in November asked the CEOs of Kia and Hyundai to testify about fire risk in the vehicles in response to the Center for Auto Safety’s concerns, according to the Associated Press.\n\nThe executives refused to testify, Levine noted.\n\nThe automakers had recalled 1.7 million vehicles starting in 2015 because of possible oil flow blockage, increasing fire risk, AP said. Kia acknowledged that dealer fixes in response to an initial recall hadn’t been done properly.\n\nKia also encourages customers who drive certain Optimas, Sorentos and Sportages to contact the dealership to address pending recall issues. In addition, the company issued non-repair “service campaign” alerts for an additional 3.7 million vehicles including Hyundai Sonata (2011-18), Hyundai Santa Fe Sport (2013-18), Kia Optima (2011-18), Kia Sorento (2012-18) and Kia Sportage (2011-18).\n\nRose drove one of the models that hasn't yet been recalled.\n\nContact Phoebe Wall Howard: 313-222-6512 orphoward@freepress.com.Follow her on Twitter@phoebesaid. Read more on Ford and sign up for our autos newsletter.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2019/03/11"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2015/06/16/takata-toyota-honda-recall/28813601/", "title": "Toyota, Honda add 2.7 million more cars to air bag recall", "text": "Chris Woodyard\n\nUSA TODAY\n\nToyota added 1.36 million cars Tuesday to its list of those needing repairs due to the government's expansion of the Takata air bag recalls.\n\nToyota's action comes a day after Honda said it will recall another 1.39 million cars to replace the same component, the front passenger air bag inflators.\n\nThese recalls were expected as part of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's expanded recall of the faulty airbags, to which it says it added 33.8 million cars. Since the announcement, 11 affected automakers have been trying to figure out which of their models need to be included.\n\nIn the case of Toyota, the additional models will include 2003 to 2007 Corolla and Corolla Matrix; 2005 to 2006 Tundra; 2005 to 2007 Sequoia; and 2003 to 2007 Lexus SC430 vehicles. Toyota says the new additions bring the number of Toyota and Lexus vehicles covered by Takata recalls in the U.S. to about 2.9 million.\n\n\"Toyota's focus remains on the safety and security of our customers, and we will continue to respond promptly to new developments,\" said Dino Triantafyllos, chief quality officer at Toyota Motor North America, in a statement.\n\nHonda said Monday it was adding certain 2001 to 2005 Civic and 2003 to 2007 Accord models to its list of vehicles under recall. The air bags are susceptible to inflating with too much force in a crash, spraying occupants with metal or plastic shrapnel. Several deaths have been blamed on the inflators.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2015/06/16"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/general-motors/2021/02/10/gm-profit-sharing-uaw-sales/4358706001/", "title": "GM UAW workers to get bigger profit sharing checks amid solid ...", "text": "General Motors reported solid fourth-quarter and year-end results Wednesday despite an eight-week production shutdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact of the Takata airbag-inflator recall announced in November.\n\nGM's total market share rose to 18.32% compared with 17.09% in the year-earlier quarter, said Cox Automotive. It is the largest year-over-year gain in total U.S. market share since 1990.\n\nAs a result, about 44,000 U.S. hourly workers at General Motors will receive a profit-sharing check of $9,000, said GM spokesman Jim Cain. The before-taxes payout for its UAW-represented workforce is an increase from $8,000 in 2019, but down from the $10,750 paid to workers in 2018.\n\nMore:GM to pay UAW workers $8,000 in profit sharing\n\nMore:Ford UAW hourly workers earn $3,625 profit-sharing checks amid 2020 earnings dip\n\nFor the full year, GM's pretax profits were $9.7 billion, up from $8.4 billion a year earlier, driven, in part, by the fact that GM's third- and fourth-quarter earnings in 2019 were hit hard by a 40-day strike by the UAW.\n\nAdditionally, GM gained traction last year with its redesigned full-size SUVs and big demand for pickups, both of which deliver fat profits.\n\nIn a letter to shareholders Wednesday, GM CEO Mary Barra said GM's brands were well prepared when plant production restarted and consumer demand recovered faster than expected — \"Chevrolet and GMC with their outstanding full-size and midsize pickups; and all four brands with a mix of new small- and full-size SUVs, which we launched on time despite the pandemic.\"\n\n[The Free Press is running a great deal right now for our new subscribers. Sign up here for just $1 for 6 months.]\n\n\"These products helped drive our largest year-over-year gain in total U.S. market share since 1990. Just as important, their profits are helping us create a new chapter for GM that is electric, connected, sustainable, inclusive and growth-oriented.\"\n\nIn the fourth quarter, GM's pretax profits surged to $3.72 billion from $105 million in the year-ago period.\n\nThe UAW issued a statement commending GM on the results.\n\n\"Despite a year of a pandemic and loss of production in 2020, General Motors reported a solid profit for North America,\" said Terry Dittes, UAW vice president of the General Motors Department. \"This is a testament to our UAW-GM Membership, who produce some of the finest and most sought-after vehicles in the world, right here in the U.S.A.”\n\nGM's results beat Wall Street’s expectations in the fourth quarter, said Michelle Krebs, executive analyst for Cox Automotive.\n\n\"It should not have been a surprise. GM outperformed the overall market in the fourth quarter, with sales up 5% to the industry’s 2% rise,\" Krebs said. \"Further, GM sold more of the right products in the quarter — pickup trucks and SUVs, especially its new large ones, that generate the biggest profits for the automaker. GM’s biggest challenge is inventory. Its supply of those profitable models is tight.\"\n\nLooking ahead, GM said it's well-positioned in 2021. The industry-wide semiconductor chip shortage will not affect electric vehicle development.\n\nTo mitigate the chip shortage impact, GM said it will prioritize production of full-size trucks, SUVs and EVs. For 2021, GM expects to report $10 billion to $11 billion in pretax profits, which includes a hit of $1.5 billion to $2 billion because of the chip shortage.\n\nGM is continuing to hire some 3,000 employees to help it accelerate its development of EVs and self-driving cars. GM has hired half of them so far, Barra said. The company expects to hire the other half over the next quarter. The majority of those hired will work remotely, a GM spokesman said.\n\nProfit sharing\n\nGM's North American pretax profit for 2020 was $9.1 billion, up from $8.2 billion in 2019, it said in its earnings release.\n\nThe GM-negotiated formula with the UAW for profit-sharing checks is $1,000 per every $1 billion in annual earnings before interest and taxes.\n\nFord's 56,000 union represented factory workers in the U.S. will receive $3,625 profit-sharing checks, down from $6,600 paid a year ago as reflected by Ford's profits in 2019. Ford reported its 2020 earnings last Thursday. Its earnings before interest or taxes — EBIT — of $2.8 billion, down from $6.4 billion in 2019. Ford's North America's pretax profit was $3.6 billion — down from $6.6 billion in 2019, $7.6 billion in 2018 and $8.1 billion in 2017.\n\nLast year, about 44,000 Fiat Chrysler workers averaged $7,280, up from $6,000 for 2018. Fiat Chrysler, now called Stellantis, will release 2020 earnings later this month.\n\nGM gained market share\n\nFor the year, GM's annual global revenue in 2020 was $122.5 billion compared with $137.2 billion for 2019. GM's annual net income was $6.4 billion compared with $6.7 billion in the year-ago period.\n\nFor the quarter, GM's reported a net gain of $2.9 billion compared with a net loss of $194 million a year ago. Quarterly, global revenue was $37.5 billion, up from $31 billion in the year-ago period.\n\nGM reported full-year earnings per share of $4.33. Despite the gains, GM reported it spent $900 million on Cruise, its self-driving subsidiary. GM CFO Paul Jacobson told reporters that the Cruise \"run rate has been pretty consistent for us and that’s what we expect in 2021. They are making tremendous process, but we expect the costs to remain consistent.\"\n\nFor the quarter, GM sold 2.1 million total vehicles globally, up from 2 million in 2019. For the year, GM sold 6.8 million vehicles, down from 7.7 million a year ago.\n\nBuick, which is in the midst of transforming itself to an all-SUV brand, was the only GM brand that reported lower sales in the quarter, selling 44,188 vehicles, down 10%, Cox Automotive reported.\n\nGM cut incentives overall by 5% in the quarter to an average of $5,115 per vehicle, but that was still the second-highest incentive spend for any fourth quarter over the past five years, Cox Automotive said.\n\nGM’s average transaction price rose 5% to $44,690, its highest level, according to Kelley Blue Book calculations.\n\nGM ended the year with an auto cash balance of $22.3 billion and total auto liquidity of more than $40 billion.\n\nFor the first time in GM's history, it will spend more on EVs and self-driving cars than on gasoline and diesel vehicle development. GM plans to spend $9 billion to $10 billion this year in research and development with more than $6 billion on EV development and $1 billion on autonomous vehicles.\n\n600 Cadillac stores left\n\nMeanwhile, Cadillac has finished its dealer buyouts, costing GM about $99 million last year.\n\nCadillac offered its 870 dealers nationally the chance to give up their franchise for $300,000 to $700,000 rather than make the investment for tools, training, equipment and charging stations to sell and service EVs. About 270 of them took the buyout, leaving the network at about 600 dealerships nationwide, a source familiar with the matter told the Free Press.\n\nMore:'Handful' of Michigan Cadillac dealers take a buyout rather than sell EVs\n\nCadillac reported record global sales for six straight months, including January. In January, Cadillac captured 7.6% of the market share in the U.S. luxury segment, a 1.9% increase over the year-ago period. It was the brand's best January since 2015.\n\nFor the year, GM's luxury brand finished down 17.1%, selling 129,495 vehicles in the United States. Globally, the brand sold 380,000 vehicles, down from 390,458 units in 2019.\n\nBut Cadillac struggled with inventory in 2020 because of the eight-week plant shutdown amid the pandemic. Inventory levels are still lean, said Mahmoud Samara, Cadillac North America’s vice president of sales, service and marketing. He declined to provide a day-supply figure.\n\nMore:GM reports strong 4th quarter — but tight inventory hampered bigger sales\n\nSamara told the Free Press this week that the global shortage of semiconductor chips has not affected Cadillac vehicle production yet but, \"is it a concern? Yes. It’s something we have our eye on and we have a world-class supply chain team working to mitigate that risk.\"\n\nBut for the quarter, Samara said Cadillac's average transaction price is over $56,000, the second highest in the segment after Mercedes Benz, up $2,300 from the year-ago period. In January, the number is inching closer to $60,000, he said, lifted by strong sales of the full-size Escalade SUV that often goes for $100,000.\n\nGM plans for Cadillac to lead its all-electric future. Cadillac will launch the all-electric Lyriq early next year, followed by the hand-built Celestiq next year.\n\nCadillac will build the Lyriq in Spring Hill Assembly in Tennessee. Samara declined to say where GM will make the Celestiq or how much it will cost. But Car and Driver reported last month that the car should arrive by 2025 with a starting price in the $100,000 range.\n\nCadillac will have internal combustion vehicles for sale as it transitions to all-electric by 2030, Samara said. And there will still be super high-performance EVs. Cadillac offers V-series Blackwing high-performance sedans now.\n\n\"It’s a strong part of our heritage so just because we go EV, we don’t have to leave that behind,\" Samara said.\n\nChina\n\nGM China weathered a softening market and the residual impact of the pandemic. It reported equity income of $500 million for 2020 compared with $1.1 billion for 2019.\n\nGM and its joint ventures delivered 2.9 million vehicles in China in 2020. Sales were affected by the pandemic in the first quarter, but began to recover in the second quarter. Fourth quarter sales increased by 14.1% from a year earlier.\n\nCadillac posted record sales in China of over 230,000 cars for the year, up 7.9% from 2019. The surge led by sales of the XT4, XT5 and XT6 SUVs and the introduction of the CT4 luxury sedan. GM said Cadillac now has its strongest portfolio ever in China to compete in the steadily growing luxury vehicle segment.\n\nGM Financial reported full-year revenue of $13.8 billion, down from its record revenue last year of $14.6 billion.\n\nGM's EV initiatives\n\nSo far, the first quarter has been filled with EV news.\n\nGM looked back 50 years to recall putting one of its first electric cars on the moon, noting if it can do that, it can deliver 30 new EVs to the market by 2025.\n\nGM's biggest news came on Jan. 28 when it said that it \"aspires\" to offer all light-duty vehicles as zero emissions by 2035 and be carbon neutral by 2040.\n\nAs part of the 2021 virtual Consumer Electronics Show, GM showed renderings and animation of its Cadillac Halo concepts: the Cadillac Personal Autonomous Vehicle, which would be a fancy self-driving taxi, and Cadillac Vertical Take-off and Landing (VTOL) vehicle, a sleek and futuristic drone-like flying car.\n\nMore:GM shows off flying car idea, the Cadillac Halo\n\nGM announced on Jan. 12 that it is launching a new business, BrightDrop, that will make electric-delivery vehicles and offer other technology and services to companies such as FedEx and UPS.\n\nMore:GM startup to make new electric truck for FedEx, other delivery services\n\nBrightDrop's first customer is FedEx, which will buy 500 of the EV600 trucks later this year. Merchants Fleet, a fleet management company, will be the second customer. It plans to buy 12,600 of the EV600 trucks, GM said on Feb. 2.\n\nMerchants Fleet, headquartered in Hooksett, New Hampshire, said it expects BrightDrop EV600s to enter its clients’ fleets starting in early 2023.\n\nLate last month, GM also announced it was partnering with Navistar Inc. and hydrogen provider OneH2 to develop a complete zero-emissions long-haul truck system across the United States. Also, last month, GM and its self-driving car subsidiary Cruise said they will partner with Microsoft to bring self-driving cars to market faster.\n\nMore:GM partnership will put more electric long-haul trucks on American roads\n\nMore:GM, Cruise partner with Microsoft to speed up self-driving EV technology\n\nContact Jamie L. LaReau: 313-222-2149 or jlareau@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @jlareauan. Read more on General Motors and sign up for our autos newsletter. Become a subscriber.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2021/02/10"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2015/02/03/fca-us-chrysler-uaw-debt-profit/22794405/", "title": "FCA US -- former Chrysler -- earns $2.4B in 2014", "text": "Brent Snavely\n\nDetroit Free Press\n\nFCA US said today it earned a profit of $2.4 billion in 2014 as its sales of Ram trucks and Jeep SUVs soared, giving the automaker a 31% increase over its 2013 profit.\n\nFCA US, the company previously known as Chrysler, said its 2014 profit increased even after $1.2 billion in costs related to purchasing shares of stock from the UAW Retiree Medical Benefits Trust and higher recall costs.\n\nFCA US is a subsidiary of the new Fiat Chrysler Automobiles N.V. (FCAU), which reported global earnings last week. FCA US reports earnings separately because it has publicly held debt.\n\nThe automaker also reported a modified operating profit of $3.5 billion for the year, up 10% from 2013. While the automaker did not announce a profit sharing amount for its U.S. hourly workers, it should come to about $2,750, based on a formula adopted when a contract was ratified by UAW workers in 2011.\n\nLast year, workers receive profit-sharing of about $2,500 before taxes, based on the company's 2013 earnings. General Motors will announce its earnings Wednesday.\n\nFCA US said its revenue increased 15% to $83.1 billion in 2014.\n\nThat revenue increase was driven by an increase in global sales, which rose to sales of 2.9 million cars and trucks, a 12% increase for the year.\n\nThe automaker said profit sharing for its U.S. hourly workers increased because sales of cars and trucks increased in North America. However, the profit sharing results also were hurt by higher than normal warranty and recall costs.\n\nIn 2011, UAW workers agreed to forgo annual pay increases in return for a simplified profit sharing formula in a four-year contract.\n\nLast week, Ford said it would issue average profit-sharing checks of $6,900, down from a record $8,800 the prior year.\n\nThe profit sharing formula for Chrysler workers is based on the company's pretax profit in North America.\n\nAbout 85% of Chrysler's profits come from North America, according to a summary of Chrysler's 2011 labor contract with the UAW.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2015/02/03"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2018/01/03/2018-auto-sales-interest-rates/1000408001/", "title": "Auto sales to remain strong in 2018, after topping 17M in 2017", "text": "Greg Gardner\n\nDetroit Free Press\n\nFirst, the good news.\n\nAmericans bought more than 17 million new cars and trucks for the third straight year in 2017. More of them were high-profit pickups that are selling for higher prices than ever before. Consumer sentiment also remains high.\n\nNow, the warning signs.\n\nInterest rates are rising, which means lenders may rethink the generous auto loan credit standards that have stimulated sales for the last half-decade.\n\nThere also will be a surge of leased vehicles returning to auctions this year, which could drive down the price of 3- and 4-year-old cars, especially sedans and some crossovers. Some shoppers will be tempted to choose nearly new over new.\n\nThe Federal Reserve raised short-term rates three times in 2017, most recently in December from 1.25% to 1.5%. The Fed is expected to hike rates two or three times this year.\n\n\"Rising interest rates haven’t hit the market yet,\" said Charles Chesbrough, senior economist for Cox Automotive, \"but sooner or later they will.\"\n\nTax reform will be a mixed blessing. Some high-income consumers will see a little more money in their paychecks.\n\n\"The flip side is we may see stronger economic growth and that could force the Fed to be more aggressive in raising interest rates,\" Chesbrough said.\n\nRead more:\n\nFord's December sales tick up slightly, fueled by F-150; FCA, GM and Toyota down\n\nNovember car sales: Fiat Chrysler down 4%,GM slipped 2.9%, Ford up 6.7%\n\nWhile those who can afford it are paying record prices for new vehicles — the average selling price surpassed $36,000 in December, a record, according to Kelley Blue Book and Edmunds.com.\n\nBut manufacturers are offering about $4,000 per vehicle in incentives to move vehicles.\n\nEven so, most economic forecasters estimate the industry will sell between 16.5 million and 16.8 million new vehicles this year. For anyone who can recall the dark days of 2009 and 2010, that's a banner year.\n\nWhile crude oil prices rose above $60 a barrel in the last week, there is scant evidence that demand for pickups is likely to wane in the near term. Ford sold nearly 90,000 F-Series pickups in December.\n\nChevrolet will take the wraps off its redesigned Silverado, and Fiat Chrysler will unveil a new 2019 Ram pickup next week at the Detroit auto show.\n\nSomewhat more concerning is the steady growth of ride-sharing Lyft and Uber and short-term vehicle rental (think ZipCar or General Motors' Maven), meaning that most everyone who needs a vehicle has one or has access to one.\n\nThe ratio of vehicles to registered drivers hit a record high of 1.26-to-1 in 2017, according to Jessica Caldwell, executive director of industry analysis at Edmunds.com. That is up from 1.1-to-1 in 2011.\n\n\"That probably reflects the growth we’ve seen over the last seven years, and it can't go on forever,\" Caldwell said.\n\nThen there is the prospect of fleets of autonomous ride-sharing vehicles that General Motors and others say could be deployed in major U.S. cities by 2019. Will mobility as a service encourage a significant number of consumers to reject car ownership ?\n\n\"I think that kind of impact is still a ways off,\" Caldwell said. \"But in 2017 we did see daily rental volume drop. Now part of that was automakers trying to reduce their fleet sales, but part of that is because of ride-sharing and car subscription services that luxury brands are offering in select markets.\"\n\nContact Greg Gardner: 313-222-8848 or ggardner99@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @GregGardner12", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2018/01/03"}]}
+{"question_id": "20220617_10", "search_time": "2022/06/17/16:35", "search_result": [{"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2022/06/15/fed-interest-rates-hike/7631195001/", "title": "Fed rate hike: Key interest rate raised 0.75 points to fight inflation", "text": "The Federal Reserve raised its key short-term rate by 0.75%.\n\nIt's the biggest hike in 28 years as the Fed tries to tamp down inflation by raising borrowing costs.\n\nThe central bank signaled more rate hikes may be coming in 2022.\n\nWASHINGTON – The Federal Reserve rolled out the heavy artillery in its bid to fight a historic inflation spike that has shown little letup.\n\nThe aggressive strategy is likely to further slow the economy and increases the risk of recession. It has triggered a brutal market sell-off.\n\nThe 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 downgraded its economic forecast.\n\nMore big moves may come. Fed officials forecast the federal funds rate will end 2022 at a range of 3.25% to 3.5% and next year at close to 4%, according to their median estimate.\n\nWhat's the hike mean for you? How faster, bigger Fed rate hikes affect credit card, mortgage, savings rates and stocks\n\nHot spot:Inflation is scorching hot in this once-affordable city. Rising gas, food prices are not to blame\n\nWill the Fed keep raising interest rates in 2022?\n\nThat suggests officials tentatively plan aggressive increases in July and September before throttling back to more typical quarter-point increases the rest of the year.\n\n\"I do not expect moves of this size to be common,\" Fed Chair Jerome Powell said of Wednesday's hike.\n\nThat sent stocks higher, with the S&P 500, which fell into a bear market earlier this week, closing up 54 points or 1.5%.\n\nAt a news conference, Powell said the Fed will probably choose between a half-point and three-quarters of a point hike at its meeting in July.\n\n\"We thought that strong action was warranted at this meeting, and today we delivered it,\" Powell said. \"We aren't going to declare victory until we really see convincing evidence, compelling evidence that inflation is coming down.\"\n\nTo put the Fed’s turnabout in perspective, the key rate began 2022 near zero, and its half-point increase in March was the largest since 2000. At that time, officials predicted the rate would rise to about 1.9% by December.\n\nDaily Money newsletter:Sign up here for financial tips and advice delivered right to your inbox.\n\nIt's a bear:We're in a bear market – again. Here is what that means in seven charts.\n\nWhat does a rate hike do?\n\nThe Fed’s hike Wednesday and its new projections are likely to ripple through the economy, sharply pushing up rates for credit cards, home equity lines of credit and mortgages, among other loans. Fixed, 30-year mortgages have climbed to 5.23% from 3.22% early this year on the expectation of Fed moves.\n\nAmericans, particularly seniors, should reap the benefits of higher bank savings rates after years of piddling returns.\n\nThe Fed lifts rates to curb borrowing, cool off an overheated economy and fend off inflation spikes. It lowers them to spur borrowing, economic activity and job growth.\n\nInflation shows little letup\n\nFed officials ratcheted up their rate hike plans amid signs that inflation appears more entrenched than they thought, according to reports by Barclays and The Wall Street Journal.\n\nIn early May, Powell suggested that half-point rate increases were likely at meetings in June and July. Policymakers had no plans for a three-quarters point move, a view that lifted financial markets at the time.\n\nAfter starting to ease in April, the consumer price index surged 8.6% annually in May, a 40-year high. Equally worrisome, the University of Michigan’s measure of consumer inflation expectations, which can affect actual price increases, jumped last month.\n\n\"We take that very seriously,\" Powell said. \"It was quite eye-catching.\"\n\nBarclays said the bump up in inflation expectations “raises the risk that a self-reinforcing inflationary cycle could take shape.”\n\nBitcoin's meltdown: Bitcoin meant equity for Black, LGBTQ+ investors. Where does the crypto crash leave things?\n\nA three-quarters-point move sends “a resounding signal of the Fed’s resolve to guide inflation back to its 2% target,” Barclays said.\n\nThe Fed expects its preferred yearly inflation measure, which is different from the CPI, to drop from 6.3% in April to 5.2% by the end of the year, up from its March estimate of 4.3%. It predicts a core reading that strips out volatile food and energy items will be 4.3% at year-end, above its prior 4.1% projection.\n\nSlowing the economy on purpose\n\nThe sharply higher interest rates are likely to further slow an economy that has been moderating. The Fed said Wednesday it expects the economy to grow 1.7% in both 2022 and 2023, down from its March estimate of 2.8% and 2.2%, respectively, according to officials’ median forecast.\n\nIt predicts the unemployment rate, just above a 50-year low at 3.6%, will rise to 3.7% by the end of the year and 4.1% by the end of 2024. It had projected a decline to 3.5% this year.\n\nEconomic output increased 5.7% last year, the most since 1984, on a reopening economy, increasing COVID-19 vaccinations and massive federal aid to households.\n\nThe Fed’s bolder rate-hike strategy is an acknowledgment it’s more willing to tolerate rising unemployment and the risk of recession to corral inflation, Barclays said. Last month, Powell and other Fed officials said the job market was so vibrant they probably could steer the economy to a “soft landing” of moderately slowing growth that kept unemployment stable while taming inflation.\n\nPowell said Wednesday he still believes such a scenario is possible, but \"the pathway for us to get there – it's not getting easier.\"\n\nThough the labor market is robust, adding about 400,000 jobs a month in recent months, the economy has begun pulling back because of soaring inflation and rising interest rates. A measure of business investment rose less than expected in April. The Commerce Department said Wednesday that retail sales fell 0.3% in May. Higher mortgage rates are cooling the housing market.\n\nPowell said, \"(Consumer) demand overall is still very hot in the economy,\" and the Fed aims to use higher rates to rein in inflation.\n\nHousing market cools, bringing cuts:Redfin and Compass lay off hundreds of workers as inflation spikes\n\nNormally, the Fed nudges up rates to contain inflation in a strong economy. It runs the risk that a big rate increase will topple a slowing economy into recession by next year.\n\nPowell acknowledged the Fed's projected federal funds rate of close to 4% would be \"moderately restrictive,\" meaning it would hurt economic growth. He said he thinks 4.1% unemployment -- the Fed's estimate for late 2024 -- is historically low and there's room to bring inflation back to the Fed's 2% target without tipping the economy into recession.\n\nIs the Fed raising rates too fast?\n\nSome economists said the Fed is going too far. Inflation is likely to slow as supply chain troubles ease and more Americans return to the workforce, relieving worker shortages and rapid wage growth.\n\n“Our objection to this more aggressive (Fed) action is that it is unnecessary because the forces which have driven the recent inflation numbers are already fading,” Ian Shepherdson, chief economist of Capital Economics, wrote in a note to clients.\n\nThe Fed was forced into its hard-nosed strategy because it underestimated inflation’s staying power through most of last year. Officials said skyrocketing prices would retreat quickly as supply problems were resolved and consumer purchases sparked by the recovery from the COVID-19 downturn returned to normal. Russia’s war on Ukraine and the delta variant of the coronavirus, in part, disrupted that scenario.\n\nFed officials were more intent on supporting the recovering economy and ensuring Americans came back to a favorable job market than on curbing inflation.\n\n\"Clearly, the FOMC was late to the game in responding to elevated inflation, and just as clearly, they seem intent on making up for lost time,\" Richard Moody, chief economist of Regions Financial, wrote to clients.\n\nThe central bank also said Wednesday it started shedding trillions of dollars in Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities it has amassed to lower long-term rates.\n\nRather than sell the bonds outright, which could disrupt markets, the Fed plans to gradually trim its holdings by not reinvesting the proceeds from some of the assets as they mature.\n\nContributing: Elisabeth Buchwald", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/06/15"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2022/05/04/fed-interest-rate-raised-combat-inflation/9634030002/", "title": "Fed raises key interest rate in attempt to curb inflation", "text": "The Federal Reserve raised its key short-term interest rate by a half percentage point Wednesday, its largest hike since 2000, and signaled further big moves may lie ahead as officials scramble to curtail a historic spike in inflation.\n\n\"There is a broad consensus (among Fed policymakers) that additional (half-point) rate increases should be on the table at the next couple of meetings,\" Fed Chair Jerome Powell said at a news conference.\n\nTop economists expect the Fed to lift the rate to a range of 2.25% to 2.5% by the end of the year.\n\nBut Powell said Fed officials have no plans to boost rates by three-quarters of a point at any meeting, declaring it's \"not something (the Fed's policymaking committee) is actively considering.\" Economists had speculated such a scenario was possible.\n\nStocks rallied after Powell's comment. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 933 points higher, or 2.8%, making it the largest one-day gain since November 2020. The S&P closed up 3% while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite grew by 3.2%.\n\nThe central bank also said it will begin shrinking its $9 trillion in bond holdings next month, a strategy that will nudge long-term interest rates higher.\n\nWednesday’s hike, which was widely expected, boosts the Fed’s benchmark rate from a range of 0.25% to 0.5% to a range of 0.75% to 1%.\n\nWHAT'S IT MEAN FOR ME? How Fed's bigger, faster rate hikes will affect your credit card, mortgage, savings rates\n\nINVESTING IN A RECESSION:As odds rise for a recession, what's your investment strategy?\n\nTURBOTAX SETTLEMENT:Intuit to pay $141 million for false promises of free filing\n\nIt’s expected to set off a domino effect through the economy, pushing up rates for credit cards, home equity lines of credit and adjustable-rate mortgages, among other loans. At the same time, Americans, particularly seniors, should start to benefit from higher bank savings rates after years of negligible returns.\n\nWhile Powell said officials are not considering a three-quarter point hike at any given meeting, he made clear the Fed won't hesitate to lift rates sharply through the year to tame inflation. He said policymakers plan to move \"expeditiously\" to return the Fed's key rate to the 2.25% to 2.5% range considered \"neutral\" because it theoretically would neither juice nor dampen economic growth. Economists believe the Fed will reach that level by year's end.\n\nBut if the Fed needs to hike further, achieving a \"restrictive\" rate that would crimp growth in order to bring down inflation, \"We will not hesitate to go that level,\" Powell said.\n\nIn a statement after a two-day meeting, the Fed acknowledged the economy contracted early in the year but said it's still fundamentally strong.\n\n\"Job gains have been robust in recent months, and the unemployment rate has declined substantially,\" the Fed said.\n\nAnd it underscored its vigilance about rising prices.\n\nBesides Russia's war in Ukraine, the Fed noted that \"COVID-related lockdowns in China are likely to exacerbate supply chain disruptions. The Committee is highly attentive to inflation risks.\"\n\nThe Fed hikes rates to curb borrowing, cool off an overheated economy and fend off inflation spikes. It lowers them to spur borrowing, economic activity and job growth.\n\nEarly in the pandemic, amid unprecedented business closures and layoffs, the Fed slashed its federal funds rate to zero and launched massive bond purchases to lower long-term rates.\n\nNow, however, the Fed is combatting sky-high inflation even as growth is slowing from last year’s robust 5.7% pace. That marked a 37-year high as vaccinations increased and the economy reopened.\n\nThe unusual dynamic is stoking worries that rapid Fed rate hikes could tip the economy into recession.\n\nPowell, however, noted that demand in the economy is so far outpacing supply that the Fed should be able to scale back demand without triggering a recession. He noted there are a record 1.9 job openings for every unemployed American.\n\n\"There should be room to reduce the surplus demand without putting people out of work,\" he said. \"It's a strong economy. Nothing about it says it's close to ... recession.\"\n\nBITCOIN IN YOUR NEST EGG? Fidelity plans to offer Bitcoin in its 401(k) retirement funds. But is it best for you?\n\nDid the Fed take inflation too lightly?\n\nThe Fed has consistently underestimated inflation’s staying power, forcing policymakers to repeatedly ramp up their rate hike plans. As recently as early November, Fed officials were calling inflation a “transitory” byproduct of an economy recovering from the COVID-19-induced recession and related supply chain bottlenecks.\n\nBy December, they acknowledged price increases were more persistent than they thought and forecast three rate increases in 2022, up from one in their September outlook. That would bring the rate to about 0.9% by year’s end.\n\nIn March, with inflation heating up further amid the Russia-Ukraine war, the Fed lifted its key rate – by a quarter-point from near zero – for the first time in more than three years. It also revised upward its year-end rate estimate to 1.9%.\n\nNow, the Fed is revamping its playbook again, with economists predicting a federal funds rate of about 2.4% by December and warning a higher rate is possible.\n\nBehind the aggressive approach is annual inflation that reached a new 40-year high of 8.6% in March. Economists blame the supply snarls, pandemic-related worker shortages that have boosted wages and strong consumer demand heightened by federal stimulus money.\n\nIS INFLATION BIDEN'S FAULT? Biden's $1.9T stimulus caused inflation, critics say. But others argue it saved the economy.\n\nTotal employee compensation surged by a 32-year high of 1.4% in the first quarter, the Labor Department said, intensifying fears of a wage-price spiral that could be difficult to control.\n\n\"We can't run that risk,\" Powell said.\n\nAnd hiring has been stronger than anticipated. Employers added an average of 562,000 jobs a month from January to March as more than 2 million Americans streamed back into a favorable labor market with record job openings. The unemployment rate is at 3.6%, just above the 50-year low it reached before the pandemic.\n\nThat has stirred fears of further wage and price increases and bolstered the Fed’s belief that the economy is healthy enough to withstand large rate hikes.\n\nFEARING THE RATE HIKE?:9.6% inflation-protected I Bonds could be a saving grace\n\nHas inflation peaked?\n\nThe government said last week the economy unexpectedly contracted by 1.4% in the first quarter. But the poor showing was traced to weaker inventory building and a widening trade deficit, both of which are volatile. Consumer and business spending – the core of the economy -- notched solid gains.\n\nAt the same time, many economists believe inflation has peaked, with supply snags starting to ease and a growing labor force easing wage pressures. That could lessen the need for the Fed to continue to lift rates dramatically later this year.\n\nPowell, though, said the Fed won't ease off rate increases until it's confident \"inflation is under control and starting to come down.\"\n\nThe central bank on Wednesday also said it will begin shedding the trillions of dollars in Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities it has amassed. The purchases ballooned the Fed's balance sheet to about $9 trillion.\n\nRather than sell the bonds outright, which could disrupt markets, the Fed plans to gradually trim its holdings by not reinvesting the proceeds from some of the assets as they mature.\n\nThe Fed said it would reduce the Treasury bonds in June by up to $30 billion and the mortgage securities by up to $17.5 billion, ramping up those levels to $60 billion and $35 billion, respectively, within three months. Fed officials also have discussed the possibility of selling the assets to diminish its balance sheet more quickly if necessary.\n\nThe shrinking holdings should nudge mortgage and other long-term rates higher over the next few years.\n\nContributing: Elisabeth Buchwald", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/05/04"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2022/03/16/interest-rates-increase-fed/7052888001/", "title": "Fed raises interest rates for first time in 3 years to fight inflation ...", "text": "The COVID-19-induced era of rock-bottom interest rates is over – just as the U.S. finally seems to be turning the corner on the pandemic.\n\nYet while falling COVID-19 cases and solid consumer demand are helping clear the way for higher rates, the Federal Reserve is taking aim at the pandemic’s stubborn economic legacy: soaring inflation.\n\nMoving to curtail a historic surge in consumer prices, the Fed raised its key short-term interest rate Wednesday – by a quarter-percentage point – for the first time in more than three years and forecast six more hikes this year. That’s up from the three total quarter-point increases Fed officials predicted in December and more than the six moves many top economists predicted this week. The Fed forecast another four hikes in 2023.\n\nThe central bank also sharply boosted its inflation forecast, largely as a result of Russia's attack on Ukraine, while lowering its estimate of economic growth, highlighting the quandary the Fed faces as it tries to tame price increases without tipping the economy into recession.\n\n“The invasion of Ukraine by Russia is causing tremendous human and economic hardship,” the Fed said in a statement after a two-day meeting. “The implications for the U.S. economy are highly uncertain, but in the near term the invasion and related events are likely to create additional upward pressure on inflation and weigh on economic activity.”\n\nCAN I REPLACE MY PREMIUM GAS? My car requires premium gas. Can I switch to regular to save on high gas prices?\n\nRISING GAS THEFTS:Rising gas prices present 'new crime of opportunity' for thieves nationwide\n\nDuring a video new conference, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said officials believe the economy can handle multiple rate hikes without slipping into recession.\n\n\"It's clearly time to raise interest rates,\" Powell said. \"We do feel the economy is very strong and well positioned to withstand\" higher rates.\n\nWhat do Fed rate hikes mean?\n\nTraditionally, the Fed increases rates to curb borrowing, temper an overheated economy and fend off inflation spikes. It lowers them to spur borrowing, economic activity and job growth. Now, it potentially faces a worst-of-all-worlds scenario of spiraling inflation and slowing growth.\n\nWednesday’s hike bumps up the federal funds rate – which is what banks charge each other for overnight loans – from near zero to a range of 0.25% to 0.5%. It’s expected to ripple through the economy, pushing up rates for credit cards, home equity lines of credit and adjustable-rate mortgages, among other loans. But Americans, especially seniors, should start to get some relief from puny rates for savings accounts and CDs.\n\nHow did rate hike affect stock market?\n\nImmediately following the Fed's decision stocks fell – but eventually reversed course.\n\nAfter trading higher leading up to the decision, the Dow Jones industrial briefly turned negative but closed 1.6%, or 519 points, higher Wednesday. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq composite nearly wiped away their gains from earlier in the day. But the S&P 500 closed up 95 points, or 2.2%. And the Nasdaq rose 489 points, or 3.8%.\n\nThe yield on the 10-year Treasury rose above 2.2% after the announcement. That's the highest level 10-year bond yields have been in three years. Hours later, yields fell to around 2.19%.\n\nSt. Louis Fed bank chief James Bullard dissented from the decision, saying he preferred to raise the rate by a half-point. In its statement, the central bank added that it anticipates \"ongoing increases...will be appropriate.\"\n\nAlthough Powell told Congress last month that he supported a quarter-point increase at the March meeting, economists have debated how aggressive the Fed will be in the months ahead amid a worrisome economic backdrop.\n\n\"We have plans to raise interest rates steadily,\" he told reporters Wednesday, noting the Fed's forecast for six more hikes imply it will act at each remaining meeting this year. If the central bank needs to move more quickly, \"then we'll do so,\" he added, suggesting a half point hike is possible at some meetings.\n\nIs the Fed raising rates further in 2022 and beyond?\n\nThe Fed now expects its benchmark rate to rise to 1.9% by year-end – above its pre-pandemic level – and 2.8% by the end of 2023, higher than many top economists projected.\n\nSince fall, Fed policymakers have been gearing up to combat a bout of inflation that has steadily hit new 40-year highs, with the consumer price index (CPI) rising 7.9% annually in February.\n\nRussia’s invasion of Ukraine last month compounded the problem by further juicing fast-rising gasoline and food prices – Russia is among the world’s top oil producers – and worsening global supply-chain bottlenecks. The average price of regular gasoline hit $4.32 a gallon Tuesday, up from $3.50 just a month ago, according to AAA.\n\nWorker shortages spawned by the pandemic are also stoking inflation by forcing employers to bid up wages to attract a smaller pool of job candidates. That, in turn, is prompting companies to raise prices to maintain profit margins.\n\nYet the leap in prices is also dampening consumer spending, and the Ukraine war is battering the stock market and global growth – all of which is set to slow the U.S. economy.\n\nHow is the current U.S. economy?\n\nThe Fed on Wednesday said it expects the U.S. economy to grow 2.8% in 2022, down from its December estimate of 4%, according to officials’ median projections. That’s still sturdy growth by historical standards but analysts worry an intensifying war and sharp rate increases could slow the economy further or even nudge it into recession.\n\nThe Fed estimates its preferred annual inflation measure (which is different than the CPI) will end the year at 4.3% -- well above its 2% target -- before easing to 2.7% in 2023, up from its prior forecasts of 2.6% and 2.3%, respectively. It predicts a core measure that strips out volatile food and energy items will be 4.1% at year-end and 2.7% at the close of 2023, up from prior estimates of 2.7% and 2.3%.\n\nFed officials still expect unemployment, now 3.8%, to drop to its pre-pandemic mark of 3.5% – a 50-year low – by the end of this year and to remain at that level by the close of 2023. That suggests the Fed doesn't expect inflation or rising rates to derail the economy or job market.\n\nWhat is inflation rate for 2022?\n\nInflation is expected to moderate this year as the pandemic eases and more truck drivers, along with factory, warehouse and port employees, return to work, helping alleviate the supply troubles. But the increase in the consumer price index is now expected to peak in late spring at 8.7%, higher than previously believed and it will take longer for inflation to subside, predicts economist Kathy Bostjancic of Oxford Economics.\n\nAlthough Powell said the Fed believes it can boost rates to lower inflation while maintaining a strong labor market, he made it clear that reining in inflation is the priority.\n\n\"The plan is to restore price stability,\" he said, noting it's necessary for low unemployment in the long run. \"Price stability is an essential goal.\"\n\nIn an opinion piece in Tuesday’s Washington Post, Larry Summers, Treasury secretary under President Obama, said the Fed took inflation too lightly over the past year and “will have to head in a dramatically different direction” to “avoid stagflation (high inflation and stalled growth) and the associated loss of public confidence in our country now.”\n\nWhat other moves did the Fed make?\n\nThe Fed on Wednesday also said it it will begin reducing its trillions of dollars in Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities \"at a coming meeting\" after launching the bond-buying at the start of the pandemic to lower long-term rates. The purchases ballooned the Fed's balance sheet to about $8.8 trillion.\n\nRather than sell the bonds outright, which could disrupt markets, the Fed plans to gradually trim its holdings by not reinvesting the proceeds from some of the assets as they mature. The shrinking balance sheet will also nudge mortgage and other long-term rates higher.\n\nWednesday’s moves mark a reversal for a central bank that had been focused on helping the nation heal from the recession and 22 million job losses caused by the pandemic. In March 2020, as the COVID-19 crisis upended the economy, the Fed slashed its benchmark rate to near zero and launched the bond buying.\n\nAs recently as early November, Powell said officials believed the inflation surge was transitory and would ease as both the supply snags and pent-up consumer demand from a reopening economy pulled back.\n\nHe said the Fed would be patient and hold off on raising rates so the economy could reach full employment – an environment in which virtually anyone who wants a job has one.\n\nBut by late November, Powell acknowledged the supply problems and inflation would linger longer than expected. The U.S. is still 2.1 million jobs short of its pre-pandemic level and the share of people over 16 working or looking for jobs is at 62.3%, below the 63.4% pre-crisis mark. But many Americans retired early during the pandemic and most are not expected to return, and Powell has said he believes the economy is at full employment.\n\nContributing: Elisabeth Buchwald", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/03/16"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2022/05/04/dow-rallies-fed-ups-rates/9649150002/", "title": "Dow rallies after Fed ups rates a half point, downplays recession risk", "text": "Damian J. Troise\n\nAssociated Press\n\nNEW YORK — Stocks rallied and bond yields fell on Wall Street Wednesday after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell downplayed the likelihood of an even larger rate increase than the one just announced on Wednesday.\n\nThe remarks, which came after the Fed announced its decision to raise its key interest rate by double the usual amount, allayed concerns the Fed was on its way to a massive increase of three-quarters of a percentage point at its June meeting.\n\nThe S&P 500 climbed 2.2% as of 3:10 p.m. Eastern. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 662 points, or 2%, to 33,791, and Nasdaq up 2%, reversing losses.\n\n(Are you worried about a looming recession? Share your thoughts with USA TODAY on the form below or click here.)\n\nMost aggressive hike since 2000\n\nBond yields fell after the Fed’s announcement. The yield on the 2-year Treasury dropped to 2.65% from 2.78% late Tuesday, an unusually large move. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 2.94% from 2.96% It had initially jumped to 3.01% until Powell’s remarks during a press conference.\n\nThe comments came shortly after the Fed said it raised its benchmark short-term interest rate by a half-percentage point, its most aggressive move since 2000, and signaled further large rate hikes ahead. The increase raised the Fed’s key rate to a range of 0.75% to 1%, the highest point since the pandemic struck two years ago.\n\nThe Fed also announced details of how it will start reducing its huge holdings of Treasury debt and mortgage-backed securities, a tool the central bank has used to help keep long-term interest rates low.\n\nHOW CONSUMERS FEEL RATES:How Fed's bigger, faster rate hikes will affect your credit card, mortgage, savings rates\n\nBRACING FOR HIGHER RATES:Fear the Fed's rate raise? Savers can fight back with these 9.6% inflation-proof US bonds\n\nThe latest move by the Fed had been widely expected, with markets steadying this week ahead of the policy update, but Wall Street was concerned the Fed might elect to raise rates by three-quarters of a percentage point in the months ahead.\n\nPowell eased those concerns, saying the central bank is “not actively considering” such an increase.\n\nMore rate hikes won't lead to recession, Powell says\n\nEarlier, Powell also said the economy can make it through rate increases without falling into a recession.\n\n“The economy is strong and well positioned to handle tighter monetary policy,” he said, though he cautioned “it’s not going to be easy.”\n\nInvestors are worrying about whether the Fed can pull off the delicate dance to slow the economy enough to halt high inflation but not so much as to cause a downturn. Still, the market cheered the Fed's latest moves.\n\n“It’s certainly heady days when the market doesn’t blink at the most aggressive rate hike in 22 years, but keep in mind this was extremely well-telegraphed and priced in,” said Mike Loewengart, managing director, investment strategy at E-TRADE from Morgan Stanley.\n\nThe central bank also announced that it will start reducing its huge $9 trillion balance sheet, which consists mainly of Treasury and mortgage bonds, starting June 1.\n\nRising energy prices still stoking inflation worries\n\nEnergy stocks were among the biggest gainers Wednesday following a 5.3% increase in the price of U.S. crude oil after Europe took a step closer to placing an embargo on Russian oil as that country continues its war against Ukraine. Any embargo could strain oil supplies and push prices still higher. Exxon Mobil rose 2.8%.\n\nThe Fed’s aggressive shift to raise interest rates comes as rising inflation puts more pressure on businesses and consumers. Higher costs for energy and other commodities have prompted many businesses to raise prices and issue cautious forecasts to their investors. Wall Street and economists are worried that higher prices on everything from food to gas and clothing will prompt a slowdown in consumer spending and crimp economic growth.\n\nOIL PRICE EFFECTS:Gas prices rising again? Experts warn of 'many possible outcomes' as oil prices increase\n\nOIL HITS FOOD CRAVINGS:Restaurants, retailers hit by cooking oil shortage\n\nThe worries have worsened with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its impact on energy and key food commodity prices. China’s increasingly stricter lockdown measures because of rising COVID-19 cases have also added concerns about slower economic growth because of supply problems and shipping backlogs.\n\nWall Street is closely watching economic data for any signs that inflation might be easing. Consumer prices surged in March, but a measure of inflation that excludes food and energy had its smallest monthly rise since September. That was a welcome sign for investors and more of the same in the coming months cold temper inflation concerns.\n\n“If we can get just a few more readings showing inflation slowing, that could be the match that sparks some confidence,” said Ryan Detrick, chief market strategist for LPL Financial.\n\nCorporate earnings mixed\n\nTupperware slumped 34.2% after the direct seller of plastic storage containers and cosmetics withdrew its financial forecast for the year following a highly disappointing first quarter. The company cited pressure from inflation, lockdowns in China and the conflict in Ukraine.\n\nLyft plunged 31.2% after the ride-hailing company gave investors a disappointing revenue forecast for its current quarter.\n\nAirbnb rose 5.4% after the short-stay home rentals company sharply narrowed its first-quarter loss and gave investors an encouraging revenue forecast. Starbucks jumped 10.3% after reporting surprisingly strong sales at stores that have been open at least a year, which is a key measure of health for retailers.\n\nWorried about a recession? Share your thoughts with USA TODAY\n\nWith the chances of a recession increasing, USA TODAY wants to know if you're worried and making preparations. Share your thoughts and experiences with USA TODAY for possible inclusion in future coverage. If you don't see the form below, click here.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/05/04"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2022/03/15/interest-rate-fed-hike-credit-cards-mortgages/7042398001/", "title": "Interest rate increase: How Fed hike will affect your wallet, finances", "text": "The hike would be first increase of the federal funds rate in more than 3 years and will kick off a projected 5 to 7 such moves this year.\n\nAmericans will soon see higher rates on everything from credit cards to mortgages.\n\nBut they will also finally see rates rise on some bank savings accounts and CDs.\n\nConsumer borrowing costs are headed higher.\n\nMuch higher.\n\nThe Federal Reserve raised its key short-term interest rate by a quarter percentage point Wednesday, and Americans will soon see higher rates on everything from credit cards to mortgages.\n\nThe good news: Consumers will finally see rates rise from measly levels on at least some bank savings accounts and CDs.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/03/15"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2022/05/03/fed-rate-hike-interest-debt-mortgages/9621177002/", "title": "Fed rate hike 2022: How interest rates will affect mortgages, loans", "text": "The Fed raised its key short-term rate from near zero by a quarter percentage point in March.\n\nOn Wednesday, the central bank is set to push it up another half point, its largest bump in 22 years.\n\nThe move will drive rates higher on everything from credit cards to mortgages.\n\nJust six weeks ago, Americans were facing sharply higher borrowing costs as the Federal Reserve launched an aggressive campaign of interest rate hikes to curb soaring inflation.\n\nNow the Fed is putting those rate increases on steroids, and consumers will have to dig even deeper into their wallets to pay off loans.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/05/03"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2017/03/15/federal-reserve-interest-rate-hike-mortgages-credit-cards-auto-loans-savings-rates/99179006/", "title": "What a Fed rate hike means for you (get ready to pay more)", "text": "Paul Davidson and David Carrig\n\nUSA TODAY\n\nThe Federal Reserve decision Wednesday to lift its benchmark short-term interest rate by a quarter percentage point is likely to have a domino effect across the economy as it gradually pushes up rates for everything from mortgages and credit card rates to small business loans.\n\nConsumers with credit card debt, adjustable-rate mortgages and home equity lines of credit are the most likely to be affected by a rate hike, says Greg McBride, chief analyst at Bankrate.com. He says it’s the cumulative effect that’s important, especially since the Fed already raised rates in December 2015 and December 2016.\n\n“These interest rate hikes could add up to hundreds of dollars per month in extra fees for credit card, adjustable-rate mortgage and HELOC borrowers,” McBride says.\n\nThe Fed’s likely decision to lift the federal funds rate, which is what banks charge each other for overnight loans, will have several effects on consumers. Here's how it may impact mortgage rates, auto loans, credit cards and bank savings rates:\n\nMortgages\n\nThe Fed’s key short-term rate affects mortgages and other long-term rates only indirectly.\n\nThirty-year fixed mortgage rates hit a 2017 high last week as the average jumped to 4.21% in anticipation of the Fed’s move Wednesday and another similar hike. That is up from a year ago when the average 30-year mortgage rate was 3.68%, according to Freddie Mac.\n\n“For consumers currently shopping for a mortgage to purchase a property or refinance an existing loan,” says NerdWallet mortgage analyst Tim Manni, a Fed rate hike \"shouldn’t feel like a real shock to the system since the rate move has already been 'baked' into the market.”\n\nA third hike later this year could boost the rate by as much as another quarter-point or so, increasing the monthly mortgage payment on a $200,000 home by up to $30.\n\nMore on mortgage rates:\n\nFed rate hike: What it means for mortgage rates\n\nAdjustable-rate mortgages, by contrast, typically are modified annually.\n\n“Borrowers with adjustable rate mortgages that are seeing their rates reset should brace for higher payments. Because most ARMs only adjust once per year, the next rate reset could be a doozy if it encompasses 2 or 3 Fed hikes in the interim,” McBride says.\n\nAdjustable rates, he says, could rise about three-quarters of a percentage point in that period, increasing the monthly payment of the $200,000 mortgage by $84.\n\nOther factors may loom large in addition to future Fed rate hikes that will determine the direction of mortgage rates moving forward. If Congress fails to approve President Trump’s fiscal stimulus, for example, long-term rates could fall regardless of the Fed, while a faster-growing economy and higher inflation could drive up borrowing costs faster.\n\nAuto loans\n\nTypical five-year auto loans will be more directly influenced by a quarter-point increase in the Fed’s key short-term rate, with a 4.25% car loan rate rising by a similar quarter-point, or $3 a month, McBride says.\n\nAn increase Wednesday’ and two similar interest rate increases this year would increase the monthly payment for a new $25,000 car by a total of $9.\n\n“Nobody will be downsizing from the SUV to the compact based on rising interest rates,” he says.\n\nHow rate hikes can affect your investments:\n\nHow to position your portfolio for rate hikes\n\nFed rate hike: 7 questions (and answers)\n\nCredit cards and home equity lines of credit\n\nRevolving loans with variable rates, such as credit cards and home equity lines of credit, will become more expensive since they feel the most immediate impact from an increase in the Fed’s key short-term rate.\n\nAverage credit card rates are about 16.26%, while home equity lines are about 5.21%, according to Bankrate.com.\n\nBanks should pass along quarter-point increases in the federal funds rate to those consumer rates within weeks.\n\nMore on rates and credit cards:\n\n4 things credit card holders can do to get ready for a rate hike\n\nBank savings rates\n\nSince banks will be able to charge a bit more for loans, they’ll have a little more leeway to pay higher interest rates on customer deposits. Don’t expect a fast or an equivalent rise in your savings accounts or CD rate though.\n\n“Still not a whole lot of improvement for savers to count on the third time around,” McBride says.\n\nLow interest rates have spelled narrow profit margins for banks for years. They have an opportunity to benefit from a bigger margin between what they pay in interest and what they earn from loans.\n\n“But your odds – and your rate of return – go up dramatically if you are seeking out the top-yielding offers from banks that are willing to pay more in order to bring in deposits. They’re also the most likely to raise rates in an effort to remain competitive,” McBride says.\n\nNerdWallet credit and banking analyst Sean McQuay advises you should search for a higher-yield savings account.\n\n“Saving in a high-yield versus low-yield account would earn Americans $5.6 billion more per year in savings account interest,” McQuay says. A high-yield savings account pays about $275 more per year than a low-interest account on savings of $25,000, according to NerdWallet.\n\nMore on banks and savings rates:\n\nFed rate hike: What it means for your CDs\n\nIf the Fed can, so can you: Hike your savings rate\n\nHow will higher interest rates help Bank of America?", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2017/03/15"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/04/economy/fed-may-interest-rates/index.html", "title": "What the Fed rate hike means for you", "text": "This is an updated version of a story that ran on March 17, 2022.\n\nNew York (CNN Business) The Federal Reserve is stepping up its war on inflation. That means borrowing costs are going sharply higher for families and businesses.\n\nThe US central bank increased its benchmark interest rate by three-quarters of a percentage point on Wednesday, which is the biggest single hike since 1994.\n\nThis follows the Fed's decision to raise its rate by half a percentage point in May, the biggest increase in 22 years.\n\nThe fact that the Fed is moving decisively shows confidence in the health of the job market. But the speed with which interest rates are expected to go up underscores its growing concern about the soaring cost of living.\n\nHigh inflation -- consumer prices rose in May at the fastest pace in 40 years -- will likely force the Fed to raise interest rates several more times in the coming months. Fed officials may even resort to additional large rate increases in a bid to cool off inflation.\n\nAmericans will initially experience this policy shift through higher borrowing costs: It is no longer insanely cheap to take out mortgages or car loans. And cash sitting in bank accounts will finally earn something, albeit not much.\n\nThe Fed speeds up or slows down the economy by moving interest rates higher or lower. When the pandemic erupted, the Fed made it almost free to borrow in a bid to encourage spending by households and businesses. To further boost the Covid-ravaged economy, the US central bank also printed trillions of dollars through a program known as quantitative easing. And when credit markets froze in March 2020, the Fed rolled out emergency credit facilities to avoid a financial meltdown.\n\nThe Fed's rescue worked. There was no Covid financial crisis. Vaccines and massive spending from Congress paved the way for a rapid recovery. However, its emergency actions -- and their delayed removal -- also contributed to today's overheated economy.\n\nThe risk is that the Fed overdoes it, slowing the economy so much that it accidentally sparks a recession that drives up unemployment.\n\nBorrowing costs are going up\n\nEvery time the Fed raises rates, it becomes more expensive to borrow. That means higher interest costs for mortgages, home equity lines of credit, credit cards, student debt and car loans. Business loans will also get pricier, for businesses large and small.\n\nThe most tangible way this is playing out is with mortgages, where rate hikes have already driven up rates and slowed down sales activity.\n\nJune 9. That's up sharply from under 3% this time last year. The rate for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 5.23% in the week endingJune 9. That's up sharply from under 3% this time last year.\n\nHigher mortgage rates make it harder to afford home prices that have skyrocketed during the pandemic. That weaker demand could cool off prices.\n\nThe median price for an existing home sold in April soared by 15% year-over-year to $391,200, according to the National Association of Realtors.\n\nHow high will rates go?\n\nInvestors are expecting the Fed will raise the high end of its target range to at least 3.75% by the end of the year, up from 1% today.\n\nFor context, the Fed raised rates to 2.37% during the peak of the last rate-hiking cycle in late 2018. Before the Great Recession of 2007-2009, Fed rates got as high as 5.25%.\n\nAnd in the 1980s, the Paul Volcker-led Fed jacked up interest rates to unprecedented levels to fight runaway inflation. By the peak in July 1981, the effective Fed funds rate topped 22%. (Borrowing costs now won't be anywhere near those levels and there is little expectation that they will go up that sharply.)\n\nStill, the impact to borrowing costs in coming months will depend chiefly on the -- as yet undetermined -- pace of the Fed's rate hikes.\n\nGood news for savers\n\nRock-bottom rates have penalized savers. Money stashed in savings, certificates of deposit (CD) and money market accounts earned almost nothing during Covid (and for much of the past 14 years, for that matter). Measured against inflation, savers have lost money.\n\nThe good news, however, is that these savings rates will rise as the Fed moves interest rates higher. Savers will start to earn interest again.\n\nBut this takes time to play out. In many cases, especially with traditional accounts at big banks, the impact won't be felt overnight.\n\nAnd even after several rate hikes, savings rates will still be very low -- below inflation and the expected returns in the stock market.\n\nMarkets will have to adjust\n\nFree money from the Fed was amazing for the stock market.\n\nZero percent interest rates depress government bond rates, essentially forcing investors to bet on riskier assets like stocks. (Wall Street even has an expression for this: TINA, which stands for \"there is no alternative.\")\n\nbecome accustomed to -- if not addicted to -- easy money. US stocks Higher rates have been a major challenge for the stock market, which hadbecome accustomed to -- if not addicted to -- easy money. US stocks plunged into a bear market on Monday amid fears that the Fed's aggressive rate hikes will crash the economy into a recession.\n\nThe ultimate impact to the stock market will depend on how fast the Fed raises interest rates -- and how the underlying economy and corporate profits perform going forward.\n\nAt a minimum, rate hikes mean the stock market will face more competition going forward from boring government bonds.\n\nCooler inflation?\n\nThe goal of the Fed's interest rate hikes is to get inflation under control while keeping the job market recovery intact.\n\nConsumer prices spiked by 8.6% in May from the year before, the fastest pace since December 1981, according to the latest data from the Labor Department. Inflation is nowhere near the Fed's goal of 2% and has gotten worse in recent months.\n\nEconomists warn inflation could get even worse because gas prices have continued to hit record highs in recent days, exacerbating a spike that began after Russia invaded Ukraine.\n\nEverything from food and energy to metals have become more expensive.\n\nThe high cost of living is causing financial headaches for millions of Americans and contributing significantly to record-low consumer sentiment, not to mention President Joe Biden's low approval ratings.\n\nYet it will take time for the Fed's interest rate hikes to start chipping away at inflation. And even then, inflation will still be subject to developments in the war in Ukraine, the supply chain mess and, of course, Covid.\n\nCNN's Kate Trafecante contributed to this report.", "authors": ["Matt Egan", "Cnn Business"], "publish_date": "2022/05/04"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2018/03/21/fed-powell-hikes-interest-rates-consumer-loans/444986002/", "title": "Fed raises interest rates, keeps forecast for 3 hikes in 2018", "text": "WASHINGTON — Citing a brighter economic outlook, the Federal Reserve raised its key short-term interest rate Wednesday but maintained its forecast for a total of three hikes this year amid still-modest inflation.\n\nThe move is expected to ripple through the economy, nudging consumer and business borrowing costs higher, especially for variable-rate loans such as adjustable-rate mortgages and credit cards.\n\nInvestors cheered the unchanged rate forecast for 2018, pushing up the Dow Jones industrial average about 250 points initially before stocks pared their gains.\n\nThe Fed’s policymaking committee, as widely anticipated, lifted the federal funds rate — what banks charge each other for overnight loans — by a quarter percentage point to a range of 1½% to 1¾%.\n\nMore:How Federal Reserve rate hike will affect mortgages, auto loans, credit cards\n\nThat’s still low by historical standards but it marks the central bank’s fourth rate increase in the past 12 months and another vote of confidence in an economy that’s picking up steam nearly nine years after the Great Recession ended.\n\n\"We're trying to take that middle ground\" on rate hikes, boosting rates enough to head off an eventual spike in inflation without derailing the economic expansion, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said at a news conference. The meeting was the first led by Powell, a Republican and Trump appointee, who took the reins from Democrat Janet Yellen last month.\n\nA breakdown of how the Fed sees:\n\nHow fast rates will rise\n\nWednesday’s rate hike was all but certain. Most of the suspense centered on whether the Fed would bump up its forecast from a total of three quarter-point increases this year to four. It held steady at three but raised its projection from two to three hikes next year as inflation picks up.\n\nThe Fed expects its key rate to climb to about 2.1% at the end of the year and 2.9% by the end of 2019 and over the longer run. It still expects “further gradual” rate increases.\n\nWith federal tax cuts and increased spending set to juice growth over the next couple of years, some analysts expected policymakers’ median projection to factor in an additional hike in 2018. That could have unnerved already volatile markets. But surprisingly tame consumer price increases likely convinced Fed officials to stand pat, at least for now.\n\nThe Fed raises rates to head off excessive inflation and lowers them to spur faster growth.\n\nThe economy\n\nThe Fed foresees the economy growing faster than it did in December. It expects growth of 2.7% this year, up from its December forecast of 2.5%, and 2.4% in 2019, up from its prior 2.1% estimate. Both top the tepid 2.2% average during the nearly 9-year-old recovery.\n\n“The economy is healthier than it's been since before the (2008) financial crisis,\" Powell said,\n\nThe Fed statement said, \"The economic outlook has strengthened in recent months,” an apparent nod to the $1.5 trillion Republican tax cuts and a budget blueprint that increases federal spending by $320 billion over the next decade.\n\nThe stimulus measures are poised to further jolt an economy that had already gained momentum, expanding at more than a 3% annual pace in the second half of 2017 on solid job and income growth and a strong global economy.\n\nBut while the Fed said economic activity has been rising “at a moderate rate,” it added that growth in consumer spending and business investment “have moderated from their strong fourth-quarter readings.”\n\nSome economists worry the tax cuts and additional federal spending eventually could drive up inflation too quickly and add to the $21 trillion national debt — both of which could push interest rates higher, eventually curtailing borrowing and economic activity.\n\nTrump's policies\n\nPowell voiced doubt about Trump's vow to grow the economy 3% on a sustained basis. \"That's well above almost all estimates,\" he said.\n\nBut Powell also downplayed concerns that Trump's sweeping steel and aluminum tariffs will hobble growth. \"There's no thought (among Fed policymakers) that changing trade policy should have any effect on the current outlook,\" Powell said, unless the current trade conflict escalates significantly.\n\nJobs\n\nThe Fed said the “labor market has continued to strengthen,” adding that “job gains have been strong in recent months, and the unemployment rate has stayed low.”\n\nEmployers added more than 200,000 jobs in January and a booming 313,000 in February. Policymakers expect the 4.1% unemployment rate to fall to 3.8% by the end of the year, below their previous forecast of 3.9% and 3.6% by the end of 2019, below their prior estimate of 3.9%.\n\nVery low unemployment is likely to accelerate tepid wage growth as employers compete for fewer available workers. And companies that lift worker pay ultimately increase consumer prices to maintain profits.\n\nInflation\n\nInflation has been the big conundrum. Despite the solidly growing economy, the Fed noted that annual inflation has continued to run below the Fed’s 2% target. It reiterated, however, that inflation “is expected to move up in coming months and to stabilize” around the Fed’s 2% benchmark “over the medium term.”\n\nPolicymakers expect annual inflation to rise from 1.7% to 1.9% by year-end and 2% by the end of 2019, unchanged from their December forecast. They still expect a core measure that strips out volatile food and energy items to increase from 1.5% to 1.9% by year-end, but slightly pushed up their forecast for the end of 2019 to 2.1%. In short, inflation won’t reach the Fed’s 2% goal until next year.\n\nWhile the Fed generally wants to keep a lid on consumer price increases, sluggish inflation can signal a listless economy and pose a risk of falling prices that can hurt economic growth. Some economists point to long-term factors that have held down prices, such as the globally-connected economy and e-commerce.\n\nMarkets\n\nThe Dow Jones industrial average, which had been up about 130 points prior to the Fed announcement, initially jumped to a 250 point gain after the news. It then settled back to just a 13-point gain for by mid-afternoon. The 10-year Treasury bond yield, a benchmark for long-term rates, edged up marginally, from 2.89% to 2.91%.\n\nStill, investors liked the status quo rate forecast for this year. Stock prices tend to dive at the prospect of higher interest rates because they make lower-risk bonds relatively more attractive. Higher rates can also crimp lending and the economy.\n\nMarkets expect the Fed to gradually raise rates, but a boost in the Fed’s forecast to four hikes this year may have spooked investors who are already on edge. The unchanged rate forecast for 2018 allayed those worries.\n\nWhat it means\n\nFed officials are struggling to balance an economy that appears poised to heat up with inflation that has remained puzzlingly docile.\n\nSo far, they’re taking a middle-ground approach and lifting rates gradually – at least until inflation ratchets higher, a development some economists expect later in the year.\n\nScott Anderson ,chief economist of Bank of the West, says Powell's bullish view of the economy raises the odds for four rate hikes this year. Seven Fed policymakers now expect that many, up from four in December, he notes.\n\n\"I think it's a more confident (Fed) about where the economy is going to be,\" Anderson says.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2018/03/21"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/04/economy/federal-reserve-interest-rate-hike/index.html", "title": "Federal Reserve issues biggest interest rate hike in 22 years - CNN", "text": "New York (CNN Business) The Federal Reserve said Wednesday it is raising interest rates by a half-percentage point to get a handle on the worst inflation America has seen in 40 years.\n\nIt's the first time in 22 years that the central bank has hiked rates this much. The decision was unanimous, with all 12 members of the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee agreeing on it.\n\nIn March, the Fed ramped up its benchmark borrowing rate for the first time since late 2018, increasing it by a quarter-percentage point.\n\nIn his post-meeting press conference on Wednesday, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said that additional half-percentage-point rate hikes will be on the table for the next few meetings. But the bank isn't looking to go bigger:\n\n\"A 75 basis point increase is not something the committee is actively considering,\" Powell told reporters. \"If inflation comes down we're not going to stop, we're just going to go down to 25 basis point increases,\" he added.\n\nRead More", "authors": ["Anneken Tappe", "Cnn Business"], "publish_date": "2022/05/04"}]}
+{"question_id": "20220617_11", "search_time": "2022/06/17/16:35", "search_result": []}
+{"question_id": "20220617_12", "search_time": "2022/06/17/16:35", "search_result": []}
+{"question_id": "20220617_13", "search_time": "2022/06/17/16:35", "search_result": [{"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2022/06/14/microsoft-shut-down-internet-explorer-wednesday/7626639001/", "title": "'End of an era': Microsoft retires OG Internet Explorer after nearly ...", "text": "Some 27 years after the company first debuted the browser, tech giant Microsoft retired Internet Explorer on Wednesday.\n\nThose who try to open the familiar blue and white “e,” application, are now directed to the company's more recent browser Microsoft Edge.\n\nLast May, the company first announced the decision to retire the web browser for certain versions of Windows 10 on June 15, 2022.\n\nMicrosoft introduced Edge in 2015 and it has gradually phased out Internet Explorer.\n\n“Not only is Microsoft Edge a faster, more secure and more modern browsing experience than Internet Explorer, but it is also able to address a key concern: compatibility for older, legacy websites and applications,\" the company released in a statement.\n\nWhat's everyone talking about? Sign up for our trending newsletter to get the latest news of the day\n\nInternet Explorer had been the go-to browser on Windows PCs for years before rivals such as Mozilla's Firefox and Google's Chrome snagged users away.\n\n\"Users will still see the Internet Explorer icon on their devices (such as on the taskbar or in the Start menu) but if they click to open Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge will open instead with easy access to IE mode,\" Microsoft Edge Enterprise General Manager Sean Lyndersay released in a statement to USA TODAY.\n\nEventually, Lyndersay said, IE will be disabled permanently as part of a future Windows Update, at which point the IE icons on their devices will be removed.\n\nAs part of the redirection process, he said, users will have their data like favorites, passwords, and settings imported from IE in an effort to \"make the transition to Microsoft Edge both familiar and simple.\"\n\nIf a user wants to delete or manage their data after that, they can do so in Microsoft Edge from the Settings menu.\n\nBye-bye IE:Microsoft to say goodbye to IE, retiring its Internet Explorer web browser on Windows 10\n\nThe camera is how old?:When was the camera invented? Frenchman credited with invention of camera in 1816.\n\nThe browser retirement drew emotions across various social media platforms this week.\n\n\"End of an era,\" @CSureshVarma posted on Twitter Tuesday. \"Our Dear old Friend from the Good old Days of Childhood... In the Loving Memory of Our First Window to the Internet... 1995 to 2022.\"\n\n\"It's time to tell your nan to stop using it now, like seriously,\" @Simulator_Radio posted.\n\nIn 2020, Microsoft announced it was dropping support for Internet Explorer on its Microsoft 365 apps and services. The change took effect Aug. 17, 2021.\n\nAs of December 2021, Microsoft's Edge browser had a United States market share of 5.92 percent, statista.com reported in January.\n\nContributing: Brett Molina. Natalie Neysa Alund covers trending news for USA TODAY. Reach her at nalund@usatoday.com and follow her on Twitter @nataliealund.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/06/14"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/15/tech/internet-explorer-dead/index.html", "title": "Internet Explorer is officially retired after 27 years - CNN", "text": "(CNN Business) After nearly 27 years, an iconic Microsoft product is finally being put to rest.\n\nMicrosoft MSFT Internet Explorer 11 is now incompatible withproducts, as announced by the company in a blog post Wednesday. The move comes over a year after Microsoft first announced its intention to phase out IE from products.\n\nFor the next several months, users who click the IE icon will be redirected to Microsoft Edge, the company's newer answer to web browsing, in \"IE mode.\" IE mode allows users to access older, Internet Explorer-based websites and applications from Edge. Eventually, Microsoft plans on releasing a Windows Update that will remove all IE icons from devices.\n\n\"The web has evolved and so have browsers,\" Sean Lyndersay, General Manager of Microsoft Edge Enterprise, said in the blog post Wednesday. \"Incremental improvements to Internet Explorer couldn't match the general improvements to the web at large, so we started fresh.\"\n\nRead More", "authors": ["Jennifer Korn", "David Goldman", "Cnn Business"], "publish_date": "2022/06/15"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2015/03/17/microsoft-internet-explorer-project-spartan/24909091/", "title": "Microsoft sends Internet Explorer to tech's scrapheap", "text": "Jessica Guynn\n\nUSA TODAY\n\nSAN FRANCISCO — It's the end of the line for Internet Explorer.\n\nThe much maligned browser that battled Netscape to guide people around the World Wide Web was consigned to history this week by Microsoft, joining Palm Pilots, flip phones and Myspace as relics of a distant digital age.\n\nA staple of the Internet for nearly two decades, the Explorer brand will be replaced by a flashier, speedier browser codenamed Project Spartan that will run on phones, tablets and personal computers but is expressly made for a new era of mobile devices.\n\nJunking the Explorer brand is part of a new game plan at Microsoft. CEO Satya Nadella is determined to remake the aging technology giant as an innovator rather than a follower.\n\nEven when it debuted, Explorer was a me-too product. Browser pioneer Netscape Navigator was the world's first commercial Web browser. It ignited the Internet boom and had already transformed how people roamed the Web. Even the Explorer name was derived from Navigator.\n\n\"Explorer was never a cool brand,\" Silicon Valley futurist Paul Saffo says. \"It's like one step from AOL.\"\n\nNonetheless, bundled with its ubiquitous Windows operating system, Explorer crushed Netscape in the 1990s. The bundling triggered a Justice Department antitrust lawsuit and a settlement with Microsoft. Netscape sold itself to AOL in 1999. In 2007, AOL stopped supporting it.\n\nYet, despite Microsoft's considerable might, Explorer never managed to win the hearts and minds of consumers, who in recent years defected in droves to a new wave of sleeker browsers.\n\n\"In a way, the introduction of Explorer marked the beginning of the downfall of Windows and Microsoft. It was not an attempt to innovate. It was an attempt to stay relevant,\" Saffo says. \"In that era, Microsoft was a fast follower: Let someone else pioneer and then come into the market with muscle and take over. But they didn't succeed with the Internet.\"\n\nMICROSOFT'S WARNING SHOT\n\nNever one to throw in the towel, Microsoft is now ready to rumble. Cue up the browser wars version 2.0. This time it's all about mobile devices that are populating people's lives and consuming their time and attention.\n\nIn retiring the Explorer brand, Microsoft is looking to get its mojo back with consumers, especially those frustrated office workers who loved to hate Microsoft's sluggish browser.\n\nAnd, in distancing itself from a mainstay of desktop computers and laptops, Microsoft is also firing a warning shot that it plans to compete anew with Google's Chrome, Mozilla's Firefox and Apple's Safari browsers.\n\n\"At one point Internet Explorer commanded north of 80% share of the browser market, but with the explosion in mobility, that market share has dwindled to 30%,\" said S&P Capital analyst Angelo Zino. \"The platform isn't cutting it on mobile devices and that's where the focus is today.\"\n\nChris Capossela, Microsoft's head of marketing, says Microsoft is researching a new name for the Project Spartan browser, which will be released later this year with Windows 10.\n\nCan Microsoft regain ground it has ceded?\n\nIt's possible, says Zino, \"but it's going to be really difficult.\"", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2015/03/17"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2022/06/15/yellowstone-floods-fed-meeting-5-things-know-wednesday/7570966001/", "title": "Yellowstone floods, Fed meeting: 5 things to know Wednesday", "text": "Editors\n\nUSA TODAY\n\nYellowstone to remain closed amid record flooding as landscape has 'dramatically changed'\n\nYellowstone National Park officials assessed damage Tuesday as the park remained closed amid dangerous floods, mudslides and rockslides that have eroded roads, ripped apart bridges and forced evacuations this week. The water started to slowly recede Tuesday, but the record-level floods left all five entrances to the park closed at least through Wednesday, and they could remain closed for as long as a week, said park Superintendent Cam Sholly. The park has seen multiple road and bridge failures and power outages, causing the evacuations of more than 10,000 visitors. In days, heavy rain and rapid snowmelt caused a flood that may forever alter the human footprint on the park's terrain and the communities around it. The historic floodwaters pushed a popular fishing river off course – possibly permanently – and may force roadways to be rebuilt in new places. \"The landscape literally and figuratively has changed dramatically in the last 36 hours,\" said Bill Berg, a commissioner in nearby Park County.\n\nPrefer to listen? Check out the 5 Things podcast:\n\nWall Street on edge as Fed mulls stiffer rate hike\n\nInvestors will be listening closely Wednesday to learn if the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates more sharply than previously expected. The Fed closes its two-day meeting Wednesday in the wake of a selloff in stocks triggered Friday when May's Consumer Price Index report revealed that inflation had not yet peaked. That news sparked fears that the Fed could raise interest rates by more than the widely expected 50 basis points (0.50%). Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said last month the Fed wasn't entertaining a 75-basis-point rate increase, but the Wall Street Journal reported Monday that one was now on the table. Interest rate hikes can have a domino effect on the economy, pushing up rates for credit cards, home equity lines of credit, adjustable-rate mortgages and other loans.\n\nFDA meets to discuss vaccine for kids as young as 6 months\n\nA federal advisory panel will meet Wednesday to discuss two COVID-19 vaccines for children as young as 6 months. According to a detailed review by Food and Drug Administration staff, trial data from both Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna raised no new safety issues or concerns about the vaccines, which have been available for older children and adults. The panel will decide Wednesday whether to recommend Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech's vaccines for children as young as 6 months. Once authorized by the FDA and CDC, the Biden administration said it expects to have 5 million doses each of Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines as soon as June 21 at pharmacies, pediatricians' offices, libraries, children's museums, health centers and other outlets.\n\n'End of an era': Microsoft to shut down Internet Explorer\n\nSome 27 years after Microsoft first debuted Internet Explorer, the tech giant will retire the browser Wednesday. Those who try to open the application will be directed to the company's more recent browser Microsoft Edge. Last May, the company first announced the decision to retire the web browser for certain versions of Windows 10 on June 15, 2022. Microsoft introduced Edge in 2015 and it has gradually phased out Internet Explorer. In a statement on its website, Microsoft notes that Microsoft Edge has \"Internet Explorer mode ('IE mode') built in, so you can access those legacy Internet Explorer-based websites and applications straight from Microsoft Edge.\" Previously, Internet Explorer was the go-to browser on Windows PCs for years before rivals such as Mozilla's Firefox and Google's Chrome snagged users away.\n\nStanley Cup Final gets underway in Denver\n\nThe Stanley Cup Final begins Wednesday, when the Tampa Bay Lightning travel to Ball Arena in Denver to take on the Colorado Avalanche in Game 1 (8 p.m. ET, ABC).The Lightning, who are pursuing their third consecutive Stanley Cup, are coming off a 4-2 series win over the New York Rangers in the Eastern Conference Finals, punctuated by four victories in a row. The Avalanche will be playing for a title after sweeping the Edmonton Oilers in the Western Conference Finals. One of the major obstacles standing in the way of Colorado's championship hopes is the Tampa Bay's Andrei Vasilevskiy, who will likely be the toughest goalie the Avalanche have faced this postseason. Meanwhile, Tampa Bay will likely shift a significant amount of focus toward Colorado stars defenseman Cale Makar, a Norris Trophy finalist, and center Nathan MacKinnon.\n\nContributing: The Associated Press", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/06/15"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/2015/06/01/windows-10-release-date/28293201/", "title": "Windows 10 to arrive July 29", "text": "Edward C. Baig\n\nUSA TODAY\n\nNEW YORK — Windows 10 is coming July 29.\n\nThe new operating system is not only a big deal for Microsoft, but the entire PC industry whose momentum has long since been snatched by mobile. The software is coming to 190 countries. Windows is currently used by 1.5 billion people globally.\n\nThe company will encourage consumers to \"reserve\" their copy of the new operating system starting Monday to ensure they'll be able to install the software ahead of the folks who don't. The software is free during the first year if you're upgrading a new or existing Windows 7, or Windows 8.1 device; Microsoft hasn't specified pricing beyond that.\n\n\"I think Windows 10 represents us listening and understanding what real people need better than we have before ,\" says Joe Belfiore, Microsoft's corporate vice president for the operating systems group.\n\nOwners of PCs with Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 will receive pop-up notifications alerting them of Windows 10's impending arrival. Windows XP and older systems are not compatible with Windows 10.\n\nBelfiore says that if you don't reserve Windows 10 in advance, \"it'll depend how long the line is\" before determining when you'll get the software. It could take up to three weeks.\n\n\"One of things that we can do for people who reserve is pre-download some of the bits to their PC so that those people aren't blocked on the Internet pipe trying to deliver lots and lots of Windows bits starting on (July 29),\" Belfiore says.\n\nIn the past, upgrading a Windows computer to a newly-minted version of the operating system has been too often a messy experience.\n\nBelfiore is confident that the path to Windows 10 \"is going to be way, way, way better.\"\n\nOver the past six to nine months, Microsoft has been updating the installed base of Windows 7 and Windows 8 PCs — hundreds of millions of machines.\n\nAnd Microsoft has essentially been rehearsing for the upgrade with the more than 4 million people testing builds of Windows 10 as part of the Windows Insider program.\n\n\"I think people are ready,\" says Jeff Barney, the executive in charge of Toshiba's PC business in the Americas. \"They're sitting on hardware maybe three to four years plus (old). They're going to hear very good things about Windows 10 and how it is familiar and improved and incorporating things like voice, which they're used to in a smartphone. We think we'll get a good percentage of Windows 7 users to go out and buy new hardware.\"\n\nIs Windows 10 worth getting, either on an old or new computer? The promise is that PCs will boot up and run apps faster, be more secure, and, in the case of laptops, boast longer battery life.\n\nOn its 20th anniversary, the Start menu for launching apps has been dramatically improved. It gains \"live tiles\" and is fully customizable, yet it should feel more familiar.\n\nWindows 10 also unveils a snappy new Edge browser that pushes Internet Explorer into retirement. And Microsoft's virtual voice assistant Cortana is at your beck and call.\n\nOn newer hardware you'll also be able to exploit a Continuum feature to seamlessly transform from a mouse/keyboard-driven PC to a touch-oriented tablet or vice versa. On some systems, you'll be able to log in with your face, iris or fingerprint.\n\nThere's also a fresh version of Office, improved support for gamers and new built-in Photos, Maps, Music and other apps. Universal apps are meant to run across the entire Windows 10 ecosystem: PCs, tablets, phones, Xbox One.\n\nMaybe the biggest thing is Windows 10 should feel a lot less jarring and radical than Windows 8 did when it first appeared, a major reason why many consumers and businesses stuck with Windows 7.\n\n\"We know we need a more gentle entry curve,\" Belfiore says.\n\nEmail: ebaig@usatoday.com; Follow @edbaig on Twitter", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2015/06/01"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/03/17/evening-news-roundup-tuesday/24909249/", "title": "The Short List: Rep. Schock resigns; NFL wake-up call; another ...", "text": "Compiled by Alia E. Dastagir\n\nUSA TODAY\n\nRep. Schock is leaving his 'Downton'-inspired office amid scandal\n\nPardon the pun, but really, we're not totally Schocked. For weeks, there have been reports that Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Ill., made some questionable decisions about spending — on everything from airplane flights to his Downton Abbey-inspired office decor. After weeks of embarrassing revelation after embarrassing revelation, Schock said today he's resigning. (Some of those revelations, if you missed them: The Washington Post reported on his bold Downton decor in February; USA TODAY then raised questions about a prior remodel and his use of private aircraft for official travel. Politico, which first reported his resignation today, wrote on lavish campaign expenses and questionable reimbursements. The Chicago Sun-Times tracked improper payments for campaign events, including a Bears game). The next obvious question: Does this mean he's off the list of most eligible bachelors in politics?\n\nWhat else in #TheShortList:\n\n• Rookie NFL player retires over safety issues\n\n• Geomagnetic storm puts on a show\n\n• Another fraternity in trouble\n\n• Microsoft tries to beat Apple at its own game\n\nA promising rookie retires out of concern for head injuries. Is this a wake-up call for the NFL?\n\nSan Francisco 49ers linebacker Chris Borland is 24 and walking away from his dream job. After finishing an outstanding rookie season, Borland said he's retiring because he decided the risks of playing football outweigh the benefits. Concerned about the long-term effects of potential concussions and head injuries, Borland said, \"I just honestly want to do what's best for my health.\" The surprising move could be a tipping point for the NFL as it deals with the long-term impact of player health in a violent sport. The league is still negotiating the settlement of a lawsuit worth hundreds of millions of dollars brought by thousands of former players over concussion injuries. USA TODAY's Mark Whicker writes that \"an enlightened league would wonder if it should start listening to its players more and its broadcast 'partners' less.\" But USA TODAY's Chris Chase thinks Borland will be the exception, not the rule. \"As long as football exists,\" he writes, \"there will always be people willing to play. It's a monumental moment for Borland, but barely a blip for a league that has 1,000 Chris Borlands who would love a chance to don an NFL jersey.\"\n\nA severe solar storm is hitting the Earth right now\n\nA solar storm so severe it could light up skies as far south as the Mid-Atlantic states tonight already put on quite a show early this morning. The geomagnetic storm is producing gorgeous auroras over Minnesota, Wisconsin, Montana and other northern-tier states. It's the strongest storm so far in this solar cycle, which occurs about every 11 years, Spaceweather.com says. The electric power grid, and the power to homes and businesses, can be disrupted by solar storms like this, NOAA said, though there have been no reports yet today. This storm ranks as a G4 on the five-point scale. Share your pictures with us here or tweet @USATODAYWeather.\n\nShort on time? Listen to today's top stories in the audio player below:\n\nPenn State suspends frat for secret Facebook pages of naked women\n\n\n\nAnother scandal for another fraternity. Last week, it was Sigma Alpha Epsilon at the University of Oklahoma, which was booted off campus for a racist chant. This week, a Penn State frat has been suspended as police investigate allegations members used secret Facebook pages to post nude photos of sleeping, passed-out women. A former member of the university's chapter of Kappa Delta Rho tipped off the police, according to the State College Police Department's affidavit of probable cause. According to the affidavit, the pages included evidence of hazing, photos of unsuspecting women who were \"passed out and nude or in other sexual or embarrassing positions\" and drug sales that included marijuana, edibles, concentrates, ADD medication and some cocaine. Joseph Rosenberg, the fraternity's national executive director, said the organization will cooperate fully with law enforcement agencies. Once the investigation is complete, it will make a decision on the future of its Penn State chapter.\n\nMicrosoft outsmarts Apple Watch\n\n\n\nIt's March. The Apple Watch doesn't arrive until April. Microsoft saw an opportunity, so now it's ramping up production and distribution of its Band smartwatch, capitalizing on the popularity of the device before Apple has shipped a single watch. You can buy the Microsoft Band, a $200 fitness wearable that also functions as a streamlined smartwatch, at Best Buy, Amazon.com and Target. In other Microsoft news, the company officially announced today the end of Internet Explorer. The browser is being scrapped as Microsoft places its bets on its new and speedier flagship browser code-named Project Spartan. Are those angels we hear singing?\n\nStories you're clicking on today:\n\nTelevangelist asks his congregation for $65M to buy a jet\n\nPrince Harry to leave military service\n\n'Violent' passenger forces flight to return to Dulles\n\nAshley Judd slams Twitter users for misinterpreting kiss with Dick Vitale\n\n'Dancing with the Stars' starts with surprise\n\nExtra Bites\n\nDon't worry, he's not actually throwing a sheep. He's just playing a traditional game of Buzkashi in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Riders score points by throwing a stuffed sheepskin into a well. More photos from today in our Day in Pictures gallery.\n\nHave you seen it? Great Danes predict March Madness wins.\n\nDid AP mistake accused murderer Robert Durst for Limp Bizkit's Fred Durst? Yup.\n\n2,000 snow geese fell out of the sky after dropping dead in Idaho. The cause of death was likely avian cholera.\n\nFor a daily bit of fluff on your phone, add DISTRACTME on the YO app. We promise you'll have fun.\n\nWhat else is on our reading list:\n\nLatest on the Israeli election\n\nThe 10 hottest teams entering the NCAA tournament\n\nUber gives outside vendors ability to request rides\n\nWant The Short List in your inbox each day? Sign up here.\n\nThis is a compilation of stories from across USA TODAY.\n\nContributing: Paul Singer, Catalina Camia, Doyle Rice, Jessica Guynn, Matt Krantz, Cara Richardson, Emily Brown, USA TODAY; Michael Middlehurst-Schwartz, Mark Whicker, Chris Chase, USA TODAY Sports; Lauren Blum, Penn State University; Associated Press", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2015/03/17"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/2015/05/03/windows-7/26712331/", "title": "Windows 7 still a safe alternative to Windows 8", "text": "Rob Pegoraro\n\nSpecial for USA TODAY\n\nQ. My Windows 7 desktop died; is it wise to buy a new model with Win 7 if I can find one? I'd rather not have to relearn software after switching to Windows 8.\n\nA. Some two and a half years after Windows 8's arrival, Microsoft's earlier desktop operating system remains easy to find on new computers if you're flexible in your hardware choices.\n\nHP's site, for example, lists eight desktop configurations available with Windows 7 vs. 35 with Windows 8; among laptops, 68 versions come with Win 8 against 31 with its predecessor. Those numbers obscure how the top computer vendor in the USA offers at least one model in most of its product lines — Envy, Pavilion, EliteBook and so on — with either Microsoft release.\n\nAt Dell, ranked second in market-research firm IDC's latest data, a similar pattern prevails with laptops. Although you have far more choices with Windows 8 than 7 — 101 choices on the menu compared with 29 — choosing the older software still gives you choices among Dell's major product lines.\n\nWith Dell desktops, opting for Windows 7 will exclude that manufacturer's all-in-one designs.\n\nAt Lenovo, fourth in IDC's ranking after Apple, specifying Windows 7 on a laptop also requires compromises. Not only does its site list only 19 laptops with Win 7 vs. 100 with Win 8, you have to forgo more advanced models such as its Yoga and Flex series.\n\nThis selection does not represent a huge shift from what I found in late 2012, not long after Windows 8's debut.\n\nMicrosoft's support of Windows 7 has changed since then, but it's not as big of a deal as it might seem. Although that 2009-vintage operating system exited \"mainstream support\" Jan. 13, all that means in practice is that Microsoft's updates to Windows 7 will consist only of security fixes, not new features. Those security patches will keep coming until Jan. 14, 2020, the scheduled end of \"extended support\" for Win 7.\n\nThat leaves potential Windows 7 shoppers few reasons to worry, Directions on Microsoft analyst Wes Miller wrote in an email.\n\n\"They can buy a Windows 7 Professional PC today and receive security fixes for almost four and a half years,\" he said. \"I also don't expect vendors to drop support for Windows 7 anytime soon — it's extremely popular with consumers and business.\"\n\nMicrosoft's Internet Explorer will get left behind — the Redmond, Wash., firm is retiring that browser in favor of a new app called Microsoft Edge that will ship with the upcoming Windows 10. Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox can easily take IE's place. Since both still support Windows XP, you can expect Windows 7 to remain welcome at both browsers for years to come.\n\nDon't rule out upgrading to Windows 10 from 7 when that ships this year. It should look much more like Windows as you've known it, including a streamlined version of the traditional Start menu. It will be a free upgrade from Win 7 as well as Win 8.\n\nTip: 'Bubbles' can speed Bing image searches on your phone\n\nLast month, Microsoft made the image-search function of its Bing site a little more interesting on phone browsers. That search engine presents its suggestions on how to focus a query not as plain text links but as easy-to-tap \"bubbles\" that feature thumbnail previews of what results await.\n\nFor example, a search for \"Boeing 787\" yielded bubble suggestions for \"Cockpit,\" \"Interior,\" \"Engines\" and so on that each spotlighted the first image to be shown under each category.\n\nThis bubble concept lets you refine your own search terms. Each word in the search box appears in a bubble of a different color you can tap to see related search terms, or tap the \"x\" at its right to remove that word from your search.\n\nRob Pegoraro is a tech writer based out of Washington. To submit a tech question, email Rob at rob@robpegoraro.com. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/robpegoraro.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2015/05/03"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2021/05/21/5-things-podcast-cease-fire-gaza-trump-justice-dept-secretly-collected-phone-records/5198199001/", "title": "Can the cease-fire in Gaza hold? Plus, is remote work here to stay ...", "text": "Taylor Wilson\n\nUSA TODAY\n\nOn today's episode of 5 Things: White House correspondent Courtney Subramanian looks at what happens next in Gaza. Plus, journalists cry foul after the Trump Justice Department secretly collected phone records, we look at how the return to the office might go, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot faces controversy after she announced she will only grant one-on-one interviews to journalists of color and the Asian American community bands together for a TV special.\n\nHit play on the podcast player above and read along with the transcript below.\n\nTaylor Wilson:\n\nGood morning, I'm Taylor Wilson and this is Five Things you need to know, Friday the 21st of May, 2021. Today a ceasefire to violence in Israel and Gaza, plus the future of work from home and more.\n\nTaylor Wilson:\n\nHere are some of the top headlines:\n\nA video has gone viral of an 11-year-old Florida girl who fought off a would-be kidnapper at her bus stop this week. According to her mom Alyssa Bonel, also put slime on the attacker, and blue dye from the slime was part of the evidence that led police to 30-year-old Jarred Paulstanga, who was charged in the case this week. When law enforcement found the suspect, he had blue dye on his arms. The world's largest iceberg has broken off from Antarctica according to the European Space Agency. The block of ice is more than three times larger than Los Angeles. It's natural for icebergs to break off from the edge of glaciers, and will not lead to a rise in sea levels, because this iceberg was already part of a floating ice shelf. But scientists worry the rate it's happening might not be natural and could be influenced by humans. And it'll soon be time to say goodbye to Internet Explorer. Microsoft will retire the web browser from some versions of Windows 10 beginning in June of next year. It will also no longer provide support for the browser.\n\nTaylor Wilson:\n\nIsrael and Hamas have agreed to a ceasefire. The move brokered by Egyptian negotiators, brings an end to 11 days of deadly violence. Israel killed at least 230 Palestinians, including 65 children. Hamas militants killed 12 people in Israel, including two children. Fighting broke out on May 10th, when Hamas militants fired long range rockets at Jerusalem in response to aggressive Israeli police tactics at Al Aqsa Mosque during Ramadan, and the threatened removal of dozens of Palestinian families from their homes in East Jerusalem. Hamas and other militant groups fired some 4,000 rockets into Israel during recent fighting, and Israel fired hundreds of air strikes mostly on Gaza. Israel said it targeted the Hamas military structure but many of the attacks killed innocent children and others inside private family homes.\n\nThe attacks also damaged at least 18 hospitals in Gaza, and the territories only COVID-19 testing facility, as the virus continues to spread in the area. Medical supplies, fuel, water, and other resources are running dangerously low in the territory, that's already been living with a blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt. And schools have also been destroyed. Celebrations marking the ceasefire rang out in Gaza City early Friday.\n\nTaylor Wilson:\n\nPresident Joe Biden had hesitated to nudge Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, toward a ceasefire until this week, when he pushed for de-escalation. Biden called the cease-fire Thursday, an opportunity.\n\nJoe Biden:\n\nThe United States fully supports Israel's right to defend itself against indiscriminate rocket attacks from Hamas, and other Gaza-based terrorist groups that have taken the lives of innocent civilians in Israel. These hostilities have resulted in the tragic deaths of so many civilians, including children, and I send my sincere condolences to all the families, Israeli and Palestinian, who have lost loved ones, and my hope for a full recovery for the wounded. The United States is committed to working with the United Nations, and we remain committed to working with the United Nations and other international stakeholders to provide rapid humanitarian assistance, and to marshal international support for the people of Gaza and the Gazan reconstruction efforts.\n\nJoe Biden:\n\nWe will do this in full partnership of the Palestinian Authority, not Hamas, the authority, in a manner that does not permit Hamas to simply restock its military arsenal. I believe the Palestinians and Israelis, equally deserve to live safely and securely, and to enjoy equal measures of freedom, prosperity and democracy. My administration will continue our quiet relentless diplomacy toward that end. I believe we have a genuine opportunity to make progress, and I've committed to working for it. I want to thank you all, and may God bless you all and pray that this continues.\n\nTaylor Wilson:\n\nWhite House correspondent Courtney Subramanian has more on the ceasefire, and the Biden administration's role in the conflict going forward.\n\nCourtney Subramanian:\n\nThe whole region is basically a tinderbox at this point. Hostilities remain very high between Israel and Hamas. Even as the ceasefire was confirmed, Israel's defense forces sent sirens alerting Israel residents of Hamas rocket fire, were sounding in the south of the country. So I think it's important to keep in mind, this is considered the deadliest clashes since the 2014 war between Israel and Hamas, and it comes at a point when the Palestinian authorities standing has been severely weakened. Some experts I spoke to see this as a power vacuum and Hamas trying to sort of seize this as a power grab. It's also not limited to Gaza, and I think that's an important point to remember here, the violence is really multidimensional.\n\nCourtney Subramanian:\n\nWe've seen communal violence unfold within Israel, which really raised alarm within the Arab world. So there's a lot of complexity here on just how turbulent the situation is, and how hostile the situation is. So I would describe these cease-fires as very fragile at this point.\n\nCourtney Subramanian:\n\nPresident Biden has gone out of his way to avoid publicly commenting too much on the issue, despite facing a lot of pressure from Democrats to speak out on the matter, as the death toll continued to rise this week. Earlier this week we saw that sort of boil to the surface, when he went to Michigan and Democratic Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, who is a Palestinian American, confronted him on the tarmac and urged him to speak out against the Israeli air strikes. So there's been a lot of pressure on him to step into the Middle East conflict, the President is known for his support for Israel, but is a skeptic of Netanyahu. And he's gone out of his way to get tangled up in the Middle East conflict, especially as he looks to refocus his foreign policy on combating China.\n\nCourtney Subramanian:\n\nSo there was a little bit of an element that time was running out and Israel needed to wind down. I spoke to sources earlier this week who said they were hopeful that this was going to be the case, and they were looking sort of to the end of the week as the possibility of when they could do this. As for what he said, he did not veer from the U.S. line that, the United States supports Israel and its right to defend itself against rocket attacks from Hamas and other militants in the Gaza Strip. But he did offer condolences for Palestinian lives lost, and vowed to send humanitarian aid to the region, saying he would work with the Palestinian authority and not Hamas.\n\nCourtney Subramanian:\n\nThe question I have is, it's very unclear on how he plans to get that aid into Gaza, which remains under control of Hamas and not the Palestinian authority. He also said he sees this as a genuine opportunity to build lasting peace between Israelis and the Palestinians, and that his administration would continue what they've described as quiet relentless diplomacy toward that goal. But the latest spate of violence really dims any hope of peace talks in the near future. From my own reporting, I've spoken to sources who really emphasize that there is a lot of rebuilding here to do. The Trump Administration really issued full-throated support of Israel, and severed all diplomatic channels with the Palestinians, and the Biden administration has a lot of rebuilding there to do with the Palestinian Authority, and of course has to walk this diplomatic tightrope and strike the right balance, while also continuing to pursue Biden's agenda of combating China.\n\nSo this idea that they're going to tackle peace talks, is less clear of how that's going to take shape, and I think there are still a lot of questions on the table of what the path forward looks like.\n\nTaylor Wilson:\n\nFor all the latest from Gaza and Israel, stay with the world section on usatoday.com.\n\nTaylor Wilson:\n\nThe Justice Department under former President Donald Trump secretly obtained 2017 phone and email records for a CNN reporter. CNN said Thursday that Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr was informed last week that prosecutors had obtained two months of the records. It's the latest example of the administration's attempt to use journalist communications to pursue government leak investigations. Earlier this month, the Washington Post reported that the Justice Department obtained 2017 phone records for three of its journalists, who covered the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election.\n\nTaylor Wilson:\n\nCNN said that Justice did not say why it went after Barbara Starr's communications, though the network said the correspondent was involved in reporting on North Korea and stories involving Syria and Afghanistan. CNN President Jeff Zucker condemned the Justice's actions. He added that the organization wants an immediate meeting with the Justice Department for an explanation. Justice spokesperson Anthony Coley said that Attorney General Merrick Garland, who was appointed under President Joe Biden, is strongly committed to a free and independent press. But those who fight for press freedoms are concerned. Bruce Brown, Executive Director of the Reporter's Committee For Freedom Of The Press, said, \"That a journalist from another news organization had communications records seized by the Trump Justice Department, suggests that the last administration's efforts to intrude into reporter's source relationships and chill news gathering, is more sweeping than we originally thought.\"\n\nTaylor Wilson:\n\nAlmost half the country is vaccinated. The CDC says vaccinated people can largely ditch their masks, and case and death numbers continue to fall. The COVID-19 pandemic is slowing down in the United States, so what does that mean for the future of work? Many Americans went from office commutes to working from home over the past 15 months, now companies are trying to decide how and when to bring workers back to the office, if at all. Senior video editor, Robert Lindemann, has more in this clip from Just The Faqs.\n\nRobert Lindemann:\n\nIn the 1980s less than 1% of Americans primarily worked from home. In 2017, 3% did. Today that number is closer to 62%, and by many predictions, it's here to stay. Studies show people in some ways are actually working better at home. In a recent survey of about 3,000 global workers, respondents said that they were distracted 78 minutes a day at the office, but just 43 minutes at home. Working from home is cheaper too. Full-time remote workers typically save around $4,000 a year on everything from commuting, to lunch, to dry cleaning. Businesses can save an estimated $11,000 a year per employee. That comes from savings in areas such as real estate, electricity and productivity. But there's a big cost, loneliness, which has shown links to poor job performance.\n\nRobert Lindemann:\n\nWorking from home dates as far back as the Medieval times, when workers set up craft and trade shops in their homes. It wasn't until the industrial revolution of the late 1700s, that workers moved into factories. Eventually, the first commercial workspaces came to be thanks to the advent of items like the telephone, telegraph, electricity and public transportation. Today's work-from-home models bring up new questions like, does the talent pool need to be local, and is business travel necessary anymore?\n\nTaylor Wilson:\n\nFor more Just The Faqs videos, head to USA Today's YouTube channel, or you can search Just The Faqs on usatoday.com.\n\nTaylor Wilson:\n\nChicago mayor Lori Lightfoot announced this week that she will only grant one-on-one interviews to journalists of color. Lightfoot, who is Black, tweeted on Wednesday, \"I ran to break up the status quo that was failing so many. That isn't just in City Hall. It's a shame that in 2021 the City Hall Press Corp is overwhelmingly white in a city where more than half of the city identifies as Black, Latino, AAPI, or Native American.\" The move is not completely unprecedented, but it's facing strong backlash from the city's press corp and members of the media nationwide. Chicago Tribune reporter Gregory Pratt is Latino and had a recent interview request granted. But Pratt said he asked the Mayor's Office to lift its condition on others, and they said no, leading to the Tribune canceling the interview.\n\nTaylor Wilson:\n\nPratt tweeted, \"Politicians don't get to choose who covers them.\" But others, including The Tribe, a Chicago based digital Black-oriented media platform, found anger over the Mayor's decision offensive. Tribe tweeted Wednesday, \"With this outrage, you all are implying that Black and brown journalists aren't capable of asking the hard questions.\" Lightfoot's time in office since taking over in 2019, has been marked by racial inequality issues, including city violence, a teacher strike, the pandemic and policing.\n\nTaylor Wilson:\n\nIn her letter announcing the press decision, Lightfoot recalled being on the campaign trail and being stuck by what she called overwhelming whiteness and maleness of Chicago media outlets, and specifically the City Hall Press Corp. Journalism has long struggled with a lack of racial diversity. More than 75% of newsroom employees are white, according to a 2018 Pew Research Center analysis. To counter that, some public officials have been more intentional about giving interviews to journalists of color. That includes Vice President Kamala Harris, who gave her first sit-down interview to the 19th, an outlet aimed at elevating women's voices, including those of color.\n\nTaylor Wilson:\n\nThe Asian American community is banding together for a TV special Friday night. The special aims to show unity with ongoing violence and racism against people of Asian descent around the country, and it comes during Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Actor Ken Jeong will host, and journalist Lisa Ling along with actor Daniel Dae Kim will make appearances. Plus performers of Asian descent, including R&B Singer Jhene Aiko, and Rapper Saweetie will take the stage. See Us Unite For Change, the Asian American foundation in service of the AAPI community, airs at 8:00 PM Eastern and Pacific on several channels, that includes Comedy Central and Facebook Watch.\n\nTaylor Wilson:\n\nAnd, you can find Five Things wherever you get your podcasts, including on Apple. There you can drop us five stars if you have a second. Thanks as always to Shannon Green and Claire Thornton for their work on the show. Five Things is part of the USA TODAY Network.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2021/05/21"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/08/tech/amazon-union-elections-objections/index.html", "title": "Amazon files its appeal of historic union vote at New York City ...", "text": "(CNN Business) One week after Amazon workers at a New York City warehouse made history by voting to form a union, the tech giant is calling for a do-over election in filing Friday that lays out 25 objections that form the basis of its appeal.\n\nAmazon AMZN In its filing to the National Labor Relations Board,alleges how the independent federal agency's regional office which oversaw the election at its Staten Island facility, known as JFK8, \"unfairly and inappropriately facilitated the [Amazon Labor Union's] victory.\"\n\nIt claims the agency used an \"artificially reduced number\" of employees in the voting unit to calculate whether ALU had garnered enough support to even hold an election. It also claims the agency delayed investigating what it calls \"frivolous\" unfair labor practice charges that it says were \"exploited\" by the union. And it alleges that the agency failed to properly staff the polls during the election, which ultimately \"produced chaos and hours-long lines to vote on the first polling day, discouraging other employees from voting.\"\n\nAmazon also outlines alleged misconduct on the part of ALU, the grassroots labor organization started by current and former employees of the facility. Among its claims about the ALU, it says the union unlawfully intimidated employees and \"threatened violence against its detractors.\"\n\nAmazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said in a statement Friday: \"Based on the evidence we've seen so far, as set out in our objections, we believe that the actions of the NLRB and the ALU improperly suppressed and influenced the vote, and we think the election should be conducted again so that a fair and broadly representative vote can be had.\"", "authors": ["Sara Ashley O'Brien", "Cnn Business"], "publish_date": "2022/04/08"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/02/tech/3g-networks-shutting-down/index.html", "title": "3G networks are shutting down soon. A scramble to get users to ...", "text": "(CNN Business) Aaron Hommell bought his 3G iPhone 5 in 2014 and kept it for more than seven years, holding onto it even after the screen cracked and a long list of faster models hit the market. Then a year ago, AT&T began sending him emails that the company would be shutting down its 3G network and moving its subscribers to its higher-speed 4G and 5G networks.\n\n\"I kept putting off [upgrading] since it was not my primary phone,\" said Hommell, who used the iPhone as a work device for his Gulfport, Mississippi, law firm. \"Eventually, a letter came saying they would be sending me a phone in a few weeks. I just waited and boom, there it is on my doorstep.\"\n\nHommell, who was sent a new iPhone XR fromin October, is among the small segment of 3G holdouts who've received a free 4G phone from AT&T, which owns CNN's parent company, ahead of its 3G network shutting down later this month.\n\n\"For nearly two years, we have been communicating with consumers via direct mail, emails and text messages and we will continue to do so as we help them navigate this transition,\" AT&T told CNN Business in a statement. \"This includes providing free replacement phones to a substantial majority of customers.\" AT&T said the replacement devices tend to be 4G versions of smartphones that run on the same operating system the users had previously been using.\n\nThe 3G network launched in 2002 and became the driving force behind the early App Store boom around the end of that decade that followed the release of the first iPhone. Then the wireless companies moved on to 4G and more recently 5G networks. Now the three major carriers are moving to shutter 3G technology, with AT&T taking the step on February 22,doing so in the third quarter, andby the end of the year. As the technology officially becomes obsolete, a scramble is underway to help consumers avoid a disruption.\n\nThe shift will impact people still using 3G Kindles, 3G flip phones, the iPhone 5 and older models, various Android phones and some wearable devices. It will also affect home alarm systems and medical devices such as fall detectors. Some in-car crash notification and roadside assistance systems like OnStar will also need to be updated or replaced.\n\nGeneral Motors, for example, which owns OnStar, started pushing over-the-air updates in October to vehicles released as far back as 2015, including models from Chevrolet, Buick and Cadillac, that may be impacted by the transition. Some alarm companies are also urging customers to schedule appointments for technicians to fully replace their systems.\n\nEven with these efforts, there's a chance some customers (and devices) get left behind.\n\n\"There is always a risk of people losing service or devices being disconnected from the network,\" said Dimitris Mavrakis, senior director at market research firm ABI Research. \"Mobile operators make significant attempts to minimize this, but there will always be devices that are left out.\"\n\nWho's at risk of losing service?\n\nOnly a small portion of wireless customers are still using 3G networks. Verizon said in a blog post that 99% of its customers have already upgraded to 4G LTE or 5G, and AT&T said less than 1% of its mobile data traffic runs on 3G networks. T-Mobile did not respond to a request for comment about its 3G userbase.\n\nAccording to Roger Entner, analyst and founder of Recon Analytics, these combined estimates equate to about 3 million people. He suspects the holdouts \"almost never use [their 3G device] and hence don't get caught by the alerts when they make or receive a call.\"\n\nThose using a 3G phone have likely gotten texts, emails and physical mail from their wireless carriers over the past year urging them to upgrade. (If you're not sure which network your phone is on, open Settings, tap Network and Internet, and then select Mobile Network on Android devices. On iOS, choose Settings, Cellular and then pick Cellular Data Options.)\n\nDetermining whether other household devices run on 3G may be a bit more complicated, however.\n\n\"These connected devices are at a greater risk of being disconnected from the network but individual vendors do spend time to alert their users that their 3G systems will be decommissioned shortly,\" Mavrakis said.\n\nSome companies, such as My Alarm Center, a home security systems business, are warning customers certain systems will need to be replaced by a technician to avoid potential disruptions. \"Even if your alarm appears to function, it will no longer communicate with our central service station to notify us that emergency services are needed,\" the company states on its website.\n\nFor mobile devices, however, there are some workarounds for people who don't want to get rid of their 3G devices all together. In theory, it will be possible to access a web browser via Wi-Fi or make calls over wireless on a 3G phone if the user has an app enabling voice-over-internet protocol, such as Facebook Messenger. Similarly, people with a 3G e-reader will still be able to download new books on the device via Wi-Fi.\n\nMobile carriers are mostly not upcharging their customers to switch from 3G to 4G plans, likely to keep them from wandering off their data plans.\n\nAT&T said \"an extremely small segment\" might have to change to a plan that results in a change in their rate. Sprint said anyone with a 3G device will be able to pay the same or less for 4G or 5G service from T-Mobile and can upgrade to a new device, including some 5G phones, at no cost. Verizon said customers are \"strongly encouraged\" to upgrade now and that it is \"offering aggressive promotions.\" (Verizon hasn't said if it will be mailing users replacement devices as part of a last-ditch effort before its shutoff date.)\n\nWill 4G be the next to go?\n\nThis is not the first time a network has been phased out nor will it be the last. The effort to shut down 3G is primarily to re-use the spectrum for 4G and 5G, which are newer standards, better technologies and more efficient than 3G. The same thing happened with 2G, which AT&T and Verizon shut down around the end of 2017; T-Mobile plans to shut its 2G network in December.\n\nLast month, AT&T and Verizon turned on C-band 5G networks , an important set of higher radio frequencies that will supercharge the internet. The change will allow users to, for example, stream a Netflix movie in 4K resolution or download a movie in seconds. (Verizon said its C-band speeds reach nearly 1 gigabyte per second, about 10 times as fast as 4G LTE.\n\nAs 5G gains traction, and possibly 6G after that, 4G may be the next to get phased out.\n\nUber UBER Netflix NFLX Phones have arguably maxed out what's possible with 4G at this point. The technology paved the way for on-demand apps such as, mobile video consumption onand FaceTime, real-time rerouting via Google Maps, and social sharing on Instagram and Snapchat. But 5G could offer a doorway into what's next — such as powering autonomous vehicles or enabling robotic surgeries — thanks to the ability to handle an uptick in traffic and bandwidth with no lag times.\n\nAs for whether another new smartphone might one day magically appear on his doorstep to replace the 4G iPhone he just received, Hommell said, \"We can all hope for that.\"", "authors": ["Samantha Murphy Kelly", "Cnn Business"], "publish_date": "2022/02/02"}]}
+{"question_id": "20220617_14", "search_time": "2022/06/17/16:35", "search_result": [{"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/2022/06/14/kim-kardashian-damaged-marilyn-monroe-dress-met-gala/7630101001/", "title": "Kim Kardashian accused of damaging historic Marilyn Monroe dress ...", "text": "Kim Kardashian appears to have permanently damaged a historic Marilyn Monroe dress after wearing it to the 2022 Met Gala, an expert closely familiar with the dress tells USA TODAY.\n\nChadMichael Morrisette, a visual artist who curates museum and costume exhibits, says he observed irreparable damage to the dress when he saw it on display Sunday at Ripley's Believe It or Not! on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles. Morrissette says he previously handled the dress in 2016 when he displayed it for Julien’s Auctions, where Ripley's purchased it for $4.8 million.\n\nAs a result of Kardashian wearing the dress up the Met Gala steps, Morrisette says the garment now has a damaged zipper, shredded fabric by its hooks, stress on its shoulder straps and is missing beads and sequins.\n\nMorrisette took photos of the dress Sunday, which he shared with Monroe memorabilia collector Scott Fortner, who reposted them on Instagram to compare how the dress looked before Kardashian wore it.\n\nUSA TODAY has reached out to representatives for Kardashian and Ripley's for comment.\n\nThe skin-tight, sparkling nude dress became part of American history after Monroe wore it while singing \"Happy Birthday\" to President John F. Kennedy in 1962.\n\n\"Marilyn wore it one night, and it was fit to her body. It was like skin on her body,\" says Morrisette.\n\nUpdate:Kim Kardashian left historic Marilyn Monroe dress in 'same condition it started in,' Ripley's says\n\nSixty years later, Kardashian worked with Ripley's to wear it to the Met Gala. According to Vogue, she only wore the dress for a matter of minutes before changing into a replica so as not to damage the original.\n\n“I’m extremely respectful to the dress and what it means to American history. I would never want to sit in it or eat in it or have any risk of any damage to it, and I won’t be wearing the kind of body makeup I usually do,” Kardashian told Vogue at the time. “Everything had to be specifically timed, and I had to practice walking up the stairs.”\n\nIn May, Ripley's shared on Instagram that \"great care was taken to preserve this piece of pop culture history,\" adding the \"garment's condition was top priority.\"\n\nKim Kardashian stunned in Marilyn Monroe's dress at the Met Gala. But at what cost?\n\nBut Morrisette says it's clear to any textile expert the dress should not have been worn at all.\n\n\"When you're dealing with 60-year-old material and fabric and thread and sequins... everything you do damages it. Every time you display it damages it,\" he says. \"When someone has the audacity to put it on and walk in it up the stairs, you're so ignorant to the history of that piece of fabric that it makes me so angry.\"\n\nA devoted fan of Monroe who has displayed multiple of her iconic dresses, Morrisette says he became emotional upon seeing the \"Happy Birthday\" dress in its current state.\n\n\"My heart is broken. I literally left Ripley's trying not to cry at what I saw,\" he says. \"I can't believe Marilyn's dress is destroyed.\"\n\n\"This is the dress we have to look at now for the rest of our history,\" he adds. \"You literally ruined the most expensive dress in the world, Kim.\"\n\nMarilyn Monroe dresses, Captain America shield, Thor's hammer, more memorabilia going to auction", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/06/14"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/2022/06/16/ripleys-responds-marilyn-monroe-dress-kim-kardashian-damage-claims/7650214001/", "title": "Kim Kardashian did not damage Marilyn Monroe dress, Ripley's says", "text": "After lending Kim Kardashian a dress from Marilyn Monroe for this year’s Met Gala, Ripley’s Believe It or Not! is responding to claims that the reality TV star allegedly damaged the iconic garment.\n\nThe entertainment franchise, known for its archive of pop culture memorabilia, said in a press release Thursday that Kardashian “did not, in any way, damage the garment in the short amount of time it was worn at the Met Gala.”\n\n“From the bottom of the Met steps, where Kim got into the dress, to the top where it was returned, the dress was in the same condition it started in,” said Amanda Joiner, Ripley’s VP of Publishing and Online Marketing. Joiner was “continuously with the dress the day of the Gala and during transport from Orlando to New York.”\n\nThe skin-tight, sparkling nude dress became a part of American history after Monroe wore it while singing \"Happy Birthday\" to President John F. Kennedy in 1962.\n\n'Literally ruined':Kim Kardashian accused of damaging historic Marilyn Monroe dress at Met Gala\n\nAllegations that Kardashian \"literally ruined\" the dress surfaced when ChadMichael Morrisette, a visual artist who curates museum and costume exhibits, said he observed irreparable damage to the dress firsthand.\n\n\"This is the dress we have to look at now for the rest of our history,\" Morrisette told USA TODAY Wednesday after he saw it on display Sunday at Ripley's Believe It or Not! on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles. Morrisette said he previously handled the dress in 2016 when he displayed it for Julien’s Auctions, where Ripley's purchased it for $4.8 million.\n\nClapping back:Kim Kardashian defends Met Gala weight loss after critics talk her 'concerning' technique\n\nMorrisette took photos of the dress Sunday, which he shared with Monroe memorabilia collector Scott Fortner, who reposted them on Instagram to compare how the dress looked before Kardashian wore it.\n\n\"When you're dealing with 60-year-old material and fabric and thread and sequins... everything you do damages it. Every time you display it damages it,\" Morrisette said. \"When someone has the audacity to put it on and walk in it up the stairs, you're so ignorant to the history of that piece of fabric that it makes me so angry.\"\n\nMorrisette's photos, alongside pre-Met Gala images of the dress, lit up social media amid criticism at the time of the gala that Kardashian should not have been allowed to don the delicate and historically notable dress. It was made of a flammable fabric that is no longer on the market.\n\nRipley’s said while it is not “the first owner of this dress,” a 2017 report on the condition of Monroe’s dress indicated the garment already had damage, including “pulled and worn” seams and “puckering at the back by the hooks and eyes.”\n\nThe dress adorned with more than 2,500 crystals was custom made for Monroe. It was based on a sketch by the famed designer Bob Mackie, working for the costumer Jean Louis at the time.\n\nKim and Pete Davidson's courtship:He missed her 'SNL' party; she texted first\n\nCover girls:Kim Kardashian, 74-year-old Maye Musk cover 2022 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue\n\nAccording to Vogue, Kardashian only wore the dress for a matter of minutes before changing into a replica so as not to damage the original.\n\n“I’m extremely respectful to the dress and what it means to American history. I would never want to sit in it or eat in it or have any risk of any damage to it, and I won’t be wearing the kind of body makeup I usually do,” Kardashian told Vogue at the time. “Everything had to be specifically timed, and I had to practice walking up the stairs.”\n\nRipley’s said Thursday it will continue to display the dress in its current state at Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Hollywood through the fall.\n\n“Our mission is to both entertain and educate visitors and fans, and sparking conversations like the discourse around Marilyn Monroe’s dress does just that,” the release states. “No matter which side of the debate you are on, the historical importance of the dress has not been negated, but rather highlighted. (An) entirely new group of young people have now been introduced to the legacy of Marilyn Monroe.”\n\nKardashians-Jenners do Met Gala 2022:Kim sparkles with Pete Davidson, Kylie honors Virgil Abloh\n\nMet Gala 2022 best dressed:See Kim Kardashian as Marilyn Monroe, Blake Lively's NYC nod, more stars\n\nContributing: Charles Trepany, USA TODAY; Leanne Italie, The Associated Press", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/06/16"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2022/06/16/blonde-movie-ana-de-armas-marilyn-monroe-trailer/7645782001/", "title": "'Blonde': Ana de Armas as Marilyn Monroe in first movie teaser", "text": "Natural brunette Ana de Armas is stepping into the shoes of one of Hollywood's most infamous blondes: Marilyn Monroe.\n\nOn Thursday, Netflix released the first photos and a teaser of the 34-year-old actress as Monroe in the upcoming movie \"Blonde.\"\n\nThe teaser begins with an upset Monroe crying in a dressing room before she gathers herself and flashes the movie star's iconic smile.\n\nIt also shows de Armas recreating the late actress's pose holding down her white dress in the famous subway scene in 1955's \"The Seven Year Itch,\" Monroe getting crowded by paparazzi and other recognizable moments from her career.\n\n'Literally ruined':Kim Kardashian accused of damaging historic Marilyn Monroe dress at Met Gala\n\n\"Blonde,\" an NC-17 film coming to Netflix on Sept. 23, is based on Joyce Carol Oates' bestselling novel.\n\nNetflix writes in the synopsis: \"Blonde boldly reimagines the complicated life of icon Marilyn Monroe. Blurring the lines of fact and fiction, the film artfully explores the tension between her public and private life.\"\n\nThe film will also explore Monroe's life before fame as Norma Jeane, her rise to becoming one of Hollywood's biggest stars and romantic relationships along the way.\n\nIn an interview with Netflix Queue on Wednesday, de Armas said director Andrew Dominik planned to tell Monroe's story \"through her lens.\"\n\nKim Kardashian stunned:in Marilyn Monroe's dress at the Met Gala. But at what cost?\n\n\"He wanted the world to experience what it actually felt like to not only be Marilyn, but also Norma Jeane,\" she explained. \"I found that to be the most daring, unapologetic, and feminist take on her story that I had ever seen.”\n\nIn preparation, the actress says she \"read Joyce’s novel, studied hundreds of photographs, videos, audio recordings, films — anything I could get my hands on.\"\n\nAndy Warhol portrait goes for auction:Iconic Marilyn Monroe portrait sold for $195 million\n\n\"Every scene is inspired by an existing photograph. We’d pore over every detail in the photo and debate what was happening in it,\" de Armas shared. \"The first question was always, ‘What was Norma Jeane feeling here?’ We wanted to tell the human side of her story. Fame is what made Marilyn the most visible person in the world, but it also made Norma the most invisible.\"\n\nDominik added that because of Monroe's trauma, she created a \"split between a public self and a private self\" which made matters worse when she was in the public eye.\n\n\"The film’s very much concerned with the relationship with herself and with this other persona, Marilyn, which is both her armor and the thing that is threatening to consume her,\" he said.\n\nMet Gala 2022 best dressed:See Kim Kardashian as Marilyn Monroe, Blake Lively's NYC nod, more stars\n\nMonroe's life and legacy has gained renewed interest after Kim Kardashian wore a historic Monroe dress to the 2022 Met Gala in May.\n\nAn expert closely familiar with the dress told USA TODAY Wednesday, Kardashian appeared to permanently damage the skin-tight, sparkling nude dress Monroe wore while singing \"Happy Birthday\" to President John F. Kennedy in 1962, designed by Bob Mackie.\n\nChadMichael Morrissette, a visual artist who curates museum and costume exhibits, says he observed irreparable damage to the dress when he saw it on display Sunday at Ripley's Believe It or Not! on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles. Morrissette says he previously handled the dress in 2016 when he displayed it for Julien’s Auctions, where Ripley's purchased it for $4.8 million.\n\nAs a result of Kardashian wearing the dress up the Met Gala steps, Morrissette says the garment now has a damaged zipper, shredded fabric by its hooks, stress on its shoulder straps and is missing beads and sequins.\n\nMemorabilia going to auction:Marilyn Monroe dresses, Captain America shield, Thor's hammer, more up to buy\n\nMorrissette took photos of the dress Sunday, which he shared with Monroe memorabilia collector Scott Fortner, who reposted them on Instagram to compare how the dress looked before Kardashian wore it.\n\nUSA TODAY has reached out to representatives for Kardashian and Ripley's for comment.\n\n\"Marilyn wore it one night, and it was fit to her body. It was like skin on her body,\" says Morrissette.\n\nSixty years later, Kardashian worked with Ripley's to wear it to the Met Gala. According to Vogue, she only wore the dress for a matter of minutes before changing into a replica so as not to damage the original.\n\nKim Kardashian defends Met Gala weight loss:Critics describe her technique as 'concerning'\n\n“I’m extremely respectful to the dress and what it means to American history. I would never want to sit in it or eat in it or have any risk of any damage to it, and I won’t be wearing the kind of body makeup I usually do,” Kardashian told Vogue at the time. “Everything had to be specifically timed, and I had to practice walking up the stairs.”\n\nHowever, Morrissette says it's clear to any textile expert the dress should not have been worn at all.\n\n\"When you're dealing with 60-year-old material and fabric and thread and sequins… everything you do damages it. Every time you display it damages it,\" he says. \"When someone has the audacity to put it on and walk in it up the stairs, you're so ignorant to the history of that piece of fabric that it makes me so angry.\"\n\nContributing: Charles Trepany", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/06/16"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/10/opinions/marilyn-monroe-kim-kardashian-met-gala-dress-gates/index.html", "title": "Opinion: Kim Kardashian gives us a glimpse of how hard it was to be ...", "text": "Racquel Gates ( @RacquelGates ) is an associate professor of film and media studies at Columbia University. She is the author of \" Double Negative: The Black Image and Popular Culture .\" The views expressed here are her own. Read more opinion on CNN.\n\n(CNN) \"Do you want to see me become her?\"\n\nI can imagine Kim Kardashian uttering this as she slipped on Marilyn Monroe's custom-made flesh-toned Jean Louis and Bob Mackie gown, the one that Monroe wore in 1962 when she breathily sang \"Happy Birthday\" to President John F. Kennedy at Madison Square Garden.\n\nIndeed, the details of Kardashian's efforts to transform her body into one that fit the dress -- the 16-pound weight loss in under a month and the 14-hour bleaching process to approximate Monroe's white blonde hair -- suggests Kardashian's desire to embody, rather than pay homage to, Monroe.\n\nOf course, the line \"do you want to see me become her?\" belongs not to Kardashian but to Monroe herself. As Amy Greene -- wife of Monroe photographer and business partner, Milton Greene -- explained , while walking down a New York City street one day, Monroe asked Greene if she'd like to witness the transformation from Marilyn Monroe the person to Monroe the movie star.\n\nAs Greene observed, \"I don't know how to explain what she did because it was so very subtle, but she turned something on within herself that was almost like magic. And suddenly cars were slowing and people were turning their heads to stare. They were recognizing that this was Marilyn Monroe as if she pulled off a mask or something, even though a second ago nobody noticed her.\"\n\nMarilyn Monroe in an airport waiting room during a press conference in Los Angeles in February 1956.\n\nThis story has become part of the mythos of one of the greatest stars of the classic Hollywood era. It captures an indelible aspect of Monroe's legendary appeal: the idea that the real her was somehow distinct from her celebrity persona. And within that notion is also the tantalizing prospect that one might be able to access that authentic Marilyn -- if one only continued to investigate the details of her films, her life and her death, a crusade that shows no sign of slowing as new biographies, documentaries, online speculation and more continue to emerge year after year.\n\nUnsurprisingly, Kardashian's decision to wear the dress at the Met Gala on May 2 -- and the suggestion that, in doing so, she was attempting to \"become\" Monroe -- prompted quick and in some cases virulent backlash. Kardashian's desire to essentially wear Monroe's identity like a second skin fits into a larger charge about the former (and some of her sisters): that they are shameless appropriators of culture and style as part of their personal and professional branding.\n\nWhereas Kardashian has made a career blurring the line of what's real, Monroe excelled at masking it. Monroe's public image was so flawlessly executed, performed and presented that decades later, we are still eagerly searching for the woman underneath it all.\n\nYet what Kardashian does offer -- and what might actually be in service of Monroe's legacy -- is to make visible the labor of image creation, something that would have destroyed the mysterious allure of the Monroe persona in the star's own time.\n\nWhat criticism of Kim Kardashian is really about\n\nKardashian's identity as ethnically White and her adoption of Black cultural styles and aesthetics echoes historical critiques of Jewish and Irish minstrel performers adopting blackface in the early 20th century, most famously in the 1927 film \"The Jazz Singer.\"\n\nAs Michael Rogin and others have shown, that mode of performance was a way to both appropriate Blackness and simultaneously assert their Whiteness -- at a time when their racial identities were very much in flux. Questions have been raised about whether Kardashian, who has been accused of \" blackfishing ,\" darkened her skin for a photo shoot.\n\nBut her attempt to embody Monroe's persona is a new threshold in Kardashian's often-problematic efforts to play with her racial self-presentation.\n\nKardashian has often adopted Black cultural signifiers as part of her personal aesthetic, invoking Black style for a white mainstream audience. Her jewel-encrusted grill, Fulani braids that she credited to Bo Derek, and her imitation of a famous Grace Jones photograph for the cover of Paper magazine are three of the most-discussed examples.\n\nEven her famed curvy body -- emblematized by her posterior -- is the type of \"thick\" body most readily associated with the Black \"video vixens\" made famous in music videos starring rappers like Kardashian's ex-husband, Kanye West. Though Kardashian has acknowledged the criticisms , this history no doubt informs the perception that Kardashian was consciously attempting to poach Monroe's stardom -- and Whiteness -- when she donned her famous dress.\n\nKim Kardashian attends the Los Angeles premiere of Hulu's new show \"The Kardashians\" on April 7, 2022.\n\nIndeed, Kardashian's seeming pivot from someone associated -- even problematically -- with Blackness, to her momentary transformation into the blonde-haired Hollywood icon reinforced the idea for some that Blackness was a temporary stop in her sojourn to unambiguous Whiteness and respectability.\n\nOn the other hand, preservationists registered their horror at the handling and exposure of the historic garment at the gala. While Kardashian certainly wasn't the first celebrity (or even noncelebrity) to wear a vintage or archival garment, this particular line of criticism quickly became the focus of the ire directed at Kardashian.\n\nRipley's Believe it or Not!, which purchased the gown at a 2016 auction for nearly $5 million, loaned it to Kardashian for the occasion, though she only wore the actual dress for a few minutes on the carpet before changing into a replica.\n\nNo matter that, as costume historian Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell noted on Twitter and in the Los Angeles Times, there is precedent for both celebrities and models wearing vintage or archival pieces and museums or private collectors exhibiting their pieces in creative but potentially risky ways. Rather, critics laid the responsibility squarely on Kardashian's shoulders, accusing Kardashian of marring this symbol of classic Hollywood glamor with both her body and her persona.\n\nIt's worth noting that this conversation is the one that has dominated public discussion raised by Kardashian's adoption of Marilyn's persona. Preservationists' very real concerns about the dress itself, however, provide a convenient cover for a more ideological criticism -- that Kardashian disgraces the legacy of Monroe by daring to \"become her\" for a night.\n\nVideo circulating of one of the dress fitting appointments quickly prompted derisive remarks about Kim's \"fat ass\" or the disconnect between her skin tone and Marilyn's, comments undergirded by racial connotations. Such an argument depends on assumptions about Kardashian's racial performance, as well as on critiques grounded in taste, respectability, celebrity and authenticity.\n\nThis line of critique effectively contrasts Monroe's classic Hollywood film icon status -- established in films like \"Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,\" \"The Seven Year Itch\" and \"Some Like It Hot\" -- positively against the negative of Kardashian's \"being famous for nothing\" status, earned in the reviled world of reality television.\n\nMarilyn Monroe, proto-reality star\n\nBut those formulations -- valid though they are -- miss the deeper resonance of what Kardashian's public display of the dress signifies about Monroe and how her history has been deliberately revised.\n\nStart with the fact that the dress that Kardashian chose to wore is not one associated with Monroe's film roles or even the one most readily associated with Monroe as icon: that would most likely be the white/ivory halter dress designed by William Travilla for Monroe's appearance in the Billy Wilder film \"The Seven Year Itch.\"\n\nRather, Kardashian wore the gown from one of Monroe's appearances in what we might understand as a predecessor to modern reality television: JFK's televised/recorded birthday party at Madison Square Garden.\n\nThe pleasures that make the moment iconic -- the context of Monroe's and Kennedy's relationship as Monroe seems to flirt with her lover in front of both a live and televisual audience with the knowledge that his wife Jackie is at home watching -- is perhaps closer to the melodramatic appeal of contemporary reality television than classic Hollywood cinephiles would like to admit.\n\nActress Marilyn Monroe sings \"Happy Birthday\" to President John F. Kennedy at Madison Square Garden, for his upcoming 45th birthday.\n\nIndeed, the gown Kardashian wore represents a particular aspect of Monroe's celebrity -- infamy rather than fame -- and Monroe's unique ability to take something scandalous and embrace it rather than allow herself to be shamed by it.\n\nWithin that light, the dress fits Kardashian quite well -- figuratively, if not literally -- because of what it symbolizes about Monroe and what the subsequent whitewashing of Monroe's image in subsequent eras has erased: a woman who constantly tried to reinvent and exert some type of agency over her public image, refusing to be shamed by scandal, and often using television as the means to do so\n\nOne need only try to sort through the real-life difficulties that Monroe faced and the myriad unfounded rumors that today are often taken as gospel to see the residue of her complicated celebrity persona. Publications tried to create controversy around her early modeling for men's calendars, Hugh Hefner purchased and published her nude photos without her consent, gossip columnist Hedda Hopper wrote an open letter to Monroe blaming the star for her own miscarriages.\n\nMonroe's associations with Black people -- both platonically and romantically -- garnered additional consternation from those in charge of managing her image. And, always at the ready were accusations that she was sleeping with everyone, from allegedly prostituting herself to studio execs to having an affair with both John Kennedy as well as his brother Robert, regardless of how farfetched some of these claims might be.\n\nAll of this must surely resonate with Kardashian, whose name is still mentioned in connection with a sex tape now some 20 years old . Indeed, in the messy intersection of celebrity and reality, Monroe and Kardashian have more in common than one might think.\n\nOur never-ending desire for the \"real\" woman\n\nOne of the most enduring elements of Monroe's fandom is the desire to uncover the \"real\" story of Marilyn Monroe. By contrast, Kardashian offers a highly curated version of the aspects of her life both big and small: her romantic relationships, sibling conflict, professional endeavors and more make up the content of both her two television shows as well as her social media presence.\n\nThere is not an aspect of Kardashian's life that has not been mediated and offered up to the public, at Kardashian's own hands. Crucially, whereas Monroe struggled to obtain professional agency throughout her career, Kardashian effectively owns her own image.\n\nAs executive producer of \"Keeping up with the Kardashians\" (E!, 2007-2021) and \"The Kardashians\" (Hulu, 2022-- ), as executive producer of her life and image, we might argue, Kardashian's version of the \"real\" is the one that she chooses to share with the public rather than one that the public can take pleasure -- and ownership -- in uncovering.\n\nGet our free weekly newsletter Sign up for CNN Opinion's newsletter. Join us on Twitter and Facebook\n\nMonroe, and the studio system and its attendant publicity machine, presented the star as the guileless bombshell: a sexpot whose crucial appeal was that she didn't seem to be trying to be sexy -- she just was -- effortlessly.\n\nOf course, the reality is that the Monroe persona was the product of her own and the studio's very real and measurable efforts to craft her image into one that fans would adore: from her plastic surgery and dyed blonde hair to her constant dieting and -- most obviously -- in her name change from Norma Jeane Baker to Marilyn Monroe\n\nKardashian's intense diet and workout plan to fit into Monroe's gown, modifications that the public has witnessed over time, even her transition from a Black-adjacent aesthetic to the presumptive Whiteness enabled by her performance of Monroe -- the most iconic blonde of all time -- makes exceedingly obvious the work that goes into creating an image, the labor that maintains the illusion that there is even a \"real\" to access.\n\nKardashian could never put on a dress and be Monroe, but perhaps that's because there is no \"real\" Monroe to become.", "authors": ["Opinion Racquel Gates"], "publish_date": "2022/05/10"}]}
+{"question_id": "20220617_15", "search_time": "2022/06/17/16:35", "search_result": [{"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/06/14/yellowstone-national-park-flooding-closed-damage/7619882001/", "title": "Yellowstone flooding, damage closes national park, forces ...", "text": "GARDINER, Mont. – Yellowstone National Park officials assessed widespread damage Tuesday as the park remained closed amid dangerous floods, mudslides and rockslides that have eroded roads, ripped apart bridges and forced evacuations this week.\n\nThe water started to slowly recede Tuesday and one key highway reopened, but the record-level floods left all five entrances to the park closed through at least Wednesday, officials said. And, officials said during an update on Tuesday, the water levels could still change at any time.\n\n“The water is still raging,” said Park Superintendent Cam Sholly, who added that more wet weather was forecast this weekend, which could cause additional flooding.\n\nThe park, which is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year, has seen multiple road and bridge failures, power outages and mudslides, causing the evacuations of more than 10,000 visitors from the park.\n\n“I’ve never seen this, not in my lifetime,” said Austin King, a firefighter and EMT in Gardiner, a town just outside Yellowstone's busy northern entrance.\n\nThere were no reports of injuries or deaths as of Tuesday afternoon, but floodwaters swept away a number of homes, bridges and other structures. The northern part of the park suffered the worst damage.\n\nThe full scope of the damage was not known Tuesday, leaving it unclear when roads might reopen or when residents in neighboring communities might be able to return.\n\nThe northern loop of Yellowstone National Park was cleared of visitors and park officials were working to evacuate visitors in the southern area of the park Tuesday. Park staff were searching for five back-country groups to ensure they were safely evacuated.\n\nMeanwhile, Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte declared a statewide disaster and said the Montana National Guard rescued 12 people stranded by high waters in Roscoe and Cooke City.\n\nYELLOWSTONE CLOSED:Yellowstone National Park evacuates visitors\n\nMORE:Home swept away as Yellowstone is hit by major floods and mudslides\n\nHighways reopen as floodwaters recede\n\nThe Yellowstone River reached highs of almost 14 feet on Monday, far higher than the record 11.5 feet set more than a century ago, according the the National Weather Service.\n\nAlthough the water was still \"extremely\" high, a route out of Gardiner, a town of about 900 people, reopened Tuesday afternoon, according to county Commissioner Bill Berg and Sholly.\n\nVisitors could drive out using U.S. Highway 89 and East River Road, but only residents and service vehicles were allowed to drive back inside. While some residents questioned if they could wait a few days before leaving town, Berg and Sholly were adamant: “Get out of Gardiner.”\n\n\"We are working with the county and state of Montana to provide necessary support to residents, who are currently without water and power in some areas,\" Yellowstone officials said Monday.\n\nA smaller highway into the previously isolated Cooke City also reopened to local traffic and emergency services Tuesday afternoon.\n\nYellowstone communities left stranded, without power\n\nThe flooding left some of Yellowstone's small gateway communities in southern Montana isolated and without power, leading to evacuations by boat and helicopter.\n\nFloodwaters isolated areas including Silvergate, which is east of the park, and led to evacuations in Livingston. As Stillwater River in south-central Montana flooded, 68 people were stranded at a campground as crews rescued campers by raft.\n\nOfficials in Park County, which encompasses those cities, issued shelter-in-place orders Monday and warned flooding had made drinking water unsafe in many communities. Residents hauled bottled water home from stores and worried about a possible food shortage.\n\nMany in Gardiner have used only bottled water to brush their teeth, wash dishes and prepare food due to a break in the area's main water service line. The community was under an advisory to boil water before consumption as of Tuesday afternoon.\n\nThe county said water and air rescues were underway amid evacuations Monday.\n\n\"Extensive flooding throughout Park County has washed out bridges, roads, and left communities and homes isolated,\" Park County said in a statement.\n\nA 10-person bunker was among the buildings that slipped from the riverbank into the water. Only a portion of the building's foundation remained Tuesday.\n\nParker Manning, who was visiting from Terre Haute, Indiana, watched the flooding from a cabin in Gardiner. He said he saw trees and a mostly intact house floating in rushing waters.\n\nIn the south-central Montana town of Joliet, Kristan Apodaca cried as she watched floodwaters overtake her grandmother's log cabin and the park where her husband proposed.\n\n\"I am sixth-generation,\" she told the Billings Gazette. \"This is our home.\"\n\nKing, the EMT in Gardiner, said the flooding was \"damaging for a lot of people.\"\n\n\"Some have lost their houses; others can’t go to work,\" King said. \"People are worried about food shortages already.\"\n\nYELLOWSTONE NEWS:National park renames mountain named for officer in Native American massacre\n\nWhen will Yellowstone reopen?\n\nYellowstone officials have prohibited visitors from entering the park at any of its five entrances until at least Wednesday.\n\nSholly said the park could remain closed as long as a week, and northern entrances may not reopen at all this summer.\n\nCory Mottice, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Billings, Montana, said reduced rain and cooler temperatures, which could lead to decreased snowmelt, may lessen flooding.\n\nStill, \"this is flooding that we’ve just never seen in our lifetimes before,\" Mottice said.\n\nWhy is Yellowstone flooding?\n\nRecord rainfall combined with rapidly melting snowpack caused the deluge of flooding this week. Scientists pointed to climate change as the culprit behind more intense and frequent weather events.\n\nThe flooding happened as the summer tourist season was ramping up. June is one of the park's busiest months.\n\n'This is serious': Millions under heat wave warnings as triple-digit temps move east\n\nWhat state is Yellowstone National Park in?\n\nThe world's first national park, Yellowstone National Park encompasses nearly 3,500 square miles on top of a volcanic hot spot. The park lies mostly in Wyoming but spreads into Montana and Idaho.\n\nThe park allows visitors \"to observe wildlife in an intact ecosystem, explore geothermal areas that contain about half the world’s active geysers, and view geologic wonders like the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River,\" according to the Yellowstone's website.\n\nContributing: The Associated Press\n\nContact News Now Reporter Christine Fernando at cfernando@usatoday.com or follow her on Twitter at @christinetfern.\n\nHannah Phillips of The Palm Beach Post reported from Gardiner, Montana.\n\nYOU MAY LIKE:A first in Yellowstone, as man in Tesla proves his ‘ingenuity’", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/06/14"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/2022/06/13/yellowstone-national-park-rain-flooding/7613503001/", "title": "Yellowstone National Park closes entrances after 'unprecedented' rain", "text": "GARDINER, Mont. — Yellowstone National Park indefinitely closed all entrances and began evacuating some visitors on Monday after heavy rains led to flooding and rockslides that washed out roads and at least one bridge.\n\nVisitors in the northern part of the park were being evacuated due to \"extremely hazardous conditions\" following \"unprecedented\" rainfall, according to a news release.\n\n\"Effective immediately, there will be no inbound visitor traffic at any of the five entrances into Yellowstone National Park on Tuesday, June 14, and Wednesday, June 15, at a minimum,\" the release said.\n\nLATEST UPDATES:Yellowstone National Park damaged by record flooding, dangerous rockslides\n\nPower was also out throughout the park, as well as in Gardiner, Montana.\n\nNumerous park-owned structures, including a 10-person bunkhouse, have been swept into the water after the riverbank gave way beneath them, said Austin King, a firefighter, and EMT in Gardiner. He woke at 1 a.m. Monday to the sound of his pager beeping and hasn’t stopped working since.\n\n\"I’ve never seen this, not in my lifetime,\" said King Monday evening. \"There are people that have lived here 64 years — they’ve never seen the river this high.\"\n\nA few wood planks remained where the bunkhouse once stood behind him. All of its occupants escaped with few of their possessions, King said.\n\nHe fielded questions from tourists who lined up along the side of the road, anxious to know when they might leave Gardiner. Roads leading in and out of the town were all closed as of Monday evening.\n\n\"It’s pretty damaging for a lot of people,\" King said. \"Some have lost their houses; others can’t go to work. People are worried about food shortages already.\"\n\nThere is no hospital or clinic in Gardiner, he added. Anyone with a medical emergency will need to be evacuated by helicopter.\n\nMore evacuations of visitors were planned through the day, Park Superintendent Cam Sholly said in the release.\n\n\"Due to predictions of higher flood levels in areas of the park’s southern loop, in addition to concerns with water and wastewater systems, we will begin to move visitors in the southern loop out of the park later today in coordination with our in-park business partners,\" he said.\n\nFIRST PEOPLES MOUNTAIN:Yellowstone National Park renames mountain named for officer in Native American massacre\n\nCLIMATE POINT: Subscribe to USA TODAY’s free weekly newsletter on climate change, the environment and the weather\n\nSholly added, \"We will not know timing of the park’s reopening until flood waters subside and we're able to assess the damage throughout the park. It is likely that the northern loop will be closed for a substantial amount of time.\"\n\nThe National Weather Service issued a flood warning Monday for Yellowstone, where rain was forecast to fall into the evening before turning to snow in the overnight hours.\n\n'THIS IS SERIOUS HEAT':Millions under heat wave warnings as triple-digit temps move east\n\nThe rains hit right as summer tourist season was ramping up. June, at the onset of an annual wave of over 3 million visitors that doesn’t abate until fall, is one of Yellowstone’s busiest months.\n\nYellowstone got 2.5 inches of rain Saturday, Sunday and into Monday. The Beartooth Mountains northeast of Yellowstone got as much as 4 inches, according to the NWS.\n\n“It’s a lot of rain, but the flooding wouldn’t have been anything like this if we didn’t have so much snow,” said Cory Mottice, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Billings, Montana. “This is flooding that we’ve just never seen in our lifetimes before.”\n\nContributing: Hannah Phillips, The Palm Beach Post; The Associated Press", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/06/13"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/14/us/yellowstone-national-park-closed-visitors-flooding-tuesday/index.html", "title": "Unprecedented flooding conditions force Yellowstone park to close ...", "text": "(CNN) Yellowstone National Park will remain closed to visitors through at least Wednesday due to dangerous flooding conditions, which have prompted park evacuations and left some in surrounding communities trapped without safe drinking water, officials say.\n\nA Montana helicopter company transported about 40 people on Monday and Tuesday from a community airstrip in the town of Gardiner in Park County, Laura Jones of Rocky Mountain Rotors told CNN.\n\n\"We haven't 'rescued' anyone that was in danger, we have mainly been transporting people out of there,\" Jones said via email. \"We have also taken some passengers in who had pets they needed to get to or live there and needed to get home.\"\n\nThe park announced Monday afternoon that all park entrances were closed to visitors, citing \"record flooding events\" and a forecast of more rain to come.\n\nThe abundant rainfall and rapid snowmelt combined to produce up to three-quarters of a foot of water runoff, which is similar to the area receiving 2 to 3 months of June precipitation in only three days, according to CNN Weather calculations.\n\n\"Our first priority has been to evacuate the northern section of the park where we have multiple road and bridge failures, mudslides and other issues,\" Yellowstone Park Superintendent Cam Sholly said in a statement Monday.\n\n\"Well over 10,000 visitors\" were in the park, according to Sholly, who said at a news conference Monday he didn't have an exact number, but average visitation in June can be between 15,000 and 20,000 people.\n\nA road in Yellowstone National Park partially collapsed due to flooding Monday.\n\nImmediately north of the Yellowstone, several cities in Montana's Park County were also experiencing extensive flooding, which has washed out bridges and roads, making it unsafe to travel or impossible to evacuate, Park County officials said on Facebook\n\nOfficials have also issued warnings in many areas for residents to avoid drinking local water due to a broken water main and submerged wells.\n\nThe Park County town of Gardiner, located at the northern entrance to Yellowstone, is isolated and surrounded by water after heavy flooding washed out bridges and roads, county officials said on Facebook on Tuesday.\n\nDamage from flooding in the town is \"significant,\" Park County Sheriff Brad Bichler said Tuesday.\n\n\"The water's coming down and it's kind of showing us exactly what kind of damage we're dealing with,\" Bichler said at a news conference.\n\nSholly told reporters Tuesday evening that the road between Gardiner and Cooke City will likely remain closed for the remainder of the season. He said no damage estimates are yet available.\n\n\"This is not going to be an easy rebuild,\" Sholly said, referring the five-mile stretch of road most affected by the flooding. He said officials will have to assess whether it make sense to rebuild the road in that area.\n\nGardiner is a hub of activity in the region and the only entrance that remained open to wheeled-vehicle use year-round, according to the town website.\n\nCNN tried to contact Park County officials to confirm how many people are affected but has been unable to reach them.\n\nMany roads and bridges are inaccessible, along with some railroad tracks. A few roads and bridges remain open to emergency traffic. The National Guard and local rescue groups were conducting evacuations, water rescues and airlifts.\n\nOfficials on Tuesday warned residents that displaced wildlife could traverse their properties, with bears, deer and domestic livestock already spotted.\n\n\"The river has never been this high before by my house,\" said Elizabeth Aluck, who lives in Gardiner. Aluck told CNN Monday afternoon that she cannot evacuate because the roads and bridges around her home are washed out.\n\nAn Indiana family staying at a short-term rental cabin in Gardiner told CNN they were supposed to leave Monday morning, but the flooding left them stranded.\n\n\"The water levels were high on Saturday but within the past 10 to 12 hours things have gotten rougher,\" Parker Manning said. \"Our way out of town would be north on 89, but those roads are currently all underwater.\"\n\nJUST WATCHED See the severe flooding that shut down Yellowstone National Park Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH See the severe flooding that shut down Yellowstone National Park 01:15\n\nThe Yellowstone River, which runs through the park and several Park County cities, swelled to a record high Monday due to recent heavy rainfall and significant runoff from melting snow in higher elevations, according to CNN meteorologist Brandon Miller.\n\nThe Yellowstone River gauge at Corwin Springs, Montana, reached 13.88 feet Monday afternoon, surpassing the historical high crest of 11.5 feet from 1918, NOAA river gauge data shows.\n\nGovernor declares statewide disaster\n\nMontana Gov. Greg Gianforte declared a \"statewide disaster\" on Tuesday \"to help impacted communities get back on their feet as soon as possible,\" according to a Twitter post.\n\nSnow melt and rainfall across the Beartooths and Absarokas -- which span the Montana-Wyoming border -- have led to \"flooding rarely or never seen before across many area rivers and streams,\" the National Weather Service in Billings said on its on website.\n\nThe Montana National Guard had evacuated 12 people stranded from flooding in Roscoe and Cooke City, the governor said in a separate Twitter post. The National Guard said it also was responding to a search and rescue request in the East Rosebud Lake area.\n\nSeveral roads and bridges are severely damaged in southern Montana and may be temporarily closed, according to an tweet from Montana's Disaster and Emergency Services.\n\nAcross the nation in recent days, extreme weather events have battered communities, including thunderstorms that left nearly 300,000 customers without power in the Midwest, a tornado threat in Chicago, and a severe heat dome which has left more than a third of the US population under heat alerts.\n\nA large rockslide on North Entrance Road in Yellowstone National Park Monday.\n\nSome are evacuated while others remain trapped\n\nAs several roads and bridges were rendered impassable by floodwaters, park and county officials in Montana worked to evacuate whoever they can and provide support to those who are unable to leave.\n\nThe National Guard and local search and rescue teams were assisting with evacuations and rescues throughout the county, including two air lifts and one swift water rescue, the county said.\n\nJUST WATCHED Video shows Yellowstone River flooding take out part of waterfront home Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Video shows Yellowstone River flooding take out part of waterfront home 00:25\n\nMultiple communities in Park County were isolated and surrounded by water, including Gardiner, Cooke City and Silver Gate, an update on the county Facebook page said. Quickly rushing floodwaters have also damaged homes, as images show houses either partially or fully collapsing.\n\nIn neighboring Carbon County, Montana, flooding compromised utility service lines, leaving many customers in Red Lodge without power, officials said.\n\nMeanwhile, several roads and bridges in Yellowstone have also been compromised by flooding, park officials say. Videos released by the park show portions of paved road washed out or severely eroded.\n\nA bridge at Rescue Creek in Yellowstone National Park was washed out by rushing waters.\n\nDue to predictions of higher flood levels and concerns about water and wastewater systems, the park also began moving visitors out of the southern loop of the park Monday, Sholly said.\n\n\"We will not know timing of the park's reopening until flood waters subside and we're able to assess the damage throughout the park,\" Sholly said. \"It is likely that the northern loop will be closed for a substantial amount of time.\"\n\nDramatic increase in rain strengthens floodwaters\n\nIn June, precipitation across northwestern Wyoming and southern Montana has been more that 400% of the region's average, according to Miller.\n\nThe dramatic increase in rain has been coupled with near-record temperatures in the region that have caused snowmelt in areas of high elevation, the NWS in Riverton, Wyoming, said. Overnight Sunday, the snowmelt made its way into streams and rivers, further adding to the floodwaters, the NWS said.\n\nIn addition to the record set at Corwin Springs, the Yellowstone River reached 10.9 feet in Livingston, Montana, Monday exceeding the area's 1997 record of 10.7 feet, the NWS in Billings said.", "authors": ["Elizabeth Wolfe", "Claudia Dominguez", "Ray Sanchez"], "publish_date": "2022/06/14"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/06/15/yellowstone-national-park-flooding-tourists-damage/7632874001/", "title": "Yellowstone flooding recedes as tourists evacuate. What's the ...", "text": "GARDINER, Mont. – On a typical day, helicopter pilot Mark Taylor might fly tourists or professional photographers above national parks in the West, scouting for wildlife and offering a birds-eye view of the mountains, geysers and waterfalls.\n\nBut when historic flooding hit Yellowstone National Park this week, Taylor sprang into action and helped dozens evacuate from towns that couldn't be evacuated by road. Park County law enforcement reached out to his Montana-based company, Rocky Mountain Rotors, about a helicopter, and — by the \"Montana way of a handshake agreement\" — he agreed.\n\n\"There's just no questions asked,\" Taylor told USA TODAY in an interview Wednesday. \"We just go do the work and provide whatever helicopter services that they need.\"\n\nAfter offering his services, the phones were inundated with travelers and residents eager to quickly vacate the Yellowstone area as floodwaters swept away homes, eroded roads, ripped apart bridges and left some stranded. Entire towns were temporarily isolated without a way out after roads closed or were demolished by rushing water.\n\nThe flooding continued to devastate the area Wednesday with rushing water reaching Montana's largest city. The floodwaters in Billings, which boasts a population of 110,000, flooded farms and ranches and caused the shutdown of the area's water treatment plant, although the city reported improvement at the plant on Wednesday evening.\n\n'Nothing that we have ever seen'\n\nMany who called were in Gardiner, a town of about 900 people just north of Yellowstone. People there were isolated for more than a day before roads reopened. Many were tourists, some with medical issues, who didn't want to risk waiting for the Montana National Guard, which has rescued at least 87 people, according to the Department of Defense. Over the course of two days, Taylor was hired to pick up about 40 people from the local airport, including a cancer patient, two pregnant women, and a man who recently had a stroke.\n\nAs Taylor flew around Yellowstone National Park and the surrounding communities, he watched debris, including huge pieces of houses, timber and even 1000-gallon propane tanks, float downstream as a river ate up massive swaths of land.\n\n\"It was obvious that this flood was like nothing that we have ever seen,\" he said.\n\nYellowstone National Park flooding: Waters 'still raging'; more than 10,000 visitors evacuated: What we know\n\nAlmost all the tourists in Yellowstone National Park — more than 10,000 — were evacuated as historic levels of flooding forced the park to close earlier this week. The only tourists remaining Wednesday were a dozen campers making their way out of the back-country.\n\nOfficials were working Wednesday to repair damaged infrastructure and prepared for more wet weather over the weekend. The park could remain closed for a week after the floods damaged roads, bridges and homes, Superintendent Cam Sholly said Tuesday. Sholly said additional flooding was possible over the weekend.\n\nNo injuries or deaths have been reported amid the devastation. Roads were starting to reopen and some evacuated residents in Park County were allowed back into their homes Tuesday.\n\n\"We're really, really, really thankful that there wasn't a river drowning,\" Taylor said. \"When we're called out, it's not always a happy ending and usually lives are lost.\"\n\nResidents in Yellowstone communities assess damage\n\nThe full impact of the flooding, mudslides and rockslides is not yet known, but the northern part of the park and the smaller communities that border it suffered some of the worst damage.\n\nIn Red Lodge, a town of 2,100 that’s a popular jumping-off point for a scenic route into the Yellowstone high country, a creek running through town jumped its banks and swamped the main thoroughfare.\n\nThe water toppled telephone poles, knocked over fences and carved deep fissures in the ground through a neighborhood of hundreds of houses. Electricity was restored by Tuesday, but there was still no running water in the area.\n\nTaylor is planning to fly a small group to an area near Red Lodge this week to seal up cabins and get rid of food to prevent bears from entering the properties.\n\nAt least 200 homes were flooded in Red Lodge and the town of Fromberg, including Heidi Hoffman's. She left early Monday to buy a sump pump, which can be used to pump water out of a home. But by the time she returned, her basement was full of water.\n\n“We lost all our belongings in the basement,” Hoffman said as the pump removed a steady stream of water into her muddy backyard. “Yearbooks, pictures, clothes, furniture. We're going to be cleaning up for a long time.”\n\nResidents in Park County hauled bottled water home from stores as concerns mounted over a possible food shortage due to blocked routes making deliveries difficult. As Stillwater River in south-central Montana flooded, 68 people were stranded at a campground as crews rescued campers by raft.\n\nSilver Gate, a community just northeast of the park, is now the only town inaccessible by road, according to Park County officials.\n\nMontana Gov. Greg Gianforte declared a statewide disaster Tuesday and was seeking an expedited presidential disaster declaration to help cover the cost of repair.\n\nThe Yellowstone River reached highs of almost 14 feet on Monday, far higher than the record 11.5 feet set more than a century ago, according the the National Weather Service.\n\nRecord rainfall combined with rapidly melting snowpack caused the deluge of flooding this week. Scientists pointed to climate change as the culprit behind more intense and frequent weather events.\n\nThe flooding comes as the summer tourist season was ramping up. June is one of the busiest months for the park, which is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year.\n\nThe world's first national park, Yellowstone National Park encompasses nearly 3,500 square miles on top of a volcanic hot spot.\n\nThe park, which stretches across Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, previously closed in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, but Sholly said he didn't believe the park had ever closed for flooding.\n\nWhat to know if you're hoping to visit Yellowstone National Park\n\nPeople planning to visit in weeks ahead are being advised to stay abreast of road and weather conditions due to the severe damage.\n\nThe northern portion of the park, which features popular sites like Tower Fall, Mammoth Hot Springs and the Lamar Valley, may not reopen for the summer tourist season and is \"likely to remain closed for a substantial length of time due to severely damaged, impacted infrastructure,\" park officials said in a statement.\n\nSome parts of the park may require reservations.\n\n\"Due to the northern loop being unavailable for visitors, the park is analyzing how many visitors can safely visit the southern loop once it’s safe to reopen,\" the park said Tuesday.\n\nSUMMER VISITORS:What to know if you're hoping to visit Yellowstone National Park after floods recede\n\nAll nine Yellowstone lodges, 12 campgrounds and 293 backcountry campsites are closed through at least Sunday and until further notice. Refunds would be issued if needed for reserved lodging and activities, the park said.\n\nGuests hoping to cancel should expect long hold times as the central reservations line is \"experiencing extremely high call volumes,\" according to the park's lodging website.\n\nBusinesses in hard-hit Gardiner had just started really recovering from the tourism contraction brought by the coronavirus pandemic, and were hoping for a good year, Bill Berg, a commissioner in nearby Park County, said.\n\n“It’s a Yellowstone town, and it lives and dies by tourism, and this is going to be a pretty big hit,” he said. “They’re looking to try to figure out how to hold things together.”\n\nContributing: Christine Fernando, Eve Chen, Jeanine Santucci, USA TODAY; The Associated Press\n\nHannah Phillips of The Palm Beach Post reported from Gardiner, Montana.\n\nContact Breaking News Reporter N'dea Yancey-Bragg at nyanceybra@gannett.com or follow her on Twitter @NdeaYanceyBragg", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/06/15"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/06/14/yellowstone-national-park-flooding-mudslide-photos/7621287001/", "title": "Yellowstone National Park flooding photos show home swept away", "text": "As summer tourist season ramps up, record-breaking floods in Yellowstone National Park and dangerous mudslides have swept away homes, ripped apart bridges and forced evacuations of surrounding communities isolated without power.\n\nOn Tuesday, a video showed a home in Gardiner, Montana, collapsing into the murky waters of Yellowstone River.\n\nYellowstone River reached highs not seen in our lifetimes, at almost 14 feet on Monday. The previous record of 11.5 feet occurred more than a century ago, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.\n\nYellowstone National Park covers nearly 3,500 square miles in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. It sits atop a volcanic hot spot with about half the world’s active geysers.\n\nNearby Park County said water and air rescues were underway Monday and issued shelter-in-place orders.\n\nMore:Yellowstone National Park closes entrances, evacuates visitors amid 'unprecedented' rainfall, flooding\n\nClimate change is responsible for more intense and frequent weather events, scientists have said.\n\nRainfall is expected for the next several days and all five entrances to the park were closed, officials said Monday. There were no immediate reports of injuries.\n\nCamille Fine is a trending visual producer on USA TODAY's NOW team. She loves to make pizza, photograph friends and spoil her loving cat Pearl.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/06/14"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/16/weather/yellowstone-national-park-flooding-closed-thursday/index.html", "title": "Yellowstone Park flooding: Parts may reopen to tourists on Monday ...", "text": "CNN —\n\nYellowstone National Park could partially reopen as early as Monday as officials continue to assess the damage caused by historic flooding, which now threatens to hamper the peak of the summer tourist season.\n\nHeavy rains and rapid snowmelt caused rivers to swallow bridges, sweep away entire sections of roadway and forced the evacuation of more than 10,000 visitors. The sudden closure has fueled concerns from business owners and employees in surrounding communities who rely on Yellowstone visitors as a key source of revenue.\n\nThe park’s northern region, which bore the brunt of the flood damage, is expected to be closed for a “substantial length of time,” which will likely go through the end of the season, the park said in a release Tuesday.\n\nThe less-impacted southern loop could reopen as early as Monday, Park Superintendent Cam Sholly told residents and tourists in Cody, Wyoming, on Wednesday, according to the Casper Star-Tribune.\n\nBut while the southern loop reopening may provide relief to some tourism industry workers, those bordering the northern entrance are still left to wait.\n\nA North Entrance road in Yellowstone National Park was inundated with water. Jacob W. Frank/National Park Service/AP\n\nIn the south Montana city of Gardiner, which acts as a gateway into Yellowstone’s northern entrance, hotel owners are already feeling the impact.\n\n“There’s nobody here,” Keri Huesing, owner of Yellowstone Gateway Inn, told CNN. “We were booked solid for a year.”\n\nNow, she says, all but one of her visitors are gone, following the flooding, and one neighboring hotel has shut down completely and sent its employees home.\n\n“It’s a Yellowstone town, and it lives and dies by tourism,” Park County Commissioner Bill Berg said of Gardiner.\n\nIn Cody, which lies east of the park, tourism industry workers were eager for answers from Sholly on the southern loop reopening, the Casper Star-Tribune reported. Sholly hopes gateway communities and park staff can determine how to sustain local businesses without attracting more visitors than the park can host, the paper reported.\n\nThe dangerous flooding fueled by heavy rainfall and snowmelt began to inundate the park and several surrounding communities Monday, overtaking essential roadways and bridges, and making it dangerous or impossible for some people to evacuate.\n\nAs some communities became completely surrounded by water, at times without power or drinking water, search and rescue teams worked to evacuate residents. The Montana National Guard this week carried out 87 rescues by helicopter, it said Wednesday on Facebook.\n\nIn Montana’s Park County, which includes Gardiner, water has been receding, and access to the communities that had been surrounded by floodwater has been restored for emergency vehicles at a minimum, Greg Coleman, the county’s emergency services manager, said Wednesday morning.\n\nPresident Joe Biden on Thursday approved a disaster declaration for Montana in areas affected by flooding. “Federal funding is available to State, tribal, eligible local governments and certain private nonprofit organizations on a cost-sharing basis for emergency work and the repair or replacement of facilities damaged by the severe storm and flooding in the counties of Carbon, Park, and Stillwater,” the declaration states.\n\nPark temporarily closed as locals try to recover\n\nAll five entrances to Yellowstone will remain closed through at least the weekend, the park said in a release Tuesday, and the northern roads of the park will likely be closed for an extended period due to “severely damaged, impacted infrastructure.”\n\nThe battering floodwaters wiped away entire segments of paved road near the northern entrance, downed trees and triggered multiple mudslides.\n\nCommunities surrounding Yellowstone are also reeling from the catastrophic damage. Quickly moving waters compromised several roads and bridges, submerged cars, and even swept away homes as the underlying foundations became completely worn away.\n\nMicah Hoffman uses a pump to remove water from his basement in Rod Lodge, Montana. Matthew Brown/AP\n\nIn Park County, at least two homes collapsed into the intruding Yellowstone River early this week, and numerous homes and businesses were flooded, said Coleman, the county emergency official.\n\nVideo from witnesses showed one building in Gardiner collapsing into the river on Monday. Gardiner was isolated by water Monday and into Tuesday as flooding rendered roads and bridges impassable.\n\nAerial video captured by CNN shows one Montana home hanging precariously over the edge of a severely eroded embankment. Photos of the aftermath in the city of Red Lodge, Montana, on Tuesday, show several streets piled with rocks and debris as water still runs over the sidewalks.\n\nThe flooding in Red Lodge, Montana left the roads covered in rocks and debris. Courtesy Zachary Beard\n\nRegion braces for more potential flooding\n\nThe record flooding was caused by a combination of heavy rainfall and snowmelt from high elevations over the weekend in the Beartooth and Absaroka mountain ranges, which stretch across the Montana-Wyoming state line.\n\nThe level of runoff is comparable to the region receiving two to three times a normal June’s precipitation in only three days, according to CNN meteorologists.\n\nA flood wave moved east Tuesday and Wednesday along the Yellowstone River, the National Weather Service said, leading to reports of major flooding in Billings, which is about a 175-mile drive east of Gardiner. By Tuesday afternoon, the river at Billings had surged well above its previous record of 15 feet, according to the weather service.\n\nThe flooding prompted city officials to shut down the city water plant late Tuesday night, the city’s public works department said.\n\nThe plant resumed operations at a low level Wednesday afternoon, and by Thursday morning it was working at full capacity, city officials said.\n\nEven as water levels began to recede in areas on Tuesday and Wednesday, park officials and residents in the region are bracing for the possibility of more flooding in the coming days.\n\nMore snow could soon melt in the mountains of Wyoming and Montana, and that, coupled with more rain this weekend, could cause river levels to rise again, the National Weather Service’s office in Billings said.\n\nWarm air is expected to move over the mountains Thursday night, keeping the low temperatures above freezing. This, along with plenty of sunshine during the day, should get snow melting. “Temperatures will be in the 50s and 60s in the high country both Friday and Saturday afternoon,” the weather service said.\n\n“Expect a few days of melting of what is still a substantial snowpack in the mountains.”\n\nShowers and thunderstorms are expected to hit the area Saturday night and Sunday.\n\nThe weather service’s latest river forecasts predict substantial rises due to the melt. Still, the levels are predicted to be well under flood stage, because the rainfall amounts look very light. River projections show this new rise in water peaking over the weekend around Yellowstone and in Billings on Monday.\n\n“By the time slightly more substantial precipitation arrives Sunday night into Monday, temperatures drop into the 30s, and snow is probable above 8,500 feet Sunday night,” the weather service said.\n\n“That said, those with interests near waterways in the western foothills should pay attention to the forecasts through the weekend in case the forecast changes significantly,” the service added.\n\nThe intense rainfall and rapid snow melt already experienced by the park and nearby communities are consistent with projections laid out in a climate assessment report released last year from scientists with the US Geological Survey, Montana State University and the University of Wyoming.\n\nThe climate crisis is already driving more annual precipitation and runoff from melting snowpack in the Greater Yellowstone Area, and the trend will continue in the coming years, the report said.", "authors": ["Elizabeth Wolfe Jason Hanna Claudia Dominguez", "Elizabeth Wolfe", "Jason Hanna", "Claudia Dominguez"], "publish_date": "2022/06/16"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2022/06/14/yellowstone-national-park-flooding-lizzos-lyrics-strawberry-supermoon-its-tuesdays-news/7525665001/", "title": "Yellowstone National Park flooding, Lizzo's lyrics, the strawberry ...", "text": "Historic flooding, mudslides leave behind devastation at Yellowstone National Park. The stories of family members lost in the Ukraine war. And why Lizzo changed a song lyric.\n\n👋 Hey! Laura Davis here, and it's Flag Day! Ever wondered why it's called \"Old Glory\"? Here are five fast facts. Now, let's get to Tuesday's news!\n\nBut first, what would you do to earn $2,000? 🤑 Me? Specifically not this: A North Carolina pest control company is offering cash in exchange for releasing 100 cockroaches in your home as part of a study. Good luck to everyone involved.\n\nThe Short List is a snappy USA TODAY news roundup. Subscribe to the newsletter here or text messages here.\n\n🗳 It's Primary Tuesday: Voters in Maine, Nevada, South Carolina and North Dakota headed to the polls for primary races on issues from abortion to Donald Trump to control of the Senate. Here's what you need to know.\n\nExtreme weather leaves devastation in Yellowstone\n\nYellowstone National Park officials assessed widespread damage Tuesday as the park remained closed amid dangerous floods, mudslides and rockslides that have eroded roads, ripped apart bridges and led to evacuations this week. The flooding started to slowly recede Tuesday, but the record-level floods left all five entrances to the park closed through at least Wednesday, officials said. There were no immediate reports of injuries, but floodwaters swept away a number of homes, bridges and other structures with the northern part of the park suffering the worst damage. Keep reading.\n\nUkrainians tell stories of loved ones lost in the war\n\nAnna Priymenko's youngest nephew, a budding soccer player, was only 5 years old when he was killed by the bomb that hit his family's home. Her other two nephews were 10 and 15. They loved sambo, a martial art that originated in the former USSR. Her only brother owned a textile business, donating countless blankets and pillows after the war began, and her mother was a kindergarten teacher. When she heard of their deaths, \"the world collapsed,\" said Anna, 37. \"I am basically left alone.\" Thousands of civilians have been killed in the Russian war on Ukraine, and countless people like Anna have been left alone in the aftermath, figuring out how to move forward when those they loved most are gone. \"It is clear that this time may pass, it may settle down a little, but ... it will never be the way it was. It will never be,\" Anna said. These are the stories of the lives destroyed and devastated by Russia's war on Ukraine.\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\nEyes to the sky: Strawberry supermoon rises tonight\n\nGet ready to scan the skies for the second supermoon of the year. June’s strawberry moon appears opposite the sun Tuesday, and it will remain full through Wednesday morning, NASA reported. It won't be visible to stargazers in North America until later Tuesday night, when it drifts above the horizon, according to the Old Farmer’s Almanac. So why is it called the strawberry moon? Don’t be deceived by the name: Its origin has nothing to do with the moon’s hue or appearance, according to the almanac. Native American Algonquin tribes inhabiting the northeastern U.S. – along with as well as the Ojibwe, Dakota and Lakota peoples – have used the strawberry moon to mark the time for gathering ripened June-bearing strawberries, the almanac said. Keep reading to learn more. 🍓\n\n📸 Strawberry moon to appear at its largest Tuesday night.\n\nto appear at its largest Tuesday night. What is a strawberry moon? Your guide to every full moon this year.\n\nMillions swelter under dangerous heat wave\n\nDangerous, record-setting heat had nearly one-third of the U.S. population in its grip Tuesday – from the Upper Midwest to the Southeast – on the cusp of summer’s official arrival. The National Weather Service issued excessive-heat warnings, watches and heat advisories for more than 100 million people as temperatures were expected to surge 10 to 20 degrees above normal from the Plains, the Midwest and some areas along the East Coast, according to AccuWeather. Here’s what we know about Tuesday's severe heat.\n\nGraphics: Record-high temperatures from heat dome affect millions.\n\nRecord-high temperatures from heat dome affect millions. From the heat index to the heat dome to an excessive heat warning, everything you need to know about heat.\n\nReal quick\n\nLizzo changes lyric after backlash over offensive term\n\nAfter being accused of using an ableist slur in her latest track \"Grrrls,\" Lizzo shared an apology and released a new version of her song. In a Twitter post Tuesday, the singer said an updated version of \"Grrrls,\" the latest single from her coming album, \"Special,\" was released after she learned its lyrics contained \"a harmful word.\" The original lyric that offended fans came from the song’s line, \"Do you see this (expletive)? I'm a spaz,\" with many claiming that \"spaz\" is an ableist slur. \"Spaz\" has often been used as slang to describe losing physical or emotional control, but has fallen increasingly out of fashion because of its origin from \"spastic,\" \"a form of muscular weakness (spastic paralysis, typical of cerebral palsy,\" according to Lexico, an online dictionary. The controversy is a reminder that other slang terms in our vernacular have derived from more-serious origins, making it important to put more thought behind what we speak. Keep reading to learn more.\n\nA break from the news", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/06/14"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/15/weather/yellowstone-national-park-montana-flooding-wednesday/index.html", "title": "Yellowstone National Park flooding: Northern parts may stay closed ...", "text": "(CNN) While all entrances of Yellowstone National Park are temporarily closed because flooding has damaged roads and bridges, the park's northern portion in particular may remain closed for \"a substantial length of time,\" park officials said Tuesday.\n\n\"Many sections of road in (the park's northern areas) are completely gone and will require substantial time and effort to reconstruct,\" a news release reads. \" ... It is probable that road sections in northern Yellowstone will not reopen this season due to the time required for repairs.\"\n\nDangerous flooding caused by abundant rain and rapid snowmelt began to hit the park and several counties in southern Montana on Monday, washing out or eroding roads and bridges and inflicting widespread damage on homes and businesses\n\nThe park on Monday closed all five of Yellowstone's entrances in Montana and Wyoming to inbound traffic -- in part to prevent people from being stranded as conditions deteriorated.\n\nYellowstone National Park could partly reopen as early as Monday, the Casper Star Tribune reports. Cam Sholly, the park's superintendent, told residents and tourists in Cody on Wednesday rangers could reopen parts of the park not badly impacted by flooding, according to the paper.\n\nResidents of Red Lodge, Montana, clear mud, water and debris from the city's main street on Tuesday.\n\nPark officials told visitors already in the park to leave, and more than 10,000 have left the park since Monday, Sholly said Tuesday.\n\nThough cooler temperatures and drier weather have allowed some parts of swollen rivers to start receding, higher temperatures are expected later this week and into the weekend, which could cause more snowmelt runoff and therefore more flooding, CNN meteorologist Brandon Miller said.\n\n\"There will be no inbound visitor traffic at any of the five entrances into the park, including visitors with lodging and camping reservations, until conditions improve and park infrastructure is evaluated,\" the park's release reads.\n\nQuickly deteriorating road conditions in Yellowstone created harrowing evacuations for some visitors, including the parents of CNN supervising producer Tim Carter, who had to exit over a bridge which had been compromised.\n\n\"When we were going over it, it was really scary because the water was already violently swirling around the bridge,\" Martha Carter said. \"We did find out later that it had washed out.\"\n\nMeanwhile, some surrounding communities in Montana were left without power or safe drinking water as flood conditions made it impossible or unsafe to travel and compromised water supplies.\n\nGov. Greg Gianforte declared a statewide disaster Tuesday and MontanaGov. Greg Gianforte declared a statewide disaster Tuesday and announced he would seek an expedited presidential disaster declaration to help cover the cost of recovery.\n\nDramatic flooding prompts evacuations and rescues\n\nRain and snowmelt flooded rivers including the Yellowstone River, which runs northwest through Yellowstone Park in Wyoming and then north and eastward through several nearby Montana communities.\n\nThe flooding washed out parts of roads especially in the northern part of the park, and inundated south Montana homes, businesses and infrastructure Monday, forcing many families to evacuate. In the Montana city of Gardiner, a gateway to the park's northern entrance, video from witnesses showed a building collapsing into the Yellowstone River on Monday.\n\nIn Montana's Park County, which includes Gardiner, at least two homes collapsed into the intruding river and numerous homes and businesses were flooded, Greg Coleman, the county's disaster emergency services manager, told CNN Wednesday.\n\nFor some, roads and bridges were rendered temporarily impassable by the flooding, leaving them trapped, at times without clean water or power.\n\nThe Montana National Guard used four helicopters to help with evacuations in affected areas on Monday and Tuesday and also sent soldiers to the city of Red Lodge to establish a command center for search and rescue efforts, the force said. The Guard has used helicopters to rescue 87 people in south-central Montana since Monday, it said Wednesday\n\nA Montana helicopter company flew about 40 people out of Gardiner, which was temporarily isolated by flooding, Laura Jones with Rocky Mountain Rotors told CNN.\n\nA house that was pulled into a flooded creek in Red Lodge, Montana, is pictured Tuesday.\n\nIn the south Montana community of Absarokee, situated along a Yellowstone River tributary, resident Tracy Planichek and her husband had just reached their long-awaited goal of having a new home when the flood threat forced them to evacuate.\n\nNow, she told CNN, she is desperately hoping it has avoided the destruction seen in other homes, some of which were swept away. \"(We've) never been able to afford a new house,\" she said. \"It's sitting at the top of the lane, and we're hoping that by some God miracle that our house will be there.\"\n\nA road from Livingston into Gardiner was reopened Tuesday to local traffic, goods and services, but \"significant damage\" remains, Park County Sheriff Brad Bichler said.\n\nA road near Yellowstone National Park's northern entrance was significantly damaged by flooding.\n\nFloods shut down businesses in Gardiner\n\nThe flooding in Yellowstone has also had an adverse effect on businesses in the area.\n\nTami Rai McDonald owns the historic Park Hotel Yellowstone in Gardiner and told CNN Wednesday she and her staff are \"at the end of a rope\" because the flooding and closing of Yellowstone Park has \"cut us off from the world.\"\n\nThe Park Hotel is usually booked one to two years in advance, McDonald said.\n\nPhotos taken on Tuesday afternoon show the aftermath of the flooding in Red Lodge, Montana. Images show the street covered in rocks and debris from the high water levels.\n\n\"This closure of entrance during high season has caught all by surprise with no back up plans to survive what supports our livelihood,\" McDonald told CNN via text message, adding many visitors have called and emailed they were looking forward to staying at her hotel and have no alternative plans.\n\n\"So we (are) empty now, employees planned their lives to be here to keep things special, they feel a bit lifeless, abandoned, we feel sick for our guests who so looked forward to their time here, to get away, so excited,\" McDonald's text read. \"So many guests are so upset, crying, don't know what to do.\"\n\nZachary Beard told CNN he took these photos Tuesday along Broadway Avenue in Red Lodge, Montana.\n\nKari Huesing, who works at the Yellowstone Gateway Inn, told CNN the area has been a ghost town this week. One hotel, she said, shut down and sent all of their employees home. Her hotel will have a meeting to decide what they can do going forward.\n\n\"This is all based on tourism,\" Huesing said. The Yellowstone Gateway Inn had been booked for a year, Huesing said, and now there is all but one person at the hotel who actually recently checked out.\n\nFlood wave moves to Billings and further east\n\nA wave of flooding still was moving east Wednesday along the Yellowstone River, threatening more trouble in south Montana.\n\nBy early Wednesday, major flooding from the river was being reported in Billings, roughly a 175-mile drive east of Gardiner. The river in Billings rose above its previous record, 15 feet, around 4 p.m. Tuesday, said the National Weather Service.\n\n\"Exactly how high the river is, is a bit unsure with floodwaters impacting the gauge a bit at these higher levels, but have not seen a downturn trend yet,\" the service's office in Billings tweeted early Wednesday\n\nFields and streets were flooded along the river Tuesday just outside Billings, images posted to Facebook by the Yellowstone County Sheriff's Office showed. One picture showed two people walking in calf-deep water in a neighborhood.\n\nBillings public works officials said they decided Tuesday night to shut down water plant facilities after flooding in the Yellowstone River caused river levels to exceed 16 feet, according to a Facebook post from the department.\n\n\"As of Wednesday at 8:30 a.m., the water level at the plant reached more than 16 feet. For the plant to operate effectively, the river needs to be at 15 feet or below,\" officials said in the post.\n\nPublic works director Debi Meling said Wednesday no one had planned for this level of flooding the facilities were designed and recognized the diligence of the facilities' operational teams.\n\nShe added the plant would not return to \"normal operations\" until river water levels decrease.\n\nMeling said all reservoirs are filled, and the plant would have water for the community for about a day to a day and a half. Superintendent of Parks Mike Pigg said firetrucks were filled with water and water for all city parks was turned off.\n\nThe river should crest there Wednesday -- though attention will turn to high temperatures that could cause more snowmelt and more flooding in the region this weekend.\n\nBillings will approach record temperatures in the upper 90s Friday and Saturday, while the higher elevations will be in the 60s and 70s. This would be warm enough to melt the remaining snow pack and lead to additional river rises over the weekend. And more rain is possible in the area on Sunday.\n\nA lot of rain and snowmelt in only three days\n\nWhat led to the flooding was substantial rainfall and snow runoff over the weekend in the Beartooth and Absaroka mountain ranges, which span the Montana-Wyoming state line.\n\nThe combination of rain and snowmelt created a \"total water event of at least 4 to 9 inches,\" the National Weather Service in Billings said Tuesday.\n\nThat amount of runoff is similar to the region receiving two to three times a normal June's precipitation in only three days, according to CNN meteorologists.\n\nIn the park, officials had all visitors move out of lodging and campgrounds and leave the park to prevent anyone from being stranded, the National Park Service said in a news release . The park averages between 15,000 and 20,000 visitors in June, Sholly said.\n\nThe park has also closed the Yellowstone back country and has been in contact with groups in the area.\n\nA washed out bridge at Yellowstone National Park's Rescue Creek.\n\n\"We have contacted or know the whereabouts of every back country user currently in Yellowstone,\" Sholly said, noting one group remained in the northern range. No helicopter evacuations have been necessary, he said.\n\nNo known injuries or deaths occurred in the park because of the flooding, Sholly said, and officials do not believe the animals in the park have been significantly affected.\n\nThe park's southern loop \"appears to be less impacted than the northern roads\" and teams will try to determine when the loop can be reopened. But officials expect it to stay closed at least through Sunday, the park's release states.", "authors": ["Jason Hanna", "Amir Vera", "Elizabeth Wolfe", "David Williams", "Paradise Afshar"], "publish_date": "2022/06/15"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/06/16/yellowstone-floodwaters-threaten-water-supplies-montana/7645171001/", "title": "Floodwaters from Yellowstone surge through eastern Montana", "text": "Matthew Brown and Lindsay Whitehurst\n\nThe Associated Press\n\nBILLINGS, Mont. – Montana's largest city restarted its water plant Thursday after shutting it down amid record flooding that's caused widespread damage in Yellowstone National Park and surrounding communities.\n\nResidents in ravaged areas, meanwhile, cleaned up from the mess and braced for the economic fallout while the park remains closed at the height of tourist season.\n\nBillings had asked residents to conserve water because it was down to a limited supply when the Yellowstone River hit record high levels and triggered the closure of the treatment plant.\n\n“We are aware yesterday’s alert to the community caused a panic. That was never our hope,” city officials said in a statement Thursday. “We have never witnessed a situation like the one we saw yesterday ... we did not know how bad it could get or how long it would continue.”\n\nThe floodwaters continued to move downstream. By Friday morning, the flooding was expected to reach Miles City in eastern Montana. Local authorities said low-lying areas along the river could be flooded but there was no immediate risk to the city of more than 8,000 people.\n\nOfficials asked Billings residents Wednesday to conserve water because it was down to a 24- to 36-hour supply after a combination of heavy rain and rapidly melting mountain snow raised the Yellowstone River to historic levels that forced them to shut down its water treatment plant.\n\n“None of us planned a 500-year flood event on the Yellowstone when we designed these facilities,” said Debi Meling, the city’s public works director.\n\nThe city of 110,000 stopped watering parks and boulevards, and its fire department filled its trucks with river water.\n\nNormal operations resumed Thursday after the river level began to drop. It crested Wednesday at more than a foot above the previous recorded high in Billings in 1997.\n\nThe unprecedented and sudden flooding this week drove all but a dozen of the more than 10,000 visitors out of the nation’s oldest national park.\n\nRemarkably, no one was reported hurt or killed by raging waters that pulled homes off their foundations and pushed a river off course – possibly permanently – and may require damaged roads to be rebuilt a safer distance away.\n\nWHAT DAMAGE HAS BEEN DONE?:Yellowstone still closed as flooding recedes and thousands evacuate\n\nOn Wednesday, residents in Red Lodge, Montana, a gateway town to the park’s northern end, used shovels, wheelbarrows and a pump to clear thick mud and debris from a flooded home along the banks of Rock Creek.\n\n“We thought we had it, and then a bridge went out,\" Pat Ruzich said. \"And it diverted the creek, and the water started rolling in the back, broke out a basement window and started filling up my basement. And then I quit. It was like, the water won.”\n\nWhile the Yellowstone flood is rare, it is the type of event that is becoming more common as the planet warms, experts said.\n\n“We certainly know that climate change is causing more natural disasters, more fires, bigger fires and more floods and bigger floods,” said Robert Manning, a retired University of Vermont professor of environment and natural resources, “These things are going to happen, and they’re going to happen probably a lot more intensely.”\n\nYellowstone officials are hopeful that next week they can reopen the southern half of the park, which includes Old Faithful geyser. Park officials say the northern half of the park is likely to remain closed all summer, a devastating blow to the local economies that rely on tourism.\n\nSUMMER TRAVEL:What to know if you're hoping to visit Yellowstone National Park after floods recede\n\nClosure of the northern part of the park will keep visitors from features that include Tower Fall, Mammoth Hot Springs and the Lamar Valley, which is known for viewing wildlife such as bears and wolves.\n\nThe rains hit just as area hotels filled up in recent weeks with summer tourists. More than 4 million visitors were tallied by the park last year. The wave of tourists doesn’t abate until fall, and June is typically one of Yellowstone’s busiest months.\n\nMontana Gov. Greg Gianforte, a Republican, has faced criticism from Democrats and members of the public for being out of the country during the flooding.\n\n“Before flooding began in south-central Montana, Governor Gianforte left the country late last week on a long-scheduled personal trip with the first lady,” the governor’s spokesperson, Brooke Stroyke, said in a statement Wednesday. “He is returning early and as quickly as possible.”\n\nThe statement did not say where the governor was. Montana’s Lt. Gov. Kristen Juras signed an emergency disaster declaration on Tuesday and she was meeting with FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell and state disaster and emergency services personnel in Red Lodge on Thursday.\n\nThe tourism season had started well for Cara McGary, who guides groups through the Lamar Valley to see wolves, bison, elk and bears. She’d seen more than 20 grizzlies some days this year.\n\nNow, with the road from Gardiner into northern Yellowstone washed out, the wildlife is still there, but it’s out of reach to McGary and her guide service, In Our Nature, is suddenly in trouble.\n\n“The summer that we prepared for is not at all similar to the summer that we’re going to have,” she said. “This is an 80% to 100% loss of business during the high season.”\n\nFlying Pig Adventures, a Gardiner-based business that guides rafting trips on the Yellowstone River, will need to rely more on tourists staying in Montana now that roads into the park are impassible, co-owner Patrick Sipp said Wednesday.\n\nWHAT WE KNOW:Yellowstone National Park flooding 'still raging'; more than 10,000 visitors evacuated\n\nIt’s a blow not unlike how COVID-19 temporarily shut down Yellowstone two years ago, reducing the park’s June 2020 tourist visits by about one-third before they rebounded over the rest of that summer.\n\n“We’re definitely a resilient company, we’ve got a very tough crew,” Sipp said. “But it’s devastating. You just hate seeing stuff like that in the community. We’re just hoping that we can get back out there relatively soon.”\n\nMeantime, as the waters recede, park officials are turning their attention to the massive effort of rebuilding many miles of ruined roads and, possibly, hundreds of washed-out bridges, many of them built for backcountry hikers. Yellowstone Superintendent Cam Sholly said assessment teams won’t be able to tally the damage until next week.\n\nKelly Goonan, an associate professor at Southern Utah University and an expert in national parks and recreation management, said rebuilding will be a long process.\n\n“This is something we’re definitely going to feel the impacts of for the next several years,” Goonan said.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/06/16"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/experience/national-parks/2022/06/15/yellowstone-national-park-flooding-damages-visitors-info/7632567001/", "title": "Yellowstone National Park flooding: What summer visitors should ...", "text": "It was supposed to be a banner year for America's oldest national park.\n\nYellowstone turned 150 in March. A whole series of in-person and virtual events were planned to mark the occasion. The park was just days into its busy summer season when catastrophic floods shut it down, forcing more than 10,000 visitors to evacuate.\n\nBut they aren't the only visitors impacted.\n\nPeople planning to visit in weeks ahead are being advised to stay abreast of road and weather conditions due to severe damage. Some parts of the park may stay closed all summer and other parts may require reservations.\n\nHere's what travelers planning to visit Yellowstone this summer should know.\n\nSwept away:Yellowstone National Park hit by major floods and mudslides\n\nYellowstone renames Mount Doane:Namesake U.S. Army officer helped lead massacre of Native Americans\n\nWhen will Yellowstone reopen?\n\nIt's not clear.\n\nThe park says closures will last through at least the weekend.\n\n\"All entrances to Yellowstone National Park remain temporarily CLOSED while the park waits for floodwaters to recede and can conduct evaluations on roads, bridges and wastewater treatment facilities to ensure visitor and employee safety,\" the park posted online Tuesday. \"There will be no inbound visitor traffic at any of the five entrances into the park, including visitors with lodging and camping reservations, until conditions improve and park infrastructure is evaluated.\"\n\nThe park has been providing regular updates through its homepage, www.nps.gov/yell.\n\nWhat parts of Yellowstone are damaged?\n\nAerial surveys show roads in the northern part of the park appear more heavily damaged than in the south, but park officials need to assess the area more closely before reopening anything.\n\n\"Due to the northern loop being unavailable for visitors, the park is analyzing how many visitors can safely visit the southern loop once it’s safe to reopen,\" the park said Tuesday. \"This will likely mean implementation of some type of temporary reservation system to prevent gridlock and reduce impacts on park infrastructure.\"\n\nReservations are not typically required to enter the park, but traffic can back up even under regular conditions. Yellowstone is consistently one of America's most popular national parks and saw its highest visits on record last year.\n\n\"The National Park Service will make every effort to repair these roads as soon as possible; however, it is probable that road sections in northern Yellowstone will not reopen this season due to the time required for repairs,\" the park said.\n\nCrowded Europe:A weakened euro is good news for US travelers. For the large crowds in Europe, not so much.\n\nDisney visit:What’s coming – and what’s coming back – to Walt Disney World this summer after COVID\n\nWhat happens to Yellowstone lodging reservations?\n\nAll nine Yellowstone lodges, 12 campgrounds and 293 backcountry campsites are closed through at least Sunday and until further notice.\n\n\"If we are not able to provide the lodging or tours/activities you’ve reserved at the time of your reservation, we will cancel and fully refund those arrangements,\" Yellowstone National Park Lodges posted on its website.\n\nGuests hoping to cancel should expect long hold times as the central reservations line is \"experiencing extremely high call volumes.\"\n\nPotential guests are advised to check Yellowstone's alerts webpage for conditions before their trips.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/06/15"}]}
+{"question_id": "20220617_16", "search_time": "2022/06/17/16:36", "search_result": [{"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/13/world/strawberry-full-moon-june-2022-scn/index.html", "title": "June's strawberry moon will light up the sky this week", "text": "Sign up for CNN's Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more\n\nThe moon will appear full from Sunday moonrise to Wednesday moonset, according to NASA . It will reach its peak at 7:52 a.m. ET Tuesday but will not be fully visible in North America until moonrise. This year's strawberry moon is the first of two consecutive supermoons.\n\nWhile there is no single definition, the term supermoon generally refers to a full moon that appears brighter and larger than other moons because it is at its closet orbit to Earth.\n\nTo a casual observer, the supermoon may appear similar in size to other moons. However, the noticeable change in brightness enhances visibility and creates a great opportunity for people to begin paying attention to the moon and its phases, said Noah Petro, chief of NASA's Planetary Geology, Geophysics and Geochemistry Lab.\n\nThe ideal time to look at the moon is when it is rising or setting since that's when it will appear the largest to the naked eye, said Jacqueline Faherty, an astrophysicist at the American Museum of Natural History. ( The Old Farmer's Almanac's calculator can help you find out what time the moon rises and sets in your location.)\n\nThe best views of June's full moon in the United States will be in the southern half of the country and the Southwest. A series of weak storms will move through the Northeast and Great Lakes regions early in the week, creating cloudy conditions that will make it difficult to get a clear view, CNN meteorologist Gene Norman said.\n\nA strawberry full moon rises behind the Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion, Greece, in June 2021.\n\nPetro recommends that moon gazers seek out a clear horizon and avoid areas with tall buildings and thick forestry. He also urges people to stay away from bright lights if possible for maximum visibility.\n\nThe name strawberry moon is rooted in the traditions of Indigenous groups in the Northeastern US, including the Algonquin, Ojibwe, Dakota and Lakota communities that saw the celestial event as a sign that strawberries, and other fruits, were ripe and ready to be gathered. The Haida people refer to the moon as the berries ripen moon, according to The Old Farmer's Almanac\n\nIn Europe, this moon is often called the honey moon or the mead moon, and historical writings from the region suggest that honey was ready for harvest around the end of the month. Additionally, the name honey moon may refer to June's reputation as a popular month for marriages.\n\nThis full moon corresponds with the Hindu festival Vat Purnima, a celebration where married women tie a ceremonial thread around a banyan tree and fast to pray that their spouse lives a long life.\n\nFor Buddhists, this moon is the Poson Poya moon, named after the holiday celebrating the introduction of Buddhism in Sri Lanka in 236 BC.\n\nThere will be six more full moons in 2022, according to The Old Farmers' Almanac\n\nJuly 13: Buck moon\n\nAugust 11: Sturgeon moon\n\nSeptember 10: Harvest moon\n\nOctober 9: Hunter's moon\n\nNovember 8: Beaver moon\n\nDecember 7: Cold moon\n\nThese are the popularized names associated with the monthly full moons, but the significance of each one may vary across Native American tribes\n\nLunar and solar eclipses\n\nThere will be one more total lunar eclipse and a partial solar eclipse in 2022, according to The Old Farmer's Almanac.\n\nPartial solar eclipses occur when the moon passes in front of the sun but only blocks some of its light. Be sure to wear proper eclipse glasses to view solar eclipses safely as the sun's light can be damaging to the eye.\n\nA partial solar eclipse on October 25 will be visible to those in Greenland, Iceland, Europe , northeastern Africa, the Middle East, western Asia, India and western China. This partial solar eclipse will not be visible from North America.\n\nA total lunar eclipse will also be on display for those in Asia, Australia, the Pacific, South America and North America on November 8 between 3:01 a.m. ET and 8:58 a.m. ET, but the moon will be setting for those in eastern regions of North America.\n\nMeteor showers\n\nCheck out the remaining meteor showers that will peak in 2022:\n\nSouthern Delta Aquariids: July 29 to 30\n\nAlpha Capricornids: July 30 to 31\n\nPerseids: August 11 to 12\n\nOrionids: October 20 to 21\n\nSouthern Taurids: November 4 to 5\n\nNorthern Taurids: November 11 to 12\n\nLeonids: November 17 to 18\n\nGeminids: December 13 to 14\n\nUrsids: December 21 to 22\n\nIf you live in an urban area, you may want to drive to a place that isn't littered with city lights to get the best view.\n\nFind an open area with a wide view of the sky. Make sure you have a chair or blanket so you can look straight up. And give your eyes about 20 to 30 minutes -- without looking at your phone or other electronics -- to adjust to the darkness so the meteors will be easier to spot.", "authors": ["Rachel Fadem", "Ashley Strickland"], "publish_date": "2022/06/13"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/06/22/super-strawberry-moon-last-2021-what-means-how-see/7776513002/", "title": "Strawberry moon 2021: How to see the year's last supermoon on ...", "text": "After a pair of eclipses over the past few weeks, both lunar and solar, sky watchers will be in for another treat this week.\n\nThe full strawberry moon will grace the night sky this Thursday across the world.\n\nAlthough the moon will officially be full before it pops above the horizon, it will look plenty big when it rises in the eastern sky Thursday evening, about the same time as the sun is setting in the western sky.\n\nAlas, although it will be a supermoon, it won't look like a strawberry, and it probably won't be red, astronomers say, although it may have a golden color.\n\nWhen is the strawberry supermoon 2021?\n\nJune’s full moon will reach peak illumination at 2:40 p.m. EDT on Thursday, but will not be visible until later that evening, when it drifts above the horizon, according to the Old Farmer's Almanac.\n\nWhy is it called the strawberry moon?\n\nJune's full moon is called the strawberry moon because it signaled to some Native American tribes that it was the time of year to gather ripening strawberries, the almanac says.\n\nThe strawberry moon is the most colorful of the year because it takes a low, shallow path across the sky, said Bob Bonadurer, director of the Milwaukee Public Museum's planetarium.\n\nThe low arc of the June full moon across the sky means moonlight must travel through more of the Earth's atmosphere, which often gives it an orange or yellow tint.\n\nThe strawberry moon is also called \"hot moon\" because it rises right around the beginning of summer.\n\nIn Europe, alternative names include the honey moon, the mead moon or the rose moon.\n\nWhat is a supermoon?\n\nThis Thursday's full moon will also be the fourth and final supermoon of 2021, when the moon looks somewhat bigger and brighter than usual since it's a bit closer to the Earth than usual.\n\nThe previous three supermoons were in March, April and May, according to NASA.\n\n\"Different publications use slightly different thresholds for deciding when a full moon is close enough to the Earth to qualify as a supermoon,\" NASA said.\n\n\"Because the orbit of the moon is not a perfect circle, the moon is sometimes closer to the Earth than at other times during its orbit.\"\n\nOn average, supermoons appear about 7% bigger and about 15% brighter than a typical full moon.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2021/06/22"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/14/world/full-moon-april-pink-moon-scn/index.html", "title": "Expect a full pink moon to shine this entire weekend", "text": "Sign up for CNN's Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more\n\n(CNN) April's full moon will illuminate the sky this entire weekend, and while it's called the pink moon, it's not actually that color.\n\nThe pink moon will appear full from early Friday to Monday morning, according to NASA . It will be at its peak fullness on Saturday, April 16, at 2:55 p.m. ET.\n\nThe pink moon is associated with the early spring arrival of creeping phlox (Phlox subulata), also known as moss phlox or mountain phlox.\n\nThe moon is associated with the springtime blossoming of the Phlox subulata plant, a pink wildflower native to eastern North America, according to The Old Farmer's Almanac . The plant is commonly known as creeping phlox, moss phlox or mountain phlox.\n\nNative American names for April's full moon were homages to the spring season, according to The Old Farmer's Almanac . The Dakota tribe dubbed it the \"moon when the streams are again navigable,\" while the Tlingit tribe called it \"budding moon of plants and shrubs,\" in reference to the end of winter and the resurgence of plant growth.\n\nThe pink moon also aligns with several religious holidays, according to NASA. It's called the Paschal moon in the Christian ecclesiastical calendar, because it's the full moon before Easter. For Hindus, this moon marks Hanuman Jayanti, the celebration of the Hindu monkey deity Lord Hanuman . The pink moon is Bak Poya for Buddhists, especially in Sri Lanka, and commemorates Buddha's visit to the island country, where Buddha prevented a war by settling a dispute between chiefs.\n\nUnlike the last two years, this April's pink moon will not be a supermoon. However, it still comes with its own folklore. According to The Old Farmer's Almanac, \"A full moon in April brings frost. If the full moon rises pale, expect rain.\"\n\n\"There certainly is a chance of rain or frost this weekend. There is also a chance of neither,\" said CNN Meteorologist Judson Jones. \"But in some areas of the Midwest, people will see some below-average morning temperatures this weekend, which may leave them wishing for a pale moon.\"\n\nAfter the pink moon, there are eight full moon events still to come in 2022, with two of them qualifying as supermoons. Here's a list of the remaining moons for 2022, according to the Farmers' Almanac\n\nMay 16: Flower moon\n\nJune 14: Strawberry moon\n\nJuly 13: Buck moon\n\nAugust 11: Sturgeon moon\n\nSeptember 10: Harvest moon\n\nOctober 9: Hunter's moon\n\nNovember 8: Beaver moon\n\nDecember 7: Cold moon\n\nWhile these are the popularized names associated with the monthly full moons, the significance of each one may vary across Native American tribes\n\nLunar and solar eclipses\n\nThere will be two total lunar eclipses and two partial solar eclipses in 2022, according to The Old Farmer's Almanac\n\nPartial solar eclipses occur when the moon passes in front of the sun but only blocks some of its light. Be sure to wear proper eclipse glasses to safely view solar eclipses, as the sun's light can be damaging to the eye.\n\nA partial solar eclipse on April 30 can be seen by those in southern South America, the southeastern Pacific Ocean and the Antarctic peninsula. Another one on October 25 will be visible to those in Greenland, Iceland, Europe, northeastern Africa, the Middle East, western Asia, India and western China. Neither of the partial solar eclipses will be visible from North America.\n\nA lunar eclipse can occur only during a full moon when the sun, Earth and moon align, and the moon passes into Earth's shadow. Earth casts two shadows on the moon during the eclipse. The penumbra is the partial outer shadow, and the umbra is the full, dark shadow.\n\nWhen the full moon moves into Earth's shadow, it darkens, but it won't disappear. Sunlight passing through Earth's atmosphere lights the moon in a dramatic fashion, turning it red -- which is why this is often referred to as a \"blood moon.\"\n\nDepending on the weather conditions in your area, it may be rusty, brick-colored or blood red.\n\nThis happens because blue light undergoes stronger atmospheric scattering, so red light will be the most dominant color highlighted as sunlight passes through our atmosphere and casts it onto the moon.\n\nA total lunar eclipse will be visible to those in Europe, Africa, South America and North America (except for those in northwestern regions) between 9:31 p.m. ET on May 15 and 2:52 a.m. ET on May 16.\n\nAnother total lunar eclipse will also be on display for those in Asia, Australia, the Pacific, South America and North America on November 8 between 3:01 a.m. ET and 8:58 a.m. ET -- but the moon will be setting for those in eastern regions of North America.\n\nMeteor showers\n\nThis year kicked off with the Quadrantid meteor shower in January, and the next meteor shower will peak later this month.\n\nremaining 11 Here are the peak dates for theremaining 11 showers to watch for in 2022:\n\n• Lyrids: April 21 to 22\n\n• Eta Aquariids: May 4 to 5\n\n• Southern delta Aquariids: July 29 to 30\n\n• Alpha Capricornids: July 30 to 31\n\n• Perseids: August 11 to 12\n\n• Orionids: October 20 to 21\n\n• Southern Taurids: November 4 to 5\n\n• Northern Taurids: November 11 to 12\n\n• Leonids: November 17 to 18\n\n• Geminids: December 13 to 14\n\n• Ursids: December 21 to 22\n\nIf you live in an urban area, you may want to drive to a place that isn't littered with city lights to get the best view.\n\nFind an open area with a wide view of the sky. Make sure you have a chair or blanket so you can look straight up. And give your eyes about 20 to 30 minutes -- without looking at your phone or other electronics -- to adjust to the darkness so the meteors will be easier to spot.", "authors": ["Angie Orellana Hernandez", "Ashley Strickland"], "publish_date": "2022/04/14"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/17/world/full-moon-march-worm-moon-scn/index.html", "title": "A worm moon will light up the sky this week", "text": "(CNN) One of the brightest heralds of spring makes its appearance this week.\n\nThe March full moon, known as the worm moon, will be at its peak at 3:18 a.m. ET on Friday, March 18, according to NASA . It will appear full through Saturday morning.\n\nThis moon will appear larger to viewers because of the \"moon illusion,\" according to the Old Farmer's Almanac . This occurs when the moon is near the horizon and our eyes compare the moon's size to trees, buildings or other earthly objects. By comparing these reference points to the moon, our brain tricks us into thinking the moon is bigger.\n\nSouthern Native American tribes named the worm moon after the earthworm casts -- essentially feces -- that emerged as the ground thawed at winter's end, according to NASA.\n\nAnother account in the Old Farmer's Almanac says that the name refers to beetle larvae that would come out of winter hideouts as spring arrived.\n\nNorthern Native American tribes, however, lived among forests without native earthworms due to glaciers having wiped out the species, according to NASA. Some of these groups instead referred to the moon as the crow moon, as a nod to the birds whose cawing would signal the end of winter.\n\nIn the Hindu month Phalguna, the March full moon marks the beginning of the Holi Festival, a two-day celebration known as the \"Festival of Love,\" \"Festival of Colors\" and \"Festival of Spring,\" according to NASA.\n\nThere are nine full moons left in 2022, with two of them qualifying as supermoons. Here is a list of the remaining moons for 2022, according to the Farmers' Almanac\n\nApril 16: Pink moon\n\nMay 16: Flower moon\n\nJune 14: Strawberry moon\n\nJuly 13: Buck moon\n\nAugust 11: Sturgeon moon\n\nSeptember 10: Harvest moon\n\nOctober 9: Hunter's moon\n\nNovember 8: Beaver moon\n\nDecember 7: Cold moon\n\nWhile these are the popularized names associated with the monthly full moons, the significance of each one may vary across Native American tribes\n\nLunar and solar eclipses\n\nThere will be two total lunar eclipses and two partial solar eclipses in 2022, according to The Old Farmer's Almanac\n\nPartial solar eclipses occur when the moon passes in front of the sun but only blocks some of its light. Be sure to wear proper eclipse glasses to safely view solar eclipses, as the sun's light can be damaging to the eye.\n\nA partial solar eclipse on April 30 can be seen by those in southern South America, the southeastern Pacific Ocean and the Antarctic peninsula. Another one on October 25 will be visible to those in Greenland, Iceland, Europe, northeastern Africa, the Middle East, western Asia, India and western China. Neither of the partial solar eclipses will be visible from North America.\n\nA lunar eclipse can occur only during a full moon when the sun, Earth and moon align, and the moon passes into Earth's shadow. Earth casts two shadows on the moon during the eclipse. The penumbra is the partial outer shadow, and the umbra is the full, dark shadow.\n\nWhen the full moon moves into Earth's shadow, it darkens, but it won't disappear. Sunlight passing through Earth's atmosphere lights the moon in a dramatic fashion, turning it red -- which is why this is often referred to as a \"blood moon.\"\n\nDepending on the weather conditions in your area, it may be rusty, brick-colored or blood red.\n\nThis happens because blue light undergoes stronger atmospheric scattering, so red light will be the most dominant color highlighted as sunlight passes through our atmosphere and casts it on the moon.\n\nA total lunar eclipse will be visible to those in Europe, Africa, South America and North America (excepting northwestern regions) between 9:31 p.m. ET on May 15 and 2:52 a.m. ET on May 16.\n\nAnother total lunar eclipse will also be on display for those in Asia, Australia, the Pacific, South America and North America on November 8 between 3:01 a.m. ET and 8:58 a.m. ET -- but the moon will be setting for those in eastern regions of North America.\n\nMeteor showers\n\nThis year kicked off with the Quadrantid meteor shower in January, but the next meteor shower won't peak until April.\n\nHere are the remaining 11 showers to watch for in 2022:\n\n• Lyrids: April 21-22\n\n• Eta Aquariids: May 4-5\n\n• Southern delta Aquariids: July 29-30\n\n• Alpha Capricornids: July 30-31\n\n• Perseids: August 11-12\n\n• Orionids: October 20-21\n\n• Southern Taurids: November 4-5\n\n• Northern Taurids: November 11-12\n\n• Leonids: November 17-18\n\n• Geminids: December 13-14\n\n• Ursids: December 21-22\n\nIf you live in an urban area, you may want to drive to a place that isn't littered with city lights that will obstruct your view.\n\nFind an open area with a wide view of the sky. Make sure you have a chair or blanket so you can look straight up. And give your eyes about 20 to 30 minutes -- without looking at your phone or other electronics -- to adjust to the darkness so the meteors will be easier to spot.", "authors": ["Angie Orellana Hernandez", "Ashley Strickland"], "publish_date": "2022/03/17"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/15/world/may-flower-full-moon-2022-scn/index.html", "title": "May's flower full moon will blossom in the sky this weekend", "text": "Sign up for CNN's Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more\n\n(CNN) May's full moon, known as the flower moon, will blossom in the sky on Sunday night into Monday.\n\nThe moon will reach its peak at 12:15 a.m. ET on Monday, May 16, so it will appear at its roundest the evening of May 15, according to The Old Farmer's Almanac\n\nThe flower moon is named after the flowers that blossom this time of year in the Northern Hemisphere, The Old Farmer's Almanac said.\n\nThe lunar event is also known as the full corn planting moon because May marks the end of winter's frost, which allows farmers to plant their seeds.\n\nThe Abernaki people from Maine also reference the planting season by calling this full moon the field maker moon, according to Western Washington University . The Winnebago people in the Great Lakes region call it \"hoeing-corn moon,\" according to the university.\n\nVesak, a sacred day for Buddhists, corresponds with May's full moon, according to the United Nations . The birth of Gautama Buddha, the moment he attained enlightenment and his death all took place on days of Vesak, according to the organization.\n\nStargazers will be in for a treat as the flower moon transforms into a scarlet color during the total lunar eclipse happening at the same time . A total lunar eclipse is when the sun and moon are on opposite sides of the Earth, which causes only a small amount of sunlight to reach the moon, according to NASA\n\nMost of the United States will have clear skies the evening of May 15 and into the next morning, said CNN meteorologist Monica Garrett.\n\n\"The exception will be in the Northeast where some rain will be moving through, keeping the sky cloudy,\" she said.\n\nThere will also be some scattered showers across the coastal areas of Washington and Oregon, and clouds across the Northern Rockies, Garrett said.\n\nThere will be seven more full moons in 2022, according to The Old Farmers' Almanac:\n\n• June 14: Strawberry moon\n\n• July 13: Buck moon\n\n• August 11: Sturgeon moon\n\n• September 10: Harvest moon\n\n• October 9: Hunter's moon\n\n• November 8: Beaver moon\n\n• December 7: Cold moon\n\nWhile these are the popularized names associated with the monthly full moons, the significance of each one may vary across Native American tribes\n\nLunar and solar eclipses\n\nThere will be one more total lunar eclipse and a partial solar eclipse in 2022, according to The Old Farmer's Almanac\n\nPartial solar eclipses occur when the moon passes in front of the sun but only blocks some of its light. Be sure to wear proper eclipse glasses to safely view solar eclipses, as the sun's light can be damaging to the eye.\n\nA partial solar eclipse on October 25 will be visible to those in Greenland, Iceland, Europe, northeastern Africa, the Middle East, western Asia, India and western China. Neither of the partial solar eclipses will be visible from North America.\n\nA total lunar eclipse will also be on display for those in Asia, Australia, the Pacific, South America and North America on November 8 between 3:01 a.m. ET and 8:58 a.m. ET -- but the moon will be setting for those in eastern regions of North America.\n\nMeteor showers\n\nCheck out the remaining 11 showers that will peak in 2022:\n\n• Southern delta Aquariids: July 29 to 30\n\n• Alpha Capricornids: July 30 to 31\n\n• Perseids: August 11 to 12\n\n• Orionids: October 20 to 21\n\n• Southern Taurids: November 4 to 5\n\n• Northern Taurids: November 11 to 12\n\n• Leonids: November 17 to 18\n\n• Geminids: December 13 to 14\n\n• Ursids: December 21 to 22\n\nIf you live in an urban area, you may want to drive to a place that isn't littered with city lights to get the best view.\n\nFind an open area with a wide view of the sky. Make sure you have a chair or blanket so you can look straight up. And give your eyes about 20 to 30 minutes -- without looking at your phone or other electronics -- to adjust to the darkness so the meteors will be easier to spot.", "authors": ["Megan Marples", "Ashley Strickland"], "publish_date": "2022/05/15"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/07/14/how-watch-perseid-meteor-shower-july-and-august-2021/7964480002/", "title": "'Fireballs' will light up the sky tonight when the Perseid meteor ...", "text": "The Perseid meteor shower will continue through Aug. 24.\n\nThe shower is known for its bright, long streaks of light and dazzling \"fireballs.\"\n\nThe showers are best seen around 2 a.m. local time, but can be visible as early as 9 p.m.\n\nGaze upon the night sky as the best meteor shower of the year makes its annual return.\n\nIt has been an incredible year to witness some of the solar system's visually stunning phenomena, from the super flower blood moon in May, the ring of fire solar eclipse in early June and the strawberry supermoon late last month. Now, it's time for the annual meteor shower NASA has called the best of the year.\n\nThe Perseid shower began July 14 and will continue through Aug. 24, with the peak coming in mid-August. This year, that peak will be Aug. 11-13.\n\nDiscovered in 1862 by Lewis Swift and Horace Tuttle, the shower originates from Earth entering the orbit of debris from the comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle, which takes 133 years to orbit the sun.\n\nWhat makes the event so stunning is the shower's bright, long streaks of light and dazzling \"fireballs,\" which are large bursts that last longer than typical meteors, according to NASA.\n\nHow to watch the Perseid shower\n\nLuckily for people in the United States, the shower is more visible in the Northern Hemisphere. But, it does require staying up late, and a clear view of the sky.\n\nThe showers are best seen around 2 a.m. local time but can be visible as early as 9 p.m. It can be seen until just before dawn.\n\nIf staying up late every night for the chance to see the shower isn't ideal, it may be best to wait for the peak. From Aug. 11 to 13, up to 100 meteors an hour can be seen in the night sky.\n\nLast year, the moon's light made it harder for people to catch a glimpse of the showers. This year will be better, because the moon is in its the waxing crescent phase and will be in it again during the peak period, meaning it won't have much light to compete with the meteors.\n\nContributing: Doyle Rice, USA TODAY. Follow Jordan Mendoza on Twitter: @jord_mendoza.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2021/07/14"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/16/world/total-lunar-eclipse-images-may-2022-scn/index.html", "title": "Total lunar eclipse 2022: Dazzling 'blood moon' captured in pictures ...", "text": "(CNN) The moon glowed red on Sunday night and the early hours of Monday, after a total lunar eclipse that saw the sun, Earth and moon form a straight line in the night sky.\n\nDuring a full lunar eclipse, the moon passes through the darkest part of the Earth's shadow -- the umbra. When the moon is within the umbra it gets a reddish hue because blue and green light get more easily scattered by dust particles in the atmosphere and orange and red colors remain more visible, according to NASA. Lunar eclipses are sometimes called blood moons because of this phenomenon.\n\nThe blood moon rises over lower Manhattan and One World Trade Center in New York City on May 15, 2022.\n\nStargazers around the world turned out to witness and capture the lunar event in images.\n\nWhile the eclipse peaks for only a short amount of time, Petro said the moon would be bathed in coppery tones throughout the night, making it a particularly interesting celestial phenomenon to watch.", "authors": ["Katie Hunt", "Megan Marples", "Ashley Strickland"], "publish_date": "2022/05/16"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/21/world/lyrid-meteor-shower-april-2022-scn/index.html", "title": "When to look up at the sky for the Lyrid meteor shower", "text": "Sign up for CNN's Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more\n\n(CNN) If you spot a shooting star in the night sky later this week, it might be from the Lyrid meteor shower, which will reach its peak overnight around 12 a.m. ET on April 22, according to EarthSky .\n\nNamed after the Lyra constellation, the Lyrid meteor shower will end the \"meteor drought,\" the period between January and mid-April when no meteor showers light up the sky.\n\nFor those looking to get a glimpse at the Lyrids, they will be best viewed in the Northern Hemisphere, along the northeastern sky in the mid-northern latitudes, according to the American Meteor Society . This area encompasses North America.\n\nGazers should find an area away from city light pollution and lie back to get as much of the night sky in view. Wait 30 minutes for your eyes to adjust to the darkness to make meteors easier to spot, NASA recommends.\n\nThe Lyrids have been observed for 2,700 years, according to NASA. This shower tends to have bright and fast meteors and has reached a peak of as many as 100 meteors seen per hour.\n\nHowever the moon this year will be in a waning gibbous phase, meaning more than half of it will be shining luminously, so you'll only see the brightest meteors during the early morning of April 22, according to the American Meteor Society.\n\nWant a better view? Try between late in the evening of April 22 and dawn of April 23 to get another look at the meteor shower under clearer conditions. Lyrids are commonly known to have unpredictable surges, so be prepared for unexpected outbursts, according to EarthSky.\n\nWatchers should also keep an eye out for fireballs or glowing dust trails that meteors leave behind.\n\nThis shower will remain active until April 29.\n\nAfter the Lyrids, there are 10 meteor showers that peak in 2022. Here's a list of the remaining showers to watch for this year:\n\nEta Aquariids: May 4 to 5\n\nSouthern delta Aquariids: July 29 to 30\n\nAlpha Capricornids: July 30 to 31\n\nPerseids: August 11 to 12\n\nOrionids: October 20 to 21\n\nSouthern Taurids: November 4 to 5\n\nNorthern Taurids: November 11 to 12\n\nLeonids: November 17 to 18\n\nGeminids: December 13 to 14\n\nUrsids: December 21 to 22\n\nLunar and solar eclipses\n\nFollowing the Lyrids, the celestial show will continue on April 30, when a partial solar eclipse occurs. The event can be seen by those in southern South America, the southeastern Pacific Ocean and the Antarctic peninsula, according to The Old Farmer's Almanac . Another partial solar eclipse on October 25 will be visible to those in Greenland, Iceland, Europe, northeastern Africa, the Middle East, western Asia, India and western China.\n\nNeither of the partial solar eclipses will be visible from North America.\n\nPartial solar eclipses occur when the moon passes in front of the sun but only blocks some of its light. Be sure to wear proper eclipse glasses to safely view solar eclipses, as the sun's light can be damaging to the eye.\n\nThere will also be two total lunar eclipses in 2022.\n\nA total lunar eclipse will be visible to those in Europe, Africa, South America and North America (except for those in northwestern regions) between 9:31 p.m. ET on May 15 and 2:52 a.m. ET on May 16.\n\nAnother total lunar eclipse will also be on display for those in Asia, Australia, the Pacific, South America and North America on November 8 between 3:01 a.m. ET and 8:58 a.m. ET -- but the moon will be setting for those in eastern regions of North America.\n\nA lunar eclipse can occur only during a full moon when the sun, Earth and moon align, and the moon passes into Earth's shadow. Earth casts two shadows on the moon during the eclipse. The penumbra is the partial outer shadow, and the umbra is the full, dark shadow.\n\nWhen the full moon moves into Earth's shadow, it darkens, but it won't disappear. Sunlight passing through Earth's atmosphere lights the moon in a dramatic fashion, turning it red -- which is why this event is often referred to as a \"blood moon.\"\n\nDepending on the weather conditions in your area, the moon may appear rusty, brick-colored or blood red.\n\nThis color variability happens because blue light undergoes stronger atmospheric scattering, so red light will be the most dominant color highlighted as sunlight passes through our atmosphere and casts it onto the moon.\n\nFull moons\n\nThere are eight full moons still to come in 2022, with two of them qualifying as supermoons. Here is a list of the remaining moons this year, according to the Farmers' Almanac\n\nMay 16: Flower moon\n\nJune 14: Strawberry moon\n\nJuly 13: Buck moon\n\nAugust 11: Sturgeon moon\n\nSeptember 10: Harvest moon\n\nOctober 9: Hunter's moon\n\nNovember 8: Beaver moon", "authors": ["Angie Orellana Hernandez", "Ashley Strickland"], "publish_date": "2022/04/21"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/18/world/wolf-first-full-moon-2022-images-scn/index.html", "title": "Wolf Moon: Stunning images show the first full moon of 2022 in all its ...", "text": "(CNN) The first full moon of the year lit up the night sky on Monday, and photographers captured its splendor.\n\nA cable car passes in front of the moon as it crosses the River Thames in London on Monday, January 17.\n\nBesides the wolf moon, January's full moon is known by a number of names, including the Old Moon and Ice Moon.\n\nThe full moon sets behind Monte Prena in Gran Sasso d'Italia National Park on January 17.\n\nHindus refer to it as Shakambhari Purnima, which marks the last day of Shakambari Navratri, an eight-day holiday honoring the goddess Shakambhari. People in India often bathe in holy waters during this time, NASA said.\n\nAssiniboine people who live in the Northern Great Plains in the United States call this the center moon because it is around the middle of winter, according to the Old Farmer's Almanac\n\nThe full moon rises in the residential area of Eindhoven in the Netherlands on January 17.\n\nRead More", "authors": ["Katie Hunt", "Megan Marples"], "publish_date": "2022/01/18"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/01/28/wolf-moon-first-2021-full-moon-photos/4301873001/", "title": "Wolf moon, first 2021 full moon, has an unusual name. See the photos.", "text": "Sky watchers got a real treat Thursday night as the wolf moon filled the night sky.\n\nThough the Virtual Telescope Project will stream video of the first full moonrise of the year over Rome's skyline, amateur astronomers can watch the sky through the early part of Saturday morning – barring any cloud cover due to winter storms.\n\nThe name is attributed to Native Americans noticing that wolves would howl during the winter months, when food was scarce, according to the Old Farmer's Almanac.\n\nBut that interpretation is most likely incorrect, Gordon Johnston, a retired NASA program manager, wrote in a blog post Tuesday.\n\n\"From what I have learned about traditional names given to full Moons prior to the introduction of modern timekeeping, local leaders would usually decide on the name of the Moon based on conditions at the time,\" he wrote. \"Full Moon names were used to describe and remember what happened in the past and to remind of what was likely to come in the near future.\"\n\nFirst meteor shower of 2021:Skwatchers capture dazzling photos of the Quadrantids\n\nAccording to Indian Country Today, the closest name to \"wolf moon\" is actually the Sioux name, the \"wolves run together\" moon.\n\nOther names for the wolf moon include the Algonquin's label squochee kesos, or \"sun has not strength to thaw,\" the Hopi's moniker \"moon of life at its height\" and the Muscogee's name \"winter's younger brother,\" per the Western Washington University Planetarium website, which has a list of full moon names for 29 tribes.\n\nIn case you weren't able to catch a glimpse, social media has you covered.\n\nUnlike 2020, which saw 13 full moons, 2021 will have the typical 12 full moons. Their names, according to the Almanac:", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2021/01/28"}]}
+{"question_id": "20220617_17", "search_time": "2022/06/17/16:36", "search_result": [{"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/music/2022/06/16/beyonce-renaissance-new-album-2022/7644395001/", "title": "Beyoncé's 'Renaissance': Everything about project, British Vogue ...", "text": "It's time for the Beyhive to dust off their wings and swarm — a new Beyoncé project is coming.\n\nBuzz about a new endeavor from the singer began last week after she removed all of her profile photos from social media and people within her circle began dropping subliminal hints and seemingly-random adoration posts for the star.\n\nIn the wee hours of Thursday morning, Tidal, the music streaming service formerly owned by Beyoncé's husband Jay-Z, announced official news: her upcoming release \"Rennaisance\" will arrive this summer with \"Act I\" coming July 29.\n\nThe streaming service prefaced the news with several funny tweets throughout the week, including a popular Beyoncé meme of \"Flavor of Love\" star New York.\n\nOn the Grammy-winning artist's official website, \"Renaissance\" and \"Act I\" have become the focal point of the homepage with options to pre-save the new music and shop four different kinds of nondescript \"Renaissance\" merchandise which include a T-shirt, a CD and a collectible \"Renaissance\" box.\n\nBeyoncé first teased the \"Renaissance\" title in an August interview with Harper's Bazaar, saying she'd been in the studio for a year and a half working on something new.\n\n\"With all the isolation and injustice over the past year, I think we are all ready to escape, travel, love, and laugh again. I feel a renaissance emerging, and I want to be part of nurturing that escape in any way possible,\" she said. \"Yes, the music is coming!\"\n\nBeyoncé is coming:A look back on her most-recent interview with Harper's Bazaar\n\n\"Renaissance\" will come off the back of the singer's visual album \"Black is King,\" which was released July 2020 in correspondence with the soundtrack she made for 2019's \"Lion King.\" Also in 2020, she joined Megan Thee Stallion for a remix of her hit song \"Savage.\"\n\nBeyoncé plans to discuss the upcoming album in a British Vogue interview on June 21. The fashion outlet shared several photos from the cover story on Thursday including the songstress looking regal on a horse in a feathered headdress, a glam shot on a motorcycle and more.\n\nBritish Vogue teases that \"Renaissance\" will be the singer's \"most ambitious musical project to date.\" The album is also the result of Beyoncé overthinking every detail and decision as she spent time at home amid the pandemic.\n\nThe outlet alludes to the album being party-focused with \"soaring vocals and fierce beats.\" British Vogue writes: \"Her upcoming album is music that makes you rise, that turns your mind to cultures and subcultures, music that will unite so many on the dance floor and make them fall in love.\"\n\nTrue to the album name, the outlet says it shows her \"evolution, one that promises vision, grace – and something a little bit extra.\"\n\n'The best I’ve felt in my life':Beyoncé reflects on 40th birthday in emotional letter to fans\n\nThe last time Beyoncé released a truly solo project was in 2016 with the surprise drop visual album \"Lemonade,\" which spurred hits including \"Hold up\" and \"Formation.\" In 2019 she released the album version of her headlining performance at 2018's Coachella and in 2018, she and Jay-Z teamed up as The Carters to release their \"Everything is Love\" album.\n\nSince \"Black is King,\" the singer made Grammy history becoming the most-winning female artist, and the most-winning singer (male or female), in the 63-year history of the Grammy Awards. The 2021 award show solidified her spot after her trophy count rose to 28 wins, the new additions being her music video for \"Brown Skin Girl\" and a win for best rap performance with the \"Savage\" collaboration.\n\nContributing: Naledi Ushe", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/06/16"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2022/06/16/jan-6-hearings-beyonce-russian-spy-captured-lake-mead-thursdays-news/7525669001/", "title": "Jan. 6 hearings, Beyoncé, Russian spy captured, Lake Mead ...", "text": "A House hearing investigating the Capitol attack turned its focus on former Vice President Mike Pence. A Russian spy was captured after making an attempt to infiltrate a court investigating Ukraine war crimes. And it's official: New music from Beyoncé is on the way.\n\n👋 Hey pals! Laura Davis here. It's Thursday, and there's Beyoncé news, so let's get to it.\n\nBut first, how many is too many? 🦜 A New York man has been arrested multiple times in a dispute over how many bird feeders he has in his yard. Read more.\n\nThe Short List is a snappy USA TODAY news roundup. Subscribe to the newsletter here or text messages here.\n\nHearings: Name-calling, death threats, intense pressure on Pence\n\nPence's refusal to single-handedly reject electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2021, as former President Donald Trump pressured him to do, was the subject of Thursday's House hearing investigating the Capitol attack. The panel heard from multiple witnesses who outlined Trump's effort to pressure his vice president to reject electoral votes for Joe Biden during the official certification of state results. The panel's leaders said the evidence showed Trump wanted Pence to either declare Trump the winner or send the votes back to the states to be counted again. According to videotaped witness testimony, on the morning of Jan. 6, Trump telephoned Pence and called him a \"wimp\" and the \"p-word.\" But Pence resisted that coercion – even amid death threats from those who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, the day the House and Senate certified Biden's election win. Everything that happened today.\n\n'1776 Returns': Filing reveals Proud Boys Jan. 6 plan to storm buildings.\n\nFiling reveals Proud Boys Jan. 6 plan to storm buildings. Trump raised millions to fight election fraud. Here's where that money went.\n\nIt's official: New music from Beyoncé is coming\n\nBeyhive, you ready? A new project from Beyoncé is coming. Buzz about a new endeavor from the singer began last week after she took down all of her profile photos from social media and people within her circle began dropping hints and seemingly-random adoration posts for the star. In the wee hours of Thursday morning, Tidal, the music streaming service formerly owned by Beyoncé's husband Jay-Z, announced official news: Her upcoming release \"Renaissance\" will arrive this summer with \"Act I\" coming July 29. Here's what we know.\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\nRussian spy captured in attempt to infiltrate war crimes investigation\n\nA Russian military spy posed as a Brazilian national in an attempt to get an internship at the International Criminal Court in the Hague, which is investigating war crimes allegations in Ukraine, the Dutch intelligence service said Thursday. The General Intelligence and Security Service named the Russian intelligence officer as Sergey Vladimirovich Cherkasov and said that in April he used an elaborately constructed identity to try to infiltrate the court. According to officials, his infiltration would have provided a \"significant contribution\" to Russian intelligence, and might also have been able to influence criminal proceedings. Cherkasov was detained at a Dutch airport and deported to Brazil, where he could face court proceedings.\n\n2 U.S. military veterans feared captured in Ukraine. Latest updates.\n\nin Ukraine. Latest updates. Many LGBTQ Ukrainians face hurdles entering U.S. under humanitarian programs.\n\nFeds warn Lake Mead, Colorado River dangerously low\n\nA top federal water official told Congress this week that shortages on the Colorado River system have taken an even grimmer turn, with a whopping 2 million to 4 million acre-feet of reduction in water use needed by 2023 just to keep Lake Mead functioning and physically capable of delivering drinking water, irrigation and power to millions of people. Levels at the reservoir have dropped to an all-time low of 28% of capacity, with no relief in sight, said Camille Touton, Bureau of Reclamation commissioner. Tens of millions of people, including residents of major cities like Los Angeles, San Diego and Phoenix, rely on the lower Colorado River basin system. What efforts are needed? Keep reading.\n\nReal quick\n\nHow much water do we really need?\n\nA viral trend going around has people drinking a gallon of water each day. Should you? Dehydration is a common cause of many of the ailments that bring patients to the ER on a daily basis, with headaches and dizziness, nausea, abdominal cramping and constipation, muscle aches and kidney stones. Biologically, this makes sense, given that 60% of our body is water. The benefits of adequate hydration are undisputed, but how much do we really need? The U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine determined that an adequate daily fluid intake is about 3.7 liters of fluids per day for men and 2.7 liters for women. It might seem like a lot, but remember that about 20% of our daily fluid intake comes from food. Drink up! And keep reading to learn more.\n\nKeep cool this summer by recognizing and preventing heat illness.\n\nby recognizing and preventing heat illness. Man found dead in Death Valley National Park after running out of gas during heat wave.\n\nA break from the news", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/06/16"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/music/2022/06/16/drake-new-album-honestly-nevermind-what-we-know/7654456001/", "title": "Drake announces new album 'Honestly, Nevermind': What we know", "text": "In a surprise that is sure to have fans in their feelings, Drake dropped a new album Friday.\n\nThe Canadian emcee announced on Instagram Thursday the release of his seventh album, titled “Honestly, Nevermind,\" revealing cover art with the album’s title set in a shiny silver calligraphy font, juxtaposed against a plain black background.\n\n\"Honestly, Nevermind\" runs for 52 minutes and includes 14 songs full of upbeat dance hits, with the only featured artist being 21 Savage for the final song \"Jimmy Cooks.\" Drake's latest follows 2021's \"Certified Lover Boy,\" which broke Spotify records, crowned Drake as the eighth artist in Billboard history to earn 10 No. 1 albums and spawned the hits “Girls Want Girls,” \"Knife Talk\" also featuring 21 Savage, and “Way 2 Sexy.”\n\nDrake's announcement of new music came just hours after Beyoncé teased major album news via social media, announcing the upcoming release of \"Renaissance\" which will come out July 29.\n\nAfter Twitter timelines calmed from excitement surrounding new Beyoncé music, the conversation quickly turned to \"Honestly, Nevermind\" after Drake's announcement. After the midnight release, the chatter increased with mixed reactions.\n\n'CLB':Drake's producer explains why R. Kelly is credited on 2021 album\n\n\"Honestly Nevermind was made out of passionfruit …… Drake is a crazy genius,\" @the_Lawrenz wrote, referencing the hit from Drake’s “More Life” in 2017.\n\nWriter Najma Sharif tweeted: \"Drake saw women having fun when Beyoncé announced and said ‘I will not have it!’”\n\n\"First drake album I’ve enjoyed in a while honestly,\" @KSI wrote.\n\n\"Drake has to be trying to get out a contract with that album. That’s not even a mixtape,\" @_Zeets wrote.\n\nAlong with the album, the \"Hotline Bling\" rapper also announced the premiere of his new SiriusXM radio show \"Table for One\" which will air on Channel 42. The first episode premiered at 11 p.m. ET and featured Drake as he gave the world an early listen to the entirety of the new album.\n\nBeyoncé is coming:What we know about 'Renaissance,' her 'most ambitious musical project'\n\nMuch like some critiques of \"Honestly, Nevermind,\" Drake's last album also came with controversy when “Certified Lover Boy” was snubbed from the major categories at this year’s Grammy Awards, only earning nods for best rap album and best rap performance. His team later requested to remove his nominations from the Grammy's final-round ballot altogether.\n\nMore:Drake withdraws his two Grammy Awards nominations for 2022 ceremony\n\nThe Toronto-born rapper has long maintained a contentious relationship with the Grammys. Upon accepting his 2019 award for best rap song for “God’s Plan” — his first appearance at the ceremony since 2013 — he launched into a speech that called the honor meaningless before his microphone was silenced.\n\n\"We play an opinion-based sport, not a factual-based sport,\" Drake said at the time. \"You've already won if you have people who are singing your songs word for word, if you're a hero in your hometown. If there's people who have regular jobs who are coming out in the rain, in the snow, spending their hard-earned money to buy tickets to come to your shows. You don't need this right here, I promise you. You already won.\"\n\nMaking waves:Drake withdraws his two Grammy Awards nominations for 2022 ceremony\n\nContributing: Melissa Ruggieri, Elise Brisco", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/06/16"}]}
+{"question_id": "20220617_18", "search_time": "2022/06/17/16:36", "search_result": [{"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/50-states/2019/07/21/news-around-states/39791115/", "title": "Tubing, Hemingway, great white sharks: News from around our 50 ...", "text": "From USA TODAY Network and wire reports\n\nAlabama\n\nJasper: Live stand-ins for Santa’s reindeer won’t be allowed in the state this year, as part of the state’s precautions against a deadly deer disease. So far, there hasn’t been any chronic wasting disease in Alabama, and the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources wants to keep it that way. The Daily Mountain Eagle reports that the department’s deputy commissioner told the Rotary Club of Jasper on Tuesday that reindeer typically arrive days before a show and might bring in the disease. Ed Poolos of Jasper told the group that reindeer already in the state can stay. Chronic wasting disease is highly infectious and caused by malformed proteins called prions. Animals can spread those for a year or two before symptoms show.\n\nAlaska\n\nAnchorage: At least 14 cities in Alaska have employed police officers whose criminal records should have prevented them from being hired under state law, according to The Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica. The news organizations reported Saturday that they found more than 34 officers who should have been ineligible for these jobs. They said that In all but three cases, the police hires were never reported by the city governments to the state’s Department of Public Safety, as required. In eight additional communities, local tribal governments have hired tribal police officers convicted of domestic violence or sex crimes. All 42 of these tribal and city police officers have rap sheets that would prevent them from being hired by the Anchorage Police Department and its urban peers, as Alaska state troopers or even as private security guards most anywhere else in the United States. Many remain on the job.\n\nArizona\n\nPhoenix: Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s 1950s adobe home is being listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The National Park Service approved Arizona’s nomination of the house for placement on the register, which the office described as the nation’s list of properties considered worthy of preservation. The home was originally in Paradise Valley but was relocated in 2009 to a Tempe park for use by the Sandra Day O’Connor Institute. O’Connor lived in the home from 1958 until 1981, when President Ronald Reagan named the state appellate judge and former legislative leader to the Supreme Court.\n\nArkansas\n\nLittle Rock: The U.S. Small Business Administration says $10.8 million in disaster assistance loans have been made in Arkansas. SBA director Tanya Garfield in Sacramento, California, said Friday that the loans are to businesses and residents to help rebuild and recover from severe storms and flooding that inundated western, central and southeastern Arkansas from May 21-June 14. Businesses and residents in Arkansas, Conway, Crawford, Desha, Faulkner, Jefferson, Lincoln, Logan, Perry, Pope, Pulaski, Sebastian and Yell counties who have damage from the storms or flooding can register for the loans through Aug. 7. Interest rates can be as low as 4% for businesses, 2.75% for private nonprofit organizations and 1.938% for homeowners and renters with terms up to 30 years.\n\nCalifornia\n\nLos Angeles: The agency overseeing the state’s legal marijuana market is struggling to hire sufficient staff and set an overall strategy for the nation’s largest cannabis economy, an audit found. About two-thirds of the 219 staff positions authorized for the Bureau of Cannabis Control remain unfilled, according to an audit by the state Finance Department. A shortage of staff in the enforcement unit is hindering the agency’s ability to conduct investigations. The problems outlined in the audit provide a backstory to the uneven rollout of the state’s legal pot market, which kicked off sales on Jan. 1, 2018. By just about any measure, California’s effort to transform its longstanding illegal and medicinal marijuana markets into a unified, multibillion-dollar industry remains a work in progress.\n\nColorado\n\nBoulder: Some people stayed cool on their commutes by tubing down a snow-fed creek. The Daily Camera reports that 1,000 people participated in the 12th annual Tube to Work Day on Friday, one of the hottest days of the year. The event is aimed at promoting alternative transportation and celebrating the city’s quirkiness. Organizers bill it as the “world’s greatest traffic jam.” Television helicopter footage showed people going through mild rapids as they made their way down Boulder Creek in tubes, including some dressed in suits. People gathered on bridges over the creek to watch. The event was delayed this year until the water subsided to safe levels following a winter of plentiful snow in the mountains.\n\nConnecticut\n\nHamden: A new agreement will allow graduates from two community colleges to easily transfer to Quinnipiac University. The president of Gateway Community College in New Haven and Housatonic Community College in Bridgeport has reached an agreement with Quinnipiac’s president, guaranteeing Gateway and Housatonic graduates are admitted into a bachelor’s degree program as third-year students. They must have graduated from the state-run community colleges with a minimum grade0point average of 3.0 and an associate degree in arts or an associate degree in science in business, engineering science, nursing or allied health. The students must also satisfy other transfer admission requirements at the private university and requirements for their major.\n\nDelaware\n\nWilmington:Sweltering temperatures reached near-record levels Saturday with highs of 96 in Wilmington and 98 in Georgetown — two locations where the National Weather Service collects official data. The record high temperature on July 20 in Wilmington is 100, set in 1895. Georgetown’s record-setting day, where temperatures also hit 100, came in 1977. But the heat index, which takes into account temperature and humidity, reached 109 in Wilmington and 111 in Georgetown. The weather service does not keep heat index records. A reprieve from the warm weather should come Monday as a colder front moves in and pushes out the hot and humid air mass that has lingered over the area since Wednesday.\n\nDistrict of Columbia\n\nWashington:Multiple firefighters were treated for heat exhaustion while trying to put out an apartment fire in Southwest, D.C. on Saturday, WUSA-TV reports. DC Fire and Emergency Medical Services crews responded to a seventh-floor apartment fire in the 200 block of I Street. Officials reported smoke conditions on several floors and many residents were evacuated from the building. The fire was put out quickly. Two civilians were taken to a hospital for evaluation and two firefighters were taken for heat exhaustion.\n\nFlorida\n\nKey West: A retired 68-year-old Tennessee banker has won Key West’s Hemingway Look-Alike Contest on his eighth attempt. Joe Maxey of Cedar Hill triumphed Saturday night at Sloppy Joe’s Bar, a hangout of Ernest Hemingway during his Key West residence in the 1930s. A judging panel of former winners chose Maxey from 142 white-bearded contenders who competed in two preliminary rounds and Saturday’s finals. Maxey said he loves Hemingway’s writing and shares the author’s fondness for mojitos and women. During his Key West years, Hemingway penned literary classics including “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and “To Have and Have Not.” The contest is a highlight of the annual Hemingway Days festival that honors the author’s literary legacy and adventurous lifestyle. The celebration ends Sunday, the 120th anniversary of his birth.\n\nGeorgia\n\nAtlanta: A private room that breastfeeding mothers can use to pump breast milk has opened in a building near the Capitol. The Atlanta-Journal Constitution reports the lactation room in the James H. “Sloppy” Floyd Building – which houses state agencies and a cafeteria – is the second in state offices in downtown Atlanta. Another site at a different state building has been open for six years and averages about 355 visits per month. The new room is open to state employees with a badge, but visitors can access the room through security staff. Its opening came after state Sen. Jen Jordan, an Atlanta Democrat, introduced legislation requiring a lactation room be provided at the Capitol. The legislation stalled, but Republican Gov. Brian Kemp helped secure the room nearby.\n\nHawaii\n\nHonolulu: A newly appointed, taxpayer-funded attorney representing a former prosecutor wants to delay her trial on bank fraud and identity theft charges. Gary Singh was appointed to represent Katherine Kealoha after her former taxpayer-funded attorney asked to withdraw from the case. Kealoha and her retired police chief husband were convicted last month of conspiracy in a plot to frame her uncle. Their fraud and identity theft trial is scheduled for October At a hearing Thursday, Singh said he needs more time. The timing of that trial will affect scheduling for another trial faced by Katherine Kealoha with her pain physician brother on drug-dealing charges. U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright wants to Singh to consult with other attorneys involved about new trial dates.\n\nIdaho\n\nJerome: A music festival in southern Idaho has been canceled because organizers say they feared potential raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. The music festival called the El Tour de Idaho de Los Inquietos was supposed to take place last Saturday. Event organizers with the Colombia Event Center posted the cancellation notice on Facebook. Leo Morales of ACLU of Idaho said he couldn’t confirm that any Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were in southern Idaho, but he said community members were panicked. Jerome City Police Dan Hall said he didn’t have information about ICE agents in the area. Hall said the agency is not required to tell local law enforcement that it is conducting raids. But he did say ICE would inform local police if its activity involves a case that police are already working. Ticket-holders were told to get refunds from where they purchased tickets.\n\nIllinois\n\nChicago: Efforts to organize an open-water swim on the Chicago River this fall will be delayed by at least one year. Doug McConnell and his co-organizer Don Macdonald wanted to coordinate a 2.4-mile swim on the Chicago River in September. But McConnell says convincing the relevant city authorities to allow the swimming has proved to be tougher than anticipated. The Chicago Sun-Times reports that the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events informed the team last week that they would need to postpone their swim. The organizers’ new target for the swim is September 2020. McConnell says the swim would raise money for Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine to conduct research for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, otherwise known as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease.\n\nIndiana\n\nSouth Bend: The city where Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg is mayor is updating its police officers’ body camera technology following the recent fatal police shooting of a black man. Police Sgt. Ryan O’ Neill fatally shot Eric Logan on June 16, but the incident wasn’t captured on video because his body camera wasn’t activated. The shooting sparked protests, prompting Buttigieg to leave the campaign trail for several days to answer questions about public safety and race. O’Neill resigned from the department last week. The South Bend Tribune reports that the technology upgrades will mean officers’ body cameras can be activated manually or automatically when a squad car door is opened. And soon, sensors will activate the cameras when an officer’s gun when it is drawn from the holster.\n\nIowa\n\nDes Moines:Officials have announced new inspection rules for pigs that will be shown at the Iowa State Fair. A state Department of Agriculture & Land Stewardship news release says the additional exhibition requirements are designed to promote biosecurity and animal health as African swine fever continues to spread across China and other parts of Asia and Europe. All pigs must be individually inspected and identified on a certificate of veterinary inspection that was completed within seven days of the fair, which runs Aug. 8-18. A veterinarian will inspect all pigs as they arrive at the fairgrounds before they are unloaded or mixed with other livestock. Biosecurity concerns led organizers to cancel the World Pork Expo scheduled for last month at the fairgrounds. The National Pork Producers Council says African swine fever affects only pigs and presents no human health or food safety risks. There is no vaccine to treat the disease.\n\nKansas\n\nTopeka: Electric charging stations have been introduced at the Topeka, Lawrence and Towanda services areas on the Kansas Turnpike. The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that Gov. Laura Kelly announced the charging station additions Wednesday, calling them “a game-changer” for electric vehicle drivers. The Topeka Service Area, similar to the ones in Lawrence and Towanda, has three charging stations. The charging station additions came as a result of an alliance between the Kansas Turnpike Authority, Westar Energy and Kansas City Power and Light. Turnpike officials say the charging stations will help to eradicate “range anxiety,” or the concern an electric car battery will run out of power before reaching a destination. Westar Energy officials say manufacturers expect to spend around $500 billion in the next eight years on electric car development.\n\nKentucky\n\nHenderson: The city’s downtown experienced a full-on military assault Thursday night — complete with a forced building entry, flash-bang grenade explosions, fake gunfire and troops being whisked away under the cover of darkness in Black Hawk helicopters. Fortunately, it was all friendly U.S. forces carrying out a supervised training exercise in cooperation with local officials. There was some minor collateral damage, though. When the troops stormed the old, empty Immanuel Baptist Temple church building on Second Street that is owned by the city, Holy Name School next door got a little roughed up by the helicopter rotor wash.\n\nLouisiana\n\nBaton Rouge: State officials say high water means people are seeing more alligators than usual, and feeding them is dangerous. State wildlife officials sent out a news release during the week, and Gov. John Bel Edwards tweeted about the subject Friday. The governor wrote, “It feels like we shouldn’t have to say this, y’all. But please don’t feed the alligators.” Wildlife biologists say feeding gators makes them view people as an easy food source, increasing the chance that they will bite someone. The statement from the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries notes that throwing fish scraps into the water or leaving them on shore is a bad idea for the same reason. It says fish scraps, like other garbage, should go into garbage cans.\n\nMaine\n\nPortland: America’s harvest of scallops is increasing to near-record levels at a time when the shellfish are in high demand. Sea scallops, harvested mostly by boats from the cold Atlantic Ocean, are the target of one of the most valuable fisheries in America. New data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says the harvest topped 58.2 million pounds last year, the highest total since 2011 and the fifth-highest in history according to NOAA statistics dating to 1945. The availability of scallops for consumers hasn’t changed as the U.S. harvest has long been supplemented by foreign sources. Prices to consumers have also held about steady. NOAA says American scallops were worth $532 9 million at the docks last year. That’s the third-highest figure.\n\nMaryland\n\nBowie: Roller coaster riders were stuck atop a hill for nearly two hours at a Six Flags amusement park when the ride malfunctioned. News outlets quote Six Flags America spokeswoman Denise Stokes as saying the ride came to a stop at the top of the lift hill on the Firebird ride Thursday night. All guests were escorted safely off the ride, but officials said passengers had to wait for nearly two hours on the floorless coaster as the park followed safety procedures. Six Flags officials told news outlets the ride will remain closed while it undergoes an inspection. WJZ reports this is the third time in the past three years that people have been removed from one ride or another at the park.\n\nMassachusetts\n\nOrleans: A family fishing in Cape Cod Bay had an up close and personal encounter with a great white shark that leaped out of the water to snatch a fish they had caught right off the line. Doug Nelson of Franklin, who caught the leaping shark on video on Saturday, told New England Cable News it “gave us a pretty good scare.” His son, Jack, can be seen on the video jumping back as the shark breaches the water’s surface. The Atlantic White Shark Conservancy confirmed it was a great white, as did Marc Costa, captain of the Columbia Sportfishing vessel. Costa said the boat was about three miles west of Great Island in Wellfleet when the shark made its leap.\n\nMichigan\n\nGrand Rapids: The John Ball Zoo is closing a month early this season to work on improvements. Over the next five years, zoo officials are hoping to widen the entryway to enhance accessibility and build an 18-acre playground. The parking lot will also move from the front to the rear of the zoo to make room for the playground. Peter D’Arienzo, who heads the zoo, tells WOOD-TV the zoo is also planning to offer annual exhibits. The zoo recently added toucans, a spider monkey and the popular red pandas. The zoo draws nearly 500,000 people each year. It opened 128 years ago, making it the nation’s 10th-oldest zoo.\n\nMinnesota\n\nSt. Paul: State conservation officials say there’s a small, but noticeable increase in loon deaths and the likely cause is West Nile virus. The Department of Natural Resources says the virus was confirmed as the cause of death in two of three loons from northeastern Minnesota earlier this month. Minnesota Public Radio News says the agency is asking lake property owners and others using the lakes to contact a wildlife office if they see two or more dead loons with no obvious injury or cause of death. West Nile was first confirmed in Minnesota in 2002. The virus is spread through mosquito bites. Most people and animals fight off the virus and develop antibodies against future infection. The DNR says loons and crows, however, are especially susceptible to the infection.\n\nMississippi\n\nTupelo: Elvis Presley fans will soon be able to rent bicycles to pedal around in the city where he was born. The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal reports that a local entrepreneur, Ethan Nolan, is starting a bike rental service in Tupelo. It is called King City Cycles. Nolan belongs to a bicycle club and says rentals will make downtown more attractive to locals and tourists alike. Tupelo attracts big crowds for its annual Elvis Festival. People will rent bikes using a smartphone app, and the app will track the bikes’ location to guard against thefts. Biloxi is among the Mississippi cities that have had bicycle rental services.\n\nMissouri\n\nBolivar: A woman who knows her snakes encountered a weird one while riding her bicycle on the Frisco Highline Trail. Near one of the first bridges on the southbound route, Christy Dablemont, 47, rode past the snake, then turned around for a closer look. The snake was a venomous copperhead, but with unusual markings down its back. Instead of “Hershey’s Kisses” markings along its side, the snake’s back was mostly a pattern of bronze-colored lines. Dablemont, who worked for 16 years as a wildlife interpreter at Pomme de Terre State Park, said it was the most unusual Missouri snake she has ever encountered. After photographing the snake, she left it to continue sunning along the side of the trail, which runs between Springfield and Bolivar. She noted that the venomous snake’s unusual appearance is a good reminder for people to leave wild snakes alone, especially if you don’t know what it is.\n\nMontana\n\nHelena: A nonprofit group trying to create the nation’s largest nature reserve in central Montana is planning a buffalo hunt on its land later this year. American Prairie Reserve officials say the quota will be 20 based on the approximately 800 bison in the privately owned herd. They will hold a drawing on Aug. 1 in which 16 people will be randomly selected. Six tags will go to residents who live near the reserve, four to Montana residents, four to members of the Fort Peck, Fort Belknap or Rocky Boy tribes and two more to the general public. The fee is $300. Four tags will be donated to local charities for fundraising. Reserve superintendent Damien Austin says limited hunts serve as a management tool to check the bison population.\n\nNebraska\n\nOmaha: Health officials are warning those in Douglas County to take precautions after West Nile virus was found in mosquitoes in the county. The Douglas County Health Department says in a news release that four local mosquito pools at two locations have tested positive for the mosquito-borne illness. The pools are located at Seymour L. Smith Park in Ralston and Zorinsky Lake Park in western Omaha. The department says high populations of mosquitoes have been reported since May. Residents are urged to apply mosquito repellant and wear long-sleeved shirts, pants and socks and shoes, particularly at dawn and dusk, when mosquitoes are most active. Residents should also remove standing water to prevent mosquito breeding. Those who contract West Nile can suffer symptoms ranging from mild flu-like symptoms to death.\n\nNevada\n\nReno: Lake Tahoe is the fullest it has been in nearly two decades. Officials say the alpine lake on the California-Nevada border is approaching the legal limit after snowmelt from a stormy winter left enough water to potentially last through three summers of drought. For three weeks, Tahoe has been within an inch of its maximum allowed surface elevation of 6,229.1 feet above sea level, It crept to within a half-inch earlier this week. Chad Blanchard, a federal water master in Reno responsible for managing the water, told the Reno Gazette-Journal it is the longest he’s seen the lake stay that high for so long. Lake Tahoe, the second-deepest lake in the U.S. at about 1,645 feet, typically holds enough water to cover the entire state of California with 14 inches of the wet stuff. Only Oregon’s Crater Lake is deeper.\n\nNew Hampshire\n\nConcord: A Republican lawmaker is standing by comments made on social media that slavery was motivated by economics rather than racism, even as he was criticized by his own party. In a Facebook exchange with a former lawmaker, state Rep. Werner Horn wrote that owning slaves didn’t necessarily make someone a racist. He was responding to the former lawmaker’s comment questioning how President Donald Trump could be the most racist president when other presidents owned slaves. Horn on Saturday defended his comments that slavery was a business decision but said he was referring to the 17th and 18th centuries. By the 19th century, he said, racism was used to maintain slavery. Republican Gov. Chris Sununu called Horn’s comments racist and said the “legislature would be better off without” him.\n\nNew Jersey\n\nHackensack:Nearly two dozen protesters gathered Saturday outside the Bergen County Jail demanding that air conditioners that had been malfunctioning for weeks be fixed and warned that the weekend’s scorching temperatures create dangerous conditions for inmates. Bergen County Sheriff Anthony Cureton says that the air conditioners were all working after two malfunctioned Friday night. Before Friday, the jail had been experiencing air conditioning problems for weeks and maintenance staff was working on installing replacement condensers. All those repairs, Cureton said, have been completed.\n\nNew Mexico\n\nAlamogordo: Lincoln National Forest is undertaking a multiyear endeavor of creating a forest plan revision. This process is in its beginning stages and public input is needed on some criteria. Lincoln National Forest is wanting to hear from the public about its Draft Wilderness Inventory Criteria and Draft Wilderness Evaluation Criteria. Only public forest system land will be considered for wilderness designation. Privately-owned land will be exempt from wilderness designation, Lincoln National Forest Spokeswoman Laura Rabon says. Public comments must be submitted by July 31, either by email at LNF_FPR_comments@fs.fed.us or by mail to Lincoln National Forest, Attn.: Plan Revision, 3463 Las Palomas Road, Alamogordo, NM, 88310..\n\nNew York\n\nGrahamsville: A rare dragonfly has been spotted near a reservoir in the Catskills. A New York City Department of Environmental Protection field ecologist recently found a southern pygmy clubtail dragonfly living along a tributary to the city’s Rondout Reservoir. The city agency says the species is considered critically imperiled in New York. It can only survive and reproduce in clear, clean waters, making them an indicator of water quality. DEP ecologist Frank Beres says the dragonfly hopped on his finger and allowed him to take several photos before flying off. The species’ population in New York and the Northeast has reportedly been dwindling for years.\n\nNorth Carolina\n\nCandler:Buncombe County will get its first state park, where residents will get a front-row seat for viewing Mount Pisgah and watching wildlife, hiking ridge lines, and maybe even take in a horseback ride. Gov. Roy Cooper signed into law SB 535 on Friday, authorizing the state Department of Natural and Cultural Resources to create Pisgah View State Park, which will be roughly 1,600 acres, sitting mostly in Candler, with a small parcel in Haywood County. Earlier in the month the governor also signed into law two bills creating the Northern Peaks State Trail in Watauga and Ashe counties, the Wilderness Gateway State Trail in the South Mountains range in McDowell, Rutherford, Burke and Catawba counties, and the Overmountain Victory State Trail reaching across Avery, Mitchell, McDowell, Burke, Rutherford, Polk, Caldwell, Wilkes and Surry counties.\n\nNorth Dakota\n\nEpping: The state’s Health Department says more than 12,000 gallons of oilfield wastewater has spilled from a pipeline in Williams County, impacting an unknown amount of pastureland. State environmental scientist Bill Suess says the pipeline operator, Polar Midstream LLC, reported the produced water spill Thursday. Produced water is a mixture of saltwater and oil that can contain drilling chemicals. It’s a byproduct of oil and gas development. Suess says state regulators are investing the spill about 3 miles southwest of Epping. He says some of the spill was contained to a well pad. Polar Midstream also reported a 21,000-gallon produced water spill on July. 14 near Williston. Regulators say some of that spill entered an unnamed tributary to the Missouri River.\n\nOhio\n\nColumbus: The state is raising the minimum age to buy tobacco products from 18 to 21. The new law will take effect in October after Gov. Mike DeWine signed it last week. Ohio is one of 18 states that have raised the minimum age for purchasing cigarettes, cigars, electronic cigarettes and other tobacco products. The new law also applies to rolling papers, filters and other smoking and vaping accessories. National statistics show Ohio has one of the highest rates of adult smokers at just over 21%. Backers of the new law say the goal is to prevent children from starting to smoke.\n\nOklahoma\n\nOklahoma City: The state’s rainy spring has provided an ideal environment for ticks. That could be bad news for people and their pets because the pathogens many ticks carry can cause serious diseases. The risk of getting a tick bite isn’t limited to hikers and campers in the woods. Plenty of the bloodsuckers live in urban parks and neighborhoods. Will Hagenbuck, head park naturalist at the Oklahoma City park system, says park visitors can avoid most of the ticks by staying on the trails, but that’s no guarantee. Tick-borne diseases can be dangerous, causing everything from a food allergy to red meat to miscarriage to death. Look behind ears, at the collar line on the back of the neck, armpits, joints, waist and groin, and on your socks and shoes. Adults may be easy to spot, but nymphs might look like a freckle, he said.\n\nOregon\n\nSalem:Amazon on Friday kicked off a hiring spree for more than 800 positions at its packing and shipping warehouse. The Seattle e-commerce giant is taking a staggered approach to fill its earlier promised target of about 1,000 jobs at the approximately 1-million-square-foot outpost. The warehouse opens in August. Workers can expect to pack and ship larger products including sports equipment, gardening tools and patio furniture. Amazon has adopted a $15-an-hour minimum wage. Oregon’s minimum wage in the Salem area rose to $11.25 on July 1 and will increase to $13.50 in 2022 under state legislation enacted in 2016. The company offers employee benefits such as up to 20 weeks of paid parental leave. Candidates for the Salem jobs have to be at least 18 years old and have a high school diploma or equivalent. Applicants can go online at www.amazon.com/salemjobs or text SALEMNOW to 77088.\n\nPennsylvania\n\nReading: Mayor Wally Scott has reversed course and says he will allow the LGBTQ rainbow flag to fly over City Hall for the first time. Scott last week called off a scheduled ceremony to raise the “pride flag,” calling it a political symbol. But the Reading Eagle reports that Scott posted a video on his Facebook page Saturday saying he had changed his mind. Scott says his change of heart came after a “very prominent woman” he would not name visited him and spoke to him about her experience of realizing she was gay and telling her mother.\n\nRhode Island\n\nProvidence: Lawmakers are praising the signing of legislation that establishes guidelines for a diversion program within the Superior Court. Democratic Gov. Gina Raimondo signed the legislation Tuesday. Senate Majority Leader Michael McCaffrey says it’s another step forward for criminal justice reform because the program will offer supervision and services instead of incarceration. McCaffrey of Warwick sponsored the legislation, along with Rep. Robert Jacquard, D-Cranston, in the House. Jacquard says it’s imperative that the state helps people with addiction issues get healthy rather than incarcerating them at great cost to the taxpayers.\n\nSouth Carolina\n\nCharleston: An extremely rare albino alligator that lived at the South Carolina Aquarium has died. The aquarium posted on its Facebook page that the 22-year-old alligator named Alabaster died Friday morning. He had lived at the aquarium since 2009. South Carolina Aquarium spokeswoman Caroline Morris tells The Post and Courier that Alabaster was believed to be one of about 50 albino gators in the world. Staff at the aquarium said they noticed Alabaster showing signs of infection last week. The statement says workers began treating the gator and officials sought advice from other experts across the country. South Carolina Aquarium President and CEO Kevin Mills says Alabaster served as an ambassador for his species and “captivated the hearts of staff and guests alike.”\n\nSouth Dakota\n\nSioux Falls:Gov. Kristi Noem’s approval rating has remained steady, but her disapproval rating has crept upward in her first six months in office, according to a new poll. Noem’s 49% approval rating hasn’t changed during the first and second quarters this year. However, her disapproval rating has increased from 32% to 40%, according to Morning Consult’s quarterly governor poll. Eleven percent didn’t have an opinion of Noem’s job performance during the second quarter. Morning Consult’s poll had a 3% margin of error. The latest disapproval rating puts Noem at eighth among the top 10 most unpopular governors, according to Morning Consult.\n\nTennessee\n\nNashville:Two Southwest Airlines planes collided on the tarmac of Nashville International Airport. Airline officials say no injuries were reported in Saturday night’s collision. An emailed statement from Southwest Airlines spokeswoman Michelle Agnew says the winglet of the St. Louis-bound Southwest Flight 1555 came into contact during pushback with the winglet of Southwest Flight 4580, headed for Atlanta. A photograph provided by a passenger on board the flight to Atlanta showed rainy weather and what appeared to be the top of the other plane’s fin clipped off. The airline says both planes returned to the gate under their own power and were taken out of service for evaluation.\n\nTexas\n\nAbilene:A park dedicated to Dyess Air Force Base personnel who died in crashes or other services to their country has been expanded to include memorial plaques. Ceremonies were held Friday at updated Dyess Memorial Park, which was a project of the Abilene Chamber of Commerce Military Affairs Committee. The site previously featured a flagpole, a covered area and bricks. The expanded park now recognizes the 79 military personnel who gave their lives since what originally was known as Abilene Air Force Base opened in 1956. The design involves a sundial memorial, allowing the sun to enter and mark precise points on the grounds and shine on various monuments.\n\nUtah\n\nLogan: Children are honing their business savvy at entrepreneur fairs in Utah after a legal change that allows children to run a business without a license or permit. The Herald Journal reports children between the ages of 5 and 16 lined the streets of downtown Logan on July 13 to sell their wares as part of The Libertas Institute’s annual Children’s Entrepreneur Market. The libertarian think-tank hosts the event in 11 cities across Utah. Market manager Lynee Fife says it helps children gain confidence, interact with adults and learn other social skills. Some items for sale included pancakes, homemade slimes and beeswax products.\n\nVermont\n\nMontpelier: The state is going to be receiving nearly $100,000 from the federal government so schools can get more food from local farms. The office of Democratic U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy says the Farm to School grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture will strengthen farm-to-school programming in 20 schools in Franklin and Grand Isle counties. Anson Tebbetts, the secretary of the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets, says the project will help schools, students and Vermont farmers. This award was part of more than $9 million in USDA grants for 126 projects in 42 states.\n\nVirginia\n\nNorfolk: Gov. Ralph Northam says he could soon be rolling out a plan for free community college tuition. In a Wednesday announcement, the Democratic governor described a program that would allow Virginia residents to attend community colleges for free in exchange for a year spent working in public service or a high-demand field. Northam said it would be called G3 for “get skilled, get a job and give back.” He says he expects more details and a formal announcement to come in a few weeks. The Virginian-Pilot reports Northam’s proposal follows a plan he laid out while campaigning in 2017. At the time, he said the program would initially cost the state $37 million but would earn more than twice that amount back in income taxes after five years.\n\nWashington\n\nSeattle: Puget Sound beaches were temporarily closed after millions of gallons of sewage flowed into the water. The state Department of Ecology says early Friday the West Point Wastewater Treatment Plant released an estimated 3 million gallons of untreated sewage over about 27 minutes after backup pumping systems failed during power disruptions. On Thursday, officials say a separate power failure at the Renton Wastewater Treatment Plant resulted in potentially limited disinfection of treated wastewater. That plant discharges into Puget Sound northwest of Duwamish Head in Seattle.\n\nWest Virginia\n\nCharleston: A West Virginia sailor and veteran is among those honored on a recently dedicated World War I memorial in New York City’s Times Square. The monument was authorized by the World War I Centennial Commission to honor six sailors who died when the USS San Diego, the largest U.S. Navy warship, sank off the coast of Long Island. The Gazette-Mail reports Frazier Oran Thomas’ hometown was listed as Charleston in Navy casualty reports. He was among more than 1,000 sailors on the ship 100 years ago and died when it exploded from coming into contact with an underwater mine. The plaque was unveiled in May during Fleet Week New York. The commission says it’s set to be permanently placed in Ocean Beach, New York, this summer.\n\nWisconsin\n\nMadison: A report shows 11 rural hospitals in Wisconsin stopped routinely delivering babies in the past 10 years. The state Office of Rural Health report shows that the closures were the result of the challenge of a low number of on-call providers and number of deliveries. The Wisconsin State Journal reports the most recent obstetrics closures were in Grantsburg and Ripon in 2017. The report, which was released last week, indicates that 56% of the state’s rural hospitals perform routine deliveries, compared with 40% of rural hospitals nationally. The report says nearly 99% of women of child-bearing age in Wisconsin live within a 30-minute drive of a hospital that provides obstetrics.\n\nWyoming\n\nGillette: Campbell County could lose out on more than $30 million in mineral production taxes owed by a bankrupt coal company following a decision by a judge. Delaware U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Kevin Gross ruled Campbell and Converse counties don’t have first priority when it comes to collecting from Cloud Peak Energy. The Gillette News-Record reports the ruling could make it difficult for the counties to collect. They must wait in line behind other creditors. Local officials say Campbell County alone could be owed $30 million or more. Gillette-based Cloud Peak Energy filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May. The loss will be a hit for school districts across the state. As much as 75% of the tax revenue goes back to the state for redistribution to districts statewide.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2019/07/21"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/50-states/2019/08/09/smokey-bear-tarantula-trek-censoring-adam-eve-news-around-states/39932141/", "title": "News from around our 50 states", "text": "From USA TODAY Network and wire reports\n\nAlabama\n\nMontgomery: Some residents of a rural community are complaining about a Spanish-language event planned for this weekend featuring live music and bull riding, but a local official says he worries such comments appear “anti-Latino.” News outlets report people from the Snowdoun area near Montgomery have asked county and city leaders to block the Festival Latino, scheduled Sunday in a field. They say a similar event in July was so loud and raucous it traumatized livestock. But Montgomery Mayor Todd Strange says organizers haven’t violated any zoning rules. County Commissioner Dan Harris says he voted against a move to block the festival because opposition appears to be “anti-Latino” even if it isn’t. Harris says he doesn’t want to be part of that, particularly after the mass shooting in El Paso, Texas.\n\nAlaska\n\nKenai: A wildlife monitoring group is seeking citizen scientists to help track beluga whales off the state’s coast. The Peninsula Clarion reports the Alaska Beluga Monitoring Partnership is offering volunteers an opportunity to help scientists understand more about Cook Inlet beluga whales. The partnership is a collaboration of several organizations including Beluga Whale Alliance, Defenders of Wildlife and the Alaska Wildlife Alliance. Monitoring events are expected to take place between Aug. 14 and Nov. 15. Planned monitoring locations include Twentymile River and Bird Point near Girdwood, Ship Creek in Anchorage, and the Kenai and Kasilof Rivers. Officials say volunteers will learn about the conservation needs of Cook Inlet beluga whales and receive training on identifying and recording data on beluga distribution and behavior.\n\nArizona\n\nTucson: Officials have approved placing a “sanctuary city” measure on the ballot, but not without some pushback. KVOA-TV reports the Tucson City Council voted Tuesday night to allow the initiative on the November ballot, which could potentially lead to Arizona’s first-ever “sanctuary city.” Councilmembers were required to vote after the measure got more than the minimum required number of petition signatures. The initiative would add protections for people living in the U.S. illegally. Video shows a woman wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat repeatedly shouting that the initiative defies U.S. immigration law. The footage has since gone viral on social media because of an man in a green polo shirt laughing nearby. #GreenShirtGuy was the No. 1 trending topic on Twitter as of Wednesday morning.\n\nArkansas\n\nLittle Rock: The governor is asking lawmakers to approve $25 million for a new state grant program aimed at increasing access to high-speed internet in rural areas. Gov. Asa Hutchinson on Tuesday announced the creation of the Arkansas Rural Connect program, which will provide grants to qualifying communities with at least 500 people to deploy high-speed broadband to residents. Hutchinson, who announced the program at a meeting of the Arkansas Sheriffs’ Association in Rogers, says he’ll ask the Legislative Council to approve $5.7 million for the program this year, and the remainder will need to be appropriated by lawmakers in next year’s legislative session. In May, Hutchinson released a plan to expand rural access to high-speed broadband by 2022.\n\nCalifornia\n\nLos Angeles: Actor Danny Trejo played a real-life hero when he helped rescue a baby trapped in an overturned car after two cars collided at an intersection in the Sylmar neighborhood Wednesday. Video aired by KABC-TV shows Trejo at the crash scene. Trejo says he crawled into the wrecked vehicle from one side but couldn’t unbuckle the child’s car seat from that angle. He says another bystander, a young woman, was able to undo the buckle. Together they pulled the baby safely from the wreckage. The Los Angeles Fire Department says three people were taken to a hospital, and there were no life-threatening injuries. The 75-year-old Trejo, an L.A. native, is perhaps best known for playing the character Machete, originally from the “Spy Kids” series.\n\nColorado\n\nColorado Springs: State wildlife officials say thousands of tarantulas are expected to start their annual migration through the state soon. The Gazette reports the migration is expected to begin this month through early October. Officials say the Oklahoma brown tarantulas migrate through La Junta, about 176 miles southeast of Denver. Scientists say the majority of the spiders are 10-year-old males looking to mate with females hidden in Colorado’s grasslands. Officials say the peak time to view the migration is mid-September near Comanche National Grassland south of La Junta off U.S. Highway 109. Officials say tarantulas are mostly harmless to humans but have bites that can cause injury or allergic reaction and hairs that can be irritating to the eyes, mouth and nose.\n\nConnecticut\n\nHartford: The federal Office for Civil Rights has launched an investigation into the state’s policy allowing transgender high school athletes to compete as the gender with which they identify. The investigation follows a complaint by the families of three girls who say they were discriminated against by having to compete in track against two athletes who were identified as male at birth. They say that violates Title IX, the federal law designed to ensure equal athletic opportunities for females. The Connecticut Association of Schools-Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference says its policy follows a state anti-discrimination law that says students must be treated in school by their gender identification. Transathlete.com says Connecticut is one of 17 states that allow transgender high school athletes to compete without restrictions.\n\nDelaware\n\nWilmington: Everyone’s a critic, including Delaware Air National Guard officials who wanted nude images of Adam and Eve depicted in a 50-year-old mural by famed artist Jamie Wyeth to put on some pants. Someone apparently isn’t mooning over the huge, 10-by-30-foot mural that shows the bare buttocks of the Garden of Eden couple. It hangs on a wall of a building at the guard’s 80-acre base at the New Castle County Airport. The mural was created by Wyeth when he served with the Delaware Air National Guard during the Vietnam War. Air National Guard officials have had recent talks about possibly altering or covering up part of the artwork by the well-known painter. Wyeth is the scion of three generations of widely celebrated American artists, including his illustrator grandfather N.C. Wyeth and his late father Andrew Wyeth, one of the best-known painters of the 20th century.\n\nDistrict of Columbia\n\nWashington: An internal review of D.C. public schools shows more than 30% of employees have expired background checks. News outlets report Chancellor Lewis Ferebee shared the review’s findings with parents Tuesday and in a letter Wednesday. The district launched the review in June after an employee of a private before- and after-school program allegedly kissed and fondled a 13-year-old student on multiple occasions. The district says it discovered the company didn’t conduct proper background checks. Ferebee says by the end of October, all after-school staff, school staff and central office staff will have active background checks. He also says staff will receive more training on how to spot and respond to sexual misconduct cases.\n\nFlorida\n\nFort Lauderdale: Gov. Ron DeSantis says the state is expanding its efforts to eradicate invasive pythons in the Everglades and is working with the federal government to get snake hunters to remote areas of Big Cypress National Preserve. DeSantis announced Wednesday that Florida will double its resources for python removal and that the state Department of Environmental Protection and the Department of Agriculture have a new agreement to begin hunting pythons in 130,000 acres of state parks. He’s directing the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the South Florida Water Management District to work together to research ways to eliminate pythons and to make a python challenge an annual event instead of once every three years. The challenge awards python hunters who capture the most snakes, which have decimated native species.\n\nGeorgia\n\nMilton: A farmer says his beloved miniature donkey named Sammy was literally scared to death by this year’s Fourth of July fireworks. Now he and an animal rights group want Georgia to ban rockets that go boom. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals wrote to Gov. Brian Kemp, House Speaker David Ralston and others Wednesday asking for a “Sammy’s law” limiting fireworks to the non-explosive, non-aerial varieties. John Bogino tells WGCL-TV that Sammy and his other farm animals are like pets to him. His pet donkey of 22 years died last month, and he says Sammy wasn’t his first animal to die because of fireworks. He says one of his horses fled explosions in late July several years ago and had to be euthanized due to severe injuries.\n\nHawaii\n\nHonolulu: Scientists have discovered that a growing pond of water inside a crater is being heated by the Kilauea volcano. The U.S. Geological Survey says temperature readings taken last weekend show that the pool of water in Kilauea’s Halemaumau crater, the former home of a popular lava lake, is about 158 degrees Fahrenheit. For the first time in recorded history, the presence of water in the crater was confirmed last week. Since then, scientists have found two other small pools of water nearby. The crater floor collapsed about 2,000 feet, and the lava lake disappeared last summer as Kilauea stopped erupting for the first time in over 30 years. USGS geologist Matt Patrick told the Associated Press it’s hard to determine how deep the magma chamber is beneath the bottom of the crater floor where the water was found.\n\nIdaho\n\nSpokane: A study by the Idaho Department of Fish and Game has found that cougars kill more elk than wolves in the state. The Spokesman-Review reports the study found that wolves accounted for 32% of adult female elk deaths and 28% of elk calf deaths. The study found that cougars accounted for 35% of adult female elk deaths and 45% of elk calf deaths. The study published earlier this year in the Journal of Wildlife Management examined 15 years of data. The study also found that food availability and the severity of winter is the most important factor for elk calf survival. Idaho Department of Fish and Game senior wildlife research biologist Jon Horne says the findings are also likely applicable for Washington, Montana and Canada.\n\nIllinois\n\nSpringfield: Officials are showcasing one of the most popular attractions of the Illinois State Fair. The butter cow was unveiled Wednesday afternoon at the fairgrounds. The sculpture has been a part of the state fair for almost 100 years. This year’s cow has been sculpted from 800 pounds of recycled butter. The cow stands near the word “Future” to incorporate the theme of the fair, which is “Building Our Future.” The cow is on display at the Dairy Building. Last year, hundreds of pounds of butter were sculpted into a cow by the same Iowa artist, Sarah Pratt. The base had “Land of Lincoln” written on it and included a stovepipe hat, as a nod to Abraham Lincoln. The fair started Thursday and ends Aug. 18.\n\nIndiana\n\nIndianapolis: Rainbow-colored streamers welcomed students back for the first day of classes Thursday at Cathedral High School, a show of support for a gay teacher fired from the Catholic school over the summer. The brightly colored streamers were a silent twist on a long-held Cathedral tradition to decorate “the hill” with toilet paper on the first day of school, but they still spoke volumes. The private high school has been embroiled in a debate over LGBTQ rights since it fired longtime teacher Joshua Payne-Elliott because of his same-sex marriage. Cathedral officials have said they only did so at the order of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, which began requiring employment contracts with “ministerial language” and morality clauses to be used at its schools four years ago.\n\nIowa\n\nDyersville: They’ve built it. Now they’re coming. Major League Baseball is headed to town in 2020. The Chicago White Sox and New York Yankees announced Thursday that the two teams will play an official big-league game at the “Field of Dreams” movie site Aug. 13, 2020. “It’s definitely exciting,” says Roman Weinberg, the director of operations for Go the Distance Baseball, which owns the Field of Dreams movie site. “There’s nothing more American than the Field of Dreams and America’s pastime.” The 1989 movie centers on the 1919 White Sox and Shoeless Joe Jackson. Jackson, who was banned by MLB along with seven of his teammates for his alleged role in the White Sox throwing the 1919 World Series, inspires a farmer, played by Kevin Costner, to build a baseball field. The site has since become a tourist attraction, with fans from across the globe flocking to the Iowa cornfield to see it.\n\nKansas\n\nTopeka: The state plans to impose what some tax experts say would be the nation’s most aggressive policy for collecting taxes on online sales, possibly inviting a legal battle. The Department of Revenue issued a notice last week saying any “remote seller” doing business with Kansas residents must register with the department, collect state and local sales taxes, and forward the revenues to the state, starting Oct. 1. It cites a U.S. Supreme Court decision last year allowing states to collect sales taxes on internet sales. Most states now have policies to collect such taxes, but almost all set minimum annual sales or transaction thresholds to exempt small businesses, according to groups tracking tax laws. Kansas is the first to attempt to collect the taxes without exempting any businesses, they said.\n\nKentucky\n\nLouisville: Amid major legislative efforts to restrict or end abortion in the state, a new poll commissioned by Planned Parenthood finds a majority of likely voters in the commonwealth believe the procedure should remain available. Asked whether it’s important for women to have “access to all of the reproductive health care options available, including abortion,” 65% said yes, according to the poll. Also, 65% said they’d have doubts about a law that bans abortion, even in cases of rape or incest, should the U.S. Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 case legalizing abortion. Just 18% said they believe all abortions should be illegal – though another 37% said abortion should be allowed only in “extreme cases,” such as for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest or to save the life of the woman. And 43% said abortion should be legal with some regulations.\n\nLouisiana\n\nPride: A highway marker honoring blues singer and guitarist Buddy Guy has been recovered, months after it disappeared. News outlets report Pointe Coupee Parish Sheriff’s Office received a tip Wednesday that the sign was at a person’s house in Pride, roughly 30 miles northeast of Baton Rouge. Lt. Craig Dabadie says investigators believe a driver ran off the road and knocked the sign off a pole in May. Someone else picked it up as a souvenir. The sign was posted along Louisiana 1, marking the spot where Guy recorded a music video. The marker honors the Louisiana native’s legacy in music. Rolling Stone magazine listed him at No. 23 on its list of the “100 Greatest Guitarists.” No arrests were made, and the investigation is ongoing.\n\nMaine\n\nPortland: A federal program designed to help farmers suffering due to trade disruption is unlikely to assist the state’s wild blueberry growers. Maine is the sole commercial producer of wild blueberries in the United States. The industry has struggled in recent years with falling crop sizes and low prices to farmers. Maine Agriculture Commissioner Amanda Beal has called on the U.S. Department of Agriculture to include the crop in its Market Facilitation Program, which is slated to provide billions to growers negatively impacted by foreign trade retaliation. But the USDA said in a statement that the program is intended for crops that aren’t easily used in school food programs or through food banks. Wild blueberries sometimes fill those needs. The agency says the blueberries remain eligible for other USDA assistance programs.\n\nMaryland\n\nBaltimore: The news of Toni Morrison’s death led a west Baltimore artist to create his own version of an ancestral shrine. The Baltimore Sun reports that 50-year-old Ernest Shaw Jr. completed a mural of the celebrated artist and Nobel laureate by Tuesday, just a day after Morrison’s death. Shaw says he considers the death of the 88-year-old Morrison to be the acquiring of an ancestor. He says creating the mural was his way of pouring libations, a reference to a ritual used to honor ancestors and deities. He says there’s no death in dying as Morrison has just transitioned to now work with “the other side.” The spontaneous mural dedicated to “TONI M” covers a Graffiti Alley wall behind Motor House and took several hours to complete.\n\nMassachusetts\n\nBoston: Ever since “Boston Strong” became a rallying cry after the Boston Marathon bombing, the idea of “strong” has become an inescapable part of how this country heals after tragedy. People mourning this past weekend’s mass shootings in Ohio and Texas have rallied around the slogans “Dayton Strong” and “El Paso Strong.” After many tragedies, the mantra has been used in social media posts, memorials, pins, stickers and other mementos. Massachusetts resident Christopher Dobens co-created the blue and yellow “Boston Strong” T-shirts that helped rocket the phrase into the national lexicon. He says the idea was inspired by Lance Armstrong’s Livestrong cancer foundation and the U.S. Army’s “Army Strong” slogan. Dobens says it’s heartbreaking to see so many places have had to adopt the “strong” mantra because of violence.\n\nMichigan\n\nSt. Ignace: State and federal agencies are gearing up for a celebration of Smokey Bear’s 75-year legacy of preventing forest fires. Smokey will join staffers with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and other partners Friday at Straits State Park in St. Ignace. A family-friendly birthday party is scheduled from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. It will feature a fire truck open house, displays of wildland fire equipment, fire-prevention games, refreshments and an opportunity to meet the iconic bear. Smokey has shared fire-prevention messages with the signature phrase, “Only you can prevent wildfires.” Debbie Begalle of the Michigan DNR’s Forest Resources Division says the slogan is still relevant. Nine out of 10 wildfires are started by people.\n\nMinnesota\n\nSt. Paul: The state Department of Natural Resources has denied requests to reconsider the tailings dam permits that it issued for the planned PolyMet copper-nickel mine. The DNR said Wednesday that opponents did not raise any new issues that materially affect its 2018 decision granting the permits. The Fond du Lac Band of Chippewa and environmental groups asked the DNR to reconsider in light of tailings dam failures elsewhere. DNR Commissioner Sarah Strommen said in a statement that her agency studied the failures but remains confident in the safety of the PolyMet dam. The DNR issued its decision one day after the Minnesota Court of Appeals stayed a different permit for the mine, governing water pollution, pending a court investigation into potential irregularities in how state and federal regulators handled that permit.\n\nMississippi\n\nBiloxi: Hurricane Katrina left lasting scars on the Hurricane Camille Memorial at the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer. The church reached out to the Biloxi Fire Department, which, in turn, reached out to Lodging and Leisure Investments for help in returning the memorial to its best condition in light of the storm’s upcoming 50th anniversary. Officials tell WLOX-TV restoring the tile mosaic is the greatest challenge in the project. Other work includes power washing and cleaning each name on the memorial’s walls. Camille’s 50th anniversary will include a memorial service at the memorial site at 5 p.m. Aug. 17. Afterward, a program will be held at the Seafood & Maritime Industry Museum at 6 p.m.\n\nMissouri\n\nJefferson City: Attorney General Eric Schmitt says counting of untested rape kits in the state is nearly complete. Schmitt said Wednesday that 95.6% of law enforcement agencies and 98.5% of hospitals and Veterans Affairs medical facilities have completed their inventory of sexual assault evidence kits. Former Attorney General Josh Hawley began an audit of the backlog in 2017 after the Columbia Missourian reported Missouri had never done a statewide review of untested rape kits. Schmitt began a SAFE Kits Initiative in February and appointed Judge M. Keithley Williams to lead the effort to eliminate the backlog of sexual assault kits. The counting project received funds from the Bureau of Justice Assistance. Rape kits contain DNA samples and other evidence from medical procedures conducted immediately after an attack.\n\nMontana\n\nMissoula: A man charged with assaulting a 13-year-old boy who refused to remove his hat during the national anthem believed he was doing what President Donald Trump wanted him to do, his attorney says. Attorney Lance Jasper told the Missoulian he will seek a mental health evaluation for Curt Brockway, a U.S. Army veteran who became caught up in the heightened animosity and rhetoric gripping the nation and convinced himself he was following the president’s orders. “His commander in chief is telling people that if they kneel, they should be fired, or if they burn a flag, they should be punished,” Jasper said. He said Brockway “certainly didn’t understand it was a crime.” Brockway suffered a traumatic brain injury in a vehicle crash in 2000 that has affected his decision making, and Jasper said he plans to raise that in his client’s defense.\n\nNebraska\n\nLincoln: The remains of twins who joined the Navy together have been returned to the city for burial, decades after their deaths on a battleship at Pearl Harbor. The Lincoln Journal Star reports two ceremonies will be held in succession Saturday at Lincoln Memorial Cemetery for Rudolph Blitz and brother Leo Blitz. There will be two flag-covered caskets, two 21-gun salutes, two invocations, two flags presented to their surviving sister, 93-year-old Lincoln resident Betty Pitsch. Her DNA contribution helped bring her older brothers home. The 17-year-old twins left Lincoln High to join the Navy in 1938 and had been stationed at Pearl Harbor for a year and a day before the USS Oklahoma went down during the Dec. 7, 1941, attack by Japan. Their remains were buried at a Honolulu cemetery and later identified after being unearthed in 2015.\n\nNevada\n\nReno: A jumbo jetliner that sparked controversy at last year’s Burning Man festival when it got stuck in the desert for nearly a month has returned for this year’s event after organizers agreed to post a bond for the popular art installation. The Bureau of Land Management granted a special permit to the foundation that converted the 747 into a nightclub. Burning Man officials reviewed the Big Imagination Foundation’s plans before it transported the multi-ton aircraft last weekend to the Black Rock Desert, 100 miles north of Reno. Group leaders haven’t disclosed the cost of the performance bond. They get the money back if they comply with the permit. Critics say the plane severely damaged the playa floor last year when it dug holes into the soft alkali dust and got stuck.\n\nNew Hampshire\n\nConcord: Gov. Chris Sununu has signed a bill to help the state’s dairy farmers. The purpose of the bill is to provide a way to support dairy farmers by buying specially labeled milk for an extra 50 cents per gallon. The measure creates a dairy premium fund that replaces the milk producers’ emergency relief fund. Money remaining in the fund after payment of the premiums would be available to promote the program. It’s anticipated that the premium milk will be available this fall.\n\nNew Jersey\n\nKearny: Two actors from the Netflix series “Orange is the New Black” visited federal immigration detainees at the Hudson County jail Thursday. Vicci Martinez and Emily Tarver met with two female detainees from Jamaica. The actors, whose show tackled issues of immigration detention and family separation in its final season, said they wanted to draw attention to the plight of immigrants in such facilities. The visit was organized by Freedom for Immigrants, an organization that aims to abolish immigration detention and was featured in the final season of the show, and First Friends of New Jersey and New York, a nonprofit that sends volunteers to visit immigrant detainees. After leaving the jail, Tarver recounted the story of the woman she met, a victim of domestic violence who sought help from the police and wound up detained, for four months so far, when her immigration status came into play.\n\nNew Mexico\n\nSan Antonio: A federal agency is taking advantage of high water levels in the Rio Grande to help a tiny minnow listed as an endangered species. U.S. Bureau of Reclamation workers recently aided in creating more habitat for the Rio Grande silvery minnow on the Middle Rio Grande, the Albuquerque Journal reports. Reclamation crews worked from January to March to lower and widen the riverbank on the southern end of private property near Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. They excavated 46,000 cubic yards of dirt to create water channels where minnows could escape the fast-moving river. The tiny fish, listed as endangered in 1994, was once abundant throughout the Rio Grande Basin from Colorado to Texas and into Mexico. It’s now found only in a fraction of its historic habitat as the river system has seen dam building and the straightening of its once meandering channels over the past 150 years.\n\nNew York\n\nAlbany: Gov. Andrew Cuomo has approved legislation aimed at bolstering the health and safety standards for all pet dealers operating in the state. The bill signed Thursday calls for separate spaces for pregnant animals and requires all enclosures be cleaned daily and disinfected at least once every two weeks. “Pet dealers must be held to standards that will promote the safety, good health, and overall well-being of the animals in their care,” says a memo attached to the bill. Under the new law, which takes effect in 90 days, pet dealers are required to regularly groom animals to prevent matting and flea and tick infestations and provide animals with diurnal lighting cycles, which mimic natural, 24-hour light patterns. And any for-profit dealer selling, or planning to sell, at least 25 cats or dogs in a year must provide an annual veterinary checkup for each animal.\n\nNorth Carolina\n\nWake Forest: The city is being recognized for its commitment to preserving monarch butterflies. Wake Forest announced Wednesday that the recognition was awarded by Monarch City USA, a nonprofit organization that promotes the species and recognizes areas that work on recovering butterfly populations. The nonprofit group says that the butterflies rely on milkweed and nectar plants. The butterfly’s population has declined as the plants have dwindled. Wake Forest, northeast of Raleigh, features the plants that attract the butterflies at E. Carroll Joyner Park. The town has installed signs that identify the butterfly habitat and one noting Wake Forest’s designation as a “Monarch City USA.” The nonprofit says it’s the first in the state to receive the designation.\n\nNorth Dakota\n\nBismarck: Two environmental groups who say regulators should have intervened in the location of an oil refinery near the state’s top tourist attraction, Theodore Roosevelt National Park, are taking their case to the state Supreme Court. The Public Service Commission last year declined to review whether the refinery could be built just 3 miles from the park in the western Badlands, the Bismarck Tribune reports. Regulators concluded the proposed $800 million Davis Refinery would be too small to warrant review under state law. The Environmental Law and Policy Center and the Dakota Resource Council don’t believe developer Meridian Energy Group is being forthright about the refinery’s size and asked a state judge to force the commission to hold a hearing. South Central District Judge Bruce Romanick refused in May, ruling that the PSC followed state law.\n\nOhio\n\nSpringdale: A long-standing community event is facing backlash on social media. A Facebook post promoting Springdale’s annual Goldfish Swim has garnered more than 3,500 comments, most outraged, since it was posted Aug. 1. The end-of-summer event has been going on for almost 40 years. More than 4,700 people have signed a Change.org petition to stop the event, saying it is “obvious” animal abuse. City officials take 1,000 feeder goldfish and put them in the Springdale Community Center Pool. Children under the age of 12 try to catch the fish with their bare hands, take them home and care for them. “No nets, poles or help from mom and dad. Bring a plastic bucket to take your new pet home,” the post about the event says. The event is scheduled for 2 p.m. Sunday at the Springdale Pool.\n\nOklahoma\n\nOklahoma City: Police were justified when they fatally shot a black teenager who was naked and unarmed, an attorney for the city argues in a response to a civil rights lawsuit filed by the teen’s parents. The parents of Isaiah Mark Lewis contend in their federal lawsuit that Sgt. Milo Box and Officer Denton Scherman used excessive force and acted “unnecessarily and unjustly” when they hit their 17-year-old son with a stun gun and then fatally shot him April 29 after he allegedly broke into a home. In a response filed Wednesday on behalf of the city, attorney Taylor Clark denies that the city violated Lewis’ constitutional rights and says: “Lewis was justifiably shot by a service weapon after being ineffectively tasered.” “Edmond also admits that Isaiah Mark Lewis was naked and unarmed when he was shot and that verbal commands were given to Isaiah Mark Lewis prior to the shooting,” Clark wrote. The officers have been on paid administrative leave since the shooting. Taylor declined further comment.\n\nOregon\n\nSalem: A judge has ruled that the state Fish and Wildlife Commission illegally reversed an earlier decision granting endangered species status to the marbled murrelet, a small seabird that nests in old-growth forests. Environmental groups say Oregon has sought to avoid protections for the bird, allowing clear-cut logging in its habitat. A spokeswoman for the wildlife department said it won’t comment on legal matters. The ruling was by Lane County Circuit Court Judge Lauren Holland in Eugene. Conservation groups said they petitioned the wildlife commission to list the marbled murrelet as endangered, and it voted to do so, concluding the bird was likely to go extinct. But the commission reversed itself without explanation. Holland said the commission was required to explain its reversal and failed to do so.\n\nPennsylvania\n\nPhiladelphia: Philadelphia’s Music Alliance will induct musicians spanning a wide range of genres to its Walk of Fame, including The Philadelphia Orchestra, R&B group The O’Jays and ’80s rock band The Hooters. The class of 2019’s other honorees include Philadelphia socialite and philanthropist Dorrance “Dodo” Hamilton, who died in 2017; disco queen Evelyn “Champagne” King; and Jody Gerson, the current CEO of Universal Music Publishing Group and the first woman to run a major music-publishing company. Longtime rock-radio DJ Pierre Robert is this year’s dual Radio Row Award recipient and Walk of Fame inductee. The announcements were made Wednesday at the Independence Visitor Center. The group will be formally inducted Oct. 22 during a gala at The Bellevue.\n\nRhode Island\n\nProvidence: Gov. Gina Raimondo says the state will begin offering a gender-neutral option for residents to put on their driver’s licenses and birth certificates. Rhode Island will join the ranks of about a dozen other states already offering an option of “X” instead of the standard “M” or “F.” The option is in response to the governor’s conversations with the transgender and LGBTQ community. The Democratic governor says this is “just basic fairness” in order to ensure all residents are being recognized for who they are. The Rhode Island Division of Motor Vehicles and the Department of Health echoed the governor’s remarks. The governor adds that the biggest hurdle has been the implementation of the change. Residents could potentially see the option available within a year.\n\nSouth Carolina\n\nAiken: Officials say the U.S. government followed a requirement to remove weapons-grade plutonium from the state. South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson said 1 metric ton of nuclear material has been shipped out of the Savannah River Site near Aiken. The U.S. Energy Department was ordered in 2017 to remove that much plutonium by January. Federal court records said half the plutonium was sent to Nevada. Wilson’s statement Wednesday didn’t say where the other half was shipped. South Carolina sued the federal agency after it halted a plan to turn plutonium once used to make nuclear weapons into fuel for nuclear reactors. The Energy Department owes the state $200 million in fines in part because 11 metric tons of plutonium remain at the site.\n\nSouth Dakota\n\nBurke: As this small town recovers from a tornado that destroyed its civic center and caused other extensive damage, some residents are asking why the community’s warning siren wasn’t sounded. The EF-1 tornado with 100 mph winds ripped through Burke on Tuesday night, ripping roofs off buildings and homes, uprooting trees and leaving the school building unusable for the beginning of classes. Two men suffered minor injuries when a garage collapsed. Gov. Kristi Noem visited the community Wednesday and called the damage “unbelievable.” Noem promised the state’s help in the community’s restoration efforts. Burke Mayor Thomas Glover says the siren is sounded when officials get notification of a tornado sighting or that one is imminent. Glover says that did not happen.\n\nTennessee\n\nNashville: Add Glen Campbell to the list of late country music legends with a museum in their honor in the city’s downtown. Clearbrook Hospitality LLC announced plans Thursday to open The Glen Campbell Museum and Rhinestone Stage, a live music venue, at the corner of Broadway and 2nd Avenue. It’s slated to open in early 2020. Campbell died in 2017 at age 81 following an extended battle with Alzheimer’s disease. The 4,000-square-foot venue will feature immersive, interactive displays showcasing different stages of Campbell’s career. He was a studio musician in The Wrecking Crew; the singer of many hit records including “Rhinestone Cowboy” and “Southern Nights”; and a television and film actor. In the evenings, the museum will transform into live music venue The Rhinestone Stage, where national and local acts can perform intimate shows.\n\nTexas\n\nAustin: The state’s annual back-to-school sales tax holiday is coming this weekend. The Texas Comptroller’s Office says the tax break begins Friday and runs through Sunday. Customers can buy most clothing, footwear, school supplies and backpacks – sold for less than $100 – tax free from a Texas store or from an online or catalog seller doing business in the state. The sales tax exemption applies only to qualifying items. The tax break does not include products such as jewelry, handbags, briefcases, luggage, computer bags, umbrellas, wallets and watches. The Texas sales tax holiday weekend started in 1999.\n\nUtah\n\nRiverton: Administrators from more than 60 schools in northern Utah gathered ahead of the first day of classes to assemble “care kits” for students in need. The Deseret News reports administrators from the Jordan School District met Wednesday to pack more than 2,400 kits, which include food, personal hygiene products and backpacks loaded with school supplies. Walmart donated the supplies. Event organizer Peggy Margetts said the kits help students in a discrete way and show students their school cares about their well-being. Students will receive the kits at the start of school. Administrators said they will keep some on hand to use during the year.\n\nVermont\n\nMontpelier: The Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets says the state’s cheese producers won 44 ribbons at the American Cheese Society’s annual awards competition. Officials say this is Vermont’s best showing yet. The results were announced at the society’s annual conference last week in Richmond, Virginia. Agriculture officials say five Vermont cheeses were finalists for the best in show. A total of 25 Vermont companies submitted cheeses to be judged among the more than 2,000 total entries. Vermont Gov. Phil Scott congratulated the state’s cheesemakers on their “impressive achievement.” He says their “commitment to excellence is helping Vermont grow its economy by creating jobs and further strengthening our great Vermont brand.”\n\nVirginia\n\nBlacksburg: Town officials are cracking down on an unsanctioned Virginia Tech fraternity they say is operating in violation of zoning rules. Blacksburg officials recently determined the house is being used as a base for the rogue frat Omega Alpha Kappa. Zoning Administrator Paul Patterson said frat activities at the house must stop. The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports the fraternity is not recognized by the university and was formed by members of Kappa Delta Rho when that chapter was suspended for violating alcohol policies. The fraternity has a history of trash citations and accusations that members made female guests at social events feel uncomfortable. The Roanoke Times reports the university has advised students to avoid the fraternity and seven others for their safety.\n\nWashington\n\nSeattle: A $219 million property-tax levy that would abolish overdue fines in the Seattle Public Library system is heading toward approval. The Seattle Times reports the seven-year levy supporting the library system had 73% of the vote in returns Tuesday. The measure proposed by Mayor Jenny Durkan would authorize additional property taxes and replace a $123 million library levy set to expire at the end of this year. The levy would collect about 12 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value in 2020. The additional library funding would support seismic renovations, new programs for children, more social workers, extended operating hours and the elimination of fines for overdue items. About $167 million would be used to maintain current services.\n\nWest Virginia\n\nCharleston: The state’s Public Port Authority board has decided to consider lease proposals and bids for the Heartland Intermodal Gateway Facility in Prichard. The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports the board made a motion Wednesday in Charleston to delay a possible public sale. West Virginia Transportation Secretary Byrd White says the board discussed selling it because of a funding shortage. Wayne County Commissioner Jeff Maddox says the county’s economy isn’t the best, but a sale for “pennies on the dollar” would be “a grave error.” The board will further discuss options at its September meeting. The $32 million facility opened in 2015 on 76 acres donated by Norfolk Southern railroad. It’s designed to move containers more efficiently by rail through a double-stack method while offering a cheaper alternative to gas-guzzling trucks.\n\nWisconsin\n\nMadison: State prison officials say they illegally released information that could reveal whether inmates are in substance abuse treatment. The Department of Corrections said Thursday that officials responding to an open records request released records June 24 that contained 1,041 inmates’ personal identification numbers and locations. No names were released, but DOC officials say someone could use the numbers and locations to learn whether an inmate is at a substance abuse facility or receiving treatment. The agency says that information is confidential under Wisconsin law. Only two people saw the information, and they’ve since confirmed the data has been destroyed. DOC spokeswoman Molly Vidal didn’t answer emailed questions asking who received the questions and what information they actually wanted.\n\nWyoming\n\nMeeteetse: A ranch where black-footed ferrets were discovered in the 1980s is being preserved. The Nature Conservancy recently announced a conservation easement agreement to restrict the Lazy BV ranch’s 2,300 acres near Meeteetse from being subdivided or developed. The ranch is in the area where the ferrets were discovered in 1981 after they were thought to be extinct. The ferrets were used to start a captive-breeding program that has restored black-footed ferrets in Wyoming, Colorado, Montana and elsewhere in the western U.S. Jim Luchsinger of The Nature Conservancy tells Wyoming Public Radio it had been a dream of the ranch owners to protect the ranch and bring ferrets back. The protected land is also home to greater sage grouse, mule deer, antelope and Yellowstone cutthroat trout.\n\nFrom USA TODAY Network and wire reports", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2019/08/09"}]}
+{"question_id": "20220617_19", "search_time": "2022/06/17/16:36", "search_result": [{"url": "https://www.theweek.co.uk/news/uk-news/953648/met-office-climate-report-how-hot-will-the-uk-get", "title": "Met Office climate report: how hot will the UK get? | The Week UK", "text": "British summers could regularly reach a “new normal” of 40C within a decade warn meteorologists in a new study by the Met Office.\n\n“Wild weather has been a feature of this UK summer thus far, with scorching sunshine, pouring rain and powerful thunderstorms all making an appearance,” says Sky News.\n\nAnd all this comes after a “record-setting year”, continues the broadcaster, pointing to figures in the State of the UK Climate 2020 report showing that last year ranked in the top ten for heat, rainfall and sunshine, marking the first time one year had made it into the top ten for all three categories.\n\nThe report paints “a clear picture of how climate change is already measurably impacting the UK”, says Sky.\n\nPublished in the Royal Meteorological Society’s International Journal of Climatology, the report warned that “recent decades have been warmer, wetter and sunnier than the 20th century”.\n\nScorching summers...\n\nThe Royal Meteorological Society (RMetS) also warns that British summers could hit highs of 40C every three to four years – regardless of whether global warming targets set out by the Paris climate agreement are met. That 2015 accord aims to limit global temperatures to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.\n\nProfessor Liz Bentley, chief executive of RMetS, told the Daily Mail that the average temperature in the UK, as across the globe, has already increased by 1.2C and is likely to rise a further 0.3C in the coming years.\n\nShe said that extreme temperatures and heatwaves are “just going to become much more intense. We’re likely to see 40C in the UK although we have never seen those kinds of temperatures [before].\n\n“That’s not just going to become something that we see once or twice – it’ll start to become something that we see on a much more regular basis.”\n\nAnd according to the report, the UK land temperature during the past decade has been 1.1C warmer than 1961-1990, “meaning the UK is warming slightly quicker than the global average of 0.8C”, reports The Telegraph.\n\nIncreasing temperatures are likely to spark alarm among health experts. Indeed, a heatwave last August produced temperatures above 34C for six days, and claimed 1,700 lives, reports the Mail.\n\n... but fewer snow days\n\nMeanwhile, winters in the UK are likely to feel much milder, with days disrupted by extreme cold becoming fewer.\n\nAccording to the report, the average winter temperature last year was 5.3C, up 1.6C on the 1981-2010 average.\n\nIt means “fewer snow days and less ice on the roads are… likely in future”, writes environment editor Emma Gatten in The Telegraph.\n\nShe explains that the number of days reaching freezing temperatures would also drop from 50 to 34 at 2C of warming.\n\nThe lead author of the report, Mike Kendon, a climate scientist at the Met Office, said the figures showed that the “baseline of our climate” is changing and warned the effects of man-made climate change will last “for a very, very long time”.\n\n“Climate change isn’t just something that’s going to happen in the future. Climate change is something that is happening now,” he told Sky News.\n\n“What these observations are showing us is that we are seeing this emerging pattern of more high-temperature extremes in the UK, but we’re also seeing more rainfall extremes for the UK, obviously as our climate warms, a warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture.\n\n“I’m worried. As a scientist, I’m worried looking at these observations. I’m a dad. I worry about the future for my children.”", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2021/07/29"}, {"url": "https://www.theweek.co.uk/news/world-news/954590/what-the-world-is-saying-about-cop26", "title": "What the world is saying about Cop26 | The Week UK", "text": "Boris Johnson has admitted he is “very worried” that Cop26 “might go wrong” as the clock ticks down until the UK-hosted climate summit gets under way. Answering questions from schoolchildren at a special Downing Street news conference this week, the prime minister said it would be “touch and go” whether world leaders could achieve the necessary agreements to protect the planet. But he added: “I think it can be done.” Here is what the rest of the world is saying. Scottish setting “It was once dubbed Europe’s murder capital, but this year it was voted the world’s friendliest city,” said Al Jazeera. Glasgow, “home to one of the most bitter football rivalries”, has rarely lacked drama and from Sunday will “take centre stage as the host of a highly anticipated summit seen by many as the last chance to avert a global climate catastrophe”. The news site, which is part-funded by the Qatari government, predicted that this “city of contrasts” will either be “hailed as the scene of a spectacular success or lamented as the place where dreams of a better tomorrow were extinguished”. Temperature talk The activists and delegates heading to the Scottish city from across the world “have reason to be anxious”, wrote climate campaigner Eleanor Salter in The New York Times. The summit represents “perhaps one of the world’s last chances” to limit the rise in global average temperature to less than 1.5C above preindustrial levels. Johnson has generally displayed “bombastic optimism” that other countries will step up, said Salter, but Britain is “far from a climate hero”. A “glance” behind Johnson’s speeches “reveals hypocrisy everywhere”. Despite “a smoke screen of good words”, the UK “is pursuing policies at home and abroad that violate every single goal” set for Cop26, she continued. And ultimately, “warm words won’t stop a warming world”. Pressing agendas The negotiations “are likely to be fraught”, said France24. The “rulebook” on how climate goals are measured is yet to be finalised, “long-festering disputes” over the governance of carbon markets persist, and poorer nations are calling on wealthier ones to make good on funding promises. Skip advert Wealthy nations have yet to meet a target set at Cop15 to provide $100bn a year in funding to help developing nations tackle the front-line effects of global warming. The UK government’s newly published Climate Finance Delivery Plan said the goal is unlikely to be achieved until 2023.\n\nIn an article for the Financial Times, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s President Felix Tshisekedi wrote that Africa is “tired of waiting” for financial support and “must be a priority” at Cop26. The continent “contributes so little global warming” yet faces “a cruel fate”, said Tshisekedi, who is chair of the African Union. A “clear plan” is needed on how resources to fight climate change will be deployed, he argued, adding: “It is time for Africa to be compensated – for the good of the continent and the planet. We have waited long enough.” Contentious conversations Cop26 President Alok Sharma has admitted that the absence of some leading global figures will be a stumbling block in achieving the summit goals. The no-shows will include Vladimir Putin, owing to the coronavirus situation in Russia. However, Kremlin-owned news agency TASS said that the Russian president and Johnson had discussed “climate problems” together “in detail” this week, in their first joint telephone call since May last year. The British leader “welcomed” Russia’s commitment to achieve net zero emissions by 2060, the agency added – although this target date is a decade later that that set by most other developed nations. Although the “leaders of most of the world’s biggest greenhouse emitters will gather in Scotland”, said The Japan Times, “the man running the biggest of them all”, China’s President Xi Jinping, also “likely won’t be there”. Ultimately, “if the rich world fails to demonstrate solidarity and leadership, it will have no moral standing to criticise China”, wrote Sam Geall, a specialist in Chinese climate policy and politics, in The Sydney Morning Herald. Eyes will also be on other major fossil fuel emitters including Australia. The country’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison has this week adopted the 2050 target, but “sadly”, that’s where the “good news begins and ends”, said The Guardian Australia columnist Katherine Murphy. Skip advert No strategy or legislation for achieving this goal has been put forward by Morrison so far, Murphy noted. In fact, the “pre-Glasgow crescendo” has left us with a so-called new plan that is simply “the status quo” served up with “some new speculative graphs”. Covid complications The Covid-19 pandemic delayed the summit by a year and could yet cause further disruption. A cartoon by Liu Rui in China’s Global Times English-language paper portrays the UK as a “dangerous climate” for the summit, as Britain battles one of the highest case rates in western Europe.", "authors": ["Julia O"], "publish_date": "2021/10/27"}, {"url": "https://www.theweek.co.uk/news/environment/953560/is-climate-change-reversible", "title": "Is climate change reversible? | The Week UK", "text": "The words “extreme”, “intolerable” and “record-breaking” are cropping up more and more in news headlines about our planet’s climate. The Pakistani city of Jacobabad recently officially surpassed the temperature threshold that humans can withstand - “albeit briefly”, The Telegraph notes. Days later, experts in the US reported that a “heat dome” was to blame for blistering temperatures in the Pacific Northwest that saw the mercury hitting 46.6°C in the Oregon city of Portland. On the other side of the Atlantic, more than 150 people have died as a result of extreme flooding in Germany, with hundreds more missing, and further flood-related fatalities reported in neighbouring Belgium. And in Asia, authorities in Henan province issued the highest level of weather warning this week as torrential rain swept across wide swathes of north and central China. Each of these extreme weather events has triggered fresh warnings from scientists and politicians about the ever-increasing threat posed by climate change. As Germany and Belgium, along with parts of the Netherlands and Luxembourg, reeled from the effects of days of intense rainfall there, Potsdam-based climatologist Dieter Gerten told National Geographic that the situation was “not so surprising” to scientists. “The increase of extreme events is something we’ve seen in climate model projections,\" he added. So what can science tell us about the current course of climate change, and whether it can be slowed - or even reversed? Heating up Human activities have been heating the planet since the Industrial Revolution, a period commonly used as a baseline against which global temperatures are monitored. Global average temperatures increased rapidly in the second half of the 20th century, and “this warming has been particularly rapid since the 1970s“, says the Met Office. This acceleration has triggered calls for united action by world leaders. The “historic, durable and ambitious” goals set out in the 2015 Paris Agreement were lauded as “the world’s greatest diplomatic success” by The Guardian at the time of the signing. But on the treaty's fifth anniversary, in December 2020, the president of this year’s COP26 summit, Alok Sharma, told national leaders to be “honest” with themselves and admit that “as encouraging as all this ambition is, it is not enough”. Skip advert\n\nIn May, World Meteorological Organization (WMO) secretary-general Professor Petteri Taalas warned that new research findings had delivered “yet another wake-up call” about the need to fast-track commitments to slash greenhouse gas emissions and achieve carbon neutrality. According to a WMO climate update, there is a 90% chance that one of the years between 2021 and 2025 will become the hottest on record, and a 40% likelihood that the annual average global temperature will temporarily reach 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels in the same period. A separate WMO report published in April warned that monitoring showed that global greenhouse gas emissions increased in 2020, “despite setbacks from Covid-19” to industrial processes. And the decade from 2011 was the warmest on record, the report said. Future outlook Signatories of the Paris Agreement committed to limiting global warming to well below 2C and pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5C. As the World Resources Institute (WRI) noted back in 2018, this difference of “half a degree of warming matters - a lot”. The London-based think tank pointed to research from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a group of the world’s leading climate scientists, which found that with a 2C increase, 37% of the world’s population would be exposed to severe heat waves at least once in five years, compared with 14% at 1.5C of warming. And “at 2C warming, 18% of insects globally, 16% of plants and 8% of vertebrates are projected to lose more than half of their ranges”, said the WRI. “With 1.5C of warming, this is reduced by two-thirds for insects, and by half for plants and vertebrates.” The difference of half a degree could also prove crucial in the Arctic, where global warming is triggering rising sea levels, sea ice loss and changes to permafrost. “Over the past 49 years, the Arctic has warmed three times faster than the world as a whole,” according to the latest annual update from the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme, which predicts that “the first ice-free September in the Arctic could occur as early as 2040”. Global warming is also expected to lead to an increase in the frequency and severity of extreme weather events. Freak weather “such as abnormally heavy rainfall, prolonged droughts, desertification, environmental degradation, or sea-level rise and cyclones, are already causing an average of more than 20 million people to leave their homes and move to other areas in their countries each year”, says the UN Refugee Agency. Climate change has major implications for the production of goods and services needed to sustain communities too, especially in industies such as agriculture. A report published in The Lancet recently warns that “both labour supply and productivity are projected to decrease under future climate change in most parts of the world, and particularly in tropical regions”. Skip advert", "authors": ["Julia O"], "publish_date": "2021/07/21"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/22/europe/europe-climate-copernicus-summer-2021-intl/index.html", "title": "Europe's summer of floods and fire was its hottest on record, report ...", "text": "(CNN) Europe swung from unusually cold temperatures in the spring to its hottest summer on record last year, smashing temperature and daily rain records, while Mediterranean wildfires burned through land around the size of Cyprus.\n\nThey are the main findings of the fifth European State of the Climate report, published Friday, which found the summer of 2021 was 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) hotter than the 1991-2020 average.\n\nThe average air temperature in Europe has risen about 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, according to the report.\n\nThe continent set a provisional, blistering new heat record last summer of 48.8 degrees Celsius on the Italian island of Sicily. Previously, the hottest day recorded in Europe was 48 degrees Celsius (118 degrees Fahrenheit) in 1977 in Athens, Greece, according to the report by the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service.\n\nA firefighting helicopter passes in front of a cloud of smoke from a forest fire near Spathovouni village, southwest of Athens, Greece, on July 23.\n\nA firefighting helicopter passes in front of a cloud of smoke from a forest fire near Spathovouni village, southwest of Athens, Greece, on July 23.\n\nA firefighter talks to his colleague as they work to put out fires in Cuglieri, on the Italian island of Sardinia, on July 26.\n\nA firefighter talks to his colleague as they work to put out fires in Cuglieri, on the Italian island of Sardinia, on July 26.\n\nFirefighters battle a massive wildfire that engulfed a Mediterranean resort region on Turkey's southern coast near the town of Manavgat on July 29.\n\nFirefighters battle a massive wildfire that engulfed a Mediterranean resort region on Turkey's southern coast near the town of Manavgat on July 29.\n\nA man surveys a fire at Le Capannine beach in the Sicilian town of Catania, Italy, on July 30.\n\nA man surveys a fire at Le Capannine beach in the Sicilian town of Catania, Italy, on July 30.\n\nA handout photo from the Italian National Fire Brigade shows an aerial view of a fire in the Pineta Dannunziana reserve in Pescara, Italy, on August 1.\n\nA handout photo from the Italian National Fire Brigade shows an aerial view of a fire in the Pineta Dannunziana reserve in Pescara, Italy, on August 1.\n\nLocal residents watch as a Greek army helicopter collects water to tackle a wildfire near the village of Lambiri, Greece, on August 1.\n\nLocal residents watch as a Greek army helicopter collects water to tackle a wildfire near the village of Lambiri, Greece, on August 1.\n\nPeople watch an advancing fire that rages around the Cokertme village near Bodrum, Turkey, on August 2.\n\nPeople watch an advancing fire that rages around the Cokertme village near Bodrum, Turkey, on August 2.\n\nA man leads sheep away from an advancing fire in Mugla, Turkey, on August 2.\n\nA man leads sheep away from an advancing fire in Mugla, Turkey, on August 2.\n\nA woman pours water over a baby's head at a fountain in Skopje, North Macedonia, as temperatures reached over 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) on August 2.\n\nA woman pours water over a baby's head at a fountain in Skopje, North Macedonia, as temperatures reached over 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) on August 2.\n\nFirefighters work as a house burns in the Adames area of northern Athens on August 3.\n\nFirefighters work as a house burns in the Adames area of northern Athens on August 3.\n\nSmoke and flames rise over the village of Limni on the Greek island of Evia.\n\nSmoke and flames rise over the village of Limni on the Greek island of Evia.\n\nA charred area of Mugla, Turkey, after a forest fire on August 3.\n\nA charred area of Mugla, Turkey, after a forest fire on August 3.\n\nOnlookers view the smoke from the wildfires blanketing Athens' Acropolis on August 4.\n\nOnlookers view the smoke from the wildfires blanketing Athens' Acropolis on August 4.\n\nThe remnants of a destroyed house are seen in the Varibobi area of northern Athens on August 4.\n\nThe remnants of a destroyed house are seen in the Varibobi area of northern Athens on August 4.\n\nA wildfire approaches the Olympic Academy in Olympia, Greece, on August 4.\n\nA wildfire approaches the Olympic Academy in Olympia, Greece, on August 4.\n\nPeople move belongings to safety as a forest fire rages in a wooded area north of Athens, Greece, on August 5.\n\nPeople move belongings to safety as a forest fire rages in a wooded area north of Athens, Greece, on August 5.\n\nThe grounds of a burnt hotel are seen in Lalas village, near Olympia, on August 5.\n\nThe grounds of a burnt hotel are seen in Lalas village, near Olympia, on August 5.\n\nResidents react during a wildfire near Olympia on August 5.\n\nResidents react during a wildfire near Olympia on August 5.\n\nFirefighters try to extinguish a wildfire near the town of Olympia, Greece, on August 5.\n\nFirefighters try to extinguish a wildfire near the town of Olympia, Greece, on August 5.\n\nA satellite photo shows smoke rising from fires on the island of Evia, Greece, on August 5.\n\nA satellite photo shows smoke rising from fires on the island of Evia, Greece, on August 5.\n\nPeople are evacuated on a ferry as a wildfire burns in Limni, Greece, on August 6.\n\nPeople are evacuated on a ferry as a wildfire burns in Limni, Greece, on August 6.\n\nA firefighter washes his face in the Milas area of Mugla, Turkey, on August 7.\n\nA firefighter washes his face in the Milas area of Mugla, Turkey, on August 7.\n\nA house in Pefkofito, Greece, is destroyed on August 7.\n\nA house in Pefkofito, Greece, is destroyed on August 7.\n\nA resident reacts as a wildfire approaches her house in the Greek village of Gouves, on the island of Evia, on August 8.\n\nA resident reacts as a wildfire approaches her house in the Greek village of Gouves, on the island of Evia, on August 8.\n\nPeople sleep in a car near the beach in Pefki village as wildfires rage on the island of Evia on August 8.\n\nPeople sleep in a car near the beach in Pefki village as wildfires rage on the island of Evia on August 8.\n\nLocal youths and volunteers gather in a field and wait to support firefighters during a wildfire on August 9, close to the village of Kamatriades on the Greek island of Evia.\n\nLocal youths and volunteers gather in a field and wait to support firefighters during a wildfire on August 9, close to the village of Kamatriades on the Greek island of Evia.\n\nRemains of an 18th-century Orthodox church are seen on August 10, after a fire on the Greek island of Evia.\n\nRemains of an 18th-century Orthodox church are seen on August 10, after a fire on the Greek island of Evia.\n\nThis aerial photo shows a wildfire-affected area in Mugla, Turkey, on August 11.\n\nThis aerial photo shows a wildfire-affected area in Mugla, Turkey, on August 11.\n\nForest fires rage on the Greek island of Euboea on August 11.\n\nForest fires rage on the Greek island of Euboea on August 11.\n\nA man works to douse a fire in Montalto, Italy, on August 12.\n\nA man works to douse a fire in Montalto, Italy, on August 12.\n\nA helicopter drops water as a wildfire burns in the village of Navalmoral, Spain, on August 16.\n\nA helicopter drops water as a wildfire burns in the village of Navalmoral, Spain, on August 16.\n\nParts of the Mediterranean were hit with an intense, weeks-long heat wave in July and August, with Italy, Turkey and Greece experiencing several destructive wildfires. More than 800,000 hectares were burned during those two months.\n\n\"With the changing climate, temperatures are getting warmer and warmer in the Mediterranean region, so it's not unexpected to get these even higher temperatures,\" said Freja Vamborg, a Copernicus senior scientist, who led and edited the report. \"There is preconditioning due to climate change.\"\n\nShe added that at the time, there were \"blocking\" weather patterns present, which is when areas of strong high pressure remain almost stagnant and block cooler, wetter weather from moving in.\n\nJUST WATCHED Icelandic company is turning CO2 into stone Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Icelandic company is turning CO2 into stone 04:07\n\nThese impacts are unsurprising, said Vamborg, considering the continued emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane, which are both generated primarily by the burning of fossil fuels.\n\nThe atmospheric concentration of methane -- a potent greenhouse gas that has more than 80 times the warming power of CO2 in the short term -- is picking up pace. It has increased at a faster rate over the past two years than it has over the last decade, the report shows.\n\nMethane emissions come from a number of sources, including coal, oil and gas infrastructure, from which it can \"leak\" into the atmosphere throughout the supply chain.\n\n\"This continued increase in greenhouse gases is the main driver behind the global increase in temperatures,\" Vamborg told reporters.\n\nThe report also noted that floods on July 14, which killed more than 230 people, came on a day of record rainfall in the mountains on the German-Belgian border. Heavy rains since the beginning of July had saturated the soil, leaving it unable to absorb more water. A study by the World Weather Attribution project found that climate change had made those floods up to nine times more likely to happen.\n\nPhotos: Deadly flooding in western Europe Two brothers embrace Monday, July 19, in front of their parents' home, which was destroyed by flooding in Altenahr, Germany. Hide Caption 1 of 38 Photos: Deadly flooding in western Europe A damaged road buckles after flooding in Euskirchen, Germany. Hide Caption 2 of 38 Photos: Deadly flooding in western Europe This aerial photo shows a bridge collapsed over the Ahr River in Germany's Ahrweiler district on Sunday. Hide Caption 3 of 38 Photos: Deadly flooding in western Europe Damage is seen Sunday in Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, Germany. Hide Caption 4 of 38 Photos: Deadly flooding in western Europe Homes are damaged in Pepinster, Belgium, on Saturday. Hide Caption 5 of 38 Photos: Deadly flooding in western Europe A resident stands in floodwaters in Rochefort, Belgium, on Saturday. Hide Caption 6 of 38 Photos: Deadly flooding in western Europe Members of the German armed forces search for flood victims in Erftstadt, Germany, on Saturday. Hide Caption 7 of 38 Photos: Deadly flooding in western Europe A resident of Arcen, Netherlands, looks at the rising water of the Meuse River on Saturday. Hide Caption 8 of 38 Photos: Deadly flooding in western Europe Water flows over a square in front of a house in Bischofswiesen, Germany. Hide Caption 9 of 38 Photos: Deadly flooding in western Europe A man stands in front of a destroyed house in Schuld, Germany. Hide Caption 10 of 38 Photos: Deadly flooding in western Europe A water level gauge shows rising waters in Arcen, Netherlands, on Saturday. Dutch officials ordered the evacuation of 10,000 people in the municipality of Venlo, as the Meuse was rising there faster than expected. Hide Caption 11 of 38 Photos: Deadly flooding in western Europe This aerial photo shows flooding in Erftstadt, Germany, on Friday. Hide Caption 12 of 38 Photos: Deadly flooding in western Europe A man brushes water and mud out of his flooded house in Ensival, Belgium, on Friday. Hide Caption 13 of 38 Photos: Deadly flooding in western Europe People collect debris in Bad Muenstereifel, Germany. Hide Caption 14 of 38 Photos: Deadly flooding in western Europe The Steinbach dam is seen after flooding near Euskirchen, Germany. Hide Caption 15 of 38 Photos: Deadly flooding in western Europe Firefighters walk past a car that was damaged by flooding in Schuld, Germany. Hide Caption 16 of 38 Photos: Deadly flooding in western Europe People lay sandbags in Roermond, Netherlands, on Friday. Hide Caption 17 of 38 Photos: Deadly flooding in western Europe A woman sorts through clothing at a shelter in Liege, Belgium, on Friday. Hide Caption 18 of 38 Photos: Deadly flooding in western Europe A woman walks up the stairs of her damaged house in Ensival, Belgium. Hide Caption 19 of 38 Photos: Deadly flooding in western Europe A man walks through a flooded part of Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, Germany, on Thursday. Hide Caption 20 of 38 Photos: Deadly flooding in western Europe A regional train sits in floodwaters at the local station in Kordel, Germany. Hide Caption 21 of 38 Photos: Deadly flooding in western Europe People use rafts to evacuate after the Meuse River broke its banks during heavy flooding in Liege, Belgium. Hide Caption 22 of 38 Photos: Deadly flooding in western Europe People look at a railway crossing that was destroyed by the flooding in Priorei, Germany. Hide Caption 23 of 38 Photos: Deadly flooding in western Europe Men walk by damaged homes in Schuld, Germany. Hide Caption 24 of 38 Photos: Deadly flooding in western Europe A man surveys what remains of his house in Schuld. Hide Caption 25 of 38 Photos: Deadly flooding in western Europe Water from the Ahr River flows past a damaged bridge in Schuld. Hide Caption 26 of 38 Photos: Deadly flooding in western Europe Evacuees ride a bus in Valkenburg aan de Geul, Netherlands. Hide Caption 27 of 38 Photos: Deadly flooding in western Europe A car floats in the Meuse River during heavy flooding in Liege, Belgium, on Thursday. Hide Caption 28 of 38 Photos: Deadly flooding in western Europe People walk on a damaged road in Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, Germany. Hide Caption 29 of 38 Photos: Deadly flooding in western Europe A resident uses a bucket to remove water from a house cellar in Hagen, Germany. Hide Caption 30 of 38 Photos: Deadly flooding in western Europe A man and woman stand on the stoop of their home as they look at floodwaters in Geulle, Netherlands. Hide Caption 31 of 38 Photos: Deadly flooding in western Europe Houses are damaged by flooding in Insul, Germany, on Thursday. Hide Caption 32 of 38 Photos: Deadly flooding in western Europe A man steps down a ladder in an attempt to cut his boat loose in the Meuse River in Liege, Belgium. Hide Caption 33 of 38 Photos: Deadly flooding in western Europe Caravans and campers are partially submerged in Roermond, Netherlands. Hide Caption 34 of 38 Photos: Deadly flooding in western Europe A destroyed building is seen in a flood-affected area of Schuld, Germany. Hide Caption 35 of 38 Photos: Deadly flooding in western Europe People walk over floodwaters in Stansstad, Switzerland. Hide Caption 36 of 38 Photos: Deadly flooding in western Europe Cars are covered by debris in Hagen, Germany. Hide Caption 37 of 38 Photos: Deadly flooding in western Europe A flood-affected area of Schuld, Germany. Hide Caption 38 of 38\n\nThe persistent rain came from a low-pressure weather system that carried moisture from an unusually warm Baltic sea, which experienced temperatures at around 5 degrees Celsius higher than average last year.\n\nAt the time, CNN meteorologists reported that the area had experienced a whole month's worth of rain in a single day.\n\nThe report also noted unusually low wind speeds in northwestern and central Europe, including some countries that experienced their lowest wind speeds since 1979. That led to lower than expected power generation from wind turbines, the report said, noting a deeper understanding or Europe's wind variability was needed to help effectively design the continent's energy transition.", "authors": ["Hafsa Khalil"], "publish_date": "2022/04/22"}, {"url": "https://www.theweek.co.uk/news/people/954294/piers-corbyn-weather-forecaster-and-conspiracy-theorist", "title": "Piers Corbyn: the weather forecaster and conspiracy theorist who ...", "text": "Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has not always seen eye to eye with his older brother Piers, as was seen at a party conference fringe event this week. Piers began “shouting and refused requests to leave” at the radical-left World Transformed event at which his brother was a panellist, The Guardian reported. And when asked if Jeremy would be upset by the disruption, Piers apparently said “I don’t care”. It comes two months after the “eccentric disseminator of anti-vaccine materials” did his “best to steal his borther’s thunder” as the MP protested in Downing Street for a 15% pay rise for health workers, said The Spectator’s Steerpike. Piers could be heard shouting “no more lockdowns” and “end the Covid con”. “With brothers like these, who needs enemies?” asked the gossip columnist. Early life “[Piers] Corbyn says that the day he was born, March 10, 1947, nature put on a spectacular show,” wrote Tom Standage in Wired, after interviewing him in 1999. “One of the largest sunspots ever recorded had appeared on the sun.” It was an apt arrival for the future long-range weather forecaster. One of four boys, he grew up in “bucolic bliss”, said Tatler, first in Wiltshire, then Shropshire. He described himself as “very inquiring” as a child and would “ask questions that there weren’t really answers for”, said Standage. Surrounded by homemade meteorological tools including an anemometer and rain gauge, as a teenager he began keeping daily records of the weather. Piers earned a scholarship to study physics at Imperial College London and graduated with a first. In 1979, he then began a master’s in astrophysics at Queen Mary College, where he became interested in the link “between solar activity and terrestrial weather”, said Standage. By observing the activity of the sun, he believed he might be able to predict the weather months in advance. Skip advert He developed a formula for forecasting the weather months into the future, wrote Monica Porter in The Article. Then, in 1984, “a singular event changed the course of his working life”, said The Observer. At the beginning of the year, the International Marxist Group (IMG) asked him to forecast how cold the weather would be in winter. The IMG was planning a strike and “they wanted to know whether it was going to be cold enough for the strike… to bring Britain to his knees”, he told the newspaper. His prediction was correct, it proved to be an “unusually cold” winter.\n\nCareer The Independent’s Simon Usborne once said Corbyn “defies categorisation”, but gave it a go anyway, describing him as “a left-wing physicist turned political activist and councillor, turned conspiracy theorist and maverick weather forecaster”. In the early days of his forecasting career, Corbyn and his girlfriend at the time “no doubt spent a lot of time looking anxiously at the sky”, The Observer said. He had begun placing bets on his forecasts, which proved accurate enough that “it would pay the rent basically”, he told the newspaper. Businesses became interested in Corbyn’s services, which he started to sell. In 1995 he formed WeatherAction, a long-range weather forecast firm based in southeast London that still operates today. Filmmakers, clothing retailers and petrochemical companies were among those who began relying on its forecasts. An annual subscription costing “£24,000 and upward” in the late 1990s, with most services costing “anywhere between £480 and £6,000”, according to Wired. An early customer of Corbyn’s, who used the service to predict winter demand for electricity, told the magazine he “would put the success rate of Corbyn’s forecasts in the excess of 70%”. The company faced an “uphill struggle” in winning new clients, partly due to “an outcry from mainstream meteorologists” fuelled by the mystery shrouding Corbyn’s forecasting methodology. His “secret formula”, he assured the magazine, is “locked safely away in case he gets hit by a bus”. But “adversity has only stiffened Corbyn’s resolve”, said The Observer. By 1997 “he had just become very rich indeed”, said The Article’s Porter. With “hundreds of clients”, and a stint on the stock exchange, “the nutty professor and one-time scourge of the Establishment had morphed into a City tycoon”. WeatherAction was on the stock exchange for two years before returning to private ownership. Skip advert When speaking to Porter around that time, Corbyn said that “he had no idea” what his brother Jeremy thought of his forecasting business, “as they hadn’t been on speaking terms for years”. Controversy Corbyn has “clashed” with his brother Jeremy over coronavirus and climate policy, The Telegraph reported. The elder Corbyn brother is often referred to as a climate change denier, and has been described as a “conspiracy theorist”, said Tatler. He has called Greta Thunberg an “ignorant, brainwashed child” and in 2018 he told LBC that the findings of an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report were a “pack of lies”. The report’s conclusions, he said, were “anti-scientific nonsense based on fraud”. Professor Stuart Haszeldine, a geoscientist, rebutted Corbyn’s statements on the same programme, saying he was “on a different set of belief systems” to that of the forecaster. “I deal with facts and information.”", "authors": ["Julia O"], "publish_date": "2021/09/30"}, {"url": "https://www.theweek.co.uk/news/957094/ten-things-you-need-to-know-today-17-june-2022", "title": "Ten Things You Need to Know Today: 17 June 2022 | The Week UK", "text": "Disabled man dies at Gatwick\n\nA disabled man left waiting on a plane died at Gatwick’s Airport after getting off without a helper. The Sun said the passenger became “the first victim of Britain’s airport chaos” after he fell to his death from an escalator. The tabloid said the man had been waiting for assistance from an EasyJet flight but became frustrated by delays, prompting him to leave the plane into the packed terminal, where the accident occurred. Gatwick said “staff shortages were not a factor in this incident” and “an investigation is under way”.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/06/17"}, {"url": "https://www.theweek.co.uk/news/uk-news/953988/inclisiran-anti-cholesterol-jab-a-game-changer-for-heart-attacks-and-strokes", "title": "Inclisiran: anti-cholesterol jab a 'game-changer' for heart attacks and ...", "text": "A new anti-cholesterol jab could save 30,000 lives within a decade when it is made available on the NHS in England and Wales.\n\nInclisiran, which is set to be offered to hundreds of thousands of people, has been described as a “game changer” by health professionals.\n\nThe pricey drug normally costs around £2,000 per dose, but manufacturer Novartis has “agreed an undisclosed discount” for the NHS, reported the BBC. Under the deal, the scheme will begin “within a month” says The Times.\n\nNHS estimates say around 300,000 people will be offered the drug over the next three years, helping to prevent 55,000 heart attacks and strokes, and potentially saving 30,000 lives in the next decade.\n\nMore than two in five people in England have high cholesterol which puts them at significant risk of developing heart disease, while heart disease accounts for a quarter of deaths in England each year, says NHS England.\n\nNurses will be able to administer inclisiran as an injection in GP surgeries across England, meaning patients can avoid regular hospital visits.\n\nAfter an initial dose, the drug will be given again after three months and then twice a year.\n\nHow does the drug work?\n\nThe drug has been named a “game changer” due to its “impressive trial results”, said Kat Lay in The Times. One global trial, led by Imperial College London, showed it could “safely cut cholesterol by 50%,” she reported.\n\nAnd a twice-yearly injection is also likely to be “less of a burden for the patient than remembering to take a daily pill”, said Lay.\n\nInclisiran works in a different way to statins, which is a far cheaper drug treatment used to lower cholesterol in the blood. While statins “slow down” the production of cholesterol in the liver, inclisiran uses a “gene-silencing” effect to help the liver remove harmful cholesterol, according to the BBC.\n\nIn effect, it “turns off” – or silences – a gene called PCSK9, which results in the liver absorbing more “bad” cholesterol, called LDL cholesterol, from the blood and breaking it down.\n\nThe drug can be taken on its own, or alongside statins.\n\nWho will be offered the drug?\n\nThe National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has drafted recommendations that the drug be rolled out to hundreds of thousands of people with high cholesterol or mixed dyslipidemia – abnormally high levels of fats in their blood – who have already suffered a heart attack or stroke.\n\nUnder the “population health agreement” between Novartis and the NHS, nearly half a million people could eventually benefit from the treatment.\n\n“Inclisiran represents a potential game-changer in preventing thousands of people from dying prematurely from heart attacks and strokes,” said Meindert Boysen, NICE deputy chief executive and director of the Centre for Health Technology Evaluation.\n\n\"We’re therefore pleased to be able to recommend it as a cost-effective option on the NHS.”\n\nAnd health professionals hope that in the future, the drug will be offered to “even more patients with heart problems”, reported The Guardian.\n\n“More research is needed to confirm the full extent of its benefits, but I anticipate that in the future it will also be approved to lower cholesterol for a much wider group of people to prevent them from having a heart attack or stroke in the first place,” Professor Sir Nilesh Samani, the medical director of the British Heart Foundation, told the paper.", "authors": ["The Week Staff"], "publish_date": "2021/09/01"}, {"url": "https://www.theweek.co.uk/news/environment/953769/what-climate-change-roadmap-could-look-like", "title": "The potential paths for climate change roadmap | The Week UK", "text": "The next ten years will be “pivotal” in protecting the future of the planet, Boris Johnson has warned following the publication of a UN report that says human activitiy is “unequivocally” causing climate change.\n\nThe prime minister described the latest assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) as “sobering reading”, while UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said the findings were a “code red for humanity”.\n\nThe UK government’s chief scientific adviser, Patrick Vallance, agrees that “the need for action on climate change is urgent”. But in a joint article for The Times, Vallance and the Met Office’s chief scientist, Professor Stephen Belcher, stress that “there is still time to act”.\n\nWhat happens next?\n\nExperts say that tackling climate change will require a concerted and collaborative effort by governments across the globe. One crucial step will be to curb carbon dioxide emissions, the main contributor of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.\n\nThe bid to achieve this goal should include translating “a temperature target into a cumulative carbon target”, tweets Professor Katharine Hayhoe, an atmospheric scientist at Texas Tech University.\n\nThe IPCC report says that global temperatures are likely to rise by 1.5C over the next two decades, but that providing a framework that links carbon emissions to temperature increases could help clarify the level of regulation needed to tackle the problem.\n\nReal-time data, rather than retrospective tracking, should be integral to this “fair and transparent approach”, argue Vallance and Belcher in The Times. The two government experts recommend that “a live dashboard” be set up to track carbon emissions.\n\n“An objective system could directly measure greenhouse gas concentrations and use modelling to infer emissions in near real time,” they write. “Such a measurement system would chart the immediate effectiveness of mitigation policies and allow further targeted action in polluting sectors.”\n\nThe pair also call on national leaders to urgently revise their policies to reach net zero emissions. “Countries should plot mechanisms for scaling up and deploying technologies that already exist, such as wind and solar renewables and electrification of transport,” say Vallance and Belcher.\n\nCommentators have noted that increased government regulation to tackle climate change will be likely to impact daily life.", "authors": ["Julia O"], "publish_date": "2021/08/10"}, {"url": "https://www.theweek.co.uk/news/environment/953876/does-boris-johnsons-green-agenda-go-far-enough", "title": "Does Boris Johnson's green agenda go far enough? | The Week UK", "text": "The message from climate scientists in last week’s landmark report was clear, said The Observer: humanity must wean itself off fossil fuels now. While every nation must play its part, there’s a particular onus on Britain. It was here, after all, that the Industrial Revolution began, and it is Britain that is hosting the UN’s critical climate summit, COP26, in November. Many nations at the event in Glasgow will be looking to the UK for leadership, but it will be in little position to offer it. The Government has not only failed to set out a clear strategy for achieving net-zero emissions in the near future; it’s also continuing to support measures that directly undermine that goal. This “list of incompatibilities” includes the recent closing of the Green Homes Grant insulation scheme; freezing fuel duty; encouraging airport expansion; and delaying the phasing out of gas boilers beyond the planned date of 2035.\n\nBoris Johnson has committed to cutting the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions by 78% of 1990 levels by 2035, and achieving net zero by 2050, said Elliot Chappell on LabourList.org. But based on its current trajectory, the UK is, according to government advisers, on course to cut only a fifth of the emissions needed to meet the 2035 target. To make matters worse, the PM is also facing a backlash from “reactive elements” in his party over his green agenda, such as it is. Among those warning that it risks alienating voters is Bassetlaw MP Brendan Clarke-Smith, who described it as a “hard sell asking people to make sacrifices when the rest of the world, China/Russia etc, are carrying on as usual”.\n\nThe “awkward squad” are threatening to make trouble over net zero, said Peter Franklin on UnHerd, but Johnson has “more allies than enemies” in this battle. The climate agenda appeals to the southern voters the Tories risk losing to the Lib Dems and Greens, and to voters in the North and Midlands who want investment in clean energy to revive local economies. The PM must stick to his targets, said The Times. We’ve already seen how economies of scale can reduce the cost of green technologies: wind is now a cheaper source of electricity than coal; experts expect the price of new electric cars to fall below that of petrol and diesel vehicles as soon as 2025. The price of other green technologies such as hydrogen fuel cells, heat pumps and solar energy should likewise fall over time. The costs of net zero should in any case be kept in perspective. The Office for Budget Responsibility reckons that decarbonising our economy will cost us some £1.4trn over 30 years. “That is less than the Government has spent on the pandemic in 18 months.”", "authors": ["The Week Staff"], "publish_date": "2021/08/19"}, {"url": "https://www.theweek.co.uk/news/environment/953853/how-much-will-it-cost-the-uk-to-get-to-net-zero", "title": "How much will it cost the UK to get to net zero? | The Week UK", "text": "When Theresa May committed the UK to achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050, the then prime minister did not say who would be footing the bill. And two years after the goal was set, that question remains unanswered. As the UK prepares to host the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow in November, Boris Johnson has said that the transition to a greener economy is not “some expensive politically correct green act of ‘bunny hugging’”, but rather “about growth and jobs”. Yet calculating the costs of reaching the net zero target “with any accuracy is difficult, given the level of uncertainty around new and emerging technologies, and changes in the economy and people’s behaviour”, says the Institute for Government. Analysis “will undoubtedly change in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic” too, adds the independent think tank, which advises ministers. But modelling and forecasts indicate that significant investment is required in the very near future in order to achieve the net zero target. How much will net zero cost? The government is required to set five-yearly carbon budgets after taking advice from the Climate Change Committee (CCC), an independent statutory body formed under the Climate Change Act 2008. The CCC’s Sixth Carbon Budget, published last December, estimated that the total costs of transitioning to net zero emissions would be “below 1% of GDP throughout the next 30 years”. This represents a significant reduction from the 1% to 2% of GDP forecast in the Fifth Carbon Budget, published in 2015. The CCC’s latest budget also made clear that reaching net zero “will be capital-intensive, with increased upfront spending” required. According to the report, to reach the 2050 target, the UK’s low carbon investment would need to increase to around £50bn a year by 2030 - roughly five times the level seen in 2020. The advisory body said that “the increase is deliverable, primarily by private companies and individuals, alongside other investment, provided effective policy is put in place”. Skip advert However, modelling by the National Grid of four “different pathways” to net zero - ranging from “Steady Progression” to “Leading the Way” - indicates that the cost could be far higher, with a net value of up to £3.2trn by 2050.\n\nBut like the CCC, the power giant’s forecasts indicate that immediate increased investment is needed. The experts argue that as well as benefitting the environment, such investment would make financial sense. The CCC says an inital increase in spending to hit net zero would yield “ongoing savings in fuel costs”, with the cost of electric vehicle batteries falling by 65% between 2020 and 2050, and the cost of renewable electricity supplies cut by up to 27%. Indeed, forecasts indicate that savings in operational spending “will start to exceed the annual investment” by 2040, the Financial Times reported in March. Green energy consultant Josh Buckland told the newspaper that while the challenges involved in transitioning to eco-friendly transport were relatively “solvable”, making UK homes greener would be “far more problematic”, requiring both significant financial investment and “a massive shift in consumer attitudes”. The CCC says that “against the current backdrop of low investment, low interest and high unemployment”, pumping money into low carbon should have a positive effect on the economy. But how the government conveys that message to the public may prove key to the success of the push to hit net zero. Who will pay? CCC boss Chris Stark told business leaders in 2019 that “further progress” in achieving net zero would require a “thorough review” of “how these costs are distributed”. “We must consider the appropriate balance of 1) cost for the Exchequer, 2) costs on the consumer, and 3) economy-wide costs,” Stark said. “And we must make use of the right tools - carbon pricing, tax, financial incentives, information or regulation.” Despite such advice, as the FT has noted, the Treasury’s plans for how the cost of reaching net zero will be distributed remain “vague”. The Spectator columnist Ross Clark last week claimed that Tory leaders have “a tradition of refusing to level with the public about the cost of their green ideas”. And Chancellor Rishi Sunak is “understood to be in rebellion against the costs of net zero - whatever they may be”, he wrote. Skip advert One leaked government assessment put the total expenditure at £1trn, according to Clark, who noted that the CCC has been ordered by the Information Tribunal to present the methodology behind its cost calculations, which the advisory body has “never properly explained”. As the Treasury prepares to publish its next net zero review later this year, recent polling suggests that public attitudes to green investment is shifting. Amid growing concern about the effects of climate change, 27% of almost 1,800 people quizzed by YouGov said they would be willing to support policies tackling climate change even if these measures negatively impacted their personal finances.", "authors": ["Julia O"], "publish_date": "2021/08/18"}]}
+{"question_id": "20220617_20", "search_time": "2022/06/17/16:36", "search_result": [{"url": "https://www.theweek.co.uk/news/society/956617/inside-adelaide-cottage-prince-william-kate-middleton-home-royal", "title": "Inside Adelaide Cottage: the guesthouse set to become Prince ...", "text": "The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are set to move into Adelaide Cottage, a “modest” property ten minutes’ walk from the Queen’s new official residence, Windsor Castle, according to reports.\n\nIn March this year, the Queen made the historic castle, founded by William the Conqueror in the 11th century, her permanent home and official residence. In the past, she tended to use Windsor Castle only as a weekend home and her residence during Easter and Royal Ascot week, with Buckingham Palace being her official home.\n\nThe monarch appears to have started a trend. Prince William and Kate Middleton are now set to relocate to Windsor, along with their three children: George, eight, Charlotte, seven, and Louis, four. The four-bedroom home needs “no extra taxpayer-funded security or costly refurb”, according to The Sun, and the move means that their three children will be able to start school in the area in the autumn.\n\nAccording to the Daily Mail royal correspondent Rebecca English, the Cambridges have been planning a move to Berkshire since 2021 and “have enrolled Prince George in a new school there, where he is expected to be joined this September by his siblings”.\n\nAlong with being near the Queen, Adelaide Cottage is also closer to Kate’s parents, Michael and Carole Middleton, who have lived for a decade in Bucklebury Manor, a seven-bedroom Grade II-listed Georgian property which is also in Berkshire.\n\nBuilt in 1831 as a retreat for William IV’s wife, Queen Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, the cottage is the Cambridges’ “best and only option”, a royal insider revealed to The Sun’s royal correspondent Matt Wilkinson. The property is thought to have been refurbished as recently as 2015, with William and Kate keen to move in as early as this summer.\n\n‘Grace and favour’ residence\n\nOver the years, Adelaide Cottage has been used as a “grace and favour” residence for royal friends including Peter Townsend, the Battle of Britain pilot and equerry to King George VI who became the divorced lover of the Queen’s sister, Princess Margaret, between 1944 and 1952.\n\nPrincess Margaret reportedly spent “many Sunday visits” at the residence while Townsend lived there with his first wife, Rosemary. The princess \"played with the children on the lawn and Peter Townsend, off duty, sat back in a deckchair”, according to a 1950 newspaper report, republished The Sun.", "authors": ["The Week Staff"], "publish_date": "2022/05/03"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/2018/12/13/royal-family-big-moments-2018-prince-harry-meghan-wedding-baby-prince-william-kate/2192221002/", "title": "Top royal moments of 2018: Harry and Meghan wed, baby news and ...", "text": "USA TODAY\n\nIt was an especially busy year for the British royals, what with weddings, babies and birthdays on the calendar. And once again, the masters of pomp and pageantry showed off their skills to the delight of billions watching around the world.\n\nHere are the top 12 moments on the royal stage in 2018:\n\nPrince Harry and Meghan Markle say 'we do':\n\nThis was the marquee event, especially for Americans, given that the royal bride for Harry is historic: Older, divorced, biracial, American and an actress, she is the first such bride to be welcomed into the royal family in...well, forever.\n\nThe Los Angeles-born Markle, who gained modest fame on USA's \"Suits,\" was the undisputed star on May 19 in St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle in an ancient ritual that featured the first gospel choir and gospel preacher from Chicago to shake up a royal wedding. Even her father's pre-wedding dithering about whether he show up (he didn't) failed to ruin the day; she glided down the aisle on the arm of Prince Charles, her father-in-law-to-be.\n\nTo all that, add Markle's stunning couture gown by Givenchy, with a veil that paid special tribute to the queen, a second gown by Stella McCartney for the two receptions, and a colorful carriage procession under brilliant skies through Windsor as thousands lined the Long Walk to cheer in person and people all over the world watched on TV and social media.\n\nNow she's HRH Meghan the Duchess of Sussex, married to the sixth-in-line to the throne and pregnant with their first child, who will be the eighth great-grandchild to Queen Elizabeth II.\n\n\"The boss\" takes to Duchess Meghan:\n\nThe queen is the head of the royal \"firm,\" so her approval is crucial. Whenever a new bride joins the family, custom calls for the queen to carry out a joint engagement with the newbie. For Duchess Meghan, this debut came surprisingly quickly, in June less than a month after the wedding, and also featured an unprecedented invitation to board The Royal Train for a day of solo engagements with Her Majesty in Cheshire.\n\nMeghan not only got to spend the night on the train – something even Harry hasn't done – she got a master's-class lesson in her royal job from her new boss. And both appeared to enjoy the experience judging from the photos of the two giggling together.\n\nThe 65th anniversary of the last British coronation:\n\nAs the queen approached her ninth decade, significant anniversaries began to fall: Her 60th year on the throne in 2012; her passing of great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria's record for longest-ever reign, in 2015; her 90th birthday in 2016; and now, in 2018, the 65th anniversary of her coronation on June 2, 1953 in Westminster Abbey.\n\n(She became queen in February 1952 on the death of her father, King George VI, but the official crowning takes place later because coronations take time to organize.)\n\nHers was the fourth and final British coronation of the 20th century and it followed to a remarkable degree the ceremonial script set down nearly 1,000 years ago.\n\nExcept, it was the first coronation to be televised. Still, the most sacred moment of the hours-long ritual – the Act of Consecration when the monarch is anointed with blessed oil – was deemed so holy that it was kept off camera.\n\nPrince Louis of Cambridge is born\n\nPrince William and Duchess Kate of Cambridge welcomed their third child on April 23, 2018, a new little prince of Cambridge, a historic royal baby and the new fifth in line to the British throne.\n\nLike his brother, Prince George 5, and sister, Princess Charlotte, 3, he was born at St. Mary's Hospital in London. Louis entered the world shortly after 11 a.m. local time, weighing 8 pounds, 7 ounces.\n\nAbout seven hours later, Will and Kate emerged from the hospital, baby in arms and she looked none the worse for wear. The baby was named Prince Louis Arthur Charles, with the name Louis pronounced in the French way.\n\nThe baby is historic because he is the first male heir born in the royal family who will not displace his older sister Charlotte in the succession to the throne. Louis is the queen's sixth great-grandchild.\n\nShortly before Prince George was born, the United Kingdom changed its law on royal succession so that girls are no longer automatically displaced by their younger brothers in line to the throne.\n\nThe queen's seventh great-grandchild is born\n\nPrince Louis was only one of several royal baby events in 2018: Next up was the queen's latest great-grandchild, Lena Elizabeth Tindall, who was born June 18, to Zara Phillips Tindall, the queen's eldest granddaughter, and her husband, Mike Tindall.\n\nLena (pronounced Lay-na), whose middle name is in honor of the queen, is the fourth grandchild for the queen's daughter, Princess Anne the Princess Royal, and the queen's seventh great-grandchild. Lena has an older sister, Mia, 4.\n\nThe Tindall girls also have two cousins, Savannah Phillips, 7, and Isla Phillips, 6, who are the daughters of Peter Phillips, Anne's son and the queen's eldest grandson.\n\nThe baby's arrival was especially joyful after Zara Tindall suffered a miscarriage in 2016.\n\nA royal christening\n\nThe third Cambridge christening, for baby Prince Louis, occurred on July 9 in the Chapel Royal at St James's Palace, where George was christened.\n\nAs per usual, the christening was an occasion for a close family gathering, so there were new pictures of George and Charlotte.\n\nBut the queen and husband Prince Philip were not there. It was not because of ill health on either's part, palace officials said, although the Duke of Edinburgh, 97, has largely retired from public life. The queen was scheduled to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Royal Air Force and then meet later in the week with President and Mrs. Trump at Windsor Castle.\n\nEverything else about the short ceremony followed closely for earlier christenings going back more than 100 years, including the antique silver Lily Font and the handmade replica of the 177-year-old royal lace christening gown.\n\nRoyal wedding Number 2: Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank:\n\nPrincess Eugenie of York, daughter of the queen's second son, Prince Andrew Duke of York, married her longtime commoner boyfriend, Jack Brooksbank, on Oct. 12, dressed in a stunning Peter Pilotto gown and a royal Russian-style tiara, in a lower-key repeat of the nuptials that enchanted the world Harry wed Meghan.\n\nThe York nuptials took place in the same church – St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle – and featured some of the same elements, including gorgeous couture gowns and dazzling tiara, bridesmaid Princess Charlotte and pageboy Prince George, a colorful carriage procession, a reception hosted by the queen at the castle, hundreds of high-profile guests and the presence of the royal family from the queen and Prince Philip on down.\n\nThe bride, 28, is not as well known outside Britain, let alone her groom, 32, a former bartender-turned-tequila-brand rep, but a royal wedding is still something in the U.K. and the ancient town of Windsor celebrated with gusto.\n\nHarry and Meghan announce she's pregnant:\n\nMore baby news: The new royal couple announced Oct. 15 that they will welcome their first baby in spring 2019.\n\nWhen the baby is born, he or she will be the eighth great-grandchild for the queen and Prince Philip, and will be seventh in line to the throne behind Harry.\n\n\"Their Royal Highnesses The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are very pleased to announce that The Duchess of Sussex is expecting a baby in the spring of 2019,\" the palace announced in a pair of tweets that landed as the couple landed in Sydney to begin their first long royal tour of Down Under and the South Pacific.\n\nImmediately, people began more closely examining Meghan's midriff in person and in pictures as the duo explored the region.\n\nThere was widespread delight, especially on Twitter, but also in the royal family, including the queen and Philip, Prince Charles the Prince of Wales (this will be his fourth grandchild), and Prince William and Duchess Kate of Cambridge.\n\nDoria Ragland, mother of Meghan, 37, also appeared overjoyed in a statement from the palace. “Ms. Ragland is very happy about this lovely news and she looks forward to welcoming her first grandchild,\" the statement said.\n\n\"A big congratulations to the #dukeandduchessofsussex,\" was a typical tweet. \"You're both an amazing couple and very inspirational. Love you both so very much. Best news ever! I'm sooooo over the moon!\"\n\nHarry and Meghan's adventures Down Under\n\nThrilled about their pregnancy and eager to embrace their new role as Commonwealth ambassadors, Harry and Meghan embarked Oct. 16 on a grueling three-week tour of Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Tonga, traveling thousands of miles and making dozens of public appearances.\n\nPlus, they presided over the 2018 Invictus Games in Sydney, the competition for wounded warriors founded by Harry in 2014, and the place where they unforgettably debuted as a couple, and were photographed together for the first time, in 2017 in Toronto.\n\nThe trip was a deemed a resounding success even with a fashion mishap or two (like the price tag dangling from the bottom of Meghan's dress hem or the see-through skirt that seemed to show her underwear) or the brief security scare at one venue.\n\nBut those images were trumped by pictures of the two walking barefoot on the beach, meeting koalas at the zoo, posing in romantic places, rubbing noses in the traditional Maori greeting, laying wreaths at memorials, watching dance performances and looking consistently fabulous at fancy receptions.\n\nPrince Charles turns 70\n\nThe Prince of Wales, already the longest-serving heir to the throne in history, turned the big 7-0 on Nov. 14 and was celebrated by his family and friends at a major bash at Buckingham Palace hosted by the queen.\n\nShe toasted her first-born with a warm tribute to his lifelong environmentalism, his dedication to conservation and the arts, his prodigious charitable work, his dedication as the heir to the throne, and as a \"wonderful\" father.\n\n\"It is a privilege for any mother to be able to propose a toast to her son on his 70th birthday. It means you have lived long enough to see your child grow up. It is rather like – to use an an analogy I am certain will find favor – planting a tree and being able to watch it grow,\" she said in remarks shared by the palace.\n\nIt was only the latest of a series of birthday year celebrations for Charles, which began as early as May with a garden party at the palace to mark the prince's indefatigable charity efforts.\n\nHis just-married second son, Prince Harry, and his new wife, Duchess Meghan of Sussex, even postponed their honeymoon to make their first appearance together since their wedding to praise Charles at the garden party.\n\nIt could still be many more years before he becomes Britain's 42nd sovereign as King Charles III, but for now the Prince of Wales has been showered in esteem and affection.\n\nPrince Philip really disappeared from public life:\n\nThis time he really meant it: He was retiring from public life and would not be seen much in public in 2018 except for family events such as the weddings of his grandchildren, Prince Harry and Princess Eugenie.\n\nAt 97, the Duke of Edinburgh had been saying for years that he was cutting back on his busy round of appearances, but he still had a robust schedule even after he turned 90. Now the queen does most of her hundreds of engagements per year on her own.\n\nPhilip announced in August 2017 that he was hanging up his spurs after his last solo public engagement – No. 22,219 for those keeping score – but it seemed especially obvious in 2018 when he didn't turn up for the usual big-deal ceremonies, such as Trooping the Colour or the Order of the Garter ceremony. His last appearance at Royal Ascot was in 2017.\n\nThen there was his hip replacement surgery in April. Would he be up and about for Harry and Meghan's May nuptials? He was; he didn't even use a walker. Same for Eugenie's wedding in October. He was prominent in the media photos of the weddings and the official family photos taken later.\n\nAside from that, he was photographed as per usual walking to church at Sandringham on a Sunday in January, and by paparazzi at the Royal Windsor Horse Show in early May and at a polo event in Windsor in June.\n\nPhilip's absence may not mean much to Americans but for the British it's hard to imagine seeing the queen without her husband of 71 years, who has played the role of subordinate to his wife in public for the 66 years she's been on the throne.\n\nHarry and Meghan to move from Kensington Palace to Windsor\n\nGoodbye, cramped, two-bedroom Nottingham Cottage. Goodbye, paparazzi lurking outside the palace gates. Goodbye the never-blinking eye of the media everywhere in noisy, sprawling London.\n\nHello, five-bedroom Frogmore Cottage. Hello, quiet, suburban Windsor Home Park. Hello, security cordon around Windsor Castle. Hello, gardens and picnics and the glamour of nearby Frogmore House, the longtime royal residence where Prince Charles hosted Harry and Meghan's sit-down dinner reception after their wedding.\n\nOn one level it should be easy to understand why the new royal couple would want to strike out on their own and seek a little more of the privacy they're entitled to as two royals who are not going to sit on thrones.\n\nOn the other hand, their announcement on Nov. 24 that they intend to move to Windsor when their baby is born in the spring (and after a good deal of renovation of the somewhat ramshackle \"cottage\") was instantly pounced on as \"evidence\" that the Sussexes wanted to escape the Cambridges because they allegedly don't \"get on.\"\n\nThis sparked a tabloid frenzy of stories exploring such breaking news as Meghan's alleged \"difficult\" demands on staff and Kate's alleged tears after a dress fitting for Princess Charlotte.\n\nBut maybe all Harry and Meghan really want is more privacy, and less noise. Maybe they want to be closer to where they married and to the queen, who spends most weekends at Windsor Castle and loves hosting her grand kids for tea.\n\nOr maybe they just want to be closer to Heathrow.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2018/12/13"}]}
+{"question_id": "20220617_21", "search_time": "2022/06/17/16:36", "search_result": []}
+{"question_id": "20220617_22", "search_time": "2022/06/17/16:36", "search_result": [{"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/12/business/food-crisis-ukraine-russia/index.html", "title": "War has brought the world to the brink of a food crisis - CNN", "text": "London (CNN Business) Svein Tore Holsether says the world is careening toward a food crisis that could affect millions of people.\n\nRecord high natural gas prices have forced the company he runs, fertilizer producer Yara International , to curtail its production of ammonia and urea in Europe to 45% of capacity. With less of those two essential agricultural ingredients, he expects knock-on effects for global food supplies\n\n\"It's not whether we are going to have a food crisis. It's how large that crisis will be,\" Holsether told CNN Business.\n\nTwo weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine, the prices of key agricultural products produced in the region have skyrocketed. The biggest problem is wheat , a pantry staple. Supplies from Russia and Ukraine, which together account for almost 30% of global wheat trade, are now at risk. Global wheat prices hit an all-time high earlier this week.\n\nAnother major problem is access to fertilizer. Essential for farmers to hit their production targets for crops, it's never been more expensive, as exports from Russia grind to a halt. Output in Europe has also plunged thanks to the surging price of natural gas, a key ingredient in nitrogen-based fertilizers like urea.\n\nThe situation is ringing alarm bells for global health experts. The cost of corn, soybeans and vegetable oils has been jumping, too.\n\nAgriculture ministers from the G7 countries said Friday they \"remain determined to do what is necessary to prevent and respond to a food crisis.\"\n\nBut fearing shortages, countries are already turning inward, which could ultimately leave less food for those in need.\n\nEgypt just banned the export of wheat, flour, lentils and beans amid growing concerns over food reserves in the Arab world's most populous state. Indonesia has also tightened export restrictions on palm oil, which is a component in cooking oil as well as in cosmetics and some packaged goods like chocolate. It's the world's top producer of the product.\n\nThe G7 ministers called on countries to \"keep their food and agricultural markets open and to guard against any unjustified restrictive measures on their exports.\"\n\n\"Any further increase in food price levels and volatility in international markets could threaten food security and nutrition at a global scale, especially among the most vulnerable living in environments of low food security,\" they said in a statement.\n\nWestern countries with more access to agriculture will be hurt, too. Consumers there have already been stung by higher prices, and the situation is poised to deteriorate further.\n\nRussia, Ukraine and global food supplies\n\nEven before Russia launched a war in Ukraine, the global food system was strained. Snarled supply chains and unpredictable weather patterns — often the result of climate change — had already pushed food prices to their highest level in about a decade. Affordability was also an issue after the pandemic left millions out of work.\n\nThe number of people on the edge of famine has jumped to 44 million from 27 million in 2019, the UN's World Food Programme said this month.\n\nThe conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which both play crucial roles in the carefully calibrated system of global food production, stands to make the situation worse.\n\nGlobal wheat prices have fallen from record highs in recent days, but remain elevated. They're expected to stay that way for some time, according to Rabobank commodity analyst Carlos Mera.\n\nThe wheat planting season, which is about to begin in Ukraine, will be disrupted by fighting. It's not clear there will be enough farmers to till the land, as people in the country take up arms — or whether they'll be able to access machinery and other essential products that would typically arrive through Black Sea ports.\n\n\"It's anyone's guess if Ukraine will be able to export anything for the rest of this year, or next year, or in the foreseeable future,\" Mera said. The country also accounts for half of all exports of sunflower oil\n\nGetting products from Russia onto the world market has also gotten more difficult, because businesses don't want to risk running afoul of sanctions or deal with the logistics of traveling near a war zone.\n\nRussia and Ukraine serve as the breadbasket for countries in the Middle East and North Africa that depend on imports. Many will be hit hard as a result. The United States and Europe will feel the pain, too, since the run-up in prices for important agricultural goods will affect businesses that produce food in every market.\n\n\"Any serious disruption of production and exports from these suppliers will no doubt drive up prices further and erode food security for millions of people,\" the Agricultural Market Information System said in a recent report\n\nFertilizer costs soar\n\nThe brewing crisis goes beyond wheat and oils. Russia, along with its ally Belarus, is also a major exporter of the fertilizers needed to plant a wide range of crops. But right now, everyone is shunning their stock.\n\n\"Nobody wants to touch a Russian product right now,\" said Deepika Thapliyal, a fertilizer expert at Independent Commodity Intelligence Services. \"If you look at all of the traders, all of the buyers, they're very scared.\"\n\nThe price of natural gas is exacerbating the issue. Fertilizer producers outside of Russia and Belarus need gas to make nitrogen-based products like urea, which is used when sowing crops to boost yield and even promotes their deep-green color.\n\nBut Holsether, the CEO of Yara, said costs have gotten too high to keep operations running at scale. He's not sure when European production will be at full capacity again.\n\n\"There's a large part of the industry that's at risk of not being able to deliver products to the farmers, and that will have an impact on the crop yields quite rapidly,\" he said.\n\nFarmers have the incentive right now to pay what they need to get fertilizer, since prices for their products are going up, too. Not everyone has this option, however. Urea has been trading near $1,000 per metric ton, about four times the price at the start of 2021, according to Chris Lawson, the head of fertilizers at CRU Group, a market intelligence firm.\n\nCountries without domestic fertilizer production may also struggle to access it, with huge consequences for the global food system.\n\n\"You can't grow massive fields of wheat, barley or soy without fertilizer,\" said Johanna Mendelson Forman, a professor at American University who specializes in war and food. Farmers in Mexico, Colombia and Brazil are already worried about shortages, she added.\n\nThe consequences\n\nOn Monday, Russian fertilizer and coal billionaire Andrey Melnichenko broke with President Vladimir Putin and called for peace in Ukraine, noting that a global food crisis looms.\n\nThe war \"has already led to soaring prices in fertilizers which are no longer affordable to farmers,\" Melnichenko told Reuters. \"Now it will lead to even higher food inflation in Europe and likely food shortages in the world's poorest countries,\" he added.\n\nThe G7 agriculture ministers said Friday that their countries would leverage humanitarian aid where they can to mitigate fallout from the war. But they may also be hamstrung by a dearth of supplies and rising prices.\n\n\"If Ukrainian fields lie fallow this year, aid agencies such as ours will be forced to source new markets to compensate for the loss of some of the world's best wheat,\" David Beasley, executive director of the World Food Programme, said in an op-ed published in the Washington Post this week. \"Doing so will come at a vastly inflated cost.\"\n\nBeasley noted that Ukrainian wheat has also been essential to feeding populations in other countries facing conflict, including Afghanistan, Sudan and Yemen.\n\n\"The vast majority of wheat is used for human consumption, and that's irreplaceable,\" Rabobank's Mera said.\n\nAnd it won't just be countries grappling with famine or war that feel the effects.\n\nThe affordability of food is a problem for lower-income shoppers everywhere, Mendelson Forman emphasized. In April 2021, about one in seven American adults experienced food insecurity over the past 30 days, according to the Urban Institute.\n\n\"We're used to a globalized system of trade to get all kinds of varieties of food,\" she said. \"People will see it in their pocketbooks, and they'll see it in the grocery stores.\"\n\n— Mostafa Salem contributed reporting.", "authors": ["Julia Horowitz", "Cnn Business"], "publish_date": "2022/03/12"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/13/tech/twitter-deal-on-hold-elon-musk/index.html", "title": "Elon Musk says his deal to buy Twitter is on hold - CNN", "text": "London (CNN Business) Elon Musk said he is putting his bid to acquire Twitter ( TWTR ) on hold, weeks after agreeing to take the company private in a $44 billion deal.\n\n\"Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users,\" Musk tweeted on Friday.\n\nThe news initially sent Twitter shares down more than 20% in pre-market trading before the stock rebounded somewhat. Two hours after his first tweet, Musk posted that he is \"still committed to acquisition.\"\n\nIn his tweet about putting the deal on hold, Musk linked to a May 2 Reuters report about Twitter's most recent disclosure about its spam and fake account problem.\n\nIn its quarterly financial report , released on April 28, Twitter estimated that fake or spam accounts made up fewer than 5% of the platform's active users during the first three months of the year. Twitter noted that the estimates were based on a review of sample accounts and it believed the numbers to be \"reasonable.\"\n\nBut it acknowledged that the measurements were not independently verified and the actual number of fake or spam accounts could be higher.\n\nTwitter has had a spam problem for years, and the company has previously acknowledged that reducing fake and malicious accounts would play a key factor in its ability to keep growing. It's unclear why Musk would back away from the deal because of the latest disclosure.\n\nA 'circus'\n\nMusk turned \"this Twitter circus show into a Friday the 13th horror show,\" wrote tech analyst Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities in a note to clients early Friday.\n\nMusk would owe Twitter a $1 billion breakup fee if he were to cancel the deal.\n\n\"The Street will view this deal as 1) likely falling apart, 2) Musk negotiating for a lower deal price, or 3) Musk simply walking away from the deal with a $1 billion breakup fee,\" Ives wrote. \"Many will view this as Musk using this Twitter filing/spam accounts as a way to get out of this deal in a vastly changing market.\"\n\nStocks — tech in particular — have been sharply lower since Musk and Twitter reached a deal on a purchase of the the company nearly three weeks ago.\n\nFlouting convention\n\nThe manner in which Musk announced the deal's pause — in a tweet -— was also unusual, at least by normal corporate merger and acquisition standards.\n\nAcquirers of a company typically conduct due diligence, a review of the firm's finances and proprietary information, before a deal closes. In that process, they may come across information that causes them to rethink the deal or its valuation, but typically such a revelation would be disclosed in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.\n\n\"Usually we'd see some sort of filing that would come first, an amendment to previous filings on the deal, that says, 'we've uncovered some information in the process of due diligence and we're reconsidering our acquisition,'\" said Josh White, an assistant professor of finance at Vanderbilt University and a former financial economist for the SEC.\n\n\"This happens as you get access to the books and access to proprietary information. What doesn't normally happen is a tweet,\" White said.\n\nThe unusual move may not be significant enough to warrant SEC action, White said, but it could draw the attention of Twitter's lawyers. As part of the deal, Musk agreed to consult with Twitter before making any public statements about the deal, and to avoid making any tweets that \"disparage the company,\" according to filings with the SEC. Still, Twitter's board will likely prefer the deal to go through because of its strong valuation compared to the company's current stock price.\n\nBut if the deal falls apart, \"I would expect Twitter's current shareholders to potentially bring a lawsuit\" saying Musk's actions had damaged them by tanking the stock price, White added.\n\nTwitter did not return a request for comment on Musk's Friday tweets.\n\nSkepticism from the start\n\nEven as Musk has worked to secure financing for the takeover, skepticism about whether the deal would go through has been swirling since Twitter's board agreed to the offer on April 26.\n\nMusk said he would buy Twitter for $54.20 a share. But Twitter's stock never approached that price , hovering below $50 for weeks. That was a sign investors were skeptical that Musk would ultimately make good on his offer.\n\nWall Street analysts weren't convinced of Musk's ability to buy Twitter, either — at least not at $54.20 a share. The consensus target price was below $52, and the vast majority put a \"hold\" rating on the company's stock.\n\nTesla's TSLA Part of the problem has been Twitter's connection tofate. Musk, Tesla's CEO, was planning to borrow against part of his Tesla stake to finance the deal, but Tesla's stock has been sinking fast alongside most other stocks this year.\n\nMusk's sale of a significant number of Tesla shares to help finance his Twitter deal had also put pressure on the carmaker's stock. Having already committed a big chunk of his Tesla shares elsewhere, he wasn't left with much of a cushion should he need to pony up more funds to complete the Twitter takeover.\n\nTesla TSLA Ives said the news about the Twitter deal was good forshares, which roared 6% higher in premarket trading Friday. Shares of Tesla, the world's most valuable automaker, have lost about a third of their value since Musk disclosed he had taken a stake in Twitter.\n\nIn addition to selling $8.5 billion of his Tesla shares last month, or about 6% of his holdings, Musk was using his shares of Tesla as part of the collateral he needed to raise cash for the Twitter purchase. But the drop in the value of Tesla shares had raised doubts if he would be able to move forward with the financing of the Twitter deal.\n\nThe Wall Street Journal has also reported that the SEC and the Federal Trade Commission were both looking Musk's purchases of Twitter earlier this year and whether he properly disclosed them.\n\nMusk's plans for Twitter\n\nMusk had offered few details about his plans for the social media company, though he has often spoken out about bot accounts that promoted spam content. He also says the company has been too quick to remove accounts that violate its content-moderation rules.\n\nOn Tuesday, Musk made headlines by saying he would allow former President Donald Trump to return to Twitter once the takeover was complete. Trump's account was permanently removed after his followers' attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.\n\nEarlier this week Twitter confirmed that it is pausing most hiring and backfills, except for \"business critical\" roles, and pulling back on other non-labor costs. It also confirmed that two top executives, general manager of consumer Kayvon Beykpour, and revenue product lead Bruce Falck, were leaving the company.\n\nTwitter CEO Parag Agrawal sent a series of tweets Friday afternoon acknowledging the leadership shakeup at the company the previous day.\n\n\"Some have been asking why a 'lame-duck' CEO would make these changes if we're getting acquired anyway,\" Agrawal said. \"While I expect the deal to close, we need to be prepared for all scenarios and always do what's right for Twitter. I'm accountable for leading and operating Twitter, and our job is to build a stronger Twitter every day.\"\n\n-— CNN Business' Clare Duffy and Allison Morrow contributed to this article.", "authors": ["David Goldman", "Chris Isidore", "Clare Duffy"], "publish_date": "2022/05/13"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/09/investing/bitcoin-price-cryptocurrencies-stock/index.html", "title": "Bitcoin tumbles more than 50% below its all-time high as crypto ...", "text": "New York (CNN Business) So much for bitcoin being digital gold.\n\nThe world's most valuable cryptocurrency was down 10% Monday after plunging again over the weekend. Bitcoin prices have now plummeted nearly 20% in the past week. At a price of just below $31,000, bitcoin is more than 50% below its record high of near $69,000 from late last year and at its lowest point since July 2021.\n\nOther cryptocurrencies, sometimes referred to as altcoins , have been hit hard too. Ethereum, binance, solana and cardano are all down about 15% in the past week, while Elon Musk's beloved dogecoin has tumbled 10%.\n\nCryptocurrencies are proving to be just as risky as stocks and susceptible to the same concerns that are dragging down the Dow S&P 500 and Nasdaq\n\n\"Volatile trading in digital assets has not been that unusual in previous years,\" said Michael Kamerman, CEO of trading platform Skilling. \"Cryptocurrencies are increasingly moving in sync with tech stocks with investors treating both as risk assets and often retreating to safer corners of the market during bouts of market volatility.\"\n\nKamerman said he is still bullish on bitcoin for the long term. More hedge funds and other big institutions are starting to invest in crypto, and some global central banks are beginning to embrace it too.\n\nBut he added that \"bitcoin is not immune to the global inflation risk spreading across most other asset classes. Therefore we should expect to see the downward trend continue.\"\n\nBitcoin hit by the same problems dragging down stocks\n\nThe 10-year Treasury bond yield is now hovering just above 3.1%, having more than doubled this year. Long-term bond yields are now at their highest level since November 2018.\n\nThe surge in yields has also helped lift the value of the dollar , which tends tor rise in tandem with interest rates. The US Dollar Index is now trading near its highest level in twenty years. That's bad news for bitcoin too, as many crypto backers point to dollar weakness as a bullish sign for digital currencies.\n\nAs rates (and the dollar) continue to climb, some crypto skeptics think the selling in bitcoin has only just begun. The Federal Reserve is starting to pull back on monthly bond purchases and other stimulus which could be bad news for all sorts of speculative assets.\n\n\"The dramatic reversal of Fed liquidity ... will collapse the pandemic era bubble in crypto currencies, money losing tech companies and meme stocks,\" said Jay Hatfield, chief investment officer of Infrastructure Capital Management and manager of the InfraCap Equity Income ETF.\n\nHatfield said he thinks bitcoin could plunge as low as $20,000 by the end of the year.\n\nThe crypto collapse is also hurting several stocks with exposure to the industry. Broker Coinbase plummeted 17% Monday and is down more than 65% this year. Robinhood , which also lets people buy and sell some cryptocurrencies, has fallen more than 45% in 2022.\n\nHive Blockchain HVBTF Marathon Digital Holdings MARA Riot Blockchain RIOT And shares of several cryptocurrency miners, the companies that run servers which solve the complex mathematical puzzles needed to generate new bitcoin and other cryptos, have tanked too.andare all down between 50% and 60% this year.\n\nThe massive pullback in these and other momentum tech stocks is yet another sign of the rapid shift in the market's mood this year. The CNN Business Fear & Greed Index , which measures seven indicators of market sentiment, is in Extreme Fear territory.\n\nInvestors may continue to shun volatile cryptos in favor of safe havens, such as dividend-paying blue chip stocks.\n\nTraders are \"more reluctant to adopt the additional risk associated with the crypto sphere,\" said Tammy Da Costa, an analyst at DailyFX, in a report.\n\nShe added that \"the future of individual coins or tokens remains dubious\" and that \"interest rate hikes are likely to jeopardize the short-term potential for profits\" in bitcoin, ethereum and other established cryptos.", "authors": ["Paul R. La Monica", "Cnn Business"], "publish_date": "2022/05/09"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/24/energy/gas-prices-russia-ukraine/index.html", "title": "Oil tops $100: When will you see $4 gas in your state? - CNN", "text": "New York (CNN Business) Gas prices were rising rapidly even before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but with the current shock to the oil market, $4 a gallon gas is now likely to be widespread across the country in a matter of weeks — if not sooner.\n\nThe average price of a gallon of regular stood at $3.54 nationwide Thursday, according to figures AAA collected from US gas stations. But wholesale gasoline prices soared 14 cents a gallon, or 5%, in trading Thursday, pushing oil futures above $100 a barrel for the benchmark Brent crude for the first time since 2014.\n\nThe jump in wholesale gas prices will likely be passed on to consumers at the pump within days, said Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis for the Oil Price Information Service, the firm that tracks gas data for AAA.\n\n\"Every single distributor and retailer will look to get filled up today,\" he said Thursday morning. \"They'll be paying $3 for wholesale gas, but they're worried about paying $4 a gallon next time.\"\n\nKloza believes the national average will likely reach $4 a gallon by mid-March. That would be the first time gas hits a level that high since the summer of 2008, when prices reached a record average of $4.11 a gallon. Kloza expects that record to fall sometime between mid-April and Memorial Day.\n\nRead More", "authors": ["Chris Isidore", "Cnn Business"], "publish_date": "2022/02/24"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/25/investing/elon-musk-brother-insider-stock-sale-investigation/index.html", "title": "Elon Musk and brother reportedly face insider trading probe - CNN", "text": "New York (CNN Business) Tesla CEO Elon Musk and his brother are under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission for possibly violating insider trading rules, according to media reports.\n\nThe Wall Street Journal , citing unnamed people familiar with the probe, said the investor watchdog agency is looking into sales of Tesla shares by Kimbal Musk, a member of the Tesla board, just before his brother, Elon, announced on Twitter that he would sell 10% of his own Tesla holdings, a move that sentshares sharply lower in the days that followed.\n\nTesla did not respond to a request for comment on the reports, and CNN Business hasn't independently confirmed the investigation.\n\nThe Financial Times reported that Musk denied wrongdoing, telling the paper that the investigation is \"simply more evidence of Stevie grinding his very tiny axe yet again.\"\n\nThe reference is apparently to Steven Buchholz, an SEC staffer in the agency's San Francisco office, who is involved in SEC enforcement cases involving Musk and Tesla.\n\nMusk's lawyers also filed a complaint Monday charging that there had been leaks by the SEC of its probe into Musk, without detailing what those leaks revealed. The Journal story that disclosed the the probe was published on Thursday.\n\nThe investigation reportedly centers on Kimbal Musk's sale of 88,500 Tesla shares in November, for which he received nearly $109 million.\n\nThe shares represented about 15% of his stake in Tesla at the time. Unlike his brother Elon who has rarely sold stock, Kimbal Musk has regularly sold shares in the company.\n\nMusk gets no cash salary or bonus from Tesla and is compensated through lucrative stock options that become taxable only when he uses them to purchase shares.\n\nJUST WATCHED Tesla shares fall after Elon Musk's Twitter poll Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Tesla shares fall after Elon Musk's Twitter poll 01:38\n\nHis Twitter followers voted strongly in favor of the sale in a poll. Elon Musk began selling shares on Monday, November 8. Tesla's stock fell 5% that day , both because Musk's decision to sell was seen by some as a lack of faith, and because the large sale put downward pressure on its price. By itself Musk's sales that day — 934,000 shares valued at $1.1 billion — amounted to about 3% of Tesla shares traded.\n\nIf Kimbal Musk had waited and sold his shares after his brother did, he would have received $5.8 million less. Company insiders, such as executives and members of the board of directors, are not allowed to trade when they have material information that is not yet public that could affect the value of the stock.\n\nIt is not clear whether Elon Musk's decision to exercise the options and sell shares, or his plans to have a Twitter poll, would constitute company information and be subject to insider trading rules.\n\nIn his comments to the Financial Times, Elon Musk said \"Kimbal had no idea I was going to do a Twitter poll.\" He added: \"The idea that I would care about whether my brother might sell shares for a few million dollars less when my Twitter poll caused my own share sale to be over a billion dollars less is utterly absurd.\"\n\nBetween November 8 and the end of the year, Musk exercised options to acquire 22.9 million shares and sell a total of 15.7 million shares for $16.4 billion. Most of those sales were used to pay withholding taxes on the exercise of options. He also donated shares worth about $5.7 billion to an unidentified charity.\n\nMusk eventually dropped plans to take the company private . Today, shares of Tesla are worth nearly 10 times the price at which Musk was proposing to pay to take it private.\n\nThe 2018 agreement, known as a consent decree , forced Musk to give up his title as Tesla chairman, though he retained the CEO title. He and Tesla were each forced to pay a $20 million fine, and Musk was ordered to have his tweets about material information related to the company reviewed before he posted them. In his comment to the Financial Times, he said company lawyers were aware he was going to conduct the Twitter poll about a sale of his shares.\n\n-- Matt McFarland contributed to this report.", "authors": ["Chris Isidore", "Cnn Business"], "publish_date": "2022/02/25"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/18/asia/wang-jixian-chinese-vlogger-ukraine-intl-hnk/index.html", "title": "A Chinese vlogger shared videos of war-torn Ukraine. He's been ...", "text": "Photos: Russia invades Ukraine Oleksiy Chernyshov, Ukrainian President Zelensky's special envoy for EU accession, walks with French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Italian PM Mario Draghi past destroyed buildings in Irpin, Ukraine, on June 16. Hide Caption 1 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Young people swing in front of destroyed residential buildings in Borodyanka, Ukraine, on June 15. Hide Caption 2 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A Ukrainian bomb disposal expert looks at an ordnance shell during a mine clearance operation in Solonytsivka, near Kharkiv, Ukraine, on June 15. Hide Caption 3 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Ukrainian servicemen fire a French 155mm CAESAR self-propelled howitzer towards Russian positions in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas on June 15. Hide Caption 4 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A forensic technician inspects a mass grave near the village of Vorzel in the Bucha district near Kyiv, Ukraine, on June 13. Hide Caption 5 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Russian servicemen guard an area of the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, Ukraine, on June 13. Hide Caption 6 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Local residents walk along an empty street as smoke rises in the background in the town of Lysychansk, Ukraine, on June 10. Hide Caption 7 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A Ukrainian soldier takes cover during heavy fighting at the front line in Severodonetsk , Ukraine, on Wednesday, June 8. Hide Caption 8 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Ukrainian troops fire surface-to-surface rockets from MLRS towards Russian positions at the front line in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas on June 7. Hide Caption 9 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A Ukrainian soldier holds a next generation light anti-tank weapon (NLAW) at a position on the front line near Bakhmut in the Donbas region of Ukraine on June 5. Hide Caption 10 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink, left, listens to Ukraine's Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktov during a tour of Borodyanka, Ukraine, on June 4. Hide Caption 11 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Local residents examine a destroyed Russian tank outside of Kyiv, Ukraine, on Tuesday, May 31. It has now been 100 days since Russia invaded. Hide Caption 12 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, third from left, visits front-line positions during a trip to the Kharkiv region on Sunday, May 29. Hide Caption 13 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Russian soldier Vadim Shishimarin, 21, is sentenced to life in prison by a Ukrainian court in Kyiv on May 23. He was convicted of killing an unarmed civilian. It was the first war crimes trial arising from Russia's invasion. Hide Caption 14 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Buses with Ukrainian servicemen evacuated from the Azovstal steel plant wait near a prison in Olyonivka on May 17. The steel plant was the last holdout in Mariupol, a city that had become a symbol of Ukrainian resistance under relentless Russian bombardment. Hide Caption 15 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Ukrainian servicemen fire mortars toward Russian positions in the east Kharkiv region of Ukraine on May 17. Hide Caption 16 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A woman named Tatyana searches for her husband's grave in the settlement of Staryi Krym, outside Mariupol, on May 15. Hide Caption 17 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Ukrainian service personnel work inside a basement used as a command post in the Kharkiv region on May 15. Hide Caption 18 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Grieving relatives attend the funeral of Pankratov Oleksandr, a Ukrainian military serviceman, in Lviv, Ukraine, on May 14. Hide Caption 19 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Ukrainian people evacuated from Mariupol arrive on buses at a registration and processing area for internally displaced people in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, on May 8. Hide Caption 20 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Ukrainian serviceman and emergency workers carry the body of a Russian soldier into a refrigerated train in Kharkiv on May 5. The bodies of more than 40 Russian soldiers were being stored in the refrigerated car. Hide Caption 21 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Smoke rises from the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol on May 5. Hide Caption 22 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Ukrainian soldiers clear mines at the Antonov Airport in Hostomel, Ukraine, on May 5. Hide Caption 23 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Vehicles are on fire at an oil depot in Makiivka, Ukraine, after missiles struck a facility in an area controlled by Russian-backed separatist forces on May 4. Hide Caption 24 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Natalia Pototska cries next to her grandson Matviy as they arrive at a center for displaced people in Zaporizhzhia on May 2. Hide Caption 25 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Pro-Russian troops stand guard next to a bus transporting evacuees near a temporary accommodation center in the Ukrainian village of Bezimenne on May 1. Hide Caption 26 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, center, meets with US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as a congressional delegation visited Kyiv on April 30. Pelosi is the most senior US official to meet with Zelensky since Russia invaded Ukraine. Hide Caption 27 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A man stands on the balcony of his apartment after a missile strike damaged a residential building in Ukraine's Donetsk region on April 30. Hide Caption 28 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A woman walks through the site of an explosion in Kyiv on April 29. Russia struck the Ukrainian capital shortly after a meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and UN Secretary-General António Guterres. Hide Caption 29 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Guterres speaks during his meeting with Zelensky on April 28. Hide Caption 30 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A team member with the International Atomic Energy Agency arrives at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine, on April 26. Russian forces withdrew from Chernobyl, the site of the world's worst nuclear disaster, in March. Hide Caption 31 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Maria, 13, holds a photograph of her father, Yurii Alekseev, as she and her godfather, Igor Tarkovskii, attend Alekseev's funeral in Bucha, Ukraine, on April 26. Alekseev, 50, was a territorial defense member who was killed by Russian soldiers, according to his family. Hide Caption 32 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin attend a meeting in Kyiv with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on April 24. Hide Caption 33 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A couple looks at a memorial wall in Lviv on April 24. The wall shows Ukrainian civilians who have been killed during the Russian invasion. Hide Caption 34 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine People pray during an Easter church service at St. Michael's Cathedral in Kyiv on April 24. Hide Caption 35 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Women walk between sandbags and anti-tank barricades in Zhytomyr, Ukraine, to attend a blessing of traditional Easter food baskets on April 23. Hide Caption 36 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Members of the Ukrainian Red Cross talk before moving an elderly woman to an ambulance in a bunker under a factory in Severodonetsk, Ukraine, on April 22. Hide Caption 37 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A woman who recently evacuated Mariupol cries after arriving at a registration center for internally displaced people in Zaporizhzhia on April 21. Hide Caption 38 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Emergency workers remove the body of a person killed during the Russian attack on Mariupol. Hide Caption 39 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Vova, 10, looks at the body of his mother, Maryna, lying in a coffin as his father, Ivan, prays during her funeral in Bucha on April 20. She died during Russia's occupation of the city, as the family sheltered in a cold basement for more than a month. Hide Caption 40 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, right, speaks with European Council President Charles Michel during a meeting in Kyiv on April 20. Hide Caption 41 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A Ukrainian serviceman stands next to a multiple rocket-launch system in the Kharkiv region of Ukraine on April 20. Hide Caption 42 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Firefighters work in Lviv after a civilian building was hit by a Russian missile on April 18. Hide Caption 43 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Smoke rises above Mariupol on April 18. Hide Caption 44 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Women clean inside a damaged building at the Vizar company military-industrial complex in Vyshneve, Ukraine, on April 15. The site, on the outskirts of Kyiv, was hit by Russian strikes. Hide Caption 45 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Firefighters work at a burning building in Kharkiv following a missile attack near the Kharkiv International Airport on April 12. Hide Caption 46 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Mourners react in Stebnyk, Ukraine, during the funeral ceremony of Ukrainian serviceman Roman Tiaka. Tiaka was 47. Hide Caption 47 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Ukrainian forces fire rockets toward Russian positions in Ukraine's Donbas region on April 10. Hide Caption 48 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A man works to catalog some of the bodies of civilians who were killed in and around Bucha. Shocking images showing the bodies of civilians scattered across the suburb of Kyiv sparked international outrage and raised the urgency of ongoing investigations into alleged Russian war crimes. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on Russian leaders to be held accountable for the actions of the nation's military. The Russian Ministry of Defense, without evidence, claimed the extensive footage of Bucha was \"fake.\" Hide Caption 49 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Search-and-rescue teams remove debris after the Ukrainian army regained control of Borodianka, Ukraine, on April 6. Hide Caption 50 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine People wait to board a train as they flee Kramatorsk, Ukraine, on April 5. Hide Caption 51 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Destruction is seen in Borodianka on April 5. Borodianka was home to 13,000 people before the war, but most fled after Russia's invasion. What was left of the town, after intense shelling and devastating airstrikes, was then occupied by Russian forces. Hide Caption 52 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks to the media about the alleged atrocities in Bucha on April 4. \"It's very difficult to negotiate when you see what (the Russians) have done here,\" Zelensky emphasized as he stood in the town, surrounded by security. Hide Caption 53 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Anna Zhelisko touches the casket of her grandson, Ukrainian soldier Dmitry Zhelisko, as it arrives for his funeral in Chervonohrad, Ukraine, on April 3. He died fighting the Russian army near Kharkiv. Hide Caption 54 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Smoke rises over Odesa, Ukraine, on April 3. The Russian defense ministry confirmed a strike on an oil refinery and fuel storage facilities in the port city. Hide Caption 55 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Bodies lie on a street in Bucha on April 2. Images captured by Agence France-Presse showed at least 20 civilian men dead. Hide Caption 56 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A Ukrainian serviceman stands with a handcuffed Russian soldier in Kharkiv on March 31. Hide Caption 57 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A satellite image shows a shelled warehouse that was being used by the Red Cross in Mariupol on March 29. Hide Caption 58 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Russian and Ukrainian delegations meet in Istanbul for talks on March 29. Russia said it would \"drastically reduce\" its military assault on the Ukrainian cities of Kyiv and Chernihiv. The announcement came after Ukrainian and Western intelligence assessments recently suggested that Russia's advance on Kyiv was stalling. The talks also covered other important issues, including the future of the eastern Donbas region, the fate of Crimea, a broad alliance of security guarantors and a potential meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Hide Caption 59 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A woman named Julia cries next to her 6-year-old daughter, Veronika, while talking to the press in Brovary, Ukraine, on March 29. Hide Caption 60 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine The regional government headquarters of Mykolaiv, Ukraine, is damaged following a Russian attack on March 29. At least nine people were killed, according to the Mykolaiv regional media office's Telegram channel. Hide Caption 61 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine An armored convoy of pro-Russian troops travel on a road leading to Mariupol on March 28. Hide Caption 62 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A volunteer weaves a bulletproof vest in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, on March 28. Hide Caption 63 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A woman lights a candle during the Sunday service at a monastery in Odesa on March 27. Hide Caption 64 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A Ukrainian serviceman stands in a heavily damaged building in Stoyanka, Ukraine, on March 27. Hide Caption 65 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Orphaned children travel by train after fleeing the Russian-controlled town of Polohy, Ukraine, on March 26. Hide Caption 66 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A man recovers items from a burning shop following a Russian attack in Kharkiv on March 25. Hide Caption 67 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addresses world leaders via video at the NATO summit in Brussels, Belgium, on March 24. Zelensky stopped short of issuing his usual request for a no-fly zone, but he did say Ukraine needs fighter jets, tanks and better air defenses. Hide Caption 68 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A child holds a Ukrainian flag in front of the Taras Shevchenko monument as members of the Ukrainian National Guard band perform in Lviv on March 24. Hide Caption 69 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A firefighter sprays water inside a house that was destroyed by shelling in Kyiv on March 23. Hide Caption 70 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Svetlana Ilyuhina looks at the wreckage of her home in Kyiv following a Russian rocket attack on March 23. \"First there was smoke, and then everything went black,\" she said. Hide Caption 71 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Pictures lie amid the rubble of a house in Kyiv on March 23. Hide Caption 72 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A woman cleans up a room March 21 in a building that was damaged by bombing in Kyiv. Hide Caption 73 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine The Retroville shopping mall is seen in Kyiv after Russian shelling on March 21. Hide Caption 74 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine People share dinner and sing \"Happy Birthday\" during a celebration in Kyiv on March 20. This studio space has turned into a bomb shelter for approximately 25 artists who are volunteering to help the war effort. Hide Caption 75 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Former Ukrainian Parliament member Tetiana Chornovol, now a service member and operator of an anti-tank guided missile system, examines a Russian tank she destroyed in a recent battle in the Kyiv region. Hide Caption 76 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A Ukrainian serviceman stands among debris after shelling in a residential area in Kyiv on March 18. Hide Caption 77 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine US President Joe Biden holds a virtual meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in this photo that was released by the White House on March 18. Biden sought to use the 110-minute call to dissuade Xi from assisting Russia in its war on Ukraine. Hide Caption 78 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Staff members attend to a child at a children's hospital in Zaporizhzhia on March 18. Hide Caption 79 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a rally at a stadium in Moscow on March 18. Speaking from a stage in front of a banner that read \"for a world without Nazism,\" Putin said Russia \"will definitely implement all our plans\" in Ukraine. He insisted that national unity was the strongest in a long time, even as many people flee Russia or protest against war in the streets. State workers were told by authorities to attend the celebration, which commemorated the eighth year of Russia's annexation of Crimea. Hide Caption 80 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky receives a standing ovation as he virtually addresses the US Congress on March 16. The historic speech occurred as the United States is under pressure to provide more military assistance to the embattled country. Hide Caption 81 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine An elderly woman is helped by police officers after she was rescued from an apartment that was hit by shelling in Kyiv on March 15. Hide Caption 82 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Firefighters work to extinguish flames at an apartment building in Kyiv on March 15. Hide Caption 83 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Military cadets attend a funeral ceremony at a church in Lviv on March 15. The funeral was for four of the Ukrainian servicemen who were killed during an airstrike on the Yavoriv military base near the Polish border. Local authorities say 35 people were killed. Hide Caption 84 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A woman walks past a damaged window to lay flowers at a makeshift memorial for victims in Donetsk, Ukraine, on March 15. Hide Caption 85 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Ukrainian soldiers take cover from incoming artillery fire in Irpin, Ukraine, on March 13. Hide Caption 86 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A Ukrainian soldier surveys a destroyed government building in Kharkiv on March 13. Hide Caption 87 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A mother and son rest in Lviv, Ukraine, while waiting to board a train to Poland on March 12. Hide Caption 88 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine An explosion is seen at an apartment building in Mariupol on March 11. The city in southeastern Ukraine has been besieged by Russian forces. Hide Caption 89 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Mariana Vishegirskaya's husband, Yuri, holds their newborn daughter, Veronika, at a hospital in Mariupol on March 11. Vishegirskaya survived the maternity hospital bombing in the city earlier in the week. Hide Caption 90 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine People pay their respects during a funeral service for three Ukrainian soldiers in Lviv on March 11. Senior Soldier Andrii Stefanyshyn, 39; Senior Lt. Taras Didukh, 25; and Sgt. Dmytro Kabakov, 58, were laid to rest at the Saints Peter and Paul Garrison Church. Even in this sacred space, the sounds of war intruded: an air raid siren audible under the sound of prayer and weeping. Yet no one stirred. Residents are now inured to the near-daily warnings of an air attack. Hide Caption 91 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov gives a news conference after meeting with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba in Antalya, Turkey, on March 10. Two weeks into Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Lavrov falsely claimed that his country \"did not attack\" its neighbor. Hide Caption 92 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A resident takes shelter in a basement in Irpin on March 10. Due to heavy fighting, Irpin has been without heat, water or electricity for several days. Hide Caption 93 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Emergency workers carry an injured pregnant woman outside of a bombed maternity hospital in Mariupol on March 9. The woman and her baby later died, a surgeon who was treating her confirmed. The attack came despite Russia agreeing to a 12-hour pause in hostilities to allow refugees to evacuate. Hide Caption 94 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Dead bodies are placed into a mass grave on the outskirts of Mariupol on March 9. With overflowing morgues and repeated shelling, the city has been unable to hold proper burials. Hide Caption 95 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Cars drive past a destroyed Russian tank as civilians leave Irpin on March 9. A Ukrainian official said lines of vehicles stretched for miles as people tried to escape fighting in districts to the north and northwest of Kyiv. Hide Caption 96 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is displayed on a screen as he addresses British lawmakers via video on March 8. \"We will not give up and we will not lose. We will fight until the end at sea, in the air. We will continue fighting for our land, whatever the cost,\" he said in his comments translated by an interpreter. The House of Commons gave Zelensky a standing ovation at the end of his address. Hide Caption 97 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A firefighter works to extinguish flames after a chemical warehouse was reportedly hit by Russian shelling near Kalynivka, Ukraine, on March 8. Hide Caption 98 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Members of the Red Cross help people fleeing the Kyiv suburb of Irpin on March 7. Hide Caption 99 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine The dead bodies of civilians killed while trying to flee are covered by sheets in Irpin on March 6. CNN determined they were killed in a Russian military strike. Hide Caption 100 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Civilians seek protection in a basement bomb shelter in Kyiv on March 6. Hide Caption 101 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Local residents help clear the rubble of a home that was destroyed by a suspected Russian airstrike in Markhalivka, Ukraine, on March 5. Hide Caption 102 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine George Keburia says goodbye to his wife and children as they board a train in Odesa on March 5. They were heading to Lviv. Hide Caption 103 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Ukrainian officials say several people were injured in a Russian missile attack on Kyiv on Thursday, April 28, which occurred as the United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres was finishing a visit to the Ukrainian capital. Hide Caption 104 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy welcomes UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres before their meeting , in Kyiv, on April 28. Hide Caption 105 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A statue is covered in Lviv on March 5. Residents wrapped statues in protective sheets to try to safeguard historic monuments across the city. Hide Caption 106 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Ukrainians crowd under a destroyed bridge as they try to flee across the Irpin River on the outskirts of Kyiv on March 5. Hide Caption 107 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Marina Yatsko runs behind her boyfriend, Fedor, as they arrive at the hospital with her 18-month-old son, Kirill, who was wounded by shelling in Mariupol on March 4. Medical workers frantically tried to save the boy's life, but he didn't survive. Hide Caption 108 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine People remove personal belongings from a burning house after shelling in Irpin on March 4. Hide Caption 109 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Oksana and her son Dmytro stand over the open casket of her husband, Volodymyr Nezhenets, during his funeral in Kyiv on March 4. According to the Washington Post, he was a member of Ukraine's Territorial Defense Forces, which is comprised mostly of volunteers. Hide Caption 110 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine People crowd on a platform as they try to board a westbound train in Kyiv on March 4. Hide Caption 111 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A bullet-ridden bus is seen after an ambush in Kyiv on March 4. Hide Caption 112 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine People take shelter on the floor of a hospital during shelling in Mariupol on March 4. Hide Caption 113 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A member of the Ukrainian military gives instructions to civilians in Irpin on March 4. They were about to board an evacuation train headed to Kyiv. Hide Caption 114 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Surveillance camera footage shows a flare landing at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Enerhodar, Ukraine, during shelling on March 4. Ukrainian authorities said Russian forces have \"occupied\" the power plant. Hide Caption 115 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A Ukrainian child rests on a bed at a temporary refugee center in Záhony, Hungary, on March 4. Hide Caption 116 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A residential building destroyed by shelling is seen in Borodyanka, Ukraine, on March 3. Russian forces have shown a \"willingness to hit civilian infrastructure on purpose,\" a senior US defense official told reporters. Hide Caption 117 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Leos Leonid recovers at a hospital in Kyiv on March 3. The 64-year-old survived being crushed when an armored vehicle drove over his car. Video of the incident was widely shared on social media. Hide Caption 118 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A Ukrainian soldier carries a baby across a destroyed bridge on the outskirts of Kyiv on March 3. Hide Caption 119 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Residents react in front of a burning building after shelling in Kharkiv on March 3. Hide Caption 120 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A Ukrainian soldier who says he was shot three times in the opening days of the invasion sits on a hospital bed in Kyiv on March 3. Hide Caption 121 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine People form a human chain to transfer supplies into Kyiv on March 3. Hide Caption 122 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A cemetery worker digs graves for Ukrainian soldiers in Kyiv on March 3. Hide Caption 123 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A mother cares for her two infant sons in the underground shelter of a maternity hospital in Kyiv on March 3. She gave birth a day earlier, and she and her husband haven't yet decided on names for the twins. Hide Caption 124 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A member of Ukraine's Territorial Defense Forces sits with a weapon in Kyiv on March 2. Hide Caption 125 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Paramedics treat an elderly woman wounded by shelling before transferring her to a hospital in Mariupol on March 2. Hide Caption 126 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Residents of Zhytomyr work in the remains of a residential building on March 2. The building was destroyed by shelling. Hide Caption 127 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A woman reads a story to children while they take shelter in a subway station in Kyiv on March 2. Hide Caption 128 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A member of Ukraine's Territorial Defense Forces inspects damage in the backyard of a house in Gorenka on March 2. Hide Caption 129 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A Ukrainian woman takes her children over the border in Siret, Romania, on March 2. Many Ukrainians are fleeing the country at a pace that could turn into \"Europe's largest refugee crisis this century,\" the United Nations Refugee Agency said. Hide Caption 130 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Militia members set up anti-tank barricades in Kyiv on March 2. Hide Caption 131 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine People wait at a train station in Kyiv on March 2. Hide Caption 132 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine People shelter in a subway station in Kyiv on March 2. Hide Caption 133 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky poses for a picture in a Kyiv bunker after an exclusive interview with CNN and Reuters on March 1. Zelensky said that as long as Moscow's attacks on Ukrainian cities continued, little progress could be made in talks between the two nations. \"It's important to stop bombing people, and then we can move on and sit at the negotiation table,\" he said. Hide Caption 134 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine An explosion is seen at a TV tower in Kyiv on March 1. Russian forces fired rockets near the tower and struck a Holocaust memorial site in Kyiv hours after warning of \"high-precision\" strikes on other facilities linked to Ukrainian security agencies. Hide Caption 135 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Ukrainian soldiers attend Mass at an Orthodox monastery in Kyiv on March 1. Hide Caption 136 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Medical workers show a mother her newborn after she gave birth at a maternity hospital in Mariupol on March 1. The hospital is now also used as a medical ward and bomb shelter. Hide Caption 137 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine An administrative building is seen in Kharkiv after Russian shelling on March 1. Russian forces have scaled up their bombardment of Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city. Hide Caption 138 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Ukrainian emergency workers carry a body of a victim following shelling that hit the City Hall building in Kharkiv on March 1. Hide Caption 139 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A woman named Helen comforts her 8-year-old daughter, Polina, in the bomb shelter of a Kyiv children's hospital on March 1. The girl was at the hospital being treated for encephalitis, or inflammation of the brain. Hide Caption 140 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Ukrainian refugees try to stay warm at the Medyka border crossing in Poland on March 1. Hide Caption 141 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Volunteers in Kyiv sign up to join Ukraine's Territorial Defense Forces on February 28. Hide Caption 142 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A member of the Territorial Defense Forces loads rifle magazines in Kyiv on February 28. Hide Caption 143 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Delegations from Russia and Ukraine hold talks in Belarus on February 28. Both sides discussed a potential \"ceasefire and the end of combat actions on the territory of Ukraine,\" Ukrainian presidential adviser Mikhaylo Podolyak told reporters. Without going into detail, Podolyak said that both sides would return to their capitals for consultations over whether to implement a number of \"decisions.\" Hide Caption 144 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A displaced Ukrainian cradles her child at a temporary shelter set up inside a gymnasium in Beregsurány, Hungary, on February 28. Hide Caption 145 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Ukrainian forces order a man to the ground on February 28 as they increased security measures amid Russian attacks in Kyiv. Hide Caption 146 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Smoke billows over the Ukrainian city of Vasylkiv, just outside Kyiv on February 27. A fire at an oil storage area was seen raging at the Vasylkiv Air Base. Hide Caption 148 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine People wait on a platform inside the railway station in Lviv on February 27. Thousands of people at Lviv's main train station attempted to board trains that would take them out of Ukraine. Hide Caption 149 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A Russian armored vehicle burns after fighting in Kharkiv on February 27. Street fighting broke out as Russian troops entered Ukraine's second-largest city, and residents were urged to stay in shelters and not travel. Hide Caption 150 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Local residents prepare Molotov cocktails in Uzhhorod, Ukraine, on February 27. Hide Caption 151 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Cars line up on the road outside Mostyska, Ukraine, as people attempt to flee to Poland on February 27. Hide Caption 152 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Ukrainian troops in Kyiv escort a prisoner February 27 who they suspected of being a Russian agent. Hide Caption 153 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Ukrainian forces patrol mostly empty streets in Kyiv on February 27. Mayor Vitali Klitschko extended a citywide curfew. Hide Caption 154 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Ukrainian service members take position at the Vasylkiv Air Base near Kyiv on February 27. Hide Caption 155 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A woman sleeps on chairs February 27 in the underground parking lot of a Kyiv hotel that has been turned into a bomb shelter. Hide Caption 156 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine An apartment building in Kyiv is seen after it was damaged by shelling on February 26. The outer walls of several apartment units appeared to be blown out entirely, with the interiors blackened and debris hanging loose. Hide Caption 157 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine People in Kyiv take cover as an air-raid siren sounds February 26 near an apartment building that was damaged by shelling. Hide Caption 158 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A police vehicle patrols the streets of Kyiv on February 26. Hide Caption 159 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Following a national directive to help complicate the invading Russian Army's attempts to navigate, a road worker removes signs near Pisarivka, Ukraine, on February 26. Hide Caption 160 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A man kneels in front of a Russian tank in Bakhmach, Ukraine, on February 26 as Ukrainian citizens attempted to stop the tank from moving forward. The dramatic scene was captured on video, and CNN confirmed its authenticity. The moment drew comparisons to the iconic \"Tank Man\" of Tiananmen Square. Hide Caption 161 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine People in Kyiv board a train heading to the west of the country on February 26. Kelly Clements, the United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees, told CNN that more than 120,000 people had left Ukraine while 850,000 were internally displaced. Hide Caption 162 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Ukrainian service members look for and collect unexploded shells after fighting in Kyiv on February 26. Hide Caption 163 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Smoke and flames are seen near Kyiv on February 26. Explosions were seen and heard in parts of the capital as Ukrainians battled to hold back advancing Russian troops. Hide Caption 164 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine The body of a Russian soldier lies next to a Russian vehicle outside Kharkiv on February 25. Hide Caption 165 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Newly married couple Yaryna Arieva and Sviatoslav Fursin pose for photo in Kyiv on February 25 after they joined the Territorial Defense Forces. Hide Caption 166 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Members of the Ukrainian National Guard take positions in central Kyiv on February 25. Hide Caption 167 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine People walk past a residential building in Kyiv that was hit in an alleged Russian airstrike on February 25. Hide Caption 168 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine The body of a school employee, who according to locals was killed in recent shelling, lies in the separatist-controlled town of Horlivka in Ukraine's Donetsk region on February 25. Hide Caption 169 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Kyiv residents take shelter in an underground parking garage on February 25. Hide Caption 170 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine The body of a rocket remains in an apartment after shelling on the northern outskirts of Kharkiv on February 24. Hide Caption 171 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A wounded woman stands outside a hospital after an attack on the eastern Ukrainian town of Chuhuiv, outside of Kharkiv, on February 24. Hide Caption 172 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A boy plays with his tablet in a public basement used as a bomb shelter in Kyiv on February 24. Hide Caption 173 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Sviatoslav Fursin, left, and Yaryna Arieva kneel during their wedding ceremony at the St. Michael's Cathedral in Kyiv on February 24. They had planned on getting married in May, but they rushed to tie the knot due to the attacks by Russian forces. \"We maybe can die, and we just wanted to be together before all of that,\" Arieva said. Hide Caption 174 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Ukrainian service members sit atop armored vehicles driving in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk region on February 24. Hide Caption 175 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine People in Kyiv try to board a bus to travel west toward Poland on February 24. Hide Caption 176 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine US President Joe Biden arrives in the East Room of the White House to address the Russian invasion on February 24. \"Putin is the aggressor. Putin chose this war. And now he and his country will bear the consequences,\" Biden said, laying out a set of measures that will \"impose severe cost on the Russian economy, both immediately and over time.\" Hide Caption 177 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Smoke rises from a military airport in Chuhuiv on February 24. Airports were also hit in Boryspil, Kharkiv, Ozerne, Kulbakino, Kramatorsk and Chornobaivka. Hide Caption 178 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine People seek shelter inside a subway station in Kharkiv on February 24. Hide Caption 179 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Russian military vehicles are seen at the Chernobyl power plant near Pripyat, Ukraine, on February 24. Russian forces seized control of the the plant, the site of the world's worst nuclear disaster. Hide Caption 180 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine People wait after boarding a bus to leave Kyiv on February 24. Hide Caption 181 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Ukrainian President Zelensky holds an emergency meeting in Kyiv on February 24. In a video address, Zelensky announced that he was introducing martial law. He urged people to remain calm. Hide Caption 182 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Police officers inspect the remains of a missile that landed in Kyiv on February 24. Hide Caption 183 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A staff member of a Kyiv hotel talks on the phone on February 24. Hide Caption 184 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Smoke rises from an air defense base after an apparent Russian strike in Mariupol on February 24. A CNN team in Mariupol reported hearing a barrage of artillery. Hide Caption 185 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine People wait in line to buy train tickets at the central station in Kyiv on February 24. Hide Caption 186 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A long line of cars is seen exiting Kyiv on February 24. Heavy traffic appeared to be heading west, away from where explosions were heard early in the morning. Hide Caption 187 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A photo provided by the Ukrainian President's office appears to show an explosion in Kyiv early on February 24. Hide Caption 188 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine People in Moscow watch a televised address by Russian President Vladimir Putin as he announces a military operation in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine on February 24. \"Whoever tries to interfere with us, and even more so to create threats to our country, to our people, should know that Russia's response will be immediate and will lead you to such consequences as you have never experienced in your history,\" he said. Hide Caption 189 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine An emergency meeting of the UN Security Council is held in New York to discuss the crisis on February 23. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres told Russian President Vladimir Putin to stop \"attacking Ukraine\" and to give peace a chance. Hide Caption 190 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A convoy of Russian military vehicles is seen February 23 in the Rostov region of Russia, which runs along Ukraine's eastern border. Hide Caption 191 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Ukrainian soldiers talk in a shelter at the front line near Svitlodarsk, Ukraine, on February 23. Hide Caption 192 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Smoke rises from a damaged power plant in Shchastya that Ukrainian authorities say was hit by shelling on February 22. Hide Caption 193 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A damaged house is worked on after shelling near the Ukrainian front-line city of Novoluhanske on February 22. Hide Caption 194 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Mourners gather at a church in Kyiv on February 22 for the funeral of Ukrainian Army Capt. Anton Sydorov. The Ukrainian military said he was killed by a shrapnel wound on February 19 after several rounds of artillery fire were directed at Ukrainian positions near Myronivske. Hide Caption 195 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A sign displays conversion rates at a currency exchange kiosk in Kyiv on February 22. Global markets tumbled the day after Putin ordered troops into parts of eastern Ukraine. Hide Caption 196 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Russian howitzers are loaded onto train cars near Taganrog, Russia, on February 22. Hide Caption 197 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine People who left a separatist-held region in eastern Ukraine watch an address by Putin from their hotel room in Taganrog, Russia, on February 21. Putin blasted Kyiv's growing security ties with the West, and in lengthy remarks about the history of the USSR and the formation of the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic, he appeared to cast doubt on Ukraine's right to self-determination. Hide Caption 198 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Putin signs decrees recognizing the Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic in a ceremony in Moscow on February 21. Earlier in the day, the heads of the self-proclaimed pro-Russian republics requested the Kremlin leader recognize their independence and sovereignty. Members of Putin's Security Council supported the initiative in a meeting earlier in the day. Hide Caption 199 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Protesters demanding economic sanctions against Russia stand outside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kyiv on February 21. Only a small number of protesters showed up to demonstrate. Hide Caption 200 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Activists hold a performance in front of the Russian embassy in Kyiv on February 21 in support of prisoners who were arrested in Crimea. They say the red doors are a symbol of the doors that were kicked in to search and arrest Crimean Tatars, a Muslim ethnic minority. Hide Caption 201 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Ukrainian servicemen shop in the front-line town of Avdiivka, Ukraine, on February 21. Hide Caption 202 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine People lay flowers at the Motherland Monument in Kyiv on February 21. Hide Caption 203 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A couple arrives at the city council to get married in Odesa on February 20. As Ukrainian authorities reported further ceasefire violations and top Western officials warned about an impending conflict, life went on in other parts of the country. Hide Caption 204 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Ukrainian Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskiy, left, visits soldiers at a front-line position in Novoluhanske on February 19. Minutes after he left, the position came under fire. No one was injured. Hide Caption 205 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A woman rests in a car near a border checkpoint in Avilo-Uspenka, Russia, on February 19. Hide Caption 206 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A Ukrainian service member walks by a building on February 19 that was hit by mortar fire in the front-line village of Krymske, Ukraine. Hide Caption 207 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Fighter jets fly over Belarus during a joint military exercise the country held with Russia on February 19. Hide Caption 208 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Ukrainian soldiers stand guard at a military command center in Novoluhanske on February 19. Hide Caption 209 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine People sit on a bus in Donetsk on February 18 after they were ordered to evacuate to Russia by pro-Russian separatists. Hide Caption 210 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine The remains of a military vehicle are seen in a parking lot outside a government building following an explosion in Donetsk on February 18. Ukrainian and US officials said the vehicle explosion was a staged attack designed to stoke tensions in eastern Ukraine. Hide Caption 211 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A memorial service and candlelight vigil is held at the St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery in Kyiv on February 18. They honored those who died in 2014 while protesting against the government of President Viktor Yanukovych, a pro-Russian leader who later fled the country. Hide Caption 212 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A kindergarten that officials say was damaged by shelling is seen in Stanytsia Luhanska, Ukraine, on February 17. No lives were lost, but it was a stark reminder of the stakes for people living near the front lines that separate Ukrainian government forces from Russian-backed separatists. Hide Caption 213 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Children play on old Soviet tanks in front of the Motherland Monument in Kyiv on February 16. Hide Caption 214 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Ambassadors of European countries lay roses at the Wall of Remembrance in Kyiv on February 16. The wall contains the names and photographs of military members who have died since the conflict with Russian-backed separatists began in 2014. Hide Caption 215 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine US troops walk on the tarmac at the Rzeszów-Jasionka Airport in southeastern Poland on February 16. US paratroopers landed in Poland as part of a deployment of several thousand sent to bolster NATO's eastern flank in response to tensions with Russia. Hide Caption 216 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A 200-meter-long Ukrainian flag is unfolded at the Olympic Stadium in Kyiv on February 16 to mark a \"Day of Unity,\" an impromptu celebration declared by President Volodymyr Zelensky. Hide Caption 217 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Travelers wait in line to check in to their departing flights February 15 at the Boryspil International Airport outside Kyiv. US President Joe Biden urged Americans in Ukraine to leave the country, warning that \"things could go crazy quickly\" in the region. Hide Caption 218 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A location of Oschadbank, a state-owned bank, is seen in Kyiv on February 15. The websites of Oschadbank and PrivatBank, the country's two largest banks, were hit by cyberattacks that day, as were the websites of Ukraine's defense ministry and army, according to Ukrainian government agencies. Hide Caption 219 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine A woman and child walk underneath a military monument in Senkivka, Ukraine, on February 14. It's on the outskirts of the Three Sisters border crossing between Ukraine, Russia and Belarus. Hide Caption 220 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Ukrainian service members talk at a front-line position in eastern Ukraine on February 14. Hide Caption 221 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Members of Ukraine's National Guard look out a window as they ride a bus through the capital of Kyiv on February 14. Hide Caption 222 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Satellite images taken on February 13 by Maxar Technologies revealed that dozens of helicopters had appeared at a previously vacant airbase in Russian-occupied Crimea. Hide Caption 223 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Pro-Russian separatists observe the movement of Ukrainian troops from trenches in Ukraine's Donbas area on February 11. Hide Caption 224 of 226\n\nPhotos: Russia invades Ukraine Ukrainian service members unpack Javelin anti-tank missiles that were delivered to Kyiv on February 10 as part of a US military support package for Ukraine. Hide Caption 225 of 226", "authors": ["Jessie Yeung", "Yong Xiong"], "publish_date": "2022/03/18"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/14/cars/mild-hybrid/index.html", "title": "What is a mild hybrid? The hybrid technology you might not even ...", "text": "(CNN Business) With gas prices passing $5 a gallon in many places, drivers may wish that they had a hybrid vehicle. In fact, many owners of newer vehicles could already be driving a hybrid and not even know it. Hybrid technology is finding its way into all sorts of vehicles that aren't advertised as such.\n\nFor automakers, that's often part of the point.\n\nElectric vehicle sales continue to grow every year, and more companies announce plans to ditch gasoline engines altogether. But high fuel costs and the relatively high prices of fully electric cars have meant that hybrids can still help drivers save money. And customers are purchasing hybrids in high numbers, even if they don't always recognize they're buying one.\n\nThe legacy of the Prius\n\nThe Toyota Prius sent car shoppers racing to dealerships in the early 2000s, as gasoline price spiked and a recession had them looking for fuel-efficient alternatives. But those Prius waitlists eased over the years as more hybrids entered the market. Toyota Prius sales peaked in the United States in 2012, with over 230,000 sold. In 2019, that number shrank to just over 69,000.\n\nBut at the same time, hybrid technology has become more common. And, while fully electric vehicles carry a certain cultural cache, carmakers are often cautious about calling out their gasoline-electric hybrids. While many hybrids are proudly billed as such -- the Hyundai Tucson Hybrid and Ford Escape Hybrid, for instance -- others, often vehicles with mild hybrid systems, include that information only in technical documents or the owner's manual.\n\nThe Toyota Tundra iForce Max hybrid system offers V8 power from a 6-cylinder engine.\n\nHybrid market share has more than doubled from 2017, going from 2.0% of the market to 5.1% of the market, according to data from the automotive web site Edmunds.com. But that doesn't capture all hybrid vehicles, Edmunds.com analyst Ivan Drury said. It's impossible to know exactly how many hybrid trucks, cars and SUVs are being sold because they're only counted as hybrids in industry statistics when the manufacturer, itself, calls it a hybrid, or gives it a separate model name, said Drury. Often, carmakers don't specifically call out hybrid systems any more than they would another engine or transmission feature. That means that a Toyota Rav4 Hybrid might be counted while a Toyota Tundra i-Force Max pick-up, which is also a hybrid, might not.\n\nThe differences in how hybrid vehicles are marketed -- sometimes with a chrome \"Hybrid\" badge on the back and sometimes with barely any mention -- can come down to how the technology is perceived by different types customers.\n\n\"There might be a little bit of a stigma with the word 'hybrid,'\" said Bill Visnic, editorial director at the Society of Automotive Engineers.\n\nSome car shoppers fear hybrid could mean \"weeny\" performance, he said.\n\nWhen people think of hybrids, they tend to think of the icon of the type, the Toyota Prius. The Prius, and other hybrids like it, have batteries that store up energy as the car drives. That electricity is then used to to power an electric motor that can drive the wheels at low speeds -- or even at high speeds if the gas pedal isn't pressed hard -- and provide an extra push during acceleration. But modern hybrids have moved beyond the Prius' technology.\n\nFrom \"mild\" to \"full\" hybrids\n\nMany modern cars have what are called \"mild hybrid\" systems. These vehicles have smaller, lighter batteries and a less powerful electric motor than so-called full hybrids. The electric motor generally can't drive the car on its own, but it can provide assistance whenever the vehicle is starting off from a stop. The gas engine still does most of the work, but the electric motor provides an extra push that eases the gas engine's work. Because of their smaller batteries, mild-hybrid technology is easier to put into a vehicle without taking up cargo or passenger space for battery packs. They also don't add as much cost to the vehicle, making them easier to sell to buyers not entirely focused on fuel economy.\n\nMild hybrid systems can be found in surprising places, like some Jeep Wrangler and Ram 1500 full-size pickup models. The optional mild hybrid eTorque system in the Ram 1500 allows the truck's gas engine to turn off when the truck comes to a stop, allowing the truck to run off of its battery as it sits still for up to about 10 minutes. (Not every vehicle that turns its engine off at a stop is necessarily a mild hybrid, though.) When the driver releases the brake pedal, an electric motor can start moving the truck forward for less than half a second while the gas engine starts up again.\n\nThe mild hybrid system adds up to two extra miles per gallon, mostly in city driving, according to the manufacturer.\n\nOther cars have Prius-style full hybrid systems but just don't market them that way. The Toyota Tundra i-Force Max, for instance, is a full hybrid pickup truck, but you'd never know from looking at it. It can shut off its engine and drive sometimes using just its electric motor. But even on the gauge cluster, there's no indication that truck has a hybrid system. There's a gauge showing the amount of power coming from the electric motor, but it's labeled simply \"Max.\"\n\nThe Tundra i-Force Max doesn't make a big deal out of its hybrid nature, said Craig Herring, a Toyota engineer, because, during market research, potential customers showed no interest in buying a hybrid. But they were interested in more towing and hauling power without an impact on fuel economy. The Tundra's hybrid system is tuned for maximum power rather than primarily fuel economy. In the Tundra line-up, the i-Force Max takes the place of what might have been a thirstier V8 engine option for customers who want maximum towing and hauling capability. With its emphasis on power, though, the hybrid Tundra is less fuel efficient than Ford's hybrid F-150, but it provides slightly more horsepower and torque.\n\nSome vehicles, like the new Audi A3 compact sedan, are somewhere in between mild and full hybrids. It's technically a mild hybrid, but it's not all that mild. As in a full hybrid, an electric motor can move the relatively small and light A3, Audi's entry level model, at low speeds or when coasting on flat roads or downhill. Similar technology has been available on larger Audi models in Europe, said Anthony Garbis, head of product planning for Audi of America, but it was felt US customers might not appreciate it on those larger, more luxurious cars.\n\n\"We always thought it was a bit odd to have your A8 [full-size luxury sedan] coast down the highway,\" he said. \"So with the A3, it seemed like the right audience, the right price and the right technology to introduce the coasting function.\"\n\nAnd with Audi moving towards a fully electric line-up in just over a decade, there's less focus now on this sort of technology, he said. Now, Audi is looking ahead to when its cars will have no gas engine at all.\n\nHow to find a secret hybrid\n\nIf you're curious if a car you are considering purchasing has mild hybrid technology, a visit to the automaker's website will usually tell you. Or you can just Google or go straight to online resources like Consumer Reports (subscription required), KBB.com Edmunds.com , or, if you really want to dig into the details, CarandDriver.com", "authors": ["Peter Valdes-Dapena", "Cnn Business"], "publish_date": "2022/06/14"}]}
+{"question_id": "20220617_23", "search_time": "2022/06/17/16:36", "search_result": [{"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/07/02/evening-news-roundup-thursday/29610605/", "title": "The Short List: Whole Foods apologizes for overcharging; BP settles ...", "text": "Editors\n\nUSA TODAY\n\nWhole Foods is sorry it's been ripping us off (more than usual)\n\n\n\nRemember in late June when a New York consumer protection agency said Whole Foods had been routinely overcharging customers? Whole Foods denied the allegations. They called it \"overreaching.\" Fast forward to this week. Now, the company is apologizing to customers and admitting they messed up. \"Straight up, we made some mistakes. We want to own that,\" co-CEO Walter Robb said alongside co-CEO John Mackey in a video posted to the company's blog. An investigation by the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs tested 80 different types of prepackaged food from the city's Whole Foods locations. It found all categories included products with incorrect weights, which led to overcharges that ranged from 80 cents for a package of pecan panko to $14.84 for coconut shrimp. Robb said in the video that the mislabeled weights were \"unintentional\" and pushed back on DCA's claims that the mislabeling was systemic. Either way, the company could face fines for thousands of violations of mislabeling goods.\n\nCan't read and multi-task too? Try our audio version of The Short List.\n\nFinally: BP settles for $18.7 billion in the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history\n\n\n\nBP is paying up for the Deepwater Horizon disaster, and it's the largest environmental settlement ever. The $18.7 billion deal between five Gulf states and the British oil giant could resolve years of litigation over the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. BP was leasing the rig when it exploded and sank off the Louisiana coast, killing 11 crew and releasing about 200 million gallons of crude into the Gulf. What's in the settlement? A total of $5.9 billion in claims by state and local governments; $5.5 billion in Clean Water Act penalties and $7.3 billion in natural-resource damages, which help states reverse damage from the spill. (BP had committed an additional $1 billion in natural-resource damages for early restoration.) And even though the settlement has been reached, a judge still needs to sign off. Attorney General Loretta Lynch did a slow clap when she heard the news. \"If approved by the court, this settlement would be the largest settlement with a single entity in American history,\" Lynch said. \"It would help repair the damage done to the Gulf economy, fisheries, wetlands and wildlife; and it would bring lasting benefits to the Gulf region for generations to come.\"\n\nGunfire report made for a tense morning at Washington Navy Yard\n\nThere was a massive show of force at Washington Navy Yard on Thursday after an employee reported a possible shooting, but it turns out it was a false alarm. We're not totally sure what happened, but police don't believe it was a hoax. There's a lot of sensitivity around the site because of a 2013 shooting when a lone gunman killed 12 people inside the facility. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said Thursday a Navy Yard employee told people she may have heard gunshots. The facility was placed on lockdown, but a sweep showed there was no shooter, no shooting and no one injured. If you don't know much about Navy Yard, it has a pretty interesting history. The oldest shore establishment of the U.S. Navy has been operating since the early 19th century. Today, the facilities are headquarters for the Chief of Naval Operations, Naval Sea Systems Command, the U.S. Navy Judge Advocate General's Corps and other naval offices. Take a look at some of the key roles it's played in U.S. history.\n\nGoogle driverless cars keep getting in accidents. But they're not the ones causing them\n\nWe are. Self-driving cars are all the rage. Uber's into it. Ford's into it. Google's been into it for years, and it's been testing its autonomous vehicles all over the streets around its California headquarters. The testing hasn't been without some bumps on the road, though. The vehicles have gotten in more than a few accidents, but the interesting thing is that Google says faulty tech isn't to blame. The company says people in other vehicles are the ones who've caused the dozen or so fender benders. In the past three instances, Lexus Google cars were rear-ended at stoplights. Until recently, Google's been pretty quiet about how their testing has been going. The company was reporting accidents to the California Department of Motor Vehicles, but not broadcasting the data publicly. Consumer watchdogs put the pressure on, and Google reversed its stance a month ago. Now it has a website for a range of updates about its car project. On a totally separate Google note, the company said Thursday it's sorry for putting Nazi concentration camps in one of its mobile games. The statement follows another apology this week — that one was for its new Photos app, which labeled two black people \"gorillas.\" Good thing the car stuff's going well.\n\nWhy fans aren't looking for a second 'Tiger Woods era'\n\nTiger Woods' inconsistency is maddening. He was impressive at the Masters, but then played atrociously at the U.S. Open. So when news came down that he had played well Wednesday during his Pro-Am, even Woods' bullishness didn't do much to convince fans he's actually in a good place. For the record, Woods isn't \"back.\" That doesn't mean he's never going to win again — he might, and he might even win another major or two — but the kind of dominance we saw from him even as recently as 2013 is gone. There's no need to brace for a second \"Tiger Woods era.\" And all of that is fine — because that's not the goal anymore. It's probably not even his goal. At this point, fans don't expect to see the kind of sustained greatness from Woods that they once witnessed — it would be unreasonable to demand that of any aging, 39-year-old athlete. What we want is normalcy — and occasional flashes of his once-in-a-generation talent. That's what we got on Thursday at the Greenbrier Classic.\n\nToday in Election 2016: USA TODAY's Rem Rieder explains how Ted Cruz's outburst reflects the rise of political fact-checking. Donald Trump tells Don Lemon he loves the Mexican people — while his Miss USA pageant gets rescued. Meanwhile, the GOP field will grow even larger July 13, when Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker plans to formally announce his presidential campaign. Oh, and Democrat Jim Webb joins the race.\n\nToday in the Greek debt crisis: Not much happened — well, except for the Greek finance minister saying he'd rather cut his arm off than sign a deal without debt relief — which means it's a good time to take a moment and try to wrap your head around one of the most confusing international stories this year. Cheat with our explainer.\n\nIf you only read one thing tonight, read this: A USA TODAY investigation found TSA paid millions to passengers for claims that airport security screeners broke, lost or stole their luggage or items inside.\n\nStories you're clicking on today:\n\nAre Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic cheating at Wimbledon?\n\nAgents dropped from copter, shot first of N.Y. escapees\n\nDylann Roof's sister tried to raise money for canceled wedding\n\nExtra Bites:\n\nEveryone's feeling the heat wave in Europe. Not everyone looks this cute cooling off. Swipe through more great shots from the Day in Pictures.\n\nHave you seen it? A guacamole recipe that brought Republicans and Democrats together. #GuacAcrossTheAisle\n\nHey, have an awesome Fourth of July weekend. We know some of you will be blasting this.\n\nWe all need a little distraction at some point during the day (what else are smartphones for?), so add DISTRACTME on the YO app. It'll be fun, we promise.\n\nWant the Short List newsletter in your inbox every night? Sign up here.\n\nThis is a compilation of stories from across USA TODAY.\n\nContributing: Marco della Cava, Laura Mandaro, Jessica Guynn, Hadley Malcolm, Nathan Bomey, Doug Stanglin, Rick Jervis, Susan Miller, Aamer Madhani, USA TODAY; Luke Kerr-Dineen, For the Win; Steve DiMeglio, USA TODAY Sports; Associated Press", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2015/07/02"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2018/04/19/facebook-growing-use-facial-recognition-raises-privacy-concerns/526937002/", "title": "Facebook's growing use of facial recognition sounds privacy alarms", "text": "SAN FRANCISCO — Of all the information Facebook collects about you, nothing is more personal than your face.\n\n\n\nWith 2.2 billion users uploading hundreds of millions of photos a day, the giant social network has developed one of the single-largest databases of faces and — with so many images to train its facial recognition software — one of the most accurate.\n\nThe question of whether you should let Facebook save your face is gaining in urgency as it moves to expand its deployment of facial recognition, rolling it out in Europe, where it was scrapped in 2012 over privacy concerns and scanning and identifying more people in photos.\n\nAt the same time, the giant social network is attempting to quash efforts to restrict the use of facial recognition in the U.S., from legislation to litigation. And consumer groups are asking the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Facebook's widening use of the technology.\n\nThe biggest threat to Facebook’s collection of facial recognition data is a class-action lawsuit in California brought by three Illinois residents who are suing Facebook under a state law, the Biometric Information Privacy Act, one of only two in the nation to regulate commercial use of facial recognition.\n\n\n\nThis week, a California federal judge ruled the case could proceed, potentially exposing Facebook to billions of dollars in damages.\n\n\n\nFacebook is reviewing Monday’s ruling, spokeswoman Genevieve Grdina said in an emailed statement. But the company believes that the kind of facial recognition it performs is not covered by the Illinois law.\n\n\"We continue to believe the case has no merit and will defend ourselves vigorously,\" she said.\n\n\n\nShould people trust Facebook with one of their most sensitive data points which, unlike a credit-card number, can’t — or at least can’t easily — be changed?\n\n\n\nDistrust over how Facebook treats its customers' personal data has jumped after 87 million users had their data pilfered by Cambridge Analytica, the British political firm with ties to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.\n\nA survey taken after Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's congressional testimony last week showed a sharp decline in public confidence. Some 27% respondents agreed with the statement, \"Facebook is committed to protecting the privacy of my personal information,\" down from 79% in 2017, according to think tank the Ponemon Institute.\n\nMost forms of tracking target the technology you use. Cookies on your computer. Digital fingerprints your browser leaves behind. GPS on your smartphone. What makes this technology different: It tracks the most identifiable part of your body.\n\n\n\n\"You can delete cookies. You can change browsers. And you can leave your smartphone at home,\" says facial recognition expert Alvaro Bedoya, executive director of Georgetown Law's Center on Privacy & Technology. \"But you can't delete your face, and you can’t leave it at home.\"\n\nFacebook’s facial recognition technology analyzes photos and videos to create a unique \"template\" to identify you. The technology is a shortcut that scans photos to suggest names of friends to tag.\n\nThe company says it has no plans to make people's facial recognition data available to advertisers or outside developers. But the more Facebook can glean from users’ photos about their interests, activities and social circles, the more precisely it can target advertising.\n\nFacebook says it has tight control over its database of people's likenesses. Even if someone were to obtain a \"template,\" it does not function like other face recognition systems.\n\n\"When we provide our biometric information to Facebook, we don’t know where that information is going,\" Electronic Frontier Foundation senior attorney Jennifer Lynch said. \"Facebook says: 'Trust us to keep it safe.' But Facebook has shown time and time again that it makes the wrong choices when it comes to protecting users' data.\"\n\nFacial recognition, sometimes called faceprinting, is used by major technology companies around the globe. Apple last year replaced its fingerprint reader with a camera that uses your face to unlock the iPhone.\n\nFacebook expands photo identification\n\nIn December, Facebook expanded the scope of its technology with the announcement that it would let users know when someone posts a photo of them, even if they are not tagged in it. The technology informs you if someone uses a photo of you in their profile picture to help detect impersonations. It also makes it possible for the visually impaired to have screen readers tell them who's tagged in friends' photos.\n\nWhat may seem harmless — allowing Facebook to create an impression of your face — can be more telling than some people think. And soon it could reveal even more, including the state of your health, privacy experts say. The technology is becoming so sophisticated that Facebook can recognize people in photos and videos even if their faces are obscured, picking up clues from posture and body shape.\n\n\"This technology is powerful in a way that our society isn’t really used to,\" Bedoya says.\n\nOn Wednesday, Facebook announced changes to how it asks users for permission to collect their personal data — including facial recognition data — to comply with strict new European privacy rules coming next month. Facebook says it has made it easy for users to understand their choices and to turn off the facial recognition feature, but critics say the process is rigged to nudge them not to. It's on by default; users need to go into settings to turn it off.\n\n\"As members of the public and as users of Facebook, we need to know more about how that database is being utilized,\" says Pam Dixon, executive director of the World Privacy Forum. \"We just don’t know enough.\"\n\nPrivacy experts have been sounding the alarm over the potentially invasive uses of facial recognition for years as cameras proliferate and the technology advances, from retailers using it to identify shoplifters to sporting venues to spot potential troublemakers.\n\nConsumers frequently don't realize their faces can be scanned and connected to their identity including income, education, demographics and other data, according to the ACLU.\n\nIn fact, very little is known about how extensive these practices already are. There is no federal law governing the use of facial recognition technology, and only two states — Illinois and Texas — regulate it.\n\nDuring his testimony on Capitol Hill this month, Zuckerberg said Facebook is committed to getting \"affirmative consent\" from users for sensitive technologies such as facial recognition.\n\nYet Facebook has aggressively pushed back against limits that states have considered imposing on commercial uses of facial recognition, according to the Center for Public Integrity, an investigative non-profit.\n\nOf legislation that would have created new privacy protections for facial recognition proposed in 2017, all failed but one, and then only after the scope was limited, according to the group. Facebook keeps its fingerprints off the bills by relying on trade groups for stealthier pushes on legislation that would hand users more control over how their likenesses are used, the Center for Public Integrity said, citing interviews with lawmakers and records. Facebook declined to comment.\n\nThe law requires companies to get permission from consumers before collecting biometric data such as fingerprints, iris scans and images of faces. In 2015, three users sued on behalf of millions of Facebook users in Illinois under the law, claiming that Facebook did not obtain written consent from users or properly notify them about how their information would be used or or how long it would be kept.\n\nNow, just as the company is embroiled in this potentially costly class action, Illinois lawmakers are considering an amendment that would substantially weaken the law. Facebook denies having lobbyists or outside groups advocate on its behalf. But it has tried to get the 10-year-old biometric law changed before.\n\nSen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., asked the Facebook CEO about his company's efforts when Zuckerberg appeared on Capitol Hill.\n\n\n\n\"I'm afraid Facebook has come down to the position of trying to carve out exceptions to” the Illinois law, Durbin said. “I hope you'll fill me in on how that is consistent with protecting privacy.\"\n\n\n\nDurbin’s time expired before Zuckerberg could respond.\n\nMore:Facebook's facial recognition violates user privacy, watchdog groups plan to tell FTC\n\nMore:Facebook introduces new privacy safeguards in Europe\n\nMore:How to stop Facebook from recognizing your face and tracking your online moves\n\nMore:Facial recognition: iPhone today, tomorrow the airport?", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2018/04/19"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2022/03/12/ukraine-russia-invasion-live-updates/7008613001/", "title": "Ukraine updates: Russia artillery hits mosque, another hospital", "text": "Editor's note: This page recaps the news from Ukraine on Saturday, March 12. Follow here for the latest updates and news from Sunday, March 13, as Russia's invasion continues.\n\nWith the Russian invasion now in its third week, attention is increasingly focused on the West's efforts to arm and re-supply Ukrainian forces against an enemy with vastly superior weaponry.\n\nDays after the Biden administration rejected Poland's proposal to provide Soviet-built MiG-29 fighter jets to the U.S. to give to Ukraine, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters Friday other military equipment was continuing to reach Ukrainian fighters.\n\n\"We are working with allies and partners to help get the kinds off capabilities that we know the Ukrainians need and are using very well inside Ukraine,\" he said. \"Some of that material we have and we are providing. Some of that material we don't have but we know others have were helping coordinate that as well and that security assistance is flowing.\"\n\nThat drew a warning from Russia's deputy foreign minister Saturday who said convoys transporting foreign weapons into Ukraine will become “legitimate targets” for attacks.\n\nAlso Saturday, President Joe Biden authorized the State Department to provide up to $200 million for arms and equipment to aid Ukraine.\n\nDevastating economic sanctions from the U.S. and its allies haven't stopped Russia's assault on Ukraine, which resulted in damage to another hospital — this time a cancer hospital in the southern city of Mykolaiv, according to Ukrainian officials.\n\nSeveral hundred patients were in the hospital during the attack but no one was killed, according to the hospital’s head doctor, Maksim Beznosenko.\n\nAnd on Saturday, Ukraine's Foreign Ministry accused Russian forces of shelling a mosque in Mariupol where more than 80 children and adults were seeking shelter.\n\nRussia currently appears to be regrouping from recent losses and possibly gearing up for operations against Kyiv. Fighting has intensified close to Ukraine's capital, where doctors are bracing for the prospect of widespread casualties from war.\n\nMore:Biden says the Ukraine crisis shows why the U.S. must become energy independent. Is that possible?\n\nMeanwhile, Russia's economy is in shambles: The ruble has crashed and the Moscow stock market remains closed.\n\nU.S. leaders have hinted the economic pressure is intended to provoke the Russian people to take action against their government.\n\nIn the meantime, experts warn the Ukrainian people will continue to suffer, especially if fighting in Kyiv escalates.\n\n“Where that leads, I think, is for an ugly next few weeks in which he doubles down with scant regard for civilian casualties, in which urban fighting can get even uglier,” said CIA Director William Burns, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia.\n\nQuick links:\n\nStay updated on Ukraine:Once a day, we'll email you the latest news. Sign up here.\n\nTracking the latest:Mapping and tracking Russia's invasion of Ukraine\n\nFull coverage: Updates, analysis, commentary on Ukraine\n\nLatest developments:\n\n► Ukraine's Foreign Ministry said Russian forces shelled a mosque in Mariupol sheltering more than 80 children and adults.\n\n► Russia's deputy foreign minister warned Saturday that convoys transporting foreign weapons into Ukraine will become “legitimate targets” for attacks.\n\n►Russia announced it will ban Instagram beginning March 14, citing messages on the social media platform encouraging and provoking violent acts against Russians.\n\n► President Joe Biden on Friday called for a removal of normal trade relations with Russia, allowing for new tariffs on Russian imports in yet another effort to ratchet up sanctions over Moscow’s intensifying invasion of Ukraine. Biden said the move will be another “crushing blow” to Russia’s economy.\n\n► Ukraine's chief prosecutor’s office says at least 79 children have been killed since the invasion began on Feb. 24. At least 2.5 million people have fled the country, according to the United Nations refugee agency.\n\n► Some 1,300 Ukrainian troops have been killed since Russia began its invasion, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.\n\n► On Friday, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of kidnapping the mayor of the city of Melitopol.\n\nRussia pounds military range in Ukraine's west\n\nRussian forces carried out an air strike on a military range near Lviv in western Ukraine, expanding its offensive closer to the border with Poland.\n\nThe Russian military on Sunday morning fired eight rockets at the Yaroviv military range 30 kilometers northwest of Lviv, the Lviv regional administration said, without offering any details about possible casualties.\n\nThe Yaroviv military range, also known as the Yaroviv International Peacekeeping and Security Center, is located 35 kilometers from Ukraine’s border with Poland.\n\nSince 2015, the U.S. has regularly sent instructors to the Yaroviv military range to train Ukraine’s military. The range has also hosted international NATO drills.\n\nOn Friday, Russian forces shelled two airfields in the western cities of Lutsk and Ivano-Frankivsk, firing more than 10 cruise missiles from Tu-95MS strategic bombers, the Ukrainian General Staff said.\n\n- The Associated Press\n\nExplosions reported outside Lviv, Ukraine's western capital\n\nMultiple explosions were reported in the northwestern city of Lviv on Sunday morning, according to CNN and journalists in the area.\n\nThe explosions were reported about 6 a.m. local time Sunday on the outskirts of the city, near Ukraine's border with Poland, CNN said.\n\nThe explosions were from Russian missiles fired at the International Peacekeeping and Security Centre in the Yavoriv district, about 20 miles northwest of Lviv, according to reports from CNN and the BBC.\n\nAir raid sirens went off throughout the night in Lviv and many other regions in Ukraine and continued through the morning, the BBC reported.\n\nLviv has been identified as a potential capital if Kyiv falls to the Kremlin.\n\nUSA TODAY reporters this week spent 36 hours with a team of overseas nurses, engineers and logistics personnel invited by Ukraine's authorities to build a field hospital for emergency and specialized trauma care on the outskirts of Lviv.\n\nAlready, Lviv was feeling the strain of hundreds of people pouring off trains each day as they flee for destinations in western Europe and beyond. About 1.5 million people have left Ukraine for Poland and other neighboring countries, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.\n\nLviv's streets this week were congested with vehicles, people and pockets of patrolling soldiers. Some private buildings, such as art galleries, have been hastily converted into impromptu distribution centers for humanitarian aid.\n\n►On the ground:In Lviv, Ukraine's beleaguered government plans for what might happen in war with Russia\n\nMedical train carries Ukraine kids with cancer\n\nAbout 60 child cancer patients from Ukraine boarded a medical train in a Polish town Saturday, bound for hospitals in Warsaw and elsewhere.\n\nMedical workers carried some young patients in their arms, on stretchers and in a wheelchair at a station in Medyka, near the Ukrainian border.\n\n“Some of them will require oxygen, will require some form of intensive care,” and some have COVID-19 and have to be kept separate from others,” said Dominik Daszuta, an anesthesiologist from Warsaw Hospital. He said the train has transported 120 children with cancer so far.\n\nThe United Nations refugee agency says at least 2.5 million people have fled Ukraine in the two weeks since Russia invaded it.\n\n-The Associated Press\n\nA third Russian general has died in fighting, Ukraine officials say\n\nA Russian general was killed in fighting at Ukraine's southern city Mariupol, Ukrainian officials said.\n\nMaj. Gen. Andrei Kolesnikov would be the third Russian general to die since the invasion of Ukraine began, making an unusual loss of such a high-ranking military official during fighting. Kolesnikov was the commander of Russia's Eastern Military District, according to Ukraine's military.\n\nRussia did not confirm Kolesnikov's death, and has not shared many details about its military losses during the invasion of Ukraine. Maj. Gen. Andrei Sukhovetsky, the commanding general of the Russian 7th Airborne Division, and Maj. Gen. Vitaly Gerasimov, who had fought with Russian forces in Syria and Chechnya, had previously been reported killed.\n\nUkraine: 7 dead, including one child, after shooting in humanitarian corridor\n\nThe Ukrainian Ministry of Defence said Saturday that seven people, including one child, were killed Friday by Russian soldiers while traveling along a humanitarian corridor, calling the act a “military crime.”\n\nThe ministry claimed Russian soldiers shot at a group of civilians, consisting primarily of women and children, behind “the agreed ‘green’ corridor.” The attack allegedly occurred during an evacuation attempt in the village of Peremoga, which is in the Baryshevskyi district of the Kyiv region. The number of non-fatal injuries from the shooting is unknown, the agency said.\n\nThe defense ministry additionally claimed that after the shooting, Russian soldiers would not allow other individuals to escape.\n\n“At present, it is practically impossible to contact them, as well as to provide humanitarian and medical care,” the agency said.\n\n- Ella Lee\n\nMore:Putin war crimes in Ukraine will be investigated, but Russian leaders unlikely to be prosecuted\n\nKamala Harris: ‘When democracy is threatened anywhere, it threatens us all.’\n\nHours after returning from a trip to Poland and Romania, Vice President Kamala Harris told Democratic Party officials Saturday that the U.S. must do whatever it can short of direct military action to help Ukraine resist the Russian invasion.\n\n\"When democracy is threatened anywhere, it threatens us all,\" Harris said during an otherwise campaign-style speech at the winter meeting of the Democratic National Committee.\n\nThe vice president emphasized the U.S. military alliance with the European nations of NATO, and told Democratic supporters that \"the ocean that separates us will not leave us untouched by this aggression.\"\n\nShe also referred to the invasion as \"Putin's war.\"\n\nHarris spoke shortly after President Joe Biden, who is spending the weekend at Camp David in Maryland, authorized an additional $200 million for arms and equipment to help Ukraine fight off the Russian military.\n\n– David Jackson\n\nUkraine Foreign Ministry: Mosque sheltering 80+ children, adults shelled\n\nRussian forces shelled a mosque sheltering more than 80 children and adults in the war-ravaged city of Mariupol, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said Saturday.\n\nBoth the ministry and Ukraine’s first deputy minister of foreign affairs shared images of the mosque to Twitter.\n\n“At this very moment, the (Russian) army is bombing the Magnificent Mosque, which was built in memory of Suleiman the Magnificent and Hürrem Sultan,” Emine Dzheppar, the deputy minister of foreign affairs, tweeted Friday.\n\nThe ministry said that Turkish citizens were also hiding in the mosque when it was shelled, which the Ukrainian Embassy in Turkey confirmed. The embassy said a group of 86 Turkish nationals, including 34 children, were among the people who sought safety in the mosque.\n\n- Ella Lee, Associated Press\n\nRussian Foreign Ministry: Foreign weapons convoys ‘legitimate targets’\n\nConvoys transporting foreign weapons into Ukraine will become “legitimate targets” for the Russian Armed Forces, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Russian television Saturday.\n\n\"We warned the United States that pumping Ukraine with weapons from a number of countries orchestrated by them is not just a dangerous move, but these are actions that turn the corresponding convoys into legitimate targets,\" Ryabkov said on Russia’s Channel One, according to state-run media RIA Novosti.\n\nWestern countries have pledged to provide Ukraine with weaponry to support its fight against Russia, but attacks on convoys could make that aid more difficult to offer.\n\n“We’ve actually been flowing more stuff forward, uniforms, protective equipment, some munitions and weaponry,” British Armed Forces Minister James Heappey said in a Feb. 28 interview with British Forces radio. “We reach a stage now, though, where because combat operations are ongoing, routes for the Ukrainians to get the stuff into the country are much more challenging.”\n\nThe New York Times reported March 6 that in less than a week’s time, the U.S. and NATO transported more than 17,000 antitank weapons into Ukraine from neighboring countries like Poland and Romania. Those weapons had to make the trip to Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, by land, as airspace over the country has become a war zone in which Western countries have vowed to steer clear.\n\n- Ella Lee\n\nZelenskyy asks world leaders to help him free kidnapped Ukrainian mayor\n\nUkraine President President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on world leaders Saturday to help secure the release of a mayor he says was kidnapped by the Russians.\n\n“We appeal to all world leaders who speak to Moscow – France, Germany, Israel, and others,” he told reporters.\n\nOn Friday night, the Ukrainian president announced that Russian soldiers had abducted Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov during their occupation of that city in the southeasternn part of Ukraine.\n\nZelenskyy said Saturday he raised Fedorov's fate in talks with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.\n\n\"I ask my partners to help in releasing the captive mayor of Melitopol,\" Zelensky tweeted. \"Prospects for peace talks also discussed. We must stop the aggressor together.\"\n\n- David Jackson\n\nBiden authorizes $200M in additional State Department aid for Ukraine\n\nPresident Joe Biden on Saturday authorized the State Department to provide up to $200 million in additional aid to Ukraine.\n\nThe funds could finance weapons, education, training and other military services as Ukraine continues its efforts to beat back Russian troops.\n\nCongress on Thursday passed a bill that included $13.6 billion in emergency military and humanitarian aid for Ukraine. About $6.5 billion of those funds will cover the cost of sending U.S. troops and weapons and equipping allied forces. $6.8 billion was marked for refugees and giving help to allies. Other funds will help U.S. federal agencies enforce sanctions against Russia and protect against cyber attacks.\n\nThe U.S. provided Ukraine with more than $1 billion in the last year, according to the Department of Defense.\n\n- Ella Lee\n\n1,300 Ukrainian troops killed since start of invasion, Zelenskyy says\n\nUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday that about 1,300 Ukrainian troops have been killed since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine in late February.\n\n\"Some 1,300 military people died in our country, and more than 12,000 in Russia,” Zelensky said, according to the Ukrainian news website Hromadske. “One to ten. I'm not happy that 12,000 of them died. This is not my vision of the world.”\n\nThe Ukrainian president had not previously offered a figure for the number of troops killed since the first day of the attack, when he said 137 Ukrainian soldiers and civilians were killed with hundreds more wounded.\n\nIt's not clear on what Zelenskyy is basing his estimate of Russian forces killed. Russia has reported only 2,095 casualties – 498 killed and 1,597 wounded – but that was 10 days ago and hasn't been updated by Moscow. Some Western sources told the BBC the number of Russians killed is closer to around 6,000.\n\nZelenskyy also claimed that 500 to 600 Russian troops on Friday surrendered to Ukraine's armed forces, though USA TODAY could not independently verify this information.\n\n- Ella Lee\n\nIn call with Putin, Macron, Scholz urge 'immediate cease-fire'\n\nGerman Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron spoke Saturday with Russian President Vladimir Putin urging him to agree an “immediate cease-fire in Ukraine.”\n\nScholz’s office said the 75-minute call Saturday was part of “ongoing international efforts to end the war in Ukraine.”\n\nIt said the leaders of Germany and France called on Putin to begin the process of finding a diplomatic solution to the conflict.\n\nFurther details of the call were not released.\n\nSeparately, Scholz spoke earlier Saturday with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to get his assessment of the current situation.\n\n- Associated Press\n\nHow global conflicts like the war in Ukraine impact US gas prices\n\nPropelled by the highest inflation in 40 years and Russia's war in Ukraine, gas prices are the most expensive in U.S. history, not accounting for inflation.\n\nPresident Joe Biden on Tuesday announced a ban on the U.S. import of all Russian energy products to target \"the main artery of Russia’s economy.\" But he warned there will be costs at home.\n\nMore:Inflation reaches highest level since 1982 as consumer prices jump 7% in 2021\n\nSome Americans told USA TODAY they have already started canceling road trips, carpooling, giving up side gigs, walking to work, streamlining errand runs and doing more shopping online to cut down on driving.\n\nIn a report this week, Goldman Sachs strategists warned the war in Ukraine could result in the fifth largest one-month disruption in global commodities markets since World War II.\n\nThe U.S. also saw sharp increases in crude oil prices in the 1970s, stemming from the Yom Kippur War and Arab oil embargo in 1973 and the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979.\n\nWhat can the U.S. learn from its past? \"Unlike in the 1970s ... we're really on the verge of a sort of renewable future,\" one expert told USA TODAY. Read more.\n\n— Grace Hauck\n\nRussia to ban Instagram, citing ‘calls for violence against Russian citizens’\n\nRussia will ban Instagram beginning March 14, the country’s communications agency Roskomnadzor announced Saturday.\n\n“Messages are circulating on the Instagram social network encouraging and provoking violent acts against Russians, in connection with which the Russian Prosecutor General's Office demanded that Roskomnadzor restrict access to this social network,” the announcement reads.\n\nMore:Oil, gold, trade: Congress is looking for options to punish Russia for invading Ukraine\n\nReuters first reported Thursday that Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, would make a temporary change to its hate speech policy to allow users in some countries to call for violence against Russians in the context of the Ukraine invasion. A Meta spokesperson confirmed the matter to several news organizations, adding that the company “still won’t allow credible calls for violence against Russian civilians.”\n\nHead of Instagram Adam Mosseri tweeted the news Friday, calling Russia’s decision to block the social media app “wrong.”\n\n“On Monday, Instagram will be blocked in Russia,” he said. “This decision will cut 80 million in Russia off from one another, and from the rest of the world as ~80% of people in Russia follow an Instagram account outside their country. This is wrong.”\n\nRussia restricted access to Facebook and Twitter on March 4, Forbes reported.\n\n- Ella Lee\n\nWar toll: 79 children killed, more than 280 educational institutions 'destroyed\n\nDozens of children have been killed and more than 100 injured since Russia began its invasion, the Ukrainian Office of the Attorney General said Saturday in a Telegram post.\n\nThe agency said that 79 children have died during the 16 days Ukraine has been at war with Russia, but the figure is “not final” due to the inability to inspect locations still under attack. Most deaths occurred in the Kyiv, Kharkiv, Donetsk, Sumy, Kherson and Zhytomyr regions, according to the post.\n\nMore:'Worse than hell': Mariupol mother fears for her daughter as Russia lays siege to the Ukrainian city\n\nMore than 280 educational institutions also were attacked, of which nine were “completely destroyed, the agency said. Of those institutions, 110 were in the Donetsk region, 28 in the Sumy region and 17 in Kyiv. Ten children’s medical institutions were also attacked, the post says.\n\n“On average, 17 educational institutions are destroyed daily by the occupier during the war,” the attorney general’s office said. “As a result, 7 million children are deprived of the opportunity to study due to active hostilities on the territory of Ukraine and the deliberate destruction of such institutions.”\n\n- Ella Lee\n\nMisinformation abounds amid Russia-Ukraine war\n\nMisinformation and disinformation is easily spreading on social media — here's the latest from the USA TODAY fact-check team:\n\nItaly seizes Russian billionaire's $578M yacht\n\nMILAN — Italian financial police has seized a Russian-owned superyacht valued at $578 million in the port of Trieste as part of seizures of oligarch wealth to pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin to halt the war on Ukraine.\n\nThe \"Sy A\" yacht was identified by Italian police as belonging to belonging to billionaire Andrey Igorevich Melnichenko, who made a fortune in fertilizer production and coal energy. It was seized Friday evening.\n\nVideo shows police in cars with flashing lights approaching the triple-mast yacht and officers boarding it.\n\nItalian authorities last week seized some $156 million in luxury yachts and villas belonging to Russian billionaires in such picturesque retreats as Sardinia, the Ligurian coast and Lake Como.\n\n– Associated Press\n\nUK: Bulk of Russian ground forces about 15 miles from the Kyiv's center\n\nLONDON — Britain's Defense Ministry says fighting northwest of Kyiv has continued with the bulk of Russian ground forces now around 15 miles from the center of the city.\n\nA daily intelligence update says elements of the large Russian military column north of Kyiv have dispersed. It says this is likely to support a Russian attempt to encircle the Ukrainian capital. According to the brief, it could also be an attempt by Russia to reduce its vulnerability to Ukrainian counterattacks, which have taken a significant toll on Russian forces.\n\nThe update says that beyond Kyiv, the cities of Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Sumy and Mariupol remain encircled and continue to suffer heavy Russian shelling.\n\n– Associated Press\n\nRussia's space agency demand an end to sanctions, cites ISS\n\nRussia's space agency has sent NASA and other international partners a letter demanding an end to sanctions, saying they could threaten the International Space Station.\n\nIn a tweet Saturday, the head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, said the letter appealed to the space agencies of the United States, Canada and Europe to keep the space station operational.\n\nHe illustrated the appeal with a map showing the flight path of the ISS — and a potential fall zone that straddles much of the world but barely touches upon Russia.\n\nFour NASA astronauts, two Russian cosmonauts and one European astronaut are currently on the space station.\n\n– Associated Press\n\nUkraine receives more Starlink internet access terminals\n\nSpaceX's Starlink network of internet satellites in Earth orbit continues to make its case during real-world crises, this time with the delivery of more hardware to Ukraine.\n\nMykhailo Fedorov, vice prime minister of Ukraine, this week confirmed his country's government received its second shipment of Starlink user terminals, each of which include a satellite dish and built-in WiFi router. Non-traditional communications channels, especially satellite-based, are critical during crises like war or natural disasters.\n\nSpaceX founder Elon Musk this month agreed to open up the satellite-based internet service to Ukraine after Russia's invasion. Users only need the terminal, power, and a device like a smartphone or laptop to access the internet, meaning Starlink's connectivity is less prone to being knocked out by Russian forces.\n\n– Emre Kelly, Florida Today\n\nDowntown Kyiv hospital braces for carnage doctors fear will come\n\nAs Russian troops accumulate on the outskirts of Kyiv, Dr. Vitaliy Krylyuk said an uneasy calm has settled at the city's largest downtown hospital.\n\nDoctors at the Kyiv Hospital of Emergency Medicine are tending to conventional injuries such as car crashes and gunshot wounds. But Krylyuk, who spoke with USA TODAY over a video call, fears things will soon worsen if Russian missiles target the city or enemy troops close on the heart of Ukraine’s capital.\n\n“The biggest problem we need to think about is a mass casualty situation,” said Krylyuk, who serves at the Ukrainian Scientific and Practical Center of Emergency and Disaster Medicine, a division of Ukraine’s Ministry of Health. “We’ve never had a mass casualty situation. We know this theoretically, not practically.”\n\nEmergency planners have sought to address gaps that would emerge if the number of people with life-threatening wounds outstripped the hospital's capacity to care for them. They sought to figure out which hospital entrance to direct ambulances to quickly get patients to hospital beds. Government planners have drafted documents on how to prioritize patients, ensure patients can breathe, secure blood transfusions or notify family members if a loved one is killed or wounded.\n\n— Ken Alltucker\n\nAs companies leave Russia, their assets could be seized\n\nRussian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that if foreign companies shut down production in Russia, he favored a plan to “bring in outside management and then transfer these companies to those who want to work.”\n\nA draft law could allow Russian courts to appoint external administrators for companies that cease operations and are at least 25% foreign-owned. If the owners refuse to resume operations or to sell, the company’s shares could be auctioned off, the ruling United Russia party has said, calling it “the first step toward nationalization.”\n\nWhite House press secretary Jen Psaki criticized “any lawless decision by Russia to seize the assets of these companies,” saying that it “will ultimately result in even more economic pain for Russia.”\n\n“It will compound the clear message to the global business community that Russia is not a safe place to invest and do business,” she said in a tweet, adding that \"Russia may also invite legal claims from companies whose property is seized.”\n\nEven before its invasion of Ukraine, Russia was already trying to domesticize its food supply following sanctions it had placed on the European Union in 2014. With little to no fresh food imported from those trading partners, Russia put greater focus on domestic food and importing from friendlier countries like Turkey.\n\nOne voice pushing back against confiscating foreign firms’ assets is billionaire metals tycoon Vladimir Potanin, who compared it to the Russian Revolution of 1917, when Communists took power.\n\n“It would set us back 100 years to 1917 and the consequences of a step like this one — global distrust in Russia by investors — would be felt by us for many decades,” he said in a statement Thursday on the social media of his company, Nornickel.\n\n– Associated Press\n\nContributing: The Associated Press", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/03/12"}, {"url": "https://www.theweek.co.uk/news/crime/954382/an0m-the-surveillance-sting-of-the-century", "title": "An0m: the surveillance sting of the century | The Week UK", "text": "An encrypted phone used by criminals around the world to conduct their operations in the shadows had just one flaw: it had been conceived, built, marketed and sold by police, who were monitoring every text exchange. The rain pattered lightly on the harbour of the Belgian port city of Ghent when, on 21 June 2021, a team of professional divers slipped below the surface into the emerald murk. The Brazilian tanker, heavy with fruit juice bound for Australia, had already crossed the Atlantic, but its journey wasn’t halfway done as the divers felt their way along its hull. They were looking for the sea chest, an inlet below the waterline through which the ship draws seawater to cool its engines. Tucked inside, they found what they were hunting for: three long sacks, wrapped in a thick plastic bag. When the Belgian police opened the first, a stack of bricks of cocaine slid out. Had this cargo reached Australia, the haul would have been worth more than A$64m (£34m). Smuggling tens of millions of dollars of Class A drugs across the ocean requires total secrecy and a significant amount of international logistical coordination. But the police knew about the alleged plot thanks to intelligence gleaned from a device that had, since its launch in 2018, become something of a viral sensation in the global underworld. An0m, as it was called, looked like any off-the-shelf smartphone, but it could not be bought in a shop or on a website. First you had to know a guy, then you had to be prepared to pay: $1,700 for the handset with a $1,250 annual subscription, an astonishing price for a phone that was unable to make calls or browse the internet. Almost 10,000 users around the world had agreed to pay, not for the device so much as for an application installed on it. Opening the phone’s calculator allowed users to enter a sum that functioned as a kind of numeric open sesame to launch a secret messaging application. Skip advert The people selling the phone claimed that An0m was the most secure messaging service in the world. Not only was every message encrypted so that it could not be read by a digital eavesdropper, it could be received only by another An0m phone user. Moreover, An0m could not be downloaded from any of the usual app stores.\n\nUsers’ confidence in An0m was, it seemed, bolstered by some novel functionality included on every device. In the past, phones marketed to hyper security-conscious users were sold with the option to remotely wipe the device’s data. This would enable, say, a smuggler to destroy evidence even after it had been collected. But police had started to use Faraday bags – containers lined with metal that would prevent a phone from receiving a kill signal. The An0m phone came with a workaround: users could set an option to wipe the phone if the device went offline for a specified amount of time. Users could also send voice memos in which the phone would automatically disguise the voice. An0m was the ideal channel to arrange the passage of A$64m of cocaine across the world. It was not, however, a secure phone app at all. Every message sent on the app since its launch in 2018 – 19.37 million of them – had been collected, and many of them read by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) who, with the FBI, had conceived, built and sold the devices. On 7 June 2021, more than 800 arrests were made around the world, all of people who had in some way fallen under suspicion thanks to these devices that sent information to the AFP. In Belgium, two weeks later, the divers did not have to hunt for the sacks of cocaine for long; they knew where to look. Operation Ironside (or Operation Trojan Shield, as it was known in the US) was the largest coordinated law enforcement effort in Australian history. Richard Chin, head of transnational operations in the AFP, had taken to calling 7 June “Big Bang”. If all went to plan, the operation had the potential to reshape the criminal world. Big Bang’s targets constituted an array of underworld figures: mobsters, bikers, neighbourhood drug barons, whose alleged crimes ranged from money laundering to attempted murder. What they had in common was their choice of texting app. Skip advert The scheme was seeded ten years earlier, in Vancouver. There, in 2008, Vincent Ramos, a young entrepreneur who started out as a bathtub salesman, founded Phantom Secure, a telecoms company that promised users absolute privacy. Phantom Secure’s phones were BlackBerries modified to remove the camera, microphone and GPS tracking software, and installed with a remote-wipe feature. Every message sent from one device to another was encrypted and routed through servers in Panama and Hong Kong.\n\nOn Phantom Secure’s website, the phones were marketed to the “sophisticated executive”. While it was company policy not to collect clients’ names, Ramos became aware that his customers were not, in fact, legitimate businessmen, but criminals drawn by the promise of a means to communicate beyond the reach of the law. Ramos made no checks on clients. He did not believe it was his responsibility: he was a mere humble salesman of aftermarket BlackBerries – albeit one who drove a Lamborghini. In 2015, the San Diego office of the FBI began investigating Owen Hanson, a former American football player who had turned to drug trafficking after the collapse of his real-estate business. Hanson was a Phantom Secure customer who idolised Hollywood gangsters, had a silverplated AK-47 stamped with the Louis Vuitton logo, and owned a restaurant with a backroom he referred to as the “wise-guy room”. An undercover FBI agent gained his trust and was given a Phantom Secure phone. In acquiring one for the first time, the FBI had gained access to the criminal equivalent of WhatsApp: a messaging service filled with accumulating piles of digital evidence. By the time of Hanson’s arrest in 2015, he regularly shipped cocaine to Australia for $175,000 a kilogram. Two years later, Hanson was imprisoned for 21 years on charges of drug trafficking and racketeering. The logistics were planned on Phantom Secure phones, devices that had come to dominate the Australian criminal market. The FBI now began a joint venture with the AFP to infiltrate the global Phantom Secure network. With the help of one of Phantom Secure’s distributors – an individual who had agreed to become a confidential source–the FBI arrested Ramos in 2018. They offered him a deal: the possibility of leniency in sentencing if he agreed to place a backdoor in the Phantom Secure network. Either because ofalack of technical know-how, or fear for his safety, Ramos refused, and was sentenced to nine years in prison. Without an “in”, the FBI was left with no choice but to shut down the Phantom Secure servers. The disappearance of the platform left a gap in the market. Agents reasoned: what if, rather than attempting to infiltrate an existing encrypted phone network, we built our own? Skip advert To launch a desirable encrypted phone product, the AFP and FBI not only needed to think like a tech start-up, they effectively had to become one. “We positioned ourselves as a small, bespoke brand coming into the organised crime marketplace,” says Chin.\n\nThe aim was to assure prospective clients of the product’s “security, privacy and anonymity”. The An0m application and bespoke operating system were provided by a former distributor of the Phantom Secure phones, whom the FBI recruited in exchange for a chance of a reduced sentence. The source was paid $180,000 by the FBI in salary and expenses, and built “a master key” that, the FBI explained in court documents, “surreptitiously attaches to each message and enables law enforcement to decrypt and store the message as it is transmitted”. Every message sent via An0m was effectively bcc’d to the police. Next, the AFP began a grassroots marketing campaign, identifying influencers within criminal subcultures. One was Hakan Ayik – now known as Hakan Reis – a member of a gang responsible for smuggling an estimated $1.5bn of drugs into Australia every year. Reis, cartoonishly muscular and often photographed topless and flexing, had fled Australia in 2010, and became An0m’s first official user and influencer. His unwitting support of the AFP’s efforts directly resulted in the arrests of many criminal associates, Chin says. (Reis is currently believed to be hiding in Turkey; the AFP has expressed “significant concerns for the safety and welfare of [his] wife and two children”.) As soon as An0m devices were in the wild, the AFP began to receive messages sent via the app. “On a daily basis, we were receiving messages about drug distribution, drug importation into Australia and elsewhere,” says Chin. Some users felt so confident in its security that they dispensed with euphemisms, naming drugs and weight measurements. An0m’s success in Australia was soon replicated overseas, with distributors in Mexico, Turkey, the Netherlands, Finland and Thailand – as well as, allegedly, at least one British citizen, James Flood, believed to be living in Spain. As An0m’s reach expanded to 12,000 devices in more than 90 countries, Chin and his colleagues’ net was forced to expand accordingly. The operation quickly revealed the sophistication with which major criminal organisations run their communication policies. The millions of decoded messages presented the AFP with a pressing ethical dilemma: when to interfere to prevent a single planned crime, and when to allow crimes to take place, preserving the integrity of the wider operation. Skip advert Eventually, the AFP decided to intervene primarily in instances where there was a“serious chance someone might get killed”, Chin says. During the 18 months leading up to 7 June, the agency acted on 21 such threats to life. In March 2021, An0m’s active user base suddenly tripled after Belgian police dismantled Sky Global, a rival service. The surge in popularity caused a drastic increase in the amount of information Chin and his team had to parse, increasing the potential threats to life to unmanageable proportions for the AFP.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2021/10/07"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/25/world/russian-oligarch-statements/index.html", "title": "After crippling rounds of sanctions, these are the Russian oligarchs ...", "text": "(CNN) As Russia's invasion of Ukraine enters a new month, the wealthy elite close to Russian President Vladimir Putin are facing a radically changing set of circumstances far from the frontlines.\n\nThe invasion prompted Western nations to impose restrictive sanctions on Russian individuals and banking institutions. And while a handful of oligarchs -- those billionaires who made much of their fortunes under the watchful eye of Putin -- have called for peace, many have stayed quiet as nations cut off their access to markets and commerce.\n\nOn March 2, The US Justice Department announced a collaborative effort with the European Union and other allies for a special task force targeting their yachts, jets, real estate and other assets abroad. In addition, on Thursday, the US Treasury Department announced a slew of new sanctions against hundreds of members of the Russian State Duma, dozens of Russian defense companies, and the CEO of Sberbank, which is Russia's largest financial institution.\n\nOfficials say their intentions are to squeeze those who have profited from Putin's rule and potentially apply internal pressure for Russia to scale back or call off the offensive in Ukraine. Traditional financial safe havens like Switzerland and Monaco even announced their own measures aimed against those close to Putin, and nations far from the conflict such as Australia and Japan have also moved to freeze finances.\n\nThe sanctions' impacts have rippled across the business and sporting worlds as members of Putin's inner circle have their assets frozen.\n\nHere's a look at some of the oligarchs close to the Kremlin who have commented on the war, and those who have stayed quiet.\n\nOleg Deripaska\n\nOleg Deripaska, a close ally of Putin who made his fortune in the aluminum business, was slapped with sanctions on March 10 by the UK government, which noted Deripaska's estimated wealth of £2 billion and stakes in En+ Group, a major energy company and owner of one of the world's major aluminum producers.\n\nShortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Deripaska said on the Telegram messaging app: \"Peace is very important! Negotiations need to start as soon as possible!\"\n\nAs the ruble collapsed and Russia's stock market failed to open for trading, Deripaska said he wanted \"clarifications and intelligible comments on the economic policy for the next three months,\" adding that the central bank's decision to dramatically hike interest rates and force companies to sell foreign currency was the \"first test of who will actually be paying for this banquet.\"\n\nDeripaska was previously sanctioned by the US in 2018 in response to Russian inference in the 2016 election. The US investigated him for money laundering and accused him of \"threatening the lives of business rivals, illegally wiretapping a government official, and taking part in extortion and racketeering,\" according to the Treasury Department, which added, \"Deripaska has said that he does not separate himself from the Russian state.\"\n\nMikhail Fridman\n\nMikhail Fridman, chairman of conglomerate Alfa Group, has a net worth of $11.4 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire's Index. He was recently sanctioned by the European Union, which said he \"has managed to cultivate strong ties to the administration of Vladimir Putin, and has been referred to as a top Russian financier and enabler of Putin's inner circle.\"\n\nBefore being sanctioned, Fridman, who was born in western Ukraine, wrote in a letter to staff days after the invasion that he wanted the \"bloodshed to end.\"\n\n\"My parents are Ukrainian citizens and live in Lviv, my favorite city. But I have also spent much of my life as a citizen of Russia, building and growing businesses. I am deeply attached to Ukrainian and Russian peoples and see the current conflict as a tragedy for them both,\" wrote Fridman.\n\n\"This crisis will cost lives and damage two nations who have been brothers for hundreds of years. While a solution seems frighteningly far off, I can only join those whose fervent desire is for the bloodshed to end,\" he added in the letter, which was provided by his office. The Financial Times was first to report the letter.\n\nFriedman called the violence a \"tragedy,\" adding \"war can never be the answer\" -- but he stopped short of criticizing Putin directly.\n\n\"If I make any political statement that is unacceptable in Russia it will have very clear implications for the company, for our customers, for our creditors, for our stakeholders,\" Fridman said.\n\nRoman Abramovich\n\nAnother oligarch who expressed public dismay over the crisis but failed to criticize Russia is Roman Abramovich , owner of Premier League club Chelsea, who has moved to sell the team amid his own sanctions. Abramovich \"is one of the few oligarchs from the 1990s to maintain prominence under Putin,\" according to the UK, yet he has always denied such a link.\n\nPrior to being sanctioned by the UK on March 10, Abramovich said the net proceeds of the club's sale would be used to establish a charitable foundation \"for the benefit of all victims of the war in Ukraine.\"\n\nThe European Union sanctioned Abramovich last week, citing his \"long and close ties to Vladimir Putin\" and remarking that his \"privileged access\" to the president helped him \"maintain his considerable wealth.\"\n\nThe superyacht, Solaris, owned by Roman Abramovich, arrives on March 12 in Tivat, Montenegro.\n\nNotable oligarchs have stayed quiet\n\nMany Putin allies and members of his inner circle have not commented publicly on the war, potentially underscoring Fridman's remarks that questioning the Russian leader comes with consequences.\n\nThe sanctions from Western nations against Russian government officials and leaders continue to mount , including those against:\n\nAll of whom have remained publicly silent on the war. CNN has reached out to each individual for comment.\n\nRussian elite speak out\n\nComments from other high-profile figures, however, demonstrate that disapproval of the war could run deep among the nation's elite.\n\nEvgeny Lebedev -- the son of Alexander Lebedev, who describes himself as an ex-oligarch -- wrote a public statement to Putin in the UK paper Evening Standard , which he owns. \"As a Russian citizen I plead with you to stop Russians killing their Ukrainian brothers and sisters,\" Lebedev said.\n\n\"As a British citizen I ask you to save Europe from war. As a Russian patriot I plead that you prevent any more young Russian soldiers from dying needlessly. As a citizen of the world I ask you to save the world from annihilation,\" he added.\n\nVladimir Potanin, the country's richest businessman and president of metals giant Norilsk Nickel, implored Russia not to take the assets of Western companies fleeing the country.\n\n\"Firstly, it would take us back a hundred years, to 1917, and the consequences of such a step -- global distrust of Russia on the part of investors -- we would experience for many decades,\" he said in a message posted on Norilsk Nickel's Telegram account last week.\n\nKremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was sanctioned by the US government on March 3 for being the \"lead propagandist\" of the Russian Federation. On Friday, Peskov's wife and two of his adult children -- including daughter Elizaveta Peskova -- were also sanctioned by the US.\n\nPeskova, who has more than 180,000 followers on Instagram, shared an anti-war message on her verified account the day after the invasion commenced, posting the hashtag #нетвойне, which means \"no to war.\"\n\nA couple of hours later the message was deleted.", "authors": ["Travis Caldwell"], "publish_date": "2022/03/25"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/50-states/2020/03/09/conch-contest-golf-tree-geena-davis-news-around-states/111409522/", "title": "Conch contest, golf tree: News from around our 50 states", "text": "From USA TODAY Network and wire reports\n\nAlabama\n\nMontgomery: The state Senate passed a bill Thursday that would ban gender therapies such as prescription hormones or gender confirmation surgery for minors. The legislation would make it a felony for medical providers to prescribe puberty-blockers or hormones to anyone under age 19 or to perform gender confirmation surgery on minors. The bill, sponsored by Trussville Republican Sen. Shay Shelnutt, passed 22-3, news outlets report. The legislation now moves to the state’s House of Representatives, where a similar bill was also approved by a health committee last month. Proponents have said it would stop “vulnerable children” from getting medical procedures and medications with uncertain long-term effects. LGBTQ activists and opponents of the bill have countered it is discriminatory and spreads misinformation. The American Academy of Pediatrics advised in 2018 that such treatments can be part of certain care models for children.\n\nAlaska\n\nKodiak: Shoppers will no longer see a blue-sticker label on Gulf of Alaska cod after its sustainability certification is suspended starting in April. The label designates which fish are sustainably caught. Alaska’s Energy Desk reports the Marine Stewardship Council, which sets standards for sustainable fishing, will suspend the label starting April 5. Gulf of Alaska cod have had the certification for about 10 years. The impacts of losing certification are unclear. An independent audit found there were not enough young cod entering the gulf fishery, which led to the suspension. But auditors blame a climate change-caused heatwave from 2013 to 2016 for reducing gulf cod by more than half and pushing them to near-overfished status last year.\n\nArizona\n\nFlagstaff: The U.S. Forest Service has given final approval to a project to replace and upgrade a ski lift at the Arizona Snowbowl. The Forest Service’s decision allowing replacement of the current chairlift is based on an environmental assessment published in October. Forest officials concluded that replacing the new lift would not significantly impact the land and environment, despite claims that it would affect Native American cultural values, the Arizona Daily Sun reports. Arizona Snowbowl is located on the Coconino National Forest on the west side of the San Francisco Peaks, near Flagstaff. Arizona Snowbowl said the current chairlift will be replaced with a high-speed combination version that includes enclosed eight-person gondola cars and open-air six-person chair seats. The new lift will be installed in time for the 2020-21 season, the ski area said.\n\nArkansas\n\nBentonville: A film festival co-founded by Academy Award-winning actress Geena Davis announced Friday that it’s moving to later in the year because of concerns about the new coronavirus. The Bentonville Film Festival, in northwest Arkansas, announced it will move this year’s festival, originally scheduled for April 29-May 2, to Aug. 5-8. The festival said it will honor passes and badges that have already been purchased for the festival. The official lineup will be announced by June, organizers said. “Our number one concern is the safety of our content creators and our community of attendees,” Davis, who is also the festival’s chairwoman, said in a statement. The Bentonville Film Festival began in 2015 and last year screened 162 films. Arkansas has not had any cases of coronavirus, which causes the illness called COVID-19.\n\nCalifornia\n\nLos Angeles: Los Angeles International Airport will experiment with a limited restoration of taxi pickups in the central terminal area beginning later this month. Taxi drivers have been pushing to resume pickups there since taxi and ride-hailing pickups were moved to a lot outside the terminal loop last fall to ease traffic amid major construction. Airport officials said one taxi pickup location will be established in a parking structure near the Tom Bradley International Terminal and adjacent Terminal 3. Another taxi stand will be put back into service for travelers passing through Terminals 7 and 8. Last October, the airport moved all taxi and ride-hailing pickups from curbside to a satellite lot, dubbed LAX-it. Airport officials said the move was necessary to reduce traffic for construction of an automated people-mover train and its stations, as well as redevelopment of every terminal. Passengers can walk there or take constantly circulating shuttles.\n\nColorado\n\nDenver: The owner-operator of a Denver-area oil refinery will pay $9 million to settle air quality violations dating to 2017, state officials announced Friday. The settlement with Calgary-based Suncor Energy is the biggest leveled by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment to resolve air pollution violations. The Colorado Sun reports the settlement was announced by John Putnam, the agency’s environmental director, at a news conference. Suncor’s Commerce City refinery produces about a third of gasoline used by motor vehicles in Colorado and most of the jet fuel used at Denver International Airport. It processes about 98,000 barrels of oil daily, most of that from drillers along Colorado’s Front Range. On Dec. 11, the refinery released an ashy substance that blanketed adjacent neighborhoods. Suncor called the clay-like material catalyst and said it wasn’t hazardous.\n\nConnecticut\n\nNew Britain: The state’s wine and spirits industry has joined forces with environmentalists to reduce litter, especially mini bottles of wine and spirits known as nips. The anti-litter partnership, known as Three Tiers for Connecticut, plans to launch the retail portion of its “Don’t Trash Connecticut - Nip it in the Bin!” campaign Tuesday. The campaign will focus on signage at retail locations, urging consumers to properly dispose of the bottles. A news conference is planned Tuesday at CT Beverage Mart in New Britain. The partnership has already held two community cleanup events in Norwalk and West Haven. More more cleanups and initiatives are scheduled for the coming year. Wine and spirits companies and organizations in Connecticut formed the partnership last year with the group Live Green CT, a statewide environmental organization that’s dedicated to eradicating land-based litter by 2025.\n\nDelaware\n\nWilmington: A federal judge has refused to dismiss a whistleblower lawsuit against the state’s largest hospital system. The lawsuit filed by former Christiana Care compliance officer Ronald Sherman and backed by the federal government alleges that the hospital system defrauded taxpayers by funneling Medicaid payments to independent doctors as kickbacks in exchange for patient referrals. The judge denied Christiana’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit after holding a hearing Friday. Christiana Care argued that Sherman had no standing to file the lawsuit because he had previously executed a release discharging all causes of action against the hospital system when he was terminated in 2014. Christiana also argued that Sherman, on behalf of Christiana Care, had disclosed the allegations contained in his complaint to the government through compliance disclosure logs submitted to the Department of Health and Human Services’ inspector general’s office.\n\nDistrict of Columbia\n\nWashington: A federal magistrate on Friday excoriated the government for refusing to turn over its investigative file in the death of a Virginia man shot by U.S. Park Police. The files are sought by the family of Bijan Ghaisar, who died in 2017 after he was shot by Park Police officers multiple times at the conclusion of a stop-and-go chase on the George Washington Parkway. Ghaisar’s family is suing the government and the officers who shot Ghaisar. At a hearing Friday, U.S. Magistrate Ivan Davis said the government had no right to withhold the file from the Ghaisar family’s lawyers. He ordered the government to turn over the entire file by next Friday. Government lawyers said they have been delayed in turning over the file because the material in the file is sensitive and voluminous. Judge Davis, though, was unsympathetic. “You’re required to produce, period,” Davis said. “You do not decide unilaterally for yourself” whether material should be turned over.\n\nFlorida\n\nKey West: A woman who plays the French Horn in the Royal Canadian Navy took top honors in Key West’s 58th annual Conch Shell Blowing Contest on Saturday. Alliszon Zaichkowski of Victoria, British Columbia, won the women’s title performing excerpts from several melodies including composer Igor Stravinsky’s “The Firebird” and Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.” She’s such a fan of the quirky “instrument” that she had a large conch shell tattooed on her arm. “I like to think of the conch shell as my travel horn because I can’t bring my French horn everywhere, and you also don’t want to be playing a French horn at the beach,” she said. “So I always just take my conch shell with me, and that’s my vacation instrument.” In the men’s division, Vinnie Marturano of Big Pine Key tooted his way to victory by playing a portion of Aram Khachaturian’s “Sabre Dance.” The fluted, pink-lined conch shell, an enduring symbol of the Florida Keys, has been used as a signaling device in the islands for centuries. Today, native-born residents are known as Conchs, and the Keys island chain is often called the Conch Republic.\n\nGeorgia\n\nAtlanta: Some students at a private school have been suspended indefinitely after a video surfaced showing them conducting an apparent mock lynching of another student with toilet paper in a school bathroom, officials said. Several boys at Cristo Rey Atlanta Jesuit High School were seen on video wrapping toilet paper around their heads and cutting holes for their eyes, news outlets report. Some were also seen wrapping what appears to be a toilet paper noose around another boy’s neck as he appears to pull up on a bathroom stall support beam as if being hanged. Officials at the college preparatory school acknowledged the incident Thursday. They said the act was reprehensible and wouldn’t be tolerated. They also said the students were suspended indefinitely while the school investigates. A school statement didn’t say how many youths were suspended, and the races of those involved weren’t immediately disclosed.\n\nHawaii\n\nHonolulu: A million trees could be planted in the state each year under a proposed program to increase the number of noninvasive trees. The Legislature is considering backing the tree-planting project started by University of Hawaii geography professor Camilo Mora to offset carbon emissions, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reports. The Carbon Neutrality Resources initiative is responsible for planting thousands of trees in Hawaii. The most recent project involved 2,000 volunteers planting 11,000 trees in December, Mora said, adding that he hopes to increase to 100,000 this year and plant a million in 2021. The bill would place the state Department of Land and Natural Resources in charge of a program to plant a million native trees statewide each year. It was approved by the Senate on Tuesday and passed its first reading in the House on Thursday.\n\nIdaho\n\nBoise: The FBI is investigating after hackers stole as much as half a million dollars of state payments that were intended to go to contractors. Idaho State Controller Brandon Woolf’s office revealed the theft in a statement late Friday afternoon, saying the hackers posed as state vendors and then changed the vendor’s banking information, diverting the payments into the hackers’ bank accounts. The fraud was first noticed by a controller’s office employee Feb. 26, according to the office. Few details were released about exactly how the thefts occurred, but officials said the hackers were able to change the banking information by “navigating state procedures.” “Regular payments made to those vendors by 20 state agencies were then diverted and stolen,” the release said. “The State has recovered some of the funds to date, however, the total amount of funds diverted is under $550,000.”\n\nIllinois\n\nChicago: Officials from the city and the NHP Foundation celebrated the opening of a renovated historic housing unit offering affordable single-room occupancy. Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Friday that restoration of the Mark Twain on Chicago’s Near North Side will help keep the city affordable. The city teamed up with the NHP Foundation, a nonprofit real estate organization dedicated to preserving and expanding affordable housing, in a $54 million rehabilitation of the building. It created 148 affordable apartment units with private bathrooms and added private kitchenettes. It has all new plumbing and electrical systems, a rooftop deck, a restored vintage facade and nearly 10,000 square feet of retail space on the ground floor. The Chicago Housing Authority will provide rental assistance to the Mark Twain’s occupants. Fifty residents who lived there before the renovation have returned; the rest of the units will be leased to people on the authority’s waiting list.\n\nIndiana\n\nWest Lafayette: The city will start supplying free feminine hygiene products in all city building restrooms, including men’s and gender-neutral restrooms. The decision came after Purdue University’s move to offer an assortment of menstrual care products for free in campus bathrooms. After the City Council approved a similar resolution, Mayor John Dennis said West Lafayette was ready to start stocking feminine products in all restrooms in city facilities, including the $31.5 million Wellness and Aquatic Center scheduled to open in early 2021. City Council members Shannon King and Kathy Parker sponsored the resolution. “The mayor gave us a thumbs up, and he really had our back,” King said. During a pilot project in restrooms at Purdue, the faculty-led University Senate found the building averaged $27 a month to restock menstrual care products used from seven dispensers.\n\nIowa\n\nDes Moines: The names of three nominees to fill a vacant state Supreme Court seat have been passed to Gov. Kim Reynolds, who now has 30 days to appoint one of them as the high court’s next justice. The Judicial Nominating Commission on Friday afternoon announced the finalists: Mary Chicchelly, District Court Judge in the Sixth Judicial District out of Cedar Rapids; Matt McDermott, an attorney at Belin McCormick, P.C. in Des Moines; and David May, an Iowa Court of Appeals Judge in Polk City. The commission, composed of eight individuals elected by Iowa lawyers and nine commissioners appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Senate, interviewed 15 applicants Friday to fill the seat that will be left empty upon former acting chief justice David Wiggins’ retirement in the coming weeks. The finalist will be Reynolds’s fourth appointment to the court since taking office in May 2017.\n\nKansas\n\nLawrence: A couple hundred million years ago, an ocean covering Kansas teemed with prehistoric life. Yet for millennia, Kansas has been a dry, sometimes even dusty place. The ocean is long gone, but traces of that long-ago aquatic life were captured for the ages in fossil form. Now, paleontologists from the University of Kansas have an app they hope will help motivate people to go out and find that evidence, reports the Kansas News Service. The Digital Atlas of Ancient Life app was created by a group of paleontologists and researchers led by KU ecology and evolutionary biology professor Bruce Lieberman. The app boasts an extensive database with detailed pictures of fossils common to Kansas. KU owns thousands of fossil specimens, especially trilobites, cephalopods and ancient clams. The app is one way to share all of that information to smartphones around the world. If it motivates people to go out and find some of their own, Lieberman said, all the better.\n\nKentucky\n\nFrankfort: The state House overwhelmingly passed its version of a new two-year budget Friday, but some lawmakers said the unwillingness to tap into more revenue sources would shortchange many of the state’s pressing funding needs. The GOP-crafted spending plan drew bipartisan support in clearing the House 86-10. The measure now goes to the Republican-dominated Senate, which will put its imprint on the budget. The differences will likely be ironed out by legislative leaders in a conference committee. The House version changed Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear’s proposed pay raise for teachers to spread it to other school employees. It boosted school-security funding to hire hundreds of counselors. The House plan also scaled back Beshear’s proposal to add more social workers but offered salary enhancements to hire and retain more of them working in child protective services. The only new revenue source to help support the House spending plan would come from new taxes on vaping and tobacco productions, which would raise nearly $50 million over two years.\n\nLouisiana\n\nLafayette: The opening of an urban park is being delayed because the nonprofit organization behind the project has obtained more money for additional features. Lafayette Central Park Inc. initially hoped to open Moncus Park this spring, but with an extra $5 million in money raised, the organization is planning to open later in the year. Features already completed include a dog park. Features being added this year are an amphitheater and a “family area,” which includes a tree house, splash pad and playground. The nonprofit has received some contributions earlier than expected. For example, plans for the amphitheater were put into motion when Iberia Bank advanced a pledge of $1 million to the park, which wasn’t expected for another three years. With the additional money, the nonprofit and its board had to consider whether to push back the park’s opening date; use sporadic openings of sections; or have construction underway while the park is open.\n\nMaine\n\nBar Harbor: A historical museum that is part of the state’s popular Acadia National Park will be closed to the public this season as it undergoes rehabilitation work. The Islesford Historical Museum has been in the midst of rehab since November 2019. The National Park Service said the work will “allow for the protection and longevity of a historic building and for the safe exhibition of historical objects.” The museum is on the National Register of Historic Places and opened in the summer of 1928. The rehab work will include replacement of the original slate roof. The park service said money for the $1.1 million rehab is coming from entrance passes purchased at Acadia National Park and the service’s repair and rehabilitation funds. The service said the museum is scheduled to reopen during the following season with an exhibit about the Cranberry Isles.\n\nMaryland\n\nAnnapolis: A comprehensive education measure that will cost billions of dollars over the next decade with the goal of making the state’s K-12 schools among the world’s best was approved by the House of Delegates on Friday night. The House voted 96-41 for the bill, which still needs Senate approval. The legislation, known as the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, is based on the recommendations of a state commission that worked for three years on the proposal. The plan focuses on five policy areas: expanding early childhood education like pre-K; increasing teacher salaries; college and career readiness; aid for struggling schools; and accountability in implementation. The proposal would be phased in over a 10-year period. It would cost an additional $4 billion in fiscal year 2030, with a majority of the cost paid by the state while local governments also contribute.\n\nMassachusetts\n\nWestborough: Fish and wildlife officials have started stocking the state’s ponds, lakes and rivers with more than 500,000 trout raised in five hatcheries. The Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife stocking program began last week with bodies of water on Cape Cod, as well as in southeastern Massachusetts and areas west of Boston. Some of the places stocked with rainbow trout include Spectacle Pond in Sandwich, Lake Cochituate in Natick and Houghton’s Pond in Milton. Other bodies of water will be stocked with brook, brown and tiger trout raised in hatcheries in Sandwich, Palmer, Belchertown, Sunderland and Montague. These fish, coupled with the more than 60,000 stocked last fall, will provide some excellent fishing in the coming months, the agency says. Most of the trout are longer than 12 inches, with more than 600 brown trout and 500 brook trout over 18 inches.\n\nMichigan\n\nDetroit: Five people who worked in a wildlife disease lab have been diagnosed with a latent form of tuberculosis, a spokesman said Friday. The Department of Natural Resources’ lab processes thousands of deer heads during the annual hunting season to check for chronic wasting disease and bovine TB. An illness caused by bacteria that attack the lungs, TB can be fatal, although a latent form shows no symptoms, doesn’t make people feel sick and is not contagious, according to federal health experts. It typically involves treatment to prevent full-blown TB. The DNR learned about the infections last year, including three people in June and two later in the summer, spokesman Ed Golder said. He said it was the department’s “working assumption” that the workers got TB from infected deer, “but we can’t say for sure.” The lab is located at Michigan State University.\n\nMinnesota\n\nSt. Paul: Overall graduation rates for the state’s high school students have hit a historic high. The state Department of Education released data Thursday that shows a graduation rate of 83.7% for the class of 2019. That’s up half a percentage point from the prior year and up nearly 1.5 points over the past five years. Minnesota Public Radio News reports black and Hispanic students made the biggest gains, with improvements of more than 3 percentage points for Hispanics and more than 2 points for black students. Racial and socioeconomic disparities persist, with graduation rates higher for white students than they are for students of color. The data shows the rate for Native American students fell slightly this year. The rate remains the lowest among Minnesota high school students at just over half.\n\nMississippi\n\nJackson: State legislators have killed bills that would either ban or regulate kratom, an herbal drug that can be used for pain relief. Kratom is currently unregulated in most parts of the United States but has been outlawed by a few local governments in Mississippi amid concerns that it can be harmful. Kratom is derived from a tree that’s native to Southeast Asia. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency says the leaves can be crushed and then smoked, put into capsules, or taken with water or other liquids. The DEA characterizes kratom as one of its “drugs of concern.” The agency says people have used it to relieve muscle strains and as a substitute for opium; the drug has also been used to manage withdrawal symptoms from opioids. Bills to either ban or regulate kratom died Tuesday when committees did not consider them before the first big deadline of the legislative session.\n\nMissouri\n\nClayton: More than 170 firearms seized or recovered by police during an eight-month period last year were purchased from a single St. Louis-area pawn shop, federal authorities said in announcing charges against three men connected to the shop. Carlos Jones, 31; Robert Thornton, 36; and Steven Johnson, 44, were charged Thursday with unlawful transfer of firearm to a convicted felon and making false statements on firearm records. All three men worked at Piazza Jewelry and Pawn in Overland, Missouri, a St. Louis suburb. The federal complaint said the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives traced 170 seized and recovered guns to sales at the pawn shop, with 102 of those guns recovered in the city of St. Louis. ATF Special Agent Chad Foreman wrote in an affidavit released Thursday that six of the confiscated guns were used in homicides, four in robberies and 20 in weapons offenses and were found in 36 cases in which a prohibited person was in possession of a firearm.\n\nMontana\n\nBillings: A landslide was blocking a BNSF Railway freight line in eastern Montana on Friday. The slide happened about 10 p.m. Wednesday about 10 miles west of Miles City, BNSF Railway spokeswoman Maia LaSalle said. Dirt covered about 800 feet of railway that runs along the Yellowstone River. Crews were still working Friday to clear the tracks, but the slide activity had not been stabilized, LaSalle said. Freight traffic was being rerouted around the blockage on Montana Rail Link tracks. The track that is blocked is part of a path that connects trains from North and South Dakota to southern routes through the Powder River region into Wyoming, The Billings Gazette reports. No trains were in the area at the time of the slide, and no injuries have been reported, BNSF said.\n\nNebraska\n\nOgallala: The state game and parks commission will vote March 20 on banning both alcohol possession and consumption at Lake McConaughy and neighboring Lake Ogallala in western Nebraska. The alcohol ban in the state-controlled areas is among several agreements the state worked out with local leaders to avert drastic cuts in access, The North Platte Telegraph reports. The commission had been considering access restrictions following complaints about overcrowding and rowdy behavior last Fourth of July. The proposed changes, which would have taken effect later this year, were meant to address the overcrowding on the lake’s beaches. But the commission delayed action in January after hundreds of people showed up for a hearing on the proposed rules. Most said they wanted more law enforcement and greater attention to checkpoints, not a crackdown to limit access.\n\nNevada\n\nReno: Social media comments about protecting bears that were posted by Lake Tahoe activists and referred to a longtime wildlife biologist as a murderer constitute “good faith communications” protected as free speech, the state Supreme Court says. The recent opinion doesn’t end a lawsuit filed in Washoe County District Court in Reno. But it settles a key legal question in the dispute between Carl Lackey, a Nevada Department of Wildlife biologist, and Carolyn Stark, who administers a Facebook page that posts criticism of the state’s bear control tactics. The lawsuit is the latest development in a years­long legal and public relations battle between the agency and a group of activists who oppose state methods for managing bears. In 2018, a judge issued a protective order to keep Stark away from another state biologist who says Stark stalked her in a dispute over the capture of nuisance bears.\n\nNew Hampshire\n\nConcord: Gov. Chris Sununu has written to congressional leaders asking for continued funding of the State Opioid Response Grant program, which helped New Hampshire create a new “hub and spoke” caregiver system. The state used its $45.8 million share of funding to set up its Doorway program of nine regional recovery centers. Sununu, in his letter Friday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, said the program served more than 7,300 people in 2019 and provided more than 3,200 clinical evaluations to identify needed services. Of that group, over 2,400 people had opioid-related needs, and more than 5,000 referrals were made to medication-assisted treatment, outpatient, residential and peer recovery services.\n\nNew Jersey\n\nMargate: Residents in a Jersey Shore town that hates its new sand dunes will get a chance to say whether they support building a boardwalk. Margate’s government decided late Thursday to authorize a nonbinding referendum during the November general election asking voters whether they support building a boardwalk in the wealthy town south of Atlantic City. The proposal arose from widespread unhappiness with a beach replenishment project completed in 2017. Mayor Michael Becker said Friday that the town is not committing itself to building one if the vote goes that way. Rather, he said, there needs to be a mechanism for the town’s voters to clearly express their preference, and the commission will then weigh the pros and cons before deciding. Margate had a boardwalk in the early 1900s; it was destroyed by a hurricane in 1944.\n\nNew Mexico\n\nMagdalena: The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is canceling group tours of its Very Large Array to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus. The observatory said Friday that the visitor center and gift shop will remain open, and self-guided walking tours will continue. But a semi-annual open house, guided tours and special tours for school groups will be put on hold between March 15 and May 31. The move is meant to protect visitors and the workers who keep the facility running, Tony Beasley, the observatory director, said in a news release. “Our first priority is the safety and health of our visitors and our staff, and these cancellations are being done to minimize the risk of exposure to this virus,” Beasley said. Astronomers use the Very Large Array to observe natural radiowaves from distant stars and planets.\n\nNew York\n\nNew York: Video showing New York City police officers arresting a young black man sparked outrage and elicited questions about the amount of force used to make the arrest in a city where mistrust of police remains high more than five years after Eric Garner’s death from an officer’s chokehold. Fitzroy Gayle, 20, pleads for help in the video, recorded by a woman who then tweeted it, as several officers wrestle him into submission Wednesday evening on a Brooklyn sidewalk. When Gayle asks a lone plainclothes officer why he was being stopped, the officer does not appear to answer before uniformed backup rushes in. Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said he was ordering an internal investigation. The man in the video had fled officers who approached him and another man as they were smoking marijuana in a park about 7 p.m., Shea said. The officers were responding to an automated alert to gunshots, Shea said. Both men were later apprehended, but there is no indication they were linked to the gunfire, he said.\n\nNorth Carolina\n\nRaleigh: The state’s residents are getting more site-specific information this year about the air that they breathe and whether it might make sense to keep inside. The state Division of Air Quality announced last week that daily air-quality forecasts will now be issued for 91 of the state’s 100 counties and two mountain ridge zones. In the past, forecasts have been regional. A website provides real-time air quality index measurements, while next-day and extended forecast products will be posted each afternoon and updated in the morning. Index readings correspond to a color-coded advisory system that describes when the air can be unhealthy for some or many. Last week started what’s considered the ozone season, or when concentrations of the gas can be highest in the air as days get warmer. The division says ozone concentrations have been declining due to emission reductions from power plants, cars and industry.\n\nNorth Dakota\n\nFargo: New rules for the state’s presidential caucuses are likely to drive up turnout and could shrink Bernie Sanders’ organizational advantage over Joe Biden when the state’s Democratic voters get their say this week in what has essentially become a two-man race. North Dakota is the smallest prize of the six states holding caucuses or primaries Tuesday, with only 14 pledged delegates at stake. As a result, it hasn’t gotten much attention from either candidate. What’s new for North Dakota voters in 2020 is that the system is more like a primary than a traditional caucus. People are free to vote and leave. Democrats can vote at 14 locations across the state, from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. CST and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. MST. Republicans will have seven polling places open from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. local time, where voters can express their support for President Donald Trump. And in a boon to rural voters, mail-in ballots will be accepted.\n\nOhio\n\nToledo: A tree that appeared overnight during the 1979 U.S. Open to become a part of golf lore has met its end. The Black Hills spruce known as “The Hinkle Tree” was partially uprooted by a gust of wind last week at Inverness Club in Toledo and was cut down. The tree dated to the 79th Open, when a journeyman pro named Lon Hinkle came up with a way to outsmart the course during the first round. Hinkle noticed he could take a shortcut by hitting through a gap of trees near the eighth tee and drive his ball on the adjacent 17th fairway, shaving 75 yards off the dogleg hole. It made for an easy birdie, but U.S. Golf Association officials were not amused. The USGA dispatched the course’s greens chairman to bring in a tree from a nursery and block the shortcut. Overnight, the Black Hill spruce, about 20 feet tall, appeared in the gap. But during the next round, Hinkle and his playing partner, Chi Chi Rodriguez, decided to hit their tee shots over the tree.\n\nOklahoma\n\nTulsa: A man who ran unsuccessfully for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in 2018 has been found guilty of assault and battery for shooting a process server trying to give him legal documents. Jurors on Thursday rejected Christopher Jonathan Barnett’s argument that he shot and wounded the man who came to his Tulsa home in July in self defense. On the stand, Barnett asserted the process server presented a threat to him, though he conceded the man never pointed a weapon at him. Jurors recommended Barnett be sentenced to 32 years in prison and fined $10,000. A judge will sentence Barnett in April. The Tulsa World reports video and audio evidence presented to the jury showed the process server just flashed legal documents at Barnett, who kept his front door closed while they spoke. Defense attorney Jason Lollman said he plans to appeal and believes the sentencing recommendation was too harsh.\n\nOregon\n\nSalem: The state has reached an agreement with private health insurance companies to waive co-payments, co-insurance and deductibles for Oregonians who undergo testing for COVID-19 at a facility that’s within their insurance network, Gov. Kate Brown announced. The agreement also will apply to a vaccine for the virus if one becomes available, she said in a statement Thursday. The state is pursuing the same agreement with self-insured health plans and also seeking clarification from the federal government about exceptions to cost-sharing for Medicare Advantage plans, as well as health savings account-eligible high-deductible health plans, she said. “No one should have to ask if getting a COVID-19 test is something they can afford. I hope this agreement sets a framework that other states can follow nationwide,” Brown said in the statement.\n\nPennsylvania\n\nEphrata: A small family-owned pharmacy chain is closing its five central Pennsylvania stores after a 141-year run. Royer Pharmacy in Lancaster County calls itself one of the oldest continuously operating independent pharmacies in the nation. It’s been operated by two families since a young pharmacist named George Royer bought the business in 1879. Company officials cited the age of the owners and decreasing insurance reimbursements that made it difficult to remain in business. “It’s been a great run,” Royer President Donald Sherman said in a news release. Royer said patient files will be transferred to CVS after the stores close by March 18, and employees would be considered for jobs at the nationwide chain. Royer had locations in Ephrata, Lancaster, Akron and Leola.\n\nRhode Island\n\nProvidence: The state’s highest court has refused to hear a strip club’s appeal of a punishment the city had levied against it over allegations of prostitution. The Rhode Island Supreme Court on Thursday rejected the Wild Zebra’s bid to have its adult entertainment license restored. The court did not explain why it would not consider the appeal. The Providence Board of Licenses heard testimony in January from two detectives who said that while undercover at the Wild Zebra Gentlemen’s Club in May dancers offered to have sex with them or perform sexual acts on them in exchange for money. The club denies the allegations of prostitution. An attorney for the club didn’t respond to a request for comment from The Providence Journal. The Providence board stripped the Wild Zebra of its liquor and adult entertainment licenses. A state regulatory department gave the club its liquor license back while it pursues its appeal, but it has remained closed.\n\nSouth Carolina\n\nColumbia: With spring just around the corner, emergency officials in the state say it’s time to begin preparing for severe weather. Gov. Henry McMaster declared this week South Carolina Severe Weather and Flood Safety week. Emergency officials will work all week with the National Weather Service to give safety and preparation tips for floods, tornadoes and severe storms that became more likely as the weather warms. On Wednesday, there will be a statewide tornado drill as schools and businesses across the state are asked to take shelter under their tornado safety plans and as forecasters test weather radios and other devices programmed to go off when a tornado warning is issued. Emergency officials are also pushing for flood safety. Flash floods after massive rains in October 2015 killed 19 people in South Carolina.\n\nSouth Dakota\n\nPierre: State wildlife officials have decided to scale back Gov. Kristi Noem’s program that pays bounties for predators that raid migratory birds’ nests. KELO-TV reports the South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks Commission voted 6-2 on Friday to extend the program for a second year. But the commission reduced the spending cap from $500,000 to $250,000. It also reduced the size of the bounty from $10 per tail from a raccoon, striped skunk, opossum, red fox or badger to $5 per tail. Bounties will now be paid regardless of whether the predator is shot or trapped; last year bounties applied only if a predator was trapped. The program starts April 1 and runs through July 1. Only South Dakota residents can participate. Chairman Gary Jensen and Mary Anne Boyd were the only two commissioners who voted against continuing the program. Jensen said science doesn’t support the program, and it’s designed to help trappers, whom he says are doing well anyway.\n\nTennessee\n\nMemphis: The Tennessee Valley Authority plans to move toxin-laden coal ash from a retired plant in the city to an off-site landfill, at the cost of roughly $300 million, the federal utility said Friday. TVA is considering six landfills in the South after it decided to move 3.5 million cubic yards of coal ash – the byproduct of burning coal for power – from the old Allen Fossil Plant in south Memphis, rather than keep the material in place. The TVA said it prefers taking the coal ash to an offsite landfill rather than moving it to a processing facility because construction and operation of the facility would delay economic development of the Allen site and lead to issues with air and noise emissions, safety risks and public disruption, the TVA said in an environmental impact report. Removal would cost about $300 million and take about seven to 10 years, TVA spokesman Scott Brooks said.\n\nTexas\n\nSanta Fe: A teenager accused of fatally shooting 10 people at a high school in 2018 was able to buy more than 100 rounds of ammunition online because his age was not verified, according to a lawsuit alleging the website involved broke federal law. Dimitrios Pagourtzis was a 17-year-old junior at the time of the May 2018 shooting at Santa Fe High School. Federal law prohibits minors from purchasing handgun ammunition and bars licensed gun companies from selling handgun or shotgun ammunition to minors or anyone they have reason to believe is under the age of 21. According to an amended lawsuit filed Thursday, Pagourtzis initially ordered 50 rounds of hollow-point handgun ammunition and 105 rounds of 12-gauge shotgun ammunition, the Houston Chronicle reports. Two weeks later, he purchased an additional 35 rounds of shotgun ammunition – both times from the website Luckygunner.com that did not require him to make an account, submit proof of age or set-up a secure two-step authorization, the filing said.\n\nUtah\n\nSalt Lake City: A slimmed-down version of a measure to require warning labels on pornography passed the state Senate on Friday. The proposal would now mandate a one-sentence warning label for online or print material deemed legally obscene, the Salt Lake Tribune reports. A relatively small slice of porn is considered obscene, but that hardcore material has fewer constitutional protections. The label would say that “exposing minors to obscene material may damage or negatively impact minors.” A website could also embed in its metadata the searchable text, “utahobscenitywarning.” The porn industry has objected to the plan, saying it could have constitutional problems and open the floodgates for lawsuits. If it does not appear on a print publication or is not displayed for 15 seconds online, producers could be fined $2,500 for each civil violation.\n\nVermont\n\nMontpelier: Three out of about a dozen Vermont towns passed resolutions on Town Meeting Day to become Second Amendment “sanctuary” towns, supporting gun rights and opposing more state and federal gun control laws, organizers said. About a half-dozen towns where the resolution was proposed did not take up the measure on Town Meeting Day on Tuesday because officials did not feel it was appropriate for the setting, said Eric Davis, president of Gun Rights Vermont. Lowell, Eden and Whittingham passed the resolution, he said. The town of Barton rejected the proposal. The voice vote Tuesday was close, Town Clerk Kristin Atwood told the Caledonian Record. Select boards in the towns of Holland and Pittsford adopted the resolution to become sanctuary towns earlier this year. The resolutions are not legally binding.\n\nVirginia\n\nHampton: Three black astronauts joined hundreds of other mourners Saturday at a memorial service for pioneering African American mathematician and NASA researcher Katherine Johnson. Johnson, who calculated rocket trajectories and Earth orbits for NASA’s early space missions and was later portrayed in the 2016 film “Hidden Figures,” about pioneering black female aerospace workers, died Feb. 24 at the age of 101. More than 700 people turned out for Saturday’s memorial service at the Hampton University Convocation Center. “I think about the journey that she’s going on now,” astronaut Leland Melvin said. “We can’t calculate the speed that she’s traveling to get to heaven.” Melvin was joined by fellow astronauts Yvonne Cagle and Mae Jemison, the first black woman in space. Johnson was remembered not just as a pioneering researcher but as a faithful church leader and family matriarch. “Grandma, because of you, our world will forever be unlimited,” grandson Michael Moore said. “And because of you, I have no bounds.”\n\nWashington\n\nOlympia: The state has become the 10th to prohibit homicide defendants from claiming a defense based on panic over a victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity. Gov. Jay Inslee signed the measure Thursday. It takes effect in June. Nine other states – California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Nevada, New Jersey New York and Rhode Island – have already banned the use of gay or transgender panic as a legal defense. The Washington state measure is named after Nikki Kuhnhausen, a transgender teen who was killed last year, The Columbian reports. It was approved with bipartisan support in the state House and the Senate, though some lawmakers questioned if the legislation was necessary since a panic defense has never been used in Washington.\n\nWest Virginia\n\nCharleston: Foster parents who adopt children with special needs may soon get more money under a wide-ranging proposal passed Friday by the state Senate to reduce the state’s overburdened foster system. Senators voted unanimously to approve the proposal. It now moves back to the House of Delegates for that chamber to approve the Senate’s amendments. The measure directs state officials to expand a tiered system that would give higher payments to people who take in children with emotional, behavioral or intellectual problems. It sets aside $16.9 million for the payment system. The tiered system would have to be up and running by July 2021. Child-placing agencies would also get $1,000 every time they finalize an adoption.\n\nWisconsin\n\nSpring Green: The school that architect Frank Lloyd Wright started nearly 90 years ago may stay open after all. The board of the School of Architecture at Taliesin announced in January that the school would close in June because the board and the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, the school’s biggest financial supporter, had failed to come up with a way to keep the school open. The foundation said then that the school lacked a sustainable business model. The Wisconsin State Journal reports the board voted Thursday to keep the school open in light of new funding. The decision to remain open is still subject to approval by the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. The foundation issued a statement Friday saying it has little information about the new funding sources. Board Chairman Dan Schweiker said new supporters have come forward.\n\nWyoming\n\nJackson: Jackson Hole’s largest elk herd is thriving and appears to have grown slightly over the past year after hunters had a historically tough time finding animals and filling tags. Wyoming Game and Fish Department harvest data for 2019 estimates that 794 hunters who targeted zones roamed by the Jackson Elk Herd found success and filled their freezer, according to the Jackson Hole News & Guide. “That’s about half of what it normally is,” Game and Fish wildlife biologist Aly Courtemanch said. “Usually, there’s more like 1,500 or 1,600 elk harvested, both bulls and cows.” The 30-year average harvest in the Jackson Herd is 2,098 elk, though the kill hasn’t surpassed 2,000 since the early 2000s – when the herd size started shrinking by design. Fall 2019 elk hunts were slow across the board.\n\nFrom USA TODAY Network and wire reports", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2020/03/09"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/06/24/most-important-event-the-year-you-were-born/37164307/", "title": "Most Important Event the Year You Were Born – 24/7 Wall St.", "text": "Angelo Young and John Harrington\n\n24/7 Wall Street\n\nOver the past 100 years we’ve witnessed some of the most profound changes in human history.\n\nBetween wars, technological developments, progress in civil rights and breakthroughs in science and medicine, the old order that held back hundreds of millions of people has been swept away.\n\nCenturies-old empires crumbled as new ideologies – from communism to fascism – for better or worse found roots in many places of the world. Progressive human rights ideas also emerged and changed the world as women, blacks, and the LGBT community demanded, and often won, equal rights. Technology evolved, modifying and innovating our lives in ways never dreamed of.\n\nThe world certainly has progressed, but wars have raged on, and climate change has picked up speed, endangering the ecosystems of our planet.\n\nTo put this in perspective, 24/7 Wall St. has compiled a list of the most important event in each of the past 100 years. We drew on research material and news reports to determine what event had the biggest impact in a particular year.\n\n1919: National booze ban\n\n• Date: Oct. 28\n\n• Location: Washington D.C.\n\nCongress passes the 18th Amendment that bans the production, transport or sale of alcoholic beverages in the United States. The legislation opens the way for Prohibition, which lasts from 1920 to 1933. The public flouts the law, which succeeds in enriching gangsters and contributing to the rise of organized crime.\n\n1920: Women's suffrage\n\n• Date: Aug. 26\n\n• Location: Washington, D.C.\n\nThough the United States was founded under democratic principles, only a minority of its population (starting with white landowning males over the age of 21) could actually vote. But after the 19th Amendment of the Constitution is passed, women finally gain a voice and the right to cast their ballots.\n\nSports gambling:Why sports betting hasn't gone nationwide yet after Supreme Court ruling\n\n1921: Chinese Communists rise\n\n• Date: July 1\n\n• Location: Beijing\n\nIn a prequel to the rise of Mao Zedong and Red China, the Chinese Communist Party is founded, and three weeks later it convenes its first National Congress that is attended by Mao. It would take another 28 years before the Republic of China becomes the People's Republic of China.\n\n1922: British Empire shrinks\n\n• Date: Feb. 28\n\n• Location: London\n\nThe British Empire was at its peak toward the end of World War I, commanding a global population estimated to be as many as 570 million people, or about a fourth of the world's population at the time. The empire's size began to shrink in 1920, when Britain declared limited independence for Egypt, which leads to full independence two years later.\n\n1923: Great Kanto earthquake\n\n• Date: Sept. 1\n\n• Location: Tokyo, Yokohama, Japan\n\nThe Great Kanto earthquake, also known as the Tokyo-Yokohama earthquake, strikes the Japanese mainland at noon on Sept. 1, 1923, with a magnitude of 7.9 on the Richter scale. The death toll is estimated at 140,000 people. The force of the temblor destroys hundreds of thousands of homes that either collapse or are engulfed in fire. The quake sets off a tsunami that reaches a height of almost 40 feet at Atami in the Sagami Gulf, killing 60 people there. The most significant outcome of the catastrophe is the rebuilt Tokyo that would become a modern metropolis.\n\n1924: From Lenin to Stalin\n\n• Date: Jan. 21\n\n• Location: Moscow\n\nFollowing the death of Vladimir Lenin on Jan. 21, the new leader of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin, immediately begins a purge of political rivals. Some are simply moved to different positions, while others, like Leon Trotsky, the presumed successor to Lenin, are exiled. Stalin's paranoia grows as he takes control of the nation, and with it the level of violence and killing of anyone perceived to be a threat to his power and control.\n\n1925: Scopes monkey trial\n\n• Date: July 10\n\n• Location: Dayton, Tennessee\n\nAfter teaching the theory of evolution in a Tennessee high school, the state prosecutes science teacher John Thomas Scopes because state law prohibits such teaching as it runs counter to Biblical beliefs. The trial pits well-known Christian fundamentalist William Jennings Bryan against renowned attorney Clarence Darrow. The jury rules against Scopes, forcing him to pay a fine of $100 (about $1,460 in 2017 dollars). It would take another 43 years before the U.S. Supreme Court rules that laws punishing people for teaching evolution violate the First Amendment.\n\n1926: U.S. starts numbered highway system\n\n• Date: Nov. 11\n\n• Location: U.S.\n\nIn a precursor to the modern interstate highway system, the federal government introduces a national highway numbering system in an effort to standardize roadways, especially local roads and trails with names unfamiliar to outsiders. The U.S. Numbered Highway System makes it easier for the growing number of car owners to figure out how to get from one city or town to the next and opens the way for the great American road-trip tradition.\n\n1927: Lindbergh nonstop to Paris\n\n• Date: May 21\n\n• Location: New York to Paris\n\nWhen the monoplane The Spirit of St. Louis touches down at Le Bourget Field in Paris on the evening of May 21, Charles Lindbergh becomes the person to fly over the Atlantic Ocean nonstop. Lindbergh would become one of the heroes of the age. His feat fires the imagination of aspiring aviators about the commercial possibilities of flight. Lindbergh would stay in the news, but for regrettable reasons. A strong advocate for American isolationism in the 1930s, he is criticized for his admiration of Nazi Germany's aircraft industry. Also, his son would be killed during a bungled kidnapping attempt in 1932.\n\n1928: Earhart crosses Atlantic\n\n• Date: June 17-18\n\n• Location: Wales\n\nAmelia Earhart becomes the first woman to pilot a plane across the Atlantic, from Newfoundland to Wales, making her an American national heroine and feminist icon who would go on to set numerous aviation records. She would later set another record as the first person – man or woman – to fly solo from Hawaii to the U.S. mainland. Earhart and her co-pilot Fred Noonan would vanish over the Pacific Ocean in 1937 during Earhart's attempt to circumnavigate the globe. Recent evidence has emerged indicating Earhart may have sent distress signals after surviving a crash, possibly on the remote Gardner Island in the western Pacific Ocean.\n\n1929: Wall Street crashes\n\n• Date: Oct. 24-29\n\n• Location: New York City\n\nThe \"Roaring Twenties\" come to a halt on Black Tuesday in October 1929, when stocks take a nosedive, contributing to the Great Depression. Reasons for the worst economic downturn in American history include over-lending by weakly regulated banks, excessive stock price valuation, too many stocks purchased on margin, unrestrained exuberance that sends millions of people to convert their savings into stocks, tightening of the credit by the Federal Reserve and an agricultural drought.\n\n1930: Ho Chi Minh rises in Vietnam\n\n• Date: Feb. 2\n\n• Location: Hanoi\n\nIn an event that would have repercussions for U.S. foreign policy decades later, Vietnamese independence fighter Ho Chi Minh founds the Communist Party of Vietnam as part of his effort to oust French colonial occupiers. \"Uncle Ho,\" as he was known to his many supporters, was inspired by the Russian Bolsheviks, who oppose the Tsarist autocracy, seeing parallels between that struggle and the fight against the foreign occupiers of his country.\n\n1931: Empire State Building completed\n\n• Date: May 1\n\n• Location: New York City\n\nPresident Herbert Hoover inaugurates the completion of the Empire State Building on May Day. It becomes the tallest building of the iconic Manhattan skyline until the construction of the World Trade Center Towers are completed in 1973. Incredibly, the 86-story office building took only 13 months to build, with construction starting in March of the previous year.\n\n1932: Hitler becomes German\n\n• Date: Feb. 25\n\n• Location: Germany\n\nSeven years after Adolf Hitler renounces his Austrian citizenship, a fellow member of the Nazi Party gets him a low-level government job, which comes with automatic citizenship. This opens the way for him to run for office. Already a well-known party activist, it takes Hitler only two years from receiving his citizenship status to becoming the leader of Germany.\n\n1933: FDR elected\n\n• Date: March 12\n\n• Location: Washington, D.C.\n\nWith the Great Depression sending millions of Americans to soup kitchens and chasing whatever work they can find, newly elected President Franklin Delano Roosevelt begins his weekly \"Fireside Chats\" as Americans are eager for guidance and solace during those dark times. FDR's first radio talk explains to Americans in plain language why he ordered that banks would close temporarily at different time in different parts of the country. The purpose, he explains, is to curb panic rushes of withdrawals, which has been hurting efforts to stabilize the banking system.\n\n1934: Hitler consolidates power\n\n• Date: June 30\n\n• Location: Berlin\n\nGermans, who had been suffering from a disastrous economic depression in 1929-30, begin to embrace the ideas of the Nationalist Socialist Workers Party – the Nazi Party. It becomes the largest party after the 1932 elections. In 1933, Adolf Hitler is appointed chancellor of Germany. After President Paul von Hindenburg dies in 1934, Hitler then purges members of his own party – the bloody Night of the Long Knives – with the help of Nazi storm troopers and becomes the unquestioned leader of Germany.\n\n1935: FDR launches New Deal\n\n• Date: Aug. 14\n\n• Location: Washington, D.C.\n\nPresident Roosevelt, grappling with the Great Depression, signs into law his signature Social Security Act, a law that creates the country's first retirement security system. Earlier that year, as part of his \"New Deal\" policy, the president established the Works Progress Administration, a massive economic stimulus program, putting millions of Americans to work building the country's public infrastructure.\n\n1936: Owens flouts Nazis\n\n• Date: Aug. 3\n\n• Location: Berlin\n\nAs the concept of racial purity and superiority dominates Germany in the 1930s, African-American sprinter Jesse Owens of Oakville, Alabama, shows them who is the master racer. During the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, and under the gaze of Adolf Hitler, Owens wins four Olympic gold medals for the 100-meter and 200-meter sprints, the long jump, and the 100-meter relay.\n\nFrom Alaska to Florida:States with the biggest and smallest governments\n\n1937: UAW changes car industry\n\n• Date: Feb. 11\n\n• Location: Flint, Michigan\n\nNearly two years after the establishment of the United Automobile Workers (UAW), the union scores a major victory in Flint, Michigan. Workers at the General Motors Fisher Body Plant Number One lay down their tools and occupy the factory, demanding union representation, a fair minimum wage, safer working conditions, and not to outsource labor to non-union plants. Despite efforts by GM and local police to extricate them from the plant, including shutting off the heat, cutting off food supply, and attacks that leave 16 workers and 11 police officers injured, the strike lasts 44 days. The strike leads to an agreement between GM and the UAW, which includes a 5% pay raise and permission to talk in the lunchroom.\n\n1938: Anti-Semitism surges\n\n• Date: Nov. 9\n\n• Location: Germany, Austria, Sudetenland\n\nGrowing anti-Semitic scapegoating amid Germany's crippling economic conditions culminates in the Kristallnacht, or \"Night of Broken Glass,\" a pogrom sparked by a speech from German propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. Storm troopers and other Nazi groups are ordered to attack and destroy Jewish businesses, homes and houses of worship. In one night of attacks in Germany, Austria and the German-speaking area of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia, dozens of Jews are killed and tens of thousands are rounded up and sent to concentration camps.\n\n1939: World War II starts\n\n• Date: Sept. 1\n\n• Location: Westerplatte, Poland\n\nUnder the cover of predawn darkness, a German battleship floats quietly into the center of Danzig Harbor and opens fire on a Polish stronghold in Westerplatte, the first shots of World War II. In the following weeks, Nazi forces, including 2,000 tanks and 1,000 aircraft, would shatter Polish defenses and surround Warsaw, which surrenders 26 days after the Danzig Harbor attack.\n\n1940: McDonald's founded\n\n• Date: May 15\n\n• Location: San Bernardino, California\n\nBrothers Richard and Maurice McDonald open McDonald's Barbecue Restaurant, offering BBQ ribs, pork sandwiches and 23 other menu items. Eight years later, they would restructure their popular local business to focus on hamburgers, milkshakes and fountain sodas, emphasizing speed, a simple menu and low prices. In the 1950s, businessman Ray Kroc would buy out the brothers and grow McDonald's into what it is today – the world's largest restaurant chain.\n\n1941: Attack on Pearl Harbor\n\n• Date: Dec. 7\n\n• Location: Oahu, Hawaii\n\nKnowing the U.S. is gearing up to engage them in the Pacific Ocean theater of World War II, Japan deploys a massive air attack on U.S. Navy ships parked at Pearl Harbor. The surprise assault by 353 Japanese aircraft leads to the deaths of 2,403 people, including 1,177 sailors aboard the ill-fated USS Arizona, one of 19 vessels that were damaged or destroyed in the attack. Nearly 330 aircraft were also damaged or destroyed. The United States declares war on Japan the next day and three days later against Germany and Italy.\n\n1942: GIs arrive in Europe\n\n• Date: Jan. 26\n\n• Location: Northern Ireland\n\nThe first U.S. troops destined to fight in Europe in the world's greatest war arrive in Northern Ireland. It is the beginning of a military buildup that would culminate in the invasion of France more than two years later. Before then, the United States was providing only material support to its ally across the Atlantic, while building up what President Roosevelt called the \"Arsenal of Democracy\" in anticipation for the inevitable entry of the United States into the war in Europe.\n\n1943: Invention of LSD\n\n• Date: April 19\n\n• Location: Basel, Switzerland\n\nSwiss chemist Albert Hoffman had been studying the potential medicinal value of lysergic compounds when he accidentally exposed himself to LSD-25, which he had created years earlier in his lab. This was the first LSD trip, a quarter-century before the counterculture endorses the hallucinogenic compound. Hoffman describes the \"not unpleasant\" experience as \"uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors.\" Hoffman takes a second dose and writes a paper about his discovery. The U.S. Army tests the drug on soldiers numerous times from 1955 to 1967, briefly toying with the idea of using LSD as a weapon to disorient enemy soldiers during combat.\n\n1944: D-Day\n\n• Date: June 6\n\n• Location: Normandy France\n\nThe plan for the biggest one-day military campaign in history, the invasion of Normandy by Allied forces to push the Nazis out of France, is hatched in extreme secrecy a year earlier. The plan is conceived during the Quebec Conference by Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt. The invasion starts at 6:30 a.m. on five beaches, and over the next 24 hours about 4,900 Allied soldiers are killed, many of them the instant the doors of their Higgins transport boats opened directly into German machine gun fire.\n\n1945: World War II ends\n\n• Date: Sept. 2\n\n• Location: Multiple\n\nThe surrender of Japan marks the end of World War II amid one of the most tumultuous years of the 20th century. Earlier in the year, leaders of three nations – Benito Mussolini, Franklin Roosevelt and Adolf Hitler – die and Nazi Germany surrenders. Though the surrender of Japan was inevitable, the prospect of a horrific Allied assault on the Japanese mainland convinces the United States to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The atomic bomb attacks, along with the entry of the Soviet Union in the war against Japan, compel the Japanese to surrender.\n\n1946: Baby boom starts\n\n• Date: Jan. 1\n\n• Location: U.S.\n\nMore American babies are born – 3.4 million – in 1946 than in any year in U.S. history up to then. The number of births grows to 4 million per year from 1954 to 1964, the last year of the baby boomer generation, the biggest generation at that point in history.\n\nIt's raining rats:Live rat falls from Buffalo Wild Wings ceiling as customer watches\n\n1947: India gains independence\n\n• Date: Aug. 15\n\n• Location: Washington, D.C\n\nThe sun sets on the British Empire in India in 1947, as the Asian nation becomes the world's largest democracy. Independence is the culmination of decades of work by Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Indian nationalists committed to throwing off the yoke of British colonialism. The transition to independence comes at a price. The subcontinent is partitioned into two nations, Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan. Violence erupts between Hindus and Muslims as Hindus migrate to India and Muslims shift to Pakistan. It is estimated that 1 million people die during the migration.\n\n1948: Birth of Israel\n\n• Date: May 15\n\n• Location: Middle East\n\nAfter Israel declares its independence following a UN resolution, neighboring Arab states with troops from Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Transjordan (now Jordan), Lebanon and Saudi Arabia attack the former British-controlled Palestinian mandate. The Arab-Israeli War ended with an armistice that leaves Israel with some territories as Egypt and Jordan retains control over the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, respectively.\n\n1949: NATO founded\n\n• Date: April 4\n\n• Location: Washington, D.C.\n\nTwo years into the Cold War, the Soviet Union detonates its first nuclear bomb and quickly exerts its influence over Eastern Europe. It attempts to do the same in Western Europe, which is still recovering from the massive destruction of World War II. To respond to the Soviet threat, U.S. and Western European allies form the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Fundamentally, NATO simply states that an attack on any NATO member would be considered an attack on all NATO members. Cold War tensions ratchet up later that year when the communists take over China, the world's most populous nation.\n\n1950: Korean War starts\n\n• Date: June 25\n\n• Location: Korea\n\nThe North Korean People's Army crosses the 38th parallel into South Korea, eliciting almost an immediate response from President Harry Truman, and starting the Korean War – a proxy battle between the United States and the People's Republic of China. Three years later, a ceasefire would halt the war. The uneasy relations between North Korea and South Korea last to this day.\n\n1951: Rosenbergs sentenced\n\n• Date: March 29\n\n• Location: New York City\n\nHusband and wife Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are convicted of espionage for their part in passing along atomic secrets to the Soviet Union during and after World War II. They are executed two years later. Not everyone is convinced of their involvement in the scheme. Supporters claim they are scapegoats swept up in the Cold War hysteria of the time. Documents revealed decades later would show the detailed extent of Julius Rosenberg's involvement in the spy ring, though Ethel's participation in the scheme remains inconclusive.\n\n1952: First hydrogen bomb test\n\n• Date: Nov. 1\n\n• Location: Marshall Islands\n\nThe United States successfully detonates its first hydrogen bomb, a second generation thermonuclear device, in the Marshall Islands as part of Operation Ivy, one of a series of nuclear bomb tests. From 1946 to 1958, the United States used the remote Pacific Marshall Islands as its nuclear weapons testing site, detonating a total of 67 nuclear tests.\n\n1953: The dawn of DNA\n\n• Date: Feb. 28\n\n• Location: Cambridge, England, U.K.\n\nCambridge University scientists James Watson and Francis Crick announce they have discovered the fundamental behavior and double-helix structure of DNA. Though scientists had been aware of DNA since the 1860s and its role in genetic inheritance since 1943, Watson and Crick were the first to explain how DNA works to replicate itself and pass on genes from one generation to the next.\n\n1954: Brown vs. Board of Education\n\n• Date: May 17\n\n• Location: Washington, D.C.\n\nIn a landmark case involving Linda Brown of Topeka, Kansas, who had to cross a railroad track to reach an all-black elementary school even though an all-white school was closer, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that the segregated school system was unconstitutional on the basis of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. The clause would be used again by the courts to reverse state-level racial segregation practices and ordinances.\n\n1955: Parks starts a movement\n\n• Date: Dec. 1\n\n• Location: Montgomery, Alabama\n\nRosa Parks makes history by refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery bus. The arrest of Parks for insisting to remain seated leads to the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the ascent of a young pastor named Martin Luther King, Jr., as a local activist leader to advance the civil rights cause. A successful federal lawsuit by the NAACP against the city leads to the desegregation of the Montgomery bus system on Dec. 21 of the following year.\n\n1956: Hungary suppressed\n\n• Date: Nov. 4\n\n• Location: Budapest\n\nNine years after the start of the Cold War, Hungarians took to the streets, demanding democratic reforms. Three days later, Soviet Red Army troops invade Hungary, killing thousands. Nine days after the incursion, Budapest is occupied by the Soviet troops in one of the largest and most aggressive actions taken by the Soviet Union since the end of World War II.\n\n1957: The Little Rock Nine\n\n• Date: Sept 24\n\n• Location: Little Rock, Arkansas\n\nPresident Dwight D. Eisenhower orders federal troops to protect nine African American high school students as they start classes at the all-white Little Rock Central High School. This would become one of the first high-profile actions by the federal government against state-level racial segregation.\n\n1958: U.S. launches first satellite\n\n• Date: Jan. 31\n\n• Location: Cape Canaveral, Florida\n\nThe United States successfully launches Explorer 1, three months after the Soviet Union sent its first satellite, Sputnik, into orbit. The two superpowers would go on to send more satellites into space, creating a Cold War space race to build ever more sophisticated orbital communications devices.\n\n1959: Castro takes over Cuba\n\n• Date: Jan. 1\n\n• Location: Havana\n\nU.S.-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista flees Havana as Fidel Castro's forces advance on the Cuban capital. Days later, rebels led by Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos enter the city, followed two days later by Castro's forces, who quickly consolidate power in Cuba, establishing a communist government in the Caribbean's largest country.\n\nTraveling nightmare:Air Canada traveler claims she woke up on 'freezing cold,' 'pitch black' and empty plane\n\n1960: Lunch Counter Sit-in\n\n• Date: Feb. 1\n\n• Location: Greensboro, North Carolina\n\nWhen four African-American college students – Ezell A. Blair, Franklin E. McCain, Joseph A. McNeil and David L. Richmond – sit down at a Woolworth's lunch counter and ask for service, they are denied. The young men refuse to leave, leading to a larger six-month protest that results in the desegregation of the lunch counter by that summer.\n\n1961: Berlin Wall built\n\n• Date: Aug. 13\n\n• Location: Berlin, East and West Germany\n\nBy the late summer of 1961, the loss of skilled workers such as teachers, engineers, and doctors to the West reaches crisis levels in East Germany. On Aug. 12, 2,400 East Germans cross into West Berlin, the most in a single day. The next day, with the approval of Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, East Germany builds a wall that would extend 27 miles through Berlin, dividing families and friends for the next 28 years. The wall would serve as an enduring symbol of the Cold War, used by presidents John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan to inspire a divided city.\n\n1962: Cuban missile crisis\n\n• Date: Oct.16-28\n\n• Location: Multiple\n\nWhen the United States learns that the Soviet Union is building nuclear missile installations 90 miles south of Miami in communist Cuba, the Kennedy administration starts a naval blockade around the island, which is at times tested, and Kennedy demands the removal of the missiles.The standoff is widely considered to be the closest the two nuclear superpowers come to direct military confrontation. Cooler heads prevail. The Soviet Union offers to remove the missiles in exchange for a guarantee that the United States will not invade Cuba. In secret, the administration also agrees to withdraw U.S. missiles from Turkey.\n\n1963: JFK assassinated\n\n• Date: Nov. 22\n\n• Location: Dallas\n\nAs John F. Kennedy prepares for his re-election bid, the 34th president of the United States embarks on a multi-state tour in September 1963. He is murdered by a sharpshooter's bullet fired by Lee Harvey Oswald at about 12:30 p.m. as his motorcade passed through Dealey Plaza in Dallas. Oswald himself is murdered two days later by nightclub owner Jack Ruby.\n\n1964: LBJ's \"War on Poverty\"\n\n• Date: Jan. 8\n\n• Location: Washington, D.C.\n\nBogged down by the Vietnam War, President Lyndon B. Johnson struggles constantly to pivot away from the war to focus on his stated goals of reducing poverty, ending segregation, and establishing the social programs many Americans rely on to this day, including the immensely popular Medicare program. During his \"War on Poverty\" State of the Union Address of Jan. 8, 1964, LBJ outlines the need for the country to reduce poverty, end racial discrimination, attend to the health needs of the elderly, and other progressive goals. LBJ later ushers in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Social Security Amendments of 1965.\n\n1965: Civil rights turns violent\n\n• Date: March 7\n\n• Location: Selma, Alabama\n\nThe fatal shooting of protester Jimmy Lee Jackson by an Alabama state trooper sparks a march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. Hundreds of civil rights activists march in what becomes known as \"Bloody Sunday.\" Police would confront the marchers, led by John Lewis (who is a House Democrat from Georgia) and others. As the activists cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge, police attack the protesters with tear gas and billy clubs, hospitalizing 50.\n\n1966: Mao purges rivals\n\n• Date: Aug. 13\n\n• Location: Beijing\n\nAt the end of a week-long session of the Communist Party Central Committee of the People's Republic of China, Chairman Mao Zedong condemns the political elites, calling on China's youth to rebel against the entrenched political hierarchy. It is the beginning of the decade-long Cultural Revolution that fundamentally transforms Chinese society. Intellectuals, members of the former Nationalist government, and people with ties to Western powers are persecuted, sent to re-education labor camps, or killed by the factions of Red Guards formed in the wake of Mao's call to action.\n\n1967: Six-Day War\n\n• Date: June 5\n\n• Location: Middle East\n\nAmid escalating tensions with its neighbors, Israel launches a preemptive strike that destroys most of Egypt's air force. Syria, Jordan, and Iraq also attack Israel. As the war continues, Israel takes the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, captures East Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan, and in heavy fighting seizes the Golan Heights from Syria. A ceasefire went into effect on June 10.\n\n1968: Dream denied\n\n• Date: April 4\n\n• Location: Memphis, Tennessee\n\nMartin Luther King Jr. is fatally shot by James Earl Ray as the civil rights icon stands on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, a tragedy that sparks race riots nationwide. King's influence in words and actions touch and move not only the nation, but the world, and resonate to this day. Two months later, on June 4, Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy and brother of John F. Kennedy, is fatally shot by Sirhan Sirhan, an Arab Christian from Jerusalem, who believes Kennedy is \"instrumental\" in oppressing Palestinians.\n\n1969: Landing on the moon\n\n• Date: July 20\n\n• Location: Merritt Island, Florida\n\nPresident Kennedy's goal of a manned lunar landing before 1970 is realized six years after his assassination. Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins blast off from the Kennedy Space Center at 9:32 a.m. aboard the Saturn V rocket. After three days of travel, Armstrong and Aldrin land the Eagle module on the lunar surface as Collins remains in lunar orbit to pilot the module. Upon their return to Earth, the three astronauts are put in 21-day quarantine to ensure they do not bring back any lunar contagions.\n\n1970: Vietnam War turns to Cambodia\n\n• Date: April 29\n\n• Location: Eastern Cambodia\n\nAlthough the United States should be scaling back U.S. troop presence in Vietnam, President Richard Nixon approves an operation with the South Vietnamese to invade Cambodia to oust Northern Vietnamese forces there. The Cambodian incursion inflames anti-war protests in the United States as it is perceived to be an escalation of U.S. military involvement in Southeast Asia.\n\n1971: Pentagon Papers\n\n• Date: Feb. 8\n\n• Location: Laos\n\nThe Pentagon Papers, a study by the U.S. Department of Defense about the country's involvement in the Vietnam War, are released and published first in The New York Times, then other newspapers. The documents expose several missteps and how several administrations have misled the American public regarding the war in Vietnam. They also reveal an expanded campaign in Cambodia and Laos, especially clandestine bombing in Laos, which today is considered the heaviest bombardment in history.\n\n1972: Nixon goes to China\n\n• Date: Feb. 21\n\n• Location: Beijing\n\nNixon, a virulent anti-communist earlier in his political career, surprises the American public by traveling to Beijing for a week of talks in a historic first step toward normalizing relations between the United States and the People's Republic of China. Until this trip, the United States and communist China were de facto enemies, fighting proxy wars in the Korean Peninsula in the 1950s and South Vietnam at the time of Nixon's visit.\n\n1973: Roe vs. Wade\n\n• Date: Jan. 22\n\n• Location: Washington D.C.\n\nIn a landmark 7-2 decision that will be known as Roe vs. Wade, the Supreme Court rules that under the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment, states cannot completely bar a woman's decision to terminate her pregnancy. However, the court adds that as the pregnancy develops, the state can balance a woman's right to privacy with its interest in preserving the \"potentiality of human life.\" As a result, states can ban abortion in the third trimester except in cases where a pregnancy affects a woman's health.\n\n1974: Nixon resigns\n\n• Date: Aug. 8\n\n• Location: Washington, D.C.\n\nPresident Richard Nixon announces his resignation amid impeachment proceedings stemming from the Watergate scandal and his administration's attempt resist a congressional investigation. The scandal exposes abuses of power by the White House after five burglars were busted breaking in to the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C. Nixon becomes the only president in U.S. history to resign.\n\n1975: Saigon falls\n\n• Date: April 30\n\n• Location: South Vietnam\n\nTwo years after the last American troops leave Vietnam, communist troops from North Vietnam capture Saigon, ending nearly two decades of relentless war in the rice paddies and jungles of that Southeast Asian nation. The final tally of war dead for the United States is 58,220.\n\n1976: The Concorde changes air travel\n\n• Date: Jan. 21\n\n• Location: London and Paris\n\nTwo supersonic Concorde jets take off simultaneously – one from London to Bahrain, operated by British Airways, and the other from Paris to Rio de Janeiro via Dakar in Senegal, operated by Air France – marking the first time paying passengers enjoy commercial travel at faster than the speed of sound. Though travel by one of the 16 Concordes ever put into service could slash travel time from New York to London in half, the high cost of maintenance, soaring ticket prices, as well as a fatal accident in 2000, sealed the fate of the narrow, slope-nosed aircraft.\n\n1977: Rise of the personal computer\n\n• Date: January\n\n• Location: Chicago\n\nPersonal home computers began to emerge in the 1970s, but many of the earliest versions resembled calculators that would plug into televisions sets. By 1977, however, the desktop home computer begins to resemble their more modern versions – with an accompanying attached or separate computer screen and a magnetic tape or floppy disk storage device. The Commodore PET is unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago that year, while the first Apple II and Radio Shack's TRS-80 go on sale.\n\nPolice:Postal worker gunned down while delivering mail in Louisiana\n\n1978: Cult's mass suicide\n\n• Date: Nov. 18\n\n• Location: Jonestown, Guyana\n\nMore than 900 people die in one of worst recorded acts of cult-related mass murder-suicide after most of the victims and perpetrators drink a powdered drink mix dosed with cyanide. Most of the victims are Americans, devotees of Peoples Temple cult leader Jim Jones, a former Methodist-trained preacher who built a following and led the flock to Guyana. Among the dead are 276 children who drink the poison. A small number of cult defectors are killed by Peoples Temple gunmen who also slay California congressman Leo Ryan, who had gone to Guyana to investigate Jonestown.\n\n1979: Islamic Republic born in Iran\n\n• Date: Feb. 11\n\n• Location: Tehran\n\nWorsening economic conditions, increasing discontent with the government, and wide support for religious leader in exile Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini end the reign of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. The shah and his family flee Iran in January 1979. On Feb 11, the monarchy is dissolved, and on April 1, Khomeini declares Iran an Islamic republic. With support among the nation's clergy and their many followers, he begins rebuilding Iranian society based on conservative Shiite religious principles.\n\n1980: Reagan elected\n\n• Date: Nov. 4\n\n• Location: Washington, D.C.\n\nWith the United States in an economic malaise and the Iranian hostage crisis hobbling the presidency of Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan is elected the 40th president in a landslide. Reagan, who would serve two terms, was the oldest man elected president at the time. Reagan's election changes the trajectory of American politics, ushering in an era of conservative leadership. During his tenure, he takes a more aggressive approach to the Soviet Union and increases defense spending. Reagan convinces Congress to cut taxes, a move that many economists credit with triggering an economic boom in the 1980s.\n\n1981: AIDS impacts America\n\n• Date: June 5\n\n• Location: Los Angeles\n\nThe U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention publishes a report about five gay men who had been diagnosed by local physicians with a rare form of pneumonia – the first reported U.S. cases of what would later become known as HIV/AIDS. The autoimmune disease spread so fast that by the end of the 1982, 500 Americans had died from what now the CDC called acquired immune deficiency syndrome, or AIDS. The death toll would rise to 5,000 by 1985.\n\n1982: Mexico triggers regional debt crisis\n\n• Date: Aug. 12\n\n• Location: Mexico City\n\nGlobal economic stagnation in the 1970s and early 1980s, and excessive borrowing among Latin America's biggest economies, boils over when Mexico's Finance Minister Jesús Silva-Herzog tells the U.S. Federal Reserve his country can no longer service its debt to $80 billion. After the announcement, lenders realize virtually every country in Latin America, led by Brazil, Argentina and Mexico, are not able to pay back loans. The crisis would lead to years of eroding wages, weak-to-negative economic growth, sky-high unemployment, severe austerity measures, and political instability – known as the \"lost decade\" in Latin America.\n\n1983: The internet is born\n\n• Date: Jan. 1\n\n• Location: Multiple\n\nThe internet as we know it today – a seemingly endless collection of websites hosted on servers scattered across the globe – is still more than a decade away. But at the beginning of 1983, the the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) – a small network for academics and researchers – transitions to the standard TCP/IP protocol of the World Wide Web. The protocol would become the internet's cornerstone and technical foundation as it allows expanded available address space and decentralizes the network, thus also expanding accessibility.\n\n1984: Chemicals kill thousands in India\n\n• Date: Dec. 2\n\n• Location: Bhopal, India\n\nThe chemical disaster in Bhopal is still considered history's worst industrial disaster. About 30 tons of methyl isocyanate, an industrial gas used to make pesticide, are released at a Union Carbide Corp. plant. About 600,000 poor residents of nearby shanty towns are exposed to a highly toxic compound that kills about 15,000 people and countless farm animals, according to Indian government estimates. The calamity leads to a generation of birth defects. To this day, locals claim the now-abandoned site is riddled with toxic materials left behind by Union Carbide, which was acquired by Dow Chemical in 2001.\n\n1985: Reagan, Gorbachev meet\n\n• Date: Nov. 19\n\n• Location: Geneva\n\nDespite his often bellicose criticisms of the Soviet Union, Reagan agrees to meet with his counterpart, Mikhail Gorbachev, in Geneva in the first meeting between leaders of the two Cold War foes in nearly a decade. Though the meeting yields little of substance, it starts a closer relationship between the two men who both seem committed to scaling back the nuclear arms race between the two nuclear superpowers.\n\n1986: Shuttle tragedy\n\n• Date: Jan. 28\n\n• Location: Off the coast of Florida\n\nThe 25th mission of the U.S. space shuttle program ends with the tragic loss of seven astronauts as space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after takeoff from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Among those killed are Christa McAuliffe, who would have been the first teacher in space. The failure is later identified as a problem with the so-called O-rings used to form a seal in the seams of the shuttle's external fuel tanks.\n\n1987: Stock market tanks\n\n• Date: Oct. 19\n\n• Location: Worldwide\n\nOct. 19, 1987, is called Black Monday because on that day the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunges 508 points, or more than 22%. The drop is worse than the crash in 1929. It is also worse than the market plunge after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the 2008 financial crisis. Among the reasons cited for the drop are rising tensions in the Persian Gulf, concern over higher interest rates and the belief that the bull market is ending. Computerized trading, relatively new at the time, accelerates trade orders, which speeds up the market drop. As a result of the collapse, exchanges put in place so-called circuit breakers intended to halt trading when stocks fall too fast. This measure is designed to provide investors a cooling off period and avoid a panic.\n\nThe 50 hottest cities in America:Phoenix tops the list\n\n1988: When the U.S. armed Iran\n\n• Date: March 16\n\n• Location: Washington, D.C.\n\nLt. Col. Oliver North and Vice Adm. John Poindexter are indicted on charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States for their involvement in the so-called Iran-Contra affair. The scandal involved members of the Reagan administration who illegally sold arms to Iran to help facilitate the release of American hostages, and then transfer the proceeds of the sale to fund the Nicaraguan contras, a loose affiliation of right-wing militias. North is convicted, but his conviction is vacated and reversed, while Poindexter's convictions are also reversed on appeal.\n\n1989: The Berlin Wall falls\n\n• Date: Nov. 9\n\n• Location: Berlin, East and West Germany\n\nCracks in the monolithic Soviet bloc are starting to appear in the 1980s, and the very symbol of communist repression comes crashing down in November, when the Berlin Wall is breached, ending a 28-year division of the city. During the day on Nov. 9, a spokesman for East Berlin's Communist Party says starting at midnight that day, citizens of East Germany are free to cross the country's borders. Almost immediately Berliners start slamming the wall with axes and sledgehammers. By nightfall, the celebration turns into what one observer calls \"the greatest street party in the history of the world\" and the city is reunited. East and West Germany would reunite one year later.\n\n1990: Democracy in Poland\n\n• Date: Jan. 28\n\n• Location: Poland\n\nWith the hold of the Soviet Union and communism on East Europe loosening, Poland's ruling communist party votes to dissolve and become more moderate. In the following elections, Lech Wałęsa, leader of the Solidarity Movement and the 1983 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, wins the election and becomes president.\n\n1991: America goes to war in Middle East\n\n• Date: Jan. 17\n\n• Location: Saudi Arabia and Kuwait\n\nAfter Saddam Hussein's Iraq invades and occupies Kuwait on Aug. 2, 1990, the United States sends forces to defend neighboring Saudi Arabia from being overrun and to protect its vital oil assets in Operation Desert Shield. With Saudi Arabia secured, U.S. implements Operation Desert Storm to push Iraqi forces back across the border with Kuwait in a military operation that lasts until a ceasefire takes effect in April.\n\n1992: Cold War ends\n\n• Date: Feb. 1\n\n• Location: Camp David Maryland\n\nJust weeks after the dissolution of the Soviet Union on Dec. 26, 1991, President George H.W. Bush and his Russian counterpart, Boris Yeltsin, meet at Camp David to formally declare the end of the Cold War that began shortly after the end of World War II. The meeting comes days after both countries announce they would stop aiming nuclear missiles at each other. Russia declares its 11 former communist satellite republics – from Armenia to Uzbekistan – independent.\n\n1993: The EU becomes reality\n\n• Date: Nov. 1\n\n• Location: Brussels\n\nThe Treaty of the European Union, also known as the Maastricht Treaty, goes into effect in November, after a rough series of political wrangling that, among other concessions, allows the U.K. and Denmark to opt out of the common euro currency. The treaty opens the way to removing border controls among member states and invites new members to join the union.\n\n1994: Amazon.com is born\n\n• Date: July 5\n\n• Location: Seattle\n\nWith an initial aim of becoming an online bookstore, Jeff Bezos and a handful of angel investors launch Amazon.com, just as e-commerce is about to take off . Twenty-four years later, after expanding from books to the so-called \"Everything Store\" and growing a business selling cloud services to companies like Netflix and Instagram, Bezos has become the world's richest man. Amazon.com, meanwhile is racing with Apple to become the world's first trillion-dollar American company.\n\n1995: Domestic terror strikes Oklahoma\n\n• Date: April 19\n\n• Location: Oklahoma City\n\nIn the deadliest domestic terrorist attack in U.S. history, anti-government radicals Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols bomb the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. They time the truck-bomb attack for a weekday morning in order to maximize casualties. For the murder of at least 168 people, including 19 children who were in a child care center in the building, and the injury of hundreds of others, an unremorseful McVeigh is executed by lethal injection on June 11, 2001. Nichols is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.\n\n1996: The dawn of cloning\n\n• Date: July 5\n\n• Location: Midlothian, Scotland, U.K.\n\nDolly the Sheep enters the annals of bioengineering when scientists at Scotland's Roslin Institute become the first to not only successfully clone a mammal, but also the first to do so using an adult cell rather than an embryonic one. After 277 so-called cell fusions that created 29 embryos, the teams managed to turn an udder cell into a nearly complete biological carbon copy of the sheep from which it came.\n\n1997: Machine tops chess champ\n\n• Date: May 11\n\n• Location: New York City\n\nArtificial intelligence and machine learning have been serious areas of study (and hype) for over 60 years. In 1997, one of the most significant victories for silicon logic came when IBM's Deep Blue became the first machine to beat a world chess champion. The the refrigerator-sized computer beat Garry Kasparov twice and tied him three times in a six-game match.\n\n1998: The age of Google begins\n\n• Date: Sept. 4\n\n• Location: Menlo Park, California\n\nWith seed money from Sun Microsystems co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, among others, Stanford University Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin launch the search engine Google. The digital advertising behemoth Google Inc., now Alphabet Inc., is an $854 billion company with several subsidiaries, including YouTube, autonomous-car development company Waymo and X, the company's research and development division.\n\n1999: NATO's first independent strike\n\n• Date: March 24\n\n• Location: Federal Republic of Yugoslavia\n\nIn order to get Yugoslav forces out of Kosovo during the Kosovo War, NATO forces initiate their first-ever military campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (now Montenegro and Serbia) without U.N. Security Council authorization as Russia and China oppose the attack. The NATO airstrikes are aimed at stopping an onslaught against ethnic Albanians by the government of Slobodan Milošević. The NATO attacks last nearly three months, culminating in the withdrawal of Yugoslav forces from Kosovo.\n\nWant to make money? Buy whisky\n\n2000: International Space Station opens\n\n• Date: Nov. 2\n\n• Location: Low Earth orbit\n\nCommanders Bill Shepherd from the United States and Yuri Gidzenko of Russia, along with Russian flight engineer Sergei Krikalev become the first temporary residents of the International Space Station two years after the first component of the research center was put into low-Earth orbit about 250 miles above sea level. Since that first crew, there have been 229 other visitors to the ISS,some of them multiple times, led by 146 from the United States and 47 from Russia.\n\n2001: 9/11\n\n• Date: Sept. 11\n\n• Location: Multiple\n\nIn the worst attack on U.S. soil since the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, 19 hijackers inspired by Islamist extremism kill nearly 3,000 people after crashing two passenger-laden commercial aircraft into the World Trade Center towers in lower Manhattan and one into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. A fourth plane, United Airlines Flight 93, crashes in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, after passengers and crew attempt to regain control of the plane headed toward Washington, D.C.\n\n2002: Homeland Security\n\n• Date: Nov. 25\n\n• Location: Washington, D.C.\n\nFollowing the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Congress and President George W. Bush enact the Homeland Security Act, the biggest government reorganization of national security efforts since the Department of Defense was created in 1947. The sweeping legislation creates the massive Department of Homeland Security, which is responsible for everything from protecting infrastructure from cyberattacks to managing the new U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.\n\n2003: U.S. crushes Iraq\n\n• Date: March 19\n\n• Location: Iraq\n\nWith the help of British and other allied forces, the United States begins its invasion of Iraq with a rapid bombing \"Shock and Awe\" campaign with the intention of destroying Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction; the weapons are never found. Coalition forces manage to quickly topple the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein, but have to fight insurgent forces for years afterward.\n\n2004: Facebook founded\n\n• Date: Feb. 4\n\n• Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts\n\nMark Zuckerberg, a 23-year-old Harvard University student, creates \"The facebook,\" a local social networking site named after the orientation materials that profiles students and faculty and given to incoming college freshmen. Fourteen years later, Facebook has become a $510 billion digital advertising behemoth so integral to many people's lives that it has been criticized for helping foreign powers and propagandists influence the U.S. political system.\n\n2005: Katrina overwhelms New Orleans\n\n• Date: Aug. 29\n\n• Location: U.S. Gulf Coast\n\nAfter spending four days in the Gulf of Mexico bulking up to a Category 5 hurricane, Katrina slams into New Orleans, inundating the city and creating a humanitarian crisis that lasts for weeks. The catastrophe underscores the precarious situation not only in the Big Easy but also the surrounding area of the Gulf Coast. At least 1,833 people in the storm's path are killed, and the storm inflicts $161 billion in damages to the region, the costliest storm in U.S. history.\n\n2006: Hussein executed\n\n• Date: Dec. 30\n\n• Location: Baghdad\n\nThree years after U.S. soldiers pulled him from a hole in the ground where he had been hiding, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is hanged after he was convicted for crimes against humanity, specifically for ordering the massacre of 148 Shiites in 1982 following a failed assassination attempt against him.\n\n2007: The iPhone\n\n• Date: Jan. 9\n\n• Location: San Francisco\n\nApple CEO Steve Jobs, who died in October 2011, first shows the world one of the most popular branded consumer electronic devices in history, the iPhone. Since the first-generation phone that Jobs introduced at the Consumer Electronics Show that year, there have been 18 versions of the mobile device, and more than 1.2 billion units have been sold globally through 2017. Only Samsung's Galaxy smartphone comes close to that volume.\n\n2008: Dow plunges\n\n• Date: Sept. 29\n\n• Location: New York City\n\nThe Dow Jones Industrial Average records the largest-ever intraday drop, 777.68 points, after Congress rejects a massive $700 billion bailout of U.S. banks. The bill would pass days later. The market reacts also to months of global market turmoil amid the 2008 global financial crisis spurred by the U.S. subprime mortgage market crash. The Dow fell by more than half during the 2007-09 Great Recession, tumbling from 14,164 on Oct. 9, 2007, to 6,594 on March 5, 2009.\n\n2009: America's first African-American president\n\n• Date: Jan. 20\n\n• Location: Washington, D.C.\n\nAfter winning in a landslide against Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, amassing in 365 electoral votes and 53% of the popular vote, Barack Obama is sworn in as the first African-American president of the United States. Obama inherits the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, but with his party holding majorities in both houses of Congress at the time, the president is able to pass a stimulus package and his signature Affordable Care Act in March 2010.\n\nCalifornia home to 17 of them:America’s 25 least affordable housing markets\n\n2010: Catastrophic oil spill\n\n• Date: April 20\n\n• Location: Gulf of Mexico, Louisiana\n\nEleven workers die and 17 are injured after an explosion and fire erupts on the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig 40 miles from the Louisiana coast. The explosion causes the largest environmental disaster in U.S. history, spewing 3 million barrels of crude over the three months it takes to stop the leak. British oil company BP says costs climbed to $65 billion in claims for the accident, including a $1.7 billion charge it took as recently as the fourth quarter of 2017.\n\n2011: Bin Laden killed\n\n• Date: May 2\n\n• Location: Abbottabad, Pakistan\n\nIn an intense 40-minute nighttime firefight, 25 U.S. Navy SEALs hunt down and kill al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, in a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Within hours, bin Laden's body is identified using DNA and then buried in the Arabian Sea.\n\n2012: The \"God Particle\" is (probably) discovered\n\n• Date: July 4\n\n• Location: Near Geneva\n\nNearly 600 feet below the France-Switzerland border at CERN's Large Hadron Collider Facility, an international team of scientists discovers a new particle widely believed to be the elusive Higgs boson, known as the \"God Particle,\" which is thought to be a fundamental component of the universe. Higgs boson has been an important element of particle physics theory for decades, but until 2012 there had been no physical evidence to support its existence.\n\n2013: Snowden reveals secrets\n\n• Date: June 6\n\n• Location: Hong Kong\n\nAfter surreptitiously leaving his job at U.S. National Security Agency contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, computer security consultant Edward Snowden meets secretly in Hong Kong with journalists Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras. He reveals the first of a series of secrets about numerous U.S. and European government surveillance operations. Hailed as a courageous whistleblower and privacy champion by some, and a traitor that compromised counterterrorism efforts by others, the American now resides in exile in Moscow.\n\n2014: Russian bear bites Ukraine\n\n• Date: March 16\n\n• Location: Crimea\n\nExploiting political unrest in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin orchestrates the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula. The action incites peals of condemnation from world leaders and a raft of economic sanctions against Moscow. This strategically important and predominantly Russian-speaking region on the Black Sea has been coveted by the Russians as part of their strategic efforts to check NATO expansion along Russia's western border.\n\n2015: NASA flies by Pluto\n\n• Date: July 14\n\n• Location: 3 billion miles from Earth\n\nNASA spacecraft New Horizons becomes the first human-made object to fly past and observe the dwarf planet Pluto. New Horizons sends back stunning photographs of this enigmatic and distant member of the solar system, including images of a mountain range and massive icebergs floating in frozen nitrogen. New Horizons is now en route to the Kuiper Belt, a massive asteroid belt at the far reaches of the solar system.\n\n2016: Trump elected\n\n• Date: Nov. 8\n\n• Location: U.S.\n\nRunning on a populist agenda, Donald Trump is elected the 45th president of the United States and the fifth president in U.S. history (the second since the 2000) to win despite losing the popular vote. The real estate developer and television personality ran on a platform of putting \"America First\" in global trade and foreign policy negotiations and cracking down on undocumented immigrants.\n\n2017: Hurricane triple-whammy\n\n• Date: August-September\n\n• Location: Multiple\n\nWithin just four weeks, three massive hurricanes – Harvey, Irma and Maria – strike Texas, Florida and the Caribbean, killing 228 people, inflicting a combined $265 billion in damages and displacing millions of homeowners. Hurricane Maria inflicts immense damage to the U.S. commonwealth of Puerto Rico, which was already struggling from economic insolvency.\n\nDetailed findings & methodology\n\nThere is little doubt that in the last 100 years, mankind has progressed dramatically. People live longer, eat better, have greater access to improved medical care and are freer to express their opinions and associate with whomever they want.\n\nThat optimism can be seen in population growth. Despite the two most devastating wars in human history, the world population has nearly tripled, from 1.9 billion to 7.5 billion, since 1917.\n\nOne hundred years is an eye blink in history, yet 100 years ago, women did not have the right to vote in the United States. African-Americans were prevented from voting in the American South. Labor unions were in their infancy and were weak, and laws reforming child labor had yet to be passed by Congress. All that changed because of women’s suffrage, the inexorable march of civil rights and the strengthening labor unions.\n\nOne hundred years ago, a person anywhere in the world was more likely than not to be illiterate. And there was a good chance he or she was the subject of colonial rulers in South America, Africa and Asia. Two world wars would spell the end of imperial houses in Austria-Hungary, Germany and Russia, and weaken the grip of another, Great Britain. Independence movements sprouted in Europe, Africa and Asia, yearning for freedom and expressing national pride.\n\nNationalism had its dark side, though, with fascist governments ruling Italy and Germany. It would take a world war to remove their scourge. Another form of totalitarianism, communism, would dominate the USSR and Eastern Europe for several generations, as well as China and other countries in Asia, before the West would triumph over the Soviet Union and its allies in the Cold War.\n\nSpeaking of the Cold War, that conflict launched the space race and accelerated technological progress, hastening the use of personal computers and cell phones. These inventions have fundamentally changed our lives – from the way we communicate to the way we shop and socialize – and made billions of dollars for the companies that make them and their founders. These products and innovations are a major part of the culture today.\n\nTo determine the most important event the year you were born, 24/7 Wall St. drew on research materials and media sources to compile its list. Deciding the most important event in a given year by its nature is a subjective exercise. In reaching our decisions, we chose the event that had the most far-reaching impact and was not necessarily the most famous event in a given year.\n\n24/7 Wall Street is a USA TODAY content partner offering financial news and commentary. Its content is produced independently of USA TODAY.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2019/06/24"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/dining/wine/2016/02/02/winemaker-new-arizona-wine-group-divisive/79700918/", "title": "Winemaker: New Arizona wine group 'divisive'", "text": "Richard Ruelas\n\nThe Republic | azcentral.com\n\nA newly formed Arizona wine group that aims to help consumers by touting quality wines will also have to sell itself to Arizona’s winemakers, as one of the leading makers on Tuesday called the Arizona Vignerons Alliance “divisive.”\n\nThe group, made public Monday, asks winemakers to voluntarily submit their bottles for tastings and lab analysis. If the wines meet certain standards and are proven, through an audit, to come exclusively from Arizona vineyards, the wines can display the Arizona Vignerons Alliance logo on the label.\n\nBut Eric Glomski, owner of Page Springs Cellars, one of the state’s largest and most decorated wineries, said he did not plan to submit his bottles to the group.\n\n“It doesn’t sound like a leadership role,” Glomski said. “It does seem like it’s divisive.”\n\nGlomski, one of only two Arizona winemakers to have a bottle awarded 90 points (out of a possible 100) by Wine Spectator, said he worried that the AVA risks “bifurcating our whole industry.” Glomski said he has received several calls from other winemakers since the group was announced Monday. Those winemakers, he said, consistently used the word “elite” to describe the new group.\n\nNew Arizona wine group promotes local quality\n\nGlomski said he is not against having high standards for wine. “If somebody wants to uphold a group of ideals for themselves, that’s wonderful,” he said. “But, just go do it.”\n\nTodd Bostock, co-owner of Dos Cabezas WineWorks in Sonoita, and one of the founding directors of the AVA, said Tuesday he knows his group will have to gain the trust of the state’s winemakers.\n\nHe said details of how winemakers submit their wines for certification would be forthcoming, some as soon as an event that will launch the group. An evening reception is planned for the Farm at South Mountain on March 11.\n\nBostock said submitted wines will be tasted blind by a group of outside experts, though, he said, the panel would likely include some of the founding members of the AVA.\n\nHe said that while the group used the word “audit” on its website to describe the submission process, that audit will not extend to financial information.\n\n“It’s just, 'You say you have a vineyard in Willcox,' ” Bostock said. “Do you really have a vineyard in Willcox?”\n\nBesides Bostock and his wife, Kelly, the founding members include Lisa and Kent Callaghan of Callaghan Vineyards in Elgin, Sarah and Rob Hammelman of Sand-Reckoner Vineyards in Willcox and Jennifer and Maynard James Keenan of Caduceus Cellars in Jerome.\n\nNone of the founding members have the right to place the logo on their bottles, Bostock said, because none have gone through the certification process. Bostock said he expected the first certifications to begin this summer.\n\n“The whole goal is to help the whole place work on quality,” he said. “We’re holding our own feet to the fire. We’re trying to push everybody, including ourselves.”\n\nGlomski had been business partners with Keenan in Arizona Stronghold, a winery the pair turned into a nationally distributed brand, before the partnership split in 2014. He said Tuesday the ultimate judge of quality wine should be the consumer.\n\n“I don’t need Maynard Keenan or Kent Callaghan to tell me whether my wine is quality or not,” he said. “The person buying and drinking that bottle is the one who needs to decide.”\n\nMap guide to Arizona wineries, wine-tasting rooms\n\nBostock said the certification is a tool that will help enhance and protect the state’s reputation. He said it will also help the consumer standing at a grocery store shelf looking at an array of Arizona wines.\n\n“You see that bottle that says it’s from Arizona and you know nothing about it,” he said. “Wouldn’t it be helpful before you spend 30 or 40 bucks to at least know something about what that wine is about?\"\n\nBostock said rather than being divisive, he hopes the certification program is embraced and becomes inclusive. He said the group is designing the certification fee to be minimal, aiming to have it be the lowest line item that would go into producing a bottle of wine.\n\nBostock said his vision is that all the wineries in the state would carry the AVA seal. “That’s the hope,” he said. “The hope is we see as many as possible.”", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2016/02/02"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2016/07/14/5-questions-winery-leader-bill-oliver/87060990/", "title": "5 questions with winery leader Bill Oliver", "text": "Amy Lynch\n\nFor Bill Oliver, the business of winemaking is a family affair.\n\nBill’s father, a law professor at Indiana University, fell in love with winemaking as a hobby and launched Oliver Winery in 1972. Bill took charge as president in 1983; his wife, Kathleen, joined the team as general manager in 1993.\n\nUnder Oliver’s direction, the oldest and largest winery in Indiana produces more than 360,000 cases annually in a diverse portfolio of products. This year, Oliver was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Eastern Winery Exposition in Lancaster, Pa. He recently transitioned into the role of CEO to make way for the winery’s new president, Julie Adams. In turn, he plans to focus on team building, capital projects and the creation of a new facility that will triple the winery’s production capacity.\n\n“New products are another priority for me, as our growth depends on having great new wines that resonate with consumers,” he said. “My background is mostly from the winemaking side of our business, so I’m frequently showing up in the winemaking offices tasting and collaborating with the winemaking team.”\n\nAlthough Oliver’s Soft Red and Soft White remain favorites among Hoosier wine drinkers, he said it’s a mistake to generalize about the characteristics of Indiana wines.\n\n“We make classic vinifera wines from our own grapes that would stand up against any California wine, but the world is awash in great vinifera wines such as Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon,” he said. “We’ve found a growth opportunity in unique wines with solid appeal. Some of those are dry; some are sweet.”\n\nOliver also is quick to point out just how much Indiana’s booming wine industry has evolved over the past few decades.\n\n“The wine has gotten a lot better, for sure,” he said. “There’s a higher level of business savviness as well. Social media has been a great thing for smaller wineries, giving them a platform to build a brand and build relationships.”\n\nAs to the wine industry’s future in Indiana, Oliver predicts we’ll see continued quality improvements and increased sales.\n\n“I believe consumers want to buy from businesses that not only offer a great product, but that also offer a personal relationship,” he said. “Indiana wineries are real businesses operated by people you can meet in person simply by visiting their tasting rooms. We sit on the genuine side of the spectrum, and that speaks to consumers who want authenticity.”\n\nQuestion: What does the word “leader” mean to you?\n\nAnswer:Leadership is about creating a vision and getting others on board to collectively work toward achieving that vision. Good leaders inspire and bring the best out of others.\n\nQ: What are your biggest successes you’ve had on the job?\n\nA:Building one of the largest wineries in the eastern U.S. — and doing so with my wife as my primary business partner — has been my biggest achievement. I’m very proud of the team we’ve built across winery functions — winemaking, sales, marketing and hospitality. We have the best crew of hardworking and dedicated people that we’ve ever had. Our employees are simply good people and make coming to work loads of fun.\n\nTen years ago, we transitioned Oliver Winery to 100 percent employee ownership through an Employee Stock Ownership Plan. Employees are incentivized by sharing in the company’s successes, and this is a model that has contributed to our success.\n\nQ: If you weren’t involved in wine, what would you be doing?\n\nA:That’s actually a question I ponder on occasion. My other love is aviation. I can see myself as a commercial pilot, but probably not for airlines. I’m more of an Alaskan Bush pilot kind of guy. Or perhaps running a school teaching aerobatics, and showing up in the air-show circuit.\n\nQ: Do you have a business philosophy you try to follow?\n\nA:My business philosophy is fundamentally the four operating principles of Oliver Winery — respect people, expect quality, think differently and get stuff done.\n\nQ: What is the best piece of career advice you’ve ever received?\n\nA: Unquestionably, it would be to never give up. You need tough skin, patience and perseverance to succeed in any business.\n\nMore about Bill Oliver\n\nJob title: CEO of Oliver Winery.\n\nEducation: MBA from Indiana University, 1993.\n\nPrior employment: Commercial balloon pilot and instructor.\n\nFamily: Wife, Kathleen; three sons.\n\nFavorite pastimes: Wilderness travel, skiing, bicycling, aviation and cooking.\n\nFavorite musical artists: Jimmy Buffett, Bonnie Raitt, Aaron Neville, Pentatonix.\n\nFavorite quote: “We’re free to live average lives on average decisions. We’re free to custom build our lives with unusual choices on wild creative decisions. We can do all of these, if we want, in one lifetime. Who’s to stop us?” — Richard Bach", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2016/07/14"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/01/14/the-biggest-news-story-every-year-since-1950/40987857/", "title": "Trump, wars, civil rights, tech advances: Top news stories since 1950", "text": "John Harrington and Grant Suneson\n\n24/7 Wall Street\n\nEach year there are major news events that capture the world’s attention. These stories range from massive conflicts or catastrophes that leave thousands dead or stranded to technological developments and supreme court decisions that completely change our daily lives.\n\n24/7 Wall St. reviewed the biggest news stories in each year since 1950. The event we chose for a given year wasn’t always the most talked-about story when it occurred, but each one in retrospect proved to have the biggest impact on history.\n\nMajor milestones in civil rights, wars and conflicts, and breakthroughs in science and medicine stand out in news coverage over this time period. As technology evolved, modifying and innovating our lives in ways never dreamed of, progressive ideas also found footing and changed the world. Women, African Americans, and the LGBTQ community demanded, and often won, equal rights – from the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the legalization of same-sex marriage. Here are the most important human rights milestones since 2000.\n\nIncreasingly, major news events in recent years include severe weather events and other catastrophes tied to global climate change. Devastating changes to our climate now endanger the ecosystems of our planet. In the coming years, natural disasters will have an increasingly large role on the course of history. Here are 26 disaster scenarios caused by climate change.\n\nDangerous states:Which states have the highest rates of violent crime and most murders?\n\nStock market:Investors could still be in for a bumpy ride in 2020\n\n1950: Korean War starts\n\n• Date: June 25\n\n• Location: Korea\n\nThe North Korean People’s Army crosses the 38th parallel into South Korea, eliciting an almost immediate response from U.S. President Harry Truman and marking the beginning of the Korean War – a proxy battle between the United States and the People’s Republic of China. The parties would agree to a ceasefire three years later. The uneasy relations between North Korea and South Korea last to this day.\n\n1951: Rosenbergs sentenced\n\n• Date: March 29\n\n• Location: New York City\n\nHusband and wife Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are convicted of espionage for their part in passing along atomic secrets to the Soviet Union during and after World War II. They are executed two years later. Not everyone is convinced of their involvement in the scheme. Supporters claim they are scapegoats swept up in the Cold War hysteria of the time. Documents would reveal decades later the extent of Julius Rosenberg’s involvement in the spy ring, though Ethel’s participation in the scheme remains inconclusive.\n\n1952: First hydrogen bomb test\n\n• Date: Nov. 1\n\n• Location: Marshall Islands\n\nThe United States successfully detonates its first hydrogen bomb, a second-generation thermonuclear device. The detonation in the Marshall Islands is part of Operation Ivy, one of a series of nuclear bomb tests. From 1946 to 1958, the United States used the remote Pacific Marshall Islands as its nuclear weapons testing site, conducting a total of 67 nuclear tests.\n\n1953: The dawn of DNA\n\n• Date: Feb. 28\n\n• Location: Cambridge, England, U.K.\n\nCambridge University scientists James Watson and Francis Crick announce they have discovered the double-helix structure of DNA. Though scientists had been aware of DNA since the 1860s and of its role in genetic inheritance since 1943, Watson and Crick were the first to explain how DNA works to replicate itself and pass on genes from one generation to the next.\n\n1954: Brown v. Board of Education\n\n• Date: May 17\n\n• Location: Washington D.C.\n\nIn a landmark case involving Linda Brown of Topeka, Kansas, who had to cross a railroad track to reach an all-black elementary school even though an all-white school was closer, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that the segregated school system is unconstitutional on the basis of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. The clause would be used again by the courts to reverse state-level racial segregation practices and ordinances.\n\n1955: Parks starts a movement\n\n• Date: Dec. 1\n\n• Location: Montgomery, Alabama\n\nRosa Parks makes history by refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery bus. Her arrest for insisting to remain seated leads to the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the ascent of a young pastor named Martin Luther King, Jr., as a local activist leader working to advance the civil rights cause. A successful federal lawsuit by the NAACP against the city leads to the desegregation of the Montgomery bus system on Dec. 21 of the following year.\n\n1956: Hungary suppressed\n\n• Date: Nov. 4\n\n• Location: Budapest\n\nNine years after the start of the Cold War, Hungarians take to the streets, demanding democratic reforms. Three days later, Soviet Red Army troops invade Hungary, killing thousands. Nine days after the incursion, Soviet troops occupy Budapest in one of the largest and most aggressive actions taken by the Soviet Union since the end of World War II.\n\n1957: The Little Rock Nine\n\n• Date: Sept 24\n\n• Location: Little Rock, Arkansas\n\nU.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower orders federal troops to protect nine African American high school students as they start classes at the all-white Little Rock Central High School. This would become one of the first high-profile actions the federal government would take against state-level racial segregation.\n\n1958: US launches first satellite\n\n• Date: Jan. 31\n\n• Location: Cape Canaveral, Florida\n\nThe United States successfully launches Explorer 1, three months after the Soviet Union sends its first satellite, Sputnik, into orbit. The two superpowers would go on to send more satellites into space, creating a Cold War space race to build ever more sophisticated orbital communications devices and to achieve spaceflight capabilities and generally space superiority.\n\n1959: Castro takes over Cuba\n\n• Date: Jan. 1\n\n• Location: Havana\n\nU.S.-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista flees Havana as Fidel Castro’s forces advance on the Cuban capital. Days later, rebels led by Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos enter the city, followed two days later by Castro’s forces. Castro quickly consolidates power in Cuba, establishing a communist government in the Caribbean’s largest country.\n\n1960: Lunch counter sit-in\n\n• Date: Feb. 1\n\n• Location: Greensboro, North Carolina\n\nWhen four African American college students – Ezell A. Blair, Franklin E. McCain, Joseph A. McNeil, and David L. Richmond – sit down at a Woolworth’s lunch counter and ask for service, they are denied. The young men refuse to give up their seats, their sit-in leading to a larger six-month protest that results in the desegregation of the lunch counter by that summer and many other restaurants across the south.\n\n1961: Berlin Wall built\n\n• Date: Aug. 13\n\n• Location: Berlin, East and West Germany\n\nBy the late summer of 1961, the loss of skilled workers such as teachers, engineers, and doctors to the West reaches crisis levels in East Germany. On Aug. 12, 2,400 East Germans cross into West Berlin, the most in a single day. The next day, with the approval of Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, East Germany begins building a wall that would extend 27 miles through Berlin, dividing families and friends for the next 28 years. The wall would serve as an enduring symbol of the Cold War, used by presidents John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan to inspire a divided city.\n\n1962: Cuban missile crisis\n\n• Date: Oct.16-28\n\n• Location: Multiple\n\nWhen the United States learns that the Soviet Union is building nuclear missile installations 90 miles south of Miami in communist Cuba, the Kennedy administration enacts a naval blockade around the island, which is at times tested, to demand the removal of the missiles. The standoff is widely considered to be the closest the two nuclear superpowers come to direct military confrontation. Cooler heads prevail. The Soviet Union offers to remove the missiles in exchange for a guarantee that the United States will not invade Cuba. In secret, the administration also agrees to withdraw U.S. missiles from Turkey.\n\n1963: JFK assassinated\n\n• Date: Nov. 22\n\n• Location: Dallas\n\nAs John F. Kennedy prepares for his re-election bid, the 34th president of the United States embarks on a multi-state tour in September 1963. He is murdered by a sharpshooter’s bullet fired by Lee Harvey Oswald at about 12:30 p.m. as his motorcade passed through Dealey Plaza in Dallas. Oswald himself is murdered two days later by nightclub owner Jack Ruby.\n\n1964: LBJ's \"War on Poverty\"\n\n• Date: Jan. 8\n\n• Location: Washington D.C.\n\nPresident Lyndon B. Johnson struggles to shift focus away from the Vietnam War and on his stated goals of reducing poverty, ending segregation, and establishing the social programs that many Americans rely on to this day, including the immensely popular Medicare program. During his “War on Poverty” State of the Union Address of Jan. 8, 1964, LBJ outlines the need for the country to reduce poverty, end racial discrimination, attend to the health needs of the elderly, and other progressive goals. LBJ later ushers in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Social Security Amendments of 1965.\n\n1965: Selma to Montgomery march\n\n• Date: March 7\n\n• Location: Selma, Alabama\n\nThe fatal shooting of protester Jimmy Lee Jackson by an Alabama state trooper sparks a march in the state from Selma to Montgomery. Hundreds of civil rights activists march in what becomes known as “Bloody Sunday.” Police confront the marchers, led by John Lewis (who is a House Democrat from Georgia) and others. As the activists cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge, police attack the protesters with tear gas and billy clubs, hospitalizing 50.\n\nA comfortable retirement:In which states will your money will last longest or shortest?\n\nRobocalls on the rise:Which states get the most and where does yours rank?\n\n1966: Mao purges rivals\n\n• Date: Aug. 13\n\n• Location: Beijing\n\nAt the end of a weeklong session of the Communist Party Central Committee of the People’s Republic of China, Chairman Mao Zedong condemns the political elites, calling on China’s youth to rebel against the entrenched political hierarchy. It is the beginning of the decade-long Cultural Revolution that fundamentally transforms Chinese society. Intellectuals, members of the former Nationalist government, and people with ties to Western powers are persecuted, sent to re-education labor camps, or killed by factions of the Red Guards formed in the wake of Mao’s call to action.\n\n1967: Six-Day War\n\n• Date: June 5\n\n• Location: Middle East\n\nAmid escalating tensions with its neighbors, Israel launches a pre-emptive strike that destroys most of Egypt’s air force. Syria, Jordan, and Iraq also attack Israel. As the war continues, Israel takes the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, captures East Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan, and in heavy fighting seizes the Golan Heights from Syria. A ceasefire goes into effect on June 10.\n\n1968: Dream denied\n\n• Date: April 4\n\n• Location: Memphis, Tennessee\n\nRev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is fatally shot by James Earl Ray as the civil rights icon stands on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, a tragedy that sparks race riots nationwide. King’s influence in words and actions touch and move not only the nation, but the world, and resonate to this day. Two months later, on June 4, Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy and brother of John F. Kennedy, is fatally shot by Sirhan Sirhan, an Arab Christian from Jerusalem, who believes Kennedy is “instrumental” in oppressing Palestinians.\n\n1969: Landing on the moon\n\n• Date: July 20\n\n• Location: Moon\n\nPresident Kennedy’s goal of a manned lunar landing before 1970 is realized six years after his assassination. Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins blast off from the Kennedy Space Center at 9:32 a.m. aboard the Saturn V rocket. After three days of travel, Armstrong and Aldrin land the Eagle module on the lunar surface as Collins remains in lunar orbit to pilot the module. Upon their return to Earth, the three astronauts are put in 21-day quarantine to ensure they did not bring back any lunar contagions.\n\n1970: Vietnam War turns to Cambodia\n\n• Date: April 29\n\n• Location: Eastern Cambodia\n\nAlthough the United States should be scaling back U.S. troop presence in Vietnam, President Richard Nixon approves an operation with the South Vietnamese to invade Cambodia to oust Northern Vietnamese forces there. The Cambodian incursion inflames anti-war protests in the United States as it is perceived to be an escalation of U.S. military involvement in Southeast Asia.\n\n1971: Pentagon Papers\n\n• Date: Feb. 8\n\n• Location: Laos\n\nThe Pentagon Papers, a study by the U.S. Department of Defense about the country's involvement in the Vietnam war, are released and published first in The New York Times, then other newspapers. The documents expose several missteps and how several administrations have misled the American public about how involved the military was and about plans to escalate the war in 1964. They also reveal an expanded campaign in Cambodia and Laos, especially clandestine bombing in Laos, which today is considered the heaviest bombardment in history.\n\n1972: Nixon goes to China\n\n• Date: Feb. 21\n\n• Location: Beijing\n\nNixon, a virulent anti-communist earlier in his political career, surprises the American public by traveling to Beijing for a week of talks in a historic first step towards normalizing relations between the United States and the People’s Republic of China. Until this trip, the United States and communist China were de facto enemies, fighting proxy wars in the Korean Peninsula in the 1950s and South Vietnam at the time of Nixon’s visit.\n\n1973: Roe v. Wade\n\n• Date: Jan. 22\n\n• Location: Washington D.C.\n\nIn a landmark 7-2 decision that will be known as Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court rules that under the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment, abortion is a fundamental right protected by the Constitution. The court adds that as the pregnancy develops the state can balance a woman’s right to privacy with its interest in preserving the “potentiality of human life.” As a result, states can ban abortion in the third trimester except in cases where a pregnancy affects a woman’s health.\n\n1974: Nixon resigns\n\n• Date: Aug. 8\n\n• Location: Washington D.C.\n\nPresident Richard Nixon announces his resignation amid impeachment proceedings stemming from the Watergate scandal and the administration’s attempt resist a congressional investigation. The scandal exposes abuses of power by the White House after five burglars were caught breaking into the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C. Nixon becomes the only president in U.S. history to resign.\n\n1975: Saigon falls\n\n• Date: April 30\n\n• Location: South Vietnam\n\nTwo years after the last American troops left Vietnam, communist troops from North Vietnam capture Saigon, ending nearly two decades of relentless war in the rice paddies and jungles of that Southeast Asian nation. The total number of fatal casualties for the United States is 58,220.\n\n1976: The Concorde changes air travel\n\n• Date: Jan. 21\n\n• Location: London and Paris\n\nTwo supersonic Concorde jets take off simultaneously – one from London to Bahrain, operated by British Airways, and the other from Paris to Rio de Janeiro via Dakar in Senegal, operated by Air France – marking the first time paying passengers enjoy commercial travel at faster than the speed of sound. Though travel by one of the 16 Concordes ever put into service could slash travel time from New York to London in half, the high cost of maintenance, soaring ticket prices, as well as a fatal accident in 2000, would seal the fate of the narrow, slope-nosed aircraft.\n\n1977: Rise of the personal computer\n\n• Date: January\n\n• Location: Chicago\n\nPersonal home computers began to emerge in the 1970s, but many of the earliest versions resembled calculators that would plug into televisions sets. By 1977, however, the desktop home computer begins to resemble the more modern versions – with an accompanying, attached or separate, computer screen and a magnetic tape or floppy disk storage device. The Commodore PET is unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago that year, while the first Apple II and Radio Shack’s TRS-80 also go on sale.\n\n1978: Cult's mass suicide\n\n• Date: Nov. 18\n\n• Location: Jonestown, Guyana\n\nMore than 900 people die in one of worst recorded acts of cult-related mass murder-suicide as nearly all the victims and perpetrators drink a powdered drink mix laced with cyanide. Most of the victims are Americans, devotees of Peoples Temple cult leader Jim Jones, a former Methodist-trained preacher who built a following and led the flock to Guyana. Among the dead are 276 children. A small number of cult defectors are killed by Peoples Temple gunmen who also slay Leo Ryan, California Congressman who had gone to Guyana to investigate Jonestown.\n\n1979: Islamic Republic born in Iran\n\n• Date: Feb. 11\n\n• Location: Tehran\n\nWorsening economic conditions, increasing discontent with the government, and wide support for religious leader in exile Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini end the reign of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. The shah and his family flee Iran in January 1979. On Feb. 11, the monarchy is dissolved, and on April 1, Khomeini declares Iran an Islamic republic. With support among the nation’s clergy and their many followers, he begins rebuilding Iranian society based on conservative Shiite religious principles. In November, a mob raids the U.S. embassy, taking more than 60 Americans hostage. The crisis would be influential in the following year's presidential election and would not fully resolve until January 1981.\n\n1980: Reagan elected\n\n• Date: Nov. 4\n\n• Location: Washington, D.C.\n\nWith the United States in an economic malaise and the Iranian hostage crisis hobbling the presidency of Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan is elected the 40th president in a landslide. Reagan, who would serve two terms, was the oldest man elected president at the time. Reagan’s election changes the trajectory of American politics, ushering in an era of conservative leadership. During his tenure, he takes a more aggressive approach to the Soviet Union and increases defense spending. Reagan convinces Congress to cut taxes, a move that many economists credit with triggering an economic boom in the 1980s.\n\n1981: AIDS impacts America\n\n• Date: June 5\n\n• Location: Los Angeles\n\nThe U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention publishes a report about five gay men who had been diagnosed by local physicians with a rare form of pneumonia – the first reported U.S. cases of what would later become known as HIV/AIDS. The infectious autoimmune disease spreads so fast that by the end of the 1982, 500 Americans would die from what the CDC later calls acquired immune deficiency syndrome, or AIDS. The death toll would rise to 5,000 by 1985.\n\n1982: Mexico triggers regional debt crisis\n\n• Date: Aug 12\n\n• Location: Mexico City\n\nGlobal economic stagnation in the 1970s and early 1980s as well as excessive borrowing among Latin America’s biggest economies boils over when Mexico’s Finance Minister Jesús Silva-Herzog tells the U.S. Federal Reserve his country can no longer service its debt of $80 billion. After the announcement, lenders realize virtually every country in Latin America, led by Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico, is not able to pay back loans. The crisis would lead to years of eroding wages, weak to negative economic growth, sky-high unemployment, severe austerity measures, and political instability – known as the “lost decade” in Latin America.\n\n1983: The internet is born\n\n• Date: Jan. 1\n\n• Location: Multiple\n\nThe internet as we know it today – a seemingly endless collection of websites hosted on servers scattered across the globe – is still more than a decade away. At the beginning of 1983, however, the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) – a small network for academics and researchers – transitions to the standard TCP/IP protocol of the World Wide Web. The protocol would become the internet's cornerstone and technical foundation as it allows expanded available address space. The protocol also decentralizes the network, thus also expanding accessibility.\n\n1984: Chemicals kill thousands in India\n\n• Date: Dec. 2\n\n• Location: Bhopal, India\n\nThe chemical disaster in Bhopal is still considered history’s worst industrial disaster. About 30 tons of methyl isocyanate, an industrial gas used to make pesticide, are released at a Union Carbide Corp. plant. About 600,000 poor residents of nearby shanty towns are exposed to a highly toxic compound that kills about 15,000 people and countless farm animals, according to Indian government estimates. The calamity leads to a generation of birth defects. To this day, locals claim the now-abandoned site is riddled with toxic materials left behind by Union Carbide, which was acquired by Dow Chemical in 2001.\n\n1985: Reagan, Gorbachev meet\n\n• Date: Nov. 19\n\n• Location: Geneva\n\nDespite his often bellicose criticisms of the Soviet Union, Reagan agrees to meet with his counterpart, Mikhail Gorbachev, in Geneva in the first meeting between leaders of the two Cold War foes in nearly a decade. Though the meeting yields little of substance, it initiates a closer relationship between the two men, who both seem committed to scaling back the nuclear arms race between the two nuclear superpowers.\n\n1986: Chernobyl disaster\n\n• Date: Apr. 26\n\n• Location: Prypyat, Soviet Union\n\nA combination of poor design and human error leads to a power surge in a reactor in the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. This leads to a massive explosion that puts highly radioactive material into the air. Soviet officials try to cover up the incident, but Swedish scientists notice the increased levels of radioactivity. It takes a little over a week for the radioactive emissions to be contained, but by then radioactive particles had already spread thousands of miles by wind currents to countries as far away as France. A 1,600 square mile area around the plant known as the “exclusion zone” is deemed unsafe, and more than 220,000 people have to be resettled. The radiation causes deformities in nearby livestock and cancer in many people near the blast. Though exact figures are hard to come by, the UN reports years later there were over 20,000 cases of thyroid cancer in children who were in the affected areas. The Chernobyl disaster is still considered the worst nuclear power failure in history.\n\n1987: Stock market tanks\n\n• Date: Oct. 19\n\n• Location: Worldwide\n\nThe Dow Jones Industrial Average plunges 508 points, or more than 22%, on Oct. 19, 1987, later referred to as Black Monday. The drop, in percentage terms, is worse than the crash in 1929. It is also worse than the market plunge after the 9-11 terrorist attacks and the 2008 financial crisis. Among the reasons cited for the drop are rising tensions in the Persian Gulf, concern over higher interest rates, and the belief that the bull market is ending. Computerized trading, relatively new at the time, accelerates trade orders, which speeds up the market drop. As a result of the collapse, exchanges put in place so-called circuit breakers intended to halt trading when stocks fall too fast. This measure is designed to provide investors a cooling off period and avoid a panic.\n\n1988: End of fighting in Iran-Iraq war\n\n• Date: July 20\n\n• Location: Iraq-Iran border\n\nFrom 1980 to 1988, neighboring Middle East countries Iran and Iraq are engaged in a protracted war. It begins when Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein launches an attack on Iran in 1980, sensing an opportunity in the wake of the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Iraqi forces initially make incursions into Iranian land, but they lose the area gained in 1982 after Iran is able to mobilize its military and repel the Iraqi forces. Hussein seeks a peace deal that year, but Iranian leader Ruhollah Khomeini refuses. From 1982 to 1988, the fighting is characterized by sporadic missile launches, attacks on each others’ oil tankers, and the use of chemical weapons, mostly by the Iraqis. By 1988, Iran’s economy is in dire straits, forcing Iran to agree to a UN-brokered ceasefire. The two countries signed an official peace treaty in 1990. Anywhere from 500,000 to 1 million troops were killed in the war and up to 100,000 Kurds.\n\n1989: The Berlin Wall falls\n\n• Date: Nov. 9\n\n• Location: Berlin, East and West Germany\n\nCracks in the monolithic Soviet bloc are starting to appear in the 1980s, and the very symbol of communist repression comes crashing down in November, when the Berlin Wall is breached, ending a 28-year division of the city. During the day on Nov. 9, a spokesman for East Berlin’s Communist Party says that starting at midnight that day, citizens of East Germany would be free to cross the country’s borders. Almost immediately Berliners start slamming the wall with axes and sledgehammers. By nightfall, the celebration turns into what one observer calls “the greatest street party in the history of the world,” and the city is reunited. East and West Germany would reunite one year later.\n\n1990: Democracy in Poland\n\n• Date: Jan. 28\n\n• Location: Poland\n\nWith the hold of the Soviet Union and communism on East Europe loosening, Poland's ruling communist party votes to dissolve and become more moderate. In the following elections, Lech Wałęsa, leader of the Solidarity Movement and the 1983 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, wins the election and becomes president.\n\n1991: American goes to war in Middle East\n\n• Date: Jan. 17\n\n• Location: Saudi Arabia and Kuwait\n\nAfter Saddam Hussein’s Iraq invades and occupies Kuwait on Aug. 2, 1990, the United States sends forces to defend neighboring Saudi Arabia from being overrun and to protect its vital oil assets there, calling it Operation Desert Shield. With Saudi Arabia secured, the United States implements Operation Desert Storm to push Iraqi forces back across the border with Kuwait in a military operation that lasts until a ceasefire takes effect in April.\n\n1992: Cold War ends\n\n• Date: Feb. 1\n\n• Location: Camp David, Maryland\n\nJust weeks after the dissolution of the Soviet Union on Dec. 26, 1991, U.S. President George H.W. Bush and his Russian counterpart, Boris Yeltsin, meet at Camp David to formally declare the end of the Cold War that began shortly after the end of World War II. The meeting comes days after both countries announce they would stop aiming nuclear missiles at each other. Russia declares its 11 former communist satellite republics – from Armenia to Uzbekistan – independent.\n\n1993: The EU becomes reality\n\n• Date: Nov. 1\n\n• Location: Brussels\n\nThe Treaty of the European Union, also known as the Maastricht Treaty, goes into effect in November, after a rough series of political wrangling. Among other concessions, the treaty allows the U.K. and Denmark to opt out of the common euro currency. The treaty opens the way to removing border controls among member states and invites new members to join the union.\n\n1994: Rwandan genocide\n\n• Date: April-July\n\n• Location: Rwanda\n\nFor decades, Rwanda has been embroiled in a conflict between the country's two major ethnic groups – the Hutu and the Tutsi. Over 100 days, an estimated 800,000 people are killed, mostly Tutsis, but some moderate Hutus as well. When Tutsi militant group eventually gains control of the country, some two million Rwandans flee to nearby African nations. In 2008, three former Rwandan officials are convicted by an international court of organizing the genocide.\n\n1995: Domestic terror strikes Oklahoma\n\n• Date: April 19\n\n• Location: Oklahoma City\n\nIn the deadliest domestic terrorist attack in U.S. history, anti-government radicals Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols bomb the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. They time the truck-bomb attack for a weekday morning in order to maximize casualties. For the murder of at least 168 people, including 19 children who were in a child-care center in the building, and the injury of hundreds of others, an unremorseful McVeigh is executed by lethal injection on June 11, 2001. Nichols is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.\n\n'You can do better':Jeff Bezos ripped for $690K Australian wildfire relief donation\n\nCutting the cord:As prices go up, here's how you can still save money streaming\n\n1996: The dawn of cloning\n\n• Date: July 5\n\n• Location: Midlothian, Scotland, U.K.\n\nDolly the Sheep enters the annals of bioengineering when scientists at Scotland’s Roslin Institute become the first to not only successfully clone a mammal, but also the first to do so using an adult cell rather than an embryonic one. After 277 cell fusions that developed 29 embryos, the team manages to turn an udder cell into a virtually identical biological carbon copy of the sheep from which it came.\n\n1997: Machine tops chess champ\n\n• Date: May 11\n\n• Location: New York City\n\nArtificial intelligence and machine learning notch a significant victory in 1997, when IBM’s Deep Blue machine defeats a world chess champion. The refrigerator-sized computer loses to grandmaster Garry Kasparov in the first match but proceeds to beat him twice and tie him three times in the next five games.\n\n1998: The age of Google begins\n\n• Date: Sept. 4\n\n• Location: Menlo Park, California\n\nWith seed money from Sun Microsystems co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos among others, Stanford University Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin launch the search engine Google. The digital advertising behemoth Google Inc., now Alphabet Inc., is an $863 billion company with several subsidiaries, including YouTube, autonomous-car development company Waymo, and X, the company’s research and development division.\n\n1999: NATO's first independent strike\n\n• Date: March 24\n\n• Location: Federal Republic of Yugoslavia\n\nIn order to get Yugoslav forces out of Kosovo during the Kosovo War, NATO forces initiate their first-ever military campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (now Montenegro and Serbia) without U.N. Security Council authorization as Russia and China oppose the attack. The NATO air strikes are aimed at stopping an onslaught against ethnic Albanians by the government of Slobodan Milošević. The NATO attacks last nearly three months, culminating in the withdrawal of Yugoslav forces from Kosovo.\n\n2000: International Space Station opens\n\n• Date: Nov. 2\n\n• Location: Low earth orbit\n\nCommanders Bill Shepherd from the United States and Yuri Gidzenko of Russia, along with Russian flight engineer Sergei Krikalev, become the first temporary residents of the International Space Station two years after the first component of the research center was put into low-Earth orbit about 250 miles above sea level. Since that first crew, there have been 229 other visitors to the ISS, some of them multiple times, led by 146 from the United States and 47 from Russia.\n\n2001: 9/11\n\n• Date: Sept. 11\n\n• Location: Multiple\n\nIn the worst attack on U.S. soil since the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, 19 hijackers inspired by Islamist extremism kill nearly 3,000 people after crashing three passenger-laden commercial aircraft into the World Trade Center towers in lower Manhattan and the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. A fourth plane, United Airlines 93, crashes in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, after passengers and crew attempt to regain control of the plane headed to Washington D.C.\n\n2002: Homeland Security Act\n\n• Date: Nov. 25\n\n• Location: Washington D.C.\n\nFollowing the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the U.S. Congress and President George W. Bush enact the Homeland Security Act, the biggest government reorganization of national security efforts since the Department of Defense was created in 1947. The sweeping legislation creates the massive Department of Homeland Security, which is responsible for everything from protecting infrastructure from cyber attacks to managing the new U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.\n\n2003: US invades Iraq\n\n• Date: March 19\n\n• Location: Iraq\n\nWith the help of British and other allied forces, the United States begins its invasion of Iraq with a rapid bombing called Shock and Awe with the intention of destroying Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction; the weapons are never found. Coalition forces manage to quickly topple the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein but have to fight insurgent forces for years afterward.\n\n2004: Facebook founded\n\n• Date: Feb. 4\n\n• Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts\n\nMark Zuckerberg, a 23-year-old Harvard University student, creates The Facebook, a local social networking site named after the orientation materials that profiles students and faculty and given to incoming college freshmen. Within 15 years, Facebook would become a $512 billion digital advertising behemoth so integral to many people’s lives that it is criticized for helping foreign powers and propagandists influence the U.S. political system.\n\n2005: Katrina overwhelms New Orleans\n\n• Date: Aug. 29\n\n• Location: U.S. Gulf Coast\n\nAfter spending four days in the Gulf of Mexico bulking up to a category 5 hurricane, Katrina slams into New Orleans, inundating the city and creating a humanitarian crisis that lasts for weeks. The catastrophe underscores the precarious situation not only in the Big Easy, but also the surrounding area of the Gulf Coast. At least 1,833 people in the storm’s path are killed, and the storm inflicts $161 billion in damages to the region, the costliest storm in U.S. history.\n\n2006: Hussein executed\n\n• Date: Dec. 30\n\n• Location: Baghdad\n\nThree years after U.S. soldiers pulled him from a hole in the ground where he had been hiding, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is hanged. Hussein had been convicted for crimes against humanity, specifically for ordering the massacre of 148 Shiites in 1982 following a failed assassination attempt against him.\n\n2007: The iPhone\n\n• Date: Jan. 9\n\n• Location: San Francisco\n\nApple CEO Steve Jobs, who died in October 2011, reveals to the world one of the most popular branded consumer electronic devices in history, the iPhone. Since the first generation phone that Jobs introduced at the Consumer Electronics Show that year, there have been 24 versions of the mobile device, and more than 2.2 billion units have been sold globally through 2018, when Apple stopped reporting iPhone sales. Only Samsung’s Galaxy smartphone comes close to that volume.\n\n2008: Dow plunges\n\n• Date: Sept. 29\n\n• Location: New York City\n\nThe Dow Jones Industrial Average records the largest-ever intraday drop in points, 777.68, after Congress rejects a massive $700 billion bailout of U.S. banks. The bill would pass days later. The market reacts also to months of global market turmoil amid the 2008 global financial crisis spurred by the U.S. subprime mortgage market crash. The Dow falls by more than half during the 2007-2009 Great Recession, tumbling from 14,164 on Oct. 9, 2007 to 6,594 on March 5, 2009.\n\n2009: America's first African-American president\n\n• Date: Jan. 20\n\n• Location: Washington D.C.\n\nAfter winning in a landslide against Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, amassing 365 electoral votes and 53% of the popular vote, Barack Obama is sworn in as the first African American president of the United States. Obama inherits the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, but with his party holding majorities in both houses of Congress at the time, the president is able to pass a stimulus package and his signature Affordable Care Act in March 2010.\n\n2010: Catastrophic oil spill\n\n• Date: April 20\n\n• Location: Gulf of Mexico, Louisiana\n\nEleven workers die and 17 are injured after an explosion and fire erupts on the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig 40 miles from the Louisiana coast. The explosion causes the largest environmental disaster in U.S. history, spewing 3 million barrels of crude oil over the three months it takes to stop the leak. British oil company BP says costs from the clean-up, legal fees, and settlements reached $65 billion.\n\n2011: Bin Laden killed\n\n• Date: May 2\n\n• Location: Abbottabad, Pakistan\n\nIn an intense 40-minute nighttime firefight, 25 U.S. Navy SEALs hunt down and kill al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, in a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Within hours, bin Laden’s body is identified using DNA and then buried at sea in the Arabian Sea.\n\n2012: The 'God Particle' is (Probably) Discovered\n\n• Date: July 4\n\n• Location: Near Geneva\n\nNearly 600 feet below the France-Switzerland border at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider Facility, an international team of scientists discovers a new particle widely believed to be the elusive Higgs boson, known as the “God Particle,\" which is thought to be a fundamental component of the universe. The Higgs boson has been an important element of particle physics theory for decades, but until 2012 there had been no physical evidence to support its existence.\n\n2013: Snowden reveals secrets\n\n• Date: June 6\n\n• Location: Hong Kong\n\nAfter surreptitiously leaving his job at U.S. National Security Agency contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, computer security consultant Edward Snowden meets secretly in Hong Kong with journalists Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras. Snowden reveals the first of a series of secrets about numerous U.S. and European government surveillance operations. Hailed as a courageous whistleblower and privacy champion by some and a traitor that compromised counterterrorism efforts by others, the American now resides in exile in Moscow.\n\n2014: Russia invades Ukraine\n\n• Date: March 16\n\n• Location: Crimea\n\nExploiting political unrest in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin orchestrates the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula. The action incites peals of condemnation from world leaders and a raft of economic sanctions against Moscow. This strategically important and predominantly Russian-speaking region on the Black Sea has been coveted by the Russians as part of their strategic efforts to check NATO expansion along Russia’s western border.\n\n2015: NASA flies by Pluto\n\n• Date: July 14\n\n• Location: 3 billion miles from Earth\n\nNASA spacecraft New Horizons becomes the first human-made object to fly past and observe the dwarf planet Pluto. New Horizons sends back stunning photographs of this enigmatic and distant member of the solar system, including images of a mountain range and massive icebergs floating in frozen nitrogen. New Horizons is now en route to the Kuiper Belt, a massive asteroid belt at the far reaches of the solar system.\n\n2016: Trump elected\n\n• Date: Nov. 8\n\n• Location: U.S.\n\nRunning on a populist agenda, Donald Trump is elected the 45th president of the United States and the fifth president in U.S. history (the second since the 2000) to win despite losing the popular vote. The real estate developer and television personality ran on a platform of putting “America First” in global trade and foreign policy negotiations and cracking down on undocumented immigrants.\n\n2017: Hurricane triple whammy\n\n• Date: August-September\n\n• Location: Multiple\n\nWithin just four weeks, three massive hurricanes – Harvey, Irma, and Maria – strike Texas, Florida, and the Caribbean, killing 228 people, inflicting a combined $265 billion in damages, and displacing millions of homeowners. Hurricane Maria inflicts immense damage to the U.S. commonwealth of Puerto Rico, which was already struggling due to economic insolvency.\n\n2018: Wildfires\n\n• Date: November\n\n• Location: Northern California\n\nThe deadliest wildfires in the state’s history engulf northern California in November. The catastrophe costs the lives of 88 people, and the fire consumes 18,500 homes and businesses. State and federal officials estimate that it would cost $3 billion to clean up debris. Climate change activists say the conflagrations are evidence that global warming is no longer a distant concern and that it is occurring now.\n\n2019: Trump impeached\n\n• Date: Dec. 18\n\n• Location: Washington, D.C.\n\nOn Dec. 18, 2019, Donald Trump becomes just the third U.S. president to be impeached. A whistleblower reveals that in July Trump had asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate the business dealings of Hunter Biden, son of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, as well as cybersecurity company Crowdstrike. These requests were made just after Zelensky said Ukraine wanted to buy weapons from the United States. After the call comes to light, Democratic leaders file two articles of impeachment – for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. They say Trump abused his power by using the office of the president to target a political opponent. The obstruction of Congress charge stems from accusations that Trump Administration officials tried to cover up the whistleblower’s report. Trump calls the investigation a “witch hunt” and denies any wrongdoing. The House passes both articles in a vote that goes almost entirely along party lines, moving the impeachment proceedings along to the Senate.\n\n24/7 Wall Street is a USA TODAY content partner offering financial news and commentary. Its content is produced independently of USA TODAY.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2020/01/14"}]}
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+{"question_id": "20220617_25", "search_time": "2022/06/17/16:36", "search_result": [{"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2020/06/09/rats-rodents-nest-parked-cars-coronavirus/5326017002/", "title": "Unusual rodent engine problem has suddenly become 'super ...", "text": "There was once a little mouse that caused a big problem.\n\nThe critter crawled up in the wheel well of a parked car, made his way over the brakes and up into the engine. Most rodents would stop there, it's a nice nesting spot. But this fella had other plans.\n\nHe kept going until he was inside the dashboard and couldn't get out. There, he died (I didn't say it would be a happy story). The rancid and revolting odor compelled the car owner to bring it to Avis Ford in Southfield, Michigan, where service technicians made the unsavory discovery.\n\n\"Usually you find a wiring harness for the engine or the fuel injection system that is all chewed up,\" said Avis Ford's Service Manager Larry Sirgany. \"We’ll find a car that’s been sitting for a couple of weeks and it will have a big nasty nest in there, too.\"\n\nOver the years, Sirgany has found plenty of flora and fauna in car engines. There are grass and twig nests and dead – sometimes alive – vermin and lots of chewed wires. The resulting damage is costly to fix.\n\nBut this spring, amid the stay home order during the coronavirus pandemic, the rodent ruination to engines has been exceptionally high in some places.\n\n\"I’ve seen a solid dozen to 15 cars with damage in the last six weeks,\" Sirgany said. \"Typically, I would have two per month this time of year.\"\n\nInterest rates:Despite breakout jobs report, Fed likely to downgrade outlook\n\nIt's official:The US is in a recession, ending longest expansion in history\n\nHundreds in repairs\n\nIn fact, an April 30 report in The New York Times said a dealership out East had five people call in one week to complain of rats living in their car engine. One couple got an alert of engine trouble while driving and remembered seeing a rat scurry across their driveway as they left. So the couple returned home, opened the hood to find animal feces and urine all over the engine, as well as sticks, leaves and small bones.\n\nAn employee at the couple's service center said such incidents have become “all of a sudden super common” within “the past two or three weeks,\" the Times reported.\n\nLast month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned of unusual or aggressive rat behavior caused, in part, by many restaurants shutting down during the pandemic. Rodents depend a lot on the tossed out food scraps from restaurants.\n\nNow the varmints are searching elsewhere for food and your engine could be it. Some car brands, such as Toyota, use soy-coated wiring, which can be a delicious treat to a rodent.\n\nAlso, in cold weather, a car is a source of heat for mice, rats, squirrels, woodchucks and opossums. That's usually the time of year when Sirgany sees the most engine damage. The creatures crawl in the engine to keep warm and chew on the car's wiring while in there, wreaking havoc on the electrical system.\n\n\"Typically, they can get fairly time-consuming to do a repair – at least two-to-four hours putting it all back together,\" Sirgany said. \"So it’s a $400 to $600 repair.\"\n\nThe cost typically does not exceed a person's deductible, so it's usually an out-of-pocket expense, he said.\n\nThere is also a possible danger. If a mouse makes a grass nest, typically the size of a baseball or a golf ball, it could possibly start on fire, some experts warn.\n\n'Staring right at me'\n\nThe good news is usually by the time spring rolls around, rodents stay away from cars because there’s more activity with people outdoors.\n\n\"This year, with COVID, that’s not the case,\" Sirgany said. \"The cars have been so quiet, they’re parked, they don’t smell like people and they become pretty attractive to a rodent.”\n\nMost customers will be alerted to an issue from a warning light signaling an engine problem. The rodent's damage will interrupt the car's wiring system, but it does not usually paralyze the car, Sirgany said.\n\nThe customer will bring the car to the dealer and that's when Sirgany's team opens the hood to diagnose the problem. He will usually find the clues, maybe twigs or leaves, sometimes followed by a surprise.\n\n\"Every now and then you find the critter still living in the car,\" Sirgany said. \"The last one was four years ago. It was a woodchuck staring right at me and he wasn’t even interested in leaving.\"\n\nSirgany gently shut the hood and called wildlife experts to safely remove the woodchuck, also called a groundhog.\n\nPolish the pearly whites\n\nBut even in those vehicles that use petroleum-based wiring, cars attract rodents simply because they are dark, provide shelter and offer the chance for dental hygiene, said a rat expert at the University of Michigan.\n\n\"All rodents have these ever-growing teeth and they need to chew on things to keep them from getting long,\" said Ben Dantzer, professor of psychology at the University of Michigan. He studies mice, squirrels and rats to learn how they make decisions.\n\nIn his years of studying rodents captured from the wild, Dantzer is certain of one thing: They have great smiles.\n\n\"Never once, do you find a wild squirrel that has teeth that are screwed up,\" Dantzer said. \"But rats used in biomedical research, their teeth are long and out of control because they haven’t had anything hard to chew on.\"\n\nIn the wild, rodents consistently chew on rocks and trees to keep their teeth worn down and sharp, Dantzer said. If they did not do that, they could die from overgrown teeth locking their jaws.\n\n\"So underneath the hood of a car, it’s a nice place to sleep and you’ve got all these wires around and you need to chew and grind your teeth down so you chew on those,\" Dantzer said. \"Then, it ends up shorting out the car's wiring.\"\n\nHe is not surprised at an increase of rodents nesting in car engines during the pandemic.\n\n\"It’s not a situation where we have this burgeoning population of squirrels and rats,\" Dantzer said. \"It’s a crime of opportunity, you have all these stationary vehicles.\"\n\nDogs, cats and talk radio\n\nNow that you know everything you ever (or never) wanted to know about the rodent lifestyle, there are many ways to pest-proof your car.\n\nThe most obvious is to drive it daily because unlike our mouse or Sirgany's woodchuck, most rodents will jump out of the engine and not return once the car is regularly in motion.\n\nAlso, leaving it outside makes it less appealing.\n\n\"If I’m a squirrel or a chipmonk and the car is out in the sun, it’s a less attractive object because the garage is dark and protected,\" Dantzer said. \"I might park my car in the driveway because it’s lighter, in the open and there are dogs being walked all around.\"\n\nHere are some other suggestions from the experts:\n\nSpray commercially approved rodent repellent around the lower perimeter of the vehicle and wheel wells.\n\nPeppermint oil sprayed around the car works, too.\n\nSome automakers make a tape with chili oil on it. It wraps around wiring and has a repelling taste to rodents.\n\nKeep bird feeders far away because, \"Bird feeders aren’t just feeding birds; they’re feeding rats,\" Dantzer said.\n\nThere are moving fake owls or scarecrows that will scare away rodents.\n\nLook at the car daily, open the door and the hood, shine lights on the engine.\n\nCats and dogs are predators, so you can leave them in the garage for a while if the temperature is safe for them.\n\nSet traps near the front wheel well where rodents enter.\n\nIt also helps to think like a rodent, too. Sirgany keeps a classic car in storage and has a radio on at all times.\n\n\"The noise seems to work very well,\" Sirgany said. \"I keep it on talk radio so, from a rodent's point of view, there’s always a human there.”\n\nIf you do happen to open the hood and see a rodent, don't flashback to the 1971 cult horror movie \"Willard.\" They are not going to swarm and eat you alive.\n\n“They’re not going to jump on you; they’re not going to attack you,\" Dantzer said. \"But if squirrels ever figured out that we were as afraid of them as they are of us, they could inflict some serious damage.”\n\nContact Jamie L. LaReau at 313-222-2149 or jlareau@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @jlareauan. Sign up for our autos newsletter.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2020/06/09"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/04/01/dupont-illnesses-deaths-c8/81151346/", "title": "Taking on DuPont: Illnesses, deaths blamed on pollution from W. Va ...", "text": "Jeff Mordock\n\nThe News Journal\n\nPARKERSBURG, W. Va. – No one in the Mid-Ohio Valley ever wanted to sue DuPont.\n\nThe company employs thousands in the region and supports charities and community organizations. In some families, multiple generations owe their livelihood to the Delaware-based chemical giant.\n\nBut as livestock started dying and thousands of residents contracted unexplained illnesses, evidence pointed to pollution from DuPont manufacturing as the cause – pitting the community's health against the area's already struggling economy.\n\n\"A guy called my wife and asked, 'If I lose my job are you going to pay for my wife and kids?'\" said Joe Kiger, a Parkersburg, West Virginia, school teacher and the lead plaintiff in the 2001 class-action lawsuit against DuPont over high levels of the toxic chemical C8 in the region's water supplies.\n\nC8 is the chemical behind DuPont's powerhouse product Teflon, used on nonstick cookware worldwide. Studies have shown that nearly every person on earth has at least traces of C8 in their bloodstream. But in 2005 around Parkersburg, about 2 miles from DuPont's Washington Works manufacturing plant, residents' blood levels registered far above Environmental Protection Agency guidelines for C8.\n\nThe company now faces 3,500 lawsuits filed in Federal Court by Mid-Ohio Valley residents in a 185-square-mile area around Parkersburg. They claim DuPont's release of C8 into the air, ground and water is responsible for their illnesses. Regulatory filings show DuPont's liability could exceed $1 billion.\n\nBetween 1951 and 2003, the Washington Works plant dumped, poured and released more than 1.7 million pounds of C8, according to a 2004 study by ChemRisk Inc., an industry risk assessor hired by DuPont to determine how much of the chemical had been released into the environment.\n\nThat study discovered 632,468 pounds of the chemical traveled through Washington Works outflow pipes into the Ohio River, where C8 moved upstream, downstream and found its way into tributaries.\n\nAnother 394,486 pounds was transported via truck to three unlined landfills, where it was buried in the ground. The material leeched into the soils, contaminating wells and groundwater.\n\nThe largest amount, 686,223 pounds, was forced through smokestacks into the air, where it was breathed in by area residents and settled on their skin. The powdery smoke also landed on crops and in water supplies.\n\nChemRisk President Dennis J. Paustenbach, who has won multiple awards for his research, and three of its scientists – Julie M. Panko, Paul K. Scott, and Kenneth M. Unice, who have a combined 61 years of health, risk and exposure study experience – conducted the DuPont-funded report.\n\nTheir work was later given to the C8 Science Panel, a team of researchers who performed health studies on Mid-Ohio Valley residents in the release zone around Parkersburg between 2005 and 2013. It was created as part of the settlement in a class-action lawsuit against DuPont.\n\nDuPont doesn't deny that C8, or PFOA, is dangerous to humans. But the company points out, through spokesman Dan Turner, that industry knowledge of the chemical on the environment and worker health has slowly evolved over the past 60 years – and DuPont was a leader in creating guidelines to protect staff.\n\n\"While federal and state environmental authorities never established regulations on the use, handling, emissions or disposal of PFOA, DuPont set extremely conservative exposure guidelines to guard against harm,\" he said. \"DuPont took more precautions in the use and handling of PFOA than any other company.\"\n\nEarly tests conducted on the chemical revealed health issues in animals, but humans were not included in the studies. Once DuPont understood C8's effects, Turner said, it completely phased out its use of the chemical, a process completed in 2013.\n\nDuPont's statement on Parkersburg\n\nBy then, though, a lot of people were ill along the Ohio River, and battle lines had hardened over whether DuPont was culpable. And that fight continues today.\n\nOn one side are residents suffering from illnesses such as kidney and testicular cancer, liver disease, thyroid problems, high cholesterol and heart problems. On the other side are those who claim the issue has been overblown by plaintiffs' attorneys looking to make a fortune by attacking the deep-pocketed company.\n\nThose fighting serious illnesses allege DuPont knowingly covered up the danger of C8, pointing to a November 1982 memo in which Bruce Karrh, the company's chief medical director, expressed concern over employees' exposure. The company barred women of child-bearing age from working in the laboratory where they would come in contact with the chemical.\n\n\"My ex-husband was told not to launder his clothes with my daughter's clothes,\" Kiger's wife, Darlene, said of her former spouse, who worked directly with C8. Darlene said her ex-husband received that warning from plant management as far back as the mid-1970s.\n\nThose upset with neighbors suing DuPont contend that many plaintiffs were not exposed to C8 at levels high enough to develop cancer or other illnesses. Pollution from other chemical companies in the region also could have played an unknowing role in the illnesses.\n\n\"I believe in facts, and I believe that sometimes what the press lives and dies off of is headlines,\" said Parkersburg Mayor Jimmy Colombo, who owns a popular downtown Italian restaurant. \"There are people who have cancer treatments every day who are not involved in the stuff (C8) you are talking about.\"\n\nThe region's economic viability is at the center of the debate. At its height, DuPont employed roughly 2,000 workers at its Washington Works plant, roughly 6 miles south of Parkersburg. That number was reduced to around 1,200 prior to DuPont transferring the facility's ownership to Chemours last July. For the first time in nearly 70 years, the iconic DuPont sign no longer greets workers and visitors.\n\nColombo says the C8 controversy has cost the region. In 2003, frozen foods company Luigino's proposed a $36 million plant at the Parkersburg Business Park that would have created 600 new jobs. Colombo and former Mayor Bob Newell said the company dropped out over fears that competitors would use the area's environmental issues to discourage consumers from buying food packaged in a polluted area. Minnesota-based Luigino's did not return calls seeking comment.\n\nU.S. District Judge Edmund Sargus, of the Southern District of Ohio, is the sole jurist assigned to handle the litigation. Under a scheduling order issued by Sargus, the court will hear 40 cases annually – meaning it will take 90 years to resolve all cases.\n\nDuPont has settled three lawsuits, two for undisclosed amounts and a third, class-action lawsuit for $70 million. In another case, a woman who developed kidney cancer won a $1.6 million judgment that the company is appealing.\n\nNow involved in a $130 billion merger with Dow Chemical Co., DuPont has an indemnification agreement with its performance chemical spinoff, Chemours, under which Chemours is responsible for any damages DuPont incurs in the C8 litigation.\n\nHowever, Chemours, which occupies DuPont's former headquarters in downtown Wilmington, has shed jobs and seen its stock price plummet since becoming an independent company last summer. That has raised questions about whether it can absorb the liability.\n\nThe company first came to West Virginia in 1948, attracted by the region's industrious workforce and access the Ohio River would give it to ports throughout the country. A decade earlier, Roy J. Plunkett, a DuPont chemist based in the company's Salem, New Jersey, plant was experimenting with refrigerants and discovered an inert fluorocarbon that had nonstick and stain-resistant qualities. The company patented the substance in 1945 under the trademark \"Teflon.\" It was used to coat cookware and quickly became a hit, with annual sales in 2007 reaching $1 billion.\n\nWashington Works quickly became the world's largest producer of Teflon, manufacturing nearly 2 million pounds of the product in its first year of operation.\n\nIn 1951, DuPont also began purchasing C8, known as perfluoroctaonic acid, or PFOA, from Minnesota Manufacturing & Mining, which now operates as 3M. The chemical, which resembles laundry soap, possessed better nonstick qualities and flattened bulges that occurred during Teflon manufacturing. It soon became widely popular, used in hundreds of products including fast-food wrappers, waterproof clothing, microwaveable popcorn bags and pizza boxes.\n\nDuPont began studying the health effects of C8 in the 1950s, but those tests were kept secret, according to documents released as part of the Environmental Protection Agency's investigation into DuPont. In the early 1960s, DuPont scientists found the chemical increased the size of livers in rats, rabbits and dogs. By the 1980s, a 3M study discovered C8 caused birth defects in rats. 3M shared the study with DuPont, and began to phase out the use of C8 by 2002.\n\nYet some of those involved in the lawsuits allege DuPont did not notify its workers or change its safety procedures.\n\n\"3M was making millions (of dollars) off this stuff, but DuPont was making billions,\" said Harry Deitzler, a Parkersburg attorney and local counsel suing DuPont.\n\nThe inspiration behind 'Harry's Project'\n\nThe company continued to secretly test its Washington Works employees over decades, often uncovering disturbing health issues found in blood samples. In Karrh's November 1982 memo, he wrote that worker exposure to the chemical should be limited, according to documents uncovered in a class action lawsuit, Leach v. DuPont.\n\nTo qualify as a member of the class action, an individual must have drank contaminated water for at least one year prior to Dec. 4, 2004, from one of the six named water districts or a specified private well contaminated with C8. DuPont spent $70 million to settle the case in 2005.\n\nShortly after the Leach settlement, the EPA fined DuPont $16.5 million for not reporting the health risks related to C8 exposure. At the time, it was the largest civil penalty ever levied by the agency.\n\n\n\n\n\nTurner denied DuPont withheld information about health issues related to C8 from its employees.\n\n\n\n\"In the 1970s when DuPont first learned that PFOA was persistent in the bodies of the 3M workers, our leaders took reasonable actions to inform and protect employees, to understand the available science regarding potential health effects in animals and people, to seek guidance from knowledgeable third party experts and to engage regulators,\" the company spokesman said.\n\n\n\nIn 2006, DuPont became one of eight companies vowing to reduce PFOA manufacturing emissions by 95 percent within four years and eliminate its use completely in less than a decade.\n\nPaul Brooks, a physician who oversaw the blood tests for thousands of Mid-Ohio Valley residents, said C8 is unique because it attaches itself to blood proteins and travels through, and attacks, every organ in the body. According to Brooks, it damages the thyroid in the endocrine system; harms the digestive system causing ulcerative colitis; impacts the reproductive system causing preeclampsic hypertension in women and testicular cancer in men; and attacks the urinary system causing kidney cancer.\n\n\"Scientifically, most of the time when you get something that effects the body, like asbestos, it only affects one or two things,\" he said.\n\nAnother series of secret DuPont tests conducted in 1984 found high levels of C8 in tap water of the Little Hocking Water Association just across the Ohio River from the Washington Works plant. DuPont continued the tests through 1989, but never informed the community or state regulators, according to internal corporate documents that came out as part of discovery during the Leach trial. DuPont assumed one part per billion was safe – but Little Hocking's PFOA levels were three times that number.\n\nDust containing C8 released from the facilities' chimney stacks was found well beyond the Washington Work's property, according to the C8 Science Panel created under the Leach settlement.\n\nIn Delaware, C8 contamination blamed on firefighting foam\n\nJim Tennant, a former construction worker at DuPont, said he has suffered from mysterious illnesses since the 1960s. Shortly after starting at DuPont in 1964, Tennant said, he would randomly get flu-like systems, including cold and clammy hands, and drops in blood pressure, respiration and temperature. Doctors were baffled.\n\nIn 1979, Tennant was hospitalized. Doctors couldn't identify the cause, and warned his wife Della that he might not make it through the night.\n\nBy the mid-1990s, Jim and Della began noticing dead birds and deer on their farm. Cattle developed large tumors, went blind or gave birth to deformed and stillborn calves. Jim Tennant said the normal mortality rate for newborn cattle was around 5 percent, but at times, 100 percent of the herd's newborn calves died. In total, Jim estimates the family lost roughly 250 cows.\n\nAnd there was a strange silence on the property.\n\n\"You couldn't even hear a bird chirp,\" Della Tennant said. \"Everything was dead.\"\n\nThe Tennants suspected the Dry Run landfill, a 66-acre DuPont dump site less than 250 feet from their back door.\n\nIn 1980, DuPont first approached the couple with an offer to buy their farm to turn it into a landfill. The family resisted, but as Jim's medical bills mounted the Tennants in 1983 finally relented, and sold a portion of their 600-acre farmstead to DuPont. Della said DuPont assured the couple it would create a Class II landfill on their former property, meaning it would not contain hazardous materials. At the time, the company provided a document assuring them only scrap metal, scrap lumber and cafeteria garbage would be sent to the landfill, Jim said.\n\nBut the dead and malformed animals kept piling up, and the Tennants wanted to sue DuPont for damages. Conditions got so bad the couple had to stop farming.\n\nThe Tennants' efforts to retain legal counsel in the Parkersburg area were unsuccessful. Local attorneys said they didn't have the clout to sue the Fortune 500 company. And as word spread about the Tennants' plans, neighbors began to fight back. When the family walked into restaurants, Della said, other citizens would walk out. Longtime friends stopped speaking with them at church, and the Tennants had to change their place of worship more than once.\n\n\"People accused us of trying to get DuPont to shut down,\" she said. \"But we weren't trying to get DuPont to shut down. We were trying to get them to clean up their mess.\"\n\nThings changed dramatically when attorney Rob Bilott, moved by their plight, agreed to take the case. Recommended by a family friend, Bilott, an environmental attorney with the Cincinnati firm of Taft Stettinius & Hollister, made his reputation as a corporate lawyer who defended companies against environmental charges brought by people like the Tennants.\n\nBut as soon as he heard their story, he signed on.\n\nEarl Botkin lives in Evans, West Virginia, a small town about 45 miles downriver from the Washington Works plant. Botkin says he was a healthy man of 55 in 1997 when he began to experience thyroid problems, and soon contracted ulcerative colitis – a form of explosive diarrhea – and high cholesterol.\n\nThe C8 Health Panel, which tested 69,000 residents in the area, linked all three illnesses to exposure to the chemical. Botkin believes his health problems stemmed from consuming tap water tainted with C8, which allegedly found its way into the municipal water system of Point Pleasant, West Virginia, which at the time supplied water to Evans. Botkin's wife, Gwen, does not have any illnesses associated with C8 exposure.\n\nDuPont has said it will not challenge the supposition that drinking water tainted with high levels of C8 can cause ulcerative colitis, thyroid problems and a host of other illnesses. But DuPont will challenge specific cases brought by plaintiffs like Botkin, who consumed water from a system that was not part of the $70 million settlement awarding sophisticated water filtration systems for six municipalities.\n\nBotkin says his life is hell. His days begin at 4 a.m. with coffee and a piece of toast. He needs to eat early so he can digest his food, go to the bathroom and be at work by 8:00 a.m. Botkin eats only a small snack during the day to limit his trips to the bathroom. His big daily meal is dinnertime, and he takes it at home where he has immediate access to a bathroom.\n\nHe takes eight steroids a day to stop the bleeding, which makes his face and stomach puffy but does little to help him manage the disease.\n\nThe Botkins rarely leave home for fear of having an embarrassing episode outside the home. If he does go out, he must take precautions and scout ahead for a clean bathroom.\n\nBotkin has kept his job as a home inspector because he needs the insurance to cover the cost of his medicine. He says the multiple diseases has made it impossible for him to visit his three children who have relocated to other parts of the country.\n\n\"They really ruined us,\" Botkin said. \"We had nice jobs and were about to retire. We had plans.\"\n\nJames Peterson, of Glenville, West Virginia, was a DuPont contractor who welded parts on trucks that transported waste from the Washington Works plant to the company's two landfills, Dry Run and Letard. From 1983 until 1995, it was his job to fix broken axles and make other repairs. Often, the C8 waste would still be on the truck while he was fixing it.\n\nOn three occasions, Peterson contracted what is locally referred to as \"the Teflon flu\" – fever, chills, headaches and coughs that comes from breathing fumes released from C8.\n\n\"I was sicker than a dog,\" he said. \"I just shook like I had the DTs (delirium tremens normally associated with alcoholism.)\"\n\nWhen Peterson turned 59, he began to suffer heart attacks, which plaintiffs attorneys say is normal for people exposed to C8 because it triggers extraordinarily high levels of cholesterol. In 2001, he had a quintuple bypass and a stent inserted. Six years later, he underwent a sextuple bypass.\n\nAlthough Peterson has insurance, he says his medical bills were so high he had to sell his two-story house to pay for his care. Today he lives in a trailer, and one of his bedrooms is consumed by medical supplies.\n\nArteries that flow blood to his kidneys have closed, causing renal damage. Peterson also has a dialysis machine at home, which he is tethered to daily.\n\n\"I would not be in this shape had I not breathed in that stuff and worked at the landfill,\" he said.\n\nOn Halloween of 2000, school teacher Joe Kiger received a disturbing notice from the Lubeck Water System with his monthly bill, explaining PFOA had been discovered in the municipal drinking water pumped to homeowners in the tiny town of Lubeck, a few miles from DuPont's Washington Works plant. The letter said PFOA levels were \"low concentrations,\" and \"DuPont reports that it has toxicological and epidemiological data to support confidence that exposure to guidelines established by DuPont are protective of human health.\"\n\nAt first, Kiger dismissed it as \"just another form letter.\" Now he believes the contaminated tap water – confirmed by the Environmental Protection Agency to be eight times higher than federal guidelines before filtration equipment was installed –– likely caused him to contract a very high level of cholesterol, and ultimately a heart attack.\n\nShortly after receiving the letter about PFOA in the water, Kiger began hearing about neighbors contracting strange illnesses. A friend told him about her seven-year old granddaughter's teeth turning black. Three young boys came down with testicular cancer. Friends said their dogs developed tumors.\n\nKiger went back to the Lubeck Water System letter, then started questioning the West Virginia Department of Natural Resources. Officials there treated him as if he had the plague, he recalled.\n\nHe received a similar reaction from DuPont's Environmental Health Department in Parkersburg, although he was referred to someone in DuPont's Wilmington headquarters.\n\nHis wife, Darlene, asked how that went.\n\n\"I told her, I was just fed the biggest line of BS in my life,\" he said. \"He told me there was nothing to worry about, which immediately told me I better start worrying.\"\n\nSeven months later, Kiger connected with the EPA's Philadelphia office, where someone said, \"What in the hell is that (C8) doing in your water?\"\n\nThe EPA scientist sent Kiger information about the Tennant case. Kiger noticed attorney Bilott's name as the lead attorney and called him. Bilott had frequently run across the unfamiliar acronym PFOA while researching the Tennants' case, and realized there was potential for a class-action lawsuit against DuPont on behalf of Mid-Ohio Valley residents struggling with illnesses.\n\nBut he didn't have a lead plaintiff until Kiger called. There were only 60 days remaining before the 12-month statute of limitations associated with notice of contaminated drinking water expired, and Bilott quickly filed a class-action suit. But finding other people to sign on proved to be difficult.\n\n\"You are talking livelihood around here,\" Kiger said. \"Everyone in this valley is either somehow related to, has association with someone who works for the company, or works for DuPont themselves.\"\n\nA meeting held to recruit people at downtown Parkersburg's venerable Blennerhasset Hotel became heated. As people stormed out, Kiger followed his friend Jack Leach to the elevator. As Leach tried to leave, Kiger jammed his foot in the elevator door to hold it open, grabbed Leach by the arm and said, \"If this stuff is this bad, we've got to get something done.\"\n\nLeach, a retired DuPont truck driver, was the named plaintiff in the class-action suit. He died later of cancer.\n\nKiger and his wife faced the same harassment levied against the Tennants. Crank calls, things thrown at their house, curses hurled at them as they walked the streets.\n\nSlowly, though, Bilott and Kiger won converts as they made their case at meeting after meeting. More than 70,000 have joined, but a decade after the class action settlement, with nearly 3,500 additional cases stacked up, anger still seethes in the valley.\n\nAllan Ellis, a contractor who has resided in Parkersburg all his life, said residents are trying to put C8 behind them because they need to put food on the table.\n\n\"This valley has been at the top of the cancer chain for years and years, but they (residents) are still here,\" he said. \"As long as jobs are here, it's not going to be you [who contracts cancer]. That's the way people look at it.\"\n\nFormer Mayor Newell says people are not angry at DuPont because of C8. They're angry because DuPont slashed staff and shifted the plant to Chemours.\n\nSome DuPont workers who have lost their jobs have joined other companies, but the salaries, benefits and retirement packages are not as strong, Newell said.\n\n\"There was a lot of pride in working for DuPont,\" he said.\n\nMayor Colombo said he hasn't sensed any outrage in the community over the C8 exposure. He doesn't follow the C8 trials because they won't impact Parkersburg, Colombo said.\n\nDr. Brooks, who conducted the health panel tests, noted that C8 contamination has spread from the Mid-Ohio Valley to drinking water as far south as New Orleans and as far north as Pittsburgh. One of the few places on the planet where C8 pollution has not been detected is Tibet, nearly 12,000 feet above sea level, Brooks said.\n\n\"DuPont has poisoned the world,\" Brooks said.\n\nContact Jeff Mordock at (302) 324-2786, on Twitter @JeffMordockTNJ or jmordock@delawareonline.com.\n\nKarrh Memo on C8 and pregnancy\n\nMemo by DuPont Chief Medical Officer Bruce Karrh, detailing concerns about pregnant women being exposed to C8.\n\n1981 DuPont internal birth defect memo\n\nAn April 1981 DuPont internal document by JW Raines detailing studies that found birth defects in rats exposed to C8.\n\nChemrisk Report\n\nA 2004 report by ChemRisk Inc., a chemical industry risk assessor hired by DuPont to determine how much C8 had been released into the environment. DuPont funded the study, conducted by four researchers, which determined the company dumped, poured and released more than 1.7 million pounds of C8 in the Mid-Ohio Valley between 1951 and 2003.\n\nTennant lawsuit information\n\nInformation submitted to the EPA as part of the investigation into C8 contamination near Parkersburg, West Virginia. Report contains detailed information on the Tennant lawsuit.\n\nShin-Paper-2\n\nStudy on PFOA exposure near Parkersburg, West Virginia and subsequent health risks.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2016/04/01"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/05/18/on-the-trail-of-the-dreaded-plague/9232883/", "title": "On the trail of the dreaded plague", "text": "Shaun McKinnon\n\nThe Arizona Republic\n\nPHOENIX -- On a construction site in the Bavarian town of Aschheim, a suburb of Munich known mostly as the location of a BMW test track, work crews on a housing project in the 1990s unearthed an ancient cemetery and, with it, clues to a mystery.\n\nThe clues were locked away in rows of 1,500-year-old teeth.\n\nArchaeologists concluded that many of the people buried at the cemetery had died of the plague. Further testing revealed that the bodies were interred sometime in the sixth century, probably around the year 543.\n\nThat would make them victims of the Justinian plague, an outbreak named for a Roman emperor who succumbed to it, a plague that killed almost half the world's population.\n\nMany questions lingered about that ancient plague, but one that intrigued scientists was this: Was the strain of disease from that plague the same one that struck Europe in the Black Death, the same one that is still alive in rodents today? Had the Justinian plague, after ravaging half the world, died out, gone extinct — or could it happen again?\n\nThe search for those answers would lead halfway around the globe, to a laboratory with tight surveillance in the pine trees of northern Arizona.\n\nThe investigation by experts there would be wrapped up with other investigations, of human victims, of rats from Madagascar, of native prairie dogs on the Colorado plateau. And it would depend on those teeth.\n\n\"It turns out the teeth are almost like a time capsule for DNA,\" said Dave Wagner, a biologist at Northern Arizona University. \"And the teeth stay intact in skeletons.\"\n\nWagner and fellow scientist Paul Keim have devoted their professional lives to understanding a disease most people think of as an ancient memory. But they know the plague is alive and well, across the Southwestern United States. And research could be what stands between the bacteria and another outbreak.\n\nThat's why an international team of scientists called in the NAU experts and put them in a room with samples from the teeth from Germany to try to unravel the mystery. What caused the Justinian plague?\n\n\"Because plague is a blood-borne pathogen, there would be plague in the teeth of victims,\" Wagner said. \"But it was still like looking for a needle in a haystack.\"\n\nTracking a killer\n\nWagner never set out to become a plague hunter, never imagined himself searching for infected fleas in dying prairie-dog colonies across northern Arizona or tracking rats through the back alleys of Madagascar.\n\nHe wanted to study wildlife — emphasis on life — and trained as a wildlife biologist. He was tracking prairie dogs in 1999 when he started seeing more dead rodents than expected and more live fleas. The prairie dogs, he realized, were dying of the plague, a not-uncommon cause of death in colonies across the Southwest.\n\nWagner's fascination with what was killing prairie dogs led him to Paul Keim, a biologist and researcher at NAU.\n\nKeim had earned the nickname \"bioterrorism warrior\" in 2001, when he analyzed samples of anthrax sent to government offices in Washington in the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks and helped find the man believed responsible for sending the spores.\n\nHis detective work grew out of his scientific work studying infectious diseases and understanding how their origins and molecular makeup could help protect public health. Much as an anthropologist might test the DNA of a person to find he had ancestors from ancient Europe or Africa, Keim could analyze a bacteria's molecular structure and figure out where — or, in the case of a bioterrorist, from whom — it came.\n\nWorking together at NAU's Center for Microbial Genetics and Genomics, Keim, the center's director, and Wagner, the associate director, have become two of the world's leading experts on the plague. They pick through the pathogen's DNA to learn more about why it has persisted through the centuries and how it could yet kill millions more people.\n\nBy charting the genome of the plague bacterium mostly found in animals, breaking its genetic code, researchers can track outbreaks and identify strains particular to a region or to a point in time, however long ago.\n\n\"There is fascination with the plague,\" Wagner said. \"It has that history. But the strains we have today are equally capable of causing disease. The difference is how we react to it.\"\n\nRodents and fleas\n\nPlague is an infection caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. It is most often spread to humans through flea bites. Bacteria carried by the fleas spreads into the bloodstream and attacks the lymph system. As the bubonic plague, it causes fever, headache and swelling — akin to a particularly bad case of the flu, Wagner said.\n\nLeft untreated, bubonic plague can develop into the far-worse septicemic plague. Skin and tissues can turn black and die, a grisly hallmark that helped create the term Black Death.\n\nWhen that infection attacks the respiratory system, the disease becomes pneumonic plague. From there, it can spread directly from one human to another, as scientists suspect it did in the ancient plagues.\n\nScientists have long believed rodents and fleas helped spark those plagues. Improved hygiene and changes in rodent populations quelled the spread of the fleas, and the disease.\n\nModern medicine has since turned the plague into a curable disease\n\n\"Plague is a dangerous disease,\" said Keim. \"But there are lots of drugs that can work on plague. It's very treatable.\"\n\nFewer people realize the same bacteria live on, even today.\n\nThe Southwest grew into a hot spot for the plague in this country, Keim said, because the pathogen became endemic among prairie dogs, the native rodents whose colonies dot the high plateaus.\n\nThat's where NAU researchers find the plague today.\n\nWhen the researchers and students plan field trips to a potentially infected prairie-dog colony, they undergo training about how to protect themselves from flea bites or dead rodents. They are examined before the trip and their health monitored after.\n\n\"We've never had a single person come down with the plague,\" Keim said.\n\nReal-time help\n\nIn a lab on the third floor of NAU's Applied Research and Development Building, behind a series of three doors secured with electronic locks and monitored by video cameras, Keim, Wagner and student researchers study the plague, analyzing samples of bacteria from hunting expeditions as near as Lake Mary Road outside Flagstaff and as far-flung as Madagascar, off the coast of southeast Africa.\n\n\"Plague is a word sometimes used generally, but what we're studying here is 'The Plague,'\" Keim said. \"It is still of historical importance. These are events that affected who we are and what we are today.\"\n\nNAU scientists work with other research institutions and government agencies to better understand the plague pathogen. The campus center is closely aligned with the Phoenix-based Translational Genomics Research Institute.\n\nCedar Mitchell, an NAU junior in microbiology, spends part of her time in the lab sequencing the DNA of plague samples. She has helped devise a computer program that would help doctors in Madagascar identify plague strains and perhaps anticipate new outbreaks.\n\n\"If they find an outbreak in, say, the highlands and one in a port city, they can see if they are from the same sources,\" she said. Knowing that could help treat victims or warn people who could be at risk.\n\n\"Once you fingerprint everything, you can see what strains are active,\" Wagner said. \"The hope is they can do it in real time. We want to take our existing research somewhere that it can be used.\"\n\nThere is another part of NAU's plague work that Keim and Wagner talk about in less detail. It is part of the reason the lab is so secure and is inspected and tested frequently by federal agencies.\n\n\"Plague can be used as a biological weapon,\" Keim said. \"It has been, even back in the time of the Justinian plague.\"\n\nU.S. authorities believe the Soviet Union was trying to develop an aerosol version of the plague bacteria that could be dispersed as a weapon. It could still be used by terrorists. If scientists could extract and identify DNA fingerprints from 1,500-year-old plague strains locked away in a Bavarian cemetery, perhaps they could do the same with a bioterrorism weapon. That could help point authorities to the source, just as Keim did with the anthrax spores — another infectious bacterium — in 2001.\n\nWhat scientists hoped to discover in the 1,500-year-old teeth was whether the plague that killed more than 100 million during the Justinian outbreak was a strain from the Yersinia pestis bacterium that caused the Black Death and continues to spread today.\n\nThe teeth never actually made it to Flagstaff, in part because the NAU lab has built such a reputation in plague research. To satisfy the standards set in the field of ancient DNA about avoiding contamination with modern-day DNA, the teeth from the Aschheim cemetery were taken to McMaster University in Ontario.\n\nSamples from two individuals were ground into molecules from which DNA could be extracted. Wagner and NAU's genomics center provided the expertise to analyze the DNA and help construct the genome.\n\n\"This is the oldest bacterial genome ever produced,\" Wagner said. \"We were able to go back in time and find something that went extinct.\"\n\nThe map of the genome offered an answer, but left some of the mystery intact.\n\nThe NAU scientists helped conclude that the strain of plague was separate from the one that caused the Black Death and still exists today. The Justinian bacteria had died and left no descendants. It was, as the scientists say, an evolutionary dead end.\n\nFor plague sleuths, questions remain. Why did the Justinian strain die out? Why did the next outbreak not occur for another 600 years? And if the plague is just as dangerous as it ever was, could it explode across the globe once more?\n\nKeim and Wagner say the world is a far different place now. Cities are cleaner. Rats are better controlled. Antibiotics are readily available. And research is helping public-health agencies contain the disease.\n\n\"We don't think we're going to see new large-scale plague pandemics,\" Wagner said. \"Not because the organism has changed. It's just as deadly as it always was. But humans have changed.\"", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2014/05/18"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2018/01/28/kentucky-ground-zero-opioid-epidemic/1069608001/", "title": "America's heroin and opioid epidemic has deep roots in Kentucky", "text": "Jerry Mitchell and Laura Ungar\n\nUSA TODAY Network\n\nEditor’s note: More Americans die each year now from drug overdoses than from car crashes and gun homicides combined. Most of the overdoses come from opioids, which since ancient days have been relieving pain, providing pleasure and destroying lives. Today, opioid addiction has become the new American plague, one seemingly born of greed that affects millions each year and kills hundreds each day.\n\nDr. Bill Fannin found his son unconscious in his bedroom. Medical training and a father’s love told him what to do.\n\nGive him breath. Start his heart.\n\nThe Pikeville, Kentucky, physician cupped his son’s face and tried to resuscitate him on this October evening in 2011. He pushed down on his son’s chest.\n\nSean Fannin laid there, still unmoving.\n\n“It was,” Fannin recalled, his voice fading as he spoke, “too late.”\n\nHe soon learned Sean had overdosed on a drug derived from the opium poppy.\n\nIt was a drug the doctor knew all too well, one he had prescribed to many patients to ease their pain.\n\nCOMPLETE COVERAGE: More on the science of opioids\n\n'God's own medicine'\n\nIn Greek myth, when the goddess Aphrodite wept at the death of her lover, Adonis, her tears gave birth to a new plant. The colorful poppy contained a milky substance that promised to wash away sorrows.\n\nThe Greeks worshipped the opium poppy, and so did the Egyptians. Doctors, including Hippocrates, the “Father of Medicine,” discovered that opium seemed effective in fighting certain diseases.\n\nBut dangers followed. The Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder recorded fatal opium overdoses, and the Greek physician Erasistratus condemned the drug as a deadly poison.\n\nStill, opium spread around the world.\n\nHoping to turn opium into a better medicine, German scientist Friedrich Serturner extracted a substance from the poppy in the early 1800s. He named the new drug “morphine” after Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams, dubbing it “God’s own medicine.”\n\nHospitals welcomed the painkiller and so did the battlefield, but by the end of the Civil War, so many soldiers were suffering from addiction that it became known as the “Army Disease.”\n\nIn response to that problem, Heinrich Dreser and others working for Bayer in Germany tried to develop a drug that would keep the medicine’s positive properties while removing its deadly and addictive nature.\n\nDreser tried the new drug out on animals. Then he tried it on himself and others, who reported the substance made them feel better. Even heroic.\n\nHe found that the new drug worked better than another opium-derived drug, codeine, on respiratory diseases. After trying the drug out on a number of people, he promised doctors it wasn’t addictive.\n\n“It possesses many advantages over morphine,” he wrote in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal. “There’s no danger of acquiring a habit.”\n\nIn 1898, Bayer began selling this supposed wonder drug, marketing it as a cough suppressant. Doctors also used the drug to treat pneumonia, tuberculosis, menstrual pain and even morphine addiction.\n\nThe new drug’s name? Heroin.\n\nWithin a year, Bayer was producing a ton of heroin, marketing it as a cough syrup for children and a medicine to fight pneumonia and bronchitis.\n\n“With Bayer’s Heroin Syrup one manages to have a restful sleep,” promised one advertisement featuring children.\n\nIn reality, heroin turned out to be even more potent, addictive and deadly than morphine.\n\nSome addicts crushed heroin pills and snorted the substance. Others injected the drug directly into their veins for a quicker high.\n\nHundreds of thousands of Americans became addicted to these opium-derived drugs, said David T. Courtwright, author of “Dark Paradise: A History of Opiate Addiction in America.”\n\nThe average addict was a middle- or upper-class white woman suffering from chronic pain, often introduced to the drug by her physician, he said.\n\nIn response to the epidemic, Congress gave the responsibility for protecting the nation’s food and medicine to a scientific bureau stuck in a basement of the Department of Agriculture building. The bureau became known as the Food and Drug Administration.\n\nIn 1914, Congress backed the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act, which regulated and taxed products derived from the opium plant and the coca leaves (used to produce cocaine). Patients now needed prescriptions from doctors to obtain powerful narcotics.\n\nIn the decades that followed, federal officials continued their crackdowns. They prohibited heroin from medical use and limited other opium-derived painkillers to patients recovering from surgery or other injuries or suffering from cancer or other terminal diseases.\n\nCategories of pain\n\nGrowing up in Prestonsburg, Kentucky, Fannin spent lots of time in the woods and figured he would be a game biologist.\n\nHis father wanted him to practice medicine, but becoming a doctor seemed impossible.\n\nAfter spending time in martial arts, he realized that by setting goals and working hard, he could achieve anything.\n\nLooking back, he recalled, “God had plans for me, it seems.”\n\nA cousin who was a physician offered Fannin a job and soon became a role model. Fannin attended the University of Kentucky’s medical school and trained under a pain specialist.\n\nHe learned that pain fell into three categories: acute, cancer-related and chronic.\n\nDoctors typically treated patients who suffered acute pain (for instance, after surgery or an accident) with a short-term prescription of opioids mixed with less powerful painkillers, such as aspirin or acetaminophen (coming under brand names such as Percodan, Vicodin, Percocet and Lortab).\n\nDoctors typically treated patients suffering from cancer-related pain with opioids such as morphine. For patients with serious or terminal diseases, addiction was much less a concern.\n\nDoctors hesitated to prescribe these powerful opioids to patients suffering from chronic pain (pain that lasts more than three months, such as lower back pain) because doctors feared these patients might become addicted after taking these opioids for so long.\n\nFannin understood some pain patients responded to physical therapy. Some could reduce their pain through biofeedback as patients began to learn from their bodies. Some could get help from chiropractors.\n\nPain, he realized, didn’t always need pills.\n\n‘New class of addicts’\n\nGerman scientists took another swing at the morphine molecule, and they came up with oxycodone. The opioid seemed to have fewer side effects, but it was no less addictive.\n\nIn 1950, the FDA approved Percodan, which combined oxycodone with aspirin. Nearly a quarter-century later, Percocet — a combination of oxycodone and acetaminophen — followed.\n\nThose opioids began to be abused. By 1962, doctors had prescribed nearly 36 million Percodan in California, with the chief narcotics enforcement official complaining that people were “eating Percodan as though it were popcorn,” and the state’s attorney general concluding that the drug was creating a “new class of addicts composed of otherwise honest, not criminally inclined persons.”\n\nAddicts eventually included singer Elvis Presley, who died of a drug overdose in 1977, and comedian Jerry Lewis, who received the opioid after a spinal injury and became addicted for 13 years.\n\nIn the 1980s, some doctors, including pain specialist Dr. Russell Portenoy, called attention to millions of Americans suffering from “untreated pain,” saying opioids offered the solution. He became the first president of the American Pain Society, which drugmakers helped fund.\n\nThe society campaigned for health care providers to make pain the “fifth vital sign,” joining blood pressure, temperature, heartbeat and breathing.\n\n“We had to destigmatize these (opioids),” Portenoy told The Wall Street Journal. “We had to bring them out of the cold into the mainstream medical practice. We had to have doctors think in terms of risk and benefit instead of thinking of these consequences that are so scary — like addiction and death.”\n\nIn 1989, the Texas Medical Board adopted language to support wider use of painkillers by doctors. Other states followed.\n\nThe Federation of State Medical Boards, which received up to $2 million from drugmakers, recommended doctors not face punishment for prescribing large amounts of opioids and called on those boards to punish doctors who “undertreated” pain.\n\nBy the 1990s, juries awarded more than $16 million to patients and families whose loved ones suffered from pain, concluding that the nursing homes, nurses and doctors that failed to give opioids were guilty of negligence.\n\nAddiction specialist Dr. Drew Pinsky said this development made doctors wary about failing to prescribe opioids to any patient who complained of pain. From that point forward, he said he began to refer pain patients to pain clinics.\n\n‘The fifth vital sign’\n\nBy the mid-1990s, Fannin, who served in the Army in Vietnam, was working part time at a Veterans Affairs clinic in Prestonsburg, treating war veterans.\n\nThat was where he first heard doctors call pain “the fifth vital sign.”\n\nIt seemed odd to equate pain with something like breathing, but he understood the need to “dignify” and take care of pain.\n\nHe noticed that doctors seemed too willing to prescribe these opioid pills for chronic pain, patients seemed too willing to take them, and insurers seemed too willing to pay.\n\n“Pain as the fifth vital sign” became policy at the VA clinic where he worked as well as VA hospitals across the U.S.\n\nThe Joint Commission began requiring hospitals to assess all patients for pain on a scale of 1 to 10, which some claimed caused more doctors to prescribe opioids.\n\nPurdue gave the commission a grant to produce a pain assessment and management manual.\n\nOfficials from the commission and Purdue denied the company had anything to do with the content of the manual, co-written by Dr. June Dahl, who served on the speakers bureau for Purdue.\n\nThe manual told health care facilities the side effects of opioids had been exaggerated and that physical dependence had been wrongly confused with addiction. “There is no evidence that addiction is a significant issue when persons are given opioids for pain control,” the manual said.\n\nPurdue officials explained that studies on opioid addiction depended on many factors, including mental health. They cited a 2008 article by Dr. David Fishbain of the University of Miami, who analyzed 79 published studies, saying he concluded the prevalence of abuse or addiction was 3.27 percent, or 0.19 percent for those with no past addiction.\n\nFishbain responded that his study was misinterpreted and that addiction could be anywhere between 3.27 and 20.4 percent.\n\nCommission officials denied its new standards encouraged doctors to prescribe more opioids, blaming drug trafficking as well as diversion and abuse by individuals.\n\nAt that time, the “evidence was broadly supported by experts across the spectrum that pain was undertreated and a serious problem leading to poor clinical outcomes,” the commission said.\n\nThe commission concluded that “millions of people in the United States suffer from pain, and failure to treat their pain is inhumane.”\n\nThe painkiller market\n\nSince 1987, Purdue Pharma had been selling a timed-release drug named MS Contin, the company’s version of morphine. Seven years later, annual sales topped $88 million — the best performing painkiller Purdue officials had — but they faced problems.\n\nDoctors knew how addictive morphine could be, and most were reluctant to prescribe MS Contin to patients suffering from chronic pain.\n\nThe even bigger problem? MS Contin’s patent would expire soon.\n\nThat meant generic drug manufacturers could make their own versions of MS Contin and eat into Purdue’s share of the painkiller market.\n\nA generation earlier, Arthur Sackler, the brother of Purdue’s owners, had marketed Valium and other tranquilizers to women experiencing anxiety, tension or countless other symptoms. The drug broke all sales records, turning many women into addicts and Sackler into a multimillionaire.\n\nThe Sackler family planned to repeat that success with a timed-release version of OxyContin, the company’s version of oxycodone.\n\nIn internal Purdue documents obtained by the USA TODAY NETWORK, company officials gushed that OxyContin could become a hit in “the $462 million Class II opioid marketplace.”\n\nThese documents detail their strategy: They would first market OxyContin strictly for cancer pain, where doctors were familiar with oxycodone.\n\nThen the company would pivot to the lucrative market of chronic pain, which afflicted at least 25 million Americans.\n\nPurdue’s plan included targeting primary care physicians, surgeons, obstetricians and dentists. The company even targeted home care and hospice care nurses who would “rate the patients’ pain and make a recommendation on the type of opioid and dosage for pain control.”\n\nThe plan also included targeting patients and caregivers through Purdue’s “Partners Against Pain” program. “You are the pain authority,” the website reassured patients. “You are the expert on your own pain.”\n\nThe website declared that “there are 75 million Americans living with pain, although pain management experts say they don’t have to,” reassuring patients that doctors could control their pain “through the relatively simple means of pain medications” and that the risk of addiction to opioids “very rarely occurs when under medical supervision to relieve pain.”\n\nTo ensure that OxyContin became a hit, Purdue sponsored more than 20,000 educational programs to encourage health care providers to prescribe the new drug and sent videos to 15,000 doctors.\n\nThe company also hosted dozens of all-expenses-paid national pain management conferences, where more than 5,000 physicians, pharmacists and nurses were trained for the company’s national speakers bureau.\n\nBy 2001, Purdue was spending $200 million on marketing and promotion and had doubled its sales force to 671. Before the year ended, sales bonuses reached $40 million.\n\nAddiction knowledge: ‘zip’\n\nFannin remembers sales reps from Purdue flooding doctors’ offices in Appalachia, where poverty and pain are constant realities.\n\nThe reps gave away fishing hats, stuffed toys and music CDs titled “Get in the Swing with OxyContin.”\n\n“Every time you turned around, you saw their faces,” Fannin said. “We had a population of doctors with very little grounding in pain, and I think Purdue took advantage of that.”\n\nMany doctors knew about oxycodone from Percocet, which combined a small dosage of the potent opioid with 325 mg of acetaminophen.\n\nWhat many of those doctors didn’t realize was that oxycodone was nearly twice as powerful as morphine, delivering a powerful high to those who use the drug.\n\n“It’s more like heroin,” explained Dr. Andrew Kolodny, co-director of the Opioid Policy Research Collaborative at Brandeis University. “It crosses the blood-brain barrier more quickly.”\n\nBut the sales reps never mentioned that. Instead, they said OxyContin didn’t create highs like other opioids and was less likely to get people addicted.\n\nFannin recalled sales reps calling OxyContin “a revolution in pain care” and “much more effective” than the old drugs.\n\nThey also talked of studies, citing one that found only four of 11,882 patients — less than 1 percent — became addicted after using opioids. Portenoy and others repeatedly cited this research, with some calling it a “landmark study.”\n\nThe truth is it wasn’t even a study. It was a five-sentence letter to the editor that a doctor wrote the New England Journal of Medicine.\n\nFor the most part, Fannin believed what the sales reps were telling him, and so did other doctors in the region.\n\n“Our knowledge about addiction,” he said, “was about zip.”\n\nSo they spread the opioid with their prescription pads, and it settled into the Appalachian mountains like the ever-present morning fog.\n\nOxyContin, which some hailed as a “miracle drug,” became the blockbuster in 2001 that Purdue officials dreamed of, with more than 7 million in prescriptions and nearly $3 billion in revenue.\n\nBy 2015, the Sackler family, who owned Purdue, had made $14 billion, joining Forbes’ 2015 list of America’s richest families, edging out the Rockefellers.\n\n‘It was a setup’\n\nBelieving he was easing pain, Fannin turned increasingly to OxyContin.\n\nHe typically prescribed it for people suffering for more than a year from chronic, non-cancer pain. He considered it “a good tool” for patients with serious back injuries, estimating that 150 or more of his patients took OxyContin back then.\n\n“Some doctors were more conservative” about prescribing the pills, he said. “Some prescribed them more freely.”\n\nFannin believes doctors bore part of the blame for overprescribing OxyContin, but he believes Purdue bore blame, too.\n\n“From the get-go, it was a setup,” he said. “This drug got turned loose in eastern Kentucky.”\n\nA nation addicted\n\nThe trickle of OxyContin turned into a flood across the U.S. In five years, the drug’s prescriptions for chronic, non-cancer pain shot up almost tenfold from about 670,000 in 1997 to 6.2 million in 2002.\n\nAt a conference sponsored by Purdue, Dr. Jeffrey Summers, a pain specialist in Flowood, Mississippi, recalled a law enforcement officer insisting that OxyContin couldn’t be abused, and that was why it had almost no street value.\n\nWhen the doctor asked one of Purdue’s experts about this, he said the expert replied that OxyContin couldn’t be abused by crushing or chewing because “the oxycodone would be released all at once.”\n\nSummers said that instant release “became the primary reason OxyContin was abused,” producing a heroin-like high for abusers.\n\nAdmitted abusers of OxyContin jumped from 400,000 in 1999 to nearly 3 million in 2003. By 2009, abuse of prescription painkillers had played a role in the nation’s record 1.2 million emergency room visits.\n\nFormer Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore, who led the litigation against tobacco companies and is now involved in the litigation against opioids makers, said a Purdue salesman told him that each morning he would look at reports detailing doctors in his territory who had prescribed OxyContin or other opioids.\n\nMoore said the salesman told these doctors that OxyContin was less addictive, that it lasted 12 hours and that it was OK to increase the dosage to 40 mg to ensure that pain was controlled.\n\n“Sales skyrocketed,” Moore said, “and a nation became addicted.”\n\nGetting hooked\n\nIt didn’t take long for Fannin to realize something was wrong. Instead of reporting less pain over time and needing less OxyContin, patients complained of worse pain and asked for more pills as their bodies grew more tolerant to the drug.\n\nThey were getting hooked.\n\nScientific studies countered Purdue’s claim of a “less than 1 percent” addiction rate, showing that as many as 1 in 4 who took prescription opioids long term for non-cancer pain struggled with addiction.\n\nIn the years that followed, more than 2 million Americans began to abuse prescription opioids or become dependent on them, including some of Fannin’s patients.\n\n“I would’ve put a lot fewer people on that medicine if I knew then what I know now,” Fannin said. “I created problems and I didn’t know it. I created problems for people because of my ignorance.”\n\nMany other area doctors did the same. And a small percentage actually pushed the drug for profit, opening so-called “pill mills” where people could get OxyContin for cash just by asking, even with no medical need.\n\nThough these physicians were “looked down upon,” Fannin said, “we didn’t police our own ranks.”\n\nGradually, pills spilled onto the streets. Addicts sold them to fuel their habits. Poor patients in real pain sold some to stay afloat. Children and teens raided medicine cabinets and sold them at school.\n\n‘Unleashed … dangerous drug’\n\nSoon America was awash in OxyContin, and other opioids followed.\n\nThose prescriptions had consequences. By 2001, the number of deaths related to oxycodone had risen fivefold.\n\nIn 2007, Purdue’s holding company pleaded guilty to “misbranding” OxyContin, admitting that sales reps “with intent to defraud or mislead” had promoted the drug as less addictive and less likely to be abused than other opioid painkillers.\n\n“With its OxyContin, Purdue unleashed a highly abusable, addictive and potentially dangerous drug on an unsuspecting and unknowing public,” U.S. Attorney John Brownlee of Virginia announced.\n\nPurdue, a privately held company in Stamford, Connecticut, paid a $600 million fine, and three executives pleaded guilty to misbranding, paying nearly $35 million in fines.\n\nDespite their pleas, Purdue insisted the executives had not been guilty of misleading anybody. “To the contrary,” the company’s statement said, “they took steps to prevent any misstatements in the marketing or promotion of OxyContin.”\n\nAt the sentencings, the judge gave the executives probation and community service.\n\nSome present praised OxyContin for killing their pain. Others said the drug had killed their teenage children. One mother held up a jar that contained the ashes of her late son.\n\nTreatment, sobriety, relapse\n\nBy then pills were everywhere — and easy for Fannin’s son to find.\n\nSean Fannin, the younger of two boys, was a smart kid who preferred skilled trades to medicine, telling his dad he wanted to be a welder. He would grow up to work in the coal mines for a time, like his grandfather.\n\nAs he came of age, Fannin later learned, Sean was smoking pot, drinking and eventually abusing pills. Fannin and his wife thought he had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or a mood problem until a University of Kentucky doctor diagnosed his addiction. A psychotherapist advised residential care.\n\n“It made me angry that I missed it,” Fannin said, “especially being a doctor.”\n\nOn the long drive to a teen recovery center in the Tennessee woods, Sean confessed his drug use to his parents. He was around 14 at the time, and this stint in recovery was the first of many.\n\nThe family filled the next several years with periods of treatment, sobriety and relapses.\n\nThe ordeal gave Fannin a new perspective on addiction.\n\nFor much of his life he hadn’t believed it was a disease. But watching his son suffer made him realize he needed to fight it like any other malady. And not just on a personal level.\n\nWhile supporting Sean’s recovery, Fannin began helping others trapped by addiction — first by covering shifts for another doctor doing recovery work at a Pikeville hospital. Eventually, he became one of the few board-certified addiction specialists in eastern Kentucky.\n\nIn his family practice, meanwhile, Fannin prescribed far less OxyContin and required any patients on opioids to undergo urine screens and pill counts. He also checked their prescription history through the state’s electronic prescription drug monitoring system.\n\nHe was determined not to fuel any more addiction in his community, but he was unable to pry his son from addiction’s grip.\n\n‘Healers become dealers’\n\nOpioids kill first by slowing down breathing, then by depriving the brain and body of oxygen, the very stuff of life.\n\nBy 2009, drug overdose deaths had become the leading cause of accidental deaths in the U.S., surpassing traffic fatalities. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared that the nation faced an opioid epidemic.\n\nOverprescribing has fueled much of this epidemic, said Dr. Anna Lembke, an associate professor of psychiatry, behavioral sciences and anesthesiology at the Stanford University School of Medicine.\n\n“So how did healers become dealers?” she asked.\n\nIt happened as medicine became an industry, she said, with doctors practicing “assembly-line medicine” in “health care factories.”\n\nFactories do well with things like knee replacements, but the system breaks down when it comes to addiction, said the psychiatrist, who runs Stanford’s Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic. “I can make more money spending five minutes with a patient and prescribing a pill than I can spending an hour with the patient in psychotherapy.”\n\nTwo centuries ago, pain was considered beneficial, boosting the immune system, she said. “Now we consider pain dangerous — something that if left untreated will leave people with psychic scars.”\n\nThe new thinking is that a patient in pain is an aggrieved party that doctors are supposed to fix, she said. “And if they don’t, they are not only lacking in knowledge and compassion, they are amoral.”\n\nShe said physicians are taught to “first, do no harm,” and automatically prescribing opioids over the long term not only exposes these pain patients to the risk of addiction, but she said the drugs may also exacerbate their pain and slow their healing.\n\nWith millions of Americans abusing prescription opioids, Mexican cartels found a new market for their cheap heroin. In 2001, fewer than 1,800 Americans died of a heroin overdose. By 2016, those deaths had topped 15,000.\n\nAnd that heroin has often been laced with synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, which is 50 times more powerful than morphine, and carfentanyl, which is 10,000 times more powerful than morphine.\n\nFentanyl is used to treat breakthrough cancer pain. Carfentanyl is an elephant tranquilizer, and just a few grains can kill humans. In 2016, overdoses from these synthetic opioids surpassed 20,000 deaths.\n\nLembke said the U.S. faces a “modern plague” with addiction, which affects more than 40 million Americans if tobacco and alcohol are included. Addiction costs the nation $442 billion in a single year, according to the surgeon general.\n\n“Karl Marx said religion is the opium of the masses,” she said. “We are at a point in history where opium has become the religion of the masses.”\n\n‘It honors him’\n\nSean Fannin’s Pikeville funeral was standing room only.\n\nFannin finds it tough to talk about the loss of his child, about the overdose of OxyContin and the anti-anxiety medicine Xanax that killed him at just 28.\n\nBut he’ll share his experiences with addicted patients and their families.\n\n“Still to this day, he’ll use Sean’s story to get through to somebody,” said his longtime office manager, Amy Hunt. “And he’ll cry at the drop of a hat when he talks about it.”\n\nThe pain of his death continues to haunt Fannin and his wife, an artist and quilter. But they also treasure their son’s living legacy — a 6-year-old daughter, born shortly before his death.\n\nFannin, who turns 70 in February, recently retired from family practice to devote more time to hospice work and addiction treatment.\n\nAt East Kentucky Rehabilitation Center in downtown Prestonsburg, he treats patients recovering with the help of medication such as Suboxone and Vivitrol. Before he sees them, he prays with Hunt. Not only have they worked together for years, but Fannin treated her late husband’s opioid addiction, which began after he took painkillers following a mine accident.\n\nOn a recent afternoon, patients gathered in a downstairs waiting room with family members. One sidled over to another to ask what he had been doing lately. A preschool girl played near an older relative, and Hunt stopped over, bent down and cheerfully remarked on how she had gotten bigger.\n\nThere are no strangers here. Fannin has been known to spend at least 45 minutes with each patient, even if that means staying late.\n\nSometimes, Fannin gets a glimpse of the difference he’s making. At a local Walmart last year, a former patient walked up to Fannin with her baby, asking if he remembered her. He did.\n\nShe pointed to her husband, another former patient, who was checking out fishing poles nearby. She told the doctor they were both staying clean and doing great. She’d been pregnant when he treated her, and now had two healthy kids.\n\nTears flowed as she spoke to the doctor. “I just wanted to thank you.”\n\nFannin knew that couple was among the lucky ones. Studies show that only 1 in 10 Americans are able to get treatment for addiction.\n\nDavid Gearheart, the certified alcohol and drug counselor who owns the recovery center, said, “It’s getting to the point where we could be open seven days a week, 24 hours a day. People drive two to three hours to come here. There’s just not enough treatment out there.”\n\nFannin knows his job is far from over. The Vietnam veteran has lived long enough to see the drug scourge claim more lives in a single year than the entire Vietnam War.\n\nHe stared out the window over downtown Prestonsburg, aching, as he always does, for his own loss. But the memory of Sean infuses his work.\n\n“The way I figure,” Fannin said, “it honors him.”\n\nThe doctor finished off the last of his sandwich and made his way downstairs to see another patient.\n\nHe wasn’t done. He would never be done, as long as there was someone else he might save.\n\nJerry Mitchell is an investigative reporter for Clarion Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi, and Laura Ungar is an investigative reporter for Courier Journal in Louisville, Kentucky.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2018/01/28"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/local/2020/03/17/coronavirus-takes-toll-las-cruces-all-you-need-know/5069222002/", "title": "Coronavirus in Southern New Mexico: What you need to know about ...", "text": "The novel coronavirus, COVID-19, is upending all of our lives. It's affecting our work and our play. News changes by the hour and it's hard to get a handle on it. In this space, we'll be posting the latest information about coronavirus and how it's affecting life in Las Cruces and southern New Mexico.\n\nHere is a list of cancellations.\n\nHere is a list of restaurants offering curbside and/or delivery.\n\nHere is a list of resources if you're been laid off or your hours have been cut.\n\nHere are some ideas to fight boredom while self-distancing. And here are reporter Jackie Devine's Top 5 shows to binge watch on Netflix and 5 online games to play.\n\nDon't forget to exercise! Here are five exercise ideas to consider and three trails that are open for hiking.\n\nYou might also find the coronavirus information you're looking for at the CDC website or the New Mexico Department of Health website.\n\nSunday, April 12\n\n4:16 PM: Doña Ana County records first death from COVID-19\n\nState health officials say the death is a man in his 50s who had been hospitalized.\n\n2:41 PM: Inside New Mexico's COVID-19 command center, medical experts make critical decisions\n\nWelcome to the command center for the Medical Advisory Team, a group of more than 100 officials and experts set up by the New Mexico Department of Health to stretch the capacity of the state's health care system as far as it can go during the COVID-19 crisis.\n\n1:52 PM: New Mexico celebrates Easter at home under COVID-19 restrictions\n\nArchbishop John Wester has been supportive of social distancing initiatives and directives, noting that the virus “doesn’t take a day off for Good Friday or Easter Sunday.” | GALLERY: A look inside Holy Cross Catholic Church on Easter\n\n8 AM: Easter marks anniversary of asylum-seeker crisis in Las Cruces\n\nThis time last year the city was dealing with a different kind of crisis. Some of the lessons learned then are being employed now.\n\n7 AM: What our columnists are saying\n\nSaturday, April 11\n\n5:19 PM: New Mexico's mass gathering ban now includes houses of worship amid coronavirus fears\n\nMany New Mexico congregations had already canceled in-person services.\n\n4:44 PM: COVID-19 numbers in New Mexico: 1,174 cases, 235 recoveries, 20 deaths\n\nHere are Saturday's numbers.\n\n4:02 PM: AD discusses COVID-19's potential financial impact on New Mexico State athletics\n\nNew Mexico State athletics director Mario Moccia doesn't claim to have all the answers, but like any administrator across the country, he has been busy planning for a certain budget hit in Fiscal Year 2021 and what a delayed or cancelled football season would mean to an already tight budget.\n\n1:53 AM: Diocese of Las Cruces celebrates Easter at a distance\n\nKeeping faith alive in the COVID-19 age.\n\n10:54 AM: Be mindful of access to alcohol in the home during COVID-19 pandemic\n\nIt is important to consider how to help your family make healthy decisions.\n\n10:19 AM: NMSU mental health counselor gives advice to cope with COVID-19 pandemic\n\nProlonged social isolation can have adverse effects on mental health, especially for people already grappling with mental conditions like depression and anxiety, said New Mexico State University counselor Louie Atencio\n\n9:48 AM: Aggie Innovation Space creating face shields for hospitals\n\nUsing a laser cutter, a thermal press, a sheet metal pneumatic shear and multiple 3D printers, NMSU engineering students and staff have made more than 70 face shields, with plans to make more.\n\n9:25 AM: Funding allows Las Cruces Utilities to extend help to small businesses\n\nFor the first time LCU can help commercial customers in addition to residents.\n\n9 AM: Food trucks now allowed to set up at New Mexico rest areas\n\nIn a news release, the NMDOT stated that it recognizes some commercial truck drivers and travelers may appreciate the convenience of food service at rest areas\n\nFriday, April 10\n\n8:08 PM: Las Cruces police to enforce closed city parks this Easter weekend\n\nStay home. Don't gather.\n\n7:47 PM: NMSU researcher studying how viruses jump from wildlife to humans\n\nNew Mexico State University post-doctoral fellow Katie Young spent a year in the tropical rainforests of Malaysian Borneo studying the mosquito-borne virus Dengue, to better understand the cross talk between viruses and hosts.\n\n4:55 PM: New Mexico passes 1,000 coronavirus cases, reports 19 deaths and 235 recoveries\n\nHere are Friday's numbers.\n\n3:39 PM: Internal email: La Clinica de Familia staffer diagnosed with COVID-19\n\nAn internal email reports that a staff member of nonprofit community health organization La Clinica de Familia has tested positive for COVID-19\n\n2:31 PM: New Mexico lawmakers fight for federal relief for rural cities amid coronavirus pandemic\n\nU.S. Rep. Xochitl Torres Small (D-NM) talks about ensuring federal funding comes to rural communities.\n\n1:10 PM: Toucan Market to provide free lunch to those in need\n\nHere's what you need to know about Saturday's giveaway.\n\n12:48 PM: City approves $684,000 in additional aid, extends mayor's emergency proclamation\n\nThe city council met in a special meeting Friday to take action.\n\n12:21 PM: Get to know Annie Ersinghaus: 'Uncharted Waters' filmmaker\n\nAnnie Ersinghaus, an NMSU student, produced a documentary on the COVID-19 crisis.\n\n10:04 AM: Volunteer fair and giving day cancelled\n\nThe 9th annual Volunteer Far and Giving Day, planned for April 25 in Las Cruces, has been canceled.\n\n9:59 AM: Las Cruces Utilities offering additional Green Grappler curbside pickup\n\nHere's what you need to know before calling the Green Grappler.\n\n9:43 AM: Advocates: Two cases of coronavirus detected at Otero County Processing Center\n\nAn employee and a detained migrant there have contracted the novel coronavirus, according to Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center in El Paso.\n\n8:45 AM: How to visit Carlsbad Caverns, other national parks while in quarantine\n\nYou’ll have to enjoy the sights and sounds of Carlsbad Caverns from your home for the time being.\n\n7:30 AM: Cruces Creatives network of 80 volunteers crafting PPE for hospitals\n\nCruces Creatives has been in the process of making cloth masks, respirator masks and face shields for local Las Cruces hospital workers. About 80 or so volunteers are working on the projects from home and the organization is using designs available online.\n\nThursday, April 9\n\n7:02 PM: Silver City makerspace produces protective medical gear to offset shortages\n\nFuture Forge Makerspace, a nonprofit based in an industrial building near downtown Silver City, says it has already produced 300 plastic face shields for local healthcare facilities and, with increased production, has begun reaching out beyond Grant County.\n\n6:06 PM: Revolution 120 champions fundraiser to provide 2,000 face masks to La Clinica de Familia\n\nThe Mask Angels fundraiser delivered 1,000 face masks on Thursday and will deliver 1,000 more masks as soon as next week.\n\n5:44 PM: New Mexico reaches 989 cases, 217 recoveries from COVID-19 disease\n\nThe daily numbers report includes data provided during a state press conference.\n\n4:43 PM: New Mexico gets 3rd surge in a row on unemployment claims\n\nNearly 73,000 people in New Mexico have lost their jobs over that last three weeks.\n\n3:07 PM: 'Man camp' for border wall workers in Columbus, N.M. moving amid concerns over COVID-19\n\nThe trailers — expected to house 20 to 60 people for up to two years as the construction of steel bollard structures on the border begins — will now be located south of Columbus and another site in Hidalgo County.\n\n1:23 PM: World of Outlaws cancel Vado Speedway Park event due to COVID-19\n\nThe racing showcase had been scheduled for April 24-25.\n\n10:05 AM: UTEP researchers are working to develop a COVID-19 vaccine with the help of a supercomputer\n\nDr. Suman Sirimulla is working to develop the molecular structure of a drug that would target the novel coronavirus, which causes the respiratory illness COVID-19\n\n7 AM: Jackie's Top 5: Las Cruces heroes amidst COVID-19 pandemic\n\nLook for the helpers.\n\nWednesday, April 8\n\n6:23 PM: Mayor Ken Miyagishima declares citywide emergency due to coronavirus\n\nHere's what it means.\n\n5:45 PM: Casa de Peregrinos extends hours of operation\n\nCasa de Peregrinos, the flagship food pantry in Las Cruces, is extending its hours of operation amid the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.\n\n4:55 PM: New Mexico authorities: Scammers keeping busy during COVID-19 crisis\n\nHere are some tips to ensure you don't fall victim.\n\n4:51 PM: COVID-19 testing center in Sunland Park first in southern Doña Ana County\n\nFirst day of testing in southern Doña Ana County went smoothly.\n\n4:46 PM: Three more dead in New Mexico: 865 cases of COVID-19 now confirmed\n\nWednesday's numbers.\n\n4:18 PM: State offers stimulus to self-employed workers on first come, first serve basis\n\nHere's some unemployment information for self-employed workers.\n\n2:30 PM: 'If I got it, you got it.' Some hold gatherings in defiance of COVID-19 orders\n\nBe smart. Stay at home and don't gather with a lot of people.\n\n10:49 AM: Vitalant Blood Bank continues to seek blood donations for southern New Mexico\n\nThis week, Vitalant is working with MountainView Regional Medical Center and Memorial Medical Center on blood drives.\n\n7 AM: Uninvited guest COVID-19 wreaks havoc on Las Cruces wedding season\n\nThe wedding crasher no one wanted.\n\nTuesday, April 7\n\n9:40 PM: New Mexico waives waiting week for unemployment, extends call hours\n\nHere's what you need to know if you're trying to collect unemployment benefits.\n\n8:20 PM: Sunland Park Racetrack & Casino donates $2 million to coronavirus relief efforts\n\nThe donation is on behalf of the Stanley E. Fulton Foundation and will go to the All Together New Mexico Fund.\n\n5:23 PM: COVID-19 testing begins Wednesday in Sunland Park, Anthony, Chaparral\n\nTesting appointments must be prescheduled.\n\n4:50 PM: New Mexico coronavirus cases at 794; clusters identified at San Felipe and Zia pueblos\n\nThat's an increase of nearly 16 percent from the previous day.\n\n1:35 PM: Animal Services Center utilizing website for adoptions, missing pets\n\nThe Animal Services Center of the Mesilla Valley is making some operational changes after the state extended stay at home order and social distancing guidelines through April 30. Here's the new plan..\n\n1:19 PM: Pilot program to start collecting plasma from recovered COVID-19 patients\n\nPeople who have recovered from COVID-19 may have an outlet to help those ill with the disease caused by the new coronavirus: Donating their plasma.\n\n12:16 PM: NMSU gathers protective gear to donate to local hospitals\n\nAs healthcare providers on the frontlines of the coronavirus pandemic face shortages of personal protective equipment, New Mexico State University is pitching in to help local hospitals in Las Cruces.\n\n12 PM: How to make a mask\n\nNew Mexico state government is sharing this video on how to make a mask based on CDC guidelines recommending that people wear cloth face coverings in public settings like grocery stores and pharmacies where it could be difficult to maintain social distancing.\n\nWearing a non-medical mask is an additional and voluntary public health measure that could keep people who have the virus and do not know it from transmitting it to others, according to the CDC. The state reports It is not a replacement for other important steps to prevent the spread of COVID-19 like staying home, physical distancing and hand-washing.\n\nThe cloth face coverings recommended are not surgical masks or N-95 respirators, which the state reports should be reserved for healthcare workers and other medical first responders.\n\n11:56 AM: RoadRUNNER buses install banners to help mitigate COVID-19 spread\n\nThe public health messages displayed on the city's fixed-route buses and Dial-A-Ride vehicles encourage everyone to wash their hands, cover their nose and mouth when coughing or sneezing, clean and disinfect frequently touched surfaces and stay home when sick.\n\n7AM: School bus drivers begin delivering meals to remote parts of Las Cruces\n\nMarcos Torres, a bus driver who also heads the Las Cruces Transportation Federation, the union representing bus drivers, expressed concern for drivers' safety.\n\n7 AM: Sen. Heinrich seeks Hometown Heroes amid coronavirus pandemic\n\nIndividuals can nominate a New Mexico Hometown Hero at https://www.heinrich.senate.gov/hometown-heroes.\n\nMonday, April 6\n\n6:37 PM: Have PPE to donate? Burrell students are collecting supplies for local healthcare workers\n\nA group of medical students at Burrell College of Osteopathic Medicine has joined the Medical Supply Drive movement to collect personal protective equipment for those on the front lines in the fight against the COVID-19 coronavirus.\n\n6:24 PM: State restricts customers inside businesses and extends public health order to April 30\n\nGov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced Monday an extension of public health measures meant to combat the virus through April 30, plus announced further restrictions on hardware stores and supermarkets.\n\n5:47 PM: New Mexico State University employee hospitalized with COVID-19\n\nNew Mexico State University announced Monday evening that an employee has been hospitalized with COVID-19 disease. Here's what we know.\n\n4:18 PM: San Juan County accounts for 25 of New Mexico's 62 new COVID-19 cases\n\nHere are the daily numbers.\n\n1:11 PM: New Mexico health investigators hunt for COVID-19 sources\n\nHow did an Artesia man — the state's first COVID-19 casualty — acquire the virus in a city at least 40 miles from the nearest big population center and who else he might have unintentionally exposed? Those are among the questions under investigation by a state Department of Health team.\n\n10:03 AM: Normal hours resume at 8 Doña Ana County trash collection centers\n\nThough some Doña Ana County collection centers are open, the Las Cruces transfer station and recycling drop-off centers remain closed.\n\n9:52 AM: City: No mass gatherings at parks on Easter Sunday\n\nReminder: Stay home and avoid large gatherings. And, yes, city parks are technically closed.\n\n6 AM: Columbus residents, NM delegation question 'man camp' for border wall amid coronavirus fears\n\nSome residents of this border community and New Mexico's federal delegation, all Democrats, are concerned about a trailer community popping up in the middle of town to house about 40 border wall workers, especially in the wake of the public health emergency.\n\nSunday, April 5\n\n4:35 PM: New Mexico's COVID-19 count increases 15 percent to 624 cases\n\nNew Mexico state health officials on Sunday announced 81 additional positive tests for COVID-19, as well as one additional death. Here are the latest numbers.\n\n10:27 AM: New Mexico small businesses urged to apply quickly for federal stimulus loans\n\nThe stimulus bill, or Cares Act, allocates $349 billion for loans to small businesses. Here's what you need to know.\n\n8:39 AM: Organ Mountain Outfitters adjusts to life during COVID-19 outbreak\n\nChris Lang, a \"non-essential\" business owner, talks to the Sun-News about having to lay off employees, shifting business online and what's next.\n\n6 AM: This is what local columnists have to say:\n\nSaturday, April 4\n\n6:01 PM: Las Cruces stores tighten restrictions to promote social distancing\n\nAmid large crowds, Lowe's received a visit from New Mexico State Police on Saturday and voluntarily begin staggering the intake of shoppers following the lead of several other big-box stores in town.\n\n5:29 PM: Las Cruces religious services go online until COVID-19 is contained\n\nThough New Mexico's stay-at-home order has closed church doors, it's opened services to the connected world as religious leaders take sermons online.\n\n4:53 PM: Health officials announce 51 new COVID-19 cases in New Mexico, one new death\n\nHere's the latest from New Mexico state health officials.\n\n2:11 PM: New Mexico State moved all its instruction online this week\n\nHow'd it go?\n\nFriday, April 3\n\n11:05 PM: NMSU sociologist says COVID-19 pandemic may erode gains of women’s movement\n\nWith schools closed and many people unemployed or working from home, this situation is likely to create a negative impact on women, even those with well-meaning partners who support gender equity and 50/50 division of labor in household responsibilities.\n\n10:13 PM: Your tap water is safe — it cannot carry COVID-19\n\nLas Cruces Utilities reports every drop of city tap water goes through rigorous monitoring.\n\n9:17 PM: NMSU Art Museum to host online series of programs, “ALONE/TOGETHER”\n\nThe New Mexico State University Art Museum has created a series of online Saturday programs in response to closing their doors for public health reasons..\n\n6:20 PM: Got kids to feed? Here's the latest on free breakfasts, lunches and dinners for children\n\nOfficials have announced changes to the free breakfast and lunch programs for children in the Las Cruces area amid a statewide school shutdown.\n\nFYI has stopped serving breakfast, but has added a dinner site.\n\nLCPS will use buses to deliver meals to relatively remote areas of town.\n\n3:24 PM: New Mexico announces 92 new cases of COVID-19; death total reaches 10\n\nGov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced the new totals while she and other state officials provided updates on the COVID-19 response.\n\n12:09 PM: City approves $1 million in coronavirus community aid\n\nIn a unanimous vote, the Las Cruces City Council approved $1,072,500 in money from the Telshor Fund to fund programs administered by a number of nonprofit partners, as well as to fund several city programs. Here's a breakdown of the funding.\n\nThursday, April 2\n\n6:32 PM: Benefits for self-employed workers still a few weeks away\n\nMore than 28,000 New Mexicans applied for unemployment benefits last week.\n\nAnd while criteria have been loosened to include workers in a wider swath of situations, such as the state temporarily waiving its work-search requirement for assistance, self-employed workers are still waiting for help.\n\n5:17 PM: New Mexico plans for surge in COVID-19 patients and supply shortages\n\nAs nationwide demand for health protection equipment surges, New Mexico's health care system has a limited statewide stock of about 44,000 snug-fitting N95 face masks that protect medical workers from the coronavirus by filtering out small airborne particles, state officials said.\n\nNew Mexico also has about 2.4 million exam gloves, 70,500 medical gowns and 234,000 surgical masks that offer less protection from virus infection than N95 masks.\n\n4:50 PM: New Mexico now at 403 cases and 7 deaths\n\nThe state Department of Health announced Thursday that 40 additional tests for the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 disease had been confirmed positive, and that a Bernalillo County woman was the state's seventh casualty related to the disease.\n\nThe 40 additional positive tests include a new case — but no deaths, yet — in Doña Ana County, which stands at 21 cases. It also reported that 31 COVID-19 cases were designated as having \"recovered.\"\n\n3:43 PM: Lujan Grisham says 'face masks and coverings' are encouraged; Stay-at-home order likely to be extended\n\nGov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Thursday afternoon participated in a nationwide #AskTheGov Twitter Q&A. During the online event, Lujan Grisham indicated that the state's \"stay-at-home\" order is likely to be extended.\n\n\"The horrible reality is that this pandemic is going to get worse before it gets better,\" Lujan Grisham tweeted.\n\nThe governor also signaled the administration may be shifting toward advising the use of masks and face coverings when out in public.\n\nSince the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak, the U.S. government has said masks were not needed for the general public. But in an interview Wednesday on \"Good Morning America,\" Surgeon General Jerome Adams said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was asked to review its guidance on wearing masks.\n\nThe CDC is still advising against the use of medical-grade (N95) masks — which are in short supply — by the general public.\n\n\"Even if you do wear a mask, it can't be at the expense of social distancing,\" Adams said Wednesday, noting a mask such as an N95 would not be necessary because it could come at the expense of health care workers who needed one.\n\n3:22 PM: Mesilla Valley Hospital provides COVID-19 update\n\nAnna Laliotis, CEO of Mesilla Valley Hospital, on Thursday provided an update on how the COVID-19 coronavirus was impacting hospital operations. Laliotis stated that the hospital is making every effort \"to avoid inciting unnecessary panic or anxiety among our clients and families, and we are taking every measure to protect them – along with our employees – during this dynamic situation.\" Hospital administrators are closely monitoring information provided by key government, regulatory and local entities.\n\nMVH urges its community to follow the guidance: If individuals develop a fever or cough or have difficulty breathing, or have had close contact with someone who has had a confirmed positive COVID-19 test result, please seek medical attention by calling your provider’s office. For information regarding COVID-19, visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website.\n\nIn the interest of protecting the health and safety of the hospital's patients, staff and community, the following actions have been implemented at MVH.\n\nServices and Programs\n\nThe facility remains fully operational and serving the needs of its community. It is taking proactive steps to keep patients and team members safe, including screening all individuals upon entering the facility.\n\nFor those in need of non-emergency behavioral healthcare, contact MVH rather than the local Emergency Department.\n\nMVH is actively monitoring and responding to all recommendations made by the CDC and local regulatory and health authorities.\n\nIn an effort to reduce the likelihood of community spread, all in-person visitation has been suspended (with limited, critical exceptions). MVH strongly encourages the use of electronic methods to stay connected with loved ones — including telemedicine, Zoom and extended phone time.\n\nMVH has implemented additional training for all employees on handwashing and hand sanitization, and strict employee and client compliance with washing/sanitizing hands thoroughly and often.\n\nThe hospital has increased the frequency of the required cleaning and sanitization of its facility, including intake rooms, surfaces and common areas.\n\nThe facility’s community education programs may be canceled/postponed; it asks the community to follow Mesilla Valley Hospital on Facebook for updates.\n\n\"We thank our community for everyone’s cooperation and for being an advocate for the health of your loved ones and all patients in our care,\" Laliotis stated in the written release.\n\n2:55 PM: Class of 2020 senior photos\n\nThe Class of 2020 is missing out some important milestones, including prom and graduation ceremonies in May. However, local districts are working on a plan for a commencement after the COVID-19 crisis subsides.\n\nWe're asking the Class of 2020 to send us their senior photos and we'll add them to the extensive gallery above. Send your photo and information to jdevine@lcsun-news.com.\n\nVIEW GALLERY:Class of 2020 senior photos\n\n1:58 PM: Las Cruces City Council to weigh approving $1 million for community relief programs\n\nThe Las Cruces City Council will hold a special meeting Friday morning, during which it could act on a number of economic relief measures in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.\n\nThe meeting will be streamed live on YouTube, at lascruces.civicweb.net and on television on CLC-TV Channel 20. It starts at 9:30 a.m. Friday morning.\n\n1:25 PM: New coronavirus safety precautions for Walmart employees include temperature checks\n\nWalmart announced new safety precautions for employees including temperature checks, masks, gloves and a \"6-20-100 Guidance.\"\n\nThe new safety precautions were announced on March 31 as a way to “continue to deal with the spread of COVID-19.”\n\n12:28 PM: Taxpayers warned about increase in scam activity\n\nTaxpayers and tax practitioners should be especially alert to phishing and other scam activity related to tax extensions and federal stimulus payments, the New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department announced Thursday.\n\nThe deadline for filing New Mexico and federal income taxes has been extended to July 15 in recognition of the financial difficulties many people face because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The federal government has also announced it will be making direct payments to taxpayers as part of its relief efforts.\n\nCriminals target taxpayers as well as tax preparers because of the opportunity that presents to steal information on multiple taxpayers all at once, the department stated.\n\nPotential targets may receive phone calls or emails with messaging such as “in order to receive your/your client’s stimulus payment via direct deposit, we need you to confirm the banking information,” according to the Federation of Tax Administrators.\n\nAccording to the Internal Revenue Service, most people will not need to take any action to receive their stimulus payments, as the payments will be distributed automatically. The IRS will not call, text or email people to verify their banking information for stimulus payments.\n\nTaxpayers and preparers should always beware of phishing scams by email and unsolicited phone calls seeking social security numbers or credit card and banking information\n\nAnyone unsure about an inquiry from the New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department may call 1-866-285-2996 and ask for confirmation on the status of their return. Taxpayers can also use the Taxpayer Access Point system at tax.newmexico.gov to check on the status of their returns and review other information about their accounts. More information also is available at irs.gov.\n\n12:10 PM: Doña Ana County leaders release COVID-19 public service announcement\n\nLeaders and representatives from the City of Las Cruces, Doña Ana County, Las Cruces Public Schools and the New Mexico Department of Health on Wednesday released a public service announcement, detailing some of the ways residents can stay healthy and mitigate the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus.\n\nThe PSA features Las Cruces Mayor Ken Miyagishima, Doña Ana County Manager Fernando Macias, LCPS Superintendent Karen Trujillo and NMDOH Spokesman David Morgan. The video was produced by the COVID-19 Joint Information Center, in partnership with the City of Las Cruces.\n\n11:33 AM: Second half property tax notices unaffected by COVID-19\n\nDoña Ana County Treasurer Eric Rodriguez announced that the second half property tax deadline of Monday, May 11, is not affected by COVID-19.\n\n“We made every effort to get relief for taxpayers, but ultimately that was not within our legal authority,” Rodriguez said.\n\nThe New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department decided against extending the payment deadline on a call with several counties Wednesday, April 1, citing that it would hurt cash flows for local taxing entities such as school districts and municipalities, county officials stated in a Thursday news release.\n\n“We want to avoid burdening taxpayers who are affected by the COVID-19 pandemic,” Rodriguez said. “That is why we will continue to work with the state and our legislators for subsequent relief options.”\n\nTo avoid penalty and interest accruals, property second half taxes are due Monday, May 11. Since in-person payment services are closed, the Treasurer’s Office encourages taxpayers to use one of the following payment options:\n\nBy phone: 575-647-7433, Toll Free 1-877-827-7200 ext. 7433\n\n575-647-7433, Toll Free 1-877-827-7200 ext. 7433 Online: www.donaanacounty.org/treasurer/payments\n\nwww.donaanacounty.org/treasurer/payments By mail: P.O. Box 1179 Las Cruces, NM 88004\n\nP.O. Box 1179 Las Cruces, NM 88004 24-Hour dropbox: Located in front of the County Government Center\n\nLocated in front of the County Government Center Bill pay: This is a service provided by most banks\n\nFor questions or service requests, contact the Treasurer’s Office:\n\nPhone: 575-647-7433, Toll Free 1-877-827-7200 ext. 7433\n\n575-647-7433, Toll Free 1-877-827-7200 ext. 7433 Email: taxbill@donaanacounty.org\n\ntaxbill@donaanacounty.org Mail: 845 N Motel Blvd. Las Cruces, NM 88007\n\nFor information on the Treasurer’s COVID-19 response plan, visit www.donaanacounty.org/treasurer.\n\nWednesday, April 1\n\n8:47 PM: Doña Ana County Detention Center reports no COVID-19 cases, initiates detainee quarantine\n\nCounty officials stated that all new detainees will be held in a quarantined area of the center for 14 days, to mitigate the potential spread of the novel coronavirus within the facility. Here's the latest.\n\n6:29 PM: Want to go hiking? Here are some trails near Las Cruces that are still open\n\nDeveloped recreation spots Dripping Springs, Soledad Canyon and Aguirre Spring are closed until further notice. But residents may continue to enjoy BLM trails and open space areas. Here are three nearby hiking trails to try.\n\n4:33 PM: New Mexico cases now at 363, one additional death\n\nState health officials said the number of positive coronavirus, or COVID-19, cases in New Mexico had jumped by 48 to bring the state total up to 363. The state also reported one more death due to the virus, a woman in her 90s who lived in Sandoval County.\n\n3:44 PM: District court won't impanel grand juries amid COVID-19 pandemic\n\nThe order directs charging documents must now be filed under an alternate method of prosecution, such as a preliminary examination through the magistrate court.\n\n3:07 PM: COVID-19 redefining the recruiting game for both coaches and prospects\n\nHere's how college coaches and the prospects they are recruiting are adapting in the age of physical distancing.\n\n3:05 PM: Las Cruces school district working on plan for bus drivers to deliver some meals\n\nSTS of New Mexico, the contractor providing bus transportation for the Las Cruces Public Schools said drivers will begin delivering meals to some district children next week.\n\nThe head of the bus drivers' union, however, says employees have not been told about those plans, and they have a number of concerns related to potential exposure to the COVID-19 coronavirus.\n\n2:48 PM: Website encourages New Mexico residents to 'Buy for Tomorrow Today'\n\nThe New Mexico Economic Development Department has launched a website that pairs shoppers with products and services in a “Buy for Tomorrow Today” campaign to help sustain businesses through the COVID-19 health emergency.\n\nThe “Buy for Tomorrow Today” website (www.BuyNMLocal.com) is another way for people to support New Mexico businesses during the emergency closures. The site offers direct access to individual websites where purchases can be finalized for products or services now, by delivery or take-out, or when the business reopens.\n\n“We know New Mexicans have loyalty to local businesses and those businesses need our support now more than ever. We hope this website becomes one of many tools that can help businesses through this crisis,” Economic Development Secretary Alicia J. Keyes said.\n\nThe website includes a registration link for businesses who want to participate. Shoppers can sort retailers by region to find a store near them. The state of New Mexico is not a party to the transactions.\n\nSome of the participating businesses include Iconik Coffee (Santa Fe); TJ’s Diner (Farmington); Gila Bike and Hike and Bluebird Running Co. (Las Cruces).\n\nMany businesses on the site are also offering discounts or additional value-added services with a purchase on the Buy Tomorrow website. New businesses are being added to the site daily, so check back often to find your favorite local retailer.\n\nBusiness can enroll by going to the site an clicking on the upper tab, \"Register Your Business.\"\n\nNew Mexico MainStreet is also offering a free webinar (registration required) at 1:30 p.m. on Thursday April 2 for businesses to learn about PayPal setup and other e-commerce resources. This webinar aims to help businesses in NM by promoting e-commerce on the Buy for Tomorrow Today website. Learn more.\n\n2:09 PM: Why is some COVID-19 data not being released in New Mexico?\n\nHow many people are recovering from COVID-19 in your area? What is known about how they were exposed? How many people have been tested for it in your county?\n\nAll are questions of interest to the public, but public interest sometimes must give way to legally protected privacy for individuals' medical information.\n\n10:39 AM: New Mexico relaxes COVID-19 testing guidelines\n\n“If we can keep more asymptomatic COVID-19 positive patients at home and not out in public, the more effective we will be at flattening the curve,\" said New Mexico Health Secretary Kathy Kunkel. Here are the new guidelines for getting tested.\n\n7 AM: Film Las Cruces launches movie contest for residents at home\n\nFilm Las Cruces is launching the “At Home! Movie Contest” to help residents have some fun and create some entertaining and educational videos for the city and state. The contest will start on April 1 and run through April 20.\n\nTuesday, March 31\n\n7 PM: Las Cruces City Council discusses economic relief measures.\n\nSee what's being proposed. The council is set to potentially take action on economic relief measures again at a special meeting Friday, April 3.\n\n4:58 PM: New Mexico marks 5th death to COVID-19; total cases is now 315\n\nAt a news conference Tuesday, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and other state officials announced new statewide numbers related to COVID-19, plus a host of other information, including:\n\nCriteria for testing for the virus has expanded beyond people showing symptoms of the disease.\n\nTesting is coming to more sites in Doña Ana County including Sunland Park, Santa Teresa, La Union, Anthony and Chaparral.\n\nPresident Donald Trump had approved a U.S. Army field hospital for New Mexico, though it was not yet clear how many beds, and how many intensive care beds in particular, it would offer.\n\nThe U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is working the state on how to expand hospital capacity in different parts of the state, with Las Cruces on a list of locations of interest.\n\nNew Mexico's \"doubling rate,\" as measured in the number of days it takes for confirmed cases of COVID-19 to double in number, has, happily, receded from two to three days and is continuing to slow down even as testing increases.\n\nUnder current modeling, New Mexico is expecting a peak in cases early in May, including a strain on hospital beds that the state is racing to meet.\n\nEfforts are underway, involving private sector partnerships with government, to produce more ventilators and needed medical supplies.\n\nThe governor said New Mexicans could anticipate the current public health orders to be expanded through April, and perhaps even into the middle of May, but did not announce tougher restrictions Tuesday.\n\n“Social distancing is the most meaningful tool we have,\" Lujan Grisham said. \"The less transmission, the more lives we’ll save. The less transmission, the fewer people that will go to the hospital. The less transmission, the more control we have over hospitalization and surges.”\n\n4:21 PM: LCPS launches K-12 enrichment channel on YouTube\n\nThe online portal is a work in progress, and one of many options students have to stay engaged until the end of the school year. To view activities on the LCPS YouTube channel, search LCPS Enrichment on YouTube. Find your grade level from schedules on the information and instructions. Follow the school videos for some fun and engaging activities.\n\n3:02 PM: SCSWA further restricts public access to waste/recycling facilities\n\nIn order to comply with the state's public health order, the general public will see restricted hours and closures at solid waste/recycling facilities during the COVID-19 outbreak in Las Cruces and Doña Ana County.\n\nUntil further notice, only essential businesses are allowed to dispose of trash at the\n\nAmador Avenue Transfer Station, 2865 Amador Ave., Las Cruces\n\nChaparral Collection and Recycling Center, 180 McCombs Road, Chaparral\n\nA list of businesses deemed essential can be found at https://cv.nmhealth.org/stay-at-home-essential-businesses/.\n\nBusinesses wanting to dispose of trash at the above locations must provide a letter documenting that they are an essential business – with the name of business, the type of business, name of employee and contact information (address and phone numbers) for the business and the employee.\n\nAdhering to the guidelines set forth by the Governor’s Office, some collection sites are currently closed to the public, including both recycling centers:\n\nLas Cruces Recycling Center Dropoff, 2855 Amador Ave.\n\nSonoma Ranch Recycling Drop Off Center, 555 S. Sonoma Ranch Blvd.\n\nPlease find information at the state’s COVID-19 website at https://cv.nmhealth.org/. The South Central Solid Waste Authority can be reached at 575-528-3800 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.\n\n2:50 PM: NMDOT uses message boards to discourage shopping in groups\n\nThe New Mexico Department of Transportation is advising people to shop alone to reduce the spread of COVID-19.\n\n“This is not a time for a social outing. Leave family members at home where they are safe,” said Transportation Secretary Mike Sandoval in a Tuesday release. “Please shop alone. Every time you leave your house you put your family and community at risk.”\n\nThe department also advises New Mexicans to follow COVID-19 precautions while shopping.\n\nPractice social distancing. Stay at least 6 feet away from those around you.\n\nCover your coughs and sneezes with your elbow or tissue.\n\nIf possible, wipe down your shopping cart and wash your hands for at least 20 seconds before and after unloading your groceries.\n\nYou can learn more about the state's public health order and find other information related to COVID-19 at NewMexico.gov\n\nThe NMDOT is using electronic message boards to remind communities to follow COVID-19 precautions.\n\n1:09 PM: NMSU offers online series on financially navigating the COVID-19 outbreak\n\nNew Mexico State University Quay County Cooperative Extension Service will host a free virtual workshop series, “Financially Navigating the COVID-19 Outbreak” each Thursday in April. The workshop will be available via Zoom, at https://nmsu.zoom.us/j/335743117.\n\n11:48 AM: New Mexico BLM closes developed recreation spots\n\nThree popular outdoor spots near Las Cruces have been closed due to coronavirus — Dripping Springs, Soledad Canyon and Aguirre Springs. Other sites remain open.\n\n10:12 AM: Heartbroken high school seniors talk about losing last months of school\n\nHigh school seniors throughout New Mexico are lamenting over their last year being thrown into turmoil to mitigate the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus. That means no prom and likely no commencement ceremony before summer. For the Class of 2020, these rites of passage are being pushed aside to preserve public health.\n\nMonday, March 30\n\n11:09 PM: Authorities encouraged not to issue citations for expired vehicle registrations, licenses\n\nGov. Michelle Lujan Grisham issued an order Monday waiving most late fees and other penalties assessed by the Motor Vehicle Division since March 11, when she first issued a state of emergency for New Mexico due to the COVID-19 pandemic.\n\n5:56 PM Las Cruces woman shares cupboard with community amid COVID-19 pandemic\n\nAmid the COVID-19 pandemic, a Las Cruces resident has built a community cupboard at the edge of her yard as a way to help out her neighbors in need. Inside the wooden cupboard Monday was bottled water, diapers, toilet paper, a book and some canned goods. Anyone can take and/or leave an item in the cupboard.\n\n5 PM: NCAA grants spring-sport athletes extra year of eligibility\n\nThe NCAA Division I Council granted spring-sport athletes an extra year of eligibility on Monday to make up for the cancellation of their respective seasons. At NMSU, the ruling affects baseball, softball, golf, tennis and outdoor track\n\n4:45 PM: New Mexico reports 44 new positive cases, 2 more deaths\n\nThe state Department of Health announced 44 new positive tests for the COVID-19 coronavirus Monday, bringing the state's total to 281. Two female COVID-19 patients in Bernalillo County were reported to have died on March 30, bringing the state's number of deaths from two to four.\n\n4:08 PM: El Paso Electric donates $30,000 for COVID-19 response, relief\n\nEl Paso Electric has announced a $30,000 donation to the COVID-19 response funds created by the El Paso Community Foundation, the Paso Del Norte Community Foundation, and the Community Foundation of Southern New Mexico. Each foundation will receive $10,000.\n\n“While COVID-19 continues to alter our daily lives, our dedicated and hardworking employees remain committed to providing safe and reliable energy as our region comes together to mitigate the impacts of this virus,” shares EPE Interim CEO Adrian J. Rodriguez. “As the provider of electricity for West Texas and southern New Mexico that powers hospitals and health care facilities, government entities, emergency response centers and hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses, we fully recognize the philanthropic role in supporting crisis response efforts for the communities we serve.”\n\nIn response to the growing financial need throughout southern New Mexico, the Community Foundation of Southern New Mexico and United Way of Southwest New Mexico have initiated an inaugural joint fund that will support nonprofit organizations within this region.\n\n“Our community — locally and abroad — is facing a level of adversity that is nearly unmeasured by any previous world-wide event, which is why our response as a people needs to be united and powerful,” shares Amanda Morales, executive director for United Way of Southwest New Mexico.\n\n“For the first time in each of our organizations’ history, we have partnered to create the ‘not-for-profit emergency fund’ to amplify our support across southern New Mexico,” said Terra V. Winter, president and CEO for the Community Foundation of Southern New Mexico. “El Paso Electric’s donation to the fund provides the philanthropic leadership our community needs to help overcome this adversity.”\n\nEPE will also be matching 50% of all monetary contributions made by the utility’s employees to the community foundation of their choice.\n\n4 PM: Taxation and Revenue modifies compliance enforcement efforts\n\nIn recognition of the financial difficulties facing many New Mexico residents and businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Taxation and Revenue Department is temporarily modifying some of its enforcement activities.\n\nThe department already has extended personal and corporate income tax deadlines and payroll tax payments.\n\n“We understand that businesses and individuals are facing unprecedented uncertainty and financial disruption during this emergency. The Taxation and Revenue Department is committed to helping taxpayers get through this difficult time,” said Department Secretary Stephanie Schardin Clarke.\n\nAmong the steps being taken by the Department are:\n\nThe most severe collection activities, including new liens, seizures and injunctions, will cease for 90 days.\n\nA program that automatically garnishes state tax refunds for payment of federal tax debts is suspended.\n\nAdditional resources are being devoted to quickly clear identity verification questions on income tax refunds to ensure they are legitimate.\n\nStaff is prioritizing review and approval of refund requests, business credits and abatements of taxes due.\n\nPotentially noncompliant taxpayers will be offered managed audits, a voluntary program that can result in a waiver of penalty and interest for 180 days.\n\nAdditional staff will be assigned to help resolve tax protests.\n\nTaxpayers on payment plans will be offered deadline extensions of up to 60 days, and taxpayers will be encouraged to make good faith payments to prevent defaults.\n\nTaxpayers undergoing audits will be offered the opportunity to request a 60-day suspension or a waiver giving them more time to produce records.\n\n11:11 AM: Governor issues new rules for automobile sales\n\nOn Monday, Gov.Michelle Lujan Grisham authorized automobile sales by small dealers on an appointment basis utilizing strict social distancing practices during the COVID-19 stay at home order. Additionally, online/Internet sales by all licensed New Mexico motor vehicle dealers are also allowed.\n\nThe new rules are:\n\nThe customer and licensed automobile dealer must communicate about the vehicle over Internet, phone or text;\n\nNo more than one appointment at the dealership at a time, with no more than two clients at each appointment;\n\nAll parties must follow strict 10-foot social distancing;\n\nAt the agreed time the dealer alone will greet clients. Clients may not enter the dealership alone or come into contact with any other dealership employees;\n\nVehicles must be thoroughly disinfected before and after any test drive;\n\nEach appointment allows for test drives of two vehicles;\n\nAll paperwork including closing will take place outside, with clients either in vehicle or outside\n\n9:22 AM: How to apply for a COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan\n\nIn response to the COVID-19 pandemic, small business owners in all U.S. states and territories are eligible to apply for an Economic Injury Disaster Loan advance of up to $10,000. Apply at https://covid19relief.sba.gov/\n\nThe SBA’s Economic Injury Disaster Loan program provides small businesses with working capital loans of up to $2 million. Funds will be made available within three days of a successful application, and this loan advance will not have to be repaid.\n\n8:28 AM: 'Operation Maskup' sets up shop in historic Doña Ana County Courthouse\n\nA local group intent on making face masks for health care professionals and the community has set up shop in the historic Doña Ana County Courthouse.\n\nSaturday was the first full production day in the courthouse with a goal to make 600 reusable masks by the end of the day.\n\n6 AM: Game II giving away free box of potatoes Tuesday in Las Cruces\n\nResidents are invited to the Game II on Tuesday to pick up a free box of potatoes. The giveaway begins at 10:30 a.m., but vehicles can start lining up as early as 7 a.m. Each carload will get about 8 to 10 pounds of potatoes.\n\nSunday, March 29\n\n2:57 PM: New Mexico COVID-19 positive tests increase to 237\n\nNew Mexico state health officials on Sunday announced 29 additional positive tests for COVID-19, though no new cases in Doña Ana County.\n\n11:37 AM: This is what local columnists have to say\n\nIn his weekly Desert Sage column, Algernon D'Ammassa explores how physical distancing may be leading to new ideas about the American labor force. \"What becomes possible if this time of physical distancing becomes a time of political imagination and organization?\" he asks.\n\nSpeaking of economics, Paul J. Gessing notes tough times are ahead for New Mexico. The 1-2 punch of the novel coronavirus and dropping oil prices have left the state with lots of financial obligations and a dwindling source of income. \"Hopefully this crisis finally spurs long-overdue efforts to diversify New Mexico’s economy,\" he writes.\n\nPamela Angell, the CEO of Amador Health Center, reminds residents that their actions give us a fighting chance against COVID-19. She observes: \"Support the businesses that are open, reach out to those who are isolated, and remember to take care of yourself. Do more of the things that benefit you, and less of the things that don’t.\"\n\nWhat's next in this new corona-reality? \"I don't know,\" notes Peter Goodman. And that's a phrase that's OK in these uncertain times.\n\nSaturday, March 28\n\n4:03 PM: New Mexico now at 208 coronavirus cases, with one new death reported\n\nNew Mexico state health officials announced 17 additional positive tests for COVID-19, bringing the statewide total cases to 208. Officials also announced the second death due to the novel coronavirus.\n\n2:23 PM: Here's what we know about coronavirus testing in New Mexico\n\nAs of March 28, nearly 11,000 tests have been administered in the state. Here's what we know about those tests.\n\n2:08 PM: NMSU Aggie Cupboard works to meet demand during COVID-19 pandemic\n\nAggie Cupboard, founded in 2012 on a mission to provide free supplementary food assistance to community members attending or working at NMSU and Doña Ana Community College, has experienced a two-fold increase in clientele since concerns over COVID-19 started escalating earlier this month. The food pantry could use your help.\n\n1:33 PM: COVID-19 outbreak threatens important New Mexico Community Survey\n\nCommunity members are strongly encouraged to take the New Mexico Community Survey online to help support local efforts to prevent drug and alcohol abuse.\n\n12:42 PM: Coronavirus and Las Cruces: A roundup of (almost) everything that's happened since March 11\n\nIt’s been less than three weeks since Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced New Mexico’s first confirmed cases of the COVID-19 coronavirus. That was on March 11 — the day Lujan Grisham declared a statewide public health emergency and recommended the cancellation of large events.\n\nThe following two weeks brought a series of rapid changes, impacting nearly every aspect of daily life.\n\n12:30 PM: NMSU Extension offers 4-H members special project during COVID-19 closures\n\nNew Mexico State University’s 4-H Youth Development department is offering daily video-conferencing sessions to 4-H members where they learn the basics of creating digital presentations, graphic design, digital illustration, sound design, animation and game design.\n\n10:49 AM: Las Cruces Utilities responds to COVID-19: Keep services going\n\nLas Cruces Utilities assures residents there will be no shutoffs of any utilities during the current coronavirus crisis.\n\nFriday, March 27\n\n7:17 PM: Police aren't stopping motorists to enforce stay-at-home order\n\nNew Mexico State Police and the Las Cruces Police Department want to let the public know that patrol officers are not stopping motorists to enforce the state's stay-at-home order. What are they doing?\n\n4:33 PM: New Mexico orders air travelers to self-isolate; 55 new coronavirus cases announced\n\nThe New Mexico Department of Health announced 55 new confirmed cases of coronavirus COVID-19 in the state Friday, bringing the state's total to 191, while Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham issued a new executive order directing all air travelers landing in New Mexico to self-isolate for 14 days.\n\n2:16 PM: NMAA cancels spring sports\n\nThe NMAA Board of Directors held an emergency meeting on Friday in place of its April 1 meeting and announced spring high school sports in New Mexico have been canceled. Spring sports consist of baseball, softball, track and field, boys and girls golf and boys and girls tennis.\n\n1:45 PM: Council gives mayor authority to declare state of emergency\n\nThe Las Cruces City Council voted 7-0 at a Friday special meeting to let Mayor Ken Miyagishima declare a state of emergency in Las Cruces, giving him expanded powers during the emergency, a mechanism that the city did not have.\n\n12:37 PM: Together Las Cruces fund to help residents laid off or furloughed\n\nDoña Ana county residents who have experienced a significant loss of income amid the COVID-19 pandemic can apply for relief through the Together Las Cruces fund.\n\nTo launch the fund, local businesses and donors have committed $125,000. Funds will be awarded in the amount of $100 to $500, based on the applicants' needs.\n\nHow to apply.\n\n12:06 PM: Stay-at-home order a ‘perfect recipe for a nightmare’ of domestic violence\n\n“This is probably an abuser’s dream,” said Jessica Fierro, a victim advocacy unit director for the Domestic Violence Resource Center in Albuquerque. “It’s the perfect recipe for a nightmare.”\n\nHere are some resources. If you need immediate help, call 911.\n\n11:30 AM: Schools closed for remainder of academic year due\n\nNew Mexico's public K-12 schools will remain closed through the 2019-20 academic year but will continue to instruct students online or through other home-learning models.\n\nSee how teachers at Sonoma Elementary are communicating with students during the extended break.\n\n7:57 AM: New Mexico State University planning virtual commencement\n\nNew Mexico State University President John Floros made a couple of announcements during a virtual town hall Thursday afternoon. He joined by Chancellor Dan Arvizu and top-level administrators, to provide updates on the university's response to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.\n\nThe biggest takeaway is that May commencement exercises will take place on an online platform this year.\n\nThe university had previously put all course instruction on a three-week break until March 30, asked students who had traveled for spring break not to return to residence halls and prepared to move most instruction online.\n\nAlso, Floros disclosed that one NMSU student has tested positive, but said the student had been traveling and has not returned to campus.\n\n7 AM: New Mexico sees major jump in unemployment claims amid coronavirus\n\nMore than 17,000 New Mexico residents have applied for unemployment benefits — more than 19 times the amount filed the previous week — amid the widespread economic shutdown caused by the coronavirus, officials said Thursday.\n\nThursday, March 26\n\n8:43 PM: Lujan Grisham seeks deployment of 248-bed Army hospital to New Mexico\n\nGov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Thursday formally requested the U.S. Defense Department deploy a staffed 248-bed U.S. Army combat support hospital to Albuquerque as a proactive measure intended to enhance the state’s treatment capacity.\n\n7:45 PM: White Sands Missile Range declares health emergency, says COVID-19 case isolated\n\nIn a daily video update for the installation, White Sands Missile Range commander Col. David Trybula announced Wednesday that he had declared a public health emergency for the U.S. Army installation.\n\nTrybula also said an employee at the range who tested positive for COVID-19 and contacts have been quarantined. Responding to submitted questions, he stated that there was no community spread of the virus at the installation.\n\n7:15 PM: Luna County official posts complaint about 'Asians' and COVID-19\n\nLuna County's new emergency management director posted a video complaint on the Snapchat social media platform last week casting blame for the novel coronavirus pandemic on an ethnic group.\n\nLuna County Attorney Charles Kretek verified Monday that Tyler Massey remained a county employee and said county manager Chris Brice \"addressed the matter internally.\"\n\n6:47 PM: New Mexico State Police launches coloring book drawing contest\n\nNew Mexico State Police on Thursday announced the agency is looking for the help of New Mexico children — to create a coloring book.\n\nIn an effort to provide New Mexico’s children a creative outlet during school closures, NMSP is launching a coloring book drawing contest. The agency is challenging New Mexico children to draw and color a picture showing what they think of when picturing the New Mexico State Police.\n\nDrawings can be anything a child imagines — including the agency's officers, K-9’s or special equipment like its helicopter, motorcycles or drones.\n\nSubmissions will be accepted from children of all ages. Prizes will be awarded for the best pictures. Some of those pictures will also appear in an upcoming NMSP coloring book.\n\nParents can print a blank coloring sheet at the agency's website to get the project started. Please include the child’s name, grade, school and phone number. Personal information will be used to contact the winners and will not be made public.\n\nThe deadline for submissions is at 5 p.m. on April 17. Submissions can be sent to Public.relations@state.nm.us or, by mail, to:\n\nNew Mexico State Police\n\nAttn: Community Engagement\n\n2501 Carlisle Blvd NE\n\nAlbuquerque, NM 87107\n\n4:57 PM: U.S. passes Italy, China as nation with the most confirmed cases of COVID-19\n\nThe U.S. surged past China and Italy to become the planet's most infected nation Thursday, a stark milestone in the coronavirus era — and a reminder of its deadly, culture-changing effects on American life.\n\nThe Johns Hopkins University dash board showed the U.S. with 82,404 COVID-19 infections as of 6 p.m., ET, moving past Italy (80,589) and China (81,782). More than 1,100 people have died in the U.S.\n\n4:39 PM: New Mexico now has 136 cases, Doña Ana County up to 16\n\nThe number of positive cases for the novel coronavirus in New Mexico jumped by 24, state health officials said Thursday afternoon, bringing the total number of cases up to 136 statewide.\n\nThe state still has only one known death from COVID-19, according to the news release from the New Mexico Department of Health.\n\n3:16 PM: I-25/University Avenue construction update to be broadcast\n\nIn consideration of statewide efforts to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus, the I-25/University Avenue construction team will not host an in-person meeting to provide its planned April update. Instead, the team will hold a virtual public meeting, which will be broadcast at 6 p.m. Thursday, April 2, on the Las Cruces Channel (Comcast Channel 98).\n\nThe public is encouraged to submit comments, questions or suggestions at www.i25-university.com.\n\nThe construction team will provide an update on the project and will review:\n\nContinuing construction for Phase 1\n\nCurrent and planned traffic impacts\n\nConstruction plans and anticipated traffic impacts for April 2020\n\n2:56 PM: New statewide fund to respond to COVID-19 launches with more than $1.1 million\n\nGov. Michelle Lujan Grisham's office announced Thursday the creation of the All Together NM Fund, a $1.1 million fund by the New Mexico Coalition of Community Foundations to help New Mexico residents respond to and recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.\n\nAccording to a news release, the fund will provide a \"phased response\" to the pandemic.\n\nFirst, according to the release, it will address immediate needs in the state's communities, including:\n\nProcurement of food and medical and cleaning supplies for at-risk communities\n\nSupport for childcare workers who are supporting our front-line employees\n\nGrants to address income insecurity among smaller businesses and employees affected by COVID-19 disruptions\n\nAccording to the release, the grantmaking process will later shift to address income insecurity among affected workers and businesses and to fill gaps left by the government response. Finally, when the time comes, the fund will support recovery efforts.\n\nDonors may contribute tax-deductible gifts of stock, property and electronic fund transfers by calling the Santa Fe Community Foundation at 505-988-9715. Visit AllTogetherNM.org for more information.\n\n2:30 PM: NMPED: Statewide school closures to be extended\n\nThe statewide closure of all New Mexico schools is expected to be extended on Friday, according to a Thursday afternoon tweet from the New Mexico Public Education Department.\n\nFriday morning, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, Education Secretary Ryan Stewart and public health officials \"will announce an extension to the school closure period,\" the tweet stated.\n\nThe Sun-News will monitor the situation and update our readers as information is made available.\n\n1:39 PM: Chalk drawings and messages bring joy to Las Cruces neighborhood\n\nKaitlyn Sponseller's art project, inspired by her teacher, is bringing joy to her neighborhood.\n\nKaitlyn, her teacher Mrs. Sandoval and others are using sidewalk chalk to leave inspirational messages and pictures for their neighbors off Roadrunner Parkway while the community deals with the effects of a public health emergency, including school closures and orders for residents to stay home.\n\n12:30 PM: Public access to solid waste facilities restricted\n\nIn an effort to ensure the continued functionality of the solid waste system, the South Central Solid Waste Authority and Las Cruces Utilities announced Thursday the following restrictions will be instituted at solid waste facilities in Las Cruces and Doña Ana County beginning at noon on Friday, March 27.\n\nAmador Avenue Transfer Station, 2865 Amador Ave.: Essential businesses only/closed to the general public. The Amador Avenue Transfer Station will be closed on Sundays for cleaning and disinfection.\n\nLas Cruces Recycling Center Dropoff, 2855 Amador Ave.: Closed to the general public.\n\nSonoma Ranch Recycling Drop Off Center, 555 S. Sonoma Ranch Blvd.: Closed to the general public.\n\nCorralitos Regional Landfill, 14535 Robert Larson Blvd. (Corralitos Exit off I-10): Closed to the general public.\n\nCounty Collection Centers: Punch card system is being suspended, hours for the general public are limited to Saturdays and Sundays 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Only four bags of waste allowed per vehicle. No yard waste or construction and demolition waste (C&D waste) accepted at this time.\n\nChaparral Collection and Recycling Center, 180 McCombs Rd.: Remains open to essential businesses only; residential fees are suspended. The general public is restricted to dropping off four bags of trash per vehicle on weekends only.\n\nOld Foothills Landfill Clean Fill, Green Waste, and Compost, 555 S. Sonoma Ranch Blvd.: Essential businesses only/closed to the general public. Open Monday–Friday 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Closed Saturday and Sunday\n\nResidential green waste can be picked up at your curb by the Green Grappler on your scheduled pick-up date. Your schedule may be accessed online at https://externalforms.las-cruces.org/Grappler/Grappler.\n\nEssential businesses should supply written documentation of their “essential” status. This may be required for access to local Solid Waste facilities.\n\nAll facilities remain open to regional commercial trash haulers to drop off solid waste during normal business hours.\n\nThe SCSWA and LCU will reopen to normal business as soon as possible. The SCSWA can be reached at 575-528-3800 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.\n\n1:58 AM: Good Samaritans deliver essentials to Doña Ana County's most vulnerable\n\nLas Cruces residents are helping the community's most vulnerable by delivering groceries and other essential items to the elderly and disabled during the public health emergency.\n\nZooey Sophia Pook and Jeremiah Richardson are two of many concerned residents, each starting a campaign to find and deliver essential items to people in need.\n\n11:44 AM: Some New Mexicans still find bare shelves after new COVID-19 shopping restrictions\n\nAs state and federal officials have enacted social distancing measures to stem the spread of COVID-19, the novel coronavirus, shoppers have flooded stores and overstocked on basic necessities like food, hand sanitizer, paper towels and toilet paper.\n\nMany shoppers are still struggling to find the groceries they need.\n\nNew Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has expressed dismay over the hoarding, often telling New Mexicans during regular news conferences that panic doesn't help the state manage the crisis.\n\nGALLERY:Albertsons holds senior shopping hours amid coronavirus concerns\n\nWednesday, March 25\n\n7:37 PM: NMSP offers updated guidance on reporting \"stay-at-home\" violations\n\nThe New Mexico State Police on Wednesday provided updated information on how to report non-compliance within a business, a violation of the mass gatherings ban, or other violations of Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham's \"stay-at-home\" public health order, in effect through April 10,\n\nIf you wish to report non-compliance within a business, a violation of the mass gatherings ban, or other violations of the public order, you may report them via email to NMSP.COVID19@state.nm.us or contact your local police or sheriff’s department on their non-emergency phone lines. When submitting a non-compliance complaint, please provide the following: date and time of observed violation, city, county, business name and business address, if applicable.\n\n7:14 PM: LCPS counselors, teachers work to help Class of 2020\n\nLas Cruces Public Schools administrators, counselors and teachers are working to assure Class of 2020 seniors they will have the same opportunities to earn credits toward graduation as they did before a state mandate closed all New Mexico public schools because of the global COVID-19 pandemic.\n\n“We’re still waiting on guidance from the state about commencement ceremonies,” said Wendi Miller-Tomlinson, LCPS deputy superintendent of teaching, learning and research. “Those traditions are very important to us, but our priority right now is working with our students to get them every available resource to earn the credits they need.”\n\nMiller-Tomlinson said leadership at all high schools has been working remotely to address technology needs, current grade status and identifying students who need credit recovery assistance in the fourth quarter of the school year to earn the minimum credits required for graduation. Counselors will be reaching out to those students to determine the best alternative for credit recovery.\n\n“Our schools will establish schedules to check out technology, if it’s needed, or to provide take-home materials to earn credits. Learning coaches will also be working to support students as they navigate online coursework.”\n\nIf a senior student believes he or she will need assistance recovering credits and has not been contacted by a counselor, they are asked to email their principal directly. A list of addresses can be found online at www.lcps.net.\n\n4:43 PM: New Mexico now at 112 positive coronavirus tests, including 1 death\n\nNew Mexico state health officials on Monday announced 13 additional positive tests for coronavirus COVID-19, including the state's first death.\n\nNo new cases were reported in Doña Ana County, which remains at 13 positive tests.\n\nAn Eddy County man is the state's first death due to COVID-19. The male in his late 70s was admitted to Artesia General Hospital on Sunday. The hospital, in a conference call on Wednesday, said the man died Monday.\n\n3:29 PM: City website displays community resources, including map for meals for kids\n\nDue to the impact of COVID-19 on the community, the City of Las Cruces has compiled a list of resources for residents affected by the health emergency on its website, www.las-cruces.org. COVID-19 related news and information is being shared in the COVID-19 Alerts section at http://www.las-cruces.org/AlertCenter.aspx, which you can link to at the top of the homepage.\n\nCoronavirus in Las Cruces:Las Cruces Mayor crafts $4.3 million plan for COVID-19 economic assistance\n\nOne of the resources in the \"Resources for Family and Youth\" section includes a map to help families locate meal distribution sites for children in our community. The map, created by one of the City's Geographic Information System analysts, displays a star for each meal distribution site provided by Las Cruces Public Schools & Family and Youth Inc. The map is located at http://www.las-cruces.org/2121/Resources-for-Families-Youth. Meals are provided for youth, 18 years of age or younger who are enrolled in public, private or charter schools. Meals are designed for pick up only through April 6.\n\n3:02 PM: DASO: Sex offenders must still comply with in-person registration\n\nDoña Ana County Sheriff’s Office wishes to remind all sex offenders who have to register that they must report in person to the sex offender registration office. This applies to those required to register or re-register.\n\nNew Mexico state statute requires offenders to report in person to register. The registration office, located at 1851 Copper Loop, is taking necessary precautions to maintain social distancing and will limit capacity to fewer than five people at a time, the department stated.\n\n2:52 PM: As unemployment claims rise amid coronavirus, Las Cruces-area workers face uncertain pay\n\nBusinesses statewide have been forced to close to stem the spread of COVID-19. Some have had to lay off workers to stay afloat.\n\nLast week, unemployment claims in New Mexico jumped by 10,000 from March 15 to 19. That can be attributed to people who have lost their jobs or who have had hours cut due to COVID-19 shutdowns under expanded qualification for unemployment benefits.\n\nBusiness:Bill aims to boost New Mexico's farm labor supply and give some immigrants legal status\n\nWorkers laid off or now making less face uncertainty over food, rent and utility money.\n\n2:13 PM: Las Cruces mother and friends sew over 120 face masks for healthcare workers\n\nPeople around the country are sewing handmade masks for health care workers facing shortages amid the coronavirus pandemic — including one Las Cruces mother who sewed more than 120 face masks for her daughter who is a doctor on the front line in Chicago.\n\nLiz Gonzales told the Sun-News she immediately stepped into action when her daughter, Dr. Janae Gonzales Gilpin, told her she was worried about the lack of N95 masks to keep her and her colleagues safe.\n\n2:02 PM: First coronavirus death in New Mexico reported in Eddy County\n\nAn Eddy County man is the state's first death due to COVID-19, according to the New Mexico Department of Health.\n\nThe man, whose name was not released, was in his late 70s and died Sunday at Artesia General Hospital after seeking treatment. He died the same day, read a New Mexico Department of Health news release.\n\n1:35 PM: State Police spearheading enforcement of coronavirus social distancing order\n\nNew Mexico State Police are spearheading the state's charge of staying at home amid coronavirus COVID-19 mitigation protocols, and other law enforcement agencies will work closely with them to ensure the public's health and safety.\n\nEducation:NMSU researcher continues efforts to make NM’s Interstate 10 safer for drivers\n\nSince the state issued a social distancing directive March 19, calling for New Mexicans to stay home, there have been 27 calls for enforcement in Las Cruces and 169 calls throughout the state, according to NMSP Spokesperson Dusty Francisco.\n\n1:05 PM: State clamps down on protective medical gear\n\nHaving previously emphasized that supplies of protective medical gear are tight, on Wednesday Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced two new public health orders to take inventory and preserve supplies for medical personnel.\n\nHealth care providers and wholesale medical suppliers are required to report their inventories to the state Department of Health within three days under the new guidance.\n\n11:34 AM: State to use emergency alert system for important communications\n\nIn light of the current public health crisis and the need to communicate critical information directly to as many New Mexicans as possible, the state of New Mexico will use an emergency alert system, disseminated from the state’s Emergency Operations Center, when conditions warrant. The announcement was made by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham's office Wednesday.\n\nThis system is similar to Amber Alerts, which are used to notify the public about missing children. Alerts will be sent through text messages, television, and radio. The system is intended to disseminate important information widely and as quickly as possible and is not a cause for alarm. The first alert is expected to be sent at roughly 12:30 P.M. Wednesday.​\n\nMessages will state essential public information from the Department of Health, Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, and Governor's Office regarding important public health guidance and instruction, such as the recent instruction to remain at home except for outings essential to health, safety and welfare.\n\nCoronavirus in Las Cruces:New Mexico State Police spearheading enforcement of social distancing order\n\nMore information about the state of New Mexico's response to COVID-19 is available at newmexico.gov and cv.nmhealth.org.\n\n10:56 AM: State: Income tax extensions won't trigger interest charges\n\nThe New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department announced Wednesday that, due to recent IRS action, it will not have to impose interest charges on taxpayers who take advantage of the 90-day extensions announced last week for filing and paying New Mexico personal and corporate income taxes. However, interest will need to accrue on withholding tax extensions.\n\n“The due date for filing New Mexico income tax returns and payment is tied to the federal filing deadline, which was postponed by the IRS on March 20. This IRS action enables us to forgo imposing interest charges normally required under New Mexico law for extensions,” said Taxation and Revenue Secretary Stephanie Schardin Clarke.\n\nThe department on Wednesday also clarified that the extensions apply to the quarterly personal income tax estimated payments required of some taxpayers on April 15, which includes many self-employed New Mexicans, as well as to trusts, estates, and fiduciaries. All of these will now be due no later than July 15, 2020.\n\nNew Mexico personal and corporate income taxes normally due on April 15 will now be due on July 15. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and the Department announced the extensions taxes in recognition of the economic hardships many face as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.\n\nTuesday, March 24\n\n4:55 PM: New Mexico hits 100 cases of coronavirus\n\nThe New Mexico Department of Health announced 17 new positive results of testing for the COVID-19 coronavirus, bringing the statewide total of confirmed cases to 100.\n\nCoronavirus in New Mexico:New Mexico hits 100 cases of COVID-19\n\nThree new cases were identified in Doña Ana County, bringing the county's total to 13. The new cases were all males, described as in their 20s, 30s and 60s.\n\n4:08 PM: 2020 Spaceport America Cup canceled\n\nSpaceport America and the Experimental Sounding Rocket Association on Tuesday announced the cancellation of the fourth annual Spaceport America Cup that was scheduled for June 16-20 at Spaceport America.\n\nThe decision was made based on guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for canceling large events in order to keep the students, spectators and sponsors safe and healthy, the agency stated. The event was set to engage more than 1,700 college students from 17 countries on a week-long rocket design and launch competition.\n\n“We are aware that this is incredibly disappointing news for the students, the universities, the communities of Sierra and Doña Ana Counties and our sponsors,” said Dan Hicks, CEO of Spaceport America. “It is important that the students respect and abide by their state and country guidelines for the health and safety of all.\"\n\n3:53 PM: Mesilla Valley MPO Metropolitan Transportation Plan Mobility 2045 cancels open house meetings\n\nThe Las Cruces City Manager's Office announced Tuesday the Mesilla Valley MPO has canceled all March and April Metropolitan Transportation Plan Mobility 2045 open house meetings. The affected meetings are:\n\nMarch 17: Sage Cafe, 6121 Reynolds Dr., Las Cruces, 5 - 6:30 p.m.\n\nMarch 23: Doña Ana Community Center, 5745 Ledesma Dr., Doña Ana, 5 - 6:30 p.m.\n\nMarch 24: Vado/Del Cerro Community Center, 180 La Fe Ave, Mesquite/Vado, 6:30 - 8 p.m.\n\nMarch 30: Munson Senior Center, 975 S. Mesquite St., Las Cruces, 5 - 6:30 p.m.\n\nApril 2: Radium Springs Community Center, 12060 Lindbeck Rd., Radium Springs, 5 - 6:30 p.m.\n\nApril 7: Mesilla Community Center, 2251 Calle De Santiago, Mesilla, 5 - 7 p.m.\n\nCoronavirus:Here is a list of Las Cruces-area events, organizations affected\n\nThe Mesilla Valley MPO intends to have public engagement meetings before the adoption of Mobility 2045 and will announce new dates when the events are rescheduled.\n\n3:37 PM: Disaster Distress Helpline provides immediate crisis counseling to those affected by the coronavirus pandemic\n\nNatural disasters – including such pandemics as the coronavirus outbreak – can be overwhelming and also can seriously affect emotional health. The Disaster Distress Helpline, at 1-800-985-5990, can provide immediate counseling to anyone seeking help in coping with the mental or emotional effects caused by developments related to the coronavirus pandemic.\n\nThe helpline is a free resource, available 24/7, that responds to people who need crisis counseling and support in dealing with the traumatic effects of a natural or human-caused disaster. The helpline is sponsored by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Helpline specialists are trained to assist callers who have a range of symptoms.\n\n“People who have been through a traumatic event can experience anxiety, worry or insomnia,” said Dr. Elinore F. McCance-Katz, the assistant secretary for mental health and substance use and head of SAMHSA. “People seeking emotional help during an ongoing disaster such as a pandemic can call 1-800-985-5990 or can text ‘TalkWithUs’ to 66746 – and can find recovery and coping strategies.”\n\nThe helpline immediately connects callers to trained and caring professionals from the closest crisis counseling centers in the nationwide network of centers. The helpline staff provides confidential counseling, referrals and other needed support services.\n\nMore on the helpline is at http://disasterdistress.samhsa.gov/.\n\nCoronavirus:Things you can do to fight boredom while self-distancing at home for COVID-19\n\n3:23 PM: Las Cruces parks and rec closes some facilities, discourages large gatherings at parks\n\nThe city of Las Cruces Parks and Recreation Department has suspended all services, which include medians, rights of way, alleys, parks, trails, restrooms and fountains are suspended until further notice. Recreation facilities, pools, and the administrative office are closed as well.\n\n3:07 PM: KRWG Public Media to broadcast weekly radio show on coronavirus\n\nWhat effect is COVID-19 having on our local community? To help answer that question, KRWG Public Media has launched a weekly radio program that will address questions on how the coronavirus is impacting the local community, the station announced Tuesday.\n\nVoice of the Public: Coronavirus Update will air from 1 to 2 p.m. each Friday on 90.7 FM and krwg.org. The show will feature guests who have an insight on what is happening locally with regards to the COVID-19 pandemic.\n\n\"KRWG Public Media is pleased to offer this weekly program as a chance for listeners to ask questions regarding this important story,\" said KRWG Director of Content Fred Martino. \"For those who don't want to call in, we have the opportunity to participate on Facebook with questions and comments. In advance of the broadcast, listeners may also email questions to feedback@nmsu.edu.\"\n\nThis Friday, Las Cruces Mayor Ken Miyagishima will be the featured guest. The mayor will take your calls and questions about the city's response to the pandemic, as well as other questions and concerns you may have.\n\nCoronavirus in New Mexico:State courts suspend new criminal jury trials amid COVID-19 concerns\n\nNext week, New Mexico Mexico State University President John Floros will be the guest. That program will air from 1 to 2 p.m. Friday, April 3.\n\n2:48 PM: New Mexico courts halt evictions for inability to pay during coronavirus emergency\n\nThe state Supreme Court, which administers the court system in New Mexico, ordered a temporary moratorium on evictions for inability to pay rent during the coronavirus COVID-19 public health emergency.\n\n2:33 PM: White Sands Missile Range confirms COVID-19 case\n\nU.S. Army Colonel David C. Trybula announced Monday night that an employee at White Sands Missile Range has tested positive for the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 disease.\n\nIn a video update posted to WSMR's official Facebook page, the WSMR commander said the employee has been working from home for more than a week but provided no further information about their symptoms or prior contacts with others at the installation.\n\n1:55 PM: FBI warns of potential for increased risk of child exploitation\n\nDue to school closings as a result of COVID-19, children will potentially have an increased online presence and/or be in a position that puts them at an inadvertent risk, according to a news release issued Tuesday by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.\n\nThe FBI is seeking to warn parents, educators, caregivers, and children about the dangers of online sexual exploitation and signs of child abuse.\n\nCrime:Authorities seek Las Cruces-area couple accused of child abuse\n\nOnline sexual exploitation comes in many forms, the release stated. Individuals may coerce victims into providing sexually explicit images or videos of themselves, often in compliance with offenders’ threats to post the images publicly or send the images to victims’ friends and family.\n\nOther offenders may make casual contact with children online, gain their trust, and introduce sexual conversation that increases in egregiousness over time. Ultimately this activity may result in maintaining an online relationship that includes sexual conversation and the exchange of illicit images, to eventually physically meeting the child in-person.\n\nIn order for the victimization to stop, children typically have to come forward to someone they trust — typically a parent, teacher, caregiver or law enforcement, the agency stated. The embarrassment of being enticed and/or coerced to engage in unwanted behavior is what often prevents children from coming forward. Offenders may have hundreds of victims around the world, so coming forward to help law enforcement identify offenders may prevent countless other incidents of sexual exploitation.\n\nAbuse can occur offline through direct contact with another individual. During these uncertain conditions, where time with other adults and caregivers has increased immensely, parents/guardians should communicate with their children about appropriate contact with adults and watch for any changes in behavior, including an increase in nightmares, withdrawn behavior, angry outbursts, anxiety, depression, not wanting to be left alone with an individual, and sexual knowledge.\n\nParents and guardians are urged to take the following measures to help educate and prevent children from becoming victims of child predators and sexual exploitation during this time of national emergency:\n\nDiscuss Internet safety with children of all ages when they engage in online activity.\n\nReview and approve games and apps before they are downloaded.\n\nMake sure privacy settings are set to the strictest level possible for online gaming systems and electronic devices.\n\nMonitor your children’s use of the Internet; keep electronic devices in an open, common room of the house.\n\nCheck your children’s profiles and what they post online.\n\nExplain to your children that images posted online will be permanently on the Internet.\n\nMake sure children know that anyone who asks a child to engage in sexually explicit activity online should be reported to a parent, guardian, or other trusted adult and law enforcement.\n\nCrime:Sunland Park mother charged after 4 children, including newborn, test positive for drugs\n\nMore information about the FBI’s guidance on protecting children from sexual exploitation is available at https://www.fbi.gov/scams-and-safety/protecting-your-kids.\n\n1:40 PM: MountainView Regional Medical Center tightens restrictions on visitors\n\nMountainView Regional Medical Center on Tuesday announced tighter restrictions on all visitors in response to the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak in New Mexico, and continuing efforts to slow community spread of the disease.\n\nBeginning Wednesday morning, the private hospital said it will bar all visitors, vendors and contractors with a few, specific exceptions. Read about them here.\n\n1:36 PM: New Mexico creates coronavirus business recovery fund\n\nNew Mexico’s State Investment Council on Tuesday approved the creation of a $100 million business recovery fund to help medium-sized businesses meet payroll obligations and avoid layoffs amid the economic turmoil of the coronavirus pandemic.\n\nLaid off or hours cut because of coronavirus? Here are some resources to help\n\n10:19 AM: State Libertarian Party calls for an extension on concealed-carry licenses\n\nThe Libertarian Party of New Mexico is calling on state officials to grant a six-month extension for residents who have a concealed-carry license set to expire.\n\n\"Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the New Mexico Department of Public Safety should extend the expiration date of currently issued concealed handgun licenses for 6 months, to September 16, 2020,\" the party stated in a Tuesday news release.\n\n\"Citizens with a concealed carry license expiring in the next few months have no way to comply with the in-person training requirements of the Department without violating the social isolation (dictates) of the Governor, and the Department of Public Safety,\" the release stated.\n\nCurrently, a post on the DPS website states the department's offices are \"now locked to the public.\"\n\nTo limit exposure to you and our staff, we strongly encourage applicants who have questions to email (nmcc.questions@state.nm.us) or call (505-841-8053) the Concealed Carry Unit and mail applications and instructor forms (6301 Indian School Rd NE Suite 310 Albuquerque, NM 87110). If your needs cannot be addressed via the aforementioned process, we will gladly schedule an in-person appointment to assist you. To sign up for an appointment, please email using the form below. Or call 505-841-8053.\n\n10:02 AM: South Central Regional Transit District eliminates fares\n\nEffective immediately, the South Central Regional Transit District will operate all services fare-free, officials announced Tuesday.\n\nCoronavirus in New Mexico:State clamps down on protective medical gear amid COVID-19 outbreak\n\nThis action is being taken to support social-distancing on each bus. The first two rows behind the bus driver are now closed to give more space between the riders and bus operators. Riders are encouraged to leave empty seats between themselves and others.\n\nThe District has further expanded its efforts to keep buses clean. This includes increased cleaning and sanitation on all buses every day and the use of a fogger to clean the buses after the buses return to the facility each day.\n\nThe District continues to provide essential transit services to the community with trips for health care, doctor's office, hospital and to grocery stores and work.\n\nFor up-to-date notices of these and future service changes and bus schedules, visit http://scrtd.org/ or call 575-323-1620.\n\nMonday, March 23\n\n6:26 PM: LCPS playground and sports fields closed\n\nEffective immediately, playgrounds and all outdoor facilities on Las Cruces Public School campuses will close to the public. The move comes after a new public health directive from state officials that restricts gatherings of more than five people and implores residents to stay home unless “for outings necessary for health, safety and welfare,” according to a news release from New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham.\n\nKaren Trujillo, superintendent for Las Cruces Public Schools, ordered all school district playgrounds, basketball courts, tennis courts and sports fields to close to the public in compliance with the order. Intensive cleaning efforts already underway inside buildings will extend to include those outdoor spaces, according to Trujillo. Security personnel will patrol all school campuses 24 hours a day, and additional frequent patrols will be conducted by Las Cruces Police.\n\nCoronavirus in Las Cruces:School playgrounds closed as district tries to plan ahead\n\n“The safety and well-being of our children, families and community remains our top priority through this crisis,” said Trujillo. School administration, according to Trujillo, were working remotely on Monday to ensure meal distribution services continued in compliance with the new social distancing directive.\n\nPlus: The district is trying to plan ahead, but that's no easy task.\n\n4:45 PM: New Mexico orders residents to stay home. What does that mean?\n\nGov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced tighter restrictions on public and private business as the state added 18 new cases of the COVID-19 coronavirus. The 18 new cases bring the total of COVID-19 cases to 83.\n\n2:10 PM: Social distance and save\n\nRestaurants that have been directed to switch to takeout and delivery only amid the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic are dishing out special deals to help residents save money during these hard times.\n\n1:46 PM: New Mexico soon to have COVID-19 testing sites in all 33 counties\n\nState Health Secretary Kathy Kunkel said she received the order to expand testing facilities on Sunday to counties with as few as 700 residents, as positive tests for COVID-19 mounted in the Albuquerque area and extended for the first time to Lea County in the oil-producing southeast corner of the state.\n\nCoronavirus in New Mexico:NMSU economist addresses economic impact of COVID-19\n\nSunday, March 22\n\n3:45 PM: New Mexico at 65, Doña Ana County at 4 positive tests.\n\nNew Mexico state health officials on Sunday announced eight additional positive tests for COVID-19, including two new cases in Doña Ana County, bringing the state total up to 65. The county has four positive tests: a male in his 20s, two females in their 20s and a female in her 50s.\n\n-----\n\n1:11 PM: Where can I eat?\n\nHere's a list of restaurants offering delivery, curbside takeaway and carry-out options during the statewide public health emergency order.\n\nYou may also want to take a look at food-delivery services.\n\n-----\n\n11:54 AM: From the Opinion pages\n\nSun-News columnists Algernon D'Ammassa and Peter Goodman each penned responses to the coronavirus pandemic.\n\nD'Ammassa encourages those stuck at home to pick up a pen (or pencil) and write a letter by hand: \"Whether we are fortunate enough to have a home stocked with jigsaw puzzles, games and books, privileged enough to have collections of DVDs or subscriptions for streaming movies, there is likely time now to write some letters. Their value is more than many estimate.\"\n\nGoodman explores the potential benefits to come: \"I wonder if we might even benefit from the spirit of unity that should mark what’s in effect a war. Perhaps battling COVID-19 together will dwarf our political differences, and perhaps that spirit will linger a while after we pull through.\"\n\nIn an extended letters to the editor column, readers thank community leaders, offer advice on making it through the pandemic, express concern and more.\n\nCoronavirus:Soap works miracles, and other thoughts on the COVID-19 pandemic\n\n-----\n\n11:41 AM: Torres Small virtual town hall\n\nUS Rep. Xochitl Torres Small, D-N.M., is hosting a virtual town hall with public health experts, state officials, small business and unemployment advisors regarding the coronavirus pandemic.\n\nThe event begins at 6 p.m. Mountain on Sunday. You can listen in and/or participate here: torressmall.house.gov/live\n\nSaturday, March 21\n\n6:13 PM: Stimulus check: What we know (and don't)\n\nSenate Republicans on Thursday released a $1-trillion economic stimulus plan, which details a proposal to distribute a $1,200 payment for each individual or $2,400 for joint returns.\n\nSenate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell confirmed early Thursday that \"the second major pillar of our legislation will be even more straightforward: Direct financial help for Americans.\" A lot of the details of this proposal, titled the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act or CARES, could still change as the bill goes through the approval process.\n\nHere's what we know – and don't. Details are subject to change. We will update, as needed.\n\n-----\n\n6:09 PM: Laid off or hours cut because of coronavirus? Here are some resources to help\n\nBusinesses and life are grinding to a halt due to the social distancing measures meant to combat the coronavirus, COVID-19.\n\nMany are working from home. But many workers are being laid off, and American jobless claims jumped by 70,000 during the week that ended with March 14, according to U.S. Labor Department numbers — the largest one-week jump since 2012.\n\nIn New Mexico, the Associated Press reported more than 10,000 workers statewide have filed for unemployment benefits between March 15 and 19.\n\nHere are some local resources for New Mexico workers who have lost their jobs or have had hours cut because of the coronavirus.\n\nCoronavirus:New Mexico creates coronavirus business recovery fund\n\n-----\n\n5:37 PM: Las Cruces agencies serving homeless tighten polices amid COVID-19 pandemic\n\nConcerns about the spread of coronavirus among the homeless population in Las Cruces aren't being taken lightly. Here's how Las Cruces Community of Hope and the Gospel Rescue MIssion are responding.\n\n-----\n\n5:26 PM: Should I get tested for COVID-19, and if yes, where do I go?\n\nIt has been another busy week here in New Mexico tracking COVID-19 cases and we are promoting social distancing everywhere. The Lujan Grisham administration is doing everything we can to protect New Mexicans in every possible way. But the majority of questions that get emailed, phoned and texted to us (day and night) are not technical questions about social distancing (“Are we supposed to stay 6 feet or 6 meters apart?”) but rather, “Should I get tested?” and “Where can I get tested?”\n\n-----\n\n4:31 PM: SBA disaster assistance now available to all New Mexico small businesses economically impacted by COVID-19 outbreak\n\nSACRAMENTO, Calif. - The U.S. Small Business Administration is offering low-interest federal disaster loans for working capital to all New Mexico small businesses suffering substantial economic injury as a result of the new coronavirus, COVID-19, SBA Administrator Jovita Carranza announced Saturday.\n\nSBA disaster assistance is now available to all counties within the state of New Mexico and the following neighboring counties:\n\nNeighboring Arizona counties: Apache, Cochise and Greenlee;\n\nNeighboring Colorado counties: Archuleta, Baca, Conejos, Costilla, La Plata, Las Animas and Montezuma;\n\nNeighboring Oklahoma county: Cimarron;\n\nNeighboring Texas counties: Andrews, Bailey, Cochran, Culberson, Dallam, Deaf Smith, El Paso, Gaines, Hartley, Hudspeth, Loving, Oldham, Parmer, Reeves, Winkler and Yoakum;\n\nNeighboring Utah county: San Juan.\n\nBusiness:Small Business Administration provides resources to military and veterans\n\n“SBA is strongly committed to providing the most effective and customer-focused response possible to assist New Mexico small businesses with federal disaster loans. We will be swift in our efforts to help these small businesses recover from the financial impacts of (COVID-19),” Carranza stated in a Saturday news release.\n\nSBA customer service representatives will be available to answer questions about SBA’s Economic Injury Disaster Loan program and explain the application process.\n\n“Small businesses, private non-profit organizations of any size, small agricultural cooperatives and small aquaculture enterprises that have been financially impacted as a direct result of (COVID-19) since Jan. 31, 2020, may qualify for Economic Injury Disaster Loans of up to $2 million to help meet financial obligations and operating expenses which could have been met had the disaster not occurred,” Carranza stated.\n\n“These loans may be used to pay fixed debts, payroll, accounts payable and other bills that can’t be paid because of the disaster’s impact. Disaster loans can provide vital economic assistance to small businesses to help overcome the temporary loss of revenue they are experiencing,” Carranza added.\n\nEligibility for Economic Injury Disaster Loans is based on the financial impact of COVID-19. The interest rate is 3.75 percent for small businesses. The interest rate for private, nonprofit organizations is 2.75 percent. SBA offers loans with long-term repayments in order to keep payments affordable, up to a maximum of 30 years and are available to entities without the financial ability to offset the adverse impact without hardship.\n\nFood news:Bags of beans, chile to be given away; pantries need donations, volunteers\n\nApplicants may apply online, receive additional disaster assistance information and download applications at https://disasterloan.sba.gov/ela. Applicants may also call SBA’s Customer Service Center at 800-659-2955 or email disastercustomerservice@sba.gov for more information on SBA disaster assistance.\n\nIndividuals who are deaf or hard of hearing may call 800-877-8339. Completed applications should be mailed to U.S. Small Business Administration, Processing and Disbursement Center, 14925 Kingsport Road, Fort Worth, TX 76155.\n\nThe deadline to apply for an Economic Injury Disaster Loan is Dec. 17, 2020.\n\nFor more information about coronavirus, please visit www.Coronavirus.gov. For information about available SBA resources and services, visit SBA.gov/coronavirus.\n\n-----\n\nCoronavirus in New Mexico:State courts halt evictions for inability to pay during coronavirus emergency\n\n3:48 PM: Holloman AFB declares public health emergency\n\nHOLLOMAN AIR FORCE BASE - Taking further action in the evolving COVID-19 situation, the 49th Wing commander has declared a public health emergency and has enacted additional base access guidelines at Holloman Air Force Base, as of Friday, March 20.\n\nThere are currently no known cases of COVID-19 at Holloman AFB or in the immediate local area, base officials announced Friday. Base leadership continues to collaborate with city, county and state officials to actively monitor the situation.\n\nColonel Joseph Campo’s declaration of the public health emergency elevates the safety and security measures to help protect the base populace and surrounding community. A number of precautionary measures have already been in place including minimal staffing, social distancing, and closing or limiting services at certain businesses. The base has also enhanced its childcare screening to protect childcare providers and children.\n\nEffective Friday, March 20, access to the base is limited to Active Duty, Reserve and National Guard personnel, and their dependents. Additionally, contractor and civilian personnel executing or supporting their units’ mission and all residents of Holloman AFB will be permitted access.\n\nRetired personnel will be permitted on base, but only to access the medical clinic. Current visitor passes will be honored, but no new passes will be issued. New Family Camp mobile lodging residents are restricted to Active Duty, Reserve and National Guard personnel.\n\nBase officials say these are temporary measures to ensure Holloman’s mission will continue by protecting the health of Holloman’s military members, civilians, contractors, and their families.\n\n-----\n\nMilitary:Airman runs own marathon to honor Bataan Memorial Death March\n\n3:27 PM: Comcast suspends data restrictions, disconnections and late fees\n\nComcast on Saturday announced several changes in response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. These include a suspension of service disconnections and late fees until further notice, as well as the opening of all public WiFi hotspots — which will become free for everyone.\n\nThe company has increased speeds for its low-income Internet Essentials customers, and new customers who apply by April 30 will receive two months of free service with no obligation to continue the service after that.\n\nComcast will also eliminate data limits for the next 60 days, the company announced. X1 users can access educational content on the service. Just say “education” into the voice remote. The latest COVID-19 news can be accessed by speaking “Coronavirus” into the voice remote.\n\n-----\n\n3:17 PM: Stay calm, reassuring when talking to kids about COVID-19, NMSU professor suggests\n\nParents are faced with the difficult task of talking to their children about the COVID-19 pandemic, but should remain calm and reassuring in these uncertain times, said Lisa Peterson, a New Mexico State University assistant professor and director of the School Psychology Doctoral Program in", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2020/03/17"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/50-states/2019/05/29/andy-warhol-sudden-oak-death-kingda-ka-coaster-news-around-states/39527965/", "title": "Andy Warhol, sudden oak death, Kingda Ka coaster: News from ...", "text": "From staff and wire reports\n\nAlabama\n\nMontgomery: The state Senate has passed legislation prohibiting drivers from staying in the leftmost lane on interstate highways for more than a mile and a half without passing another vehicle. The sponsor of the bill, Republican Rep. Phillip Pettus, calls it the “Anti-Road Rage Act.” He says it’s aimed at reducing the risk of violence from drivers becoming angry at slow drivers in the left lane. The bill allows for some exemptions, such as during inclement weather or particularly bad traffic conditions. The legislation now heads to the governor’s desk to be signed.\n\nAlaska\n\nJuneau: State lawmakers have endorsed an Alaska Native tribe’s effort to change the name of Saginaw Bay to Skanax Bay. CoastAlaska reports tribal leaders are pushing the change because the body of water off Kuiu Island was named for a U.S. warship that laid waste in 1869 to three Tlingit villages near present-day Kake. The Alaska House passed a resolution 37-0 endorsing the name change to Skanax, the Tlingit word for security. The executive director of the Organized Village of Kake told a House committee considering the resolution that the tribe “never relinquished to the rights to this bay.” Democratic state Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tompkins says the name is “an affront” to the Tlingit community and discomforting to many residents of the community east of Sitka.\n\nArizona\n\nPhoenix: The state Supreme Court has ruled that medical marijuana cardholders are protected from arrest for possessing hashish and other cannabis extracts as long as they don’t have more of the drug than allowed. In making the ruling, the court concluded the state’s medical pot law covers products made with resin extracted from pot plants. The unanimous ruling Tuesday reversed a lower-court decision that found patients faced arrest for hashish possession because the drug isn’t mentioned or included by name in the law. The state Supreme Court said Arizona’s 2010 voter-approved medical marijuana law includes dried cannabis flowers and resin extracted from pot plants. The ruling points out that, under the law, marijuana means “all parts of any plant of the genus cannabis whether growing or not.”\n\nArkansas\n\nHot Springs: Arkansas Rehabilitation Services says it is ending its residential program in the city and laying off 120 employees. The Arkansas Career Training Institute is a state-owned facility that provides young disabled adults with vocational training. ARS says switching to a non-residential model will allow it to “use taxpayer dollars more efficiently.” ARS Commissioner Alan McClain tells The Sentinel-Record that a third of the current budget is used to support the facility in Hot Springs. By ending the residential program, McClain says, the savings will be used to support other programs across the state. McClain says the layoffs include housekeeping staff, maintenance workers and food-service employees. He says about 40 to 50 vocational counselors and instructors will likely be retained.\n\nCalifornia\n\nSan Francisco: A retrospective of Andy Warhol’s work on display in the city captures his use of artwork to create public personas for his subjects the way people do now using social media. “Andy Warhol – From A to B and Back Again” opened this past week at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. It runs through Sept. 2. Organizers say the exhibit illustrates how Warhol embraced personal branding decades ago and foreshadowed the digital age. It includes more than 300 works spanning Warhol’s 40-year career. The show features some of the artist’s most iconic creations – depictions of Campbell’s soup cans and Brillo boxes, for instance, and silkscreen portraits of Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley and others – along with lesser-known pieces from his early and later years.\n\nColorado\n\nDenver: A heavy mountain snowpack has helped the Centennial State shake free of drought that covered much of the state just months ago. The Department of Agriculture’s latest update of drought conditions shows a fraction of 1% of Colorado is still experiencing drought. In February, more than two-thirds of the state was experiencing drought. Mountain snowpack levels are high statewide and particularly in the southwest. As the snow melts, more water will be available for agriculture and for cities and towns to store in reservoirs.\n\nConnecticut\n\nHartford: Officials say they’re temporarily closing two offshore islands to the public to prevent disturbances to nesting birds. The state’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection says Charles Island in Milford and Duck Island in Westbrook are closed through Sept. 9. The islands are closed annually during nesting season to protect various bird species. Both islands have been designated by the state as natural area preserves because of their importance as nesting habitats for snowy egrets, great egrets, glossy ibis and little blue herons. The department also asked beachgoers and boaters along the Connecticut shoreline to respect the fencing and yellow signs warning of piping plover and least tern nesting sites. DEEP Deputy Commissioner Susan Whalen says these are simple, effective ways to protect the birds.\n\nDelaware\n\nDover: Delaware Pride Festival now belongs to LGBT Pride Month. The annual Delaware Pride Festival has been moved from late summer to June, coinciding with the national commemoration of the 1969 Stonewall riots. And that’s not the only big change at this year’s fest, to be held Saturday in Dover. The annual Delaware Pride Festival – the largest annual LGBT gathering in the state – has added an hourlong parade, which will kick things off at 9 a.m. Saturday at Legislative Hall. Then at 10 a.m., the seven-hour festival starts with New York comedian Robb Coles as host. This year’s entertainment includes Wilmington’s own Aunt Mary Pat DiSabatino, Julia Scotti of “America’s Got Talent,” local music acts and an array of local drag queens. The event is free, and more details are available on Facebook.\n\nDistrict of Columbia\n\nWashington: A Catholic girls school in the city says it’s getting overwhelmingly positive responses to its decision to include same-sex union announcements in its alumnae magazine. But the pastor of a nearby Catholic parish calls the move by Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School a “dagger to the heart.” The Washington Post reported on the criticism by Monsignor Edward J. Filardi of Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Bethesda, Maryland. He wrote in Sunday’s parish bulletin that Visitation’s president emerita, Sister Mary Berchmans, has betrayed her faith and succumbed to lobbying. Berchmans says the move at the 220-year-old girl’s school follows “the Gospel commandment of love.” She said the church’s stance on same-sex marriage is clear, but the church also teaches that all people are God’s children.\n\nFlorida\n\nJacksonville: Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens is welcoming the birth of four critically endangered black and white ruffled lemurs. Zoo spokeswoman JJ Vitale said in a news release that the lemurs were born Sunday. They are the third litter for parents Hawk and Potter. All four lemurs are male, which may allow them stay longer at the zoo. Female lemur offspring become incompatible with their mothers around age 2. Black and white ruffled lemur mothers don’t carry their offspring around. Instead, Vitale says, they build a nest and leave the litter there, returning to nurse. She says the family will bond behind the scenes for the immediate future. All lemurs are native only to Madagascar and are critically endangered.\n\nGeorgia\n\nAtlanta: Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos says the streaming giant will “rethink our entire investment” in the state if the recently passed abortion law goes into effect. Sarandos made his remarks in a statement Tuesday, first reported by Variety. They constitute the strongest language yet from any leading Hollywood studio since Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law a ban on virtually all abortions. Sarandos said that Netflix has many women working on productions in Georgia whose rights “will be severely restricted” by the law. He said the company will help the American Civil Liberties Union contest the law in court. Netflix productions in the state will continue before the legislation is implemented. Atlanta has in recent years become a major hub of TV and film production.\n\nHawaii\n\nHonolulu: A record number of racial minority medical students have graduated from the University of Hawaii. The Honolulu Star-Advertiser reports 12 Native Hawaiians and 12 Filipinos were among this year’s 73 graduates from the university’s John A. Burns School of Medicine. Officials say there were six Native Hawaiian and four Filipino medical school graduates in 2018. A school official says Native Hawaiians make up 23% of the state population but only 3.4% of Hawaii physicians. The school says it is increasing efforts to close the gap for racial minority students who wish to pursue medical careers through the yearlong Imi Hoola program. Officials say Queen’s Health Systems provides a stipend directly to students so they do not have to find employment while in the program.\n\nIdaho\n\nBoise: The Idaho Department of Fish and Game will not recognize as a state record a bighorn sheep that was killed nearly three years ago by a Nez Perce Tribe member because the agency said the ram was shot in violation of state hunting regulations, even though those regulations do not apply to tribe members hunting on ancestral lands. But the Boone and Crockett Club hunting group has recognized the kill by hunter Gary Sublett in September 2016 as being within his tribe’s 1855 rights and has invited him to its Big Game Awards banquet in early August in Springfield, Missouri, where the bighorn’s head will go on display. The animal’s massive horns rank No. 1 for Idaho and No. 26 for the U.S. and Canada on Boone and Crockett’s list of largest Rocky Mountain bighorns.\n\nIllinois\n\nSpringfield: The state Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity has awarded $1.8 million in grants to increase Prairie State tourism. The Office of Tourism announced the 17 recipients of two different grants, saying tourism produced more than $3 billion in tax revenue for the state and local communities last year. The Tourism Attraction Grant program helps develop or enhance tourism attractions to boost visitation and overnight stays in Illinois. There were 13 recipients sharing $1.4 million. Officials say there were four times as many applications for this grant as there was available funding. Just over $400,000 went to four applicants for the Tourism Private Sector Grant program. The money helps attract major new events to the state or helps enhance existing ones.\n\nIndiana\n\nIndianapolis: State officials say the problem with an invasive, tree-killing disease called sudden oak death is worse than initially suspected. The state Department of Natural Resources said last week that the fungal pathogen was detected in rhododendrons at about 30 stores. The number has since tripled, and affected material was sent to more than 70 Walmart stores and 18 Rural King stores in Indiana. Megan Abraham, director of the DNR’s Division of Entomology & Plant Pathology, says the plants were delivered to several other states, but she didn’t specify which ones. Abraham says Indiana has the most locations with infested plants. The DNR has said that it’s the first time in about 10 years that sudden oak death has been detected in Indiana.\n\nIowa\n\nGrinnell: Two larger-than-life statues now stand in memory of a University of Iowa student whose life captivated the country as news spread of her disappearance and death. The statues of Mollie Tibbetts were dedicated May 18 during a private ceremony with family and friends, according to a news release from UnityPoint Health issued on behalf of Tibbetts’ family. Chad Nath, director of Grinnell Regional Medical Center’s youth day camp where Tibbetts spent two summers working with children, called the bronze statues by Dubuque artist Gail Chavenelle “breathtaking and absolutely amazing.” One statue featuring Tibbetts running with her dog was unveiled at the Grinnell hospital’s healing garden. A second statue, which depicts Tibbetts surrounded by children, was placed in Ahrens Park. Inspired by her role as a camp counselor, the statue sits on a raised concrete base so children visiting the park can sit beside her, Nath said.\n\nKansas\n\nWichita: A new culinary arts program could be in the works for downtown Wichita in a partnership among three centers of higher education. The Wichita Eagle reports Wichita State University, WSU Tech and Butler Community College are in talks but have yet to reach agreement on the proposal. The culinary arts school would be established in a new downtown complex that will also host a private school of osteopathic medicine, student apartments and a hotel. Developer Sudha Tokala says there’s a need for individuals with a broad spectrum of skills who can cater to all dietary requirements, including vegan and gluten free. Tokala says her vision is for a place where students can “eat, study, play, work and live.”\n\nKentucky\n\nJamestown: The Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky is funding a program in Russell County and nine surrounding counties to help children and youth dealing with violence, addiction and other trauma. According to a news release, the foundation awarded $200,000 to the Louisville-based Bounce Coalition. The group is already showing progress with a similar program in Jefferson County Public Schools. Accomplishments include fewer out-of-school suspensions, an improved school climate and increased parent engagement. The foundation and Bounce hope similar results can be achieved in a rural setting. Bounce will work with Russell County Schools and the Lake Cumberland District Health Department. Ben Chandler, president and CEO of the foundation, says the program will help children build resilience to “toxic stressors” that keep them from thriving throughout their lives.\n\nLouisiana\n\nBaton Rouge: The state’s welcome signs along Interstate 10 could soon celebrate the New Orleans Saints. Lawmakers agreed I-10 welcome signs at the Texas and Mississippi state lines should declare people have entered the “Home of the Who Dat Nation,” referencing the nickname for Saints fans. A 35-0 state Senate vote Tuesday gave final passage to the bill by New Orleans Sen. Wesley Bishop. It also calls for the Saints appreciation language to be included on the Superdome exit sign on I-10 in downtown New Orleans. The House added an extra provision to the bill, designating Highway 90 from Lafayette to Raceland as the “Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco Highway,” in honor of Louisiana’s former governor. The signs must be paid with local or private dollars to be installed.\n\nMaine\n\nPortland: Fishing regulators are considering some small changes to the rules that govern the state’s fishery for sea urchins. Urchins are harvested in coastal Maine for use as food. The roe of urchins is commonly used in Japanese dishes. The Maine Department of Marine Resources says it’s considering reducing the daily tote limits along the state’s southern coast. The marine department says the state is considering options that would allow for a deeper limit cut and more fishing opportunity days. It’s also considering less of a cut and keeping the opportunity days the same. There could also be a slight limit reduction along the northern coast. The state is holding public hearings on the changes in June. They’d apply to the 2019-20 fishing season. Maine urchins were worth more than $6 million last year.\n\nMaryland\n\nBaltimore: Several journalists and community organizers in the city have sued to challenge a state law’s ban on broadcasting digital recordings of criminal court proceedings. The federal suit filed Tuesday asks the court to declare that the law violates the plaintiffs’ First Amendment free speech rights. Audio recordings of criminal trial proceedings are publicly available in Maryland, but a 1981 state law banned the broadcasting of any court proceedings for criminal trials. Anyone who violates the law can be held in contempt of court. The ban doesn’t apply to civil cases or criminal appeals. Maryland Judiciary spokeswoman Terri Charles says she can’t comment on pending litigation. Plaintiffs include journalists Brandon Soderberg and Baynard Woods, who are working on a book about the Baltimore Police Department’s scandal-plagued Gun Trace Task Force.\n\nMassachusetts\n\nCape Cod: A local company has proposed building a sonic barrier around the region’s beaches to chase away seals and prevent shark attacks. Deep Blue LLC presented the idea Wednesday at a public meeting in Barnstable. It sparked a broader debate about addressing the region’s massive seal population. The company envisions a system of underwater audio devices that will emit a sound unpleasant to seals. Owners Willy Planinshek and Kevin McCarthy say that if the seals leave the area, the great white sharks that eat them will follow. Commission members and some residents voiced support for the idea. But marine biologists said that sharks eat more than just seals and that acoustic deterrent systems have failed elsewhere.\n\nMichigan\n\nAnn Arbor: For those who believe everything is better with bacon, an event this week in the city beckons. Zingerman’s kicked off its annual Camp Bacon event Wednesday. Now celebrating its 10th anniversary, Camp Bacon spans five days, with events running through Sunday. It’s a bacon lover’s dream with events including lunches with guest chefs, a film festival, bacon ball and street fair. Camp Bacon events take place at several Zingerman’s venues in the Ann Arbor area. The main draw is an all-day symposium on pork Friday on the grounds of Zingerman’s Cornman Farms. Attendees will hear from an array of speakers, including Matt Romine of Ferndale’s Farm Field Table. A full list of events is available online.\n\nMinnesota\n\nSt. Paul: Abortion rights supporters are seeking to overturn the state’s restrictions on abortion, including its 24-hour waiting period and parental notification requirements. A lawsuit filed in state court by Gender Justice and the Lawyering Project argues the restrictions violate Minnesota’s constitution. A 1995 Minnesota Supreme Court decision affirmed abortion rights. But the lawsuit contends opponents have chipped away at those rights over time. The lawsuit runs counter to the trend of states imposing stricter restrictions on access to abortion with the goal of getting the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider its 1973 ruling that legalized abortion. Amanda Allen of the Lawyering Project says those efforts make the legal challenge to Minnesota’s restrictions essential.\n\nMississippi\n\nStarkville: Some cities in the Magnolia State are putting up cameras that let police remotely watch what’s happening on the streets. Starkville and Greenville are among the places installing eyes in the sky. The Starkville Daily News reports that cameras in the city do not include facial recognition software. Mayor Lynn Spruill says some residents have asked her about that. She also says the cameras will not be used to issue traffic tickets because that practice is banned by state law. The Delta Democrat-Times reports that in Greenville, city officials have approved a test run of sky cameras. Minutes from a City Council meeting say the cameras have audio and video that can “help track perpetrators” and identify “crime hot spots.” The camera company is giving Greenville one month of free use.\n\nMissouri\n\nSt. Louis: Former Gov. Eric Greitens will return to the Navy – but not as one of the elite Navy SEAL team. The Kansas City Star reports Greitens will return to service as an officer assigned to the Navy Operation Support Center in St. Louis. He will be designated as a general unrestricted line officer. Navy Personnel Command spokeswoman Cmdr. Karin Burzynski said people in that designation usually perform general office jobs. Greitens made a request to the Navy in April to transfer from inactive standby reserve status to active status in the selected reserves. Greitens resigned as governor in June 2018 amid allegations of sexual misconduct and campaign finance violations. He mentioned his service as a Navy SEAL frequently throughout his campaign and tenure as governor.\n\nMontana\n\nGreat Falls: Wildlife officials say the prairie dog population at a wildlife refuge has been gutted by a bacterial disease, causing the number of black-footed ferrets at the site to plummet. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Randy Matchett says 70% of prairie dogs at the UL Bend National Wildlife Refuge have died since a sylvatic plague event in the winter of 2017 and 2018. Researchers counted only one black-footed ferret on the refuge this spring. The ferrets are considered an endangered species and depend on the prairie dog population for food. The central Montana refuge is not the only place where ferrets have been reintroduced to the wild. Researchers say there are a total of 24 reintroduction sites in the western U.S.\n\nNebraska\n\nBelmar: Officials say Cedar View Campground at Lake McConaughy State Recreation Area is closed so construction crews can complete upgrades to campground amenities. The campground, situated about 15 miles west of Kingsley Dam on Nebraska Highway 92 near Otter Creek Bay, is scheduled to reopen June 13. Some of the work might not be finished until fall. The Nebraska Game and Parks Commission says the upgrades will include new electrical and water utilities leading to 85 camping sites. Eight campsites will be updated with accessible features along with renovations to the existing shower facility.\n\nNevada\n\nLas Vegas: It’s not cheap to be a swing state. That’s what officials are learning as the state’s rising political prominence attracts more visits from the president, vice president and other high-profile figures that are driving up costs for state troopers assigned to help protect them. In the past year, Nevada has had seven visits from either President Donald Trump or Vice President Mike Pence, in addition to visits from members of the first family and a Cabinet secretary. The Nevada Highway Patrol, at the request of the U.S. Secret Service, provided protection at a combined cost of more than $110,000. That’s seven times what lawmakers had set aside for protecting “visiting dignitaries.” The state doesn’t get reimbursed by the federal government or campaigns, and the protection is expected to be even more costly moving forward.\n\nNew Hampshire\n\nConcord: The state has sued eight companies including 3M and Dupont for damage it says has been caused statewide by a class of potentially toxic chemicals found in everything from pizza boxes to fast-food wrappers. The state becomes the second in the nation to go after the makers and distributors of perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, and the first to target statewide contamination. The lawsuit also names Chemours Company, Chemguard Inc., Tyco Fire Products, Buckeye Fire Equipment, Kidde-Fenwal Inc. and National Fire Foam Inc. New York state has sued six companies that made firefighting foam containing PFOS and/or PFOA chemicals that it says have contaminated drinking water in two communities and groundwater in another.\n\nNew Jersey\n\nCamden: A popular roller coaster at Six Flags Great Adventure exposes some patrons to the risk of “whiplash type injuries,” says a lawsuit for a physician who claims his ride led to spinal surgery. Dr. Christopher Fabricant, of Red Bank, contends he suffered “severe and permanent damage to his neck and spine” during a painful ride on Kingda Ka, which the park describes as the “fastest roller coaster in North America.” The lawsuit in Camden federal court contends park employees did not warn the 6-foot-2 doctor that a person of his body size “was not a candidate for safely riding (Kingda Ka).” It claims a rider on Kingda Ka risks whiplash from the coaster’s “extreme speed and torqueing forces” if most or all of the person’s head extends above the rear of the seat. And the suit alleges the seat’s safety harness can cause “crushing injuries” for taller patrons.\n\nNew Mexico\n\nAlbuquerque: U.S. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt has agreed to put a yearlong hold on oil and gas leasing within 10 miles of Chaco Canyon National Historical Park. Officials say that will allow for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to finish drafting an updated management plan that will guide energy development across the region. The decision comes after Bernhardt visited the ancient site Tuesday. The area has been central to an ongoing dispute over drilling in the San Juan Basin. Native American tribes and others are pushing for a formal buffer to protect sacred and culturally significant sites outside the park’s boundaries. The draft will include an alternative that reflects the views of Native American leaders as well as provisions of pending federal legislation.\n\nNew York\n\nAlbany: The Legislature could soon repeal a long-standing ban on paid surrogacy contracts, in which a woman is compensated for carrying the child of another person or couple. New York and Michigan are now the only two states that expressly forbid surrogacy contracts, forcing many prospective parents to go to other states to start a family. A measure sponsored by Sen. Brad Hoylman, a Manhattan Democrat, would permit surrogacy contracts and impose rules intended to protect surrogates, intended parents and babies. Hoylman has two daughters born to a surrogate in California. He says state law hasn’t kept up with medical advances that make surrogacy a good option for many couples and single people. Lawmakers held a hearing on the legislation Wednesday, a critical step before a possible vote.\n\nNorth Carolina\n\nCharlotte: A barber shop owner has raised enough money to erase the debts of more than a dozen high school seniors who risked not graduating if they didn’t pay them off. WBTV reports Season Bennett learned 14 seniors at East Mecklenburg High School in Charlotte wouldn’t get their diplomas with the rest of their class if the overdue school fees weren’t paid. So Bennett asked the community for help eliminating the $4,500 debt. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools prohibits students from graduating if the overdue fees go unpaid. Between donations from the public and help from former Carolina Panthers linebacker Thomas Davis, Bennett raised the money. Bennett said she was inspired by billionaire technology investor Robert F. Smith, who announced he’d pay off the student loans for graduating seniors at Morehouse College.\n\nNorth Dakota\n\nBismarck: Oil drillers are falling far short of the state’s goals to limit the burning of excess natural gas at well heads, five years after the state adopted the rules to reduce the wasteful and environmentally harmful practice. The industry has spent billions of dollars on infrastructure but is at least two years from catching up, and regulators are projecting that the state’s increasing gas production will still outstrip that new capacity. Environmentalists and even a key Republican say the problem will persist as long as the state doesn’t take a tougher approach with the industry, which has largely avoided financial penalties. “We need to find an excess flared gas solution immediately,” said Republican Rep. Vicky Steiner, whose hometown of Dickinson is in the heart of the state’s oil patch. “It’s a shame. I’d like to see us find a use for this.”\n\nOhio\n\nColumbus: A legislative proposal would allow parents in the state to avoid an often heartbreaking decision: giving up custody of troubled children so they can receive desperately needed and expensive services. The amendment to Ohio’s two-year budget is aimed at so-called multisystem youths, those needing help from service agencies that cover disabilities, child welfare and mental health. Under the current system, parents sometimes must relinquish custody to the state to obtain help for their child because they don’t have the money and insurance coverage. The goal of the state should always be to maintain families, state Sen. Jay Hottinger, a Newark Republican, told The Columbus Dispatch. He is backing a budget proposal that would provide $20 million over two years to give parents other options than giving up custody.\n\nOklahoma\n\nOklahoma City: Agriculture officials say the state’s canola and wheat harvests could be smaller and come later than planned due to recent severe weather. The Oklahoman reports that agriculture experts Josh Lofton and Mike Schulte say growers will need another week to assess the damage, and the harvests likely won’t start before then. Canola generates seed pods that are crushed for oil. They’re especially vulnerable to hail storms and high winds because dried-out pods are delicate and can shatter. Schulte says Oklahoma wheat farmers are warning that the number of bushels harvested this year could be reduced by 15% or more. Two people died in Oklahoma after a rash of tornadoes hit the state Saturday, and flooding along the Arkansas River last week submerged communities and prompted forced evacuations.\n\nOregon\n\nSalem: Republicans have forced a clerk in the Legislature to read aloud every word in nearly every piece of legislation as the minority party uses the stalling tactic to try to gain leverage. Democrats have supermajorities in both the state Senate and House, and Republicans are using the strategy to push their own initiatives and weaken Democratic ones. Other statehouses and Congress have seen similar delay tactics, such as Colorado, where minority Republicans wanted a 2,000-page bill read aloud this year, so Democrats brought in computers to read it at hyperspeed. A judge knocked down the trick. Oregon House Republicans have insisted on full readings since April 30, instead of summaries. It’s put House reading clerk Lacy Ramirez Gruss in the spotlight as she reads bills hour after hour.\n\nPennsylvania\n\nScranton: Everyone complains that City Hall is for sale, but it might soon be the case here. City Hall in Scranton needs a renovation, and the mayor’s administration is considering putting the 130-year-old structure up for sale rather than footing the nearly $11 million bill to fix it up. The Times-Tribune reports Mayor Bill Courtright’s administration recently issued a formal “request for qualifications” from entities interested in acquiring and renovating the building. The mayor says if the city government ends up moving to another smaller location, he’d like the new owners of the City Hall building to restore the limestone Victorian Gothic Revival building to its former glory. Scranton was once a thriving center of the anthracite coal business, and architectural remnants of its glory days are dotted throughout downtown.\n\nRhode Island\n\nWesterly: The state and the town of Westerly are teaming up to address the trash problem at Misquamicut State Beach. WJAR-TV reports the town has loaned the state two solar-powered compacting trash cans – one for garbage, the other for recycling. Caswell Cooke, a town councilor and executive director of the Misquamicut Business Association, says they fit a lot more trash than a normal trash can, and when they need to be emptied, they emit a signal. The state Department of Environmental Management has spent more than $100,000 to try to get beach trash under control, including hiring four summer employees to pick up garbage. The state has added more trash receptacles near beach entrances and in parking lots. People caught littering can be fined up to $500.\n\nSouth Carolina\n\nColumbia: Gov. Henry McMaster’s promise to cooperate with state lawmakers if they worked in good faith with him is continuing through his budget vetoes. The governor on Wednesday rejected just 28 items worth $41 million from South Carolina’s $9 billion budget. In his veto message, McMaster said most of the items were requests lawmakers made without saying exactly where the money was going. The previous two governors often clashed with the Legislature and used their budget vetoes to admonish their spending priorities. But McMaster and his staff reached out to key lawmakers and collaborated. One big veto rejected $11 million for the Judicial Department for a case management system. McMaster says money needs to be spent on a system that can work with all parts of the criminal justice system.\n\nSouth Dakota\n\nRapid City: The U.S. Attorney’s Office in the state says a project has uncovered dozens of people and organizations that collectively stole millions of dollars from nine Native American reservations. The office’s spokeswoman, Aileen Crawford, tells the Rapid City Journal that the Guardians Project has led to 42 convictions on federal charges including fraud, theft and embezzlement from tribes and tribal organizations. The project, which launched in 2015, brings together local and federal agencies to investigate allegations of corruption and financial crimes against the state’s Native American communities. Many of the convictions have involved tribal employees, tribal executives and out-of-state business owners.\n\nTennessee\n\nNashville: A fort built by African Americans during the Civil War has received an international designation for its significance to the history of slavery. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization has named Fort Negley a “Site of Memory,” as part of its Slave Route Project. The Union forces that occupied Nashville in 1862 forced more than 2,700 free blacks and escaped slaves to build the fort in miserable conditions. About 600 to 800 died. Vanderbilt University history professor Jane Landers has helped lead the charge to recognize and preserve Fort Negley. Developers dropped plans for a housing and entertainment complex near the site after archaeologists found it likely still contains the buried remains of the African American laborers who were pressed into service to build it.\n\nTexas\n\nIrving: The most recognized landmark in this city is the Towers at Williams Square, the Las Colinas area’s high-rise complex with a sculpture of wild mustangs out front. Any time of the day or night, visitors can be found taking Facebook photos or selfies on the stone plaza that surrounds the horses, The Dallas Morning News reports. Soon they’ll be romping through a park, not a field of granite, at the site about 10 miles northwest of downtown Dallas. Built as the centerpiece for Las Colinas, the 1.4 million-square-foot high-rise complex sold for $330 million in 2015. The city of Irving is working with the new owners on a complete revamp of the mustang plaza that will make it more like a park than a hot granite landing field. The redo will add trees, plantings and lounging spaces around the beloved mustang fountain.\n\nUtah\n\nCoalville: More than 30 deer have turned up dead near a landfill in Utah, prompting an investigation by state officials and new measures meant in part to keep the animals from the site. The deaths came to light earlier this week after hikers shared photos on social media of dead deer strewn across a road near Three Mile Canyon Landfill in Coalville, about 45 miles northeast of Salt Lake City. One photo shows dozens of decaying deer carcasses mixed with trash on the edges of nearby Rockport State Park. Residents chimed in on Facebook, calling the photos “an eye-opener” and “insane.” Deer come to the landfill each winter seeking food, then fall ill after ingesting plastic and other toxins, Summit County Solid Waste Division superintendent Tim Loveday says, and a recent spike in the state’s deer population and the brutal winter have meant more deer are dying of starvation and cold.\n\nVermont\n\nVernon: The now-unused cooling towers from the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant are going to be coming down. The Brattleboro Reformer reports that Corey Daniels of Northstar, the company that recently bought the closed plant in Vernon to demolish it, told members of the Vermont Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel that the cooling towers would be likely gone before September. He said asbestos abatement at the cooling towers was in process, and once completed, the demolition would begin. NorthStar bought Vermont Yankee in January. It has plans to complete the demolition of the plant by 2026, decades ahead of a long-term schedule endorsed by the plant’s former owner, Entergy Nuclear. Daniels says the demolition of the reactor core is starting, with components being cut up into smaller pieces.\n\nVirginia\n\nRoanoke: Visitors to the scenic Blue Ridge Parkway had an estimated $1.3 billion economic impact last year in the park’s various communities. The National Park Service’s annual survey gauged the impact of visitor spending in the Virginia prize as well in as the other U.S. parks. The winding roadway has been one of the United States’ most-visited national park sites, and last year’s total was roughly on par with economic impact figures gauged since 2012. The $1.3\n\nbillion in estimated impact was down some $100 million from 2017. The parkway has become an integral part of the mountains and the communities that lie along its 469-mile route. It connects Shenandoah National Park with the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.\n\nWashington\n\nSpokane: As the Seattle area becomes more crowded and more expensive, Spokane Mayor David Condon sees an opportunity to grow the state’s second-largest city. Condon has been visiting the Seattle area recently, selling Spokane as a place with an educated workforce, cheap housing, shorter commutes and lots of amenities. “We’re talking about the value you get in Spokane and the access to talent in Spokane,” Condon said recently in a call from Denver, where he was also pitching the merits of the Lilac City. Condon focuses on contacting alumni of the five universities that operate in the Spokane region, in hopes they might move jobs to the city of 219,000 residents. Spokane is the nation’s 100th largest city, according to the Census Bureau. Seattle is not giving up easily. Mayor Jenny Durkan issued a recent statement in which she called Seattle the city that “invents the future.”\n\nWest Virginia\n\nMartinsburg: Organizers of the Miss West Virginia Scholarship Pageant say this year’s event will relocate to Martinsburg. Miss West Virginia Organization producer Candy Reid tells The Journal of Martinsburg that the state competition will be held in Martinsburg on June 28-29. The pageant typically takes place in Morgantown. Twenty contestants from around the state will compete in the two-night competition. The Miss West Virginia Scholarship Pageant is a volunteer organization and part of the Miss America Program. The Miss America Organization recently named new leadership for the Miss West Virginia Program. Shelley Nichols Franklin has been a local volunteer since 1995 and the local director since 2000. This year, the 75th anniversary of the pageant will be led by Franklin and a team of volunteers.\n\nWisconsin\n\nSuperior: The University of Wisconsin-Superior is running the only Great Lakes land-based facility that tests the success of technologies designed to prevent the spread of invasive species through ships’ ballast water. Matt TenEyck, director of the university’s Lake Superior Research Institute, told Wisconsin Public Radio that the treatments that show promise in the lab on Montreal Pier in Superior are then tested in the harbor to see how they perform in Great Lakes water conditions. Superior Mayor Jim Paine says the facility is vital for the protection of the health of the Great Lakes. Researcher Kelsey Prihoda says three treatment technologies are currently being tested in the lab. Prihoda says vessel owners and operators are more likely to have confidence in technologies that have undergone large-scale controlled land testing.\n\nWyoming\n\nLaramie: A wild horse sanctuary that was the first such facility to be sponsored by the government is holding a horse auction next month. The Bureau of Land Management says the adoption event will be June 7-8 at Deerwood Ranch west of Laramie. Home to about 350 wild horses, Deerwood Ranch is a public pasture for excess wild horses removed from overpopulated herds. The adoption will include horses trained by the Mantle family in Wheatland and up to a dozen untrained yearlings from the Rock Springs Wild Horse Holding Facility. The untrained horses will be adopted on a first-come, first-served basis for a $25 fee, and their adopters are eligible for cash incentives. During the adoption, Deerwood will offer public tractor rides to view the horses.\n\nFrom staff and wire reports", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2019/05/29"}]}
+{"question_id": "20220617_26", "search_time": "2022/06/17/16:36", "search_result": [{"url": "https://www.theweek.co.uk/news/957037/ten-things-you-need-to-know-today-11-june-2022", "title": "Ten Things You Need to Know Today: 11 June 2022 | The Week UK", "text": "‘Fool’ Andrew in new debt battle\n\nThe Duke of York has been described as a “fool” after he became caught up in another £1.6m debt battle. The Telegraph said the “business debt” is owed to a Swiss couple who are understood to have placed a freezing order on his Verbier ski chalet. The Duke is said to be disputing the amount owed, but does not deny the unpaid debt. A French socialite who sold the chalet in 2014 to the Duke and Sarah, Duchess of York, but later sued them over an outstanding £6.7m debt – said: “He is an absolute fool and I just cannot understand how he goes about his life.”", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/06/11"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/08/politics/donald-trump-jr-meadows-text/index.html", "title": "CNN Exclusive: 'We control them all': Donald Trump Jr. texted ...", "text": "Former President Donald Trump speaks on May 28, 2022 in Casper, Wyoming. The rally is being held to support Harriet Hageman, Rep. Liz Cheneys primary challenger in Wyoming.\n\nFILE - In this Jan. 6, 2021 photo, Donald Trump supporters participate in a rally in Washington, near the White House. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)\n\nBarr: Trump to blame for people going to the Capitol\n\nAttorney General William Barr participates in a press conference at the Department of Justice along with DOJ officials on February 10, 2020 in Washington, DC.\n\nLOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - JUNE 09: U.S. President Joe Biden gestures as he speaks at a session of the CEO Summit of the Americas hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on June 09, 2022 in Los Angeles, California. The CEO Summit entered its second day of events alongside the Summit of the Americas, which is hosting leaders from across the Western Hemisphere. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)\n\nBannon to Garland over Jan. 6 hearings: Indict Trump and we'll impeach you\n\nAUSTIN, TEXAS - MAY 14: Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during the American Freedom Tour at the Austin Convention Center on May 14, 2022 in Austin, Texas. The national event gathered conservatives from around the country to defend, empower and help promote conservative agendas nationwide.\n\nHaberman on how Trump is setting up his defense to Jan. 6 hearings\n\nATLANTA, GA - JANUARY 08: U.S. President Donald Trump on field during the national anthem prior to the CFP National Championship presented by AT&T between the Georgia Bulldogs and the Alabama Crimson Tide at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on January 8, 2018 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)\n\nToobin: SCOTUS says this is history, we're dealing in the present\n\nWASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 26: The U.S. Supreme Court building on the day it was reported that Associate Justice Stephen Breyer would soon retire on January 26, 2022 in Washington, DC. Appointed by President Bill Clinton, Breyer has been on the court since 1994. His retirement creates an opportunity for President Joe Biden, who has promised to nominate a Black woman for his first pick to the highest court in the country.\n\nSee George Conway's reaction to new photos of Pence hiding on Jan. 6\n\nHonig: Donald Trump Jr. texts go 'right to the heart' of election scheme\n\nDonald Trump Jr. talks to the press before the arrival of his father President Donald Trump during a rally at the Van Andel Arena on March 28, 2019 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Grand Rapids was the final city Trump visited during his 2016 campaign.\n\nWashington CNN —\n\nTwo days after the 2020 presidential election, as votes were still being tallied, Donald Trump’s eldest son texted then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows that “we have operational control” to ensure his father would get a second term, with Republican majorities in the US Senate and swing state legislatures, CNN has learned.\n\nIn the text, which has not been previously reported, Donald Trump Jr. lays out ideas for keeping his father in power by subverting the Electoral College process, according to the message reviewed by CNN. The text is among records obtained by the House select committee investigating January 6, 2021.\n\n“It’s very simple,” Trump Jr. texted to Meadows on November 5, adding later in the same missive: “We have multiple paths We control them all.”\n\nVideo Ad Feedback 04:16 - Source: CNN See ex-Trump official's reaction to Trump Jr.'s 'revealing' texts\n\nIn a statement to CNN, Trump Jr.’s lawyer Alan S. Futerfas said, “After the election, Don received numerous messages from supporters and others. Given the date, this message likely originated from someone else and was forwarded.”\n\nImmediately before his text to Meadows describing multiple paths for challenging the election, Trump Jr. texted Meadows the following: “This is what we need to do please read it and please get it to everyone that needs to see it because I’m not sure we’re doing it.”\n\nThe November 5 text message outlines a strategy that is nearly identical to what allies of the former President attempted to carry out in the months that followed. Trump Jr. makes specific reference to filing lawsuits and advocating recounts to prevent certain swing states from certifying their results, as well as having a handful of Republican state houses put forward slates of fake “Trump electors.”\n\nIf all that failed, according to the Trump Jr. text, GOP lawmakers in Congress could simply vote to reinstall Trump as President on January 6.\n\n“We have operational control Total leverage,” the message reads. “Moral High Ground POTUS must start 2nd term now.”\n\nThe text from Trump Jr. is revealing on a number of levels. It shows how those closest to the former President were already exchanging ideas for how to overturn the election months before the January 6 insurrection – and before all the votes were even counted. It would be another two days before major news outlets declared Joe Biden the winner on November 7.\n\nThe text also adds to a growing body of evidence of how Trump’s inner circle was actively engaged in discussing how to challenge the election results.\n\nOn March 28, Judge David Carter, a federal judge in California, said that Trump, along with conservative lawyer John Eastman, launched an “unprecedented” campaign to overturn a democratic election, calling it “a coup in search of a legal theory.”\n\nGeorge Terwilliger, an attorney for Meadows, declined to comment for this story. A spokesperson for the House select committee declined to comment.\n\nForeshadowing the Trump campaign strategy\n\nIn the weeks following the 2020 election, Trump and his allies eventually filed more than 60 unsuccessful lawsuits in key states, failing to convince the courts that his claims about a stolen election were justified, or uncover any evidence of widespread voter fraud.\n\nThey also called for various recounts based on those same unfounded voter fraud claims. A number of states conducted recounts in the months after the election, though none of them revealed any fraud substantial enough to have changed the outcome of the vote in any state.\n\nWhile Trump Jr. was publicly pushing various voter fraud conspiracy theories and generally casting doubt about the results in states like Pennsylvania and Georgia, his text to Meadows reveals there were other ideas being discussed privately.\n\nVideo Ad Feedback 01:48 - Source: CNN Trump-endorsed candidate asked about January 6. Watch what happened next\n\nSpecifically, Trump Jr. previews a strategy to supplant authentic electors with fake Republican electors in a handful of states. That plan was eventually orchestrated and carried out by allies of the former President, and overseen by his then-attorney Rudy Giuliani.\n\nIn his text to Meadows, Trump Jr. identifies two key dates in December that serve as deadlines for states to certify their electoral results and compel Congress to accept them. Though the dates are largely ceremonial, in his text Trump Jr. appears to point to them as potential weaknesses to be exploited by casting doubt on the legitimacy of the election results.\n\nSeeking Trump electors\n\nTrump Jr.’s November 5 text to Meadows came as similar notions of faithless electors were starting to percolate publicly on conservative social media. Trump Jr. sent the text to Meadows at 12:51 p.m., just minutes after conservative radio host Mark Levin had tweeted a similar idea and suggested state legislatures have final say on electors.\n\nIf secretaries of state were unable to certify the results, Trump Jr. argues in his text to Meadows that they should press their advantage by having Republican-controlled state assemblies “step in” and put forward separate slates of “Trump electors,” he writes.\n\n“Republicans control Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina etc we get Trump electors,” Trump Jr. adds.\n\nTrump Jr.’s text, however, refers to an untested legal theory that state houses are the ultimate authority in elections and can intervene to put forward a different slate of electors than those chosen by the voters, when in reality this is a ceremonial process and the outcome is essentially a foregone conclusion.\n\nVideo Ad Feedback 00:58 - Source: CNN Trump dangles pardons for Jan. 6 rioters while teasing 2024 run\n\nThe Justice Department and the House committee are both investigating the fake electors plot within the context of what unfolded on January 6 and Trump’s broader effort to overturn the election.\n\nThe strategy floated by Trump Jr. is similar to what was outlined by former Texas Governor and Trump Energy Secretary Rick Perry, who texted Meadows on November 4 suggesting three state legislatures ignore the will of their voters and deliver their states’ electors to Trump.\n\n“HERE’s an AGRESSIVE (sic) STRATEGY: Why can t (sic) the states of GA NC PENN and other R controlled state houses declare this is BS (where conflicts and election not called that night) and just send their own electors to vote and have it go to the SCOTUS,” Perry’s text message read.\n\nA spokesman for Perry told CNN at the time that the former Energy secretary denies being the author of the text. However, multiple people who know Rick Perry previously confirmed to CNN that the phone number the committee has associated with that text message is Perry’s number.\n\n‘We control them all’\n\nTrump Jr. also texts Meadows that Congress could intervene on January 6 and overturn the will of voters if, for some reason, they were unable to secure enough electoral votes to tip the outcome in Trump’s favor using the state-based strategy.\n\nThat option, according to Trump Jr.’s text, involves a scenario where neither Biden nor Trump have enough electoral votes to be declared a winner, prompting the House of Representatives to vote by state party delegation, with each state getting one vote.\n\n“Republicans control 28 states Democrats 22 states,” Trump Jr. texts. “Once again Trump wins.”\n\n“We either have a vote WE control and WE win OR it gets kicked to Congress 6 January 2021,” he texts Meadows.\n\nIn a series of memos in early January, conservative lawyer John Eastman proposed a variation of that idea.\n\nEastman’s memo laid out a six-step plan for Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the election for Trump, which included throwing out the results in seven states because they allegedly had competing electors. In fact, no state had actually put forward an alternate slate of electors – there were merely Trump allies claiming without any authority to be electors.\n\nEastman, who has been subpoenaed by the House select committee and is fighting to keep some of his records secret from investigators, was accused by Carter of likely engaging in a criminal conspiracy with Trump to overturn the election.\n\n“Dr. Eastman has an unblemished record as an attorney and respectfully disagrees with the judge’s findings,” his attorney Charles Burnham said in response to the judge’s ruling.\n\nTrump Jr. pushes Meadows to fire Wray and install loyalist at FBI\n\nTrump Jr. ends his November 5 text by calling for a litany of personnel moves to solidify his father’s control over the government by putting loyalists in key jobs and initiate investigations into the Biden family.\n\n“Fire Wray; Fire Fauci,” he texts, referring to FBI Director Christopher Wray and White House coronavirus adviser Anthony Fauci. Trump Jr. then proposes making former acting Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell interim head of the FBI and having then-Attorney General Bill Barr “select Special prosecutor on HardDrivefromHell Biden crime family.”\n\nAs Trump refused to concede in the days and weeks after the 2020 election, rumors swirled that he was still considering firing Wray, along with several other top officials with whom he had grown frustrated.\n\nTrump and his allies sharply criticized Wray for failing to produce information that they claimed would be harmful to the President’s political enemies, including Biden. CNN previously reported that the prospect of Trump firing Wray hung over the FBI for weeks, dating to before Election Day.\n\nWhile Wray remains in his post and Barr resigned in mid-December 2020 without naming a special prosecutor to investigate the Bidens, Trump Jr.’s text underscores just how precarious the situation at DOJ was in the immediate aftermath of the election.\n\nThe same is true for Trump Jr.’s recommendation that Meadows replace Wray with Grenell, someone who not only lacked the usual qualifications to lead the FBI but also had a proven track record of doing the former President’s bidding.\n\nAfter serving a controversial three-month stint as Trump’s acting intel chief, Grenell hit the campaign trail in late 2020 to help promote Trump’s unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud and support his legal challenges in a key swing state: Nevada.\n\nOn November 5, Biden held a slim lead over Trump in Nevada but appeared poised to win the state’s six electoral votes. That same day, Grenell and Trump campaign officials announced they were filing a new lawsuit to “stop the counting of illegal votes” but provided no evidence to support their claims of rampant fraud.\n\nThis story has been updated with new details of a text message Trump Jr. sent to Meadows.", "authors": ["Ryan Nobles Zachary Cohen Annie Grayer", "Ryan Nobles", "Zachary Cohen", "Annie Grayer"], "publish_date": "2022/04/08"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/12/15/weed-psychosis-high-thc-cause-suicide-schizophrenia/4168315002/", "title": "Weed and psychosis: Does high THC lead to suicide, schizophrenia?", "text": "Early one morning in March, Madison McIntosh showed up on his day off at the Scottsdale, Arizona, driving range and restaurant where he worked. The 24-year-old sat in his car until the place opened, then wandered around all day, alternating between gibberish and talk of suicide as co-workers tried to keep him away from customers.\n\nWhen he was still there 12 hours later, the manager contacted McIntosh’s father in Las Vegas, who called police and rallied other family members states away to converge at the young man’s side.\n\nThey found a shell of the once-star baseball player. For months, he’d been vaping a potent form of THC, the ingredient in marijuana that makes people feel high, and staying up all night. He swung wildly between depression and euphoria.\n\nThe family rushed McIntosh to Banner Behavioral Health Hospital, where staff psychiatrist Divya Jot Singh diagnosed him with cannabis use disorder and a \"psychotic disorder unspecified.”\n\nSingh expects to make McIntosh’s diagnosis official soon. If he remains off pot and symptom-free a year after the episode, the psychiatrist can say with certainty he suffered from “cannabis-induced psychosis.”\n\n\"What shocked me is that I had never heard of it,\" said McIntosh’s dad, Rob. \"All you hear is all these proponents of legalization of pot without thought to the risks and the consequences.\"\n\nA number of physicians and parents are pushing back against the long-held assertion of users and advocates that marijuana is a safe, benign and even beneficial drug.\n\nThose sounding the alarm include the nation’s \"mental health czar,\" as well as doctors in Colorado, California and Massachusetts where marijuana is legal for recreational use. They say the facts are irrefutable: Excessive use of high-THC pot and concentrated oil is linked to psychotic episodes that in some cases develop into full-blown schizophrenia.\n\nThere is great disagreement over the strength of the science linking pot and psychosis. Advocates on either side of the marijuana debate have different interpretations of the connection reported in a National Academies cannabis study in 2017 and other studies. In March, The Lancet, a British medical journal, reported a two to five times higher risk of psychotic disorders for daily consumers of high-THC marijuana compared with people who never used.\n\nArguments surround how much of the illness is preceded or worsened by the drug use, how often marijuana is used in response to it and whether the psychosis would have occurred anyway.\n\n\"At the end of the day, you can’t make a causal statement,\" said Ziva Cooper, research director of the UCLA Cannabis Research Initiative and a member of the National Academies panel. \"You need to have some biological premise to show that this kind of exposure causes psychotic disorder.\"\n\nThe federal government and other health officials say the type of psychosis McIntosh experienced and other psychiatric disorders are clearly tied to the drug.\n\n\"It is time for Americans to understand there are substantial risks with marijuana,\" said Elinore McCance-Katz, the Department of Health and Human Services' top mental health official. “This is not the government making up data.\"\n\n‘Settled science’\n\nMcCance-Katz taught at Yale and Brown universities and held senior posts for state substance abuse agencies before joining HHS under the Obama administration as the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration chief medical officer.\n\nShe pointed out that hospitalizations more than doubled for serious mental health disorders among 18- to 25-year-olds nationally from 2012 to 2018. She cited a study in July that shows a 77% increase in suicide deaths from 2010 to 2015 among Colorado 10- to 19-year-olds with marijuana in their systems.\n\nThe data on cannabis-induced psychosis, she said, demands the government both speak out and manage fears. Among people who use marijuana, 10% to 20% will develop a marijuana use disorder and \"be at risk for these other kinds of mental and physical adverse events,\" she said.\n\n\"That’s not the majority, that’s the minority of people who use marijuana, but here’s the problem: We don’t know who they are a priori (in advance),” McCance-Katz said. \"We do not want to exaggerate the risks.\"\n\nMany marijuana users and industry officials say that’s precisely what the Trump administration is doing.\n\nThey pointed to other studies, including one by Columbia University professors in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence that showed cannabis use disorder dropped significantly across all ages reporting daily or almost-daily cannabis use from 2002-2016.\n\nLongtime marijuana legalization advocate Mason Tvert said millions of Americans are rightly skeptical about warnings of the dangers of cannabis use, given it's the most widely used illicit substance in the country.\n\n\"When people claim that smoking a joint will lead to psychosis, many consumers are going to write that off, and as a result are going to write off other warnings,\" said Tvert, who led Colorado's first-in-the-nation cannabis legalization effort in 2012 and works for Denver-based VS Strategies.\n\nDie-hard marijuana advocates strongly push back against news reports that suggest cannabis might have made someone sick, often criticizing such coverage as hearkening back to the days of “Reefer Madness,” the 1936 film that purported to show the drug's dangers.\n\nWhen Surgeon General Jerome Adams included the link between cannabis and psychosis in his advisory in August on marijuana's effect on the \"developing brain,” he was trashed and threatened on Twitter. Alex Berenson, a former New York Times business reporter who wrote the book “Tell Your Children: The Truth about Marijuana, Mental Illness and Violence,” was widely condemned for his warnings of the drug's dangers.\n\nTvert said legalization advocates want research conducted without bias or political motivation. It’s an area, he said, where the federal government has little credibility.\n\n\"That's what happened for decades,” he said. “The federal government spread misinformation and exaggerated the risks so much that people just started ignoring all the warnings.\"\n\nMcCance-Katz said it was not a difficult decision at HHS to include the link between marijuana and psychosis in the surgeon general's advisory.\n\n\"This has been settled science,\" she said. \"This is something that has been known for many years, yet there has been virtually no attention paid to it.\"\n\n‘Marijuana killed my soul’\n\nClay Whiting deals with a lot of parents and other family members at Scripps Mercy Health hospital in San Diego, where he is an emergency room physician. In the past month, he said, he's had back-to-back ambulances carrying young people experiencing psychosis after trying marijuana for the first time.\n\nSince the drug was legalized in California last year, Whiting said, \"we see people every shift now\" because of marijuana, including some experiencing violent vomiting known as hyperemesis. The incidents led to the term \"scromiting,\" to describe people screaming and vomiting at the same time.\n\n\"Greater access means great trials by younger people,\" Whiting said.\n\nUSA TODAY interviewed a dozen parents whose children suffered psychotic episodes – some of which led to schizophrenia – related to their marijuana use. Several of the children died by suicide.\n\nAndrew Zorn of Phoenix was 14 when he started smoking marijuana daily in high school, said his mother, Sally Schindel. He was about 25 and working on his community college degree when he told his mother something was going on in his brain. He tried to read and study, but his mind seemed to disappear on him, she said.\n\nZorn was diagnosed with “severe cannabis use disorder,\" bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder with auditory hallucinations, paranoia and anxiety.\n\n“In a roomful of people, in the midst of conversation, his eyes would just go somewhere else,” Schindel said. “He later realized it was marijuana use causing that, but from that time on, it just grew and grew to where he was more and more disabled.”\n\nZorn ended up taking his own life. In a suicide note, he wrote, “I want to die. My soul is already dead. Marijuana killed my soul + ruined my brain.”\n\nMcIntosh's problems started when his time at Scottsdale Community College ended without being drafted or recruited by a four-year school.\n\nMourning the loss of a 16-year baseball career, the 20-year-old started vaping THC to feel better. It didn’t work. A report released in October that analyzed 83 studies found marijuana is not effective for the treatment of depression or other mental illnesses. Many physicians say it increases the risk and severity of depression and thus the chances of suicide.\n\nIn the weeks leading up to McIntosh’s hospitalization, his brother and roommate, Morgan, grew worried and called their father. McIntosh was staying up all night, he reported, and at 6 a.m. was still awake \"doing weird things.”\n\nMcIntosh doesn't remember that time, but the day in March at the driving range is clear. He felt \"out of it, delusional\" and thought people were following him. \"I was pretty scared,\" he said. \"I didn’t know where I was at.\"\n\nWhen Rob McIntosh and his wife, Marie, Madison's stepmother, arrived at 3 a.m. from his home in Nevada, he said his son seemed “possessed.”\n\n“He was seeing double rainbows and insisting, 'I’m good, Dad.' It was lunacy,\" he said.\n\nAfter McIntosh was released from the hospital last spring, he said he stopped using marijuana \"cold turkey.\" He moved to Texas for a while and sold home security systems before returning to Arizona to do similar work in the Phoenix suburb of Mesa.\n\nHe’s no longer suicidal or tempted to use marijuana. \"I know what I put myself through and my family through,\" McIntosh said. \"I want to help other people any way I can.\"\n\n'Think this through'\n\nIn May, more than 40 Massachusetts doctors, psychiatrists, pediatricians and other public health professionals urged the state to add psychiatric risk warnings to marijuana packaging and to prohibit most advertising.\n\nThe group cited research in The Lancet that found the use of high-THC marijuana increased risk of first-time psychosis by 50% in Amsterdam. Members said the more potent a drug, the higher the risk.\n\n“Just as not all tobacco use causes cancer, not all marijuana/THC use causes the negative effects; however, the risk is substantial enough to require policies which discourage use,” the group's report said.\n\nThe state's Cannabis Control Commission rejected most of the health professionals’ recommendations.\n\n\"People say, 'This is only THC, and THC is harmless.’ That’s the assumption we all have to question,\" said Sharon Levy, a group member and pediatrician who heads the Adolescent Substance Use and Addiction Program at Boston Children's Hospital. \"I don’t think it’s harmless at all.\"\n\nShe noted growers look to use the highest THC strains and companies make even higher-concentrated products, including gummy bears, oils and waxes, some with up to 90% THC.\n\n“This is a business-driven framework, not a public health one,” Levy said. “There are very serious questions on this front.”\n\nThe psychotic side effects of marijuana are used to bolster arguments on both sides of the legalization debate. They find common ground in the need for more testing and studies.\n\nBecause marijuana remains a Schedule 1 controlled substance, the federal government strictly limits who can conduct research. Though Canada and Israel permit far more research access, approvals to study marijuana's benefits can take years in the USA where government-grown marijuana is tightly controlled.\n\nTests by marijuana legalization advocates found the federal government's testing supply can be 10%-15% weaker than cannabis sold in state-licensed dispensaries. In the past 20 years, average pot potency has tripled, from 4% THC in 1995 to 12% in 2014, according to federal testing.\n\nIt’s possible to buy a marijuana flower that’s more than 35% THC. Concentrates like those vaped by McIntosh can contain up to 90% THC.\n\nJim Carroll, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, said he talks to the Drug Enforcement Administration daily and pushes the agency and the FDA to \"open up research\" and make it possible for those who want to study medical uses of marijuana to obtain the type they want to study. The DEA announced plans to register more qualified marijuana growers for the research program, but Carroll told the USA TODAY editorial board this month legislation might be needed.\n\nMore research and stricter regulation would improve both the quality and the fact-based promotion of cannabis, said Scott Krakower, the assistant unit chief of psychiatry at Zucker Hillside Hospital in Queens, New York. The information would help legislators better determine if the benefits of legalization outweigh the risks.\n\nHe said many marijuana users are familiar with the possibility that smoking cannabis can cause paranoia, and paranoia is a textbook definition of an episode of psychosis, along with hallucinations and a distorted sense of reality.\n\n\"I think the biggest problem is that people think THC is a panacea cure for conditions, and they use an exorbitant amount of it\" despite a lack of research to back that up, Krakower said.\n\nTvert acknowledged cannabis use comes with risks, which is in part why his legalization efforts focused on regulating marijuana like alcohol. It requires a delicate balance.\n\n“We do need these potential harms conveyed, but we need them conveyed in a way that is credible and based on evidence,” he said.\n\nMcCance-Katz isn't taking a public stand on whether more states should legalize marijuana for medical or recreational uses, although her skepticism is apparent when she puts quotes around the word \"medical\" as it applies to marijuana.\n\n\"It’s really important the government be responsible and say, ‘You need to know this and think this through before you decide to use.'\" she said. \"That’s all we want.\"\n\nIf you or family members are struggling with issues mentioned in this story and you would like to connect with others online, join USA TODAY’s \"I Survived It\" Facebook support group.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2019/12/15"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/01/07/surgeon-general-report-made-history-saved-lives/4355275/", "title": "U.S. smoking warning made history, saved lives", "text": "Liz Szabo\n\nUSA TODAY\n\nSmoking rates have fallen 59%25 since the Surgeon General%27s report was released in 1964\n\nThe tobacco industry continues to spend more than %248 billion a year on marketing\n\nMore than 3%2C000 kids try their first cigarettes every day\n\nHealth advocates are marking the 50th anniversary of the 1964 Surgeon General report on smoking with a call for more aggressive action to protect people from tobacco.\n\nThat landmark report, along with subsequent Surgeon General reports on the addictive power of nicotine and the dangers of secondhand smoke, led to a sea change in the country's attitude toward tobacco. Smoking rates have dropped by 59%, and many communities now ban smoking in public places.\n\nNo other single report has had this large of an effect on public health, says Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.\n\n\"I can't think of anything else that has come close,\" says Theodore Holford, a professor at the Yale University School of Public Health.\n\nBut with so much evidence of the harms of smoking — which causes cancer, heart attacks, strokes and a multitude of other illnesses — some advocates say the country needs to go much further.\n\n\"The 50th anniversary of the Surgeon General report should be a catalyst to say, 'We can't wait another 50 years to end death and disease caused by smoking,' \" says Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, an advocacy group.\n\nNearly 42 million Americans still smoke, according to the CDC. More than 5 million people around the world die each year of smoking-related illnesses, according to an editorial by physicians Steven Schroeder and Howard Koh in Tuesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.\n\nEvery day, more than 3,000 teens pick up their first cigarettes, says Robin Koval, president and CEO of Legacy, an anti-smoking advocacy group created by the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement between tobacco companies and state attorneys general.\n\nIn some ways, combating tobacco is even more challenging than fighting infectious diseases, Frieden said in an interview. Frieden noted that more people would have stopped smoking if not for aggressive efforts by the tobacco industry to keep people addicted.\n\n\"I spent over a decade working on tuberculosis control,\" Frieden said. \"But tuberculosis doesn't have a lobby working against tuberculosis-control measures.\"\n\nThe tobacco industry continues to work hard to keep people using its products, spending more than $8 billion a year on marketing in the USA alone, according to Schroeder and Koh's editorial.\n\nIn a related editorial, Frieden notes that new products, such as electronic cigarettes, present both opportunities and risks. Some health leaders say electronic cigarettes — which contain nicotine but no tobacco — may help smokers quit. But Frieden says he's concerned that e-cigarettes could increase the number of people addicted to nicotine by attracting kids. Frieden is also concerned that e-cigarettes could lead some smokers to avoid quitting, by allowing them to feed their habits even in smoke-free areas.\n\nYet, health advocates also note that the cultural landscape around smoking has changed enormously since the 1960s.\n\nBack then, passengers could smoke on any plane, and flight attendants distributed free cigarettes along with meals. School kids sculpted ash trays for Mother's Day presents.\n\nTobacco companies formed one of the most powerful industries in the world, employing stars such as Ronald Reagan, Humphrey Bogart and Louis Armstrong to sell their products.\n\nToday, tobacco companies are \"convicted racketeers,\" says Stanton Glantz, a professor at the University of California-San Francisco, referring to the 2006 ruling by U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler, who found that tobacco companies defrauded the American people by lying about the health risks of smoking.\n\nUCSF's archive includes 82 million pages of tobacco-industry documents, revealing cigarette makers' strategies for marketing to children and the fact that they knew that cigarettes caused cancer and nicotine was addictive.\n\nThe surgeon general in 1964, Luther Terry, described the report's effect as a \"bombshell.\"\n\nAt the time, and for decades afterward, the tobacco industry tried to \"poke holes\" in research documenting the harms of smoking, Frieden says.\n\nWith the surgeon general's report, \"this was the first time that the government was saying, 'No. There is no doubt that smoking causes cancer,' \" Frieden says.\n\nThe report's conclusions — based on more than 7,000 documents — were almost immediately accepted by nearly everyone, except for the tobacco industry, Myers say.\n\nAmerican attitudes toward the safety of smoking changed quickly.\n\nIn 1958, only 44% of American believed smoking caused lung cancer, according to a Gallup survey. By 1968, that percentage had risen to 78%.\n\nCongress acted, as well.\n\nIn 1965, Congress passed legislation requiring the now-familiar \"Surgeon General's warning\" on cigarette packages, although it took six years to implement. In 1971, cigarette makers stopped advertising on TV.\n\n\"The tobacco industry thought they were just going to be crushed,\" says Glantz, author of a history of the tobacco industry called The Cigarette Papers. \"The government and others didn't have the nerve to do what the tobacco industry had feared, which is come up with major regulation. ... Politics has always saved the tobacco industry.\"\n\nThe tobacco industry also fought fiercely to protect its business, says Glantz, likening the battles over smoking to \"trench warfare.\" For years, he notes, the tobacco industry funded bogus research suggesting that cigarettes and secondhand smoke were safe.\n\nSmoking rates briefly rose in some of the first few years after the Surgeon General report's release, as the tobacco industry ramped up advertising to women and minorities, says Mark Pertschuk, a long-time anti-tobacco activist and director of the advocacy group Grassroots Change.\n\nIt was another surgeon general, C. Everett Koop, who \"really got us where we are today,\" says Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society.\n\nIn 1986, Koop issued a Surgeon General report on \"involuntary smoking,\" or secondhand smoke, that provided the scientific basis for protecting non-smokers from tobacco, Brawley says.\n\n\"When people realized that smoking hurts more than just the smoker, that's what led to change,\" Brawley says.\n\nFlight attendants such as Kate Jewell — forced to breathe smoky, recirculated air during long plane trips — began to call for smoking bans on plane flights. Jewell recalls brown water dripping from the air vents. \"It was so smoky, you couldn't see from one end of the cabin to another,\" Jewell says.\n\nLong before the research was completed, Jewell says she and her fellow flight attendants knew that secondhand smoke was toxic. Jewell, whose career spanned 1970 to 2007, recalls keeping her airline uniform in the garage, because it smelled too awful to allow in her home.\n\n\"I would pull into the garage and strip down before I went into my house, because I didn't want to bring that into my house,\" says Jewell, 64, of Orcas Island, Wash.\n\nIn 1989, Congress banned smoking on domestic flights. Communities across the country began banning indoor smoking, as well.\n\nAs fewer Americans smoked, the tide began to turn toward cleaner air.\n\nThe tobacco industry's image took a beating in the 1990s, with the leak of industry documents showing that cigarette companies had hidden evidence that nicotine was addictive, Glantz says.\n\nBut the industry hasn't gone away.\n\nTobacco companies continue to oppose tobacco taxes and smoking bans. They're also still fighting implementation of the 2006 racketeering ruling, which required them to fund ad campaigns acknowledging that they lied about the addictiveness of nicotine, Glantz says.\n\n\"That is still being fought in the courts to this day,\" Glantz says. \"The industry is still out there being as aggressive as (it) can be.\"\n\nR.J. Reynolds, one of the leading tobacco companies, declined to comment.\n\nDavid Sylvia, a spokesman for Altria, the parent company of tobacco giant Philip Morris, said his company welcomes regulation. Sylvia said Altria has no interest in marketing to kids, and simply hopes to sells its cigarettes to current smokers.\n\n\"The reason that tobacco remains such a problem isn't because the American public has failed to respond\" to the surgeon general's warning, Myers says. \"It's because the tobacco industry has used its economic, scientific and political might.\"\n\nThe tobacco industry has made technological improvements in cigarettes, for example, to make them less harsh, so that new smokers don't cough as much as in the past. That makes cigarettes more appealing to kids and first-time users, Myers says. The industry continues to sell menthol-flavored cigarettes, as well, which mask the harshness of tobacco with a minty flavor. \"Fifty years later, cigarettes look sleeker, but they are no safer,\" Myers says.\n\nMyers and others say they're disappointed that the Food and Drug Administration has not yet banned menthol cigarettes, although Congress has given it the power to regulate tobacco.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2014/01/07"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/25/health/pfas-chemicals-fast-food-groceries-wellness/index.html", "title": "Food packaging contains dangerous chemicals, report says - CNN", "text": "(CNN) Alarming levels of dangerous chemicals known as PFAS were discovered in food packaging at a number of well-known fast-food and fast-casual restaurants and grocery store chains, a new report found.\n\nThe highest levels of indicators for PFAS were found in food packaging from Nathan's Famous, Cava, Arby's, Burger King, Chick-fil-A, Stop & Shop and Sweetgreen, according to an investigation released Thursday by Consumer Reports.\n\nOften called \"forever chemicals\" because they do not break down in the environment , PFAS are used in food packaging to prevent grease and water from soaking through food wrappers and beverage cups. PFAS can also be found in the ink used to print logos and instructions on food containers.\n\nThe new report comes more than two years into the Covid-19 pandemic, when the public has relied heavily on takeout and grocery deliveries.\n\nThe US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls exposure to PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) a \" public health concern ,\" citing studies that found the human-made chemicals can harm the immune system and reduce a person's resistance to infectious diseases.\n\n\"There is evidence from human and animal studies that PFAS exposure may reduce antibody responses to vaccines,\" stated the CDC and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry . \"More research is needed to understand how PFAS exposure may affect illness from COVID-19.\"\n\nMore than 100 food products tested\n\nThe Consumer Reports investigation collected 118 food packaging products sold by 24 companies in the tristate area of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. It tested those products for organic fluorine -- a marker for PFAS. Researchers then sent samples of products with the highest levels to an independent laboratory that could perform more specific tests, said Michael Hansen, senior staff scientist for advocacy at Consumer Reports.\n\nRegulatory limits for how much PFAS food packaging should contain can vary greatly. In the US, there are no federal limits, leaving action up to the states. Connecticut, Maine, Minnesota, New York, Vermont and Washington have passed bills banning intentional use of PFAS in food packaging, but haven't yet specified a limit, according to Consumer Reports. In January 2023, a new law in California will set the limit at less than 100 ppm (parts per million).\n\nHowever, Denmark set a much lower regulatory limit of 20 ppm with great success, said Xenia Trier, a chemicals, environment and human health expert at the European Environment Agency.\n\n\"In Denmark we've seen both a decrease in noncompliance by industry from 60% to about 30% and a decrease in levels of PFAS in packaging products over the past 10 years,\" Trier told CNN. \"It does work to set limits and enforce them. It is possible to find alternative solutions and if one manufacturer can make packaging without PFAS, then it should be possible for everybody to do it.\"\n\nThe Consumer Reports investigation found the highest indicators for PFAS -- 876 ppm and 618 ppm -- in two types of bags for sides at Nathan's Famous restaurants.\n\nHigh indicators of PFAS (in the 500s) were also found in a Chick-fil-A sandwich wrapper and in fiber bowls at Cava, a Mediterranean restaurant chain.\n\nIndicator levels in the 300s and 400s were found in a bag of cookies at Arby's, bamboo paper plates at Stop & Shop, and in a bag for both cookies and French toast sticks at Burger King.\n\nLevels of PFAS indicators in the 200s were found in a Sweetgreen paper bag for focaccia, additional items at Cava, and in bags for french fries, cookies and Chicken McNuggets at McDonald's.\n\nHowever, all of the companies listed had additional food packaging that tested at levels below 200 ppm. Four companies -- Arby's, Nathan's Famous, McDonald's and Stop & Shop -- also sold food in packaging that had no detectable levels of PFAS, the report said.\n\nThe Consumer Reports investigation did not test packaging from every food product sold at each company.\n\n\"I would not urge consumers to take these brand names and only go to this one or that one, as this investigation only looked at just over 100 products,\" said Graham Peaslee, a professor of physics, chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.\n\n\"However, this will hold industry's toes to the fire, so in that sense, I think it's a valuable report,\" he added. \"Measuring and saying PFAS is there and it's dangerous gets people's attention, and companies tend to avoid attention like that.\"\n\nHealth impact of PFAS\n\nPFAS chemicals are in many products: nonstick cookware, infection-resistant surgical gowns and drapes, cell phones, semiconductors, commercial aircraft and low-emission vehicles. The chemicals also are used to make carpeting, clothing, and furniture resistant to stains, water and grease damage.\n\nIn use since the 1950s, PFAS are chemicals most Americans have \"in their blood,\" especially perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA),\" according to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry , which is charged with protecting the public from hazardous substances.\n\nIn the Consumer Reports investigation, the most common chemical found in the food packaging that was tested was PFOA, with PFOS coming in fifth, according to the report.\n\nIn addition to impacts on the immune system, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry said studies in humans and lab animals have found links between certain PFAS chemicals and an increase in cholesterol levels, alterations in liver enzymes, a higher risk of developing kidney or testicular cancer, small reductions in infant birth weights and an additional risk of high blood pressure in pregnant women.\n\n\"PFAS have also caused birth defects, delayed development, and newborn deaths in lab animals,\" the agency state d , while adding \"not all effects observed in animals may occur in humans.\"\n\nAs environmental groups and the public began to take notice of the health impacts of the chemicals, manufacturers started to voluntarily phase out the use of PFOS and PFOA in the US. Between 1999 and 2014, blood levels of PFOS in Americans had declined by more than 80% and blood levels of PFOA had declined by more than 60%, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry stated.\n\nHowever, \"as PFOS and PFOA are phased out and replaced, people may be exposed to other PFAS,\" the agency continued. Newer versions of PFAS in food packaging appear to be absorbed by food more readily than the older versions, according to a 2016 study\n\nStudies in Denmark have shown that PFAS do \"migrate from the paper into the food,\" Trier said. \"Even though it was not 100%, we still saw substantial transmission. In general, transmission from packaging to food is increased as the temperature of the food rises and the time spent in wrapping materials increases.\"\n\nIndustry response\n\nby Toxic-Free Future and Safer Chemicals Healthy Families. Those reports found \"harmful\" levels of PFAS in fast-food packaging and in nearly two-thirds of takeout containers made of paper, like those used at self-serve salad buffets and hot bars. The Consumer Reports investigation mirrored results of reports in 2018 and 2020 by Toxic-Free Future and Safer Chemicals Healthy Families. Those reports found \"harmful\" levels of PFAS in fast-food packaging and in nearly two-thirds of takeout containers made of paper, like those used at self-serve salad buffets and hot bars.\n\nIn response to the 2018 report, Whole Foods became the first grocery chain in North America to publicly commit to remove PFAS from takeout containers and deli and bakery paper. Other companies have followed suit, including Ahold Delhaize, Albertsons, Amazon.com, Cava, Chipotle, Freshii, McDonald's, Panera Bread, Sweetgreen, Trader Joe's and Wendy's, according to Toxic-Free Future.\n\nIn the new investigation, Consumer Reports tested 13 food packaging products from retailers that had previously committed to phasing out PFAS. Seven of the 13 had levels of PFAS above 20 ppm, the report said.\n\nBurger King, which had high levels of PFAS in three of six products tested, had not made a public commitment to phase out PFAS, according to Consumer Reports. Early Thursday, parent company Restaurant Brands International announced it will globally phase out any \"added\" PFAS from \"guest-facing packaging materials\" at the Burger King, Tim Hortons and Popeyes brands \"by the end of 2025 or sooner.\"\n\nNathan's Famous, which Consumer Reports said also has not made a public commitment to reducing PFAS, told CNN the company had begun phasing out the bags. \"One of our goals in this complete package redesign is to reduce PFAS,\" said Phil McCann, vice president of marketing at Nathan's Famous. \"Full transition will be complete by December 2022.\"\n\nChick-fil-A told CNN it had been on a four-year journey to phase out PFAS: \"Chick-fil-A has eliminated intentionally added PFAS from all newly produced packaging going forward in our supply chain. While some legacy packaging may still be in restaurants, it is expected to be phased out by the end of this summer,\" the company tweeted Wednesday\n\nCava, which had previously pledged to reduce PFAS but had five out of six products with indicators between 200 ppm and 548 ppm, told CNN that \"due to a multitude of factors related to the pandemic, and especially global supply chain shortages, the transition to eliminating added PFAS, which began in August of 2021, is taking longer than planned. Our teams are working with our suppliers to complete the transition within the year.\"\n\nA McDonald's spokesperson said less than 7.5% of the company's global food packaging contained added PFAS at the end of 2020 and said the company was continuing its search for alternative materials that offered proper grease-resistant barriers, with a goal of reducing deliberately added PFAS by the end of 2025.\n\nSweetgreen told CNN the company was \"proud to share that we are currently in the process of rolling out new PFAS-free focaccia bags that will be available in all Sweetgreen locations by the end of Q2.\"\n\nJennifer Brogan, director of external communications and community relations for Stop & Shop, told CNN the company could \"confirm that these Nature's Promise brand plates have been removed from all store locations.\"\n\nA spokesperson from Arby's told CNN in an email that the company has \"minimal packaging materials containing PFAs and is on track to have PFAs removed from all packaging products by the end of 2022.\"\n\nActions the public can take\n\nExperts say people who want to avoid PFAS in their takeout and food delivery packaging should favor companies that have pledged to remove the chemicals.\n\nTake food out of the container as soon as you receive it, and never reheat food in its original container. Instead, remove your food and heat it in ceramic or glass containers, Trier said.\n\nThe Consumer Reports investigation found some of the highest levels of PFAS were in paper bags (192.2 ppm) and molded fiber bowls and trays (156.8 ppm). Paper plates tested at 149 ppm, and food wrappers and liners came in at 59.2 ppm.\n\nDon't be fooled by \"environmentally friendly\" claims -- they don't guarantee a product is PFAS-free. When Consumer Reports tested those products, some had levels of PFAS above 100 ppm, and most had some detectable levels, the report 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\nExperts also suggest reducing the frequency of takeout meals to once a week or less, and recommend that people instead make food at home.", "authors": ["Sandee Lamotte"], "publish_date": "2022/03/25"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/05/25/uvalde-texas-school-shooting-victims-suspect/9921423002/", "title": "Texas elementary school shooting live updates: Beto confronts Abbott", "text": "UVALDE, Texas – Gov. Greg Abbott said the gunman in a school shooting sent social media messages about his intentions half an hour before the deadly rampage.\n\nShortly after his revelation, former congressman Beto O'Rourke confronted Abbott over \"doing nothing'' about gun violence, adding a chaotic element to a Wednesday news conference addressing the attack at Robb Elementary School that left 19 children and two teachers dead Tuesday.\n\nThe gunman sent Facebook messages about 30 minutes before the rampage that he was going to shoot his grandmother, then that he had shot the woman, and finally that he was going to shoot up an elementary school, Abbott said. Facebook said the messages were private texts.\n\nAbbott said there was no other \"meaningful forewarning of this crime,'' emphasized the need for mental health services and said of the victims' families, \"what they need now more than ever is our love.''\n\nWhen Abbott was about to hand the microphone to another speaker, O'Rourke, a Texas gubernatorial candidate, approached the stage with a call for action. O'Rourke was the U.S. Representative for the El Paso area when a gunman killed 23 people during a 2019 shooting at a Walmart in that city.\n\nBefore being escorted away, he said: \"This is on you until you choose to do something different. This will continue to happen. Somebody needs to stand up for the children of this state or they will continue to be killed just like they were killed in Uvalde yesterday.''\n\nThe massacre took place in a fourth-grade classroom and was the state's deadliest school shooting in modern history and the nation's third mass shooting within weeks. Authorities identified the gunman as Salvador Ramos, 18, but revealed no motive. They said he was killed by law enforcement.\n\nTHE VICTIMS:'There are no words': Families mourn as names of Texas school shooting victims begin to emerge\n\n'CONSTANT FEAR':It's not just Uvalde, Texas — gunfire on school grounds is at historic highs in the US\n\nLATEST UPDATES TO YOUR INBOX:Sign up for our daily briefing\n\nHorror, death in classroom\n\nThe killer entered the classroom, locked the door and started shooting, said Lt. Christopher Olivarez of the Texas Department of Public Safety. Officers arriving on the scene began breaking windows around the school trying to evacuate children and teachers. Olivarez said a tactical team forced its way into the classroom and faced gunfire but was \"able to shoot and kill that suspect.’’\n\nBesides those killed, at least 17 people were wounded, and officials have said the death toll could rise. Olivarez did not know how many students were in the room when the shooting started but said it normally would hold 25-30 kids.\n\n\"A typical classroom setting, where you have mass groups of children inside that classroom all together, with nowhere to go,\" Olivarez said. “It just shows you the complete evil of the shooter.\"\n\nBiden says allowing teens access to an AR-15 rifle 'violates common sense'\n\nBefore signing an executive order on policing Wednesday, President Joe Biden questioned laws that allow teenagers access to an AR-15-style rifle like the one authorities said the shooter used in Tuesday's massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.\n\n\"The idea that an 18-year-old could walk into a store and buy weapons of war designed and marketed to kill, it's just wrong,'' Biden said. \"It just violates common sense. ... \"Where's the backbone? Where's the courage to stand up to a very powerful lobby?\"\n\nBiden said he and first lady Jill Biden will soon travel to Texas to meet with grieving families, adding that the whole nation should offer support.\n\n\"And we must ask when in God's name will we do what needs to be done to, if not completely stop, fundamentally change the amount of the carnage that goes on in this country,\" he said.\n\nBiden also used his remarks to push for Senate confirmation of his nominee to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives -- Steve Dettelbach, who testified earlier Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee.\n\n-- Francesca Chambers\n\nGunmaker draws scrutiny – shooter bought one of its rifles\n\nGun manufacturer Daniel Defense, which saw its sales spike after the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre, is coming under scrutiny following the shooting at a Texas elementary school because the gunman purchased one of the company's rifles and brought it to Tuesday's attack.\n\nThough Daniel Defense is largely shielded from civil liability by the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, such cover has been pierced recently and the company may face years of expensive litigation, not to mention public backlash.\n\nFamilies of the Sandy Hook victims successfully sued Remington, the producer of the Bushmaster XM15-E2S semi-automatic rifle used in the assault. In February, the gunmaker agreed to a $73 million settlement in the case, which hinged on marketing materials targeted at young men as proof of masculinity and fears of having your “man card” revoked. Daniel Defense’s marketing and the focus on “tactical” and combat gear could invite civil action.\n\n-- Nick Penzenstadler\n\nWhat do we know about the victims?\n\nNineteen children and two teachers were killed in the shooting, Texas Department of Public Safety Lt. Chris Olivarez said. A U.S. Border Protection agent, one of several responding to the scene, shot and killed the gunman, a senior Department of Homeland Security official told USA TODAY on Tuesday night.\n\nAll the children were fourth graders, and their names are starting to come out, along with the identification of two longtime teachers who were among the victims, Eva Mireles, 44, and Irma Garcia.\n\nThe deceased students include:\n\nUziyah Garcia, whose age is not confirmed; Xavier Lopez, 10; Jose Flores, 10; Amerie Jo Garza, 10; Lexi Rubio, 10, and Eliahana Cruz Torres, whose age is not currently known.\n\nUniversity Health, a hospital in San Antonio, reported Tuesday evening that it had four patients: a 66-year-old woman in critical condition; a 10-year-old girl in critical condition; a 10-year-old girl in good condition, and a 9-year-old girl in good condition. By nightfall, many families were still waiting for updates, hoping to hear that their children were in a hospital in Uvalde or San Antonio.\n\nBLOODSHED SINCE SANDY HOOK:Uvalde school shooting among deadliest school attacks in past 10 years\n\nHelp needed:Here's how you can help those affected by the Texas school shooting in Uvalde\n\nTeacher's worries:I'm a Texas school teacher. Do our leaders expect me to be a gunfighter also?\n\nSchools on alert across the nation\n\nSchools around the country increased security as a precaution. Schools in Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Virginia, Maryland and Florida were among those offering counseling.\n\nIn Connecticut, where the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting killed 20 first graders and six educators, state police said they were sending extra troopers to schools Wednesday, although no specific threats had been received.\n\n“This assault on the most innocent of our citizens is deeply disturbing and heartbreaking,” Connecticut state police Col. Stavros Mellekas said in a statement. “At this time, our focus will be on protecting all school populations here in our state.”\n\nGuns were bought legally\n\nThe suspect legally purchased two AR platform rifles at a local gun shop, one on May 17 and the other May 20, said state Sen. John Whitmire, based on a briefing from state police. One of the rifles was left in the truck the gunman crashed shortly before the shooting, the other was found in the school with the suspect, Whitmire said. A week ago he had purchased 375 rounds of 5.56 ammunition. The suspect was not wearing body armor but only a plate carrier with no ballistic armor inside, Whitmire said.\n\nThe grim task of identifying victims\n\nUvalde does not have its own medical examiner, so Justice of Peace Eulalio Diaz was called upon to identify the victims. Families waiting at the Civic Center for news of their children provided DNA swabs to authorities to aid in the identification process.\n\n“We know everybody,” Diaz said, reflecting on how his children in 8th and 12th grades will be marked by the tragedy. “We know children who were there.”\n\nDiaz lamented the lack of mental health resources in Uvalde and that the shooter had not received help.\n\n“We’ve talked for years about mental health facilities nearby… we don’t have anything,'' he said. \"This child was probably suffering from something that was never diagnosed. The way you get diagnosed here is you end up in jail. This kid never made it to jail.”\n\n– Martha Pskowski\n\nSalvador Ramos:Texas school shooter lived in Uvalde: What we know about gunman, motive and how weapons were obtained\n\nDealing with tragedy:'A bad day for ... hope': Another school shooting. More dead kids. Why gun control advocates see no end in sight\n\nProposed bills:What are HR 8 and HR 1446? Gun control bills still await Senate votes after Texas shooting\n\nA neighbor dies in the carnage\n\nLooking across the street at a brown house, Javier Rangel, 57, remembered the young girl who used to play out front. Rangel lives a few blocks from Robb Elementary, where the girl was a student. He said her father posted to Facebook on Tuesday night that she was among the dead.\n\n“This has hit us bad, knowing they were young kids just starting their lives,” said Rangel, a truck driver. “We never thought it would happen in this little town. I used to see her riding her bike, playing with her sisters. That poor little girl.”\n\n– Trevor Hughes\n\nReal fear:Amanda Gorman's poem on Texas shooting has captivated the internet\n\nIn their honor:Uvalde gathers for vigil to mourn 19 children, two teachers killed in shooting\n\nSmall town of Uvalde left 'stunned and shocked'\n\nDan Young, shaded beneath his rancher's hat, came to Uvalde's civic center to assist with child counseling in the wake of the tragedy, a retired counselor recruited for duty by the local child advocacy he once worked for. Young gets down on the floor and does puzzles with kids.\n\n\"I'm able to calm their parents,\" he said. \"The kids, that's the easy part. We just sit down with them and play. That's all they want to do, is play. And forget.\"\n\nLaura Donaldson, a Bible class teacher at Crossroads Community Church, moved to Uvalde – pop. 16,000 – some 26 years ago because she wanted the peace and quiet of a small town. Until this week, she said, it had mostly stayed that way -- except for the occasional border-patrol chase speeding through. \"We're only an hour from the border,\" she said.\n\nWhen news of Monday's shooting broke, \"We were all stunned and shocked,\" she Donaldson said. \"I was at my sister's, and we didn't know the extent. We didn't want to think the worst, but it just kept getting more devastating.\"\n\n-- Marc Ramirez\n\nSandy Hook parents urge 'bold action'\n\nNicole Hockley and Mark Barden, co-founders and CEOs of Sandy Hook Promise, each had a son killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting spree that killed 26 a decade ago, including 20 children. They issued a statement saying they are \"sickened under the weight of our sadness as we watch another community of families suffering their worst nightmare.\" And they called on everyone to urge elected officials to pass legislation that protects children.\n\n\"This can be done while upholding second amendment rights,\" the statement said. \"Now is the time to take bold action – as a country, how much longer can we stand by while innocent children continue to be killed?”\n\nSurvivors and relatives of victims of the Sandy Hook massacre in 2012 thought that attack would \"would wake up the country,\" said librarian Mary Ann Jacob. \"Unfortunately, I was wrong.\"\n\nA field trip, hugs and chaos\n\nJuan Torres and his family live a few blocks from both the school and the home where authorities say they gunman lived. Torres' wife grew up in Uvalde, and their two young children attend school here, although at different campuses than where the shooting took place.\n\nTorres said he was returning to the city from his construction job Tuesday when he heard about a school shooting on the radio but assumed it was elsewhere. Then he saw the helicopters hovering over his neighborhood. His daughter had been to San Antonio on a field trip, and teachers texted parents to let them know they could pick up their kids at a rest stop on the outskirts of town.\n\n\"I ran out of here so fast, drove down there at like 120 mph and grabbed her, hugged her so hard,\" Torres said. \"It's all been a bunch of chaos.\"\n\n– Trevor Hughes\n\nWhere did the shooting take place?\n\nAuthorities say the gunman walked into Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, about 85 miles west of San Antonio, around 11:30 a.m. Central Time and opened fire. Uvalde is home to about 16,000 people and is located about 75 miles from the Mexican border. About 82% of the city's population is Latino, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.\n\nRobb Elementary, part of the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District, has an enrollment of just under 600 students. The district initially put all campuses on lockdown after gunshots were fired, and it canceled all district and campus activities, after-school programs and events.\n\nPublic officials react to the shooting\n\nPresident Joe Biden in a Tuesday night news conference decried “another massacre” that had left parents in unfathomable pain: “To lose a child is like having a piece of your soul ripped away,” he said. Biden also called for a renewed push for gun control measures, lamenting the lack of progress despite repeated shootings.\n\n“Why are we willing to live with this carnage?” he said. “Time to turn this pain into action.”\n\nAbbott directed that the Texas flag be immediately lowered to half-staff across the state from Tuesday until Saturday in memory of the people who lost their lives in the school shooting.\n\n\"The first lady and I extend our prayers of comfort to the survivors and the families of the victims, and we will continue to keep them in our thoughts and prayers,\" Abbott said.\n\n'ENOUGH IS ENOUGH':Biden calls on lawmakers to take action after Uvalde school shooting\n\nTexas mourns another mass shooting\n\nIn the last five years, Texas has been the scene of mass shootings that killed more than 85 people. Worshippers during a Sunday sermon, shoppers at a Walmart, students on a high school campus and drivers on a highway have been the targets. The state’s conservative, Republican-controlled government is unlikely to restrict gun access despite the carnage. Last year, gun laws were actually loosened after a gunman at a Walmart in El Paso killed 23 people in a racist 2019 attack that targeted Hispanics.\n\n“I can’t wrap my head around it,” said Democratic state Sen. Roland Gutierrez, whose district includes Uvalde. “It’s disturbing to me as a policymaker that we have been able to do little other than create greater access to these militarized weapons to just about anyone who would want them.”\n\nContributing: Megan Menchaca, Austin American-Statesman; N'dea Yancey-Bragg, Trevor Hughes, Chris Kenning, USA TODAY; The Associated Press", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/05/25"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/20/politics/trump-campaign-officials-rudy-giuliani-fake-electors/index.html", "title": "Trump campaign officials, led by Rudy Giuliani, oversaw fake ...", "text": "Phil Mickelson of The USA tees off the 14th hole during day three of the PIF Saudi International at Royal Greens Golf & Country Club on February 05, 2022 in Al Murooj, Saudi Arabia.\n\nHe predicted US inflation would rise. Hear what he thinks about a recession\n\nToobin: SCOTUS says this is history, we're dealing in the present\n\nWASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 26: The U.S. Supreme Court building on the day it was reported that Associate Justice Stephen Breyer would soon retire on January 26, 2022 in Washington, DC. Appointed by President Bill Clinton, Breyer has been on the court since 1994. His retirement creates an opportunity for President Joe Biden, who has promised to nominate a Black woman for his first pick to the highest court in the country.\n\nUS President Donald Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani speaks to supporters from The Ellipse near the White House on January 6, 2021, in Washington, DC. - Thousands of Trump supporters, fueled by his spurious claims of voter fraud, are flooding the nation's capital protesting the expected certification of Joe Biden's White House victory by the US Congress. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski / AFP) (Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)\n\nWashington CNN —\n\nTrump campaign officials, led by Rudy Giuliani, oversaw efforts in December 2020 to put forward illegitimate electors from seven states that Trump lost, according to three sources with direct knowledge of the scheme.\n\nThe sources said members of former President Donald Trump’s campaign team were far more involved than previously known in the plan, a core tenet of the broader plot to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory when Congress counted the electoral votes on January 6.\n\nGiuliani and his allies coordinated the nuts-and-bolts of the process on a state-by-state level, the sources told CNN. One source said there were multiple planning calls between Trump campaign officials and GOP state operatives, and that Giuliani participated in at least one call. The source also said the Trump campaign lined up supporters to fill elector slots, secured meeting rooms in statehouses for the fake electors to meet on December 14, 2020, and circulated drafts of fake certificates that were ultimately sent to the National Archives.\n\nTrump and some of his top advisers publicly encouraged the “alternate electors” scheme in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin, Nevada and New Mexico. But behind the scenes, Giuliani and Trump campaign officials actively choreographed the process, the sources said.\n\nOne fake elector from Michigan boasted at a recent event hosted by a local Republican organization that the Trump campaign directed the entire operation.\n\n“We fought to seat the electors. The Trump campaign asked us to do that,” Meshawn Maddock, co-chair of the Michigan Republican Party, said at a public event last week that was organized by the conservative group Stand Up Michigan, according to a recording obtained by CNN.\n\nListen to Meshawn Maddock describe the Trump campaign’s involvement in the fake elector plot at a recent speech in Michigan “[Matt Maddock] fought for investigations into every part of the election we could. He fought for a team of people to come and testify in front of the committee. We fought to seat the electors. Um, the Trump campaign asked us to do that – under a lot of scrutiny for that today. My husband has, he’s suffered for that a little bit in Lansing because it’s not very popular, but you know when you represent the whole state of Michigan and that’s what I see it now. I realize that even though you’re going to vote for somebody to be your next state representative, your next state senator, the truth is, this body of people, they represent all of us.\n\nMaddock was also one of the 16 Trump supporters from Michigan who served as fake electors and signed the illegitimate certificate that was sent to the National Archives.\n\n“It was Rudy and these misfit characters who started calling the shots,” a former Trump campaign staffer said. “The campaign was throwing enough sh*t at the wall to see what would stick.”\n\nVideo Ad Feedback 02:48 - Source: CNN 'Extraordinary rebuke of the former President': Toobin weighs in on SCOTUS decision\n\nIntegral to the Jan 6 plan\n\nThe scheme was integral to Trump’s plan to get then-Vice President Mike Pence to throw out Biden’s electors and replace them with the GOP electors on January 6 when Congress counted the electoral votes. It has also come under renewed scrutiny by the January 6 select committee and state attorneys general, raising questions about the involvement of Trump’s campaign and whether any laws were broken.\n\nCommittee chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi told reporters Thursday the panel is looking into whether there was a broader conspiracy or involvement from the Trump White House in the creation or submission of these fake electors.\n\n“That’s a concern” Thompson said.\n\nIn its subpoena letter sent to Giuliani on Tuesday, the House committee specifically references his efforts to convince state legislatures to overturn election results. The document cites Giuliani’s comments from December 2020 in which he publicly urged lawmakers in Michigan to award the state’s electoral votes to Trump.\n\nOne of the pro-Trump electors from Pennsylvania, Sam DeMarco, told CNN there was a last-minute dispute, where the state’s GOP electors pushed Trump campaign officials to add legal caveats to the fake certificate to say they were only electors-in-waiting, if Trump’s legal challenges prevailed.\n\nThe fake documents from Pennsylvania and New Mexico ultimately contained these caveats, but the documents from the other five states explicitly claimed, falsely, that the pro-Trump electors were the rightful electors.\n\nIt’s not clear that any of the fake electors themselves participated in strategy sessions with top Trump campaign brass. But both Maddock from Michigan and DeMarco from Pennsylvania have said they were in direct contact with members of the Trump campaign.\n\nMany of the players involved in the scheme, including Maddock, stand by their actions and are still pushing the lie that the 2020 election was stolen. Giuliani, a Trump spokesperson and a representative from Stand Up Michigan did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment.\n\nAdvancing the lie that the election was stolen\n\nAfter Trump failed to stop battleground states from certifying Biden’s victory, Trump campaign officials, led by Giuliani, launched its parallel effort to disrupt and undermine the Electoral College process. This included publicly promoting false claims of fraud, while quietly exploring the fast-diminishing avenues to overturn the results.\n\nTrump hoped Republican legislators from the seven battleground states would replace Biden’s authentic electors with the rogue GOP slate, and that Pence would seat those electors during the joint session of Congress on January 6.\n\nVice President Mike Pence and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi preside over a Joint session of Congress to certify the 2020 Electoral College results after supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol earlier in the day on January 6, 2021. J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE/AFP/POOL/Getty Images\n\nA source familiar with the situation told CNN that Pence was concerned about the possibility of “alternate electors,” and his team carefully worded what he said that day during the Electoral College certification to recognize only the legitimate electors.\n\nOne of the sources with direct knowledge of the scheme, a former Trump campaign staffer, told CNN that Giuliani worked closely on the seven-state stunt with Christina Bobb, a correspondent for the pro-Trump propaganda network One America News.\n\nMany of Giuliani’s unhinged conspiracies about the 2020 election found a home at OAN. And in a deposition last year as part of a civil lawsuit, Giuliani said Bobb was “very active in gathering evidence” as “part of the legal team” working for Trump’s campaign during the presidential transition.\n\nBobb reached out to a top Arizona legislator about supposed voter fraud, according to emails obtained by the government oversight group American Oversight through a public records request. In the December 4, 2020, email Bobb said she was sending the message on Giuliani’s behalf. The emails flesh out how Trump’s team was trying to press state legislatures to overturn the results.\n\nBobb didn’t respond to messages seeking comment about the pro-Trump electors.\n\n“They were all working together. Rudy, John Eastman, and Christina Bobb, in tandem, to create this coverage for OAN, to advance the Big Lie,” the former Trump campaign staffer told CNN.\n\nWhile mainstream news outlets covered the Electoral College proceedings, which cemented Biden’s position as President-elect, OAN focused on the rogue electors and voter fraud myths.\n\nThe Washington Post first reported new details about the role of Giuliani and Bobb.\n\nBattleground Michigan\n\nRepublicans in Michigan were central to the effort to try and overturn the election results and Meshawn Maddock – along with her husband State Rep. Matt Maddock – were instrumental to the effort inside the state.\n\nThe Maddocks have deep ties to Trump. The former president has endorsed Matt Maddock in his bid to be Michigan House leader. Maddock tweeted a photo last year of an article written about his campaign that Trump had signed, and added, “Matt, I am with you all the way.”\n\nIn the months leading up to January 6, Matt Maddock consistently pushed Trump’s lie about the election. In early December 2020, Matt Maddock and other state GOP lawmakers in Michigan held a series of hearings seeking to validate unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud – prompting a personal visit from Giuliani.\n\nWhen the effort to convince state legislators in Michigan to block Biden’s electors ultimately failed, Maddock was among the GOP lawmakers from five states who sent a letter to Pence on January 5, urging him to delay certification of the electoral votes. Pence refused to go along with the plan.\n\nMeshawn Maddock is equally close to Trump and is still peddling the lie that the election was stolen.\n\nAlong with being an elector, she also helped organize buses to take GOP activists to Washington for protests around January 6 and took part in the march to the US Capitol. She later disavowed the violence that came after the march.\n\nMaddock was named co-chair of the Michigan Republican Party one month after January 6. But as she is gaining prominence, her role as a fake elector is also attracting legal scrutiny.\n\nAttorney General of Michigan Dana Nessel, center, is escorted to the entrance of the Michigan State Capitol on December 14, 2020 in Lansing, Michigan, on the day electors would meet to certify the electoral college vote. Elaine Cromie/Getty Images\n\n“Under state law, I think clearly you have forgery of a public record, which is a 14-year offense, and election law forgery, which is a five-year offense,” Michigan Attorney general Dana Nessel, a Democrat, told MSNBC last week, about the fake certificates signed by pro-Trump electors.\n\n\n\nNo one, including Meshawn Maddock, has been charged with any crimes related to the scheme.\n\n“This is nothing more than political prosecution of convenience led by Dana Nessel,” said Gustavo Portela, MIGOP Communications Director, when asked about Maddock’s comments and role as a fake elector.\n\nHedged language in Pennsylvania\n\nThe documents from Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin and Nevada explicitly stated, falsely, that the GOP electors were the rightful electors, representing 59 electoral votes.\n\nBut the documents from Pennsylvania and New Mexico contained clauses saying that the Trump supporters were electors-in-waiting, in case a court or some other proceeding later ruled that they were the “duly elected and qualified electors.”\n\nIf anything, this provided a veneer of legal protection for Trump supporters who were trying to exploit the Electoral College process to overturn an election.\n\nDemarco, who was one of the state’s pro-Trump electors, and is the chairman of the Allegheny County Republican Committee, told CNN he and other alternate electors signed the certificate at the Trump campaign’s request but first demanded the language be changed to make clear it was not intended to contest the will of voters in that state who voted for Biden.\n\nThe hedging language was included at the last moment as the Trump campaign had concerns, and questioned whether the change was appropriate in the immediate lead-up to December 14, according to a Trump campaign staffer with knowledge of the matter.\n\nUltimately the Trump campaign acquiesced. But the internal debate shows that even some of Trump’s strongest allies were concerned about the attempts to overturn the 2020 election.\n\nPennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro speaks with people as he awaits a speech from U.S. President Joe Biden at Mack Truck Lehigh Valley Operations on July 28, 2021 in Macungie, Pennsylvania. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images\n\nThe office of Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, said in a statement that they looked into the matter but concluded that the fake certificate was not an illegal forgery.\n\n“These ‘fake ballots’ included a conditional clause that they were only to be used if a court overturned the results in Pennsylvania, which did not happen,” the statement said. “Though their rhetoric and policy were intentionally misleading and purposefully damaging to our democracy, based on our initial review, our office does not believe this meets the legal standards for forgery.”\n\nConcerns about democracy\n\nDemocratic lawmakers, state officials, and Biden himself have roundly condemned the fake electors plot. Biden brought it up at a news conference Wednesday when asked about his stalled voting-rights bills in Congress.\n\n“I never thought we would get into a place where we were talking about… what they tried to do this last time out – Send different electors to the state legislative bodies to represent who won the election, saying that I didn’t win but the Republican candidate won,” Biden said. “I doubt that anyone thought that would happen in America in the 21st century, but it is happening.”\n\nPresident Joe Biden answers questions during a news conference in the East Room of the White House on January 19, 2022. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images\n\nThe coordinated nature of these fake elector efforts and the rising power of Big Lie-promoters in Republican circles has concerned voting rights organizations across the country.\n\nNancy Wang, executive director of the Michigan-based Voters Not Politicians, said her group was founded in 2016 to address redistricting and voting access, but Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election spurred her group to focus on countering anti-democratic efforts at large.\n\n“This is existential. This about the very fundamental institutions of our government - whether we can vote at all, whether we have any power whatsoever,” Wang said. “It is a completely different time that we are facing in 2020 and 2022. It really feels urgent. It is a battle of a completely different kind. It is massive, it is coordinated at a national level. It is much more threatening.”", "authors": ["Marshall Cohen Zachary Cohen Dan Merica", "Marshall Cohen", "Zachary Cohen", "Dan Merica"], "publish_date": "2022/01/20"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/12/17/fact-check-thalidomide-covid-19-vaccine-comparisons-misleading/3910764001/", "title": "Fact check: Thalidomide, COVID-19 vaccine comparisons are ...", "text": "A free account gives you:\n\nUnlimited access to all content on usatoday.com\n\nEarly access to commenting on select articles", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2020/12/17"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/23/politics/madeleine-albright-obituary/index.html", "title": "Madeleine Albright, first female US secretary of state, dies ...", "text": "(CNN) Madeleine Albright, the first female US secretary of state and who helped steer Western foreign policy in the aftermath of the Cold War, has died. She was 84 years old.\n\nThe cause was cancer, Albright's family said in a statement Wednesday.\n\nAlbright was a central figure in President Bill Clinton's administration, first serving as US ambassador to the United Nations before becoming the nation's top diplomat in his second term. She championed the expansion of NATO , pushed for the alliance to intervene in the Balkans to stop genocide and ethnic cleansing, sought to reduce the spread of nuclear weapons, and championed human rights and democracy across the globe.\n\nBelow is a statement from the family of @Madeleine : pic.twitter.com/C7Xt0EN5c9\n\nPresident Joe Biden paid tribute to Albright in a lengthy statement Wednesday , calling her a \"force\" and saying working with her during the 1990s while he was on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was among the highlights of his Senate career.\n\n\"When I think of Madeleine, I will always remember her fervent faith that 'America is the indispensable nation,'\" said Biden, who ordered flags at the White House and all federal buildings to be flown at half-staff in Albright's honor.\n\n\"Few leaders have been so perfectly suited for the times in which they served,\" Clinton said in a statement. \"As a child in war-torn Europe, Madeleine and her family were twice forced to flee their home. When the end of the Cold War ushered in a new era of global interdependence, she became America's voice at the UN, then took the helm at the State Department, where she was a passionate force for freedom, democracy, and human rights.\"\n\nClinton later told CNN's Wolf Blitzer that he had recently spoken with his former top diplomat.\n\nShe \"spent the entire conversation talking about how Ukraine had to be defended and that we had put a lot of those who said we had made a mistake to expand NATO -- she said (Russia's) not going after NATO yet,\" Clinton said on \"The Situation Room.\"\n\n\"She just wanted to support whatever we could do to back Ukraine. And that's all she wanted to talk about. She was happy. She was upbeat,\" he added. \"And she didn't want to venture into her health challenges. She said, 'I'm being treated, I'm doing the best I can. The main thing we can all do now is to think about the world we want to leave for our kids.'\"\n\nAlbright was a face of US foreign policy in the decade between the end of the Cold War and the war on terror triggered by the September 11, 2001, attacks, an era heralded by President George H.W. Bush as a \"new world order.\" The US, particularly in Iraq and the Balkans, built international coalitions and occasionally intervened militarily to roll back autocratic regimes, and Albright -- a self-identified \"pragmatic idealist\" who coined the term \"assertive multilateralism\" to describe the Clinton administration's foreign policy -- drew from her experience growing up in a family that fled the Nazis and communists in mid-20th century Europe to shape her worldview.\n\nShe saw the US as the \" indispensable nation \" when it came to using diplomacy backed by the use of force to defend democratic values around the world.\n\n\"We stand tall and we see further than other countries into the future, and we see the danger here to all of us,\" she told NBC in 1998. \"I know that the American men and women in uniform are always prepared to sacrifice for freedom, democracy and the American way of life.\"\n\nPerhaps most notable were her efforts to bring about an end to violence in the Balkans, and she was crucial in pushing Clinton to intervene in Kosovo in 1999 to prevent a genocide against ethnic Muslims by former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic. She was haunted by the earlier failure of the Clinton administration to end the genocide in Bosnia.\n\nThe breakup of communist Yugoslavia into several independent states, including Serbia and Montenegro, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia, in the 1990s generated savage bloodshed unseen on the continent since World War II. The term \"ethnic cleansing\" became synonymous with Bosnia, where Serb forces loyal to Milosevic tried to carve out a separate state by forcing out the non-Serb civilian population.\n\nThe Clinton administration did not intervene until the massacre at Srebrenica in 1995, when Serbs killed 8,000 Muslim men and boys, which led to the US-brokered Dayton Peace Plan. But when Milosevic then tried to move his ethno-nationalist plan to Kosovo , the Clinton administration gathered a coalition to stop him doing there what he had gotten away with in Bosnia.\n\nAlbright accused Milosevic of creating \" a horror of biblical proportions \" in his \"desire to exterminate a group of people\" -- Kosovo's Muslim majority. She came under heated criticism in Washington at the time, with some calling the NATO airstrikes \"Albright's War\" while others accused her of misjudging Milosevic's resolve. To that end, Albright said in 1999, \"I take full responsibility along with my colleagues for believing that it was essential for us not to stand by and watch what Milosevic was planning to do,\" adding that \"we cannot watch crimes against humanity.\"\n\nUltimately, the US-led coalition did stop Serbian aggression, and Kosovo declared independence in 2008.\n\nRwandan genocide among Albright's greatest regrets\n\nPhotos: Madeleine Albright's life in pictures Madeleine Albright, seen here in 1997, was the first woman to serve as US secretary of state. Hide Caption 1 of 36 Photos: Madeleine Albright's life in pictures A young Albright sits with her father, Josef Korbel, in this photo circa 1945. Korbel was a Czech diplomat, and the family escaped Czechoslovakia 10 days after the Nazi invasion. Hide Caption 2 of 36 Photos: Madeleine Albright's life in pictures Albright, center, works on the newspaper staff at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. She graduated in 1959 and later received a master's degree and a Ph.D from Columbia University. Hide Caption 3 of 36 Photos: Madeleine Albright's life in pictures In 1988, Albright worked as a senior foreign policy adviser for Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis. She also worked for Walter Mondale's unsuccessful campaign in 1984. During the Jimmy Carter administration, she was a White House staff member and congressional liaison for the National Security Council under Zbigniew Brzezinski. Hide Caption 4 of 36 Photos: Madeleine Albright's life in pictures Albright, as the US ambassador to the United Nations, casts a vote in 1993. She was confirmed shortly after the election of President Bill Clinton, who she also advised during his campaign. Hide Caption 5 of 36 Photos: Madeleine Albright's life in pictures Albright presents a poster from the World Conference on Women as she meets with Myanmar political leader Aung San Suu Kyi in 1995. Hide Caption 6 of 36 Photos: Madeleine Albright's life in pictures Albright reaches out to a Burundian orphan while visiting the country in 1996. Hide Caption 7 of 36 Photos: Madeleine Albright's life in pictures Albright is sworn in as US secretary of state in 1997. Hide Caption 8 of 36 Photos: Madeleine Albright's life in pictures Albright looks over at North Korea during a visit to the border village of Panmunjom in 1997. Hide Caption 9 of 36 Photos: Madeleine Albright's life in pictures Albright puts on a jacket as she visits the US Naval Academy in 1997. Hide Caption 10 of 36 Photos: Madeleine Albright's life in pictures Albright's red outfit stands out in a sea of suits as she poses with other foreign ministers during a NATO meeting in Lisbon, Portugal, in 1997. Hide Caption 11 of 36 Photos: Madeleine Albright's life in pictures Albright has lunch with US troops serving in Bosnia in 1997. Hide Caption 12 of 36 Photos: Madeleine Albright's life in pictures Albright greets well-wishers in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, in 1997. She was the first US secretary of state to visit the city since the Vietnam War. Hide Caption 13 of 36 Photos: Madeleine Albright's life in pictures Albright talks with a member of the FBI while visiting the site where a US embassy was bombed in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in 1998. Hide Caption 14 of 36 Photos: Madeleine Albright's life in pictures Albright wipes away a tear as she and the Clintons attend a memorial ceremony for US citizens who were killed in an embassy bombing in Kenya in 1998. Hide Caption 15 of 36 Photos: Madeleine Albright's life in pictures Albright is interviewed by John F. Kennedy Jr. for George magazine in 1998. Kennedy co-founded the magazine. Hide Caption 16 of 36 Photos: Madeleine Albright's life in pictures Albright talks to US Brig. Gen. John Craddock, commander of the US troops that would be taking part in the Kosovo implementation force in 1999. Albright was crucial in pushing President Clinton to intervene in Kosovo to prevent a genocide against ethnic Muslims by former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic. Hide Caption 17 of 36 Photos: Madeleine Albright's life in pictures Albright testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1999. The committee was conducting hearings on the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty that the Senate would be voting on. Hide Caption 18 of 36 Photos: Madeleine Albright's life in pictures President Bill Clinton is surrounded by Albright and others in 2000 while signing bipartisan legislation normalizing trade relations with China. Hide Caption 19 of 36 Photos: Madeleine Albright's life in pictures Albright prepares to testify before a House committee in 2000 about how Russian President Vladimir Putin rose to power. Hide Caption 20 of 36 Photos: Madeleine Albright's life in pictures Albright shares a toast with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il at a dinner in Pyongyang, North Korea, in 2000. Albright left office in 2001 after President Clinton's second term ended. Hide Caption 21 of 36 Photos: Madeleine Albright's life in pictures Albright visits a polling station in Abuja, Nigeria, in 2007. She was heading a delegation of election observers from the US-based National Democratic Institute. Hide Caption 22 of 36 Photos: Madeleine Albright's life in pictures Albright speaks to a guest at the unveiling of her official portrait in Washington, DC, in 2008. Hide Caption 23 of 36 Photos: Madeleine Albright's life in pictures Albright and presidential candidate Barack Obama attend a roundtable discussion on foreign affairs in 2008. Hide Caption 24 of 36 Photos: Madeleine Albright's life in pictures Albright visits with students in Chicago in 2012. The city was hosting a NATO summit the next month. Hide Caption 25 of 36 Photos: Madeleine Albright's life in pictures Albright helps plant a tree at a botanical garden in her native city of Prague, Czech Republic, in 2012. Hide Caption 26 of 36 Photos: Madeleine Albright's life in pictures Obama presents Albright with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012. \"As the first woman to serve as America's top diplomat, Madeleine's courage and toughness helped bring peace to the Balkans and paved the way for progress in some of the most unstable corners of the world,\" Obama said in his remarks. Hide Caption 27 of 36 Photos: Madeleine Albright's life in pictures Albright plays the drums while attending the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition in 2012. Hide Caption 28 of 36 Photos: Madeleine Albright's life in pictures Albright, second from left, joins other secretaries of state at the groundbreaking ceremony for the US Diplomacy Center in 2014. From left are Hillary Clinton, Albright, Henry Kissinger, John Kerry, James Baker and Colin Powell. Hide Caption 29 of 36 Photos: Madeleine Albright's life in pictures Albright talks with Ukrainian presidential candidate Petro Poroshenko at a meeting in Kyiv, Ukraine, in 2014. Hide Caption 30 of 36 Photos: Madeleine Albright's life in pictures Albright shows off her sneakers with Olympic athlete Angela Ruggiero as they attended an alumni weekend at Wellesley College in 2014. Hide Caption 31 of 36 Photos: Madeleine Albright's life in pictures Albright was known for wearing brooches or decorative pins to convey her foreign policy messages. More than 200 of them were part of the \"Read My Pins\" collection. Hide Caption 32 of 36 Photos: Madeleine Albright's life in pictures Albright attends the Glamour Women of the Year awards in 2015. She was a past honoree. Hide Caption 33 of 36 Photos: Madeleine Albright's life in pictures Albright speaks at the Democratic National Convention in 2016. Hide Caption 34 of 36 Photos: Madeleine Albright's life in pictures Actor George Clooney embraces Albright at the United Nations headquarters in 2016. They were attending a Leaders Summit for Refugees. Hide Caption 35 of 36 Photos: Madeleine Albright's life in pictures Albright attends the funeral for former US Secretary of State Colin Powell in 2021. Hide Caption 36 of 36\n\nThe effort contrasted with the Clinton administration's opposition to international action to stop the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. At the time that Albright was representing the US at the United Nations, the Clinton administration, haunted by the military fiasco in Somalia a year earlier, argued for withdrawing the majority of UN troops from the country in the early days of the genocide. The ensuing planned slaughter of primarily ethnic Tutsis, as well as some moderate Hutus by Hutu extremists, would leave at least 800,000 dead.\n\nYears later, Albright would call it her \"greatest regret from that time.\"\n\nLate in Clinton's second term, Albright also participated in unsuccessful talks to foster peace between the Israelis and Palestinians, which were followed by a second explosion of violence in the region. She was also part of the effort to coax North Korea to abandon its nuclear program by engaging with Kim Jong Il, an effort that was abandoned by George W. Bush.\n\nAlbright's tenure as secretary of state also saw the al-Qaeda bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed 224 people. She called the attack the \"toughest day\" of her tenure but would reject criticism that it should have prompted tougher US action against the terror group that would later carry out the 9/11 terror attacks.\n\n\"It would have been very hard, pre-9/11, to have persuaded anybody that an invasion of Afghanistan was appropriate,\" Albright told the 9/11 Commission in 2004. \"I think it did take the megashock, unfortunately, of 9/11, to make people understand the considerable threat.\"\n\nWhen pressed by the commission about the argument that the Clinton administration lacked actionable intelligence, Albright said \"we used every single tool we had in terms of trying to figure out what the right targets would be and how to go about dealing with what we knew.\"\n\nBut she also expressed frustration about the reluctance to push ahead with military force against al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.\n\n\"From my perspective, the Pentagon did not come forward with viable options in response to what the president was asking for,\" Albright said.\n\nLifelong opponent of totalitarianism\n\nBorn Marie Jana Korbelova, the daughter of a Czechoslovakian diplomat, in Prague in 1937, Albright escaped then-Czechoslovakia with her family 10 days after the Nazi invasion. Her experience growing up in communist Yugoslavia and then fleeing to the US made her a lifelong opponent of totalitarianism and fascism. She was raised Roman Catholic, though she later converted to Episcopalian, and learned later in life about her family's Jewish heritage.\n\nAlbright graduated from Wellesley College in 1959 and was married to Joseph Albright from 1959 until 1983, when they divorced. They had three children, twins Anne and Alice in 1961 and Katharine in 1967. She attended Columbia University for her master's degree and Ph.D., which she completed in 1976 before launching on a decades-long career in government service and foreign affairs work under different Democratic politicians and causes.\n\nAlbright was aware of her role as a trailblazer and often spoke of the challenges of being the first woman to lead the State Department.\n\n\"I think that there were real questions as to ... whether a woman could be secretary of state. And not just in terms of dealing with the issues, but in terms of dealing with the people, especially in hierarchical societies. ... I found, actually, that I could do that,\" she told CNN in 2005. \"And people, I think, now can understand that is perfectly possible for a woman to be secretary of state, and I am delighted that there is second one,\" a reference to then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.\n\nThroughout her career, Albright was known for wearing brooches or decorative pins to convey her foreign policy messages. When she found out that the Russians had bugged the State Department, she wore a large bug pin when she next met with them. When Saddam Hussein referred to Albright as a snake, she took to wearing a gold snake pin; when she was called a witch, she proudly brandished a miniature broom. When she slammed as \"completely un-American\" acting Director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services Ken Cuccinelli's suggestion that only immigrants who can \"stand on their own two feet\" are welcome in the United States, Albright wore a Statue of Liberty pin.\n\nFollowing her tenure as secretary of state, Albright served as chairwoman of the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs in Washington from 2001 to her death, and she taught at Georgetown University. She was also a prolific author, penning several books, including a memoir in 2003 entitled \"Madam Secretary.\" She also worked in the private sector for a time.\n\nIn 2012, Albright received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama, who said her \"toughness helped bring peace to the Balkans and paved the way for progress in some of the most unstable corners of the world.\"\n\nA forceful voice on foreign policy in retirement\n\nThroughout her retirement, Albright continued working for democracy around the world and speaking about US policy, leveling particularly harsh criticism toward President Donald Trump, whom she called \"the most undemocratic president in modern American history.\"\n\nIn a New York Times op-ed written last month just before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Albright argued that Russian leader Vladimir Putin would be making \"a historic error\" and warned of devastating costs to his country.\n\n\"Instead of paving Russia's path to greatness, invading Ukraine would ensure Mr. Putin's infamy by leaving his country diplomatically isolated, economically crippled and strategically vulnerable in the face of a stronger, more united Western alliance,\" Albright wrote.\n\nAsked by USA Today in August 2020 how she defined courage, Albright replied , \"it's when you stand up for what you believe in when it's not always easy and you get criticized for it.\"\n\n\"It took me a long time to find my voice. But having found it, I'm not going to shut up,\" Albright said. \"I'm going to use it to the best of my ability in terms of making sure that democracy is our form of government and that those around the world that want to live in a democracy have a possibility to do so.\"\n\nThis story has been updated with additional reaction and details.", "authors": ["Caroline Kelly"], "publish_date": "2022/03/23"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/05/28/biolabs-pathogens-location-incidents/26587505/", "title": "Inside America's secretive biolabs", "text": "Alison Young and Nick Penzenstadler, USA TODAY\n\nVials of bioterror bacteria have gone missing. Lab mice infected with deadly viruses have escaped, and wild rodents have been found making nests with research waste. Cattle infected in a university's vaccine experiments were repeatedly sent to slaughter and their meat sold for human consumption. Gear meant to protect lab workers from lethal viruses such as Ebola and bird flu has failed, repeatedly.\n\nA USA TODAY Network investigation reveals that hundreds of lab mistakes, safety violations and near-miss incidents have occurred in biological laboratories coast to coast in recent years, putting scientists, their colleagues and sometimes even the public at risk.\n\nOversight of biological research labs is fragmented, often secretive and largely self-policing, the investigation found. And even when research facilities commit the most egregious safety or security breaches — as more than 100 labs have — federal regulators keep their names secret.\n\nOf particular concern are mishaps occurring at institutions working with the world's most dangerous pathogens in biosafety level 3 and 4 labs — the two highest levels of containment that have proliferated since the 9/11 terror attacks in 2001. Yet there is no publicly available list of these labs, and the scope of their research and safety records are largely unknown to most state health departments charged with responding to disease outbreaks. Even the federal government doesn't know where they all are, the Government Accountability Office has warned for years.\n\nA team of reporters who work for the USA TODAY Network of Gannett newspapers and TV stations identified more than 200 of these high-containment lab facilities in all 50 states and the District of Columbia operated by government agencies, universities and private companies. They're scattered across the country from the heart of New York City to a valley in Montana; from an area near Seattle's Space Needle to just a few blocks from Kansas City's Country Club Plaza restaurant and shopping district.\n\nHigh-profile lab accidents last year with anthrax, Ebola and bird flu at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the discovery of forgotten vials of deadly smallpox virus at the National Institutes of Health raised widespread concerns about lab safety and security nationwide and whether current oversight is adequate to protect workers and the public. Wednesday the Department of Defense disclosed one of its labs in Utah mistakenly sent samples of live anthrax -- instead of killed specimens – to labs across the USA plus a military base in South Korea where 22 people are now being treated with antibiotics because of their potential exposure to the bioterror pathogen. As many as 18 labs in nine states received the samples, the CDC said Thursday.\n\n\"What the CDC incidents showed us ... is that the very best labs are not perfectly safe,\" says Marc Lipsitch, a Harvard University professor of epidemiology. \"If it can happen there, it certainly can happen anywhere.\"\n\nSome people find little reassurance that nobody was sickened in the CDC accidents or in the historically low numbers of serious infections among lab workers generally, or that infections spreading into communities surrounding labs have been rarer still.\n\n\"Many of us think that's really a matter of good fortune,\" said Beth Willis, who chairs a citizen lab advisory panel in Frederick, Md., home to one of the nation's largest high-containment research campuses at the Army's Fort Detrick.\n\nThe country's best labs have robust safety programs, said Kenneth Berns, co-chair of a panel of outside lab safety advisers currently examining biosafety at CDC and other federal labs. Yet the systemic safety problems identified at the CDC's prestigious labs have raised questions about what's happening elsewhere. \"It's a matter of some concern,\" said Berns, a distinguished professor emeritus of molecular genetics and microbiology at the University of Florida.\n\nThe consequences could be devastating if accidents were to occur with lab-created strains of deadly influenza viruses that are purposely engineered to be easier to spread than what's found in nature, said David Relman, a microbiology professor at Stanford University who is a federal adviser on lab safety and a past president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.\n\n\"You're talking about something that has the ability to take off, and we could not be confident of being able to contain it,\" he said.\n\nRelman said that not enough is known about the state of safety at labs that perform infectious disease research but emphasized that the kinds of labs drawing concern are the same ones the public needs to discover important new treatments and vaccines. \"We have to find some happy blend of minimized risk and enhanced benefit,\" he said.\n\nAt the high-containment labs identified by USA TODAY, experiments are underway involving drug-resistant tuberculosis, exotic strains of flu, the SARS and MERS viruses, plague, anthrax, botulism, ricin and the Ebola and Marburg hemorrhagic fever viruses, according to interviews and more than 20,000 pages of internal lab safety records and incident reports obtained from labs across the country.\n\nStudies are also being done on a wide range of bioterrorism pathogens that are less known to the public, such as the agents that cause exotic diseases like tularemia, Q fever and melioidosis. Still others are focused on pathogens that pose serious economic risks to agriculture, such as foot-and-mouth disease, brucellosis and \"mad cow\" disease.\n\nAt a few labs, experiments have been done with strains of flu and other viruses purposely made to be more dangerous in studies that seek to understand how they might mutate naturally. White House science advisers called for a temporary halt of that kind of \"gain of function\" research last fall while expert scientific panels spend the next year studying its risks and benefits.\n\nThe research at BSL-3 and BSL-4 labs — which use special equipment, negative air pressure and numerous safety and security procedures — seeks to better understand how organisms cause disease and ways to protect against them. It's the kind of work that the public doesn't give much thought to until people with Ebola arrive on planes in the United States from an outbreak in Africa, or the current avian flu outbreak forces farmers to kill millions of chickens raising the specter of higher egg prices.\n\nIt's impossible to obtain a full accounting of lab accidents or lab-acquired infections because there is no universal, mandatory requirement for reporting them and no system to analyze trends to assess emerging biosafety risks and disseminate lessons learned on a regular basis.\n\nThe Federal Select Agent Program, which inspects and regulates the subset of research labs that experiment with about four dozen types of pathogens deemed to pose bioterror threats, requires labs to report potential exposure or release incidents, as well as thefts or losses of specimens.\n\nFrom 2006 through 2013, labs notified federal regulators of about 1,500 incidents with select agent pathogens and, in more than 800 cases, workers received medical treatment or evaluation, limited public data in program annual reports show. Fifteen people contracted laboratory-acquired infections and there were three unintended infections of animals, according to the reports, which do not identify labs and mostly provide aggregated counts of incidents by type. Reported incidents involve events ranging from spills to failures of personal protective equipment or mechanical systems to needle sticks and animal bites.\n\nThe program, jointly run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, refuses to release copies of detailed incident reports, citing a 2002 bioterrorism law.\n\nIncident records the USA TODAY Network obtained directly from individual labs provide a window on the kinds of mistakes that happen. An animal caretaker in Georgia was potentially exposed to a bird flu virus that kills 60% of the people it infects when a defective respirator hose supplying purified air detached from its coupling in September. A researcher in Wisconsin was quarantined for seven days in 2013 after a needle stick with a version of the same H5N1 influenza virus. A lab worker in Colorado failed to ensure specimens of the deadly bacterium Burkholderia pseudomallei had been killed before shipping them in May 2014 to a co-worker in a lower-level lab who handled them without critical protective gear. None of the workers was infected.\n\nThe public and the lab community tend to learn only about the rare instances of serious or fatal lab infections, which sometimes are published as case reports in scientific journals or make national news.\n\nIn 2009, Malcolm Casadaban, a University of Chicago scientist with an underlying medical condition, died from an infection with a weakened strain of plague bacteria. In 2012, 25-year-old researcher Richard Din died after being infected during vaccine research involving Neisseria meningitides bacteria at a lab inside San Francisco's VA medical center. Both of their deaths involved research in biosafety level 2 labs, where pathogens are considered to be less dangerous than those worked with in high-containment labs.\n\nDin, who became a researcher to cure diseases like the cancer that killed his mother, developed a fever and started feeling dizzy while out to dinner with friends. He had no idea how serious his symptoms were, his friends and family told USA TODAY. By morning, Din was covered in a splotchy rash and could barely talk, recalled Lawrence Tsai, who raced to Din's apartment to help.\n\nTsai carried his friend down two flights of stairs and drove him to the hospital. \"His body was very hard, very straight,\" Tsai said. \"Only his eyes were open. He could not say anything.\"\n\nA few hours later, Din was dead. And Tsai said he and his friends were told they, too, were at risk and needed to take antibiotics because of their close contact with him. The bacteria that killed Din can spread from person to person by direct contact with respiratory secretions. About two dozen emergency room workers also were treated with antibiotics as a precaution, according to a presentation about the case at a scientific conference. Nobody else was sickened.\n\nFederal workplace safety investigators, who investigated because the case involved a death, said Din died because the VA failed to adequately supervise and protect workers in the research lab. Among the \"serious\" issues they cited: Din and other workers in the lab were manipulating specimens of the dangerous bacteria out on tabletops — not inside protective biosafety cabinets that would have reduced potential exposures to droplets or splashes. The lab also failed to train workers about warning signs of infection, violation records show.\n\nAlthough lab-created outbreaks that spread to people or animals in the surrounding community are rare, they have happened.\n\n\"That's what you would worry about,\" said Gigi Kwik Gronvall, of the UPMC Center for Health Security, an independent think tank that studies biosecurity and epidemics. \"But even then the consequences up to now have been limited to the very close contacts of the person who was infected.\"\n\nA small, deadly outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome in China in 2004 was traced to lab workers at the National Institute of Virology in Beijing. In 2007, an outbreak of foot and mouth disease among cattle in England that required herds to be slaughtered was blamed on leaking drainage pipes at a nearby research complex.\n\nIn Louisiana, tests are underway to make sure a deadly bioterror bacterium hasn't colonized the soil and water around the Tulane National Primate Research Center near New Orleans. Late last year, the bacteria got out of one of the center's BSL-3 labs, likely hitching a ride on workers' clothing, sickening two monkeys that lived in outdoor cages and later infecting others. Tulane will spend the next five years testing its outdoor monkey colony as well as wildlife and feral cats around the 500-acre facility to ensure the bacteria haven't contaminated the environment. The CDC and Tulane say they think the bacteria spread only inside the center's buildings, and so far tests outdoors have not detected the bacterium, Burkholderia pseudomallei, which can cause severe and difficult-to-treat illness in people and animals infected by coming into contact with contaminated soil or water.\n\nOn a global scale, a lab accident is considered by many scientists to be the likely explanation for how an H1N1 flu strain re-emerged in 1977 that was so genetically similar to one that had disappeared before 1957 it looked as if it had been \"preserved\" over the decades. The re-emergence \"was probably an accidental release from a laboratory source,\" according to a 2009 article in the New England Journal of Medicine.\n\nHowever, most pathogens studied in labs, unlike the flu, don't spread easily from person to person. Often, to become infected a person needs to have direct contact with a pathogen, which is why lab workers are most at risk, experts said. For example, people can become infected with anthrax by inhaling the bacterium's spores, but once sickened they are not contagious, according to the CDC.\n\n\"I don't think the public needs to be too concerned,\" said Marian Downing, president of the American Biological Safety Association. \"There are multiple levels of checks and balances in place.\"\n\nBeyond accidental lab-associated outbreaks, federal auditors consider the deliberate theft and misuse of a deadly pathogen to be one of the most significant risks of biolab research. That's what the FBI says happened in the 2001 anthrax letter attacks that killed five and sickened 17. Bruce Ivins, a biologist and anthrax researcher at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) at Fort Detrick, Md., was the perpetrator, the FBI concluded.\n\nThe GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, has issued repeated warnings since 2007 that the proliferation of BSL-3 and BSL-4 laboratories has increased the aggregate risk of accidental or intentional releases of viruses, bacteria or toxins.\n\nNo single agency tracks the overall number or location of these labs, the GAO has said. Little is known about high-containment labs working with dangerous pathogens such as tuberculosis, the MERS virus and others that aren't on the select agent list and tracked by the Federal Select Agent Program.\n\nNational standards for constructing and operating these kinds of labs are lacking, which means labs vary by local building requirements. While voluntary guidance exists for safe lab design and operations, the GAO has found it is not universally followed.\n\nThe documents obtained by USA TODAY show power failures at BSL-3 labs at Texas A&M University repeatedly resulted in the labs losing their negative air pressure during 2013, a key safety feature that is among several used to keep pathogens contained inside the lab. The CDC's labs in Atlanta also have had airflow problems over the years, the newspaper previously reported.\n\n\"The public is concerned about these laboratories because exposing workers and the public to dangerous pathogens, whether deliberate or accidental, can have disastrous consequences,\" the GAO's Nancy Kingsbury told Congress at a hearing on the CDC lab incidents last summer.\n\nLab regulators at the Federal Select Agent Program — whose departments often fund the research they oversee — would not grant interviews despite repeated requests since last year. The program oversees about 262 organizations that operate BSL-3 and eight organizations that operate BSL-4 labs.\n\nThe two federal agencies that jointly run the program — the CDC and USDA — operate their own labs, which have been involved in recent high-profile incidents.\n\n\"We believe the current system of inspecting/overseeing laboratories is adequate, but we are always open to continued improvements,\" the CDC said in an emailed statement. USDA officials also declined to be interviewed.\n\nLab safety officials at the National Institutes of Health, a major research funding agency that operates its own labs and helps set national biosafety guidelines, also declined interview requests.\n\n\"There is no 'zero-risk' proposition in the conduct of research,\" the agency said in a statement. \"NIH works extremely hard to minimize all research-related risks.\"\n\nMore than 100 labs experimenting with potential bioterror agents have been cited by regulators at the CDC and USDA for serious safety and security failings since 2003, USA TODAY has learned.\n\nYet so much of select agent oversight is cloaked in secrecy, making it difficult to assess regulators' effectiveness in ensuring safety. In several instances, troubled labs and even federal regulators appeared to misrepresent the significance of the government's enforcement efforts.\n\nSince 2003, the CDC has referred 79 labs for potential enforcement actions by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Inspector General. It has levied fines against 19 of them totaling more than $2.4 million, the CDC said in response to questions.\n\nSome are repeat offenders. Five labs have had \"multiple referrals\" for enforcement actions, the CDC said. Two labs have been kicked out of the program, and five labs have been suspended from doing any select agent research, the agency said.\n\nWhich labs repeatedly failed to address safety problems? The CDC won't name names — not even for the two labs kicked out of the select agent program. The CDC and its regulatory partners at the USDA say the 2002 bioterrorism law requires keeping this information secret.\n\nYet earlier this year, the CDC publicly announced its suspension of the Tulane National Primate Research Center — after the center's accidental release of a bioterror bacterium became publicly known and was the subject of news reports. The CDC said it balances the public's right to transparency with the risk posed by information being made available to those who might use it to threaten public health or security.\n\nCurrently seven labs are under the extra scrutiny of a federal select agent lab performance improvement program, the CDC said. The program is offered as a voluntary alternative to suspension or other regulatory action, the agency said, for labs with a \"repeated failure to correct past observation, biosafety and security concerns\" or failures to comply with extra security requirements for work with \"Tier 1\" select agents. Tier 1 agents are those deemed to pose the greatest risk of deliberate misuse with the most significant potential for mass casualties or devastating economic effects.\n\nWhile under scrutiny of the program, an individual researcher or project must halt the research that has been found in violation, but other select agent research at the institution generally is allowed to continue, the CDC said.\n\nThirty-three labs have been put on performance improvement programs since 2008, CDC said. Their names are secret too.\n\nDozens more labs have faced regulatory actions from the USDA, which takes the lead overseeing select agent labs primarily working with animal or agricultural pathogens. The USDA says it has conducted 48 investigations that have resulted in $116,750 in fines.\n\nThe USDA said all of its enforcement records about these fines are required to be kept secret because of the 2002 bioterrorism law. The USDA did release a spreadsheet it says documents its actions, but the agency redacted almost all the information on it: lab names, violation types and even dates. Only a few references to warning letters and fines were spared the agency's black marker.\n\nThe Federal Select Agent Program says no law or regulation bars the labs themselves from discussing their select agent research. And universities and other research institutions routinely publish their research on select agent pathogens in scientific journals.\n\nRegistered labs just aren't supposed to share details of specific security measures, such as locations of keys and codes, that would give access to pathogens. The CDC and USDA said there is nothing that prohibits labs from releasing information or answering questions about any regulatory problems they've had. Yet few were willing to readilydiscuss violations or failed inspections.\n\nLabs at the University of Hawaii-Manoa are among those in the federal performance improvement program, at least as of January, records obtained by USA TODAY show. Although the secrecy provisions of the 2002 bioterrorism law apply only to certain federal agencies, officials at the state-run university cited that law among its reasons for denying requests for records about safety violations and the performance improvement program.\n\nThe university inadvertently confirmed that its Honolulu labs had been put in the performance improvement program in records it filed in January with Hawaii's Office of Information Practices, which is deciding USA TODAY's public records appeal. The university wrote that being put on a PIP is something it is \"proud\" of.\n\n\"We do not believe entering into the program is an embarrassment, we think it should be showcased, but that would be improper because as participants in the Federal Select Agent Program, we are obligated to keep this information private,\" the university wrote to the appeals agency, adding that it \"has been an exemplary participant in the Federal Select Agent Program.\"\n\nUniversity of Hawaii officials declined to be interviewed.\n\nLast year, two labs agreed to pay fines handed down by the HHS Office of Inspector General for select agent violations, records show.\n\nA lab that federal officials would describe only as an \"Arizona research university\" agreed in 2014 to pay a $165,000 fine for failing to keep accurate inventory records for select agents and not having biosafety procedures adequate for the risks associated with the pathogens they worked with. The lab, the USA TODAY Network's reporting found, was Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. Lab director Paul Keim said the issues date back to 2010 when the university had difficulty keeping up with changing federal regulations. Since then the university's labs have passed several inspections, he said.\n\nAn unnamed Florida laboratory agreed to pay $50,000 to resolve violations that included failing to ensure accurate inventories of select agents and failing to notify the CDC and appropriate law enforcement agencies after discovering a missing select agent.\n\nThe inspector general's office, citing regulations stemming from the 2002 bioterrorism law, redacted the names of these labs, as well as all other labs receiving fines, in documents it provided to USA TODAY under the Freedom of Information Act. Other labs that have been fined over the years for select agent violations are located in Alabama, California, Missouri, South Dakota, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin, records show.\n\nAs a way of providing some oversight, Congress requires a report each year on the number of thefts, losses and releases of bioterror pathogens at labs regulated by the Federal Select Agent Program.\n\nYet regulators provide scant details of their activities and the problems identified at labs. Usually just three pages long plus a cover page, the reports contain only aggregated counts of lab incidents by type, plus vague information on a few serious incidents.\n\nThe select agent program told Congress it had \"imposed a $425,000 civil money penalty\" on an unnamed lab where a serious biosafety lapse in 2008 had resulted in a cow in a nearby disease-free herd becoming infected with Brucella bacteria, which cause brucellosis.\n\nBrucellosis is a contagious and economically significant agricultural disease — which causes cattle and other livestock to abort their fetuses, produce less milk, suffer weight loss, infertility and lameness. It has been the subject of eradication efforts for decades.\n\nThe $425,000 fine would have been one of the largest in the overall select agent program's history — if it had actually been imposed.\n\nBut it wasn't imposed, USA TODAY's investigation found, and the USDA never corrected the record with Congress.\n\nUSA TODAY was able to identify the Brucella research program at Louisiana State University's AgCenter in Baton Rouge as the likely recipient of the $425,000 fine by examining USDA animal health reports that tallied what states reported brucellosis cases in 2008. Louisiana, which had a case that year, had been declared brucellosis-free in 2000.\n\nLSU officials spent months denying USA TODAY access to its records about the incident, citing among other things select agent regulations unrelated to the requested information. In statements and interviews, LSU downplayed its violations and provided information that was later contradicted by federal records.\n\n\"The incident was not found to be caused by a violation of federal regulations; no fines were imposed upon LSU, and the regulatory agencies had uncertainty as to whether the strain of bacteria in the affected cow was the same strain that was being used in the LSU research,\" LSU officials said in a November 2014 email to USA TODAY.\n\nYet, in December 2014, when USA TODAY received copies of the incident investigation reports from the USDA and Louisiana's state agriculture department, the documents showed no uncertainty.\n\nUSDA records show that investigators documented serious violations. In levying the $425,000 fine, regulators cited LSU for failing to have adequate biosafety measures, resulting in the release of the bacteria that caused the cow's infection. The USDA also cited LSU for violating regulations by sending Brucella-infected cattle that had been part of select agent vaccine experiments to an unregistered slaughter facility where their meat was sold for human consumption.\n\nLSU's Phil Elzer, who at the time ran the Brucella studies and now is a university administrator, said in an interview the practice of sending research cattle to slaughter was declared in the lab's operating procedures that were reviewed and signed off on at each inspection by Federal Select Agent Program regulators. \"To all of a sudden say we were doing it wrong was very surprising,\" Elzer said. LSU appealed, and the USDA eventually dropped the fine, he said.\n\nIn January 2010, records show, the USDA sent a letter to LSU saying the case was being closed but reiterating the issues with the infected cow and the use of the unauthorized slaughter plant.\n\nUSDA officials acknowledge that they never imposed the $425,000 fine and made a mistake touting it in their report to Congress.\n\n\"It should have stated that we were proposing a fine, instead of stating we issued a fine,\" said Freeda Isaac, USDA's director of Agriculture Select Agent Services, in an emailed statement. Isaac added that the USDA suspended a portion of LSU's select agent registration because of the Brucella incident and \"that portion of the registration is still suspended,\" Isaac said last fall.\n\nFor those labs not in the select agent program — and even those that are — self-policing is the front line of biosafety. Biosafety committees at research institutions, often staffed by scientists' colleagues, assess the risks of proposed research and grant or deny approval for studies. Labs also have other safety staff who may do internal inspections and lab audits, plus additional committees overseeing the use of animals in research.\n\nYet some researchers appear ignorant of their institutions' biosafety rules. Others brazenly ignore repeated requests by biosafety staff to stop experiments and address issues.\n\nDocuments obtained by the USA TODAY Network include at least 50 incidents since 2012 in which researchers were conducting experiments with genetically manipulated organisms without proper approval from internal safety committees. In some cases, records show researchers flaunting their institutional rules.\n\n• At the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in, biosafety staff concluded in a 2013 report that the root causes of a researcher failing to get her experiments approved included \"general indifference of the investigator to institutional rules governing the need for biosafety compliance\" as well as a \"lack of oversight of research activities.\" The scientist, the investigation revealed, knowingly launched unapproved experiments — exposing mice to a genetically manipulated strain of Burkholderia thailandensis — in a quest to get a vaccine study manuscript published that reviewers said needed additional data. The research was halted after veterinarians found several cages containing dead and dying mice, yet none of the cages was labeled with the infectious agent and they were in an area not approved for experiments with a BSL-2 pathogen. The incident was \"an extremely unusual event,\" said Sheila Champlin, an assistant vice chancellor at the center, noting corrective actions were taken before the scientist was allowed to resume research.\n\n• At the University of Iowa, a biosafety officer in February 2014 discovered that a scientist had been conducting experiments with a genetically manipulated strain of the MERS virus since September 2013 without biosafety committee approval. The biosafety officer ordered the investigator to stop all experiments, and the scientist was put on probation and received increased safety monitoring. The work was being done in a BSL-3 lab at the time it was discovered, but started in a BSL-2 lab, the safety officer's investigation found. The university concluded that the scientist did not \"effectively communicate\" to his staff the importance of getting safety committee approval before starting the experiments with the virus, which can cause a deadly, contagious respiratory disease in people.\n\n• At the University of California-Irvine, a researcher ignored repeated notices from biosafety staff during 2012 and 2013 that a research project's approval had expired, that it needed further revisions and that all work must cease — yet the scientist continued the experiments with a lentivirus, anyway, in the BSL-2 lab. As a result of the incident, the university now sends researchers four notices starting 90 days before approvals expire, said James Hicks, the university's associate vice chancellor of research. As the deadline nears, Hicks is copied on the notices so he can intervene if necessary. \"We take a very strong view and a very correct view of the importance of following the regulations and the guidelines,\" he said in an interview.\n\n• At the University of Nebraska, a biosafety officer in 2013 found that a researcher had continued growing plants as part of an experiment using a transgenic tobacco rattle virus vector — despite being told repeatedly over two months that additional approval was needed from the biosafety committee before research could begin. As a result of the incident, the university said it revised its biosafety guidelines to describe consequences of unapproved research and sent a letter to faculty. \"This was an isolated instance that was fully and successfully resolved,\" the university said.\n\n• At the University of Hawaii-Manoa, biosafety staff discovered a scientist was doing a type of cancer research in 2012 despite being denied biosafety committee approval and being repeatedly told not to do the experiments. Separately, at a March 2013 biosafety committee meeting at the university, members discussed the need for penalties when researchers fail to comply with biosafety rules, stating \"there must be some consequence and corrective action other than an email\" to the scientist, the minutes say.\n\nLabs that receive funding from the National Institutes of Health and some other federal agencies are required to report incidents to the NIH involving certain types of genetically engineered organisms and recombinant DNA technology. From 2010 through 2014, the NIH received 644 reports of lab incidents during this kind of research.\n\nMost of the reports the NIH receives are for what it says are non-serious incidents, such as small spills, splashes, cuts and equipment failures. Failure to obtain required biosafety committee approvals to do this type of research are among the more common types of non-compliance.\n\nAlthough it is not a regulatory agency, the NIH said in a statement that agency staff have made site visits to 100 institutions in recent years in an effort to help improve biosafety committee resources and adherence to the NIH Guidelines for operating their labs.\n\n\"Most instances of non-compliance result from a lack of full understanding of the requirements of the NIH Guidelines, rather than willful disregard, and our emphasis has been on corrective actions through education, which institutions seem uniformly responsive to,\" the NIH said.\n\nIn September 2014, the NIH contacted the University of Louisville after a whistle-blower alleged the university had knowingly failed to report lab incidents as required, according to records obtained under the federal Freedom of Information Act. In response, the university told the NIH that it discovered three incidents that were not reported to the NIH but should have been, the records show.\n\nThe records indicate that University of Louisville biosafety officials were aware of some of the unreported incidents as much as six months before the NIH opened its inquiry. William Pierce Jr., the university's executive vice president for research and innovation, in a statement to USA TODAY, said \"there was apparent confusion regarding the authority and responsibility for reporting violations to the NIH.\" Pierce said the university has hired an outside firm to oversee its biosafety committee and created training courses for scientists. \"We feel confident the current system is working,\" he said.\n\nThe NIH closed its inquiry after the university answered the agency's questions, filed reports on the previously unreported incidents and agreed to take actions to ensure better reporting in the future.\n\n\"In investigating the incident, we did not find any evidence of willful non-compliance,\" the NIH said in response to USA TODAY's questions.\n\nFor some residents living near labs, the lack of transparency is frustrating — and worrisome. It's not enough to tell the public the labs have robust safety procedures. \"What people are really interested in is how well it's working,\" said Beth Willis, the citizen lab safety representative near Fort Detrick. \"The more people in the community feel that there's secrecy, the more they're distrustful, whether their distrust is warranted or not.\"", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2015/05/28"}]}
+{"question_id": "20220617_27", "search_time": "2022/06/17/16:36", "search_result": [{"url": "https://www.theweek.co.uk/news/uk-news/954222/the-new-yacht-britannia", "title": "The new Yacht Britannia | The Week UK", "text": "What is being proposed?\n\nIn July, the Defence Secretary Ben Wallace formally announced plans for a new national flagship to “promote British businesses around the world”. Commissioned at a cost of £200m to £250m, it would be designed and built in the UK. Boris Johnson said it would reflect “the UK’s burgeoning status as a great, independent maritime trading nation”. The boat is to be a replacement for the Royal Yacht Britannia, which reached the end of its working life in 1997. The idea, first proposed in 2001, was taken up by Tory MPs in the aftermath of the Brexit referendum, and has received vociferous backing from The Daily Telegraph. It was supported by Johnson after he became PM, and given the go-ahead in May. The Government said it would be used to host trade fairs, ministerial meetings and diplomatic summits. The vessel would be crewed by the Royal Navy, and is expected to be in service for about 30 years.\n\nWhy wasn’t the last one renewed?\n\nThe Royal Yacht Britannia was in service from 1954 until 1997, a period during which it travelled more than a million nautical miles across the globe. But in 1994, the Government announced its retirement, citing the estimated £17m cost of completing a major re-fit (just seven years after the last one), which would only prolong its life by five years. In January 1997, the Conservatives promised to replace the yacht if re-elected that year, but Tony Blair’s victory spelt the end of the plan. His Labour government declined to spend public money on renewing it, citing the fact that the Queen had “made clear” that a yacht wasn’t needed for royal travel. Today, the ship is a tourist attraction in Leith, Edinburgh, with some 300,000 visitors a year.\n\nWhat would a new one be like?\n\nThe details have yet to be fleshed out: the tendering process for design and construction began in July. However, the brief is to deliver “a vessel which reflects British design expertise and the latest innovations in green technology”. (Wallace said that it might have hybrid engines, or even a sail, like some modern superyachts.) The intention is to start building next year in a British shipyard, to create jobs and “help drive a renaissance in the UK’s shipbuilding industry”; at present, Britain has many top yacht designers and a thriving leisure boat industry, but most superyachts are built abroad. The yacht will have a “national security function”, too; Britannia was designed to double as a hospital ship. The ship’s name has yet to be announced: it was reported that the PM wanted to name it after the Duke of Edinburgh in tribute, but that the proposal was greeted with coolness in royal circles.\n\nWhat’s the point of it?\n\nAdvocates of the ship say it will glide gracefully into ports around the world, where it will be used to wine and dine officials, thereby smoothing the way for trade deals, defence agreements and the like. They cite the example of Britannia, which they say helped bring in an estimated £3bn of trade deals between 1991 and 1995. “The world’s top investors will fall over themselves to visit a new flagship for a new type of commercial diplomacy,” said Johnson. A report last year by the think tank the Henry Jackson Society said the yacht could help “project Britain’s image around the world”; Lord Digby Jones, the former head of the CBI, said it would give the nation a “morale boost” after the pandemic.\n\nIs everybody convinced?\n\nNo. Labour leader Keir Starmer labelled it a “vanity yacht” and called on the PM to spend the money tackling antisocial behaviour instead; the former Tory minister Ken Clarke called it ��silly populist nonsense”. Many commentators are scathing. “I don’t think the world’s most successful exporting nations – Germany, Japan, China – ever needed a floating gin palace to get the world to buy their cars, steel or smartphones,” said Sean O’Grady in The Independent: quality, price, innovation and reliability, he argued, were more important. The ship doesn’t even enjoy the backing of senior members of the royal family, The Sunday Times reported. “No one wants this vessel at the Palace,” said a royal source. Courtiers, it seems, do not want it to be presented as a new “royal yacht”, which is regarded as “too grand” a symbol for the modern monarchy. They would not use it for their personal travel or holidays – though Wallace hopes it would be used for royal visits, to “showcase the royal family as one of our exports”.\n\nHow would it be paid for?\n\nWhen the idea was originally proposed, the cost was estimated at £100m and was to be covered by private donors, with no burden on the taxpayer. However, the Government has now confirmed that the ship would be paid for out of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) budget – despite insisting that it would be primarily “a trade ship”. The original invitation to tender in July put the budget at £150m. However, a week after that, it was raised to £200m-£250m. Hugo Andreae, editor of Motor Boat & Yachting, thinks that, knowing the economics of superyachts, the price will rise to around £600m – unless the national flagship is to risk being “overshadowed by a tasteless megayacht belonging to some shady despot”.\n\nWill it actually be built?\n\nThe project reportedly drew ire from the MoD, where officials asked No. 10 what they could scrap to pay for it. Chancellor Rishi Sunak is also said to be reluctant to pay for it. Johnson, however – a fan of statement projects – is said to “love the plan”. And Wallace is on board, too. He argues that the cost is a fraction of the MoD’s £42bn annual budget, and has dismissed criticism as “basket-weaving, leftie, Islington nonsense”. He insists construction will begin as soon as next year, and it will be “in the water by 2024 or 2025”.\n\nBritannia: the original national flagship\n\nThe Royal Yacht Britannia was a symbol of British prestige, said the FT – a “glamorous nod to a lost age of naval superiority and to a different era of deference”. Built in Clydebank, Dunbartonshire, it was used for a combination of “glittering state visits, official receptions, royal honeymoons and relaxing family holidays”, according to its official website.\n\nThe ship’s first official engagement was to carry Prince Charles and Princess Anne to Malta in 1954, where they met their parents at the end of a Commonwealth tour. It was the first of 968 state voyages that the ship carried out over its 44 years of service, during which every conceivable effort was made to ensure it was as comfortable and tranquil as possible for the royals: the crew wore soft-soled plimsolls and communicated using hand signals to reduce noise. An on-board garage housed the Queen’s Rolls-Royce and a 26-strong Royal Marines band was stationed on the ship at all times.\n\nPeople visiting it in Leith today will see that every clock on board has been stopped at 3.01pm – the time the Queen last disembarked following the ship’s 1997 decommissioning ceremony in Portsmouth. The Queen is said to have been at her happiest on the ship, and at that event, she famously shed a tear.", "authors": ["The Week Staff"], "publish_date": "2021/09/23"}, {"url": "https://www.theweek.co.uk/news/955776/what-next-for-prince-andrew-abuse-settlement", "title": "What next for Prince Andrew after sex abuse case settlement? | The ...", "text": "Prince Andrew has reportedly agreed to pay millions of pounds to settle the civil case brought against him in the US by Virginia Roberts Giuffre.\n\nAccording to The Mirror, the Duke of York has avoided a “potentially explosive civil trial” with an out-of-court deal totalling £12m, including a “substantial donation” – thought to be about £2m – to Giuffre's charity Speak Out, Act, Reclaim, which supports sex abuse survivors.\n\nIn a federal court filing in New York this week, Andrew recognised that Giuffre “suffered both as an established victim of abuse and as a result of unfair public attacks”. He made no apology nor admission of liability, and has repeatedly denied allegations that he sexually abused Giuffre on three occasions when she was a teenager.\n\nPublic or private purse?\n\nQuestions are now being raised about how Andrew is funding the “substantial” payout. A statement included with the letter filed this week to US judge Lewis Kaplan, who has been overseeing the civil sex claim, stated that the total settlement sum was “not being disclosed”.\n\nBut amid reports that the deal exceeds £10m, campaigners are demanding to know whether the money will be coming from the public or private purse.\n\nThe Duke of York’s finances are “famously opaque”, said the i news site. He receives a £20,000 Royal Navy pension and a £250,000 annual stipend from the Queen’s Duchy of Lancaster income, but his lifestyle has exceeded his expected income over the years.\n\nThe Times reported last year that a Conservative Party donor had cleared a £1.5m debt that Andrew owed to a private bank in Luxembourg. Leaked documents showed that in 2015, the royal was “borrowing an average of £125,000 every three months from a credit facility” offered by Banque Havilland, owned by Tory donor David Rowland, who was said to have then cleared the debt “in its entirety”.\n\n“‘Mysterious’ and ‘murky’ are words often used to describe the Duke of York’s financial affairs,” the paper added.\n\nIn recent months, Andrew has been completing the sale of his only known asset, a seven-bedroom chalet in the Swiss village of Verbier that he bought with his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson in 2014. The duke and duchess put the property on the market after being sued by the previous owner, Isabelle de Rouvre, “a French socialite who alleged that they owed her £6.7m from the £16.6m sale”, said The Telegraph.", "authors": ["The Week Staff"], "publish_date": "2022/02/16"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2015/03/17/usa-set-to-welcome-prince-charles-duchess-camilla/24847377/", "title": "Prince Charles, Duchess Camilla arrive in USA", "text": "Maria Puente\n\nUSA TODAY\n\nThey're back.\n\nPrince Charles and his wife, Camilla Duchess of Cornwall, arrived in Washington, D.C, Tuesday evening for a four-day visit that also includes a day in Louisville, Ky.\n\nThey landed at Andrews Air Force Base at 6:30 p.m. and headed to the residence of British Ambassador Peter Westmacott for a reception with embassy staff and British media, according to the pool report.\n\nCharles, wearing a blue suit, and Camilla, wearing an ivory coat and dress outfit, her blond hair whipped by the wind, were greeted by Mark Walsh, the U.S. deputy chief of protocol, Col. Larry Riddick, and Ian Wiggins, a British Embassy official.\n\nTheir blue-and-white plane bore the American flag, the British flag and the Royal Standard.\n\nAt the ambassador's residence, head chef Craig Harnden showed reporters some of the tiny, tasty hors d'oevres: baby fish and chips, deviled quail eggs, cheese sticks and chicken liver parfait.\n\nEmbassy staffers were thrilled at mingling with the prince and duchess, who worked the room separately, shaking hands and talking to people individually, according to the pool report.\n\n\"It's wonderful to see how the royal family spends time with staff,\" said one staff member who like everyone at the event was not allowed to be quoted by name.\n\nCamilla's matching coat and dress was by British designer Bruce Oldfield, embassy officials said.\n\nThe couple's jammed schedule over the next two days includes a tête-à-tête with President Obama in the Oval Office, and historical-cultural-themed engagements aimed at the usual royal purpose when in America: Polishing the \"special relationship.\"\n\nLately, with the U.S. annoyed with Britain's ties to China and its reduction in military spending, the relationship is looking a little worn, analysts say. \"Our special relationship hangs by a thread,\" reported The Telegraph in January.\n\nTime to send in the royals. The Prince of Wales, the next king of the United Kingdom and second only to Queen Elizabeth II in rank, is making this visit at the request of the British government, and to highlight environmental and conservation projects close to his heart.\n\nIt's the 20th time Charles has visited the USA in an official capacity, and the third time for his wife. The royal couple, who celebrate their 10th wedding anniversary next month, first visited as a newlywed couple a few months after their controversial, and unprecedented, nuptials in April 2005 in Windsor.\n\nOn their first trip, Camilla, 67, was clearly nervous in the media glare, and still fending off her reputation as the \"most hated woman in Britain.\" Charles' first wife, the late Princess Diana, accused Camilla of ruining her marriage and many of her American loyalists agreed, greeting the newlyweds with jeers and nasty signs.\n\nBut a decade later, the British public have come around according to polling conducted for CNN, which aired a rare interview of Charles on Saturday night in advance of the trip.\n\nThe new poll found that opposition to Camilla eventually being called Queen — once as high as 73% — had dropped to 35%, and nearly one in four Brits said they liked her more now than they did 10 years ago.\n\nCharles spent most of the half-hour special declaring his love and praising her efforts to define her public role. \"You can imagine it is a real, real challenge,\" Charles said. \"But she's, I think, been brilliant in the way she's tackled these things.\"\n\nThis trip could provide a sign of whether American royal fans have changed their view of Camilla or remain indifferent to the couple.\n\nDespite their frequent worldwide travels on behalf of the Queen and their prodigious charity work, Charles and Camilla are often overshadowed by Charles' charismatic son and daughter-in-law, Prince William and Duchess Kate, and grandson Prince George, third-in-line to the throne.\n\nTheir schedule in Washington includes meeting with President Obama and Vice President Biden and also with congressional leaders on Thursday. They will attend multiple receptions and visit the Lincoln Memorial, Martin Luther King Jr., Memorial, a public charter school, Mount Vernon, the National Archives, the Armed Forces Retirement Home/Lincoln Cottage, the Shakespeare Theatre Company and a police sexual-assault response team.\n\nCharles will get a conservation award, attend a conference on reducing plastic in the oceans, and in Kentucky will give a speech on health and the environment at a health summit. They will attend an African-American cultural festival and also explore a food literacy project at a local farm.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2015/03/17"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/50-states/2019/10/04/fur-seal-pups-big-balloon-fest-runaway-bull-news-around-states/40242775/", "title": "50 States", "text": "From USA TODAY Network and wire reports\n\nAlabama\n\nAuburn: Gov. Kay Ivey said South Korean auto parts manufacturer Shinhwa Group is investing $42 million in a facility and will create 95 jobs in Auburn, the company’s first manufacturing facility in the United States. Construction is already underway. Phase 1 of the project is expected to be finished by the summer. Shinhwa will initially make driveshafts for vehicles built by Hyundai Motor Manufacturing’s plant in Montgomery, as well as for Kia Motor Manufacturing’s plant, just across the state line in West Point, Georgia. Alabama Department of Commerce Secretary Greg Canfield said the company is a “welcome addition” to the state’s network of “high-caliber auto suppliers.”\n\nAlaska\n\nAnchorage: Northern fur seals have declined at the world’s largest rookery in Alaska’s Pribilof Islands, but they’re thriving at an unlikely location. Numbers of fur seals continue to grow on Bogoslof Island, a tiny landmass at the tip of an active undersea volcano in the Aleutian Islands. The volcano two years ago spewed ash into the path of jetliners. Hot mud, steam and sulfurous gases continue to spit up from vents on the island. Fur seals give birth and raise pups along the beach of the island that’s only about one-third the size of New York City’s Central Park. Tom Gelatt of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said biologists in 2015 estimated there were 28,000 pups on the island. He said the 2019 estimate likely will be more than 36,000 pups.\n\nArizona\n\nPhoenix:The Arizona Game and Fish Department is investigating the poaching of a bull elk north of Heber in late August and is asking for the public’s help finding whoever killed the animal. The agency said Tuesday the poacher left the bull elk’s meat to waste west of Forest Road 153 near Point and Javelina water catchments. Agency officials said in a press release they believe someone has information about the case because the poaching incident occurred during a time when many hunters were scouting the area for upcoming hunts. Other recreationists are also believed to have been in the area at the time of the crime, the agency said. Hunting elk and other types of game in Arizona is regulated by the department. Hunters are required to draw permits, which are limited in number and allow them to hunt a limited number of game. Hunting can take place only in designated areas during designated periods. Most elk hunting takes place during the fall season in Arizona, although there are a few locations designated during other times of the year, according to the Game and Fish website. Anyone with information about the poaching incident should call the department’s Operation Game Thief hotline at 800-352-0700 or visit www.azgfd.gov and refer to case #19-003199. Callers can remain anonymous upon request and might be eligible for a reward of up to $1,500 upon an arrest. The Arizona Elk Society and Arizona Deer Association are each offering an additional $2,500 reward upon the arrest and conviction of the poachers, according to a press release from the department.\n\nArkansas\n\nPine Bluff: The Saracen Casino Annex, the largest tourism investment project in Arkansas, opened Tuesday morning. The annex is part of the $350 million Saracen Casino Resort project owned and operated by the Oklahoma-based Quapaw Nation. The casino resort is expected to open next June. About 10,000 guests have visited the 300-slot-machine annex since Friday’s surprise “soft opening.” Quapaw Nation officials said they plan to employ 1,100 people permanently at the Saracen Casino Resort. More than 200 are employed at the annex and a new nearby convenience store and gas station. Most hires came from Pine Bluff. The project is expected to feature 2,000 slot machines and 50 gambling tables, along with a 300-room hotel with a fire safety and an emergency services facility.\n\nCalifornia\n\nLos Angeles: Residents had a chance to see a mini-air show as the Royal Air Force Red Arrows aerobatic team tours California. The team flew past the famed Hollywood sign Wednesday afternoon and headed south to the Port of Long Beach to fly over the retired British ocean liner Queen Mary, which is now a tourist attraction and hotel. On Tuesday, the Red Arrows’ jets flew over San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate bridge. This weekend, they will join the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds, the Canadian Forces Snowbirds and other performers at the Great Pacific Airshow over the surf at Huntington Beach.\n\nColorado\n\nColorado Springs: A falcon that has served as the mascot for the U.S. Air Force Academy for the past 23 years has died. KCNC-TV reported the passing of the falcon named Aurora was announced by the academy on Wednesday. The academy said in a statement that the falcon was the longest-serving live mascot in the school’s 65-year history. Aurora was reported to have recovered after suffering injuries to its wings in November 2018 during a prank abduction before the annual football game against the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York. The Air Force Academy uses several falcons during home games and Aurora attended most road games to greet fans. The academy described her as a “feisty, spirited bird who commanded respect.”\n\nConnecticut\n\nGroton: The Pentagon said the USS Oregon, the Navy’s newest attack submarine, will be christened Saturday at General Dynamics Electric Boat in Groton. U.S. Rep. Greg Walden, an Oregon Republican, said he will attend as the keynote speaker. He said the submarine will be christened with water from Crater Lake and wine from Oregon. Oregon, a Virginia-class submarine, is the third U.S. Navy ship to honor the state. Virginia-class submarines are built to conduct anti-submarine warfare; anti-surface ship warfare; strike warfare; special operation forces support; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; irregular warfare; and mine warfare missions. The Pentagon said they have stealth, endurance, mobility and firepower.\n\nDelaware\n\nFenwick Island:State environmental officials might soon lease public parkland to an offshore wind energy company in exchange for millions of dollars in new amenities at Delaware’s southernmost beach. The Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control has signed an initial memorandum of understanding with Ørsted, an offshore wind company based in Denmark, to discuss leasing up to 1.5 acres at Fenwick Island State Park. Ørsted would use park property to build an interconnection facility that will connect power generated by the yet-to-be-built Skipjack Wind Farm to the electrical grid. In exchange for leasing the public land, the company would fund improvements at the park, with the state now suggesting more than a dozen projects worth upward of $18 million. Those projects could include a two-level parking garage, a pedestrian overpass that allows foot traffic to cross Coastal Highway from the ocean side to the bayside, connections for a trail or sidewalk system, two additional bathrooms, an amphitheater and a new local Chamber of Commerce building that would house the park’s visitors center, a small nature center and more.\n\nDistrict of Columbia\n\nWashington: A museum dedicated to journalism and the First Amendment is set to close its doors near the National Mall by the end of the year. WTOP-FM reported the Newseum announced its impending closure Tuesday, citing yearslong financial issues. A company statement said that despite more than 11 years of service and nearly 10 million visitors, continued operations have proved to be unsustainable. The statement said the museum’s founder and primary funder, the Freedom Forum, remains committed to its mission to champion the five freedoms guaranteed under the First Amendment. It said efforts to increase public awareness about the importance of a free press are needed now more than ever. Visitors are welcome through Dec. 31. Tickets purchased online include a 15% discount, with prices now starting at about $12.\n\nFlorida\n\nTallahassee: Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shad Khan said Wednesday that he will be the majority investor in the nation’s only 24-hour news network aimed at African American viewers, giving the network a deep pocket as it launches next month. The network has been in the works for years and an announcement about its launch was made earlier this year. But Khan’s backing gives it a substantial boost. He declined to say how much he would invest initially but said it would be enough to keep the network running for a long time. Khan is worth an estimated $8 billion and made his fortune in the auto equipment industry. As well as the Jaguars, he owns Fulham Football Club of the English Football League, Four Seasons Hotel Toronto and All Elite Wrestling. Former Republican U.S. Rep. J.C. Watts, who was a star quarterback at the University of Oklahoma in the 1980s, will be chairman of the new network. It will be available via cable and satellite viewers in 33 million households. The network has agreements with Charter Communications, Comcast and DISH and will be carried in major African American markets such as New York, Atlanta, New Orleans, Chicago and Los Angeles. The network is to begin broadcasting in November and will be based in Tallahassee, Florida’s capital, with bureaus across the country, Watts said.\n\nGeorgia\n\nAdel: A hospital and nursing home in south Georgia has moved into a new $40 million facility. The Adel hospital began operating from its new home Tuesday. What had previously been Cook Medical Center is now called Southwell Medical. The 20-bed hospital, 95-bed nursing home and physicians’ offices are operated by Tift Regional Health System. Tift Regional Health System President Christopher Dorman told WALB-TV that the new complex just off Interstate 75 was renamed to help attract patients from beyond Cook County. The new hospital doesn’t have an emergency room but does have a walk-in clinic. The health system borrowed about 70% of construction costs through a U.S. Department of Agriculture rural development loan. Cook County and Adel government agencies provided the remainder. The old hospital’s new use remains undetermined.\n\nHawaii\n\nWailuku: A post-mortem examination of two pygmy killer whales that were found stranded on a Maui beach suggested they were fighting an infection. The Maui News reported Wednesday that the adult males had inflamed lymph nodes when they stranded themselves at Sugar Beach last month. The infection was also found in pygmy killer whales that stranded themselves at the same beach in August. An official from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the whales were afflicted elsewhere and there is no indication of an environmental toxin at Sugar Beach. The animals were euthanized after tests indicated little chance for survival at sea. Researchers said unusual food items, including excess plant material found in the animals, indicate they were not feeding normally.\n\nIdaho\n\nBoise: A judge said she agrees that fulfilling public records requests can put a big burden on governmental resources, but she expressed skepticism about the number of completely redacted pages provided to four Boise-area journalists by Ada County officials this year. Fourth District Judge Deborah Bail made the comments during a hearing on a lawsuit between the Idaho Press Club and Ada County Commissioners on Wednesday afternoon. In the lawsuit the Idaho Press Club and the four journalists contend county officials repeatedly violated the state’s Public Records Act by wrongly denying access to some documents, over-redacting others and otherwise mishandling public information requests. In court Wednesday, Ada County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney James Dickinson said the judge has all the evidence she needs in the form of the unredacted documents. Dickinson said some of the redacted documents require context to understand why they should be kept from release but said he can’t discuss it in open court lest he reveal private protected information.\n\nIllinois\n\nFairview Heights: Planned Parenthood has quietly been building a new abortion clinic in Illinois, just across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, as women concerned about the uncertain future of Missouri’s sole abortion clinic flock across the state line. The 18,000-square-foot in Fairview Heights, 12 miles east of St. Louis, will provide abortion services, as well as family planning, when it opens in mid-October, Planned Parenthood officials said at a news conference Wednesday. Planned Parenthood has been fighting Missouri’s health department for months to try and keep open its St. Louis clinic. The state has refused to renew its license to perform abortions, citing concerns that include “failed abortions” that required additional surgeries. Missouri’s Administrative Hearing Commission is deciding the fate of the St. Louis clinic. During an annual inspection of the St. Louis clinic in March, Missouri health investigators cited numerous concerns, including reports of failed abortions. Planned Parenthood said it has already addressed those concerns and defended its clinic. It claims the state is using the licensing process as an excuse to stop abortions.\n\nIndiana\n\nSouth Bend: More than 2,200 sets of preserved fetal remains found in the Illinois garage of a late Indiana abortion doctor have been returned to Indiana. Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill said Thursday that the fetal remains found last month at Dr. Ulrich Klopfer’s Will County, Illinois, home were transferred Wednesday to the St. Joseph County coroner’s office for “safekeeping.” Hill said at a news conference in South Bend that investigators determined the remains came from abortions performed in Indiana in 2000, 2001 and 2002. Authorities are still investigating where the abortions occurred. Klopfer performed abortions at clinics in Fort Wayne, South Bend and Gary. Relatives cleaning out Klopfer’s garage after his Sept. 3 death found the remains. Hill said they will be “given the decency of a burial that they deserve.”\n\nIowa\n\nDubuque: The Iowa Department of Natural Resources said it plans to collect as many deer samples in northeastern Iowa as it can this hunting season to test for chronic wasting disease after the first case in Dubuque County was confirmed in January, the Telegraph Herald reported Thursday. Chris Ensminger, the wildlife research section supervisor for the department, said officials want to collect at least 250 samples from an area in which the diseased deer was killed and at least 250 samples from elsewhere in Dubuque County. Samples also will be collected from surrounding eastern Iowa counties. The disease attacks the brains of deer and elk and is always fatal. No human cases have been recorded, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advises people to not eat meat from infected animals. The disease has become increasingly prevalent in parts of the Midwest, including Wisconsin and Minnesota. Nearly 400 of the 1,060 deer that tested positive for the disease in Wisconsin from April 2018 to the end of March were in Iowa County in southwest Wisconsin. Other cases came from surrounding Crawford, Grant and Lafayette counties.\n\nKansas\n\nLinwood: A plan to build a village of foster care homes in northeast Kansas has gotten the OK, although the project has been scaled down. The Kansas City Star reported that the nonprofit Joy Meadows initially sought to create a development with up to 10 homes that could house large sibling sets on a 23-acre property in the Linwood area. Instead, the Leavenworth County Commission voted Wednesday to limit the first phase of development to four total homes, including one that is located there. The nonprofit would be allowed to add three more in a future phase, upon review from the county. Foster care advocates and the Kansas Department for Children and Families voiced support for the residential development. But the project faced opposition from neighbors.\n\nKentucky\n\nLudlow:Fire and police units are at the scene of a barge accident that set several boats adrift or sinking in the Ohio River. The barge hit the Ludlow Bromley Yacht Club on Wednesday morning hard enough to partially submerge the marina’s bar and grill. Steve Hensley, Kenton County’s Director of Homeland Security and Management, told news outlets six boats were knocked loose. Hensley said there was one person on the barge and one person on one of the boats, but neither was injured. Officials said the restaurant and patio of the yacht club were heavily damaged with some of it attached to the barge that struck it. Ludlow Police Chief Scott Smith said the Coast Guard is investigating and the barge operator was being questioned.\n\nLouisiana\n\nGonzales: The federal government has bought out an entire flood-prone neighborhood in Louisiana, prompting all its residents to move to higher ground. News outlets reported the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Emergency Watershed Protection Program financed the buyouts on along Silverleaf Street in Gonzales, which was carved out of a wetland in the 1980s and has frequently flooded since. Chief city engineer Jackie Baumann said the federal agency is buying the homes at preflood market value, and Restore Louisiana is offering to make up shortfalls in the purchasing price for some residents, as long as their next home isn’t in a flood zone. The 2017 offer required all 41 residents to agree to the deal, and the last resident agreed last month, enabling the government to restore the wetland.\n\nMaine\n\nLubec: American fishermen are expected to get a little more fishing quota under terms of an agreement with Canada. The countries are home to fisheries for economically important species that cross international boundaries, such as cod and haddock. They reach an agreement every year about how to divide catch on eastern Georges Bank, a crucial fishing area off New England and Canada. The New England Fishery Management Council said the U.S is scheduled to get 29% of the 1.4 million-pound total allowable catch of cod on eastern Georges Bank in 2020. It’s also set for 54% of the 66 million-pound total allowable catch of haddock in the area. The figures are subject to federal approval. They represent a 2.6 million-pound bump for haddock and about the same figure for cod compared to 2019.\n\nMaryland\n\nBaltimore: A 1,600-pound bull escaped from a truck into the streets of Baltimore for several hours. The Baltimore Sun reported that it took three tranquilizer shots and a crew of zoo officials to recapture the animal on Wednesday. The purebred Angus breeding bull broke out of a truck while it was stopped at a red light. A crowd gathered and watched as the animal was corralled. Baltimore Police spokeswoman Det. Nicole Monroe told the newspaper that the “owner of the bull said he doesn’t have the best disposition.” The bull was from Hedgeapple Farm in Buckeystown. Executive director Scott Barao said the animal was very expensive and thanked the police for not shooting it. He said the bull is “extremely valuable to us and we’re just glad to have him alive.”\n\nMassachusetts\n\nWorcester: State wildlife officials said a moose that was struck by two cars and had a broken leg has been euthanized. Marion Larson, a spokeswoman for the state Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, told The Boston Globe that Worcester police were called about a bull moose that was hit by a car Monday morning and Monday night. The moose was spotted in a pond Tuesday morning, and the state Environmental Police responded to the scene. Several boats were deployed so the moose did not approach Interstate 290, and to maneuver the animal into a suitable darting area. Larson said the 3 ½-year-old moose would not have survived its injuries. Another moose spotted in a Worcester cemetery Monday was tranquilized and freed at a state park.\n\nMichigan\n\nBattle Creek:A fourth Michigan resident has died from a rare mosquito-borne virus that has been recorded across the southern half of the state. WWMT-TV reported that 79-year-old Stan Zalner of Battle Creek died Wednesday after contracting eastern equine encephalitis. Ronna Bagent told the television station that her father was hospitalized in September with severe flu-like symptoms before doctors were able to confirm the illness through blood tests. Nine cases have been confirmed in six southern or southwestern Michigan counties. More than 30 animals – including 18 horses – in more than a dozen counties also have died from the disease. State health officials say low-flying aircraft were expected to spray pesticides Wednesday in Calhoun and 10 other counties. The pesticides kill adult mosquitoes on contact.\n\nMinnesota\n\nSt. Paul: A federal judge has rejected challenges by several environmental groups to a land swap needed for the planned PolyMet copper-nickel mine in northeastern Minnesota. U.S. District Judge Joan Ericksen dismissed the four lawsuits late Monday, ruling that the groups lacked the necessary legal standing to block the land exchange between PolyMet and the federal government. She said the groups couldn’t establish that they had been harmed. PolyMet traded 6,650 acres of federal land in the Superior National Forest at the mine site near Babbitt and Hoyt Lakes for a similar amount of private land last year. Several environmental groups sued to challenge various aspects of the deal, saying it undervalued the federal land and violated other laws, including the Endangered Species Act. PolyMet disputed those claims and persuaded the judge to dismiss the lawsuits. Ericksen dismissed the lawsuits without prejudice, meaning the groups could refile them at some later point. They could also appeal to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals\n\nMississippi\n\nHattiesburg:At least 22 soldiers training at Champ Shelby were injured during a night parachuting exercise. U.S. Army spokesman John Pennell told WDAM-TV that at least 15 people were treated by medics and another seven were hospitalized. Staff Sgt. John Healy said none of the injuries is considered to be life-threatening. Camp Shelby Cmdr. Col. Bobby Ginn said the troopers belong to the 4th Brigade of the 25th Infantry Division stationed at the Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska. Pennell said about 89 paratroopers were on the plane for the Wednesday night exercise. Ginn said the soldiers jumped from a C-130 aircraft and were blown off-course from their intended landing zone and into a group of pine trees. Several were entangled in the trees and had to be rescued. Healy says about 650 soldiers were involved in the exercise. About 3,000 troops from the Alaska base are at monthlong training at Camp Shelby called “Operation Arctic Anvil.”\n\nMissouri\n\nKansas City: A compromise has been reached after Kansas City-area defense attorneys complained that their underwire bras were setting off jail metal detectors, forcing them to remove their lingerie for screening if they wanted to meet with their clients face-to-face. KCUR reported that the solution reached last month allows attorneys who set off metal detectors at the Jackson County Jail to be wanded or patted down. Attorneys protested after the jail rolled out a new security protocol in May. Jail officials initially responded by offering to allow attorneys to have noncontact visits, in which they talked to their clients by phones separated by glass, without clearing metal detectors first. But attorneys continued to push for change. Attorney Tracy Spradlin said she is thankful the issue was resolved without a lawsuit.\n\nMontana\n\nMissoula: U.S. Senator Jon Tester of Montana has announced plans to build a larger veterans affairs clinic in Missoula. The Missoulian reported that Tester, Democrat, announced Tuesday a location was chosen for a new community-based outpatient clinic. Officials said the clinic will be three times larger than the current clinic, which serves more than 6,000 veterans. It will have expanded primary care, mental health and specialty services. Tester said the Veterans Appeals Improvement and Modernization Act that passed in 2017 set aside about $7 million in federal funding for the project. The clinic is expected to open in 2022. The current clinic will continue to serve patients until the new clinic opens.\n\nNebraska\n\nLincoln: A bobcat that wandered into a Lincoln building has been captured and released back into the wild. Staff at the Department of Veterans Affairs campus in south Lincoln called the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission on Tuesday to report the animal had been spotted inside one of its buildings. Commission staffers set a cage trap and baited it with raw fish. The estimated 20-pound bobcat bit on the bait and was caught. It was freed outside of town Wednesday. Bobcats are common in Nebraska and can be found at the edge of Lincoln, sometimes coming inside to hunt. Sam Wilson with the commission said bobcats are common but rarely seen.\n\nNevada\n\nReno: A firefighter suffered burns and a woman was hospitalized after she jumped from a second-floor window at a motel that was on fire just east of downtown Reno. Police closed part of East Fourth Street for about three hours Tuesday afternoon before firefighters knocked down the blaze at the Lucky Motel. Fire officials told KRNV-TV the blaze destroyed two units at the weekly motel. One firefighter was being treated for burns to his leg. The woman was transported to a local hospital after she jumped from the window onto a car. She also suffered smoke inhalation. There was no immediate information available on their conditions Wednesday. The cause of the fire remains under investigation. The Reno Fire Department chaplain and motel owner were working to relocate displaced residents to a nearby motel.\n\nNew Hampshire\n\nBedford: A young moose that got stuck in a swimming pool has been successfully coaxed out. New Hampshire Fish and Game Department biologists and conservation officers were called to a Bedford home Tuesday to help remove the young bull. He was in the water for several hours. Officers said he was unable to get himself out of the pool, so they put in a set of wooden steps. The department posted a video of the moose looking back and forth as the team held a rope and coaxed him out. He scampered away. Col. Kevin Jordan suggested it had to do with it being moose breeding season. He told television station WMUR that “the younger moose will wander long distances struggling to find a female.”\n\nNew Jersey\n\nForked River: The state has created an oversight panel to evaluate the process of dismantling the former Oyster Creek nuclear plant. Gov. Phil Murphy said it will ensure the “proper protocols” are in place throughout the process. Oyster Creek is being decommissioned after it was permanently shuttered in September 2018. Its spent fuel is also being put into safe storage. The panel’s formation was announced Wednesday. It plans to meet at least twice a year and will allow the public to share their concerns. Its members include the state’s Environmental Protection Commissioner, state police superintendent, homeland security director and the president of the Board of Public Utilities. Oyster Creek is located about 60 miles east of Philadelphia. It produced enough electricity each year to supply about 600,000 typical homes.\n\nNew Mexico\n\nAlbuquerque: Hundreds of hot air balloons will lift off from the New Mexico desert over nine days as part of one of the world’s largest festivals dedicated to the sport of ballooning. In its 48th year, the annual Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta is scheduled to kick off Saturday with a mass ascension. More than 580 balloons are registered, 17 countries are represented and tens of thousands of spectators from around the world are expected to turn out for the opening weekend. Albuquerque has played host to the fiesta since its inception in 1972. Troy Bradley, one of the ballooning world’s most prolific record-setters, said, “There’s just nothing like it in the world, to see that much color going into the sky.”\n\nNew York\n\nAlbany: Homeowners hurt by record flooding along Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River have until the end of this month to seek state funding. People living in Cayuga, Jefferson, Monroe, Niagara, Orleans, Oswego, St. Lawrence and Wayne counties can apply for up to $50,000 to offset damages sustained this year to their primary residences. The window for applications opened Tuesday. Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office said $20 million is available through the Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River Flood Relief and Recovery Program.\n\nNorth Carolina\n\nAsheville:State health officials said 116 people have been diagnosed with Legionnaire’s disease since an outbreak was reported in September. The Asheville Citizen Times reported the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services released the figures Wednesday, adding that there was one death. The department also said 65% of those diagnosed had to be hospitalized. DHHS expected the number of confirmed cases to continue to climb as diagnostic tests are processed. Health officials aren’t sure if the illness originated from last month’s Mountain State Fair. Legionnaires’ disease is bacterial pneumonia that develops when someone breathes in mist or water that contains the bacteria into their lungs.\n\nNorth Dakota\n\nBismarck: A pipeline spill has released produced water into a small creek and a stock pond in western North Dakota. The North Dakota Department of Environmental Quality was notified of the spill, which happened Tuesday in Dunn County. The pipeline is part of a gathering system operated by Marathon Oil. The spill happened about 1.5 miles northeast of Manning. Authorities don’t know what caused the leak. An estimated 21,000 gallons of produced water were released, impacting the creek and stock pond within pastureland. The creek discharges into the Knife River, but no impacts have been detected in the river. Produced water is a by-product of oil and gas development. State inspectors are checking the site and will continue to monitor the investigation and remediation.\n\nOhio\n\nOxford: An investigation into alleged hazing by a fraternity at Miami University has led to misdemeanor charges of hazing and assault against more than a dozen fraternity members. A student reported in March that members of the Delta Tau Delta chapter at the university in Oxford hazed him during initiation. The student said he was beaten with a spiked paddle, kicked and forced to drink lots of alcohol. The Hamilton-Middletown Journal-News reported Oxford police confirmed that a Butler County grand jury’s recent indictments of the 18 men stemmed from an investigation into hazing. Miami suspended the fraternity in August for 10 to 15 years after its investigation determined violations of the school’s Code of Student Conduct. Delta Tau Delta’s national headquarters revoked the chapter’s charter in June.\n\nOklahoma\n\nOklahoma City: Some of the 44 death row inmates housed at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester will soon be moved from the prison’s maximum-security H-Unit to another unit to give them more benefits and access to the outdoors, the state’s new prisons boss said. In a letter released by the agency on Thursday, the Department of Corrections’ Interim Executive Director Scott Crow told officials with the American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma that the agency plans to move “qualifying inmates” to its less restrictive A-Unit by the end of October. The ACLU had threatened legal action over what it said are potential constitutional violations of the rights of death row inmates, mostly by confining them to their cells for 23 hours per day. Crow said the agency also plans to begin “contact” visitation for some of the moved death row inmates, who are allowed only noncontact visits behind Plexiglas and over a telephone.\n\nOregon\n\nBend: The City Council has agreed to discuss whether to impose a ban on feeding deer and elk that wander city streets. KTVZ-TV reported councilmember Chris Piper, who with Bruce Abernethy proposed considering such a ban Wednesday, said the plans were brought to him and other councilmembers by neighborhood associations. Piper said dozens of collisions involving vehicles and deer were reported in the city last year. Piper said cities including Sunriver and Sisters have seen positive results from similar wildlife feeding regulations. There is a similar ban on feeding geese in Bend that can result in a $372 fine. Although that ban is isolated to Mirror Pond, the potential deer and elk feeding ban would be citywide.\n\nPennsylvania\n\nPittsburgh: Another alligator has turned up in Pittsburgh, the seventh this year. George DeSavage told WTAE-TV he and his girlfriend spotted it along the Allegheny River as the sun was setting on Tuesday. He said he grabbed it and it “went kind of limp and calm.” He said it seemed like it was handled by somebody. Police took it to Humane Animal Rescue, which named the gator Gus. The shelter shared photos on its Facebook page. The shelter believes the reptile was a pet. It’s not illegal to own an alligator in Pennsylvania.\n\nRhode Island\n\nProvidence: The state’s high school students scored significantly lower on the SAT than the national averages. The Providence Journal reported Thursday that the state’s Class of 2019 scored an average of 483 points on the English portion of the standardized college entrance exam; the national average was 531. On the math section of the test, Rhode Islanders scored an average of 474; the national average was 528. The numbers also showed a gap between white students and students of color, with white students scoring about 70 points higher in English and math. The Rhode Island Department of Education said SAT scores were flat statewide. State Education Commissioner Angélica Infante-Green called on district leaders to develop action plans to increase test participation and overall scores.\n\nSouth Carolina\n\nGreenwood: A man who set a fire at a Walmart to divert attention as he stole a case of beer has been sentenced to the maximum of 15 years in prison. Solicitor David Stumbo said 34-year-old Russell Geddings pleaded guilty Tuesday to third-degree arson – the same day his trial was set to start. Stumbo said Geddings set a clothes rack on fire at a Greenwood Walmart on Dec. 5 then stole the beer in the chaos. Stumbo said in a statement no one was injured, but $1.2 million worth of damage was done to the store and merchandise. Stumbo said Geddings deserved the maximum sentence for putting so many people at risk to steal beer. Geddings’ attorneys did not answer an email from a reporter seeking comment.\n\nSouth Dakota\n\nSioux Falls:A Delta commercial airplane made an emergency landing in Sioux Falls on Thursday morning for a passenger who had a medical emergency, officials said. The Delta flight, scheduled around 7:30 a.m. from Chicago to Seattle, was diverted when a 63-year-old male passenger started to experience emergency medical symptoms, said Dan Letellier, executive director for the Sioux Falls Regional Airport. The flight was over Pierre when its pilots diverted to Sioux Falls, he said. The airplane landed around 8:30 a.m. and the passenger was transported to a local hospital, Letellier said. The passenger was alert and conscious, but Letellier didn’t comment any further on the man’s condition. “Based on our location in the country, there are thousands of flights that go overhead each year,” Letellier said. “We get at least one or two medical diversions a month. It’s a matter of where we fit in the country.”\n\nTennessee\n\nCollierville:Dozens gathered Tuesday to welcome home fallen soldier Maj. Trevor Joseph. The 33-year-old died Sept. 26 in an aviation accident at Fort Polk, Louisiana. He is survived by his wife, Erin. “Trevor was the greatest individual who was truly just so humble,” family members said in a text. “He would be so embarrassed by all this heroic attention, but this is exactly what he deserves.” Funeral arrangements are pending. Joseph, a soldier from the Joint Readiness Training Center and Fort Polk’s 1st Battalion, 5th Aviation Regiment, was killed during a JRTC rotation in a UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter within the training area, according to a Facebook post from JRTC and Fort Polk. Three other 1st Battalion, 5th Aviation Regiment soldiers were injured. The cause of the accident is under investigation.\n\nTexas\n\nEl Paso:A truck driver from California was killed Wednesday when his semi crashed into an overpass support column on Interstate 10 in downtown El Paso. The fatal crash closed westbound lanes for several hours Wednesday morning. Harjot Singh Goraya, 32, of Riverside, California, was driving when he veered off the road and crashed into a support column shortly before 1 a.m. by the Mesa Street exit ramp. Traffic Police said that the road was wet from an earlier rainstorm but that the Special Traffic Investigations Unit has yet to determine how the driver lost control. The crash closed all westbound lanes early Wednesday. Drivers were urged to find alternative routes into downtown or West El Paso, including Paisano Drive, Montana Avenue and Trans Mountain Road. Traffic was directed off the highway at the downtown exit, police said.\n\nUtah\n\nSalt Lake City: The state Department of Health has confirmed the state’s first human death from West Nile virus this yer. Authorities said Saturday that a central Utah resident at least 65 years old died from the disease carried by mosquitoes sometime between Sept. 21 and Sept. 28. Information about the victim including name and gender have not been released. Utah health officials have confirmed 19 human cases West Nile virus this year. The total is higher than last year, when 11 residents contracted the virus and one person died. State health officials have said a wet spring this year created more standing water habitats for mosquitoes, attracting species that can transmit West Nile virus to Utah. Symptoms include headaches, joint pains and a high fever.\n\nVermont\n\nBennington: Residents of a town along the route of the Appalachian Trail have taken the first steps toward filing an application to become a designated Appalachian Trail Community. Local and county officials in Bennington met with state counterparts and community organizers recently to discuss plans to apply for the designation. Officials said the label as an Appalachian Trail Community will bring greater publicity and boost local business. The Appalachian Trail stretches about 2,200 miles, through 14 states and 40 communities. More than 100 miles of the trail runs through Vermont and a portion of it is just east of Bennington. The Bennington Banner reported that in addition to publicity, the move could bring stakeholders together to improve the trail system locally for hikers.\n\nVirginia\n\nRichmond: A popular nature center will soon be closing temporarily for a $2.3 million renovation. The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported Maymont’s Robins Nature & Visitor Center will close Nov. 1 and open in March. The center houses fish, turtles, otters and other animals found within the James River and Chesapeake Bay. It attracts roughly 45,000 people each year. The animals will have upgraded habitats with lighting and heating systems and will be more visible to guests when the center reopens.\n\nWashington\n\nSpokane: A late cold snap last winter has cut the production of Washington apricots in half. The Washington State Fruit Commission said the state usually produces 5,000 tons of apricots a year. But The Spokesman-Review reported that the yield this year is only about 2,500 tons. Washington produces about 20% of the nation’s apricots. The commission said frost in February, when apricot trees had bloomed, hurt production. Apricots produced in Washington are shipped across the country.\n\nWest Virginia\n\nCharleston: Federal officials said drought conditions in West Virginia are worsening as unusually high heat continues to beat down on the region. The U.S. Drought Monitor map released Thursday showed large swaths of southern West Virginia in a severe drought, a designation that includes the likely loss of crops and water shortages. The map also classified the entire northern part of the state as abnormally dry. Officials said nearly 50% of the state’s population is now in a drought. The National Weather Service marked last month as one of warmest and driest Septembers on record in multiple West Virginia cities. Less than 1 inch of rain was recorded in the month. Temperatures measured on Oct. 1 also surpassed record highs for the month in five cities.\n\nWisconsin\n\nMadison: U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said during a stop in Wisconsin that he doesn’t know if the family dairy farm can survive as the industry moves toward a factory farm model. Perdue told reporters Tuesday following an appearance at the World Dairy Expo that it’s getting harder for farmers to get by on milking smaller herds. Perdue’s visit comes as Wisconsin dairy farmers are wrestling with a host of problems, including declining milk prices, rising suicide rates, the transition to larger farms with hundreds or thousands of animals and international trade wars. Wisconsin, which touts itself as America’s Dairyland on its license plates, has lost 551 dairy farms in 2019 after losing 638 in 2018 and 465 in 2017, according to data from the state Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection. The Legislature’s finance committee voted unanimously last month to spend an additional $200,000 to help struggling farmers deal with depression and mental health problems.\n\nWyoming", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2019/10/04"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/50-states/2020/03/09/conch-contest-golf-tree-geena-davis-news-around-states/111409522/", "title": "Conch contest, golf tree: News from around our 50 states", "text": "From USA TODAY Network and wire reports\n\nAlabama\n\nMontgomery: The state Senate passed a bill Thursday that would ban gender therapies such as prescription hormones or gender confirmation surgery for minors. The legislation would make it a felony for medical providers to prescribe puberty-blockers or hormones to anyone under age 19 or to perform gender confirmation surgery on minors. The bill, sponsored by Trussville Republican Sen. Shay Shelnutt, passed 22-3, news outlets report. The legislation now moves to the state’s House of Representatives, where a similar bill was also approved by a health committee last month. Proponents have said it would stop “vulnerable children” from getting medical procedures and medications with uncertain long-term effects. LGBTQ activists and opponents of the bill have countered it is discriminatory and spreads misinformation. The American Academy of Pediatrics advised in 2018 that such treatments can be part of certain care models for children.\n\nAlaska\n\nKodiak: Shoppers will no longer see a blue-sticker label on Gulf of Alaska cod after its sustainability certification is suspended starting in April. The label designates which fish are sustainably caught. Alaska’s Energy Desk reports the Marine Stewardship Council, which sets standards for sustainable fishing, will suspend the label starting April 5. Gulf of Alaska cod have had the certification for about 10 years. The impacts of losing certification are unclear. An independent audit found there were not enough young cod entering the gulf fishery, which led to the suspension. But auditors blame a climate change-caused heatwave from 2013 to 2016 for reducing gulf cod by more than half and pushing them to near-overfished status last year.\n\nArizona\n\nFlagstaff: The U.S. Forest Service has given final approval to a project to replace and upgrade a ski lift at the Arizona Snowbowl. The Forest Service’s decision allowing replacement of the current chairlift is based on an environmental assessment published in October. Forest officials concluded that replacing the new lift would not significantly impact the land and environment, despite claims that it would affect Native American cultural values, the Arizona Daily Sun reports. Arizona Snowbowl is located on the Coconino National Forest on the west side of the San Francisco Peaks, near Flagstaff. Arizona Snowbowl said the current chairlift will be replaced with a high-speed combination version that includes enclosed eight-person gondola cars and open-air six-person chair seats. The new lift will be installed in time for the 2020-21 season, the ski area said.\n\nArkansas\n\nBentonville: A film festival co-founded by Academy Award-winning actress Geena Davis announced Friday that it’s moving to later in the year because of concerns about the new coronavirus. The Bentonville Film Festival, in northwest Arkansas, announced it will move this year’s festival, originally scheduled for April 29-May 2, to Aug. 5-8. The festival said it will honor passes and badges that have already been purchased for the festival. The official lineup will be announced by June, organizers said. “Our number one concern is the safety of our content creators and our community of attendees,” Davis, who is also the festival’s chairwoman, said in a statement. The Bentonville Film Festival began in 2015 and last year screened 162 films. Arkansas has not had any cases of coronavirus, which causes the illness called COVID-19.\n\nCalifornia\n\nLos Angeles: Los Angeles International Airport will experiment with a limited restoration of taxi pickups in the central terminal area beginning later this month. Taxi drivers have been pushing to resume pickups there since taxi and ride-hailing pickups were moved to a lot outside the terminal loop last fall to ease traffic amid major construction. Airport officials said one taxi pickup location will be established in a parking structure near the Tom Bradley International Terminal and adjacent Terminal 3. Another taxi stand will be put back into service for travelers passing through Terminals 7 and 8. Last October, the airport moved all taxi and ride-hailing pickups from curbside to a satellite lot, dubbed LAX-it. Airport officials said the move was necessary to reduce traffic for construction of an automated people-mover train and its stations, as well as redevelopment of every terminal. Passengers can walk there or take constantly circulating shuttles.\n\nColorado\n\nDenver: The owner-operator of a Denver-area oil refinery will pay $9 million to settle air quality violations dating to 2017, state officials announced Friday. The settlement with Calgary-based Suncor Energy is the biggest leveled by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment to resolve air pollution violations. The Colorado Sun reports the settlement was announced by John Putnam, the agency’s environmental director, at a news conference. Suncor’s Commerce City refinery produces about a third of gasoline used by motor vehicles in Colorado and most of the jet fuel used at Denver International Airport. It processes about 98,000 barrels of oil daily, most of that from drillers along Colorado’s Front Range. On Dec. 11, the refinery released an ashy substance that blanketed adjacent neighborhoods. Suncor called the clay-like material catalyst and said it wasn’t hazardous.\n\nConnecticut\n\nNew Britain: The state’s wine and spirits industry has joined forces with environmentalists to reduce litter, especially mini bottles of wine and spirits known as nips. The anti-litter partnership, known as Three Tiers for Connecticut, plans to launch the retail portion of its “Don’t Trash Connecticut - Nip it in the Bin!” campaign Tuesday. The campaign will focus on signage at retail locations, urging consumers to properly dispose of the bottles. A news conference is planned Tuesday at CT Beverage Mart in New Britain. The partnership has already held two community cleanup events in Norwalk and West Haven. More more cleanups and initiatives are scheduled for the coming year. Wine and spirits companies and organizations in Connecticut formed the partnership last year with the group Live Green CT, a statewide environmental organization that’s dedicated to eradicating land-based litter by 2025.\n\nDelaware\n\nWilmington: A federal judge has refused to dismiss a whistleblower lawsuit against the state’s largest hospital system. The lawsuit filed by former Christiana Care compliance officer Ronald Sherman and backed by the federal government alleges that the hospital system defrauded taxpayers by funneling Medicaid payments to independent doctors as kickbacks in exchange for patient referrals. The judge denied Christiana’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit after holding a hearing Friday. Christiana Care argued that Sherman had no standing to file the lawsuit because he had previously executed a release discharging all causes of action against the hospital system when he was terminated in 2014. Christiana also argued that Sherman, on behalf of Christiana Care, had disclosed the allegations contained in his complaint to the government through compliance disclosure logs submitted to the Department of Health and Human Services’ inspector general’s office.\n\nDistrict of Columbia\n\nWashington: A federal magistrate on Friday excoriated the government for refusing to turn over its investigative file in the death of a Virginia man shot by U.S. Park Police. The files are sought by the family of Bijan Ghaisar, who died in 2017 after he was shot by Park Police officers multiple times at the conclusion of a stop-and-go chase on the George Washington Parkway. Ghaisar’s family is suing the government and the officers who shot Ghaisar. At a hearing Friday, U.S. Magistrate Ivan Davis said the government had no right to withhold the file from the Ghaisar family’s lawyers. He ordered the government to turn over the entire file by next Friday. Government lawyers said they have been delayed in turning over the file because the material in the file is sensitive and voluminous. Judge Davis, though, was unsympathetic. “You’re required to produce, period,” Davis said. “You do not decide unilaterally for yourself” whether material should be turned over.\n\nFlorida\n\nKey West: A woman who plays the French Horn in the Royal Canadian Navy took top honors in Key West’s 58th annual Conch Shell Blowing Contest on Saturday. Alliszon Zaichkowski of Victoria, British Columbia, won the women’s title performing excerpts from several melodies including composer Igor Stravinsky’s “The Firebird” and Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.” She’s such a fan of the quirky “instrument” that she had a large conch shell tattooed on her arm. “I like to think of the conch shell as my travel horn because I can’t bring my French horn everywhere, and you also don’t want to be playing a French horn at the beach,” she said. “So I always just take my conch shell with me, and that’s my vacation instrument.” In the men’s division, Vinnie Marturano of Big Pine Key tooted his way to victory by playing a portion of Aram Khachaturian’s “Sabre Dance.” The fluted, pink-lined conch shell, an enduring symbol of the Florida Keys, has been used as a signaling device in the islands for centuries. Today, native-born residents are known as Conchs, and the Keys island chain is often called the Conch Republic.\n\nGeorgia\n\nAtlanta: Some students at a private school have been suspended indefinitely after a video surfaced showing them conducting an apparent mock lynching of another student with toilet paper in a school bathroom, officials said. Several boys at Cristo Rey Atlanta Jesuit High School were seen on video wrapping toilet paper around their heads and cutting holes for their eyes, news outlets report. Some were also seen wrapping what appears to be a toilet paper noose around another boy’s neck as he appears to pull up on a bathroom stall support beam as if being hanged. Officials at the college preparatory school acknowledged the incident Thursday. They said the act was reprehensible and wouldn’t be tolerated. They also said the students were suspended indefinitely while the school investigates. A school statement didn’t say how many youths were suspended, and the races of those involved weren’t immediately disclosed.\n\nHawaii\n\nHonolulu: A million trees could be planted in the state each year under a proposed program to increase the number of noninvasive trees. The Legislature is considering backing the tree-planting project started by University of Hawaii geography professor Camilo Mora to offset carbon emissions, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reports. The Carbon Neutrality Resources initiative is responsible for planting thousands of trees in Hawaii. The most recent project involved 2,000 volunteers planting 11,000 trees in December, Mora said, adding that he hopes to increase to 100,000 this year and plant a million in 2021. The bill would place the state Department of Land and Natural Resources in charge of a program to plant a million native trees statewide each year. It was approved by the Senate on Tuesday and passed its first reading in the House on Thursday.\n\nIdaho\n\nBoise: The FBI is investigating after hackers stole as much as half a million dollars of state payments that were intended to go to contractors. Idaho State Controller Brandon Woolf’s office revealed the theft in a statement late Friday afternoon, saying the hackers posed as state vendors and then changed the vendor’s banking information, diverting the payments into the hackers’ bank accounts. The fraud was first noticed by a controller’s office employee Feb. 26, according to the office. Few details were released about exactly how the thefts occurred, but officials said the hackers were able to change the banking information by “navigating state procedures.” “Regular payments made to those vendors by 20 state agencies were then diverted and stolen,” the release said. “The State has recovered some of the funds to date, however, the total amount of funds diverted is under $550,000.”\n\nIllinois\n\nChicago: Officials from the city and the NHP Foundation celebrated the opening of a renovated historic housing unit offering affordable single-room occupancy. Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Friday that restoration of the Mark Twain on Chicago’s Near North Side will help keep the city affordable. The city teamed up with the NHP Foundation, a nonprofit real estate organization dedicated to preserving and expanding affordable housing, in a $54 million rehabilitation of the building. It created 148 affordable apartment units with private bathrooms and added private kitchenettes. It has all new plumbing and electrical systems, a rooftop deck, a restored vintage facade and nearly 10,000 square feet of retail space on the ground floor. The Chicago Housing Authority will provide rental assistance to the Mark Twain’s occupants. Fifty residents who lived there before the renovation have returned; the rest of the units will be leased to people on the authority’s waiting list.\n\nIndiana\n\nWest Lafayette: The city will start supplying free feminine hygiene products in all city building restrooms, including men’s and gender-neutral restrooms. The decision came after Purdue University’s move to offer an assortment of menstrual care products for free in campus bathrooms. After the City Council approved a similar resolution, Mayor John Dennis said West Lafayette was ready to start stocking feminine products in all restrooms in city facilities, including the $31.5 million Wellness and Aquatic Center scheduled to open in early 2021. City Council members Shannon King and Kathy Parker sponsored the resolution. “The mayor gave us a thumbs up, and he really had our back,” King said. During a pilot project in restrooms at Purdue, the faculty-led University Senate found the building averaged $27 a month to restock menstrual care products used from seven dispensers.\n\nIowa\n\nDes Moines: The names of three nominees to fill a vacant state Supreme Court seat have been passed to Gov. Kim Reynolds, who now has 30 days to appoint one of them as the high court’s next justice. The Judicial Nominating Commission on Friday afternoon announced the finalists: Mary Chicchelly, District Court Judge in the Sixth Judicial District out of Cedar Rapids; Matt McDermott, an attorney at Belin McCormick, P.C. in Des Moines; and David May, an Iowa Court of Appeals Judge in Polk City. The commission, composed of eight individuals elected by Iowa lawyers and nine commissioners appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Senate, interviewed 15 applicants Friday to fill the seat that will be left empty upon former acting chief justice David Wiggins’ retirement in the coming weeks. The finalist will be Reynolds’s fourth appointment to the court since taking office in May 2017.\n\nKansas\n\nLawrence: A couple hundred million years ago, an ocean covering Kansas teemed with prehistoric life. Yet for millennia, Kansas has been a dry, sometimes even dusty place. The ocean is long gone, but traces of that long-ago aquatic life were captured for the ages in fossil form. Now, paleontologists from the University of Kansas have an app they hope will help motivate people to go out and find that evidence, reports the Kansas News Service. The Digital Atlas of Ancient Life app was created by a group of paleontologists and researchers led by KU ecology and evolutionary biology professor Bruce Lieberman. The app boasts an extensive database with detailed pictures of fossils common to Kansas. KU owns thousands of fossil specimens, especially trilobites, cephalopods and ancient clams. The app is one way to share all of that information to smartphones around the world. If it motivates people to go out and find some of their own, Lieberman said, all the better.\n\nKentucky\n\nFrankfort: The state House overwhelmingly passed its version of a new two-year budget Friday, but some lawmakers said the unwillingness to tap into more revenue sources would shortchange many of the state’s pressing funding needs. The GOP-crafted spending plan drew bipartisan support in clearing the House 86-10. The measure now goes to the Republican-dominated Senate, which will put its imprint on the budget. The differences will likely be ironed out by legislative leaders in a conference committee. The House version changed Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear’s proposed pay raise for teachers to spread it to other school employees. It boosted school-security funding to hire hundreds of counselors. The House plan also scaled back Beshear’s proposal to add more social workers but offered salary enhancements to hire and retain more of them working in child protective services. The only new revenue source to help support the House spending plan would come from new taxes on vaping and tobacco productions, which would raise nearly $50 million over two years.\n\nLouisiana\n\nLafayette: The opening of an urban park is being delayed because the nonprofit organization behind the project has obtained more money for additional features. Lafayette Central Park Inc. initially hoped to open Moncus Park this spring, but with an extra $5 million in money raised, the organization is planning to open later in the year. Features already completed include a dog park. Features being added this year are an amphitheater and a “family area,” which includes a tree house, splash pad and playground. The nonprofit has received some contributions earlier than expected. For example, plans for the amphitheater were put into motion when Iberia Bank advanced a pledge of $1 million to the park, which wasn’t expected for another three years. With the additional money, the nonprofit and its board had to consider whether to push back the park’s opening date; use sporadic openings of sections; or have construction underway while the park is open.\n\nMaine\n\nBar Harbor: A historical museum that is part of the state’s popular Acadia National Park will be closed to the public this season as it undergoes rehabilitation work. The Islesford Historical Museum has been in the midst of rehab since November 2019. The National Park Service said the work will “allow for the protection and longevity of a historic building and for the safe exhibition of historical objects.” The museum is on the National Register of Historic Places and opened in the summer of 1928. The rehab work will include replacement of the original slate roof. The park service said money for the $1.1 million rehab is coming from entrance passes purchased at Acadia National Park and the service’s repair and rehabilitation funds. The service said the museum is scheduled to reopen during the following season with an exhibit about the Cranberry Isles.\n\nMaryland\n\nAnnapolis: A comprehensive education measure that will cost billions of dollars over the next decade with the goal of making the state’s K-12 schools among the world’s best was approved by the House of Delegates on Friday night. The House voted 96-41 for the bill, which still needs Senate approval. The legislation, known as the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, is based on the recommendations of a state commission that worked for three years on the proposal. The plan focuses on five policy areas: expanding early childhood education like pre-K; increasing teacher salaries; college and career readiness; aid for struggling schools; and accountability in implementation. The proposal would be phased in over a 10-year period. It would cost an additional $4 billion in fiscal year 2030, with a majority of the cost paid by the state while local governments also contribute.\n\nMassachusetts\n\nWestborough: Fish and wildlife officials have started stocking the state’s ponds, lakes and rivers with more than 500,000 trout raised in five hatcheries. The Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife stocking program began last week with bodies of water on Cape Cod, as well as in southeastern Massachusetts and areas west of Boston. Some of the places stocked with rainbow trout include Spectacle Pond in Sandwich, Lake Cochituate in Natick and Houghton’s Pond in Milton. Other bodies of water will be stocked with brook, brown and tiger trout raised in hatcheries in Sandwich, Palmer, Belchertown, Sunderland and Montague. These fish, coupled with the more than 60,000 stocked last fall, will provide some excellent fishing in the coming months, the agency says. Most of the trout are longer than 12 inches, with more than 600 brown trout and 500 brook trout over 18 inches.\n\nMichigan\n\nDetroit: Five people who worked in a wildlife disease lab have been diagnosed with a latent form of tuberculosis, a spokesman said Friday. The Department of Natural Resources’ lab processes thousands of deer heads during the annual hunting season to check for chronic wasting disease and bovine TB. An illness caused by bacteria that attack the lungs, TB can be fatal, although a latent form shows no symptoms, doesn’t make people feel sick and is not contagious, according to federal health experts. It typically involves treatment to prevent full-blown TB. The DNR learned about the infections last year, including three people in June and two later in the summer, spokesman Ed Golder said. He said it was the department’s “working assumption” that the workers got TB from infected deer, “but we can’t say for sure.” The lab is located at Michigan State University.\n\nMinnesota\n\nSt. Paul: Overall graduation rates for the state’s high school students have hit a historic high. The state Department of Education released data Thursday that shows a graduation rate of 83.7% for the class of 2019. That’s up half a percentage point from the prior year and up nearly 1.5 points over the past five years. Minnesota Public Radio News reports black and Hispanic students made the biggest gains, with improvements of more than 3 percentage points for Hispanics and more than 2 points for black students. Racial and socioeconomic disparities persist, with graduation rates higher for white students than they are for students of color. The data shows the rate for Native American students fell slightly this year. The rate remains the lowest among Minnesota high school students at just over half.\n\nMississippi\n\nJackson: State legislators have killed bills that would either ban or regulate kratom, an herbal drug that can be used for pain relief. Kratom is currently unregulated in most parts of the United States but has been outlawed by a few local governments in Mississippi amid concerns that it can be harmful. Kratom is derived from a tree that’s native to Southeast Asia. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency says the leaves can be crushed and then smoked, put into capsules, or taken with water or other liquids. The DEA characterizes kratom as one of its “drugs of concern.” The agency says people have used it to relieve muscle strains and as a substitute for opium; the drug has also been used to manage withdrawal symptoms from opioids. Bills to either ban or regulate kratom died Tuesday when committees did not consider them before the first big deadline of the legislative session.\n\nMissouri\n\nClayton: More than 170 firearms seized or recovered by police during an eight-month period last year were purchased from a single St. Louis-area pawn shop, federal authorities said in announcing charges against three men connected to the shop. Carlos Jones, 31; Robert Thornton, 36; and Steven Johnson, 44, were charged Thursday with unlawful transfer of firearm to a convicted felon and making false statements on firearm records. All three men worked at Piazza Jewelry and Pawn in Overland, Missouri, a St. Louis suburb. The federal complaint said the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives traced 170 seized and recovered guns to sales at the pawn shop, with 102 of those guns recovered in the city of St. Louis. ATF Special Agent Chad Foreman wrote in an affidavit released Thursday that six of the confiscated guns were used in homicides, four in robberies and 20 in weapons offenses and were found in 36 cases in which a prohibited person was in possession of a firearm.\n\nMontana\n\nBillings: A landslide was blocking a BNSF Railway freight line in eastern Montana on Friday. The slide happened about 10 p.m. Wednesday about 10 miles west of Miles City, BNSF Railway spokeswoman Maia LaSalle said. Dirt covered about 800 feet of railway that runs along the Yellowstone River. Crews were still working Friday to clear the tracks, but the slide activity had not been stabilized, LaSalle said. Freight traffic was being rerouted around the blockage on Montana Rail Link tracks. The track that is blocked is part of a path that connects trains from North and South Dakota to southern routes through the Powder River region into Wyoming, The Billings Gazette reports. No trains were in the area at the time of the slide, and no injuries have been reported, BNSF said.\n\nNebraska\n\nOgallala: The state game and parks commission will vote March 20 on banning both alcohol possession and consumption at Lake McConaughy and neighboring Lake Ogallala in western Nebraska. The alcohol ban in the state-controlled areas is among several agreements the state worked out with local leaders to avert drastic cuts in access, The North Platte Telegraph reports. The commission had been considering access restrictions following complaints about overcrowding and rowdy behavior last Fourth of July. The proposed changes, which would have taken effect later this year, were meant to address the overcrowding on the lake’s beaches. But the commission delayed action in January after hundreds of people showed up for a hearing on the proposed rules. Most said they wanted more law enforcement and greater attention to checkpoints, not a crackdown to limit access.\n\nNevada\n\nReno: Social media comments about protecting bears that were posted by Lake Tahoe activists and referred to a longtime wildlife biologist as a murderer constitute “good faith communications” protected as free speech, the state Supreme Court says. The recent opinion doesn’t end a lawsuit filed in Washoe County District Court in Reno. But it settles a key legal question in the dispute between Carl Lackey, a Nevada Department of Wildlife biologist, and Carolyn Stark, who administers a Facebook page that posts criticism of the state’s bear control tactics. The lawsuit is the latest development in a years­long legal and public relations battle between the agency and a group of activists who oppose state methods for managing bears. In 2018, a judge issued a protective order to keep Stark away from another state biologist who says Stark stalked her in a dispute over the capture of nuisance bears.\n\nNew Hampshire\n\nConcord: Gov. Chris Sununu has written to congressional leaders asking for continued funding of the State Opioid Response Grant program, which helped New Hampshire create a new “hub and spoke” caregiver system. The state used its $45.8 million share of funding to set up its Doorway program of nine regional recovery centers. Sununu, in his letter Friday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, said the program served more than 7,300 people in 2019 and provided more than 3,200 clinical evaluations to identify needed services. Of that group, over 2,400 people had opioid-related needs, and more than 5,000 referrals were made to medication-assisted treatment, outpatient, residential and peer recovery services.\n\nNew Jersey\n\nMargate: Residents in a Jersey Shore town that hates its new sand dunes will get a chance to say whether they support building a boardwalk. Margate’s government decided late Thursday to authorize a nonbinding referendum during the November general election asking voters whether they support building a boardwalk in the wealthy town south of Atlantic City. The proposal arose from widespread unhappiness with a beach replenishment project completed in 2017. Mayor Michael Becker said Friday that the town is not committing itself to building one if the vote goes that way. Rather, he said, there needs to be a mechanism for the town’s voters to clearly express their preference, and the commission will then weigh the pros and cons before deciding. Margate had a boardwalk in the early 1900s; it was destroyed by a hurricane in 1944.\n\nNew Mexico\n\nMagdalena: The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is canceling group tours of its Very Large Array to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus. The observatory said Friday that the visitor center and gift shop will remain open, and self-guided walking tours will continue. But a semi-annual open house, guided tours and special tours for school groups will be put on hold between March 15 and May 31. The move is meant to protect visitors and the workers who keep the facility running, Tony Beasley, the observatory director, said in a news release. “Our first priority is the safety and health of our visitors and our staff, and these cancellations are being done to minimize the risk of exposure to this virus,” Beasley said. Astronomers use the Very Large Array to observe natural radiowaves from distant stars and planets.\n\nNew York\n\nNew York: Video showing New York City police officers arresting a young black man sparked outrage and elicited questions about the amount of force used to make the arrest in a city where mistrust of police remains high more than five years after Eric Garner’s death from an officer’s chokehold. Fitzroy Gayle, 20, pleads for help in the video, recorded by a woman who then tweeted it, as several officers wrestle him into submission Wednesday evening on a Brooklyn sidewalk. When Gayle asks a lone plainclothes officer why he was being stopped, the officer does not appear to answer before uniformed backup rushes in. Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said he was ordering an internal investigation. The man in the video had fled officers who approached him and another man as they were smoking marijuana in a park about 7 p.m., Shea said. The officers were responding to an automated alert to gunshots, Shea said. Both men were later apprehended, but there is no indication they were linked to the gunfire, he said.\n\nNorth Carolina\n\nRaleigh: The state’s residents are getting more site-specific information this year about the air that they breathe and whether it might make sense to keep inside. The state Division of Air Quality announced last week that daily air-quality forecasts will now be issued for 91 of the state’s 100 counties and two mountain ridge zones. In the past, forecasts have been regional. A website provides real-time air quality index measurements, while next-day and extended forecast products will be posted each afternoon and updated in the morning. Index readings correspond to a color-coded advisory system that describes when the air can be unhealthy for some or many. Last week started what’s considered the ozone season, or when concentrations of the gas can be highest in the air as days get warmer. The division says ozone concentrations have been declining due to emission reductions from power plants, cars and industry.\n\nNorth Dakota\n\nFargo: New rules for the state’s presidential caucuses are likely to drive up turnout and could shrink Bernie Sanders’ organizational advantage over Joe Biden when the state’s Democratic voters get their say this week in what has essentially become a two-man race. North Dakota is the smallest prize of the six states holding caucuses or primaries Tuesday, with only 14 pledged delegates at stake. As a result, it hasn’t gotten much attention from either candidate. What’s new for North Dakota voters in 2020 is that the system is more like a primary than a traditional caucus. People are free to vote and leave. Democrats can vote at 14 locations across the state, from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. CST and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. MST. Republicans will have seven polling places open from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. local time, where voters can express their support for President Donald Trump. And in a boon to rural voters, mail-in ballots will be accepted.\n\nOhio\n\nToledo: A tree that appeared overnight during the 1979 U.S. Open to become a part of golf lore has met its end. The Black Hills spruce known as “The Hinkle Tree” was partially uprooted by a gust of wind last week at Inverness Club in Toledo and was cut down. The tree dated to the 79th Open, when a journeyman pro named Lon Hinkle came up with a way to outsmart the course during the first round. Hinkle noticed he could take a shortcut by hitting through a gap of trees near the eighth tee and drive his ball on the adjacent 17th fairway, shaving 75 yards off the dogleg hole. It made for an easy birdie, but U.S. Golf Association officials were not amused. The USGA dispatched the course’s greens chairman to bring in a tree from a nursery and block the shortcut. Overnight, the Black Hill spruce, about 20 feet tall, appeared in the gap. But during the next round, Hinkle and his playing partner, Chi Chi Rodriguez, decided to hit their tee shots over the tree.\n\nOklahoma\n\nTulsa: A man who ran unsuccessfully for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in 2018 has been found guilty of assault and battery for shooting a process server trying to give him legal documents. Jurors on Thursday rejected Christopher Jonathan Barnett’s argument that he shot and wounded the man who came to his Tulsa home in July in self defense. On the stand, Barnett asserted the process server presented a threat to him, though he conceded the man never pointed a weapon at him. Jurors recommended Barnett be sentenced to 32 years in prison and fined $10,000. A judge will sentence Barnett in April. The Tulsa World reports video and audio evidence presented to the jury showed the process server just flashed legal documents at Barnett, who kept his front door closed while they spoke. Defense attorney Jason Lollman said he plans to appeal and believes the sentencing recommendation was too harsh.\n\nOregon\n\nSalem: The state has reached an agreement with private health insurance companies to waive co-payments, co-insurance and deductibles for Oregonians who undergo testing for COVID-19 at a facility that’s within their insurance network, Gov. Kate Brown announced. The agreement also will apply to a vaccine for the virus if one becomes available, she said in a statement Thursday. The state is pursuing the same agreement with self-insured health plans and also seeking clarification from the federal government about exceptions to cost-sharing for Medicare Advantage plans, as well as health savings account-eligible high-deductible health plans, she said. “No one should have to ask if getting a COVID-19 test is something they can afford. I hope this agreement sets a framework that other states can follow nationwide,” Brown said in the statement.\n\nPennsylvania\n\nEphrata: A small family-owned pharmacy chain is closing its five central Pennsylvania stores after a 141-year run. Royer Pharmacy in Lancaster County calls itself one of the oldest continuously operating independent pharmacies in the nation. It’s been operated by two families since a young pharmacist named George Royer bought the business in 1879. Company officials cited the age of the owners and decreasing insurance reimbursements that made it difficult to remain in business. “It’s been a great run,” Royer President Donald Sherman said in a news release. Royer said patient files will be transferred to CVS after the stores close by March 18, and employees would be considered for jobs at the nationwide chain. Royer had locations in Ephrata, Lancaster, Akron and Leola.\n\nRhode Island\n\nProvidence: The state’s highest court has refused to hear a strip club’s appeal of a punishment the city had levied against it over allegations of prostitution. The Rhode Island Supreme Court on Thursday rejected the Wild Zebra’s bid to have its adult entertainment license restored. The court did not explain why it would not consider the appeal. The Providence Board of Licenses heard testimony in January from two detectives who said that while undercover at the Wild Zebra Gentlemen’s Club in May dancers offered to have sex with them or perform sexual acts on them in exchange for money. The club denies the allegations of prostitution. An attorney for the club didn’t respond to a request for comment from The Providence Journal. The Providence board stripped the Wild Zebra of its liquor and adult entertainment licenses. A state regulatory department gave the club its liquor license back while it pursues its appeal, but it has remained closed.\n\nSouth Carolina\n\nColumbia: With spring just around the corner, emergency officials in the state say it’s time to begin preparing for severe weather. Gov. Henry McMaster declared this week South Carolina Severe Weather and Flood Safety week. Emergency officials will work all week with the National Weather Service to give safety and preparation tips for floods, tornadoes and severe storms that became more likely as the weather warms. On Wednesday, there will be a statewide tornado drill as schools and businesses across the state are asked to take shelter under their tornado safety plans and as forecasters test weather radios and other devices programmed to go off when a tornado warning is issued. Emergency officials are also pushing for flood safety. Flash floods after massive rains in October 2015 killed 19 people in South Carolina.\n\nSouth Dakota\n\nPierre: State wildlife officials have decided to scale back Gov. Kristi Noem’s program that pays bounties for predators that raid migratory birds’ nests. KELO-TV reports the South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks Commission voted 6-2 on Friday to extend the program for a second year. But the commission reduced the spending cap from $500,000 to $250,000. It also reduced the size of the bounty from $10 per tail from a raccoon, striped skunk, opossum, red fox or badger to $5 per tail. Bounties will now be paid regardless of whether the predator is shot or trapped; last year bounties applied only if a predator was trapped. The program starts April 1 and runs through July 1. Only South Dakota residents can participate. Chairman Gary Jensen and Mary Anne Boyd were the only two commissioners who voted against continuing the program. Jensen said science doesn’t support the program, and it’s designed to help trappers, whom he says are doing well anyway.\n\nTennessee\n\nMemphis: The Tennessee Valley Authority plans to move toxin-laden coal ash from a retired plant in the city to an off-site landfill, at the cost of roughly $300 million, the federal utility said Friday. TVA is considering six landfills in the South after it decided to move 3.5 million cubic yards of coal ash – the byproduct of burning coal for power – from the old Allen Fossil Plant in south Memphis, rather than keep the material in place. The TVA said it prefers taking the coal ash to an offsite landfill rather than moving it to a processing facility because construction and operation of the facility would delay economic development of the Allen site and lead to issues with air and noise emissions, safety risks and public disruption, the TVA said in an environmental impact report. Removal would cost about $300 million and take about seven to 10 years, TVA spokesman Scott Brooks said.\n\nTexas\n\nSanta Fe: A teenager accused of fatally shooting 10 people at a high school in 2018 was able to buy more than 100 rounds of ammunition online because his age was not verified, according to a lawsuit alleging the website involved broke federal law. Dimitrios Pagourtzis was a 17-year-old junior at the time of the May 2018 shooting at Santa Fe High School. Federal law prohibits minors from purchasing handgun ammunition and bars licensed gun companies from selling handgun or shotgun ammunition to minors or anyone they have reason to believe is under the age of 21. According to an amended lawsuit filed Thursday, Pagourtzis initially ordered 50 rounds of hollow-point handgun ammunition and 105 rounds of 12-gauge shotgun ammunition, the Houston Chronicle reports. Two weeks later, he purchased an additional 35 rounds of shotgun ammunition – both times from the website Luckygunner.com that did not require him to make an account, submit proof of age or set-up a secure two-step authorization, the filing said.\n\nUtah\n\nSalt Lake City: A slimmed-down version of a measure to require warning labels on pornography passed the state Senate on Friday. The proposal would now mandate a one-sentence warning label for online or print material deemed legally obscene, the Salt Lake Tribune reports. A relatively small slice of porn is considered obscene, but that hardcore material has fewer constitutional protections. The label would say that “exposing minors to obscene material may damage or negatively impact minors.” A website could also embed in its metadata the searchable text, “utahobscenitywarning.” The porn industry has objected to the plan, saying it could have constitutional problems and open the floodgates for lawsuits. If it does not appear on a print publication or is not displayed for 15 seconds online, producers could be fined $2,500 for each civil violation.\n\nVermont\n\nMontpelier: Three out of about a dozen Vermont towns passed resolutions on Town Meeting Day to become Second Amendment “sanctuary” towns, supporting gun rights and opposing more state and federal gun control laws, organizers said. About a half-dozen towns where the resolution was proposed did not take up the measure on Town Meeting Day on Tuesday because officials did not feel it was appropriate for the setting, said Eric Davis, president of Gun Rights Vermont. Lowell, Eden and Whittingham passed the resolution, he said. The town of Barton rejected the proposal. The voice vote Tuesday was close, Town Clerk Kristin Atwood told the Caledonian Record. Select boards in the towns of Holland and Pittsford adopted the resolution to become sanctuary towns earlier this year. The resolutions are not legally binding.\n\nVirginia\n\nHampton: Three black astronauts joined hundreds of other mourners Saturday at a memorial service for pioneering African American mathematician and NASA researcher Katherine Johnson. Johnson, who calculated rocket trajectories and Earth orbits for NASA’s early space missions and was later portrayed in the 2016 film “Hidden Figures,” about pioneering black female aerospace workers, died Feb. 24 at the age of 101. More than 700 people turned out for Saturday’s memorial service at the Hampton University Convocation Center. “I think about the journey that she’s going on now,” astronaut Leland Melvin said. “We can’t calculate the speed that she’s traveling to get to heaven.” Melvin was joined by fellow astronauts Yvonne Cagle and Mae Jemison, the first black woman in space. Johnson was remembered not just as a pioneering researcher but as a faithful church leader and family matriarch. “Grandma, because of you, our world will forever be unlimited,” grandson Michael Moore said. “And because of you, I have no bounds.”\n\nWashington\n\nOlympia: The state has become the 10th to prohibit homicide defendants from claiming a defense based on panic over a victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity. Gov. Jay Inslee signed the measure Thursday. It takes effect in June. Nine other states – California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Nevada, New Jersey New York and Rhode Island – have already banned the use of gay or transgender panic as a legal defense. The Washington state measure is named after Nikki Kuhnhausen, a transgender teen who was killed last year, The Columbian reports. It was approved with bipartisan support in the state House and the Senate, though some lawmakers questioned if the legislation was necessary since a panic defense has never been used in Washington.\n\nWest Virginia\n\nCharleston: Foster parents who adopt children with special needs may soon get more money under a wide-ranging proposal passed Friday by the state Senate to reduce the state’s overburdened foster system. Senators voted unanimously to approve the proposal. It now moves back to the House of Delegates for that chamber to approve the Senate’s amendments. The measure directs state officials to expand a tiered system that would give higher payments to people who take in children with emotional, behavioral or intellectual problems. It sets aside $16.9 million for the payment system. The tiered system would have to be up and running by July 2021. Child-placing agencies would also get $1,000 every time they finalize an adoption.\n\nWisconsin\n\nSpring Green: The school that architect Frank Lloyd Wright started nearly 90 years ago may stay open after all. The board of the School of Architecture at Taliesin announced in January that the school would close in June because the board and the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, the school’s biggest financial supporter, had failed to come up with a way to keep the school open. The foundation said then that the school lacked a sustainable business model. The Wisconsin State Journal reports the board voted Thursday to keep the school open in light of new funding. The decision to remain open is still subject to approval by the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. The foundation issued a statement Friday saying it has little information about the new funding sources. Board Chairman Dan Schweiker said new supporters have come forward.\n\nWyoming\n\nJackson: Jackson Hole’s largest elk herd is thriving and appears to have grown slightly over the past year after hunters had a historically tough time finding animals and filling tags. Wyoming Game and Fish Department harvest data for 2019 estimates that 794 hunters who targeted zones roamed by the Jackson Elk Herd found success and filled their freezer, according to the Jackson Hole News & Guide. “That’s about half of what it normally is,” Game and Fish wildlife biologist Aly Courtemanch said. “Usually, there’s more like 1,500 or 1,600 elk harvested, both bulls and cows.” The 30-year average harvest in the Jackson Herd is 2,098 elk, though the kill hasn’t surpassed 2,000 since the early 2000s – when the herd size started shrinking by design. Fall 2019 elk hunts were slow across the board.\n\nFrom USA TODAY Network and wire reports", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2020/03/09"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/09/04/tailgate-tips-great-tailgating-experience/2168055001/", "title": "Tailgate: Tips for a great tailgating experience", "text": "Cheryl V. Jackson\n\nSpecial for USA TODAY\n\nNo matter what a team’s performance is on the field, one way to make sure hordes of folks rolling up to stadiums feel like winners is a solid tailgating experience.\n\nAvid tailgaters like Tim Shanley have these parking-lot parties down to a science. His commitment to the pastime has earned him some serious recognition, including membership in the Tailgating Hall of Fame.\n\nBorn and raised in Chicago as a Bears fan, Shanley has missed only a handful of home games since 1984 — all the more impressive when you consider he moved to Austin, Texas, 11 years ago. He flies to Chicago for every home game and keeps his star tailgating status in peak form.\n\n“It’s more than just going out to the parking lot and firing up a grill for me,” says Shanley, 59, a plumbing contractor.. “It becomes a lifestyle when you take it as seriously as I do,” he says, adding that “It's family, it's friends and it's bonding.”\n\nTo help the rest of us reach his Pro Bowl level, Shanley offers these tips for a rocking tailgate.\n\nHave a theme\n\nKeep your team colors prominent on canopies, chairs, tablecloths and paper plates; and get opposing teams in the mix.\n\nIs your team playing the Ravens? Grill up chicken wings and call them raven wings.\n\nThink quick and convenient\n\nShanley strongly recommends finger foods for the party so that guests can stand, hold drinks and munch at the same time.\n\nAnd keep the food coming in waves, making sure eats are on the table as soon as possible. That’s particularly important for guests who’ve already started drinking.\n\nBe clean\n\nUse rubber gloves when preparing food, and change them after handling raw meats, he urges.\n\nTo avoid cross-contamination, cooked foods should be kept on tables separate from raw food. Foods and drinks need their own separate coolers, as well.\n\n“The last thing you want to have is your cans and your bottles in the cooler where the meat is, because if those bags start to leak, you're going to have that raw blood or whatever is in that cooler splashing around on those cans and those bottles,” he says.\n\nPlan for early set-up and break-down\n\nArrive at the lot before it opens for the best chance of claiming a prime spot. There’s typically only a few hours of tailgating time, from gate opening to kickoff, so unload and set up expeditiously.\n\nThe grill should be the last thing packed so that it’s the first thing out of the vehicle and available to be fired up upon arrival. Put it at the front of the party, because the grilling is part of the show.\n\nCanopies and chairs need to be further back to avoid the smoke.\n\nKeep the sounds coming, Shanley advises. Be it music, or sports TV or radio, have something for guests to listen to.\n\n“It just adds a little interesting layer to your party by having some entertainment out there,” he says. “And you never know. It might be so much fun, you'll have dancing out there as well.”\n\nAllow for plenty of time to break down the party and get to the game before kickoff.\n\nLeave the grill out of the car to cool off. Meanwhile, pack your drink cooler in the back so that it’s easily accessible for quick drinks after the game.\n\nDon't overserve\n\nKeep an eye out for guests who have consumed too much alcohol.\n\n“Tell them you're going to take the liquor away and give them water and let them chill out for a little bit,” Shanley says.\n\nOverall, the day should be about hospitality and having fun.\n\n“You're going to do a lot of work. It's a lot of hours,” he says. “But enjoy every moment of it. It's all going to come together for you.”\n\nFor more tips on hosting a great tailgate, check out the video.\n\nFollow Cheryl V. Jackson on Twitter: @cherylvjackson.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2019/09/04"}]}
+{"question_id": "20220617_28", "search_time": "2022/06/17/16:36", "search_result": [{"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/16/economy/bank-of-england-interest-rate/index.html", "title": "Bank of England hikes interest rates again as inflation heads ...", "text": "London (CNN Business) The United Kingdom's central bank has hiked interest rates for a fifth time since December in a bid to tame spiraling inflation.\n\nThe Bank of England said on Thursday that it would raise the cost of borrowing by 25 basis points to 1.25% despite fears that soaring prices are already squeezing households and weighing on economic growth\n\n\"Bank staff now expect GDP to fall by 0.3% in the second quarter as a whole, weaker than anticipated at the time of the May Report,\" the Bank of England said in a statement.\n\n\"Consumer confidence has fallen further, but other indicators of household spending appear to have held up. Some indicators of business sentiment have weakened, although they have so far remained more resilient than indicators of consumer confidence and consistent with positive underlying GDP growth,\" it added.\n\nThe central bank said three members of its Monetary Policy Committee wanted to raise rates by 50 basis points to 1.5% — which would have been the biggest increase in 27 years — but were outvoted by the other six.\n\nGovernor of the Bank of England Andrew Bailey.\n\nRead More", "authors": ["Anna Cooban", "Cnn Business"], "publish_date": "2022/06/16"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/19/economy/uk-inflation-prices/index.html", "title": "UK inflation surges to highest level in 30 years | CNN Business", "text": "London (CNN Business) UK consumer price inflation has surged to the highest level in three decades, heaping pressure on households already facing a huge increase in energy costs.\n\nInflation increased to 5.4% in December, the Office for National Statistics said on Wednesday, the highest rate since 1992. The biggest price rises were for transportation, food and beverages, furniture, housing and household goods.\n\nPrices are now rising much faster than pay, making it more difficult for households to make ends meet. Wages increased at an annual rate of just 3.8% in December.\n\nMuch more pain is on the way. British consumers face a sharp rise in costs in April, when a cap on energy prices will be raised and taxes are hiked. Households will pay £790 ($1,075) more to heat and light their homes this year, according to Bank of America.\n\n\"It's no secret that inflation is going to rise even further,\" Paul Dales, chief UK economist at Capital Economics said on Wednesday. He expects consumer price inflation to top 7% in April, and to stay above 4% for all of this year.\n\nRead More", "authors": ["Charles Riley", "Cnn Business"], "publish_date": "2022/01/19"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/23/investing/stocks-week-ahead/index.html", "title": "Inflation is soaring. Should the Fed unleash 'shock and awe'? - CNN", "text": "A version of this story first appeared in CNN Business' Before the Bell newsletter. Not a subscriber? You can sign up right here\n\nNew York (CNN Business) The Bank of England has already started to raise interest rates to fight inflation. The Federal Reserve is likely to follow soon. But how aggressive will America's central bank be?\n\nInvestors will be looking for clues when chair Jerome Powell holds a press conference after the Fed's meeting on Wednesday. Investors are not expecting the Fed to make a move this week. That's more likely to happen in March.\n\nHigher interest rates make it more expensive for most people and companies to borrow money. That, in turn, leads to a slowdown in consumer and business spending, which usually puts a lid on rising prices.\n\nMost on Wall Street think the Fed will want to take a slow and steady approach to combating higher consumer prices. Raising rates too sharply could hurt the economy and lead to further turmoil in a suddenly skittish stock market.", "authors": ["Paul R. La Monica", "Cnn Business"], "publish_date": "2022/01/23"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/13/economy/uk-inflation-march/index.html", "title": "UK inflation hits 30-year high of 7% | CNN Business", "text": "London British consumer price inflation leaped to its highest level in three decades last month, intensifying the pressure on embattled Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his finance minister Rishi Sunak to ease the cost-of-living squeeze.\n\nThe annual inflation rate climbed to 7.0% in March from 6.2% in February, its highest since March 1992 and by more than expected by most economists in a Reuters poll, official data showed on Wednesday.\n\nThe month-on-month rise was the highest for the time of year since the Office for National Statistics' records began in 1988. Broad-based price rises, ranging from vehicle fuel to food and furniture, were behind the increase.\n\nHouseholds are facing the biggest cost-of-living squeeze since records began in the 1950s, according to Britain's budget forecasters, and the inflation overshoot is further bad news for the government too.\n\nJohnson and Sunak were fined by police on Tuesday for attending a June 2020 birthday party for Johnson at his Downing Street office at a time of COVID-19 restrictions, leading to calls from political opponents for them to resign.\n\nRead More", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/04/13"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/26/economy/inflation-recession-economy-deutsche-bank/index.html", "title": "A major recession is coming, Deutsche Bank warns - CNN", "text": "World Bank president on handling 'biggest slowdown of the global economy in 80 years'\n\nStrategist: We're at peak pessimism (and why that's a good thing)\n\nRetirees becoming homeless at higher rate than other age groups amidst inflation\n\nHow this mom is using coupons to combat inflation\n\nFormer labor secretary on how Biden administration can combat inflation\n\nHere's what the US economy can expect if a recession hits\n\nHe predicted US inflation would rise. Hear what he thinks about a recession\n\nA For Sale sign is displayed in front of a house in Washington, DC, on March 14, 2022.\n\nWhat the interest rate hike means for you\n\nThe Fed anticipates more rate increases after announcing biggest hike in 28 years\n\nU.S. Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell takes questions after the Federal Reserve raised its target interest rate by three-quarters of a percentage point to stem a disruptive surge in inflation, during a news conference following a two-day meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) in Washington, U.S., June 15, 2022.\n\nThe logo of German giant Deutsche Bank is seen on their headquarters in Frankfurt am Main, western Germany, on February 4, 2021.\n\nNew York CNN Business —\n\nDeutsche Bank raised eyebrows earlier this month by becoming the first major bank to forecast a US recession, albeit a “mild” one.\n\nNow, it’s warning of a deeper downturn caused by the Federal Reserve’s quest to knock down stubbornly high inflation.\n\n“We will get a major recession,” Deutsche Bank economists wrote in a report to clients on Tuesday.\n\nThe problem, according to the bank, is that while inflation may be peaking, it will take a “long time” before it gets back down to the Fed’s goal of 2%. That suggests the central bank will raise interest rates so aggressively that it hurts the economy.\n\n“We regard it…as highly likely that the Fed will have to step on the brakes even more firmly, and a deep recession will be needed to bring inflation to heel,” Deutsche Bank economists wrote in its report with the ominous title, “Why the coming recession will be worse than expected.”\n\nBehind the curve\n\nConsumer prices spiked by 8.5% in March, the fastest pace in 40 years. The jobs market remains on fire, with Moody’s Analytics projecting that the unemployment rate will soon fall to the lowest level since the early 1950s.\n\nTo make its case, Deutsche Bank created an index that tracks the distance between inflation and unemployment over the past 60 years and the Fed’s stated goals for those metrics. That research, according to the bank, finds that the Fed today is “much further behind the curve” than it has been since the early 1980s, a period when extremely high inflation forced the central bank to raise interest rates to record highs, crushing the economy.\n\nHistory shows the Fed has “never been able to correct” even smaller overshoots of inflation and employment “without pushing the economy into a significant recession,” Deutsche Bank said.\n\nGiven that the job market has “over-tightened” by as much as two percentage points of unemployment, the bank said, “Something stronger than a mild recession will be needed to do the job.”\n\nThe good news is that Deutsche Bank sees the economy rebounding by mid-2024 as the Fed reverses course in its inflation fight.\n\nGoldman Sachs: Recession is not inevitable\n\nOf course, no one knows precisely how this will play out. Although Deutsche Bank is pessimistic – it’s the most bearish among major banks on Wall Street – others contend this gloom-and-doom is overdone.\n\nGoldman Sachs concedes it will be “very challenging” to bring down high inflation and wage growth, but stresses that a recession is “not inevitable.”\n\n“We do not need a recession but probably do need growth to slow to a somewhat below-potential pace, a path that raises recession risk,” Goldman Sachs economists wrote in a report Friday evening.\n\nUBS is similarly hopeful that the economic expansion will continue despite the Fed’s shift to inflation-fighting mode.\n\n“Inflation should ease from current levels, and we do not expect a recession from rising interest rates,” Mark Haefele, chief investment officer at UBS Global Wealth Management, wrote in a report on Monday.\n\nWar and Covid lockdowns pressure inflation\n\nDeutsche Bank said the most important factor behind its more negative view is the likelihood that inflation will remain “persistently elevated for longer than generally anticipated.”\n\nThe bank said several developments will contribute to higher-than-feared inflation, including: the reversal of globalization, climate change, further supply-chain disruptions caused by the war in Ukraine and Covid lockdowns in China and coming increases to inflation expectations that will support actual inflation.\n\n“The scourge of inflation has returned and is here to stay,” Deutsche Bank said.\n\nIf inflation does stay elevated, the Fed will be forced to consider more dramatic interest rate hikes. The Fed raised interest rates by a quarter-percentage point in March and Chairman Jerome Powell conceded last week that a half-point hike is “on the table” at next week’s meeting.\n\n“It is sorely tempting to take a go-slow approach hoping that the US economy can be landed softly on a sustainable path. This will not happen,” Deutsche Bank said. “Our view is that the only way to minimize the economic, financial and societal damage of prolonged inflation is to err on the side of doing too much.”", "authors": ["Matt Egan"], "publish_date": "2022/04/26"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2022/05/03/fed-rate-hike-interest-debt-mortgages/9621177002/", "title": "Fed rate hike 2022: How interest rates will affect mortgages, loans", "text": "The Fed raised its key short-term rate from near zero by a quarter percentage point in March.\n\nOn Wednesday, the central bank is set to push it up another half point, its largest bump in 22 years.\n\nThe move will drive rates higher on everything from credit cards to mortgages.\n\nJust six weeks ago, Americans were facing sharply higher borrowing costs as the Federal Reserve launched an aggressive campaign of interest rate hikes to curb soaring inflation.\n\nNow the Fed is putting those rate increases on steroids, and consumers will have to dig even deeper into their wallets to pay off loans.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2022/05/03"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/06/economy/recession-explained/index.html", "title": "What is a recession, and how scared should we be? - CNN", "text": "Wall Street is on edge. Central banks are hiking interest rates to try to rein in inflation. And geopolitical upheaval is exacerbating supply chain headaches that began in 2020.\n\n\"We will get a major recession,\" Deutsche Bank economists warned last month , staking out the more bearish position on Wall Street. Bank of America, in the still-grim-but-less-dire camp, said the mood in financial markets has been \"recessionary.\" Goldman Sachs is among the more optimistic of the big banks, but it's not exactly cheery: The tight labor market has \"raised the risk of recession meaningfully,\" it said recently.\n\nMeanwhile, the Bank of England warned Thursday of double-digit inflation and a possible recession as it raised its key interest rate by a quarter percentage point. China's economy, the world's second largest, is stalling, threatening to drag down global growth . And Russia's war in Ukraine is sending energy and food prices through the roof in the EU and beyond.\n\nIf history is any indication, the recent run-up in inflation suggests we're due for a contraction. With one exception, every US recession since World War II has been preceded by broadly soaring prices, according to the Congressional Research Service.\n\nSo, what exactly is a recession, and how much do you need to worry about it? Let's unpack it.\n\nWhat is a recession?\n\nFirst, the textbook definition: A recession is a prolonged period of economic decline, beginning when the economy peaks and ending when it bottoms out.\n\nRecessions are typically marked by an economy shrinking in back-to-back quarters, measured by gross domestic product (aka, how much are we collectively buying and producing as a society). But there are exceptions to that rule, including the brief and exceedingly steep recession the United States entered during the early months of the pandemic. And that technical designation doesn't mean much to anyone who's not an economist (or a politician — someone who is equally if not more interested in avoiding the \"R\" word than anyone on Wall Street).\n\nThe reality of a recession feels is broadly economically gloomy — think rising unemployment, a stock market in decline, and stagnating or shrinking wages. People often rein in spending as gloom sets in, giving recessions a psychological component that can be hard to shake.\n\nFor example: Technically, the Great Recession that began in 2007 lasted just 18 months, but the impact of the crisis weighed on consumers far longer.\n\nEconomists call this lingering effect, especially in the labor market, \"hysteresis.\" The 2020 recession itself was brief, but its mass layoffs and furloughs, along with a rapid shift to working from home, shattered previous assumptions about the value and meaning of work. Around the world, workers' dissatisfaction with their employers has stirred a movement to seek something better, a phenomenon known as the \"Great Resignation.\"\n\nWhat causes a recession?\n\nYou could spend a career in economics researching and debating this very question. But let's focus on the most pressing risk right now: The Federal Reserve's fight against inflation.\n\nOne of the quirks of the modern capitalist system we live in is that when the economy is going too strong, officials have to deliberately hurt it to keep it from going completely off the rails. That's precisely what the Federal Reserve is trying to do right now.\n\nOn Wednesday, the Fed raised its key interest rate a half-percentage point, its most aggressive rate hike in 22 years. Interest rates are the Fed's primary tool to control inflation, which is currently hovering at 8.5% — the highest it's been since the early 1980s.\n\nBut predicting economic expansions and recessions is notoriously difficult, and the Fed has been historically miserable at it. Late to the \"economy is too hot\" party, the Fed's job to tame it has become extremely delicate. The bank has to raise interest rates just enough to take the heat off surging prices. Overdo it, and demand could crater, resulting in a recession. Do too little, and prices may keep going up, which would also lead to a recession.\n\nThe ideal outcome is known as a \"soft landing,\" in which consumer prices come down and economic growth carries on at a steady clip.\n\nHow should you prepare?\n\nFirst, don't panic: Even if a recession is inevitable, there's no telling how severe it will be. But it never hurts to plan for the worst. Here are a few ways financial advisers say you can insulate your finances from a downturn.\n\nLock in a new job now: With ultra-low unemployment and plenty of openings, it's a job seeker's market. That could change quickly in a recession.\n\nCash in on the housing boom: If you've been on the fence about selling your home, now may be the time to list. Home prices in the United States are up nearly 20% year over year, but mortgage rates are also rising, which will eventually curb demand.\n\nSet some cash aside: It's always a good idea to have liquid assets — cash, money market funds, etc — to cover urgent needs or unexpected emergencies.\n\nFinally, some sage advice for any market: Don't let your emotions get the better of you. \"Stay invested, stay disciplined,\" says certified financial planner Mari Adam. \"History shows that what people -- or even experts -- think about the market is usually wrong. The best way to meet your long-term goals is just stay invested and stick to your allocation,\"\n\n— CNN Business' Matt Egan and Jeanne Sahadi contributed to this report.", "authors": ["Allison Morrow", "Cnn Business"], "publish_date": "2022/05/06"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/08/07/bank-of-england-rates/2626845/", "title": "Bank of England follows Fed cue over 'easy money'", "text": "AP\n\nCentral bank will keep record-low interest rate%2C bond-purchasing program for now\n\nBank of England joins the U.S. Federal Reserve and ECB in providing guidance on interest rates\n\n\n\nUnemployment is not expected to fall to 7%25 until 2016\n\nLONDON (AP) — Bank of England Governor Mark Carney said Wednesday the U.K.'s central bank will not consider increasing its record-low interest rate or scaling back its bond-purchasing program until unemployment falls below 7%.\n\nThe Bank of England joins the U.S. Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank in providing guidance on their interest rate policies.\n\nCarney, delivering his first quarterly inflation report since he became governor, issued \"forward guidance\" on interest rates — currently at 0.5% — to avoid \"unwarranted . . . expectations.\"\n\nThe 48-year-old former governor of the Bank of Canada stressed to reporters that if unemployment falls to 7% from the current 7.8% — which is not expected to happen until 2016 — it would not automatically trigger an increase in interest rates but would be a \"waystation\" to reassess bank policy.\n\nBy giving an indication that interest rates could stay low — possibly for several years — businesses and families will get a clearer picture of what it would cost to borrow and therefore would be encouraged to take out loans and mortgages, which in turn would help stimulate the economy.\n\nCarney also said the bank would not scale back its 375 billion pound bond-buying program while unemployment remains about 7%.\n\nThe BOE warned, however, that it would break the link between rates and unemployment if it fears inflation will climb sharply in the medium term.\n\nSaying that \"a renewed recovery is now under way\" but that the UK economy has not yet reached \"escape velocity,\" Carney also downgraded inflation forecasts by saying the bank does not expect inflation to rise above 3 percent this year.\n\nCarney took office July 1, becoming the first non-Briton to run the bank in its 319-year history.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2013/08/07"}, {"url": "https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/20/business/gas-prices-russia-ukraine-putin/index.html", "title": "Gas prices could soar if Russia invades Ukraine | CNN Business", "text": "New York (CNN Business) If Russia invades Ukraine, inflation-weary Americans will likely pay even higher prices at the pump .\n\nThat's because Russia is the No. 2 oil producer on the planet , behind only the United States. And Ukraine is a key energy transit hub, where a large amount of Russian natural gas exports to Europe flow through.\n\nAn invasion of Ukraine would trigger immediate fears of sanctions from Washington on Russia's vast energy resources, damage to the region's energy infrastructure and raise the specter of Vladimir Putin weaponizing exports of natural gas and crude oil.\n\nInvestors would buy first and ask questions later.\n\n\"There is a very good chance we would reach $100. That's going to be inflationary with an exclamation point,\" said Robert Yawger, director of energy futures at Mizuho Securities. \"We don't need that at all. We can't afford that at all.\"\n\nA conflict between Russia and Ukraine would boost gas prices, the head of the International Energy Agency said on Thursday.\n\n\"Such a huge geopolitical event would [have] major implications on the gas prices, if not leading to turmoil,\" IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol told CNNI's Julia Chatterley on First Move.\n\n'All bets are off'\n\nIt's impossible to say how high prices would go — and how long they would stay high. But $100 oil would surely lift prices at the pump. And that means a Russia-Ukraine conflict has the potential to impact most Americans.\n\nGasoline prices, which move with a lag to oil, have already started to creep higher in recent days. The national average hit $3.32 a gallon on Wednesday, up from the recent low of $3.28, according to AAA.\n\n\"If there is a war with Russia, then all bets are off,\" said Claudio Galimberti, senior vice president of analysis at Rystad Energy.\n\nOil prices are up sharply this week and analysts say concerns about a Russia-Ukraine conflict have contributed to those gains.\n\n\"The market has been really slow to appreciate the risks of an invasion,\" said Helima Croft, head of global commodity strategy at RBC Capital Markets. \"Putin is not really a bluffer. He's known for backing words with action.\"\n\nThe White House is talking to energy companies and countries\n\nAll of this underscores the difficult situation the White House finds itself in, economically, politically and of course from a national security standpoint.\n\nInflation is already a major political and economic problem for President Joe Biden. The recent rebound in gasoline prices threatens to further aggravate inflation. And $100 oil in a Russia-Ukraine conflict would make it even worse.\n\n\"Whatever we decide is the right course for our collective interest and security,\" a spokesperson for the National Security Council told CNN in a statement, \"we are prepared to deliver severe costs to the Russian economy including its financial system and sectors deemed critical to the Kremlin and President Putin's ambitions -- while minimizing unwanted spillover.\"\n\nThat last part -- mitigating the impact -- could be tricky.\n\nA senior administration official told CNN that officials are taking contingency planning very seriously \"to make sure we are prepared to mitigate any impact and assess potential spillovers.\" That contingency planning, the official said, includes conversations with energy companies and countries.\n\nThe administration official added that the White House has been \"very clear\" about how it would respond to an invasion and \"that should already start being priced into the markets.\"\n\nNatural gas prices could spike\n\nEuropeans would pay the biggest price in a conflict. That's because Europe relies on Russia for natural gas. Heating costs in Europe skyrocketed last fall as natural gas futures spiked.\n\nThe impact to American consumers is less direct.\n\nRussia ships relatively modest amounts of oil to the United States, totaling just 200,000 barrels per day as of October. That represents just 3% of total US oil imports of 6 million barrels.\n\nHowever, crude is a globally traded commodity and prices at the pump are based off world oil prices. An oil shock anywhere is felt everywhere.\n\nNot just that, but a spike in natural gas prices overseas would have significant ripple effects.\n\nThat's because very high natural gas prices would force some power plants and factories in Europe and Asia to switch away from gas to oil. In other words, demand would go higher for oil.\n\n'Weaponize energy'\n\nAt the same time, supply would be in doubt.\n\nFirst, a military conflict would threaten energy infrastructure in the region.\n\nBut even if pipelines and refineries are spared, Russia could decide to slash its supply of natural gas -- or even crude oil.\n\n\"Russia can weaponize energy exports -- to make everyone feel the pain,\" said Croft, the RBC strategist. \"A lot of people believe Russia will respond by withholding supply, to make us pay the price.\"\n\nAnd then there's the risk that the White House responds to an invasion by slapping sanctions on Russian oil and natural gas.\n\nPresident Biden warned Wednesday of imposing \"severe costs and significant harm\" on the Russian economy if Putin invades Ukraine.\n\n\"It's going to be heavy, it's going to be real and it's going to be consequential,\" Biden said.\n\nBiden noted that Russia relies on its oil-and-gas exports for its economy. However, he stopped short of threatening to impose energy sanctions.\n\nCroft, a former CIA analyst, suggested the reluctance of US officials to threaten energy sanctions on Russia is telegraphing a vulnerability to Putin.\n\n\"If you carve out energy, you are signaling you're concerned about energy,\" she said.\n\nAny conflict could work against Russia's future as a dominant gas supplier.\n\n\"When you make long-term contracts, you have to trust your partner that under any conditions you will get this gas,\" noted IEA's Birol.\n\nSanctions could make inflation worse\n\nLeveling sanctions would be a difficult decision for Biden.\n\nOn the one hand, energy is vital to Russia's economy, making it an obvious target for sanctions and a way to make Putin face real consequences.\n\nCrude oil and natural gas made up about 43%, on average, of the Russian government's annual revenue between 2011 and 2020, according to the US Energy Information Administration . Oil and gas revenue spiked by 60% during the first nine months of last year, making them the biggest growth driver for government revenue, according to the World Bank.\n\n\"Russia is a one-pony town. Energy is the only thing they have. It's the glaring weakness in their economy,\" said Mizuho's Yawger.\n\nAnd yet seizing on that weakness by limiting the supply of Russia's natural gas and oil would drive prices higher at a time when they are already elevated.\n\n\"This war situation would be bad enough. But if you start putting sanctions on energy, it just super-sizes the whole inflation story and takes it to the next level,\" said Yawger. \"You would be committing economic, and political, suicide by doing that.\"\n\nWill OPEC and Big Oil come to the rescue?\n\nCroft, the RBC analyst, said the Biden administration would likely respond to a price spike by releasing more barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, likely in a coordinated fashion with other nations. That could help cushion the blow.\n\nBiden could also try to convince Saudi Arabia-led OPEC to open the spigots, arguing that very high prices aren't good for producers if they destroy demand.\n\nAnalysts say US oil companies, which have up until recently been reluctant to significantly increase production, would respond to $100-plus oil by cranking output.\n\nBut that wouldn't translate to more gasoline overnight. And in the meantime, prices at the pump would remain high.\n\n-- CNN's Chris Liakos contributed to this report", "authors": ["Matt Egan", "Cnn Business"], "publish_date": "2022/01/20"}, {"url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2017/11/02/uk-central-bank-raises-rates/824520001/", "title": "UK central bank raises interest rates for first time in a decade", "text": "Pan Pylas\n\nAssociated Press\n\nLONDON – The Bank of England has raised interest rates for the first time in a decade to contain an increase in inflation stoked by the Brexit vote in what is otherwise a moment of high uncertainty for the economy.\n\nIn a statement Thursday, the bank said it had increased its benchmark rate, which affects the cost of loans and savings rates in the wider economy, to 0.50% from the record low of 0.25%.\n\nThe hike, which had been widely anticipated in the markets, is the first since July 2007, when world credit markets started to freeze up in what would prove to be the prelude to the global financial crisis.\n\nHowever, the impact on households and companies will likely be modest, as many home-owners are on fixed-rate loans and the cost of borrowing remains very low by historical standards.\n\nMinutes of the meeting showed that seven members of the nine-strong Monetary Policy Committee judged it “appropriate to tighten modestly the stance of monetary policy” to return inflation “sustainably to target.” Despite the increase, they argued that “monetary policy continues to provide significant support to jobs and activity in the current exceptional circumstances” and that future increases should be gradual and “limited.”\n\nRate-setters were faced with a dilemma. Though inflation is a full percentage point above the target of 2% and unemployment stands at its lowest level since the mid-1970s, the British economy has come off the boil. It is the slowest among its peers in the Group of Seven industrialized democracies and businesses and households are becoming more cautious amid uncertainty over Britain’s future relations with the other 27 EU nations.\n\nThough Britain is officially due to leave the EU in March 2019, there is mounting pressure on the government to provide businesses with some clarity on the future following Brexit day. Many financial firms, for example, have threatened to start implementing contingency plans to set up operations in Europe or move staff and activities in the early months of next year if there is no progress in the Brexit talks.\n\nThe committee agreed there were “considerable risks” to the outlook related to Brexit and said “resolution” of that uncertainty “would prompt a reassessment.”\n\nFor now, the committee opted to look past those concerns by taking back the rate cut they pushed through in the aftermath of the Brexit vote to support the economy through the uncertainty and market turmoil of the time.\n\nAbove-target inflation lay at the heart of their vote. According to the bank’s quarterly projections, also published Thursday, annual inflation is set to rise to 3.2 percent in October. Anything more than a percentage point above target will require Bank of England Governor Mark Carney to write an explanatory letter to Treasury chief Philip Hammond.\n\nThose new forecasts see inflation falling toward the target, to 2.1 percent, over three years if the key interest rate rises, as expected by investors, to 1 percent. Without any further hike, the bank forecast that inflation would be around half a percentage point higher.\n\nInflation has been boosted in the past year by the pound’s 15 percent fall since the Brexit vote in June last year, which raised the cost of imported goods like food and energy. That impact is a one-off and is likely to fade in coming months.\n\nBut some at the central bank believe that a strong labor marker in Britain could help keep inflation higher, with wages are predicted to pick up to around 3%.\n\nFor two of the rate-setters, Jon Cunliffe and Dave Ramsden, there was insufficient evidence that domestic factors like wage increases would be as strong as anticipated, and that’s why they voted to keep rates on hold.\n\nThough the rate rise may not amount to much, it has symbolic value.\n\n“For a whole generation of U.K. households now entering adulthood, it’s a small but important reminder that interest rates can move in an upward direction, even if only slowly,” said Lucy O’Carroll, chief economist at Aberdeen Standard Investments.\n\nLenders are set to tweak their flexible mortgage rates to take account for the increase in the base rate. However, with more and more people taking out longer-term fixed-rate mortgages, the impact on household spending is not expected to be substantial.\n\nWhile the rate hike may stretch some household budgets, it will be welcome to savers, who have seen returns sharply diminished in the era of super-low interest rates. Nationwide Building Society, one of the country’s biggest financial institutions, said it will pass on the full quarter-point rise to savers.", "authors": [], "publish_date": "2017/11/02"}]}