Pistol Pete had no 3 point line. In true fairness it would be interesting if they were to take all his shots from beyond the arch and convert them into 2 and see apples to apples who would really be the leader.

....are better college running backs than Ron Dayne because they had more yards......said no one ever.

But when it comes to CC we have to incessantly be reminded about Pearl Moore.

Any word today on how serious his injury is? he appeared to be simply running down the court. Hope it isn't a torn achilles. They are thin depth-wise without him, imo.

A pressing economic issue is hitting close to home for a certain googly-eyed Muppet with a big appetite: Cookie Monster says his favorite snack is shrinking — and he’s not happy about it.
“Me hate shrinkflation! Me cookies are getting smaller,” the moppy-haired “Sesame Street” character asserted on social media Monday, garnering the attention of several U.S. senators and even the White House.


Shrinkflation, a cost-cutting measure by which companies subtly reduce the quantity of their product without changing the price, might seem like an advanced concept for a children’s television puppet. But “Sesame Street” watchers aren’t surprised to see a Muppet take up a contemporary cause, and Cookie Monster’s account has often gone beyond singalongs. Striking a tone that sounds more like an internet-savvy millennial, Cookie Monster has appeared to post about Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, has spoken about therapy and has endorsed self-care.



Fellow Muppet Elmo also had a viral moment in January, when he asked how everyone was doing and, well, they weren’t great. Celebrities, news outlets, ordinary people and other Muppets responded, many adding to a chorus of dread and despair.
A number of political leaders have weighed in on the om nom nomming monster’s cause. As it turns out, C is not just for cookie — it’s also “for consumers getting ripped off,” the White House wrote in response to the post on X Monday.
“President Biden is calling on companies to put a stop to shrinkflation,” it added.
Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) also responded.

“People in my state of Ohio are fed up — they should get all the cookie they pay for,” Brown said.

Van Hollen wrote that “greedy corporations” are reducing the size of many products. “We’re working to stop them — no one should be getting richer off smaller cookies!” he said.
Ways to spot and combat ‘shrinkflation’ as grocery bills soar
According to a December 2023 report from Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.), snacks such as Oreos and Doritos have become 26.4 percent more expensive since January 2019, and 9.8 percent of that price increase “has been accomplished by giving families fewer chips and cookies for their dollar.” Data shared by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis show that chocolate-chip cookie prices rose more than 25 percent between March 2022 and March 2023, and still remain high.



Other products such as paper towels and cereal have also faced shrinkflation.
“Sesame Street” watchers say Cookie Monster’s advocacy reflects the nature of the long-running show, which has often taken up contemporary themes.
“Cookie Monster’s tweet fits into the way ‘Sesame Street’ has regularly winked at adult issues of the day while keeping its main curriculum focused on young children,” Sherman Dorn, a professor at Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College of Arizona State University who has researched “Sesame Street,” wrote in an email.
Abby Whitaker, a PhD candidate at Temple University who studies the history of the show, said that “politicians have long looked to ‘Sesame Street’ as a partner and even a model for liberal politics,” thinking of it as a complement to the government’s efforts to tackle poverty in the 1960s, the decade the show began. They have also partnered with the show to target parents and children with messages on obesity, military deployment and covid-19, she said in an email interview.



At times, this approach has sparked ire among conservatives, such as when Ted Cruz attacked Big Bird and, later, Elmo for getting a coronavirus vaccine.
“Politicians know the show represents a very approachable vision of liberal politics, while also having popular appeal that is driven by nostalgia,” Whitaker said.
But not all is serious. Cookie Monster practically shrugged in a follow-up to his post on shrinkflation, saying, “Guess me going to have to eat double da cookies!”

And so it begins. Get your foil hat and run for your bunkers. Facebook and Instagram are down this morning. Only a matter of time before the Russians (or is it Chinese?) come after HROT… err, GIAot.

Donald Trump called into “Fox & Friends” on Tuesday morning for a hard-hitting interview on his plans for a second term in office. You could tell it was hard-hitting because of how often the hosts could be seen nodding along in agreement.

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At one point, co-host Lawrence Jones teed up Trump to explain why the former president would be better for American pocketbooks than the current one.

“A lot of people believe that you’re at your best when you’re fighting for the American people,” Jones began with the requisite obsequiousness. He pointed to a segment in which people at a diner in Texas were asked about their concerns and said both immigration and the economy.

“What are you going to do to give us some relief when it comes to this inflation?” Jones continued. “People going to, you know, whether it’s the gas station or to the grocery store, and they’re being hit hard. How do you fix that in the first hundred days?”
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“First of all,” Trump began, “let me speak to the people in the diner. I saw the vote, and it was 100 percent Trump. None for my opponent. And I love you in the diner.”


Fox’s Will Cain had asked for a show of hands related to the Republican primary contest in the state, and Trump was the overwhelming choice. Later in the show, as Trump was mentioning how well he did in the polls, he claimed that “we just saw the vote in Texas” because “the diner was a poll.” The diner was not a poll, but we digress.

He came back around to the question.

“We’re going to drill, baby, drill. And we’re going to get prices down. Energy is going to bring it all down,” Trump said. “We’re going to get a lot of that oil. We’re going to get the oil and gas right from Texas and other places, but from Texas largely.” (Remember: Texans are voting in the Republican primary Tuesday.) He closed out his comments by once again praising Cain and the people in the diner.
As noted Monday, the politics of the coronavirus pandemic have inverted for Trump. In 2020, he failed to win reelection, in part, because of his handling of the pandemic. In 2024, though, the lingering effects of the pandemic, including the surge in gas prices that accompanied resumption of demand, plays to Trump’s advantage.
It is true that the surge in inflation in 2021 and 2022 was in part a function of energy prices. Gas prices have been higher under President Biden than they were under Trump — there’s a difference of more than $3 per gallon between the price during the pandemic lull in demand and the surge that occurred in 2022. The difference in the average prices under each president is much more modest, but Trump and his allies like to point to his lowest price and Biden’s highest (or at times, far higher) to make the contrast.

So Trump’s argument is ostensibly that he will reduce inflation by drilling for oil. There are just two problems with that.



The first is that “drilling for oil” is just a standard bit of Trump’s patter, something he seems to have picked up from Sarah Palin back in 2008. Remember his dictator-but-only-for-a-day thing? He said he wanted to be a dictator for that day so that we could “drill, baby, drill”: He wanted this absolute authority so that he could endorse a policy that has become a cultural shorthand for blue-collar work, climate-change denialism and red-blooded American conservatism.
The second problem is that domestic oil production under Biden is already higher than it was under Trump. Biden doesn’t talk about this much since a big chunk of his base of support is, in fact, hostile to increased fossil fuel consumption. But it’s true — and it hasn’t done much to lower gas prices. Because prices are so dependent on the international market, more domestic production doesn’t correlate to lower prices at the pump. If it did, the graph below (which dates back to last summer) would show prices moving down as production went up and vice versa. Instead, it shows prices moving all over the place.

That was all Trump offered to Jones: Drill, baby, drill. He has in the past suggested another effort to combat inflation, cutting government spending, but he didn’t mention that Tuesday.


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In part, that’s because he doesn’t have to. Again, thanks to the now-inverted politics of the pandemic — and no doubt thanks to the revisionism that occurs any time a president leaves office — it is simply taken for granted that the pre-pandemic economy was a function of Trump’s skills and the recent economy a function of Biden’s ineptitude.
When CBS News asked Americans how they would expect prices to change depending on who won in 2024, most people said that Biden’s policies in a second term would make prices go up. A plurality said that Trump’s would make prices go down. Even among Democrats, a quarter of respondents said that Biden’s policies would make prices go up further in a second term.

Why? What policy, specifically, will Trump implement to make prices go down? Well, he’ll drill and — hey, by the way, did you see the folks in that diner? Great crew. Wishes he could be there with them. Back to you, Lawrence, in the studio.

Who’s heading to Maryland in two weeks for the B1G championships? Anyone have an extra all session pass they’d like to sell? See y’all there

Nope, not drugs, criminals, diseases, etc., it's this; Refrigerator gas.

California man first in US charged with smuggling greenhouse gases​

A California man has become the first person in the United States charged with illegally smuggling greenhouse gases into the country, officials said Monday.

Michael Hart of San Diego was arrested under the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act of 2020, which prohibits the importation of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) without proper permits from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

HFCs are potent greenhouse gases commonly found in refrigerators and air conditioners, building insulation, fire extinguishing systems, and aerosols. They can be hundreds to thousands of times more potent than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere, exacerbating the climate crisis.

According to the Department of Justice, Hart purchased refrigerants in Mexico and smuggled them into the United States in his vehicle, hidden under a tarp and tools.

He then posted the items for sale on OfferUp, Facebook Marketplace and other sites, selling them on for a profit.

"The illegal smuggling of hydrofluorocarbons ... undermines international efforts to combat climate change under the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol," said David Uhlmann of the EPA, referring to an agreement the United States, along with most countries, has signed.

It calls to phase out the super pollutants by 80-85 percent by 2047.

The indictment also alleges Hart imported HCFC 22, an ozone-depleting substance regulated under the Clean Air Act. Mexico as a developing country has a longer timetable for phasing out such pollutants than the United States as a developed country.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/worl...S&cvid=b87935d9557a4797ab113a65051a1119&ei=34

It usually isn’t hard to see an NCAA tournament at-large candidate coming.
Sometimes, though, one can sneak up on the field. And that’s exactly what Iowa has done over the past few weeks.

The Hawkeyes are what they often are, a program that plays an extremely palatable brand of basketball while not always sweating the details on defense. But when it lost to Maryland (a team that plays an extremely unpalatable brand of basketball while usually sweating the details on defense) for the second time this season back on Feb. 14, Iowa was 14-11 and owned an 0-7 record in games against Quadrant 1 foes.

It wasn’t a profile that pegged the Hawkeyes as even a fringy NCAA tournament team.
Caitlin Clark shoots past Pete Maravich on an epic day in Iowa City
They’ve since won four of five, starting with an overtime defeat of Wisconsin at home. Victories at both Michigan State and Northwestern followed, as did a home defeat of Penn State. The only loss in that span was at Illinois, which is hardly a black mark. And now Iowa is 18-12 and 3-8 in Quad 1 games. It ranks between 43rd and 59th in the five metrics listed on the NCAA team sheets.



It isn’t a great profile, but for a team that didn’t bother to start to build one until Presidents’ Day weekend it’s impressive and enough to enter the conversation for an NCAA bid. Iowa isn’t there yet, but winning a rematch with Illinois on Sunday would help. A stay into the weekend at next week’s Big Ten tournament would as well.
Those results aren’t guaranteed, of course. But what is assured, now that Iowa has put together a few decent weeks, is people will be paying attention to the Hawkeyes in the coming days.

Field notes​

Return to menu
Last four included: New Mexico, Colorado, Virginia, Utah
First four on the outside: Wake Forest, St. John’s, Villanova, Providence

Next four on the outside: Pittsburgh, James Madison, Iowa, Mississippi
Moving in: Central Connecticut State, Colorado, Gonzaga, Little Rock, Quinnipiac, Utah


Moving out: Fairfield, Merrimack, Mississippi, Morehead State, Providence, Wake Forest
Conference call: Big 12 (9), SEC (7), Big Ten (6), Mountain West (6), ACC (4), Big East (4), Pac-12 (4), American Athletic (2), Atlantic 10 (2), West Coast (2)
Bracket projection: Midwest vs. West; East vs. South

By Paul Krugman
Opinion Columnist
President Biden recently went to New York to appear on “Late Night With Seth Meyers.” On the show he was the same guy whom those of us who’ve spoken with him have seen: not a spring chicken, obviously, but lucid, well informed and moderately funny. The contrast couldn’t be greater with Donald Trump, whose ranting has become increasingly incoherent; after mixing up Nikki Haley and Nancy Pelosi a few weeks back, he has now once again appeared to confuse Biden with Barack Obama.
But not to worry: Trump recently assured an audience, “There’s no cognitive problem. If there was, I’d know about it.”
Oh.
Republicans aren’t going to acknowledge either Biden’s lucidity or Trump’s increasingly more noticeable lack thereof. But the reaction to the “Late Night” appearance that I found most revealing wasn’t about presidential age; it was about what happened next. Biden and Meyers went for ice cream after the show, and Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama fired off a post on social media hoping Biden enjoyed his ice cream “while the rest of the city is afraid of crime and migrants.”
Reporters and readers were quick to point out that according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2021 Alabama had a homicide rate more than three times as high as that of New York State, and, as Bloomberg’s Justin Fox notes, New York City is among the safest big cities in America. Tuberville has become known for getting crossed up on the issues, but his comment illustrated two larger aspects of our politics.
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First, there’s a striking double standard in the ways politicians are allowed to talk about different regions of America. Voters from rural states often complain about not getting enough respect, but can you imagine the reaction if, say, the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, were to describe Alabama — which in 2021 had an extraordinarily high rate of firearm mortality — as a place where everyone runs around shooting one another and themselves?
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Second, and more important, I’m always struck by the extent to which today’s right-wing politics is driven by a grim, dystopian image of America, especially American cities, that just isn’t grounded in reality.

A lot of this seems to reflect perceptions that congealed long ago and haven’t been updated to reflect the ways in which urban America has changed for the better. New York really was a dangerous place a few decades back: There were 2,262 murders in 1990. Last year, however, with the pandemic-era bump in crime rapidly receding, there were only 391 — still too many — and early indications are that violent crime is continuing to fall.
Nationally, violent crime, at least according to the F.B.I., is approaching a 50-year low.
Those are official statistics, but what about personal experience? I remember New York in the bad old days, and it’s nothing like that now. Polling on crime is remarkable, especially when broken down by partisan affiliation: According to Gallup, 78 percent of Republicans say that crime is an extremely or very serious problem for the nation, but only 16 percent say it’s a serious problem where they live. That’s not because Republicans live in safer places: Only 15 percent of Democrats say that local crime is a serious problem.
Crime isn’t the only subject where Republicans seem to be living in the past. In another recent speech, Trump declared: “We’re like a third world nation. Look at our airports. … I mean, how bad are the airports?” He may have been thinking of La Guardia in the 1970s. I recently landed at Newark’s new Terminal A, and it was a striking reminder of just how gentrified America’s major airports have become.
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Trump has also been going on lately about “migrant crime” being “through the roof,” singling out New York (naturally). But as I’ve already noted, homicides in New York — where 36 percent of the population is foreign born — have been falling rapidly.
And while there have, of course, been violent crimes committed by immigrants, including those here illegally, an analysis by NBC News found that “despite several horrifying high-profile episodes, there is no evidence of a migrant-driven crime wave in the United States.”
None of this says that we should have an open border. Indeed, this year Democrats and Republicans in the Senate agreed on a bill that would have greatly stiffened border security; Republicans then backed out at Trump’s behest, pretty clearly because Trump wants to keep the fear factor going.
Now, I’m not saying that everything is fine. Americans were badly rattled by a crime surge in 2020-21 and an inflation surge in 2021-22, both of which were probably, for the most part, aftershocks from the Covid-19 pandemic. Both surges now appear to be rapidly receding, but the unease remains, and there are still plenty of social and economic problems to address.
Yet in 2024, Trump and his party appear to be running not against America’s rising problems but against problems that have actually become much less dire.

Can a political party really win a national election on the strength of dystopian fantasies? Unfortunately, current polling suggests that it can.

Sure, everyone bitches about the quality of the West during football season, but notice where the entirety of the top half of the basketball standings reside....

Interesting

The U.S. government on Tuesday announced it would sharply limit the fees that credit card companies can charge customers who fall behind on their bills, aiming to cap the penalties at $8 in a move that immediately drew fierce resistance from financial giants.

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The rules arrived as part of a suite of fresh federal efforts to promote competition and crack down on unfair or illegal pricing across the economy, which President Biden has blasted as one of the primary sources of rising costs facing American families over the past year.

Under the new regulations, credit card issuers including Bank of America, Capital One, Citibank and JPMorgan Chase cannot charge more than $8 for a late payment unless they can explicitly point to data showing they must impose higher fees to make up for losses.

In issuing the restrictions, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said the government intends to close a legal loophole that had allowed some financial giants to charge an average of $32 per month for a missed or late payment. The amount has proved onerous for some cash-starved cardholders, while enriching the credit card industry, which reaped more than $14 billion in revenue from late fees in 2022, according to the CFPB.


“We have seen the junk fee era really creep across so many sectors of the economy, and across the government. We’re just trying to make sure consumers and small businesses and workers are getting a fair shake wherever they go,” said Rohit Chopra, the agency’s director, on a call previewing the announcement with reporters.
The policy is set to take effect later this spring, and it could save cardholders about $10 billion each year, according to the bureau, which estimates that about 45 million people have faced such fees. But its fate remains unclear: The banking industry is expected to sue the CFPB over the rules, adding to the agency’s legal woes as the Supreme Court is weighing the future of its funding and regulatory powers in a separate pending case.

“While the administration is messaging this rule as a ‘win’ for consumers going into an election year, it’s anything but,” said Lindsey Johnson, the president of the Consumer Bankers Association, whose board of directors includes executives from Bank of America, Chase and Wells Fargo. “By normalizing being late on credit card payments, the Administration is knowingly putting consumers’ financial health at risk.”


The CFPB announced its long-awaited cap ahead of a scheduled meeting Tuesday between Biden and his top council of advisers on competition issues. Federal officials plan to unveil other actions there meant to crack down on “junk fees,” including a “strike team” run by the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission, which will probe anticompetitive pricing practices in areas such as prescription drugs, groceries, housing and financial services.

The spate of federal activity reflects Biden’s ongoing campaign to stamp out the root causes of persistent inflation. Even as the costs of groceries, gas and other goods have leveled out in recent months, some Americans still report they are struggling to afford their basic needs — a problem that the president has blamed at times on corporate profiteering.

“Even as prices have come down on important items … some corporations aren’t passing those savings onto consumers,” said Lael Brainard, the director of the White House National Economic Council. “Instead, some corporations are tacking on extra fees, hiding costs and sometimes even breaking the law.”


The announcements set the stage for Biden’s State of the Union address on Thursday, roughly a year after he used that same speech to assail the scourge of “hidden surcharges [that] too many companies use to make you pay more.”

Any report on her injury. Certainly looked like a severe leg injury!

Sounds of shattering glass startled the Rev. Damian Zuerlein from his sleep early Sunday.
The priest opened his bedroom door to find a woman armed with "a filet knife" at the bottom of the stairs destroying everything that she could lay her hands upon.




Zuerlein

"I asked who was there, and this woman at the bottom of the stairs said, 'I don't intend to do you any harm, but I'm going to do terrible things,' " Zuerlein said Monday. "My guess is that she didn't know anyone was in the house when she broke in, but she was there to cause destruction."
The 29-year-old woman entered the rectory of St. Frances Cabrini Catholic Church near 10th and William Streets around 6 a.m. by breaking a window. An Omaha police spokesman said the woman, who did not get into the church itself, was taken to a hospital for an evaluation about 10 a.m.

​

Zuerlein said that after talking to the enraged woman, who he did not know, he locked his second-floor bedroom door and called 911. He immediately thought of the Dec. 10 fatal knife attack on the Rev. Stephen Gutgsell in the rectory of St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Fort Calhoun.

"I was thinking I hope (police) get here fast because I don't want this to be another Gutgsell incident," Zuerlein said. "Thankfully, (police) got there very quickly."
Washington County prosecutors have said Kierre Williams stabbed Gutgsell, 65, to death. Williams is charged with first-degree murder, burglary, use of a knife to commit a felony and possession of a weapon by a felon.


Damage is shown inside the rectory of St. Frances Cabrini Church in Omaha. A woman armed with a knife is accused of breaking into the building while a priest was sleeping inside.
ST. FRANCES CABRINI
Members of the Omaha Fire Department rescued Zuerlein from the second-floor bedroom window by ladder. The woman, who had by then broken into Zuerlein's bedroom, looked out the window to see Zuerlein descending a ladder.

"What was crazy is (the police) knew her name and they were talking to her," Zuerlein said. "I was thinking, 'Who is this woman that they already know her?' Then I found out she had already attacked her father and tried to light his house on fire and that's how they knew her."
Officers were initially called to a home in the 2200 block of South 11th Street at 5:19 a.m. for a disturbance between the woman and her father. Her father told officers that his daughter doused him with a flammable liquid and cut him with a knife. His injuries were not thought to be life-threatening, officials said.







Damage is shown inside the rectory of St. Frances Cabrini Church in Omaha.
ST. FRANCES CABRINI photos
The daughter allegedly tried to start a fire in the house before leaving on foot, police said. Officers were then alerted to the break-in at the St. Frances Cabrini rectory. Zuerlein said that the woman broke a downstairs window in order to enter the building.
Zuerlein said the woman's powers of destruction were stunning as she smashed large objects. She employed "some sort of super strength" to grab the mattress off his bed and block the bedroom window to keep police from coming in that way, he said.

She battled police when they entered the bedroom. They used bear spray in the incident, which has left the rectory uninhabitable for several days. Police removed her by force, preventing her from jumping out of the same second-floor window from which they rescued Zuerlein.

'We continue to pray for those involved in that incident'​

In a statement, the Archdiocese of Omaha said it was grateful for the quick actions of police and fire personnel.
“We continue to pray for those involved in that incident and the preceding events,” the statement said.

Riley Johnson, the archdiocese's director of communications, also said: “Churches and rectories in the archdiocese have alarm systems, and each individual parish makes security arrangements for their facilities. We offer guidance upon request. Many parishes also have security personnel present during Masses.”

Zuerlein joined St. Frances Cabrini in 2015, after leading St. Columbkille Parish in Papillion since 2004, according to the biography of him on St. Francis Cabrini's website. He was ordained in 1981.





Books were knocked off shelves inside the rectory of St. Frances Cabrini Church.

He is "originally from Columbus, Nebraska, and is the oldest of six children," the church said.
The priest said he is staying with friends until the rectory is cleaned up and the heavy haze of the bear spray is dispersed. The destruction at the rectory included many items of memorabilia and family heirlooms, he said.
"I have no injuries at all, thank goodness," Zuerlein said. "The fire department got me out of there before she could break down the door. I'm hoping that this woman gets the help she needs and that she faces the consequences of her actions for her attack (at the rectory) and at her father's house."

Through 12 innings of Iowa's weekend series against Ole Miss, the Hawkeye offense looked poised to power its way to a series victory. The Hawks scored 13 runs in a Friday win, and had built a 5-1 lead on Saturday.

Then the offense dried up. Iowa didn't score the rest of the day on Saturday, and went scoreless in the first seven innings on Sunday. In that time, Ole Miss scored 19 consecutive runs and took the weekend series. Iowa won Friday 13-7, lost on Saturday 12-5, and lost the rubber match 8-3 on Sunday.

More here: https://iowa.rivals.com/news/iowa-goes-1-2-in-weekend-series-at-ole-miss

A test drive for a car being sold through Facebook Marketplace ended with a carjacking and shooting Sunday evening northeast of Council Bluffs.
A call came in about suspicious activity near the intersection of Kanesville Boulevard and Sherwood Drive about 8 p.m. Sunday. The Council Bluffs Police Department responded and found a man suffering from a gunshot wound to his abdomen, the Pottawattamie County Sheriff's Office said in a news release Monday.
Police were led to a scene off Railroad Highway north of Council Bluffs, which is in the sheriff's office jurisdiction, so they handed off the investigation.


The shooting victim had been carjacked at the Smith Game Reserve off Railroad Highway, the sheriff's office said. The victim was taking two men on a test drive of his vehicle that he was trying to sell when they stopped to take photos.

People are also reading…​

A man was shot amid a carjacking at Smith Game Reserve off Railroad Highway on Sunday, March 3, 2024. The reserve’s small parking lot is shown Monday afternoon.
SCOTT STEWART, THE NONPAREIL
The two men assaulted the victim and left with his vehicle, the release states, and the victim was picked up by a passer-by and taken to the scene where Council Bluffs police responded. He was taken to the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, and his injuries are not believed to be a threat to his life.


The stolen vehicle's information was disseminated to law enforcement agencies, and it was found by the Missouri State Patrol near St. Joseph, Missouri. The vehicle is being held for further investigation, and the two suspects were taken into custody on suspicion of possession of a stolen vehicle.

Investigators from the Pottawattamie County Sheriff's Office are continuing to work the case in Missouri. The identities of the involved people will be released later, the release states.




A man was shot amid a carjacking at Smith Game Reserve off Railroad Highway on Sunday, March 3, 2024. The reserve is shown Monday afternoon.

Sheriff Andy Brown thanked the Missouri State Patrol and Council Bluffs Police Department for providing assistance in the investigation.

"He would also like to remind everyone to use caution when buying and selling items online," the release states. "Bring someone with you and meet in a public place like the sheriff's office's parking lot."

Interesting merger for Disney to capture customers in a tricky market for outsiders, and it creates an immediate outlet for the cricket rights they purchased several years ago. India’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, the owner of Reliance will install his wife atop the venture.

,.. that on the first weekend in March -

- the women would be 26-4 and the 2 seed in the BTT,
- that CC would break every meaningful record
- that the men would have 10 wins in the B1G and have a shot at 11
- that the men had a chance at the Dance.

And - it would be 75 degrees and many golf courses open.

Would you have taken it??

Yeah, I would have taken that!

Retired Army officer at STRATCOM leaked classified Ukraine details on dating site, feds say


David Franklin Slater, a retired Army officer who was working in a civilian capacity at U.S. Strategic Command at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraka, transmitted classified information on the war in Ukraine via a foreign dating website, federal prosecutors said March 4, 2024, in announcing charges against Slater. (Facebook/Offutt Air Force Base)

A retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel is accused of leaking classified information about Russia’s war against Ukraine via text messages on an unspecified foreign dating website, according to the Justice Department.

David Franklin Slater, 63, attended classified briefings as part of his work at U.S. Strategic Command and then sent secrets from them to a person who claimed to be a woman living in Ukraine, prosecutors said Monday in a statement. He faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted on the charges, which include one count of conspiracy to disclose sensitive information and two counts of unauthorized disclosure of sensitive information.

The indictment was filed in U.S. district court in Omaha, Neb., on Feb. 21 and did not identify the alleged co-conspirator. Slater retired from the Army in 2020 and took a job as a civilian employee for the Air Force. He worked in a classified area at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska from August 2021 until April 2022, the indictment said.

The base is the home of STRATCOM and contains some of the military’s most sensitive information networks. The person who prosecutors say plied Slater for information referred to him as her “secret informant love” and “secret agent,” according to court filings. Slater received messages such as “Beloved Dave, do NATO and (U.S. President Joe) Biden have a secret plan to help us?” and “Dave, I hope tomorrow NATO will prepare a very unpleasant “surprise” for (Russian President Vladimir) Putin! Will you tell me?” In response, Slater sent classified assessments of Russian military capabilities and the travel plans of U.S. officials visiting Ukraine, the indictment said. One message on April 14, 2022, thanked Slater for “valuable information” about two U.S. officials going to Kyiv. That was the day the first U.S. delegation of Republicans Sen. Steve Daines of Montana and Rep. Victoria Spartz of Indiana visited Ukraine.

Slater is scheduled for his first court appearance Tuesday, court documents said. He began speaking with the co-conspirator via emails and texts around the time of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, according to prosecutors. The co-conspirator would ask Slater questions about what he saw at classified briefings, the indictment said.

A March 11 message said, “Dear, what is shown on the screens in the special room?? It is very interesting.” Another on April 21 said, “You have a job in the Operations Center today, I remember, I’m sure there is a lot of interesting news there?” Other messages appeared to thank Slater for providing information. One sent April 12 said, “Sweet Dave, the supply of weapons is completely classified, which is great!” Slater’s arrest Saturday came hours after Massachusetts Air Force National Guard member Jack Teixeira pleaded guilty to leaking U.S. secrets about the Russia-Ukraine war on the social media platform Discord.

Read more at: https://www.stripes.com/branches/army/2024-03-05/honeypot-air-force-ukraine-13212787.html
Source - Stars and Stripes

What did they do to get each of these? Didn't see /hear much of an explanation from the announcers about either of them. TIA

I'm going to be in the market for a fun car this spring. Preferably a convertible that's fun to drive on a narrow windy road but also comfortable enough for long cruises. I was thinking about a Miata but I'm too tall at 6'2" to stretch out like I'd like. I got into a Boxter and fit fine but I wasn't sure how it'd feel on a long trip. Anybody own/owned a car that would fit the bill? I've owned Mustangs in the past but I think I'm over the muscle car thing.

Team records Team - Wins - Losses - PCT - Titles

Seed records - Seed # - Wins - Losses - PCT - Titles

Iowa Verses Each Team

Iowa verses each seed

I'll start with saying that I believe Clark and Pistol's stats should not be compared and should be celebrated individually. That said, I get the media likes to find things to stoke and break. And I get tired of the same old asterisks getting thrown out to discredit Clark's record. So, some quick fun math can show Clark would have beaten Pistol's record by even more (even without the three point line):
- even with playing one less year, Pistol took 573 more shots and 262 more free throws than Clark!! I've heard the shots per game mentioned, but total shots should be compared to total points scored.
- If you apply Clark's FG% to Pistol's total field goal attempts and counted every make as a 2 pointer, Clark would have scored 2947 points from field goals.
- if you apply Clark's free throw percentage to Pistol's free attempts, Clark would have scored 986 points from free throws
- added together, Clark would currently have 3933 total points if she attempted as many shots and free throws as Pistol at her current make percentages and only counted all field goals as 2, removing the 3 pointer benefit. That's 248 more points than she has now!
- another interesting thing to think about is Clark's FG% is 270 basis points higher than Pistol's WITH likely a higher mix of 3 point distance shots. Clark's 2 point %ge is 56%!!! If you apply that percentage to Pistol's shot attempts, she would have 4491 points. That's not completely fair because I'm sure Pistol attempted some long shots too.

TL;DR - shutup with the Pistol only played three years crap. He took more shots at a lower percentage than Clark, period. If Clark took as many shots as he did, she would have smashed his record several games ago, even without the three pointer benefit.