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City Controller Dances to Kendrick Lamar While Calling Out Officials

City Controller Dances to Kendrick Lamar While Calling Out Officials

Yahoo11-03-2025

L.A. City Controller Kenneth Mejia posted his take on the wildly popular Kendrick Lamar "They Not Like Us" Super Bowl performance, dancing with his dogs and staff while suggesting his office was prevented from conducting a proper audit of the city's homeless spending.Mejia, as he dances in front of City Hall holding his two dogs on leashes, claims that the City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto blocked his attempts to audit "a mayoral program unless the mayor consents." To the tune of Lamar's lyrics he dances with staffers with the words, "We Tried. We Tried. We Tried." Watch below or by clicking here.The bizarre response to a draft of a court-ordered report released Thursday by global consulting firm Alvarez & Marsal that analyzed four years of homeless services managed by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) found staggering levels of mismanagement and unaccounted for taxpayer monies. The audit claims that information gaps and incomplete data stymied investigators from accessing the results of approximately $2.4 billion in homeless spending over that time period, a staggering sum. U.S. District Judge David O. Carter mandated the audit as part of a 2020 lawsuit filed by the L.A. Alliance for Human Rights, a coalition of local business owners and residents who accused the city of failing to address homelessness, and as a result put public health and safety at risk. Mayor Karen Bass has made homelessness a centerpiece of her administration, but did not immediately address concerns about the spending raised by the audit. Last week she posted photos of workers from her Inside Safe program on social media.
Mejia has posted a tracker of homeless spending on his website.
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Kansas City Super Bowl rally that ended in deadly shooting lacked necessary security, lawsuit says
Kansas City Super Bowl rally that ended in deadly shooting lacked necessary security, lawsuit says

American Military News

time7 hours ago

  • American Military News

Kansas City Super Bowl rally that ended in deadly shooting lacked necessary security, lawsuit says

Attorneys for three women who were caught in the flurry of gunfire at the end of the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl parade and rally in February 2024 have filed a lawsuit against the city and a handful of other defendants, saying the event lacked security protocols that could have prevented the incident. The shooting near Union Station — which killed one woman and injured dozens of attendees, including Erika Reyes, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, and her two children — was a 'preventable calamity, borne of systemic failures and negligence from the top down,' according to the lawsuit, which was filed Monday in Jackson County Circuit Court. The three women, Reyes, Esmeralda Ortiz and Kathleen Martinez, were near the gunfire and had close relationships with shooting victims, according to the lawsuit. Reyes, her two children and one of Martinez's children were struck by gunfire, attorneys wrote. 'While the terror of February 14 was perpetrated by young men with pistols and short-barreled rifles, responsibility for the shooting does not lie solely with them,' said Patrick Stueve, an attorney for the women, in a statement. 'This tragedy was also the result of negligence at multiple levels. We are pursuing this action not only to advocate for the victims of this tragedy, but to hold all parties accountable and to ensure safer celebrations for our community moving forward.' While police officers were spread throughout the parade route and rally areas, the rally had no security measures — checkpoints, metal detectors or barriers, the lawsuit said. Those security measures are necessary at mass gathering events and would have stopped the tragedy, attorneys wrote. Officials have said a dispute between two groups erupted into gunfire that sent attendees at the rally scrambling for cover. Lisa Lopez-Galvan, a 43-year-old Johnson County mother and local DJ, was fatally shot. Many others were injured by gunfire, and others suffered broken bones, brain injuries and dislocated joints, as they fled the area. 'This case is especially important now, given both the likelihood of another Celebration Rally, as well as the certainty of another mass gathering event at the Liberty Memorial, when the 2026 FIFA World Cup takes place,' the lawsuit said. The lawsuit requests damages as well as a court order requiring organizers to implement security standards like checkpoints, barriers, scanners and to work with third-party security consultants for future events. After the 2024 violence, local leaders considered changes to a potential celebration event if the Chiefs had won Super Bowl LIX and whether to forgo another mass rally. Earlier this year as the Chiefs began their postseason run, Mayor Quinton Lucas told The Kansas City Star that one option would have included a ticketed rally followed by a parade. The rally would have included security checkpoints like those fans go through at sporting events. In a statement provided to the Star on Tuesday, Kansas City spokeswoman Sherae Honeycutt said, 'The City of Kansas City recognizes the widespread impact the Super Bowl rally shooting had on our community. The City condemns the criminal actions that brought violence to what should have been a celebratory event. While the City has not yet been served with the petition, we will review it carefully once received and respond in accordance with the law.' Prosecutors filed criminal charges against Dominic Miller, Lyndell Mays, Terry Young and three youths following the shooting, and the lawsuit also names the three men and three unnamed individuals as defendants, saying they fired into the crowd with 'malicious intent.' Also charged were Fedo Manning, Ronnel Williams Jr. and Chaelyn Groves, in connection with guns that were used in the shooting, and those three men are also named as defendants in the civil lawsuit. Charges alleged the men were involved in illegal straw purchases and trafficking of firearms, not that they were among the shooters. Also named are Union Station, the Greater Kansas City Sports Commission, O'Neill Events & Marketing and Flyover Event Co. LLC, which the lawsuit said were involved in organizing the event. Frontier Justice LS, LLC, The Ammo Box and R.K. Shows Mo. Inc., which the lawsuit states were connected to the sales of guns used in the shooting, were also named. Frontier Justice allegedly sold 23 firearms between May and October 2022 to Manning and should have known that Manning was involved in gun trafficking, the lawsuit said. The Ammo Box allegedly ignored 'clear signs' that Williams was purchasing a firearm for someone else, the lawsuit states. Groves allegedly gave Williams the funds to buy the firearm at an R.K. Gun Shows event in November 2023 when he was 19 and not legally allowed to purchase a pistol. The gun was later found outside Union Station following the rally shooting. No hearings have been set in the lawsuit. Other defendants in the case were not immediately available for comment Tuesday. ___ © 2025 The Kansas City Star. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

How much has World Cup's global party been spoiled already by Trump's tantrums, threats?
How much has World Cup's global party been spoiled already by Trump's tantrums, threats?

San Francisco Chronicle​

time14 hours ago

  • San Francisco Chronicle​

How much has World Cup's global party been spoiled already by Trump's tantrums, threats?

Last month, when President Donald Trump was asked about growing tension between the United States and our 2026 World Cup co-hosts, Canada and Mexico, he said with a smile, 'Tensions are a good thing. It'll make it more exciting.' Apparently there is so much tension that it has become plural. Tensions. Hey, the more the merrier. The excitement has ramped up since Trump made that comment. Back then, the tensions involved just those three countries, and just the World Cup. Trump's recently announced travel ban on visitors from 19 countries has added more tensions/excitements. Now we can also tense up excitedly about the Olympics in Los Angeles in 2028 and even the Super Bowl in Santa Clara next year! Events like the Olympics and World Cup are world parties, and what we're doing is rearrange the schedule a bit. We're going to have the hangovers before the parties. Here's an interesting headline from Marca, Spain's daily sports newspaper: 'Trump, FIFA scandals spark movement planning to boycott 2026 World Cup.' Don't mind Spain. They're just cranky because of Trump's 20% tariffs on their exports of olive oil, auto parts and other goods. If only Spain would take a deep breath and remember that Trump's tariff policies change by the hour, so maybe better deals are ahead. Same with the new travel ban. Its effect on fans coming to America for the World Cup and the Olympics, and its implementation, are so vague and unknown that visitors from, say, Spain or Iraq might just have to get on the plane to America and hope for the best. American roulette: Maybe you come and go easily, maybe you accidentally wind up behind bars on Alcatraz. 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NFL, NFLPA continue to hide ruling from collusion grievance
NFL, NFLPA continue to hide ruling from collusion grievance

Yahoo

time2 days ago

  • Yahoo

NFL, NFLPA continue to hide ruling from collusion grievance

The NFL benefits from an endless stream of bright, shiny objects. Even in the offseason, there's always something to distract fans and media from taking a closer look at something the powers-that-be are trying to hide. As it relates to a significant collusion grievance that resulted in a 61-page written ruling from an arbitrator, both the NFL and the NFL Players Association continue to conceal the document. Advertisement The grievance focused on the refusal to give fully-guaranteed contracts to specific veteran quarterbacks — with primary focus on Lamar Jackson, Russell Wilson, and Kyler Murray. The arbitrator found, we're told, that the NFL encouraged teams not to give those players fully-guaranteed contracts. However, the evidence presented regarding the impact of this approach on the three quarterbacks at the heart of the case wasn't strong enough to trigger damages. So it was a mixed result. The NFLPA won, to the extent that evidence of collusion was found. The NFL won, to the extent that no money was awarded to any of the players. But neither side felt sufficiently good about the outcome to disclose it. The NFL danced around it in January. The NFLPA has said nothing about it, either. If this dispute had played out in court, the ruling would be a matter of public record. The NFL and NFLPA have created a private system for resolving disputes. And while the arbitrators who handle such matters typically insist on confidentiality while the cases are pending, there's nothing that prevents either the league or the union from publishing the ruling. Advertisement From the Super Bowl to the Scouting Combine to free agency to the draft to OTAs, it's been easy to forget about the 61-page collusion grievance ruling. A ruling that apparently contains something they don't want us to see. So what can it be? It could be (and we're not saying it is) that the evidence in the case includes some frank and candid internal communications that one side doesn't want to see the light of day — and that the other side has gone along with that. It also could be that the two sides were at one point actively negotiating redactions to the 61-page order to ensure that such frank and candid internal communications would not be communicated externally. Whatever the explanation, there's an important document that the NFL and the NFLPA are hiding from everyone. Despite the private nature of the arbitration agreement, pro football is an inherently public entity. It has millions of customers. It finagles billions in taxpayer money. It has a federal antitrust exemption that results in significantly more valuable TV rights. The NFL should be expected to release this document. The union should be, too. But with no one pressuring them to do it, they can jointly continue to hide behind the various bright, shiny objects that will continue to keep us properly distracted.

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