haha777 tv m home
Galaxy strike early, hold off Red Bulls for 6th MLS Cup championship
Comelec-7 warns electoral aspirants on using gov’t vehiclesALTOONA, Pa. — The man accused of killing UnitedHealthcare’s CEO struggled with deputies and shouted while being led into court Tuesday as new details emerged about his possible motivation behind the ambush. In his first public words since a five-day search ended with his arrest at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania, Luigi Nicholas Mangione emerged from a patrol car shouting about an “insult to the intelligence of the American people” while deputies pushed him inside a courthouse. The 26-year-old Ivy League graduate from a prominent Maryland real estate family is fighting attempts to extradite him to New York to face a murder charge in the Manhattan killing of Brian Thompson, who led the United States’ largest medical insurance company. A law enforcement bulletin obtained by The Associated Press said that at the time of his arrest, Mangione carried a handwritten document expressing anger with what he called “parasitic” health insurance companies and a disdain for corporate greed and power. He wrote that the U.S. has the most expensive health care system in the world and that profits of major corporations continue to increase while “our life expectancy” does not, according to the bulletin. In social media posts, Mangione called “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski — who carried out a series of bombings while railing against modern society and technology — a “political revolutionary,” according to the bulletin. Mangione remained jailed in Pennsylvania, where he was initially charged with possession of an unlicensed firearm, forgery and providing false identification to police. Manhattan prosecutors began to take steps to bring Mangione to New York, but at a brief hearing Tuesday, defense lawyer Thomas Dickey said his client will not waive extradition and instead wants a hearing on the issue. Mangione was denied bail after prosecutors said he was too dangerous to be released. “You can’t rush to judgment in this case or any case,” Dickey said afterward. “He’s presumed innocent. Let’s not forget that.” Mangione was arrested in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 230 miles west of New York City, after a McDonald’s customer recognized him and notified an employee, authorities said. An image of Mangione released Tuesday by Pennsylvania State Police showed him pulling down his mask in the corner of the McDonald’s while holding what appeared to be hash browns and wearing a winter jacket and beanie. New York police officials said Mangione was carrying a gun like the one used to kill Thompson and the same fake ID the shooter had used to check into a New York hostel, along with a passport and other fraudulent IDs. A law enforcement official who spoke with The Associated Press on condition of anonymity said a handwritten document found with Mangione included a line in which he claimed to have acted alone. “To the Feds, I’ll keep this short, because I do respect what you do for our country. To save you a lengthy investigation, I state plainly that I wasn’t working with anyone,” the document said, according to the official. It also said, “I do apologize for any strife or traumas but it had to be done. Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming.” Thompson, 50, was killed last Wednesday as he walked alone to a Manhattan hotel for an investor conference. From surveillance video, New York investigators determined the shooter quickly fled the city, likely by bus. Mangione was born into a life of country clubs and privilege. His grandfather was a real estate developer and philanthropist. Valedictorian at his elite Baltimore prep school, he went on to earn undergraduate and graduate degrees in computer science in 2020 from the University of Pennsylvania, a spokesperson said. “Our family is shocked and devastated by Luigi’s arrest,” Mangione’s family said in a statement posted on social media late Monday by his cousin, Maryland Del. Nino Mangione. “We offer our prayers to the family of Brian Thompson and we ask people to pray for all involved.” From January to June 2022, Luigi Mangione lived at Surfbreak, a “co-living” space at the edge of touristy Waikiki in Honolulu. Like other residents of the shared penthouse catering to remote workers, Mangione underwent a background check, said Josiah Ryan, a spokesperson for owner and founder R.J. Martin. “Luigi was just widely considered to be a great guy. There were no complaints,” Ryan said. “There was no sign that might point to these alleged crimes they’re saying he committed.” At Surfbreak, Martin learned Mangione had severe back pain from childhood that interfered with many aspects of his life, from surfing to romance, Ryan said. Mangione left Surfbreak to get surgery on the mainland, Ryan said, then later returned to Honolulu and rented an apartment. Martin stopped hearing from Mangione six months to a year ago. Mangione Mangione Get local news delivered to your inbox!
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) issued a stark warning to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other skeptics of vaccines on Friday after a new report detailed the Donald Trump nominee’s ties to a lawyer who sought to revoke approval of the lifesaving polio vaccine for children. “The polio vaccine has saved millions of lives and held out the promise of eradicating a terrible disease,” McConnell, who had polio as a child, said in a statement. “Efforts to undermine public confidence in proven cures are not just uninformed – they’re dangerous.” “Anyone seeking the Senate’s consent to serve in the incoming Administration would do well to steer clear of even the appearance of association with such efforts,” McConnell added, in a not-so-veiled reference to Kenndy being tapped by Trump to lead the U.S. Health and Human Services Department next year. The New York Times revealed on Friday that Aaron Siri, a lawyer Kennedy has been consulting on whom to select as top health officials for the next Trump administration, has filed multiple legal petitions to block vaccines in recent years. That includes a 2022 petition for the Food and Drug Administration to withdraw its approval of a standard polio vaccine for babies and children, claiming the agency needs to do further studies to prove its safety. If confirmed, Kennedy would oversee the FDA and multiple other federal public health agencies. The environmental lawyer and son of former U.S. Attorney General and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy is a prominent vaccine skeptic who has spread wild conspiracy theories over the years. Trump’s choice of Kennedy to lead the top health agency has alarmed public health experts and 77 Nobel laureates who urged the Senate to reject his expected nomination last week. Some Republican senators have expressed concerns about Kennedy’s views, but none have publicly declared their opposition to his path to confirmation. “I believe vaccines are appropriate. They have to be safe. I want to know what his real concerns are and what he would want to do different, but I do not want to lose our vaccine programs,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) told reporters on Thursday. Don't let this be the end of the free press. The free press is under attack — and America's future hangs in the balance. As other newsrooms bow to political pressure, HuffPost is not backing down. Would you help us keep our news free for all? We can't do it without you. Can't afford to contribute? Support HuffPost by creating a free account and log in while you read. You've supported HuffPost before, and we'll be honest — we could use your help again . We view our mission to provide free, fair news as critically important in this crucial moment, and we can't do it without you. Whether you give once or many more times, we appreciate your contribution to keeping our journalism free for all. You've supported HuffPost before, and we'll be honest — we could use your help again . We view our mission to provide free, fair news as critically important in this crucial moment, and we can't do it without you. Whether you give just one more time or sign up again to contribute regularly, we appreciate you playing a part in keeping our journalism free for all. Already contributed? Log in to hide these messages. McConnell, meanwhile, reflected on his boyhood experience of struggling with polio and his parents’ “pain and fear of watching their child struggle with the life-altering diagnosis of polio.” “From the age of two, normal life without paralysis was only possible for me because of the miraculous combination of modern medicine and a mother’s love. But for millions who came after me, the real miracle was the saving power of the polio vaccine,” he said Friday. “For decades, I have been proud to work with devoted advocates – from Rotary International to the Gates Foundation – and use my platform in public life to champion the pursuit of cures for further generations,” the senator added. “I have never flinched from confronting specious disinformation that threatens the advance of lifesaving medical progress, and I will not today.” Related From Our PartnerAs the horsepower war between automakers in the 1960s forged the Muscle Car era, the need to deliver increased fuel to V8 combustion chambers became evident to engine designers. But without enough oxygen, pumping more fuel into the intake just led to fuel-rich conditions and fouled spark plugs. Engineers formed different strategies to get more air into, and out of, an engine's cylinders. Some used hemispherical combustion chambers, known as Hemi engines , that allowed the use of larger intake and exhaust valves due to the raised chamber's increased surface area. Others employed similar designs, such as the Ford Boss 429 . Pontiac increased air flow to its V8 engines with Ram Air technology. The Pontiac Ram Air V8 ranks among the most iconic engines from the golden era of muscle cars . Pontiac improved its Ram Air engine lineup over several iterations, culminating with the Ram Air V –- its name shortened to RA V in some circles -– in 1969. Its performance potential is legendary, a status no doubt fueled by its rarity. Since the Ram Air V was developed to support Pontiac's racing initiatives, it saw limited production to meet required homologation rules. Pontiac Ram Air V production ceased after SCCA rule changes in 1970, which coincided with General Motors moving away from its focus on muscle cars. Pontiac produced Ram Air V components for engine displacements such as 303-cubic-inches for SCCA competition, 366-cubic-inches for NASCAR, 400-cubic-inches planned for production GTOs and Firebirds, and 428-cubic-inches for NHRA drag racing. The plan was to build enough Ram Air V cars to satisfy the SCCA's homologation rules, designed to ensure a desired level of production car status for the cars that competed in the series. The idea was to prevent the teams with the most money from winning all of the races. The Ram Air V design received its first blow when the SCCA changed its rules for the 1970 racing season. At the same time, one of the main suppliers for parts on the engine went under, making production more difficult. However, the Ram Air V met its ultimate demise in the boardroom, where GM executives decided its fate with little concern for people's feelings. As rising gasoline prices and stricter emissions standards throttled the golden age of the muscle car, GM went all in on the Chevrolet Corvette and had little appetite for developing a Pontiac to compete with it. The main difference between the Pontiac Ram Air V and other small block GM iterations, including previous Ram Air versions and the notorious small block Chevy, was the complete redesign of the cylinder heads. Previous V8 small block engines from GM, such as the Pontiac 350 and Chevy 350 , use cylinder heads with the valves arranged so that the two inboard cylinders have exhaust valves and ports located next to each other. Most small block GM heads at the time had rectangular or D-shaped intake and exhaust ports, although some high performance versions featured round ports. Pontiac, perhaps inspired by Ford's Tunnel Port cylinder head design, rearranged the valve layout in the Ram Air V heads, swapping the two inboard cylinders to put the intake valves, not exhaust, in close proximity. The new arrangement allowed for larger valves and more exhaust flow. It also required passing pushrods through the intake ports. A late 1960s or early 1970s Firebird or GTO with the Ram Air V engine would be a welcome addition to any collector's garage. However, it may not be the best choice for driving around town. While it could be driven on the street, the Ram Air V was designed for high rpm performance — not an endearing trait for a daily driver. While the 428-cubic-inch Ram Air V could produce acceptable low rpm torque with the free-flowing design due to the sheer volume of air it moves at idle, smaller Ram Air V engines could not. An engine needs some velocity to its airflow to carry the air-fuel mixture into its cylinders. Try blowing out a candle with your lips pursed as you normally would, compared to blowing it out with your mouth wide open. Another aspect of Pontiac's Ram Air system that we haven't discussed is the functional hood scoop. Before the Ram Air V came along, that was the major upgrade provided by the Ram Air option. The increased airflow provided through the hood scoop was a key element to the Ram Air V system's performance.British Columbia business owner Joe Chaput will spend $5,500 a month on security guards during the holiday season and plans on upgrading his store’s video camera system for around $5,000 more. He’s not selling luxury brands or expensive jewels. Chaput sells cheese, and at Christmas, cheese is a hot commodity. He is the co-owner of specialty cheese store les amis du Fromage, with two locations in Vancouver. While cheeselifting is rare in their Kitsilano store, the outlet in East Vancouver is hit in waves, with nothing happening for a month, then three of four people trying to steal their inventory within a week. “Sometimes, you miss it. Sometimes, you catch it. The way shoplifters behave ... they tend to gravitate toward expensive things,” said Chaput. Expensive cheese is on shoplifters’ Christmas list, he said. “They tend to do the classic examples of staying away from customer service and trying to go to a different part of the store so they can be left alone to steal.” Chaput isn’t alone. Police say food-related crimes on are the rise in Canada and as prices climb for items such as cheese and butter, they become lucrative on the black market for organized crime groups, not to mention theft for local resale. Sylvain Charlebois, the director of Dalhousie University’s Agri-food Analytics Lab, said a black market tends to emerge as soon as food prices surge. “Organized crime will steal anything (if) they know they can sell it and so, they probably would have known who their clients are before even stealing anything at all, and that’s how a black market is organized,” said Charlebois. He said he believes there are two categories of people shoplifting — those who do so out of desperation because they can’t afford the food, or organized criminals, profiting from sales on the black market. Mounties in North Vancouver made cheesy headlines when they ran into a man with a cart of stolen cheese in the middle of the night in September. The cheese, valued at $12,800, was from a nearby Whole Foods Store. While the cheese was recovered, it had to be disposed of because it hadn’t been refrigerated. Const. Mansoor Sahak, with the North Vancouver RCMP, said officers believe cheese is targeted because it’s “profitable to resell.” “If they are drug addicts, they will commit further crimes with that or feed their drug habits. It’s a vicious cycle,” said Sahak. Sahak said meat is also a top target for grocery thieves, with store losses sometimes in the thousands. “So, we’re not surprised that this happened,” said Sahak. Police in Ontario have been chasing down slippery shoplifters going after butter. Scott Tracey, a spokesman with Guelph Police Service, said there have been eight or nine butter thefts over the last year, including one theft last December worth $1,000. In October, two men walked into a local grocer and filled their carts with cases of butter valued at $936, and four days later a Guelph grocer lost four cases valued at $958. Tracey said he has looked at online marketplaces and found listings by people selling 20 or 30 pounds of butter at a time. “Clearly, somebody didn’t accidentally buy 30 extra pounds of butter. So, they must have come from somewhere,” said Tracey, “I think at this point it appears to be the black market is where it’s headed.” He said the thefts seem to be organized, with two or three people working together in each case. Police in Brantford, Ont., are also investigating the theft of about $1,200 worth of butter from a store on Nov. 4. Charlebois said retailers could invest in prevention technologies like electronic tags, but putting them on butter or cheese is rare. He said up until recently grocery store theft has been a “taboo subject for many years.” Stores didn’t wanted to talk about thefts because they didn’t want to alarm people but now they feel they need to build awareness about what is “becoming a huge problem,” said Charlebois. Chaput, the cheese store owner, said he had been running the East Vancouver store for 15 years while managing the store in Kitsilano for 30 years, and he loves his customers. “It’s really one of the best parts of our businesses, seeing familiar faces and making new customers. It’s why we come to work, really. Partly it’s the cheese, and partly it’s the people,” said Chaput. He said his strategy to combat would-be thieves is to give them extra customer service to make it harder for them to steal. He admits, however, that the shoplifting causes him stress. “It’s challenging. You’re busy trying to run your business day to day and take care of customers and take care of employees. Having to deal with criminals, just kind of scratches away. It can be a bit exhausting,” said Chaput.
The Indie Bestseller List for the week ending Dec. 1, 2024
Wind energy company seeks deal with Village of Valemount
Akharas embrace digital technology to streamline mgmt
The Latest: Police believe gunman who killed UnitedHealthcare CEO has left New York City
A federal appeals court panel on Friday unanimously upheld a law that could lead to a ban on TikTok in a few short months, handing a resounding defeat to the popular social media platform as it fights for its survival in the U.S. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit denied TikTok's petition to overturn the law — which requires TikTok to break ties with its China-based parent company ByteDance or be banned by mid-January — and rebuffed the company's challenge of the statute, which it argued had ran afoul of the First Amendment. “The First Amendment exists to protect free speech in the United States,” said the court's opinion, which was written by Judge Douglas Ginsburg. “Here the Government acted solely to protect that freedom from a foreign adversary nation and to limit that adversary’s ability to gather data on people in the United States.” TikTok and ByteDance — another plaintiff in the lawsuit — are expected to appeal to the Supreme Court, though its unclear whether the court will take up the case. “The Supreme Court has an established historical record of protecting Americans’ right to free speech, and we expect they will do just that on this important constitutional issue," TikTok spokesperson Michael Hughes said in a statement. “Unfortunately, the TikTok ban was conceived and pushed through based upon inaccurate, flawed and hypothetical information, resulting in outright censorship of the American people,” Hughes said. Unless stopped, he argued the statute “will silence the voices of over 170 million Americans here in the US and around the world on January 19th, 2025.” Though the case is squarely in the court system, its also possible the two companies might be thrown some sort of a lifeline by President-elect Donald Trump, who tried to ban TikTok during his first term but said during the presidential campaign that he is now against such action . The law, signed by President Joe Biden in April, was the culmination of a years-long saga in Washington over the short-form video-sharing app, which the government sees as a national security threat due to its connections to China. The U.S. has said it’s concerned about TikTok collecting vast swaths of user data, including sensitive information on viewing habits , that could fall into the hands of the Chinese government through coercion. Officials have also warned the proprietary algorithm that fuels what users see on the app is vulnerable to manipulation by Chinese authorities, who can use it to shape content on the platform in a way that’s difficult to detect — a concern mirrored by the European Union on Friday as it scrutinizes the video-sharing app’s role in the Romanian elections. TikTok, which sued the government over the law in May, has long denied it could be used by Beijing to spy on or manipulate Americans. Its attorneys have accurately pointed out that the U.S. hasn’t provided evidence to show that the company handed over user data to the Chinese government, or manipulated content for Beijing’s benefit in the U.S. They have also argued the law is predicated on future risks, which the Department of Justice has emphasized pointing in part to unspecified action it claims the two companies have taken in the past due to demands from the Chinese government. Friday’s ruling came after the appeals court panel, composed of two Republican and one Democrat appointed judges, heard oral arguments in September. In the hearing, which lasted more than two hours, the panel appeared to grapple with how TikTok’s foreign ownership affects its rights under the Constitution and how far the government could go to curtail potential influence from abroad on a foreign-owned platform. On Friday, all three of them denied TikTok’s petition. In the court's ruling, Ginsburg, a Republican appointee, rejected TikTok's main legal arguments against the law, including that the statute was an unlawful bill of attainder or a taking of property in violation of the Fifth Amendment. He also said the law did not violate the First Amendment because the government is not looking to "suppress content or require a certain mix of content” on TikTok. “Content on the platform could in principle remain unchanged after divestiture, and people in the United States would remain free to read and share as much PRC propaganda (or any other content) as they desire on TikTok or any other platform of their choosing,” Ginsburg wrote, using the abbreviation for the People’s Republic of China. Judge Sri Srinivasan, the chief judge on the court, issued a concurring opinion. TikTok’s lawsuit was consolidated with a second legal challenge brought by several content creators - for which the company is covering legal costs - as well as a third one filed on behalf of conservative creators who work with a nonprofit called BASED Politics Inc. Other organizations, including the Knight First Amendment Institute, had also filed amicus briefs supporting TikTok. “This is a deeply misguided ruling that reads important First Amendment precedents too narrowly and gives the government sweeping power to restrict Americans’ access to information, ideas, and media from abroad,” said Jameel Jaffer, the executive director of the organization. “We hope that the appeals court’s ruling won’t be the last word.” Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, lawmakers who had pushed for the legislation celebrated the court's ruling. "I am optimistic that President Trump will facilitate an American takeover of TikTok to allow its continued use in the United States and I look forward to welcoming the app in America under new ownership,” said Republican Rep. John Moolenaar of Michigan, chairman of the House Select Committee on China. Democratic Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, who co-authored the law, said “it's time for ByteDance to accept” the law. To assuage concerns about the company’s owners, TikTok says it has invested more than $2 billion to bolster protections around U.S. user data. The company has also argued the government’s broader concerns could have been resolved in a draft agreement it provided the Biden administration more than two years ago during talks between the two sides. It has blamed the government for walking away from further negotiations on the agreement, which the Justice Department argues is insufficient. Attorneys for the two companies have claimed it’s impossible to divest the platform commercially and technologically. They also say any sale of TikTok without the coveted algorithm - the platform’s secret sauce that Chinese authorities would likely block under any divesture plan - would turn the U.S. version of TikTok into an island disconnected from other global content. Still, some investors, including Trump’s former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and billionaire Frank McCourt, have expressed interest in purchasing the platform. Both men said earlier this year that they were launching a consortium to purchase TikTok’s U.S. business. This week, a spokesperson for McCourt’s Project Liberty initiative, which aims to protect online privacy, said unnamed participants in their bid have made informal commitments of more than $20 billion in capital. Haleluya Hadero, The Associated PressHave you been drinking more than usual? A new blood test could soon reveal whether your alcohol consumption is harming your liver. Researchers report that a blood-borne byproduct of alcohol called phosphatidyl ethanol (PEth) offers a reliable way to assess liver scarring caused by excessive drinking. This innovative method, published in the American Journal of Gastroenterology, has the potential to revolutionize how doctors diagnose and monitor alcohol-related liver damage. PEth testing provides a more accurate picture of alcohol-related harm compared to relying on self-reported drinking habits. According to Judy Hahn, senior researcher and professor at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), this approach is akin to how other health risks are measured: “We don’t ask someone how much fatty food they eat; we measure their cholesterol. Similarly, we weigh people rather than asking how much they think they weigh,” Hahn explained in a UCSF news release. How the Test Works? When the body processes alcohol, it produces PEth, a compound that correlates directly with alcohol consumption. Previous studies have confirmed that blood concentrations of PEth accurately reflect the quantity of alcohol consumed, making it a promising biomarker for liver damage. This test could enable healthcare professionals to better understand a patient's drinking patterns and offer tailored advice to prevent long-term complications. The Scope of the Study Researchers pooled data from 12 studies conducted across the United States, Russia, Uganda, and South Africa, analyzing over 4,600 participants. These studies included PEth testing, self-reported alcohol use, and liver damage measurements. The findings revealed that elevated PEth levels strongly correlated with liver damage scores. In contrast, self-reports of drinking habits showed weaker associations with liver scarring, likely due to underreporting or memory lapses among participants. “This is the largest study yet to examine the relationship between PEth and liver damage,” researchers noted. It’s also the first to compare the effectiveness of PEth testing against self-reports in assessing the risk of liver scarring. The results underline the importance of integrating PEth tests into routine blood work. Why It Matters Heavy drinking is a widespread issue in the United States, with about 24 per cent of adults binge drinking and over 6 per cent classified as heavy drinkers, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Alcohol-related liver disease is a growing public health concern, especially as drinking levels surged during the COVID-19 pandemic. Liver scarring, also known as fibrosis, can be slowed or even reversed by reducing alcohol intake and adopting a healthy diet low in sugar, salt, and fat. However, early detection is crucial to prevent the condition from progressing to more severe stages like cirrhosis or liver failure. The study's lead researcher, Pamela Murnane, an assistant professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at UCSF, emphasized the need for routine PEth testing: “To prevent and manage liver fibrosis, we need to know how much a person is drinking. Self-reports simply don’t provide an accurate grasp of that.” Incorporating PEth testing into standard blood panels could help identify at-risk individuals earlier, allowing for timely interventions to protect liver health. As researchers continue to explore this technology, it holds promise for improving how alcohol-related liver disease is diagnosed and treated, ultimately saving lives. Get Latest News Live on Times Now along with Breaking News and Top Headlines from Health and around the world.