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Strong Earthquake Shakes Mexico´s Pacific Coast; 1 Killed

By Associated Press
September 19, 2022

There were some early reports of damage to buildings from the quake, which hit at 1:05 p.m. local time, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

A magnitude 7.6 earthquake shook Mexico’s central Pacific coast on Monday, killing at least one person and setting off a seismic alarm in the rattled capital on the anniversary of two earlier devastating quakes.

There were at least some early reports of damage to buildings from the quake, which hit at 1:05 p.m. local time, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, which had initially put the magnitude at 7.5.

It said the quake was centered 23 miles southeast of Aquila near the boundary of Colima and Michoacan states and at a depth of 9.4 miles.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said via Twitter that the secretary of the navy told him one person was killed in the port city of Manzanillo, Colima when a wall at a mall collapsed.

In Coalcoman, Michoacan, near the quake’s epicenter, buildings were damaged, but there were not immediate reports of injuries.

“It started slowly and then was really strong and continued and continued until it started to relent,” said 16-year-old Carla Cárdenas, a resident of Coalcoman. Cárdenas ran out of her family’s hotel and waited with neighbors.

She said the hotel and some homes along the street displayed cracks in walls and segments of facades and roofs had broken off.

“In the hotel, the roof of the parking area boomed and fell to the ground, and there are cracks in the walls on the second foor,” Cárdenas said.

She said the town’s hospital was seriously damaged, but she had so far not heard of anyone injured.

Mexico’s National Civil Defense agency said that based on historic data of tsunamis in Mexico, variations of as much as 32 inches were possible in coastal water levels near the epicenter. The U.S. Tsunami Warning Center said that hazardous tsunami waves were possible for coasts within 186 miles of the epicenter.

Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum tweeted that there were no reports of damage in the capital

Alarms for the new quake came less than an hour after a quake alarms warbled in a nationwide earthquake simulation marking major, deadly quakes that struck on the same date in 1985 and 2017.

“This is a coincidence,” that this is the third Sept. 19 earthquake, said U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Paul Earle. “There’s no physical reason or statistical bias toward earthquakes in any given month in Mexico.”

Nor is there a season or month for big earthquakes anywhere on the globe, Earle said. But there is a predictable thing: People seek and sometimes find coincidences that look like patterns.

“We knew we’d get this question as soon as it happened,” Earle said. “Sometimes there are just coincidences.”

The quake was not related to or caused by the drill an hour or so earlier, nor was it connected to a damaging temblor in Taiwan the day before, Earle said.

Humberto Garza stood outside a restaurant in Mexico City’s Roma neighborhood holding his 3-year son. Like many milling about outside after the earthquake, Garza said that the earthquake alarm sounded so soon after the annual simulation that he was not sure it was real.

“I heard the alarm, but it sounded really far away,” he said.

Outside the city’s environmental ombudsman’s office, dozens of employees waited. Some appeared visibly shaken.

Power was out in parts of the city, including stoplights, snarling the capital’s already notorious traffic.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

Source: newsy.com

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In Parts Of The Mideast, Power Generators Spew Toxic Fumes 24/7

The pollutants caused by massive generators add to the many environmental woes of the Middle East.

They literally run the country. In parking lots, on flatbed trucks, hospital courtyards and rooftops, private generators are ubiquitous in parts of the Middle East, spewing hazardous fumes into homes and businesses 24 hours a day.

As the world looks for renewable energy to tackle climate change, millions of people around the region depend almost completely on diesel-powered private generators to keep the lights on because war or mismanagement have gutted electricity infrastructure.

Experts call it national suicide from an environmental and health perspective.

“Air pollution from diesel generators contains more than 40 toxic air contaminants, including many known or suspected cancer-causing substances,” said Samy Kayed, managing director and co-founder of the Environment Academy at the American University of Beirut in Lebanon.

Greater exposure to these pollutants likely increases respiratory illnesses and cardiovascular disease, he said. It also causes acid rain that harms plant growth and increases eutrophication — the excess build-up of nutrients in water that ultimately kills aquatic plants.

Since they usually use diesel, generators also produce far more climate change-inducing emissions than, for example, a natural gas power plant does, he said.

The pollutants caused by massive generators add to the many environmental woes of the Middle East, which is one of the most vulnerable regions in the world to the impact of climate change. The region already has high temperatures and limited water resources even without the growing impact of global warming.

The reliance on generators results from state failure. In Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and elsewhere, governments can’t maintain a functioning central power network, whether because of war, conflict or mismanagement and corruption.

Lebanon, for example, has not built a new power plant in decades. Multiple plans for new ones have run aground on politicians’ factionalism and conflicting patronage interests. The country’s few aging, heavy-fuel oil plants long ago became unable to meet demand.

Iraq, meanwhile, sits on some of the world’s biggest oil reserves. Yet scorching summer-time heat is always accompanied by the roar of neighborhood generators, as residents blast ACs around the clock to keep cool.

Repeated wars over the decades have wrecked Iraq’s electricity networks. Corruption has siphoned away billions of dollars meant to repair and upgrade it. Some 17 billion cubic meters of gas from Iraq’s wells are burned every year as waste, because it hasn’t built the infrastructure to capture it and convert it to electricity to power Iraqi homes.

In Libya, a country prized for its light and sweet crude oil, electricity networks have buckled under years of civil war and the lack of a central government.

“The power cuts last the greater part of the day, when electricity is mostly needed,” said Muataz Shobaik, the owner of a butcher shop in the city of Benghazi, in Libya’s east, who uses a noisy generator to keep his coolers running.

“Every business has to have a backup off-grid solution now,” he said. Diesel fumes from his and neighboring shops’ machines hung thick in the air amid the oppressive heat.

The Gaza Strip’s 2.3 million people rely on around 700 neighborhood generators across the territory for their homes. Thousands of private generators keep businesses, government institutions, universities and health centers running. Running on diesel, they churn black smoke in the air, tarring walls around them.

Since Israel bombed the only power plant in the Hamas-ruled territory in 2014, the station has never reached full capacity. Gaza only gets about half the power it needs from the plant and directly from Israel. Cutoffs can last up to 16 hours a day.

WAY OF LIFE

Perhaps nowhere do generators rule people’s lives as much as in Lebanon, where the system is so entrenched and institutionalized that private generator owners have their own business association.

They are crammed into tight streets, parking lots, on roofs and balconies and in garages. Some are as large as storage containers, others small and blaring noise.

Lebanon’s 5 million people have long depended on them. The word “moteur,” French for generator, is one of the most often spoken words among Lebanese.

Reliance has only increased since Lebanon’s economy unraveled in late 2019 and central power cutoffs began lasting longer. At the same time, generator owners have had to ration use because of soaring diesel prices and high temperatures, turning them off several times a day for breaks.

So residents plan their lives around the gaps in electricity.

Those who can’t start the day without coffee set an alarm to make a cup before the generator turns off. The frail or elderly in apartment towers wait for the generator to switch on before leaving home so they don’t have to climb stairs. Hospitals must keep generators humming so life-saving machines can operate without disruption.

“We understand people’s frustration, but if it wasn’t for us, people would be living in darkness,” said Ihab, the Egyptian operator of a generator station north of Beirut.

“They say we are more powerful than the state, but it is the absence of the state that led us to exist,” he said, giving only his first name to avoid trouble with the authorities.

Siham Hanna, a 58-year-old translator in Beirut, said generator fumes exacerbate her elderly father’s lung condition. She wipes soot off her balcony and other surfaces several times a day.

“It’s the 21st century, but we live like in the stone ages. Who lives like this?” said Hanna, who does not recall her country ever having stable electricity in her life.

Some in Lebanon and elsewhere have begun to install solar power systems in their homes. But most use it only to fill in when the generator is off. Cost and space issues in urban areas have also limited solar use.

In Iraq, the typical middle-income household uses generator power for 10 hours a day on average and pays $240 per Megawatt/hour, among the highest rates in the region, according to a report by the International Energy Agency.

The need for generators has become ingrained in people’s minds. At a recent concert in the capital, famed singer Umm Ali al-Malla made sure to thank not only the audience but also the venue’s technical director “for keeping the generator going” while her admirers danced.

TOXIC CONTAMINANTS

As opposed to power plants outside urban areas, generators are in the heart of neighborhoods, pumping toxins directly to residents.

This is catastrophic, said Najat Saliba, a chemist at the American University of Beirut who recently won a seat in Parliament.

“This is extremely taxing on the environment, especially the amount of black carbon and particles that they emit,” she said. There are almost no regulations and no filtering of particles, she added.

Researchers at AUB found that the level of toxic emissions may have quadrupled since Lebanon’s financial crisis began because of increased reliance on generators.

In Iraq’s northern city of Mosul, miles of wires crisscross streets connecting thousands of private generators. Each produces 600 kilograms of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases per 8 hours working time, according to Mohammed al Hazem, an environmental activist.

Similarly, a 2020 study on the environmental impact of using large generators in the University of Technology in Baghdad found very high concentrations of pollutants exceeding limits set by the United States’ Environmental Protection Agency and the World Health Organization.

That was particularly because Iraqi diesel fuel has a high sulphur content — “one of the worst in the world,” the study said. The emissions include “sulphate, nitrate materials, atoms of soot carbon, ash” and pollutants that are considered carcinogens, it warned.

“The pollutants emitted from these generators exert a remarkable impact on the overall health of students and university staff, it said.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

Source: newsy.com

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Ukraine Live Updates: Northeast Offensive Claims More Ground

Ukraine on Sunday began turning off the last working reactor at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, after concluding that keeping it running could well be the prelude to a nuclear meltdown at Europe’s largest nuclear power facility.

The step had been urged for weeks by the United States and the International Atomic Energy Agency, whose inspectors only gained access to the facility a week ago. While a direct military strike on one of the reactor cores could still trigger an accident, the risk is greatly reduced if the plant is not operating. Russian soldiers are still occupying the plant, and there have been reports of workers running the facility at gunpoint. But there have also been constant disputes over who is shelling the facility, and whether to cut off the external power that keeps critical cooling systems operating.

The move is meant to put the last of six working reactors into a relatively safe state as fighting swirls around the facility in southern Ukraine. But it also means that if the plant is once again cut off from external power, as it has been at least twice in the past three weeks, it would need to rely on diesel generators to power the safety equipment. And the fuel for the generators could run out.

“A decision was made to shut down power unit No. 6 and transfer it to the safest state — cold shutdown,” Ukraine’s nuclear regulator, Energoatom, said in a statement.

The Biden administration has been urging Ukrainian authorities to take that step for weeks, in both public and private statements. But American officials have said the Ukrainians have been reluctant. The plant, at full operation, provided about a fifth of Ukraine’s electricity supply. And there is a fear that, once shut down, Russia might seek to find ways to connect it to Russia’s grid, instead of Ukraine’s.

But by Friday it was clear that there was little choice. For a while, all the electricity was knocked out at the plant, including the usual sources of power for running the cooling systems. It seemed unlikely they would be fully restored, and Ukrainian officials argued that Russia was seeking to trigger a disaster that could then be blamed on Ukrainian plant managers.

Rafael Mariano Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, who visited the plant last week and left two inspectors in place full time, said on Friday: “The shelling around Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant must stop.”

Mr. Grossi’s agency said that its two monitors at the plant were informed of the move and noted that the restoration of a backup power line to the complex means that it has the “electricity it needs for reactor cooling and other safety functions.”

Last week, shelling severed the transmission lines that provide external power to the plant — which is occupied by Russian forces but operated by Ukrainian engineers — disconnecting it from Ukraine’s national electricity grid. Ukrainian engineers used the plant’s one active reactor to power the station’s safety and cooling systems because that was more reliable than using the diesel generators, Petro Kotin, the president of Energoatom, said in an interview.

The plant has since been reconnected to the national grid. That allowed engineers to begin shutting down the active reactor, which places it in a safer state than when it is “hot,” or actively producing energy. The remaining five reactors are already cycling down.

But the plant is far from out of the woods. The company’s statement noted that the risk of further damage to power lines “remains high,” and that if the plant were forced to rely on generators to perform vital cooling functions, the length of time they could run “is limited by the technological resource and the amount of available diesel fuel.”

Shutting down all of the reactors also means that a key source of electricity will not be available to a nation already concerned about the upcoming winter. Before the war, the power plant provided 20 percent of Ukraine’s electricity. But energy officials said that the damage to transmission lines that carry electricity away from the plant had been so extensive during the war that it was unlikely it would have provided a reliable source of power, they said.

International concern about the safety of the plant has been growing as it has been repeatedly shelled over the past month. Russian forces have turned the sprawling complex into a fortress, parking military equipment close to the reactors and stationing some hundreds of soldiers at the plant.

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Students Return To Campus Amid Water Crisis In Jackson, Mississippi

By Associated Press
September 6, 2022

Jackson remained under a boil water advisory, but the drop in water pressure that had brought the system to near collapse appeared to be resolved.

While its water crisis continued, students in Mississippi’s capital were able to return to class for the first time in a week Tuesday with assurances that the toilets and sinks in their buildings would finally work.

Jackson remained under a boil water advisory, but the drop in water pressure that had brought the system to near collapse appeared to be resolved, officials said.

Sherwin Johnson, a spokesperson for Jackson Public Schools confirmed in a statement to The Associated Press on Tuesday that schools had re-opened after a drop in water pressure forced a move to virtual instruction.

A line of cars snaked around the block in front of Spann Elementary in northeast Jackson as parents arrived to pick up their children. Syreeta Tatum waited for her fourth grader to emerge from the building and lamented the uncertainty Jackson’s water woes had foisted upon parents and students.

“It was very frustrating,” said Tatum. “As a mother, you want to make sure your child is getting the best education possible, especially knowing that my child functions better in person.”

In a statement posted to Twitter on Monday, the school district said it had “checked water pressure at each school” and found that “nearly all are suitable” for students and staff to return. Air conditioning systems at several schools depend on the water system to run effectively. The district said it anticipated delays in cooling buildings as temperatures reached the mid-80s on Tuesday.

“We are continuing to monitor and have portable fans and air conditioners to reduce temperatures in warm or hot areas,” Johnson said.

Torrential rains and flooding of the Pearl River in late August exacerbated problems at one of Jackson’s two treatment plants, leading to a drop in pressure throughout the city. The school district said Forest Hill High School in south Jackson still didn’t have water pressure. Johnson said students who attend Forest Hill were transported to alternative sites Tuesday.

In a Monday news conference, Gov. Tates Reeves said water distribution at schools would be scaled down in preparation for students’ return to campuses.

“We are moving those resources to our other water distribution mega-sites,” Reeves said. “Those sites have slowed down in demand a bit, but we have still put out about 5 million bottles of water over the last several days.”

Soon after water stopped flowing through the pipes of many households throughout Jackson, officials rolled a tanker into Forest Hill’s parking lot for water distribution. Santiago Matthews, a maintenance worker for the high school, had a garbage container filled to the brim with water last week to fill toilets for the staff working inside. He hauled the garbage container up a short incline back to the high school with water sloshing over the sides.

Reeves said Monday that the city had “zero water tanks at low levels.” He also said repairs resulting in cleaner water do not eliminate every risk.

“There may be more bad days in the future,” Reeves said.

Liz Oviede, a student at Delta Technical College, picked up her 10 year old brother Tuesday so her mother wouldn’t have to miss work. Her mother missed work at least three days last week to supervise the boy as Spann shifted to virtual learning. Recounting a recent weekend trip to Houston, Texas, she longed for cleaner water.

“My face cleared up, my hair was so much softer and my hair is always so crunchy here and it doesn’t feel clean,” Oviede said. “I just wish they’d get it together and stop bringing politics into it.”

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

Source: newsy.com

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Typhoon Batters South Korea; Preparations Minimize Casualties

Typhoon Hinnamnor made impact just weeks after heavy rains around Seoul caused flooding that killed at least 14 people.

The most powerful typhoon to hit South Korea in years on Tuesday dumped 3 feet of rain, destroyed roads and felled power lines, but the death toll of three could have been higher if not for proactive evacuations and closures of schools, officials said.

There was also greater public awareness about the storm and its risks. Typhoon Hinnamnor made impact just weeks after heavy rains around the capital Seoul caused flooding that killed at least 14 people.

Government officials had put the nation on high alert for days as Hinnamnor approached, warning of potentially historic destruction and putting in motion life-saving measures.

After grazing the resort island of Jeju and hitting the mainland near the port city of Busan, Hinnamnor weakened as it blew into waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.

South Korea’s weather agency said Hinnamnor was over the open sea 173 miles northeast of Ulleung island with winds weakened to 71 miles per hour on Tuesday afternoon. It was expected to be downgraded to a tropical cyclone by night as it moves northeast between Russia and the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, the agency said.

However, the damage was still severe in the southern city of Pohang, where two people were found dead and at least seven others were missing after the storm submerged roads and buildings, triggered landslides and flooded a shopping mall.

Cars with smashed windows and trunks open lay scattered on roads like garbage. An entire two-story pool villa was uprooted from the ground and swept away in flash floods. Troops were deployed to assist with rescue and restoration efforts, moving in armored vehicles rolling through streets that turned into chocolate-colored rivers.

Firefighters navigated flooded neighborhoods in rubber boats, rescuing people and their pets. Merchants scrambled to salvage furniture and other belongings at the famous Guryongpo outdoor market, where workers deployed excavators to clear huge piles of debris.

The rain and flooding eroded the foundations of bridges and motorways, which were often broken in chunks or blocked by fallen trees and electricity poles. Factory buildings were tilted, while a shipping container blew away and landed above cars in a parking lot.

“I woke up at 5 a.m. because of the explosive rain, and I got really concerned because the water rose right up to my doorway,” Kim Seong-chang, a Pohang resident, said in an interview with JTBC. “The water was still thigh-high at 7 a.m. and those who parked their cars in the streets were in panic because their vehicles were submerged … Other residents were bucketing out water from their homes.”

The storm dumped more than 41 inches of rain in central Jeju since Sunday, where winds peaked at 96 mph. Southern and eastern mainland regions also had damage — knocked off signboards and roofing, toppled trees, traffic signs and destroyed roads.

In Pohang, a woman in her 70s died after being swept away in flash floods, while another woman in her 60s was found dead in a submerged basement parking lot where searches were ongoing for seven people. Rescue workers had failed to respond to another man who called for help before he went missing, presumably swept by flash floods.

In the neighboring city of Gyeongju, a woman in her 80s died after her home was buried in a landslide. In Ulsan, another southern city, a 25-year-old man was unaccounted for after falling into a rain-swollen stream, according to the Ministry of the Interior and Safety.

Also in Pohang, firefighters extinguished flames that damaged at least three facilities at a major steel plant operated by POSCO. A presidential official, who spoke on condition of anonymity during a background briefing, said officials were investigating the cause of the fires.

Local fire officials said the flames destroyed a building housing electricity equipment and damaged a separate office building and a factory before being put out.

The Safety Ministry said about 3,200 among 4,500 people who had been forced to evacuate returned home Tuesday afternoon. More than 80 homes, buildings and factories were flooded or destroyed, and hundreds of roads, bridges and facilities were damaged.

More than 600 schools were closed or converted to online classes. Workers had managed to restore electricity to 78,890 of the 89,180 households that lost power.

In North Korea, state media reported “all-out efforts” to minimize damage from flooding and landslides. The Korean Central News Agency reported leader Kim Jong-un during government meetings had issued unspecified “detailed tasks” to improve the country’s disaster response capacity but it didn’t elaborate on the plans.

North Korea sustained serious damage from heavy rains and floods in 2020 that destroyed buildings, roads and crops, shocking the country’s already-crippled economy.

Additional reporting by the Associated Press.

Source: newsy.com

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Driving School Pushes Importance Of More Minority, Women Truck Drivers

Amid a truck driver shortage, a push to add diversity to the force is making way for safety and mindset changes in the industry.

Josephine Copeland’s lifelong dream is behind the wheel of a long-haul truck.

At age 49 and an empty nester, she came to Dudley’s Driving Center in Virginia to make her dream a reality — and just in time.

According to the American Trucking Association, the truck driver shortage reached industry highs in 2021.

One way to fill the gap has been finding ways to add diversity, meaning minorities. Young people and women represent only 7% of drivers.

Erica Denney, with the American Trucking Association’s Women in Motion program, says the first step is getting rid of the idea the trucking isn’t for women.

“There’s a stigma to the industry of white men, and that’s just not what we are anymore,” Denney said.

The second step is addressing safety.

“It’s an all-industry issue,” Denney said. “But obviously if you’re a female truck driver and you get to a truck stop, they’re out of spaces and you’re going in the back where there isn’t lighting — it’s dark, it’s far, it can be a bit intimidating.”

The group is working with lawmakers to add more well-lit parking areas. ATA says their drivers are also actively working to change the status quo by recruiting in diverse areas.

“One of the studies we did, we focused on Baltimore,” said Nick Geale, vice president of workforce and labor policy at the American Trucking Association. “The vast majority of folks in these urban environments never hear about trucking as an opportunity, and our members have not necessarily focused on hiring in those locations.”

Getting behind the wheel starts at driving school, with a written exam and a lot of practice. That’s why there’s also a call to add more diverse instructors: to give a sense of commonality.

Emanuell Robertson became an instructor at Dudley’s to encourage others like him.

“I look at it as helping the community escape that poverty… because it’s life changing,” Robertson said. “It saved my life.”

One Dudley family grandmother, Sadie Belle Howell Dudley, opened a female, Black-owned driving school in 1959. The Dudleys of today are hoping to bring those wide-open spaces to a new generation of drivers by expanding with Virginia’s first Black-owned commercial driver’s license school.

“Certain schools you go to, the atmosphere might not be so pleasant,” said Thomas Dudley Jr., co-owner of Dudley’s Driving Center. “A lot of people have been turned down where they don’t even want to get a CDL because of the environment.”

Copeland says the environment and a mission to fulfill a dream is what has brought her here.

“I love the road, and I love just the peace of mind of being in there by yourself,” Copeland said.

Source: newsy.com

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New NIL Benefits Turn College Athletes Into Millionaires

Name, image and likeness deals have taken hold at college campuses across the country, turning some student-athletes into millionaires.

Glance around the parking lot of the Woody Hayes Athletic Center at The Ohio State University this fall and you might come across a $200,000 palace on wheels, the kind of luxury ride more likely to be found in the garages of movie stars, music moguls and titans of business than on a college campus.

That’s assuming Buckeyes quarterback C.J. Stroud hasn’t swapped out his silver Mercedes-Benz G-Wagon for a Bentley or a Porsche, which his name, image and likeness deal with Sarchione Auto Gallery allows him to do every 45 days.

“It’s definitely changed my life for the future,” Stroud said of the several NIL deals to flow his way over the past year, “and I think it’s a jump-start to being a businessman before you get to the NFL, if that’s your path.”

More than a year ago, the NCAA lifted long-standing restrictions on players profiting from their celebrity status, and in some cases it turned elite players such as Stroud and Alabama quarterback Bryce Young into instant millionaires. But the financial benefits for some athletes are being weighed against the possibility that such deals will divide locker rooms, create tension within programs, produce an uneven playing field across college athletics and overwhelm students stretched for time.

“As far as NIL goes in the locker room, you see stuff, but no one ever talks about it,” Oklahoma wide receiver Marvin Mims admitted. “It’s never like, a competition, like, ‘Oh, I got this much more money than you did. I’ve got this deal. You couldn’t get this deal.’ But you do notice the NIL deals that other guys are getting.”

College football has witnessed the biggest impact from NIL legislation, though athletes in all sports have tapped into the sudden cash flow. Of the estimated $1.14 billion that will be poured into the pockets of athletes in Year 2, the NIL platform Opendorse predicts nearly half of it will be spent on the gridiron.

The largest and most prominent deals are going to individual athletes who have successfully leveraged their exceptional ability, potential, influence and exposure: Young’s portfolio is believed to have exceeded $1 million before he ever took a snap for the Crimson Tide, while Alabama teammate Will Anderson signed an NIL deal that allows one of the nation’s best linebackers to drive a $120,000 Porsche Cayenne GTS.

At Texas, running back Bijan Robinson has deals with Raising Cane’s restaurants, C4 Energy drinks and sports streaming platform DAZN, while also forging a partnership with an auto dealership for the use of a Lamborghini. At Notre Dame, tight end Michael Mayer has parlayed his first-round draft stock into deals with clothing brands Levi’s and Rhoback.

They are precisely the types of endorsement contracts, and cozy relationships with boosters and businesses, that once landed players on suspension and programs on probation.

“I feel bad for the older players that didn’t have the opportunity to get money from this, like Braxton Miller, Cardale Jones, Justin (Fields),” Stroud said of the Ohio State quarterbacks who came before him.

“They should have made a killing,” added Stroud, who also works with Value City Furniture, Designer Shoe Warehouse and the trading card company Onyx Authenticated. “It’s just good that players have control now when it comes to money.”

Along with deals signed by individual athletes, collectives have become a major player in the NIL landscape. Some are organized by schools and others by boosters acting on their own, but both distribute money gathered from businesses and donors for everything from endorsements to meet-and-greets and charitable work.

The Foundation, a third-party collective at Ohio State, says it has raised more than $500,000 for Stroud, running back TreVeyon Henderson, wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba and cornerback Denzel Burke. Texas Tech boosters have formed The Matador Club collective, which says it is signing all 85 scholarship players and 20 walk-ons to $25,000 contracts this season in return for appearing at club events and doing a certain amount of community service.

“I think we are well into the seven figures with all of our collectives,” said Morgan Frazier, a former gymnast at Florida and now the general counsel for Student Athlete NIL, which operates collectives at Penn State and several other schools.

Asked where the majority of money is going, she replied: “Overall, definitely football.”

It’s almost impossible to determine how much players are earning from NIL deals, in part because reporting rules differ from state to state. The vast majority are relatively modest — perhaps $50 for a tweet or $100 for an autograph signing on platforms such as Cameo, vidsig and Engage. Rarely do deals exceed $1,000.

But for premier position players at marquee programs, with NFL potential and huge social media followings, the money on the table can be life-changing. Twelve college players have a valuation of at least $1 million entering this season, according to On3, a platform that uses an algorithm to factor such things as social media reach to project NIL worth.

More than 50 players have a valuation of at least $500,000, with most of those playing in the SEC and Big Ten.

“Having an opportunity to change other peoples’ lives, that’s what’s cool about NIL,” said Penn State quarterback Sean Clifford, who founded Limitless NIL, which is believed to be the first agency created by an athlete to help other athletes. Its clients include Nittany Lions receiver Ji’Ayir Brown.

The spoils can come at a price. For one thing, players who may have already struggled to juggle classes and study halls with practice and film sessions now must balance meet-and-greets, autograph sessions and other work.

Then there’s the often-combustible locker room atmosphere, where lines have always existed between haves and have nots. In the past, those might have been between walk-ons and scholarship players. Now, they could be between players driving exotic cars or wearing expensive jewelry and those trying to scrape together rent.

“I know it could be a distraction,” Robinson said, when asked what it’s like driving his Lamborghini to practice. “If a teammate would bring it up, I would just joke around, be like, ‘Oh, man, but it’s not like what you’re getting out there right now.’ Just to not make it about yourself, because it’s not about you.

“If you’re not winning,” Robinson said, “none of us can get these NIL deals.”

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

Source: newsy.com

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Police: Heroic Safeway Employee Confronted Gunman In Store

Police hailed 66-year-old Donald Ray Surrett Jr. as a hero for attempting to disarm the gunman and possibly saving lives in the supermarket.

A Safeway employee who previously served in the U.S. Army for two decades attacked a gunman in the produce section of the Bend, Oregon, supermarket, police said Monday, possibly preventing more casualties from a shooting that left the employee and one other person dead.

Police hailed the employee, 66-year-old Donald Ray Surrett Jr., of Bend, as a hero and said his actions may have saved shoppers at the store in the high-desert city ringed by mountains in the central part of the state. Customer Glenn Edward Bennett, 84, of Bend, was also killed Sunday evening, police spokeswoman Sheila Miller said.

“Mr. Surrett engaged with the shooter, attempted to disarm him and may very well have prevented further deaths. Mr. Surrett acted heroically during this terrible incident,” Miller said at a news conference as she struggled against tears.

Police said Monday the shooter died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound; his body was found by police near an AR-15-style weapon and a shotgun. Police identified the gunman as Ethan Blair Miller, 20, of Bend.

The gunman lived in an apartment complex behind The Forum Shopping Center. Witnesses said he began shooting Sunday evening as soon as he left the complex and continued firing as he entered the shopping complex’s parking lot and then went into the Safeway.

Bennett was killed at the store’s entrance, police said, and the shooter then moved through the aisles “spraying shots” from the assault rifle until Surrett confronted him. The entire incident — from the first 911 calls to officers discovering the suspect dead in the store — unfolded in four minutes, Miller said.

Police entered the supermarket from the front and rear as shots were still being fired.

Debora Jean Surrett, the ex-wife of the Safeway employee killed in the attack, told The Associated Press in a phone interview that Surrett served in the Army for 20 years as a combat engineer.

He wasn’t deployed to active combat zones, but during the 20 years they were married from 1975 to 1995, they were stationed in Germany three times and lived on military bases across the U.S.

“They’re trained to be the first ones to go into war and the last ones to come home,” she told the AP.

Authorities later found three Molotov cocktails and a sawed-off shotgun in the shooter’s car. The Oregon State Police bomb squad was called in to sweep the store, the car and the suspect’s apartment for explosives, authorities said, forcing the evacuation of eight surrounding apartments on Monday morning.

Miller said reports that there was a second shooter were not true.

Authorities are seeking a search warrant to comb through online materials on an unspecified number of digital devices they found at the shooter’s apartment but declined to comment on reports that the suspect posted his plans online in advance. Bend police are working with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to determine where the suspect got his weapons and if he did so legally, Miller said.

“We are aware that the shooter may have posted information online regarding his plan. We’re investigating this,” she said. “We have no evidence of previous threats or prior knowledge of the shooter. We received information about the shooter’s writings after the incident had taken place. And the shooter has no criminal history in the area.”

The shooter graduated from Mountain View High School in Bend in 2020, according to online records, and a former classmate remembered him as an extremely combative person who had few friends.

He was a huge fan of mixed martial arts and “tried to fight everyone at Mountain View and kept getting his (expletive) kicked and he just never learned,” said Isaac Thomas, who was suspended for a week as a freshman for fighting with the gunman. The gunman held onto a grudge from that fight and once threatened to shoot him, Thomas told AP.

“At one point he said he was going to shoot me and I was like, ‘Get over yourself’ because I didn’t think he had a gun, but I guess I was wrong,” Thomas said.

Thomas recalled running into the shooter in 2020 in the parking lot of the Safeway, where the gunman was gathering up carts as part of his job. He recognized him and threatened him again although several years had gone by, Thomas said.

“It was kind of crazy when I heard about it,” he said of the shooting. “But it makes sense that he chose Safeway because he worked there and he knew the layout.”

Oregon’s elected leaders reacted to the shooting Monday with pledges to fight for more gun control.

Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat, said in a statement that the shooting was one of several in Oregon over the weekend and that “Oregonians deserve to be safe from gun violence.”

Oregon residents will vote in November on one of the strictest gun-control measures in the nation. If passed, Measure 114 would ban large capacity magazines over 10 rounds — except for current owners, law enforcement and the military — and require a permit to purchase any gun.

To qualify for a permit, an applicant would need to complete an approved firearm safety course, pay a fee, provide personal information, submit to fingerprinting and photographing and pass a criminal background check. The state police would create a firearms database.

Bend is a city of about 97,000 approximately 160 miles southeast of Portland, Oregon.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

Source: newsy.com

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Police: 2 Killed In Oregon Grocery Store, Suspect Found Dead

By Associated Press
August 29, 2022

Before the shooter entered the store, he fired shots in the shopping center’s parking lot and multiple people called 911.

Terrified shoppers and employees fled for safety when a gunman entered a Safeway supermarket in Bend, Oregon, “spraying shots” from an assault rifle, killing two people, police said.

Police officers found the gunman, whose name has not been released, dead “in close proximity” to an AR-15-style weapon and a shotgun inside the Safeway supermarket, Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz said during a Sunday night news conference.

On Monday morning, the Forum Shopping Center remained closed as law enforcement officials continued their investigation, Bend police tweeted.

The shooter fired shots in the shopping center’s parking lot at about 7:04 p.m., and multiple people called 911, the chief said.

Molly Taroli, 40, was shopping for dinner with her husband when the shooter started “spraying shots,” she told The Bulletin newspaper.

Taroli told the newspaper she took her own handgun from her purse, as employees yelled, “go, go, go!” as they tried to help people flee the store.

Josh Caba, another shopper in the store, told KTVZ he was with his four children when he heard multiple shots.

“I immediately turned to my children and said, ‘Run!’ People were screaming,” Caba told the news outlet. “It was a horrifying experience.”

Heather Thompson, who was across the street from the shopping center, told the Central Oregon Daily that she heard multiple shots.

“I heard anywhere from five to eight shots. I thought it sounded like backfire,” Thompson said. “Less than a minute later, there were 10 to 20 shots and then another 10 to 20 shots. And by that time, I went inside and told my dad to get away from the window. And people were running out of Safeway.”

Krantz, the police chief, said the shooter shot one person in the store’s entrance. That person was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead.

The shooter continued firing inside the store, fatally shooting another person, the chief said.

Police entered the supermarket “still hearing shots,” Krantz said. They did not fire any shots, he said, adding that they found an AR-15 style rifle and another shotgun near the deceased shooter.

Krantz did not identify the shooter or the victims. He said multiple agencies are working together on the investigation.

“This will take a long time to collect evidence,” Krantz said. “We know this is a frightening thing for our community.”

In a tweet, Democratic U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley offered his condolences to the victims’ families and to “the many people whose routine Sunday evening shopping turned into a terrifying run for their lives.”

Bend is a city of about 97,000 approximately 160 miles southeast of Portland, Oregon.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

Source: newsy.com

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Six Flags Amusement Park Shooting Near Chicago Leaves 3 Hurt

By Associated Press
August 15, 2022

Police say the shooting was not a random act and appeared to be a targeted incident.

Three people were injured in a shooting in a parking lot of an amusement park north of Chicago that sent visitors scrambling for safety, authorities said.

Officers responded about 7:50 p.m. Sunday after 911 calls reporting shots fired at Six Flags Great America, about 45 miles north of Chicago, the Gurnee Police Department said.

“The shooting … was not a random act, and appeared to be a targeted incident that occurred outside the park,” police said in a statement posted to Facebook.

According to an initial investigation, police said a white sedan entered the parking lot and drove toward the park’s front entrance. People got out of the car and shot at another person in the parking lot before driving away, police said.

Additional details about the suspects, including the number of people who fired shots, weren’t immediately released. Police were investigating.

A 17-year-old boy from Aurora, Illinois, had a thigh wound and a 19-year-old woman from Appleton, Wisconsin, had a leg wound, police said. They were taken to a hospital and their wounds were described as non-life-threatening. A third victim had a shoulder injury and declined to be taken to a hospital.

In a statement, Six Flags Great America said park security responded immediately along with Gurnee officers.

WGN News in Chicago spoke with Laurie Walker and her daughter, Grace, who were inside the park when the shooting occurred. Walker said they were waiting in line for an attraction around 7:50 p.m. when she noticed people running.

“‘There is an active shooter, get down, get down,'” Walker said she heard someone shouting. “We didn’t know what was going on, so we got down.”

Walker and her daughter climbed two fences to get where she could call her husband. Walker told WGN she was able to leave the park a short while later.

Gurnee is in Lake County, about 5 miles south of the Wisconsin border. It’s about 20 miles north of Highland Park, where seven people died in a mass shooting during a July Fourth parade.

Additional reporting by the Associated Press.

Source: newsy.com

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