samhexum

OLD NEWS: https://www.companyofmen.org/threads/a-headline-ripped-from-tv.129928/

Mother, son and pet dog attempt to rob Wisconsin Walmart A woman, her adult son, and a dog named "Bo" caused quite the scene in an Eau Claire, Wisconsin Walmart on April 11. According to a post on the Eau Claire Police Department's Facebook page, they responded to a Walmart shopping center for reports of a theft. When they arrived, officers found 46-year-old Lisa Smith screaming in the store's entryway trying to catch her dog, Bo. While Smith was in the front of the store, her 25-year-old son, Benny Vann, was allegedly naked and exposing himself to customers in the clothing section of the store. In the course of their investigation, officers discovered that Smith, Vann and an unleashed Bo entered the Walmart around 8:30 p.m. "While Bo ran up to customers, Smith erratically started pulling apart store displays and placing them in her cart," Eau Claire PD's Facebook post reads. Smith was asked to leave the store by employees, and headed to the parking lot to perform "karate moves," police say. Bo, still unleashed and on the loose in the store, grabbed a box of Jiffy Corn Bread Muffin Mix and attempted to leave the store, according to police. Police arrested Smith in the parking lot, but say she did fight with officers and attempt to "kick out a window" on a responding squad car. As Smith was being arrested, her son, Vann, moved to the back of the store and began to remove his clothing, police say. He also began to take clothing off the racks, but had no intention of purchasing said clothing, according to police. "When officers approached Vann, he refused to stop and attempted to run over an officer with his scooter," the Facebook post notes. However, an officer was able to physically stop Vann's scooter and arrest him. Eau Claire Police say Smith was arrested for Disorderly Conduct, resisting arrest, and misdemeanor bail jumping. Vann was arrested for lewd and lascivious behavior, disorderly conduct and retail theft. Bo was caught by responding officers and taken to the Humane Association. "The dog was not charged," police said. "We issued him a warning for the theft." http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/10/14/1413285220180_wps_37_MANDATORY_CREDIT_Mike_Rui.jpg

'World's Largest' Plane Lifts Off From California Desert A giant six-engine aircraft with the world's longest wingspan landed its first flight after some two hours in the air Saturday. The behemoth, twin-fuselage Stratolaunch jet lifted off from Mojave Air and Space Port and climbed into the desert sky 70 miles north of Los Angeles. Founded by the late billionaire Paul G. Allen, Stratolaunch is vying to be a contender in the market for air-launching small satellites. The aircraft is designed to carry as many as three satellite-laden rockets at a time under the center of its enormous wing, which stretches 385 feet -- a longer wingspan than any other aircraft. At an altitude of 35,000 feet, the rockets would be released, ignite their engines and soar into space. The advantages of such air-launch systems include being able to use numerous airports and avoid the limitations of fixed launch sites which can be impacted by weather, air traffic and ship traffic on ocean ranges. Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft, founded Stratolaunch Systems Corp. in 2011 after emerging in aerospace by funding the development of the experimental air-launched SpaceShipOne, which in 2004 became the first privately built manned rocket to reach space. After Allen's death in October 2018, Stratolaunch dropped plans to develop its own type of rocket engine and a family of launch vehicles, focusing instead on getting the giant plane airborne and launching Northrop Grumman's proven Pegasus XL. The Stratolaunch aircraft emerged from its Mojave hangar for the first time in May 2017 and proceeded through ground tests, including taxiing and rolling down a runway at near-takeoff speeds. Powered by the same type of engines used by Boeing 747s, the aircraft is designed to take off at a maximum weight of 1.3 million pounds. Its twin fuselages -- sort of the airplane equivalent of a catamaran -- are 238 feet long. The previous wingspan leader was Howard Hughes' World War II-era eight-engine H-4 Hercules flying boat -- nicknamed the Spruce Goose. Surviving in an aviation museum, it has an approximately 320-foot wingspan but is just under 219 feet long. While Stratolaunch calls its aircraft the world's largest, other airplanes exceed it in length from nose to tail. They include the six-engine Antonov AN 225 cargo plane, which is 275.5 feet long, and the Boeing 747-8, which is just over 250 feet long.

Two fed-up residents in Ohio incensed by striking school workers hatched a half-baked plan to deliver the group laxative-laden sugar cookies, according to reports. Bo Cosens, 29, and Rachel Sharrock, 25, were charged Tuesday in Tuscarawas County Court with contaminating a substance for human consumption, the Canton Repository reported. The couple was arrested after police said they received a tip about a video on Cosens’ Facebook page of him ranting about the Claymont City Schools employees on strike. In the clip, Cosens expressed frustration with the cars honking in support of the protesters near the couple’s home. “[Cosens] had made threats towards them. He mentioned also that he was going to get a gun and shoot them, and in the video as well, there was an apparent drug transaction that took place on Facebook live during this video,” Uhrichsville police Sgt. Michael Hickman told the newspaper. The footage also showed Cosens and his girlfriend talking about sending the striking workers a batch of sugar cookies laced with laxatives. “In this video as well, his girlfriend and him talk about mixing laxative pills with cookies and delivering them to … workers,” Hickman told the Canton Repository. “She’s actually holding up a package of laxative pills, and she’s popping them out of the package, crushing them up and mixing them in with the cookie batter.” Police interviewed the protesters, who said they received the cookies but no one ate them. “They still had the plate of cookies, and I was able to confiscate them, and we’re currently looking for a lab to send the cookies in for testing to confirm that, in fact, that those have laxatives in them,” Hickman said. Cosens and Sharrock were booked at Tuscarawas County jail, where they’re each being held on $1 million bond, according to court records.

A shirtless alleged drunk was arrested outside a Naples, Fla., Olive Garden last week after customers complained he was sitting on a bench and shoving handfuls of pasta into his mouth. Ben Padgett, 32, was charged last Sunday with disorderly intoxication and resisting an officer. His erratic behavior first reached the boiling point when he threatened to beat up an employee — who he’d bizarrely asked whether “he had male or female sex organs,” cops alleged. Once outside, Padgett allegedly began “muttering obscenities” and begging for change — all in between handfuls of pasta. Arriving cops gave the pasta-eating panhandler paper towels to clean his hands and face before cuffing him. He allegedly had one last outburst in the back of the patrol car, when he injured himself by banging his head against the metal cage partition. Padgett was treated for a bloody forehead at a nearby hospital, then released on $2,000 bond.

[continued] Today, AA continues to benefit from glowing publicity, especially from celebrities — such as Ben Affleck and Britney Spears — who’ve committed themselves to the program after going off the rails. But book author Miller, who drank heavily for almost two decades, said he wasted seven years in AA before finding relief from the drug naltrexone. He now blames the program for making him suffer longer than he needed to. “For seven years, I went [to AA meetings] on average more than once a day, and did all the steps a number of times,” he says, referring to the program’s 12-step model that is now standard in many addiction treatment models. “When I finished the fourth step, where you take a personal inventory of your shortcomings, it didn’t feel real to me. It certainly didn’t cure me.” The anonymous nature of AA means there remains very little real research on the program. “True scientific scrutiny of AA’s effectiveness is nearly impossible,” Miller writes. “As an all-volunteer organization, that holds as one of its most important principles the anonymity of its members, AA defies scientific standards of precise measurement — randomized trials with a control group and a long-term follow-up.” Meanwhile, the accepted belief that alcoholism is a disease has never been proven. “It’s many maladies, a spectrum of problems,” Miller says, “in the same way that myriad mental-health issues are.” Because of AA’s dominance, many doctors and scientists wouldn’t even consider studying alternatives to AA for years. The research that should have happened decades ago is just happening now. In researching his book, Miller visited The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), which is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and found numerous studies underway. The Institute even has a fake bar set up where many aspects of drinking are currently being studied, including the effects of a problem drinker’s first drink on their health, and which hormones increase alcohol cravings. This information will eventually be useful for the development of new treatments. Meanwhile, Miller was saved by the drug naltrexone, which was only approved by the FDA in 2006 “after years of studies had shown that it reduced alcoholic cravings for some alcoholics and helped them to reduce or quit their drinking.” Around five years ago, Miller returned to moderate drinking — enjoying a few drinks with dinner around three times a month and maybe the occasional pounding of lite beers on his porch with friends. “I’m not 100 percent abstinent, I do enjoy drinking sometimes, but it’s something I have to be really careful with,” he says. In the meantime, Miller is on a crusade to correct the public’s perception about alcoholism. “We need a new Marty Mann,” he says. “[We need] a campaign to make people realize that there are many different ways to deal with your drinking.”

On July 4, 1934, a 30-year-old New York-based writer and publicist named Marty Mann got staggeringly drunk at a party and fell from a balcony. She nearly died, fracturing her leg and breaking her jaw, and spent the next six months in traction. In the hospital, with her jaw wired shut, she begged friends to smuggle in whiskey so she could drink it through a straw. A hard drinker since her early 20s, Mann kept on boozing because she didn’t know how to stop. Tired of constantly being drunk or hungover, she attempted suicide twice. Mann saw doctors and psychologists and tried various treatments, but nothing curbed her problem until one psychologist gave her an early copy of a book, still unpublished at the time, called “Alcoholics Anonymous.” Written by an alcoholic named Bill Wilson, the book took an approach to the addiction she’d never encountered before. “As she read it, she felt great relief,” writes Joe Miller in his new book, “US of AA: How the Twelve Steps Hijacked the Science of Alcoholism” (Chicago Review Press), out now. “The stories the authors told of their hopeless battles with alcoholism seemed exactly like her own. And the book described her condition as an allergy. This struck her like a thunderbolt. Her heavy drinking wasn’t her fault. ” Mann would soon befriend the book’s author, AA co-creator Wilson, and she began attending AA meetings in 1939. Mann got sober (save for a few short-term relapses over the years) and was an instant convert to the group’s message. For the rest of her life, Mann would become AA’s biggest booster. She even engineered a PR campaign that would make AA the default treatment for alcoholism nationwide. Soon, it became accepted belief that alcoholism was a disease and AA the only workable cure, that alcoholics could never drink in moderation and that they couldn’t even begin the program until they had basically hit bottom, ruining their life with drink. While many hail Mann as a hero, Miller — a recovered alcoholic himself — has a different view. “By AA’s own accounting, 95 percent of the people who come to their meetings looking for help … quit within a year,” Miller writes. “Of that 5 percent who stay a year or more, about half remain members for good, achieving long-term sobriety.” In addition, most scientific studies show that some alcoholics can drink in moderation and that numerous drugs and therapies could prove more successful than AA in curing alcoholism, Miller writes. “Out of 50 treatment methods ranked by the strength of scientific evidence, AA comes in 38th,” Miller writes, citing a study by the University of New Mexico. “AA is below cognitive behavioral therapy and aversion therapy and regular therapy, below marriage counseling and self-help books, naltrexone and another FDA-approved drug called acamprosate, below psychedelic drugs and even placebos.” And yet, the rise of AA suppressed other possible cures and attitudes toward alcoholism, Miller claims — a suppression that started with Mann. In the early 1900s, a New York doctor named William Silkworth was the rare medical professional who would work with “drunks,” then regarded as immoral degenerates not worth anyone’s time. After seeing the desperation among many who couldn’t stop drinking, Silkworth reasoned that this could not be a simple vice or habit — it had to be a compulsion, a disease. Silkworth wound up treating Bill Wilson in 1934, and this is where Wilson “learned” that his condition was an illness, an epiphany that he and Mann would soon evangelize about to the rest of the world. According to Miller, though, Silkworth never had any scientific backing for his theory. He just made it up, later adding that the condition was incurable and that drinking in moderation was impossible for an alcoholic. He never offered data or evidence to confirm any of it. Shortly after reading Wilson’s book, Mann tracked him down and he led her through the brave new world of sobriety. “He took her to AA meetings and became kind of a mentor for her recovery — a sponsor, in AA parlance,” Miller writes. “As Mann strung together days and weeks and months of continuous sobriety, she became a kind of unpaid spokesperson for AA,” Miller writes. “Her public-relations skills were well suited to the task, and she began giving speeches to civic clubs and religious groups.” In time, Mann presented Wilson with a larger vision, discussing a national p.r. campaign extolling the benefits of AA. Wilson told Mann she’d need scientific backing for their claims. So Mann turned to Elvin Jellinek, a young scientist at Yale University who was working with a new program dedicated to the study of alcohol. Jellinek not only embraced the plan to “educate the public about the disease of alcoholism” but offered to incorporate Mann into Yale’s strategy — possibly seeing the idea as a way to attract much-needed attention to his department’s work, Miller writes. Jellinek came to be known as “the father of the disease concept of alcoholism,” despite having co-authored a book several years prior noting that the notion lacked any scientific backing. Furthermore, “historians would later conclude that he … quite possibly never received a bachelor’s degree,” Miller writes. In October 1944, Mann, in conjunction with Yale, announced the formation of the National Committee for Education on Alcoholism (NCEA), which would promote the concept that alcoholism is a disease and that alcoholics could be helped. The story was picked up by newspapers nationwide. Immediately, Mann became the go-to media figure for expertise on alcoholism. “The press loved Mann,” Miller writes. “She gave good quotes, and she was gifted at the give and take. When a reporter called her an ‘ex-lady lush,’ she corrected him with tongue in cheek: ‘I might be an ex-lush, but I am definitely a lady.’ ” During her first year with NCEA, Mann was a tireless advocate. She flew 30,000 miles, giving speeches to civic groups large and small while saturating the press. “She gave more than 400 talks to an estimated 100,000 people and appeared on 38 radio talk shows, carrying her message to an estimated 25 million listeners,” Miller writes. Mann’s words had a powerful effect. In 1945, a survey conducted by Rutgers University found that just 5 percent of respondents believed alcoholism was a disease. When the study was repeated four years later, that number shot up to 36 percent. This belief, and the accompanying treatment, became enshrined in the national thinking as the only approach to the scourge of alcoholism. And when others mentioned alternative approaches to the issue, Mann shot them down. “She even went so far as to help manufacture evidence to back up her claims,” Miller writes, noting that she asked Jellinek to write articles based on a survey AA members conducted of themselves in the AA newsletter. He wrote two articles weakly endorsing her concept but applying “a slew of caveats” about the limitations of the data. Other scientists, meanwhile, “derisively referred to his project as ‘Jellinek’s doodle.’” In December 1949, the powers-that-be at Yale — believing that “problem drinking is … an array of disorders that require a variety of treatment approaches” — broke ties with Mann and her group. “She was generating more publicity than they could have imagined,” writes Miller, “but it was promoting an image of alcoholism they didn’t subscribe to, and it undermined their own efforts to develop scientific approaches to treating the disorder.” Over time, Mann would find backers, including AA veterans and even presidents, who allowed her to continue her work. The Kennedy administration was the first to devote federal dollars to the issue, granting $1.1 million for an alcoholism study. While the eventual findings, issued six years later, would contradict Mann’s message, the study’s very existence strengthened her position on alcoholism as a public-health issue. But it was Lyndon B. Johnson who threw the full force of his office behind Mann. He issued a proclamation thanking Mann for her tireless work on behalf of alcoholics and announced that the federal government would create an advisory committee, a research center and a public education program on alcoholism. Mann continued advocating for the issue until her death in 1980. Her NCEA, now known as the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (NCADD), continues her work. On its website, it lists as one of its major legacy accomplishments, “Defined alcoholism as a disease and successfully worked for its adoption by the American Medical Association (AMA).”

I thought I'd just zip through it to see what people looked like today, but I wound up watching the whole thing. She was just 21. Would've been 52 later this year. So sad. I feel old.

Wendy Williams is uncertain about her future. When an audience member asked Williams how she’s doing during Friday morning’s talk show, Williams responded, “I’m not sure.” Williams’ emotional uncertainty came after Page Six exclusively revealed she filed for divorce early Thursday from husband Kevin Hunter. It’s worth noting, however, that Friday episodes of “The Wendy Williams Show” are taped on Thursday afternoons, so her declaration came after she had already filed, as we revealed that she served Hunter at 6:30 a.m. that day. Now that her marriage is ending, Williams is looking for a new start and reportedly is planning to move to New York City, TMZ reported. Williams has lived in Livingston, NJ, for years, though she’s been staying at a sober living facility in Queens since at least January as she continues to recover from a relapse. After she finishes her time at the sober house, Williams reportedly plans to move into a new space. She and Hunter were married for nearly 22 years before finally calling it quits on their marriage after his alleged mistress, Sharina Hudson, gave birth to a baby said to be his. Williams and Hunter share one child together, an 18-year-old son named Kevin Jr. In the divorce filing, obtained by Page Six, Williams cited irreconcilable differences as the cause of their split. She indicated that the marriage had dissolved six months ago and had no chance of repair. She’s also seeking to establish an “appropriate amount of child support” as well as “other further relief as the Court deems fair and equitable.”

I enjoy the show, but their allegories about today's political climate are delivered with the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

[continued] The chain seems poised to take sales from supermarket rivals, according to Earnest Research. Since Wegmans entered Natick, for example, customer visits and spending at the nearby Whole Foods have declined by more than 20 percent among shoppers that visit both stores. “Whole Foods could be in real trouble in Brooklyn,” says Michael Maloof, Earnest’s senior grocer analyst. The Navy Yard store’s 500 employees will include many local residents. Of the 4,000 applications Wegmans received in January, 741 have come through the Navy Yard’s employment office. Of those, 30 percent are residents of Farragut Houses, a city housing project adjacent to the site, and two other local housing projects. New hires will work alongside lifers like store manager Kevin Cuff, who started with Wegmans as a teenager 21 years ago. He’s not unique: More than half of store managers started with Wegmans as teens, then stayed in part because of perks such as college scholarships, which totaled $5 million last year. Unlike Amazon, which scrapped plans for a headquarters in Queens after opposition from some local lawmakers, Wegmans so far has received a warm welcome from New York City’s politicians and activists. But there are no guarantees in the big city. Colleen’s father, Chairman Danny Wegman, whose grandfather and grand-uncle founded the chain in 1916, admits as much. “We have no idea what’s going to happen,” he says. “But if you like people and you like food, that’s what our business is. It’s no more complicated than that.”

America’s Favorite Cult Grocer Tries Its Magic in New York City The nation’s top supermarket chain, Wegmans, sets it sights on Brooklyn’s affluent-yet-finicky shoppers. Most 60-year-old men don’t go food shopping every day, but Tommy Mule does. Mule (pronounced Moo-LAY), a morning radio host in Rochester, N.Y., pops into his local grocery store daily for some Vietnamese spring rolls, a rotisserie chicken, or just a coffee and some chitchat with Jimmy, his pal in the produce department. The broadcaster likes the place so much he hired the supermarket to cater his wedding. He often takes out-of-town guests on a tour of the place. “They say, ‘It’s a goddamn grocery store, how good could it be?’ ” he says. “But I say it’s the best shopping experience you’ve ever had.” Mule’s retail nirvana is Wegmans Food Markets. If you haven’t heard of it, you’re not alone. The privately held, family-run chain based in Rochester has only 98 stores scattered across six eastern states, fewer than Walmart operates in New York state alone. But it punches well above its weight, combining the product breadth of a Walmart, the quality of a Whole Foods, and the quirkiness of a Trader Joe’s. While its sales of about $9.2 billion are puny compared with supermarket giants such as Kroger Co. and Safeway Inc., Wegmans has proved adept at solving the most intractable problem facing U.S. retailers—giving shoppers a compelling reason to visit its stores. Wegmans has been ranked as the nation’s top grocery store for the past three years, according to a survey of shoppers by researcher Market Force Information. Sales per square foot at Wegmans are higher than those of any other supermarket chain save for Whole Foods, according to Creditintell, a retail credit consulting firm. It’s become a harbinger of hope for a retail industry that’s reeling from store closures, the proliferation of discounters like Germany’s Aldi, and Amazon.com Inc.’s encroachment into all things retail. “The entire U.S. grocery sector is hurtling towards a day of reckoning,” says Neil Saunders, an analyst at GlobalData Retail. “There is simply no avoiding this pain, and ultimately the battle will be about surviving rather than thriving.” Wegmans, though, is doing more than surviving, Saunders says, as it’s “head-and-shoulders above most U.S. grocers.” While many grocery stores have folded—think onetime industry leader A&P or Chicago’s Dominick’s—Wegmans is going all out in one of the biggest and most competitive markets in America: New York City. This fall, the chain will open its first big-city location, a 74,000-square-foot facility at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, in a long-ignored tract of the former military base called Admiral’s Row, where officers’ residences once stood. The move will be a big test of whether Wegmans can duplicate the phenomenal success it’s had in smaller locales in the crowded New York market. In 2015 the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corp. (BNYDC)—a not-for-profit that manages the yard on behalf of its owner, the City of New York—handed the Admiral’s Row development contract to Doug Steiner. His television and film production studio complex at the Navy Yard is the largest outside of Hollywood. Wegmans, Steiner says, “is the best supermarket in the country,” and “instills a corporate culture that’s almost like a cult.” Spreading the Wegmans Gospel Key to that reputation is the grocer’s 49,304-strong staff, a quarter of whom have been with the company for a decade or more. Wegmans is known for flying employees to Sicily for a week to learn how to make ricotta. When Wegmans’s workers say the company is like a family, it’s not just public-relations spin: About one-fifth of its staff are related. The enthusiasm extends to its most-loyal shoppers, known as Wegmaniacs. When Buffalo Bills offensive lineman Richie Incognito renewed his contract to remain with the team a few years ago, he tweeted, “Not gonna lie ... Wegmans was a big part of me re-signing in Buffalo.” And when Wegmans in 2011 opened its first store in Massachusetts, a local high school staged a musical about it. Feeding the obsession is the store’s range of exclusive offerings, like its extensive assortment of take-home meals, developed in part by celebrity chef David Bouley. There’s also the cheese counter, with 350 varieties—including esquirrou, a hard sheep’s milk varietal from the French Pyrenees named the world’s best cheese in 2018—that are perfect for pairing with one of Wegmans’s 2,200 wines. Beyond such specialties, the store also carries everyday items like Cocoa Puffs and Coca-Cola, at prices no higher than at other local markets. Brooklyn presents a huge opportunity for Wegmans The 2.8 million people who live within 5 miles of the Navy Yard, with an average household income well above $100,000. But there are serious challenges, too. Big, crowded cities aren’t conducive to Wegmans’s sprawling stores. The Navy Yard is isolated, a food desert abutting a public-housing project, and is cut off from most of the borough by the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. And New York City’s grocery scene is a hypercompetitive mix ranging from bodegas and street-corner produce stands to local chains like Fairway and D’Agostino that have more experience with the hefty and rising operating costs that have eaten away at area grocers’ margins. “The business has changed,” says John Catsimatidis, owner of a company that operates 35 local grocery stores under the Gristedes and D’Agostino banners. “When you’re being attacked five different ways, everyone takes a percentage, and you’re f---ed.” Brooklyn is a decidedly different kind of project for Wegmans, presenting plenty of design challenges. The new building will house several floors of light-industrial manufacturing above the store, so an elevator shaft had to be installed for those businesses that wouldn’t infringe on the store’s layout, which includes a mezzanine cafe and wine bar that will seat more than 100. A bigger concern is climate change: Hurricane Sandy in 2012 flooded the yard, so the site has been raised by an average of 5 feet to reduce the risk of a repeat. “All this was new for Wegmans,” says Navid Maqami, co-founder of architectural firm S9, which designed the Navy Yard store’s exterior. “Things are a little different here.” Take the windows: Most grocers use tinted glass to lower energy costs, but this Wegmans will install low-iron glass that’s more typically used by luxury retailers and easier to see through. For Wegmans to be a destination, Steiner figures, shoppers need to know what’s inside. The grocer has adapted to new environments before. Last year it opened its first mall-based location in the Boston suburb of Natick. Wegmans built a shopping cart escalator for its two-level store and a skywalk that connects to an 1,800-car garage. Parking has been a sticking point in Brooklyn. Steiner thought the store needed only about 250 spots since many New Yorkers don’t own cars, but Wegmans executives, expecting shoppers to drive from up to one hour away, insisted on more. So a parking garage with 429 additional spots is going up next to the store. There will also be dedicated spaces for Uber pickups—a New York necessity. Still, perhaps the biggest challenge will be convincing New York’s notoriously finicky shoppers that Wegmans, unfamiliar to many locals, offers something unique. “I’ve been to Wegmans in Rochester,” says Ariel Lauren Wilson, editor-in-chief of Edible Brooklyn magazine. “Did I feel it was anything I couldn’t get in New York City? No.” Wegmans isn’t planning any big changes to its product assortment for Brooklyn, according to Chief Executive Officer Colleen Wegman. “There are all different types of customers there, so we will offer the best of what we have,” she says.

A star is built: Giannis is the best basketball player alive At 24 years old, Giannis Antetokounmpo is the best basketball player in the world. He is the best offensive player on a top-five NBA offense. He's the best defensive player on the No. 1 defense. As the catalyst of an incredible basketball system, Giannis has led the Milwaukee Bucks to the best record in the NBA and home-court advantage throughout the playoffs. Antetokounmpo isn’t just this season’s MVP. He is the perfect two-way superstar for where the NBA is right now — and where it’s going… Simply put, he has become the most self-sufficient dunker we’ve seen in decades. After dropping 19 unassisted dunks as a rookie in 2013-14, Giannis reached 116 this season — the only guy to top 100 for as long as the league has been tallying play-by-play data… there’s just something especially satisfying about an unassisted driving dunk. It’s such a dramatic display of dominance. It’s why in many of his best highlights, Giannis looks like a man among boys. But then you remember this is the best basketball league on Earth. Every NBA player would love to dribble up the court and slam it home at will. They can’t. Yes, that unassisted dunk stat is a little esoteric, and it might not translate directly to wins, but it does reveal just how unprecedented this kid’s dominance is right now. Coaches design entire defensive philosophies around protecting the paint. Antetokounmpo doesn’t care. With only a dribble or two and some crafty footwork, he can transport the ball from the perimeter to the hoop and hammer it home. Basketball rarely looks so easy… http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/26495696/a-star-built-giannis-best-basketball-player-alive

A Woman Totaled Her Car After Seeing A Spider While Driving The driver injured her leg as a result. The spider’s current whereabouts are unknown. A woman crashed her car Wednesday after she saw a spider, police in Cairo, New York, said. After noticing the spider in the front seat, the unidentified woman “panicked and crashed,” police said. She suffered a leg injury and totaled the vehicle as a result. Police posted photos of the crash on Facebook as a warning to arachnophobic drivers. “We know that it is easier for some drivers than others,” police said. “But PLEASE, try to teach new drivers and yourselves to overcome the fear and pull over to a safe place.” “Lives depend on it,” the post said. People commenting on the police department’s Facebook post empathized with the woman and some shared their own horror stories of finding eight-legged hitchhikers in their cars. “For safety measures should probably burn the car too,” one person commented. “Just to make sure it’s really dead.”

Trivago pitchman found passed out behind wheel of car, charged with DWI The “Trivago guy,” best known for appearing in television commercials to helptravelers find their “ideal hotel for the best price,” was arrested Wednesday inHouston for allegedly driving while intoxicated, authorities said. Actor Timothy Williams, 52, was found passed out behind the steering wheel of a car around 3:15 p.m., Houston police said. He was in a moving lane of traffic with a foot on the brake, according to police. The charming pitchman for the German discount travel website then allegedly failed a sobriety test and submitted a blood sample to test for alcohol before he was charged, FOX26 Houston reported. Williams, who grew up in Houston, was ordered to have a mental health or intellectual disability assessment, before he was released on $100 bond, the Houston Chroniclereported. He was scheduled to appear in court on April 17. Although widely recognized as the face of Trivago, Williams’ other acting credits include “The Sopranos,” “Law and Order” and several German television series, according to his IMDB biography.

One of the top Porsche collections in the world was severely damaged in the North Carolina gas explosion that left one person dead and 17 injured, according to a new report. The garage housing the Ingram Collection, which was not open to the public, is directly adjacent to the building where Wednesday’s explosion took place in Durham, local station ABC 11 reported. At least some of the cars were significantly damaged in the explosion, fire and collapse, aerial footage taken by Spectrum News RDU shows. The collection is owned by local businessman Bob Ingram — who began his career in the pharmaceutical industry, co-leading the merger that formed GlaxoSmithKline, according to the collection’s website. Ingram declined to comment when reached by ABC 11. His collection was described in a 2015 profile on Porsche’s website as an 80-vehicle “star parade” and a “breathtaking review of automotive design history.” Firefighters had been evacuating the destroyed two-story building Wednesday due to a gas leak when the blast occurred. Police said the gas leak that led to the explosion was ultimately caused by a contractor who hit a 2-inch gas line while boring under a sidewalk. In other car-related news: Man spotted driving unique giant Nike shoe around Paris A man was seen in cruising around Paris in a vehicle designed to look like a Nike trainer. This footage shows the driver of the shoe-come-car performing a three-point turn on a narrow street in Paris on March 20. The filmer of this video told Newsflare: "I was stupefied and laughing, other people were stunned just like me." https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/video/man-spotted-driving-unique-giant-nike-shoe-around-paris/vp-BBVLBAo

An Instagram-famous travel couple is defending what’s been criticized as a “stupid, ridiculous” photo op that some fear could have had a fatal end, insisting that they were safe the entire time and that the image was edited for “dramatization.” Last week, Kelly Castille and Kody Workman shared a snap taken in Ubud, Bali, Indonesia, to their joint Instagram account @positravelty and following of 62,000, Insider reports. In the controversial photo, Workman stands inside an infinity pool and holds up his sweetheart by her back and shoulders as the lovebirds kiss, while Castille dangles on the other side of the pool structure over a seemingly endless abyss. Though the daring jungle image has since won over 18,000 likes online, detractors were quick to declare the American couple “morons” for putting themselves in harm’s way — for the sake of a picture. “What a stupid ridiculous photo. When one of you falls and meets your death than we will see if Instagram was worth it, idiots,” one cynic clapped. “Dumbest thing I’ve seen today. Imagine if she fell, all for the sake of a little internet fame,” another agreed. “You know, other people are gonna start dangling themselves from infinity pools and dangerous like this also to get a shot like this. Way to set an example,” one offered. Another asked: “Why is the woman always the one risking themselves for pictures [?] Never see a guy hanging over a cliff.” Fans, meanwhile, were quick to defend the travel bloggers, arguing that the “epic” shot made for an “awesome” picture that Castille was “brave” to take. “Feeling like the picture depicts the trust and strength of love you have for each other. Kelly trusts Kody enough and Kody knows that he’s strong enough to hold her not to fall,” an admirer gushed. “I don’t even know why [there] is so much backlash on this picture… It just shows how much they trust each other and have faith in each other,” another agreed. The couple, meanwhile, has since explained that what happened, in reality, was a much safer situation than it may appear — and that they went for the shot in good fun. “As for safety, we are all responsible for ourselves at the end of the day,” Castille and Workman told Fox News. “The reality is that we felt safe, stable and confident for two reasons. First and foremost, there is another pool below that we cropped out of the shot for dramatization. Secondly, we thought about this photo for days, considering the angles and potentials. “We are travelers, adventurers and above all, creatives. Life is about perspectives and it is important to review them all,” the pair continued. “As for the backlash… we know we were safe. A fall would have been nothing more than a nice splash and sprint up the stairs to try it again.” The Louisiana woman, 33, and Michigan man, 32, met a year and a half ago while traveling, Insider reports, and have enjoyed a glam tour of the world together ever since. They launched their Instagram account in May 2018. But it wouldn’t be the first time in recent months that a couple has caught heat for pulling a seemingly dangerous stunt for a picture-perfect photo. In March another Instagram-famous travel couple was slammed for dangerously posing out of a moving train in Sri Lanka for the perfect smooching shot. [MEDIA=instagram]BvwamQAF0Lm[/MEDIA] [MEDIA=instagram]Bv1kRXAFvho[/MEDIA] [MEDIA=instagram]BwHpMaOFb1i[/MEDIA]

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It took nearly 15 years for David James Elliott to reprise Harmon “Harm” Rabb Jr., his US Navy lawyer from CBS’ long-running drama “JAG,” which signed off in April 2005. “I never thought I would wear the shoes again,” says Elliott, 58, who returns as Rabb on a three-episode arc of “NCIS: Los Angeles” next month. “I felt that we took [Rabb] as far as we could, but this is shining a new light on him — he’s evolved, his career path has changed, and it was time. “It felt good. It was surreal,” he says of shooting the episodes. “The first day [on the set] was odd, but it was like sliding into an old shoe.” Elliott’s “JAG” co-star, Catherine 'Don't Call Me Tinker' Bell, will also reprise her role as Major Sarah “Mac” MacKenzie in the “NCIS: Los Angeles” season finale. “Those 14 years seemed to dissolve into what felt like yesterday,” says Elliott. “The characters were there at the same time, but they’ve evolved and their history has broadened or deepened,” he says of Rabb and MacKenzie. “Things have happened that I won’t tell you about — you’ll have to tune in to find out — but it will be great for fans of ‘JAG’ and certainly there’s a lot there for the new audience to enjoy.” Elliott says that, over the years, he was never asked to reprise Rabb on either of the three “JAG” spinoffs: Mark Harmon’s mega-successful “NCIS” (just renewed for Season 17), “NCIS: Los Angeles” or “NCIS: New Orleans.” “I was never officially approached, though I heard rumblings, but no one ever reached out,” says Elliott, who will star on the upcoming Netflix series “Spinning Out.” “This sort of evolved because I know Scott Gemmill, the showrunner of ‘NCIS: Los Angeles’; he was a writer in ‘JAG’s’ early years and a fellow Canuck (we won’t hold that against them!) and we were friendly. We were talking and Scott had an idea. He’s had other [‘JAG’] characters back … and it sort of evolved from that. I don’t know if I would ever have done this had it not been with Scott, who I know and trust and admire as a writer. He was always my favorite writer [on ‘JAG’].” The Harmon Rabb we’ll meet on “NCIS: Los Angeles” has changed from the guy we last saw back in 2005, Elliott says. “He’s no longer practicing law. He’s now an executive officer aboard a nuclear war ship, a carrier, and he’s second-in-command,” he says. “He gets to fly jets again and is head of the air wing — his responsibilities are certainly great and it’s a new challenge. This is a different guy, a different person than he was [on ‘JAG’]. “At his core he’s a moral person who’s trying to do the right thing,” he says. “It’s an exciting new, fresh way to look at the character and it was enticing to me … to do a three-episode arc to explore things I don’t think we could ever have done in one episode.” The return of Elliott and Bell as Rabb and MacKenzie has spurred rumors of a series revival starring the ex-“JAG” co-stars. “Hey man, who knows, maybe this is just the beginning of more adventures to come,” Elliott says, adding that there’s “nothing official” about a possible revival. “This would be a re-imagining of the characters which, to me, is a very interesting way to go,” he says. “We can bring in the old fans and have the opportunity to bring in new fans with a fresh, exciting show. “It would be kind of like ‘Star Trek’ in that there would be no end of story possibilities, since the ship is like an ER on the water, like a small floating city, with political and international intrigue. I would certainly be open to it. “I will add this,” he says. “I put on the old [‘JAG’] uniform and, to be honest, it fit better than it did when I took it off years ago. “It’s like putting on an old graduation suit.”

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When his right leg moves, it looks like he has a torpedo between his legs.