BRADLEY, ILLINOIS (AP) – Authorities were searching on Thursday for two people believed to have been involved in the fatal shooting of one police officer and wounding of another at a northern Illinois hotel.
The two Bradley police officers were shot late Wednesday while speaking to people in a room at a Comfort Inn along a highway in Kankakee County, the county sheriff’s office said.
The officers were taken to nearby hospitals, where one died and the other was listed in critical condition and undergoing surgery, said the Bradley Police Department. The county coroner identified the slain officer as Sergeant Marlene Rittmanic, 49.
Illinois State Police identified the other as Officer Tyler J Bailey, 27.
An arrest warrant was issued for 25-year-old Darius D Sullivan of Bourbonnais, and the sheriff’s office posted a Facebook request for the public’s help in finding him, saying he should be considered armed and dangerous.
Police also obtained a Kankakee County arrest warrant for Xandria A Harris, 26 of Bradley, but her role in the shootings wasn’t clear.
The police department said in its news release that it was also searching for what it described as a person of interest believed to have been involved, though it didn’t release any identifying information about that person. The officers were at the hotel to investigate a report of dogs that were barking in an unattended vehicle in the parking lot, the sheriff’s office said. They found the room where the vehicle’s possible owner was staying and were shot while talking to the people in that room, it said.
The Comfort Inn, where two Bradley Police officers were shot. PHOTO: AP
Mayor Mike Watson of Bradley, a village of roughly 16,000 people about 80 kilometres south of Chicago, said the wounded officer had been transferred to a Chicago-area hospital, the (Kankakee) Daily Journal reported.
Rittmanic’s body was transported early Thursday in a police procession from the Riverside Medical Center to the Kankakee County morgue, and officials later lowered the flag at Bradley Village Hall to half-staff.
“This is a very sad and tragic day for the Bradley village family. Our hearts and prayers go out to the family members of all involved,” Watson said.
Rittmanic, who lived in Kankakee, joined the Bradley Police Department in 2007 and was promoted to sergeant in 2014, said department spokesman Lieutenant Philip Trudeau. She previously spent seven years as a deputy with the Iroquois County Sheriff’s Department, he said.
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Palestinian journalists have raised the alarm over what they describe as unjust suppression of their content on Facebook, a claim backed by rights groups but rejected by the social media giant.
On December 4, Palestine TV correspondent Christine Rinawi posted a video on her Facebook account in which Israeli security forces were seen shooting a Palestinian on the ground, killing him. He had just carried out a knife attack on an Israeli civilian.
Shortly after she posted her video, Rinawi, who has nearly 400,000 followers, noticed it had been removed from her account.
This was not her first experience with Facebook’s enforcement, and Rinawi said her account had already been restricted after she shared footage of a November attack in Jerusalem.
In both cases, Facebook said it intervened because the posts violated the platform’s standards.
A spokesperson for Facebook’s parent company Meta said its policies “were designed to give everyone a voice while keeping them safe on our apps”.
Palestinian activists and journalists hold banners with their campaign hashtag ‘#FBCensorsJerusalem’ as they protest against what they consider censorship by the social media outlet Facebook of Palestinian content, in the occupied-West Bank city of Hebron. PHOTO: AFP
“We apply these policies to everyone equally, regardless of who is posting.”
Allegations of pro-Israeli bias at Facebook have simmered for years and were renewed in October when Human Rights Watch, a vocal Israel critic, said the platform had “suppressed content posted by Palestinians and their supporters speaking out about human rights issues in Israel and Palestine”.
Palestinian reporters have cited multiple incidents they describe as censorship.
One popular online news outlet, Maydan Quds News, may even have to fire reporters after its main Facebook page with 1.2 million followers was deleted, a source who requested anonymity told AFP.
The Meta spokesperson told AFP it has “a dedicated team, which includes Arabic and Hebrew speakers, who are focussed on keeping our community safe by making sure we’re removing harmful content”.
It also strives to address “any enforcement errors as quickly as possible so people can keep sharing what matters to them”.
In the midst of a bout of fighting in May between Israel and armed factions in the Gaza Strip – the worst in years – Facebook had acknowledged widescale deletion of Palestinian posts, ascribing it to a technical bug that it sought to fix.
According to Palestinian social media monitoring centre Sada Social, 600 Palestinian accounts or pro-Palestinian Facebook posts were restricted or deleted in 2021, a record. The centre helped launch a social media campaign called “Facebook Censors Jerusalem”.
Rama Youssef, a Jerusalem-based journalist who volunteered for the campaign, said Facebook hews to an Israeli point of view and has “double standards”.
The Arab Centre Washington DC think-tank said the Israeli government also pushes to censor “tens of thousands of posts and accounts” that support a Palestinian point of view.
Meta did not answer AFP questions about requests from the Israeli government.
But the company denied accusations of bias, saying its community standards prohibit violence, terrorism, hate and large-scale criminal activity, as well as posts supporting those subjects.
Israeli officials have also accused various social media platforms, including Facebook, of failing to curb anti-Semitism.
In February, then-diaspora affairs minister Omer Yankelevich presented Facebook, Google, TikTok and Twitter with proposals to beef up the fight against anti-Semitism, saying it was “running rampant” online.
Media expert Iyad al-Rifai of Sada Social said he regularly meets with Facebook representatives to ask for more transparency.
He said the site appeared to target the word “shahid”, Arabic for martyr, which Palestinians frequently use to describe people killed by Israeli forces, including those who carried out attacks.
Rifai told AFP that Facebook insisted it is bound by American standards which consider “attackers to be terrorists”, not martyrs to a political cause.
But he said censoring the term wholesale ignored the wider context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Meta did not respond to a question about its policies regarding the use of the word “shahid”.
But it said it reviews posts according to its own policies, as well as “local laws and international human rights standards”.
Rifai said he was concerned that deleting accounts might discourage Palestinians from “engaging with pivotal issues” for fear of losing “their digital history and presence”.
He said he obtained from Facebook “promises to improve the working mechanisms of the algorithms so as to differentiate between journalistic content and ordinary content”, but he feared they offered “temporary rather than radical solutions”.
VAM®BRN Sdn Bhd handed over a donation to Kampong Belimbing Subok Mosque, Kampong Tanah Jambu Mosque and Kampong Sungai Hanching Mosque yesterday as part of its corporate social responsibility (CSR).
Five VAM®BRN Sdn Bhd employees presented the contributions to Bilal Jamalulhair bin Mohin of Kampong Belimbing Subok Mosque, Shakrizal bin Murni of Kampong Tanah Jambu Mosque and Azi Farihan bin Haji Matsah of Kampong Sungai Hanching Mosque.
The donations included equipment for temperature screening, hand sanitiser with auto dispensers, hand soaps, fogging machine, disinfectant sprays and face masks.
VAM®BRN Sdn Bhd presents a donation to Kampong Belimbing Subok Mosque. PHOTO: VAM®BRN Sdn Bhd
LONDON (AFP) – Thomas Tuchel admitted yesterday that he was frustrated with the “noise” around Romelu Lukaku’s situation at Chelsea after the Belgium forward expressed his dissatisfaction with his role at the club.
The “surprised” Chelsea boss said he would sit down with the 28-year-old to discuss the issues but did not see any evidence that his player was unhappy.
Lukaku rejoined the Premier League side from Inter Milan for a club-record fee of GBP97.5
He has scored seven times in a season hampered by injury and coronavirus but Chelsea boss Tuchel has at times left him out of the starting XI even when he has been fit.
Lukaku told Sky Italy he was “not happy with the situation” at Stamford Bridge in an interview released on Thursday, but it was understood to have been conducted three weeks ago.
The player has since told ESPN Brazil he had “a couple of conversations” with Tuchel about what the German wanted from him, during which he told his boss he was “multidimensional”.
Tuchel, whose second-placed side face Liverpool this weekend, told his pre-match press conference that the situation was frustrating.
Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel with Romelu Lukaku. PHOTO: AFP
“We don’t like it, of course, because it brings noise that we don’t need and is not helpful,” said the Chelsea boss. “But on the other side, we don’t want to make more out of it than it actually is.
“You know very well how it is – it’s very easy to take lines out of context, to shorten lines to make headlines, then realise later it’s not so bad or what he meant.”
Tuchel said he was not aware that Lukaku was unhappy at the club.
“The thing with Romelu is that I don’t think anyone in this building is aware he’s unhappy,” he added.
“That’s why (there is) surprise at the statement. That’s why we need to check with him now, because I can see no reason why it should be like this.
“So I will wait to see what Romelu has to say and then we will deal with this.”
The former Paris Saint-Germain boss said a certain level of tension in a dressing room could be turned into an advantage.
“It’s not necessary for the dressing room to be always in harmony,” he said. “You don’t have to hug each other and love each other every day.
“Sometimes it’s good to be on the edge, sometimes it’s good to be in disharmony, when it is in between certain boundaries.”
THE WASHINGTON POST – Cookies are sweet, uncomplicated treats, right? Not for Ben, the main character in Ben Yokoyama and the Cookie of Perfection, a new illustrated novel by Matthew Swanson and Robbi Behr.
A cookie – or more exactly, the fortune inside – starts the third-grader on a tangled, funny adventure.
Ben is a kid who takes things literally. For example, if he hears the expression “It’s raining cats and dogs,” he expects tabbies and terriers to fall from the skies.
Or a metaphor such as “a bunny as big as a barn” might send him searching for a gigantic rabbit.
When his fortune cookie yields a scrap of paper printed with “Practice makes perfect”, Ben decides to apply this advice to his father, his mother and his best friend, Janet.
All of them, he knows, are far from perfect and could benefit from much practice.
The problem? No one wants Ben to relentlessly perfect them. And then Ben makes a new friend, Darby, who wants to perfect him.
Matthew Swanson and Robbi Behr. PHOTO: THE WASHINGTON POST
There are hilarious plot twists, lousy pancakes, a superhero, a terrifying obstacle course called the Chute – and lots of questions about the accuracy of the cookie’s advice.
The co-creators of the novel, Swanson and Behr, are the husband-and-wife team behind many books for young people, including two previous tales about Ben in the Cookie Chronicles series (though you need not have read them to enjoy this story).
During a three-person phone call, the couple recently talked with a KidsPost reporter from the home – a converted barn – that they share with their four children and Boston terrier, Dumbles, in Chestertown, Maryland.
Ben is frequently confused by words, a situation many young people can relate to, whether they are puzzled by odd phrases or trying to learn a new language as recent immigrants.
“I was a lot like Ben as a kid,” Swanson said. “I often wrestled with metaphors and what they meant. And I also felt I had to do everything perfectly. But is perfection really the secret of a good life?”
It’s certainly not their secret to making a book, said Behr.
The couple’s shared creative process is messy, inventive and full of surprises, with Swanson’s writing and Behr’s art working together to tell a complete story.
Swanson wrote the new book in a few months, “in a fury”, Behr said. He then gave the manuscript to her for feedback and revised accordingly.
Behr then designed and ingeniously illustrated each one of the 325 pages.
Look for Ben’s dog, Dumbles (whose name the couple’s kids gave to their real dog), a neighborhood map and even a tiny talking brain and stomach.
“It helps that we live together,” Behr said with a laugh. “We can talk about the books (we’re creating) as we take the dog out or make a meal together.”
Their life together is fuelling another big project: the Busload of Books Tour. Starting in September, Swanson, Behr, their children and Dumbles will take to the road in an old school bus.
They plan to talk about and give away books at underserved elementary schools in all 50 states – schools chosen because they have never had an author visit.
The couple hopes to spark excitement about reading, writing and creating art as the students learn and ask questions about making books.
There’s a lot to do before they leave, Swanson said cheerfully. They are raising funds, fixing up the school bus to include a tiny kitchen and sleeping quarters, and oh, yes, finishing the final two books about Ben Yokoyama, Cookie Thief and Cookies of Chaos.
Hopefully, this busy duo can take a break this holiday season to enjoy their favorite cookies – for Swanson it’s what he describes as a “buttery almond crescent” and for Behr, the “really special” oatmeal raisin cookies from a nearby bakery, Evergrain Bread Company.
MOSCOW (AP) – More than 87,500 people with COVID-19 died in Russia in November, the highest montly tally since the start of the pandemic, the state statistics agency reported on Thursday.
A report by Rosstat brought the overall number of virus-linked deaths between April 2020 and October 2021 to nearly 626,000 – more than twice the widely-cited toll reported by Russia’s state coronavirus task force to date. Rosstat uses broader criteria in its tallying system compared to the task force.
According to the Rosstat report, 71,187 deaths were caused directly by confirmed COVID-19, 8,939 deaths were likely caused by the virus but it wasn’t confirmed by a test, in 1,477 cases the virus significantly exacerbated fatal complications of other diseases and 5,924 people tested positive for the virus but died of other causes.
The surge came amid low vaccination rates and poor compliance with coronavirus restrictions.
Just 51 per cent of Russia’s nearly 146 million people have been fully vaccinated, even though the country approved a domestically developed COVID-19 vaccine – Sputnik V – months before most of the world.
Russia in recent months has faced a tide of contagion with record numbers of infections and deaths. The situation has improved over the past few weeks, but the authorities are now bracing up for a new wave of infection caused by the Omicron variant.
A Russian medical worker administers a dose of Russia’s Sputnik Light COVID-19 vaccine to a homeless man. PHOTO: AP
I would like to respond to the letter by Peanut Man on ‘Time to reflect on the past year’, published in the Opinion page on December 29.
The world has been battling COVID-19 for almost two years. The Sultanate has been more fortunate than most – we enjoyed over a year of relative freedom. Some countries are facing the sixth or seventh wave; we have thus far gone through two. While measures in the second wave were comparatively more restrictive than the first, with mask mandate and movement control to curb the spread, these were all necessary to fight off highly transmissible and deadly Delta variant.
With the number of new cases falling on a daily basis, we get to pat ourselves on the back for a job well done. All the sacrifices we have made to comply with the health guidelines, such as not leaving home unnecessarily and wearing face masks at all times, have paid off. We are now in the Early Endemic Phase, with more de-escalation in the pipeline.
I understand the writer’s optimism. Thanks to the concerted efforts from the authorities, frontliners and the populace, we have been able to push back against the threats of the pandemic and regain some sort of normalcy. Of course, we can never get back the life we had before the COVID-19 outbreak; and it may seem frightening at times that we are moving into unchartered territory.
But I believe in the spirit of the populace, that with enough determination, we can live through this health crisis and come out stronger on the other side.
LILLE, FRANCE (AFP) – France international midfielder Jonathan Ikone has moved to Serie A side Fiorentina from French champions Lille, the selling club confirmed yesterday.
The 23-year-old will “sign definitively on January 3, the opening date of the Italian transfer window,” Lille said in a statement.
However, Lille added the four-time capped Ikone has been permitted to join his new club ahead of their resuming training following a winter break.
Ikone scored 16 goals in 150 appearances for Lille since joining them in 2018 from Paris St Germain.
Lille thanked him for his pivotal role in them finishing second in the league in 2018/19 and then going one better in the 2019/20 campaign.
Ikone leaves despite Lille having reached the knockout stages of the Champions League – they play holders Chelsea in the Last 16 – and sit eighth in the Ligue 1 standings, but only five points off second-placed Nice.
France international midfielder Jonathan Ikone. PHOTO: AFP
THE WASHINGTON POST – I have never paid attention to the specifics of the standard 13-gallon kitchen trash bags I pick up at Safeway or Costco. I just choose a box of plain white bags with drawstring closures. But over the past few years, I’ve noticed an explosion of options: stretchier panels to make overstuffed bags more flexible and tear resistant; bags in black or pastel colours, plus grey to match stainless appliances; bags made with recycled plastic; and, of course, the ubiquitous scented bags.
A search on Target’s website offers dozens of results for 13-gallon trash bags, whether from major manufacturers Glad and Hefty, the store’s own label or others. Numerous kitchen bag offerings these days have some sort of scent or odour controller, and I have to say, the thought of masking the aroma of crab shells with fake vanilla does not spark joy for me.
“The market has changed for sure,” said Director CC Ciafone of Marketing for Glad, a division of Clorox. Everyone’s been home and cooking more these past 19 months, she said, and the amount of residential trash produced has increased, bumping up sales of garbage bags. In 2020, the total market for trash bags in the United States rose 11.9 per cent over the previous year, according to Vice President Joan Driggs at IRI, a market research firm.
Ciafone said the contents of consumers’ trash have also changed. A positive note is that people have been recycling more and placing fewer cardboard boxes and plastic bottles in kitchen trash bags, she said. “But with so much more food waste, our trash tends to be stinkier, smellier wet trash.” That has increased the appeal of scented or odour-neutralising products. The latest release? Deep pink Glad ForceFlexPlus bags with a cherry blossom scent. They smell sort of like the Tidal Basin in April, mixed with a whiff of Febreze.
Clearly, my basic white bags make me as boring as anyone who still wears white underwear. But with so many options and features, how do you choose? Here are some things to consider when shopping for – and using – kitchen garbage bags.
A photo illustration of garbage bags. PHOTO: THE WASHINGTON POST
The spectrum of greener choices is growing. If you have thought more about the effects of household waste on the environment and have considered switching to a greener kitchen trash bag, know that there are a growing number of choices. But sorting through the terminology on the packaging can be daunting. Major manufacturers and smaller companies are creating bags labelled with a wide range of terms, such as “eco-friendly”, a catchall moniker that has endless interpretations and no official standards. There are also trash bags that are made with recycled materials or reclaimed plastic, or that are packaged in recycled paperboard. Some bags are made from plants, others from post-consumer plastic.
“There are multiple attributes that can make a bag more sustainable,” said Executive Director of the Biodegradable Products Institute (BPI) Rhodes Yepsen. “You have to choose the one that makes sense for your situation.” Yepsen said that, although there are many bags marked as being “biodegradable”, the term can be misleading on its own without additional information saying where they are disposed of and how long they take to break down.
Several states, including Maryland, even prohibit the term from being used on plastic products, Yepsen said.
Bags marked “compostable” are made to be used if you separate food scraps for composting, which keeps them out of landfills and reduces greenhouse gas emissions. If you compost through your municipality, you could use these as a liner.
A BPI seal on the packaging verifies that the bag was tested and that it meets the criteria for compostability. If you compost in your backyard, look for bags that say “suitable for home composting.” Keep in mind, though, that compostable bags are not appropriate for household trash that is headed to a landfill,” Yepsen said. Also, they also tend to be thinner than regular garbage bags, and may tear more easily.
“At the end of the day, we all have trash, and we need a way to collect it that is tidy and clean for us and the trash haulers,” Yepsen said. Beyond the type of bag you choose however, he said it’s important to make behaviour changes that are more environmentally friendly, including taking the time to recycle and compost whenever possible, and buying only what you need to avoid waste.
That row of numbers on the box has nuggets of useful information. At a quick glance, the numbers on the bottom of most trash bag box labels can be confusing. Most measure the size and capacity of the bag. Focus on the mil measurement (1/1000th of an inch), which tells you the thickness of the bag and the amount of plastic in it. This can be an indication of strength and how heavy a load the bag can hold.
However, other factors in the bag’s construction, such as it having flexible side panels, reinforced seams or multiple layers, can also play into its sturdiness. A 13-gallon kitchen bag is usually between 0.7 and 0.9 mil. If you have a big clean-out project with heavy, sharp objects, look for a contractor-grade bag of around three mil.
There’s more than one way to eliminate bad smells from trash. Odours are the number one consumer complaint when it comes to trash bags, Ciafone said. Bags with some sort of scent or odour-neutralising feature have taken off in the past 10 years. They now make up more than half of the assortment of the 13-gallon bags at Home Depot, according to Ryan Moy, Home Depot’s merchant of cleaning. Bags described as smelling like “fresh laundry” are the best sellers in this category, he said. Scented bags are particularly popular in households with diapers or litter boxes, or where trash sits for days before being taken out.
Glad has odour-neutralising technology in many of its bags. The additional scent, Ciafone said, is there for “consumer delight”. At Hefty, a division of Reynolds Consumer Products, Ultra Strong kitchen trash bags come with an Arm & Hammer odour neutraliser; eight have scents, and one is unscented.
Scented bags are not for everyone. They might give you a headache if you’re sensitive to fragrances. Another option is to go with bags with just an odour controller or neutraliser, which have no scent in and of themselves. “They just try to eliminate whatever smells you get in the trash,” Moy said.
The best odour controller of all, of course, is to take out your trash before it smells icky.
Does installation matter? Most of us don’t think about having a “method” of installing bags, and lifestyle hacks sometimes seem ridiculous. (However, I do subscribe to lifestyle hints columnist Heloise’s tip to keep a handful of bags at the bottom of the can, within easy reach.)
But TikTok has turned garbage bag replacement into an art, including various versions of the inside-out “hat method”. This approach involves popping the bag around the rim of the trash can like a hat and shoving it down into the can. Ciafone does not recommend this method with Glad bags. “Our odour neutralisation technology is on the inside of the bag,” she wrote.
“So it isn’t recommended to flip it inside out.”
How does a trash bag pro do it? Moy unrolls the bag, and then, he said, “I typically take it by the drawstring and give it a little snap and let the air pop it open. Then I put my arm into it and push through inside to the bottom of the can. I use the drawstring to hug the top of the trash can, wrapping it over the edge to make sure it fits snugly.”
LONDON (AFP) – The price of bitcoin hit record highs in 2021 thanks to support from traditional finance, but cryptocurrency specialists are struggling to predict next year’s outcome for the volatile sector.
Having more than trebled in value to USD60,000 between December 2020 and April, bitcoin has lost some shine to trade at under USD50,000 heading into the new year.
“The current choppy and directionless price action with a possibility of further pressure to the downside has introduced a lot of uncertainty to the digital asset market,” noted executive director at cryptocurrency investment fund ARK36Loukas Lagoudis.
He added, however, that “sustained adoption of digital assets by institutional investors and their further integration into the legacy financial systems will be the main drivers of growth of the crypto space” during 2022.
Bitcoin’s rise in 2021 coincided with Wall Street’s growing appetite for cryptocurrency.
The record high in April occurred with the stock market debut of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase.
October’s peak above USD66,000 followed the launch of a bitcoin futures exchange-traded fund (ETF), or type of financial instrument, on the New York Stock Exchange.
Tesla boss Elon Musk helped the market rise – and fall – with controversial tweets about cryptocurrencies.
The move by El Salvador in September to make bitcoin a legal tender also made an impression.
But pressure has come from China’s crackdown on the trading and mining of cryptocurrencies, while the risk of wider regulatory action, from the likes of Europe and the United States (US), weighs on bitcoin.
“There is no certainty in crypto, never mind regulation,” said general counsel at digital assets exchange Bequant Huong Hauduc.
“However one thing is certain, the voices calling for crypto regulation, whether it be for tighter consumer protection or just clarity of the rules for institutions, are getting much louder.”
Created following the 2008 global financial crisis, bitcoin initially promoted a libertarian ideal and aspired to overthrow traditional monetary and financial institutions such as central banks.
In more recent times, climate change watchers have shone a spotlight on the huge amount of electricity used to power computers required to unearth new bitcoin tokens.
