Wilder KOs Helenius In First Round In Comeback Fight
Wilder KOs Helenius In First Round In Comeback Fight https://digitalalabamanews.com/wilder-kos-helenius-in-first-round-in-comeback-fight/
Sports
Published: Oct. 16, 2022, 12:28 a.m.
Deontay Wilder knocks out Robert Helenius in the first round of their heavyweight boxing match at Barclays Center on Saturday. The victory was Wilder’s first in nearly three years. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)Getty Images
Former heavyweight boxing champion Deontay Wilder made short work of Robert Helenius on Saturday night, knocking him out at the end of the first round at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
Wilder, the Tuscaloosa native, won for the first time since Nov. 23, 2019, when he KO’d Luis Ortiz in the seventh round in Las Vegas. The 36-year-old former WBC title-holder was knocked out by Tyson Fury in both 2020 and 2021 in the second and third fights of their high-profile trilogy.
On Saturday, Helenius backed Wilder into a corner in the final 15 seconds of the opening round. However, Wilder floored the 38-year-old Finnish heavyweight with a powerful right hand, and Helenius was counted out at 2:57 of the first round.
“When you fight Deontay Wilder, you have to have your A-plus-plus game,” Wilder said.
Here’s video of the knockout punch:
Wilder improves to 43-2-1 with 42 knockouts. In addition to the two losses, he also fought Fury to a draw in December 2018.
Helenius falls to 31-4. He had a nearly 40-pound weight advantage on Wilder, but could not match the former champion’s power.
“I set him up,” Wilder said. “I allowed him to reach and when he reached, I attacked. It was a great fight.”
It’s not immediately clear who Wilder might fight next. Among the possibilities are Ukrainian champion Oleksandr Usyk — who holds the IBF, WBO and IBO belts — or former title-holders Anthony Joshua and Andy Ruiz Jr.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Bringing The South Huntsville Community Together With The 4th Annual 'Bluegrass And BBQ Festival'
Bringing The South Huntsville Community Together With The 4th Annual 'Bluegrass And BBQ Festival' https://digitalalabamanews.com/bringing-the-south-huntsville-community-together-with-the-4th-annual-bluegrass-and-bbq-festival/
South Huntsville Main and Commissioner Phil Riddick hope to bring the community together through events like this one and share what ‘Southside Park’ has to offer.
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — Bluegrass tunes and barbecue brought the community of South Huntsville together this afternoon, which is something South Huntsville Main and Commissioner Phil Riddick of Madison County District 5 were hoping for.
“It takes a lot of effort to get this many people to show up for something on a football Saturday,” Commissioner Riddick said.
He says events like this one are meant to bring the community together, all while enjoying what Southside Park has to offer.
“We built this park a few years ago, and a lot of people don’t know that it’s even here. So a festival like this draws people down here and helps them know one of our good assets that we have in South Huntsville.”
This park hosted the bluegrass tunes and the food, something South Huntsville resident…Zane Drost is excited about, “it’s great to see an event like this come to South Huntsville, because we really don’t have a venue like this down here. But to come out today and just listen to some great bluegrass music, grab some barbecue, there’s food trucks out.”
And this festival brought some attendees from Eva, Alabama, like Mike Mclemore, “I have never been to this park before. I’m not even from Huntsville, so we decided to come out today and listen to bluegrass music in a very comfortable setting and bring some of our grandchildren here to enjoy the music.”
Commissioner Riddick shares they’ll continue to do events like this one, and encourages everyone to come visit Southside Park.
“This is a great venue. You’ve got the mountain in the backdrop and these trees and we’ve got an archery range, a dog park. We’ve got disc golf down here and picnic areas. And, you know, we’ve put a lot into building this park and we want people to know that it’s here.”
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Arrest Made In Stockton Serial Killer Case https://digitalalabamanews.com/arrest-made-in-stockton-serial-killer-case/
A man suspected of killing six men and wounding a woman in a series of shootings in Northern California was arrested before dawn Saturday as he drove through the streets of Stockton, armed with a handgun and possibly searching for another victim, police said.
Investigators began watching the suspect after receiving tips and stopped him in a car at about 2 a.m. in the Central Valley city, where five of the shootings took place, Police Chief Stanley McFadden said at a news conference.
Wesley Brownlee, 43, of Stockton, was dressed in black, had a mask around his neck, had a gun and “was out hunting,” McFadden alleged.
“We are sure we stopped another killing,” he added.
Wesley Brownlee
Police had been searching for a man clad in black who was caught on video at several of the crime scenes in Stockton, where five men were ambushed and shot to death between July 8 and Sept. 27. Four were walking, and one was in a parked car.
Police believe the same person was responsible for killing a man 70 miles away in Oakland in April 2021 and wounding a homeless woman in Stockton a week later.
Investigators have said ballistics tests and video evidence linked the crimes.
At the news conference, a moment of silence was held for the victims.
Juan Vasquez Serrano, 39, was killed in Oakland on April 10, 2021, and Natasha LaTour, 46, was shot in Stockton on April 16 of that year but survived. The five men killed in Stockton this year were Paul Yaw, 35, who died July 8; Salvador Debudey Jr., 43, who died Aug. 11; Jonathan Hernandez Rodriguez, 21, who died Aug. 30; Juan Cruz, 52, who died Sept. 21; and Lawrence Lopez Sr., 54, who died Sept. 27.
Police said Brownlee has a criminal history and is believed to have also lived in several cities near Stockton, but they did not give further details.
Authorities said they received hundreds of tips after announcing the manhunt, and investigators located and watched the place where Brownlee was living.
“Based on tips coming into the department and Stockton Crime Stoppers, we were able to zero in on a possible suspect,” McFadden said. “Our surveillance team followed this person while he was driving. We watched his patterns and determined early this morning, he was on a mission to kill.”
Stockton City leaders say while investigation is still active, they have been in touch with victim’s families and believe they will have a “successful prosecution” of the suspect for the victims and their families
— Alyssa Goard (@AlyssaMGoard) October 15, 2022
McFadden added that Brownlee was detained after engaging in what appeared to be threatening behavior, including going to parks and dark places, stopping and looking around before driving on.
Investigators were trying to identify a motive for the attacks. Police said some victims were homeless, but not all. None were beaten or robbed, and the woman who survived said her attacker didn’t say anything.
The police chief thanked various local, state and federal agencies that took part in the investigation, including the FBI, U.S. Marshals and U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
Local investigators had also worked with police in Chicago to determine whether the killings might be linked to two 2018 murders in that city’s Rogers Park neighborhood. Authorities said videos of suspects showed a man in black with a distinctive walk.
However, Chicago police said Friday that there didn’t appear to be any link.
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Xi Jinping's Expected Coronation Begins As China's Communist Party Congress Gets Underway | CNN
Xi Jinping's Expected Coronation Begins As China's Communist Party Congress Gets Underway | CNN https://digitalalabamanews.com/xi-jinpings-expected-coronation-begins-as-chinas-communist-party-congress-gets-underway-cnn/
How Xi Jinping transformed from privileged child to fierce supporter of the Communist Party
04:25 – Source: CNN
Hong Kong CNN —
The expected coronation for China’s supreme leader Xi Jinping has officially begun, as the ruling Communist Party convenes a week-long meeting to extoll his first decade in power – and to usher in a likely new era of strongman rule.
Amid heightened security, escalated zero-Covid restrictions and a frenzy of propaganda and censorship, the party kicks off its most consequential national congress in decades in Beijing on Sunday morning.
At the 20th Party Congress, Xi, who came to power in 2012, is poised to secure a third term as the party’s general secretary, breaking with recent precedent and paving the way for potential lifelong rule.
The expected anointment will cement the 69-year-old’s status as China’s most powerful leader since late Chairman Mao Zedong, who ruled China until his death aged 82. It will also have a profound impact on the world, as Xi doubles down on an assertive foreign policy to boost China’s international clout and rewrite the US-led global order.
At the heart of the Chinese capital, nearly 2,300 handpicked party delegates from around the country have gathered in the Great Hall of the People for the highly choreographed event.
Sitting in neat rows with face masks on, they await Xi to deliver a lengthy work report that will take stock of the party’s achievements over the past five years and lay out in broad strokes its policy priorities for the next five.
Observers will be closely watching for signs of the party’s policy direction when it comes to its uncompromising zero-Covid policy, handling of steep economic challenges, and stated goal of “reunifying” with Taiwan – a self-governing democracy Beijing claims as its own despite never having controlled.
The meetings will be mostly held behind close doors throughout the week. When delegates reemerge at the end of the congress next Saturday, they will conduct a ceremonial vote to rubber stamp Xi’s work report and approve changes made to the party constitution – which might bestow Xi with new titles to further strengthen his power.
The delegates will also select the party’s new Central Committee, which will hold its first meeting the next day to appoint the party’s top leadership – the Politburo and its Standing Committee, following decisions already hashed out behind the scenes by party leaders before the congress.
The congress will be a major moment of political triumph for Xi, but it also comes during a period of potential crisis. Xi’s insistence on an uncompromising zero-Covid policy has fueled mounting public frustration and crippled economic growth. Meanwhile, diplomatically, his “no-limits” friendship with Russian President Vladimir Putin has further strained Beijing’s ties with the West following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
In the lead-up to the congress, officials across China drastically ramped up restrictions to prevent even minor Covid outbreaks, imposing sweeping lockdowns and increasingly frequent mass Covid tests over a handful of cases. Yet infections caused by the highly transmissible Omicron variant have continued to flare. On Saturday, China reported nearly 1,200 infections, including 14 in Beijing.
Public anger toward zero-Covid came to the fore Thursday in an exceptionally rare protest against Xi in Beijing. Online photos showed two banners were unfurled on a busy overpass denouncing Xi and his policies, before being taken down by police.
“Say no to Covid test, yes to food. No to lockdown, yes to freedom. No to lies, yes to dignity. No to cultural revolution, yes to reform. No to great leader, yes to vote. Don’t be a slave, be a citizen,” one banner reads.
“Go on strike, remove dictator and national traitor Xi Jinping,” read the other.
The Chinese public have paid little attention to the party’s congresses in the past – they have no say in the country’s leadership reshuffle, or the making of major policies. But this year, many have pinned their hopes on the congress to be a turning point for China to relax its Covid policy.
A series of recent articles in the party’s mouthpiece, however, suggest that could be wishful thinking. The People’s Daily hailed zero-Covid as the “best choice” for the country, insisting it is “sustainable and must be followed.”
On Saturday, on the eve of the congress, party spokesman Sun Yeli told a news conference China’s Covid measures have ensured the country’s extremely low rate of infections and deaths, and enabled “sustained and stable operations of the economy and society.”
“With everything considered, China’s epidemic prevention measures are the most economical and effective,” Sun said.
“Our prevention and control strategies and measures will become more scientific, more accurate, and more effective,” he said. “We firmly believe that the dawn is ahead, and persistence is victory.”
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MLB Playoffs: Astros Phillies Advance Guardians Closing In
MLB Playoffs: Astros, Phillies Advance, Guardians Closing In https://digitalalabamanews.com/mlb-playoffs-astros-phillies-advance-guardians-closing-in/
1 of 41
New York Yankees’ Aaron Judge follows through on a solo home run, his 62nd of the season, as Texas Rangers catcher Sam Huff, left, and umpire Randy Rosenberg, rear, look on in the first inning of the second baseball game of a doubleheader in Arlington, Texas, Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2022. With the home run, Judge set the AL record for home runs in a season, passing Roger Maris.
Houston Astros starting pitcher Justin Verlander (35) throws to a Baltimore Orioles batter during the fifth inning of a baseball game Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022, in Baltimore.
New York Mets designated hitter Pete Alonso (20) is congratulated by New York Mets Eduardo Escobar (10) after hitting a home run in the fourth inning of a baseball game against the Oakland Athletics in Oakland, Calif., on Sunday, Sept. 25, 2022.
Los Angeles Dodgers’ Mookie Betts hits a walk-off single to win a baseball game 3-2 against the Arizona Diamondbacks in Los Angeles, Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022. Freddie Freeman scored.
Seattle Mariners, including Julio Rodriguez, second from left in front, celebrate in the clubhouse after defeating the Toronto Blue Jays in Game 2 of a baseball AL wild-card playoff series Saturday, Oct. 8, 2022, in Toronto.
Philadelphia Phillies’ Kyle Schwarber watches his RBI sacrifice fly against the St. Louis Cardinals during the fifth inning in Game 2 of an NL wild-card baseball playoff series Saturday, Oct. 8, 2022, in St. Louis.
Cleveland Guardians catcher Austin Hedges, left, talks with manager Terry Francona, right, during a pitching change in the tenth inning of a wild card baseball playoff game against the Tampa Bay Rays, Saturday, Oct. 8, 2022, in Cleveland.
Philadelphia Phillies right fielder Nick Castellanos (8) scores against Atlanta Braves catcher Travis d’Arnaud (16) during the third inning in Game 1 of a National League Division Series baseball game, Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2022, in Atlanta.
Houston Astros designated hitter Yordan Alvarez (44) celebrates with teammates after his three-run, walkoff home run against the Seattle Mariners during the ninth inning in Game 1 of an American League Division Series baseball game in Houston,Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2022.
Los Angeles Dodgers relief pitcher Chris Martin reacts after San Diego Padres’ Ha-Seong Kim flied out to end Game 1 of a baseball NL Division Series Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2022, in Los Angeles.
San Diego Padres’ Ha-Seong Kim reacts as he flies out to end Game 1 of a baseball NL Division Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2022, in Los Angeles.
Houston Astros designated hitter Yordan Alvarez (44) celebrates with teammates after his three-run, walkoff home run against the Seattle Mariners during the ninth inning in Game 1 of an American League Division Series baseball game in Houston,Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2022.
Houston Astros pitcher Framber Valdez signs autographs before Game 1 of an American League Division Series baseball game against the Seattle Mariners in Houston, Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2022. Valdez and teammate Luis Garcia got hair extensions this season and will show off their unique locks this postseason as Houston tries to reach the World Series for the fourth time in six years.
Cleveland Guardians’ Shane Bieber pitches in the eighth inning of a wild card baseball playoff game against the Tampa Bay Rays, Friday, Oct. 7, 2022, in Cleveland.
New York Yankees pitcher Nestor Cortes throws during the first inning of the team’s baseball game against the Baltimore Orioles on Saturday, Oct. 1, 2022, in New York.
San Diego Padres’ Jake Cronenworth celebrates after hitting a solo home run against the Los Angeles Dodgers during the eighth inning in Game 2 of a baseball NL Division Series, Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2022, in Los Angeles.
A goose takes flight over the infield during the eighth inning in Game 2 of a baseball NL Division Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the San Diego Padres, Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2022, in Los Angeles.
New York Yankees’ Aaron Judge prepares to take batting practice before Game 1 of an American League Division series baseball game against the Cleveland Guardians, Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2022, in New York.
New York Yankees center fielder Aaron Judge (99) runs onto the field during player introductions before Game 1 of an American League Division baseball series against the Cleveland Guardians, Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2022, in New York.
New York Yankees starting pitcher Nestor Cortes speaks during a news conference ahead of Game 2 of an American League Division series baseball game against the Cleveland Guardians Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2022, in New York.
Houston Astros pitcher Framber Valdez signs autographs before Game 1 of an American League Division Series baseball game against the Seattle Mariners in Houston, Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2022. Valdez and teammate Luis Garcia got hair extensions this season and will show off their unique locks this postseason as Houston tries to reach the World Series for the fourth time in six years.
Houston Astros pitcher Framber Valdez signs autographs before Game 1 of an American League Division Series baseball game against the Seattle Mariners in Houston, Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2022. Valdez and teammate Luis Garcia got hair extensions this season and will show off their unique locks this postseason as Houston tries to reach the World Series for the fourth time in six years.
A goose takes flight past Los Angeles Dodgers’ Cody Bellinger, left, during the eighth inning in Game 2 of the baseball team’s NL Division Series against the San Diego Padres, Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2022, in Los Angeles.
A goose takes flight over the infield during the eighth inning in Game 2 of a baseball NL Division Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the San Diego Padres, Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2022, in Los Angeles.
San Diego Padres’ Jake Cronenworth connects for a solo home run against the Los Angeles Dodgers during the eighth inning in Game 2 of a baseball NL Division Series, Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2022, in Los Angeles.
San Diego Padres’ Jake Cronenworth watches his solo home run during the eighth inning in Game 2 of the baseball team’s NL Division Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers, Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2022, in Los Angeles.
Cleveland Guardians manager Terry Francona, right, watches his players workout ahead of Game 2 of an American League Division series baseball game against the New York Yankees Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2022, in New York.
San Diego Padres third baseman Manny Machado, center, leaves the batting cage during a baseball workout Thursday, Oct. 13, 2022, in San Diego. The Padres host the Los Angeles Dodgers for Game 3 of an NL Division Series on Friday.
FILE – Philadelphia Phillies’ Ryan Howard reacts after falling down injured on his way to first base as he makes the last out during the ninth inning of Game 5 of the National League division baseball series against the St. Louis Cardinals, in Philadelphia, Oct. 7, 2011. For 11 years, Howard’s groundout in the season’s final at-bat served as a flashpoint for a franchise that briefly ruled the NL East, only to fall into a chasm of bad baseball and meaningless Septembers. The Philadelphia Phillies are set to play their first home playoff game since 2011.
Houston Astros designated hitter Yordan Alvarez, center, celebrates with teammates after he hit a two-run home run against the Seattle Mariners during the sixth inning in Game 2 of an American League Division Series baseball game in Houston, Thursday, Oct. 13, 2022.
Cleveland Guardians players workout ahead of Game 2 of an American League Division series baseball game against the New York Yankees Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2022, in New York.
Fans reach for Houston Astros Yordan Alvarez’s two-run home run against the Seattle Mariners during the sixth inning in Game 2 of an American League Division Series baseball game in Houston, Thursday, Oct. 13, 2022.
Seattle Mariners first baseman Carlos Santana doubles against the Houston Astros during the sixth inning in Game 2 of an American League Division Series baseball game in Houston, Thursday, Oct. 13, 2022.
Atlanta Braves second baseman Vaughn Grissom (18) celebrates a win after the ninth inning in Game 2 of baseball’s National League Division Series between the Atlanta Braves and the Philadelphia Phillies, Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2022, in Atlanta. The Atlanta Braves won 3-0.
San Diego Padres third baseman Manny Machado watches during the baseball team’s workout Thursday, Oct. 13, 2022, in San Diego. The Padres host the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 3 of an NL Division Series on Friday.
A logo for the baseball playoffs is on the field Friday, Oct. 14, 2022, the day before Game 3 of an AL Division Series between the Houston Astros and the Seattle Mariners in Seattle.
New York Yankees center fielder Aaron Judge reacts after striking out against the Cleveland Guardians during the seventh inning of Game 2 of an American League Division baseball series, Friday, Oct. 14, 2022, in New York.
Houston Astros manager Dusty Baker Jr., center, celebrates with pitcher Hector Neris, left, and pitcher Cristian Javier, right, after defeating the Seattle Mariners in Game 3 of an American League Division Series baseball game Saturday, Oct. 15, 2022, in Seattle.
Seattle Mariners fans react after the Houston Astros scored during the 18th inning in Game 3 of an American League Division Series baseball game Saturday, Oct. 15, 2022, in Seattle.
Philadelphia Phillies first baseman Rhys Hoskins is doused after a win over the Atlanta Braves in Game 4 of baseball’s National League Division Series, Saturday, Oct. 15, 2022, in Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Phillies won, 8-3.
Cleveland Guardians’ Oscar Gonzalez, right, and Josh Naylor, left, celebrate with Amed Rosario, center, after the Guardians defeated the New York Yankees 6-5 in Game 3 of a baseball AL Divisi...
Jacksonville State Wins Historic Game Over UNA At Toyota Field
Jacksonville State Wins Historic Game Over UNA At Toyota Field https://digitalalabamanews.com/jacksonville-state-wins-historic-game-over-una-at-toyota-field/
One direction.
Not just a once-popular boy band, but the unique configuration at Toyota Field, home of the minor league Rocket City Trash Pandas, for the milestone 50th football meeting between Jacksonville State and the University of North Alabama.
Jax State (6-1) held off its longtime rival 47-31 before an announced crowd of 10,124 in the first football game played in the multi-use facility and home of the the Double-A affiliate of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.
Due to safety protocols, all offensive plays were run toward the west end zone (first base dugout), which had the required 10 yards available beyond the back of the end zone.
The east end zone (leftfield wall) was regulation depth and defensive touchdowns, safeties and punt returns could occur in that direction. After every change of possession, the ball was repositioned.
It was, according to participants, organizers and fans, a truly unique experience.
“I really thought it was a neat environment,” said Jacksonville State head coach Rich Rodriguez. “I was a little leery going into it because I’ve never played on a baseball field, but it worked out fine.
“In some ways it made the game go faster. It was easier to watch. When you practice you always go in the same direction. If we had lost, I probably would have complained about it.”
The game took 3 hours and 13 minutes to play.
Joel Lamp with the Huntsville/Madison County Convention & Visitors Bureau said game organizers were pleased with how the matchup was received by fans from both programs.
“It’s a great opportunity for us to introduce Madison and the Trash Panda way to a lot of different people,” Lamp said. “Everybody was having a great time and that’s all that we could ask for.
“It’s different playing in one direction. We did a great job of preparing everybody for what was coming. I think everyone felt really confident with the plan and it’s paid off.”
This was the first NCAA Division I game to feature “one-directional” football since Northwestern and Illinois played at Wrigley Field in 2010 and game organizers believe it was the first in history involving two FCS programs.
There were a few missteps, likely due to lack of familiarity with NCAA in-game procedures. On more than one occasion, music played over the public address system as the offense attempted to run plays. But that issue was resolved quickly.
“We’ve been talking with the Trash Pandas this week about ‘hey, what’s next?’,” Lamp said. “We’ll get through this, take a look at what worked, what didn’t, take that and then figure out what we can do next.”
The fans were also felt the unique aspect of the matchup was positive.
“This has been a great venue for a football game, and I hope these are the types of matchups that we will see here for years to come,” said Fairhope resident and UNA supporter Jake O’Neil, who attended the game with several family members. “The atmosphere was outstanding, the fans were loud. The whole thing was great and I enjoyed it a lot.”
Both programs have previously played football in stadiums built for baseball.
Jax State and Kennesaw State played a memorable five-overtime affair at SunTrust (now Truist) Park, the home of the Atlanta Braves, in 2018.
UNA previously faced Alabama A&M in 1985 at Joe Davis Stadium, former home of the Double-A Huntsville Stars, and the Gamecocks also played AAMU there in the mid-’80s.
Jacksonville State Athletics Director Greg Seitz saw nothing but positives from the first college football game ever played in Madison. UNA (1-5) was the host institution Saturday night.
“The field was fantastic from a playing standpoint. Everyone’s had a great experience – fans, coaches and all involved. Overall, if I was on the other side, I would call it a success.”
Anwar Lewis rushed for 165 yards and two touchdowns and Zion Webb threw for one touchdown and ran for another as JSU defeated the Lions for the sixth consecutive time.
JSU finished with 511 total yards while the Lions recorded 448 yards.
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Late Rally Lifts Auburn Baseball Past Louisiana Tech Auburn University Athletics
Late Rally Lifts Auburn Baseball Past Louisiana Tech – Auburn University Athletics https://digitalalabamanews.com/late-rally-lifts-auburn-baseball-past-louisiana-tech-auburn-university-athletics/
AUBURN, Ala. – Trailing by six in the 10th inning, Auburn tied the game with six runs in the home half of the frame and used a go-ahead homer in the 11th to complete the comeback and defeat Louisiana Tech 12-11 Saturday at Plainsman Park.
After doubling in two runs to start the comeback in the six-run 10th, Brody Wortham hit a solo homer with one out in the 11th that proved to be the difference. Chris Stanfield tied the game with a two-out single in the 10th before Wortham’s game-winner.
To make way for the comeback, Auburn’s bullpen quartet of Tanner Bauman, John Armstrong, Tommy Vail and Chase Isbell did not allow a baserunner in the last five innings.
Bauman pitched two scoreless while the other three each turned in clean frames. Vail struck out the side in the 11th and earned the win. Isbell recorded the final three outs, including a strikeout, to record the save.
Cam Hill got Auburn’s scoring started with a sacrifice fly in the second and Ike Irish hit a solo homer in the third. The team then scored three runs on a wild pitch and fielder’s choice in the eighth before exploding in the late innings.
Brody Wortham: 2-for-2, 2 R, 2B, HR, 3 RBI
Ike Irish: 2-for-4, 2 R, HR, RBI
Cooper McMurray: 2-for-3, R, BB
Cole Foster: 2-for-4, RBI
Gavin Miller: 2-for-3, R, 2B, BB, RBI
Tanner Bauman: 2.0 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K
John Armstrong: 1.0 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K
Tommy Vail: W, 1.0 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 K
Chase Isbell: S, 1.0 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K
The Tigers will host archrival Alabama in its second and final fall exhibition game Friday, October 28 at 6:30 p.m. CT at Plainsman Park.
Players Mentioned
#7 Cole Foster
IF
6′ 1″
190 lbs
Sophomore
#16 Cam Hill
IF/LHP
6′ 5″
214 lbs
Sophomore
#41 John Armstrong
RHP
5′ 11″
200 lbs
Freshman
#43 Chase Isbell
RHP
6′ 2″
198 lbs
Junior
Players Mentioned
#7 Cole Foster
6′ 1″
190 lbs
Sophomore
IF
#16 Cam Hill
6′ 5″
214 lbs
Sophomore
IF/LHP
#41 John Armstrong
5′ 11″
200 lbs
Freshman
RHP
#43 Chase Isbell
6′ 2″
198 lbs
Junior
RHP
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How Kristi Noem Rode Political Winds To Washington Pierre And Perhaps Back To D.C.
How Kristi Noem Rode Political Winds To Washington, Pierre And Perhaps Back To D.C. https://digitalalabamanews.com/how-kristi-noem-rode-political-winds-to-washington-pierre-and-perhaps-back-to-d-c/
Stu Whitney | South Dakota News Watch
On the night of Sept. 21 in Washington D.C., Kristi Noem’s face appeared on a video screen at an event hosted by the Media Research Center, a far-right watchdog group that aims to “expose and neutralize the propaganda arm of the left: the national news media.” The organization was celebrating its 35th anniversary with a black-tie gala at the National Building Museum and promised to “honor those who have stood up to the left-wing mob.”
South Dakota’s governor was a featured speaker.
Noem, who had planned to attend in person, said her travel was curtailed by back surgery at the Mayo Clinic earlier in September for an acute condition of her lumbar spine. She submitted a videotaped message that echoed the media-bashing mantra popularized by her political ally, former president Donald Trump.
“What we did during the [COVID-19] pandemic worked, even though the liberal media tried to prove otherwise,” Noem told the audience. “So now they have their sights on me in all kinds of ways. They’re attacking my family, they’re attacking every decision that I make, and they’re trying to tear South Dakota down. But that isn’t going to happen. Not on my watch.”
It’s hard to imagine recent South Dakota governors Dennis Daugaard, Mike Rounds, or even the irascible Bill Janklow uttering those words on a national stage – or having the opportunity to do so. But Noem has found the national spotlight, building a brand of right-wing populism unrecognizable in many respects from her career before Trump became president and the pandemic made polarization and personal attacks common in American discourse.
Noem’s supporters laud her laissez-faire approach to pandemic response and cite her national profile as positive for selling South Dakota as a land of opportunity rather than a flyover state. Business applications increased by 6.4% in August, the highest rate in the nation, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce, and the unemployment rate stands at 2.3%. South Dakota ranked second in the amount of state-to-state migration that was inbound (69%) rather than outbound in 2021, according to Atlas Van Lines.
Among other concerns, critics accuse Noem, who is up for re-election Nov. 8, of being hypocritical. She talks of less government while South Dakota reaps the benefits of millions in federal COVID and infrastructure funds, re-branded as state-level stewardship. She touts her “no lockdown” pandemic record despite closing schools in the spring of 2020 and proposing laws seeking more authority for state and county health officials to shutter businesses that violated CDC guidelines. And she lavishes praise on Trump despite saying in 2015 that some of his stances were “un-American” and that he was “not my candidate.”
So what does Noem really stand for? It might depend on whom, and when, you ask.
“She’s like a political chameleon,” said Lance Russell, a former state legislator from Hot Springs who also served as executive director of the South Dakota Republican Party. “I don’t think she’s ever really shed her establishment mentality, but she’ll shift her views or positions if she sees that someone or an idea is popular. She can very easily transition.”
Noem didn’t agree to an interview request for this story, deferring questions to spokesperson Ian Fury. South Dakota News Watch reached out to political scientists, lawmakers and campaign experts to assess the steps and strategy of the governor’s journey from farm-raised Hamlin County candidate – a former Snow Queen with agricultural business acumen and a compelling personal story – to one of the most polarizing figures in South Dakota political history.
One thing is clear: Noem’s pursuit of Republican Party relevance and extreme positions on hot-button issues such as abortion and gun rights make it nearly impossible for state residents not to have strong opinions of her, whether cheering her for a flag-waving horseback ride or chuckling at her in a Saturday Night Live lampoon in the opening sketch of its Oct. 1 season premiere.
“There’s this thing called confirmation bias that says we look for information that fits our previously held beliefs, and we often reject others’ information, or don’t even see it, in the current media environment,” said Michael Card, an emeritus professor of political science at the University of South Dakota. “That beats the heck out of dealing with the vicissitudes of, how do we make sense of all this? It’s a lot easier just to say she’s all good, or she needs to go.”
Though the 50-year-old Noem remains non-committal about aspirations to run for president in 2024 or to make the national ticket as a vice presidential nominee, her national travel and fundraising activities – she had $7.8 million in her state campaign committee as of the last reporting date – point to someone putting themselves in position to make that leap. In addition to visiting early Republican primary states such as Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, Noem has held a fundraiser at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, spoken in Dallas at the National Rifle Association convention (days after a deadly mass shooting at a Texas elementary school in May of 2022) and recently appeared in Arizona with GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, who supports Trump’s baseless contention that he won the 2020 election.
Noem published a book, “Not My First Rodeo,” earlier this year, capitalizing on her political bounce from the summer of 2020, when her hands-off approach to COVID restrictions and criticism of social justice demonstrations endeared her to Trump – who visited Mount Rushmore for Fourth of July fireworks – and led to a speaking slot at the Republican National Convention. Two days after Trump lost the November 2020 election to Joe Biden and started making unfounded claims about voter fraud, Noem complained about “rigged election systems” from her Twitter account.
If Trump runs again in 2024, there may not be a lane for Noem, who has polled around 1% in most national GOP primary polls so far. But her anti-lockdown pandemic stance, which led to regular appearances on Fox News and other conservative outlets, offered a glimpse of a political future beyond South Dakota’s borders.
“Trump is one variable, but I do think COVID matters,” said Jon Schaff, a professor of government at Northern State University in Aberdeen. “When the pandemic hit, her response to it raised her profile. I suspect at that point the idea struck her that maybe she could be a national contender. She was getting a lot of publicity, she’s an ambitious person, she’s a very good politician and fundraiser, so maybe that which seemed implausible or not even on her radar took on some degree of plausibility. So at that point, how does one advance in the Republican Party? You’ve got to be on Team Trump. It’s not the only way, but it’s the easiest way.”
Paving the way was Corey Lewandowski, a former Trump campaign manager who helped orchestrate Noem’s travel schedule, fundraising and messaging on what the governor’s team calls a volunteer basis, but who does not come without baggage.
Lewandowski was charged with misdemeanor battery last year after being accused by a female Trump donor of unwanted sexual advances at a Las Vegas fundraiser also attended by Noem, charges that will be dropped if he follows through on a deal with prosecutors that includes eight hours of “impulse control” counseling. Noem publicly cut ties with Lewandowski soon after the incident but has since welcomed him back to the fold, and he attended a Rapid City event on Sept. 28 at which the governor promised to repeal the state’s grocery tax if re-elected, despite opposing such action during previous legislative sessions.
Noem has defended South Dakota’s abortion laws being among the most restrictive in the nation, with no exceptions for rape or incest, despite a recent News Watch poll showing that 76% of respondents support such exceptions. That stance, combined with much-publicized efforts to ban Critical Race Theory-style curricula and transgender sports participation in South Dakota schools, has opened her to criticism of prioritizing nationally resonant GOP issues over more pressing homegrown concerns.
“Governor Noem’s position as a national figure can be a positive for South Dakota,” said Republican Attorney General nominee Marty Jackley, who lost to Noem in a 2018 primary for governor. “But it’s important for anyone in a statewide role not to let national policy set your South Dakota agenda. You need to let South Dakota’s agenda set your national policy.”
South Dakota hasn’t had a politician run for president since George McGovern in 1972, though senators Tom Daschle and John Thune reportedly considered campaigns before turning back. It takes an element of self-regard, considered a prideful flaw in some corners of the state’s psyche, to reach for higher office, yet Noem has shown impeccable timing in her career and an ability to close out elections, with a record of 7-0. In that respect, say her supporters, she has been consistent in her approach.
“Kristi got into politics 16 years ago, and we’ve seen this country change a lot in that time,” said Tony Venhuizen, who worked in the Daugaard and Noem administrations and is headed to the state legislature as a Sioux Falls Republican. “I’m not sure that she’s really changed all that much. She has stepped up to the challenge and gone where she felt God was leading her, which meant stepping up into positions that I don’t think she would have ever guessed she would find herself in.”
— This article was produced by South Dakota News Watch, a non-profit journalism organization located online at SDNewsWatch.org.
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Race To The Midterms Schiff: LGBTQ Voters Will Sway The Vote
Race To The Midterms, Schiff: LGBTQ+ Voters Will Sway The Vote https://digitalalabamanews.com/race-to-the-midterms-schiff-lgbtq-voters-will-sway-the-vote/
California Politics
Please check out the full interview on Sunday night with more about the LGBTQ community and expanding the Supreme Court
Published
3 mins ago
on
October 15, 2022
Screenshot/YouTube
By Karen Ocamb | WEST HOLLYWOOD – The race to the Nov. 8 midterms is now a sprint. Democrats are frantically trying to keep control over the US House and Senate lest the Trump/QAnon cult wins enough seats to install autocrat-wanna be Donald Trump to the presidency in 2024 and destroys democracy in the process.
Even after the jaw-dropping revelations during the January 6 Committee hearings that Trump knew he lost his re-election but nonetheless intentionally inspired violent insurrections to stage a coup to prevent the peaceful transfer of power to Joe Biden — the number of Republicans who still believe Trump’s “Big Lie” is around 60%.
Critical races around the country are extremely close, despite the otherwise laughable qualifications of hypocritical GOP candidates such as ex-football star Herschel Walker in Georgia.
But Democrats have a problem. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender+ people have been under constant attack with at least 31 trans people either fatally shot or violently killed since the beginning of 2022, according to the Human Rights Campaign. Last year, HRC tracked a record 51 deaths for trans and nonbinary people from January to November, 9, 2021.
“State lawmakers across the US have introduced at least 162 bills targeting LGBTQ Americans this year through July 1, according to a CNN analysis of data compiled by the American Civil Liberties Union, already marking a record-breaking year for such legislation,” CNN reported July 17. “The slew of bills is spread across 35 states, 27 of which have legislatures controlled by Republicans.”
But now — when the midterm elections could determine whether this grand experiment called American democracy continues to progress towards a more perfect union or is impaled by mocking MAGA GOPs on a slow-melting iceberg — the once sought-after LGBTQ donation, volunteer engagement and precious vote has been ignored as the latest minority to be taken for granted.
Worse yet — the leaked year old audio tape of three Los Angeles City Councilmembers and a prominent labor leader — exposed the inner thoughts and inculcated racist, homophobic and anti-Semitic biases shared when they believed no one was listening.
The hurtful remarks from Nury Martinez, Kevin de León and Councilmember Gilbert Cedillo — long believed to be “friends” of the LGBTQ community – were about gay colleague Mike Bonin’s 2-year-old Black son.
“This is about more than just shared values,” publisher Troy Masters and editor Brody Levesque wrote in an editorial calling for their resignations,
“It is also about trust and commitment to constituents that crosses party and ideological lines. Attacking a child is simply unacceptable and inexcusable — period. But when you couple that with implied homophobic slurring of that Black child’s parents, questioning their ability to be parents because their child is simply being a child?” Masters and Levesque wrote.
It’s stunning to discover from a secret leaked recording that this is what our supposed “friends” really thought of us when we weren’t looking.
Who can we trust if our progressive “friends” secretly believe the way MAGA Republicans act?
Well, actually, we do have honorable allies who stand up for us even when not asked or when nobody’s listening or watching. Friends like Rep. Adam Schiff.
I’ve known Adam Schiff since 2012 when his district was redistricted to include West Hollywood, Silver Lake, Echo Park, Los Feliz and other LGBTQ cities and neighborhoods.
Schiff seemed to quickly grasp that we are a real minority. And most importantly, he did a lot for and with our community without being asked or having to issue a press release to alert the media. He’s the only member of Congress, for instance, who has ridden the complete 7 day/545-mile AIDS Life Cycle fundraiser for the LA LGBT Center.
And on a trip to the Baltics for a speech on NATO expansion before the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania in 2014 (in which he talks about Russian provocation against Ukraine). I only discovered this during a March 2017 interview when we discussed attempts by the American religious right to create alliances with conservative foreign governments based on anti-LGBT sentiment.
“I think this is really part of a propaganda campaign that has many centers of gravity,” Schiff said at the time. “But one of the most prominent is coming out of Moscow and this is a line that the Kremlin is pushing as part of its nativist agenda—that the West is decadent, that it doesn’t observe family or conservative values. This is something the Russians are trying to use in Eastern Europe and in the Baltics as a way of developing support for pro-Russian parties. When I was in the Baltics a year or two ago, this was an issue I raised with some parliamentarians who were pursuing legislation modeled after bills in the Russian Duma to discriminate against the LGBT community.”
Schiff also remembers that dark night in 2016 when Trump won, despite Hillary Clinton receiving nearly 3 million in the popular vote. Schiff headed over to the LA Gay & Lesbian Center. No one asked him; he issued no press release. He just wanted to be with people he knew were “despondent and fearful of what this meant for the future.” And in so many ways, he said later, “the reality of the next two years proved every bit as bad, in some ways worse, than what we feared. It really takes your breath away….The administration’s efforts to define the transgender community out of existence is among its most pernicious acts. It’s just appalling.”
Schiff has had a target on his back since Trump discovered his name. But Schiff has not relented nor cowered in the face of real danger. And again, he proved his solidarity as a strong ally when, on June 12, 2016, the morning just hours after the massacre of 49 killed and 53 more wounded at the gay Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida, LA Pride organizers in West Hollywood decided not to cancel the parade. Then “came word that a man from Indiana had just been arrested in Santa Monica with a cache of weapons, ammunition and explosive-making materials in his car, on his way to LA Pride West Hollywood. Was he alone? Was there a plot to take out LGBT people at their most unguarded and vulnerable—when they were happy celebrating pride in who they are? It was an existential choice for everyone. But in a moment of prideful defiance, the organizers said the show, the Pride parade, must go on. And in a show of exquisite solidarity, powerful allies” such as Schiff stayed to march. Schiff’s staff tried to get him to leave – but he stayed. No one asked him to and he put out no press release touting his bravery.
This is the man, the LGBTQ ally, I asked to interview for Racing to the Midterms, hoping he’ll inspire us to get engaged, to donate, to vote like our lives really are on the line.
Please check out the full interview on Sunday night with more about the LGBTQ community and expanding the Supreme Court. But for now — here’s Rep. Adam Schiff encouraging us to participate.
“So we all have a role to play right now. And the LGBTQ community, which is growing all the time and strength as a part of the voting population, could be the decisive influence in the midterms, both in terms of whether we hold the House and grow the Senate. But also in repudiating Donald Trump,” Schiff says.
“The Republican Party will not part company with him because he’s a liar,” he continues. “They’re okay with that. They will part company with him because he’s unethical. They’re OK with that, too. They won’t even part company with him because he’s a danger to the country, as he so obviously is. They can live with all of that. They will only decide to part company with him when they decide that he’s a loser. And more importantly, he is a loser. For them. And so, if we can upset the expectations and win these midterms, they will cast blame where it lies — which is with Trump and all he stands for. And it will be the beginning or the continuation of the repudiation of Trump and Trumpism, which is so important for our country to move forward.”
Watch the preview clip:
California Politics
Where is LGBTQ leadership as a possible political Armageddon threatens to wipe out, roll back, erase progress towards full LGBTQ equality
Published
6 days ago
on
October 9, 2022
Screenshot/YouTube
By Karen Ocamb | WEST HOLLYWOOD – Where is the LGBTQ outcry? Where is the LGBTQ mobilization? Where is LGBTQ leadership as a possible political Armageddon on Nov. 8 threatens to wipe away, roll back, erase the steady progress towards full LGBTQ equality and a more perfect union?
Luckily, some LGBTQ folks on the ground are doing what they can do to make sure Trump’s MAGA Republicans don’t totally ruin democracy and the American experiment.
“Today, we have to realize that we are in a different world — we are fighting for our democracy. And this isn’t something that’s theoretical. It’s very, very real,” including the MAGA politicization of the United States Supreme Court,” says Rick Chavez Zbur, an attorney, former executive director of Equality California and candidate for California’s Assembly District 51.
“The Court,” he continues, “is actually not following typical Court rules and precedent and is actually a very radical Court. It is not following the doctrine and stare decisis.” And those doctrines “are important because we in the LGBTQ movement and our friends at Lambda Legal and at National Center for Lesbian Rights and Transgender Law Center and the ACLU — we have worked for years to build up the precedent and the legal doctrines we need to ad...
Fresh Missile Attack Targets US-Occupied Base In Eastern Syria: Media
Fresh Missile Attack Targets US-Occupied Base In Eastern Syria: Media https://digitalalabamanews.com/fresh-missile-attack-targets-us-occupied-base-in-eastern-syria-media/
File photo shows a US military vehicle patrolling near an oilfield in Syria. (Photo by AFP)
A US-occupied military base in the eastern Syrian province of Dayr al-Zawr has reportedly come under fresh missile strikes.
The attack targeted the outpost — located in Syria’s al-Omar Oilfield in the eastern side of Dayr al-Zawr — on Saturday, Syrian media outlets reported.
According to the reports, at least six missiles were fired towards the military outpost during the incident.
No person or group has so far claimed responsibility for the strikes.
The projectiles were fired from the direction of Dayr al-Zawr’s al-Hanawi and al-Mazare’ areas, the reports added, noting that American warplanes and helicopter gunships were seen loitering over the site of the attack during its immediate aftermath.
The US base has come under several such attacks over the past months.
The United States and its allied forces invaded Syria in 2014 under the pretext of fighting the Takfiri terrorist group of Daesh, which had been trained and supplied by US and allied military forces in their bids to overthrow the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad.
The US-led military interference was, however, amazingly — and some believe deliberately — slow in confronting the terrorists, despite the sheer size of the coalition that had enlisted scores of Washington’s allied countries.
American forces continue to occupy small parts of the Arab country, although, Damascus and its allies defeated the Daesh terrorists in late 2017.
Back in August, Damascus said the years-long occupation of Syria by the US had cost it $107.1 billion in oil and gas sector losses, referring to the occupying forces’ looting of the war-ravaged country’s rich resources, which began under former American president Donald Trump.
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8 People Injured In Fire At Iran's Notoriously Brutal Evin Prison State Media Reports | CNN
8 People Injured In Fire At Iran's Notoriously Brutal Evin Prison, State Media Reports | CNN https://digitalalabamanews.com/8-people-injured-in-fire-at-irans-notoriously-brutal-evin-prison-state-media-reports-cnn/
CNN —
At least eight people were injured in a fire at Evin prison in northern Tehran, Iranian state media IRNA reported. A large, dark plume of smoke was seen billowing near the prison in multiple videos on social media Saturday night.
The fire has been contained, and “peace is maintained,” the governor of Tehran, Mohsen Mansouri, told IRNA, adding that the fire was started by prisoners. Tehran’s Evin Prison is a notoriously brutal facility where the regime incarcerates political dissidents.
“Now the situation of the prison is completely under control and peace is maintained in the prison complex and the streets around the prison are being monitored and under control,” Mansouri said.
An Iranian security official said “thugs” set fire to the warehouse of prison clothing, IRNA reported earlier.
Activist group 1500tasvir reported that in videos posted on social media, gunshots were heard and Iranian special forces were seen heading to the area where the prison is believed to be located.
The Iranian official said that the “rioters” were separated from other prisoners and the other detainees have returned to their cells, IRNA reported.
CNN cannot independently verify the situation.
Amnesty International Secretary General Agnes Callamard responded on Twitter to the social media videos with a reminder to Iranian authorities of their “legal obligation to respect and protect” the lives of prisoners following the fire.
Callamard noted the prison is “notorious” and retweeted a post from journalist Jason Rezaian whose “544 Days” podcast recounts the time he spent incarcerated in the prison.
“Evin is no ordinary prison. Many of Iran’s best and brightest have spent long stretches confined there, where brave women and men are denied their basic rights for speaking truth to power,” Rezaian wrote. “The regime is responsible for what happens to those inside right now.”
Speaking to state broadcaster IRIB, Tehran’s prosecutor Ali Salehi said the “conflict” at the prison was not linked to the protests that have swept the country following the death of a young woman in police custody.
In September, 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died after she was detained by the country’s morality police for allegedly not wearing her hijab properly. Iranian authorities have since unleashed a brutal crackdown on demonstrators, who have united around a range of grievances with the country’s authoritarian regime.
“Today’s conflict of prisoners has nothing to do with the recent riots, and basically, the ward related to security prisoners is separate and distant from the prisons of thieves and financial convicts where the fire and conflict took place,” Salehi said.
According to Tehran’s prosecutor, Wards 7 and 8 were overcrowded, and the main issue was the fire – which he said had been started by some prisoners. Both the prison and the surrounding streets are under control now, he said.
Witnesses previously said that Iranian security forces beat, shot and detained students at Tehran’s Sharif University. Last month, nearly two dozen children were killed during the protests, according to a report by Amnesty International.
At least 23 children – some as young as 11 – were killed by security forces in the last 10 days of September alone, the report said.
Earlier this week, an Iranian official also admitted that school students participating in street protests are being detained and taken to psychiatric institutions.
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Astros Vs. Mariners Game Recap October 15 2022 ESPN
Astros Vs. Mariners – Game Recap – October 15, 2022 – ESPN https://digitalalabamanews.com/astros-vs-mariners-game-recap-october-15-2022-espn/
SEATTLE — — Jeremy Peña homered in the 18th inning, and the Houston Astros beat the Seattle Mariners 1-0 on Saturday to advance to the AL Championship Series for the sixth straight year.
Peña drove a slider from Penn Murfee deep to left-center for the rookie shortstop’s first playoff homer, providing the only run in an afternoon full of dominant pitching and empty trips to the plate. The 18 innings matched the longest game in playoff history.
“Man, that was a long game. But you still got to lock in, try to put together good at-bats,” Peña said. “I was just trying to stay inside the baseball, drove it in the gap.”
Spoiling Seattle’s first home playoff appearance since 2001, Houston completed a three-game sweep of the ALDS. Next up is the New York Yankees or Cleveland Guardians in Game 1 of the ALCS on Wednesday.
While Yordan Alvarez got the big hits in the first two games in Houston, it was Peña that set the table for Alvarez’s opportunities. As Game 3 made its way into its sixth hour, Peña delivered another painful blow to the Mariners that ended their short return to the postseason.
After 21 years, Seattle fans welcomed playoff baseball back inside T-Mobile Park. They got their money’s worth, and then some.
Three previous playoff games reached the 18th inning before conclusion, one involving Houston. The Astros beat the Atlanta Braves 7-6 in 18 innings in Game 4 of the 2005 NLDS on Chris Burke’s game-ending homer.
Game 2 of the 2014 NLDS between San Francisco and Washington and Game 3 of the 2018 World Series between Los Angeles and Boston also went 18 innings.
But those games had runs. This one failed to produce anything until Peña’s swing on a 3-2 pitch.
“I feel like in the playoffs you can’t try and do too much, especially the later the game goes,” Peña said.
Seattle’s best scoring chance was Julio Rodríguez’s line drive that thudded off the wall in the eighth inning. Seattle had runners in scoring position in the 13th and 17th, but couldn’t get a key two-out hit against Houston’s superb bullpen.
Unlike baseball’s regular season, there is no automatic runner when playoff games go to extra innings.
Luis Garcia worked five innings for the win. The Astros bullpen allowed five hits and struck out 15 following six innings from starter Lance McCullers Jr.
“Watching the whole thing the guys are doing a really good job and I’m really proud of them. … I was just trying to help,” Garcia said.
Seattle’s bullpen was nearly just as good. After rookie George Kirby threw seven innings, nine Mariners relievers combined for 11 innings of five-hit ball.
The teams combined to strike out 42 times, topping the postseason record of 39 set by the Guardians and Rays last week in their AL wild-card matchup that was scoreless for 15 innings before Oscar Gonzalez’s home run sent Cleveland to the ALDS.
“Their pitching was phenomenal today as well. We kept putting the zero up there and kept putting the zero up there and you think we’re going to be able to break through because we have so many times,” Seattle manager Scott Servais said. “It’s kind of what we’re accustomed to playing — those tight games and finding a way but there were no errors made in that game today.”
Houston advanced despite a rough performance for Jose Altuve, who went 0 for 8 in Game 3 for the first time in his career and was hitless in 16 at-bats in the series.
Altuve joined Xander Bogaerts in Game 3 of 2018 World Series versus the Dodgers as only players to go 0 for 8 or worse in a postseason game. But Houston’s other pieces came through, none bigger than its young shortstop who took on a prominent role after Carlos Correa departed in free agency.
Peña’s homer was his only hit in eight at-bats. But it was his contributions in the first two games that helped Houston travel to Seattle with a 2-0 lead in the series.
For Mariners fans, watching the drama play out was an agonizing swing of emotions and nerves for the better part of the 6 hours and 22 minutes.
Lines snaked outside the entrance hours before first pitch. Half the stadium appeared filled 90 minutes before Seattle took the field and all seats were occupied when Felix Hernandez walked out from center field to throw out a ceremonial first pitch to a deafening ovation.
The energy and noise that accompanied two decades of anticipation was pure exhilaration at the start, but turned more and more nervous the longer zeros stayed on the scoreboard. By the time the 14th-inning stretch was celebrated nearing the five-hour mark, those fans were on the verge of exhaustion and ready for finality.
It didn’t come until four innings later and was a disappointing conclusion after two decades of waiting.
KING RETURNS
Hernandez spent 15 seasons with the Mariners but never had the opportunity of pitching in the postseason. Hernandez won 169 games and had a career 3.42 ERA, last pitching for Seattle in 2019.
SMOKEY AIR
Seattle’s return to the postseason was played with a smoky haze and terrible air quality engulfing the Puget Sound region. A shift in winds and wildfire still smoldering in the Cascade Mountains created a dingy haze above T-Mobile Park. The air quality index in Seattle at first pitch registered at 161.
——
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb and https://twitter.com/AP–Sports
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Suspected Stockton Serial Killer Caught With Gun While 'out Hunting' Police Chief Says
Suspected Stockton Serial Killer Caught With Gun While 'out Hunting,' Police Chief Says https://digitalalabamanews.com/suspected-stockton-serial-killer-caught-with-gun-while-out-hunting-police-chief-says/
A man has been arrested in Stockton in connection to a series of killings in the city and one in Oakland, authorities announced on Saturday. He could face charges for the murders of six men that were linked through ballistics. Wesley Brownlee, 43, was arrested overnight “while out hunting,” police Chief Stanley McFadden said at a news conference with City Manager Harry Black, Mayor Kevin Lincoln and San Joaquin County District Attorney Tori Verber Salazar.McFadden believes they “stopped another killing.” The police chief said the arrest was made possible thanks to community tips and the work of the police department.”Our surveillance team followed this person while he was driving. We watched his patterns and determined early this morning he was on a mission to kill. He was out hunting,” McFadden said. | LEARN MORE | Stockton serial killings: Everything we know and don’t know so far about the victims and suspectHe was caught around 2 a.m. at Winslow Way and Village Green Drive and was wearing dark clothing with a mask around his neck and armed with a firearm in his waistband, police confirmed to KCRA 3. Authorities are now working to identify if the weapon found is linked to the other shootings. Police confirmed that he is the sole suspect “at this time” and is believed to be the person of interest captured on video from shooting scenes.Authorities said that Brownlee has lived in Stockton off and on, while also living in other cities. He has a criminal record, though police did not detail the previous crimes. Public records from San Joaquin County show two traffic violations in 2021 and 2022, along with a felony in 2017 and a DUI in 2009.Stockton’s mayor said the city will be able to get past this and that public safety is their number one priority.”I want to make this very very clear, to the people of Stockton, to the United States and around the world. When the people of Stockton come together and we unite we can get things done. Stockton will be a place where people can live, raise a family and grow a business,” Mayor Kevin Lincoln said.Video below: Stockton mayor speaks on arrest Salazar on the arrest of Brownlee said, “The crime was solved because we’re Stockton. You don’t come to our house and bring this reign of terror.” Video below: San Joaquin County DA speaks on arrestBrownlee will appear in court on Tuesday afternoon, officials said. Salazar said the district attorney’s office is working to determine the charges against him.Officials are still unsure what the motive behind the killings are, but said his patterns were consistent. It’s unclear if the gun police found on Saturday is linked to all seven shootings. “I am grateful for the work of the Stockton Police Department and law enforcement agencies who lent their support to this investigation, including the California Department of Justice’s Bureau of Firearms and Bureau of Forensic Services,” Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement. “When we face a challenge or threat to the safety of Californians, we stand stronger when we stand together. Because of our collaborative work, the citizens of Stockton and California communities can feel comfort in knowing that this suspect is now in custody.”Who are the victims?| MORE | What we’re learning about victims of the Stockton serial killingsSix men were killed — five in Stockton this year and one in Oakland last year. The victims were identified by police as:35-year-old Paul Alexander Yaw43-year-old Salvador William Debudey Jr.21-year-old Jonathan Hernandez Rodriguez52-year-old Juan Cruz52-year-old Lorenzo LopezThe victim in Oakland was a 40-year-old Hispanic man. Affiliate KTVU reported that the coroner identified the man as Juan Miguel Vasquez Serrano.A 46-year-old Black woman is the only known survivor of the shootings. Stockton Police Chief Stanley McFadden said the woman biked to an encampment at Park and Union streets in Stockton where she was shot on April 16, 2021, at around 3:30 a.m.The woman was by a tent when she saw a man, dressed in all dark clothing, wearing a dark face mask and a dark jacket. She said the man was anywhere between 5 foot 10 inches to 6 foot 2 inches.The woman told police that no words were exchanged between them and that she tried defending herself by advancing toward him. She was hit multiple times by gunfire.Where did the shootings happen?Most of the deadly shootings happened in Stockton within a four-mile radius of one another. The shooting where the woman survived happened to the south of the five deadly shootings.Here’s a map with more information:Authorities ask for people to continue to send in tipsMcFadden said it is still a “very active investigation.” “Just because an arrest was made, does not mean the investigation stops,” McFadden said. He said they still need more tips to come in. A tip line will remain open for people to submit information at 209-937-8167. People can email tips to at policetips@stocktonca.gov. Video surveillance can be submitted to Stocktonpdca.evidence.com. This is a developing story. Stay with KCRA 3 as we learn more about the suspect arrested and the series of killings.Here is where you can download our app for the latest.-KCRA 3’s Hilda Flores contributed to this report.
STOCKTON, Calif. —
A man has been arrested in Stockton in connection to a series of killings in the city and one in Oakland, authorities announced on Saturday. He could face charges for the murders of six men that were linked through ballistics.
Wesley Brownlee, 43, was arrested overnight “while out hunting,” police Chief Stanley McFadden said at a news conference with City Manager Harry Black, Mayor Kevin Lincoln and San Joaquin County District Attorney Tori Verber Salazar.
McFadden believes they “stopped another killing.”
The police chief said the arrest was made possible thanks to community tips and the work of the police department.
“Our surveillance team followed this person while he was driving. We watched his patterns and determined early this morning he was on a mission to kill. He was out hunting,” McFadden said.
| LEARN MORE | Stockton serial killings: Everything we know and don’t know so far about the victims and suspect
He was caught around 2 a.m. at Winslow Way and Village Green Drive and was wearing dark clothing with a mask around his neck and armed with a firearm in his waistband, police confirmed to KCRA 3.
Authorities are now working to identify if the weapon found is linked to the other shootings.
Police confirmed that he is the sole suspect “at this time” and is believed to be the person of interest captured on video from shooting scenes.
Authorities said that Brownlee has lived in Stockton off and on, while also living in other cities. He has a criminal record, though police did not detail the previous crimes.
Public records from San Joaquin County show two traffic violations in 2021 and 2022, along with a felony in 2017 and a DUI in 2009.
This content is imported from Twitter. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.
Stockton’s mayor said the city will be able to get past this and that public safety is their number one priority.
“I want to make this very very clear, to the people of Stockton, to the United States and around the world. When the people of Stockton come together and we unite we can get things done. Stockton will be a place where people can live, raise a family and grow a business,” Mayor Kevin Lincoln said.
Video below: Stockton mayor speaks on arrest
Salazar on the arrest of Brownlee said, “The crime was solved because we’re Stockton. You don’t come to our house and bring this reign of terror.”
Video below: San Joaquin County DA speaks on arrest
Brownlee will appear in court on Tuesday afternoon, officials said. Salazar said the district attorney’s office is working to determine the charges against him.
Officials are still unsure what the motive behind the killings are, but said his patterns were consistent.
It’s unclear if the gun police found on Saturday is linked to all seven shootings.
“I am grateful for the work of the Stockton Police Department and law enforcement agencies who lent their support to this investigation, including the California Department of Justice’s Bureau of Firearms and Bureau of Forensic Services,” Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement. “When we face a challenge or threat to the safety of Californians, we stand stronger when we stand together. Because of our collaborative work, the citizens of Stockton and California communities can feel comfort in knowing that this suspect is now in custody.”
Who are the victims?
| MORE | What we’re learning about victims of the Stockton serial killings
Six men were killed — five in Stockton this year and one in Oakland last year. The victims were identified by police as:
35-year-old Paul Alexander Yaw
43-year-old Salvador William Debudey Jr.
21-year-old Jonathan Hernandez Rodriguez
52-year-old Juan Cruz
52-year-old Lorenzo Lopez
The victim in Oakland was a 40-year-old Hispanic man. Affiliate KTVU reported that the coroner identified the man as Juan Miguel Vasquez Serrano.
A 46-year-old Black woman is the only known survivor of the shootings. Stockton Police Chief Stanley McFadden said the woman biked to an encampment at Park and Union streets in Stockton where she was shot on April 16, 2021, at around 3:30 a.m.
The woman was by a tent when she saw a man, dressed in all dark clothing, wearing a dark face mask and a dark jacket. She said the man was anywhere between 5 foot 10 inches to 6 foot 2 inches.
The woman told police that no words were exchanged between them and that she tried defending herself by advancing toward him. She was hit multipl...
Our Voice: Journalists And Democracy By Jan Wondra Ark Valley Voice
Our Voice: Journalists And Democracy – By Jan Wondra – Ark Valley Voice https://digitalalabamanews.com/our-voice-journalists-and-democracy-by-jan-wondra-ark-valley-voice/
“Our Voice” is the editorial section of Ark Valley Voice.
We in the news media sometimes consider our jobs to be ‘damned if we do, damned if we don’t.”
If we do cover something, or question something, there are always some who complain that we covered it too much, or not enough, or that it wasn’t news, or that it wasn’t true, or that it might be true, but it’s not fair to bring it up. If we don’t cover something, because we didn’t know, or had no one to send, then we get accused of leaning left, or right, or maybe sideways.
This week Democratic Lawyer Steven Woodrow, a 42-year-old Democrat and lawyer who represents Denver in the Colorado House of Representatives, Tweeted this: “CO is home to Lauren Boebert, John Eastman, Jena Ellis, Joe Oltmann and other threats to democracy largely because our media are too afraid to do their jobs.”
“Truth.” George Orwell. visual by Red Bubble
Plenty of us in the news media have covered the antics and ignorance, bigotry and hate, private armies and violence espoused by these power-seeking personalities, and others on the national scene.
We’ve pointed out the lies and incitement to violence of “election-result denier”former-President Donald Trump, election-equipment tampering Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, and Colorado State Representative Ron Hanks, to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Arizona candidate for governor Kari Lake, and Wisconsin U.S. Senator Ron Johnson.
We’ve raised questions about candidates’ motives and purpose, threats to our local Clerk and Recorder, the sudden appearance of local private armies, the falsehood of the Constitutional sheriff movement, and stances that would seem to run counter to the United States Constitution.
We’ve been threatened, doxed, followed, and generally terrorized, and that’s not while covering the wildfires of recent years.
“It’s not that journalists are afraid,” Denver Post reporter Conrad Swanson is reported to have told Woodrow. “We’re running skeleton crews because our organizations have been pillaged by hedge funds, we’ve been furloughed and laid off, we’re struggling to recover from trauma and those who remain are stretched thin and exhausted.”
“This is helpful and refreshingly honest,” said Woodrow in response.
His is a mild response to the 60-hour weeks, six-day-week schedule that journalists have been on for years. Journalists have to be committed to what we do and why we do it because we’re some of the lowest-paid members of a community workforce. We do more — with less, all the time.
It’s not just staff cuts and budget squeezes, or the inability to find good journalists who will work for what we can pay. Colorado news crews have been covering wildfires and drought — then the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Then came the election-denying lie and January 6 and literally everything we do is seen by one segment of the public as filtered through politics.
“Journalists would rightly be sensitive to such a comment from a politician any time,” wrote Cory Hutchins, who writes a weekly newsletter for journalists, who spoke with some of our fellow journalists:
“Do you have any idea how many journos we’ve lost from burnout?” Rylee Dunn of Colorado Community Media responded to Woodrow’s Twitter post. “From low wages? from extreme trauma? as disrespectfully as possible; you’re just as bad as the ‘threats to democracy’ you decry.”
Quentin Young, who runs Colorado Newsline and has made covering threats to democracy a major focus of his nonprofit news site, said: “It’s one thing to urge more coverage, but to smear reporters as being afraid of covering a guy who calls for mass executions of political enemies is pretty unseemly, and I doubt any of the figures named would agree local press has given them a pass.”
Carina Julig of Sentinel Colorado wondered what set Woodrow off in the first place. “Fair criticism of the press is always needed,” she told him, “but if you simply assumed the reason there isn’t the level of coverage of these people that you’d like to see is because we are cowards–that hurts.”
In 2019, the Colorado Media Project, with which Ark Valley Voice (AVV) is associated, published a report called “Local News is a Public Good”. The piece includes five recommendations for lawmakers to help support local journalism in Colorado. Colorado legislators and local government officials and staff would do well to read it.
Newsflash: like freedom, the news isn’t free. Someone IS paying for it in blood, sweat, and commitment to truth and democracy. The fact is– we have trained readers to expect news for free and at AVV, we see this as democratically-even news access. At this critical juncture — it can honestly feel like it is the free press protecting democracy while a segment of business and the public is looking the other way.
Second news flash — telling the truth is not left-wing/liberal. It is simply the truth.
At AVV we take seriously our promise that “truth has a voice.” We look for it, we verify it, we quote it, we cover it and we stand behind our investigative work. When we get it wrong, we correct it. We also highlight others, such as fellow journalist Hutchins.
The poison in the water barrel: Trump lost the election, not by a little bit, but by a lot. He knew he lost. He didn’t want us to know. January 6 was his attempt to remain in power in any way possible. Everything else is flowing around that massive lie; adding more ingredients to a power-seeking stew.
In 2021 National Public Radio published a news story titled “When This Hedge Fund Buys Local Newspapers, Democracy Suffers. Alden Global Capital has bought up major news organizations such as the Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun and New York Daily News. The fund is gutting newsrooms across the country.
Research has shown that when local news disappears or is dramatically gutted, communities tend to see lower voter turnout, increased polarization, a general erosion of civic engagement, and an environment in which misinformation and conspiracy theories can spread more easily.
The 2019 merger of the nation’s two largest newspaper chains, Gannett and GateHouse came about with a pile of hedge-fund cash. They own The Coloradan in Ft. Collins and the Pueblo Chieftain. Stay tuned.
According to The Wall Street Journal, since 2010 hedge funds have favored Republicans. But according to Open Secrets, the hedge fund contributions for 2021-22 are more moderate and more evenly divided; nothing like the $240 million they put into the 2016 campaign (which begs the question; what about 2024?). In the latest corporate tax cuts, hedge fund tax rates ticked down from 39.6 percent to 37 percent. But hedge fund leadership wants the same tax rate given to major corporations in the Republican’s 2018 tax cut bill: 21 percent.
Think about this for a minute: given that news organizations are notoriously poor — WHY then are hedge funds setting out to own and control major and secondary newsrooms all across the country? The first thing they do is strip the physical assets. But that’s not an attractive target, really. So then there are the human assets – investigative journalists.
Here is where Swanson’s gut-wrenching response is prophetic — After the physical assets are stripped and newsroom staff gutted — the next to go could be transparency and truth. The demise of real democracy may not be far behind, followed by control of information to the public. Now you see why local newsrooms are so important.
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Perspective: The Shadow Side Of The Fight Against White Christian Nationalism
Perspective: The Shadow Side Of The Fight Against White Christian Nationalism https://digitalalabamanews.com/perspective-the-shadow-side-of-the-fight-against-white-christian-nationalism/
When something brand new starts to be discussed as “the great threat” to America, we should pay attention. Lately, we’ve all seen an uptick in commentary about “white Christian nationalism” in that space.
And there are good reasons for that. Bad things happen when partisan passion leads to fusing religion and politics, casting ideological opponents as dangerous enemies, and advancing rhetoric driven by anger and fever. This is why David French recently wrote that Christian nationalism is “not a model of national renewal. It’s a blueprint for corruption, brutality, and oppression.”
But this is clearly not limited to the political right.
Especially since Joe Biden’s now infamous speech in Philadelphia, in which he excoriated Donald Trump supporters, many Republicans have been quick to point out that aggressive and demonizing rhetoric shows up plentifully on the left. That’s why “white Christian nationalist” seems a fitting parallel to “social justice warrior” on the left — two ideological zealots bent on winning their respective crusades against the dark side by any means possible.
Admitting this could be a starting point for a more productive conversation about threats to democracy. But tribal warfare seems to demand something more than nuance. When yet another article on the topic appeared recently in The New York Times, entitled “The Twin Threats to American Democracy,” my colleague Christopher Cunningham asked me, “would I be too hopeful in imagining one of the threats comes from the left?” (The answer is yes.)
Acknowledging positive intent and a need to grow (on both sides) doesn’t spike the dopamine quite like dramatic portrayals of the “great threat” to American democracy coming solely from the right (or the left). And that’s where some of the more serious concerns about this newly urgent fight against “white Christian nationalism” deserve more attention. The rhetoric around this growing threat seems to be expanding its borders even faster than “racist” or “bigot” did before it.
This isn’t our first rodeo with the power of rapid definitional expansions, of course. Over the past decade, we’ve seen “hater” and “bigot” attached to people who are overtly hostile or threatening to LGBTQ folks as well as those who simply believe in traditional views of marriage. Similar expansions have happened with other words.
Whatever threat there may be in aggressive and demonizing political rhetoric, this represents another, less obvious threat of sweeping up lots of good people in a narrow and dangerous definitional scope and calling them bad. Really bad. As in “extremist” bad, and “threat to American democracy” bad.
To be clear, not everyone is jumping on the expanding definition bandwagon. Most mainstream analyses of white Christian nationalism tend to have at least some qualification.
John Blake asked on CNN, “Does this mean that any white Christian who salutes the flag and says they love their country is a Christian nationalist? No, not at all.” And Gary Abernathy reminded people in The Washington Post that “for most Christians, God’s hand on America is a comfort, not a weapon.”
But for every paragraph that makes these crucial distinctions, there seems to be 99 others that blur them — or race beyond them. That includes our own president’s words in Philadelphia about an “extremism that threatens the very foundations of our Republic.” In response to that speech, New York Times columnist Bret Stephens raised concern that Biden cast a “net so wide” that it takes up Proud Boys and “every faithful Catholic or evangelical Christian whose deeply held moral convictions bring them to oppose legalized abortion” (and support traditional marriage), thus treating “tens of millions of Americans as the enemy within.”
Jennifer Rubin of The Washington Post has likewise taken to suggesting that “the GOP is not a political party anymore,” but rather “a movement dedicated to imposing white Christian nationalism.” As if taking over the Republican Party wasn’t bad enough, others have suggested the movement has taken over Christendom as a whole. Historian Kristin Kobes Du Mez was recently quoted as saying that ideas associated with Christian nationalism have become so widespread that “any individual pastor or Christian leader who tries to turn the tide and say, ‘Let’s look again at Jesus and scripture,’ are going to be tossed aside.”
I believe the insistent expansion and increasing blurring of definitional boundaries is an ominous sign, one that portends prophesied persecution on the horizon.
The wide net could ultimately assign the white Christian nationalist label to anyone that loves God and America a little too much, a little too loudly, a little too publicly. Does that include you?
And what about anyone who preaches that America’s departure from God’s teachings is at the root of the nation’s decay? It’s not hard to see how any such evangelical zeal could be labeled as part of the larger, amorphous white Christian nationalist threat.
In this sense, the rhetoric becomes just another more potent version of the argument that “religion is ultimately just causing more suffering in the world.”
All this underscores the crucial need to differentiate between what is an actual threat, and what is not — and encourage others to do the same. That needs to include discerning the difference between at least the following:
A healthy influence and role for people of faith in the public square, versus a total fusion of religion and politics.
A healthy place for legitimate concerns and honest questions in our public conversations, versus a demonization of groups who see the world differently than we do.
Those (of any political party) insistent upon preserving norms of truth seeking, respectful engagement and democratic norms, versus those who aren’t.
Clarity starts with us. No, not everyone who disagrees with you is bent on the destruction of America, democracy or Christianity, so don’t believe it when someone tells you that, no matter how no matter how passionate and persuasive they are.
Most people are doing the best they can and really do want the best for our country, even if they disagree deeply with us. That may not fire up the dopamine in our brains quite so much.
But it’s the truth.
Jacob Hess is the editor of Public Square Magazine and served on the board of the National Coalition of Dialogue and Deliberation. He has worked to promote liberal-conservative understanding since the publication of “You’re Not as Crazy as I Thought (But You’re Still Wrong)” with Phil Neisser. With Carrie Skarda, Kyle Anderson and Ty Mansfield, Hess also authored “The Power of Stillness: Mindful Living for Latter-day Saints.”
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Kamala Harris Campaigns With Gretchen Whitmer In Potential 2028 Preview
Kamala Harris Campaigns With Gretchen Whitmer In Potential 2028 Preview https://digitalalabamanews.com/kamala-harris-campaigns-with-gretchen-whitmer-in-potential-2028-preview/
Vice President Kamala Harris campaigns with Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in Detroit on Saturday. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)
Vice President Kamala Harris smiled, laughed and showered her fellow Democrats with compliments as she campaigned in Detroit on Saturday with Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who remains a favorite for reelection even as her race with Republican Tudor Dixon appears to tighten.
But politicos watching Harris’ and Whitmer’s appearance together were interested in more than the governor’s chances in next month’s midterm elections. The vice president and the governor, now allies, are seen as possible future rivals and could well face each other in a presidential primary in 2024 or 2028, depending on whether President Biden seeks another term, as he has promised.
At a Michigan Democratic Party fundraising event at a facility that trains young people for jobs in tech and construction, Harris greeted Whitmer with a hug. She opened her speech by thanking and praising the governor, whom she called an “extraordinary leader” who is “always about real talk” and had kept her campaign promise to “fix the damn roads.”
But at the highest levels of American politics, permanent allies can be hard to find.
Harris and Whitmer “have played well and supported each other,” said John Sellek, a Lansing, Mich.-based Republican consultant who led Utah Sen. Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign in the state. “But I think Republicans feel it’s safe to say that if Biden didn’t run for reelection, or even if Biden serves a second term, that friendship will become secondary to pursuing the presidency.”
Vice President Kamala Harris with Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)
The future of the Democratic Party is a subplot that has appeared throughout this midterm campaign season for Harris, who ran for the nomination in 2020 but has been unable to position herself as the prohibitive favorite to succeed Biden. Her encounters with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg have drawn similar interest, given his role as a former candidate and rising star in the party.
Both Whitmer and Harris gained stature during Donald Trump’s presidency, when Democrats sought a counterweight and Republicans saw both women as targets. Trump went after Whitmer repeatedly in his public comments, elevating her national profile. He showed little remorse when state and federal officials charged 13 extremists with a plot to kidnap her in October 2020.
“She’s just tough as nails,” said Jill Alper, a Michigan-based Democratic consultant.
Whitmer’s standing as a favorite for reelection in a state that helped Trump secure the 2016 election has only enhanced her national appeal among Democrats, who have lost their lock on the group of Midwestern states that were once the center of their “blue wall.”
“I don’t think Michigan’s going to stop being a swing state in the future. I think any Democrat who wants to become president is going to have to carry Michigan,” said Mark Brewer, chairman of the state Democratic Party from 1995 to 2013. “What better way to carry Michigan than to have a candidate from Michigan?”
Brewer noted that Buttigieg moved his official residency from Indiana to Michigan this summer, and added that Whitmer could just as easily seek a Senate seat or Cabinet nomination.
But Whitmer’s flirtations with higher office, while tantalizing, have become a political liability in her reelection effort. She raised eyebrows in June when she declined in an NBC interview to say whether Biden should seek reelection and called interest in her own potential candidacy “flattering.”
In an interview with the Detroit News on Tuesday, she promised to serve her full second term if reelected and called national speculation that she would run for higher office in the near term “baloney.”
Harris’ allies have also tried to quiet talk about her ambition to run for president, especially as Biden insists he will be on the ballot in 2024.
Vice President Kamala Harris greets well-wishers at Southfield High School in Detroit on Saturday. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)
“It’s six years away,” said Bakari Sellers, a co-chair in Harris’ 2020 campaign who is now a CNN commentator. “Kamala Harris is trying to win races in the midterms. She’s not out here running for president. There’s no rivalry between Kamala and Gretchen and anybody else.”
Biden’s and Harris’ low polling numbers have made it challenging for them to campaign for fellow Democrats, some of whom have reason to avoid joint appearances with their parties’ top leaders. Biden has said he will do whatever helps his allies the most, even if that means staying away. Neither Biden nor Harris have appeared at many campaign rallies.
Harris remains in demand as a fundraiser and, in many places, as a promoter of the administration’s accomplishments. People close to her say her campaign strategy is tied more to her appeal with key demographic groups — including women, people of color and young voters — than regions of the country. Hers is similar in some ways to the role played by former Republican Vice President Mike Pence, who courted evangelical voters and members of the Republican establishment who were uncomfortable with Trump.
Harris, notably, has spoken more extensively and forcefully about abortion rights than Biden has, emerging as the administration’s main spokesperson on the issue after the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade in June. Democrats hope a ballot initiative adding abortion rights to Michigan’s Constitution will help drive turnout in the state, where several House races remain competitive.
Harris appeared in a series of interviews with Black-oriented radio stations in Atlanta, Las Vegas and Milwaukee this week, and also spoke in July to the Essence Festival, a Black-oriented gathering in New Orleans. She also spoke with news radio stations in Philadelphia, Detroit and Minneapolis this week.
After the state party fundraiser at the job training site on Saturday, Harris and Whitmer toured the facility together.
Later that afternoon, Harris spoke at an organizing event for first-time voters in a Detroit suburb. In a packed gymnasium at Southfield High School, Harris — at 57, the youngest of the Democrats’ current national leaders — addressed a boisterous crowd of students and parents.
“To the young leaders here, I will say: I know you guys have been through a lot these past two years,” she said. “People that have had to go through the most … are usually some of the most generous people you’ve ever met.” Voting, she added, is one of the greatest ways that young people can serve their communities: “Our nation needs you.”
After the high school event, Harris headed to the airport. She had to catch a flight home to California, where Gov. Gavin Newsom has emerged as another potential rival.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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Nick Saban Asked If It Would Take A Loss For Alabama To Learn. Now It Has One So We
Nick Saban Asked If It Would Take A Loss For Alabama To Learn. Now It Has One, So We https://digitalalabamanews.com/nick-saban-asked-if-it-would-take-a-loss-for-alabama-to-learn-now-it-has-one-so-we/
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. − Two days after the Alabama football team withstood a feverish second-half comeback effort by the Arkansas Razorbacks, coach Nick Saban stood in front of a microphone and relayed a question he’d just posed to his team: “Do you need to lose a game to learn?”
The answer to that question − yes − resounded loudly in the Smoky Mountains on Saturday. The loss came to pass at the hands of rival Tennessee, by a 52-49 score at Neyland Stadium. But the loss is only half of that equation, and whether or not the Crimson Tide learns anything from it will be revealed over the season’s final five games.
SABAN’S 15The Tuscaloosa News’ special book chronicling Nick Saban’s first 15 years as coach makes a great gift!
BIG AL, OUTLAWThe day Big Al kicked off, and ticked off, Big Orange
The first lesson should start with penalties, which have been a major problem for the Crimson Tide this season, particularly in road games. As if 15 flags at Texas weren’t enough, and another 10 at Arkansas didn’t suffice as an encore, Alabama drew a school-record 17 penalties in Knoxville, accounting for 130 yards in step-offs. That would include seven in the first quarter alone, which helped stake the Volunteers to a 21-7 lead. In one early sequence, an Alabama offense that ultimately racked up 569 yards managed to drive backwards, taking possession on its 14-yard line and punting from its own 2 thanks to three flags in five snaps. Alabama entered play ranked 121st out of 131 FBS teams in penalties with 49, and now with 66, they’re sure to sink further toward the bottom of that dubious list.
The problems didn’t just come in penalty form, however, and chief among other unforced errors was a miscue on a Tennessee punt, recovered by the Volunteers, that spoiled what should have been Alabama’s first defensive stop and instead led to UT’s fourth touchdown.
“It’s not just penalties. It’s ‘Did I block the right guy? Did I do it the right way? Did I cover the right guy? Did I cover him the right way? Did I rush the passer the right way? Did we run the stunts to stop the run, stay in my gap?,” Saban said. “All those things are little things you’ve got to pay attention to detail on so that you play together as a unit.”
It was a relatively quiet day for Alabama’s pass rush (one sack), and in turn, that made for a noisy day in its secondary. With ample time to throw, Tennessee quarterback Hendon Hooker exposed the Crimson Tide defensive backfield. Meanwhile, the UT rushing attack made some noise of its own, as Volunteers running backs Jabari Small and Jaylen Wright combined for 124 yards on 24 carries. Tennessee is to be credited in this regard; the Volunteers’ offense established itself as the SEC’s most unstoppable attack. And it did so without its most talented wide receiver, the injured Cedric Tillman.
Whatever lessons can be learned from the loss, they must be learned quickly. Mississippi State, with one of the SEC’s top quarterbacks in Will Rogers, awaits next week.
Ole Miss, now leading the SEC West Division after improving to 7-0 with a win over Auburn, now controls its own destiny in hopes of reaching the SEC title game for the first time in program history. Alabama controls its own destiny too, however. And in a rare look-ahead moment for Saban, the coach spoke to the rest of the season, not just the next game.
“I told the players that we can accomplish every goal that we had starting at the beginning of the season. There is no room for error in the West. If we win out in the West, we can win the West, and still have a chance to go to the SEC Championship Game,” Saban said. “But the key to the drill is, you’ve got to learn from these experiences. You’ve got to learn from the mistakes you make.”
Indeed, there were plenty of them to learn from at Neyland Stadium. But the loss doesn’t make the learning a given.
And for Alabama, the margin for error has now disappeared.
Reach Chase Goodbread at cgoodbread@gannett.com. Follow on Twitter @chasegoodbread
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Get Over Trump: Obama Takes Aim At Dems Over Donald Obsession Ahead Of Midterms
Get Over Trump: Obama Takes Aim At Dems Over Donald Obsession Ahead Of Midterms https://digitalalabamanews.com/get-over-trump-obama-takes-aim-at-dems-over-donald-obsession-ahead-of-midterms/
October 15, 2022 09:50 PM
Former President Barack Obama cautioned Democrats against campaigning with a heavy focus on former President Donald Trump, suggesting instead candidates focus on issues important to voters.
The 44th commander-in-chief made the comments while appearing on Pod Save America, a podcast hosted by his former White House aides, while discussing the upcoming midterm elections. Obama told the four hosts that Democratic candidates in key battleground races shouldn’t risk getting swept up in controversies surrounding their GOP opponents or Trump himself, as that wasn’t what was driving the majority of voters to the polls.
‘PESSIMISTIC’ VOTERS: CRUSHED BY GAS PRICES AND FADING PERSONAL FINANCES
“The thing that I think sometimes we seem to make a mistake on is his behavior can be so outrageous, and now, folks who try to copy him and his outrageous behaviors, [are] getting a lot of attention,” Obama said, referencing Trump and Republicans campaigning as MAGA allies.
“And so we join that game,” he continued, referencing how Democrats respond to GOP controversies. “And we spend enormous amounts of time and energy and resources pointing out the latest crazy thing he said, or how rude or mean some of these Republican candidates behaved. That’s probably not something that, in the minds of most voters, overrides their basic interests: Can I pay the rent? What are gas prices? How am I dealing with child care?”
The former president’s comments come as he prepares to return to the campaign trail in the coming weeks for Democratic candidates in Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin, three must-win states.
While on the podcast, Obama also warned that Democratic politicians had to work on presenting solutions without getting lost in policy, and acknowledged that some in his party were “buzzkills.”
“I think we do get into trouble. Look, I used to get into trouble whenever, as you guys know well, whenever I got a little too professorial,” he said, getting candid, “When I was behind the podium as opposed to when I was in a crowd, there were times where I’d get, you know, sound like I was giving a bunch of policy gobbledygook.”
“My family, my kids, work that gives me satisfaction, having fun. Hell, not being a buzzkill. And sometimes Democrats are,” the former president later added. “Sometimes people just want to not feel as if they are walking on eggshells, and they want some acknowledgment that life is messy and that all of us, at any given moment, can say things the wrong way, make mistakes.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
He also appeared to offer a preview of his campaign messaging during the podcast, saying: “The great thing that I think we have going for us is that even with really slim majorities, what we’ve shown is, is that we can deliver. The Biden administration has accomplished a lot. You’ve got a historic infrastructure bill that’s going to help rebuild America and create jobs all across the country. You’ve got an inflation control act that has lowered prescription drug prices, has made sure that health care is even more affordable through the ACA, that is looking at lowering energy costs. You’ve got a gun bill that is the first major piece of gun safety legislation that we’ve seen in 30 years.”
“You know, across the board, what we’ve seen is that when Democrats have a working majority, or even a really slim majority in Congress, they can make peoples lives better.”
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CASEY: A Pile Of Suggestions For A Marie March Vs. Wren Williams Duel
CASEY: A Pile Of Suggestions For A Marie March Vs. Wren Williams Duel https://digitalalabamanews.com/casey-a-pile-of-suggestions-for-a-marie-march-vs-wren-williams-duel/
Back at the beginning of this month, Randall Wells, the poet/professor/philosopher from Floyd, offered me a genuine Rolodex watch as a bribe. In return, Wells demanded I write a column about a duel between state Dels. Marie March of Floyd and Wren Williams of Stuart.
Politically, the Republican lawmakers have been going after each other ever since they got mapped into the same House of Delegates district for the 2023 elections.
March has accused Williams of assault, after he (allegedly) hard-bumped her like a hockey check while exiting a GOP dinner-dance in Wytheville last month.
In response, Williams more or less accused March with assaulting reality. He also kvetched that she’s trying to rig a 2023 GOP convention against him.
I suggested lemon cream pies at 30 paces in Lane Stadium, with proceeds donated to the League of Women Voters. But many readers had more flagrant and fragrant notions on how to settle the dispute.
Before we get to those, let’s consider a New River Valley precedent noted by Kay Johnson of Christiansburg. She pointed to a historical marker regarding a May 1808 rifle duel in the Montgomery County town.
One participant, Thomas Lewis, was a lawyer and grandson of Revolutionary War Gen. Andrew Lewis (at whose grave U.S. Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, was later married). The other, John McHenry, was a lawyer and member of the Virginia House of Delegates.
Their specific dispute is unclear, but the duel happened at what is now the intersection of West Main and South Franklin streets. Dr. John Floyd, a future Virginia governor, was the attending physician.
Not too surprisingly (for a contest with rifles at 15 yards) the participants shot and killed each other. The event spurred enactment of an 1810 law known as the Barbour Bill that banned dueling in the Virginia.
While the Lewis-McHenry duel was real and evidently serious; the remainder of this column is not. For example, many readers suggested fruit pies might not be the most suitable dueling instrument.
“It would seem more appropriate for the weapon of choice to be cow pies, to determine once and for all who is the champion bulls— slinger!” wrote Andrew McLaughlin of Daleville.
He must have been reading the mind of Gene Holt Pulaksi.
“I suggest bulls— at 20 paces,” Holt wrote in an email. “The two of them seem to have an endless supply to hurl at each other.”
Tom Long of Staunton adorned his email with a turd emoji.
“The weapon of choice … slinging cow pies from 10 paces … because, well, they are both so full of BS,” Long wrote. “First one to take it in the face loses and quits the race. In case of a tie both lose and both quit.”
In the latter instance, every resident of Virginia would be a winner.
“The most fitting duel should be a mud wrestling event since they both have experience in mudslinging,” wrote Donna Agee of Roanoke. “The venue should be a neutral site such as the Martinsville Speedway to ease the embarrassment brought to their constituents by their behavior.”
Cara Gangloff suggested March and Williams face each other in a rap-off. That could be quite entertaining. And Gangloff put a lot of thought into it.
“The candidates rap in detail, and in poetry, the planks of their platforms through megablaster speakers from atop Route 8 Donuts, where a no-shove zone has been established.
“Beats provided by Jerry Pentecost of Old Crow Medicine Show. Threads provided by La De Da and La De Dude on Church Avenue. Proceeds go to Angels of Assisi where, I hear, they’re fighting like cats and dogs.”
In that case, the MAGA contestants will need a word that neatly rhymes with “Trump,” right? I can think of a handful along the lines of “bump the chump” and “dump the hump’s rump.”
Betsy Biesenbach of Roanoke proposed the warring lawmakers settle their disagreement peacefully and on their toes.
“A duel to the death over a social slight reeks of toxic masculinity,” she penned. “I have a more cooperative and civilized idea for getting these two to play nice: The Wythe County Republicans need to throw another dinner-dance at which March and Williams are the only ones dancing and they must dance with each other.
“I mean full-on tangoing, waltzing and cha-chaing,” Biesenbach continued. “The threat of repeat invitations should be enough to prompt them to at least pretend to be grownups. For the rest of us, it would be a gold mine of internet memes.”
Gerry McAtavey of Roanoke County suggested the duelists use Amazonian implements powered by political hot air.
“How about having them face off at 25 paces using blow guns similar to the ones used by primitive tribesmen?” he wrote. “Maybe someone can come up with a ‘Trump Fever’ antidote that could be loaded into a syringe and used as the weapon to settle this major dispute.”
Drawback: That sounds similar to “vaccine,” which (go figure) has become a fighting word in Republican politics.
As a pacifist, Paul Zenner of Blacksburg wrote he cannot countenance anything that smacks of violence.
Instead, he suggested the lawmakers settle their dispute Quaker-style, in a high school library, “preferably one with all the books that certain Republicans are suggesting should be banned.”
“My weapon of choice is silence,” Zenner wrote. “While the candidates face off at just over arms distance (I don’t trust either of these folks) a moderator will read selected quotes from each.
“The winner is the candidate that can keep their mouth shut the longest,” Zenner added. “I’m really hoping for a tie but suspect it will be over before the first commercial break.”
Rob Neurkirch of Floyd believes Zenner’s idea might be too mature, given the contestants’ emotional ages. Neukirch proposed a junior-high auditorium as the setting. Students would pose questions about the history of the House 47th District, the history of Virginia and the history of the United States.”
The only potential problem is we might never hear a correct answer.
Steve Huppert of Christiansburg suggested a cornhole contest at half-time during a Hokies basketball game.
“Mr. Trump could be the judge,” Huppert proposed, adding “the best answer is to get Chris Tuck to run.”
But Tuck might be the worst possible GOP candidate. Current rumors suggest he suffers from the dreaded affliction KSR — otherwise known as knowledge, sanity and reasonableness.
Last but not least, we have Jen Nelson of Botetourt County. Brace your stomachs and your funny bones for the pie-eating contest she proposed.
Nelson specified the weapons as “two super-fudgy chocolate pies with billowy white topping.” Thoughtfully, she included the recipe.
It could’ve been borrowed from a cookbook titled, “Montezuma’s Revenge.”
“One pie shell; 30 cartons of Ex-Lax melted down; thinned with milk of magnesia; bake and then cool. For topping: Beat one cup Dawn liquid until light and fluffy; top cooled pie.
“Serve and begin contest,” Nelson wrote. “Let the elimination begin!”
Yikes, I think we’ve found a worthy recipient for Randall Wells’ genuine Rolodex watch!
Contact metro columnist Dan Casey at 981-3423 or dan.casey@roanoke.com. Follow him on Twitter:@dancaseysblog.
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Attorneys Phil Brewster Of Brewster Law Firm And Patrick Mincey And Stephen Bell Of Cranfill Sumner Issue Statement On Washington Post
Attorneys Phil Brewster Of Brewster Law Firm And Patrick Mincey And Stephen Bell Of Cranfill Sumner Issue Statement On Washington Post https://digitalalabamanews.com/attorneys-phil-brewster-of-brewster-law-firm-and-patrick-mincey-and-stephen-bell-of-cranfill-sumner-issue-statement-on-washington-post/
Attorneys Phil Brewster, Patrick Mincey and Stephen Bell were recently discussed in an in-depth Washington Post article regarding their representation of a whistleblower who exposed alleged securities violations involving Trump Media & Technology Group Corporation (“Trump Media”). Former President Donald J. Trump is the majority owner of Trump Media, the parent company that operates the conservative social media platform Truth Social. As discussed in the article, the whistleblower was one of the original founders of Truth Social, which was established shortly after former President Trump’s permanent suspension from Twitter TWTR because of the events of Jan. 6, 2021.
The Washington Post article describes how executives from both Trump Media and its merger partner Digital World Acquisition Corporation DWAC allegedly violated SEC regulations in the still-pending merger transaction. The article also discusses former President Trump’s alleged participation in and knowledge of the transaction currently under investigation. The proposed transaction is intended to take Trump Media public in a deal originally valued at over $1 billion. Trump Media and DWAC have previously acknowledged investigations into the merger transaction by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice.
“Trump Media’s termination of the whistleblower after the company was contacted for comment by the Washington Post is patent retaliation against a SEC whistleblower of the worst kind,” Brewster, Mincey and Bell jointly said. “Our client continues to remain committed to assisting investigators with his referral to the SEC Office of the Whistleblower and he looks forward to an opportunity to work with members of Congress in their oversight capacity.”
Attorney Phil Brewster is the founding partner of Brewster Law Firm LLC in Winnetka, Illinois, a firm dedicated to whistleblower matters and government investigations.
Attorney Patrick M. Mincey founded and leads the White Collar, Government Investigations & Special Matters Group at Cranfill Sumner LLP in North Carolina.
Attorney Stephen J. Bell is partner in the White Collar, Government Investigations & Special Matters Group at Cranfill Sumner LLP in North Carolina.
ABOUT BREWSTER LAW FIRM LLC
Brewster Law Firm LLC is dedicated to whistleblower matters and government investigations. For more information, visit www.brewsteradvisory.com.
ABOUT CRANFILL SUMNER LLP
Cranfill Sumner LLP serves clients in 28 practice areas. For more information, visit www.cshlaw.com.
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Fire Gunshots At Tehran Jail Holding Political Prisoners Dual Nationals
Fire, Gunshots At Tehran Jail Holding Political Prisoners, Dual Nationals https://digitalalabamanews.com/fire-gunshots-at-tehran-jail-holding-political-prisoners-dual-nationals/
DUBAI, Oct 15 (Reuters) – A fire broke out on Saturday in Tehran’s Evin prison, where many of Iran’s political and dual-national detainees are held, and witnesses reported hearing gunfire.
State news agency IRNA said eight people were injured in the unrest, which erupted after nearly a month of protests across Iran over the death in detention of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman.
The protests have posed one of the most serious challenges to the Islamic Republic since the 1979 revolution, with demonstrations spreading across the country and some people chanting for the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
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An Iranian judiciary statement said a prison workshop was set on fire “after a fight among a number of prisoners convicted of financial crimes and theft”. Tehran’s fire department told state media the cause of the incident was under investigation.
The prison, located in the foothills at the northern edge of the Iranian capital, holds criminal convicts as well as political detainees.
“Roads leading to Evin prison have been closed to traffic. There are lots of ambulances here,” said a witness contacted by Reuters. “Still, we can hear gunshots.”
Another witness said families of prisoners had gathered in front of the main prison entrance. “I can see fire and smoke. Lots of special forces,” the witness said.
A security official said calm had been restored at the prison, but the first witness said ambulance sirens could be heard and smoke still rose over the prison.
“People from nearby buildings are chanting ‘Death to Khamenei’ from their windows,” the witness said.
Early on Sunday, IRNA carried a video it said showed prison areas damaged by fire. Firemen were seen dousing the debris with water, apparently to prevent the blaze from re-igniting.
The prison mostly holds detainees facing security charges, including Iranians with dual nationality. It has long been criticised by Western rights groups and was blacklisted by the U.S. government in 2018 for “serious human rights abuses”.
Siamak Namazi, an Iranian American imprisoned for nearly seven years on espionage-related charges rejected by Washington as baseless, returned to Evin on Wednesday after being granted a brief furlough, his lawyer said.
Other U.S. citizens held in Evin include environmentalist Morad Tahbaz, who also has British nationality, and businessman Emad Shargi, according to human rights lawyer Saeid Dehghan.
He added that several other dual nationals are held at Evin, including French-Iranian academic Fariba Adelkhah and Iranian-Swedish Ahmadreza Djalali, a disaster medicine doctor.
Asked about the prison fire, U.S. President Joe Biden told reporters during a campaign trip to Portland, Oregon: “The Iranian government is so oppressive.”
A prison guard stands along a corridor in Tehran’s Evin prison June 13, 2006./File Photo
He said he was surprised by “the courage of people and women taking (to) the street” in the recent protests and had enormous respect for them. “It’s been really amazing,” he added. “They’re not a good group, in the government.”
U.S. State Department Spokesman Ned Price tweeted, “we are following reports from Evin Prison with urgency. We are in contact with the Swiss as our protecting power. Iran is fully responsible for the safety of our wrongfully detained citizens, who should be released immediately.”
Human Rights Watch has accused authorities at the prison of using threats of torture and of indefinite imprisonment, as well as lengthy interrogations and denial of medical care for detainees.
“No security (political) prisoner was involved in today’s clash between prisoners, and basically the ward for security prisoners is separate and far from the wards for thieves and those convicted of financial crimes,” an unnamed official told the Tasnim news agency.
‘CLERICS GET LOST’
The unrest at Evin prison occurred after nearly a month of protests across Iran since Amini – a 22-year-old woman from the country’s Kurdish region – died on Sept. 16 while being held for “inappropriate attire”.
Although the unrest does not appear close to toppling the system, the protests have widened into strikes that have closed shops and businesses, touched the vital energy sector and inspired brazen acts of dissent against Iran’s religious rule.
On Saturday protesters across Iran chanted in the streets and in universities against the country’s clerical leaders.
A video posted by the Norway-based organisation Iran Human Rights purported to show protests in the northeastern city of Mashhad, Iran’s second-most populous city, with demonstrators chanting “Clerics get lost” and drivers honking their horns.
Videos posted by the group showed a strike by shopkeepers in the northwestern Kurdish city of Saqez – Amini’s home town. Another video on social media showed female high school students chanting “Woman, Life, Freedom” on the streets of Sanandaj, the capital of Kurdistan province.
Reuters could not independently verify the videos. Phone and internet services in Iran have been frequently disrupted over the last month and internet watchdog NetBlocks reported “a new major disruption” shortly before Saturday’s protests began.
The Iranian activist news agency HRANA said in a posting online that 240 protesters had been killed in the unrest, including 32 minors. It said 26 members of the security forces were killed and nearly 8,000 people had been arrested in protests in 111 cities and towns and some 73 universities.
Among the casualties have been teenage girls whose deaths have become a rallying cry for more demonstrations demanding the downfall of the Islamic Republic.
Protesters called on Saturday for demonstrations in the northwestern city of Ardabil over the death of Asra Panahi, a teenager from the Azeri ethnic minority who activists alleged was beaten to death by security forces.
Officials denied the report and news agencies close to the Revolutionary Guards quoted her uncle as saying the high school student had died of a heart problem.
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Reporting by Dubai bureau, additional reporting by Lucia Mutikani, Mike Stone and Jeff Mason in Washington, Writing by Dominic Evans Editing by Helen Popper, William Maclean, Paul Simao and Diane Craft
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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Barack Obama Takes Shot At Cancel Culture Rips buzzkill Democrats In Interview
Barack Obama Takes Shot At Cancel Culture, Rips ‘buzzkill’ Democrats In Interview https://digitalalabamanews.com/barack-obama-takes-shot-at-cancel-culture-rips-buzzkill-democrats-in-interview/
“Democrats can be [buzzkills], right? Sometimes people just want to not feel as if they are walking on eggshells… and that all of us at any given moment can say things the wrong way, make mistakes.”
Interview with @BarackObama out tonight on @SIRIUSXM and everywhere tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/xi65vTNWZH
— Pod Save America (@PodSaveAmerica) October 14, 2022
Former President Barack Obama took a shot and cancel culture and knocked “buzzkill” Democrats for getting caught up in “policy gobbledygook.”
In a new interview with on the “Pod Save America” podcast on Friday, the 44th President said that Democrats have strayed away from a message of equality to “scolding” on social issues.
“My family, my kids, work that gives me satisfaction, having fun,” Obama said. “Hell, not being a buzzkill. And sometimes Democrats are.”
“Sometimes people just want to not feel as if they are walking on eggshells, and they want some acknowledgment that life is messy and that all of us, at any given moment, can say things the wrong way, make mistakes,” he added.
Obama said Democrats need to “be able to speak to everybody about their common interests.”
“And what works for I think everybody, is the idea of a basic equal treatment and fairness. That’s an argument that’s compatible with progress on social issues and compatible with economic interests,” he said.
“I think where we get into trouble sometimes is where we try to suggest that some groups are more – because they historically have been victimized more – that somehow they have a status that’s different than other people and we’re going around scolding folks if they don’t use exactly the right phrase,” Obama said. “Or that identity politics becomes the principle lens through which we view our various political challenges.”
Obama said Democrats get caught up too much in “policy gobbledygook.”
AP
He said that Democrats, himself included, sometimes see their message bogged down by “policy gobbledygook.”
“Look, I used to get into trouble whenever, as you guys know well, whenever I got a little too professorial and, you know, started … when I was behind the podium as opposed to when I was in a crowd, there were times where I’d get, you know, sound like I was giving a bunch of policy gobbledygook,” Obama explained.
The former president added, “And that’s not how people think about these issues. They think about them in terms of the life I’m leading day to day. How does politics, how is it even relevant to the things that I care the most deeply about?”
Ahead of November’s midterm elections, Obama has been campaigning for Democratic candidates in key states. He will travel to Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin this month.
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Fans Tear Down Goalposts After Tennessee Stuns Alabama
Fans Tear Down Goalposts After Tennessee Stuns Alabama https://digitalalabamanews.com/fans-tear-down-goalposts-after-tennessee-stuns-alabama/
Despite Alabama stomping back into the game and re-taking the lead twice in the second half, a missed field goal hands the Tennessee Volunteers enough time to march down the field and break a 49-49 tie with a walk-off field goal.
In what is already being hailed as the game of the year, the Vols started out strong with an opening drive touchdown, giving way to a dominant first quarter.
Bryce Young led the Crimson Tide through several good possessions, but penalties plagued Nick Saban’s squad the entire game, and poor performances like a turnover on special teams left head coach Nick Saban furious.
After the game, Tennessee fans flooded the field in celebration. They even tore down the goalposts in joy.
Alabama came into the game at No. 3 after losing the top spot to the Georgia Bulldogs and Ohio State took over at No. 2. Returning Heisman winner Bryce Young was questionable for the game after suffering an injury to his throwing arm. However, he started and played the full game.
Young did prove his worth as a quarterback by leading the Tide back in the second half and taking the lead twice. However, they were unable to seal the deal with a field goal. That, in turn, gave the Vols their own opportunity, which they took advantage of and used to win the game, 52-49.
Young went 35 of 52 in passes for 455 yards and two touchdowns. Jahmyr Gibbs ran for more than 100 yards and picked up three touchdowns.
Tennessee’s Hendon Hooker completed 21 passes out of 35 for 385 yards and five touchdowns.
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Bayern Munich Defers Decision On Qatar Sponsorship To 2023
Bayern Munich Defers Decision On Qatar Sponsorship To 2023 https://digitalalabamanews.com/bayern-munich-defers-decision-on-qatar-sponsorship-to-2023/
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Oliver Kahn, chairman of the board of FC Bayern, speaks at the annual general meeting in Munich, Germany, on Saturday, Oct. 15, 2022. Kahn says the soccer club won’t take a decision on whether to extend its controversial sponsorship agreement with Qatar Airways until next year.
Members vote by show of hands to re-elect Herbert Hainer, center, as president of FC Bayern, at the soccer club’s annual general meeting in Munich, Germany, on Saturday, Oct. 15, 2022. At background left is Oliver Kahn, chairman of the board of management of FC Bayern. Kahn says the club won’t take a decision on whether to extend its controversial sponsorship agreement with Qatar Airways until next year.
Herbert Hainer, president of FC Bayern, speaks at the soccer club’s annual general meeting in Munich, Germany, on Saturday, Oct. 15, 2022.
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Oliver Kahn, chairman of the board of FC Bayern, speaks at the annual general meeting in Munich, Germany, on Saturday, Oct. 15, 2022. Kahn says the soccer club won’t take a decision on whether to extend its controversial sponsorship agreement with Qatar Airways until next year.
Members vote by show of hands to re-elect Herbert Hainer, center, as president of FC Bayern, at the soccer club’s annual general meeting in Munich, Germany, on Saturday, Oct. 15, 2022. At background left is Oliver Kahn, chairman of the board of management of FC Bayern. Kahn says the club won’t take a decision on whether to extend its controversial sponsorship agreement with Qatar Airways until next year.
Herbert Hainer, president of FC Bayern, speaks at the soccer club’s annual general meeting in Munich, Germany, on Saturday, Oct. 15, 2022.
BERLIN (AP) — Bayern Munich won’t decide whether to extend its controversial sponsorship agreement with Qatar Airways until next year.
“We will continue to discuss the issue intensively after the World Cup and find a solution for FC Bayern,” chief executive Oliver Kahn told 1,501 club members at Bayern’s annual general meeting on Saturday.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Harrison Waylee ran for 158 yards and a touchdown, Antario Brown added two TD runs and Northern Illinois beat Eastern Michigan 39-10. NIU’s 295-pound lineman James Ester opened the scoring by batting a pass into the air and jumping to secure it in the end zone. Brown broke loose for a 47-yard touchdown six minutes later and then added a 6-yard score that stretched the Huskies’ lead to 29-10 late in the third. Brown finished with 86 yards on 17 carries for Northern Illinois (2-5, 1-2 Mid-American Conference). Waylee had a 76-yard touchdown run. Taylor Powell threw a touchdown and interception for Eastern Michigan (4-3, 1-2).
For Games of Sunday, October 16
For Games of Sunday, October 16
PITTSBURGH — The NHL’s investigation into anonymous sexual abuse and grooming accusations against Lightning defenseman Ian Cole “found no evidence to substantiate the allegations,” the league announced Saturday in a news release.
Reece Udinski accounted for two touchdowns and the Richmond defense made them stand up as the Spiders defeated Villanova 20-10. Udinski scored on a 1-yard run and threw to Connor Deveney for a 6-yard score as Richmond took a 14-10 halftime lead. Andrew Lopez added two red zone field goals in the fourth quarter for the FCS No. 21 Spiders. Richmond ground out 227 rushing yards on 52 carries and Udinski passed for 104 yards, completing 16 of 23 attempts. Aaron Dykes had 89 yards rushing on 23 carries. FCS No. 17 Villanova managed only 75 yards in the second half.
Cade Brister hit Kobe Smith from 9 yards out in overtime to earn Lindenwood its first Ohio Valley Conference victory, a 37-34 win over Eastern Illinois. Brister scored from a yard out with 3:09 left in regulation to tie the game at 24-24 and force overtime, and hit Payton Rose with a 2-yard touchdown pass on the first possession of overtime. Jonah O’Brien answered with a 1-yard run, and on the first possession of the second round of overtime the Panthers kicked a 22-yard field goal.
Stetson Bennett threw for 289 yards and two TDs as Georgia stamped its return to No. 1 with a 55-0 rout of Vanderbilt. The Bulldogs improved to 7-0 with a total blowout after three straight weeks of rather lackluster performances. Bennett was nearly perfect in the first half, completing 18 of 20 for 211 yards and two TDs — his first scoring passes in nearly a month. Kenny McIntosh caught one of the TDs and also ran for a score. The Georgia defense turned in its second shutout of the season and sent Vandy to its 24th straight SEC loss.
Tommy Mellott was 15-of-19 passing for 217 yards and three touchdowns, Willie Patterson had seven grabs for 148 yards and three scores, and Montana State beat Northern Colorado 37-14. Patterson wrestled away the ball from a defender in the end zone to give Montana State a 17-14 lead. On the first possession of the second half, Patterson caught a short pass and cut back two defenders to score from 37 yards out. Patterson’s third TD was thrown by backup Sean Chambers, who also had a rushing touchdown and an interception. Lane Sumner added 130 yards rushing, reaching 100 in all three games of his injury-riddled season, for Montana State.
American boxer Claressa Shields has avenged her only career defeat after beating British opponent Savannah Marshall by unanimous decision in London. Shields became the undisputed women’s world middleweight champion at a sold-out 02 Arena. Shields lost to Marshall in their amateur days in 2012 but in a stunning bout Shields relieved Marshall of her WBO belt to add it to her WBC, WBA and IBF crowns. Shields possessed the speed but Marshall had the power. Shields was also busier. Marshall knew she needed a knockout and threw everything at Shields in another gripping final round but the American landed the cleaner shots.
Hunter Dustman’s third field goal of the game, an 18-yarder with under four minutes remaining, lifted South Dakota State to a 23-21 victory over top-ranked and defending national champion North Dakota State in the Dakota Marker rivalry game. The Jackrabbits ranked second and third in the FCS polls, won their sixth straight. They defeated the Bison (5-2, 3-1) for the third consecutive time. South Dakota State trailed 21-7 at halftime before rallying. A final Bison drive ended on downs with just over a minute left.
Hunter Hays, returning after missing two games with an injury, threw a 71-yard touchdown pass and Idaho State came up with two more long touchdowns in beating Cal Poly 40-31 for its first win. Hays connected with Xavier Guillory a 37-14 lead in the third quarter but needed interceptions by Charles Ike and Josh Alford to outlast the Mustangs. Benjamin Omayebu scored on a 51-yard run for the game’s first points and Keoua Kauhi had a 60-yarder, breaking a pair of tackles for a 21-7 lead. Spencer Brasch was 30-of-48 passing for 392 yards with four touchdowns but also four interceptions for Cal Poly.
Toronto Maple Leafs goalie Matt Murray will miss at least four weeks because of an abductor injury. Murray was scheduled to start Saturday night at home against the Ottawa Senators, but left the morning skate in obvious discomfort and was placed on long-term injured reserve. Erik Kallgren was recalled from the Toronto Marlies of the American Hockey League to serve as the backup to Ilya Samsonov. The Leafs bet big on Murray and Samsonov – two goalies with plenty to prove – in the offseason after letting All-Star Jack Campbell leave in free agency. Murray, who was acquired from Ottawa in July, was in goal Wednesday night in a 4-3 loss at Montreal in the season opener.
Jeremy Moussa ran for one third-quarter touchdown and passed for another as Florida A&M came back from a 10-3 deficit in the second half to earn a 20-16 win over Grambling in a Southwestern Conference battle. Kamari Stephens got a clutch sack and Florida A&M stopped Grambling on downs in the red zone in the final minute to preserve the win.
Zack Annexstad threw for 180 yards and his team’s only touchdown, leading Illinois State to a 12-10 victory over South Dakota. Trailing 10-6 late in the third quarter, Annexstad threw to Jerome Buckner for 41 yards and a first down at the South Dakota 3-yard line. Three plays later Annexstad hit Tanner Taula with a 2-yard scoring pass and the Redbirds led 12-10 after the PAT was missed. South Dakota’s Eddie Ogamba missed a 43-yard field goal early in the fourth quarter and neither team drove inside the opponent’s 40-yard line the rest of the game.
Bret Bushka threw two touchdown passes and ran for the go-ahead score — all in the fourth quarter — and Butler rallied past Valparaiso 26-25. Valparaiso led 19-6 entering the fourth quarter before Bushka’s 50-yard pass to Luke Wooten drew the Bulldogs to within 19-13. However, after Valpo’s kick returner was taken down at his own 4-yard line and the Beacons lost 3 yards on first down, Aaron Dawson ran 99 yds for a TD and the Valpo lead was 25-13. Bushka brought the Bulldogs right back, throwing to Jared Suchevits for a 4-yard touchdown and later he had a 2-yard run with 1:45 left on the clock.
The NHL said Saturday it found no evidence to substantiate allegations posted on social media against Tampa Bay Lightning defenseman Ian Cole and has concluded its investigation. The league said it was unable to make contact with the anonymous source of the Oct. 7 social media post in the investigation conducted by its Security and Legal departments. The Lightning suspended Cole on Oct. 9 pending the investigation into the allegations that he sexually abused a woman when she was a minor. Among the allegations posted anonymously to Twitter by an account created last mon...
Local Organization Is Hoping To Make An Impact On Midterm Election
Local Organization Is Hoping To Make An Impact On Midterm Election https://digitalalabamanews.com/local-organization-is-hoping-to-make-an-impact-on-midterm-election/
TOPEKA, Kan. (WIBW) – A local organization gathered this weekend to discuss the importance of voting in the midterm elections.
The Kansas Poor People’s Campaign was held Saturday morning at the Community Resources Council. Members from the organization as well as local supporters joined together to strategized ideas to get low-income voters to the poll.
Oshara Hayes, Tri-Chair for the Kansas Poor People’s Campaign, said she this election is not only important, but she wants to see change.
“We’d like to see voter suppression gone,” said Hayes. “Like make it much easier to vote. so, that people feel like they can vote and have the ability to go and vote, I think that’s important.”
The Kansas Poor People’s Campaign is one of 24 across the country that hosted an event Saturday. This is all part of one big GOTV campaign by the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival to reach out to 5 million people ahead of the midterms with the theme of “If We Ever Needed to Vote for Democracy and Justice, We Sure Do Need to Vote Now!”
“We’d like to see voter suppression gone,” said Hayes. “Like make it much easier to vote. so, that people feel like they can vote and have the ability to go and vote, I think that’s important.”
In addition to Topeka, marches and rallies will take place in cities across the country, including Mobile, AL; Tucson, AZ; Sacramento, CA; Columbus, GA; Washington, D.C.; Springfield, IL; Lexington, KY; Boston, MA; Jackson, MS; Lincoln, NE; Montclair, NJ; Raleigh, NC; Pittsburgh, PA; and Providence, RI.
With midterm elections just under a month away, the organization is hoping to give a voice to those who may feel voiceless. Supporters gathered around a podium, singing a voting song, while also speaking out on issues they demand change on. Carl Frazier, community Pastor, said the community of Topeka needs change.
“We are a blessed city,” said Pastor Frazier. “And we need to concentrate it on people that has not. And it’s important that housing, healthcare and all these other things that need to be done in the city.”
Copyright 2022 WIBW. All rights reserved.
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Facts Matter: Musk Didn https://digitalalabamanews.com/facts-matter-musk-didn/
Elon Musk’s on-and-off deal to purchase Twitter actually could be finalized as the billionaire and SpaceX founder has expressed renewed interest in making it happen at a price of nearly $44 billion.
Although it’s not a done deal and could fall apart again, some social media users claimed Musk already was in charge and making changes.
“Donald Trump is back on Twitter and he made sure to thank Elon Musk,” read an Oct. 9 Facebook post, which included a screenshot of a tweet that appeared to be written by Trump, reading, “Thank you Elon Musk, I’m Back!!”
But that tweet didn’t come from the former president, according to PolitiFact. Trump’s Twitter account was shut down permanently for violating the platform’s policy against inciting violence following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the Capitol building. His account remains suspended.
The tweet supposedly sent by Trump came from an account with a name different from the Twitter name the former president used before the ban.
While talking about his plan to buy Twitter, Musk has criticized the platform’s policies about banning some accounts and said he would restore Trump’s account because the suspension was “a morally bad decision, to be clear, and foolish in the extreme.”
Inflation didn’t drop drastically
A Twitter user recently shared information that could be good news for consumers, and for the president.
“BREAKING: New data has dropped that inflation has dropped to half of what it was a year ago. That’s a Biden Win!” read the Oct. 3 tweet.
But that claim doesn’t match the actual data, according to The Associated Press. Although inflation has slowed, prices continue to rise.
Johns Hopkins Carey Business School professor of economics Alessandro Rebucci told the AP there has not been a “decisive turnaround” regarding inflation.
“There is no hard evidence of either inflation falling sharply on a monthly basis, on a quarterly basis, on a semiannual basis, on a yearly basis, or announcement of any substantial revision of official statistics,” Rebucci said.
A drop in gas prices slowed the rate of inflation in July and August but most other prices continued to rise and the increase in core prices “outpaced expectations,” the AP said.
Judge Cannon still on bench
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s decision to allow Trump’s request for a special master has received widespread media coverage and scrutiny from others in the legal profession. By her order, a special master is reviewing documents seized from Trump’s Florida residence during an FBI search.
Trump, while president, nominated Cannon for that position in the Southern District of Florida. Since her ruling, some social media posts have claimed Cannon is facing repercussions for her decision.
“Trump’s corrupt judge loses her license after major scandal,” read a Sept. 30 Facebook post.
An Oct. 1 Facebook post takes it a bit further.
“Trump betrays Judge Cannon and police have just taken her away, she was being used by Trump,” the Oct. 1 post read.
But Cannon hasn’t been removed from the bench or arrested, according to PolitiFact. The judge’s license is in good standing and she has had no disciplinary history since she was admitted to the Florida Bar in 2012.
Cannon’s ruling has been frowned upon by some in the law community.
“(Her decision is) an unprecedented intervention by a federal district judge into the middle of an ongoing federal criminal and national security investigation,” University of Washington law professor Stephen Vladeck told The New York Times.
Facial data doesn’t leave cellphone
Facial recognition technology is used to unlock phones, and Snapchat offers filters for users to change their facial appearance by adding features such as dog ears, sunglasses and mustaches.
Some social media users are claiming there is more to the technology.
“Snapchat filters are a facial recognition database created by the FBI. You don’t believe me? Google: Patent US9396354,” read an Oct. 3 Facebook post.
That’s false, according to USA Today. The technology doesn’t collect data that can be used to identify a person.
A spokesperson for Snap, the parent company of Snapchat, told USA Today that data used for the filters doesn’t leave the user’s device and is never sent to the company’s servers.
As for the patent, Milwaukee School of Engineering professor Derek Riley told USA Today it was a “big red flag,” and has nothing to do with the FBI database.
The patent actually is for technology that alters a person’s image to protect that individual’s privacy, he said.
“For example, if a celebrity was on a privacy blocking list, this could be used to obscure his or her face in images taken without permission prior to that image being shared on social media,” Riley said.
• Bob Oswald is a veteran Chicago-area journalist and former news editor of the Elgin Courier-News. Contact him at boboswald33@gmail.com.
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Donald Trump Pressured Whistleblower To Give https://digitalalabamanews.com/donald-trump-pressured-whistleblower-to-give/
Former President Donald Trump’s company Trump Media has been under fire recently due to the controversial Truth Social app for smartphone devices. Now a whistleblower is exposing even more.
The Washington Post reported on Saturday that a fired executive from Trump’s media company spoke with the newspaper. The identity of the whistleblower, Will Wilkerson, was a senior vice president of operations at Trump Media and Technology, which owns the social network Truth Social, and was one of the company’s first employees.
In August, Wilkerson filed the SEC whistleblower complaint, saying that the company relied on “fraudulent misrepresentation, in violation of federal securities laws,” in its bid to be taken public via an investment vehicle known as a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. Wilkerson also described tension within Trump Media, including with CEO Devin Nunes, who, as a Republican congressman during the Trump Administration, was one of Trump’s most loyal defenders. He also said another executive detailed how Trump pressured him to give shares in the company to his wife, Melania Trump.
Digital World Acquisition Corp., the SPAC seeking to take the media company public, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. CNBC also reached out to Wilkerson’s attorneys for comment. A spokeswoman for Trump Media pushed back on the Post’s story and touted Truth Media’s availability on the Apple App Store, the Google Play Store and Samsung’s Galaxy Store.
“As Chairman of TMTG, President Trump hired Devin Nunes as CEO to create a culture of compliance and build a world-class team to lead Truth Social,” the spokeswoman said a statement emailed to CNBC.
According to Trump Media, Wilkerson was fired for making “unauthorized disclosures” to the Post, the newspaper said. One of his lawyers called the firing a retaliation against a whistleblower, according to the report. There are laws that protect whistleblowers.
The Trump Media-DWAC deal is also being investigated by regulators at the SEC and prosecutors in the Justice Department. Trump Media has also blamed the SEC for delaying the deal.
We’ll see what happens with the investigations and scandals of Trump Media. Wouldn’t be surprised if more bad information comes out!
What do you think of all this drama from Trump Media? Sound off in the comments!
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Budzinski, Deering Face Off In Illinois https://digitalalabamanews.com/budzinski-deering-face-off-in-illinois/
Nikki Budzinski and Regan Deering.
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol has scheduled its next hearing for Oct. 13, pushing the investigation back into the limelight less than three weeks before the midterm election that will determine control of Congress. It will be the panel’s first public session since the summer, when lawmakers worked through a series of tightly scripted hearings that attracted millions of viewers and touched on nearly every aspect of the Capitol insurrection. The committee had planned to hold the hearing in late September, but postponed as Hurricane Ian made landfall in Florida. The panel — comprised of seven Democrats and two Republicans — has not yet provided an agenda, but Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said recently that the hearing would “tell the story about a key element of Donald Trump’s plot to overturn the election.” Associated Press reporter Farnoush Amiri explains the significance of hearing’s timing, especially with midterm elections less than a month away and former President Trump’s influence over many of the Republican candidates. “Donald Trump is not on the ballot, but so many people who have taken his cause and who have taken his baseless claims for election fraud and voter fraud in the 2020 election are on the ballot,” Amiri said. The Committee is expected to release a final cumulative report of its findings by the end of the year.
SPRINGFIELD — When U.S. Rep. Bill Enyart, D-Belleville, lost his bid for reelection in the 12th Congressional District in 2014, Illinois was left without a Democratic congressperson south of Interstate 72 for the first time since at least World War II.
Though the party twice came exasperatingly close — 1,002 votes in 2012 and 2,058 votes in 2018 — to defeating Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Taylorville, in the neighboring Central Illinois-based 13th Congressional District, that effort proved futile amid a shifting political terrain.
But after a decade of tough losses, false starts and unfulfilled hopes, Democrats believe 2022 is the year and Nikki Budzinski is the candidate to finally return a downstate Illinois congressional seat to the blue column.
Budzinski, a Peoria-born political consultant and labor activist, is running against Republican Regan Deering, a Decatur community activist and scion of one of the most prominent families in American agribusiness.
The pair are competing in the newly reconfigured 13th Congressional District, which was drawn by Springfield Democrats during the once-a-decade redistricting process last year with the intention of giving the party a foothold in central and southern Illinois once more.
They did this by narrowing the geographic size of the district, cutting out several conservative rural communities and consolidating the most urban, liberal portions of the Metro East region, previously split three ways, into one district.
As a result, the string bean-shaped district stretches from East St. Louis to Champaign-Urbana, picking up Springfield and Decatur in between — a mix of college towns and communities with a blend of blue- and white-collar industries. Not to mention a sizable Black population that forms an influential bloc.
This also shifted the district’s partisan lean from voting for President Donald Trump by three points to one that voted for President Joe Biden by an 11-point margin in 2020. It also cut Davis out of the district, leaving it open and perhaps making for an easier path for Budzinski.
The district includes a mix of the increasingly cosmopolitan, urban base that has come to define the modern Democratic Party along with remnants of the coalition made up of unionized coal miners, steel plant workers and workers in other heavy industries that had previously made the region a Democratic stronghold.
“I think when the rubber really hits the road — the makeup of the district and we do our job turning the vote out — she will be the next Congress member from the 13th district. No doubt about it in my mind,” said Sangamon County Democratic Party chair Bill Houlihan. “But these elections have ebbs and flows.”
Indeed, the district’s fundamentals suggest it to be a Democratic-leaning district. However, low approval ratings for Biden, sky-high inflation and the poor performance the president’s party typically faces in midterm elections have given Republicans hope that the race could be within reach.
The district’s working class, blue collar constituency has come to define the campaign, with each candidate laser-focusing their messaging on “kitchen table” economic issues, such as bringing down inflation.
“I think, for sure, the defining issue of this campaign is going to be the cost of living,” Deering told Lee Enterprises in an interview earlier this month.
“The question is always, are you better off today than you were two years ago?” she continued. “And the answer is no.”
Decatur native Regan Deering discusses her campaign for Congress
Deering, a first-time candidate, has blamed Biden policies and, by extension, Budzinski for the rise in prices, tying it back to significant government spending during the COVID-19 pandemic. Deering, however, has been short on specific policy proposals to address the issue.
Budzinski, though also a first-time candidate, has been around politics for more than two decades, serving most recently as chief of staff for Biden’s Office of Management and Budget, where she played an integral role in crafting and implementing the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan.
Among other things, Budzinski said she would seek to address inflation by repealing the Trump tax cuts while making the child tax credit — a signature achievement in the American Rescue Plan that lapsed last year — permanent.
“We need to be fighting for the middle class, and tax cuts should be targeted to those families,” Budzinski told Lee Enterprises in an interview on Friday. “That’s all a part of a larger effort to help people keep more of what they’ve earned but also address rising costs so that people can afford day to day expenses.”
Though a mainstream Democrat, Budzinski has put distance between herself and her party on a number of issues. She is against Biden’s plan to forgive $10,000 in student loans for all borrowers earning under $125,000 per year, for instance.
She also favors an “all of the above” energy strategy, notably releasing a statement earlier this year in support of the construction of a natural gas plant in rural Sangamon County.
“So I’m a trade unionist, a made-in-America Democrat,” Budzinski told Lee Enterprises in August. “I’m not a typical Democrat.”
Sen. Dick Durbin and congressional candidate Nikki Budzinski headline address Democratic primary voters in Springfield.
Before her stint in the Biden Administration, Budzinski was a senior adviser to Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s campaign and, later, administration. She also worked for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and was in the labor movement for 10 years with the International Association of Firefighters and later the United Food and Commercial Workers Union.
While Budzinski may be most associated with labor, Deering’s ties are decidedly business. She is a member of the Andreas family, which ran Archer Daniels Midland Co. for nearly four decades and, in the process, transformed it from a modest regional grain processor into a world-leading company.
Deering was born in Decatur but spent most of her adolescence in the Chicago region, moving back to Soy City after getting married. She has since been involved in various philanthropic endeavors and was a small business owner.
Most notably, she was president of the board of directors for the Northeast Community Fund, an organization that serves low-income Decatur families by helping with food, clothing, financial assistance and advising programs.
Like Budzinski, Deering has sought to separate herself from the most extreme elements of her party.
Though personally anti-abortion, a position influenced by her own background as an adoptee, Deering said she opposes a federal abortion ban. She said the issue should remain in the hands of the states. She also supports exceptions for rape, incest and the life and health of the mother.
Deering
“It’s a challenge for me being a woman that supports life in a state that has very radical legislation that is late-term abortion and fully taxpayer-funded,” Deering said in August. “But, that’s why I think elections in November are gonna matter at the state level as well.”
Budzinski, who would vote to codify Roe v. Wade into federal law, said Deering cannot be trusted on the issue.
“No one believes that,” Budzinski said. “It’s political speak because she knows that women are paying attention to this election and they’re going to come out and vote and they are going to want to protect their right to choose. It’s a critical election.”
Budzinski
Deering is supported by Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, an anti-abortion group that is supporting federal legislation introduced last month that calls for banning abortion after 15 weeks. Budzinski, on the other hand, is supported by pro-abortion rights Planned Parenthood.
On guns, Deering said she supports the Second Amendment and has been endorsed by the National Rifle Association. Budzinski said she supports “commonsense gun safety measures.”
On immigration, both candidates said there was a need for comprehensive reform, with Budzinski explicitly calling for a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers, who are undocumented people brought to the country as minors.
Deering said “there is a conversation to be had” on a pathway to citizenship but said that the border must first be secured. She criticized Biden for reversing Trump-era policies such as “Remain in Mexico,” in which asylum seekers stayed in Mexico while awaiting their hearing i...
Nolan Turner Eligible To Make NFL Debut On Sunday https://digitalalabamanews.com/nolan-turner-eligible-to-make-nfl-debut-on-sunday/
Sports
Published: Oct. 15, 2022, 6:28 p.m.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers safety Nolan Turner tackles Miami Dolphins wide receiver Cedrick Wilson Jr. during an NFL preseason game on Aug. 13, 2022, at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Fla.(AP Photo/Jason Behnken)
Former Vestavia Hills High School standout Nolan Turner will be eligible to make his NFL debut on Sunday when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers play the Pittsburgh Steelers.
The Buccaneers elevated the rookie from their practice squad to make him eligible to play in Sunday’s game.
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Turner was among the four players from Alabama high schools and colleges elevated from practice squads on Saturday for Week 6 games in the NFL. Also elevated were:
· Los Angeles Rams offensive lineman Chandler Brewer (Florence), who most recently played in an NFL regular-season game on Dec. 29, 2019. Brewer has spent most of his four NFL seasons on the Rams’ practice squad. He also was elevated for the Oct. 3 game against the Seattle Seahawks, but he did not play in the contest.
· Carolina Panthers cornerback Tae Hayes (Decatur), who most recently played in an NFL regular-season game on Jan. 3, 2021. Since then, Hayes helped the Birmingham Stallions win the inaugural USFL championship this summer.
· Cleveland Browns wide receiver Chester Rogers (Lee-Huntsville), who returned two punts for 11 yards against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sept. 22 and ran back three kickoffs for 64 yards against the Los Angeles Charges on Oct. 9.
Each NFL team is allowed to elevate two practice-squad members to its active roster for each game, making them eligible to play.
Tampa Bay elevated Turner with safety Logan Ryan set to miss a second straight game with the foot injury and safety Mike Edwards nursing an elbow injury that limited his participation in practice this week.
Turner signed with Tampa Bay on May 13 as an undrafted rookie and came out of the preseason with a spot on the practice squad.
Turner received second-team All-State recognition in the athlete slot as a Vestavia Hills senior as he intercepted five passes and caught four touchdown passes for the Rebels in 2015. Turner went to Clemson, the only Power 5 program to offer him a scholarship.
At Clemson, Turner played for five seasons after a redshirt year in 2016. The safety appeared in 65 games with the Tigers, and the American Football Coaches Association’s All-American second team for the 2020 season included Turner.
FOR MORE OF AL.COM’S COVERAGE OF THE NFL, GO TO OUR NFL PAGE
Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.
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