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In January, the Newport Beach Police Department closed its investigation into Thunder guard/forward Josh Giddey. He was not charged with a crime after no corroborating evidence was found. Sources tell ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski that the NBA has closed its own investigation into Giddey after reaching a similar conclusion (Twitter link). In November, a series of posts on social media accused Giddey of having an inappropriate relationship with an underage girl who is a student at Newport Harbor High School in Newport Beach. That prompted both the NBA and the Newport Beach Police Department to open investigations into the claims. However, TMZ reported at the time that the alleged minor and her family were unwilling to cooperate with law enforcement officials. Both investigations are now closed. In addition to the off-court allegations, Giddey had an up-and-down season on the court as well, culminating in being benched in the Western Conference semifinals against Dallas. The Thunder lost the playoff series in six games. “There’s been days where you don’t feel like getting out of bed for a number of reasons,” Giddey said during his exit interview, per Joel Lorenzi of The Oklahoman. “As I said, I’m just lucky to have people around me that care, that were there for me. Coming in the gym every day, seeing my teammates, that helps.” The sixth overall pick of the 2021 draft, Giddey will be eligible for a rookie scale extension this offseason. The 21-year-old made it clear he’d be thrilled to stay with the team long-term and he’s determined to improve his shooting and defense going forward, according to Lorenzi. “I can’t wait to get back next season and show that I’m a different player,” Giddey said, “and to never let what happened this series happen again.”

Queens Public Library in Elmhurst unveils new eco-friendly garden with support from National Grid

Xander Bogaerts To Miss Significant Time Due To Shoulder Fracture The Padres announced that they have placed infielder Xander Bogaerts on the 10-day injured list, retroactive to May 21, with a left shoulder fracture. At this point, it doesn’t appear as though surgery is required, though Bogaerts will need to miss time as the bone heals, with more tests planned for today. “Late summer” is floated as a possible return time, which leaves a lot of vagaries about the months to come, though Bogaerts will be out at least two months.

I'm glad they are getting the chance for an appropriate send-off, but the truth is that the writing has been quite weak this season. Lots of scenes of characters acting stupidly... The scene at the bank last night, Jackie at Louise's school board speech, Darlene with Mark's counselor in the cafeteria, just to mention three. And did you think Dan was going to re-mortgage the house to pay for Mark's college?

Preserving Tradition, Embracing Innovation: A Journey through Katz’s Delicatessen In this episode of Schneps Connects, we delve into the captivating history and enduring legacy of Katz’s Delicatessen, a cherished institution in New York City since 1888. Jake Dell, the fifth-generation custodian of Katz’s, joins us to recount the deli’s evolution amidst the ever-changing landscape of NYC. From its iconic “Send a Salami to Your Boy in the Army” campaign to the traditional ticket system, Jake shares insights into the family business and invaluable lessons for entrepreneurs, especially in the demanding restaurant industry of NYC. He unveils some of Katz’s secrets, including the meticulous pastrami-making process that sets them apart, and discusses the enduring allure that keeps customers lining up daily. From expanding catering services to international shipping, Jake reflects on the milestones and challenges of running Katz’s, highlighting his proudest achievements and future aspirations. With a nod to its celebrity following and film appearances, Jake offers a glimpse into the deli’s cultural impact and what lies ahead for this beloved New York institution. To listen to our podcasts visit podcasts.schnepsmedia.com or stream them on all major podcast networks.

And the world... I went to Russia in 1991 and we had to eat at the McDonald's in Moscow, just because… I don't know if it still is, but at the time it was the largest in the world. Despite how expensive it was for Russians to eat there, the line to get in was around three sides of the block. Fortunately, our tour guides got us in right away, so we treated them to lunch. The food tasted exactly the same, and I don't remember the price being all that outrageous compared to the US at the time. because it was so impossible to get anything edible in Russia, we also ate Pizza Hut, and were thrilled to!!! The Russian citizens could not afford Pizza Hut, so they could eat at Pizza Hut Express, which was cheaper. Wealthy Russians or tourists could afford the regular Pizza Hut, so we again treated our guides and they were very impressed by us.

I love this show, but the last couple of episodes were not particularly good. They felt rushed and underdeveloped at the same time. I know they only had a limited amount of episodes to deal with because of the strikes but ending the season this way was definitely a big disappointment for me. I’ll still be happy when it comes back in January, but I hope they figure out a better way to get out of the situation than they did to put themselves into it.

Saudi tycoon slashes price of never-lived-in NYC penthouse by $64M — initially listed for $169M

Another great start tonight, but Clay Holmes imploded in the 9th.

I am attracted to Alec Secareanu from God’s Own Country, so every once in awhile I search to see if he’s been in anything newly available. That’s how I started something in the middle of the night on Tubi without knowing what it was… and I stayed with it despite the brutal subject matter because it was quite well done. Doing Money is a British television drama, written by Gwyneth Hughes and directed by Lynsey Miller, that was first broadcast on BBC Two. Focusing on the subject of modern slavery in the sex trade, the film, starring Anca Dumitra and Allen Leech, is based upon the fact-based novel Slave by Jason Johnson. The film documents the story of ‘Ana’, a Romanian student training to be a nurse who is kidnapped in broad daylight from the streets of London and ordered to work as a prostitute in a number of brothels in Ireland and Northern Ireland. The film was broadcast as part of the BBC’s Why Slavery? season, to coincide with International Anti Slavery Day. Anca Dumitra said of her role as Ana; “Ana is a truly remarkable person, someone who has survived endless abuse with courage and determination, a real-life hero. I have been deeply moved by her story and it’s an honour to play her in Doing Money. This is a story that needs to be seen.” Allen Leech added; “I’m delighted to be part of telling this moving and important true story. Doing Money, Ana’s experience, shines a light on the shocking truth of human trafficking and slavery in Britain. DI Dougie Grant was one of the key officers at the centre of the original investigation. It’s a real privilege to play him.” Alison Graham of the Radio Times wrote; “After watching Gwyneth Hughes’s fact-based drama Doing Money, I went home stifled by a cloud of misery that couldn’t be dispersed, even by the repeats of ancient Big Bang Theories I watched long into the evening just to try to flush the horror from my system. I found Doing Money so overwhelming – the true story of Ana, a young Romanian woman working as a cleaner in Britain who was abducted by a trafficking gang from a street in Wood Green London and forced into sex slavery. I was harrowed as she was repeatedly brutalised into submission by a series of men who treated her savagely.” Viewers described the film as “horrific”, “disturbing”, “harrowing” and “heartbreaking.”

TV station duped into reporting Mossad agent ‘Eli Copter’ was pilot on doomed Iranian prez Raisi’s flight

Yankees starting pitchers have gone 7-0 with a remarkable 0.80 ERA during the team’s seven-game winning streak. Each of the starters has pitched at least six innings and allowed two or fewer runs, which is just the fifth time since 1973 that the Yankees have had such a streak over any seven-game span.

The late founder of Red Lobster refused to obey Jim Crow laws, achieving success & a special place in history among Black Americans. In 1938, Bill Darden, founder of Red Lobster and Olive Garden restaurants, opened The Green Frog with the tagline ”service with a hop.” He allowed his Black and white customers to sit where they wanted. So technically, as an outspoken public ally, he risked being lynched. But he survived and his business was profitable and lucrative. In 1968, Darden, who used his profits from the Green Frog to invest in Florida-based chain restaurants and Howard Johnson properties, opened the first Red Lobster restaurant in Lakeland, Florida. It was so popular that one month later he had to open another one to keep up with the demand. As Darden’s restaurant enterprise grew, its commitment to being a leader in diversity by mirroring its labor pool with the cultural fabric of the local community became clear.

Near the towering border wall flanked by a US Border Patrol vehicle, botanist Sula Vanderplank heard a quail in the scrub yelp “chi-ca-go,” that toddlin' town... a sound the birds use to signal they are separated from a mate or group. Then silence. A quail on the Mexican side called back, triggering a back-and-forth soundtrack that was both fitting and heartbreaking in an ecosystem split by an artificial barrier. Vanderplank was among several botanists and citizen scientists participating in the Border Bioblitz near the Mexican community of Jacumé, about 60 miles east of Tijuana. Roughly 1,000 volunteers armed with the iNaturalist app on their smartphones are documenting as many species as possible along the US-Mexico border in May. Uploading photos to the app helps identify plants and animals, and records the coordinates of the location. The hope is the information could lead to more protections for the region’s natural richness, which is overshadowed by news of drug trafficking and migrant smuggling. On a recent day, Bioblitz volunteers scrutinized a bright yellow blooming carpet of common Goldfields, a sharp contrast to the imposing steel bollards of the border wall topped with rolls of razor wire. Some navigated their way around piles of empty water jugs, a gray hoodie and empty cans of tuna fish left under the branches of native flora like the Tecate Cypress. “There’s a fabulous amount of biodiversity here that’s traditionally been overlooked,” Vanderplank, of the binational program Baja Rare, said. The efforts started in response to former President Donald Trump adding hundreds of miles of border walls that toppled untold numbers of saguaro cactuses in Arizona and passed through the biodiversity hotspot of Baja California. “When the border wall construction began, we realized how little hard data we had, especially when it came to plants and small organisms,” Vanderplank said. “We don’t know what all we could lose.” Since then, there has been a groundswell of initiatives to document the borderland’s flora and fauna as climate change coupled with habitat loss, pollution and development have hammered the world’s biodiversity. One estimate in 2019 warns that a million plant and animal species face extinction within decades, a rate of loss 1,000 times greater than expected. The United Nations is expected hold a high-level meeting in Colombia of signatories to the Convention on Biological Diversity in October aiming to protect 30% of land, freshwater and oceans considered important for biodiversity by 2030, known as 30 by 30. Representatives from nearly 200 countries are expected to present plans on how they will meet conservation targets agreed upon in 2022. Currently, 17% of terrestrial and 10% of marine areas are protected. Baja California peninsula, which borders California and is home to Tijuana with one of Mexico’s highest homicide rates, has more than 4,000 species of plants. A quarter of them are endemic and at least 400 plants are considered rare with little to no protection. Flora and fauna that have gone extinct or are in danger of disappearing in the US, like the California red-legged frog, are thriving south of the border, producing specimens that are being used to bring back populations. But the region’s crime deters many US scientists from crossing the border. Mexico also is restricting permits for botanists and not allowing seeds to be collected, further curtailing the work, scientists say. Bioblitz organizers work with local communities and say they take people only to areas deemed safe. “You have to be really careful because of the violence,” said Jon Rebman, a curator of botany at the San Diego Natural History Museum, who has named 33 new plants for science from the southern California and Baja California region. “It’s scary from that standpoint, yet those are the areas where we really need more information because there’s hardly any protected area on the south side,” he said. Using the museum’s collection, Rebman made a list of 15 plant species endemic to Baja California and not seen since being collected nearly a century ago. He created a binational team to find them. So far, they have located 11. Rebman also discovered two new plants to science in 2021 in a canyon off a Tijuana highway: the new species, Astragalus tijuanensis, and a new variety of the Astragalus brauntonii named lativexillum. “I was worried they would go extinct before we even got them named,” Rebman said. “That tells you what type of area we’re working in.” Tijuana-based botanist Mariana Fernandez of Expediciones Botánicas periodically checks on the plants. Working with Rebman, she is pushing Baja California to adopt more protections for its native plants. Currently only a fraction are on Mexico’s federal protection list. She hopes the state will step in, while she also tries to build support by taking Tijuana residents and Baja officials on hikes. “People are amazed that these things exist in Tijuana, and I hope to show more and more people so they can see the beauty, because we need that,” Fernandez said. “It’s important to not be impeded by the barriers that humans create.” As border security increases with the number of people being displaced by natural disasters, violence and wars at record levels worldwide, more migrants are traipsing out to areas like the stretch near Jacumé. The tiny community of about 100 families includes members of the Kumeyaay tribe and sits across the border from an equally sparsely populated desert near the California town of Jacumba Hot Springs. Population: about 1,000. The area has seen thousands of asylum seekers who wait for an opportunity to cross, usually in the cloak of darkness, and then camp again on the US side after turning themselves in to US Border Patrol agents. Fernandez was among the botanists helping Bioblitz volunteers on the Mexican side near a crumbling crossing station from the 1920s. “I never would have thought that there would be so much biodiversity on the border,” said Jocelyn Reyes, a student of Fernandez at La Universidad Autónoma de Baja California who stopped every few feet to hover over a plant and photograph its details. “It’s so interesting and makes you realize there’s so much worth saving.” https://nypost.com/2024/05/19/us-news/botanists-are-scouring-the-us-mexico-border-to-document-a-forgotten-ecosystem/

One slideshow showing Morgan wearing a bike helmet, pale green cycling T-shirt and moss-colored Spandex shorts has gotten over 9,500 likes. “Sir, we can see your… NVM [nevermind], great pics!,” wrote one Instagram user. “He knows,” replied another. “Son! U just showing thangs!,” wrote another fan. “A complete package,” another deadpanned.

Former ‘Supernatural’ co-stars DJ Qualls and Ty Olsson reveal that they’re engaged

Shouldn't it be headshrinker?

Something to chirp about Swarms of Mormon*** crickets wreak havoc — taking over roads, homes: ‘You can’t even open up the door’ Swarms of Mormon crickets are wreaking havoc in northern Nevada, swarming over fields, roads, homes and storefronts. ***how is it known they're polygamous?

Off the southern coast of mainland England, floating in the Solent straight about a mile from the Isle of Wight, two eye-catching former military forts are drifting to auction. Known as the Solent forts, the circular granite islands were constructed in the 1860s to defend the city of Portsmouth from the French and have, more recently, been renovated into lavish nautical hotels, Mansion Global first reported. Now, after 12 years under the same ownership, the extensively built-out parcels are set to hit the auction block on June 18 with a guide price of $1.27 million each. The larger of the two, No Mans Fort, features 99,000 square feet spread over four floors containing 23 ensuite bedrooms, crew quarters, multiple bars, restaurants and a spa. There’s an “entertaining space including laser battle” on the lowest level, and hot tubs and a fire pit on the roof deck. The second is Spitbank Fort, with approximately 33,000 square feet spread over three floors offering nine guest suites, staff accommodation and event spaces such as the 60 Covers Restaurant and Crows Nest Function Suite. It’s slightly closer to the mainland and, like its counterpart, is also equipped with self-sufficient power and water sources, a fire pit and a hot tub. While No Mans has a helipad, Spitbank is only accessible by boat. As of the present, both are currently being used as hotels, but press materials suggest a buyer could also utilize them as a vacation home, for medical research, a casino — or a prison. “Throughout my career as an auctioneer I’ve seen several sea forts hit the market that have achieved impressive prices as buyers have sought to pursue these trophy assets,” said Savills head of auctions Robin Howeson, who holds the listings. I anticipate there to be a global interest from multiple buyer types looking to take the forts into their next chapter, whether that’s as a new commercial venture or residential home.” Residents of a town outside Dallas have scored a major victory — forcing a developer to scrap plans to bulldoze lush farmland and replace it with a shopping center. The Haggard family, one of Plano’s most prominent clans, aimed to transform a 13.5-acre slice of their historic farm into a retail destination featuring a Sprouts grocery store, retail space and 33 townhomes. The Fairview Farm Land Company, run by a Haggard family member, petitioned Plano officials to rezone the land, sparking a fierce backlash from locals. Residents flooded the city with hundreds of messages, NBC Dallas Fort Worth reports. The overwhelming opposition led to an unexpected twist: Fairview Farm Land Company requested to withdraw its rezoning application. “While we were hopeful that our proposed development would be seen as a positive addition, it is clear that is not the case and we don’t want to proceed with something that does not have full community support. Thank you for your consideration,” the company conveyed via a proxy. Christina Day, Plano’s director of planning, noted the rarity of such a withdrawal. “It’s not unheard of but it is rare,” she told the outlet. “It doesn’t mean they can’t bring a new case forward at some point.” The land is already zoned for single-family homes or townhouses, allowing the Haggards to potentially propose a solely residential development in the future. The Haggard family has a history of selling and developing parts of their land. In 2021, Plano approved a large mixed-use development on 124 acres of Haggard farmland along the Dallas North Tollway, despite massive community opposition. This project, currently under construction, includes a hotel, a restaurant, commercial buildings and housing. Day emphasized that Plano’s policies aim to limit retail sprawl. “We’ve long had policies to limit retail zoning and retail development where possible in the city and that’s because we realize that we have three times the national average of retail,” she said.

Max, a friendly tabby living adjacent to Vermont State University’s main entrance in Castleton was named a “doctor of litter-ature” — after spending a string of semesters wandering the halls of the institution of higher learning, charming students and staff with his positive energy. “Max the Cat has been an affectionate member of the Castleton family for years,” the school said in a Facebook post. The curious kitty first wandered down the street in search of a social life roughly half a decade ago — and the rest was history 101. “So he decided that he would go up on campus, and he just started hanging out with the college students, and they love him,” owner Ashley Dow told the Associated Press. Everybody knows Max, who laps up the attention he’s given, allowing himself to be picked up and played with, and even posed for selfies. The social creature also loves to join campus tours, designed to show prospective students the ropes, running across the street to the meeting point at the right time. “I don’t even know how he knows to go, but he does,” Dow said. “And then he’ll follow them on their tour.” Dow, known as “Max’s mom” around Castleton, said that she’s spoken to graduates who return to town and want to know how Max is doing.