Ketlen Vieira picked up the biggest UFC wins of her career, but it certainly will go down as a controversial one.
Following Vieira’s split decision win over Holly Holm in the main event of UFC Vegas 55, MMA Fighting’s Mike Heck and Alexander K. Lee react to the five-round contest, figure out if Holm was robbed by the judges, talk Michel Pereira’s fifth straight win — this one over Santiago Ponzinibbio in the co-main event — and where he goes, Chidi Njokuani’s ceiling following his vicious standing elbow finish of Dusko Todorovic, Jailton Almeida’s future after a fantastic heavyweight debut in submitting Parker Porter, and other storylines coming out of Saturday’s card at the UFC APEX.
In addition, a reaction to the boxing event that included Floyd Mayweather and Anderson Silva competing in separate exhibition bouts in Abu Dhabi.
Watch the video above, or an audio-only version of the show can be streamed below and on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and wherever else you get your pods.
During a Friday performance on his “From Scratch” tour, comedian John Mulaney surprised his audience — and drew criticism from some fans — when Dave Chappelle appeared as the opener and told transphobic jokes.
Chappelle’s opening set occurred during a show at Ohio State University’s Value City Arena in Columbus, Ohio. Although there is no footage from the event, as attendees were required to lock their phones up beforehand, several audience members took to social media afterwards to criticize the show. According to attendees, Chappelle appeared as a surprise opener, and told jokes targeting the transgender community. Mulaney reportedly came onstage and hugged Chappelle at the conclusion of the opening set. Some fans in the crowd expressed their disappointment after the show on Twitter:
my favorite part of tonight was when dave chappelle ambushed us at the john mulaney show, told a bunch of transphobic jokes, a massive stadium of people laughed, and then john mulaney hugged him at the end
— rylan ☻ (@testosteronejew) May 21, 2022
y’all ever hear ~12,000 people laugh at a transphobic joke, while you’re a trans person in the audience who didn’t know the transphobic comedian would make a surprise appearance at the John Mulaney show? yeah. wasn’t fun. fuck you D.C.
— rae (spookiest version) (@raegan_givant) May 21, 2022
okay so tell me why I just went to the John Mulaney show and Dave Chappelle was a surprise opener and made not only a transphobic joke but a homophobic one
— maddie (@boobeoisie) May 21, 2022
Jokes about the transgender community have been a recent cornerstone of Chappelle’s stand-up. The comedian first drew controversy for anti-trans jokes in Netflix specials such as 2019’s “Sticks and Stones” and the 2021 special “The Closer.” “The Closer,” in particular, faced blowback from groups such as GLAAD and the National Black Justice Coalition for derogatory jokes Chappelle made about trans women, as well as extended bits where he defended previous anti-trans statements from rapper DaBaby and “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling. Earlier this month, after being tackled while performing at a Netflix is a Joke event, Chappelle drew further controversy when he joked that the assailant was a trans man.
Chappelle’s controversial and derogatory statements stand in contrast to Mulaney’s largely uncontroversial material. In his standup, Mulaney tends to stay away from political or social issues, focusing his attention on self-deprecating humor, anecdotes about his personal life and his struggles with alcoholism and addiction.
After Mulaney began trending on Twitter the next day as a result of the surprise Chappelle set, comedians started to react in turn.
I pledge no anti trans weirdo surprise guests on my summer tour.
— Tim Heidecker (@timheidecker) May 21, 2022
dave chappelle wont be dropping in on my shows, if that’s what was stopping you from buying tickets.
— Kyle Kinane (Charlotte NC 6/2-4) (@kylekinane) May 21, 2022
Representatives of Mulaney and Chapelle did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison is asking voters to re-elect his center-right Liberal-National coalition government, after a three-year term dominated by the pandemic, climate disasters, and accusations of dishonesty.
Morrison’s popularity has waned since he defied polls to clinch a “miracle” win over Labor in 2019, and this election is seen as a referendum on his self-confessed “bulldozer” leadership style.
Morrison’s main rival is Anthony Albanese, a Labor Party veteran who inherited the party leadership after his shell-shocked predecessor stepped down following the 2019 election loss.
This time Labor has stripped back its policy offerings to narrow the difference between it and the coalition, though both are facing an unprecedented challenge from “teal” Independents, who are campaigning for more climate action and political integrity.
Backed by the millionaire founder of “Climate 200,” the color teal blends their “blue” Liberal views with “green” beliefs.
The major parties need at least 76 seats to govern outright — any less and they’ll have to negotiate with smaller parties and Independents to secure enough support to form a minority government.
Voting is compulsory and more than 17 million Australians are expected to have cast their vote before polling centers close at 6 p.m. AET (4.00 a.m. ET) on Saturday.
If there’s a clear winner, the outcome could be known within hours — but a close race may take days or even weeks to resolve.
The big issues
Across the country, smoke wafts from barbecues at polling sites as volunteers cook “democracy sausages” wrapped in a slice of bread topped with onions and sauce — a decades-old Australian election tradition.
Volunteers wearing party colors hover nearby, waiting to push “how-to-vote” cards into the hands of anyone they suspect could be undecided.
After leading the polls for weeks, the odds narrowed for a Labor win in the final days before the vote, though public surveys are being approached with caution after the 2019 upset. Then, even bookmakers were caught off guard with SportsBet reportedly losing more than $5 million after paying out a Labor win two days early.
Australian elections are typically a two-horse race between the Liberal-National coalition and the Labor Party — and while their policies seem similar, they are some important distinctions.
The most globally significant is their stance on the climate crisis.
The Morrison government has been called a climate “holdout” by the United Nations Secretary-General after outlining a plan to get to net zero by 2050 by creating massive new gas projects. The government says it backs a transition from coal to renewable energy, but has no plans to stop new coal projects.
Labor says it will cut emissions by 43% by 2030 — higher than the coalition’s target of 26-28%, but less than climate scientists say is needed to keep global temperature rise within 1.5 degrees Celsius, as agreed under the Paris Accord. Climate-focused Independents want emission cuts closer to 60% by 2030 and to disrupt cozy relations between government and the mining industry.
Not much separates the major parties on foreign policy, though Labor says it will rebuild relationships it accuses the coalition of damaging during its term. That includes the French, who Morrison angered by canceling a $90 billion submarine deal in favor of the AUKUS security pact with the United States and the United Kingom. Both the coalition and Labor have vowed to be tough on China, which signed a security deal with the Solomon Islands during the election campaign, leading to claims Canberra had dropped the ball in the Pacific.
Other issues dominating the election include housing affordability, inflation and the cost of living, which aren’t unique to Australia. Morrison says only the coalition can be trusted to manage an economy bruised by the pandemic amid predictions that rising interest rates could inflict more financial pain on over-extended home owners. Meanwhile Labor says it’s the only party who’ll stick up for workers whose wages have stagnated even as inflation rises to a 20-year high.
Why Morrison could go
Morrison stumbled just a few months into his leadership when he made the politically disastrous decision to go on holiday to Hawaii as bushfires tore through the country. He cut his holiday short after two volunteer firefighters died but justified his absence to a radio interviewer with a phrase that has become shorthand for buck-passing: “I don’t hold a hose, mate.”
Months later, when the first case of Covid was found in Australia, Morrison was quick to act. He shut the nation’s borders for two years but was criticized for failing to quickly roll out vaccinations, which critics allege allowed local outbreaks to take hold, forcing major cities to lock down for months. To date, just over 8,000 people have died in Australia from Covid, and around 50,000 new cases are being reported each day.
The Prime Minister has also been attacked for his lack of empathy when dealing with a Liberal staffer who alleged she was raped in parliament, prompting a mass rally in 2021 by Australian women who called on the government to do better. During the pandemic, women’s groups criticized the government’s readiness to rebuild “hard-hat” industries dominated by men, while neglecting sectors that largely employ women — hospitality, the arts — that suffered from extended shutdowns.
Insults have been hurled throughout the election campaign, with Morrison labeling Albanese a “loose unit” after the Labor leader said he’d “absolutely” support a wage rise to keep up with inflation. Morrison turned the mirror back on himself when he admitted during a news conference he could a bit of a “bulldozer” — then vowed he would change. The election result may reveal whether voters believe him.
The big unknown in this election is whether voters will turn their backs on the major parties to vote for smaller parties or Independents. Most of the teal Independents are highly educated women who have turned to politics are becoming frustrated with the “boy’s club” of Canberra politics.
Hanabeth Luke nominated as an independent in the electorate of Page in northern New South Wales after hearing Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce say the government couldn’t cut greenhouse emissions because it would hurt farmers.
“I was enraged,” said Luke, a scientist who teaches climate resilience at Southern Cross University. At the time she was marking students’ assignments about their lived experience of climate change. “Students had me in tears. We’re talking about crops dying in the fields, and then fires burning the crops, and then a flood washing the fields away,” she said.
“The rage that I felt then led me to go, ‘right there’s an election coming up. We can’t allow this government another three years to allow our children’s future to burn.'”
Polling on the Independents is mixed, but Zareh Ghazarian, politics lecturer at Monash University, says some could cause “real damage” to the Liberal Party.
One of the most influential battles is taking place in the Victorian seat of Kooyong, where Monique Ryan, a children’s pediatric neurologist and political newcomer, is seeking to displace Liberal treasurer Josh Frydenberg, who’s considered a future Liberal Party leader.
“If (Independents) were to win their seats, not only does it make the job for the Liberal Party harder to maintain government, but it will also deprive them of potential leadership options in the future,” Ghazarian said. “So it’s a big stakes issue for the coalition.”
Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the conservative activist and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, pressed Arizona lawmakers after the 2020 election to set aside Joe Biden’s popular-vote victory and choose “a clean slate of Electors,” according to emails obtained by The Washington Post.
The emails, sent by Ginni Thomas to a pair of lawmakers on Nov. 9, 2020, argued that legislators needed to intervene because the vote had been marred by fraud. Though she did not mention either candidate by name, the context was clear.
Just days after media organizations called the race for Biden in Arizona and nationwide, Thomas urged the lawmakers to “stand strong in the face of political and media pressure.” She told the lawmakers the responsibility to choose electors was “yours and yours alone” and said they have “power to fight back against fraud.”
Thomas sent the messages via an online platform designed to make it easy to send pre-written form emails to multiple elected officials, according to a review of the emails obtained under the state’s public records law.
The messages show that Thomas, a staunch supporter of Donald Trump, was more deeply involved in the effort to overturn Biden’s win than has been previously reported. In sending the emails, Thomas played a role in the extraordinary scheme to keep Trump in office by substituting the will of legislatures for the will of voters.
Thomas’s actions also underline concerns about potential conflicts of interest that her husband has already faced — and may face in the future — in deciding cases related to attempts to overturn the 2020 election. Those questions intensified in March, when The Post and CBS News obtained text messages that Thomas sent in late 2020 to Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, pressing him to help reverse the election.
The emails were sent to Russell “Rusty” Bowers, a veteran legislatorand speaker of the Arizona House, and Shawnna Bolick, who was first elected to the chamber in 2018 and served on the House elections committee during the 2020 session.
“Article II of the United States Constitution gives you an awesome responsibility: to choose our state’s Electors,” read the Nov. 9email. “… [P]lease take action to ensure that a clean slate of Electors is chosen.”
Thomas’sname also appears on an email to the two representatives on Dec. 13, the day before members of the electoral college met to cast their votes and seal Biden’s victory. “Before you choose your state’s Electors …consider what will happen to the nation we all love if you don’t stand up and lead,” the email said.
It included a link to a video of a man delivering a message meant for swing-state lawmakers, urging themto “put things right” and “not give in to cowardice.”
“You have only hours to act,” said the speaker, who is not identified in the video.
By December, the claim that legislators should override the popular vote in key states and appoint Trump’s electors was also being pushed publicly by John C. Eastman, a former law clerk to Clarence Thomas, and Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer.
Trump allies argued that pandemic-era changes in election administration and supposedly widespread fraud meant that elections had not been conducted in accordance with state legislatures’ directions, and that under the U.S. Constitution the results therefore could be cast aside. Many legal experts have called those arguments unpersuasive and anti-democratic, and no state legislature complied. Efforts to persuade state lawmakers to name new electors are among the issues under examination by the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.
Courts turned back dozens of lawsuits filed by Trump and his allies in an attempt to challenge the 2020 election outcome, and there is no evidence of voting-machine manipulation or other widespread fraud.
Ginni Thomas did not respond to requests for comment.
A spokeswoman for the Supreme Court did not respond to messages seeking comment from Clarence Thomas.
Ginni Thomas has insisted that she and her husband have kept their work separate, but her political activism has set her apart from other Supreme Court spouses. About a decade ago, she and Stephen K. Bannon — who later became chief strategist in the Trump White House— were among the organizers of Groundswell, a group formed to battle liberals and establishment Republicans. Groundswell dedicateditself to “a 30 front war seeking to fundamentally transform the nation,” according to emails uncovered by Mother Jones at the time. “Election integrity” was among the topics discussed in the group’s first months, the emails show.
Thomas’s influence in Washington grew during the Trump presidency as her viewsmoved into the GOP mainstream. Clarence and Ginni Thomas had lunch with Trump at the White House in 2018, then attended a state dinner the following year. Also in 2019, she and fellow right-wing activists attended a White House luncheon, where the New York Times reported that they told Trump his aides were blocking their preferred candidates for administration appointments.
Over those same years, at annual luncheons, Thomas handed out “Impact Awards” to right-wing figures. Recipients have includedMeadows, then a congressman chairing the hard-right Freedom Caucus, Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe and Fox News host Sean Hannity.
Thomas is a member of the Council for National Policy, a network of prominent conservative activists, someof whom helped press claims of election fraud. She recently said she attended the pro-Trump rally at the Ellipse in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021.
Thomas sent the emails via freeroots.com, a website meant to give political organizers an efficient means of conductingemail campaigns. The email address of the sender in Thomas’s emails is displayed as “Ginni Thomas.”
A representative of FreeRoots did not respond to a message seeking comment.
The Nov. 9 email carried the subject line, “Please do your Constitutional duty!” In addition to pushing the lawmakers to appoint legislators, the email asked for a meeting to discuss pursuing an “audit” of the vote.
Under the U.S. Constitution, states appoint presidential electors “in such manner” as the legislatures direct. Historically, some state legislatures appointed electors directly, but in the modern era states have delegated that responsibility to voters. In urging Arizona lawmakers to “choose” electors after Biden had already prevailed, Thomas’s messages claimed lawmakers could intervene in that process.
The records obtained by The Post do not show any response from Bowers, whose refusal to help overturn Biden’s victory in Arizona made him the target of a recall campaign. When Trump’s legal team pressed to replace Biden electors with Trump electors, Bowers released a public statement explaining that they were asking legislators to do something forbidden by state law.
“As a conservative Republican, I don’t like the results of the presidential election. I voted for President Trump and worked hard to reelect him,” it said. “But I cannot and will not entertain a suggestion that we violate current law to change the outcome of a certified election.”
A spokesman for Bowers told The Post that hundreds of thousands of messages were sent to the speaker’s office in the post-election period. “Speaker Bowers did not see, much less read, the vast majority of those messages, including the form email sent by Mrs. Thomas,” said the spokesman, Andrew Wilder.
Bolick is married to Clint Bolick, an associate justice of the Arizona Supreme Court, who worked with Clarence Thomas early in his career and has said he considers the justice a mentor.
Shawnna Bolick wrote back to GinniThomas on Nov. 10, 2020, “I hope you and Clarence are doing great!” She gave Thomas guidance on how to submit complaints about any of her experiences with voter fraud in Arizona.
Bolick, who is now seeking the Republican nomination to be Arizona’s secretary of state, told The Post that she received tens of thousands of emails in the months after the election and responded to Thomas in the same way she responded to everyone else.
Thomas replied: “Fun that this came to you! Just part of our campaign to help states feel America’s eyes!!!”
In the reply, Thomas’s personalemail address is visible, and it matches an address she has used previously, The Post confirmed. Under her message is an unusual tag line that has appeared in other emails that are confirmed to have been sent by Thomas, including in 2021 to the staff of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R): “Sent from Ginni’s iPhone, a by-product of entrepreneurial free market capitalism. Competition, hard work, innovations and lack of government interference make great things possible! God bless America!”
Thomas was then serving on the board of CNP Action, the political advocacy arm of the Council for National Policy. CNP Action was using its influence in Republican circles at the time to try to keep Trump in office. On Nov. 13, 2020, CNP Action held a workshop entitled “Election Results and Legal Battles: What Now?” featuring, among other speakers, Cleta Mitchell, according to an agenda obtained and published by theleft-leaning watchdog group Center for Media and Democracy. Mitchell, a lawyer, assisted Trump in his efforts to overturn Biden’s victory in Georgia.
After that workshop, the group circulated guidance to focus efforts on legislators in Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona. “Demand that they not abandon their Constitutional responsibilities at a time such as this,” read the guidance, which was also first published by the Center for Media and Democracy. It said to push for new electors “in states where constitutional rights have been violated and evidence of substantial fraud has been established.”
The guidance advised visiting the website everylegalvote.com “to report fraud and take action.”
Visitors to the site could click a button and be taken to freeroots.com, according to webpages preserved by the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.That landing page urged visitors to press the “take action” button to “email every swing House and Senate leader in one easy click.”
Because that landing page is no longer online,it is no longer possible to click through on the link. But language in Thomas’s first email aligns closely with language that appears in a preview when a FreeRoots link that was archived several days after that emailis shared on messaging platforms.
The site everylegalvote.com initially said that it was produced in partnership with United in Purpose, a nonprofit group known for gathering and deploying data to galvanize conservativeChristian voters. That organization has hosted the luncheons where Thomas presents her “Impact Awards.”
But the reference to United in Purpose was deletedwithin days. It was replaced with language identifying three “Founding Sponsors”: the Texas security firm Allied Security Operations Group, the Texas nonprofit group Liberty Center for God and Country and the online talk show “Economic War Room.”
Representatives of United in Purpose and the three sponsors of everylegalvote.com did not respond to messages seeking comment. All three sponsors have promoted election-fraud claims, according to previous Post reports.
In the month after the election, the Trump campaign and other Republicans filed dozens of lawsuits challenging the outcome. By early December, Eastman and Giuliani were telling lawmakers in key swing states won by Biden that they had the authority and even the obligation to disregard the vote and select their own electors.
“Your argument is that essentially we have a failed election that would require the legislature to step in and assign electors. Am I correct?” a Georgia senator asked Eastman during a Dec. 3 hearing.
The Dec. 13 emails repeated the claim that legislators could “choose” electors.
“As state lawmakers, you have the Constitutional power and authority to protect the integrity of our elections — and we need you to exercise that power now!” the email said. “Never before in our nation’s history have our elections been so threatened by fraud and unconstitutional procedures.”
The two-minute video it linked to,titled “A Word To Heroic Legislators,”has since been removed from YouTube for violating community guidelines. The video’s Web address, which is visible in the email, was included in a December 2020 newsletter written by activist Geoffrey Botkin, who appears to be the person featured in the video.
Botkin, who has published numerous podcasts and videos about the election and other matters, wrote in the newsletter that he had uploaded “A Word To Heroic Legislators” to another video hosting service. The video remains visible there.
“I’m asking you to stand up and lead heroically,” Botkin says in the video,urging lawmakers to appoint electors.
“We have to admit, legally and politically it’s way too late for other people to do it. Clever lawyers or the Supreme Court, they cannot now come to the rescue,” he continues. “This is a moment, a unique moment in American history, demanding that state legislators set America back on her foundations by using a power that you may never have known that you had — but you do have it.”
Botkin did not respond to a message seeking comment.
The video link and some of the language in the email match language that appears in an archived version of the landing page for a freeroots.com email campaign organized by Act for America, a group that has accused U.S. Muslim organizations of supporting terrorism and of trying to impose Islamic law across the country.
A representative of Act for America did not respond to requests for comment.
On Dec. 14, 2020, Biden electors in Arizona cast their votes, after the election results were certified by Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs and Republican Gov. Doug Ducey. On that same day, Bolick was among dozens of Arizona lawmakers who signed on to a letter to Congress calling for the state’s electoral votes to go to Trumpor “be nullified completely until a full forensic audit can be conducted.”
Bolick told The Post she signed on to that effort because she backed the idea of an audit, not because of any communication she received from Thomas.
Jacqueline Alemany and Alice Crites contributed to this report.
A photo taken in Bucha in April showed a group of Ukrainian men who appeared to have been executed.
A NYT investigation showed the men were in custody of Russian troops before apparently being killed.
A video showed the Ukrainian captives being marched in a single file and flanked by Russian troops.
Videos from Bucha, Ukraine, appeared to show a group of Ukrainian captives being led at gunpoint by Russian troops moments before they were executed.
The videos, obtained and verified by The New York Times, were taken on March 4 by a security camera and a civilian who witnessed the ordeal.
The security camera footage showed a group of nine Ukrainians hunched over, holding the pants of the person in front of them and some with their hands placed over their heads, crossing a street in a single file. Two Russian soldiers with guns can be seen at the front and back of the group, directing the line.
Eight witnesses told The Times the captives were then taken behind an office building, gunshots were heard, and the group did not reappear.
Additional drone footage obtained by The Times confirmed the witness accounts, showing the groups’ bodies beside an office building as Russian soldiers stood over them.
The videos were not independently verified by Insider.
The group of apparently executed men from the videos were also seen in a photo taken April 3. The Times said its investigation, published Thursday, uncovered the “clearest evidence yet” that Russian forces intentionally executed the group, “directly implicating these forces in a likely war crime.”
Reports of atrocities and executions poured out of Bucha, a suburb of Kyiv, after Russian forces began retreating in late March. Stories and images from Bucha fueled international calls for a war crimes trial against Russia.
Russian officials have repeatedly dismissed reports of atrocities committed in Bucha, calling them “fake.”
A Swedish soldier takes part in exercises on May 17, 2022. Her country, along with Finland, now wants to join NATO.
Jonathan Nackstrand | Afp | Getty Images
Russia has become increasingly isolated from the rest of Europe over the last 30 years, and maps of the continent illustrate just how drastic the change has been.
Finland and Sweden this week announced their intention to join the NATO military alliance, ending a decades-long history of military neutrality for both countries. Their plans came about after Russia invaded Ukraine in late February — allegedly to stop it from joining NATO.
Russia first attacked Ukraine in 2014, after a civilian uprising ejected a pro-Russia leader from the country. Ukraine sought military training and assistance from Western countries afterward but had not been admitted to NATO.
Countries in NATO are bound by treaty to defend each other. Like Ukraine, Finland shares a long border with Russia.
Europe in 1990
In 1990, the year after the Berlin Wall fell, the Russia-dominated Soviet Union included Ukraine, the Baltic states and several other now-independent countries. The Warsaw Pact, an alliance also dominated by Russia, included six satellite countries that are all now independent as well.
In 1990, the year after the Berlin Wall fell, Russia dominated the Soviet Union and six allied Warsaw Pact countries.
Bryn Bache | CNBC
Europe in 2022
Over the last 32 years, Germany has reunified and all the former Warsaw Pact countries have joined NATO. Three countries that were once part of the Soviet Union — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — have joined NATO as well.
As of 2022, NATO has expanded to let in three former Soviet states and all of the former Warsaw Pact countries.
Bryn Bache | CNBC
Though Sweden and Finland want to join their Nordic neighbors in NATO, admission could take many months or be blocked entirely.
Turkey, a NATO member since 1952, objects to the two countries’ admission, calling Scandinavian countries “guesthouses for terrorist organizations.”
Exclusive photos show the family of a teenager who died in a freak sand hole collapse on the Jersey Shore having fun in the sun just moments before tragedy struck.
The last known images of the Caverly family appear to show Levi, 18, digging the deep pit with his 17-year-old sister as their parents, Angela and Todd, watched at Toms River’s Ocean Beach 3, according to a beach-goer who snapped the shot.
“They were digging so frigging deep. We’ve had storms and everything was wet, so the sand was firm. It wasn’t hard to dig that deep. I’d say by 12:30 p.m., you couldn’t even see them, they were so deep,” the beach-goer told The Post.
The witness said she accidentally captured the family in the background of a photo she shot of her husband around 12:50 p.m. Tuesday — just hours before the sand caved in on the teens, killing Levi and burying his sister up to her neck, according to police and witnesses.
The woman who took the shot said she got a bad feeling about the teens digging, and considered warning the family of the danger.
A witness said Levi Caverly and his sister were digging a very deep hole before the sand collapsed. Handout
“I said to my husband, ‘I’d better go over there,’” she said.
The beach-goer, who asked not to be named, decided not to intervene — but later realized something was terribly wrong when she saw first responders arriving.
“At around 3:45 p.m., there were helicopters, fire engines. I came running over,” she said, adding: “These are the last family pictures, timestamped 12:49.”
The woman said she can’t get the tragedy out of her mind.
“I couldn’t sleep last night. I know better. I’m the kind of person who gets a premonition, and I knew something wasn’t right about this hole,” she said. “I was bothered by it, and in hindsight I should have walked over here and said, ‘You’ve got to watch it. Don’t dig.’ That’s why there’s a lot of guilt.”
The witness said she captured the family in the background of a photo she was taking of her husband. Handout
Another witness told The Post Wednesday that she assumed someone had drowned when she saw the number of cops rushing toward the shoreline.
“We got to the beach and said, ‘Oh no, somebody drowned.’ And then I saw all the shovels and everybody was going crazy,” said Frankie Graziano, 52, who was walking dogs with her sister.
She watched the father of the teens’ “agonized” facial expression as dozens of first responders tried to dig out his kids from the hole, which fire officials said was 10 feet deep.
Levi Caverly was killed when the sand hole collapsed. Facebook / Levi Caverly
“The hole was so deep that you could hardly see the men who were digging. The men were meticulously handing off buckets of sand in a row in a bucket brigade to get it away from the hole. I heard them say, ‘We’ve located him.’ He was obviously deceased because he’d been in there too long,” she said.
“I saw the dad, too. I saw his face. I could recognize the agony in it. My heart bleeds for him, because one day your life is whole and the next day it’s broken. And the guilt that goes along with it — I’m sure they’ll never be the same again,” she said.
The Caverly family, from Union, Maine, was on vacation when the freak accident unfolded, Toms River police said.
Levi’s 17-year-old sister was trapped in the pit but was ultimately rescued and taken to the hospital. Steve White for the New York Post
The siblings had spent hours digging the hole with Frisbees before it collapsed, according to police and other sources. It took first responders more than 2 1/2 hours to dig out Levi and his sister, who was treated for injuries at the scene, according to police.
Maggie Peterson, an actress who made a lasting impression as the sweet-natured, occasionally flirtatious mountain girl Charlene Darling on The Andy Griffith Show in the 1960s, died May 15 in Colorado, her family has announced.
“It is with great sorrow that we report that our dear Aunt Maggie died yesterday afternoon,” the family posted on Facebook today. “She passed peacefully in her sleep with her family present.”
Hollywood & Media Deaths In 2022: Photo Gallery
Although she appeared on only five episodes of the classic rural sitcom in the Charlene role, Peterson was among the show’s most familiar and memorable recurring cast members, often joining her onscreen family The Darlings (played by real-life bluegrass group The Dillards, along with actor Denver Pyle as patriarch Briscoe Darling) in singalongs.
Peterson developed a catchphrase with her repeated entreaties about the sentimental impact of outrageously titled song suggestions, as in an the following exchange with Pyle’s character:
Briscoe: “How ’bout ‘Don’t Hit Your Grandma with a Great Big Stick’?”
Charlene: “No, Paw! That one makes me cry!”
Other songs that made Charlene cry: “Slimy River Bottom,” “Boil that Cabbage Down” and “Keep Your Money in Your Shoes and It Won’t Get Wet.”
In one episode, Peterson’s Charlene was betrothed, by mountain custom, to an unwitting Sheriff Andy Taylor (Griffith), while in a later episode it was Charlene’s infant daughter who was betrothed to Andy’s young son Opie (Ron Howard).
With her appearances as Charlene from 1963-66, Peterson became a de facto member of Griffith’s unofficial repertory of actors, returning to the sitcom and its spinoffs Gomer Pyle: USMC and Mayberry R.F.D. as other characters. She also appeared in the 1969 feature films Angel in My Pocket (starring Griffith) and The Love God? (starring Griffith regular Don Knotts). She returned to the Mayberry universe in 1986, reprising her Charlene role in the TV reunion movie Return to Mayberry.
Peterson, who occasionally used her married name Maggie Mancuso, also appeared in The Bill Dana Show — like Griffith, a spinoff of The Danny Thomas Show —Love, American Style, Green Acres and The Odd Couple, and the 1969 feature The Over-the-Hill Gang. She retired from acting following a 1987 role on The Magical World of Disney and subsequently worked for worked for the Nevada Film Commission
Peterson, who lived in Las Vegas, recently lost her husband of more than 40 years, the jazz musician Gus Mancuso, who died in December. “Maggie’s health took a turn for the worse after the death of her husband Gus,” the family wrote, “and we are relieved that we were able to move her home to be close to family for her last days.”
A Colorado native, Peterson began her show business career in the 1950s as a singer, performing with a family vocal group called the Ja-Da Quartet. The group was noticed at a record convention by Griffith’s manager Dick Linke. Peterson’s vocal skills later were utilized on the Griffith show, when Darlene would join in the family singalongs, most notably with her rendition of the bluegrass standard “Salty Dog.”
Peterson often took part in Mayberry fan club events, with her family writing to fans today: “Despite being in Las Vegas and away from her family, your love and devotion helped her to not feel alone. She made many mentions to us about how she couldn’t believe how generous you all were. You truly made a positive impact on her life and helped her during some very difficult times…We hope that during this difficult time you can find solace in knowing how important you were for making the end of Maggie’s life much better.”
Majority not yet clear, final results expected later on Monday
Saudi-aligned Lebanese Forces gains ground
Parliament more fragmented, clearing way for deadlock
BEIRUT, May 16 (Reuters) – Iran-backed Hezbollah has been dealt a blow in Lebanon’s parliamentary election with preliminary results showing losses for some of its oldest allies and the Saudi-aligned Lebanese Forces party declaring significant gains.
With votes still being counted, the final results have yet to emerge for the first election since Lebanon’s devastating economic meltdown and a huge port explosion in 2020 that shattered Beirut.
The heavily armed Shi’ite Muslim group Hezbollah and its allies won 71 of parliament’s 128 seats when Lebanon last voted in 2018, but whether they can cling on to a majority hinges on results not yet finalised – including Sunni Muslim seats.
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Results declared point to a more fragmented parliament sharply polarised between allies and opponents of Hezbollah, an outcome analysts said could lead to deadlock as factions hash out a powersharing deal over top state positions.
“If the deals of the past are dead, what kind of politics do we have apart from more sectarian tensions and a replay of some of the clashes we have seen?” said Mohanad Hage Ali of the Carnegie Middle East Center.
While the 2018 vote pulled Lebanon deeper into the orbit of Shi’ite Muslim-led Iran, this result could open the door for Sunni Muslim-led Saudi Arabia to exercise greater sway in a country that has long been an arena of its rivalry with Tehran, he added.
In one of the most startling upsets, Hezbollah-allied Druze politician Talal Arslan, scion of one of Lebanon’s oldest political dynasties who was first elected in 1992, lost his seat to Mark Daou, a newcomer running on a reform agenda, according to the latter’s campaign manager and a Hezbollah official.
Initial results also indicated wins for at least five other independents who have campaigned to reform and bring to account politicians blamed for steering Lebanon into the worst crisis since its 1975-90 civil war.
“MAJOR BLOW”
Gains reported by the Lebanese Forces (LF), which is vehemently opposed to Hezbollah, mean it would overtake the Hezbollah-allied Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) as the biggest Christian party in parliament.
The LF won at least 20 seats, up from 15 in 2018, said the head of its press office, Antoinette Geagea.
The FPM had won up to 16 seats, down from 18 in 2018, Sayed Younes, the head of its electoral machine, told Reuters.
Supporters carry Hezbollah and Amal Movement flags as they ride in a convoy past a poster depicting Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and Head of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc Mohamed Raad, as votes are being counted in Lebanon’s parliamentary election, in Nabatiyeh, southern Lebanon May 15, 2022. REUTERS/Issam Abdallah
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The FPM has been the biggest Christian party in parliament since its founder, President Michel Aoun, returned from exile in 2005 in France. Aoun and LF leader Samir Geagea were civil war adversaries.
The LF, established as a militia during Lebanon’s 15-year civil war, has repeatedly called for Hezbollah to give up its arsenal.
“Hezbollah’s Christian allies have lost the claim to represent the majority of Christians,” said Hage Ali, describing it as a “major blow” to the Shi’ite group’s claim of having cross-sectarian support for its powerful arsenal.
Hezbollah and its ally, the Amal Movement of Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, maintained their dominance of Shi’ite Muslim representation, winning all the seats set reserved for their sect, according preliminary numbers from the two parties.
It remains to be seen whether Hezbollah’s allies scooped up seats left empty by the withdrawal of leading Sunni politician Saad al-Hariri, particularly in Beirut and northern Lebanon.
The next parliament must elect a speaker – a post held by Berri since 1992 – before nominating a prime minister to form a cabinet. Later this year, lawmakers are due to elect a president to replace Aoun, whose term ends on Oct. 31.
Any delay in the cabinet formation – a process that can take months – would spell further delay to reforms needed to tackle the economic crisis and unlock support from the International Monetary Fund and donor nations.
An opposition candidate also made a breakthrough in an area of southern Lebanon dominated by Hezbollah.
Elias Jradi, an eye doctor, won an Orthodox Christian seat previously held by Assaad Hardan of the Syrian Socialist Nationalist Party, a close Hezbollah ally and MP since 1992, two Hezbollah officials said.
“It’s a new beginning for the south and for Lebanon as a whole,” Jradi told Reuters.
Nadim Houry, executive director of Arab Reform Initiative, said the results of 14 or 15 seats would determine the majority.
“You are going to have two blocs opposed to each other – on the one hand Hezbollah and its allies, and on the other the Lebanese Forces and its allies, and in the middle these new voices that will enter,” he said.
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Reporting by Laila Bassam, Timour Azhari, Maya Gebeily and Tom Perry; Additional reporting by Lina Najem; Writing by Tom Perry and Maya Gebeily; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Ed Osmond
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
