Facebook Instagram Twitter Youtube
    Latest

    Daily News

    Home Daily News
    Daily News

    Worms in food, poor care, lights on 24/7: Families tell of life in detention center

    By
    Tony Ramos
    -
    0
    Worms in food, poor care, lights on 24/7: Families tell of life in detention center

    LAREDO, Texas — A month after ICE agents sent the young Ecuadorian mother and her 7-year-old daughter to a sprawling detention center 1,300 miles from their Minnesota home, they were finally free.

    But when the bus pulled up to a migrant shelter in the border city of Laredo, dropping off a half-dozen families lugging bags stuffed with belongings, the stress of recent weeks tracked mother and daughter like the long shadows on that mid-February afternoon.

    Night after night inside south Texas’ Dilley Immigration Processing Center with hundreds of other families, the grade-schooler wept and pleaded to know why they were being held.

    “She would tell me, ‘Mom, what crime did I commit to be a prisoner?’ I didn’t know what to tell her,” said the 29-year-old, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear being identified could negatively affect their immigration case. Her husband was deported to Ecuador soon after they were taken into custody.

    Many Americans were alarmed last month when photos circulated showing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minneapolis detaining a 5-year-old boy wearing a bunny hat and carrying a Spiderman backpack. The concern followed Liam Conejo Ramos and his father when they were sent to Dilley, surrounded by chain-link fences on a dusty plain about 75 miles south of San Antonio.

    But Liam was hardly an outlier. ICE has been holding hundreds of children at Dilley — many for months.

    “We are all Liam,” Christian Hinojosa, an immigrant from Mexico, said by phone from Dilley, where she and her 13-year-old son were held for more than four months. They were released this month and allowed to return home to San Antonio where she works as a health aide.

    She noted that Liam and his father were released from Dilley after 10 days, when members of Congress and a judge intervened.

    “My son says, ‘That’s unfair, Mama. What’s the difference between him and us?’”

    When the Obama administration opened Dilley in 2014, nearly all families detained there had recently crossed the border from Mexico. Detentions at the facility were scaled back by the Biden administration in 2021, before it was closed three years later.

    ___

    EDITOR’S NOTE — This story includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988.

    ___

    Since being reopened by President Donald Trump’s administration last spring, life inside Dilley — a compound of trailers and other prefabricated buildings — has been shaped by three decisive changes.

    The number of detained families has risen sharply since last fall. The government is holding many children well beyond the 20-day limit set by longstanding court order. And many detainees have lived in the U.S. for several years, with roots in neighborhoods, workplaces and schools, according to lawyers and other observers.

    “Just imagine that you’re a child and you’re taken out of your surroundings,” said Philip Schrag, a Georgetown University law professor and author of “Baby Jails: The Fight to End the Incarceration of Refugee Children in America.”

    Suddenly you’re in “a completely strange environment with the doors locked and guards in uniform roaming around,” said Schrag, who counseled Dilley detainees as a volunteer lawyer during the Obama administration.

    ICE booked more than 3,800 children into detention during the first nine months of the new Trump administration, according to an Associated Press analysis of data from the University of California, Berkeley’s Deportation Data Project. On an average day more than 220 children were held, with most of those detained longer than 24 hours sent to Dilley. More than half of Dilley detainees during that period were children.

    Nearly two-thirds of children detained by ICE were eventually deported and almost 1 in 10 left the country when their parents accepted voluntary departure, according to an AP analysis of the latest comprehensive data. About a quarter were released in the U.S., requiring their parents to check in regularly with ICE as their legal cases proceed.

    The number of detainees at Dilley has risen sharply since the period covered by the data, nearly tripling between last fall and late January to more than 1,300, according to Relevant Research, which analyzes immigration enforcement data.

    “We’ve started to use 100 days as a benchmark because so many children are exceeding 20 days,” said Leecia Welch, the chief legal director at Children’s Rights, who visits Dilley regularly to ensure compliance. In a visit this month, Welch said she counted more than 30 children who had been held for over 100 days.

    The increased detention of children comes as the Trump administration has gutted a Department of Homeland Security office responsible for oversight of conditions inside Dilley and other facilities.

    “It’s a particular concern that family detention is being increased,” said Dr. Pamela McPherson, a child and adolescent psychiatrist contracted by DHS from 2014 until last year to inspect and investigate conditions at Dilley and other ICE facilities holding children.

    “Just who’s providing that check-and-balance now?”

    Rep. Tony Gonzales, who represents the congressional district where Dilley is located, said multiple visits have convinced him criticism of the center is unfair.

    He said he’d been impressed by Dilley’s facilities and the professionalism and dedication of staff. “They’re not doing policy. They’re just fulfilling a duty,” said Gonzales, a Republican.

    DHS did not respond to detailed questions about Dilley submitted by the AP. But both DHS and ICE sharply refuted allegations of poor care and conditions there.

    “The Dilley facility is a family residential center designed specifically to house family units in a safe, structured and appropriate environment,” ICE Director Todd M. Lyons said in a statement this week. Services include medical screenings, infant care packages as well as classrooms and recreational spaces.

    But concerns about Dilley are personal for Kheilin Valero Marcano, a Venezuelan immigrant detained with her husband and 1-year-old daughter, Amalia, in December and held for nearly two months.

    When the child got a high fever, Valero Marcano said Dilley staff told her it was just a virus. Two weeks later, Amalia started vomiting, then losing weight. Valero Marcano said she took her to the Dilley doctor’s office at least eight times but was offered Tylenol and ibuprofen.

    The baby was eventually sent to two hospitals, where doctors diagnosed COVID, bronchitis, pneumonia and stomach virus, she said.

    ICE disputed Valero Marcano’s account, saying in a statement the baby “immediately received proper medical care” at Dilley before being sent to the hospital. Back in Dilley, “she was in the medical unit and received proper treatment and prescribed medicines,” it said.

    The family’s return to Dilley coincided with a measles outbreak there. They were released earlier this month after their lawyers petitioned the court.

    “I’m so worried for all the families who are still inside,” Valero Marcano said.

    After more than two months in a cramped room at Dilley with three other families, the 13-year-old girl’s depression turned increasingly dark.

    The eighth grader stopped eating after finding a worm in her food, family members said. Staff sometimes withheld medications she’d long been prescribed to keep her anxiety in check and help her sleep.

    When a total lockdown was imposed, a guard blocked the teen from leaving the crowded room to join her mother and sister in the bathroom. She spiraled into crisis, and used a plastic knife from the cafeteria to cut her wrist.

    “She said she didn’t want to live anymore because she preferred to die rather than having to keep living in confinement,” her mother, Andrea Armero, told the AP in a video call from Colombia, where the family was deported this month. The AP generally avoids identifying people who attempt or die by suicide.

    The girl’s struggles began before she arrived at Dilley. Soon after starting middle school in Colombia, she learned a family member had sexually abused her younger sister. Armero said she saw no option but to leave and in early 2024 she and her daughters traveled to the U.S. border with Mexico, applying for asylum.

    Living with family in Florida, the 13-year-old was doing well in school but sometimes experienced panic attacks about being sent back to Colombia. Under a psychiatrist’s care, she was prescribed anti-anxiety and anti-depression medications and regularly saw a therapist. Then, in December, ICE agents detained Armero and her daughters during a routine check-in.

    At Dilley, the 13-year-old calmed herself by drawing, producing haunting pictures of a girl locked inside gates. But when she and other detainees took part in a protest after 5-year-old Liam and his father got to Dilley, guards took away drawing materials and ordered everyone to stay inside.

    The teen’s mental health collapsed. She tried to harm herself with the plastic knife, Armero said, and repeatedly hit her head. The family was put into isolation without seeing a doctor, then deported to Colombia on Feb. 11 after a judge ordered them removed, she said.

    Dilley discharge documents described “active problems,” including a “suicide attempt by cutting of wrist” and “self-harm,” in addition to a “history of post-traumatic stress disorder” and “history of anxiety.” AP also spoke with detainees and attorneys who independently described the girl’s suicide attempt.

    Responding to questions from AP, a DHS official acknowledged there had been “a case of self-harm” inside the facility, but did not specify what had happened, or how staff handled the incident. When AP asked for details, DHS did not respond to follow-up questions.

    “No child at Dilley … has been denied medical treatment or experienced a delayed medical assessment,” said Ryan Gustin, a spokesman for CoreCivic, the for-profit prison company that operates the facility under contract with ICE. Gustin declined to answer specific question about the 13-year-old girl, citing privacy rules.

    On a phone call from inside Dilley, 13-year-old Gustavo Santino-Josa introduced himself to a reporter by name and the 9-digit identification number ICE assigned him when he was taken into custody with his mother.

    “Until today I don’t know what we did wrong to get detained,” Gustavo said. “I’ve seen my mom cry almost daily and I ask God that we can go out and go home soon.”

    He worried they might never be released.

    “My mom says that as long as there is hope it is worth fighting for,” Gustavo said before handing the phone to his mother, Christian Hinojosa, the health care aide originally from Mexico.

    “All his friends have left already,” his mother said. “Some were deported. Some got released recently. And it hurts. It hurts to see people leaving and you’re staying here.”

    Dilley was built to hold 2,400 people, housed in clusters ICE calls “neighborhoods.” Bunk beds are arranged side-by-side for up to four families, frequently putting parents with young children in close quarters.

    Once in full operation, Dilley is expected to generate about $180 million in annual revenue for CoreCivic, according to the company’s recent filing with securities regulators.

    In a video on its website, CoreCivic says Dilley’s “open campus layout allows residents to move freely and unescorted throughout the day.”

    It does not mention that parents and their children are locked inside.

    In response to questions from the AP, CoreCivic’s Gustin said the staff at Dilley includes a pediatrician, pediatric nurse practitioner, other trained medical professionals, as well as mental health services to “meet the needs of children and families in our care.”

    In talks with parents of children held at Dilley, however, the same problems come up repeatedly, said Welch, the children’s rights lawyer.

    Kids cry often and don’t get enough sleep, in part because lights are on around the clock, she said. The water tastes terrible and causes stomachaches and rashes, so some families stick to what they can buy in the commissary.

    Their children don’t eat enough and have lost weight, Welch said. There are classrooms, but instruction is limited to an hour daily, mostly filling out worksheets.

    A 14-year-old girl, identified in court papers by the initials NVSM, reported there were tensions with up to 12 people sharing their room. At night when she and her mother tried to sleep, others insisted on turning up the TV.

    “I feel very sad and stressed to be here,” the teen said in an account filed with the court that oversees a binding settlement governing detention and release of children. “My nerves are so high. I don’t know what is happening. My muscles will twitch because I’m so nervous and on edge.”

    As the government’s detention of parents and their children came under scrutiny in 2014, an ICE official insisted that family detention centers, equipped with basketball courts and medical clinics, were “more like a summer camp.”

    The characterization irritated McPherson, the child psychiatrist who, along with another physician, was retained in 2014 by DHS to inspect family detention centers. Their contracts were not renewed by the Trump administration last year after DHS announced sweeping staff reductions.

    “Having a clean place to sleep, having food, that’s not the same thing as having family and community,” McPherson said.

    The doctors’ investigations of family detention centers exposed consistently inadequate staffing and disregard by administrators for the trauma caused by detention, concerns they reported in 2018 to a Senate caucus set up to hear from whistleblowers.

    At Dilley, the doctors noted a persistent shortage of pediatricians and the inability to hire a child psychiatrist from the time they began their inspections until they alerted senators.

    Employees unsure how to deal with 2-year-olds biting and hitting each other placed the children and their parents in medical isolation for days, McPherson and her colleague told senators. Without supervision, a nurse at Dilley gave adult-strength hepatitis A shots to about 250 children in 2015, the American Immigration Lawyers Association reported.

    DHS responded to many of the findings by making changes before a special committee recommended in late 2016 that the government discontinue family detention except in rare cases. The first Trump administration increased family detention before the Biden administration began phasing it out in 2021.

    That the Trump administration is again holding families at Dilley after so many warnings feels “dystopian,” McPherson said.

    “The decision to knowingly traumatize children and subject them to chronic stress, I just have no words for it,” she said.

    Huddled around picnic tables at the Laredo migrant shelter, parents released from Dilley searched anxiously for flights back to the homes they left behind. They called relatives, friends, teachers, anyone who might help with money to get there.

    The young Ecuadorian mom talked of returning to Minneapolis, where her 2-year-old daughter, born in the U.S., was staying with a friend. With her husband deported, parenting will be entirely her responsibility.

    That means getting her 7-year-old back in school. Then the woman, who had a work permit and a job in a Minneapolis restaurant before being detained, needs to keep her children fed.

    “Let’s go home, Mom, but don’t go back to work because ICE is going to pick you up again,” the little girl said. Her mother tried to reassure her.

    That won’t happen, she said, because now they have a special paper telling ICE to leave them alone.

    She hopes that’s a promise she can keep.

    —

    AP Data Reporter Aaron Kessler contributed from Washington.

    ___

    Contact AP’s global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org or https://www.ap.org/tips/


    Source link

    Electrolyte supplements are everywhere. Who benefits from them and when?

    By
    Tony Ramos
    -
    0
    Electrolyte supplements are everywhere. Who benefits from them and when?

    NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Social media is filled with influencers rating electrolyte supplements or even telling followers how to make their own. But experts say many of the claims about the health benefits of these drinks need to be taken with a grain of salt.

    Electrolytes are electrically charged substances that help regulate chemical reactions in the body. In the context of hydration, they balance fluid levels inside and outside of cells, said Julia Zumpano, a registered dietitian at the Cleveland Clinic.

    We lose some electrolytes through sweat, primarily sodium chloride — which is what is in table salt. Drinking too much plain water when sweating very heavily can dilute the salt in your body even further, throwing things out of balance. Electrolyte drinks and powders are meant to hydrate and replace the lost salt. They often contain other electrolytes like potassium and magnesium. Many also contain some form of sugar.

    In general, the kidneys in a healthy person do an excellent job of keeping our electrolytes in balance. Extras simply come out in your urine, said Vanderbilt University nephrologist Hunter Huston, who also consults for a UK-based company that provides electrolyte replacement plans for endurance athletes.

    Taking “an electrolyte-enriched drink, just for health purposes, probably isn’t doing much,” he said.

    Today “rapid hydration” and “advanced hydration” drinks are taking off, but who actually benefits from them and when?

    It was 1965 at the University of Florida and then-assistant Gators football Coach Dwayne Douglas had something on his mind. As Robert Cade, the school’s first kidney researcher, later explained, Douglas asked him, “Doctor, why don’t football players wee-wee after a game?”

    “That question changed our lives,” Cade said.

    The obvious answer was that the football players couldn’t urinate because they were losing so much fluid through sweat. Cade’s research team determined a player could lose as much as 18 pounds (8.16 kilograms) during a game. But it wasn’t just water the players were losing. They were sweating away sodium and chloride and losing both plasma volume and blood volume. The losses were sapping their strength and stamina.

    Cade mixed up a briny solution to replace the water and salt players were losing. Sugar would help the gut absorb the sodium. The first batch made him vomit. Some lemon juice made it taste a little better. It still wasn’t delicious, but soon the team’s performance improvement could not be ignored — especially in the second half of games when the opposite team’s players were starting to wilt in the Florida heat and humidity.

    Cade, who died in 2007, said he never dreamed Gatorade would be purchased by regular consumers.

    While it seems that everyone is drinking electrolyte supplements these days, not everyone actually needs them.

    A good rule of thumb is that if you are exercising for less than two hours, plain water is probably fine, said Vanderbilt’s Huston. The average healthy person can tolerate losing around 2% of their body weight in sweat before they really start to feel it, he said. “That’s increased thirst, it’s fatigue, it cramping.”

    Everyone is different, though. Some people sweat very heavily or have sweat that is especially salty.

    In the world of extreme sports like ultramarathons, athletes often get professional help to test how much they sweat and get a tailored nutrition plan.

    “Most folks that are exercising, that are, say, doing a marathon, are gonna be way past that two hours, and it does then make sense to be thinking about, ‘What’s going to be my fluid and electrolyte replacement plan?’” Huston said.

    Darren Rovell has followed the rise of sports drinks from a niche market to the mainstream. He is the author of “First in Thirst: How Gatorade Turned the Science of Sweat Into a Cultural Phenomenon” and was an investor in the sports drink Bodyarmor.

    When he was a runner in high school, he said, they were given Gatorade to drink and told the reason it tasted bad was because it was good for you. “And then at some point in the nineties, it got to be sugary.” After PepsiCo purchased the brand in 2001, “that really became the first time where you see Gatorade everywhere in front of your face including in a pizza place, and it starts to be, ‘OK. Is this just a different type of soda?’”

    Rovell says electrolyte brands market the idea that drinking their products will either make you an athlete or, if you already are an athlete, give you a performance edge.

    “It all starts in the aspiration of being better, but you know we do have to check ourselves,” he said.

    The supplements out today have an incredibly wide variety of electrolyte concentrations, said Patrick Burns, who practices emergency medicine at Stanford Health Care and occasionally runs in ultramarathons. With some having five times the sodium of others, consumers should not assume all supplements are the same.

    Burns also warned that people should be careful about supplementing potassium, because it can be dangerous in large amounts.

    He noted that many brands now offer zero sugar varieties, even though the glucose in sugar is what allows for rapid absorption of the sodium.

    “They’re not internally consistent, at all, with what they’re trying to sell you,” he said. “For optimal absorption, you need some sugar in with your salt.”

    “Electrolytes can help, especially with heavy sweating or exercise, but for most people, they’re not something you need every single day, and you definitely don’t need large amounts of it,” the Cleveland Clinic’s Zumpano said.

    For a healthy person who is not sweating intensely, the beverages probably won’t hurt you, but they won’t help you either.

    “You’re getting extra sugar, and there’s no reason (for) rapid absorption of sodium because you’re not sodium depleted,” said Mark Segal, a professor of nephrology at the University of Florida College of Medicine. Most people get all the salt and potassium they need from food, he said.

    As far as making your own electrolyte powders, the experts said it can be done, but you have to know what you are doing. They advised against using a recipe from an influencer.

    “How do you know how much you need?” Zumpano asked. “There’s a large margin of error there. I’d probably just avoid it.”


    Source link

    Iran live updates: Announcing ‘major’ US operation, Trump calls for regime change

    By
    Tony Ramos
    -
    0
    Iran live updates: Announcing ‘major’ US operation, Trump calls for regime change

    Israel is “prepared on high alert for a wide range of scenarios,” Israel Defense Forces Chief of General Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said Saturday.

    “We now face a significant, decisive, and unprecedented operation, to dismantle the capabilities of the Iranian terrorist regime — capabilities that constitute an ongoing existential threat to the security of the State of Israel,” Zamir said, in part. “This is an operation to secure our existence and our future here, in the land of our forefathers, for generations to come.”

    Explosions from projectile interceptions by Israel’s Iron Dome missile defence system are pictured over Tel Aviv, February 28, 2026.

    Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images

    “At this very moment, Israeli Air Force pilots are striking hundreds of targets across Iran, at significant personal risk and in coordination with U.S. strikes,” Zamir continued. “Air defense systems and the Navy are deployed to defend Israel’s skies and shores against missile barrages and aerial and maritime threats. Our ground forces are positioned along the borders to thwart and repel any attempt to infiltrate Israeli territory. Home Front Command forces, together with the Israel Police and emergency and rescue services, are prepared to protect and save lives in the civilian arena.”

    “At this time, we are focused solely on victory,” Zamir said.

    -ABC News’ Jordana Miller


    Source link

    Hegseth declares Anthropic a supply chain risk, restricting military contractors from doing business with AI giant

    By
    Tony Ramos
    -
    0
    Hegseth declares Anthropic a supply chain risk, restricting military contractors from doing business with AI giant

    Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth deemed artificial intelligence firm Anthropic a “supply chain risk to national security” on Friday, following days of increasingly heated public conflict over the company’s effort to place guardrails on the Pentagon’s use of its technology. 

    Hegseth declared on X that effective immediately, “no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic.” The decision could have a wide-ranging impact, given the sheer number of companies that contract with the Pentagon.

    “America’s warfighters will never be held hostage by the ideological whims of Big Tech. This decision is final,” Hegseth wrote.

    President Trump announced earlier Friday that all federal agencies must “immediately” stop using Anthropic, though the Defense Department and certain other agencies can continue using its AI technology for up to six months while transitioning to other services.

    Anthropic vowed in a statement to “challenge any supply chain risk designation in court,” calling the move “legally unsound” and warning it would set a “dangerous precedent for any American company that negotiates with the government.” The company argued that Hegseth doesn’t have the legal authority to ban military contractors from doing business with Anthropic, since a risk designation would only apply to contractors’ work with the Pentagon.

    Anthropic was awarded a $200 million contract from the Pentagon last July to develop AI capabilities that would advance national security. 

    In his statement, Hegseth accused the company of attempting “to strong-arm the United States military into submission” and said he would not allow it “to seize veto power over the operational decisions of the United States military.” Anthropic’s stance, he said,  “is fundamentally incompatible with American principles.” 

    In an exclusive interview with CBS News Friday evening, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei disputed that characterization and called the government’s actions “retaliatory and punitive.” 

    “We are patriotic Americans,” he said. “…Everything we have done has been for the sake of this country, for the sake of supporting U.S. national security. Our leaning forward in deploying our models with the military was done because we believe in this country.”

    The conflict centers around Anthropic’s push for guardrails that would explicitly prevent the military from using its powerful Claude AI model to conduct mass surveillance on Americans or to power fully autonomous weapons.  

    The Pentagon, for its part, demanded the ability to use Claude for “all lawful purposes.” The military’s position is that it’s already illegal for the Pentagon to conduct mass surveillance of Americans, and internal policies restrict the military from using fully autonomous weapons. 

    Amodei described the company’s guardrails around surveillance and autonomous weapons “narrow exceptions,” and stressed that the company still hoped to work with the Defense Department if an agreement could be reached.

    “We’re not going to move on those red lines,” Amodei told CBS News. But he added, “For our part and for the sake of U.S. national security, we continue to want to make this work.”

    The Free Press: Will AI Doom Us All? The Market Can’t Decide

    Anthropic is the only AI firm whose model is deployed on the Pentagon’s classified networks to date. But in a social media post Friday night, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said his company had “reached an agreement with the Department of War to deploy our models in their classified network.”

    “Two of our most important safety principles are prohibitions on domestic mass surveillance and human responsibility for the use of force, including for autonomous weapon systems. The DoW agrees with these principles, reflects them in law and policy, and we put them into our agreement,” Altman wrote, adding that OpenAI is asking the Defense Department “to offer these same terms to all AI companies, which in our opinion we think everyone should be willing to accept.” 

    The decision to cut off Anthropic came after an increasingly heated dispute with the Pentagon that highlighted sweeping disagreements about the role of AI in national security and the potential risks that the powerful technology could pose.

    The Pentagon had given Anthropic a deadline of Friday at 5:01 p.m. to either reach an agreement or lose out on its lucrative contracts with the military.

    Hegseth called Anthropic “sanctimonious” and arrogant on Friday, and accused it of trying to “strong-arm the United States military into submission.” 

    “Their true objective is unmistakable: to seize veto power over the operational decisions of the United States military. That is unacceptable,” Hegseth alleged.

    But Amodei has argued that guardrails are necessary because Claude is not infallible enough to power fully autonomous weapons and a powerful AI model could raise serious privacy concerns. He says the company understands that military decisions are made by the Pentagon and has never tried to limit the use of its technology “in an ad hoc manner.”

    “However, in a narrow set of cases, we believe AI can undermine, rather than defend, democratic values,” Amodei said in a statement Thursday. “Some uses are also simply outside the bounds of what today’s technology can safely and reliably do.”

    Amodei has been outspoken for years about the potential risks posed by unchecked AI technology, and has backed calls for safety and transparency regulations.

    The company held firm to its position late Friday, writing: “No amount of intimidation or punishment from the Department of War will change our position on mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons.”

    “We are deeply saddened by these developments,” Anthropic said. “As the first frontier AI company to deploy models in the US government’s classified networks, Anthropic has supported American warfighters since June 2024 and has every intention of continuing to do so.”  

    On Thursday, the eve of the military’s deadline to reach a deal, the Pentagon’s chief technology officer, Emil Michael, told CBS News that the Pentagon had made concessions, offering written acknowledgements of the federal laws and internal military policies that restrict mass surveillance and autonomous weapons.

    “At some level, you have to trust your military to do the right thing,” said Michael, who also noted, “We’ll never say that we’re not going to be able to defend ourselves in writing to a company.”

    Anthropic called that offer inadequate. A company spokesperson said the new language was “paired with legalese that would allow those safeguards to be disregarded at will.” 

    Jo Ling Kent

    contributed to this report.

    In:


    Source link

    Anthropic CEO says he’s sticking to AI “red lines” despite clash with Pentagon

    By
    Tony Ramos
    -
    0
    Anthropic CEO says he’s sticking to AI “red lines” despite clash with Pentagon

    Hours after a bitter feud between the Pentagon and Anthropic ended with the Trump administration cutting off the artificial intelligence startup, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei told CBS News in an exclusive interview Friday night he wants to work with the military — but only if it addresses the firm’s concerns.

    “We are still interested in working with them as long as it is in line with our red lines,” he said.

    The conflict centers on Anthropic’s push for guardrails that explicitly prevent the military from using its powerful Claude AI model to conduct mass surveillance on Americans or to power autonomous weapons. The Pentagon wants the ability to use Claude for “all lawful purposes,” and says it isn’t interested in either of the uses that Anthropic was concerned about.

    The military gave Anthropic a Friday evening deadline to either meet its demands or get cut off from its lucrative Defense Department contracts. With the two sides still seemingly still far apart, President Trump on Friday ordered federal agencies to “immediately” stop using Anthropic’s technology. Then, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declared the company a “supply chain risk,” directing military contractors to also stop working with the AI startup.

    In his interview later Friday, Amodei stood by the guardrails sought by Anthropic, which is the only company whose AI model is deployed on the Pentagon’s classified networks.

    “Our position is clear. We have these two red lines. We’ve had them from day one. We are still advocating for those red lines. We’re not going to move on those red lines,” Amodei later said. “If we can get to the point with the department where we can see things the same way, then perhaps there could be an agreement. For our part and for the sake of U.S. national security, we continue to want to make this work.”

    Amodei told CBS News that Anthropic has sought to deploy its AI models for military use because “we are patriotic Americans” and “we believe in this country.” But the company is worried that some potential uses of AI could clash with American values, he said.

    Mass surveillance is a risk, Amodei argued, because “things may become possible with AI that weren’t possible before,” and the technology’s potential is “getting ahead of the law.” He warned that the government could buy data from private firms and use AI to analyze it.

    In theory, artificial intelligence could also be used to power fully autonomous weapons that select targets and carry out strikes without any human input. Amodei said his company isn’t categorically opposed to those kinds of weapons, especially if U.S. adversaries develop them, but “the reliability is not there yet” and “we need to have a conversation about oversight.”

    The Free Press: Will AI Doom Us All? The Market Can’t Decide

    Since AI technology is still unpredictable, Amodei is concerned that autonomous weapons could target the wrong people by mistake. And unlike with human-powered weaponry, it’s not clear who is responsible for the decisions made by fully autonomous weapons.

    “We don’t want to sell something that we don’t think is reliable, and we don’t want to sell something that could get our own people killed or that could get innocent people killed,” he said.

    Amodei called the guardrails around surveillance and autonomous weapons “narrow exceptions,” and said the company has no evidence that the military has run into either of them.

    The Pentagon’s position is that federal law already prevents it from surveilling Americans en masse, and fully autonomous weapons are already restricted by internal military policies, so there is no need to put restrictions on those uses of AI in writing.

    Emil Michael, the Pentagon’s chief technology officer, told CBS News in an interview Thursday: “At some level, you have to trust your military to do the right thing.”

    “But we do have to be prepared for the future. We do have to be prepared for what China is doing,” Michael said, referring to how U.S. adversaries use AI. “So we’ll never say that we’re not going to be able to defend ourselves in writing to a company.” 

    As a compromise, Michael said the military had offered written acknowledgements of the federal laws and military policies that restrict mass surveillance and autonomous weapons — though Anthropic said that offer was “paired with legalese” that allowed the guardrails to be ignored.

    As the conflict between Anthropic and the Pentagon escalated this week, top military officials accused the company and Amodei of trying to impose their values onto the government. Hegseth called Anthropic “sanctimonious” and arrogant, Michael said that Amodei has a “God-complex” and Mr. Trump called the AI startup a “radical left, woke company.”

    “Their true objective is unmistakable: to seize veto power over the operational decisions of the United States military. That is unacceptable,” Hegseth alleged.

    Said Mr. Trump: “Their selfishness is putting AMERICAN LIVES at risk, our Troops in danger, and our National Security in JEOPARDY.”

    Asked if weighty questions about AI guardrails should be left up to Anthropic rather than the government, Amodei told CBS News that “one of the things about a free market and free enterprise is, different folks can provide different products under different principles.”

    He also said: “I think we are a good judge of what our models can do reliably and what they cannot do reliably.”

    In the long run, he said, Congress should probably weigh in on AI safeguards.

    “But Congress is not the fastest moving body in the world. And for right now, we are the ones who see this technology on the front line,” said Amodei.

    With Anthropic and the Pentagon unable to reach a deal by Friday, the military is now expected to phase out its use of Anthropic’s AI technology within six months and transition to what Hegseth called “a better and more patriotic service.”

    Hegseth also labeled Anthropic a “supply chain risk” and said all companies that do business with the military are now expected to cut off “any commercial activity with Anthropic.” 

    Amodei called that an “unprecedented” move for an American firm rather than a foreign adversary, and he said the government’s statements have been “retaliatory and punitive.” And he argued that Hegseth doesn’t have the legal authority to bar all military contractors from working with Anthropic, and can only stop them from using Anthropic for government contracts.

    He also said that Anthropic hasn’t formally received any information from the Pentagon informing it of a supply chain risk designation, but “when we receive some kind of formal action, we will look at it, we will understand it and we will challenge it in court.”

    Asked if he has a message for the president, Amodei said “everything we have done has been for the sake of this country” and “for the sake of supporting U.S. national security.”

    “Disagreeing with the government is the most American thing in the world,” he said. “And we are patriots. In everything we have done here, we have stood up for the values of this country.”

    In:


    Source link

    U.S. lawmakers react after Trump launches military operation against Iran

    By
    Tony Ramos
    -
    0
    U.S. lawmakers react after Trump launches military operation against Iran

    Reactions are pouring in after the United States and Israel announced a major military operation against Iran early Saturday, following weeks of threats from President Trump. 

    Mr. Trump announced the assault, dubbed “Operation Epic Fury,” in a video on Truth Social. He called on Iran’s military forces to lay down their weapons and on Iran’s civilians to rise up and “take over your government.” Mr. Trump told the Washington Post that he wanted to secure freedom and safety for the Iranian people. 

    Congressional leaders react

    Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Iran’s nuclear ambitions, ballistic missile arsenal and support for terrorism “posed a clear and unacceptable threat to U.S. servicemembers, citizens in the region, and many of our allies,” and he praised praised President Trump for “taking action to thwart these threats.”

    “I look forward to administration officials briefing all senators about these military operations,” he said. “I commend the bravery of the servicemembers carrying out these operations and pray for the safety of those in harm’s way.”

    House Speaker Mike Johnson said “Iran is facing the severe consequences of its evil actions,” and confirmed that the “Gang of Eight,” a group of eight congressional leaders who are legally required to be briefed on classified intelligence matters, had been briefed in detail “earlier this week that military action may become necessary to protect American troops and American citizens in Iran.” 

    The Trump administration “made every effort to pursue peaceful and diplomatic solutions in response to the Iranian regime’s sustained nuclear ambitions and development, terrorism, and the murder of Americans—and even their own people,” Johnson said. “For decades, Iran has defiantly maintained its nuclear program while arming and funding Hamas, Hezbollah, and other internationally recognized terrorist organizations. Iran and its proxies have menaced America and American lives, undermined our core national interests, systematically destabilized the Middle East, and threatened the security of the entire West.” 

    House Minority Leader Hakeen Jeffries said in a statement that Mr. Trump “failed to seek Congressional authorization prior to striking Iran,” and said his “decision to abandon diplomacy and launch a massive military attack has left American troops vulnerable to Iran’s retaliatory actions.” 

    “Iran is a bad actor and must be aggressively confronted for its human rights violations, nuclear ambitions, support of terrorism and the threat it poses to our allies like Israel and Jordan in the region,” Jeffries said. “However, absent exigent circumstances, the Trump administration must seek authorization for the preemptive use of military force that constitutes an act of war.” 

    Jeffries also said that if Iran’s nuclear program was destroyed by military strikes in June 2025, as Mr. Trump previously claimed, “there should be no need to strike them now.” 

    He said the president “must explain itself to the American people and Congress immediately … clearly define the national security objective and articulate a plan to avoid another costly, prolonged military quagmire in the Middle East.”

    House Majority Whip Tom Emmer praised what he called “a bold, decisive act of strength by President Trump” and said, “We pray that because of this leadership, the U.S. and the world will be a safer place.”

    Republican reactions 

    Sen. Roger Wicker, a Republican from Mississippi and the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, called the action a “pivotal and necessary operation to protect Americans and American interests” and said the “Iranian regime has never been weaker.” 

    Trump ally Sen. Lindsey Graham said the operation had “been well-planned” and would be “violent, extensive and I believe, at the end of the day, successful.”

    “My mind is racing with the thought that the murderous ayatollah’s regime in Iran will soon be no more. The biggest change in the Middle East in a thousand years is upon us,” Graham, a Republican representing South Carolina, said on social media. He offered prayers for anyone participating in the operation, and said the effort will make “America more safe and eventually more prosperous.” 

    Sen. Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas and the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, shared a list of crimes committed by Iran and said the “butcher’s bill has finally come due for the ayatollahs.” 

    Rep. Nancy Mace threw her support behind the president’s action, writing on social media: “President Trump understood what the weak could not bring themselves to say: that peace is not found in appeasement — it is won. The Iranian people have bled for their freedom. Their cries did not fall on deaf ears. Not on Trump’s watch.”

    Democrats’ reactions

    Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, a Democrat and vice chair of the Intelligence Committee, called the military operation “a deeply consequential decision that risks pulling the United States into another broad conflict in the Middle East.”

    He condemned the Iranian regime for supporting terrorism and undermining regional stability, but said, “Acknowledging those realities does not relieve any president of the responsibility to act within the law, with a clear strategy, and with Congress.”

    “The American people have seen this playbook before – claims of urgency, misrepresented intelligence, and military action that pulls the United States into regime change and prolonged, costly nation-building. We owe it to our service members, and to every American family, to ensure that we are not repeating the mistakes of the past,” Warner said. “The president owes the country clear answers: What is the objective? What is the strategy to prevent escalation? And how does this make Americans safer?”

    Rep. Jim Himes, a ranking member of the Intelligence Committee, called the operation “a war of choice with no strategic endgame.” Himes is a member of the Gang of Eight. He was notified ahead of the start of the operation, a person familiar with the matter told CBS News. 

    Himes said that he told Secretary of State Marco Rubio during that briefing that “military action in this region almost never ends well for the United States, and conflict with Iran can easily spiral and escalate in ways we cannot anticipate.” 

    “It does not appear that Donald Trump has learned the lessons of history,” Himes said. 

    Sen. Ruben Gallego, a Democrat from Arizona and Iraq War veteran, criticized the operation. 

    “I lost friends in Iraq to an illegal war,” Gallego said on social media. “Young working-class kids should not pay the ultimate price for regime change and a war that hasn’t been explained or justified to the American people. We can support the democracy movement and the Iranian people without sending our troops to die.” 

    Rep. Thomas Massie, a frequent critic of Mr. Trump, appeared to describe the operation as “acts of war unauthorized by Congress” on social media. In June 2025, 

    Massie introduced a resolution directing the president to “terminate the use of U.S. Armed Forces from hostilities against Iran” without an act of Congress. Democrats were planning to compel a vote on a war powers resolution introduced by Massie and Rep. Ro Khanna.

    Khanna said Saturday morning that Congress “must convene on Monday” to vote on the resolution “to stop this” and called on Congressional members to share their voting plans over the weekend. Himes said that Mr. Trump’s “own statement acknowledges this is war.” 

    “Donald Trump has launched a war on Iran. The Congress must reconvene on Monday to vote on Thomas Massie’s and my war powers resolution to stop this war. Trump says his goal is to topple the Iranian regime,” Khanna said in a video. “But the American people are tired of regime change, wars that cost us billions of dollars and risk our lives. We don’t want to be at war with a country of 90 million people in the Middle East.” 

    Sen. Tim Kaine also called on the Senate to “immediately return to session” and vote on a bipartisan war powers resolution “to block the use of U.S. forces in hostilities against Iran.”

    “Has President Trump learned nothing from decades of U.S. meddling in Iran and forever wars in the Middle East? Is he too mentally incapacitated to realize that we had a diplomatic agreement with Iran that was keeping its nuclear program in check, until he ripped it up during his first term?” he said. “For months, I have raised hell about the fact that the American people want lower prices, not more war—especially wars that aren’t authorized by Congress, as required by the Constitution, and don’t have a clear objective.” 

    In:


    Source link

    2/27: CBS Evening News – CBS News

    By
    Tony Ramos
    -
    0
    2/27: CBS Evening News – CBS News


    2/27: CBS Evening News – CBS News









































    Watch CBS News



    Bill Clinton says “I did nothing wrong” in House deposition on Epstein; Hawaii man copes with gambling addiction by offering free surf lessons to strangers


    Source link

    Recovery Rocks PODCAST: Sobriety Is Suddenly ‘Chic,’ But It’s Been in Fiction for Decades

    By
    Tony Ramos
    -
    0
    Recovery Rocks PODCAST: Sobriety Is Suddenly ‘Chic,’ But It’s Been in Fiction for Decades

    LOS ANGELES, Calif. /California Newswire – NEWS/ — Recent coverage in major outlets, including a New York Times feature on the rise of “sober party girls” and alcohol-free social spaces, has framed not drinking as a newly emerging cultural trend. From curated sober parties to alcohol-free bars and wellness-driven nightlife, sobriety is increasingly being rebranded as aspirational, social and even chic, The Evolution of Publishing Institute announced today.
    Recovery Rocks PODCAST: Sobriety Is Suddenly ‘Chic,’ But It’s Been in Fiction for Decades

    But for many authors, the emotional terrain behind this trend is far from new.

    Nearly two decades ago, Anna David explored addiction, denial and recovery in her novel “Party Girl,” which centered on a young woman navigating the highs of Hollywood party culture and the long, complicated road back from substance dependence. Before that, Marian Keyes’ hilariously covered an Irish girl’s journey through alcoholism, rehab and recovery in her classic novel “Rachel’s Holiday.”

    Both “Rachel’s Holiday” and “Party Girl” arrived well before the explosion of what is now known as “Quit Lit” – a category that has since grown to include bestselling memoirs such as “We Are the Luckiest” by Laura McKowen, “How to Murder Your Life” by Cat Marnell, “Quit Like a Woman” by Holly Whitaker, “Girl Walks Out of a Bar” by Lisa Smith and “Sober Curious” by Ruby Warrington.

    But while recovery memoir has flourished over the past decade, novels about addiction and sobriety remains comparatively rare. Both Keyes and David offered fictional stories that explored the psychology of denial, the seduction of nightlife and the messy process of getting sober with a dose of humor and lightness not always attainable in memoir.

    “I wanted to write a novel rather than a memoir because it felt like a memoir would just be too earnest,” David says. “I knew it would be much easier to make fun of the main character if it wasn’t just a straight ‘this happened, then this happened, then this happened’ sort of thing.”

    After a nearly decade-long hiatus, David is now returning to the mainstream recovery conversation as co-host of the Signal award winning podcast “Recovery Rocks,” along with “Girl Walks Out of a Bar” author Smith. The podcast, which Smith originally created and co-hosted with “Dry Humping” author Tawny Lara, explores the lived experience behind sobriety’s cultural evolution. It features interviews with authors and other leaders in the recovery movement.

    As sober social life continues to attract mainstream attention, “Recovery Rocks” is one of the many resources out there that addresses various aspects of recovery.

    “The amount of content available today for people struggling with addiction is mind-boggling,” David says. “It’s been amazing to watch recovery make its way to the mainstream.”

    “Recovery Rocks” is available on all major podcast platforms.

    ABOUT THE EVOLUTION OF PUBLISHING INSTITUTE:

    The Evolution of Publishing Institute conducts research on the intersection of publishing and professional development. More information is available at https://publishingevolution.org/


    Source link

    How Instant Payment Technologies Are Changing Consumer Expectations – OC Weekly

    By
    Tony Ramos
    -
    0
    How Instant Payment Technologies Are Changing Consumer Expectations – OC Weekly

    Image Credit: Pexels

    Do you remember the anxiety of checking your bank account on a Friday, knowing a deposit wouldn’t clear until Tuesday morning? For decades, the financial world operated on a schedule that seemed completely detached from the reality of daily life. We could stream a movie instantly, send a message across the globe in milliseconds, and order dinner to our door in thirty minutes, yet moving our own money remained a sluggish, multi-day affair. That disconnect is finally disappearing, and it is fundamentally reshaping how we interact with the economy.

    The transition toward immediacy is not just a convenience; it is becoming the baseline requirement for commerce. Whether it is a freelancer needing to pay rent or a local restaurant managing inventory costs, the ability to access funds in real-time changes the operational landscape. As technology accelerates, the patience for the old “three to five business days” disclaimer is evaporating. We are entering an era where financial liquidity is as on-demand as our entertainment, creating a new standard that businesses must meet to remain relevant.

    While traditional banking updates are significant, much of the pressure for speed originated in the world of blockchain technology. Blockchain offers a decentralized ledger system that operates independently of centralized banking hours. This technology showed that value transfer did not need to be routed through a complex web of intermediaries, each adding a layer of delay and cost. By using secure, cryptographic rails, digital settlements proved that money could move globally in minutes rather than days, setting a new benchmark for what is possible in financial logistics.

    The influence of this technology extends far beyond cryptocurrency speculation; it has forced the entire financial sector to re-evaluate its architecture. Blockchain introduced the concept of “finality” in transactions without the need for a multi-day settlement period. In a traditional model, a transaction might look complete on a user’s screen, but the actual funds are still moving through back-end clearing houses.

    Blockchain protocols, however, offer near-instant settlement finality. For instance, crypto casino instant withdrawaloptions are becoming standard. This provides players with access to winnings within seconds or minutes. This transparency and speed have influenced the design of fiat payment rails, pushing them to adopt similar “always-on” capabilities to remain competitive in a digital-first world.

    The security inherent in these decentralized systems has addressed one of the biggest concerns regarding faster payments: fraud. One of the historical arguments for slow payments was that the delay allowed time to catch errors or malicious activity. However, ledger technologies use advanced encryption and immutable record-keeping to verify transactions in real-time.

    This proves that speed does not have to come at the expense of security. As these innovations mature, they are being integrated into broader financial applications, creating a hybrid landscape where the reliability of traditional finance meets the velocity of digital innovation.

    For the longest time, the delay in payment processing was accepted as a necessary evil of the banking system. The Automated Clearing House (ACH) network, while reliable, was built for a different era, one where batch processing overnight was considered efficient. However, the modern consumer lives in a 24/7 economy where weekends and bank holidays are often the busiest times for commerce.

    The introduction of systems like The Clearing House’s Real-Time Payments (RTP) network and the Federal Reserve’s FedNow service has dismantled the old barriers. These platforms allow money to move between accounts instantly, regardless of the time of day or day of the week, effectively ending the banking curfew that dictated cash flow for generations.

    This transition is particularly impactful for small businesses and gig economy workers in regions like Orange County. In the past, a delay in settlement could mean the difference between restocking inventory for the weekend rush or running out of supplies.

    With instant payments, cash flow becomes fluid and predictable. A business owner can receive payment for a service on a Saturday afternoon and immediately use those funds to pay a vendor or cover an emergency expense. This liquidity reduces the reliance on credit and high-interest bridge loans, giving entrepreneurs more control over their financial health.

    The psychological impact on consumers cannot be overstated. When a refund, a rebate, or an insurance claim payout arrives instantly, it builds a level of trust and satisfaction that slow legacy systems cannot match. The friction of waiting creates anxiety; speed eliminates it.

    As these technologies become standard, the tolerance for any platform that holds onto money for “processing” is rapidly diminishing. We are moving toward a world where the movement of value is as seamless as sending a text message, and legacy institutions are scrambling to update their infrastructure to keep pace.

    The trajectory toward a fully real-time financial ecosystem is clear, backed by significant adoption across the corporate world. Recent data indicates that the corporate appetite for these technologies is aggressive, with reports showing that 73% of businesses now use either Real Time Payments or FedNow platforms. This statistic highlights a critical tipping point; instant payments have graduated from a niche innovation to a standard operational tool for the majority of U.S. enterprises. Companies are realizing that faster payments equate to better vendor relationships and happier customers.

    Consumer adoption is following a similar, albeit generational, curve. While younger demographics like Gen Z are naturally gravitating toward instant peer-to-peer transfers for everything from splitting rent to paying for used goods, the infrastructure is expanding to support everyone.

    Industry forecasts are optimistic about the ubiquity of these systems, with experts projecting that 70–80% of U.S. financial institutions will be able to receive instant payments by 2028. This widespread integration means that within a few years, the concept of “waiting for funds to clear” will likely be as obsolete as dial-up internet.

    The implications of this change will touch every aspect of daily life in Orange County and beyond. We are moving toward a reality where paychecks are deposited the moment a shift ends, where insurance claims settle in minutes during a crisis, and where bill payments are timed to the exact second they are due.

    This fluidity empowers consumers with true ownership of their assets, removing the artificial delays that have historically benefited institutions over individuals. The technology is here, the infrastructure is being built, and the expectation for immediacy is now permanent.


    Source link

    Trump ditches ‘America First’ to put the American Empire first – Orange County Register

    By
    Tony Ramos
    -
    0
    Trump ditches ‘America First’ to put the American Empire first – Orange County Register


    For all the trash he talked about them, Donald Trump seems hellbent on making Dick Cheney and John McCain proud.

    With his latest illegal strikes on Iran, Trump the “peace president” has once again chosen to meddle abroad to distract from the fact his domestic policy agenda is failing the American people.

    As Trump himself put it in 2012, “Remember that I predicted a long time ago that President Obama will attack Iran because of his inability to negotiate properly-not skilled!”

    After blowing up boats in the Caribbean and killing a bunch of people in Venezuela, it’s clear the president quite enjoys his power to end lives. The receipts go back years: some of his only vetoes as president in his first term were in response to congressional efforts to block his involvement in Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen. Also in his first term, civilian deaths in Afghanistan surged thanks to escalating airstrikes there on his orders.


    Source link

    Animo Leadership boys soccer team rallies past Ontario Christian to win Division 6 title – Press Enterprise

    By
    Tony Ramos
    -
    0
    Animo Leadership boys soccer team rallies past Ontario Christian to win Division 6 title – Press Enterprise

    ONTARIO — A 2-0 lead looks great on the scoreboard, but many soccer coaches also call it the most dangerous scoreline.

    That adage was proven true Friday evening.

    1 of 22

    Animo Leadership players celebrate with the CIF Southern Section Division 6 boys soccer championship trophy into the air after defeating Ontario Christian 4-2 in Ontario on Friday, Feb. 27, 2026. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)

    Expand

    Ontario Christian dominated the opening half and held that two-goal advantage at intermission of the CIF Southern Division 6 championship match. However, Animo Leadership turned the tables on the Knights in a matter of minutes and prevailed 4-2.

    It marks the fifth section championship for Animo’s boys soccer program and first since winning the Division 3 title in 2024.

    “We struggled to create any kind of offense in the first half, so we had to make adjustments at halftime,” Aztec Eagles coach Sergio Medrano said. “We hadn’t come back from a 2-0 deficit before tonight, but these players found a way to get it done.”

    The match flipped in favor of Animo Leadership (19-8-5) during a six-minute stretch of the second half. Elias Medrano ripped a shot with the outside of his boot from the top of the box in the 51st minute. The shot appeared to take a slight deflection off the foot of an Ontario Christian defender, giving Knights goalkeeper Andrew Belden little chance to make the save.

    The Aztec Eagles leveled the match 3 minutes later, as Christopher Sanchez headed home a low, driving corner kick from Ethan Mendoza. And then 2 1/2 minutes later, a miscue from Ontario Christian’s backline allowed Jeremiah Medrano to take control of the ball inside the box and fire a shot into the net.

    “I’ve never experienced something like that,” Animo defender and captain Ryan Garcia said. “Those 6 minutes were the best 6 minutes of our lives and something we’ll always remember. … Hearing our fans cheering us on was a feeling like no other.”

    Added Sergio Medrano: “We wanted to control the midfield in the second half and try to put Ontario Christian on their heels.”

    The emotions were much different for Ontario Christian and its fans, as exuberance quickly was replaced by bewilderment.

    “It’s tough because in soccer there are no timeouts,” Knights coach Anthony Quintanilla said. “You can’t stop the action and bring the team together in the huddle. You yell out instructions and keep on supporting them, but it can be a helpless feeling at times.”

    Ontario Christian (22-5-1) nearly stunned the Aztec Eagles in the opening minute. Dominik Martinez intercepted a ball and dribbled into the box down to the end line. He passed the ball back, but Daniel Moreno pulled the shot just wide of the net.

    The Knights continued to control the action and dominate possession throughout the first half, and the breakthrough goal came from a set piece in the 13th minute. Jacob Rivera sent a free kick into the box, and center defender Jacob De Corte jumped and deftly flicked the ball with his foot over Animo goalie Fernando Hernandez, sending the home crowd into frenzy.

    De Corte also played a role in Ontario Christian’s second goal, which came in the 25th minute. De Corte’s long throw deep into the penalty area created some havoc for Animo’s defense, and Dalton Stott tucked the ball away for the 2-0 lead.

    “We kind have gone through this program together,” Quintanilla said of his senior co-captain. “Jacob came in my second season here and has been an instrumental part of program. He’s been a great leader and knows how to get his teammates fired up.”

    The Knights could not recreate the offensive magic in the second half, not even when De Corte moved up to the striker position.

    Elias Medrano sealed the victory in the 71st minute, when he intercepted a pass and netted his second goal of the match.

    “We kind of felt defeated at the start of halftime,” Medrano said. “We pray every day and ask God to give us strength, and we did that again tonight. We came back out on the field with confidence and ready to play the way we know we can.”

    Quintanilla is excited for the program’s future despite losing De Corte and five other seniors to graduation.

    “This is a great experience and learning opportunity our younger guys,” Quintanilla said. “We’ll bounce back like we always do.”


    Source link

    One of the men who could replace ‘El Mencho’ is from Southern California

    By
    Tony Ramos
    -
    0
    One of the men who could replace ‘El Mencho’ is from Southern California

    GUADALAJARA — The notorious drug kingpin was sick, his kidneys failing.

    To ensure smooth management of his multibillion-dollar cartel while he underwent dialysis, Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho,” delegated day-to-day control to several top lieutenants.

    Each managed a separate region, had his own group of hit men and developed his own fearsome reputation.

    Mexican soldiers killed Oseguera on Sunday in a raid on his remote mountain hideout. Immediately, his appointed commanders ordered a nationwide campaign of terror: cartel fighters carried out arson attacks and blocked roads across more than a dozen states and ambushed security officers, killing 25 members of the National Guard.

    A bus burned by cartel operatives after the killing of the kingpin known as “El Mencho.”

    (Armando Solis / Associated Press)

    The fires are now out, but key questions remain.

    What will happen to the Jalisco New Generation cartel and its fragile coalition of ruthless leaders?

    Will they agree to share power? Or elevate a single man as head honcho?

    Many Mexicans fear a troubling third scenario: a bloody power struggle that fragments the cartel, opening new fronts of conflict in an already volatile criminal landscape.

    A photograph of Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, center, known as “El Mencho,” provided by federal prosecutors.

    (U.S. District Court)

    “What comes next will not resemble a clean succession,” Ghaleb Krame Hilal, a former security advisor in the state of Tamaulipas, wrote in the online magazine Small Wars Journal. “It will be a struggle over who holds the center of gravity inside the organization, and that result is not preordained.”

    The scenario is complicated because Oseguera’s only son, Rubén Oseguera González, known as “El Menchito,” is serving a life sentence on drug charges in the United States.

    Juan Carlos Valencia González, seen in a wanted photo released by the U.S. Department of State in 2021. He is one of the possible successors to “El Mencho” as the leader of the Jalisco New Generation cartel.

    (U.S. Department of State)

    That leaves Oseguera’s cadre of regional commanders as the most likely inheritors of his drug empire.

    Perhaps the most powerful among them is Oseguera’s stepson, Juan Carlos Valencia González, known as 03. Other monikers include El Pelon, El JP and Tricky Tres.

    Valencia, 41, is the commander of the paramilitary Grupo Elite and belongs to a clan that runs the cartel’s money-laundering operation.

    His mother, Rosalinda González Valencia, was arrested in Guadalajara in November 2021 and accused by Mexican authorities of being a “financial operator” for the Jalisco cartel. His biological father was the co-founder of the now-defunct Milenio cartel, where Oseguera got his start.

    Valencia was born in the Orange County city of Santa Ana, one of many sons and daughters of high-ranking cartel figures born in the United Sates in recent decades. After Valencia’s father went to prison, Oseguera married his mother.

    The U.S. State Department is offering up to a $5-million reward for information leading to Valencia’s arrest.

    A group of Jalisco New Generation cartel fighters.

    (Juan José Estrada Serafín / For The Times)

    Here are the other contenders:

    Ricardo Ruiz, alias RR, is known for producing slick cartel propaganda, including a viral social media video that showed dozens of cartel fighters dressed in fatigues alongside a column of armored vehicles and homemade tanks. “We are Mencho’s men!” they shout while firing automatic weapons into the sky.

    Authorities blamed Ruiz for the death of Valeria Márquez, a 23-year-old model and beauty influencer shot to death last year while broadcasting live on TikTok.

    Audias Flores Silva, a leader widely known as “El Jardinero,” controls methamphetamine factories in Jalisco and Zacatecas states, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. He has a fleet of airplanes and tractor trailers used to traffic drugs from Central America into the United States, U.S. officials say.

    Flores is believed to have engineered the Jalisco cartel’s recent alliance with a faction of the warring Sinaloa cartel, which is led by two sons of imprisoned drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

    And then there is 29-year-old Abraham Jesús Ambriz Cano, alias “El Yogurth.” Ambriz has built a small army of foreign mercenaries, mostly former soldiers from Colombia who have experience in bomb-making and counterinsurgency tactics. Some of those combatants say they were lured to Mexico under false pretenses and forced to fight.

    Together the men help lead one of the most power and feared cartels in history — a criminal enterprise that traffics tons of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl to the United States but which also profits from extortion, fuel theft, illegal mining and logging and timeshare fraud inside Mexico.

    The avocado fields in the Mexican state of Michoacán, where the Jalisco New Generation cartel and other criminal groups tax producers and have their own crops.

    (Gary Coronado/Los Angeles Times)

    Security analysts say the group’s horizontal, franchise-like structure allowed it to engineer a rapid response to Oseguera’s killing — and will allow it to do business as usual in the coming months.

    Many believe the remaining leaders of the cartel will try to work together — for now.

    “At the moment they perceive a huge common enemy: the government of Mexico,” said David Saucedo, who advises local and state governments on security policy.

    But, Saucedo cautioned, “it’s possible that the cartel will fracture at some point as conflicts arise over control of profits, trafficking routes and contact with political officials.” Personal conflicts and the encroachment of rival cartels could also provoke problems, he added.

    The inner workings of cartels are intentionally opaque to the outside world.

    To understand shifts inside the gangs, analysts and officials track social media communiques, changes to drug flows and outbreaks of violence. Many keep close watch on narco corridos, or drug ballads, which chronicle cartel politics.

    Saucedo noted that multiple songs recently have described Flores as Oseguera’s successor. Another song venerates Valencia (“He was born in Orange County, where the sun burns differently,” it begins.)

    It’s unclear if any of the current leaders would possess the gravitas of Oseguera, who wielded unquestioned authority even as his health deteriorated and he was forced to live on the run. That is in part because of his unflinching willingness to violently punish anyone who threatened or crossed him.

    He was blamed for the 2020 assassination attempt of Omar García Harfuch, then the police chief of Mexico City and now the top public security official under President Claudia Sheinbaum. During a previous government effort to capture Oseguera, in 2015, cartel fighters used rocket-propelled grenades to shoot down an army helicopter, killing nine soldiers.

    Last year, at a ranch near Guadalajara apparently used to train Jalisco recruits, activists discovered the remains of hundreds of missing people.

    Born to farmers in Michoacán state, Oseguera immigrated illegally the United States in his teens. He was first arrested at age 19 in San Francisco for selling methamphetamine. His stature grew as he rose from small-time hoodlum to myth-shrouded kingpin of a seemingly invincible cartel that operates in most Mexican states and in countries across South America, Asia and Europe.

    Recent Mexican history is riddled with the tales of once-powerful syndicates — gangs in Guadalajara, Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez, among them — that ruptured, were gobbled up by other mobs or petered out as the big guys were captured or killed. Colombia’s storied Medellin cartel was another mob that withered after Pablo Escobar met his demise in 1993.

    Linthicum reported in New York, Hamilton in Guadalajara and McDonnell in Mexico City.


    Source link

    Juvenile mixing chemicals inside Irvine home triggers FBI hazmat team response

    By
    Tony Ramos
    -
    0
    Juvenile mixing chemicals inside Irvine home triggers FBI hazmat team response

    Investigators swarmed an upscale Irvine neighborhood this week after a juvenile mixed unknown chemicals inside a single-family home, prompting a call to police and triggering a massive federal response.

    Police first responded on Monday to the home on Cartwheel after a landlord reported “suspicious activity” at the residence, according to the Irvine Police Department. The Orange County Fire Authority determined that items found inside the home required further investigation, and local agencies contacted the FBI, police said.

    Irvine police said on Thursday that the initial call was triggered by a report that a juvenile at the home “mixed unknown chemicals.”

    “The specific substances involved, along with the surrounding circumstances, are being carefully and methodically evaluated by subject matter experts from multiple disciplines,” Irvine police said in a statement.

    When authorities searched the home, they discovered chemicals that could be used for terrorist activities, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation. However, the source said, it’s unclear exactly how the chemicals were being used. The source spoke to The Times on condition of anonymity to discuss the investigation candidly.

    The multimillion-dollar, four-bedroom home at the center of the investigation is in Altair, an exclusive gated community adjacent to the Great Park and across the street from Portola High School. The posh neighborhood offers residents access to 24/7 security, multiple pools, tennis courts and a clubhouse. The home under investigation was listed for rent in April 2021 for $7,500 a month, according to Zillow.

    A person identified in public records as a possible tenant at the home hung up when contacted by a Times reporter on Thursday. The homeowner could not immediately be reached for comment.

    Helicopter footage captured by KTLA showed a large deployment of personnel and vans surrounding the home, as workers dressed in hazmat suits and wearing respirators carried items outside the home. FBI agents without protective gear were also seen walking around the property.

    On Thursday morning, a guard stationed at the front entrance to the community referred reporters to local investigators, saying they were not permitted to allow anyone inside.

    From the outside, nothing immediately appeared to be out of the ordinary aside from the news vans that lined the street adjacent to the community.

    Teslas and Mercedes Benz SUVs streamed out from behind the gates and construction at the adjacent neighborhood continued without interruption. The sound of the bubbling fountain at the entrance to Altair was muffled by the whirr of news helicopters that had hovered above the neighborhood off and on since Wednesday, causing chatter and speculation among residents.

    No one had been ordered to evacuate, and there was no known threat to the community, police said. Still, that warning did not fully calm the nerves of residents jolted by the dramatic operation in a suburb that’s known as one of the safest cities of its size in the country.

    “Even though they tell you it’s safe, it doesn’t really inspire safety in the people who live there when they see people who are fully kitted out and walking into a house,” neighbor Ahmed Bajwa told KTLA on Wednesday. Bajwa said the people who lived in the home targeted by the operation were a family and did not appear suspicious.

    “It wasn’t anything that fits what you would think this type of response would justify,” he said.


    Source link

    Power, politics and a $2.8-billion exit: How Paramount won Warners

    By
    Tony Ramos
    -
    0
    Power, politics and a .8-billion exit: How Paramount won Warners

    The morning after Netflix clinched its deal to buy Warner Bros., Paramount Skydance Chairman David Ellison assembled a war room of trusted advisors, including his billionaire father, Larry Ellison.

    Furious at Warner Bros. Discovery Chief David Zaslav for ending the auction, the Ellisons and their team began plotting their comeback on that crisp December day.

    To rattle Warner Bros. Discovery and its investors, they launched a three-front campaign: a lawsuit, a hostile takeover bid and direct lobbying of the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress.

    “There was a master battle plan — and it was extremely disciplined,” said one auction insider who was not authorized to comment publicly.

    Netflix stunned the industry late Thursday by pulling out of the bidding, clearing the way for Paramount to claim the company that owns HBO, HBO Max, CNN, TBS, Food Network and the Warner Bros. film and television studios in Burbank. The deal was valued at more than $111 billion.

    The streaming giant’s reversal came just hours after co-Chief Executive Ted Sarandos met with Atty Gen. Pam Bondi and a deputy at the White House. It was a cordial session, but the Trump officials told Sarandos that his deal was facing significant hurdles in Washington, according to a person close to the administration who was not authorized to comment publicly.

    Even before that meeting, the tide had turned for Paramount in a swell of power, politics and brinkmanship.

    “Netflix played their cards well; however, Paramount played their cards perfectly,” said Jonathan Miller, chief executive of Integrated Media Co. “They did exactly what they had to do and when they had to do it — which was at the very last moment.”

    Key to victory was Larry Ellison, his $200-billion fortune and his connections to President Trump and congressional Republicans.

    Paramount also hired Trump’s former antitrust chief, attorney Makan Delrahim, to quarterback the firm’s legal and regulatory action.

    Republicans during a Senate hearing this month piled onto Sarandos with complaints about potential monopolistic practices and “woke” programming.

    David Ellison skipped that hearing. This week, however, he attended Trump’s State of the Union address in the Capitol chambers, a guest of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). The two men posed, grinning and giving a thumbs-up, for a photo that was posted to Graham’s X account.

    David Ellison, the chairman and chief executive of Paramount Skydance Corp., walks through Statuary Hall to the State of the Union address at the U.S. Capitol on Feb. 24, 2026.

    (Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images)

    On Friday, Netflix said it had received a $2.8-billion payment — a termination fee Paramount agreed to pay to send Netflix on its way.

    Long before David Ellison and his family acquired Paramount and CBS last summer, the 43-year-old tech scion and aircraft pilot already had his sights set on Warner Bros. Discovery.

    Paramount’s assets, including MTV, Nickelodeon and the Melrose Avenue movie studio, have been fading. Ellison recognized he needed the more robust company — Warner Bros. Discovery — to achieve his ambitions.

    “From the very beginning, our pursuit of Warner Bros. Discovery has been guided by a clear purpose: to honor the legacy of two iconic companies while accelerating our vision of building a next-generation media and entertainment company,” David Ellison said in a Friday statement. “We couldn’t be more excited for what’s ahead.”

    Warner’s chief, Zaslav, who had initially opposed the Paramount bid, added: “We look forward to working with Paramount to complete this historic transaction.”

    Netflix, in a separate statement, said it was unwilling to go beyond its $82.7-billion proposal that Warner board members accepted Dec. 4.

    “We believe we would have been strong stewards of Warner Bros.’ iconic brands, and that our deal would have strengthened the entertainment industry and preserved and created more production jobs,” Sarandos and co-Chief Executive Greg Peters said in a statement.

    “But this transaction was always a ‘nice to have’ at the right price, not a ‘must have’ at any price,” the Netflix chiefs said.

    Netflix may have miscalculated the Ellison family’s determination when it agreed Feb. 16 to allow Paramount back into the bidding.

    The Los Gatos, Calif.-based company already had prevailed in the auction, and had an agreement in hand. Its next step was a shareholder vote.

    “They didn’t need to let Paramount back in, but there was a lot of pressure on them to make sure the process wouldn’t be challenged,” Miller said.

    In addition, Netflix’s stock had also been pummeled — the company had lost a quarter of its value — since investors learned the company was making a Warner run.

    Upon news that Netflix had withdrawn, its shares soared Friday nearly 14% to $96.24.

    Netflix Chief Executive Ted Sarandos arrives at the White House on Feb. 26, 2026.

    (Andrew Leyden / Getty Images)

    Invited back into the auction room, Paramount unveiled a much stronger proposal than the one it submitted in December.

    The elder Ellison had pledged to personally guarantee the deal, including $45.7 billion in equity required to close the transaction. And if bankers became worried that Paramount was too leveraged, the tech mogul agreed to put in more money in order to secure the bank financing.

    That promise assuaged Warner Bros. Discovery board members who had fretted for weeks that they weren’t sure Ellison would sign on the dotted line, according to two people close to the auction who were not authorized to comment.

    Paramount’s pressure campaign had been relentless, first winning over theater owners, who expressed alarm over Netflix’s business model that encourages consumers to watch movies in their homes.

    During the last two weeks, Sarandos got dragged into two ugly controversies.

    First, famed filmmaker James Cameron endorsed Paramount, saying a Netflix takeover would lead to massive job losses in the entertainment industry, which is already reeling from a production slowdown in Southern California that has disrupted the lives of thousands of film industry workers.

    Then, a week ago, Trump took aim at Netflix board member Susan Rice, a former high-level Obama and Biden administration official. In a social media post, Trump called Rice a “no talent … political hack,” and said that Netflix must fire her or “pay the consequences.”

    The threat underscored the dicey environment for Netflix.

    Additionally, Paramount had sowed doubts about Netflix among lawmakers, regulators, Warner investors and ultimately the Warner board.

    Paramount assured Warner board members that it had a clear path to win regulatory approval so the deal would quickly be finalized. In a show of confidence, Delrahim filed to win the Justice Department’s blessing in December — even though Paramount didn’t have a deal.

    This month, a deadline for the Justice Department to raise issues with Paramount’s proposed Warner takeover passed without comment from the Trump regulators.

    “Analysts believe the deal is likely to close,” TD Cowen analysts said in a Friday report. “While Paramount-WBD does present material antitrust risks (higher pay TV prices, lower pay for TV/movie workers), analysts also see a key pro-competitive effect: improved competition in streaming, with Paramount+ and HBO Max representing a materially stronger counterweight to #1 Netflix.”

    Throughout the battle, David Ellison relied on support from his father, attorney Delrahim, and three key board members: Oracle Executive Vice Chair Safra A. Catz; RedBird Capital Partners founder Gerry Cardinale; and Justin Hamill, managing director of tech investment firm Silver Lake.

    In the final days, David Ellison led an effort to flip Warner board members who had firmly supported Netflix. With Paramount’s improved offer, several began leaning toward the Paramount deal.

    On Tuesday, Warner announced that Paramount’s deal was promising.

    On Thursday, Warner’s board determined Paramount’s deal had topped Netflix. That’s when Netflix surrendered.

    “Paramount had a fulsome, 360-degree approach,” Miller said. “They approached it financially. … They understood the regulatory environment here and abroad in the EU. And they had a game plan for every aspect.”

    On Friday, Paramount shares rose 21% to $13.51.

    It was a reversal of fortunes for David Ellison, who appeared on CNBC just three days after that war room meeting in December.

    “We put the company in play,” David Ellison told the CNBC anchor that day. “We’re really here to finish what we started.”

    Times staff writer Ana Cabellos and Business Editor Richard Verrier contributed to this report.


    Source link

    High school teacher in Rialto accused of sexually assaulting minor; Indio police investigating – Press Enterprise

    By
    Tony Ramos
    -
    0
    High school teacher in Rialto accused of sexually assaulting minor; Indio police investigating – Press Enterprise


    A teacher and coach at Eisenhower High School in Rialto has been placed on administrative leave after police accused him of sexually assaulting at least one child.

    No victims have ties to the school, Principal Kristal Pulido said in a message to parents.

    Mark Anthony Bibian, 31, was arrested Feb. 12 on suspicion of sodomy of a child under age 14 and rape of an unconscious person, the San Bernardino County jail log shows. Bibian has not been charged.

    Rialto police arrested Bibian, but the Indio Police Department is investigating the case, according to the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department. An Indio police spokesman could not be reached for information on the circumstances of the allegations.

    Bibian had not been charged, the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office said. Bibian is no longer in custody. He could not be reached for comment.

    Bibian is an English teacher and the head boys cross country coach at Eisenhower. He has been employed by the Rialto Unified School District since 2016.

    “Once we were notified of the allegations, he was placed on administrative leave,” Rialto Unified School District spokesperson Syeda Jafri said in an emailed statement. “The district is cooperating with law enforcement agencies in the investigation.”

    Pulido encouraged parents to report anything suspicious and directed questions about Bibian to Indio police Lt. Andrew Leyva at 760-541-4598.


    Source link

    Made in America, fired abroad — Washington’s bullets fuel chaos and blowback – Press Enterprise

    By
    Tony Ramos
    -
    0
    Made in America, fired abroad — Washington’s bullets fuel chaos and blowback – Press Enterprise


    Amid the unfolding chaos in Mexico following the death of cartel leader Nemesio Oseguera, the Mexican government has worked to hit the cartels where it hurts, including seizing weapons.

    In a recent press conference, Mexican Defense Secretary Ricardo Trevilla announced that some 18,000 weapons have been seized since President Claudia Sheinbaum took office in October 2024. Of those weapons, nearly 78 percent originated in the United States. In a separate talk, Sheinbaum addressed an even more shocking datapoint—much of the ammunition recovered in Mexico was designed for use by the U.S. military. 

    As highlighted in a recent New York Times article, this is not a new phenomenon. Private U.S. companies maintain agreements that allow commercial weapons suppliers to sell excess inventory in domestic civilian markets. Once there, the ammunition is smuggled south across the U.S. border and makes its way to the weapons of the cartels. Indeed, many have pointed out how U.S. weapons manufacturers dominate Latin American markets and that the demand in the region is expected to grow. Many take this data as an opportunity to criticize the United States’ liberal gun policies. 

    While private gun manufacturers bear a share of responsibility for the perpetuation of gun violence in Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America, it’s important we understand another critical purveyor of arms to our southern neighbors—the United States government. 

    Although data on foreign military sales (FMS) are incomplete (secrecy prevents a full accounting), government-to-government weapons transfers from the United States to Mexico alone topped more than $3.5 billion over the last decade. This is a “drop in the bucket” by military standards. During fiscal year 2024, the total value of transferred weapons and other services (like training foreign militaries) topped $117 billion. 

    Selling or otherwise providing arms to foreign governments is not a recent U.S. policy development. During the Cold War, for example, the U.S. government not only engaged in direct interventions (for example, the invasion of Grenada in 1983) but engaged in indirect intervention through providing weapons and training to military and paramilitary forces throughout the region. 

    By providing weapons and training to foreign militaries and governments, both now and in the past, the U.S. government can theoretically enable recipient countries to better protect and serve their civilian populations. A better trained and armed military, for instance, may be better able to protect human rights, defend private property, and uphold the rule of law. Moreover, proponents claim, these transfers can help or maintain U.S. foreign policy objectives. The logic is simple: if a foreign government receives weapons from the U.S. government, the threat of losing access to these armaments provides a strong incentive to be aligned with the United States.

    While this is a possibility, there is a major problem—the same weapons and training that can be used to protect citizens can also be used to coerce and prey upon them. 

    If history is any indicator, more contemporary transfers of weapons and training from the United States to Latin American countries will have disastrous consequences for the people who live in those countries.

    One could look at Honduras’ Battalion 3-16—a clandestine military death squad trained and armed by the CIA. Or the U.S. government’s recent approval to sell sniper rifles to Brazil’s BOPE, a controversial police outfit in Rio known for a high number of civilian deaths and use of excessive force.

    We could also consider El Salvador’s Atlacatl Battalion. This group, who utilized their ample training from the United States to murder some 800 men, women, and children—all with U.S.-made ammunition, of course. Every shell casing at the scene, without exception, came from the U.S. government. 

    Though these costs are undoubtedly significant, there is more to consider. U.S. policymakers claim one of their key goals is promoting regional stability throughout Latin America. Doing so, they suggest, is necessary for U.S. national security and will lessen illicit immigration flows. 

    But militarizing nations abroad has a long history of doing precisely the opposite. Research is clear that military aid frequently fuels political instability, fosters corruption, and fuels repression. These are precisely the types of conditions that push individuals to migrate. Taken together, this not only fails to achieve stated policy goals, but is counterproductive. 

    So, what can be done instead? 


    Source link

    Jury finds Riverside County Sheriff’s Department not liable in death of mentally ill inmate – Press Enterprise

    By
    Tony Ramos
    -
    0
    Jury finds Riverside County Sheriff’s Department not liable in death of mentally ill inmate – Press Enterprise

    A federal jury has found Riverside County sheriff’s deputies and jail medical staff were not negligent in the death of a mentally ill inmate who was fatally injured at the Cois M. Byrd Detention Center in French Valley.

    Two correctional deputies found Mario Solis unresponsive in his trash-littered cell, flooded with toilet water, at 1 a.m. Sept. 3, 2022. The 31-year-old Riverside man was pronounced dead 39 minutes later after failed attempts by correctional and medical staff to resuscitate him.

    Court records indicate Solis died of asphyxia after swallowing a toothbrush, two plastic bags containing bars of soap, a plastic cap and a golf pencil, which punctured a jugular vein. The coroner ruled Solis’ death accidental despite his history of suicide attempts and a prior threat to kill himself with a pencil, according to court records.

    Solis’ mother, Sara Solis, sued Sheriff Chad Bianco and his department in May 2023, alleging that jail staff failed to protect her son from harm or provide adequate medical care, and that the department’s policies and practices resulted in her son’s death.

    An undated image showing the condition of inmate Mario Solis's cell at the Cois M. Byrd Detention Center in French Valley, where he was found unresponsive at 1 a.m. on Sept. 3, 2022. He died 39 minutes later after failed efforts by jail correctional and medical staff to resuscitate him. (Source: Riverside County Sheriff's Department)
    An undated image showing the condition of inmate Mario Solis’s cell at the Cois M. Byrd Detention Center in French Valley, where he was found unresponsive at 1 a.m. on Sept. 3, 2022. He died 39 minutes later after failed efforts by jail correctional and medical staff to resuscitate him. (Source: Riverside County Sheriff’s Department)

    The six-day trial concluded Feb. 3 in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles with a unanimous jury verdict that sheriff’s deputies and jail medical staff did not violate Solis’ 14th Amendment rights through unconstitutional conditions of confinement, inadequate medical care or failure to protect him.

    Solis’ death was featured in a recent Southern California News Group series investigating in-custody deaths across four Southern California counties, particularly focusing on how they handle medical treatment and suicide prevention for severely mentally ill detainees.

    The family’s attorney, Denisse Gastelum, called Solis’ death one of the worst she has ever seen in the carceral system.

    Bianco, who testified at the trial, said in a statement Friday: “We were confident from the beginning that the jury would find in our favor. What is reported in the media and the theatrics by attorneys does not represent fact. I am heartbroken for the families who lose loved ones.”

    Bianco, a leading candidate for California governor in early polls, said the Sheriff’s Department “is committed to the safety and security of not only our inmates, but the residents of Riverside County.”

    Gastelum said she will appeal the verdict.

    Solis had been in custody on a second-degree robbery charge after allegedly attempting to steal a bag of Skittles from a supermarket in April 2022 that resulted in a scuffle with a security guard.

    Solis, who had a history of schizoaffective disorder, major depression, anxiety and alcohol abuse, was housed in three jails during his five months in custody. He was “shuttled in and out of safety cells” and twice admitted to Riverside University Health System Medical Center for 72-hour psychiatric holds.

    He later was assigned to a special housing unit at Cois Byrd for severely mentally ill inmates considered a danger to themselves or others, court records show.

    Solis was one of 19 people to die in Riverside County jails in 2022, the highest death rate there in 15 years.

    The deaths fueled a spate of wrongful death lawsuits against the Sheriff’s Department and Bianco in 2022 and 2023 amid ongoing scrutiny over inmate deaths in Riverside County jails. It also prompted an investigation by the state Attorney General’s Office in February 2023 that is still ongoing.


    Source link

    NASA revamps Artemis moon landing program to reduce flight gaps and risk

    By
    Tony Ramos
    -
    0
    NASA revamps Artemis moon landing program to reduce flight gaps and risk

    NASA said Friday it’s adding an extra moon mission by Artemis astronauts before attempting a high-risk lunar landing with a crew.

    The shake-up in the flight lineup and push for a faster pace came just two days after NASA’s new moon rocket returned to its hangar for more repairs and a safety panel warned the space agency to scale back its overly ambitious goals for humanity’s first lunar landing in more than half a century.

    Artemis II — a lunar fly-around by four astronauts — is off until at least April because of rocket problems.

    The follow-up mission — Artemis III — had been targeting a landing near the moon’s south pole by another pair of astronauts a year or two later. But with long gaps between flights and concern growing over the readiness of a lunar lander and moonwalking suits, NASA’s new administrator Jared Isaacman announced that mission would instead focus on launching a lunar lander into orbit around Earth for docking practice by Orion capsule astronauts in 2027.

    The new plan calls for a moon landing — potentially even two moon landings — by astronauts in 2028.

    “This is going to be our pathway back to the moon,” Isaacman said.

    The first Artemis test flight was plagued by hydrogen fuel leaks and helium flow problems before liftoff without a crew in 2022, the same things that struck the Space Launch System rocket on the pad at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center earlier this month.

    Isaacman stressed that “it should be incredibly obvious” that three years between flights is unacceptable and that he’d like to get it down to one year or even less.

    During NASA’s storied Apollo program, he said, astronauts’ first flight to the moon was followed by two more missions before Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon. What’s more, he said, the Apollo moonshots followed one another in quick succession, just as the earlier Projects Mercury and Gemini had rapid flight rates, sometimes coming just a few months apart.

    “No one here at NASA forgot their history books,” Issacman said. “We shouldn’t be comfortable with the current cadence. We should be getting back to basics and doing what we know works.”

    To pick up the pace and reduce risk, NASA will standardize Space Launch System moon rockets moving forward, Isaacman said.

    The Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel recommended this week that NASA revise its objectives for Artemis III “given the demanding mission goals.” It’s urgent the space agency do that, the panel said, if the United States hopes to safely return astronauts to the moon. Isaacman said the revised Artemis flight plan addresses the panel’s concerns and is supported by industry and the Trump administration.

    ___

    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.


    Source link

    LA firefighter says he warned brush fire wasn’t out before massive blaze ignited

    By
    Tony Ramos
    -
    0
    LA firefighter says he warned brush fire wasn’t out before massive blaze ignited

    LOS ANGELES — A Los Angeles firefighter testified in a newly released deposition that he told colleagues the ground was still smoldering from a brush fire days before authorities say it reignited into the most destructive blaze in city history.

    Scott Pike, a firefighter with the Los Angeles Fire Department, said he told colleagues the ground was still hot when he was sent in to help clean up a New Year’s Day brush in the hillsides near the scenic Pacific Palisades neighborhood. Pike’s comments came in a sworn deposition taken in a lawsuit that was filed by fire victims. The deposition and those of other fire officials were made public this week after city attorneys had moved to keep it confidential for a month.

    “I could feel the heat coming off of it, and I didn’t even want to use my gloved hand because it was hot, so I just kicked it with my boot to kind of expose it. And there was like red hot, like coals,” Pike said in the deposition. “I even heard crackling.”

    Pike said he was working an overtime shift and mentioned it to other firefighters who were out in the field, but they didn’t seem to think much of it. He said he told a supervisor there were still hot spots, but it wasn’t his job to challenge orders.

    “I felt like I got kind of blown off a little bit,” Pike said. “I saw something, I said something.”

    Alexander Robertson, an attorney for the fire victims, said he obtained a court order to depose a dozen firefighters tasked with mopping up the Jan. 1 fire. Pike was the only one who indicated fire officials had been warned the blaze had not been fully extinguished when they packed up and left the scene, Robertson said.

    The fire, which left 12 dead in the hillside neighborhoods across Pacific Palisades and Malibu, was one of two blazes that broke out on Jan. 7, 2025, killing more than 30 people in all and destroying over 17,000 homes and buildings while burning for days in Los Angeles County.

    Authorities have said the blaze was a reignition of the New Year’s Day fire, which federal prosecutors say was started by a man who lived in the area. They charged Jonathan Rinderknecht in October with starting the Palisades fire. Rinderknecht has pleaded not guilty, and his attorney says he’s being used as a scapegoat for the Los Angeles Fire Department’s failure to fully extinguish the earlier blaze.

    Alleged fire department failures are at the center of the lawsuit by Palisades fire victims against the city. The lawsuit also alleges the city’s water department failed to provide adequate water resources for firefighting.

    An interim LA fire chief previously said such fires linger in root systems and can reach depths of 15 to 20 feet (4.6 to 6.1 meters), making them undetectable by thermal imaging cameras.

    Pike’s testimony was offset by the account of Los Angeles Battalion Chief Martin Mullen, who said in his deposition that he personally walked the perimeter of the Jan. 1 fire’s burn area four times throughout the day with different assistant chiefs in a process called “cold-trailing,” where firefighters look for hot spots, ember cast and smoke or heat emanating from the ground.

    Earlier in the day, he identified a hot spot that he reported to the captain. When he returned later, it was fully extinguished, he said. He said he did not find any hot spots or issues during any of his other walks and by the time he left the scene the fire was “absolutely” extinguished.

    “It was a great mop up they did because if they didn’t, I’d still be there,” he said.

    Robertson, the plaintiff’s attorney, said the fire department and Mayor Karen Bass’s office have engaged in a “cover-up to conceal and suppress the truth about the Palisades Fire.”

    “We will hold them accountable,” he said.

    Yusef Robb, an adviser to Bass, said these revelations are alarming. Bass has directed the fire department to commission an independent report on the handling of the New Year’s Day fire.

    “For more than a year, Mayor Bass has been extremely public about her demand for transparency and accountability to inform ongoing Fire Department reforms, and because those affected deserve nothing less,” Robb said in an email.

    Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Jaime Moore, who was appointed in October, is concerned about the differences in the firefighters’ testimonies, the department said in an email.

    “That concern underscores why the ongoing independent investigation is so important, and why the Chief is fully committed to providing complete cooperation on behalf of himself and the Department,” the email said.


    Source link

    Woman who duped investors, funneled money to Trump fundraiser gets 9 years in prison

    By
    Tony Ramos
    -
    0
    Woman who duped investors, funneled money to Trump fundraiser gets 9 years in prison

    CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. — A New York businesswoman was sentenced Friday to nine years in federal prison over a financial scheme that ripped off more than $30 million from foreign investors and funneled some of the stolen money into U.S. political campaigns, including a fundraiser for President Donald Trump.

    Sherry Xue Li was also ordered to forfeit $31.5 million, as well as property at three locations, and to make restitution to her victims.

    The 54-year-old Oyster Bay resident, who has been detained since her arrest in 2022, pleaded guilty last year to money laundering conspiracy and conspiracy to defraud the U.S. by obstructing the Federal Election Commission’s administration of campaign finance laws.

    Her co-defendant, Lianbo Wang, also pleaded guilty to similar charges and was sentenced to five years in prison.

    Li’s lawyer didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment Friday, but U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella said she “faces justice for her cynical schemes.”

    “She peddled false promises and outright lies to her many investors and stuffed her pockets while they suffered devastating losses,” he said in a statement.

    Prosecutors say Li and Wang for years convinced investors, many of them from China, into contributing $500,000 each to a fictitious development project, with a false promise that it would guarantee them lawful permanent resident status in the U.S.

    Instead, the two, who are naturalized U.S. citizens, used millions of dollars from those investments for personal expenses, including clothing, jewelry, housing, vacation travel and upscale dining, according to prosecutors.

    They say Li and Wang also sold investors access to U.S. politicians and used the proceeds to make illegal contributions to U.S. political campaigns and committees.

    In one instance, the two charged investors $93,000 each for admission to a 2017 Trump fundraiser, then used the money to make illegal donations totaling $600,000 to the committee hosting the event.

    Li even took a photograph with Trump and his wife, Melania, at the event, and used the image to solicit donations to the fake development project, prosecutors said.

    The campaigns and committees were unaware of the scheme, and no allegations of criminal wrongdoing were lodged against them, prosecutors said.


    Source link

    Teenage girls are most likely to tear their ACLs. Parents say more must be done to protect them

    By
    Tony Ramos
    -
    0
    Teenage girls are most likely to tear their ACLs. Parents say more must be done to protect them

    HARRISBURG, Pa. — Sofia Tepichin was about 30 minutes into her club soccer team practice in October when she spotted a fast-approaching defender. She tapped the ball away and hopped over the defender’s outstretched foot, came down awkwardly, and heard a “pop.”

    She immediately fell to the ground, pain shooting through her left knee and knew it wasn’t good. It was, she said, “heartbreaking.”

    “And I knew personally that I tore my ACL,” Tepichin said.

    Tepichin joined the growing ranks of female high school athletes tearing their anterior cruciate ligament, a devastating knee injury that researchers are pressing the sports world to take more seriously.

    Decades of research on prevention methods is available, but parents, researchers and trainers say that teams, coaches and leagues aren’t doing enough to protect the girls and educate parents.

    Sports fans hear often about high-profile athletes like U.S. Olympic skier Lindsey Vonn tearing their ACLs, and many ACL injuries are chalked up to bad luck or a part of sports that will continue to happen at all competitive levels.

    Still, high school-age female athletes suffer these injuries at much higher rates than their male counterparts — up to eight times more likely, one study says — and adults, most often in noncontact situations in sports that require fast changes in direction, researchers say.

    Biomechanics researchers, trainers and physical therapists say there are pre-workout warm ups and strengthening routines — such as FIFA 11+ or PEP — that can at least reduce the risk of an injury that takes such a high physical and mental toll on young athletes.

    But, they say, most coaches lack training or expert help, and high school girls compete in settings with far fewer resources than the professional and collegiate levels. As a result, risk-reduction routines are rarely included in day-to-day coaching curricula and practices.

    “The real crime in this is that the data has been out there for 25 years,” said Holly Silvers-Granelli, a physical therapist and biomechanics researcher who advises athletes, professional teams and major sports leagues on injury prevention. “People are clamoring for answers, and the answers are largely there.”

    The trendline of ACL injuries isn’t entirely clear, but the National ACL Injury Coalition — formed by the Aspen Institute and the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York — said its analysis of data from high school athletic trainers showed that the average annual ACL injury rate for high school athletes grew almost 26% from 2007 to 2022.

    The rate for girls grew more than 32%, compared to 14.5% for boys, it said.

    When they get injured, high school athletes and their parents often find themselves on their own to deal with it. ACL injuries can require surgery and a year of rehab, physical therapy and strength training, which insurance may not fully cover.

    Recovery changes their routine and identity: They miss out on the camaraderie of the team and stand on the sidelines, which can be as hard as the physical trauma, parents say.

    Many high school athletes who tear their ACL never perform again at the same level, if they even return to the sport, the National ACL Injury Coalition says. And once injured, they carry a heightened risk of another ACL injury and long-term complications like degenerative joint disease, researchers say.

    The coalition has urged the sports world to treat ACL injuries like brain injuries, now that professional and youth sports have tried to improve training, rules and equipment standards to prevent and detect concussions.

    Sophia Gerardi, a sophomore at Pennsylvania’s Apollo Ridge High School who tore her ACL during a basketball game in December, was told by her doctors that she’ll forever have to wear a knee brace to play sports. She had surgery in January, will miss volleyball season and hopes to be back for next winter’s basketball season.

    Like many girls who tore their ACL, she didn’t recall getting any ACL injury-prevention training.

    Surveys of coaches show that many don’t know about risk-reduction programs, aren’t trained to do them or aren’t encouraged to learn about them, said Vince Minjares, who leads the Aspen Institute’s ACL injury prevention project. Some coaches tell Minjares that it takes too much time.

    He hopes that’s changing.

    This spring, the American Youth Soccer Organization — one of major national organizations in U.S. youth soccer — will roll out new age- and stage-based neuromuscular training programs aimed at preventing ACL injuries through warm-ups.

    Coaches will get a regimen of exercises in bite-sized chunks, with video instructions. The goal is to build good habits before preteens age into more physical and demanding competition.

    “My biggest shock was that this didn’t already exist,” said Scott Snyder, AYSO’s senior director of programs and education. “Everyone I talk to says, ‘Yeah, that makes perfect sense,’ but nobody’s done it yet.”

    Last year, biomechanical researchers at the Scottish Rite for Children hospital in metropolitan Dallas began providing high school teams with resources typically only available or affordable at the professional and collegiate levels.

    They created pre-season injury-prevention trainings, tailored for female athletes, to improve strength and movement quality. At the start of the eight-week program, each athlete gets a free motion-capture 3D-level assessment to identify weaknesses in strength, movement or balance. Another assessment at the end determines if the program reduced risk.

    Future trainings could include nutrition and sleep, said Sophia Ulman, who directs the hospital’s Movement Science Laboratory.

    “My team and I got tired of studying ‘why, why, why’ when there’s so many different possibilities to answer that question. And we wanted to move into the ‘what is the solution,’” said Ulman. Other biomechanics labs in the U.S. are trying similar outreach, she said.

    One of the teams that participated was Plano East High School in Texas, where players — including Tepichin — had suffered a rash of ACL tears the past couple years.

    Cristy Cooley, Plano East’s coach, said that getting a hands-on demonstration from trained professionals in proper exercises and movement patterns makes a big difference.

    “It’s one thing talking about it,” Cooley said. “But it’s a totally different thing to show us.”

    Like other parents, Tiffany Jacob said she learned a lot about preventing ACL injuries that she wished she had known before her daughter — East Plano sophomore Aliya Jacob — tore her ACL last February. For instance, the surgeon told them three days a week of strength training is an absolute must for soccer players.

    “Something’s got to change,” Tiffany Jacob said. “Coaches, clubs, something. They have to do something to prevent this because it’s just such a horrible injury.”

    Aliya — who knows at least seven other female soccer players who tore an ACL, her mother said — is back playing for East Plano now. She endured twice-a-week physical therapy, the isolation of rehabilitation and, her mother said, “figuring out who you are when you’re not playing soccer.”

    Tepichin, a high school senior, recalls her surgeon telling her to take a couple days to get all her sadness and anger out — and then devote herself to her recovery.

    She’ll miss her last year of playing high school and club team soccer. Her next time on a field could be for Saint Vincent College in Pennsylvania, where she committed to the NCAA Division III team.

    Tepichin has seen a sports psychologist, gotten comfort from others who underwent the surgery — her sister, her father and her friend — and found a new routine after having been constantly busy with two soccer teams and a job.

    “There’s not a day that I go that I’m not working out or doing something,” she said, “or getting better for my health and my recovery.”

    ___

    Follow Marc Levy at http://twitter.com/timelywriter




    Source link

    Anthropic says latest Pentagon contract doesn’t bar AI use for autonomous weapons, domestic surveillance

    By
    Tony Ramos
    -
    0
    Anthropic says latest Pentagon contract doesn’t bar AI use for autonomous weapons, domestic surveillance

    As the clock ticks towards a 5:00 p.m. ET deadline for Anthropic to agree to a deal with the Pentagon, both sides are digging in.

    The AI company’s CEO has made clear that despite threats from the Pentagon, they refuse to drop their two key demands: no use of its artificial intelligence for fully autonomous weapons — meaning AI, not humans, making final battlefield targeting decisions — and no mass domestic surveillance.

    Anthropic told ABC News that amid negotiations, the latest contract language from the Pentagon does not fully commit that the military will not use their technology for those two use cases.

    In fact, Anthropic said the “new language” added into the contract by the department would allow their safeguards to be “disregarded at will.”

    The Pentagon is seen from the air in Washington, D.C., on March 3, 2022.

    Joshua Roberts/Reuters

    “The contract language we received from the Department of War made virtually no progress on preventing Claude’s use for mass surveillance of Americans or in fully autonomous weapons,” Anthropic told ABC News.

    The company added, “New language framed as compromise was paired with legalese that would allow those safeguards to be disregarded at will. Despite DOW’s recent public statements, these narrow safeguards have been the crux of our negotiations for months.”

    Top members of the Senate Armed Services Committee have sent a private letter to Anthropic and the Pentagon, urging them to resolve their fight.

    The Senate leaders are urging Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the CEO of Anthropic, Dario Amodei, to extend their negotiations and work with Congress to find a solution, according to the letter obtained by ABC News.

    The Pentagon claims it has no intention of using Anthropic’s AI for cases that involve mass domestic surveillance or autonomous kinetic operations. However, it says Anthropic’s guardrails could jeopardize military operations.

    The Pentagon said that if Anthropic does not agree to its demands by 5:00 p.m. ET Friday, they will terminate the partnership with Anthropic and label the company a “supply chain risk” – a designation usually reserved for foreign adversaries.

    “The Department has stated that it does not intend to conduct mass surveillance or use autonomous weapons without humans on the loop — positions that we in Congress endorse,” the letter from the Senate leaders reads. “It is clear, however, that the issue of ‘lawful use’ requires additional work by all stakeholders. We must determine whether additional legislative or regulatory language is required, and, if so, what that law and regulation should entail.”

    “By Friday, February 27, the DOD could essentially declare war not on a foreign nation but on one of America’s most successful frontier AI companies if it does not bow to its demands,” Adam Conner, the vice president for technology policy at American Progress, wrote in an article on their website.

    “This would be an unprecedented and unnecessary peacetime move that sends the signal to other private companies that they must do the Trump administration’s bidding or face existential consequences,” Conner wrote.


    Source link

    This simple tip can save you tens of thousands of dollars on your mortgage, experts say

    By
    Tony Ramos
    -
    0
    This simple tip can save you tens of thousands of dollars on your mortgage, experts say

    As mortgage rates recede to their lowest levels in years, experts say that shopping around for the right loan could save first-time home buyers tens of thousands of dollars.

    The average rate for a conventional 30-year mortgage across the U.S. fell this week below 6%, down almost an entire percentage point from January of 2025 and the lowest since 2022, according to data from Freddie Mac.

    Better rates are expected to attract more house-hunters as the spring buying season heats up. But experts advise buyers not to settle until they’ve shopped around, noting that rates can vary a lot depending on the lender. The average gap between the lowest and highest APR is 0.74 percentage points, according to LendingTree, an online loan marketplace.

    How much can I save?

    Although experts don’t expect mortgage rates to decline much further this year, predicting they will hover around 6% for a 30-year loan, they said homebuyers can now find lower-cost loans as lenders compete for business. 

    “We’re seeing a lot more dispersion with what lenders are quoting,” Kate Wood, a lending expert at NerdWallet, told CBS News. “So at any time, absolutely, you should be requesting rate quotes from multiple mortgage lenders.”

    The lowest average APR for a 30-year loan is 5.82%, according to LendingTree.  Compared with the highest average APR of 6.56%, that lower rate could save borrowers nearly $58,000 over the life of the loan, or about $1,930 annually, LendingTree calculated.

    At 5.82%, versus the national average of 5.98%, a borrower could save $12,352 over the life of a 30-year home loan,  according to Matt Schulz, chief consumer finance analyst at LendingTree. 

    As usual, securing a low rate hinges on an individual’s credit record, while other factors that can affect borrowing costs include how much a buyer can put down for a home and a loan’s duration.

    LendingTree based its calculations on the lowest average loan offers that homebuyers who use its platform received from lenders between January 1 and February 26.

    Even if home buyers don’t qualify for a lower rate, they can still benefit by comparing rates, Schulz told CBS News. “It only takes a small fraction of a percent movement to potentially save tens of thousands of dollars over the life of the mortgage.”

    Schulz emphasized that by shopping around, buyers can solicit competing loan offers, which can help in negotiating the best terms with their preferred lender. 

    “It’s hard to overstate the importance of a lower interest rate with a mortgage, just because it is, for most people, the biggest purchase they’ll ever make,” he said.

    Edited by

    Alain Sherter

    In:


    Source link

    Pentagon, Anthropic locked in standoff over company’s AI technology as deadline nears

    By
    Tony Ramos
    -
    0
    Pentagon, Anthropic locked in standoff over company’s AI technology as deadline nears

    The Pentagon and defense contractor Anthropic remain at an impasse over the company’s AI technology ahead of a 5:01 p.m. deadline Friday set by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The CEO of Anthropic says the company will not allow access to its technology without safeguards to prevent abuse. Jo Ling Kent reports.


    Source link

    123...525Page 1 of 525
    Canyon Crest Guide Newspaper Ads Canyon Crest CA

    Canyon Crest Guide Local News
    Facebook Instagram Twitter Youtube

    EVEN MORE NEWS

    POPULAR CATEGORY

    © 2023 Canyon Crest Guide All Rights Reserved
    Home Privacy Policy Terms Of Use Anti Spam Policy Contact Us Affiliate Disclosure DMCA Earnings Disclaimer