Latest news with #Columbine
Irish Independent
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Independent
Theatre school in Wexford hosts inclusive award ceremony where every student is recognised for their achievements
This event marked a significant milestone for the school's 130 students, with each student honoured for their dedication and achievements in the performing arts. Presentations were made by drama teacher and creative director Lily Henrich-Doyle, dance teacher and choreographer Madison Coleman, singing teacher and musical director Richard O'Toole as well as administrative director Susan Bell Flavin. Every student received an award of achievement, recognising their completion of one year's study in drama, dance, and singing. Additionally, each child was provided with detailed written feedback highlighting their progress and accomplishments in these areas. A cheque presentation was made by ITS student Louis O'Driscoll to Mairead Fanning, Chairperson of Hope Cancer Support Centre, Enniscorthy. The €250 donation was part of the proceeds from the sale of show programmes and raffle tickets from the schools performance of the musical Alice in Wonderland. The ceremony also featured several special awards to acknowledge exceptional talent and effort, including; outstanding students per class which recognised top students in each class for their exemplary performance and commitment. The winners of this award were; Columbine Class: Quinn Deveney and Robyn Langrell, Scapino Class; Gemma Halnon and Zoe Hobbs, Pierrot Class; Jay Swinburne and Rebecca Hughes, Harlequin Class; Bobby Halford and Erin O'Donohue, Domino Class; Eavann Bolger and Róisín Healy and Scaramouche Class; Lapo Olival, Lauren Croke and Jade (Dylan) Byrne. Students of the Year 2025 was awarded to the student who demonstrated exceptional talent, dedication, and growth across all areas of study. The winners of this award were Jay Swinburne and Keelin Kinsella. The Deirdre Shortt Memorial Award 2025; a prestigious award commemorating the late Deirdre Shortt, honoring a student who exemplifies her passion and spirit in the performing arts. Lauren Croke won this award. The PACE Award for Performance Arts Certificate of Excellence 2025: Celebrating outstanding achievement and excellence in performance arts. Winner: Sadie Nolan The EPIC Award for Extraordinary Performer of Imagination and Creativity 2025 was given to a student who shows remarkable creativity and imagination in their performances. The winner of this award was Danielle Mulhall. The Anne Shumate Aurora Award 2025 which recognised a student who radiates positivity and excellence was awarded to Roisín Healey. The Men in Black Award 2025, awarding excellent in creativity and dedication both behind and in front of the curtain. The winner of this award was Aleksandra Bujak.
New York Times
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
A Punk-Rock Past Comes With Unwanted Baggage for a N.Y. Politician
He's a former punk rocker who still looks the part. Bald, burly, with his rolled-up sleeves revealing elaborate tattoos, Justin Brannan hardly seems the prototype for public office. His hardcore-punk background has been a useful origin story in his political career, as he rose in the City Council to lead its powerful finance committee, and is now running for New York City comptroller. But it also left a public trail of interviews, offhand comments and online messages containing crass, insensitive and homophobic language that Mr. Brannan has, in recent years, apologized for using. Now, ahead of next month's Democratic primary for comptroller, a new trove of online messages has emerged from his past. The messages, most more than 20 years old, include a thread that cast the Columbine High School shooting in Littleton, Colo., on April 20, 1999 — which resulted in the deaths of 13 students and a teacher — as an opportunity to promote Indecision, his band at the time. On a Dejanews Usenet online forum in 1999, an account under Mr. Brannan's name posted that one of the high school students tied to the Columbine shooting had worn an Indecision T-shirt. The post cited a call with an unnamed news reporter. 'Yes!!! We're famous!' the account wrote, declaring that the shooting could help the band sell records, according to a publicly accessible version of the message board, now archived on Google Groups. Mr. Brannan, who has since pushed for tougher New York State gun laws, was in his early 20s at the time of the thread. Three days after the shooting, the account under Mr. Brannan's name directed others on the thread to circulate the rumor, which was later shown to be inaccurate. The account urged people to call WINS-AM radio in New York and NBC. 'Let them know you saw the Indecision T-shirt,' it said. Someone responded, 'Are you really this desperate to sell records?' 'Industry baby,' the account replied, indicating that the band had already seen a small boost in sales. The message was signed 'Justin Brannan.' Mr. Brannan, 46, said the messages did not reflect his 'record as a public servant.' 'I've fought hard and always led with love, empathy and respect,' said Mr. Brannan, who represents the Bay Ridge and Coney Island sections of Brooklyn. 'I said and did plenty of stupid stuff as a teenager that I regret now decades later as a man approaching 50,' Mr. Brannan said in a statement. 'I believe if we want real representation in government, we need to be willing to accept real people — not those who claim pristine pasts, but those who learn from their mistakes, grow and try to do better.' On the same day that the Brannan account asked followers to spread the T-shirt rumor, Mr. Brannan apparently had misgivings, according to contemporaneous emails that he provided through a campaign spokeswoman. In one email sent to a bandmate, Rachel Rosen, Mr. Brannan wrote that he felt 'horrible' that 'we were making jokes like idiots.' In another email from the same day, Mr. Brannan said the rumor about the T-shirt was 'sick,' adding, 'I don't think any of us realized how bad this shooting was,' according to a copy provided by the campaign. In an official statement, dated April 23, 1999, his band said that it was 'horrified to be briefly associated' with the shooting, and that it had 'always stood up against violence and hate.' The statement included contact information for Mr. Brannan, the band's spokesman at the time. Ms. Rosen, the Indecision bandmate who received Mr. Brannan's emails, said he had crafted the band's statement after returning from a tour, during which access to news had been limited, and realizing that the false rumor was taking off. In other unrelated threads now on Google Groups, the account under Mr. Brannan's name posted various messages that included insensitive or offensive language. In one instance, the account said 'Chinese people cannot drive.' Mr. Brannan's campaign noted that he had since spoken out against anti-Asian hate crimes during the pandemic, and that he sponsored a Council resolution last year calling on Congress to condemn anti-Asian sentiment. In past campaigns, voters have been willing to overlook Mr. Brannan's decades-old indiscretions. His interpersonal skills and unfussy persona have helped him on the trail and with Council colleagues. The bounds of acceptable discourse for politicians have also appeared to shift, especially since Donald J. Trump won his first presidential election despite a history of making embarrassing and vulgar comments. Mr. Brannan has some experience confronting his past use of insensitive language. During his failed bid to become City Council speaker four years ago, Mr. Brannan was questioned about a homophobic slur he had used in a 2006 interview, while he was a member of the hardcore punk band Most Precious Blood. He was also confronted with a 1999 letter to the editor he had written to a music magazine in which he defended a writer's use of a homophobic slur, arguing then that the word was a 'regular, accepted, tolerated slang word — for better or for worse,' The Daily News reported. Mr. Brannan apologized. 'It doesn't matter as the context or the intent, whether you are gay or straight, it is an offensive, indefensible and hurtful term,' he said at the time. 'I apologize for any harm I may have caused decades ago. I have always been an ally to the L.G.B.T.Q. community and I always will be.' The Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club, an influential progressive group in New York that advocates L.G.B.T.Q. rights, endorsed Mr. Brannan in a Council race after that apology. But in the Democratic primary for comptroller, it has endorsed Mark Levine, the Manhattan borough president. State Senator Kevin Parker, a moderate Brooklyn Democrat, is also running for comptroller. Kristen Pettit, a founding member of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, defended Mr. Brannan, whom she knows personally and praised for his work on gun safety. 'I think Justin's actions communicate loud and clear who he is in his adult life,' she said. 'He's focused on helping the people of the city, no matter who they are or when they got here. He is a man for others.'
The Herald Scotland
21-05-2025
- Climate
- The Herald Scotland
How to save your plants as heatwave plays havoc with Scottish gardens
As we gardeners know all too well, this is having a dire effect as the arid soil cracks and shrinks before our eyes. It's well nigh impossible to make a planting hole in the ground without the help of a pick, and even well-established shrubs are struggling. Read more Don't be a wallflower - get nibbling your garden plants Gardening: When is it safe to plant out tender veg? It seems the high pressure will very shortly weaken, allowing westerly rain to fall here. But that doesn't let us off the hook, even if it's actually raining as you read this. Light, drizzly stuff only dampens the leaves; only a long spell of steady rain will gradually build up water supplies again in the country, and it will take some time for our garden soil to recover. In winter and early spring, water readily soaks into the relatively bare and empty ground, but growing plants provide ground cover, acting as umbrellas, soaking up moisture and preventing it from reaching the soil to nourish their roots. And this, incidentally, makes mulches problematic. They retain water that's already in the ground, but make it harder for fresh water to get in: dry soil underneath a mulch will remain dry. So what can we do? During the long dry spell we've been enjoying, we've been struggling to provide enough water for our plants, so we've concentrated on new ones, seedlings, and of course those in pots. Clearly, veg and soft fruit need to be kept watered to get any chance of a crop. Long-established trees and shrubs obviously have better root systems and will have to look after themselves. It's a criminal waste of water to have sprinklers on the lawn. Although grass yellows and looks dead, be in no doubt it will recover when the rains come. When watering essential plants you must be generous to be effective. A sprinkle, even administered every day, dampens the surface before quickly evaporating, and it will never reach the roots. Water will only soak in when you apply on a targeted area several times. When going round pots, I do several in succession and then repeat the tour. The second and third applications soak into a moistened surface more easily. You need only do this watering every 2 or 3 days. Using a watering can to target specific plants is the most efficient use of water, but a hose, equally targeted by switching the supply off between plants, is fine. Sprinklers are too indiscriminate, so should not be used. If we are moving into a wetter spell, a water butt will become useful again. There's a maddening irony that the butt will run dry exactly when you need it most, but it does provide a small amount of water storage. And finally, targeted leaky hose is an excellent way to keep critical beds moist, especially when laid beneath a mulch that prevents evaporation. Aquilegia vulgaris (Image: Supplied) Plant of the week Aquilegia vulgaris 'Hensol Harebell' has elegant flowers of clear blue that are the classic Columbine shape. Each plant is quite short-lived, lasting perhaps 4 seasons, but Aquilegia vulgaris readily self-seeds, though subsequent generations tend to revert to a more purplish blue.
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Yahoo
How a 'Hero' Tennessee Gamer Stopped a Mass Shooting Allegedly Being Plotted in a California Town
Two teen boys caught allegedly planning a school shooting on an online gaming chatroom were arrested by authorities in Northern California A young gamer from Tennessee shared their disturbing alleged plans with local authorities Improvised explosive devices and firearms were allegedly found in both boys' homesA young gamer's quick thinking in an online chatroom thwarted an apparent school shooting plot 2,000 miles away. Two boys, 14 and 15, allegedly planned a school shooting at Evergreen Institute of Excellence in the Northern California town of Cottonwood, intending to kill up to 100 people, Tehama County Sheriff Dave Kain said at a Tuesday news conference. The two teens, who were not named due to their status as minors, allegedly intended to kill one of their parents before carrying out the attack. The co-conspirators allegedly wrote a manifesto, posed for photos wearing the same clothing as the perpetrators of the 1999 Columbine mass shooting and divulged their scheme in an online game's chat. "This was serious," Kain said at the Tuesday conference. "It would have changed our community as a whole." A Tennessee boy read the alleged would-be shooters' disturbing messages and took action. He called the Tehama County Sheriff's Office on the evening of May 9, providing them with the suspect's gamer tag and the contents of the chat. Kain said that the boy's sharp instincts could have saved lives. "This young man had the courage and heroic instincts to call our agency and notify us in order to mitigate any possible threat to our citizens and, possibly, our young people," the sheriff said. "Our investigators took that tip seriously since the beginning."Kain said investigators sent the photos of the two teens posed as the Columbine shooters — sent along with chat logs by the teen — to school administrators, who quickly identified the two teens. Improvised explosive devices, which investigators believed were made for the prospective attack, and firearms were found in the teens' homes when search warrants were executed, Kain said. The California duo had intended to carry out their attack on May 9, per the sheriff, but reversed course after one of them backed out of the plan. It is unclear what motivated the two boys — Kain said that one talked about being bullied when he was interviewed by investigators. Both boys were charged with suspicion of making criminal threats, possession of a destructive device, manufacturing a destructive device and conspiracy to commit a felony, Kain said. Investigators are also working with prosecutors and looking at a potential additional charge of conspiracy to commit mass murder. The teens appeared in court on Thursday, where they were denied bail, the Tehama County District Attorney's Office wrote in a statement. Kain said that the threat was isolated to the two minors in custody, but that sheriff officials had spoken with administrators about instating additional security measures at the school. The sheriff said that as a sign of confidence, his son returned to classes at the same middle school on Monday. Although the department did not provide any details about the quick-thinking Tennessee boy, Kain said that his parents had been invited to Tehama County to be recognized. Read the original article on People
Miami Herald
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Miami Herald
Review: Pondering matters of life and death in Zoetic Stage's ‘The Comeuppance'
Zoetic Stage's 'The Comeuppance' is a satisfying punctuation mark as the theater season winds down; an exclamation point to keep theater lovers satiated through the leaner times of summer. Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, this year's Pulitzer Prize winner for Drama (For his play 'Purpose'), created a challenging, almost surreal dramedy with layers upon layers of emotions in the present dredged up from the past. The setting is a porch in Prince George's County, Maryland ('in fall in the year of our Lord 2022,' Jacobs-Jenkins wrote in the play notes). Twenty years after graduation from St. Anthony's High School, a Catholic academy in Washington, DC, a group of friends are gathering to pregame before their high school reunion. This particular group had named itself the 'Multi-Ethnic Reject Group' (MERGE for short). It's Ursula's grandmother's house, but grandma has passed away and Ursula (Joline Mujica) is living there alone. She enters with a patch on her eye, carrying a pitcher of her watermelon-muddled 'jungle juice.' But, she isn't the first character we meet. That would be Death in his first incarnation, inhabiting the body of Emilio (Jovon Jacobs). The Grim Reaper appears throughout the play, merging with the bodies of each of the characters. Every cast member gets a Death monologue, just one of the many acting acrobatics that the playwright has devised to ensure that the play, heavy on dialogue, is constantly in motion. Director Stuart Meltzer embraces Jacobs-Jenkins' fly-on-the-wall sensibility. We can relate to Death's comments, 'I like to watch.' There's a wonderful undercurrent that's meant to make us feel like silent party crashers, eavesdropping on this group who are trying to make sense of fraught personal lives and revisit what they thought would be a fun reunion. But reliving the past is much akin to Thomas Wolfe's 'Look Homeward, Angel,' and the phrase 'You can't go home again.' There are more than a few comparisons to the 1983 comedy-drama 'The Big Chill.' Old college friends have been brought together for a funeral. The Vietnam War and its effects hover over the group. They find out that inevitable changes in their lives have made it impossible to connect as they once did. The same happens here, just in a different era. The millennials have gone through the horrors of Columbine and 9/11. Now, as adults, they are gathering shortly after COVID. 'How was your COVID?' is the phrase in this post-pandemic gathering. A classmate, Simon, who has cancelled on the group, calls in every once in a while. And although he isn't seen, he speaks for all when he says: 'Look at all the shit we've been through – It's like too much, Columbine, 9/11, the war, the war, the endless war, then Trump, then COVID, whatever the f— is going on in the Supreme Court… Roe v. Wade….' Emilio is an artist now living in Germany. He's in for the reunion but off to Manhattan, where his work will be shown in a biennial, presumably the Whitney. He's done well for himself, able to afford the luxuries of staying in a high-end hotel while in town. Caitlin (Mallory Newbrough) has married an ex-cop, a man older than her, who participated in January 6 at the Capitol. 'Michael was not in the group that actually stormed the Capitol,' she makes sure her classmates hear loud and clear. Kristina (Amy Lee Gonzalez) is an overworked anesthesiologist with five kids and a drinking problem, a carryover from so much time at the hospital during COVID. She dated Emilio in high school. She's brought along her cousin Francisco, aka Paco (Rayner Gabriel), who is an unwelcome guest because he wasn't part of MERGE. He's a military veteran suffering from PTSD after two tours of duty in Iraq; he has a past with Caitlin. The dowdy and shy Ursula is diabetic and has lost her eyesight in one eye. An orphan whose grandmother raised her, she's now alone and has a woman who stops by a few times a week to check in on her. This is a brilliant all-local Equity ensemble, Mujica's tenderly sweet Ursula, Newbrough's carefully calibrated yet lonely Caitlin, Gonzalez's 'I've had it' doc mom, and Gabriel's amped up Francisco, with each actor working off of one another with obvious guidance from Meltzer. This is how the complex characters Jacobs-Jenkins created develop throughout the two-hour and 10-minute show without an intermission (a difficult but wise choice since an interval would interrupt the necessary continuous momentum and worth every minute) When they must step out of their realistic portrayals to become Death, it is done with seamless precision so as not to seem out of character. It's a difficult tightrope and one that each of the actors maneuvers with finesse. It's not easy, mind you. Jacobs, who has appeared in productions throughout South Florida, makes his Zoetic Stage debut here and has the weightiest role. His Emilio is the protagonist and, although all the characters are given a shot at Death, Jacobs as Emilio is the most unsettling. He begins the play as Death and winds it up at the end. It is his Death that makes you wonder whose soul he has come to collect. The steeped in reality Emilio (in some aspects based on the playwright himself) is also the character who seems the least to have crossed over to adulthood. These two spectrums call for an actor with range and Jacobs aces it. The lighting design by Leonardo Urbina creates the atmosphere of the outdoors at dusk. During the tricky Death monologues, Urbina subtly shines a spotlight on the actor, while the others, frozen in place, are dimly lit, still able to be seen. Sound design by Haydn Diaz adds an eerie reverb to each actor's voice for Death. Then there's the realistic sounds of a neighborhood, dogs barking and birds chirping, a car driving up and a door slamming, a limousine speeding off. Costume design by Lorena Lopez fits each character's persona – the oversized sweater and long skirt for Ursula, Emilio's richly looking beige turtleneck, brown pants, leather boots, Caitlin's breezy dress, Paco's oversized suit, and a skirt uniform for military doc Kristina. Scenic design by Michael McCLain is a back porch filled with odds and ends shoved in a back corner, things that should have gone to the trash, but never did. At stage right are overstuffed garbage cans. There's plenty of places for the characters to move about in addition to the porch: a lawn, a picnic table. A non-realistic faux stump, which is used as a playing area seems out of place, however, affecting the realism. While some may find the 130-minute running time daunting at the outset, once the clock begins to tick, the play and this production, like life and death, have you in its grips, and it isn't about to let you go. If you go: WHAT: Zoetic Stage's 'The Comeuppance' by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins WHEN: 7:30 p.m., Thursday, Friday and Saturday; 2:30 p.m. Sunday. Through Sunday, May 25. COST: $66-$72 WHERE: Carnival Studio Theater at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami INFORMATION: (305) 949-6722, or is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don't miss a story at
