Latest news with #McPherson
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Marlow reinstates offices, approves lot split request
MARLOW — Marlow City Council reinstated several offices within the council and Marlow Municipal Authority, including the Vice Mayor May 22. City councilors nominated and approved Jon Rich for the position of Vice Mayor. The board then re-appointed two Marlow Municipal Authority trustees and a Planning and Zoning Commission position. The board approved to re-appoint Tom Wheat as MMA Trustee for a 1-year term, Tandy Banks as a MMA Trustee for a 1-year term and Harbour Whitaker as a Planning and Zoning Commissioner for a 3-year term. In another segment, the city board opened up a lot split request from the Planning and Zoning Commission from Cameron Construction, Inc. The lot sits in the 1300 block of North 2nd. City Administrator Jason McPherson said everyone was happy with the presentation for the request. 'It's going to lead to four houses,' he said. McPherson noted a couple highlights from the presentation, such as the plans to get two completed and then build the others at the same time. He said with the garage, the property is around 1,400 square foot. McPherson said there's only one issue about possible flooding. 'We're going to work through that with the building permit process,' he said. McPherson said crews will perform a hydrology report. 'We think we know where the water is going to go,' he said. 'We're pretty sure with all this rain that we had, we actually got to see it.' McPherson said they don't think it will change, but they will have an engineer take a look at it. 'We think it should be a pretty successful use of that property,' he said. The board approved the rezone request with a 4-0 vote. Next, the board opened up a publication notice for a petition for annexation. McPherson said residents on Jerry Wayne Lane want to annex into the city. 'Portions of that were annexed into the city when that stretch made it out to the 'Y' so they'd like to be included back in that,' he said. 'This is their petition to the city, they are going to pay for the publication.' McPherson said this would lead into the June meeting for a public hearing for the annexation. The board approved to authorize publication with a 4-0 vote. Next, the board approved a Federal Fiscal Year 2025 SPR Mini Transportation Planning Grant for $12,000 from Southwest Oklahoma Regional Transportation Planning Organization through SWODA. McPherson said the grant will cover street sign mapping and pay for 80% of the street sign mapping through SORTPO. In a special meeting of the MMA, the trustee board opened a contract with Fast Forward for thermal imaging services for the electric distribution system for two years at $23,786. McPherson said this is the first item on the fiscal year 2026 budget. 'This is what we did last summer,' he said. 'Did a lot of good in finding issues that happened before an outage that we could go up and fix.' McPherson said the cost was $15,000 last year. 'We've helped them get a couple other towns down this way, so they cut our price for us and gave us a two-year deal, just under $12,000 a year,' he said. The trustee board approved the service with a 5-0 vote. In other news, the city council and MMA board approved: • To accept audit engagement letter from HSPG & Associates for audit services for fiscal year 2023-24. The City of Marlow will host its next meeting at 5:30 p.m. June 24 in the Council Chambers at 119 S. Second St., Marlow.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Canadian doctors who served in Gaza call for arms embargo, sanctions on Israel
OTTAWA — Canadian medical professionals who treated wounded Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are urging Ottawa to stop all military trade with Israel. The doctors said Wednesday Canada's current restrictions on arms exports to Israel aren't good enough, and they alleged Canadian firms are still making military components being used in Gaza. Israel has insisted for months that its military operations in Gaza are meant to stop the threat posed by Hamas, but it has faced a wave of international condemnation over the high civilian death count and its restrictions on aid, including food and medical supplies. Orthopedic surgeon Deirdre Nunan told a Wednesday news conference on Parliament Hill she saw many patients with ghastly injuries during her five visits to Gaza — including injuries consistent with drone strikes that were incurred during a ceasefire. "As a surgeon, I cannot treat a genocide. As doctors, we cannot stop a famine. So we demand that the Canadian government take meaningful action," the Saskatchewan doctor said. She was joined at the press conference by other medical professionals from the group Doctors Against Genocide, which took part in a protest Wednesday at a major arms-industry trade show called CANSEC. The group said companies represented at the trade show have built components deployed in Gaza and cited one Ottawa company that makes sensors used in fighter jets. That's despite Parliament's vote in March 2024 to stop new arms permits for Israel and the federal Liberals stating that they paused existing permits to make sure Canadian components are not used in Gaza. Canada has not said whether Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza and Prime Minister Mark Carney says it's up to international tribunals to decide whether that is the case. NDP MP Heather McPherson, who pushed for the arms export restrictions the Liberals adopted in part, said Carney has not significantly changed the approach to Israel the government took under his predecessor Justin Trudeau. Carney joined his French and British counterparts in threatening "targeted sanctions" against Israel last week, while Foreign Minister Anita Anand said Israel is "using food as a political tool" in Gaza. McPherson and the doctors are calling on Ottawa to ban military exports, sanction Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and suspend a bilateral trade agreement with Israel. The Bloc Québécois on Wednesday repeated its call for sanctions on Israeli officials, saying it's the only measure that would get Netanyahu to respect international law. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said the Liberals should instead combat antisemitism in Canada and impose sanctions on Iran. "It really is extremely unfair that Mr. Carney is targeting the democratic, Jewish state of Israel when, in fact, Hamas continues to hold hostages," he told reporters Wednesday. The Canadian Press has asked Global Affairs Canada for comment but has not yet received a response. McPherson has drafted a motion, which she plans to table in the Commons with the support of Green Leader Elizabeth May, calling on Canada to formally recognize Palestinian statehood. Liberal MPs who have vocally supported Palestinians said they were interested in reading the motion. Montreal-based emergency and family physician Sarah Lalonde told Wednesday's news conference she saw maimed Palestinian civilians who had no idea why they had been attacked by Israel. She said that since she left Gaza, Israel bombed the hospital where she worked and her colleagues are growing more desperate. "The nurses on the video call looked me in the eye and they said, 'We're starving,'" she said. Toronto physician Rizwan Minhas told the press conference he saw children with extreme burns that will impair them for life. He said that with international journalists barred from entering the territory, doctors are sometimes the only outside eyewitnesses to horrific events. They speak for "the voices underneath the rubble, for the children bombed in their beds, for the doctors killed in their scrubs," he said. Ottawa primary-care physician Yipeng Ge compared Israel's restrictions on food reaching Gazans to those enacted by the Canadian government against Indigenous peoples after Confederation. "We're witnessing in real time, live-streamed, the annihilation and extermination of an entire people," he said. "This is an entirely preventable famine imposed on the Palestinian people in Gaza by Israel and also its allies, who are withholding life-saving food, water and medical aid to an entire population." Earlier this month, a leading international authority on the severity of hunger crises known as the IPC said Gaza faces famine if Israel doesn't stop blockading food shipments. Israel insists the IPC is undercounting how much food is reaching Palestinians and claims critics are ignoring concerns about Hamas taking aid meant for civilians. But the United Nations has echoed the IPC's warning and says it's inappropriate for Israel to take over the administration of aid from international non-partisan organizations. Israeli military spokesman Nadav Shoshani claimed Wednesday that "international organizations are on a campaign … against the country facilitating aid into Gaza. And worse — it's a campaign of disinformation serving terrorists." On Thursday, Canadian aid groups will take to Parliament Hill for a separate news conference calling for Ottawa to reject an aid-distribution system put in place by Israel and the U.S. One of the groups, Human Concern International, says 17 Canadian-funded aid trucks are ready to deploy but have not been allowed to enter Gaza. On Tuesday, Palestinians were required to line up in pens monitored by armed contractors, but they rushed a food-distribution site. Israeli troops opened fire, injuring dozens. On Wednesday, hundreds stormed a UN food warehouse in Gaza, and hospital officials said four died in the chaos. The Israeli embassy in Ottawa defended aid distribution in the territory. "Israel continues its consistent efforts to facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza — including food, medical supplies, and fuel — while actively working to prevent the theft of this aid by Hamas," the embassy wrote. "Field reports ... indicate that Hamas continues to block civilian access to distribution points, imposes delays, and endangers the safety of both aid workers and civilians." The Canadian Muslim Public Affairs Council, meanwhile, is calling on Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada to fix the flaws in a program meant to resettle up to 5,000 people fleeing Gaza with family ties to Canada. The group says that just 41 people have managed to leave the Gaza Strip through the program Ottawa launched in January 2024. It says that Palestinians who managed to escape Gaza on their own are languishing in places like Cairo. In January, the department said 645 people had arrived in Canada through this program, including those who found their own way out of the territory. IRCC did not provide more recent data by late afternoon Wednesday. Hamas and affiliated militants attacked Israel in October 2023, killing 1,200 people, including civilians and soldiers, and taking 250 people hostage; 58 hostages have died or remain in captivity. Gaza's health ministry, which is controlled by Hamas, says more than 55,000 people have died during Israel's offensive, including civilians and militants. — With files from Émilie Bergeron This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 28, 2025. Dylan Robertson, The Canadian Press
Otago Daily Times
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Otago Daily Times
SouthCon battles set to take hold
Battle lines will be drawn and armies will muster for next week's war-games. Table-top gaming tournament Southcon returns to the Edgar Centre during King's Birthday weekend for two days of strategy and skirmishes. The event, organised by the Otago Miniature Tacticians Society, will pit gamers against each other for glory. James McPherson has been playing since he was about 9 years old. His "gateway drug" to table-top gaming was Lord of the Rings . "In the early 2000s, the Lord of the Rings movies were coming out and they also released the Lord of the Rings version of the game." Since then he has also enjoyed playing other table-top miniature wargames. It was an enjoyable hobby because it offered many aspects, such as personalising model figures through painting. There was even the option to alter figures instead of using them as designed. "You can build them as they come straight out of the box, or you can do a bit of customisation to them too." The injection-moulded plastic pieces arrive in a sprue, or tray of connected parts, ready to be detached and built into models. "You have got to clip them out and glue it all together." Mr McPherson uses water-based acrylic paint, beginning with a primer coat and then airbrushing for depth. "Once I have got the base colour down, then I get out the actual brush itself and then I paint everything else around it." "I'll start doing highlights to kind of bring up more depth and detail on it." Even though the basic models of miniatures started out all the same, there were many chances for creative choices, such as paint colour. One example is a series of small goblins he painted green rather than the classic red. "They are very dynamic models." Alongside the creative work of building and painting, there is the social side of playing the game. "So it is a hobby with a lot of different layers, which means that you kind of get different types of enjoyment out of it," Mr McPherson said. Society president Kelly Gragg said Southcon drew about 80 to 100 players from around the country. During the event, about 50 gaming boards will showcase battlefields from miniature-wargames such as Warhammer Age of Sigmar , Warhammer The Old World and Lord of the Rings . Each 1m by 1.5m battlemat is set up with varied terrain features, and gamers then decide how to position their armies. Gamers do not know in advance how opponents will deploy, so configuring an army is partly strategy, partly guesswork. Most games are one-on-one and last about two to three hours. Each player had 2000 points to use to configure their army, which could include a range of characters worth different points. "You could have five big giant kind of things, or you could have hundreds of little guys. "So there is a lot of strategy and tactics in how you build your army, in terms of what elements you add to it." Players were provided a scenario and goal for the game, such as taking a hillside or breaking through enemy lines. The roll of the dice dictates whether gamers succeed, determining if a character is wounded or killed. Members of the public are welcome to drop in and watch games in progress, Mr Gragg said. "There is a huge kind of sportsmanship aspect to it as well, being able to win well, but also being able to lose well." Southcon 2025 Edgar Centre Saturday, May 31, 9am-5pm Sunday, June 1, 9am-3pm
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Radio Host Makes Major Aaron Judge Accusation Amid Juan Soto Controversies
By all accounts, Aaron Judge and Juan Soto's one-year partnership was productive and drama-free, even if the latter opted not to re-up with the New York Yankees last winter. A thrilling 2024 Yankees season featured no shortage of celebrations and smiles between Judge and Soto, who combined for 99 home runs, 253 RBI, and 18.7 bWAR. The two repeatedly praised one another during the Bombers' pennant run, and Judge insisted during spring training that they were still friends despite Soto joining the crosstown Mets. Advertisement WFAN (NY) radio host and devoted Yankees fan Keith McPherson doesn't believe it, especially not after last weekend's Subway Series. 'Guarantee you Judge does not rock with this guy,' McPherson declared in an X/Twitter video. New York Yankees right fielder Juan Soto and center fielder Aaron Judge in 2024Wendell Cruz-Imagn Images Specifically, McPherson argued that the interactions between Judge and Soto during the three-game set at Yankee Stadium were 'pretend.' 'Their philosophies are just different,' McPherson said. 'They're just different [kinds] of guys. 'Judge is always about the team,' McPherson continued. 'Juan Soto wasn't about the team.' McPherson subsequently blasted Soto for signing a record-setting 15-year, $765 million deal with the Mets rather than stay in pinstripes. Conversely, Judge inked a nine-year, $360 million extension in December 2022 and, given his status as the 33-year-old Yankees captain, will likely finish his career in the Bronx. New York Yankees outfielders Aaron Judge and Juan Soto in 2024Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images McPherson also cited Yankees reporter Bob Klapisch's Monday story that the Mets are 'concerned' about Soto's 'lack of enthusiasm.' The four-time All-Star entered Tuesday hitting .246 with eight home runs, a career-worst .815 OPS, and 1.6 bWAR for the second-place Mets. Advertisement Soto turned heads after failing to speak with reporters following Sunday's loss to the Yankees. He drew further controversy on Monday night against the Red Sox for not hustling on a ball that hit the Green Monster. 'How come Juan didn't want to hold court after 'Sunday Night Baseball?'' McPherson asked. 'Yeah, you're feeling some type of way.' Related: Mets Superfan Has Harsh Words for Juan Soto After Latest Loss Related: Fans Outraged Over What Umpire Did in Mets-Yankees
9 News
17-05-2025
- General
- 9 News
America's most famous celebrity Christian disappears
1 of 14 Attribution: Los Angeles Public Library Evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson was one of the most famous people in the US in the 1920s and 1930s. Known as "Sister Aimee", she pioneered the use of mass broadcast technologies such as radio to send her Pentecostal message to people around the country, and she drew tens of thousands of people to her faith healing events. So when she disappeared on May 18, 1926, it caused a huge commotion. McPherson vanished from Ocean Park Beach in Santa Monica, California, prompting fears she had drowned. However, a search was unable to find any sign of her. On June 23, her church, Angelus Temple, held a memorial service for her - only for her mother Mildred Kennedy to receive a phone call from officials in Arizona to tell her that McPherson was alive and in hospital.
