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New York Post
5 hours ago
- Automotive
- New York Post
NASCAR driver hospitalized in scary dirt track crash: ‘Tremendous amount of pain'
A NASCAR driver was involved in a terrifying dirt track accident in Quebec, Canada, on Monday night and sustained injuries when the dirt-modified car he was driving struck a barrier and flew into the air. NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series driver Stewart Friesen was taking part in the first night of a Super DIRTcar Series event at Autodrome Drummond when the accident occurred, which left him with an unstable open-book pelvic fracture and a fractured right leg, according to a statement by the driver's wife, Jessica Friesen. Both injuries will require surgery, and Friesen was transferred to a larger hospital on Tuesday morning for the procedures. 3 Stewart Friesen was in a scary crash. Last Lap Insider/X CT scans cleared Friesen of any head, neck or spine injuries, though 'he is still in a tremendous amount of pain,' according to the statement. The race was on lap 17 when Friesen's car started to go over the berm on the back straightaway and collided with the outside retaining wall, with the impact sending the car flipping into the air and erupting into flames as it rolled back onto the track. 3 Friesen's car hit the barrier and went flying Last Lap Insider/X The cockpit came to a rest in the middle of the track as pieces of the car lay around it. The racing series reported on social media that Friesen was alert and communicating with race officials and EMT on site before he was able to be extracted from the car. He was then taken to a local hospital for further evaluation. The racing circuit told CNY Central that race officials and first responders were given the same medical emergency training as NASCAR and IndyCar safety staffers go through. 'Thank you to the manufacturers who have made dirt modifieds as safe as possible, and to the track crew for their patience and hard work getting Stew out of the car,' Jessica said in Tuesday's statement. 3 Stewart Friesen, driver of the Halmar International Toyota, celebrates in victory lane after winning the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series DQS Solutions & Staffing 250 Powered by Precision Vehicle Logistics at Michigan International Speedway on June 7, 2025 in Brooklyn, Michigan. Getty Images Friesen drives for Halmar-Friesen Racing in the NASCAR Truck Series and is sitting in seventh in the playoff picture thanks to a dramatic win at Michigan International Speedway in June. The 42-year-old had just come off a Super DIRTCar win over the weekend at Weedsport Speedway in upstate New York.


Fox News
a day ago
- Politics
- Fox News
DAVID MARCUS: I've seen enough human suffering in homeless encampments to know Trump's new policy is right
When the ambulance arrived in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia two years ago, an angry EMT got out and barked at the crowd, "Who called this in?" Standing next to my cameraman and above the prone body of a shirtless soul bedecked in boils and not moving, I said, "I did." He didn't say a word, he looked at me, then down the street at the dozens of strung out bodies, then back at me as if to say, "Look at all this, what do you want me to do?" I had no PEOPLE CAN BE REMOVED FROM STREETS BY CITIES, STATES IN NEW TRUMP EXECUTIVE ORDER Last week, President Donald Trump did answer that question with a much-welcome executive order (EO) intended to bring back civil commitment, in other words, the ability to put people who are a danger to themselves or others in institutions, even against their will. Civil libertarians are in a tizzy over the EO. They insist this is an abuse of due process and harkens to the bad old days, when hundreds of thousands of Americans were committed to mental institutions, sometimes for dubious reasons. But in examining and judging Trump's proposed policy here, it is important to understand and accept what the status quo on the ground is right now, and it is nothing short of horrific. I've traveled to homeless encampments all over America, from tucked-away Manhattan underpasses to the sprawling chaos of San Francisco's Tenderloin, a place you literally smell a block before you enter. In these encampments, your gag reflex is challenged by needles sticking out of necks and mountains of human detritus, but the real soul-crushing, existential sadness comes from knowing that these human beings are just being left to die. For decades now, Democrats have spent endless dollars on fruitless efforts to fix the homeless problem. In California alone, Gov. Gavin Newsom has spent $20 billion on failing to fix it, and only recently admitted the encampments have to go. In these encampments, your gag reflex is challenged by needles sticking out of necks and mountains of human detritus, but the real soul-crushing, existential sadness comes from knowing that these human beings are just being left to die. What the Trump administration realizes is that Democrats refuse to accept is that homelessness is, actually, two very distinct problems. One is financial, the other is a matter of addiction and mental health. Financial homelessness is fairly easy to address. The evicted mother living in her car can be given temporary housing and job assistance. She really does just need a hand up. Homelessness related to mental illness and addiction, however, isn't really a homelessness problem at all, it's an addiction and mental illness problem, and shockingly, just letting people in tents shoot up in what was once a thriving commercial district doesn't solve it. As I have wandered the streets of these hellscapes in city after city, my question hasn't really been if these people would be better off in an institution, but rather, if they weren't in a de facto open-air institution already. What does it matter if these places lack walls and locks? They are cages nonetheless, cruel prisons whether voluntary or not. As I have wandered the streets of these hellscapes in city after city, my question hasn't really been if these people would be better off in an institution, but rather, if they weren't in a de facto open-air institution already. Opponents of civil commitment insist you cannot take away people's freedom! But freedom to do what? Shoot fentanyl every day until they die on a curbside, pockets rifled by another desperate junkie? If it was your child on these broken and brutal streets of death, would you want them to be left in freedom to waste away, or would you want them taken somewhere where they could be protected and helped? Opponents will say that civil commitment can be abused. They will point to the 1950s when homosexuals were sent to institutions, but it's not 1950. We aren't going to institutionalize gay people, and we cannot be paralyzed by a bigoted past when trying to save lives today. Could there be abuses or mistakes made regarding civil commitment? Sure, but people are dying in the streets right now, and we must trust ourselves to actively help them, without stepping over the line. Annoyed with me, or not, that day in Kensington, the EMT revived the man at my feet, who, it turns out, wasn't dead, after all. Instead, he was angry, because the Narcan that woke him up also negated the high he had paid for. There are really only two sides to be on here: the side that says we are going to do everything we can to save that man's life, even against his will, or the side that condemns him to an open-air prison of his own making. President Trump has chosen wisely, and if local governments take heed, it is going to save a lot of lives across America.


Black America Web
7 days ago
- Politics
- Black America Web
Officer In Breonna Taylor's Death Given 33-Month Jail Term
Source: Probal Rashid / Getty On Monday (July 21), a federal judge in Louisville, Kentucky, sentenced former Louisville police officer Brett Hankison to almost three years in prison for his role in the raid on EMT worker Breonna Taylor's home, which took her life five years ago. The sentence was a rebuke of the request of the Trump administration's request that Hankison receive a sentence of one day in prison. District Court Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings received a letter from Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet K. Dhillon, which requested that Hankison only serve one day in prison (the amount of time he spent in jail when he was initially charged) and three years of supervised release. The insulting request sparked outrage from Taylor's family and the community, resulting in protests outside of the federal courthouse in Louisville during the proceedings. Dhillon is a staunch ally of Trump and has worked with the Department of Justice to dismiss lawsuits against police officers in Louisville and Minneapolis, which were brought in the wake of Taylor's murder and the murder of George Floyd that same year. 'Every American who believes in equal justice under the law should be outraged,' attorneys for the family said in a statement after the administration's request. 'Recommending just one day in prison sends the unmistakable message that white officers can violate the civil rights of Black Americans with near-total impunity.' The request is a new moment in the Trump administration's culture war seeking to elimintate claims of discrimination against law enforcement. Hankison was convicted last November of one count of violating Breonna Taylor's civil rights through the use of excessive force by firing 10 shots through her window during a raid, which police claimed was to seize illegal drugs. During testimony, he claimed it was to protect fellow officers during the 'no-knock' raid. His shots hit a neighboring apartment. Taylor's boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, shot at the officers thinking they were intruders. Officers Myles Cosgrove and Jonathan Mattingly fired back, striking and killing Taylor. 'If I knew everything I knew today, I never would have fired my gun,' Hankison said to the Taylor family and her friends in court before sentencing, according to local CBS network WLKY . Two other officers, Kyle Meany and Joshua Jaynes, are awaiting trial on charges alleging that they falsified the warrant used for the botched raid on Taylor's home. Cosgrove and Mattingly were never charged for their role in Taylor's death. SEE ALSO Officer In Breonna Taylor's Death Given 33-Month Jail Term was originally published on
Yahoo
18-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Can the National Park Service thrive under Trump administration cuts?
When Sue Fritzke was the superintendent of Capitol Reef National Park, her employees performed additional duties beyond their job description. In the years that she managed the park from 2018 through 2023, workers said they were stretched thin, requiring cross-team work. Fritzke said this multitasking of additional responsibilities was called 'collateral duty.' 'You had people that were a park ranger and 'collateral duty EMT,' 'collateral duty firefighter,' 'collateral duty everything-else-that-you could-possibly-think-of,' even search and rescue,' Fritzke said. When something came up, everyone chipped in. The people paving the roads would help with wildfires, while educators or rangers at the welcome center would help with medical emergencies. Eight members of her team got EMT certified, just because it was helpful for the range of responsibilities required within the park. The employees were paid to do the additional 'voluntary' hours of work, Fritzke said, but it wasn't really voluntary. It also competed with the jobs each was hired to do. 'You're stretching the ability of those staff with all of that collateral duty … because, ultimately, they need to be focused on their core duties, whether it's law enforcement, fire management, protecting the park's resources or educating the public about a particular park,' Fritzke said. 'All of a sudden now, you just don't have that depth of staffing to be able to do that.' Fritzke was referring to staffing cuts made to the National Park Service earlier this year by the Trump administration and executed by the Department of Government Efficiency team in a broader effort to shrink the federal work force. Probationary employees were laid off, hiring was frozen and — according to former NPS employees, conservation advocates and multiple national outlets including Politico — some staffers took a given option to retire early as others left voluntarily. What is the total workforce reduction? That remains unclear, due to a Department of the Interior policy that prevents anyone at the agency from discussing staffing levels. No one is allowed or willing to publicly discuss park staff at all. Generally, questions from the Deseret News were met with defensive responses from staffers who declined to comment, highlighted that their particular park's services were fully operable or redirected the query to a different office. Grand Teton National Park, however, did confirm that their staffing numbers remained the same from 2024 to 2025. Across multiple requests, the answer from the individual parks, the national communications team, straight through to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum's public affairs team was essentially the same: 'It is department policy that we don't comment on personnel.' The National Parks Conservation Association, a conservation advocacy group, pulled data from the Department of the Interior's workforce database and published a report July 3 that found that since January the National Park Service has lost 24% of its permanent staff. It also found that, of the 8,000 seasonal staff that Burgum pledged to hire this year, 4,500 were brought on. Within the 433 'individual park units' and 63 national parks that represent an area larger than 85 million acres that the Park Service manages, it employs just over 20,000 people. Those seasonal employees are a large percentage of the overall team. 'It's critical that the public understands that these staffing losses are not just deep, but they're also incredibly indiscriminate,' said John Garder, the senior director of budget and appropriations for the National Parks Conservation Association. He said it found that archaeologists, historians, wildlife experts, air- and water-quality experts, but also more than 100 superintendents — think of these like park CEOs — have left the service this year. 'We're concerned about not just what it looks like this summer — the challenge is far greater than that — but about what this means for the long-term capacity for the park service to meet its basic mandate to ensure the protection of these incredible natural, historic, scenic and recreational resources,' Garder said. 'So, front-facing to the public, it looks like everything is fine. Everything's not fine. There are people who are cleaning toilets, who really need to be going out and collecting data about what's going on with resources.' Sue Fritzke, former superentendant of Capitol Reef National Park Neither the National Park Service nor the Department of the Interior would confirm or comment on those staffing numbers, which could not be independently verified by the Deseret News. One long-tenured National Park Service employee from a well-known park in the Intermountain West spoke under condition of anonymity. The person said the cuts 'vary tremendously from park to park, unit to unit,' making it difficult to draw broad conclusions about how the parks are doing. That person added that for their park, at least, 'overall things are pretty normal this year.' Will the parks be improved? No parks have been permanently closed or lost conservation protections this summer. And, while some have had to alter hours of operation, the institutions are open, even if at lower — or more 'efficient' — staffing levels. The same day that the National Parks Conservation Association report was published in early July, President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled 'Making America Beautiful Again by Improving Our National Parks.' The order stipulates the administration will preserve opportunities for American families to make great memories in national parks 'by increasing entry fees for foreign tourists, improving affordability for United States residents and expanding opportunities to enjoy America's splendid national treasures.' The order is primarily focused on revenue generation, but it also addresses the lingering issue of deferred maintenance that the parks have navigated for years. Billions of dollars in maintenance projects have been left unaddressed due to decades of limited budgets — across administrations of both political parties — within the park system. Trump's order requires the Interior secretary to 'take all appropriate action to fully implement the National Parks and Public Land Legacy Restoration Fund established in the Great American Outdoors Act.' That action alone will release $1.3 billion a year for the next five years for the park service to tackle lingering issues. More broadly than this one agency, among Trump's campaign promises was one to reduce the federal work force. Culling employees from massive governmental bureaucracies — in 2024, the NPS had more than 20,000 permanent staff and over 138,000 volunteers — is considered one way to rein in federal spending, another key promise of Trump's presidential campaign. The effort to limit government spending was the reason Trump created DOGE in the first place. It was DOGE that, in February, cut the first 1,000 employees from the National Park Service as part of that larger effort to slim down the federal government. The Department of the Interior offered 'deferred retirements' (buyouts) which many took. Some were exempted from the offer, according to the Associated Press. Those were wildland firefighters, law enforcement officers, those in aviation jobs and cyber security positions, but it applied to all other positions within the park from custodians, rangers and scientists to historians managing the second-largest archaeological collection in the U.S. By May, the conservation association determined that the National Park Service had lost 16% of its personnel. Then came the July assessment, which increased the figure to 24%. In those months, some of the park employees who were fired had been rehired, but who and how many were permanently let go remains unclear. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act that Trump signed on July 4 removes $267 million of funding committed to the park service. It was far less than the $900 million originally suggested by the Trump administration, now representing 8% of its budget. 'It is department policy that we don't comment on personnel.' Secretary Doug Burgum's Public Affair's office Were the parks overstaffed? Phil Francis was part of a National Park Service restructuring and staff reduction that took place in the early 1990s. The regional office where he worked in Santa Fe was closed, but that was far from the end of his time in the national park system. He found another position within the service and his career wound up spanning more than 40 years, until his 2013 retirement. He spent the last several years as the deputy and acting superintendent of Great Smokey Mountain National Park. Francis is now board chair for the Coalition to Protect America's National Parks, a group of former national park employees who leverage their experience to advocate for the park service (Sue Fritzke is also a board member). 'I actually have experienced a reduction in force,' he said. 'Although I think today is even worse.' That's because he watched staffing numbers and budgets decline over the years while park visitation steadily increased. In the 1990s, 'most of us felt the budgets were too small to handle the responsibilities that we were given and given to serve the public,' Francis said. 'So every year, every budget was passed, we saw small reductions. But cumulatively, those reductions became pretty huge.' In the early 1990s, the parks had between 255 million and 274 million visitors a year. Last year, the parks had their largest number of visitors ever with 331 million people. Yellowstone National Park just recorded its busiest May ever. From Francis's perspective, the National Park Service begins each year in a 'huge deficit' because of dollars not allocated the year before (the deferred maintenance issue). Since the start of his career, 'we've continued to see deficits as enlarging. So given where we are today — where the idea is to cut the National Park Service employees by some 30% or so — that's on top of having to absorb the costs of the past.' NPCA's Garder said staffing requirements had steadily eroded since 2010, under a Democratic administration. 'The workforce capacity fell by over a fifth in the last 10 years,' Garder said. The 'collateral duty' Fritzke described is rather ubiquitous and far-reaching, Garder said. 'You have archaeologists who are cleaning bathrooms because they lost their janitorial staff. You've got law enforcement officers who are parking cars because they've lost their visitor services people,' Garder said. 'People who are working two, sometimes even three jobs, because the parks didn't have the funding to hire the colleagues that they used to have.' According to Garder, it means park employees are all working in visitor-facing roles to keep up the facade that the parks are not experiencing any impact from staffing or budget cuts. What is the National Park Service's mandate? The first national park was Yellowstone, founded in 1872, but it was not until 1916 that the National Park Service was officially formed. The Organic Act of 1916 — which was cosponsored by Utah Sen. Reed Smoot — gave the NPS the mandate 'to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wildlife therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.' That 'unimpaired mandate' is something national park employees reference as a guiding principle. It requires that parks or historical sites must be conserved and maintained for future generations, and that through that conservation, they provide enjoyment for Americans. But in the midst of the staffing and budget cuts this year, Burgum signed a secretarial order on April 3 titled, 'Ensuring National Parks Are Open and Accessible.' The order makes it clear that parks are to prioritize being available to visitors, stipulating that any park closure or change of operational hours would require director-level review. It sent the parks scrambling to make sure visitor-facing elements were fully operational and staffed. Even if that meant back-office personnel whose jobs were to support visitor services and maintain conservation efforts were not doing their primary roles. 'National parks are the best idea we ever had. Absolutely American, absolutely democratic, they reflect us at our best rather than our worst,' said Wallace Stegner, the late novelist and conservationist. We may not know exactly what the job-related stress points are at the national parks, but, according to Fritzke, it is a good time to emphasize gratitude toward national park employees. 'People need to be patient because I think the morale of the National Park Service has never been great, but now it is in the toilet,' she said. 'People just need to say thank you because right now they are not being thanked by the administration.' That long-tenured employee did have something else to say. 'Parks employees are doing the best they can. They are stressed but they are committed to doing what they do.' Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
14-07-2025
- Yahoo
Former Mass. firefighter gets prison sentence for using dead 13-year-old's identity for 6 years
A former Massachusetts firefighter and Vietnamese national was sentenced to over two years in prison on Wednesday for stealing the identity of a 13-year-old who died in 2002 and using it to gain employment for six years, the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney's Office announced Thursday. Braintree resident Truong Nguyen, 50, pleaded guilty to passport fraud and aggravated identity theft in March, the U.S. Attorney's office said in a press release. He will be deported upon completion of his prison sentence. Federal authorities began investigating Nguyen after he submitted a passport application using the victim's identification information at a U.S. post office in Weymouth in March 2023, the U.S. Attorney's office said. After reviewing the application and verifying records showing the victim had died, the Boston Passport Agency denied the application and forwarded it and supporting documents Nguyen had submitted to federal law enforcement. A subsequent investigation determined that Nguyen used the victim's identity to obtain and use multiple government-issued identification documents in the victim's name, including Massachusetts driver's licenses and a Social Security card, the U.S. Attorney's office said. He also used the victim's identity to obtain an EMT-Basic Certification in 2021 and an EMT-Paramedic Certification in 2023 before applying for a job as a paramedic. Read more: Vietnamese man pleads guilty to using dead Mass. teen's ID to get passport Then, in November 2023, Nguyen used the victim's identity to gain entrance into the Massachusetts Firefighting Academy, the U.S. Attorney's office said. After graduating, he worked for the Melrose Fire Department until May 2024 when he was arrested. Nguyen was previously investigated by the Massachusetts RMV in August 2018 after it discovered that he had been issued two licenses under different identities — his own and the victim's, the U.S. Attorney's office said. But at the hearing, he convinced RMV officials that the victim's identity was his true identity, resulting in the case being closed with a six-month suspension on the license in the victim's identity and a permanent suspension on the license with his real name. Nguyen originally immigrated to the U.S. in 1979 as a legal permanent resident, but after being convicted of second-degree burglary in 1991, his status was revoked, the U.S. Attorney's office said. It was ordered that he be deported, but the deportation never happened. Nguyen was later arrested in 2010 under the name Truong X. Nguyen and charged with embezzlement and larceny, the U.S. Attorney's office said. In that case, he was accused of stealing over $46,000 from the Norwell Firefighters Union while working as a union officer. Holyoke drug trafficker gets 6 years for having gun while on release from feds Mass. woman charged in connection with attacking 4 people she didn't know Nearly $115,000 in rare Pokemon cards stolen from New Bedford collectibles store Roslindale man sentenced to prison for killing man while racing on I-93 Ex-Boston cop accused of beating intoxicated man on St. Patrick's Day weekend released Read the original article on MassLive.