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Vikings staying on track and in control behind Sam Darnold's composure and confidenceMINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A Connecticut couple has been charged in Minnesota with being part of a shoplifting ring suspected of stealing around $1 million in goods across the country from the upscale athletic wear retailer Lululemon. Jadion Anthony Richards, 44, and Akwele Nickeisha Lawes-Richards, 45, both of Danbury, Connecticut, were charged this month with one felony count of organized retail theft. Both went free last week after posting bail bonds of $100,000 for him and $30,000 for her, court records show. They're due back in Ramsey County District Court in St. Paul on Dec. 16. According to the criminal complaints, a Lululemon investigator had been tracking the pair even before police first confronted them on Nov. 14 at a store in suburban Roseville. The investigator told police the couple were responsible for hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses across the country, the complaints said. They would steal items and make fraudulent returns, it said. Police found suitcases containing more than $50,000 worth of Lululemon clothing when they searched the couple's hotel room in Bloomington, the complaint said. According to the investigator, they were also suspected in thefts from Lululemon stores in Colorado, Utah, New York and Connecticut, the complaint said. Within Minnesota, they were also accused of thefts at stores in Minneapolis and the suburbs of Woodbury, Edina and Minnetonka. The investigator said the two were part of a group that would usually travel to a city and hit Lululemon stores there for two days, return to the East Coast to exchange the items without receipts for new items, take back the new items with the return receipts for credit card refunds, then head back out to commit more thefts, the complaint said. In at least some of the thefts, it said, Richards would enter the store first and buy one or two cheap items. He'd then return to the sales floor where, with help from Lawes-Richards, they would remove a security sensor from another item and put it on one of the items he had just purchased. Lawes-Richards and another woman would then conceal leggings under their clothing. They would then leave together. When the security sensors at the door went off, he would offer staff the bag with the items he had bought, while the women would keep walking out, fooling the staff into thinking it was his sensor that had set off the alarm, the complaint said. Richards' attorney declined comment. Lawes-Richards' public defender did not immediately return a call seeking comment Monday. “This outcome continues to underscore our ongoing collaboration with law enforcement and our investments in advanced technology, team training and investigative capabilities to combat retail crime and hold offenders accountable,” Tristen Shields, Lululemon's vice president of asset protection, said in a statement. "We remain dedicated to continuing these efforts to address and prevent this industrywide issue.” The two are being prosecuted under a state law enacted last year that seeks to crack down on organized retail theft. One of its chief authors, Sen. Ron Latz, of St. Louis Park, said 34 states already had organized retail crime laws on their books. “I am glad to see it is working as intended to bring down criminal operations," Latz said in a statement. "This type of theft harms retailers in myriad ways, including lost economic activity, job loss, and threats to worker safety when crime goes unaddressed. It also harms consumers through rising costs and compromised products being resold online.” Two Minnesota women were also charged under the new law in August. They were accused of targeting a Lululemon store in Minneapolis.
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WILMINGTON, N.C. (AP) — Donovan Newby had 16 points in UNC Wilmington's 76-61 victory over Appalachian State on Saturday night. Newby also added six assists for the Seahawks (5-2). Nolan Hodge added 15 points while shooting 6 for 10, including 2 for 5 from beyond the arc and had six rebounds. Harlan Obioha had 12 points and shot 5 of 5 from the field and 2 of 5 from the free-throw line. The Mountaineers (5-3) were led in scoring by CJ Huntley, who finished with 17 points. Jalil Beaubrun added 16 points and 11 rebounds for Appalachian State. Alonzo Dodd had 11 points. UNC Wilmington took the lead with 15:43 left in the first half and did not relinquish it. The score was 44-33 at halftime, with Hodge racking up 15 points. ___ The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by and data from . The Associated Press
The case of the woman who dodged TSA checkpoints and a US airline’s boarding protocols to hop on a flight to Paris is raising alarms about a wider aviation security problem. Multiple similar breaches of security have occurred within air travel, including some this year, but they often go undocumented. During one of the busiest travel periods on record for the Transportation Security Administration, Svetlana Dali, 57, slipped past airport security and made her way onto a flight over Thanksgiving from New York to Paris, making it most of the way there before being detected. Her case made international headlines, but stowaways are not as uncommon as travelers may think. This example, and many others over the years, have sounded alarms to public officials on protocols and safety. Airlines, too, have developed security plans to ensure things go according to plan. But even then, people can slip through. Although the reported cases are few, they happen all over the world, according to Alexandra James, an analysis output manager at Osprey Flight Solutions , which analyzes security risks in the aviation sector. She has written a case study on stowaway situations. James said she draws information from open-sourced information, such as media reports. “I hesitate to say [this happens] a lot, but I wouldn’t hesitate to acknowledge it as a security weakness,” James said. One potential solution — electronic gate technology that allows only one passenger to pass through at a time — would require more federal investment, aviation security officials have said. Security failures Dali was charged with being a stowaway on a vessel or aircraft without consent, among other federal charges. She was released from custody with more than a dozen conditions, CNN reported, but then 10 days later, she was taken into custody again, this time trying to sneak into Canada on a bus. Prosecutor Brooke Theodora said Dali told investigators she had tried to stow away before at a number of airports. She highlighted a police report from February 2024 indicating Dali tried to enter a secure arrivals area at Miami International Airport and get through customs to the planes, going against people arriving and trying to leave the airport. Around the busy Thanksgiving travel holiday, Dali bypassed an airport terminal employee in charge of the security lane reserved for airline flight crews at John F. Kennedy International Airport’s Terminal 4 main checkpoint, a TSA spokesperson told CNN after the incident. Dali managed to skip the station where her ID and boarding pass would have been checked, the spokesperson said. She then joined the line for standard TSA carry-on baggage screening. It remains unclear how Dali was able to get past Delta Air Lines gate agents at JFK. Delta has not said how she was able to board the plane once she made it past the TSA checkpoint. Delta later told CNN it was “thoroughly addressing” what it described as a “deviation from standard procedures” that enabled Dali to board the plane without a boarding pass. The airline did not provide specifics but said in a statement it reviewed its own security and its infrastructure is “sound.” The airline did not have anything additional to add after CNN asked for further comment following the incident for this story. TSA is conducting its own investigation of the incident. TSA Administrator David P. Pekoske suggested this month that installing electronic gate technology — known as e-gates — could be a solution to making sure all passengers are screened. The technology could integrate with the agency’s facial recognition systems at checkpoints, but it would require more federal investment, the agency has said. Two types of stowaway incidents James categorizes stowaway incidents two different ways. There are stowaways who breach perimeter fences illegally or are smuggled inside the airport by someone else, and then there are stowaways such as Dali, who are unticketed passengers trying to get on a flight. She points to a handful of reported cases in 2024, including Dali’s case, which happened despite a slew of security measures implemented at airports in the more than two decades since 9/11. These include not allowing unticketed passengers past security checkpoints, sophisticated ID checks by the TSA and electronic scans of boarding passes at gates. Aviation security, she said, is like an onion. There are layers of elements that comprise it. “If you’re the last layer in the onion [where a passenger gets on an aircraft], then it shouldn’t be considered the least important,” James explained. “It should be considered the most important.” Many stowaways take an incredibly risky route outside the airplane cabin in their attempts to travel undetected. In 2011, the Federal Aviation Administration reported 89 people had attempted to fly in the wheel well or other compartments exterior to the aircraft cabin, excluding the cargo area. Of those 89, only 18 survived. There are no more recent statistics from the FAA. And the FAA confirmed to CNN that it has never formally tracked stowaway cases. Other would-be stowaways try to bypass security measures to travel in the passenger cabin. In February of this year, there was a woman who bypassed the TSA documentation checkpoint by jumping a barrier to an unattended section. In March, a Texas man who took photos of other passengers’ tickets boarded a Delta Air Lines flight from Salt Lake City International Airport to Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. Last year, another woman boarded an Air France flight bound for London-Heathrow International Airport with no identification or boarding pass. The crew noticed her, and she was removed from the aircraft before takeoff. There’s also the famous case of Marilyn Hartman, the serial stowaway, who was thought to have boarded at least 30 flights between 2002 and 2019, including international flights. James said Hartman’s and Dali’s cases are interesting because their demographics, white women in their 50s and 60s, may not seem like a threat to some security officers. “This incident demonstrates that possibly more needs to be done to raise awareness of the fact that profiling isn’t necessarily the most effective way of determining whether somebody’s a threat,” James said. The upside, according to Juliette Kayyem, a former Department of Homeland Security official, is that Dali didn’t end up being much of a threat. Despite this, Kayyem, also a senior national security analyst for CNN, called it a “complete failure.” “She falls outside of every high-risk profile by age, gender and ethnicity and therefore, that might explain why the systems did not pick her up,” Kayyem said. Lessons learned While these instances might occur more than we realize, they are still “exceedingly rare,” according to former TSA administrator John Pistole. “It gets a lot of attention because it shouldn’t happen,” Pistole said. While he was running TSA during the Obama administration, Pistole said TSA introduced risk-based security. He explained that can mean screening before a traveler is even at the airport, based on who they are and if they are on a watch list or should be on a watch list. The actual screening of a passenger should be one of the final layers of screening, he said. “There’s no perfect security,” he said. “There’s no guarantee.” Dennis Tajer is a pilot and spokesman for the Allied Pilots Association, the union that represents American Airlines’ pilots. He said he hasn’t encountered this situation at American, but says he hears about stowaway incidents across the industry including ones where stowaways are found inside the aircraft’s various compartments. “Clearly, the system failed,” Tajer said. “No matter what airline it happened to.” He said the union will want to hear from American Airlines about the lesson learned from the recent Delta incident. “Crews are trained,” Tajer said. “We have procedures, and when security comes into call during flight, we have an entire team of security professionals on the ground to advise, to cross check and make sure that that airplane is kept secure and safe.” James added that the reputations of airlines where these situations occur take a hit to some degree, with not only the breach in security, but also any traveler delays associated with the stowaway situation. “The fact is that these incidents represent a major flaw in security processes, and so that can result in your customers not feeling safe, which can potentially result in a decline in ticket sales,” James said. Kayyem hopes that airlines and the TSA will look at the Dali case and learn lessons about where the system failed. “I think the lesson is that it really does fall on the original breach, which is once she got through security as a ticketed passenger,” Kayyam said, even though Dali did not have a ticket. “Everyone on the other side of that is making assumptions about how that person [made it to the gate.] ... I’m not apologizing for Delta. They let her on a plane. I don’t even get how that happened.” CNN’s Pete Muntean and Ray Sanchez contributed to this report.Protecting the planet, one cloud at a time
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I have become a fans favourite at Manchester United but I had no idea they loved me so muchHeadline: 'GOP Senator Releases Shocking Report on Telework Abuse by Federal Employees'
M illions of women live in India’s congested streets, busy marketplaces, and even peaceful homes with a silent anxiety of being in danger in places where they ought to feel safe. There is always a risk of violence or harassment even at home, not to mention when taking a stroll or using public transport. Safety is a daily struggle for many women, fought in whispers and caution, and it frequently goes undetected by others around them. Even with India’s advancements in a number of areas, the protection of women is still a major national concern. High-profile incidents of violence against women often spark public anger, but fade too quickly from public memory. Women who experience pain after harassment, abuse, or violence but choose to keep quiet out of fear of social stigma, humiliation, or lack of support are innumerable and unheard. Laws alone are insufficient to address women’s safety. There is the utmost requirement of a change in society — a mentality that all women are equal to men and should be respected from an early age. There is a need of creating an atmosphere allowing women to feel free to walk alone and raise their voice and share their concerns without worrying about repercussions. As a society, we have to choose between allowing fear to continue to control the lives of our mothers, sisters, daughters, and friends, or establishing a country in which women are free to live, work, and dream. If we bring in change within our society, the day is not far when women can walk freely and fearlessly with every voice raised, hand offered in support, and action taken to ensure their safety. Women’s security is not just a women’s issue but it is a human concern. It is an utmost necessity to replace the silent cries of women by their loud courage reverberating throughout a country that unites for their safety and security. ks2030405@gmail.com Published - December 01, 2024 04:04 am IST Copy link Email Facebook Twitter Telegram LinkedIn WhatsApp RedditBurritos to Bratwurst: Catalina eatery's menu straddles Mexican, German cuisineTrump’s net worth rose by billions this year despite legal challenges and wild stock market. Here’s what it is now.
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