Thursday, July 10th, 2025 By News Release Maui County News Release Registration for the 2025 Molokai Youth Basketball leagues have already started July 1. All keiki ages 8 and 9, 10 and 11 are welcome to register. Registration is free, and will last until July 31. The Kaunakakai Gymnasium will be the venue for the […]
Registration for the 2025 Molokai Youth Basketball leagues have already started July 1.
All keiki ages 8 and 9, 10 and 11 are welcome to register. Registration is free, and will last until July 31.
The Kaunakakai Gymnasium will be the venue for the youth basketball leagues. The season goes from Aug. 4 to Oct. 2.
To register your keiki, visit the Molokai Parks and Recreation office at the Kaunakakai Gymnasium. For more information, contact Melveena Starkey at (808) 553-5141 or Melveena.Starkey@co.maui.hi.us.
MONTICELLO, NY — The Sullivan County Youth Bureau is accepting grant applications from organizations serving children and youth under the age of 21 within Sullivan County. Organizations who would like to be considered for funding must submit completed applications by Friday, August 22. “The New York State Office of Children and Family Services provides funding […]
MONTICELLO, NY — The Sullivan County Youth Bureau is accepting grant applications from organizations serving children and youth under the age of 21 within Sullivan County. Organizations who would like to be considered for funding must submit completed applications by Friday, August 22.
“The New York State Office of Children and Family Services provides funding to the Youth Bureau for programs focused on youth development in these three funding areas: Youth Development, Sports Education Opportunity Funding and Youth Team Sports,” explained Youth Bureau Manager Catherine Paci. “I encourage everyone to visit our page at www.sullivanny.gov to learn which one will best meet the needs of their programs.”
Youth Development Programs: Applications for this funding are encouraged to focus on programming that includes, but is not limited to, citizenship/civic engagement, community, economic security, physical and emotional health, education, safe harbor/anti-trafficking, and family supports.
Youth Sports Education Opportunity Funding: Applications for this funding are focused on organized activities that encourage movement, including physical fitness activities such as yoga, hiking, dance and active outdoor pursuits for youth ages 6 through 17.
Youth Team Sports: Applications for this funding are focused on organized sport activities in under-resourced areas for youth under the age of 18.
Eligible applicants include private nonprofit organizations, schools and municipalities. Applications and additional descriptions of requirements for each funding source can be found at www.sullivanny.gov/Departments/Youthbureau.
All applications must be submitted with original signatures either in person at the Youth Bureau (Government Center’s first floor, 100 North Street, Monticello) or by mail to the Sullivan County Youth Bureau, 100 North Street, Monticello, NY 12701, Attn: Cathie Paci.
Questions may be submitted to Paci at catherine.paci@sullivanny.gov or by calling 845/807-0394.
Youth Outdoor Activity Day at Alexandria Shooting Park set for Aug. 24 – Alexandria Echo Press
ALEXANDRIA — The annual Youth Outdoor Activity Day at the Alexandria Shooting Park is set to run from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 24, 2025. The event is free admission and features over 45 activities, including archery, a climbing tower, fishing, and a scavenger hunt. The event also includes free t-shirts and […]
— The annual Youth Outdoor Activity Day at the Alexandria Shooting Park is set to run from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 24, 2025.
The event is free admission and features over 45 activities, including archery, a climbing tower, fishing, and a scavenger hunt.
The event also includes free t-shirts and a free lunch. Items such as slingshots, rods and reels, duck calls, binoculars, and tomahawks will be given away.
Sam Stuve covers a variety of sports in the Douglas County area. Sam is a December 2021 graduate from Iowa State University. Sam joined the Echo Press in January 2022 and became the Sports and Outdoors Editor in February 2023.
States rethink a long-held practice of setting speed limits based on how fast drivers travel
(AP) – Rose Hammond pushed authorities for years to lower the 55 mph speed limit on a two-lane road that passes her assisted living community, a church, two schools and a busy park that hosts numerous youth sports leagues. “What are you waiting for, somebody to get killed?” the 85-year-old chided officials in northwest Ohio, […]
(AP) – Rose Hammond pushed authorities for years to lower the 55 mph speed limit on a two-lane road that passes her assisted living community, a church, two schools and a busy park that hosts numerous youth sports leagues.
“What are you waiting for, somebody to get killed?” the 85-year-old chided officials in northwest Ohio, complaining that nothing was being done about the motorcycles that race by almost daily.
Amid growing public pressure, Sylvania Township asked county engineers in March to analyze whether Mitchaw Road’s posted speed is too high. The surprising answer: Technically, it’s 5 mph too low.
The reason dates back to studies on rural roads from the 1930s and 1940s that still play an outsized role in the way speed limits are set across the U.S. — even in urban areas.
Born from that research was a widely accepted concept known as the 85% rule, which suggests a road’s posted speed should be tied to the 15th-fastest vehicle out of every 100 traveling it in free-flowing traffic, rounded to the nearest 5 mph increment.
But after decades of closely following the rule, some states — with a nudge from the federal government — are seeking to modify if not replace it when setting guidelines for how local engineers should decide what speed limit to post.
Drivers set the speed
The concept assumes that a road’s safest speed is the one most vehicles travel — neither too high nor too low. If drivers think the speed limit should be raised, they can simply step on the gas and “vote with their feet,” as an old brochure from the Institute of Transportation Engineers once put it.
“The problem with this approach is it creates this feedback loop,” said Jenny O’Connell, director of member programs for the National Association of City Transportation Officials. “People speed, and then the speed limits will be ratcheted up to match that speed.”
The association developed an alternative to the 85% rule known as “City Limits,” which aims to minimize the risk of injuries for all road users by setting the speed limit based on a formula that factors in a street’s activity level and the likelihood of conflicts, such as collisions.
The report points out the 85% rule is based on dated research and that “these historic roads are a far cry from the vibrant streets and arterials that typify city streets today.”
Amid a recent spike in road deaths across the country, the Federal Highway Administration sent a subtle but important message to states that the 85% rule isn’t actually a rule at all and was carrying too much weight in determining local speed limits. In its first update since 2009 to a manual that establishes national guidelines for traffic signs, the agency clarified that communities should also consider such things as how the road is used, the risk to pedestrians, and the frequency of crashes.
Leah Shahum, who directs the Vision Zero Network, a nonprofit advocating for street safety, said she wishes the manual had gone further in downplaying the 85% rule but acknowledges the change has already impacted the way some states set speed limits. Others, however, are still clinging to the simplicity and familiarity of the longstanding approach, she said.
“The 85th percentile should not be the Holy Grail or the Bible, and yet over and over again it is accepted as that,” Shahum said.
Rethinking the need for speed
Under its “20 is Plenty” campaign, the Wisconsin capital of Madison has been changing signs across the city this summer, lowering the speed limit from 25 mph to 20 mph on local residential streets.
When Seattle took a similar step in a pilot program seven years ago, not only did it see a noticeable decline in serious injury crashes but also a 7% drop in the 85th percentile speed, according to the Vision Zero Network.
California embraces the 85% rule even more than most states as its basis for setting speed limits. But legislators have loosened the restrictions on local governments a bit in recent years, allowing them to depart from the guidelines if they can cite a proven safety need. Advocates for pedestrians and bicyclists say the change helps, but is not enough.
“We still have a long way to go in California in terms of putting value on all road users,” said Kendra Ramsey, executive director of the California Bicycle Coalition. “There’s still a very heavy mindset that automobiles are the primary method of travel and they should be given priority and reverence.”
But Jay Beeber, executive director for policy at the National Motorists Association, an advocacy organization for drivers, said following the 85% rule is usually the safest way to minimize the variation in speed between drivers who abide by the posted limit and those who far exceed it.
“It doesn’t really matter what number you put on a sign,” Beeber said. “The average driver drives the nature of the roadway. It would be patently unfair for a government to build a road to encourage people to drive 45 mph, put a 30 mph speed limit on it, and then ticket everyone for doing what they built the road to do.”
80 is the new 55
Fears about oil prices prompted Congress in the 1970s to set a 55 mph national maximum speed limit, which it later relaxed to 65 mph before repealing the law in 1995 and handing the authority to states. Since then, speed limits have kept climbing, with North Dakota this summer becoming the ninth state to allow drivers to go 80 mph on some stretches of highway. There’s even a 40-mile segment in Texas between Austin and San Antonio where 85 mph is allowed.
Although high-speed freeways outside major population centers aren’t the focus of most efforts to ease the 85% rule, a 2019 study from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety — a research arm funded by auto insurers — illustrates the risks. Every 5 mph increase to a state’s maximum speed limit increases the chance of fatalities by 8.5% on interstate highways and 2.8% on other roads, the study found.
“Maybe back when you were driving a Model T you had a real feel for how fast you were going, but in modern vehicles you don’t have a sense of what 80 mph is. You’re in a cocoon,” said Chuck Farmer, the institute’s vice president for research, who conducted the study.
A town’s attempt at change
If elected officials in Sylvania Township, Ohio, got their way, Mitchaw Road’s posted speed limit would be cut dramatically — from 55 mph to 40 mph or lower. The county’s finding that the 85% rule actually calls for raising it to 60 mph surprised the town’s leaders, but not the engineers who ran the study.
“If we don’t make decisions based on data, it’s very difficult to make good decisions,” Lucas County Engineer Mike Pniewski said.
For now, the speed limit will remain as it is. That’s because Ohio law sets maximum speeds for 15 different types of roadways, regardless of what the 85% rule suggests.
And Ohio’s guidelines are evolving. The state now gives more consideration to roadway context and allows cities to reduce speed limits based on the lower standard of the 50th percentile speed when there’s a large presence of pedestrians and bicyclists. Authorities there recently hired a consultant to consider additional modifications based on what other states are doing.
“States have very slowly started to move away from the 85th percentile as being kind of the gold standard for decision-making,” said Michelle May, who manages Ohio’s highway safety program. “People are traveling and living differently than they did 40 years ago, and we want to put safety more at the focus.”
It’s unclear whether any of these changes will ultimately impact the posted speed on Mitchaw Road. After years of futile calls and emails to state, county and township officials, Hammond says she isn’t holding her breath.
“I just get so discouraged,” she said.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Child porn plea brings 78-month federal prison term for former youth sports coach in Pulaski County
Dale Ellis Dale Ellis covers the federal courthouse beat for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, reporting on criminal and civil matters that impact Arkansans. He joined the newspaper in January 2018, working from the Pine Bluff bureau before taking up his current beat in January 2021. Dale started in news in 1998 at the Heber Springs Sun-Times […]
Dale Ellis covers the federal courthouse beat for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, reporting on criminal and civil matters that impact Arkansans. He joined the newspaper in January 2018, working from the Pine Bluff bureau before taking up his current beat in January 2021. Dale started in news in 1998 at the Heber Springs Sun-Times where he was a reporter and columnist. He has also worked at the Searcy Daily Citizen as managing editor and at the Wynne Progress as managing editor. Dale has state government, education, radio and television experience as well.
Part of Dewey dubbed Joyner Lucas Ave. on Worcester rapper’s birthday
WORCESTER — Dewey Street was the site of much celebration the afternoon of Sunday, Aug. 17 as the City of Worcester officially dubbed a section of the street “Joyner Lucas Avenue,” after the Grammy-nominated rapper who grew up making music there. More than 200 people gathered at the intersection of Dewey and Chandler streets to […]
WORCESTER — Dewey Street was the site of much celebration the afternoon of Sunday, Aug. 17 as the City of Worcester officially dubbed a section of the street “Joyner Lucas Avenue,” after the Grammy-nominated rapper who grew up making music there.
More than 200 people gathered at the intersection of Dewey and Chandler streets to watch the unveiling of the new street sign and hear from Lucas himself, who happened to be turning 37 years old Sunday, Aug. 17.
“This is the best birthday gift I could ever ask for,” Lucas said.
At one point, a small child shouted out, “Happy birthday, Joyner Lucas,” to a huge cheer from the rest of the crowd.
Lucas was joined on the microphone by friends, relatives, City Councilors Khrystian E. King and Luis Ojeda, and Mayor Joseph M. Petty, who praised Lucas as, “born and raised right here in the city of Worcester…never forgotten his roots, a very strong advocate for ADHD and depression and against drug use.”
In an Aug. 14 email to the Telegram & Gazette, Lucas wrote that he learned of the Dewey Street honor very recently and that the news came as a pleasant shock.
“Usually, it takes for someone to die before they consider renaming a street someone’s name. That person would have had to have a huge impact and have a different type of importance to that state or city,” Lucas wrote. “The feeling I felt was a lot of gratitude mixed with emotion, because I know what that really means.”
Growing up on Dewey Street
Lucas grew up on the first floor of a three-decker at 132 Dewey St. recording songs in the Worcester Youth Center’s studio and finding various ways to make a buck while still living in his mother’s household.
“I spent a lot of time doing whatever I had to do to make money. I worked odd jobs, I sold drugs, I got in a lot of trouble just trying to figure out what I was going to do,” Lucas wrote on Aug. 14. “One thing about me, though, is I never ran with a gang, and I always stayed to myself and remained neutral with everyone.”
‘I was a horrible drug dealer’
At the ceremony, Lucas ran through a list of all the various Worcester spots where he had worked and joked about his brief foray into the local drug trade, saying, “I was a horrible drug dealer and that was never going to work.”
As a youth sports coach, Ojeda said, watched Lucas grow up on the basketball court, but could always tell that music would come first for him.
“There were so many avenues in this city where he could go and he stuck with his passion,” Ojeda said. “For me, as a city councilor, that’s somebody I can point to and say, ‘He’s doing it. You can do it.’”
Destination for Massachusetts rap fans
Lucas recalled that he would often sit in his room in the house on Dewey Street and plan out the shows, collaborations, connections and promotion strategies he would need in order to make it in the music industry without having to leave Worcester for New York or Los Angeles.
As his music began to blow up, something unexpected happened. The house became a destination for Massachusetts rap fans, a phenomenon that led him to realize just how popular he was becoming.
“I didn’t even realize the music and videos was actually working until people started showing up at my mother’s house, taking pictures of her and the house,” Lucas wrote in the Aug. 14 email. “Cars driving by real slow every day and people taking pics of the tour van I had parked outside. My mom started to get paranoid, and it became uncomfortable to the point I got rid of the van.”
Lucas rose to national fame with a series of mixtapes in 2015 and 2017, collaborations with Eminem and Chris Brown, and a single, “I’m Not Racist,” that sparked controversy with its depiction of a white man and a Black man discussing race in America.
When King spoke at the ceremony, he praised the music video for “I’m Not Racist,” which has gained 154 million views on YouTube in the years since its 2017 release.
“You’ve put us on the map, not only nationally, but internationally,” King said.
‘What can I do for the city of Worcester?’
Soon after the release of his debut studio album “ADHD,” in January 2021, Lucas received the Key to the City of Worcester, telling a crowd outside City Hall that “Worcester, Massachusetts, will always be my home.”
Petty’s speech called back to that 2021 ceremony and to a meeting last year where Lucas, “came to me and said, ‘What can I do for the city of Worcester?’
“He’s always come back for his family, taking care of people,” Petty said.
Returns to visit Worcester often
According to Lucas, though a career like his requires a lot of travel and time in major music-industry cities, he does return to visit Worcester often.
“I have a lot of family and friends here, so I spend a good amount of time in Massachusetts,” Lucas wrote. “It’s where I’m from and where I’m rooted, so I like to stay as grounded as I can.”
For Lucas, the most striking aspect of the honor he received Aug. 17 was its timing, at a point in his life when he still has plenty of time left.
“What’s crazy is on the intro of ‘ADHD 2,’ I said, ‘I’ll probably be dead before I ever get flowers,’” Lucas wrote. “I guess I was wrong.”
Not only did he get those flowers Sunday afternoon, Aug. 17, he also received a birthday cake as a surprise when the street sign was revealed and his children took the microphone to wish him a happy birthday while the crowd chanted his name.
During his remarks at the ceremony, Lucas recalled one birthday many years ago, before his music hit the mainstream.
“Everyone was calling my phone, telling me to go out, but I didn’t want to because I didn’t’ feel like I deserved to celebrate. What did I accomplish?” Lucas said. “I said, ‘I’m no longer going to celebrate for nothing.’ Fast-forward to Aug. 17, 2025, and I have a reason to celebrate.”
Former Durango football stars ready to compete for Colorado
Ben Finneseth, Tagert Bardin ready to help Buffaloes improve on last season Former Durango High School football player Ben Finneseth is expected to play a big role on special teams in his fifth season with the Colorado Buffaloes. (Courtesy Ben Finneseth) A lot has changed with Colorado Buffaloes football in the last year. But, at […]
Ben Finneseth, Tagert Bardin ready to help Buffaloes improve on last season
Former Durango High School football player Ben Finneseth is expected to play a big role on special teams in his fifth season with the Colorado Buffaloes. (Courtesy Ben Finneseth)
A lot has changed with Colorado Buffaloes football in the last year. But, at the same time, some things, including the team’s Durango connections, have stayed the same.
Star quarterback Shedeur Sanders is gone and is playing for the Cleveland Browns in the National Football League. Heisman Trophy winner and star defensive back and wide receiver, Travis Hunter, also went to the NFL and is playing with the Jacksonville Jaguars after being drafted by them second overall. Shilo Sanders also won’t return after entering the NFL draft. He was signed by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as an undrafted free agent.
While those are huge losses, Deion Sanders returns for his third season as the head coach of the Buffaloes. Two former Durango High School football stars also return to help the Buffaloes prove to the country that they can win without Shedeur Sanders and Hunter.
Durango’s Ben Finneseth and Tagert Bardin return to Colorado to help the Buffaloes fight at the top of the Big 12 Conference after finishing 7-2 in the conference last year and 9-4 overall. The Buffaloes begin their regular season on Aug. 29 vs. Georgia Tech.
“The nature of college football now, is a lot of guys are coming in and a lot of guys are coming out,” Finneseth said. “So, year-in and year-out, you got different faces and different bodies. So, it’s completely different, losing all those guys, but we’ve got guys that are going to step up and fill roles. You miss their personalities and that kind of stuff, but you bring in new guys and they’re great guys as well. They (the departures) were key playmakers. But, we have other playmakers and we have other guys that are going to step up in huge ways. It’ll be just as good.”
Finneseth returns for his fifth year in the program as a safety and defensive back. Listed at 6-foot-2-inches and 205 pounds, the biomedical engineering major played in all 13 games last season, primarily on special teams. He finished the season with 12 total tackles and eight unassisted tackles. Finneseth played the fourth-most snaps on the team after contributing on kickoff return, kickoff, punt return and punt coverage.
The special teams stud worked a lot in the summer on his conditioning with new head strength and conditioning coach Andreu Swasey. Finneseth said Colorado is very blessed to have Swasey after he worked them hard over the summer. Finneseth said Sanders has been impressed with how well the defense has run to the ball, how well the offensive line gets down the field and the shape the entire team is in. Finneseth has lost some fat and has put on three pounds of muscle to feel stronger and more explosive.
After playing well down the final stretch of last season, the Colorado coaches wanted Finneseth to take a leadership role on special teams. The Buffaloes coaching staff expects him to play a big role on special teams again and increase his role on defense.
“One of my biggest focuses throughout the whole spring and this past summer was how can I be a better leader,” Finneseth said. “How can I show more passion and play the game even better? Because a lot of people are going to be coming to me with questions, looking up to me and asking me for help. That was one of the things that I was super happy about and super proud of is that the coaches see that out of me and that’s what they wanted.”
Finneseth said the coaches plan to move him around a little bit on defense. He said the Buffaloes have a lot of depth with a lot of different packages. Therefore, he should see some time at safety and at defensive back.
Bardin is in a different position as a walk-on. The former Durango High stud has had a lot of catching up to do after breaking his collarbone in a spring practice. He was feeling really good in his role on the team at the beginning of spring practice. He was running routes on a noncontact day, caught a ball and the defensive back he was going against jumped on Bardin to knock the ball away.
Tagert Bardin of Durango High School runs the ball against Harrison High School during the first round of the 2022 Class 3A state playoffs at DHS. (Jerry McBride/Herald file)
Jerry McBride
The defensive back landed on Bardin and Bardin landed on his left side. He immediately knew something wasn’t right as his left side was numb. Bardin went to the trainers and they immediately recognized that he broke his collarbone.
It took Bardin about six weeks until the middle of June before he felt ready to practice again. The team held Bardin out for another two weeks to be safe.
During Bardin’s recovery, his father was a big part of his recovery process. He drove up to see Bardin after the injury and made sure Bardin was still doing things like squats and walking up the stadium.
After he recovered, Bardin took advantage of the connections that come with the Colorado program. He reached out to former NFL superstar wide receiver Terrell Owens to see if he could workout with the Pro Football Hall of Fame player. Owens has been around the program at practices and is in the wide receivers’ group chat. Owens responded and said Bardin could.
Bardin then flew out to Alexander City, Alabama, and worked out with Owens for four days in late July. He met Owens’ mother and saw where Owens grew up.
“My biggest takeaway is he really harped on the mindset,” Bardin said about Owens. “Knowing you can win and knowing you can beat the guy in front of you. Talent or stuff like that doesn’t really matter. It just matters the effort you put in and the mindset you have going into the game, knowing, ‘I’m going to make this play. This DB is not going to cover me.”’
Before Bardin sought Owens’ knowledge and advice, Bardin and Finneseth took the teacher role in the summer as the two were a part of a group of former Demons and current college football players that hosted The Elevation Youth Football Camp at Durango High School. Fellow Durango graduate and Division I football player Josh Bates was there as well as Durango graduate and Division II player Tyler Harms.
Former Durango High School and current college football players coach the Durango youth at The Elevation Youth Football Camp at Durango High School on May 17. From left to right: Ben Finneseth, Zachary Haber, Tagert Bardin, Josh Bates, Tyler Harms. (Courtesy Ben Finneseth)
Finneseth came up with the idea for a youth football camp in Durango after one of his good friends he met at the University of Colorado did one at his high school. Finneseth’s friend’s camp did very well and Finneseth realized Durango didn’t have anything like that.
Over 60 kids showed up for the camp on May 17, which was almost triple the amount Finneseth’s friend got at his camp in Denver. Finneseth thought it was a super cool opportunity and hopes to grow it year-after-year.
“That was my first time I’ve gotten the opportunity to do that and give back,” Bardin said. “Coming from Durango, I know that, as someone who went to camps all throughout high school, there’s not really camps with that kind of knowledge from players that have played D1 really anywhere close to Durango. It’s usually up in Denver or somewhere like that.”
After Finneseth and Bardin inspired the Durango youth at their camp, they were inspired by their head coach at Colorado. Sanders announced to the press late in July that he had bladder cancer, but had surgery and is considered cure by his oncologist.
The team found out a day before the press did, according to Bardin. Everyone was worried for their coach, but Sanders harped on the idea that they were a family and he wanted to make sure they knew he was doing well.
Bardin thought it lifted the team up as Sanders didn’t pout about why it happened to him, he had high hopes and a great attitude.
“Knowing your leader and your head guy is going through something like that and you’re worried about a strained groin, or your elbow’s swollen, or your thumb is sprained or something like that, just in the grand scheme of things, that makes you think, ‘There’s no way that I can’t push through this right now,”’ Finneseth said. “So, it’s brought us all together in a huge way, because we have another why to play for.”
While Finneseth and Bardin have different roles on the Buffaloes squad, both are optimistic about the team’s prospects this year after being reassured about their coach’s.
“My vision for our team and our vision as a staff, as a team, throughout the whole building is 12-0 and a Big 12 Championship,” Finneseth said. “That’s our goal and making the College Football Playoff.”
