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Mathews: Anaheim, not Florida, is the best Disney fighter

Published Fri, 07 Feb 2025 14:00:01 GMT

How best to fight Mickey Mouse?Florida’s strategy for battling the Walt Disney Company is making national news because it is driven by culture war and Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential ambitions. California’s strategy, is little-known because it’s grounded in local concerns in Anaheim.Contrary to conventional wisdom — that the best defense is good offense — the Anaheim strategy is more likely to succeed.This is because Florida’s fight resembles nothing so much as Pickett’s Charge, the frontal, ill-considered attack that cost the Confederates the Battle of Gettysburg.DeSantis declared war on Disney after the company opposed his legislation, known as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, restricting teachers from talking about sexual orientation and gender in Florida classrooms. The governor thought that fighting Disney would boost his Republican support. Instead, he’s cratering. Why? Because he’s launched a cultural attack on the world’s most popular producer of culture. Even Donald Trump criticiz...

Brooks: Why Dodgers erred in honoring Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence

Published Fri, 07 Feb 2025 14:00:01 GMT

If I walked onto the field at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles and stomped on a Dodger’s uniform on home plate, I hope that the Dodgers and their fans would be upset. This is the jersey that Jackie Robinson wore, along with Dodgers legends like Sandy Koufax, Orel Hershiser, Tommy Lasorda and Roy Campanella. You don’t dishonor other people’s uniforms. In a pluralistic society, decent people don’t dishonor what others find sacred.This is one reason I think the Dodgers erred recently in honoring the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.As you might have read, the Sisters are a group of LGBTQ activists who have provided invaluable services to those in their community, especially during the AIDS crisis, but who also dress up as over-the-top nuns, adopt names like Sister Mysteria of the Holy Order of the Broken Hymen or Sister Sermonetta of the Flying Phallus, and who have been known to mock the crucifixion by hosting a re-enactment of it as a pole dance.They are justified in protesting a church ...

Is saving money worth the potential of stigmatizing your home after a failed sale?

Published Fri, 07 Feb 2025 14:00:01 GMT

Regarding your March 24, 2023, column titled “Successor trustees need to recognize the value of presale seller inspections” on The Mercury News and East Bay Times websites:Q: We had an identical situation in our family. My brother-in-law is the successor trustee of our parents’ estate. As a successor trustee, he thought presale seller inspections were “unnecessary.” He said the same statement in your column, “If the homebuyers want inspections, let them pay for them.” My parents made my brother-in-law the successor trustee because of his frugality. Well, his thriftiness got the better of him and us. We introduced the family home to the realty marketplace in Silicon Valley without presale seller inspections in late April. The multiple-offer bidding war lasted the better part of a week. In the first week of June, the homebuyers’ inspectors gathered for various inspections. In mid-June, the “winning” homebuyer canceled. All the offers received were noncontingent. There were no back-out...

¿Qué es el grupo Wagner y quién es Prigozhin, su fundador?

Published Fri, 07 Feb 2025 14:00:01 GMT

(CNN) — Yevgeny Prigozhin acusó este viernes al ejército ruso de atacar un campamento de Wagner y matar a un “gran número” de sus hombres. Prometió tomar represalias con fuerza. Como respuesta, el Ministerio de Defensa ruso negó haber atacado a las tropas de Wagner, calificando la afirmación de “propaganda informativa”. Y el FSB también abrió una causa penal contra Prighozhin por sus amenazas, acusándole de llamar a “una rebelión armada”.¿Qué es el grupo Wagner?Wagner fue fundado por Prigozhin como una organización mercenaria en las sombras que luchaba en el este de Ucrania y, cada vez más, por otras causas que Rusia apoyaba en distintos lugares del mundo.CNN ha seguido a mercenarios de Wagner en la República Centroafricana, Sudán, Libia, Mozambique, Ucrania y Siria. A lo largo de los años, han adquirido una reputación especialmente truculenta y se les ha relacionado con diversas violaciones de los derechos humanos.Mientras que muchas tropas...

Rosie’s Gaming Emporium eyeing Manassas Park for casino-like operation

Published Fri, 07 Feb 2025 14:00:01 GMT

This article was written by WTOP’s news partner InsideNoVa.com and republished with permission. Sign up for InsideNoVa.com’s free email subscription today.Rosie’s Gaming Emporium is looking to make a push into Manassas Park.Churchill Downs Inc., the operator of Rosie’s, announced Friday it is collecting signatures to initiate a voter referendum on whether the company could open a casino-like gambling operation in the Manassas Park Shopping Center on Centreville Road.The company runs six “gaming emporiums” in Virginia: in Dumfries, Richmond, Hampton, Collinsville, New Kent and Vinton. To expand into jurisdictions that have not already approved pari-mutuel gambling (also known as pool betting, by which bettors place wagers not against a bookmaker but against other bettors on the same event), the company must pass a voter referendum. In order to get on the ballot, Churchill Downs and Councilmember Michael Carrera – who submitted the petition to the Prince Willia...

El aborto en la historia: mucho antes del fallo de Roe vs. Wade, las mujeres interrumpían sus embarazos

Published Fri, 07 Feb 2025 14:00:01 GMT

(CNN) — Actualmente el aborto, al menos en Estados Unidos, es un polvorín político, legal y moral. Pero durante largos períodos de la historia, interrumpir un embarazo no deseado, especialmente en las etapas tempranas, fue un hecho de la vida poco controvertido, dicen los historiadores.Papiros egipcios, obras de teatro griegas, monedas romanas, biografías medievales de los santos, manuales médicos y de obstetricia, y periódicos y panfletos victorianos revelan que el aborto era más común en tiempos premodernos de lo que la gente podría pensar.Esta visión histórica sobre el aborto es importante, según Mary Fissell, profesora de Historia de la Medicina en la Universidad Johns Hopkins. Eso se debe a que las suposiciones sobre cómo se veía el aborto en el pasado colorean los argumentos actuales sobre el derecho al aborto. Esos derechos fueron severamente restringidos en muchos estados de EE.UU. desde que el fallo Roe v. Wade de 1973 que efectivamente hizo que el aborto fuera legal ...

Alligator charges at fisherman and it’s caught on camera

Published Fri, 07 Feb 2025 14:00:01 GMT

HILTON HEAD ISLAND, South Carolina (WYFF) — A man visiting Hilton Head Island with his family captured cell phone video of an alligator charging at a fisherman.It happened at Shipyard Plantation Tuesday evening.“It was about Tuesday night around 7 o’clock. My wife and three kids decided to go for a bike ride,” said Micah Kimberlin, who recorded the video. “We came across a couple people standing [near a pond], and then we see an alligator…this gentleman is fishing kind of far away, and it’s headed directly towards him. That’s when I started filming this alligator heading toward him.”Thankfully, no one was injured. The alligator re-entered the pond shortly after charging on land.The South Carolina Department of Natural Resources said it is likely that the alligator associated humans with food.“My opinion is it was probably an alligator that has been fed,” said Morgan Hart, alligator project coordinator for SCDNR. ̶...

Frontex considers suspending activities in Greece: Report

Published Fri, 07 Feb 2025 14:00:01 GMT

The EU Border and Coast Guard Agency is considering suspending activities in Greece following a controversy over the capsizing of an overcrowded fishing boat, Le Monde reported.During a June 20-21 management board meeting of the agency, known as Frontex, the agency’s fundamental rights officer, Jonas Grimheden, recommended temporarily suspending the agencies’ activities in Greece, according to the French newspaper’s report.The Frontex reaction comes in the wake of a migrant boat disaster off the coast of Greece that is one of the biggest tragedies in the Mediterranean Sea in years. Tensions have been mounting between the EU agency and Athens over the role that each party played in dealing with the tragedy.Critics say that the Greek authorities should have acted faster to keep the vessel from capsizing. There are testimonies from survivors that the coast guard tied up to the vessel and attempted to pull it, causing the boat to sway, which the Greek authorities stron...

EU countries bordering Russia on alert after Wagner insurrection

Published Fri, 07 Feb 2025 14:00:01 GMT

EU countries bordering Russia were on alert Saturday, with some beefing up their border security, after the Wagner paramilitary group seized control of a strategic Russian city and threatened to move on Moscow.The insurrection by the mercenary group came after its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin declared war on Moscow’s defense ministry in the early hours of Saturday morning, claiming Kremlin officials had killed thousands of his soldiers. Russian President Vladimir Putin called the move “treason” and vowed to “neutralize” the threat in a televised address.Estonia and Latvia have stepped up their border security in response, according to the countries’ governments, while Latvia suspended visa applications and entry to the country from Russia.“Visa or border entry from Russians leaving Russia due to current events won’t be considered,” Latvian Foreign Minister and incoming President Edgars Rinkēvičs wrote on Twitter. He added that there was “no direct...

Prigozhin’s insurrection may be destined to fail but it will weaken Putin

Published Fri, 07 Feb 2025 14:00:01 GMT

Jamie Dettmer is the opinion editor of Politico Europe.Yevgeny Prigozhin’s insurrection — or “march for freedom,” as he describes it — doesn’t look like it will turn into Ten Days that Shook the World. Indeed, the mutiny-cum-coup appears to share the half-cocked and poorly prepared characteristics of the failed putsch to oust the last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991.At least the KGB and Communist hardliners who tried to unseat Gorbachev had the good sense and fortune to begin their campaign in Moscow, understanding that whoever controls the capital, controls Russia. By contrast, the Wagner forces of paramilitary leader Prigozhin are 1,000 kilometers away in Rostov. Although there are reports his soldiers may have taken some military facilities in Voronezh, that’s still 500 kilometers from the Russian capital and there are now efforts to prevent him from proceeding along the highway to Moscow. Residents there are telling Russian media that the road is blocked south...