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Sixteen migrants from Venezuela and Colombia were abruptly flown on a private chartered jet to California and dropped off outside a Catholic church building in Sacramento on Friday, state officials said, prompting an investigation into whether they were transported from outside a Texas migrant center under false pretenses. While it remained unclear on Sunday who had approached the group of migrants outside El Paso and orchestrated their flight from New Mexico to California, the episode mirrored an aggressive tactic used by hard-line Republican governors to protest President Biden’s immigration policies by dispatching dozens of migrants to Democratic-led states and cities with little warning or explanation. Many of the migrants told a nonprofit organization they had no idea they were going to California. That was the same company used for transport in the fall when Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida directed two planeloads of South American migrants from San Antonio to Martha’s Vineyard, a Democratic-leaning Massachusetts island.

Persons: Rob Bonta, Ron DeSantis Organizations: Democratic, Florida Division, Emergency Management, Vertol Systems Company Inc, Gov Locations: Venezuela, Colombia, California, Sacramento, Texas, El Paso, New Mexico, Florida, San Antonio, Massachusetts

☆ Over 5,300 USPS mail carriers were attacked by dogs last year. These are the cities where the attacks happen most often.
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-04 | by ( Aaron Mcdade | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The US Postal Service said over 5,300 mail carriers were bit by dogs in the last year. National Dog Bite Awareness Week is this week, and the USPS is hoping the data helps reduce attacks. Dogs and mail carriers, a feud as old as time that has been the butt of jokes in the real world and on TV for decades. The agency's annual National Dog Bite Awareness Week kicks off Sunday, and the post office released its annual report to draw attention to the issue. The postal service said over 5,300 mail carriers were attacked in the last year, just under the 5,400 it reported last year.

Persons: Louis, Leeann Theriault, Swain Lowe, satchel Organizations: US Postal Service, USPS, Postal Service, Texas, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Florida, Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina, Los Angeles, Dallas, Cleveland, San Diego, Chicago, Kansas City, Phoenix, San Antonio Locations: California, Houston, Virginia

The moment was a culmination for Dev, who began competing in spelling bees in third grade and has studied 10 hours each day for the past year, according to his mother. When his parents rushed the stage to hug him, he felt overwhelmed, Dev said in an interview after the competition. A fan of Roger Federer and the movie “La La Land,” Dev had competed in previous national spelling bees, tying for 76th place in 2021 and 51st place in 2019. In 2021, organizers introduced a vocabulary round, in which spellers have to identify the correct meaning of the word. Harini Logan, an eighth grader from San Antonio, won by correctly spelling 21 words.

Persons: Dev, ”, Roger Federer, ” Dev, Harini Logan Locations: La, Largo, St . Petersburg, San Antonio

☆ US National Spelling Bee finalists vie for championship
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-01 | by ( Brendan O'Brien | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/2] Competitors are adjusted by a person who is off camera as they celebrate moving to the semifinals of the Scripps National Spelling Bee competition in National Harbor, Maryland U.S., May 31, 2023. REUTERS/Leah Millis/File PhotoJune 1 (Reuters) - Eleven of the sharpest young spellers in the U.S. will compete on Thursday in the finals of the 2023 Scripps National Spelling Bee, having survived three early rounds by nailing words like "zwitterion" (a type of molecule) and "polissoir" (a polishing tool). The finalists, who range from 11 to 14 years old, beat out a field of 220 other competitors who participated in the three-day contest, held in National Harbor, Maryland, just outside of Washington, D.C. Scripps Co (SSP.O), the bee's sponsor, plus further monetary prizes and reference works from Encyclopedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster. Last year, Harini Logan, 14, from San Antonio, Texas, correctly spelled 22 words during a 90-second spell-off to claim the top prize.

Persons: Leah Millis, Webster, The Merriam, Aryan Khedkar, Vikrant Chintanaboina, Harini Logan, Brendan O'Brien, Matthew Lewis Organizations: Scripps, Spelling, National Harbor , Maryland U.S, REUTERS, Scripps Co, Encyclopedia, The, Webster, ION, ESPN, Thomson Locations: National Harbor , Maryland, U.S, Washington ,, Encyclopedia Britannica, Merriam, Waterford , Michigan, San Ramon , California, San Antonio , Texas, Chicago

[1/7] Dev Shah, 14, reacts after winning the Scripps National Spelling Bee competition in National Harbor, Maryland U.S., June 1, 2023. REUTERS/Leah MillisJune 1 (Reuters) - Dev Shah, a 14-year-old boy from Largo, Florida, won the 2023 Scripps National Spelling Bee on Thursday, nailing the word "psammophile," meaning an organism that thrives in sandy soils, in the 15th round of the contest's finals. Shah, a student at Morgan Fitzgerald Middle School, had correctly, and swiftly, spelled "bathypitotmeter" in the 14th round, but under spelling bee rules needed to land one more word to be declared winner. Shah, who was crowned champion in a hail of confetti before being joined on stage by his parents and other relatives, takes home $50,000 cash from E.W. Dev, whose hobbies include reading, tennis, playing the cello and solving math problems, tied for 51st place in the 2019 edition of the spelling bee, and tied for 76th place in 2021.

Persons: Dev Shah, Leah Millis, Charlotte Walsh, Shah, Webster, The Merriam, Dev, Harini Logan, Brendan O'Brien, Steve Gorman, Matthew Lewis, Christopher Cushing Organizations: Scripps, Spelling, National Harbor , Maryland U.S, REUTERS, Morgan Fitzgerald Middle School, Scripps Co, Encyclopedia, The, Webster, ION, ESPN, Thomson Locations: National Harbor , Maryland, Largo , Florida, Arlington , Virginia, Encyclopedia Britannica, Merriam, Washington ,, San Antonio , Texas, Chicago, Los Angeles

A man appeared on a budgeting podcast to seek help and raise awareness for mental health issues. A man struggling with huge debts appeared on a budgeting podcast last week, saying he was an example of how ignoring mental health can lead to financial problems. "It's been a really, really bad situation I've been in for the past couple of years," Duncan said. "I wanted to be on here to specifically platform how not treating your mental health issues can lead to massive financial strain that I'm in," he said. "Guys, if you have anything with mental health that you need to deal with, anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, trauma, PTSD, etc.

☆ US cities with military bases risk economic damage in debt ceiling fight
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-20 | by ( Bryan Mena | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

Washington, DC CNN —The United States could default on its debt in less than two weeks, and cities with a large military presence risk an economic firestorm if lawmakers don’t act. About a sixth of government spending goes toward national defense, a quarter of which is to pay military personnel, according to the Congressional Budget Office. If the United States can’t pay its national defense bills, cities with large military bases face a potentially massive fallout, encompassing missed payments, rising debt and a significant pullback in spending that would cut into local businesses’ bottom lines. That could further damage local economies grappling with financial market turbulence that could unfold even ahead of a possible default. Federal workers could get stuck pulling from their savings accounts or relying on credit to make everyday purchases, Mayo said.

☆ Is Mexico doing the US’s ‘dirty work’ when it comes to migration?
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-20 | by ( Rafael Romo | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

But the enforcement has been chaotic, sporadic and, in the words of a former top Mexican official, “inefficient.”Tonatiuh Guillén was commissioner of Mexico’s National Migration Institute until 2019. Luis Barron/Eyepix Group/NurPhoto/AP“Mexico became a control territory, [a place of] a severe migration policy, detentions, deterrence, and expulsions. ‘This is not about doing the United States’ dirty work’Mexican President Obrador denies Mexico is doing the US’s bidding when it comes to migration. Two months later, another 47 migrants were found alive crammed inside a truck in Matehuala (San Luis Potosí state), Mexico. Viangly, a Venezuelan migrant, reacts outside an ambulance while firefighters remove injured migrants, mostly Venezuelans, from a National Migration Institute building during a fire in Ciudad Juarez on March 27, 2023.

☆ 2-year Treasury yield falls as investors weigh Fed speaker comments, interest rate outlook
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-19 | by ( Sophie Kiderlin | In | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

ET, the yield on the 10-year Treasury was down by over two basis points to 3.6249%. U.S. Treasury yields fell on Friday as investors weighed comments from Federal Reserve officials on the outlook for interest rate policy and assessed the state of the economy. Investors looked to remarks from Fed speakers for hints about monetary policy and assessed how that may affect the economy. On Thursday, Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan said she did not believe halting interest rate hikes was justified based on recent economic data. More Fed speakers, including Chairman Jerome Powell, are due to speak Friday.

☆ Fed's hawks make a pitch against a rate-hike pause
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-18 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

On Thursday, rate-futures markets reflected a one-in-three chance of a June rate hike, compared with a one-in-10-chance seen a week ago. The Fed has lifted borrowing costs at each meeting since March 2022, bringing them from near zero to a 5.00-5.25% range as of early this month. Consumer price inflation, for instance, edged down to a 4.9% annual pace in April but is still far above the Fed's 2% goal. However, his embrace of the idea that there is still a lot of policy tightening in the pipeline suggests he could be comfortable with a pause. Dallas Fed's Logan had the opposite presumption.

☆ Fed's Logan: data does not yet show June pause is appropriate
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-18 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

May 18 (Reuters) - Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Lorie Logan on Thursday said she's concerned that "much too high" inflation is not cooling fast enough yet to allow the Fed to pause its interest-rate hike campaign in June. "The data in coming weeks could yet show that it is appropriate to skip a meeting," Logan said in remarks prepared for delivery to the Texas Bankers Association in San Antonio, referring to the Fed's twice-quarterly policy-setting meetings, the next of which takes place June 13-14. "As of today, though, we aren’t there yet." Reporting by Ann SaphirOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Dallas Fed President Logan says current data doesn't justify pausing rate hikes yet
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-18 | by ( Jeff Cox | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Dallas Federal Reserve President Lorie Logan said Thursday that the economic data points so far don't justify skipping a rate increase at the central bank's next meeting in June. While noting some progress in bringing down inflation and cooling the labor market, Logan said the Fed still has work to do in achieving its goal for price stability. But she expressed concern that what she's seen so far has indicated only modest impact from the Fed rate hikes, which have totaled 5 percentage points. And it's a long way from here to 2% inflation," Logan said, referring to the Fed's longer-run goal. She noted that the Fed's preferred inflation data point, the core personal consumption expenditures price index, ran at a 4.9% annualized pace in the first quarter.

☆ The San Antonio Spurs Win the Victor Wembanyama NBA Lottery
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-17 | by ( Robert O Connell | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

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☆ Gun-loving Texas, where most households own a firearm, has become an epicenter of mass shootings
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-17 | by ( Emma Tucker | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +23 min

CNN and the GVA define a mass shooting as a shooting that injures or kills four or more people, not including the shooter. They argue that more firearms and higher gun ownership increases public safety – a stance that continues to be at odds with gun violence experts and data. The area around the Robb Elementary School signs has become a memorial dedicated to the victims of the May 24 mass shooting. Mass shootings are just a piece of that, and the strategies that we’re laying out will impact mass shootings. They’ll also impact a lot of other types of gun violence and that’s absolutely critical to saving lives,” Horwitz said.

☆ Aces coach Hammon denies mistreating pregnant player
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-17 | by ( Amy Tennery | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The WNBA suspended Hammon for two games on Tuesday, saying she had violated "Respect in the Workplace" policies. The violation "was related to comments made by Hammon to Hamby in connection with Hamby’s recent pregnancy", the league said in a statement. The league also docked the Aces their 2025 first-round pick for offering "impermissible benefits" related to Hamby's contract extension negotiations. Hammon told reporters that while she did ask about Hamby's pregnancy, she never made derogatory remarks and that their relationship was amicable until she informed the former first-round draft pick that she would be traded. She took the reins in early 2022 after eight years as an assistant coach with the NBA's San Antonio Spurs.

☆ How Victor Wembanyama Could Fit on the San Antonio Spurs
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-17 | by ( Kris Rhim | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Victor Wembanyama, the 7-foot-4 dynamic forward who is this year’s most prized N.B.A. prospect, cheered with his family in France as the San Antonio Spurs won the 2023 draft lottery Tuesday night. In San Antonio, fans, perhaps understandably, celebrated like they had won a championship, yelling in bars and honking car horns. “What are the San Antonio Spurs getting in Victor Wembanyama?” the reporter asked. He isn’t a typical draft prospect, and he wasn’t going to pretend to be one, either.

☆ Aces lose 2025 first-round pick, Hammon suspended for WNBA rule violations
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

May 16 (Reuters) - The Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) stripped defending champions Las Vegas Aces of their 2025 first-round draft pick and suspended head coach Becky Hammon for two games without pay for violating league rules on Tuesday. Hammon, who took the reins last year after eight years as an assistant coach with the NBA's San Antonio Spurs, was found to have committed a "Respect in the Workplace" violation with comments regarding Hamby's recent pregnancy. The investigation, however, was not able to substantiate concerns over the Aces' conduct during the off-season. The Next reported in February that The Aces were under investigation by the WNBA for circumventing the salary cap. "The Aces failed to adhere to league rules and regulations and have been disciplined accordingly.

☆ San Antonio Spurs Get the No. 1 Pick in the N.B.A. Draft Lottery
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( Sopan Deb | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

He plays for Metropolitans 92, a professional French league team, where he is averaging 21.6 points and 10.5 rebounds per game. G League hosted his team for a two-game exhibition near Las Vegas in October, and the N.B.A. The draft order is decided by a lottery that grants teams with worse regular-season records better odds for the No. This system has led to teams being accused of tanking — not prioritizing winning to position themselves for high draft picks. The three teams with the best chance — 14 percent — to get the top pick this year were the Detroit Pistons, the Houston Rockets and the San Antonio Spurs.

☆ Victor Wembanyama: How ‘Wembymania’ gripped France due to the most exciting draft prospect since LeBron James
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( Ben Morse | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +10 min

There have been few players whose journey to the pinnacle of basketball have been as highly followed; in figures released by the NBA, Wembanyama is No. And I keep having to explain to them that having a sold-out, 15,000-people crowd for a regular French professional basketball game is not normal at all,” she said. His father was a high jumper, his mother was a former basketball player who is now a coach and his two siblings – older sister Eve and younger brother Oscar – are basketball players. And the French basketball system where he has been nurtured has helped develop his unique talent, says Krasnoff. “And it certainly has driven US interest in French basketball, at least as far as Wembanyama is concerned.

☆ Everybody Wants Victor Wembanyama. He Wants to Rule the N.B.A.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-15 | by ( Tania Ganguli | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Boris Diaw was passing through Paris in late September and thought he would check out a basketball game. It was the first home game of the season for the Metropolitans 92, a French league team led by the star teenager Victor Wembanyama. At Marcel-Cerdan Sports Palace in Levallois, near Paris, N.B.A. Diaw grew up in Paris and played 14 years in the N.B.A., including more than four seasons in San Antonio with Tony Parker, considered by many to be the best N.B.A. “I hope he can actually get away from that and just focus on his career and playing and practicing and having fun, too.”

In midsized metros Metros with 250,000 to one million residents. An Emerging Divide Mobility has risen for college-educated workers, even as it has fallen for workers without a degree. College-educated workers leaving the most expensive parts of the country are also not spreading out equally everywhere — or even going to parts of the country that are struggling. Net migration among college graduates Loss Gain Among the 12 most expensive metros, net college migration has generally declined or turned negative. “Consumer cities,” as she puts it, are increasingly replacing “producer cities” as the places where college graduates want to live.

☆ Home prices are back on the rise as the spring market proves more competitive than expected
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-02 | by ( Diana Olick | In Dianaolick | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

After cooling for the better part of last year, home prices are on the rise again. "Just five months ago, prices were declining on a seasonally adjusted month-over-month basis in 92% of all major U.S. markets. Competition among buyers is not only pushing prices higher but also accelerating the market again. Of the nation's 50 largest housing markets by population, just Austin, Salt Lake City and San Antonio are seeing prices fall month to month. A separate report released Tuesday from CoreLogic focuses on home price comparisons from a year ago, but also shows prices gaining month to month.

☆ Uber's 2023 lost and found report includes dentures, weed, a lightsaber and slushy machine
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-30 | by ( Emmy Abbassi | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +1 min

The ride-share company published its 2023 Uber Lost & Found Index on April 27 as Mercury makes its way back into retrograde, a time of the year astrologists say influences forgetfulness, according to Uber. But their list of the 50 most unique items lost is where things get weird. The most common time of the day to report lost items is 11 p.m., Uber said. The annual report, which is in its seventh year, aims to remind passengers how to get lost items back using the Uber app. Using a feature within the app, riders can report items as lost and contact drivers to have them returned.

☆ Here are the weirdest items in Uber's annual lost-and-found report, including a Danny DeVito ornament, unicycle, and fake blood
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-30 | by ( Aaron Mcdade | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Uber released its seventh annual "Lost & Found Index" tracking unique lost items. Among the strangest items include fake blood, pets, a Danny DeVito Christmas ornament, and chicken wings. The most commonly lost items include clothes, tech devices, and wallets. Several living things were also reported lost, including multiple dogs, turtles, hamsters, and at least one rat, all safely reunited with their owners. Among the most commonly lost items are more predictable belongings like clothing, wallets, and devices like phones and laptops.

☆ The 10 Senate seats most likely to flip in 2024
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-30 | by ( Simone Pathe | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +19 min

The GOP needs a net gain of one or two seats to flip the chamber, depending on which party wins the White House in 2024, and it’s Democrats who are defending the tougher seats. Jim Justice announcing his Senate bid in West Virginia – the seat most likely to flip party control in 2024. In a presidential year, the national environment is likely to loom large, especially with battleground states hosting key Senate races. Two businessmen with the ability to tap into or raise significant resources could be in the mix – Eric Hovde, who lost the GOP Senate nomination in 2012, and Scott Mayer. Still, unseating Cruz in a state Trump won by nearly 6 points in 2020 will be a tall order.

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