Latest news with #Harder
ITV News
4 days ago
- Sport
- ITV News
'We should be having goal-line technology' Jess Fishlock on Denmark game
Wales suffered Women's Nations League relegation after losing 1-0 away to Denmark in controversial fashion in Group A4. Rhian Wilkinson's team realistically required victory in Odense to avoid being sent down to League B but Pernille Harder's 48th-minute strike consigned them to a third defeat of the campaign and bottom spot. It could have been a different story had Jess Fishlock's first-half effort been awarded, with her follow-up shot seemingly crossing the line but not given by the officials and with no VAR in operation, Wales went down narrowly. Speaking to BBC Sport after the game, she said "We should be having goal-line technology because it's so obviously a goal "It needs to be better. At this level, we need the technology and we need everything to ensure that it's fair." A 2-1 home loss to Denmark in April put Wales on the verge of relegation from the top tier and they got off to a poor start on Friday with defender Mayzee Davies forced off after only six minutes. The 18-year-old sustained a knee issue which could put in doubt her participation in this summer's European Championship. The early change rocked Wales as Harder headed against the crossbar soon after before Olivia Clark was required to make two saves in quick succession. Wales did regroup and a moment of controversy occurred midway through the half when Ceri Holland was denied by Maja Bay Ostergaard and Fishlock sent an effort towards goal, but Stine Ballisager got back to clear. Replays later appeared to show the ball had crossed the line, but it remained goalless at the break after Amalie Vangsgaard squandered a fine opportunity for Denmark and Harder was twice thwarted in quick succession. It would not take Harder long after half-time to break the deadlock, though, as the Danish forward slotted home in the 48th minute. Wilkinson's side responded well with a Fishlock header sent over before Holland had a shot saved by Ostergaard. Hannah Cain and Rachel Rowe were introduced, but Wales failed to find a leveller and relegation to League B was confirmed.
Winnipeg Free Press
27-05-2025
- Business
- Winnipeg Free Press
Style Encore's second city location steps onto men's clothing stage
Chantelle Harder didn't always have entrepreneurial aspirations, but today she runs seven businesses. In May, Harder and business partner Alex Domingo opened Style Encore at 1190 St. James St. The Winnipeg store purchases and resells clothing and accessories, and is part of a chain created by franchisor Winmark Corp. Harder also owns a Plato's Closet location and a Once Upon a Child store in Winnipeg, and she is the founder of Harder HIIT Fitness, a non-profit community gym in the city. The 46-year-old also co-owns three Plato's Closet locations in Alberta. MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS Style Encore co-owner Chantelle Harder in the new consignment shop at 1190 James St. Harder's employees are often teens working their first jobs and she enjoys the opportunity to mentor them. 'I love working with young people,' said Harder, who was an educator before becoming a business owner. 'Watching them learn and grow is so rewarding. It's kind of like being a teacher, to be honest with you, which is maybe why I love it so much.' Style Encore offers affordable, gently used casual and business clothing, shoes, handbags and accessories for people in their late 20s and older. It sources the items by purchasing them from customers, who can receive cash on the spot for goods they've outgrown or no longer want. It's the second Style Encore location in Winnipeg (the other is on Nairn Avenue) and the only one in the city to offer men's clothing and an e-commerce platform for online shoppers. The store features a range of brands including Ann Taylor, Banana Republic, Gap and Lululemon. The store carries items that sell for as little as $5, as well as luxury handbags, designer shoes and sunglasses that retail for hundreds of dollars. 'I love the concept of keeping all of these things out of our landfills and giving the community a safe and welcoming place to come sell and buy,' Harder said. Harder made her first foray into business in 2001, when she and her then-husband started an online pharmacy based in Minnedosa. Ten years later, she opened her Once Upon a Child location. Once Upon a Child and Plato's Closet are also Winmark brands that buy and sell gently used items, the first for children and the second for teenagers and young adults. For Harder, it made sense to open a store for customers 25 and older so she could meet the needs of people of all ages. She asked Domingo, a human resources manager for her other businesses, to join her in the venture. The business partners and their staff purchased 76,000 items in the six weeks leading up to the location's grand opening May 1. Since then, business at the 4,200-square-foot store has been brisk, Domingo said. 'We expected to be busy but I don't think we expected to be as busy as we are. It's a nice surprise,' she said. Harder and Domingo are both Métis and say they are proud to represent Indigenous business owners. They also find meaning in running a business that focuses on sustainability and offers customers affordable options. Harder is motivated in part by the fact she lives with Stage 4 metastatic breast cancer. After enduring whole-brain radiation therapy and ongoing chemo treatments every three weeks, she says she is driven to expand her businesses. 'It just kind of gives you a wake up call to make sure that you're living the life that you want to lead,' said Harder, who has four children between the ages of 15 and 21. 'I hope that my stores can create a legacy for my family, and for Alex, too, at Style Encore. I find being busy is the best cancer cure of all.' Friends Alison Wolfe and Karen Toews visited the store for the first time Monday and were impressed. 'I wasn't expecting it to be this full right away, but it's nice to have a lot of options here,' Wolfe said. Toews appreciates Style Encore focuses on selling quality items. Monday Mornings The latest local business news and a lookahead to the coming week. 'We're not necessarily looking for the fast fashion. We're looking for the stuff that will last a little longer,' she said. Headquartered in Minneapolis, Winmark Corp. advertises itself as 'the resale company.' In addition to Style Encore, Plato's Closet and Once Upon a Child, the U.S. company owns the retail resale brands Play It Again Sports and Music Go Round. As of December 2024, Winmark had 1,350 franchises in operation. There are more than 65 Style Encore locations in Canada and the U.S. Aaron EppReporter Aaron Epp reports on business for the Free Press. After freelancing for the paper for a decade, he joined the staff full-time in 2024. He was previously the associate editor at Canadian Mennonite. Read more about Aaron. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Lawmakers form new caucus to work on infrastructure projects
WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) – A new caucus formed in Congress aims to cut red tape and make it easier to build housing, infrastructure and energy projects. 'We have over a billion dollars of natural gas and energy right in our backyards,' Rep. Rob Bresnahan (R-Pa.) said. The bipartisan, 'Build America Caucus,' says it has one main goal. 'We've got to get back to getting stuff done,' Rep. Josh Harder (D-Calif.) said. That 'stuff' lawmakers say is building more housing, infrastructure and energy projects by cutting red tape that makes it take so long. 'Four years later I'm still being told by my community that it's going to take another decade before they can actually fix some of the bridges that are in desperate need of repair,' Harder said. Rep. Josh Harder is leading the new group. He says they'll work on streamlining regulations that slow down needed projects. 'We have to make sure that we're putting outcomes above process,' Harder said. The group says its priorities are unleashing American energy through permitting reform, making housing more affordable by incentivizing states to build and speeding up infrastructure projects by simplifying regulations. Lawmakers say they can do all that and still protect the environment. 'We have a lot of protections now. Let's build stuff,' Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.) said. Rep. Scott Peters says there are clean energy projects waiting to be built. 'But the environmental laws are in our own way. And we have to take a hard look in the mirror and change that,' Peters said. Harder says the caucus plans to talk to policy experts over the next few weeks. Then, start turning those ideas into legislation. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
San Francisco Chronicle
08-05-2025
- Politics
- San Francisco Chronicle
Democrats see ‘abundance' as a path to renewed prosperity
Heeding the 'abundance' message of 'build more, faster' that many Democrats are embracing as their way back to power, moderate Central Valley Democratic Rep. Josh Harder, D-Stockton, assembled a new bipartisan coalition of House members Thursday united by its desire to cut federal red tape to make housing and infrastructure projects quicker to build. Calling themselves the Build America caucus, the group of 30 House members, including 10 Republicans, pledged to 'build more affordable housing, speed up our infrastructure projects and lower energy prices, all of this while bringing costs down for people,' said Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet, D-MIchigan. 'What you're witnessing here,' Harder said Thursday outside the Capitol with other members of the caucus, 'is a unicorn event … a bipartisan caucus coming together to actually solve problems. Feels like it doesn't happen enough in Washington.' Caucuses, like-minded members united by a cause, are a dime-a-dozen in Washington, span the alphabet from the American Seafood Caucus to the Venezuela Democracy Caucus and often do little. But Harder and other members of the new fledgling group said this would be different given renewed pressures on lawmakers, particularly Democrats, to show that they could 'get stuff done' after their November shellacking. That philosophy has gained momentum in recent months after the publication of the best-selling book 'Abundance,' by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson. Their prescription for fellow liberals: Show you can build something. Housing, services for the homeless, high-speed rail: These are all things Democrats have failed to deliver, nowhere more spectacularly than California, which they write, is a 'land of wonders.' 'Liberals should be able to say, Vote for us and we will govern the country the way we govern California,' they wrote. 'Instead, conservatives are able to say, 'Vote for them and they will govern the country the way they govern California'!' Harder, who r epresents a San Joaquin Valley district that supported Donald Trump, said the book has 'really given voice to a sense of frustration, combining anger from different sectors under a common theme. This has been a problem percolating for a long time, and it's very bipartisan. Voters in my district are frustrated by both Democratic and Republican efforts to move forward on projects.' Over the past several years, California lawmakers have tried to loosen restrictions on state regulations in hopes of spurring more housing construction. Gov. Gavin Newsom boasts that he has signed 42 bills altering the California Environmental Quality Act, colloquially known as CEQA, the state's landmark environmental law. Earlier this year, Oakland Assembly Member Buffy Wicks introduced legislation that would exempt most infill housing from the environmental reviews required under CEQA. But Harder notes that federal bottlenecks remain. He said he voted for the bipartisan infrastructure law four years ago 'with real hope that that would unleash a construction and innovation engine across California, and that really hasn't materialized. I'm still waiting for shovels to be put in the dirt for a bridge (the Seventh Street Bridge in Modesto) that I cited in my vote for the bipartisan infrastructure law four years ago. That bridge may not be built for another 10 years.' About 60 percent of all Inflation Reduction Act-related clean economy projects — and 85 percent of total private-sector investments — in the first two years after the 2022 law passed went to Republican congressional districts, even though no Republican member of Congress voted for the IRA, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan business group E2. Harder said the fact that California is not getting its fair share of IRA money should be 'an embarrassment.' 'We consider ourselves one of the most pro-climate states in the nation. We're not getting those projects. They're going to Texas or Florida or Arizona,' Harder said. 'They're not coming to California because you can't get stuff built and all those are federal projects that have state requirements as well as federal requirements.' Harder said 'a lot of the bottlenecks around things like building bridges and roads are more federal than they are state. So if we're successful here, ultimately, people will see more good things being built in their community, be that the pothole across the street, be that the bridge they drive over to get to work, the house that needs to be renovated, or whatever else it is.' But other roadblocks exist. Harder doubts the caucus will make much progress while Congress is focused on the GOP-written tax bill that takes center stage this month. But if the Republican-dominated House bristled earlier this year at approving disaster aid for victims of the Los Angeles wildfires, why would lawmakers pass legislation that might help California, which is regularly mocked by President Trump. Harder hopes Republican members of the caucus can help it succeed in an era when Republicans control Congress. The group includes Republicans with some seniority who might have a better connection to House leadership, including Rep. Gus Bilirakis, who chairs an Energy and Commerce Committee subcommittee; Rep. Michael McCaul, R-TX, who is Chairman Emeritus of the House Committee on Homeland Security, and Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Washington and Rep. David Valadao, R-Hanford, both members of the powerful House Appropriations Committee. Harder said permitting reform, which the caucus would focus on, is generally one of the few areas of bipartisan agreement in Washington. Rep. Chuck Edwards, R-N.C., said Thursday that 'Delays stretch for years before a single shovel often hits the ground.' 'This stagnation isn't fate. It's the product of policy, and it can be fixed. We believe in unleashing energy through smarter permitting and making homeownership more accessible by empowering builders and in rebuilding our infrastructure by streamlining processes, not burying them in paperwork.' Harder said it is incumbent on California to show how a state with a Democratic supermajority in the Legislature and the party holding every statewide office can build things quickly. 'California should be a shining beacon on a hill of how great life looks like when you vote for Democrats in a super majority over and over again, and frankly, it doesn't. California is a cautionary tale to many voters across the country,' Harder said. Some progressive Democrats have pushed back on the abundance movement as a giveaway to corporate America and have worried that cutting red tape could mean circumventing important environmental protections. Rep. Jim Himes, D-Connecticut, acknowledged that this bi-partisan cooperation will be hard. Both parties will need to challenge their own supporters. 'In my party, people are going to need to realize that a lot of the regulations that we put in place for all the right reasons, to preserve the environment, to make sure that communities had a voice, that those regulations may have worked in the 1900s but they don't work in the 21st century,' Himes said. 'My Republican colleagues are going to need to realize that innovation and progress involves the government as a partner. From semiconductors to the internet, that has been the history of American innovation.'
Politico
08-05-2025
- Politics
- Politico
House Democrat starts ‘abundance movement'-inspired caucus
House Democrats are getting Ezra Klein-pilled. A bipartisan group of lawmakers led by Rep. Josh Harder (D-Calif.) is launching a new roughly 30-member bloc that's claiming inspiration from the 'abundance movement' championed by the liberal commentator Klein. 'This is a moment that has been building for a while,' said Harder. 'I think there's been a lot of simmering interest in permitting reform and making sure that things are built faster, better, cheaper. But now, I think over the past year or so, it's really reached a boiling point on both sides.' It's the latest sign that some Democrats see the abundance movement's ideas — something that sprung up around Klein's book 'Abundance' co-authored with Atlantic writer Derek Thompson — as a solution to the party's woes. The subject is not without its critics. Some progressives have pushed back on the proposals, which they argue fail to focus on what they see as larger problems like the concentration of power. But in spite of those detractors, Harder said his new caucus has a broad swath of support. 'I think this may be one of the only active bipartisan caucuses doing work that has folks across the ideological rainbow,' Harder said. The bloc's emergence comes amid a broader conversation among Democrats about their post-2024 message and potential failure of governance in blue cities and states. Harder said he'd read the book and had been in touch with Klein, who also spoke at the Senate Democrats' private gathering this week. In a short interview, Klein said it was 'good' that the caucus was forming but that he didn't know much about it. Harder said the 'Build America Caucus' is set to focus on cutting red tape around energy permitting and housing, and aimed to make recommendations on embedding provisions in must-pass legislation this Congress like the annual defense authorization bill or federal surface transportation legislation. But with congressional Republicans currently pursuing a party-line policy megabill, it's not clear how much of an appetite for bipartisan dealmaking exists in Washington at the moment. Harder, who represents a district around Stockton, California, cited his frustrations with the cost overruns and delays associated with marquee Democratic projects, including his state's high-speed rail project and the rollout of funding from the bipartisan infrastructure and climate law signed by former President Joe Biden. 'I think voters want to see action, and I think we need a government that actually works and actually delivers the services that people are voting for,' Harder said.
