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Sunday, March 31, 2024

Phillies' Bryce Harper gets rest day after hard fall - ESPN

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PHILADELPHIA -- Phillies first baseman Bryce Harper was out of the starting lineup Sunday because of a scheduled day off -- not because of any possible effects of his tumble into a photographer's well, manager Rob Thomson said.

Thomson said Harper already was set for a maintenance day in the finale of a three-game series against the Braves, which Philadelphia won 5-4, even before he crashed while chasing down a foul ball on Saturday.

"It was kind of a scheduled day off just because he hasn't played much in the spring and then he falls into the camera well," Thomson said Sunday.

Thomson said Harper was not available to pinch hit Sunday because the slugger "was a little sore from the tumble."

"We're trying to take care of him," Thomson said. "In the first month, we've got two days off. It's like spring training without the extra 44 players. And with a lefty matchup, we'll kick other guys in. We'll just protect him."

Alec Bohm started at first base for the Phillies against Braves left-hander Chris Sale.

Harper said after the game he was fine and ready to start Monday against the Cincinnati Reds.

"What happened yesterday I don't think really had any merit on today," Harper said. "Definitely looking forward to getting back out there tomorrow."

A two-time NL MVP, Harper, 31, is in his first full season playing first base after reconstructive elbow surgery forced him to move from right field. He is hitless in six at-bats this season and has walked twice with three strikeouts.

Harper has been doggedly aggressive on most balls hit his way since he started playing first base last season. This one gave the Phillies a scare.

Atlanta's Austin Riley popped a foul ball of Phillies starter Aaron Nola in the first inning that Harper chased down, but did not catch. He cartwheeled over a short railing and plopped into the photographer's station in the dugout. Harper lost his hat but recovered and walked over the railing to a standing ovation and remained in the game until he was lifted late in a 12-4 loss.

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March 31, 2024 at 11:38PM
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Phillies' Bryce Harper gets rest day after hard fall - ESPN

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Despite attempts to be less 'divisive,' Kari Lake finds it hard to shed her MAGA instincts - NBC News

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PHOENIX — This winter, Kari Lake was facing a daunting reality: The voters who rejected her in her 2022 run for governor could now jeopardize her entire political future. If Lake — “Trump in heels,” as she has referred to herself — didn’t begin to quickly change the minds of those she had shunned or ridiculed, she could lose, again, in her 2024 Senate bid.

“I have never thought of myself as divisive. But it’s not enough for ME to believe that. I need to prove it,” Lake wrote in a social media post in December, acknowledging the need to step away from her tendencies to make incendiary comments, like when she gleefully declared that she had driven “a stake through the heart of the McCain machine” — referring to Sen. John McCain, the popular Arizona Republican who died in 2018 — and broaden her appeal.

But with just over seven months until the election, several key Arizona Republicans tell NBC News that they believe Lake’s campaign is facing an increasingly uphill battle. 

“What I hear is, everybody has just resigned themselves that we’re going to be stuck with a Ruben Gallego — that’s what I hear from all the major players, the big-money people,” Shiree Verdone, a longtime GOP fundraiser in Arizona, said, referring to Lake's Democratic Senate opponent. “I haven’t heard anyone say, ‘Kari Lake is going to win.’”

Verdone, who voted for Lake in 2022, served as Trump’s campaign finance chair in the state in 2016 and 2020 and was a campaign manager for McCain. She said that she will vote for Trump, again, in 2024 and that she believes Lake’s best hope is to ride his coattails.

But Verdone has shifted her own attention to races other than Lake’s Senate bid, even attending a fundraiser in the Phoenix area last week for a non-Arizona Republican Senate candidate — Pennsylvania’s Dave McCormick. 

“He’s a serious guy. I like what he’s talking about, and I think we all relate to it,” Verdone said. “With Kari, I don’t know what she’s doing.”

Lake continues to deny that Trump lost the 2020 presidential election, tweeting this month about President Joe Biden: “81 million votes, my a--.” She continues to call her 2022 election loss “a sham,” promotes right-wing provocateurs like Laura Loomer — whom she called a “warrior” — and hosts fundraising events with controversial political figures like Roger Stone at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago private club.

Since launching her Senate bid, Lake has set up meetings to mend relationships with other Republicans she cast aside during her run for governor, like Kathy Petsas, a former local party chair in Lake’s home legislative district. Lake’s campaign tweeted at her in 2022: “Kathy, You’re exactly the type of demographic that we feel no need to appeal to.”

“I don’t know one person that she’s gotten on her side of the people who she offended,” Petsas said, suggesting Lake’s overtures have fallen flat. “There’s nobody from my circle that she’s gained, and she’s even alienated some previous supporters, too, who I know.”

Petsas met with Lake last winter for iced tea at the Arizona Biltmore Hotel, where, she said, Lake talked to her about the need to “unify the party.” She said she named a number of Republicans who deserve apologies from Lake.

“She couldn’t even say their names,” Petsas said. “She did not apologize at all. She cannot say, ‘I’m sorry.’”

When asked by NBC News to identify any individuals she had wooed to her corner since her failed governor’s race, Lake responded: “I have reached out to so many that I can’t even name them all, OK, and we’re doing great. A lot of them have jumped in and supported me. I’ve been reluctant to talk about my private meetings with people because I know, frankly, how the press operates and we’re working to come together and solve Arizona’s problems.”

Another target Lake has sought to win over: her former gubernatorial primary rival Karrin Taylor Robson, whom she previously derided as a “gold digger.”

Robson has also withheld her endorsement in the Senate race so far. Two sources familiar with her conversations with Lake said that the two are in talks to meet again. 

Lake’s actions, however, have often not mirrored the pitch that her campaign team has often made to those reticent to lending their support.  

“What’s odd is that she says one thing one day and then acts completely counter to that the next,” a Republican strategist with ties to Arizona said. “You open up Twitter, and there’s the Nimarata tweet.” 

On March 6, the day that Nikki Haley exited the 2024 GOP presidential race, Lake used Haley’s birth name, Nimarata — and misspelled it — in a post on X to knock her: “Nimrata Haley will suspend her campaign today after more humiliating, landslide loses on Super Tuesday.”

The strategist continued: “Her instincts seem to be to quadruple down on ultra MAGA and all that entails.”

This week, Lake also chose to not contest her liability in a defamation suit filed against her by Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, a move that most likely allows her to avoid turning over evidence that Richer sought in order to prove that she had made claims against him with actual malice. Lake had repeatedly accused Richer of having “sabotaged” Election Day voting and costing her the governorship in 2022. 

Richer, a fellow Republican, posted on X in response: “You will now have a judgment entered, in court, against you, for lying about our elections and me.  It was all B.S. Now on to damages.”

A looming cash crunch

Beyond the ever-fraying personal relationships, Lake is also facing a cash imbalance.

At the turn of the year, Lake had raised just over $2 million toward her Senate bid, compared to the more than $13 million hauled in by Gallego, the Democratic congressman who started his campaign more than eight months before her, according to Federal Election Commission filings. 

A Lake adviser said the campaign expects to report a stronger fundraising haul in the beginning of this year than in its first three months in the race. Another source close to major GOP donors said that Lake has remained in active contact this spring trying to court new financial backers and raise significant money. 

The National Republican Senatorial Committee has also backed her bid. The group’s chair, Sen. Steve Daines of Montana, who is campaigning next week in Arizona with her, said in his February endorsement: “Kari Lake is one of the most talented candidates in the country. Kari is building out an effective campaign operation that has what it takes to flip Arizona’s Senate seat in November.”

The NRSC and the Senate GOP’s major outside group, the Senate Leadership Fund, have said they are prioritizing Ohio, Montana and West Virginia as their best Senate pickup opportunities.

SLF and its affiliated groups have booked more than $135 million in advertising time to boost Republicans in Montana and Ohio. Like Lake, Montana Republican candidate Tim Sheehy and Ohio Republican nominee Bernie Moreno, who won his primary earlier this month, are both backed by Trump.

But none of those GOP groups has booked advertising time in Arizona as of now, as they survey the other battleground Senate races to play in. By comparison, a major Democratic super PAC has reserved $23 million of air time in Arizona this fall to help Gallego.

Lake has also not revealed how much she has raised through the Save Arizona Fund, a 501(c)4 organization that she launched with her key political aides in the aftermath of her gubernatorial defeat, or how she has used or intends to use the funds.

NBC News has requested the Save Arizona Fund’s 990 tax filing, a financial disclosure form that the IRS requires nonprofit organizations to file annually; neither Lake’s senior adviser nor her lawyer have responded to the request.

The money cannot be spent directly on her Senate bid. A person close to Lake said “a lot of the money” was spent on her lawsuits around the 2022 campaign.

Lake must also still defeat Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb in the GOP primary in July, though, at the end of the year, he had only $256,000 in his campaign coffers. 

In recent days, close allies of Lake have called Lamb to urge him to drop his bid, according to a senior adviser to Lamb. 

In mid-March after publicly challenging Gallego to a debate, Lake dismissed the relevance of Lamb’s candidacy when asked if she would agree to a debate with him: “I am focusing on the general election.”

But Lamb, a one-time ally of Lake, refuses to leave the race, contending that he has the best chance to win in November.

“If I didn’t think I was the best candidate in the general election, I’d certainly step aside and let that Republican go forward," Lamb said in an interview with NBC News. "But I do believe we’re in the best position for the general election."

He also noted that he would like the opportunity to debate Lake.

“I think a lot of the issues we’re going to be aligned on,” he added. “What I think it’ll show is the unevenness in experience — the experience I bring to the table on the border, crime and the economy.”

Lake and her allies once urged Lamb to run for the Senate seat that they’re now trying to get him to step away from. 

Lamb said that Lake had told him to run for months and even introduced him to Trump in December 2022 one evening at Mar-a-Lago. The sheriff said he had been speaking at an event in West Palm Beach earlier that day.

“[My wife and I] met her husband [and two advisers] — and they said, ‘You have to run for Senate. You have to do this. This is how you can do it. It’ll be great,’” Lamb recounted. “Then we walked over to Trump’s table — she said, ‘He’s going to run for Senate.’”

Months later, Lake changed course and announced her own run for the Senate seat — now held by Kyrsten Sinema, an independent who is not seeking re-election — and the effort to readjust her public persona commenced. 

'I got MAGA in my bone marrow'

When asked by NBC News this month whether she regretted any of her past statements, Lake responded: “We’re all human. We make mistakes occasionally. I do as well. I’m not perfect, and I never want to hurt anyone’s feelings. But you know, politics is a rough and tumble game, and sometimes things are said.”

Lake also rejected the premise that she needed to change.

“I haven’t changed,” she argued after casting her ballot for Trump in Arizona’s GOP presidential primary last week. “I’m still the same person that people invited into their homes for nearly 30 years here in Arizona.” 

Before her first run for office two years ago, Lake was a prominent local news anchor on Phoenix television.

Despite that history, Trump is outperforming her in Arizona, but in a state that’s seen three competitive Senate races in a row, this year’s Senate matchup is not expected to be an exception. However, in a February poll by Noble Predictive Insights, 49% of Arizona voters already held an unfavorable view of Lake, compared to just 26% for Gallego.

The last Republican to lose statewide office twice in Arizona was Martha McSally, who lost both her 2018 and 2020 Senate races by a margin of 2.4% and struggled in those campaigns to find a balance between embracing the MAGA wing of her party and not dismissing figures opposed to Trump’s grip on the GOP, like McCain and then-Sen. Jeff Flake. 

In turn, Lake has worked hard to not lose her close relationship with Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, paying his senior advisor Jason Miller to also consult for her campaign and even traveling to Trump’s election night victory parties in Iowa and New Hampshire as well as multiple events at his Palm Beach estate. 

“I got MAGA in my bone marrow,” Lake boasted at a rally in Cave Creek, Arizona, this month before telling the crowd that she had just filed a case with the U.S. Supreme Court “to get rid of those damn machines that are so corrupt.”

Lake’s petition claims electronic voting machines used in Maricopa County are “susceptible to hacking.” It’s the same argument that has repeatedly failed to pass muster in several courts and led to a $787.5 million settlement between Fox News and Dominion Voting Systems last spring. 

Despite Lake alienating some of the Arizona electorate, her would-be general election opponent, Gallego, is untested statewide, only having run in a Democrat-dominant Phoenix congressional district.

“Kari Lake is going to not only win the Republican primary in a landslide, which every poll shows, she is also best positioned to defeat Ruben Gallego in every single private and public poll that we have,” Garrett Ventry, a senior adviser to Lake, said. “She is President Trump’s endorsed candidate, and the NRSC and Arizona grassroots voters are behind her.”

Jon Seaton, a former McCain aide and a longtime Arizona GOP consultant, said he believes the current race is a “toss-up.”

“Gallego obviously has the advantages of money and, for the most part, a unified Democratic Party behind him,” Seaton said. “But I think our side has a lot to shoot at in terms of his voting record. He’ll be perceived as very weak on the border, and well to the left of most Arizona voters.”

But Verdone, the longtime fundraiser, surmised that Lake’s window for changing the trajectory of the race is narrowing. 

“She needs to reach out and show that she’s willing to — the only term I can think of is — normalize,” she said. “But I think it’s almost too late. There would have to be something drastic for folks to say, ‘Let’s go rally around Kari.’”

Verdone paused, then added: “Maybe that happens.”

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March 29, 2024 at 03:48AM
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Despite attempts to be less 'divisive,' Kari Lake finds it hard to shed her MAGA instincts - NBC News

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Phillies' Bryce Harper gets rest day after hard fall - ESPN

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PHILADELPHIA -- Phillies first baseman Bryce Harper was out of the starting lineup Sunday because of a scheduled day off -- not because of any possible effects of his tumble into a photographer's well, manager Rob Thomson said.

Thomson said Harper already was set for a maintenance day in the finale of a three-game series against the Braves even before he crashed while chasing down a foul ball on Saturday.

"It was kind of a scheduled day off just because he hasn't played much in the spring and then he falls into the camera well," Thomson said Sunday.

"We're trying to take care of him. In the first month, we've got two days off. It's like spring training without the extra 44 players. And with a lefty matchup, we'll kick other guys in. We'll just protect him."

Alec Bohm started at first base for the Phillies against Braves left-hander Chris Sale.

Harper was not in the clubhouse during the time it was open to reporters. Thomson said about two hours before first pitch he had not seen Harper and didn't have an update on his health.

Thomson said Harper "felt pretty good" after Saturday's game. Harper did not talk to reporters after the game.

Thomson did not rule out using Harper as a pinch hitter Sunday. In a positive sign for the Phillies that Harper may really be feeling fine, he will start Monday against Cincinnati Reds, Thomson said.

A two-time NL MVP, Harper, 31, is in his first full season playing first base after reconstructive elbow surgery forced him to move from right field. He is hitless in six at-bats this season and has walked twice with three strikeouts.

Harper has been doggedly aggressive on most balls hit his way since he started playing first base last season. This one gave the Phillies a scare.

Atlanta's Austin Riley popped a foul ball of Phillies starter Aaron Nola in the first inning that Harper chased down, but did not catch. He cartwheeled over a short railing and plopped into the photographer's station in the dugout. Harper lost his hat but recovered and walked over the railing to a standing ovation and remained in the game until he was lifted late in a 12-4 loss.

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March 31, 2024 at 11:38PM
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Phillies' Bryce Harper gets rest day after hard fall - ESPN

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‘Miserable’: Hong Kong restaurants lament drop in business over Easter holiday - South China Morning Post

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“We only served three tables of customers on Saturday. It was worse on Friday – we only served two tables. The whole vibe was quite bleak, as my staff were just looking at each other the whole night,” said Ben Yeung Chi-keung, owner of Sakanaichi Hotpot in Tsim Sha Tsui.

Yeung said he was disappointed, especially as he had extended operating hours for lunch service at his 25-table restaurant.

“It was just miserable. I decided not to operate on Sunday as it would only be a waste of electricity and frustrating for my eight staff to serve no one. I would rather let them have an extra day off,” he said.

Many restaurant have reported a drop-off in business this Easter break compared with last year. Photo: Sam Tsang

An owner of a restaurant chain with about 30 branches in the city reported a 30 per cent drop in business in the first three days of the break compared with last year, with his establishments in North district and the New Territories hit the hardest.

“The ones located in Kowloon are doing just fine with single-digit growth because more tourists are spending time there. But it cannot cover the drop in other locations,” said the owner, who declined to be named.

He added that landlords still kept raising rent despite the economic environment.

“It is really hard for us to compete with other cities in the Greater Bay Area which have lower operating costs,” he said. “High rent remains the biggest hurdle for me as I have already closed down a few establishments. Other industry players are experiencing the same situation.”

Immigration figures showed 99,000 residents had left Hong Kong on Sunday as of 10am, while 21,000 visitors had arrived. On Friday and Saturday, a combined 1.15 million residents departed, while the city welcomed 237,000 visitors, of which 72.5 per cent were from the mainland.

Hong Kong malls offer free parking as 541,000 people leave city for Easter break

A concern group set up on Facebook for business operators to share concerns over store closures and performance also soared in popularity over the weekend, with the number of followers jumping from 8,000 to 120,000.

A cafe owner who said he had run his business in Sai Kung for 22 years wrote on the page that the sluggish economy also affected the area’s footfall.

“Sai Kung feels like a ghost town before 8pm every evening. Even during the usual busy times, such as holidays, there is no traffic congestion, indicating how severe the situation is,” he wrote. “To make matters worse, my landlord increased the rent by 30 per cent even before things returned to normal in the past three months.”

Some Hongkongers have decided to stay in the city to save money. Beauty industry worker Elaine Cheung Yuen-shan, 32, said she had no travel budget remaining after spending about HK$80,000 (US$10,200) for a trip to Tokyo during the Lunar New Year holiday with her husband and six-year-old daughter.

“Given the poor economic environment, I find it difficult to travel like I did during holidays before Covid-19 hit. Staying in Hong Kong is not a bad idea, as my family of three can explore different places together,” Cheung said.

Hong Kong expects 11 million border crossings at Easter and Ching Ming Festival

“Spending time to see some art is quite nice as it doesn’t cost much,” she said, referring to a visit to Art Central, the main satellite fair held to coincide with Art Basel.

Among those also staying at home was Evan Wong Ching-chi, a father to a seven-year-old son and five-year-old daughter, as he failed to apply for annual leave to make the holiday worthwhile for travelling.

“It is actually a good thing. Travelling with a family of four can be quite expensive,” said the 49-year-old sales representative. “Staying in Hong Kong still offers plenty of activities where I can take the kids outdoors to burn off their energy. Cooking at home also allows us not to spend extra money.

“My wife and I were considering taking the kids to Disneyland or Ocean Park, but the entrance fees for a family of four are quite expensive, so we decided against it.”

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March 31, 2024 at 04:39PM
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‘Miserable’: Hong Kong restaurants lament drop in business over Easter holiday - South China Morning Post

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Saturday, March 30, 2024

With votes finally tallied, Shasta County's hard-right coalition learns its fate - Los Angeles Times

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The hard-right chairman of the Shasta County Board of Supervisors, who questioned whether voting machines fostered election fraud, has narrowly survived a recall.

Supervisor Kevin Crye, a gym owner who took office last year, defeated the recall by just 50 votes out of 9,382 ballots cast, according to final results released by the county registrar Thursday afternoon. In 2023, he enlisted Mike Lindell, the MyPillow chief executive and pro-Trump election denier, in the county’s successful push to ditch Dominion voting machines.

Informed of the results by a Times reporter, Crye joked: “Landslide.”

The skinny margin of his political survival, he said, was to be expected, given that he was elected to office in November 2022 by a similarly slim margin of just 90 votes. “It’s an example of our country: It’s split,” he said of the results.

He also called the recall attempt — which was launched after the Dominion vote, less than four months after he took office — “completely unnecessary” and noted that it had “cost the taxpayers a lot of money.”

Many in Shasta County had framed the election — in which three of the five seats on the Board of Supervisors were up for grabs along with Crye’s fate — as a referendum on the board’s hard-right turn in the last few years.

Since a Republican supervisor was recalled in 2022 on the grounds that he was not conservative enough, hard-right forces have transformed this largely rural Northern California county into a national symbol of ultraconservative governance and election denialism.

The board’s hard-right majority dumped Dominion voting systems based on unfounded claims of voter fraud pushed by former President Trump and tried to return the county to hand-counting ballots before being thwarted by a new state law that forbade them from doing so.

They passed a measure to allow concealed weapons in local government buildings, in defiance of state law. And they explored hiring a California secessionist leader as the county’s chief executive.

The March 5 election results left that majority weakened, but not totally defeated.

Matt Plummer, a nonprofit advisor, beat incumbent Patrick Jones, a gun store manager who championed dumping Dominion. Plummer won nearly 60% of the vote.

Shasta County Supervisor Kevin Crye standing on the Sundial Bridge in Redding, Calif.

Shasta County Supervisor Kevin Crye poses for a photo on the Sundial Bridge in Redding, Calif., on Feb. 21. Crye survived a recall election by just 50 votes.

(Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)

Allen Long, a retired Redding police lieutenant and relative moderate, won an open board seat representing western Shasta County. In a four-way contest, he won 50.13% of the vote, avoiding a November runoff election by just 14 votes.

Mary Rickert, an incumbent and moderate Republican who often clashed with the hard-right majority, won 40% of the vote and is headed for a runoff against quarry owner Corkey Harmon. The third person in that race, Win Carpenter, a prominent far-right voice in the State of Jefferson secessionist movement, did not advance to the general election.

Rickert said the electorate sent “a strong message that people in Shasta County felt like they wanted new faces on the board.”

The outlier, she said, was Crye’s defeat of the recall. But that, she said, may be in part because he was able to make the race about a man who is almost universally unpopular in the county: Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Crye argued that a vote against him was a vote for Newsom to appoint his interim successor. An anti-recall campaign website put it bluntly: “Stop Gavin Newsom’s Attempt to Control Shasta County.”

Many voters seemed to agree with that sentiment. More than 55% of county voters approved a measure — placed on the ballot by the ultraconservative majority — to make Shasta a “charter county” instead of a “general law” county, giving the supervisors, not the governor, the power to fill vacancies on the Board of Supervisors.

Crye called that a victory too.

“It gives Shasta County local control forever,” he said. “It keeps the governor out of our county — any governor. I don’t care if Trump were the governor. I don’t want any outside, Sacramento politician having any rule as it relates to the Board of Supervisors in Shasta County.”

The committee that tried to recall Crye, meanwhile, said it hoped the supervisor would heed how close he came to losing his seat.

“The Committee to Recall Kevin Crye undertook this recall because of the chaos and waste brought on by Crye’s decisions,” backers said in a statement. “Crye would do well to take seriously the thousands of his own constituents who don’t agree with what he’s doing or how he’s doing it.”

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March 30, 2024 at 01:52AM
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With votes finally tallied, Shasta County's hard-right coalition learns its fate - Los Angeles Times

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"Hard to say" where interest rates will settle, Fed chair says - Marketplace

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"Hard to say" where interest rates will settle, Fed chair says  Marketplace The Link Lonk


March 30, 2024 at 05:08AM
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"Hard to say" where interest rates will settle, Fed chair says - Marketplace

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Friday, March 29, 2024

Essay | In Hard Times, Baltimore Took Pride in Its Port. What Now? - The Wall Street Journal

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Essay | In Hard Times, Baltimore Took Pride in Its Port. What Now?  The Wall Street Journal The Link Lonk


March 29, 2024
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Essay | In Hard Times, Baltimore Took Pride in Its Port. What Now? - The Wall Street Journal

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"Hard to say" where interest rates will settle, Fed chair says - Marketplace

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"Hard to say" where interest rates will settle, Fed chair says  Marketplace The Link Lonk


March 30, 2024 at 05:08AM
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"Hard to say" where interest rates will settle, Fed chair says - Marketplace

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Russia says it is hard to believe Islamic State could have launched Moscow attack - Reuters

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Russia says it is hard to believe Islamic State could have launched Moscow attack  Reuters The Link Lonk


March 28, 2024 at 06:05AM
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Russia says it is hard to believe Islamic State could have launched Moscow attack - Reuters

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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Why It's So Hard to Know What Donald Trump's DJT Stock is Worth - The Wall Street Journal

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Why It's So Hard to Know What Donald Trump's DJT Stock is Worth  The Wall Street Journal The Link Lonk


March 28, 2024 at 11:01PM
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Why It's So Hard to Know What Donald Trump's DJT Stock is Worth - The Wall Street Journal

https://news.google.com/search?q=hard&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en

This Recruiter Is Sharing Why It's So Hard To Get Hired In 2024 - BuzzFeed

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Not only are there fewer recruiters at many companies, but Kourtlynn says they're also being bombarded with résumés. "If you have 300 roles posted, you have 2,000 people applying to each role. How long do you think that takes? Of those thousands of people that apply, maybe more than half of them apply to roles they're not qualified for."

Kourtlynn explains that in the past, it was easier to get hired for jobs where you're not a perfect match to the qualifications. However, now, she says, "Companies are not willing to spend the money or the time to train people."

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March 28, 2024 at 10:15AM
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This Recruiter Is Sharing Why It's So Hard To Get Hired In 2024 - BuzzFeed

https://news.google.com/search?q=hard&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en

Wednesday, March 27, 2024

Bears might not be able to avoid Hard Knocks much longer - NBC Sports

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The Bears have managed to avoid submitting to Hard Knocks since the series debuted more than 20 years ago. They hope to keep it that way. They likely won’t.

Via Patrick Finley of the Chicago Sun-Times, Bears chairman George McCaskey wants to keep the team out of the HBO/NFL Films spotlight.

The Bears, under the formula as revised this week, can be forced to submit to the show. McCaskey said that he has heard there is “some interest in other teams being on the program,” and “we welcome that interest.”

The Bears also inevitably will be one of the teams featured on the in-season version of the show, if/when the NFC North gets the assignment under the new procedure that will expand the program to all four teams from the same division.

The Bears are one of 10 teams that have avoided preseason Hard Knocks. We’ll see how much longer they can continue that streak.

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March 28, 2024 at 03:03AM
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Bears might not be able to avoid Hard Knocks much longer - NBC Sports

https://news.google.com/search?q=hard&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en

“The Hard To Employ”: Do People Ever Change? - Forbes

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Do people ever change?

It’s a question professionals in the job training field have been asking over the past five decades, especially in regards to the unemployed workers referred to in the 1970s as the “hard-to-employ”. It’s a question that is being asked today, in Congressional discussions over the reauthorization of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), and direction of America’s job training system.

In 1979, when I started in job training, the “hard-to-employ” was the term then used by practitioners and employment researchers to describe a set of groups identified with the rising government benefit rolls and crime: welfare recipients, ex-offenders, out of school unemployed youth, and ex-addicts. Within these groups, some workers lacked vocational skills or basic literacy skills that made job placement difficult. Mainly, though, these workers were defined at the time by behaviors: inability to get to work regularly and on time, inability to manage issues in their personal lives that got in the way of the job, inability to follow work protocols. The term became a shorthand for the individuals who, in the words of a blue ribbon committee on the hard-to-employ in 1980, “have become a considerable burden to themselves and the public.”

Integrating these workers into jobs is one of the main goals of the WIOA reauthorization. But how to do so? Much of the WIOA discussion is focusing on longer term training and certifications for these workers prior to job placement. Yet in terms of fostering behaviors for job success, a different approach offers greater promise: direct job placement with high-touch supports, and subsequent skills upgrading. Workers are encouraged to build a track record in entry level jobs, and employers encouraged and incentivized to invest in these workers, with skills upgrading and advancement opportunities. Let’s briefly explain.

Behavioral change that enables individuals who have not had success in jobs to find such success is a complex, multifaceted process. Such behavioral change most often comes from influences outside of government training programs.

This behavioral change can come from the influence of a new mentor/teacher/friend, or an effective mental health/substance abuse intervention. It can come through joining a religious or spiritual movement.

Beyond these influences, often it comes through the process of aging and greater maturity.

A few weeks ago walking in San Francisco’s Union Square, I ran into a participant in the job training program, the San Francisco Renaissance Center, that I was part of in the 1980s. After not holding a steady job in his twenties, he has been employed steadily for the past thirty years in building set up and security positions with the San Francisco Convention Center and Union Square Business District. What brought change in his work behavior was neither the Renaissance Center nor any other training program. His work behavior changed as he aged and matured. So too other Renaissance Center participants settled into jobs on their own as they aged into their thirties and beyond.

A well-structured job training program, though, can be an influence for behavioral change and hastening integration into a more steady job world. Experience suggests that the WIOA authorization focus on the following three strategies:

The power of job placement and the “work first” approach: One of the most important insights on behavioral change has come from Peter Cove, who in 1984, with his wife Dr. Lee Bowes, founded America Works. Inspired by President Johnson’s call to end poverty, Cove in 1965 had dropped out of graduate school and taken a job with the War on Poverty oversight agency in New York. Within a few years, though, he began to lose faith in the welfare and social service approaches and the flow of money without any accountability.

Cove turned to the job training field and went to work in the early 1970s at the Manhattan office of Wildcat Services Corporation. He would later recall, “At Wildcat we showed that the best way to get clients off welfare was to get them paid work immediately, rather than enroll them in training and education programs. I saw with my own eyes the value of work—any kind of paid work—in reducing welfare dependency and attacking poverty. I learned that if we helped welfare clients get jobs, even entry level jobs, they would then attend to their other needs. By contrast if the government gave them money and other benefits they were likely to remain dependent.”

Cove and his wife Dr. Lee Bowes launched America Works with their own funds, and built on the Wildcat results. They emphasized a “work first” behavioral approach: once people are placed in jobs they often find ways on their own to address other “static” or challenges in their lives. “When some mothers on welfare came to us they often explained that they could not work because they had no day care. We would send them on a job interview, and when the company wanted to hire them, miraculously they found a grandmother or daycare center.”

America Works has grown to a nationwide organization, serving 20,000 clients annually. It accompanies job placements with a range of counseling and case management supports for retention. It encourages skills upgrading and skills certifications for advancement. But its theory of behavioral change is centered on the power of the job placement.

Though America Works is among the largest of the “work first” workforce intermediaries, it is by no means the only one. The strategy is increasingly being adopted by other intermediaries, sometimes with variations through the growing apprenticeship movement and creative uses of transitional jobs.

The craft of the job counselor and the high-touch needed: I’ve written from time to time about job counselors who are true craft persons in their roles in assisting the hard-to-employ, including Amy Ruddell, a job counselor in Sacramento, who works in job placement for the homeless. She has been in the field for 34 years, and developed strong ties with local employers, and a willingness and ability to sell her clients to employers. She also has the effective mix of empathy, enthusiasm, and straight talk, to be the cheerleader and coach that her clients need for their transitions into jobs.

When I wrote about Amy in early 2022, she had just completed a project cycle of 30 homeless participants, among whom 19 had been placed in entry level jobs. Since then, Amy has continued to regularly send participant updates. Today around a third of the participants placed in 2022 are back to being unemployed. The others, though, are still employed—though several have changed employers one or two times.

Amy provides the high-touch supports required for placement and re-placement. She checks in regularly with the participant and employer, and seeks to resolve job issues that arise. If there is no resolution, she will assist the participant in finding another job. She is not a nine-to-five counselor, and she does not give up easily on her clients.

The high-touch strategy is also finding greater adoption in the workforce field, as represented by MDRC’s Individual Placement and Support model and its growing Center for Applied Behavioral Science.

3. Advancement from entry level jobs: In the 1970s and 1980s, the welfare rights groups would argue that welfare recipients and other workers on government benefits should not be expected to take low-wage, entry-level jobs. They were entitled to “quality jobs”. The result in most cases was that the workers obtained no jobs at all.

One of the first principles of job placement is that it is always easier to get a job if you have a job. Also, it is easier to navigate the job world and advance into a better position if you have a job, even an entry level job. The next job training system should encourage workers, with limited job backgrounds, to build a record in an entry level job, and seek out opportunities to advance. It should find ways to encourage and assist employers to provide such opportunities and invest in their entry level workers who perform well. In the post-pandemic economy, employers are finding just how hard it is to find committed employees in entry level positions.

Recent research by Burning Glass Institute points to the advancement opportunities increasingly available for entry level workers at America’s major companies. One challenge for the job training system going forward is how to expand these opportunities in mid-size and smaller firms.

***

Still, How Little We Know of Behavioral Change and Fitting Into the Job World

Our understanding of behavioral change is still primitive, in regards to the job world, as in other areas of life. Throughout the past five decades, job training practitioners and researchers have looked to the ascendant behavioral sciences for answers on integrating the “hard to employ” into jobs, but the answers have been scarce. If anything, during this same time, the neurosciences have been showing how much of behavior is linked to brain structure, and not easily subject to the mainstream behavioral interventions.

But these past five decades have also shown the power of getting and holding a job in stimulating behavioral change—at least for a portion of the “hard to employ”. This power should be at the center of WIOA reauthorization.

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March 27, 2024 at 08:36PM
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“The Hard To Employ”: Do People Ever Change? - Forbes

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Tuesday, March 26, 2024

Bears hoping to stay off 'Hard Knocks' - Chicago Sun-Times

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ORLANDO, Fla. — The Bears are one of 10 teams never to appear on “Hard Knocks,” HBO’s documentary series. Chairman George McCaskey wants it to stay that way.

“We’re told there is some interest in other teams being on the program,” McCaskey said with a smile at the NFL's annual meetings Tuesday. “And we welcome that interest.”

McCaskey has long opposed the Bears being on the show. This year, the NFL can compel the Bears to participate.

McCaskey might not be in the clear yet. HBO will produce “Hard Knocks” during training camp, which will focus on one team. The league announced Tuesday that their in-season version of the show will focus on a division — not a team.
 
The chairman said president/CEO Kevin Warren was of a similar mind regarding “Hard Knocks,” though Warren said that his interest is “in making sure that the NFL stays strong and vibrant.”

Christmas with Roger

There will be a Christmas Day game this year — amazingly, on a Wednesday. The league said the teams that play will be coming off a game the previous Saturday, making the turnaround akin to a “Thursday Night Football” contest.

“It’s a huge viewership opportunity for the league,” McCaskey said. “Some people who want quiet family celebrations may have an issue with it. I've got somebody in my house that has an issue with it.”

The change didn’t need approval from ownership.

This and that

• The NFL is moving the trade deadline back one week, to Week 9.

• A new bylaw will allow teams to receive a third instant replay review if a coach is correct about his first two.

• McCaskey said his opposition toward expanding the NFL’s international slate last year was rooted in the league “taking away some of the individual clubs' flexibility to protect home games.”

• McCaskey lobbied for Jay Hilgenberg, the seven-time Pro Bowl center from their Super Bowl winning team, to be the latest player inducted into the Hall of Fame from what he called a “backlog of deserving Bears.” The Bears have the most players in the Hall.

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March 27, 2024 at 03:15AM
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Bears hoping to stay off 'Hard Knocks' - Chicago Sun-Times

https://news.google.com/search?q=hard&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en

HBO's 'Hard Knocks' 2024 In-Season Edition to Feature NFL Division, Not Single Team - Bleacher Report

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INGLEWOOD, CALIFORNIA - JANUARY 07: A detail view of the NFL shield logo painted on the field turf before an NFL football game between the Los Angeles Chargers and the Kansas City Chiefs at SoFi Stadium on January 7, 2024 in Inglewood, California. (Photo by Ryan Kang/Getty Images)
Ryan Kang/Getty Images

The NFL is making a significant change to the in-season edition of the critically acclaimed HBO series Hard Knocks during the 2024 campaign.

According to NFL Network's Mike Garafolo, NFL Chief Media and Business Officer Brian Rolapp said Tuesday that the 2024 in-season Hard Knocks will focus on an entire division rather than a single team.

Rolapp added that the NFL has yet to decide which of its eight divisions will be the subject of the docuseries.

Hard Knocks debuted in 2001, and while it initially focused only on teams during training camp, that changed in 2021.

Since 2021, there has been a preseason edition of Hard Knocks and an in-season edition. In 2021, the Indianapolis Colts were the subject of the first in-season Hard Knocks, followed by the Arizona Cardinals in 2022 and the Miami Dolphins in 2023.

The change added new wrinkles to Hard Knocks since the in-season edition is less about players trying to make a team and teams preparing for the season, and more about the trials and tribulations teams go through during the grueling NFL season.

By choosing a singular team, the NFL can't necessarily control what types of storylines will play out during he season.

A good team will be battling for the playoffs, a bad team will be out of it and a middling team will likely experience plenty of ups and downs.

Showcasing an entire division will allow the NFL and HBO to show the full gamut of what teams go through during an entire NFL season.

There are always exceptions, but most divisions tend to have at least one really good team, one or two in the middle and one that is among the league's worst.

Of course, there is a possibility that a division can be chosen in which every team has a chance to either win the division or make the playoffs until late in the year, much like the AFC North and NFC South last season.

Whatever the case, the new format of the in-season Hard Knocks represents the continued evolution of the series, and it should make for some must-see TV for football fans.

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March 26, 2024 at 11:56PM
https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMifGh0dHBzOi8vYmxlYWNoZXJyZXBvcnQuY29tL2FydGljbGVzLzEwMTE0NDcwLWhib3MtaGFyZC1rbm9ja3MtMjAyNC1pbi1zZWFzb24tZWRpdGlvbi10by1mZWF0dXJlLW5mbC1kaXZpc2lvbi1ub3Qtc2luZ2xlLXRlYW3SAYwBaHR0cHM6Ly9zeW5kaWNhdGlvbi5ibGVhY2hlcnJlcG9ydC5jb20vYW1wLzEwMTE0NDcwLWhib3MtaGFyZC1rbm9ja3MtMjAyNC1pbi1zZWFzb24tZWRpdGlvbi10by1mZWF0dXJlLW5mbC1kaXZpc2lvbi1ub3Qtc2luZ2xlLXRlYW0uYW1wLmh0bWw?oc=5

HBO's 'Hard Knocks' 2024 In-Season Edition to Feature NFL Division, Not Single Team - Bleacher Report

https://news.google.com/search?q=hard&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en

Europe's leaders have woken up to hard power - Financial Times

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Europe's leaders have woken up to hard power  Financial Times The Link Lonk


March 26, 2024 at 06:45PM
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Europe's leaders have woken up to hard power - Financial Times

https://news.google.com/search?q=hard&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en

Colorado lawmakers adopt cuts, hard choices as state faces $170 million budget shortfall - coloradopolitics.com

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Between March 15 and March 21, the six members of the Joint Budget Committee — the group of lawmakers in charge of drafting Colorado's spending plan — found themselves with a problem.

With just over a week before the introduction of the state's 2024-25 budget, new revenue forecasts showed they had a hole to plug, with estimates ranging from $160 million to $225 million, depending on which forecast was used.

Unlike the federal government, Colorado's budget drafters must come up with a balanced budget.

That, in fact, is the only constitutional mandate that the Colorado General Assembly is required to accomplish each year. 

The problem, JBC Vice Chair Sen. Rachel Zenzinger, D-Arvada, said, was something the committee had not had to contend with before — a difference between what the U.S. Census said Colorado's population was versus what the state demographer estimated. 

For purposes of crafting the state budget, the Joint Budget Committee has, in the past, used the state demographer's information, in part because that information was available sooner.

But, technically, the JBC is required to use the federal census data. 

It never made much of a difference before, as the numbers were usually pretty close, Zenzinger said.

Not this year, however. 

The U.S. Census estimated Colorado's population lower than the state demographer's numbers. 

That matters because the census is part of what the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights revenue cap is based on, and with a lower population estimate, that meant a reduction in the TABOR revenue cap of about $70 million or so.

The cap limits just how much general fund lawmakers have available, and reducing it by $70 million offered a larger set of complications. 

A $170 million budget hole

The news that revenues would make for a tight budget year wasn't unexpected.

And even with the hole, the JBC went with the more optimistic forecast from the governor's economists. Even so, that put the anticipated shortfall — unless budget writers decided to tap into the state reserve, which they didn't want to do — at around $170 million.

"I've never had to find those kinds of funds before," said Rep. Rick Taggart, R-Grand Junction.

It was the assurances from his JBC colleagues that they would find a way to fill the hole that made the situation less frightening, Taggart said. 

The committee spent its longest hours of the week on March 21 coming up with a variety of cash funds and one-time transfers to cover the hole.

They wrapped up their work around 1:30 a.m. on Friday morning.

Then the Long Appropriations Bill — which contains the next state budget —  headed off to the printers.

It's expected to be officially introduced sometime this week.  

One-time transfers and the ARPA swap

As budget writers tinkered and made modifications, the term "one-time only" began to show up a lot in the decisions.

Indeed, the committee made at least 20 decisions on budget cuts and transfers of cash funds into the state budget. 

One of those decisions was making what's known as the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) swap.

In the wake of COVID-19, the federal government made $195 billion available to state governments to help them deal with the effects of the pandemic. That was intended to help with economic recovery caused by the emergency, support public health, replace lost public sector revenue, invest in water, sewer and broadband infrastructure and ensure premium pay for essential workers.

Colorado's share was $3.8 billion.

Under the rules, those dollars must be obligated by Dec. 31, 2024 and spent by Dec. 31, 2026.

But the federal government put out an interim rule last November, saying whatever hadn't been obligated could be spent in other areas. 

A JBC staff analysis said that out of Colorado's $3.8 billion, about $3.68 billion had been allocated through transfers and appropriations to state agencies.

The governor's office proposed a "swap" back in January: use some of those ARPA dollars — up to $1.5 billion — for personal services lines in the budget for 2023-24 and the first half of the 2024-25 budget year, instead of using general fund dollars. 

That largely would apply to the agencies that had programs funded with ARPA dollars, according to Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, R-Weld County.

"We had enough personal services" funding available to make it work, she told Colorado Politics.

That would allow the state to use up those dollars by the Dec. 31, 2024 deadline. About $700 million still sits in agencies that they expect to spend by Dec. 31, 2024, she said. That swap also gave the agencies "roll forward" flexibility that allows those dollars to be spent by the final deadline in 2026.

Taggart, the Grand Junction Republican, told reporters last week that lots of states have taken a similar approach — they took all the ARPA dollars that weren't obligated and swapped them back into a personal services line in each department that received those dollars.

Zenzinger said hundreds of bills contained the ARPA funding. When the federal government changed the criteria, "we realized those implementation timelines mattered," and they had to go back to review those bills to make sure the money would be obligated this year and the programs could continue for as long as they have funding.

"We're not changing the intent of the bills or the programming," she said. If a bill is slated to expire this year, it will, she explained.

Last week, the JBC decided to use $197 million from those ARPA dollars to balance the 2024-25 budget, Kirkmeyer said. 

One-time money, severance taxes and college tuition

The use of severance taxes to balance the budget is an old JBC trick that goes back at least 20 years, often to the dismay of rural lawmakers and the communities that rely on those dollars to mitigate the impact of oil and gas activity. 

Kirkmeyer said the JBC swept $69 million in severance taxes to cover ongoing capital development projects that are already underway. About $44 million came from the severance tax operational account, she said. 

The other $25 million came from the Department of Local Affairs energy and rural impact grants, which is also funded with severance tax money.

Coming up with additional money for capital construction was particularly important for Taggart, as the final year of an ongoing construction project for Colorado Mesa University fell just below the cutoff line, along with three other projects. 

The last major item on the panel's list of decisions on funding state agencies was just how much they could put into public higher education. That decision was put off until after the March revenue forecast, according to JBC documents.

It was a mistake, according to Kirkmeyer, to leave higher education until the very end of their decision process.

"We did all the 'comebacks'" — the final requests from the governor's office and state agencies — first, and then whatever was left went to higher education.

"We should have voted on all the departments" and then dealt with the "comebacks," she said. 

The decisions on higher education included the Colorado General Assembly's assumptions on tuition increases, how much general fund dollars could go into their budgets, and the amount of financial aid that would be available.

The JBC's decision on tuition came in the form of a 3% cap on tuition for resident and 4% for non-resident students. The recommendation from the General Assembly is not a mandate to the colleges and universities, although they have largely followed them for decades.

It's in the general fund where the institutions took the hit. The governor's office requested $48 million for both general fund increases and financial aid, while the institutions asked for $148 million.

The JBC decided on $56.3 million.

What was notable in the JBC staff analysis was a claim that the institutions' funding request, tied to inflation, was built on assuming a stable enrollment, that all costs are fixed, and that they must provide salary and benefits commensurate with the rest of state government.

That's not reality, the analysis said.

Enrollment is not stable, particularly for resident students; not all costs are fixed, particularly the institutions reliance on adjunct faculty; and, the institutions are not required to provide the same increase in salary and benefits as the rest of state government, the analysis said.

Most of the employees in higher education are not state employees, a move the institutions began making about 20 years ago in an effort to get as many of their classified — meaning state — positions out of the state system as possible.

The educational institutions had sought a 5.2% tuition increase, which is just shy of the increase approved for 2023-24. But the analysis said Colorado resident students already struggle with high tuition rates compared to the rest of the nation.

Medicare provider rate

The Medicaid provider rate also took a hit, something JBC members didn't enjoy.

The draft reduced the increase to those who provide Medicaid services from 2.5% to 2%.

Kirkmeyer wasn't happy.

"It was a big decision that saved about $19 million," she said. 

Healthy Meals for All school lunch program

The news that Proposition FF funding didn't cover the actual costs of providing free lunches to Colorado school students came just as the JBC was grappling with how to cover everything else.

The budget panel ultimately decided to cover the $56 million shortfall for 2024-25 with the state education fund — which meant they would take money away from public education.

And that didn't sit well with Kirkmeyer.

"That was not supposed to happen," she said. "It's not my fault the people who pushed that referendum through didn't tell people the truth or didn't figure it right. They overspent and we told them, 'We're not doing that again.'"

"And they need to figure out how to stay within the funding they get," Kirkmeyer said. 

The balancing acts 

The March 15 forecast meant the JBC members had to go back and revisit a lot of their previous decisions, which led to the 20 cuts they made in the past week.

That, in turn, meant a lot of scaling back or not doing some things at all.

They also looked for ways to boost revenue, such as with the severance tax, and a way of reclassifying gaming and cigarette tax money that would free up room under the TABOR cap. That also included looking for a different fund source to cover gaps, such as using the state education fund for the Healthy Meals shortfall.

There were also placeholders for bills that required a reserve, and that meant reductions somewhere else, Zenzinger said. 

Then there were these cuts and reductions.

  • The JBC early on decided to expand the CHIP+ (the state's low-income health insurance program for kids) population to allow children to have access to autistic therapies, an addition to the CHIP+ program. "We thought it was a great idea," Zenzinger said. But they had to reverse that expansion decision.

  • Local public health agencies asked for $12 million; the Department of Public Health & Environment requested $7 million. The $12 million was not extra funding, Zenzinger said. It's the current level the agencies are operating under, although that goes back to the COVID-19 pandemic. CDPHE, on the other hand, got nothing in the JBC's original decision. That was reduced to $10 million for the agencies, although CDPHE got $7 million.

  • On dental provider rates, the JBC adopted a targeted adjustment based on an analysis. But then the last week happened — and that got cut. Members promised to revisit the matter next year.

  • The JBC went back and forth on a  Department of Public Safety grant program, a $10 million request from the department. The lawmakers ultimately settled at $3 million. 

  • Homecare workers would be slated for an increase to match the Denver minimum wage, which would cost $7 million. Too much, the JBC learned, so that got placed into a two-year, phased-in decision.

  • Federally-qualified health centers were not recommended for any additional funding from the governor's office. The JBC decided to fund it with $7 million, but then scaled it back by $500,000.

  • A Kirkmeyer/Zenzinger bill that directs the Department of Local Affairs to come up with a methodology for doing statewide, regional and local housing needs assessments will get its $15 million from the department's energy and rural impact grant program, instead of general fund money, which Kirkmeyer called an appropriate use of those dollars.

"Everyone's turning over every single stone we can," Taggart said. "Unfortunately, we won't be able to fund everything. This is not a year when you can depend on your priorities getting fully funded."

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March 26, 2024 at 07:00AM
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Colorado lawmakers adopt cuts, hard choices as state faces $170 million budget shortfall - coloradopolitics.com

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Monday, March 25, 2024

In-season Hard Knocks could feature four teams from the same division - NBC Sports

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The NFL’s proposal for owners to expand the number of teams that can be required to submit to Hard Knocks includes a proposal that would expand the number of teams that will be featured each year on the in-season version of Hard Knocks.

Via Ben Fischer of Sports Business Journal, in-season Hard Knocks will feature all four teams in one division, if the proposal is accepted.

The goal would be to “ease competitive concerns,” given that one team from a division must open its doors to NFL Films during a postseason push, while the other teams don’t.

Frankly, that acknowledgement underscores the fact that, for the other teams in the same conference who are competing with the teams from the Hard Knocks division for playoff placement and/or wild-card berth, there’s a potential edge.

The Cardinals, Colts, and Dolphins have been the teams for the first three years of in-season Hard Knocks. This presumably means that their divisions — the NFC West, AFC South, and AFC East — won’t be the 2024 subject of in-season Hard Knocks.

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March 26, 2024 at 06:02AM
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In-season Hard Knocks could feature four teams from the same division - NBC Sports

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Harrowing film on North Korean escapees, snubbed by Oscars, hits hard in Seoul - Washington Times

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There were muffled sobs in a Seoul school auditorium Wednesday as children and parents reacted to a powerful but distressing documentary about human tragedies unfolding just 35 miles north of where they sat.

“Beyond Utopia” released last October, was widely considered a contender for Oscar documentary glory, but — to considerable surprise — was not nominated. In the run-up to the awards, controversy erupted as the film divided many Asian Americans, both those who worked on it and those who pilloried it.

If the Oscar snub disappointed the filmmakers, matters are worse for the film’s central subject.



Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the “Underground Railway” that secretly runs defectors from the North Korea-China border to South Korea is now more tenuous and hazardous to navigate than ever. At great peril to its makers, the film uses predominantly smartphone footage to follow a North Korean family, the Rohs – two parents, two daughters, a grandmother – as they escape their isolated, heavily policed country.

Conveyed by activist South Korean Pastor Kim Seong-eun and “brokers” – people traffickers and smugglers – the family crosses mountainous terrain near North Korea’s border with China and finds temporary refuge in safe houses. Their odyssey carries them down Chinese highways, through Vietnamese back roads and Laotian jungle before they cross the Mekong into democratic Thailand and freedom.

In intimate detail the film captures the family’s astonishment — the grandma thinks a flat-screen TV is a blackboard — and deeply programmed existence, as when the children praise North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. There is humor and fear, hardship and hope.

Alongside the Rohs’ rugged but successful journey, the film charts an even more wrenching parallel story, following Lee So-yeon, a middle-aged defector in Seoul, as she employs brokers to extract her son from North Korea. The effort fails and he is captured and imprisoned.

Cameras capture Ms. Lee’s accelerating anguish as she speaks to brokers in North Korea, who use smuggled cell phones. The son faces severe torture, including multiple fractures. Unable to eat, he shrinks to half his previous size, Ms. Lee learns.

Her mother, in North Korea and terrified of the consequences of her grandson’s imprisonment, tells a weeping Ms. Lee she is severing all contact with her. Desperate, Ms. Lee promises brokers more money to bribe prison guards. Her efforts are useless, and in the film’s most agonizing scene, she learns that her son is trapped in a gulag from which there is no exit.

After a screening at Dulwich College, a private school for well-to-do international students in Seoul’s swanky Gangnam district, students were subdued.

“It made me realize how privileged we are, and sad at what they had to go through to live like us. and we did not have to do anything,” said Aalya, 11. (Dulwich asked to identify pupils by their first names.)

“We are lucky to be born on the right side of the world,” added Rita Andreeti, an Italian parent. ”But that’s no excuse to ignore the other side.”

“It was an incredibly moving story,” added Canadian Ambassador to Korea Tamara Mawhinney.

Absent at the Academy Awards

Film critics also praised the documentary.

The Guardian called the film “nail-bitingly tense,” while roberteber.com found it “frequently jaw-dropping.” Reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, where it has a 100% score, called it “humanitarian journalism in its purest form,” and “one of the most daring works of cinematic journalism in recent memory.”

“Beyond Utopia” bagged awards at multiple film festivals, including Sundance, Sydney and Woodstock, and nominations at many more, including the UK’s BAFTAs. It failed to qualify for the ultimate prize, however. After joining the 15-strong shortlist for best documentary feature, it was not among the five final nominees.

Though award shows are rife with surprises, the lack of a nomination raised eyebrows in the film industry. Hollywood Reporter named “Beyond Utopia” one of the year’s “surprise omissions;” Variety wrote that it “should have been there.”

But in the run-up to Oscar night March 10, the film had gained some enemies. Groups and individuals who oppose Washington’s policies toward the Koreas were vocal critics.

Women Cross DMZ is a civic group that in 2015 visited North Korea and crossed the DMZ into South Korea, with marchers who included feminist icon Gloria Steinem and Hollywood heiress Abigail Disney. The NGO, which lobbies for a formal end to the Korean War and removal of U.S. sanctions, urged members to read and distribute critiques of the film. 

A trio of Asian-American filmmakers posted a series of letters online, criticizing “Beyond Utopia,” a film made in 2023, for failing to contextualize the U.S. role in the Korean peninsula’s division in 1945, and for understating American actions in the hideous carnage of the Korean War, which ended via an armistice in 1953.

Calling the film “unbalanced and inaccurate” they blamed U.S. sanctions for exacerbating North Korea’s dire economic conditions, but slammed the documentary’s stress on its poverty. They questioned “unequal power relationships” between Pastor Kim and the Rohs, and accused the film’s producers and talking heads – such as Liberty in North Korea, or LINK, an NGO that assists defectors – of partisanship.

Similar arguments were made by peace activist Iris Kim in the “Daily Beast” in an op-ed entitled, “The Academy was right to snub this dehumanizing documentary.” She concluded: ‘A white filmmaker presented a highly fragmented and incomplete version of Korea’s continued division to a Western audience, who unfortunately fell head over heels for its flattened narrative.”

Women Cross DMZ Founder Christine Ahn, citing a busy schedule, declined to discuss “Beyond Utopia.”

Sue Mi Terry, one of the film’s co-producers, a former CIA analyst whose background was lambasted by the documentary’s critics, said she was “perplexed and disappointed” by what she called an “attack” on the film, with “unfair and unfounded assertions.”

“While the critics of our film appear more sympathetic to the North Korean regime, our sympathies lie with the people of North Korea,” Ms. Terry said.

Underground Railway loses steam

The dramas captured in “Beyond Utopia” were filmed before the global pandemic and mass lockdowns.

Defections from North Korea have steadily declined since 2020, but not because human rights are improving in North Korea. Freedom House, in its Freedom in the World 2023 report, put it in joint third place (alongside Eritrea) in the “Worst of the Worst” countries globally.

During the COVID crisis, North Korea massively upgraded border security, including new physical barriers and stationing snipers to shoot those trying to cross the frontier.

“Pyongyang has built hundreds of kilometers of new or upgraded border fences, walls and guard posts, commercial satellite imagery shows, enabling it to tighten the flow of information and goods into the country, keep foreign elements out and its people in,” the Reuters news agency reported, citing satellite data, last year.

Neighboring China also has upgraded its formidable, AI-empowered national surveillance apparatus.

This means the Underground Railroad the Rohs traveled is now “eroded,” said Hannah Song, CEO of LINK, who attended the Dulwich College screening.

Defections were “much more prevalent” before COVID, she said. “Now it is much more difficult to establish those networks.”

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March 24, 2024 at 09:16PM
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Harrowing film on North Korean escapees, snubbed by Oscars, hits hard in Seoul - Washington Times

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