online lottery BOSSCAT Recognized for Excellence, Innovation and Growth with Prestigious 2024 Contractor/Rehab Company of the Year Award at the Third Annual IMN SFR Industry Awards Event in Scottsdale, AZ on December 2, 2024 . CHARLESTON, S.C. , Dec. 17, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- BOSSCAT TM Home Services and Technologies, a leading provider of home technology, improvement and repair solutions, announced today that it has been awarded the prestigious IMN 2024 Contractor/Rehab Company of the Year Award at the third annual Industry Award Ceremony. The award recognizes the company's commitment to customer-centered innovation, excellence in service delivery, cost effectiveness and focus on client satisfaction. "This award is a testament to the hard work and dedication of the entire BOSSCAT team," said Dan Vercek , Senior Vice President of Field Operations. "We are honored to be recognized by IMN for our commitment to delivering superior home services, and this recognition inspires us to continue raising the bar for excellence in the industry." The event, held on December 2, 2024 in Scottsdale, AZ , brought together leading companies and professionals from across the industry to celebrate achievements in service, innovation, and growth. BOSSCAT stood out among a competitive field of nominees for its exceptional growth in the past year, driven by strategic partnerships, innovative technologies, and a commitment to championing both customers and skilled tradesmen and women. About Information Management Network (IMN) Founded in 1994, IMN is the premier real estate conference business in the United States , providing a high-quality intelligence and networking platform that drives industry connections, deal flow and knowledge transfer across multiple corporate functions and property types. IMN's series of SFR conferences have been considered the de facto gatherings for the industry since their inception 12 years ago, featuring a "Who's Who" of SFR & BTR owner/operators, ranging from large institutional groups to smaller players, property managers, "fix & flippers", lenders, and service providers/vendors. Over 1,600 SFR professionals attend the must-attend event for the industry's calendar, where attendees will establish connections, generate business and learn from SFR pioneers driving this space forward. Learn more at sfrwest.com About BOSSCAT Home Services and Technologies BOSSCAT Home Services and Technologies is the leading real estate platform reshaping homeownership by digitizing home inspection data for instant estimates and online ordering of repair, renovation, and maintenance services. Proprietary technology and exclusive access to proprietary data power the platform to deliver lifecycle services at scale through innovative products, process automation, and direct integration with industry partners. BOSSCAT's Instant Estimate technology is available in all 50 states and Canada. The company is a licensed and insured general contractor in all operational markets with a commitment to advancing the skilled trades. BOSSCAT has been recognized by Inc. 500 and Inc. 5000 as one of the fastest growing, privately held repair and renovation companies in the country for three consecutive years. Learn more at BosscatHome.com . MEDIA INQUIRIES: Mark Kearns Chief Financial Officer Mark@BosscatHome.com View original content to download multimedia: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bosscat-home-services-and-technologies-wins-imn-2024-contractor-of-the-year-award-at-third-annual-industry-award-ceremony-302334312.html SOURCE BOSSCAT

HUMBOLDT, Tenn. (AP) — A Tennessee man was convicted Thursday of killing two men and wounding a third in a shooting at a high school basketball game three years ago. Jadon Hardiman, 21, was found guilty in Gibson County of charges including second-degree murder, attempted murder, aggravated assault and weapons offenses, district attorney Frederick Agee said in a statement. He faces up to 76 years in prison at sentencing in April. Hardiman, of Jackson, attended a basketball game between Humboldt and North Side high schools on Nov. 30, 2021. Then 18, Hardiman entered the Humboldt gymnasium's crowded concession area and pulled a semi-automatic .40 caliber handgun, prosecutors said. He fired three shots at Justin Pankey, a 21-year-old former Humboldt basketball player. Pankey was hit one time and died within seconds, Agee said. A second bullet hit Xavier Clifton, a former North Side student and basketball player, who was standing in the concession line. Clifton was shot in the neck and paralyzed. He died in March 2022. A third shot struck another man in the back of the head. He survived. “Many people were placed in fear of imminent bodily injury by Hardiman’s shooting, as shown by video footage of their fleeing into the gym, into bathrooms, and other areas of the school,” Agee said. Hardiman ran away and drove to Jackson, disposing of the murder weapon along the way, the district attorney said. The U.S. Marshals Service contacted his family, and he was arrested the next day. Agee said the shooting "frightened every adult, student, and child present, who were only there to support their team and enjoy a good game.” Hardiman's lawyer did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

He is not yet in power but President-elect Donald Trump rattled much of the world with an off-hours warning of stiff tariffs on close allies and China -- a loud hint that Trump-style government by social media post is coming back. With word of these levies against goods imported from Mexico, Canada and China, Trump sent auto industry stocks plummeting, raised fears for global supply chains and unnerved the world's major economies. For Washington-watchers with memories of the Republican's first term, the impromptu policy volley on Monday evening foreshadowed a second term of startling announcements of all manner, fired off at all hours of the day from his smartphone. "Donald Trump is never going to change much of anything," said Larry Sabato, a leading US political scientist and director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics. "You can expect in the second term pretty much what he showed us about himself and his methods in the first term. Social media announcements of policy, hirings and firings will continue." The first of Trump's tariff announcements -- a 25 percent levy on everything coming in from Mexico and Canada -- came amid an angry rebuke of lax border security at 6:45 pm on Truth Social, Trump's own platform. The United States is bound by agreements on the movement of goods and services brokered by Trump in a free trade treaty with both nations during his first term. But Trump warned that the new levy would "remain in effect until such time as Drugs, in particular Fentanyl, and all Illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country" -- sowing panic from Ottawa to Mexico City. Seconds later, another message from the incoming commander-in-chief turned the focus on Chinese imports, which he said would be hit with "an additional 10% Tariff, above any additional Tariffs." The consequences were immediate. Almost every major US automaker operates plants in Mexico, and shares in General Motors and Stellantis -- which produce pickup trucks in America's southern neighbor -- plummeted. Canada, China and Mexico protested, while Germany called on its European partners to prepare for Trump to impose hefty tariffs on their exports and stick together to combat such measures. The tumult recalls Trump's first term, when journalists, business leaders and politicians at home and abroad would scan their phones for the latest pronouncements, often long after they had left the office or over breakfast. During his first four years in the Oval Office, the tweet -- in those days his newsy posts were almost exclusively limited to Twitter, now known as X -- became the quasi-official gazette for administration policy. The public learned of the president-elect's 2020 Covid-19 diagnosis via an early-hours post, and when Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander Qasem Soleimani was assassinated on Trump's order, the Republican confirmed the kill by tweeting a US flag. The public and media learned of numerous other decisions big and small by the same source, from the introduction of customs duties to the dismissal of cabinet secretaries. It is not a communication method that has been favored by any previous US administration and runs counter to the policies and practices of most governments around the world. Throughout his third White House campaign, and with every twist and turn in his various entanglements with the justice system, Trump has poured his heart out on Truth Social, an app he turned to during his 20-month ban from Twitter. In recent days, the mercurial Republican has even named his attorney general secretaries of justice and health via announcements on the network. "He sees social media as a tool to shape and direct the national conversation and will do so again," said political scientist Julian Zelizer, a Princeton University professor. cjc/ft/dw/bjtPet passports for dogs, cats and ferrets to travel within UK ‘an outrage’

US stocks take a breather, Asian bourses rise in post-Christmas tradeThe "silly season" of news coverage used to refer to the dog days of summer, when there was so little of importance happening that newspapers and cable channels filled the vacuum with fluff. Not this year. Starting in October and gaining intensity through the season, Americans have found themselves awash in panicky health and safety warnings about previously unappreciated threats. It started with warnings about your black plastic spatulas and other such implements. Spurred by a study and press release issued Oct. 1 by the Seattle nonprofit Toxic-Free Future, news organizations from coast to coast — including The Los Angeles Times — posted articles advising consumers to ditch their black food utensils and children's toys with black plastic pieces. The black spatula panic was soon outrun by the drone panic, which has Americans scanning the skies for menacing aircraft. As is typically the case, both of these panics springs from a nugget of truth. It's true, for example, that chemicals that could theoretically harm people's health at high exposure levels can be found in some household products — chiefly chemical flame retardants in black plastic electronic devices that have been banned from new uses but have been getting recycled into the consumer stream. It's also true that drones, ranging in size from the lightweight models deployed by hobbyists to large commercial models, are becoming a pain in the neck, with the largest craft posing a real danger to commercial aircraft . But the distance between those nuggets of reality and the level of public hysteria is so great that the latter can be explained mostly by two factors: the desire for clicks on news sites and to fill newspaper columns, and the impulse of preening politicians to show they're attentive to constituents' concerns, no matter how dubious. Let's take these panics in order, starting with the black utensils. For a time, press advisories that people ditch their black spatulas were impossible to ignore. The most alarmist was probably an offering from The Atlantic, which was headlined: " Throw Out Your Black Plastic Spatula /It's probably leaching chemicals into your cooking oil." The piece ran under an illustration of a black spatula dripping sinister goblets of melting plastic, against a background of bilious green. It gave prominent space to the Toxic-Free Future study, as well as to research papers by the British scientist Andrew Turner, who has been studying the contamination of household goods by those electronic flame retardants for years. A few points about the Toxic-Free Future paper, which spurred all that news coverage. First, it's based in part on a massive mathematical error. The paper calculates that users of "contaminated kitchen utensils" would have a median intake of BDE-209, one of the common flame retardants, of 34,700 nanograms per day. (A nanogram is a billionth of a gram.) The paper states that this daily exposure "would approach" the reference dose set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency of 7,000 nanograms per kilogram of body weight per day, which the the paper says pencils out at 42,000 nanograms per day for a 60-kilogram adult. Pretty good ground for concern, since the EPA uses the reference dose to measure the level of health risk from exposure to a toxin. Except: 7,000 times 60 isn't 42,000; it's 420,000. The median intake for a 60-kilogram adult, in other words, isn't anywhere close to the EPA's reference dose. Toxic-Free Future has issued a correction to its paper , acknowledging that the daily intake it calculated doesn't "approach" the EPA reference dose but is one-tenth of the reference dose. (The Times has followed up with an article about the correction ; several other publications that went to town on the black utensil threat have also done so.) But it also says "the calculation error does not affect the overall conclusion of the paper." Megan Liu, the paper's lead author, told me that it wasn't really designed as a risk assessment, but chiefly as a study of how much of these contaminants has entered the consumer economy through kitchen utensils, children's toys and other products. "Flame retardants shouldn't even be in these products at all," she says, which is true. Yet the issue for the average consumer is how dangerous are these products, really? The answer is, not very. In a study cited by Liu's paper, researchers found that some chemicals leached from a black spatula into cooking oil. The Atlantic's take on this was that the paper "found that flame retardants in black kitchen utensils readily migrate into hot cooking oil." Not so readily, however: The researchers cut a black spatula into small pieces and basted them in 320-degree cooking oil for 15 minutes . Who does that? As epidemiologist Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz points out, "most people don't leave their spatulas in the fryer and walk away for a quarter of an hour ." More issues are related to this paper. One is that 60 kilograms, or about 132 pounds, isn't the average weight of American adults. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention places the average weight for an adult male at about 200 pounds, and for a female about 171. Using those weights would have shown that the potential for health effects is even more remote than the overheated news coverage of the paper suggests. In any case, the evidence for long-term human health effects from the normal exposure to these chemicals is scanty. It comes almost entirely from experiments on lab mice and rats subjected to doses unlikely to occur in the real world, and to an experiment on human cells also in the laboratory. Of course, if you're inclined to eliminate all artifacts of modern commerce from your life, no one is stopping you. Liu and her colleagues observe that kitchen implements made from wood or stainless steel are widely available. They've also properly noted that among the real problems with the recycling of plastics in consumer goods is that we don't know anything about how much goes into which products and where they've come from. Some legislatures have moved toward requiring more disclosure, which is to the good. But if you spent the last few weeks or months doing a hard target search for black implements in your house, you probably didn't have to. Now on to the drones. When I first heard of New Jersey residents expressing panic over mysterious lights overhead, I flashed on the Firesign Theatre line, "Big light in sky slated to appear in East." Except that the Firesign Theatre was a satire troupe of the 1960s and '70s, the line originated in their parody of a post-apocalyptic news broadcast, and the game was given away by the title of their best album, "Don't Crush that Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers." The current panic appears to be for real. All the worrying got me thinking about the interview I conducted in September with Sean M. Kirkpatrick , who had recently retired as the Pentagon's chief investigator of UFO reports. As he had written in a Scientific American op-ed , he and his team had been overwhelmed by a "whirlwind of tall tales, fabrication and secondhand or thirdhand retellings of the same," producing "a social media frenzy and a significant amount of congressional and executive time and energy spent on investigating these so-called claims." Sound familiar? The claims of an invasion of the Eastern seaboard by swarms of drones has every marker of a groundless social media frenzy. This started with some truly baroque partisan speculation; on Dec. 11, Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.) cadged himself some airtime on Fox News by claiming that his home state was under attack from Iran. "I'm going to tell you the real deal," he said. "Iran launched a mother ship that contains these drones. It's off the East Coast of the United States of America. They've launched drones." Three days later, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, declared "this has gone too far," grousing that mystery drones had closed down a metropolitan New York airport. The bare-bones reporting on this event might have made people think that JFK or LaGuardia had been attacked by mystery drones. In fact, the airport was Stewart Airport, which is 60 miles from Manhattan, is served mostly by the ultra-low-cost Allegiant Airlines with routes to Florida, and was closed for one hour. My favorite performance was that of former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, who reported via X that on Dec. 12 he "personally witnessed (and videoed) what appeared to be dozens of large drones in the sky above my residence ... (25 miles from our nation's capital). I observed the activity for approximately 45 minutes." It didn't take long for Hogan to be inundated with responses from astronomers and meteorologists that what he had videotaped weren't drones flying over his house, but the constellation Orion, which as meteorologist Matthew Cappucci informed him crisply, is "made up of stars between 244 and 1,344 light years away. " Since then, neighborhood groups in New Jersey have organized "sky watches" to track the invading swarms and traded reports via their Ring doorbells. Donald Trump advised people to shoot the drones down, which is a good way to make things worse. Some people conjecture that the drone hysteria is the product of the public's mistrust of government. That doesn't explain much, since a large share of the hysteria has been promoted by elected officials themselves. Politicians are naturally averse to calling their constituents idiots, so they have been responding by demanding more transparency from government officials at the Pentagon and other agencies. It's always safe for politicians to assure voters that they'll hold bureaucrats' feet to the fire. The problem here is that government agencies have been very clear about what's happening overhead. The "drone" sightings, they say, are of commercial or U.S. military aircraft, helicopters, and perhaps drone flights by hobbyists wanting to get in on the fun. Most of it is surely the product of ignorance. How much more do we need federal agencies to explain? "Most people don't look at the sky," notes Cheryl Rofer, a retired nuclear scientist . "They don't know what airplanes look like up there, particularly at night, and they don't know what the stars and planets look like. They can't estimate distance — which is tricky in the sky — and they aren't aware of how things can seem to move. They aren't aware of how to check if those objects in fact are moving." There may be one other explanation for why there are so many purported drone sightings in New Jersey. As the blogger Kevin Drum writes , there are a lot of drones in New Jersey, in part because a state law "indemnifies drone fliers against lawsuits from New Jersey landowners for use of their property for drone overflights." So, sure. New Jersey loves drones, which nobody noticed until a local congressman decided to blame Iran. That should cover the hysterias of the moment. Black spatulas won't kill you, and the lights in the sky aren't alien spaceships or Iranian bombers. Any questions? Michael Hiltzik is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times. ©2024 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com . Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

LOS ANGELES , Dec. 17, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Sports and recreational injuries send more than 3.5 million Americans to the hospital emergency room each year according to the National Safety Council. The problem is much greater in collegiate sports, where NCAA injury incident reports reached 1.3 million in 2022. Beyond soft tissue damage, these injuries include life-altering Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) tears and Traumatic Brain Injuries. To reduce the occurrence and impact of sports-related injuries, CLR Neurosthenics today launched CLR Advantage TM , a groundbreaking solution that employs interactive software and a wearable, wireless sensor network to collect real-time neurophysiological data while athletes perform pre-programmed physical exercises, cognitive tests, reaction games and position drills. This data is then used to instantly generate reports that reveal hidden deficiencies, indicate player readiness, and guide training routines for injury prevention, performance optimization and rehabilitation. Designed by a team of leading sports neurophysiologists and biometric engineers, patent-pending CLR Advantage TM utilizes FDA-approved qEEG brain wave sensors and physiological monitors to capture a continuous stream of high-resolution data, including cortical power, heart rate, heart rate variability, respiration rate, trapezoidal tension, galvanic skin response and peripheral temperature. The solution then employs NASA technology to process biometric signals and report on neurophysiological capabilities, including brain connectivity, power, activation and symmetry during various physical tasks and mental exercises. CLR Advantage TM finally correlates event-marked physiologic data to reinforce neurologic observations. For example, data may indicate certain risk in an athlete that exhibits an elevated heart rate, neurologic asymmetry and qEEG inhibition during a single-leg balance exercise. CLR Advantage TM recently completed a two-year clinical trial with 177 NCAA Division I athletes at the University of Cincinnati . Performed in partnership with Select Medical at the University's Sports Medicine Department, the study compared the neurophysiological performance of healthy athletes with those suffering from ACL injuries. Results from the study, which continues to assess injured athletes through various stages of rehabilitation, were published in the International Journal of Sports Physical Therapy . To supplement ongoing research, CLR Advantage TM is currently employed by the NFL Professional Football Athletic Trainers Society (PFATS) to study ACL injury propensity through assessments that include a variety of dynamic force exercises. "For the first time, we now have a better understanding of exactly how the brain is impacted by an acute injury," said Robert Mangine, Senior Athletic Director of Sports Medicine at the University of Cincinnati and Residency Director for NovaCare Rehabilitation. "CLR Advantage TM allows us to look at brain activity as athletes progress through the rehabilitation, then use that data and musculoskeletal measures to determine a safe return to play." The Microsoft Azure cloud-powered CLR Advantage TM platform provides an end-to-end, HIPAA-compliant solution for operators to organize teams, create athlete profiles, schedule appointments, conduct assessments, monitor live biometric data, and generate comprehensive analytic reports. Offered on a subscription basis, the solution is available for demonstration at CLR Neurosthenics' Los Angeles Assessment Center. https://clradvantage.com/ For additional information contact: Mark O'Bryan (424) 256-7264 mark.obryan@clradvantage.com 1 https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/144/5/e20192759/38190/Soccer-Injuries-in-Children-and-Adolescents 2 https://perma.cc/9EG6-6TBJ ; Robert L. Parisien et. al., Implementation of an Injury Prevention Program in NCAA Division I Athletics Reduces Injury-Related Health Care Costs. 9 Orthopedic J. of Sports Med. (2023). https://ijspt.org/task-driven-neurophysiological-qeeg-baseline-performance-capabilities-in-healthy-uninjured-division-i-college-athletes/ View original content to download multimedia: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/clr-neurosthenics-launches-neurophysiological-assessment-platform-to-help-prevent-sports-injuries-optimize-performance-and-improve-rehabilitation-302334112.html SOURCE CLR NeurosthenicsIndependent TDs could be the kingmakers of the next Dáil as many put their hands up for inclusion in government talks. One newly-minted independent TD told the Irish Mirror on Monday that he was not elected just to “sit on the pot”. As the final counts concluded across several constituencies, Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin said it was time to “get on with the work”. However, his deputy leader Jack Chambers cast doubt upon a new government being in place before Christmas. Fianna Fáil will be the largest party in the Dáil having won 48 seats after the election of Niamh Smyth and Brendan Smith in Cavan-Monaghan. Sinn Féin will have 39 seats in the next Dáil, while Fine Gael will have 38. The Green Party has just one seat, while the Social Democrats and Labour both have 11. People Before Profit will have 3 TDs, while Aontú will have two. There will be 17 independent and other TDs and four members of Independent Ireland. READ MORE: General Election 2024: What are the options for a new government? READ MORE: Election 2024: Mary Lou McDonald contacts Labour and Social Democrat leaders to discuss government formation Attention has already turned to the formation of the next government. It now appears increasingly likely that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael will have nearly enough seats between them to make up the 88-seat majority required in the Dáil. However, questions remain about whether independents or a smaller party will join them to form a government. Several independents told the Irish Mirror on Monday that they would be willing to talk to Mr Martin and Taoiseach Simon Harris with a view to forming a government. Some said they would also talk to Sinn Féin, but admitted that Mary Lou McDonald’s party will not have the numbers. Sean Canney, an independent TD in Galway East, said he would be willing to support the government, noting he had done so before, during the Fine Gael-Independent regime from 2016 to 2020. He said: “I have no problem going into government if the programme for government is palatable and we can work out an agreement. We’ll have to wait until we are asked to come into talks. There are a few right-minded independents who actually could form a group that would actually help form a government.” Mr Canney said this could include people like Michael Lowry, Noel Grealish, Michael and Danny Healy-Rae, Verona Murphy and Marian Harkin. Asked if he would go into government with Sinn Féin, Mr Canney said that the party might have to “pull together people I wouldn’t support” in order to form a government. Ms Harkin, who was re-elected to Sligo-Leitrim on Sunday evening after looking like she was going to lose her seat, told the Irish Mirror that she was “interested in being able to influence the next government, whoever that might be”. Michael Healy-Rae, meanwhile, said he would go into government if it would benefit Kerry. “Our job is to represent people, and if we can do that better some way than another way, isn’t that the thing to do?” he said. “We’ll answer the call if we’re wanted. The redline would be issues that affect us in Kerry." He said this included housing, dental care, health care and infrastructural projects like a bypass in Killarney. Barry Heneghan, a new independent for Dublin Bay North, said he would be willing to enter government, and he made this clear to voters when he canvassed. “I want the best for the people. If I can make a deal which gets us another Gaelscoil or something for people with disabilities or a school for children with autism or something really good for Dublin Bay North, I don’t think people would be too upset with me doing it,” he said. “If it is not me, it is going to be somebody else.” Asked if he would support Sinn Féin, Mr Heneghan said that people who elected him “didn’t want me to sit on the pot on the backbenches for five years”. Smaller parties, such as Labour and the Social Democrats, were playing coy when questioned about the prospect of going into Government, stating they want to speak to parties of the left first. However, Michael Collins, leader of Independent Ireland, told the Irish Mirror that his party would be willing to replace the Greens in a three-party government. He said: “Independent Ireland will be sitting down with whoever wants to talk or whoever can crack up the figures. We have our policies there. [Other parties] will know whether they can marry with us or not.” Elsewhere, the Tánaiste said it is time to “get on with the work” following Fianna Fáil’s success. “We’ll let the dust settle and savour the moment. We’ll then be in a position over the next couple of days to assess the landscape, devise our strategies,” he said. Later, in a speech after counting in his Cork constituency had finished, Mr Martin said: “The people have spoken, let us now get on with the work.” While the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party will meet in Leinster House on Wednesday, deputy leader Jack Chambers said no government will be formed before Christmas. Fine Gael will also meet on Wednesday. Sinn Féin is also expected to gather in Leinster House on Wednesday. Its party leader Mary Lou McDonald has contacted the leadership of the Social Democrats and Labour to speak about government formation. Follow updates, breaking news and top stories as they happen below. Join our Election 2024 WhatsApp group here to get live election results and updates. You can leave the group at any time if you don't like it.