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JetBlue cuts more unprofitable routes, tweaks Europe flightsPolice officers found a man who appeared to be channeling his inner Santa Claus on Tuesday in Fall River, Massachusetts. The suspect, identified as 33-year-old Robert Langlais, allegedly tried to evade police by jumping down into a chimney at a home in the area, News Channel 9 reported Thursday. An image shows the suspect trapped in the tiny space: Authorities were executing a search warrant when two men fled the home by climbing onto the rooftop. One of the suspects, police said, eluded them by jumping off the roof and onto a parked vehicle. In a social media post Wednesday, City of Fall River Police Department described what happened, writing that Langlais “invoked the essence of the seasonal icon and attempted to hide inside of a chimney.” The agency continued: Langlais quickly became stuck in the chimney and required the assistance of the very detectives he was previously fleeing from. With the help of the Fall River Fire Department and Fall River Emergency Medical Services, Langlais was rescued and taken into custody. Due to his Santa-antics, Langlais was transported to a local hospital out of precaution and was medically cleared. He was formally arrested for Possession of Class A drugs, Possession of Class B drugs and a slew of charges from outstanding warrants. Also present and arrested, with less theatrics, was Tanisha Ibay (age 32) for the charges of Possession of Class A drugs and Possession of Class B drugs. On the evening of December 10, 2024, Detectives of the Community Action & Suppression Team (CAST) executed a search... Posted by City of Fall River Police Department on Wednesday, December 11, 2024 Police body camera footage shows an officer talking to a neighbor who tells him, “I was walking my dog a little while ago. I heard some screaming. I looked up and that back house, a guy went down, yeah, he went down the chimney.” “He’s in the chimney?” the officer asked, to which the man replied, “He’s in the chimney.” When the officers found the suspect in the chimney, one of them told him, “You’re an idiot. Show us your hands.” However, it appears the wannabe Santa Claus is wedged tightly inside the chimney. The clip then shows the top of Langlais’ head. Moments later, the video recorded the moment firefighters broke through the brick and pulled him out to safety: As described in our earlier post, last night, December 10, 2024, Detectives of the Community Action & Suppression Team (CAST) executed a search warrant at 127 Canal Street. In that incident Robert Langlais (age 33) attempted to evade arrest by hiding inside of a chimney. Detectives unable to free him called our friends at the Fall River Fire Department and Fall River Emergency Medical Services to the scene to rescue Langlais who had become wedged in the chimney. Click on the link below for police body worn camera footage of this incident. Posted by City of Fall River Police Department on Wednesday, December 11, 2024 Social media users shared their thoughts on the incident, one person writing , “Dude was tryna deliver presents” while another user said he was on the “Naughty list.” A similar instance happened in 2019 when a naked man accused of trying to burglarize a home in Los Angeles was arrested after being found stuck in a chimney, Breitbart News reported.
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AUSTIN, Texas — The Austin City Council on Thursday approved an amendment to the city's agreement with the Sunrise Homeless Navigation Center on Menchaca Road. The city will give the facility around $250,000 more through next September to provide permanent supportive housing services to people experiencing homelessness . The funding approval comes as Sunrise faces a lawsuit from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton , who says the facility has turned a South Austin neighborhood into a "hub of drugs and crime" and is a public nuisance. Sunrise is located next to Joslin Elementary School, and Paxton says it is harming the quality of life in the area and endangering students. Last week , KVUE spoke with the parent of a student who previously attended that school, who agreed that the facility made her worry about her son's safety. "I did witness people looking through the fence, scary people acting erratically, people who had appeared to be dressed inappropriately for the weather, who appeared to be using drugs, who appeared to not be behaving normally," Amanda Mansouri said. "He would be scared when he would see people outside behaving strangely." Ultimately, Mansouri said she decided to take her child out of Joslin and enroll him in another school. On the other side of the issue, some say the attorney general's lawsuit is unnecessary and even "over dramatic." Stacy Suits, one of the constables for Travis County Precinct 3, said when he saw the lawsuit against Sunrise, he started a fundraiser to help the center fight back. "This is a ministry doing what the Bible and Jesus says: 'To take care of the least among us.' And that's what we're trying to do," Suits said. "It's a humane thing." The attorney general is asking a judge for a temporary injunction against Sunrise, to prevent it from continuing to operate.Federal judge pushes back on parents calling trans athlete 'a boy' in legal battle over pro-girls protestsAustin scores 20 off the bench, Portland downs Lafayette 74-64
Besides phones and tablets, Android is available on smartwatches, TVs, and even cars. Google today announced Android XR as the next form factor the operating system is coming to. Google is using the catch-all term of extended reality (XR) to describe virtual (VR), mixed (MR), and augmented reality (AR). Android XR is for all device types, including headsets that offer video or optical see-through, screen-less "AI glasses," and AR glasses with displays. Going into Android XR, Google believes it has a proven track record of creating platforms. That is more than just making an operating system for themselves, but also catering to OEM partners, cultivating a developer ecosystem, and managing an app store. However, Google has done all this before to a lesser extent with Glass, and to a greater degree with Daydream VR. The phone-based approach to VR and later standalone headset ultimately failed, and Google exited around 2019. It remains to be seen how others adopt Android XR, but Google already has major partners in Samsung and Qualcomm: For Qualcomm partners like Lynx, Sony and XREAL, we are opening a path for the development of a wide array of Android XR devices to meet the diverse needs of people and businesses. And, we are continuing to collaborate with Magic Leap on XR technology and future products with AR and AI. Google thinks this time will be different, and believes that the vision it had with Glass/Daydream was correct, but that the technology wasn't ready. There have of course been advancements in displays, sensors, and processing, but Google believes that Gemini is the primary differentiator... Abner LiRussia's central bank has left its benchmark interest rate at a record 21%, holding off on further increases despite high consumer inflation fueled by the Kremlin's war against Ukraine. The decision Friday comes amid criticism from influential business figures, including tycoons close to the Kremlin, that high rates are putting the brakes on business activity and the economy. And it underlines the ongoing friction in the economy between military spending and stable prices for consumers. Central Bank of Russia Gov. Elvira Nabiullina said that lending to companies had tightened more than expected due to the October rate hike that brought the benchmark to its current record level. The central bank held open the possibility of an increase at its next meeting and said inflation was expected to fall to an annual 4% next year from its current 9.5%. Factories are running three shifts making everything from vehicles to clothing for the military, while a labor shortage is driving up wages and fat enlistment bonuses are putting more rubles in people's bank accounts to spend. All that is driving up prices. On top of that, the weakening Russian ruble raises the prices of imported goods like cars and consumer electronics from China, which has become Russia's biggest trade partner since Western sanctions disrupted economic relations with Europe and the U.S. Russia’s military spending is enabled by oil exports, which have shifted from Europe to new customers in India and China who aren’t observing sanctions such as a $60 per barrel price cap on Russian oil sales. High interest rates can dampen inflation but also make it more expensive for businesses to get the credit they need to operate and invest. Critics of the central bank rates and of Nabiullina have included Sergei Chemezov, the head of state-controlled defense and technology conglomerate Rostec, and steel magnate Alexei Mordashov. Russian President Vladimir Putin opened his annual news conference on Thursday by saying the economy is on track to grow by nearly 4% this year and that while inflation is “an alarming sign," wages have risen at the same rate and that "on the whole, this situation is stable and secure.” Putin acknowledged there had been criticism of the central bank, saying that “some experts believe that the Central Bank could have been more effective and could have started using certain instruments earlier.” Asked what decision the Central Bank was going to make on the rate, Putin said that Nabiullina didn’t tell him what the rate will be. “She may not know it herself yet as they discuss it during the board meeting and make the final decision during discussion,” he said. “I hope that the decision will be well-balanced and conform to today’s needs.” Putin is in a difficult situation because he needs to keep the economy growing and ensure social stability, said Alexander Kolyandr, senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis. “And inflation is not a good recipe for keeping society stable. On top of that he needs to wage his war, and there are not enough resources in the state to meet all three” goals - growth, stable prices, and military spending. Nabiullina “doesn’t care much about pressure from business people,” Kolyandr said. “She is quite independent and she knows that she has Putin behind her. But the overall slowing down of the economy definitely played a role.” The central bank has in the past month turned to other ways of tightening lending to cool inflation such as by imposing stricter credit standards and regulatory requirements on banks. “Whether that was successful or not, we’ll see next year. But for the moment it gave Nabiullina an opportunity to keep the rate unchanged, to please the industrialists, politicians and President Putin himself, and just sit and wait. “I think the chances of the rate going up at the next meeting are pretty high.” The bank next holds a policy meeting Feb. 14.
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SAN JOSE, Calif. — A bid by the co-captain of San Jose State University’s women’s volleyball team to get a purportedly transgender teammate banned from the Mountain West Conference Championship has failed. Co-captain Brooke Slusser and her co-plaintiffs waited too long to seek an emergency court order barring the player from the tournament, which starts Wednesday, Colorado federal court judge S. Kato Crews ruled Monday. Slusser — along with former Spartan volleyball players Alyssa Sugai and Elle Patterson, San Jose State associate head coach Melissa Batie-Smoose, and eight players from four schools that have forfeited games against the Spartans over the player’s presence on the team — asked the court Nov. 15 for an emergency injunction. They had requested a court order banning the player from future games, including the championship, and that the conference’s policy allowing transgender players be rescinded. They also wanted Spartan wins that occurred via forfeit canceled, plus a recalculation of conference standings based on those requested changes. Crews said an emergency injunction “is an extraordinary remedy,” and should only be granted if clearly shown to be necessary to prevent an irreparable harm, and that if it were considered in a trial, would have a “substantial likelihood of success.” Teams started forfeiting against San Jose State in late September, the judge noted. The “delay” by Slusser and the others in filing the lawsuit and seeking the emergency order related to the tournament “weakens their arguments regarding irreparable harm,” Crews wrote. The player’s purported transgender status was revealed via news coverage this spring, and the plaintiffs “certainly had knowledge of this alleged player when the string of member institutions started forfeiting matches” in September, the judge added. The lawyer for Slusser and her co-plaintiffs filed an appeal of the order Monday shortly after it was released. The filing did not detail the grounds for appeal. This news organization is not naming the player, as they have not confirmed their status. Crews noted that no defendants in the lawsuit dispute that a transgender woman is on the Spartan team. Slusser and the others sued San Jose State officials , the conference and other defendants in Colorado federal court Nov. 13. For courts, temporary injunctions like those sought in this case are intended to “preserve the status quo” until a trial can provide a legal resolution, Crews said. Under accepted court precedent, that status quo should be “the last peaceable uncontested status existing between the parties before the dispute developed,” Crews wrote. That peaceable status, according to the judge, had existed after the conference’s transgender policy was ratified in 2022 and after the player began competing for the Spartans that year, the judge wrote. With regard to the policy, that status lasted until Slusser and the others filed their lawsuit, the judge wrote. With regard to the player, it was not until this past spring, at the earliest, that questions arose around their gender identity, Crews wrote. Granting the injunction would have altered the status quo because the player has been on the Spartan roster since 2022, and throughout the 2024 season, and the conference’s Transgender Participation Policy has been in effect since August 2022, the judge said. The request for an emergency injunction claimed federal Title IX education law prohibiting sex-based discrimination “protects women, not men who identify as women.” However, Crews wrote, court precedent, including from the U.S. Supreme Court, suggests Slusser and her co-plaintiffs “have failed to show a likelihood of success on the merits of these claims.” Crews also said that the requested injunction would have led to an “eleventh-hour shake-up” for the championship tournament. The Spartan team over the weekend secured the No. 2 seed spot in the six-team tournament, with a bye in the first round . Then they are scheduled to face the winner of a match between Utah State and Boise State — two of the five teams that have forfeited against San Jose State. Slusser earlier joined a similar lawsuit, in Georgia federal court, against the National Collegiate Athletic Association over its rules allowing certain transgender women to play women’s sports. ©2024 MediaNews Group, Inc. Visit at mercurynews.com . Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.Fort scores 27 in Samford's 97-90 victory over Alabama A&MReport: Chargers expect WR Ladd McConkey, LB Khalil Mack to play vs. Ravens