LELAND, NC (WWAY) — We want to hear your thoughts on the latest top news topics!

Click HERE to cast your vote and let your voice be heard.

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WASHINGTON, DC (WWAY) — The Smithsonian National Museum of American History wants copies of your trips to Walt Disney World in Florida and Disneyland in California.

The museum is looking for pictures for all decades to show how the parks has changed over time.

Candid photos, posed phots, and even blurry photos are all OK and the museum wants your story behind the photos too.

Not all photos will be used due to limited space and privacy and permissions rules will be in place, but a great number are expected to be catalogued and kept for posterity.

To send your photos click here.  Don’t forget to include contact information!

 

 

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — The Omicron variant is making an already challenging year even harder for restaurants across the Cape Fear. Even the most successful shops in Wilmington say supply shortages, staffing issues, and price increases are burning local eateries.

Molly Kurnyn, co-owner of Cheesesmith says they close the restaurant Mondays to give staff a break. Though crowds are back, prices for basic supplies like to-go containers and food have gone up 25 percent.

“Everything. Cheese, bread. All the things we use in our food,” Kurnyn said.

Supply chain shortages also pushed back the brick and mortar’s opening.

She continued, “We literally were waiting to open to get refrigerators because they’re not manufacturing them.”

Kurnyn and her husband applied to the Restaurant Revitalization Fund, which according to NC Restaurant and Lodging Association’s Lynn Minges quickly ran dry last year.

“During that time, we saw about 2,500 restaurants in North Carolina receive funds,” Minges said. “But essentially there were about 6,000 that were eligible, that have not yet received funding.”

Congress will consider renewing the Restaurant Revitalization Fund (RRF) this February. In the meantime, Kurnyn and her husband take on multiple shifts to make up for labor shortages. They hope customers will support local businesses more and complain about cost less.

“A lot of people come in and think that it’s insane there’s a 13 dollar grilled cheese,” the business owner explained. “But we just take a number of what it costs for us to make it, add in labor, and come up with this little sliver that’s left. And that’s what we keep. And as soon as a pipe breaks or our heat breaks, or whatever, that profit margin gets chipped away.”

Without grants, she worries hundreds of local restaurants could shut down by winter’s end. According to the National Restaurant Association, replenishing the RRF could save 1.6 million jobs.

Kurnyn hopes in spite of COVID-19 and the typical slowdown that comes with winter, people will step up and help out.

“It’s time for a beer and a grilled cheese,” she grinned. “Right now.”

 

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — The Cameron Art Museum in Wilmington is kicking off the new year with a huge list of programming for children and adults.  The events include Martin Luther King holiday programming for kids, homeschooling help, painting classes, readings, yoga, and the return of Jazz@cam.

Here is the complete list:

January 2022

Saturday and Sunday January 15^th and 16^th

KIDS @ CAM – I Have A Dream Peace Flag weekend

In-Person: Saturday, January 15^th or Sunday, January 16^th

Cameron Art Museum honors the life and work of civil rights activist Martin Luther King with the “I Have a Dream” Peace Flag Project. We invite the community to take inspiration from King’s iconic speech from 1963 and think deeply about our own hopes and dreams for ourselves, our city, our nation, and the world. These dreams will be written on squares of cloth, emblematic of the peace prayer flags created for centuries in Tibet. Your peace flag will be included in a community installation that will be displayed around the CAM pond. Together, these flags represent our collective desire for racial unity, community healing, and peace.

Packages for classes will be available. Please check our website for registration and participation details, or email education@cameronartmuseum.org to find out ways to involve your students!

 

Sunday, January 16

2 pm

Members: $16 Nonmembers: $20 Students: $12

USCT Public Programs Series: Mary D. Williams

Join us as musician, educator, and historian Mary D. Williams explores the legacy of the USCT through song. Williams has performed and provided her voice to the soundtrack of Blood Done Sign My Name (February 2010). She has also performed at the North Carolina State Capitol and has been featured on Dick Gordon’s The Story, as well as on National Public Radio. Williams is both a scholar and a musician, whose breathtaking voice takes listeners on a journey through time.

Tuesdays, January 18 – February 8

10am – 12pm

 

Homeschool Tuesdays

Instructor: Renato Abbate

CAM member price: $108; non-member: $120

This clay class will cover all the basic hand building techniques:  pinch, coil, and slab. Students will also discuss 3-D design elements as well as bisque and glaze firing.

Tuesdays, January 18 – February 22

10am – 1pm

 

Principles of Drawing

Instructor: Todd Carignan

CAM member price: $234; non-member price: $260

The foundation of all representational art is drawing. This class covers how to start a drawing, measuring, mark-making, arranging your subject and lighting, creating texture and depth.

Tuesday, January 18 – February 8

4pm – 5:30pm

 

Create a Story

Instructor: Carolyn Faulkner

CAM member price: $85.50; non-member: $95

Draw an outline using your favorite bird, insect, animal or whatever you choose. Even an anime character that you create! Then draw a story inside using designs and/or memories. This can be make believe or something personal you wish to express. You will then color with markers or colored pencil. Your story can be hidden, by attaching another cutout layer (such as a wing on the bird). It will be like opening a book! We will continue to explore more pieces and movement on your art as time permits.

Wednesday, January 19

9 – 10 am

 

Gentle Yoga with Steve Unger

Donation $5

Wednesday, January 19

1:30 pm

 

Public Tour

Free with admission

Wednesday, January 19

 

Capturing our Colorful Coastal Skies

Instructor: Carolyn Faulkner

CAM member price: $153; non-member: $170

Living in coastal Carolina you most likely have witnessed the variety of skies; from brilliant sunrises/sunsets to threatening thunder skies and everything in between. This course will provide you with the basic concepts of achieving some of those classic features found in our colorful skies. In this class you will learn the balance between soft and hard edges while creating beautiful multi-colored sunrises, sunsets, and storm clouds, using acrylic paints. This course will provide you with the confidence to be bold with your brush and colors as you softly blend colors to achieve that memorable look. Some key features of this course are understanding that nothing is truly white in the sky and the use of a variety of colors becomes an asset. Both sky and clouds have some of the softest edges found in nature. A balance between soft and hard edges are important to the painter to describe the volume of the clouds and their translucency.

Thursday, January 20

All Day

 

Member Preview of Confluence

Member tours at 11:00 am, 1:00 pm, 5:00 pm, and 7:00 pm

Friday, January 21

 

Public Opening of Confluence

11:00 am Gallery Talk with Artist Gene Felice

CAM Member $15/ NonMember $20

Thursday, January 20

10am – 4pm

 

Watercolor Fresh Market workshop

Instructor: Janice Castiglione

CAM member price: $171; non-member: $190

Spend two days painting still lives. There’s something to be said about painting from life and having it right in front of you. Each participant will be asked to bring in a fresh fruit or vegetable to add to existing backdrops. What fun! On Day Two, we will change places to work on new compositions, so bring a camera.

 

Educators Night

Thursday, January 20^th

4pm to 7pm

FREE for teachers

Spend a fun and relaxing evening at CAM with free admission during an exclusive event for educators and view our new exhibitions. Docents in the galleries will answer your questions and provide information about the exhibitions. Our Educators Night will provide information and materials about tours, workshops, and other free resources for area educators. All educators and administrators – from Pre-K to College – welcome and encouraged to attend and explore fun ways to bring art into your classroom and spark creativity in your students.

Thursdays, January 20 – February 24

6 – 9pm

 

Thursday Night Clay

Instructor: Renato Abbate

CAM member price: $225; nonmember: $250

A fun class for all skill levels. Make your own custom plates or mugs. Work on some wild sculpture. Explore how clay can work for you and gain a new appreciation for handmade pottery.

 

Gallery Talk: Antoinette Vogt

Saturday, January 22

1pm-2pm

Artist Toni Vogt will discuss the prints by Willy Cole in the Shadow We Create exhibition.  His printing process is akin to a collagraph, where found objects are used to create a printing plate.  By using ironing boards, Cole finds a new means to explore a familiar motif.

Antoinette Angela Vogt received a B.F.A. with a concentration in Drawing from the State University of New York at Purchase and a Master of Architecture from New Jersey Institute of Technology. She worked in Architecture for several years while teaching drawing at night through Wake Technical Community College in Raleigh, NC. After moving to Norman, Oklahoma in 2011, she began volunteering at Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art assisting in the classroom for their educational programs. Antoinette also taught drawing at a small art school in Norman before moving on to teach Drawing and Art Appreciation at Oklahoma City Community College.

Sunday, January 23

2 pm

 

Reading: Jason Mott, Hell of a Book, winner of the 2021 National Book Award

CAM members $10/ Nonmembers: $15

Free for students

Admission includes entry to the galleries

***2021 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER***

Winner of the 2021 Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction

Longlisted for the 2022 Carnegie Medal Fiction, the 2021 Joyce Carol Oates Prize and the 2021 Aspen Words Literary Prize

A Read With Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick!

One of Washington Post‘s 50 Notable Works of Fiction | One of Philadelphia Inquirer‘s Best Books of 2021 | One of Shelf Awareness’s Top Ten Fiction Titles of the Year | One of TIME Magazine’s 100 Must-Read Books | One of NPR.org’s “Books We Love” | EW’s “Guide to the Biggest and Buzziest Books of 2021” | One of the New York Public Library’s Best Books for Adults | One of Entertainment Weekly‘s 15 Books you Need to Read This June | On Entertainment Weekly’s “Must List” | One of The NY Post‘s Best Summer Reading books | One of GMA’s 27 Books for June | One of USA Today‘s 5 Books Not to Miss | One of Fortune‘s 21 Most Anticipated Books Coming out in the Second Half of 2021 | One of The Root‘s PageTurners: It’s Getting Hot in Here | One of Real Simple‘s Best New Books to Read in 2021 |One of The Philadelphia Inquirer‘s Best of 2021

Join National Book Award Winner Jason Mott for a reading from Hell of a Book. Hell of a Book is an astounding work of fiction from a New York Times bestselling author Jason Mott, always deeply honest, at times electrically funny, that goes to the heart of racism, police violence, and the hidden costs exacted upon Black Americans, and America as a whole. Jason Mott has published four novels. His first novel, The Returned, was a New York Times bestseller and was turned into a TV series that ran for two seasons. He has a BFA in Fiction and an MFA in Poetry, both from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. His poetry and fiction have appeared in various literary journals, and his most recent novel, Hell of a Book, was named the winner of the National Book Award for Fiction, 2021.

Wednesday, January 26

9 – 10 am

 

Gentle Yoga with Steve Unger

Donation $5

Wednesday, January 26

1:30 pm

 

Public Tour

Free with admission

Thursday, January 27

10 am – 11 am

 

Art Explorers with Airlie Gardens

Thursday, January 27

10am – 1pm

 

The Power of Pastels Returns to CAM!

Instructor: Jerri Greenberg

CAM member price: $171; non-member: $190

Come along and explore the sheer joy of painting in pastels, learn to use different brands, softness, papers, and lighting to make the “ordinary EXTRAordinary”. Each week we will work from a still life setup or a model, to expand your repertoire and your comfort zones, working with this wonderful, immediate medium.

Thursday, January 27

6pm – 8:30pm

 

Art Buzz- Mixed Media Fashion Illustration

Instructor: Jennifer Gironda

CAM member price: $45; non-member: $50

Join us for a fashion sketching session featuring mixed media collage materials.  We will work from various images from fashion magazines (feel free to bring images from YOUR favorite runway looks!) and we will go over how to do a quick croquis and then add the garments using a variety of 2D collage materials.  An assortment of papers and adhesives will be available, but please feel free to bring any scrap papers, magazine pages or other materials for your looks!

Thursday, January 27

7 pm

 

Exhibitions After Dark: Gallery Talk with Zedrick Applin

Learn about Stephen Hayes’s exhibition Voices of Future’s Past from the unique perspective of community member Zedrick Applin, Program Manager, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Community Involvement at nCino. Join Zedrick for this interaction conversation and grab dinner and a cocktail from CAM Café before or after. Free with admission.

Fridays, January 28 – March 4

10am – 12pm

 

Interactive color

Instructor: Lois DeWitt

CAM member price: $153; non-member: $170

Interaction of Color by Josef Albers was published by Yale University in 1963. A seminal study, it provided new perspectives on color and how it is perceived visually. Through a series of visual projects using Color-aid papers, students develop new cognitive and visual skills towards seeing and analyzing the perception of color. These skills can transfer easily to other artistic skills like painting, drawing and printmaking.  Keeping close to Alber’s instruction and projects, this six-week course leads students through a series of fascinating, unique and informative color theory using Color-aid and found papers.

Saturday, January 29

11– 4pm

 

Memory Jar – Capturing Your Past through Narrative and Assemblage

Instructor: Fritzi Huber and Dina Greenberg

CAM member price: $72; non-member: $80

Why is it so difficult to throw away all the “stuff” we accumulate? Perhaps these objects carry meaning beyond simple explanation. In this five-hour workshop: (1) We’ll first use (your chosen) objects to spark a brief work of creative writing: poetry, prose, or hybrid (2) create a three-dimensional “memory jar” to capture the meaning of your treasures.

  

February 2022

Wednesday, February 2 – 23

6pm – 8pm

 

VIRTUAL- Winter Words on Paper – Telling our Stories in Memoir

Instructor: Dina Greenberg

CAM member price: $108; non-member price: $120

You, dear writer, are uniquely qualified to tell the stories of your past, present, and perhaps even an imagined future.  This creative writing workshop in memoir for adult writers is open to community participants with varying degrees of writing expertise. The workshop follows a traditional format where group members critique one another’s work with the instructor’s guidance. Literature and craft articles will also be presented for discussion. The goal is to instill respect and compassion in the critique process while helping participants improve their writing and literary analysis.

Thursdays, February 3 – March 10

4:30 – 6:30pm

 

Foundations of Drawing: Teen and Young Adult

Instructor: Antoinette Vogt

CAM member price: $148.50; non-member: $165

Learn how to draw realistically through the study of still life. Students will develop drawing skills by understanding and improving ability to see objects in space to better represent them on the page. Learn how to see and draw objects in proportion and understand perspective. Topics covered will include working with line; blind and modified contour drawing; seeing and drawing negative space (the space around objects); visual perspective (perceiving angles using sighting technique); proportion (objects in relations to one another).

Friday, February 4^th

12pm

 

‘Resilience’ Community Screening

View the award-winning documentary ‘Resilience: The Biology of Stress and the Science of Hope’. The film screens in our spacious reception hall from 12 PM to 1 PM, followed by an optional brief discussion with other community members. Learn about the New Hanover County Resiliency Task Force. https://www.nhcbouncesback.org/

The CAM offers free screenings of ‘Resilience’ on the first Friday of each month (unless there is a holiday and then it moves to the second Friday). Feel free to grab lunch at the CAM café, or bring your own lunch!

No fee and no registration necessary.

Fridays, February 4 – 25

1pm – 3pm

 

Introduction to Ikebana

Instructor: Karen Chevrotee

CAM member price: $117; non-member: $130

IKEBANA, the Art of Japanese Flower Arranging. Originally used in Temples, simple, elegant, at once meditative. Following prescribed rules to create Beauty for your home or office with natural flowers, leaves and branches.

Friday, February 4

8-9am

 

All Levels Flow Yoga with Kim Gargiulo

Saturday & Sunday, February 5 – 6

10am – 4pm & noon – 4pm

 

Rock, Paper Stitches – Joomchi & Embroidery  – Virtual

CAM member price: $144; non-member: $160

‘Rock’ two slow-process crafts in one unique class! Day 1 will concentrate on learning an ancient Korean paper craft to create a ‘felted’ paper called joomchi. Joomchi utilizes layers of thin hanji papers that, through agitation and manipulation, create a sturdy piece that can be used alone or in other artistic endeavors. One such endeavor will be achieved on Day 2. Taking the previous day’s joomchi pieces, you’ll use simple hand stitches for mark making, to add found objects, or to stitch several joomchi together for a larger, dramatic piece of finished paper art. (This is not a paper making class.)

Thursday, February 10

7pm-8pm

 

Exhibitions After Dark: Gallery Talk with Cedric Harrison

Cedric Harrison, a Wilmington native, is the founder of both Support the Port and wilmingtoNColor. Harrison has dedicated his professional career to supporting and creating opportunities for economic growth and advancement for African Americans in the Wilmington area. He is a local historian (in his own right) and passionate about the rich history of African Americans in Wilmington, NC.

Due to his impactful efforts and work, Harrison has earned several accolades and much recognition in this space. Most recently, Harrison was a recipient of the 40 under 40 award presented by StarNews meds and Wilmington Chamber of Commerce – an award which recognizes professionals who are high performers in their field.

In 2019, Harrison was selected out of over 400 applicants to be part of the inaugural cohort of the All for NC Fellows. Since the fellowship, Harrison has seized the opportunity to continue his journey of bringing transformational change to his local community.

Cedric Harrison also had the opportunity to deliver his first TEDx talk in 2019 at the TEDx Airlie event in Wilmington, NC. His speech, Bridging the Racial Gap of Socio-Economics, provided viewers with a compelling history lesson on Wilmington in conversation with his personal experiences and journey.

Friday, February 11

8-9am

 

All Levels Flow Yoga with Kim Gargiulo

Saturday, February 12 & February 19

10 – 1pm

 

Collagraph Printmaking Workshop

Instructor: Antoinette Vogt

CAM member price: 81; non-member: $90

A two-day workshop to learn the art of collagraph printmaking using plates created by collage. In this workshop students will create printing plates by gluing elements onto the printing surface to create an image. Students are asked to gather collage supplies ahead of time and bring them to the first-class session. Collage items should not be more than 1/8″ thick and can include scraps of cardboard; textured item such as sandpaper, fabric, burlap or lace; string or twine, leaves. seeds, buttons, etc. Students will create their plates during the first session and print them during the second session.

 

Saturday, February 12

1pm – 2:30pm

CAM Members $20/ Nonmembers $25

 

Book Buzz- Women Who Misbehave

Instructor: Sayantani Dasgupta with Heather Wilson

Join author Sayantani Dasgupta for a discussion of her new novel, “Women Who Misbehave”. Dasgupta states, “Well-behaved or not, woman or not, each of our lives is made up of stories. How you tell it is where the art lies. Each of us lives through historic moments every day, and ends up with thousands of stories. Now who gets to tell stories, whose stories are valued and heard is another matter altogether.” Registration includes a glass of wine or sparkling water. Studio dinner and half-priced bottles of wine available from the CAM Cafe.

Sayantani Dasgupta has taught creative writing in the United States, India, Italy, and Mexico. She is an essayist, a short story writer, and the author of Fire Girl: Essays On India, America, & The In-Between- a finalist for the 2016 Foreword Indies Award for Essays- and the chapbook The House Of Nails: Memories Of A New Delhi Childhood. Born in Calcutta and raised in New Delhi, Sayantani received a BA in History from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, an MA in Medieval History from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Idaho.

Saturday, February 12

11am – 2pm

 

Woven Hand built Ceramic Basket

Instructor: Shannon Gehen

CAM member price: $50; non-member: $55

Learn how to make a woven ceramic basket, combining the tradition of basket weaving with the ease of a glazed surface for your kitchen, coffee table, or special event.

Sunday, February 13

 

WSO Sunday Concert Series

2-3pm

Thursday, February 17

 

Jazz@ CAM

6:30-8:00pm

$25 for CAM and CFJS members, $30 for non-members, $15 for students and military

The John Brown Quintet

The multi-talented John Brown brings his quintet to the CAM on February 3. The performance is part of our ongoing concert series, which begins at 6:30 PM.

A successful bassist, composer, educator and actor, John currently serves as Vice Provost for the Arts at Duke University. He has a long history of performance excellence. At the age of 13, he began performing with the Fayetteville Symphony Orchestra. He was playing Principal Bass with that orchestra and performing with the Florence Symphony in South Carolina while still in high school.

John has performed in the United States and abroad with artists that include Wynton Marsalis, Ellis Marsalis, Delfeayo Marsalis, Elvin Jones, Nnenna Freelon, Diahann Carroll, Rosemary Clooney, Nell Carter, Lou Donaldson, Slide Hampton, Nicholas Payton, Frank Foster, Larry Coryell, Cedar Walton, Fred Wesley and Mark Whitfield.  He also has a Grammy nomination for his performance and co-writing on Nnenna Freelon’s 1996 Concord release, Shaking Free. His extensive experience includes performances at notable venues like Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, the Blue Note, Blues Alley, and the Hollywood Bowl and at major jazz festivals like the Playboy Jazz Festival, the JVC Jazz Festival, the Montreal Jazz Festival, the Free Jazz Festival (Brazil) and Jazz e Vienne (France).

For more information on any of these events click here.

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — The Cameron Art Musuem’s Floating Lantern Ceremony is Sunday, January 9 on the museum’s grounds.

This year it returns to an in-person event at the Reflection Pond.  It is called an expression of remembrance, reflection, and gratitude.

CAM admission lets you into all the indoor exhibitions, but the Lantern Ceremony is free.  There will be live music near the pond, hot chocolates, beverages, and light food service from the CAM Cafe.

Lantern sales are happening now for you to decorate for $12 at the CAM Museum Shop.  The ceremony is from 4 – 7pm.

Click here for more information.

BOLIVIA, NC (WWAY) — Country music megastars Shenandoah will bring ‘The Every Road Tour’ to Brunswick Community College’s Odell Williamson Auditorium on January 15.

Led by Marty Raybon’s distinctive vocals, the group is celebrated for hits like “Two Dozen Roses,” “Church on Cumberland Road,” and the Grammy winning “Somewhere in the Vicinity of the Heart.”  The band’s latest album includes collaborations with Blake Shelton, Dierks Bentley, Lady A, and Brad Paisley.

The stop in Bolivia comes just days before the band returns to the Grand Ole Opry stage on January 21.

Tickets are available by clicking here.

RUTHERFORD COUNTY, NC (WWAY) — Two people including a state highway patrol trooper were killed in a traffic crash Monday night.

The accident occurred around 8:58 p.m. in Boiling Springs near the intersection of High Shoals Church Road and Goodes Grove Church Road.

Trooper John S. Horton had pulled over a driver and both of were standing alongside the road prior to the deadly crash.

The trooper’s brother, Trooper James N. Horton, also responded to the scene to assist. According to the North Carolina State Highway Patrol, Horton collided with his brother’s patrol vehicle striking Trooper John Horton and the detained driver.

Trooper John Horton was taken to a hospital in Spartanburg, SC, where he later died from his injuries. He was a 15-year veteran assigned to Rutherford County.

The detained driver died at the scene and the highway patrol has not released that person’s identity at this time.

Trooper James Horton was treated for minor injuries at a local hospital and released.

“Our hearts are broken with the loss of our friend and our brother, Trooper John Horton” said Colonel Freddy L. Johnson Jr., commander of the State Highway Patrol. “For all involved in this tragic event, the coming days will undoubtedly be difficult but we are committed to stand alongside with them with our thoughts, prayers and unwavering support.”

The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation is investigating the crash along with assistance from the NC State Highway Patrol Collision Reconstruction Unit.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — John Madden, the Hall of Fame coach turned broadcaster whose exuberant calls combined with simple explanations provided a weekly soundtrack to NFL games for three decades, died Tuesday morning, the league said. He was 85.

The NFL said he died unexpectedly and did not detail a cause.

Madden gained fame in a decade-long stint as the coach of the renegade Oakland Raiders, making it to seven AFC title games and winning the Super Bowl following the 1976 season. He compiled a 103-32-7 regular-season record, and his .759 winning percentage is the best among NFL coaches with more than 100 games.

But it was his work after prematurely retiring as coach at age 42 that made Madden truly a household name. He educated a football nation with his use of the telestrator on broadcasts; entertained millions with his interjections of “Boom!” and “Doink!” throughout games; was an omnipresent pitchman selling restaurants, hardware stores and beer; became the face of “Madden NFL Football,” one of the most successful sports video games of all-time; and was a best-selling author.

Most of all, he was the preeminent television sports analyst for most of his three decades calling games, winning an unprecedented 16 Emmy Awards for outstanding sports analyst/personality, and covering 11 Super Bowls for four networks from 1979-2009.

“People always ask, are you a coach or a broadcaster or a video game guy?” he said when was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. “I’m a coach, always been a coach.”

He started his broadcasting career at CBS after leaving coaching in great part because of his fear of flying. He and Pat Summerall became the network’s top announcing duo. Madden then helped give Fox credibility as a major network when he moved there in 1994, and went on to call prime-time games at ABC and NBC before retiring following Pittsburgh’s thrilling 27-23 win over Arizona in the 2009 Super Bowl.

“I am not aware of anyone who has made a more meaningful impact on the National Football League than John Madden, and I know of no one who loved the game more,” Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said in a statement.

Burly and a little unkempt, Madden earned a place in America’s heart with a likable, unpretentious style that was refreshing in a sports world of spiraling salaries and prima donna stars. He rode from game to game in his own bus because he suffered from claustrophobia and had stopped flying. For a time, Madden gave out a “turducken” — a chicken stuffed inside a duck stuffed inside a turkey — to the outstanding player in the Thanksgiving game that he called.

“Nobody loved football more than Coach. He was football,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement. “He was an incredible sounding board to me and so many others. There will never be another John Madden, and we will forever be indebted to him for all he did to make football and the NFL what it is today.”

When he finally retired from the broadcast booth, leaving NBC’s “Sunday Night Football,” colleagues universally praised Madden’s passion for the sport, his preparation, and his ability to explain an often-complicated game in down-to-earth terms.

“No one has made the sport more interesting, more relevant and more enjoyable to watch and listen to than John,” play-by-play announcer Al Michaels said at the time.

For anyone who heard Madden exclaim “Boom!” while breaking down a play, his love of the game was obvious.

“For me, TV is really an extension of coaching,” Madden wrote in “Hey, Wait a Minute! (I Wrote a Book!).”

“My knowledge of football has come from coaching. And on TV, all I’m trying to do is pass on some of that knowledge to viewers.”

Madden was raised in Daly City, California. He played on both the offensive and defensive lines for Cal Poly in 1957-58 and earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the school.

Madden was chosen to the all-conference team and was drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles, but a knee injury ended his hopes of a pro playing career. Instead, Madden got into coaching, first at Hancock Junior College and then as defensive coordinator at San Diego State.

Al Davis brought him to the Raiders as a linebackers coach in 1967, and Oakland went to the Super Bowl in his first year in the pros. He replaced John Rauch as head coach after the 1968 season at age 32, beginning a remarkable 10-year run.

With his demonstrative demeanor on the sideline and disheveled look, Madden was the ideal coach for the collection of castoffs and misfits that made up those Raiders teams.

“Sometimes guys were disciplinarians in things that didn’t make any difference. I was a disciplinarian in jumping offsides; I hated that,” Madden once said. “Being in bad position and missing tackles, those things. I wasn’t, ‘Your hair has to be combed.’”

The Raiders responded.

“I always thought his strong suit was his style of coaching,” quarterback Ken Stabler once said. “John just had a great knack for letting us be what we wanted to be, on the field and off the field. … How do you repay him for being that way? You win for him.”

And boy, did they ever. Many years, the only problem was the playoffs.

Madden went 12-1-1 in his first season, losing the AFL title game 17-7 to Kansas City. That pattern repeated itself during his tenure; the Raiders won the division title in seven of his first eight seasons, but went 1-6 in conference title games during that span.

Still, Madden’s Raiders played in some of the sport’s most memorable games of the 1970s, games that helped change rules in the NFL. There was the “Holy Roller” in 1978, when Stabler purposely fumbled forward before being sacked on the final play. The ball rolled and was batted to the end zone before Dave Casper recovered it for the winning touchdown against San Diego.

The most famous of those games went against the Raiders in the 1972 playoffs at Pittsburgh. With the Raiders leading 7-6 and 22 seconds left, the Steelers had a fourth-and-10 from their 40. Terry Bradshaw’s desperation pass deflected off either Oakland’s Jack Tatum or Pittsburgh’s Frenchy Fuqua to Franco Harris, who caught it at his shoe tops and ran in for a TD.

In those days, a pass that bounced off an offensive player directly to a teammate was illegal, and the debate continues to this day over which player it hit. The catch, of course, was dubbed the “Immaculate Reception.”

Oakland finally broke through with a loaded team in 1976 that had Stabler at quarterback; Fred Biletnikoff and Cliff Branch at receiver; tight end Dave Casper; Hall of Fame offensive linemen Gene Upshaw and Art Shell; and a defense that included Willie Brown, Ted Hendricks, Tatum, John Matuszak, Otis Sistrunk and George Atkinson.

The Raiders went 13-1, losing only a blowout at New England in Week 4. They paid the Patriots back with a 24-21 win in their first playoff game and got over the AFC title game hump with a 24-7 win over the hated Steelers, who were crippled by injuries.

Oakland won it all with a 32-14 Super Bowl romp against Minnesota.

“Players loved playing for him,” Shell said. “He made it fun for us in camp and fun for us in the regular season. All he asked is that we be on time and play like hell when it was time to play.”

Madden battled an ulcer the following season, when the Raiders once again lost in the AFC title game. He retired from coaching at age 42 after a 9-7 season in 1978.

Survivors include his wife, Virginia, and two sons, Joseph and Michael. John and Virginia Madden’s 62nd wedding anniversary was two days before his death.

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — Cape Fear Public Utility Authority will be closed for New Year’s Eve on Friday, December 31.

The Customer Service Centers at 235 Government Center Drive and 305 Chestnut Street will reopen for regular business at 8am Monday, January 3.

Customers may manage their accounts using the Interactive Voice-Response system by calling 910-332-6550 or online via the Customer Self-Service portal by clicking here.

To report a water or sewer emergency during the holiday, call CFPUA’s emergency hotline at 910-332-6565.

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — Nobody won the Powerball or Mega Millions drawings this week, so there a lot of money on the line right now.

Tonight you have a chance to win more than 378 million dollars in the Powerball drawing. It has a cash value of nearly 276 million.

If you don’t win tonight you have another chance on Friday.  The Mega Millions Jackpot stands at 187 million dollars.  It has a cash value of more than 134 million.

Your chances of winning are estimated to be about 1 in nearly 14 million.

 

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — The holidays can be difficult for military members, veterans, and military families.  Festive events can trigger feelings of loneliness, isolation, grief, survivor’s guilt, and sadness.  Large crowds and loud noises can bring on PTSD symptoms.

Coastal Horizons and the nonprofit Save A Vet Now (SAVN) are working to help veterans and military members get outpatient treatment services.  SAVN has a special account to cover any co-pay or self-pay costs for treatment at its Brunswick, New Hanover, or Pender outpatient locations.

Coastal Horizons offers services to promote healthier lives, stronger families and safer communities. Telemental Health Therapist and veteran Justin Gibson says “there is no need for them to ‘go it alone.’ Help is just a phone call away.”

If you need help reach out to Coastal Horizons at the following numbers:

•  New Hanover County        910-343-0145
•  Brunswick County              910-754-4515
•  Pender County                    910-259-0668

For immediate help call Mobile Crisis at 1-866-437-1821.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255.

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — The Saint Nicholas Foundation is spreading cheer near and far to make sure no child or elderly person is forgotten at the holidays.  The foundation gives toys and gifts to more than 500 people in six states.

Founder Nicholas Newell was born on Christmas day and is lovingly referred to as St. Nick.  The organization says it’s goal is to “Spread holiday cheer near and far.  Making sure no child or elder in need is forgotten.  Everyone makes our nice list.”

Newell says the pandemic changed how things were done the past two years but now he is “happy that we can at least bring them gifts.”  He adds that he “started this organization informally 8 years ago asking family and friends to donate so I could purchase stuffed animals for kids in hospitals. In 2018 we expanded to those in assisted living facilities.”

The foundation is accepting donations in various ways.  You can donate through Facebook, Instagram, Amazon, and Corning Credit Union as well as other options.

Learn all you options by visiting here.

 

SOUTHPORT, NC (WWAY) — It’s a candy cane Christmas in Southport!  The Southport Garden Club displaying dozens of handmade candy canes in Keziah Park as part of Winterfest and to support a more beautiful and green city.

The Candy Cane Garden Party kicks off at 6 p.m. Tuesday at Keziah Park in downtown Southport.  It features candy canes decorated by local businesses, organizations, and individuals.  The event is free and includes hot chocolate and entertainment.

Other Winterfest events this week:

•  Annual Cookie Contest, December 8, 3 – 5:30pm, Community Building
• Supper with Santa’s Elves, December 8, 5-7pm, 209 Atlantic Ave., beside Southport Gym
• Christmas movie ‘Polar Express,’ December 9, dusk, Garrison Lawn
• Costumed Holiday History Tour, December 10, 3pm, 204 E. Moore St.
• Caroling with The Sea Notes, December 10, 5:30pm, Franklin Square Park Stage
• Light Up the Night Christmas Parade, December 10, 6:30pm, Howe St.
• Winter Craft Festival, December 11, 9am – 4pm, Franklin Square Park
• Winterfest Performing Arts, December 11, 9am – 4pm, Franklin Square Park
• Book Sale, December 11, 9am – noon, 727 N. Howe St.
• Santa’s Workshop, December 11, 10 – 11am, 209 Atlantic Ave., beside Southport Gym
• Southport Christmas Flotilla, December 11, 7pm, Southport Waterfront

For more information click here.

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — Family Promise of the Lower Cape Fear looks to a world in which every family has a home, a livelihood, and the chance to build a better future.  It is celebrating 25 years of providing case management, transitional housing, and emergency shelter to families in need.

The 25th Anniversary Celebration Low Country Boil has a happy hour, dinner, and entertainment from comedian Orlando Jones.

Board member Karon Tunis says the event is about “educating people about Family Promise and letting them know that we have been active in the Lower Cape Fear for 25 years.”

The event is at Plaza on Princess in downtown Wilmington Tuesday, December 7, 2021, and kicks off at 6pm.

For tickets or more information click here.

 

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — The 2022 North Carolina Azalea Festival has a signature event before spring arrives.  The 2022 Chef’s Showcase will bring together five chefs from around the state to the Hotel Ballast in January.

The Showcase is a seated culinary adventure consisting of a 5-course meal with fine wine pairings, light entertainment, high-end silent auction items, and a luxury vacation raffle. Notable chefs from our region (and beyond!) work together to prepare the dishes.

The chefs this year are:

•  Sheri Castle, host of The Key Ingredient with Sheri Castle, on PBS North Carolina
• Tiesha Lewis, the 2021 North Carolina Restaurant & Lodging Association Chef Showdown Pastry Chef of the Year
• Saif Rahman, the 2021 North Carolina Restaurant & Lodging Association Chef Showdown Chef of the Year
• Nathan Sims, Hotel Ballast Executive Chef
• Fabio Capparelli, Bluewater Grill Executive Chef

The event is Saturday, January 29, 2022, from 1 – 4pm at The Hotel Ballast in downtown Wilmington.

For more information and tickets click here.

CBS NEWS — An American F-15E fighter jet was downed over Iran, U.S. officials confirmed Friday, and a search and rescue effort is ongoing, sources said.

The F-15E is flown by a two-member crew.

Earlier Friday, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard claimed it shot down a U.S. fighter jet over the middle of the country.

Photos and video were circulating on social media, shared by Iranian state news outlets, suggesting at least one U.S. C-130 aircraft and two Black Hawk helicopters were spotted flying low over central and southwest Iran in what was described as a possible effort to locate and recover the crew.

CBS News reported earlier this week that the U.S. military had lost at least 16 MQ-9 Reaper drones over Iran since the war began, and three U.S. F-15 fighter jets were shot down over Kuwait in a “friendly fire incident” early in the conflict, but there were no casualties.

The downing of the jet Friday comes after repeated assertions by President Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and military commanders of U.S. air superiority that largely deprived Iran of attack capabilities and air defenses during the war.

“Now in our fifth week of the campaign, it is my operational assessment that we are making undeniable progress. We don’t see their navy sailing. We don’t see their aircraft flying, and their air and missile defense systems have largely been destroyed,” CENTCOM Commander Adm. Brad Cooper said Thursday.

A local affiliate of Iran’s state TV channel said Friday a prize being offered for anyone able to “capture the enemy pilot or pilots alive and hand them over to the police.”

The Associated Press said the TV broadcast included a written message urging viewers to shoot at any U.S. aircraft seen flying overhead.

ABC NEWS — Mortgage rates have climbed to their highest level since September as fallout from the Iran war ripples through financial markets, Freddie Mac data on Thursday showed.

The average interest rate for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage jumped to 6.46%, continuing a weeks-long surge since the war began on Feb. 28, during which time mortgage rates have increased nearly half a percentage point.

Mortgage rates remain slightly lower than this time a year ago, when the average rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage stood at 6.64%.

The recent spike in borrowing costs risks further strain on U.S. households as they weather elevated gasoline prices.

The rise in mortgage rates owes to a jump in U.S. Treasury yields as investors fear a bout of inflation in response to the Middle East conflict.

High bond yields make borrowing more expensive for average Americans, since 10-year Treasury rates influence the rates offered for a variety of loans, including mortgages and credit cards.

Since bonds pay a given investor a fixed amount each year, the specter of inflation risks higher consumer prices that would eat away at those annual payouts. In turn, bonds often become less attractive in response to economic turmoil. When demand falls, bond yields rise.

“Mortgage rates have risen as bond market yields have sought to price in the risk of higher inflation in the future,” Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst at Bankrate, previously told ABC News.

Last week, bond yields soared close to levels reached in the aftermath of President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs in April 2025, when the 10-year Treasury yield peaked at around 4.5%.

Bond yields eased in recent days as Trump signaled a possible off-ramp from the war with Iran.

NEW HANOVER COUNTY, NC (WWAY) — A New Hanover County man is facing multiple charges, including assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury and assault by strangulation.

According to arrest records, 46-year-old James Christopher Hinson was arrested around 1:03 a.m. on Monday at 5550 Carolina Beach Road, which is Grove Park Mobile Home Estates.

Hinson is charged with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury, assault by strangulation, and misdemeanor crime of domestic violence.

Charging documents state Hinson is accused of hitting, strangling and stabbing his girlfriend.

Records also indicate Hinson had been released approximately one week earlier after serving a sentence for assaulting the same victim in a previous domestic violence case.

No additional details about the victim’s condition have been released.

Hinson was taken into custody and is being held without bond. His next court date is April 23.

(AP)–U.S. futures were trading modestly lower early Friday following surprisingly strong jobs data from the federal government.

Equities markets are closed for Good Friday, but futures markets were trading into Friday morning, albeit quietly.

Futures for S&P 500 dipped 0.3%, futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.2% and Nasdaq futures were down 0.4%.

American employers added a surprisingly strong 178,000 new jobs last month, rebounding from a dismal February that saw 133,000 job losses. The unemployment rate dipped to 4.3% from 4.4%.

Energy markets were closed Friday following big price surges the day before on fears that the Iran war will drag on longer than expected. U.S. benchmark crude rose 11.4% to $111.54 a barrel on Thursday. The price of Brent crude, the international standard, jumped 7.8% to $109.03 per barrel.

U.S. President Donald Trump late Wednesday vowed the U.S. will continue to attack Iran and failed to offer a clear timetable for ending the conflict in the Middle East.

“A more extended conflict raises the threat to physical infrastructure, extends disruptions through the Strait of Hormuz, and will entail a longer postwar recovery period, with price impacts spilling over later into the year,” according to a report from BMI, a unit of Fitch Solutions.

The U.S. relies on the Persian Gulf for only a fraction of the oil it imports, but oil is a commodity and prices are set in a global market.

The situation is very different in Asia. Japan, for example, needs access to the Strait of Hormuz for much of the nation’s oil imports or would need alternative routes. But some analysts say Japan and other nations are counting on an agreement with Iran to allow fuel to be transported through the strait.

Trading was closed in France, Germany and Britain for the Good Friday holiday.

In Asia, Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 gained 1.3% to finish at 53,123.49. South Korea’s Kospi jumped 2.7% to 5,377.30. The Shanghai Composite sank 1.0% to 3,880.10. Trading was closed in Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Indonesia and India for the Good Friday holiday.

MIAMI (AP) — Good Friday is a unique — and uniquely solemn — day in the Christian calendar.

It commemorates the crucifixion and death of Jesus, ahead of what’s a central tenet of faith for believers — his resurrection two days later on Easter Sunday, according to the Gospels.

This year, it falls on April 3 for Catholics and Protestants, and April 10 for Orthodox Christians.

Across Christian denominations, Good Friday services are unlike those on most other days. They often include centuries-old, once-a-year traditions both during the liturgy and out in the streets, where elaborate processions and other rituals of fervent popular piety are held.

While Catholics gather, it’s the only day without an actual Mass, because there’s no sacrament of the Eucharist, which is the transformation of bread and wine into Jesus’ body and blood according to the church. Orthodox Christians don’t celebrate the Eucharist either on what they call Great and Holy Friday.

Most mainline Protestant denominations and Evangelicals also hold unique services, like the Lutheran devotion focused on the biblical accounts of Jesus’ last words on the cross, though they are not as strict on fasting as Catholics and Orthodox Christians.

Church services tend to last more than an hour, usually starting at 3 p.m., when tradition says Jesus died. But even though it’s not a day of obligation, and it’s a workday in the United States, churches tend to be packed.

“The time leading up to Good Friday is a big reflection on sacrifice — what he did for me and what I am doing in return,” said Manuel León, 22.

A member of Miami’s Corpus Christi Catholic Church youth group, he will carry a grimly realistic statue of Jesus crucified in procession through a hip central neighborhood on Good Friday.

“Pushing that statue from the back and seeing how torn up he is, what he did for us really becomes real,” León added.

Ancient forms of liturgy mark Good Friday

Some of the most ancient liturgical practices define Good Friday service for Catholics, said the Rev. John Baldovin, a professor of historical and liturgical theology at Boston College.

“The most solemn days tend to retain the oldest ceremonies,” he added, including as example the fact that the priests and ministers prostrate themselves in front of the altar at the beginning of the service.

Another ancient tradition is the extensive prayers of the faithful, interspersed with genuflections, which today include intentions as varied as praying for the pope, for the Jewish people, and for those who do not believe in God.

Up until Holy Week reforms introduced by the Vatican in the 1950s, Communion wasn’t distributed on Good Friday, though now it is with hosts consecrated a day earlier on Holy Thursday, Baldovin said.

But the highlight of the ceremony is the adoration of the cross, which in many cases is held up near the altar as the faithful line up to kiss it or touch it in reverence.

Among the earliest documents of this practice is the diary of pilgrim who in the 4th century went from what’s today Spain to Jerusalem, Baldovin said. There, at the present-day Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a bishop held up the cross for several hours as the faithful venerated it.

Processions with sacred images make Jesus’ passion real for global faithful

Life-sized statues of Jesus crucified, the weeping Virgin Mary, and representations of scenes from the Gospels’ accounts of Jesus’ torture and death on a cross are carried in large processions in different parts of the world.

Some of the oldest and most awe-inspiring are in southern Spain’s Seville, where tens of thousands of people watch much-venerated images of Jesus and Mary being carried in hourslong processions throughout Holy Week.

“Not all of us have the ability to look at the sky and feel fulfilled. Others like me need the images,” said Manolo Gobea.

He moved from Seville to Miami three decades ago and now heads the brotherhood that organizes the Good Friday procession starting from Corpus Christi church and winding its way through the graffiti-splashed neighborhood of Wynwood.

As the main, Seville-made statues exit the palm-fringed church, they’re carried over intricate carpets made of colored sawdust and flowers. That’s a nod to another tradition that’s perhaps most exuberantly followed in the colonial city of Antigua, Guatemala, where miles of these carpets are created for Holy Week — twice on Good Friday.

“On Good Friday, we feel the pain of Mary, Jesus’ pain, his surrender for love,” said Silvia Armira, as she prepared the carpet drawings for the procession in Miami, where she arrived from Guatemala in the 1990s. “It’s the great love of God, who gave up his only son for us.”

Faithful’s devotion sees past Good Friday’s pain to Easter joy

Solemn and popular rituals on Good Friday vary from the pope’s traditional “way of the cross” in Rome to a trek to the adobe sanctuary of Chimayo in New Mexico to self-flagellation and even crucifixion in the Philippines.

For many priests, they are all opportunities to take faith out of church and into streets to evangelize — and to point out that the gruesome death on the cross isn’t the end of the story.

“Our procession is a cry to the world — ‘get out, look at what is the way, the truth, the life,’” said the Rev. José Luis Menéndez.

“May your entire attitude be a living prayer,” the Cuban-born, Spanish-raised pastor at Corpus Christi in Miami told more than 100 faithful at the last rehearsal for this year’s procession.

Carefully watching over the SUV-sized float covered in silver-plated ornaments, flower vases and candlesticks, Gobea said the main appeal of Good Friday celebrations is that they lead from death to Easter joy.

“To the weeping Mary, we put flowers, we sing hymns, and that’s because we know how it ends — which is the resurrection,” he said.

(CBS) — More than 3.1 million bottles of eye drops sold at major retailers, including Walgreens and CVS, are being recalled due to concerns about their sterility, according to a notice from the Food and Drug Administration.

The eyedrops have been recalled by their manufacturer, K.C. Pharmaceuticals, according to the March 3 alert. The products were sold under a number of brand names, including Dry Eye Relief Eye Drops and Artificial Tears Sterile Lubricant Eye Drops.

The recall was classified as “Class II” by the FDA, which describes products that may cause “temporary or medically reversible adverse health consequences or where the probability of serious adverse health consequences is remote.” Another major eye drops recall in 2023 involved a different manufacturer whose products may have contained bacteria.

The latest eye drops recall involves eight brands manufactured by K.C. Pharmaceuticals, with the largest lot involving more than 1 million bottles sold under the Dry Eye Relief Eye Drops brand at stores including Rite Aid, H-E-B and Harris Teeter.

The recalled items are below:

• 1,023,096 bottles of Dry Eye Relief Eye Drops (glycerin 0.2%, hypromellose 0.2%, polyethylene glycol 400 1%), 0.5 fl. oz. (15 mL): Sold at stores including Rite Aid, H-E-B, Meijer and Harris Teeter, as well as military exchanges.
• 589,848 bottles of Artificial Tears Sterile Lubricant Eye Drops (polyvinyl alcohol 0.5%, povidone 0.6%), 0.5 fl. oz. (15 mL): Sold at stores including Kroger, Publix, Leader and TopCare, as well as through Good Neighbor Pharmacy and Good Sense.
• 378,144 bottles of Sterile Eye Drops Original Formula (tetrahydrozoline HCl 0.05%), 0.5 fl. oz. (15 mL): Sold at stores including Walgreens, Kroger, CVS, H-E-B, Harris Teeter, Dollar General, Circle K and Leader.
• 315,144 bottles of Sterile Eye Drops Redness Lubricant (glycerin 0.25%, naphazoline HCl 0.012%), 0.5 fl. oz. (15 mL): Sold at stores including Walgreens, Rite Aid, Leader and Equaline, as well as workplace distributor Cintas.
• 303,216 bottles of Eye Drops Advanced Relief (dextran 70 0.1%, polyethylene glycol 400 1%, tetrahydrozoline HCl 0.05%), 0.5 fl. oz. (15 mL): Sold at stores including Walgreens, Kroger and CVS.
• 245,184 bottles of Ultra Lubricating Eye Drops (polyethylene glycol 400 0.4%, propylene glycol 0.3%), 0.5 fl. oz. (15 mL): Sold at stores including Leader and Harris Teeter.
• 182,424 bottles of Sterile Eye Drops AC (tetrahydrozoline HCl 0.05%, zinc sulfate 0.25%), 0.5 fl. oz. (15 mL): Sold at stores including Walgreens, Meijer and H-E-B.
• 74,016 bottles of Sterile Eye Drops Soothing Tears (polyethylene glycol 400 0.4%, propylene glycol 0.3%), 0.5 fl. oz. (15 mL): Sold at Walgreens and through Rugby Laboratories.

LA PLATA, Md. (AP) — A quadruple amputee professional cornhole player acted in self-defense when he shot and killed a passenger in his Tesla during a heated argument, his attorney said Wednesday.

Dayton James Webber, 27, appeared in Charles County District Court via videoconference for the bail review Wednesday, where Judge Patrick Devine noted that he left Maryland after the March 22 shooting of 27-year-old Bradrick Michael Wells and ordered Webber to remain jailed without bail.

Webber, who was extradited from Virginia and is charged with first- and second-degree murder, hasn’t entered a plea yet and is due in court for a May 6 preliminary hearing. He also faces assault and firearm charges.

Defense attorney Andrew Jezic told the court that Webber acted in self-defense and that he anticipates “a lengthy trial” to prove it.

After the hearing, Jezic told reporters that his client was “terrified.”

“The truth here is that he would have been a murder victim if he had not acted immediately in defense of his life,” Jezic said.

Family members of Webber declined to comment after the hearing.

Webber, whose arms and legs were amputated when he was 10 months old to save his life after he contracted a serious blood infection, is accused of shooting Wells, of Waldorf, twice in the head during an argument, according to police charging documents.

Karen Piper Mitchell, a deputy state’s attorney, said witnesses in the car told authorities the argument was over a gun that a friend of Wells had stolen from Webber, and that Webber was upset Wells was still friends with the thief.

She said Webber and Wells had a history of arguing, including a 2024 incident in which Webber ordered Wells to leave his home. While Wells was leaving, Mitchell said Webber fired a shot from a second floor window. Jezic said Webber fired into the air.

In arguing that Webber should remain in custody, Mitchell noted that he drove to Virginia after the shooting and owns firearms.

Authorities haven’t publicly addressed whether the vehicle’s cameras captured any of what happened or whether self-driving functionality was in use in the Tesla when the shooting occurred.

According to the charging documents, Webber pulled over after the shooting in La Plata, Maryland, and asked two backseat passengers to help pull the victim out, but they refused, got out of the car and flagged down police officers.

Webber fled with the victim still in the car, the Charles County sheriff’s office said. Two hours later, a resident in Charlotte Hall, about 10 miles (16-kilometer) away, found Wells’ body in a yard along a road and notified officers.

Detectives tracked down Webber’s car in Charlottesville, Virginia, and found Webber at a hospital where he was “seeking treatment for a medical issue,” the sheriff’s office said.

Webber was featured by ESPN in 2023 in a story of inspiration, noting he rode dirt bikes, wrestled and played football before becoming a professional cornhole player. The same year, he wrote an essay for the “Today” show about how he became a professional competitor. He said he learned to grab the bean bag by the corners and throw it using his amputated arms.

A YouTube video posted two years ago shows Webber loading and firing a handgun.

WASHINGTON (AP) — American employers added a surprisingly strong 178,000 new jobs last month, rebounding from a dismal February. And the unemployment rate dipped to 4.3%.

The Labor Department reported Friday that hiring marked a rebound from the loss of 133,000 jobs in February. The job gains were about three times what economists had forecast.

The unemployment rate was down from 4.4% in February. That is partly because the labor force — those working and looking for work — dropped by 396,000 in March so fewer people were competing for jobs.

Health care companies added 76,400 jobs last month, boosted by return of 31,000 Kaiser Permanente employees to work after the end of a strike in February. Factories added 15,000 jobs last month but have still shed jobs for 14 of the last 16 months. Construction companies added 26,000 jobs, probably partly because of warmer weather last month.

Average hourly wages were up 0.2% from February and 3.5% from March 2025, a number consistent with the Federal Reserve’s 2% annual inflation target.

The U.S. job market has been in a slump over the past year as companies have been hesitant to hire because of high interest rates, uncertainty over President Donald Trump’s policies and over how artificial intelligence is going to affect their businesses. The war in Iran has clouded the outlook, and most economists say the impact of the war and higher energy prices was probably not fully reflected in the March jobs numbers.

“The data is mostly backward-looking, and likely does not incorporate any impact from the recent rise in energy prices, or other risks related to the war in Iran,’’ Thomas Simons, chief U.S. economist with the investment firm Jefferies, wrote in a commentary.

The American job market has been in a slump.

Last year, employers added an average of just 9,700 jobs a month, the weakest hiring outside a recession since 2002. Businesses have been reluctant to bring on new workers partly because of uncertainty arising from President Donald Trump’s trade and immigration policies. One measure released by the Labor Department on Monday showed the weakest hiring since April 2020 – in the middle of COVID-19 lockdowns.

But firms have also been reluctant to let go of their existing employees, creating what economists describe as a “no-hire, no-fire’’ scenario that locks young applicants out of the job market. At the same time, there are growing worries that artificial intelligence is taking entry-level jobs.

New jobs are heavily concentrated in health care and social assistance (which includes day care and vocational rehabilitation centers). That category accounted for more than half the jobs created last month. The trend reflects an aging U.S. population. A graying Japan saw the same thing in the early 2010s, Vanguard economist Adam Schickling wrote in a commentary ahead of Friday’s jobs report.

“The larger-than-expected rebound in nonfarm payrolls in March mainly reflects a reversal of the strike and weather effects that weighed on hiring in February, rather than being a sign that the labour market is rapidly gaining momentum,” said Stephen Brown, chief North America economist at Capital Economics. Citing higher oil prices, he warned of the risk that “the hit to consumers’ purchasing power will weigh on demand and therefore hiring in the near term.”

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — A popular Wilmington bar says it will close its doors later this month as a long-planned road project moves forward.

Greenfield Lake Yacht Club, which was previously known as The Dubliner, announced on social media that April will be its final month at its Carolina Beach Road location.

In a Facebook post, the business said the building at 1756 Carolina Beach Road is set to be demolished as part of a North Carolina Department of Transportation project, forcing the business to close or relocate.

“April will be our last month y’all. Come help us go out with style and finish all the booze in the building,” the post reads.

The closure comes after years of uncertainty tied to the NCDOT widening project along Carolina Beach Road and South Front Street.

WWAY previously reported in 2019 that the Dubliner was among several businesses expected to be purchased and potentially demolished to make way for the project.

Plans called for seven properties, including the Dubliner, to be acquired as part of efforts to widen the roadway and improve traffic flow at a busy Wilmington intersection.

Over the years, the project has been delayed multiple times. In 2021, WWAY reported construction would not begin until at least 2029, temporarily sparing affected businesses.

Now, the bar says those long-discussed plans are becoming reality.

Owners, who bought the Dubliner a few years ago and renamed it Greenfield Lake Yacht Club, say they have been searching for a new home.

“We have been looking for a new location but haven’t had any luck — yet,” the post states.

The business plans to continue normal operations through April, including live music and events, leading up to a final night on Sunday, April 26.

“Please come join us as we celebrate our last month at your favorite watering hole,” the post reads. “It is gonna be business as usual over the next four weeks.”

The bar has long been a staple near Greenfield Lake, known for its live music, late-night events, and loyal local following.

“Thank you to everyone who helped make the last few years a dream come true for us… without our patrons, none of this would have been possible,” the post reads.

 

(CBS) — A key senator is demanding the Transportation Security Administration reverse its decision to let travelers keep their shoes on their feet while passing through airport screening, a controversial policy at the center of a classified security warning — escalating pressure on the agency following months of scrutiny over airport security vulnerabilities.

In a letter obtained exclusively by CBS News, Sen. Tammy Duckworth demanded that TSA immediately rescind its “shoes-on” policy, calling it a “reckless act” that may be placing the flying public at risk.

The Illinois Democrat, who serves as ranking member of the Senate subcommittee overseeing aviation, warned that the policy was likely implemented “without meaningful consultation with TSA.” She cited an investigation by the Department of Homeland Security’s internal watchdog that found it created a new security vulnerability in airport screening systems.

An “outrageous” danger to the flying public

Duckworth’s demand marks the first direct call from a lawmaker to reverse the policy, following CBS News’ reporting on a classified inspector general audit that used covert “red team” testing to identify serious vulnerabilities in TSA screening nationwide.

The classified watchdog report found that TSA scanners are unable to effectively screen shoes, raising concerns that threat items could evade detection. But those findings were buried by DHS leadership, according to previous reporting by CBS News.

Duckworth writes that the inspector general flagged the issue as urgent in a rare “Seven-Day Letter” to then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem — but no corrective action was taken.

She called that failure “outrageous, unacceptable and dangerous to the flying public.”

“Allowing a potentially catastrophic security deficiency to remain in place for seven months and counting betrays TSA’s mission,” wrote Duckworth. “At a minimum, TSA’s failure to swiftly implement corrective action warrants the immediate withdrawal of Secretary Noem’s reckless and dangerous policy that increases the risk of a terrorist smuggling a dangerous item onto a flight.”

Did the TSA violate federal law?

In her letter to acting TSA Administrator Nguyen McNeill, dated April 3, the Illinois senator argues that TSA’s lack of response may actually violate federal law. She wrote that the agency missed a legally required 90-day deadline to outline corrective actions after receiving the watchdog’s findings — a lapse she says undermines both oversight and safety.

“Such inaction violates Federal law, Office of Management and Budget (OMB) guidance and DHS’s own directives,” Duckworth wrote.

A policy dating back to the “Shoe Bomber” plot

The rule requiring passengers to remove shoes was implemented several years after the 2001 “shoe bomber” plot, when a passenger attempted to detonate explosives hidden in his footwear aboard a U.S.-bound flight.

DHS lifted that rule and implemented a “shoes-on” policy on July 8, 2025, under Noem.

At the time, the agency said the move would “increase hospitality for travelers and streamline the TSA security checkpoint process, leading to lower wait times.” DHS argued the decision would not impact security standards due to “our cutting-edge technological advancements and multi-layered security approach.”

CBS News’ reporting found the agency has yet to issue a required response to the inspector general’s findings months later, leaving recommended fixes “open and unresolved” and raising broader questions about whether known security gaps are being addressed.

Duckworth argues that abandoning that safeguard without ensuring screening technology can compensate introduces a known vulnerability back into the system.

The letter also takes direct aim at Noem, who left her role last month and was replaced by DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, accusing her of prioritizing politics over security. Duckworth wrote that Noem’s decision reflected a “willingness to gamble the American people’s security” and calls it a “stunning failure of leadership.”

CBS News has reached out to DHS and TSA for comment.

 

(ABC) — President Donald Trump announced Thursday that Pam Bondi was being ousted as his attorney general in a post on his social media platform, saying she’ll move to a role working in the private sector.

“We love Pam, and she will be transitioning to a much needed and important new job in the private sector, to be announced at a date in the near future,” Trump said in the post.

Trump’s deputy attorney general and former personal attorney Todd Blanche will serve as acting attorney general, the president said.

“And our Deputy Attorney General, and a very talented and respected Legal Mind, Todd Blanche, will step in to serve as Acting Attorney General,” Trump wrote.

Trump had raised potentially removing Bondi as attorney general in recent discussions with senior administration officials, sources told ABC News on Wednesday, amid months of mounting frustration that the Justice Department ​isn’t doing enough to target his political opponents for prosecution.

“Over the next month I will be working tirelessly to transition the office of Attorney General to the amazing Todd Blanche before moving to an important private sector role I am thrilled about, and where I will continue fighting for President Trump and this Administration,” Bondi said in a social media post following the announcement.

“Leading President Trump’s historic and highly successful efforts to make America safer and more secure has been the honor of a lifetime, and easily the most consequential first year of the Department of Justice in American history,” Bondi posted.

Blanche previously served as Trump’s defense attorney in the cases brought against him by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and former special counsel Jack Smith.

He has served as the nation’s No. 2 law enforcement official since being confirmed by the Senate in March of last year, and previously served in the Justice Department as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York.

Like Bondi, he has been vocal about his personal loyalties to President Trump and just last week appeared at the Conservative Political Action Conference, where he cheered the purge of prosecutors who previously worked on investigations into Trump and defended the DOJ from criticism by the MAGA base.

“So when people say, ‘Why aren’t you doing more?’ I welcome that criticism,” Blanche said. “Keep on putting pressure on us. Do you think it makes me upset when you go on X and say, ‘Come on, Blanche, why aren’t we doing more?’ You don’t know me. That’s what motivates me.”

The shakeup comes as Democrats and voting rights groups have expressed alarm that the White House may seek to use the DOJ and FBI to intervene in the midterm elections in November.

The president’s announcement brings an end to a rocky tenure for Bondi as the nation’s top law enforcement official, during which she aggressively sought to reshape the Justice Department as an enforcer of Trump’s agenda — repeatedly breaking with institutional norms implemented after the Watergate era that had encouraged independence from the political demands of the White House.

From her first days in office, Bondi emphasized her personal loyalty to Trump and echoed his longstanding grievances with the DOJ and FBI that the president and his allies have long accused of being “weaponized” against him.

During Trump’s first term in office he faced resistance from top officials at the DOJ and FBI against using the vast powers of their agencies to punish the president’s perceived enemies, but Bondi publicly embraced Trump’s demands to launch prosecutions against specific targets — to mixed effect.

The department’s attempts to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James fell apart after a federal judge ruled that the Trump-appointed prosecutor who indicted them was appointed unlawfully. Attempts to revive the case against James were twice rejected by a grand jury, sources previously told ABC News.

A separate effort by the U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., Jeanine Pirro, to indict six Democratic lawmakers who posted a video urging military service members to refuse to follow unlawful orders was also rejected by a grand jury — despite Trump’s accusation that the group was guilty of “treason.”

(WWAY) — You might need your umbrellas this weekend as a cold front is expected to move through on Easter.

-Meteorologist Jason Korver

Wilmington, NC (WWAY) — Easter is just three days away and there’s plenty of activities to do across the cape fear region this weekend including appearances with the Easter Bunny, family fun runs, and sunrise services at the beach.

On Saturday Leland Brewing Company and Lazy Day Farm will host an Easter egg hunt for the little ones at 1 P.M. Participants can also enjoy food trucks, vendors, a petting zoo, and you can even meet the Easter Bunny! The event ends at 6 P.M.

Also happening Saturday…Access of Wilmington will host their 13th annual Miracles In Motion 5k and 1 mile family fun run at Long Leaf Park to celebrate athletes of all abilities. In addition to the race attendees can also enjoy food trucks, local vendors, and even an all accessible Easter egg hunt! Registration must be done in advance here.

And finally, on Sunday morning First Presbyterian Church in Wilmington will host

their Easter sunrise service at 6:30 at Wrightsville Beach public access 34, in Kure Beach there will be a shared service between Kure Memorial Lutheran Church and Kure Beach First Baptist Church at 6:40 at Ocean Front Park, and in Carolina Beach Saint Paul’s UMC will host a sunrise service at 7:00 at the Carolina Beach boardwalk.

 

(AP) — Iran’s missiles set alight a refinery and damaged a desalination plant in Kuwait on Friday as Israeli and U.S. strikes kept hitting Iran.

As the war that began Feb. 28 was to enter its sixth week, Israel, Bahrain and Kuwait warned about incoming missile fire, although it was unclear if anything was struck. Activists in Iran reported strikes around Tehran and the central city of Isfahan.

Iran’s attacks on Gulf region energy infrastructure and its tight grip on the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas transits in peacetime, has sent oil prices skyrocketing.

U.S. President Donald Trump said U.S. forces will keep hitting Iran “very hard” in the next two or three weeks.

The largest American aircraft carrier in service sailed out of Split, Croatia, and “remains poised for full mission tasking in support of national objectives in any area of operation,” the Navy’s 6th Fleet announced. It was unclear where it was going. The USS Abraham Lincoln remains in the Arabian Sea and the USS George H. W. Bush aircraft carrier departed Norfolk on Wednesday to head to the Mideast.

Here is the latest:

Amnesty warns Iran is recruiting children as young as 12

Amnesty International is warning Iran that its recruitment of children as young as 12 for the Revolutionary Guard’s all-volunteer Basij force amounts to a war crime. The Guard has put out the call recently as the Basij finds its checkpoints under attack during the war with the United States and Israel.

Amnesty also said that eyewitnesses and its own analysis of video footage “show child soldiers having been deployed” to checkpoints and patrols, some armed with weapons including Kalashnikov-style assaults rifles.

“As U.S. and Israeli strikes hit thousands of (Guard) sites, including Basij facilities, across the country, including through drone attacks targeting security patrols and checkpoints, the deployment of child soldiers alongside (Guard) personnel or in their facilities puts them at grave risk of death and injury,” Erika Guevara-Rosas of Amnesty International said.

Kuwait says attack damaged a desalination plant

The attack came after an oil refinery was hit by drones Friday morning.

Kuwait said without elaborating that the attack on the desalination plant caused “material damage to some of the plant’s components.”

Desalination provides the majority of the water for the Gulf Arab states and Iran, drawing the salty waters of the Persian Gulf into drinking water for the desert region. About 90% of drinking water in Kuwait comes from desalination.

Desalination plants have become a major target in the war, with Iran initially accusing the U.S. and Israel of striking one before beginning to target them in the Gulf Arab states. Those states view attacks on desalination plants as a threat to their very livelihoods.

Zarif suggests low enrichment, regional nuclear facility for a deal

Iran’s former top diplomat suggested Tehran could down-blend its highly enriched uranium in a deal to end the war.

Mohammad Javad Zarif suggested Iran could enrich uranium below 3.67%, the level set by the 2015 nuclear deal U.S. President Donald Trump pulled America out of in 2018.

However, Trump has maintained Iran must have no enrichment.

Zarif also suggested the inclusion of China and Russia in any deal to do a single uranium enrichment site for all of the region, where Iran “would transfer all its enriched material and equipment to that space.”

That is a proposal suggested in previous rounds of talks.

Zarif also suggests Washington and Tehran could “explore dispatching diplomats to serve in their respective interest sections, restoring consular services and removing travel restrictions on each other’s citizens.”

The U.S. and Iran have not had diplomatic relations since 1980, when President Jimmy Carter severed ties over the hostage crisis.

Former Iran top diplomat suggests terms to end war

Iran’s former top diplomat offered terms Friday to see a ceasefire in the war with the United States and Israel.

Mohammad Javad Zarif, who helped reach the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, made the proposal in Foreign Affairs magazine in a piece published Friday.

While Zarif has no official position now in Iran’s theocracy, he helped get reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian elected.

He also would not have been able to publish such a piece without at least running the positions past senior members of the country’s theocracy.

While insisting Iran “is clearly winning” the war, Zarif wrote that Tehran “should offer to place limits on its nuclear program and to reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for an end to all sanctions — a deal Washington wouldn’t take before but might accept now.”

It remains unclear how U.S. President Donald Trump would respond to such a pitch, particularly as Zarif referred to Trump’s close friend Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner as “completely illiterate on both geopolitics and nuclear technicalities.”

Human remains found on Thai ship

A team searching a Thai ship that was struck near the Strait of Hormuz on March 11 has found human remains onboard, the Thai Foreign Ministry said Friday.

The Mayuree Naree was hit by a projectile just north of Oman. Three of its crew members were declared missing.

The search team was hired by the ship’s owner, Precious Shipping Co. The company and the ministry did not say when the ship was searched or its current location. A previous search of the vessel was disclosed March 30.

The ministry said the team has not been able to immediately verify the identity of the remains, which were found in a damaged area of the ship.

Former CIA director warns strait could become ‘we break it, you own it’

Former CIA director Bill Burns is warning the crisis over Iran’s chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz could become a case of “we break it, you own it” for America’s allies.

Burns, a former State Department diplomat, made the observation in a podcast by Foreign Affairs magazine.

He noted U.S. President Donald Trump could try a ground operation to take Iran’s Kharg Island, its main oil terminal, or territory along the strait, but both carry significant risks.

“Then there’s the third option, which is effectively declaring victory and the inversion of the old Colin Powell Pottery Barn rule, which was ‘we break it, we own it,’” Burns said, referencing a comment attributed to former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

“Instead, it would be, ‘we break it, you own it, and it’s over to you guys,’ whether it’s European allies or Gulf Arabs or anybody else to ensure safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz.”

Former CIA director calls Iran campaign ‘a war of choice’

Former CIA Director Bill Burns has described the U.S.-Israeli war launched against Iran as “a war of choice” that may have only further empowered the most hard-line elements within its theocracy.

Burns, a former State Department diplomat, made the observation in a podcast by Foreign Affairs magazine.

“This is a regime that is inept at many things like managing its economy, but it is designed to preserve itself and designed to repress its own people and designed to withstand even the decapitation of its senior leadership,” said Burns, who secretly negotiated with the Iranians ahead of the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers during the Obama administration.

Burns also disagreed with U.S. President Donald Trump’s assessment that there had been a “regime change” in the airstrike campaign killing top leaders, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“In some ways, it’s certainly a much weaker regime, but it’s also one that’s even nastier and more radical and, you know, less open,” he said.

He added that Iran’s theocracy thought “victory is survival.”

“I’ve believed for a long time that this is a regime that’s on a kind of one-way street to its eventual collapse, but I worry that, you know, in this war, what we’ve done rather than accelerate that moment of collapse is slow it down a little bit,” Burns said.

French and South Korean presidents agree to help reopen strait

French President Emmanuel Macron and South Korean President Lee Jae Myung agreed Friday to work together to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz and ease global economic uncertainties caused by the war in the Middle East.

In a televised briefing after their meeting in Seoul, Macron underscored the need for France and South Korea to cooperate to help reopen the strait and de-escalate Middle East animosities.

Lee said the two affirmed “their resolves to cooperate to secure the safe shipping route in the Strait of Hormuz.”

The two leaders did not elaborate on how they would help reopen the strait and took no questions.

Macron was making his first visit to South Korea since taking office in 2017.

Kuwait says Mina al-Ahmadi oil refinery hit by Iranian drones

Iranian drones struck Kuwait’s Mina al-Ahmadi oil refinery Friday, sparking fires at the facility.

The state-run Kuwait Petroleum Corp. issued a statement on the attack and said firefighters were working to control the blazes .

There were no injuries reported, the company said.

Kuwait has blamed Iran, as well as Iranian-backed Shiite militias in Iraq, for drone attacks targeting the small, oil-rich nation on the northern edge of the Persian Gulf.

Kuwait operates three oil refineries. Mina al-Ahmadi has come under attack at least three times in the war so far.

Refineries are key to Kuwait’s oil production because without them, oil wells would have to be shut down for lack of a destination for the oil.

Restarting refineries is extremely time consuming for safety reasons and those wells would remain largely inactive until refineries are back on line.

Oil prices surge while Asian share prices rise moderately

Oil prices continued to surge on worries of a prolonged Iran war but the Asian markets that were open Friday rose moderately in cautious trading, while others were closed for the Good Friday holidays.

Benchmark U.S. crude rose 11.4% to $111.54 a barrel. The price of Brent crude, the international standard, jumped 7.8% to $109.03 per barrel.

The U.S. only relies on the Persian Gulf for a fraction of the oil it imports, but oil is a commodity and prices are set in a global market.

The situation is very different in Asia. Japan, for example, relies on access to the Strait of Hormuz for much of the nation’s oil import needs and would need to rely on alternative routes. But some analysts say Japan and oher nations are counting on an agreement with Iran to allow transports.

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 gained 0.9% in Friday morning trading to 52,938.62. South Korea’s Kospi jumped 2.1% to 5,344.41. The Shanghai Composite sank 0.5% to 3,899.57. Trading was closed in Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Indonesia and India.

Wall Street, where trading is closed Friday, finished its first winning week since the start of the Iran war, although trading started out with a decline driven by a surge in oil prices.

Bangladesh implements austerity measures

Bangladesh is curtailing office hours and enforcing early closure of malls and shops beginning Friday to handle its energy crisis related to the war.

The country’s cabinet ordered 30% spending cuts for fuel and power at government offices, suspended some staff training and stopped purchases of new vehicles, ships and aircraft. Decorative lighting will not be allowed for celebrations.

Bangladesh, a nation of more than 170 million people, is seeking alternative fuel sources and $2.5 billion in external financing for imports, which account for 95% of its fuel.

Australia urges weekend motorists to refuel in cities

Australian Energy Minister Chris Bowen on Friday urged motorists getting away for a long weekend during the Easter holiday to fill up in cities because most of the nation’s fuel shortages are in rural areas.

Among 2,400 gas stations in New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state, 182 had run out of diesel by Friday.

In Australia’s second-most populous state, Victoria, 76 gas stations were out of diesel. In the remaining states ranked by the most populous first, Queensland had 75 stations without diesel, Western Australia had 37, South Australia had 28 and in Tasmania there were seven.

“For those Australians planning a road trip this weekend, given our shortages are predominantly in rural and regional Australia, it makes sense to fill up in the city to help the country if you can,” Bowen said in Sydney.

The government, which blamed regional shortages on panic buying and distribution problems, is concentrating on delivering fuel to farmers for planting crops.

NEW YORK (AP) — Blake Lively’s sexual harassment claims against Justin Baldoni over the movie “It Ends With Us” were dismissed Thursday by a federal judge who left intact three claims, including retaliation, that will let a jury hear many of the allegations anyway.

The written ruling by Judge Lewis J. Liman in Manhattan came after Lively, who starred in and produced the film, sued her co-star and director in December 2024. A trial is scheduled for May 18.

Baldoni and his production company Wayfarer Studios had countersued Lively and her husband, “Deadpool” actor Ryan Reynolds, accusing them of defamation and extortion. The judge dismissed Baldoni’s claims last June.

In his ruling, Liman determined that Lively was an independent contractor rather than an employee. On that basis, he said she was not entitled to bring sexual harassment claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That law prohibits employment discrimination on various grounds, including gender.

As to retaliation, the judge said some evidence might enable a jury to conclude that Baldoni’s production company planned not only to damage Lively’s reputation but to destroy her career amid fear she’d file a discrimination claim. Lively alleges a smear campaign has been “devastating for her reputation and career,” the judge noted.

In an analysis of the sexual harassment claims, the judge said Lively’s claims had to be viewed in the context of the movie they were working on.

“Lively claims that during filming, Baldoni leaned in and gestured as if he was intending to kiss her, and that he kissed her forehead, rubbed his face and mouth against her neck, put his thumb to her mouth and flicked her lower lip, caressed her, and leaned into her neck, saying ‘it smells good,’” the judge wrote.

He said there was no question that the conduct would support a hostile work environment claim if it happened on a factory floor or in an executive suite.

However, the judge noted, Baldoni was “acting in the scene” and his “conduct was not so far beyond what might reasonably be expected to take place between two characters during a slow dancing scene such that an inference of hostile treatment on the basis of sex would arise. At least in isolation, the conduct was directed to Lively’s character rather than to Lively herself.”

Liman added: “Creative artists, no less than comedy room writers, must have some amount of space to experiment within the bounds of an agreed script without fear of being held liable for sexual harassment.”

Despite those findings, the judge said some sexual harassment claims may be put to a jury to support two retaliation claims that survived the ruling, including one against It Ends With Us Movie LLC and Wayfarer Studios, and a third claim that was left intact alleging breach of a contract rider agreement against It Ends With Us Movie LLC.

The judge noted that Baldoni once said “pretty hot” after asking Lively to remove her jacket, exposing a lace bra underneath, and that when he was warned that it was inappropriate and distracting to make such comment, he allegedly rolled his eyes and responded: “Sorry, I missed the sexual harassment training.”

Liman also cited a scene in which Baldoni pushed for Lively to perform a birth scene naked and then the scene was filmed over several hours without the set being closed to nonessential personnel.

In a statement, Lively attorney Sigrid McCawley wrote that Lively “looks forward to testifying at trial and continuing to shine a light on this vicious form of online retaliation so that it become easier to detect and fight.”

She added: “This case has always been and will remain focused on the devasting retaliation and the extraordinary steps the defendants took to destroy Blake Lively’s reputation because she stood up for safety on the set and that is the case that is going to trial.”

A lawyer for Baldoni and his production company did not immediately comment.

“It Ends With Us,” an adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s bestselling 2016 novel that begins as a romance but takes a dark turn into domestic violence, was released in August 2024, exceeding box office expectations with a $50 million debut. But the movie’s release was shrouded by speculation over discord between Lively and Baldoni.

Lively appeared in the 2005 film “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” and the TV series “Gossip Girl” from 2007 to 2012 before starring in films including “The Town” and “The Shallows.”

Baldoni starred in the TV comedy “Jane the Virgin,” directed the 2019 film “Five Feet Apart” and wrote “Man Enough,” a book challenging traditional notions of masculinity.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA’s Artemis II astronauts fired their engines and blazed toward the moon Thursday night, breaking free of the chains that have trapped humanity in shallow laps around Earth in the decades since Apollo.

The so-called translunar ignition came 25 hours after liftoff, putting the three Americans and a Canadian on course for a lunar fly-around early next week. Their Orion capsule bolted out of orbit around Earth right on cue and chased after the moon to nearly 250,000 miles (400,000 kilometers) away.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I am so, so excited to be able to tell you that for the first time since 1972 during Apollo 17, human beings have left Earth orbit,” NASA’s Lori Glaze announced at a news conference.

The engine firing was flawless, she noted.

Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen said he and his crewmates were glued to the capsule’s windows as they left Earth in the rearview mirror, taking in the “phenomenal” views. Their faces were pressed so tightly against the windows that they had to wipe them clean.

“Humanity has once again shown what we are capable of, and it’s your hopes for the future that carry us now on this journey around the moon,” Hansen said.

NASA had the Artemis II crew stick close to home for a day to test their capsule’s life-support systems before clearing them for lunar departure.

Now committed to the moon, the Artemis II test flight is the opening act for NASA’s grand plans for a moon base and sustained lunar living.

Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Hansen will dash past the moon then hang a U-turn and zip straight home without stopping on land. In the process, they will become the farthest humans have ever traveled from Earth, breaking the Apollo 13 distance record set in 1970. They also may become the fastest during their reentry at flight’s end on April 10.

Glover, Koch and Hansen already have made history as the first Black, the first woman and the first non-U.S. citizen to launch to the moon. Apollo’s 24 lunar travelers were all white men.

To set the mood for the day’s main event, Mission Control woke up the crew with John Legend’s “Green Light” featuring Andre 3000 and a medley of NASA teams cheering them. “We are ready to go,” Glover said.

Mission Control gave the final go-ahead minutes before the critical engine firing, telling the astronauts that they were embarking on “humanity’s lunar homecoming arc” to bring them back to Earth. The capsule is relying on the gravity of Earth and the moon — termed a free-return lunar trajectory — to complete the round-trip figure-eight loop. The engine accelerated their capsule to more than 24,000 mph (38,000 kph) to shove them out of Earth’s orbit.

“With this burn to the moon, we do not leave Earth. We choose it,” Koch said.

Flight director Judd Frieling said he and his team were all business while on duty but will likely reflect on the momentousness of it all once they go home. “I suspect everybody understands that this is a once-in-a-lifetime moment,” he told reporters.

The next major milestone will be Monday’s lunar flyby.

Orion will zoom 4,000 miles (6,400 kilometers) beyond the moon before turning back, providing unprecedented and illuminated views of the lunar far side, at least for human eyes. The cosmos will even treat the Artemis II astronauts to a total solar eclipse as the moon temporarily blocks the sun from their perspective.

While awaiting their orbital departure earlier Thursday, the astronauts savored the views of Earth from tens of thousands of miles high. Koch told Mission Control that they can make out the entire coastlines of continents and even the South Pole, her old stomping ground.

NASA is counting on the test flight to kickstart the entire Artemis program and lead to a moon landing by two astronauts in 2028.

The so-called lunar loo may need some design tweaks, however.

Orion’s toilet malfunctioned as soon as the Artemis crew reached orbit Wednesday evening. Mission Control guided astronaut Koch through some plumbing tricks and she finally got it going, but not before having to resort to using contingency urine storage bags.

The urine pouches are serving double duty. Mission Control ordered the crew to fill a bunch of the empty bags with water from the capsule’s dispenser on Thursday. A valve issue arose with the dispenser following liftoff, and NASA wanted plenty of drinking water on hand for the crew in case the problem recurred. The astronauts used straws and syringes to fill the pouches with more than 2 gallons (7 liters) worth before pivoting to the moon.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Charlotte rookie Kon Knueppel set the Hornets’ franchise record for 3-pointers in a season.

Knueppel needed four 3s entering Thursday night’s game against the Phoenix Suns. After missing two wide open looks in the fourth quarter Knueppel finally hit his 261st 3-pointer off an assist from Grant Williams as the home crowd erupted in cheers.

The 20-year-old Knueppel beat the previous franchise mark of 260 3-pointers set by Kemba Walker in 2018-19.

Also in the game, the Suns’ Collin Gillespie set the team’s franchise record for 3-pointers in a season with his 227th basket from long distance, surpassing the mark of 226, set by Quentin Richardson (2004-05).

LELAND, NC (WWAY)– Duke Energy is asking state regulators to approve an increase in electric rates over the next two years — a proposal already drawing strong reactions from customers across North Carolina.

The North Carolina Utilities Commission has been holding both in-person and virtual public hearings, giving residents a chance to weigh in on how the potential hike could impact their monthly bills.

Those meetings come as many homeowners are receiving higher winter energy bills from Duke Energy.

Several people spoke during a recent hearing, and none voiced support for the company’s request. This comes after WWAY recently interviewed one resident who resident and their concern over their energy bills.

“It’s absolutely flabbergasting to me that the bill went up that much,” said Tom Tolby, who questioned his winter heating costs.

Tolby said his bill was $320.14 in December, compared with $647.69 in January — more than double the previous month.

On top of rising bills, Duke Energy is now proposing a rate increase. During a webinar hosted by Utilities Commission Chairman William Brawley, residents also shared their concerns directly with company representatives, including Ladawn Toon.

Deborah Cook, a retired schoolteacher, said about 10% of her retirement income goes toward her electric bill.

“I only have a couple lights on at night, minimal appliance use, and my thermostat is set to 67 degrees in the winter,” Cook said. “I live alone in a 1,300-square-foot townhome. I and many others should not have to carry the burden of this outrageous rate increase.”

In a statement sent to WWAY, Duke Energy explained why the request for an increase in utility rates.

We’re making important investments and upgrades to improve reliability, strengthen the grid against outages from storms, and support North Carolina’s growth even while we do everything we can to keep costs as low as possible for our customers. We’ve added around 150,000 customers over the last two years, primarily residential and commercial customers, which required more than 50,000 poles and 4,000 miles of wire. We’ve installed smart, self-healing technology to automatically restore power outages and reduce outage time. Last year alone, this innovative technology helped avoid around 1.3 million customer outages across the state, saving nearly 3 million hours of total outage time. Self-healing technology now serves nearly 3 million customers in the state, around 2 million more than in 2022.

In the Triad specifically, self-healing technology helped avoid nearly 200,000 customer outages in 2025, saving more 500,000 hours of total outage time. Nearly 90% of customers across the Triad are now served by smart, self-healing technology to help restore outages faster.

“We are building 10 new substations to meet growing energy needs, adding advanced power generation, and have performed thousands of grid improvements in counties all across the state to deliver reliable, resilient service to the communities we serve. All of that takes investment, and we are committed to delivering the reliable service our customers expect from us while also working to keep costs as low as possible.

We’ve worked hard to make our operations more efficient and maximize benefits to customers. For example, we’ve proposed merging our Carolinas utilities in 2027, saving customers more than $1 billion in future costs. We cut the cost of our long-term resource plan in half, saving billions. And we’re saving customers more than $400 million on recovery from major storms like Helene through storm bonds. We’re also returning savings to customers through tax incentives for reliable operation of our nuclear plants and have proposed adding similar benefits for solar and hydro tax credits starting next year. All of these measures help keep costs lower for customers.”

To know more about where the future hearing will be at, head to the North Carolina Utilities Commission’s website to learn more.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ousted the Army’s top uniformed officer and two other generals, the Pentagon said Thursday without giving a reason for the departures while the United States is waging a war against Iran.

Gen. Randy George “will be retiring from his position as the 41st Chief of Staff of the Army effective immediately,” said Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s top spokesman. George has held the post of Army chief of staff, which typically runs for four years, since August 2023 under the Biden administration.

The ouster, reported earlier by CBS News, is just the latest of more than a dozen firings of top generals and admirals by Hegseth since he took office last year. Like many of those other firings, Pentagon officials are not offering a reason for George’s departure, which comes nearly five weeks into U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran and with no clear timeline from President Donald Trump on when the war may end.

Hegseth also has ousted Army Gen. David Hodne and Army Maj. Gen. William Green, according to a Pentagon official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive leadership changes. A reason for their departures also was not given.

General who rose rapidly under Hegseth will fill in

Gen. Christopher LaNeve will be stepping in as acting Army chief of staff, the Pentagon official said. LaNeve was serving as Hegseth’s top military aide when Trump suddenly nominated him to be the Army’s vice chief of staff last October. It is a meteoric rise for an officer who was only a two-star general two years ago.

He would take over for George, who is a graduate of West Point Military Academy and an infantry officer who served in the first Gulf War as well as Iraq and Afghanistan. He also served as Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s top military aide from 2021 to 2022 during the Biden administration before taking on top leadership roles in the Army.

George made it through the initial round of firings under the Trump administration in February 2025, when Hegseth removed top military leaders, including Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the Navy’s top uniformed officer, and Gen. Jim Slife, the No. 2 leader at the Air Force. Trump also fired Gen. Charles “CQ” Brown Jr. as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Since then, more than a dozen other top military generals and admirals have either retired early or been removed from their posts.

Among those departures was George’s deputy, Gen. James Mingus, who was vice chief of staff of the Army for less than two years. LaNeve was nominated to that post after earlier being plucked from commanding the Eighth Army in South Korea after less than a year in the job to be Hegseth’s top military aide.

A spokesman for George could not be reached for comment.

Two other Army generals are fired

Of the other generals who were fired, Hodne had been head of the Army Transformation and Training Command, a unit that was only stood up in December as part of George’s effort to modernize the Army and amid Hegseth’s push to reduce the number of general officers in the military.

Green had been the Army’s chief of chaplains. Hegseth announced two major reforms to the military’s chaplain corps a little over a week ago.

In a video message last week, Hegseth said he wanted chaplains to focus more on God and less on therapeutic “self-help and self-care.” In recent years, the military has become increasingly dependent on chaplains to help address the growing numbers of troops in mental health distress. Hegseth also said chaplains would no longer wear their rank on their uniform but instead would be identified by religious insignia.

The changes come as Iran war grinds on

The leadership shakeup comes as Army paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne division are heading to the Middle East along with thousands of Marines and other assets. The Trump administration has avoided questions about whether or not the U.S. military will deploy ground troops against Iran.

In a prime-time address Wednesday about the war, Trump offered no end date for the conflict and few details on his strategy going forward but did forecast more military action.

“We are going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks,” Trump said of Iran, before adding that “we’re going to bring them back to the Stone Ages where they belong.”

Hegseth echoed that sentiment after the speech, with a post on social media that simply read, “Back to the Stone Age.”

Iran’s mission to the United Nations said on X that Trump’s comment “reflects ignorance, not strength,” noting that Iran’s civilization spans over 7,000 years.

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The North Carolina Supreme Court on Thursday threw out longtime litigation over education funding in the state, a decision that’s likely to keep intact the power to decide how much money to spend and where with the legislature, not judges.

The 4-3 ruling, led by Republican justices on the court, set aside a landmark ruling in 2022 when the court, then with a Democratic majority, ruled that a lower court judge had the authority to order that taxpayer money be directed to state agencies to address longstanding education inequities.

The following year, another trial judge calculated that the state owed $678 million to fulfill two years of an eight-year, multibillion-dollar comprehensive remedial plan in part to improve teacher recruitment and salaries, expand prekindergarten and help students with disabilities.

In Thursday’s ruling, Chief Justice Paul Newby wrote that what started as a modest lawsuit over education spending in one county “became a full-scale, facial assault on the entire educational system enacted by the General Assembly.” Since then, Newby said, judicial actions had gone too far.

When the case expanded “the trial court’s authority to hear the case likewise ceased,” Newby wrote while ordering the school funding litigation be dismissed.

The decision came more than two years after the court heard oral arguments. Republicans who control the General Assembly won’t be obligated to comply with the remedial plan as it writes state budgets, including one for this year that’s now several months late.

Democratic Gov. Josh Stein will have to rely more on persuading lawmakers and using his veto stamp to spend more on his favored education programs and initiatives. Stein was North Carolina’s attorney general when the 2022 ruling was handed down.

“The Supreme Court simply ignored its own established precedent, enabling the General Assembly to continue to deprive another generation of North Carolina students of the education promised by our constitution,” Stein said in a statement Thursday.

Two Democratic justices and one Republican dissented in Thursday’s ruling.

Associate Justice Anita Earls, a Democrat, said the decision seemed more about dealing with how the 2022 decision was reached than what happens to students.

“Allowing the state to escape judicial scrutiny for constitutional rights violations through its behavior during litigation quickly turns constitutional rights into words on paper — morally compelling but functionally useless,” she wrote.

Attention will now turn toward crafting the next state education spending proposal. The General Assembly reconvenes this month. Close to 40% of the state’s more than $30 billion in annual spending to operate government goes to K-12 funding alone.

Republican Senate leader Phil Berger said in a news release that “liberal education special interests have improperly tried to hijack North Carolina’s constitutional funding process in order to impose their policy preferences via judicial fiat. Today’s decision confirms that the proper pathway for policymaking is the legislative process.”

Critics of GOP education spending have pointed in part to taxpayer-funded scholarships for K-12 students to attend private schools as evidence more could be done for public school children.

The litigation began in 1994, when several school districts in low-income areas and families of children sued and accused the state of violating North Carolina’s constitution by not providing adequate education funding.

The case is often referred to as “Leandro” — for the last name of one of the students who sued.

Supreme Court decisions in the case from 1997 and 2004 found the state constitution directs all children must receive the “opportunity to receive a sound basic education,” and that the state remained poorly equipped to comply with that dictate. Many say it’s a problem still unresolved.

“The people paying the price for our leaders’ failure are not abstractions. They are the generations of children in rural communities, past and present, who waited for 30 years for a promise never fulfilled,” Tamika Walker Kelly, president of the North Carolina Association of Educators, said in a news release.

The court’s Democratic majority in 2022 had determined that those Supreme Court decisions along with the constitution’s “right to the privilege of education” and years of inaction by elected officials created an “extraordinary” situation that gave the late Judge David Lee power to order funds be spent without a specific law enacted by the General Assembly.

BRUNSWICK COUNTY, N.C. (WWAY) — The Brunswick County Sheriff’s Office is asking for the public’s help in identifying a person suspected of larceny at an ABC store in Waterford.

According to the Sheriff’s Office, the incident occurred Wednesday.

BCSO released an image of the individual they believe may be connected to the case.

Authorities are urging anyone who recognizes the person or has information that could assist the investigation to contact the Brunswick County Sheriff’s Office at 910-253-2777. Tips can also be submitted by calling 911.

This is an ongoing investigation.

WILMINGTON, N.C. (WWAY) — A familiar face to New Hanover County schools is heading across town.

Laney has hired Hoggard Athletic Director as their new girls basketball coach. Bucs A.D. Fred Lynch announced the selection on social media on Thursday, saying Jones brings “a wealth of experience and knowledge” to Buctown.

Jones replaces Cherry Woodbury, who was let go during the season with Lynch serving as interim head coach for the remainder of it.

The Bucs went 17-10 last season with young players and only two seniors set to graduate.

PENDER COUNTY (WWAY) — Property owners across Pender County say they are frustrated after receiving reappraisal notices showing sharp increases in home values, with some properties doubling or nearly tripling.

The reassessments have sparked concern throughout the community, as many residents worry that higher valuations could lead to rising property taxes and impact affordability.

Among them is Burgaw resident David Miller, who lives on North Dickerson Street in downtown Burgaw. His three-bedroom, two-bath, single-story home was purchased nearly eight years ago.

“It’s a really nice part of town. We don’t have any complaints, got a great view of the old railroad tracks across the street.”

Miller said his reappraisal notice valued his home roughly 300 percent higher than when he bought it. He said the increase raises concerns about whether he — and others — will be able to afford to stay in the area.

“I got hit with this and I’ve only been here 8 years and I enjoy the beaches, I enjoy the area, but the be hit that hard monthly now, with the change in my mortgage, is it a good thing for me to want to move somewhere else and move back out of the area, go further inland where we’re not dealing with this? I don’t want to, I enjoy the area, it’s a nice place, nice town, Eastern North Carolina. Some families got to do what they got to do, and that might be the choice that they have to make.”

Miller isn’t the only in Pender County, as Edmund Truman has a property in Hampstead that also got a new evaluation.

“When I got the reappraisal and saw the amount, I instantly got sick. It felt like I’d been robbed,” said Truman.

Truman says he bought his less than an acre property in 1989 for 11,000 dollars, and throughout the years, he’s had to change his trailer multiple different times due to storm damage.

He says with all that, there won’t be anybody who will want to buy it for that amount.

“I think they’re trying to push regular people out of there,” said Truman.

County officials say the increases are tied to rapid growth and a housing market struggling to keep pace with demand. During a recent presentation to commissioners, appraisal firm Vincent Valuations reported significant changes across the county.

“The overall county-wide change was between 105 and 110 percent increase.”

Some areas saw even steeper jumps. In the small town of Watha, property values increased by about 185 percent — a figure that surprised local leaders, including County Commissioner Jimmy Tate.

“I don’t think the people of Watha, the small municipality of Watha, with what 75 people, knew that they were going to be the highest percent of change here.”

Officials say the surge reflects years of steady growth.

“There’s been 7 years of natural growth.”

Colby Sawyer, the county manager, said the area’s appeal continues to draw new residents.

“A lot of people want to live in Pender County. We have beautiful beaches, we have wide open lands, we have historic towns, we have charming rural areas, a lot of people want to be here.”

Sawyer emphasized that higher property values do not automatically translate into equally large tax increases.

“Your property value does not equal your tax rate, your tax bill. If your property doubled in value, that does not mean that your tax bill is going to double in value. The board sets the tax rate based on the needs of the budget that they approve. The board has expressed an interest and a desire to stay revenue neutral. That means we bring the tax rate down.”

No final decisions have been made. The county manager will propose a budget in the coming months, and the board of commissioners will ultimately determine the tax rate as part of that process.

Property owners who believe their assessed value does not reflect its true market value, may submit an appeal online, or download an appeal form through the county’s webpage.

BURGAW, NC (WWAY) — The U.S. Small Business Administration has named Burgaw-based Mojotone as North Carolina’s Exporter of the Year, recognizing the company’s impact on international trade and continued growth.

Mojotone manufactures components for electric guitars, amplifiers, and sound systems, and builds amplifier cabinets for more than 100 companies worldwide. The honor places the company among the top small businesses in the state, contributing to global commerce.

Chief Executive Officer Michael McWhorter said his passion for music helped shape the business, which he founded 26 years ago after beginning to play guitar in the fifth grade.

“Everybody always says it, but to follow your passion,” McWhorter said. “I was lucky enough to do that and lucky enough that it worked out — that I surrounded myself with positive people and people that were smarter than me … that helped me make that dream come true.”

Mojotone has worked with well-known artists including Rush, Green Day, and ZZ Top.

The recognition comes ahead of National Small Business Week, scheduled for May 3–9, which highlights the role of small businesses in local communities and the broader U.S. economy.