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Deadly Listeria Outbreak Linked to Milkshakes From Burger Chain

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A listeria outbreak that led to the deaths of three people has been linked to milkshakes sold by the burger chain Frugals at its restaurant in Tacoma, Wash., according to the state’s health department.

In a news release on Friday, officials said that outbreak had been caused by the food-borne listeria, a type of bacteria that can cause serious sickness or death in people 65 or older and miscarriages and premature births in pregnant women. At least three other people were hospitalized as a result of the outbreak from Feb. 27 to July 22.

The same strain of the bacteria was found in ice cream machines at the restaurant, about 10 miles south of downtown Tacoma, that had not been properly cleaned, the health department said. The restaurant stopped using the ice cream machines after they were tested on Aug. 8, but listeria can sicken people several days after consuming the bacteria, health officials said. None of the other Frugals restaurants in Washington or Montana are believed to have been affected, they added.

In a statement posted on Instagram over the weekend, Frugals said, “We are heartbroken and deeply regret any harm our actions could have caused.” The Tacoma Frugals has stopped selling milkshakes and has sent the milkshake equipment to be cleaned and retested, it said.

Frugals did not immediately respond to requests for additional comment on Monday evening.

Investigators said that all of the six people hospitalized, including those who died, were immunocompromised, and that genetic fingerprinting of the bacteria had showed the same food was likely responsible for making them sick.

Two of those who were sickened and survived told investigators they had drunk milkshakes from the restaurant.

Past listeria outbreaks caused by ice cream and milkshakes prompted the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department to take samples from the restaurant on Aug. 8, state health officials said. Ten days later, they confirmed that all of the restaurant’s milkshake flavors had been contaminated with the same strain of listeria that caused the outbreak.

While most people who eat food contaminated with listeria do not develop serious illness, state health officials have advised anyone who is pregnant, age 65 and older or immunocompromised and drank a milkshake at the restaurant from May 29 to Aug. 7 to contact their health provider.

“The milkshake machines will be kept out of service until the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department determines they are free of Listeria contamination and no longer pose a danger to the public,” the Washington State Department of Health said.

Maxie Baughan, Feared Linebacker of the 1960s, Dies at 85

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Maxie Baughan, one of the most fearsome linebackers of the 1960s, who earned nine Pro Bowl nods as a member of the Philadelphia Eagles and Los Angeles Rams, died on Saturday in Ithaca, N.Y. He was 85.

His death was confirmed in a statement by the National Football League.

Baughan, a member of the College Football Hall of Fame, is one of 12 players who are semifinalists in the seniors category for the Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2024.

For Baughan, born on Aug. 3, 1938, in tiny Forkland, Ala., during the Great Depression, glory on any national stage seemed like a long shot growing up. His father was a sharecropper turned lineman whose job entailed shimmying up telephone poles for repairs.

“You could tell when he came home, his arms would have black marks with blood in them,” Baughan said in a 2016 interview with the newspaper The News & Advance in Lynchburg, Va. “I decided I didn’t want to do that, so I didn’t. But I sure as heck didn’t think I was going to be playing professional football. I never dreamed of that.”

When he left home to play football for the celebrated coach Bobby Dodd at Georgia Tech, his father handed him $20 and said, “That’s it.”

It was apparently enough.

Blending ferocity with a seeming omnipresence on the gridiron, Baughan became a two-way standout for the Yellow Jackets, starting at linebacker and center and becoming team captain. By his senior season, in 1959, he was a star. He was named a consensus All-American that year and voted the Southeastern Conference lineman of the year.

Although Georgia Tech lost the 1960 Gator Bowl to Frank Broyles’s Arkansas Razorbacks, Baughan was named one of two most valuable players in the game, along with the Arkansas safety Jim Mooty.

Although not physically imposing by N.F.L. standards, Baughan, at 6 foot 1 and 227 pounds, was picked by the Eagles in the second round of the 1960 draft. Still, the league itself was something of a mystery to him. At that point there was no team in its eastern conference further south than Washington.

“I didn’t even know the names of the teams,” he later said, “so when the Eagles drafted me, I figured, ‘OK, I’ll see what this is all about.’”

In his rookie 1960 season, Baughan stepped in as a weakside linebacker alongside the future Hall of Famer Chuck Bednarik, the punishing linebacker known as “Concrete Charlie” (who also played center), to bolster a punishing Eagles defense.

The team stormed to a 10-2 record that year and victory in the championship game over Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers, with Baughan intercepting three passes.

He came in second in the league’s United Press International rookie of the year balloting and was named to his first of five Pro Bowl selections with the Eagles.

After a trade to the Los Angeles Rams in 1966, Baughan picked up where he had left off. The Rams’ coach George Allen named him the team’s defensive captain and signal caller. Behind the quarterback Roman Gabriel, the Rams reached the divisional round of the playoffs twice over the next five years, with Baughan cleaning up on defense behind the team’s heralded defensive line, known as the Fearsome Foursome, starring Deacon Jones, Lamar Lundy, Rosey Greer and Merlin Olsen.

He would notch four more Pro Bowl appearances during his Rams tenure, adding to an N.F.L. résumé that also included five years as a second-team All-Pro and one as a first-teamer.

Baughan retired in 1970 and later became the defensive coordinator at his alma mater, Georgia Tech. But his N.F.L. playing days were not quite over. In 1974, Baughan briefly served as a player-coach for the Washington Redskins, although he suited up for just two games.

He would patrol the sidelines for more than two decades, serving as a defensive coordinator for the Baltimore Colts and Detroit Lions and head coach at Cornell University. He capped his career as a linebackers coach for the Minnesota Vikings, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Baltimore Ravens.

In that role, he mentored the future Hall of Famers Derrick Brooks of the Buccaneers and Ray Lewis of the Ravens.

Baughan is survived by his wife of 62 years, Dianne; his sons Max, Mark and Matt; and eight grandchildren.

He is a member of the Eagles Hall of Fame and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1988. The Pro Football Hall of Fame seniors committee was to meet on Tuesday to narrow the field of 12 semifinalists to three finalists for induction into the Class of 2024. Players in the senior category played their games in professional football no later than the 1998 season.

“Being just a small kid from a small town, didn’t have but one pair of shoes and didn’t have a sport coat when I went to college,” Baughan said in a television interview in 1988, recalling the profound honor he felt when he was named the Yellow Jackets’ captain. “There were some things that weren’t supposed to happen to me.”

Flight Risk – The New York Times

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The U.S. has not had a fatal plane crash involving a major American airline in more than 14 years — an incredible safety achievement.

But the elaborate system that keeps planes from crashing is struggling. In recent years, air traffic controllers, who guide planes out of harm’s way, have suffered a staff shortage. Out of 313 air traffic control facilities nationwide, just three as of May met staff targets set by the Federal Aviation Administration and the union representing controllers.

Aviation officials worry the shortage is leading to close calls, in which planes nearly crash. There were at least 46 near misses involving commercial airlines last month, according to an investigation by my colleagues Sydney Ember and Emily Steel that published this morning. Those close calls are still a small fraction of the nearly 1.4 million flights in the U.S. each month, and it is not clear whether the rate is increasing.

But any close call is dangerous, potentially leading to a fatal crash that breaks America’s safety streak. As a spokesman for the F.A.A. said, “One close call is one too many.” The agency’s goal is to reduce the number of such near misses to zero. Staff shortages make that harder.

Deadly mistakes still happen, particularly with private flights and smaller airlines. In 2019, a flight in Alaska operated by Ravn Air Group, a local carrier, and marketed under the name PenAir crashed during landing, killing one passenger and injuring others.

“The controllers we’ve talked to take real pride in their job, and they work really hard to make sure these planes are safe,” Emily told me. “But they’re worried that the circumstances around their jobs could make them slip up and that those mistakes could be very dangerous.”

What is behind the shortage? Part of the problem goes back decades: In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan fired thousands of air traffic controllers who were on strike. The F.A.A. then hired new controllers. Many retired when they became eligible to do so 20 years later. And now, another 20 years later, another wave of controllers is retiring.

Chronic disinvestment in government services is another cause. Over the past decade, the number of fully trained controllers has fallen 10 percent, while airport traffic has increased 5 percent. The F.A.A. has asked for more money to increase hiring. Even if the agency receives those funds, it will take time to hire new controllers and train them.

In the meantime, the U.S. risks more close calls. Some in aviation worry it’s only a matter of time before the overworked system fails to stop a deadly crash.

“Aviation officials will say that we have the safest system in the world,” Sydney said. “But underlying that success are risks and issues that deserve attention.”

Wearable tunes: Feel music through your skin.

Psychedelics: Ecstasy is considered one of the safer illegal drugs. But there are risks.

Metropolitan Diary: Furniture shopping like a New Yorker.

Lives Lived: Ron Cephas Jones was an admired actor in theater and on television, including on “This Is Us,” for which he won two Emmy Awards by drawing on his youth of drug addiction and temporary homelessness. He died at 66.

Victory in disharmony: Spain overcame a squad revolt and a key injury to win the tournament, beating England, 1-0, in the final.

Unpleasant reminder: The president of Spain’s soccer federation kissed the forward Jennifer Hermoso on the lips during the medals ceremony. Sexism has plagued Spanish women’s soccer.

Growth movement: The final brought out fans of all stripes and rallied girls in England and Spain to hit the field and play.

“So many problems”: England faced its own challenges in advancing to the final.

Next stop, major: Coco Gauff won the Cincinnati Open yesterday, a week before the U.S. Open.

Rock bottom: The worst division in M.L.B. history? Welcome to a weekend in the AL Central.

Frustration: The golfer Scottie Scheffler’s problem was on display yesterday — his putter.

Recreating a bygone China: Over the past few decades, China’s government razed rural houses to make way for the highways and high-rises that propelled the country’s modernization. Now, a group of artists are creating miniature replicas of the homes, for both an older generation nostalgic for simpler times and a younger generation who never got to live them. “If we don’t leave a record, those born after the 2000s won’t have any impression of this,” said Shen Peng, a miniaturist.

Airgle Corporation: Pioneering a Global Revolution in Air Purification, Empowering Healthcare Choices for a Healthier Tomorrow

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Holbrook, New York, August 21, 2023, New York, August 20, 2023- Airgle Corporation, renowned for its advanced air purification solutions, is thrilled to announce its partnership with the respected American Lung Association. Boasting over two decades in crafting medical-grade air purifiers, Airgle stands as a vanguard in enhancing global air quality, particularly in healthcare settings.

Originating from the United States, Airgle has solidified its standing as an industry stalwart, delivering groundbreaking air purification systems across North America and many prestigious nations globally. Its expansive distribution encompasses countries like Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, Denmark, Switzerland, Japan, South Korea, India, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and various regions of China, including Mainland, Hong Kong, and Macao. Airgle’s influence in medical-grade air purification is truly worldwide.

Airgle’s purification systems are meticulously designed to counter airborne pathogens, including COVID-19, ultra-fine particulates, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Serving as protective barriers, they safeguard doctors, medical staff, and patients from CoV-2 and other airborne threats.

In Hong Kong, Airgle boasts a commendable 90% market share in the medical domain. Esteemed medical establishments, senior care facilities, and other institutions rely on Airgle, especially amidst the persistent challenges of the COVID-19 crisis. Their successful collaboration with the Hong Kong Children’s Hospital underscores the versatility and efficacy of Airgle’s solutions in a multitude of healthcare scenarios, ensuring a sanitized environment for both young patients and their caregivers.

Extending its commitment to respiratory health, Airgle has partnered with the Hygge Living Rehabilitation Centre, dedicated to delivering superior medical, nursing, rehabilitation, and support to senior citizens and the broader community. This collaboration emphasizes Airgle’s dedication to safeguarding senior health. 

In the US, Airgle has fostered meaningful associations with revered healthcare entities like the Indian Health Service (IHS), Marshall Hospital, Virtua Health System, and Atlanta’s prominent Grady Hospital. These affiliations reiterate Airgle’s unyielding pledge to the welfare of healthcare providers and their patients, combating airborne hazards.

 “Ivan Lo, CEO at Airgle Corporation, remarked, “It’s an honor to significantly contribute to global medical sectors by refining air quality and bolstering healthcare surroundings. Our alliance with the American Lung Association reflects our unswerving drive to elevate respiratory health and offer superior air purification solutions to global communities.”

This collaboration between Airgle and the American Lung Association marks a monumental stride towards a cleaner, healthier future, accentuating the pivotal role of pure air in fostering respiratory health and overall vitality.
 
About Airgle Corporation: Airgle Corporation, a global leader in cutting-edge air purification, collaborates with global healthcare facilities to provide medical-grade air purification solutions. Celebrating over 20 years of excellence, Airgle remains the top choice, sculpting healthier surroundings for patients and medical professionals.

About the American Lung Association: The American Lung Association champions the cause of enhancing lung health and warding off lung diseases through education, advocacy, and research. It offers vital support for those with lung ailments, leads pivotal research, and advocates for stringent air quality standards and policies.

For complete information, visit: https://www.airgle.com/

Media Contact:

Airgle Corporation
Attn: Media Relations
1170 Lincoln Avenue Unit 2
Holbrook, NY 11741
(718) 395 2377
PR@airgle.com

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Airgle Corporation: Pioneering a Global Revolution in Air Purification, Empowering Healthcare Choices for a Healthier Tomorrow 2

Maui Fires Present a Huge Test for Hawaii’s Governor

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In early 2020, with state health officials downplaying signs of the coming pandemic, Josh Green, who was then Hawaii’s lieutenant governor, went outside the political pecking order and called the White House himself to ask for a temporary ban on cruise ships, a linchpin of Hawaii’s economy.

The move by Mr. Green, an emergency-room physician, infuriated his colleagues and the governor’s office, but “no one would listen to me here,” he said in his Capitol office overlooking Honolulu last week.

Now the 53-year-old governor, a Democrat less than a year into his first term, is confronting the horrific wildfires on Maui that have killed at least 114 people and perhaps many more.

Thousands have been displaced. One of the world’s most scenic beach towns is now a toxic ruin. President Biden is arriving Monday to view the devastated landscape and hear from residents.

And after two mega-emergencies in fewer than four years in a state with a population smaller than Philadelphia’s, Mr. Green has some urgent thoughts about the range of catastrophes that are sweeping the globe and overwhelming institutions.

“I want the world to know that we have to prepare for this,” the governor said last week, his voice tense, his eyes red from exhaustion. “We absolutely have to solve these problems before they become crises.”

The firestorms in Hawaii are just the latest climate-fueled horror to challenge leaders around the country. Last year, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida confronted the most destructive Atlantic hurricane season on record. Gov. Gavin Newsom of California was only two days past his election when 85 people died in the Camp fire in 2018.

Violent floods have slammed New York and Vermont this summer. Blistering heat has plagued Arizona and Texas. The trauma and grief, followed by costly recoveries and lawsuits, have become staples of governance as climate change has amplified weather extremes.

“This will be the biggest crisis Hawaii has had to face since Pearl Harbor,” Colin D. Moore, a political scientist at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, said. Already fault lines have emerged in the Democrat-dominated power structure.

In a state where political decisions are often a balancing act among factions — from progressives to pro-development Democrats to powerful labor unions — some worry that the rush to rebuild will shred hard-won environmental and cultural protections. Others fear that the devastation will gut the economy, drive up already sky-high housing prices and supercharge a middle-class exodus of priced-out teachers, firefighters, nurses and other essential workers.

“The fear is that this will become a land grab by wealthy investors from outside of Hawaii,” Professor Moore said.

That concern also reflects the inherent tensions in Hawaiian politics between the state’s breathtaking natural beauty and the tourist-dependent economy that supports its 1.4 million inhabitants.

Wayne Tanaka, the executive director of the Sierra Club of Hawaii, said the governor’s own nascent policies seemed to undercut his calls for more rigorous planning. Mr. Tanaka criticized an emergency measure that Mr. Green signed shortly before the fire; the move suspended some development restrictions as a way to fast-track the supply of affordable housing.

“This is a big test of whether he’s going to challenge and reverse the trend of allowing corporations to dictate land use policies and monopolize water resources,” Mr. Tanaka said.

Still others fear the pull of politics as usual, noting that the governor’s chief of staff — who came with him from the lieutenant governor’s office — is a former lobbyist for the pro-development Hawaii Regional Council of Carpenters.

“I’m very much willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but I’m very concerned,” said Matthew S. LoPresti, a progressive who served with Mr. Green for six years in the state legislature. “This will be the test of his leadership.”

Even Mr. Green says that bringing a state back from a climate-age disaster in a way that might fend off the next one calls for political skills far beyond what he has been asked to muster in the past.

“This is the first time for me as an executive that I’ve been tasked with something outside my absolute comfort zone,” he said. “Covid was not difficult for me to deal with because I was a health care provider practicing public health.”

Mr. Green, who was born in Kingston in upstate New York and raised in suburban Pittsburgh, has an unconventional political story. His father ran a family-owned civil and structural engineering company; his mother was a local organizer for the National Organization for Women. He jokes that when his parents went to Woodstock, he “was there in utero.”

He was born deaf, he said, but not diagnosed until he was a toddler. His hearing was surgically repaired, but the loss left him with speech challenges that took years to overcome.

“I’m very competitive and driven, and it’s mostly derived from that,” he said. “That need to get past it and catch up.”

Mr. Green graduated from Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, then from medical school at Pennsylvania State University. (He displays an impressive stash of Pittsburgh Steelers memorabilia in an office shrine.) In his last year of training, he went to Swaziland, now known as Eswatini, for a medical mission; after completing his residency in 2000, he joined the National Health Service Corps, which stationed him in rural Hawaii.

For the next four years, he said, he cared for some 8,000 mostly native Hawaiian and Filipino patients as a family practitioner and an emergency room physician on the Big Island.

“We couldn’t get drug treatment, we couldn’t get trauma services,” he said, “and I started to speak up and was told, ‘If you know so much, why don’t you run for office?’”

Mr. Green campaigned in scrubs for his legislative district and was elected. A week after arriving at the Capitol on Oahu, he said, he met his wife, Jaime, a lawyer who was clerking for a state senator. He held two jobs, as a lawmaker and an emergency physician for the next 18 years until he became governor.

At the Capitol, Mr. Green was neither part of his party’s progressive wing nor a player in the mainstream party apparatus, Professor Moore said. After focusing on homelessness and public health as a legislator, Mr. Green ran for lieutenant governor in 2018 and won again. He received key support from a political action committee tied to the carpenters union, which was seeking to block Jill Tokuda, a progressive state senator who was then the front-runner and was later elected to Congress.

When Covid hit in 2020, David Ige, who was then the governor, informally made Mr. Green the administration’s pandemic point man. But their relationship was not always harmonious, and the early call on the cruise lines fed perceptions that Mr. Green was prematurely campaigning to succeed Mr. Ige, who was prevented by term limits from running for re-election in 2022.

Eventually, the governor formalized Mr. Green’s role as Covid liaison. Armed with a whiteboard and raw data, he reestablished himself as the face of Hawaii’s response to the pandemic, pushing mandatory vaccines for public sector employees, indoor masking for businesses, and quarantines or proof of vaccination for travel among the islands. Aside from a few small protests outside his home, there was little of the public unrest that roiled other states.

In the spring of 2021, as infection rates dropped, a poll conducted by two local news organizations found that the lieutenant governor had a 63 percent approval rating, nearly three times that of Mr. Ige. A year later, Mr. Green defeated six other Democrats in the primary and won the general election easily.

As governor, he has stopped practicing medicine except as a volunteer; a state law that took effect in 2022 forbids governors from holding second jobs while in office. But he has made headlines several times for rendering care in emergencies. In July, Morning Consult reported that only two other governors had higher approval ratings from their constituents.

Then disaster hit Maui. As the firestorm barreled into the historic town of Lahaina, the governor was more than 5,000 miles away at a family reunion in Massachusetts.

He flew home immediately and helped secure billions of dollars in federal aid through a federal disaster declaration. He also opened motel rooms and rentals to displaced survivors, vowed to crack down on land speculators and to include locals on recovery work crews. He also instructed the attorney general to conduct a “comprehensive review” of the fire’s causes and the emergency response.

But that came amid numerous problems with the response.

Outdoor sirens were never deployed. Cellphone sites lost power, making it impossible for people to receive emergency alerts. Roads to escape town were impassable. And firefighters struggled to access water.

Now complex decisions loom, from how to preserve the character of Lahaina to whether to move power lines underground.

Mr. Green said that the last four years have taught him that communities no longer have a margin of error.

“I’m mad that we didn’t do some of the things that we could have done three, five, seven years ago to make an incident like this relatively impossible,” he said, the old Covid whiteboard in his office now covered with wildfire statistics.

“Because this kind of thing doesn’t need to happen. We’ll rise up but with great cost.”

Joël Mank Establishes His Brand In Paris and Continues His Ascent To The Top of The Global Fashion World

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Joël Mank is bringing his high-end fashion line to America. If his success can be replicated in America, his brand will be well known all over the planet.

Paris, France, August 20, 2023, Joël Mank has proven himself worthy of all the praise he has been receiving from fashion industry insiders. Many people consider Paris to be the fashion capital of the world. Fashion trends begin there and then become popular in America. As a result, Joël Mank should soon have a very popular line, as he’s making the transition to the United States.

Joël Mank is available in one store in Paris. At Herold Paris, consumers can actually shop for Joël Mank. There are many pieces and the fabrics they’re made from are among the best in the world.
Joël Mank has become one of the most promising rising fashion brands. They have conquered the toughest fashion market in the world. Creating a clothing line in Paris and getting in a store is no easy feat.

During a recent interview, Joël Mank made these comments, “It is essential to draw inspiration from the natural riches that surround us, the air we breathe, the earth our feet tread on, the vitality of the water and the fire of our ambition. Joël Mank is inspired by an art of living where simplicity rhymes with quality. The products offered will always be in line with this precept. Simple products made from noble materials; this is our guideline.”

At 18 years old, he already knew and understood that following his path in the fashion industry as a fashion designer would be his destiny; because to create/to design was and is like a therapy for him. This is a way that he found to escape from the sadness of his reality and to transform/change it as pure joy, as he finally understood and found happiness in others’ smiles.

That is also why he wanted his brand DNA, philosophy and experience to be illustrated with this sentence: “The Joel Mank experience is to meet as strangers, but leave as friends” Indeed, all of his clients have become his friends and since 2016, Joel Mank Family has been continuously growing into love and goodwill.

At a press event, Joel said, “My creative process is active listening, observing so that I can feel the emotion of the people. That is the main key element for me to create accessories and design outfit that support people in where they want to go (positive evolution). My creations have always been supported with some positive words in order to help he or she who buy it, and therefore bring them to the best version of themselves.”

Joël Mank is currently promoting their “With Love or Nothing” campaign. His website displays current creations and worth a visit for sure. Each of his pieces are brilliantly conceived and represent a classy yet contemporary fashion statement.

For complete information, visit: https://www.joelmankparis.com/index

Media Contact:

Joël Mank
Attn: Media Relations
Paris, France
K@b3faceforward.com

Reference: hopvibe.com/news/joel-mank-is-bringing-his-high-end-fashion-line-to-america/

Store Owner Is Fatally Shot by Man Who Confronted Her About Pride Flag

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Every time someone ripped down the rainbow Pride flag from the Mag.Pi clothing store in the San Bernardino mountains in California, the store’s owner, Laura Ann Carleton, responded by putting up a bigger one.

Ms. Carleton, 66, did not waver in her support of L.G.B.T.Q. people.

Around 5 p.m. on Friday, she was shot by a man who made disparaging remarks about the shop’s Pride flag, the authorities said.

The man, whose identity has not been released, fled the scene on foot. Deputies found him with a handgun, and he was killed in an encounter with law enforcement, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement.

The department said that “detectives learned the suspect made several disparaging remarks about a rainbow flag that stood outside the store before shooting Carleton.”

It was unclear whether the shooting was being investigated as a hate crime, and additional details of what preceded the attack were not available on Sunday. Sheriff’s Department officials were not immediately available to comment.

The shooting — in Cedar Glen, near Lake Arrowhead — came about a month after the Anti-Defamation League and the L.G.B.T.Q. advocacy group GLAAD released a report indicating a recent rise in anti-L.G.B.T.Q. harassment, vandalism or assault in the United States.

Ms. Carleton’s daughter Ari Carleton, 28, said that her mother was “fearless” and put the needs of others ahead of her own. Ms. Carleton had been a pillar in the community, she added.

When a rare blizzard struck the area this year, Ms. Carleton and her husband, Bort Carleton, converted her shop into a relief center.

“She opened up a free shop where she and my dad just gave out supplies to those in need who had been impacted by the storms,” Ari Carleton said in a phone interview on Sunday, adding, “That really sums up who she was as a person.”

Ms. Carleton preached “love, acceptance and equality,” her daughter said, and those values were reflected in her store, Mag.Pi, where she carried a collection of personally curated, high-quality and ethically sourced clothes, and sometimes her own designs.

Paul Feig, the film director, was a friend of Ms. Carleton’s. He would have dinner with Ms. Carleton and friends on his visits to Lake Arrowhead.

“She was just a force of nature,” Mr. Feig said, adding, “She just really cared about people.”

The Pride flag hanging outside Mag.Pi was removed numerous times by different people since the store opened two years ago, Ari Carleton said.

The store is listed as a “business ally” by Lake Arrowhead LGBTQ+, a community group.

“Lauri did not identify as LGBTQ+, but spent her time helping & advocating for everyone in the community,” the group said on Facebook. “She will be truly missed.”

The organization is planning a vigil for Ms. Carleton once the threat of Tropical Storm Hilary clears.

She is survived by her husband and nine children.

“I just want the world to remember her for who she was,” Ari Carleton said. “And that she passed away in a place that she cherished, doing what she loved and defending something that was so important to her.”

At Ms. Carleton’s Lake Arrowhead home after the shooting, her family opened a package that had been left at the doorstep.

The flag at the store had begun to fade, Ari Carleton said. Her mother had ordered a new one.

Storm Hilary brings floods to Southern California

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STORY: Heavy rains and fierce winds have already begun to cause chaos on southern California roads as people fled the storm and some officials ordered evacuations.

Storm Hilary, which made landfall earlier in the day in the northern part of the Baja California peninsula, has been weakening over the last 48 hours. But it is still set to be the wettest storm ever to hit the U.S. Southwest, according to Zack Taylor, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service (NWS).

Areas such as Palm Springs, California, which typically gets around 4.6 inches of rain in an entire year, could receive 6-10 inches from this one storm. California’s Death Valley area, which receives only about 2.2 inches of rain per year, could receive 3-4 inches from this event.

Yankees’ Streak of Winning Seasons in Jeopardy After Loss to Red Sox

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The Yankees set themselves apart. That is the whole underpinning of their brand. Of course, they have the most championships, but it’s more than that. No beards. No names on the jerseys. No losing seasons in decades.

That last one is in serious peril. The Yankees lost for the eighth game in a row on Sunday, 6-5 to the Boston Red Sox in the Bronx. They are 60-64 this season, slipping ever closer to the first losing season for the franchise since 1992, the year Aaron Judge was born.

Judge came up in the ninth inning on Sunday, two on and no outs. A big hit would win the game. Kenley Jansen struck him out on three pitches, then got Gleyber Torres, too. The Yankees fanned 14 times before Ben Rortvedt, batting .095, flied to center to end it.

“It’s a gut punch today, especially in the fashion we lost it,” said Isiah Kiner-Falefa, the Yankees’ third baseman.

Kiner-Falefa had scored what seemed to be the go-ahead run in the eighth, before replay overturned the call. The Red Sox broke the tie on a double by Justin Turner in the ninth.

“Getting swept by those guys is definitely tough,” Kiner-Falefa said, adding later, “This can’t be happening.”

But it is, and the Yankees have single-handedly made their patchwork rivals relevant in the wild-card race. The Red Sox are one game over .500 when they don’t play the Yankees and 8-1 when they do. At 66-58, Boston is alive.

The Yankees are an afterthought, their season now defined by the pursuit of mediocrity. They are ordinary, the very last thing they ever want to be. They lead the American League in attendance for the fourth nonpandemic season in a row, but their descent makes you wonder how much longer they’ll be in demand.

Boring doesn’t sell, and the Yankees cannot even pretend to be pushing for a pennant.

“We’ve got to be unbelievable the rest of the way,” Manager Aaron Boone said. “So it’s not even about that. It’s about coming to try and win a game Tuesday. Then, all of a sudden, you start stacking, and an amazing thing happens. But we’re so far removed from that. We’ve got to get a win first.”

The Yankees’ eight-game losing streak is their longest since an eight-game skid in late August 1995. That team went 26-7 down the stretch to win the first A.L. wild card, with a quartet of precocious rookies — Derek Jeter, Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera — along for the ride.

What followed was unbelievable indeed: a dynasty that restored the shine to a tarnished Yankees crown. It’s easy to take today’s fan support for granted, but in the eight seasons before their postseason breakthrough (that is, 1987 through 1994), the Yankees drew fewer fans than the Minnesota Twins. A lot of Don Mattingly homers landed in empty seats.

This is not to suggest that one losing season will sour fans from supporting the Yankees next year. Recent history has actually been fairly compelling: The Yankees have reached the American League Championship Series five times since their last World Series title, in 2009. Losing all of those series has made this era more frustrating than fallow.

But the Yankees need a jolt, and the sugar rush of free agency — Shohei Ohtani, Cody Bellinger, Matt Chapman — tends not to last. The Yankees’ payroll was $275 million or so on opening day, and much of it — Josh Donaldson, Aaron Hicks, Frankie Montas — has produced almost nothing.

The good thing, for Hal Steinbrenner, is that the Yankees now get $25 million by selling ad space on their uniforms to an insurance company. Teams are permitted to do this now, but they don’t have to. The classy move would have been to stay above it — the sanctity of the pinstripes and all that — but that’s not reality.

Not when a team can use the $25 million to effectively pay for, say, outfielder Giancarlo Stanton, who is owed that much annually (for luxury-tax purposes) through 2027. Stanton was out of the lineup on Sunday; he has hit .184 since the All-Star break last summer, striking out in a third of his at-bats. (He flied out with two runners on as a pinch-hitter in the seventh.)

Stanton is one of five players, all in their 30s, who will cost the Yankees a combined $143 million — again, for luxury-tax purposes — in each of the next three seasons. The list also includes Judge, Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodón and DJ LeMahieu.

Younger players have had encouraging seasons, especially starter Clarke Schmidt and shortstop Anthony Volpe, both former first-round draft picks. But most of the “Baby Bombers” from the mid- to late-2010s — with Judge the big exception — never amounted to much, and when MLB.com ranked the farm systems after the trading deadline this month, the Yankees placed 21st overall, with no prospects among the top 75.

To be fair, the Yankees did not seem so utterly hopeless through much of this season. They were 10 games over .500 on July 4, and Rodón was about to come off the injured list after missing three months with a forearm strain. Even with Luis Severino struggling, it was plausible for the Yankees to contend with a strong bullpen supporting a rotation of Cole, Rodón, Schmidt, Nestor Cortes and Domingo Germán.

That group has disintegrated. Rodón — who returns Tuesday from another injury, to his hamstring — has a 7.33 earned run average in six starts. Cortes, an All-Star last season, has pitched once since May because of a rotator cuff strain. Germán finished June with a perfect game, went winless in July and left the team in August to seek treatment for alcohol abuse.

And that’s just the pitching. The Yankees entered Sunday’s game with a .305 on-base percentage, which ranked 26th among the 30 teams, and a batting average of .230, ahead of only the Oakland Athletics. The Yankees have not hit so poorly as a team since 1968, when the mound was higher, pitchers batted and Mickey Mantle played first base.

Mantle’s former slugging teammate Roger Maris finished his career that season with the St. Louis Cardinals. The Yankees gave out bobbleheads of Maris on Sunday, commemorating his 61-homer season in 1961. They’ll have a similar promotion next month for Judge, who broke Maris’s A.L. record with 62 last season.

That seems like a long time ago, a time of excitement and hope and a last-place team in Boston, not the Bronx. Now the Red Sox routinely stamp the Yankees — or, as Boone put it, more or less: They kick their butts.

“We’ve played a handful of competitive games that have come down to the end where they’ve taken us,” Boone said. “We just haven’t been good enough.”

Opinion | Live by RICO, Die by RICO

By
Reporters News Wire
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WASHINGTON — I first met Rudy Giuliani in 1986 when I was a Times reporter writing about corruption cases in New York. Gotham was awash in so much municipal sleaze, a detective joked that city employees were streaming into the F.B.I. office with their hands up.

Giuliani, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, got in a kerfuffle with Robert Morgenthau, the storied Manhattan district attorney who was a model for the D.A. in “Law & Order,” because Rudy considered the local prosecutor to be superfluous, so he wasn’t sharing information.

Giuliani, 41, was already renowned as a scourge of organized crime. (The next year he would become the scourge of Wall Street, perp-walking white-collar criminals in handcuffs in tableaus of virtue conquering vice, even though the charges sometimes failed to stick.)

Morgenthau favored a sweater with a hole in it. Giuliani was bandbox-perfect, feral and ready to pounce. Morgenthau had an understated tenacity. Giuliani was like a cult leader among acolytes.

He grew up thinking he would be a priest — until he decided he didn’t want to be celibate. When I met him, he was still speaking passionately about good and evil, right and wrong. His eyes gleamed when he talked about routing blackguards who had breached the public trust. He was following a Thomas Dewey model: Clean up corruption and parlay that into higher office.

The phone rang as I came into the paper the morning my story ran. Giuliani was demanding to talk to my editor — the story made him seem holier-than-thou!

He didn’t know how good he had it. Now he just seems crazier-than-thou. It’s a Puccini opera, really, about an opera-loving federal prosecutor and heroic mayor who spirals into lawlessness, as well as multiple divorces, depression, drinking, money problems, sexual harassment claims, Cameo cameos and “Borat” humiliation.

Giuliani went from cleaning up corruption to ginning up corruption, from crimebuster to criminal defendant in Georgia and unindicted “Co-Conspirator 1” in D.C. Rudy, the prosecutor who made his reputation aggressively pursuing RICO cases, is now Rudolph William Louis Giuliani, a defendant in the Georgia RICO case about the deranged plot to steal the election.

We have seen many cases of mobsters turning state’s evidence for prosecutors. But now we have the rare experience of seeing a prosecutor turn into a mobster.

After all those years spent prosecuting the Five Families in New York, Giuliani surrendered himself to the lamest mob boss there ever was: Don Trump.

We saw the coup attempt play out, but it’s startling to see the Georgia indictment refer to “this criminal organization,” “members of the enterprise,” “corruptly solicited” and “acts of racketeering activity.”

Trump, mentored by mob lawyer Roy Cohn, always loved acting like a mobster, playing the faux tough guy, intimidating his foes, swanning around like John Dillinger, Al Capone and John Gotti. He told Timothy O’Brien, the author of “TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald,” that he admired Gotti because the mobster sat through years of trials with a stone face. “In other words, tough,” Trump said.

As Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen testified to Congress, Trump ran his family business “much like a mobster would do,” using “a code,” letting capos do the dirty work and expelling rats.

“Trump both fetishized mobsters and did business with them,” O’Brien told me. “The way he fetishizes mobsters informs this fascination he has about Putin and Kim Jong-un. He loves ‘bad-ass’ guys who roll like they want to roll. He sees himself the same way.”

True to his longtime practice of stiffing the help, Trump is turning a deaf ear to Giuliani’s desperate pleas, in a tin-cup trip to Mar-a-Lago, to pay his legal bills.

Desperate to stay relevant, Giuliani made himself Trump’s legal button man, pressing the conspiracy theories his boss wanted to hear on Ukraine and the Bidens, and then on election fraud. Giuliani can take credit for helping spur both Trump impeachments.

As the great Village Voice reporter Wayne Barrett wrote in his 2000 book, “Rudy: An Investigative Biography of Rudolph Giuliani,” Rudy had his own family history with wiseguys. Although Giuliani’s father, Harold, taught him to hate the mob, some cousins had mob connections. Barrett wrote that Rudy’s father had broken legs and smashed kneecaps for his brother-in-law’s loan-sharking in the ’50s. Barrett also revealed that Rudy’s dad went to Sing Sing for robbing a milkman at gunpoint.

Rudy told The Times’s Sam Roberts his family moved to Long Island from Brooklyn to avoid his mobbed-up relatives, and it was a reason he got into law enforcement.

“Rudy wants to be the mob slayer and then he winds up doing mobster-like things and getting in bed with a wannabe mobster,” O’Brien said, “and neither one of them can shoot straight, and they end up getting in trouble with the law. It’s a dime-store psychodrama that is both comic and grotesque at the same time.”

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