The Arizona Coyotes are currently undergoing considerable uncertainty and confusion concerning their future. As things stand, the franchise’s proposed $2.1bn new home arena, which was hoped to be developed around a new rink in Arizona, has been turned down by voters. This could secure the NHL’s exit from the desert city. Due to this, the Coyotes remain without a permanent base, having played in a college rink for the previous season. It is not known where they will be playing next, and there is no prospect of their fortunes improving. This continued instability means that the club will find it challenging to attract desired talent along with investors. Alex Meruelo, the Coyotes' owner, has yet to provide a backup plan despite these facts. There has been speculation that a relocation to Salt Lake City, Utah, Hamilton, Quebec City, or Houston is possible. Nevertheless, nothing is decided yet, and it remains to be seen where the Coyotes will ultimately find a permanent home.
The only holdout juror in the Lori Vallow murder trial has revealed why he changed his mind to convict the mother last week. Saul Hernandez said that when the jury began deliberating, he was the only one unconvinced that the prosecution had proved its case. But over the course of just seven hours, it became clear to him that Vallow is guilty. During the trial, Hernandez found it “hard to look at” Vallow as gruelling evidence emerged. Mr Hernandez said he was ‘disgusted’ by photos of Vallow and Mr Daybell smiling through their beach wedding just weeks after the children were killed. Vallow was found guilty of first-degree murder, conspiracy and grand theft over the deaths of her daughter Tylee Ryan, son Joshua “JJ” Vallow, and of conspiracy to murder Tammy Daybell, her new husband Chad Daybell’s first wife.
NYSE Arca Equities will investigate likely erroneous trades in IT provider CDW Corp after shares plunged as much as 96% to $7 in pre-market trading on 11 November, following investors mistaking the ticker for the newly listed CaliberCos (CWD.O). The exchange operator said it plans to bust all trades at or below $162.85 between 4am and 4.22am ET. Similar cases of share reaction due to mistaken identity have occurred previously, including in 2020, when investors confused China-based company Zoom Technologies’ stock for video conferencing app Zoom Video Communications.
MLB pitcher accidentally hits and kills bird with throw in pregame warm-ups
CNN
23-05-18 09:52
Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Zac Gallen accidentally hit and killed a bird with a throw during a side session in the outfield ahead of the team’s game against the Oakland Athletics in California on Wednesday. The incident was caught on camera and the bird did not survive. This incident comes 20 years after then Diamondbacks pitcher Randy Johnson famously hit and killed a bird with a pitch during a spring training game in 2001. Despite the incident, the Diamondbacks went on to win their game on Wednesday 5-3.
The Department of the Interior's Bureau of Land Management has completed an environmental review for the SunZia transmission project, which can connect up to 4.5 GW of renewable energy across the southeastern US. The BLM considers the completion of the study a milestone in the Biden administration's efforts to hasten the buildout of electric transmission infrastructure across the country, paving the way for the development of renewable energy projects as part of the US's broader goal to decarbonise the power sector by 2035. The SunZia project consists of two planned 500-kV transmission lines that stretch across 520 miles of federal, state and private land.
Donald Williams, one of the bystanders who witnessed George Floyd's death, is suing the city of Minneapolis. Williams alleges that he was assaulted and suffered emotional distress as he helpedlessly watched the murder. The lawsuit names one of the now-former police officers, Derek Chauvin, as well as another officer on the scene, Tou Thao. The city's attorney's office declined to comment on the lawsuit.
The Biden administration is reportedly hesitant to supply Ukraine with F-16 fighter jets, and has also refused to authorise Western allies training Ukrainian pilots on the aircraft. The decision is at odds with Europe's stance on the matter, with Rishi Sunak announcing the creation of an international coalition of countries that would aim to provide F-16s, and Belgium saying it would train Ukrainian pilots. Washington is concerned over the cost of the aircraft, along with the potential technology loss. The decision on supplying Ukraine with F-16s is up to the White House, with the UK saying the supply "was not a straightforward thing".
Paris Paradise Morton's trial has been delayed again for a later date after she rejected a plea bargain. Morton, who has been in custody in state psychiatric facilities for over seven years, intentionally plowed a car into pedestrians on the Las Vegas Strip in 2015, killing one woman and injuring dozens of others. Morton has requested a different court-appointed attorney to represent her on murder and 70 other felony charges, and a hearing has been scheduled with Morton for next Wednesday to determine if she will get a new lawyer. No new trial date has been set.
Jay Jacobs, the associate athletic director for external affairs at the University of Florida, is retiring after nearly four decades in college athletics. Jacobs was previously the athletics director at Auburn for 13 years and won the 2010 national championship with coach Gene Chizik and Heisman Trophy winner Cam Newton. Jacobs worked nearly every day since 1972, when at age 12 he began mowing the lawn, trimming hedges, picking weeds, and occasionally riding along on ambulance calls at a funeral home owned by his grandparents in Lafayette, Alabama. Jacobs’ plans for retirement include staying close to college athletics and possibly serving as a consultant or another behind-the-scenes endeavour, but he doesn’t want any requirements. Jacobs recently moved his parents from Tampa Bay to a retirement home in Tallahassee and has two of his three daughters living about 300 miles north of there in Birmingham, Alabama.
Twitter owner Elon Musk said Twitter users making false claims of stolen elections "will be corrected" on its platform. However, many such claims have thrived on Twitter in the week since former President Donald Trump spent much of a CNN town hall digging in on his lie that the 2020 election was "rigged" against him. The contrast between Musk's promise and the extent the claims are spreading on Twitter underscores a major challenge for social media companies trying to call out election conspiracies and falsehoods that Trump and his supporters continue to promote.
Several US cities and California will benefit from federal help with the All Inside initiative in getting the homeless into permanent housing. The state of California, which has the highest number of homeless people in the country, will receive the tailored support for two years from US government departments, local agencies and private businesses. The program seeks to provide knowledge, resources and funding, in addition to help in identifying where regulations can be loosened to help those without a home find shelter more quickly.
Genetic data from raccoon dogs in a Chinese wet market is the "strongest evidence yet" of the natural origin of COVID-19, according to a report in The Atlantic. Though the animals may have been shedding the virus in late 2019, the World Health Organization does not consider the data "conclusive evidence as to the intermediate host or origins of the virus." Furthermore, Republican officials claim that co-author of the influential March 2020 Nature Medicine article, Kristian Andersen, had initially had reservations about the virus's natural origins. The data originated from the Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data genomic database.
State-based preschool programs contribute to anti-marriage and anti-family bias, which in turn discourages the enrolment of families into these programs, according to researchers from think tank, The Heritage Foundation. The 26 preschool programs in states that contain penalties discouraging marriage could act as a model for how to reform the welfare system, which “imposes substantial penalties on low-income couples”, the researchers stated. They suggest implementing a sliding-fee schedule rather than taking an all-or-nothing approach to preschool benefits to reduce the cost of preschool programs and eliminate penalties that come from all-or-nothing welfare programs, which would, in turn, promote family economic self-sufficiency and stability, the researchers argued.
The latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reveals that the number of abortions in the US fell in 2020, after two consecutive years of increases. This decline represented the lowest rate on record since the Roe v. Wade decision. However, the abortion ratio showed a slight increase, indicating that the likelihood of women opting for abortion remained unchanged. Additionally, from 2014-2020, the abortion ratio nationally increased by 3%. The study indicates a moderate negative correlation between the number of abortion restrictions and the abortion ratio. Therefore, more abortion restrictions are associated with lower abortion ratios.
Various reasons have been suggested for why the number of abortions rose in 2018 and 2019, including a growing cultural acceptance of abortion, and privately run funds established to pay for women’s abortions. The FDA also loosened safety protocols for the abortion pill mifepristone, which likely led to an increase in overall chemical abortions. It is also unclear why the number of abortions declined in 2020 but may have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The study shows that while fewer abortions occurred in 2020 compared to 2019, the likelihood of women opting for abortion remained unchanged. However, as the number of pregnancies decreased in 2020, so too did the number of abortions. The percentage of pregnancies ending in abortion also remained virtually unchanged from the estimated percentage of pregnancies that ended in abortion in 2019. The study concludes that the decline in abortions indicates the resumption of the long-term trend of declining abortions in the US, but it remains to be seen if this trend will continue in the future.
The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is failing to detain inadmissible aliens despite technological alternatives to detention (ATDs) having been put in place, according to a memorandum published yesterday by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS). ICE has contracted with BI Incorporated to run the ISAP monitoring programme, which is the largest in terms of numbers of enrolled aliens and budget. ICE uses three types of technology to keep track of aliens who are in removal proceedings and enrolled in the ISAP. The most contentious is that some participants are fitted with ankle monitors by the company BI, which cost $2.75 a day.
Alternatively, SmartLink costs $1 a day and VoiceID costs 18 cents a day per user. ICE estimates that ATD costs $8 per participant per day, with average detention costs estimated at $150 per day. However, the report highlights that, despite the advantages of ATDs in terms of costs and compliance, the scheme is not leading to deportation, with around 79% of ATD participants having been released before their immigration cases were concluded.
Incoming president Biden is said to have released at most 25k inadmissible aliens at any one time.
A federal court in the US recently ruled that the federal government could not enforce a key condition in the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021: a restriction on state tax cuts. Thirteen states that took Rescue Plan funds filed a lawsuit, arguing that the offset provision of the law was too vague to be constitutional under the Spending Clause. The decision was a blow to the Biden administration’s COVID pandemic response efforts, which have been characterised by a failure to draw appropriate boundaries between the powers of the federal government and those of the states. The Court held that without setting a baseline for calculating state tax revenues and without defining the scope of the term “indirectly” the offset provision was “too vague”. Congress had effectively offered to buy some of the states’ sovereign authority over taxes until the Rescue Plan funds were spent, but it should clearly inform the states of the boundaries separating prohibited tax cuts from permissible reductions in tax revenue.
US Republican Congress member John Curtis, chairman of the Conservative Climate Caucus, has been criticised for claiming $10,000 in clean-energy tax credits as part of the Democratic Inflation Reduction Act which every Republican voted against. Curtis revealed that he has used the subsidies to buy 30 rooftop solar panels and a geothermal heat pump for his Utah home. Curtis has said he bought the technology to make climate-friendly upgrades to his home well before President Biden signed the climate legislation into law and that it was not his intention to claim federal tax credits. Conservatives including Benji Backer, president and founder of the American Conservation Coalition, defended Curtis and called for a lower-cost version of the Inflation Reduction Act without liberal priorities unrelated to climate change. The GOP's debt limit bill passed by the House which includes a phase-down of solar energy tax credit has met with strong resistance from the White House and Republicans concerned about the potential impact on their constituents.
Political drama series Succession has drawn comparisons to the right-wing press, most notably Fox News, as it depicts corruption and destructive family dynamics at the top of a powerful conglomerate. However, its interpretation leaves out the influence of non-elites, outside that of the investors in Waystar Royco. Whereas Succession primarily portrays elite-driven and family-driven narratives as the main factors in political action, in reality, the masses contribute to political action more than is depicted. The characterisation of Fox News in Succession, billing the 2020 election night disputing, is shown as merely a story of internal family dynamics. However, in reality, the way in which Fox News handles such issues reflects the demands of its audience who want reality-TV drama and a clear storyline with heroes and villains.
The disenfranchisement of non-elites in contemporary politics is not unique to Succession. Democracy’s defining feature is its difficult characterisation of mass public opinion,which is hard to visualise in fiction. This is because although people talking can generate political action, ordinary people, as opposed to powerful elites, are frequently relegated to the background in dramatic productions. Therefore, despite Succession’s attempt to put a window on Fox News’ inner workings, it seems critics are convinced that the drama is ultimately overshadowed by its own narrative.
Legislation has been introduced in a number of US states targeting transgender people, with many looking to restrict gender-affirming care for minors and enforcing bathroom use based on sex assigned at birth. Advocates have warned of the further marginalisation of this community and the potential threats to their health. The issue is seen as a Republican priority and a key driver of debate in the 2024 US elections, with the party looking to gain votes from the far right by portraying Democrats as out of touch with the wider population. Numbers of Republican legislation on the issue have increased significantly over the last two years.
The Governor of Connecticut, Ned Lamont, has said that he plans to meet with NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman to discuss the possibility of moving the Arizona Coyotes to Hartford. The state has not had an NHL team since the Hartford Whalers left for North Carolina in 1997. The chance of the Coyotes moving to Connecticut seems unlikely with Hartford’s 48-year-old XL Center in need of a major renovation costing at least $107m, although Lamont said that the state ensures a strong market and a governmental partner for the NHL. Other possible relocation sites include Hamilton, Ontario and Kansas City.
