Former Green Party leader Caroline Lucas has also resigned as vice-president of the animal welfare organisation, with both of them expressing their “sadness” over leaving the roles. It comes after an Animal Rising investigation made claims of cruelty at “RSPCA Assured” slaughterhouses in England and Scotland, with the campaign group sharing footage of alleged mistreatment. RSPCA Assured is a scheme whereby approved farms must comply with the organisation’s “stringent higher welfare standards”, according to its website. Mr Packham shared the news of his resignation on social media, saying: “It is with enormous sadness that I have resigned from my role as president of the RSPCA. “I would like to register my respect and admiration for all the staff and volunteers who work tirelessly to protect animals from cruelty.” Ms Lucas said she and Mr Packham failed to get the charity’s leadership to act. She posted on X, formerly Twitter: “With huge sadness I’m resigning as VP of the RSPCA, a role I’ve held with pride for over 15 years. “But their Assured Schemes risk misleading the public & legitimising cruelty. “I tried with @ChrisGPackham to persuade the leadership to act but sadly failed.” In June, the RSPCA commissioned an independent review of 200 farms on its assurance scheme which concluded the scheme was “operating effectively” to assure animal welfare on member farms. Following Animal Rising’s release of footage last week, the charity said it was “appalled” by what was shown, adding that it launched an immediate investigation and suspended three slaughterhouses from the scheme. In the wake of Mr Packham and Ms Lucas’ resignations, an RSPCA spokesperson said it is “simply not true” that the organisation has failed to take urgent action. They said: “We agree with Chris and Caroline on so many issues and have achieved so much together for animals, but we differ on how best to address the incredibly complex and difficult issue of farmed animal welfare. “We have discussed our work to drive up farmed animal welfare standards openly at length with them on many occasions and it is simply not true that we have not taken urgent action. “We took allegations of poor welfare incredibly seriously, launching an independent review of 200 farms which concluded that it was ‘operating effectively’ to improve animal welfare. “We are taking strong steps to improve oversight of welfare, implementing the recommendations in full including significantly increasing unannounced visits, and exploring technology such as body-worn cameras and CCTV, supported by £2 million of investment.” The charity insisted that while 94% of people continue to choose to eat meat, fish, eggs and dairy, it is the “right thing to do” to work with farmers to improve the lives of animals. “RSPCA Assured visit all farms on the scheme every year, but last year just 3% of farms were assessed for animal welfare by state bodies,” the spokesperson continued. “No-one else is doing this work. We are the only organisation setting and regularly monitoring animal welfare standards on farms. “We have pioneered change through RSPCA Assured, which has led to improvements throughout the industry including CCTV in slaughterhouses, banning barren battery cages for hens and sow stalls for pigs, giving salmon more space to swim and developing slower growing chicken breeds who have better quality of life.”
Grades are in: Pat Bryant sparks another Illinois win
How Trump Reacted When Dobbs Decision Came DownI was born and raised in Philadelphia and loved it. But when it came time for college, I was accepted into Stanford. I've always been really interested in green technology, renewable energy, and solar stuff. I studied material science engineering as an undergrad, and then I stayed for a fifth year and got my master's degree in electrical engineering. After graduating, I spent almost three years living in the Bay Area, working at Applied Materials, a semiconductor company. I lived in San Francisco, right on the edge of Mission and Portero Hill, and commuted to work in Santa Clara. In the 2010s and early 2020s, California was the place to be if you wanted to do tech, engineering, or renewable energy. At Applied Materials, I was learning how to be an engineer in the real world. But I wasn't working on energy efficiency or renewable energy, which was my dream. I found that I was clashing with the culture of Silicon Valley. There are a ton of amazing people there, but generally speaking, I felt like people could be "fake nice." I attributed that attitude to the Silicon Valley atmosphere. I don't want to call it cutthroat, but it was tough at times to join a community of really driven people who would sometimes drive themselves over the edge. I'm more of a "go-at-your-own-pace" kind of person. I don't think 16-hour days are a path to success. In Silicon Valley, you have a lot of Google people, a lot of Meta people, and, at the time I was there, a lot of Tesla people. And that's the core of who they are. I grew tired of the way people would define themselves by their jobs rather than who they are as a person. After graduating, I was worried I would have to choose between staying in California and having a career I liked or leaving California and having a career I didn't like. The career opportunities in Silicon Valley seemed more abundant. But ending up with a career that wasn't what I wanted while I was in California helped push me to take the next step. In 2022, I started applying to East Coast jobs, specifically looking for roles in renewable energy. I got an offer from my current workplace, Carbon Reform, in September 2022. They're a Philadelphia-based startup working on sustainability. It was right up my alley. I moved back and started at the end of November 2022. I definitely had some nerves before moving. I was questioning whether this was right for my career. The sustainability hub is in Silicon Valley, and moving to the other side of the country felt like I was separating myself from that. But I was also so excited. It felt surreal that I had found something I wanted to do, and I got the bonus of being on the East Coast. At Carbon Reform, we're working on devices that connect to HVAC systems in existing office buildings. They remove the carbon dioxide from the workspace air and allow you to recycle the air without having to bring in new air from outside. I love my work now. I'm feeling a lot more fulfilled. It was so expensive to live in California. I had to live with two roommates to afford the cost of living, and that was for a spot on the edge of San Francisco. Now, I have my own space in Philly. I pay about the same as I was paying in California, where I was splitting with three people. I moved to a Philly neighborhood called Rittenhouse. It's a combination of older people and a bunch of young professionals and grad students who live there. There's always something to do around here. It's close to a huge park where they have shows and dining. It's a great way to meet new people and not break the bank. We also have an incredible sports scene here. Between the Eagles and the Phillies, sometimes Philadelphia feels like a big college town. Philly's tech and business scene is growing. We have the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University right in the city. There are incredible students coming out of those schools. I think the city has started taking advantage of all those really intelligent people. It seems like Philadelphia is putting in the work to try to keep them. That said, Philly still seems like a little secret sometimes. I don't want to tell everybody about it because once the secret is out, people will move here, and costs will go up. It's in a really unique pocket location-wise. You have the financial capital of New York nearby and the political capital of DC close, too. You get the benefits of both without the negative effects. I miss parts of California sometimes. I miss my friends and the access to incredible types of food. But my hope is to stay in Philly for the long term. As long as I have a job and am getting paid what I think I should be making, my goal is to be here. Read the original article on
Experts at Kannada Literary Meet emphasize creating awareness of disaster management and climate change
Benzinga and Yahoo Finance LLC may earn commission or revenue on some items through the links below. NVIDIA Corp. (NASDAQ: NVDA ) continues to dominate the artificial intelligence landscape, with CNBC’s Jim Cramer and Wall Street analysts reinforcing their bullish outlook following the company’s stellar third-quarter earnings report . What Happened : “The demand is accelerating because the payoff is so great,” Cramer said on Thursday, citing CEO Jensen Huang ‘s assertion that customers earn five dollars for every dollar invested in Nvidia chips. This compelling return on investment, Cramer argues, makes Nvidia’s products essential for major tech companies. “That means they have no choice but to buy Nvidia's chips,” he said. Don't Miss: This Jeff Bezos-backed startup will allow you to become a landlord in just 10 minutes, with minimum investments as low as $100 for properties like the Byer House from Stranger Things. 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This optimism is reflected in a recent Benzinga poll , where 48% of respondents believed Nvidia would continue to dominate the “Magnificent Seven” stocks in 2025, followed by Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA ) at 27%. Huang describes this period as “the beginnings of two fundamental shifts in computing,” highlighting the transition to machine learning and AI’s emergence as an industrial capability. The company projects fourth-quarter revenue of $37.5 billion, with Oracle Corp. (NYSE: ORCL ) already planning AI computing clusters scaling to over 131,000 Blackwell GPUs. Wondering if your investments can get you to a $5,000,000 nest egg? Speak to a financial advisor today. SmartAsset’s free tool matches you up with up to three vetted financial advisors who serve your area, and you can interview your advisor matches at no cost to decide which one is right for you. 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Image Via Flickr This article Jim Cramer Doubles Down On Nvidia: 'Demand Is Accelerating' As AI Customers 'Have No Choice' But To Buy Its Chips originally appeared on Benzinga.comWhen Emily Sanchez first visited her husband’s unconventional tomb, lush green ferns and moss created an oasis there amid the gray limestone debris and the brown patches of scraggly broom snakeweed that dominate the parched hills west of Utah Lake. The verdant plants thrived on the humid air flowing up from the black depths of the cave, where minerals, deposited by hydrothermal water, had created deep pockets and tunnels. There, at the mouth of Nutty Putty Cave, Sanchez found peace and pain. John Jones remains inside, entombed in the cave where he died on Nov. 25, 2009. But he isn’t the only one still ensnared by it. (Ron Johnson | Special to The Tribune) Emily Sanchez poses for a photograph with a book containing images of her former husband, John Jones, in her Peoria, Ill., home on Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024. Family and friends remain tethered to the horror that unfolded in its dank, sinuous passages. Dispirited rescuers pay their respects at the mouth, searching for some scrap of closure. And that’s not to mention the millions of people worldwide who, from behind the safety of their TV and laptop screens, journey to the cave on a daily basis and revisit the chill-inducing details behind John’s death. Read more: ‘I really, really want to get out’: The story of Nutty Putty Cave and John Jones Fifteen years later, this is what they’ve found, and what they’re still searching for. No unicorns It was Josh Jones’ idea to go to Nutty Putty. He’d been exploring more technical caves with his Utah State University roommate, Joey Stocking. But Nutty Putty Cave, which opened into a big room before stretching into increasingly narrow fingers, was something the whole family could experience. The two youngest of the seven Jones kids from Stansbury Park, John, 26, and Josh, 23, split off to seek out more remote areas. When John didn’t return, Josh went looking for him. Immediately upon finding his brother, his 6-foot, 200-pound frame squeezed through a window the size of a medium flower pot, one arm trapped behind him and the other pinned to his side, Josh felt his stomach turn. He grabbed hold of his brother’s ankles and yanked. John didn’t move. Josh’s hands began to shake. “There was this, ‘I’m not getting him out,’” he said. “‘I don’t know how anyone is getting him out.’” As they waited for rescuers to arrive, they prayed together — John had always been a devout Latter-day Saint, and Josh had always idolized John. At the end of the prayers, though, Josh could hear his own voice waiver and crack. To his dismay, John began to comfort him, telling Josh it would be OK and to be good to his girlfriend. “The way we spoke,” Josh said, “it felt like John knew what the score was.” (Al Hartmann | The Salt Lake Tribune) Josh Jones, the younger brother of John Jones, waits on Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2009, near the mouth of Nutty Putty Cave. Still, after John’s death, Josh was racked with guilt. Searching for penance, he committed himself to becoming more like John. That meant, in his mind, dedicating himself unwaveringly to the church and to his studies, just as John, a premed student, had done. The problem with that plan was that he wasn’t John. And soon every decision he considered unpious, or a lapse in judgment, every contrary thought brought him even more guilt, more shame, more depression. Night terrors crept in, as did other signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. Sometimes, when he was driving alone, he would uncontrollably blurt out “I’m sorry” over and over and over again. He was spiraling. “I’ve got these two major sources of shame. And one has got to go,” he said he realized. “... I saw myself plunging and it felt like life or death. It’s either make a decision or you’re going to ... this is it.” Unable to shake his shame over John’s death, he left the church. He moved to San Diego, got a PTSD diagnosis and began seeing a psychiatrist. About five sessions in, Josh had a breakthrough. He had never really cried over his brother’s death in the years since Nutty Putty. In this session he sobbed. Then, he declared himself healed. “It’s that pioneer, suck-it-up mindset,” he said. “‘OK, we cried once. Let’s move on.” Now, however, Josh realizes his grief and depression were like their own cave, with fingers stretching deep into his psyche. He’d barely stepped inside the first room. (Josh Jones) Brothers Mike Jones, left, and Josh Jones during a hiking trip in California in September. More than a decade later he would be diagnosed with Pots, a disease associated with chronic fatigue that, according to the National Institute of Health, is typically found in people with elevated levels of anxiety. Josh felt like he was headed for “another reckoning.” Then, during the annual Jones brothers retreat in 2022, he and his brother Mike — who had also been in Nutty Putty Cave with John and Josh that fateful day — hiked to the top of a plateau outside of Sedona, Ariz. Mike led Josh through a breathwork session. Josh felt, he said, “split wide open.” “It felt violent. It felt like an explosion,” he said. “And I sobbed just uncontrollably for about an hour with Mike. We sobbed together, and it was really cool. It was really a special moment. “I felt really close to John. I felt like all this shame that I had been packing deep, deep, deep down started to come up. And it started to get replaced with actually being able to feel into that love that I had for John.” Josh does not consider himself healed, but he’s working on it. “I refuse to pretend that this all happened for a reason and that there’s a silver lining and there’s unicorns and rainbows at the end of the journey,” he said. “But it’s been, very honestly, really exciting for me to be able to start healing from this thing.” Interestingly, a key step in his healing process has been for Josh to center less of his identity on being John’s brother. For years, he relished the attention he got from the public narrative around the events at Nutty Putty Cave. That external validation of his victimhood gave him comfort, he said. It didn’t, however, allow him to move on. “Looking inward instead of outward,” he wrote in an email, “has been the only source of real relief.” Rescuing the rescuer (Christopher Cherrington | The Salt Lake Tribune) Before Nutty Putty, Joey Stocking didn’t know John. They met that day at the cave. Josh, Stocking’s roommate at USU, had invited him to join the Jones family outing. After John became stuck, Stocking took a shift keeping him company while Josh went to call for help. Both were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and they sang church hymns and made small talk. John told him his “big secret:” that he came home to Utah from Virginia for Thanksgiving to tell his family Emily was pregnant. “The whole time I was with him,” Stocking recalled, “I remember just feeling like, you know, rescuers will get here, and they’ll get him out.” At exactly midnight the next night, long after he had returned home, Stocking got a text from Josh. John wasn’t getting out. “No!” Stocking screamed. With every ounce of life in his body, he screamed. (Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) The Nutty Putty Cave near Elberta on Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024. The week went by in a daze. At the funeral, he stayed in the back of the church, unable to convince himself this was reality. A few others took refuge there as well. Some he recognized as cavers and search-and-rescue volunteers, and he went up to thank them. “You could just kind of see it in their eyes,” Stocking said, “that they needed to talk about it for their own healing.” For more than an hour they talked about the rescue effort. Stocking found the conversation cathartic — and inspiring. “I remember getting in the car afterward,” Stocking said, “and driving away and telling my wife that those are the coolest, most impressive people I’ve ever met.” Someday, he told her, he was going to do that. When Stocking moved to Garden City on the shore of Bear Lake two years later, he made good on his promise and volunteered for the local search-and-rescue squad. Within a decade, he’d gotten involved with every first responder agency in Rich County: fire, paramedics, Coast Guard auxiliary, dispatch for 911 and the secondary response group Bear Lake Responds. Stocking went out on so many emergency calls that his wife had to remind him he had a real, paying job to attend to. Each call took him, in its own way, back to Nutty Putty Cave. Now, though, he could take action and make a difference. Helping was healing. Except when it wasn’t. Some of the horrors Stocking encountered while out on some of those rescues resulted in what he deems “microtraumas.” Over time, they began to break open the hairline crack in his mental health that Nutty Putty had first wrought. He couldn’t sleep. He was angry and on edge, constantly checking his pager and worrying that if he let his guard down, he would be late to a call and something terrible would happen. Something he could prevent. “It just got to the point I just couldn’t cope very well,” Stocking said, “and it was starting to affect my family.” Four therapists later, Stocking stumbled upon a treatment called Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, or EMDR. Proponents say it helps with PTSD by simulating REM sleep while a person is thinking about a traumatic event. During one session, Stocking focused on the trauma he found inside Nutty Putty Cave. It flipped his perspective. “It’s somehow a step above healing from the trauma,” Stocking said. “It’s almost like I’ve been emboldened or something. It’s changed me in a way that I feel able to deal with other things.” For instance, he said, he sees the good that came out of the ordeal. He knows people are alive today who wouldn’t be if he hadn’t become a search and rescue volunteer. “I know that there’s a good handful of people that I truly helped,” he said, “and I guess that feels good.” Searching for closure (Al Hartmann | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah County Sheriff's department Sgt. Tom Hodgson works during rescue operations for John Jones at Nutty Putty Cave near Elberta on Nov. 25, 2009. Tom Hodgson thinks about Nutty Putty Cave more often than he would like, especially in retirement. The former Utah County Sheriff’s lieutenant headed up Utah County Search and Rescue for more than 30 years before retiring in 2022. Yet he finds himself turning over the events of that Thanksgiving like a smooth stone in his pocket. He looks for cracks, things his team of 137 rescuers and cavers could have done differently. “This,” he said, “was a very, very difficult call from the onset.” Rescuers knew all along that they would likely fail. In almost any other circumstance, they could pipe in food and water and keep John alive until they could work out a way to extract him. But the body isn’t meant to be upside down for long. “Being upside down, your body has to pump the blood out of the brain all the time,” Doug Murdock, the trauma physician on site, told The Salt Lake Tribune in 2010. “Your body isn’t set up to do that. ... The entire system starts to fail.” Still, for 27 hours, they worked to get John free. Rescuers tried everything they could imagine: digging, chipping, lubricating with peanut oil. They squeezed a ball between his forehead and the cave wall so he could push with his head while they pulled with their hands and ropes on John’s ankles, the only part of him reachable through the narrow window. (Utah Cave Rescue) Rescue efforts on Thursday, Nov. 25, 2009, to free John Jones from deep in the Nutty Putty Cave. Late in the effort, they’d rigged a cable through a set of 15 pulleys drilled into the limestone. It appeared to be John’s best chance at escape, and it moved him slightly. But then one of the holds broke loose under the tension. A carabiner slammed into the face of one of the cavers, who later had to undergo reconstructive surgery Ultimately, they couldn’t extract John , nor bring out his body. That’s why this rescue attempt, of at least five he oversaw at Nutty Putty Cave and the hundreds of others he coordinated across Utah County, gnaws at Hodgson. It’s still, he said, “at the top of my memories.” He remembers that, in their time of greatest distress, the Jones family, like John, comforted the volunteers rather than the other way around. That’s something so rare, multiple rescuers said, that it’s not easily forgotten. “Many of us felt like we didn’t give the family the closure that it obviously wanted,” Hodgson said. “We just felt like we left something unfinished.” But there was one thing Hodgson felt he could do. He advocated, controversially, to permanently close the cave and allow John to rest in peace. It wasn’t his decision alone, but on Dec. 9, 2009, authorities collapsed the entrance to the cave with explosives and sealed it with concrete. “I know I didn’t want to go through that again,” he said, “or have a family go through that again.” Hodgson said he still goes out to the Nutty Putty Cave entrance on occasion. The family mounted a plaque memorializing John on what’s left of the cave entrance. Another honors the search-and-rescue workers who tried to save him. A rock ring, placed by rescuers and members of the Jones family, encircles the cave mouth. (Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) A gravestone to John Jones at the entrance to Nutty Putty Cave. (Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) A memorial to rescuers who aided in the attempt. “There’s definitely a heavy heart,” Hodgson said of visiting the cave, “but ... there’s a sense of peace as well. Because I know John’s there. And when we were out there before, it was hectic and fast-paced and a lot of things going on at once and a lot of things unresolved. “Now, when you go out there, it’s just you and John and the mountain.” ‘Everybody’s worst nightmare’ Brandon Kowallis was the last man to see John alive. Kowallis, a caver who daylights as Salt Lake Community College’s concurrent enrollment director, got called out to Nutty Putty Cave at the 20th hour. The other cavers were injured or exhausted, and Kowallis, who helped map the cave, knew it better than almost anyone. (Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Brandon Kowallis, one of the rescuers who attempted to free John Jones from Nutty Putty Cave, speaks about the rescue attempts during a visit to the cave on Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024. When he arrived, though, John was unresponsive. Without John’s help, Kowallis knew they couldn’t contort his legs around an overhang, which had to happen to free him. Kowallis then heard what he thought might be a final gasp. Unsure, he and rescuer Susie Motola toiled for several more hours to widen the opening, contorting their bodies to get leverage in the tight quarters and scooping debris out in their helmets. In two hours, they advanced 2 inches. By then, John was dead. Kowallis spent part of Thanksgiving Day writing a report for the search and rescue team detailing his efforts. It remained unpublished until this February. Then, having grown tired of answering the same questions in email after email from people who had stumbled upon, and become obsessed with, Nutty Putty Cave, he posted it on his blog. The blog typically gets 80 to 100 hits a day, Kowallis said. After his Nutty Putty post, it began gaining thousands of clicks a day. And rather than satisfy the curiosity, it seemed to cultivate it. Every question he answered would be met with 10 more. Each sought more detail, more insight, as though the person on the other end was a detective trying to solve a mystery. Kowallis calls the events at Nutty Putty Cave “everybody’s worst nightmare.” One of the commenters on the blog said she moderates a subreddit dedicated to the cave rescue attempt. Another asked 11 detailed questions after noting, “I live in Europe, I dont [sic] do extreme sports, and I dont [sic] know anyone who takes up extreme sports, so I don’t have anyone else to ask.” (Christopher Cherrington | The Salt Lake Tribune) Kowallis says he has a knack for quickly processing trauma and has no emotional connection to what happened at Nutty Putty Cave. He doesn’t mind sharing his experience. “I totally get why people are interested in unusual, crazy, adventurous stories like that,” Kowallis said. “I understand how that can go viral.” The Nutty Putty tragedy didn’t just go viral, though. It has stayed that way for a decade and a half. Visitors to Kowallis’ blog are but a fraction of the people rooting around for more insight into John’s nightmare. The internet is rife with videos of people squirming into cave crevices as John may have done and of graphic diagrams depicting how his body was positioned. One YouTube clip posted by Zach D. Films on Oct. 21 featured a 47-second computer-generated reenactment. It drew 4.5 million views in a day. A month later, it has 16 million views and 1.2 million likes. The feature-length thriller “The Last Descent,” which focuses heavily on Emily and John’s relationship, was released in 2016. In 2017, PBS produced a documentary centered on the rescue workers. The TV series “Fascinating Horror” ran an episode titled “The Nutty Putty Caves” in 2019. The Jones family doesn’t discourage the interest. Josh said he appreciates that it keeps the memory of his brother alive. And, he understands the draw. “It was a supremely tragic thing that happened, and it happened on hours and it’s, like, the worst case scenario. I think that’s why people might be attracted to it,” he said. “[But] it doesn’t really bother me. I’m fascinated with stuff like that, too.” Life, but different (Ron Johnson | Special to The Tribune) Emily Sanchez poses for a photograph in her Peoria, Ill., home on Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024. Wherever Emily Sanchez goes, there Nutty Putty is. She has moved four times since her first husband, John, died in that cave in 2009. She remarried and changed her name. She gave birth to two more children. She aged. And yet, people still recognize her. They still, she said, on occasion approach her and tell her, “I know who you are.” Early on, Sanchez proactively sought out the attention. Six months after John’s death, when she was giving birth to their son, whom she would name John, she talked incessantly about him. She brought his picture to the hospital. It was her way of ensuring he wasn’t forgotten. (Jones family) Emily Sanchez, then Jones, brought a photo of her former husband John Jones to the hospital when she gave birth to their son on June 15, 2010. For the same reason, when a budding director approached her about making “The Last Descent, ” she gave him her blessing. She shared the stories of their courtship and met the actors when she flew out to Utah for the filming. But when they started reading lines from a script she’d looked over hundreds of times, the typically stoic Sanchez lost it. She excused herself, hid between two cars in the parking lot and just sobbed. “It was definitely hard to watch,” said Sanchez, who had stayed home with her 1-year-old daughter when the group went to Nutty Putty but went to the cave after the rescue was underway. “I think that even though I was there at the cave ... I never saw John suffering. And so to see that depicted on film, it was hard.” Moving on from identifying as John’s wife has also been hard. Part of the struggle is that some people who know their story don’t want her to move on. Three years after John’s death, Emily remarried. Donovan Sanchez, she said, was “a gift from God.” He helped her pick up the shards of her life and drew her out of her stupor of grief. He talks to their two oldest kids about their “Daddy John.” On their fifth anniversary, she posted a photo of the two of them on Facebook. (Ron Johnson | Special to The Tribune) Emily Sanchez poses for a photograph in Peoria, Ill., with children Lizzie, 16, and John, 14, on Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024. The backlash, crude and cruel, came in a torrent. “I got so many hateful comments on that,” Sanchez recalled. “People saw the movie and then they see on Facebook that I’m remarried, and they’re like, ‘This girl doesn’t deserve John.’ “‘This girl doesn’t deserve to live because she got remarried.’” John’s death isn’t the only obstacle Sanchez has had in life. She, like Josh, underwent a crisis of faith in the LDS church. She’s suffered through five miscarriages, three in the third trimester. And she was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis, a type of arthritis that can cause the bones in the spine to fuse together. “I don’t think I fully appreciated how lonely health issues can be,” Sanchez said. “When John passed away, I was lonely but I also had an outpouring of love, because everybody can imagine how terrible it would be to lose a spouse like that. Everybody can imagine that.” Finally, though, Sanchez feels as though she is in a place where she can shed that layer of grief. She will always have John in her life — she sees him in their two children and at least once a year they return to Utah to visit his parents. But Nutty Putty doesn’t need to be in her life, too. “More challenging than the story following me, the bigger challenge is for me to let go of that identity as John’s widow and just be like, I don’t need that attention,” she said. “... I don’t need to tell this story anymore.” Others will be happy to do that for her. The attention focused on Nutty Putty shows no sign of fading. But as it circulates the internet and in social circles, Sanchez does hope people can step back from the tragic aspects of John’s story and see the bigger picture: Life can be tragic and beautiful at the same time. (Ron Johnson | Special to The Tribune) Emily Sanchez and husband Donovan Sanchez pose for a photograph in Peoria, Ill., with children Lizzie, 16, Abbie Mae, 7, Emerson, 11, and John, 14, on Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024. (Ron Johnson | Special to The Tribune) Photographs from a picture book of Emily Sanchez and her former husband, John Jones, in her home in Peoria, Ill., Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024. After 15 years, Sanchez visits the cave less frequently than she once did. It has changed, too. The verdant green moss and ferns no longer grow at the mouth of Nutty Putty Cave. In the absence of the cave’s warm, humid exhalations, the hardy broom snakeweed has taken over. Tucked between some of the rocks, though, emerge clusters of white horehound, a delicate, dusty green relative of mint. It’s still life. Now it’s just a little different.
Unlike scores of people who scrambled for the blockbuster drugs Ozempic and Wegovy to lose weight in recent years, Danielle Griffin had no trouble getting them. The 38-year-old information technology worker from New Mexico had a prescription. Her pharmacy had the drugs in stock. And her health insurance covered all but $25 to $50 of the monthly cost. For Griffin, the hardest part of using the new drugs wasn’t access. It was finding out that the much-hyped medications didn’t really work for her. “I have been on Wegovy for a year and a half and have only lost 13 pounds,” said Griffin, who watches her diet, drinks plenty of water and exercises regularly. “I’ve done everything right with no success. It’s discouraging.” In clinical trials, most participants taking Wegovy or Mounjaro to treat obesity lost an average of 15% to 22% of their body weight — up to 50 pounds or more in many cases. But roughly 10% to 15% of patients in those trials were “nonresponders” who lost less than 5% of their body weight. Now that millions of people have used the drugs, several obesity experts told The Associated Press that perhaps 20% of patients — as many as 1 in 5 — may not respond well to the medications. It's a little-known consequence of the obesity drug boom, according to doctors who caution eager patients not to expect one-size-fits-all results. “It's all about explaining that different people have different responses,” said Dr. Fatima Cody Stanford, an obesity expert at Massachusetts General Hospital The drugs are known as GLP-1 receptor agonists because they mimic a hormone in the body known as glucagon-like peptide 1. Genetics, hormones and variability in how the brain regulates energy can all influence weight — and a person's response to the drugs, Stanford said. Medical conditions such as sleep apnea can prevent weight loss, as can certain common medications, such as antidepressants, steroids and contraceptives. “This is a disease that stems from the brain,” said Stanford. “The dysfunction may not be the same” from patient to patient. Despite such cautions, patients are often upset when they start getting the weekly injections but the numbers on the scale barely budge. “It can be devastating,” said Dr. Katherine Saunders, an obesity expert at Weill Cornell Medicine and co-founder of the obesity treatment company FlyteHealth. “With such high expectations, there’s so much room for disappointment.” That was the case for Griffin, who has battled obesity since childhood and hoped to shed 70 pounds using Wegovy. The drug helped reduce her appetite and lowered her risk of diabetes, but she saw little change in weight. “It’s an emotional roller coaster,” she said. “You want it to work like it does for everybody else.” The medications are typically prescribed along with eating behavior and lifestyle changes. It’s usually clear within weeks whether someone will respond to the drugs, said Dr. Jody Dushay, an endocrine specialist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Weight loss typically begins right away and continues as the dosage increases. For some patients, that just doesn't happen. For others, side effects such as nausea, vomiting and diarrhea force them to halt the medications, Dushay said. In such situations, patients who were counting on the new drugs to pare pounds may think they’re out of options. “I tell them: It's not game over,” Dushay said. Trying a different version of the new class of drugs may help. Griffin, who didn't respond well to Wegovy, has started using Zepbound, which targets an additional hormone pathway in the body. After three months of using the drug, she has lost 7 pounds. “I'm hoping it's slow and steady,” she said. Other people respond well to older drugs, the experts said. Changing diet, exercise, sleep and stress habits can also have profound effects. Figuring out what works typically requires a doctor trained to treat obesity, Saunders noted. “Obesity is such a complex disease that really needs to be treated very comprehensively,” she said. “If what we’re prescribing doesn’t work, we always have a backup plan.” The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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Oil company Phillips 66 faces federal charges related to alleged Clean Water Act violations LOS ANGELES (AP) — Oil company Phillips 66 has been federally indicted in connection with alleged violations of the Clean Water Act in California. The Texas-based company is accused of discharging hundreds of thousands of gallons of industrial wastewater containing excessive amounts of oil and grease. The U.S. Department of Justice announced the indictment on Thursday. Phillips is charged with two counts of negligently violating the Clean Water Act and four counts of knowingly violating the Clean Water Act. An arraignment date has not been set. A spokesperson for the company said it was cooperating with prosecutors. US regulators seek to break up Google, forcing Chrome sale as part of monopoly punishment U.S. regulators want a federal judge to break up Google to prevent the company from continuing to squash competition through its dominant search engine after a court found it had maintained an abusive monopoly over the past decade. The proposed breakup floated in a 23-page document filed late Wednesday by the U.S. Justice Department calls for Google to sell its industry-leading Chrome web browser and impose restrictions designed to prevent Android from favoring its search engine. Regulators also want to ban Google from forging multibillion-dollar deals to lock in its dominant search engine as the default option on Apple’s iPhone and other devices. What you need to know about the proposed measures designed to curb Google's search monopoly U.S. regulators are proposing aggressive measures to restore competition to the online search market after a federal judge ruled that Google maintained an illegal monopoly. The sweeping set of recommendations filed late Wednesday could radically alter Google’s business. Regulators want Google to sell off its industry-leading Chrome web browser. They outlined a range of behavioral measures such as prohibiting Google from using search results to favor its own services such as YouTube, and forcing it to license search index data to its rivals. They're not going as far as to demand Google spin off Android, but are leaving that door open if the remedies don't work. SEC Chair Gary Gensler, who led US crackdown on cryptocurrencies, to step down Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler will step down from his post on January 20. Since taking the lead at the SEC, the commission has been aggressive in its oversight of cryptocurrencies and other regulatory issues. President-elect Donald Trump had promised during his campaign that he would remove Gensler, who has led the U.S. government’s crackdown on the crypto industry and repeatedly called for more oversight. But Gensler on Thursday announced that he would be stepping down from his post on the day that Trump is inaugurated. Bitcoin has jumped 40% since Trump’s victory. US intelligence warns defense companies of Russian sabotage threat WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. intelligence officials are warning American defense companies to increase their security after a wave of sabotage in Europe blamed on Russia. The National Counterintelligence and Security Center issued a public bulletin Thursday advising companies that work in the defense industry that Russia may seek to carry out acts of sabotage as part of its effort to undercut Ukraine's allies and their ability to support Ukraine in its defense against Russia. Western authorities say they believe Russian intelligence is behind several recent acts of sabotage targeting European defense companies. Russia has denied the allegations. Elon Musk's budget crusade could cause a constitutional clash in Trump's second term WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump has put Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy in charge of finding ways to cut government spending and regulations. It's possible that their efforts will lead to a constitutional clash. This week, Musk and Ramaswamy said they would encourage the Republican president-elect to refuse to spend money allocated by Congress, which would conflict with a 1974 law that's intended to prevent presidents from blocking funds. If Trump takes such a step, it would quickly become one of the most closely watched legal battles of his second administration. Musk and Ramaswamy also aim to dramatically reduce the size of the federal workforce. Bitcoin is at the doorstep of $100,000 as post-election rally rolls on NEW YORK (AP) — Bitcoin is jumping again, rising above $98,000 for the first time Thursday. The cryptocurrency has been shattering records almost daily since the U.S. presidential election, and has rocketed more than 40% higher in just two weeks. It's now at the doorstep of $100,000. Cryptocurrencies and related investments like crypto exchange-traded funds have rallied because the incoming Trump administration is expected to be more “crypto-friendly.” Still, as with everything in the volatile cryptoverse, the future is hard to predict. And while some are bullish, other experts continue to warn of investment risks. Cutting in line? American Airlines' new boarding tech might stop you at now over 100 airports NEW YORK (AP) — Sneaking a little ahead of line to get on that plane faster? American Airlines might stop you. In an apparent effort to reduce the headaches caused airport line cutting, American has rolled out boarding technology that alerts gate agents with an audible sound if a passenger tries to scan a ticket ahead of their assigned group. This new software won’t accept a boarding pass before the group it’s assigned to is called, so customers who get to the gate prematurely will be asked to go back and wait their turn. As of Wednesday, the airline announced, this technology is now being used in more than 100 U.S. airports that American flies out of. The official expansion arrives after successful tests in three of these locations. Stock market today: Wall Street rises with Nvidia as bitcoin bursts above $99,000 NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks climbed after market superstar Nvidia and another round of companies said they’re making even fatter profits than expected. The S&P 500 pulled 0.5% higher Thursday after flipping between modest gains and losses several times in the morning. The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 1.1%, and the Nasdaq composite edged up by less than 0.1%. Banks, smaller companies and other areas of the stock market that tend to do best when the economy is strong helped lead the way, while bitcoin briefly broke above $99,000. Crude oil, meanwhile, continued to rise. Treasury yields inched higher in the bond market. What will happen to CNBC and MSNBC when they no longer have a corporate connection to NBC News? Two television networks with “NBC” in their names — MSNBC and CNBC — will no longer have any corporate connection to NBC News once a spinoff formally takes effect in about a year. Comcast is cutting loose several of its cable companies into a separate company in order to improve its bottom line. It leaves several questions, particularly for MSNBC. Will the news network geared to liberal viewers continue to use NBC News personnel? Will it have to leave its offices and studios at the NBC News headquarters in New York's Rockefeller Center? Will they even keep the same names?Even with access to blockbuster obesity drugs, some people don't lose weight