'Just shut up': Tempers flare during U.S. House hearing after senator removed from press conference
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A U.S. House Oversight Committee hearing was suspended after tempers flared over a senator being removed from a Homeland Security press conference.
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CBC
19 minutes ago
- CBC
N.B. legal aid commission to review eligibility criteria in wake of auditor general report
The New Brunswick legal aid commission says it is proud of the service it provides, despite the auditor general's recent finding that some people might not be getting the help they need under eight-year-old eligibility criteria. In the last fiscal year, the Legal Aid Services Commission provided services in family and criminal law to more than 31,000 clients — 4,000 more than in the previous year, said Chantal Landry, the commission executive director. But Landry doesn't disagree with concerns raised by Auditor General Paul Martin about eligibility requirements. "We do recognize that, given the economic realities and the inflation observed in the last few years, it would be appropriate for a review of the financial eligibility grids, and we take no exception to the recommendation made by Mr. Martin on this." Martin reviewed the efficiency and effectiveness of the commission in providing legal aid across the province between April 1, 2023, and Dec. 31, 2024. His report was released earlier this week. Martin commended the commission for a number of things, including the timely processing of applications and the consistent application of financial eligibility criteria. But he found the "lack of timely review of the eligibility grid may contribute to the risk that [the commission] may not be fulfilling its mandate to serve low-income individuals as intended." Landry said an "appropriate analysis" is to be done, but if it determines an increased need for legal aid, the commission needs to be "properly resourced" to meet it. Before the current eligibility grid for legal aid was adopted, eligibility was decided based on a means test that looked at the amount of disposable income an applicant had left at the end of each month. "It was a very convoluted and very, honestly, inequitable system, because for clients who were financially responsible, they typically didn't qualify," Landry said. The income grid used now is based on gross household income. For example, according to the grid posted in 2017, a single-person household making more than $2,600 per month is not eligible for legal aid. Landry said the reason the criteria haven't been reviewed in eight years is that there were other priorities and an increase in clients coming through the door. In Martin's report, he also found no formalized financial appeals process, and people who did appeal were not treated consistently. The audit found that of the 140 appeals, 14 applicants were approved with an income of more than 10 per cent above the threshold, while 15 were denied despite their income being within 10 per cent of the threshold. Landry said that in recent years, the commission looked at accepting people who were just above the eligibility cut-off and appealed being denied aid. "We developed kind of a discretionary standard of accepting a client if their income was within 10 per cent over the top of the grid," said Landry. "So to address the recommendation of Mr. Martin, we've already put in place some directives to staff, and we will further develop processes to provide more transparency for clients who will want to appeal under this guideline." Landry said she understands why there needs to be more process in that particular system, and hopes it will be achieved in the near future. Landry said she was pleased with the positive comments that came out of the auditor general's report, but said there's always room for improvement in any program.
CTV News
25 minutes ago
- CTV News
Met Opera attendance dropped in spring as tourism fell, coinciding with immigration crackdown
People appear in Josie Robertson Plaza in front of The Metropolitan Opera house at Lincoln Center in New York on March 12, 2020. . (AP Photo/Kathy Willens, File) NEW YORK — Metropolitan Opera season attendance dropped slightly following the Trump administration's immigration crackdown that coincided with a decrease in tourists to New York. The Met sold 72% of capacity, matching 2023-24 and down from its 75% projection. 'We were on track to continue to improve,' Met general manager Peter Gelb said Friday. 'We were disappointed by the sales in the last two months of the season — our projections were much higher and I attribute the fact that we didn't achieve our sales goals to a significant drop in tourism." New York City Tourism & Conventions last month reduced its 2025 international visitor projection by 17%, the Met said. International buyers accounted for 11% of sales, down from the Met's projection of 16% and from about 20% before the coronavirus pandemic. 'It's unfortunate, but this is the times in which we live,' Gelb said. The Met said factoring ticket discounts, it realized 60% of potential income, down from 64% in 2023-24 but up from 57% in 2022–23. 'We were able to sell an equal amount of tickets the last year, but there were more discounted tickets,' Gelb said. 'This really was the result of the last two months of the season.' There were 76,000 new ticket buyers, a drop from 85,000 in 2023-24, and the average age of single ticket buyers was 44, the same as in the previous season and a drop from 50 before the pandemic. Subscriptions accounted for just 7% of ticket sales, down from 12-15% before the pandemic, Gelb said economic uncertainty impacted sales for next season. 'The stock market jumping up and down made people feel insecure,' he said. 'In one week we saw an enormous decline in our advance for next season. Then it picked up again.' Met music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin earned $2,045,038 in the year end last July 31, up from $1,307,583, in the previous fiscal year, according to the company's tax return released Friday. Gelb earned $1,395,216, roughly the same as his $1,379,032 in 2022-23,and he also accrued $798,205 listed as retirement or deferred compensation. Assets declined by about $40 million to $467 million, primarily because of an endowment draw following the pandemic. Among individual productions last season, the highest percentage of tickets sold were for the English-language version of Mozart's 'The Magic Flute' and a new staging of Verdi's 'Aida,' both at 82%, followed by the company premiere of Jake Heggie's 'Moby-Dick' at 81% Other new productions included Strauss' 'Salome' (74%), John Adams' 'Antony and Cleopatra' (65%), Osvaldo Golijov's 'Ainadamar' (61%) and Jeanine Tesori's 'Grounded' (50%). The best-selling revivals were Puccini's 'Tosca' (78%), Tchaikovsky's 'Pique Dame (The Queen of Spades)' and Puccini's La Bohème (77% each), Beethoven's 'Fidelio' and Rossini's 'Il Barbiere di Siviglia' (76% each) and Mozart's 'Le Nozze di Figaro' (71%). Lagging were Strauss' 'Die Frau ohne Schatten' (68%0, Verdi's 'Rigoletto' (64%), Offenbach's 'Les Contes d'Hoffmann' and the German-language version of Mozart's 'Die Zauberflöte' (62% each) and Verdi's 'Il Trovatore' (59%). Ronald Blum, The Associated Press
CTV News
25 minutes ago
- CTV News
‘Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae)' rapper Silentó gets 30 years after pleading guilty to killing his cousin
DECATUR, Ga. — Silentó, the Atlanta rapper known for his hit song 'Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae),' pleaded guilty but mentally ill Wednesday to voluntary manslaughter and other charges in the 2021 shooting death of his 34-year-old cousin. The 27-year-old rapper, whose legal name is Ricky Lamar Hawk, was sentenced to 30 years in prison, DeKalb County District Attorney Sherry Boston said in a statement. Hawk also pleaded guilty to aggravated assault, possessing a gun while committing a crime and concealing the death of another. A murder charge was dropped as part of the plea agreement. DeKalb County police found Frederick Rooks III shot in the leg and face in the early morning hours of Jan. 21, 2021 outside a home in a suburban area near Decatur. Police said the found 10 bullet casings near Rooks' body, and security video from a nearby home showed a white BMW SUV speeding away shortly after the gunshots. A family member of Rooks told police that Silentó had picked up Rooks in a white BMW SUV, and GPS data and other cameras put the vehicle at the site of the shooting. Silentó confessed about 10 days later after he was arrested, police said. Ballistics testing matched the bullet casings to a gun that Silentó had when he was arrested, authorities said. Rooks' brothers and sisters told DeKalb County Superior Court Judge Courtney L. Johnson before sentencing that Silentó should have gotten a longer sentence, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. The rapper was a high school junior in suburban Atlanta in 2015 when he released 'Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae)' and watched it skyrocket into a dance craze. Silentó made multiple other albums, but said in an interview with the medical talk show 'The Doctors' in 2019 that he struggled with depression and had grown up in a family where he witnessed mental illness and violence. 'I've been fighting demons my whole life, my whole life,' he said in 2019. 'Depression doesn't leave you when you become famous, it just adds more pressure,' Silentó said then, urging others to get help. 'And while everybody's looking at you, they're also judging you." 'I don't know if I can truly be happy, I don't know if these demons will ever go away.' Silentó had been struggling in the months before the arrest. His publicist, Chanel Hudson, has said he had tried to kill himself in 2020. In August 2020, Silentó was arrested in Santa Ana, California, on a domestic violence charge. The next day, the Los Angeles Police Department charged him with assault with a deadly weapon after witnesses said he entered a home where he didn't know anyone looking for his girlfriend and swung a hatchet at two people before he was disarmed. In October 2020, Silentó was arrested after police said they clocked him driving 143 miles per hour (230 kilometers per hour) on Interstate 85 in DeKalb County. Hudson said at the time of Silentó's arrest in the killing of Rooks that he had been 'suffering immensely from a series of mental health illnesses.'
