Latest news with #Brackett
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Climate
- Yahoo
Sweetwater residents supporting each other after tornado in Loudon County
SWEETWATER, Tenn. (WATE) — An EF0 tornado moved through Loudon County Friday morning, damaging multiple structures and injuring five people. Most of the damage was found off Holt Road near the border of both Loudon and Monroe Counties. In a matter of moments everything changed for this community. Richard L. Bean to retire after mayor calls out problems at juvenile detention center 'Just total shock, because there was no warning like it hit so fast and it was over so fast, I've never been through something like this,' said Leslie Guilford. Guilford said the tornado was like nothing she had ever experienced before. 'We came running outside and there's a camper next door, and it had flipped over four times, and there were people trapped inside, so we ran down there in the rain to help try to make sure they were okay,' she said. 'We had the neighbors call 911 and then everybody started showing up to help and assess all the damage.' Four people were in the camper that flipped over, in talking to their family 6 News learned despite some minor injuries, they were doing okay. However, like many other residents, they weren't the only ones who were home when it happened. 'It was early this morning, and I think it was around 8:30, It just got really loud and the ceiling started creaking and all that other stuff,' said Craig Brackett. 'Next thing I know, I'm getting a call as a responder for the camper that had rolled over and I knew exactly, it was on our property.' National Weather Service surveying damage in Loudon County Brackett works as a first responder and also co-owns Grain Bin Commodities off Holt Road. He said multiple parts of his property were damaged, including two Airbnb's and two barns, one of which they use for events like 'Fall at the Farm.' 'It's all about people, the buildings are replaceable and we've got a lot of buildings to replace, but that's okay. The people are okay, that's what matters,' said Brackett. He said now that they know everyone off the road is safe, they will help each other rebuild. 'We have some of the best neighbors, they've been so supportive through everything, and they were the first ones down here right after it happened,' said Guilford. 'So we're thankful for Callie and Craig and all the other neighbors that have come by.' Five injured after EF-0 tornado in Loudon County When the tornado came through, Brackett's business was used as a post for first responders, the National Weather Service, the Red Cross, and as a place for the people displaced. While it will take a while to rebuild, they tell me they are glad everyone seems to be okay. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
23-04-2025
- Yahoo
Man hospitalized after pursuit, crash involving Iowa State Patrol trooper
DES MOINES, Iowa — A late-night crash in Mahaska County Tuesday was the result of a pursuit involving the Oskaloosa Police Department and the Iowa State Patrol. A crash report from the Iowa State Patrol said it happened about 11:43 p.m. at Highway 92 and Dean Avenue. That's about seven miles west of Oskaloosa. Indianola daycare provider charged with murder in 4-month-old's death Sgt. Alex Dinkla, spokesperson for the Iowa State Patrol, said the Oskaloosa Police Department initiated the pursuit because the driver was suspected of being impaired. The OPD, assisted by the Iowa State Patrol, was pursuing a Chevy S-10 pickup driven by Laverne Brackett, 52, of Indianola, when the crash happened. The report said the truck was traveling westbound on Highway 92 when Brackett lost control near Dean Avenue, and the truck came to face eastbound in the westbound lane where it was struck by an Iowa State Patrol vehicle. Brackett was transported by air ambulance to Mercy Hospital in Des Moines. His current condition is unknown. Man hospitalized after pursuit, crash involving Iowa State Patrol trooper Indianola daycare provider charged with murder in 4-month-old's death New high school program helps Indianola students with disabilities join the workforce Transparency concerns on the mind at Madison County Board of Supervisors meeting 'Before They Were Soldiers' profiles Iowans who did not return from Vietnam Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
13-03-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
4Warn Storm Team tracking wildfire risk Friday
OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) – The 4Warn Storm Team is keeping an eye on strong winds and potential wildfire risk for Friday. According to KFOR Meteorologist Aaron Brackett, the fire danger begins Thursday evening in western Oklahoma. The danger continues into Friday and is predicted to increase to a critical fire danger around 10 a.m. 4WARN WEATHER: Oklahoma, Prepare for a Big Fire Weather Day Friday Officials say some winds may even reach 65 to 75 mph. There may be power pumps and outages, overturned semis and dust blowing in addition to the fire danger. According to Brackett, winds will be west-southwest, so some parts of I-40 as well as I-35 and Highway 82 may be windy while driving. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Los Angeles Times
06-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Art, commerce, Hollywood and family drama collide in ‘The Californians'
'When did everything turn into a grift?' asks a young man named Tobey midway through Brian Castleberry's 'The Californians,' an ambitious, widescreen novel about the ugliness that often ensues when art and commerce collide. In 2024 Tobey is a down-on-his-luck college dropout who's been chased out of his Northern California apartment building by wildfires. Hurting for cash, he signs on to a scheme his brother has concocted to steal three valuable paintings from his father's home in Palm Springs. What's supposed to happen after the theft is hazy to him — something NFT, something crypto — but he's desperate. In this way, Tobey answers his own question: The grift happens when we don't pay attention to what we're destroying for the sake of a dollar. To explain how that happens, Castleberry covers about a century's worth of activity between two families whose fortunes and failures are intertwined. Tobey is the grandson of Frank Harlan, a stone-faced TV and film actor best known for playing the lead role in a '60s detective show, 'Brackett.' The Columbo-esque character was conceived by Klaus von Stiegl, a filmmaker who came to America from Germany and enjoyed acclaim as a silent-film director. His granddaughter, Di Stiegl, painted the artworks that Tobey is stealing, made during her '80s heyday of putting a spotlight on AIDS and the moral bankruptcy of the go-go '80s. All of which is to say there's a lot going on, and a lot of it catches fire, literally or metaphorically. The family tree that opens the book covers family relationships, but nearly everyone is estranged or strained in some way. Given that, many of the Harlan and Stiegl lineages replace affection with money, who wants what from it, and what they embrace or forsake for it. The fickle way time treats art has an impact as well. Klaus was a pioneer in the silent days — think Lubitsch or Lang — but he can't successfully make the transition to talkies and relies on the largesse of his heiress wife. Di's paintings were acclaimed by New York's downtown set, but shifting times plus a debilitating cocaine habit took a toll. 'He'd come west dreaming that he was an artist, and immediately been made a cog in someone else's machine,' Klaus thinks, but he's not the only one suffering that fate. Much of the action takes place in Palm Springs. It's where Klaus films an alleged masterpiece on his own back lot, an artsy 'Hansel and Gretel' allegory that MGM refused to release, and then attempts to burn down in a fury. It's where Di as a child developed her shimmering photorealistic style, and where the Harlan clan pursued property development when art didn't quite pan out or turned into hackery. 'Maybe art didn't put anything into order,' Di thinks, rightly, at one point. 'Maybe it reflected back the chaos, the ambiguity, the vertigo of living.' To that point, Castleberry has pursued the tricky task of creating an orderly novel whose theme is chaos. There are places where he's not quite up to the task, where the various lines that stretch through and across the family trees can feel like tripwires for the reader. A mother's disappearance comes into the narrative, then fades; a money-grubbing son arrives, then steps off the stage. Castleberry means to frame Klaus as hard-hearted to the point of cruelty. One woman in his life, a prized silent actress, is driven to kill herself by jumping off the Hollywood sign — a tragedy that, in addition to being a bit on the nose, is softened by more compelling narratives about Klaus' late-career revival via 'Brackett,' his selling out a writer during the Red Scare, and genius granddaughter. Castleberry can make you wonder which reprobate to care about most, which sin causes the most harm. But the flaws in 'The Californians' reflect ambition and overexertion, not slackness. Castleberry strives to realistically capture the way money shores up or permeates all sorts of creative endeavors: Hollywood, TV, fine art and more. The realism is bolstered by interstitial chapters featuring news stories, blog posts, term papers and other ephemera that address the characters' lives, while also suggesting that the official story these pieces help create always gets things somewhat wrong. He makes you desperately wish you could see the fourth season of 'Brackett,' where the lead goes dark and rogue in a way that anticipates 'The Sopranos' by decades. 'In America, art is always paid for by somebody and griped about by somebody else,' Klaus opines late in the novel to Di. 'Occasionally something breaks through, people see it, people like it, their lives are changed by an infinitesimal degree. … If you're really lucky you can make a living looking at all this and making some sense of it and communicating it to others.' In the context of the story, he's inspiring a young Di to pursue a painting career. But in the world of the novel, Castleberry is trying to honor art-making — including novel-writing — to a world that wants to reduce it to matters of profit and loss. Art often is just a business, but a dangerous one: Changing people by an infinitesimal degree, Castleberry knows, has a way of thoroughly warping and wrecking human lives. Athitakis is a writer in Phoenix and author of 'The New Midwest.'
Yahoo
04-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Domestic violence survivors back bill seeking to protect against controlling behaviors
Several states including Connecticut, California and Massachusetts have recognized coercive control as part of domestic violence, although the definitions vary. (Photo by Getty Images) Agnes Brackett from Franklin County was in a 19-year abusive relationship that ended last year with her husband trying to burn down their home. Though he was arrested for buying guns and going on a rampage that included arson and domestic violence, according to police reports, Brackett said the abuse started long before, when her husband cut her off from her friends, monitored the time and the routes she took when she ran errands, and did not allow their daughter on the playground if other children were present. 'It would get to the point where it gets in your head, and it's insidious,' she said during a Monday public hearing before the Maine Legislature's Committee on Judiciary. 'It's not just the hitting. It's deeper than hitting because it's a place that nobody else can see.' She was one of several domestic violence survivors, mental health experts and advocates speaking in support of a new bill that would explicitly name such patterns of behavior in state statute under types of domestic violence, allowing victims to seek protection and abusers to be arrested or prosecuted. These behaviors, called 'coercive control,' are designed to 'dominate, isolate, manipulate or exploit a person who is a dating partner or a family or household member,' according to the bill text. Advocates said many survivors face one or more of these as a precursor to physical or sexual violence. The bill, introduced by Rep. Holly Rae Eaton (D-Deer Isle), includes several examples of coercive control such as limiting access to financial resources or employment; restricting or monitoring movements or communication, isolating partners from friends, family or support systems; using intimidation or threats to create fear or dependency; and exploiting victims' vulnerabilities such as immigration status, or disabilities. 'Often, this type of behavior goes unnoticed by other people, but is all too clear to the victim,' said Candis Veilleux, another survivor from Kennebec County. Several states including Connecticut, California and Massachusetts have recognized coercive control as part of domestic violence, according to Eaton, although the definitions vary. The Maine Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers opposed the bill, saying the language was vague and lacks clear direction on how it can be enforced. 'This lack of clear legal standards could lead to significant unintended consequences, including the misuse of protective orders in contentious family disputes, particularly in divorce and child custody cases, as well as increased criminal prosecutions under these vague definitions,' attorney and MACDL member Eric Thistle of the Portland-based Thistle, Weaver and Morris wrote in submitted testimony. Current Maine statute does protect against most of the controlling behaviors, according to Andrea Mancuso of the Maine Coalition to End Domestic Violence. However, the coalition testified neither for nor against the bill, acknowledging that while it may not expand eligibility for the types of behaviors that could warrant a Protection from Abuse order, it does help make the protections more explicit. 'From our perspective, it does not expand eligibility for what types of behaviors you can walk into court and walk out with an order for, but it might allow more victims,' she said. 'Clearly, it will allow more victims to see their own lived experience reflected in the statute.' Mancuso said that if the bill passes, domestic violence victims seeking protection orders without the help of an attorney will be able to explicitly use the coercive control definitions to seek protection from courts. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
