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Food services contractor in Miami arrested for grand theft, fraud

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:02:59 GMT

A food services contractor in Miami has been arrested for using a South Florida school’s funds to buy food for her independent business. Marisela Santoni-Gomez, 46, is facing grand theft in the second degree and organized fraud. She worked ILS Group, which is a food service contractor used by Christopher Columbus High School. Police said that Santoni-Gomez was in charge of the onsite operations, which included the ordering of food and supplies that are used in school only. But outside of school hours, she is the owner of two food trucks, according to police. One of them is a brunch-style truck while the other one is a charcuterie board business.An anonymous theft complaint triggered an internal investigation into the purchase records starting in January 2023. The report said that purchase records showed various items were purchased that were not offered or used at the school. This included food items such as waffles, avocados, chicken tenders, and specialty to-go food contain...

Top US diplomat to China: Not ‘optimistic’ about future relations

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:02:59 GMT

Don’t expect Washington’s relationship with Beijing to improve anytime soon, U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns said Friday morning.“I don’t feel optimistic about the future of U.S.-China relations. I feel that we need to see how things develop,” Burns said during a Brookings Institution event.The blunt remark came exactly a month after President Joe Biden met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in San Francisco. It was an attempt to stabilize the fraught relationship between the two nations, which have seen a deepening mistrust that has pushed relations to their lowest point in a half-century.The pair agreed on a number of confidence-building measures, including a resumption of high-level military-to-military communications. But Biden soon after called his Chinese counterpart a “dictator” for the second time this year — angering Beijing.Burns called the meeting in California “producti...

EU vows Ukraine will get its money — with or without Orbán’s support

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:02:59 GMT

BRUSSELS ― EU leaders are promising Ukraine will still get its €50 billion aid package to help prop up its war-shattered economy against Russian invasion — with or without the backing of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.Orbán, who has cordial ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, blocked approval of the lifeline funds to Kyiv at a two-day summit and, although the measure technically needs the agreement of all the bloc’s 27 governments, leaders signaled they could be willing to take the radical step of sacrificing EU unity and working round him if that’s what it takes. “It’s possible for the 26 member states to provide the money on a bilateral basis,” Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar told reporters after the European Council in the Belgian capital. “A bit of time and space over the Christmas period might help.”Almost two years after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a country that borders four EU countries, leaders are battling to avoid the fight over funds c...

Shohei Ohtani says signing with Los Angeles Dodgers is ‘all about winning’

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:02:59 GMT

(CNN) — The Los Angeles Dodgers unveiled their newest acquisition Shohei Ohtani to the media on Thursday after the 29-year-old signed a historic 10-year, $700 million deal with the team last week,The two-way superstar, who donned the team’s jersey during a press conference at the Dodger Stadium, told reporters that he hoped to be back as a hitter for Opening Day next season.“I just saw my contract was 10 years, I’m not sure how long I will be able to play the game, so I do prioritize winning,” Ohtani said via a translator.“That’s on the top of my list and I will probably never change and that’s one of the reasons why I chose this team.”The two-time American League MVP said what stood out about the Dodgers was their commitment to success.“When I had the meeting with the Dodgers – the ownership group, they said when they looked back at the last 10 years, even though they made the playoffs every single year, one World Series ring, they ...

Bought for $3.99 from a Virginia thrift store, this vase just sold for over $100,000

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:02:59 GMT

(CNN) — Jessica Vincent fondly remembers embarking on frequent thrifting trips — at secondhand stores, yard sales, flea markets — with her mother as a child. It’s a habit she retained into adulthood, and one that on Wednesday turned into a six-figure windfall for the Richmond, Virginia native (and the art and design auction house Wright), when a glass vase she purchased for $3.99 sold for over $107,000.Vincent told CNN she and her partner were regular shoppers at the Goodwill store in question — ”probably two or three times a week,” she said, adding that thrifting was “just a funny thing to do, or a different thing to do on the way home to decompress.”On the day of her lucrative purchase in June, Vincent noticed the vase immediately. “People tell me I have a good eye,” she said in a phone interview. “You can put me in an aisle with a whole bunch of dollar store stuff and I can pick out the one item with a little bit of value. I feel like I’ve trained myself — I’ve watched ...

Food sovereignty movement sprouts as bison return to indigenous communities

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:02:59 GMT

Jim Robbins | (TNS) KFF Health NewsBOZEMAN, Mont. — Behind American Indian Hall on the Montana State University campus, ancient life is growing.Six-foot-tall corn plants tower over large green squash and black-and-yellow sunflowers. Around the perimeter, stalks of sweetgrass grow.The seeds for some of these plants grew for millennia in Native Americans’ gardens along the upper Missouri River. It’s one of several Native American ancestral gardens growing in the Bozeman area, totaling about an acre. Though small, the garden is part of a larger, multifaceted effort around the country to promote “food sovereignty” for reservations and tribal members off reservation, and to reclaim aspects of Native American food and culture that flourished in North America for thousands of years before the arrival of European settlers. Restoring bison to reservations, developing community food gardens with ancestral seeds, understanding and collecting wild fruits and vegetables, and learning how to cook...

Lamar Stevens’ surprise appearance continues important theme for Celtics

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:02:59 GMT

Lamar Stevens had an idea, but he didn’t know when the moment was going to come.When Luke Kornet was ruled a late scratch from the Celtics’ lineup in Thursday’s win over the Cavaliers, Stevens thought there was a chance he could play his first minutes since Nov. 28. But he didn’t know until Joe Mazzulla called him from the bench to substitute for Kristaps Porzingis with four minutes, 20 seconds remaining in the first quarter to face his former team.“That’s when I found out,” Stevens – who played his first three seasons with Cleveland before signing a partially guaranteed deal with Boston this season – said afterward with a laugh.Stevens’ nine minutes in Thursday’s win was overall, unspectacular in the box score. The big forward was whistled for a defensive three seconds violation and three personal fouls in his first three-minute stint, but returned to produce good minutes late. He scored four points, and contributed a block and steal in the fourth quarter that helped the C’s close ...

From flush to faucet: More places look to turn sewage into tap water

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:02:59 GMT

Matt Vasilogambros And Kevin Hardy | Stateline.org (TNS)FOUNTAIN VALLEY, Calif. — After an Orange County resident flushes her toilet, the water flows through the Southern California community’s sewer system, meanders its way to the sanitation plant, has its solids removed, is piped to a wastewater recycling facility next door and undergoes three different purification processes until it is clean enough to drink.“It tastes like water,” said Mehul Patel, executive director of operations for the Orange County Water District’s project, after taking a gulp from a clear plastic cup at the sampling station, as he stood outside the final purification process facility on a warm afternoon earlier this month.“It’s just like any other water, but it’s gone through a lot,” he said. “People shouldn’t judge where it came from, but where it is now.”Mehul Patel, executive director of operations for Orange County’s wastewater recycling plant, shows the reverse osmosis membrane sheets used in the secon...

Biology, anatomy, and finance? More med students want business degrees too

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:02:59 GMT

Samantha Liss | (TNS) KFF Health NewsJasen Gundersen never considered a career in business when he entered medical school nearly three decades ago to become a rural primary care doctor.But, today, he isn’t working in rural America and he doesn’t do primary care. In fact, he no longer practices medicine at all.As CEO of CardioOne, which provides back-office support to cardiologists, Gundersen is part of a growing trend: physicians and medical school students earning advanced business degrees to work the business side of the booming health care industry.Just over 60% of medical schools now offer dual MD-MBA programs, more than twice the number two decades ago, a recent study shows. And researchers estimate the number of dual-degree graduates has nearly tripled. Still, it’s difficult to know exactly how many physicians now have business degrees. While the medical school students who simultaneously earned both a medical and business degree represent almost 1% of the roughly 28,000 medic...

Doctors on (video) call: Rural medics get long-distance help in treating man gored by bison

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:02:59 GMT

Arielle Zionts | KFF Health News (TNS)GANN VALLEY, S.D. — Rural medics who rescued rancher Jim Lutter after he was gored by a bison didn’t have much experience handling such severe wounds.But the medics did have a doctor looking over their shoulders inside the ambulance as they rushed Lutter to a hospital.The emergency medicine physician sat 140 miles away in a Sioux Falls, South Dakota, office building. She participated in the treatment via a video system recently installed in the ambulance.“I firmly believe that Jim had the best care anyone has ever received in the back of a basic life support ambulance,” said Ed Konechne, a volunteer emergency medical technician with the Kimball Ambulance District.A bison on Jim Lutter’s ranch in central South Dakota. (Arielle Zionts/KFF Health News/TNS)The ambulance service received its video system through an initiative from the South Dakota Department of Health. The project, Telemedicine in Motion, helps medics across the state, especial...