This tape is for L.A., The LAnd, Cal-a-forn-I-A. The West. Kendrick Lamar solidified his place in rap history this summer after he battled Drake for the game’s top spot and this album feels like a victory lap. GNX is named after the 1987 Buick GNX — the souped up version of their Grand National car that’s apparently very rare. According to the Bentonville Buick GMC blog, there were only 547 of these things made and Kendrick confirms that number on his Instagram burner account. You see, because everything he’s been doing has been done with intention. There was a lot of smoke around rumors that he would be dropping a fresh project before the Super Bowl , and you know that old saying, right? Well, it looks like there’s a fire, folks. He’s far from finished and we should probably get used to it. There’s no sense in fighting it or hating on it, just let it be and let the chips fall where they may. The crown now sits firmly in the West. There’s no more Big 3, that era is done. It’s over with. This guy is a maniac, he’s a tyrant. He’s still talking Drake and the rest of the game all over this record. You remember that “ For Pharrell I’ll inherit the beef ” line? He flipped SWV’s “ Use Your Heart ” from 1996 that was produced by The Neptunes and titled it “ heart pt. 6 .” This is a diabolical mastermind that we’re dealing with here, so join me as I tried to pick and rank the 10 Best Lines from Kendrick Lamar’s new album GNX . Song: “peekaboo” This is an honorable mention right here because it’s not a Kendrick line. This rapped by Dody6 and was a line I kept thinking about, so I included it on here. The fact that he made sure to feature underground West Coast cats like Dody6, AzChike , and Peysoh is a pretty big deal. This is a major look for them and they delivered with some of the best features on this record. Dody snapped with that Her Loss double aunt andre, too. Salute. Song: “tv off” Hey, man, sometimes family be on some b.s. It be like that. Song: “gloria” Some feel like the his bitch being his pen is a little corny, but I was feeling the lead up to it because there’s been a lot of conversation about some of lyrical content and approach. Yeah, he’ll maybe come across as preachy or self righteous, but they in the next breath he’ll crash out. This is the dichotomy of man. Song: “heart pt. 6” This SWV flip is madness and then you couple that with these heartfelt lines about TDE’s come up and you have a special song. I felt like Stefon Diggs doing that postgame interview. You know the one. Song: “reincarnated” This dude flipped 2Pac’s “ Made N—az ” and used his flow on the first verse, but this conversation with God in the last verse stops you in your tracks. Here he goes again putting the war that’s inside him on full display. His vulnerability turns some off, yet it’s one of those things that makes an artist generational. Snoop recently gave him credit for bringing L.A.’s gangs together and how important the “Pop Out” concert was. Song: “squabble up” He has the money and the power to off the competition, but the boogeyman enjoys doing the job himself. Song: “man at the garden” He’s still not finished?? This guy is a menace. Song: “hey now” I’m not sure Noah was killing animals aboard his ark, but I haven’t read the bible in a minute. Great line, either way. And of course, we all know how he’s referring to. Song: “squabble up” So, it looks like we finally got the snippet he did at the start of the “Not Like Us” video and it’s essentially a message to the game that the boogeyman is outside and he wants to play. Song: “peekaboo” Calling diamonds boogers and comparing their carats to Kobe’s 81-point game is what this rap thing is all about. Song: “wacced out murals” To be fair to Snoop, he posts damn near everything on his Instagram account. But him waking up and being confused about hearing his voice on Drake’s diss song and then reposting it was a little head-scratching to say the least. The West Coast legend has been adamant about wanting to stay neutral throughout this whole ordeal, so maybe he didn’t really mean anything by it? Either way, Kendrick’s disappointed in his OG. Let’s hope they can hash this out. Song: “hey now” This is one of the best lines on one of the album’s best songs, and he’s still talking to Drake who some thought was too big to fail. Song: “dodger blue” That line about his chain being so dripped in ice that it resembles the glare on the camera lenses used by some of the game’s greatest directors is special. Song: “wacced out murals” Jigga tapping Dot to headline the Super Bowl has made everyone loose their minds, and perhaps there were some politics happening behind the scenes that made Wayne feel like he and Cash Money were going to get the nod in their hometown, but I’m not really sure how you can not understand this decision. Maybe Weezy gets the call if one of the most important rap battles since Jay-Z vs. Nas didn’t pop off. Song: “man at the garden” The crown sits in the West. We better get used to it. Now we sit back and see who tries to come for it.Medline Industries Gears Up for $5 Billion IPO in 2025
Optoma inputs for Year Ender Story 2024An Aurora City Council committee this week recommended an addendum to the contract with HR Green, Inc. of Aurora for engineering of the work to be done at Farnsworth Avenue, Bilter Road and Church Road in the city. Aldermen on the Infrastructure and Technology Committee recommended a $256,291 addendum to the HR Green contract which is already about $1.9 million for work in the area, much of it connected to the new Hollywood Casino-Aurora resort. The City Council recently approved a $19.5 million contract with low-bidder R.W. Dunteman Co., of Addison, for the roadwork, as well as the original $1.9 million construction engineering contract with HR Green. The city has already worked with HR Green overseeing traffic studies done for the area. Much of the work is tied to the Hollywood Casino-Aurora resort project underway, although the city has been planning for all the roadwork needed in that area through 2050, not just the casino. In addition to the casino resort project underway, the city owns land further east on Bilter Road that will be developed, some into mixed uses, some into housing. Brian Witkowski, of the city’s Engineering Division, said this week the engineering part of the road projects was expanded during the past year and “required a lot of coordination.” “HR Green has done an exemplary job,” he said. The $19.5 million for the roadwork itself was higher than the estimated $16 million the city had expected for the work, which means officials are looking at truncating some of the work – changing some things and delaying others – to afford it. Witkowski said while parts of the project are being delayed, the city is moving ahead with things like right-of-way acquisition and utility relocation, which HR Green is involved with. “This is so when we look for federal funding in the future, we’re ready to go,” he said. The city does have some money already lined up for the roadwork. The casino itself has put forward $2 million for the roads as part of its redevelopment agreement with the city. The city also has $2.5 million in federal funds committed to the projects and will be seeking more, officials have said. The tax increment financing district for the casino site could pay for some of it, too. Also, the city will get an estimated $2 million to $2.5 million in interest off the proceeds from the $58 million bond issue the city passed as part of the casino redevelopment agreement. The proceeds come from the fact the city has passed the bond issue already, but has not yet paid the casino the $50 million toward the overall $360 million project. Payment will be done based on a series of benchmarks the casino must meet first. In the meantime, the city is earning interest off the proceeds. Officials have said the city is hoping to have much of the roadwork done by Thanksgiving time 2025. slord@tribpub.com
Rodgers says he'll enjoy the rest of the Jets' season and 'let the future take care of itself'
Aston Villa president of football operations Monchi has broken his silence after Jhon Duran's red card appeal was rejected on Friday. The Colombia international was shown a red card in Villa's 3-0 loss at the hands of Newcastle United on Boxing Day. Anthony Gordon, Alexander Isak and Joelinton were among the goals as the Magpies inflicted the sixth Premier League defeat on Unai Emery's side this season. Questions were raised during and after the match over the validity of Duran's sending off. The forward lost out in a tussle with Newcastle defender Fabian Schar and appeared to step on the Swiss international as they fell to the floor. While a painful challenge, Villa and Duran were insistent there was no intent and it was accidental. READ | Aston Villa learn outcome of Jhon Duran red card appeal after Newcastle controversy READ | What Jhon Duran did after leaving the pitch as the FA given perfect reason to overturn Aston Villa ban That was not the view of the FA, however, as the club announced on Friday evening that the ban will not be rescinded as the appeal was rejected by the governing body. As a result, the 21-year-old will now miss Villa's next two league games against Brighton and Leicester City, as well as their FA Cup meeting with West Ham. Duran will be available for selection again when Emery's side travel to take on Everton on January 15. In light of recent developments, Villa's president of football operations, Monchi, has shared his thoughts on the decision not to overturn Duran's red card. Speaking on social media platform X (formerly Twitter), the 56-year-old said: "We can understand a mistake, because to err is human, but to insist on the mistake only creates doubts about the system. "I came from a place where the motto is NEVER SURRENDER. so here we say the same thing, we will not surrender and we will continue fighting for our club. Up the Villa." Villa are now ninth in the Premier League standings with 28 points. They are six points off top four as things stand, although Fulham and Manchester City also sit in the same position with 18 games played. Should Duran's ban have been overturned? Let us know in the comments section ...Janet Yellen tells Congress US could hit debt limit in mid-JanuaryFormer Prime Minister of India Dr. Manmohan Singh passed away in Delhi on Thursday. He was 92. Several top personalities condoled Dr. Singh’s demise, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, Wayanad MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and many more. While PM Modi called Manmohan Singh one of the most distinguished leaders of the country, Kharge referenced a quote from the former Prime Minister's last press conference in the office. “Undoubtedly, history shall judge you kindly, Dr. Manmohan Singh ji!” he wrote in a post on X. “I mourn the loss of a lifelong senior colleague, a gentle intellectual and a humble soul who embodied the aspirations of India, having risen through the ranks with unwavering dedication,” Kharge wrote. “Few people in politics inspire the kind of respect that Sardar Manmohan Singh ji did,” Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra wrote in a post. “His honesty will always be an inspiration for us and he will forever stand tall among those who truly love this country as someone who remained steadfast in his commitment to serve the nation despite being subjected to unfair and deeply personal attacks by his opponents,” she continued. Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi said that he had lost a mentor. “Manmohan Singh Ji led India with immense wisdom and integrity. His humility and deep understanding of economics inspired the nation. My heartfelt condolences to Mrs. Kaur and the family. I have lost a mentor and guide. Millions of us who admired him will remember him with the utmost pride,” he wrote in a post on X. Union health minister, JP Nadda, posted on the micro-blogging site X, “The passing of Former Prime Minister and Economist Shri Manmohan Singh ji is an immense loss for the nation. A visionary statesman and a stalwart of Indian politics, throughout his remarkable career in public service, he consistently voiced for the welfare of the downtrodden. His leadership earned admiration and respect across party lines. Shri Manmohan Singh ji’s legacy will continue to inspire generations in their pursuit of nation-building. My heartfelt condolences to his family, friends, and admirers.” Dr Manmohan Singh served as prime minister of India from 2004 to 2014. Manmohan Singh was undergoing treatment at AIIMS Delhi Manmohan Singh was admitted to the emergency ward of Delhi's All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) at around 8 pm on Thursday. The veteran Congress leader retired from the Rajya Sabha in April after 33-year-long stint in the Upper House. Resuscitative measures were started immediately at home. He was brought to the Medical Emergency at AIIMS, New Delhi at 8:06 PM. Despite all efforts, he could not be revived and was declared dead at 9:51 PM,” the AIIMS said in a statement. Singh is survived by his wife Gurcharan Singh and three daughters. Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and her mother Sonia Gandhi reached the hospital as soon as the news of his hospitalisation became known.
The 3G shutdown: Lessons from Australia and the worldI'm lost in the conveyor belts again. There are scores of them going in every direction, carrying concrete, steel and copper parts to other parts of my growing empire. I'm in the guts of my first factory in Satisfactory, trying to optimizse a production line in the hope that I can finally get my hands on a jetpack. Satisfactory starts like every other survival game. You land on a planet, decide to exploit it mercilessly, and start pulling resources out of the ground. Then it veers in a different direction. An industrial direction. See, while you can technically craft just about everything in Satisfactory with your own two hands, making stuff yourself is ridiculous. Real engineers build machines to do all of that assembling for them. This feels intimidating, but Satisfactory's onboarding is some of the best out there. From your first miner all the way to installing power lines, setting up a drone factory or even just straight up adopting nuclear power, Satisfactory slowly guides you through the process. Thinking with pulleys 20 hours after landing, I'm installing six huge batteries as an off-site power backup just in case the wrong wire is cut and my power fails. These batteries will give me 30 minutes of spare power in case of emergency. After this, I'm going to start making AI limiters, after that I need to refill my supply of explosive Nobelisk charges. There's always something big that needs to be done in Satisfactory, and because I'm a fairly chaotic person, my work is imperfect, ready to be tweaked, refined and optimized again and again. Outside of the horrifying spiders, the scariest enemy you'll face in this factory building craft-'em-up is an empty stretch of conveyor belt or an efficiency meter floating around the 50 per cent mark. This is the real meat of Satisfactory, and in addition to the scores of hours I've spent prodding and pulling at conveyor belts and production lines, I've spent more hours than I can count doodling factory designs down on waste paper in the hope of finally making the perfect factory design. I haven't cracked it yet, so often when something goes wrong I venture down into the conveyor belts to see what's gone wrong. But that's not the reason that Satisfactory is my favorite game this year, in a year filled with bombastic AAA games, breakout hit Helldivers 2 , and even interesting indie shooters like I Am Your Beast, Echo Point Nova and Straftat. No, the reason Satisfactory is my favorite game is how much joy is infused into every part of the game. Even just moving is wonderful: movement feels similar to Apex Legends, except you're bouncing around the factory you and your friends have built. The perfect example of this is the slide: there's no reason for Satisfactory to have a slide that feels this good, and despite the fact there's no mechanical purpose, you can feel the craftsmanship. People who have thought a whole lot about first-person kinesthetics are behind this slide. It makes you slightly faster if you time it right, but the best part is that if you build your conveyor belts at the normal height, when you slide you'll go cleanly under them. Later, emboldened by Blade Runners – a new pair of shoes that increase your running speed by 50 percent and double your jumping height (while also mitigating a lot of fall damage) – I started to think of my factory as a 3D space rather than a series of buildings. A door here, a wall-mounted conveyor belt there and suddenly I could get from end to end of my factory without touching the ground. Later abilities let me ride my powerlines like a zipline, and then you can even build little sucky transport tubes like in Futurama to get around, but there's an elegance to getting around that meant I always wanted to go manual – whether it's the bodge-job watchtowers chained together to scale a nearby cliff, or the giant gel-filled pad I built to shield myself when I tumbled from the nearby mountain. As technology gets more and more advanced, stomping around instead of using the technological shortcuts to get about feels more and more like a hipster that bores people at parties by patiently but intensely explaining vinyl is better than listening to people on Spotify. But I don't care. Of course, while J.R.R Tolkien once suggested that not all who wander are lost, there's an important caveat: those who wander around for long enough are sure to get just a tiny bit confused about their location, at least. Which is how I've ended up here. Ostensibly I'm trying to fix an efficiency problem, but really, I'm just here for the journey. Considering I like clear structure and defined goals, that seems like Satisfactory's biggest achievement. If I were Coffee Stain, I'd rename the game Exceptional - puns be damned. See where Satisfactory ranked on our best games of 2024Yiddá Eslava shares the result of her rhinoplasty and explains why she kept it a secret: “It changed my life” | ShowsWake Forest still experimenting ahead of Detroit Mercy game
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WASHINGTON (AP) — A lead organization monitoring for food crises around the world withdrew a new report this week warning of imminent famine in north Gaza under what it called Israel's “near-total blockade,” after the U.S. asked for its retraction, U.S. officials told the Associated Press. The move follows public criticism of the report from the U.S. ambassador to Israel. The rare public dispute drew accusations from prominent aid and human-rights figures that the work of the U.S.-funded Famine Early Warning System Network , meant to reflect the opinion of unbiased international experts, has been tainted by politics. A declaration of famine would be a great embarrassment for Israel, which has insisted that its 15-month war in Gaza is aimed against the Hamas militant group and not against its civilian population. U.S. ambassador to Israel Jacob Lew earlier this week called the warning by the internationally recognized group inaccurate and “irresponsible ." Lew and the U.S. Agency for International Development, which funds the monitoring group, both said the findings failed to properly account for rapidly changing circumstances in north Gaza. Humanitarian and human rights officials expressed fear of U.S. political interference in the world's monitoring system for famines. The U.S. Embassy in Israel and the State Department declined comment. FEWS officials did not respond to questions. “We work day and night with the U.N. and our Israeli partners to meet humanitarian needs — which are great — and relying on inaccurate data is irresponsible,” Lew said Tuesday. USAID confirmed to the AP that it had asked the famine-monitoring organization to withdraw its stepped-up warning issued in a report dated Monday. The report did not appear among the top updates on the group's website Thursday, but the link to it remained active . The dispute points in part to the difficulty of assessing the extent of starvation in largely isolated northern Gaza. Thousands in recent weeks have fled an intensified Israeli military crackdown that aid groups say has allowed delivery of only a dozen trucks of food and water since roughly October. FEWS Net said in its withdrawn report that unless Israel changes its policy, it expects the number of people dying of starvation and related ailments in north Gaza to reach between two and 15 per day sometime between January and March. The internationally recognized mortality threshold for famine is two or more deaths a day per 10,000 people. FEWS was created by the U.S. development agency in the 1980s and is still funded by it. But it is intended to provide independent, neutral and data-driven assessments of hunger crises, including in war zones. Its findings help guide decisions on aid by the U.S. and other governments and agencies around the world. A spokesman for Israel's foreign ministry, Oren Marmorstein, welcomed the U.S. ambassador's public challenge of the famine warning. “FEWS NET - Stop spreading these lies!” Marmorstein said on X . In challenging the findings publicly, the U.S. ambassador "leveraged his political power to undermine the work of this expert agency,” said Scott Paul, a senior manager at the Oxfam America humanitarian nonprofit. Paul stressed that he was not weighing in on the accuracy of the data or methodology of the report. “The whole point of creating FEWS is to have a group of experts make assessments about imminent famine that are untainted by political considerations,” said Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch and now a visiting professor in international affairs at Princeton University . “It sure looks like USAID is allowing political considerations -- the Biden administration’s worry about funding Israel’s starvation strategy -- to interfere." Israel says it has been operating in recent months against Hamas militants still active in northern Gaza. It says the vast majority of the area’s residents have fled and relocated to Gaza City, where most aid destined for the north is delivered. But some critics, including a former defense minister, have accused Israel of carrying out ethnic cleansing in Gaza’s far north, near the Israeli border. North Gaza has been one of the areas hardest-hit by fighting and Israel’s restrictions on aid throughout its war with Hamas militants. Global famine monitors and U.N. and U.S. officials have warned repeatedly of the imminent risk of malnutrition and deaths from starvation hitting famine levels. International officials say Israel last summer increased the amount of aid it was admitting there, under U.S. pressure. The U.S. and U.N. have said Gaza’s people as a whole need between 350 and 500 trucks a day of food and other vital needs. But the U.N. and aid groups say Israel recently has again blocked almost all aid to that part of Gaza. Cindy McCain , the American head of the U.N. World Food Program, previously called for political pressure to get food flowing to Palestinians there. Israel says it places no restrictions on aid entering Gaza and that hundreds of truckloads of goods are piled up at Gaza’s crossings and accused international aid agencies of failing to deliver the supplies. The U.N. and other aid groups say ongoing combat, looting and insufficient security by Israeli troops make it impossible to deliver aid effectively. Lew, the U.S. ambassador, said the famine warning was based on “outdated and inaccurate” data. He pointed to uncertainty over how many of the 65,000-75,000 people remaining in northern Gaza had fled in recent weeks, saying that skewed the findings. FEWS said in its report that its famine assessment holds even if as few as 10,000 people remain. USAID in its statement to AP said it had reviewed the report before it became public, and noted “discrepancies” in population estimates and some other data. The U.S. agency had asked the famine warning group to address those uncertainties and be clear in its final report to reflect how those uncertainties affected its predictions of famine, it said. “This was relayed before Ambassador Lew’s statement,” USAID said in a statement. “FEWS NET did not resolve any of these concerns and published in spite of these technical comments and a request for substantive engagement before publication. As such, USAID asked to retract the report.” Roth criticized the U.S. challenge of the report in light of the gravity of the crisis there. “This quibbling over the number of people desperate for food seems a politicized diversion from the fact that the Israeli government is blocking virtually all food from getting in,” he said, adding that “the Biden administration seems to be closing its eyes to that reality, but putting its head in the sand won’t feed anyone.” The U.S., Israel’s main backer, provided a record amount of military support in the first year of the war. At the same time, the Biden administration repeatedly urged Israel to allow more access to aid deliveries in Gaza overall, and warned that failing to do so could trigger U.S. restrictions on military support. The administration recently said Israel was making improvements and declined to carry out its threat of restrictions. Military support for Israel’s war in Gaza is politically charged in the U.S., with Republicans and some Democrats staunchly opposed any effort to limit U.S. support over the suffering of Palestinian civilians trapped in the conflict. The Biden administration’s reluctance to do more to press Israel for improved treatment of civilians undercut support for Democrats in last month’s elections. Sam Mednick and Josef Federman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.OKLAHOMA CITY — Immigration policy could once again be a top issue at the Oklahoma Capitol this upcoming legislative session. As President-elect Donald Trump pledges his own federal crackdown, Oklahoma Republicans have unveiled their own ideas that they believe will position the state to quickly expel undocumented immigrants next year. Critics of the state’s latest anti-immigration efforts, though, said that Oklahoma’s elected officials don’t appear interested in enacting meaningful policy reforms that make communities safer. They only seem interested in passing extreme policies that garner attention from the Republican president-elect. They said the Oklahoma is already embroiled in a federal lawsuit related to its last anti-immigration effort, and that deportation is a responsibility of federal agencies, not states. State plans Earlier this month, Gov. Kevin Stitt unveiled his plan. He said “Operation Guardian” would deport undocumented immigrants from Oklahoma’s correctional facilities. He tapped Commissioner of Public Safety Tim Tipton to consult with law enforcement, the Trump transition team and the Department of Homeland Security to create and present a plan by Jan. 15. The Oklahoma Department of Corrections houses 526 undocumented immigrants in Oklahoma “jails,” which cost Oklahoma taxpayers about $36,000 per day, according to the governor’s office. “As law and order returns to the White House, Oklahoma will lead the charge with a comprehensive plan to deport those who have committed crimes in Oklahoma while in the country illegally,” Stitt said in a statement Nov. 15. The governor’s office and the Department of Public Safety did not respond to a request for comment on how this initiative could interfere with the rights guaranteed to crime victims. State Rep. Justin Humphrey, R-Lane, said he has submitted language for legislation to create a new charge for undocumented immigrants who commit a crime in the state. This additional charge would carry a sentence of life behind bars or the option of deportation. He said his plan will save taxpayers money because the state is already paying to educate undocumented immigrants and to care for those participating in Oklahoma’s welfare system. Humphrey said his idea was “well received” and that he didn’t get any pushback at the interim study where he first mentioned it in October, although he said the study was not highly attended. Still, he said he expects the support of law enforcement on this bill. He said he is not sure if the bill is still necessary given Stitt’s proposal, but he is going to hold onto it and decide later whether to file it or to find someone else to file it. Humphrey said he’s concerned about Stitt’s “consistency” on immigration policy, referencing an immigration task force created by the governor. He said Stitt had presented “mixed messages.” Stitt created the Oklahoma State Work Permits and Visa Task Force to make recommendations that would “allow immigrants to have the visas, permits and documentation to pursue the American Dream.” The task force’s recommendations included creating an Office of New Oklahomans, issuing qualified migrants “Driving Privilege Cards” and pilot programs to issue more work permits and visas to non-citizens. After the recommendations were released in September, a spokesperson for Stitt said on social media that the governor would not implement the recommendations. Nicole Maldonado, vice president of Oklahoma’s chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens, or LULAC, said state officials seem to be focused on passing the “most extreme and crazy” policy ideas instead of “reasonable” solutions to reduce the taxpayer burden. LULAC advocates for the rights of Hispanic Americans. “I think that this is just another tactic for them to be part of the show and not actually to create reasonable solutions to the issue,” she said. “I think that it’s just more to be like, ‘Hey, look at us. We’re trying to do this.’ This is to receive Trump’s attention. But I don’t think that there’s going to be a meaningful solution or policy that is going to come out of this.” Maldonado said Humphrey’s idea seems to do the opposite of what Stitt wants to do by bringing more undocumented immigrants into Oklahoma’s correctional facilities. In 2022, over 89,000 undocumented immigrants in Oklahoma contributed about $227.5 million in state and local taxes, according to a report by a nonprofit, nonpartisan tax policy organization. This amount does not include what undocumented immigrants paid into Social Security and Medicare despite not being able to access these benefits themselves. Cindy Nguyen, policy director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma, said policies like Humphrey’s create fear in immigrant communities and are not realistic solutions for the state. “(This) will only cause communities to live in constant fear as we saw with a lot of the anti-immigration bills that were introduced last legislative session,” Nguyen said. “We know that many victims of violence are now going to be even more afraid to speak out and report this crime because they are afraid of the consequences of that. And now ... they’re even more afraid to report it, because they see that they might get a life sentence if they’re undocumented.” She said that Oklahoma’s prisons and jails are already overcrowded and this will create even more of a burden on taxpayers. “It is not a great solution to address immigration or address the fear of our undocumented communities in Oklahoma, who are also taxpayers who go to our schools, who are our neighbors, who contribute to making the state even greater and more diverse,” Nguyen said. The last attempt to pass immigration policy by Oklahoma’s GOP is currently in legal limbo. House Bill 4156, signed by Stitt in April, creates a crime called “impermissible occupation” for willfully entering the state without legal authorization to be in the United States. A first offense would be a misdemeanor punishable by one year in county jail, a fine of up to $500 or both. The person would be required to leave the state within 72 hours. A second offense would be a felony with up to two years in prison, a fine of $1,000 or both. Multiple parties, including the ACLU and the federal government, have sued to prevent HB 4156 from taking effect. Implementation was put on hold by a federal judge, pending legal challenges. Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond has appealed.
HAUPPAUGE, N.Y., Nov. 26, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- AmpliTech Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: AMPG, AMPGW) (the “Company”), a designer, developer, and manufacturer of state-of-the-art signal processing components for satellite, Public and Private 5G, and other communications networks, including the design of complete 5G/6G systems and a global distributor of packages and lids for integrated circuits assembly, today announced it has closed on its previously announced registered direct offering for the sale of 1,603,259 shares of common stock (or pre-funded warrants in lieu thereof) (“the Securities”) at an offering price of $0.92 per share. The gross proceeds to the Company from the registered direct offering were approximately $1,475,000 before deducting the placement agent’s fees and other offering expenses. Maxim Group LLC acted as the sole placement agent in connection with the offering. The Securities were offered pursuant to a shelf registration statement on Form S-3 (File No. 333-278657), which was declared effective by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) on April 24, 2024. The offering was made only by means of a prospectus supplement that forms a part of such registration statement. This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, nor will there be any sales of these Securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of such jurisdiction. A prospectus supplement relating to the Securities offered in the registered direct offering was filed by the Company with the SEC. Copies of the prospectus supplement relating to the registered direct offering, together with the accompanying prospectus, can be obtained at the SEC's website at www.sec.gov or from Maxim Group LLC, 300 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10022, Attention: Syndicate Department, or via email at syndicate@maximgrp.com or telephone at (212) 895-3500. About AmpliTech Group AmpliTech Group, Inc., comprising five divisions—AmpliTech Inc., Specialty Microwave, Spectrum Semiconductors Materials, AmpliTech Group Microwave Design Center, and AmpliTech Group True G Speed Services is a leading designer, developer, manufacturer, and distributor of cutting-edge radio frequency (RF) microwave components and 5G network solutions. Serving global markets, including satellite communications, telecommunications (5G & IoT), space exploration, defense, and quantum computing, AmpliTech Group is committed to advancing technology and innovation. Forward-Looking Statements All statements in this release that are not based on historical fact are “forward-looking statements” including within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and the provisions of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. The information in this announcement may contain forward-looking statements and information related to, among other things, statements regarding the Company, its business plan and strategy, and its industry. Such forward statements include, but are not limited to, that the booking of orders and anticipation of booking of orders, including LNB and 5G products and Fujitsu Spain, will lead to sales of products, These statements reflect management’s current views with respect to future events based on information currently available and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause the Company’s actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements, including risks related to market conditions, and other risks described in the Company’s filings with the SEC. Investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date on which they are made. The Company does not undertake any obligation to revise or update these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after such date or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. Contacts: Corporate Social Media Twitter: @AmpliTechAMPG Instagram: @AmpliTechAMPG Facebook: AmpliTechInc Linked In: AmpliTech Group Inc Investor Social Media Twitter: @AMPG_IR StockTwits: @AMPG_IR Company Contact: Jorge Flores Tel: 631-521-7831 Investors@amplitechgroup.comLandlord admits she overcharged her tenants for a heartwarming reason... but some people aren't buying it