Digital Arkansas News

Know Your Foe: Sugar Bears Take On Little Rock In Governor's I-40 Showdown – University Of Central Arkansas Athletics https://digitalarkansasnews.com/know-your-foe-sugar-bears-take-on-little-rock-in-governors-i-40-showdown-university-of-central-arkansas-athletics/ CONWAY, Ark. – The Central Arkansas volleyball team will head down to Little Rock to face the Little Rock Trojans on Tuesday night. The Sugar Bears will take a short break in ASUN play to square off against their in-state foe for the second time this season and get a leg up in the Governor’s I-40 Challenge. Mackenzie Vernon had a great weekend versus Kennesaw State and Jacksonville State, as she hit her season high for kills versus KSU with 16. Alexis Stumbough also had a good weekend, totaling 21 kills over the two matchups. The Sugar Bears had two players go over 20 kills on Saturday versus KSU, as Marissa McKelvey had 26 and Caylan Koons had 24. These two squads last played on September 16th in Memphis, and it was the Sugar Bears that took home a 3-0 victory. The 2022 campaign has gotten off to a bit of a cold start for Little Rock head coach Van Compton, as the Trojans own a 3-11 record and are 0-2 in OVC play. Despite the record, Little Rock still has several players to watch for on Tuesday night. Little Rock has had production from all corners of their offense, so there’s no shortage of players to watch for. Jeila Fullerton, a sophomore outside hitter from Kissimmee, Florida, is leading the team in kills with 86. Nedima Kamberovic is not far behind Fullerton with 81 kills on the year. Assists have come in several places for the Trojans, with three players over 140 helpers. Gabrielle Spankus has the slight edge with 151, with Jalynn Robinson and Sophia Reynolds have 145 and 143 assists respectively. Central Arkansas squares off with Little Rock Tuesday September 27th at 6:00 p.m. The game will be broadcasted on ESPN+. You can follow along with the action all season long on Twitter at @ucavball. Players Mentioned Players Mentioned Read More…

Gunman Attacks Russian Military Recruiter As Thousands Flee Mobilization https://digitalarkansasnews.com/gunman-attacks-russian-military-recruiter-as-thousands-flee-mobilization/ A young man shot and wounded the chief recruitment officer at a military enlistment station in Russia’s Irkutsk region on Monday, local authorities said, as thousands of fighting-age men continued to flee the country to escape President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine. The alleged shooter in the attack on the military commissariat in Ust-Ilimsk, a small town in Irkutsk, was apparently distraught that his close friend had been called for duty despite having no prior military service. When Putin announced a “partial mobilization” last week, he said only experienced servicemen would be summoned. “In other words, only military reservists, primarily those who served in the armed forces and have specific military occupational specialties and corresponding experience, will be called up,” he assured Russians in a national address. But there have been a torrent of reports from across Russia, even from ardent supporters of the war, of people being summoned for duty despite having no military experience, or being too old or physically incapable of serving. Those reports, along with the government’s acknowledgment that thousands of fighting-age men have fled the country to avoid conscription, suggest that the chaotic mobilization is becoming the latest debacle in Putin’s war. A video clip of Monday’s shooting showed the suspect, identified as 25-year-old Ruslan Zinin, firing at least one shot inside the office. “The shooter was immediately arrested, and he will definitely be punished,” Irkutsk regional governor Igor Kobzev wrote in his Telegram blog. “I can’t wrap my head around what happened, and I am ashamed that this is happening at a time when, on the contrary, we should be united.” The recruiter, Alexander Eliseev, has been hospitalized in critical condition, Kobzev said. Zinin’s mother, Marina Zinina, told Russian outlet ASTRA that her son was upset because his best friend got a mobilization summons despite never having served in the army. “They said that there would be partial mobilization, but it turns out that they take everyone,” she was quoted as saying. As local commissariats rushed to fulfill quotas, call-up notices were sent to men who should be legally exempt from service because of their age, health or lack of military experience. Some were sent home after a public uproar. Others, such as 59-year-old Viktor Dyachok, who has Stage 1 skin cancer and is blind in one eye, were called to duty, independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta reported. “He has astigmatism, hypertension, age-related deafness,” his daughter told the newspaper, saying the family had hoped he would be granted a medical dispensation. “[But] no one at the hospital objected to this; everyone follows the plan.” Amid swirling confusion over who would be summoned, thousands of Russians continued to flee the country, fearing the Kremlin would soon move to shut the borders. The attack in Irkutsk was just one in a spate of incidents that show resistance to the mobilization is becoming more widespread — and more unpredictable. In Ryazan, a city in western Russia, a man reportedly set himself on fire at a bus station to protest the war. Local outlet YA62.ru reported that he “started laughing and shouting that he did not want to participate in the special operation in Ukraine,” using the Kremlin-preferred euphemism for the war. A video online showed the man, who did not appear to be severely injured, being led outside the bus terminal by police and ambulance workers. Sporadic protests have also broken out, including in Russian regions populated mainly by ethnic minorities, such as Dagestan, where the majority of residents are Muslim, and the Indigenous lands of Buryatia and Yakutia. Local activists say men in these areas are being disproportionately targeted by the mobilization. More than 2,300 protesters have been detained across dozens of Russian cities since Putin announced the partial mobilization Wednesday morning, according to rights group OVD-Info, which monitors protest activity. Traffic jams stretching for miles have formed at the border crossings with Georgia and Kazakhstan as the departure of Russians continued through the weekend and on Monday. “The jam at the Russian-Georgian border continues to be about 20 kilometers long” — roughly 12½ miles — “and the wait time to cross into Georgia is now up to three days,” Nikolai Levshitz, a Russian-speaking blogger who helps expatriates assimilate in Georgia, wrote in his daily Telegram update. With air tickets to virtually all visa-free destinations long sold out, Russians are fleeing by foot, by car or even by bicycle. Photos and video clips posted on social media have shown piles of abandoned bicycles near border posts. One Russian man who flew into Istanbul on Monday morning said he took a charter flight from Moscow because commercial flights were sold out. He said he paid about $5,000 for his ticket. Reports from Russian independent outlets said that authorities could close the country’s borders to military-age men as soon as Wednesday. The outlets Meduza and Khodorkovsky Live, citing Russian government sources, each reported that Moscow will halt departures as soon as it announces the results of the staged referendums now being carried out in parts of four Ukrainian regions occupied by Russia. There is no doubt that the results of the referendums, which are illegal under Ukrainian and international law, will be reported by the Kremlin as showing overwhelming support for Russian annexation. Western countries have slammed the referendums as a “sham,” and Britain announced a new round of sanctions Monday against more than 90 individuals and companies involved in organizing the process, which is expected to conclude on Tuesday. “Sham referendums held at the barrel of a gun cannot be free or fair and we will never recognise their results,” British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said in a statement. “They follow a clear pattern of violence, intimidation, torture, and forced deportations in the areas of Ukraine Russia has seized.” Putin and other Russian officials have signaled that once Russia annexes the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, the Kremlin would consider any Ukrainian attacks there as direct strikes against Russia — creating the justification for stronger reprisals, including the possible use of nuclear weapons, and providing a basis for declaring partial or full-fledged martial law. On Monday, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov deflected those rumors, saying that “no decisions have been made in this regard.” But Russia’s international isolation is deepening. Japan announced Monday that it would ban exports to 21 Russian organizations that could be used to produce chemical weapons, and Tokyo warned Moscow against making further nuclear threats. Later Monday, Russia’s domestic security agency detained the Japanese consul general in the eastern city of Vladivostok, Motoki Tatsunori, and accused him of spying. Russian authorities declared him persona non grata, meaning he must leave the country. Thousands of miles from Moscow, Putin met with his closest ally, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, in the sunny Black Sea resort town of Sochi. Lukashenko allowed Putin to use Belarus as a staging ground for the invasion of Ukraine in February, and has remained publicly supportive throughout the conflict, even as Russia has lost ground and momentum. In 2020, Lukashenko claimed he was reelected in an election widely condemned as fraudulent. He then cracked down on protests, subjecting thousands of Belarusians to beatings and harsh prison sentences. In the two years since, up to 200,000 people have left Belarus. In their meeting Monday, Lukashenko told Putin not to “worry” about the Russian men now doing the same. “Let’s say 30,000, even 50,000 left,” Lukashenko told Putin. “So what? If they had stayed here, would they have been our people? Let them run.” Robyn Dixon and Natalia Abbakumova in Riga, Latvia, and Kareem Fahim in Istanbul contributed to this report. War in Ukraine: What you need to know The latest: Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a “partial mobilization” of troops in an address to the nation on Sept. 21, framing the move as an attempt to defend Russian sovereignty against a West that seeks to use Ukraine as a tool to “divide and destroy Russia.” Follow our live updates here. The fight: A successful Ukrainian counteroffensive has forced a major Russian retreat in the northeastern Kharkiv region in recent days, as troops fled cities and villages they had occupied since the early days of the war and abandoned large amounts of military equipment. Annexation referendums: Staged referendums, which would be illegal under international law, are set to take place from Sept. 23 to 27 in the breakaway Luhansk and Donetsk regions of eastern Ukraine, according to Russian news agencies. Another staged referendum will be held by the Moscow-appointed administration in Kherson starting Friday. Photos: Washington Post photographers have been on the ground from the beginning of the war — here’s some of their most powerful work. How you can help: Here are ways those in the U.S. can help support the Ukrainian people as well as what people around the world have been donating. Read our full coverage of the Russia-Ukraine crisis. Are you on Telegram? 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Obituaries In Fort Smith, AR | Times Record https://digitalarkansasnews.com/obituaries-in-fort-smith-ar-times-record-52/ Catherine Crosland Catherine Crosland, 90 of Fort Smith died September 24, 2022 in Fort Smith. She was a beloved teacher and a Methodist. Graveside will be 2:00 PM Thursday at Roselawn Cemetery – Fort Smith, Arkansas under the direction of Agent Mallory Martin Funeral Service, Inc. She is survived by son, Lyle Crosland of Fort Smith, AR; two grandchildren; three great-grandchildren; sister, Deloris Thames Berger of Barling, AR. Viewing will be 10 am – 8 pm Wednesday at Agent Mallory Martin Funeral Home in Sallisaw where the family will greet 6 – 8 pm. Posted online on September 26, 2022 Published in Southwest Times Record Read More Here

Analysis | ‘Impeachable Whatever’: GOP Floats Impeaching Biden For … Something https://digitalarkansasnews.com/analysis-impeachable-whatever-gop-floats-impeaching-biden-for-something/ Republicans have been cuing up a potential impeachment of President Biden if they take back control of Congress in the 2022 election. Now they just need to figure out what they might actually impeach him for. Rep. Nancy Mace’s (R-S.C.) interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” turned some heads this weekend when she was asked about a GOP House majority impeaching Biden next Congress. She replied: “I believe there’s a lot of pressure on Republicans to have that vote, to put that legislation forward, and to have that vote.” Mace cast herself as reluctant to vote for impeachment — she voted against Trump’s post-Jan. 6 impeachment despite roundly criticizing his actions — but left open the possibility. One thing conspicuously missing from the conversation, though? A concrete discussion of what the grounds for impeachment would be. And that’s been a trend. Back in January, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) mused about impeachment on his podcast. He suggested it was more likely because Democrats “weaponized” impeachment against Donald Trump, saying “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.” Cruz’s comments got the most attention because he seemed to allow that the impeachment might not be properly founded — saying Biden could be impeached “whether it’s justified or not.” He was effectively acknowledging such an action could boil down to mere political payback. In his comments, he also acknowledged that it wasn’t clear what Biden might be impeached for. He cited the border crises “probably the strongest grounds right now for impeachment,” but added that “there may be others.” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) also spotlighted the border as a possible impeachment grounds in a March interview with the Washington Times, while calling for his party to discuss the possibility. The newspaper noted in its write-up of the interview, though, that Jordan suggested Republicans could focus impeachment on something else: “Mr. Jordan said the illegal immigration surge is ‘one of the issues’ that makes Mr. Biden a target for impeachment.” The theory is often vague and doesn’t point to one specific action or policy, though some have focused on Biden ending Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy or not building the border wall. Rather, it points in a general way to Biden allegedly failing to enforce the nation’s immigration laws and to prevent border crossings, as arrests have reached historic highs. A smattering of other issues have also been mentioned, the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan last summer perhaps most prominent among them. Shortly after the Jan. 6 insurrection, former Trump White House adviser Stephen K. Bannon suggested that Biden be impeached for “his illegitimate activities of stealing the presidency.” (There is still zero evidence for this.) Another is Hunter Biden and the former vice president’s work in Ukraine. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) raised this as a potential grounds for impeachment even before Biden won the Democratic nomination in 2016, and her comments echoed Cruz’s, suggesting it was quite possible without necessarily endorsing the move. The idea revolved around the elder Biden pushing for the removal of the Ukraine’s top prosecutor and in some way trying to help his son. (The conspiracy theory contended that Biden intervened to prevent the prosecutor from investigating his son’s business ties; in fact, the prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, wasn’t actively investigating that, he was regarded in the West as being corrupt, and his ouster was in line with official U.S. policy.) “I think this door of impeachable whatever has been opened,” Ernst said at the time. In one way, Ernst’s phrase — “impeachable whatever” — has proven apt. Last month, The Hill’s Mike Lillis reported that at least eight impeachment resolutions had been introduced against Biden: three on immigration, three on Afghanistan, one on the coronavirus pandemic eviction moratorium and one on Hunter Biden. Now is about the time when some point out that Democrats too floated a bunch of potential impeachment grounds during the Trump administration. And that’s true. But such proposals were generally more responsive to an actual event, and were more specific. For example there were calls during the Russia investigation, particularly for alleged obstructions of justice (for which Robert S. Mueller III found substantial evidence). There were calls after Trump fired FBI Director James B. Comey, which was a historic instance of a president firing the man whose investigation threatened the president personally. One lawmaker cited Trump’s reaction to the tragedy in Charlottesville One thing you’ll also notice if you comb through those efforts, though, is that they generally came from just a handful of Democratic lawmakers. When one of them forced votes, clear majorities of Democrats repeatedly voted against moving forward. Party leaders tried to tamp down the talk. Ultimately, they relented and impeached Trump first when evidence was produced indicating Trump rather blatantly tried to use foreign policy toward Ukraine for personal political gain. Then they pursued impeachment again when Trump supporters, acting on his false election conspiracy theories, launched a historic insurrection at the Capitol and Trump dithered in response to it. Evaluating the substance of these impeachment efforts and comparing it to what Republicans are now floating for Biden is an admittedly subjective exercise. But a good metric is how even some Republicans reacted back then. A couple of them floated impeachment for Trump very shortly after Comey’s firing in May 2017. Amid the Ukraine impeachment, many Republicans raised serious concerns about what Trump had done, even as they ultimately voted nearly unanimously against impeachment and then voted to acquit him. The post-Jan. 6 insurrection resulted in even more Republicans denouncing Trump’s actions and inaction, a historic number of them voting to impeach and convict him, and even many who voted against conviction emphasizing they had done so on a technicality (that Trump was no longer in office). There is no real analog for Democrats raising such substantial concerns about Biden’s actions right now. (The nearest Democrats have come may have been in the summer of 2021, when they said they would investigate various aspects of the Afghanistan withdrawal.) Nor are the potential grounds Republicans have raised for impeachment nearly as specific. Which is probably why much of the impeachment talk right now focuses on the “we might” rather than the “here’s why we might.” Read More Here

Obituaries In Fort Smith, AR | Times Record https://digitalarkansasnews.com/obituaries-in-fort-smith-ar-times-record-51/ Nancy J. Sickmann Nancy Jane Sickmann, 67 of Fort Smith, AR passed away on September 22, 2022. Nancy was born on December 13, 1954 to Maynard Witter & Mary (King) Kline. She enjoyed church activities, going out to eat and watching football and baseball. Services for Nancy will be Wednesday October 5, 2022 at 2 pm at First Methodist church in the Roebuck Chapel. Services provided by Edwards Funeral Home. Posted online on September 26, 2022 Published in Southwest Times Record Read More Here

TikTok Is Facing A $30m Fine Over Alleged Misuse Of Kids https://digitalarkansasnews.com/tiktok-is-facing-a-30m-fine-over-alleged-misuse-of-kids/ News TikTok’s legal battles just don’t stop. Embattled video-sharing app TikTok faces a potential $30m fine after UK regulators accused the company of mishandling user data.  During its investigation, the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) learned the company may have processed the data of underage children without “appropriate parental consent.”  The ICO further alleges TikTok improperly processed “special category data” without lawful grounds.  The term “special category data” encompasses a broad swath of identifiers. These range from the user’s ethnic and racial origins, to their political and religious beliefs. Finally, the ICO believes the ICO has “failed to provide proper information” about its data policies in a “concise, transparent, and easily understood way.”  A notice of intent Image: Unsplash The ICO has issued a “notice of intent.” This document represents the first step for any action. It outlines the regulator’s allegations against TikTok, as well as any penalties it may be forced to pay. Under UK law, TikTok could pay £27m (roughly $30m at current exchange rates).  This figure exceeds the $5.7m fine issued by the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in 2019, but dwarfs its 2021 ad revenue of $4bn.  In a statement, John Edwards, the UK’s information Commissioner said: “We all want children to be able to learn and experience the digital world, but with proper data privacy protections.  “Companies providing digital services have a legal duty to put those protections in place, but our provisional view is that TikTok fell short of meeting that requirement,” he added.  More bad news for TikTok Today’s news is yet another run of misfortune for the Chinese-owned video sharing app. The social media sensation faces increased scrutiny from lawmakers on both sides of the Atlantic.  Last month, a Belgian security researcher revealed the presence of a keylogger that records user keystrokes when visiting external websites from the TikTok app.  This followed an intervention from FCC commissioner Brendan Carr, who unsuccessfully lobbied Apple and Google to delete the app from their marketplaces this June.  TikTok is not just another video app. That’s the sheep’s clothing. It harvests swaths of sensitive data that new reports show are being accessed in Beijing. I’ve called on @Apple & @Google to remove TikTok from their app stores for its pattern of surreptitious data practices. pic.twitter.com/Le01fBpNjn — Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) June 28, 2022 Most notably, the Trump Administration attempted to ban the app. TikTok’s owner, ByteDance, avoided a total ban by agreeing to sell its US operations to an American company. It highlighted Oracle as a potential buyer.  In the end, Oracle didn’t acquire TikTok’s US branch. The app remains the subject of controversy to this day.  Have any thoughts on this? Carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook. Editors’ Recommendations: New TikTok hack reportedly exposes source code and user data Donald Trump could return to Facebook early next year Twitter is officially testing its edit button Facebook’s new Community Chats feature is basically Discord Matthew Hughes is a journalist from Liverpool, England. His interests include security, startups, food, and storytelling. Past work can be found on The Register, Forbes, The Next Web, and Business Insider. Read More Here

Wisconsin's Top Republican Sues To Block Jan. 6 Subpoena https://digitalarkansasnews.com/wisconsins-top-republican-sues-to-block-jan-6-subpoena/ MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin’s Republican Assembly leader is suing to block a subpoena that orders him to testify before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection about a conversation he had with Donald Trump about overturning the 2020 election. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos filed the lawsuit on Sunday in federal court in Wisconsin arguing that the subpoena falls outside the scope of the committee’s investigation into last year’s Capitol attack and infringes on his legislative immunity from civil process. Vos, who had a falling out with Trump this summer, also alleged that the short notice of the subpoena placed an undue burden on him. Rep. Bennie Thompson, committee chair, issued the subpoena Friday ordering Vos to appear on Monday morning either in person or via videoconference. The deposition did not occur. In his lawsuit, Vos said the only explanation for the “extreme deadline” was to conduct the interview before the committee’s next televised hearing on Wednesday “so that clips can be edited out to be used in a multimedia show.” Others who have been subpoenaed by the committee have also sued to avoid giving testimony. Former President Donald Trump tosses caps to the crowd as he holds a rally, Friday, Sept. 23, 2022, in Wilmington, N.C. (AP Photo/Chris Seward) Photo: ASSOCIATED PRESS/Chris Seward Vos, in a statement Monday, said he was surprised to be subpoenaed because he has no information about the events surrounding the Jan. 6 attacks. “Given how close we are to the midterms, this subpoena seems to be more about partisan politics than actual fact-finding,” he said. A letter from Thompson that accompanied the subpoena said lawmakers want to talk with Vos about a July call with Trump in which the former president asked Vos about steps he was taking to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The call was in response to a Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling that absentee ballot drop boxes, which were used in the 2020 election and others before it, would be illegal going forward. After Vos took no action to overturn the election, Trump endorsed his primary challenger. Vos narrowly won his primary, and three days later fired Michael Gableman, the former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice he had hired, under pressure from Trump, to investigate the 2020 election. Vos called Gableman, who also endorsed his primary opponent, an “embarrassment.” Gableman’s inquiry turned up no evidence of widespread fraud, but the investigator joined Trump in calling for lawmakers to consider decertifying the 2020 election. The new lawsuit was assigned to U.S. District Judge Pamela Pepper, who was appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama. ___ Venhuizen is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. ___ More on Donald Trump-related investigations: https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump Follow the AP’s coverage of Jan. 6 at: https://apnews.com/hub/capitol-siege Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. Read More Here

British Pound Falls To All-Time Low Against Dollar After Taxes Slashed https://digitalarkansasnews.com/british-pound-falls-to-all-time-low-against-dollar-after-taxes-slashed/ LONDON — The British pound hit an all-time low against the U.S. dollar on Monday following the new government’s move to enact sweeping tax cuts to boost growth, adding to global recession fears. The pound’s slide comes as Britain grapples with a cost-of-living crisis and soaring public debt amid deteriorating investor confidence. It also raised the prospect that the Bank of England may intervene to shore up the pound. The slump in part reflects the strength of the U.S. dollar, which has been boosted by higher interest rates. But it also has dropped against many other currencies, indicating specific concerns about the British economy. The pound hit a record low of $1.03 in Asian trading early Monday, before regaining some ground and stabilizing around $1.08 — still well below where it was Friday morning before the government unveiled its “mini-budget.” The slump comes as global markets falter and recession fears grow in many geographies. In the United States, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates last week in its ongoing push to subdue high inflation. It was the fifth rate hike of the year and the third consecutive one of three-quarters of a percentage point. That roiled Wall Street, and by Friday the Dow Jones industrial average had closed below 30,0000, to its lowest point since 2020. “We have got to get inflation behind us,” Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell said last week. “I wish there were a painless way to do that. There isn’t.” The major U.S. indexes were down in early afternoon trading Monday, with the Dow falling about 275 points, or 0.9 percent and the S&P 500 down 0.9 percent. The tech-heavy Nasdaq was off 0.3 percent. The Bank of England said Monday that it was “monitoring developments in financial markets very closely in light of the significant repricing of financial assets.” In a statement, the central bank said its monetary policy committee would make a “full assessment” of the impact of the government’s actions and the pound’s drop at its next meeting, which is scheduled for November. “The MPC will not hesitate to change interest rates as necessary to return inflation to the 2% target sustainably in the medium term, in line with its remit,” it said. The pound’s drop comes about two months after the euro reached parity with the dollar for the first time in nearly two decades. The war in Ukraine has disrupted food supplies and sent energy costs soaring around the world and especially in Europe. That, combined with the Fed’s raising interest rates, has made the dollar a comparatively safer bet for investors. Mike Riddell, a senior fixed-income portfolio manager at Allianz Global Investors, said the pound’s decline is not “necessarily a symptom of European recession.” Rather, investors are starting to become skeptical of Britain’s ’s ability to fight inflation. “The scary thing is that the global economy is yet to feel the impact of all the rates hikes we’ve seen around the world in the last few months, because it takes about a year for monetary policy changes to have an impact on the economy,” he said in an email. A weaker currency, of course, does not necessarily reflect a weak economy. In many cases, it may be advantageous, for example making British exports cheaper for consumers in the United States — and so a weak pound will boost overseas sales for companies that are export-oriented. But it means that anything denominated in dollars, such as energy costs, will soar for consumers. It is good news for American tourists in the United Kingdom, who suddenly find that their dollars are going much further. It is not good news for many British households, which already are facing soaring energy bills and inflation running at 10 percent. They will find that the costs of imported goods and services will go up, including everything from fuel for vehicles to food on plates — in 2020, Britain imported 46 percent of the food it consumed. On Friday, Kwasi Kwarteng, the new chancellor of the exchequer, or finance minister, announced a package of tax cuts worth 45 billion pounds ($48 billion), the biggest shake-up to its tax system in 50 years. The top rate of 45 percent for income tax was slashed, the cap for banker bonuses will be scrapped, and taxes on house purchases were cut — moves that will predominantly help more-affluent citizens in hopes they will boost their spending. While the new prime minister, Liz Truss, had pledged tax cuts during her leadership campaign, the scale of the cuts still shocked many economic observers. “In the current economic environment it is a huge gamble,” wrote Thomas Pope, an economist with the Institute for Government. It is a major shift away from the policies of Truss’s predecessor, Boris Johnson, who last year had announced tax increases to help pay for combating the pandemic. The new British government hopes that by slashing taxes and regulations, it will be able to generate growth that will help to fund public services and eventually pay down the debt. John Hardy, head of foreign exchange strategy at Saxo Bank, said the pound was sliding because the government’s math isn’t reassuring investors. “It’s a numbers game and their numbers don’t add up,” he said. Investors are looking at where inflation is going and at Britain’s balance sheet. “They are saying, ‘I don’t want to own U.K. paper because they are not playing responsibly,’” Hardy said. Truss, who is just three weeks into her new job, has defended the tax-cutting bonanza. In a recent interview, CNN’s Jake Tapper put it to Truss that British opposition parties are framing her plans as “recklessly running up the deficit” and that President Biden “is, in essence, saying your approach doesn’t work.” Last week, Biden tweeted: “I am sick and tired of trickle-down economics. It has never worked.” He was referring to the supply-side economics made famous by President Ronald Reagan, which Truss’s approach resembles. In the interview, Truss responded: “The U.K. has one of the lowest levels of debt in the G-7. But we have one of the highest levels of taxes. Currently, we have a 70-year high in our tax rates. And what I’m determined to do as prime minister, and what the chancellor is determined to do, is make sure we are incentivizing businesses to invest. And we’re also helping ordinary people with their taxes.” Truss continued: “That’s why I don’t feel it’s right to have higher national insurance and higher corporation tax, because that will make it harder for us to attract the investment we need in the U.K. It will be harder to generate those new jobs.” Rachel Lerman in Washington contributed to this report. Read More Here

PTSD, Substance Misuse Associated With Cellular Marker For Early Death In Vets – ScienceBlog.com https://digitalarkansasnews.com/ptsd-substance-misuse-associated-with-cellular-marker-for-early-death-in-vets-scienceblog-com/ Psychiatric symptoms and diagnoses increase risk for premature morbidity and mortality. Now a new study has found that trauma-exposed Veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder and externalizing psychiatric disorders, like substance use disorders and antisocial personality disorder, are at greater risk for early death. “Our study found that PTSD and comorbid conditions like substance misuse, are associated with a cellular marker of early death found in DNA methylation patterns and referred to as GrimAge” explained corresponding author Erika Wolf, PhD, the study’s senior author, who is a clinical research psychologist for the National Center for PTSD at VA Boston Healthcare System and professor of psychiatry at BUSM. The study included two different samples of Veterans with trauma exposure and high rates of PTSD and associated psychiatric conditions. They included a group of 434 relatively younger veterans (average age early 30s) who had served in the post-9/11 conflicts and a group of 647 trauma-exposed middle-age veterans and their trauma-exposed spouses (average age early 50s). Both groups were assessed for a range of psychological conditions and underwent a blood draw to obtain genetic information and to test for levels of a variety of inflammatory and neuropathological molecules. The younger cohort also underwent cognitive testing and a brain MRI. The researchers then used the DNA methylation data obtained in each blood sample to measure “GrimAge” using an existing algorithm that is predictive of time to death. They then correlated GrimAge with a range of psychiatric diagnoses, biological markers, cognitive tests and metrics of brain morphology. In addition to associations between PTSD and externalizing psychiatric disorders with the DNA methylation marker of shortened time-to-death, the study found that the GrimAge DNA methylation index was associated with a number of adverse clinical outcomes, including alterations in inflammation, oxidative stress, immune, and metabolic molecules, and with metrics of neuropathology such as cortical thinning, a blood-based measure of astrocyte damage, and cognitive decline. “Collectively our findings suggest that a number of psychiatric disorders may increase risk for early death and underscore the importance of identification of those at greatest risk,” said Wolf. According to her, the biomarkers associated with GrimAge could hold the key to identification of new biological treatments to slow or reverse the march towards premature death among those with symptoms of traumatic stress. “The ability to detect low levels of these molecules years before they may become clinically significant and hopefully be able to intervene early on in disease trajectories is critical for efforts to ultimately slow or reverse the adverse health consequences of traumatic stress.” The study’s first author was Sage Hawn, PhD, who was an NIMH-funded T-32 post-doctoral fellow in the department of psychiatric at BUSM and the National Center for PTSD when she completed this work. These finding appear online in the journal Translational Psychiatry. Funding for this study was provided by: Merit Review Award Number I01 CX-001276-01 from United States (U.S.) Department of Veterans Affairs Clinical Sciences R&D (CSRD) Service, the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number RF1AG068121, and the National Institute of Mental Health under Award Numbers R21MH102834 and 5T32MH019836. This work was also supported by the Translational Research Center for TBI and Stress Disorders (TRACTS), a VA Rehabilitation Research and Development Traumatic Brain Injury Center of Excellence (B9254-C), and the Cooperative Studies Program, Department of Veterans Affairs. This research is the result of work supported with resources and the use of facilities at the Pharmacogenomics Analysis Laboratory, Research and Development Service, Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System, Little Rock, Arkansas, and the National Center for PTSD. The material in this press release comes from the originating research organization. Content may be edited for style and length. Want more? Sign up for our daily email. Read More…

Ian Strengthens Into A Hurricane As Florida Begins Evacuations And Cuba Braces For Possible Floods https://digitalarkansasnews.com/ian-strengthens-into-a-hurricane-as-florida-begins-evacuations-and-cuba-braces-for-possible-floods/ Ian strengthened into a hurricane on Monday as Florida began ordering evacuations and prepared for possible floods this week. Tornadoes are also possible late Monday night and into Tuesday across the Florida Keys and the southern and central Florida Peninsula, according to the National Hurricane Center. A mandatory evacuation was issued for some residents in Hillsborough County on the westernmost part of the Florida Peninsula on Monday. Emergency shelters were opened in the county, which includes Tampa. County Administrator Bonnie Wise told reporters the orders and recommendations for evacuation will go into effect at 2 p.m. on Monday. “We did not make this decision easily, but the storm poses a serious threat and we must do everything we can to protect our residents,” Wise said during a news conference. In coordination with Hillsborough officials, the MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, home to U.S. Central Command, has also announced a mandatory evacuation. The order is for “non-mission essential individuals” living in the westernmost part of the county, which includes uniformed service members, civilian employees and their dependents. This evacuation is in effect and set to be completed by Tuesday afternoon. Hernando County, about an hour north of Hillsborough, has issued a voluntary evacuation order on Monday for those living in low-lying areas and mobile homes. The order will become mandatory on Tuesday morning. Shelters will also open on Tuesday and schools will be closed in the coastal county. Manatee County, south of Hillsborough, also announced plans for mandatory evacuation for some residents that will go into effect Tuesday morning, according to a news release. Cuba, Cayman Islands in the path of the storm Currently in the western Caribbean Sea, Ian is expected to rapidly strengthen during the next day or so and become a major hurricane as it nears western Cuba, where it is expected to “produce significant wind and storm surge impacts.” The storm, which is about 240 miles southeast of the western tip of Cuba, has maximum sustained winds of 80 mph, with higher gusts, the hurricane center said. A hurricane watch was issued along the west coast of Florida from north of Englewood to the Anclote River, including Tampa Bay, while a tropical storm warning is in place for the lower Florida Keys from Seven Mile Bridge to Key West as well as Dry Tortugas Island. The center of Ian is expected to pass near or west of the Cayman Islands on Monday, and near or over western Cuba on Monday evening and early Tuesday, the hurricane center said. “Ian will then emerge over the southeastern Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday, and pass west of the Florida Keys late Tuesday, and approach the west coast of Florida on Wednesday,” it said. Preparing for heavy rain, flooding, storm surge The hurricane is forecast to bring 8 to 15 inches of rain to central West Florida, 3 to 8 inches to the rest of the Florida Peninsula and 4 to 6 inches to the Keys. “Heavy rainfall is expected to affect North Florida, eastern portions of the Florida Panhandle, and portions of the Southeast, and Mid Atlantic regions Friday and Saturday,” the NHC said. This rain can cause flash and urban flooding mid-to-late week in central Florida as well as across the Florida Keys and peninsula through midweek. Flooding and rising of streams and rivers over northern Florida and parts of the southeast U.S. are also possible mid-to-late week. “Regardless of Ian’s exact track and intensity, there is a risk of dangerous storm surge, hurricane-force winds, and heavy rainfall along the west coast of Florida and the Florida Panhandle by the middle of this week, and residents in Florida should ensure they have their hurricane plan in place,” it said. In photos captured Sunday, residents in Tampa could be seen filling sandbags to help prevent against flooding ahead of the storm. People fill their allotted 10 free sandbags to prepare for the storm’s arrival in Tampa, Fla., on Sunday.Luis Santana / Tampa Bay Times via Zuma Press In Kissimmee, about an hour northeast of Tampa, a long line of shoppers could be seen waiting outside a store in a race to stock up on supplies ahead of Ian’s arrival. A number of people could be seen carting several cases of water bottles out of the store. Before the hurricane reaches Florida, it is predicted to pass near or west of the Cayman Islands before moving over to western Cuba. ‘Pray and hope for the best’ “Life-threatening” storm surge and hurricane-force winds are expected to hit parts of western Cuba starting late Monday, with Ian expected to be at or near major hurricane strength by the time it nears the region. Western Cuba can receive anywhere from 6 to 16 inches of rain, the Cayman Islands might receive 3 to 8 inches and Jamaica an additional 1 to 3 inches, according to forecasters. This rainfall may produce flash flooding and mudslides in higher terrain areas over western Cuba. Water levels along the coast of western Cuba can rise as much as 9 to 14 feet above normal tide levels Monday night and early Tuesday. A hurricane warning is in place for Grand Cayman and the Cuban provinces of Isla de Juventud, Pinar del Rio and Artemisa while a tropical storm warning is in effect for the Cuban provinces of La Habana, Mayabeque and Matanzas. Authorities in Cuba suspended school classes in Pinar del Rio Province and said they would start evacuations Monday in preparation for the storm. The Cuban state media outlet Granma reported that authorities planned to start evacuating people from vulnerable areas early Monday in the far-western province. “Efforts to protect life and property should be rushed to completion,” the hurricane center warned. Tropical storm watches are in place for Little Cayman and Cayman Brac. Cayman Islands Premier Wayne Panton urged residents to get ready for the storm and to also check in on neighbors. He said that there was some uncertainty, but that “history has taught us that we must prepare as best we can, and we must prepare for the worst and absolutely pray and hope for the best.” Read More Here

Gas From Russia's Nord Stream 2 Pipeline Leaks Into Baltic Sea https://digitalarkansasnews.com/gas-from-russias-nord-stream-2-pipeline-leaks-into-baltic-sea/ Security walks in front of the landfall facility of the Baltic Sea gas pipeline Nord Stream 2 in Lubmin, Germany, September 19, 2022. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch/File Photo Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com BERLIN, Sept 26 (Reuters) – The Danish authorities on Monday asked ships to steer clear of a five nautical mile radius off the island of Bornholm after a gas leak overnight from the defunct Russian-owned Nord Stream 2 pipeline drained into the Baltic Sea. The German government said it was in contact with the Danish authorities and working with local law enforcement to find out what caused pressure in the pipeline to plummet suddenly. Denmark’s energy ministry declined to comment. The pipeline has been one of the flashpoints in an escalating energy war between Europe and Moscow since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February that has pummelled major Western economies and sent gas prices soaring. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com “A leak today occurred on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline in the Danish area,” said Denmark’s energy agency in a statement. Danish maritime authorities had issued a navigation warning and established a zone around the pipeline “as it is dangerous for ship traffic”, it added. Nord Stream 2’s operator said pressure in the pipeline, which had contained some gas sealed inside despite never becoming operational, dropped from 105 to 7 bars overnight. The pipeline, which was intended to double the volume of gas flowing from St. Petersburg under the Baltic Sea to Germany, had just been completed and filled with 300 million cubic metres of gas when Germany cancelled it days before the invasion. “Overnight the Nord Stream 2 landfall dispatcher registered a rapid gas pressure drop on Line A of the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline,” Nord Stream 2’s operator said in a statement. “Investigation is ongoing.” NO CLARITY European countries have resisted Russian calls to allow the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to operate and accused Moscow of using energy as a weapon. Russia denies doing so and blames the West for gas shortages. “We are currently in contact with the authorities concerned in order to clarify the situation. We still have no clarity about the causes and the exact facts,” said a statement from the German economy ministry. The Swiss-based operator, which has legally been wound up, said it had informed all relevant authorities about the leak. Russian gas exporter Gazprom (GAZP.MM) referred questions about the incident to the Nord Stream 2 operator. Russia has cut off gas supplies to several countries and also halted flows through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, blaming Western sanctions for hindering operations. President Vladimir Putin in September chided the West for keeping Nord Stream 2 shut. read more Monday’s gas leak happened a day before the ceremonial launch of the Baltic Pipe carrying gas from Norway to Poland. The project is a centrepiece of Warsaw’s efforts to diversify from Russian gas. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen is due to travel to Poland on Tuesday to mark the occasion. Nord Stream 2 was widely unpopular among Danish lawmakers and the country in 2017 passed a law which allowed it to ban the project from passing through its territorial waters on security grounds. But Nord Stream 2 later changed the original route to steer it through Denmark’s exclusive economic zone, where this veto could not be applied. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Reporting by Thomas Escritt, Christian Kraemer, Stine Jacobsen, Terje Solsvik, Marek Strzelecki and Matthias Williams; Writing by Matthias Williams; Editing by Andrea Ricci and Mark Potter Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. Thomas Escritt Thomson Reuters Berlin correspondent who has investigated anti-vaxxers and COVID treatment practices, reported on refugee camps and covered warlords’ trials in The Hague. Earlier, he covered Eastern Europe for the Financial Times. He speaks Hungarian, German, French and Dutch. Read More Here

Obituaries In Fort Smith, AR | Times Record https://digitalarkansasnews.com/obituaries-in-fort-smith-ar-times-record-50/ Garrett Degenhart Garrett Thomas Degenhart was born on October 28, 1997 in Phoenix Arizona and he rode into the arms of Jesus on September 21, 2022. Garrett was loved by many because he saw their intrinsic value. A hard worker and an over comer of great adversity, Garrett was working to become a counselor to share that hope with others. His contagious smile was the trademark of his presence and he will he missed by those that love him. Garrett is survived by his parents Austin and Rachel Degenhart, siblings Austin and Amanda Degenhart, Joy Degenhart, Emily and Landry Kieth, Claire and Trevor Duffy and nieces and nephews Jaxson, Axl, Woodrow, Addison, Forbes and Eli and paternal grandparents Austin Degenhart Jr, and Tamara Carr, and extended family. Viewing will be held Tuesday Sept. 27, 2022 from 6-8 pm at Lewis Funeral Home on Kelly Hwy and celebration of life service will be Wednesday Sept. 28, 2022 at 10 am at The Bakery District Event Center in Fort Smith, AR. Arrangements are under the direction of Lewis Funeral Chapel in Fort Smith, AR. Posted online on September 26, 2022 Published in Southwest Times Record Read More Here

QAnon Now Has A Troubling New Splinter Group Called 'Negative48' https://digitalarkansasnews.com/qanon-now-has-a-troubling-new-splinter-group-called-negative48/ Turns out, things can always get worse. A new “splinter group” from theQAnon movement called Negative48 has emerged – and members caused friction with security at former President Donald Trump‘s rallies, it has been reported. On Monday (26 September), The Washington Post ‘s Isaac Arnsdorf reported on the group and the strained relationship with the security team. Negative48’s members were behind the voyage to Dallas last year to see the apparent reemergence of John F. Kennedy Jr and his team effort with Trump to reclaim America from a dark evil. They are also following the former commander-in-chief’s rallies around the country like they’re following their favourite band. Sign upto our free Indy100 weekly newsletter “The arrival of the QAnon group, however, has led to a silent standoff with Trump’s team, raising concerns that they could disrupt events, alienate other fans, distract from the former president’s message or generate bad publicity,” reported Arnsdorf. Arnsdorf also said that the security, who were “male and female bodybuilders,” kept a close eye on Negative48, informing them that they “can’t block the aisles with their dancing.” The report also stated that the splinter group has an odd form of numerology within their plan, even going as far as to create ominous parallels. “One man with the group who didn’t identify himself illustrated how it worked using the name of this newspaper. ‘The Washington Post?’ he said. ‘W is 23 in the alphabet. P is 16. Thirty-nine. Angel 39. Which angel? Lucifer was an angel,'” the report added. The broader conspiracy viewpoints of the QAnon movement are centred around the belief that Trump wants to free the US from a malicious group of sex-trafficking cannibals who eat the flesh of children to be immortal. They also believe that an event dubbed “The Storm” will enact martial law, leading to the arrests of political opponents. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings. Read More Here

Recreational Cannabis Measure Will Be On Ballot In Arkansas https://digitalarkansasnews.com/recreational-cannabis-measure-will-be-on-ballot-in-arkansas/ LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — The Arkansas Supreme Court on Thursday said voters can decide whether to legalize recreational marijuana, overturning a state panel’s decision to block the measure from the November ballot. Justices granted a request by Responsible Growth Arkansas, the group behind the proposal, to certify the measure for the November ballot. “The people will decide whether to approve the proposed amendment in November,” Justice Robin Wynne wrote in the court’s ruling. The group behind the proposal appealed after the state Board of Election Commissioners blocked the initiative in August. Supporters submitted more than enough valid signatures from registered voters to qualify, but the proposal still needed approval from the board to appear on the ballot. “We’re extremely grateful to the Supreme Court that they agreed with us and felt like it was a complete validation of everything we’ve done,” Steve Lancaster, an attorney for Responsible Growth Arkansas, said. “We’re excited and moving on to November.” Because the deadline has passed to certify initiative titles, the court had allowed the measure on the general election ballot while it decided whether the votes will be counted. Arkansas voters in 2016 approved a constitutional amendment legalizing medical marijuana. The proposed amendment would allow those 21 and older to possess up to an ounce of cannabis and would allow state-licensed dispensaries to sell recreational marijuana. The Board of Election Commissioners rejected the measure after commissioners said they didn’t believe the ballot title fully explained to voters the impact of the amendment. Supporters of the measure argued that the board’s criticism went beyond what was required for ballot initiatives. Justices rejected the board’s arguments for denying the measure, but the court also struck down the 2019 law that empowered the board to certify ballot measures. Before that law, ballot measures had to be reviewed by the attorney general before petitions could be circulated. Two conservative justices agreed that the panel didn’t have the authority to reject the proposal, but said Arkansas’ Republican secretary of state also correctly found the proposal insufficient for the state’s ballot. “The proposed ballot title is nether complete enough to reveal the scope of the proposed amendment nor free of misleading omissions regarding the issues of child protection,” Justice Shawn Womack wrote in a separate opinion. A spokesman said Secretary of State John Thurston, who chairs the board of election commissioners, did not have a comment on the ruling. Recreational marijuana is already legal in 19 states, and legalization proposals are on the ballot this fall in South Dakota, North Dakota, Missouri and Maryland. The Oklahoma Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled a proposal in that state will not appear on the ballot in November. Responsible Growth Arkansas has raised more than $4 million in support of the Arkansas measure, primarily from medical marijuana businesses. Safe and Secure Communities, a group formed to oppose the measure, has raised more than $2 million from an Arkansas poultry executive and an Illinois shipping executive who have backed Republican candidates. The Family Council, another group campaigning against the measure, on Thursday called the legalization proposal a “recipe for disaster.” Arkansas Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a former head of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration who has opposed the proposal, did not have an immediate comment on the ruling. « Previous Read More…

IT'S TIME For The Media To Cover Donald Trump As The Messiah Of The QAnon Cult https://digitalarkansasnews.com/its-time-for-the-media-to-cover-donald-trump-as-the-messiah-of-the-qanon-cult/ The MAGA movement that Donald Trump started has always had the the most disturbing and dangerous attributes of a religious cult. It’s leader demands unflinching devotion. It’s followers declare unwavering loyalty. And most importantly, the flock is taught that only the leader will tell them the truth, and that everyone else is lying to them. Click here to Tweet this article That’s the only explanation for how the MAGA Minions can buy into the preposterous scenarios spun by Trump in his messianic quest for power. Trump requires his disciples to believe that he won the 2020 Presidential election by a landslide – and that evil Democrats and traitorous Republicans stole his victory – despite never having been able to provide a shred of evidence. He insists that he’s innocent of a multitude of crimes – from bank and tax fraud, to extorting the president of Ukraine, to inciting the January 6th insurrection, to hoarding national security documents at Mar-a-Lago and lying to the FBI about it – despite abundant evidence of his guilt. RELATED: LOL: Sean Hannity Thinks He’s Helping Trump By Scrolling a Long List of His Crimes on Fox News In recent weeks the shape of Trump’s political activities have advanced beyond the mere appearance of cult behavior. He is now fully embracing the associated ultra-rightist confederacy of crackpots known as QAnon. These are freakazoids who believe that Democrats are Satanic pedophiles bent on destroying America and can only be vanquished by Trump and his anointed-by-God warriors. Sadly, that army is currently populated by much of the Republican Party. At first Trump tip-toed into the QAnon swamp with subtle allusions to their doctrine and symbolism. But last week he made the connection unmistakably explicit. Amidst a flurry of fanatical postings on his floundering social media scam, Truth Social, Trump included some unambiguous invocations to QAnon. For instance, he posted a picture of Christ with the caption “Jesus is the Greatest. President @realDonaldTrump is the second greatest.” That’s precisely what the QAnon-sense followers profess. And it elevates Trump from a politician to a deity. Another example was Trump’s posting of video that contained multiple references to QAnon through its iconography and slogans… Given Trump’s deep dive into this mystical madness, it no longer makes sense for the media to cover Trump as a political figure. He is promoting himself as a religious leader and aligning himself with people who regard him as their savior. It is what the pseudo-scriptural phrase “make America great again” really means. Trump and his devotees (aka the Republican Party) define it as the greatness of divinity. And they intend to follow him to heaven, even if it means waging a civil war. Or more accurately from their perspective, the war of Armageddon. NOTE: Twitter suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. Read More Here

Hurricane Ian Strengths To 80 Mph As Watches Extended Farther Into Florida Keys https://digitalarkansasnews.com/hurricane-ian-strengths-to-80-mph-as-watches-extended-farther-into-florida-keys/ Hurricane Ian’s top winds increased to 80 mph late Monday morning, beginning a period of rapid intensification expected to bring the storm to Category 4 strength. Tropical storm watches were extended to the Middle Florida Keys and Lake Okeechobee, reflecting the storm’s larger wind field, while Florida’s Gulf coast braced for the first direct hit on the continental United States of the 2022 hurricane season. As of 11 a.m. Monday, Ian was 100 miles west of Grand Cayman and 240 miles southeast of the western tip of Cuba. Both Cuba and Grand Cayman are under hurricane warnings. The storm is expected to strengthen quickly, becoming a major hurricane with winds of up to 120 mph by Monday night when it’s expected to approach landfall in western Cuba, the National Hurricane Center said. Its winds are projected to top out at 140 mph, Category 4 strength over the Gulf of Mexico before weakening slightly before landfall. Despite the attention given to high winds, the biggest killer in hurricanes tends to be water. The hurricane center warned Monday that the Gulf coast faces a high risk of storm surge, the rapid increase in sea level that can flood coastal neighborhoods. “Life-threatening storm surge is possible along much of the Florida west coast, with the highest risk from Fort Myers to the Tampa Bay region,” the hurricane center said at 11 a.m. Hurricane watches went up on Florida’s west coast Monday morning, from north of Englewood to the Anclote River, including Tampa Bay. Southeast Florida remains outside the cone projecting the likely course of the storm’s center. But winds of tropical force and hurricane force can occur outside the cone, depending on how close to the center comes to the edge of the cone. South Florida has a 35-45% chance of tropical-force winds, meaning winds of at least 39 mph, the National Weather Service said in a Monday morning report. The earliest time these winds could arrive is Tuesday morning, although Tuesday night or Wednesday morning is more likely. [ MAP: See the latest forecast map for potential Hurricane Ian  ] “Heavy rain bands with wind gusts and squalls to near tropical storm force are expected over all of South Florida tomorrow through Wednesday,” the weather service said. “Rainfall flooding and isolated tornadoes are possible across all of South Florida during this time frame.” The storm is expected to expand as it strengthens, placing a larger area at risk of high winds. These winds can rip off tree branches, knock down power line and blow objects off the ground, the weather service said. “While a direct landfall to South Florida is unlikely at this time, hazardous conditions can extend well away from the center of the system” the weather service said. The National Hurricane Center said Ian is forecast to rapidly into a major hurricane by Monday night, meaning Category 3 or above. If it were to reach major hurricane status, it would be the season’s second major Atlantic hurricane. Fiona, which dissipated Sunday as a remnant low, was 2022′s first major hurricane. Experts predict Ian’s maximum sustained winds could ultimately reach up to 140 mph this week, which would make it a Category 4 hurricane. [ RELATED: NASA plays it safe, to roll Artemis I back from launch pad ] Most of Florida continued to brace for the uncertain path of the intensifying storm. In addition to the hurricane watch for part of west Florida, a tropical storm warning was in effect from Seven Mile Bridge to Key West, including the Dry Tortugas, meaning tropical storm conditions are possible within 36 hours. On the forecast track, the center of Ian is expected to pass near or west of the Cayman Islands on Monday, and near or over western Cuba Monday night and early Tuesday. Ian will then emerge over the southeastern Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday. Tropical storm force wind probability from Hurricane Ian in the National Weather Service’s 11 a.m. update The National Weather Service continues to emphasize uncertainty in the storm’s path once it enters the Gulf, and said the storm is expected to expand in size as well. The models show a possible direct hit to the Tampa area all the way through the Florida Panhandle. In addition to the tropical storm warning for the lower Keys, a storm surge watch has been issued for the Keys from the Card Sound Bridge westward to Key West, including the Dry Tortugas, and for the west coast of Florida from Englewood southward to the Card Sound Bridge, including Florida Bay. A tropical storm watch has been issued for the west coast of Florida from Englewood southward to Chokoloskee. Small changes in the path will make a big difference in the impact throughout Florida. In South Florida, widespread rain could lead to major flooding, accompanied by winds gusting up to tropical storm levels. [ STAY UPDATED with the latest forecast for tropical weather at SunSentinel.com/hurricane ] DeSantis said to expect heavy rains, strong winds, flash flooding, storm surges and even isolated tornadoes. He has issued a state of emergency for all 67 counties “given the uncertainty of the storm.” Breaking News Alerts As it happens Get updates on developing stories as they happen with our free breaking news email alerts. President Biden has also approved a federal emergency declaration for Florida, allowing it to access the resources of FEMA. The state has waved restrictions for commercial trucks and authorized emergency refills of prescriptions or 30 days. DeSantis said he’s also activated 2,500 members of the Florida National Guard to assist with the emergency. [ RELATED: Everything you need to know heading into the potential hurricane ] Meanwhile, forecasters say there’s a 40 to 50% chance a tropical depression could form this week from a broad area of low pressure in the Atlantic off Africa. However, experts say it may be short-lived if it encounters upper-level winds, which hinder storm formation. What was Tropical Storm Gaston had dissipated by early Monday. The next named storm to form would be Julia. Hurricane season ends Nov. 30. Staff writer Scott Travis contributed to this report. Read More Here

Las Vegas Review-Journal Demands Police Not Search Slain Reporter’s Devices – Poynter https://digitalarkansasnews.com/las-vegas-review-journal-demands-police-not-search-slain-reporters-devices-poynter/ Good morning, everyone. Tom Jones is on vacation, but the team at Poynter is keeping tabs on the latest media news and analysis. Here’s a quick rundown of what you need to know today. The Las Vegas Review-Journal is seeking to protect confidential reporting materials on slain reporter Jeff German’s electronic devices, which were seized by police as part of their investigation into the reporter’s murder. German, an investigative reporter, was fatally stabbed earlier this month. Just a few days later, police arrested a county official, Robert Telles, who had been the subject of several stories by German. To aid their investigation, authorities took German’s cellphone, four computers and an external hard drive. But those devices likely contain unpublished materials and information about the Review-Journal’s confidential sources, some of whom may work in the very agencies investigating the murder, said an attorney representing the paper. That information is protected by Nevada’s shield law, the Review-Journal argues. The paper is also arguing that authorities violated federal law prohibiting the search and seizure of journalists’ work product materials. Though the Review-Journal has been working with authorities to address these concerns, “negotiations have reached an impasse,” executive editor Glenn Cook told The Associated Press on Friday. German’s murder has drawn widespread outrage among journalists. His colleagues have praised his dedication to his work. He spent more than 40 years reporting in Las Vegas. But last week, Nevada Independent editor Elizabeth Thompson wrote in the outlet’s “Daily Indy” newsletter that the praise was “a bit much.” “Yes, people generally hesitate to speak ill of the dead. On the flip side, dying doesn’t make you an insta-hero — and by all candid accounts, Jeff definitely wasn’t one,” Thompson wrote. “I’m of the opinion that we should tell the truth about people, dead or alive, for better or worse. I’m silly like that.” The next day, the Independent’s newsroom staff released an apology, calling Thompson’s comments “insensitive” and stating that they do not reflect the newsroom’s brand or its mission. Thompson later released her own statement saying that if she had a do-over, she would either say nothing or provide more context for her views. “I regret making the grieving process worse for those who knew and loved Jeff  — co-workers, colleagues, family, friends. It was not my intent to hurt or anger anyone,” she wrote. Check out this gut-wrenching editor’s note on a Sept. 23 article about the Oath Keepers from the Review-Journal: “​​Reporter Jeff German had started writing this story before he was killed earlier this month. His colleague has finished his reporting.” CNN’s Reliable Sources newsletter is slated to come back today, with senior media reporter Oliver Darcy at the helm. Darcy told The Hollywood Reporter the newsletter will be more concise and have a new, “polished” look. The 7-year-old media news newsletter is one of the most-read in the industry. It was most recently written by Darcy and Brian Stelter, host of the Sunday morning CNN show also called “Reliable Sources,” until CNN canceled the show in August and Stelter left the network. The last edition of Reliable Sources was published Aug. 18. Darcy said the newsletter will “continue to tackle issues relating to newsrooms, partisan media, social media, podcasts, and streaming services” and “continue to pay close attention to industry titans who are reshaping our information environment.” PolitiFact and Poynter’s United Facts of America: A festival of fact-checking begins tomorrow. The three-day online festival of fact-checking will offer forward-thinking discussions about the role of facts in everyday life with experts in media, politics, technology and counterintelligence. Speakers include Judy Woodruff, broadcast journalist, anchor and managing editor at “PBS NewsHour;” Donie O’Sullivan, correspondent at CNN; U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, and many more. Also on the schedule is Chris Stirewalt, senior fellow at American Enterprise Institute. Until recently, Stirewalt was political editor at Fox News, and part of the team that (quickly and correctly) called the state of Arizona for Joe Biden during the 2020 presidential election. The call angered then-President Donald Trump, who lashed out at Fox News. United Facts of America runs from Sept. 27-29, 2022. Tickets are still available. A crane crashed into the under-construction KWTV News 9 building in downtown Oklahoma City. One person who was on the 60-ton crane was taken to the hospital with minor injuries, News 9 reports. CNN’s Kaitlan Collins has left the White House Correspondents’ Association board and will not serve as WHCA president in 2024. That role will instead fall to Eugene Daniels, Politico White House correspondent and Playbook co-author. Collins, a CNN White House correspondent since 2017, is moving to a new role at CNN on a revamped morning show with Don Lemon and Poppy Harlow. Today’s Poynter Report was written by Angela Fu and Ren LaForme. Have feedback or a tip? Email us at news@poynter.org. Hiring? Post jobs on The Media Job Board — Powered by Poynter, Editor & Publisher and America’s Newspapers. Celebrate facts with Poynter and PolitiFact at the second annual United Facts of America, Sept. 27-29. Get tickets. Join Poynter, PolitiFact and CNN’s Joan Biskupic in Washington, D.C., for a discussion about the Supreme Court’s most debated rulings Sept. 28. Get tickets. Tickets are on sale now for Poynter’s Speaker Series at The Straz in Tampa. Up first, AP Executive Editor Julie Pace will take you inside one of the world’s largest newsrooms  Oct. 11. The Poynter Report is our daily media newsletter. To have it delivered to your inbox Monday-Friday, sign up here. Follow us on Twitter and on Facebook. Read More Here

Stock Market News Today: Dow Gains Slightly, British Pound Drops To Record Low Against The U.S. Dollar https://digitalarkansasnews.com/stock-market-news-today-dow-gains-slightly-british-pound-drops-to-record-low-against-the-u-s-dollar/ About this page Last Updated: Sep 26, 2022 at 11:56 am ET Follow The Wall Street Journal’s full markets coverage after the British pound hit its lowest-ever level against the U.S. dollar. Read More Here

Hurricane Ian Live Updates: Manatee County Orders Evacuations, Likely No High School Football This Week https://digitalarkansasnews.com/hurricane-ian-live-updates-manatee-county-orders-evacuations-likely-no-high-school-football-this-week/ Staff Report  |  Sarasota Herald-Tribune The Herald-Tribune has made this article free of charge for all readers in the interest of public safety. Consider supporting the Herald-Tribune with a digital subscription. Quick Sarasota-Manatee Hurricane Ian links: Storm Coverage: Find all of our latest coverage of Hurricane Ian Shelters: Find your Sarasota and Manatee county evacuation zone and hurricane shelters here. Closures & Cancelations: Sarasota-Bradenton closures and cancelations due to Hurricane Ian Sandbags: Where to get sandbags in Sarasota, Manatee counties Noon | Looking bleak for Sarasota-Manatee high school football this week The prospects of having high school football games this week are bleak, thanks to Hurricane Ian. “All athletic activities, including practices and games, are canceled beginning tomorrow (Tuesday) until further notice,” Sarasota County director of athletics James Slaton said. “We’ll know more once it gets over Cuba, but as of right now we are just preparing. We are opening shelters beginning tomorrow (Tuesday).” For most area teams and throughout the state, this is the first week for district play in football, so these games are mandatory as far as scheduling goes. “Football is the only one where we are mandated to play these games,” Slaton said. “The plan will be to make up those games. But our first priority is obviously safety and security. And then we’ll try to work them out.” Do not expect anything to be made up this weekend or Monday, Oct. 3. 11:30 a.m. | Manatee County orders evacuations, closes schools for Hurricane Ian Manatee County has issued evacuations to begin tomorrow, in anticipation of Hurricane Ian. “Following the updated forecast of Hurricane Ian, public safety officials are announcing plans for evacuations, beginning with a MANDATORY Zone A evacuation and VOLUNTARY Zone B evacuation, effective at 8 a.m., Tuesday, September 27,” according to a press release. (Find your evacuation zone in Manatee County here.) Though no official announcement has been made, since shelters are located in public schools, we can assume that Manatee County schools will be closed on Tuesday. In addition, Manatee County parks, libraries, animal welfare facilities, and building and construction inspection services will be closed or suspended beginning tomorrow, until further notice. Hurricane Ian: See spaghetti models, path and storm activity for Florida 11:15 a.m. | Sarasota County Schools will close on Tuesday In a press release, Sarasota County announced that Sarasota County schools will be closed tomorrow, Sept. 27. Sarasota County schools will close Tuesday, Sept. 27, out of an abundance of caution and to allow for time to prepare schools that serve as emergency evacuation centers. While there are no evacuations issued at this time, the county is expecting to announce an evacuation alert for Level A on Tuesday morning. “As the storm approaches, we are here to serve our community with our schools and personnel to provide sheltering. We will continue to communicate updates with employees and families throughout the storm as information becomes available. The latest information can be found on our website sarasotacountyschools.net/hurricane and all our social media channels,” said Dr. Brennan Asplen, Superintendent of Schools. 11:00 a.m. | Hurricane Ian strengthens, Sarasota-Manatee in danger According to the 11 a.m. National Hurricane Center update, Hurricane Ian’s storm track has shifted slightly closer to Sarasota and Manatee counties and the storm is moving slower. Sustained wind speeds have increased to 80 mph. The slower speed is especially alarming. “An even greater concern is the slower forward motion that is forecast during this period, as the upper trough passes north and east of Ian and the steering currents weaken,” said the NHC forecast. “This would likely prolong the storm surge, wind, and rainfall impacts along the affected portions of the west coast of Florida, although the roughly shore-parallel track still makes it difficult to pinpoint exactly what locations will experience the most severe impacts.” The NHC has also increased the storm surge forecast for Sarasota County to 5-10 feet, while Manatee County has remained the same at 5-8 feet. The forecast also warns of “life-threatening storm surge,” with the “highest risk from Fort Myers to the Tampa Bay region.” Because of the slight slowdown, tropical storm conditions are expected in Sarasota and Manatee counties Tuesday night, with hurricane-force winds beginning Wednesday morning. Hurricane Ian: See spaghetti models, path and storm activity for Florida 10:45 a.m. | Sarasota County expects evacuations to start Tuesday morning According to a Twitter post, Sarasota County Government expects to announce an evacuation alert for Level A beginning Tuesday morning. This would also indicate that Sarasota County schools will be closed Tuesday, although no official announcement has been made. 10:30 a.m. | New College and Ringling College cancel classes in advance of Hurricane Ian Ringling College of Art and Design has canceled classes today through Friday, and plans to close its campus effective noon on Tuesday. “Out of an abundance of caution and due to the uncertain trajectory of the storm at this time, the decision has been made to close the Ringling College campus effective TUESDAY (9/27), by 12:00 noon,” said the school on its website. Ringling students will need to vacate campus housing by noon on Tuesday. New College has similarly canceled classes beginning at 10 a.m. today through Friday. The school has not yet announced if students will need to leave campus. 10:00 a.m. | Sarasota County declares state of emergency Sarasota County declared a state of emergency on Monday in preparation for Hurricane Ian.  The declaration document states that the hurricane is tracking in a direction that could bring it to the Sarasota County area within the next 48 hours, “creating an imminent threat of severe weather, excessive rainfall, and flooding.”  In a video update Monday morning, Sarasota County Emergency Management Chief Ed McCrane said the declaration allows the county to begin using funds and purchasing equipment and services that normally would have to go through the lengthy procurement process.  McCrane said this “doesn’t mean anything’s imminent” or that “it’s a dire emergency at this moment.”  “But we’re preparing for that eventuality,” he said.  Hurricane Ian: See spaghetti models, path and storm activity for Florida 9:45 a.m. | USF cancels classes, will close campuses According to a release, University of South Florida classes will be canceled starting Monday, Sept. 26, through Thursday, Sept. 29. This will allow for students to make any necessary preparations or travel ahead of the storm.   All campuses will begin closing Tuesday, Sept 27. 9:20 a.m. | North Port declares state of emergency The North Port City Commission approved a local state of emergency this morning that will run in conjunction with the statewide declaration for Hurricane Ian. The emergency gives City Manager Jerome Fletcher or his designee authorization to procure goods and services needed to address the hurricane without going through traditional formalities. North Port Public Works Director Chuck Speake said city workers have been working to lower water levels in the 80 miles of canals and waterways, to minimize the impact of flooding. “We are doing everything we can to ensure that the City is well-prepared for the impending storm,” said Fletcher. “We’ve been in constant contact with our partners at Sarasota County and the state, and while North Port could see significant impacts in the coming days, I’m confident that our team is ready to respond.”  8 a.m. | Hurricane Ian could bring 5-8 foot storm surge, 8-10 inches of rain Little has changed with Hurricane Ian, according to the 8 a.m. update from the National Hurricane Center, as the path of the storm continues to include Sarasota and Manatee counties. “Rapid strengthening is expected during the next day or so, and Ian is forecast to become a major hurricane tonight when it is near western Cuba,” said the NHC forecast. Get hurricane updates in our mobile app: Download the updated Herald-Tribune app Both Sarasota and Manatee counties are under a hurricane watch and a storm surge watch, and can still expect a storm surge of 5-8 feet and rainfall of 8-10 inches. According to the National Weather Service Ruskin, both Sarasota and Manatee counties can expect to experience tropical storm force winds beginning as soon as Tuesday afternoon or evening. School is in session in both Sarasota and Manatee counties today, with likely closures to be announced later today. 5:00 a.m. | It’s now Hurricane Ian, storm track shifts closer to Sarasota-Manatee Tropical Storm Ian is now Hurricane Ian. Sarasota and Manatee counties are now under a Hurricane Watch that extends from Englewood to the north of Tampa, as well as a Storm Surge Watch. According to the National Hurricane Center’s 5 a.m. update, the storm’s sustained winds are at 75 mph, pushing it onto hurricane status.  Though the track has shifted to the east, there is still major uncertainty about the path of Hurricane Ian. According to the NHC, Sarasota and Manatee counties can expect a storm surge of 5-8 feet and rainfall of 8-10 inches. Hurricane Ian: Find all of our latest coverage of the storm Shelters: Find a list of Manatee and Sarasota hurricane shelters here. “Considerable flooding impacts are possible later this week in west central Florida,” said the NHC in its update. The Sarasota-Manatee area can expect to experience rain and tropical sto...

Martina McBride Announces 12th Annual Joy Of Christmas Tour https://digitalarkansasnews.com/martina-mcbride-announces-12th-annual-joy-of-christmas-tour/ Country singer hits the road again this holiday season Country music icon Martina McBride has announced upcoming dates for her 12th annual The Joy of Christmas Tour. Kicking off on November 26th in Greensboro, NC, McBride will once again hit the road to celebrate the holiday season in what has become a favored tradition of not only her fans but of McBride’s as well. “This is the 12th year of doing the Joy Of Christmas Tour and I truly believe our 2022 version of the show is the best yet,” says McBride. “It is truly a night for the whole family to celebrate all the joyful things about the holiday season. We look forward to it every year and are honored that our show has become a tradition for us and the fans. We cannot wait to take it back on the road!” Pre-sales go on-sale on Tuesday, September 26th via McBride’s website. General on-sale for The Joy of Christmas Tour are available on Friday, September 30th. This year also marks McBride’s 25th anniversary of her impactful album Evolution. The project that produced two No. 1 hits — “Wrong Again” and the iconic “A Broken Wing” — and was certified 3x Platinum by the RIAA. This fall, McBride will support Wynonna Judd on The Judds: The Final Tour, an all-star tribute to mother and musical partner Naomi Judd, who tragically passed away from a self-inflicted gunshot wound on April 30th. Wynonna has chosen to honor her mother’s legacy by inviting some of music’s biggest stars to join her onstage for the 11 date trek to perform some of the timeless hits that earned The Judds multiple Grammy, CMA, and ACM awards over a span of 30+ years. Along with McBride, Wynonna is thrilled to welcome Brandi Carlile, Ashley McBryde, Kelsea Ballerini, Little Big Town, Trisha Yearwood and Faith Hill, on select dates to honor the legacy of The Judds and their everlasting impact on country music. Martina McBride 2022 The Joy of Christmas Tour Dates: Nov 26 – Grensboro, NC @ Steven Tanger Center Nov 27 – Daytona Beach, FL @ The Peabody Auditorium Dec 1 – Tysons, VA @ Capital One Hall Dec 2 – Shippensburg, PA @ Luhrs Performing Arts Dec 3 – Glenside, PA @ Keswick Theatre Dec 4 – New Brunswick, NJ @ State Theatre Dec 8 – Denver @ Paramount Theatre Dec 9 – Omaha, NE @ Orpheum Theatre Dec 10 – Cedar Falls, IA @ Gallagher Bluedorn PAC Dec 16 – Tulsa, OK @ Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Dec 17 – Kansas City @ Midland Theatre Dec 18 – Fayetteville, AR @ Walton Arts Center – Baum Walker Hall Read More Here

Norman Rockwell's Economy Is Never Coming Back https://digitalarkansasnews.com/norman-rockwells-economy-is-never-coming-back/ Promising a return to a Norman Rockwell-esque past where everyone had great jobs, financial stability and a shot at the American dream makes for great politics, but terrible economic policies. The current and last U.S. presidents, perhaps recalling an economy from their glory years, are both guilty of this. Donald Trump ran on the explicit promise to “Make America Great Again” by reducing dependence on international trade and re-shoring manufacturing. Joe Biden also lets nostalgia guide his economic policies, which attempt to bring back the glory days of unions while restoring an economy based in manufacturing. The economy, though, has evolved and policies that might have worked during the heydays of our most recent presidents would have little impact now. The simple fact is that the U.S. economy is no longer dominated by manufacturing, giving way to services. The way forward means policies that lead to a more dynamic economy by making it less burdensome to start a business, allowing for different kinds of work, offering education to workers of all ages and new models of unionization that provide independent workers insurance but still lets them negotiate their own wages and hours. We tend to idealize the economy of the past because there was more unionized manufacturing employment that provided good, stable jobs which did not require a college degree. This was in part because, after World War II, the capital stock in other countries was destroyed, meaning American manufacturing could dominate and earn a large premium it shared with its workers. But the rest of the world caught up, the global economy became more competitive and upended trade, advances in technology led to efficiencies and the premium shrunk. In 1970, manufacturing accounted for about 25% of nominal U.S. gross domestic product but had fallen to just 11% in 2020. It may be tempting to fight these forces, especially trade and technology, and the change they bring, but doing so serves neither workers nor consumers. For consumers, it only means higher prices. And while shielding workers from global trade may benefit them in the short-run, it makes them less competitive and unable to work with new technology in the long run. Both Presidents attempted to revive manufacturing and related jobs by using subsidies and credits. Trump’s ill-fated attempt to build a factory for Foxconn (the maker of the iPhone) in Wisconsin at great taxpayer expense proved this approach was shortsighted. Some 13,000 manufacturing jobs were promised in Wisconsin, but only 3,000 materialized, most of which went to engineers and programmers, not those left behind by trade and technology. This was not just a failure of execution; most Americans workers lack the skills and are too expensive to make the inputs Foxconn needs. This is also why the prospects for Biden’s Chips Act which aims to boost domestic semiconductor manufacturing look equally dim and more expensive. Such efforts to revive the country’s manufacturing past do not work because they do not address the root cause of manufacturing’s decline. To be clear, American workers do have a future in making things, but what it will look like can’t be predicted and government directed, and it most definitely won’t resemble the manufacturing industry of the past. That’s because American labor is more expensive and better educated than ever, and the country’s comparative advantage is now in services and in more high-skilled manufacturing. A better use of resources is to reduce the barriers to entrepreneurship, invest in skills training for Americans of all ages and let the market determine the future of what gets made in America. Economists estimated that if the money spent on the Foxconn debacle were in the hands of entrepreneurs, 90,000 jobs would have been created instead of 3,000. For most of the post-war era there were big advantages to building what economists call firm-specific capital, which is knowledge of how things are done at a particular company. If you worked at Ford Motor Co., it was knowledge of how cars are made at Ford, and if you worked as an office administrator, you knew how to format documents in a way that was unique for your employer. But technology has made work more similar across companies: everyone uses Microsoft Word or Google Docs. Technology also means firms can better track worker productivity. These trends mean there is less value in firm-specific capital and more in individual capital. In other words, there are bigger gains to be had building your own skill set and being a star employee. When there was more value in firm-specific capital there was also a bigger return on union membership. Workers had less power since much of their value was tied to one employer, whereas now there is a high return to changing jobs. Unions worked by having all employees band together for similar pay and benefits in exchange for more security, meaning that highly productive employees subsidized less productive ones. When there were fewer gains to being an above-average worker, the extra stability was worth it. Now this is less true, which is one reason why many union drives are failing.  In 1983, more than 20% of workers were members of a trade union. In 2021 it was just 10.3%, and most of them worked for the government. These days there are also more gains to being a contract worker than one tied to a single employer. Many workers value flexibility, especially after they experienced remote work during the pandemic. Yet the current administration is also fighting this trend, pushing to classify gig workers as employees in another attempt to make jobs more like they used to be. Read More Here

The Mysterious Nine-Second Call From The White House To A January 6 Rioter: CNN Reveals The Rioter's Identity For The First Time – KTVZ https://digitalarkansasnews.com/the-mysterious-nine-second-call-from-the-white-house-to-a-january-6-rioter-cnn-reveals-the-rioters-identity-for-the-first-time-ktvz/ CNN By Jamie Gangel and Elizabeth Stuart, CNN At 4:34 pm on January 6, 2021, a cell phone registered to a Capitol rioter who had stormed the building, received a phone call from a White House landline, according to records obtained by CNN. The call lasted for only nine seconds. Who placed the call and why remains a mystery, but it is notable as the only known call made from the White House to the phone of a rioter during this critical time period. According to the records, the call came from 202-456-1414, the publicly available number for the White House. Like many businesses, outgoing calls from the White House do not show a specific extension. The call was placed in the late afternoon, shortly after former President Donald Trump posted a video message on social media telling the rioters at the Capitol, “go home, we love you, you’re very special,” at 4:17pm. It’s unclear what, if any, connection exists between the White House and the rioter, including whether the call was made by mistake or whether the call went to voicemail. The call was first disclosed by Denver Riggleman in an interview with CBS’ 60 Minutes. Riggleman is a former Republican congressman who left his job working as a technical adviser for the January 6 committee in April. CNN first learned about the call earlier this year and is revealing the rioter’s identity for the first time. The cell phone belonged to a 26-year-old Trump supporter from Brooklyn, New York named Anton Lunyk, who traveled to Washington DC the night before January 6 with two friends, Francis Connor and Antonio Ferrigno, according to multiple sources familiar with the investigation, as well as a search of public records. The three men attended the “Stop the Steal” rally on the Ellipse and then, along with hundreds of others, entered and illegally demonstrated inside the Capitol, a charge they pleaded guilty to in April and were sentenced for earlier this month. Attorneys for all three men declined to comment to CNN. According to multiple sources familiar with the investigation, Lunyk says he doesn’t remember receiving the nine-second call and claims he doesn’t know anyone who worked in the Trump White House. The phone call was not mentioned in Lunyk’s sentencing or any court documents. A spokesman for the US Attorney’s Office in Washington DC declined to comment. So is the call significant to the January 6 investigation? Tim Mulvey, the January 6 committee spokesman, told CNN “in his role on the Select Committee staff, Mr. Riggleman had limited knowledge of the committee’s investigation. He departed from the staff in April prior to our hearings and much of our most important investigative work.” In an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper on State of the Union, Congressman Adam Schiff, a member of the January 6 committee, also downplayed Riggleman’s comments to 60 Minutes that the call was an “a-ha moment.” “One of the things that has given our committee credibility is we’ve been very careful about what we say; not to overstate matters, not to understate matters. And without the advantage of the additional information we’ve gathered since he left the committee, it poses real risk to be suggesting things,” Schiff told Tapper. Appearing on CNN Sunday afternoon, Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, also a committee member, downplayed the significance of Riggleman’s book. “He does not know what happened after April and a lot has happened in our investigation,” she said. “Everything that he was able to relay prior to his departure has been followed up on and in some cases didn’t really peter out (sic), or there might have been a decision that suggested there was a connection between one number and one e-mail and a person that turned out not to pan out. So we follow up on everything, and, you know, I don’t know what Mr. Riggleman is doing really.” According to a source familiar with the committee’s work, the committee continues to investigate the phone call but thus far, has been unable to discover who placed it or why. Mulvey told CNN that since Riggleman’s departure, “the Committee has run down all the leads and digested and analyzed all the information that arose from his work. We will be presenting additional evidence to the public in our next hearing this coming Wednesday, and a thorough report will be published by the end of the year.” Lunyk, Connor and Ferrigno were charged with entering and remaining in the Capitol unlawfully, violently entering the Capitol, disorderly conduct inside the Capitol, and parading, demonstrating or picketing inside the Capitol. Last April, all three pleaded guilty to one count of parading, demonstrating or picketing inside the Capitol, and on September 15, were sentenced to a few months of home confinement, probation, and small fines. According to court documents, there are no known ties between the three men and organized groups that attacked the Capitol, like the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys. The records do reveal that Lunyk and Connor attended the “Million MAGA March” in Washington in November 2020, but there is no mention of the men being connected to anyone working at the Trump White House. Ten minutes inside the Capitol While the phone call remains a mystery, public records provide plenty of details about Lunyk, Connor and Ferrigno, including dozens of pages of private Instagram messages. The three men left New York on January 5, 2021 around 11:54pm, according to New York City license plate readers that captured a white Lexus registered to Lunyk. The next day, they attended the “Stop the Steal” rally and were admitted to a “cordoned off area on the Ellipse” according to court documents, where they watched Trump and others speak. It’s not clear what prosecutors mean by “cordoned off area.” At 3:08pm, a surveillance camera inside the Capitol captured Lunyk, Connor, and Ferrigno entering the Capitol through the Senate Wing Door. They went inside Sen. Jeff Merkley’s workspace and were seen in the background of a livestream being recorded by another Capitol rioter, social media personality Tim Gionet, known as “Baked Alaska.” In a video posted on social media, “Lunyk and Ferrigno are visible laughing and recording on their cell phones in the background as Baked Alaska fakes a phone call to the Senate from the landline in Senator Merkley’s office,” the court documents said. A few minutes later at 3:12pm, Lunyk and his friends are spotted walking through the Capitol halls, taking photos in the Capitol crypt, and finally leaving by climbing out a window. Nearly an hour and a half later, phone records show the mysterious nine-second call from a White House landline taking place. Lunyk’s white Lexus was seen returning to New York City at approximately 8:28pm, so it’s likely the men were already driving back at the time of the call. ‘Real knuckleheads’ The sentencing submission from Lunyk’s defense lawyer claimed that Lunyk and his two friends wound up at the at the Capitol after being “swept up in a crowd, egged on by the President of the United States, and having been fed a steady diet of disinformation for months.” However, the government’s sentencing memorandum reveals that the three men started sending each other text messages shortly after the November 2020 election, saying it was “stolen and fraudulent.” The prosecutors allege that the three men “came to Washington DC for the chaos.” They sent messages that included sexually violent and threatening rhetoric about former Vice President Mike Pence, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, court records show. “I would’ve said “Our job yesterday wasn’t completed. Our end goal was to brutally murder Pence and Pelosi, and sadly today they’re still breathing, therefore we must come back stronger and fiercely next time around,” Connor wrote in an Instagram message to Ferrigno, Lunyk and others on January 8, 2021. “If they take my money I’m gonna shoot Pelosi,” Lunyk said to Connor, Ferrigno and others on January 12, 2021. “We raped AOC,” Connor texted Lunyk, Ferrigno and others on January 8, 2021. While there’s no public record connecting Lunyk, Connor, or Ferrigno to the Oath Keepers or the Proud Boys, they do mention both groups in their Instagram messages. In November 2020, Ferrigno renames one of the Instagram group chats “The Proud Boys,” before renaming it “The Proud Boy and Friends” in December and “The Oath Keepers” in January. During their sentencing before DC Federal Judge Rudy Contreras, the three men apologized for their activities on January 6. “I sincerely regret my conduct and I am determined to exercise better judgment,” Lunyk said. Judge Contreras chastised the men saying, “The three of you just come across as real knuckleheads… all in your twenties, all live at home, none of you are advancing your education.” He concluded, “you all could use a strong dose of maturity.” Any call from a White House landline to a rioter’s cell phone is bound to attract a great deal of attention, but unless Lunyk or the person who placed the call comes forward publicly, the call’s contents or possible significance may remain a mystery. The-CNN-Wire & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved. CNN’s Evan Perez, Shimon Prokupecz, Matt Friedman, Holmes Lybrand, Andrew Millman contributed to this report. Read More Here

Videos Show Train Crash Into Colorado Police Cruiser With Woman Inside https://digitalarkansasnews.com/videos-show-train-crash-into-colorado-police-cruiser-with-woman-inside/ As Colorado police officers searched Yareni Rios-Gonzalez’s truck on the night of Sept. 16, a train horn sounded in the distance. The officers appeared to take note of the train only as it came within feet of a police vehicle parked on the tracks — with Rios-Gonzalez handcuffed inside, according to authorities and body-camera footage. A male officer standing near the tracks looked at the approaching train and grew frantic, the footage shows. “Stay back!” he yelled. Dashboard-camera video shows him walking quickly away from the vehicle just before the train plowed into it. “Oh, my God. Oh, my God!” a female officer said as the train collided with the cruiser, according to her body-camera footage. Rios-Gonzalez, 20, suffered multiple injuries but is expected to survive, authorities said. An officer with the Platteville Police Department has been placed on administrative leave while the incident is investigated, Colorado Public Radio reported. On Friday, the Fort Lupton Police Department released an edited, eight-minute clip of body-camera and dashboard-camera footage that shows the events leading up the collision, as well as the moment the train hit the Platteville Police Department vehicle. It was released to multiple news outlets. On the evening of Sept. 16, police had received a call about a road rage incident involving a firearm, according to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. A Platteville officer pulled over a suspect vehicle driven by Rios-Gonzalez, and Rios-Gonzalez stopped just past the train tracks, with the officer right behind her, the CBI said. Two Fort Lupton police officers arrived to assist in detaining Rios-Gonzalez and searching her truck. Upon arrival, one of those officers drew her gun and took cover behind the Platteville patrol vehicle parked in the middle of the train tracks, her body-camera video shows. Over the course of about three minutes, the officers ordered Rios-Gonzalez to drop her cellphone, kneel on the ground and put her hands up. The female officer then handcuffed Rios-Gonzalez and put her into the vehicle on the tracks. As Rios-Gonzalez was handcuffed, she repeatedly asked what was happening. “I’m so confused,” she said before being placed in the police cruiser, according to the footage. About a minute later, a train horn could be heard in the background. As the officers discussed whether it was possible Rios-Gonzalez could have tossed something out the window before the stop, the train horn became louder and more frequent, according to the footage. The officers only appeared to react moments before the collision. Body-camera footage belonging to a male officer standing near the tracks shows him look into the light of the approaching train before telling the other officers to stay back. He looked back and forth from the police vehicle to the train and then stepped away from the tracks seconds before the train collided with the vehicle, a dashboard-camera video shows. After the collision, the female officer requested emergency medical assistance, according to her body-camera footage. “The suspect was in the vehicle that was hit by the train,” she said. The video clip briefly shows officers running toward the crumpled-up police vehicle on the side of the tracks before cutting to Weld County sheriff’s deputies doing a second search of Rios-Gonzalez’s truck and discussing her identification. The Fort Lupton Police Department said in a Facebook post last week that it “is fully cooperating with the CBI investigation,” adding that it is investigating “the original criminal report.” The Weld County district attorney’s office has so far not filed charges against Rios-Gonzalez or any of the officers, a spokeswoman told CNN. Neither police department responded to a request for comment from The Washington Post late Sunday. An attorney for Rios-Gonzalez, Paul Wilkinson, told the Denver Post the situation could have been avoided if the Platteville police officer parked anywhere but the train tracks. “You just never park on a train track,” he said, adding, “It’s kind of unbelievable they did something like this.” Read More Here

Ukraine Live Briefing: Gunman Attacks Russian Military Center; Protests Over Mobilization Continue https://digitalarkansasnews.com/ukraine-live-briefing-gunman-attacks-russian-military-center-protests-over-mobilization-continue/ A man opened fire at a Siberian military recruitment office on Monday — the latest sign of unrest within Russia after President Vladimir Putin announced a military mobilization affecting up to 300,000 reservists from around the country. At least 100 people were arrested Sunday in Russia’s southwestern region of Dagestan, according to the human rights group OVD-Info, as protesters gathered in the regional capital, Makhachkala, to condemn the war in Ukraine. In a speech Sunday night, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky responded to the protests by urging Russians to “fight to ensure that your children are not sent to die.” The United States announced more than $457 million in new “civilian security assistance” to Ukraine on Monday, as voting on joining Russia continued in Ukraine’s Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions. These staged referendums organized by pro-Russian authorities and backed by the Kremlin are expected to end Tuesday. The votes have been widely criticized in the West — and by some of Russia’s own allies — as a pretext for and prelude to annexation. Here’s the latest on the war and its ripple effects across the globe. Return to menu A gunman was detained after he shot and severely wounded an official overseeing Russia’s military mobilization at a commissariat in the Irkutsk region in Siberia, the area’s governor, Igor Ivanovich Kobzev, said Monday on Telegram. The official, Alexander Eliseevan, is in “critical condition” and undergoing emergency medical treatment, the governor said. According to local news outlets, the alleged gunman’s mother said his best friend had been called up to fight despite having never served in the army. She was quoted as saying that her son, identified in the media as 25-year-old Ruslan Zinin, “was very upset because of this.” The Kremlin acknowledged that some Russians who do not meet the current criteria for military mobilization have received summons, and it pledged to rectify any errors. Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday: “There have been cases of violations of the order. In some regions, governors are working hard to fix the situation.” Peskov also said that “no decisions” have yet been made to close Russia’s borders to prevent military-age men from fleeing, despite media reports in recent days that a decision was imminent. The United States will send $457.5 million in new aid to Ukraine, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced Monday. The funds will go toward bolstering the capacity of Ukrainian law enforcement and criminal justice institutions, he added. Protesters blocked a highway on Sunday and took to the streets in Dagestan, a largely impoverished Russian republic that borders Georgia and Azerbaijan, to oppose the call-up of reservists to Russia’s armed forces. Videos posted on Twitter by the independent Russian outlet Mediazona show people shouting “No war!” and “Our children are not fertilizer!” on a busy street interspersed with police vehicles and officers. At least 100 people in the region were arrested, according to OVD-Info. Zelensky said the Kremlin could punish those who refuse to vote in its staged referendums. “Russians can turn off their electricity and won’t give them an opportunity to live a normal human life,” he said of potential dissidents on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “They force people. They throw them in prisons,” he added. In a post on Telegram, Ivan Fedorov, the mayor of the occupied city of Melitopol, said that only 20 percent of the city’s remaining population was found by Russian authorities during door-to-door referendum voting and that an even smaller fraction ultimately voted. Return to menu Reservists mobilized in Russia are likely to receive “minimal” training before being deployed to Ukraine, Britain’s Defense Ministry said Monday in its daily intelligence assessment. The ministry said the partial military mobilization announced by Putin represents “an administrative and logistical challenge,” as a deficit of military trainers means fighters who largely have not had recent combat experience will be sent to the front unprepared, likely leading to a “high attrition rate.” The United States is having an “ongoing conversation” with Ukraine about the weapons it needs to fight Russia, including Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS), Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a “60 Minutes” interview that aired Sunday. Earlier this month, Russia’s Foreign Ministry warned the United States that providing longer-range missiles to Ukraine would be crossing a “red line” and make Washington a “direct party” to the conflict. Return to menu Russian-Moldovan dual nationals mobilized to fight in Ukraine could lose their Moldovan citizenship under plans being developed by the government there, President Maia Sandu said Monday. According to Reuters, 200,000 people with Moldovan and Russian passports live in Transnistria, a breakaway republic in eastern Moldova controlled by pro-Russian separatists. Italy’s election has thrown the country’s stance on the war in Ukraine into question, with the country projected to elect its most far-right government since the fall of Benito Mussolini. Although the projected winner for prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, has consistently backed Ukraine, other figures in her circle have shown a fondness for Putin. One member of her coalition, Silvio Berlusconi, falsely claimed that Putin was following the will of the people by invading Ukraine and that he intended to replace Zelensky’s government with “decent people.” A group of Sri Lankans recounted beatings and abuse in Russian captivity as they told their stories Saturday in a news conference. Seven Sri Lankans were held in an agricultural factory in eastern Ukraine for months before escaping on foot, and members of the group recalled being tortured. One said he was shot in the foot, and another said a toenail was ripped off and he was bashed with a rifle butt, the Associated Press reported. “Every day, we were cleaning toilets and bathrooms,” said Dilukshan Robertclive, one of the former captives. “Some days, Russians came and beat our people, our Sri Lanka people.” Return to menu Long before his war in Ukraine, Putin waged war on Russian journalists: TV anchor Tikhon Dzyadko fled Russia after he received telephone death threats in the days after Russia invaded Ukraine. Alexey Kovalyev, an investigative editor, crossed into Europe in the middle of the night with “panic-packed bags” on his back and his dog in tow. Kirill Martynov, the political editor of Russia’s only remaining independent newspaper, sought refuge in Latvia with 53 other newspaper staff members. But Putin has waged war on journalists in Russia for years, Washington Post reporter Robyn Dixon writes. In the wake of the war in Ukraine, many have had no choice but to leave the country, while dozens have found themselves labeled “foreign agents.” “That means I’m toxic,” said Alexei Venediktov, who was editor in chief of the radio station Echo of Moscow when it was shut down in March. He escaped to Latvia. “I lost my job. I lost my company.” Read More Here

J.D. Vance's Flip-Flop On The Nazi March In Charlottesville https://digitalarkansasnews.com/j-d-vances-flip-flop-on-the-nazi-march-in-charlottesville/ Joe Maiorana/AP Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters. The infamous Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017, which was organized by white supremacists and neo-Nazis to celebrate white nationalism and that led to the tragic killing of counter-protester Heather Heyer, became an early defining moment of Donald Trump’s presidency when he declared there had been “very fine people on both sides.” Pundits, Republican and Democratic officials, and others recoiled at Trump’s both-sidesism and his inability—or unwillingness—to sharply and definitively condemn the racists, fascists, and antisemites who had gathered. The critics included J.D. Vance, the author and venture capitalist. But in the years since, Vance, now the Republican Senate candidate in Ohio, has changed his tune on Charlottesville to sync up with Trump and his denialism. Days after the protest and the murder of Heyer by a white nationalist, Vance appeared on CNN to discuss what had occurred. Asked by host Wolf Blitzer for his overall reaction, Vance was straightforward: Wolf, you see people marching around doing the Nazi salute. I come from a family with a large number of military veterans, and from back in the day, people who actually went and fought the Nazis. It’s really disturbing to see this display of white nationalism. And [it] became doubly terrifying and terrible because it led to somebody losing their life. Like a lot of people, I watched the TV, was horrified. And it forced me to think, what’s going on in our country and happening that this stuff is becoming seemingly more common. Noting that in Trump’s initial response Trump had not specifically mentioned the Ku Klux Klan members, neo-Nazis, and white supremacists who had mounted this rally—Trump had criticized “hatred, bigotry, and violence” on “both sides”—Blitzer asked Vance to evaluate how Trump had handled the matter. Vance did not hold back: The President really missed an opportunity to name this phenomenon and gives people a sense where it comes from and show the moral leadership people want from a president. The thing that’s important for folks from my political side, the conservative side of the aisle, have to keep in mind that a lot of the people who feel physically threatened by white supremacists, not people angry by it, the people who see it get upset by it, that’s all of us. The people who feel physically threatened by it are, by and large, not those who voted for Donald Trump. When they look to that movement, I think the President needs to show leadership saying you may not have voted for me but I’m coming out to deplore and criticize that particular movement as strongly as I would if it was on the other side of the political spectrum. Many, a lot felt the president could have spoken to that. Unfortunately, by not naming it what it was, white supremacism, he missed an opportunity. Vance continued slamming Trump’s response and added, If I was President Trump in this situation, I’d spike the football. This is one of the things that really unites the entire country. Racism is bad. Nazism is bad. We fought a war to defeat Nazism. And the president should not just be—there’s a sense in which he’s ambivalent or too cautious about coming out and criticizing this stuff. Vance was not shy in castigating Trump for his reluctance to condemn racists and neo-Nazis. Yet as a Republican seeking a Senate seat, Vance has brazenly flip-flopped on this point.  Last year, during a podcast with Breitbart, Vance expressed quite a different opinion on the Charlottesville march. Railing about identity politics, he accused Democrats of cynically and crassly playing the race card: “Basically, racism [for Democrats] is anything that doesn’t give the Democrats more power. And of course, the reason they use that accusation, it’s not because they care about minorities or not, because they care about racists or whatever the whatever the topic of the day is, it’s because they recognize it as a useful strategy to give them more power.” His No. 1 example of this: “the ridiculous race hoax in Charlottesville.” Race hoax in Charlottesville? A rally was put on by neo-Nazis and white supremacists, and a white nationalist did kill a counter-protester. Where’s the hoax? Vance was apparently adopting the right-wing talking point that Trump was unfairly pilloried for his “very fine people” remark. In the years after that march, a variety of Trumpers—including Dilbert creator Scott Adams—have run a campaign claiming that Trump’s “very fine people” comment did not refer to white supremacists and neo-Nazis but to others protesting the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee and that Trump has been a victim of, yes, another media-generated hoax. The problem (for them): The event was organized by white supremacists and billed as a white supremacist event.  Trump has led this revisionism, contending the protesters included “neighborhood” folks who opposed taking down the statue. In the Trumpian media echo chamber, the supposedly warped depiction of Trump’s response to the rally has become known as the “Charlottesville hoax.”  With his comment on the Breitbart podcast, Vance racialized this phony “hoax” and cited it as evidence that Democrats routinely and purposefully issue false charges of racism against Republicans.  This is not the only race-related matter on which Vance has pulled a 180, as he has journeyed from Trump-basher to Trump toady. In a 2017 interview, he raised the issue of “white privilege” and said, “It’s always important to note that there are obviously still advantages to being white, there are still disadvantages to being black.” Yet in a conversation last year with right-wing talk show host Bill Cunningham, Vance referred to “white privilege” as “ridiculous terminology” and claimed the left uses it “as a power play” to “shut up” conservatives so “they get to run things without any control, without any pushback from the real people.” In an interview with Breitbart, Vance said, the leftist narrative of “white privilege” is “disgusting.”  Vance has traveled a great distance in a few short years. In 2016, he told a former roommate that he viewed Trump as either a “cynical asshole” or “America’s Hitler.” Now he’s a full Trump acolyte and eagerly appeared with Trump at a recent QAnonish rally in Ohio. It’s not surprising that during this transformation, Vance jettisoned his criticism of Trump’s response to Charlottesville. But his contemptuous dismissal of that tragedy as a “ridiculous race hoax” shows how far Vance will go to exploit Trumpism and serve its Dear Leader. I asked the Vance campaign if he had any explanation for his change of heart regarding Charlottesville. The campaign did not reply.  Read More Here

Dow Drops 100 Points On Monday As Slumping British Pound Adds To Market Woes https://digitalarkansasnews.com/dow-drops-100-points-on-monday-as-slumping-british-pound-adds-to-market-woes/ Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange during morning trading on September 06, 2022 in New York City. Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images The Dow Jones Industrial Average declined on Monday as surging interest rates and foreign currency turmoil pressured markets. The Dow fell 123 points, or 0.2%. The S&P 500 dipped 0.1%, and the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.7%. The British pound dropped to a record low on Monday against the U.S. dollar. Sterling at one point fell 4% to an all-time low of $1.0382. The Federal Reserve’s aggressive hiking campaign, coupled with U.K.’s tax cuts announced last week has caused the U.S. dollar to surge. The euro hit the lowest versus the dollar since 2002. A surging greenback can hurt the profits of U.S. multinationals and also wreak havoc on global trade, with so much of it transacted in dollars. “Such U.S. dollar strength has historically led to some kind of financial/economic crisis,” wrote Morgan Stanley’s Michael Wilson, chief U.S. equity strategist, in a note. “If there was ever a time to be on the lookout for something to break, this would be it.” Traders will be closely watching the S&P 500 on Monday for any break below its bear market low. The S&P’s low close for the year in June was 3,666.77. It closed Friday at 3,693.23 after trading briefly below that level. The benchmark’s intraday low for the year is 3,636.87. Any trading below those levels could drive more selling in the market. On Friday, stocks ended a brutal week with the blue-chip Dow finding a new intraday low for the year and closing lower by 486 points. The broad-market S&P 500 temporarily broke below its June closing low and ended down 1.7%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite lost 1.8%. Another super-sized rate hike by the Federal Reserve last week was the catalyst for the latest leg downward in markets. The central bank indicated it could raise rates as high as 4.6% before pulling back. The forecast also shows the Fed plans be aggressive this year, hiking rates to 4.4% before 2022 ends. Bond yields soared after the Fed enacted another rate hike of 75 basis points. The 2-year and 10-year Treasury rates hit highs not seen in over a decade. On Friday, Goldman Sachs slashed its year-end target for the S&P 500 to 3,600 from 4,300. Rates were surging again on Monday with the 2-year Treasury topping 4.29%. Powell owes “American people an apology,” Siegel says Wharton professor Jeremy Siegel criticized the Federal Reserve on Monday, saying that the central bank was “talking way too tough” on inflation now after being too slow to pivot to tighter policy earlier in the cycle. “Honestly, I think Chairman Powell should offer the American people an apology for such poor monetary policy that he has pursued, and the Fed has pursued, over the past few years,” Siegel said. Siegel said that he thinks the Fed is now at risk of causing a recession because it is not allowing the rate hikes it has already implemented to work their way into inflation data. The professor added that worker wages appear to be a “catch up” rather than a driver of inflation. — Jesse Pound Fed’s Bostic says he doesn’t expect ‘deep, deep pain’ for the economy Atlanta Federal Reserve President Raphael Bostic is holding out hope that the central bank can bring down runaway inflation without killing the economy. In an interview Sunday with CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Bostic acknowledged that raising interest rates will slow the economy and likely cause job losses. But he doesn’t think that means the economy will sink into a deep recession. “We need to have slow down. There’s no question about that,” he told host Margaret Brennan. “But I do think that we’re going to do all that we can at the Federal Reserve to avoid deep, deep pain. And I think there are some scenarios where that’s likely to happen.” Fed Chairman Jerome Powell last month said he expects “some pain” to coincide with the central bank’s tightening efforts, which have included five interest rate hikes this year totaling 3 percentage points. —Jeff Cox CFRA’s Sam Stovall says the S&P 500 is ready for a relief rally CFRA’s Sam Stovall says the S&P 500 is ready for a relief rally after Friday’s moves pointed to oversold conditions. “[Whenever] the S&P Composite 1500, which consists of the S&P 500, MidCap 400, and SmallCap 600 Indices, experienced a near total absence of its sub-industries trading above both their 10-week (50-day) and 40-week (200-day) moving averages, as was the case on Friday, June 17, the low for the decline had been set,” CFRA’s Sam Stovall wrote in a Monday note. On Friday, none of the sub-industries were above their 10-week average and only 7% were higher than their 40-week average, or “exactly the same levels” as on June 17, according to the note. “With the 10- and 40-week breadth indicators now again at levels that traditionally indicated a very oversold condition, CFRA thinks the S&P 500 and its constituent sectors and subindustries are ripe for a relief rally. The only question is whether the rally will have legs or get sold into,” Stovall wrote. — Sarah Min Sell-off for the pound, British debt hitting key historical levels The big moves in the UK currency and bond markets may be reaching technical oversold levels, according to Peter Boockvar of Bleakley Advisory Group. “The dramatic plunge in the pound and Gilts is unbelievable and to the point where at least the pound is likely a buy. The 14 day [Relative Strength Index] is down to just 15 and the 7 day is at just 8. The 14 day is matching the lowest since March 2020 and January 2016 before that which was a few months before the Brexit vote,” Boockvar wrote in a note on Monday. The latest moves come after the British government announced a new mini-budget that includes tax cuts and additional spending, but those moves could prove to smart long-term, Boockvar said. “I get the budget blowout of very expensive energy subsidies at the same time taxes will be cut across the board (preventing the corporate rate from going up, cutting the high top tax rate, reducing the stamp tax, eliminating the bonus cap for bankers, etc…) but these are all steps that will make the UK very long term competitive which would in turn invite a lot of investment,” Boockvar wrote. — Jesse Pound These are Monday’s biggest analyst calls Here are the biggest calls on Wall Street on Monday. Planet Fitness — Shares jumped 4.2% in Monday premarket trading after Raymond James upgraded the fitness center company to strong buy from market perform, saying Planet Fitness is in great shape after a drawdown. Lyft — The ride-hailing stock declined 3.9% in the premarket after UBS downgraded Lyft to neutral from buy, saying it’s skeptical that Lyft can deliver growth. Read more analyst calls here. — Yun Li, Sarah Min WTI falls to lowest point since January West Texas Intermediate futures fell to 77.21 on Monday, or its lowest level since early January. The WTI has advanced only 3.4% this year after closing at 75.21 on Dec 31, 2021. Brent crude declined to below $85 a barrel on Monday. Brent futures for November hit a low of 84.51, or its lowest point since mid-January when it traded at 83.99. — Sarah Min VIX jumps to highest level since June The Cboe Volatility Index, known as the VIX, jumped nearly 3 points to 32.70 on Monday, hitting its highest level since mid-June. The VIX looks at prices of options on the S&P 500 to track the level of fear on Wall Street. The jump in VIX came as the sell-off in the stock market is set to deepen with S&P 500 futures falling 0.8% in premarket trading. — Yun Li European markets choppy; sterling slumps against the dollar European stocks were choppy on Monday as investors continued to weigh the deteriorating economic outlook in the region. The pan-European Stoxx 600 was down 0.2% by mid-morning in London, having recouped opening losses of roughly 0.6% before pulling back again. Utilities dropped 1.7% while tech stocks added 1.7%. The British pound plunged to a record low on Monday, following last week’s announcement by the new U.K. government that it would implement tax cuts and investment incentives to boost growth. – Elliot Smith British pound drops to record low The sterling fell to a record low in Asia’s morning, briefly shedding more than 4% to $1.0382. It later recovered slightly to $1.0513. The dollar index — which trades against a basket of six currencies including the euro, yen and sterling — gained about 1%. — Abigail Ng U.S. Treasury yields jump as Asian markets tumble, 2-year Treasury hits 4.3% CNBC Pro: Asset manager says one FAANG stock looks ‘very attractive’ in the medium term Stocks prepare to test their lows in the final week of trading for September Heading into the final week of trading for September, the Dow and S&P 500 are each down about 6% for the month, while the Nasdaq has lost 8%. Both the Dow and S&P are now sitting 1.2% and 1.6%, respectively, above their lows from mid-June. The Nasdaq is 2.9% above its low. — Tanaya Macheel Fear often leads to short-term bottoms, says Truist’s Lerner Investors are mentally preparing to see the S&P 500 test its low of the year, and that could mean a shorter-term bottom, according to Truist’s chief market strategist Keith Lerner. “The increased probability of breaking the June S&P 500 price low may be what it takes to invoke even deeper fear,” Lerner said in a note. “Fear often leads to short-term bottoms. Importantly, as we saw in June, even if the market overshoots, snapbacks can be sharp and hard to time.” He added that with extreme selling having already taken place and stocks being oversold, it’s not the time to press a negative view. “In August, we had been advocating to reduce equities in the 4200-4300 r...

David Grundy On Pharoah Sanders https://digitalarkansasnews.com/david-grundy-on-pharoah-sanders/ Pharoah Sanders playing at Carnegie Hall in New York, 1972. Photo: K. Abe/Shinko Music/Getty Images. THE DAY AFTER what would have been John Coltrane’s ninety-sixth birthday, his most famous disciple left the planet. “Trane was the father,” saxophonist Albert Ayler famously remarked, “Pharoah was the son, and I am the Holy Ghost.” Pharoah Sanders, who was eighty-one, first came to prominence as an integral part of Coltrane’s mid-’60s turn to free jazz on recordings like Ascension and Meditations and in the performances of Coltrane’s final quintet. Like Ayler, his use of multiphonics and other extended techniques harked back to R&B “screamers” while simultaneously sounding as if they’d come from some place utterly elsewhere. “That horn,” wrote poet Sean Bonney, “sounds like a metal bone, a place where the dead and future generations meet up and are all on blue, electric fire.” With Alice Coltrane, Jimmy Garrison, and Rashied Ali surging beneath them like a vast tidal wave, neither Coltrane nor Sanders could, it seemed, settle on a single note without splintering it into its component parts, an approach manifesting the relentless quest for freedom. The music they made still threatens to exceed anything that would try to contain its ecstatic, unfaltering force. Sanders was born in 1940 in Little Rock, Arkansas, the scene of the infamous 1957 battle over school desegregation which had prompted Charles Mingus and Louis Armstrong alike to deliver suitably expletive-laden outbursts against the state’s arch-racist governor, Orvil Faubus. Two years later, he moved to Oakland to escape the suffocating racism of the South, studying painting before playing with the likes of Sonny Simmons, Smiley Winters, and pianist Jane Getz, the latter of whom would appear on his first album for ESP-Disk. He moved to New York in 1962, sleeping on park benches and making money by selling his blood and working as a short-order cook. When he went to a club to see Coltrane perform, he was refused entry until Coltrane insisted that he be allowed to enter. Sun Ra also came to his aid, feeding, clothing, and mentoring him, and renaming him from his birth name “Farrell” to “Pharoah.” Increasingly, as befitted his new moniker, Sanders took on the mantle of a leader—though a gentle and unassuming one. Sanders recorded his second album, Tauhid, for Coltrane’s Impulse! label in November 1966. Following Coltrane’s death, he made a series of albums for Impulse! that evinced a new serenity, creating what Amiri Baraka called a “lyrical near-mystical Afro-Eastern world” while still “sweat[ing] hot fire.” Along with bassists Cecil McBee, Henry Grimes, and Stanley Clarke, pianists Lonnie Liston Smith and (later) Joe Bonner laid down one-chord vamps, surrounded by thickets of West African percussion and Sanders’s glowing, flowing tenor, while Leon Thomas’s extraordinary vocals moved from a mellifluous croon to rapturous yodels inspired by recordings of the Ba-benzélé pygmies. It was a potent concoction, and 1969’s Karma produced a crossover hit with “The Creator Has a Master Plan.” Its bass vamp linking it to Coltrane’s A Love Supreme, “The Creator” soon became a kind of anthem for hippies and radicals alike. This was a determinedly Afrocentric but highly syncretic music, the titles to tracks and albums evoking a fusion of religious traditions from Hinduism and Buddhism (Karma) to Islam (Summun Bukmun Umyun, “Hum-Allah,” Tauhid) to Christianity (a euphoric version of the spiritual “Let Us Go Into the House of the Lord,” made famous by the Edwin Hawkins Singers). Sanders was a regular at clubs like Slug’s and at The East in Brooklyn, part of the community-building experiment led by Jitu Weusi that had emerged from New York City Teachers’ strike of 1968. “Pharoah would play all night,” recalled cellist Diedre Murray, who played with Sanders in organist Larry Young’s “Lawrence of Newark” band. “It was Afrocentric energy music. That sound would go around and around and around.” During his performances, enthusiastic audiences would shout out encouragement, sometimes playing along on hand percussion. For the 1972 album Live at the East, Sanders brought a group of East regulars to the studio alongside the musicians to preserve this communal spirit. Another key Afrocentric statement came on Black Unity, an album-length piece based on a propulsive two-bass groove, awash with floating harmonium chords and the multiple horns of Sanders, Carlos Garnett, and trumpeter Marvin Hannibal Peterson. During the 1970s, the declining market for jazz saw record labels encourage crossover experimentation with electric instruments and pop formulas. Sanders himself never really played fusion as such, though the 1977 album Love Will Find a Way, featuring singer Phyllis Hyman, at times approaches smooth jazz. He did, however, begin playing standards and, occasionally, singing the blues. Revealing himself as Coltrane’s disciple for the second time, his model was now the transitional music his mentor had made in the late ’50s and early ’60s, with Coltrane’s “sheets of sounds” rendered a torrent of joyous playfulness rather than a perpetual quest. The music on records like Live… is as fine an example of post-bop as one might find, utterly jubilant and secure in its knowledge. Signing with Theresa Records in 1979, Sanders went on to record a series of albums with a wealth of collaborators, including Thomas, pianist John Hicks, and vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson. Journey to the One, his first album for the label, yielded the infectious “You’ve Got to Have Freedom,” later a staple of the acid-jazz movement. Meanwhile, Sanders’s playing on ballads was some of the most serene and assured of any in the jazz tradition. In the early ’90s, he recorded a series of ballad albums in tribute to Coltrane and reunited with guitarist Sonny Sharrock on Ask the Ages before turning to experiments with electric instruments and world music fusions alongside bassist-producer Bill Laswell. One of the most intriguing of these later releases, The Trance of Seven Colors, was recorded in Morocco with Gnawa musician Mahmoud Guinia. Sanders also appeared with The Last Poets on Stolen Moments: Red Hot + Cool, a project designed to draw awareness to the continuing effects of HIV/AIDS in African American communities. Sanders continued to tour until soon before his death. The young lion now the wise elder, he served as custodian of the past rather than prophet of the future, as likely to play “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square” as he was to blow multiphonics. Sanders’s was always a music to call on in times of trouble. His last album, Promises, recorded and released during the pandemic, saw him provide obligato saxophone and occasional vocals to an orchestral score by electronic musician Sam Shepherd (Floating Points), sounding at ease and at peace. We should remember Pharoah Sanders both as the mellow elder and the young avant-gardist whose music still has the potential to shock. For Sanders, however, there was no split between the two. Whatever the context, Sanders always sounded like himself, his unique style the result of prodigious technique—overblowing, false fingering, circular breathing. In the latter years of his career, he even perfected the astonishing ability to coax notes from his saxophone after he’d taken it from his mouth. Such moments, a kind of stage magic perhaps connected as much to his roots in R&B showmanship as to “spiritual jazz,” surpass technical description. His playing, wrote critic Nat Hentoff, was “about cleaning the mirror into the self, going as far through the looking glass as is possible each time.” Sanders himself put it more succinctly: “I just play what I feel.” Yet his art was never really about the self. Pharoah Sanders’s music holds up a mirror to the world and, finding it wanting, builds something else. It is better than the world as it is, ushering in the sounds of a somewhere we have not yet reached. That was his gift. David Grundy is a poet and scholar based in London.  Read More…

Post Politics Now: Amid Inflation Challenges, Biden To Hold Event Focused On Saving Money https://digitalarkansasnews.com/post-politics-now-amid-inflation-challenges-biden-to-hold-event-focused-on-saving-money/ Today, with inflation remaining a challenge for his party as the midterm elections loom, President Biden is convening senior administration officials at the White House to talk about “new actions that will save families money and lower costs,” according to an advisory. Among the moves will be a new rule to require airlines and travel sites to be more transparent about additional fees, CNN is reporting. Congress returns to Washington this week with a deadline of Friday to pass a short-term funding bill to keep the government open. Also on tap this week: The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection will hold a public hearing on Wednesday. A witness list has yet to be announced but expect a heavy focus on former president Donald Trump. Your daily dashboard 10:35 a.m. Eastern time: Biden returns to the White House from Delaware. 11:45 a.m. Eastern: Biden welcomes the Atlanta Braves to the White House. Watch live here. 1:30 p.m. Eastern: White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre briefs reporters. Watch live here. 4:15 p.m. Eastern: Biden hosts a meeting of the White House Competition Council. Got a question about politics? Submit it here. After 3 p.m. weekdays, return to this space and we’ll address what’s on the mind of readers. On our radar: As more states create election integrity units, Arizona is a cautionary tale Return to menu Republicans across the country have embraced an aggressive tactic this year as they seek to tout baseless claims that voter fraud is a serious threat: arming state agencies with more power and resources to investigate election crimes. Virginia’s Republican attorney general earlier this month announced a new election integrity unit staffed with more than 20 attorneys and investigators “to increase transparency and strengthen confidence in our state elections.” Georgia legislators recently empowered the statewide police agency to launch election probes. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) last month described the arrests of 20 people for alleged illegal voting as the “opening salvo” of a new elections police force. Analysis: Democrats urge support for EPA union, testing Biden’s pro-labor pledge Return to menu More than 80 congressional Democrats are calling on the Biden administration to support proposals from the Environmental Protection Agency’s largest union during ongoing contract negotiations. Writing in The Climate 202, The Post’s Maxine Joselow is the first to report that in a letter sent Monday to EPA Administrator Michael Regan, the Democrats urged the agency’s political leadership to accept the requests of the American Federation of Government Employees Council 238, which represents more than 7,500 EPA employees. Analysis: Manchin makes permitting push as time ticks away for a deal Return to menu Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) is working hard to attach his energy permitting bill to a stopgap spending bill needed by week’s end, and he’s sharpening his message to Republicans who may withhold their support despite agreeing with his bill’s overall goal: It’s probably now or never. Writing in The Early 202, The Post’s Leigh Ann Caldwell and Theodoric Meyer say Manchin argued in an interview that Democratic support for energy project permitting reform is at its high-water mark and that it won’t pass in the next Congress regardless of which party controls the Senate. The latest: Harris discusses China’s ‘irresponsible provocations’ with Japanese prime minister Return to menu Vice President Harris, who is leading the U.S. delegation to Tuesday’s funeral of former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, met Monday with the country’s current prime minister, Fumio Kishida, in Tokyo. According to a White House readout, topics included China’s “aggressive and irresponsible provocations in the Taiwan Strait” that followed a visit to Taiwan by a congressional delegation led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). Harris and Kishida also condemned a recent ballistic missile launch by North Korea and “pledged to work together to address the threats posed by [North Korea’s] nuclear and ballistic weapons program,” the White House said. On our radar: Biden welcoming Atlanta Braves to the White House Return to menu With this year’s Major League Baseball playoffs just around the corner, President Biden plans to welcome last year’s World Series champions, the Atlanta Braves, to the White House on Monday. Biden is scheduled to host the Braves late Monday morning in keeping with a long tradition of presidents celebrating championship teams in major U.S. sports. The Braves were previously scheduled to be in town for a series with the Washington Nationals. The Braves have secured a playoff spot again this year. With less than two weeks remaining in the regular season, the team is trying to overtake the New York Mets to win the National League East division. If the Braves fall short, the team will still make the playoffs as a wild card team. Noted: Ex-staffer’s unauthorized book about Jan. 6 committee rankles members Return to menu News that a former adviser to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection is publishing a book billed as a “behind-the-scenes” look at the committee’s work came as a shock to most lawmakers and committee staff when it was announced last week. The Post’s Jacqueline Alemany and Josh Dawsey report that Denver Riggleman, a former Republican congressman, is set to publish “The Breach” on Tuesday, just one day before a public hearing of the Jan. 6 panel, which has gone to extraordinary lengths to prevent unauthorized leaks, as well as keep its sources and methods of investigation under wraps. On our radar: The Biden-Trump rematch, in many ways, has already begun Return to menu President Biden was at a Democratic reception in Maryland a few weeks ago when his rhetoric turned toward an increasingly frequent topic — “what Trump is doing and the Trumpers are doing.” An audience member called out, “Lock him up!” Biden went on to cite “the new polls showing me beating Trump by six or eight points.” A few days earlier, former president Donald Trump was at a rally in Pennsylvania when he, too, turned toward a frequent topic: “We’re leading Biden … by record numbers in the polls.” He said three times, with growing enthusiasm, “So I may just have to do it again!” Take a look: On Sunday shows, Sullivan warns Russia against using nuclear weapons in Ukraine Return to menu National security adviser Jake Sullivan made the rounds on the Sunday morning talk shows, warning that there would be “catastrophic consequences” for Russia if it uses nuclear weapons in its war on Ukraine. Sullivan said that message has been conveyed to Russian officials at the highest levels. The Post’s Blair Guild pulled together what Sullivan had to say during appearances on multiple shows. Noted: Blinken says conversation about supplying weapons to Ukraine ‘ongoing’ Return to menu Secretary of State Antony Blinken said a conversation with Ukraine over the supply of U.S. weapons to aid the country’s war effort is “ongoing,” notably regarding a request from Kyiv for Army Tactical Missile Systems, or ATACMS, as the surface-to-surface missiles are commonly known. The Post’s Rachel Pannett has details: “Whatever they put on the table is something we’re going to look at, to consider, and we’re going to give them our best judgment about what can be effective for them,” Blinken said in an interview with “60 Minutes.” The United States so far has made 20 transfers of defense equipment valued at billions of dollars, Blinken said, including antitank and antiaircraft weapons that helped repel Russian forces during their attempt to seize the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. “At every step of the way, we have worked to make sure that the Ukrainians had in their hands what they needed to defend themselves,” Blinken said. He described it as an “ongoing conversation” about what Ukraine needs at any given moment, adding: “We adjust as we go along.” You can read the full story here. Read More Here

Liz Cheney: “If [Donald Trump] Is The Nominee, I Won't Be A Republican.” https://digitalarkansasnews.com/liz-cheney-if-donald-trump-is-the-nominee-i-wont-be-a-republican/ Rep. Liz Cheney — a vocal critic of former President Donald Trump — has signaled that she may leave the GOP, saying, “If [Trump] is the nominee, I won’t be a Republican.” “I certainly will do whatever it takes to make sure Donald Trump isn’t anywhere close to the Oval Office,” the Wyoming Republican told Texas Tribune CEO Evan Smith at the paper’s festival on Saturday. Cheney also said Saturday that she would be willing to stump for Democrats, the first time she has said so explicitly. The comments were made in response to a question about Wyoming gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, a supporter of Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. “I am going to do everything I can to make sure that Kari Lake is not elected,” Cheney said, to which Smith asked if that meant potentially campaigning for Democrats. Cheney’s response: “Yes, it does.” Cheney has served as the representative for Wyoming’s at-large congressional district since 2017 — but she was defeated soundly in her August primary against Trump-backed challenger Harriet Hageman. Cheney is the vice chair of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, one of only two Republicans on the committee. Cheney is also one of only 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump. Both were positions that appeared to work against her during her campaign for reelection. Only two of the 10 GOP House members who voted to impeach Trump survived their primary challenges, while three others were defeated and four chose to either retire or not seek reelection. According to NPR, the majority of candidates Trump endorsed in the 2022 midterms have prevailed, and also said that they support the former president’s false claims about the 2020 election. In her concession speech last month, Cheney said, “We must be very clear-eyed about the threat we face and about what is required to defeat it. I have said since January 6 that I will do whatever it takes to ensure Donald Trump is never again anywhere near the Oval Office, and I mean it.” Cheney’s term will end on Jan. 3, 2023. Speculation has brewed around a potential presidential bid for Cheney in 2024, but she has not made any definitive public statements one way or the other on the matter. When Smith asked Cheney whether she planned to announce her candidacy, Cheney deflected: “What are we going to do to make sure that our kids know what it means to have peaceful transfers of power?” she responded. “And what are we going to do to make sure that we don’t contribute to the unraveling of the Republic? … That’s what I’m focused on.” Copyright 2022 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Sign up for the The Big Sky Blend Newsletter and receive up to date information. Read More Here

Bills Would Curtail Objections At Future Jan. 6 Counts https://digitalarkansasnews.com/bills-would-curtail-objections-at-future-jan-6-counts/ By MARY CLARE JALONICK, Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Members of Congress have officially objected to the results in four of the last six presidential elections, a partisan practice that has been legal for over a century but became much more fraught after a violent mob of former President Donald Trump’s supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol last year. In an effort to prevent another Jan. 6, 2021, bills moving through the House and Senate would make it harder to lodge those objections when Congress counts the electoral votes in a joint session after every presidential election. The move to curtail the objections is part of a larger effort to overhaul the 1800s-era Electoral Count Act and safeguard the integrity of the vote after Trump tried to persuade his allies in Congress to vote against Democrat Joe Biden’s victory and overturn his 2020 defeat. Under current law, only one member of the House and one member of the Senate has to challenge a state’s results in order to trigger votes on that state’s electors in each chamber. If a simple majority in each chamber votes to sustain the objection, that state’s votes can be thrown out. The House and Senate bills would each raise that threshold substantially, with the House bill requiring a third of each chamber to object and the Senate bill requiring a fifth of each chamber to object. The House legislation, passed last week, would also lay out new requirements for the grounds for an objection. “It is just too easy to trigger an objection when it only requires one person in each chamber,” says Maine Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican a co-sponsor of the Senate version. Eleven GOP senators have signed on to the legislation, which is up for a vote in a Senate committee on Tuesday. If the bills are consolidated into one measure that becomes law, it will do away with a tradition that has become increasingly popular as Congress has become more polarized. Democrats have objected the last three times that Republicans were elected — twice against George W. Bush and once against Trump — but in each of those cases the Democratic candidate had already conceded the election. The stakes were raised considerably in 2021, when Trump and his allies were actively trying to thwart Biden’s win, with a strategy to throw out Biden electors in Congress and the support of a violent mob that broke into the Capitol, interrupted the joint session and threatened the lives of lawmakers and Vice President Mike Pence. House Administration Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren of California, the Democratic sponsor of the House bill with Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, said the bill would protect the voters’ will from “frivolous” objections and more sinister efforts. “If you want to object to the vote, you better have your colleagues and the Constitution on your side,” Lofgren said just before the bill passed. “Don’t try to overturn our democracy.” At the 2021 joint session, two GOP senators — Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Josh Hawley of Missouri — joined a larger group of House Republicans in objecting to Biden’s electoral votes in Arizona and Pennsylvania, two swing states that Trump had won in the 2016 election but lost in 2020. Both the House and Senate voted to certify Biden’s win in those states in the hours after the rioters had injured police, rampaged through the Capitol and sent lawmakers running for their lives. Congress had only held such votes twice since the enactment of the Electoral Count Act 135 years ago. In 1969, two Democratic senators joined a member of the House to object to the vote of one elector in North Carolina during the certification of Republican Richard Nixon’s victory. In 2004, Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer of California and Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, D-Ohio, objected to President George W. Bush’s electors in Ohio over what they said were voting irregularities. In both cases, the House and Senate rejected the objections. In several other instances, members of the House have lodged objections without the support of a senator. In 2000, several members of the Congressional Black Caucus objected to Bush’s electors in Florida after the Supreme Court had forced a halt to vote-counting in that state and decided the election. Vice President Al Gore, whom Bush had defeated, gaveled the objections down as he presided over the session. In 2016, several Democrats stood and objected to Trump’s win over Democrat Hillary Clinton but no senator joined, and Vice President Joe Biden dismissed them. Like Gore, Clinton had already conceded defeat. Members on both sides of the Capitol have been working on the revisions to the Electoral Count Act since the 2021 insurrection, saying the law’s vague language was not robust enough protection against Trump’s overt attempts to subvert the will of the people. The bills would also clarify that the vice president’s role is solely ceremonial and try to prevent states from creating slates of illegitimate electors, as Trump’s allies tried to do. The House bill is more expansive than the Senate bill, and the two sides will eventually have to resolve their differences into a single measure. That includes the House language with new grounds for any objection, which would restrict the process even further. Under the House legislation, no member could make an objection unless it fell under a strict set of parameters that relate to the Constitution — that the state is not validly a state, if the state submits too many electoral votes or if a candidate is not eligible, for example. House Republicans argued against the bill by saying it was a political attack on Trump, noting the frequent Democratic objections over the years. The House bill only received nine Republican votes, all from members who are not returning to Congress next year. Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., responded that if lawmakers believed there had been too many objections in the past, “you should absolutely be supporting this legislation.” Hawley, who was photographed raising a fist to pro-Trump protesters outside the Capitol ahead of last year’s joint session, said in an interview that he is “skeptical” of the effort to change a law that has been in place for so many years. “My concern is that it’s going to look like to Republican voters that Democrats can object as much as often as they want,” the Missouri Republican said, noting the objections in 2000, 2004 and 2016. “As soon as Republicans do, they change the law,” Hawley said. “I can promise you, that will be the perception.” Still, 11 Republican senators have signed on to the Senate bill, enough to break a filibuster and pass the bill in the 50-50 Senate. Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey, who is retiring, was the latest GOP senator to sign on to the legislation last week. “The poor drafting of the 1887 Electoral Count Act endangered the transition of power from one Administration to the next,” Toomey said when he announced his support. “Unfortunately, in the over 100 intervening years, individual Democratic and Republican members of Congress have occasionally attempted to exploit the ambiguities in this law to cast doubt on the validity of our elections, culminating in the debacle of January 6, 2021,” he said. “It is past time Congress act.” Read More Here