Latest news with #Scheller
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Banished colonel who condemned Biden's Afghanistan withdrawal is now investigating it
Lt Col Stu Scheller was thrown in the brig and then drummed out of the US Marine Corps for publicly condemning the chaotic military withdrawal from Afghanistan. Almost four years later, he is part of the team investigating the Biden administration's handling of the evacuation that led to the deaths of 13 US troops in a suicide attack at Kabul airport. 'Ironic that I will be investigating who should be held accountable for Afghanistan,' Lt Col Scheller, who was handed a senior role at the Pentagon by Donald Trump, said this week. It shows just how much Washington has changed since Mr Trump returned to power. And it marks an extraordinary turnaround for a figure who was relieved of his command and court martialled after posting a video criticising senior officers on the day a blast ripped through American personnel guarding the evacuation from the Afghan capital. 'I have been fighting for 17 years,' said Lt Col Scheller, then commander of the advanced infantry training battalion. 'I am willing to throw it all away to say to my senior leaders: 'I demand accountability.'' His protest made him a hero to supporters of Mr Trump, as they accused Joe Biden of botching the withdrawal and leaving billions of dollars of weapons to fall to the Taliban. Last month he announced he had taken up a post at the Pentagon as a senior adviser under Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defence. 'The military is in desperate need of change and there can be no change without disrupters,' he said at the time. 'For those who criticise, wanting stability and the status quo… you are the real problem.' He said his role was to tackle 'careerism' in the armed forces and to ensure that people rose through the ranks on merit. And on Wednesday he was named to Mr Hegseth's new investigation. 'He was the one guy fired for telling the truth about what happened in Afghanistan,' said Mr Hegseth a day earlier. Mr Biden, the president at the time, ordered the withdrawal of the last remaining American troops from the war-torn country in April 2021. It quickly descended into chaos. Afghan government forces melted away as their allies left, setting Taliban troops on a helter skelter race to Kabul. They seized the city in August that year, sending thousands of foreigners and Afghan nationals flocking to the airport seeking safe passage out. Tragedy struck when a suicide bomber detonated his deadly payload at one of the main entry points where American troops were protecting civilians. The attack will be at the centre of the new investigation, led by Sean Parnell, a former Ranger who now serves as Pentagon spokesman. It will also include Jerry Dunleavy, a journalist who resigned from a Republican investigation last year in protest that it had not gone far enough. On message boards used by Marines, it was Lt Col Scheller's name that attracted most attention. Opinion divided on whether he was a wise choice. 'That guy who was popping off about an op he had no connection to and knew nothing about is now an investigator for it?,' said one user of a Reddit forum. Another poster, who claimed to have been trained by him, said: 'More than anyone else I interacted with, that man cared about the future of the corps and knew the future [lay] in our subordinates and how we treat them. 'I wish him the best and I know he will do the best for our country.' Lt Col Scheller's actions as the withdrawal collapsed into chaos also divided opinion at the time. He won support from some veterans who shared his concerns but angered others who felt he was wrong to make such a public protest while in uniform. He followed up with further social media posts criticising military leaders and called for 'revolution'. He was eventually charged with six violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice and struck a plea deal, resigning his commission and leaving the Marines at the end of 2021. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Yahoo
26-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Amazon identified as tenant of Bauxite I data center project on former Alcoa Eastalco site
Amazon Web Services will be the tenant for the first of three data center projects being developed by the Colorado-based Rowan Digital Infrastructure on the former Alcoa Eastalco Works site near Adamstown. The data center project, which was approved by the Frederick County Planning Commission in January 2024, is known as Bauxite I. It will consist of four data center buildings identified in Amazon documents as BWI-150, BWI-151, BWI-152 and BWI-153. Data centers store computing machines and server systems used to support cloud-based services. AWS spokesperson Brandon Scheller on Thursday said the Bauxite I project would be the company's first data center in Maryland. A blog post from AWS on Thursday said the expansion into Maryland would be "instrumental in supporting the rapid growth of generative AI and advanced computing workloads" in the Northern Virginia region. Representatives of Rowan and Amazon confirmed the partnership between the two companies at a public meeting organized by the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) at Carroll Manor Elementary School on Thursday. The purpose of the meeting was to inform the community about Amazon's request for a permit to construct 99 diesel generators to provide emergency backup power to the Bauxite I data center in the event of an outage or interruption. Martin Romo, Rowan's senior director of economic development and policy, said on Thursday that the developer expects to complete its work on Bauxite I in either the fourth quarter of 2025 or the first quarter of 2026. Rowan also has planning approval for two additional data center projects on the former Alcoa Eastalco Works site. Romo said the company could not yet confirm tenants for either of those projects, known as Bauxite II and Bauxite III. Scheller said AWS expects to begin operations at Bauxite I sometime in 2026. Asked if the company has any plans for additional data centers in Maryland, Scheller said he could not comment on the road map for future projects. AWS does not separate out which of its customers are served by which data center facilities. But Scheller said customers "across virtually every industry and of every size, including startups, enterprises, and public sector organizations" rely on AWS data centers. Major customers listed on the AWS website include Salesforce, Duolingo, Venmo, Coinbase, DraftKings, Capital One, Pinterest, United Airlines, Coca-Cola, Nasdaq and more. Emissions standards Suna Yi Sariscak, a manager with MDE's Air Quality Permits Program, said the department received an application from Amazon in October 2024 for a permit to construct the diesel generators in connection with the Bauxite I project. Of the 99 diesel generators requested by Amazon, 92 would have a generating capacity of 2,750 kilowatts. Amazon is also requesting permission to construct six 750-kW diesel generators and one 250-kW diesel generator, according to the air permit application. The proposed diesel generators would be "at multiple buildings within the data center campus," the application says. Amazon's air permit application is subject to review under the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's New Source Performance Standards. The New Source Performance Standards apply to stationary sources that "cause, or contribute significantly to, air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare" according to the EPA. Amazon was not required to apply for an air permit through Maryland's Title V Program for "major sources," defined by the EPA as a stationary source or group of stationary sources that emit or have the potential to emit 25 tons per year or more of hazardous air pollutants. While the diesel generators proposed by Amazon do have the potential to go over the 25-ton threshold for hazardous air pollutants, the company plans to operate them only for emergencies, testing and maintenance, Sariscak said. MDE has asked Amazon to include "regular" emergency operations due to brief power "blips" in its emissions calculations for the proposed generators, Sariscak said. Operations during national or regional energy emergencies would not count toward the 25-ton limit. If Amazon's generators were to exceed the 25-ton limit, MDE's compliance program would follow up and potentially require the company to apply for a new air permit, Sariscak said. According to Amazon's air permit application, the company expects to test each generator for maintenance and readiness for less than 10 hours per year. Scheller said AWS uses short-duration testing and maintenance procedures "on a staggered basis to ensure the reliability of our backup power systems." Testing typically takes about 15 minutes, he said. Duncan Neasham, another spokesperson for AWS, said on Thursday that the company plans to use EPA Tier 2 generators on the Bauxite I project. However, Neasham said, the Tier 2 generators used on the Bauxite I project will meet or exceed EPA Tier 4 standards, which are the strictest and most up-to-date regulations for diesel engines. According to Scheller, AWS uses diesel engines because they are "the most scalable, available, cost-effective, and reliable technology to provide backup power for data centers." AWS does not currently use other forms of backup power such as on-site battery storage for its data centers. But Scheller said the company is "constantly evaluating new and alternative solutions, including hydrogen and renewable diesel" in order to achieve its goal of net-zero emissions by 2040. Another company, the Texas-based Aligned Data Centers, received an MDE permit on Jan. 30 to construct over 170 emergency generators with a combined capacity of 508 megawatts for its project on the former Alcoa Eastalco Works site. The generators for Aligned's four planned data center buildings will also be Tier 2 according to the MDE permit. But they will reportedly have added pollution controls "to reduce emissions to levels similar to using Tier 4 engines." Amazon in Frederick County This is not the first time Amazon has sought to expand its data center operations into Frederick County. The Frederick News-Post previously reported that in 2021, a proposal that would have brought AWS data centers to at least three communities in the southern part of the county fell through. The failed proposal eventually became the subject of a public records battle between the county and the Sugarloaf Alliance. The nonprofit group sought information about the role of AWS in the drafting of the Sugarloaf Treasured Landscape Management Plan, a preservation effort undertaken by the county's Livable Frederick Planning and Design Office. Among the records obtained by the Sugarloaf Alliance were emails exchanged between county staff members, state employees and representatives from Amazon, as well as information about a non-disclosure agreement Frederick County's then-director of economic development signed with the company. The records, which the county was ordered by a judge to release, also included draft maps showing that the proposed boundaries of the Sugarloaf Treasured Landscape Management Area were changed in accordance with the AWS proposal. The original boundaries were restored after the proposal fell through. The 2021 proposal would have seen AWS invest roughly $30 billion in its Frederick County data center project over the course of 15 years. Scheller said AWS should have a better idea of the economic impact of the current plan as the target operation date of 2026 draws closer. According to Sariscak, the next step for MDE will be to conduct a technical review of Amazon's air permit application. If the department determines that the proposed equipment will comply with applicable air pollution regulations, it will propose a draft permit for public review and comment. Construction of the generators cannot begin until a final permit is issued.
Yahoo
18-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Lawmakers left sexual assault programs out of the budget, forcing service providers to fundraise
Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill speaks to reporters about Sexual Assault Awareness Month at his office in Salt Lake City on Thursday, April 17, 2025. (Kyle Dunphey/Utah News Dispatch) Utah has rates of sexual violence that often trump the national average — according to the Salt Lake County District Attorney's Office, 1 in 3 Utah women will experience sexual violence, compared to 1 in 5 women nationally. Yet this year, the state's service providers are forced to fundraise and solicit federal money, which is increasingly short supply, after lawmakers snubbed the Utah Coalition Against Sexual Assault's request for funding that would have gone to the state's rape crisis programs. According to the request, the money was intended to provide 'meaningful sexual prevention work,' like education and training. 'Prevention education works. It can change the way individuals think. It can change the way communities interact. It changes relationships. It is the least funded source of service for victims in the state of Utah,' said Gary Scheller, associate director of the Rape Recovery Center. The coalition asked lawmakers for almost $3.3 million — the Legislature's Social Services Appropriations Committee recommended just over $1.6 million. But ultimately, funding for the coalition was not included in the final budget. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Now, with April being Sexual Assault Awareness Month, Scheller's nonprofit, which provides advocacy for victims, clinical therapy, education and training, will be forced to fundraise and look to the federal government to fill the void. Lawmakers said it was a tight budget year, and a number of programs never received funding. Still, some of the programs funded by the state's nearly $30 billion budget include $40 million in annual funds for the Utah Fits All Scholarship voucher program, $20 million in one-time funding for the state's first-time home buyer program, and dozens of other programs and allocations that cost far more than what the Coalition Against Sexual Assault was asking for. 'What I would like to say really loudly to our state Legislature is, what you fund reflects your priorities,' Scheller said on Thursday during an event at the Salt Lake County District Attorney's Office marking Sexual Assault Awareness Month. 'So when we see millions going here and millions going there and this being cut and that being cut, that is equivalent to the state Legislature saying, these are our priorities, these not so much.' The Utah Domestic Violence Coalition is in a similar boat, after their request for $200,000 in annual funds was also left out of the state's budget. The money would have allowed police departments around the state to continue to administer a critical health care service for victims of domestic violence while bolstering investigations. Legislature snubs funding for domestic violence health care service, forcing nonprofit to fundraise Scheller said the lack of state funds will have a 'significant' impact to the Rape Recovery Center. The center, and other sexual assault support programs, have been sharing a $600,000 allocation from the state spread out over three years — for the Rape Recovery Center, that's about $15,000 to $20,000 each year, according to Scheller. Now that the Legislature snubbed their request this year, Scheller said education and prevention programs, which are already underfunded, will continue to be spread thin. 'These prevention and education programs, with state school board approved curriculum, where we can get into schools and talk to students about consent and healthy relationships — those will be greatly minimized. So now we're going to go looking for other ways to continue to do that,' Scheller said. Sex crimes continue to be an issue in Utah. According to Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill, 88 out of 100 women who are sexually assaulted in Utah will choose not to come forward. Of the 12 that do report the crime, six will likely be re-victimized 'though the way that we respond to them,' Gill said. 'Because we're not trauma informed, because we're not victim centered.' Data from Gill's office shows the extent of sexual violence in the county, which fluctuates year to year. The office filed 81 rape charges in 2023, compared to 89 in 2024; 51 object rape charges in 2023, compared to 54 in 2024; 22 rape of a child charges in 2023, compared to 10 in 2024; 104 sex battery charges in 2024, compared to 72 in 2024; 100 lewdness charges in 2023, compared to 90 in 2024; 35 sodomy of a child charges in 2023, compared to 26 in 2024; and 20 aggravated sexual assault charges in 2023, compared to 15 in 2024. 'I hope this encourages our policymakers to know that they need to fully fund our institutional partners and our community partners,' Gill said. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
16-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
After an ‘almost unheard of' Irish dance score, WA teen competes on world stage
Kaden Scheller, 17, says when he tells people he does Irish dancing, people always ask him if he 'can do a little jig.' Sometimes they'll even try to demonstrate what they think Irish dancing is in front of him, Scheller said. 'They just look like they're flailing their feet around in place with their arms down,' he said. 'Which I laugh at, but I'm also cringing at because it's a lot more complicated than that.' The Gig Harbor teen is competing at the 2025 World Irish Dance Championships in Dublin this week, April 13-20, after finishing with close to a perfect score in the qualifying regional competition in Phoenix last November. The Irish Times have described the Championships as the 'Olympics of Irish dance' and said it drew 5,000 competitors in 2017. At a practice Jan. 21, Scheller demonstrated one of his routines: a dizzying, ground-pounding series of jumps, spins and kicks across the studio to a rhythmic tune. 'I'm very proud of him,' Scheller's teacher at Olympia's Haley Prendergast School of Irish Dance, Patti Martig, told The News Tribune. ' ... Irish dance is not an easy form of dance to learn and master.' The art form requires grace and musicality, as well as strength and conditioning, she continued. 'For someone to master it at a level like Kaden has, it takes real dedication and hard work.' Irish dance today is rooted in the traditional dance form of the Irish people, and has developed over centuries, according to the Irish Dance Teachers' Association of North America. It can take different forms, but solo dancing often involves holding the arms still at the sides of the body and performing fast, intricate movements with the lower half of the body. Other types of Irish dance include team and ceili dances, which involve dancers making formations with each other, and show dancing — displayed in famed productions like Riverdance. The World Championships includes three rounds, and contestants compete in gender- and age-specific categories. Scheller said the first round, the 'hard shoe' round, requires him to dance his routine simultaneously with two other people on the same stage without colliding with them. The second round is shorter and 'a lot more exciting,' where two dancers are 'just flying around the stage doing jumps and spins,' he said. The third round is the recall for finalists and is danced solo. Scheller, a senior at Bellarmine Preparatory School in Tacoma, started his journey with the Haley Prendergast School over 10 years ago. When he was around second grade, Scheller's twin sister started learning Irish dance, and his older sister soon followed, he said. His mom decided to enroll him too because they were already at the maximum family rate for tuition (the school has since stopped that policy, according to Martig). 'So it was like I danced for free, and then I just started to progress really fast,' Scheller said. 'And I got good and I started to really like it.' His sisters eventually stopped to pursue other interests, but Scheller kept going — especially after he won everything he was entered into on his first competition. Patti Martig, his teacher, said she knew from 'day one' that Scheller had talent. 'When the dance and their movements blend and synchronize with the music, there is just this beauty that happens,' she said. 'It's almost hard to explain, but you know it when you experience it. And he does that very, very well.' Over the last three years, she's noticed a surge of dedication to the dance form as he began competing, she said. He also helps teach younger students at the school. This isn't the first time Scheller has qualified for the World Championships, but he and Martig said they consider this one special because of how well he finished at the qualifying Western U.S. Regional Oireachtas, where dancers from the 13 Western U.S. states, including Alaska and Hawaii, competed in November. Out of 15 judges at the Oireachtas, 12 ranked Scheller first in the competition, which is 'almost unheard of,' according to Martig. Scheller first qualified for the World Championships in 2019, but wasn't able to attend until 2022 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. He returned in 2023 and 2024. This year is his fourth Worlds, and he's looking to score a personal best, he said. Asked if he's interested in pursuing Irish dance professionally, Scheller said he isn't sure yet. He finished applying to colleges earlier this year and said he's still trying to figure out what he's interested in. He could see himself going on tour with a show team someday, he said. The CLRG World Championships 2025 will be broadcast through Feistv, available for a fee. Scheller will be performing at 8 a.m. Irish Time on Friday, April 18, in the boys 17-18 age category, according to Martig.
USA Today
28-03-2025
- Climate
- USA Today
How a hurricane helped fuel a rash of wildfires months after landfall
How a hurricane helped fuel a rash of wildfires months after landfall Show Caption Hide Caption Multiple wildfires in North Carolina's Polk County Flames raged in North Carolina's Polk County as authorities reported multiple wildfires. Hundreds of wildfires are burning across the Southern U.S., fueled by strong winds, low humidity, and dry vegetation. The worst fires are in the Carolinas, where thousands of acres have burned and dozens of structures have been destroyed. Debris left from Helene, which was a hurricane when it made landfall, is making the fires worse. Hundreds of spring wildfires are burning across the Southern U.S., fueled by an unusual combination of strong winds, low humidity and ‒ in some parts of the Carolinas ‒ debris left from the destruction of Helene, which was a hurricane when it made landfall in Florida. In North Carolina, the Black Cove and Deep Woods Fires near Saluda have charred some 6,000 acres of vegetation and destroyed at least 20 structures, the U.S. Drought Monitor reported Thursday. Fire experts say that while wildfires this time of the year in the Southeast are common, the scope and level of risk this year is unusual. The fires will likely continue until the return of rain and higher humidity, which could be in the offing by the end of the weekend. Wildfire updates: What's causing the fires? Strong winds and low humidity are causing several wildfires to spread through western North Carolina, risking more damage to some areas still recovering from Helene, AccuWeather reported. Indeed, some of the fuel for fires in the Carolinas was provided by trees downed by Helene about six months ago. 'Table was set for fires': Western North Carolina burned by Helene aftermath "There is never a singular fire cause," Robert Scheller, a North Carolina State University forestry and environmental resources professor told USA TODAY via e-mail Thursday. "For a fire to become large enough to be a substantial threat, it requires the right combination of fuels (dried vegetation and dead leaves, needles, twigs, at the ground level), weather (dry and windy), and ignition." He added that in the Southeast, nearly all fires are human ignited, typically by accident: a backyard fire unattended, burning debris, an open-air BBQ, etc. Did Helene have an impact? According to Scheller, "Hurricane Helene has massively increased the amount of fuel across the southern Appalachians with over 820,000 acres of forest damage (dead trees, downed limbs, etc.)" For example, with one of the current wildfires in North Carolina, 'a lot of the damage and the blowdown, the downed trees from Hurricane Helene are contributing to the difficulties that our firefighters are facing trying to contain this fire and so that has just been kind of one ongoing crisis from September all through into the spring for a lot of these residents,' North Carolina Forest Service spokesperson Bo Dossett told the Associated Press. The National Interagency Fire Center sent out a fuels and fire behavior advisory this week for the entire Southern Appalachian region. The advisory noted that recent "extraordinarily low humidity" has rapidly dried leaf litter and fine fuels left in the wake of Helene, accelerating the forest fires that can change course quickly depending on weather. 'In my career, 20-year career, this is the most fuel I've seen on the ground,' North Carolina Forest Service spokesperson Jeremy Waldrop told WLOS, describing the large number of leaves and trees that fell during the storm. When will the fires stop? "The fires will stop when the fuels become too wet to burn," Scheller said. "This happens when we get regular rains and/or high humidity." Unfortunately, there is no significant rain in the forecast for the Carolinas until Sunday into Monday, when thunderstorms will impact eastern states, AccuWeather said. Beyond that, the forecast from the Climate Prediction Center shows warmer but also wetter than average conditions across the region next week. Contributing: Will Hofmann, Asheville Citizen Times
