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Post Politics Now: Biden Heading To Puerto Rico To Survey Storm Damage, Will Visit Fla. On Wednesday https://digitalarkansasnews.com/post-politics-now-biden-heading-to-puerto-rico-to-survey-storm-damage-will-visit-fla-on-wednesday/ Today, President Biden is heading to Puerto Rico on his first of two trips scheduled this week to hurricane-damaged communities. On Wednesday, he plans to visit Florida. While in Puerto Rico, Biden will announce more than $60 million in federal funding to shore up levees, strengthen flood walls and create a new flood warning system to help the island better prepare for storms. Hurricane Fiona hit Puerto Rico on Sept. 18, knocking out power across the U.S. territory. Congress is in recess until after the November midterm elections. The Supreme Court is starting a new term. And opening arguments are scheduled in the trial of Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes and other members of the extremist group who face seditious conspiracy and other charges in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Your daily dashboard 10:10 a.m. Eastern time: Biden departs the White House en route to Puerto Rico. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre briefs reporters on board Air Force One. Listen live here. 2:30 p.m. Eastern: Biden receives a briefing and delivers remarks in Ponce, Puerto Rico. Watch live here. 3:30 p.m. Eastern: Biden visits a school in Ponce, Puerto Rico. Got a question about politics? Submit it here. After 3 p.m. Eastern weekdays, return to this space and we’ll address what’s on the mind of readers. Noted: Larry Summers has Biden’s ear — but not always his support Return to menu President Biden spent more than an hour in the Oval Office in late August with former treasury secretary Larry Summers, prompting some aides to marvel that he had granted such a lengthy audience to a combative economist who had assailed the economic management by Biden and the Federal Reserve as the “least responsible” in four decades. The Post’s Jeff Stein and Tyler Pager report that the meeting set off fresh speculation inside the White House about the influence of what some aides jokingly call Biden’s “shadow” director of the National Economic Council — a position actually held by Brian Deese — and the uncertain stature of Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen, who has sometimes struggled to get Biden to back her recommendations. Analysis: House GOP whip race heats up in weeks before midterms Return to menu Congress has left Washington to campaign ahead of the midterm elections and while the main focus is on winning as many seats as possible, the behind-the-scenes race for leadership positions is also in full gear. Writing in The Early 202, The Post’s Leigh Ann Caldwell and Theodoric Meyer say that on the Republican side, the top two positions are probably set, with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) running unopposed for speaker if Republicans regain the House and Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), the minority whip, running unopposed for majority leader. On our radar: Biden to announce $60 million in storm preparedness funding in Puerto Rico Return to menu President Biden, during a trip Monday to see hurricane damage in Puerto Rico, plans to announce more than $60 million in federal funding to shore up levees, strengthen flood walls and create a new flood warning system to help the island better prepare for storms. The Post’s Matt Viser reports that the funding will come from money allocated through the $1.2 trillion infrastructure package that Congress approved last year, according to a White House official. Per Matt: The president and first lady Jill Biden will meet with families and community leaders affected by Hurricane Fiona. They will also participate in a community service project to help pack bags with food and other essential items — a portion of the visit that could evoke contrasting images with President Donald Trump’s trip in 2017, when he tossed rolls of paper towels into a crowd in San Juan after the island was devastated by Hurricane Maria. Biden will also receive a briefing on recovery efforts during the trip, and he will be joined by Deanne Criswell, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. You can read Matt’s full story here. On our radar: As TV doctor, Mehmet Oz provided platform for questionable products and views Return to menu As a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, Mehmet Oz, a cardiothoracic surgeon, is putting his medical background and his popular TV show at the center of his campaign pitch. The Post’s Colby Itkowitz and Lenny Bernstein report that at a recent town hall in a Philadelphia suburb, he said his approach to medicine and politics is similar: “If you teach people on television or whatever forum you use, they actually begin to use the information and they begin to change what they do in their lives. I want to do the same thing as your senator. Empower you.” Analysis: What happens if Republicans take the House, Senate (or both) in 2023? Return to menu This November, voters will determine which party controls Congress for the last half of President Biden’s first term. Democrats control the House of Representatives and Senate now. What was once widely expected to be a wipeout for their party has turned into a competitive battle. The Post’s Amber Phillips writes that it’s possible that Republicans pick up one or both chambers of Congress — or neither. Per Amber: What happens in these elections will drastically reshape the next two years before Biden potentially runs for reelection — and potentially runs against Donald Trump again. With Congress under Democratic control, he could have another chance to pass major liberal priorities. Under split or all Republican control, his administration could spend the next two years defending itself from investigations — and maybe even impeachment. You can read Amber’s full analysis, in which she details the three likeliest scenarios for who will win Congress, here. Noted: Democrats embrace a dark midterm message Return to menu With a tough midterm election about six weeks away, many Democrats have largely settled on a campaign message, and it’s not one that simply emphasizes their accomplishments. Instead, it amounts to a stark warning: If Republicans take power, they will establish a dystopia that cripples democracy and eviscerates abortion rights and other freedoms, The Post’s Yasmeen Abutaleb reports. Yasmeen’s piece opens with these examples: Democrat Max Frost, running for U.S. Congress in Florida, has said Republicans like Gov. Ron DeSantis are trying to build “right-wing fascist power.” Rep. Pat Ryan, a New York Democrat, says America faces “a coordinated domestic attempt to undermine our Constitution.” And Rep. Chris Pappas, a New Hampshire Democrat seeking reelection in a swing district, paints an Orwellian America if his Republican opponent gets her way on abortion: “It wouldn’t be a woman’s choice — it would be the government’s choice.” You can read Yasmeen’s full story here. Take a look: On the Sunday shows, officials talk about lessons learned from Ian Return to menu On the Sunday talk shows, officials — including Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, both Republicans from Florida — spoke about lessons learned from Hurricane Ian. The Post’s JM Rieger pulled together the highlights. Noted: Trump escalates attacks on McConnell with ‘DEATH WISH’ post Return to menu Former president Donald Trump is facing blowback for an online message attacking Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) that many viewed as a threat. “He has a DEATH WISH,” Trump posted late Friday on his Truth Social platform, criticizing McConnell for agreeing to a deal to fund the government through mid-December. The Post’s Isaac Arnsdorf reports that Trump also disparaged McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao, in racist terms, calling her “his China loving wife, Coco Chow!” Chao, who served as Trump’s transportation secretary, was born in Taiwan. Read More Here

National Archives Tells House Committee It Hasn https://digitalarkansasnews.com/national-archives-tells-house-committee-it-hasn/ Washington — The National Records and Archives Administration told House Democrats on Friday that it has not yet retrieved all the records from officials in the Trump administration that it should have under federal law and would consult with the Justice Department on further action. In a letter to House Oversight Committee chair Carolyn Maloney, Debra Steidel Wall, the acting archivist of the United States, said some White House staff used “non-official electronic messaging accounts” for official business that were not copied or forwarded into their official accounts, which is required under federal law.  “While there is no easy way to establish absolute accountability, we do know that we do not have custody of everything we should,” she told Congress. The Archives, Wall wrote, “has been able to obtain such records from a number of officials and will continue to pursue the return of similar types of presidential records from former officials.” Representative Carolyn Maloney, a Democrat from New York and chair of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, speaks during hearing in Washington, D.C., US, on Wednesday, July 27, 2022.  Bloomberg “As appropriate, NARA would consult with the Department of Justice on whether ‘to initiate an action for the recovery of records unlawfully removed,’ as established under the Federal Records Act,” she said. Wall also referenced a lawsuit filed by the Justice Department in August against Peter Navarro, a top trade adviser to former President Donald Trump, for the retrieval of official email records sent from his personal email account. Navarro’s lawyers told The Hill in August that he “instructed his lawyers to preserve all such records” and “expects the government to follow standard processes in good faith to allow him to produce records.”  In response to Wall’s letter, Maloney said it’s “outrageous” that the records, which are property of the U.S. government, are unaccounted for 20 months since the end of the Trump administration. “Former President Trump and his senior staff have shown an utter disregard for the rule of law and our national security by failing to return presidential records as the law requires,” she said in a statement.  Trump has come under scrutiny by the Justice Department for his handling of sensitive records that were brought with him from the White House at the end of his presidency to his South Florida residence, Mar-a-Lago. The Archives recovered 15 boxes of records from Mar-a-Lago in mid-January and records marked classified were found in 14 of them, according to the Justice Department. The tranche of sensitive documents included: 184 documents bearing classification markings, including 67 marked confidential, 92 marked secret and 25 marked top secret. A representative of Trump turned over an additional 38 unique documents with classification markings to the Justice Department in June and, after the FBI executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago in August, found roughly 100 more documents with classification markings in a storage room on the property and in desks in Trump’s office. The Justice Department is investigating Trump for what it said is the improper removal and storage of classified information in unlawful spaces, as well as the unlawful concealment or removal of government records.  Trump’s lawyers, however, have said the investigation against him is “unprecedented and misguided.” Thanks for reading CBS NEWS. Create your free account or log in for more features. Please enter email address to continue Please enter valid email address to continue Read More Here

Morning Joe Reveals The Disturbing Reason Trump Is Trying To Get Mitch McConnell Killed https://digitalarkansasnews.com/morning-joe-reveals-the-disturbing-reason-trump-is-trying-to-get-mitch-mcconnell-killed/ Read More Here

Trump Allies Have Interviewed Nearly 200 Election Officials To Probe For Weaknesses • Missouri Independent https://digitalarkansasnews.com/trump-allies-have-interviewed-nearly-200-election-officials-to-probe-for-weaknesses-missouri-independent/ Elections Volunteers for ‘Operation Eagles Wings’ are using surveys in eight states to seek support for conspiracy theories Two of Donald Trump’s most prominent allies in his fight to overturn the 2020 election are leading a coordinated, multi-state effort to probe local election officials in battlegrounds such as Michigan, Arizona and Texas ahead of the November election. The America Project, an organization founded by Michael Flynn, a retired three-star general and former national security adviser, and former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne, has so far interviewed or attempted to interview officials in nearly 200 counties across eight swing states, according to copies of notes, recordings of the interviews, and other documents Votebeat found on web pages associated with the organization. The survey questions reflect the same debunked conspiracies and misleading information about elections that Flynn and Byrne have been propagating for years. The survey questions appear intended to detect potential weaknesses in local election systems and gather detailed information about how elections are run. Election experts say the information could easily be used to fuel misinformation campaigns, disrupt voting, or challenge results. “It seems consistent with their efforts to really understand how to manipulate the machinery of election administration in this country,” said Ben Berwick, counsel at national nonprofit Protect Democracy, a research and advocacy group. In 2020, Byrne and Flynn were among the Trump loyalists who devised a plan to seize voting machines across the country and dig up enough evidence of fraud to persuade state lawmakers, Congress, or the vice president to overturn the election results. Now, they are focusing their efforts on the midterm election, with new strategies. A group backed by The America Project, for example, is attempting to purge voter rolls in Georgia ahead of the election. The surveys are part of The America Project’s latest mission, dubbed “Operation Eagles Wings,” which is organized on foramericafirst.com, with web pages for each of the swing states the group is focused on. Key to the effort is building relationships with local election officials, according to two manuals for local volunteers on the organization’s websites. The officials are asked their opinions on debunked conspiracy theories, perhaps to determine whether they are like-minded individuals. Interviewers are also marking down which clerks are particularly helpful. Berwick points out that it’s the mission of prominent Trump supporters to fill positions of power — from governors down to local clerks — with people who believe their allegations of election fraud and improprieties. Noting who does and does not support the cause, he said, may be the group’s way of determining “who will be sympathetic to their efforts in the future.” Election officials have generally been friendly to their interviewers, but have also repeatedly assured them that their elections are fair, voting machines are secure, and voter rolls are accurate. In Harris County, Georgia, an election official repeatedly assured the interviewer that no one voted on behalf of deceased voters in the county. “In some counties they did,” the interviewer insisted. “They weren’t removed from the rolls. And there have been some reports. It’s down to the proof. Prove it.” The America Project and its officers did not respond to phone and email requests for comment about the surveys. Surveys probe administrators on debunked theories The survey questions vary slightly by state, though nearly all ask if counties remove deceased voters from the rolls. They also request contact information for vendors who service voting machines, and whether the county will consider designating a “neutral” third party group “training and support” for poll watchers. Some ask whether voting machines are connected to the internet, and if the local election officials are confident that local advocacy groups register voters “without bribery, intimidation or coercion.” Interviewers asked the officials whether they support counting votes using a “manual process like that used in France.” This is a common talking point of such activists, who routinely praise the country for efficiently hand-counting votes and use it as justification to end the use of vote-counting machines. “If France can do it, we can do it!” shouted Trump’s former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon on his War Room podcast earlier this year. Mike Lindell, his guest and a prominent conspiracy theorist who is also the owner of MyPillow, agrees. “Terminate the machines!” yells Lindell. There are several differences between French and U.S. elections that make hand counting more effective in that country. Byrne and Flynn have both voiced strong support for these ideas, routinely claiming without evidence that voting machines were manipulated and that left-leaning activists routinely facilitate mass voter fraud. “Our country and its founding principles are under attack by globalists and their allies in government, Wall Street, the legacy media and by others which make-up the political left in this country,” the Georgia for America First website states. “The weapon of choice is our vulnerable election system.” The America Project was the top funder of the Arizona Senate’s election review, and Byrne supported the now-discredited investigation of voting machines in Antrim County, Michigan. Both have said they’ll continue to work to remake American elections. “This will be our last shot,” wrote Byrne in his book, “The Deep Rig,” which he self-published last year. The book declares: “If we do not restore election integrity by then, then next election will also be rigged [sic], and we will have tipped our way into a fascist, authoritarian dystopian version of America, run by Goons.” ‘Operation Eagles Wings’ A key goal of Operation Eagles Wings is to create small volunteer teams across the country who observe the entirety of the election process, starting in part with the surveys, according to the manuals Votebeat found. It’s the expansion of what they have dubbed “the Virginia model,” which refers to the work of Cleta Mitchell’s Election Integrity Group in Virginia to create a network for the state’s 2021 election, according to the manuals. The America Project provided funding to that effort. The larger Operation Eagles Wings initiative is aimed at educating “election reform activists on everything from grassroots training to election canvassing and fundraising,” according to The America Project’s website. The site claims the group provides training “for Americans who want to make sure there are no repeats of the errors that happened in the 2020 election.” “We need to do everything in our power to protect the voting process from election meddlers who care only about serving crooked special interest groups that neither respect nor value the rule of law,” the homepage says. Along with the surveys, the initiative encourages election skeptics to serve as poll workers and observers, perform in-person “voter registration audits,” and to visit “large farms, factories, businesses and especially care homes,” and ask residents whether anyone is forcing them to vote, according to the manuals. Election officials’ top concern? ‘Misinformation.’ Volunteers have conducted interviews in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin, according to copies and audio recordings of the interviews that Votebeat found online. Most of the documents are stored on what appear to be unlisted pages of a site called libertyshepherd.com, which had no active homepage as of Friday, while the Florida documents are accessible from the state’s page on foramericafirst.com. Election administrators surveyed by the group told Votebeat they weren’t bothered by the questions themselves, inviting them as opportunities to debunk misinformation. Many election officials told the interviewers that their top concern about the upcoming election was misinformation. In Sterling Heights, Michigan, City Clerk Melanie Ryska told the interviewer that people insinuate “that we aren’t doing something right, that we are hiding something, that our [absentee] ballots are not legitimate, that we have early voting when we don’t, that we are trying to sway the vote somehow.” Ryska told Votebeat in an interview that she is glad when people come to her for information, rather than get it elsewhere. “I just think it is great that different organizations are actually talking to clerks now and trying to get their side of the story, if you will, because the misinformation dramatically hurts the election administrators, their team, the process,” she said. “Because it just creates so much mistrust in the process.” Susan Nash, city clerk in Livonia, Michigan, said she was interviewed by two women with the group this summer. “Nothing wrong with questioning,” Nash told Votebeat. “It’s better to contact the clerks instead of getting misinformation elsewhere.” Most interviews were conducted in person or by phone, with the interviewer filling out the survey themselves. Shown the completed surveys, two election supervisors told Votebeat the volunteers had not accurately recorded their answers. Cortney Hanson, city clerk in Novi, Michigan, said the interviewers recorded most of her responses correctly, except for one question. They used their own words to mischaracterize the funds the city accepted from the Center for Tech and Civic Life before the 2020 election, writing that she accepted “Zuck bucks” — a term championed by some conservatives referring to the grant, which had been underwritten by grants...

India’s Largest Oil Company Becomes Top Nifty50 Gainer, Trumps Benchmarks https://digitalarkansasnews.com/indias-largest-oil-company-becomes-top-nifty50-gainer-trumps-benchmarks/ Please try another search Credit: © Reuters. By Malvika Gurung Investing.com — Shares of the state-owned oil manufacturing companies like ONGC (NS:), Oil India (NS:) and Bharat Petroleum (NS:) jumped almost 6% on Monday, as windfall profit taxes and export duties on diesel and ATF were revised over the weekend by the Centre at its sixth fortnightly review. The Government made revisions to windfall taxes on gains produced by domestic refineries and oil producers, along with export levies on diesel and jet fuel, starting Oct 2, in line with easing prices in international markets. The windfall profit cess on domestically produced crude oil has been cut from Rs 10,500/tonne to Rs 8,000/tonne, while a Rs 5/litre export levy on jet fuel has been slashed by the Government. The export duty on diesel has been halved from Rs 10/L to Rs 5. Read Also: Revision – Windfall Tax Lowered, Export Duty on Diesel Halved, Slashed on ATF As a result, shares of India’s largest OMC, ONGC jumped almost 6% on Monday and closed the session 4.42% higher, while other state-owned oil stocks climbed too, including Hindustan Petroleum (NS:), Chennai Petroleum (NS:), Indian Oil (NS:) and Mangalore (NS:) Refinery, among others, as the Government’s move would mean higher revenue for these companies. ONGC was the best performer on the benchmark index despite the index tanking 1.21% and falling 1.11% on Monday. Further, crude oil prices surged almost 4% on Monday, with Futures trading 3.7% higher at 88.28/barrel and WTI Futures surging almost 4% at 82.6/barrel, following reports that the OPEC+ will consider supply cuts at its upcoming meeting on Wednesday, as prices plummeted 11.2% in September and logged their worst month in almost a year. Read More Here

Libertarian David Lashar: I Can Overtake Dan Cox — And Help Defeat 'Trumpism' – Maryland Matters https://digitalarkansasnews.com/libertarian-david-lashar-i-can-overtake-dan-cox-and-help-defeat-trumpism-maryland-matters/ David Lashar, the Libertarian nominee for governor, greets voters at the Tawes Clambake in Crisfield last week. Photo by Bruce DePuyt. Part of the kabuki dance of being a third party candidate for political office is having to convince skeptical voters and donors that you have even a slim shot at victory. David Lashar, the Libertarian nominee for governor, has dispensed with all that this time. A lifelong Republican and a former top official in the Maryland Department of Health, Lashar quit the party to protest the rise of Donald Trump. In an interview with Maryland Matters, he said he has set a lower — but perhaps more achievable — objective for himself. He’s gunning to outpoll Republican nominee Dan Cox. Finishing behind only Democrat Wes Moore, Lashar said, would send the message “that we do not have to be subject to the dreadful behavior that we’re getting from both of the parties, and that Trumpism is on the wane [and that] Trumpism can be beat.” The 59-year-old Lashar campaigned for GOP presidential candidate Bob Dole in 1988. He then became a policy analyst on Capitol Hill before taking a series of IT jobs in the private sector. After Republican Larry Hogan became governor in 2015, Lashar was appointed to the Maryland Transportation Commission. Restless in a position he viewed as ceremonial, he moved to the Department of Health, first as chief information officer, then as chief operating officer and chief of staff. The rise of Donald Trump pushed Lashar out of the GOP and he became a Libertarian. He took 2.6% of the vote as the Libertarian nominee for Congress in the 3rd District in 2018. For a third party or independent candidate to out-poll a major party candidate is highly unusual. But Cox, a one-term state delegate and conspiracy-mongering acolyte of Trump with a thin resume, is on course to get trampled. In a University of Maryland/Washington Post poll released on Saturday, Cox was the choice of just 28% of voters. Moore was preferred by 60%. (Third-party candidates were not included in the poll.) The Post/University of Maryland poll, which surveyed 810 registered voters, showed that Hogan has the highest job approval rating — 73% — of his eight years in office. That eye-popping number reinforces how wildly unpopular Cox is with the electorate. Another recent poll, conducted by Goucher College poll the Baltimore Banner and WYPR, showed Moore 22 points up on Cox — 53% to 31%. Lashar attracted 4%, Green Party candidate Nancy Wallace drew 2%, and Working Class Party candidate David Harding did not register. When Lashar launched his campaign for governor, he said in an interview last week, his goal was “to push the ideas, contribute to the civic debate, and get 4 or 5%.” But when Cox defeated Hogan’s choice in the Republican primary, former Commerce Secretary Kelly Schulz, and Moore finished first among Democrats, Lashar said he decided to shift strategy. Hogan has pointedly said he would not vote for Cox, and other mainstream Republicans may be reluctant to do so. “With the way the primaries turned out, it opened up 60% of the electorate to me,” Lashar said. “It opened up everybody that’s between a JFK liberal and a Reagan conservative.” “I’m out to beat Dan Cox at this point,” he added. “I want to help put a nail in the coffin of Trumpism.” Finishing second will be tough, said Todd Eberly, a political science professor at St. Mary’s College. Like most third party candidates, Lashar will have virtually no party apparatus to support him and he is destined to trail far behind in fundraising. In addition, he has been excluded from what is shaping up to be the marquee debate of the campaign, Oct. 12 on Maryland Public Television. (Lashar, who will be part of an online candidate forum co-sponsored by Maryland Matters a day later, conceded that he attended the Tawes Clambake in Crisfield for the first time last week because “as a third party candidate, it’s hard for me to throw an event and have people come to me, so our strategy is go to where the people are already congregating.”) While few people give Cox much shot at a win, it’s widely expected that he will attract at least a third of the vote, no matter how badly he is outspent or how outlandish his views. “Polarization has reached the point where there are folks that are going to pull the Republican lever no matter what,” Eberly said. The issues that animate Republican politics today — critical race theory, communism, Marxism, socialism, “the nonsense about indoctrinating our kids in school with the LGBTQ+ mafia” — are, in Eberly’s view “geared toward scaring the hell out of people.” Lashar and his running mate, Christina Logansmith, a Navy veteran and small business owner, have put together a platform at least as broad as Cox’s. Their policies fall under three umbrellas — opportunity, accountability and civility. He frequently retweets a tweet from a political figure or media outlet to spotlight his alternative positions or amplify his views. The challenge will be in communicating with voters. In their most recent campaign finance report, the duo had less than $10,000 cash on hand. Eberly said Lashar is right about one thing. A second-place finish would be a mighty accomplishment. “If a Libertarian candidate wound up coming in second in a gubernatorial contest, even in a state like Maryland, absolutely that would wind up making news,” he said. Read More Here

Arkansas Storm Team Forecast: Dry & Sunny Today; Warm This Afternoon https://digitalarkansasnews.com/arkansas-storm-team-forecast-dry-warm-this-afternoon/ by: Pat Walker Posted: Oct 3, 2022 / 05:52 AM CDT Updated: Oct 3, 2022 / 05:52 AM CDT by: Pat Walker Posted: Oct 3, 2022 / 05:52 AM CDT Updated: Oct 3, 2022 / 05:52 AM CDT Dry & sunny today with a cool start in the 50s and 40s, but we’ll be in the upper 70s at Noon (average high temperature is 79°) and then have a high temperature of 86° in Little Rock this afternoon. We, obviously, have no rain in the forecast today, and there is no rain in the forecast all week. The only sign of a chance of rain isn’t for another ten days. Be alerted as soon as severe weather coverage begins by downloading the Arkansas Storm Team app from the App Store or on Google Play. Trending Stories Read More…

Nobel Prize In Physiology Or Medicine Is Awarded To Svante Pääbo https://digitalarkansasnews.com/nobel-prize-in-physiology-or-medicine-is-awarded-to-svante-paabo/ The Swedish geneticist was honored for his work in sequencing the genome of the Neanderthal, an extinct relative of present-day humans. Send any friend a story As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Anyone can read what you share. The Swedish geneticist Svante Pääbo in Oviedo, Spain, in 2018.Credit…José Luis Cereijido/EPA-EFE/REX Oct. 3, 2022Updated 6:54 a.m. ET The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Svante Pääbo, a Swedish geneticist, on Monday for his discoveries concerning the genomes of extinct hominins and human evolution. It was the first of several prizes to be given over the next week. The Nobel Prizes, among the highest honors in science, recognize groundbreaking contributions in a variety of fields. “Through his pioneering research, Svante Pääbo — this year’s Nobel Prize laureate in physiology or medicine — accomplished something seemingly impossible: sequencing the genome of the Neanderthal, an extinct relative of present-day humans,” the Nobel committee said in a statement. “Pääbo’s discoveries have generated new understanding of our evolutionary history,” the statement said, adding that this research had helped establish the burgeoning science of “paleogenomics,” or the study of genetic material from ancient pathogens. Nils-Göran Larsson, a professor in medical biochemistry for the Karolinska Institute in Solna, Sweden, said that Dr. Pääbo had used existing technology and his own methods to extract and analyze the ancient DNA. “It was certainly considered to be impossible to recover DNA from 40,000-year-old bones,” Dr. Larsson said, adding later that his discoveries would “allow us to compare changes between contemporary Homo sapiens and ancient hominins. And this, over the years to come, will give us huge insights into human physiology.” Anna Wedell, a professor of medical genetics at the Karolinska Institute, said that Dr. Pääbo’s findings “allow us to address one of the most fundamental questions of all: What makes us unique?” By comparing and analyzing human genome sequences, Dr. Pääbo’s team discovered a previously unknown type of hominin, Denisova, the committee’s statement said, finding that gene flow occurred from the Denisova to Homo sapiens about 70,000 years ago. That information remained relevant, the statement said — for example, in helping to inform how human immune systems reacted to infections. Mr. Pääbo, a Stockholm native, is the son of Sune Bergström, a biochemist who shared the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1982. When reached by telephone in Leipzig, Germany, Dr. Pääbo “was overwhelmed, he was speechless,” Thomas Perlmann, the secretary of the Nobel Assembly and the Nobel Committee, said in announcing the award. Dr. Pääbo became enraptured with the possibility of using modern methods to study the genetic coding of Neanderthals early in his career, when he extracted the DNA from ancient mummies. That experiment led him to become a pioneer in the swiftly evolving field of paleogenomics. He became a jigsaw master of human origins, developing and refining methods for recovering and analyzing DNA from ancient animal bones, such as those belonging to cave bears and ground sloths. But he was after something bigger. “I longed to bring a new rigor to the study of human history by investigating DNA sequence variation in ancient humans,” he wrote in his 2014 memoir, “Neanderthal Man.” In 2010, Dr. Pääbo achieved renown when he and his research team presented the first sequencing of the entire Neanderthal genome. It was a milestone for scientists, who had been puzzled by the fossils of Neanderthals since they were discovered in a German quarry in 1856. Neanderthals, who lived up to 800,000 years ago in parts of Europe and Asia, had large brains and used sophisticated tools to hunt large mammals. Dr. Pääbo’s genome sequence helped settle many questions surrounding their relationship to modern-day humans. “It’s a basic scientific discovery,” Dr. Larsson said. “It identities the very small and few differences between anatomically modern humans, Homo sapiens, and extinct hominins.” The road to that discovery was punctuated by challenges. DNA in old bones becomes degraded and chemically damaged. Over time, the long coiled sequence breaks into fragments, making it vexingly difficult to create an accurate reconstruction of an extinct organism’s genes. In her book “The Sixth Extinction,” the science writer Elizabeth Kolbert likens the process to reassembling a “Manhattan telephone book from pages that have been put through a shredder, mixed with yesterday’s trash, and left to rot in a landfill.” This is a developing story. Check back for further details. Who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2021? The prize was awarded jointly to David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian for their discoveries about key mechanisms of how people sense heat, cold, touch and body movements. When will the other Nobel Prizes be announced? The Nobel Prize in Physics will be awarded on Tuesday by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm. Last year, Syukuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann and Giorgio Parisi won for their work detailing humanity’s role in climate change. The Nobel Prize in Chemistry will be awarded on Wednesday by the Swedish Academy in Stockholm. Last year, Benjamin List and David W.C. MacMillan won for their development of a new tool that spurred research into new drugs and reduced the chemistry’s effect on the environment. The Nobel Prize in Literature will be awarded on Thursday by the Swedish Academy in Stockholm. Last year, Abdulrazak Gurnah won for “his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents.” The Nobel Peace Prize will be awarded on Friday by the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo. Last year, Maria Ressa and Dmitri A. Muratov, both journalists, won for their efforts in the struggle to protect press freedoms. Next week, the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences will be awarded on Oct. 10 by the Swedish Academy in Stockholm. Last year, the prize went to David Card, Joshua D. Angrist and Guido W. Imbens. All of the prize announcements will also be streamed live by the Nobel Prize organization. Prize winners will receive their awards at a ceremony in Stockholm in December. Read More Here

Weighty U.S. Supreme Court Term Dawns With Environmental And Race Cases https://digitalarkansasnews.com/weighty-u-s-supreme-court-term-dawns-with-environmental-and-race-cases/ WASHINGTON, Oct 2 (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court’s nine justices are poised on Monday to open a new nine-month term packed with major cases including disputes centered on race that give members of its conservative majority fresh opportunities to flex their muscles, with an environmental case up first. The top U.S. judicial body annually kicks off its term on the first Monday of October, and the justices have important cases on the schedule right away. The court has a 6-3 conservative majority. President Joe Biden’s appointee Ketanji Brown Jackson – America’s first Black woman justice – joins the court’s liberal bloc after being confirmed by the Senate in April to succeed now-retired Justice Stephen Breyer. On the term’s first day, the justices are set to hear arguments in a case that could limit the scope of a landmark federal environmental law, the Clean Water Act of 1972. The court issued a decision in June that constrained the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under a different anti-pollution law, the Clean Air Act. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com The court on Monday will consider for a second time a bid by Chantell and Mike Sackett, a married couple from Idaho, to build a home on property that the EPA has deemed a protected wetland requiring a permit under the Clean Water Act, which they had failed to obtain. There has been litigation and political debates over how much of a connection with a waterway a property must have in order to require a permit. The Supreme Court issued a ruling in 2006 that led to further uncertainty. The new case gives its conservatives an opportunity to embrace an approach favored by business groups, with a ruling due by the end of June. In the biggest rulings from last term, the court ended the recognition of a woman’s constitutional right to abortion and expanded gun rights. On Tuesday, the justices are due to hear arguments in a case from Alabama that threatens to gut a landmark civil rights law. The 1965 Voting Rights Act, which prohibits racial discrimination in voting, was enacted at a time when Southern states including Alabama enforced policies blocking Black people from casting ballots. Alabama is appealing a lower court’s ruling invalidating a map approved by the state’s Republican-controlled legislature drawing the boundaries of the state’s seven U.S. House of Representatives districts. The lower court ordered a new map after finding that the Republican-drawn version diluted the electoral clout of Black voters in violation of the Voting Rights Act. Black voters tend to support Democratic candidates. At Alabama’s request, the Supreme Court froze that ruling, letting the contested map be used in elections while litigation proceeds. The map concentrated the voting power of Black people in the state into a single district even though Alabama’s population is 27% Black, while spreading out the rest of the Black population into other districts at levels too small to form a majority. Conservative states and groups already have successfully prodded the Supreme Court to limit the Voting Rights Act’s scope in rulings from 2013 and 2021. Alabama now argues that drawing a second district to give Black voters a better chance at electing their preferred candidate would itself be racially discriminatory by favoring them at the expense of other voters. The Supreme Court tackles race again in a dispute to be heard on Oct. 31 that might yield the most momentous ruling of the term, with the conservative majority in a position to end affirmative action admissions policies used by many colleges and universities to increase the number of Black and Hispanic students on their campuses. A group called Students for Fair Admissions, founded by anti-affirmative action activist Edward Blum, is appealing lower court rulings that upheld race-conscious admissions programs used by two prestigious universities – Harvard University and the University of North Carolina – to foster student diversity. The lawsuits accused the universities of discriminating against applicants on the basis of race in violation of federal law or the U.S. Constitution. Blum’s group accused Harvard of discriminating against Asian American applicants. It accused UNC of discriminating against white and Asian American applicants. The universities have said they use race as only one factor in a host of individualized evaluations for admission without quotas, and that curbing the consideration of race would result in a significant drop in the number of Black, Hispanic and other underrepresented students on campus. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Reporting by Andrew Chung and Nate Raymond; Editing by Will Dunham Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. Nate Raymond Thomson Reuters Nate Raymond reports on the federal judiciary and litigation. He can be reached at nate.raymond@thomsonreuters.com. Read More Here

Rogers Braces For 300,000 At Festival https://digitalarkansasnews.com/rogers-braces-for-300000-at-festival/ Ben Schons with A&B Distributors in Lowell hangs a banner Friday at Pig Trail Harley-Davidson in Rogers to get ready for Bikes, Blues and Barbecue. The event comes to Rogers on Wednesday through Saturday. Thousands of motorcycle fans from across the nation are expected for the event. In addition to scenic motorcycle rides in Northwest Arkansas and activities for bikers, the event raises funds for several charities. (NWA Democrat-Gazette/Flip Putthoff) ROGERS — Business owners, restaurant workers and rally organizers are “cautiously optimistic” as they prepare for thousands of motorcyclists to enter the city for Bikes, Blues & BBQ. Some downtown restaurants are excited, but also concerned, about the logistical side of the motorcycle rally running Wednesday through Saturday. Julie Yell, general manager at The Rail, said there has been little to no communication to restaurants about what they can expect throughout the week. The restaurant will likely get plenty of customers, but being at full capacity will be a major disruption to the shop’s normal to-go business, according to Yell. She would have liked to have seen the entertainment district hours extended and food trucks brought downtown to alleviate some of the anticipated demand, she said. “According to our occupancy, we are not going to be able to host the third-largest rally in the U.S.,” she said. “For an event of this magnitude, I probably would have expected a bit more planning and a bit more city involvement.” Hannah Cicioni, owner of barbecue restaurant Tx-AR House, said she is concerned about downtown parking and hopes to see better communication from event organizers ahead of next year. Jordan Poole, executive chef and operating partner of OZ Smokehouse, said he hasn’t heard anything about how the parking will work, but he expects all parking will be full. All three are happy the event will showcase the city and recent development downtown. “We’re cautious, but we’re excited. We’re going to crank out as much food and beverage out that door as possible,” Yell said. “With the loss of Frisco Fest, I’d love to see more exciting events come to downtown.” The city announced in November that it was ending a $100,000 contract for event planning with Downtown Rogers Inc., a division of the Rogers-Lowell Area Chamber of Commerce. Frisco Festival, one of the downtown area’s best-known events, ended with the funding, according to Raymond Burns, president and chief executive officer of the chamber. Eleanor Evans, who lives near the intersection of Dixieland Road and Olive Street, said she plans to leave town and avoid altogether the thousands of bikers who will be passing through her neighborhood. Evans said she has never left during the event before, because rally traffic in Rogers was mostly focused on Hudson Road. “I’m always happy when we’re getting tourism dollars. It provides revenue for the city that residents don’t have to provide,” she said. “For me, I think it’s better that I just stay out of it and come back and ask friends how it was.” A REGIONAL EVENT A change of venue for Bikes, Blues & BBQ highlights the transformation and growth of Rogers and Northwest Arkansas as a whole, business owners and city leaders said. Rogers is the event’s host city for the first time in the rally’s two-decade history. Organizers announced in January the move from Fayetteville, which had hosted the rally each year previously. The rally is expected to stay in Rogers for at least a few years. The community, city and rally will discuss this year’s event in a process that will involve “a lot of observation, listening and evaluation,” Burns said. “The purpose of having your first is to find out how to make the second, third and fourth better. We’re going to see if it’s a good fit,” Burns said. Hospitality infrastructure has been developed across town to help Rogers host events like Bikes, Blues & BBQ, he said. Logistical reasons were front and center in deciding to move the rally to a different location, according to Steve Clark, president and chief executive officer of the Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce. Clark has been on the rally’s board of directors for 14 years. With projects under development related to Fayetteville’s cultural arts corridor — like the construction of a parking deck at the corner of Dickson Street and West Avenue — rally organizers knew parts of downtown Fayetteville would no longer be available for the event, he said. The rally hasn’t officially taken place since 2019. It was canceled in 2020 and 2021 for reasons related to the covid-19 pandemic. The festival has become more regional as Northwest Arkansas has grown and developed over the years, Clark said. “The difference between the two communities is at best 20 miles, which is nothing, really. The communities are really one and the same,” he said. “Riders come to ride the state highways, not the streets of our cities.” Though there will be fewer vendors and no demonstration rides in Fayetteville, the city will still see plenty of bikers, he predicted. Bentonville will benefit from the rally’s move north, according to Kalene Griffith, president and chief executive officer of Visit Bentonville. Bentonville has attracted visitors from the rally in previous years, but the city likely will see more people now that the festival is closer, she said. BUSINESS AS USUAL Other than the move from Fayetteville to Rogers, the rally for the most part will remain the same this year, according to Tommy Sisemore, the event’s executive director. Organizers estimate the number of attendees will approach that of the 2019 rally, he said. About 300,000 people — including 170,000 out-of-town visitors — participate in the event each year. The Rogers Police Department has been planning how to handle the rally for over a month and has spoken with Fayetteville about how it approached the event, according to Keith Foster, public information officer. Officers will be at the rally day and night, working on their days off to cover the event, Foster said. “We consider this an ‘all hands’ situation, and we will all work to ensure that everyone is as safe as possible so they can enjoy the event,” he said. Most events will be downtown, in the uptown and Pinnacle Hills area and at the motorcycle dealers along Hudson Road. Vendors will be at the Rogers Convention Center, the Walmart Arkansas Music Pavilion and downtown. Both areas will host stunt riders, according to Sisemore. Parking downtown will mostly be free and available on a first-come, first-served basis, but a few lots will offer paid parking, Sisemore said. Poplar and Cherry streets will both be closed to traffic between First and Arkansas streets. First Street will be closed for bike parking from Cherry Street south to Pine Street, he said. Live music will take place each afternoon and evening downtown on the Butterfield Stage at Railyard Live. A beer garden will be outside TxAR House at the corner of Poplar and First, across the street from the stage, according to Cicioni. Poker runs Friday and Saturday will begin at the Walmart AMP. The rally’s car show will take place in the Pinnacle Hills Promenade parking lot Saturday. The annual Frisco Inferno barbecue competition will be downtown Saturday afternoon, Sisemore said. “It’s the same thing we do every year, but a different ZIP code,” he said. Read More Here

AP News Summary At 5:48 A.m. EDT https://digitalarkansasnews.com/ap-news-summary-at-548-a-m-edt/ Russia smuggling Ukrainian grain to help pay for Putin’s war BEIRUT (AP) — An investigation by The Associated Press and the PBS series “Frontline” has documented a sophisticated Russian-run smuggling operation that has used falsified manifests and seaborne subterfuge to steal Ukrainian grain worth at least $530 million. The AP and “Frontline” used satellite imagery and marine radio transponder data to track three dozen ships making more than 50 voyages carrying grain from Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine to ports in the Middle East. The ongoing theft is being carried out by wealthy businessmen and state-owned companies in Russia and Syria. Some of them already face financial sanctions from the United States and European Union. Legal experts say the theft is a potential war crime. Indonesian police probe tear gas firing at soccer match MALANG, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesian police are investigating over a dozen officers responsible for firing tear gas that set off a crush that killed 125 people at a soccer match. At least 17 children are among the dead and seven are being treated in hospitals. National Police spokesperson says 18 officers responsible for firing tear gas are being investigated. He says police are questioning witnesses and analyzing footage from security cameras and victims’ cellphones as part of the investigation to also identify suspected vandals. Most of the deaths occurred when riot police fired tear gas to prevent fans from protesting their home team’s loss. It triggered the disastrous crush of spectators making a panicked run for the exits. Most of the victims were trampled upon or suffocated. UK scraps tax cut for wealthy that sparked market turmoil BIRMINGHAM, England (AP) — The British government has dropped plans to cut income tax for top earners. The move was part of a package of unfunded cuts that sparked turmoil on financial markets and sent the pound to record lows. Treasury chief Kwasi Kwarteng said Monday that he would abandon plans to scrap the top 45% rate of income tax paid on earnings above 150,000 pounds a year. The announcement comes as more lawmakers from the governing Conservative Party turn on government tax plans. The announcement of 45 billion pounds in tax cuts sent the pound tumbling to a record low against the dollar. The Bank of England had to step in to stabilize the bond markets. Ukrainian troops continue offensive, claim new gains KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian troops have continued to push on with their offensive that has embarrassed Moscow, with Kyiv officials and foreign observers hinting at new gains in the southern strategic region of Kherson. The area has been one of the toughest battlefields for the Ukrainians, with slower progress when compared to Kyiv’s breakout offensive around Kharkiv that began last month. Ukrainian media outlets also highlighted an image of Ukrainian troops displaying flags at a marker for the village of Khreshchenivka, which is in the same area of Kherson where troops apparently have broken through Russian lines. Russian military bloggers have increasingly acknowledged Ukrainian superiority of manpower in the area. Nobel prize in medicine awarded for research on evolution STOCKHOLM (AP) — This year’s Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine has been awarded to Swedish scientist Svante Paabo for his discoveries on human evolution. Thomas Perlmann, secretary of the Nobel Committee, announced the winner Monday at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. The medicine prize kicked off a week of Nobel Prize announcements. It continues Tuesday with the physics prize, with chemistry on Wednesday and literature on Thursday. The 2022 Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on Friday and the economics award on Oct. 10. Brazil’s Bolsonaro and the right outperform, defying polls RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Jair Bolsonaro considerably outperformed expectations in Brazil’s presidential election, proving that the far-right wave he rode to the presidency remains a force and providing the world with yet another example of polls missing the mark. The most-trusted opinion polls had indicated leftist former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was far out front, and potentially even clinching a first-round victory. In the end, Bolsonaro surprised to the upside and came within just 5 percentage points – less than half the margin several surveys showed before the election. He will face da Silva in a high-stakes Oct. 30 presidential runoff. In Hurricane Ian’s wake, dangers persist, worsen in parts FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) — Days after Hurricane Ian carved a path of destruction from Florida to the Carolinas, the dangers persisted, and even worsened in some places. And it was clear the road to recovery from the monster storm will be long and painful. And Ian still is not done. The storm doused Virginia with rain Sunday. It was dissipating as it moved offshore, but officials warned there still was the potential of severe flooding along Virginia’s coast, beginning overnight Monday. Ian was one of the strongest storms to make landfall in the United States. ‘We’re with you,’ Biden tells Puerto Rico ahead of visit WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden says the U.S. government will be with Puerto Rico for the long haul as it cleans up and rebuilds after Hurricane Fiona. Biden was flying to the U.S. territory on Monday to survey some of the damage after the Category 1 hurricane hit on Sept. 18. Fiona caused catastrophic flooding, tore apart roads and bridges, and unleashed more than 100 landslides. Biden will visit amid widespread anger and frustration over continued power outages. Tens of thousands of people continue to struggle without power and water two weeks after the storm. Jurors to begin hearing Jan. 6 Oath Keepers sedition case WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal prosecutors are preparing to lay out their case against the founder of the Oath Keepers’ extremist group and four associates. They are charged in the most serious case to reach trial yet in the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol attack. Opening statements are expected Monday in Washington’s federal court in the trial of Stewart Rhodes and others charged with seditious conspiracy. Prosecutors allege a weekslong plot to stop the transfer of power from Republican Donald Trump to Democrat Joe Biden. The Oath Keepers are the first to stand trial for seditious conspiracy, which carries up to 20 years behind bars. Black representation in Alabama tested before Supreme Court MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Congressional districts that a federal court panel said were unconstitutional because they dilute representation for Black voters in Alabama are nevertheless being used for the November election after the U.S. Supreme Court allowed them. The high court hears arguments in the case on Tuesday. The packing of Black voters into just one of the state’s seven congressional districts leaves many of them without a voice and gives Republicans one more seat than they should have based on the state’s demographics and voting patterns. Gerrymandering has reduced the influence of Black voters for decades in a state that is synonymous with the civil rights movement. Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. For Related Stories: Hurricane Ian Read More Here

Jurors To Begin Hearing Jan. 6 Oath Keepers Sedition Case https://digitalarkansasnews.com/jurors-to-begin-hearing-jan-6-oath-keepers-sedition-case/ Monday, October 3rd 2022, 4:54 am By: Associated Press Federal prosecutors will lay out their case against the founder of the Oath Keepers extremist group and four associates charged in the most serious case to reach trial yet in the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol attack. Opening statements are expected Monday in Washington’s federal court in the trial of Stewart Rhodes and others charged with seditious conspiracy for what prosecutors say was a weekslong plot to stop the transfer of power from Republican Donald Trump to Democrat Joe Biden. Defense attorneys will also get their first chance to address jurors, who were chosen last week after days of questioning over their feelings about the insurrection, Trump supporters and other matters. The stakes are high for the Justice Department, which last secured a seditious conspiracy conviction at trial nearly 30 years ago. About 900 people have been charged and hundreds convicted in the Capitol attack. Rioters stormed past police barriers, engaged in hand-to-hand combat with officers, smashed windows and halted the certification of Biden’s electoral victory. But the Oath Keepers are the first to stand trial on seditious conspiracy, a rare Civil War-era charge that carries up to 20 years behind bars. The trial is expected to last several weeks. Prosecutors will tell jurors that the insurrection for the antigovernment group was not a spontaneous outpouring of election-fueled rage but part of a drawn-out plot to stop Biden from entering the White House. On trial with Rhodes, of Granbury, Texas, are Kelly Meggs, leader of the Florida chapter of the Oath Keepers; Kenneth Harrelson, another Florida Oath Keeper; Thomas Caldwell, a retired U.S. Navy intelligence officer from Virginia; and Jessica Watkins, who led an Ohio militia group. They face several other charges as well. Authorities say Rhodes began plotting to overturn Biden’s victory just days after the election. Court records show the Oath Keepers repeatedly warning of the prospect of violence — or “a bloody, bloody civil war,” as Rhodes said in one call — if Biden were to become president. By December, authorities say, Rhodes and the Oath Keepers had set their sights on Congress’ certification of the Electoral College vote on Jan. 6. The Oath Keepers organized trainings — including one in “unconventional warfare” — and stashed weapons at a Virginia hotel so they could get them into the capital quickly if necessary, prosecutors say. Over several days in early January, Rhodes spent an $15,500 on guns, including an AR-platform rifle, magazines, mounts, sights and other equipment, according to court documents. On Jan. 6, Oath Keepers equipped with communication devices, helmets, vests and other battle gear were seen on camera storming the Capitol. Rhodes is not accused of going inside, but telephone records show he was communicating with Oath Keepers who did enter around the time of the riot and he was seen with members outside afterward. And prosecutors say the plot didn’t end on Jan. 6. In the days between the riot and Biden’s inauguration, Rhodes spent more than $17,000 on firearm parts, magazines, ammunition and other items, prosecutors say. Around the time of the inauguration, Rhodes told others to organize local militias to oppose the Democratic administration, authorities say. “Patriots entering their own Capitol to send a message to the traitors is NOTHING compared to what’s coming,” Rhodes wrote in a message the evening of Jan. 6. Defense attorneys have said the Oath Keepers came to Washington only to provide security at events for figures such as Trump ally Roger Stone before the president’s big outdoor rally behind the White House. Rhodes has said there was no plan to attack the Capitol and that the members who did acted on their own. Rhodes’ lawyers are poised to argue that jurors cannot find him guilty of seditious conspiracy because all the actions he took before Jan. 6 were in preparation for orders he anticipated from Trump — orders that never came. Rhodes’ attorney has said that his client will eventually take the stand to argue that he believed Trump was going to invoke the Insurrection Act and call up a militia, which Rhodes had been calling on him to do to stop Biden from becoming president. Rhodes’ attorneys will argue that what prosecutors have alleged was an illegal conspiracy was merely lobbying the president to use a U.S. law. Prosecutors say Rhodes’ own words show he was going to act regardless of what Trump did. In one message from December 2020, Rhodes wrote that Trump “needs to know that if he fails to act, then we will.” The last successful seditious conspiracy case was against an Egyptian cleric, Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, and nine followers convicted in a plot to blow up the United Nations, the FBI’s building, and two tunnels and a bridge linking New York and New Jersey. Read More Here

As Mass. GOP Moves Right, Anthony Amore Runs A Lonely Race As A Moderate https://digitalarkansasnews.com/as-mass-gop-moves-right-anthony-amore-runs-a-lonely-race-as-a-moderate/ Republican Anthony Amore was campaigning for state auditor at a recent fall festival in Leominster, when a voter approached with a pressing question. Did Amore support Donald Trump and his movement to Make America Great Again? When Amore said he didn’t, the man refused to shake his hand and walked away. Amore might be the loneliest Republican in Massachusetts. He’s a moderate running in a party dominated by pro-Trump conservatives. And he’s the only statewide Republican candidate who called for Trump’s impeachment after the Jan. 6 insurrection. Most of the Republicans running for statewide office in Massachusetts embrace Trump and his conservative positions. So do many Republican voters, who reject the moderate Republicanism of Gov. Charlie Baker and derisively call him and Amore RINOs, or Republicans In Name Only. “I got a hate-mail yesterday about how I’m ‘Rino-scum’ because Charlie Baker made me his only endorsement,” Amore said, while campaigning on a recent weekend at the Johnny Appleseed Arts and Cultural Festival in Central Massachusetts. Anthony Amore greets voters in Leominster. (Anthony Brooks/ WBUR) In the race for auditor, Amore is pushing against his party’s swing to the right, even if it costs him the support of pro-Trump Republicans voters. “Many people who describe themselves as Trump supporters would rather blank the ballot and have a Democrat,” Amore said. Amore says his 30 years of experience have prepared him to be state auditor, the state’s main fiscal watchdog. He oversees security at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, and is a private investigator who helped lead the effort to improve security at Logan Airport after the 9/11 attacks. “I’ve been doing investigations, audits and assessments and inspections for the federal government, for the private sector,” Amore said. “It’s just something I do — and I do it really well.” Amore identifies as a fiscally conservative and socially liberal Republican in the mold of Baker and other former Republican governors like William Weld. He says he’s for low taxes and small government, but supports abortion rights. That used to be standard for Massachusetts Republicans. But today, the party’s base is dominated by pro-Trump conservatives who regard some of Amore’s positions as apostasy. Many of them feel the same way about Baker, who is not seeking a third term and who has ducked much of the political fray this year. Baker hasn’t even endorsed Geoff Diehl, the Republican running to replace him, or any other statewide candidate — except Amore. “I think he’s probably the most qualified person who’s run to be auditor in a long time,” Baker said of Amore. Amore says he welcomes the endorsements from Baker and another prominent Massachusetts Republican, former acting Gov. Jane Swift, even if they further alienate the conservative base. And, indeed, some Republicans openly oppose both Amore and Baker. “Anthony, along with Charlie, has only been a Republican in name only,” said John MacDonald, a Republican activist, who claims both politicians have snubbed conservatives across the state. MacDonald is urging voters in his party to either leave the November ballot for auditor blank or write in another Republican. Like some in the conservative wing of the state GOP, MacDonald is particularly aggrieved that Amore called for the impeachment of President Trump, who he said is “still a very popular figure in conservative Republican circles.” Polls confirm that Trump is indeed popular among registered Republicans in Massachusetts, but not among voters overall in the state. Trump lost twice in Massachusetts by 2-to-1 margins against Democrats running for president. In response to attacks from his party’s base that he is insufficiently conservative, Amore said his politics have remained the same for years. But he says the state GOP has left him behind with its shift to the right. The party is now dominated by people like Sydney Walsh, a state Republican committee member from Leominster. “I am a Trump MAGA — Make America Great Again — believer,” Walsh said with a smile. Walsh said she’s not following the auditor’s race. But when it comes to picking political candidates she has one key condition: “I’m for anyone who’s endorsed by President Trump,” she said. So she’s supporting Diehl for governor, but Walsh is one more Republican who probably won’t be voting for Amore. It doesn’t help that Amore is at odds with the chairman of the state GOP, Jim Lyons, who represents the pro-Trump wing of the party. “I don’t feel supported by the state Republican Party,” Amore said. Amore also complained that Lyons declined to post his picture on the party’s website. Lyons said he requested pictures of all the statewide candidates by themselves, but Amore submitted a picture of him with Baker instead. “That’s not what I asked for,” Lyons said, adding that he supports all the statewide GOP candidates. Running as a Republican in such a Democratic state is never easy, even with the full support of the party. At the St. Patrick’s Day breakfast in Boston last March, Amore joked about trying to explain his campaign to voters. “I ask them, ‘Do you know what it means to be the Republican candidate for auditor?’ ” Amore said. “And they say, ‘nope.’ I start to tell them what the auditor does, and they go, ‘no, no, no, no. What’s a Republican?’ “ The joke got him some laughs, but probably few Republican votes. And it summed up the challenge Amore faces winning the general election this fall. Democrats are hopeful they can sweep all the state’s constitutional offices and congressional seats in November, and also retain super-majorities in the Legislature. Amore argues that he would be a check on one-party rule. He says Massachusetts has benefited from a moderate Republican in the governor’s office, and a Republican auditor could offer much needed oversight. His Democratic opponent, state Sen. Diana Dizoglio, disagrees. She said party identity for the state auditor shouldn’t matter. “I think it’s important that we have an independent voice who can stand up, regardless of party affiliation,” she said, adding that she’s challenged the leadership of her own party. Amore said he also wants to transcend party affiliation. “I’m trying to appeal to the electorate writ large, not to a subset of what I think are almost cultists,” he said. It’s always a challenge for Republicans to win in blue Massachusetts — a Republican hasn’t won the auditor’s race in more than 80 years. Still, the split in the state GOP might be making Amore’s uphill climb toward Election Day in November even steeper. Read More Here

Google Blurring Out Satellite Images Of Israel – Again https://digitalarkansasnews.com/google-blurring-out-satellite-images-of-israel-again/ Google is once again displaying pixelated satellite images of large parts of Israel on its Maps and Earth services. Two years ago, the U.S. legislation banning commercial firms from publishing high resolution satellite images of Israel expired – and since then Google Maps have been updated with much better imagery. But recently, this change was reversed and now areas that had previously been shown much clearer are once again blurred. In 1997, Congress passed legislation, known as the Kyl–Bingaman Amendment, that limited commercial satellite imaging firms from providing high resolution imagery of Israel. In July 2020, a Trump administration order was issued which allowed American companies to sell much clearer and higher resolution images of Israel and the Palestinian territories than they could before, changing the resolution from 2 meters to 0.4 meters. In other words, it allowed the sale of satellite imagery in which every pixel on the screen represented 40 centimeters on the ground. This is the difference between making out the rough contours of a building – compared to seeing a car on the street. Since then, commercial satellite imagery companies have offered much higher quality photos of Israel. Google Maps and Google Earth have also begun updating their satellite imagery and showed large swaths of Israel, including classified facilities, at higher resolution than before. However, due to an unknown reason, Google recently updated its imagery – with older photos at lower resolution, which show entire cities pixelated. For example, after Trump’s administrative order took effect, Google updated its images of the Dimona nuclear reactor with higher resolution photos. An image from August 2021 on Google even showed new construction work at the site, but anyone who now looks at the reactor site on Google will see a blurred image from an earlier date – August 2019. See the differences between the two images for yourself here: Dimona nuclear reactorCredit: Google Earth Ben-Gurion International Airport was also seriously downgraded: Google previously offered higher resolution satellite imagery of the airport from May 2021, but if you look there today you will see a very blurred photo from January 2021. See the differences between the two photos here: Ben Gurion International AirportCredit: Google Earth Those who live on the southern side of Haroeh Street in Ramat Gan who want to see how their building looks from space will not be able to find it on Google: Even though the company showed a high resolution picture of the entire city in May 2021, now the small neighborhood in south Ramat Gan is shown in a very blurred image from January 2021. See the difference between the two photos here: South Ramat GanCredit: Google Earth Another example: Who blurred Bnei Brak city hall? See the difference between the two images, May 2021 compared to the much blurrier January 2021 shown today: Bnei BrakCredit: Google Earth Entire regions throughout the country were blurred anew in the latest update, including, for example, a few neighborhoods in Rishon Letzion and Ramat Hasharon, half of Petah Tikva and most of the Sharon region north of Tel Aviv. At the same time, some of Israel’s highly-classified defense facilities were left at higher resolution, including the Haifa Port. Many other areas haven’t been updated for several years now – and still show very old satellite images at a very low resolution. Harel Dan, a remote sensing expert, said on Twitter the most probable cause for this is Google trying to clear out clouds and their shadows from the satellite images. While that can explain some of the images downgraded, other cities with no clouds above were also downgraded to lower resolution, older images – like Eilat and Be’er Sheva. See the difference between the photos below. Eilat in high-res from September 2021 was replaced with low-res June 2020 imageCredit: Google Earth Be’er Sheva high-res September 2021 image was replaced with blurred September 2019 imageCredit: Google Earth Two weeks ago, Haaretz asked Google as to the logic behind the choice of which areas are blurred anew, and whether this was intentional or a mistake. We reached out again before publication. If a reply is received from Google, we will update it here. But if you still want to see the high resolution images that Google already released over the past two years, you will have to download to your desktop computer the Google Earth program – (the web browser version won’t suffice). On the upper toolbar, click on the clock icon: “Show historical imagery”. Use the slider to browse archive satellite imagery of the region you are focused on, and see the historical changes of the ground, construction and demolition – and much more. Google’s satellite imagery service is not the only one available in the market: High quality images of Israel – though not necessarily the most up to date ones – are available and can be seen here, here and on the Survey of Israel’s official website, where you can notice another interesting phenomenon. Read More Here

Chapter 4: Gen-Z Voters In Orange County | Crooked Media https://digitalarkansasnews.com/chapter-4-gen-z-voters-in-orange-county-crooked-media/ Are young voters the key to the midterms? We hear from disillusioned Gen-Z voters in Orange County, California as well as their Member of Congress, Katie Porter. Then Data For Progress’ Evangel Penumaka, organizer and former Texas Democratic Senate candidate Cristina Tzintzún-Ramirez, and John Della Volpe of Harvard Kennedy School join Jon to dig into what the voters had to say. If you want to learn more about how you can take action in the fight for our democracy, head over to Vote Save America and Next Gen America: https://votesaveamerica.com/midterm-madness/ https://nextgenamerica.org/ TRANSCRIPT Rep. Katie Porter: Democrats like to point the finger at the Republicans and say, those are the, you know, the old, the white, the rich, the dudes, right? We are the diverse party. When it comes to age. I wouldn’t point that finger so fast at the other side, because we actually have a big problem with that, in Congress. Jon Favreau: That’s Katie Porter, a Member of Congress from Orange County, California, talking about the Democratic Party’s relationship with younger voters. Rep. Katie Porter: It’s not like the Democrats are, you know, running around on Bird and Lyft scooters, and the Republicans are in those I’ve fallen and I can’t get up things. I mean, come on. Like it’s pretty much all old. I’m 48. I am in the future forum. For young people. I’m not young. I’ve had Botox multiple times. I am not young. Jon Favreau: As you can tell, Congresswoman Porter is a bit different from most of her colleagues – in the best possible way. She’s funny. Doesn’t take herself too seriously. Talks like a normal human being. And she’s repeatedly gone viral for one of the most low-tech forms of communication imaginable: A whiteboard. [clip of Rep. Katie Porter]: Do you know what this number is? Jon Favreau: This is Katie at a 2020 Congressional hearing about drug companies’ price gouging. She’s questioning big pharma CEO Mark Alles while using a dry erase marker to write the number 13 million on a whiteboard. [clip of Rep. Katie Porter]: This was your compensation in 2017 for being CEO of Celgene. And that’s a lot of money. It’s 200 times the average American’s income. And 360 times what the average senior gets on social security. Jon Favreau: In just a day, the C-SPAN clip of this grilling is viewed more than 15 million times on Twitter – and that’s just one of many Katie Porter whiteboard moments that’s broken through. Her most popular TikTok videos have up to 5 million views, and she’s got over 150,000 followers on Instagram – many of them as young as her three children. Rep. Katie Porter: My children constantly tell me mom, like your stuff is so sus, which is short for suspicious and so I’m like, I don’t feel very hip cause they’re constantly telling me that I’m not. But when we looked at our social media accounts, whether it’s TikTok, whether it’s Instagram, even on Twitter. I have a lot of younger followers. There’s a little bit of a puzzle to me. I mean, I do have a minivan, like I’m, I’m not the coolest. Jon Favreau: She must be doing something right. Katie Porter was probably the most progressive candidate to flip a Republican House seat in 2018 – a race she won again in 2020. She’s the first Democrat to ever represent California’s 45th, a district which has become more diverse over the years, with an electorate that’s looking more like UC Irvine, the school where Katie used to teach law. In two close elections, young voters helped put her over the top. And that’s been true for Democratic candidates all over the country. Between the 2014 and 2018 midterms, youth turnout more than doubled, and Democrats won more than two-thirds of voters between the ages of 18 and 29. [news clip]: Massive Turnout Coast to Coast. [news clip]: Generation Z did show up to the polls. [news clip]: We are seeing a surge of first-time voters. Jon Favreau: Between the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, youth turnout jumped from just under 40% to 50%, and Joe Biden won three-fifths of these voters. Gen Z is now the most diverse generation in history – nearly half are young people of color, and in a Gallup poll earlier this year, 1 out of every 5 identified as LGBTQ. There are now more young people registered to vote than ever before, and by 2028, Gen Z and Millennials combined will make up just about half of all eligible voters in America. But that doesn’t mean they’ll always show up for Democrats – or show up at all. Joe Biden actually did slightly worse with young voters in 2020 than Democrats did in 2018, and there are plenty of reasons for these voters to feel disconnected from politics right now. This is a generation that’s come of age during multiple wars, the Great Recession, the Trump presidency, the pandemic, police brutality, climate change – it’s been a brutal few decades. And a lot of young people have never had the experience of interacting with a government that actually cares about them. Rep. Katie Porter: So when things go wrong in some of my seniors lives, they pick up the phone and they call my office. Some of them. Almost every day, some of them call once or twice young people, when things go wrong in their lives, they get frustrated. They lose confidence. And that’s because for a long time in this area is a good example. There haven’t been responsive representatives. Jon Favreau: Katie also recognizes that because the way young people get their news has changed, they’re also a bit harder to reach. Rep. Katie Porter: This is why I spend time. You know, along with dealing with insomnia on Twitter or on Instagram, like reading things. And if they’re my constituent, we’ll DM them. We’ll reach out. We just introduced a bill based on something that happened to a constituent. I saw it on Twitter. She didn’t call my office. She took to Twitter to describe what had happened to her, how government had wronged her. And we reached out to her, and we were able to create a bell and introduce it. It’s bipartisan with bipartisan Senate, like. But I found her and that’s part of my job. Jon Favreau: Of course, Katie Porter can’t DM with all the hundreds of thousands of young people she represents. And she’s got another very competitive race in 2022. Thanks to the redistricting process, she’s also got a new district, and hundreds of thousands of new voters to meet. As do Democratic candidates all over the country in purple House districts just like Katie’s. The question is, how do Democrats actually reach young people who might be disillusioned with politics and get them to show up in November? Because their votes could mean the difference between a Democratic Congress and one controlled by MAGA crazies. I drove down to Orange County to find out. I went to Irvine – the one city in both Katie Porter’s old and new district – and sat down with a diverse group of nine 20-something voters who all identify as Democrats and voted for Joe Biden in 2020. But they don’t follow politics too closely, and they’re not too happy with many politicians in either party. Afterwards, I gathered another group of experts to help unpack what we heard from the voters. Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez: My name is Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, and I run NextGen America, which is the country’s largest youth voter mobilization group. Um, last election, we helped mobilize one in nine of the young folks that turned out. Evangel Penumaka: I’m Evangel Penumaka. I’m a lead analyst at Data for Progress. Data for Progress is a progressive think tank and polling firm. John Della Volpe: My name is John Della Volpe. I am the director of polling at the Institute of politics, the Harvard Kennedy school. I was a Biden pollster in the 2020 campaign, focusing on the youth vote. And I am the author of Fight: How Gen Z is Channeling Their Fear and Passion to Save America. Jon Favreau: We’ll hear from Cristina, Evangel, John, and nine Orange County voters after the break. [AD BREAK] Jon Favreau: I sat down with nine pretty disillusioned Gen Z voters in Irvine, California about a week after the Supreme Court released the Dobbs decision, which ended the constitutional right to an abortion. And as you’ll hear, these young voters were outraged. In fact, there was an interesting anecdote from our recruitment process for this focus group. One of the things we screened for was whether the participant was likely to vote in the midterms – we wanted young Biden voters who weren’t yet sure if they’d vote in November. Those kind of voters were fairly easy to find before Dobbs. After the decision, though, they actually became more difficult to find, at least in Orange County. Instead, we found more potential participants who told us they were very likely to vote. It’s just one anecdote, and as you’ll hear from these voters, Democrats still have to do a lot of work to make sure they cast their ballots in November. But clearly, something is happening out there. I talked about what it might be and what we heard from this focus group with youth voter mobilization expert Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, as well as pollsters John Della Volpe and Evangel Penumaka. Okay. So, uh, I started asking the group, uh, what issues affect them personally, what they care about and what doesn’t get enough attention. Um, we’ll get to the opening clip in a minute. But, uh, first I would love to hear from the three of you on this question what are some of the most common misconceptions that pundits and politicians have about Gen Z voters. And, and what should the rest of us know about what they believe and want out of politics? Cristina, let’s start with you. Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez: When people think about young people, I think they exclusively think of college kids and what we have to remember is that the majority of Americans under age 25 actually don’t have a c...

Conspiracy Theorists Flood The Election Process, Set Sights On Monitoring Ballot Drop Boxes ⋆ Michigan Advance https://digitalarkansasnews.com/conspiracy-theorists-flood-the-election-process-set-sights-on-monitoring-ballot-drop-boxes-%e2%8b%86-michigan-advance/ In the 2020 presidential election, there were upwards of 150 poll workers in Detroit.  Then came the onslaught of right-wing conspiracy theories and lies that the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump – and the baseless claim that heavily Democratic Detroit had played a starring role.  In the wake of these lies, more than 400 Republican poll workers from throughout the state descended upon Michigan’s largest city, which is majority Black, for the August primary.  While those poll workers – all of whom had to go through training by Detroit city officials – didn’t say outright that they believed the 2020 election was stolen, they asked questions in trainings that “they may deem legitimizes their position for the election being stolen,” said Daniel Baxter, Detroit’s former elections director who is now the chief operating officer for the city’s absentee ballot counting process. “One of the good things is many of the poll workers in the primary election, many of these allegations that were made in 2020, the workers from the Republican Party who were expecting to see all that stuff, they didn’t see it,” Baxter said. “I don’t know if that made them disenchanted or relieved.” Election administrators across the state and country are similarly reporting that Republicans are rushing to become part of and monitor an election process that GOP leaders continue to falsely label as fraudulent and which the majority of Republican voters believes resulted in the 2020 election being stolen from Trump (even though President Joe Biden won a decisive victory in both the Electoral College and popular vote).  Pro-Trump protesters at Detroit’s TCF Center, Nov. 2020 | Ken Coleman photo For example, the “Michigan Election Protection Team,” a collection of right-wing groups organized by the Michigan Republican Party, worked to recruit thousands of “election inspectors” for the Aug. 2 primary and Nov. 8 election and is holding ongoing poll challenger trainings – efforts that mirror the national GOP’s poll worker and challenger recruitment initiatives. And it’s not just polls that Republicans are determined to swarm on Election Day. As with Republicans nationwide, they’ve increasingly set their sights on ballot drop boxes in the weeks leading up to November’s election. The Macomb Republican Party, which was recently embroiled in ugly internal disputes over the control of the party, days ago called for Republicans to become “drop box monitors.” Ballot drop boxes are secure and locked containers where people can place their votes. This week, the Legislature struck a bipartisan election reform deal that beefs up drop box security, in addition to other measures like giving election workers two days to pre-process absentee ballots. These boxes became increasingly prevalent beginning in the 2020 election in an effort to allow people to vote without having to stand close to others during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, they’ve become a lightning rod for baseless Republican conspiracy theories focused, again, on fraud during the 2020 election.  GOP Secretary of State nominee Kristina Karamo, who is running on Nov. 8 against Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson to be the state’s chief elections officer, repeatedly makes false claims about the 2020 election and about so-called “ballot mules” stuffing votes for Biden into drop boxes. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (left) and GOP gubernatorial nominee Tudor Dixon (right) | Andrew Roth Republican gubernatorial nominee Tudor Dixon has said she supports banning ballot drop boxes entirely – something Michigan Republican lawmakers have attempted to do through a series of voter restriction legislation that has been vetoed by Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Dixon’s opponent.  GOP Attorney General nominee Matthew DePerno, meanwhile, is the subject of a petition for a special prosecutor into whether third parties gained unauthorized access to, and then tampered with, election equipment and data after the 2020 election. DePerno will face Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel in November’s election. These efforts, from recruiting a sea of 2020 election denying poll workers and challengers to monitoring drop boxes, are concerning political experts and election workers who worry they could lead to voter intimidation or other illegal activity emanating from the right-wing individuals focused on undermining and attacking democracy. “We have been alerted that the Republican Party has actively been trying to recruit spies to be employed by the local clerk but report to the Republican Party directly – sneak in cell phones, do all sorts of mole type behaviors,” Ingham County Clerk Barb Byrum said. “As a result, I have encouraged local clerks to remember they’re the employer of the precinct worker. If a worker is violating their oath of office or is being insubordinate, they may be relieved of their duties.” The Michigan GOP did not respond to a request for comment. Former state Sen. Patrick Colbeck speaks at a right-wing rally at the state Capitol, Feb. 8, 2022 | Laina G. Stebbins Prior to August’s primary, Wayne County GOP leaders, including former state Sen. Patrick Colbeck, encouraged poll workers and monitors to ignore election rules restricting cell phone use at polling places and vote-counting centers.  This week, a Michigan election worker was charged with two felonies for allegedly inserting a personal flash drive into an electronic poll book in Kent County’s Gaines Township. James Donald Holkeboer was an election inspector at the Gaines Township 8th Precinct, according to Kent County Clerk Lisa Posthumus Lyons’ office. The GOP had nominated Holkeboer to be an alternate precinct delegate in April. Lyons, who is a Republican former House member and the GOP’s 2018 lieutenant governor nominee, called the incident “extremely egregious and incredibly alarming. Not only is it a violation of Michigan law, but it is a violation of public trust and of the oath all election workers are required to take.” Byrum, a Democrat who also served in the House, said Holkeboer’s arrest shows the system works.  “What happened in Kent County should be a warning: You will be caught and you will be prosecuted and suffer the consequences of your misguided actions,” Byrum said. “… What these people are being told to do have real world consequences.”  Byrum added that Republican leaders’ calls for individuals to “monitor” drop boxes could lead to “individuals lingering and intimidating people who are opting to safely and security place their ballot in a drop box.” Aghogho Edevbie, the Michigan state director for All Voting is Local Action, said that while “everyone has a right to monitor these boxes” because they’re in public spaces, “there’s a fine line between monitoring and intimidation.” “Unfortunately, what we’ve been seeing from the beginning when drop boxes became more prevalent in Michigan is that there’s a group of folks very much in the minority who believe drop boxes should not be used,” said Edevbie, who organization is a national group that works to remove discriminatory barriers to voting and partnered with the New York-based Brennan Center for Justice on an explanatory paper focusing on what election inspectors are permitted to do in Michigan.  “That’s unfortunate because they give voters of all different economic stripes the ability to vote absentee. It expands access to the ballot, and that’s something we should all be for.” There are a lot of us saying, ‘It’s not worth my life, it’s not worth the threats, it’s not worth the harassment, I quit.’ That’s where we find ourselves. – Daniel Baxter, Detroit’s former elections director who is now the chief operating officer for the city’s absentee ballot counting process Rachel Orey, the associate director for the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Elections Project, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, said drop boxes are “essential” to democracy, but have been maligned following the 2020 election.  “Since the 2020 election they’ve been misconstrued in popular media and in the halls of state legislatures,” Orey said. “…With the drop box, you’re submitting [a ballot] into a secure locked container that has more video surveillance than a post box. They’re collected by bipartisan teams and taken to an election office to be counted. “Research has proven drop boxes increase voter turnout and participation,” Orey continued. “If you do away with them entirely, it risks dampening voter turnout.” In addition to video surveillance of drop boxes, there are a long list of security measures that election administrators must meet when it comes to drop boxes. Edevbie said the additional security measures passed by state lawmakers this week were “fine.” Baxter noted that each ballot drop box in Detroit is monitored 24 hours a day by surveillance cameras. Should there be any issues regarding voter intimidation at a drop box, election officials would be immediately able to connect with city police, Baxter said.  Ken Kollman, a political science professor at the University of Michigan, emphasized a response from law enforcement is crucial should there be attempts to intimidate voters.  “Efforts to monitor voting boxes could potentially become efforts to intimidate people wanting to vote,” Kollman said. “Let’s hope that doesn’t happen and if it does that appropriate authorities can uphold laws against voter intimidation and hold offenders accountable.” Unfortunately what we’ve been seeing from the beginning when drop boxes became more prevalent in Michigan is that there’s a group of folks very much in the minority who believe drop boxes should not be used. That’s unfortunate beca...

A Third Way https://digitalarkansasnews.com/a-third-way/ With over 50 homicides so far this year, Little Rock’s rising crime rate is waking up a sleepy mayor’s race. Crime should be one of those issues like terrorism that unites Americans. No decent human being wants more murder, robbery, or sexual assault. Unfortunately, approaches to dealing with crime have become partisan. Liberals advocate for more social-service spending and fewer police officers while conservatives advocate for more respect for law enforcement. We need a third way on crime, learning from success. Back in the 1990s, “New Democrats” like our own Bill Clinton and innovative Republicans like Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson championed Reinventing Government, the simple idea that governments must study other governments and copy what works. Reinventing Government’s greatest success came in the Big Apple, offering hope for Little Rock. In the late 20th century, New York’s Police Department (NYPD) was mediocre. Even hardscrabble Philadelphians considered the NYPD both brutal and ineffective. Back in the 1970s, NYPD officers were too quick to respond to tense situations with deadly force, killing about 100 civilians annually, chiefly minorities. Though they still face danger, NYPD officers now kill about 10 civilians annually. In 1990, New York City had 2,245 homicides, again mostly minorities, compared to just 462 in 2020. There are literally tens of thousands of New Yorkers walking around who would be six feet under if the NYPD had not reformed to make Black, and all, lives matter. Not only that, but as Franklin Zimring shows in “The City that Became Safe,” incarceration decreased. How did the NYPD do it? In part, success reflected years of recruitment, hiring top talent both from New York and nationally. But the big gains, a 50 percent reduction in homicide in just 26 months, came under legendary NYPD Commissioner William Bratton in the mid-1990s. Bratton pioneered CompStat, the statistical program reporting crimes by their locations, in real time. Bratton began weekly meetings to grill precinct commanders, finding out who cut crime, who didn’t, and what tactics worked. He pushed laggards to get better or get out. Bratton forced into retirement two-thirds of NYPD management in just two years. The department also developed an effective internal affairs unit, as its longtime director Charles Campisi details in “Blue on Blue: An Insider’s Story of Good Cops Catching Bad Cops.” In the NYPD, a hothead like Derek Chauvin, who had 18 complaints lodged against him, would have been off the force or at least off the streets, not in a position to murder George Floyd. In “Which Police Departments Make Black Lives Matter, Which Don’t, and Why Don’t Most Social Scientists Care,” we ranked departments in America’s 50 largest cities, giving better ratings to those who keep homicide low while not killing civilians, adjusting for poverty, which makes policing more difficult. The NYPD ranked first. While Little Rock is too small a city for our dataset, if we had included it, the Little Rock Police Department (LRPD) would have come in fifth worst. In 2019, Little Rock’s homicide rate was 20.2 homicides per 100,000 citizens compared to just 3.83 homicides per 100,000 for NYC. Police use of deadly force is complicated since most cops who kill were being attacked. Over the course of five years, there were 4.54 police killings of civilians per 100,000 citizens in Little Rock. That is far fewer than some would have us believe, but still more than 10 times the rate for New York City. Cops have a tough job, sometimes making split-second decisions under pressure. Still, experience from New York and elsewhere suggests that the LRPD can do better. To improve, citizens, the media, and elected officials need to ask basic questions: • Can the department hire and retain the great officers the city needs? • Does the police chief have the authority to terminate officers and managers who are not up to doing their very demanding jobs? • Does LRPD use CompStat or something like it to copy what works in fighting crime? • Does LRPD have a great internal affairs bureau to keep cops honest? • Does LRPD have the right training and equipment? • Does LRPD have enough people to do the job? The Little Rock Police Department has just over half as many total personnel per 100,000 population (359) as the NYPD (628). Answering these questions and building a better police force will take years, but we know Little Rock can do better, because other places already have. Robert Maranto is the 21st Century Chair in Leadership in the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas, where Mattie Harris is a Doctoral Academy fellow. Wilfred Reilly is an associate professor of political science at Kentucky State University. The opinions expressed here are those of the authors alone. Read More…

UK's Truss Makes U-Turn On Tax After Week Of Market Turmoil https://digitalarkansasnews.com/uks-truss-makes-u-turn-on-tax-after-week-of-market-turmoil/ Truss had defended the policy on Sunday Kwarteng now says it was a distraction U-turn made with ‘humility and contrition’ – Kwarteng Cut in highest tax rate was small part of overall plan Markets concerned about how plan was to be financed BIRMINGHAM, England, Oct 3 (Reuters) – British Prime Minister Liz Truss was forced on Monday into a humiliating U-turn after less than a month in power, reversing a cut to the highest rate of income tax that helped spark turmoil in financial markets and a rebellion in her party. Finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng said the decision to scrap the top rate tax cut had been taken with “some humility and contrition.” Truss and Kwarteng announced a new “growth plan” on Sept. 23 that would cut taxes and regulation, funded by vast government borrowing, to snap the economy out of years of stagnant growth. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com But the plan triggered a crisis of investor confidence in the government, hammering the value of the pound and government bond prices and jolting global markets to such an extent that the Bank of England had to intervene with a 65 billion pound ($73 billion) programme to shore up markets. With the government’s credibility damaged, lawmakers in the governing Conservative Party said the reversal was inevitable. “So now it’s ‘survive a day at a time’,” one party insider said, declining to be named. While the removal of the top rate of tax only made up around 2 billion out of the 45 billion pounds of unfunded tax cuts, it was the most divisive element of a package that drew the wrath of markets by failing to set out how it would be paid for. Less than a day after Truss went on BBC television to defend the policy, Kwarteng released a statement saying he now accepted it had become a distraction from wider efforts to grow the economy and help households through a difficult winter. “We listened to people and yes there is some humility and contrition,” he told BBC Radio. “And I’m happy to own it.” The decision to reverse course is likely to put Truss and Kwarteng under even greater pressure, the latest embarrassing political U-turn in a country that has had four prime ministers in the last six years. Kwarteng said he had not considered resigning. He said he had decided to reverse course in conjunction with the prime minister. “It is astonishing,” another lawmaker said. “We were left in an impossible position. The damage has already been done. We just look incompetent now, too.” Britain’s opposition Labour Party said the government had destroyed its economic credibility and damaged trust in the economy. “They need to reverse their whole economic, discredited trickle down strategy,” Labour’s finance spokesperson Rachel Reeves said in a statement. The pound, which fell to a record low against the dollar following the so-called mini-budget, edged up 0.4% to $1.120 at 8.25 a.m. (0725 GMT) while yields on British government bonds fell. MISTAKEN POLICY Truss, Britain’s 47-year-old former foreign minister who took office on Sept. 6 after winning a leadership contest among Conservative Party members, and not the country, had defeated former finance minister Rishi Sunak by vowing to put an end to “Treasury orthodoxy”. She had argued that the government needed a radical plan to rescue the economy and make the country more dynamic, and that she was willing to take unpopular decisions to make it happen. On their first day in office, Truss and Kwarteng then fired the most senior official in the Treasury department before releasing a policy that had not been costed or scrutinised by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility. Investors – used to Britain being a pillar of the global financial community – took fright, hammering the value of British assets and driving up the cost of government borrowing, mortgage rates and corporate lending. With Conservative lawmakers growing increasingly alarmed, Truss also failed to rule out that cuts to spending on public services and a limit to welfare benefit payments would be needed to pay for the policy. As a growing number of lawmakers came out against the policy, the chairman of the Conservative Party, Jake Berry, warned that anyone voting against the package would be thrown out of the parliamentary party. “We get it and we have listened,” Truss said on Twitter. “The abolition of the 45% rate had become a distraction from our mission to get Britain moving.” Investors and economists said the reversal was a step in the right direction but the government needed to go further. It is not due to release a fiscal statement with the full scale of government borrowing and debt cutting plans until Nov. 23. “The issue was not tax changes announced at the mini-budget but the institutional ‘scorched earth policy’ that preceded it,” said Simon French, chief economist of brokerage Panmure Gordon. “UK risk premia will likely only pull back if that is addressed.” Conservative lawmakers told Reuters that the government had no choice but to reverse course. “It’s the right thing to do, but it’s unfortunate how it’s been managed,” one said, declining to be named. Another added: “More structure, clearly, is needed in decision-making.” ($1 = 0.8884 pounds) Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Writing by Kate Holton, reporting by Elizabeth Piper in Birmingham, Kylie MacLellan, Kate Holton, Dhara Ranasinghe and Muvija M in London; editing by Andy Bruce, Gareth Jones and Hugh Lawson Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. Read More Here

State Has Long History Of UFO Sightings https://digitalarkansasnews.com/state-has-long-history-of-ufo-sightings/ There were numerous sightings of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) in Arkansas between 1896 and 1965, including at least three UFO sightings in Pine Bluff during 1913, 1947, and 1950. (Special to The Commercial/www.history.com/ExplorePineBluff.com) From 1896 to 1897, people across the country, from California to Arkansas and beyond, reported seeing what they classified as airships. An article in the Arkansas Gazette printed on April 20, 1897, reported that Capt. Jim Hooton had witnessed the appearance of one such airship. Hooton, a conductor for the Iron Mountain Railroad, was visiting Texarkana to pick up a locomotive to bring back to Little Rock. He decided to go hunting while he waited. As he made his way through the underbrush, he heard the familiar sound of a locomotive air pump and moved toward the sound. As he looked up he saw an airship land in a field a few acres from where he stood. Hooton and the ship’s pilot then had a conversation about the airship’s engine before it took off. Hooton was able to make an extremely detailed sketch of the airship when he was interviewed by the Arkansas Gazette two days later. On May 7, 1897, Constable Sumpter and Deputy Sheriff John McLemore spotted a bright light in the sky that quickly disappeared while out riding outside the city limits one rainy evening in Hot Springs. As they kept riding, they saw the light again, closer to the ground. They rode as fast as they could until their horses could go no farther, then dismounted and drew their weapons. According to the Hot Springs Sentinel, they described seeing a 60-foot-long, cigar-shaped vessel with several men shining lights walking around the ship. Sumpter and McLemore questioned the captain, who told them he could take them to where it was not raining. Sumpter and McLemore said they “preferred to get wet.” The two lawmen let the airship go on its way after finding out that they were headed to Nashville, Tenn. On the evening of June 25, 1913, numerous Pine Bluff residents reported seeing a mysterious airplane with a searchlight on its nose. According to the Pine Bluff Daily Graphic, the members of Dr. J.M. Lemmons’ family, who lived on West Sixth Avenue, and Ned Ballard, a local automobile driver, reported watching the aircraft for quite a while before it disappeared in a northerly direction. On July 4, 1947, T.L. Huckaby reported seeing a noiseless circular object flying toward the Pine Bluff Arsenal at around noon. Huckaby said that the object had a silver-like coloring and was as big as a wash tub. Huckaby’s was the third such sighting of an unidentified flying object (UFO) by an Arkansas resident at the time. On Aug. 5, 1950, seven Pine Bluff residents also reported seeing a flying saucer near Pine Bluff the previous night. Charles White, an Arkansas Power and Lights workman, even said that it was the second flying saucer he had seen. He reported seeing his first flying saucer in Wilmington, N.C., in 1948. On Aug. 4, 1965, in Viney Grove, Bill Estep reported seeing a flashing light in the sky. After getting closer, he saw a “long, narrow, silver object with lighted windows and a revolving light on top hovering in the air just above the trees.” The Prairie Grove Police Department was unable to confirm Estep’s report, but officer Rubin Strong told the press that he believed Estep had seen something. That same evening, people all over Fayetteville reported seeing lights in the sky, just like Estep. A few days later, two women even reported seeing a strange aircraft land in a field near Blytheville. Later that August, residents of Fort Smith also reported seeing a strange aircraft in the sky. All these sightings drew the attention of Project Blue Book, a program developed by the United States Air Force to investigate UFO sightings. The Blue Book report on the Fort Smith sighting reported that as many as 1,500 people witnessed the UFO. Arkansans continue to report seeing strange objects in the sky even today. As a result, several organizations have formed to investigate local Arkansas UFO sightings. The Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) and the National Investigative Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) continue to investigate UFO sightings. There is even an Ozark Mountain UFO Conference that is held every April in Eureka Springs. This article is among features at explorepinebluff.com, a program of the Pine Bluff Advertising and Promotion Commission. Sources: https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/ufo-sightings-8576/ https://onlyinark.com/featured/ufo-sightings-in-arkansas/ Newspaper.com – Pine Bluff Daily Graphic — Pine Bluffians See Mysterious Aeroplane — 26 June 1913; Newspaper.com — The Knoxville Journal — Arkansans See ‘Flying Saucer’ Over Arsenal — 5 July 1947; and Newspaper.com — The Memphis Press-Scimitar — Saw Saucer, Tehy Say — 5 August 1950. Image Credit: www.history.com. Ninfa O. Barnard wrote this article for explorepinebluff.com. Read More Here

Credit Suisse Is Not About To Cause A Lehman Moment, Economist Sri-Kumar Says https://digitalarkansasnews.com/credit-suisse-is-not-about-to-cause-a-lehman-moment-economist-sri-kumar-says/ Worries are mounting over Credit Suisse’s financial health — but that doesn’t mean markets are headed toward a “Lehman moment,” said the president of Sri-Kumar Global Strategies. “I think the Federal Reserve is going to have to face the consequences of a credit event” if it were to occur, Komal Sri-Kumar told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Monday. “Something is going to break.” “This may or may not be a Lehman moment,” he said, referring to the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008, which triggered a string of big Wall Street bailouts and a subsequent financial crisis. Over the weekend, several media outlets reported that Credit Suisse sought to assuage investors’ concerns over its financial health — the Swiss bank reportedly contacted its biggest clients after its credit default swaps rose sharply. CDSs are essentially insurance bets against defaults and a credit event refers to a negative and sudden change in the borrower’s ability to repay its debt. Stock picks and investing trends from CNBC Pro: A long-time critic of the Fed’s approach to the rise of prices, Sri-Kumar said the latest events surrounding Credit Suisse shows the “real danger of having miscalculated inflation for such a long time.” “They are trying to make up for it by doing everything in a hurry,” he said, referring to the Fed’s continued hawkish policy and pledge to continue hiking interest rates to tamp down on inflation. In the Fed’s latest monetary policy meeting in September, the central bank raised its benchmark rate by three-quarters of a percentage point and indicated it will keep raising rates well above the current level. Sri-Kumar said such attempts at controlling inflation is dangerous for markets worldwide. “It carries an enormous amount of risk to the global system in terms of what the various central banks are doing,” he said. The latest reports of Credit Suisse’s actions to calm concerned investors could point to an eventual shift in the Fed’s direction, said John Vail, chief global strategist at Nikko Asset Management. “The silver lining at end of this period, is the fact that central banks will probably start to relent some time as both inflation is down and financial conditions worsen dramatically,” he said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” Monday. “I don’t think it’s the end of the world, but it could get scary for the next quarter or so,” he said. Read More Here

AP News Summary At 3:46 A.m. EDT https://digitalarkansasnews.com/ap-news-summary-at-346-a-m-edt/ Russia smuggling Ukrainian grain to help pay for Putin’s war BEIRUT (AP) — An investigation by The Associated Press and the PBS series “Frontline” has documented a sophisticated Russian-run smuggling operation that has used falsified manifests and seaborne subterfuge to steal Ukrainian grain worth at least $530 million. The AP and “Frontline” used satellite imagery and marine radio transponder data to track three dozen ships making more than 50 voyages carrying grain from Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine to ports in the Middle East. The ongoing theft is being carried out by wealthy businessmen and state-owned companies in Russia and Syria. Some of them already face financial sanctions from the United States and European Union. Legal experts say the theft is a potential war crime. Relatives mourn those crushed at Indonesia soccer match JEMBER, Indonesia (AP) — Families and friends of some of the 125 people who died in a crush set off by police tear gas after an Indonesia soccer match wailed in grief as the bodies of the victims were returned home. Seventeen children were among the dead. The distraught family members were struggling to comprehend the sudden loss of loved ones at a soccer match watched only by hometown Arema FC fans because the organizer had banned visiting Persebaya Surabaya’s supporters due to Indonesia’s history of violent soccer rivalries. The crush was among the world’s deadliest disasters ever at a sporting event. Brazil’s Bolsonaro and the right outperform, defying polls RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Jair Bolsonaro considerably outperformed expectations in Brazil’s presidential election, proving that the far-right wave he rode to the presidency remains a force and providing the world with yet another example of polls missing the mark. The most-trusted opinion polls had indicated leftist former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was far out front, and potentially even clinching a first-round victory. In the end, Bolsonaro surprised to the upside and came within just 5 percentage points – less than half the margin several surveys showed before the election. He will face da Silva in a high-stakes Oct. 30 presidential runoff. UK scraps tax cut for wealthy that sparked market turmoil BIRMINGHAM, England (AP) — The British government has dropped plans to cut income tax for top earners. The move was part of a package of unfunded cuts that sparked turmoil on financial markets and sent the pound to record lows. Treasury chief Kwasi Kwarteng said Monday he would abandon plans to scrap the top 45% rate of income tax paid on earnings above 150,000 pounds ($167,000) a year. The announcement comes as more lawmakers from the governing Conservative Party turn on government tax plans. The announcement of 45 billion pounds ($50 billion) in tax cuts sent the pound tumbling to a record low against the dollar. The Bank of England had to step in to stabilize the bond markets. In Hurricane Ian’s wake, dangers persist, worsen in parts FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) — Days after Hurricane Ian carved a path of destruction from Florida to the Carolinas, the dangers persisted, and even worsened in some places. And it was clear the road to recovery from the monster storm will be long and painful. And Ian still is not done. The storm doused Virginia with rain Sunday. It was dissipating as it moved offshore, but officials warned there still was the potential of severe flooding along Virginia’s coast, beginning overnight Monday. Ian was one of the strongest storms to make landfall in the United States. By boat and jet ski, volunteers assist in Ian rescue efforts SANIBEL ISLAND, Fla. (AP) — As authorities in Florida try to reach people who have been trapped by floodwaters or isolated on barrier islands since Hurricane Ian came ashore last week, concerned members of the public have been springing into action to aid the official rescue efforts. One such group, Project Dynamo, has rescued more than 20 people, many of them elderly residents who became cut off when the Category 4 storm washed away a bridge connecting the Florida mainland with Sanibel Island, a crescent-shaped sliver of sand popular with tourists that was home to about 7,000 residents. Others have joined in the rescue efforts, using boats, paddleboards, jet skis and other resources to find people stranded by floodwaters or cut off by damage. ‘We’re with you,’ Biden tells Puerto Rico ahead of visit WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden says the U.S. government will be with Puerto Rico for the long haul as it cleans up and rebuilds after Hurricane Fiona. Biden was flying to the U.S. territory on Monday to survey some of the damage after the Category 1 hurricane hit on Sept. 18. Fiona caused catastrophic flooding, tore apart roads and bridges, and unleashed more than 100 landslides. Biden will visit amid widespread anger and frustration over continued power outages. Tens of thousands of people continue to struggle without power and water two weeks after the storm. Jurors to begin hearing Jan. 6 Oath Keepers sedition case WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal prosecutors are preparing to lay out their case against the founder of the Oath Keepers’ extremist group and four associates. They are charged in the most serious case to reach trial yet in the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol attack. Opening statements are expected Monday in Washington’s federal court in the trial of Stewart Rhodes and others charged with seditious conspiracy. Prosecutors allege a weekslong plot to stop the transfer of power from Republican Donald Trump to Democrat Joe Biden. The Oath Keepers are the first to stand trial for seditious conspiracy, which carries up to 20 years behind bars. Black representation in Alabama tested before Supreme Court MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Congressional districts that a federal court panel said were unconstitutional because they dilute representation for Black voters in Alabama are nevertheless being used for the November election after the U.S. Supreme Court allowed them. The high court hears arguments in the case on Tuesday. The packing of Black voters into just one of the state’s seven congressional districts leaves many of them without a voice and gives Republicans one more seat than they should have based on the state’s demographics and voting patterns. Gerrymandering has reduced the influence of Black voters for decades in a state that is synonymous with the civil rights movement. It’s flu vaccine time and seniors need revved-up shots Doctors have a message for vaccine-weary Americans: Don’t skip your flu shot this fall. And for the first time, seniors are urged to get a special extra-strength kind. There’s no way to predict how bad this flu season will be. Australia just emerged from a nasty one. In the U.S., annual flu vaccinations are recommended starting with 6-month-olds. Because seniors don’t respond as well, the U.S. now recommends they get one of three types made with higher doses or an immune-boosting ingredient. Meanwhile, the companies that make the two most widely used COVID-19 vaccines now are testing flu shots made with the same technology. Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. For Related Stories: Hurricane Ian Read More Here

AP Top News At 3:40 A.m. EDT https://digitalarkansasnews.com/ap-top-news-at-340-a-m-edt/ Russia smuggling Ukrainian grain to help pay for Putin’s war BEIRUT (AP) — When the bulk cargo ship Laodicea docked in Lebanon last summer, Ukrainian diplomats said the vessel was carrying grain stolen by Russia and urged Lebanese officials to impound the ship. Moscow called the allegation “false and baseless,” and Lebanon’s prosecutor general sided with the Kremlin and declared that the 10,000 tons of barley and wheat flour wasn’t stolen and allowed the ship to unload. But an investigation by The Associated Press and the PBS series “Frontline” has found the Laodicea, owned by Syria, is part of a sophisticated Russian-run smuggling operation that has used falsified manifests and seaborne subterfuge to steal Ukrainian grain worth at least $530 million — cash that has helped feed President Vladimir Putin’s war machine. Relatives mourn those crushed at Indonesia soccer match JEMBER, Indonesia (AP) — Families and friends of some of the 125 people who died in a crush set off by police tear gas after an Indonesia soccer match wailed in grief as the bodies of the victims were returned home Monday. Seventeen children were among the dead. Police said 18 officers responsible for firing tear gas as well as security managers were being investigated and mobile phones owned by victims were being examined to identify suspected vandals. Distraught family members were struggling to comprehend the sudden loss of loved ones at a soccer match in East Java’s Malang city that was watched only by hometown Arema FC fans because the organizer had banned visiting Persebaya Surabaya’s supporters due to Indonesia’s history of violent soccer rivalries. Brazil’s Bolsonaro and the right outperform, defying polls RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Jair Bolsonaro considerably outperformed expectations in Brazil’s presidential election, proving that the far-right wave he rode to the presidency remains a force and providing the world with yet another example of polls missing the mark. The most-trusted opinion polls had indicated leftist former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was far out front, and potentially even clinching a first-round victory. One prominent pre-election poll gave da Silva a 14 percentage point lead. In the end, Bolsonaro surprised to the upside and came within just 5 points. He will face da Silva in a high-stakes Oct. 30 presidential runoff. UK scraps tax cut for wealthy that sparked market turmoil BIRMINGHAM, England (AP) — The British government has dropped plans to cut income tax for top earners, part of a package of unfunded cuts that sparked turmoil on financial markets and sent the pound to record lows. In a dramatic about-face, Treasury chief Kwasi Kwarteng said Monday that he would abandon plans to scrap the top 45% rate of income tax paid on earnings above 150,000 pounds ($167,000) a year. “We get it, and we have listened,” he said in a statement. He said “it is clear that the abolition of the 45p tax rate has become a distraction from our overriding mission to tackle the challenges facing our country.” The U-turn came after a growing number of lawmakers from the governing Conservative Party turned on government tax plans announced 10 days ago. In Hurricane Ian’s wake, dangers persist, worsen in parts FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) — People kayaking down streets that were passable just a day or two earlier. Hundreds of thousands without power. National Guard helicopters flying rescue missions to residents still stranded on Florida’s barrier islands. Days after Hurricane Ian carved a path of destruction from Florida to the Carolinas, the dangers persisted, and even worsened in some places. It was clear the road to recovery from this monster storm will be long and painful. And Ian was still not done. The storm doused Virginia with rain Sunday, and officials warned of the potential for severe flooding along its coast, beginning overnight Monday. By boat and jet ski, volunteers assist in Ian rescue efforts SANIBEL ISLAND, Fla. (AP) — There was no time to waste. As Hurricane Ian lashed southwest Florida, Bryan Stern, a veteran of the U.S. military, and others began gathering crews, boats and even crowbars for the urgent task that would soon be at hand: rescuing hundreds of people who might get trapped by floodwaters. “As soon as the sun came up, we started rolling,” said Stern, who last year put together a search-and-rescue team called Project Dynamo, which has undertaken operations in Afghanistan, Ukraine and, now, Florida. Project Dynamo has rescued more than 20 people, many of them elderly residents who became cut off when the Category 4 storm washed away a bridge connecting the Florida mainland with Sanibel Island, a crescent-shaped sliver of shell-strewn sand popular with tourists that is home to about 7,000 residents. ‘We’re with you,’ Biden tells Puerto Rico ahead of visit WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Monday will survey damage from Hurricane Fiona in Puerto Rico, where tens of thousands of people are still without power two weeks after the storm hit. The Category 1 hurricane knocked out electrical power to the U.S. territory of 3.2 million people, 44% of whom live below the poverty line. Power has been restored to about 90% of the island’s 1.47 million customers, but more than 137,000 others, mostly in the hardest hit areas of Puerto Rico’s southern and western regions, continue to struggle in the dark. Another 66,000 customers are without water. Biden has pledged that the U.S. Jurors to begin hearing Jan. 6 Oath Keepers sedition case WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal prosecutors will lay out their case against the founder of the Oath Keepers extremist group and four associates charged in the most serious case to reach trial yet in the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol attack. Opening statements are expected Monday in Washington’s federal court in the trial of Stewart Rhodes and others charged with seditious conspiracy for what prosecutors say was a weekslong plot to stop the transfer of power from Republican Donald Trump to Democrat Joe Biden. Defense attorneys will also get their first chance to address jurors, who were chosen last week after days of questioning over their feelings about the insurrection, Trump supporters and other matters. Black representation in Alabama tested before Supreme Court MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — The invisible line dividing two of Alabama’s congressional districts slices through Montgomery, near iconic sites from the civil rights movement as well as ones more personal to Evan Milligan. There’s the house where his grandfather loaded people into his station wagon and drove them to their jobs during the Montgomery Bus Boycott as Black residents spurned city buses to protest segregation. It’s the same home where his mother lived as a child, just yards from a whites-only park and zoo she was not allowed to enter. The spot downtown where Rosa Parks was arrested, igniting the boycott, sits on one side of the dividing line while the church pastored by the Rev. It’s flu vaccine time and seniors need revved-up shots Doctors have a message for vaccine-weary Americans: Don’t skip your flu shot this fall — and seniors, ask for a special extra-strength kind. After flu hit historically low levels during the COVID-19 pandemic, it may be poised for a comeback. The main clue: A nasty flu season just ended in Australia. While there’s no way to predict if the U.S. will be as hard-hit, “last year we were going into flu season not knowing if flu was around or not. This year we know flu is back,” said influenza specialist Richard Webby of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis. Annual flu shots are recommended starting with 6-month-old babies. Read More Here

AM Prep-Cooler Copy https://digitalarkansasnews.com/am-prep-cooler-copy/ DEATH TOLL, NUMBER OF PEOPLE W/O POWER FROM HURRICANE IAN BOTH RISE FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) — With the death toll from Hurricane Ian rising and hundreds of thousands of people without power in Florida and the Carolinas, U.S. officials are vowing to provide a huge amount of federal disaster aid. Meanwhile crews continue efforts to rescue those stranded by the storm. Even as the storm passed north after tearing through Florida and the Carolinas, water levels continued to rise in some flooded areas. Storm water has inundated homes and streets that were passable just a day or two earlier. Yesterday, fewer than 700,000 homes and businesses in Florida were still without electricity, down from a peak of 2.6 million. SUPPLY CHAIN ISSUES MAY SLOW REBUILD EFFORT IN FLORIDA AFTER IAN UNDATED (AP) — Crews are beginning to repair — and in some cases, rebuild — Florida’s power grid after the state was pummeled by Hurricane Ian. Florida Power & Light says it has enough poles, generators and wire to get juice flowing again to those affected by the storm. But power industry officials warn that kinks in the nation’s supply chain could slow the process. They fear if damage from Ian along the Atlantic coast is worse than expected — or if another natural disaster strikes elsewhere in the U.S. — recovery efforts in Florida could be delayed. COMBATANTS FOR NEVADA’S GOVERNOR’S RACE DEBATE RENO, Nev. (AP) — Nevada’s Republican gubernatorial candidate, Joe Lombardo, sought in a debate yesterday to distance himself from former President Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election. But Lombardo said Trump’s policies were better than those of President Joe Biden, which he blames for a rise in inflation and rising interest rates. Lombardo’s decision to back away from Trump’s false election claims is likely to produce an awkward meeting next weekend, when Trump is to campaign for Lombardo in Nevada. 3 DIE WHEN PLANE CRASHES INTO HOUSE IN MINNESOTA HERMANTOWN, Minn. (AP) — Three people aboard a small airplane died when it crashed into a house near a northern Minnesota airport. But the two people sleeping inside the house — and their cat — were unhurt. Police in the town of Hermantown say a Cessna 172 hit the second floor of the house late Saturday — and ended up in the backyard. Jason Hoffman tells Minnesota Public Radio he and his wife were asleep when the plane tore through their roof. Hoffman says after grabbing a flashlight, he and and his wife saw an airplane wheel at the end of their bed. Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. For Related Stories: Hurricane Ian Read More Here

Black Representation In Alabama Tested Before Supreme Court – KTVZ https://digitalarkansasnews.com/black-representation-in-alabama-tested-before-supreme-court-ktvz/ By KIM CHANDLER, MARK SHERMAN and GARY FIELDS Associated Press MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — The invisible line dividing two of Alabama’s congressional districts slices through Montgomery, near iconic sites from the civil rights movement as well as ones more personal to Evan Milligan. There’s the house where his grandfather loaded people into his station wagon and drove them to their jobs during the Montgomery Bus Boycott as Black residents spurned city buses to protest segregation. It’s the same home where his mother lived as a child, just yards from a whites-only park and zoo she was not allowed to enter. The spot downtown where Rosa Parks was arrested, igniting the boycott, sits on one side of the dividing line while the church pastored by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who led the protests, sits on the other. The lines are at the center of a high-stakes redistricting case bearing Milligan’s name that will go before the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday, setting up a new test of the Voting Rights Act and the role of race in drawing congressional boundaries. At the center of the case is a challenge by various groups arguing that the state violated the federal Voting Rights Act by diluting the political power of Black voters when it failed to create a second district in which they make up a majority, or close to it. African Americans account for about 27% of the state’s population but are the majority in just one of the state’s seven congressional districts. “Our congressional map is not reflective of the population that lives in Alabama,” said Milligan, 41, one of several voters who joined interest groups in filing the lawsuit. The case the Supreme Court will take up Tuesday centers on whether congressional districts in Alabama were drawn to reduce the political influence of Black voters, but it’s also part of a much broader problem that undermines representative government in the U.S. Both major political parties have practiced gerrymandering — drawing congressional and state legislative boundaries to cement their hold on power — but Republicans have been in control of the process in far more states since after the 2010 elections. That has allowed them to win an outsized share of statehouse and U.S. House seats and means GOP policies — including on abortion restrictions — often don’t reflect the will of most voters. An Associated Press analysis from 2017 showed that Alabama had one of the most gerrymandered congressional maps in the country. Republicans dominate elected office in Alabama and are in charge of redistricting. They have been resistant to creating a second district with a Democratic-leaning Black majority that could send another Democrat to Congress. A three-judge panel that included two appointees of President Donald Trump ruled unanimously in January that the Alabama Legislature likely violated the Voting Rights Act with the map. “Black voters have less opportunity than other Alabamians to elect candidates of their choice to Congress,” the panel said. The judges ordered state lawmakers to draw new lines for this year’s election and create a second district where Black voters either made up a majority or near majority of the population. But on a 5-4 vote in February, the Supreme Court sided with Alabama to allow this year’s congressional elections to take place without adding a second predominantly Black district. Two justices suggested it was too close to spring primaries to make a change. The lawsuit claims the Alabama congressional map dilutes the voting strength of Black residents by packing a large number of them into a single district — the 7th, where 55% of voters are Black — while fragmenting other communities. That includes the state’s Black Belt region and the city of Montgomery. The current districts leave the vast majority of Black voters with no realistic chance to elect their preferred congressional candidates anywhere outside the 7th district, the lawsuit contends. “This is just about getting Black voters, finally, in Alabama the opportunity to elect their candidates of choice. It’s not necessarily guaranteeing that they will have their candidate elected,” said Deuel Ross, senior counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which is representing the plaintiffs. The groups contend that the state’s Black population is large enough and geographically compact enough to create a second district. Milligan, who is six generations removed from enslaved ancestors who lived in the Black Belt, ticked off the consequences for Black residents who are not able to have representation that aligns with their needs: addressing generational poverty, the lack of adequate internet service, Medicaid expansion and the desire for a broader array of health care services. “In choosing not to do that, you’re denying the people of the Black Belt the opportunity to elect an additional person that can really go to the mat on their interests,” said Ross, who is one of the attorneys who will argue the case in a challenge backed by the Biden administration. ___ African Americans served in Alabama’s congressional delegation following the Civil War in the period known as Reconstruction. They did not return until 1993, a year after the courts ordered the state to reconfigure the 7th Congressional District into a majority-Black one, which has since been held by a succession of Black Democrats. That 1992 map remains the basis for the one in use today. “Under numerous court challenges, the courts have approved this basic plan. All we did is adjust it for population deviation,” said state Rep. Chris Pringle, a Republican and chairman of the legislative committee that drew the new lines. Alabama argued in court filings that the state’s Black population is too spread out to be able to create a second majority district without abandoning core redistricting principles such as keeping districts compact and keeping communities of interest together. Drawing such a district, the state argued, would require mapping acrobatics, such as connecting coastal areas in southwest Alabama to peanut farms in the east. In a statement to The Associated Press, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said the map is “based on race-neutral redistricting principles that were approved by a bipartisan group of legislators.” He said it looks similar to three prior maps, including one cleared by the Justice Department and another enacted in the 2000s by “the Democrat-controlled Legislature.” “The Voting Rights Act does not force states to sort voters based on race,” Marshall said in a statement. “The VRA is meant to prohibit racial gerrymanders, not require them.” Standing in a meeting room at the Alabama Statehouse and pointing to a poster-size version of the map, Pringle said lawmakers prioritized a race-neutral approach. The lawsuit alleges the Republican lawmakers packed Black voters into certain areas, but Pringle said when they were drawing lines they “turned race off” as an option on the computer. Only later did they apply the racial data points. “I think the Supreme Court is going to back us up that we complied with existing law,” Pringle said. ___ Alabama’s 7th Congressional District snakes a winding path from the western neighborhoods of Birmingham through the state’s Black Belt — a swath of land named for the rich soil that once gave rise to antebellum plantations — to sections of Montgomery. Democratic Rep. Terri Sewell, who has represented the district, has been the lone Democrat among the state’s seven House members since she took office in 2011. The state’s other six districts have reliably elected white Republicans for the last decade. Sewell was the only member of Alabama’s delegation to support restoring the most effective anti-discrimination provision of the Voting Rights Act, which was gutted in a 2013 Supreme Court decision that also arose from an Alabama case. The provision, referred to as preclearance, forced Alabama, other states and some counties with a history of voting discrimination to get Justice Department or federal court approval before making any election-related changes. Some Black voters outside Sewell’s district say they feel their concerns are overlooked because there is no motivation for Republican officeholders in districts that favor the GOP to pay attention to their issues. “Fair representation and full representation of the voters in the state of Alabama would mean that a third of the population should get a third of the representation in Congress, and that at least includes one additional seat,” Sewell said. “Look, I think that I would welcome the opportunity to have another seat where I have a colleague that will fight for, you know, voting rights and civil rights, that that will understand that this country has gotten far when it comes to diversity. But we have a long ways to go.” Alabama’s congressional delegation voted unanimously for the CARES Act, which provided federal aid to state and local governments during the Trump administration as the COVID-19 outbreak was erupting across the country. But that unity vanished when President Joe Biden took office. Sewell was alone in the delegation in supporting the American Rescue Plan, legislation passed by a Democratic-controlled Congress and signed by Biden. Among other things, she said, the bill benefited community health centers and the health care response at historically Black colleges. One of them, Alabama State University, was founded two years after the Civil War and in an area where the districts divide. Sewell also was alone in supporting other significant legislation since Biden took office — including the $1 trillion infrastructure bill and the recent Inflation Reduction Act, which, among other provisions, capped out-of-pocket drug costs for...

Royal LIVE – Palace Aides https://digitalarkansasnews.com/royal-live-palace-aides/ Prince Harry’s book has been ‘pushed back’ says Nicholl Invalid email We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you’ve consented to and to improve our understanding of you. This may include adverts from us and 3rd parties based on our understanding. You can unsubscribe at any time. More info Palace aides are reportedly plotting to block Prince Harry‘s forthcoming book. There is said to be concern over the contents of the memoir, with some suggesting it will contain damaging revelations about the Royal Family. A friend of the King reportedly told the Daily Mail: “The question inside the Palace is: ‘Can the book be stopped?’ It may be that even Harry can’t stop it at this stage but the feeling at the very top is that there’s no good that can come of airing grievances in public.” Prince Harry‘s book was expected to be released in Autumn 2022 but there is speculation that it may be postponed to 2023. According to publisher, Penguin, Harry’s memoir will “share, for the very first time, the definitive account of the experiences, adventures, losses and life lessons that have helped shape him”. Announcing the book, the Duke of Sussex said: “I’m writing this not as the Prince I was born but as the man I have become. “I’ve worn many hats over the years, both literally and figuratively, and my hope is that in telling my story – the highs and lows, the mistakes, the lessons learned – I can help show that no matter where we come from, we have more in common than we think.” THIS LIVE HAS NOW CLOSED Palace aides are reporteldy plotting to block Prince Harry’s forthcoming book (Image: Getty) 59 mins ago06:04 Isabella Marsans ‘What is the PM doing?’ Queen Elizabeth scolded David Cameron during Balmoral visit Four former Conservative Prime Ministers recalled their favourite moments with Queen Elizabeth II ahead of the opening of the Tory Party conference in Birmingham yesterday. David Cameron was scolded by Queen Elizabeth II during a visit to Balmoral because he attempted to do the washing-up, the former Prime Minister has revealed. Mr Cameron, who resided in Number 10 from 2010 to 2016 before resigning after losing the Brexit referendum, has since spoken about his visits to Balmoral in more detail. Speaking in a nine-minute clip ahead of Tory Party conference, Britain’s 53rd Prime Minister said: “It was an extraordinary treat to be able to go to Balmoral every year for six years, and one of the best parts was when in the evening you’d get into Her Majesty’s car, a Range Rover, and she would drive at breakneck speed up the hill and onto the moor. “And there at a sort of converted bothy, an old cottage on the hill, would be the Duke of Edinburgh with a barbeque he’d built himself, barbequing grouse for your dinner.” Mr Cameron added: “I’m not making this up, you sat down and Prince Philip and Her Majesty the Queen served your dinner and cleared it away and washed it up while you sat talking with the other guests.  “I remember, I think it was sort of year five, I thought ‘Well, I now surely can help’ and got up and got on the Marigolds and started doing the washing-up.  “And I remember Her Majesty saying: ‘What on earth is the prime minister doing?’ “I’d broken with the protocol and rapidly sat back down and did what I was told.” 2 hours ago05:02 Isabella Marsans Royal hairstylist shows Kate Middleton’s ‘genius’ hair trick – ‘Practically perfect’ A hair stylist and royal fan has revealed the “genius” method Kate, Princess of Wales, uses in order to keep her pinned-up hair perfect. The Duchess of Cambridge uses a hair net in order to keep her hair in place and protect it from the weather while attending royal events, a hairstylist has claimed. The Tiktok account @bekah_and_co showed several photographs of the Princess of Wales’ hair up close to confirm the hair styling trick.  The hairstylist made a TikTok video to show royal fans how they can achieve a similar hairstyle to Kate. Tiktoker Bekah said: “It’s safe to say that she definitely utilises hair nets in her up-dos, especially those low buns” and also said that the hairstyling trick was “genius”. She added: “Someone like her, who’s in the spotlight all the time and is picked apart head to toe, any little hair out of place is going to make the front page news. “Use a hairnet, keep everything in place and looking good.” 4 hours ago03:18 Isabella Marsans ‘Mirrors her mother’: Princess Charlotte picked up sweet habit from Kate Middleton Body language expert Judi James has revealed that Princess Charlotte has picked up a gesture from Kate Middleton that may suggest shyness. In September, Prince William and Kate Middleton were spotted taking their children to their first day at Lambrook School after the family moved from London to a cottage at Windsor Castle. The three royal children were greeted by headmaster Jonathan Perry who asks the children if they are excited about their first day of school.  Prince William says they were “all looking forward to it” and the children have “lots of questions”.  Princess Charlotte is spotted touching her hair as she goes to shake the headmaster’s hand.  In an interview with the Mirror, Judi James said: “It’s Charlotte showing the shyness signals here, touching her hair in that gesture that sweetly mirrors her mother and getting a fond stroke on the back of her hair to nudge her into her handshake with the headmaster.” Judy James has analysed Kate’s body language in the past and has claimed the Princess of Wales has grown out of her shyness since becoming a member of the Royal Family. The body language expert analysed Kate meeting leaders from the Commonwealth during a state lunch at Buckingham Palace before Queen Elizabeth’s funeral. Ms James said: “Back then she looked shy and inexperienced, performing anxiety hair touches while she leaned backwards slightly and held her bag up in a barrier gesture. “Today we have a confident, very regal-looking woman who is clearly hosting and putting her guests at ease with her techniques of active listening and even touch rituals.” 5 hours ago02:04 Isabella Marsans ‘Extreme!’ Reason why Queen’s cause of death differed from Queen Mother’s laid bare Queen Elizabeth II passed away at the age of 96 on September 8, 20 years after the Queen Mother died at the age of 101. Queen Elizabeth’s cause of death differed from what was noted as the cause when her mother, Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon, in 2002. The late monarch’s death certificate was published by the National Records of Scotland last Thursday. It indicated the Queen died of old age at 3.10pm on September 8. However, the Queen Mother’s cause of death was put down to an “extreme” old age. The Queen Mother was suffering from a cold in the days leading up to her death in 2002. Despite suffering from mobility issues, the Queen did not reportedly suffer from any contributing illnesses in the build-up to her passing.  7 hours ago00:03 Isabella Marsans King Charles to host South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa in November in first state visit South African President Cyril Ramaphosa will embark on the first state visit to the UK since Donald Trump’s visited both Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle in 2019. King Charles III will welcome South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in November in the first state visit of his reign, Buckingham Palace has confirmed. Mr Ramaphosa, who has served as President since 2018, accepted the invitation to come to the UK between November 22 and 24. He will be joined on his visit to Britain by his wife Tshepo Motsepe. It is understood the visit was in the early stages of being planned before the Queen’s death in September, according to Sky News.  Charles is believed to be wanting to encourage Commonwealth countries to remain in the “family of nations” after succeeding his mother as the group’s head. 9 hours ago22:08 Ellie Cook Netflix is behind move to stall Prince Harry and Meghan’s docuseries, expert says Royal expert Neil Sean has claimed any delay to a planned Netflix series featuring the Duke and Duchess of Sussex is down to the streaming giant. He told Fox Business: “On this docu-series, a very good source told me that the bottom line is that there just isn’t enough content. “You have the Invictus Games in the Netherlands, a bit of footage in New York.” He added: “But they are not allowed to use the footage from the Queen’s state funeral, and you have a little bit from when they came over for the Platinum Jubilee. “I understand why Netflix are wondering what they are going to do with it. “It has nothing to do with claims that they are trying to cut unsavoury remarks about King Charles III and Queen Consort Camilla.” 10 hours ago20:45 Ellie Cook Camilla vindicated as royal author slams The Crown for ‘terrible’ portrayal Camilla, Queen Consort, is portrayed in a “terrible light” in the Netflix drama ‘The Crown’, royal biographer Angela Levin has said. Ms Levin told Sky News Australia: “I hate The Crown on Netflix because they showed her in a terrible light.  “I hated what Harry was now doing and saying about her.” Ms Levin penned the Queen Consort’s biography (Image: Getty/YouTube/Sky News Australia) 12 hours ago19:11 Ellie Cook ‘Belts and braces’ Palace prepares for Harry’s bombshell book as he ‘won’t hand back cash’ The palace is in “belt and braces” mode ahead of the release of Prince Harry’s memoir, a royal commentator has claimed. The Duke’s tell-all book, which is “wholly truthful”, according to Prince Harry, was scheduled for release later this year. The exact date it will hit the shelves is not yet known. 13 hours ago18:22 Ellie Cook Prince Harry and Meghan Markle ‘secretly got engaged months before Palace announcement’ Meghan and Harry got married in 2018 (Image: Getty) 14 hours ago17:27 Ellie Cook Prince Harry was ‘having second thoughts about me...

US National Archives Says It Still Didn’t Get All Documents From Trump Administration – Armenia News https://digitalarkansasnews.com/us-national-archives-says-it-still-didnt-get-all-documents-from-trump-administration-armenia-news/ US National Archives says it still didn’t get all documents from Trump administration  Armenia News Read More Here

Minneapolis: November 1 To November 2 https://digitalarkansasnews.com/minneapolis-november-1-to-november-2/ 11/01 Michigander with Abby Holliday at Turf Club Read More Michigander Rising indie rock artist Michigander (the stagename for Jason Singer) will be heading out on tour in support of his third EP Everything Will Be Ok Eventually. This is Singer’s biggest tour yet, and he’ll be bringing various support …. 11/01/2022 Tuesday Michigander with Abby Holliday at Turf Club first-avenue.com Buzzworthy indie rock artist Michigander (Jason Singer) is on tour in support of It Will Never Be The Same (C3 Records). “I’m beyond excited to announce my fourth EP, It Will Never Be The Same,” shares Singer. “I wrote these songs about the feelings I’ve had over the last two years. Socially, politically, and economically, things are different, and on a more personal level, my life will never be what it was. I got married, I moved to a new city and state, and I turned 30. I think there are two ways to look at seasons of change like these. You can either be afraid, which usually results in hostility and frustration, or you can accept the situation for what it is and adapt and grow. Either option is very hard, but I like to think I’ve chosen the latter.” Tour dates: Thursday, October 13 – Little Rock, AR @ Stickyz Sunday, October 16 – Austin, TX @ Austin City Limits ^ Tuesday, October 18 – Phoenix, AZ @ The Rebel Lounge Wednesday, October 19 – San Diego, CA @ Casbah Friday, October 21 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Echo Saturday, October 22 – Oakland, CA @ Starline Social Club Monday, October 24 – Portland, OR @ Polaris Hall Tuesday, October 25 – Seattle, WA @ Barboza Thursday, October 27 – Boise, ID @ The Olympic Friday, October 28 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Kilby Court Saturday, October 29 – Boulder, CO @ The Fox Theater Monday, October 31 – Sioux Falls, SD @ Club David Tuesday, November 1 – St. Paul, MN @ Turf Club Wednesday, November 2 – Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall Friday, November 4 – New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom Saturday, November 5 – Albany, NY @ Empire Underground Sunday, November 6 – Washington, DC @ DC9 Nightclub Tuesday, November 8 – Boston, MA @ Brighton Music Hall Thursday, November 10 – Columbus, OH @ Rumba Cafe Friday, November 11 – Cleveland, OH @ Grog Shop Saturday, November 12 – Detroit, MI @ St. Andrews Hall ^ indicates festival appearance 11/01 Alex G with Hatchie at First Avenue Read More (Sandy) Alex G Alex G (Alex Giannascoli – not to be confused with singer/songwriter Alex G) just released Beach Music… his seventh full-length album, and his first Domino release. He’s obviously not used to recording in a studio, saying, “I was … 11/01/2022 Tuesday Alex G with Hatchie at First Avenue first-avenue.com Alex G (Alex Giannascoli) is probably the most famous musician you’ve never heard of. We saw him in April 2016 and mentioned how confusing his stage name was: “Philadelphia’s Alex G (Alex Giannascoli) and Porches were co-headliners, but Alex G closed out the night. The main problem with him is that he shared the same name as pop girl singer Alex G and producer Alex Greggs – who often use Alex G as credit…. Although, doing research on his name, apparently he also goes under as Sandy Alex G, but the billing was simply listed as Alex G for this show.” Having said that, he has such a cult fanbase. A few years ago we went to see 100 Gecs, an ad for an Alex G showed up on the screen and literally every young people at the show went absolutely nuts, clapping and hooing. Hatchie will open the show. We like Hatchie, having just saw her in May 2022 and wrote, “With Hatchie’s new album Giving the World Away (Secretly Canadian) out now and we heard the songs performed live, it would seem that she’s mixing shoegazing elements with a little electronica dance. She mentioned that she was inspired by St Etienne, and even Kylie Minogue, so perhaps Giving the World Away might be her most accessible album yet.” Tour dates: Oct 6 Carrboro, NC, US Cat’s Cradle Oct 6 Saxapahaw, NC, US Haw River Ballroom Oct 7 Asheville, NC, US The Orange Peel Oct 8 Atlanta, GA, US Variety Playhouse Oct 9 Nashville, TN, US Brooklyn Bowl – Nashville Oct 10 St Louis, MO, US Off Broadway Oct 12 Denver, CO, US Ogden Theatre Oct 14 Salt Lake City, UT, US Soundwell Oct 16 Seattle, WA, US Showbox at the Market Oct 17 Portland, OR, US McMenamins Crystal Ballroom Oct 19 San Francisco, CA, US The Fillmore Oct 21 Los Angeles (LA), CA, US The Wiltern Oct 22 San Diego, CA, US The Observatory North Park Oct 23 Pomona, CA, US Glass House Oct 24 Phoenix, AZ, US The Van Buren Oct 26 Austin, TX, US Emo’s Austin Oct 27 Fort Worth, TX, US Tulips Nov 1 Minneapolis, MN, US First Avenue Nov 2 Chicago, IL, US Thalia Hall Nov 3 Chicago, IL, US Thalia Hall Nov 4 Detroit, MI, US Majestic Theatre Nov 5 Toronto, ON, Canada The Danforth Music Hall Nov 6 Montreal, QC, Canada Théâtre Corona Nov 8 Boston, MA, US Paradise Rock Club Nov 9 Boston, MA, US Paradise Rock Club Nov 10 Brooklyn, NY, US Brooklyn Steel Nov 11 Brooklyn, NY, US Brooklyn Steel Nov 12 Brooklyn, NY, US Brooklyn Steel Nov 14 Boston, MA, US Paradise Rock Club Nov 16 Washington, DC, US 9:30 Club Nov 17 Washington, DC, US 9:30 Club Nov 18 Philadelphia, PA, US Union Transfer Nov 19 Philadelphia, PA, US Union Transfer Nov 20 Philadelphia, PA, US Union Transfer Mar 16 2023 Dublin, Ireland Vicar Street Mar 17 2023 Glasgow, UK TV Studio SWG3 Mar 18 2023 Manchester, UK O2 Ritz Manchester Mar 20 2023 Leeds, UK Stylus Mar 21 2023 Nottingham, UK Rescue Rooms Mar 22 2023 Bristol, UK SWX Mar 25 2023 Amsterdam, Netherlands Tolhuistuin Apr 1 2023 Berlin, Germany Columbia Theater Apr 6 2023 Paris, France Le Trabendo 11/02 Flo Milli with Monaleo at Amsterdam Bar Read More Flo Milli You Still Here, Ho ? Flo Milli July 19, 2022 Intro HBIC (Tiffany Pollard Speaks) Come Outside [Clean] Bed Time [Clean] by Flo Milli …. 11/02/2022 Wednesday Flo Milli with Monaleo at Amsterdam Bar & Hall first-avenue.com Alabama’s very own princess of rap Flo Milli will headline the Amsterdam Bar & Hall in St Paul on November 2nd. The tour sponsor will be from Monster drinks, which Flo adds, “The best partnership to match my energy is that of a MONSTER. For me and the Monster Energy Outbreak Tour to join forces this fall is going to be a party that you don’t want to miss.” Expect to hear hit single “Conceited” and “Bed Time” on this tour. The tour will feature support from Monaleo. Tour dates: October 18 – Atlanta, GA – Masquerade October 21 – Washington D.C. – The Howard Theatre October 25 – New York, NY – Bowery Ballroom October 26 – Boston, MA – Brighton Music Hall October 28 – Montreal, QC – Le Studio TD October 29 – Toronto, ON – The Axis Club October 31 – Detroit, MI – The Shelter November 1 – Chicago – Avondale Music Hall November 2 – Minneapolis, MN – Amsterdam November 4 – Denver, CO – Cervantes Ballroom November 5 – Salt Lake City, UT – The Complex November 7 – Portland, OR – Hawthorne Theatre November 8 – Seattle, WA – Neumos November 9 – Vancouver, BC – Fortune Sound Club November 11 – Oakland, CA – Starline Social Club November 15 – Santa Ana, CA – Observatory OC November 16 – Los Angeles, CA – Roxy Theatre 11/02 Kevin Morby with Coco at Fine Line Read More Kevin Morby Former bassist for Woods and frontman of The Babies, Kevin Morby is back with his third solo album Singing Saw, out now on Dead Oceans Records. … 11/02/2022 Wednesday Kevin Morby with Coco at Fine Line first-avenue.com Kevin Morby is headlining the Fine Line Music Cafe in support of his new album This Is A Photograph (Dead Oceans). We caught Morby in Jan 2014 and wrote, “Kansas City native Kevin Morby, who plays in Vivian Girls side project The Babies, as well as is the bassist for Woods, opened with a 40 min. pensive set of songs culled from his solo debut, Harlem River (Woodsist Records), which he describes as a homage to New York City. Most of the set was similarly mid-tempo’d and intimate in their storytelling lyrics, with Cate LeBon herself guesting on stage midway through, on “Slow Train”, reprising their duet from the record.” Show up early to check out Coco, the project from Maia Friedman (The Dirty Projectors), Dan Molad (Lucius), and Oliver Hill (Pavo Pavo). Tour Dates Sun. Oct. 2 – Dana Point, CA @ Ohana Festival Mon. Oct. 3 – Tucson, AZ @ 191 Toole Wed. Oct. 5 – Santa Fe, NM @ Meow Wolf Mon. Oct. 10 – Oklahoma City, OK @ Beer City Music Hall Tue. Oct. 11 – St. Louis, MO @ Off Broadway Nightclub Wed. Oct. 12 – Bloomington, IN @ Buskirk-Chumley Theater Fri. Oct. 14 – Memphis, TN @ The Bluff Sat. Oct. 15 – Nashville, TN @ The Basement East Sun. Oct. 16 – Atlanta, GA @ Terminal West Tue. Oct. 18 – Jacksonville, FL @ Intuition Ale Works Thu. Oct. 20 – Asheville, NC @ The Orange Peel Fri. Oct. 21 – Durham, NC @ Motorco Music Hall Sat. Oct. 22 – Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club Mon. Oct. 24 – Cambridge, MA @ The Sinclair Tue. Oct. 25 – Ardmore, PA @ Ardmore Music Hall Wed. Oct. 26 – New York, NY @ Webster Hall Fri. Oct. 28 – Toronto, ON @ Danforth Music Hall Sat. Oct. 29 – Ferndale, MI @ The Magic Bag Mon. Oct. 31 – Chicago, IL @ The Vic Theatre Tue. Nov. 1 – Milwaukee, WI @ Turner Hall Ballroom Wed. Nov. 2 – Minneapolis, MN @ Fine Line Music Cafe Thu. Nov. 3 – Kansas City, MO @ Knuckleheads Saloon Sat. Nov. 5 – Englewood, CO @ Gothic Theatre Sun. Nov. 6 – Fort Collins, CO @ Washington’s Tue. Nov. 8 – Salt Lake City, UT @ CommonWealth Room Thu. Nov. 10 – Portland, OR @ Revolution Hall Fri. Nov. 11 – Seattle, WA @ Showbox Sat. Nov. 12 – Vancouver, BC @ Hollywood Theatre Sun. Nov. 13 – Vancouver, BC @ Hollywood Theatre If your band is coming to the Minneapolis/St Paul area, please email details to vu@weheartmusic.com with a good lead time. Thank you. Read More…

2 Berkeley High School Students Dead Following Oakland Shooting https://digitalarkansasnews.com/2-berkeley-high-school-students-dead-following-oakland-shooting/ The Oakland Police Department is investigating a shooting that left two people dead and two others injured, authorities said. The shooting took place in the 950 block of Apgar Street just before 10 p.m. where officers tried to help two injured victims, but they died at the scene. The other two victims were taken to a hospital for medical treatment but no details have been released about their condition. Witnesses told NBC Bay Area the shooting unfolded during a house party where most of the people there were teenagers from Berkeley High School. A GoFundMe identified the two deceased victims as a 15 and 17-year-old brothers. Berkeley High School officials said they were both students there. Martin Opsahl, who lives in the area, said that he noticed young people were hanging out at the home. As the evening went on, more people came. “Kind of gathering and started breaking out into bickering and hostility, And before you know it, two guys just go upstairs and started shooting at each other,” he said. Local Opsahl said the gunshots were unmistakable. “About 19, 20. I counted actually,” he said. Opsahl called 911 and told NBC Bay Area that another neighbor tried to help someone who was hurt as police arrived at the home, apparently rented just for the night. “You never think it will get so close to home,” he said. The Berkeley Unified School District released a statement saying they “are deeply saddened to have learned that two Berkeley High School students and beloved members of the BUSD family lost their lives.” In the statement, the district said counselors, district and school leaders will have resources available for students returning to school Monday. A grassroots community group called “Latinos Unidos” said its members have actually worked with these two teens and their family very closely throughout the years. The group also said it’s asking the Berkeley Unified School District to provide mental health support for students in Spanish for students as well. NBC Bay Area asked the district Sunday night about that and it confirmed there will be counselors at Berkeley High School, who can speak Spanish and bilingual staff in their parent resource center. There will also be a vigil Monday at 7 p.m. at Longfellow Middle School in Berkeley. The public is invited to bring candles, flowers and respect. The shooting is under investigation. NBC Bay Area’s Christie Smith and Alyssa Goard contributed to the report. Read More Here

Asia-Pacific Markets Mixed, Hang Seng Index At Lowest Levels In 11 Years; Oil Rises https://digitalarkansasnews.com/asia-pacific-markets-mixed-hang-seng-index-at-lowest-levels-in-11-years-oil-rises/ Pedestrians cross a road in front of the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE), operated by Japan Exchange Group Inc. (JPX), in Tokyo, Japan, on Thursday, Oct. 29, 2020. Kiyoshi Ota | Bloomberg via Getty Images Shares in the Asia-Pacific mostly fell on Monday as markets enter the last quarter of the year. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was 1.19% down, reaching the lowest levels since October 2011, according to Refinitiv Eikon data. In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 gave up early gains to fall 0.12%. The Nikkei 225 in Japan fell more than 1% in early trade, but recovered slightly and was last up 0.5%, while the Topix index was 0.1% higher. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan slipped 0.8%. Brent crude futures and West Texas Intermediate futures jumped on reports of a possible OPEC+ supply cut. Later in the week, Australia’s central bank will announce its interest rate decision, while several countries in Asia will report inflation data. China markets are closed for the Golden Week holiday, and South Korea’s market is also closed. ANZ sees significant chance of an OPEC+ cut as large as 1 million barrels per day Ahead of an OPEC+ meeting on Oct. 5, ANZ sees a “significant chance of a cut” as large as 1 million barrels per day, analysts at the firm said in a note. That move is likely to be made “to counteract the excessive bearishness in the market.” The note added that any production cuts below 500,000 barrels per day, however, would be “shrugged off by the market.” –Jihye Lee CNBC Pro: Investment pro says ETFs are a $10 trillion opportunity — and reveals areas of ‘tremendous’ value Exchange-traded funds offer the benefit of diversification, says Jon Maier, chief investment officer at Global X ETFs. He said the ETF market is “growing exponentially” and estimates it to be worth $10 trillion. He names several opportunities for ETF investors in this volatile market. Pro subscribers can read more here. — Zavier Ong Business confidence of Japan’s large manufacturers worsens Sentiment of Japan’s large manufacturers worsened in the July-to-September quarter, according to the Bank of Japan’s latest quarterly tankan business sentiment survey. The headline index for large manufacturers’ sentiment came in at 8, a decline from the previous quarter’s reading of 9. Economists polled by Reuters expected a print of 11. “Our expectation and market expectations were for the manufacturing reading to pick up — supply conditions had improved, you’ve seen fading supply impact from zero-Covid policies in China, commodity prices came down a little bit,” said Stefan Angrick, a senior economist at Moody’s Analytics. “The fact that the manufacturing side of the economy isn’t doing so well certainly isn’t great for the outlook,” he told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia.” But the non-manufacturing index ticked up slightly, which could mean Japan’s late Covid recovery is getting underway, he added. — Abigail Ng Fri, Sep 30 20229:06 AM EDT CNBC Pro: The five global stocks experiencing the de-globalisation trend, according to HSBC New research from HSBC says supply chains, geopolitical tensions, and worsening financial conditions have forced many global companies to “substantially” turn inward in search of resilient revenue and growth. In a tough economic environment with recessionary pressures, the bank said turning inwards is “probably helpful” for these stocks. The report titled ‘A de-globalisation wave?’ said European firms’ foreign sales dipped below 50% in 2021, the lowest level in the last five years. Oil prices jump on reports of OPEC+ mulling production cut CNBC Pro: Should investors flee stocks? Strategists give their take — and reveal how to trade the volatility With monetary policy set to tighten further in the months ahead, and Wall Street mired in the depths of a bear market abyss, many investors are beginning to wonder if now’s the time to exit the stock market and put their money in other asset classes. CNBC Pro spoke to market watchers and scoured through research from investment banks to find out what the pros think. Pro subscribers can read more here. — Zavier Ong Read More Here

Fear And Loathing – What Is Daily Life Like In Occupied Ukraine? https://digitalarkansasnews.com/fear-and-loathing-what-is-daily-life-like-in-occupied-ukraine/ By Paul Adams BBC News Image source, Getty Images Image caption, A woman walks past destroyed buildings in Mariupol – 29 September 2022 Four Ukrainian regions have been declared part of Russia after so-called referendums orchestrated by Moscow and a formal signing ceremony at the Kremlin. In a long speech, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the people of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson were now “Russian citizens forever”. He said he was ready to hold negotiations with Kyiv, but that the future of the four regions was not up for discussion. The BBC has spoken to some of the millions who live in these areas, about what life under occupation has been like – and how Russian the cities have actually become. Little has been heard about the daily struggles of people living in Russian-controlled areas. We found that experiences differ hugely, from a basic struggle for survival amid the ruins of Mariupol, to fleet-of-foot improvisations in places like Kherson – a city which found itself occupied with barely a shot being fired. But – whether the takeovers were bloodless or brutal – the same battle for identity is being waged. The people we have spoken to are all opposed to Russia’s occupation and annexation. It would be wrong to suggest that everyone in these areas shares their views. But all the available evidence, including previous voting records, suggests that people living in areas seized since February this year overwhelmingly see themselves as Ukrainian. All names have been changed Boris has lived in Kherson most of his life. He has asked us to disguise his identity – with Russian troops digging in and the Ukrainian army inching closer, civilians have learned to be extremely wary. We communicate using a messaging service. For months, he has tried to maintain his professional and personal life, in a city crawling with Russian soldiers and police officers. It’s a life full of striking contrasts. One day, Boris breaks off a conversation with me to wipe content from his mobile phone before passing through a Russian checkpoint. “You have to make sure there are no incriminating photos in your deleted folder,” he says. A lot of people disappeared in the early months, as the city’s new rulers cracked-down on anyone thought to be loyal to Kyiv. Judging by the reduced number of “disappeared, looking for” ads posted on walls and circulating on social media, Boris thinks the number of arrests has gradually declined. Half the city’s pre-war population of 280,000 left, seeking sanctuary in government-controlled territory or abroad. Those who remained, Boris says, initially adjusted well – as citizens made up their own rules and avoided the authorities at all costs. “For four or five months we felt we were living in a kind of libertarian society,” he says. “Self-sustaining, self regulating.” All that came to an end in mid-July, when the city started to fill up with Russian secret service personnel, a process that intensified in the weeks leading up to the referendum. “There were practically 20 cars per minute, with very serious men inside,” Boris says. But early on, the occupation brought other unexpected benefits. “The city’s really empty now and people can safely ride bicycles,” Boris says. “It’s quite post-apocalyptic.” The next time we communicate, he tells me about visiting a dacha (summer house) on the other side of the wide Dnieper River. From there, you can see the Antonovsky Bridge, which has been repeatedly hit by Ukrainian artillery since July. “We picked grapes for wine and had a sauna,” he says. “It’s something deep from our city culture.” Image caption, A low-resolution photo of a billboard in Kherson which includes a smiling pregnant woman, a Russian passport, and the slogan “Kherson – Russian city” In Russian-occupied Kherson, holding on to what you value is a matter of constant improvisation. Despite Moscow’s efforts to introduce the Russian rouble, the Ukrainian hryvnia is still widely used. For a while, small vans – equipped with wi-fi connections – enabled customers to log in to Ukrainian banks and make withdrawals in hryvnia. The van operators would charge a transaction fee of 3-5%. Now, Boris says, the minivans are no longer needed – everything is done by word of mouth, as friends circulate the names of reliable dealers charging little or no commission. But the Russian currency is steadily encroaching. Some welfare payments are already in roubles, which shops are obliged to accept. The only functioning banks are Russian. To open an account, a Russian passport is required. The same thing applies to jobs in state enterprises. “That’s how they try to get most of the Ukrainians in town to convert to Russian citizenship,” Boris says. Another way is propaganda. Image caption, Historical figures on this billboard in Kherson include 18th Century imperial hero Alexander Suvurov. The slogan beneath reads: “Kherson is Russia” From May onwards, posters appeared on the streets declaring that Russia was back to stay. Sometimes these slogans would be accompanied by images of 18th Century Russian heroes – stirring memories of Kherson’s foundation as a fortress city by Catherine the Great, the last Empress of Russia, in 1778. Other posters depicted Russian passports with the motto “Social Stability and Security,” or a happy husband hugging his pregnant wife next to a message exhorting loyal citizens to have more children. But there were other billboards that Boris found more insidious. “They would picture some celebrity and say that this guy comes from Kherson and has dedicated his life to Russia. You feel a bit proud [generally] about that guy, and they use that pride to connect you to Russia.” For Kherson’s solidly pro-Ukrainian majority, Boris says, the messaging has little effect. “But for those who were brainwashed before the war,” he adds, “this just allowed them to come out of the shadows.” During the so-called referendum in Kherson, Boris says he saw several elderly women contentedly walking away from a voting centre, carrying candyfloss and little Russian flags. “Probably, some cheer-up by the organisers,” he says. Image source, Getty Images Image caption, A woman casts her vote in Russia’s so-called referendum in Mariupol, Donetsk, 26 September 2022 Other battles, for culture, history and information, are going on throughout newly occupied Ukraine – from residents straining to catch mobile phone signals across front lines, to parents covertly educating their children in online Ukrainian schools (one of Covid’s more beneficial legacies) to avoid an education system now under complete Russian control. “The kids learn online at Ukrainian schools, using Russian internet and Western VPNs,” Boris says. “It’s quite ironic.” The fight to stay connected to Ukraine is part of what has kept him going for more than half a year. “Either you mobilise yourself or you just fall apart,” he says. But the referendums, long anticipated but constantly put off, have threatened to shatter his sense of purpose. “It’s devastating,” he replies, when I message him to ask how people feel about the ballot. “Panic. Losing hope… Depression. Apathy.” “Why does it take ZSU [the Ukrainian forces] so long?” he asks, referring to their slow advance towards Kherson. The fear now among men of fighting age is that conscription, well under way in Russia, Crimea and separatist areas of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, will be extended to Kherson. So far, it seems only those who have taken Russian passports have been told to join up, but anxiety is on the rise. Boris says he is conflicted about whether to flee or stay on, in the hope that one day he will wake up to find Kherson has been liberated by the Ukrainian army. “I’m torn between safety and the unique experience of meeting Ukrainian soldiers [entering the city].” If liberation is the prospect that sustains Boris, it feels much less likely in Mariupol, 260 miles (418km) to the east. “After the occupation, my whole life broke down,” says a former teacher who asked to be called Alex. After a hellish siege, which captured global attention between March and May, those civilians who wouldn’t or couldn’t flee found themselves living in a wasteland. “Russians went from apartment to apartment, destroying everything connected with Ukraine,” says Alex, also communicating via a secure messaging app. “At my home, they burned Ukrainian symbols and a lot of books.” When the siege ended in late May, Russian soldiers gradually withdrew, leaving pro-Moscow separatists from the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic to run the city. “The city turned into a ruin,” says Daryna, a student who stayed on but finally fled in August. “It became a big market where everyone sold what they could to earn something.” Electricity and water were in short supply. Thousands of homes were destroyed. Bodies lay unburied in the rubble. But Daryna says the streets were quickly flooded with banners hailing Mariupol’s liberation by Moscow. A combination of propaganda, necessity, and pro-Russian sentiments among some Mariupol residents, has had an effect, she says. “Many people support the occupiers and many people work for the ‘rashists’ [a derogatory term for Russians] because they need money so they don’t die of hunger.” Image source, Getty Images Image caption, A man sits by a makeshift stove to keep warm – Mariupol, 29 September 2022 Physically closer to Russia and sitting at the southern end of the Donbas, Mariupol’s ties with Moscow were always a little deeper than Kherson’s. Fleeting glimpses of resistance can be seen on social media, where images circulate of masked people draped in the blue and yellow Ukrainian flag. The letter “Ï”, which exists in the Ukrainian alphabet ...