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Nebraska trans bill advances despite filibuster threat

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:00:21 GMT

By Margery A. Beck | Associated PressLINCOLN, Neb. — The Nebraska Legislature voted Thursday to advance a contentious bill that would ban gender-affirming care for minors, despite threats from some lawmakers that they would filibuster the rest of the session.The vote came on the third day of debate, in which lawmakers angrily accused one another of hypocrisy and a lack of collegiality early on. By Thursday, the chamber had turned somber as some lawmakers opposed to the bill broke down in tears and pleaded with their Republican colleagues to reconsider their support for the bill.Members of the LGBTQ community who had gathered in the Capitol to protest the bill showed their displeasure with the outcome, booing and cursing lawmakers who voted to advance it as they left the legislative floor.“I am a ball of rage,” said Wrenn Jacobson, 29, of Lincoln, after the vote. “I’ve had to go back to therapy when this bill was introduced. I know so many people — so many kid...

Michigan Republican Party slammed for comparing gun safety proposals to the Holocaust

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:00:21 GMT

By JOEY CAPPELLETTI | Associated PressLANSING — The Michigan Republican Party has received backlash from political leaders on both sides of the aisle for posts on social media Wednesday that compared the Holocaust to gun safety measures being considered in the state.The posts, shared on the state party’s official Facebook and Twitter accounts, inaccurately claim that Democrats leading the Legislature are trying to disarm Michigan gun owners. A photo accompanying the message appears to match an image stored by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, showing rings confiscated from Jewish prisoners in a Nazi concentration camp.“Comparing gun safety measures to the mass extermination of 6 million people is hateful and ignorant, and it comes from party leaders who are out of ideas and catering to the fringe of the fringe,” Democratic U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, who is Jewish, wrote on Twitter in response.The gun safety package was introduced by Democrats in response to two school mass...

East Bay waterfront city takes step to upgrade public boat launch and park

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:00:21 GMT

Pittsburg is moving forward with a plan to upgrade its public boat launch and nearby Central Harbor Park — provided it gets grant money.Having already received one state grant to design the project, the City Council unanimously agreed to apply for a $3.65 million state grant to complete the project.The project was prompted by residents’ complaints about degrading park and boat launch restrooms and safety concerns, according to Dhaynae Romero, a city administrative analyst who is working on the project.In February 2021, the city was awarded $172,155 for planning the revitalization of the waterfront Central Park Harbor Park and boat launch facilities upgrade project.The money came from the Sacramento San Joaquin Delta Conservancy, a state agency that advances environmental protection and the well-being of Delta residents.The agency’s Climate, Access and Restoration Program funds multi-benefit projects in the Sacramento San Joaquin Delta and Suisun Marsh that protect and conserve...

Livermore man arrested for stealing thousands in Little League Baseball gear

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:00:21 GMT

(KRON) -- With the spring season comes the Little League Baseball season. But a burglary at the Granada Little League fields set the team in Livermore off to a rocky start.On Wednesday, March 15, Livermore police officers responded to a burglary at the field on Murdell Lane where league organizers reported about $3,500 worth of stolen gear from the umpire storage shed. Body of radio host JV found in San Francisco Bay by Pier 39 The next day, March 16, a Livermore Police School Resource Officer took a report from a student about a stolen electric bike that the student said they left in a bike storage on campus valued at $2,400.The recovered Little League gear from a burglary in Livermore. (Photo: Livermore Police Department)The recovered Little League gear from a burglary in Livermore. (Photo: Livermore Police Department)The recovered Little League gear from a burglary in Livermore. (Photo: Livermore Police Department)The recovered electric bike from a burglary in Livermore. (Photo...

Track stymies Russian path to Olympics due to war in Ukraine

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:00:21 GMT

Track and field leaders signaled Thursday that it will be nearly impossible for Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete at the Paris Olympics next year if the war in Ukraine continues.The World Athletics Council kept its ban on Russian athletes in international events in place “for the foreseeable future.” It’s a move that goes directly against the International Olympic Committee’s efforts to find a way for Russian athletes to compete as neutrals in upcoming events.World Athletics will form a working group to determine under what conditions Russians might return to international competition, but for now, there is no apparent pathway.The move came on the same day that World Athletics finally lifted a seven-year suspension of Russia’s track federation for a doping scandal that dates back a decade.Though the federation is back in good standing so long as it adheres to nearly three dozen “special conditions,” that move did nothing to change the reality that Ru...

New Starbucks CEO plans to work in stores monthly

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:00:21 GMT

Starbucks’ new CEO Laxman Narasimhan says he plans to work a half-day shift once a month in one of the company’s stores in an effort to stay close to the company’s culture and customers. Narasimhan, who took the reins as CEO earlier this week, said in a letter to Starbucks’ employees Thursday that he also expects the company’s leadership team to be connected and engaged in stores. “While our performance is strong, our health needs to be stronger,” Narasimhan wrote in the letter. “We must care for the artists and the theater in the front of our stores, and the factory in the back.”The CEO’s plan to work in stores is new for Seattle-based Starbucks, but not unprecedented among big companies. DoorDash CEO Tony Xu and his executive team make DoorDash deliveries once a month, for example.Narasimhan, 55, issued the letter prior to the company’s annual meeting, which was held virtually. The former PepsiCo executive has spent the last six months immersing himself in Starbucks, earning his b...

Autism now more common among Black, Hispanic kids in US

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:00:21 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — For the first time, autism is being diagnosed more frequently in Black and Hispanic children than in white kids in the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday.Among all U.S. 8-year-olds, 1 in 36 had autism in 2020, the CDC estimated. That’s up from 1 in 44 two years earlier. But the rate rose faster for children of color than for white kids. The new estimates suggest that about 3% of Black, Hispanic and Asian or Pacific Islander children have an autism diagnosis, compared with about 2% of white kids.That’s a contrast to the past, when autism was most commonly diagnosed in white kids — usually in middle- or upper-income families with the means to go to autism specialists. As recently as 2010, white kids were deemed 30% more likely to be diagnosed with autism than Black children and 50% more likely than Hispanic children.Experts attributed the change to improved screening and autism services for all kids, and to increased awarenes...

Soundtrack of this year’s March Madness begins with ‘CLANK!’

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:00:21 GMT

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Folks across the country watching the first-round of the NCAA Tournament last week thought it rightfully funny when they saw a couple of stadium workers scurry up a ladder and place a construction level across the rim.Turns out Iowa State players, puzzled by their shots clanking off the iron during pregame warmsups, were right: It wasn’t perfectly horizontal.The NCAA acknowledged later that “a minor adjustment” was made before the game, and the Cyclones were quick to say afterward that it had no bearing on their 59-41 loss to Pittsburgh. But whether the rim was physically off-center, or caused Iowa State to be mentally off-base, the result was unmistakable: The Cyclones trailed 22-2 to start the game, finished 23.3% from the floor and, perhaps most jaw-droppingly, were an abysmal 2 of 21 from 3-point range.“It just wasn’t going in,” Cyclones sharpshooter Gabe Kalscheur said. “Sometimes that happens.”From the 3-point line, it’s happening more...

Zebra runs loose in Seoul before being taken back to zoo

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:00:21 GMT

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A young zebra walked, trotted, and galloped for hours in the busy streets of South Korea’s capital before emergency workers tranquilized the animal and brought it back to a zoo. The zebra — a male named Sero that was born in the zoo in 2021 — was in stable condition and being examined by veterinarians as of Thursday evening, said Choi Ye-ra, an official at the Children’s Grand Park in Seoul.She said the zoo was investigating how the zebra managed to escape. She didn’t immediately confirm media reports that the animal partially destroyed the wooden fencing surrounding its pen before busting out around 2:50 p.m.Social media was flowing with smartphone videos of the zebra trotting alongside lines of cars that were waiting for the greenlight at an intersection, and galloping through a street surrounded by commercial buildings as pedestrians stopped and gasped.Police and emergency workers managed to corner the zebra after it entered a narrow alleyway between hou...

Review: Salvant’s jazz album is a captivating musical mix

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:00:21 GMT

“Mélusine,” Cécile McLorin Salvant (Nonesuch Records) Cécile McLorin Salvant’s musical vocabulary is a marvel, and not only because she sings in four languages on “Mélusine.” The ambitious concept album mixes original tunes and inventive interpretations of material dating back as far as the 12th century into a potpourri that draws from jazz, Broadway, the Caribbean and more. It’s true roots music. The album was inspired by a European fable involving a hunting accident, pivotal bathing scenes and a marriage that goes sour (spoiler alert: The wife turns into a dragon). It’s confusing but fascinating, like a dream about a dream. Somehow, despite the unwieldy scope of the 45-minute set, Salvant never hits a false note. Whether the words are in French, English, Occitan or Haitian Creole, she sings them beautifully, navigating tricky melodies with the ease of Ella Fitzgerald and a playfulness that enhances Salvant’s astute sense of theatricality. She’s equally convincing singing about the...