George Cooper

By Erika Mathieu
Vauxhall Advance

There are literally hundreds of iterations of cookies with various spreads as the foundation. Peanut butter, hazelnut, and almond butter spreads make for soft, chewy cookies and are popular with baking bloggers, but this white chocolate and cookie butter cookie is a great way to reinvent the classic speculaas biscuit. The spread was inspired by the Dutch snack which is comprised of white bread, a thick smear of butter, and is topped with speculaas biscuits. If the snack wasn’t eaten right away, the biscuits would soften, especially over the course of the day if it was packed for lunch. Cookie butter mimics this idea by pre-blending the oil and biscuit crumbs with a few other staples.

“Cookie butter” isn’t hard to find, but I opted to make my own (and jar some as gifts for later). Many of the shops in the region carry Dutch imports so it was easy enough to find the main ingredient, speculaas biscuits. The inclusion of spices such as pepper, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, cardamom and nutmeg make the spread work in many applications. I used some speculaas cookies I picked up at Koster’s Bakery in Picture Butte. 

For the cookie butter, I doubled the original recipe by liveeatlearn.com and used my food processor to blend 500 grams of speculaas cookies into a fine crumb, before adding 240ml of water and processing into a paste and then adding 1/4 cup of dark brown sugar, 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, and 3/4 cup (plus 2 tablespoons) of solid coconut oil. Please note, MCT oil or liquid coconut oil will not work in this recipe, as the mixture will not solidify. 

The cookie recipe itself makes 12 jumbo cookies or can be cut in half to make 24 regular size cookies.

CLEVELAND (WJW) - The FOX 8 I-Team has sparked new developments in the case of a man sent to jail for not fixing up a home. Our first report sparked a firestorm and that has led to action.

This week, we uncovered the case of Jeffrey Ivey. Cleveland Housing Court Judge Mona Scott sent him to jail for 90 days for not making repairs to a home on East Boulevard.

"I don't think the crime fits the punishment.” Ivey told us from behind bars.

Father who left baby son in hot car to die is sentenced

Now, Cleveland Councilman Kevin Conwell says he and local ministers are getting involved.

"I want the property taken care of, but he needs to be out," Conwell said.

We’ve reported that Ivey has been ordered to make repairs since 2019. No one lives at that home and the councilman says neighbors have complained.

We often see violent criminals allowed back on your streets, but this led to jail time.

People watching this case have asked how many big landlords actually get punished.

"Got to try to figure out if he sat in jail for 90 days, it’s going to be hard for him to pay to have his property," Councilman Conwell said.

Civil rights attorney Marcus Sidoti is also now stepping up to help.

"We're speaking to Mr. Ivey and we plan on taking this case pro bono," he told the I-Team. "I understand he's trying his best, so we hope to assist him and hope to rectify in hopes he keeps his home and can help out his family."

Ivey has said he struggled to make the repairs ordered by housing court even while working a freelance job and a part-time job.

Toddler killed in stroller canopy: What to know

Cleveland Council President Blaine Griffin says he, too, is going to try and help Ivey. Griffin is checking to see if there are any government programs that can help pay for the home repairs.

PHOENIX (AP) — Rihanna is putting in the work ahead of her Super Bowl halftime show, focusing so hard on what she promises will be "a jam-packed show” that her upcoming birthday and Valentine's Day almost slipped her mind.

“The setlist was the biggest challenge. That was the hardest, hardest part. Deciding how to maximize 13 minutes but also celebrate — that’s what this show is going to be. It’s going to be a celebration of my catalog in the best way that we could have put it together," Rihanna said.

At a media preview Thursday ahead of Sunday's matchup between the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs, the music superstar and new mom said her appearance — her first live event in seven years — feels “like it could have only been now.”

The singer said she was initially unsure about taking on the challenge of performing during a time when she was three months postpartum and wondered “should I be making major decisions like this right now? I might regret this.”

“But when you become a mom, there’s something that just happens where you feel like you can take on the world, you can do anything," Rihanna said. "The Super Bowl is one of the biggest stages of the world. As scary as that was, because I hadn't been on stage in seven years, there’s something exhilarating about the challenge of it all."

A nine-time Grammy Award-winner, Rihanna has 14 No. 1 Billboard Hot 100 hits, including “We Found Love,” “Work,” “Umbrella” and “Disturbia.” She and rapper A$AP Rocky recently welcomed her first child.

“At the end of the day, if it flops or it flies, my name has to stand by that. And so I really get involved with every aspect of anything I do,” she said.

Halftime performance sponsor Apple Music held a moderated event Thursday, but moderator Nadeska Alexis was the only journalist allowed to ask Rihanna questions.

• Blake Shelton Could Have Had Botox On His Forehead
• Shelton Revealed The Slow Start He Had With Stefani

The Voice coach Gwen Stefani has had some drastic changes with her facial appearance throughout the years. Though she denies having anything done, there are many still believe she has. In addition, they believe it may have rubbed off on her husband Blake Shelton.

Blake Shelton Could Have Had Botox On His Forehead

The country music star has been around the block with his more than two decades in the music industry. Shelton is currently 46 years old, and it is only natural that the body shows signs of aging especially when you’re nearing your 50s.

Dr. Richard Westreich, a plastic surgeon, claims Shelton may have gotten Botox on his forehead for The Voice after analyzing images of the singer. Dr. Westreich also claimed that the country singer’s wife may have influenced him into using Botox. Before meeting Stefani, Shelton had visible wrinkles on his forehead.

“It’s highly possible that for a period, Blake was doing a little Botox for The Voice, but only on his forehead,” Dr. Westreich said. “Based on my experience with wives, partners, and aging, Blake may have gotten Botox because Gwen might have made the appointment for him.”

Stefani‘s swollen appearance toward the end of 2022 fueled rumors that she was opting for “tweakments.” These include regular Botox, fillers, and skin tightening operations that are believed to help avoid future and full facelifts. Similar to what other women might do for their husbands, Stefani may have asked her husband to have Botox because she is into her treatments.

• Trusted, accurate, up-to-date.

Since the very public police murder of George Floyd almost three years ago, there have been a lot of talks about what policing is and isn’t — and whether police departments can change.

These conversations aren’t going away, in part because we continue to see tragedies with police departments often at the center. The most recent publicly-discussed event is the police killing of Tyre Nichols, who was beaten by several police officers and later died in a hospital.

In Detroit, police changes have meant doing away with violent units like STRESS, the Big Four and the Gang Squad. It’s also meant ushering in mental health co-responders to address mental health crises.

“I do think that when Mayor (Coleman) Young took office in 1974, that there began to be a period of a lot more accountability and transparency about what was going on, and there was no hesitation of firing officers.” — Jack Kresnack, retired journalist

Listen: How policing has changed in Detroit, and how it hasn’t in the last 60 years.

 

https://wdet.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/DT-20230209-DETROIT-POLICING...

Guests

Danielle McGuire is an adjunct professor at the University of Utah, author, and former professor of history at Wayne State. She says small police units — like STRESS in Detroit or SCORPION in Memphis — target high-crime areas and often terrorize community members before being disbanded for violating a police norm or rule.

“So often they operate with almost complete impunity,” says McGuire, “and outside the norms and rules of any kind of proper training or behavior. And they do it until something horrific happens that becomes public.”

It was one of the great codgers of all time who once uttered the words, I can’t get out of my mind as the Super Bowl approaches.

“Nobody goes there anymore because it’s too crowded,” Yogi Berra once deadpanned. And that’s exactly how I feel about the Super Bowl.

It could be that I myself am falling into codgerdom. I’ve been to more than half of the Super Bowls played – roughly XXVIII of them –- and they stopped being fun about the time Joe Montana threw his last touchdown pass to Jerry Rice.

This is not an editorial on the game mind you. In fact, I think this year’s matchup between the Chiefs and the Eagles is absolutely compelling.

I plan to be right there on the sofa with family and a couple of friends, sipping a Margarita and pontificating on the nuances of a zone blocking scheme while my wife dabs the guacamole dip out of the corners of my mouth.

This is an advantage of not being amongst the maddening crowd at Super Bowl LVII in Glendale, Arizona. And, it’s not the only one.

There will be some 64,000 people at State Farm Stadium on Sunday, roughly 63,994 more than will be on my sofa. This is notable for a few very important reasons:

My sofa is more comfortable, and the six people on it know more about the game they’re watching than 52,395 of the fans in Glendale. You don’t have to stand in line to go to the bathroom at my house. Usually. Traffic in and out of my house is roughly two days faster than trying to extricate oneself from the post-game masses attempting to get to anywhere other than Glendale.

There are no corporate sponsors at my house (although I was hoping that Tostitos might underwrite the guacamole in exchange for a promise to hire a mariachi band at my Chanukah party).

If you’re caught cheating on diesel emissions testing, the punishment is never a one-off. There’s usually a federal civil case, lawsuits filed in states, maybe even criminal charges and, inevitably, plenty of class action challenges. Mercedes-Benz already was was fined $1.5 billion by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Justice and the California Air Resources Board as a result of its 2020 emissions cheating, and now the automaker is facing a group of 336,000 owners in the UK demanding their own compensation.

British law firms are currently working to link claims that could cover a much larger consumer group than the 90,000 Volkswagen owners who collectively received £193 million ($234.5 million) in a May settlement. The allegations are pretty standard, with one of the lawyers representing the owners’ group writing that alleged “affected vehicles would pass regulatory testing, but the devices would ‘turn off or in some cases turn off’ the nitrous oxide (NOx) control systems.” driven in ‘normal’ conditions,’ per The independent.

[Oliver Campbell KC, representing the car owners] said that under EU rules “the use of defeat devices that reduce the effectiveness of emission control systems is generally prohibited” and Mercedes reportedly knew their effect in normal operation was to “produce much higher amounts of NOx than permitted” .

He added that Mercedes was reportedly aware the devices were “illegitimate and could not be justified by the need to protect engine components”.

By Sidney Zacharias on SwimSwam

Fitter and Faster Swim Camps is the proud sponsor of SwimSwam’s College Recruiting Channel and all commitment news. For many, swimming in college is a lifelong dream that is pursued with dedication and determination. Fitter and Faster is proud to honor these athletes and those who supported them on their journey.

Beatrix Tanko from Hungary has announced her verbal commitment to the University of Nebraska, beginning this fall of 2023.

“I would like to express my gratitude to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln swimming coaches, Pablo Morales and Patrick Rowan, the swimming team and academic staff for the opportunity to continue my academic and swimming career as a Husker, starting from fall 2023. Thank you for everyone helping me through my swimming journey which I started when I was 3 months old. GO BIG RED” 

Tanko specializes in sprint freestyle and butterfly. She recently competed at the short course (SCM) Hungarian National Championships in November where she swam the 50m free (25.72), 100m fly (1:01.18), and 100m free (58.50), setting personal bests in all three.

In long course, Tanko has been as fast as a 1:01.13 in the 100m fly, which she recorded at the 2021 Hungarian Age Group Nationals where she finished as the runner-up. This summer, she competed at the 2022 ISF Gymnasiade, where she earned as high as a 6th place finish individually in the 200m free (2:05.86) and contributed to two winning relays for Hungary. 

Top LCM Times:

The latest streetwear fashion trend has hit the market and the Internet doesn’t know how to feel. 

MSCHF, an art collective based out of Brooklyn, N.Y., has created the Big Red Boot. It’s an oversized, bright red boot that has giant proportions. While some people already have access to the boot, the official release is slated for Feb. 16 at a $350 price point. 

Videos of the boots have circulated around the Internet, and the chatter surrounding them has been loud. 

“This is a social experiment,” said @romboozeled. 

“Bro had to relearn how to walk,” replied @theriverafamilyofficial. 

“I want a pair in each color,” said @thewheattoast. 

This isn’t the first time MSCHF has gone viral for their shoes. In 2021, the company was sued by Nike after selling a version of the Air Max 97’s promoted by Lil Nas X without the authorization of Nike. The lawsuit was eventually dropped. 

However, the publicity MSCHF gained from that act is similar to the current moment and how viral the Big Red Boot is. 

MSCHF understands what they did when creating the boot with the shape and design. 

“You never design shoes to be shaped like feet. Big Red Boots are REALLY not shaped like feet, but they are EXTREMELY shaped like boots,” said MSCHF co-founder Daniel Greenberg in an exclusive interview with Highsnobiety.

The boots are purposely designed to be big, but that has caused some issues for some of the people who have put the boots on. 

Release Notes are an essential and important part of releasing software and its inevitable updates.

These notes are communicated to engineering teams, to parties outside of engineering, and to the end users of the software.

But the problem is that Release Notes “require a great deal of effort,” according to a statement from Railtown AI Technologies. Employees waste hours engaging in repetitive activities, pouring through recent tickets and cross-checking them against published release notes to craft an accurate narrative of product changes.

The downtown Vancouver tech firm adds that this process “has become even more time consuming as new software development methodologies like Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment are becoming the standard process in building and releasing software.”

“Release Notes are critical for software companies, as they provide a record of updates and enhancements to a product,” says Marwan Haddad. However, Railtown’s chief technology officer warns writing release notes “can be time-consuming and error-prone, especially for teams that manage multiple products.”

Wouldn’t it make more sense to offload this repetitive work, he wondered, “and have AI instantly draft your release notes instead?”

Railtown AI believes they have modernized the process, creating a “new and much more efficient way to generate a Release Note.” The company achieves this through its artificial intelligence engine, RailNotes, which analyzes completed tickets to create an executive summary in a clear, multi-language business description.

This gives everyone a “clear understanding and meaning behind every new software release, fix, or update,” the company says.