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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss version="2.0" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/" xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/" > <channel> <title>Daily News Update</title> <atom:link href="https://lockednloaded.site/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" /> <link>https://lockednloaded.site</link> <description></description> <lastBuildDate>Sat, 27 Apr 2024 03:10:27 +0000</lastBuildDate> <language>en-US</language> <sy:updatePeriod> hourly </sy:updatePeriod> <sy:updateFrequency> 1 </sy:updateFrequency> <generator>https://wordpress.org/?v=5.3.17</generator> <item> <title>Tornadoes Strike Nebraska and Iowa, Injuring at Least 5</title> <link>https://lockednloaded.site/tornadoes-strike-nebraska-and-iowa-injuring-at-least-5/</link> <pubDate>Sat, 27 Apr 2024 03:10:27 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator><![CDATA[admin]]></dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[USA]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://lockednloaded.site/tornadoes-strike-nebraska-and-iowa-injuring-at-least-5/</guid> <description><![CDATA[Tornadoes tore through parts of Nebraska and Iowa on Friday, leveling dozens of homes, causing the collapse of an industrial building and injuring at least five people, extending an outbreak of severe weather that started the day before. A tornado struck parts of Nebraska, including Omaha and Waverly, leading to the collapse of an industrial […]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p> <br /></p><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Tornadoes tore through parts of Nebraska and Iowa on Friday, leveling dozens of homes, causing the collapse of an industrial building and injuring at least five people, extending an outbreak of severe weather that started the day before.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">A tornado struck parts of Nebraska, including Omaha and Waverly, leading to the collapse of an industrial building, injuring at least three people and prompting a widespread emergency response, officials said.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Images on social media from Iowa also showed widespread damage and leveled buildings in Minden, a city that is a little more than 100 miles west of Des Moines. Gov. Kim Reynolds issued a disaster proclamation for Pottawattamie County, where, the sheriff’s office confirmed, a tornado had swept through.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">In Lancaster County, Nebraska, the sheriff’s office responded to an industrial building at Garner Industries around 3 p.m. and found it “pretty much totally collapsed” with several people trapped inside, Chief Deputy Ben Houchin said.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Three people were taken to a hospital with non-life threatening injuries, he said, adding that roughly 70 people were inside when the tornado struck.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The sheriff’s office also received reports of a derailed train in Waverly, Chief Houchin said, adding, “They didn’t require any emergency assistance, so we’re hoping it’s very minor.”</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The National Weather Service also <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://twitter.com/NWSOmaha/status/1783959670669074458" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">confirmed on social media</a> that a tornado had struck western Omaha.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">At least two people suffered minor injuries in the tornado, which “took out a number of houses,” Todd Schmaderer, the Omaha police chief, said at a news conference on Friday evening.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The Omaha Police Department <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://twitter.com/OmahaPolice/status/1783978809273790714" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">said on social media</a> that emergency personnel were helping those in the path of the tornado and that additional officers were coming to help respond to emergency calls.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Eppley Airfield in Omaha temporarily closed because of the storm, the airport <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://twitter.com/OMAairport/status/1783980207637987371" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">said on social media</a>. It later confirmed that a tornado had touched down there.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Passengers were placed in storm shelters for their safety, the airport said, noting that although the terminal was unaffected, “a number of buildings in the General Aviation area on the east side of airport property sustained damage.”</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">There were no reports of any injuries, the airport said, though footage on social media showed the airport and planes were damaged.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Melanie Colton, 44, said she was preparing to pick up her children from school when she saw the funnel cloud appear and begin to make its way toward her in-laws’ farm home, just outside Waverly.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“The house is really unlivable,” she said. “A lot of the windows are broken out and there’s a tree through the roof. The two sheds in the back yard are destroyed with debris from the sheds spread out about two miles.”</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Ms. Colton’s in-laws, who have lived at the home for 46 years, said that no one was injured, except for the family horse, Shasta, who had to get stitches.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The community has already stepped in and is providing help, as over a dozen neighbors and friends could be seen picking up and moving debris into trash bins. </p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“We’re really appreciative and grateful for all the manpower we’ve already received to get this house back to livable,” Ms. Colton said.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Numerous homes in Elkhorn, Bennington and Waterloo in western Douglas County in Nebraska were also severely damaged, county officials said. Residents were displaced but no fatalities or serious injuries were reported, officials said.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Stephanie Fisher, the city administrator for Waverly, said there were no reports of injuries or damage within the city.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“I’ve been told that a business outside of the city between Waverly and Lincoln has been hit by the tornado, and there’s a large amount of emergency personnel out there,” she said.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The Bryan Trauma Center at Bryan West Campus treated two patients who were injured in the tornadoes in Lancaster County, said a hospital spokesman, Brad Colee. </p><h2 class="css-9ycfei eoo0vm40" id="link-7fa5422f">More severe weather is possible on Saturday</h2></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">A widespread risk of dangerous weather remains possible by Saturday, spreading from Texas to Michigan.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Cities such as Oklahoma City, Kansas City and Dallas could experience severe storms. Hail ranging in size from golf balls to baseballs could fall and damaging winds would be possible.</p><h2 class="css-9ycfei eoo0vm40" id="link-3990d6b0">The risk continues Sunday</h2><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The threat of severe thunderstorms will continue into Sunday, including areas from southeast Texas to western Illinois.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Storms will be slightly less likely to occur but there will still be some risk of some forming and even producing a couple of tornadoes, and generating quarter-size hail and damaging winds.</p><p class="css-798hid etfikam0">Livia Albeck-Ripka<!-- --> contributed reporting.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><p><script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/25/us/tornado-storms-plains-oklahoma.html">Source link </a></p>]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Columbia Says Student Protesters Agree to More Talks and to Remove Some Tents</title> <link>https://lockednloaded.site/columbia-says-student-protesters-agree-to-more-talks-and-to-remove-some-tents/</link> <pubDate>Wed, 24 Apr 2024 15:09:54 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator><![CDATA[admin]]></dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[USA]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://lockednloaded.site/columbia-says-student-protesters-agree-to-more-talks-and-to-remove-some-tents/</guid> <description><![CDATA[Columbia University awoke Wednesday to a calendar that lays bare the breadth of its troubles. House Speaker Mike Johnson was expected on campus to visit with Jewish students. The university president, Nemat Shafik, was preparing to confer with the university senate, which could censure her as soon as Friday. And protesters and university officials were […]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p> <br /></p><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Columbia University awoke Wednesday to a calendar that lays bare the breadth of its troubles.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">House Speaker Mike Johnson was expected on campus to visit with Jewish students. The university president, Nemat Shafik, was preparing to confer with the university senate, which could censure her as soon as Friday. And protesters and university officials were negotiating over the possible dismantling of an encampment that is dominating a swath of the campus lawn.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Overnight, the university and protesters narrowly avoided another confrontation that could have involved the police.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Dr. Shafik had warned Tuesday evening of a midnight deadline for the demonstrators to disperse, but around 3 a.m. Wednesday, the university said in a statement that student protesters had agreed to remove a significant number of the tents erected on the lawn, ensure non-students would leave, and bar discriminatory or harassing language among the protesters.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“In light of this constructive dialogue, the university will continue conversations for the next 48 hours,” the university said, less than one week after Dr. Shafik’s decision to ask the New York Police Department to clear the protest. That move led to the arrest of more than 100 students and reignited a divisive debate over free speech and the need to protect Jewish students who have felt threatened.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Hours before it announced the continuing talks, the university had said it was prepared to consider “alternative options” for clearing the tent city. The warning had alarmed student organizers, who told protesters to expect a police sweep overnight. Protest leaders instructed demonstrators to wear a red band if they were willing to be arrested and a yellow one if not.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">A student group, which was previously <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/15/nyregion/columbia-university-ban-student-groups-israel-hamas-war.html" title="">suspended</a> by the university, said in a statement that school administrators had threatened to call in the National Guard if protesters did not disperse. A spokeswoman for Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York pointed to her earlier comments that she had no plans to deploy the Guard.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">After months of demonstrations on campuses protesting the war in Gaza, the unrest has reached a fever pitch in the final weeks of classes at some of the country’s most storied academic institutions. On Monday, police were called in to make dozens of arrests at Yale and New York University. Encampments have also sprung up at Tufts, Emerson and the University of California, Berkeley.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Administrators at campuses across the nation have been struggling to balance students’ free speech rights and the need to protect Jewish students. Some demonstrations have included hate speech, threats or support for Hamas, the armed group based in Gaza that led attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, sparking the war.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Mr. Johnson’s visit to campus will not include a meeting with Dr. Shafik. Instead, he is expected to focus, his office said, on the “troubling rise of virulent antisemitism on America’s college campuses.” His trip will turn the spotlight of Washington toward the university again — Columbia was the subject of a congressional hearing last Wednesday — just as Dr. Shafik is also scrambling to navigate the campus’s politics.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Some university senate leaders are hoping that her appearance at an emergency meeting will help to calm faculty members, many of whom remain furious over the decision to call in the police officers who made more than 100 arrests last Thursday.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“I don’t expect it to be a love fest,” Brendan O’Flaherty, a professor of urban economics who serves in the senate, predicted of the meeting.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Protest management is a particularly resonant matter for modern Columbia presidents, who have known well how Grayson L. Kirk’s tenure came to a turbulent close after endemic criticism about his handling of demonstrations in 1968, when he summoned the police to the private university.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The university senate could vote on a resolution to censure Dr. Shafik as soon as Friday — not long after the 48-hour negotiation period concludes.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Dr. O’Flaherty declined to gauge the temperature of the senate, noting that it is a complex organization of more than 100 faculty members, students, alumni and administrators from a wide range of academic disciplines.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">But the draft resolution is harsh and accuses Dr. Shafik of violating fundamental rules by ignoring a 13-member senate executive committee that had unanimously rejected her request to summon armed New York City Police onto the campus.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">By calling in the police anyway, the resolution said, Dr. Shafik had endangered both the welfare and the futures of the arrested students.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">A censure vote is meant to show disapproval in a leader’s performance. It is a step short of a vote of “no confidence,” which is essentially a call for a leader’s removal.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Columbia has so far rebuffed calls for Dr. Shafik’s resignation, including one Monday from some of Mr. Johnson’s House Republicans.</p><p class="css-798hid etfikam0">Eryn Davis<!-- -->, <!-- -->Annie Karni<!-- -->, <!-- -->Santul Nerkar<!-- -->, <!-- -->Katherine Rosman<!-- -->, <!-- -->Karla Marie Sanford<!-- --> and <!-- -->Ed Shanahan<!-- --> contributed reporting.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><p><script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/23/us/columbia-protests-encampment.html">Source link </a></p>]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>As Protests Continue at Columbia, Some Jewish Students Feel Targeted</title> <link>https://lockednloaded.site/as-protests-continue-at-columbia-some-jewish-students-feel-targeted/</link> <pubDate>Mon, 22 Apr 2024 03:09:24 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator><![CDATA[admin]]></dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[USA]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://lockednloaded.site/as-protests-continue-at-columbia-some-jewish-students-feel-targeted/</guid> <description><![CDATA[Days after Columbia University’s president testified before Congress, the atmosphere on campus remained fraught on Sunday, shaken by pro-Palestinian protests that have drawn the attention of the police and the concern of some Jewish students. Over the weekend, the student-led demonstrations on campus also attracted separate, more agitated protests by demonstrators who seemed to be […]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p> <br /></p><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Days after Columbia University’s president testified before Congress, the atmosphere on campus remained fraught on Sunday, shaken by pro-Palestinian protests that have drawn the attention of the police and the concern of some Jewish students.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Over the weekend, the student-led demonstrations on campus also attracted separate, more agitated protests by demonstrators who seemed to be unaffiliated with the university just outside Columbia’s gated campus in Upper Manhattan, which was closed to the public because of the protests.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Some of those protests took a dark turn on Saturday evening, leading to the harassment of some Jewish students who were targeted with antisemitic vitriol. The verbal attacks left some of the 5,000 Jewish students at Columbia fearful for their safety on the campus and its vicinity, and even drew condemnation from the White House and Mayor Eric Adams of New York City.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“While every American has the right to peaceful protest, calls for violence and physical intimidation targeting Jewish students and the Jewish community are blatantly antisemitic, unconscionable and dangerous,” Andrew Bates, a spokesman for the White House, said in a statement.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">But Jewish students who are supporting the pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campus said they felt solidarity, not a sense of danger, even as they denounced the acts of antisemitism.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“There’s so many young Jewish people who are like a vital part” of the protests, said Grant Miner, a Jewish graduate student at Columbia who is part of a student coalition calling on Columbia to divest from companies connected to Israel.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">And in a statement, that group said, “We are frustrated by media distractions focusing on inflammatory individuals who do not represent us” and added that the group’s members “firmly reject any form of hate or bigotry.”</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Reports of antisemitic harassment by protesters surfaced on social media late Saturday. A video <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://twitter.com/Davidlederer6/status/1781948249214996901" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">posted on X</a> shows a masked protester outside the Columbia gates carrying a Palestinian flag who appears to chant “Go back to Poland!” One Columbia student wrote on social media that some protesters had stolen an Israeli flag from students and tried to burn it, adding that Jewish students were splashed with water.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Chabad at Columbia University, a chapter of an international Orthodox Jewish movement, said <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://twitter.com/MarkLevineNYC/status/1782133257695318082" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">in a statement</a> that some protesters had hurled expletives at Jewish students as they walked home from campus over the weekend, and had said to them, “All you do is colonize” and “Go back to Europe.”</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“We are horrified and worried about physical safety” on campus, said the statement, adding that the organization had hired additional armed guards to chaperone students walking home from Chabad.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Eliana Goldin, a junior at Columbia who is the co-chairwoman of Aryeh, a pro-Israel student organization, said she did not “feel safe anymore” on campus. Ms. Goldin, who is out of town for Passover, said campus had become “super overwhelming,” with loud protests disrupting class and even sleep.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">In a statement, Samantha Slater, a Columbia spokeswoman, said that the university was committed to ensuring the safety of its students.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“Columbia students have the right to protest, but they are not allowed to disrupt campus life or harass and intimidate fellow students and members of our community,” said the statement. “We are acting on concerns we are hearing from our Jewish students and are providing additional support and resources to ensure that our community remains safe.”</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The upheaval on and around the Columbia campus this week marked the latest fallout from the testimony that the university’s president, Nemat Shafik, <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/17/nyregion/columbia-university-president-nemat-shafik-hearing.html" title="">gave at a congressional hearing on antisemitism</a> on Wednesday.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Dr. Shafik vowed to forcefully crack down on antisemitism on campus, in part by disciplining professors and student protesters who used language she said could be antisemitic, such as contested phrases like “from the river to the sea.” Her testimony, meant as an assertive display of Columbia’s actions to combat antisemitism, angered supporters of academic freedom and emboldened a group of protesting students who had erected an encampment of about 50 tents on a main lawn in the campus this week.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">University officials said the tents violated the school’s policies and called in the New York Police Department on Thursday, leading to the arrests of more than 100 Columbia University and Barnard College students who refused to leave. But the police involvement only fueled the uproar. Students pressed on with their “Gaza Solidarity Encampment,” sleeping in the cold without tents on a neighboring lawn, and some began to erect tents again on Sunday, without Columbia’s permission.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Students who support the protesters say there is a wide range of opinion among Jewish students at Columbia. “To say that it’s unsafe for Jewish people, to me, indicates that you’re only speaking about a certain portion of Jewish people,” Mr. Miner, 27, said at the university on Sunday.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“We are totally opposed to any sort of antisemitic speech,” he added. “We are here to, you know, stand in solidarity with Palestine. And we refuse — our Jewish members refuse — to equate that with antisemitism.”</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Makayla Gubbay, a junior studying human rights at Columbia, said that as a Jewish student, she has mostly been concerned for the safety of her peers protesting for Palestinians.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Ms. Gubbay said that throughout the past six months her friends — particularly those who are Palestinian and other students who are Muslim — have been injured by the police and censored for their activism. Though she was not involved in the organizing of the encampment, she went there for the Sabbath on Friday, attended a speech given by a participant in <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/18/nyregion/columbia-protest-1968-vietnam.html" title="">Columbia’s intense 1968 protest</a> and brought hot tea for friends.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“There’s been a lot of amazing solidarity in terms of other students coming on campus, hosting Shabbats, hosting screenings, having faculty give speeches,” Ms. Gubbay said. </p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Columbia officials have previously said there have been several antisemitic incidents on campus, including one physical attack in October — the <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/12/nyregion/columbia-university-israel-hamas-protests.html" title="">assault of a 24-year-old Columbia student</a> who was hanging fliers a few days after the Hamas attacks on Israel in October.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">While many Jewish students had left campus to celebrate Passover, which begins on Monday evening, the rising tensions led at least one rabbi on campus to suggest that the Ivy League school was no longer safe and that Jewish students should leave.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Elie Buechler, an Orthodox rabbi who works at Columbia, sent a WhatsApp message to a group of more than 290 Jewish students on Sunday morning saying that campus and city police had failed to guarantee the safety of Jewish students “in the face of extreme antisemitism and anarchy.” He recommended that students return home “until the reality in and around campus has dramatically improved.”</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“It is not our job as Jews to ensure our own safety on campus,” wrote Rabbi Buechler, the director of the Orthodox Union’s Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus at Columbia University and Barnard College. “No one should have to endure this level of hatred, let alone at school.”</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Citing Passover preparations, Rabbi Buechler declined to be interviewed, but he said that his message was meant as a personal statement and did not reflect the views of the university or Hillel, the Jewish organization on campus.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Indeed, in an apparent response, Hillel issued a statement on Sunday afternoon saying that the organization did not believe that Jewish students should leave Columbia, but it pressed the university and the city to step up safety measures.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“We call on the university administration to act immediately in restoring calm to campus,” Brian Cohen, the group’s executive director, wrote. “The city must ensure that students can walk up and down Broadway and Amsterdam without fear of harassment,” he added, referring to the avenues that run alongside the Upper West Side campus.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Noah Levine, 20, a sophomore at Columbia and an organizer with Jewish Voice for Peace, said they found the rabbi’s comments “deeply offensive.”</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“I’m a Jewish student who has been in this encampment since its inception,” they said. “I’m also a student who has been organizing in this community with these people since October, and even before that, and I believe in my heart that this is not about antisemitism.”</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">But Xavier Westergaard, a Ph.D. student in biology, said the mood for Jewish students was “very dire.”</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“There are students on campus who are yelling horrible things, not about Israelis only or about the actions of the state or the government, but about Jews in general,” he said.</p><p class="css-798hid etfikam0">Sharon Otterman<!-- --> contributed reporting.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><p><script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/21/nyregion/columbia-protests-antisemitism.html">Source link </a></p>]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Taylor Swift’s ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ Arrives</title> <link>https://lockednloaded.site/taylor-swifts-the-tortured-poets-department-arrives/</link> <pubDate>Fri, 19 Apr 2024 15:04:51 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator><![CDATA[admin]]></dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[USA]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://lockednloaded.site/taylor-swifts-the-tortured-poets-department-arrives/</guid> <description><![CDATA[Taylor Swift was already the most ubiquitous pop star in the galaxy, her presence dominating the music charts, the concert calendar, the Super Bowl, the Grammys. Then it came time for her to promote a new album. In the days leading up to the release of “The Tortured Poets Department” on Friday, Swift became all […]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p> <br /></p><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Taylor Swift was already the most ubiquitous pop star in the galaxy, her presence dominating the music charts, the concert calendar, the Super Bowl, the Grammys.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Then it came time for her to promote a new album.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">In the days leading up to the release of “The Tortured Poets Department” on Friday, Swift became all but inescapable, online and seemingly everywhere else. Her lyrics were the basis for an Apple Music word game. A Spotify-sponsored, Swift-branded “library installation,” in muted pink and gray, popped up in a shopping complex in Los Angeles. In Chicago, a QR code painted on a brick wall directed fans to another Easter egg on YouTube. Videos on Swift’s social media accounts, showing antique typewriters and globes with pins, were dissected for clues about her music. SiriusXM added a Swift radio station; of course it’s called Channel 13 (Taylor’s Version).</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">About the only thing Swift didn’t do was an interview with a journalist.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">At this stage in Swift’s career, an album release is more than just a moment to sell music; it’s all but a given that “The Tortured Poets Department” will open with gigantic sales numbers, many of them for “ghost white,” “phantom clear” and other collector-ready vinyl variants. More than that, the album’s arrival is a test of the celebrity-industrial complex overall, with tech platforms and media outlets racing to capture whatever piece of the fan frenzy they can get.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Threads, the newish social media platform from Meta, primed Swifties for their idol’s arrival there, and offered fans who shared Swift’s first Threads post a custom badge. Swift stunned the music industry last week by <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/11/arts/music/taylor-swift-tiktok-umg-music.html" title="">breaking ranks</a> with her record label, Universal, and returning her music to TikTok, which Universal and other industry groups have said pays far too little in royalties. Overnight, TikTok unveiled “The Ultimate Taylor Swift In-App Experience,” offering fans digital goodies like a “Tortured Poets-inspired animation” on their feed.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Before the album’s release on Friday, Swift revealed that a music video — for “Fortnight,” the first single, featuring Post Malone — would arrive on Friday at 8 p.m. Eastern time. At 2 a.m., she had another surprise: 15 more songs. “I’d written so much tortured poetry in the past 2 years and wanted to share it all with you,” she wrote in a <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C57qcCPucLV/" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">social media post</a>, bringing “The Anthology” edition of the album to 31 tracks.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“The Tortured Poets Department,” which Swift, 34, announced in a Grammy acceptance speech in February — she had the Instagram post ready to go — lands as Swift’s profile continues to rise to ever-higher levels of cultural saturation.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Her Eras Tour, begun last year, has been a global phenomenon, crashing Ticketmaster and lifting local economies; by some estimates, it might bring in as much as $2 billion in ticket sales — by far a new record — before it ends later this year. Swift’s romance with the Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce has been breathlessly tracked from its first flirtations last summer to their smooch on the Super Bowl field in February. The mere thought that Swift might endorse a presidential candidate this year sent conspiracy-minded politicos reeling.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“The Tortured Poets Department” — don’t even ask about the missing apostrophe — arrived accompanied by a poem written by Stevie Nicks that begins, “He was in love with her/Or at least she thought so.” That establishes what many fans correctly anticipated as the album’s theme of heartbreak and relationship rot, Swift’s signature topic. “I love you/It’s ruining my life,” she sings on “Fortnight.”</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Fans were especially primed for the fifth track, “So Long, London,” given that (1) Swift <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.tiktok.com/@xorcontent/video/7241546673565043994?lang=en" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">has said</a> she often sequences her most vulnerable and emotionally intense songs fifth on an LP, and (2) the title suggested it may be about Joe Alwyn, the English actor who was Swift’s boyfriend for about six years, reportedly until early 2023. Indeed, “So Long” is an epic breakup tune, with lines like “You left me at the house by the heath” and “I’m pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free.” Tracks from the album leaked on Wednesday, and fans have also interpreted some songs as being about Matty Healy, the frontman of the band the 1975, whom Swift was briefly linked to last year.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The album’s title song starts with a classic Swift detail of a memento from a lost love: “You left your typewriter at my apartment/Straight from the tortured poets department.” It also name-drops Dylan Thomas, Patti Smith and, somewhat surprisingly given that company, Charlie Puth, the singer-songwriter who crooned the hook on Wiz Khalifa’s “See You Again,” a No. 1 hit in 2015. (Swift has <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d31gQjsmaxs" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">praised Wiz Khalifa</a> and that song in the past.)</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Other big moments include “Florida!!!,” featuring Florence Welch of Florence + the Machine, in which Swift declares — after seven big percussive bangs — that the state “is one hell of a drug.” Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner, the producers and songwriters who have been Swift’s primary collaborators in recent years, both worked on “Tortured Poets,” bringing their signature mix of moody, pulsating electronic tracks and delicate acoustic moments, like a bare piano on “Loml” (as in “love of my life”).</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">As the ninth LP Swift has released in five years, “Tortured Poets” is the latest entry in a remarkable creative streak. That includes five new studio albums and four rerecordings of her old music — each of which sailed to No. 1. When Swift played SoFi Stadium near Los Angeles in August, she spoke from the stage about her recording spurt, saying that the forced break from touring during the Covid-19 pandemic had spurred her to connect with fans by releasing more music.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“And so I decided, in order to keep that connection going,” she said, “if I couldn’t play live shows with you, I was going to make and release as many albums as humanly possible.”</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">That was two albums ago.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><p><script async defer src="https://platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js"></script><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/19/arts/music/taylor-swift-tortured-poets-department.html">Source link </a></p>]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Johnson’s Plan for Ukraine Aid Meets Republican Pushback, Muddying Its Path</title> <link>https://lockednloaded.site/johnsons-plan-for-ukraine-aid-meets-republican-pushback-muddying-its-path/</link> <pubDate>Wed, 17 Apr 2024 03:04:11 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator><![CDATA[admin]]></dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[USA]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://lockednloaded.site/johnsons-plan-for-ukraine-aid-meets-republican-pushback-muddying-its-path/</guid> <description><![CDATA[Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday encountered stiff resistance from Republicans as he embarked on a complicated and politically perilous strategy to push legislation through the House to send aid to Israel and Ukraine — all while beating back a threat to his own job. Mr. Johnson, who has agonized for months over whether and how […]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p> <br /></p><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday encountered stiff resistance from Republicans as he embarked on a complicated and politically perilous strategy to push legislation through the House to send aid to Israel and Ukraine — all while beating back a threat to his own job.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Mr. Johnson, who has agonized for months over whether and how to advance aid to Ukraine that many in his party bitterly oppose, has settled on a multipart plan that will require everything to go right for him this week to prevail.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">It aims to bring together a complicated mix of bipartisan coalitions and allow different factions in the House to register their opposition to pieces of the aid package without sinking the entire thing. And it would ultimately mean cobbling together just enough support from Democrats and mainstream Republicans to pass the legislation amid resistance from hard-right Republicans to Ukraine funding and among left-wing Democrats to unfettered aid for Israel.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Mr. Johnson plans to advance a legislative package that roughly mirrors the $95 billion aid bill the Senate passed two months ago with aid to Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and other American allies — but broken down into three separate pieces that would each be voted on individually. There would also be a fourth vote on a separate measure containing other policies popular among Republicans, including conditioning Ukraine aid as a loan.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The strategy has run into a flurry of opposition from members of his own party, including one Republican, Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who on Tuesday announced that he would join a threatened bid to remove Mr. Johnson from the top post.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“We’re steering toward everything Chuck Schumer wants,” Mr. Massie said of the aid package, referring to the Senate majority leader in explaining his decision to reporters after the meeting.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Mr. Johnson said he chose the approach because “every member, Republican and Democrat, can vote their own district and their own conscience on this thing.” It would allow, for example, Republicans who support aid for Israel but abhor aid for Ukraine to register each position separately, instead of forcing them to support or reject a combined foreign aid bill.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“The will of the House is to address it in single subjects, in regular order, in a regular process with an amendment process,” he said on “Fox and Friends.”</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">If all four pieces passed the House, they would then be folded into a single bill for the Senate to take up, in an effort to ensure that senators could not cherry-pick pieces to approve or reject.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Mr. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said he was “reserving judgment” on the legislative package “until we see more about the substance of the proposal and the process by which the proposal will proceed.”</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">House Republican leadership aides were working on Tuesday to put together the bill text. But some members of Mr. Johnson’s own party were already balking.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Mr. Massie, a libertarian-leaning lawmaker who was a leader of the effort to oust John A. Boehner as speaker nearly a decade ago, endorsed the ouster effort against Mr. Johnson led by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, making him the second Republican to do so. In a closed-door meeting on Tuesday morning, he stood and told Mr. Johnson that he should announce a resignation date and allow Republicans to choose a new speaker before he relinquished the top post.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Representative Chip Roy of Texas, an influential conservative, said he was unhappy that Mr. Johnson had not included any border security measures in the foreign aid package — as he previously had insisted he would — and opposed the idea of sending the separate measures to the Senate in one package.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“Don’t use Israel as a way to force Ukraine down the throats of the American people without having border security,” Mr. Roy said.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The speaker’s plan, he said, “is being sold as an open process, but it’s all structured to achieve a final omnibus result which is going to be effectively similar to the Senate bill.”</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Despite conservative frustration with the plan, it seemed far from clear that other Republicans would join Ms. Greene’s effort to oust another speaker, after Kevin McCarthy was removed from the position last October. Mr. Massie’s announcement on Tuesday prompted open frustration from mainstream Republicans and even some conservatives, who said they did not want to go through another painful ouster.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“We don’t need that,” said Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio. “No way. No way. We don’t want that. We shouldn’t go through that again.”</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">And a group of mainstream conservatives rallied to Mr. Johnson’s side. In a remarkable joint statement, all three leaders of the national security panels in the House — Representatives Michael McCaul of Texas, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee; Mike Turner of Ohio, chairman of the Intelligence Committee; and Mike Rogers of Alabama, chairman of the Armed Services Committee — endorsed the plan. Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma, the Appropriations chairman, also signed on.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“There is nothing our adversaries would love more than if Congress were to fail to pass critical national security aid,” they wrote. “Speaker Johnson has produced a plan that will boost U.S. national security interests in Europe, the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific. We don’t have time to spare when it comes to our national security. We need to pass this aid package this week.”</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Mr. Johnson defended his decision on Tuesday and flatly ruled out resigning.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“I regard myself as a wartime speaker,” he said at a news conference at the Capitol minutes after the closed-door meeting. “In a literal sense, we are. I knew that when I took the gavel. I didn’t anticipate that this would be an easy path.”</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Former President Donald J. Trump, who gave <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/12/us/politics/trump-mike-johnson-election-2020.html" title="">Mr. Johnson a boost in a joint appearance last week</a> but has recently upended the speaker’s legislative agenda, was circumspect when asked on Tuesday about Mr. Johnson while making a campaign stop after proceedings in his New York criminal case.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“Well, we’ll see what happens with that,” Mr. Trump said. “I think he’s a very good person.”</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Even getting the national security package to the House floor for a vote would require extraordinary measures. Given mounting Republican opposition and the party’s razor-thin majority, it appeared certain that Mr. Johnson would not be able to bring up the bill, which requires a floor vote, without Democratic support.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The minority party almost never votes for a rule advanced by the majority in the House. But Democrats previously helped pave the way for legislation to suspend the debt ceiling, averting the nation’s first-ever default, and have since signaled that they might be willing to come to Mr. Johnson’s aid on issues of critical importance.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">At least one Democrat, Representative Jared Moskowitz of Florida, suggested on Tuesday that he would move to save Mr. Johnson if hard-right Republicans forced a vote to remove him, a move that Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, has suggested many in his party would consider.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“Massie wants the world to burn, I won’t stand by and watch,” Mr. Moskowitz wrote on social media. “I have a bucket of water.”</p><p class="css-798hid etfikam0">Michael Gold<!-- --> contributed reporting from New York.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><p><br /><br /><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/16/us/politics/house-ukraine-israel-johnson.html">Source link </a></p>]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>What Are Heat Pumps, and How Do They Work?</title> <link>https://lockednloaded.site/what-are-heat-pumps-and-how-do-they-work/</link> <pubDate>Sun, 14 Apr 2024 15:02:39 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator><![CDATA[admin]]></dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[USA]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://lockednloaded.site/what-are-heat-pumps-and-how-do-they-work/</guid> <description><![CDATA[The highly efficient devices are the darlings of the environmental movement. Here’s why. Source link]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p> <br /><br />The highly efficient devices are the darlings of the environmental movement. Here’s why.<br /><br /><br /><br />Source link </p>]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>California’s $20 fast-food minimum wage is a boon to the working class. But how will small businesses fare?</title> <link>https://lockednloaded.site/californias-20-fast-food-minimum-wage-is-a-boon-to-the-working-class-but-how-will-small-businesses-fare/</link> <pubDate>Sun, 14 Apr 2024 15:02:33 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator><![CDATA[admin]]></dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[USA]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://lockednloaded.site/californias-20-fast-food-minimum-wage-is-a-boon-to-the-working-class-but-how-will-small-businesses-fare/</guid> <description><![CDATA[Justin Foronda is the type of creative, motivated, second-generation entrepreneur who should be able to thrive in Los Angeles. Born and raised in Historic Filipinotown, Foronda opened HiFi Kitchen in 2019 and kept the doors open during the pandemic’s economic disruptions through pure hustle. Last year the 37-year-old staged a Filipino holiday market across the […]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p> <br /><br /><img src="https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/1d8f773/2147483647/strip/false/crop/6240x4160+0+0/resize/1500x1000!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F13%2F0e%2Fcf87c27640c68e735b815ad6c425%2Fla-photos-1staff-476310-me-1223-filipino-mwy-0066-2.JPG" /></p><div data-element="story-body" data-subscriber-content=""><p>Justin Foronda is the type of creative, motivated, second-generation entrepreneur who should be able to thrive in Los Angeles. </p><p>Born and raised in Historic Filipinotown, Foronda opened HiFi Kitchen in 2019 and kept the doors open during the pandemic’s economic disruptions through pure hustle. </p><p>Last year the 37-year-old staged a Filipino holiday market across the street from HiFi to draw crowds to the neighborhood. He started a board game night at the store to bring in customers. Next weekend he’s organized a panel of DJs and emcees to discuss the history of Filipinos in hip-hop, and he’s created drink and meal specials for each panelist. </p><p>He’s also tried opening a gift shop, selling apparel and doing desserts. He offers new specials almost every week. Foronda also works weekends as a nurse — and ends up floating the restaurant a lot of those earnings. </p><p>All that effort has earned him nearly 6,000 followers on Instagram and kept the restaurant open for five years — no small feat given the economic contortions of the last half decade. But with California’s new minimum wage for fast-food workers taking effect this month, Foronda says he’s starting to run out of gas. </p><p>He supports a higher minimum wage and tries to pay his employees generously. But the minimum wage is rising so fast that the increased compensation he planned to offer as a retention strategy quickly becomes the new minimum.</p><p>“It’s like we’re playing Mario Kart, and we’re just always trying to make it to that boost,” Foronda said.</p><p>Small-business owners across Los Angeles are facing a more expensive reality in which the pandemic’s price disruptions have become permanent. Foronda said sometimes eggs are $40 a case, and sometimes they’re $125. So what should he charge for an extra egg? </p><p>The new minimum wage is a valuable attempt to rectify the state’s burgeoning income inequality. More money in the hands of fast-food workers — who are more likely to be women, immigrants and minorities — is a good thing. </p><p>Fast food is and always has been too cheap. The McDonald’s dollar menu and 50-cent Jack in the Box tacos have become anachronisms in a world where an extra scoop of guacamole at Chipotle costs nearly $3. Fast-food companies have used their dominant position in the labor market to keep wages and prices excessively low, said Michael Reich, a labor economist and professor at UC Berkeley.</p><p>“If they increase their prices a bit, the demand for hamburgers isn’t going to fall very much,” Reich said, referring to big fast-food chains.</p><p>But the new fast-food wage changes the labor equation for all small businesses that compete for entry-level workers. A higher fast-food wage exerts upward pressure on all those wages, creating an additional stress for businesses already struggling to pay elevated urban rents. Restaurant and retail shops facing expensive commercial rental rates and increased supply-chain costs must now decide whether to raise prices, and by how much. </p><p>“These grassroots businesses are part of the glue that holds communities together, and they’re what give the community an identity,” said Chris Tilly, a labor economics and professor of urban planning at UCLA. “A Starbucks just does not play the same role.”</p><p>At Paul’s Kitchen in downtown Los Angeles, manager Charlie Ng has reduced the storied diner’s hours to save on labor costs. They’re closed on Tuesdays now, and no longer open for dinner hours. They’re staying afloat thanks to some pandemic-related government aid, but Ng’s not sure what to do after that runs out. </p><p>Ng raised prices when ingredients got expensive, but he tries to keep the increases under a dollar. Customers have been understanding, Ng said.</p><p>“The customers don’t complain about the price right now,” Ng said. “Even they see how expensive everything is becoming,”</p><p>Reich, the economist, said the immediate effects of the wage hike will not be extreme because many entry-level jobs already pay more than minimum wage. </p><p>But a lot of small businesses, especially those located in high-rent urban areas, can’t afford to absorb any new costs. If we want small, non-chain businesses to be a part of Los Angeles’s future, we have to level the playing field. Individual business owners will continue to lose ground to highly-capitalized real estate interests unless we construct an economy where operating a small business is truly viable. In Berkeley, for example, small businesses have access to a special loan fund and enjoy a simplified permitting process.</p><p>A high minimum wage can be a part of that future. More money in the hands of fast-food workers means more spending power in communities and neighborhoods that need it, and more income for local businesses. But someone always has to pay the price for California’s progressive politics, and too often it is minorities, immigrants and wage workers that get the bill. </p><p>Meanwhile, Foronda is trying to keep his goals modest. He began the year hoping to make it to February, the restaurant’s five-year anniversary. His new short-term goal is October, Filipino American History Month. If the business has to end then, at least he’ll be able to go out with a bang.</p><p>“Five years was always the point in which I was going to step back and take a look at how this fits in my life, how my health is, how my mom’s health is,” Foronda said. “So now we’re here.”</p></p></div><p>Source link </p>]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>As Trial Looms, Trump Plays to a Jury of Millions</title> <link>https://lockednloaded.site/as-trial-looms-trump-plays-to-a-jury-of-millions/</link> <pubDate>Sun, 14 Apr 2024 14:58:48 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator><![CDATA[admin]]></dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[USA]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://lockednloaded.site/as-trial-looms-trump-plays-to-a-jury-of-millions/</guid> <description><![CDATA[The former president has also taken aim at some of Mr. Bragg’s key witnesses, hurling threats and social media screeds in their direction. Mr. Cohen, in particular, has felt the brunt of the attacks from Mr. Trump, who has sued him, called him a “rat” and referred to him as “death.” Their confrontation in the […]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p> <br /></p><div><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The former president has also taken aim at some of Mr. Bragg’s key witnesses, hurling threats and social media screeds in their direction. Mr. Cohen, in particular, has felt the brunt of the attacks from Mr. Trump, who has sued him, called him a “rat” and referred to him as “death.” Their confrontation in the courtroom, where Mr. Cohen will be the star witness, is expected to be the climactic moment of the trial.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">But if Mr. Trump were to take the stand, Mr. Cohen would be quickly overshadowed. The former president is likely to delay a final decision until he knows whether the judge will restrict prosecutors’ efforts to cross-examine him, and until he can assess the performance of his former fixer.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The jurors will be assessing Mr. Cohen, too. If even one does not believe his testimony, the trial could end with a hung jury, a clear victory for the former president. Todd Blanche, the lawyer leading the case, has told Mr. Trump in recent weeks that he can win the trial, people with knowledge of the discussion said.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The case could be won or lost during jury selection, in the next two weeks. The expectation is that many potential jurors will be Manhattan Democrats with animus for Mr. Trump. The former president’s lawyers are hoping to spot sympathizers and will focus on younger Black men and white working-class men.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">But Mr. Trump may struggle even with sympathetic jurors if he chooses to testify. At the civil fraud trial, the judge — who decided that case instead of a jury — was not impressed.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">He “rarely responded to the questions asked, and he frequently interjected long, irrelevant speeches,” the judge wrote in his decision, adding, “His refusal to answer the questions directly, or in some cases, at all, severely compromised his credibility.”</p></div><p><br /><br />Source link </p>]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>‘I’m gonna O.J. you’: How the Simpson case changed perceptions — and the law — on domestic violence</title> <link>https://lockednloaded.site/im-gonna-o-j-you-how-the-simpson-case-changed-perceptions-and-the-law-on-domestic-violence/</link> <pubDate>Sun, 14 Apr 2024 14:58:46 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator><![CDATA[admin]]></dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[USA]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://lockednloaded.site/im-gonna-o-j-you-how-the-simpson-case-changed-perceptions-and-the-law-on-domestic-violence/</guid> <description><![CDATA[It wasn’t long after the televised spectacle of O.J. Simpson fleeing a phalanx of police cars in a slow-moving white Ford Bronco on June 17, 1994, that batterers across Los Angeles adopted a bone-chilling new threat. I’m gonna O.J. you. “We all heard it working with our clients,” said Gail Pincus, executive director of the […]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p> <br /><br /><img src="https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/b7d157a/2147483647/strip/false/crop/2407x1735+0+0/resize/1500x1081!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fzbk%2Fdamlat_images%2FLA%2FLA_PHOTO_ARCHIVE%2FSDOCS%2835%29%2Flvju98p7.JPG" /></p><div data-element="story-body" data-subscriber-content=""><p>It wasn’t long after the televised spectacle of O.J. Simpson fleeing a phalanx of police cars in a slow-moving white Ford Bronco on June 17, 1994, that batterers across Los Angeles adopted a bone-chilling new threat. </p><p><i>I’m gonna O.J. you</i>. </p><p>“We all heard it working with our clients,” said Gail Pincus, executive director of the Domestic Abuse Center in Los Angeles. “I heard it directly from the abusers. It was a form of intimidation, of silencing and getting compliance from their victims.” </p><p>Abuse survivors, meanwhile, flooded rape and battery hotlines and shelters, telling advocates: <i>I don’t want to be the next Nicole</i>. </p><p>The phone “was almost off the hook,” said Patti Giggans, executive director of Peace over Violence, then called the Los Angeles Commission on Assaults Against Women. “We were overloaded.” </p><p>“People were reaching out for help; they wanted to know, ‘Could that be me? Could that happen to <i>me</i>?’” she said. “It was a revelation that somebody could die.” </p><p>For the American public, the slayings of Simpson’s ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman were practically inescapable in those days. An estimated 95 million people watched the Bronco chase on television. Some 150 million tuned in for the verdict in 1995, when Simpson was acquitted.</p><p>The killings took place at a pivotal moment for domestic violence in California and the United States, catapulting what had long been considered a private problem into the public sphere. </p><p>“That murder captivated people. You could not escape from it,” said author and abuse survivor Myriam Gurba, whose 2023 essay collection “Creep: Accusations and Confessions” explores gender violence. </p><p>The case threw into stark reality a devastating truth — that domestic violence is uniquely deadly for women and girls. Between a third and half of all female homicide victims in the U.S. are killed by a current or former male partner, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Bureau of Justice Statistics. </p><p>That percentage that has held steady for decades, even as the overall number of killings has plunged, from about 23,000 homicides nationwide in 1994 to an estimated 18,000 in 2023. </p><p>Few victims and even fewer lawmakers knew those statistics before Simpson‘s arrest. But the case got people talking.</p><p>“That was a huge learning curve even within the movement,” said Erica Villa of Next Door Solutions to Domestic Violence in San José. </p><p>In the wake of Simpson’s death from cancer on Wednesday, many domestic violence survivors’ advocates recalled how much changed because of the case — and how much remains the same.</p><h2 id="we-need-to-push-this-now" class="subhead">‘We need to push this now’</h2><p>Giggans was among the millions who watched the Bronco chase on live TV. But unlike most, she was watching with a plan. </p><p>“I remember watching it, eating Haagen-Dazs ice cream in my living room in Mar Vista with about six other advocates for domestic violence prevention,” she said. “None of us could get enough of it at the time. But we had an ulterior motive because, for us, it was an educational opportunity. [Suddenly] the media cared what we had to say.” </p><p>By then, national news outlets had already uncovered police reports and court records detailing Simpson’s abuse, including a no-contest plea to battery charges stemming from a bloody incident in 1989. </p><p>News vans began camping around the block at the Los Angeles Commission on Assaults Against Women’s Hollywood Boulevard headquarters, queuing up for interviews. Overnight, advocates became sought-after stars on TV. </p><p>“It was an amazingly consequential period,” Giggans said. </p><p>It wasn’t merely that Simpson was a wealthy celebrity, or that he had fled police, or that he was arrested by the same law enforcement agency whose officers had been caught on camera beating Rodney King. </p><p>“To a lot of people it was a case about race and mistreatment of Black residents by the LAPD, but to us it was the first time that a huge spotlight was focusing on domestic violence,” said Pincus of the Domestic Abuse Center.</p><p>By 1994, California was beginning to enforce 1986 changes to its domestic violence laws, which required police to treat family assaults as they would public ones, and to keep records of calls where no arrests were made. </p><p>“If you arrived at a scene and there’s a battery or attempted murder, you can’t just not do anything because it’s ‘a domestic,’” as police had done previously, Pincus said. “The other part of the law change said that every police department in the state had to have mandatory domestic violence training, and those protocols had to be established and made public.” </p><p>At the same time, Democrats in Congress were working to pass the landmark Violence Against Women Act, which would bring millions of dollars for hotlines and shelters. It included the first federal law against battery, among other protections for survivors of sexual and domestic violence.</p><p>After years of laboring in the shadows, advocates found themselves in the limelight. They were determined not to let the moment pass. </p><p>“We would get on these national calls and say, ‘We need to push this now,’” Giggans said of VAWA. “We didn’t want it to be just a media moment; we wanted some benefit to come from this tragedy.” </p><h2 id="people-didnt-know-anything" class="subhead">‘People didn’t know anything’</h2><p>The Violence Against Women Act was signed into law on Sept. 13, 1994, almost three months after Nicole Brown Simpson and Goldman were found. </p><p>But when Simpson’s nationally televised trial began in November, it showed just how little the public understood about domestic violence — and how far the law still had to go. </p><p>“People didn’t know anything,” Giggans said. “It gave our movement an opportunity to be persistent and consistent in providing the education that we were struggling to provide … and for people to understand that no one deserves to be battered or abused or raped and that this is a serious social ill.” </p><p>Even then, there was a gap between what the public was learning and what the jury was allowed to hear. </p><p>Six months after Simpson was acquitted, California added Section 1109 to the Evidence Code, allowing uncharged conduct and other evidence of prior abuse to be shown to jurors in similar cases. </p><p>The trial also shined a spotlight on DNA evidence, then a scientifically established but publicly suspect technology. </p><p>“It was like mumbo-jumbo to the public at that point,” Pincus said. </p><p>Today, DNA evidence is critical to many domestic violence prosecutions because it gets around the reliance upon “he-said, she-said” narratives that long hampered battery cases. </p><p>Without DNA, “it came down to who jurors believed: the hysterical victim who jumped all over the place telling her story or refused to testify out of fear, and the abuser who was calm and seen as a nice guy,” Pincus said. </p><p>With evidence handling under a microscope, advocates were able to push for reforms in how the LAPD managed rape kits, eventually leading to the creation of a new DNA crime lab. </p><p>“The case really did spearhead legislation that started expanding resources,” said Carmen McDonald, executive director of the Los Angeles Center for Law and Justice. </p><p>Still, some say the changes are more surface-level than substantive.</p><p>“These wonderful changes that were supposedly wrought by the mistakes made during that trial are not anything that I’ve benefited from, and they’re not anything any woman I know has benefited from,” said Gurba, the author and survivor. “If it’s prosecuted, most domestic violence is prosecuted as a misdemeanor. So the state sees our torture as a petty nuisance.” </p><p>Now, she and other advocates fear gains made since the trial could soon be erased. </p><h2 id="all-that-we-built-since-o-j-can-go-away" class="subhead">‘All that we built since O.J. can go away’</h2><p>California is poised to lose tens of millions in funding for domestic violence programs this year, a 43% cut that threatens critical infrastructure including emergency shelter, medical care and legal assistance to survivors, according to the California Partnership to End Domestic Violence. </p><p>Programs for at-risk populations already are stretched thin under the existing budget, survivors and advocates say. </p><p>“When I tried to enter a shelter when I was escaping domestic violence, I couldn’t get into one because they were all full,” Gurba said. </p><p>Now, those already overburdened services could disappear. </p><p>“It’s about to fall apart,” Giggans said. “All that we built since O.J. can go away.” </p><p>Advocates fear the cuts could create a cascade effect across the state.</p><p>“Domestic violence impacts every single community and population; it’s across every field,” McDonald said. “It’s immigration, it’s schools. The loss of funding impacts [other] services that are out there for folks who need help.” </p><p>For example, data show domestic violence is a leading cause of homelessness. According to a survey released last summer by the Urban Institute, nearly half of all unhoused women in Los Angeles have experienced domestic violence, and about a quarter fled their last residence because of it. </p><p>For Gurba, the looming cuts are yet more evidence of how little has truly changed since the 1994 slayings. </p><p>“I don’t think there was a revolution in how domestic violence survivors are treated thanks to that murder — that’s a myth,” she said. “The rhetoric may have changed, but the treatment is still the same behind closed doors.” </p></p></div><p>Source link </p>]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>News Outlets Urge Trump and Biden to Commit to Presidential Debates</title> <link>https://lockednloaded.site/news-outlets-urge-trump-and-biden-to-commit-to-presidential-debates/</link> <pubDate>Sun, 14 Apr 2024 14:58:44 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator><![CDATA[admin]]></dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[USA]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://lockednloaded.site/news-outlets-urge-trump-and-biden-to-commit-to-presidential-debates/</guid> <description><![CDATA[A group of major news organizations — including The Associated Press and the five big broadcast and cable networks — issued an unusual joint statement on Sunday urging President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump to commit to participating in televised debates before Election Day. “General election debates have a rich tradition in our […]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p> <br /></p><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">A group of major news organizations — including The Associated Press and the five big broadcast and cable networks — issued an unusual joint statement on Sunday urging President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump to commit to participating in televised debates before Election Day.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“General election debates have a rich tradition in our American democracy,” the group wrote. “There is simply no substitute for the candidates debating with each other, and before the American people, their visions for the future of our nation.”</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Media organizations rarely weigh in so explicitly on the campaign plans of presidential candidates. The statement underscores just how much uncertainty surrounds whether this year’s debates will occur.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Mr. Biden has declined to commit to the three debates scheduled for September and October. His allies have expressed concerns about the Commission on Presidential Debates, the nonpartisan group that has organized the events since 1988, and its ability to enforce its rules when Mr. Trump participates.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Mr. Trump has promised to debate and regularly taunts Mr. Biden for not following suit. But in 2020, Mr. Trump forced the cancellation of the second scheduled debate by <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/09/us/politics/biden-nevada-debate.html" title="">pulling out</a> at the last minute. Last year, Mr. Trump refused to debate his Republican primary opponents, and he has accused the debate commission of pro-Biden bias.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">If no debate is held in 2024, it would break a streak that dates back to the Jimmy Carter-Gerald R. Ford election of 1976. Presidential debates remain America’s largest mass gathering outside of sports: In 2020, an average of 68 million people tuned in for the two Biden-Trump debates, significantly more than watched the party nominating conventions.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The news outlets’ plans to issue a joint statement were reported by The New York Times last week.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">In addition to ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC and Fox News, the following news organizations also endorsed the statement: The Associated Press, C-SPAN, NewsNation, NPR, PBS NewsHour, USA Today and Noticias Univision, the news division of the Spanish-language network.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">(A spokesman for Newsmax volunteered to The Times last week that the right-leaning news channel was in agreement with the statement, although it is not an official signatory.)</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The statement noted that dates and eligibility requirements for this year’s matchups were previously announced by the debate commission.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><div><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“Though it is too early for invitations to be extended to any candidates, it’s not too early for candidates who expect to meet the eligibility criteria to publicly state their support for, and their intention to participate in, the commission’s debates planned for this fall,” the statement reads.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"/></div><p><br /><br /><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/14/business/media/networks-presidential-debates.html">Source link </a></p>]]></content:encoded> </item> </channel></rss> If you would like to create a banner that links to this page (i.e. this validation result), do the following:
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