A construction worker, who was allegedly caught with 35 grams of marijuana, was charged and remanded to prison on Friday.Thirty-eight-year-old Keith Abel of Eccles, East Bank Demerara, denied the charge which stated that on June 26, 2019, at Water Street, Georgetown, he had in his possession 35 grams of marijuana for the purpose of trafficking. He appeared before Principal Magistrate Faith McGusty at the Georgetown Magistrates’ Courts.Abel told the court that the officers found the narcotics in a stand close to where he sells groceries. Police Prosecutor Ceon Blackman objected to bail being granted to the defendant on the grounds of the prevalence of the offence and the penalty the charge attracts. The prosecutor further stated that the defendant gave three conflicting addresses to the police and the court. Abel was remanded to prison and the case will continue on July 19, 2019. read more
A young man sporting a golden sherwani, darted towards SRK from nowhere, hugged him and before the star could react, kissed him on his left cheek.What happens when the Badshah of Bollywood kisses you? The moment is etched in gold. But what happens when you – a full-blown man-pucker up the courage and kiss him smack on a cheek with a hall full of audience looking on?Well, the Rome Film Festival got the answer on Sunday. Looking dapper in a tuxedo, Shah Rukh Khan arrived at the red carpet for the screening of My Name is Khan. A bevy of dancers, clad in lehnga cholis started showering petals on him. The time seemed ripe for a song-and-dance sequence.Suddenly, a young man sporting a golden sherwani, darted towards SRK from nowhere, hugged him and before the star could react, kissed him on his left cheek.His female fans, from eight to 80 and from Mumbai to Macau, turned green in envy. SRK grimaced and fluttered in the grip of the man for a while.The moment over, the hero regained his composure, pushed his way to freedom and no, he didn’t let lose a punch.Like a true hero – a man in command – SRK subtly flicked his hand across his cheek and used the other to wave at his fans in such a suave manner that they let out a collective swoon. The song-and-dance item started a moment later. read more
(Clayton Thomas-Muller is under RCMP surveillance, documents say. Facebook photo)By Jorge Barrera APTN National NewsAn Indigenous activist says documents showing the RCMP have him under surveillance reveal Canadian authorities have criminalized Indigenous dissent.Clayton Thomas-Muller, 37, said he wasn’t surprised to learn the RCMP is keeping tabs on him and compiled a file on his movements dating back to at least 2010.“I try not to pay any attention to the federal surveillance issue,” said Thomas-Muller, who is currently living in Ottawa and is a former Idle No More organizer. “I feel very strongly that the work I do is just and is on the right side of history, so I really don’t pay any attention to the Harper government’s tactics to try to criminalize the work I am involved in which uplifts democracy, transparency, equity and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. Specifically, the right of indigenous people to say no to harmful developments that threaten their way of life.”The RCMP closely monitored the movements Thomas-Muller as it tightened surveillance in July 2010 around possible protests in northern British Columbia targeting the energy firm behind the controversial Northern Gateway pipeline, according to “confidential” documents obtained by APTN National News.The documents come from the RCMP’s Suspicious Incidents Report (SIR) database and show police closely monitored the movements of a member of the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN). According to the documents, the RCMP considers IEN an “extremist” group and a trip by an IEN member to a direct action camp in July of that year created a flurry of database activity involving RCMP officers with the force’s national security operations in B.C. and Ottawa.The documents don’t mention a name, but cross-referencing the date, the identified organization and the location detailed in the file pinpointed Thomas-Muller as the individual monitored by the RCMP.The documents were obtained under the Access to Information Act by academic Jeffrey Monaghan, who is a criminology instructor at Carleton University and completing a doctorate at Queen’s University.IEN is headquartered in Bemidji, Minn., and describes itself as a grassroots organization focused on climate and social justice issues, according to its website. IEN is headed by prominent Dine’-Dakota environmentalist Tom Goldtooth. Goldtooth could not be reached for comment.Thomas-Muller was a member of IEN at the time. He left IEN in 2012 after spending 12 years with the organization. He said he’s not sure how the RCMP found out about his plans to go to the action camp, but he regularly posts his movements on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook.“I am very transparent about all the work I am involved in through the campaigns I am involved in. There is a whole archive of the various trips and conferences and action camps and protests that I have participated in on social media,” said Thomas-Muller. “One only has to go through my Twitter feed and Facebook history to see my travel.”Thomas-Muller is currently co-director of the Indigenous tarsands campaign with Polaris and is a consultant to U.S.-based organization 350.org. He said he’s only been approached by security agencies once, during the height of the Idle No More movement between 2012 and 2013. He said he told the officer who contacted him to submit his request for the meeting in official correspondence to Idle No More and Defenders of the Land.“They cold-called me at my house,” said Thomas-Muller, who ended work as an official Idle No More organizer earlier this year.The documents record entries from RCMP officers into the SIR database. The entries focus on concerns around possible protests in July 2010 against energy firm Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline project.The controversial Gateway project would transport bitumen from Alberta’s tarsands to the B.C. coast for loading onto tankers headed to Asian markets. The project received federal cabinet approval but now faces an onslaught of legal challenges from B.C. First Nations.Thomas-Muller’s activities caught the RCMP’s attention.“Although there is no specific criminal threat, we do have information that a known member of the Indigenous Environmental Network will be heading to Northern B.C. tomorrow for a planned ‘Wetsuweten Direct Action Camp (sic),” according to the “occurrence report” dated July 7, 2010, written by Craig Douglass, with the Southeast District RCMP in British Columbia. “We would like to anticipate and monitor any protests in order to keep you informed if these protests happen in your detachment areas.”The RCMP created a file on Thomas-Muller’s planned trip to the action camp. The file was dated the same day as Douglass’ email.“Information file opened to gather information involving demonstrations to the Northern Gateway Pipeline,” according to the file, number 20103467. The file was classified as a “Critical Infrastructure-Suspicious Incident.” The file summary goes on to state that the “known member of (IEN)” would be heading to the action camp on July 8, 2010.The file, which remained active, included three “associated occurrences” dated in 2011. Little detail is provided about these occurrences. The list included the date, whether it happened in the same area, employed a similar modus operandi or was a similar event.The file also listed a number of groups as “involved persons.” The groups listed include the Defenders of the Land, Direct Action in Canada for Climate Justice, Ontario Public Interest Research Group, Ruckus Society, Global Justice Ecology Project, Sea to Sands Conservation Alliance, Canadian Youth Climate Coalition, the Indigenous Action Movement and the Wet’suwet’en Direct Action Camp.Russ Diabo, a policy analysis from the Mohawk community of Kahanwake and Defenders of the Land member, said it’s no surprise his group was listed in the documents.“Defenders of the Land is a network of Indigenous communities and their supporters and the communities are prominent in defending their rights on the ground,” said Diabo. “A lot of our Indigenous community members are where these resource development projects are planned to take place and have taken place. There are conflicts. There are likely to be more given the planned resource extraction projects across the country.”The RCMP officers involved on the file included several with B.C.’s E Division’s Integrated National Security Enforcement Team (INSET), intelligence analysts from Ottawa and a supervisor from the federal policing operational analysis sector at RCMP headquarters in the capital city.A senior officer at Ottawa RCMP headquarters determined Thomas-Muller’s file should be uploaded to the SIR database because IEN was an “extremist” group. The file was also forwarded to the now dismantled Aboriginal Joint Intelligence Group (JIG) and to the RCMP’s main liaison with the energy sector.“File pertains to extremist groups organizing training for potential disruption of Enbridge pipelines,” reads the entry from Ottawa headquarters. “Request to SIR administrator…to complete a SIR report on the incident in order to capture information of analytical value that pertains to pre-incident training that targets a critical infrastructure sector.”An RCMP spokesperson said last Thursday the RCMP needed time to respond to requests for comment. APTN National News contacted the RCMP again Tuesday and is still awaiting a response.Thomas-Muller said the RCMP’s interest in his activities betrays the success of social movements on the tarsands and Indigenous rights fronts.“We are challenging the most powerful corporate entities on the planet,” he said. “What we have on our side is endless human resources. We have the power of our ancestors and traditions fueling us. We are intimately aware of the domestic surveillance that is happening as well as the agenda to criminalize Indigenous dissent.”jbarrera@aptn.ca@JorgeBarrera read more
C. Keenum (MIN)501.07460.02460.501.59 M. Mariota (TEN)37-0.64460.0433-1.10-1.70 PASS THROWNATTEMPTSCOMP%YPATD%INT%CONV. RATE A. Dalton (CIN)39-0.43581.6636-0.760.46 D. Prescott (DAL)36-0.8132-1.9642-0.05-2.82 M. Trubisky (CHI)29-1.64531.01490.900.28 M. Stafford (DET)40-0.22500.5437-0.70-0.38 P. Rivers (LAC)440.30510.67450.321.29 M. Ryan (ATL)34-0.9745-0.1041-0.09-1.17 SHORT%Z-SCORESHORT%Z-SCORESHORT%Z-SCORETOT. C. Beathard (SF)501.07470.19551.652.91 J. Goff (LAR)40-0.1841-0.69440.26-0.60 E. Manning (NYG)430.12551.3440-0.221.25 Source: ESPN Stats & Information Group Which quarterbacks are the most conservative passers?Which quarterbacks throw short of a “successful” pass distance the most relative to their peers (as measured by the z-scores — the standard deviations above/below the mean — of the Short%* for each down added together), minimum 200 dropbacks through Week 13 of the 2017 season J. Cutler (MIA)420.02510.66561.772.45 J. McCown (NYJ)490.97470.20460.521.69 B. Hundley (GB)511.24480.25470.562.05 T. Taylor (BUF)38-0.5544-0.23450.42-0.37 B. Hoyer (SF/NE)450.42551.27490.902.59 J. Brissett (IND)460.48531.0342-0.061.45 J. Flacco (BAL)480.79551.28511.123.19 C. Newton (CAR)501.0738-1.1039-0.37-0.40 Picture this common scene on a Sunday afternoon. Your team could really use a scoring drive to turn the tide. On a 3rd-and-10, before the quarterback is even pressured, he quickly throws a 2-yard pass, and the receiver is tackled a few yards later to bring up fourth down. The crowd grumbles, the offense casually jogs off the field and the punting unit comes on. Better luck next time.Sure, once in a blue moon the offense may throw a bubble screen on 3rd-and-33 and end up with a 52-yard touchdown, like the Rams did with Robert Woods against the Giants in Week 9 this season. But that is the rarest of exceptions.Generally, safe passes like that don’t accomplish much, and we have the data to back that up. How does that 2-yard pass on 3rd-and-10 work out? According to the ESPN Stats & Information Group, quarterback passes thrown no more than 2 yards beyond the line of scrimmage on third down with at least 10 yards to go have been converted only 10.9 percent of the time this season. On throws that travel at least 10 yards, quarterbacks have converted 38.6 percent of the time. So an offense can more than triple its conversion rate just by doing the most obvious thing when trying to move the chains: throwing the ball past the imaginary yellow line on your TV screen.And yet despite this, NFL teams are leaning on the short pass more than ever. The same league that transformed into a passing league over the past 10 years is slowing morphing into something else: the dump-off league.There are some risks with throwing deeper, of course, such as a higher interception rate. And in some special situations, getting a first down isn’t the primary goal of a drive, especially when facing third-and-long. Sometimes teams are just trying to get enough yards to make a field-goal attempt shorter. Or with a big lead in the second half, they’re hoping for an easy completion that will run some clock and gain field position.But when an offense really needs to score points, playing it safe and throwing short of the sticks on third down is often the inferior strategy. We looked at the data from ESPN Stats & Info for passes on 3rd-and-10 or longer for Weeks 1 to 13. We divided the passes between those thrown short of the sticks and those thrown at or beyond the sticks:1For reference, a 12-yard pass on 3rd-and-13 would be considered short of the sticks. Some of the names at the top of the list are predictable, including Flacco and infamous short pass maestro Alex Smith. Jay Cutler has been very dink-and-dunk oriented with Adam Gase in Miami this season, while San Francisco’s first two quarterbacks this season (Brian Hoyer and C.J. Beathard) made the top five.The real surprise here is the name at the very top: Drew Brees. Not only does he rank as the most conservative passer, but he has consistently stuck to this strategy no matter what the down is. To his credit, Brees has made it work — the Saints rank No. 1 in offensive DVOA and No. 6 in passing. Perhaps more accurately, the running backs are making this offense work. Through Week 13, rookie Alvin Kamara ranked as the best receiving running back while teammate Mark Ingram ranks as Football Outsiders’ top rusher. With two RBs capable of big gains on any play, it’s no surprise that Brees is throwing short early and often. We’ll see if this strategy can sustain itself — the Saints have failed to score 21 points in all four of their losses this season (each was to a playoff contender, including last night’s loss to Atlanta).At the bottom, seven quarterbacks had a combined z-score below 2.0 standard deviations. That includes the trio of favorites for the MVP race in Tom Brady, Russell Wilson and Carson Wentz, whose aggressive styles this year have been a positive for their offenses. Similar things could have been said about Deshaun Watson before Houston’s standout rookie tore his ACL.But being aggressive is not a magic formula for success as the list plainly shows. Watson’s backup, Tom Savage, has tried to emulate Watson’s aggressive style, but without anywhere near the same success. Likewise, Jameis Winston of the Buccaneers is routinely one of the leaders in air yards per attempt, but his lack of consistency remains a problem for Tampa Bay. In Dallas, Dak Prescott is throwing aggressively, but his receivers are getting the fewest yards per carry after the catch in the league.Like with any stat, Short% is only one piece of the puzzle, and every quarterback has his own set of circumstances. As we see with Brees, a quarterback can get away with passive play if he’s extremely efficient and the team is still winning.Few quarterbacks have this type of arsenal or this type of ability, so they would be better served trusting the numbers and resisting the easy dump-off.Check out our latest NFL predictions. D. Brees (NO)52%1.3854%1.1053%1.393.87 D. Carr (OAK)430.1145-0.12450.330.32 FIRST DOWNSECOND DOWNTHIRD DOWN The completion rate for short throws is more than 30 percentage points higher than the rate for longer passes and yet the conversation rate is more than 30 points lower. This is not surprising because defenses are playing to prevent the first down and are willing to concede a fraction of the yardage. However, this positioning make it very difficult for a team to throw short and run after the catch to convert.So far we have only talked about third downs, the crucial down for maintaining offensive success. However, analyzing aggressive and conservative passing on first and second down is also important. A bubble screen that loses a few yards to bring up 2nd-and-13 is also putting the offense in a position to fail.Football Outsiders’ key efficiency metrics, including Defense-adjusted Value Over Average (explained here), are built around the concept of successful plays and are adjusted for factors like the down and distance. For instance, a 5-yard pass on 3rd-and-3 is more valuable than a 5-yard pass on 2nd-and-17. For a pass to be considered a successful play, it must gain at least 45 percent of the needed yards on first down, 60 percent on second down, and 100 percent on third and fourth. A completion that does not meet those standards is considered a failed completion. Joe Flacco of the Ravens set the failed completion record last season, with 144, and he leads all quarterbacks in 2017 with 95 through Week 13.It’s not just Flacco. The ineffective dump-off is happening across the NFL. Leaguewide, 26.1 percent of all completions this season qualify as failed completions. That’s the highest rate for a season in the Football Outsiders database, which goes back to 1989, and if the 2017 rate stays at that level, it will break the current high bar set in 2015 (25.1 percent).This is not to say that the short pass doesn’t have value in the NFL playbook or that every quarterback should begin slinging the ball 25 yards downfield each time he takes a snap. There is no one right way to run an NFL offense, and some teams have been able to use the short pass to devastating effect. To get a better sense of this, let’s look at which quarterbacks throw short most often using air yards stats.2This includes passes that drew a defensive pass interference flag but excludes passes that were intentionally thrown away or became intentional grounding penalties.Football Outsiders has a stat called “Short%” to denote the percentage of attempts that a quarterback threw short of the minimum yards needed for a successful play, as defined above. So if 45 percent of needed yards are required on first downs, then anything shorter than a 5-yard throw on first-and-10 would be considered a short pass here. The league average for Short% in 2017 is 41.6 percent on first down, 45.5 percent on second down, and 42.5 percent on third down. It’s not until fourth down that most quarterbacks realize the importance of needing to convert with a big throw. Short% on fourth down is 26.2 percent (although that is only on a sample of 214 plays).We looked at Short% on first, second and third downs for quarterbacks who have had a minimum of 200 dropbacks this season. For the 35 quarterbacks, we took the z-score (standard deviations above or below average) of each percentage and added them up, to make sure we were accurately capturing quarterbacks who threw short on all of their downs relative to the league. The quarterback with the largest summed z-score in the table below is the most conservative, as a higher percentage of his passes were short of being a successful play. A. Rodgers (GB)602.38520.8924-2.280.99 J. Winston (TB)30-1.6232-1.9522-2.54-6.10 R. Wilson (SEA)36-0.7337-1.2738-0.52-2.52 T. Brady (NE)36-0.7942-0.5434-1.06-2.40 B. Roethlisberger (PIT)470.6838-1.1136-0.75-1.19 A. Smith (KC)480.82551.32460.542.68 Higher z-scores mean a quarterback throws short more often.*Short% is the share of passes that fall short of a successful play’s distance (at least 45 percent of the needed yards on first down, 60 percent on second down, and 100 percent on third)Source: Football Outsiders B. Bortles (JAC)501.12480.35480.702.17 C. Wentz (PHI)35-0.9239-0.9534-1.06-2.93 T. Siemian (DEN)34-0.9742-0.59460.50-1.05 D. Kizer (CLE)37-0.6842-0.52440.28-0.91 T. Savage (HOU)38-0.4742-0.5530-1.57-2.59 K. Cousins (WAS)470.70460.03501.051.78 C. Palmer (ARI)29-1.6346-0.0340-0.33-1.98 Short of the sticks67273.2%6.61.2%2.4%12.5% At or beyond the sticks39042.89.64.43.842.6 Short passes become puntsKey outcomes for passes on 3rd-and-10 or longer, Weeks 1-13 D. Watson (HOU)30-1.5331-2.1340-0.26-3.92 read more
Kylian Mbappe, Benjamin Pavard, and Lucas Hernandez will receive the country’s highest award after they won the FIFA World CupA French major has urged France national team youngsters Kylian Mbappe, Benjamin Pavard, and Lucas Hernandez not to accept the Legion of Honor.The European country highest award will be given to the players after winning the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia.But for Jean-Paul Pretot, the major of Loulans-Verchamp, this award should be refused in memory of those who died in battle during the First World War but were not honored.Revealed: Florentino Perez’s plan to sign Kylian Mbappe Tomás Pavel Ibarra Meda – September 12, 2019 According to a report from ‘El Chiringuito’, Florentino Perez revealed his plans to sign Kylian Mbappe from PSG next season.We all knew this was…“On behalf of all those fighters who spent their best years fighting for our freedom, I ask you to refuse the Legion of Honor promised to you and … to pay virtual homage to all those anonymous heroes who fought for our country,” he wrote according to CNN.For him to receive the award “seemed almost indecent a few weeks from November 11.”“If just one of you accepted this approach as part of the duty to remember, it would have as much impact on young people as the November 11 commemorations.”“I could have contacted the whole team but I wanted it to just be these spokesmen,” he added. read more
Netherlands midfielder Georginio Wijnaldum has revealed he has no interest in comparing the current team to any of the top footballing nations in Europe after their resounding victory over Germany on Saturday.Ronald Koeman’s team defeated the Germans 3-0 courtesy of goals from Virgil Van Dijk, Memphis Depay and Georginio Wijnaldum marking their first-ever win over the former world champions by three goals or more.But the Liverpool midfielder was unwilling to compare his team, who failed to qualify for Euro 2016 and the 2018 World Cup to the likes of Germany and France.“I don’t know where we are. We shouldn’t look at other teams,” Wijnaldum midfielder said, according to FourFourTwo.“We focus on our next games. After that, we can say where we are. We have to give our everything to make sure we try to do our best.”Van Dijk isn’t better than Messi & Ronaldo, says Van der Vaart Andrew Smyth – September 12, 2019 Rafael van der Vaart reckons Virgil van Dijk is “special”, but he’s still behind Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo as the world’s best players.“It’s not good to say, ‘Oh we’re on this level’.”Wijnaldum also heaped praises on the trio of Steven Bergwijn, Denzel Dumfries and Arnaut Groeneveld who all made their debuts for the Netherlands.“Because of some injuries we had to play with youngsters who were making their debut. They played a very good game,” he said.“Those three showed some guts, and that they are able to reach the level of the Dutch team. Because of them we were able to get this good result.” read more
Categories: Health, Local San Diego News, National & International News, Politics FacebookTwitter December 31, 2018 Utah implements nation’s lowest DUI limit AP, AP SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — New Year’s Eve revelers in Utah could find themselves with more than a hangover as 2019 dawns. If they drink and drive, they could end up on the wrong side of the nation’s newest and lowest DUI threshold.The 0.05 percent limit went into effect Sunday, despite protests that it will punish responsible drinkers and hurt the state’s tourism industry by adding to the reputation that the predominantly Mormon state is unfriendly to those who drink alcohol. The state’s old limit was 0.08 percent, the threshold in most states.For Utah lawmakers, the change is a safety measure aimed at encouraging people not to drive at all if they’ve been drinking.The change was easily approved in 2017 by the Legislature, which is mostly Mormon and mostly Republican, and signed into law by Gov. Gary Herbert, also a Republican and member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The religion teaches its members to abstain from drinking alcohol.“The vast majority of people nationwide think that if a person has been drinking they shouldn’t be driving,” said Republican Rep. Norm Thurston, who sponsored the measure.The change means that depending on things such as food intake, a 150-pound man could be over the 0.05 limit after two beers in an hour, while a 120-pound woman could exceed it after a single drink in that time, according to figures from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.The National Transportation Safety Board also backs the change, and many in the hospitality industry worry that other states will follow suit. Utah was among the first to adopt the now-standard 0.08 threshold decades ago, and lawmakers in four states — Washington, Hawaii, Delaware and New York — have floated measures to lower their DUI limit in recent years. None has passed.“Other states proposing the 0.05 law, don’t just follow blindly in the footsteps of Utah,” said Jackson Shedelbower, a spokesman for the American Beverage Institute, a national restaurant group.In 2017, the group took out newspaper ads in Utah, neighboring states and in USA Today, featuring a fake mugshot under a large headline reading, “Utah: Come for vacation, leave on probation.”It’s unfair that smaller people could violate the new threshold after just one or two drinks in quick succession, even though they’re no more impaired than someone talking on a hands-free cellphone, his group argues.NTSB member Bella Dinh-Zarr countered that fears about the law are overblown. Nearly 100 countries have a similar limit, and it hasn’t correlated with less drinking per-capita. Federally funded research indicates the standard could save some 1,500 lives a year if adopted around the U.S., she said.“The restaurant industry should support this because it keeps their customers alive and drinking,” Dinh-Zarr said.Utah’s law takes effect as the state basks in the news that the U.S. Olympic Committee chose Salt Lake City over Denver as a future bid city, most likely for the 2030 Winter Olympics. State tourism officials say they’re not concerned about the law driving away visitors.With the increased use of Uber and other ride-hailing apps, many people going out for a night on the town don’t set foot in their own cars. In Utah, DUI arrests have dropped more than 50 percent over the past seven years despite a booming population, according to state figures.Even if the law doesn’t present a practical problem, it could scare off some visitors who see the state as rigid about liquor laws, said David Corsun, director of the Daniels College of Business’ Fritz Knoebel School of Hospitality Management. Still, it’s hard to say how big the impact might be.“If you really want to ski Utah, you’re going to ski Utah. You’re just going to figure it out,” Corsun said.Police, meanwhile, say they’re aiming to stop dangerous drivers, not target people who might have had a drink or two and could be in violation of the lowered DUI threshold.“You can’t just stop someone who left a bar because you suspect they may have used alcohol,” said Sgt. Nick Street with the Utah Highway Patrol.Still, patrons of Salt Lake City’s burgeoning bar scene do feel unfairly singled out by the change.Stopping for a whiskey after work with her sister at the upscale pub Beerhive, Maude Romney, 29, said she’ll likely only go to places she can walk to from her downtown home.“I’m paranoid about it already,” she said.A DUI charge can be expensive and have long-term effects on careers.In a booth in a corner, recent Ohio transplant Rob Wheatley, 50, said he drinks to try new craft beers, not to get drunk. He’s skeptical that the law will be a serious deterrent for binge drinkers.“I don’t know if it’s going to change anyone’s behavior,” he said. “If they’re going to have a beer, they’re going to have a beer.” Posted: December 31, 2018 read more
Share To embed this piece of audio in your site, please use this code: 00:00 /01:02 X Listen Travis BubenikEnergy Secretary Rick Perry speaks to reporters at a VA hospital in Houston, TX.Reactions are coming in to the possibility of Texas Senator John Cornyn leading the FBI. The senior Texas Republican is being considered to replace former director James Comey, who was fired by President Trump last week. Cornyn is said to be among about a dozen people in the running to replace Comey.Echoing other Democrats, Houston Congressman Al Green says he doesn’t want to see any new FBI Director picked unless there is a special counsel appointed to lead the investigation into the Trump campaign and Russia. But, Green says if a new director is appointed, it shouldn’t be any sitting U.S. senator.“I think it will bring politics into it,” he says. “I think we should leave the politics out of it.”Green wants anyone appointed to head the FBI to have “complete and total approval” of the Senate.Republican Energy Secretary and former Texas Governor Rick Perry weighed in at a Veteran Affairs Department event in Houston. He praised Cornyn’s track record.“He is an incredibly capable, steady, brilliant jurist,” Secretary Perry said, adding that Cornyn being tapped would be a double-edged sword.“I hate to lose a senior United States senator, but what would be Texas’ loss would be America’s gain.” President Trump says the search for a new FBI Director is “moving rapidly.” read more
Elaine Thompson/APA damaged Amtrak train car is lowered from an overpass Tuesday at the scene of a train crash onto Interstate 5 a day earlier in DuPont, Wash. Federal investigators say they don’t yet know why the Amtrak train was traveling 50 mph over the speed limit when it derailed. The rail cars will be taken to a nearby military base for closer analysis.National Transportation Safety Board investigators are looking into whether the engineer of the Amtrak train that derailed south of Seattle Monday morning may have been distracted by a second Amtrak employee in the cab of the locomotive.Investigators also are trying to determine why no brakes were activated by the engineer. The emergency brake activated automatically only as part of the train began to go off the rails.Answering those questions may help investigators determine the most important question of all: Why the Amtrak train was speeding along at 80 mph where it derailed — a curve and overpass over Interstate 5 near DuPont, Wash., with a speed limit of just 30 mph.Three people were killed in the derailment, and dozens more were injured.Crews are removing the tangled mess of Amtrak cars, some of which were left dangling over I-5 from the overpass bridge. Cranes are lifting the rail cars onto flatbed trailers, which are then moving them to a secure location on a nearby military base, where National Transportation Safety Board investigators can inspect the rail cars more closely.Regardless of the final determination of the cause of the Cascades derailment, some critics say it could be another sign of what the NTSB has called a “lax safety culture” at Amtrak. Just last month, in announcing the probable cause of an Amtrak crash in 2016 that killed two track workers, NTSB chairman Robert Sumwalt blasted the railroad, “Amtrak’s safety culture is failing, and is primed to fail again.”“Glass, people were all coming towards me, flying in the air”Scott Claggett had started Monday a little pumped up to try a new way of getting to a business meeting in Portland. Amtrak Cascades train number 501 was taking a new, faster, more direct route for the first time, and Claggett says he enjoyed moving from car to car on the fast-moving train before settling into a seat to get some work done.“Next thing I know it, the train is kind of leaning to the left,” Claggett says. “I felt like that wasn’t a good feeling, and the second that I discovered it wasn’t a good feeling is when my car completely twisted — and glass, people were all coming towards me, flying in the air.”Another passenger, Patricia Freeman, says she felt the train jolt, “and I thought, ‘Oh, that’s not good — there’s no turbulence on trains.’ ” Freeman says she tried to grab onto anything she could find, then felt a “horrible impact.”“I kinda got flung across the aisle and onto the floor,” she says. “I was just going back and forth across that train car like a pinball in a pinball machine.”Many questions for the train’s crewExperts say such descriptions are evidence of a train going off the rails at a high rate of speed.“Just the energy that’s involved causes significant damage and greater opportunity for injury,” says Bob Chipkevich, who was director of railroad investigations for the NTSB until he retired in 2010. He says the question for investigators now is why the train was going 50 mph over the speed limit when going into the curve before crossing over Interstate 5.“They’ll be questioning the train crew about their knowledge of the particular route, (about) their training and their qualifications,” Chipkevich says. “And they’ll also be looking at the information that was available to the crew (about the route) as they were traveling.”NTSB investigators say the engineer did appear to be familiar with the new route after several trial runs in recent weeks.“Under Amtrak policy, he couldn’t operate the train unless he was qualified and familiar with this territory,” says NTSB lead investigator Ted Turpin.Chipkevich says investigators also want to know exactly what the crew was doing when the train went off the rails.“In railroad accidents over the years, operator distraction or loss of situational awareness have been causes identified in train derailments,” he says.Deadly distractionsSituational awareness is a key term here. National Transportation Safety Board member Bella Dinh-Zarr says there was a second person in the cab of the locomotive with the train’s engineer.“The two people who were in the cab, as far as we know, are the engineer and a conductor who was familiarizing himself with the territory,” Dinh-Zarr said at a news briefing on the crash Tuesday evening.Dinh-Zarr says that may not be improper; it’s part of a conductors job to become familiar with a new route. But she says investigators are looking into whether the presence of the conductor may have distracted the engineer.“Distraction is one of our most-wanted list of priorities at the NTSB,” adding that looking into possible distractions, including an examination of the cell phones of all crew members, is standard protocol in NTSB investigations.The NTSB determined that in a May 2015 derailment in Philadelphia, an Amtrak engineer lost situational awareness “after his attention was diverted to an emergency involving another train.” The crash of train 188 killed eight people and hurt scores of others.One piece of evidence from Monday’s Washington state derailment that might be telling comes from the train’s event data recorder. “It looks like, in our preliminary analysis, that the emergency brake was automatically activated when the accident was occurring, rather than being initiated by the engineer,” Dinh Zarr says.Tracks’ automatic override was still being testedThere are also questions about whether a safety system called positive train control could have prevented this derailment.Positive train control will override the engineer and automatically slow down or stop a train if it’s going too fast, but Amtrak officials acknowledge that even though the technology was installed in the locomotive and along this portion of the route, it was still undergoing testing and wasn’t yet operational.“It’s yet another reminder that that technology will save lives, and it’s important for railroads to implement it as soon as possible,” says Sarah Feinberg, former administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration under President Obama. “This is something that we’ve been talking about for decades — and when I say we’ve been talking about it for decades, that is not an exaggeration. We started talking about positive train control in the 1960s.”In 2008, Congress required all U.S. railroads to install and implement positive train control by 2015, but then gave the railroads more time. Some are required to have it up and running by the end of next year, but most have until 2020.Amtrak now has positive train control activated on only about a quarter of its nationwide passenger rail system, mostly in the Northeast corridor. Safety experts say a handful of other fatal train wrecks in recent years possibly could have been prevented by the technology.Copyright 2017 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/. Share read more
By REBECCA SANTANA Associated PressNEW ORLEANS (AP) — Legendary New Orleans chef Leah Chase always had problems when customers asked if she served “soul food.” Well, that would depend on where your soul was, she’d say. If it was in China, she couldn’t really help you.But if your soul was in New Orleans, well that was different.“If your soul is in New Orleans, I know what to give you,” Chase said during an interview. “I’m going to give you some jambalaya. I can give you some stewed chicken. I can give you some shrimp Creole.”In this Jan. 20, 2009, file photo, Chef Leah Chase, owner of Dooky Chase’ prepares for lunch at her restaurant in New Orleans. The legendary New Orleans chef and civil rights icon Leah Chase has died at 96, according to a statement her family released to news outlets. (AP Photo/Bill Haber, File)Chase, who fed generations of New Orleanians and tourists alike at Dooky Chase’s restaurant, died Saturday. She was 96.Chase’s family released a statement to news outlets Saturday night, sharing that the woman they called a “believer in the Spirit of New Orleans” died surrounded by family.“Her daily joy was not simply cooking, but preparing meals to bring people together,” the family’s statement read. “One of her most prized contributions was advocating for the Civil Rights Movement through feeding those on the front lines of the struggle for human dignity.”Leah Chase transformed the restaurant bearing — like her husband — her father-in-law’s name from a sandwich shop where black patrons could buy lottery tickets to a refined restaurant where tourists, athletes, musicians — and even presidents — of all races dined.Chase’s determination propelled her from a girl with a small-town Louisiana upbringing to a celebrated chef who authored cookbooks, appeared on cooking shows and fed civil rights greats such as Thurgood Marshall and Martin Luther King Jr. Well into her 90s, Chase could be found every day at the restaurant, using a walker while greeting customers and supervising the kitchen.“I love people and I love serving people. It’s fun for me to serve people. Because sometimes people will come in and they’re tired. And just a little plate of food will make people happy,” she said during a 2015 interview with The Associated Press .At a time when other black Creole women were working in the city’s garment industry, Chase worked as a waitress in the French Quarter, which exposed her to the segregated city’s pricey restaurants frequented by white people.When she married Dooky Chase in 1946, his family restaurant had been open for five years — largely under the guidance of his mother. But Leah Chase wanted to make it a fine dining experience for black patrons, along the lines of what she had seen in the Quarter. Gradually, she introduced silverware on the table, tablecloths and Creole dishes.“I said well why we can’t have that for our people? Why we can’t have a nice space? So I started trying to do different things,” she said.Dooky Chase’s became known as a place where white and black civil rights activists could meet and strategize about voter registration drives or legal cases. Although Chase and her husband were breaking the law by allowing whites and blacks to eat together, police never raided the restaurant.She would also send food to jailed civil rights leaders, sniffing her nose at the notion of them eating prison food.Sybil Morial, a longtime friend of Chase’s, said she’s eaten hundreds of meals at Dooky Chase’s where she was courted by her late husband and the city’s first black mayor, Ernest “Dutch” Morial. On visits to New Orleans, Thurgood Marshall and other lawyers would work with Morial’s husband and NAACP lawyer, A.P. Tureaud, and then head to Dooky’s for lunch or dinner.“It was a haven for them to refresh themselves with wonderful gumbo and it was a place where they could strategize after a hard day’s work,” Morial said.Chase never boasted about her works, saying simply that she did what she thought she had to do.Hurricane Katrina in 2005 devastated her restaurant, where 5 feet (1.5 meters) of water lingered in the dining room for weeks. When the waters eventually receded, mold was everywhere.Chase was already into her 80s, but there was little question regarding the restaurant’s fate. Having evacuated to Birmingham, she and her husband returned to live in a FEMA trailer next to the restaurant for months, while they rebuilt Dooky Chase’s.She and her husband had been married for seven decades when he died in 2016 .Her food always reflected her city, a Creole mixture of Spanish, French, African and other cultures that have influenced New Orleans. She also enjoyed new culinary influences in the city, like the growing number of Vietnamese and Jamaican restaurants.With the exception of two photographs of former President Barack Obama, the restaurant has little evidence of the celebrities and dignitaries who came to eat. Instead of surrounding herself with the past, Chase tended to look forward.“I want to do better,” she said. “I want to have the finest restaurant with the finest food. That’s all I want.” read more