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NASCAR 75: Fan growth, new stars among looming challenges

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:09:54 GMT

NASCAR is crumbling. That is the image being presented to the casual fan early in this injury-plagued start to NASCAR’s 75th anniversary season. Through the first 11 races this season, NASCAR has handed down massive penalties, some of which have been overturned by appeal panels.Team owners are in a stalemate with NASCAR leadership over a new revenue model and drivers have been unhappy with the second-year Next Gen car’s performance at certain tracks. Most alarming, as NASCAR is in the thick of negotiating a new television contract, was the dramatic drop in TV ratings when Chase Elliott was sidelined earlier this season. Elliott has been voted NASCAR’s most popular driver by the fans the last five years; when he spent six races recovering from a broken leg suffered in a snowboarding accident, ratings dropped by roughly 500,000 viewers. And when he returned? NASCAR saw back-to-back ratings increases. As part of the celebration of NASCAR’s 75th season, The Associated ...

Caught on camera: 'Road rage' shooting in Denver

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:09:54 GMT

DENVER (KDVR) — A driver was caught in the middle of a shooting on Monaco and Evans and captured it all on a dashcam. Now, police are looking for the suspects.The shooting took place Tuesday around 6:30 p.m. at the intersection of Monaco Street Parkway and Evans Avenue in the Goldsmith neighborhood.Dashcam footage obtained by FOX31 shows a dark-colored SUV and a white pickup truck swerving in and out of traffic for nearly 40 seconds. Bullet narrowly misses toddler in car seat in road rage shooting The video shows the white truck trying to get away from the SUV, and once the two vehicles pass through the intersection the driver in the SUV fires shots at the truck. Immediately, the truck swerves onto the wrong side of the road to escape the SUV.More shots can be heard as the truck turns back onto the right side of the road and drives towards incoming traffic. Did you know you could get caught speeding by an aircraft? The person filming the shooting can be seen exiting the roadway ...

Denver and Colorado both rank second for women-owned businesses

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:09:54 GMT

DENVER (KDVR) -- The Centennial State is among the best in the nation for female entrepreneurs, part of a broader economic trend in which Colorado's business climate performs well in women's opportunities.Small business loan broker OnDeck crunched U.S. Census business owner data and found Colorado, and particularly the Denver metro area, has some of the nation's highest concentrations of female-owned businesses. Caught on camera: 'Road rage' shooting in Denver Colorado cities already score highly for women's professional outcomes. The Boulder and Denver metro areas have some of the nation's highest payscales for women who work full time. In the 50 largest statistical metro areas, the Denver-Aurora-Lakewood metro ranks second in the nation, with 24.8% of its businesses founded by females. The Denver area only has a shade smaller share of women-founded businesses than St. Louis, which claims the highest percentage in the U.S. with 24.84%. The Washington, D.C., Atlanta and Miami met...

Tyre Nichols died of blunt force injuries, autopsy shows

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:09:54 GMT

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Tyre Nichols died of blunt force injuries to the head after he was beaten by Memphis police during a January arrest, an autopsy report released Thursday showed.The autopsy said the manner of death was homicide. It described multiple contusions, brain injuries, cuts and bruises to the head and other parts of the body.Nichols was Black, as were the five police officers fired and charged with second-degree murder and other counts after his death. They pleaded not guilty Feb. 17.Nichols was stopped by police Jan. 7 for an alleged traffic violation and was aggressively pulled out of his car by officers. An officer shot at Nichols with a stun gun, but Nichols ran away toward his nearby home, according to video footage released by the city of Memphis and other police records.Officers who were part of a crime-suppression team known as Scorpion caught up with Nichols and punched him, kicked him and slugged him with a baton as he yelled for his mother.After the beating, ...

Lot to learn, you still have! German minister taken to task over Star Wars tweet error

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:09:54 GMT

BERLIN — The force is not with Marco Buschmann.To celebrate unofficial Star Wars Day, the German justice minister posted a tweet that caused quite a stir among fans of the film franchise. The Free Democrat wrote: “Happy #StarWarsDay! Yoda and I are taking a look at galaxies far, far away for ideas on how to make our home planet more modern, better and freer. Because: lot to learn, we still have. May the Force be with you!”Happy #StarWarsDay! Yoda und ich werfen heute einen Blick in weit entfernte Galaxien für Ideen, wie wir unseren Heimatplaneten moderner, besser und freier machen können. Denn: Viel zu lernen wir noch haben. Möge die Macht mit Euch sein! #maythe4thbewithyou pic.twitter.com/wtGOmd7zE4— Marco Buschmann (@MarcoBuschmann) May 4, 2023Star Wars fans celebrate on May 4 because of the pun “May the Fourth be with you” — a variant of the catchphrase that Buschmann mentioned in his tweet.But Buschmann’s photo did not show Yoda. Rather, the figure in the hand of the...

German court: Former Chancellor Schröder has no right to office in the Bundestag

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:09:54 GMT

BERLIN — Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder wanted his seven-room office and his staff of four back in the Bundestag office. But the Berlin Administrative Court ruled that he must continue to work without access to his office and his team.In May 2022, the budget committee of the German parliament had decided to no longer grant Schröder these privileges. The 79-year-old had faced strong blowback for his continued ties to Russia, which have included seats on the boards of Russian energy companies and personal friendship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. He filed a lawsuit against the committee’s decision in August 2022.For more than 50 years, a longstanding informal practice allows chancellors to have office space and staff in the German parliament’s buildings in Berlin to be used for the completion of tasks arising from their former position. So far, the offices have been made available for life. Former Chancellor Angela Merkel, for example, still has nine employees. Acco...

Jenny Craig is reportedly winding down its weight-loss centers and warning of mass layoffs

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:09:54 GMT

(CNN) — Jenny Craig is reportedly shutting down some of its weight-loss centers and warning employees of mass layoffs amid upheaval in the industry from popular new prescription drugs like Ozempic.Jenny Craig alerted employees to potential layoffs as it begins “winding down physical operations” and hunts for a buyer, according to NBC News. Jenny Craig has nearly 500 weight-loss centers in the United States and Canada.The company, founded in 1983, did not disclose to CNN how many weight loss centers will close or how many employees will be impacted.“Like many other companies, we’re currently transitioning from a brick-and-mortar retail business to a customer-friendly, e-commerce driven model. We will have more details to share in the coming weeks as our plans are solidified,” a spokesperson for Jenny Craig said in a statement to CNN.Jenny Craig’s program provides nutritionally balanced menus, which include entrees, desserts and snacks, d...

ProPublica: GOP megadonor paid private school tuition for grandnephew of Justice Clarence Thomas

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:09:54 GMT

 (CNN) — A Texas billionaire and GOP megadonor paid boarding school tuition for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ grandnephew, and the justice did not report the financial assistance for the child he helped raised on his annual disclosures, according to a new ProPublica report — the latest revelation raising ethical questions around the high court.The ProPublica report on Thursday revealed that the billionaire Harlan Crow paid tuition for Mark Martin, who lived with Thomas’ family as a child and for whom the justice became a legal guardian. ProPublica cited a 2009 bank statement and an interview with a former administrator at the Georgia boarding school Martin attended.The former administrator at the school, Hidden Lake Academy, told ProPublica that Crow paid for Martin’s tuition for the year or so Martin was at the boarding school. The administrator said, according to ProPublica, that he had been told by Crow that Crow also paid for...

Ravens’ Lamar Jackson ‘didn’t really care for other teams,’ mum about trade request

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:09:54 GMT

Lamar Jackson, despite a public trade request and the opportunity to negotiate with other teams, made clear one thing clear Thursday in his first conversation with the media in five months: He always wanted to be Raven.“I didn’t really care for other teams,” he said at a news conference at the team’s facility in Owings Mills, his first comments since agreeing to a record-breaking five-year, $260 million deal that makes him the highest-paid quarterback in the NFL in terms of annual salary. “I wanted to get something done here.”“In the end, it was really two people,” Ravens general manager Eric DeCosta added. “I was dealing with Lamar Jackson the agent. … It wasn’t always easy [and] I’d rather deal with Lamar Jackson the player. But in the end, it was just Lamar and I talking, texting, emailing each other trying to get a deal done. There were really no other factors involved.”Jackson demurred when asked what...

The banking crisis isn’t over. But how bad will it get?

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 12:09:54 GMT

By KEN SWEET and MICHELLE CHAPMAN (AP Business Writer)NEW YORK (AP) — Uncertainty continues to pummel the banking industry, despite assurances from financial regulators and bankers such as Jamie Dimon this week that the worst of the recent crisis is over and the health of the banking system remains strong.Bank shares have sold off on Wall Street this week following the government seizure and subsequent sale of First Republic Bank to JPMorgan. It was the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history and the third failure of a midsize lender in two months. While many thought the sale of First Republic “would stop the ‘who’s next?’ conversations, investors are clearly continuing to focus on remaining players that are deemed the weakest” analysts at UBS wrote in a note to clients.The bigger worry is that the bank failures might lead to doubts about relatively healthy banks, creating a financial contagion that could impact the wider economy. Averting tha...