Latest news with #Ard
Miami Herald
19-04-2025
- Politics
- Miami Herald
Seattle cops who went to Jan. 6 rally ask US Supreme Court for anonymity
SEATTLE - Four current and former Seattle police officers who attended the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to protect their identities as they fight a Washington court decision ordering the release of their names. Their attorney is asking the justices to stay the execution of a unanimous decision by the Washington Supreme Court issued Feb. 13 finding the officers should be identified by name in court proceedings. The officers had filed a lawsuit, identifying themselves as "John Does 1-4," challenging the release of their names and details of an investigation into their attendance at the violent "Stop the Steal" political protest rally in Washington, D.C. The investigation, conducted by the civilian-run office of police accountability, concluded the officers did not violate any laws or Seattle Police Department. Two other officers who attended the protest were fired. A King County Superior Court judge had ordered the names of the four released, however the Court of Appeals issued an injunction stopping the release. The petitioner, Seattle lawyer Sam Sueoka, appealed to the state Supreme Court, which overturned the Court of Appeals. The officers' attorney, Joel Ard, asked for reconsideration from the state Supreme Court's decision, which was denied April 9, resulting in his petition to the U.S. Supreme Court, according to court records. In his petition to the U.S. Supreme Court, filed Tuesday, Ard argues that releasing the officers' identities would cause irreparable harm and violate their First Amendment rights - a claim rejected by the state justices. "These records include, among other records, transcripts of interviews in which the applicants were compelled to participate, under threat of termination, and were required to disclose their political beliefs, affiliations, reasons for attending the rally, and their mental impressions as to the contents of the rally," Ard wrote. "At its core, this appeal involves whether a government agency can ignore the chilling effect resulting from an employer requiring an employee to disclose their off-duty political activities ... followed by widespread dissemination to those who deliberately seek this information to subject those public servants to vilification without the commission of any misconduct whatsoever," the appeal states. Sueoka's lawyer, Neil Fox, said Justice Elena Kagan has asked that he file a response to the officers' motion for a stay by next Friday. Should the justices issue a stay, the next move would be for the officers to file a petition asking the high court to certify the issue for consideration. The Washington Supreme Court's justices found the officers failed to cite an applicable exemption to the state's Public Records Act and had not shown how their right to privacy in this instance would overcome the public's right to know. "We conclude they have not met that burden because they have not shown they have a privacy right in public records about their attendance at a highly public event," wrote Washington Supreme Court Justice Raquel Montoya-Lewis in the majority opinion. The right to privacy is reserved for "personal information" of a sort that its release would be considered "highly offensive" - not the fact that someone attended a public event along with tens of thousands of others, she wrote. "Further," she continued, "off-duty acts of a police officer can be disclosable if their actions 'bear upon (their) fitness to perform public duty' because 'privacy considerations are overwhelmed by public accountability.'" A key argument made by the officers is that the statements they made during the office of police accountability investigation were compelled through the use of a statute called Garrity v. New Jersey that allows public employers to order employees to answer questions that might violate their Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination. If they refuse to answer, they can be terminated. To protect the employee, Garrity states those compelled statements cannot be used against the employee in a criminal case. The four officers argue that those compelled statements include information that is personal and protected. "Respectfully, the Washington State Supreme Court ignored the long line of cases finding time and time again that the First Amendment affords those who participate in protected political activity to be free from compelled disclosure of their identities," Ard wrote. "This appeal involves important federal constitutional questions which intersect state freedom of information laws." Copyright (C) 2025, Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Portions copyrighted by the respective providers.
Yahoo
07-04-2025
- Yahoo
Deputies arrest man accused of firing shots in Livingston Parish
BATON ROUGE, La. (Louisiana First) — Deputies arrested a man accused of firing shots in Livingston Parish. According to the Livingston Parish Sheriff's Office, deputies were called to an area on LA Hwy 42 near Hwy 16 about shots fired shortly before 2 a.m. April 6. Sheriff Jason Ard said deputies found a vehicle crashed in a ditch with no one on the scene. 'The two incidents were found to be related,' Ard said. 'LPSO detectives identified and arrested the driver of the vehicle, 29-year-old Jacob Ferguson, of French Settlement.' Ard confirmed that no injuries or property damage was reported. Ferguson was arrested and booked into the Livingston Parish Detention Center on charges of illegal discharge of a firearm and hit and run. 'Thank you to citizens in the area who worked with us in this investigation,' said Ard. Democrats reject Johnson-Luna deal to kill proxy voting Netanyahu meets with Trump at the White House Zachary woman accused of beating daughter with belt, charged with child cruelty Senator says he was joking about using violence against journalists Deputies arrest man accused of firing shots in Livingston Parish Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
07-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
No place to walk? Live closer to a McDonald's than a supermarket? Your 'obesogenic environment' can affect your weight.
Take a mental wander around your neighborhood: What do you see? Are there sidewalks to stroll on? Which is closer, a convenience store, fast food restaurant or a grocery store? Depending on your answers, you may be living in what experts refer to as an 'obesogenic environment.' In other words, your immediate surroundings may be making it harder to eat a nutritious diet or get much exercise, putting you at risk for excess weight gain. How do you know if you're living somewhere that may be compromising your health, and what can you do about it? Here's what to watch for. 'An obesogenic environment is one that very easily supports a positive energy balance — that's a technical way of saying you end up taking in more calories than you expend on a daily basis,' Dr. Jamy Ard, a Wake Forest University School of Medicine obesity researcher, tells Yahoo Life. 'That makes it easier for weight gain to occur.' If you're familiar with calorie restriction, you know how this works. In addition to harder-to-control factors like your metabolism, age and hormonal imbalances, weight is to some degree a function of how many calories a person consumes (positive energy) versus how many they burn through physical (and mental) activity. When the world around you makes it easy to eat — especially high-calorie foods that don't make you feel very full — and hard to exercise, you're living in an obesogenic environment. Our modern American world has become more obesogenic by this definition. Feeding yourself and your family used to require more physical effort, says Ard — including farming your own food. The dawn of supermarkets and convenience foods (think: TV dinners) in the 1950s greatly reduced the amount of effort people had to expend to prepare meals. Supermarkets also give shoppers the opportunity to pick their own grocery items; before, you would hand your shopping list to a clerk who would pick and pack your purchases for you. These modern, so-called self-service stores paved the way for food brands to tempt shoppers with eye-catching labels, supersized packaging and, in some cases, deceptive health claims. Now, with the help of apps like DoorDash, Uber Eats and Grubhub, you don't even need to leave your couch to make dinner happen. That's one of the 'obvious' ways our environment has become more obesogenic, but some are more subtle, explains Ard. 'They didn't use to sell sodas in 12 ounces or 20 ounces; the most you could get was an eight-ounce serving,' he points out. 'We tend to eat [or drink] more when presented with larger portions.' But it's not just the ease of food delivery or widespread availability of fast food, Dr. Spencer Nadolsky, an obesity and lipid specialist, tells Yahoo Life. 'Even at the grocery store, we do have whole, less processed foods, but there are still more highly processed foods,' he says. Potato and tortilla chips, he notes, are ubiquitous in the American foodscape. They're also carefully engineered to taste delicious and 'totally bypass your satiety signals,' or your body's sense of when it's full. 'In the U.S., you're pretty much surrounded by the obesogenic environment, and it's really hard to escape, but you can create your own personal environment as much as possible to try to battle back,' says Nadolsky. More than 17% of Americans — about 53.6 million people — live in food deserts, low-income areas where the nearest supermarket is more than a 10-mile drive or a half-mile walk away. In these areas, fast food restaurants or convenience stores are often closer at hand, meaning high-calorie, low-nutrient snacks and meals are easier to come by than fresh produce. But even outside of food deserts, a 2016 study found, the number of fast food meals a city-dweller ate per week increased by 30% for each mile further they lived from a supermarket. Obesogenic environments aren't just a product of the food available. 'They also include an environment that is less conducive to physical activity and more conducive to a sedentary lifestyle,' says Nadolsky. Sidewalks for walking, bike lanes for cycling and parks all make it easier to exercise. But it's not that these features simply need to exist, Ard notes, neighborhoods also need to be safe enough for people to take advantage of them, he says. As more Americans have become reliant on cars, the distance we walk from transportation to the office has become shorter — or become nonexistent during some or all of the workweek — for the 12% of Americans who work remotely and 29% who work hybrid jobs. Moreover, jobs that require very little movement have become more common. By 2016, 80% of Americans were working sedentary desk jobs or in light-activity positions, a figure that had been rising for the previous 60 years. Ard says his patients see the difference when they switch away from more active jobs, or at least jobs that require a commute. 'In my clinic, people say, 'I changed jobs, I went from working on the floor and I got my 10,000 steps very easily to a more administrative job behind a desk,'' he says. Whereas active commutes used to be built into our days, many workers now have to make an effort to move more, Ard explains. According to Ard, the 'mantra' of public health is to 'make the healthy choice the easy choice.' Most of those choices are in the hands of companies who market cheap-to-make junk foods, the regulators who let them and the political officials or private developers who decide not to build sidewalks. But you can take a few steps to encourage yourself to make healthier choices, our experts say. These are prompts that remind us of the goals that we have, and our desire to follow through on them, says Ard. 'A lot of it is about goal-setting and setting up appropriate motivators and knowing what the reward looks like for you,' he says. Maybe seeing your blood pressure levels improve is reward enough, or perhaps you need a more tangible treat, like a bit of dark chocolate after a day of healthy food choices or new jeans to celebrate hitting your goal weight. These rewards can help keep you motivated, says Ard, though he notes, with frustration, that 'it shouldn't be such a willpower battle or require a behavioral intervention to not gain weight in this world.' Finding small opportunities to work a little exercise into your day can make a big difference. Ard suggests parking a little further from a store entrance; taking the stairs or carrying your groceries (instead of using a cart) are other forms of incidental exercise that can add up. Since grocery stores are full of shiny packages of low-nutrient, high-fat and super-tasty snacks, Ard recommends never entering them without a grocery list. Include only what you need, and stick to your list so you're not tempted to make an unplanned purchase. 'Those impulse purchases are a lot more likely to be unhealthy,' he explains. If you really struggle to resist tempting treats when you go into the store, Ard recommends online shopping. Just because your job doesn't require you to be on your feet doesn't necessarily mean that you can't be up and about while you do it. Working from a standing desk can help you avoid sitting down all day. Ard is also a proponent of walking meetings, where you talk on the go instead of sitting in a conference room or being glued to Zoom. 'Try to surround yourself with whole, unprocessed foods as much as possible at home and at work,' advises Nadolsky. This way, you can use convenience to your advantage. When you're craving an afternoon snack, you'll be more likely to reach for the baby carrots in your fridge or almonds in your pantry than to drive to a fast food restaurant or corner store.
Yahoo
07-04-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
Fire service deal with more than 140 gorse fires in three days
The Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service (NIFRS) said it has dealt with 146 gorse fires since midnight on Thursday. It comes after a major incident was declared at the weekend when a large wildfire broke out near the Mourne Mountains, and led to homes being evacuated. That blaze is being treated as arson. Firefighters are continuing to tackle a wildfire at Bloody Bridge in Newcastle on Monday morning. There were also wildfires in the Silent Valley and Ben Crom areas of Newcastle, as well as a wildfire involving forestry in Dervock, County Antrim. Danny Ard, of the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service, said since midnight on Thursday the NIFRS received 997 calls, 146 of which were gorse fire-related. "It's been quite pressured for us and challenging," Mr Ard said. Mr Ard said a "significant number" of wildfires were deliberate. "When you say deliberate in nature that can also be deliberate actions that have led to a fire where perhaps it is somebody who hasn't fully thought through what it is they're doing in terms of countryside safety," Mr Ard said. "The idea of the bbq and the idea of the campfire is nice but they haven't taken the precautions that you'd reasonably expect someone to take." A number of homes were evacuated on Saturday after the large wildfire broke out on Sandbank Road. Speaking to BBC News NI, one resident said: "The police came and shouted 'police, I need you to evacuate'. That was 3am, so I got myself together and they took me to my other son's house. "It was all burning, it was all in flames at that stage, a lot of smoke, a fair bit of smoke. Thankfully the firefighters, all those people, got it all sorted." On Sunday, NI Water said Silent Valley Mountain Park would be closed until further notice due to the fires. The Silent Valley Reservoir had recently reopened its gates to the public after being closed for more than nine weeks because of damage caused by Storm Éowyn. The fire service urged the public to remain vigilant, but moved to reassure people that "normal service delivery is being maintained". Multiple wildfires have been reported in the Mourne Mountains in recent weeks. Some of them are thought to have been started deliberately. The minister for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, Andrew Muir, has described the blazes as having a devastating impact on the environment and wildlife. Fresh fires in Mournes after overnight arson Amber wildfire warning issued as dry weather continues Mourne Mountains fire believed to be 'deliberate'
BBC News
07-04-2025
- Climate
- BBC News
Mourne Mountains: 146 gorse fires dealt with in three days
The Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service (NIFRS) said it has dealt with 146 gorse fires since midnight on comes after a major incident was declared at the weekend when a large wildfire broke out near the Mourne Mountains, and led to homes being evacuated. That blaze is being treated as arson. Firefighters are continuing to tackle a wildfire at Bloody Bridge in Newcastle on Monday were also wildfires in the Silent Valley and Ben Crom areas of Newcastle, as well as a wildfire involving forestry in Dervock, County Antrim. Danny Ard, of the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service, said since midnight on Thursday the NIFRS received 997 calls, 146 of which were gorse fire-related. "It's been quite pressured for us and challenging," Mr Ard said. On Sunday, NI Water said Silent Valley Mountain Park would be closed until further notice due to the Silent Valley Reservoir had just reopened its gates to the public recently after being closed for more than nine weeks because of damage caused by Storm Éowyn. The fire service urged the public to remain vigilant, but moved to reassure people that "normal service delivery is being maintained".Multiple wildfires have been reported in the Mourne Mountains in recent weeks. Some of them are thought to have been started deliberately. The minister for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, Andrew Muir, has described the blazes as having a devastating impact on the environment and wildlife.
